Left-Liberals, Dalit-Adivasis and Modi
1. The curious case of Indian liberals, who were never really liberal
Democracy is indeed powerful, and people's vote is often a voice which cuts through layers of ideological blindness and shows one who people are and what they want.
A typical Indian liberal is a high caste, high class and western educated English speaking Indian. Their background has been such that unless they have considerable empathy and a quest to really find the truth about rest of India, they will find it impossible to understand the reality of the Indians who don't live in metros. They do not mean wrong, many of them are very passionate about very relevant issues like feminism, caste descrimination and even neoliberalism, but there are certain inherent contradictions in their way of life (much of which is coming from their caste and class privilage) that for any observer, they will look hypocritical.
Consider caste. Much of academia, media and even high corporate is filled with liberals who are upper caste. Their access to high English, private education institutes with IB board, and their social networks, often caste based, make it very easy for them to enter these fields. Despite reading Ambedkar and following Bezwada Wilson, not many of them marry outside their caste, does something substantial towards Dalit movements, or even move beyond their cozy comfortable life to listen to the people who they've read a lot about through their classes in humanities.
Consider Feminism. Much of feminist discourse in India makes zero sense for women who are not living in Metros. While liberals discuss if there should be a maternity leave for men also (and this is indeed a very pertinent issue for their reality), there are far more important issues in front of other women, say those in Haryana, who are not even allowed to take birth. In such a social reality, the liberal feminist discourse sounds hollow, insensitive and self centered.
Gandhi was a western educated liberal minded English speaking person too, but he had an unshakeable commitment to truth and non violence. When he came back to India, he travelled for many many years, organized people in Champaran, had the empathy to wear only a Dhoti for the rest of his life in solidarity with other Indians who were in poverty, and remained among people, roaming around and taking his ideas of non violence and truth to masses till his last breath. He should be the ideal that liberals should strive for.
Another high class liberal was Nehru. He came from a massively privilaged background, got Education in Cambridge, and was possibly more western minded that a typical liberal today, proudly smoking a Cigar and dancing on the tunes or European music. His transformation was possibly even more steeper than Gandhi's.
He had to do a discovery of India too (read this book sometime!). He had to form an idea of India deeply rooted in her past, he had to go to jail for years together, he had to see his wife dying from an illness which he could not take care of due to his involvement in the freedom movement, before he became the Nehru that we know him as.
His empathy, sacrifice, and humble search for the soul of India could be the inspiration for liberals.
2. Why have Dalits and Adivasis rejected liberal worldview and chosen for an alternative, Modi?
India is possibly the second most inequal country in the world (income ineuqlity), with more than 70% of income going to the top 1% earners. These top 1% are largely represented by upper caste upper class liberal, who, in fact, are more neoliberal than liberal basis these statistics. Their worldview was represented by Congress, which represented the same left leaning, socialist, privileged group before 1990s, and then the same elites who now became liberals post the liberalisation of 1990s.
If you're wondering if you belong to top 1% income group or not: if the monthly income of your family is more than 66,000 rupees, you do. Yes, India is a very poor country, 139th in the world by per capita income.
Hence, we have poor Dalits and Adivasis, who have been at the receiving end of this highly unjust and immoral system. We have a small elite class of liberals who are not only benefitting from the unjust wealth distribution system, but has also become extremely corrupt and has caused all the scams that we saw in UPA-2.
Not only this, the liberals continue to enjoy caste privilages as well, and often sit on a high moral pedestal against 'bigotry' and 'fascist forces': terms which don't make sense to the cheated and used masses who, in fact, associate Congress led liberals with injustice. The visceral hatred that people have against The Wire, The Hindu, and even Ravish Kumar, is a representation of this.
3. Enter the idea of Modi
RSS think tanks understand all this. The massive undercurrent of injustice that people were feeling needed a discharge, needed a channel through which it could come out. Indians have a tendency of hero worshipping too, very evident in the phenomenon of Gandhi, Amitabh, Indira, Rajnikanth, and Sachin.
