Populism

The past few years have put the supposed certainties of democracy into doubt.
Many developed democracies are experiencing the most rapid political change
they have seen in decades: citizens are becoming increasingly angry and party
systems are disintegrating. Consequently, today, the world at large - from the
United States to India – is manifesting a fierce politics of identity built on historical
injuries and fear of internal and external enemies.

1. Introduction
 It is the right-wing populism, now elected to positions of power, that is
not compatible with a pluralist conception of democracy in the 21st
century.
2. Definition
 A political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel
that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
3. Right-wing VS Left-wing Populism
 Right-wing populism evokes fear, left-wing populism hope.
 Both right-wing populism and left-wing populism object to the
perceived control of liberal democracies by elites; however, populism of
the left also objects to the power of large corporations and their allies,
while populism of the right normally supports strong controls on
immigration
 The right-wing populism of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, expressed in
their "Make America Great Again" and "Leave" campaigns, restricts the
national identity of "the people", excluding immigrants, refugees, and
any Other definable as "foreign" to a sentimental ideal
 Although exclusion is also present in the left-wing populism of Bernie
Sanders and Pablo Iglesias, they do not exclude categories of people but
rather those sectors of the establishment which are in the service of
neo-liberal global corporations. For Sanders, this meant "breaking up
the big banks" and, for Iglesias, defeating the Spanish "caste" which
includes the two major political parties.
4. Key characteristics of right-wing populism
 The core of populism is the pitting of a ‘virtuous and homogenous
people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together
depicted as depriving the sovereign people of their rights, values,
prosperity and identity.
 Harnesses fear and anger of the majority
 Anti-immigration, anti-minorities, and anti-pluralism

5. Causes of rise of populism

 Politics of identity built on historical injuries and fear of internal and
external threats
 Decline in living standards from one generation to the next
 Perceived threat to national identity posed by immigration and
minorities

6. How populist leaders mobilize people?

 Claims that anyone against them is not part of proper people and
morally impure
 Projects the campaign as a moralized form of anti-pluralism
 Craft their image as a man of action rather than words
 Creates a sense of urgency and argue that the situation requires ‘bold
actions’ and ‘common sense solutions’
 Gathers support on the basis of personal appeal
7. Populist in power
 Many populist victors continue to behave like victims; majorities act like
mistreated minorities
 Examples: Tayyip Erdogan, Narendra Modi, Donald Trump, Viktor Orban

8. Populism and democracy

 The inherent moralism, personalism, and authoritarianism run counter
to liberal democratic institutions
 Fundamentally rejects the notions of pluralism, minority rights and
institutional guarantees that protect them
 Populists seek to make themselves harder to dislodge, weaken checks
on their own power, and bend democratic institutions

9. Populism and Media

 Populist leaders and their followers strongly distrust mainstream media,
blaming them as exclusive and sidelining their perspectives
 Social media is a key element in the emergence and growth of populist
parties

10.Way Forward to counter right-wing populism

 Liberal democratic parties to regain the initiative in the public debate
 Rebuild the link citizen participation and policy-making process
 Effectively reach the disgruntled part of the electorate that is the key
target of the populist mobilization
 The left-wing populism of Sanders and Iglesias represents the only
chance that the parties of the framed democracies have to defeat the
populist monster they have unleashed.
 Secularism
1. Introduction/definition
 Secularism- the distancing of state from religion- does not mean
absence of religion or anti-religion. It means rearranging state laws and
policies so that they are neutral and treat citizens of all faiths without
prejudice.

2. Origin of Secularism
 In the middle Ages in Europe there was a strong tendency for religious
persons to despise human affairs and to meditate on God and the
afterlife. As a reaction to this medieval tendency, secularism, at the time
of the Renaissance, exhibited itself in the development of humanism,
when people began to show more interest in human cultural
achievements and the possibilities of their fulfillment in this world.

3. Secularism and Islam

 Islam is not merely a faith for the conscience of the individual. On the
contrary, it provides foundation of an entire socio-political system and is
so fused to every social and political institution that the existence of any
one is endangered by the attempt to separate it from the religion.

