Noted analysts Ramchandra Guha and the ‘Clash of civilizations’ famed writer Samuel Huntington, while taking on the same issue of exploring the core of nationality and cultural unification of human beings in a national territory, in their respective books ‘India after Gandhi’ and ‘Who are We?’ had have confronted a common problem of making people of India and that of United States, concerted under any cultural identity what we may commonly call ‘nationality’. All heavy vehicles since 1992 are shown having imprinted common slogans “India is Great”, “Mera Bharat Mahan” being tagged with other equally important statutory slogans like “Horn Maro”, “Blow Horn”, “Use Dipper at Midnight”, sketched monsters, “National Permit”, “Goods Carriage” and non-statutory slogans like “Phir Milenge”, “Buri Nazarwale Tera Muh Kala” and many such vernacular slogans addressing the same amount of audience. All these probably express a statutory gratitude to our nationhood, and nationality and, of course, also public penance for not having those patriotic slogans in a stipulated place as accorded by the respective govt. order. Not only those vehicles, but almost all spaces so far have always been occupied by plenty of slogans and achievements or demands often appear as public opinion. These inseparably include political slogans also, though political groups, platforms or parties express their own demands making those tagged along with their ideologies that get continuous promotion from ceaseless emergence of various issues in a determinate regional and political context.
Be even the introductory paragraph an obnoxious one or not, time has come to reconcile both traditional notions that come into the common understanding of people’s alienation from ‘politics’ and of course from their individual political stance and identity. For not being just a superficial, notional, ideal metaconcept, common people ideationally away from all [power] structural understandings, have started en-disillusioning themselves with any structural development throughout the world. Some theorists, including some oriental postmodernists, have trivialized such disenchantment or better to say dissociation, as depoliticization. This sort of no-dialectical pluralist analysis works for both traditional power structure or power establishment and massive escalation of deprivation of common people in contrast. Also the depoliticization concept justifies the growing de-link between establishment and the common mass. The above analysis primarily shows the vast distinction between the common individual people and the govt. order to establish “India is Great”- the mere slogan or metanarrative, though common people have enough understanding with their own Indian identity and love for the motherland. But with this slogan ordered to be imprinted in vehicles or any other public places, the success as determined by the govt. was to establish a fancied but a cultural link with the mass, just mass. Why it is fancied, because unless its commercial exchange or control exchange nothing is to resolve as success of such order or popular effort [govt. officials often think that such initiative would certainly enhance people’s patriotic psyche]. But people of India since its political independence or the transfer of power, have thus largely been deprived of any authentic correspondence to the establishments and been contrarily burdened with so many cosmetic orders, directives and control that have largely resulted in severe impoverishment, malnutrition, and a vicious circle of all round underdevelopment.
Despite such underdevelopment in economic, political, and social stretches of common lives, India largely being pressurized earlier by the power blocs in the cold war period and later by the Global power-agenda of economic and cultural liberalization, had taken a huge stride to accept all round liberalization in its every internal imperatives for coming out of vicious circle of deprivation and underdevelopment. However after passage of two decades of globalized reform process, it is now clear that all such liberalized initiatives popularly known ‘market-economy’ are of no help to primary education, primary health, nutrition and many other basic imperatives. Like our ex-colonial past common mass still remain away from mainstream economic and social development even in the contemporary era of all-round economic and cultural liberalization. So an individual is not only becoming a victim of underdevelopment, but remains an eternal passive receiver of active state cooperation-programmes and a pseudo-active receiver of commercially motivated media contents: mega soap operas, various reality-shows etc.
Some theorists consider in Indian context that state initiatives in the post globalization era more effective than market driven strategies. Here appears a conceptual jolt occurring every time in every context of discussion. In this subcontinent modernity appears to be in three clear dynastic phases: British colony, single party rule in post independence for more than four long decades, and a sudden importation of ‘transcorporate’ liberalizing principles largely substituting state initiatives and holdings not in terms of adjustment but full length reforms. Now in these three phases, certain problems can be drawn out that can claim the real problem (jolt) of the above continuity of modernist progression.
• Continuity elements covering the whole post independent scenario are the political statements and metanarratives: Congress is still winning the elections with their once popular dynastic formulation; not political alternative could ever establish their own political ideology in the alternative coalitions; Marxists on the other hand could establish themselves a responsible opposition and even supporter of the government to a large extent [as one can remember Manmohan Singh had recognized ‘fruitful’ alliance with the left parties in the previous government that completed its full five year term] and most ever respected critical force for the benefits of the country; regional and local political forces have already established themselves as mere opportunist hankering power fruits whenever, wherever and however is possible; here a central cabinet minister may even continue after not having seen his/her chair at Delhi office for months. Finally the religious forces after two decades of their resurgence have failed to overcome the popular religious plurality even in the Hindu community. Other bourgeois, peti-bourgeois parties have easily highjacked their pseudo religious, pseudo-communitarianist political role. So who is then going to rule the country? The icon-dynasty. Please, don’t affix Congress only, even though you perhaps have no other alternative dynastic formulation also. Thus political statements and metanarratives nowadays rule the country’s political scenario in between bourgeoisie and icon-dynasty.
