Populist Politics in Pandemic Times: Symbols, Performances, and Rituals

 - Akanksha Indora 

Source: Free Stock

The last decade has seen the rise of populism globally. India has been no exception. While considerable scholarly attention has been given to the study of populism, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown light on a specific aspect of populist regimes. There is a strange paradox; that despite what could be seen as mishandling of the challenges[i] – medical, administrative, economic, and political – thrown up by this catastrophe- the popularity of populist government leaders remains largely unaffected. Their core support appears to remain steadfast.

Any attempt to understand this has to understand two dimensions of populism. One, the core ideas of populism; and two, its cultural tool kit with which it connects with its ‘people’ on the other. Importantly the two are related. If one were to draw from Jan-Werner Müller’s book What Is Populism?[ii], some of its common ideas pertain to anti-elitism; anti-pluralism; delegitimization of opponents; suppression of civil society; proneness to conspiracy theories and the overall sense that the populist regime and its leader are infallible and act in the best interest of its people.

All this is possible because there is a purported connect, a rapport, and a bond that ties the government, its leader with its people. Indeed the three coalesce to become one. It is because of this that being critical of the government and its leader becomes tantamount to being anti-people and anti-national.  Everything is legitimate because the leader embodies the will of the people. And here the ‘people’ necessarily refer to a racial, ethnic, or religious community. Linked to these core ideas of populism are the cultural tool kits that such regimes deploy.

If the old elites that such regimes oppose are not rooted in the ‘culture’ of its soil, populists like the audience they address are embedded in and accustomed to the cultural structures that surround them. The concept sacralizing of politics has been deployed by scholars such as Yabanci. While one can argue that religious symbols are used instrumentally, sociology of culture and symbols have to also focus on the fact that:

religious symbolism, tropes, and appeals are available to populists as a part of ‘the cultural toolkit’ and allow them to engage in meaning-making (concerning the nation, the community, the state), construct a specific collective identity and evoke collective memory (Yabanci 2020: 94).[iii]

Modern secular states have always invested symbolic value to the state, the nation, and its rituals. But what changes with populism is that while the older institutional order of a democratic state is eroded; the performative role of the leader gains centrality. Yabanci argues that herein the role of the leader is central for the performative relationship to masses. The leader represents ‘the nation’s unity, achieved through its supreme actor’ and creates ‘emotional fusion’ between himself/herself and supporters.

Sacralization of politics allows the populist leader to perpetuate the antagonism between ‘the people’ and ‘the establishment/enemies’ and to construct a mission as the ‘destiny of the nation, a necessity rather than a choice’ and to declare himself as the heroic defender of the authentic values. Sacralization also perpetuates the populist concept of the people by asserting the supremacy of the community of the elect. Finally, sacralized politics strengthen the performative side of populism through myths and rituals that substitute or replace democratic political and civic participation (95).

To return to the paradox that one started we see almost all these dimensions being played out in India. Perhaps a quick recap of the key trends may be productive. 

First, we could begin with the historical link between crisis and populism. Populists use a whole range of social, political, and economic phenomena to forge and sustain their populism. One of them is a crisis – creating, managing, and resolving the crisis. COVID-19 is a crisis that has been effectively used to further strengthen the idea of the leader as the country’s saviour. Even as the Pandemic was surging, the tragic death of soldiers on the border has furthered the crisis and bolstered the idea that a saviour alone can lead us out of this situation.

Second, populist regimes as we discussed above are high on performance, spectacles, and collective enactment of rituals. In his first address after the pandemic, the Prime Minister had called for all citizens to applaud health care workers by clapping, ringing bells, or clanging vessels. (tali bajao, thali bajao and diya jalao) There was a huge response and the media covered the visuals extensively. In the second address, he urged the nation to light candles and diyas for nine minutes at 9 pm Sunday to ‘defeat the despair’ brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.[iv] The understanding of a common ‘cultural tool kit’ and ‘sacralization of politics’ helps us to understand the power of this messaging.

Third, the perceived threat from the enemy and the constant belief in a conspiracy is a constant to populism. If President Trump called it a Chinese virus, in India the blame was on the Tablighi gathering.^[v] A new term, ‘corona jihad’, was coined to describe this conspiracy.[vi] Social media has been abuzz with posts about what many consider to be a Muslim conspiracy.

Fourth, populism has an art of storytelling. It is simple, persuasive, and has some standard cast of characters: the elite and the ordinary people; and the fight between the forces of goodness and evil. It is emotionally charged and it works because the audience that it targets shares the cultural tool kit.  Those it does not address are the enemies.

Any attempt to understand how populist regimes flourish even when they don’t deliver, one has to realize that support for such regimes is not only a result of coercion, state capture, and co-optation. It depends on the consensual support of the majority. The concept of sacralized politics that this piece dwelt upon is a heuristic tool towards the understanding of populism.

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[i] Four democratic countries – the United States, Brazil, the UK and India – are among the top five in the world in the infections league table (Russia being the fifth). https://thewire.in/politics/trump-bolsonaro-jognson-modi-populist-leaders-covid, accessed on 4^th July 2020.

[ii] Muller, J. Werner. (2017). What is Populism? Penguin Books Ltd. 21(1): 92-112.

[iii] Yabanci, Bilge. (2020). Fuzzy Borders between Populism and Sacralized Politics: Mission, Leader, Community and Performance in ‘New’ Turkey. Politics, Religion and Ideology.

[iv] https://theprint.in/india/after-bartan-bajao-pm-modi-asks-indians-to-light-lamps-candles-as-symbols-of-hope/394181/, accessed on 4^th July 2020.

[v] https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/04/01/islamic-insurrection-in-delhi-tweets-bjp-it-cell-chief-after-tablighi-nizamuddin-incident.html, accessed on 3^rd July 2020.

[vi]  https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/coronavirus-outbreak-india-blamed-muslims-200418143252362.html, accessed on 3^rd July 2020.

Akanksha is a PhD Scholar at Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS), School of Social Sciences (SSS) at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her areas of interest are Cultural Sociology, Literary Criticism, Populism, and Environmentalism.