Paradoxical dualities…

In the unfathomably vast physical universe around us, mankind finds the play of science and reason abounding sans constraint. Looking up into the stars on a cold evening has transgressed from being a simple glance of spirited wonderment to a symbolic gaze of hope and redemption, for we who think are we who live and the universe, our home at least if not for the non-existence of another of its kind, was, is and will continue to be the one inexorable source of every question and answer.

Civilization, a great cycle with an infinitely long radius that governs the minds and stomachs of the billions under its titanic umbrella, did not begin on a presupposed morning amongst a group of men, women and children. It began in the mind, as did every revolution, as did every scourge, a seedling of an idea, a miniscule ray of hope beamed at a different future, for the good or for the bad, driven in purpose to assuage the pain of the heart, driven in will to alleviate the pain of the soul.

Rene Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650)

In the continued employment and belief of one man in these beginnings, and therefore his peers, and therefore his kingdom, lay hidden in the shadows of the infinite pores of curiosity and rebellion the embryos of innovation, discovery and understanding. This universe, the cosmos, may perhaps not have been existent at all for the now-supposed 15 billion years. For, all that is visible, audible and perceptible around is and is only because I can see, hear and perceive them through the translucent veils of my mind. Another mind, another omniscient force at play other than my own, does exist only when my mind itself does. Therefore, you exist because I do, and I do because my mind does, and my mind does because I think it does. In conclusion, I think and, therefore, I am (“Cogito ergo sum”, Rene Descartes). Thus, in my mind the womb, in those embryos of innovation, discovery and understanding, the scientific method that is the very proof of the existence of the triumvirate is questioned; essentially, a young thinker will tell you, it is a paradox. I conclude, “The universe is only as old as I am. When I was but an idea in the mind of Mother Nature, the universe itself was but an idea in my mind.”

And the scientist will lunge, provoked like the majestic eagle when the security of its nest is threatened, his penetrating stare seeming to bore burning holes through the walls of space and time, his mind racing to argue, to oppose and prove, to contradict and disprove. And he does, for is he not the child of science himself, gaunt and proud, sober and mystique, unwavering in his beliefs and willing to expand the confines of that which he construes scientific? And he spake! “The winds that blow, the leaves that dance – how would you know the cause, understand the effect, and learn, ultimately, your lesson were it not for the knowledge of the mobility of air, the physics of a frail leaf, and ultimately, the mechanics of the eye that beholds the wonder and the mind that remembers it?” We have studied the universe, together with the entities of space and time that contain it, through the lens of science, that sorceress. Her spells let us stray afar seldom; she is an empress even. Her kingdom is mighty and beautiful, with power in the hands of those who deserve it, and naught can they hold on to, they who desire too much for it. It is, therefore, a just empire. There is but right and wrong, and she abhors uncertainty. To the curious, to the inquisitive, to the young, her laws appeal straight to the heart. For, do you think they will not? Between that chance conception, between that singular ignition that gave birth to everything this universe houses, and that mathematical aberration that preceded its occurrence, that localized blackness which we must all collapse into one day, all that is is a product of science. “Would you, then, say science is not an absolute methodology itself but a “chance” conception of the mind – minds that will soon cease to exist?”

But whatever you chose, remember to look to your own efforts to make this world a better place to live in before looking up at a god.

Frail fodder

Early in the morning, I switch on the TV to find CNN-IBN’s sports section diverting all its attention on Baichung Bhutia, India’s football icon/idol, having missed an exhibition match in favour of attending a celebrity dance show which he also happened to win. I wondered why such a prolific news channel was spending hours together trying to get every scrap of worthless information on the screen – information that somehow concerned Bhutia’s personal life as well. I was also surprised to see a live interview running simultaneously, with the host firing question after question at the poor footballer as to why he decided to take some time off for himself in the middle of a season that didn’t have more than a few league games in the offing.

Dhoni on Times Now

The same thing happened last week when India lost their quarter-finals berth in the ICC T20 World Cup being held in England. Of course, being defenders of the title from the tournament’s debut in 2008, the expectations from the team was high. However, to many, a loss was expected somewhere down the line because the IPL T20 league games had only just finished and many, if not all, of the team players were under considerable stress and fatigue. Once India lost the crucial game to England, both Times Now and CNN-IBN became rife with questions of whether Dhoni (the captain) should be replaced, and how the Indian team was slipping, and how this was wrong and how that was wrong. There are two aberrations I see here. The first is that I’m 100% sure that if we’d won the game with England, Dhoni would have entered his “Poster Boy of India” Phase II and the media persons would have jumped around carrying his image on their heads. And secondly, having spent valuable hours scrounging for information that will (inevitably) soon be forgotten, I’m only led to believe these news channels will popularise anything to make money.

