Fragments Shored against future ruin

Note:

This was written two days ago when we were still in 2018

Two days to ring in 2019 and ring out 2018. Hopefully these days will pass off without any cataclysmic upheaval that December has always experienced- notably since the last quarter of the 20^th C- the continuous downpour in Chennai in December 2015 resembling  the flood fury recorded in the Bible (before Noah built his ark  at God’s command  to save all God’s created species  on earth) or the  2004 tsunami that struck Chennai in the last week of December, or the terrible Bhopal Gas tragedy in early December of 1984, or the last day of the Soviet Union on Dec 25, 1991 before it disbanded.

 I have an instinctive dread of December as it signals the inalterable fact that the world has aged by one year, which ipso facto signals all of us ageing. Who likes to grow old? That too when one is approaching the last quarter, assuming oneself to be wired to hit a century! Like the sales advertisements that fixes the price of commodities  at 99p or 199 rupees – always one short of the next hundred, we prefer to say that we are in the late twenties or late thirties etc even after we are well into the next decade of our life. I am 29, 39, 69 or 79… but not 30, 40, 70 or 80…  Hence my dread of ageing whenever we ring in the New Year. Every year at 12 midnight as the new year dawns, I make a firm resolution that I shall not be tense when the year end approaches, only to find myself repeating the same old resolution at the stroke of midnight making it as my new one for the next year. So much for all our New Year resolutions!

This year I have made a different resolution. I resolved not to allow age to dictate my life. We all know age is always on the Y axis; in fact it stays static in the X axis only at the end. But in practical terms, age is just a number though it takes a toll on our physical strength. But it has no power over our cognitive abilities unless we allow it to do so by indulging in mental lassitude and torpor. 

As years roll on, I find myself like Eliot’s protagonist of the Wasteland dipping into the fragments I had shored in the past against future ruins. Like him  I see myself  standing in the middle of a waste land that is littered with splintered pieces from a glorious, high-cultured past from where I have collected these fragments and which I wish to pile up and make the present wasteland a fertile one. Before I am bracketed with all other seniors of my age and accused as living in the past and regressing into childhood nostalgia, I make it clear that all things were not right with the past just as is the case with the present, but whatever was well then, was worth preserving to shore them against future decay  when it happens. Our present world resembles Eliot’s wasteland- emotionally arid, culturally lacking in civility, intellectually bankrupt and morally decadent where we have forgotten what it is to be civil, loving and compassionate, cultured in what we say and how we conduct ourselves, intellectually tolerant and accommodative and ethically truthful, honest and public spirited. What is happening today is not singularly an Indian phenomena, but it is spread worldwide making the 21^st Century slowly regress into an era of egocentrism, greed, violence and intolerance, bereft of intellectual aristocracy, far removed from the  altruistic principles  that endorsed  liberty, equality and fraternity two hundred and thirty years ago in 1789.

I will confine myself to India, where despite the strides we have taken to become a modern nation, we have regressed faster on civil liberties, freedom of speech, superstitious beliefs, and  last but not the least on human index. The 2014 elections started it all. (This is not an indictment of the ruling establishment of the last four and a half years, only a factual statement).The public domain which is increasingly that of the social media is now used vigorously to settle private scores and to let out personal deep seated animus.  It was first used in the run up to 2014 elections to show the scam filled ruling establishment of Congress and its alliance partners.                                                                                                                                                       The language used was coarse and uncivil. There was nothing to distinguish between form and content, as both were unrefined and churlish, offensive and rude. The elections were won as people wanted change from a government that was increasingly corrupt and saw in Modiji a saviour who projected himself as the Knight on a white charger to drive away the black hoarders and scamsters off the face of India. The election campaign was demagoguery at its best, making impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the people. Man Mohan Singh’s silence and his party’s disconnect with the people  and its inability to showcase any  of its  innovative actions (such as RTI, MNREGA, anti rape laws, idea of constituting a Lokpal, Direct Cash transfer, Aadhar, nuclear deal and increased use of nuclear energy, the idea of GST- though aborted by the opposition, terror containment through bold decisions to hang Afsal Guru and Kasab etc) were further helped  by  the multiple scams that tumbled out of various  government schemes and activities to consign Congress led UPA to ignominy and Modi’s voice rose like the Goonj uthi shennai and reverberated all over India. His caustic attack and berating of the erstwhile Prime ministers soon after sitting on the PM’s chair  and announcing his goal to make India a Congress Mukht Bharat without ever wondering whether democracy can survive without a strong opposition and his personal  hatred and venom for the Nehru-Gandhi family resonated with everyone of his huge followers .It was sometime before the mauled opposition learnt the lesson that to win, one should have the courage  to descend to the lowest common denominator of using abusive  language The Congress began to use the social media to lambast the ruling government and  reached ignominious heights when it vilified the elected PM as a chor. If anything that has drastically changed in the last four years, it is the demise of civility in political discourse. If this trend continues one dreads to visualize the retreat of civil language in our country.

I hark back to the past when political discourses were on policies, principles and ideologies and not on personalities. It was never the case that if you don’t like me, you are anti establishment, antinational and anti Hindu. The political arguments  in those days till the BJP’s tenure under Vajpayee were always on issues and never on the opponent’s genealogy or nationality or religion and caste. To speak of the ex Prime Minister’s wife as an Italian woman and his son as having Italian blood in his genes or questioning the patriotic credentials of the previous PM and attacking him as a Pakistani agent showed the level to which personal dislike can bring the discourse down. The fragments I have shored are from the freedom days when Bapuji and his true lieutenants never stooped low to vilify the British even when they fought for freedom from their rule. Let us now turn to a number of such voices in our midst that have shored these vignettes of grace and decency, elegance and etiquette though they remain silent and mute witnesses to incivility and tastelessness in the speeches of all those who appear on the TV channels, whose words of ‘wisdom’ are published  in the dailies as though an oracle has spoken.

