On October 17, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) issued a statement and debunked the claims of Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia, who had said that the agency pressured him to leave the Aam Aadmi Party. In the statement, CBI said that Sisodia was examined strictly on the allegations in the FIR and the evidence collected so far. CBI strongly refuted the allegations laid by Sisodia and reiterated that the questioning was done in a professional and legal manner.
CBI’s statement read, “Shri Manish Sisodia was today (17.11.2022) examined by CBI in connection with ongoing investigation in Delhi Excise Policy case. He was examined strictly on the allegations in the FIR and the evidence collected so far during the course of investigation. His statement will be verified in due course and further action taken as per requirements of investigation.
Some sections of the media have aired a video in which, after leaving the CBI office, Shri Manish Sisodia has stated on camera that during his questioning in CBI, he was threatened to leave his political party and similar such insinuations.
CBI strongly refutes these allegations and reiterates that examination of Shri Sisodia was carried out in a professional and legal manner strictly as per the allegations against him in the FIR. The investigation of the case will continue as per law.”
Sisodia claimed CBI pressured him to leave AAP
Manish Sisodia was questioned by the investigation agency for around nine hours in connection to the controversial excise policy by the AAP-led Delhi government. Sisodia, who is the accused No.1 in the case, used the notice for questioning from the agency as a political tool to present himself as a ‘victim of politics.’ He arrived at the CBI headquarters at 11 AM but only after visiting Raj Ghat in the full camera view.
The AAP supporters and leaders continued to protest outside CBI’s office till he came out and showcased himself as a hero. While giving a statement to the media, Sisodia claimed that CBI officials pressured him to leave AAP.
He said, “I was examined at the CBI office for nine hours. The questioning was supposed to be about the excise policy that BJP claims was a scam of Rs 10,000 crores.” Sisodia further added that he noticed at the agency that there was no scam, and it was all being done to make Operation Lotus successful in Delhi. He accused BJP of using central investigation agencies for political gains.
आज Excise Policy के So Called घोटाले के लिए CBI ने 9 घंटे बैठाया।
वहाँ जाकर पता चला कि घोटाला तो कोई है ही नहीं। ये मामला तो Operation Lotus का है।
मुझे कहा गया कि AAP छोड़ दो। वर्ना @SatyendarJain की तरह Jail में रखेंगे जबकि उनके ख़िलाफ़ भी सुबूत नहीं है।
He added, “During questioning, they pressured me to leave AAP. They said if I continued to be with AAP, such cases would continue against me.” He claimed when he told them the cases would not stand against him, they told him the cases against Satyendra Jain were also fake, and he remained in jail for over six months.
He also claimed that the agency officials said he would be made Chief Minister if he left AAP. “I refused the proposal,” he claimed. Sisodia is scheduled to campaign in Gujarat for upcoming Assembly elections where he might use the case against him for brownie points.
On October 17, the controversy involving Meta and The Wire came to an abrupt end (hopefully), with The Wire issuing a public statement that it does not want to move further with the story. The reason The Wire gave was that if they move ahead, it might compromise the identity of their source at Meta, who apparently has a personal relationship with one of The Wire’s team members.
Why were they at loggerheads anyway? Well, The Wire came up with an allegation that Meta has given Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya VIP privileges at Meta under the program X-Check. Based on these mythical ‘powers,’ Malviya was able to get over 700 posts removed from Instagram, no questions asked. These posts include seven posts of an Instagram handle, Cringearchivist, that was based on the allegations raised by The Wire.
However, as the fight between the two moved ahead, The Wire’s reports raised more questions on the news portal itself rather than Meta. Eventually, The Wire decided to end it abruptly and left a lot of questions on the table.
Now, while The Wire has decided to step back, the liberal cabal is furious as, according to them, Meta skipped the questions that The Wire raised about additional powers to those who are included in the X-Check list, including Malviya.
The Scroll questioned Meta
The Scroll, a propaganda portal, said in a report on October 15 that while the spat between Meta and The Wire continued, three questions remained unanswered. Why were they unanswered? Because the whole attention was on the possible fabrication of evidence by The Wire that the liberal cabal failed to gasp.
Anyway, the three questions by The Scroll were:
Which content moderation benchmarks were violated by @cringeactivist?
Instagram’s communications with the user claimed that the post was related to sexual activity. What was the rationale for tagging a video of a man praying to an idol as sexual content?
Was this content moderation decision taken by an automatic computer system or humans, or both?
When Scroll sent these questions to Meta, they responded with the link to the official statement. As per Scroll, it did not answer the question about moderation, so they contacted Meta again, but Meta declined to provide any additional inputs. Interestingly, the Scroll seems to have asked no questions to The Wire. In fact, even their questions had little to do with Amit Malviya’s role and far more to do about Instagram’s content policy, which had nothing to do with the original story per se.
Caravan Magazine’s editor fumed at Meta
The Caravan magazine’s political editor Hartosh Singh Bal did not appreciate Meta’s reply to The Scroll. He was upset and tweeted, “When Scroll.in sent Meta follow-up questions regarding content moderation, the company declined to provide “additional inputs.”‘ Meta screams hoax but can’t answer the one basic question that is at the heart of the matter.”
Source: Twitter
When someone pointed out that AI might have marked the image as “nudity” because of the colours, Bal did not believe it and called it Bulls**t. This particular aspect was explained by OpIndia as well. We tested three images of the CM Yogi’s temple from three different sources and angles and found that Google AI marked two of them as ‘possible exposed.’ More details can be found here.
Source: Twitter
Even though a technical explanation was made available to him, it was summarily rejected and this question was never posed to The Wire by these eminent journalists. It is apparent that the entire media cabal was more than happy to believe the hit job by The Wire because it was an attempt to implicate BJP, a party they despise. While they are entitled to ask META questions, since META is no saint either, but with glaring loopholes in the story, it is a testament to their “journalism” that no questions were posed to The Wire.
More the merrier
Rituparna Chatterjee, Deputy Asia Editor with Independent said, “Why was the post about man worshipping yogi Adityanath removed under bizarre nudity clause @Meta? Still waiting to hear that answer.” She also RTed many others raising questions on Meta but did not raise any questions, objections, or concerns over The Wire’s report.
Source: Twitter
Technology journalist Abhishek Baxi put Meta under the scanner as well. He said, “It is unfortunate that The Wire had to elaborate about their due diligence… not as evidence of their investigation, mind you. A newsroom led by credible, veteran journalists is pushed to a level of scrutiny which an American outlet wouldn’t have been subjected to.”
Source: Twitter
It is notable that Baxi mentioned he talked to several experts in the field and many of them sided with Meta but claimed they did not want to go against The Wire. He said, “I’ve talked to some smart tech journalists, some with longer and wider experience than I. Few agreed with Meta’s rebuttal, some even believed in the hoax theory (and feared what we are in for), and some were undecided. But none wanted to cheer Meta or bring down The Wire.”
Source: Twitter
Also, he has a special message for those who pointed out things like reliability of read receipts, DKIM validation. He said, “Jaa, baap ko mat sikha (Go away, don’t teach your father).”
Source: Twitter
The Scroll’s Karnika Kohli also wrote a long thread targeting Meta. However, no questions to The Wire. She also praised The Wire for giving a “detailed explanation” of what they did and how they did it. Karnika has worked for The Wire in the past.
Source: Twitter
The Wire conveniently threw the burden of proof under the rug
There are many like Scroll and Hartosh Singh Bal who are siding with The Wire. However, it is strange that despite the questions raised over the documents and evidence The Wire provided, none of them is ready to question The Wire. They are putting Meta under the scanner, but The Wire is getting a free pass.
Being the one who raised the allegations against Meta, the burden of proof was, is, and will remain on them. Most of the evidence and statements that The Wire made or presented to prove their theory against Meta and against BJP, as a matter of fact, were thrown behind because of the red flags raised against The Wire. The more the news portal attempted to prove they were right, the more cards fell off the castle.
Now, as The Wire has stepped back and said they would not move ahead with the story per se and would keep trying to prove their evidence was true, no one can be sure if the whole matter will go under the rug or it will pop up during 2024 Lok Sabha elections with more “evidence.”
On Meta’s part, what was shocking to see that the tech giant did not go ‘all hell goes lose’ mode against The Wire, despite serious allegations. They initiated some internal investigation, but so far, no official case has been filed against The Wire if what they were saying was actually fabricated and false. Some of the experts who raised questions over The Wire’s expose also questioned Meta for being mum over the matter or for keeping everything hush-hush.
We, the spectators of the whole saga, can only sit back, relax, have some more popcorn, and see what is stored in the future if there is anything stored in the future anyway. Just to remind you, the winter session in the parliament may see the issue flaring up as TMC leader Derek O’Brian has already announced he will raise it in the house.
Vanity is ubiquitous. Pomposity or an inflated sense of self is not avant-garde. For millennia, people have used the tale of Narcissus from ancient Greece to criticise this repugnant practice. A suave young nimrod looking for his ideal mate is the subject of the tale. Numerous women swoon over the hunter, but Narcissus believes that every one of them is prosaic and unworthy of his companionship. In the end, the goddess of vengeance Nemesis leads Narcissus to a pond, where he gets enamoured with his own reflection and dies all by himself. Freud formulated his psychoanalytic concept of narcissism by premising it on this story.
Echo And Narcissus, John William Waterhouse
In his famous essay On Narcissism: An Introduction (1914), Freud (who regarded narcissism as “libidinal cathexis of the ego”) says
“Self-regard has a specially intimate dependence on narcissistic libido. The aim and the satisfaction in a narcissistic object-choice is to be loved.”
We are currently experiencing a narcissistic epidemic as a result of numerous aspects of contemporary culture. It’s simple to comprehend how our society encourages an attitude of self-importance and conceit. For years, the powerful entertainment and marketing sectors have piqued our wants, sated our cravings for power, and fostered a yearning for stardom.
When Helen Hayes said, “Stardom can be a gilded slavery”, she probably foretold the entrapments of virtual stardom that is centered on the constant need to be virtually visible. We have never had more opportunity to convey our need to feel unique than we have now compared to any previous generation. When a service or merchandise doesn’t measure up to our expectations, we can submit a caustic online review or painstakingly stage a selfie to flaunt any moment in and of our lives. In metropolises and cyberspace, where you can retain some detachment and treat others in the vicinity as dispensable and expendable, narcissism thrives. There is a widespread attitude sickness, an ‘ego-system’ that prevails.
Parking and road narcissism is an annoying reality of our times. There are insufferable narcissists who think they have an exclusive right to the parking on the public street wherever they wish to. There are megalomaniacs who think they can swerve, take u-turns and drive in whichever way they wish to. This is a street in Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Courtesy: joiseyshowaa under CC-BY SA 2.0)
Road traffic is a good place to see this. It seems like being overtaken is a big ego-problem for many drivers in India today, who will make it a point to be one ahead of every other car on the road, if they can help it, be it by overtaking from the left, or right, or center. Who cares! After all, it is their car and the road is their jagir (personal estate)! Red lights are just impediments and it is shameful how policemen are ignored or, worse, mocked. Not that some policemen are any better, with the arrogance that comes with one’s vardi (uniform), which should be a symbol of pride and duty. And how can we forget honking? Symphonies on the highest decibel scales are hardly taxable, so why bother? For some, being asked to wear helmets or seat-belts is as good as reversing the India Independence Act 1947 and all the associated freedoms that came with it. In COVID times, the funniest instance of this my-way-or-the-highway problem was seen when a middle-aged man was scientifically explaining to others why you should not wear masks, after being asked to wear one!