(And before I leave you, there’s another small thing I’d like to bring to light. I, rather we all, learnt that there was a women’s T20 World Cup going on. This came to light only when the men’s tourney showed no signs of progress. Is it that these news channels go solely after the money? Or is it that these news channels are allowed to assume what the viewer wants or does not want to see?)

On service & duty

One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.

– Mahatma Gandhi

To begin nonchalantly on such a broad issue is a momentous task. To spare myself the trouble and the reader all the verbal nimiety, let me begin by asking myself: what is service? A service is work done by the individual as substitution for the duty that is due another individual. When you exercise your right or perform your duty, it does not constitute service because both of them are for you to do so. It is when you offer to help someone or to give up some time of your own in order to do someone else’s work does it become service. At a restaurant, the waiters perform a service when they deliver the food to your tables. The price it comes at is money. On the warfront, when a soldier fires his gun and kills a terrorist, he performs a service for his nation. In both cases, it is not their duty to do so. The waiter earns money in the bargain, and the soldier does it out of either the need for survival or in gratitude of his nation’s gifts. The world around you and me would indeed be drab and devoid of any humanity were it not for the services of those around us. Self-sustenance in this scenario is a highly impossible state of living. We can hope to progress only by standing on the shoulders of giants.

As a 20 year-old, service does not usually take on such magnified proportions for me. I live in a small world around me. My duties, from day to night, include washing the plate I have eaten in and dusting the mattress I have lept on. The food I eat is prepared in the kitchen by my mother. the water I drink seems ready available when I open the taps. However, what I do does not seem like any service to me. It seems a frail triviality as soon as I step outside my door and begin to walk the busy streets outside my house. The either sides of the streets are lined with tens of shops and what seem like small malls, and the floating population on the road at any time of day stand between 5,000-10,000. With no regard for, at the very least, the cleaners who sweep the road at night, garbage lies strewn all over the place. Now, would you imagine me walking up to a stranger outside a saree shop who just threw down a plastic bag full of emptied food packets, and asking her to pick the bag up and put it in the garbage bin? That is what I did, and the woman turned around and ran. She thought I was mad.

Suppose 5,000 such men, and 5,000 such women. Petitions to the local municipal councils don’t help – all I did was ask for them to impose a fine upon those who littered. Their reply: “All that garbage is inevitable. Do you expect each and every one of them to find a garbage bin and throw their stuff in there?” Yes, I do. I replied so, and the counselor looked away. What is wrong in expecting such behaviour? If I can do it, why can’t you? If I could wake up to the day when each and every one of those individuals on the street uses the garbage bins provided, I will be a happy man, for that will be true service. The support you can provide the nation with does not stop at finding work within the country and boosting up its economy. In fact, that is not service at all if you don’t live in gratitude of what the country seems capable of giving you day after day, free of charge. It is like your house; rather, it is your house. Keep it clean. Would you litter your bedroom with rotten vegetables just because the maid cleans it for a fee everyday? I am sure you wouldn’t. It is for this reason that I would, if given the chance, enter into politics. I would like to impart this objectivity in thought, this simplicity of cause, to everyone around me. When Mahatma Gandhi called out for all “brothers and sisters to enter politics, to better this nation”, our nation, the likes of Lal Bahadur Shastri and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari came together. Of course, I can go on about corruption in the form of bribes and what not, but what I want to stress is the dereliction of duty. Glaring in contrast to the glory of days past, what irks me most is that, today, the performance of one’s duty happens to be the rendition of a service. That is a shame.

Many of us look to a service as optional. It is not, but neither is it obligatory. Today, it is required. Like in a game that involves no luck, when a point is lost to the opponent, a lead can only be established when all players put in some extra effort. Similarly, looking at the state of the nation in terms of one’s recognition of one’s duties and responsibilities, a difference can be effected only when we step out of our way, only when we put in some extra effort. The preparedness to do so manifests as true hope, and the will of action manifests as the vision. As a 20 year-old, I believe I should hope, and this is one of the many paths that seem to readily open its gates. Switch off all unnecessary electronic appliances when you leave a room. We don’t need a ‘World Earth Day’ or a ‘World Energy Day’ to make us do that for one hour in a year. They do that to make us aware. If you want to respond, don’t mimick. Act. When you walk the streets, don’t litter. If you see someone littering, do not ignore. That is where you make the real difference. With all the intelligence we boast of at the places where we study and work, we don’t seem to have to put any of it into action. We look to win the Nobel, we look to make money. If that is what you ultimately seek above all else, then you will have come into this world and left without a sign of gratitude.

