Let us not be taken for a ride on demonetization. -- By Fr. Victor Ferrao

Social engineering is another name of propaganda.  It governs our mind, forms our tastes, suggests ideas and influences our choices.  Experts say that a relatively small minority controls us.  They employ the psychology of control to psych us into submission. This small minority pulls ‘the wires’ that controls our mind and pushes us into an organized chaos.  We are living in a post-truth era.

There is no place for truth where a manipulated interpretation that poses as truth.  Somehow we have come to accept the mind control that is forced on us.  We seem to be acting out scripts written by others.  We are all being played at by some unknown forces.  This means our choices are engineered away from our needs.  If we understand how the elite wield control over our minds and produce our dependence, we will reclaim our power to resist it.  We will have second thoughts.   The elite remove or weaken the systems that create self reliance and feed the people on the fear of scarcity.  The method is very plain and simple.  Create an artificial crisis and then push people to legitimate a solution that the elite propose.  There are a several ways of removing self reliance from our people which subject them to dependency that will receive indoctrination without resistance. It is in this way that the elite manufacture consent of people and promote its interest that masks as the cause of the people. May be we can take the case of demonetization and its impact on us to understand the how propaganda has taken control over us.

What is interesting is that we seem to have become willing sheep to be herded into a flock even when the social engine that masks it’s propaganda  seem to have ruptured.  If we just reflect on the official discourse on demonetization, we shall get an insight into the dangers of organised chaos that steadily we are all placing ourselves. We are told that that demonetization will stop terror.

Just propaganda

The fact is terror seems to have a way of surprising us beyond demonetization.  We heard that the government’s action against black money will abolish all cross border fake currency, but quite ironically terrorists were found with new notes even before some of us had the opportunity to lay our hands on our own.  We are told that we are fighting black money in our country yet there is a remarkable silence over any action that will tackle the menace of black economy that funds our political parties.  This silence became even profound when we found that the first person to be caught with unaccounted cash in the form of the new notes is a politician from the ruling dispensation. The war on black money appears to be a fight against the poor. No black marketer is reported to have died. What we painfully hear is the death of tens of ordinary people who were standing in line to gain access to their own hard earned money. What is even more striking is that when the Party in Chief of the ruling alliance at the centre had declared its wealth whose sources are not known, we do not have the gall to view as black wealth. This ‘ill-gotten’ wealth amounted to nearly a whopping 505 crores.  But it did not count as black money when it is clearly an unaccounted wealth whose sources are suspect or unknown.  Even after all this, we seem to circum to a deception of a war on black money. 

Modi's new notes

The official discourse on the war on black money is dressed in a politico moral narrative. It has its compelling effect because it is routed through a nationalism that provides both legitimacy and a glimmer of hope for a better future.  But it appears that this glitter of the future has made us mindlessly unmindful of our present situation. The intoxicating slogan ‘present pain and future gain’ says it all. We seem to have already become inhabitants of the approaching golden future. It has taken an amazing hold over our mind. We are already held captives by the promise of the future. It gives us a sense of advancing into a golden future and makes us feel that our days of pain and hardship are numbered. The promise of the approaching corruption free India, gives us the strength to stomach all the hardship that the cash chaos has unleashed in our country. Even if the programme appears to be pathetically unplanned and mismanaged, we have the muscle to face it with sheer determination that is indeed admirable. The apparent mindless response of the masses is certainly engineered by the ruling elite. Our opinions and are choices are already designed. We uncritically embrace these manufactured options without a second thought.  Thus, for instance, we are already disposed to look favourably at the so called plastic money.  While its benefits towards moving into a corruption free society are highlighted, it vulnerabilities remain hidden. We are not told about the service charge, internet tariffs and host of other dues that we shall be paying for all our transactions. Besides, there are security issues of the e-wallet options as well as constrains of the unorganised sector whose services cannot be simple set aside.



Fr. Victor Ferrao

How are we to resist this organized and designer life? How are we to harness the critical resources of our society?   The killing of rationalists, the disempowering of the institutions of higher learning, the taming of our mass media seems to have already weakened the critical mass of our society. More than ever before, we need to nurture and cultivate a critical consciousness that would enable us to assess, resist and choose our responses. We can begin this long journey with a considered choice that responds to every stimulus that we receive. We cannot be just reacting to the stimulus. We need to offer a soundly reasoned response. Yes, we need to make room for a second thought on every issue. Quite literally the space for a second thought has to be fought and reclaimed. When we open ourselves to the second thought, we open ourselves to critical analysis. Besides, the second thought doubles up. It offers alternatives. We have a second, third or fourth option. That is why making room for the second thought becomes a viable response that will become antidote to those who are out to mono-culture, design and tailor our life to suit their own vested interests. It is a challenge to let the power of second thought became the way of our life.