In a recent conversation on the state of affairs in India, I was educated about the ancient Roman politics of “bread and circus”. The Romans relied on skilfully curated distractions that kept the populace happy and distracted from the realities around them. The gladiators in the Colosseum and circus performances would keep the masses entertained while problems like hunger were taken care of by the state by ensuring a steady flow of grains and bread. Bread placated the public and kept their basic needs fulfilled, while the circus ensured that they were distracted from the dismal state of affairs around them.
I utilise American journalist Alice Schroeder’s succinct and useful explanations of what the Roman system of bread and circus meant as a framework to make my case. While we are in the times of focusing on Ram Rajya, let us compare our current state with Roman Rajya.
Rome in the first two centuries A.D. faced a yawning gulf between rich and poor.
While we chest thump our way to being the 3rd largest economy globally, we are facing an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. On one hand, Indian businessmen and industrialists are climbing up on the global billionaire index while on the other, self-employed wages and regular wages have seen a negligible increase since 2017.
The government has obfuscated this truth by clutching on to NITI Aayog’s Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index which claims that 25 million individuals have been lifted out of poverty in the past 9 years. Without any information on household consumption and savings, the government has hidden income-based indicators of poverty and is relying on this flawed, inaccurate and cherry-picked statistic.
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Its economy created few exportable goods.
Despite the drama and circus of investor summits and MoUs under Make in India, manufacturing has not picked up in India. The growth rate of the manufacturing sector has averaged 5.9% since 2013-14, the share of manufacturing has remained stagnant and was at 16.4% in 2022-23, and in fact, manufacturing jobs halved between 2016 and 2021.
Manufacturing has reached historical lows under the Bharatiya Janata Party government (BJP). In 2022-23 it grew a dismal 1.3%. This is the second-lowest growth in the last 25 years. The only year worse than this was 2019-20, when the output declined by 3%. The focus is on the optics of being a manufacturing giant of smartphones, yet the devil is in the details. Wherein, government schemes have incentivised the exporting of phones from India, while ignoring incentivising value addition.
The Caesars created make-work and part-time jobs, subsidised housing and doled out grain.
During assembly elections in 2023, the prime minister announced the extension of the pandemic-induced free food-grains scheme to 800 million Indians for another 5 years. This implies that nearly a third of the Indian population needs government-guaranteed food for their survival. At the same time, the increase in demand for MGNREGA, which was once critiqued by the BJP, indicates burgeoning economic distress.
The government’s failure to bear the burden of social security and benefits of the armed forces led to them cancelling full-time recruitment and instead introducing a part-time employment option. The drama was not far behind as the naming of the scheme was Bollywood-influenced Agnipath and Agniveer. Subsidised housing continues to be the push of this government with renewed and consistent allocations, despite significant failures of the scheme.
If indeed, we were a thriving economy, successfully eradicating poverty, why do we need to extend government spending on basic needs? Probably, since these insecurities in times of increasing inflation and stagnating wages, are a Roman recipe for political risk to the ruling regime.
The emperors added holidays until, eventually, the Romans spent half their days attending gladiator games, public executions and chariot races.
Until January 22, 2024, holidays for religious festivals and national holidays remained differentiated. However, the consecration of the Ram temple marked the culmination of the union of the religion and the state.
Steeped in religious fervour, banks, schools, government offices and institutions declared shortened work hours or holidays to celebrate this epochal moment.
Similarly, while the government failed to ensure medical support and essential items to the general public during the pandemic, we had a variety of circuses to distract us. From the media circus focused on a Bollywood actor’s unfortunate death to an alleged attempt to destabilise the country by the opposition and the banging of thalis where citizens became the performers themselves. When we have a distracted and entertained population, why must we care for the estimated four million who died due to the pandemic?
The mass suspension of the opposition in the winter session of Parliament was covered with a masterful circus of a renewed civilisation legacy in the Sengol in this Budget session. Or the warm embraces to world leaders, amidst a creeping China at the border.
In almost every government initiative, it is easy to spot which of these two, bread or circus, is being focussed on.
Rome eventually fell because of the farce that this “bread and circus” philosophy created. Unless we consciously wake up to see these obfuscations that distract us from reality, we might succumb to this fate as well. Bertrand Russel is attributed to have answered a query of how fascism starts: “First, they fascinate the fools. Then, they muzzle the intelligent.”Time to ponder if we will fall for the fascinations or if we will require muzzling.
Amaan Asim graduated from Ashoka University with a major in political science and is a political consultant to leaders across multiple political parties.