How Rude is My Valley

                                                               How Rude is My Valley

Two analyses of American reactions to their President and his speeches and a third  one on the release of a new film Fahrenheit451 jolted me out of all hopes of a return to liberal democracy not only in US but in all other parts of the world. This is because all the three analyses highlighted the trend in US towards an endorsement of all White’s support to authoritarianism. What we see in India  is also very similar to what is happening in US. With political discourse plummeting to an absurdly pathetic no holds barred level in India, it is frightening to contemplate what will be in store for us in the coming months in the run up to the 2019 elections.  The world is no longer witnessing a clash between left, right and centre or between capitalist, socialist and liberal ideologies that primed intellectual debates in the past. In today’s world the polarization is between accepted social norms of polite speech and civil behaviour, and the new norms of openness and directness that allows no separation between word and sentiment. 

In this discord of polemics of behaviour, where  both the old and the new norms have their respective positives and their drawbacks, it will be naïve to privilege one over the other based on subjective judgement of right and wrong with regard to standards of behaviour and speech.  As years roll on and generational changes follow, there can be no one prescriptive formula determining how we conduct ourselves in our engagement with others in society.

 Let us see the three specifics that US is debating today which shockingly and yet truly endorse a new norm that looks askance at all norms of decency and politeness.  President Trump’s rudeness that is legendary has gained a new and refreshing appeal among the Americans precisely because he is blunt and says what he feels without varnishing the truth. He does not hide behind polished, civil language as he cynically dismisses it as a cushion to state polite falsehoods. He wears his blunt honesty on his sleeves, refusing to cloak uncomfortable truths in civil discourse. President Trumps’ rudeness is now seen as an assault on hypocrisy that is subtly used for “stultifying political correctness.”  America which has till now been the champion of liberal ideology with its advocacy of individual freedom and protection of civil liberties from arbitrary authoritarianism, is gradually becoming critical under President Trump for endorsing a tolerant and indulgent spirit of accommodation that had given America the pride of place in the world. America had embraced the concept of  the  salad bowl, allowing the integration of the many different cultures unlike the more traditional notion of remaining a cultural melting pot where generation of immigrants had abandoned their indigenous culture to get assimilated into American society. The distinct feature of America is its acceptance of different cultures and providing them the space to keep their own distinct qualities. But democracy has come under a cloud in America as it has happened in other parts of Europe. There is a creeping fear of democracy in danger overtaking us in India as well.

 What has caused this shift from democracy to some form of authoritarianism even if that may not be a full blown dictatorship?  The strength of democracy rests on its expansiveness to accommodate many different opposing ideologies. So the threat to democracy can never be from clash of political ideologies as their presence sustains it, but due to the strong leaning towards one particular ideology. It is not right versus left, capitalism versus socialism or conservatism versus liberalism but a perfervid return to a single ideology that brooks no opposition. This happened in Stalin’s Russia and Mao Tse Tung’s China with their single political ideology of communism. A similar kind of increasing political polarization towards right has made it difficult for other political ideologies to co-exist, with the danger of destruction of democratic norms and institutions in US, Europe and India. Trump’s campaign pitched fiercely for the native white Americans who are shown to be under threat from non white immigrants. Trump’s coming to power was founded on reserving jobs for the Whites from the non Whites. In an article on   “The Trump Effect”, Noah Berlatsky finds a correlation between white American's intolerance and support for authoritarian rule because American whites have been brain washed into fearing democracy that had benefitted all the immigrants and marginalized people. This fear is at the root of Americans preference for an authoritarian rule in place of their commitment to democracy. They do not see Trump’s politics of America First and America for Americans( minus the immigrants) is a sleight of hand subtlety by which he juggles and changes ethno cleansing into a most magnanimous virtue. Similarly in India the PM’s and his party’ call for  a Congress and opposition- mukht Bharat resonates with the single ideological passion of Hindutva  that puts paid to all other ideologies that are either left or left centric or secular and liberal, making it a return to a single party rule that goes against the norms of democracy.

 The second analysis is about Trump’s rudeness as against the accepted political correctness.  Keith Koffler writes: “Trump’s rudeness is strong medicine, but it’s an invaluable antidote to a poisonous phenomenon.” His defence of talking straight from the heart is to fight hypocrisy whereby one speaks a language that is acceptable as per the norms of decency and politeness.  Here is a paradox for democracy survives only when truths are told and debated even if they are hurtful , but at the same time there is a thin  line that separates  hurtful sentiments from intemperate and foul language. Trump says he speaks about deeper reality and refuses to couch them in artificial niceties. Trump’s shrill trumpets sounded shocking in the beginning, but have now come to be accepted as refreshingly straight and honest. Being uncivil as being brutally honest has become the norm. We see this happening in India when the leaders use harsh and uncivil language that is parrot-like echoed by their followers. Social media is full of abusive mockery of the opposition. Civility, thy days are over. Incivility, thy days are come.

