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.

Just For Laughs: Shilpa Shetty in Blunderland

"They should include books like Little Women, as it encourages respect towards women at a young age. Even a book like Animal Farm can teach the little ones to love and care for animals,” thus spake Shilpa Shetty, the original leggy lass of Bollywood, until the likes of Deepika Padukone came along.

The winner of Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother in 2007 was responding to the recent move by the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education students (ICSE) to include Harry Potter, Tintin and Amar Chitra Katha as part of the English syllabus. Lauding the ICSE for the 'great move' she said it would help cultivate imagination and creativity at a young age.

This foot in tonsils remark regarding George Orwell's Animal Farm may or may not have caused a few cracks in the grave of the famous British novelist and short story writer, but for Twitterati it was a mouth watering feast they couldn't resist and #ShilpaShettyReviews was among the top trending hashtags for hours.

Almost every other well known books ranging from classics like Three Musketeers (it's about three Malayalis from Muscat) to bestsellers like Fifty Shades of Grey (It is an amazing coloring book that children will love) were used to troll her. The other worthies were ‘The Hunger Games is a great series on Karwa Chauth’; 'The Fault In Our Stars is a book where two tragic lovers can't marry because of their kundlis' and Point Counter Point: Arnab Goswami makes a point. Then he counters himself. Then he makes another point. Then he pats himself on the back. The interviewee goes home, silently sobbing.

With the country going through a crippling cash crunch following demonetisation (another trending topic) of currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, the Twitterati was quite mindful to bring in that too - "Invisible Man is a searing story about RBI Governor Urjit Patel during demonetisation".

Shilpa Shetty's Phir Milenge co-star Salman Khan too landed at the wrong end of some hastag jousts - 'One Hundred Years of Solitude is basically Salman Khan's life story'; 'Deer Zindagi is about lives of deer in times of Salman Khan' and "Salman Khan calls #ShilpaShetty to see if the black bucks in her Animal Farm are doing okay."

Any discussion on Bollywood airheads is incomplete without reference to Alia Bhatt, who has been portrayed as the ultimate diva of ignorance-is-bliss school of thought. Many now felt Shilpa could take up Alia's mantle. 

However, amid this entire Twitterati titter, not many realised that the above news clip actually appeared not in some nondescript newspaper, but in one of the leading English dailies in the country. It needs to be asked why for an issue related to academics and education the publication thought it fit to look for a quote from an actress. Of late quotes from actors and actresses are elicited for almost any topic under the sun to sex up the story.

Secondly the reporter, who recorded the quote and the editor who put it on the page, both sleepwalked through the gaffe and allowed it to appear in print. These two are equally culpable as Shilpa Shetty ... or was it deliberately overlooked to stir up a social media storm? In this era of post-truth we never know.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat