Tag: influence

Categories
Issue 21

Socially Content Yet Blissfully Unaware

How many of us are guilty of scrolling through social media all day? How many of us check our Instagram feeds before getting out of bed in the morning? Surveys say media users spend 2.5 hours per day on social media for various reasons. The pervasiveness of social media has come to take over our lives and now defines a large part of who we are. One look at someone’s Instagram feed, and you can learn their likes, dislikes and who they are. Or at least how they wish to be perceived. 

Social media is an effective tool in helping individuals put their best foot forward. Amidst the glitz and glamour of perfectly curated feeds and highlight reels, it’s often easy to forget that most of it is not real, which is not to say that it is magic or a hologram, but rather a collection of a few memorable moments in one’s life. However, this is not true for all platforms, and they differ in the levels of authenticity portrayed. Instagram and Facebook, for example, are associated with hindered wellbeing and a more made-up version of reality, compared to Twitter which aids positive emotions and is considered a space to express honest opinions. 

One of the prime reasons for monetary-free access to social media is the financial backing by advertisers – both for our time and attention. In 2021, Facebook made $114.9 billion from advertising alone. Advertisements have hijacked social media and transformed it from a platform designed to share and connect to a marketplace to buy and sell. What you’re selling has also changed with people increasingly turning themselves into consumable brands and creating a new career path of ‘influencer’.  

Social media trends like ‘that girl‘ promote an ideal lifestyle, extensively curated to drive views to accounts. Such trends flourish and are enormously replicated because of their aspirational value to the audience that consumes them. ‘That girl’ wakes up and makes her Instagram-worthy morning coffee. She shows you her hyper-productive morning routine, wears only the most trendy clothes, flaunts her handsome partner, and makes her day look like she hardly works. She romanticizes life so well that watching her leaves you hating yourself for not having the life she does and feeling guilty for being human. The truth is, ‘that girl’ doesn’t show you the messy parts of her life. She hides the breakdowns and the breakups, doesn’t show you the extent of hard work that goes into shooting those morning routine videos, and forgets to mention that the clothes were part of a barter collaboration. ‘That girl’ carefully frames a narrative that makes you either want her or want to be her. 

Other trends, such as the ‘daily reminder that social media is fake‘ trend, focus on celebrating human flaws and all the physical insecurities social media users try to hide. These serve as a juxtaposition, reminding viewers that even ‘that girl’ is like you. While we all claim to be aware that social media is not real and applaud those who upload unedited, no-filter images, when it comes to ourselves, we find it impossible to find that same compassion. 

It’s not all that girl’s fault, though. She is simply a cog in the social media machine. The real culprit is the algorithm created to keep consumers hooked and fuel their daily mindless scrolling. Studies have shown that endless likes, shares, and retweets on social media platforms give users the same dopamine release as gambling and consuming drugs. Algorithms make use of this easy addiction and curate your feed in a way that repeatedly exhibits content of the same niche. They reinforce the ideas and feelings of positive or negative self-evaluation that the content elicits. 

Influencers leverage the idea of relatability and aspiration to construct an online persona that will be liked and replicated by their audiences to sell branded products. A study shows approximately 80% of consumers have made purchases based on influencer recommendations. Consumers are more likely to adhere to a peer recommendation than a brand advertisement and require social proof when making purchase decisions. One tends to forget that these influencers run businesses driven by a profit-oriented approach. Brands are becoming more and more aware of how to manipulate a consumer’s buying habits through influencer marketing. It is a consumer’s right to be made aware of these practices and their responsibility to ask for more information.   

At the single click of a button comes both the ease of following and unfollowing these pages. But aspiring to these lifestyles, watching this content, and repeatedly scrolling become habits one can’t forego. There is a rising herd mentality and aimless following that social media breeds. Are you losing your individuality? Is everyone slowly morphing into the most viewed social media personas, or is there still hope to escape the hypnosis of mindless consumption? 

