Politics and the art of theatrics

When elections come to a city, as they will to Bengaluru in a couple of months, they bring with them a sharp reminder of the difference between the politics of the periphery of the city and that of the city centre. The period between elections is dominated by the politics of policymaking. This is usually about influence and is associated with the city centre.

A major part is often conducted by those who have not been elected. There have been times when the entire policymaking has been handed over to non-politicians. This could be done formally as when the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, filled with IT professionals, was given the de facto responsibility by the then chief minister SM Krishna to determine policy for the city.

But this is more often done informally through kitchen cabinets.

In contrast, at election time, the politics of the periphery gains a certain momentum. It is either the site for massive political rallies or the people of the periphery are ferried to other sites for political events. The first round of rallies provides an opportunity for parties to make their initial statements and is particularly useful for the dark horses to prove they are not outsiders after all.

At the end of the first round of campaigning in Bengaluru, it was the Janata Dal (S) which led the numbers game, with most estimates putting the attendance at their rally at around eight lakh.

Insightful exercise

As rallies unfold around the periphery of the city they also provide insights into how far political parties have developed their art of theatrical performance. The rallies are often used to present the leader as someone ordinary people cannot treat as ‘one of them’. And Indian politicians have developed fairly successful methods of achieving this objective.

It is unlikely that Indian politicians have studied theatre in any formal sense, but they are very effective in their use of what Bertolt Brecht theorised as alienation. In this technique the performer distances herself from the audience so that the audience, instead of completely identifying with her, steps back and analyses what is happening on stage. Brecht used this to get the audience to relate to the larger social comment that his plays were making.

Indian politicians too distance themselves to get the audience to think of a larger narrative. The distancing is done through a variety of theatrical techniques. The size of the stage and its height are designed to present the leader as someone distant and overwhelming. Prime Minister Modi presented himself as a distant leader of the nation as a whole by speaking in Hindi, a language that quite a few in his audience in Bengaluru did not understand.

There is also a great emphasis on the entry of the leader on the stage. Mr Modi used a helicopter for his entry into the recent BJP rally in Bengaluru. Mr HD Kumaraswamy used the theatrical option of entering from behind the audience and then weaving his way to the stage atop a bus.

Connecting through distance

The dramatic distancing of the leader, does not allow much scope for convincing the unconvinced. But from the very high pedestal that they have literally been put on the leaders only need to point to narratives that are known to appeal to the audience.

When a particular comment is greeted with cheers, the leader gets an affirmation that that narrative has struck a chord. At that point the leader is only the presenter of a narrative; personal life does not really matter. The effect of theatrical alienation that Brecht spoke about still works very well, even if it focuses on narratives very different from what the German leftwing playwright would have liked.

The success of this technique depends on how well the narratives are conveyed to the audience before the rally. This process can be carried out differently for different target audiences. The print media could be used to reach out to those influenced by reason, Indian television is being used to reach out to those who like their facts suitably spiced, and for those who would like to function entirely in the realm of anger, fringe groups are usually available.

The transition from the distancing of the leader in mass politics to a more accessible leader between elections is not always easy. Indeed, many mass leaders fail in this transformation, making them unsuitable for the requirements of governance.

This often creates space in the ministry for non-politicians. But since it is the mass politicians who are finally voted in and out of power, they can never be completely replaced by non-politicians. Indian cities are then left with the difficult mix of successful mass politicians without the accessibility that good governance demands.

The writer is a professor at the School of Social Science, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru

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