Let us move to the issue of temple hopping. India is in the cusp of tradition and modernity but slowly receding towards superstition in the guise of preserving our tradition.  The spirited enthusiasm for Hindutva has made a large number of people conscious of Hindu religion. A large number of small icons in different corners in different cities are mushrooming as though the country was short of temples. Our netas are on yatra specials to make a case for building Ram Mandir. What an irony! Maryada Purush Ram, known for his just rule will be aghast at the idea of mob taking law into its hand and defying the order of the Supreme court  on sabarimala  and preparing an offensive to counter the possible judgement in the next few months on Ayodhya that may militate against the construction of Ram Mandir at the disputed site. What is mooted for Ram Mandir will be later replicated in Mathura and Kashi. When the ruling party and its allies have centre staged Mandir issue for electoral gains, can the Congress be far behind? Temple hopping seems a much easier hop, step and jump for Rahul and the Congress to grab power and not take  the secular route laid down in the Constitution of India.The Congress flip flop on Sabarimala is far more troubling than the BJP’s open defiance of the S upreme court verdict allowing women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala temple.  Hence election debates are neither on development nor on scripting a new roadmap to make India economically, ethically and intellectually strong but on non sequitur issues such as whether Rahul is a Brahmin, a Parsi or an Italian , whether he has a genuine Janehu( the sacred thread that Brahmins wear as  the rite of passage to the brahminfold) We have regressed into such crass arguments of caste and religion which are farthest from the idea of a modern India. The politicians are driving India backward by keeping the caste cauldron boiling. Caste discrimination and religious conflicts have long been the bane of Hindu society. They are incorrigible aberrations of Hinduism which is the only religion that does not advocate conversion, which inter alia speaks for accommodation and tolerance of all other faiths. It is important for teachers, scholars and academics to articulate the basic tenets of Hinduism to the younger generation through the works of Vivekananda, Gandhi, Rajaram Mohan Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, Keshabchunder Sen, Pt.Nehru, Dayanand Saraswati, Helena Blavatsky, Aurobindo Ghosh and many other modern writers.  These are the fragments that we have shored from our illustrious past against the misinterpretation and ruination of our great philosophy. It is high time we started an Indian Institute of Political Culture( as one of my friends deeply concerned about the low level political abuses of today suggested) to provide our leaders an understanding of the imperative not to mix religion and politics  and also learn the basic tenets of Hinduism towards promoting harmony and peaceful living among people of different faiths. Our writers listed above and many more I have not mentioned have given us rich wisdom that can protect us from hatred and violence that is currently spread in the name of Hindutva. To be proud of one’s religion is sacred; to preserve and sustain it but not at the cost of other religions is an equally sacred duty. Leaders should be trained in IIPC before standing for elections. Just as we need executives with a MBA degree to run a company , we need political leaders who have been trained in political management to administer the nation.

We cannot remain fossilized in caste politics. Reservations for the underprivileged have brought many thousands of them to participate in mainstream political, economic and social activities. But for the sake of votes, continuation of reservation has become a sacred cow that cannot be touched. The incalculable damage reservations have inflicted on these classes have offset all the gains of reservation. No politician has the courage to look into the ill effects of reservation. What has been attempted is making the underprivileged class lame and weak and always in need of crutches. Even the little birds are taught to fly by the mother birds. Centuries of hardship and discrimination cannot be wiped away simply by reservations.  It may sound utopian, but there is no harm in trying to create a utopia where everyone is enabled to acquire basic knowledge and one or two skills that would make them employable. Reservations have proved to be more of a curse than a genuine attempt to uplift the poor and the marginalized groups. In fact this group is so large that its claims are more than those of the well heeled groups. The IIPC should train our politicians to draw new schemes that are useful and accessible to all without the odium of hypocritical reservations. Again the fragments we have shored from our Varnasrama dharma,  a much misunderstood  social system which had the purpose to provide a structure that allowed people to work according to their natural tendencies and to organize society so that everyone, regardless of their position, made a contribution to the society. If we sweep the cobwebs that had accumulated over the Varnashrama dharma that was basically a system to bring an egalitarian society, we can attempt a  social structure that meets the aspirations and needs of a burgeoning population that are at a subsistent level.

Education is the most powerful weapon to change people from clinging to superstitious beliefs, far removed from rational and logical understanding of issues. I have often argued that tradition is like the strong tree that brings forth leaves, flowers and fruits. These contain the seeds for propagation. Seeds that are whole and healthy give rise to new shoots and those that rot go back into the soil and turn manure for the new crop. Tradition stands tall and strong, but the strong seeds are the fragments we shore while the weak ones automatically get re engineered and  make the soil fertile. Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican born political leader and writer said: “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. Education is the key to eliminating gender inequality, to reducing poverty, to creating a sustainable planet, to preventing needless deaths and illness, and to fostering peace.

Educators, academicians and scholars have this great responsibility to reform our education sector and synergise one’s potential for learning with his/her ability to acquiring skills. Technology is useful for acquiring skills but knowledge is essential to put to use the skills in a positive way. Technology has given us enormous powers, but it brings with it a new set of challenges. Computers are excellent source of information, but they are used as a short cut to learning rather than to acquire knowledge. They have bred greater degree of passivity in young minds instead of their active participation in the learning process. Unless we are aware of the challenges, we may end up using technology for destructive purposes.  The students at all levels should be introduced to seminal books that have shaped human thought and life so that they are equipped well to tackle the difficult questions arising out of modern world and modern  technology. These are the fragments that they will have to shore as they grow to counter the present state of dehumanization in action, speech, conduct and behaviour.  The fact that these fragments are available gives us hope to protect our fragile world from destructive and dehumanized forces.

