POLYTICKS, DEMOCKRAZY AND MUMBO- JUMBO

This is the cover of my new book releasing on the 31st of August, 2020. Published  by Pippa Rann Books and Media, UK. It's a collection of satirical and irreverent pieces on the state of our politics, society, leaders and democratic systems. We have given them serious thought and it has got us nowhere- it's time now to look at their humorous and funny side. That too will get us nowhere, but it might just dispel the gloom and doom for a brief interlude!

The virtual launch of the book shall be at 6.30 PM ( Indian time) on the 31st of August 2020. I shall be in conversation with an eminent group of writers, including Mr. Shashi Tharoor, MP and the publisher Prof. ( retd.) Prabhu Guptara who lives in Cambridge. Would certainly request you all to join if you can spare the time. The links for joining the launch are given below:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxjwbwoqmA4&feature=youtu.be
https://www.facebook.com/Pippa-Rann-Books-Media-113319240230266/live_videos

To take a slight liberty with G.B.Shaw: All great truths begin as jokes!


           

THE SMALL TOWN BOY.

    Shashipal was a small town boy and proudly remained one till the end. He breathed his last on the 24th of this month, ending- I hope it's only a hiatus- forty years of a close and undemanding friendship. Shashibhai (as he was popularly known) was born and brought up in Bilaspur in Himachal, his family were evacuees of India's first "modern temple", the Bhakra dam. They were given land in exchange for that which was inundated by the Gobindsagar lake, and on this plot overlooking the lake in an area known as Luhnu ground Shashi built himself a simple but well designed two storey house. I have spent many pleasant evenings there, even though nothing stronger than " kadha" (a kind of hot herbal tea) was allowed to be served there by Bhabiji.

    I first met Shashi in 1980 when I was posted as Deputy Commissioner in Bilaspur; he was two years older than me. We had very little in common to begin with, but as time progressed we became close friends and discovered that we shared a lot of interests and values that are not visible but are perhaps more foundational than the exterior trappings we judge people by: a desire for a simple life, a passion for trekking, love of nature, a sense of humour (especially the risque type), a low opinion of politicians, and an inability to play good bridge. It was the unlikeliest of friendships but it persisted through the next forty years: even as I moved to different places and postings, Shashi stayed rooted in Bilaspur, looking after a small food processing unit he had established under the brand name " Shashibhai". It did modestly well, his wife Surekha was/is a school lecturer, he himself was content to remain a small town boy and so life was good. 

    Bilaspur is very centrally located, sitting astride all routes to just about anywhere from Shimla, and I invariably used to drop in and see Shashi whenever I passed the town on my tours, which was about once every two months. He even constructed a guest room, especially for me, within his small processing unit where I've spent many a night: I was allowed to have a drink here! Shashi himself was a strict teetotaler and vegetarian, though his treasure trove of jokes were mainly non-vegetarian. His favourite was about the chap who made expandable suit cases out of foreskins... but I'll keep that for another day.

    Given our system I was in a position to do many favours for Shashi even within the rules. But not once in these past 40 years did he ever request me for one. When I was Education Secretary, Surekha was posted to a school a few kms out of the town; I asked Shashi if I should post her to a school in the town itself so that she would not have to take those long bus commutes. He refused. He explained that the day he let my official status enter our relationship, our fellowship would get tainted and would never be the same again. I learnt my lesson and stayed clear of the subject thereafter. But have you ever noticed- the smaller the town, the bigger the values its residents represent?

    Shashi was my constant trekking companion over 30 years, and I will always treasure those evenings together by the campfires, forest huts and tents spent in remote thatches, valleys and passes: Pin Parbat, Kinner Kailash, Bara Bhangal, Kugti, Srikhand Mahadev, the Great Himalayan National Park, Dodra Kwar, Choor Dhar, Hamta pass, Chandratal lake and many others. He even had the dubious distinction of having saved my life on Pin Parbat: we were crossing a glacier, all roped up, when I fell into a crevasse. Shashi was the guy on the rope just behind me: he immediately fell flat on the ground to prevent himself being dragged over too, dug his heels into the ice and used all of his eighty kilos to pull my sixty kilos out. One doesn't quickly forget these things.

                             

                                 

                                   [ The author with Shashibhai( right) below Pin Parbat.]