Geographic narcissism causes inherent biases in the urban populace with regard to their stature and importance as opposed to their perception of rural folks being always at a certain position of disadvantage. In this picture, you can see the Jamuna bridge in the late nineteenth century, from the SMU libraries collection. The concentration of market forces and economic dynamics in the cities as well as a proclivity to accentuate this with policies and biased thinking led to people streaming in from the hinterlands into Delhi. This is particularly fascinating since the village has been the pivot of administration in India since the earliest times.
This practice is significantly more difficult to uphold in a rural community or tight-knit neighbourhood where anyone can know your activities and identity, and relate to it in a much more personal way. People don’t want arrogance to exist in such kinds of groups, consequently, it is driven out, as all will shun you if you are conceited because they will come to know about this aspect of your personality much more easily. However, even here, it is not entirely absent.
A fascinating work by Dr. Nilotpal Kumar of the Azim Premji University showed that the internalization of “manly” standards and the expression of male narcissism have been seen as significant factors in farmers making dangerous agricultural investments or attempting suicide in the event that farming endeavours fail. These men were influenced to take their own lives by a perceived erosion of hierarchical power within the ménage and failure in honor-related comparisons outside the home.
Napolean Bonaparte was one of the first world leaders to promote honour killings under the Napoleonic Code of 1804, whereby a man who killed his wife after she had been caught in the act of adultery could not be charged with premeditated murder. This was only valid for men, not women. Here you can see a cap worn by Bonaparte in the infamous Russian campaign. (Courtesy: mark6mauno under CC BY 2.0)
At a social level, honour killings are most often an expression of chauvinism and narcissism. The narcissism that comes with false righteousness. Narcissism that comes with valuing judgementalism and supposed ‘honour’ over and above human life. Khaps are many-a-times self-proclaimed extra-constitutional virtue-custodians, albeit with actions that at times are in contravention of basic human rights. Many have acted as kangaroo courts and even made infamous statements like ‘eating chowmein increases rapes‘. Ever since Rakesh Tikait, head of the Baliyan khap, called farmers to protest the Farm Law bill, khaps have seen a new-found relevance and vigor, with even a Jind khap Mahapanchayat being held by Tikait in February 2021. While the rights of the farmers should be central to the workings of any nation, any misuse of the representation of their interests must be prevented. Honour killings are not just an Indian phenomenon though. As per the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as many as nearly 5000 women die every year internationally in such cases! Highly at variance with the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
“Our own heart, and not other men’s opinions form our true honor.”
A full-blown narcissist lacks modesty. He has no concern for the people he harms and only seeks to boost his vanity. Patrick Bateman in American Psycho is a quintessential narcissist whose singular pursuit of bodily gratification and violence is a metaphor for mindless materialism, showing how our modern, oft-Americanised, way of thinking promotes the narcissist. In families, parents and children both are sometimes seen to have a predilection towards narcissism, in trying to decide the right way of living, beyond and besides reasoning. It could also be the opposite, the tendency to disengage or choose to have little time with the other, which can foster a sense of abandonment, either in their childhood for children or in parents in their old age.
Even in office spaces, we see examples of bosses, like Miranda Priestly in Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada, who find a sadistic pleasure borne out of narcissism to inflict misery on their underlings. One wonders whether it is the lack of evident repercussions of narcissism that makes individuals unleash their megalomania unchecked, like Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray who found in his portrait (that withers even as he remains young) an escape from being punished for his actions, including murder.
The grim reaper eventually catching up with Dorian Gray should be a humbling thought, in that death exhibits the non-tenability of such narcissism. Taken to an extreme, we see a number of criminals who are inherently narcissistic, in self-judging their criminal actions to be justified. A toxic celeb culture that makes the individual unanswerable and beyond the normal bounds of societal propriety has made things worse. Be it Madonna’s exhibitionism in the 1990s, Kanye West calling himself the ‘Michael Jordan of Music’ or self-proclaimed film critic Kamaal Rashid Khan’s narcissistic rants, megalomania seems to have become a point of celebration.
Voluntourism is a form of tourism in which travelers participate in voluntary work, typically for a charity. There are a number of international health brigades, which facilitate short-term visits to developing countries trying to bring health care to struggling populations. Unfortunately, in many cases, it has become narcissistic, showing the ‘other’ in a poor light and oneself as the ‘good Samaritan’. Voluntourism is ultimately about the fulfillment of the volunteers themselves, not necessarily what they bring to the communities they visit. (Courtesy: Visions Service Adventure under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Narcissism in politics and governance hinders the well-being of people, and yet it is seen across the board (read: ideological spectrum). It can go to a point where it involves a certain ‘my way or the high way’ approach. This is seen in international politics, particularly around the Russia-Ukraine war. Nuclear provocation is nothing but a larger-than-life manner of brandishing one’s proverbial sword simply to show one’s machismo and, well, mindlessness. The existence of living beings on this planet, nay, the planet itself seems to be secondary to the machinations of political one-upmanship and ego.
Closer home, we have a principal opposition party in the Indian parliament that is headed by a narcissist in Rahul Gandhi. Some say he did not serve as a minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet since he would settle for nothing less than being Prime Minister. How can one forget the infamous tearing up of an ordinance passed by his own government? Notwithstanding the topic of the ordinance and its merits, the larger picture shows an acute sense of entitlement from the Gandhi scion. He will not meet a Himanta Biswa Sarma or a Jyotiraditya Scindia after giving them appointments, only making them feel slighted and find greener pastures in the BJP. He will not accept his absolute lack of capability to steer the Grand Old Party of India to any attainment of note. As Emmy-nominated musical comedian Randy Rainbow described a narcissist:
“If he didn’t like the narrative he’d start gaslighting you.”
The manner in which Rahul Gandhi used the words ‘chowkidar chor hai‘ in the Rafale case for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, only for his review petition to be rejected by the Supreme Court of India, shows how he seems to have perfected the art of gaslighting. His opposition to Reliance having got the contract is amusing given the Rs. 6000 crore project for the Delhi Metro Airport Express line which the Manmohan Singh government awarded the company under the PPP model in January 2008!
Speaking of Delhi, CM Arvind Kejriwal has also made a number of narcissistic moves over the years. In fact, he has displayed what I would call the Jekyll-and-Hyde narcissism, whereby humility is just a tool of political convenience. From bringing in police officers from Bihar into Delhi’s anti-corruption bureau to make a statement against Najeeb Jung, then-LG of Delhi, or wooing the Congress just to remain in power, Kejriwal’s megalomania led to fissures in the central AAP team. He went so far as to believe that he could defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi in the General Elections! How can one forget Mamata Di, when it comes to narcissism? She was awarded a state award by the Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi for her book ‘Kabita Bitan’ for her ‘relentless literary pursuit’.
In the narcissist, there is vainglory and vehemence. In the narcissist, there is a bloated amour-propre. The contemporaneous world is not only dominated by grandiose narcissists; there are also plenty of vulnerable narcissists who still crave the limelight but are genuinely afraid of being criticized and receiving unfavorable scrutiny. A crucial aspect in which this gets expressed is identity politics. The frightening confluence of the biological and the political, the bundling up of the accidental reality of one’s gender, ethnicity, or sexuality with one’s political image, is the problem here, to the point that debate itself starts to be perceived as a sort of hatred, a ‘phobia’.
In the UK, electoral elements centred around identity, nay vote-bank politics, inherently bring a divisive conceptualization of electioneering and governance, hinting that identities create silos that must be largely if not only, addressed in isolation. Identity politics can be self-centered and needy, especially when it promotes sectionalism over universalism. The politics of identity, which encourages individuals to withdraw, turn inward, become fixated on their own selves at a rather shallow level, and surround themselves with a forcefield of rectitude to shield their perspective from any challenge.
In order to remind people that healthy political debate is not an act of violence against them, we need a new liberation politics that unfetters the personal from the political. One wonders how much of this is due to the vacuity inherent in vulnerable narcissism. As “Dr. Drew” Pinsky once said
“Narcissism is not about self love. It’s a clinical trait that belies a deep sense of emptiness, low self-esteem, emotional detachment, self-loathing, extreme problems with intimacy.”
Grandiose narcissism has a couple of dimensions: narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry. The first component, narcissistic admiration, includes lofty ideas, a need for idiosyncrasy, and self-promotional activities that seek social acclaim and strengthen one’s vanity. This is particularly seen in the financial sector and economics. We see instances of self-dealing and the creation of personal piggy banks as a result of company owners believing that they are above the law.
Today, we see company owners taking out loans to themselves using the company as collateral. We see insider trading and market manipulation in various countries. All of this is motivated by an exaggerated perception of one’s own importance and influence, an overwhelming need for quick (and tangible) gratification, and a lack of concern for the interests or emotions of others. In today’s markets, we have this idiosyncratic phenomenon called the ‘stock bubble’ whereby paper wealth can form an aura of invincibility, wherein narcissism can thrive.
The second element, narcissistic rivalry, includes devaluing everyone else, vying for superiority, and antagonistic acts aimed at reducing any challenge to the self-image, which can eventually lead to interpersonal disputes. We see a ‘crab mentality’ in many places, wherein one ascending individual is pulled down by others so that he may not be above them. Recently, Krishna Ella, MD of Bharat Biotech spoke on how nobody supported them, especially with a quick regulatory framework update over the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940, for the COVID vaccine. He said there needs to be an open mindset for local innovations, which have been traditionally taken with skepticism and even cynicism, which arise from a high level of unnecessary self-importance and arrogance of the community.
Narcigesis is a portmanteau word, combining the words narcissism and eisegesis. It basically refers to the explanation of a scripture in a way that shows intemperate interest in oneself and gives disproportionate priority to one’s own ideas. A widespread narcigetic fallacy would be to state: “You are David. You can vanquish the Goliaths of your life. Just have faith in God.” Inserting oneself into the biblical narrative and allegorising it is an acute form of narcissism. Here you can see the representation of the biblical episode by Ilya Yefimovich Repin.
In addition to self-absorption and snobbery, vulnerable narcissism reflects compulsive psychological disquiet and vulnerability. It has been observed that vulnerable narcissists have a weak sense of self-worth and resultant low self-esteem, whereas grandiose narcissists have greater self-esteem that is a lot more stable. As per Michael Howard Kernis, in his work Toward a conceptualization of optimal self-esteem (2003), optimal self-esteem is defined as-
“A stable, authentic feeling of self-worth, with a relative absence of defensiveness and an excessively strong desire to be liked by others, and which is not dependent upon specific correlates.”
A narcissist is an individual who cannot be empathetic. Some may ask: Why do we even need to have empathy and compassion? What’s the problem in merely looking after oneself? When you are egocentric, epicurean, and always do whatever you want, you become impetuous and imprudent. You commit transgressions and even malfeasance. Your relationships suffer as a result. Others grow weary of you since you’re constantly concerned about yourself. There are times when you have to compromise your individual interests and desires for the sake of the group or the household. As a result, you become part of a flock. If you’re exceptionally gifted, you might be able to get away with a self-centred predisposition for a while.
However, individuals will inevitably abandon you. It is about sacrificing part of your personal aspirations for the benefit of the collective. It enriches both you and the flock in the long term. This is a psycho-social expansion of Rousseau’s exploration of the individual-community dynamics. Rousseau came to believe in the prospect of a legitimate social contract, a covenant under which individuals would obtain a greater sort of liberty in exchange for their independence. This, he called, true political or republican liberty. According to Rousseau’s description in Du Contrat social (1762), such freedom might be achieved in adherence to the volonté générale (“general will”)—a will of the collective, so to say, that seeks the general welfare or the shared interest of its constituents.
This is traditional social theory – In order to acquire more, you must forsake certain things you seek or may enjoy. You receive very little if you exist for yourself. Today, we seem to have established a society in which everyone believes they’re stupendous, but in reality, the prospects of being phenomenal are still relatively restricted, in actuality. As a result, we have created alternative avenues where individuals could achieve prestige, such as on social media or in multiplayer gaming. These are now like full-time occupations with a lot of potential for advancement and, more importantly, glory. In these fantasy realms, individuals can satisfy many of their egotistical cravings. Data was gathered from social media profile pages in one recent study and discovered that egomaniacs utilized a variety of strategies to attract others to their social media accounts, including visual embellishments and strong language.