You are the content you consume because the content, in the form of other people’s preferences, videos, and the level of familiarity, becomes the basis for your decisions. Technology allows access to a global audience, known and unknown, and suggests everything right from friends to books and music. The consumer now believes that if everyone is doing it, it must be right. We have become so dIgitally desensitized to the world outside our screens. If we take a step back, we can see that we have lost sight of what’s real and not.

Maahira Jain is a third-year student at Ashoka University studying Psychology and Media studies. She is a movie buff and is extremely passionate about writing and travelling.

Reya Daya is a third-year student, studying psychology and media studies at Ashoka University. Her other interests include writing, photography and music.

Picture Credits: Unsplash

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 4

How a Jailed Activist Continues to Influence Assam’s Politics: Conversations Regarding Akhil Gogoi

Akhil Gogoi continues to languish in jail. He was arrested on December 12 last year from Assam’s Jorhat district amid protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Even though the year 2019 witnessed the state boiling, the leader of the peasant organization Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) continues to remain one of the most relevant figures in Assam’s politics till today. In a state where emotions rise fast and fall faster, the public reaction to Gogoi’s incarceration is no exception. With the Legislative Assembly elections scheduled for April 2021, discussions about an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government and Gogoi’s role in it, are gaining momentum.

On October 2, 2020, KMSS, led by its president Bhasco De Saikia, announced a new political party. Raijor Dol (meaning People’s Party), launched at a hotel in Guwahati in the presence of leaders from civil society, youth organizations and dignitaries like Jahnu Barua, Zerifa Wahid and Arup Borbora, is the second political party launched in the state in less than a month. On September 14, leaders from the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) came together to form the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP). Like Raijor Dol, AJP is also hoping to turn the anti-CAA sentiments into votes in the upcoming elections.

As these developments were unfolding, Akhil Gogoi remained fairly silent. I spoke to a few academics and political commentators working on Assam, intending to understand the continued importance of the man in the scheme of things. “Akhil Gogoi, through the KMSS, brought about a substantive change to the politics that we are used to. He brought the people at the margins, i.e., the peasantry and the forest dwellers, to the centre-stage of politics. We did not see it either during the Assam Agitation or in the armed movements in the region. He did it through popular mobilization. Thereby, he provided a critic of the system from the perspective of structural inequalities. He keeps on trying to use all available means within a liberal democratic system to expose the limitations of the system itself,” says Akhil Ranjan Dutta, professor and head of the Department of Political Science at Gauhati University and a well-known political pundit from the region. 

Kaustubh Deka, who teaches the same discipline in eastern Assam’s Dibrugarh University noted that it is because of Gogoi’s multiple roles that he has assumed a unique importance in Assam’s politics. “AG’s importance in Assam politics needs to be understood in a threefold manner: as an efficient mobiliser of masses, as an ideological anchor to many and as a polarising force for some,” opines Deka, who was associated with The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy in Chennai and the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, before moving home to Assam. 

Admitting that Akhil Gogoi is “certainly and undeniably a pivotal figure in Assam’s politics today”, Angshuman Choudhury, a Senior Researcher and Coordinator of the South East Asia Research Programme at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, also alludes to the “peculiar” space in Assamese politics that Gogoi occupies. Choudhury, who also holds an MSc in Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding from the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University, calls this space “both primordially progressive and conservative at the same time”.

