Outlook Talks: Emotions, Politics & Ideology with Prof. Ajay Gudavarthy

5 months ago

'Outlook Talks' hosts a discussion with Professor Ajay Gudavarthy, Centre for Political Studies, JNU.

We explore the role of emotions in politics, the impact of ideologies, and the dynamics of the electoral landscape in India. The conversation delves into the rise of Hindutva, the interplay of development and religion, and the shifting voter sentiments.

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Transcript

00:00 Hello and welcome to Outlook Talks. This is a series of conversations we have with interesting

00:15 people, academics, thinkers, politicians, poets, writers and so on to, you know, it

00:23 is a discourse on the elections in particular, but it is a general discussion on politics

00:27 of today's politics also. So today we have a most interesting guest, our, you know, very

00:34 good friend of Outlook, Professor Ajay Gudavarthy. Thank you, Ajayji, for coming for the discussion.

00:40 It is always a pleasure to have you and, you know, chat with you. And of course, we have

00:44 Chinkee Sinha, our Outlook editor. Ajay has, many of you might remember one of the issues

00:49 that he had anchored, he had on Hindutva that we had done on emotions of politics, actually,

00:55 which Ajayji had very kindly, he was a guest editor for that issue. And he had written

01:01 an article recently in our pre-run to the election also. So, and of course, he is the

01:07 author of this most fascinating book, Politics, Ethics, Emotions in New India. That is, so

01:15 it is a very, you know, I have read, it is a really fascinating take on Indian politics,

01:20 but taking it to a, you know, to another level really of emotion. So, in fact, I wanted to

01:25 begin that way, Ajayji. So it has been such a long drawn campaign, you know, there has

01:30 been, there has been so many ebbs and flows, it has gone this way and that way, and so

01:34 much analysis from both the opposition parties as well as the ruling party. So how do you,

01:42 this emotions part in this, like the six phases that you might have, you know, seen the analysis,

01:47 etc. How much, how has it, you know, is there a pattern? Has it changed in certain ways

01:53 after phases? How has it been used? Yeah, that is an interesting point to begin

01:58 with, I think, as you gave the backdrop that we did a special issue on politics and emotions,

02:03 was it six months back? Yeah.

02:05 Yeah, six months back, we did and as a follow up of my book. So, I mean, the part of the

02:10 argument that we all built, you know, collective in that issue was that emotions are playing

02:14 a key role, that they are very central and most emotions are in terms of anxiety, fear,

02:19 anonymy and their high decibel mobilization. What is striking about the campaign is the

02:25 sudden lull, that one, there is no hyper emotional narrative that is attracting people, there

02:32 is no national narrative. There is, we are witnessing a mass indifference towards the

02:37 elections. There is some kind of a withdrawal, I think the drop in, consistent drop in voter

02:43 percentage is one thing, a striking thing that one has to notice that why is that high

02:50 decibel 10 year kind of mobilizational politics is suddenly being followed up with this kind

02:56 of a withdrawal and indifference. So, people who have gone to the ground, repeatedly come

03:01 back to tell us that voters look disinterested, when they might vote this way, that way, that

03:07 is a different matter altogether as to what is out. I think this needs to be explained.

03:11 And this also takes us back to Gujarat, when Mr. Modi took over in 2002, as Chief Minister.

03:17 In 2009, he brought a legislation of compulsory mandatory voting in local elections. And the

03:25 crisis was again the same, people were not coming out to vote in local body elections.

03:30 So there is something you know, about this emotional pitch under populist mobilization,

03:36 that there is a tendency for it to also to be followed up by this kind of a withdrawal

03:40 and indifference. What could that mean? That you know, why is that those emotions suddenly

03:46 take this kind of a dip? Is it that people are not able to?

03:49 We will just come to that. I think that is a point that our reporters also, I think,

03:55 got back from, you know, from our, you know, we had, of course, all our reporters had gone

03:59 really to the, you know, spread out, fanned out throughout the country. And I think, mostly,

04:04 I think, this, I think, it is in alignment with what you are saying. It is a, you know,

04:10 like there is no clear wave, either for or against.

04:13 Exactly. You know, there is no, as opposed to 2019,

04:16 where there was a, I think, a very clear wave for, you know, for the BJP.

