Toolkit For Woke

Stay Woke: Vote!

The Black Lives Matter movement in America, was born because White Supremacists and American Police were still killing black people on the streets. Black people, often poignantly young, who fell afoul of police call-outs. Rather than immobilise them for questioning with tasers or even billy clubs, they were shot in the head, chest, in the back. This might have been from misunderstanding, inexperience, or fear on the part of policemen operating in an environment where the right to bear arms is sacrosanct. White Supremacists, of course, work on eugenic theories of superior races. For them, the only good Black is a dead one.

But the White community is rarely subjected to such excesses unless it is from the school shootings by deranged fellow students.

The African Americans introduced the term Woke, updated and weaponised from the past participle of wake. The term has been around amongst hip American Blacks since the sixties or earlier, but entered mainstream dictionaries as late as 2017.

It means people sensitised and aware of political and racist narratives working against them. It is not a veiled call to armed counter violence.  But a person who is Woke is unwilling to be manipulated into guilt. Or oppressed with racial slurs, being called a degenerate, a habitual miscreant, looters, rioters, criminals, criminally inclined, replete with jail statistics for illustration.

It took a previous segregated generation much blood and guts to vote, in the Deep South. To change City Hall, heads of racist police, the occupant of the Governor’s Mansion and White House, – the Woke Blacks still need to Vote.

Black Lives Matter, just like the successful Civil Rights Movement before it, has, gradually been joined or supported by Hispanics, Asians, Whites, Jews, Muslims, Christians, immigrants, native Americans, the LGBT, Hollywood and TV stars, Talk Show hosts, college professors. Judges. New legislation is being drafted. Police manuals are being updated.

And increasingly, liberal politicians like Mayors, Governors, even the current President Joe Biden, the strongly African-American military, the intelligence and secret services, the CIA, the CBI.

Woke is the next stage of awareness and equal treatment in America. An evolution, for people in a country that is no longer just a Caucasian melting pot. Even though these same White immigrants did all they could to keep slaves, native Americans, Chinese, Hispanics, other Asians, down or dead.

What does wokeness mean in the Indian context?  It could mean judicial reform, accountability of politicians and the bureaucracy, better primary education and health facilities, faster agrarian reforms, efficient garbage disposal. There is a mountain of issues to be Woke about in a country emerging from feudalism like India. But, it is probably best to concentrate on what is in the hands of the people.

Since the coming of Modi 1.0, there has been a consistent if small counter narrative. This has been led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. He wouldn’t have had two successive majority terms without strong Hindu nationalist support. And so, he has set about addressing some long pending issues.

The very first is philosophical but profoundly influential. The Idea of India, propagated by Nehru, his successors in the Congress Party and government, has been ruling for decades. This unchallenged former national self-image and lode star, exalted Gandhian non-violence, inclusiveness, plurality, unity in diversity, Mughal history, socialism.  It placed the largely loss making and inefficient public sector at the commanding heights of the economy, destroyed the vestige of privilege of the erstwhile princes, made private companies bring up the rear in a mixed economy. It promoted the bizarre shackles of a licence-permit system.  Other aspects included an emphasis on higher education, non-alignment, code for being in the Soviet camp, agrarianism, development, abjectly dependent on international aid and grants.

It was the thinking of a vassal state. A modest, proletarian vision of India in the back-dated, perennial shortages sense. It was smirked at for its high falutin’ speechifying, but grinding, malnourished poverty, its rank inequalities, its rickety facilities, its failing GDP.

 It was a vision that never envisaged a rich, powerful, influential, strongly nationalist, militarily capable India, that understood its enlightened self-interest and how to defend it.  This, which we need to Woke to in greater numbers, has been introduced by an OBC prime minister, born in poverty, who never saw any glory in squalor.

The flowery but insubstantial Idea of India that Nehru concocted in his Discovery of India, an imitation of Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples, has been discarded in the corridors of power.

Instead, we have Prime Minister Modi’s New India. Under the global  economic and political churn ongoing, he has also introduced atmanirbhar, applied proudly to weapons production. Fighter and trainer aircraft, helicopters, ammunition, armoured vehicles, howitzers, machine guns, rifles, missiles, navy ships, drones, cyber warfare capabilities, missiles, navy ships, drones, aircraft carriers, conventional and nuclear powered submarines.

Enemy forces in China and India are no longer confident of any military adventurism.

There are myriad other things in the mix- locomotives, satellites, heavy launch vehicles, digital India, improved intelligence that has prevented constant terrorist attacks around the country, cellphones, start-ups, electricity, water, pharmaceuticals, urban metro systems, vaccines in the season of the pandemic.  Infrastructure built as roads, ports, bridges, tunnels, directly paid subsidies into newly banked accounts.

Modi is a proud Hindu fond of praying at our great temples and pilgrimage centres. And his affection for the TV camera ensures the Indian public sees this. As of 2014, the Hindu in Bharat if not anglicised India, has been given a proper place at the main table. One he never thought he would get. It is a source of pride and satisfaction – a classic Woke feeling.

Independence era heroes, most notably Sardar Patel, Veer Savarkar, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, long ignored, if not vilified, have been lifted out of the dusty pages of recent history. Their contribution has been acknowledged. Their birth anniversaries are honoured with flowers and incense. The RSS, the BJP’s ideological guru and conscience keeper, itself has emerged into respectability after years of being banned and stigmatised.

The urban national consciousness, largely informed by educated intellectuals from the Congress era, is a tougher nut to crack. It is reared on a diet of inherited Macaulayism, Christian Convent learning, Communism, foreign universities, Abrahamic world views, the Nehruvian notion of secularism, slanted Marxist or Imperialist interpretations of history. It is all deeply imbedded, and cannot be turned for a generation or two. 

 But back at the ranch, New India is a strong Woke catalyst for a large section of the people, for long embarrassed to celebrate their own culture and religion. Now such people see many of their own, including some in saffron robes who are in power.  Nevertheless, there are, and will be attacks from the old guard, designed to subvert and shatter self-confidence. Being Woke is to stay resolute and undeterred. Knowing that a passed over order is mourning its shocking irrelevance.

The term Toolkit, long associated with workmen of various kinds is now  also used widely by political activists. They readily recognise the various component parts that go to make up their agitation- finance, political backing, a narrative to flog, projections of victimhood, articulate and photogenic spokespersons, persistence, propaganda, judicial action, headline grabbing violence and arson. They see all this as so much componentry.

Woke for New India is dependent on diligent voting so that the agenda is not trampled underfoot by a resurgence of the old guard. Changing a national narrative is no small matter. Knowing your own best interest amongst the din of alternative voices is essential. Giving up, or turning tail in panic when things go wrong is not an option.

The toolkit and paintbox of Wokeness is cultural, political, artistic, religious, educational, historical, national, international. It involves building links and allies, taking actions with an eye to posterity, pride in our ancient and modern culture and accomplishments, financial success, ability to take the fight to the enemy. Being Woke is being modern and forward looking, unburdened by the inequities of the past. Above all, remembering universal suffrage is a double-edged sword.  It’s use it or lose it.

Voting cannot be left entirely to the uncomplicated minds of the 60% who live in rural India. They have always understood the power of their franchise. But changing the destiny of India as much as Bharat is a very Woke responsibility.

(1,394 words)

May 12^th, 2021

For:  The Sunday Guardian

Gautam Mukherjee