Living in eternity

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” – Albert Einstein

The human mind is an ultimate enigma, the phantom bridge between the physical universe and all the mechanics it encompasses and the ethereal that we deign the source of our spirituality, the ‘inexplicable’. How it interprets the immediate two dimensional array of objects in front of one’s eyes makes all the difference when it comes to philosophy, and a revolution in the field is nothing but another (seemingly revolutionary) explanation as to how the mind works. Thinkers for long have attempted to quantify the emotions of the mind, its fantastic imagery, the way it even functions, but to no avail. Earlier on, there was Hinduism, which hypothesizes that there exists a single universal truth called Brahman. Alongside the Brahman is another entity called Maya, who is the epitome of illusion and all that is untrue. Therefore, the universe was a dichotomy not of good and evil, but of truth and untruth. Within each and every one of us, there existed a piece of this Brahman which the sages called the self. It is scripted in ancient texts that some sages and rishis spent thousands of years trying to attain this self and thus be delivered from the cycle of birth and death.

Amongst the various doctrines of Hinduism, the Vedas and the associated Vedantas play an extremely important role. The Vedas are classified into four volumes: Rig, Sama, Atharva, Yajur, whereas Vedanta represents the ‘end of knowledge’, rather the ‘complete knowledge’ (’anta‘, Sanskrit for end). Now, the Vedas have to do with man’s realisation of Brahman, or the universal truth, whereas the Vedanta focus on the illusions of Maya, or the indescribable. The concept of Maya was first introduced by the great philosopher Adi Sankara, and deals with the illusions of the Universe. According to Hinduism, Brahman is the sole universal truth, thereby depriving Maya of its truisms. On the other hand, Brahman is realised only through transcendental meditation to pierce the veil of Maya, there by restoring Maya’s truth. This is the reason she is referred to as the indescribable, since her truth contradicts itself. The concept of Maya itself is extremely difficult to comprehend. Maya is said to have been born from the dream of the Supreme Lord, and she carries forth the characteristics of the universe that make it perceptible, tangible. There is a good metaphor for godliness in this vision: when the Brahman is reflected on Maya, God is the image.

Here is a good example by Sri Sankaracharya as to the definition of Maya.

“Though the emission of ejaculate onto sleeping garments or bedclothes is yielded by the natural experience of copulation in a wet dream, the stain of the garment is perceived as real upon waking whilst the copulation and lovemaking was not true or real. Both sexual partners in the dream are unreal as they are but dream bodies, and the sexual union and conjugation was illusory, but the emission of the generative fluid was real. This is a metaphor for the resolution of duality into lucid unity.”

The meaning of duality mentioned above is twofold. Duality, in many schools of thought, is the representation of the good powers in the Universe, and the malignant powers. Some religious beliefs recognise both as Supreme Powers (bitheism), whereas some deign the evil as the altercation of the good. Maya, in her being, is born from the dream of the Supreme Lord, which in the case of Hinduism, is representative of the good. The other duality in question is a reference to the two ideas of truth and untruth.

Now, the soul, as it were, is true if one wants it to be. I want it to be. Why? Going by my argument:

• Core argument 1: There is only One Absolute Truth.
• Core argument 2: There can only be one True perception of it.
• Parallel argument 1: we are all part of the same Universe.
• Parallel argument 2: we all concur to the same Truth because of CA2 and PA1.
• Parallel argument 3: Sight (or visual perception) of the body that contains the soul is varied.
• Core argument 3: One perception of the Truth recapitulates that the body outside the soul is illusory.
• Parallel argument 4: I think therefore I am; the illusion I perceive as being around me is so because I think that it exists. In other words, the illusion exists    only because I do. If I were not here to be able to perceive it, then the illusion itself does not exist anymore.
• Core argument 4: An element other than the body constitutes the Truth.

The soul is a hypothesis drawn from these conclusions – like in a physics laboratory; a graviton is hypothesised and simultaneously believed to be existent just so particle physics agrees with its Newtonian counterpart.

If Brahman were to be constituted as the soul of the self, then the mind would come to represent the knot that firmly establishes the relationship between matter and consciousness. Matter, again, is but a section of Maya herself, and therefore, the perception of the self as being real and true is derived from Maya. Does this mean the self is also illusory? If so, then the body is only a garment. If not, then the body is real and assumes the form of the Truth. But Brahman being declared the sole truth, the concept of Karma comes into action. The mortal is, now, enchained to a cycle of births and deaths until he attains Moksha from Samsara. Karma is the causality of everything and not the cause itself. Man errs. In doing so, his payment for his sins results in him assuming multiple bodies (or garments). My grandfather used to say that if I trampled an ant, I would be reborn as an ant in my next life. However, if the act is committed unknowingly or at the behest of fulfilling a higher purpose, it is not constituted as a sin. For example, there was this tale of a rich merchant who proudly harboured the thought that he had never committed a sin in his life. However, one day, he stamped a cockroach to death. Paranoid and attempting to release himself from accusations of being a sinner, he comes out of his house and hands the cockroach to Ram the sweeper on the street, and asks him to partake of the sin completely. When judgment day arrives for both the men, the sweeper is not consigned to Hell. The merchant is curious and asks the Lord why. The Lord replies that in being a sweeper, Ram’s duty was to kill little insects that troubled other people, and therefore, he was not sinning in killing those insects. Anyway, the presence of Karma Yoga is what results in rebirths. However, at the end of these cycles of life, when a person attains Moksha, the elements of the Universe are finally understood as being the various fixtures of Maya, including Karma itself.

