Our gormless today
There is a definite agenda at play. And boy, do we have imagination running amok now, most of it dark, clandestinely mischievous and overtly ungenerous?
“Every individual or national degeneration is immediately revealed by a directly proportional degradation in language...” — Joseph De Maistre
The story continues from last week as imaginations continue to run wild. As is wont, they shoot into some a hardy dose of temporary, sardonic humour. For others, it provides temporary refuge and succour. In the larger and longer scheme of things, it causes distress and dismay. The above becomes startling and true when there are definite faecal agendas at play. And boy, do we have agendas in our mix now—dark, clandestinely mischievous and overtly ungenerous? We are all witnessing a feral concoction being whipped up and out, an attempt to dislodge our faith and use the ridiculous, even the incredulous, to create debate and unrest. The darkest example of this turn of events is our own Wonder of the World, the Taj Mahal. Or should I begin calling it the Tejo Mahalaya?
More on this later... Day in and out, the targeting of our social fabric is getting more vicious and shamelessly visible. In most, it sparks hype and consternation. In some, it proffers both the beginning and vestiges of gory mirth. Mark my words, though; in the end-game, we will all find the eventual cost to have been very steep. Welcome to a new era. I am not referring to changed living and livelihood circumstances for you and I (we have talked of that enough), but of the demand for the changing of names of prominent places, streets, cities, and now, monuments. This is not about changing names, but about changing a way of life, meddling with our innate thinking.
Take me—i grew up in Delhi and was brought up with Yusuf Sarai, Aurangzeb Road and Hauz Khas, as I was with Sheikh Sarai, Humayunpur and Zamrudpur. I am a tough nut and may be able to live with new names and nomenclatures for these, au force and powerless as I am to do much about it, but changing the name of the iconic Qutub Minar to Vishnu Stambh? And renaming Taj Mahal, one of the wonders of the world, as Tejo Mahalaya? Come on. Numbing portrayal
This incredible nonsense is possible only because a few are insisting, armed with a warped and senseless version of history, that Shah Jehan did not build the Taj Mahal for his beloved Mumtaz Mahal. It was actually a Hindu place of worship taken over by this ruthless Mughal emperor, they tell us on their microphones, followed by cheers from their brainwashed and/or paidfor audience. Thankfully, the Government of India and the Supreme Court are holding stout and steady, citing the Archaeological Survey of India which has cracked the whip on this spiel, labelling it preposterous and completely untrue. But the regurgitation continues; in fact, it is gaining steam.
So what is it that is happening to India, which was till recently galloping away on the highway to economic supremacy and a superpower status? What I can decipher from the cacophony is a slide into uncontrolled decadence and degeneration—or careful design—or a bit of both. What is clear is that India’s homo sapiens have come down a few rungs on the ladder of evolution.
This is possible only because many of us are not recognizing what is happening, despite the ghastly stories we see in newspapers and on the telly. We seem to have forgotten the two deadly (or was it three?) waves of the COVID19 pandemic. We are back on the streets sans masks and safety protocols, back to our beloved car-o-bars, paneer tikkas and butter chicken. It is in the dead-center of this streak of regained metropolitan revelry that these deadly elements are moving in, sniggering as they steer us away from all that is relevant, hammering our tired and fragile innards with whining tales of what they call ‘India’s fast-degrading legacy’.
The real issues
I have never used bullets in my life, or bullet points for that matter, and I shall not make a start today. I will use grammatically incorrect pointers in this section, though, to try and get through to you. Those trying to divide us are ultra-believers out to shimmy us. Communal fires are being fanned and levels of tolerance billeted to the sinews, while true issues are sidelined. Change the name of my Qutub Minar? I say ‘my’ because I fondly remember that as a gangly dolt all of five years of age, I proudly showed off this Minar (a victory tower showcasing Indoislamic architecture, built by Qutub-ud-din Aibak in 1198) to some foreigners. They were agog. By that logic, the Taj Mahal is mine too. Hopefully, it shall remain so.
Now to the grammatically wrong parts, as warned. These ‘dividers’ do not want to rename IIT Bombay (not Mumbai) or IIT Madras (not Chennai). Nor do they want to rename Bombay High Court or Madras High Court. They also do not wish to demolish or rename the Gateway of India, built by the British to commemorate the landing of King-emperor George V, the first monarch to visit India in December 1911. Tellingly, they also do not want to do anything to the Red Fort, from the ramparts of which all our Hon’ble Prime Ministers have addressed the nation on August 15 each year to celebrate India’s Independence Day. Perhaps someone should tell these gentlemen and ladies that it was the same redoubtable Shah Jehan who built the Red Fort.
Steering us away
Much like the American steeds that make up part of their lunch and dinner tables (steers), we are being cowed down, forced to focus on some less than real issues. What are the real issues? Another grammatically incorrect section, since you asked for it. India’s position on the Global Hunger Index. The Press Freedom Index. Global Poverty Index. Unemployment numbers. Crash of the Indian rupee to historical lows. Record slip in foreign exchange reserves. Prices of fuel products—petrol, diesel, CNG, PNG and LPG. Fertilizer prices. Inflation and the price of edible oils, food products. Crime and rape index and domestic violence. Custodial deaths. Debt-toGDP ratio nearing 90 per cent. Key automakers exiting India.
No one talks about any of the above, especially not most of the media and those in offices of authority. They instead talk gas, and not the kind that comes from oil wells. Their gas emanates from twisted minds goaded by interests only deep-seated in their own selves. These are India’s new-found comedians who are spreading moral and communal strife, invoking our mock historical ‘national pride’— balanced completely on intolerance—hoping it will serve their personal crooked agenda.
Luckily, a few remain immune to their efforts. Many don’t. For the latter, I have a new quote to end this column, along with a request to let your better judgment save the day for the next generation of Indians. John Mccarthy said once, “A declining institution often experiences (the) survival of the unfittest...”
Let’s please not let India decline, not anymore. Let’s not be the unfit, or the unfittest.
All around us, we have a deadly concoction at play, aimed at dislodging our faith and using the ridiculous and incredulous to create tomfoolery. A fine example of this state of affairs is India’s Wonder of the World, the Taj Mahal. Or should I call it Tejo Mahalaya?