Losing the grand dream
THERE seems to be no end to our moral, cultural and political decadence. Here, as violence is sanctified in the name of religion, it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish the so-called sadhus from goons; technology is used to spread psychic poison; and women are seen as mere objects of desire. Even if through all sorts of rhetoric, the ‘messiah’ of the nation assures us that India is a ‘Visvaguru’, the fact is that ours is a decadent society. As the notorious incident of hate speeches at the Hardwar ‘dharma sansad’ indicates, a call for genocide is normalised, and Hindus are asked to kill minorities and attack their religious spaces in the name of ‘safai abhiyan’. As the messages disseminated through ‘Sulli Deals’ and ‘ Bulli Bai’ app indicate, it is possible to imagine Muslim women as saleable objects for auction. This sort of sexist politics of religious bigotry is the new normal.
Godse is our new hero; Savarkar overshadows Nehru; we laugh at Gandhian socialism, Nehruvian secularism and Tagore’s vision of India as an oceanic civilisation.
Are we shaken? Does the dominant political class or the ruling regime feel ashamed of this rot? Do you and I acquire the courage to say enough is enough, and we should not allow our culture and society to indulge with this ugliness—ugly politics, ugly symbols, ugly speeches, ugly television channels and ugly goons wearing the garments of sadhus? Well, we are used to the typical bureaucratic response—its coldness: ‘The law will take its own course’. And some of us might shout: What is the judiciary doing? However, in order to do something life-affirming and meaningful, we ought to scrutinise ourselves, and undergo a process of political/cultural/psychic cleansing.
Let us accept that we have lost the grand dream—the dream of new India: decolonised, liberal, pluralist and egalitarian. The ethos of the freedom struggle, and above all, the noble urge to overcome the trauma of Partition violence, and start afresh with cultural/religious diversity and pluralism inspired us to undertake a new journey. We were poor; yet, we cherished our dreams. Possibly, most of us—even when we didn’t agree with everything Mahatma Gandhi believed in—didn’t want to worship Nathuram Godse. And the syncretic tradition that Gandhi’s disciples like Maulana Azad and Zakir Husain embodied was an inspiration for many of us. And we grew up with Muslim friends and neighbours; we loved many Christian missionaries and their dedicated work for the poor and the marginalised; and Mother Teresa was very close to our heart. However, through the process of a complex and curved trajectory of the postcolonial nation, these days we have begun to ridicule that grand dream. Godse is our new hero; Vinayak Savarkar overshadows Nehru; and we now laugh at Gandhian socialism, Nehruvian secularism and Tagore’s vision of India as an oceanic civilisation. Instead, we are celebrating militant nationalism, hegemonic Hindutva, and its psychology of revenge amid glossy developmentalism or consumerism.
Second, it is important to see the character of the mass culture of Hinduism: continually manufactured by and disseminated through toxic social media, loud gestures like the cacophony of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, gross emotions centred on Mathura, Kashi and Ayodhya, and popularisation of slogans like ‘desh ke gaddaron ko goli maro’. This mass culture of Hinduism is devoid of even the slightest meditative and spiritual churning—the way, say, the Upanishads reflected on a quest for the transcendental and the Infinite; or Narayana Guru and Kabir sought to take us beyond hollow ritualism or the tyranny of the priestcraft. Instead, exhibitionist ritualism, construction of spectacular temples, proliferation of pro-establishment new-age babas, and above all, the act of demonising the Muslims and other minorities characterise this cultural politics. It is not different from any other form of religious fundamentalism. It is gross, sexist, aesthetically dull and spiritually impoverished! As we breathe this culture and normalise it, everything is possible—cow vigilantism, lynching, hate speeches and degradation of women.
And third, this culture, any sane observer would say, is encouraged and pampered by the dominant political class—silently as well as explicitly. As Hindutva—a totalitarian discourse of militant nationalism—tends to become hegemonic, even opposition parties, barring exceptions, fail to evolve a sharp and authentic critique of this cultural and psychic degeneration. Those who still dream of and fight for cultural syncretism, ecological modernity, secular and vibrant civil society, critical and libertarian pedagogy, and openness of human consciousness are marginalised, insulated, ridiculed as idealists, or condemned as anti-national conspirators. This toxic culture is cancerous; in fact, it would not be wrong to say that it has poisoned almost every institution. Ours is a classic case of ‘legitimation crisis’.
It is not easy to combat this intoxication with ugliness. It is futile to believe that a set of token FIRs, or arrests, or condemnation by select intellectuals would make any fundamental change in the way most of us behave and see the world. We need yet another renaissance—a new way of seeing the world, politics, religiosity, education and cultural practices. And this requires a collective effort and struggle involving educationists, cultural activists, environmentalists, scientists and spiritual wanderers: a rainbow platform that enters every locality, communicates with people with patience and hope, spreads the light of reason and love, and activates the potential that is often repressed because of propaganda, violence, instrumental politics and hatred—the ability to see oneself beyond limiting and exclusivist identities, and realise the oceanic abundance within.
Will it ever be possible to see a new era? Or will the situation degenerate further? The answer is not easy.