• Second is the developmental problem where economic, social, administrative metanarratives create such jolts. Please do not misunderstand while reading that anything ‘ideal’ is required abolishing economic, social and administrative systems. This problem can also be identified as an institutional problem that keeps common mass away from its functioning. Economic studies, social studies backed by empowered [financially and politically] public institutional frames or structures usually have done so many statistical figuration [research] works corresponding to many, all possible as they accord, developmental facets of life that have often been further categorized into some very powerful metanarratives favourable to those institutions or the central authority, here is the government: per capita income is…; country’s growth rate reaches the mark of…; GDP rate is…; development quotient means: poverty alleviation, curbing inflation rate down to a very low level, employment generation, social security, civic amenities etc.; above the poverty line; below the poverty line; and many other statutory slogans or metanarratives always being tagged with every state initiative. More than 27% of India’s whole population stay in the ‘below poverty line’ status, so others are in the bang oppositional status i.e. ‘above the poverty line’: is it a solution or an empowered metanarrative that primarily keeps administration and later government away from its publics. What is required henceforth? A management oriented public relation strategy that would bridge the gap in totality and enrich the knowledge-gap of the audience in particular. Thus Indian common people always live in between two metanarratives that make them always a fruitless critical to the system in their mundane exercises and very loyal at the same time to the system.
• Third problem is the mediation problem or the problem with the mass production of media contents. Media in India since independence had have conducted a same institutional role in terms of the owner’s agenda and supervisory role to the audience, common mass. The onus of media ownership has sometimes been drafted solely on the government and sometimes some local industrious individuals or companies or publication houses, which nowadays has further been shifted to many other large global corporations and media conglomerates. But whatever be the change of ownership morphology, ‘mass production of content’ agenda continues to be ceaselessly producing metanarratives that create a fictional, hyperreal conception of life subtly without struggle and some non-commercial mundane exercises. All these have been coming out through mega soap operas, reality-show melodrama, ruthless institutionally biased news and double ruthless counter-news toward any form of mendacious and manipulative: a ‘movie-camera’ can even be politically justified as a machine gun in a news-narrative beyond what the “who” says so. Thus a soap-signifier (a story line) produces thousand signifieds (episodes) for the mass creating an endless fragmentation of life. A display (roadside hoardings and other display materials) signifier keeps the targeted audience ‘updated’ with latest information and the total audience (including those targets) mesmerized with the spectacle. Would you like to find good or bad in it? Shopping malls, amusement parks, water resorts of post millennium era appear as a totalitarian place for mass consumption and make every corner of it spectacularly a post-sellable package. Media have made us a victim, product or outcome of spectacle mutating every sign of life pattern either to make it a product or oblivious. Media devour all traditional spaces of an individual even a society. I am afraid of mentioning the positive role of media; I know many of these and the rest, you know, my reader !! So please do not judge the above analyses binarily, between ‘yes and no’; ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
• Fourth problem is the social problem where our ‘traditional’ is mostly of a religious in nature, and rest of it is ‘colonial’. In between these two structures Indian people had have inherited hardly any time and space to reassess to be radically critical unless some beyond-born icons of nineteenth and twentieth century had shown us some ways of life. In this context I am not arguing with the major developments of science and humanities in ancient India. But the most influential social evolutionary discourse in India was and is still largely dominated by conventional strictures and some very minor insertions of, often historically and deliberately made quite unimportant or sectarian or stray events, local revolutionary struggles of earlier days. So in social context, was or is there any ‘Indian’ social there? Indian ‘social’ is largely divided into so many subcultural identities followed by some newer numbers in addition. Primarily ethnic identity, linguistic identity, religious identity and subaltern identity are still the major identities of several organ-states of India. ‘Conventions’ and millions socio-religious rituals have bitterly fragmented the ‘social’ into billions of sub-social identities which would probably never be merged into any singularity nor should it be. Still in India never was an effort to recognize all such identities except some scheduled efforts to organize some social categories like some castes, ethnicities, ex-service men, etc. On the other hand there is always a powerful effort to launch a metanarrative to re-create a one-dimensional social like “Mera Bharat Mahan”. Marxist ‘class’ identity could have there been a most successful alternative, a “political”. But still Indian people are hardly prepared or informed or motivated to accept that as a political identity to make a perfect “Indian” and otherwise to a large extent confused toward collateral fragmentations of “Class”. Furthermore in the post globalized era of postconsumerism, traditional class (political) identities have often been necessarily shifted rather fragmented to further cultural (also political) identities to philosophize the ‘political’ and becomes typically a ‘hard task’ for common mass to do so. So quite naturally common people have become swayed away with all mediated contents and packages where the meaning of a “political” loses its authenticity. So with all class divisions and ethno-cultural identities, apartheid problems, a pseudo classlessness phenomenon often becomes visible or cognizable in India. Thus “Mera Bharat Mahan” and ‘bride wanted’ classifieds in every day newspapers have always been pronounced at a time with no interval. Naturally in contrast, class oppression, cultural degradation, cultural oppression, caste hierarchy, severe oppression against women specially ‘working class women’ have become a no-news today though are taking lots of life everyday. Statisticians have done their job in figures but yet to provide any final verdict. But no ‘importance’ quotient is left for this to provide because so many statues of our national leaderships still yet to be launched.