04:21 I think many felt in many states, there is a done deal, that there was a point of voting.

04:25 Yeah, no, that I think the hoping, that hope thing, we are so afraid to, I mean, people

04:31 said that they were so afraid to hope for anything to change. Now, my question is that

04:36 you say that there is this no emotion situation, you know, that the withdrawal situation. But

04:41 we also saw after the two phases, the really high octane kind of emotional thing coming

04:47 from the BJP, which was based on, you know, othering, for instance, like they were targeting

04:53 a certain minority and talking a lot about that. Throughout the phases, it went on and

04:58 on, it did not stop. Now, that is emotional, because they are not, nobody, I think, except

05:03 Congress maybe a little bit or something, they are not talking about social justice

05:07 or employment or anything, any of the things that actually matter. They are only talking

05:12 about this and the levels went up and up and up. And this was a really emotional pitch

05:16 that they will take away your Mangal Sutra, they will do this, they will do their infiltrators.

05:21 Then they said, Ayodhya mein tala lag jaayega, you know, all kinds of things. So, what were

05:26 the emotions that they were addressing? Because there is no emotion here, withdrawal. And

05:30 this is like something to get people back into that. And how about Congress then? Because

05:36 they, there is a strange drama online also with Congress, you know, khata khat, phata

05:41 phat, tanatan, you know, now everybody is doing that. I mean, what is that? It is like

05:45 gibberish for instance. But what is that? No, I think that this lull really took them

05:52 by surprise. Because as I see, I think BJP was making a pitch with Ram Mandir. 2024 was

05:59 really an election that they planned around the temple. But that again, that is again

06:05 a fascinating part of… Which you wrote about it.

06:06 I wrote of Outlook and elsewhere too that, that this did not work. You know, one week

06:11 into the temple issue, post construction, people were completely, you know, indifferent

06:16 to that issue. But they were continuing to be, the abrogation of Article 370 continues

06:22 to resonate on the ground. Also the CA notification that they had…

06:26 Exactly. But the temple issue took a dip. I think that was really the starting point

06:32 of, you know, how they had to recalibrate very quickly, this mobilization thing. So

06:36 I think the fact that, that it did not work, they did not go into the election with that

06:41 kind of hysteria. So this is also a point we actually made. I make it in my book and

06:45 also we did in that special issue that high emotions can only be generated in a matrix.

06:51 They should get all other associated factors right. If you lose your mind, I think electoral

06:56 bonds did a big dent. That moral halo that, you know, he held.

07:00 Really, you think so? I think so. I think it did have, you know,

07:03 whether people can articulate it that way or not. And also this Adani-Ambani thing,

07:08 people in their own common parlance, I think everyday ethics can articulate that. I think

07:13 that took a big hit. So this ability to generate a high octane moral discourse, you know, that

07:18 we are for the nation. You know, when he came, he said, hume desh chalana hai, sarkar nahi.

07:23 This is a highly symbolic, very charged emotion. I think the emptiness of his governance, you

07:30 know, with this kind of high octane is not going to work. He has to back it up with some

07:35 ethical connotation. So I think having high charge ethical claims on one end and buying

07:42 up people who are corrupt and all that he has done, I think this doesn't really gel.

07:47 But do you think it's working, this charged speeches?

07:50 No, I don't think they are resonating at all. It is more to do with their own cadre. At

07:55 the most, they can kind of consolidate. Even their own cadre has gone down. I have also

08:00 met their own workers on the ground. They are also, they have lost charge. They also

08:06 look very discharged. So it is to charge them up at the most, it can consolidate. It can

08:12 work. Beyond that, it has no...

08:14 In fact, you know, this on the question of ideology, you know, in our travels, we met

08:18 Mr. Ravindra Reddy, you know, the Chief Minister of Telangana now. So he was saying, you know,

08:23 now it's all swiggy politics. You know, people want instant delivery. And ideology is for

08:28 the libraries. You know, I mean, he says that it's like any party can go with any ideology.