Desiring acceptance and adoration are the main motivators for digital extimacy, which is demonstrated by the number of “likes” you receive for every photograph and the plaudits that support the impression you want to give off, in an echo chamber of information that has significant surveillance capitalism and influencer narcissism. Online megalomania is a manifestation of an acute egotism that is fed by existential angst and creates a cutthroat society thriving on individualism where people are appreciated more for what they look like than for who they actually are.
Narcissists appear to believe that others are genuinely fascinated by what they are pursuing. Recently, it was also seen that egotistical adolescents changed their statuses on social media more routinely. Egomaniacs are more prone to post status updates regarding their accomplishments. A recent study by Jessica L. McCain and W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia showed that grandiose narcissism is positively related to time spent on social media, frequency of status updates, number of friends added, and number of selfies taken (and shared).
One wonders how much of a true network a social network actually establishes. Stanley Milgram’s concept of `six degrees of separation’ (a phrase immortalized by dramatist John Guare) is now widely accepted. Today’s social networks are congeries of rather feeble ties. With the psychogeography of social networks having gone from virtual cities and alternate worlds to being quite decentralized and focused on the individual, we are seeing a deracination of epic proportions where the contextualization of the individual is secondary to the pre-eminence of the aspects of the individual personality.
Friendship itself has become like philately, you keep procuring friends in a rather promiscuous and yet bureaucratized manner, with machine learning guiding you on who is suitable to be friends with you. It is all about you, you, and you!
But what if I were to say that this trend is not a recent cultural development of narcissism but involves a much deeper rot that had its origins in the times of yore. More importantly, what if I were to say that there is a much more involved geopolitical and socio-cultural battle we face around the politics of narcissism, as we try to move towards a more sustainable tomorrow?
Almanac of Egomaniacs
Ahaṁkāra constitutes one of the Antahkarana (fundamental inner faculties) spoken of in Vedanta, the others being Manas, Citta, and Buddhi. The Yogasutra discusses about the false identification of the self that must be negotiated and addressed for spiritual emancipation, with the famous verse
दृग्दर्शनशक्त्योरेकात्मतेवास्मिता
in Chapter II, Sutra 6, which talks of how false identity happens when we believe the Seer and the instrument of perception are one and the same. The term `Asmita’ is an over-identification with something that is not our essence. In western psychology, this has been referred to as the ego. In Dharmic thought, the ego-self is believed to be observable and tactile, and it may be identified by its distinctive appearance and characteristics. It is a covering of contaminants or a shroud that forms around the life force, preventing it from having its natural effulgence. It makes one be replete with cravings, impulses, passions, perceptions, sensations, recollections, and other mental creations that cause fluctuations (vrittis) in our consciousness (citta).
Indian mythology is replete with tales of the subjugation of narcissism, in characters such as Jarasanadha, Kansa and Ravana. Here you can see a seventeenth-century folio, housed in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, from the Bhagavata Purana on the March Against Jarasandha. Such stories stand in sharp contrast to Hellenistic anecdotes such as that of the Trojan War being fought to assuage the egos of three Greek goddesses.
Sri Krishna advises Arjuna in the Srimad Bhagavad Gita that Ahaṁkāra must be subjected to the Lord and, ideally, eradicated, since one’s actual Self cannot be perceived while imbued with Ahaṁkāra. In Chapter 3, Verse 27, it is said
which means that the three modes of physical nature carry out all operations and activities, even as our true self is misled by erroneous identification with the superficial aspects of ourselves and believes that those are responsible for our actions. A hasty reading of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita by a narcissist may make them believe that Sri Krishna propounded narcissistic ideas when he spoke of himself as the supreme being.
A true Yogi or Vedantin or one who has subsumed his ego into the vast expanse of reality would have a completely different take on this. It is in the paradoxical dissolution of the I-self or ego that the emergence of a greater Self comes to be, which is what is being spoken of by Sri Krishna in the Srimad Bhagavad Gita. His Self is indeed the supreme being, but it is the self that underlies all reality. This is the Self of the Upanishads, of the Dharmic traditions.
On the other hand, speaking of the Hellenistic traditions, Ovid recounted the Narcissus narrative in Latin in his Metamorphoses, and it had a significant impact on Renaissance and medieval society. The phrase employed here was
“self-love…Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel”
The significant role played by the nymph Echo in the Ovid version of the Greek story is frequently disregarded in discussions of narcissism and mythology. Echo is limited to only being able to repeat the last few words of what she listens to from others.
“She long’d her hidden passion to reveal,
And tell her pains,but had no words to tell:
She can’t begin, but waits for the rebound,
To catch his voice, and to return the sound.”
Echo stands for the fused hypervigilant narcissist who is forced to live her life through that of another person. To see the prominence of vanity in Hellenistic mythology, one only needs to think back to the myth surrounding the Trojan War, in which the goddesses Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera competed for the distinction of “most beautiful of them all,” as inscribed on a perfectly thrown apple, boasting of their right to the honour. They gave the verdict to a shepherd they came upon caring for his cattle. Power, knowledge, and love were the three blessings that the divinities pledged to the young man in exchange for his goodwill. The boy, Paris, a Trojan prince, made the choice of love and gave Aphrodite the fruit. The most winsome and pulchritudinous woman in the world, Helen the Queen of Sparta, fell in love with Paris as Aphrodite’s prize. But the decision of Paris angered both Hera and Athena, and when Helen abandoned her husband, Menelaus, the Spartan king, for Paris, Menelaus called upon all the Greek princes and kings to battle the Trojans.
The presence of narcissistic narratives, which include within themselves commentaries on their own narrative and identity, is something that gives a sophisticated occurrence of narcissism from ancient times. This has happened on the levels of diegetic (related to story-telling) and linguistic (related to language) self-reflexivity.
For instance, in Euripides’ Hippolytus, Theseus could be seen narrating his own actions, such as the reading of Phaedra’s message, aloud. The narcissism of the storyteller is also seen in the prologue of Apuleius’ Asinus aureus, which states: “What I should like to do is weave together different tales in this Milesian mode of storytelling […] So let me begin! Who is the narrator?” By doing so, the narrator is qualifying himself as the one possibly undertaking the discourse on the narrative, thereby dissolving the distinction between the story and the discourse on it! Then, in the Adventures of Chaireas and Callirhoe we have the words:
“And I think that this last book will prove very pleasurable to its readers: it cleanses away the grim events of the earlier ones.”
So much for self-aggrandizement! The usage of anecdotes and narratives of antiquity majorly accentuates narcissism, as has been seen in modern classics like James Joyce’s Ulysses. The interesting insight into this is that the world of the ancient Greeks may have been a culture of narcissistic surpluses while contemporaneous society may have a culture of narcissistic deficits, which fuels vulnerable narcissism. While the former was disputatious, boastful, and quite infused with hubris, the modern man is sidelined, undervalued, and constantly struggling, and in that struggle, he seeks to find glory and self-importance in his spectacles, his virtual realms and social networks, his altars of consumption and materialism.
Only if Photoshop enhancements and plastic surgery could make a Narcissus out of the modern man, in form as much as in essence.
The first 17 years of Henry VIII’s reign were spent playing out a variety of extravagant narcissistic fantasies. Henry VIII’s megalomania would influence his relationships, rule, and how we remember him today. He didn’t choose his consorts out of love, but rather because of what they could give him and what they stood for. Only vanity could explain how quickly and violently his consorts, associates, and councilors like Sir Richard Empson, Edward Stafford, John Fisher, Sir Thomas More, William Brereton, Anne Boleyn, John Hussey, Thomas Cromwell, Leonard Grey, Catherine Howard and Margaret Pole could go from receiving his affection to receiving a vitriolic hatred that made him send many of them to the gallows.
The leaders of the ancient Greeks exhibit quintessential narcissism as well. Alexander was a conceited young man who, despite being frequently characterized as a talented general deserving of adoration, caused a tremendous deal of misery for his own personal ambitions. Alexander was self-confident from the beginning and his vanity only intensified during his lifetime.
Troy was Alexander’s first stop after his army entered Asia and started moving toward Persia. He viewed himself as the new Achilles and wished to witness the battlefields where the legendary Greek hero Achilles had battled. Alexander’s confidence in his own grandeur grew as he battled the Persian Empire, which was considerably larger compared to his own, and started to secure victories.
After defeating the Persian Empire, Alexander switched from the more modest Macedonian style of kingship to the Persian one, where the sovereign was honoured with opulent rituals and obsequiousness. Alexander ruled over a large portion of Central Asia and gave his name to numerous cities along the way. Later in life, he moved against several of his closest comrades and killed them for lacking devotion or offering just moderate censure. By the time Alexander passed away at the age of 33, he had come to believe that Zeus, king of the gods, had actually fathered him and not King Phillip II of Macedon!
Nero, the Roman Emperor who reigned from 54 to 68 CE, had Alexander’s narcissistic traits. He murdered his stepbrother and mother after publicly calling his stepfather a “doddering old fool.” He devoted the majority of his energy ensuring that Rome’s citizens understood just how fantastic he was. Nero made people sit through long stretches of his shows because he thought he was a wonderful musician—which he just wasn’t. He organized a festival called the Neronia to compete for the greatest honours in music and poesy. Even though he wasn’t particularly able-bodied, he competed in the Olympics, which were moved up a year to accommodate him. In it, he competed in a chariot race in which his chariot was wrecked in a crash and did not complete further, but strangely `won’, along with everything he competed in.
The logic was that he would have won had he not crashed! Nero erected a 100-foot-tall sculpture depicting him as a deity. To ensure that the populace of the realm adored him, he luxuriously squandered; taxes rose until the Romans in the provinces grew weary of needing to pay more in order for the king to be able to organize decadent `celebrations’. In the period following Nero’s eventual suicide, the kingdom was torn apart by a string of civil wars.
Greek mystic and oracle Alexander of Abonoteichus, otherwise known as Alexander the Paphlagonian, established the Glycon cult, which transiently enjoyed significant traction in the Roman empire. He ‘claimed to resemble Pythagoras’, wears gold-covering on his thigh to accentuate the perception of his godliness and even advise a prominent Roman consular, Marcus Severianus, to invade Armenia, only to be routed by the Parthians. Stephen A. Kent likens Alexander to the “malignant narcissist” described in contemporary psychoanalytic thinking. Here you can see a depiction of the snake-god Glycon, which was conjured up by Alexander, which was made to be the centre-point of Alexander’s cult. The followers of Epicureanism finally saw through his contrivances.
The Roman Emperor Commodus, who reigned from 180 to 192, had many traits similar to Nero and Alexander. His advisers soon saw that he wasn’t particularly concerned with the administration’s day-to-day activities and that he would be simple to influence with flattery. His was the way of raised expenditure on amusement and free meals, just like Nero, to win the people over. Additionally, he was a dedicated self-promoter. He proclaimed that he was Hercules reincarnated near the conclusion of his rule, and had to be referred to as such.
He participated in gladiatorial contests and donned lion skins like Hercules had in the tales. Naturally, he took precautions to ensure his safety. He protected himself from attack by fighting animals in the wild from an elevated platform. He ensured that the people he battled were bodily incapable of defending themselves. Commodus’ persistent paranoia and aggression gradually wore on others and ultimately, his mistress got him poisoned unsuccessfully. Subsequently, his wrestling coach Narcissus (ironically) strangled him in the bathtub.
