The pub­lic sphere is be­ing trans­formed by par­ti­san power pol­i­tics. At a time when politi­cians in Pun­jab are chal­leng­ing each other for pub­lic de­bates, but are clearly in­dulging in hy­per­bole, self-ag­gran­dize­ment and glad­i­a­tor-style bloody talk­ing games, we bring you this saner con­ver­sa­tion about the very idea of pub­lic de­bate in a mod­ern so­ci­ety. Se­nior jour­nal­ist SP Singh en­gages pan­el­lists in an in­quiry into the very na­ture of the pub­lic de­bate, its ori­gins, the role of pub­lic de­bate in shap­ing and chang­ing pol­i­tics, and how our politi­cians have let down this re­mark­able site of a di­a­logue with the pop­u­lace.

For a quom that has be­fore it the prime ex­am­ple of pub­lic de­bate in the form of “Sid­hGoshath”, the very idea of pub­lic de­bate must be for the ad­vance­ment of the col­lec­tive through in­formed, ra­tio­nal de­lib­er­a­tion and ac­com­mo­da­tion.

The most cru­cial “Gur­matas” also used to fol­low an in­tense and wide de­bate among var­i­ous strands of the Panth and the views of every­one used to be taken into ac­count.

In mod­ern-day pol­i­tics, the con­cept of pub­lic de­bate has been so pol­luted that the first ca­su­alty of any such self-pro­claimed de­bate is the pub­lic it­self. A prime ex­am­ple is the spec­ta­cle be­ing put up by the Bhag­want Singh Mann gov­ern­ment on No­vem­ber 1, 2023, at PAU, Lud­hi­ana. It is no more a de­bate, but more of a kabaddi match, and that, too, in the ab­sence of any ri­val team.

Un­less one has been liv­ing un­der a rock, we all know that the event is meant to tar­nish the op­po­si­tion as bad, and tom-tom the Aa­mAadmi Party as god’s gift to this coun­try and our state.

It is a shame that our politi­cians – across the po­lit­i­cal di­vide – have failed to call out the bluff. Saner el­e­ments from within the AAP, and the op­po­si­tion, should have pointed out that any pub­lic de­bate must re­spond to min­i­mal pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions of at least a pre­tense of fair­ness. The out­come of the de­bate is al­ready well known.

But Bhag­want Singh Mann will not be do­ing any favour to him­self, his party, or Pun­jab by de­clar­ing him­self the win­ner.

The oc­ca­sion, how­ever, should prod us into in­quir­ing into the very con­cept of pub­lic de­bate, par­tic­u­larly be­cause the pub­lic sphere has not only been trans­formed in the last few decades, but its dig­i­tal avatar has gone even be­yond the pa­ra­me­ters stud­ied by the likes of Jür­gen Haber­mas or JS Mill, or even Alexis de Toc­queville.

This dig­i­tal pub­lic sphere is now shap­ing and is be­ing shaped by de­bates sur­round­ing larger crises, con­flicts, and ques­tions of mi­gra­tion and cul­ture. In an in­creas­ingly trans-me­di­ated world, a tamasha like the one be­ing put by AAP is akin to in­sult­ing peo­ple’s in­tel­li­gence. Glad­i­a­tors bay­ing for op­po­nents’ blood in pub­lic are not called mem­bers of a de­bat­ing so­ci­ety.

Pun­jab needs to turn to its re­mark­able tra­di­tion of con­fab­u­lat­ing with the San­gat, have var­i­ous stake­hold­ers open a di­a­logue with the peo­ple.

Pun­jab needs to turn to its re­mark­able tra­di­tion of con­fab­u­lat­ing with the San­gat, have var­i­ous stake­hold­ers open a di­a­logue with the peo­ple, dis­cuss is­sues thread­bare in the pub­lic do­main, and re­claim the sites of pub­lic de­bate – from the class­room to the vil­lage sath to cof­fee houses and on­line fo­rums to bet­ter jour­nal­ism and more in­formed trade unions and ac­tivist cir­cles to leg­is­la­ture and in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal party de­bates. So far, we are los­ing on all these fronts, and the No­vem­ber 1 spec­ta­cle in Lud­hi­ana is a de­bate re­duced to a farce.