GUEST POST by @ArguingIndian : Profound Simplicity to Confused Complexity: Modi’s journey from Hope to Fear

When the current Prime Minister of India Mr Narendra D. Modi started his campaign in 2014 for the Prime Minister post, He builds all his campaign around the word “HOPE”, A hope of brining “Acche Din”, Is he able to fulfil his promise ? If we go by the events since he took the oath and analyse it from the socio-political prospective, the result looks quite disappointing. While selling his product ( Acche Din) to his customers, i.e. voters the value proposition Mr. Modi has offered is not yet delivered. What could have been the implication if you put this in the professional scenario, of course you would have been fired. Critics could say democracy work in a different way and he would be judged after five years. Agreed, so how the relation of voters and Government does works; let’s go to the very basic of government role defined by Social Contract Theory1. In the trade-off of surrendering natural rights, Individuals in return are guaranteed civil liberty, freedom, rights, and equality by the govt. And, “Will” not the “Force” could be the basis of enforcement of social contract.
What forced Modi to adopt the divisive agenda or it is the natural outcome when you identify yourself as a Hindu Nationalist? BJP and its followers since beginning have focused on exclusion of minorities and opposition. They don’t see them as the actors of democratic society. In the last two years many incidents took placed; Dadri incident when Akhlaq was killed by the religious fanatics, exclusion and target of minorities over the issues of love Jihad and beef ban, JNU incident where civil liberty has been put under the lock. And it’s not only the socio structure which is under the pressure, Economy is in doldrums and the failure to revive economy has squelched the hope. Current govt has failed to implement the social contract. And his silence has been amplified by his supports by going berserk. Modi and his followers have tried to shut every legitimate voice of criticism by labelling it Anti- National. Hounding one community has become the hallmark of BJP followers, while doing so, they forget that in comparison to the west, Indians believes in collective identity. Therefore, when you are offending a person’s belief you are not offending a single person, it’s the whole group which get offended.
We all have witnessed how Modi’s campaign of hope has been turned into a fear. Why Hope always worked in the case of mobilising people and not fears? For an individual hope’s cognitive process releases an endorphin like emotion. Hope creates resilience and requires lots of resources and broad focus to fulfil that desire. In contrast to hope, fear operates in primitive areas of a brain. Fear trigger anger and frustration and operates with a very a narrow focus. Modi and his followers while playing with these emotions should realise that over using both, hope and fear can lead to distractions. Has the all Hope is lost or Mr. Modi has lost the focus? How he could revive the Hope and get away with the atmosphere of fear. For that he needs to show the attribute of a leader where a leader change his roles form autocratic to democratic as the time demands. While his silent node on all the incidents has been amplified by the supporters, as a PM of the country he should address the concern of minorities. To get the economy back on the track reconcile the differences with opposition on the crucial bills. And lastly, should avoid useless confrontation of interfering in educational institutions and rewriting the history. All can be achieved if Modi and his supporters adopt the policy of inclusiveness instead of divisiveness, though it is not the forte of Modi supporters but desperate times demand desperate measures therefore instead of pandering to his core base the time demand to rise above to the party politics and lead the India.

 

Mr Modi role in the new govt was to convert the Hope into the reality instead what we see all around is fear. In a society every role has fixed part to play with the predefined rules. When the role system2 collapsed, it leads to panic. “If a role system collapses among people for whom trust, honesty, and self-respect are underdeveloped, then they are on their own. And fear often swamps their resourcefulness. If, however, a role system collapses among people where trust, honesty, and self-respect are more fully developed, then new options, such as mutual adaptation, blind imitation of creative solutions, and trusting compliance, are created. When a formal structure collapses, there is no leader, no roles, no routines, no sense.”2 if we look closely we could see that currently India is going through the same phenomena.

 

References:
1 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1762) “Du Contrat Social”
2 Weick, Karl E. (1993) “The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster” Administrative Science Quarterly GUEST