Modi regime has made poll campaigns bigger than democracy

Neera Chandhoke

Political Scientist

DEMOCRACY is an overused but elusive concept in political vocabulary across the world. In recent times, the nature of democracy has been captured by a plethora of terms prefixed or affixed to it: authoritarian democracy, democratic populism, constitutional democracy and elective democracy.

The rise of authoritarian populism in several countries has generated a debate on the vexed issue of ‘the death of democracy’. Discontent with existing democracies centres round disquiet with the way a concept that has captured political imagination for long has been reduced to elections and led to the erosion of participative democracy.

This is clear in the phrase used by writers to describe the life and times of democracy: democracy as spectacle. Democracy has always been a carnival: mass meetings, orators commanding the political stage, flags and buntings flying in the wind, music, songs and, sometimes, dance, marigold garlands often larger than the wearer, and lavish distribution of goodies. The carnival centred around not only leaders, but also people intent on making their own history, howsoever badly they made it, through debate and contestation.

Today, the people are overshadowed by the charismatic populist leader talking down to them. The people have more or less disappeared. Left behind is the idea of an audience constituted by politics as spectacle.

Crowds may be larger, but they seem to be in thrall to the leader, marigold garlands have become bigger and slogans more adulatory, accompanied by rapturous applause and invocation of the leader. We witness mass hysteria taking over reasoned, calm and critical engagement with the state of politics in the country. We do not see engaged citizens, but cults uncritically repeating whatever the leader has told them in his infinite wisdom.

In India, the Modi regime has made election campaigns bigger than democracy, with bedecked cavalcades of luxury vehicles, showering of rose petals on the leader, splendid oratory and people standing by the roadside, chanting the PM’s name. No one can deny that when it comes to the political spectacle, Modi has few rivals, even if the recent election results in Karnataka have dented his charisma. The dent was, however, painted over by the grand visual imagery of the inaugural ceremony of the new Parliament.

Indians were glued to their television sets as the PM walked majestically to the Speaker’s chair, holding the Sengol aloft and leading a procession of priests. This was a spectacle worthy of a coronation. And who does not enjoy pomp and show? It takes us away from our humdrum lives, our constant worry about rising prices, our concern about livelihoods, our anxieties about the future of our children and our despair about the sexual abuse of young women wrestlers who have been demonstrating in New Delhi without an effective response by the rulers.

“Parliament is our temple of democracy,” declared PM Modi. Now, this phrase leads to profound disquiet because Parliament is not a temple where we devoutly worship gods and men. It is a forum for political engagement, for the cut and thrust of sharp wit, for the throwing of microphones and agenda papers in the air, for the crowding of members into the well of the House, with the hapless Speaker watching. Parliament is noisy and rumbustious. We love it because it is our Parliament. It is our site of engagement with high politics through our elected representatives in the Lok Sabha and through representatives of the constituent states of the Union of India in the Rajya Sabha. But we can only love it — in the democratic sense — if we perceive it as a people’s Parliament and not as the site of power sans the people; not as a spectacle but as the body that condenses popular sovereignty.

Deep-seated unease with politics as a spectacle is not new; it has dogged political commentaries since the inception of democracy. The concern has become palpable with the rise of authoritarian populism. As charismatic leaders dexterously wield their words the way trained swordsmen use their weapons, politics has become even more of a spectacle. Democracy is neither marked by a spirited debate between well-informed citizens nor by contestations with power. The process has proved depoliticising.

The notion of the spectacle portrayed through theatre or film immediately brings to mind a line drawn between the audience and the actors. Of course, audiences have thrown eggs at bad actors. But most of the time, a spectacle creates a web that a gifted actor weaves around the audience. Remember the powerful line in BR Chopra’s Waqt, when Raaj Kumar warns Chinoy Seth (played by Rehman) that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones? The phrase is well-worn, but in Raj Kumar’s rasping voice, it became an item for consumption, a part of everyday vocabulary.

The audience becomes a consumer; it is no longer a participant. This is not democratic, for, as French political theorist Jacques Ranciere suggests, the theatre is the stage of illusion that forbids action. ‘The people’ is an elusive category, but it captures the idea of vigorous and vibrant political involvement by ordinary men and women. When ‘we the people’ are transformed into an audience, we relate only to the actor on the political stage. 

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