Intellectual Interpretation of Mundane
Reality.
In 1917, Marcel Duchamp created the piece Fountain which was a scandalous work, a porcelain urinal and
submitted it to the Society of Independent Artists. It was rejected by the
Society as it regarded it as a scatological work. But Duchamp described that his
intent in creating the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft
to intellectual interpretation. Though the experience of such art is not
exciting and ennobling and leaves one with a sense of distaste, Duchamp
adamantly asserted that he wanted to "de-deify" the artist.
I may be charged with calumny/ slander/defamation etc even if I vaguely
suggest a veiled comparison between Marcel Duchamp’s conceptual art and PM
Modi’s maiden Independence day address, but I seek my readers’ objective assessment that will reveal similarity of intent in
Duchamp and Modi. Modi’s references to toilet and cleanliness, rape and foeticide from the ramparts of the Red Fort was probably
intended as a shock therapy to old world people like me who expected an
ennobling and exalting speech which in
present times is looked at with derision
as an elitist affectation. The acolytes of Modi have the tendency to frown upon
anyone who dares to critique his speech even though the same group hailed their
leader last year when he belittled the
then PM’s Red Fort address by making
disparaging remarks when he unfurled the Indian flag from Ahmedabad. Today they praise Modi for being extempore,
for doing away with the bullet proof screen and for his paternalistic advice as
signs of his oratorical skills, courage, direct contact with his audience and his fatherly concern for his unruly, erratic people –so different from all
the previous PMs’ staid addresses from the Red Fort.
It is difficult to accept all these effusive praise in toto despite the
panegyric chorus of the Modituva
brigade, the fawning Media and the few select discussants on TV channels claiming
their views as representative of all Indians in and outside the country. The PM’s
homilies like cleanliness is godliness, rein your sons and not your daughters – (as though all
daughters are of Florence Nightingale’s
descent and all sons are descendants of
Ravan and Duryodana) sounded like
moralizing sermons from classroom or from the pulpit and seemed at odds with an
inspiring Independence Day address from the Red Fort. While the Modi votaries
gush eloquently on their leader speaking from the heart and connecting with the
audience( they say “not for your kind of elitists”), I wondered whether Modi did
not remember that among the audiences were 144 members from various diplomatic missions(
it is said that the Ministry of External Affairs could not oblige all the 150
diplomatic missions who had requested for passes to listen to the PM’s maiden
speech) who could not be provided with accurate translation of the PM’s speech
delivered in Hindi as it was extempore. The flipside of the non availability of
the PM’s speech to the diplomats was that the PM’s broadside on filth and rape,
on his countrymen’s patriarchal love for sons and detestation for daughters and
their crime against women went unheeded and unnoticed by them at least for the
moment. While hygiene and toilet are important issues, they have to be tackled
not from the Red Fort but from classrooms and municipal offices. Independence
Day address is meant to give a sneak peek into his vision and plans on issues
that concern India and the world. But
strangely the PM did not touch upon
inflation- a key to unveiling his economic policy, on defence that includes India’s
troublesome relationship with Pakistan
and China and on all the major ‘T’s(talent, tourism, trade and technology) and ‘C’s (cooperation, connectivity, culture
and constitution) that he had earlier made the cornerstone of his internal and
international policies.
The removal of bulletproof glass pane was done in the early hours of
the 15th August after a security shield had already been laid for
his Red Fort visit as the PM of the nation. This is more an act of bravado( for
which Rajiv Gandhi paid with his life) and why should the PM seek such pseudo
glory when he has risen to the highest office of the country? There is no doubt that he is fluent with
words in Hindi speeches but these speeches are good for elections to touch the sensitive
chord of every Indian. But this is post election period and he is now the PM of
the whole of India. Should not this occasion be used for bringing the nation
together by an address from the Red Fort to reach the listeners in Tamilnadu
and Kerala, Andamanand Nicobar islands and non-Hindi speakers in other parts of
the nation. Is his audience limited to the northern states only that he had to
deliver his maiden address from Red Fort in Hindi?
This is not to criticize the PM’s efforts to galvanize people to rise
up to a new India. But what was needed and was disappointingly missing in his
speech was a clear roadmap towards
establishing a new India. He could have roused his countrymen telling them what
and how they should make citizen-government partnership effective rather than
confining to chiding them for their omissions and commissions. In the act of
governance, he can no longer say that he
is an outsider and the insiders are in the bureaucracy who like the rats are
chewing away good governance.
The most unfortunate development of the last few weeks since Modi took
charge is the sycophancy of the BJP men and women- especially their spokespersons with their attempt to eulogize the PM even if he sneezed
and criticize all those who dare to be objective and not be obsequious.
Imitation, it is said, is the best form of flattery. But flattery is the worst
form of insincerity and all PM’s men and women should be wary of indulging in
insincere and excessive praise. It is time they give up deifying a person who
has been given the huge responsibility of governing a country that has in
recent times become undisciplined and unmanageable.
Modi is now the Prime Minister of India at a time when the nation is in
transition to a new age of modernity. He has the unenviable opportunity to
mould the nation to a glorious future. To do that he has to rise above trivial
issues and talk and act like a world statesman. Like Duchamp, he has to shift
the focus of his speeches from rhetoric on mundane reality to higher echelons
of intellectual engagement.
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