“He offers a template of resistance that appears radically modern and unrelenting at the outset, but is ultimately couched in the divisive orthodoxy of jati-mati-bheti. Let me state this in somewhat different terms. Akhil’s politics has a compelling duality to it – he reminds people of the agitational, deeply romanticised Assam Movement tradition, and also refracts the post-movement popular disenchantment with mainstream politics (think AGP, Congress) and civil society (think AASU, AJYCP). Perhaps many others have occupied that space, but Akhil brought it out into the streets through both grassroots-level and performative activism. Sadly, however, he remains locked in that duality, which prevents him from being a full-throated progressive. Akhil has constantly anchored his activism in the khilonjiya political vocabulary of insider-vs-outsider, which sustains his popular appeal amongst the dominant Assamese-speaking groups but also renders him no different from past political figures in Assam. Sure, he has persistently led movements that speak to both hyper-local issues (like displacement, farmer rights, bus fares, etc.) and larger structural ailments (like ecological destruction through centralised development), but largely within the ambit of the traditional indigeneity framework that foregrounds a certain ethno-territorial identity over others. By doing so, Akhil has consistently thwarted the possibility of a truly plural and anti-fascist Assamese society. I see his support to BJP candidates in the 2014 national election, NRC and the detention process in that context. So in more ways than one, Akhil, to me, represents the immovability of Assamese politics and civil society. He reflects the uncontested dominance of the anti-immigrant discourse in the politics of Brahmaputra Valley. Yet, at a time when a culturally supremacist regime in New Delhi is steamrolling controversial policies in Assam without broader consultations and cracking down on dissenters, he fulfills an in-built need within the Assamese nationalist paradigm to resist the politics of New Delhi and Dispur.”

When I was writing a profile of Akhil Gogoi soon after his arrest, one of the people I spoke to had asked, rhetorically, why people would side with the KMSS and not with the AASU if they wanted to support Assamese nationalism, since the latter has unapologetically and staunchly represented jatiyotabaad – the Assamese word for (sub)nationalism. The balancing act that the peasant leader has been trying to perform after realizing that the middle-class was treating him as a troublemaker has seen him aligning more with jatiyotabaadi causes in recent years. 

“As far as his political journeys goes, in his long stint, AG has achieved something without much parallel in Assam. From the days of his Dayang Tengani ‘long march’, AG has been an ardent practitioner of mass politics and to his credit, he has not only retained his mass base but also expanded it over the years. He has done it without holding any important office (winning elections) or deviating from his core ideological positions (maintaining a level of consistency). This makes his case comparatively unique. Another feature of his journey is his own growth as a writer-ideologue cum ‘activist’. For the middle class, the image has been that of a ‘professional agitationist’, which seems to have begun to change as he is seen to have moved closer to the cause of ‘Axomiya jatiyotabaad’,” says Deka, when asked about Gogoi’s political journey. 

Prof Dutta believes that journey has been “full of meaningful engagements”. “The issue of environment in the development projects of the state came to the forefront through the popular mobilizations against the Lower Subansiri hydroelectric power project. The notion of ‘cumulative impact assessment on the environment’ was something that Akhil Gogoi made very popular. He has the capacity to read and understand the issues in minute details. He also provided an alternative understanding of land relations and land ownership in the state. On the water issue too, he brought to the forefront quite a number of significant and relevant issues. Most importantly, Akhil Gogoi understood the economy at the grassroots very well. It was not something based only on academic research. He definitely studied them, but he penetrated into the dynamics through direct contact with the people. His other important contribution is about understanding the economy of lower Assam. This has not been discussed by any other political leader at length. During the anti-CAA movement he played an important role towards making it inclusive by bridging the gap between Upper Assam and Lower Assam,” says the chairperson of the Brahmaputra Institute of Research and Development (BIRD) in Guwahati.

Choudhury too feels that the hope that Gogoi would forge a new left-progressive discourse did not last long and, he did not “depart from the ethnonationalist ecosystem”. “For instance, by lending support to candidates belonging to a right-wing, Hindu supremacist party like the BJP in 2014 just to defeat the Congress, Akhil revealed his ideological dubiousness. Then, by not speaking up for the rights and dignity of Bengal-origin Muslims in Assam during the NRC process, Akhil made it clear that he would keep one foot in the Assamese nationalist hearth. But the CAB protests proved to be the peak of his political career. It gave him the opportunity to gain greater visibility in Assam’s core urban spaces while fulfilling a two-fold objective: placating Assamese nationalists who oppose the CAB because it’s seemingly ‘anti-indigenous’ in nature, while also appealing to mainland progressives who oppose the CAB because its un-secular,” adds Choudhury who was recently a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.

