Politics of Commotion: Superficial Dialogue through Digital and Social Media

 

Over the last several years, we are witnessing, may be not perceiving it seriously, that political discourse in India is now getting confined to TV and Social Media and is commandeered by the scheduling consideration of these media options.

To enable the TV editors to gather participants for the debates and encapsulate content for prime time viewing, the messages are created no later than 5:00 pm. Likewise, to ensure proper rest for the media persons and the message sources, political activities, agitations, rallies, sloganeering, press-conferences, are all usually held after 10:00 am but before 2:00 pm.

The use and proliferation of digital and social media has radically changed both the way we are using language and the way we are ‘doing politics’ these days. Virtual space has now become the ‘natural habitat’ of an increasing number of individuals around the world; a space where they engage in discussions, work, shop, bank, hangout, relax, vote, find love partners, conduct their day-to-day activities, and so forth. A large proportion of day-to-day verbal and visual communication has migrated to various participatory web platforms. Social media have been hailed as either emancipatory tools contributing to a more participatory democracy, creating instant awareness about different social issues, a new public space of sorts (‘Arab Spring’ and the ‘Occupy’ movement are two widely cited examples).

A public sphere is a space of political communication and access to resources that allow citizens to participate in it. In this sense, given the exclusionary and commodified character of digital and social media, they cannot be considered as public spheres nor should they raise our hopes that revolution will be tweeted. Social and digital Media is dominated by corporations that make money by exploiting and commodifying users and this is why they can never be truly participatory. On a serious consideration, digital and social media are just another tool of control and containment, a profoundly depoliticising arena that fetishizes technology leading to a denial of a more fundamental political disempowerment.

One can realize the magnitude and impact of the medium if they consider that in the famous ‘Russia meddling,’ posts from a Russian company had reached the newsfeeds of 126 million users on Facebook during the 2016 US election and hundreds of thousands of bots posted political messages during the election on Twitter alone.

Digital and Social media is a new kind of an effective political instrument that, in the context of advanced capitalism, both dehumanizes politics and struggles and absolves people from the guilt of inertia in the face of major social and economic crises. It serves as an escape from the stress of intelligence, the pain and tension which accompany autonomous mental activity. Social Media is actually an effective anaesthesia against the mind in its socially disturbing, critical functions – leading to the knocking out of the mental agitation. Social media, as tools for producing and consuming different kinds of texts promotes a one-dimensional discourse. Consider the characteristics of Twitter’s one-dimensional discourse:

Language used in Twitter is short, fragmented and decontextualized: it is a language that tends to express and promote the immediate identification of reason and fact, truth and established truth, essence and existence, the thing and its function leaving no room for a dialogue and counter-reason. Twitter demands simplicity, promotes impulsivity, and fosters incivility.

Digital media takes the pedestal of instrumental and technological rationality and reduce audiences to the status of commodities and consumers of advertisements.  Such audience commodities that the media consumers become themselves are than sold as an audience to the advertising clients of the media.

Face-book, Twitter and other sites serve as an escape from the mechanised work process, and a breather to muster strength in order to be able to cope with the next round of work again. This allows social media to be marketed as entertainment – an entertainment that is accessible, on demand, any time and every time. For this entertainment to remain as a pleasure, it must not demand any effort of independent thinking from the audience. This constructs an involvement through inertia that creates a false sense of participation, security, homogeneity and consensus. Everyone is presumed to be a producer as well as a consumer of content, and the meaning of the messages get lost.

While there is around-the-clock exposure, constant access, and immediacy (all content is immediately available for reading and commenting), the message in the digital and social media is often decontextualized. The context is always that of-the-moment, limiting broader interpretations, connections and exploration of ramifications. Such content have a planned obsolescence, as the next programme or tweet will draw even more attention, commentary, visibility, and currency. The contents history is the here and now, as an ongoing critique of reality. Meaning loses history.

It comes, then, as no surprise that digital and social media have been serving as the ideal medium for populist parties and their leaders promoting the Politics of Commotion.  Digital and social media constitute an alternative to the mainstream media. Political campaigns started using social media as early as 2009, but it was with the 2019 General Elections that their use was taken to the next level.

