When paranoia is justified

Paranoia, we are told, is not healthy. Democracies seldom act paranoid. However, the elements of nature, both material and mental, exist for a reason. Paranoia exists also to ensure that you are never caught by surprise. And if one fine morning you step out of your home, look around and barely recognise your surroundings, you should realise that something has gone awry with your cognition. That your brain’s basic function that was meant to warn you against a destructive change was turned off and you most probably were programmed not to notice it when it mattered the most. Makes sense? Propaganda and brainwashing can accomplish a lot. Grima Wormtongue sat as King Theoden’s chief counsel, with unlimited access to him, poisoning his mind, weakening his resolve, undermining his senses. And yet when the king eventually ends the spell on him, he finds out that he had not aged as much as he was led to believe. What if something similar is at play here?

If you live in a Western democracy, just look around. Could you possibly recognise this dystopian world only five to six years ago? What has gone wrong? Does it not occur to you that your present, not just your future, is being stolen before your eyes? All of this seems to be a product of somebody’s broken imagination. Somebody with infinite malice and yet unlimited access to your hearts and minds. Before we proceed it is important to point out that every nation has its fair share of reactionaries, fringe elements and extremists. But these marginal elements never define a nation. Not until there is a conspiracy to suspend democracy and affect a hostile takeover of the country. Democracies with strong institutions and constitutional traditions seldom fall prey to such schemes. It is, however, possible to sow seeds of panic at the heart of such a democracy by a careful manipulation of images and shadows which may lead them astray, on the path of self-harm.

Now, look at the state of affairs in the United States (US). And in the United Kingdom (UK). And Europe. And that which is silently cooking in Canada. Do you see a similar shadow-play at work? Well, calibrated leaks when they had the maximum potential to divide and an overbearing media outrage whose source was not known even to the media-men who rushed into it? Who could be the culprit? Russia? China? Both the countries could gain a lot by doing so but it is highly implausible that they would have such success. Why? Because they do not enjoy the kind of trust and access to the Western resources needed for the job.

Secondly, if they had such a sway, they would essentially fix their own image in the West. I hope we can agree that they enjoy neither that kind of image nor access that they would like. Does not mean they would not seek to benefit if something was already going on or refuse to take the blame to burnish their own image as an insurgent power. Only that they are not there yet. To pull off something of this magnitude you need three things: trust of the Western media, access to Western capital markets and trust of the intelligence communities there. China, Russia or other countries traditionally not considered allies of the West, simply do not have these resources.

Israel, the UK, Europe then? They do have access to all three. But take a closer look. They seem deeply afflicted. Israel keeps failing to build consensus on who should govern. The UK on how best to leave Europe with minimum damage. And Europe is busy putting out populist reductionist fires. One more clue that they are victims not perpetrators is to be found in their polarised media and the intelligence communities. Their state is no secret. While it is a healthy sign that dissent is alive there, if misguided, polarisation can easily rip a nation apart. And as they struggle to move away from divisions some invisible hand drags them back to hot button issues so that they remain consumed by their own decaying self-image and do not notice any theft taking place outside their borders.

So, is there a big theft you have noticed elsewhere? The traditional thinking would point to the hostile takeover of Crimea by Russia. But that is a known known. And as we have argued above, Russia does not have the resources to pull off something on this scale. Remember, as the argument has evolved, we are looking for forces that unhinged not US politics, but Europe and the West in general too. The sheer scope of the matter would add another factor to our problem: numbers. Our culprit then has to have access to Western media, capital, intelligence and has to have enough manpower to create distractions on a regional if not global scale.

To recap the problem let me qualify with an example. When Donald Trump first announced to run, he was entering as a fairly mainstream celebrity and businessman. His platform was provocative and he was involved with the birther controversy, but still, none of this was that extreme. Consider the mainstream media’s discourse immediately before his announcement and you realise even liberal media had its fair share of blame in mainstreaming those issues. But when he made the announcement, the very same media turned him into the symbol of resident evil. The fans of television shows among us (present company included) who initially welcomed it was publicly and repeatedly shamed on social media and forced to distance themselves from that position. Why such a dramatic outrage, sudden pushback and so late in the game? Isolate the subject, then sympathise with his plight and you get yourself a strong ally. An added benefit for you, if you are from a broken place, is that America also starts resembling your home. The resulting theatre of the absurd damaged America’s image as the shining city on a hill.

So, can you name a place which has access to Western media, capital, and intelligence; has enough numbers to misdirect the whole world when public mandate at home is being stolen? A country where dissent is dead. Institutions have been put to pasture. Which visibly benefits from your weakness. An ostensible ally who has lost the plot in the past 5-6 years. And against creeping authoritarian coup within its own domain, you have no remedy. A country whose rulers hate the Western culture for its own people just as much as it despises the West’s enemies if it at all despises them? Only one country fits the bill — India. When the West allowed it all this access during the War on Terror it still was a functioning democracy. But it changed in 2014 and the world changed with it. Grima Wormtongue seems to have done his job. Read Rashmee Kumar’s “The Network of Hindu Nationalists Behind Modi’s “Diaspora Diplomacy” in the US” (https://theintercept.com/2019/09/25/howdy-modi-trump-hindu-nationalism) to see how it works.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 28^th, 2019.

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