Enemy of the people (and the gods)

As I write this, Dr S S Gautam, the principal of a government college in Seondha in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh, is in Gwalior jail, probably drinking his morning cup of tea from an aluminium mug. He is going to enjoy the state’s hospitality for two weeks or more, for which he should be immensely grateful to the MP government for more reasons than one. People had come out on the street, baying for Dr Gautam's blood.

His crime? A video went around showing Dr Gautam less than deferential towards gods and goddesses. Indian Express today (02 June 19) tells us:

“In the video that went viral, Gautam is purportedly heard saying he never allowed photographs of gods and goddesses to adorn the walls of the departments he had been in-charge of. “To those who questioned me, I told them I will replace them with better photographs or have a statue installed, without any intention of doing so,” Singh [a police officer] quoted Gautam as saying.

“Gautam appears to add that he wants portraits of only Mahatma Gandhi and B R Ambedkar in the college.””

From MP, let’s move on to Gujarat, the state which kindly provided an economic and societal model that the country seems to have adopted with gusto.

Avdesh Dubey came from Varanasi to Valsad a few years ago in search of living. He has been making a living by selling toys to railway passengers journeying between Vapi and Surat.

Avdesh, apparently a creative bloke, also mimicked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other politicians like Rahul Gandhi to draw the attention of his potential customers. (I cannot even think of watching such blasphemous videos, but they are available on the Internet, I believe, and they went viral.)

RPF didn’t take the impertinence lightly and filed cases against him under several sections of Railway Act which forbid (a) hawking and begging, (b) spreading nuisance / using abusive language on railway coach, (c) unlawful entry into train and so on.

Avdesh, the railway vendor with a few funny bones, was arrested and produced before a Judicial Magistrate in Surat. The magistrate fined him Rs 3,500 and sentenced him to 10 days judicial custody.

Hopefully, he won’t mimic the prime minister or anyone else in the rest of his life.

*

Welcome to New India, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Please look at the picture of Avdesh Dubey (which I have copied from the Indian Express) and check how an enemy of the people looks.

2 June 2019

A history of 1.3 seconds

The earth is 4.5 billion (4,500,000,000) years old and life evolved on our planet about 3.5 billion years ago. Naturally. Without a benign god sweating blood to “create” anything, scientists agree on this a with rare absence of squabbling.

Humans or Homo sapiens came much later. The first humans lived in Africa 70,000 years ago. In other words, if you consider 3.5 billion years as the first day or the first 24 hours of life on our planet, humans arrived just 1.3 seconds ago. (Trust me, I haven’t botched up my arithmetic this time!) Yet, the 1.3 seconds has overwritten the history of the previous 24 hours.

Seventy thousand years ago, human beings began walking from deep within Africa in search of “greener pastures”.

Ultimately, they spread to every corner of the globe, from Europe to Alaska to Papua New Guinea. Every human, from the naked South American tribal to the semi-naked Bollywood actor, from the starving child in Eritrea to Bill Gates, from the illegal immigrant held captive in Manus island off Australia to the queen of England, every human can trace their ancestry to a common mother some 70,000 ago. Broadly speaking, this audacious hypothesis is now undisputed science.

SAPIENS, a book by one of the finest thinkers of our time, Yuval Noah Harari, is a history of this journey. Never before have I read a book that offers such an array of eye-popping facts and insights into what we are. Please read it. After reading it, I believe I have a little more complete and deeper perspective about myself and the world. For me, reading Sapiens has been a transition from illiteracy to getting some idea about the alphabet of the language of our civilization.

I don’t suffer from the delusion that I can write a cogent review of this life-changing book. But I’d love to introduce it to you. And what could be a better way of doing that other than sharing a few passages from the volume with you?

Harari begins with this statement:

“SEVENTY thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands at the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.” ... 

Harari goes on to say: “The wandering band of story-telling sapiens was the most destructive force the animal kingdom has ever produced.” … “The historical records make Homo sapiens look like ecological serial killers.”

"Shortly" after the last ice age, around 10,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution changed the way human beings lived. Harari writes: “This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse circumstances.”

Did we know this? “In 1775 Asia accounted for 80 per cent of the world economy. The combined economies of India and China alone represented two thirds of global production. In comparison, Europe was an economic dwarf.”

