The Delhi elections are most sardonic and vitriolic. The rhetoric from all concerned has been anything but polite. In fact, it has been acerbic and provocative at most times. Is this the precursor to all future elections? Is this the way the Indian polity and the Indian proletariat will behave in future? In elections such as contested in our country, convincing an uncommitted voter to vote against the “other guy”, by tearing the opponent’s position down is as valuable to a candidate as convincing him to vote for him. There is no word on why the economy has been going south or why the employment opportunities have been declining. Are we veering to and nurturing mechanisms that have affective influence on voting like Surprise, Anger, Anxiety, Fear, Pride and Neuroticism?
There have been several decisions that have had a surprise element from the people perspective. Some of them, though impressive have caught the people unawares and hence confused them. Affective theory predicts that anger increases the use of generalized knowledge and reliance upon stereotypes and other heuristics. The student anger within our universities is a pointer to anger out of pent up issues driving a fear that calls for retaliation. Be it JNU or AMU or a Jadhavpur University, the students have all been agitating for reasons they may hold dear. Their reasons However, have been challenged by counter narratives of juxtaposed ideologies. A societal maleficence then takes over to keep the embers burning. What follows is not always predictable. The questions to be asked are whose ideologies must prevail? That violence precedes, proceeds and succeeds all such skirmishes is unfortunate. Introspection and wisdom on the part of all concerned must drive the future.
Doesn’t a Shaheen Bagh like sit-in of our woman folk call for soul searching on the part of political parties’ and the people alike? This is a consequence of fear drawn out of perceptions of wrong doing to one’s own ilk that in turn gives rise to anger. CAA has admittedly driven passions in a hyperbolic trajectory. The Government has been at pains to explain that the Act does not affect anyone, least of all the Indian Muslims. The agitators have taken a counter view. Each to his/her own views. It is distressing to see each running the other one down. Accusations have been flying thick and fast. Whereas the protagonists are seen assigning motives of a war against the Nation, the antagonists are seen holding a view of a war against their religion. The meeting ground must be discussions and debates rather than whipping up passions. The development narrative seems completely lost in ether, leading one to believe, if that was the actual intention. We cannot afford to have people primed with fear and emotion and less upon issue-concordance.
Anxiety is another affective intelligence theory greatly exploited in the current milieu. It is an emotion that increases political attentiveness while decreasing reliance on party identification when deciding on issues. It might improve decision-making capabilities, if not influenced by ideologies. Voters who report anxiety regarding an election are more likely to vote for candidates whose policies they prefer, and party members who report feeling anxious regarding a candidate are twice as likely to defect and vote for the opposition candidate. Issues like price rise, or safety of the womenfolk or the thought of being hauled up by the authorities for believing in seemingly diverse views, all cause immense anxiety.
AAP seems to be holding the upper hand and have cited their ground work as a passage to the next government. Freebies, be it in water or electricity have been cited as their achievements. The BJP has been talking about their un-kept promises and a general failure in the social fabric. Both have been driving fear in the polity to meet their ends. Studies in psychology has shown that people experiencing fear, rely on more detailed processing when making choices. Subjects primed with fear spend more time seeking information on the web before a hypothetical voting exercise than those primed with anger. An attempt to shift AAP narratives is palpably in the open. Are we witnessing negative campaigns that turn voters off from political participation altogether, as long as a candidate thinks he will keep more of his competitor’s voters away from the polls than he will his own? Are we seeing higher payoffs to negative attacks, and rationally ignorant “customers.”? Who this deportment will benefit will be known in a few days.
Pride, another affective behaviour has been used time and time again in the recent past. The national pride as neighbours’ envy or as neighbours bashing, as the situation may demand or as is perceived, has been used to whip up emotions like never before. Pride, along with hope and fear, influence the voting patterns as we have seen in the past elections. The surgical strikes are a case in point. A research shows that Pride influences by one third of the size of the effect of party identification. Appeals to pride were also found to be effective in motivating voter turnout among high-propensity voters as we have seen in the high voter turnouts in the past few elections.
Emotional instability in the people is seen to be assiduously cultivated. Neuroticism, or this emotional instability characterized by more extreme and maladaptive responses to stressors has a higher likelihood of negative emotions like anxiety, anger, and fear. This has been a big influencer in recent elections in State after State. Neuroticism as a lowered threshold for detecting and responding to stimuli as threatening or dangerous suggests that individuals high on this trait will be more receptive to campaigns, such as populism, which specifically prey on fears of looming threats and dangers. Populist standpoints play upon voter’s fears. But then, should we subscribe to only one standpoint? We seem to be caught in a partisan hyper conflict that divides politicians, communities, friends and even families. Every politician and local office-holders play to strongly-held beliefs and sometimes even pour fuel on the resulting inferno. This polarization has become so intense that many people no longer trust anyone from a differing perspective. Multicultural society must be our vision, where people with different nationalities, languages, religions and ethnicities live together harmoniously and at peace for it is our people with different traditions, lifestyles, values and ethics who add to our stature in the comity of nations across the world.