Joseph K. and Me

 

"…if you have the right eye for these things, you can see that the accused men are often attractive. It's a remarkable phenomenon, almost a natural law... accused men are always the most attractive." __Trial by Franz Kafka.

Well, at long last, I find a reason for my weird attractiveness. Haa haa. I also stand accused by the state vigilance commission under Hooda government in Haryana. The report puts me in the ‘tainted’ category to deny me appointment for a covetous post.

Want to know my crime? Actually, I had cracked Haryana PCS exams to get selected as a subdivision magistrate. The honorable Chief Minister and his colleagues, newly drunk with power and prestige, got gastric ulcer over we batch-mates’ tiny feat. So there they order an inquiry in an all authoritative tone. They scanned our answer sheets. Lo, there they found the proof of my crime. It was an expert catch. In one of the answers, the evaluator had changed marking from 2 to 4 with his initials authenticating the change of mind. Now 15 years down the line, having lost the fruit of my 10 years of hardwork, I still wonder how come I stand accused for the evaluator's change of mind, and especially when this addition of 2 marks doesn't affect my selection in any way because even with 2 marks less I still get into the selection list.

So guys, there starts the Trial protagonist Joseph K. type futile struggle. Judges won't understand the rocket science. But do they ever in the cases where mighty state is pitted against some inconsequential subject? After all, they are also part of government, directly or indirectly. There are so many common interests, bordering on gives and takes, among politicians, bureaucrats, judges and businessmen that expecting honesty and fair play seems too optimistic by any yard scale. Anyway, it’s a long story of gross misuse of power by all wings including legislature, executive, bureaucracy and judiciary. Its boring repetition can be spared here. The plot is along too familiar lines like we have grown up watching in typical Bollywood movies. 

Nonetheless, my take away is the strange attractiveness carried by Kafka's accused protagonist in his work Trial. And I like it. Equipped with my accused attractiveness, I sometimes ponder over to find out reasons how come I got only 37% marks in IAS interview even after scoring 54% in mains written, because with this type of score one can easily be among the toppers. Moreover, I also try to find out to this day, how come one PCS board gave me only 36% in interview after I had scored 55% in written mains, which again is a top-worthy score. Well, possibly I scored really low on the scale of political correctness! Anyway, no issues!

So guys, here I stand like Joseph K. when he was executed with final words on his lips, "like a dog!" Heee heee, am I that bad, I sometimes think. Or to rephrase, am I too good for the system? This second option gives more solace, because it provides a sort of self-driven poetic justice. Well, to survive in this world, one has to have grey shades. Not that I don't have mine. Possibly they couldn't spot it. In any case, system's loss, not mine. Heee heee. Again I derive sadistic pleasure with this thought. In any case, it’s high time to realize that it’s almost impossible to win against politicians, if by some quirk of fate you happen to stand in opposition to them. God save you then!

Top of Form

Awe, missed something really important in this lamenting tale! The experience didn’t turn me bitter. I am a sweeter person than what I presume myself to be had I got this so called ‘fruit’ of my efforts. Such experiences launch you too powerfully into the unknown where, if you keep your journey going, some day you reach the self-sustaining orbit of self-realization. Here all previous losses lose their meaning and appear mere milestones helping you to reach the cusp of your destiny. Then you cannot help a smile. With lots of love for all, of course!

Kakistocracy

 

Kakistocracy is defined as ‘a form of government in which the least qualified or most unprincipled individuals are in power.’ It is summarized as the ‘government by the worst elements in the society.’ Isn’t it true generally? I mean leave apart a few exceptions, some luminaries who retained their souls while still on the seat of power, and all you see around are loads of rulers and governments Kakistocratic in nature. Exceptions prove the rules only, by the way. So, to my humble self, the urge to rule comes with a high dose of blind ambition, which definitely eats into one’s loving self. A ruler has to shut off a big portion of his heart to channelize those energies in scheming and plotting. 

The word has Greek origins. ‘Kakos’ means ‘bad’, and its superlative form ‘kakistos’ means ‘as bad as it can possibly get’. Well, I think only its superlative form qualifies one to be a serious contender in the game of ruling. The lesser forms can hardly get you the post of just a village head even in the most democratic form of governance. No wonder, those who deem themselves to be ‘good’ start shivering at the name of the word ‘politics’. Or is it that they put up a varnish of ethics, morality, principles and humanism to hide their inherent weakness, whose shackles they cannot break to compete in the race for the highest stakes, where one’s ambition and concurrent ego gets the best solace. 

Well, before we get into any argument about ‘this system is better than that’ or ‘this ruler is superior to that one’, let’s just be clear on the basic concept of ‘ruling’, the operational part of hunger for power. To be in charge of something bestows ‘power’. The latter provides nutrition to an ambition to grow out of one’s skin and become the destiny-maker of many lesser mortals, the mere meekly subjects. It’s very rarely about being ‘good’ and jumping into the fray with a soul-driven guiding light of altruism to bring good to the masses. If you are fighting such a bloody battle, how will you even think of poor millions, while your own gums are bleeding due to the ever-punching rascally opponents? In a fight how can one remain a saint? And if someone does, then my salutes! There have been a few by the way. But their negligible number proves the point. Moreover, these saintly people, who later on emerged to be rulers, never fought for the craze of the seat of power, instead they struggled for love for the causes beyond their own self.

It’s primarily about beating the ambitious, power-hungry horde running after the coveted seat. Are there decent chances of someone ‘good’—trying to encash a miraculous surprise to somehow get to the top of ladder of ambition—beating the rampaging bulls? Even if destiny plays a joke to put some nice fellow on the hot seat, the poor chap stands stripped naked as an unqualified and weak participant in the game later on. We can thus safely say, if not altogether impossible, there is literally non-existent chance of someone really ‘good’ toppling the stage to perch his bum on the throne. Even after reaching there, how will a decent ass keep glued to the seat, if ‘outright hounds’ are pulling from all directions to dethrone the upright ass? 

Leave apart a few dozen of Abraham Lincolns and Nelson Mandelas, out of thousands and thousands of rulers across all genres of ruling class, starting from unquestioned aristocrats, despots, communist dictators to the modern-day decent democratic representatives, you have trainloads of extra-smart guys who prevailed over—fuelled by a relentless ambition to yield power—the lesser competitors to occupy the throne.

No wonder, in Indian democracy, or for that matter anywhere else in the world, the majority of elected representatives have criminal backgrounds. It needs a lot of ‘hard’ will to get into the corridor of power, man. Of course, the pack-leader has to be the strongest. When did nature decide on good or bad? Isn’t it all about the strongest takes away the trophy in all species? Can it be different in case of humans, who are mere one of the species in nature? It’s basically about those who can make and those who cannot. It doesn’t change the law of neutral existence, if those who cannot make it, pacify their defeat under the principles of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Ethics are very nice pills to cure the stomach pain of being left out.

In the power game to emerge a ruler, the strength is defined by an ability to make mincemeat of the opponent. So when such bloody fights are perpetually going on day in and day out, the little wasps of so called ‘goodness’ hardly stand any chance. Or do they?

Doesn’t it mean that every system of governance, ranging from absolute dictatorship to democracy, is Kakistocratic in nature? We just have the variance of degree of Kakistocracy in one over the other. For example, in communist dictatorship, it’s direct-in-the-face type abuse of power; while it’s indirect, subtle, scheming and tricky in democracy. It doesn’t make one completely into it and the other free of it. You have a Hitler, Lenin or Changez Khan in one set of bloody, gory Kakistocracy. Please wait before you spend all your scorn over these monstrous personas! You may have—actually we have all around—monsters safely hidden under starched white clothing bearing beneficent smiles. It’s a better-looking, affably presented variant of the power-hungry super-species. This one holds its talons under the garb in the softer variant of yielding power like in democracy. 

Best of luck to all who don’t qualify to be a part of the ruling aspirant group! Only superior forces, beyond terrestrial domain, can help you!  

Feeling crestfallen? Please don’t! If your ambition hasn’t breached the critical limit to instigate you to get running after the ruling seat, give yourself a nice little treat at a smalltime, peaceful café. Why? The simple reason is hidden deep in the corridors of your soul. Listen to it. You will get your biggest reward from your real self. There is a thin line between staying human and becoming inhuman. Most of us appear human, but how many of us are in reality? Those who find themselves poor in ambition to ‘rule’ are definitely rich in the treasure of ‘love’. It’s true like some law in science book.

Claws tearing the Lotus in Muddied Waters

 There is a very nice story. During not so old days, cattle thieves played a really professional trick on unsuspecting farmers. Before untying the animal, they used to take the neck bell off. Then one thief made off with the tinkling bell in one direction. Rest of them took buffalo in the opposite direction. Poor villagers pursued the sound. The bell-bearing thief then dropped the bell and would just scamper away in the dark. The poor folks would get the quintessential ghanta and the thieves ran way with cattle and buffalo.

