Modi, media and middle class: the unholy trinity failing India

AllAfrica

6 days ago

'The pride of the nation is cheapest pride,' German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said. Indeed, people often attach personal pride to external notions like nation, religion, race or caste in order to feel worthy when in actuality they lack genuine accomplishments or talents.
Being born in a group is enough to feel proud, as it requires no effort. For this reason, Schopenhauer considered national pride the cheapest of all pride.
False pride blinds people to their own flaws. Fear of questioning their nation, religion or culture replaces genuine self-worth with illusion, weakening them from within. Over time, genuine self-worth is replaced by this false pride. History is littered with examples where borrowed or symbolic pride without real achievements led to decline or crisis.
The Ottoman Empire, Soviet Union, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany all fell apart after clinging to past glories, nationalism or ideology while disregarding economic decline, corruption and dissent.
Pakistan pursued a similar path, prioritizing religious identity (Islam) over progress. The nation's pride was focused on religious faith rather than on prosperity or progress, and opposition was branded as un-Islamic. Today, it faces economic collapse, IMF dependency and internal unrest, despite claims of moral superiority.
India now shows similar warning signs: rising Hindu nationalism, imagined cultural supremacy and RSS dreams of Vishwaguru (global teacher) status driven by Modi, the media and the middle class.
Narendra Modi's rise to power in India was not accidental; it was carefully crafted through myth, media and mass psychology. His '56-inch chest' boast was not just a comment on masculinity; it was political theater, a declaration that strength, not substance, would define India's future leadership.
But leading a diverse nation of 1.4 billion with multiple ethnicities is the job not of a strongman but of a strategist. Modi's rise marked the decline of institutional credibility.
The Planning Commission was scrapped, critics became anti-nationals and the judiciary suffered from increasing executive overreach. Over time, the messiah became the message, overshadowing institutions like Parliament, the judiciary and the press.
In the V-Dem Democracy Report 2024, India was ranked as an 'electoral autocracy.' Over 10,000 people were arrested under sedition laws in one district in 2019.
Modi, like many charismatic leaders in history, from Mussolini to Peron, found his greatest weapon not in governance but in narrative control. And this is where the second 'M' becomes crucial.
Real journalism challenges power; India's news media now promote it. Between 2014 and 2022, Modi's BJP government spent over 6,491 crore ( approximately US$800 million ) on publicity, turning the press into a propaganda tool.
Once the conscience of democracy, India's media have become a mouthpiece for state propaganda driven by nationalism and communalism. By 2022, India ranked among the lowest globally in public trust in news.
Below is the 2022 world press freedom index from Reporters Without Borders:
Today's generation is fed propaganda and lies while real issues like 12,000+ farmer suicides (2021), 7.8% unemployment (2024) and squashed minority rights are ignored or rebranded through the lens of nationalism. In a world ruled by spectacle, substance becomes secondary. The third M, meanwhile, delivers the final blow.
Perhaps the most tragic pillar of this triad is the Indian middle class – once the torchbearers of liberal aspiration, now the passive enablers of illiberal regression.
They are the beneficiaries of 1990s liberalization that lifted some 270 million Indians out of poverty between 1991 and 2011. No group turned on Manmohan Singh faster than the very class he helped create. It is a cruel irony that a class built on policy turned to populism for deliverance.
Members of that class once mocked Singh – the very architect who changed their lives – as the 'accidental prime minister' or the 'silent PM.' Today, the middle class pays the price. From paying the highest effective personal tax rates without enjoying basic public goods to watching institutions crumble while fearing to speak out, the Indian middle class is discovering that you can't eat GDP figures for dinner or buy safety with slogans.
Once the face of moral outrage, whether in the 2012 Nirbhaya protests or 2011 anti-corruption marches, today it remains silent as train mishaps, stampedes and airline crashes occur.
The hypocrisy is blatant. The Indian middle class, once a force for reform, has grown comfortable in its apathy as members' national pride gets in the way. Their silence is not neutral; it is tacit approval of the status quo.
Throughout history a polarizing leader, loyal media and a compliant middle class have often formed an 'unholy trinity' that leads to the downfall or collapse of the nation.
In India, this triangle — Modi, media, and the middle class — is not destiny. But, left unchecked on the current trajectory, it could lead to the collapse of the nation. Modi, who personified power; the media, which sold their soul; and the middle class, which traded its principles for comfort.
History has seen this triangle before. Germany under Adolf Hitler, Italy under Benito Mussolini and Chile under Augusto Pinochet are prime examples backed by a silent middle class and loud propaganda media. Rome didn't fall because of one emperor; it collapsed because its people stopped defending the Republic.