#modifailedgod

By Agrata Kumari

Worship of authority is a known phenomenon. For thousands of years we have worshiped kings, monarchs, warlords, chieftains, lord of the tribe, high priests of religious sects and cults, dictators and now politicians. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is considered one such godly figure by his followers, believers and worshipers. In India, being considered as a god and worshiped is nothing new. Almost everything is holy and sacred around here. It's very common to find Indians worship the earth, wind, water, fire, animals, plants, trees, machinery, tools, insects, rodents, reptiles, human beings, actors, actresses, scientists, politicians, shit, urine, stones, white skin foreigners, uncalled guests, sports personalities, books, rivers, mountains and many other countless things. So worshiping of a politician shouldn't come as a surprise to us. It's true that it's not the business nor the intent of libertarian philosophy to forcefully prevent such practices as people are free to believe and do whatever they wish to do until and unless they are not harming any other human being on this planet. But the worshipers don't agree with libertarian philosophy of non aggression. Instead they consider that others have no right to ridicule their beliefs and practices. And if anyone question or criticize or ridicule their beliefs and practices they can violently suppress them. This is something we know to be true from our investigation of history. So if you wish to offend the worshiper ensure that either you are prepared to die or counter attack and survive if luck in your favor.

Now we all are aware of the pre-election hype that made Prime Minister Narendra win the elections with a comfortable majority. We are also aware that at present there are many voices questioning whether he is really that competent as the pre-election hype projected him to be. But this not the problem we should be concerned with. To understand the real problem we must ask “why do we end up worshiping fellow human beings and fall for propaganda which turn out to be a disaster?”. Why does this take place again and again in history of civilization? Is it something that these sly demagogue's do to us or are we inherently susceptible to demagoguery? If we are susceptible to demagoguery then how come not all of us fall prey to it? If the sly demagogue is capable of keeping us spell bound as per their pleasure and will then what makes us break this spell and wake up to actual facts?

The mass hysteria which demands for a strict regime to be put in place is not accidental. It is not a result of failures of free market and liberty. In fact it occurs due to reasons contrary to the ideas of free market and liberty. The previously ruling congress government had bureaucratic policies which gave rise to high amount of governmental corruption. It isn't the case that only the congress government had bureaucratic policies, in fact every government does but the congress government didn't do much to remove bureaucratic hurdles which were necessary. The government was incompetent at forming strategies to counter issues on a timely basis, due to weakness in its leadership. Everyone was aware that the Prime Minister in chair was a mere puppet of the elite congress family which controls the party. On top of that the congress government had to tackle with the “anti corruption movement” which gave it a bad name. The congress government, in its tenure applied the wrong monetary and fiscal policies. This created price instability and inflation. They had to curb spending by raising tax rates as well as the interest rates on loans.

On the other hand the BJP sorted out its leadership problems and in fighting. The Modi government of Gujarat had policies like giving low interest loans, cheap electricity, cheap land, tax holidays, etc to lure investments. Such policies in the short run creates the illusion of progress. The debt burden of the Gujarat State Government has increased where as the assets it had under its reserves were leased or sold to their crony industrialist friends. The accuracy and validity of data which the Gujarat government was presenting had been questioned by various agencies including the CAG. But we all know how the propaganda brigade played its part in convincing that Gujarat was doing far better than other states of India. Ground realities were however different. After three terms of Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat we do not find that India is flooded with goods manufactured in Gujarat. We do not find that bulk of innovations in various fields, and new entrepreneurs are rising up from Gujarat. These facts were true back then when Modi was projecting the so called development and even at present. However whenever such facts were presented to the majority, they simply refused to accept them or they simply ignored them. Why were so many people suffering from cognitive bias at that period of time?

We all in our lives experience reality and perceive it differently. Whenever we live together in a large complex modern society, the various phenomenons related to public affairs are not easily understood by us. However there are certain conclusions which we arrive at from our perceptions to make sense of our experiences of the social phenomenon which is commonly felt by us. These experiences which most people face serve as the foundation for their moods towards the future. The common experience and the conclusion derived by most people in relation to the Manmohan Singh's Congress government was that it's corrupt, incompetent of implementing policies, or even form the right public policies, its methods of governance are obsolete and that they are clueless on how to sort out the problems which we are facing. To achieve the political ends which they were seeking, the voters perceived an urgent need for a form of governance that counters lawlessness and arbitrary power which had set in due to the existing governance style and its operations. The masses believed that somehow the disorder in society was due to weakness in applying policies which is required to maintain law and order in society. The idea was that there must be a strict obedience towards laws and those who disregard government policies must be strictly dealt with. This idea of the masses forms a general consensus in approval for electing a group of individuals placed in position of power which has more authority than what the current form of power structure gives to the current rulers. These group of individuals were from the BJP led camp. Everything that Modi propaganda brigade promoted Modi to be was found matching with the conclusions that people drew from their experiences. Modi promised that he will end corruption, bring in strong reforms which replaces the existing order but protecting the culture and traditions of India at the same time, he will revive the economy, he would bring in laws which will reduce crime and lawlessness, that he will restore India's name which was tarnished under the Manmohan Singh's rule and many other such things. All of the right words which the masses wanted to hear and already had them in their own minds. When what Modi proposed and whatever conclusions the people had arrived at based on their experiences they had no further doubts that Modi is the right person to govern. This is where we get biased and rigid in our beliefs. It's not difficult for the power seeking group of individuals to speculate what the general mood of public is. Fortunately for Modi, his probable strong opposition contending political party, Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party, made a few blunders and lost the confidence of the voters. All of these factors contributed to boost Modi's image and sweep the elections in his favor.