Note:

This was written two days ago when we were still in 2018

Two days to ring in 2019 and ring out 2018. Hopefully these days will pass off without any cataclysmic upheaval that December has always experienced- notably since the last quarter of the 20^th C- the continuous downpour in Chennai in December 2015 resembling  the flood fury recorded in the Bible (before Noah built his ark  at God’s command  to save all God’s created species  on earth) or the  2004 tsunami that struck Chennai in the last week of December, or the terrible Bhopal Gas tragedy in early December of 1984, or the last day of the Soviet Union on Dec 25, 1991 before it disbanded.

 I have an instinctive dread of December as it signals the inalterable fact that the world has aged by one year, which ipso facto signals all of us ageing. Who likes to grow old? That too when one is approaching the last quarter, assuming oneself to be wired to hit a century! Like the sales advertisements that fixes the price of commodities  at 99p or 199 rupees – always one short of the next hundred, we prefer to say that we are in the late twenties or late thirties etc even after we are well into the next decade of our life. I am 29, 39, 69 or 79… but not 30, 40, 70 or 80…  Hence my dread of ageing whenever we ring in the New Year. Every year at 12 midnight as the new year dawns, I make a firm resolution that I shall not be tense when the year end approaches, only to find myself repeating the same old resolution at the stroke of midnight making it as my new one for the next year. So much for all our New Year resolutions!

This year I have made a different resolution. I resolved not to allow age to dictate my life. We all know age is always on the Y axis; in fact it stays static in the X axis only at the end. But in practical terms, age is just a number though it takes a toll on our physical strength. But it has no power over our cognitive abilities unless we allow it to do so by indulging in mental lassitude and torpor. 

As years roll on, I find myself like Eliot’s protagonist of the Wasteland dipping into the fragments I had shored in the past against future ruins. Like him  I see myself  standing in the middle of a waste land that is littered with splintered pieces from a glorious, high-cultured past from where I have collected these fragments and which I wish to pile up and make the present wasteland a fertile one. Before I am bracketed with all other seniors of my age and accused as living in the past and regressing into childhood nostalgia, I make it clear that all things were not right with the past just as is the case with the present, but whatever was well then, was worth preserving to shore them against future decay  when it happens. Our present world resembles Eliot’s wasteland- emotionally arid, culturally lacking in civility, intellectually bankrupt and morally decadent where we have forgotten what it is to be civil, loving and compassionate, cultured in what we say and how we conduct ourselves, intellectually tolerant and accommodative and ethically truthful, honest and public spirited. What is happening today is not singularly an Indian phenomena, but it is spread worldwide making the 21^st Century slowly regress into an era of egocentrism, greed, violence and intolerance, bereft of intellectual aristocracy, far removed from the  altruistic principles  that endorsed  liberty, equality and fraternity two hundred and thirty years ago in 1789.

I will confine myself to India, where despite the strides we have taken to become a modern nation, we have regressed faster on civil liberties, freedom of speech, superstitious beliefs, and  last but not the least on human index. The 2014 elections started it all. (This is not an indictment of the ruling establishment of the last four and a half years, only a factual statement).The public domain which is increasingly that of the social media is now used vigorously to settle private scores and to let out personal deep seated animus.  It was first used in the run up to 2014 elections to show the scam filled ruling establishment of Congress and its alliance partners.                                                                                                                                                       The language used was coarse and uncivil. There was nothing to distinguish between form and content, as both were unrefined and churlish, offensive and rude. The elections were won as people wanted change from a government that was increasingly corrupt and saw in Modiji a saviour who projected himself as the Knight on a white charger to drive away the black hoarders and scamsters off the face of India. The election campaign was demagoguery at its best, making impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the people. Man Mohan Singh’s silence and his party’s disconnect with the people  and its inability to showcase any  of its  innovative actions (such as RTI, MNREGA, anti rape laws, idea of constituting a Lokpal, Direct Cash transfer, Aadhar, nuclear deal and increased use of nuclear energy, the idea of GST- though aborted by the opposition, terror containment through bold decisions to hang Afsal Guru and Kasab etc) were further helped  by  the multiple scams that tumbled out of various  government schemes and activities to consign Congress led UPA to ignominy and Modi’s voice rose like the Goonj uthi shennai and reverberated all over India. His caustic attack and berating of the erstwhile Prime ministers soon after sitting on the PM’s chair  and announcing his goal to make India a Congress Mukht Bharat without ever wondering whether democracy can survive without a strong opposition and his personal  hatred and venom for the Nehru-Gandhi family resonated with everyone of his huge followers .It was sometime before the mauled opposition learnt the lesson that to win, one should have the courage  to descend to the lowest common denominator of using abusive  language The Congress began to use the social media to lambast the ruling government and  reached ignominious heights when it vilified the elected PM as a chor. If anything that has drastically changed in the last four years, it is the demise of civility in political discourse. If this trend continues one dreads to visualize the retreat of civil language in our country.