The forming of the student wing of the KMSS, Satra Mukti Sangram Samiti (SMSS) is a decision that “unleashed a new chapter in youth politics in Assam – something with deep consequences for later years, as we witnessed in the times of anti-CAA protests”, feels Dr Deka. A lot of SMSS cadres now find themselves in leadership roles in Raijor Dol.

None of the scholars I spoke to, however, was gung-ho about Akhil’s immediate electoral possibilities. “I am very skeptical about it. Electoral politics is a different game plan altogether. In a situation like Assam’s, the middle class is an important component in deciding the electoral dynamics and outcomes. Akhil Gogoi has not been careful enough to make them a part of his movement. In the initial phases, Gogoi and the KMSS were supported by a larger section of the middle class. However, his antagonistic approach towards the middle class has gradually drifted them away to a great extent. Therefore, he became more vulnerable to the state machinery. Besides, his approach to electoral politics has been both casual and at times very difficult for the common masses to understand. If Akhil Gogoi seriously wants to be in electoral politics, he must be in a position to ally with the mainstream left political and the progressive regional forces. He has been very critical of the mainstream left political forces. My understanding is that without a broad federal unity among the left-regional and progressive liberal democratic forces, it will be very difficult to be in electoral politics,” observes Akhil Ranjan Dutta.

“This buzz around Akhil Gogoi joining the electoral fray is very interesting as it centres around a lot of expectations and estimations”, responds Kaustubh Deka to the same question, before adding, “Personally speaking, I don’t share an equally zestful outlook on this matter. Akhil Gogoi as a mass mobiliser and Akhil Gogoi as an electoral force are two different scenarios. Voters in India are adept at donning multiple hats and there’s every possibility that the same people who have been filling the KMSS rallies are also joining another one by the BJP on the next day. AG knows this too perhaps and therefore, he knows the challenges he faces in entering a politics based on entitlements and dole-outs, without having anything similar to offer. Yes, he has powerful critique and a stellar track record. Because of these, I, however, wish to see him enter electoral politics. It will add a vibrancy to the debates. However, there is a paradox here which AG and his organisation faces, which is what in social science literature called as ‘social movement organisations’ (SMO), organisations built and sustained primarily around protests and social mobilisations. Their network chains and sub-culture thus fundamentally differ from a traditional political party. Yet, if they approach the election, the challenge will be to turn their disadvantages into advantages.”

Choudhury feels that Akhil Gogoi will lose his popular appeal if he enters mainstream politics in Assam. “Such is the nature of electoral politics that it mediates and moderates radicalism. So he might ultimately go the AGP (Asom Gana Parishad) way, and we all know what way that went in Assam. But to me, it doesn’t make much of a difference if he stays in or out of the electoral political structure. His core political ideologies (or non-ideologies) will remain the same. In fact, once he enters the vote game, he will only dig his feet deeper into the jati-mati-bheti ecosystem and speak a stronger ethnonationalist tongue. Right now, he still has some space to extend limited support to certain historically marginalised groups, like the Bengal-origin Muslims, but once he becomes a politician, that space will disappear rapidly. So my best guess is Akhil will only become a more orthodox version of himself once he enters electoral politics, if he isn’t dabbling in outright political opportunism, that is,” remarks Choudhury.

This lack of ideology that Choudhury suggests is, in fact, well-thought ‘tactical moves’, believes Deka. When asked to evaluate Akhil Gogoi’s recent comments to the media that all ‘anchalik‘ (regional) forces should be united, Deka told me, “Interestingly, Akhil Gogoi himself is the missing link here, with the chorus of the need to anyhow bring him to the ‘ancholikotabaadi’ fold increasing by the day. His is almost being considered by many as the Midas touch in Assam politics now. His comment is a sure indication that he wouldn’t mind joining forces with others including the AJP. The ball is in their court. Gogoi believes in tactical moves and for that, he sees it fine to take positions which might seem contrary to his ideological positions. This explains his call to support the BJP (as against the ruling Congress) in previous elections. I believe if he can somehow take everyone onboard in his tactical moves and all the ‘anchalik’ forces do unite, it might be a force to reckon with, given the collective organisational prowess. But the larger challenge would still, however, remain in my opinion, to convert the emotional/ideological support to votes.”

