An uphill battle for Prajakeeya

Last Updated on June 12, 2023

There is no doubt that Prajakeeya’s ideas of Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency are well established and implemented in its SOP – Standard Operating Procedure. This is the key to a better and bright future – a more humane, equal, inclusive, just, and prosperous society. And, also this has already given power back to people where it has come to power. However, with the ideology being too radically different from Rajakeeya, people are having a hard time understanding the party.

People who can understand the ideology and more importantly, its SOP are surely seeing Prajakeeya’s true potential. However, there are many who still couldn’t understand how the party functions and some even think it is impractical. It seems the current state of Rajakeeya is to be blamed for making Prajakeeya appear impractical. However, it goes much deeper than that.

In this post, I will explain why Prajakeeya fights against not just Rajakeeya but also mainstream cultural hegemony. I will take you through Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, mainstream culture, and Prajakeeya to show that Rajakeeya is only just the tip of the iceberg of what Prajakeeya is up against.

Karl Marx’s prediction and why it hasn’t been realized

In short, Karl Marx predicted that one day workers will realize their exploitation by capitalists. Then, workers will rise up and overthrow the capitalists. And, this would be the end of capitalism. Exploitation here means – Stolen Labor – Profit – being paid less than the market value of goods/services produced by a worker.

As we know there is no sign of workers taking over. And, capitalists still rule the economy and society at large. So, his prediction didn’t come true. In fact, the opposite has happened since the late 1980s, especially after Ronald Raegan and Margaret Thatcher implemented neoliberal policies in their countries and made them popular elsewhere in the world. Some have even become monopolies. If not monopolies, oligopolies, where few handfuls of companies rule the market, colluding to price fixes at the expense of customers. Companies have formed trade associations to protect their interests but they don’t allow workers to form labor unions.

Except for 2 big co-operative companies in Karnataka – KMF(Nandini) and HOPCOMS, others are all capitalists. Even, they are founded out-of-necessity by farmers to protect their livelihood with the help of Govt. This is because even if there is a profit, the profit margin is very slim and no capitalist would think it is worth the risk working with farmers unless they become farmers themselves with machinery.

So, capitalists don’t want to give up power by turning their companies into a co-operative because that would be bringing democracy to the company’s governance, and thereby, workers would have more say in their work. At least, companies could allow labor unions. But, we only see Labor unions mostly in Government organizations.

Karl Marx’s prediction and Prajakeeya Ideology

Karl Marx predicted that workers will overthrow capitalism in The Communist Manifesto in 1848. He incorrectly came to the conclusion that workers will realize their exploitation and strike back against the capitalists. I think the Prajakeeya has come to the same conclusion that people will one day realize the Prajakeeya’s ideas and, therefore, realize their power to take charge of the system. All they have to do is make sure that Prajakeeya’s ideas are reached to people.

It has been more than 170 years since the communist manifesto was written. Yet, workers have not only not realized their exploitation but are also poorly organized.

In the same way, Prajakeeya’s ideas – Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency are not new.

Granted that, the party’s SOP and application of technology are new. With IT and new decentralized technologies, Prajakeeya does seem to have an upper hand. However, the party has much bigger challenges to face.

Antonio Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony

Prajakeeyans believe in running the party/awareness program without cash, leader, or campaigning(rally or otherwise). Many people still don’t understand how the party works, which is through people’s participation – Responsibility in the party’s ART Governance.

It is no surprise that people who are new to Prajakeeya and seeing it through a lens of Rajakeeya will see cashless, leaderless, and campaign-free to be out-of-touch with reality. This is an expected reaction from them. This is because the only reality they had seen before Prajakeeya was Rajakeeya. Once, Prajakeeyans explains how the party is organized and how it operates without these 3 elements – Cash, Leader, and Campaign, then they will begin to see it as much closer to becoming real than their initial impressions.

However, it still leaves them with some doubt over the feasibility of Prajakeeya’s ideas. This doubt could still be arising from Rajakeeya’s lens. But, there is a much more important thing at play here like Antonio Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony.

For those who don’t know him, Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist. He was imprisoned by the Italian fascist regime from 1926 to 1935. He started writing a long series of essays, what is now called Prison Notebooks to answer one troubling question he had- “why didn’t Marx’s prediction come true?“

In his prison notebooks, he wrote the ruling class(capitalists) not only use force to rule but also, more importantly, by manufacturing consent – voluntary agreement. We passively accept ideas from dominant ideology or culture without deliberately thinking about them. This happens all the time. Even when we consciously recognize it. We tell ourselves this is just the way things are and there’s little use in trying to fight the natural order.

This dominant ideology and its expression in our lives are not hard-and-fast rules like the laws of physics. They are just Social Constructs – human behavior and interactions that we can change if we want to.