I hark back to the past when political discourses were on policies, principles and ideologies and not on personalities. It was never the case that if you don’t like me, you are anti establishment, antinational and anti Hindu. The political arguments  in those days till the BJP’s tenure under Vajpayee were always on issues and never on the opponent’s genealogy or nationality or religion and caste. To speak of the ex Prime Minister’s wife as an Italian woman and his son as having Italian blood in his genes or questioning the patriotic credentials of the previous PM and attacking him as a Pakistani agent showed the level to which personal dislike can bring the discourse down. The fragments I have shored are from the freedom days when Bapuji and his true lieutenants never stooped low to vilify the British even when they fought for freedom from their rule. Let us now turn to a number of such voices in our midst that have shored these vignettes of grace and decency, elegance and etiquette though they remain silent and mute witnesses to incivility and tastelessness in the speeches of all those who appear on the TV channels, whose words of ‘wisdom’ are published  in the dailies as though an oracle has spoken.

Let us move to the issue of temple hopping. India is in the cusp of tradition and modernity but slowly receding towards superstition in the guise of preserving our tradition.  The spirited enthusiasm for Hindutva has made a large number of people conscious of Hindu religion. A large number of small icons in different corners in different cities are mushrooming as though the country was short of temples. Our netas are on yatra specials to make a case for building Ram Mandir. What an irony! Maryada Purush Ram, known for his just rule will be aghast at the idea of mob taking law into its hand and defying the order of the Supreme court  on sabarimala  and preparing an offensive to counter the possible judgement in the next few months on AYodhya that may militate against the construction of Ram Mandir at the disputed site. What is mooted for Ram Mandir will be later replicated in Mathura and Kashi. When the ruling party and its allies have centre staged Mandir issue for electoral gains, can the Congress be far behind? Temple hopping seems a much easier hop, step and jump for Rahul and the Congress to grab power and not take  the secular route laid down in the Constitution of India.The Congress flip flop on Sabarimala is far more troubling than the BJP’s open defiance of the S upreme court verdict allowing women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala temple.  Hence election debates are neither on development nor on scripting a new roadmap to make India economically, ethically and intellectually strong but on non sequitur issues such as whether Rahul is a Brahmin, a Parsi or an Italian , whether he has a genuine Janehu( the sacred thread that Brahmins wear as  the rite of passage to the brahminfold) We have regressed into such crass arguments of caste and religion which are farthest from the idea of a modern India. The politicians are driving India backward by keeping the caste cauldron boiling. Caste discrimination and religious conflicts have long been the bane of Hindu society. They are incorrigible aberrations of Hinduism which is the only religion that does not advocate conversion, which inter alia speaks for accommodation and tolerance of all other faiths. It is important for teachers, scholars and academics to articulate the basic tenets of Hinduism to the younger generation through the works of Vivekananda, Gandhi, Rajaram Mohan Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, Keshabchunder Sen, Pt.Nehru, Dayanand Saraswati, Helena Blavatsky, Aurobindo Ghosh and many other modern writers.  These are the fragments that we have shored from our illustrious past against the misinterpretation and ruination of our great philosophy. It is high time we started an Indian Institute of Political Culture( as one of my friends deeply concerned about the low level political abuses of today suggested) to provide our leaders an understanding of the imperative not to mix religion and politics  and also learn the basic tenets of Hinduism towards promoting harmony and peaceful living among people of different faiths. Our writers listed above and many more I have not mentioned have given us rich wisdom that can protect us from hatred and violence that is currently spread in the name of Hindutva. To be proud of one’s religion is sacred; to preserve and sustain it but not at the cost of other religions is an equally sacred duty. Leaders should be trained in IIPC before standing for elections. Just as we need executives with a MBA degree to run a company , we need political leaders who have been trained in political management to administer the nation.

We cannot remain fossilized in caste politics. Reservations for the underprivileged have brought many thousands of them to participate in mainstream political, economic and social activities. But for the sake of votes, continuation of reservation has become a sacred cow that cannot be touched. The incalculable damage reservations have inflicted on these classes have offset all the gains of reservation. No politician has the courage to look into the ill effects of reservation. What has been attempted is making the underprivileged class lame and weak and always in need of crutches. Even the little birds are taught to fly by the mother birds. Centuries of hardship and discrimination cannot be wiped away simply by reservations.  It may sound utopian, but there is no harm in trying to create a utopia where everyone is enabled to acquire basic knowledge and one or two skills that would make them employable. Reservations have proved to be more of a curse than a genuine attempt to uplift the poor and the marginalized groups. In fact this group is so large that its claims are more than those of the well heeled groups. The IIPC should train our politicians to draw new schemes that are useful and accessible to all without the odium of hypocritical reservations. Again the fragments we have shored from our Varnasrama dharma,  a much misunderstood  social system which had the purpose to provide a structure that allowed people to work according to their natural tendencies and to organize society so that everyone, regardless of their position, made a contribution to the society. If we sweep the cobwebs that had accumulated over the Varnashrama dharma that was basically a system to bring an egalitarian society, we can attempt a  social structure that meets the aspirations and needs of a burgeoning population that are at a subsistent level.

Education is the most powerful weapon to change people from clinging to superstitious beliefs, far removed from rational and logical understanding of issues. I have often argued that tradition is like the strong tree that brings forth leaves, flowers and fruits. These contain the seeds for propagation. Seeds that are whole and healthy give rise to new shoots and those that rot go back into the soil and turn manure for the new crop. Tradition stands tall and strong, but the strong seeds are the fragments we shore while the weak ones automatically get re engineered and  make the soil fertile. Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican born political leader and writer said: “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. Education is the key to eliminating gender inequality, to reducing poverty, to creating a sustainable planet, to preventing needless deaths and illness, and to fostering peace.