    Once, in 1997 I think it was, we had trekked to Dodra Kwar over the Chanshil pass, and at the rest house we were told that the annual chess tournament was being held that evening in the village. It was a gala event and hundreds of villagers from all three panchayats were there. Shashi was a very good chess player and decided to take part too. After three rounds he reached the finals, in which he was pitted against a lad from Jakha panchayat. He had watched this youngster play and had no doubt that he could beat him hands down. So I was greatly surprised when Shashi lost the match and the boy was crowned the chess champ of Dodra Kwar, among much band-baja and dancing. Later, Shashi explained: he could have check mated his rival (he told me) in a dozen moves, but whereas the win would have meant nothing to him (who knew him here?) it would have meant so much for the local boy and for local pride, to have defeated a burra sahib coming from Shimla! To lose was more honourable than to win. See what I meant about small town values?

    On another occasion, in 2002 or 2003, we reached the Bara Bhangal village after an exhausting and dangerous descent from the 18000 feet high Thamsar pass. Totally exhausted, the party collapsed in the forest hut, unable to move any limb. After some time I noticed that Shashi was missing; a search revealed him sitting with the Patwari in the Patwarkhana, preparing a "tatima" or map of a plot of land. Apparently, my friend had become so enamoured of the savage beauty of this remote village in the Ravi valley that he wanted to buy some land here! It took me the whole night to convince him that it was an insane idea. I reminded him that it had taken us four days of perilous trekking to reach the village, that he would never be able to haul his arse here in his dotage, that Surekha would feed him to the fishes in Gobindsagar lake when she heard of this. He finally relented, but kept the tatima with him anyway, just in case he changed his mind at a later date.

    He never did, of course. A few years ago Shashibhai's kidneys began failing, he had to go on dialysis, his eyesight also deserted him because of diabetes. I had moved on to Delhi after my retirement but spoke to him every couple of months. I last visited him in Bilaspur in 2018, and had planned to go again next month. Guess I left it too late, for now Shashi has left for ever the small town which had shaped him. Keep walking, my friend, and explore your new world with the same unusual sense of passion, sense of humour and contentment with which you did this one. Why, you may even find a Patwari there and settle down  permanently in the Elysian fields! But keep a place for a friend or two, for:

                " From too much love of living,

                   From hope and fear set free,

                   We thank with brief thanksgiving

                   Whatever Gods there be:

                   That no life lives for ever,

                   That dead men rise up never,

                   That even the weariest river

                   Winds somewhere safe to sea."

                   [ Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837-1909 ]

   

DOCTORS SHOULD LEARN TO BE AMBASSADORS OF DEATH.

        This year approximately 56 million people will die globally, roughly 2/3rds of them in hospitals. More people are dying today of chronic diseases, and the average person can expect to spend the last decade of his life being seriously ill and under constant medical treatment. This is the unfortunate downside of extended life spans: the life expectancy in 1900 was 32 years, today it is 71.80 years. Studies world wide, however, have shown that end of life medical interventions are largely unnecessary and ineffective, as, of those who die in hospitals fully 1/3^rd will do so in ICUs and 1/5^th will have undergone redundant operations in the last month of their lives. The conventional aggressive interventions at this stage do not help. How have things come to such a sorry pass with all the advances in modern medicine?

   Today, end of life care has become synonymous with hospitalisation; in more seriously terminal cases a second alternative is gradually emerging- assisted dying, what we in India erroneously term euthanasia. These are the only two choices available. But it need not be so, for there is a third choice – palliative care. This option means engaging with the terminally ill to provide care ( not just medical interventions) outside hospitals, at home or in a hospice. Studies world wide have established firmly that those who die in hospitals experience more pain, trauma and depression than those who pass away at home. Studies also show that palliative care increases terminal life spans by as much as a third compared to hospital care. Why, then, does medicine continue to dictate the last days of our lives?