In other words, “the challenge will be to change the terms of politics itself”, the political scientist signs off.

Jyotirmoy Talukdar is a Senior Writing Fellow (English Language Teaching) at the Centre for Writing and Communication, Ashoka University. He is also a freelance journalist regularly contributing to HuffPost India, The Wire and various Assamese dailies.

Image Credit: Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis). 

Categories
Issue 3

China’s Kintsugi: How it filled cracks in India’s diplomacy, gaining influence in South Asia

India shares deep socio-cultural ties with its immediate neighbors Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. In the past few years, there has been a palpable shift in diplomatic and economic alliance between these countries. Historically, India has been the leading power in South-East Asia, being also the leader amongst the non-aligned states with great affinity with the three countries. But recently, there have been various pointers that suggest these countries have been leaning more towards China and that this has put the kibosh on India’s influence in South Asia. There have been conspicuous and strategic shifts that have put the northern giant in a position that India was once in. With there being conflicts between India and China in forms of tensions at the border and India banning the Chinese app TikTok, it is important to look at whose influence is growing in the region as this implicates several political decisions in other states. 

Nepal

An adage by Nepal’s first king Prithvi Narayan Shah goes as follows: “Nepal is a yam between two rocks”. The rocks here refer to India and China. The trajectory of the relationship between these countries in recent years can be likened to a tug of war with the two powers vying for greater influence on the Himalayan nation in between. 

India and Nepal share a porous border. Between these two countries, there are also deep intersections in terms of ethnic identities, culture, political history, trade and diplomacy. Since Nepal is a landlocked country with high mountains and rocky terrains bordering China, most of its imports come from the southern plains and more than 60% of those come from India. Yet, when the country was just recovering from the disastrous 2015 earthquake, India imposed an economic blockade on Nepal, restricting import of goods. 

The Indian government refuted allegations of betrayal in the face of tragedy, holding that the Madhesi conflict in southern Nepal was the actual reason for its decision. The decision nonetheless angered many politicians and citizens in Nepal, harboring anti-Indian sentiments because of how difficult life became due to the scarcity of daily goods in Nepal. 

With Nepal’s economy plummeting, there were reports that the Indian Oil Corporation declined sending adequate oil to Nepal after receiving orders to restrict supply from New Delhi. The Nepali populace agitated over their dependency on India for oil. However,  this was not the only reason that they were furious. At the time, India conveyed to the Nepali government to make several amendments to the new Nepali constitution promulgated that year. This caused many stakeholders in Nepal to be further inflamed at how India played the role of a big brother to Nepal, interfering in Nepal’s internal politics. 

In what was viewed as a keystone to bolstering Nepal-China relationship Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli made an agreement with the Chinese government to buy one third of its required oil from China. China also pledged to donate 1.3 million litres of oil to Nepal. After this, many projects in Nepal were initiated by China under the Belt and Road Initiative, including aid in reconstruction after the earthquake. China’s assistance was key to developing various highways and roads, with more projects including the Kathmandu-Kerung railway in the pipeline. 

In late 2019, India inaugurated plans for a railway near Limpiyadhura region, which Nepal claimed to be its own. The Nepali parliament issued an updated map that includes this region as its own. Many Nepalis supported this move. While both the countries have claimed this territory, the ‘cartographic war’ still ensues as little development has been made through diplomatic negotiation as it was proclaimed before. 

These factors put a severe strain on India-Nepal relationship. With China aiding several projects and a communist government taking hold in Nepal, allegiance between Nepali politicians and their Chinese counterparts has been observed with greater rapport in contrast to a much less cordial relationship with India. 