Our politicians do the same to we poor folks. Our cattle comprises education, health, sanitation, employment, security, electricity, law and order, women empowerment, transport, clean water, and so many common things needed to lead a decent life. But then the smart tricksters mislead us with the tinkling bells of Temple-Mosque, Hindu-Muslim, Dalit-Swarna, Bihari-Marathi, etc., etc. So running after the chiming bells of these hyperbolic notes of the bell, the netas sneak out with public money meant for our cattle listed above.

Yours truly literally gets cowardly goose-bumps even at the mention of the word ‘politician’. Still I take tiny pot-shots from a safe distance sometimes just to assuage the feeling that I didn’t do anything while the super-species took away our buffalo. So off and on I have my funny conceptualizations about the political game. Not that I believe in the practicality of my expertise. I fully know that the politicians start to think at a point where your humble colleague in misery stops after giving a full stretch to his imagery. Well, that defines the equation between the ruler and the ruled.

In my poor capacity, I try to make out my understanding of the two major political forces in the country. As much as Congress means systematic, well-oiled corruption, BJP means 'bhai chara bigado'. The former is always there to allow as much plundering of public resources as possible through newest means. The latter, on the other hand, has to aggravate social tensions in the Indian society. India's has been a highly segregated society. It’s always hot. You just need to raise the temperature a bit to boil the thing. The caste system has created a highly compartmentalized society, so much so that the exploitation of the lower castes passes off as a God-ordained system of lower and higher karma.

India I suppose is at least half a century away from becoming a casteless society. It doesn’t seem possible before that to rid the Indian society from this ancient scourge, simply because Indian democracy presently survives on socio-economic, cultural, religious, caste, communal and regional divisions. These are the potent wheels that pull the juggernaut march.

The political parties set up on caste, communal and regional lines need the system of discrimination to survive and excel in politics. The Congress thrives by pandering the tiny evil flickering in the self-seeking masses, turning a blind eye to the short-cuts by the smallest to the biggest, giving them a feeling of milking the cow. It simply makes everybody a partner in the crime.

The BJP thrives on polarization, the oldest mantra with rulers. They divide society along any line of separation visible. Like in UP, where it is Muslims and Hindus, in Haryana they have smartly allowed the Hindu society to be divided as Jats and non-Jats. They are eyeing 74% of non-Jats. Looking at the mass scale vandalism during job reservation stir by Jats, there are many who allege that the government didn't do anything to stop Jats from destroying the properties of non-Jats. They wanted a violent episode, an episode of loss of life and property and most importantly Bhai chara, to keep the fire of divisiveness among Jats and non-Jats burning.

Jats have now literally become Hindu-Muslims of Haryana, almost hated by non-Jats enblock. The BJP's shock tactics of dividing society means at least I am far more moderate than earlier. With corruption Congress tainted the very soul of Indian democracy. Let's see where polarizing forces let loose by BJP take us. It can be far more lethal for the Indian society.

One more thing, Jats may find bonhomie with Muslims of Southern Haryana. Both have their own set of real and imaginary woes against BJP. It will take the total Jat-Muslim combine above 30%, a formidable force. The politics of populist rhetoric, BJP's trademark, may not find many takers in Haryana because the most suitable section culpable to be swayed by sentimental rhetoric, the Jats, given their ever-on-the edge temperament and raw attitude, is feeling left out in the opposite corner in BJP's scheme of polarization.  So the strategy now is to divide Jat vote bank among different parties so that their political effectiveness gets diluted.

Well, as the elections come to the fore, it appears a divided house full of hate, mistrust and mudslinging. It makes me very sad. But well, as they say Lotus smiles from the mud. But then getting muddied before the proverbial Kamal shines above the dirty waters is very discomforting.  

Pseudo-somethings and the Seeds of Poison

 

Charles de Gaulle: “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

There is a very restless breed in our society. Its blood boils like in a revolution. It firmly wants to believe that they are up for an uprising. Gone are the days of blinding fury that engulfed society in fire and fury. The fire now smolders slowly at a temperature where thankfully there is less blood, but more battles of words, opinions and fake wars.

I call them pseudo-somethings. And mind you, they are not the prerogative of one political party. All national and regional parties have their fair share of pseudo-somethings. So we have pseudo-secularists, pseudo-nationalists, pseudo-liberals, pseudo-idealists, etc., etc. Put any positive, healthy ism into political waters and it will turn into pseudo-something.

