The politics of cool

Instagram, that most millennial of social networks, was till recently composed almost entirely of people’s vacation snaps and close-ups of their unappetising bowls of salad. But over the past fortnight, it has completely changed character for many of us. Now, when you scroll through Instagram stories, they are 50 per cent photos from protests and 50 per cent lists of where the next protests are. Instagram’s winter of discontent has well and truly begun. 

On one level, it is easy to mock and deride this phenomenon. Seasoned political types will ask themselves what value to any political movement is added by people who last month were posting about Christmas in Europe and next week will no doubt be back to snaps of their skiing holidays. But I think it is worth unpacking, nevertheless, what has changed for some in urban India since the introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). 

First, the Act itself seems like the sort of straightforward assault on Indian nationhood that the government has so far been relatively careful to avoid. You could claim that the Babri judgment and the National Register of Citizens were due to the Supreme Court. The revocation of Article 370 and the triple talaq ban could be made to fit into a liberal, right-based framework of equality if you tried. But the CAA is another beast altogether. However much the government and its outreach community might insist it is merely an enabling act, it is hard to see it as anything but the first step towards a constitutionally Hindu nation. 

Second, the nature of the early protests in the cities were clear — and attractive. Muslim women sitting on dharna at Shaheen Bagh, crowds waving the tricolour — there was nothing there for traditional middle-class prejudices to hang on to. It was clear that the only danger caused by the protests was from police overreaction. 

Third, the attacks on universities were repugnant even to people who have not much time for student protests in general. The general notion that university students are going to spend some time waving flags and shouting slogans before settling into a steady job and disdaining politics has sunk deep into the Indian middle-class consciousness. Nothing would have changed if this government had merely dismissed student protests with indulgence, as their predecessors did. But to attack protestors, whether using the police or political thugs disguised as students, is a bridge too far for most. 

Deepika Padukone’s courageous decision to go and stand with protestors at Jawaharlal Nehru University is thus more revealing and influential than some might think. It reveals that even those in Bollywood who might have previously been sympathetic but aloof, think that it will either do them no harm to turn out for a cause they believe in, or that things have got bad enough that they are willing to take a risk. But perhaps even more revealing was a short clip that was trending on social media of the film magnate Bhushan Kumar. Kumar had been invited to a meeting meant to “clear up doubts” among the film community about the CAA. He had even been photographed driving into the meeting at a Mumbai hotel. But when asked by a reporter about the meeting in the presence of film stars such as Anil Kapoor, Kumar said that merely being in the hotel didn’t mean he attended the meeting. (Kapoor’s face was a picture of amusement.) When people as exposed, influential — and government-sympathetic — as Kumar feel the need to distance themselves from the CAA in public, you know something has gone very wrong. 

Narendra Modi’s rise to power in 2013-14 felt as unlikely before it happened as it feels inevitable now. Part of what underlay that extraordinary ascent was the careful cultivation of influential voices. Somehow the candidacy chief minister with a chequered record was transformed into a cool cause. Nobody knows how the politics of cool works. Sometimes it comes together, sometimes it doesn’t. Barack Obama’s campaign managed it; Hillary Clinton’s campaign did not. But what we are seeing at this moment is a reversal in our own politics of cool. For seven years, Modi has been the cool brand. Now, somehow, he is less so. 

Perhaps it is something to do with that period — seven years? Seven years after the UPA rose to power it became embroiled in anti-corruption scandals. And, indeed, there is much that is worth revisiting in UPA-II’s sordid descent into paralysis and unpopularity. The UPA was India’s most inept government when it comes to communication. It came across as either arrogant, or inarticulate, or aloof. Modi’s government is India’s best when it comes to communication. There is little doubt that it will do a better job of recovering the situation than the UPA did. But one thing that even the NDA spinmasters will struggle with is the politics of cool. If you don’t know how it works, you can’t manipulate it.