Today, most political figures and parties use digital and social media platforms to disseminate their agendas and this has largely changed the way politics is conducted. This is a time when politics is ‘branded’ through social media. While democracies need liberation of the individuals from politics over which they have no effective control,  it seems that digital and social media have a firm grip on a large percentage of the our population, while people, in turn, have no control over digital and social media.

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First published 05 Aug 21

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Demystifying Politics in Democracy

Democracies are governance by the people, presumably for the people. They are also supposedly ‘of the people’ because to govern themselves, people elect some individuals out of themselves to represent them in government.

People elect representatives based upon their personal opinions and motivations, both of which are subjective. Voting someone to office is an emotional response of people.

While people carry on with their lives working as wagers or professionals or businesspersons, some choose to take up politics as their livelihood and put themselves up for being elected to office by the people.  Most democracies are federal structures, meaning thereby that there exist multiple tiers of governments. An individual citizen thus has a Member of Parliament, a Member of Legislative Assembly, and a member of Municipality or a Gram Panchayat to represent him at these tiers of Government. Then, people also elect representatives to self-help groups like worker-unions, student unions, charities, social groups, clubs, welfare groups, cooperative societies, religious bodies, and so on. Politicians have the choices of being elected to any of these tiers in the government as well as to these self-help groups. People get the opportunities to elect their representatives every five years or sooner.

Since the governance is itself a collective of the majority of the elected individuals, politicians are categorised into affiliate groups - chosen to govern or rejected to govern – for the time being. Depending upon the pro-incumbency voting or anti-incumbency voting by people, in the next round of elections, the politicians are able to keep or reverse the nature of their affiliate category.

Accordingly, the predominant policy of the politician from the group ‘chosen to govern’ is to garner pro-incumbent public opinion and inoculate the minds of people to protect them from any counter attacks of the politician from the group ‘rejected to govern.’ They trumpet their achievements and promises through events and seek amplification of their narrative through the media and press.

The predominant policy of the politician from the group ‘rejected to govern’ is to garner enough anti-incumbent public opinion before the next election, which would result into the incumbents being voted out and the group ‘rejected to govern’ would emerge as the group ‘chosen to govern’ after those elections.

Building up of anti-incumbent public opinion is achieved through developing a passive resistance to the policies of the group ‘chosen to govern’ and this requires continuing demonstration of active-resistance by the politicians from the group ‘rejected to govern’ to the policies and actions of the incumbents. Strikes, shutdowns, slowdowns, sit-ins, sloganeering are some of the tools used in such demonstrations. Resulting events create content for the media and the group ‘rejected to govern’ seeks amplification of their events and their narrative through the media.

Both the groups, group ‘rejected to govern’ and group ‘chosen to govern’ also indulge in comparative narrative involving disparaging each other and seek the help of media in their efforts. 

The fact is that the role, purpose and importance of newspapers and news broadcasts, as reporters and chroniclers of facts, which could count as proof, has diminished. Editorials and the opinions of experts in any media, print or television, which are objective, fail to catch the attention of people.

For their entertainment value, acrimonious debates between the biased and ignorant politicians and purposive shows catch the eyeballs, but the theatrical capabilities of the performers in such shows leave false impressions in the minds of the audience. The slant of the anchors towards a particular narrative works as subliminal messaging in shaping the impressions.

Media is becoming a peddler of the narrative of the politician belonging to either the group ‘rejected to govern’ or the group ‘chosen to govern.’ Social media noise and claims do not count as proof yet they strike the emotions of people and shape public opinion.

Width, depth and sustainability of favourable public opinion is the measure of success in politics. Maximising the width, depth and sustainability of favourable public opinion is therefore the real goal of any politician. Narratives, public discourse, public policy, bureaucracy, media, political workers, safety, security, justice, growth, welfare, progress, nationalism, equality, secularism, affirmative action, patriotism, peace and rule of law are just the means in achieving of these political goals.

One can fault a politician for any of the means that they use, but none can fault them for their unwavering commitment to their goals.

