DailyPost 2438
DEMOPTICS
Democracy heavily dependent on optics can be defined as the demoptics. Democracy was meant to be a practitioner’s playbook, for people who would give up everything to working relentlessly for the welfare of the people. Demoptics is both a theoretical construct, mindset, attitude and also a practice which is being perfected with the time. Democracy and demoptics have co-existed for decades together. The tendency which has been visible over the years it that demoptics has been taking more and more of, so to say, the democratic space, that in the near future we would be completely taken over by it.
Optics is the way a situation, action or event, etc., is perceived by public or by a particular group of people. Photo-op, perception management, emotional gameplay, creating a larger-than-life image, creating make believe stories / situations and never say never die faith and conviction that people can fooled consistently by demoptics. For quite some time democracy in its original or a slightly corrupted avatar coexisted with demoptics, people and the system taking the better out of it. It was more of an aberration and an exercise in over kill. Might be at that time we had not entered in the phase of outright political dishonesty.
In addition, the tools that could and would make demoptics a killer were mostly born after that. Print media could not provide that platform and it was not coordinated as well. With the electronic media it made some headway. Transforming media into a spectacle sold out to this idea for whatever reason, is the success and consolation of this school of thought. A coordinated relentless demoptics electronic media blitzkrieg could not have been imagined sometime back. Anchors have also transformed into demoptics and so are the discussions. Their antics falls into the category of super demoptics.
From one election to the other it is optics all the way. Even promises are optics, if we become practically logical, we find no planning or ground work or documentation, in this regard. Jilted in democracy is our fate. Social media took the optics to a different level, multimedia; to a movie level and you being accessible all the time. IT was transformed into optics by the political parties. From legislature session to a temple visit to being at a crash site, its optics all the way. Invincibility was created through optics. The political parties now are convinced that there is no need to work and optics would deliver. Whatever is left, would be covered by manifestoes and promises. Our democratic existence is an ongoing photo-op.
AN ALL PERVASIVE DEMOPTICS MEANS DEGENERATION OF DEMOCRACY.
Sanjay Sahay