The conception of organized religion too has been afflicted by healthy doses of narcissism. This is seen in instances where a specific populace is said to be preferentially bestowed the grace of God. For instance, Deuteronomy 14:2 says
“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
One wonders what happened to all the other people on the face of the earth! Notwithstanding the number of unholy occurrences that happened with the agency of these ‘holy people’ in the land we now know as Israel. While still maintaining a comparison with other gods (unlike in Dharmic traditions where there is a fundamental reality – Brahman, which exists above and beyond all `gods’), the Jewish God Yahweh was regarded as the greatest of all the gods, as in Exodus 15:11
“Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?”
This element of exclusivism has been the cause of the ‘othering’ of those in the faith and those not in it. This behooves us to think, to wonder, whether the reality of all realities – the origin of all the Universe, in theistic traditions, could actually have such parochial biases, especially around geocentric considerations! Jewish precepts like the ones found in the Book of Isaiah, which states that Israel will serve as a “light to the nations” in order that not just Jews but Gentiles as well would engage in the coming messianic kingdom, helped to moderate the inclination towards narcissism in later Jewish tradition.
Nevertheless, this movement still indicated triumphalism and a sense of self-glorification, a belief connected to exclusivist tendencies. In accordance with this doctrine, persons who are ordinarily other-ed are given some degree of integration if they adopt the genuine faith or the bare minimum of its requirements. One of the effects of religious exclusivism is acts of bigotry. According to this perspective, all viewpoints are false and one’s faith is the sole path to deliverance and the truth. Such a religiously restricted political movement could lead to tyranny and absolutism in the name of faith if it is supported by such a religiously exclusive viewpoint, as was seen in the case of the Inquisition.
Whether or not Jesus actually recommended it is anyone’s guess, but the Christian church has emphasized that Jesus is the sole route to God since the time of its first teachings. Paul believed that only trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection was sufficient for deliverance and that neither careful observance of the Law of Moses nor other deeds of kindness and virtue could accomplish this. While it is a sentiment that can be respected as one of the various possible ways to approach the question of the truth of life and the Universe, by its formulation in such a way, it inherently excludes all those who may have ways other than through the name of Jesus to seek to realize God.
This exclusivist tendency was also seen in the early Islamic trajectory. We can see the description of a conflict with Pagan traditions at a fairly early stage, particularly on the concept of idolatry, in Al Anbya (21:52-67). The summary disavowal of the spiritual efficacy of alternate religious practices was later seen when Muslim iconoclasts destroyed temples and broke images of Hindu deities during the Islamic conquests in the Indian subcontinent primarily between the 12th and 17th centuries AD. It is only through cultural work and social communitarian activities like God’s Love We Deliver, a New York City–based soup kitchen, that any and all exclusivist tendencies can be cast aside to look towards a more inclusive, cosmopolitan worldview.
The narcissism inherent in exclusivism reached a crescendo with the Inquisition, starting from Episcopal Inquisitions and moving towards Tomás de Torquemada’s Spanish Inquisition, the Portuguese Inquisition that primarily focused on the Sephardi Jews and the Roman Inquisition established with the apostolic constitution named Immensa Aeterni Dei by Pope Sixtus V. Here you can see a miniature copper engraving titled “Die Inquisition in Portugall” from the book “Description de L’Univers” by Alain Manesson Mallet.
Unfortunately, the narcissistic creation of a religious order even when the one around whom it was created may not have sought was also seen around a luminary from a Dharmic religion – Buddha. Buddha never spoke of being the leader or initiator of an organised order or cult. In today’s age, Buddhism has changed from being a path of spiritual practice and an intellectual route reserved for the privileged to become a worldview that is widely accessible to the general public and where unfortunately consumerism, commodifying tendencies, and mediatization are all elements of the neo-liberal economy where mysticism and the spiritual truth is for sale.
Enlightenment has never been simpler, as Gary Gach famously put it. Sometimes, even piety or an act of renunciation becomes a premise for narcissism! Even in Hinduism, there was a gradual development of narcissistic tendencies that possibly came from the grandiosity and pomposity that the political and religious elite ascribed to their domains of existence and expertise in the later Puranic and other literary sources, be it while describing Devraj Indra or in terms of speaking of Digvijay (conquest of all four directions) when the geographical expanse of the kings would be fairly Indic.
One of the most unfortunate byproducts of narcissism was seen in the destruction of the Vijaynagar Kingdom due to the megalomania of Aliya Rama Raya, which led him to underestimate the combined might of the Deccan sultanates at the Battle of Talikota.
We can think of presenting the, primarily European, colonial projects, over the centuries, in terms of a narcissistic dynamic, with the colonised being Echo while the colonising power is portrayed as Narcissus. We might conceive of imperialist relations using the contemporaneous depiction of megalomania, which alternates between sentiments of grief, wrath, and retribution. Subordinate populations may prove to be of great psychological value to their colonizers since they may be forced in a plethora of ways to mirror an exalted self-concept back to the colonist.
What we see in imperialist settings is a manifestation of the true narcissist’s compulsive drive to stifle subjectivity in the other. The myth of Narcissus serves as a foundation for not only depicting narcissistic grandiosity but, ironically, also a relational failure. Even after having lost many of its former colonies, England was unable to come out of its colonial hangover. By bringing up the Falklands War to resuscitate a latent imperial spirit that could ultimately determine who is actually operating for and against England’s future, Thatcher pulled England’s imperialist legacy into the arena of contemporary politics. The
British sense of identity was no longer postcolonial or postimperial in this expression of Thatcherism. She altered the timeframe of England in order to revive the idea of the country as a dominant imperialist and geopolitical force in the world. The fetishized reference to the colonial legacy that resulted was a prime manifestation of state narcissism and a residual of the narcissistic dynamics of the colonial project.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre was a prime example and expression of the arrogance of power of the British Raj. Brigadier general R. E. H. Dyer surrounded protesters, who were protesting against against the Rowlatt Act and arrest of pro-independence activists Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satya Pal, with his Sikh, Gurkha, Baloch and Rajput from 2-9th Gurkhas, the 54th Sikhs and the 59th Sind Rifles of British Indian Army. Winston Churchill reported nearly 400 slaughtered, and 3 or 4 times the number wounded to the Westminster Parliament, on 8 July 1920. Here is a site plan of the Jallianwala Bagh from the collected works of Mahatma Gandhi (Volume 17), available courtesy Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India and Navajivan Trust, Ahmedabad.
Colonial narcissism is a strange mix of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and comes with over-defensive tendencies to veil a fundamental failure. A failure to be able to relate, to be human; a failure to be able to love and be loved, apart from and besides the self-love that his high self-image induces. Colonialism’s anti-relational foundations appear to have driven the West to pursue the values of liberty and sovereignty incessantly, albeit framed in terms of political insulations, imperviousness, and invulnerability.
When India’s independence movement was being countered with the proposal for offering dominion status, it was a qualified offering that did not break asunder the larger composite construct of the British Raj. The very inception of the British East India Company was a result of the defeat of the Spanish Armada and a desire to capture the Far East trade from the Spanish and Portuguese. Till then the maritime capabilities of the British were scoffed at by the Spanish and other early European colonial powers. It was in this acute sense of having to prove themselves and finding their footing that the British establish the EIC. So much so for the Narcissus complex of being sans love, even as the proverbial reflection in the water seemed all so soothing!
A Modern Epidemic of Conceit
In today’s society, narcissism has taken centre stage in public speech and interaction. There isn’t a day that goes by when the citizenry of myriad countries isn’t thinking about the ramifications of the conceited tendencies of their politicians, industrialists, bureaucrats, and diplomats. Are individuals growing vainer? Why is megalomania on the upsurge? The growth of megalomania has spread across all cultural contexts and demographic groups, becoming a global issue. In the 1960s, Campbell and Twenge published The Narcissistic Epidemic, which sounded the proverbial siren. The media outlet Newsweek went on to explain the how and when of the narcissistic upsurge:
“…when people began to cast off societal constraints and expectations in favor of exploring their own human potential. This movement didn’t begin with a purely narcissistic slant, yet by the 1970s it had morphed into self-admiration, self-expression, and self-absorption. In the 1980s those qualities gave way to self-centeredness and self-indulgence, and it was all downhill from there.”
Over the last few decades, society has shifted from emphasizing the concept of an ensemble to emphasizing that of the element, in society. The self-esteem movement played a significant role in this. It found that the secret to accomplishment in life was having high self-esteem. Teachers and guardians began praising their kids for their specialness and individuality to instill confidence in them.
Instead of enabling their offspring to earn self-esteem via perseverance, families tried to “bestow” it upon them. It became increasingly difficult to satisfy the fundamental need for genuine interpersonal bonds even as the social fabric weakened. What is most beneficial for other individuals and the family has become secondary to what is ideal for oneself. The modernization of the societal structure appeared to place the highest value on reputation, fortune, and notoriety. All of this, along with the deterioration of social relationships, led to the development of a “bare ego, bereft of sociocultural context.” I am reminded of the narcissistic lyrics of Frank Sinatra’s song ‘My Way’
“For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself then he has naught Not to say the things that he truly feels And not the words of someone who kneels Let the record shows I took all the blows and did it my way”
Speaking of popular culture, many believe that part of the reason for this modern epidemic of conceit is the pre-eminence of American society. How true is that? The recent occurrence of `just wars’ and the subtle imposition of the brand of materialism that affects people the world over possibly arises from the American belief that they and their country are indisputably better than all other individuals and societies on the planet.
When does patriotic fervour cross the line between good citizenship and dangerous jingoism? American ideas of supremacy have traditionally been rooted in myths about the special generative abilities of the land, in visions of being the chosen ones, in the enduring lore of frontier autarky, in a strong sense of America’s detachment and idiosyncrasy, in the awareness of abundance, and lastly in the idea that there is a certain universality that one can ascribe to the American worldview and ideology.
Richard Nixon’s decision to bomb Cambodia is often cited as an example of narcissistic muscle-flexing. In a recent study, 42 U.S. presidents’ data were examined, and a rating scale was developed to assess each one’s level of grandiose narcissism. The results were reported in the journal Psychological Science. As per the study, three of the most narcissistic Presidents in U.S. history were John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Even today, when we see a ‘Just War’ on the pretext of Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) when later this pretext was falsified, one wonders whether this isn’t a narcissistic misuse of power. The ongoing demonstrations against COVID mask regulations at the local and state levels as well as the never-ending videos of Americans disobeying these regulations are more examples of American narcissism. The core conviction in individualism appears to be greater than ever, notwithstanding the evident necessity for communal cooperation to safeguard everyone from COVID-19 mortality and its long-term effects.
This makes Americans more prone to exceptionalism and a particularly overbearing brand of nationalism than practically any other contemporary country. It is not surprising, given the thoughts of its founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson (President of the United States, 1801–1809), who highlighted the value of the white settlement and economic growth in the West, and undertook radical egalitarian moralizing, even though he owned more than 600 slaves in his lifetime!
Teddy Roosevelt was another narcissistic American president. It is believed that he would always find a way to bring up the count of Spaniards he killed while “spearheading” the attack up San Juan Hill, during dinner parties. And then we have our most recent US President Donald J. Trump, who famously said, “I’m a most stable genius.”
The self-centered and emulous conduct of different interest blocs in society and politics, with a lack of the necessary empathy to rethink the world from one another’s perspective points, has intensified race-based and ideological antagonism, and as a result, certain tribalism. The conceited actions of bankers and customers alike, who produced a time-delay snare of near-term avarice over long-term reasoning, can be partially blamed for the financial catastrophe.
Debt-financed “ostentatious consumption”—items bought to improve one’s standing in the eyes of others instead of out of necessity—has widened America’s trade deficit. And the focus on self-sufficiency, rather than on connectedness, might be attributed in part to the lack of trust in the government. To resolve the local and global challenges today, it is essential to acknowledge the problematic links with narcissism. Additionally, policymakers need to give more thought to ways to advance economic and political advancement while keeping or fostering the qualities of a coordinated, self-critical collective.
