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BETWEEN 1907 and 1952, as historian Dipesh Chakarabarty so brilliantly recounts (The Calling of History, Permanent Black, 2015), two Indian historians, Jadunath Sarkar and G.S. Sardesai, exchanged over 1200 letters, debating among others issues relating to the true/scientific meaning of history. Central to their concern about extant Indian historiography was the need to conform to facts as ascertained by the best-known practices and why, without becoming overly enamoured of their own views, ‘true’ scholars must always be willing to revise their favoured narratives in the light of new facts and data. This, both felt, was not only essential to their chosen vocation but critical to helping the public construct a view about their past and present not coloured by received prejudices or false nationalistic pride. It appears that both the appeal to caution before forming judgment and the need to eschew colourful language seems to have been forgotten in contemporary climes.

The recent television debate on the Bihar elections, involving some of our best regarded experts, is instructive. On counting day, even as early leads had barely started trickling in, experts – across channels – vied with each other to be the first to announce the eventual outcome, and worse, to educate viewers about the reasons explaining these trends/results. Evidently, despite their considerable experience, they seemed to have forgotten that conclusions on the basis of such limited, and still unfolding, data is hazardous, and that oracular pronouncements can come back to haunt, not in some indeterminate future but possibly within hours.

One channel, for instance, within a couple of hours after counting began, announced a spectacular victory for the BJP-NDA combine. Having taken the tentative leads as proof of eventual results, the experts subjected the viewers to a remarkable display of pop sociology – about the changing character of Bihar society, the dynamics of group behaviour, and the ‘innate’ wisdom of the masses. The results, they claimed, should come as no surprise (forget all the exit polls) given the inherent limitations of the JD(U)-RJD-Congress mahagath-bandhan – Nitish Kumar’s arrogance, the odium generated by Lalu Yadav’s criminality and love for family, the ‘misguided’ attempts at caste polarization – all reflective of the fact that the JD(U) alliance was living in and practicing a politics of the past. Modi et al., in contrast, had read the emerging demography, mobility and aspirations of Bihar correctly. In deciding to focus on the first time voter – a demographic which is more interested in future possibilities and thus less likely to respond to identity-based appeals – the Modi led combine had proved prescient.

Ironically, at the same time another channel was predicting a photo-finish with possibly a slight edge to the JD(U) and yet another, a resounding Nitish Kumar victory. The issue is not that one channel got it more right, but how (and why) ‘experts’ who should have known better so easily disregarded the protocol of their disciplines, even the elementary precaution needed when dealing with unfolding data. Nor is it one of ideological preferences; each channel deployed experts representing a plurality of viewpoints. The issue at stake is what can be considered reliable data and firm trends to arrive at robust conclusions. One can only hope that future experts will display a greater regard for data/facts and a little less willingness for ‘breaking news’ if election analysis is to recover from this debacle.

The dust from these elections will soon settle. What, however, will not is the equally frenzied writing on our proximate political future. What is the course correction that the Modi regime at the Centre will favour? Will Narendra Modi rein in the hotheads in his party and parivar and help modulate the worrying escalation in intemperate rhetoric and worse? Will he ‘rethink’ his model of economic growth and development and focus a little less on the stock market and inflow of FDI and turn attention to our decaying agriculture and creaking infrastructure? Above all, will he work at strengthening democracy and accountability in both his party and government and help engineer a shift towards a more consensual politics by meaningfully reaching out to the opposition? Or will he, as his detractors seem convinced, revert to his innate character – suspicious, authoritarian and centralizing.

The future, except to the soothsayer, is unknown. Meanwhile, the hope is that the political opposition too learns to distinguish between what is beneficial in the proximate future and what is needed. And while these are never settled facts, since individuals and parties have varying understanding of what needs to be done, we can at least strive for a more reasoned and evidence based public discourse to improve the quality of both our analysis and decision-making. As much as the political class, our intellectuals too need to temper their certitudes and hubris.

Harsh Sethi

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