The cycle of hatred amid trust in balance

The last few weeks have been so grim that it is difficult to watch or read news without losing your temper. As if the tragic events in Kashmir were not bad enough, we now have a simmering dalit rising on our hands and the promise of a really ugly electoral battle in UP. But why look at our own country? What about the horrific tragedy in Nice or the race riots in the US? Is there a pattern in this madness that we are afraid to see or has the world entered a particularly vicious cycle of violence and hatred?

As always, I take refuge in the past to try and see whether this is a new phenomenon or whether it is something that erupts periodically to test our mettle. Zenophobia, communal tensions and the exploitation of the poor and downtrodden have had a long and miserable past the world over. They continue to thrive because it is politically expedient to keep the cauldron bubbling. Yet, whereas we had leaders in the past who came from different strata (academia, civil society, religious organizations, for example), we had managed to survive where many other countries in our neighbourhood had succumbed. Recently, as I was reading essays on India and Pakistan by Philip Oldenburg, I came across a brilliant and simple explanation, given by Shiv Viswanathan, that maverick sociologist who is a joy to read or hear. He says it is because in India we have ‘by-hearted’ democracy (I loved that phrase: it brings instant memories of memorizing lessons in school). It has become, in other words, a sort of default setting to which we revert whenever we are faced with a testy situation. Take, for example, the Emergency declared by Mrs Indira Gandhi. She revoked civil rights, threw all her political opponents into jail, imposed a ban on freedom of the press and did all she could to quell popular uprising. Did she succeed? No!

If anything, we came out of it a stronger and more vibrant country, with a more active civil society and a determination to never let such a thing happen again. Turn your attention now to our immediate neighbours in the subcontinent – Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Mynamar and Nepal. None of them ever recovered their political equipoise after it was shaken once. So, take heart, dear reader, and trust the Indian electorate. All the gloom and despair we see now will clear one day and we will be all the stronger for it.

This makes it easier for me to introduce you now to a delightful genre of political commentary that is rocking the social media. At its heart are an irreverent and politically incorrect bunch of young people who take on everyone — from the bhakts and trolls to the fundoos and twitterati. They spare no one, not even our morally superior news editors who daily question their guests and demand that the nation wants to know, to the venerable Hindi news anchor who opens our eyes to the world of the exploited and forgotten blossoms in the dust. From the silly, giggly college babes to the redoubtable Pammi Aunty who comes adorned with a face pack and curlers, their characters are a brilliant take-off on the high-minded and priggish army of activists and chest-thumpers who presume to speak on behalf of the nation. As I said, we have created our own arsenal of survival and if nothing else, it is these young people who will open the eyes of our youth so that they are never bedazzled by the handlers and recruiters of the Hate Brigade. Trust me, humour is what can destroy the mullahs and bhagats as nothing can. More power to them, I say!

I have long regretted the lack of humour in our high-minded Left and liberal class. They are so busy being politically correct that they cannot allow even a smile to crack the smugness of their faces. I have rarely heard a liberal Indian laugh aloud or crack a joke. Yet when it comes to being morally upright and handing gyan, they are so animated that their eyes shine with an unholy glee. This is not to belittle their contribution to nation-building or question their commitment to secularism and other such high ideals but to merely point out that life is not meant to be endured but also to be enjoyed. And nothing brings out the earthy wisdom of this humour as the language of the common man or woman. It is only when we shed the weight of our educated selves and speak in an idiom that comes from the solar plexus rather than the cerebrum that we will be free to speak our minds fearlessly. Never forget that language forges our thoughts and if we always speak in a borrowed language, then it follows that we will be spouting borrowed thoughts. The connection of the mind and heart that has been forged in our local patois with its rich repertoire of proverbs and gnomic fables makes an instant appeal. It does not need the heavy patina of ideological dialectics to be explained. Read Gandhi if you want to test this theory: he is still the lodestar that is always, like the Dhruvtara, the guide to what is true and abiding. Is it a wonder that he alone stands where he always did? Up there.