08:34 You know, like we were asking him basically about how come, you know, Chandrababu Naidu

08:38 after what all has happened in the recent past, it's still gone with the NDA. You know, he

08:43 was arrested, you know, there was so much anger within, you know, the TDP and Andhra

08:47 people also. I think it was a reaction to that. He was saying that there is nobody has

08:52 any ideology.

08:53 Which is what we covered in the beginning of our election. This thing, we took out an

08:59 issue on ideology, which you wrote for, remember that whole discussion that Hindu Rashtra has

09:02 been delivered. So what is the new thing that you're going to give me? And ideology, of

09:06 course.

09:07 And but you know, there is a difference. I think that in fact, what Ajay wrote in the

09:11 last article for Outlook, you know, this thing of this post ideology scenario. I mean, it's

09:16 not as if ideology is dead in that sense. It's actually it has entrenched, got entrenched

09:21 so much that we have gone beyond. So I don't know if you would like to talk a little bit

09:24 on that.

09:25 No, I think that's the ideology. It matters. And ideology can be framed in very many different

09:30 ways. So I think ideology becomes so complete with Hindutva at one level had become so much

09:35 of common sense for us. You know, this whole polarization looking at through a majoritarian

09:40 psyche becomes so natural to people that in earlier it was debatable. Now it is no longer

09:45 debatable. People think it is the way this is how things work. This is how we have to

09:48 see the reality. To that extent, I think Hindutva hegemony was a success story. But does that

09:54 mean there is an end of ideology in politics itself? I think that's too far fetched because

10:00 you can see Rahul Gandhi bringing back constitutionalism and social justice. It therefore, it depends

10:05 on today you cannot have ideology in terms of abstract moral principles. You cannot say

10:11 yeh sach hai aur yeh sahi hai isi le karna chahiye. But in terms of its practical implications,

10:17 so people could identify with constitution. Opposition kept talking about constitution

10:23 for long. It didn't resonate. But the moment they linked it to reservations, the moment

10:27 they linked it to exclusion of obesity and Dalits, that resonated.

10:31 Or maybe when they said extinction.

10:33 Extinction. That's when it resonates. So this ability to link abstract ideology to

10:39 everyday interest and principles.

10:42 So you know this success of Hindutva that you spoke about of the last you know one decade

10:48 for sure even before, you know when it is abstract, is it like does it reach a saturation

10:53 point? I mean does it after a point you cannot like sort of you know for electoral results

10:58 at least, cannot milk it anymore. I mean you know in the sense that yes, Hindu Rashtra

11:02 many people might think that yes we are now a Hindu Rashtra. It is kind of you know being

11:07 now what? So is there I mean emotion, I mean as you are saying it more to play with that.

11:13 How do they keep people interested?

11:15 Yeah, I think that is an interesting question. You know the way Hindutva began, the point

11:20 is that they went, that extremity of their language was so high. That was the attraction

11:26 people had because the Congress and centrist parties always around Gandhian philosophy

11:32 was of moderation. You have to moderate, self-contained, you have to be civil. It was a reaction against

11:37 that which combined with their anti-elitist mobilization. So subalterns found suddenly

11:42 a new form of expressing their anger, a legitimate form. So Hindu became a default subversive

11:48 category. Hindu is not hegemonic, it is a subversive category. People thought being

11:52 Hindu we can challenge upper caste, we can challenge elitism, we can challenge institutions.

11:57 So that is the resonation, that is what it resonated on the ground. But to do that you

12:01 have to back it up. So therefore Hindutva also meant development. So if you look even

12:06 in 2014, the attraction was Hindutva meant both fast development, greater redistribution

12:12 of resources and Hindu challenge. You cannot have a faltering economy, informal, you know

12:17 people are struggling to live and then you cannot go and say, "Garv se karo hume Hindu

12:22 hai". That does not work, you know. It has to combine. In BJP's RSS understanding, Hindutva

12:28 is an alternative to development. But I do not agree with that. I do not think it works

12:32 like that. Hindutva works better actually when economy is jumpstart. Only when you have

12:37 that aspirational momentum. If you do not have aspirational momentum, we are not an

12:43 ethnic country like Turkey or you know, that is the difference India has because of our

12:47 diversity. We cannot have some of these countries where without economy you can still mobilize.

12:53 No, we cannot. Given our diversity, the success story was you presented an alternate development

13:00 paradigm which brought Hindus together. Once that has faltered, I do not think culture

13:06 on its own can stay for too long. In fact, I think you know this is an area where the

13:10 opposition I feel has not capitalized enough. Because there is genuine anti-incumbency.

13:18 After 10 years of rule, there will be that people are a little disappointed, things have

13:24 been promised and not delivered. Many have been delivered but a lot has not. And this

13:29 is just pure anti-incumbency of just being there for 10 years. This thing, I think the

13:34 opposition has failed to capitalize. I think that when the development is not happening,

13:40 there is farm distress, there is unemployment in the hinterland, you know, and yet they

13:45 have not been able to say, you know, communicate that and go beyond the Hindutva thing of this

13:51 of the other side. I think. Absolutely. I think whatever results we are going to get

13:56 in 24, it is going to be in spite of the opposition, not because of opposition. I think opposition

14:03 has to really recalibrate that what they have learnt in this last 10 years. I mean, and

14:07 they have been very slow learners. So BJP's campaign, what is the strength of Mr. Modi's

14:12 campaign is that categories and campaigns are very quickly become experiential. People

14:18 can relate very deeply with them. Opposition campaign is still very abstract, it is all

14:22 about, you know, things that people do not, I mean, there is no experiential or emotional

14:27 backing to that. And something, part of this, I think has to do with their elite social

14:32 background. So that all of them are second and third generation, Rahul Gandhi's fourth

14:36 generation, Akhilesh's second generation, Tejasvi. I do not think they have that feel.

14:41 That is the advantage RSS, you know, has that they are pushing from the ground.

14:45 Yes, they have come from down. They have a local cultural idiom. They have

14:49 a very local idiom in which they can communicate. There is local symbolism. So in spite of poor,

14:55 people can relate. And this is not relatable. And I think opposition simply has failed.

15:00 Second, I think Modi presents issues as a story. There is no standalone issue when Modi

15:08 speaks. So if you take for instance, demonetization, he does not speak only about black money.

15:13 He says demonetization, black money, he links it to terrorism. We have broken terrorism,

15:19 then he links it to Kashmir, then he links it to Jihad, then he links it to urban Naxal.

15:23 It is like a chain. It is a chain of equivalence. It is a story.

15:27 What a story does it, it gives you a perspective to look at reality.

15:31 That is a good point. Yeah.

15:32 And opposition has not given us an alternate perspective.

15:34 No. There is no narrative.

15:35 What is the perspective we need? Yeah. So the only criticism, demonetization

15:38 has not led to eradication of black money. This is a statement. This is not a perspective.

15:43 You should actually say that the fact that Modi failed and the fact that he is generating

15:48 a red herring false narrative is a clue to see how Modi will operate on other issues.

15:54 This gives a perspective. Then people can work on their own. Okay, if he is saying something,

15:58 what does this mean? People then can decode. Yeah.

16:01 Opposition has abysmally failed in allowing people. So they are still offering you something.

16:07 See the difference between Hindutva and opposition is Hindutva gives a perspective and leaves

16:12 it there. Then people work the rest of it. So what happens with majoritarianism? They

16:16 tell you something in a way where you start looking at reality. Then you start hating

16:20 Muslims on your own. Then somebody does not have to mobilize you. That is a perspective

16:23 and performance. What opposition is doing is that they are feeding you something. But

16:28 that is not your perspective. You have to give people a perspective how to look at things.

16:33 Then they will deduce, they will connect. Okay, next time when Modi says something,

16:37 they have to go back and see what he has done with demonetization. That is how a story is

16:41 built and that is how people can decode. No, but you know I also feel that this time

16:44 there is a little bit of a difference because you know it is I remember when we were in

16:48 your discussion and there was this one person who said who was from the Marxist background

16:53 who said emotions there is no like role. And then you know it was funny because you know

16:59 emotions are here, they are mobilizing it and this other side. Sorry, emotions have

17:02 no place. He was coming from the Marxist background. No, in politics or in. Politics. I said but

17:09 Marx did not go to Russia, how did he go here? That I think is, anyway. I just said, I am

17:15 just saying that you also mentioned, you are talking about this emotion like the gap whatever

17:20 from the other side. But I also went to some of the rallies and for instance in Coimbatore,

17:26 we went to the DMK rally for you know and Rahul Gandhi actually talked in a similar

17:32 language to Modi but you know like a little differently in the sense he also said dosa,

17:36 he also says dosa, language you know and that language connects emotionally to people in

17:40 let us say South India. So I am saying a little bit has changed maybe and why emotions are

17:46 looked upon with such a way that oh it is not okay for having emotions in public discourse.

