In his remarkable novel Sophie's World, Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder tells the story of Sophie Amundsen, a Norwegian teenager, who receives two mysterious messages in her mailbox and a postcard addressed to one Hilde Møller Knag. Apparently from an old, unknown philosopher, Alberto Knox, the messages read, "Who are you?" "Where does this world come from?" Soon after, she receives a packet of papers that are the beginning of a course in philosophy. Sophie becomes Knox's student and is given a lucid introduction to the history of philosophy from Socrates to Sartre through a series of exhaustive letters. While this goes on, intermittently, both Sohie and Knox receive, seemingly by mistake, postcards addressed to Hilde from a man named Albert Knag. As the novel progresses, Sophie and Alberto discover that they are actually fictional characters in a book written by Albert Knag as a 15th birthday gift for Hilde, his daughter. In trying to come to terms with their predicament, they wonder if the "real world" in which their story is being written is itself fictional. They devise a plan to escape from Albert's imagination and into the real world, but despite their best efforts they fail because the real and the fictional worlds cannot be bridged and the novel ends with Sophie and Knox riding out onto a lake in a rowboat, immortal in a manner, but unliving in another.

A history of philosophy in the guise of a novel, Sophie's World is anything but tedious. Not only does it provide a highly engrossing and historical account of the different schools and thinkers of western philosophy, it also poses several thought-provoking conundrums about reality and fiction. It lures the reader into its narrative web through the entangled stories of Sophie, Knox, Knag and Hilde, and evokes sympathy for the two characters who are trapped in the pages of a book being written by an author whom they cannot control or influence. What makes their plight even more poignant is their realisation that they are "living a fiction" but are unable to break out of it. No doubt, it would leave any sensitive reader with a lingering sense of sadness and  even powerlessness.

One is reminded of Plato's Allegory of the Cave in which chained prisoners, always facing away from the entrance of the cave, see only the shadows on the wall and take them to be reality. They represent people who accept appearances as reality without questioning them, the shadows being a metaphor for illusions or opinions based on limited sensory experience. Escaping the cave and encountering the real world, particularly the sun, symbolises the journey towards enlightenment and understanding true forms through reason and philosophy. The tragedy of Sophie and Knox is that they realise they are in an illusory cave but are unable to break out of it. The knowledge of their own imprisonment makes their life more terrible. Their suffering is that of knowing but being unable to act on that knowledge.

The concept of the world as an illusion in which one is trapped and made to act according to the whims of another being is not limited to Plato. It is a continued refrain that surfaces again and again in world literatures, succinctly gathered by Shakespeare's metaphor of the world as a stage. In As You Like It, he declares:

"All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts..."

Then, there is of course James Thurber's famous character Walter Mitty who, in the midst of his humdrum, middle-class existence, flits intermittently to excitingly differing worlds of fantasy, in each one of which he is the hero and the darling of the people around him. He daydreams being a wartime pilot, an emergency-room surgeon, a dare-devil killer and so on, only for something, most often in the form of a sharp reprimand from his wife, to abruptly interrupt his fantasy at the height of its progression and return him to hard reality.

Literary narratives aside, there is a Sophie Amundsen and a Walter Mitty in each one of us. When things get too much to take, or as a secret mode of escape from the harsh realities of life, we take refuge in the thought that the world is an oppressive illusion or we create fictional worlds in which things go as they please us. However, when someone decides to continuously live out an illusion in real life, and choose to concoct imagined worlds where they can play the hero, that undoubtedly becomes a pathological condition of delusion that requires expert medical attention.

Strange as it may sound, the great irony of most dominant political narratives today is that they seem to have taken such a fictional turn with several "global leaders" seemingly living out delusional narratives or parallel realities that are at complete odds with facts or with reality as can be ascertained. That irony is further deepened by the fact that huge sections of the populations of various nations also seem to swallow such fictions hook, line and sinker, happy to be held in thrall by them, and become ardent, even aggressive, followers of these leaders.

Truly iconic of this contemporary phenomenon is a recent poster depicting Donald Trump as Superman, representing "Truth, Justice and the American way" and seeking to celebrate the "Trump Presidency." What is striking in the image is the unabashed employment of the entire visual iconography of the Superman figure, with a resolute face, clenched fists and an erect posture; clad in the famous tight-fitting blue and red outfit, complete with belt, court of arms emblazoned on the chest and the flowing cape; seemingly taking off into the skies. Even more striking is that the poster was shared by the official social media handles of both the White House and POTUS (President of the United States), suggesting that this is how the Trump regime wishes him to be seen and depicted officially, in a way reminiscent of the flattering official portraits of aging mediaeval monarchs that had little connection with how they actually looked.

