The Authoritarian Crowd

Illustration by ChatGPT

Authoritarianism does not begin in the palace. It begins in the crowd.

I was struck by the above argument put forth by Karen Stenner (Australian political psychologist) and Jonathan Haidt (American social psychologist) in their essay in a book I mentioned earlier in two posts. Their exact words: “Authoritarianism is an attribute of the follower, not necessarily of the leader.”

I was tempted to apply the theory to the present political situation in my own country. The above essay says that “authoritarians are simple-minded avoiders of complexity more than closed-minded avoiders of change.” They are speaking about Donald Trump’s America or, more precisely, America’s Donald Trump.

Trump never deserved to be that country’s president with his blatant partisanship, arrogant temperament, and lack of leadership qualities. But he was elected by those Americans who were driven to “a momentary madness” engendered by global financial crisis, decline of manufacturing, and certain inevitable dislocations of globalism. Trump knew too well to deflect the anxieties of these Americans onto “easy scapegoats (migrants, refugees, terrorists)” for his own political gain. [All quotes from the book]

In fact, the Americans who voted Trump to power were authoritarians. They wanted order over diversity, unity over disagreement, and authority over deliberation. America had become so culturally diverse and politically chaotic that a sizeable section of the country’s population experienced a psychological threat and hence they elected a “strong” authority to restore order.

Something very similar happened in India too. “Hindu khatre mein hai,” Hindus are in danger – that was the starting point of the rise of Narendra Modi. There are about 1.1+ billion Hindus in India whose total population is 1.47 billion. That is, the vast majority are Hindus. There is no reason for them to feel endangered by the tiny minority. But they chose to feel endangered.

That is how the authoritarianism of the mob begins. Modi knew that game. He learnt it in his own state of Gujarat where he played with fire literally in 2002. It was the fire of fear, fear of the other, a fear that was politically engineered by Modi’s Chanakyan acumen.

Eventually, Jawaharlal Nehru was also drawn into that battle between Hindus versus Others. It was necessary to dwarf Nehru so that Modi could look big enough to be his successor. The irrational fear of Modi’s authoritarian followers needed that as much as Modi’s inferiority complex itself.

Stating it another way, Modi did not simply impose authoritarianism. Rather, his political style resonated with his followers who valued strong leadership, cultural uniformity, punishment (if not extermination) of perceived enemies, and distrust of dissent. A leader who centralises power, attacks critics, and frames minorities as threats was just what the ‘authoritarian’ Hindus wanted. And Modi subscribed to all the terms and conditions.

Did Modi initiate authoritarianism in the country or did his followers do it first?

That’s worth thinking about. Stenner and Haidt’s essay made me raise that question. After all, Modi was elected democratically even as Trump was.

What Stenner and Haidt are saying, in short, is: Authoritarianism is not simply the pathology of a ruler. It is a temptation within society itself. Leaders come and go, but the deeper question remains: what kind of citizens do we wish to be?