Oof this secular shit in India!!!

It happens only in India! In the Brambridge Press, New Delhi Office, an innocent Hindu cow is mistreated, insulted and humiliated by a fierce Muslim zealot. It happens repeatedly, unjustifiably, without any professional reasons and without any provocation by the poor cow. The reasons are plainly personal. The Hindu holy cow sheds tears. The Muslim filly bites back with more ferocity next time. If the Hindu holy cow raises an issue, other educated Hindu lambs eating the grass of hypothetical secularism run to defend the Muslim houri. She has this shield. Caught in a difficult situation, she just has to shout the plaintive tales of Muslim sufferings in India. She is educated; pampered in office like a princess. Still she has endless tales of Hindu atrocities against Muslims to share. The secular shrimps, the educated chicken-hearted Hindus, ever so eager to prove they have read a few books, run with hanky to wipe her tears and mutter against their own religion. Earlier in the build-up of Modi wave that catapulted him to PM status, she was always splattering venom against Modi and was casting Nazi type holocaust of Muslims in India if Modi came to power. Now ask her, ‘Has Muslim population of India been sent to gas chambers?’ They are better placed than before! It can happen only in India! Only educated Hindus blinded by hypothetical lines of secularism can allow a Hindu cow to be bitten and smothered by a Muslim colleague! Kudos to Hindu secularism! Is there any overenthusiastic RSS or Bajrang Dal guy who can issue Hindu version of fatwa against this woman!!??

Chaudhary Devi Lal Ji Amar Rahein!

The maker of modern Haryana, Ch. Devi Lal – our Tauji – the Jan Nayak; the spirited non-conformist against the shadowy overtures of lopsided development at the cost of countryside; the man crowned with the unadulterated halo of farmers' interests.

          It is a matter of pleasure and pride to dedicate this write-up – these simple pen strokes of countryside nostalgia – to the Jan Nayak. I feel it is a Godly intercession in my little literary journey that I have'n provided the opportunity to hitch my tiny literary cart to the strong and swift horses of his legacy.

          There is voluminous testimony to the impressiveness of Ch. Devi Lal's calmly commanding personality. And if a son of Haryana – the karmabhoomi of our farmers' messiah – entails himself to the fag end of our Tauji's enormously elderly aura and legacy, then it should be forgiven and appreciated.

          The Jan Nayak's overriding benevolence has'n shining and will continue to do so endlessly through the rack and ruin of time. His unblemished character and works for the country's downtrodden have made his luminous memories firmly fade-less. Lustrous whirls of extravagant green decorated so pridefully in the agricultural fabric of this country will continue to inspire generations to come. His work, worry and weariness for the cause of rural India make him outstandingly standout amongst the rag-tag parliamentary disorder.

          Despite achieving so much at the highest level of Indian politics, he was uncommonly sobered; his simple, stout spirit, merry and mellow elderly aura made him immensely approachable to the people from the lowest rung of life. Where else would you find a Chief Minister, who dropped in by a poor hutment and heartily enjoyed the frugals offered like he had'n served with choicest delicacies from the costliest restaurant. Every settlement in Haryana happily cradles myriads of such sweet memories. By the God's greatest glory, he'd arrive at the scene mired in heartbreaks and dejection. And lo ! An encouragingly buzzing transformation would take place. His mere presence will sprinkle new life. His malleable sensitivity, kind and condescending behaviour, subtle and statuesque physique dispelled the disharmony and dispassion from the scene.

          We grew up in our village taking him the single synonym of all that 'politics' means to the children. Such has'n the sweeping scope of his charisma across the length and breadth of Haryana! That casual flightiness of flickering childhood can still clearly recall the grand impressiveness of his hold over the ruralites' psyche. While I was 13-year-old, finding me unconcernedly lost in the slow grandeur of childhood, my grandfather– a devout follower of the Jana Nayak – exhorted me :

          "You haven't yet learnt how to talk like a youth. At your age, Ch. Devi Lal not only spoke like a fiery youth, but acted like one also. At such a tender age of 13, he raised the flag of revolt against the Britishers and courted arrest for the cause of mother India!"

