Tune into empathy
Wea re familiar with“Va ishn av JanaTo”, thesonginMishra K ha maj that Gandhi loved. It was composed by Na rs in hM eh ta some six centuries ago. The song is written in a language that is not very different from modern Gujarati, which is quite remarkable because many languages have changed drastically in the last century.
The song communicates the following:
“Those can be called Va ishn av who feel the pain of others, and help those in misery: without feelingself-important. AV aishn av respects all and disdains nobody.”
There are other things in the lyrics that speak to restraint and purity and so on but they are not as important as this opening sentiment. It is because of this communication of pure empathy that Gandhi chose this song( the melody is, of course, gorgeous and memorable but again it is only incidental ). It is unconditional empathy that is aware that the self in some sense trans forms when it eng ages with the pain of others and cautions against conceit. I should clarify here that the use of“Va ishn av” here is not to separate it from“Sh ai vi te ”: there are actually no Sh a iv it es in Gujarat, except forth eB rah min mi grants( of many centuries ago) from North India. Va ishn avis to separate the Hindu from the Jain and can be generally understood to mean Hindu. So when Me ht a speak soft he Va ishn av, we can understand him to mean the Hindu.
Those of us who know this song and appreciate it andre cite it are above all accepting its meaning. Orarewe?
I have been thinking about this in thisweekwhen momentous events have been unfolding in one of India’ s 29 states( though this has now apparently become28states). Ihavea colleague in Srinagar whom we have not been able to connect with because of the turmoil. It is particularly distressing and anxiety inducing because this colleague regularly gets calls from the local police to show up and present himself and answerquestions.
The reason we can not get in touch withhimis, ofcourse, thatonceagain, communications inside of Kashmir and its links with the external world have been severed on the orders of New Delhi. It may interest readers to know that India regularly features at the bottom of the World Press Freedom Index. It was ranked 140 out of 180 nations and dropped two places in the lastyear. Why is this the case? Surelyit can not be because journalists have no freedom of expression( it is obvious that television anchors, in particular, can say anything they want ).
Attacks on journalists are regular in India but episodic. Ourconsistently poor ranking is for one primary reason: Kashmir. As the index itself put sit, “coverage of regions that the authorities regard as sensitive, such as Kashmir, continues to be very difficult. Foreign reporters are bar red from Kashmir and the Internet is often disconnected there. Whennotdetained, Kashmiri journalists working for local media outlets are often the targets of violence by paramilitaries acting with the central government’ s tacit consent.”
This is the only place in India where this happens, the arbitrary and constant disconnection from the internet of the entire population. NoGoogle, no WhatsApp, oftenno telephone( as is the case now), noFacebook. Nothing that the res tofus take for granted as our primarymeansof communication with each other and theoutsideworld.
Kashmir is can not call or message each other to ask if they are okay or if they area live. This has been the case often in the pastas well and what is happening today is not new. The previous government in Delhi had been just as unkind to them as the current oneand, fromSrinagar, Delhilooksthe same and has looked the same no matter who the current Union home ministeris.
It is there st of the population of India that they are discovering things about in these times. What levels of empathy do Indian sand particularly Hindus, have for their compatriots in Kashmir? I would say very low, even non-existent. We have a bitterness that comes out immediately when talking about their problems.
Our focus is on words like terrorism and K ash miriP and it and Pakistan. These are words that speak to what Me ht a would call conceit: our own preoccupations. They do not respond unconditionally to the pain and suffering of the other. The fact is that today any sort of barbarism can be unleashed on the K ash miri with the approval of the Indian public.
We can have our armed forces tie up one of our citizens in front of a jeep and parade him for hours, goa ding the citizen ry. We will then honour and decorate the individual who committed this act, asifitwasoneof militarybravery.
We can have the world rec oil in horror at the photographs and x-rays of a thousand Kashmir is blinded and mutilated by shotgun pellets that are fired randomly into crowd sand might hit bystanders and even the individuals shootingthem. But we will have the same visuals justified in India because we can dismissal loft he mas“stone p el te rs ”.
Me ht a’ s song is a test of sell examination. Can we, without our conceit and prejudices, observe and em pat hi se with other humans, forget other Indian citizens? Because if we cannot, then merely mouthing those words, however much we enjoy the tune, ishypocrisy.
What levels of empathy do Indians and particularly Hindus have for their compatriots in Kashmir? I would say very low, even nonexistent. We have a bitterness that comes out immediately when talking about their problems