M Muaaz Saqib
THE contemporary world is connected through unfettered passage of communication and information in way that would have been simply incomprehensible merely a few decades ago. However, despite all this, the inhabitants of this world have still managed to be more divided from each other, as well as from the truth than any point at time since the end of the Cold War. It is said, “a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on”; this saying might be a little outdated in context to the current modern world, as nowadays a lie can easily travel around the globe several times over, before the truth even becomes aware of its existence. Most present-day world powers are being run by Populists who operate on basis that science is a sham, truth is optional, common sense/intelligence debilitating, prejudice a virtue, and ignorance, of course, a bliss. This is current dogma upon which campaigns of current populist leaders of some of the most powerful nations in the world, such as the United States of America, United Kingdom, Israel, Brazil, India among others, had been built upon.
The rapid rise of populism has made the world more unsafe and hostile than possibly ever before. This in turn has opened a floodgate, that has turned other vital organs of such states, such as the, legislature, judiciary and the media, into instruments of appeasement and propaganda. Such state institutions are now doing the job of appeasing the masses, most of whom don’t possess the tools for telling right from wrong, instead of regulating, policing, or providing accurate information to them; and as a result pushing the masses to make even further questionable decision, each more damaging than the previous one. Clear examples of the Judiciary succumbing to populist ideas include the Indian Supreme Court’s ruling on the Babri Masjid/Ram Mandir case, where the Indian Supreme Court favoured the Hindu Nationalist approach by citing, “The mandir ought to be there because the people believe their deity Ram was born there”, whereas the Mosque upon the land, demolished by Hindu nationalists, had stood there for all to see for more than three centuries. As a result of the setting of this precedent, Hindu nationalists have now laid claims to lands belonging to hundreds of mosques, claiming that they ‘believe’ other Hindu deities were born on those lands, and thus those mosques should be demolished to make temples.
Similarly, even recent examples would be that of the recent judgments of the Supreme Court of the US State Michigan and the decision of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, regarding lockdown measures taken to combat COVID-19. The decisions of both these respective courts have resulted in premature lifting of lockdown measure, in favour of the populist opinions, rather than hard scientific facts, or expert advice. Furthermore, both these decisions have resulted in the over-extension of the role of judiciary into the role of the executives, and have resultantly gone against their own respective previous judgements/case law of maintaining state/provincial autonomy, and separation of powers. So strong is the pull of populist ideas that two very different forms of judiciary, the American one which is directly appointed and regulated by the Senate; and the Pakistani one, which is entirely self-reliant in terms of regulation, and appointment, have reached a similar decision, despite there being overwhelming scientific material and expert opinion going against those judgements. The threat of such a populist approach has now become even clearer in the light of COVID-19 Pandemic, the President of the United States, which is the current global epicentre of the pandemic has shown a marked indifferent attitude to the pandemic, and the measures required to tackle it, this in turn has resulted in more than 110,000 deaths in the US in a span of a few months, significantly more than the entire number of US personnel killed during the entire Vietnam War. Furthermore, leaders of countries such as the US, Brazil and Pakistan have been advocating premature lifting of lockdowns, even before fully implementing it, while knowing full well, that this could prolong the pandemic, and in turn cause even more damage to their respective opinions.
Despite all this, these populist leaders have the support of their respective fanbase who are either too ignorant to be aware of the gravity of the situation, or simply lack the capacity to understand it. This is the ultimate tragedy and the most power weapon of populism, that the masses support such leaders because they think that those leaders represent the wishes of the masses; However, what the masses fail to understand is that those wishes/beliefs that their leaders are representing for them aren’t entirely their own, but in fact these already existing beliefs and prejudices have been changed and fed to the malleable minds of the masses by those very leaders, in a way that would personally benefit those leaders once they assume power through different methods of feeding false information, propaganda and subverting traditional community values. These methods of inception were honed to perfection by Adolf Hitler, and his Third Reich; and has since then been adopted by political parties around the world such as the GOP/Republican Party, the BJP/RSS, UKIP etc. Therefore, at the end of the day populist leaders, along with their regimes, benefit only themselves, and promote their own interests; and everyone, including them, end up being the loser in the long run.
—The writer is a practicing lawyer in the High Court of Sindh, Karachi.