  The answer lies partially in the way our doctors are trained and conditioned. Their education and the Hippocrates oath conditions them to save lives at all costs, even when they are acutely aware that this is futile. This blind spot is compounded by the fact that, ever since the demise of the institution of the “family doctor” and its substitution by corporate hospitals, doctors have forgotten the fine art of having a conversation with their patients. The “consultation” today consists of peering at the medical records of the patient on the computer and unilateral prescription of medicines or tests. There is no effort made to find out what the patient’s fears are, what he wants. Doctors now talk AT their patients( if they talk at all) rather than TO them.                                    There has been no better exposition of this dilemma and changed paradigm than in the books of two Indian-American doctors: “ Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande and  "When Breath Turns to Air” by Paul Kalanithi, both being presented with this quandry in their personal lives ( Kalanithi succumbed to an incurable neurological condition before he could complete his book). Both realise that aggressive medical interventions at the end of life stage, and the lack of any meaningful dialogue, does grave injustice to patients by lowering the quality of their final days, traumatises and pauperises families, that such terminal patients should be allowed to exit life with dignity, surrounded by family and friends, spiritually at peace. Gawande has formulated the “ Serious Illness Conversation Guide”- a compendium of questions/ issues that he feels all doctors should use to have a conversation with end of life patients, to ascertain what they want. This is now being adopted as standard protocol in many hospitals abroad, including Britain’s NHS. The medical fraternity, they plead, should accept that mortality and death are a fact of life, of living itself, that doctors should learn to stop fighting at some stage , to be humble “ambassadors of death” and not just its enemy. As Gawande writes: “ Death is not a failure. It is normal.” The real failure lies in our responses to it- and this has to change.

   The second hurdle to a more humane approach to end of life care are the policies adopted by governments and insurers. All of them fund, and reimburse, only treatment procedures in hospitals and nursing homes, and not prevention or palliative care at home. They do not pay for conversations that do not result in medical procedures. But even this rigid attitude is beginning to change. In 2014 the World Health Organisation has recommended that palliative care at homes or hospices be included in health care systems. Medicare in the USA has now started paying for doctors’ conversations with terminally ill patients, treating them as legitimate consultations. Both governments and insurers are also beginning to realise that paying for palliative care or minimal treatment at  home may be cheaper than hospitalisation, and that this is perhaps what their patients want.

   There is a third dimension to this issue. One reason why the demand to make  euthanasia- whether passive or assisted- legitimate is picking up globally is the sheer prospect of almost mandatory hospitalisation, with all its attendant pain, trauma, expense and depression. The end of life patient really has no choice today. Incorporating palliative care as a part of health care systems and medical protocol will not cure him, but it will certainly enable him to spend his final weeks and days in the comfort of his home, his family around him, without aggressive medical interventions that cause more pain than good, and without having to opt for euthanasia. Standardising palliative care and mainstreaming it as legitimate “medical treatment” would offer a third option to the terminally ill and obviate to some extent the desperate need to opt for euthanasia. Society and families could then be spared a difficult moral choice and there would then perhaps be no need for “death clinics” like the one in Belgium where patients come for the sole purpose of being able to legally kill themselves.

   The medical establishment in India- both governmental and private- need to initiate a dialogue on the subject so that we could adopt a more humane approach to the inevitability of death. The Insurance Regulator should mandate palliative, end of life care as a permissible item for reimbursement under Health insurance policies. In terminal cases the medical fraternity should not regard death as a challenge but as a release, and should prepare their patient for it. That final battle should not be fought at the cost of the patient. Medicine and mortality should not be implacable foes.

THE PRASHANT BHUSHAN CASE-- AN ORDER THAT DIMINISHES DEMOCRACY

                                THE PRASHANT BHUSHAN CASE-- AN ORDER THAT DIMINISHES DEMOCRACY
                                                               A LAY CITIZEN'S PERSPECTIVE

   So Mr. Prashant Bhushan stands convicted of contempt. It was expected because the Supreme Court had painted itself into a corner and the only way out was to play the victim card. In the process it has denuded itself of even more credibility in the public perception.
   But judges do not always have the last word. There's a joke about a pompous judge who was trying a robber, standing in the dock. The judge , pointing a magisterial finger at the accused, roared: " Do I see a scoundrel at the other end of my arm?" The criminal replied: " Depends which end of the arm you are looking at, my lord." But a joke, as George Orwell said, can be the beginning of a revolution. The contempt petition against Prashant Bhushan makes me think again of that robber's riposte- who exactly was on trial here- Bhushan or the court itself?

