India’s political economy of fear

A few days ago, a major national television news network ran a bloodthirsty story, laced with genocidal rhetoric. The communally charged primetime ‘debate’ insinuated, fact-free, that Muslims are engaged in a grand conspiracy to increase their own population and put “Hindus in danger.”

The political context of the show was clear enough: It was aimed at the upcoming state elections in Uttar Pradesh – India’s playground for bad ideas of all kinds – and echoed several leaders from the BJP who had woven similar conspiracy theories of their own.

I wasn’t shocked that a major news channel, with millions of followers, had run a story that made the 1990s Radio Rwanda programmes seem like peace appeals; the channel in question has done far worse in the past. But I certainly was shocked that it continues to do its thing without eliciting any outrage or action from Indian thought leaders.

Whenever communalism rears its ugly head, pushback always seems to come from the same few people and the usual old quarters. The vast majority of Indian business leaders, academics and think-tankers go about their work unmoved and unperturbed. The imbalance between the vocal and the silent helps to paint the handful of usual dissenters as an ‘anti-national cabal.’

I asked a friend why these people stay quiet. Have they been sensitised to communal hate rhetoric as far as that? Quite simply, she said, “Some people just have too much to lose.”

That comment reminded me of another conversation I’d once had in another part of the world some years ago.

During a leisurely stroll through a Manhattan park with another friend, a former journalist for the New York Times in Beijing, I pondered over the curious case of China. Why do so many Chinese people tolerate President Xi Jinping’s personality cult, I asked my Chinese friend, especially after their terrible experience with such politics under Mao. “Because we have no agency,” she said. “Unlike you guys, we don’t have democracy in China. We have to take things as a fact of life.”

But India is fast becoming an example that even in a democracy, governments can build a political economy of fear, robbing citizens of their agency and silencing them in the face of the worst.

In India’s economy, businesses can’t do business without the goodwill of the government. Laws are so framed that anybody can be easily harassed by authorities for anything – from tax filing to licensing. Often, lengthy judicial procedures are punishment enough for crimes that have not even been committed.

Many think-tanks are beholden to the government for their very existence. Ministries are the audience for their work – and often, also the sponsors. Television channels depend heavily on government advertisements to stay on air. Universities owned by the government are now also controlled by the government; the University Grants Commission recently required them to praise the prime minister for his vaccination drive.

But even the cause – of fighting communal bigotry – is not appealing enough. Majoritarianism works because it favours the majority community. The marginalised are simply not large enough to ever win power by themselves (hence the need to ensure that they don’t increase their population!). And by punishing enough people in the majority community who do speak up, any government can ensure that conscientious citizens bite their tongue.

I don’t know if the silence of the Han majority in China is going to lead that country into catastrophes under Xi, but the history of other similar countries is not encouraging. The problem with bigotry and authoritarianism is that its fire eventually consumes everyone – majority or minority.