17:52 Obviously, emotions can go either way which you talk about in your book as well. But this

17:57 is the day and age of these heightened emotional. So how do you, how does the opposition work

18:03 on this kind of stuff? Or are they doing it? Are they not doing it? There are so many other

18:06 parties but. Yeah, see that partly the answer is in your question that opposition still

18:11 views some of these things from the old liberal democratic perspective. So some you might

18:17 even call it quote unquote western. So liberalism is very suspicious of emotions. Liberalism

18:24 is very suspicious of morality. But with social democratization, newer and newer social groups

18:29 walking into the portals of democracy, you know EBCs, Dalits, urban poor, they come with

18:36 cultural symbolism. They do not come with principles. They do not come with legal language

18:40 of governance. Not at all and they all want to be loved.

18:42 Yes. So the challenge is to convert. It is not, the challenge is not to give up governance.

18:46 Challenge is not to give up economic. Challenge is to convert and give a cultural edge. So

18:51 that is what Modi does. Demonetization is an economic policy. But it has a cultural

18:55 and emotional valuation and that is where it draws its emotional value. I think opposition

19:01 is failing to do that. They are giving long statement, social justice. But it has to translate

19:06 into something where people can see what is the outcome of that.

19:10 But you know Ajayji, taking on from what you know Chinky mentioned about this Coimbatore

19:14 rally, I think you know there is no central opposition you know to counter this central

19:21 BJP. But if you go down to the states, I mean if you go down you know to the districts,

19:28 no there the fight between you know the whichever the party may be, the regional party and the

19:33 BJP or it is some in many cases there are two regional parties. You know like say in

19:38 Andhra Pradesh for instance is actually Jagan Reddy and yeah it is TDP and that. There is

19:44 really no BJP or Congress. I think in those that is one exemption perhaps. But even when

19:51 the BJP is the opposition at the state, you know there I think they do take them on you

19:56 know on various.

19:58 Local.

19:59 Yeah, you know that. So there is when you say you know there is no alternative to Modi

20:04 Ji or BJP that is correct in a very broad central way. But you know our countries after

20:09 all you know it is you know.

20:11 Provincial.

20:12 There I think you know it is not as if the opposition has completely failed or has not

20:17 taken anything up.

20:18 So you are right. So wherever there are local issues, so the one of the things we are talking

20:23 about 2024 election is the local issues are back.

20:26 Yeah, local also.

20:27 So whenever there are local issues, then diversity comes up. Then once diversity comes up, obviously

20:32 regional parties will be players in that. But the point is this that you can do that

20:36 provisionally. But when it comes to national build up, then why is it that BJP and backed

20:41 by RSS always have that. And this is a long term game. It is not about 24 or 29. That

20:47 if as long as we do not decode it, there is always a danger that right wing will hijack

20:53 this.

20:54 But I also feel that some of these emotions, let us say the BJP like as an outsider or

20:59 as an observer, I feel that I am seeing when they are coming on television a lot of anger

21:03 for some strange reason, you know, and people feel things right. Like if you are talking

21:09 to me, I can feel the body language, the way you are talking, whatever. So whenever they

21:12 are coming on the stage or the pulpit or whatever, there is a lot of this anger which is coming

21:17 to me like, oh, they are really angry about something and this whole body language of

21:21 doing this or whatever.

21:23 And the other, I think some of those emotions have also gone against them. I mean, even

21:27 though the opposition did not do anything with those emotions, I think these emotions

21:31 have like, for instance, when in Ayodhya, for instance, right. So a lot of my mother

21:36 called me and she is like, you know, how can a human bring Ram? She is mixed up with that.

