1984

my book diaries #1

Hello Everyone !

Do you read a lot of books, are amazed by them but then forget what you had read after a point of time ? It happened with me all the time and I regretted it. So taking inspiration from a video I saw, I recently decided to maintain a digital diary of the books I read. I wish to share some of them with you via this platform. Since I am not doing a “review” of the book in the traditional sense of the term, I have titled it 'my book diaries’. I hope you enjoy it.

Please don’t forget to like, share and subscribe. Comment if you are able to make it to the end (this is a long one). The email subscribers, please star my mails if you don’t want to receive them as spam. Without further ado …

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Started - 27.01.2021

I have said it before but I’ll say it again. We are living in dark, often hopeless, times. We, the livers of the 21st century, are witnesses to a resurgence of hyper-nationalism, overzealous and authoritarian governments, overarching structures that are invading our privacy and dare I say : fascism. But, think if such a future had been predicted almost 70 years ago - a future where one’s actions, words and even thoughts would be subject to scrutiny by an ever-powerful State which maintains its dominance by exploiting the fear of the unknown. 

That is what 1984 is about. 

 A lot has been said about this book before and it is now considered a classic but I read it only recently. It is a short, quick read with a fairly simple plot and a handful of characters. However, the depth of its political messaging says much more about it than its literary value. 

Orwell envisions a future - a 1984 (hence, the title) which has only 3 states left on the face of earth. The protagonist of the story is a citizen (if you can use that word) of one of these lands. The State is controlled by a single Party - which is the alpha and the omega in every sense. Surprisingly, our protagonist works within and for the party in the ‘Ministry of Truth’. 

It is a totalitarian state where no dissent is allowed. Forget dissent, not even a thought against the State exists for long before its thinker is vanished into thin air by the Party’s Thought Police. It is the most well-planned and the most vulgar intrusion into the privacy of human lives - where even your thoughts are not your own. The citizens owe unquestionable allegiance to the Big Brother whom no one has ever seen or heard - but who is their saviour for all intents and purposes. 

In the course of the story, the author shows our hero as having some thoughts questioning the actions, ways and intentions of the Party. He scribbles those thoughts in a secret diary which he opens in clandestine alcoves (there are cameras and microphones in every nook and corner of the country). He endears a lady who works in the “Ministry of Love” and embarks on a relationship. This he does in direct, but hidden, opposition to the State’s directives which prohibit any sort of intimacy between its subjects. His beloved turns out to be another silent critic of the Party. They become members of an “underground brotherhood” which works to undermine the State and this ignites hope in the reader. 

But soon, the very person who had initiated them into the “brotherhood” hunts them down and they are thrown into the dreaded dungeons. Then begins a saga of the most inhuman tortures, forced confessions and an utter disdain for human dignity. Finally, as the climax - a stage comes when the person himself, not because of fear for there remains no fear, but out of his own pure and unblemished will - accepts that his thoughts are evil, that the Party is right, that he was wrong.  They release him but there remains no he. When he meets his beloved, they recognise each other but feel nothing - for both of them had betrayed the other in the face of unbearable pain. And the book ends - most unexpectedly and rather sadly - with our protagonist saying - “I love Big Brother.” Make what you will of it.

However, more importantly than the plot, there are certain themes and prophecies if you will, in the book that I want to touch upon. 

The book describes how a perfect dictatorship is possible - a system where people lose the power and the will to question. In this futuristic and almost dystopian 1984, the State with its developed technology monitors each and every activity of each and every individual and hence, is able to eliminate any sign of dissent before it flares up. This is a message for the democratic citizen of today to resist attempts of the State to intrude into their private lives. When someone questions the integrity of a human rights activist who is “refusing to part with information for no reason”, hand him this book. 

Secondly, it describes the effectiveness of the “invisible enemy” strategy often used by authoritarian governments, especially the ones which present a false bravado of nationalism. Throughout the book, the Party tells its subjects that they are AT WAR. The War never ends and it never will - for it is in the sustenance of the War that the Party sustains itself. It is by creating fear and insecurity in the minds of people that the State emerges as the saviour of all - the MaiBaap which can do no evil. This reminds us that we must be cautious of those who proclaim that they will defeat our enemies, of those who demonise the “other” to emerge as saviours. 

Thirdly, the book underscores the importance of truth and facts in a democracy. The protagonist works in the Ministry of Truth as I told you. However, his work is to make sure that all newspaper articles, all media speak the language of the Party. His work is to find out old issues and rewrite them to match the narrative of the Party. The book makes this point come alive through a strange reality. The Party says today - We are at war with Eurasia. Tomorrow, it says - We are at war with Eastasia. What is surprising is that every single citizen, every single person accepts this without question. If you ask someone who they were at war with 30 years ago, his answer would be Eastasia even though he was told yesterday that they were at War with Eurasia for all of history. 

Now, this is not funny - this is serious and dreadful. As one of the Inner Party members in the book says - What is past ? It is not something physical, it exists on paper and in memories. The paper being controlled by the Ministry of Truth and the memories by the Thought Police, the Party controls the past. Hence, it is important for us to realise the dangers of a false history, of fabricated narratives and forged grievances that dictators often scream so loud that they become the only truth. In this infodemic, it is important for us to base our opinions on facts and reject fake news. 

It is a strange book as I said, but it can very well become a reality if we allow things to proceed as they are. Some aspects are already unfolding in front of our lives. Those among you who are not yet so blind to reality must have sensed it in the course of this read. 

But I leave you with this - as long as we hold on to truth, as long as we retain control over our own lives and decisions no matter what, as long as we refuse to give up our independence of choice and thought and as long as we recognise the importance of dissent in a democracy, THERE IS HOPE. 

Finished - 04.02.2021