 Islam is not incompatible with secularism if it doesn’t mean rejection of

religious faith. Islam has inculcated the spirit of harmonious coexistence
of different religious faiths from the very beginning. In a society, it
provides for freedom to practice one's faith or belief without harming others.
In state affairs, it orders Equality and justice in this regard so that religious
beliefs or lack of them doesn't put anyone at an advantage or a disadvantage

4. Challenges to Secularism
 It is considered inherently and exclusively Western and Christian.
 Masses view it as a threat to their religious existence and identity.
 Scope and limits of freedom of speech when confronted with religion.

5. Way forward
 Shift the focus from its Christian and Western character to its protective
quality
 Create new solutions keeping in view that one size does not fit all.
 Fascism
1. Introduction/Definition
 Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultra-nationalism
characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition,
and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to
prominence in early 20th-century Europe.

 Fascism in modern world has its roots deep in the social tensions and
ideas fostered by an age of modernization and change. It is mainly based
on native political tradition and belief that a new type of man with fresh
ideas is needed to break the existing political arrangement

 It taps ‘the rich vein of raw anger’ opened up by the perceived failure of
democracy amid mounting crisis.

2. Characteristics
 It holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common
good
 Everything, including economy and religion, must be aligned with its
objective
 Any rival identity is part of the problem and therefore defined as the
enemy
 It exalts the police state as the source of order and makes the executive
state the unlimited master of society

3. Contemporary Fascism in Global North

 The contemporary ideology of western fascism involves race/culture
supremacy embracing an idealized and mythical past and a racist
mobilization against scapegoats.

 In West, refugees are once again on the road everywhere just as post
World War 1. Their plight reinforces fascist propaganda that the nation
is under siege and that aliens are a threat both within and outside the
border
4. Fascism in South Asia
 The Sheikh Hasina regime is akin to Modi government in India. Both
have crushed opposition and democratic politics resolutely and have
robbed people of their freedom of expression

 While the parallels between contemporary India and pre-war Germany

are chilling, they are not surprising

 Failure to carry through prosecutions where they were due (anti-Sikh

violence of 1984 in Congress Government and Gujarat massacre of 2002
in BJP rule) legitimized the use of mass violence as a means of political
consolidation, a strategy that was fully exploited by the RSS

5. Way forward
 There is no quick fix. It can be turned away only if all those outraged by
it show a commitment to social justice that equals the intensity of their
agenda
 A united front of secular forces against right-wing fascists
 Islamophobia
Islamophobia, an unfounded hostility towards Islam, is a new word for an old
concept. It did not come into existence post 9/11. At least since the publication of
Edward Said’s Orientalism in the late 1970s, it has been widely accepted that ‘the
West’ has long associated Islam with negative sentiments and stereotypes.

1. Introduction/Definition
 It is defined as the fear of or aversion to Islam and Muslims. It also refers
to the practical consequences of such hostility in unfair discrimination
against Muslim communities, and exclusion of Muslims from
mainstream political and social affairs.
 This word is functionally similar to Xenophobia and offers a useful
shorthand way of referring to a dread or hatred of Islam and Muslims.

2. Islamophobia in the West

 West perception regarding Islam is that it regulates societies from top to
bottom, that dar-ul-Islam is a single, coherent entity, and that church
and state are really one in Islam
 Distorted interpretation of Quranic verses by terrorists is propagated as
actual teachings of Islam
 Malicious generalizations about Islam have become the acceptable form
of denigration of foreign culture in the West
 In west, Muslims have become the primary religious outsiders by a wide
margin.
 Danish cartoon controversy reflects a hypocritical treatment that
ignores relevant instances in which the West either restricts freedom of
expression or shows concern for Christian sensibilities while refusing to
do the same for Muslims