Educators, academicians and scholars have this great responsibility to reform our education sector and synergise one’s potential for learning with his/her ability to acquiring skills. Technology is useful for acquiring skills but knowledge is essential to put to use the skills in a positive way. Technology has given us enormous powers, but it brings with it a new set of challenges. Computers are excellent source of information, but they are used as a short cut to learning rather than to acquire knowledge. They have bred greater degree of passivity in young minds instead of their active participation in the learning process. Unless we are aware of the challenges, we may end up using technology for destructive purposes.  The students at all levels should be introduced to seminal books that have shaped human thought and life so that they are equipped well to tackle the difficult questions arising out of modern world and modern  technology. These are the fragments that they will have to shore as they grow to counter the present state of dehumanization in action, speech, conduct and behaviour.  The fact that these fragments are available gives us hope to protect our fragile world from destructive and dehumanized forces.

Rewind, Past Forward Freedom Movement

                                                 Rewind, Past Forward Freedom Movement

2019 elections are less than six months from today. Some love to watch the Dance of Democracy while others skeptically look at it as verbal gymnastics with much hype and hoopla providing fodder to the print and the electronic media. The state elections that are currently on are billed as the semi finals that will suggest a plausible prediction about the outcome of the 2019 general elections They may, they may not as the intervening six months can bring about  course corrections by all parties if needed and corresponding change in voters’ preference.

For the past few weeks TV channels had been vying with each other to get the sound bytes of top campaign leaders-both of the ruling and the opposition parties of the five states that were in the poll mode. For a large number of voters, there is a strange feeling of ennui and boredom mixed with fear and nervousness at the prospect of an extension to the present regime or its replacement by a heterogeneous political conglomerate with a single agenda to deny the current ruling establishment a second term in office. It is difficult to assess which party has better credentials as all the parties are tainted-some perceived to be more and some others perceived to be less in comparison.

There is no denying the fact that current political discourses in the two largest democracies in the world- India and US have reached abysmal depths of verbal savagery. Civilized campaigning is passe^’. The present day election addresses are full of vitriolic violence attempting to hit the opponents below the belt.  Unfortunately the Prime Minister’s appeal to the raw emotions of the voters has set the tone for all parties to employ toxic vocabulary.  Rahul Gandhi’s ’s jibe at the PM as “chowkidar is chor”  is not only offensive but has  crossed all limits of decency and restraint.  The only justification is Mr. Modi started it in 2014 before he became PM and during the last four years as PM has continued it with greater viciousness as with no care or concern for the dignity of the office he holds.

The election speeches have no agenda except – if one calls it an agenda- to finish the opponent.  Neither of the two national parties- the  Congress  and the ruling BJP- in their public speeches gives importance to development or presents a blueprint of what it intends to do if voted to power. That is confined to manifestos which no one reads- certainly none in the rural or the tribal area, none of the poor and the illiterate which constitutes the vast majority of the population. For most of them (and  this includes the urban literate as well)perception alone matters. The voters’ choice is based on how and who can convincingly give a strong perception.

 Today’s election campaign is nothing but  a theatre of Abuse played on a political stage- surfeit with covert innuendoes,  barbs rendered as witticism to produce raucous laughter, sarcasms replete with coarse mockery and scorn and accusations with no care for fidelity, truth and ethics. For those who are not able to witness live the theatre of Abuse, the TV channels carry a dramatized version of the same given by party spokespersons though their  voices get  drowned by their high pitched, cacophonous noise and  that of the stentorian partisan anchors . It does not matter who says what as long as negative perception is kept centre stage. The more abusive the participants are, the louder their scream and shout, the greater is the TRPs for the channels. No one bothers about the finesse of debate, refinement of language, civilized discourse and the veracity of the statements made. The focus is only on creating a perception that is damaging to the opponent “ Your Bofors is my Rafael; my Rafael is your Augusta Westland.”- the slanging match continues.

Shrewd political leaders are aware how our human genetics - better known as our traits inheritance suffer from two basic negatives: (1) Humans love vile calumny and defamation of others with the exception of one’s own charmed circle and (2) human inability to let go of the past and turn towards the future. The first is an act of self indulgence –to delight in the follies and faults of another and feel righteous, virtuous and  superior( even when one knows it is not true).  The second is more lethal for it is built upon grievances, real or imagined and thereby gives justification to nurse hatred and animosity. We all behave like the wolf in the Aesop’s Fables, The Lamb and the Wolf. We love to think ill of others; we love to hate.  William Hazlitt in his essay, The Pleasures of Hating, describes the effects of hatred: “It makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands; it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness.”.

Taking the lead from the PM, all his bhakts revel in denigrating the past leaders to prove that their present leader is nonpareil. The PM himself mocks at Jawahar Lal Nehru for sporting a rose on his sherwani with his sarcastic comment: “Nehru wore a rose on his suit, but was ignorant of farmers’ woes; he had knowledge of gardens, but not farmers and farming.” This is about our first Prime Minister who ushered in green revolution, white revolution and industrial modernization and was the architect of IITs, IIMs and Research  Centres in science and Social Science.

