Mimetic times
We are mindlessly flirting with communal madness. We have been for a while now and may soon see the deadly fallout, as Skowrers attempt to score a win
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions...” —Primo Levi
Are Hindus and Muslims fighting and culling and killing one-another? No. Are they being told by the majesties and their Skowrers that this is happening? Yes. What does that convey? Well, only that we are being played, (mis) guided and led down the proverbial garden path. Does anyone give a damn? Apparently not... A baseless and silent plunder is happening in India now, religious mayhem that reminds me of what Arnold Schwarzenegger said in ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ to a young boy: “It is in your (human) nature to destroy yourselves.”
If that be the backdrop against which we view the recent actions and reactions on India’s streets, temples, mosques and police stations, we are well and truly on our way to dismal fracture fruition, with our incipient gumption and seemingly gay abandon being inconsequent to the final outcome. In what is fast turning into an insane world, we are chasing a less than sane cause, as we dabble in the dazzle of a changed nation, quite clearly not grasping the potential and inevitably adverse eventuality.
Most of us are not even thinking things through, despite the scary pictures and videos we are seeing every day in the newspapers, on TV news channels and the social media. Day in and out, we are shown renderings of people throwing it all away and massacring everything that we once stood for proudly. Makebelieve wannabe superpowers and religious ultra-believers are trying to shimmy us; and yes, we are being shimmied high and dry. Communal fires are being fanned and the body count is increasing, paradoxically disproportionate to the fall in tolerance, values and the very basics of religious pluralism enshrined in our Constitution.
Philosophically speaking, even for non-believers, this is the beginning of an end-game as we enter the last stretch. What’s left to see is how much we come undone and become mor(t)ally sick. Why am I voicing these despondent thoughts? It is perhaps because I firmly believe that we are being craftily and quietly uprooted from our beliefs and force-fed a myriad of blasé and shameless lies. Dripping with sangfroid
In tremulous times, composure and imperturbability can be our best friends. Today, we need to embrace calmness, for that’s really the only thing that can steer us clear of the looming morass. For most, the COVID19 pandemic was a wake-up call, a warning to embrace all the good that life has to offer while we still can. As an afterthought, though, it appears to have been an opportunity for a few, a God-given chance to create rift and plunder while most of the country was confined indoors. The results are being witnessed first-hand, given the mayhem and lawlessness on our streets today.
A recent article I read spoke of how extreme thoughts and actions (and their repeated enumeration) can make the storyteller actually and truly believe the lies and spiel. The article spoke of Binjamin Wilkomirski, the Swiss author of a book ‘Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood 1939-1948’ in 1995. In the autobiography, he described his sufferings as a survivor of the holocaust. The tale was mind-numbing and poignant, recalling in graphic detail his experiences during that cataclysmic time. Shockingly, Wilkomirski’s autobiography became one of the most talked-about pieces of literature when it was found that it was totally fabricated and that he was never a holocaust survivor. More disconcerting was the fact that he truly began believing his fictional experiences. The more he wrote, the more he himself began believing the manufactured details.
Something similar is happening in India today as we are suddenly surrounded by people who utter the most despicable and bizarre of tales on religion and where we are headed as a nation. The worst and chilling part is that as these hate-mongers spew their vitriol and angst again and again, they seem to have started believing the nonsense themselves.
Steering us away
So what is really happening? Viewed through the distorted prism that we find thrust into our hands today, we are being systematically steered away from the realities that actually impact our lives and livelihoods, made to focus our energies and attention instead on carefully-conceptualized events that have little or no impact on the average Indian’s real life. Thus it is that we have repeated announcements and headlines surrounding myriad celebrations, inaugurations, religious and/or communal clashes, terrorist intrusions and skirmishes, and booming announcements made on loudspeakers at public forums.
Ironically, no one in authority who holds a legitimate public office is speaking on the real issues that are distorting our lives beyond recognition and comprehension. For instance, there is absolute silence and no comeback on issues around a slithering economy and rising joblessness, with crores of educated people now cooling their heels at home, with many more crores just giving up their search for employment. Prices of all fuel types are repeatedly being hiked, with no explanation being provided. Over the weekend, LPG prices were the latest to be increased, breaching the Rs 1,000-mark in most cities. Delhi saw some respite, as the revised price was capped at Rs 999.50.
On another end, repo rates were hiked last week by 40 basis points, which all but ensures that bank interest rates will increase and EMIS will rise. The Indian rupee is now at its weakest against the US greenback and India’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen below $600 billion after a very long time. In the Press Freedom Index, India’s rank fell by 8 rungs to #150. The Russia-ukraine standoff continues, leading the United States to make a call for a ‘strategic victory’; this led one to wonder that if Ukraine wins in someone’s dream, will the US call it a ‘dream victory’?
On the sports front, the Hangzhou Asian Games have been postponed due to rising COVID-19 cases in Shanghai and a subsequent stringent lockdown (PS: In India too, COVID-19 cases are rising, with Delhi-ncr leading from the front and hospitals are being readied in case we face another crisis). Virat Kohli is back, having hit a half century in the Tata IPL after a long time and the Rohit Sharmaled Mumbai Indians has finally won two matches on the trot to save some face. But little or no mention is made of the above events, with the lone exception perhaps being the Indian Premier League. What is the point?
Well, we are being brainwashed and our thoughts diverted to things petty and inconsequential in the larger scheme of things. It is an accepted fact that nothing sells like sensationalism and that is what is being created and pumped into us. Every other day, something red and loud happens (actually, it is carefully made to happen). Then the media at large is roped in and a bunch of fake, crony journalists bombard our homes, ears and eyes with countless hours of ‘Breaking News’. It is a different matter that these very TV channels take on diametrically tangential stands on the same issues just a few days later as a new agenda is thrown their way by their masters.
By and large, Indians are a sensible lot and that is a reason that we reached the levels of economic success witnessed since the early-1990s, till things took a turn for the worse a few years back. A large number of Indians are educated and wellinformed, and even those without a formal education have a balanced head on their shoulders and understand the bolder issues that actually shape their lives. Few have time for false rhetoric and divisive brouhaha, clearly recognizing as they do the deadly attempts that are being made for what they really are—manufactured events to divert attention and break down the social fabric of the world’s largest and most variegated democracy.
Let’s all take a collective deep breath and focus on the things that are intrinsic to our well-being and advancement. Let’s together revisit what Yehuda Bauer said in a telling quote, one that is disarming: “Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” Let’s not stand forlorn as deluded, cynical or crushed bystanders; that’s a sure-shot way to ensure that a few with evil intentions will run amok and rule the roost.
Is what we witness all around us today the beginning of an end-game? Of course it is, as we enter the last stretch towards coming undone and become mor(t) ally sick. As we march on to what some feel is a grand finale, the truth is we are running out of moral steam