George Orwell, a great visionary writer prophetically wrote that we will be destroyed by the things that we fear. He was talking about State surveillance to come which he so vividly and imaginatively pictured in his novel, 1984. He seems to be proved right as the globe seems to have shown rapid sprouting and blooming of totalitarian regimes that boast of strong leadership. We in India have also surrendered to this discourse of fear which has succeeded in convincing us that our unity is in the division, our peace is bloodshed and our prosperity is economic alienation of the weak. Therefore, we seem to have come to love politics of fear and hate.
Maybe we have to read and think George Orwell alongside Aldous Huxley. Orwell’s novel, 1984 and Huxley’s, Brave New World might bring insight into what ails society. If Orwell sees destruction in our fears, Huxley sees the same in what delights us. Orwell laments and warns us over the loss of our freedoms. Huxley envisions that we will come to enjoy this loss. Some of us have made a virtue of the loss of freedoms under the banner of cultural nationalism that we know as Hindutva. We seem to delight in what we deem to be the coming of the Brave New World in our country. This new world is greeted as new India by non-other than our Prime Minister.
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We seem to have entered a time that may be described as Taylorism named after Fredrick Taylor or Fordism named after Henry Ford that uses ultra-managerial techniques to manage people. Maybe this is best exemplified by the likes of Prashant Kishore who has shot to fame by the delivery of spectacular victories in our elections. Taylorism or Fordism is not just about elections or managing the labour force for the industry. Today what is called as Taylorism and Fordism might illumine us how knowledge from human sciences and the power of growing technology are being used to tailor our society to suit the power elite. We are facing a corporatized politics where political parties with their ideology are bought to favour corporate interest. Therefore both Fordism and Taylorism today are indeed about domesticating and taming our society through indoctrination, advertisement and propaganda so that the dance of democracy hides pursuits of corporate interest.
The techniques of mind control and those that socially engineer recall or memory of the trauma of the past are employed to promote the interest of the power elite. Maybe it is because of the success of these techniques that people like Subramanian Swami declare that India has already become a Hindu nation. We can also see this at work in the linking of Savarkar’s mercy petitions with Mahatma Gandhi by our defence minister, Rajnath Singh. We have reached what may be described as Pavlovian social conditioning (after Ivan Pavlav) that seems to have taken us to the doorsteps of a totalitarian society wherein we have come to love our servitude compelled by our fears. This means power is getting more powerful and democracy is dying in its practice by the day.
We may say that it is only elections and the power of our vote that have remained of what is left of our democracy. The Fourth Estate has become the lapdog of the rulers and ridiculously works as the watchdog of the opposition. The godi media is shamelessly carrying forward its anti-people agenda by masking it as pro-people. Besides, we do seem to enjoy the death of democracy and its institutions all in the name of what is thought to be the rise of the Hindu Nation.
The high profile Didi’s victory in West Bengal and the year-long farmer’s agitation appear to be the only silver lining in an otherwise Covid-ridden gloomy condition of our society. Congress, the grand old party does not seem to manifest any semblance of recovery from the jolt that it received with the rise of Modi in 2014. Unfortunately, its internal squabbles and a kind of rudderless leadership does not inspire confidence. It has so far failed to become a magnet for opposition unity. The political vacuum is crying to be filled. Does that mean the game is on (Khela Hobe) as TMC will like us to believe? Or does that mean game over (Khela Sesa) for India and Goa?
We cannot meekly surrender to the political tyranny unleashed by the ruling benches. The game is not over. The game is certainly on. The political parties in Goa are feeling its intensity. The coming of IPAC in Goa seems to suggest that the election in Goa is set to use market strategies to manufacture our consent to vote. It all manifests that corporatisation of politics has come full circle in Goa too. The game is certainly on and we cannot remain fence-sitters but have the challenge to save our democracy by becoming enlightened voters. The rising prices are choking the common men and with the skyrocketing of the petrol prices, even the rich have begun to feel the heat.
The insensitive deaf ear to the farmer’s agitation, the heinous killing of the farmers in Lakhimpur, the huge seizure of drugs at Mundra port operated by the Adani group in Gujarat are all testifying to our subjection to Bhure din. Our fear of the demonized other, as well as sadistic delight in subjection of this other to bhure din, has blinded us to the fact that so-called cultural nationalism has become the hiding place for truly anti-national rogue elements. This is why the game is on.
We have the challenge to fight the market forces that are strangulating our democracy. Faster we understand virus of corporatisation of politics, we will be able to be actively responsive and safe our democracy.
(Fr Victor Ferrao is an independent researcher attached to St Francis Xavier Church, Borim)