When I, as a child, was exposed to Hinduism and its various beliefs and scriptures, I was of the impression that they were all true (like how a child thinks the story of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is true). But I never really thought Hinduism had such firm basis on the argumentative verges of philosophical thinking. I may not know what the Brahman actually stands for other than being the Universal truth, but the reasoning behind it seems intact. The ideas of meditation (as a means to attain Brahman) have totally swept over my head other than for the sole reason of finding peace. But meditation itself has a deep inner meaning I learn. To discover the One true self within ourselves is no simple task. There are tales buried in the many thousand pages of the Hindu scriptures of great sages undertaking strict penances in order to realise Brahman. We, as humans, lay buried beneath the infinitely many layers of Maya and her imagery that, given the complexity of our supposedly illusory lives, we can’t truly recognise Brahman even if we were to stumble across it. In the metaphor I mentioned above, God is the image of Brahman on Maya. It is our belief that godliness is true, and that God as a being does exist. It is a general belief as well as a consensus amongst most believers that the concepts of Maya, Brahman and Karma are very complex and intricate. Many worship God just ask for a favour without really understanding that they are asking the True Self hidden within them for a favour! It is the understanding of these principles that delivers Hinduism its true standing.

Wasted years

I’m only 20 now, and in spite of that, I’m prone to think of my ‘good old days’ every once in a while. I think it’s not uncommon for many people to do that, given that everyone does have a part of their lives consigned to that particular title for them. The very utterance brings to mind those days which we all wasted knowingly just for the fun we wanted to have. When we all grouped around in the bar speaking to each other of every other girl and boy, and when the bartender goes “last call!”, we turn around surprised that time has flown by so quickly. I don’t know if I’m to attribute that to the ways of the bottle or to the ways of our days. We were quite given to the fact that we could skip the moments of time as it passed by, yet painfully aware that we would still have to give our final exams. We’d go wandering all over the city, trying to find one spot where we’d never been before, yet painfully aware that there never did exist such a spot. Such a lifestyle did go on to leave conspicuous gaps in my resume, but I don’t ever regret having them when it is that the weight of the world hangs down upon my shoulders, often at times reminding me of the pervading mediocrity that bogs me down along with it. Be it the bottle or be it the company, here’s to my lifelong bout of sobriety!   

Hindutva Fascism: Golwalkar & The RSS

In the wake of Varun Gandhi’s infamous speech against minority groups in India on March 6th, 2009, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections from Pilibhit, we the people need to the basis of such thought in India, and what sets apart the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its minions (or, the Sangh Parivar) from the rest of us. In fact, even more than the RSS, we need to, importantly, know about the life and works of Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar, who succeeded Dr. Hedgewar as the Supreme Leader of the RSS and built it to what it is perceived as today. The following is an article by Mr. Ram Puniyan on the same. 

“

Beginning this twenty Fourth February, RSS combine has undertaken programs in different parts of the country to celebrate the centenary year of RSS second Sarsnghchalak (supreme dictator), Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, known in Sangh circles as Shri Guruji. What are going to be the implications of this celebration? To answer this, we will have to delve into the work of Golwlakar, who penned a small book, ‘We or our Nationhood Defined’ (We…), which gives an outline of his ideology and later his articles were published as a compilation, ‘Bunch of Thoughts’. In both these books and also in various other outpourings of his, he denigrates democracy and pluralism on one hand and upholds fascist concept of nationhood and sectarian version of culture on the other. His writing is most intimidating to the minorities in particular. He was the chief of RSS for 33 long years and was instrumental in giving RSS a direction, which assumed menacing proportions in times to come, and strengthening the foundations of the ‘hate minorities’ ideology resulting in the consequent waves of violence, undermining the democratic norms in the society. He can also be ‘credited’ with giving the sharp formulations which laid the ideological foundation of different carnages in the country. Golwalkar praises Lord Manu as the greatest law giver mankind ever had. It was the same law giver Manu’s book, which was burnt by Dr. Ambedkar in his pursuit of getting justice for the dalits. In current times, Golwalkars’ successor also demanded a throwing away of Indian constitution, to be replaced by the one which is based on Hindu holy books, implying Manusmriti, of course.

