We have had many protests during the six-year period of Narendra Modi’s evil rule, including by students, anti-CAA protesters, and Dalits, among others. However, in each of these protests, the current regime attempted to launch an aggressive counter-narrative, equating students with anti-national protesters, anti-CAA with jihadists, and Dalits in Bhima Koregaon with Maoists.
Whether these narratives succeeded in convincing the public is a difficult proposition to examine, but what the counter-narrative succeeded in is sowing doubts and anxiety and stopping the moral legitimacy of these protesters’ claims to represent other sections beyond their immediate interests.
It is the first time that the tables have turned against the Modi regime with the protests of the farmers. The current regime tried the same old trick of labeling them as ‘Khalistanis’, but that made little sense compared to the calm and balanced demands of the farmers that were reflected not only in their immediate interests but in the ‘development’ model . being persecuted without apology in favor of the corporate sector. Today’s anxieties have more to do with the intent of the regime than with the demands of the farmers.
The method of protest employed by the farmers, including their concern for political prisoners, students, and the rising costs of education, and the general atmosphere of repression, contributed to their moral veracity. The farmers’ protest seems less political and more subsistence. It arises from the basic need for food that concerns all sectors of society and it seems unlikely that farmers have crypto motives other than what they are demanding, given the sustained agrarian crisis in India over the past decades.
Farmers had more moral valence given their rural roots compared to high-tech machinations. It is a combination of these factors that threatens to expose the real content of the Modi regime’s governance. The motto of the farmers, “Sarkaar ki asli majboori – Adani, Ambani, jamakhori ‘” appeared to be authentic, according to the motto of the Congress of ‘ki sarkar boot suitit came close to capturing the popular imagination. It is with this moral power that the farmers could launch a direct criticism, bordering on the abusive indifference of Modi’s leadership. They burned his effigy, found him guilty, and refused to buy into his arguments to favor the peasants, regardless of what they had to say.
This narrative could be the key to understanding many other narratives and slogans that the current regime has put in place. It could be argued that the Modi regime now has a serious legitimacy crisis and even the opposition parties have gathered the courage to join the protest, take to the streets and declare a joint fight against their government. Rather than parties giving value to citizens, it is citizen-farmers who are giving credibility to opposition parties.
Members of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) walk at the protest site during a nationwide strike against recently passed agricultural bills at the Singhu border near Delhi, India, on December 8, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Anushree Fadnavis
While the loss of legitimacy opens space for opposition and the new narratives required in a democracy, given the majority character of the current regime, it could also pave the way for the ominous possibility of a governance model stripped of claims of legitimacy, consent. and popularity. The current regime could now design a model of a state stripped of society and instead of trying to implement its agenda, as it was trying, from the bottom up in trying to include various sections, move towards an approach that it can ignore more openly and aggressively the question of maintaining legitimacy.
The nature of the crisis of the current regime is much deeper and very different even from the fascist regime of the Nazis. The Nazis under Hitler’s leadership enjoyed almost complete popularity and consent from the Germans. The Germans were convinced that Hitler was the correct answer to the historical damage they had suffered after the First World War. Hitler may have been defeated in the war, but he was not politically defeated until the end. This was in part because the Nazis themselves had the goal of avenging the insult and not simply seizing power.
One has to admit with some trepidation that the Nazis were “authentic” with their agenda and had popular support. On the contrary, the current regime in India has the ambition to gain almost complete control, to stay in power for a long time, but it has neither the popularity nor the authenticity of the Nazi regime. The current regime is turning increasingly against more and more sectors of society and continues to cling to the support of a small minority of fanatics who genuinely feel a sense of historical damage and suffer from a deeply nihilistic view of life.
Beyond that immediate circle, Modi does not enjoy indisputable popularity, which has been steadily declining and reached a crescendo with protests from farmers. When moral consent declines, the only way a regime can cling to power is through repressive technologies of the state that have little regard for popular consent and moral legitimacy. This is clearly a sinister possibility or result of the farmers’ protest.
The legitimacy gained from reading Article 370 and the movement to build a temple has been clearly exaggerated and the common sense of the public underestimated. It is unlikely, given the leanings of a majority ruler like Modi, to recalibrate the situation rather than continue to claim popularity strongly and continue to undermine the legitimacy of those who protest. At the center of this is the mode of governance through the exception, which is seen as a legitimate way of governing through a majority lens.
A majority mode necessarily requires this extra-institutional form of governance. When you enjoy a degree of consent, it seems legitimate, but when you start to lose consent, there is no way the majority ruler can withdraw or back off because that will only delegitimize you further.
Majoritarianism has come full circle of cornering others to moral delegitimization through fabricated claims and narratives that it fixes itself in a similar situation. From calculated chaos and directed violence, it could become more rampant and random. But this continues to be one of the possibilities that will have to be countered through mobilizations such as those that farmers have taught us.
Ajay Gudavarthy is an Associate Professor at the Center for Political Studies, JNU.
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