Pakistan 

Since Partition, India and Pakistan have had a relationship that has been rife with several tensions. The two countries have fought four wars and observed several armed conflicts and stand-offs over the years. The fact that several attempts have been made by both countries (Agra summit, Lahore summit, Shimla summit, state visits, talks through diplomatic channels) to improve their bilateral relations shows that they view each other as important neighbors. These efforts have been impeded by the wars, border skirmishes and cross-border terrorism. 

Following the 2016 Pathankot attack and 2019 Pulwama attack, the renewed bilateral relation under new governments in both the states has deteriorated. While India has alleged that the attacks were orchestrated by the Pakistani government, the latter refuted it and claimed that the attacks were local retaliation to increased Indian army presence in the region. This also stoked nationlist sentiments amongst citizens in both countries. After the 2019 attack, India revoked Pakistan’s Most Favored Nation trade status, which implied the subjection of Pakistan goods to higher tariffs and restrictions.

While Pakistan’s relations with India declined, it developed a close relationship with China. Pakistan’s nuclear warfare development program has highly benefited from China’s support. Its  nuclear arsenal consists of weapons that operate in air, water and on land. In May 2020, a ship from Hong Kong headed to Karachi was detained by the Department of Revenue Intelligence and Kandla Customs for mislabeling an autoclave, a device used to manufacture long range missiles, as an industrial dryer. Clearly, China’s and Pakistan’s strategic relationship has been of great concern for the Indian national security. 

In addition to assistance in nuclear weapon development, China has also aided Pakistan’s economic growth with its incorporation into the Belt and Road Initiative through the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). China will also assist in building railways and highways through Pakistan to the port of Gwadar. This will increase not only trade but also Pakistan’s political and economic dependency towards China, which might pose hindrances to India-Pakistan relationship and also be challenging to India’s own security in the region. 

Bangladesh 

Like with Nepal and Pakistan, India shares rich socio-cultural and historical ties with Bangladesh as well. While India was a strong ally in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, a few years later, Bangladesh’s new ties to Islamic nations and an emphasis on its own Islamic identity deteriorated relations with India. Furthermore, the two countrieswere part of opposing alliances during the Cold War, which also put more strain on their friendship.

While their ties have seen some improvement with India and Bangladesh making major agreements with regards to land and water disputes such as the Teen Bigha Corridor and co-operation against terrorism, there have also been tensions regarding killings at the border and migration. 

Bangladesh has enjoyed a prosperous commercial relationship with China. Since 2006, China has been Bangladesh’s biggest trading partner. In addition to trade, China also pledged to support Bangladesh with a staggering offer of $24 million in loans after Xi Jinping’s visit in 2016. While this has improved Bangladesh-China relations, this improvement seems to have come at the cost of India’s relationship with Bangladesh. In 2018, China exported $17.8 billion to Bangladesh while India exported $7.5 billion. On the other hand Bangladesh exports amounted to less than $1 billion to China and about $1.2 billion to India. 

It is evident that the rise of China’s influence is eclipsing that of India in these three countries. This foreshadows the growth of China as a regional hegemon in South Asia through several political and economic measures. With India also competing to gain the same vantage point, it has landed itself in a race to ensure efficient diplomatic dialogue, while refraining from interference in its neighbors’ sovereignty and inhibiting their prosperity. As for China’s surging economic influence, it is not something that has gone unnoticed. Experts are aware of the implication of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and what the spillover effects of economic dependence can be. Having said this, India’s relationship with its neighbors is still pivotal on accounts of trade and close socio-cultural ties.  For social cohesion amongst states in South Asia, neutrality will be key to ensuring that there are no tensions. At the end of the day though, its neighbours cannot ignore India even if they are under the influence of China.

(Featured image from pxfuel.com)

Nirvik Thapa is a student of Sociology/Anthropology, Media Studies and International Relations at Ashoka University. Some of his other interests include music, pop culture and urbanism.

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).