Missing political education

Avijit Pathak

Sociologist

Are we destined to equate democracy solely with the ritualisation of periodic elections? Or, for that matter, is it that we are never tired of congratulating ourselves by saying that as voters, we apply our free will, exercise our voting rights intelligently and responsibly, and choose our representatives? And especially after the recent elections in five states, this narrative of ‘popular mandate’ or ‘people’s power’ has acquired added significance.

As the market colonises every sphere of life, politics too is sold through all sorts of advertisements and imageries.

However, we should acquire the courage to ask some uncomfortable questions. For instance, if as voters, we are truly alert and endowed with the power of free will, why is it that we continue to reproduce a decadent political culture? Smell this decadence as you see the cult of narcissism in the personality-centric politics. It seems to be everywhere. Can you imagine the BJP without the cult of Modi? Is there anybody in the Trinamool Congress who does not begin his day by praising Mamata Banerjee for everything? Arvind Kejriwal is on every billboard that reminds you of the achievement of the Delhi government. And who can dare to imagine the BSP without the whims and desires of Mayawati? This personality cult, or the culture of narcissism is inherently against the spirit of democracy. Are we then destined to move from one mode of narcissism to another?

Smell this decadence in the normalisation of opportunism and instrumental reasoning in politics. Are we getting used to the phenomenon called defection — the way IPL cricketers are auctioned, and change their sides? Yesterday’s Congress MLA becomes today’s Modi bhakt; or, yesterday’s BJP leader becomes today’s Mamata worshipper! As MLAs or MPs are bought and sold, and every political party encourages this trade with intense enthusiasm, we see the massive devaluation of political principles. Is it, therefore, surprising that nearly 50 per cent of MPs in the Lok Sabha have criminal records? What else can you expect from them except ethical dumbness and intellectual impoverishment? As voters, are we then giving our consent to this decadence?

Yes, we must ask ourselves: Do we really think creatively and critically while we exercise our voting rights? We should not forget that in the age of media simulations and huge propaganda machinery, it is not always easy to distinguish the real from the hyper-real, or the ground reality from the inflated claims of achievement by a party or a government. As the market colonises every sphere of life, politics too is sold, the way consumable products are sold through all sorts of advertisements and imageries. Yes, Modi is a ‘brand’; and this ‘brand’ has to be sold by an industry that would make us believe that he is almost like an avatar with magical qualities. The ‘nationalist’ Modi, the ‘streetfighter’ Mamata, the aam aadmi Kejriwal, or the ‘subaltern’ Mayawati — these brands are in constant circulation with their own mythologies. In the age of ‘brand consciousness’, is it really possible to choose freely and independently? As voters, are we really sovereign subjects, or mere consumers silenced by the mythology of the ‘brand’? Otherwise, how does one explain the ‘Modi magic’ in Uttar Pradesh, despite the barbarism associated with Unnao, Hathras and Lakhimpur Kheri?

It is impossible to deny the fact that our visions often get blurred because of our obsessive preoccupation with caste and religion, or ‘Mandal’ and ‘Mandir’. Well, this time the UP election results might give the impression that the totalitarian discourse of hyper-nationalism in the BJP-RSS-centric Hindutva has undermined the fragmentation of the Akhilesh Yadav or Mayawati-centric caste politics. The problem with this sort of political behaviour is that we often lose our critical faculty. We fail to ask a question like this: Is the ‘Hindu messiah’ I am voting for working for me, or serving the interests of the Adani-Ambani empire? Or, for that matter, is there any guarantee that the bahujan leader I am voting for is not corrupt and morally bankrupt? Are we then taken for granted by these politicians who stimulate our caste or religious identities for their own greed?

It is also important to enquire whether we no longer expect the politics of radical social transformation, and are lured by diverse packages of instant gratification — say, the act of distributing smartphones and bicycles to schoolchildren, depositing a token amount in the bank accounts of widows and farmers, or initiating a free pilgrimage scheme for senior citizens. Be it Mamata’s ‘Lakshmi Bhandar Scheme’ for providing financial assistance to poor women, or Yogi Adityanath’s ‘free ration scheme’ for the poor — this sort of ‘welfarism’, despite its immediate appeal, remains altogether indifferent to the structural questions relating to social hierarchy and uneven distribution of resources. Even the ‘alternative’ Aam Aadmi Party is not free from this sort of piecemeal social engineering. While it has worked on school education and mohalla clinics, one really doesn’t know the party’s ideological position relating to, say, the discourse of militant nationalism. Instead, as its Delhi mode of governance indicates, it is over-enthusiastic about diverse packages of deshbhakti. Despite its appeal to the sanitised urban middle class, it ought to realise that a truly transformative politics needs to have a long-term vision relating to economy, social and cultural formation, development and environment.

Is it then the trap of the prevalent form of electoral politics — the ultimate tragedy of ‘representative democracy’, or the rationale of choosing the ‘lesser evil’? Is it possible for critical pedagogues and organic intellectuals to rediscover the likes of Gandhi and Marx, spread the liberating power of a new practice of political education, and inspire people to resist the prevalent decadence?

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