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THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOONAbhishek Halder |
In a facade of democracy, debates are allowed only about permissible issues, and the debates have to be so loud that the real issues are never heard. In a more authoritarian system, debates hinging on real issues are simply denied a platform. And in a perfect dystopia, the brain itself is methodically disabled from conceiving the real question—the original question, the human question. |
| It is our Prime Minister's birthday, which has been tried to be turned into a national event, and symbolically it purifies the mind. The ominous images of impoverished children collecting oil to take home from the lamps offered to a demi-god Prime Minister, transformed into a national Superman, are graphic, if not grotesque. The contrast is almost too stark to require commentary. On one side, an elaborate spectacle of adulation; on the other, children scavenging its remnants for something as basic as cooking oil. It certainly joins the dots into a metaphorical depiction of the state of affairs of a system that appears increasingly disconnected from the lives of those it claims to represent. The situation is perhaps worse than it has been in decades. The collective ethos of the people seems to have suddenly—or perhaps it only appears sudden—travelled back into the Dark Ages. Reasoning, rationality and dialogue have been replaced by bigotry, hatred and violence. Disagreement is no longer necessarily an invitation to debate; it is increasingly treated as an affront. Mobocracy has become a handy substitute for democracy, quick, visceral and instantly gratifying. This transformation of the public space has not happened in isolation. It has been accompanied by a gradual change in what society celebrates, what it consumes and, perhaps more importantly, what it is encouraged to feel. Everyone is in rage. Rage is the order of the day; rage appears almost cool. It is peddled from the highest office of the State to the smallest corner of the streets. It is amplified through television studios, social media feeds, political rallies and the everyday vocabulary of public life. Anger has become entertainment, outrage has become currency and intolerance has acquired the appearance of conviction. And perhaps there is a reason why rage travels so easily. When a clear sky and a dignified life are priced beyond the means of an average citizen, when aspiration constantly collides with deprivation, when insecurity becomes a permanent companion, people need somewhere to put their anger. Rage then becomes a substitute for agency. It provides an enemy, a target, a temporary sense of power. Deprivation remains, but the attention shifts. Rage is rationed out by the State in ample quantity, and people appear to be managing their deprivation with something resembling a drug: rage. But riding on rage is riding a tiger. And for rage to remain an effective substitute for deprivation, something else must happen: the citizen must gradually be separated from the habits of thought that allow deprivation itself to be questioned. Citizens are barraged away from everything that can keep them grounded and rational—progressive forms of art, literature, education, a questioning curriculum, the habit of reading, the habit of doubt. If you cannot feed them enough to subside their hunger, perhaps it is safer to ruin their appetite. For behind every probable starved hunger lies a possible revolt. It is therefore safer for the system to ruin the appetite for meaningful democracy itself: to make people distrust questions before they learn to ask them, to make intellectual curiosity appear elitist, dissent appear disloyal and reason appear tedious. But it is only an attempt, and never a completely successful one. The instincts that make human beings seek freedom are never entirely extinguished. They may be suppressed, buried, disciplined, frightened into silence; they may remain dormant for generations, but they are never quite dead. History is the proof. Human beings have repeatedly resisted captivity, sometimes after decades, sometimes after centuries. However long the captivity, there eventually comes a moment when the captive recognises the cage. The system may succeed in controlling the vocabulary of public discourse, but it cannot permanently control the human instinct to ask why. And perhaps that is why the battle for democracy is ultimately a battle over the question itself—what may be asked, who may ask it, and whether the question is allowed to reach the public conscience. In a facade of democracy, debates are allowed only about permissible issues, and the debates have to be so loud that the real issues are never heard. In a more authoritarian system, debates hinging on real issues are simply denied a platform. And in a perfect dystopia, the brain itself is methodically disabled from conceiving the real question—the original question, the human question. Once the question disappears, the spectacle no longer needs to defend itself. It only needs to continue. The nonchalance and arrogance of this Government are almost classical. History has a certain repetitiveness. The precursors are often visible long before the consequences become unavoidable: the glorification of the leader, the manufacture of enemies, the celebration of emotional conformity, the shrinking space for dissent, the replacement of argument with abuse and the gradual normalisation of violence. None of these developments occurs overnight. That is precisely what makes them dangerous. Each excess becomes yesterday's normal. Each departure from democratic civility lowers the threshold for the next one. Eventually, what once appeared unthinkable becomes merely another headline. And once a society begins to accept the extraordinary as ordinary, the machinery of control no longer needs to operate with visible force. Habit begins to do some of the work. History of mankind offers enough examples to recognise the pattern, even if history never repeats itself in precisely the same form. Systems built upon the perpetual mobilisation of anger eventually confront the contradiction at the heart of their own politics: rage can unite people temporarily, but it cannot feed them, educate them, employ them or give them dignity. A society cannot be permanently governed by adrenaline. And perhaps it is here that those children collecting the oil return to the centre of the story. The spectacle may belong to the powerful, but its consequences are borne by those at the margins. And perhaps that is what makes the faces of those children collecting the oil so profoundly disturbing. They are not merely spectators who have chosen not to participate in the spectacle. They are its marginalised and unfortunate casualties—the political outsiders of a top-heavy system, standing at the very bottom of a pyramid whose upper reaches are illuminated by celebration while its foundation remains in darkness. They are not outside the system because they chose to be. They are outside because the system has placed them there. And yet, therein lies the uncomfortable historical possibility. The people pushed to the margins are not necessarily erased; they are merely made invisible. Their hunger may be temporarily drowned in slogans, their anger diverted towards convenient enemies, their imagination narrowed by a manufactured reality. But hunger has a memory. Humiliation has a memory. And so does freedom. The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. Perhaps that is not merely a proverb. Perhaps it is a warning. For no system, however powerful, can permanently destroy the human appetite for dignity, reason and freedom. It may corrupt the language of democracy, drown its questions in noise and turn its citizens against one another. It may even persuade a generation that captivity is normal. But the appetite can return. And when it does, the spectacle will no longer be enough. The children collecting the oil today may not know the language of revolt. They may not even know that they have been excluded from the promise of the Republic. But history has a peculiar way of giving language to those who have been denied a voice. That is why riding on rage is riding a tiger. The tiger may carry the rider for a while. It does not, however, belong to him. প্রকাশের তারিখ: ২০-সেপ্টেম্বর-২০২৬ |
© কপিরাইট ভারতের কমিউনিস্ট পার্টি (মার্কসবাদী) - পশ্চিমবঙ্গ রাজ্য কমিটি, সর্বস্বত্ব সংরক্ষিত ভারতের কমিউনিস্ট পার্টি (মার্কসবাদী) - পশ্চিমবঙ্গ রাজ্য কমিটি
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