The people needed an ideology and a leader who calls out this hypocrisy.
The people were tired of hearing same old sermons on Nehruvian secularism and empty promises of socialism (Gareebi hatao and such), and needed someone who could deliver.
The people needed a voice, an opportunity, which gives them an identity beyond that of caste, and empowers them against the hypocrite, upper caste, feudal, liberals.
Modi's image is built on exactly these needs. He doesn't speak in the language of Nehru, he is coarse, direct, and resolute, which portrays him as a potent challengers to the left-liberal Congress.
He swear by the Nation, 'Ye Desh Nahi Jhukne Dunga', and hits back to anyone who dares attack India (ref Balakot).
He is an OBC who comes from a very modest background, has sold tea at railway stations, and has found roots and courage in the old Indian traditions (ref Sewa, Fakeeri).
People identified with him. They identified with what he stands for. They identified with what he is speaking about. They identified with his decisions of Demonetization and GST as an attempt to reduce corruption and hound money immoral hoarders.
Modi became a hero, someone who could indeed do something about the hopelessnes that precious governments has brought to them.
Hence, people have firmly placed their trust in Modi.
This is not a vote for Islamophobic. This is not a vote for bigotry. This is not a vote for Hindutva. This is a vote for hope, at least for the Dalits and the Adivasis. And maybe this is the slap which left liberal indeed needed to wake up from their deep slumber and see the reality of their countrymen.
The defeat is not permanent, but it is going to take a lot of hard work and moral power. Left liberals have to actually live the ideology that they believe in. A leftists cannot be doing MBA and working in plush consulting jobs anymore is she indeed cares about left ideologies. A liberals cannot be extremely illibral with folks who don't speak English, who are religious, and who don't drink alcohol is he is indeed liberal. A communist cannot live all his life in metro cities and abroad and still claim to be standing with farmers and laborers.
This challenge calls for real fight, with real people, with real courage and actually following what you believe and stand for.
I often used to wonder if our generation will have any movement like the ones in 1960s, of Emergency, and of Periyar's.
The time has now come, I think.
Democracy is indeed powerful, and people's vote is often a voice which cuts through layers of ideological blindness and shows one who people are and what they want.
A typical Indian liberal is a high caste, high class and western educated English speaking Indian. Their background has been such that unless they have considerable empathy and a quest to really find the truth about rest of India, they will find it impossible to understand the reality of the Indians who don't live in metros. They do not mean wrong, many of them are very passionate about very relevant issues like feminism, caste descrimination and even neoliberalism, but there are certain inherent contradictions in their way of life (much of which is coming from their caste and class privilage) that for any observer, they will look hypocritical.
Consider caste. Much of academia, media and even high corporate is filled with liberals who are upper caste. Their access to high English, private education institutes with IB board, and their social networks, often caste based, make it very easy for them to enter these fields. Despite reading Ambedkar and following Bezwada Wilson, not many of them marry outside their caste, does something substantial towards Dalit movements, or even move beyond their cozy comfortable life to listen to the people who they've read a lot about through their classes in humanities.
Consider Feminism. Much of feminist discourse in India makes zero sense for women who are not living in Metros. While liberals discuss if there should be a maternity leave for men also (and this is indeed a very pertinent issue for their reality), there are far more important issues in front of other women, say those in Haryana, who are not even allowed to take birth. In such a social reality, the liberal feminist discourse sounds hollow, insensitive and self centered.
Gandhi was a western educated liberal minded English speaking person too, but he had an unshakeable commitment to truth and non violence. When he came back to India, he travelled for many many years, organized people in Champaran, had the empathy to wear only a Dhoti for the rest of his life in solidarity with other Indians who were in poverty, and remained among people, roaming around and taking his ideas of non violence and truth to masses till his last breath. He should be the ideal that liberals should strive for.
Another high class liberal was Nehru. He came from a massively privilaged background, got Education in Cambridge, and was possibly more western minded that a typical liberal today, proudly smoking a Cigar and dancing on the tunes or European music. His transformation was possibly even more steeper than Gandhi's.
