……THE TRUTH IS THE GREATEST ENEMY OF THE STATE

In philosophical terms ‘absurd’ means logically possible but not necessarily by human experience.

What happened today in the country was an election which with the help of “engineering” will look logically very possible but the human experience would make it look dubious.

When I went out for my walk today in the afternoon, I had the typical Pavlovian reaction one has on hitting the city streets; looking left and right with the maximum alacrity allowed by our neck muscles, trying to look with eagle eyes at oncoming danger of all the street bustle, swaying left and right like a figure skater. My senses got a shock when none of these drastic movements were required. The streets were virtually deserted.

After walking suspiciously in this funereal atmosphere I reached my regular tea-stall area. Usually there are six or seven of them churning out millions of cups of tea, but today only one stall were open. He was doing brisk business since everyone wants a cup on a winter afternoon. But I found he was hurrying to close shop and telling everyone to hurry. When pointed to the fact that he was the only one open and all the business was his, he looked up at the face of the man who pointed out the fact and said with an anticipation of impending danger that it was “too quiet”.

The rickshaw pullers were hawking for passengers contrary to other days when they show irritation. Today they were willing to take passengers to the moon for ten bucks. The streets were manned very zealously by police as well as the paramilitary forces; I saw a helicopter circling above.

What I didn’t see were throngs moving to the polling centres with fanfare. I saw a group of about fifty men going someplace without any challenges from the law enforcers; someone told me that they were “polling agents”.

I am sure the state-run media will show a hefty turnout and casting at the polling stations. Without the privately run TV channels a person would have believed the fairy tale.

The tea-seller, the rickshaw pullers and the government media make one think of a totalitarian state. The government ministers will speak to the press in the evening firmly believing the quote attributed to the most infamous propagandist in history, Joseph Goebbels

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Dhaka, 5th January 2014.

© S M Shahrukh and Traces of Orange, 2014.