The tale of two surveys - II

Alternatively titled "Inside a single track mind"

The story of that remarkable survey is not over yet. The other part of the survey carried out by our comrades (N. Ram, Rajdeep Sardesai) presented the priorities of "common man". It turns out that common man is more concerned about theft or robbery or riots than terrorist attacks, well I don't know what is surprising about it. What however surprising is when Hindu declares breathlessly that findings challenge,

"…`security experts (who) have made us believe that security has become a paramount national concern, that people have become much more anxious about terrorist attacks, that they hold the Centre responsible for the lapses, and that they would support hard, aggressive policies to tackle terrorism."

Nitin in his post illustrated how the conclusion (that people do not consider threat of terror significant) is at best incorrect and at worst disingenuous.

What I find amusing is even if granted that terrorism is not concern number one for public, how is that refutation of security experts. When security experts call terrorism a national concern it doesn't reflect the mood of hoi polloi, rather it is concerned implications to national security and the harm that it may cause to Indian citizens either in short run or long run.

This sort of obfuscation is typical of progressive establishment. Faced with facts which challenge foundations of its make believe world, it resorts to "the common man" argument other wise known as soapbox. It goes thus, it is not important to common man, hence it should not be discussed/debated.

The first (and the easy one) refutation is that even if subject 'X' is not priority number one for common man, it in no way no implies that the subject 'X' should be dismissed without any debate, it only means that the discussion (thread for geeks) will be, well of lower priority.

If the debates in public debate are to have any meaning they have to be concurrent.

The second point is not immediate, to take the example of the survey I am sure foreign policy would not have entered anywhere in the top ten. Indeed it will not be a stretch to imagine that worrying about Afghanistan is not part of common man's life. Does this imply that Government should shut down all its embassies and foreign ministry?

This is where our comrades make a mistakes. In democracy state is responsible to will of majority,however this doesn't mean state should limit its functions to the latest opinion poll.
State has well defined duties which it should discharge. If it is incompetent in any area(s) which matters most to majority, it will be punished by the voters. For others it is held accountable by analysts, and those who are interested in that area.

The attempt of our progressive brethren to confine role of state to some cleverly crafted questionnaire and refusal to hold it responsible for what are its important functions and duties does a great damage to body polity. Governance can not be held captive to bullet points.