For years, educated Indians blamed the ills of their democracy on the poor, the unwashed and the unlettered whose 'ignorance' (they held) allowed creeps to run the country. But now, seeing the brawls over social media, one wonders…
Chatter on Narendra Modi’s zillion-plus admirers' rampage on the Internet made me recall a dear departed uncle from an age when computers were still a rumour. What did people with interest in politics but nursing undefined rage do in the pre-social media eraIJ I only knew one such character and his way of giving vent was by fulminating in the company of non-committed visitors like me — I was a virginal 14.
This uncle held forth evenings with monologues over the lost course of India's destiny. He was certain casha-bhusho-chhotolok (Bengali for the rabble) were taking the country to the puppies (ehIJ). If there were computers and mobile telephony in the early 1980s he would have babbled away in a virtual world made up of fellow travelers. But alas all he had was tea, oily fries and boring Doordarshan before dinner delivered the coup de grace to another unproductive day.
Once, in a reminiscent mood he told me, "Democracy is not suitable for us Indians. Earlier, under the British only corporation rate payers were eligible to vote. My father and uncles used to strut out on election day to the polling centre in crisp dhotis, wielding aristocratic walking sticks and (with an arrogant wave of the hand, he stressed) these coarse elements who vote nowadays used to look on with awe. “
To somebody going to a liberal school where the pedagogy was designed more for absorbing egalitarianism than perverse privilegocracy this was certainly obnoxious. Yet, I maintained respectful silence and once asked this uncle why he bothered to vote. He never boycotted elections and was quite frank about his preference. It was for a party which had got off to a promising start in post-independence West Bengal. The unfortunate death of its charismatic founder led to the truncation of its career in the State and by the time this conversation happened, its candidates rarely recovered their deposits.
Uncle was sure that if the good old system of restricted electorates was brought back nothing would stand in the way of his party capturing Writers’ Buildings. According to him (and this was a point which iterated with wearisome frequency in his soliloquies) universal adult suffrage was about pandering to the lowest common denominator and there could be no equality till everybody was educated to a certain minimum.
He reserved his choicest epithets for secularism. “Take it to the Pakistanis” was his favourite snap. And socialism too, which he confused with the gangsterism of the Communists which was all around us. He believed in pourush (masculinity) as the traction behind economic determinism. His central aphorism: paradise thrives within the triangle of wife (i.e. family), work (or employment in a robust economy) and workship (God, country, leader in descending order).
Animated debates on politics helped fill evenings before saas-bahu serials robbed Uncle of both pourush and pessimism. As for politics, it interested him less and less towards the end, and I suspect he followed the TV schedules pages more avidly than my aunt. This shut-down perhaps helped him cope with the collapse of everything that was decent about the national space. By the time his favourite party, albeit in a new package, came to power he had stopped caring - and much the same was his reaction to its defeat some years later.
Offensive new age
The social media began happening in 1971 when the first email was sent by scientists at the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the United States. No, it did not begin with Facebook because another word for social media is social interconnectivity --- which thrives in the Internet. Though the technology of the time restricted the flexibility of the Bulletin Board System, “Classmates”, the earliest blogs, “Ask”, etc. they nonetheless nurtured the social aspects of interest-specific exchanges. In a sense, lK Advani's use of the blog in his prime ministerial bid in 2008-2009 was the original social media platform.
Without being offensive, that is. Advani was successful in creating a virtual world where his supporters and fellow ideologues could understand their candidate better and hope to contribute with campaign ideas and slogans. He himself rained down ideas, ideological paradigms and campaign slogans which formed the BJP's matrix and shaped the logic of his bid. His supporters clung on to his every word and responded effusively, but within the limits of decency. As the responses to his blog were moderated by a backroom, there was no possibility of intemperance creeping into the discourse.
On the other hand, Narendra Modi's campaign makes use of mobile and web-based technologies which have gifted him dynamically interactive forums far beyond his own comprehension. The technological leap between then and now frees him from personally supervising the armies of loyalists that keep expanding because every day hundreds of interactive platforms are forming through which individuals and communities are sharing, co-creating, discussing and modifying user generated content.So much about quantity. But qualitatively, what do the supporters of Modi reveal about themselves — and by extension their idolIJ If the Sanskrit truism Yatha Raja Tatha Praja (“As the ruler so the ruled”) is applied in the context of the “blitzkrieg” over the social media driving Modi's prime ministerial ambitions, then perhaps it's time for the denizens of 10, Ashoka Road to order early course correction.
Edward louis Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud who was considered the father of modern public relations, wrote extensively on “herd mentality” — that irrationality which grips the masses at the prodding of propagandists. He held that powerful meanings can often be attached to irrelevant objects — not always ending in profit. If Narendra Modi and his party want people to focus on “development” and “good governance” instead of their party's past in obscurantism, then why does it tolerate Amit Shah going about promising to build the Ram temple in AyodhyaIJ The “powerful meaning” that is conveyed by such rank display of conflicting objectives could explode on Modi's face through two ways. One, his bugbear, the “liberal media” could (and certainly would) “expose” him as a fundamentalist in the developer's garb. Two, his own “followers” (Tweet), “friends” (Facebook), bloggers and responders to everyday Internet articles would run amok with bizarre statements that would make not only Muslims, but even most Hindus quite wary of the BJP.
