The monetary juggernaut

Ratna Raman

I HAVE not visited the Jagannath temple at Puri although it features on my ‘bucket list’(to-do list before ‘kicking the bucket’; slang for dying). I stumbled upon the word ‘Juggernaut’ while reading Jane Eyre. Bronte’s heroine asserts white female independence and warns her fiancé not to see her as equal to or  “worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut.” 

‘Juggernaut’, infused into the English language in the 19th century, draws its origins from the Indian word Jagannath, one of the many names of Krishna. In fact, Krishna retreats from the word while its meaning is increasingly driven by enormous car-chariots, part of the paraphernalia of Indian temples, in which the resident god is taken around the city on special occasions. Juggernaut, initially the name of a powerful god, transferred all its energy to the menacing temple chariot that housed him. Heathens did not merely kneel before juggernaut in blind faith. It was rumoured that they could also be literally crushed under the enormous weight and momentum of the chariot. We must remember that these were not powered chariots and that their bulk would have hampered their mobility, diminishing considerably their actual scope as merciless killing fields. 

In industrial times, with enormous energy harnessed from coal and then oil, ‘juggernaut’ describes a huge, powerful and overwhelming force with very little religious connotations. Wars, army tankers and battleships, intentional killing machines are now referred to as juggernauts. More recently, winning football teams have earned the epithet of being ‘unstoppable juggernauts’. Any literal or metaphorical force, mercilessly unleashed, qualifies as a juggernaut and in contemporary times, the range and control exercised by programmed juggernauts is extensive and far-reaching.

Demonetisation is the new cash-levelling juggernaut that controls the length and breadth of India today.  While die-hard optimists rejoice over this ‘surgical strike’, a Supreme Court advocate likens demonetisation to ‘carpet-bombing’ (aerial bombing inflicting intensive damage) from  sky-borne juggernauts (war-planes).

What the world is living through currently is nothing short of an ‘Armageddon’. In the New Testament, Armageddon signalled the last battle between good and evil before the day of judgement. In contemporary usage, it signifies a catastrophic conflict that can destroy the entire world. The economic Armageddon unleashed by demonetisation will alienate the have-nots further.  

‘Blitzkrieigs’ (sudden, overwhelming attacks meant to bring swift victory), once part of military tactics, have now been incorporated into administrative policy. The PM’s televised blitzkrieg on black money generated metaphoric ‘shock and awe’ (military tactic involving the use of overwhelming power and spectacular display of force). Ill-conceived and badly executed, the ‘mopping up’ (completion of a military course of action) has generated  large-scale ‘meltdown’ (disastrous collapse) in its aftermath. 

Cashless societies are not markers of any real progress in conditions of extreme socio-economic disparity. They damage further the earth intended for the meek who are being viewed as mere ‘collateral damage’ (unintended death, injury and damage caused to non-combatants in targeted areas)!