Ever since it came to power in 2014, there has been an orchestration by the ruling establishment to build up Patel against Nehru forgetting the historical truth that the two tall leaders  were both Congressmen and both had the decency to work together even when they differed on any issue. The great orator that our present PM is,  by his paradoxical silence- has given free license to his party men and women to polarise the country on religious faiths, torpedoing the seven decade old constitutionally enshrined secularism and thereby negating the Nehruvian  adherence to  “a pluralist vision of India, civility in public debate and vibrant intellectual traditions.”. Nehru was a well read man whose Discovery of India is proof of his immense knowledge and pride in our ancient Hindu civilization. He was truly a citizen of the world and in his Glimpses of World History, he presents his world view of the civilizational ideas, culture  and political ideologies that have shaped mankind . Nehru exemplified the synthesis of the East and the West without privileging one over the other. The phrase ‘ Cultural nationalism’ is off the trajectory of the concept of one nation that Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and other freedom leaders had moulded. All the three leaders had been educated in England and  Gandhi had in addition, experienced the apartheid that segregated people on the basis of colour and race. Our nationalism as conceived by our great freedom fighters  was a rich integration of the humanistic ideas inherent in our philosophy and those conceived by the Western thinkers. Unfortunately today in the fanatic zeal for Cultural nationalism which is the opposite of  syncretic humanism, we have been subjected to an anti intellectual, violent, chauvinistic atavism.  The BJP in its unthinking attempt to see Nehruvian socialism as a binary opposition to Patel’s Liberal democratic ideology has destroyed the syncretic bond between the two.

The Congress has fallen into the trap laid by the rise of Moditva( a notch higher than Hindutva) and is rushing to lay bare its allegiance to Hinduism. Its soft Hinduism that lays claim to a new idea of Hinduism-( one wonders why the Congress does not name it   “Gandhitva” or “Sonitva”), the Congress is playing the same religious card as the ruling party does. Our political leaders have waded into religious polarity instead of protecting the nation’s seven decade old secular credentials. They have made religion a public enterprise instead of limiting it to individual’s personal belief and practice. The Congress has become a copycat of whatever BJP had been doing and continues to be doing. The discussion about Rahul’s gotra and janeru is childish if not crass and stupid.

India has become a land of statues. The Statue of Unity built at a whopping 3000 crores as a testimony to national Unity and to  Sardar Patel, the architect of national integration, has given rise to a sudden spurt in statue erection in different states.  We are moving backwards to the statue cult seemingly concerned about form and not  substance. I have a picture of Lord Ram in my house along Sita,  Lakshman and Hanuman. Ram is my favourite deity and I recite Sankshep Ramayan and Hanuman Chalisa everyday –at home or even when I am driving through the Delhi traffic. Do I have to see a statue of Ram in Ayodhya to inspire me to say my prayers? Aren’t there any number of temples that are in a state of disarray – not only in Ayodhya, but all over India?  Temple worship is collective worship while individuals have their personal relationship with their Creator. We need no mediator or a statue to remind us about Ram. The fall-out of the the Statue of Unity is all other states are competing to build bigger and taller statues in their capital cities. Karnataka which has already a lovely statue of Cauvery amman(mother) wants to erect another125mtr tall statue to register for the National statue competition. This proposal comes at a time when activist groups have blamed the government of turning a blind eye on illegal sand mining around river Cauvery that is irreparably damaging the ecological balance. Do we need a new Shivaji statue at a height of 212 mtrs off Bombay coast to induce a rush of adrenalin within us to fight for the nation? S hould  Andhra Pradesh embark on a new Assembly building that will be taller than the Statue of Unity by 68 meters? Ram Statue promised by UP Chief Minister is set to be 221 meters tall. When we forget the teachings, we erect a statue of the teacher! One wonders at the naivety of our leaders to stand by statues to win elections.

If fanatic Hindutva has polarized the nation, AAP in Delhi is polarizing the state on class division-between Aam Admi and the middle and upper middle class, between the rich and the poor. The present crisis faced by the private schools is a good example of polarization as a winnable ideology. It is one thing to hound all private schools; another thing to raise the standard of government schools. The latter should not be at the expense of the former. When the student population is exploding do we destroy schools in existence or build new schools? Knowing that perception is 100% election success, AAP is playing a dangerous game of de-schooling private institutions to please the general public as though this is done for their up-liftment. How does it benefit the aamadmi if a good private school is de-recognized? Again this is pandering to the lowest common denominator of human feelings- to gloat over the fall of another. Has AAP reflected on destroying the dreams of thousands of young students seeking good school education to build up their future?

Another kind of polarization that is taking place is on the lines of caste. When reservations have been a constitutional provision for the up-liftment of the poorest of poor for the last seven decades, to play the caste card once again by a few Dalit leaders is once again stoking fire that had remained dormant for the last two and a half decades(since the OBC agitation of 1990).  Then there is the agitation by people of different states seeking privilege for the sons of the soil over the outsiders who have settled in the state. Caste, class, religion, language have all been whipped up to get votes. The elections are no longer on development goals and policies, but the issues are scaled down to raise bogeys of polarities among the different sections of people.

Can India be one nation after all this polarization? The law and order situation is deteriorating as people have taken law into their hands in the name of Cow vigilantism and Love Jihad. Have we not allowed unruly elements to frighten us to submission through violent and dastardly acts? There is no respect even for the Supreme Court judgement as seen in the Sabarimala agitation. One is frightened of the negative connotation given to  ‘constitutional morality’ by  the Attorney General. The murder most foul of a police inspector in UP by mob lynching shows the deep rot that has set in our national polity.

I wonder if the 2019 elections will solve or aggravate the restlessness, anger and violence in the country.  If BJP,  that  has been a mute spectator to all the violence that had taken place in the last four years-giving a free run to cow vigillantes and mob lynchers,  returns to power, can it rein in the unruly elements in society which has propped it up in the name of Hindutva?  Can it bring about a reconciliation between the Leftist and Rightist ideologies when the canker has run deep in all our educational institutions? If by an unlikely chance the opposition conglomerate comes to power can it  function given the polarization at different levels? Or for that matter, since the communal and caste fire have been lit, will it have the power to douze it.  Who has the moral power and strength to confront, combat and win over a deeply polarised and wounded nation?

