The meltdown is real and it is showing across media and digital. State power lies in the legal and security apparatus, and no amount of soft power and business can help. The passport control queues are the greatest equaliser available. The ability of the tech class to undermine the political elite will bite back in ways unforeseen as the non globalised class, the rural white poor who have realised that they cannot eat their globally mobile passports while living on food stamps. The ban on visas for a few selected (fragile and poor) countries is the biggest hint of de-globalisation and the resurrection of walls, which were present but are amplifies now. The 9/11 backlash is not over. It is just getting started. Social Media reactions although algorithmically skewed, are currently a rough draft of history as the real time archive of events.

The modern is being curated every second. This backlash is also a revolt against modern values, privileging primal biases. The man from a ranch from Montana cannot place Mogadishu, without googling it. The realtor from NY is no better, with properties in Pune and Kolkata. The ‘Us versus Them’ binary is the process of othering and othering is symbolic violence. The world has changed forever.

 

The ‘Remonetise India’ Campaign sponsored by the powerful Times Network is an amazingly skillful spin on humanising the impacts of Demonetisation, deploying celebrity power to influence the english speaking middle class to use less cash (the entire point of the demonetisation debate), so that the rural hinterland has access to cash, and they can keep their jobs. Such a deep indictment of the crisis. Glamour does not band aid the situation.

Stardust Sansui Colors Awards 2017, the presenters Abhishek Bachchan and Retiesh Deshmukh crack a joke by paying ‘Homage’ to the 500/1000 rupee denomination note, making every one stand up on the pretext of honouring the departed souls for the past year. The celebrities cracked up. Another anecdote in the popular imagination regarding demonetisation.