Modi govt’s deepest damage isn’t Hindu-Muslim divide but PM’s ‘mogic’ dumbing us down
There is logic. And then there is ‘mogic’ — the special kind of logic patented by our Prime Minister. The current debate on Agnipath illustrates mogic at work, just as it did during demonetisation, Covid lockdown and the 2020 farm laws.
It operates as follows. First of all, we are told that we have a serious problem. It could be black money, the pandemic, or the state of our agricultural markets. The second step is straightforward: Something really needs to be done. How can anyone disagree with that? Step three — the PM pulls out a rabbit from his hat: Here is something. It could be overnight demonetisation, complete national lockdown or the farm laws. Before you have had the time to absorb what has just been presented, you are rushed into the final step: Let’s do it. Let’s not waste time.
The magic of mogic lies in tricking the audience to skip a step that lies between steps three and four. It induces a toxic mix of anxiety and enthusiasm so as to make the public forget to ask a question: Is the “something” that really needs to be done the same as “something” that is being offered? Would the proposed remedy really solve the problem that we set out to address? How would demonetisation possibly attack black money? Is a lockdown of this kind the only or the best way to address the pandemic?
The power of mogic lies in drowning this question — if at all it does get raised — in other questions: Aren’t you concerned about the problem? Don’t you think something should be done about it? Someone is offering something, why nitpick? Why don’t you think ‘positively’? Why can’t you trust the leader? Or, it can be drowned in a heap of words — fact, fabrication and fiction. We are invited to debate the real and imagined benefits of the solution, unrelated to the problem. Before you can recover, the debate is over. We move on to the next big solution in search of a problem.
Step one: There is a real problem. The armed forces’ salary and pension bills have mounted over the years. Thanks to its own fiscal mismanagement and the pandemic, the Union government is hard-pressed for money. The national security threat from China has accentuated the need for better defence preparedness, technology and weapons. The problem cannot be postponed further. We reach step two: ‘We need to do something’.
The elaborate propaganda exercise is aimed at covering up three simple but awkward facts about Agnipath.
One, that direct, regular recruitment to the armed forces has come to an end — that Agnipath does not supplement but substitutes existing regular recruitment. This is a staggering decision by any measure but never mentioned in any press release or media interaction. Two, that the Services are being downsized, perhaps reduced to half of its present strength. This decision is impossible to sell to the public, given all the developments in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. Hence the fudging of numbers. And three, the share of regions and communities that have historically contributed in greater numbers to the armed forces will be cut down to their population proportion. Since this could enrage powerful regions and vocal communities, Army spokespersons resort to a bold-face lie: There is no change in regiment recruitment.
This empire of lies is going to be PM Modi’s enduring legacy. When a child watches starred generals lie on national television, it affects their cognitive faculties. The deepest damage that the Modi government has inflicted on us is not the division of the people on Hindu-Muslim lines. It is not even the moral debasement that it has normalised.
It is the routinisation of collective cognitive degeneration — our failure as a people to recognise truth and catch a lie.
Political philosopher Hannah Arendt spelt out the consequences of this institutionalisation of lies: “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”
That is the whole point of mogic.
https://theprint.in/opinion/modi-go...divide-but-pms-mogic-dumbing-us-down/1006992/
<br><br>- Classroom has a fake window <br>- Only six children in a tiny classroom <br>- All walls look like cardboard <br>- Look at the facial expression of children <a href="https://t.co/WoKPFCI786">pic.twitter.com/WoKPFCI786</a></p>— Dhruv Rathee (@dhruv_rathee) <a href="https://twitter.com/dhruv_rathee/status/1582998101610008576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 20, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<a href="https://t.co/tDLSeZTiJE">pic.twitter.com/tDLSeZTiJE</a></p>— YSR (@ysathishreddy) <a href="https://twitter.com/ysathishreddy/status/1584541614277816321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 24, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> 