At the same time, it is also a glimpse into the manner in which Trump and his fellows view his Presidency, a statement of the regime's consciousness of itself. Trump is the Superman, the US his Metropolis City, waging a holy war against all the evil forces lined up against him and his heroic vigil to Make America Great Again. Gotham City is an invisible presence, lurking just outside the picture, filled with hordes of Batmen, masquerading as liberals, democrats, immigrants, academics, intellectuals, actors, artists – in fact, everyone who refuses to align with Trump. Outside that immediate circle is the global enemy ring of all the other nations that have so far "taken advantage of the US," and from whom he shall extract the proverbial pound of flesh by withdrawing aid, imposing tariffs, issuing threats, and whatever else that comes to his juvenile mind. That the image is a parody of a comic strip, a fantasy film series, that infantilizes imaginations does not bother Trump or his fellows even the least bit; in fact, one suspects that is the very rationale that prompted the image in the first instance.

What this image and the incessant outpour of animosity and abuse from Trump and company – characterised primarily by the ever-decreasing vocabulary and ever-increasing incoherence of his utterances – do is to create an infantile world where everything is seen in terms of stark opposites and where Trump is the ultimate authority on everything ("No one knows it better than I do!"). It sells a fantasy that undercuts reason and intelligence, posits a hydra-like enemy that has sundry faces, and offers a sense of community that has its own rules and hierarchy of values, defined essentially by their contrariness to accepted notions of civility and societal behaviour. It creates an almost messianic cult, a religion of sorts, with Trump as the hero, which fosters a sense of clannish belonging that only gets stronger and more vociferous the more the criticism and objections raised against it. It turns into a mindless phalanx that can be mobilised any moment into acts of hatred and violence, as we have already seen when Trump lost the elections in 2020. The more anyone uses facts or reason against it, the more trenchant it becomes, because the language of sense and reason is foreign to it. No law, no precedent, no canon of decency is sacred to it. Lies, falsehoods and obfuscation come naturally to it, as vouched by any number of senate hearings where Trump's men and women brazenly lie through their teeth or defiantly refuse to give a straight answer. It is a dystopian world that they inhabit in which they are always right and everyone else wrong.

Coming to India, Narendra Modi's fictionalisation of politics also partakes of parody and infantilisation, but of a more variegated kind and of greater extent. Instead of comic strips, Modi's propaganda resorts to images that portray him in multiple roles, the sheer variety of which defies belief. Modi's obsession with the camera is infamous enough and stories abound, supported by ample visual evidence, of how he turns every occasion – even non-occasion – into a photo-op for himself, and for himself alone. He has a compulsive fascination with role play and costume displays ("sartorial flair" as a gushing biographer puts it) in which, in addition to his prime ministerial appearances on international stages, he takes on many avatars, always with photographers in tow. Soldier, pilot, astronaut, book reader, bird lover, safari man, lion tamer, golfer, scuba diver, teacher, chess player, yoga practitioner, mountain climber, dutiful son, percussionist... the list is almost endless. He dons different hats (literally too, his penchant for ever changing flamboyant head wear being a fact on record), but they are all for one purpose: to portray him as a versatile genius with talents and abilities that spread across a gamut of fields. 

Every success of the country is for him to claim as his, from the flagging off of high speed trains to the launch of Chandrayaan, from new bridges to welfare schemes, from victories in sport to achievements in science. Modi's grinning image can be seen plastered on all such stories. It has become an ubiquitous presence, staring down from billboards in petrol stations, posters in government offices and notice boards in schools. His visage appeared even on millions of COVID vaccination certificates, sowing confusion for immigration officials in other countries who could not understand how a photograph of a person other than the one vaccinated could be printed on certificates. The hollow pomposity of these images are nowhere more in evidence than the one in which he stands and waves in lordly seriousness, seemingly to a huge crowd of spectators, while motoring through a just inaugurated road tunnel, where there was not, and could not be, even a single spectator.

It only goes to prove that the images are luridly fictional, performed solely for the camera, the summit of such performativity reached in one photograph in which a bevy of photographers is seen photographing Modi, the photographer, engaged in the act of photography. To advocates of postmodern theory, it could be an exemplar of narrative self-reflexivity  or of "the process itself becoming the product," but at a more common-sensical level it only adds to the ever enlarging "myth of multi-talented Modi". 

Perhaps the most iconic of these images is the one in which Modi is seen meditating in a cave near Kedarnath, eyes closed, clad in a saffron over-cloth, looking the spitting image of a renunciate sadhu. Again, as in Trump's superman image, what is in the frame belies what is outside it; the stillness and silence of the cave and of Modi's posture in the frame made possible and brought to the world only by the presence of the hordes of photographers, propagandists, and servilie media persons just outside it. More importantly, it evokes memories of a hallowed Hindu past, to which he is a time-travelling hero, taking on the attributes of various mythic and puranic figures that have come to define the collective imaginary concocted by the proponents of Hindutva. From this, it is only a small step to Modi claiming that "God has chosen me and sent me for a purpose" and that God makes him do the things he does, as he glibly asserted just before the 2024 elections. The hero is thus transformed from the human to the divine.