On capitalism: “When growth becomes a supreme god, unrestricted by any other ethical consideration, it can easily lead to catastrophe. Some religion, such as Christianity and Nazism, have killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed.”

Regarding our relentless pursuit of comfort, which is has been a corollary of capitalism, Harari points out: “The pursuit of easier life resulted in much hardship … One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.”

Luxuries have become part of our culture. But what is culture? Harari says, from the moment of our birth, we are made “to think in certain ways, to behave in accordance with certain standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain rules.” This created “artificial instincts that enabled millions of strangers cooperate effectively. This network of artificial instincts is called culture.”

How important are we on a cosmic scale of things? You might find the answer disturbing.

“As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of a blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose … If planet earth was to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe will probably be going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity will not be missed.”

Does it make us feel too insignificant? Hopefully, yes. And more helpfully, this book will help us put our conflicts and quarrels in perspective, and show them as what they are, insignificant nothings.

31 May 2019

[Book cover courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Curses & Blessings

Hemant Karkare, a senior police officer, was killed by the Ajmal Kasab gang in Mumbai on 26/11, 2008. Karkare died because he had rushed out to defend an injured colleague, and faced automatic assault rifles with just a service revolver and no bullet-proof jacket. He was awarded the highest peace-time gallantry award, Ashoka Chakra, posthumously.

Earlier, Karkare investigated the Malegaon blast case in which 10 lives were snuffed out and 80 were wounded. He sent a fake sadhvi called Pragya Thakur – a former ABVP leader – to jail as a principal accused who had given her own bike in which explosives were stored, to be detonated in Malegaon with lethal effect.

That Pragya Thakur is now out on bail in these happy days for Hindutwa terror. Curiously, she is also the BJP candidate for the Bhopal parliamentary seat. And she says,

"Hemant Karkare was killed because I cursed him."

Did this wretched female caricature of a sadhu mean she had blessed the Ajmal Kasab gang to murder Hemant Karkare? What dangerous beasts are trying to rule us for a second time?

20 April 2019

[Photo of Hemant Karkare courtesy: Wikimedia Commons]

That I am alive …

Sharing my translation of a poem

By the Bangladeshi poet

Mahadeb Saha (1944-)

That I am alive …

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That I am alive is the greatest source of joy,

For this good fortune, I’ll accept everything,

Any misery, punishment in any form.

I am ready to become a wretched beggar

Just to see the light of the dawn.

That I can keep looking at a rose

For as long as I wish to,

For this simple delight, I will

Bow down to accept grief in every form.

That I am alive is the greatest source of joy,

And in contrast, every misery becomes trivial.

Being deported, exiled to a desert island;

But for the cloud, the deluge, the sound of dewdrops,

I’d love be alive

And serve a thousand years in prison

That I am alive is the greatest source of joy,

And for this joy I will bend down

To receive every blow that’s thrown at me.

বেঁচে আছি এই তো আনন্দ
------- মহাদেব সাহা

বেঁচে আছি এই তো আনন্দ, এই আনন্দের জন্য আমি সবকিছু মাথা পেতে নেবো,
যে কোনো দুঃখ, যে কোনো শাস্তি-
শুধু এই ভোরের একটু আলো দ্যাখার জন্য
আমি পথের ভিক্ষুক হতে রাজি।
এই যে গোলাপ ফুলটির দিকে যতোক্ষণ খুশি তাকিয়ে থাকতে পারি,
এই সুখে আমি হাসিমুখে সব দুঃখ-
মাথা পেতে নেবো।
বেঁচে আছি এই তো আনন্দ, এই আনন্দের কাছে কোনো দুঃখই কিছু নয়,
এই নির্বাসন, এই শাস্তি, এই দ্বীপান্তর;
এই মেঘ, এই ঝুম বৃষ্টি, এই শিশিরের শব্দের জন্য, 
আমি সহস্র বছরের কারাদন্ড- মাথায় নিয়েও বেঁচে থাকতে চাই,
বেঁচে আছি এই তো আনন্দ, এই আনন্দে সব আঘাত আমি মাথা পেতে নেবো।