Shashi Warrier | Of Class Assignments & The Theatre of SIR

My ex-professor friend Raghavan is no longer ex: he teaches a few hours every semester as a guest lecturer in the business school where he used to work, and his classes are much appreciated by the students. He dropped in late last month, when the semester was ending, to catch up with me.

Since nothing ever happens to me, catching up is listening to someone else’s monologue. Friends drop in and tell me what’s happening to them, and I listen, usually with a tinge of envy. Raghavan had just gotten through the opening sentence of his monologue, saying, “These students just take you for granted,” when his phone rang. He apologised and picked up immediately, saying, “Yes, Raju, what is it?”

After a little gap, he said, “Sorry, Raju, it’s too late.”

“I know,” he said after another little gap. “It’s unfair. But you should have told me as soon as it happened. I can’t do anything about it now. It would be unfair to everyone else in the class.” He hung up and reached for his scotch, trying to remember where he’d stopped.

I helped out. “You were saying students take you for granted,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “They do. Like this boy. He was supposed to submit his assignment eight days ago, but didn’t. He tells me now that he couldn’t upload it onto the server before the deadline. Well, he should have told me then, not waited until now.”

“But what’s wrong with marking his paper?” I asked.

“It’s unfair to everyone who submitted their assignments on time,” he replied. “If they’d had a week extra, they might have done better.”

The doorbell rang, and, on the doorstep, very much on cue, was Murthy. His nose had maintained its unblemished record. “Someone else visiting?” he asked.

“Raghavan,” I replied, leading him in. “He’s in a bad mood. A student rang for the wrong reason.”

By the time I fetched Murthy a glass, Raghavan had told him about the student and his own refusal to mark the student’s assignment. “The boy thinks I’m being nasty!”

“You’re in a position like that of someone in government who can overlook a lapse,” said Murthy, “but there’s one big difference between you and that someone.”

“What?” asked Raghavan warily.

“Don’t take this personally,” Murthy said, taking his first sip. “I don’t mean that you might take a bribe. You won’t... The difference is that if you mark this boy Raju, the rest of the class will know about it, and might decide to do something about it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Raghavan.

“When you bribe someone in government to get a favour,” said Murthy. “it’s unfair to every citizen. It’s unfair to a lot of people who don’t know each other. Everyone thinks someone else should take care of it, so no one really bothers to follow up. It becomes a victimless crime. The few cases in which somebody gets caught, like Lalu Prasad, are pure theatre. Politicians use that theatre.”

“I don’t understand,” said Raghavan. “Give me an example.”

“Look at the debate about the Election Commission’s SIR,” said Murthy. “There are these people saying that the SIR should be stopped because legitimate voters might lose their right to vote.”

“That’s a valid principle, isn’t it?” asked Raghavan. “You can’t run a democracy without it.”

Murthy smiled. “Really?” he asked. “Have you thought beyond the principle?”

“It’s one of the basic principles of a democracy,” said Raghavan. “You can’t do without it.”

“Let’s think this through,” said Murthy. “Let’s say we have a country of a thousand legitimate voters. Let’s say twenty people have sneaked into the country and used fake documents to get themselves enrolled as voters. Right?”

“Right,” said Raghavan.

“Now imagine the EC runs a revision here, and discovers fifteen of those twenty. But in the process, they mess up and remove one eligible voter’s name from the electoral rolls.”

“Fine,” said Raghavan.

“Which would be better for democracy?” asked Murthy. “Elections with the rolls including all twenty ineligible voters, or with fifteen ineligible and one eligible voter excluded?”

“That’s not the point of the debate,” said Raghavan. “The point is how and when the SIR is conducted, and what documents establish the right to vote.”

“All documents can be faked,” said Murthy. “A passport is a little harder to get than an Aadhar card, but you can get one. So, if you’re looking for a way to eliminate skulduggery completely, forget it. Here’s what matters: a single ineligible voter could distort election results as much as the absence of one eligible voter.”

“But we have no idea of the numbers!” said Raghavan.

“Yes,” said Murthy, “but your principle that every eligible voter must be entitled to vote doesn’t stand by itself. If a hundred ineligible voters sneak into the list, that’s as bad as leaving out a hundred eligible voters. So, your principle is meaningless without another principle: that no one who’s ineligible to vote must be allowed to vote!”

“What does that have to do with theatre?” asked Raghavan.

“When you deny an eligible voter their right,” said Murthy, “that voter becomes a victim. So, when a chief minister says that there’ll be trouble if even one eligible voter is excluded from the rolls, it’s theatre, unless they also threaten trouble if even one ineligible person is included in the rolls. It’s like saying you can mark late submissions and spread misery all across the class comprising also those who did submit their assignments on time.”

“So do you mean you support the SIR?” asked Raghavan.

“Of course not!” replied Murthy. “I don’t support anything. I make the best of whatever happens, without letting principles get in the way!”