The intellectual authority and allure of left-liberal thought have taken a severe beating among the masses and academia alike. The erosion of their cultural dominance is not only visible but is fast becoming normalized. The right controls not only political but cultural and academic institutions. Is there some hope? Mudrarakshasa examines.
Have the left liberals lost the battle of ideas?
Mudrarakshasa
There is one battle that the left liberal was and is supposed to win even in the face of political onslaught of the right-wing politics i.e. battle of ideas. Left-liberal was always intellectually and culturally ascendant in Independent India. This predominance was due to both domestic factors which included political dominance of the left to the centre Congress and its leadership. This was also due to academic and intellectual hegemony of left-liberal thought globally. Post Nazism, fascism and partition violence, the right-wing had lost much of its credibility; only economic, cultural and political conservatism was posing a challenge to liberal-left dominance without much academic and intellectual teeth. Rightist thought was neither cool nor influential.
However, over the past decade, this has shifted significantly. The intellectual authority and allure of left liberal thought has taken a severe beating among the masses and academia alike. The erosion of their cultural dominance is not only visible but is fast becoming normalized. Right controls not only political but cultural and academic institutions. From a time when the right-wing was finding it difficult to find suitable preeminent people for key positions in the institutes, a tectonic shift has taken place to the current stampede by the qualified people to contribute to the right-wing intellectual and prestige pile. This underlines a cultural and intellectual climate which is very different from what was expected even a few years ago.
Media, Academia, and cultural bodies today, as always, reflect the ruling dispensation's thinking. Given the heavy and lingering role of the government, this is to be expected. It is also true that during the heydays of left-liberal dominance in these bodies, the right wing did suffer systematic discrimination. Without shedding any tear for the cabals of those days, it should be noted that, unlike the right-wing mobilization, inherent plurality of left liberal thought and constituency makes it impossible to address it fully with one single message of hatred or dissent. So left-liberal dominance was definitely less homogenizing and less dangerous for the ethnic and intellectual minorities.
Media has capitulated. This surrender is not due to fear only, though that is there as dissent is handled not so subtly. The transformation of media also represents genuine ideological change in the thinking of practitioners in the field and also a convergence of TRP and rightist content. Academia has seen aggressive purges, packing in recruitments and modifications in syllabus and new subjects. The same with cultural bodies.
This has led to a situation where left-liberal culture and knowledge system, once proud, innovative and stylish, has been rendered bitter, defensive and pedantic. In the cyclical roulette of intellectual trends, masses (never a direct player but always arbiter and validator) have shed their veneration of the left-liberal intellectual ecosystem. Its jargon, concerns and connect started sounding alien to people as there was right-wing’s robust push for the familiar themes of religion and heritage. It is not just the patronage, energy and aggressiveness of the right-wing onslaught that led to this diminishing of the left-liberal system but there were genuine contradictions that had crept in, making it easier to attack.
When a body and way of thinking keeps refining itself, a time comes when its strands get too particular for general comfort. Focussing on the persecution of minorities and other somewhat esoteric themes not only becomes prestigious but also aggressive in tone. Pushback from minorities (religious, ethnic and gender) using the highly polished intellectual tools may cause discomfort among a critical mass. This gives credence to the allegations against an ideology or thought processes of being out of sync with general aspiration. This is not to say that these concerns are wrong but to say how this preoccupation with such issues can lead to disconnect from a larger base which becomes available to political entrepreneurs. Language and jargons of this polished left-liberal system further alienated the masses and right-wing allegations of elitism started resonating more deeply. Leading to bitterness, defensiveness and loss of acceptance for the earlier dominant and cool left liberals.
Furthermore, If you are academically dominant for significant time, then your identification with educated elites gets perpetuated and segments saddled with the status anxiety find ways to brand you as snobs and distant. With depletion of the eminence of earlier status and demonstrated energy of the right-wing push this becomes a double whammy for the left liberals. ‘Jhola wala’ and cotton clad soirees which were marks of refinement and intellectual vibrancy are now very easy to be castigated and look like a cult activity which they are actually becoming very fast.
Many factors have led to this situation of right-wing ascendency in the culture and knowledge sphere. Right wing conservative movement recognized the crucial importance of the emerging technologies and put them to very effective use. A good example is Namo App, an all-encompassing app that can be deployed for dissemination, amplification, cadre management, iconography, constituency management, archives, project monitoring and so much more. There is no other counterpart in Indian politics. Right-wing initial success on social media was attributed to them being underdog and opposition for so long but they have managed to retain their edge even after becoming the establishment. Apart from better utilization and great cadre, the right wing was supported by the fact of uniformity and single pointedness of their message. Their cocktail of resentment, heritage, identity and elite bashing (endless supply of enemies) made them a catnip for algorithms that love such easy emotions to get virality. No wonder, Twitter (X), YouTube etc are dominated by right-wing channels. In Western world podcasting is totally overtaken by the right-wing podcasters.
While the right-wing ecosystem has succeeded in perfecting its message and dominating the tools of dissemination, they very successfully discredited the message(s) of liberal left. A not so difficult task as prolonged dominance and refinements have made the left-liberal message diffused, elitist and snob. Resonance received by the phrases like ‘Khan Market Gang’ ‘Libtard’ and worse is not without reason. People saw the humbling of an elite not the demolition of a people-friendly apparatus. The inexorable identification of the liberal left with the educated and knowledge class created a chasm between their and mass concerns. In the US, overt identification of the Democrats with the knowledge economy workers has led to massive electoral costs. Picture is not too different in India too.
Student protests which invariably received public support in the past are now seen as outpourings of entitled brats. Award-wapsi type of initiative evokes less admiration and more disdain from the general populace.
This sustained thrashing has resulted in a preponderance of grievance narrative in the intellectual and cultural efforts of the left-liberals. Instead of taking the concepts and concerns forward the primary emotion of such output is the litany of woes and cataloguing of the lies and atrocities of the right-wing. The prolific, innovative and vibrant cultural and intellectual system of yore now lends itself to the allegation of ‘rudali’ very easily. Even protests beyond Twitter and social media have lost the ideological and popular vibrancy. Common population, even those who are not that deeply ideological or politically aligned are not able to shake off the feeling that left-liberal erstwhile mainstream ecosystem filtered everything through somewhat alien secularism and disdain for the local milieu. Their output is either defined by anti-right-wing anxiety. For many, they have started reeking off a faded ardour for ‘real’ democracy.
This stress has also devoid the left-liberals of the humour, light-heartedness and a light touch of occasional levity that kept the attention of many, specially the youth. Resulting in a tired lot, whimpering in the face of right-wing onslaught which is both virulent and vital.
In human affairs hope is never lost. As domination created internal contradiction in the earlier hegemon, it is almost certain that the same will happen with the current ascendant too. This will be quicker as the speed of change has increased exponentially. Left-liberals still have many advantages. Not only is their reservoir of talent deep and pervasive but they have the advantage of diversity. Whereas energies of the right-wing are in danger of keeping the mythological exaltedness of a leader - can be seen in the US and India both, with the party turning into a rubber stamp for the leader. The left-liberal is showing introspection and course correction to a significant degree. So hope for a even-handed vibrant public sphere remains.
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