For, the historical experience holds that the Right everywhere marshals characters with a preference for violence, both physical or intellectual in the form of hate verbose and retrogressive comments. Add to that the contemporary reality where study after study shows that people are anyway less polite on social media than they would in face-to-face interaction. Forbes magazine, which conducted one these surveys as recently as May 2013, says it happens that way because people don't feel a compulsion to be social unless they see the face of the adversary. From non-verbal 'thumbs downs”, to ignoring giving “likes” to downright verbal spitting, the social media is the foul mouth's Disneyland.
The depths to which Modi's allies stoop to win simple debating points are simply amazing. Whereas the absence of technology prevented my old uncle from making a public spectacle of himself and his ideological headquarters, the Internet has dragged his present-day variants into the open. The inherent divisiveness in most of their opinions confirm only the worst stereotypes about the Indian Right and indeed puts it on the defensive in the world of 2013 where liberalism and pluralism appear irreversible.
It required a BJP insider (albeit from the outer ring) like Yashwant Sinha to recognise the pitfalls in pushing old clichés (“pseudo-secularism”, “appeasement” and now “CBI parrot” ) at predictable junctures. His article in The Economic Times this week about the need to focus on the economy rather than on polarising issues (“Don't fall in Congress' trap”) was intended as atypical advice to right wingers to keep within limits set by the lived experience. But subtlety invariably fails in a milieu where tackiness dominates almost every popular expression — from films to politics to dress code.
Fire-breathers
1. A “Sumeet Mehta” wrote in response to a Tehelka article by its journalist Rana Ayyub: “ Tehelka paid to spread lies and contempt about Narendra Modi by khangress (sic). Same Tehelka didn't bother to cover scams done by khangress... rather went after DMK and its internal politics after 2G... and by the way the author is a secular pro-pakistani terrorist... Ayyub, ehhhh!”)
(All Muslim journalists are necessarily on Congress' payrolls and natural enemies of Modi - a suggestion carrying hints of dekh lunga (future vendettaIJ) Often times, Hindu writers of critical pieces on Modi are branded “anti-Hindu” and asked to be “loyal”)
2. One “Ravi Mehta” responded to Swapan Dasgupta's observation about the role of English language media in the never-ending Modi-versus-liberals battle in his column in The Pioneer with the following finality: “For much of the English media, one cannot trust them with their own mothers!”
(On top of Modi's followers' hate list is the 'secular' and by extension 'Congress' media. Since most of these newspapers, channels and magazines are in English, therefore the obsession with “English media”. )
3. One “Dgill45083” wrote back to an apparent adversary in the 'Responses' space of another news site: “I am trying to say that you are a feku :) You have no clue what you are writing, you read tit bits from here and there and talk almighty gospel while fully well knowing you are protecting everything that is wrong, but again these are pure signs on in-Breeding as followed in Pakistan, and plz dont (sic) even ask me to prove this as a fact. You are a member of Congress paid Social media army lOl (sic) because you talk nonsense and you are awake at this time of night IST. Want some biscuitsIJ
4. loose cannon hardly help a general’s cause. Going quite against the grain of public opinion on economic issues, supporters of Narendra Modi convey the impression that his economic model is essentially pro-rich, anti-environment and subscribes to discarded laissez faire principles. On the vexed Vedanta issue, little knowing the RSS’ rich background in the uplift of tribals, one “Gordon Gekko” wrote in Firstpost.com: “Indeed Sanatan Dharma. Greed is Good and thats what (sic) keeps the economy going and at least me working so that I can pay my taxes honestly. If the Odisha tribals want to wallow in their eminently miserable lives without any industry, it’s their choice. Just don’t ask me to fund their subsistence through taxes on my hard earned income.”
5. Another lot obviously believes that Modi holds out panacea for all ills. A documentary on paralyzed beggars went with a comment by “Sigret” saying, “All this will be taken care of by NaMo after 2014”.
An acceptable Right
If the Indian left has surrendered its soul to the Harmads of the CPI(M), the failure of the Indian Right to evolve into an independent intellectual powerhouse has been equally striking. In the early 2000s, a very senior BJP minister, one of the last of a tribe that posed a genuine threat to the left-liberal establishment for the depth of his scholarship and perceptiveness, told me, “With the friends we have, who needs enemiesIJ”
The overreach of the “friends” of Narendra Modi on the social network could always be explained away as abnormal times, like an election campaign, bringing out the worst in normal people. Also heard are arguments that rising prices, a failing economy, the spiraling rape graph, etc. have driven opponents of the Congress-UPA over the hill. “These are not times for exchanging niceties”, a Right-wing columnist told me recently.
But this is precisely the weakness which his hero’s opponents would spring on. Badly managed economies often produce fascist tendencies, leading to totalitarian tendencies. InThe Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, journalist-author William l Shirer narrates how he personally witnessed brawling Nazi storm troopers break up beer hall parties and other assemblages of political opponents — real and imagined. That corresponds well with the imagery produced by the tendency of Modi’s “friends” and “followers” to barge into perfectly respectable media space to spit on perfectly innocent opinion exchanges. Result: dark fears in the minds of casual observers as to their true intentions. Add to that the crass, north Indianism which peppers most of their attacks — Hinglish sentences as well as stark Hindi swear words — which puts off people from more sophisticated cultures.
The fallacy at the root of it all is that the predominantly young population of India is enjoying this. Youth is actually a time for full play of the liberal consciousness — conservatism and intolerance come later. A large number of youngsters across India are increasingly seized by the dialectical confusion posed by the face of Modi which promises holistic investment into national economic progress against the terrifying background made up by his social media combatants who justify 2002, want war with Pakistan and China, military pacts with the US and disenfranchisement of non-Hindus. It is time Modi publicly distanced himself from this lot. Else, he will have only Web 2.0 to blame.
(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer)