The Towering Silence: An Audible Response to the Toer of Babel

       Towering Silence: an Audible Response to the Tower of Babel

Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh  has been canonized as the Saint of Silence- ‘Maun Mohan Singh’ by the PM-in- waiting. PM has to be thankful to his challenger for conferring upon him the haloed sainthood in the midst of the loud cacophony echoing from Television studios to political platforms to the soundless bytes on the social media. Though the next elections are at least a few months away, many in the opposition have already sounded the bugle for the battle of the ballot. But our PM’s bugle sounds –rather mews -only once a year from the ramparts of Red Fort on the 15th of August. Of course his voice is heard with rapt attention outside India when he addresses the UN general assembly or Press conferences on board when he flies to and fro his visits to foreign countries. But in India when he convenes and addresses state Chief ministers or the National Integration Council, he is dubbed a silent speaker by most of the Chief Ministers  from the  opposition ruled states who show utter disrespect to his invitation by being absent at the meetings. This is the best way to ensure that the PM remains for all of them a Maun Mohan Singh.

PM is indeed a silent man. He is not a man of words to cross verbal swords with his opponents who keep baying for his honest blood. From 2G through Coalgate scams, he has remained a mute spectator to the vociferous demands in the two Houses of the Parliament for his resignation. This calls for a herculean strength to remain silent in the face of a deafening cry from the rank and file of the opposition that he is a ‘chor’.  His silence does not mean that he is indifferent or not pricked by those needles of suspicion on his integrity and honesty. In the ninth year of his PMship for the first time, he broke his silence with the question that reflected a sense of hurt over being personally attacked by the main opposition. "Have you heard of any country where the Prime Minister is not allowed to introduce his council of ministers?...Have you heard of Parliament in any country where the opposition shouts in the well 'Prime Minister chor hai' ”?  These are a few occasions when he freed himself from his cave of silence, since the remarks from the opposition about his position and stature had gone beyond the basic standards of decency.

 

Why is PM silent?

Is it a genetic quality that he has been born with, unlike his illustrious predecessor Jawaharlal Nehru who has been often referred to as a silver-tongued orator? Maybe PM had his early lessons on the quintessential proverb: ‘Speech is silver; Silence is golden’.   

 

Or is it a deliberate strategy to make his critics let off steam while he silently moved full steam ahead with his own economic calculations and nuclear policies? 

 

Or is he following Shakespeare who said: ‘The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.’ ?

 

Or is his silence an articulation of his disapproval of indecency and unseemly conduct unbecoming of the elected representatives? 

 

Or is it an economic calculation that the more words you expend, the less will be their significance and import? 

Or like a true economist does he believe in the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility and says that the first unit of consumption of words yields more utility than the second and subsequent units, with a continuing reduction for greater amounts?

Gandhiji often resorted to ‘maunvrat’ as a way of discovering the right path to living. For him it was also an act of cleansing his thoughts of negativity and anger. Silence helps one to remain calm and not fight words with words. In the aftermath of ‘maun vrat’ the words that one utters are always heard with rapt attention. Gandhiji said: ‘Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.’ Man Mohan gives up his silence and speaks only when he has to. The words he utters are truthful, and no one can fault him.

It is good that Man Mohan is for the major part Maun Mohan. His Oxonian and Cantabrigian education has not taught him the art of bluster and filibuster. In these days when the world is agog with twitter and its messaging limited to 140 characters, when sms has monopolized communication, then why grudge our Professor of Economics for being economic with words?  He is indeed the best among twitters who doesn’t need even 140 characters.

When I joined English Honours I listened to the first lecture on Shakespeare’s Richard II. The Professor’s hour long lecture was to distinguish between Richard II, the King and Bolingbroke (later known as Henry IV) the usurper. The Professor ended his lecture with a smug look on his felicity with words: ‘Richard was a man of words, Bolingbroke was a man of action’. Our PM like Richard II is the present holder of the PM’s chair, but unlike him, not a man of words. The claimants to his chair are men of words, though they have not demonstrated that they are like Bolingbroke- men of action( except rushing to the well and shouting  ‘PM is a chor’ or walking out of the parliament.)

What will be the future of Indian history? Who will succeed -the silent defendant or the vociferous challenger?  Will history record the unspoken thoughts, feelings and the major milestones of the silent PM or record the spoken, acerbic, no-holds-barred verbiage of his critics? Will future history be a record of twitters or buried in silence? Will it present for a third time in row a man with towering silence or a man with a tower of words? Time alone will tell for it has no use for words.

Note: I have not attempted to defend the indefensible silence of our PM. My article has raised the question of the Hobson's choice before the voters-between silence and garrulity. It also speaks about the present crisis in our post-independence history as to whether the PM will be relegated to a footnote in the annals of history dealing with this period-despite whatever he has achieved and whatever he has missed out(including the art of speaking). The reading on the wall is clear unless we get a host of good articulators from the Congress to compensate for the deafening silence of our PM( and also of  the PM of congress-in-waiting)

The Bugle,the Battle and the Ballot

                                     The Bugle, the Battle and the Ballot

Modi’s anointment is over. The challenger is ready with his bugle. No surprise his bugle sounded first at a gathering of ex-servicemen at Rewari where he praised the army and blamed the Centre for border troubles with Pakistan and China. He thundered “Army is not weak; government is weak”. Such oratory certainly boom- boomed with the listeners.

But once the bugle was stilled, critical questions cropped up. The army and the civilian government for the last 66 years have together acted in unison to protect the nation from the envious and India-obsessed neighbours on the Western side and the aggressive and fiercely combative dragon on the eastern side. Since 1947, barring the 1962 war, Indian army has done proud by the nation making the enemy retreat every time India was attacked. From 1947 to 2013, barring a five year rule by the BJP-NDA combine at the centre and a short interrugnum between 1977and 1980 when a hastily convened Janata party came to power, the country has been ruled by the Congress party. Thus for nearly 58 years, the army has functioned under a Congress government and therefore  it does not stand to reason to say that all these great victories happened despite a weak  government at the centre. I am afraid, leaving aside Modi’s selective memory and knowledge of India’s wars since 1947, such careless talk on the part of a PM –in- waiting creates divisiveness between the army and the civilian government. Unlike our western neighbors-(where the last five years have seen some semblance of a civilian government in power) and army controlled China, India has enjoyed a unique distinction of a powerful army working in tandem with a responsible civilian government.

Modi’s statement raises a still larger question about leadership. One does not have to be a management expert to define leadership. In a recent interview Kapil Dev observed that a true leader is one who credits his team in victory and takes the blame on himself in defeat. The army as a unit deserves credit for its efforts both to defend the country during wars and to provide relief to the people during peace time. At no time the army has claimed one-upmanship over the civilian government in whatever task it had been assigned. The army’s herculean effort in recent times to rescue victims of the Himalayan tsunami is an example of army’s commitment and dedication to the nation. Hence Modi’s attempts to win over the ex-servicemen by drawing a shadow line between armed forces and civilian government reflect poorly on his leadership qualities and they do not bode well for the nation.

It is most ironical that the PM-in-waiting shared the dais with former Army Chief General V K Singh, who is facing criminal defamation charges, and who has been termed as a "nuisance" by a Delhi court which said his presence created a "ruckus" in the court room. The reputation of the army which is known for discipline has been damaged by the Metropolitan Magistrate Jay Thareja ‘s statement that  whenever General Singh came to the court, he brought  a crowd with him and created "ruckus" that hampered the court proceedings. Earlier the Supreme Court refused to entertain his petition seeking alteration of his date of birth from May 10, 1950 to May 10, 1951, forcing him to withdraw his plea and plan for life after his scheduled retirement on May 31 this year. What signals does Modi send to the armed forces?

The communal clashes in UP, the VHP’s recent though aborted  march towards Ayodhya, the aggressive defence of Modi by his acolytes and above all the no-holds barred abusive attack by Modi on the Congress triumvirate-PM,Sonia and Rahul reflect the intolerance of the rising Hindutva brigade that would destroy the idea of one country, one India. If divisive policy is going to be Modi mantra, the nation has to gear itself to counter it. It is difficult to stem the tide of hatred and intolerance that is spreading like wild fire. It is this that our western and eastern neighbours desire with great glee and malicious satisfaction.

The Congress will have to be a responsible party to bring back sanity to a polity that has been fed on negativism. The nation does not remember that the LPG(Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization) policy and the courageous dismantling of license-permit quota raj in the early 1990s catapulted India to a respectable status as an economic power in the world. After a decade and a half of good economic growth, there has been a slump- not because of the failure of economic policies, but because of the government’s inability to push through economic reforms, hamstrung by opposition on every policy. The opposition pinned down the government at various stages as a part of its strategy to bring about policy paralysis. The Global economy undergoing recession had also left its imprint on Indian economy. Who suffered in the bargain- the people of India and Indian economy!  Honestly one wonders if striking the note of negativism is the right route to capture power? Shakespeare’s words : The evil that men do lives after them;/The good is oft interred with their bones

have never been truer than what we see today. The scams of a few unworthy and corrupt persons in high office linger on while all the good done in the last two decades seems to be interred even before the demise of the present government. 

The Sangh Parivar wants it to be a straight fight against Gandhi Parivar. The best strategy is to make it a fight between the fascist Sangh parivar and a democratic parivar that does not project a Gandhi as the PM designate. Both Sonia and Rahul have  declared that they are not interested in the PM’s chair and they do not lust for power. The Congress will elect its leader after the elections. There are many young, intelligent and forward looking persons in the party. As for the debate with Modi, the Congress has a good number of well educated and experienced young ministers to debate issues with him and his Modi-ites. The proper use of social media and the use of polite and courteous language can win more hearts than countering the opposition in the same screechy tone.

It does not matter who wins the battle so long as the battle is won -not on lies but on truth. The two principles of Gandhi have to be kept in this battle for the ballot- (a) means should be as good as the end. Gandhi wrote  “They say, 'means are, after all, means'. I would say, 'means are, after all, everything'. As the means so the end...” and 

(b) Satyameva  Jayate.

Responsibility of the Indian Voter

                                        Responsibility of the Indian Voter

The decibel levels of the Delphic oracles in India have reached a crescendo, predicting eternal doom for Indian economy, Indian education, Indian value system, in short for everything Indian. 2013 is for all purposes an election year with four states going for elections before the end of the year while the general elections are due anytime within the next ten months. The doomsday soothsayers are predicting a hung parliament, gleefully pointing to the dilemma among voters about the choice before them. The principal contenders are the Congress and the BJP. But the spoilsports or shall we say party-poopers are many. The latter will poach onto the votes of the two principal parties, though they may not perform a pole vault to form a government at the centre.  There will be no third front, say some of the doomsayers while exalting this new group to still greater heights as the kingmakers.

But the poor voter deafened by the cacophony of media debates stands perplexed for unlike the political pundits in the TV studios, s/he knows the truth that there is nothing to choose, nothing with which to choose, nothing from which to choose, no desire to choose , together with the obligation to choose( apologies to Samuel Beckett). As a committed citizen of a democratic country, the voter has the obligation to exercise his /her franchise and therefore has to find a way as how to make the right choice that would give the nation a stable five year governance.

The voter’s problem is to some extent solved by the wannabe PM each party is likely to announce sooner or later. Narender Modi is the choice of the RSS, though within the BJP there are Modi-baiters and Modi waiters. He is a great performer on the political stage- skillfully using body language as a powerful communication mechanism –and closes in for the kill from the word go. He plays to the gallery using expletives with no holds barred. A master orator, he has the skill to turn half truths and half lies into full truths and full lies, much to the delight of his listening audience. He speaks of his dream-to make an India out of Gujarat and a Gujarat out of India. Given the option, he will not think twice about making Ahmedabad the capital of India. The only fly in the ointment is with his persona. India under him will not be a democratic but a modicratic nation. Just as we hear of no one except Modi in Gujarat , there will be no show stopper other than Modi in the whole of India. Already one hears his admirers with their paean of praise:”India is Modi and Modi is India”. The 63 year old man has had a headstart as the challenger and is showing impatience at the delay in formal crowning as the PM-in- attendance.

His opponent is 20 years younger-the 43 year young Rahul Gandhi who comes with a clean slate only because  he has not held any cabinet post, and is  seemingly in the raw in administration and governance.  He is far from being a consummate politician and seems to harbor a strange and naïve optimism that his fresh, clean image will win over the voters who are fatigued and tired by corruption and perceived misgovernance. He has unfortunately to carry with him the baggage of incumbency, scams and an economy gone awry though he would like his audience to believe that he is the new clean face of the Congress that would under his leadership see systemic changes and get rid of all deadwood that had dented the image of his clean predecessor Manmohan Singh.  He is no match for Modi’s oratory, but he has his own strength in being non-abrasive, non-garrulous and self effacing in his demeanour.  With his sleeves rolled up and with a dimpled smile on a pleasant and cheerful face, he is attractive. He is desperate to make Indian voters believe that he does not make any primogenitural claim to become the Prime Minister but to be truly elected and accepted to be the leader. But he suffers from lack of experience and lack of aggression that his challenger has in abundance. The toss is between youth and age, gentility and abrasiveness, self effacement and self assertion, partnership and domination. The voter has to decide as to what are the virtues to be had in the 21^st Century – a period when geopolitics and geostrategies take centre stage. What passes of as belligerent talk in national politics will not pass muster on the world stage. India cannot afford to be divided on caste and religious lines. It should not vote for reductionist approach but for a holistic one.