 The third reference is to the new release of the dystopian film Fahrenheit 451 based on Ray Bradbury’s novel. Dystopian, the antonym of Utopian (which aspires to impracticable perfection) refers to anything that is of a dire or grim nature. Dystopian novels were popular between the 1930s and 1950s as they reflected the anxieties of a rapidly changing technological society. The irony is that those things which trigger our anxieties today reflect the now rapidly changing society of the Information age. Bradbury’s novel “Fahrenheit 451” is about how the destruction of books aids in the removal of ideas and free will. The film has made a slight deviation and shows the destruction of hard drives and servers on which the books have been uploaded.  The film ironically shows how in this age of information overload, news and entertainment stare you on your face as the walls in all the rooms serve as giant screen beaming  the television programmes. Bradbury’s book had raised the anxiety of a world where insipid entertainment would lead to ignorance and indifference. This message still resonates though ironically his book now turned into a TV special shows TV viewing as the cause of it. It decries the watching of television, the mindless engagement with Facebook and Twitter and the modern obsession with the social media using crass and abusive language and spreading fake news . The book blames the demise of books on the shortening of our attention spans. But what is frightening about this adapted film  version of Bradbury’s novel 'Fahrenheit 451' is not that it portrays a dystopian future  but it portrays a society has come to accept it as normal.

All newspapers and magazines are full of gratuitous advice about how to live life. In a nutshell, most of them tender new standards totally at variance with the norms that had  till now prevailed, almost to the point of questioning ‘What is in a norm?’. A recent leading newspaper suggested an alternative way to live happily by reveling in imperfection, an anti thesis to classical norms of perfection and beauty. The writer makes a case for imperfection by citing Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”. The alternative world view that has become the norm today is to look at the cracks and not at the light. The justification is that there is no perfect world that is delightful and enduring and therefore we honestly accept and embrace imperfection.  Keatsian chiasmus  “Beauty is Truth, truth beauty”_ (satyam, shivam,sindaram) does not hold water any longer.  Liberty, Equality, Fraternity are unattainable goals and therefore better to discard liberal values and subject ourselves to rule by authoritarianism.  Better to be brutally honest and speak with no artificial politeness and nicety.  If Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley is a paean to an innocent age of the past, How Rude is my Valley is a paean to our Information age.

PIP : Solution to Fractured Times

                                                         PIP :  Solution to Fractured Times

It is three weeks since I wrote my last blog – reasonably a long period for someone like me who loves thumping the key board. The events of this interregnum have re-affirmed the prevailing view that we live in fractured times. But what is disturbing is a throwback to post partition times that had made the nation a cauldron of hatred, anger and violence when men behaved not like men but like brutish beasts. Today one feels a palpable tension in the nation, triggered by clashes and conflicts among people belonging to different communities, castes, religions and ideologies besides horrendous, gendered violence affirming hegemonic masculinity. Delhi continues its notorious distinction as the rape capital of the nation, though Uttar Pradesh and its sister state Uttarakhand are not far behind to usurp that title. While Kashmir witnesses daily killings of civilians, (not taking in the fatality count of the army and police personnel), Kerala sees political murders of the red and saffron brigades. Panchayati elections in West Bengal have seen gross violence and loss of many lives though the Trinamool government cushions itself against criticism saying the toll was much higher during the Communist rule of the state. The recent killing of 212 security personnel by Maoists in Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh and the retaliatory killing by the police and security forces in the two states and in Maharashtra tell a tale of revenge and murder.  Farmers’ agitation, teachers’ strike, dalits’ anger, judiciary’s dilemma , doctors’ strike, traders’ woes on GST, middle class protests  against rise in fuel price and all necessary commodities,... show the nation rising up in an agitational mode. The communal clashes resulting from fringe groups of Hindutva, dictating the venue for performing ‘namaz’,  imposing love jihad and  dictating dietary regulations,  proscribing what one should not  read,  what film one should not  see and what one should not celebrate like Valentine’s day, have disturbed the state of equilibrium. Atop of all this is the Dance of Democracy we witnessed in the recent Karnataka elections which comes close to the Theatre of Comi-tragedy(blending of both comic and serious/tragic scenes)  where the holing of people in hotels and resorts either as captives or as loyalists and threatening them with dire consequences if they failed to switch loyalties is akin to a comic caper while the ideological bankruptcy at the core of  the entire political spectrum is close to a national tragedy. The alternate elements of absurdity and double dealing that marked the last few days after the Karnataka elections reveal the dark side of our national character that lends itself either to be lured or frightened to submission. Karnataka election illustrates that “The quality of corruption is not strained; it impacts him that gives and him that receives.”-an adaptation of  Portia’s  famous line from Shakespeare’s comedy The Merchant of Venice

