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By Shaurya Mahajan
Keywords: Liberalism, Conservatism, Paradox, Caste, LGBTQ, Hindu Nationalism, Desire for Appearance
I. Introduction
Today everyone wants to be liberal and modern and claims to be, but when it comes to actions and things that matter, people choose their conservative radical side. They want to appear to be liberal and modern without even attempting to understand what is modern and what it means to be liberal. Change, real change is hard and slow. But people are not interested in changing, not really. They only want to appear to be liberal and modern – placing a level of appearance like never before. People want to get the individualistic benefits that liberalism has to offer while retaining, though it may not appear so by design, the community benefits of conservative radical ideology. Why people want to appear liberal and modern, remains a question that we will answer. But such a position raises a critical issue – a contradiction and conflict between the urge to appear liberal and take benefits and the urge to stay conservative and preserve the community. This contradiction generates discomfort in people’s minds, a feeling that needs to be resolved. This is where people blur the line between these two aspects in their minds and rationalise to alleviate this discomfort, at least partially, by telling themselves that they are doing what is best for them. This is, however, a wholly insufficient basis and merits a closer analysis of the issue, starting with the very nature of these two aspects or as Durkheim puts it, solidarities.
II. Solidarity and the Desire of Appearance
Emile Durkheim in his famous work, Division of Society, explained the concept of social solidarity and gave the twin categories of mechanical and organic solidarity. Social solidarity refers to the shared awareness of shared interests and objectives of individuals that form the basis of society. Mechanical solidarity is present in societies where the social cohesion in the society is based on commonality or homogeneity of aspects such as race, religion and more. There is usually a strong focus on kinship and family ties and is usually found in more tadeonal and simple societies. This is indicative of the primordial and base nature of societies which are based on homogeneity, replicating a model perhaps used by our ancient ancestors for uniting against the Neanderthals. Since homogeneity forms the very foundation of such societies, it follows then that any deviation from established norms and practices is met with repressive sanctions to impose a punishment on behalf of the society for their deviation. This in turn limits individual freedom and is thus opposed to individuality as the foundation of the social structure. Organic Solidarity on the other hand is found in societies where social cohesion is based on the interdependence of people that arises with the high specialisation of work found in modern industrial societies. This type, in stark contrast with mechanical solidarity, focuses on the individual and highlights the interdependence and complimentary nature that underlies cooperation in such societies. Such societies have restitutive and cooperative sanctions that focus on reforming the person to be able to become a productive member of society, compared with the penal intention found in societies with mechanical solidarity. An understanding of social solidarity and its types allows us to understand the underlying principle of society and helps to ground the argument.
The answer to our question on the desire for appearance, I argue, is while there is a push towards liberalism and modernism stemming from a combination of social, economic and political aspects, this transformation is limited to the space of ‘appearance’ by the emergence of a distinction between the private and public domains. This argument holds characteristically for the nations of the developing world, where this desire is at its most intense. The argument draws upon the works of various scholars to construct a theoretical framework within which this desire for appearance is situated and is illustrated with examples of the rise of Hindu nationalism, caste paradox and space for LGBTQ people. It concludes, with a call for transforming the individual consciousness and resolving the contradiction by bringing our ideology in line with our practices, in all domains of life.
III. The Desire for Appearance–Social, Political and Economical
The desire to appear liberal and modern is presented in three key aspects of life – social, political and economic. While all these aspects are interrelated and present together in the desire for the appearance of a modern liberal, it is necessary to analyse and understand each individually to be able to understand the way they operate and present together. This desire is also something characteristic of former colonies and third-world countries of the East, especially in the intensity with which it operates in these societies.
A. The Economic Aspect
The economic aspect can be aptly explained with reference to the Convergence Thesis put forward by Clark Kerr and associates. This theory establishes the necessary link between the social and economic, and through an economic transformation lays the foundation necessary for the social. Simply put, it posits that undeveloped and developing nations of the world replicate and adopt the social and economic models of the developed countries. This results in a catch-up effect wherein developing countries try to catch up with the developed world and eventually become a part of it by becoming like them, both theoretically and practically. This drives an ideological and pragmatic shift in these countries and pushes a wave of socioeconomic transformation, with both aspects complimenting each other. It is pertinent to note, however, that the economy precedes the social and sets up the foundation and necessary conditions for the transformation of the social. This follows a materialist conception of society and understands the economy as the base and the social as the super-structure – A classical Marxian understanding. On the economic side, it is linked with the onset of industrialism brought forward by new technologies and capitalism and linking it with the global economy by reducing trade barriers and tariffs, resulting in a transformation of the domestic economy. On the social side, with the onset of industrialisation, there is a change in social relations and there is a shift towards a shared global culture. While this is sufficient to explain the economic aspect and lays the link between the social and economic it’s not sufficient to understand the social aspect. For that we need to analyse the relationship between the Developed West and the Developing East, or as Said puts it – between the Occident and the Orient.