Wokeism is a fad that has spread like wildfire. The presence of narcissism in the self-tagged Woke crowds is seen in their perception of reality, life, and God. According to them, God’s purpose is to help people “feel good and joyful about themselves and their lives,” acting as a Heavenly Chamberlain and Celestial Counselor rather than working toward one’s salvation and deliverance.
The White Woke individual is also seen to seek expiation of collective guilt of racism and historical discrimination again non-White communities by excusing the harmful effects of disruptive and even criminal actions by individuals from non-White communities, usually in retaliation to some limited provocation or cause. This is condescending and highly narcissistic, since it gives off this idea that the White Woke is always on a pedestal and can choose to excuse the wrongdoings of others to balance the historical socio-political scales in society.
Altruism and charity are not invulnerable to narcissism these days. While earlier the idiom was ‘let not one hand know what the other gives’, these days being charitable is a fad. While there were genuine attempts at helping alleviate people’s misery during the COVID outbreak, there were many who donated to get kudos on social media and in their circles. Nowadays, students working for social organisations do so many a times for the recognition, in the form of certification and plaudits from peers, that they get from doing so.
The Woke regard themselves as not being homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, racist, or transphobic by default, and claim a moral superiority due to their sense of belongingness to the broad stream of Wokeism. The Woke seek their identity by negating – they are not certain things, even as they are glorified virtue signallers. They have found their herald in social media, where they go on and on about how righteous they are, often hypocritically.
So, you will have Woke internet personalities rambling about reducing carbon footprints even as they go around the world on jet airplanes. The narcissistic Woke must also know that it is not the duty of everyone else, particularly those from socio-economic minority groups, to update them all the time with the experiences of discrimination and thoughts thereof.
More broadly, there is a certain peculiar predisposition in and of the West which can be problematic and the primary premise for modern narcissism. Works of scholars like Jonathan Haidt and Joseph Henrich (with the seminal book ‘The WEIRDest People in the World’) take a keen look at Western psychology and how it arose from their history and geography. The acronym WEIRD, popularised by Henrich, stands for `Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic’, and is characterised as follows by Henrich
“WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. We focus on ourselves — our attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations — over our relationships and social roles. We aim to be “ourselves” across contexts and see inconsistencies in others as hypocrisy rather than flexibility. Like everyone else, we are inclined to go along with our peers and authority figures; but, we are less willing to conform to others when this conflicts with our own beliefs, observations, and preferences. We see ourselves as unique beings, not as nodes in a social network that stretches out through space and back in time. When acting, we prefer a sense of control and the feeling of making our own choices.”
The National Health Service in the United Kingdom operates and is oriented in a way that is narcissistic. The administration has been forcing a commercial mentality on medical professionals, and a concentration on metrics and goals has distorted care. Investigations have demonstrated that the difficulties of handling persons in psychological misery are routinely avoided, despite the long-term realities of the pain, reliance, and fragility of mentally ill patients. It is supplanted by increased workloads and requests for more empathy from the exhausted frontline employees. Additionally, because they do not mesh with the conveyer-belt approach of providing services offered by General Practitioners in England in 10-minute blocks, patients’ demands for interpersonal components of treatment are overlooked.
Strangely, such people have been observed as being more hospitable and trustworthy toward outsiders than members of various other civilizations. In spite of the fact that our cultural movement has been towards what may be described as detached prosocial behaviour, this occurs in a pretty superficial way. People began to embrace impersonal regulations and unbiased standards that apply to everyone in their organizations or enclaves, regardless of social ties, tribal identification, or socioeconomic background as existence has become more and more characterized by dealing with strangers or non-relations.
We seem to have `outsourced’ our trust to large establishments, such as the state, in the hope that others would abide by the same rules and regulations as us, on the whole. But the key question is: what transpires when we start deconstructing those establishments? We are currently witnessing this. Political interest groups and parties, the journalistic fold, the entertainment business, internet corporations, and human resource managers all around the world are being eaten alive from within as postmodernism, reconstructivism, and social semiotics gain hold.
An essential progression is the need to critique and dissect. It aids in challenging established narratives, to begin with. Subverting inflexible edifices creates the latitude that culture needs to rejuvenate from the fringes it had been neglecting or undermining. However, this process must be guided by a higher ideal or goal in order to progress beyond endless disassembly.
Hitler is described as the personification of contemporary political evil by historian Ian Kershaw. About 6 million Jews and a great many other victims that Nazi Germany believed were Untermenschen (subhumans) or societally unwanted were killed by the Nazi dictatorship under his rule and racially driven ideology. With his disdain of critique, braggadocio, acute craving for recognition (as demonstrated in the Nuremberg rallies), and compulsion to show extreme antipathy and complete rejection of people believed to be “other,” Hitler possessed what can be described as narcissistic personality disorder. Certain psychologists believe that his narcissism arose due to childhood experiences. The father of Adolf Hitler was referred to as oppressive, often inebriated and very dictatorial. He had no sympathy for his kids and would beat Adolf very harshly, causing considerable bodily pain. Mein Kampf sections imply that Hitler might have experienced sexual abuse as a child. Adolf felt emotionally forsaken by his mother since she was emotionally aloof.
Characteristics of the personality are intimately correlated with the cultural surroundings. Cultures can be categorized as aligning with either individualism or collectivism. Collectivism places more emphasis on the value of social ideals whilst individualistic societies promote, by definition, a larger focus on individuality.
Affiliates of individualistic societies may be more conceited than people from collectivistic communities since megalomania is characterized by a considerable concentration on oneself, a compelling craving for adulation, and extravagant illusions. In contrast to Freud and other prominent cognitive behavioural analysts, Karen Horney did not propose a primary narcissism and instead considered the narcissistic persona as the result of a particular early milieu operating on a particular predisposition. She believed that conceited desires and inclinations are not a part of the human condition.
Heinz Kohut proposed that megalomania is a phase of normal development during which there is a strengthening of the child’s developing sense of self by reflecting his positive traits. If the parents or other guardians don’t offer their child enough, the youngster will mature with a fragile and imperfect understanding of who they are.
However, the final frontier remains that of parochialism and dogma. Narcissism percolates through the cracks and crevices of various levels of society, from family and community to nation and the global geopolitics in the primacy and absoluteness ascribed to constructs and ideologies. This is seemingly so integrated that modern society often does not even realise this tendency. As the `Prince of Paradox’ Gilbert Keith Chesterton once said,
“The special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it”
Scientism is one of the most apparent manifestations of narcissism in modern ideology. Scientism as an epistemological framework is a rather restrictive paradigm. Scientism considers science to be the sole credible source of conversance, opposing elements of subjectivity as well as supranatural modes such as cryptesthesia, transcendence, and what theists would call sanctifying grace.
Kurt Godel destroyed the foundation of scientism when he showed that any rigorously logical system of mathematics contains assertions that cannot be supported or refuted on the strength of the system’s axiomatic foundations. Post-modernism acknowledges that it is adrift in an uncharted ocean of uncertainties. We live in a hetrotopia, where there are no meaningful links between people, claims Foucault. The hallmark of post-modern society is the sense of being lost.
The future is uncertain for everyone. That is seemingly the zeitgeist of the age! It is in the momentary that we seek absolution. An absolution from any and all obligation to anything but oneself. This absoluteness and sense of hollowness have climaxed into apprehensions around mortality itself. Arrant intellectual and emotional affirmation of the truth that we are transient beings, and that the conceited libido-driven ego is a temporal construct.
This extraordinary achievement, in my opinion, hinges not only on the triumph of independent thought and absolute objectivity against narcissistic claims, but also on the development of a superior kind of megalomania. The luminaries who have attained the worldview that the Romans alluded to as existing sub specie aeternitntis do not exhibit dejection and despair but rather are quietly proud and oft harbour fairly benign derision of the riffraff who, unable to enjoy the spectrum of experiences that life offers, is still terrified of quietus and trembles at its advent.
In the following verse, Goethe beautifully expressed his antipathy for individuals who cannot embrace mortality as an inevitable aspect of life:
Und so lang du das nicht hast,
Dieses: Stirb and werde!
Bist du nur ein truber
Gast Auf der dunklen Erde
At the societal level, the introduction of nuance and comprehensiveness in view, and at the individual level, an embracing of one’s mortality and non-absoluteness are the only solutions to the chronic pandemic of narcissism that afflicts humanity today.
In ancient Indic writings, Ahaṁkāra is portrayed as self-sense, as in the Chāndogya Upanishad, which also makes the observation that individuals who are unable to distinguish between ātman and one’s corporeality will confuse the self-sense with the corporeal. The Viveka Cūḍāmaṇi of Śankarācārya contains ślokas connected to ahaṁkāra nindā, aham-padārtha-nirūpaṇa, and antaḥkaraṇa that explain the nature and purpose of ahaṁkāra.
In the 103rd śloka, Śaṅkara delineates ahaṁkāra to be the antaḥkaraṇa dwelling in the motor and sensory organ systems and the body as aham with abhimāna in the reflected refulgence of ātman. In modern terms, Śankarācārya is asking one to give up one’s sense of identity with bio-psycho-social aspects of human nature, which are part of ahaṁkāra, in order to realize the ātman, attain peace, and to realize everlasting bliss.
The paradoxical (and key) thought is that neither ego nor non-ego has any absoluteness that can be attached to them. However, since such a transcendence of the binary is not easy to understand or straightforward for all, the gross ego of the individual has been asked to be surrendered to a higher ego – of the Universal Self, in Dharmic traditions, which highlights that this surrender is attainable through self-inquiry, going beyond theism per see.
Since the self is part of the greater Universal truth, an investigation of the same through introspection and self-inquiry could provide a window into the beyond. More importantly, at an empirical level, this liberates one from the shackles of parochial constructs and ideas, from aspects of life that are ephemeral and conditioned, and from nuances of existence that are not quite fundamental or absolute. It is in that realisation, in that lived experience, that one is free from narcissism and attains peace and joy.
In Conclusion
The primacy of narcissism in the contemporary world is bothersome, even as I reflect on the state of matters after having been able to live (and not just preach) a personal movement away from narcissism, with an important aspect and academic milestone of my life not being flaunted in public view, while there would be many who would have not left a stone unturned in extracting every last drop of adulation on the same!
In humility, I am at peace. Narcissism hampers the evolution of the individual by entrapping humanity in a vicious cycle that relies on megalomaniac proclivities and, in turn, feeds the narcissism of individuals. The rise of crony capitalism, unchecked materialism, and a growing movement towards parochialism and dogma, all, speak of the rise of narcissism at various levels of existence.
What we need is the pursuit of emancipation at all these levels, from the clutches of absoluteness that we ascribe to both – our existence and our constructs. What we need is the use of agency and discernment to see what is the aim and nature of our existence and not the accoutrements that facilitate our shallow self-aggrandizement. For the latter paves a pointless path, a labyrinth of the illusory. As Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa said, speaking of the clouds of narcissism preventing even God’s light to light the path, in his words
Shibani Dandekar, TV presenter and wife of Farhan Akhtar, took to her Instagram handle to post a picture of herself sporting a ‘mangalsutra’ on the occasion of Karwa Chauth by the designer brand Bulgari. The auspicious Hindu festival Karwa Chauth was celebrated across the world on Thursday, October 13.
