Middle Class?? Shoo! Scram!!

“For all the troubles that befall you, Shani (Saturn) is the sole reason” - a Kannada proverb. Rather sarcastic.

I’m reminded of this every time some public intellectual makes the middle class an object of ire and derision. While the fact that all roads of power in India currently lead to Rome (a Roman to be precise) is left untouched by many of our public intellectuals, they are convinced all the vices that plague the country must compulsively lead to the middle class.

Aakar Patel, in a contrarian piece (linked here) attempts a sterling defense of Manmohan Singh and talks down to the ‘shallow’ middle class. He says South Delhi rejected Manmohan Singh in 1999 and justifies Mr.Singh not bothering to come in through the Lok Sabha later. The intellectual has no popular appeal in India, he laments while evoking an analogy that Dr.Ambedkar lost elections from Mumbai in 1952.

You read that right. Manmohan Singh : Dr.Ambedkar.

Let’s see how none in their well informed mind should take recourse to such a frivolous analogy.

When Dr.Ambedkar fought elections, he took on the might of an establishment led by Jawaharlal Nehru. Mr.Nehru and his party were credited for winning us Independence just 5 years earlier, a watershed moment. Apart from being portrayed as a stalwart of the freedom struggle, Mr.Nehru had also been selected as protégé by a certain M.K.Gandhi, whose name still evokes reverence across the spectrum of classes. Amidst all this there were talks of the full might of the Governmental machinery being used to defeat Dr.Ambedkar. We all know what that means, don’t we? With such factors staring him in the face Dr.Ambedkar was always asking for the moon.

There is widespread doubt if we have a Prime Minister at all in the past few years. So let me remind, Mr.Singh was the incumbent Prime Minister in the 2009 elections. He was hailed to a crescendo as the man who ushered in reforms that set the stage for the middle class to take the world on. It shows the poor political courage of Mr.Singh that the man who had just been Prime Minister and had the whole establishment on his side,  still did not seek a popular mandate for himself. Comparing Manmohan Singh with Dr.Ambedkar is a no-show. Period.

It is true that the intellectual animal is not always the middle class darling. That’s mostly because elitist holier-than-thou mumbo jumbo usually passes off as intellectualism in India, and often puts the middle class off. Despite all this, Aakar Patel offers us an option to agree with Khushwant Singh that Manmohan Singh is the best Prime Minister or be called shallow. Thanks, but no thanks. Depth is not my cup of tea.

Meanwhile, along comes Sagarika Ghose with liberal democrat airs and unleashes a diatribe on “middle class India for being a drag”, calling out their “army-worshipping, democracy-hating, yearning for machismo, abusing independent women”. Now do not ask for proof. That’s as nonexistent as sanity in TV debates.

In the wake of the Army Chief vs Government controversy, in a condescending tone, she said notions of ‘honour’ are common in patriarchal feudal societies. She took potshots at the Army Chief alluding that his ‘fight for honour’ as it has been hyped, stems from his feudal patriarchal tendencies. Icing on the cake - she likened the almost failed state of Pakistan to India in this. I now appreciate why it is not often that accusations of high intellect are leveled at her.

Many vented their opinions about her rather profound analysis in both sensible and colourful ways typical of twitter. That Ms.Ghose’s rants here are crass generalizations is a given. But it would be very naïve to imagine it was just that.

Having never seen middle class life, she fails to understand that the most admired quality among the middle class, is sacrifice. Most of them have seen parents, siblings and close family make sacrifices to get them where they are. It is obvious that the middle class deems the Army, which is the simplest example of sacrifice, as admirable. But Ms.Ghose’s mathematics teacher taught her that, admiring the Army = worshipping the Army = Hating Democracy. The great Srinivasa Ramanujan would be proud of that.

Doing some investigative journalism on why the Government may want the Army Chief out is pretty easy. The more intellectually challenging and onerous task is making generalizations against the middle class. And no prizes for guessing Ms.Ghose took the tougher route.

The defense of the Army Chief by some was enough for her to pronounce the middle class machismo-yearning and that the middle class as a practice, hold your breath, abuses independent women (like herself obviously). She resorted to the same ‘I am being targeted because I am a woman’ ploy when she was treated to a heap of criticism at her purely accidental look-live sham involving Sri Sri Ravishankar. Excellent improvement, considering that she has added ‘independent’ to ‘woman’ this time.

With the advent of social media, the distance between the elite powerful class like Ms.Ghose and the middle class that logs into a website at office is just a few keystrokes. It is no longer easy to hoodwink anyone and get away scot free. The middle class’ easy access to her and to facts, has resulted in her bluff being called every now and then. That the people who must be worrying about home loans are actually asking her uncomfortable questions makes her squirm in her seat. And that is her true grouse.