          It was then I got to realise the real force of his selfless valour, courage and conviction.

          Generic sacredness of his socially prominent policies, for which he life-longly lugged it out and lugged it in, made him the favourite son of Haryana's destiny. The Jan Nayak was compulsively attached to the cause of sons of the soil. Throughout his life, he ladenly slogged ahead, shouldering the responsibilities of those whose interests – up to that time – were politically sterile. And this cherished goal of his would never get off his uncomplaining shoulders till he left us. Even during his last days, his feeble, old eyes envisioned a golden future for the deprived and dispossessed masses of this country. A very-very old farmer whom I met in a bus broke down while he narrated the dreamy moments he shared with the farmers' messiah when the latter had'n bedridden by the inevitable and cruel hand of age.

          "His eyes were peacefully closed," the farmer told me about his life-long hero. "When I touched his feet, slowly but with sudden urgency his eyes opened. He had energy just enough to say few words and asked, 'How is it with the crops?' And then those big, passionate eyes were closed again, as if he was praying for me and the crops."

          Tauji's all-fired urgency had blossomed fresh morning's verve in the sublime-stillness of the traditional hinterland of Haryana. Yes! We as children have'n first hand witness to this silent revolution of 'coming of age of the ruralites.' His name connoted all that leadership, politics, elections and statesmanship meant to us. Far away from the hoot and holler, and flimsy vanities of 'utilitarian politics' the 'leader of common man' was selflessly busy in his mission. And later when his benevolently beaming imagery shone at the national level, perhaps for the first time this country came to understand and realise the real worth of the Jats, who have always been the bread earners of this big country, and who in return were uncomplainingly scraping a living — 'barely' — for their impoverished and almost famished families.

          It is a pungent irony that the mountainously-big legacy and stature of this great son of Haryana has proved to be too broad and comprehensive for the local literature to accommodate in its pages. May be it is due to the fact that literature is in its nascent stage in this traditional land of agricultural community. Inevitably and naturally, the myth and legend of the Jan Nayak is bound to grow exponentially, I think local literature must brace up its wordy effort to provide full justice to the great man's mission and philosophy. In my humble capacity, I've tried to take a few steps in this direction by paying literary obeisance to our Tauji. It has been a revealing experience, at the emotional level, to catch the glimpses of his memories in the poem titled 'Tauji'.  I feel privileged in dedicating this anthology to his cause and mission. These are the heartfelt songs from the land he worked for all along his immensely productive life.

          As all of us suffer from some stringent frailty. Yours truly is also no exception to that. If my poem 'Tauji' does not match the Jan Nayak's real greatness then this beginner deserves forgiveness. May be, time and experience will provide me the capacity to portray this great man's exceptional simplicity, magnificent profusion of his forthrightness, his unflinching righteousness and his fierce possessiveness about the cause of downtrodden and deprived.

          I hope my humble literary endeavour finds favour with the people of every caste, class and political spectrum, because history makers like our Jan Nayak belong to our common legacy and must get all encompassing reverence, gratitude and heartful salutation from each and every one of us.

Politics: The institutionalized and constitutionalized system of plunder, injustice and exploitation

Politics: The institutionalized and constitutionalized system of plunder, injustice and exploitation

It is about politics. Before we discuss the political ramifications for this politicized word, let us go back in time to take a look at the roots of the tree of authority that holds the thriving tree of politics in modern times. Well it started with absolute monarchies.

It has been the supreme irony of our so called ‘civilized fate’ that try as hard as we can manage, we cannot stop pyramid type, hierarchical and classified pattern of the social set up. In a pyramid social formation, the higher the class, the lower the weight on its shoulders, and higher the weight on the lower ones constituting the base. In the beginning we had the pointed peak of the social pyramid represented by the unrestrained, unchecked, all powerful potentate, the King, with all his weight on all below, and no weight on his shoulder at all except the light hallo of divinity falling on his crowned head. The crown just acted as a paperweight holding the paper sheaf wherein endless lines of unlimited authority decided the fate of those below. Sometimes the winds did ruffle the edges around the margin, but the middle was always safe, its centre of gravity exactly on that of the sheaf of divine rights. Under the big stone of cosmic proportions, the papery revolt just could not move even a single tremor across the sheaf of divine rights.

