A homeless man sleeps on a pavement in New Delhi. Photo: Mansi Thapliyal/Reuters
“Yes, we can!’ ‘Yes, we will do!’
Cried Narendra Modi emphatically to a big crowd of cheering BJP-supporters at a programme in Hyderabad on Sunday, 11th August.
Online debates raged on whether he had copied Obama’s ‘Yes, we can!’; meanwhile, the dedicated ‘India needs Modi’ internet troll-army have unearthed old video evidence to show that Modi had, in fact, used this chant in 2004, way before the original poster boy of ‘motivational quote your way to election victory’ used it in the USA.
A few days back, Mr. Rahul Gandhi expressed his ‘opinion’ on poverty: “Poverty is just a state of mind. If one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome poverty,” he said. Well-wishers of Rahul G pointed out that his statement had been misrepresented in the media. What he said instead was, “poverty comprises two elements: poverty of thought and poverty in material conditions, the latter manifesting in food, money, education and so on.” No prizes for guessing that ‘poverty of thought’ is, by large, possessed by the materially poor. Of course, motivational speech against poverty gains much value coming from a man whose only encounter with struggle occurs while deciding when exactly he would like to become India’s Prime Minister. The Gandhi-Nehru family is part of the ‘elitest of the elite’ in India since many generations because they could gain enough self-confidence not to be poor. Caste had nothing to do with their social and political position, none at all. Inherited and acquired property, and all the social capital that flows from it, had nothing to do with their self-confidence.
I could not help thinking how the top contenders for leading this country into further dehumanized poverty, desperation and communalism for the next 5 years, borrow their precious words from self-help motivational guide books. In a country where such books have been forever the sole bestsellers, it is a smart move to sound like self-help and motivational quotes. That would conveniently excuse those in the structures of power from any responsibility for the condition that people of the country are in, as you can blame it on their unwillingness to come out of their misery. Poor have remained poor even sixty-five years after 1947 because, well, they just could not get over their poor state of mind.
The bestsellers in India mostly go by names like Who Moved My Cheese, The Success Principles(TM): How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, You Can Win, Discover the Diamond in You, and so on. While Modi seems to be influenced by Shiv Khera’s bestselling hit among anti-reservationists, You can Win, Rahul Baba seems to be asking the poor Indians to overcome the untruth called poverty by discovering the diamond in themselves. The people, who are asked by the Planning Commission to survive at 33 rupees a day, can overcome poverty by shedding their poverty of mind and taking charge of their lives. Vicharon ki gareebi, Rahul Baba said.
The ‘optimism’ that the likes of Modi and Rahul Gandhi want to ride to power on is coldly dark and depressing. Justice is never based on optimism in an unjust society. They know it well, and that is the reason they resort to bright speeches littered with motivational words.
I do not have any problem with optimism or with motivation. Much of the world needs constant doses of both to keep on going in the atmosphere of constant competitiveness, alienation and individualism. But the irony is that it is precisely those who are responsible for these cutthroat conditions that come up with shortcut methods for individuals to succeed, with their promise of “the power of positive thinking”. It is not a surprise that the corporate world is the biggest consumer and producer of such literature. Capitalism creates legitimacy by portraying stories of individual victories against odds. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Dhirubhai Ambani and Ratan Tata becoming the mass market-generated icons – erasing the reality of the structural push from a favourable establishment they inevitably must have received on their way to “success”, or the number of individuals or communities they must have trampled to reach there. We are told that the system under the market gives everyone equal opportunities, and it is incumbent on the individual to stand up and use those opportunities, fight the odds and climb the ladder of success. If you can’t, then too bad! It is because you did not try enough. Indeed, Rahul G too asks the poor Indians to individually overcome poverty by the power of individual will, not by the removal or undermining the structural causes for it for which his party and family share the responsibility. Such ideas are also conveniently peddled by the booming NGO industry which wants to change the world and remove poverty through individual actions, goodwill and charity.
It seems borderline criminal, not just ironic and comical, when those responsible for spreading massive dejection, ostracization, structural poverty, discrimination and dehumanization in society talk of optimism and self-will as a means to overcome adverse conditions.
It is no wonder then that the corporate-wooing Modi with hands, legs and tongue soaked in blood raises the slogan that he did. The phraseology is what most attracts the young, English-speaking urban crowd of Shining India that carry his PR machine on their shoulders. The man runs what P. Sainath called “the biggest public relations con job of our time,” spending hundreds of crores on it while sixty-seven percent of rural households in Gujarat have no access to toilets.
Not all the young and urban ones fall for it though. When Modi came to Delhi University’s Shri Ram College of Commerce on February 6 this year, invited purportedly by the college union, there were hundreds of students outside the college gates opposing his entry into the university. It was a rare moment when students of an otherwise indifferent university came out in spontaneous protest, braved water cannons and lathi-charge, as well as the goons of the BJP’s student and teachers wings. Inside the hall though, a fawning college administration and students-union led Modi unleash his well-planned PR act. Apart from telling the students that anything found anywhere in the world, including milk, bhindi, metro coaches, cotton, tomatoes, comes from Gujarat, he also shared lessons of Modi-fied optimism. Pointing to a glass in his hand, he explained that the glass was neither half-empty nor half-full, as traditional wisdom went. Instead, “this glass is completely full; half with water, and half with air,” he said in his smug, self-assuredness to thundering applause from the twenty-year-olds from the most elite bania-marwari stream of education and college in India. This section of students is endowed with the maximum number of opportunities and caste-class privileges that any young person in India can have. Yet, ironically, but not surprisingly, they are the ones who are in need of such one-liners about optimism and ‘grabbing opportunities to succeed’ the most.
The ‘optimism’ that the likes of Modi and Rahul Gandhi want to ride to power on is coldly dark and depressing. Justice is never based on optimism in an unjust society. They know it well, and that is the reason they resort to bright speeches littered with motivational words. But the hundreds of raped and burnt Muslims from Naroda Patiya, Gulbarg Society, Best Bakery and other streets and colonies of Gujarat in 2002; the mother and family of Ishrat Jahan, who was nineteen when murdered – can they shout “Yes, We Can!”, and hope to be delivered justice? The 44.7% of children in Gujarat who are underweight, the 22% of the state’s population which is undernourished and the 6.1% of children who die under the age of five from hunger – is their glass full with water and air too? The families of nearly two lakh farmers who committed suicide in the last decade, and the 77% of India that survives on Rs 20 a day – how do they overcome their poor state of mind, Rahul ji? These are questions that perhaps their next big speech will never answer. Vicharon ki gareebi, indeed.
Singing About Dark Times 