Ms.Ghose obviously doesn’t realize there are the goods, bads and the uglies strewn across the spectrum of classes and the middle class is no exception to it. Being insecure about the middle class growing up and breaking shackles or labeling it for having opinions of its own is an exercise in denial.

Having listened to Aakar Patel, Sagarika Ghose and some other such leading lights I am convinced that the middle class is the biggest threat to democracy and world peace at large. So push them middle class low lives to concentration camps pronto and bang!, all the nation’s problems are solved. Easy peasy…

This piece has appeared on Centre-Right India - centreright.in and can be found here.

Bhagavad Gita as the 'National Book'?

This piece of mine has appeared in CRI. It has been reproduced here with their consent. Not to be reproduced anywhere else without the same.

“The Bhagavad-Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new message for every age and a new meaning for every civilization. – Sri Aurobindo”

Let’s be clear at the very outset that this piece arises from a premise that India/Bharata/Hindustan is an intrinsically a civilization whose roots are in Indic traditions and essentially should be a Rashtra  where its citizens are guided by the essence, ethos and ethics espoused by Indic philosophies.

Sri Krishna himself, in what is among the best creations of a mind ever – the Bhagavad-Gita, eschews from making exclusivist claims about the best path to tread and instead relates the various paths that can be tread to perfect oneself – Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Sankhya Yoga etc.

For me personally, the Sankhya Yoga, especially the part where Sri Krishna obliges Arjuna’s request to narrate the nature of the ‘SthitaPrajna – The Equanimous’, represents the pinnacle of all our civilization and its thought. My father, on the other hand, thinks that the Karma Yoga represents the ideal way to live. Then again, there is an elderly uncle, who thinks the Thirukkural is wisdom extraordinaire, above all else. My erstwhile landlord, an ardent follower of Basavanna, thinks that the Vachanas are a man’s best friend, philosopher and guide through all the crests and troughs of life.

Likewise there are many who would swear by the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata-as-a-whole and many other such creations of exalted minds, as the ultimate. Shakti-worshippers, Shaivites and other such schools of thought would probably subscribe to a different world-view which is also essentially Indic.

If naming the Bhagavad-Gita our ‘National Book’ is a way to show the nation is proud of such a gem, are we not equally proud of other creations of Indic thought?

If having a ‘National Book’ is about having a philosophical benchmark that the citizens and the State have to strive for, then why just the Bhagavad-Gita?

Superficially speaking, one may be able to portray that some of these varied schools of thought are mutually exclusive of, or better than others. The Bhagavad-Gita looks better and representative of our civilization to someone because that suits the conditioning of their mind. Ultimately all these are products of the same civilization and the same higher levels of intense thought. They are intertwined and derive from each other.

The wonder that is called Sanatana Dharma, thrives despite endless efforts from various quarters at finishing it, because it has not been built around a rigid framework of assertions pushed top-down from a central authority. It is a loose framework of schools of thought that have sprung up from a bottomless well of philosophical constructs which, at their core, have maintained the essentially Indic ethos and are not antagonistic or exclusive of each other, despite impassioned claims to that effect. Once we start dishing out the pride of this book or that school of thought over other ones in an institutionalized manner from the top, we are automatically doing a disservice to other branches that are as representative of our civilizational ethos.

How sensible is it to isolate the Bhagavad-Gita from the other strands of philosophy that added to it as well as our national character?

It can be said that the Western mainstream thought, limited in its capabilities of perception has reduced this gigantic banyan tree of Indic philosophies to the concepts of Karma, Re-incarnation and lately, Yoga.

We would be guilty of doing something similar by surrendering to such symbolism as making the Bhagavad-Gita our ‘National Book’ reducing the Indic nation to be represented by only the Bhagavad-Gita, while the reality is that it is one among the many shining jewels in the heavily bejeweled crown that is Bharateeya civilization.

This call to ask for the Bhagavad-Gita to be declared the ‘National Book’, is at best unnecessary as well as ill-informed and at worst harmful.

“Let’s not forget that we weren’t and should never be one-book civilizations.”

Of slaps and a few chaps...

This piece of mine has appeared in CRI. It has been reproduced here with their consent. Not to be reproduced anywhere else without the same.

Everyone and their granny has damning opinions on….well everyone else and their grannies. In such vitiated atmosphere, one worked-up Sikh, Mr.Harbinger Singh (the only one in this piece to be prefixed with “Mr”) seemed to be the best orator among the non-BJP populace in and around the Parliament. He thought of taking on inflation, price-rise and corruption with his bare hands. Well, he literally did and ended up depositing his finger prints rather forcefully on the cheek of Shared Power, the Maratha “strongman” (for having withstood that resounding exposition of Newton’s F=ma on his cheek).

