About 22 years ago, I saw the play ‘Waiting for Godot’ organised by playwright Ramanand Ainkai in Karnataka’s Sirsi. I was an undergraduate student at the time. The plot of that play and the inner intensity of those characters who wait for a power that never comes until the end haunted me. The uncertainty of the constant waiting and not knowing whether they will live to experience that power, struck a chord in my mind. When we look at politics and the society around us today, it feels like we have all become characters in the same play. We hear everywhere that whatever we do today, no matter how hard we work, it is for the next generation. So what is the value of the existence of today’s generation? Is our life worthless?The characters Vladimir and Estron in Samuel Beckett’s play spend their entire lives waiting for an invisible force called ‘Godot’. They have no idea who he is, what he looks like, what he will do when he comes; but they have a blind faith that if he comes, all their troubles will be over. Collective Godot complexIndian politics today has transformed into a massive collective ‘Godot complex’ that keeps its citizens in constant waiting, believing that today’s invisible exploitation is a patriotic sacrifice. This is not just a political lie; rather, it is a severe psychological spiral that makes the citizen celebrate his own destruction. Shocking cultural truths emerge when we compare the period of Emergency under Indira Gandhi and the current Narendra Modi regime against the backdrop of this ‘Godot complex’. Both these regimes sold different forms of ‘Godot’ to the citizens. However, today’s latent inertia is more destructive than the open dictatorship of history. “Acche Din Aane Wale Hai”, is the ultimate ‘Godot’ of this era. On the threshold of 2014, when Indian society was fed up with severe economic inertia, corruption scandals and policy paralysis, this slogan felt like a ray of light in a dark room. Just as Vladimir and Estron in Beckett’s play console each other by saying – “Godot will come tomorrow, and when he comes, everything will be alright” – to forget the hunger, cold, and despair they faced, Indians too swallowed the future pill of ‘Acche Din’ to ease the burning problems of their daily lives. It did not remain a mere political slogan; rather, it transformed into cultural opium that quelled the aspirations buried deep within the middle class and the poor. Every citizen linked the improvement of his personal life to the arrival of this invisible Godot.But the inconsistency of ‘Acche Din’ began to unravel soon. Initially, there were tangible economic promises of bringing back black money, creating jobs, and curbing inflation. But as years passed, and the backbone of the economy was broken with decisions like demonetisation, the system changed the logic of waiting. The government’s posturing was reminiscent of the character of the little boy in Beckett’s play; the boy who comes at the end of each day and says “Godot will not come today, but he will definitely come tomorrow”. The government’s propaganda machine plays the role of that boy, covering up the failures of the present in the name of future grandeur.To understand this, one does not need an analysis of Delhi politics; the contradictions of everyday life are enough. Consider a young graduate who is unemployed and compelled to work day and night as a Swiggy or Zomato delivery rider for Rs 10,000 a month. The price of petrol for his bike has crossed Rs 100 per litre. Yet he posts messages in WhatsApp groups saying, “Modiji will make India number one by 2047. Until then, we must wait and make sacrifices.” This willingness to forget the pain of today in favour of an imagined future is what I call ‘Modi Godot’.Another everyday example of this is a small areca nut farmer in our village. Due to extreme weather, disease and falling prices, his agricultural debts have been increasing day by day. Even when the bank notice arrives at home, the farmer sits in front of the TV and proudly says, “Our country’s Prime Minister is going to America and Europe to praise India, the world is celebrating us”. Even though the real crisis of his farm is before his eyes, this illusory ‘Acche Din’ being created on the global stage makes him forget his own frustration. Similarly, look at the small industrialist or shopkeeper around us. His business has fallen by half due to the impact of GST and demonetisation, and he struggles to file GST returns every month. But when the same businessman sits down for a chat in the evening, he justifies his own business losses by saying, “It may be a little difficult now, but one day China will come under our control, and everything will be fine when it becomes a 5 trillion economy”. Even though his pocket is empty today, he sits waiting for the ‘Godot’ of the imaginary grandeur of the country’s economy.Gopalakrishna Adiga, a pioneer of Kannada avant-garde poetry, aptly captured today’s situation in his poem ‘Prarthane’ in the following lines: “We are like bats clinging to the branches of the tree of our own imagination”. In the Indira Gandhi era, truth was imprisoned, but in the Modi era, truth is lost amidst many lies and the frenzy of pride. Here, there is an intensity that pushes people into the slavery of consent under the illusion that they are free.There are wonderful metaphors in our cultural world to explain this kind of blind support and mass hysteria. Today’s citizen stands blindfolded, looking at the coloured ‘buguri’ (spinning top) that has given him power. The citizen who celebrates that the whole world is coloured until the buguri turns, does not realize that the ground beneath his feet is collapsing. Like a deer that loses its life after running after a mirage in the hot summer sun, thinking that it will find water, today’s society is running after the mirage of 2047. The Modi mirageThere are strong psychological and social reasons behind this collective blindness. Indian society has been extremely loyal to the principles of destiny, karma and penance of enduring hardships. The political system has very cleverly made this cultural obedience its weapon. When politics is given the veneer of religion and civilisational pride, questioning the system is portrayed as blasphemy or treason. This works as a kind of social awareness to the entire society. People have already invested their feelings, effort and voted for an ideology or a leader for 12 years. Even though they know deep down that the system is failing, they are haunted by the ego and fear that if they accept it, they will admit that their decision was wrong. So, they continue waiting saying, “Let’s wait a little longer, maybe there will be a change.” This is the situation in Beckett’s play when Vladimir and Estron stand under the same tree the next day, saying, “He will definitely come tomorrow.”In addition to this, there is the theory of ‘hyperbolic discounting’, which states that it is easier to sell distant grand stories than the pain of reality that is close to a person. Even though the common people are sitting near the toilet and traveling like sheep in the general compartment of ordinary trains without getting a ticket, the pride that a ‘bullet train’ is coming to the country masks that difficulty. Even though the kitchen budget is upside down, people are becoming mesmerised by the mask of ‘Vishvaguru’ or ‘5 trillion economy.’ Along with this, a void of ‘fear with no alternative’ has haunted the people, rendering them unable to question.The recent rise in petrol and diesel prices is a prime example of this. When oil prices rose, there should have been outrage against the system. However, a section of society, especially some religious leaders and media figures, took to the streets to portray cycling and walking as an ‘ideal lifestyle’. This is part of a strategy to cover up the failure of the ‘Acche Din’ campaign and the systemic erosion of public wealth.Through this, the Constitutional responsibility of the government to control oil prices was changed overnight to a personal ‘patriotic penance’ of the citizen. While the rich and powerful perform on bicycles in front of the media, the real despair and economic helplessness of the poor, who have to pedal their bicycles for their daily livelihood, are hidden from the eyes of society. This is reminiscent of the sanctification of exploitation depicted by P. Lankesh in his play ‘Sankranti’. Our writers have held up a mirror decades ago to the condition of today’s citizen who is sacrificing the present by drinking the opium of hope for the future.When we compare the ‘Godot complex’ and the style of governance of these two leaders, it becomes clear that the Modi regime is the most dangerous for the intellectual and cultural existence of society. During the Emergency, citizens knew the bitter truth that they had lost their rights. Since the enemy was visible, the society’s resistance to it was also tangible. But in the Modi era, even though citizens are losing the freedom to eat and speak whatever they like, they are floating in the illusion that “we are becoming world gurus”. This invisible and dormant dictatorship has killed the right of society to protest gently from within. Indira Gandhi temporarily suppressed the judiciary and the media through law. But today, the media and independent institutions have themselves knelt before power. The mainstream media has become the propagator of the future stories of the government. Fixing this is a decades-long challenge as institutional inertia has permeated today’s society. Indira Gandhi’s promises were purely political and economic. But Modi’s ‘Godot’ has the veneer of religion, civilisational pride and spirituality. When politics wears the mask of religion, then questioning the leader is seen as treason or blasphemy. This completely destroys the rationality of society.Kiran Hegde is a media specialist and filmmaker based in Sirsi, Karnataka. Translated from the Kannada originall by Netra Bhatt.