We can see thinking as anticipating the futures to come. In some way thinking is foresight. Michel Serres thinks and anticipates the future through his figures of thought. Figures of thought are not generic patterns or tendencies. He thinks of them as algorithmic operators. They can produce infinite varieties of outputs from infinite varieties of inputs. He sees figures of thought in nature, culture and literature. Species of flora and fauna are natural figures of thought. Through them we can see the great branching story of the universe. There are several other figures of thought . They all emerge from the movements of the universe, of life, of body , of culture, of thought. Thus, figures of thought are not describtive but are performative. To understand as well as apply these figures of thought let us take the notorious story of the electoral bonds outlawed by the Supreme Court in our country.
We may think electoral bonds as figures of thought introduced by the deep thinking of Serres. The political parties , especially the ruling party could lead their customers to buy their electoral bonds through ‘ infinite’ inputs. The ruling BJP has used chanda as a way to dhanda in some cases in other cases chanda as avoidance of kanoon ka fanda. Still in other cases chanda become simply vasuli for protection. There may be other inputs engineered by the ruling BJP or other parties to draw chanda to their treasury. The fact that the transactions of the electoral bonds was to remain a secret, it produced a great output especially for the BJP. It gave it great money power and this affected the level playing field during elections. In fact, it may have been one of the main reasons for BJP to win elections. It can be also one that gave them confidence and sense of triumphalism. It might have also reinforced their hate ridden stanch on nationalism.
But with the supreme court’s declaration of the illegality of the electoral bonds, it opened a new future. We can now anticipate a new future to come. The new future is not so pleasant for the BJP. This new future which would have remained unthinkable without the intervention of the Supreme Court has opened new out puts from the electoral bonds. Electoral bonds were always figures of thoughts. Now that they received a new input from the Supreme Court, they offer outputs that manifests a quid po quo in several cases that has come back to haunt the BJP. Thus, for instance, the wire has shown that there are several Pharmaceutical companies that have failed on their drug tests yet dangerously have put their drugs in the medical market have bought electoral bonds. This appear to reveal that electoral bond was a kind of protection money paid to the Government. If the transactions were to remain underground, maybe sick Indians would continue to be administered medically failed and therefore dangerous drugs.
Even the case of money trail sought by the ED against APP seems to be in the treasury of the ruling benches as the one who has turned approver and witness is manifested as the big donor of the BJP and the timing of the buying of the electoral bonds also indicate to some hanky panky business. Thus, a new input produces new output. This means figures of thought offer us new possibilities of thinking. This time of course , the new thinking is not on the side of the ruling BJP. As figures of thought, it has given us new foresight and we can therefore, let our thinking ride on the power of these figures of thought towards a new future.
This new future is on the side of the people of India . It is now for the people of India to embrace this new future and let it happen to them. figures of thinking thus really gives us wings of thinking and enables us to break the barriers of thinking that bind us to the dogmatic enslavement to the Platonic cave. We indeed have the challenge to break our chains such umbilical thinking that keeps us tied down to our one idea. Without the intervention of the Supreme Court, We in India would have been enslaved to our umbilicism and would even blindly follow the umbilical thinking t(hat chains us to an ethic-religious nationalism) of the ruling BJP. The input of the Supreme Court has opened a new playfield for the people of India to think and anticipate an emancipative freedom for them.
