The Power of Narrative!
God, I miss the good old Doordarshan News days… Days when the news was about reportage, and not shaping opinions… I’m a political thinker, and would love to think that I am a deconstructionist too… Being a deconstructionist has its own set of problems too, you know. It makes one look absolutely disinterested in the goings on. It makes one look least emotional, and least attached to what other people perceive to be “human” emotions. Yep, you got that right! I suppose I don’t possess those qualities either. Crime doesn’t bother me. To me, its a way of reducing the stress of the crazily damaged planet earth. The cause of death notwithstanding; it’s the numbers that matter more to me. I sort of celebrate death. I take pleasure in it. It does satisfy an inherent sadist within me somewhere… I tend to look at it from the perspective of poetic justice on those irresponsible parents (and there’s plenty of those; mine included!) who just kept banging their way to eternity to produce some of us — who are destined to rot in this world trying to justify our existential crisis to ourselves till it’s our time to kiss life goodbye!
Alright! That was opening rant. Now, moving on to substance… If you notice, the opening image sort of worked well here… It did open like a story… Like any story… If it gripped you (well, job well done, me!). If not (too bad… I failed, yet again…).
So that’s the power of narrative! It’s got the power to grip. It’s got the power to sway! It’s got the power to evoke… It’s got the power to drive… It’s a powerful device that cinema has used beautifully over the years to seduce people into buying into the grand delusions of our time, and then some. Politics has always used it; but thanks to the internet, most of us become aware of the art of political narratives…
The reason why I opened my rant with a tip of the hat to DD News is because I loved the way they did news… I’ve been a vehement anti-Congress person ever since I can remember… Now, make no mistake… When I say Congress, I essentially mean the culture of Congress and the obsession with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. I am alive and kicking and writing this post on a site called Medium (not an Indian site), sitting in the US within the confines of an American company, on my Dell Laptop… I quote these tiny little details because, while I do owe the congruence of all these factors in my life today to Congress, I’m extremely candid to admit that it’s not owed to Nehru-Gandhi family. In fact, it’s not even owed to the traditional, and still persistent Congress thought and philosophy. I owe this to PV Narasimha Rao — the Congress PM outside of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. A lot of people call Mr. Manmohan Singh the architect of liberal India. I don’t. He was the finance minister who simply followed the orders of his Prime Minister to allow for FDI in Indian economy back in 1991. India was in a deep crisis… Our credit rating had taken a severe blow… We even had to import food grains… Some of the key issues that were existing then, are prevailing even till day! It was Mr. Rao who understood the importance of opening up our economy for foreign investment… If India had to even stand a remote chance of surviving in a global economy that was witnessing the near death and disintegration of Soviet Union and Communism, it had to realign itself geo-politically, and re-calibrate its foreign policy, economic policy and trade policy. This was impressed upon the “erudite” Mr. Singh. And hence… 1991. But what’s the narrative in the mainstream media and the Congress supporters (both within and outside the party)? People who love to credit everything good that’s happened to India to Mr. Nehru and his progeny? That the brainwave for the liberalization was Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. Mr. Rao doesn’t even feature in any Congress narrative or the mainstream media narrative. To blindside Rao, the media heaps the praise on Congress as a collective entity. Not the man. The entity! How convenient! And that’s stuck with everyone that loves to sing the praises of Congress till they perhaps go to their graves singin’ and dancin’!
What’s that got to do with narrative, you ask? The above was all narrative… Pulled over your eyes, all these years…
Nehru was the architect of Modern India… India as a state! Another case of narrative. Flawed. Equally, if I may say so. Since, this is my blog, I am free to express anything that I want here without having to worry about “liberal” “trolls” who I truly despise! (I’ll come to the liberal bashing later).