His formulations of Hindutva Fascism are so blatant that even his followers, the RSS combine, is running for cover and claiming that this book, having a naked hatred for minorities and eulogies for the likes of Hitler, We…, was not written by him. They avoid owning these ideas. But one knows that this book *was* penned by him. In an affidavit submitted to the charity commissioner, Rajendra Singh, a later Sarsanghchalak pleaded, “With a view to give a scientific base to propagate the idea-India being historically from time immemorial a Hindu nation-the late Shri M.S. Golwalkar had written a book entitled ‘We or Our Nationhood defined’, which was published in 1938.” (Quoted in Islam, Undoing India: The RSS way) J.A. Curran in his classic study, RSS: Militant Hinduism in India Politics- A study of RSS: points out “The genuine ideology of Sangh is based upon principles formulated by its founder, Dr. Hedgewar. These principles have been consolidated and amplified by the present leader (i.e. Golwalkar) in a small book called “We or our nationhood defined”. It is a basic primer in the indoctrination of Sangh volunteers… (Curran 1979, p.39). Since its quotations have been brought to the notice of people, RSS publishing houses have stopped republishing this book. What does Golwalkar say in this book?

In this book he rejects the notions of Indian nationhood, India as a Nation in the making. He rejects the idea that all the citizens will be equal. He goes on to harp the notions of nationhood borrowed from Hitler’s Nazi movement. He rejects that India is a secular nation and posits that it is a Hindu Rashtra. He rejects the territorial-political concept of nationhood and puts forward the concept of cultural nationalism, which was the foundation of Nazi ideology. His admiration of Hitler’s ideology and politics is the running thread of the book and he takes inspiration from the massive holocaust which decimated millions of people in Germany. He uses this as a shield to propagate his political ideology. It is this ideology which formed the base of communal common sense amongst a section of the population. “German national pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up purity of the nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races, the Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into a united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”

In the Sangh circles this book is regarded as their Gita. The implications for Indian minorities are presented here in a forthright manner. Today the swayamsevaks brought up on this Gita, do believe in all this but the language of expression is being made more polished so that the poison is coated with honey and administered with ease. Golwalkar goes on to assert, “From the standpoint sanctioned by the experience of shrewd nations, the non-Hindu people in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and revere Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but the glorification of Hindu nation i.e. they must not only give up their attitude of intolerance and ingratitude towards this land and its age long traditions, but must also cultivate the positive attitude of love and devotion instead; in one word, they must cease to be foreigners or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, for less any preferential treatment, not even the citizen’s rights.”

When the Hindutva politics came up in the late 1980s, in the beginning an unsuspecting observer could not comprehend from where has the concept of Hindu nation come up suddenly, why such an intense hatred for minorities, a glance at We… and one becomes clear that those fed on this ideology cannot but be what they are, cannot do anything else than what they did and have been doing since 1990, the Babri demolition, the anti minority violence and an open violation of democratic ethos of the country. These ideas were translated into the stories of atrocities of Muslim kings, the myth of Hindus owning this land from times immemorial and a lot of such make believe concoction. Irrespective of the fact the freedom movement rejected this ideology and its formulations, it was kept alive through the ideological indoctrination work in the RSS shakhas going on ceaselessly.

Golwalkar was also faced with some of the ‘naive’ swaymasevaks wishing to participate in the national movement, more so after the massive Quit India movement was launched. That time Golwalkar was the RSS chief and he dissuaded the people from participating in the movement, and some of them who participated did it in their personal capacity, some of them now claim that they also participated. (e.g. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was onlooker in the anti British movement, was arrested but wriggled out of the jail and later claimed to have participated in the movement.) As matter of fact Golwalkar was very contemptuous towards the anti British movement. There is no mention of presence of RSS in the anti British movement even in most of the sympathetic accounts written about it. Even Nanaji Deshmukh, the foremost leaders of RSS puts this question, why did RSS not take part in the liberation struggle as an organization? (Deshmukh, Victim of Slander, Vision Books, 1979, p.70) Since Golwalkar propounded religion based nationalism, there was no place for anti British stance. “The theories of territorial nationalism and of common danger, which formed the basis of our concept of nation, had deprived us of the positive and inspiring content of our real Hindu Nationhood and made many of the ‘freedom movements’ virtually anti-British movements. Anti Britishism was equated with patriotism and nationalism. This reactionary view has had disastrous effects upon the entire course of freedom movement…” . In a frank defense of British colonialist he reminds the people of RSS pledge, “We should remember that in our pledge we have talked of freedom of the country through defending religion and culture. There is no mention of departure of British in that.” With allies like this British could merrily pursue their policy of divide and rule!