3. Islamophobia in the Media

 Media consistently portrays Muslims as alien and foreign to the
Western Society, as a backward, uneducated, and violent community.
 The omnipresent CNNs and BBCs of this world along with innumerable
tabloids continue to re-cycle the same unverifiable fictions and vast
generalizations against Muslims so as to stir up the West against the
foreign devil
  Media reduces Islam to a religion that promotes violence and the
oppression of women.
 Any terrorist incident involving a Muslim is blown out of proportion in
the media and entire community is held responsible for the act

4. Islamophobia in Cyberspace
 The use of social media and the internet provide safe online spaces
which have created a vacuum for perpetrators to target vulnerable
people by using Islamophobic abuse
 Online Islamophobia is likely to incite religious hatred and xenophobia
leading to real world crimes and a rise in political extremism both on the
far-right and from the radicalization of Muslim youth in response to
messages of exclusion

5. Combating Islamophobia
 Devise consensus-oriented community integration policies
 Multi-agency partnerships involving both Muslims and non-Muslims
 Target and discredit the individuals and institutions that benefit from
spreading Islamophobia
 Cultivate inter-personal and inter-faith relationships
 Democracy
Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that people will be best governed if all of
them participate in the act of government. It is a way of life which recognizes
liberty, equality, and fraternity as the principles of life.

1. Social democracy
 Social democracy is an ideology that has similar values to socialism, but
within a capitalist framework. The ideology, named from democracy
where people have a say in government actions, supports a competitive
economy with money while also helping people whose jobs don't pay a
lot.
 Social democracy is a political, social and economic philosophy that
supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice
within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist-
oriented economy

2. Bourgeois (the capitalist class) Democracy

 It is democracy for an insignificant minority - for the rich.
 It maintains democratic procedures but crushes the essence by
permitting obscene level of inequality

3. Challenges to democracy
 It has become far more expensive form of government than autocracy
 Middle class, which forms the back bone of a democracy, is shrinking
due to increasing income inequality

4. On developing democracies (e.g. Pakistan)

 A developing democracy is characterized by the fragility of its
institutions and the dissatisfaction of the people with respect to the
prevailing socio-political order
 One common characteristic is the omnipresent fear that a coup will be
attempted and succeed
5. How democracies die
 Political democracies are usually brought down by conspiracies involving
few actors and external manipulation
 If citizens are open to authoritarian appeals, then, sooner or later,
democracy will be in trouble
 Elected autocrats subvert democracy by buying off the media and the
private sector, and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field
against opponents.

6. Neoliberalism and Democracy

 For emerging democracies, the transition to a free market economy can
itself lead to destabilization. The blend of mass democracy and neo-
liberal globalization is a toxic mixture which is likely to imperil multi-
ethnic co-existence.
 By making a direct parallel between choice in the market place and at
the ballot box, neo-liberals not only depicted sovereign consumers as
the key drivers of capitalism and of liberal democracy, but also
described the daily voting on the market place as the real driver of
individual representation and participation in the society

7. Democracy in Pakistan
Past:
 Pakistan suffers from such a feeling of vulnerability vis-à-vis India that in
its process of state-building, it gave priority to national security to the
detriment of civil liberties
 While democracy has never fully taken root, authoritarianism has never
garnered widespread legitimacy.

Present:
 After years of military dictatorship followed by sham democracy, the
situation in Pakistan had reached such a point that masses were
yearning for a radical change
 For many Pakistanis, the past is set to become its future, yet again
 The middleclass, which is generally a stimulus for political change in
developing democracies, has found it easier to compromise with the
system than to engage in a power struggle
 Elected government appeared to be relegated to an auxiliary role
Future:
 The primary administrative choices for Pakistan which have the
potential to influence sustained democracy in Pakistan, would be in the
areas of historic disagreements- military versus civilian bureaucracy,
merit or patronage, loyalty to the state or the ruler, and the form of
public participation
 Reversing authoritarian prerogatives in the Constitution – such as the
infamous article 58(2)B – and conceding substantive provincial
autonomy –in 18th amendment – auger well for democratization.
 Political parties must make decisions for overall stability and
sustainability of democracy