Dr. John Mohan Razu
Let me start with a quote by Steve Jobs: Technology is nothing, what’s important is that you have a faith in people.” Politics of populism is taking control and influencing many in India, the United States, countries of Europe and other parts of the world. The rhetoric, narratives, slogans and promises the populists makes seemed to have attracted the electorates and made them to believe what they are saying is ‘true’ and ‘authentic’. Take for instance, PM Modi of India and Trump, the President of the United States, known for promising innumerable things to their respective citizens and electorates, but many remain empty rhetoric and mere words. As the years pass by, the electorates in India have now understood PM Modi’s rhetoric and narratives and started to read between the lines.
Those who are quite vocal openly talk about the non-performance of those who they voted in their own slangs or dialects and others in metaphoric ways, expressing their frustrations and anguish of those who they believed failed to translate what they “promised” in their election campaigns and manifesto. In recent times people irrespective of age use a term very frequently in their day-to-day parlance—‘bullshit’. What is it all about and what does it mean? Philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt, in 1986 wrote an article entitled On Bullshit, which was published as a book in 2005 and became a bestseller. The book beautifully articulates and expounds the theoretical construction and understanding of “bullshit”.
The author draws a clear line on the following: The key difference between a liar and a ‘bullshitter’ is that a liar knows the truth and aims to deceive. The ‘bullshitter’, while on the other, does not care about the truth. He is neither upholds the truth nor the false. Usually those who believe in truth focus their eyes on the truth and those who lie a lot vis-à-vis liars focus on distorting and destroying the facts with their lies. But those who belong to the category of ‘bullshit’ do not care about anything, except pursuing their interests and in the process want to wriggle out of the situation or get away with what they say. The ‘bullshitters’ are experts to gagging the truth and cleverly leave the scene by sowing all sorts of falsities and concoctions. This sort of people we find more in recent times.
When we hear the rhetoric and slogans such as ‘New India’, ‘America First’, ‘Wall Construction’, ’10 million jobs’, ‘Five lakh Rupees’, ‘Health Care’ and many more like these are uttered and promised. The ways these things are hyped in the visual and print media have been horrendous. The rhetoric and narratives are constructed in such ways that makes people believe and to lay hopes on them. Those who utter think that they could say anything and get out. They also assume that the citizens/electorates could be convinced by their soothing and electrifying narratives. In recent times we find such characters both in the domains of politics and religion. In the name of “revolutionary ideas” they come out with ludicrous things that pitch one section of people against the other and thus justify that these ideas would work without proper explanations and adequate preparedness. They keep playing on people’s impulses and make them to believe whatever they say.
The populists try to bury the facts and data under the carpets. For instance, as Ireena Vittal points out: “How the top 1 per cent earned 22 per cent of the national income, while the bottom half took home just 15 per cent (World Inequality Report, 2017)? Citizens agitating on the streets day-in and day-out reflect a different debate about inequality: the inequity in access to opportunity. In actual figures, about 450 million citizens below 18 years are yet to start their game. For them, ensuring access to the growing pie (of market, services and space) is the measure of inequality. But when most narratives state that a 10 per cent economic growth will magically cure all our ills, should India worry about inequality?” How can we talk of “New India” when we are grappling with a “serious” hunger problem?
India has been ranked 100th among 119 developing countries on the Global Hunger Index (GHI) Behind North Korea, Bangladesh and even the besieged Iraq, but ahead of Pakistan. India was ranked 97th in 2016. The country’s hunger problem is driven by high child malnutrition that underlines the need for stronger commitment to the social sector, the International Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said in its report. The report also added that India has the third highest score in all of Asia. One of the most disturbing statistics is that the total increase in wealth earned by the 67 crore Indians who make up the poorer half of the population was a mere 1% in 2016. This suggests wealth is not trickling down to the poorer half the population. To corroborate that data the Inclusive Development Index of the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranks India a lowly 62nd among 74 emerging economies, falling behind in equality such as Brazil, Russia, China and Pakistan.
“Make in India” is yet to take off. Labor intensive industries and job providing initiatives are yet to be launched. India’s political class including the BJP has a strong penchant for populism which has certain staples: opposition to land and labor reform, cosseting the public sector while enmeshing private business in red tape. This often masquerades as pro-poor and anti-elitist policymaking but is, in reality, pro-poverty and pro-inequality. India @ 69 as a Republic may have become “economic power” and “military might”, but fails in narrowing the inequality both economically and socially. Only then we can boast of inclusive character. Can India become inclusive in terms of development? Again the data shows that India was ranked 62nd among 74 emerging economies on the World Economic Forum’s Inclusive Development Index, a report recently released. Although India was ranked lower than Brazil, Russia, China and even Pakistan, it was among the 10 emerging economies with ‘advancing’ trend. However, the annual report noted that the incidence of poverty had declined in India over the past five years, but six out of 10 Indians still live on less than $3.30 per day. Republic India is embedded with an edict that every India is born equal having access to opportunity, space and services, failing which, citizens create ‘the other’ rejecting the system by voting in new political choices, if populism is the cause of the problems.
