Prisoner of the State

The sun doesn’t shine anymore. The air is chilly and vision blurred with fog. Mornings bring a queer sense of depression: the downbeat weather seeps into one’s weary, tired bones. Moods plunge, tempers rise and life is not very pleasant at the workplace. If I have slipped very badly in keeping this blog going, it has to do with the down and out feeling that seems to taken hold of me.

I read Zhao Zhiyang’s secret autobiography called Prisoner of the State. He was the Chinese Premier who was discredited after the Tiananmen clampdown and spent the rest of his life under glorified detention. He had maintained copious notes on his life in house arrest after the Tiananmen clampdown. Here is a man who occupied the highest pinnacles of power only to spend his sunset years of life as a non-entity. Often the Tiananmen uprising is linked to the death of Hu Yaobang- another icon of the youth who stood for openness and allegedly, a liberal political environment. Hu was discredited and sent to oblivion. He eventually died early. The uprising was seen by the dominant lobbies in the power structure in China as something profoundly influenced by the values of the decadent west. Secondly the pro democracy movement was going out of control with the lumpen elements taking law into their own hands. Zhao’s soft line was decried and a clampdown was ordered. Zhao’s discussions with Gorbachev regarding status of Deng Xia Ping in the Chinese power structure also unwittingly contributed to his downfall.

The book gives an insight into China’s party politbureau, which is interesting at many levels. Firstly the single-minded and earnest pursuit of growth which lifted millions out of poverty over a quarter century is probably the most remarkable success story of our time. When India’s SEZ policy, evolved democratically is being slammed for being a sellout to the real estate lobby, the Chinese had used it as an instrument of development of Coastal and backward regions. While they have managed to urbanize and create jobs for millions in the organized manufacturing sector, have we only created a few investment bankers, consultants in fancy suits and software professionals? Don’t we have the largest chunk of population still eking out a marginal existence in the unorganized sector? We don’t know if their society has been rid of divisions. But clearly it is a richer society with better health, education and infrastructure indicators. Sometimes an opaque system can generate as much meaningful debate and produce quicker results. Is there a lesson in it for us somewhere? No, thank you please. I have seen how a transparent system itself is twisted to personal benefit. In a very complex, multicultural society such as ours, the more open, the better. With a robust constitution, Right to Information Act, active media and judiciary our people get away with brutality and sheer ruthlessness. Think about a system without these deterrents... It would be something like Nigeria multiplied into five. Give me a messy, flawed democracy anyday…

The book gives a rare insight into the workings of a system that is little known to the outside world. It is interesting to see words like mistakes, rectifications, self criticism etc used to analyze policy perspectives. No complex mumbo jumbo that one would encounter in the capitalist world. The power structure in the politbureau had clear divisions of reformists and the old guard. One fact also shines through. No matter how much the individual roles and perceptions are underplayed in the Communist system…. In the end, individuals hold the key. The power structure had its' own dynamics with complex interplay of lobbies. Zhao probably played his cards wrong. It was heartrending to read how Zhao tried to seek small privileges like permission to play Golf etc from captivity. He would cite party rules for more freedom; but in the end the mammoth unfeeling system did what it wanted to do.

In many ways we are all prisoners of the state, in different degrees I suppose. Tied to a job that I loathe- to an existence that restricts freedom in many subtle ways- tied to the social norms and the perverted hierarchy of Delhi’s Babudom. To be scoffed at by the elite… to be insensitive to the many inequities of life. I often wonder whether we are of the 21st century bureaucracy of an ambitious nation or a 16th century feudal serfdom.