Later, as civilization unfolded more, absolute monarchies were either blown off the top, or some checks and balances were put in the path of all powerful authority in the form of some constitutionalities like elected representatives trying to bolster the principles intended for the emancipation of the lowest layers in the pyramid. (Times have more or less weathered the massive crown heads of monarchies and we are left with a few residual, beaten crags struggling in low relief with beaten joints and chips flying away attacked by the rasping desert winds.)

Will we be ever able to wipe out the successive upper plateau of exploitation (as the denuded pyramid comes lower, having lost its upper layers, the slag sliding down the sides and slopes to reach a one common uniform layer of everybody’s authority and thus none’s authority)? Under such a scenario, all authority denuded and spread equally among the masses in a uniform plain, will self responsibility allow things to function in all empowered citizenry? Will we function as expected and idealized?

Passing through successive layers of exploitation in the pyramid, we reach our very own broadly cut plateau at the top involving numerous players—legislature, executive, judiciary, bureaucracy, capitalists, criminals, religioners—our present political system at the top now. Times have eroded the pyramid and left this broader plateau at the top after cutting down the pinpointed head of absolute monarchy. Here all the evils of the former pointed absolutism have been handed over to a broader section of players. The dirt of absolutism has been raked up to be spread among the progenies of absolutism. The ‘will to power’ has sired numerous little crown-heads who try to convince the lower layers that this facelift is meant to ensure the equal rights of the masses. So here we land up with the grandchildren of absolutism, i.e., politics and its big, broad, legally secured crown of authority (which by the way is very safe given it broad lower rim of constitutionality). Presently, politicians rule at the flat top of this denuding pyramid. Murkily spread over this vast pedestal of authority—their authority constitutionalized—suitably served and aided by the so call ‘influential class’, it now wears the ruling crown, a multi-headed monster, the great scion of absolute monarchy, changed with changing times, in its new avatar. What has but not changed is the will to exploit and self-serve to survive. Why not? After all, it carries the same blood in its authoritative veins like its grandfather, the absolute, all powerful king.

Earlier during the days of absolutism, it worked with impunity and through blatant dispensation of whatever it required to keep its clutch hold on the lesser mortals, now it does through the subtle art of politics, through ‘siyasat’. The long and windy corridors of political hypnotizers echo with lispy conspiratorial whispers; of suppression, secrecy, connivance, plot hatching and what not. Under the monarchy, the despotic game was limited to the royal lineage and their chieftains, now the crown is up for grabs by anyone interested. The only eligibility is the ‘will to power’. In its multitudinous aspect, the fight for little-little crowns up for grabs on the plateau: for legislature, for executive, judiciary, etc. The rules of battle in this vast battle ground are solidly fixed up in the constitution book. Rule are but rules, mere words noted down in hypothetical conjectures in books. These cannot come to life and fight for their sanctity and protection if faced with blatant violations. Since brains are developing even faster for any law, for every rule there in the book, we delve deeper into our creative self to contrive bypasses and short-cuts to either escape their feeble dragnet or even poke our noses at them after judiciously cutting the netting. Our present set of power holders, the politicians, practically, suitably and efficiently manages the game. They munch the meat of authority and throw bones to their cronies, bureaucrats, businessmen and criminals. The unchecked orgy earlier perpetrated by a single monarch, is now enjoyed by a faceless broad-rimmed class, the politicians.

