Post-Truth in Indian Society

Chanchal Chauhan

This is an age where truth does not prevail. People trust falsehood, false promises that are never kept. Political leaders brazenly tell lies, 'eating sugar' but say, 'no papa'. The leadership that is ruling India resorts to falsehood, serving the interests of the foreign and Indian capitalists and international finance capital, but declare that they are doing all for the poor. They all the time make new promises, The PM declared on November 8, 2016 that currency notes of 500 and 1000 denomination would be illegal but could be exchanged at the Banks and post offices till the end of December 2016. This proved to be a lie. After a short span of time, the exchange was denied and old notes were allowed to be deposited in the Bank accounts. That order was also repealed, but had to undo it under pressure. The prime minister told the public that all would be right after 50 days and if normalcy did not return he was prepared to face any punishment people might choose. But normalcy did not return after 50 days, ATMs had no cash, the withdrawl limit remained in place, factories and workplaces that were closed because of demonitisation did not become functional, the agricultural produce of farmers and small peasants did not get bulk buyers or agents in Mandi, they were the worst sufferers and till todate the condition remained in January and February 2017 the same as was in December 2016. 'God's in His Heaven and all is right with the world.'The PM forgot his words and did not ask people to declare punishment for his failure. On the contrary he is on his move for election campaigning announcing more and more false promises in the states going for assembly polls.

And I know that our people will trust him, vote for him in the post-truth era. The powers representing falsehood are on the rise in all the countries. People do not trust democrats, they are easily fooled by the most cruel, conservative, chauvinists, obscurantists and war-mongers. See what has happened in the USA. The conservative President behaves just like Hitler of the period of Great Depression. I am afraid, he might trigger third world war by the end of his tenure and the peace movcement may be helpless to arouse world conscience to stop his moves.

Social scientists world over are puzzled to look at this phenomenon of post truth or rather counter-truth. A serious diagnosis is required and this is possible by going deep into rhe process of changes taking place in the world capitalism. Western capitalism is in crisis, and whenever this type of crisis engulfs the capitalist system, it finds political leadership of post truth. The scientific revolutions are taking place, new generation technology in every branch of science is exploited by the capitalist system to earn more and more profit, but the fast automation and robotic machines are making more and more human beings jobless who in that state become non-consumers and thus become poor and cannot afford to buy the products lying unsold in the world market. This situation is gradually leading the world to the point a new great depression, This manifests itself in the slowdown that the western capitalism confronts today.

World capitalism survives because it still has the potential to unleash productive forces in non-imperialst countries that are known as developing economies in common parleys. People in those countries too see hopes in the capitalist system and treat it as their growth engine. They too like their western counterparts in democracies vote for those who promise to acceleerate their capitalist growth engine. The democratic forces and communists are treated as stumbling blocks for this growth  engine and thus  not favoured by  people in electoral politics. ONE CAN SEE SETBACK TO THESE FORCES IN THIS POST TRUTH ERA BECAUSE OF THIS NEW PHENOMENON THAT BEGAN WITH THE FALL OF SOVIET UNION AND PREVAILS TILL NOW.