Leviathan Rising

State, Aadhaar and the Future of Freedom

Soon enough the world will have no place for the likes of us. Yes, “the world is too much with us” (you have no idea, Willy!). Me and my antiquated beliefs – guilty as charged! And if I am reduced to a state of “precarity” by the new gods, maybe, just maybe, your new gods are more real than mine! You see, I haven’t prayed in aeons, but, to paraphrase Beeman in “Constantine”, I’ve never had much faith, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have faith. “Human life is a series of compromises, and it is not always easy to achieve in practice what one has found to be true in theory”, believe me, I understand. It’s not easy being a romantic, a sceptic, and a conformist all at the same time. But that little ‘faith’ is where I draw the line – where I stand as steadfastly as Keats’ ‘bright star’!

            Notwithstanding my growing affinity to the Nietzschean and Darwinian view of nature, I still can’t help but fall deeper and deeper in love with my immediate natural environs. “The roaring of the wind is my wife, and the Stars through the window pane are my Children” – this Keatsesque approach to life is a psychological disposition that I can’t just dispense with at will. Aesthetic, for me, is the essence of life, and nature, above all else, is beauty [albeit at times, it is absolutely brutal]. It isn’t necessarily a truth or a solution but rather a ‘value’ that makes the anxiety of social life worth bearing – it is remedial. The clouds, the rugged landscape, the different seasons - there’s something about nature that just invokes my ‘imagination’ ever since I was a little boy – or is it the other way round? Do I owe my love of nature to my hyperactive imagination? I don’t really know either, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is they make me forget about the travail of social life; “Ever let fancy roam/ pleasure never is at home”. This is neither a Spinozistic nor a Rousseauesque approach to nature. There is no metaphysical or political baggage to it. It is simply the admiration of the visual aesthetic of nature and the psychological effects that it affects. It is simply a case of “O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!”

            Naturally, this romantic disposition has me, more often than not, at odds with my social environment. “I don’t hate people; I just like it better when they aren’t around”, this Bukowski quote, as cliché as it may have become (that’s popular culture for you), still sums up the totality of my sentiment towards anything social. Naturally, I spent most of my time alone either reading or hiking deep into nature. And naturally, that’s where I feel most at home, alone, away from the “Gaze” of the “Other”.

Here from the world I win release,

Nor scorn of men, nor footstep rude,

                         Break in to mar the holy peace

Of this great solitude. (Lewis Carroll)

 Couple this with an avid reading habit and it’s just an apt recipe for scepticism; scepticism not just towards epistemology and metaphysics but towards normativity as well. The most immediate ontological effect of this is that I have become completely alienated from the social sensibility of the community that I inhabit. As a sceptic, however, this sentimental dislocation does not necessarily align me with the classical liberal stance that valorizes the market and the individual over the collective or with postmodernism that equates degeneracy with progress. It also does not align me with the conspiratorial Marxist collectivist, or with the radical freedom-espousing Sartrean existentialists. So do I align myself with anything? The answer is yes, I align myself with my own critical thinking.

            One could be forgiven if one has mistaken me for a cheesy ‘rebel’. Although being mistaken for such a cliché would almost be offensive, it nonetheless has a comical effect. You see, despite my romantic and sceptical proclivity, I am a conformist. I belong to what Durkheim calls a mechanical society. Now I shan't go into details about what that is but it basically has the same characteristics with what social psychologists call a ‘collectivist society’. So no, I don’t conform to each and every single communal quirk but conform to the extent that it serves the community, albeit reluctantly [it’s a psychological disposition – a built-in personality trait]. The great thing about a humanities education is that you learn to let go of yourself; to not take yourself too seriously. Yes, “poetry [living] is not the turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not an expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things”. This is why T.S Eliot is infinitely wiser than William Wordsworth. The self, the individual – ‘me, just as I am’ – has no value, no meaning – zilch. It is only within and about “tradition” [read up on the nuances of Eliot’s concept of tradition] or what Yuval Noah Harari has called “fictions” and “stories” that the individual or the self has any semblance of meaning, value etc. And what might these ‘fictions’ be? Well, everything that’s not nature i.e. culture, tradition, society, community, the State, rights etc. These are the kinds of ‘fiction’ that have enabled us to survive and transcend other species.