No wonder British never repressed RSS. Also the collusion between Religion based nationalism and colonialism can be understood from such statements. Later the World saw that in tune with this pro imperialist ideology, Golwalkar was to support the US aggression on Vietnam and his successor Sudarshan defended the US aggression against Iraq. The murder of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindutva follower Nathuram Godse not only shocked the whole nation; it led RSS followers to celebrate this event by distributing sweets. While RSS followers were celebrating, and the links of Godse with RSS became apparent, RSS was banned and Golwalkar was arrested. They denied that RSS had any links with Godse. At that time it was easy to claim so as RSS had no written constitution and membership lists, enrollment register etc. Godse was RSS Pracharak and later he joined Hindu Mahasabha and was editing a newspaper, Agrani (leader), the subtitle of the paper was Hindu Rashtra. In the court he denied any links with RSS. Later his brother Gopal Godse, who was also an accomplice in the murder, in an interview given to Times of India (25 Jan 98) stated that his brother Nathuram spoke a deliberate lie in the court, “The appeasement policy followed by him (Gandhi) and imposed on all Congress governments’ encouraged the Muslim separatist tendencies that eventually created Pakistan…Technically and theoretically he (Nathuram) was a member (of RSS), but he stopped workings for it later. His statement in the court that he had left the RSS was to protect the RSS workers who would be imprisoned following the murder. On the understanding that they (RSS workers) would benefit from his dissociating himself from the RSS, he gladly did it.” 

In the wake of the murder of Gandhi, RSS was banned and Golwalkar was jailed, from where he wrote a letter to the Government of India offering to cooperate with the government in ‘dealing with the menace of Communism’ in return for being released from the jail. Incidentally it was also the period when US was on the witch hunt of communists world over. Today, the global US agenda of demonization of Islam, and Muslims world over matches with the RSS agenda, coincidence again? Is this running parallel in the matching agenda US and RSS policies a mere coincidence? For him the notion of Hindu Rashtra remained supreme and he could never reconcile to the secular values of Indian constitution. Time and over again he kept on harping on how *UnBharat* the constitution is and how Manu’s rules are more desirable and profound one’s. The partition of India and the consequent tragedy was registered through the Hindutva eyes, “Even to this day there are many who say, ‘now there is no Muslim problem at all. All those riotous elements who supported Pakistan have gone away once for all. The remaining Muslims are devoted to our country. After all they have no other place to go and they are all bound to remain loyal…It would be suicidal to delude ourselves into believing that they have turned patriot overnight after the creation of Pakistan. On the contrary, Muslim menace has increased a hundredfold by the creation of Pakistan, which has become a springboard for all their future aggressive designs on our country.”

The way to look at Indian communities as Hindus and Muslims as uniform monoliths continues to be exhibited all through. Further he also goes on to label Muslims, Christians and Communists as internal threats to Hindu nation. And this is the ‘ideological fodder ‘ of RSS shakhas and its practical unfoldment is visible in the regular occurrence of attacks against Muslims and Christians. With collapse of Soviet Union, the venom against communists has been given a different turn. And in the third category secularist have also been added up as a threat to Hindu nation. It was Golwalkar again under whose stewardship the RSS gave birth to other organizations to play the divisive role in different arenas of social and political life. He was instrumental in helping bring up Bharatiya Jansangh, Akhil Bhartiya Vidayarthi Parishad, Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, amongst others. The infiltration of RSS cadres in different wings of state apparatus; army, police, bureaucracy, judiciary, education and media was another move initiated by Golwalkar, the effects of which are visible prominently from last two decades. While secular democratic elements, activists have a long road ahead, we need to take care that in the already vitiated atmosphere, the communal divide is not accentuated further by this move of RSS and we put forward the values of humane plural and democratic society and dispel the ideologies which have been playing a very divisive role in the society. 

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Jeremy

“Daddy didn’t give attention to the fact that mommy didn’t care… Jeremy spoke in class today!” – Eddie Vedder has a way of singing the song, and I think you’d agree. Pearl Jam are one of the few who’ve survived the grunge movement and managed to hold on to their loyal fan base. But, other than the band itself, it is the song that draws my attention. Vedder based the song on a true story of a boy who shot himself at school in front of his classmates. What the boy could have experienced to do that is very much what we all could have gone through in our lives. It is the support that this society sometimes fails to gives that drives us to such measures. But, more than that, the suicide of the boy could be the one way he thought possible to break the bonds of institutionalisation. There are those people who deal with it, accept it at one point, and move on, including the very concept as an undeniable part of their lives. But then, there are also those who decide to fight it. I’d say fighting change is one thing, but fighting stagnation is another. Change can be fought easily because all you have to do is go with the flow. Things are moving, thoughts are walking in and out of doors – and if you just care to make a difference, you only need to think different, to inspire people differently. But stagnation is rigid. It is a set form, and breaking it takes knuckles of steel.

