The Great Surrender-4

 

 

THESE days, there is stark polarisation of political viewpoints, with no room for grey areas. Everything is either black or white, with no other shade in picture. “If you are not with us, you are against us,” is the sentiment ruling the minds of the so-called ‘loyal’ workers of various political parties. But, what many are glorifying as ‘loyalty’ is actually ‘surrender’ -- a political surrender. The political surrender has far greater evil ramifications that have seeds of disrupting social harmony and also harming the national interest. Unfortunately, those making such a surrender do not realise this, rather they are beyond realising this. As a result, one sees around many people getting caught in the cycle of victory or defeat of a leader or a party. These people often display pathogenic hatred towards political opponents -- whether they are leaders of the ruling side or the opposition.

 

They hate the opponents even if the latter are doing a good job in serving the national interest. Similarly, these surrendered people develop affection for a person or party to the extent of justifying everything that a person or party does. They do not mind sacrificing democratic values at the altar of political dynasty. In short, they practice rigid selectivism. Such a situation leads one to tie oneself to even the mistakes of one’s leader or party, ideology, irrationality, hatred, divisive policies, parochialism, and inconsistency of approach. Blindly buying the narratives generated by party ideologues, ecosystem, IT cells, paid social media influencers, without applying rationaity of thought is not loyalty but loss of freedom of choice.

 

Forwarding social media posts sent by party machinery, without even attempting to verify authenticity of content, is nothing but a surrender of political choice and rational thinking. Sadly, this political surrender assumes the form of a disease. Since independence, this disease has inflicted upon India various riots including 1948 riots targeting Brahmins, 1984 riots targeting Sikhs, Godhra carnage followed by riots in which Hindus and Muslims both suffered, post-poll violence and political killings in West Bengal and Kerala etc. Once this disease of political surrender spreads, it numbs one’s senses and sensibilities. Victims of such surrender feel as if they are serving a larger cause of a leader of a party. But, in reality, they are having a myopic vision. In the process, they do not mind toeing divisive lines of caste, religion, language, province, customs and traditions to target political dissenters. They end up dividing saints and litterateurs and social reformers and even the glorious parts of past on narrow present-day considerations of caste, religion, language, political narratives.

 

They do not mind abusing and creating a sense of insecurity among the family members -- women and children and elders -- of political opponents. They leave behind an ugly inheritance of political hatred for the younger generation. Political surrender has dangerous implications for society. Those making such a surrender do not realise that they are crossing limits of social and cultural and political decency when they use abusive and threatening language to hide own failure in offering rational response to political opponents. They disrespect national symbols, social discipline, decency and decorum, and even oppose national interest. All this drives surrendered individuals towards anarchist behaviour. An indication of this could be seen on roads today. Those who have made political surrenders to the point of no return often jump traffic signals just to express displeasure against opponents in power. They do this as if the traffic signals are symbols of political power! They forget that traffic signals, social etiquette, laws of the land, Constitutional values, Government institutions are all symbols of democracy and discipline, and not extensions of political power. But, those making political surrender cannot realise this. For, they are shown the carrot of benefits by respective political masters. Here, one remembers an interesting quote: “The goal of domination is cloaked in a critical factor -- the perception that those being dominated are receiving benefits,” from the wave-creating book ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man’ (3rd edition, 2023) by John Perkins. In the era of ‘smart’phones and ‘social’ media, this cloaking comes in more attractive packages. Of course, for saner minds, this message is good enough. But, for others, one must recall a dialogue from eminent author George Orwell’s timeless classic ‘The Animal Farm’. Therein, a sincere character Snowball tells other animals in the farm that the ribbon they are wearing is a ‘badge of slavery’. He asks them to realise that ‘liberty is worth more than ribbons’. In the context of this article, blind-following of the political masters is like those ribbons. The ribbons of ‘political loyalty’ are badges of surrender. A vast influenced chunk of the society must realise the undesirability of loyalty to a political thought boiling over into anarchist sentiment directed against the countryby invisible hands with ulterior motives. A society can afford to tolerate certain aberrations. But, it cannot afford normalisation of surrender of freedom to make own choices. The society must beware of surrenders. As this series of four articles ends, one just hopes that the society takes steps at respective levels to rid itself of surrenders and sets itself free in true sense.