   The Supreme Court may just have committed a grave strategic and tactical error by letting its hurt feelings get the better of its good sense. Relying on a Constitution which has given them a status and a protection they do not appear to have lived up to of late, the honourable judges may have decided to muzzle once and for all an irritating lawyer, send a signal to others inclined to speak the brutal truth to power, and perhaps get brownie points from the government in the bargain. After all, what is one lawyer against the majesty of 32 wise men who by law always have the last word? But they forgot two important caveats to their power. One, as Robert Jackson said, Judges are not final because they are infallible, they are infallible because they are final. Two, they would have done well to have remembered Mark Twain before getting into this scrap: " It's not about the size of the dog in the fight, it's about the size of the fight in the dog." And Mr. Bhushan has plenty of fight in him, even though he may not ride a superbike, as the Chief Justice of India does. This contest is not over yet by a long shot.

   Mr. Bhushan has an unmatched record for probity and for fighting for the rights of the citizens. He is a pro bono warrior who has consistently held power to account, regardless of who is wielding that power. By invoking against him a law which the rest of the civilised world has discarded - the law of criminal contempt- our judges have not shown due respect for the most important component of a democracy- the right to criticise. It was perhaps an inevitable reaction by a court which increasingly gives the impression that it has become extra cautious about its own right to criticise an overarching executive, but that does not justify their action. Especially as they have done it in their own cause. But perhaps this too was inevitable, following in the footsteps of another Chief Justice who presided over a bench to consider a complaint of sexual misconduct against himself.

   But I am not on the wisdom or correctness of Mr. Bhushan's claims or charges, even though that part of India which still retains the capacity to think and not be led by the nose by Whatsapp or a bought out media will find a lot of merit in them. The very fact that as many as 18 retired superior court judges and hundreds of intellectuals, lawyers and eminent citizens had asked  the SC to drop the proceedings against Mr. Bhushan lend a lot of credibility to his allegations. My point is this; we all have felt for some time now that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark; the combined might of the executive and its various institutions has prevented us from doing anything about it; but can we not even voice our opinion about this, complain about an ever growing perception that judicial independence and the protection of human rights is no longer in the cause list of the court? Are we not even allowed to bleed when you stick a knife in our innards? To me, Mr. Bhushan's tweets are an indication of how highly we value our judiciary, his criticism reflecting the anguish of the citizens when our courts are not perceived to be living up to the high standards we expect from them. They reflect disappointment, not disrespect, and it is unfortunate that the hon'ble court was unable to discern this difference.

  Judges are the only category of government servants who are allowed to criticise the executive and the legislature; in fact, I would go so far as to say that they are MANDATED to criticise them. Other govt. employees can, and have, been punished and even dismissed for doing so. It is a precious and invaluable right which the higher judiciary is perceived by many to have foregone in favour of the executive in recent times , to have become " more executive than the executive." A judicial officer who does not have the courage to confront the executive in deserving cases is not doing justice to his calling.  Just as, for an ordinary govt. employee criticism of the govt. amounts to misconduct, I would venture to say that , for a judge, the obverse should be true: failure to criticise when it is warranted amounts to misconduct.

   Pride goes before a fall, and by failing to realise this the Court has allowed Mr. Bhushan, and the civil society he undoubtedly represents, to exhume the corpses long buried, corpses which were denied a fair forensic examination by the govt. of the day before they were consigned to history. And there are almost as many corpses buried here as in a graveyard. In his 162 page reply to the contempt notice Mr. Bhushan had submitted a list of omissions and commissions which is longer than the creative list of charges in the Bhima-Koregaon case, and far more credible: assignment of sensitive cases only to particular judges, judges sitting in their own causes, delay in hearing habeas corpus petitions, Judge Loya's death, the suicide note of Kalika Pul, police violence and complicity in the JNU/ JamiaMilia and Delhi riots cases, reluctance to curb the executive's excesses in Kashmir including denial of internet and 4G, covering up of the sexual harassment allegations against Ranjan Gogoi, unconscionable delay in hearing cases pertaining to Electoral bonds, abrogation of Article 370, abolition of statehood for J+K, the medical college bribery case and denial of permission to prosecute Justice Shukla, an accused in the PIMS scandal, the Sahara Birla case, nomination of Ranjan Gogoi to the Rajya Sabha, the failure to protect the human rights of the "accused" in the Bhima Koregaon case, the sudden midnight transfer of Justice Muralidharan from Delhi to Chandigarh when he castigated the Delhi police, the perverse concept of " sealed cover jurisprudence".  There are more instances pointed out where the SC has been perceived to be  more papal than the Pope, but this list is enough to appreciate the minefield which had been laid out for Justice Arun Mishra and his brother judges. And let us not forget that sealed cover list of corruption charges against previous Chief Justices submitted in the 2009 case, waiting to be opened some day.