He had to do a discovery of India too (read this book sometime!). He had to form an idea of India deeply rooted in her past, he had to go to jail for years together, he had to see his wife dying from an illness which he could not take care of due to his involvement in the freedom movement, before he became the Nehru that we know him as.
His empathy, sacrifice, and humble search for the soul of India could be the inspiration for liberals.
2. Why have Dalits and Adivasis rejected liberal worldview and chosen for an alternative, Modi?
India is possibly the second most inequal country in the world (income ineuqlity), with more than 70% of income going to the top 1% earners. These top 1% are largely represented by upper caste upper class liberal, who, in fact, are more neoliberal than liberal basis these statistics. Their worldview was represented by Congress, which represented the same left leaning, socialist, privileged group before 1990s, and then the same elites who now became liberals post the liberalisation of 1990s.
If you're wondering if you belong to top 1% income group or not: if the monthly income of your family is more than 66,000 rupees, you do. Yes, India is a very poor country, 139th in the world by per capita income.
Hence, we have poor Dalits and Adivasis, who have been at the receiving end of this highly unjust and immoral system. We have a small elite class of liberals who are not only benefitting from the unjust wealth distribution system, but has also become extremely corrupt and has caused all the scams that we saw in UPA-2.
Not only this, the liberals continue to enjoy caste privilages as well, and often sit on a high moral pedestal against 'bigotry' and 'fascist forces': terms which don't make sense to the cheated and used masses who, in fact, associate Congress led liberals with injustice. The visceral hatred that people have against The Wire, The Hindu, and even Ravish Kumar, is a representation of this.
3. Enter the idea of Modi
RSS think tanks understand all this. The massive undercurrent of injustice that people were feeling needed a discharge, needed a channel through which it could come out. Indians have a tendency of hero worshipping too, very evident in the phenomenon of Gandhi, Amitabh, Indira, Rajnikanth, and Sachin.
The people needed an ideology and a leader who calls out this hypocrisy.
The people were tired of hearing same old sermons on Nehruvian secularism and empty promises of socialism (Gareebi hatao and such), and needed someone who could deliver.
The people needed a voice, an opportunity, which gives them an identity beyond that of caste, and empowers them against the hypocrite, upper caste, feudal, liberals.
Modi's image is built on exactly these needs. He doesn't speak in the language of Nehru, he is coarse, direct, and resolute, which portrays him as a potent challengers to the left-liberal Congress.
He swear by the Nation, 'Ye Desh Nahi Jhukne Dunga', and hits back to anyone who dares attack India (ref Balakot).
He is an OBC who comes from a very modest background, has sold tea at railway stations, and has found roots and courage in the old Indian traditions (ref Sewa, Fakeeri).
People identified with him. They identified with what he stands for. They identified with what he is speaking about. They identified with his decisions of Demonetization and GST as an attempt to reduce corruption and hound money immoral hoarders.
Modi became a hero, someone who could indeed do something about the hopelessnes that precious governments has brought to them.
Hence, people have firmly placed their trust in Modi.
This is not a vote for Islamophobic. This is not a vote for bigotry. This is not a vote for Hindutva. This is a vote for hope, at least for the Dalits and the Adivasis. And maybe this is the slap which left liberal indeed needed to wake up from their deep slumber and see the reality of their countrymen.
The defeat is not permanent, but it is going to take a lot of hard work and moral power. Left liberals have to actually live the ideology that they believe in. A leftists cannot be doing MBA and working in plush consulting jobs anymore is she indeed cares about left ideologies. A liberals cannot be extremely illibral with folks who don't speak English, who are religious, and who don't drink alcohol is he is indeed liberal. A communist cannot live all his life in metro cities and abroad and still claim to be standing with farmers and laborers.
This challenge calls for real fight, with real people, with real courage and actually following what you believe and stand for.
I often used to wonder if our generation will have any movement like the ones in 1960s, of Emergency, and of Periyar's.
The time has now come, I think.
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