All these are not manufactured list of ills that account for the disquiet that is prevalent in our times. This is not an adverse report card of the present NDA government alone. The earlier UPA was also discredited for corruption, rape, policy paralysis.   There is no one clean government  today, honest and ethical, as no government is free of the chains of corruption. The BJP came to power saying that it is a party with a difference. Those are glib words and there is nothing that differentiates the present government from the previous one. Yes, there is one difference. It is the only party that uses the word “mukht” and has its main agenda as “Congress( read now opposition) mukht Bharat. Will there be any shred of democracy if there is going to be one party rule?  Let us all  reject the word ‘mukht’ from our political vocabulary as it goes against the Constitutional pledge.

My initial response – and I think I am in the company of multitudes of  citizens who think and feel like me-was to let things take place for there is nothing we can do. Take a deep breath and watch in silence the battles going on all around us. This is the general attitude all over the world to allow the  elected political representatives to decide for all the rest , protest feebly and then do nothing saying, who are we to take responsibility. Today, overarching one’s helplessness is the unknown fear of being stalked or being a marked person that has numbed our feelings of disquietude, haplessness and impuissance. The oft felt pessimism that our armchair discussions and parrot like repetitions of what is going wrong with all our institutions have no impact on our elected representatives,  made me withdraw from the blog world where one can share online his/her  personal views, feelings, fears and thoughts.  

But the truth is one cannot run away from the world or find solace in silence. Such a cowardly withdrawal signals readiness to accept anarchy and authoritarianism of the law makers who audaciously turn law breakers. All that is within my power is to speak out or write about the mess we are in and find ways and means to extricate ourselves from it. Language, says George Steiner, is the main instrument of man’s refusal to accept the world as it is. That is why he says all that writers express is ‘creative falsehood’ as the world they explore is a fictitious world of their creation, far removed from the world they find themselves hemmed in.  It is for the intelligentsia to articulate a new world order that would restore humaneness with its emphasis on kindness, compassion, mercy, tolerance and consideration for others. It is through writings, talks, films , art and culture we can bring back these values. It is the responsibility of the elites( a term that presently  suffers from a pejorative connotation) to bring back beauty and peace, truth and honesty, altruism and self sacrifice  to our society that our politicians have destroyed for personal gains . These are not empty words talking in an idealistic way or what we term today as ‘political jumla (vapid, empty promises).

One recent example of promoting Indo-Pak relationship is the film Raazi, that gives a new direction to forge better relationship between India and Pakistan. The director, Meghna Gulzar has gone on record saying that she had refused to demonise Pakistan in her film Raazi and wanted to show the humane side of the Pakistani soldier and his family towards their daughter-in-law who is an Indian. Meghna’s statement that   loving one’s country doesn’t mean you hate the country on the other side of the border opens up a new dimension in Indo –Pak relationship. The last few years has seen an upping of frenzy and hatred against Pakistan at all international fora constantly referring to Pakistan as a failed state and a terror manufacturing state.  The total absence of Pak-bashing in this film Raazi is a refreshingly new approach. The film holds a mirror to our political hawks whose  bad mouthing Pakistan has only intensified hatred and brutal violence between the two nations. It is time India lifts the ban on cricketers, sportspersons, artists , films and books from Pakistan and encourage a free flow of neighbourly engagement. Instead of spending billions of rupees on building more and more  nuclear arsenal, the two nations can divert that money to develop through mutual exchange of engineers, doctors, scientists, writers and educationists and rewrite a new history of the two nations coming together. East and West Germany have come together. North and South Korea are seeking friendly relationship. Can’t we embrace Pakistanis whose ancestors belong to and hail from India? To equate hatred for Pakistan with patriotism and desh bakhti is to perpetuate the conflict which was seeded by Britain in its divide and rule policy. Interestingly the BJP celebrity, Shatrughan Sinha refuses to toe the party line of hatred for Pakistan saying “I refuse to believe that if I love India I’ve to hate Pakistanis. I want an atmosphere of cultural perestroika between India and Pakistan .”