21:41 A lot of other people also echoed the same thing. So I think a lot of these visual objects,

21:46 this high octane emotional situation, they are actually. So I wanted to ask you, can

21:51 emotions also go wrong for you? Like, could it be too much of it?

21:56 That's a good question. Yeah. So therefore, emotions don't work in empty space, in empty

22:01 time, right? There is a temporality, there is a time, there is a memory, which is what

22:05 we call cultural codes. The emotions are embedded in certain memory. Like if you invoke a memory

22:10 of partition, then you have certain cultural trauma, the certain emotion. So same thing

22:14 happened. I think two campaigns where BJP had a good chance and which they faltered

22:20 because of this high octane emotional pitch was Bengal and Telangana. That I felt that

22:24 both these places BJP would have done better had it not been so aggressive. The way Modi

22:30 went and said didi, didi and all. It really repelled against the Bengali general ethos

22:36 that existed. Even Telangana, Yogi came and said we will change the name of Hyderabad,

22:41 Nizamabad, Muslim name, Charminar ko yeh kar denge. It didn't resonate because people have

22:46 a very regional imagination. It's not a Muslim memory but a regional memory. So this is what

22:52 I'm saying. So these statements look like colonizing from outside. There's some force

22:57 coming and colonizing you in Bengal and Hyderabad. So emotions will always have multiple meanings.

23:03 So if you do it in empty time, that's the problem with BJP. One fixed solution for all.

23:07 That everywhere you go and replicate, clone it. You go to north, they say the same, you

23:11 go to Kerala, it doesn't work. Wherever they have variations, like they go to Kerala and

23:16 say we will give you beef, it resonates. So they are also learning. One strength of BJP

23:23 is they think on their feet. Unlike opposition, 10 years, I don't see them making those recalibrated

23:30 efforts. I don't know. I mean I know that they think on their feet but look at what

23:34 happened in Bihar. There's machli eating for instance. Now I'm from Bihar. This Ram Navami,

23:39 this Chaiti Ram Navami did not have much significance in Bihar. Suddenly because of this whole Hindutva

23:45 thing it has come into being but fish and meat is very normal for us. So I'm from whatever

23:51 community and so Tejasvi actually did a video. So I think they're also going a bit too much

23:59 by doing this homogeneity. Exactly. That's the weakness of RSS that their idea of hegemony

24:06 is uniformity is unity for them. So that's an ideological viewpoint. That's a point that

24:12 they cannot compromise because that's their vision. If they push that hard, they will

24:16 get the backlash but we should always think from the point of strength because we have

24:21 to be cautious about these politics because there's a possibility of leading totalitarian

24:25 kind of regime. That what if they make a course correction? If they push to uniformity, it

24:30 is good for all of us. They will collapse but what if they learn? If they push back,

24:34 if they allow certain diversity. Which they do too. Do we keep doing that? Also media.

24:39 What about the media and emotions? What are they doing? I mean media is there. The point

24:44 is this media, for instance, even if you give the entire media control to opposition today,

24:49 will they be able to galvanize? That's the question. I think media on its own doesn't

24:54 because you can see now mainstream media has fallen apart. If you do excess in empty space,

24:59 that kind of vitriolic, toxic language, people have stopped watching mainstream. In fact

25:04 on the theme of what you were saying, you know that…

25:06 You are instead watching outlook, right? Reading and watching and listening to.

25:10 Yeah, that's true. No, on the, you know, how it can be go a little against if you are

25:15 too aggressive, you know, in I travel through Maharashtra for the elections and one common

25:20 thing that we picked up through the belt, the Marathwada belt actually from Solapur,

25:25 Aurangabad, Nashik, Bombay. You know that this thing, the Maharashtrians are actually

25:31 quite simple folk and they are very sentimental and they don't like, you know, somebody coming

25:35 from outside and breaking up family, you know, like the NCP, the Pawar family or breaking

25:41 a party.

25:42 You know, this was a very strong emotion we felt and, you know, from the rural belt as

25:50 well as in, you know, the cities, the shopkeepers, a lot of people said this to us. So that is

25:55 another…

25:56 So there the connotation is one of family. You have somebody coming from outside breaking

25:59 family, then the emotions will act differently. Similarly, with Muslim thing, if you overdo

26:04 it, you need to, people need to be convinced that there is genuine militant Muslim mobilization.