The actor and reality TV personality also shared a note on how she did not fast for Farhan during the festival celebrated by married Hindu women. “Immortalizing my first-ever Karwachauth with this beautiful & timeless @bulgari Mangalsutra. Needless to say, I didn’t fast but the Love & Banter for @faroutakhtar says it all. Let’s celebrate Love. #HappyKarwaChauth #Bulgari #bulgariMangalsutra #BulgariJewelry #Bzero1 #Collab
The post triggered social media users who called out Dandekar for cashing in on the Hindu festival without actually believing in it. “Karwa Chauth a day of immense importance for many women has been reduced to this ?! She doesn’t fast, she doesn’t celebrate and in private probably ridicules it but yes she will use the day to make some money by selling a product.. slow clap !” wrote the Instagram handle which goes by the name snoopy6752.
Screengrab from Shibani Dandekar’s Instagram profile
Another Twitter user slammed Dandekar for using the festival merely for commercial benefits.
Screengrab from Shibani Dandekar’s Instagram profile
Dandekar also became the target of some so-called ‘feminists’ who lambasted her for wearing a symbol of ‘patriarchal oppression’. “Not fasting but promoting yet another patriarchal symbol that’s mangalsutra? Why should women be announcing their ‘taken’ status by wearing or promoting such discriminatory rituals?” wrote a user going by the handle merakimojo.
Screengrab from Shibani Dandekar’s Instagram profile
In fact, on Monday, Shibani took to Instagram Stories and shared a screenshot of Instagram users discussing her recent Karwa Chauth post. Shibani Dandekar wrote a note in response to a screenshot posted originally on Instagram Stories by former India Today journalist Aishwarya Subramanyam. It showed an exchange between two users, where one had said, “Very surprised Shibani Dandekar got on the KC (Karwa Chauth) wagon. Or maybe I should not be surprised… all monetary.” Responding to the users’ DM to herself, Aishwarya, also known as Otherwarya on social media, had written, “Please never be surprised.” Sharing their exchange on Instagram Stories, she also added, “All. Celebrities. Are. The Same.”
It may be recalled that the former India Today journalist ‘Otherwarya’ (Aishwarya Subramanyam) had had a similar meltdown over Priyanka Chopra’s last year’s photoshoot with Vogue magazine where she had also sported a ‘mangalsutra’ by the designer brand Bulgari.
Source: Instagram
Shibani Dandekar shared on Instagram Stories how ‘nasty’ people were speaking about her Karwa Chauth post.
Reacting to this exchange shared on Instagram, Shibani wrote about Otherwarya, who often shares posts on celebs and pop culture, “There is a not-so-new bully in town.” Shibani continued by writing, “My mind is blown by how incredibly nasty people are. Aishwarya you are as nasty as they come. This is how you spend your time? Spreading hate on the internet? At least have the b***s to tag me like I’m going to tag you @otherwarya. P.S. I am stating the obvious. I really do not need life advice from you! How sad that you have become this brave keyword warrior and think we will all sit here and take your bulls*** and be silent!”
Social media users slam Richa Chadha for hypocrisy after she promoted Bulgari mangalsutra
Interestingly, a week earlier, actress Richa Chadha, who had recently married actor Ali Fazal, enraged some social media users who accused her of not believing in the sanctity of the Hindu marriage system or the sacredness of a ‘mangalsutra,’ but displaying it solely to promote the brand.
Screengrab from Richa Chadha’s Instagram profile
Notably, last year, Priyanka Chopra’s Bulgari mangalsutra photoshoot also triggered ‘feminists’ who had called it a ‘symbol of patriarchal oppression.’
One Twitter accused Chopra of ‘exploiting’ feminism for personal economic gains, while another feminist slammed the actor for making a lot of money by partnering with Bulgari for mangalsutra. She then compared the holy symbol of matrimony to dowry, a social evil and claimed to mock the same.
In fact, not just these, former India Today journalist Aishwarya Subramanyam, too, had an elaborate meltdown over Priyanka Chopra’s photoshoot. She even went on to mock other Hindu symbols like the Janeu, ‘that Brahmin thread thingy’ as described by her friend.
In fact, not just that, she even held a Clubhouse discussion on the same. Earlier, Subramanyam was found justifying the rape culture of the ‘woke liberals’ after a Clubhouse conversation normalising rape culture went viral on social media. She was also part of the Clubhouse discussion where other social media influencers like Kusha Kapila discussed having ‘hate sex’ with Sanghis.
On October 17, NDTV published a report where they referred to Mallikarjun Kharge as a ‘Gandhi-proxy’. As Gandhi was not contesting the election for the Congress Party president post, two leaders of the party, Shashi Tharoor and Kharge, were facing each other. NDTV mentioned Kharge as the ‘approved’ candidate. It is notable that Kharge entered the contest for the post only after Ashok Gehlot stepped out following a political stir in Rajasthan. Kharge was allegedly ‘pushed’ into the elections by the central leadership, NDTV said in the report.
Source: Twitter/NDTV
Congress workers and supporters lashed out at NDTV
The title of the report did not go well with the Congress workers and supporters, and they attacked NDTV for calling Kharge a ‘Gandhi-proxy.’
TanmayMudgal said, “This is very disrespectful towards a senior leader like @kharge Ji, who has served the party and country in many capacities. Please be a little cautious with your language.”
This is very disrespectful towards a senior leader like @kharge ji who has served the party and country in many capacities. Please be a little cautious with your language.
Random stuff said, “Hey, NDTV. Its K..H..A..R..G..E & THAROOR. DISGUSTED at your disrespect for a person and the process. The diktat you’re blindly following & setting this negative narrative. Those giving you these diktats WONT last, you will. Prepare to face the music then.”
Hey NDTV. Its K..H..A..R..G..E & THAROOR DISGUSTED at your disrespect. For a person. And the process. The diktat you’re blindly following & setting this negative narrative. Those giving you these diktats WONT last, you will. Prepare to face the music then.
Agraj Adhwaryu said, “Show some respect to seasoned and senior person like Mr. Kharge, we know your shares have been sold by a corporate house, but this doesn’t mean you should sell your soul too… or have you?”
Show some respect to seasoned and senior person like Mr. Kharge, we knw your shares has been sold by a corporate house, but this doesnt mean you should sell your soul too… or have you?
Rahul Mukherji said, “Dear Dr Prannoy Roy, has your channel become so conceited that they are unable to name Kharge? That they’ve to replace his name with a derogatory term? The arrogance is mind-boggling.”
Dear Dr. @PrannoyRoyNDTV, has your channel become so conceited that they are unable to name @kharge? That they’ve to replace his name with a derogatory term? The arrogance is mind-boggling. https://t.co/rlqrSbxOSn
The elections for the Congress President post were held on October 17. Shashi Tharoor and Mallikarjun Kharge battled out for the post of Congress President after Rahul Gandhi refused to ‘stand’ for the elections even as the party continues to struggle electorally. The results will be announced on October 19.
Along expected lines, President of India Droupadi Murmu has appointed Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud as the next Chief Justice of India with effect from November 9, 2022. Justice Chandrachud will take over as the 50th Chief Justice of India with effect from 09th November 2022 after the retirement of the incumbent Chief Justice UU Lalit.
The notification from the President’s office confirming the appointment read, “In exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution of India, Hon’ble President appoints Dr. Justice DY Chandrachud, Judge, Supreme Court as the Chief Justice of India with effect from 9th November, 22.”
Union Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju shared this news via his Twitter handle on Monday, October 17. Minister Rijiju tweeted, “In exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution of India, Hon’ble President appoints Dr. Justice DY Chandrachud, Judge, Supreme Court as the Chief Justice of India with effect from 9th November, 22.”
In exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution of India, Hon'ble President appoints Dr. Justice DY Chandrachud, Judge, Supreme Court as the Chief Justice of India with effect from 9th November, 22.
Earlier, incumbent Chief Justice UU Lalit had recommended Justice DY Chandrachud’s name as his successor on October 11. Justice Chandrachud’s tenure as Chief Justice of India will run till November 10, 2024.
Notably, Justice DY Chandrachud’s father was also a Chief Justice of India, and in fact, is the longest-serving Chief Justice of India. His father Justice Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud was the 16th Chief Justice of India, serving from February 22, 1978, till July 11, 1985. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of India on August 28, 1972. He was the longest-serving Chief Justice in India’s history, having served for 7 years and 4 months.
Justice DY Chandrachud did his LLB from Delhi University. Later on, he went to Harvard University to earn his Master in Law (LLM) and Doctorate in Juridical Sciences at Harvard (SJD). He became a Supreme Court Justice in May 2016.
A hate campaign against Hindu groups was started in the United States (US) in another instance of rising Hinduphobia across the globe. A resolution designating various Hindu organisations as severe hate groups and offshoots of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was accepted by the Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee, a division of the New Jersey Democratic Party (RSS).
In the resolution, it was demanded that the government designate a number of American Hindu organisations as “domestic branches” of “foreign hate groups,” including the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), and SEWA International.
“Hindu nationalist organizations have infiltrated all levels of politics and were highly effective in blocking U.S. House Resolution 417 which was a congressional attempt to warn against the Hindu nationalist movement,” TDMC said, as per the press release. “Now, most local American elected officials remain unaware and unprepared to deal with the Hindu extremists,” it added.
Daniel Rosenblum, a TDMC member who voted in favour of the motion, told IAMC that Americans need to recognise that the “RSS’s roots stem from the same place as Italian fascism and German Nazism.” Following anti-Hindu violence in South Richmond Hills (New York), Plano (Texas), and Fremont (California), the resolution has sent tremors across the Hindu-American community in the United States.
On (August 24), a Mexican American woman assaulted a group of 4 Indians, following a racist rant in the parking lot of a business establishment in Plano in Dallas city of Texas. As per reports, the accused was identified as Esmi Armendarez Upton. The video of the nasty confrontation had gone viral on social media, leading to her arrest on Thursday (August 25).
“I hate you f*cking Indians…You come to our country and want everything free. I am Mexican-American. I was born here. Were you born here? Everywhere I go, you fucking Indians are there,” Esmi was heard saying.
OpIndia recently reported how new incidents of targeted hate crimes against the Hindu population and its temples in Canada, the US, and the UK by Khalistani and Islamic extremists indicate the unsettling patterns of increasing Hinduphobia in the West.
Even as India remains an outlier in heading off inflation and currency depreciation among major economies in the world, the Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently attracted a barrage of online criticism for her informed comment on the strengthening American dollar vis-a-vis other currencies across the globe.
Nirmala Sitharaman says the rupee is not sliding but the dollar is strengthening
Speaking to reporters after attending the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, Sitharaman said that the fundamentals of the Indian economy were strong and that inflation was low compared to other parts of the world.
“First of all I would look at it as not rupee sliding, I would look at it as dollar strengthening, dollar strengthening incessantly,” she said in reply to a question on the weakening rupee.
All other currencies around the world are performing against a strengthening dollar, she said.
“And I’m not talking technicalities, but it is a matter of fact that India’s rupee probably has withstood this dollar rate going up, the exchange rate in favour of dollar strengthening is there and I think the Indian rupee has performed much better than many other emerging market currencies,” she added.
Sceptics and leftist propagandists, whose knowledge of the world economy and factors affecting currency exchange rate is as poor as their grasp of the political aspirations of the country, made a beeline to mock the finance minister over the nimble-footed monetary policy India embraced in the wake of unprecedented inflation and accompanying volatility amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Factors contributing to the inexorable rise of the USD
Firstly, there are several factors affecting the value of the currency. One of them is the interest rates that the reserve bank manages to control the circulation of money in the economy. The US Fed has hiked rates five times this year, most recently by three-quarters of a percentage point in September in their bid to fight inflation. The US is facing unprecedented inflation in decades, following the V-shaped recovery after the coronavirus pandemic brought the country to a standstill. The unemployment rate in the US is at record low levels, which has contributed to the skyrocketing inflation. These developments prompted the US Fed to continuously hike interest rates, which is nothing but an attempt to limit the amount of money available in the market. By raising interest rates, the Fed aims to sap money off the economy and induce it into a state of deflation to grapple with the rising prices.