Nehru was a sucker of Russia’s balls… He was a Fabian Socialist, and was in love with all things missionary and colonial… It gave him the air of superiority over the inferior Indians because he could speak sophisticated English… Drank Scotch whisky. Conducted himself with a sense of swagger and sophistication that one would get to see Rex Harrison's character in My Fair Lady strut around with… Or the level of sophistication of Captain Von Trapp in Sound of Music. Was he a socialist? Or was he a bastardized product of the remnants of decadent Socialism? A bourgeoisie elite who merely espoused socialism because it made a good political catchphrase and for the simple fact that dreams sell well in an impoverished nation… Using the talks of socialism in his political rhetoric, he could “shepherd” the weak through the proverbial “valley of darkness” (remember Ezekiel 25:17 from Pulp Fiction?). As a matter of fact, it’s no coincidence that I used the word “shepherd” there… Because Fabian Socialism finds its roots in Christian theology and some of its socialist ideas are around creation of a paternal/welfare state… Sort of similar to Christian theology… Like trust in Christ, and you’ll be taken care of… If Fabian Socialists were trying to reform social structures against the indoctrination of Christian theology, their approach to it was still essentially a derivative of Christian theology in basic spirit… Wonder if that made sense to the reader? If it didn’t then imagine such an exercise being done on a nation at large… That is likely to confuse the shit out of us… Furthermore, what India needed at the time of independence was not a Fabian Socialist who believed in democratic socialism and reforms where it didn’t deal with the uprooting of an existing system of that time and creation of a new one (with a native perspective and native insights!); but just go on tweaking the existing system till we can make it work… This was a wrong idea, fundamentally across all levels of the building blocks of modern Indian state… Because a state that’s made contact with self-rule and a chance to self-determine after years of foreign rule, should get a shot at creating its own system for its own peoples and cultures… Nehru failed. Big Time!
Then came economic policies… Right from 1947 to 1964… 17 years is a bloody big time to get the economic policies right… If you need context, just trace India’s economic development between 1991 and 2008… We grew by leaps and bounds… Even during the worst possible global economic meltdown witnessed by our generation (2008), India was a bright spot on the world economic stage…
Nehru, because of his socialist leanings, controlled and highly regulated the private industries and private capital formation efforts during the early years of India’s independence… A broad economic framework was created and executed whereby his ideas of creating a paternal/welfare state took firm roots… Capital formation, heavy industries, infrastructure sector — everything became state-controlled. In fact, state-run. While I do agree that there was a need for state intervention in terms of keeping the monopolistic tendencies of private sector in check, but that early in a country, right after independence, when the country’s private sector was hardly that mature to cannibalize the market, a little more relaxation in terms of rules, with monitoring mechanisms in place could’ve perhaps been the right path for India to take… Private sector was literally choked and was looked at with a lot of suspicion because of a strong socialist mindset… Extreme regulations were set in place, which increased the amount of red tape, and bureaucracy… The result — the emergence of sub-standard private sector, the overpowered bureaucracy, and lastly, a fumbling economy with loads of burden on the government from revenue generation perspective… Expenditure was more, and income less… Any rank economist will tell you that that’s not a good place to be in… Hell, even a housewife will tell you…
What happened as a result? Thanks again to his socialistic tendencies, Nehru also supervised the labor law formulation in the country which paved the way for unions to exist… The labor laws that stopped companies from hiring and firing people made it a nightmare for corporations to hire… And the problem of wages… coupled with lack of productivity… As it is corporations are stifled… They can’t grow… They can’t make huge profits… The dealing with bureaucracy was a nightmare… Lack of employment generation during these years also led to lack of tax collection by the government, and that meant 2 things — creation of an informal economy, and lack of tax compliance as a culture. Both are plagues that the government of the day still battling to eradicate.
But — Nehru — the architect of Modern India! The power of narrative, once again.
Foreign Policy — People tend to hail Nehru as a visionary. I suppose that within the democratic framework, I do have a right to disagree. I consider him to be a sentimentalist. And certainly neither a visionary, nor a pragmatist. He failed to see the rise of Capitalism, and its evolution into market economics… He certainly failed to see the death of Communism and Soviet Socialism. He based his entire foreign policy on the tenets of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) wherein he chose to not side or engage with US or the Western Bloc. The effects of it still reverberate through our body politic. Our geopolitics has suffered a lot as a result of continued legacy of Congress’ foreign policy that the party refused to shake up even after Nehru died. The strategic rise of China in South Asian circle of influence and the lack of seriousness with which India was viewed within the global circles of market-driven political clout is something that’s even more evident today. But of course, it could hardly matter to the liberals, for they have been conditioned by the mainstream media to ally with Russia and Islamic countries and address the aspect Pan-Islamia and it’s impact on securing Indian statehood (a poisonous relationship that has its roots in Gandhi’s Khilafat movement) as good for Indian state, and a relationship with US and Israel as a bad omen (a trait which has its roots in post-war binary world paranoia). Though, most liberals today aren’t even aware of such complex international political gamesmanship… And when you try to make sense of these things to them, they get very aggressive, and shoot you and your views down! Power of narrative.
