Tyrant’s playbook at work: Creation of a police state

Humans, if they believe that they are under threat, will prefer giving up their liberties and freedoms in the hands of that one person who rose and said ‘I alone can fix it. Potential dictators understand this fact that when people are threatened, they look for strong authoritarian leadership and support a strongman.

But before taking complete control of their state, they need to channel the anger, frustration and fear of the people in one direction that suits them. Generally, authoritarian leaders are not good when it comes to building a vibrant economy. A regime of corruption and a few yes men surrounding that one tyrant cannot sustain without sharing the prosperity of the country among the top brass.

Such economic hardships make the citizens disenchanted and there is a fear that the strongman might lose his support base. Though an angry crowd is what a tyrant needs, the angry crowd can turn against you if not handled well. After all, even they deserve someone to blame for all the hardships that they are facing. History tells us, that the playbook offers all kinds of tricks to stay on the path to absolute power.

Choose a scapegoat

The nation is an idea that is manifested through the human beings living in it. What makes humans different from other organisms is their social and emotional characteristics, and successful rulers in history have known that emotions can be hacked. Once hacked, these can be turned against anyone, so why not choose a scapegoat.

Throughout history, whenever rulers come under pressure due to their faulty decisions, Fathali Moghaddam, Professor of Psychology, Georgetown University explains, “scapegoating is one of the most effective tactics” to overcome these situations.

A monument to people killed by the Nazis(Courtesy: The Atlantic)

Mariam Mufti, Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo, explains that “bullying someone else for the ills that the general masses are facing is how you earn the trust and support and the legitimacy from the masses.” And as unfortunate as this might sound, there are many examples of this, being put to use successfully, in history and contemporarily.

For example, Joseph Stalin blamed wealthy farmers called kulaks for hoarding riches during the 1930s amid the Soviet Union's lagging economy, whereas the whole of Ukraine was starving due to Stalin’s policies.

Muammar Gaddafi passed a special law to confiscate assets from Libya's ethnic Italians who once ruled over the country, and expelled them on what came to be known as the Day of Vengeance. As expected, he received a great deal of applause from his people. And of course, not to forget Adolf Hitler, who built his entire movement from day one around scapegoating and persecuting Jews.

Similarly, not very different from the conditions in contemporary India, the economy was struggling in Uganda in the 70s, and as any ruler, Amin was trying to develop strategies to calm down his people, or more so to appease them to demonstrate that he was a legitimate and important leader. For that, he needed to find a new group of individuals to target, and that was the Indians.

To help him with his motto, the Ugandans already felt resentment against the rich Indian community. They looked at them with disdain and thought, ‘this is our country, there should be Africans running these businesses’. The reason today might be different, but it is the disdain on which the fault lines are developed among communities.

A rally in Uganda against the Indian community(Courtesy: The Hindu Perspective)

It was in 1971 that Amin gave what can be seen as the last straw. In a high profile meeting consisting of international media and all the who's who of Uganda, Amin launched an attack on the Asian community, accusing them of tax evasion, funnelling money out of the country, and discrimination against other communities in business. To put it in simpler words, economic and cultural treason. That one event was enough for fueling a wave of anti-Indian propaganda, hate speech and violence.

By creating divisions, not only the tyrants are responsible for breaking the bonds of trust within the larger society, but they are also unifying their support base, tells Mariam Mufti, Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo.

Weaponize the law

Getting the scapegoats off - balance is only the first part. But the leader cannot do ‘anything’ as of yet, as even tyrannical societies have boundaries, otherwise known as laws. It is time to knock them down.

To simply put it in the words of Alastair Smith, “existing legal institutions can be a barrier to political leaders. So what do they do? They dismantle them.” Or in the words of Asha Rangappa, “the idea to weaken all the institutions and the guardrails that serve as a check on your power.”

Not very different from what we have been witnessing, Idi Amin had complete control over the political and administrative dispensation of his country, but he was unable to penetrate the judiciary. To overcome that, he gave himself the power to pass decrees to accomplish what he wanted. Similar to passing verdicts against any ‘dangai’(rioters) by demolishing their house without presenting them in courts.

In August 1972, 18 months after becoming dictator, one fine morning while visiting the town of Soroti in Eastern Uganda, Amin rose before dawn and drove himself to the local radio station where he ‘addressed the nation’.

There he said, “Last night I had a dream that the Asians were milking the cow, but they were not feeding it, and therefore I think that we should get rid of the Asians.” Still too far from this mann ki baat?

In picture: Mahmood Mamdani(Courtesy: Madhyamam)

Mahmood Mamdani, the author of Rwanda: The untold story, recalls his experience of being pushed out of Uganda. “People left their car at the airport, left the keys in the car. Nobody could figure out what was happening to them. Imagine in a country where you had made your whole life, several generations and you are leaving and there was not a single person to say goodbye.”

To put things in perspective, while many of us like to believe that we are not yet there, the voices rising to throw out people who have been living in the country for over 50 years tell us a different story. They might not have been the citizens of India in the 50s but as they came here after facing persecution at the hands of their people, they have lived in India while paying taxes like any other citizen.

Creating a police state

Having a scapegoat is just the first step, but one still requires the means to inflict pain on the selected targets, including all the enemies. Tyrants understand the power of sustenance, therefore, not all of them believe in coldblooded murders and mass killings. Some rest their belief in torturing.

 

Torture is a very good way to deter people from opposing you. As  Andrew Sullivan, author and political commentator, explains, “it's better than killing because the person is kept alive. You can trap them, imprison them, pin them down, and exert raw violence against them.” While Amin relied on his State Research Bureau to keep the people in check, our regime has its tools including the NSA, IPC 124A and the freshly served UAPA.

Tyrants do not necessarily need you to love them, as fear does enough to keep people in check. Jodi Beggs, Behavioral Economist and Data Scientists at Harvard University, tells us that “we(humans) are not great at distinguishing fear from a more generalized feeling of arousal. In a dictatorship that can actually be channelled into thinking that the heightened sense of emotion is a feeling you're feeling for the dictator.”

Or as Brandy Xenobia Lee, known American Forensic Psychiatrist, puts it “it's not unlike an abusive relationship such as in a family, or in a gang or in a cult. They actually come to line themselves psychologically with the oppressor.”

Thus, this constant introduction of new draconian laws and amendments weakening the power checks put on by the constitution should not be seen in isolation. Sedition like colonial laws which prevent people from speaking against the government clubbed with new introductions like the Bihar Special Police act are nothing but a blow to any person’s fundamental right to constitutional remedies. Giving the state powers to arrest and detain any citizen without a warrant on mere suspicion raises the question of the whole concept of democracy. But things can be changed once the public realizes the truth, or has that boat also sailed?

This is the second article, in continuation of the weekly series Tyrant's playbook at work. Fresh articles of the series will be posted every Sunday.