• Fifth problem is a transcorporate neoliberal problem that links all other problems to a new jolt keeping the common deprived mass completely thrown out of a yuppified luxury and neo-capitalist leviathan of power structure. With the opening up of Indian economy complying with the neoliberal free trade agenda of the transnational economic and corporate institutions [please read IMF, World Bank], the immediate consequence was a growth of severe disenchantment between people of power centres and the peripheries beyond class awareness. Not only such disenchantment had enfeebled the class awareness but it caused a severe discontent among common mass. Almost everywhere in India, people of peripheries started believing the unimaginable growth of the power centres was natural and something like an obvious outcome of global development that might have a “trickle down effect” to the peripheries. So the growth and development of NEW Hyderabad, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Noida was a smooth journey for the transnational finance capital to their favourable SEZ destinations. This phenomenon, however, had lasted a decade or more, when severe oppression against the industrial labourers, deprivation of agricultural farmers had gone below the news-belt. Thousands of farmers, industrial labourers committed suicide and ousted from the power-centres in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh in the whole nineties and early three-four years of the next millennium.
• Sixth problem is the outburst of a complete opportunist ‘disintegration movement’ when a handful number of people of some parts of India specially in some areas of West Bengal not even being hesitant at all to accept the leadership of opportunist regional power-mongers and insurgent political groups. A sense of disintegration has grown which has led to a new development of land movement of the land-owners specially in West Bengal. It is to be carefully noted that these land-owners have had a common genealogy of being mostly originated from the ‘land reform movement’ of West Bengal and few are from the natural decline of big Zamindars with the course of democracy down to sophisticated bourgeois identity. The slogan that has gained primacy is that “no land for the industry houses”, has not only denounced the natural course of industrial development but also the long-unfulfilled notion of agriculture-industry balance. In Singur, Tata motors were barred from setting up a traditional industrial body that could have generated thousands of direct and indirect employment. Both willingness and unwillingness of farmers have not been granted as the freedom of choice by those isomorphic political opportunists. So the end result is the denial of native industrial bodies at the cost of the imminent growth of employment for the common mass. Furthermore the whole protest was never a land-reform movement or something like that. Almost all sharecroppers and more than 90% of the land owners were willing to transfer their land in exchange of an unprecedented amount of compensation and suitable jobs in core or ancillary sector. Consequently people or common mass in such contexts are thrown away not only from their choice to live their own life but also from right to be living alive, even be it a living away from the power pockets or be it a killing of common people everyday in different states of Indian subcontinent. Common mass had hardly have the opportunity to exert individual choice to gain or lose from his land. And the extant reality is the severe blockade in the process of industrialization that would otherwise have provided enough employment opportunity that includes ancillary spaces also.
• Seventh problem is an outright extreme political problem that has already taken thousands of life and destroyed a large chunk of people’s property. This ultimate terror initiative of a handful amount of people in the name of ‘revolution’ has been a biggest threat to the people’s birth right of being ‘political’, and ‘social’. Though not what our democracy gives this problem a ‘term’, common individuated mass is under severe threat in recent days. This is quite beyond all analyses because people are completely denied of having a least amount of freedom anyway.
Therefore under many such metanarratives people of India are gradually being alienated not really in terms of development but in a trickle-down illusion that lets common mass think for a better tomorrow of at least his/her own choice to live a least amount of own life. Every state and every political alternative should ensure this freedom of opportunity instead of publishing such illusive and powerful metanarratives.
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