“Read: October 3 -- 8, 2011
1) To the extent that this play exposes the fuzzy wheelings-and-dealings in a parliamentary democracy, it can be seen as a wonderful satire -- sharp and witty -- on today's political situation in many countries today, India for example. From this perspective, the play might be seen as taking on the hypocrisy of the holier-than-thou puritanical elements in society. That is indeed a timeless story, and is as applicable today as at the time the play is set in.
However, the play works from a different perspective as well. It focuses on economic issues like property rights, legitimacy of capital accumulation in private hands, origin of large fortunes, marginal utility, class distinctions and free dissemination of financial information. And for that economic perspective, the play seems to require the particular situation of its time and place crucially.
2) Basically, most countries today do not have indigenous economic and legal institutions to tackle corruption today. Definitely not in the same way that Oscar Wilde, by portraying the chains of cause-and-effect in the British society of 1895, nails down the moral culpability of the characters clearly.
3) There is one fundamental difference between corruption prevalent today and that portrayed in Oscar Wilde's play. In the play, corruption of a large scale is a rare thing. The character of Sir Robert Chiltern is being accused that the source of his large fortune was an illegitimate financial tip he gave out eighteen years before. And the clinching evidence for this, supposedly, is a letter he wrote at that time.
The accumulation of profits by capitalists, and of rent by landowners were given rational justifications by economists and by religious leaders in the 19th century. It was widely accepted that wealth was created by heroic activities like delayed gratification, thrift and risk bearing, along with the virtues attributed to land ownership.
The attempt by the puritans to make a complete virtue of owning wealth was where they ran into the problem of 'the original sin'. That is what Oscar Wilde is alluding to here, when he suggests that the only sinful aspect in Chiltern's ownership of wealth was its origin eighteen years before in an illegitimate deal.
So, Oscar Wilde is able to portray corruption in black-and-white terms, in contrast to the widespread corruption, of all shades and hues, today in India, for example, that takes place as a day-to-day, routine affair. In modern Indian polity, capital accumulation is not a virtue. For example, in the 70s, all the major private banks were nationalized. This lack of rights to ownership of private property makes the situation quite murky and this makes it very difficult to trace the roots of corruption.
4) I think I should dispel the notion that the advanced countries provide an ideal picture of political stability. My earlier comments on the relative backwardness of India's economic and political institutions might give that appearance. But as everyone knows the advanced countries too are facing a powerful urge felt at the grassroots level to wreck the system -- e.g., the Tea Party phenomenon in the US and the rioting in Britian. Ours is essentially chaotic times. It is not specific to India but is applicable to all parts of the world. It is a post-modern world. Whereas Oscar Wilde's play is set in a different world, at a different time.”
Selva wrote this review Monday, January 16, 2012.
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