In all its forms, democracy is considered to be a religion drawing its inspiration and authority from the scriptures of constitution. A holy book, but, is just a holy book. If not in full letter, but in spirit at least we easily violate the pious injunctions. Apart from these pious injunctions, what happens in reality is an open secret. Except for a few big, mighty words, constitutions are amended to suit the latest political masters’ present day growth prospects. See beyond the superficiality of the decked up bride of democracy coquettishly bragging the independence and autonomy of its various arms, you will see that the politico-bureaucratic-judicial-executive machinery is explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, ultimately mastered and pulled along by the modern monarchs, the politicians. Take for example the bureaucracy, once considered the steel frame of the British Raj, it has now become feeble meshed cage with rusty, breaking wires and gaping holes. All of us know the fate of a bureaucrat if instead of becoming a hyena chucking up the leftover of plunder by some politician, he becomes just a ‘grass eating vegetarian cow’ honestly following the principles and rules of his service book. He is spotted like a black sheep in the easygoing white flock. Harassment and punishment postings ensure that an official of the same cadre and experience can be made a meat-eating hero or a famished zero by the lion, the politician. It’s a clear choice. Either become a steely, profiting arm of a politician or be ready to be thrown in dustbin corners of the bureaucratic corridors. All of us know how state level bureaucracy is selected! Corruption is constitutionally embedded. State Public Service Commissions are just handpicked bodies of the state monarch, the Chief Minister. Literally everybody knows how almost 100% manipulations go hand in glove with state’s ruling politicians. Manipulations are simplest of things at all the stages of examination. If someone just pushes ahead in prelims and mains, the all powerful boards have powers to undo all the hard work and marks gap between the highest and lowest qualifiers during the farcical personality test. So the prospective provincial civil servants easily start their inning as political loyalists. To muster up high-end pay, perks and profits, they operate like loyal palace groom discharging functions assigned by the political patron.

Without making much of noise against the plunder of public money, severe breach of laws, gross insufficiency of public morals and rules, the judiciary too toes the line. Directly or indirectly the political masters influence the functioning of justice dispensation. The dark corridors leading to the appointments and elevation to higher chairs in High Courts and Supreme Court definitely allows the politicians to hold ears of ambitious judges. Judiciary is allowed a free play by politicians in cases where only masses are involved. In such cases the judges can afford to have some discretion, be honest if they want and take money from one of the parties through the lawyers (like they generally do) to tilt the hammer of justice this or that way. But in cases where ruling government’s interests are at stake directly, no judge can afford to feel the pinch at his bottom if he decides to go as per integrity and honesty. Once in a blue moon, some odd case is deliberately picked up where the court gives verdict against the government and it is put on the front pages. It is just to keep people believing in the assumption that judiciary is fair. Poor masses do not know, under one such case highlighted, thousands of other cases where judiciary toes political line go unnoticed. One hammer of dissent against government is at the cost of hundreds of political facilitations by condescending judges to appease political masters. Led by the instinct of self preservation most of the judges do not prefer to rub shoulders against the system. In this clattering noise of self gratification, the voice of justice gets buried in the stampede towards profits and promotions.

Politicians as the masters of the public and private economy are offered oblations by the business class. We have the biggest industrial houses of the country pouring unaccounted and illegitimate money in political pockets. Since it is a fight to further one’s own interests as far as possible, using any means possible depending on one’s own skills and shrewdness—it is just as per Darwain’s principle of natural and social selection—we come across the cut throat competition in the social jungle having its social lions and social deer. So we have the people who would never think twice before striking others’ head to boost their own chances. Of all the scoundrels, politics draws the fittest scoundrels who form a nexus among various scions of exploitative elements. Those who are left out of this fold become the poor, dispossessed, suffering underclass.

In the social jungle, the principles of raw nature like superior kills the inferior’, ‘might is right’, ‘stronger meat chucks the easy meat’ are prevalent in humane, implicit form. Whole façade of civilization has been created to screen the blind passions and intentions to kill and decimate each other. Instead of killing and exterminating each other, the human version is through cheating, forgery and outwitting. A lion is at the peak of natural pyramid and food chain, eating away the last interests and easy meat that successively struggle at the lower hierarchies to emerge victor at the next stage to be gobbled up by the more potent, powerful and skilled at the next stage. In social jungle’s pyramid, the apex of our food chain of interests is occupied by the social lion, the politician. It its guts every lower interest at the lower hierarchies is finally destined to be deposited and digested expertly.

Politicians, thus, are the new age monarchs who are able to outsmart fellow human beings both at the individual and mass levels. Where will we end up with passage of time? Will the progenies of exploitation change in future? Or the politicians will even allow their own progenies to change them? Politicians seem invincible, not to be defeated by any change!! 