Pseudo-centrists, pseudo-leftists, pseudo-nationalists and all other pseudo-somethings nurture hate. They are sowing its seeds in young minds, in big volume and at an alarming rate. The seeds are sprinkled on the fertile soil of social media. Youngsters are conveniently taking bites. It’s exciting like having pizza and girl-/boy-friend. They are mixing it with post-modern popular culture. Quit strangely, in the pot on boil, where differences are expected to melt to an integrated mass, differences are burning at different temperatures making a very weird concoction.

Hate is a convenient tool to blind one to logic and sanity. Consumed by hate one is just a part of the human being he/she is otherwise. It combusts the basic moisture of being humane. The core of goodness evaporates. Before dividing communities and individuals, it fractionalizes the carrier of hate itself. As the rhetorical juggernaut carried by the agents of pseudo-X—as funny, quirky and politically self-seeking as the pseudo-antiX—moves on, divisions in the Indian society take even more dangerous turns.

Pseudo-nationalists beating those not ready to stand up to the national anthem, mobs lynching the rumored beef carriers, and student organisation members attacking a literary gathering at a Delhi college where somebody might have expressed a different point of view. These are as petty and self-seeking pills of intoxication, as are the mild dose of self-gratifying sips popped in by pseudo-secularists.

The sky-high stack of the fodder of division in the Indian society is always pining for the matchlock of somebody’s ambition. It then bursts forth. It explodes. People suffer, but someone gets power. Hate has been the instrument of Indian political system, as much as it was responsible for partition at the time of independence.

Hate as a power-grabbing instrument has been the favorite tool of the ruler aspirants. Jinnah stroked the division on religious grounds and ran away with a new country itself. Political parties have ruled the roost over the decades just by stamping caste, creed, communal and regional identities through pandering divisiveness, boosting hate and augmenting distrust.

The famed Indian diversity is always a cache of ammunition. It’s a pile of divisions lying there to catch fire and blast; waiting for some power aspirant’s matchbox of ambition to fuel divisions, pamper insecurities, and turn people blind and crazy.

Much as pseudo-nationalists try to sow seeds of distrust into the fiery souls of the younger generation, they hardly realize that cultivation of hate cannot be compartmentalized for a particular community only. Grooming of hate in an individual changes the character over all. Its repercussions are not just limited to the targeted community. It crosses the immediate object to seep over into life generally, into interpersonal relationships and the overall philosophy of life. It breeds an insecure, selfish persona, who isn’t just apt in spewing out angry rhetoric against the targeted community, but who is equally bitter in dealing with the people of his own community. Fire and hate hardly differentiate among caste, creed, community and religion after a point. They just start from one specific target to eat into a person’s character like termites eat a healthy tree’s roots.

Division by hate is a chain reaction. It consumes all. It doesn’t simply stop at the first line of the targeted community. It spreads further to gobble up all at the next stages. The identity-based political parties of India but merely take interest in the immediate line of division. It gets them votes. It perpetuates their goal of sticking to power. Little do they realize that by breeding a culture of hate, division and distrust, they are letting loose a fire that consumes the ethos of a healthy society. It eats the basics of a strong social system. It lets loose an ever-smoldering fire that takes its toll over decades. It kills dreams. It stifles the openness and exuberance of character capable of doing good to others as much as it means for the self.

Building roads, boosting infrastructure and strengthening manufacturing are as much important as a healthy society. The former are for the latter, not vice versa. It’s high time that pseudo-somethings realize the futility of rabble rousing in a divided house. If they really want a strong India, they should sow the seeds of love, receptivity and accommodation. And fight elections on real issues related to the well being of the commonest of the common. Hate-mongering is terribly counter-productive. It’s as good as merely putting the ruling seat under your bum, completely ignoring its evil effects that go across the society, where the divisions of caste, class and creed do not matter. All suffer.

Pseudo-nationalism and Pseudo-secularism: Two Sides of the Same Coin

 

Pseudoism is the art and craft of using a positive emotion, feel-good factor, or a relaxing sentiment, picking its hypothetical meaning in letter, and grafting it over to hide the mean spirit. It is the spirit to dominate, to manipulate, and rule at any cost. Herein the much-cherished end solely justifies the means. It becomes a blindfolding instrument. No wonder, pseudoism is a suitable device with power aspirants particularly.

Pseudo-secularists have always cashed minority fears. They stroke almost inexistent phobias. They want the minority to stay scared and insecure about whatever the so called majority does. They keep the apprehensions and insecurities alive, and turn these into votes at the election time.  

