Skip to main content

Nineteen Eighty-Four

The title of George Orwell’s celebrated novel could have been 2024 and its setting India.

Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling party. Like anyone else in the country, he is also under the constant surveillance of Big Brother, the omniscient ruler of the country. Big Brother’s Party controls everything including the people’s history and language and even their thoughts. Certain words are banned from Newspeak, the official language. Even nurturing rebellious thoughts is criminal and ‘thought-crime’ is the worst. Winston works in the Ministry of Truth which is rewriting the history of the country. Even love is a crime and so Winston has to keep his love for Julia secret. Winston is trapped eventually by the spying police and is subjected to severe brainwashing. Finally he begins to love Big Brother and to have no feelings whatever for Julia whom he has betrayed.

My summary doesn’t do justice to Orwell’s great work. Frankly, I had never considered 1984 a great work until recently when my country began to resemble the country in the novel. I had never thought that there would ever be a country like the one Orwell had imagined in the novel. But alas!

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” That is from the novel. Any right-wing authority in my country today could have said it as well with slight modifications.

“’Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’” I hope you are aware of what our present government is doing to the history textbooks in schools and colleges.

The rewriting and manipulations and brainwashing are so effective in Orwell’s country that within 20 years people forget what was promised to them and what they had hoped for. Was life better before the Revolution? They can’t even remember the time before the Revolution!

Comrade Ogilvy is a hero in Big Brother’s country. He had died in battle, in heroic circumstances. Only, there never was any Comrade Ogilvy. “A few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs brought him into existence.”

The Mahatma will go as a villain and his killer will come as the hero. And a lot of new heroes will enter the textbooks. 


PS. This post is part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2023

Previous Post: Mona Lisa

Coming up on Monday: Octlantis

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. JaiApril 15, 2023 at 8:11 AM

    Absolutely on the dot Tom. Agree with every word. Goebbels used to say if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth. That is what is happening right now. History textbooks are being changed to brainwash young minds is meant for erasing historical figures of relevance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yamini MacLeanApril 15, 2023 at 8:14 AM

    Hari OM
    Oh yes, there is much to compare from that prescient work... YAM xx
    (ta for asking - am fine, just some big decisions in process which will be revealed along the way.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. CareenaApril 15, 2023 at 10:42 AM

    I often wonder if the present government will end up banning 1984 because it revels their MO and serves as caution to the citizens but then i shake my head because they've been able to take over so blatantly. Clearly they have no fear of cautionary tales. Maybe because they know low literacy in India can be used as a weapon...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2023 at 10:40 PM

      Low literacy is the real secret. Low thinking. No thinking, rather.

      Delete
  4. docdivatravellerApril 15, 2023 at 2:24 PM

    Changu textbooks won't change history. The next generation needs to know the truth.
    www.docdivatraveller.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. vanderloostApril 15, 2023 at 9:31 PM

    What we think our history is may be another rewrite. Who knows?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2023 at 10:13 PM

      Palimpsest. My post on letter P is on the way - about rewriting.

      Delete
  6. DeepikaApril 17, 2023 at 12:06 PM

    1984 had made a good read. But i will not comment on the political situation as i realise your and my views are different

    ReplyDelete
  7. Chinmayee Gayatree SahuApril 18, 2023 at 12:17 AM

    A great narration and I feel equally sad too

    ReplyDelete
  8. जितेन्द्र माथुरApril 18, 2023 at 1:23 PM

    I have read only the summary of 1984 and not the complete text of the book. All the same, your comparison of the same with the present situation and happenings in India is spot on. I have read Animal Farm penned by George Orwell only and after reading it completely the thought that came to my mind was that its plot also could be compared to certain developments in India post-independence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 18, 2023 at 5:09 PM

      Yes, Animal Farm can remind us of India. 1984 is more like India of the present time.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
33 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Empuraan and Ramayana

Maggie and I will be watching the Malayalam movie Empuraan tomorrow. The tickets are booked. The movie has created a lot of controversy in Kerala and the director has decided to impose no less than 17 censors on it himself. I want to watch it before the jingoistic scissors find its way to the movie. It is surprising that the people of Kerala took such exception to this movie when the same people had no problem with the utterly malicious and mendacious movie The Kerala Story (2023). [My post on that movie, which I didn’t watch, is here .] Empuraan is based partly on the Gujarat riots of 2002. The riots were real and the BJP’s role in it (Mr Modi’s, in fact) is well-known. So, Empuraan isn’t giving the audience any falsehood as The Kerala Story did. Moreover, The Kerala Story maligned the people of Kerala while Empuraan is about something that happened in the faraway Gujarat quite long ago. Why are the people of Kerala then upset with Empuraan ? Because it tells the truth, M...
13 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
8 comments
Read more