Don't Little Fascisms Add up?

 

 

Like all evils, many of us seem to wake up too late to realize that fascism has been around us for long. Not just that, it has been cuddled and nurtured in many ways by many of us, if not all of us. But the belief that little acts of illogical intransigence may not be dangerous enough to harm the Republic has kept us, our home grown varieties of fascism, going. As always, when you find someone who has got rich, doing what you did for fun or what you dropped after practicing small scale, you find your eyebrows arching.

When fascism seems to flourish around us, and when more seem to behave illustrating my-way-or-no-way attitude, and when we seem to wonder where do all these come from, some thoughts should be spared for the little acts of fascism of the home grown variety. At home and in our small offices, on the road and in queues, in the meetings we hold and the discussions we involve in and occasionally lead - these matter. Is not this a paradigm shift we need to promote, especially now?

Democracy has never been easy to run. It is riddled with roadblocks and speed breaks, not to mention the informal potholes and which many of us may feel formed on its own! It is such a bumpy ride. But even the worst kind of democracy is often better than the fascist mode. Hence the easy mode to run is the F mode, since it doesn't whine and wheeze, grind and groan like the D mode does. But that is where the challenge lies.

One often cones across bosses - Presidents of Panchayaths to Secretaries of ordinary Committees, from village elders to chotta boss’ younger son, who brooks no criticism. Leave that. Such people don’t even let an alternate voice in. Such ones people the meeting time with a bunch who are there to talk 'at' people. With a leadership model that is autocratic, these lend credibility to themselves by themselves. With fascism in democracy’s ill fitting frocks, they push their agenda and often people lose interest, though they are not supposed to. But the political vein of them concedes defeat and they end up in resignation. With a let he and his men do what they want kind of attitude, discussions dwindle and meetings turn to tea-biscuit combos and occasional asides plus you know what looks exchanged!)

An interesting variation on this is the committee formation practice. These micro exercises in fascism are fun to experience. These committees will always be filled with either Tom-Dick and Harry or  Dick-Tom, Harry. If not, it will be Harry-Tom and dick, if not Harry, Dick and Tom! The usual practice is to name this act nepotism. But anyone worth her salt will be able to know how pleasure-giving that N word to Fascism is. One committee will have Dick as President and the other will have Tom and the next will be headed by (in fact we know who will be the de facto head!) Harry. One obvious advantage of this approach is that with one meeting we can have many meetings! When one picks all the efficient ones to put in all committees too this can happen. But is it not the duty of those up above to scout, spot and support young willing leaders too?

Examples of this addiction to 'our own people' can be in many forms and the 'our own' category syndrome can stretch beyond the purely political and ideological.  Sickening examples of the kind one can witness in the acadmia too. There were situations in which one college had a huge percentage of their faculty being on University Boards of Studies that someone said the college will have to hire a bus to take them to the University, that regular classes need to be suspended on the meeting day as a good share of the faculty will be missing. When political membership in a teacher organization does gate keeping to apparently academically elite organizations like Boards of studies, that too is promoting favoritism of dangerous kind. Or isn’t it?! The point at which excellence was superseded by organizational affiliation as criterion for entry into such bodies was indeed a not so mild turn towards you know where!

Fascism of various persuasions grow watered by favoritism of multiple kinds. Favoritism which is defined by exclusions and which ensures the comfort of lack of differing voices and challenges to 'one woman one idea' policy hardens to a  state of mind, state of community, state of nation approach which looks for thought clones and color look alikes. Intolerance of the Other grows into us or we grow into it, committee after committee, event after event, year by year. Until we are 'surprised' by the arrival of the father of all such thought-clone, color look-alike dealers!