The views expressed in this column are the individualu2019s and donu2019t represent those of the paper W e must turn to neuroscience to examine the Bharatiya Janata Partyu2019s boast that more and more Indians are making a rational choice in favour of Hindutva over competing ideologies.
The truth, in fact, is to the contrary: The BJP projects itself as the sole saviour of Hindus, then scares them into suspending their rationality before every election, and hopes they will herd around it for protection.
This strategy of the BJP is stark in its campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections.
Psychologists and neuroscientists, seeking to comprehend why fear is a powerful tool for mobilisation, say humans make decisions by using two parts of their brains, one of which works fast and the other slow.
The faster part, as Sara Gorman and Jack M Gorman, wrote in Psychology Today magazine, is located u201c in the primitive parts of the brain like the limbic cortexu201d and is highly susceptible to emotions like fear, anger, sadness and happiness. The slower part, based in the prefrontal cortex, uses reason to make rational decisions.
The Gormans noted, u201c When strong emotions are stirred the limbic cortex can inhibit the prefrontal cortex and prevent us from using reason to make a decision.u201d They added wryly, u201c This is something politicians figured out long ago.u201d The BJP has been working on exactly this principle in Delhi u2014 scaring its Hindu citizens to prevent them from making a rational decision.
For instance, Home Minister Amit Shah has been asking the voters to u201c press the button with such anger that the current is felt at Shaheen Bagh.u201d They must do it, he said, to make the u201c country safe.u201d Since Muslims dominate the protest there, Shah is essentially projecting their activism as inimical to the country, although without citing evidence to back his charge.
Indeed, Shahu2019s silence on the nature of the threat that Shaheen Bagh poses is deliberate. Or so it would seem from what Arash Jayanbakht, of Wayne State University, recently wrote on the politics of fear: u201c If one undocumented illegal immigrant murders a US citizen, some politicians use fear with the hope that few will ask: u2018 This is terrible, but how many people were murdered in this country by US citizens just today?u2019u201d Such a question will likely not be asked because, as Jayanbakht says, u201c fear bypasses logicu201d, which presumably also prompted BJP MP Parvesh Verma to outlandishly warn Delhiu2019s Hindus that those who gather at Shaheen Bagh will enter their houses, rape their sisters and daughters and kill them. Verma hoped the scared Hindu will not ask: Is such a scenario plausible? Is it not Hindutva footsoldiers who rape and kill Muslim women, as they did during the 2002 Gujarat and the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots? Such questions are not posed because fear continues to fashion our responses, as it did during the early stages of human evolution. It would trigger in people a u201c fight or flightu201d response u2014 they either retreated or banded together to ward off rival tribes, described as u201c the othersu201d, from appropriating their resources.
This principle still applies: Nations do sink their internal differences to fight a war.
The BJP has turned elections into war waged through the Electronic Voting Machine. It must, therefore, create the u201c otheru201d. u201c The typical pattern is to give the other humans a different label than us, and say they are going to harm us or our resources,u201d says Jayanbakht. The difference between u201c usu201d and u201c themu201d could be real or simply imagined, as is true of Vermau2019s depiction of Shaheen Baghu2019s protesters. u201c By scaring us, the demagogues turn on our aggression towards u2018 the othersu2019,u201d Jayanbakht writes.
It is to fuel the aggression of the Hindus and harness their votes that the BJP has chosen to portray the little- known student leader Sharjeel Islamu2019s intemperate speech as representing nothing less than the seditious heart of Muslims. This is also why stories have been planted in the media to claim that the Popular Front of India, a radical Muslim organisation, is funding the protests at Shaheen Bagh.
The use of the fear- aggression dyad to gather votes could incite violence, as it has in Delhi, where Hindutva followers used firearms at protest sites. They have taken their cue from Union Minister Anurag Thakur, who had earlier led the chant of u201c desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maro saalon ko [ What should be done with traitors of the country? Shoot them.]u201d Thakuru2019s remark marks a new low in the BJPu2019s own record of scare- mongering.
The BJP has injected an unprecedented dose of fear in its electoral rhetoric in order to ensure Delhiites do not use reason to decide on their votes. A rational decision would have them vote overwhelmingly for AAP, which has performed far better than most governments in north India.
The rationality of Delhiites is on test u2014 whether they can be scared as children are by ghost stories, although the BJP seems to have made the same mistake as those storytellers who are disbelieved because they pump their tales with an overdose of fear.
The increasingly vicious poll rhetoric merits a scientific examination of how the politics of fear makes a voter tick A screen grab of the BJP rally where minister of state for finance and BJP leader Anurag Thakur raised the slogan, u2018 Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maro saalon kou2019 in January The writer is a senior journalist Ajaz Ashraf monday blues BJPu2019s ghost stories for Delhiites Send your feedback to mailbag@ mid- day. com Indeed, Shahu2019s silence on the nature of the threat that Shaheen Bagh poses is deliberate. Or so it would seem from what Arash Jayanbakht, of Wayne State University, recently wrote on the politics of fear: u201c If one undocumented illegal immigrant murders a US citizen, some politicians use fear with the hope that few will ask: u2018 This is terrible, but how many people were murdered in this country by US citizens just today?u2019u201d