   It would have been difficult for the Hon'ble justices to negotiate this minefield without serious outcomes. As I see it, the Court had only three options. One, drop the contempt notice and close the case after creating some facing saving formula. Two, proceed with the case under the impulse of their hubris. To do so in a fair and judicial manner, every instance of inappropriate conduct or questionable judgment mentioned by Mr. Bhushan would have had to be investigated and anatomized. To have done so would have been a blunder of suicidal proportions by the court, for once you start probing there is no saying what darker secrets might emerge. Three, find Mr. Bhushan guilty on purely technical grounds ( eg: calling a judge "corrupt" is itself contempt, even if there is proof to show that he is, in fact, corrupt: in other words, truth cannot be a defence against contempt- an abhorrent postulation.) None of these options would have done much for the stature of the Supreme Court, it would stand diminished in any case because our judges have not heeded the wise words of Lord Denning, perhaps the greatest jurist England has produced, refusing to use the power of contempt as a shield:

" The jurisdiction (of Contempt) undoubtedly belongs to us. But we will never use this to uphold our dignity, that must rest on surer foundations. Nor will we use it to suppress those who speak against us."

It would appear that the Court has chosen the third option, cloaking itself in some kind of "lese Majesty" formula, assuming a divine right to be above questioning. It states that Mr. Bhushan's two tweets have " brought disrepute " and "scandalised" the Court. Two tweets? Is that all it takes to bring disrepute to a court of almost 75 years' standing? In which case, our judges should seriously ponder about the next question that inevitably follows- how is it that its reputation, credibility and independence have become so fragile that it feels threatened by one man's tweets? Surely, its foundations are- or should be- stronger than that? By refusing to examine Mr. Bhushan's charges on their merit before convicting him the Court has not rendered true service to itself and the nation.

   In the ultimate analysis independence, conduct and conscience cannot be legislated or assumed on the basis of an oath taking ceremony, nor can legislation conceal the lack of them. Like justice itself, not only must they exist they must be seen to exist. True legitimacy does not come from a legal tome but from a favourable public perception. That, I think, is what Lord Denning was talking about.

   

LAST MAN STANDING ?

   I am fully aware that the subject I am about to broach is a touchy one, as any good word, even a muted one, about Rahul Gandhi is considered unfashionable these days and runs counter to the howling of the mobs. However, I put my faith in the wisdom of Thomas Carlyle who famously said:  "Popular public opinion is the biggest lie", and proceed to say my bit. But some disclaimers are in order. Firstly, I write this as an ordinary citizen of India, a privileged one perhaps, but as susceptible to the slings and arrows of today's violent forces as the poor chap who was beaten to a pulp with hammers in Gurgaon the other day for carrying buffalo meat, which is legal: it can also happen to me the next time I pick up my favourite kababs from Meatz. Secondly, I am no apostle or faithful of the Congress party and  have not voted for it in the last decade. In 2014 I was conned by the P.T.Barnum type showmanship of Mr. Modi; in 2019 I was again taken for a ride, this time by the chameleon- hued Kejriwal who is yet to figure out whether he is a nationalist fish or a liberal fowl.  (He needs to make up his mind soon because right now he is beginning to look like a poorly xeroxed copy of Nitish Kumar, and we know what happens to blurred copies- they end up in the waste bin.).

  Nor am I a Rahul Gandhi acolyte or camp follower; in fact I dislike his vacillation on critical issues, I thoroughly disapprove of his WFH ( work from home) approach to politics even before the pandemic made this popular, I am frustrated by his "will he- won't he?" attitude to the Presidentship of the party, I am puzzled by his strategy of trying to be all things to all men, which is obviously not working, at times I am even incensed at his inability to strike a chord with other opposition parties, and even his own colleagues. The astute reader would have noticed by now that I find a lot of faults in Mr. Gandhi.

