How to Address Popular Reasoning in a Democracy

The boon and bane of democracy is that it works on popular reasoning where the man on the street is free to think as he wishes to and reason what is happening around him in a way that he understands. Democracy presumes nobody can dictate what he should be thinking. This is the reason democracy is unpredictable. It can throw up surprises that are to our liking, as it may support dark secrets that it nurtures. This is also the reason why pre-poll surveys mostly don’t get their predictions right. People don’t go with a pre-conceived opinion; they may make up their minds as they walk to the polling booth. How they arrive at a decision is even more difficult to predict or even analyse because it is a play of pragmatism and public morality, and a constant oscillation between the two. Morality is fluid, it can switch from the pristine to the profane, and from the sacred to the fuzzy. There is a constant negotiation with an open-ended abyss. Is there a method in this madness?

Let me narrate a few instances of my everyday conversations with a cross-section of people. I often go out to have a paan (betel leaf) after my dinner and my paanwala enjoys animated conversations to beat the tiredness of selling stuff for more than 10 hours a day. When I asked him for his views on Prime Minister Narendra Modi not doing much and India remaining in poverty in spite of his lofty promises, he hit back at me, first with an ominous stare, followed by a long diatribe. He said` kaun kahatha hai India garib hai.. aap pade-likho ka ye sab bekar ki batein hai…aaj kal ek bhikhari bhi hazar rupya uthata hai har din..desh ko badnam mat karo saab” (Who says India is poor? This is just meaningless talk by educated people like you. These days even a beggar takes home Rs 1,000 a day. Please don’t talk ill about the country). Nation is like a home, faults are not to be highlighted but covered up if you really love it.

Recently, there was some wood work to be done at my place, and after the carpenter finished his worked, I struck my usual conversation on Modi. He agreed things were not good because of price rise, especially the price of petrol and gas. But when I asked him if he wouldn`t be voting for Modi this time round, he paused and said, `Nahi vote toh Modi ko hi denge..ye aadmi khatarnak hai,, ye kutch bhi kar saktha hai`. (No, I will vote for Modi, he is a dangerous man, he can do anything). I didn`t know what more to say to counter him, I did not fully understand if he was approving or pejorative.

Taxi drivers are yet another uncanny source of views that can beat the speed of the car but raise the heat. In Bangalore, I repeated the same question, it was the same answer of not being happy with many things, yet the vote is for Modi. Why? I asked him. He flashed out a photo on his mobile that showed Congress president Rahul Gandhi with a skull cap, surrounded by three burqa clad women. He told me in Kannada, “this man is immoral, how can he marry three women…he must have become a Muslim to marry three women”. I saw the photo closely and knew there was no point convincing him about its veracity, lest he suspects my moral credentials too.

In Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh), a driver who was Buddhist and very friendly, offered his reason to vote for Modi. `Mein kabhi Musalman guest ko peeche nahi bithatha hu…pata nahi kab peeche se mera gal kaat de` ( I never allow a Muslim passenger on the back seat…don’t know when he may just attack me). I had a similar experience on a drive from Kolkata to Asansol (West Bengal). Though the driver was a migrant from Bihar, he liked Didi (elder sister, as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is referred to). She has done a lot of good things, but added: `sabhe accha hai par Muslims ko sar pe bithaya hai Didi ne…Friday ke din inko helmet pehna nahi padtha..aur humko fine ho jaata hai` ( Everything is fine about her but she pampers Muslims. On Fridays we pay fine for driving helmets, but they don’t). This time I did try to reason out with him, but I don’t think I could convince him to change his mind except that he remained silent out of politeness. This imagination is not too far from what Didi herself can do in a state where she has passed a law where you don’t need to pay property tax if you paint your house in white and blue – colours of her party flag.

If one were to think this is the reasoning only on the streets, it would be a blunder. Popular reasoning has entered our drawing rooms. People no longer seem hesitant about rethinking what they feel, rather they think what they feel, and that can be very liberating. My uncle, a graduate, once agreed with me about many aspects of why I persuade people not to vote for Modi, but told me poignantly in Telugu, “whatever you might say, he  is one leader who can call Obama by name and can pat him on his shoulder..Nobody dared to do this before”. This time, I really sank. It reminded me of a video that had gone viral of a conversation on Delhi Metro where a gentleman was explaining why India is greater than China. He seemed to believe that all Chinese people are short, maybe four feet, and Modi is very huge. If you put five Chinese and Modi in a wrestling bout, he asked everyone around, who will win? Do you think China stands a chance against India?

Another shocker came from one of my own students who is just about to complete his Ph.D. This time I tried the popular reasoning myself and said that Modi should have at least respected elders and a senior leader such as LK Advani. To which he said, “Sir, I recently read an article which stated that Advani managed to speak 129 words in the last five years”. I was dumbstruck and thought, who could have possibly kept a tab so accurately on how many words Advani spoke. I tried asking him this, but he said “Sir, can’t you make out by seeing him”.

Let me conclude with my experience in Kashmir. I was there for a field visit, carrying out interviews. In course of that, one of the questions was if they support an Islamic state and if Sharia needs to be imposed or followed. Most of them said, yes. At a school, a bunch of very hospitable school teachers began to differ on this question. While the first said it should be followed by all, another differed to say it will be a bad idea because under Sharia, punishment for theft is chopping off hands, and there are non-Muslims residing in Kashmir, whose hands cannot be chopped off. As a result, he felt people might prefer to convert to other religions. Others agreed and said, we need to think about it.

I, too, am still trying to think.

The writer is Associate Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He recently authored ‘India after Modi: Populism and the Right[. The views are personal.