However, this is just one aspect of the interest rate. The higher interest rates also provide investors with better returns in the US markets than elsewhere, which is one of the reasons why foreign investors pull money invested in different markets around the world and park it in the US market. This, in turn, increases the demand for American currency, USD, which raises the dollar’s value in the international market.
Further, the primacy of USD in international finance and trade, especially in energy trade, also has a domino effect in strengthening the American currency. The US dollar rules the roost of the world economy as compared to other currencies, including INR, Chinese Yuan, Russian ruble, etc. The preeminence of the dollar over economies also contributes to strengthening the American currency amid swelling inflation and global volatility.
To deal with the US Fed rate hike that strengthens the dollar, which in turn powers much of the world trade, countries take appropriate action to tame domestic inflation and price rise, which typically involves raising interest rates by the reserve banks of the respective countries. This is why the Reserve Bank of India raised interest rates in the last few months. But this measure involves a kind of spillover effect: It lowers demand not only for domestic output but also for imports, failing to take into account which could induce an unintentionally steep global downturn.
Countries across the globe have to navigate the tightrope of arresting inflation but not so much as ushering themselves into recession. Other factors have also contributed to the strengthening of the US dollar, but they are beyond the scope of this article. So when Nirmala Sitharaman said it is not the Indian rupee that is sliding but the US dollar that is strengthening, she accurately encapsulated the conundrum facing the Indian economy.
But one would assume social media trolls attacking the finance minister and taking swipes at her do not possess the mental capacity to grasp complex issues such as the world economy and the spillover effect of interest rates on currencies of other nations. Add to the mix the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and the complexities compound further. However, opposition political leaders, even those with finance backgrounds, resorting to attacks underscores the desperation that has set in even though she has done a fairly decent job in controlling the depreciation of the rupee.
The Indian rupee outshines other major currencies in the world
While asserting that the US dollar has strengthened, Nirmal Sitharaman also said that India has outperformed some of the major economies in the world. Let’s look at how the rupee has fared against some of the top currencies in the world:-
INR vs USD
Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war on 24 February 2022, which acted as a stimulus to the global financial crisis, especially with the consumer food inflation that has reached record levels, given that Russia and Ukraine are both among the top exporters of wheat, and several African and Latin American countries are overtly dependent on Moscow and Kyiv for their grain requirement, the Indian rupee has depreciated against its US counterpart.
From 1 USD equal to Rs 74.64 on 24 February, it has come down to Rs 82.29 on 17 October, close to a 9 per cent fall in its value.
Source: Google Finance
However, the Indian rupee has outperformed several other major economies and has managed to limit its slide against the all-powerful dollar, thanks to timely intervention by the Indian government and the Reserve Bank of India.
USD vs EUR
Before the start of the war, 1 USD amounted to 0.89 Euros, but today, i.e. on 17 October 2022, 1 USD is equivalent to 1.03 Euros, a staggering 17 per cent depreciation in its value in the course of close to 8 months.
Source: Google Finance
USD vs GBP
Similar is the case with the pound sterling, which has lost 18 per cent vis-a-vis the US dollar. On February 24, one dollar was equal to 0.75 GBP. However, on 17 October 2022, its value dropped to 0.89.
Source: Google Finance
USD vs Chinese Yuan
Likewise, the Chinese Yuan, too, has lost considerably in the 8 months since the war began and amidst periodic rate hikes by the US Fed. One US dollar is currently equivalent to 7.2 Chinese Yuan while it was 6.33 Chinese Yuan before the start of the war in February 2022.
Source: Google Finance
USD vs Australian Dollar
The Australian Dollar has also tanked amid record-level inflation and the Russia-Ukraine crisis. From 1 USD equal to 1.40 Australian dollar before the Ukraine-Russia conflict, it has slumped to 1.60 as of 17 October 2022, a 14 per cent drop in its value as against the US dollar as compared to 10 per cent slump faced by INR against USD.
Source: Google Finance
USD vs SGD
The Singaporean Dollar (SGD) remains one of the very few global economies that have fared better than the INR in terms of dealing with the USD rise. The USD is currently equivalent to 1.43 SGD, depreciating about 5 per cent in the 8 months since the war when it was 1.36 SGD.
Source: Google Finance
How India continues to be on firm financial footing amid uncertain global cues
Taken together, the Indian rupee has been among the pick of the currencies to push back against an ominously rising American dollar and months after the devastating bout of coronavirus outbreak cratered economies and brought countries to a standstill. While the Indian rupee has fallen 9 per cent in the last 8 months, most of the other major currencies have registered double-digit slumps, establishing India’s impressive handling of the economy, which also earned her the praise of the IMF officials, who recently lauded the Indian government for its efficient handling of multiple crises in an uncertain global environment.
While each country has a unique set of challenges and shares different geographical and geological attributes, strengths and weaknesses, the fact that the Indian rupee has performed significantly better than most of the major currencies in the world is a testament to the Indian government’s prowess in tackling once-in-a-lifetime kind of crisis, especially in the wake of a global pandemic that wreaked havoc and bled economies around the globe, underscoring their resolve to build a robust and resilient India that is as insulated as possible from the global shocks.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is interrogating Aam Aadmi Party leader and Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia in connection with the Delhi liquor scam case. Sisodia was summoned to the CBI headquarters for questioning on Monday, October 17. As he is being grilled in the headquarters of the central agency, here are some questions which Sisodia might need to answer.
What was the reason behind the introduction of an excise policy in November 2021? Who was behind the sanctioning of the policy?
Who attended the early meetings on the policy and where were they conducted? What were the details mulled over in the discussion?
What were the advantages of the Delhi government’s excise policy?
Who made the ultimate decision to issue the tender notice, and who signed off on the tender terms and conditions?
What about R Gopi Krishan, the previous Excise Commissioner? What role did the former officer play in the policy’s implementation, and did he oppose it?
What was Vijay Nair’s involvement in developing the excise policy, and what are his ties to all of the liquor companies that received licences?
Was the excise policy opposed by Deputy Commissioner Anand Tiwari and Assistant Commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar?
Why do licence holders deposit money in the bank accounts of their acquaintances – Amit Arora, Dinesh Arora, and Arjun Pandey?
Meanwhile, as Manish Sisodia faces the questions of the Central agency, the AAP leaders and workers continue to wreak havoc outside the CBI headquarters. Several of them have been allegedly protesting and attempting to disrupt the functioning of the CBI.
Manish Sisodia branded the allegations against him “completely fake” hours before he was scheduled to appear before the CBI in connection with the liquor policy case. “They want to arrest me by registering a fake case against me. I had to go to Gujarat for election campaigning in the coming days. These people are losing in Gujarat badly. Their aim is to stop me from campaigning there. Whenever I went to Gujarat, I told people that we will build schools like Delhi for your children in Gujarat too,” Sisodia claimed in a series of tweets this morning.
जब जब मैं गुजरात गया, मैंने गुजरात के लोगों को यही कहा कि हम गुजरात में भी आपके बच्चों के लिए दिल्ली जैसे शानदार स्कूल बनायेंगे। लोग बहुत खुश हैं। लेकिन ये लोग नहीं चाहते कि गुजरात में भी अच्छे स्कूल बनें, गुजरात के लोग भी पढ़ें और तरक़्क़ी करें।
Manish Sisodia went to Rajghat before going to the CBI for the interrogation. While with his supporters, Sisodia said that they should be proud if he is in jail.
On August 19, Manish Sisodia was raided by the investigating agency in connection with the national capital’s liquor scam. The Delhi Excise Policy of 2021-2022 is at the crux of the controversy. The Delhi government’s now-cancelled liquor policy was first planned in 2020. It modified the way alcohol was sold in Delhi once it came into effect in November 2021.
The Delhi Excise Policy 2021-2022 allowed for the entry of private businesses into the sector. While the goal of Excise Policy 2021-2022 was to eliminate black marketing and the booze mafia, the AAP government was promptly criticized over charges of corruption. In the new liquor policy, Naresh Kumar, who was appointed Chief Secretary of Delhi in April 2022, discovered inconsistencies and procedural failures.
As per a report by the Chief Secretary, it is alleged that irregularities were perpetrated in amendments to the Excise Policy, offering disproportionate favours to licensees, waiving/reducing licencing costs, extending L-1 licences without authorization, and so on. It is further alleged that illicit proceeds from these operations were channelled through private parties to interested public officers, who subsequently made fraudulent entries in their books of accounts.
The FIR was filed on August 17, after the recommendation of Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena for a CBI investigation into the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22. Vijay Nair, the AAP’s communication in-charge and former CEO of entertainment and event management company Only Much Louder, Indospirit Group Managing Director Sameer Mahendru, and Hyderabad-based businessman Abhishek Boinpally have all been arrested in the case to date.
On 12 August 2022, a murderous attack on the author, Salman Rushdie, who was about to give a talk on the freedom of speech and expression at a New York literary event, delivered a mortal blow to people like us who held this liberty as a birthright.
In this creeping age of ‘wokeism’ and ‘cancel culture’ where people feel increasingly constrained about expressing themselves for fear of reprisal, the news of multiple stabbings of the celebrated literary figure was devastating.
On the tragic event, I wrote the following comment in TheNew York Times:
“It’s so sad, in Salman Rushdie’s case, a fatwa issued in 1989 was sought to be executed in 2022 by a man who wasn’t even born at that time nor was familiar with the context or controversy”.
As long as the power of fanaticism will keep growing on this earth, there will be an escalating necessity to preserve and promote the narratives of storytellers like Salman.
I was in New Delhi in 1989 when the controversy around the Satanic Verses erupted. I vividly remember at the initiative of the govt, the parliament passed a resolution banning the book. There was no discussion on the content, hardly any parliamentarian had read it. That was regretfully the respect shown to an author born in India and to free speech!
The Indian readers, in general, had no problem reading Salman, his innumerable accounts of Indian poverty, destitution or social divisions. In fact, they showed up in droves to listen to him after the ban on his travel was lifted.
Today, we have to stay vigilant and protect our right to free speech and expression that is constantly under assault from unexpected quarters.
The UK recently debated whether to remove the Holocaust from its school curriculum because it offended a section of the population. The story of 9/11 is also sought to be underplayed for the same reason.
Censorship imposed by the bullies on the freedom of putting across your own point of view (with civility), is a frightening proposition gripping the world.
Free countries appear to be giving into it.”
Spotlight on Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses returns
The brutal attack on Salman Rushdie sent us back into the year 1988 when the publication of his novel, The Satanic Verses, set off a trail of murder, arson and turbulence all around the world. Interpreting the imaginary multilayered story in the novel as a blasphemous attack on Islam, the Islamists bombed six bookstores in the United Kingdom, two in California; a community newspaper in New York was bombed because it had defended people’s right to read the book.
The terrorizing effect of the Islamists’ rampage was grim. One-third of the American bookstores stopped displaying the book; it was banned in at least 21 countries. In 1989, the Shiite Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa directing Muslims to kill Rushdie and his publishers.
In 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, an academic Japanese translator of the book, was killed; an Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was stabbed and seriously wounded. In 1993, the novel’s publisher in Norway was shot but survived. Book companies in France, West Germany, Greece and Turkey decided not to publish it; but publishers in Finland, Norway and Italy went ahead. A Turkish translator, Aziz Nesin, was attacked by Islamist arsonists while praying with others. The fire killed 37 people, though Nesin escaped.
Muslim clerics and government officials of Islamic countries, in coordination with Islamic organizations, were instructing Muslims to hunt and kill Rushdie or anyone associated with the publication and distribution of the novel. They had placed a $2.5 million bounty on Rushdie’s head. The U.K. put Salman Rushdie under police protection at his home in the United Kingdom for the better part of a decade and broke diplomatic relations with Iran over the fatwa. Normal relations were restored only after Iran pledged that it would no longer seek Rushdie’s assassination, a policy denied by the successor Ayatollah.