Institutionalisation is damnation, I tell you. It reduces talented people to robots, and it will always seem to be at work until you can see yourself bogged down by mediocrity. Just a few minutes back, I was conversing with a senior of mine here in college, and he was telling me about how his friends – some of the brilliant – were, in the morning, running around asking people what shoes they must wear for the day. I guess that’s an everyday sort of question, but not when the only thing you lhave left to do that day is nothing! Institutionalisation will lower your expections and defeat your passion like no other. You will so become accustomed to changelessness that change will distract you as an aberration. When we all, as students of a college, move into an outside world that is very much going to be bereft of friendly faces, we will be scared no doubt. I say we defeat stagnation here and now. What we are doing these days is blaming our loss of individuality on stagnation, but I believe that the truth is the other way: our stagnation is because of our loss of individuality! I know it is not easy to wake up one morning and decide to change your world for youself, but where such and such a changelessness lies is in your mind. We build walls around ourselves – walls of satisfaction that seem to step up to satiate our every need, till the day comes that they seem sufficient enough to quell even our innermost desires. Here in college, we have small rooms distributed as 30-per-floor, and each hostel block has 5 floors excluding the ground. Every day, all we have to do is wake up, referesh ourselves, walk out our doors, see the same faces day after day, guzzle our breakfast, and walk to college. The amount of creativity in that particular process is dwindling and, amazingly, people around me have fewer and fewer reasons each day to move out of the four walls of our campus and associate with different people, people who aren’t actually constrained in their heads like we are.

It is such small things that defeat novelty, innovation and, ultimately, the need for change, even sometimes entrepreneurship. Some people can’t recognise institutionalisation even if they have succumbed to it, and it is because what ever desire they seem to inculcate, they either get it or lose it; I have never known any one to win it or refuse it. They forget how to it is to fight such things. I know change is a difficult thing – it necessitates the need to learn, but only by learning anything can you belong in your future. In defeating your inherent creativity, you are only defeating your ability to change, and to change today is to adapt into a better tomorrow.    

My Comments On Pro-pedophile Activism

I was asked by a friend of mine as to what my comments were on pro-pedophile activism, of whose existence I learnt only when she spoke about it. You see, such a thing does exist. As bizarre as it may seem that the law-abiding population of this planet has let such a group grow into an activistic lot, the pro-pedophiles have an explanation of their own to justify their voices. Just as homosexuals battled religious zealots by asking them to question their preconceived notions about God’s wrath upon Sodom, pro-pedophiles ask us that when men can be attracted to men, and when women can be attracted to women, why can’t men be attracted to little girls, and why can’t women be attracted to little boys? Now, I don’t want to answer that question because I don’t want to dignify it by doing so; and, I will never be able to understand that, when it all comes down to an argument, how these people are going to convince us of their argumentative validity – especially via an answer to the question of the inherent naivety our children possess, and of which how they will always be construed as taking advantage? Sexual orientations and sexual preferences are something like Newtonian mechanics – you can’t apply it to very small things. The questions you ask when you see a man kissing a man will project either agreement with the norm or disagreement. Whatsoever it may be, it will always be based on what the society can come to accept or not. The state, as represented by law, exists only because conflicts must not arise within the same species, because only when one man is at peace, the others will also be. Pro-pedophile activism, IMO, must always be discouraged as a concept so blundering in its roots because the children of today will only constitute the society of tomorrow; they can be relied upon as people being able to opine sensibly and judge fairly only when they become adults. Pedophilia is a one-sided decision-making process: the child is never in the loop, and more often than not, the child will never be able to construe the implications of the act and the consequences which will come to shape its future (read: Stephen King). Such an idea reflects (in an abstract way) the violation of the Right to Free Thinking.

In my even more frank opinion, I think they must be lined up and shot.    

Escapism & Knowledge: One At A Time

I had a nice little talk with a senior here in college. We call him Sawant, and I think he’d like for you to call him that too. Anyway, Sawant was a welcome change for me as far as conversational purposes go. We were talking about each others views on life and what could be done about it, until we finally hit upon two frames of though: pseudo-intellectualism and escapism. We decided that each one of us would come up with our own sets of ideas concerning the two notions. While Sawant is a man of many words, I’m a man of pen and paper. He will read what I have to write, I will listen to what he has to say!

First of all, I had to clarify for myself how I felt about escapism and knowledge, one at a time. I’ll put up a separate post on pseudo-intellectualism after this.

Notes

1. Institutionalisation
2. Varied perceptions
3. Acceptance
4. State
5. Society
6. Change

Escapism

I believe that the structure of the world around us today, be it in its religion, politics, science or philosophy, is erected upon the factors I’ve listed above. Institutionalisation recapitulates a fear of change, acceptance defies the basis of varied perspectivism, and the state and society play with each other to deliver a fairly acceptable social system devised on assumptions and history, a fable but agreed upon. For anyone, you, me, him, her, fitting in cosily amongst such chaotic scenery is a laborous task. The various strata that have to be mined through while simultaneously fashioning hopefully sensible opinions and judgments to gauge the nature of the people around you alone will take up a sizable chunk of your time; all this while you chalk out a superficial make-up to plaster on your face and choose willingly to assume the personality of someone else in a moment of self-loathing and on a whim of just thinking that these are matters to be bypassed in favour of convenience as well as a strongly denied sensation of escapism: our society is a maze.