26:10 Exactly.

26:11 10 years you have browbeaten them, they are on the back foot, they are cornered. Now to

26:15 generate an anti-mobilization, it's not going to work because where is that militant Muslim?

26:19 You don't see it. You have invisibilized them. And then if you keep saying that, you know,

26:24 we will, people will also ask them, what have you done in 10 years? You said you are here

26:28 to solve the Muslim, quote unquote Muslim problem, but you keep saying. So same thing

26:33 has happened with Kashmir. They said demonetization, terrorism is over. Then they said 370, terrorism

26:39 is over. Now you go back and say that, you know, there are problems, there are attacks

26:43 back, people are going to recalibrate. So that's the problem with any extreme discourse.

26:48 It will work once, twice where people, but to recalibrate, reinvent it at that intensity,

26:54 it's not possible because, you know, then you have to get the entire matrix right. So

26:58 when Modi's new untested people gave him free hand.

27:02 Yeah. So you talk about a boredom, emotion of boredom, most underrated one. I think people

27:07 are just maybe bored. That's a very, very important emotion in

27:10 current populist regimes that, you know, one of my arguments has been that one of the reasons

27:14 why people have moved to totalitarian regimes is they're entertaining, right? They're very

27:19 acidic. They use foul language. They use, you know, very, very offensive kind of, that's

27:26 very entertaining, but every entertainment needs to be reinvented. You need to have a

27:29 new story. If the same guy comes and uses the same, like Modi now says Mangal Sooth,

27:34 people laugh. Yeah. 10 years back had Modi said Mangal Sooth, it would have worked. Maybe

27:38 it would have worked. That people, you know, it would have been seen as a concern for women.

27:42 It would have been a lot of things. If you remember during the early elections, Amit

27:45 Shah and BJP said that if AAP and Congress win, you know, Hindu women can be raped and,

27:50 you know, all these kinds of things. It didn't work. So this is an interesting part about

27:55 it. It works in concrete time and space in terms of a matrix and you have to recalibrate

28:01 to get that matrix. Point is RSS, BJP are at least in the game. What about the opposition?

28:07 Are they even thinking that this is how one has to calibrate a campaign? Looking at the

28:11 24 campaign, one gets a sense that you're campaigning on issues which can never match

28:17 anyone based on giving people a perspective. But we'll have to, at the end of the day,

28:21 give people an alternate perspective. Then, you know, if people still choose the other,

28:26 there's... Yeah. No, I think there's a slight, you know, difference, slight change that,

28:33 let's say, in your discussion, that guy was there who was completely like against emotions,

28:36 right? In liberal discussions, we do not want to have any. But now I think a little bit

28:41 because I was in Kashmir. For example, Article 370, which became such a big deal. And across

28:46 India, they've talked about Article 370. Now somebody in Bihar doesn't really care.

28:49 They don't know. They think that the terrorists are over. But this is what the sentiment I

28:54 get. They don't really know the nuances of Article 370, what all happened from the ascension

29:00 and then over whatever subsequently and all of that. In Kashmir, for instance, when we

29:06 were there in the rallies, all the political party leaders, the regional political parties

29:11 and NCs with the Indy Alliance, they kept talking about dignity as an emotion, right?

29:17 They talked about betrayal. And these are very charged kind of rallies where they talked

29:25 about Article 370, which is a complete opposite discourse. Now, two days ago, three days ago,

29:30 I was listening to Amit Shah, for instance, talk to one of the channels, NDTV, I suppose.

29:36 And he's saying that people have accepted this policy, right? 370. And Kashmir is happy

29:41 because people have showed up in record numbers to vote, which obviously the records have

29:45 been broken since 1990s, whatever. We met somebody who voted in the 87 election, the

29:50 poet and he was jailed and whatever he and he said, this time I'm going to vote. He has

29:55 not voted in any of these elections after that, like after 87, which was rigged. And

30:01 he said, this is my way of breaking my silence, at least some. So I'm saying that there the

30:06 campaigns were very emotional in terms of like, in fact, actually, Romana was there

30:11 and he said, I have not seen this much for BJP also everywhere because the people were

