1984: More Relevant Than Ever

 

There are many books which we may like to read, but somehow fall through the cracks of our 'sick hurry and divided aims' (my apology to Matthew Arnold). For me George Orwell's 1984 was one such book. Though I have read his Animal Farm and a couple of his short stories, but this dystopian classic has languished in my reading list for long. Recently I decided that it was high time I laid my hands on it.

Since we are in the middle of a pandemic, I decided not to take a chance of visiting my favourite second-hand bookshops, but order them online. In a way I feel picking up 1984 at this juncture was pertinent - as some of the worst prophecies in the book are coming true only now. Big data surveillance is the new buzzword for both governments and technology giants and our lives are getting mapped, overtly and covertly, by them.

The first chapter of 1984 sets the stage for the futuristic world where surveillance is all pervasive. The 'big brother' watches you through a telescreen which can be dimmed but not shut off. Written in 1949, Orwell had foreseen how television will become a major propaganda tool.

The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a citizen of Oceania which is ruled with an iron fist by one Big Brother of Ingsoc (English Socialism) party, who off an on keeps appearing on the telescreen. Then there is Emmanuel Goldstein the erstwhile comrade of Big Brother, but now branded as enemy of the people.

Smith works for a department known as office of truth, but is torn between his fear for Big Brother and a sneaking admiration for Goldstein. He writes a diary knowing fully well the perils of such an exercise. He risks being charged with thoughtcrime - harbouring unorthodox thoughts, such as unspoken beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc.

At times he also wonders about the pointlessness of writing a diary. If caught by the thought police, he would not just face death but total annihilation - the diary will be reduced to ashes and he will be 'vaporized' from the records. For rest of the citizenry such a person never existed.

Oceania is constantly at war with one country or another and its friends and foes keep changing like musical chairs. Smith's department is constantly updating the records as the party wants its citizens to forget and remove from their consciousness that today's friend was actually a foe a couple of years ago and vice versa.

The party believes who controls the past, controls the future and who controls the present, controls the past. With constantly shifting enemies it is forever on a 'manufacturing consent' mode.

Another major project in progress is the compilation of a dictionary in Newspeak - the language of Oceania, as opposed to Oldspeak. The aim is to reduce the number of words by weeding out synonyms and thereby narrow down the range of consciousness of the people. Winston's colleague and philologist Syme believes it will bring down thoughtcrime as there will be no words to express it!

When 1984 was published the reviewers were quick to interpret it as a critique of Communist societies that had sprouted in Europe after World War II, backed by Soviet Union. The overarching presence of the party machinery and the curtailment of liberties for common citizens led to this conclusion.

However, in the current post-Soviet era it is becoming clear that even democratically elected leaders are no less ambitious about exercising greater control over citizens. This trend has been on the rise since the tragic 9/11 attacks and quite often these overreaches are couched in reasons such as safety and security to make it more acceptable to the people.

But what is more closer to the Orwellian nightmare is the rise of tech companies, especially in the social media space such as Facebook, Twitter and Google and the repository of information they maintain about their users. And sadly, unlike governments, they cannot be voted out.

Yet another unsettling byproduct is the dark web - an amoral underbelly attracting amateur and professionals out to make a fast buck by conning users, stealing data and carry out malware attacks. No amount of safety infrastructure is proving enough of a deterrent to firewall data from these criminals.