Do we have in our midst saner voices, civilized and learned who can provide a government that meets the aspirations of its varied groups now seemingly at daggers with each other on caste, class and communal lines? Can there be any party which will stand up and root out polarization and evenly distribute the national resources that include education, jobs, healthcare and the forgotten slogan of BSP(Bijli, sadal Pani) to satisfy the aspiration of each and every one of its citizens ? This sounds utopian in its intention and aspiration, but history is replete with periods of golden age when people under stress have sought and valued leaders who committed themselves to equity, equality, ethics and justice and worked towards establishing  a welfare state. The world had always gone through divisive  conflicts  and had emerged under the collective wisdom of leaders every time the world was on the brink of an abyss

 Let us also hope for the promised “achche din” whosoever offers it and hopefully it should not be a long and indefinite wait. Just as our freedom fighters forgetting all the differences collectively fought for the higher and nobler cause of a united, independent India, our honest and wise people should come together to provide an alternative discourse of inclusive nationalism  to the current clamour of caste based, religion based and class based polarization. Let us rewind to the days of freedom struggle and past forward the examples of our illustrious leaders for whom Nation and its people alone mattered over all self centred gains. I hope our young men and women rise up now and raise a new party that fuses modern aspiration with our ancient civilized values that anchored the freedom movement. The youth with all its idealism alone can  bring in fresh air to counter the pollution. Let it  not miss this  most opportune moment to steer the nation that is currently on the brink of an abyss  of polarization.

Women Empowerment through Higher Education

(This is a valedictory address fir a seminar on Women Empowerment through Higher Education)

 Dear Friends,

 At the end of an interesting, informative and thought provoking sessions spread over two days, the valedictory address will certainly sound like a damp squib. I like to start with a cautionary note that I am not going to say something earthshaking about Women empowerment that you do not know. What I propose to say may sound a little unconventional in an age when women strongly feel and fight for equal rights in all walks of life.

Let me start with a confession- which may not surprise anyone here looking at my conservative sartorial get up- that I am not a militant feminist trying to paint all women as angels and all men as demons. 

I do not subscribe to any form of feminism or masculinism that is distanced from the fundamental human rights, i.e. the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans(men and women) are entitled and which include the rights to life, liberty, equality, education, opportunity, a fair trial, freedom from slavery and torture, and freedom of thought and expression. I am proud to be a woman as I recognize women’s intellectual and emotional potential to accomplish any task given to them and their extraordinary power to endure physical pain and mental distress. But I am not a hardcore feminist who blames all men for all the wrongs women are subjected to and seeks to privilege one sex over the other.  I am a real feminist who acknowledges the role and importance of men as well and support the rights of men as much as they support the rights of women. I believe in a spirit of cooperation and not confrontation to redress the sufferings of women in a society that has been for centuries a male dominated one.  But I am of the firm belief that men and women should join hands together to protect women against the denial of these rights and against the assaults of perverted masculinism.

This two day seminar on the empowerment of women has focused on higher education for breaking grounds to eliminate gender discrimination. In my humble and modest way, I would have liked the topic to be a little more positive by substituting ‘discrimination’ with the word ‘parity’. The reason is discrimination does carry a pejorative note of complaint, accusatory and a hurt feeling of self pity on the perceived presumptions that

1.                 1.We inhabit a male world- which is not true. This planet  is our world  which does not discriminate between men and women in disbursing her rich bounty

2. The male society is intolerant, prejudiced and ranged against the females en masse.

 I don’t like women being seen as whining and complaining, harbouring resentment against men, their binary opposite. I prefer the word ‘parity’ which is more nuanced as it asserts the functional equivalence between men and women in terms of mental, intellectual and performing power. Parity implies equality in status between men and women and therefore we must make a legitimate demand for gender parity based on the fact that both genders have equal claims to basic human rights. If women empowerment has to succeed, women must  assert their dignity, self confidence and self respect without appearing to be begging men to confer it on them.  The same argument holds for seeking inclusive policies to include women in policy matters and governing issues, which imply in the first place that women have been excluded and reparations have to be done only  by men to include them in the mainstream. It is important to understand that we- the citizens of India- or for that matter citizens of the world- includes both men and women. In democracy, inclusiveness is the peg to hang governance, formulating policies and schemes towards the welfare of the entire society that comprises men and women. When people protest about not implementing 33% reservation for women, my reaction is why should men confer this largesse on women. Do you need your husband’s permission to enter your own home? Similarly why do we need men’s permission to enter the house of representatives- the Parliament , the State assembly, the Municipal Corporations and the  Panchayats. This is because we have a mindset that always look to men for patronage and be on their doles. With women accounting for 50% of the population, we have enough bench strength to form a party of our own on one single ideology- of commitment to human rights to preserve true democracy. Human rights do not distinguish between right and left ideology. Human rights confer upon every individual the opportunity to realize his/her true potential. Hence my question is don’t women have the right to contest on their own without being supported by male caryatids?  In the Greek ancient temple architecture, we have caryatids- rectangular columns, shaped in the form of a person to support the entire structure.  Let us not make men our caryatids so that we can standup Let us not beg for seats, but contest the seats as our birthright. If men claim to have the prerogative to contest, women also have it iin equal measure.  If all women band together and contest as a party for implementing gender parity, our Constitution provides us the platform. L et people decide who can protect, nurture and sustain human rights which , put together, is superior to all other winnable ideologies that party manifestoes promise prior to elections. My first submission is to be fully aware of the motto Susan Anthony coined for Women’s revolution: “ Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less".