India was one of the first countries to ban the book, deeming it “hate speech”. In the anti-Rushdie riots (February 1989), at least 12 people died and 40 were wounded in Bombay; three people were killed and more than 100 were injured in clashes between the police and the rioters in the northern state of Kashmir. Syed Abdullah Bukhari, the chief Imam of the largest mosque, Jama Masjid, in Delhi, “endorsed Iran’s condemnation of Mr Rushdie and the calls for his killing.”[4]
What was there in the Satanic Verses that angered the Islamists?
When the Satanic Verses was banned in India, Rushdie responded by saying that the book wasn’t actually “about Islam, but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay.”
Rushdie’s novel did refer to a few sets of verses in the Quran that created controversies around whether or not Muhammad, the founder of Islam, had allowed his followers to worship the pagan goddesses. In Mecca, during his campaign, when Muhammad was confronted by the resisting Meccan tribes, he is said to have accepted the existence of the three goddesses, al-Lat, al-Uzza, and al-Manat (Quran 53:19, 20). Later on, he denied having done so and claimed that Satan had put such verses in his mind to fool him; they weren’t the revelations sent by God. And, therefore, they were removed from the Quran.
Devout Muslims never believed that such “Satanic Verses” ever existed; they were also not willing to accept that their ancestors in Arabia followed the pagan tradition of worshiping idols. According to their faith, before Muhammad and Islam, the world was ignorant (al-jahilliyah) and, therefore, there couldn’t be any positive painting of the pre-Islamic era. Just as idol worship was taboo, critiquing Muhammad and Islam was also unendurable.
Despite the Islamic references, the novel-reading literary world might have treated The Satanic Verses as an entertaining fairy tale and put it back on the shelf after the enjoyment of reading it. This literary work was short-listed for the Booker Prize and was the winner of a Whitbread Book Award in the same year (1988).
The Islamists around the world were, however, angered by the subject matter of Islam, Muhammad and the verses in the Quran being imaginary themes of a novel. Salman’s satire or indirect references to Islamic figures or traditions were picked up by the Islamists as a deliberate attempt at insulting their faith and the Ummah (the global Islamic community).
Rushdie’s attempt to mend fences with unforgiving Islamists
Having received the heat and the furor the novel had created in the Islamic world and more particularly considering the statement of the Iranian president, Ali Khameinei, to the effect that the death sentence might be withdrawn if Salman Rushdie publicly apologized, the Indian-born British author, then only 41 years old, issued a three-sentence statement on 19 Feb 1989:
“As the author of The Satanic Verses, I recognize that Muslims in many parts of the world are genuinely distressed by the publication of my novel. I profoundly regret the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam. Living as we do in a world of many faiths, this experience has served to remind us that we must all be conscious of the sensibilities of others.”
On 24 Dec 1990, Salman Rushdie announced the affirmation of his faith in Islam and asked Viking-Penguin, the publisher of The Satanic Verses, neither to issue the book in paperback nor to allow it to be translated.
On 28 Dec 1990, he wrote a piece in The New York Times wherein he appeared to be trying hard to buy peace with the Islamists. In that endeavour, however, he penned expressions that could be seen as complete volte face to his rebellious-iconoclastic reputation as a literateur. It almost amounted to capitulation.
He began by “his decision to affirm the two central tenets of Islam — the oneness of God and the genuineness of the prophecy of the Prophet Muhammad” – and then, added:
“I have been finding my own way towards an intellectual understanding of religion, and religion for me has always meant Islam. That journey is by no means over. I am certainly not a good Muslim. But I am able now to say that I am a Muslim; it is a source of happiness to say that I am now inside, and a part of, the community whose values have always been closest to my heart.”
Pinning high hopes on the outcome of his meetings with a few Islamic scholars, Salman said, “Well, I’m now inside the family, and now Muslims can talk to Muslims and continue the process of reconciliation..” Salman Rushdie had been led into believing that in “many Muslim countries and communities around the world,” the ‘mood of affection’ had begun to replace ‘anger.’
What sounded like bending over backwards to please the Islamists, Rushdie wrote, “My meeting with the scholars, who declared themselves satisfied with my sincerity, is the traditional Islamic way of resolving an issue of alleged offence against Muslim sanctities.” He concluded by saying, “What I know of Islam is that tolerance, compassion and love are at its very heart.”
Even though Salman Rushdie appeared to be kneeling down before the Islamists to buy their forgiveness, to his credit, he didn’t give in to the pressure of ‘total withdrawal’ of the novel. Many of its readers had found The Satanic Verses to be of value, and “I cannot betray them,” he asserted.
Later on, Salman Rushdie disavowed his claim to embrace Islam and admitted that he had done so to get the fatwa lifted. He called his efforts to appease extremists (by accepting restrictions on the novel) the “biggest mistake of my life.” When Rushdie was asked if he still considered himself a Muslim, he replied: “I am happy to say that I am not.”
Islamic Terrorism and Freedom of Speech and Expression
Thirty two years later, when Rushdie fell victim to the Ayatollah’s fatwa in reality, it raised, to my mind, two leading questions:
First, why and how has the sense of revenge in the Islamic faith persisted for so long? It was mentioned somewhere that in the Shia sect the fatwas normally die with the death of the clergy who had issued them. Doesn’t this revenge killing come from the Islamic preachings or the Islamic cultural tradition?
In June 1989, a Guinean-born Lebanese man, calling himself Mustafa Mazeh, had blown himself up in a hotel in Paddington, West London, preparing a bomb to kill Rushdie. On the same pattern, Hadi Matar, a young man born in the US to Lebanese parents prepared himself to wreak vengeance on Salman Rushdie in 2022. Both Mustafa Mazeh and Hadi Matar, 32 years apart, appeared to be under the spell of the same Islamic preachings of Khomeini.
It’s important to note here that the internecine blood feuds between different sects of Islam were also a testimony to the enmity based on diverse theological interpretations of their faith and preachings: only “sword and blood” could settle a dispute. The Shia-Sunni mutual killings were as old as the founding of the faith itself.
The second question bothering me was if people in the free world had to really guard their freedom of speech and expression in such a way as not to be “offensive” or “insulting” to anyone. Is it true if Salman Rushdie hadn’t offended Muslims around the world, he wouldn’t have met fate as he did? After all, the Islamic terror had silenced or subdued a large part of the literary world that could have been more outspoken in critiquing Islamism or Muhammad. In 1988, the Left unreservedly extended full support to Salman Rushdie for his freedom of expression.
The free world could also be faced with a situation as to who would stand by them when their freedom of speech and expression sanctioned by the Human Rights Charter and separate constitutions were to be restricted or taken away: the politicians, the big tech companies, the media outlets or the people’s consciousness and power?
How dependable are the politicians?
Politicians couldn’t be trusted. They would prefer to be politically correct and pander to the Islamo-Leftists for votes. They usually spoke from both sides of their mouth. For example, Jimmy Carter, the former U.S. president, called Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa of death against Salman Rushdie “abhorrent” and declared it to be “our duty” to protect the author and “honour Western rights of publication and distribution.” But, in the same breath, he added that “we should be sensitive to the concern and anger” that prevailed among “the more moderate Moslems.” Jimmy Carter alleged that The Satanic Verses went “much further in vilifying the Prophet Mohammed and defaming the Holy Koran.”
Reputed for his advocacy for human rights, Jimmy Carter was a politician too. Stung by the Iranian US hostage crisis, and constantly engaged in Arab-Israel peace negotiations, he had a constituency in the Middle East and the Islamic world to win over. However, he was also a religious preacher at his church and knowledgeable about the challenges Christianity and other faiths faced against Islam. He had a grasp of Islam better than many followers of that faith. He should have explained how certain theological teachings of Islam were irreconcilable with the western concept of the freedom of speech and expression.
Freedom of Expression and the leading corporate info-tech companies
The major global tech companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter have greatly facilitated speedy information dissemination and empowered the weakest to communicate with the world. At the same time, however, they have put a garrote around the neck of every potential user, thereby holding their freedom of expression hostage. Recently, the suspension of President Trump’s Twitter and Facebook accounts while allowing Islamist terrorist organizations to use their services brought this contradiction to the fore. The giant tech companies can whimsically and indiscriminately make the playing field uneven.
The media outlets
Major media outlets were also mysteriously promoters of the Islamo-Leftist agenda of curtailing the freedom of speech and expression of people they disagreed with. To illustrate with an example, following the stabbing of Salman Rushdie, The New York Times, ran an opinion piece, wherein the writer, instead of unequivocally supporting the freedom of the author, revived the controversy around The Satanic Verses and stressed that the “battle lines” around the novel were “never clearly drawn.”
The writer apparently endorsed the arguments of the Islamo-Left that it was “wrong to give offence to certain people, certain groups, certain religions, and so on..” She stressed that the conversation over free speech had shifted among the “younger progressives” and a new “notion” was gaining ground that “offensive speech” was “violence.” They “increasingly critiqued the principle of free speech as too often providing cover for hate speech.”
The readers are the best guarantors of free speech and expression
An overwhelming number of the New York Times left-leaning readers didn’t buy this argument supposed to have been made by the ‘younger progressives’. Their consensus appeared to be: Words couldn’t “offend” and cause “violence” as long as the power to make a counter-speech was available. If censorship was sought to be imposed through coercive methods, both the Left and the Right would be tempted to resort to it. In Salman Rushdie’s own words, freedom of expression would cease to exist without “the freedom to offend”. There were many uncomfortable ways literature and art could question society, making fun of faith and its founder didn’t pass the threshold of hate speech.
Furthermore, it was not possible to produce any powerful creative art without offending someone. In the USA, the words of Martin Luther King Jr. offended millions, and so did the play, Hamilton. The art of Robert Mapplethorpe (a creative American photographer) and Robert Rauschenberg (an American painter and graphic artist), the writings of Toni Morrison, or virtually any artistic expression made millions feel affronted or insulted. If “comfort,” “sentiments” or “feelings” were the restraining considerations, one would never have challenged the perspective, preconceptions, biases, or interpretations of others.
In the author-reader relationship, moreover, the rule has always been very simple: “Don’t like it, don’t read it – no book should ever be banned or destroyed and no author should be attacked for what they write.”
With a sense of setback, one will have to give credit to the Islamists (and terrorists) who with the aid of the Leftists changed this rule of behaviour. Now, authors, opinion makers or public figures who could have spoken fearlessly and condemned attacks on the freedom of speech and expression preferred to stay silent.
In their defiant killing spree, the Islamists and their brain-washed terrorist foot soldiers seem to be telling the world that any critical or even allegorical reference to their Faith (that included the Founder, the Book and the Hadees) might cost them their lives. In India, the controversy surrounding the statement of Nupur Sharma, a BJP official, and the subsequent chain of murders by the Islamists were the latest examples of a murderous worldwide cult that is gaining in strength.
There’s no scope to be gloomy, however. In the end, the pen will be mightier than the sword and the tide of freedom and liberty will prevail.
Let’s be assured Salman Rushdie’s own words of confidence in the triumph of the freedom of expression over the forces of terror and death will keep inspiring the world.
“A poem will not stop a bullet. A novel cannot defuse a bomb. But we are not helpless. The battle is not only on the battlefield. Even after Orpheus was torn to pieces, his severed head, floating down the river Hebrus, went on singing, reminding us that song is stronger than death. We can sing the truth and name the liars. We can stand in solidarity with our fellows on the front lines and magnify their voices by adding our own …. We can emulate Orpheus and sing on in the face of horror, and not stop singing until the tide turns, and a better day begins.”