The regional satraps who are fairly strong in their states have been behaving like chieftains of small kingdoms and do not see their states as a part of the larger nation. Many of the non-Congress ruled states have heavily criticized the Union government’s bid to set up the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), GST,FDI retail, and other such programmes as a measure that curbs their autonomy and jurisdiction. The larger interests of the nation are sacrificed at the altar of narrow parochialism. Hence these regional heads of states do not have an idea that is India. The fledgling aam-admi party  has just one slogan - to sweep the Aegean stable but without  understanding that their sweep is merely raising  dust and tarring all in government in black(  except the middleclass babus -their vote bank- who incidentally are the worst among the corrupt).

The voter has to decide not by listening to media debates that are often just ‘tu-tu-mein-mein’. Media, the self styled champions of integrity, honesty, truthfulness and sanity have shown their Achilles’ heels in promoting paid news and sensationalizing stories to garner TRP ratings. It is time for reflection; it is time for integrative thinking; it is time for holistic understanding of national issues that are intertwined with global concerns; it is time for inclusive development as against lop-sided development for the exclusive and privileged sections of society.

India has to vote and vote for a change- a change that will bring the fruits of development to every citizen, a change that will honour and respect wisdom of age and encourage and nurture the aspirations of the young, a change that will translate our glorious heritage like the Vedas and the Gita as well as the ancient economic treatises and political strategies  of Chanakya to be attuned to modern demands, a change that will bring back the glory of Nalanda and Taxila to our educational institutions, a change that will make tradition something new, a change that will see the transformation of our present dehumanized culture into a humane culture and a change that will see India take the lead in promoting global humanity.  

The importance of the voter’s responsibility has never been greater than today.

Is 'Enoughness' a cultivable virtue?

                                         Is ‘Enoughness’ a Cultivable Virtue?

The wedding season is on.  With the pundits identifying a few auspicious dates for marriage, there is a mad scramble to book hotels and farm houses, parks and all available open spaces. The days of Barat ghar shaadis are over; they probably are only for the less privileged who are almost at the lower end of the social hierarchy. The middle class is slowly moving out of bharat ghars towards farm houses formerly used by the super rich classes. The Benz owners have now shifted to exotic palaces and seven star hotels to celebrate with flare and fanfare the wedding of their wards.

The swift and sudden elevation of the middle class seems at odds with its orchestrated cry against the economic distress it has been subjected to in recent times due to corruption in the higher echelons of the government. But the ostentatious rise in the economic status of the middle class nails the lie that it is a victim of corruption and not a perpetrator of corruption. The lavish decorations in plush farm houses, the deafening music of the latest Bollywood hits, the gung-ho outfits on women --that one sees on the TV serials with backless cholis that keep their  arms braceleted and bare matched by sequined colorful lehangas that trail the floor (that would embarrass even  Queen Victoria’s sartorial prudery) , the sparkling diamond and gold jewelry-- complemented by tuxedoed men dressed to the nines with shaggy or spiked hair styles and last but not the least,  the exotic cuisine that fills your stomach even by merely ogling at it make one wonder if it is a real or a reel show. Everyone assembled there including the senior citizens looked as though they were out of the teleframe.  Who dares to complain of power shortage when the air-conditioning of the wedding hall , the ball room, the adjoining bar counter and the dining hall sends real shivers down your spine unless you had a peg or two served by young, handsome bartenders. As the priest kept droning on and administering the seven vows to the young couple who were asked to circumambulate seven times the sacred fire,  the crowd kept waiting to make a beeline to dinner. But during that period, they were well served with snacks of all varieties besides tikkis and chillas and golgappas that were plenty available in the counter erected in a corner of the wedding hall. No one except the bride and the groom and their parents were at the florally decorated mandap where the sath pheras were taking place. Even the cameramen were more interested in clicking for posterity the celebrity guests who were making their late entry (how else will they be noticed and commented on as people with 24x7 busy schedule) rather than the protagonists of the day stepping in tow round the fire. The end of the pheras signaled the start of the deafening sound of loud Bollywood music. The title-tattle around the round tables reached a crescendo and it was difficult to listen to who was talking what to whom.  Just as the couple reached the specially erected platform to be greeted by the guests, people started moving towards the dining hall. It is amazing how much we Indians can pack in our alimentary canal that is normally 10 to 11 inches long with a diameter of 4 to 4 1/2 inches and with a capacity to hold around 40 ounces. The pre-dinner snacks were enough to last till breakfast next day, but the magnificent wedding feast with about fifty dishes that was both national and international was the event for which the crowd had assembled -though ostensibly their gracious presence was meant to discharge their obligation to the hosts who had invited them. No wonder why Indians are estimated to record an increase in cardiac illness s due to their ‘central obesity’ or in simpler terms, to the widening of their midriff.