   And yet today, when India is perched on the precipice of an unthinkable abyss, I admire him and the lonely courage he has been displaying even as the "rough beast" of the Second Coming slouches ever  closer. Courage, because it is displayed in the face of "Pappu" memes by Whatsapp boneheads, courage despite being the derisory butt of jokes in Delhi's fashionable salons, the prime time whipping boy of auctioned anchors, the single-point target of the BJP- and yet he has held his course and has not taken his eyes off the ball, a ball which has been tampered beyond recognition by an authoritarian govt under the watch of an umpire in judicial robes which too are beginning to fray.

  I doubt if any political figure in recent times has been calumnified and vilified so much, with so little justification and such pronounced double standards. When the BJP loses an election it is the party's fault, but when the Congress loses one it is Rahul Gandhi's fault. Mr Modi can flaunt a tilak on his forehead but Rahul Gandhi cannot wear his janau on his shoulder. Mr. Modi as Chief Minister could raise questions on the country's security but Mr. Gandhi as leader of the largest opposition party cannot. Just about every political party in India is headed by a "dynast", or is crawling with them, but only Rahul Gandhi is singled out for condemnation. The BJP is no exception to dynastic urges either, it's just that it has not been in power long enough: give it another term and it too will fully conform to the golden rule of our politics- that politics is not public service, it's just another business, and like all businesses succession should always be from within the family. No, sir, the reason the BJP has sold the dynast theory to the media is simply this: the Congress, even in this, its darkest hour, still has a committed vote bank of 20% which must be prised away from the Gandhis to secure the Hindu rashtra. The other parties are small fry, not one of them has even 5% vote share.

  For the fact, unpalatable to many in the media, the elite and the brain-washed multitudes is that the only Opposition in India today is Rahul Gandhi. All the other so-called opposition " leaders" ( the Mayawatis, Naidus and Akhilesh Yadavs) have gone to ground, hoping to make themselves invisible to the ED, CBI and Income Tax chaps. Some of the others ( like Sharad Pawar, YSR and KCR) have either kept their back doors open for a quick exit to the BJP when the hounds get too close, or are too busy dousing their own kitchen fires, like Mamta Bannerjee, or have buried their heads in the sands playing dead, like Navin Patnaik. No one else speaks about, or questions the government on, the visceral issues that are tearing this country apart: the iron curtain drawn around Kashmir, police excesses, CAA, the Delhi riots, the desecration of universities, the mishandling of the pandemic, the destruction of all constitutional institutions, the environmental vandalism of the proposed new EIA, the sorry state of our higher judiciary, the auction of public properties to selected cronies, the capitulation to China in Ladakh and elsewhere, the brazen lying on every subject? The  silence of the Opposition parties is only emboldening a dispensation which genetically cannot have any respect for any other point of view, and is contemptuous of the public's right to be informed.
   One of the biggest casualties of political intercourse in these last few years has been the language in which politicians conduct it- full of hatred, anger, contempt and abuse. Mr. Gandhi has brought a certain decency and civility to the political discourse, in manner, conduct and language, qualities to which the ruling party and its spokesmen are total strangers. We may not agree with what he is saying but we cannot fault him for the manner in which he speaks.  

  This is not to say that every question raised, or every inference drawn, by Mr. Gandhi is correct or justified. It is to emphasise that he is the only one at least asking the questions, who is not maintaining an opportunistic silence, and for this I am prepared to walk the extra mile to forget, if not forgive, his many real and imagined deficiencies. His is the only voice to remind us of all of that is going horribly wrong in our country, and to caution the government and the voter. It is axiomatic that for a democracy a strong government is optional, but a strong Opposition is essential. Democracy can live with a weak govt. and a strong Opposition, but it will not long survive a strong govt. and a weak Opposition. It is not my argument for a moment that Mr. Modi should be condemned, my argument is that he should be held accountable and asked questions, whether or not he deigns to answer them. To the extent that Mr. Gandhi is at least attempting to do so, he is discharging his dharma as an opposition politician while the others are cowering in their well padded dens. For this he should be commended, not vilified or mocked.                                                                 History is usually a reliable guide to the shape of things to come, if only we would pay attention to it and tear ourselves away from those ubiquitous Whatsapp forwards. Turn back the pages of history to this extract from perhaps the most authoritative book on the fall of the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1930s and the events leading up to the Second World War, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH, by William Shirer:

   " No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic .......... The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 percent of the vote. But the 63 percent of the German people who expressed their opposition to (it) were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp them out."

Do the vote percentages ring a bell, dear reader?