We have become a nation of symbols; religious symbols to unravel a certain religious predominance. This is a deliberate attempt to debunk secularism and plurality of the country. A single edifice , a super structure upon the structure is cleverly being built not only to recreate a mythic past but to destroy intervening historical truths. If history is coloured and tinged with myths then we make the whole issue of historical reality emotional. And what best to commingle religion with it to whip up a fervour about one nation Hindu Rashtra? This is pandering to RSS and Shiv Sena acolytes who, mind you, at times have also sharp wedges.
Religion is a deeply personal engagement. In India people have realised it notwithstanding the Mandir Masjid tangle which for thirty years threatens eruption any time. The symbols that I am talking about are now quite explicit. The recurrent ones are Siva and Parvati. Even the Prime Minister countenances them in public ceremonies or gatherings. The problem with myths is that they are myths. To interface them with historical truths is problematic.
The problem is that such symbols invoke fierce religious passion which everyone in this country cannot identify with. What about Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Parsees and Muslims? In short, invoking them means alienation of the rest. Such alienation is being cleverly worked and reworked to create divides which could be woefully irreversible. Culture and religion are not hand maids. To make them synonymous is asking for trouble in pluralistic settings. But perhaps trouble is what the culture vulture wants. This is highly disturbing.
Then again this is being done in a systematic and planned manner. Even those normally moderate are bearing fangs of petty, egoistic nationalism. What is nationalism is of course the question. The forces of brute and disharmonic nationalism are peddling with jingoism. Will we the people of India fall for this perverseness?
The game plan is subtle but crafty. It has to do with Yoga culture as well. It has to do with invoking again and again the name of Swami Vivekananda who has been misrepresented and whose quotations are sometimes taken out of context.
We are used to rich pluralism, not this barbaric jingoism. The monolith can be erected only at the expense of diversity which cannot be dismantled, but grossly sidelined. These are the tensions and writings on the wall. We encounter symbols in our day to day lives, not what we eat or whom we pray to, but engaging symbols of the richly diverse aspects of this great country, it’s beautiful geography, majestic mountains, sultry plains, it’s exotic temples, mosques and churches The symbols coalesce and counter any stratification.
The political manifestations may be different. Diehards will say that the BJP is acceptable to the people of the North East especially after elections in Assam and Manipur. So it is largely acceptable to a recalcitrant North East which has a large Christian population. So let us keep policies separately and the politics of culture separately. There are strong feelings that the party may go down well with the people even in the Meghalaya elections. But the politics of culture works not through votes but through rabid organisations having their fingers in art, education and ordaining history of a nation. So we should not be fooled. The game plan is subtle but crafty. It has to do with Yoga culture as well. It has to do with invoking again and again the name of Swami Vivekananda who has been misrepresented and whose quotations are sometimes taken out of context.
Alienation will come fully only when people will see through the agenda mentioned and described above.
And now the moral policing and cow vigilantism has exacerbated in states like Uttar Pradesh. Imagine having a probe in a house simply because male colleagues are sitting with a female one. This is the height of misplaced piety. And we are tolerating all this and licking sore wounds. The cow vigilantism has again captured headlines, hurting sentiments and deliberately assailing minority groups and even harming the economy; rather it is a gross attempt to snatch livelihoods. Once again another symbol is added to the supposed pan Indian culture. Inchoate symbols like these only add fuel to fire, and alienate large sections of the people who consider themselves as inveterate Indians. Who is an Indian then, and what is Indian culture?
It seems we are impervious to past shaping of historical realities and movements. It is not simply agenda; it is blatant disregard for others and their sentiments. Being Indian means regimentation : stand up, sit down, light the lamp, be holy, have a dress code and above all uphold Indian culture, referential points being mighty Himalayas where Siva and Parvati reside, the holy cow, invocation of sacrosanct hymns. One may be steeped in all these but why should they be symbolic manifestations of a broad Indian way of life? Indian and Indianisation manifest in deeply articulated diversity of the country, not in myths and incantations.
All this is happening because we are frenetically reworking a past which only partially existed. Half truths to be made akin with truths is a muddled and contorted reality. It is dangerous for the health and overall well being of a nation, infested as it is with deleterious and unethical politics. Such politics has degraded the nation and is responsible for cutting wedges and deliberately rooting for alienation. The British policy of divide and rule is used with panache by our present lot of politicians. We know that but only smugly say that politics is a dirty game. That this dirt, this filth has diseased the country is of course another thing. Or is it?