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First published 04 May 2021

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Crush the Enemy Within

 A careful examination of the reactions of the civil-society; the secularists, and the reporting by the media connected with the “incidents and events” in India, over the last 28 years, beginning with the 1993 Mumbai blasts shows a very hypocritical prejudice. When those seen as perpetrators of the crime were Muslims, the standard line was, “terrorism has no religion.” And there were numerous instances of the kind. However, in an exceptional instance, where the crime could be attributed to Hindus; the untoward event was showcased as unassailable “Hindu Terrorism.”

To kill even the imagery of “killing for or in the name of religion” Hindus are possibly the only people in the world, who, rather than kill, have got killed. They have never attacked anyone for propagating their religion. Hindus have welcomed people of all nationalities, faiths and cultures, when they came pursuing their personal, logical dreams and aspirations. Only under a threat to their own survival caused by a “Fire & Sword” tenet of the external aggressors, did the Hindus invoke “Maa Kali” to rekindle their sacrificial fire and then did not stop until they have driven the aggressors back to where they came from.

Christian or Muslim, though they have just recently converted and still have lots of Hindu content in their spiritual lives, somehow believe that they belong to a cultural unit altogether different form the Hindu one. Hindustan to them is where they live, yet it is not Holy land to them, which is far off in Arabia or Palestine. Naturally therefore, their love is divided. They must set their Holy-land above India in their love and allegiance. It is however, a folly, when Indian Muslims start looking at Pakistan as their fatherland and/or holy-land. If the majority of the Indian Muslims can free themselves from their prejudices coming from such ignorance, and as the patriotic and noble – minded amongst them have always been doing; and begin to love Hindustan as their fatherland, the story of their conversions, forcible in millions of cases is too recent to make them forget . . . that they inherit Hindu blood in their veins.

If a Sister Nivedita or an Annie Besant could become a Hindustani in spite of being from a different Nation (rashtra), Race (Jati), Civilization (Sanskriti) and Holy land (pavitra bhoomi); Hindu-ness must be something more profound than the what it is being made out to be by the propagators  of the malicious scare of “Hindu-Terror.” This propaganda gives fire to the deviant and the misled to form into scattered hooligan groups adorning the “saffron” and creating mischief. All these are rudderless groups of young people out seeking media limelight through acts of misplaced adventurism. They are ‘rogues and goondas’ exhibiting a religious fervour at the most, not necessarily driven by religion; some of them neither Hindus nor with Hindu names; but for sure, not terrorists.

Unfortunately, there are no external aggressors and there is no “fire & sword” tenet in the present day attacks on Hindu-ness of India which has always stood for universal peace and brotherhood. The aggressors are enemies within; and they are using the tenets of “propaganda, unrest and division.” They are not the enemies of Hindus or friends of Muslims. They are simply bigoted, selfish, blood-thirsty hyenas waiting to feast on the remnants of the wealth and flesh of India, which they believe would fall prey to the roaring lion of “Maa Kali” or the ‘tandava’ of “Bhagawan Shiva”

True Hindus are trying their best, as they ought to do, to develop the consciousness of and a sense of attachment to the greater whole, whereby Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Christians and Jews would feel as Indians first and every other thing afterwards. But whatever progress India may have made to that goal one thing remains almost axiomatically true – not only in India but everywhere in the world – that a nation requires a foundation to stand upon and the essence of the life of a nation is the life of that portion of its citizens whose interest and history and aspirations are most closely bound up with the land and who thus provide the real foundation to the structure of their national state.

Multiple ethnicity and religiosity is the strength of India. This provides cultural and social diversity, variety and enrichment within the mega space called Bharat. Hindutva or Hindu-ness is plural and should not be mistaken as a synonym for Hindu-religion. Yet India needs cleansing in the nature of weeding out of the enemy within. It is unfortunate that most of such enemies have Hindu names and origins. They are deep in a new kind of “Intellectual terrorism.”  Indians and Hindus cannot drink with equanimity this cup of bitterness and political servitude at the hands of those whose only aspiration is to feast on the putrefied flesh from the corpse of Hindustan. Whenever under aggression, Hindustan has looked to Vedic wisdom. “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached” is a shloka of Katha Upanishad which was popularized in the late 19th century by Swami Vivekananda.

