Cost of Victory

Cost of the victory

In this famous documentary series “century of self”, Bill Clinton’s second term victory, when it was mostly considered impossible was analyzed in detail. Sigmund Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays is said to be the brain behind that astonishing victory, the same Edward Bernays, the man who linked oppressed sexuality to car sales and supposedly given the car sales an American boost.

It says his solution for bill Clinton’s victory was simple – treat voters as customers, make consumerist promotional offers and turn their faith into a commodity. Strangely it worked successfully for Clinton. So was for Tony Blair and interestingly the same strategy was employed during Narendra Modi’s general election! It is a well-known fact that the image makeover agency for Modi is based in US and also one ad guru, disciple of Edward Bernays , of our country has strategized his entire election campaign . There were many studies after Modi’s election wherein it was established that many speeches of Mr. Modi and the press notes were verbatim lifts from old US election. (at many places it was told that people in helm of affairs forgotten to change USA to India and some events as well in those speeches and press notes smile emoticon ).

If one closely look at the “ ache din “ campaign, one will easily understand the process- like car Modi was the commodity, who would bring comfort to the consumer’s defective incomplete living. BJP sold the “Modi” dream to a targeted consumers by tinkling their oppressed desire for macho accomplishment. The consumer was reassured- if they replace the defective product – congress and Manmohan Singh with a magical product called Modi, their defective incomplete life will be complete. Remember the “ decisive leader”, “unmarried leader- a man who tamed his desire”, modi masks, ache din and “ woh aaraha hein” campaign offered as a solution for all national problems. Also one has to remember that BJP did not ask voters to vote for BJP and over and above recall Mr. Modi’s obsessive penchant for his makeups and dresses. Clinton won the election , so is Tony Blair and then Narendra Modi. All of them won election with astounding majority.

Unfortunately for Clinton and Tony Blair - the jubilation of victory did not last for long, so is for Mr. Modi now . They all missed the most important point or perhaps Edward Bernays did not tell them the truth – his method offered them only sales victory – the election, but onus of responsibility to deliver the promise remained with company or the product. Any defect in the delivery will fail the company and all of them failed very fast in their delivery as all of them in their eagerness to win the election promised a totally unrealistic Mars and Venus for people. The cruel joke of a fleecing sales consultant- Edward Bernays also treated these leaders as commodity – one point sale.

Tragically AAP also seems to be not different from this Edward Bernay’s idea of consumerism – oppressed class of people by the corrupt corporate and politicians who have clipped their aspirations to a severely defective living has one magic solution – Aravind Kejriwal( Modi replaced). If one compares the fairness cream advertisement, one will understand this phenomena better.

If it was Clinton in US, Tony Blair in UK, Modi in India and Kejriwal now for Delhi. Unfortunately for them, their consumers are the one who slam the computer when internet go slow, shout at supplier when food is delayed few minutes, wants biggest cars on smallest roads, wants limited population Scandinavian country living standards in fifteen million population cities and they change cell phones and gadgets not just for defect but also for fancy and above all they get angry that if the richest american and European can do things the way they do why can't we?.

Modi’s projection of economically strong India among economically cooling off Europe, troubled Middle East with dropping oil prices, recession bound china, and the US with money supply drying up is only a practical Edward Barnay’s joke. More over Black money issue, Anna Hazzare’s proposed beginning of hunger strike for Lokhpal in March, reignited opposition in parliament and rajyasabha and all those anti modi- anti amit shah BJP oldies who will get charged up by this Delhi defeat , Mr. Modi’s problems have only began. So will be Mr Kejriwal’s, because they have these large consumers waiting outside their houses who are told
Customer is the king
And
Leaders are their servants.- the Cost of an unethical methodology of sales – treating a nation as a consumer base who can be manipulated for profit- the power