B. The Social Aspect
This aspect of the desire to appear liberal and modern is especially true in the case of formerly colonised and third-world countries, or what Said calls the ‘Orient’. Edward Said in his famous work titled ‘Orientalism’, draws a distinction between the countries of the global West as the Occident and the global East as the Orient. He propounds his theory by elaborating on how the occident views the Orient and draws upon the relationship between them to substantiate the relation as one of ‘self’ and ‘other’. An extension of this theory can be drawn by an inversion of this relation, focusing on how the Orient sees the Occident, allowing us to understand the complexity and nuance of this relationship. This understanding holds, that the Orient having internalised its own status as the inferior in the relationship desires to be like the Occident by imitating it, in social, economic, and political terms. This desire is reinforced by the achievement of material benefits, creating a systemic framework for liberalism and modernism to operate in and proliferate. While this imitation and materialist conception is able to permeate and dominate in the public domain, it finds it difficult to do so in the private domain due to resistance from tradition and especially religion. From a gendered lens, the outward world of men is easy to transform and the inward world of women is still dominated by traditional conservative values and follows behind. The change and shift towards occidental ideals of liberalism and modernism are slow to permeate into the private domestic and religious sphere, creating a paradoxical but functional model for this transformation. But this desire and material benefit comes in direct conflict with conservative ideas of community and family ties, resulting in a contradiction and mental discomfort. This approach based on an inverted understanding of Said’s orientalism effectively explains the social aspect of this desire for appearance. It remains now only to explain the political aspect, and frame it in relation to the social and political for that the framework within which politics operate.
C. The Political Aspect
Francis Fukuyama in his seminal work ‘The End of History’ propounds the end of the evolution of society and forms of government with the final culmination being liberal democracies. Written at a time of immense change around the world, it propounds that with the death of its two biggest rivals, namely Fascism and Communism, liberal democracies should be able to thrive. The fall of the Soviet Union leaves the US, the ‘leader’ of the liberal democratic and market economy school as the only dominant power. Liberal democracy and market economy thus become the dominant and the only ideological framework for the material world to operate in. It is important to note that Fukuyama does not note either liberal democracy or market economy to be the perfect system but rather notes them to be the best since no other political structure is capable of providing citizens with such a level of liberty and wealth. This implies that any contradiction in the materiality of human life is capable of being worked out and resolved within this theoretical framework and that there is no need for exploring different theoretical frameworks. The push towards Western liberal democratic reforms in government and free market reforms in the economy can be seen as a direct result of the soft power pressures and paradigm shift in the legitimacy of alternative institutions and structures. This situates the political aspect in the relation between the social and economic, as the area in which it operates. In India's case the onset of liberalisation reforms in 1991, brought about a shift towards market economy and associated social changes. People are thus more inclined to shift towards a liberal democratic and free market-oriented attitude for material benefits and the associated legitimacy. The free market system places dominant reliance upon material and economic aspects, further reinforcing this inclination. This brings about a change in the political aspect and is placed within the larger socio-economic framework.
IV. The Public–Private Divide
While the causes and features of this change in all three aspects, - social, economic and political have been understood, there is a need to understand the reason behind the internal contradiction within this shift, the conflict between appearance and reality. This requires a more nuanced analysis of the phenomena to develop a deeper and more comprehensive understanding. This is made possible by distinguishing the public and private domains of life and the permeability of this shift towards liberalism within both these domains. This can be better understood by referring to the divide between the material public domain and the spiritual private domain in Partha Chatterjee’s work on nationalism in ‘Whose Imagined Community’. Not only his analytical distinction of the domains, but his work on nationalism also provides an apt example for my argument.