In my capacity as a leading opinion-maker, I happened to meet a few high flying chaps to ask ‘how they felt’ in true media ishtyle, about this incident and its ramifications.

After much tracking down, the former future Prime Minister Ra.Howl Ghandy was found, not in a beggar colony in Delhi or Mumbai, but in the still-in-one-piece Indian state of UP, putting his feet up at a desolate Dalit home. The Dalit inmates were amused at a white bird’s egg like structure (a Western-style toilet made of pure “Italian” marble installed for Ra.Howl’s convenience).

Out of nowhere, Ra.Howl’s personal security guards, Harp-Pee-Hen Singh and Pro-Mode Thieve-ari pounced on me. Kicks and shouts ensued till they were convinced my black shirt wasn’t a black flag and finally allowed me to approach Ra.Howl.

Me: Why did your security guards behave like goons?

Ra.Howl:  Hindu terrorism is the biggest threat to me and Diggy uncle. Why take a chance? My security roughs up everyone who approaches me. 99% of terrorist strikes can be stopped that way.

Me: Your feelings about the ‘Shared Power slap’ incident?  

Ra.Howl: There is a work that my father had started, a dream he had dreamt. I come to you today saying…allow me to turn that dream into reality………..

I scooted off before he could get all Palin-esque. Atleast Palin is a woman.

Then I met the secular liberal Diva-in-Chief Bakra Datta after one of her We-The-Pimp-le shows. Strangely, she was sporting a bindi (Yes. That Hindu symbol of female oppression).

Me: Ma’am, why a bindi suddenly?

Bakra:  You know this Marwadi SiriMed. I’m showing her she’s not the only Pakistani who has the guts to wear a bindi.

Me: Oh. Anyway. CRI folks want your reaction on Shared Power slap incident. Tell me what to tell them.

Bakra: I’ve heard that somewhere. (Staring at her mobile phone) Hmmm….. Never mind. These intolerant trolls, you know. We’ve created a rowdy society where one cannot discuss cabinet berths in peace without abuse from trolls. I’m sure this man who slapped Power was a twitter troll gone violent. This is why I block all of them.

Me: Ma’am. Ever thought of this huge irony staring you in the face? You were the biggest real life troll during Gujarat 2112 riots. You’ve been blocked in real life by Man-endra Modi for the same.

Bakra: (Giving that ‘I was at Kargil, you know’ look) You’re blocked now and beneath my contempt.

Next I thought of meeting the ‘made exactly for each other’ couple Raj-Beep Turd-esai and Fagarika Hose. As I entered their studio, I saw that Fagarika was on her F-the-Nation show, running ‘divine encroacher’ Rama’s war with Ravana live. Since she was busy, I went looking for Raj-Beep. I found him with a couple of half empty Old Monk-ey bottles and the Twitter app on his iPad open. Realizing he was in one of his murderous Good-Night moods, I tiptoed back to the safety of the road where other drunk guys looked a lot less perilous.

It was my lucky day though. PAnna Baja-re, the anti-corruption crusader had just come back from his village for another fast, to the national rape-it-all Seal-ah Dig-Shit’s Dilli. I requested for a short interview which he accepted.

Me: First of all, I want to commend you on the “Ek hi maara?” question on the Shared Power slap incident. It cracked me up. What a way to humiliate!

PAnna Baja-re: Thanks. I thought that comment would be apt for breaking my mauna-vrat. Cage-ri-Ball, my aide, sadly told me to withdraw it and issue a customary condemnation of the slap.

Me: Sad. Why doesn’t Cage-ri-Ball let you use your foot freely around your oral orifice?

PAnna Baja-re: Ah. He’s a control-freak. But he has his uses. Anyway. You look very tired. My secular buddy Imam Bukhari’s just next door. Can I ask him to get some Sherbet for you?

Me: Yes please. I’ve had a tiring day. Just saw the Old Monk-ey guzzling Raj-Beep Turd-esai and hoped he would serve a couple of drinks, but it was not to be.

PAnna Baja-re: (Gives that village rustic stare and rolls up his sleeves) Did you drink there?

Me: No. Raj-Beep was drinking though.

PAnna Baja-re: (Takes out his phone and makes a call) Arey Cage-ri-Ball beta… I forgot to get my wooden club from the village. Will you please get that here for me? Also, check if there are poles near Raj-Beep Turd-esai’s home, please.