‘Learn from history’ is an old adage. But people either do not learn or do not remember the lessons for long. There is so much happening today that there surely are lessons to be learnt and remembered.

Much of what is happening in New Delhi or West Bengal today is not very different from what happened in Egypt or Tunisia or elsewhere.

There is corruption all around and misgovernance. There have been major instances of repression and suppression of democratic rights. Compare Ram Lila Maidan incident to the Nandigram killings to the years of oppression in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia. Ben Mourad Sheikh, Tunisian filmmaker, told the Times of India “A point came when they could not stand it anymore and they (the citizens) exploded. It was a question of dignity…”

A notable thing is the arrogance of those in power. It has been getting more and more revealing in Delhi, Libya, Syria and Tunisia and was so in West Bengal and Egypt until it was forced to bite the dust through polls or popular uprising. Ultimately, people react to prolonged sufferings like they have done in West Bengal (and in India, post-emergency). They recently voted against corruption in Tamil Nadu. In the other countries, protests are not so benign and as a result, even some good deeds by the ousted rulers were easily forgotten and what mattered was the present. The Congress in India and Left in West Bengal, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and leaders in Tunisia and Syria, all have records of stability and good reforms. But all these were buckled under the weight of the people’s sufferings.

The other important thing to notice is that any form of idealism is gradually losing its appeal and this is the age of resentment. In West Bengal, Marxism is less relevant now to the poor and middle class. In the other countries, it is mostly apolitical web-using middle class that are the vanguard of change. They constitute public opinion – the Fifth estate. Vikram Singh Mehta has opined in ToI that the soft power of public opinion transformed into smart power through information and technology can help find space for both good economics and good politics on the same plank and give rise to good statesmanship.

Finally, leadership will no longer be the preserve of elite as is shown in UP and West Bengal. So the rise of Anna and Ramdev may be disregarded by the snobbish political elite and the (English) press, only at their own peril.

But, will the rulers ever learn?