You see, we live in “a universe not made for us”, a universe that has no telos, a universe that just doesn’t care about you. On top of that, we’re embraced by a mother [nature] that doesn’t care about us. We live in a universe where entropy is the ultimate, yet not so-divine law. So it is only through 'cooperation' that's been made possible by ‘fiction’ that we stand a chance against such formidable laws. So, whatever meaning, purpose, values, and worth that we have conceived for ourselves are all fiction, myths and make-believe, and yet they are absolutely imperative for the survival of our species. These fictions are of course diachronic but have a “tendency towards homeostasis”. And that, lads and ladies, is why I conform. I see society, community, culture, cooperation etc. for what they are i.e. ‘fiction’/’stories’. But I also understand their importance; how they’ve given us [human] rights, comfort, longevity, purpose, meaning and value.  I also understand how trivial and insignificant the self – ‘me, just as I am’ – is in the face of entropy and chaos, and how the self, in a needless rebellion against “fiction”, serves as a force for chaos.

Evidence for sedentary communities can be found as early as 12,000 years ago, but the State, roughly as we know it today, came into existence around 3000 BCE in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. In Who Sings the Nation-State? Judith Butler argues “…the state is supposed to service the matrix for the obligations and prerogatives of citizenship. It is that which forms the conditions under which we are juridically bound. We might expect that the state presupposes modes of juridical belonging”. She also argues that the “Political orders [nation-state], including economic and social institutions are to some extent designed to address [the]…needs, not only to make sure that housing and food are available but that populations have the means available by which [the good] life can be secured”. Contrary to such functions laid down by Butler, these early States, in their initial stage – steeped in the agrarian system - were not as uplifting or progressive as they have been made out to be. Rather they were associated with famine, epidemic, forced labour etc. and it was resisted vehemently by many hunter-gatherers. This resistance of the State has continued even to our contemporary history, of which, as per James C. Scott, the “Zomias” are the prime examples. But despite all these, the progression of history has made it clear that the State has lived up to its hype. Throughout history, the State has managed to achieve most of the fundamental things that the State has been credited to have achieved. Of course, there’s a line of thinking from Rousseau to Marx and Engels, to Derrida and Foucault all the way to Chomsky to name just a few, that believes that the State and civilisation are themselves the greatest corrupters of human nature [this does not mean these thinkers all strike the same chord]. However, despite this odd, yet highly influential line of thinking, empirical evidence has shown that the State has absolutely been advantageous for human beings.

In Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Harari explains that “cooperation” was what enabled our ancestors to survive. And our ancestors were able to “cooperate” because they could tell themselves “stories” and the capability to develop “fiction”. One such ‘fiction’ that enabled our ancestors to “cooperate” is the State. It is fiction because it is not a natural fact/scientific truth but rather developed subjectively by Human Beings. It is, according to John Searle, “ontologically subjective” yet “epistemically objective” and has an “objective status function”. The State, thus, is a “fiction” [but no less objective for that], a long-term survival strategy developed by our ancestors to protect themselves and ensure their survival in the great evolutionary race for survival.

The “state of nature” – a non-state or a pre-state condition of existence – according to Thomas Hobbes was a state of war - a war of men against all men as there was no common power for men to respect and submit to. Men in such a state were ‘lawless creatures’ as each man had complete freedom, complete ‘liberty’ “to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature”. He defines life in the “state of nature” as “poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. According to Hobbes, for men to be lifted out of such chaos they must lay down their arms and submit themselves to a “sovereign”. The ‘sovereign’ can be one man or an assembly of men. Each man stripped himself of his freedom/liberty which he had in the ‘state of nature’ and exchanged it for rights by making the ‘sovereign’ – government – the monopoly of rights. Thus, the ‘authority’ of the State is a result of a ‘contract’ that was made by all with all. So, a ‘social contract’ was made among equal men by sacrificing freedom/liberty to a chosen ‘sovereign’ in exchange for rights, security, peace etc. The sole responsibility of the sovereign is to secure and ensure peace. He has no responsibility towards providing a ‘good life’ but rather the condition under which a ‘good life’ may be achieved.

