The largest set of statues in the world and the prospects of a grand temple does give us surplus enjoyment. It bestows a feeling that we have overcome all hurdles and climbed the last peak. Hence, everything will fall in place. All our enemies are subdued. We can take rest and enjoy a sense of surplus. The pleasure provided a sense that we have finally put things in its place is powerful. One cannot discern its intoxicating deception. It is a surplus overload. We celebrate ourselves as a society of choice but the only choice that we have is to offer no choice to the other, the poor, the minority, dalit , tribal and the women. This is a consequence of consumerist capitalist society that we are building in the name of development. Axel Honneth in his book, the idea of socialism depicts our situation vividly. He states that capitalism produces dissatisfaction which explodes into rage and anger but it is less and less possible to articulate this rage into a leftist political project. The growing rage is getting more and more articulated into a program in the guise of rightist popularisms. This is why both capitalism and rage it generated can stay together as the rage is then expressed against a pseudo-demon. This is why maybe we have to think critically and ask difficult questions concerning the politics of Statues and the temple that is being played in our country. Is it a false satisfaction that we derive resulting from a deflection of the rage that is generated by the crony capitalism that is being set up in our country in the name of development? Is not the religious – nationalist fundamentalism grounded in fake economic nationalism a result of rage generated by capitalism that is growing around us? This is why it is very difficult to dislodge the authoritarian regime of the right led by BJP although everyone seems to know its failure.
We need a new enlightenment in our country to delink from the false hopes given by the ruling Party. If we do not initiate sets to check our mindless acceptance of unfreedom one might say in the words of J.M. Keynes that ‘in the long term we are all dead’. But we have with us the ordinary people who can spring forth many surprises in the short term because despite their promises the right wing does not seem to have the ability to deliver economic development for all. How long the bubble of the authority politics of the poor masses and extravaganza for the powerful elite will last is not a difficult question. But bust that bubble we will have discerned that the light at the end of the tunnel that the right wing shows is nothing but the headlight of another train which is coming in the opposite direction to crush us all. We need courage and hope to think in this hopeless condition. The light at the end of the tunnel is false hope and deception. We have several such lights that are fooling us. They are best called jumlas. With ‘ache dhin’ showing no sign of coming our vote last time was nothing but an oncoming engine that crushed all our hopes. But are we ready to learn our lessons ? Why can the series of statues and the temple politics another head light of an oncoming train that will only electorally benefit the right wing and help their cronies. We will have to discern the false hope or the headlights of approaching engines that enkindle false hope in us. Otherwise nothing can stop us to sell ourselves into neo-slavery via ballot.
To walk the path of freedom, we will have to discern the performative effects of the politics of statues and temples. It has the power to enslave us into voting back BJP. The performative effects of the politics of the rightwing that uses and defects our rage generated by the capitalism at play in our country will enslave us both economically, politically and socially. Our free country is in danger of being plunged into a series of unfreedoms . We have already had a foretaste of it. The politics of the vigilante groups is another mask for the rage emanating from capital-centric development. The production of capital-centric development takes various forms and can be critically discerned. As far the politics of the rightwing is concerned it seems to allow us to have our cake and eat it at the same time. We can have Capitallo-centric development and also deflect the rage on innocent victims like the minorities, women, dalits and others. But in the long run we are all doomed. What we need is not break with the past but break with the present that is using the past to divide and rule. The brutal present needs to be reinvented. It not in turning to the ways of the rightwing as Rahul Gandhi of the Congress seem to do these days by posing as a devout Hindu. We will have to discern how the rightwing and capitalism preys on the commons of our culture, commons of our nature and Commons of our human nature. Discerning how all our commons are under attack of the unholy alliance of the rightwing and crony capitalists might open us ways of contestation and may assist us to understand, analyse and respond to the rage produced by capital-centric development that we have embraced. It is breaking with the poisonous chain in the present that we can save our country.