If one were to refer to Milan Kundera, this is "imagology" at its best. In Kundera's novel Immortality, the term "imagology" describes the modern world's obsession with images and appearances, often prioritising them over substance and reality. It critiques a culture where individuals are shaped and defined by the images they project and the way they are perceived by others. Kundera sees imagology as linked to the "end of ideology," suggesting that it's a new form of ideology, masked as a neutral, objective representation of reality, in which images take precedence over words and propagate ideas about power and domination, that are for the most part consumed unconsciously. Imagology, in Kundera's view, becomes a dominant force in society, shaping public opinion and even dictating what is considered "real". 

Though Kundera does not explicitly mention Hitler in the context of imagology, the reflections of Agnes, one of the central characters of Immortality, on Hitler's portraits in connection with her memories of childhood, leaves one to deduce that his knowledge of the Nazi use of visual iconography must have played some part in the formulation of the concept. In a sense, Hitler was the real precursor to both Trump and Modi in the use of films and images to present fictional narratives about himself. The best known is of course Triumph of the Will (German: Triumph des Willens), a 1935 Nazi propaganda film directed and produced  by Leni Riefenstahl, regarded as a "classic" of the genre, which prompted Chaplin to make "Great Dictator" as a riposte. Hitler commissioned the Riefenstahl film and served as an unofficial executive producer; his name even appearing in the opening titles. There were several other lesser known ones too, such as A Symphony of the Will to Fight, The Victory of Faith, Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces, Festive Nuremberg, The Campaign in Poland, The March to the Führer, to name a few. Most of these films and the most prominent of his photos show Hitler in his public persona, at his most intense, eyes blazing with manic energy and hands gesticulating animatedly, as he addresses an audience or salutes a crowd. However, there was another set of carefully curated images of his personal life that paint him as a country gentleman, a man who played catch with his dogs, had refined taste in décor and took post-meal strolls outside his mountain estate.

In her book, Hitler at Home, architectural historian Despina Stratigakos traces how Adolf Hitler’s propagandists – an inner circle of designers and publicists – carefully constructed Hitler’s private realm to soften his public image prior to World War II. “They were able to engineer a complete transformation of Hitler’s public persona,” says Stratigakos. This makeover coincided with major renovations of his three residences — the old chancellery in Berlin, his Munich apartment and his mountain home. The Nazi leader was intimately involved in each project, working closely with his designer, Gerdy Troost, on the interiors. The team used architecture as a tool for manipulation; they crafted spaces that, similar to movie sets, evoked the right emotions. Reporters were then invited for tours where they saw Hitler in a setting that exuded domesticity and warmth. Stratigakos observes that while many historians have dismissed Hitler’s personal life as irrelevant, images of his private persona were, in fact, painstakingly constructed to further his political ends.

A parallel strand of this curated propaganda was the series of photographs that showed Hitler as a "friend of children." The first volume of photographs of Adolf Hitler, created by Heinrich Hoffmann, after the Nazi takeover in January 1933, was called Jugend um Hitler – "Young People around Hitler" – and was intended to demonstrate his great affection for children. Unusual for Nazi propaganda, which often focused on men and manliness, the photo book shows at least as many girls as boys, all of them conforming to the National Socialists' racist ideal. The numerous photos of Hitler with children were a way of compensating for the fact that Hitler – who was childless, officially had no wife, and had supposedly forgone any private life, all to serve the Fatherland – could not be portrayed as a paterfamilias (head of the family) at the head of the state. Hoffmann's media firm also produced many postcards showing Hitler with children, including Joseph Goebbels's children congratulating Hitler on his birthday and many similar scenes. They reflect how the public's attitude towards Adolf Hitler was manipulated through the publication and dissemination of photographs that presented him as a kind-hearted, child-loving father figure and "documenting" the enthusiasm of the youth for him.

No doubt, we have come a long way from Hitler, in time, in the proliferation of the media and in the sophistication of visual techniques, but the intentions and designs remain essentially the same: the creation of false narratives aimed at controlling the imaginations of people and colonising their minds. That these fictions do not have even a tangential connection to truth, but are deliberately fabricated to further the aims of absolute and arbitrary power; that they are but part of the strategies of the fascist urge for total domination; that lies, more lies and further more lies define the language of these "heroes" will never be fully apparent as it happens. A small minority may demur, but the vast majority will either succumb or remain silent. Disposession, disenfranchisement, dehumanisation, violence, hate crimes, wars and genocide will take place unchecked under the shadow of such fictions, but they will all be glossed over by the cult of the hero who can do no wrong. The sad part is that, as history has shown us time and again, the minions who believe and subscribe to it will also become prey to it; they will not realise what they are into until they themselves become grist to the mill, fodder for the killing machine, and by then it will be too late. 

But, then, all bubbles are bound to burst sooner or later, and these too shall. And when they burst, the backlash will be swift and terrible. Even then the question shall still remain; will we ever learn?

Mundoli Narayanan is a professor of English at the University of Calicut.

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