The story post election however is entirely different for the voters. Modi did start off with a few policies like restructuring of LPG subsidies, urging everyone to open a bank account and removing certain banking regulatory norms to make it easier, spreading awareness towards the importance of hygiene and cleanliness, inviting industrialists to manufacture goods in India, and initiating the process of encouraging the use of Internet by allowing cronies and lobbyist to set up an Internet infrastructure that provides Internet access for free across the country. The voters however had different expectations. They expected that there will be drop in prices and the economy will revive - that the Modi government will stabilize the price fluctuations - that there will be a sense of security and safety of their life, liberty and property - that there will be drop in crime rates - that the governmental corruption will fall - that the ease of doing business will get better - that they will get a huge stock pile of money from the booty which the government promised to confiscate from the accounts of black marketers, etc.

In contrast the policies of the government as usual didn't yield any immediate benefits. Nor it seems that there will be any long term benefits as well. Most of these policies were again simply propaganda of sorts. Almost all governmental policies fails or are met after spending a great deal of resources which can be termed as waste. Even the sense of order and security somehow diluted. Typically the elected government has to falsely assure that they won't be harming their oppositions. In the back of their minds they are aware that they enjoy the ideological support of the majority and the present situation is in their favor. This allows the government to cunningly introduce laws even if such laws are unjust with respect to the standards of rights and wrongs. These laws are presented as if they must be passively accepted by all even if they are reluctant to do so. The claim behind passing such laws is that these laws are directed to transform and cleanse men into obedient subjects of law and eliminate lawlessness. These laws are claimed to be good for all. The totalitarian government justifies its actions of using force to implement such policies as necessary in order to achieve the orderly better society.

The totalitarian government's laws and policies are not based on reasoning but rather on mass appeal. This is an inherent essence of positive laws in contrast to natural laws. This breaks the notion of individual consent towards such laws, as the laws which the totalitarian government is passing is towards higher justice, more noble and betterment of people or at least in interest of the nation. This now creates a gap between actual justice and the new legal order. The meaning of law itself changes under such regimes.

Intellectuals who work for the government and intellectuals who are biased supporters, sanction such actions of the totalitarian government as necessary for changing the failed structure of previous forms of governance. Generally such voices of the intellectuals express the mood of the majority and also plays the role of molding public opinion to a great extent. Most of these intellectuals claims are pretense of science and align with the ideologies which has gripped the masses. This provides these intellectuals support for their claims and also helps in crushing any doubts which are raised against their theories. Banning of instant noodles, pornography, hoarding of essential items during shortages, consumption of meat, etc are policies which on their face appear to be harmless.

It is true that under totalitarian regimes certain types of crimes are reduced. The terror which is the result of the totalitarian regimes propaganda serves to an extent as a form of deterrence. On the other hand this terror is used in suppression of the opposition as well as resistive forces against totalitarians. For example a totalitarian regime might successfully reduce crimes like non ideological murders but there will be an increase in killings due to riots and killing intended towards suppression of the oppositions of the totalitarian regime and for spreading a sense of fear.

The notion of guilt and innocence is lost in the supporters of the regime as they believe that no matter how cruel their actions are; they are for the higher good. That their actions are towards betterment of the community, nation etc. The opposition to their actions is mere shortsightedness or are coming from those who are with evil intentions. This very ideological belief breaks down communication between individuals making them incapable of having any rational dialogue in managing public affairs. The ones who question the ideology are considered as traitors - who doubt the ideology which binds the masses and that these individuals do not fit into the movement of the masses. This terror of going against the masses and becoming an outcast eliminates the possibility of individual freedom. Everyone is aware that anyone who interferes with their plans will be crushed. There are no guiding principles for human behavior as law itself has been altered in favor of the movement.

Ideologies are never concerned with well being and betterment of society. They are concerned with becoming and perishing, with their rising and the fall of the existing structure, of destroying the current culture and have a new culture in its place, etc. Remember the very origin of these moments were based on destroying the existing, which is evil; and constructing the new, which is good. There was never any scientific exploration involved as to why and which parts of the existing structure must be uprooted and what must be preserved. The idea of race, culture, progress, nationalism, religion etc are known to be politically crowd puller. Most ideologies revolve around these elements. Ideology demands that history and reason must be disregarded as they can teach nothing new but interfere in their plans. Let us not forget that historians not just provide us with historical facts but also infuse their interpretation along with the facts to distort history for us. The totalitarian regime attacks not the value judgments of the historians but rejects entire history itself. Similarly by making non sequitur and ad hominem attacks, they disregard works of other sciences. Once this is achieved the totalitarian regime can use its propaganda brigade to promote the ideological ideas they want. It is impossible to argue or convince or even show the masses who are presently strong believers in fiction rather than facts. Such voices of reason and highlighting of actual facts have few takers. Even the one who listens, accepts and agrees with these facts won't be willing to act rationally and act contrary to the majority.