This is the ripe moment for the process of cultural thawing to begin. One’s love for one’s country need not be his/her hatred for the neighbour. In the process of forging friendship, the present state of violence and hatred in India among the two religious communities will automatically cease. There are many ways of restoring communal harmony in the country that has seen a spurt of intolerance and non accommodation towards the Muslim community. In India while many Indian universities have departments of foreign languages and literature that include East European countries, Germany, Russia, Italy, France, there is no department that offers courses on Pakistani Literature. Our students have no knowledge of the outstanding writers from Pakistan like Jamil Ahmad, Saba Imtiaz, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Musharraf Ali Farooqi, Manto, Bapsi Sidhwa , Hanif Querishi… The only writer we know of Pakistan origin is Salman Rushdie because of his controversial Satanic Verse that had been banned. Art, Music, Cultural and Fashion shows and Cinema besides Sports can play a great role in bringing people together and make a chorus of an appeal to the two warring governments and military units to desist from looking at each other as enemy nations. If we start the process of normalization, all the money that is spent on weapons can be used for promotion of trade and commerce and national development of both countries. When our politicians switching loyalties mouth platitudes that in politics, there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, why can’t this be extended to two nations, united by birth, divided by religious affiliation? If India and Pakistan join hands , the sub continent will be a world power that is presently enjoyed by China.

We, the people of India and Pakistan have allowed the political and military establishments to dictate terms and decide our nations’ future. If there is people’s movement from both aides of the border orchestrating peace and friendship, even the Kashmir issue will get resolved as a joint Indo-Pak assistance to Kashmir’s development will be fairly and equitably shared by Kashmiris on either side of the border. Let us no more call them as Pak occupied Kashmir and India occupied Kashmir.

We need People’s initiative. We, the people of India should solemnly make a pledge that individually  

 *We will work for restoring peace and harmony by honest and ethical practices.

 *We will neither be bribe givers nor bribe takers

 *We will not allow any group to monopolise the wealth of the country but strive for equitable       sharing of the nation’s wealth and resources

 *We shall strive for a casteless society by giving up our caste names

 * We shall be true citizens of India upholding the sanctity of the Constitution gifted to us by the builders of the nation

*We shall work hard and contribute in our own ways to develop the country.

* We shall lead a life  free of want and free of greed, a life of sharing and caring.

* Swachch Bharat shall be our credo where the purity of the physical environment is complemented by the purity of our minds and thoughts.

* Last, but not the least, we shall take pride in being Indian and becoming a world citizen.

Kindly do not ignore these words as the empty words of a glib writer. The writer of this blog has nothing to gain as she is almost moving towards the eighth decade of her life. But the passion for bringing back beauty and grace, civility and courtesy, integrity and incorruptibility, probity and rectitude is still with me as though I am four decades younger. It is said there is method in madness. I say there has to be madness(passion) in method.

We have no alternative but to individually work towards collective happiness. PIP- People’s Initiative Power must be realized and actualized to glue us as humans in these fractured times. Those who have the energy, the desire, the will and the drive should set in motion PIP whose outreach shall be the collective strength and force of all people  to bring  freedom from  fractured  times.

 

Ripeness is All

                                                          Ripeness is All

As one grows older, it is prudent to age gracefully- which means being less judgemental, less gushing forth on the great life we had lived in ‘those’ days, willing to yield place to the new generation whose outlook on life is vastly different from our generation and accepting the folly and irrelevance of insisting on living life in the past and not in the fast and present mode. It is a fact that all of us age and are not Markandeyas (immortals), all of us have to retire one day and all of us know at our heart of hearts the silence of wisdom while crossing life’s last hurdle before finishing the race. Yet very few of us live by these precepts that are commonsensical because they conflict with the convictions that we  had held for almost five to six decades.

 Two striking events last week jolted me out of my self induced complacency and they followed in quick succession. The first was watching and enjoying a lovely dance debut by a twelve year old that was performed to perfection. The footwork, the hand gestures, the body stretches of the young dancer had a fluid movement, well coordinated and performed without a flaw to the beats of the dance syllables. She was small and slightly built and covered the large stage with graceful and fascinating movements. In addition to Bharatanatyam, she was formally undergoing training in the other two classical dance forms of- Odissi and Kuchipudi besides learning classical music from the Bhatkhande school.  Her love of dance extended further for her to be trained in contemporary dance forms.  It was amazing how a school going kid could find time to pursue her passion for music and dance that demanded many hours of practice to attain perfection that was on display that evening. Bhatratnatyam- for that matter all Indian classical dance forms comprise three elements- Nritta(pure movement), Nritya(expressive of the theme)  and Natyam(incorporating both movement and spiritual themes as in a play). The lithesome young girl was splendid in Nritta , but was too young  in age to experience and communicate Nrithya and Natyam. It is just not possible or even to expect the girl to understand and display feelings of love and awe towards the Lord or a lover about whom all the songs are composed. She was far too young to grasp the essence of “feelings and thoughts that lie too deep for tears.”. This is one of the basic flaws in our schools of dance where training very young dancers to perform to perfection is nothing but a raining in the exercise of memory on sequential movements without experiencing the ecstasy of dance.