The State, however, has managed to achieve both ‘peace’ and ‘good life’. Violence and war have been reduced considerably by the State; we are now living in the most peaceful time in all of human history. More people commit suicide each year than the total number of deaths from war, crimes and terrorism combined. It has also increased prosperity and comfort, life expectancy, gives us security, rights etc. For the longest time in human history famine, plague and war were some of the biggest problems – literally for thousands of years, but now they have pretty much been conquered and are now under control. As per the latest WHO statistics, three million people died from obesity [overeating] while one million people died from starvation. Life expectancy has risen considerably all around the world – from Africa to Southeast Asia. Now I will not go into full details here but rather will suggest you pick up The Better Angels of Our Nature [and also Enlightenment Now] by Steven Pinker.

The State, however, in its attempt to further its achievement, has become increasingly bold and radical in its approach - bold and radical enough to undermine the very freedom, rights and the “general will” of its citizens. Take China’s Social Credit System for example, a credit system in which its citizens are monitored by the State 24/7 and given credits based on such surveillance. The credits that citizens earn will determine the scope of their social life; whether they’ve done enough to use the internet, go to a club or bar, dine out, or buy anything at all etc. If they have not done enough they will be barred from all these social activities. The System is optional as of now but will be made mandatory in 2020. This credit system will also surely put a check on what Hannah Arendt has called “legitimate power”. ‘Legitimate power’, as per Arendt, is a power that springs up when people come together and act together and then disappears as soon as the people disperse. ‘Legitimate power’ is a political power that ‘exists’ between human beings. With the Social Credit System in place, the Government will have the monopoly over basically everything and will actually be off limits from any sort of criticism whatsoever as it will have the power to politically/juridically terminate any citizen that does not conform to its agenda. With such a prospect it is not difficult to conjecture how the government will be able to curb even the slightest possibility of/for “legitimate power”. In other words, the Social Credit System is basically a “Big Brother” in the making.

 Gayatri Spivak argues that the nation-state is facing a threat from the “economic and political restructuring of the state in the interest of global capital”. In other words, as capitalism progresses in the form of globalisation, the State [the nation-state], at least theoretically, is supposed to get smaller and smaller until it finally paves the way for the market to completely take over everything [and finally gives birth to cosmopolitanism]. But the State, everywhere, is coming up with ever more novel modus operandi to consolidate itself [or is this part of globalisation rather than the State consolidating itself against the ever-growing market?]. In India, we have the infamous Aadhaar scheme, passed unconstitutionally as a Money Bill by the BJP Government. Such a scheme spells the end of what Arendt calls the “public debate” which will immediately eliminate any political space for the expression of our “human plurality”. For Arendt ‘politics’ is a “public debate by a community about meaningful aspects of their shared life together” [For more on the Public Debate read The Origins of Totalitarianism]. This notion of the “public debate” is very important because she believes “plurality” to be the existential condition of human life. In The Human Condition, she argues that we are all human beings and hence are all equal, at the same time we are also distinct because no human beings are alike. That is what she means by “plurality”. This “plurality” means distinctness in perspectives.  “Distinctness” between human beings always has to be mediated by our “equality” through the “public debate”. In a State like India where there is no overarching notion of the nation, we must maintain and preserve this “public debate” so that every community has their distinct perspective expressed at the national level. Otherwise, ideologies like Hindutva, through saffronization, could easily sweep away the “equality” of every community and impose certain “distinctness” as The National Semiotic at the expense of other “distinctness”, thus, paving the way for cultural and religious homogenization, fascism and totalitarianism. Even though the Supreme Court is still [barely] doing its bit on behalf of the citizens against the scheme, the SC’s judgment itself, apart from Justice Chandrachud’s, is hardly comforting.

The State is just one form of ‘fiction’ – a ‘metaphorical truth’ developed as a long-term survival strategy in the evolutionary process by modern humans. It is what enables and gives us other equally important ‘fictions’ and ‘metaphorical truths’ like [human] rights, sovereignty, law etc. Of all the ‘stories’ that we’ve told each other, of all the ‘fictions’ that we’ve developed the State seems to be the most important of all. The concept of the nation, the feeling of home and belongingness, the idea of identity whether individual or collective, the idea of human rights etc. do not have any validity without the sovereignty of the State that enables and ensures all these other ‘fictions’ through citizenship and the law. The worst possible political condition in our contemporary history is to be outside the realm of politics [which, according to Giorgio Agamben and Judith Butler, is impossible because of the biopolitical influence of the State]. When one is truly outside the realm of politics without citizenship – as a stateless person - human rights have no validity whatsoever. According to Arendt, without the State, its sovereignty and its judiciary, humanity alone does not provide any protection let alone any benefit whatsoever;

The concept of human rights, based on the assumed existence of a human being as such, broke down at the very moment when those who profess to believe in it were for the first time confronted with people who had indeed lost all other qualities and specifics relationship - except that they were still human. The world found nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human. And given political objective conditions, it is hard to say how the concept of man upon which human rights are based - that he is created in the image of God (in the American Formula), or that he is the representative of mankind, or that he harbours within himself a sacred demand of natural law (in the French formula) - could have helped to find a solution to the problem.

