PRICKS !!!!

Dear P.R.I.C.K.S

I could not help coining this acronym which incidentally stands for - Powerful Rich Influential Celebrities Knowledgeable Successful - and though meant to be positive is also said with a certain hint of sarcasm. By Knowledgeable I refer to those generally considered as “Intellectuals” in our society and so the “I” can also mean that apart from Influential.

Let me also state at the outset that I am addressing the diaspora of PRICKS here – from Modi to Lalloo, Amitabh to Anupam,  Sonia Gandhi to Brinda Karat, Sunny Leone to Nandita Das, Capitalists to Communists and so on. This has no politics, no religion, and no caste implications.

I was motivated to write this after reading what Nandita Das had to say in Sunday Times of India. Frankly I agree with her for the most part and my sympathies with her. I have infact written about this earlier but in passing.

Firstly every one of you PRICKS need to wake up, smell the coffee and face the reality of this world. A world that has changed and will continue to change remorselessly and if you don’t change, adapt, you will be left outraging, frustrated, angry and finally ignored. The one class of people amongst you who will yet again emerge winners are those politicians who are grass root, “uncouth, uneducated” as many an arm chair intellectual would label them. Even the dynastic politicians are likely to get run over by this speeding global truck changing lanes like an Indian driver since they may just not be in touch with the grassroots.

Since the day when a guy called Columbus landed in America thinking it was India, the world is now wired, connected in real time.  A suitably designed watch or ring can help us locate the person exactly to the last meter. You can sit in Bengaluru and control the temperature of the air-conditioner in your bedroom in Amsterdam to play a trick on your spouse. These are solutions that we already have, not science fiction.

In to this wired world came in 2 platforms – Facebook and Twitter apart from some other similar media solutions that connected and wired the global population.  India has a Facebook user count of 125 Million, Twitter 23 Million users per month and Internet about 400 Million. While this is still low given the multiple accounts, access to internet, digital infrastructure and Smartphone’s the growth rate is mind boggling and given our jugaad mindset the way it is leveraged and used simply breathtaking. The speed of change is also equally breathless.

The changes this has brought about can be seen from the fact that for 67 years the Finance Minister of India “invited” a Tata, Ambani, Birla, Bajaj, some influential trade union leader, a popular farmer leader or even a famous film star to give government inputs for the budget. This handful of exclusive folks living in their ivory towers decided what was good for a Billion people. And if the people didn’t like it, too bad. At best they could vote in the next elections, but do little else. Today in 2016 the FM has put out a public poll over Twitter for the first time seeking citizen inputs on what should be the focal areas for the 2016 budget. Very early days yet but that glass ceiling is now cracking. Soon within a few years this will mature into something more concrete, purposeful and powerful.

Arvind Kejriwal pioneered the involvement of the public in government decisions but unfortunately he has since abandoned it. Maybe he was a little ahead of the times but like many PRICKS he probably wanted to hear answers that he liked to hear. The dissenting feedbacks buried this excellent idea.

Even assuming 3 internet connection per person, the number of people with access to internet is still a staggering 130 Million and each one of these 130 Million have a subject they like, a problem they face, a belief that they have, a faith that they follow, a opinion to state on anything from cricket to politics to global terrorism and economics. And they are not afraid to articulate that view. They will advice a Sachin Tendulkar how to play a stroke and the Army General, how to handle the terrorists. Till now it was only the PRICKS who advised what the army should have done in a terror attack, how the commandos should have handled the situation and so on and a fawning media made that sound like the height of intellect.

We have seen how in recent times a stranded mother or child in a foreign country has tweeted to a minister and presto – action was taken and issues actually resolved. Another of our citizens – look at his temerity- tweets that he needs milk for his baby and the minister arranges it.  More recently this medium made the CM of a state intervene in a kidnap case which in earlier times none would even know of. Small one off incidents maybe, but with time and given ingenuity of the people this can be a force multiplier. The Karnataka police have launched unique systems to lodge FIR’s, policemen in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi interact with citizens online.  Even while many amongst us may not know, our defaults on credit card payments is already known to the whole world and so anyone wanting to deal with us will know our history.  I Know of a device that one can wear and in case of emergency will not only alert folks back home, allow real time tracking of your movement, alert nearby users of the service for help. Life as we knew it has already changed and the citizen is having a ball – making demands on ministers, abusing any  PRICKS  they dont like and like the ubiquitous ballot box exercising his “franchise” 24x7 instead of once in 5 years.

The problem comes when these PRICKS who had the monopoly of articulating their views on everything under the sun and for centuries had an audience which (they thought) listened to them, now find that the audience speaks back to them, at them. Suddenly, even if you are in an ivory tower surrounded by gun toting SPG commandoes the citizen is still able to talk to you.  You the PRICKS had a hobsons choice – dont embrace the medium and stay disconnected or get connected hoping to share your wisdom like you always did. Problem, the citizen now has the option to reply and he can correct your wisdom, laugh at you, mock you, abuse you, appreciate you, support you and in general freely and frankly share his innermost feelings to you.  You have now mounted a man eating tiger and you cant get off – either control him or get eaten. Darwin’s theory of “Survival of the fittest” will apply here.  Bigger problem – you PRICKS did NOT anticipate this.

Recently the most avid Twitterer Modi became the butt of jokes as he succumbed to “fastest finger first” and wished a global leader happy birthday 3 months in advance. Many others have had their hypocrisy, lies, opinions & facts  thrown back at them in real time by a vigilant citizen making them scurrying for cover.  Others like Rahul Gandhi have many jokes on them.  Let us remember “Laughter is the best Medicine”. More than any other weapon it is the public laughter that most affects the PRICKS and punctures them like a balloon & destroys them.