Partha Chatterjee in his seminal work, critiques the origin of nation and nationalism as postulated by Benedict Anderson. He provides her analysis by drawing a distinction between the private spiritual and the public material domains. He utilises this analysis to posit that anticolonial nationalism creates its domain of sovereignty within the spiritual realm, and only then starts to permeate and affect the material world. He further explains that this private spiritual domain is resistant to changes brought about by the material domain in its relation to colonialism and contemporaneous globalism. This analysis is key to my argument. Colonialism brought with itself widespread changes in the material domain of life, resulting in a transformation of ways of everyday life. In today’s world, this transformation is similar to the one brought forward by globalism and the rise of multinational corporations. While there arises an urge to become liberal and modern to be in sync with the material domain, this urge is resisted by the sovereignty of the spiritual domain. The spiritual private domain which is rooted in anticolonial conservatism is aimed at differencing the native from the foreign, the self from the other. This results in a conflict between the desire for our material and spiritual domains to be in sync with each other and the innate sovereign character of the spiritual domain. This conflict can be illustrated as follows – while people, especially the underprivileged acknowledge the potential benefits and opportunities made possible by multinational companies and capital, they are still weary to trust them given the long and bloody experience of the people with the East India Company, the largest private company ever. This conflict is resolved by achieving a somewhat paradoxical situation, by creating a desire for appearance. This allows for a partial sync between the material and spiritual domains by ensuring the appearance of liberal and modern while allowing the spiritual domain to retain its sovereign innate character. This thus results in a partial and nuanced solution in the form of the desire for appearance.
IV. Contextualising the Desire for Appearance
The desire for appearance permeates into all aspects of society, both the micro and the macro. It can be better understood and analysed about the caste paradox, the rise of popular Hindu nationalism and the issue of inclusion of LGBTQ people in society.
A. The Caste Paradox
The caste paradox presents an apt example. In recent years the religious and institutional nature of the caste system has seen a decline. This has been brought about with a push for secularisation and modernisation of society, emanating from economic development and the rise of the middle class. While caste’s ideological grip on society has indeed weakened, as scholars such as Myron Weiner have shown it is still alive and very much a part of our social reality. In some ways even more so than before. When we see the world around us today, on the surface and especially in the middle and upper class, caste seems to have become non-existent. But this is not the case. While it doesn’t appear to be the case, caste forms a crucial part of their lives by existing as an essential aspect in their lives, brought out by important life events such as marriage, death, birth and more. The phenomena of endogamy have continued to subsist in a seemingly invisible way, giving a new image to caste in today’s times. But other than these select few times, caste has stopped playing an important role in the lives of the urban, middle and upper class, and mostly upper caste people. At the same time, it has become all too important for other people in the society, the non-upper castes and economically underprivileged – the majority of India’s population. This presents a unique and intriguing paradox – where on one hand caste has become non-existent apart from a select few events for some and on the other, it has become the most important aspect for others. But, what is the cause for this paradox?
The answer is two-fold. First, the post-independence state-run educational and industrial programs favoured the upper castes, allowing them to transform their social capital into economic capital – the capital of the new world. By the second and third generations, this transformation had stopped and these people had accumulated enough economic capital to forego the social capital. Caste was then relinquished to a select few ceremonies, part of the inner sanctum of domestic life. For them, caste stops existing in the public domain and loses its functionality and religious nature in their everyday lives and is relegated to the private domain, that too for select ceremonies. Secondly, the lower castes were unable to benefit from these new programs due to their lack of social capital and historic oppression. This meant that they were unable to transform their existing capital into economic capital for accumulation, rendering them underprivileged in today’s world. Their superior numbers coupled with the advent of reservations make them a lucrative vote bank for political parties. For them, their caste identity becomes more important than any other, for it is their caste that provides them the opportunities they have. It becomes the only resource of value in a world where they have nothing, and have had nothing for generations. Weiner, in his work on the effort of the Indian state and the paradox of caste notes – “the movement for change is not a struggle to end caste [but] to use caste as an instrument of social change. What is emerging in India is a social and political system which institutionalises and transforms but does not abolish caste.” This has led to the secularisation of caste and its emergence as an important social identity, on a scale hitherto unseen.