30:14 just like this thing when they said, humko dhokha diya gaya hai, we want dignity, nobody

30:20 ever asked us. And if you elect, we will go and take to the centre 370. So there are two

30:24 discourses of 370, one in the place of 370. And there's a projection here. So I feel that

30:31 there are these emotions coming. And some of the emotions that these are these guys

30:35 are using are also working against them, like they're cutting the lines in a very strange

30:39 way. And I mean, I don't know, I mean, to me, the 2024 elections are like these emotional

30:45 pitches. And there's also humour, by the way. There's a lot of humour, you know, this

30:49 khata khat, phata phat, you know, there's a lot of humour coming from Bihar. So what

30:55 about humour? And there is so much of it in social media, you know, these memes and they

31:00 know they're actually quite brilliant. I love it. And there they're really thinking

31:04 on their toes and they're, you know, it's so quick. Yeah, it's quickly done. Like Gandhi

31:10 thing, right? So somebody said, nobody knew Ganga before Ram Teri Ganga. You know, so

31:16 there's this humour. So what about the emotion of humour? I think that humour is a very,

31:20 very subversive, you know, that's why, you know, this regime continuously problem with

31:24 stand up comedians, because humour can puncture your hyperbolic claims of Hindutva of creating

31:31 a solid state, you know, somebody just can put a pin that burst, you know, so humour

31:36 is a very, very subversive emotion, especially in troubled times, humour can because it punctures

31:42 the solidity of that image, you know, that it shows the absurdity behind these claims,

31:47 you know, one hand RSS wants to make this absurdity a common sense, but humour can just

31:53 come and puncture the whole thing. So humour, I think is a very powerful...

31:55 And if the humour came from the opposition parties, you know, they could have utilised

31:59 this emotion for it. Precisely, that's what they ought to do,

32:01 you know, that they have to... The meme makers are doing.

32:03 They have to create those narratives of humour, then people will carry it on, you don't have

32:08 to go all the way, you give them that entry point.

32:10 Humour has that, that's true. People will, but very, very little, I mean,

32:13 Akhilesh does a bit, I've seen Akhilesh... Little bit, Tejasvi does, but not really like

32:17 as a strategy. Because if you look at the mobile access...

32:20 Even Rahul is attempting that, you know, a bit, but Mamata does a little bit.

32:25 I don't know if she does it purposefully or just comes out like that.

32:27 I don't know. It becomes humorous, we don't know.

32:30 But that's the point, if I think opposition could have learnt in this 10 years some of this thing,

32:35 we could have had a really powerful oppositional campaign. That I think would then really test

32:41 whether how powerful this philosophy, ideology is on the ground.

32:44 Today what is happening is that people are voting in spite of, so we really do not know

32:50 how much they are convinced of opposition, are they really rejecting one side. So that's the

32:55 reason there's so much of confusion. No reporter coming back is coming back with any clear narrative.

33:00 Not at all.

33:01 Because people are not convinced of either of the narratives. That's the withdrawal mode.

33:06 What is the one emotion you saw, let's say, if you went out, you did say that you went for the

33:11 Kanhaiya thing. What is that one emotion that Satish ji can talk about his, what one dominant

33:17 emotion that you felt.

33:19 I think the dominant emotion was a mode of rejection of entire thing. The problem is that

33:25 they are terribly angry with the current regime, but not convinced with the opposition. So this

33:29 is a very strange trauma kind of a thing people are going through.

33:33 Toxic relationship.

33:34 Yeah, I mean, they don't know what to do. You know, the guy is here.

33:37 Trauma bonding.

33:38 Yeah, you are convinced that this is not the right guy. But you know, there is no alternative.

33:43 Then you recalibrate, after all, we have to only vote for this guy, even if he's,

33:47 so this is a very traumatic. I think I would frame 24 is a trauma for common people.

33:53 Yeah, thank you. That's a very well put and thank you very much. I think that's all we have time

33:58 for. Thank you so much for coming over here and a great discussion.

34:01 Always a pleasure to be part of Outlook.

34:02 Thank you so much. Thank you so much for hearing us, listening to us. Thank you.

Outlook Talks: Emotions, Politics & Ideology with Prof. Ajay Gudavarthy

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