Assent and dissent in the Indian belief systems

Have Indians been happy with dissent? A certain prince was asked to go to the forest for 12 or 16 years (arithmetic has never been my strong suit) and he quietly assented. He never replied, ‘Dad I ain’t joining the Indian Forest Service. No tigers left, what will I do in the jungle?’ Later, a few millennia later, five heroes were also sent to hide ‘invisibly’. Indian novelists of yore could even give a twist to exile, as if banishment was not bad enough. And they invented forests of lac. While Christians were exiling Adam and Eve from Eden, all because they ate an apple, our fabulists were inventing equally odd landscapes that could fit in with their imaginations. Islam was much more practical and their Hijr was just a move from Mecca to Medina. You could almost catch a night bus and be done. Desert and dunes and sand-grit, not forgetting oases.

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The archetypal Indian exile had nothing to do with dissent. Assent was revered. But one event had the ring of reality. A certain Charvak was burnt, because of dissent. Medieval queens and Catholic prelates, even Popes, borrowed the idea and burnt a lot of ‘heretics’ and ‘apostates’ all over Europe. Charvak was a believer of deha-vad, the view that life was nothing but the body. His creed could be summed up in the words nasti datam, nasti hutam, nasti parolokam — gifts have no meaning, sacrifices no efficacy and there is no such thing as the next world. He rooted for materialism as against other-worldliness. When he cursed the Pandavas after their victory in the 18-day battle in Haryana, people got infuriated and burnt him. Haryanvis were always quick on the draw.

Charvak was a miserable epicure though. He said ‘have a good time’ even if you have to borrow money. A good time for him meant swallowing a lot of ghee. Dionysius would have committed suicide if he had heard Charvak. The wineries of shiraz came into being a thousand years later. That explains Charvak never took to alcohol.

But in the ancient Indian tradition, belief systems were challenged. Karl Jaspers, the German philosopher who coined the term ‘Axial Years’ (300-3700 BC)’, talked of this tradition in India approvingly. Between those centuries, we swivelled into various belief systems that nourish the soul till date. He also approved of the sceptics. Non-conformity builds rather than negates a tradition. There is scope for dissent at every step. Even the Bhakti movement was rife with dissent. Singer and saint and writer moved away from Sanskrit and embraced the vernacular. In a way they had moved away from the Brahmanical tradition, both because they moved away from Sanskrit and got into ecstasy. Once rapture holds you in thrall, you don’t need the Brahmin’s intercession with the divine. Am getting into perilous territory, I notice. Tuka, Mira, Kabir, come to my aid!

Hindu philosophy and religion — also Buddhist — have their focus on moksha, nirvana, liberation from the cycle of births and death. That is, they believe in the 80-odd rebirths. What about other beliefs which have no such hang-ups with rebirth? You die, you die pal and go to kingdom come. The Judgement Day is being eternally postponed, like the working of the Indian judiciary, adjournment after adjournment. Hence, Muslims, Christians and Jews would not be bothered with liberation. The modern man would liken moksha to trance. He wouldn’t care. He would get his trance from hashish, shisha, marijuana. What was Flower Power but dissent, and it had a lot of cannabis, mind you.

Some of us are more focused on liberation from our laws on sedition. Whatever the Supreme Court may say about Section 124 of IPC, the police with a bandage around its eyes will persecute the fellow who won’t shout ‘Vande Mataram’ loudly enough. Didn’t the Brits, Romans and Greeks tell us justice is blind? So what are these liberals whining about?

We have had three days of riots in Delhi after a BJP leader gave a three-day ultimatum to the police to clear out protesters, or else. If you dissent, ask the police to beat you up. Simple. But seriously, how do you deal with dissent or protest? The first thing to do is to establish contact, talk to them. No one did. Shaheen Bagh and protests in many parts of the country could never nudge governments to a dialogue. No one bothered to talk to them. Strikers in mills get quicker response.

People are beaten up in Jamia, even in the library, not a word of sympathy. Masked men beat up students in JNU. Not a word from a minister, no enquiry against police high-handedness. It just goes on — dogs keep barking and the caravan rolls on. Can that attitude bring about any compromise, a modus vivendi?

I heard a very sane leader, Yogendra Yadav, calling the fracas an anti-Muslim riot, involving both the police and the BJP on one side. The videos were also graphic and bore testimony to what he said. A former Police Commissioner laid the whole blame on agitators trying to scuttle the Trump visit. He was laughed out of court. What about the three-day ultimatum? If you want to bring even a semblance of peace, you cannot afford to be partisan. You need to take action against your own loudmouths.