Every time someone says “life is too short for all this”, I am only prompted to think. Obvious principles of argumentation has us all know that a true and infallible argument is that which is absolute in its standing and fundamental in its logic: it must be that a statement doesn’t exist which can negate the facts quoted in the infallible argument. Saying ‘life is too short fo all this’ is not absolute. If one were to take up the chronological aspects of living, all we have for our consideration are the inhabitants of the planet we ourselves live in: animals, birds. If one were to narrow the comparisons down to sensible footings, we only have the people around us to compare with. In this frame of thought, ‘life is too short’ is a statement without meaning. What are we gauging it against? Against the lifespan of others around us, people with the same biological composition as you and me. If you have 100 years to live and also think that life is too short, are you trying to say others around you try to live longer? And that is just but the chronological aspect of it! The state of which they are citizens, the society of which they are social units, the world of whose theatrics they are spectators – we are part of a similar society, a parallel state and the same wide world.

However, while stating all this, I do not enforce upon others that they take to the logical factors just as favourably as I do. All I am trying to establish is that although it is taken for granted that ‘life is too short’ is a convenient option to bypass those moments that have you making tougher decisions, it is also escapism because it is logically faulted through the inherent convenience itself.

I know. I’m just a silly, old fool.

Knowledge

Whenever I have been confronted with the need to ponder upon knowledge, the first thing that comes to my mind is its elemental standing. If you were to question me here, I will confess that ‘elemental standing’ is a term I have coined to imbue the element in question with the duty to declare its purposes with reference to mankind in general. The world we have built for ourselves is a world of extreme dynamicity and deeply rooted materialism. In such a basket, it is hard for anyone to stop for a moment and think as to why it is all the way it is. The innate ability to open a mind’s eye in the darker corners of our brain and perceive things differently has given birth to civilisation – a mensurable parallel to its biological counterpart of evolution. And today, it is too late to rewind through 4,000 years of civilisation and try to pin down the one thing that started it all. However, that is obvious: the quest for knowledge. The very purpose of evolving eyes is to see, ears to hear, skin to feel. Blame it on panspermia, divinity or luck, here we are.

For a civilisation spree sparked off by the want to know more by the second, it is only natural that what we have with us today is a scenario that is stable only as long as there are knowledgeable people to handle it. Now, knowledge, as it were, is a summation of all that we know, but just because such a thing exists doesn’t mean it is a necessity; those people who are devoid of the thirst to know more aren’t invalids. They are a hindrance, yes, but not an anomaly. Knowledge, by its existence, only confirms that it can exist, and the purpose we have assumed for ourselves – that of to know more – has nothing to with it. This is a very important point: knowledge and thought are different. When we think that we need to civilise along the same lines as our ancestors, we reach out to the pool of knowledge and partake from it. When civilisation is no longer a serious concern, as in when we are at the top of a graph that dictates sensibilities, knowledge separates itself from the pool of humanity per se.

(Imagine I am mixing up a bit of coffee. The mug being a metaphor of the absolute container, the coffee powder is humanity and water, knowledge. When the person holding the mug – in effect, the goal we have set for ourselves, the definitive plot of civilisation that we chart out – wants to have some coffee, water is poured into the mug and mixed. Coffee consists of the separate ingredients of powder and water, but it is coffee only when they are together. Similarly, the need to civilise consists of the perpetrators of the actions (mankind) and the knowledge that facilitates it. When they separate, it may or may not be civilisation as it originally was or was needed to have been.)

The Rainsong Jabberwock

Rainsong

I know not if there has ever been 

An incident in the past

Where the poet sat down to 

Write a poem about poems

About how he is inspired to write 

By one thing or the other

To dedicate them all as inspirations 

And to lock them away as gems

In an old trunk that he keeps 

In the corner of a forelorn room

Only to awaken the next morning 

To open the treasure chest

Be inspired again to come up 

With something new – a new jewel?

As he works away in lonesome joy 

To better his yet artful best

I imagine he will ignore hunger and thirst 

And sleep and dream

Just so he doesn’t interrupt 

Himself in his unending travels

For we both know he will stop 

When he can write no more

Till his fingers don’t stand limp 

And his mind no more unravels

 

I know not why I called this the rainsong

For it has nothing to do with rains

Nor does it concern itself with a song

It’s just to relieve some fictional pains

 

You must forgive me

For wasting your time

But I will only hope

You noticed that it rhymed

 

I never really understood why

The poems I heard as a child followed a pattern

They never had any a meaning to them

And there seemed nothing to learn

 

‘Tis not often that I write

Something such as this to while away

What’s left of some little time I have

Before a test later in the day

 

But it somehow always feels good

To do something sans requirement

Just for the heck of it all

And this line must rhyme with Kent

 

Ah, poetry.

 

I just felt like writing a poem and calling it ‘Rainsong’. And I don’t know why, but it feels good and wholesome at the end. Perhaps I will sit down, later in the day, and waste time trying to infuse it with some metaphorical meaning.