 

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Multiple sources of like-minded thought are humbly acknowledged for the above expressions. First published 25 Feb 2021

 

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The LANCET’s Pessimism on India’s optimism

 

Both, human nature and human custom, has constraints and boundaries which keep reminding us of human imperfection and of the fragility of real communities. Pessimism is the recognition that these constraints and boundaries make impossible any planned, rational transformation of society. However, history is replete with examples where societies have been transformed through the belief that we can advance collectively to our goals by adopting a common plan, and by working towards it. Optimism is therefore the key to change and transformation while pessimism guards the hierarchy and status quo. As they say, excess of everything is bad, so is true for optimism and pessimism, which is why there is a concept of realism.

On 26 September, the Free Press Journal published a news article saying that “The renowned medical journal, Lancet, has cautioned India on the danger of presenting the current pandemic situation with too positive a spin. It not only clouds reality but also hampers vital public health initiatives.” The link can be found at https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/india-is-creating-a-false-optimism-reputed-medical-journal-lancet-on-indias-handling-of-the-pandemic.  Having carried out some forecasting for COVID-19 cases in April and May 2020, purely for academic joy, this news report intrigued me and motivated me to look up at the “THE LANCET” caution.

“The LANCET” which began as an independent, international weekly general medical journal in 1823, claims to make science widely available so that medicine can serve, and transform society, and positively impact the lives of people.

People in general and decision makers around the world have a great regard for “The Lancet” which has over time evolved as a family of journals across various medical and health specialities.

“The LANCET” has captioned its editorial to Vol. 396, September 26, 2020, on p. 867 as “COVID-19 in India: the dangers of false optimism.” 

 

 

First things first – this is an editorial opinion and not a piece of research. An editorial opinion is expressed with the purpose of influencing public opinion and public-policy and may not be taken as non-purposive or unbiased. While this editorial makes some palpable hits, it is hard to separate the wheat of philosophical wisdom from the chaff of prejudice.

 

Next – it is a well accepted cardinal principle that false optimism is fraught with peril. False pessimism is equally fraught with peril. If the fallacies of optimism are human universals, what is more corrupting is not the attempt to do the impossible, but the failure even to attempt it. Progressive changes, however, rarely happen by chance. History is a narrative of humans rationally and consciously transforming the world. To give up on "goal-directed policies and politics" is to give up possibilities of betterment.

The example of DG of ICMR envisaging launching a coronavirus vaccine on Aug 15, quoted by The LANCET, is surely an optimism of "unscrupulous" form, but questioning the lower case-fatality-rate in India because it is lower than the reported rate in other (western) countries is unscientific. In order to support such unscientific opinion, The LANCET goes on to suspect the entire COVID-19 data from India and suggests that this number is a political spin.

Case-fatality-rate is the ratio of deaths to cases; and its lower value would mean lower deaths for same number of cases. It could also be lower if the reported number of cases is higher for same number of deaths. What is The LANCET alleging – is India under-reporting deaths or over-reporting cases?

A scientific mind should question previous results in face of new data rather than the reliability of the new data unless one is sure that the previous data was more reliable than the new data. Data is the message and data-reports are brought by messengers; new data should lead to questioning of results, not the message.

Is this pessimism of some “unscrupulous” kind clouding the mindset of LANCET which is unwilling to accept that India might be making headway in war against COVID-19 leaving behind the expected leaders of any such success?

How would The LANCET react if one were to say that this editorial is a political spin against India’s success to protect the world’s perception of traditional western supremacy?

Is The LANCET advocating that, rather than seeking utopian solutions, radical alternatives or bold initiatives, India should muddle through with “compromise and half measures” mindful that no ultimate solutions are up for grabs?

Is The LANCET proposing for India to be “a community without convictions” marked by irony and subservience?

The LANCET is posturing as if it is exposing the blindness and the hypocrisies of the Indian politics, but its editors seem to be notorious for never acknowledging that there might be some too in the developed west. The LANCET’s editorial calling India’s COVID-19 numbers as ‘false optimism’ lacks logical or scientific reasoning and suffers from survivorship bias of quantitative back-testing using past indices.