This young dancer is the typical kid of the present age when parents want their children to learn multiple arts and disciplines without compromising on academics. This is the insta- age and there is a mad hurry to learn things fast and in advance of mature years. The earlier concept of allowing time to ripen and mature is no longer valid. The after school hours schedule is far more punishing than the school schedule of classes and home work. Swimming, horse riding, cricket, tennis, badminton, rock climbing, theatre, music, dance are some of the activities they learn at a fast and furious pace. By the time, they are adolescents, there is nothing new to learn, nothing new to excite them. The burnt-out syndrome starts far too early in the children. They hardly get time to have fun and enjoyment as they are driven from one activity to another.

The next morning I found an interesting article in the Sunday newspaper on the millennials, the new  group of young professionals under forty,  who follow the motto of FIRE(Financial Independence, Retire Early).  These are the new generation successful professionals who work 24x7 for almost 15 years( assuming they graduate when they are 23) to secure financial independence for the rest of their lives- from 40 to+++…  They do not want to be in the rat race after 40 and want to lead a leisurely life, doing what they like to do without any constraint of competitiveness, one upman-ship, or continual racing after goals beyond their reach. For them Robert Browning’s wisdom “Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp” has no meaning. They claim that following FIRE, they have learnt to strike a work-life balance and to move away from earn and spend strategy and give up a luxurious life style.

Sounds great, coming from these 40+ professionals who carry their mighty philosophic heads on their young shoulders. They had lived life at the highest speed possible and so now seek to replace the burnt-out syndrome by giving up on all the training, experience, talent and passion they had acquired over twenty years . This is happening to all our bright and talented children who are trained in multiple activities at an age when the finer aesthetic and emotional sensibilities have yet to ripen. The blossoms that appear on a tree are not an overnight phenomenon. The seed takes root, the plant grows tall, the leaves come out, buds are formed and then come the blossoms in all their resplendent colours. What ripens before time falls off.

I belong to that generation which never believed in retirement. We were nervous and apprehensive when the day of retirement approached. With all our mental and physical faculties in shape-thanks to modern healthcare systems and better living conditions- what was in store for us in the next twenty years or more seemed bewildering and frightening. We would rather be FIRED than follow the FIRE motto of our young millennials.  I do  not say this is better or that was better, but even at the cost of being criticized for  not observing the golden precept of silence of the oldies, I venture to say that with age one’s mental faculties get sharper and more focused. It is a well known fact( with certain exceptions) that we feel embarrassed to read our doctoral dissertations written when we were 30 as the content, thought and language of the latter years take a greater sheen, moulded by experience, vaster reading and deeper reflections. It is a pity we academics are retired at 65, precisely when our lectures gain greater depth and scholarship, shaped by years of study and research. This is true of administrators who are made to retire at 60 when long years of administration had given them experience and the right perspective in matters of governance.

But the FIRE motto deprives the young millennials the experience of twenty years(if not more). Secondly you don’t run a marathon by sprinting the first few miles or the first few kms. There is no point in saying you are fed up with rat race while the desire to be financially independent cannot be fulfilled without being a part of the rat race. How can one earn enough money for the rest of one’s life by working one’s bones for twenty odd years? If inflation is taken into account, the value of money goes down with the passing of years. In economics, what goes up never comes down. So the money one lays aside when one is forty cannot last forever.  All the philosophic approach to life of not wanting luxuries and striking a balance between life and work can as well be implemented from day one instead of waiting for retirement at forty. Do the millennials say that such wisdom dawns only after 40?

It is easy to say that once retired we will do what pleases us. A healthy living depends on time management and a disciplined approach to life. The young millennials think the first twenty years into professional life are enough to focus on work to the detriment of all youthful enjoyment. 20-40 is the period when one’s physical energy is at its peak. This is a time to channelize and diversify that energy into work, enjoyment, development of aesthetic tastes and activities of body and mind. God forbid one does not fall sick at the end of the youthful period. Then all the investments made feverishly will go towards medical expenses. The young dancer and the new millennials seem to burn out their energies too fast to live a distant and imponderable  future .  What is needed is moderation.  Epicurus says : “Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.”  The experience of seventy odd years make me say ( against my conviction not to speak about those years) that we should live life not King size for a few years but live life Full size for all times to come. Isn’t this what the bard of Avon said:

"Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither: Ripeness is all."