The Artist

The most distinguished, defining and branding commonality among the artistic people is their lives predominantly over-arched with sorrow, suffering and hardness at the hands of the contemporary society. Mere mention of the word is sufficient to make one envision a life full of destitution, impracticality bordering foolishness, and self-absorbed persona taking the occupant in a cornered reality where he stands in muted aloofness.

Now the question arises why have such artistic people suffered all along the march of civilization. Simple! It is their affliction with this germ of creativity that ever lynches them to create something subtle, nuanced and an everlasting symbol of their caliber that will continue to fight against the swiping sand of time, to keep shining forever as an interminable legacy. This creative urge to leave an artistic progeny--which is so powerful among all natural objects that it results in sexual procreation willy-nilly in all species--in case of artists this ‘will to life’ strives to leave a creative legacy. They do not strive for a biological legacy; they slog out off-stream to leave an undying object of their artistry. In a way, it is some effort to move towards immortality in some artistic form, to leave a trace of this self-absorbed self in some form because it is not possible to achieve mortality in physical form. At the common level, people are so inclined to leave their genes in the form of kids; it is just an effort to ward off mortality’s hammer-work that will see us lying in dust at the end of our journey. So we have elaborate social system of inheritance and patriarchy. An artist’s sense of survival is through his body of work that will stand solid against the cycle of life that does not allow anything or anybody to stand on stage forever.

The artistic target being so noble and high, spanning so much time in the future, relatively longer account in public memory, the investment of soul’s blood and toil is also of the same Herculean scale. It includes devotion; worship; virtual surrender to the Almighty urge to create the masterpiece. Aah, so much for this urge to immortalize the self!! It requires penance, solitude, loneliness during those long spread out hours, while the world around walks smarty with immediate gains to still highlight the artist’s fruitless work. Kudos to this common man’s safe rut where so many move uncreatively, safely, smartly, efficiently, practically gathering puny perks and profits falling on the way as a result of tiny efforts and Lilliputian endeavors. So the rutted, beaten path of convention, of sheep-sleep-walking masses following the same path involves littlest risks, almost assured returns, monotonous efforts, repetitive patterns of life resulting in ever so expectable bits of money and the status of a similar mass colored sheep. By following the path of convention, a man just puts in a very small, short term investment. It can be very easily followed, for you need not be an exception in any regard; need not take any risk whatsoever; need not put up any type of experimentation. You just imitate others; you just do what other hundreds of thousands are doing; you can even do it like a donkey yoked in its little cart going for miles of its own without using even a chit of its dull brain and the carter happily asleep dropping his reins and lines lose. The wheels trapped in deep furrows themselves guide the beast. To walk on this dusty, smooth, defined, clear pair of ruts it needs no special effort or creativity. Here just above-average skilled fake combatants run ahead to grab the lumps of tiny gains lying in the ruts, followed by the average skilled laggards trying to reach the front part of the mob, and at the end trail the less skilled struggling to defeat the tag of failure. So the pack train lurches ahead with its saddle bags full of little trophies and tiny rewards.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the artists do not toe this line of man-mules. They revolt and resist this mechanic soulless movement from nowhere to nowhere. The creativity in them enables them to see mammoth rewards at distant off-rut, off route places. However, the muleteers jostling around force the artist to move at the mass mobbed pace. Filled with artistic fury, the creative soul revolts and steps out of the rut to move on fresh earth to reach its own set of rewards and bounties. Meanwhile, boonfully jesting and shouting train of human mules jeers at the artist’s first steps on the solitary path; they brandish their tiny trophies at him; try their best to distract and dislodge him from the unconventional path; bait him with Lilliputian trophies glittering under the conventional sun of their pack train. Not having anything else to distract him, they discard and condemn him as unfit for the mobbed completion in the dusty safe ruts. They shout ‘escapist’. But he just laughs them away, soulfully drenched in the drudgery of his soul’s creative instinct. He is fully immersed in the divine purpose of creating something unique, having a totally new meaning. In revulsion they punish him with pauperization and ostracizing.