In Homo Sacer Giorgio Agamben develops the concept of “bare life”; According to him, once a citizen is disowned by the State he/she is reduced to this 'bare life' - he/she is thrown into the zone of Zoe, and that former citizen has nothing left – he/she is stateless and right-less - yet he/she is still subject to the laws of the State, for example, he/she could still be imprisoned or executed by the State [for trespassing within its territory]. This means that he/she is still included within the law of the State by the very act of his/her exclusion from the State! – Thus he becomes a “Homo Sacer”. It is in this state of statelessness that human rights break down as well because without a sovereign to ensure an individual’s rights the bare fact of being a human being alone [human rights] does not offer anything to that individual. Agamben argues that the ‘sovereign’ is the one that determines the “state of exception” [e.g. state of emergency]; when the law should be suspended for whatever reason. This means the rights that the State has given to its citizens can be withdrawn at a moment’s notice which will render its citizens in a state of Zoe – “bare [naked] life”. And it is at this point, as mentioned before, that Arendt argues that ‘human rights’ disappeared, “the world found nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human”. At this point, Agamben argues that for all these reasons contemporary democratic nation-states are all totalitarian states in disguise because they have the monopoly over the legitimacy of the law, rights, identity, belongingness, and the notion of home – they are the arbiter of a legitimate condition of existence. With such schemes as Aadhar and the Social Credit System the State is leaps and bounds closer to totalitarianism because what Agamben theorizes in Homo Sacer [the State can disown you anytime] has actually become a real live power with practical possibility as the State can now socially, economically, politically and juridically eliminate each and every individual citizen with the push of a button under such schemes [maybe for speaking up against the government].

This may sound really ludicrous but let’s take a closer look at the thesis. The Armed Forces Special Power Act, 1958 in India is an example of the sovereign calling a “state of exception” in which the citizens in places like Nagaland and Manipur, in praxis, become right-less and are subject to the violence of both the State’s Armed Forces and it’s counterparts in the form of insurgents. Another great example of this would be the bombing of Aizawl by Indira Gandhi’s Air Force in 1966 - the first air raid by the Indian Air Force on civilian territory within the country – The Sovereign [the Indian State/Indira Gandhi] called for a “state of exception” in which the law, the rights of the citizens [the Mizo People], given to them by the State through its sovereignty/authority/power, were suspended and ignored and the citizens[the Mizo People] were then subjected to a State [that is supposed to ensure peace and the safety of its citizens] sponsored violence. Judith Butler, following this line of argument also argues that a return to the “state of nature” [in the social contract sense] is impossible because even if you are not part of the State it still determines who and what you are and also the condition in which you exist [examples – illegal immigrants, refugees etc.].

In Who Sings the Nation-State?  Butler argues that the nation-state tends to reduce certain sections of its own community that do not fit neatly into the cultural semiotic [the nationhood – Muslims and other minority communities from the perspective of the BJP and the RSS] of the State to the condition of “precarity”, which is not far off from Zoe/bare life. ‘Precarity’ is a condition of existence in which an individual is part of an institution but only to be excluded and ignored socially, politically and juridically, thus, leaving him/her in a state of heightened vulnerability. Butler also argues that even though “social and political institutions are designed in part to minimize conditions of precarity, especially within the nation-state, people who do not fit neatly into the heteronormativity of the society or the cultural semiotic of the nation [e.g. gender fluid people or illegal immigrants] do tend to be reduced to a state of “precarity”;

…precarity designates that politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death. Such populations are at heightened risk of disease, poverty, starvation, displacement, and exposure to violence without protection. Precarity also characterizes that politically induced condition of maximized vulnerability and exposure for populations exposed to arbitrary state violence and to other forms of aggression that are not enacted by states and against which states do not offer adequate protection. So by precarity, we may be talking about populations that starve or who are near starvation, but we might also be talking about sex workers who have to defend themselves against both street violence and police harassment.