The main theme of this seminar is about Women empowerment through higher education. Again I have a difficulty in understanding this concept. Today we know that men and women have equal share in university admission- and in certain disciplines, women students constitute a larger number.  Let us ask ourselves the question:  has this brought about any change in the mindset of men and women? The increasing number of rape cases, the Me-too stories , the treatment of women as the second sex in our male dominated society do not prove that higher education has made all that difference in our society. Educated women prefer to be silent and be dominated while educated men continue their partriarchal superiority over women. There s no data to prove that men are superior to women in cognitive domains or in emotional feelings or in intellectual discernment.  If educated people have failed to recognize the importance of women empowerment, it begs the question about the power and potency of higher education in bringing parity between men and women in our society.

We have to address ourselves to the question why higher education has not given the desired result? The last two days of seminar have closely dealt with this subject with statistical data to show the positive impact of higher education on women empowerment. When I glanced through the list of speakers, I recognized the proportion between male and female speakers has been in the ratio of 3:1. This proves that women, more than men are conscious of  the need for higher education to usher in gender parity. This discovery was a Ureka moment for me as it flashed in my mind that what is needed is not education for women, but for men. The key role of education is to sensitize us to the sameness and difference between the two genders and develop mutual respect for each other. I am reminded of William Bratton’s words: ”You cannot police a community without effectively working with the community.” This is true of all issues including gender neutrality and gender parity. We have to work with the opposite gender to usher in the change instead of taking recourse to blame game.

What is higher education? It is no doubt learning advanced courses to secure good jobs, to pursue study and research and contribute to the society. But higher education is more than jobs and economic success. It is towards building a fulfilling life, towards achieving personal growth and becoming aware and sensitive to society, citizenship and the commitment to equity and social justice. Our universities and colleges are turning out to be multiversities that impart skills towards securing a job but they fail to provide a broader and more inclusive  lesson of preparedness to meet the demands of life. Our universities have failed  to provide students the much needed emotional and personal preparedness that combines fellow feelings, humaneness, grit, resolve and a strong work ethic.  Gender sensitivity will be the automatic outcome of this kind of education where men and women move freely ,exchange ideas on equal terms and learn to work together in a  spirit of cooperation. For this purpose  colleges and Universities should organize  special lectures on various social issues by introducing students to world class books written on them. This is t be called The Great Book Series and twice a week a hour long lecture followed by a 30 minute discussion will open up young minds to important issues that are beyond the classroom. University education is to make young men and women develop curiosity to learn, whet their appetite to read and challenge their intellect to basic human issues that are currently glossed over.

I seek your indulgence to listen to my personal narrative. I come from a middle class conservative Brahmin family that believes in tradition and rituals that have been followed for many centuries.  But when I see myself today as someone who has found her own identity and not as someone’s daughter or wife or as a professional,   I recognize the significant role my family had played in shaping me. My father, a strict disciplinarian and a traditionalist at heart made no distinction between his sons and daughters when they were growing up. He encouraged his daughters to study and get into a profession of their choice – a move that came as a shock to his own parents and other elders who felt that parental responsibility begins and ends with finding a life partner for the girls. My father insisted on the sons sharing the household work with the daughters and educating all of them equally. In fact, none of us were even aware of the world outside with its deep biases against women being sent to schools and colleges.  He made all of us think and decide for ourselves how to challenge minds that have been set on blind conformity to tradition. Tradition is central to civilization and culture, but tradition like all other things in the world is subject to change.  We were made to decide for ourselves how to balance traditional beliefs with modernity that seeks a rational understanding of age old beliefs. This change could not have been possible without the active support and encouragement of the family that predominantly remained  a patriarchal family.

I would like to read a few lines from Simone de Beauvoir, about the development of a young girl : ”When she does not find love, she may find poetry. Because she does not act, she observes, she feels, she records; a color, a smile awakens profound echoes within her; her destiny is outside her, scattered in cities already built, on the faces of men already marked by life, she makes contact, she relishes with passion and yet in a manner more detached, more free, than that of a young man. Being poorly integrated in the universe of humanity and hardly able to adapt herself therein, she, like the child, is able to see it objectively; instead of being interested solely in her grasp on things, she looks for their significance; she catches their special outlines, their unexpected metamorphoses. She rarely feels a bold creativeness, and usually she lacks the technique of self-expression; but in her conversation, her letters, her literary essays, her sketches, she manifests an original sensitivity. The young girl throws herself into things with ardor, because she is not yet deprived of her transcendence; and the fact that she accomplishes nothing, that she is nothing, will make her impulses only the more passionate. Empty and unlimited, she seeks from within her nothingness to attain All.”

I would like to end with a story that Shirdi Sai Baba narrated to his disciples.  “A rough stone trampled and trodden by passing worshippers accosts the beautiful stone sculpture inside the temple. The stone laments its fate and enviously says that the sculpture is lucky to be inside and remain the object of worship, reverence and admiration. “ Look at me and look At you, What a shame that I am treated with such callousness while you are feted and  honoured day in and day out.” The sculpture smiled and answered: “ I was also a stone like you to begin with, a part of the mountain. But when I was carved out of the mountain, chiselled ,sculpted and polished  I endured a lot of pain. At the end you see what I am as the sculptor recognized the quality within me and appreciated my silent endurance to make me what I am. We all have our potential. But many of us are not even aware of what we have and what we can become. No one will listen to your grunts and grumbles. Rise up and be counted. “ I leave it to you to ponder over the story. Recognize your genetic quality as a woman,  rise up to your full potential through your efforts and be counted. Higher education is the tool that can sculpt you to perfection.