Majoritarian Era

Ramayana as an epic has edified millions. The life issues and moral questions it raises continue to provoke thought in Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia, Buddhist Thailand and secular Cambodia. The solutions they propose have remained reference points in South Asia in the ordinary man’s realm of thought and village level social interactions. Many western scholars have greatly admired its poetic quality, dramatic energy and the depth of its ethical search. Most Indians see in it the teachings of ancient rishis presented in allegorical forms.

While neutral scholars respect Ramayana’s epic power and human appeal, they are reluctant to attach any historic importance to the thrilling exploits recounted there. However, they recognise that, like the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid, Ramayana too sets its story within the framework of a historical period. It is the epic glorification of an age that has long passed and a poet’s creation of idealised personalities amidst the ugly realities of human life…inviting reflection. The story develops against the background of court intrigue and “power struggle”. And power struggle has continued. The epic’s moral lessons have become eloquent in our own days!

Indian society feels deeply embarrassed about their leaders who are “desperately hungry for power”. It is difficult to point finger at a particular leader or a specific Party; all parties are equally determined to gain/retain ‘power and pelf’ using fair means and foul. It has become democratic India’s New Normal. The devout reading of Ramayana has not helped the people of the subcontinent to evaluate themselves with the critical tools it provides.  

Continuity in History

Its classical values apart, social historians have seen in the Great Epic a poetic account of the Aryan expansion into the South, winning collaborators from indigenous communities. This has permanently remained a sore point: the way this collaboration was/is won and is used…as equals or as instruments? Are the indigenous societies of the South and East inferior races to the dominant classes/castes? People of Karnataka were not flattered when Adityanath Yogi wanted to confer on them the glory of belonging to Hanuman’s stock, nor the tribals of Rajasthan for a similar distinction. Modiji made brief reference to them while visiting the Hanuman shrine on the way to the bhoomi pujan event. He confessed that the help of vanvasis and vanaras was required to make Ram devotion gain a wider appeal.  But everything else got lost amidst the dazzle of the Prime Minister of the Greatest Secular country in the world presiding at a Ram devotion. But for those who are alert, nothing is lost. Sooner or later the BJP will have define the role they will assign to the Dalits, tribals and OBCs. For example, a Murmu was required in Kashmir when unpleasant decisions had to be made; but when the situation is better, they can be dispensed with.

But in any case, whether they like it or not, the Hinduva High Command will have to be more and more accountable to their Dalit and OBC supporters. The Babri Masjid came down through their initiative. At every VHP gathering, they constitute the workforce for providing the essential services. Further, there are people like Sadhvi Rithambara or Pragya Singh Thakur who can offer erratic services as well. The Parivar cannot lift its head without the subalterns. But lo and behold! They were conspicuously absent at the bhoomi pujan, except for Anandiben Patel; no Yadav, no Jat, no Kurmi.

As long as devotion is all about obscurantist emotions only, this sort of instrumentalization will continue. But the day of questioning comes when sufficient number of Dalits, tribals and OBCs become equipped to think for themselves. Buddha invited thought, so did Ambedkar. Stray voices are heard like that of Kancha Ilaiah. The New Education Policy is so planned to prevent this from happening: productive castes must remain productive, not reflective. M.K. Stalin called NEP a revised version of Manusmriti. We are under Emergency, he said, with a series of ordinances and decrees thrust upon us without discussions.

Tragedy of the Situation

Too few are perceptive of the real situation in India today. We have been moving from demonetization, demotivation, and demoralization, to desperation and covidization! The day after bhoomi pujan, new covid-19 cases shot up from 52,000 to 62,000 and 67,000. A Stanford University study found the UP-Bihar statistics completely unreliable. Priyanka was right when she warned against Yogi’s ‘propaganda’. Why Yogi? Medical experts are insisting that the Delhi growth rate is reported low only based on Amit-Shah-Kejriwal’s defective testing. WHO that had words of praise of India’s earlier initiatives has become strongly critical of our testing quality. In fact,  Modiji who had amazed the world by calling together the SAARC nations for a common struggle against covid-19 has allowed our neighbours to leave us far behind. The great drama proved itself to have been a farce. But Modiji’s propaganda machinery never fails.

The real tragedy is not that we are fighting Coronavirus, but fighting truth. While Harsh Vardhan, Health Minister, is congratulating himself for doing a great job, Indian rate of growth of Covid-19 cases has risen to twice that of Brazil and three times that of the US…highest rate in the world.  As long as we were reporting about China, Iran, Spain or UK what we called  ‘alarming’, ‘irresponsible’, and totally inadequate’ have become ‘normal’, strategic’, and ‘carefully planned’ when worse tragedies are taking place in India.  Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Amit Shah asked the nation to rejoice  that we are under Modiji’s leadership when we are handling the worst pandemic in human memory. Both of them were in the hospital.