B. Rise of Hindu Nationalism
Another apt example is provided by the rise of Hindu nationalism in our country despite a shift towards libertarianism. While the Indian independence movement espoused the idea of liberty, epitomised it in the Constitution and it has only grown ever since, there has been a simultaneous resurgence of right-wing Hindu nationalism. This has resulted in direct conflict at many times. One such popular example is that of Valentine’s Day and Bajrang Dal. Valentine’s Day, a celebration of romantic love, is seen by many right-wing nationalists as indecent, immoral and a supplantation of Western beliefs in India. This is thus vehemently and often violently resisted and opposed by the members of the popular right-wing organisation, Bajrang Dal, They have become famous for their violence towards innocent couples. This phenomenon has been explained by Arvind Rajagopal in his work “The Rise of Hindu Populism in India’s public sphere”. Rajagopal in his works explains how Hindu nationalist ideology for the first time after independence took a political form. He uses the cultural effects of Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana to explain the shift in perception zeitgeist. At the same time that Indian policy was moving towards an air of inclusion in the post-partition era, the media catalysed the otiosity of the Hindu mind into the populous. Household values made a critical shift towards outward libertarianism while perpetuating the conservative morals of an ideal Hindu onto their practices. This dichotomy is nothing but the result of the partial solution, a result of the desire for appearance. People want to appear liberal and modern, claim to be, try to be and perhaps some even are, but only in their public material life. Their consciousness, their spiritual domain remains what it was and has seen reinforcement due to the uncertainty in the material domain in recent years. This has led to a rise in Hindu nationalism, with it finding its expression in the fight against Valentine’s Day, the symbol of Western supplantation. This rise in India is analogous to the rise of Trumpism in the US. The ‘leader’ of the democratic movement has in recent years been stricken by a wave of right-wing religious conservativism and authoritarianism. This wave culminated in the election of Trump as the President followed by a stringent reversal of various welfare schemes, climate action and a rise in illiberalism.
C. LGBTQ Inclusion
The third and perhaps the one that illustrates this desire for appearance the most clearly is the example of the inclusion of LQBTQ people in society. The Supreme Court of India in 2018 in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, decriminalised homosexuality and paved the road for their inclusion in society. Despite this, there is still much stigma attached to the inclusion of LGBTQ people in society. Here also our desire for appearance finds its place. People want to appear liberal and modern and they believe in inclusivity and thus support the cause of inclusivity of LGBTQ in name and put stories on social media. But if anyone from their family, their child even, comes out as LGBTQ, they would be stigmatised and excluded from the family and society. This dichotomy perfectly represents the issue caused by the desire for appearance. People want to appear as if they have changed and evolved when in reality they have not. This presents a bleak situation for LGBTQ people who have to be sure whether people are appearing to include them or are including them. It adds to their already stigmatised life full of hardships, the angle of dichotomy, as if it already wasn’t complicated enough. This appearance also prevents real change from actually taking place as people, don’t only try to make the world believe their appearance but also themselves. This illustrates the negative impact that this desire generates on both those who try to keep up this appearance and the ones who are affected as a consequence of this appearance. This example very clearly illustrates the operation of the desire for appearance as substantiated by my argument and its effects.
V. Conclusion
Through this paper I have tried to shed light on the underlying causes of what I have called the ‘desire for appearance’ – a desire to appear modern and liberal, when in reality you are not. I argue that various social, economic and political aspects have ushered in a wave of shift towards modernism and liberalism, but this is restricted to the public material domain, resulting in the paradoxical ‘desire for appearance’. I have tried to substantiate my argument and the effects it generates through the examples of the caste paradox, the rise of Hindu nationalism, and LGBTQ inclusivity. This argument is given primarily in the context of former colonies, and third-world countries that have seen a surge in liberalism and free market economy with the advent of globalism in recent years.
It is imperative, having noted the issues and effects of this desire for appearance, that we take steps to rise above it. This is possible only through raising individual consciousness into realising, acknowledging and then rising above this desire for appearance. The change and transformation that is being limited to appearance has to transcend this boundary and become reality. This partial solution has to be discarded and in its place, the real, whole solution of bringing into sync the material and the spiritual while retaining the innate character of the spiritual must be found. Only then can we rise above the desire for appearance and progress on the path of self-actualisation. Only then can we metastasise a truly just and free society?
Shaurya Mahajan is a second year law student at Jindal Global Law School. Main areas of interest are Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Dispute Resolution, International Law and intersection of law and society.
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