I am neither a leftist nor a rightist. I hold no brief for India or its political class, but I do wish to raise my voice as a citizen of India, which has held on to traditions of conservative political philosophy but, which is unwilling to shut her eyes to continued propagation of western supremacy, who have tried to make heaven on earth, and ended up making it hell.

 

(First published 28 Sep 2020)

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Has journalism lost it?

The way ordinary people consume and interact with media is light years removed from two decades ago. This shift has been so massive that all of us are still grappling with understanding it. We have never had a media landscape like this. There is a very vocal left-wing media machine that has proven to be every bit more effective than the mainstream media. 

Now there is an emergence of a right-wing media machine, as effective as the left-wing media machine or even the mainstream media. What the emerging right-wing media machine lacks in terms of its effectiveness, it is attempting to make up for it through the social media. The general public has never been networked the way we are now. Unfortunately, however, both, the left-wing as well as the right-wing media machines, are building the sculptures of Networked Disinformation. The mainstream media is sitting outside of the arena where these ugly bouts are taking place.

Let us acknowledge that there have been mass media layoffs. Uncompromising media outfits have shuttered, leaving dozens of upright journalists without jobs. Reporters-on-rolls and editors have vacillated between feeling extremely energized and extremely demoralized in such circumstances. Unstable job environments have become the norm, and unfortunately, those who have stayed back in journalism have confused average for acceptable. There are now “full-time freelance” positions in journalism.

Editorial teams are shrinking, workers are forced to accept lower rates (due to increase in competition), and they are bearing the psychological impact of repeated layoffs as they navigate financial insecurity.

Journalists and reporters are constantly in a state of stress and scarcity; they are constantly working too much and fearing that it is still too little. They don’t know how they are going to pay rent, and if they do, they can never be sure the checks are going to come in on time. Health insurance is either a luxury or a distant dream; and getting sick is not an option.

The distinctions between regular, freelance, contract and outsourced labour is increasingly porous. The press and publication houses are unionising but the unions of their employees are nearly defunct.

Is journalism a vocation, profession, business or an errand? With confusion getting compounded, the losses of talent, freedom, standards and ethics are a natural corollary.

(First published 22 April 2020)

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If you don’t care for India, you don’t belong to India

“... I repeat: we do not hate our Indian brothers, Mohammadans, Christians, or whatever they may be; we have no grudge against them. The only thing we hate is anti-national religious fanaticism, from wherever it may come. We know that we have shared, in the past, the same eternal Indian culture with those who have since then, become the Indian Mohammadans and Christians, and, in the same spirit and with the same earnestness as we preach India above all sects to the Hindus, we urge those Indians who believe in so-called world-religions to put India above them. We call them back to our common national culture and civilisation, for the sake of the Nation. If they love the Nation, let them come and join us. They are welcome.”

“But whoever does not care for India and her culture, whether he be born a Mohammadan, a Christian or even a Hindu, should have no place in the country but, at most, as a temporarily sojourning foreigner. Whoever loves any community more than India should go out of India.”

-                     Savitri Devi, “A WARNING TO THE HINDUS” Calcutta, May 1939

[Born as Maximiani Julia Portas in 1905 in Lyon, France, Savitri Devi Mukherjee was the daughter of Maxim Portas, a French citizen of Greek and Italian ancestry and an English woman, Julia Portas. Savitri Devi studied philosophy and chemistry, earning two master's degrees and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Lyon. Asit Krishna Mukherji attended the University of London taking a doctorate in history. Mukherji used his connections with Subhas Chandra Bose and the Japanese authorities to put them in contact with one another, thus facilitating the formation of the Indian National Army. In January 1938, Mukherji met Savitri Devi who was deeply impressed with his knowledge. They married on June 9, 1940 in Calcutta.]

[A Warning to the Hindus was first published by Brahmachari Bijoy Krishna of the Hindu Mission in Calcutta in 1939 with a foreword by G.D. Savarkar (brother of V.D. Savarkar). It was translated into six Indian languages, including Bengali, Hindi, and Marathi. It was re-published in 1993 by Promilla Paperbacks (New Delhi, ISBN 81-85002-40-1)].

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