The power of narrative seems to have gained a lot of momentum in the last 4 years, especially. Ours is a generation that follows politicians based on how they look, how they dress, how they talk, the sophistication, etc. If there’s one thing that JFK taught the world media and the world leaders, it’s this — the appearance matters a whole fucking lot in media management!
For a “liberal” generation that pays attention to media images of persons, a leader like Narendra Modi does stick out like a sore thumb. For he is none of the above personas like JFK, Obama, Rajiv Gandhi or even Nehru. But is he a visionary? In my opinion, YES! Obviously, time will have a verdict for him too for when he walks into his political sunset.
But look at the role of narratives in his case too… He is still a polarizing figure in Indian politics. That’s a given. Any leader who is powerful is polarizing. He can divide — because he has the power to disrupt existing systems — and he has the power to evoke diverse reactions for everything he says or does.
Having said that, notice the media setting agenda items each time there’s an election nearby. During Bihar — it was “award waapsi”, “Intolerance”, and “Dadri lynching”! Before UP, it was “gau raksha”. And now as 5 states are set to go to polls including the big Karnataka (only key state left with Congress), and Lok Sabha elections to follow suit in 2019, it’s the abhorrent rape of an 8 year old kid. By no means, the rape of a child is justified. It needs the swiftest justice and the stringest of legal reforms to follow suit. Having said that, if you focus on the narrative that’s being built by the media, the liberals, the intellectuals, and Brothel-wood, it’s once again vilification of Hindus and Hinduism. There’s an undercurrent of political narrative that’s running beneath this whole “cry for justice”. And the fact that Hindus have gotten emboldened during the current government’s rule, and that the democratic fiber of the country is being ripped apart. The Hindu maansikta is coming to surface. That the government condones the rape.
While it’s agreed that the folks who raped the little kid might be Hindus (can’t comment, because the investigation is still going on), does that make Hindus rapists? Guilt by association? If yes, then why is it also not right to call Muslims terrorists? Guilt by association logic! No, but our secular teachings teach us that terrorism has no religion unless it’s saffron terror. Similarly, criminal has no religion unless Hindu criminal. Victim has no religion unless Muslim victim.
And the timing and the narrative arcs used are phenomenally intricate. Polarize the country along the grounds of religion. Polarize the country around the personality cult, and ideological leanings… And then build narratives vilifying one sect — unabashedly, if I might add.
The reason, I choose to vent my angst at the “liberals” here is because they are not true liberals… They are followers. They are consumers. Brain-dead consumers. The narrative works on the creation of dramatic high points and low points, and emotional interjections. Something like this.
And it does exactly that. In India, unfortunately, the space of liberalism and liberal thought process has been monopolized by anti-right wing, anti-BJP groups, anti-conservative Hindus, and especially anti-Modi group. Liberal thought process has emerged to be the sole dominion and kingdom of left-leaning consumers.
A liberal is a person who has the ability to be clinical, objective, less emotional, more pragmatic, and one with an all-encompassing view of things so that the perspective and opinions are formed within — and not as a result of media show and tell circus.
There’re enough right-wing intellectuals and liberals too. And yes, it’s not binary. You can be conservative and liberal at the same time. It’s issue-based and time-based. Humans never lived and operated in binary. But binary is what media peddles… Because it serves their political leaning. After all, Marxism, Socialism, and their theological/philosophical roots — Abrahamic dogmatic religions viewed the world only through their binary lenses. So, if the binaries are broken down, they would become irrelevant. Now, the key question to ask here is — whose lives and careers — whose very notions of cushy existence is based on debasing of the current dispensation basis these narratives?
Think, liberals!