The citizens rightly or wrongly punish PRICKS as ruthlessly  as swatting a mosquito.  A Shahrukh Khan and Aamir Khan recently learnt this to their dismay but a Sunny Leone walked away with honors supported by Aamir Khan. The Delhi rape case in 2012 literally buried that govt. An implemented for long BRT of Sheila Dixit was finally scrapped, but if she had access to public opinion earlier maybe the program would not have been implemented at all. A political party had to swiftly deny admission to a thug they had accepted when citizen outrage exploded online and all this happened within hours.

As the net proliferates and usage increases, it is not very far off that the majority of the 1.2 Bil Indians will be online and dont be surprised at 1.2 Bil opinions. The PRICKS who used to judge themselves based upon the crowds in a cinema, the collection, the crowds at a rally, the number of votes now have to change and adapt to opinions they hear 24x7. Even the supreme court gets called out for its decisions and while the courts can continue to reign supreme, far longer than others, they will still be mocked, laughed at and forced to course correct. Whether you are a writer, artist, whatever, people will still talk about you and pass judgements, comments and brutal criticism. You can stay away from the online world, but that does not mean the feedback doesn’t reach your ears.

For the PRICKS there will no longer be abstract analysis in air-conditioned rooms based on what their assistants tell them, but direct brutal opinions told to them online in real time. Sure, they can find ways to filter, find ways to not listen, but that would only be against their own peril.

The reactions or “punishment” many a time maybe unwarranted, unfair, but let’s understand that this new media is a new animal. It will take time to mature and become a more potent force in the years to come. I foresee a time not very long into the future where instead of having a month long parliament elections you would have a day or two or three when every citizen wherever he is at that point in the world, can biometrically login and register his vote. As access to the net widens and breaks down every social and geographic barrier the world will become a truly global village. You can still have countries, wars, terrorism, diplomacy, governments but the way we live and work will be disrupted. No government except someone like North Korea can prevent or stop that. A China model can work in the short term, but the fact is even they have created similar platforms to avoid facing the heat. Diplomacy and foreign relations can and will get influenced by public opinion in real time.  While emotions will continue to affect this platform, over time algorithms, systems and procedures will filter these out and give you credible outputs. The scenarios shown in the TV “Person of Interest” serial are not exactly in the realm of science fiction, and find a place already. So all the more reason we citizens and the PRICKS in particular adapt to change.......fast.

Honestly my own personal opinion is that if one studies public reaction and opinion over time the complaints BY the PRICKS is unwarranted. The citizens who convey their opinions unequivocally condemning a person today for some act they believe inappropriate, they will appreciate and honor the same person the next day for something good. Just as in real life they forget and forgive and move on, so will they online – after all they are the same people, except that now they have a voice.

Like I said in an earlier blog, unlike the star anchor or journalist or commentator who showed off their “proximity power” by addressing fellow PRICKS by name, we now find that the common citizen can also do that online. So they have lost that exclusivity. The Berlin walls between the PRICKS and the hoi polloi is crumbling at a fast rate. There can be still disparity in wealth power etc but you can’t hide from public feedback.

In the past political parties hijacked issues and media played the pied piper to create opinions. Today people are not stupid. Somebody checks out the truth, somebody comes out with a contrarian opinion and someone else comes out with eye witness information and someone else will present facts about what a PRICKS said 3 years back under similar circumstances. With a plethora of communication options these get disseminated quickly, widely. A friend from Bengal told me how he was astounded to see the level of knowledge in his village about the activities of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi to the extent people were talking, joking, opinionated etc. He found that a few people got the news over SMS and they shared it with others. THIS is the reason why many a PRICKS are outraging everyday online about something or other, not because they have an issue in principle, but their emperors clothing are being removed to expose the truth within. This sudden onslaught of public opinion, in real time has scared them and they have no idea what to do.

Till recently many in the media would refuse to accept that their role and credibility had diminished. But recently a very senior PRICKS journalist publicly confessed as much and said openly that if media doesn’t change, they can be in trouble.  

Many of the PRICKS who liked to sermonise and hear the sound of their own voice quickly found a solution – they simply blocked anyone who disagreed with them and some even made their online space “by invitation” only. Now these PRICKS could continue to lecture about freedom of speech, freedom of expression, democracy, without anyone contradicting them. These folks may think they are smart, but they are the laughing stock online. If they think that this solves the problem, it doesn’t. Opinions about you will continue to count, and now you have shut off that one tap that gave you feedback to correct yourself.  Without feedback you will become fossilised and extinct.

This is why I said the grassroots politicians will always win. None can change as fast as they can, recognise change like they can and most importantly anticipate change like they can. The rest of us with even Ivy League education, including many of the PRICKS get swept by the waves and carried away to swim and ride the waves or drown. For many of us it is by default. For the grassroots politician it is by design.  If any proof was needed on these just notice that Modi joined Facebook and Twitter in 2009, Kejriwal in 2011, Nitish Kumar and Lalloo joined in 2010/2012 though they took a while to leverage the medium.  BJP joined in 2009, the Congress in 2013, the CPM in 2014 and even the AAP a new born joined in 2012. On the other hand Rahul Gandhi joined in 2015 as his office and not his personal self, and many of his senior/junior colleagues either haven’t joined, or if joined, recently, and even then with little activity. Some of the dynastic young politicians with fancy Ivy League degrees, royalty and what have you rarely even communicate, let alone interact with the people. Some exceptions have been Varun Gandhi in 2010 and Milind Deora in 2011. BOTH these gents have adapted to the medium and connect with the people. On the whole the differences are stark between the entitled PRICKS and the grassroot PRICKS.

If you want further proof just see the level of success, brand recognition and top of the mind recall between the “ordinary” early movers and the hoity toity PRICKS.