The Big Fat Indian Wedding seems an anachronism in the context of the current Standard and Poor’s rating of Indian economy. It is amazing how the middle class that forms the backbone of the disgruntled and forever-whining aam admi cadre, unleashes its Aladdin’s genie at the time of wedding that lifts it phenomenally to a higher economic status evidenced in these BFIWs. For all the caution sounded by our  PM about our gold craze, and for all the cry orchestrated by the opposition that sees in the gold fever the economic mess by the government, the gold that glitters in these weddings seems to mock at all the political rant about our economy.

My mind was in a swirl as I drove back home after attending one such glittering wedding. Do we have to celebrate weddings in such vulgar ostentation? Should we go in for such extravagant lavish spread when rightly or wrongly the Parliament has passed the Food security Bill to provide foodgrains to 67% of India’s 1.2 billion people. The Bill certainly has affirmed that 80400000 people in India are in need of food security. How much food would have been wasted after overfilling the stomach of the wedding crowd? What would have been the cost of hiring a farmhouse? How many Kilowatts of power have been used to electrify the vast area of the wedding venue? What would have been the gasoline consumption by the attendees as the farmhouses are situated far away on the outskirts of the city? How many kilos of gold and silver, how many carats of diamond the bride must have had as a part of her expensive trousseau? Wouldn’t the huge money spent on solemnizing the nuptial vows of a young couple to give them the license to share a bed, have helped in rebuilding at least a few of the many thousands of families grievously affected by the Himalayan tsunami? Wouldn’t this money have helped in building schools for so many millions of children who have been given their legitimate right to education? The middle class constant lament sounding like a broken record that the rich business community –the well heeled class of society-hardly bestows thought on their hungry, poor and destitute fellow beings is like pot calling the kettle black. The Indian middle class seeks its right to have a lifestyle in keeping up with the Joneses but does not feel a sense of duty that they expect from the Joneses  to alleviate poverty and hunger of those in the lowest rung of the social ladder.

Is it possible to give up on an unwritten tradition that specifies a whole lot of pre-wedding and post-wedding functions causing enormous expenditure and still more enormous wastage of food, energy and gasoline? This does not include dowry, jewelry, and trousseau given to the bride.  Will traditional society frown upon weddings on a smaller scale to give legitimacy to two people coming together as man and wife? Will that in any way reduce the sanctity of marriage?  Will it be a lessening of joy and festivity associated with marriage? Nearly half a century ago, I recall my brother’s wedding where the traditional Brahmin family of the bride threw open the gates to  poor people, orphaned children and street beggars to partake of the wedding feast for three days and three nights. Those were the days when Gandhian simplicity was still in practice in some pockets of the society.  That was a wedding to be remembered, to be recalled and to be re-invented in modern times. I have deliberately used the word ‘re-invented’ as in our present  times, instead of feeding hungry mouths for three days, a substantial amount of money could be diverted towards capacity building of those poor lives that would give them a permanent lift up the social ladder.

We have forgotten our fundamentals that stress on simple living and high thinking. The famous Tamil saying ‘I know nothing except to think of the happiness of all my fellow beings.’ is the rephrasing  of the Senecan lines:

‘Since we live, since we live among human beings/ Let us cultivate humanity.’ Can our middle class now hold the torch and light up the Indian minds to see beauty, happiness and dignity in life without the extravaganza? Let us affirm  Schumacher’s philosophy that  small is also beautiful, thereby appreciating ‘enoughness’ in human needs and emphasizing "the aim ought to be to obtain the maximum amount of well being with the minimum amount of consumption."