 The “state of nature” could either be an impoverished state of existence with complete freedom but without any rights where citizens are dogged by war and violence [Hobbes] or a state of complete freedom, abundance and peace [Rousseau], whichever the case may be there is no going back to the state of nature. The State and the nation-state have become so powerful that, even though they have uplifted humanity to such a height, they are becoming, as per Agamben, more and more ‘totalitarian’ [in disguise]. Even when one is disowned by the State he/she is immediately thrown into the worst possible condition of existence because he/she is still subject to the authority and power of the State. The State will bind its citizens and shift more and more towards a technocracy in the guise of progress, development, justice, fairness etc. Another prime example would be Obamacare [altered slightly by the Republicans]. Even our Aadhaar scheme is one such system through which the State has consolidated itself - by taking away agency, freedom and the rights of its citizens – as a totalitarian institution all in the guise of development, progress, fairness etc. So, if Aadhaar were to be made mandatory in the future, anyone refusing such a mandate would immediately be reduced to a state of Zoe or “bare life”. In her Quillette review of The Coddling of the American Mind, Pamela Paresky argues that "belonging" is a fundamental human need and people are willing to suffer at length just to be accepted - just to belong. In fact, it is one of the reasons why [American] college students are willing to suffer physical pain and humiliation to "pledge" fraternities. Citizens who resist Adhaar in the future will [most likely] be disowned and disenfranchised by the State while still being subject to its authoritarian power. They will also become social outcasts, meaning that the feeling of "home" and "belongingness" will be taken away from them, thus leaving them in a state of "precarity"

Despite my rational conformity, if schemes like Aadhaar, the Social Credit System or any other scheme that impinges on the rights and freedom of the citizens is ever made mandatory, resistance still seems to me to be a more viable option. Now that would seem to be the worst idea possible given the conditions that resistance will lead to. In his book The Fragile Absolute Slavoj Zizek, critiquing Christian beliefs argues that sometimes the worst is for the best. Drawing inspiration from Jesus’ message, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple”, he argues that ‘hatred’ in this instance does not refer to senseless antagonism, but rather to seemingly destructive self-renunciation. To put it in simpler terms, whatever it is that you have sacrificed, Zizek argues, the sacrifice will set you free from the power [sovereignty] that's binding you. Here Zizek gives an example from The Usual Suspects in which the main character shoots his wife and daughter who are being held hostage!

According to Zizek, these negative gestures have twofold significance; Firstly, they save what is sacrificed from the worst fate. In the case of The Usual Suspect, they would have been raped, tortured and then eventually killed, but when the main character killed them himself they were saved from such a barbaric fate! With regards to cases like the Social Credit System or Aadhaar, going along with the scheme would eventually lead to “Oceania”. Secondly, by resisting and sacrificing, you have released yourself from the hold of whatever is holding you! For example, the character that shoots his wife and daughter is now no longer under the control or whims of the kidnappers as he has nothing more to lose. In the case of the Social Credit System or Aadhaar, sacrificing your citizenship and rights theoretically releases you from the sovereignty of the State [and delivers you to Zoe/bare life and precarity]. He argues, “The sacrifice of what is most precious changes the coordinates of the situation in which the subject finds himself; by cutting himself loose from the precious object through whose possession the enemy kept him in check, the subject gains the space of free action”. This freedom that Zizek talks about, at least in praxis, seems to be more closely related to “angst” or “anxiety” in the existential tradition.  But for Zizek, Just as the sacrifice of Christ paves way for the Holy Ghost, sacrificing the most precious thing will bring forth the “magic moment when the Absolute appears in all its fragility” and opens up a space hitherto unavailable – a Pentecost moment in which the Holy Ghost reveals itself to those who have been reduced to a state of Zoe/”bare life” or “precarity” [keep in mind the followers of Jesus were scorned, mocked, laughed at, considered heretics etc by the society at large]. So once a citizen renounces his status in a State he is reduced to his “bare naked life” but, as per Zizek, there is a way out of such “fragile” condition of existence and that is the “Pentecost” moment that will take fragility to its “absolute” state that will bring forth a new political possibility that will transcend “bare life”.