The best example of dominant ideology/culture is the innocuous idea of how we greet one another when we meet – either by saying Namaste(Namaskara) or Shaking hands. This has become the dominant way of greeting someone. We have to note that before the arrival of Western Globalisation and Britishers to India, we had only one way of greeting – Namaste(Namaskara). Then, we passively accepted shaking hands, especially in the business world as another form of greeting. Here, we can see that Shaking hands is the dominant idea that can replace Namaste(dominated idea) and has already done so in the business world.

Another example is cricketers being more popular than other sports stars. Cricket sport in general is more popular than any other game even when we have hockey as our national game. We can easily which one is more dominant when we compare the Indian Premier League against Hockey India League. The last tournament of the Hockey India League was held in 2017 as opposed to the mighty IPL.

The dominant cultural ideology is produced and reproduced in Education, Media, Movies, the Legal system, Religion, etc. This is not just in a political and economic system like the 2 examples mentioned above.

Application of Cultural Hegemony

Is cultural hegemony a hurdle to Prajakeeya? Let’s see below in detail how that is so.

In the following sections, I will take the main ideas of Prajakeeya one by one and show how they are not dominant but dominated ideas.

Leaderless
This idea clearly goes against the Rajakeeya. But, it doesn’t end there. Everywhere else we look, we find leaders in Religion, Business, Corporations, Movies & Civil Societies like – community groups, NGOs, labor unions, charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, etc.

More importantly, even in schools, underperforming kids are asked to “follow” the “topper”. From the school itself, children have been taught to toe the line. So, people have always been looking for someone to receive and follow their orders from. This is our dominant culture. So, Prajakeeya’s concept goes against this.

This doesn’t mean that a leaderless idea is not possible. It is just the way things are now. This is the reality we have created for ourselves. If we want, we can change it. Again, it is just a social construct.

We have also seen that in ants, bees and termites, there are no leaders or middle managers for that matter. Yet, they are able to perform collective tasks perfectly. Some say they are specialized for a specific task like an assembly-line worker. That is not exactly true they switch groups all the time.

They obtain food, build nests, and defend their colonies without a leader. Then, this begs the question, in order to simultaneously manage multiple tasks, how do they keep track of how many are involved in each task. One theory is that they do it based on the number of interactions they have with others. If they are more interactions that means too many are involved in the task so they will switch to another task.

Cashless
Cash, by extension here, means money. Cash is king not just in politics but also in life in general. Cash runs the economy. Cash puts food on the table. Cash has even become an incentive or a motivation to get people to work hard with bonuses, hikes, promotions, etc.

If anything is free of charge, cash, or money, people immediately suspect its authenticity and quality. Sometimes, consumers even justify higher prices of products for their perceived higher quality.

In this age where not only voters are selling themselves for cash but also politicians even if it means destroying government. The situation has gotten so worse that no one makes a move in politics without cash at play.

Not just in politics, people love to spend and consume not only to fulfill their needs and wants but also to showcase their status with luxury items.

Higher is your education and healthcare cost, better quality is the service you get.

Cash is deeply ingrained in our culture.

When everyone is running after cash, earning loyalty & trust without cash might take a long time, even if you are into social service, to say the least.

Cash is associated with power, not just the purchasing power but also social and cultural power. Therefore, a party without cash is perceived as a “weak” party.

Prajakeeyans can counter this cash culture by first acknowledging the existence of the dominant cash culture. Then, showing how the party performs its operations transparently and How representatives are accountable without cash. Therefore, there is no scope for funny business at the party.

Campaign-free
Of all the things rallies and processions are about, a show of strength and solidarity is the most important one.
Processions in Religion have been there for thousands of years. Processions are also popular in marriage.

Campaigning also has deep roots in our culture, especially, in the sales and marketing part of the business. Every company has public relations team/department to protect and promote their brands with campaigns – social media or otherwise. Even governments have public relations departments.

The marketing department is responsible for the countless number of ads with cheap tricks like sex, exaggeration, appeal to insecurity/fear, etc to sell products.

No movie has been successful just by word-of-mouth without marketing.

Prajakeeyans have to call out the people who support Rajakeeya for some cash, alcohol, etc, and say that they are sell-outs and are part of astroturf as opposed to, a true grass-roots movement with Prajakeeya.

In conclusion, Prajakeeyans have to understand that their ideas are not only against Rajakeeya but also the dominant culture of our society. If dominant culture is mainstream then Prajakeeya is a counter-culture. Therefore, we have to have counter-hegemonic narratives and projects. It is a long ride. Hold on tight until Praje becomes Prabu.

Prajakeeyans, if need to, should be ready for self-defensive campaigns(not attacks on others) to protect the party’s image and reputation. I understand this is not part of Prajakeeya right now. But, the party also must think of the worst-case scenario because ಅಡಿಕೆಗೆ ಹೋದ ಮಾನ ಆನೆ ಕೊಟ್ಟರೂ ಬಾರದು. Once reputation is lost, everything is lost.

Given the party’s counter-culture ideas, I am writing another post entirely about how the party should communicate its ideas to new people and it also deals with saving the party’s reputation before it is too late.