Then it’s the turn of pseudo-nationalists. They create a rhetorical stage, offering people a feeling to contribute to nation-building. It’s a stage set for papery heroism, where one can contribute to national glory without putting anything at stake, without any risks either. It’s a goody-goody dream-world. You shout slogans, you pour hate on social media, you condone the acts of violence against your target, and you claim to be more patriotic than others. That’s it. You need not do more. Shouting amidst the frenzied crowd, like it’s a picnic outing or a new entertainment game, is all that it takes to be a nation-builder. You are supposed to stand to the national anthem before the movie starts. You do it and you are a patriot. It doesn’t matter if straightaway after that you elbow the girl in the next seat, or rub your leg against hers on the pretext of extending your limbs out of boredom.

As a virtual patriot, you get countless liberties to offer your sacrifices for mother nation. You can be a simple law-breaking chit of a human being in scores of daily routine, like violating traffic rules, passing lewd remarks at women, scattering garbage and peeing in the open. All this doesn’t matter as long as you ride the bandwagon of pseudo-nationalism.

It’s very easy to fall in this trap. Who doesn’t want to keep the belief that he/she is contributing to nation-building. Feelings apart, only a little section can do actually so in practice. Rest can take this sip in the meow meow on offer on the stage of populist rhetoric.

This risk-free nationalistic spirit but comes at a big cost. Little do people realize that by the time they are still enjoying the echo of their slogans, they have already crossed a line to enter a zone of well-orchestrated mass-hate. They are getting trained for being less loving, less tolerant, and hence lesser human beings than they could have been otherwise. Even before they realize the slightest change, they have already surrendered a part of their good self. They are smaller than they were before. Something gets cut off from the real self. They get polarized. The vision gets skewed. They lose the open-minded exuberance required for a healthy mind and creative spirit. They become just a diminished self of their former self. The society gets a fracture. It's painful. 

The current wave of pseudo-nationalism fuelled by the Brahamanical Hindu rhetoric has many takers, especially the younger generations. Not surprisingly though, on account of the fact that their hormones are yet to stabilize, the stage is shaking, and the world is mired in a wobbly vision. They, the youngsters, need to pour out their straying energies. Papery nationalism is a suitable means. It makes them paper tigers. They become valiant web-soldiers slaying opponents on the internet battlefield.

As per their growth hormones, they are exploring. They get the pill, pick it up, and savor it. It’s tasty. It’s even better than alcohol in fogging the mind into delusions. They thunder and roar against imaginative foes. They hunt down invisible enemies of the state through hate speech, by clapping over stray mob lynching here and there, and by condoning acts of violence, arson and looting now and then. In effect, it simply trains them in petty criminality, which in certain cases turns a few of them into hardcore criminals.

To make it even more deplorable, pseudo-secularists’ blood doesn’t boil over the plight of the common man. In fact more the violence born of the rightists’ anger, the more they feel they have the fodder to burn in debates. I think whenever something nasty happens, pseudo-ideologies on both sides get excitedly itching at the same degree, because exactly this type of division ensures their existence. In fact they are the two sides of the same coin and cannot exist in isolation. So they co-exist and fuel the great power game among the groups on both sides. 

Brahamanical Hindu rightist led pseudo-nationalism is particularly trying at the communal level. And this onslaught means that the pseudo-secularism of the leftist and centrist affiliations stays relevant. They know that they exist as a pair, as antonyms. Their existence is in relation to each other. It’s a very simple game and they play it smartly to rule by turns as the frenzied masses sway from this side to the other.

Islam-phobia is the common ground in the rightist strategy. Little do they realize that within the Hindu society itself, there are sections that have been exploited for thousands of years by their own co-religioners. Dalits and tribals, the frozen class, with fates frozen at the sub-human levels for generations, have as much to grudge over caste-based exploitation, discrimination and humiliation, as a fundamentalist Islamist might have against other religions. Dalits, Muslims and Tribals, the super-entity that can easily identify with discrimination, have much in common in terms of inequity, systematic second-hand treatment and exploitation.

In Indian politics, there are permutations and combinations of caste and communal identities. These shift over and acquire strange shapes. The latest may be Dalit-Muslim-Tribals combo. Muslims safely ensconced in the trio. The lethality of Islam-phobia melting in the historical wrongs against the frozen class in the Indian society. Some strange mutant of Congress, leftists and other non-BJP regional parties may come into effect. Overblown Brahamanical Hinduism, having the exploitation of its own lower society at the core, can fuel a new trend in political jugglery.

Not that it will push the Indian society towards social cohesiveness, love, peace and harmony. That unfortunately remains a distant dream because our democracy is currently fuelled by divisions in the society.