A Nation Divided

Have you in the last few years experienced this phenomenon where you had an intense angry argument over social/political issues with closest friends and family, people whom you never imagined their worldview to be so radically different from yours. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, but it’s has gripped the nation. (and going by recent American elections and turmoil thereafter, it grips the entire world). In our country, it’s almost like we are two entirely different nations living in two entirely different realities in superposition with one another. While caste, language, religion, politics or even sports have always been of driving a wedge between people, things have rarely ever looked this bad, especially the scale and rigidity of the division. Sure, everyone has a political view point and there have been political differences, but until a few years ago extreme loyalty to a political ideology or a leader was limited mostly to party workers and spokespersons. I do not remember a time when it was so common for people who otherwise get along well to have intense angry disagreements, to the point where both sides are shocked the other side holds such ridiculous views. This no longer seems the case today. There are broadly two factions on our country, two tribes. One is Pro-Narendra Modi and the other is anti- Narendra Modi and both these factions see each other as imminent danger to the country.

There are pundits who describe this has ideological polarization. That the people of this country are polarized between 2 extremely contradictory ideologies. One the face of it, given BJP’s ideological inclinations, it may seem on the surface that this division is ideological between Hindutva and “Secular” politics. (Some pundits espouse the much less plausible idea that our country is divided on based on left and right wing economics, but that’s way too outlandish). In any case, to chalk up the deep division in our country to ideological difference is plainly lazy analysis. In fact, the deep division in our country has no ideological basis. Sure, certain ideological factors are pulling the fabric of our society apart creating tension, but this is not what is tearing our country apart.

Demonetization, GST, Electoral bonds, CAA-NRC, Article 370 repeal, PM Cares funds, Chinese incursions at the border, suicide of SSR, farmer’s bill. Ask yourself, what is the ideological thread that connects these issues? What possible ideological connection does the issue of Electoral Bonds have with CAA-NRC? There is literally nothing to connect these issues. Yet, if you knew someone’s stand on any of these issues, say on Article 370, you can with a very high degree of confidence, predict their stand on other unrelated issues, say like success of demonetization, or cause of SSR’s death or the recent farm protests. If not with absolute certainty, certainly with a very high degree of confidence. This behavior is not at all consistent with any ideological commitment. In such a large and diverse country like India, if people were independently making up their minds according to their own ideological convictions, you’d expect to see a lot of people who believe demonetization was a good idea, but oppose CAA or completely support repeal of Article 370 but believe Electoral Bonds is a scam. But no. You mostly just see people neatly arranging themselves into binary camps. People have just divided themselves into labels and very likely take the opinion the rest of their group takes on any given issue. More importantly, the strength of belief is directly proportional to how much the ‘other group’ detests the very same idea.

As someone who has lived in the US and follows its politics, this is exactly the same phenomenon that has polarized American society also. In America, if you know someone’s stance on Gun regulation, you very likely know their stance on abortions and healthcare, police reforms etc., even though these issues have very little in common. This phenomenon is what gives leaders like Donald Trump and Narendra Modi their ‘Teflon’ coating. Seemingly they can do nothing to lose their supporters. Because people no longer make up their minds based on the merits of the issue, but rather the thinking is done for them in their echo chamber and all we have to do is download the meme and internalize the reasoning and justification. The reasoning most often only needs to sound remotely plausible; it’s not even required to be probable let alone reasonable.

A lot has been said about social media and how the tech giants gaming the attention economy have torn fabric of a shared reality, shredding them into micro realities customized to our tastes. All of that is absolutely true. The documentary ‘Social Dilemma’ showcased that better anything that can be articulated here. However, it would be a mistake to try to explain away the deep divisions in our country as function of social media manipulation. While social media certainly acts as a chemical catalyst that speeds up the reaction, to rapidly pull people into their echo chambers, social media itself is not sufficient or even necessary condition for our division.

There are more deliberate human forces, not just computer algorithms, that are working overtime to create, deepen and preserve this division. Television channels and politicians are always framing every issue as an either or, for or against and people are constantly forced to take a side with often vastly exaggerated and imaginary stakes. Are you for or against GST? For or against CAA-NRC. Is SSR’s death suicide or murder, are you for or against farm protests? And remember, you are not merely taking sides on these issues. Choose poorly and depending upon which side you take, the other side is Hitler-Adjacent communal fascists, crony capitalists or Chinese communists who converted into Pakistani jihads and funded by Christian missionaries and urban Naxals (and now Khalistanis is added to the list). People are constantly forced to take a side and the government and the giant media outlets are always drawing the dividing line.

While the role of social media in accelerating this rightly widely critiqued, this phenomenon does not require social media to play any part at all. People still listen to their peers, their family, friends, colleagues and the more strongly an idea is instilled in an average person’s network, the informational influence from peers strengthens that idea within that person’s mind, especially given the false ‘high stakes’ of taking these positions.

The other more direct effect of forcing people to take sides with such “high stakes” on every issue is that it effectively kills any nuanced discussion. Even someone with moderate beliefs is forced to take a side and they are put in a position where they have to defend a more extreme idea. A 1957 Stanford University study explained how such ‘forced compliance’ leads people to actually internalize and believe those very ideas they were forced to comply with. So people, even those with moderate views, being continuously forced into take a side and often defend the more extreme ideas within their side actually results in even those moderate people adopting the more extreme stances.

This cycle continues on both sides. The ruling party and its media houses first set the high stakes, this or that, narrative that forces people to take sides. Peer influence and social media helps in sorting people into their respective sides and the forced compliance effect takes people down the rabbit hole into adopting more extreme beliefs. And finally, confirmation bias builds a mental wall around people’s mind preventing any opposing ideas from disturbing the comforting beliefs within their in-group. The result is we have a very polarized society where each side increasingly believes they have nothing much in common with the other and with that any hopes of finding a common ground keeps fading by the day.

With such deep polarization, a political party that dominates the imagination of one side has tremendous electoral advantages, especially if the other side doesn’t have clear political leadership to consolidate behind. Issues that’d normally kill a political party at the polls like steep petrol price hikes to a failing economy and increasing unemployment, don’t seem to hurt the ruling party anymore.

Donald Trump quite emphatically declared that he could “Shoot somebody on 5th avenue and I still wouldn’t lose any support”. Only in America’s case, The Democratic Party, the principal opposition Party, was able to effectively organize and consolidate all the anti-Trump votes to barely win the election. India has no such robust opposition party, so what’s in store for our country is yet to be seen. However, it’s clear that it’s quite unlikely that this fever is going to break anytime soon. Indeed, bringing the country together is much tougher task that it is dividing it. Even leaders with the best of intentions may fail trying. It requires a very strong moral leader, with clear focus on bringing the country together, for us to find common ground and heal again. Whether Joe Biden is up to it in America remains to be seen but India’s fate seems a way more uncertain that.