Johnson Boris humbly admitted that his government could have handled the virus differently. But it is too much to expect of Narendra Modi to admit failure, even if a few millions yield to the disease. After all, of late he had been speaking of the population problem. His formula of clashing of plates worked no greater wonders any than chanting mantras. Though his words do not sound as insensitive as those of Bolsanaro of Brazil, his passivity before others’ pain seems to be more determined, especially when people die for not shouting ‘Jai Shri ram’ or for their food habits.

The “New Normal” in Secular, Democratic India

One thing emerges clear during the post-bhoomi pujan age. We have to get ready for an undisputed “Majoritarian Era”. It is no more majority-appeasement, it is majority-totalitarianism. August 5^th, not the 15^th, marks the new national day, the day of tampering with the Constitution. Keeping 8 million under detention for a year, unheard of in democracy, we have lost even the moderates in Kashmir. The opposition parties had too little to say when the army moved into Kashmir, when Triple Talaq was withdrawn, when Babri Masjid land was passed to those who had demolished the sacred edifice. And even their muffled protests were too weak to win attention.

But with the bhoomi pujan, things are pointing to worse things to come. Soft voices of protest have turned enthusiastic expressions support for the unfairness.  Even the Congress and the Communists want to be associated. Soft Hindutva is on the way to getting Hard. The message seems to be that all is fair as long the unfairness is imposed peacefully. With regard to August 5^th, Pawar’s cautions were dismissed as Digvijaya Singh’s objections silenced. Suppressed emotions spilt over in some places. Curfew was imposed when minority communities came out in strong dissent in Cachar dt., and the army was called in to help in Sonitpur dt. Dissent sinks into silence. A dissentless land turns into a desert. No one is surprised, this is the New Normal in India today.

Again, we will have to get used seeing MLAs herded like school children into 5-star hotels as it has happened in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Does this happen in any other democracy in the world? With Chief Ministers and ministers in the hospital and MLAs in health resorts, who runs the government? The RSS possibly, as D. Raja of the CPI remarked. Hotel industry has benefited a great deal, but who pays the cost? The hungry looking farmer, the underpaid migrant worker, the mistreated Dalit/tribal.

And what about fairness to the voter who supported a candidate with a particular ideology? He/she begins to lose his/her confidence in democracy. So, total indifference to democracy is another New Normal we have to learn to live with. When ethnical values don’t matter any more, self-interest takes over. A candidate does not communicate to the voter the principles he stands for nor the services he seeks to render to society, but the advantages he is eager to accumulate in which his supporters can hope to have some share. Even if MLAs cost 10-15 crores per head, High Principles can be surrendered at much cheaper rates. That is the New Normal in our beloved country.

A Double-Edged Sword

Instrumentalization of religion is nothing new in history. But it is a two-edged sword. Just as one side cuts all the way down doing injustice to someone in the cause of your interests, the other side confronts you with the very justice you have damaged, which in fact constitutes the core of True Religion. Many Rishis of ancient times taught that religion was not merely in holy places but essentially in Uprightness of Conduct. So it will happen that the promoters of the self-interest of an individual or a Party, find themselves on a suicidal course. For, true Religion punishes the wrong doer…but in its own time. The Indian voter is intelligent. He/she gives everyone a chance, but waits for the final choice.

Mary Trump in her recent book on Trump confesses that she had been taught in her early years that lying and deceiving is just Normal, a “way of life”.  But a time came when her conscience spoke up. Today Trump supporters are asking themselves what they should choose: their immediate interests or their nation’s long-term destiny. For them,  November 3 is just round the corner. Voters in India have a longer spell to make their decision. Meantime, can opinions be expressed as to what is fair? Where lies our long-term future?

Will Opposition Parties wake up and make their voices heard? Will genuinely religious persons in the Hindutva ranks speak up for what is right in the entire issue of Majority-minority relationships. Will the subaltern communities that are being used to do servile services take note of the direction that Manuvadis are leading them, the strategies they develop to confine and limit their future? Will the Ambedkarites take over one day and insist on building a Buddhist temple at Ayodhya on whose 3^rd century foundation the present structure was built? Will pre-Aryan tribal groups approach the Supreme Court one day insisting that they have been robbed of their most sacred site?

The Nation Calls for Other Priorities

We do not want to be judgemental. Only time will tell how fair August 5^th has been to Indian society. As Patel’s “imported” statue did not make Gujarat any taller, the temple built around politics will not constitute the pride of India, but will stand as a symbol of its collective guilt. Ultimately it will end up as a tourist structure, soon be forgotten when the Moditva tide wanes. What ultimately matters is nation-building, not slogan-shouting and minority-menacing, or Pakistan-provoking.  The economy must be made to look up, and the benefits must be shared more fairly.

In Rama we have a noble-minded figure, Purushottam, who “renounced power” in view of a higher principle, readily going into exile. Will it have a message for our power-hungry leadership who make even religion a slave to power politics? Can they take a leaf from Gandhiji’s understanding of rama-rajya, which stood for righteousness, a secular version of dharma?  What ultimately happens, only time will tell.