By Don Aguiar
Mumbai: Some political observers have squarely put the present failure of successfully and effectively handling the pandemic to our collective responsibility. We ourselves have invited the trouble, they feel. The Electorate Is Least Worried – We Are Far Advanced into Blind Following. We have been walking blind-folded for quite a while, yielding submissively to a self-legitimating political order. What has shocked them is that the electorate in many places seem least bothered about the one-sided policies of the Ruling Regime.
Average voters are happy enough with the freebies they get, the middle class with the new openings promised, the top elite with economic domination round the corner, and the Sangh Parivar with the Hindutva agenda well advanced. Our government is least concerned about developing a consistent and responsible approach to the problems and possibilities of the national economy or healthy relationships with neighboring countries. Lost in self-importance, they have alienated every neighbor around.
All Value Systems Vanish. All intellectuals who used to be concerned about the future of the nation and our society are silenced, marginalized or eliminated. Now there remain among the voters only interest groups that are ready to lend their support to the highest bidder. They are least worried about the destiny of the nation.
Such men constitute the manpower for the present regime. They merely sought to plunder India as they kept looking for better pastures. That is the level of their nationalism.
Many will question how many Indians can support both Modi-manpower and non Modi-manpower at the same time, calling such people complicated personalities. Given that those are two absolutely opposite sides etched in history. But come to think of it, these are not really complicated people at all.
These are the people who love being on the side of the Oppressor, irrespective of who the oppressor is. It, perhaps, gives their inferiority complex a sense of achievement that leeches on the flexing of muscles, by the mighty against the weak. It gives them a unique happiness in the distress of others, what I call as “Malicious satisfaction.”
Is mass suffering, inflicted by policy design or emerging as a policy by-product, an integral part of the nation’s leader regime’s view of national power and national revival? Can suffering and strength be viewed as mirror images of each other? Surprising as it may seem, this paradoxical question has a long history in politics.
If you go back in History, you will see this mind-set fostering on the side-lines of humanity every time.
When the Mughals had invaded India, these people joined hands with them and fought against those residents who resisted. The armies of the Mughals were not all Muslims, you know.
When the British came steamrolling across India, these people sought employment under the Queen. The officers might have been British, but the hands that shot the bullets at innocent people were not all British.
It was in their interest to cosy up to the oppressor and the harassment that they meted out to the weak. That couldn’t have been merely “following orders.”
Take up the incidents closer to today.
During demonetization, it was never about black money for these people. “Ab uska black money pakda jaayega (His black money will be caught now),” that was their sole point of contention, the doom of others.
They didn’t even care much about the pandemic taking lives in the first wave. It was the poor people dying. These people, even in lockdowns, were posting pictures on Instagram of how they were partying on their terraces.
When the migrant workers walked back, they didn’t care. In fact they were busy hailing the Oppressors of what a fabulous job they were doing.
It is “Malicious satisfaction,” pure and simple. They have always cheered for the Oppressor until the point it starts affecting them personally.
Modi-manpower also does not have the racial privilege of Trump. While the virus in the US killed the minorities disproportionately, the virus in India is not making a distinction between Hindus and Muslims.
And that’s what’s happening now.
The pandemic has hit home. Their own are dying now. They are running for aid along with everyone else. Suddenly they are experiencing what it feels like to be helpless, like the oppressed who they were jeering at not that long ago.
But trust me, the moment they feel they are safe, they will be back to supporting the oppressor, whoever it will be at that time and laughing at other people’s miseries. That’s how their psyche is built.
If these people ever witnessed a fight between Jack and the Giant, they would have cheered the Giant as he kicks Jack’s butt – till Jack takes him down.
And that’s when they will start sending out those messages of “But let’s be positive”
Taking pleasure in the plight of others leaves you completely incompetent to deal with the same plight when it befalls you. Incompetent and Alone. Doesn’t the present regime feel ashamed that a government democratically elected by the citizens of the country is being directed by Judiciary on day to day affairs of its governance almost every day?
In fact now it is going one step ahead and appointing its own team to audit the government’s work. Has the prime minister vanished? The Supreme Court has no alternative but to take the prime minister’s job of setting up oxygen distribution protocol.
India has never been so sick; it has never been so much in danger of new disease.
But a bird’s eye view is needed to look at India, all over, as one secular unit. Our problems have brought us to a situation where either we will have to suffer silently or we will have to transform the government, their old traditions, and their conditioning. Those conditioning and educational systems along with the religion that the government has followed up to now, have contributed to this crisis.
This new disease problem in India is the ultimate outcome of all our cultures, all our philosophies, and our religion. They all have contributed to it – in strange ways, because nobody ever thought of the whole nation including the Prime Minister and his cabinet; everybody including the Prime Minister and his cabinet, was looking at a small piece (their own interest), not bothering about the whole nation.
So, today, the world is horrified by what they see of India and deeply dismayed. The braggadocio has been stripped aside. The exposed reality is ugly and impossible to hide.
Finally, there’s also how we view ourselves. Our confidence in being special seems to have disappeared. This is not the exclusiveness we sought. Television and social media have brought home a different truth. We’ve been reduced to a nation that’s more than frightened, we’re in panic.
The dream of achieving India’s inevitable and irresistible destiny has metamorphosed into a nightmare where we know our own incompetence and irresponsibility is what haunts us.
And that’s when we start sending out messages “But let’s be positive”…..