Hundreds and hundreds of artist revolutionaries die an unknown and unsung death on the freezing cold slopes after moving away or parting ways from the normal path. Some of course reach the distant cave of their destination and carve out a masterpiece that is visible from the common rutted path and the commoners tired and bored throw praise and coins at him. From the craggy ridges its rays even entertain the streaming mass and they even sometimes praise his achievement after all the excommunication and call his self-imposed exile even a fruitful endeavor. The real artist is but still exiled in soul even though physically shoved by the hustle and bustle of common rutted brains.

There is a very simple reason why artistry is judged along very poor lines. It is all about money-making principles. We judge the effort in proportion to its money-making prospects. Since most of money-making is institutionalized within the parameters of the rutted path, the tools of artistry are redundant in the common thoroughfare. So the mob constantly yells failure at the artist while he sweats it out to leave his name written shiningly on time’s fabric. The undifferentiated mass snubs the artistic revolt like a master pokes an errant slave, meanwhile the sun of ignominy and poverty shines on the bent artistic head absorbed in soul-work on the anvil of his creativity. For each word of praise, the poor artist has withstood uncountable number of chidings, snubs, hooting, lampooning puns and mocking looks. He but silently bears it like a strike from the ramrod of fate. Silently he just chips away the stones of adversities to reach the ever-shining gem of creativity, whose hook has been fastened in his heart, and the unrelenting line ever keeps pulling. He is helpless in the grasp of this passion encrusted cord that would not let him go, even if they try against it.

He is the helpless moth, ever attracted to the fire of his creative passion. He just cannot help it even if that continuous fluttering around the glow means a final dive into the flames to be charred to ashes. Whatever might be the end, the artistic soul lives triumphantly, victoriously in the glory of its artistic passion. He sets his own goals and gets his own self-derived rewards, so societal acceptance or non-acceptance does not matter. Every little creative streak taken to its completion brings him own set of adulations and salutations. His stomach might starve; but his soul is ever satiated with big draughts drawn from the fathomless pool of his creative urge. Society may dub him as a failure but his ever sweating out conscience is perpetually vouchsafing and singing eulogies for his diehard spirit and really, really genuine efforts.         

Cosmic Shades of Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism has been, perhaps, scribbled down most comprehensively and ingenuously by the Supreme Power. Blurring dark clad exorcists; the ever wandering mendicant friars; totally unattached meditating yogis in the toughest climes of the Himalayas; alm-asking peregrinators; the temple priests; the ashram dwellers on the collective path of faith; as many sects and further derivations as there are individuals: All of them embaled in one pious knot. Such is the greatness of Hinduism: so many paths to be followed according to an individual soul’s intonation; the overspreading saffron colour of God, colouring each and every soul, from the most scheming ones to the perfectly surrendering ones; the infallible, ineffable God’s regimen containing everything from the complete vacuous calm to bellicose verbosity, with little coquettish gurgitation of the masses, swaying to the tunes of both extremities, lying in between.

About 5000 years ago, the nascent forms of this present institutionalised faith were emerging. The Rig Vedic age, beyond the misdating anachronism; the era of profound cosmic outpours from the wonderstruck hearts eulogising the nature’s play in whose womb the Godhood lay in its self-referral unconsciousness. The sages, the mystics---whose 5000 years old descendant lay under the banyan tree---sang the ‘self revealed truth’ in their unchecked poetry. Hinduism sprouted forth from this gay-spiritual-abundance.

How broad Hinduism is! Mystical auras of the legendary figures have their relevance to the farthest limits of space and time. To those rigid, rational souls who’re ever caught in the grumpy facade of intellectual rumination, it at last provides a simplistic presentment of the ultimate truth; leaving them sinking into the comfortable and peaceful chairs of faith, where only the ‘realisation’ rules dormitively.

It’s really wonderful to see how majestically Hinduism has flowed like a subtle murmury river over the distortionist terrain of time. In a divinely concordant way to the social reality this vast spiritual stream has confluenced into the mighty sea of ultimate reality. Numerous tributaries join the mainstream flowing though the vale of peerless capacity to absorb the waters of different sources. Then the unstinted mirth of the mighty mother-stream once again drifts apart to dyad, triad... to myriad distributaries. The result: a divinely diversified spiritual confluence on the seabed of ultimate reality.