TRIBAL COSMOLOGY – A Dissident Stream in Spirituality
Fr. Dr. George Joseph Thenadikulam SJ
The tribal societies of India have a proud possession of a great and unique tradition and culture. As the carriers of the early civilization there is a very close similarity in the ways and visions of their life. The remarkable relation of Human being with God, Fellow being and Nature and the mutual interdependence prevailing among them can be considered as the basic foundation their philosophical vision of Universe. ‘Nothing alone exits but only as a sequence of the other and we the humans are one and all creatures is one’. This vision paves for the basis of tribal life.
Tribals believe that this universe/cosmos is the creation of God and all are part of the divine force. Since the universe is divine and holy. This belief leads them to be generous and fraternal people. A close examination of myths, festivals and folklore, one can really fathom the depth of their awareness of ad insight into the Cosmos.
The origin myth of Oraons
Oraons live in the Chotanagapur region in Jharkand , Orissa, Chatisgrah. Oraons origin myth has three parts: 1) the origin of the Universe 2) the fall and punishment 3) the deliverance from the fall.
God, ‘Dharmes’ created earth from water. He took the assistance of silly creatures like earth-worm, crab, tortoise and kingfisher. It was earth – worm that brought soil from beneath the ocean. From the soil he created the flora and fauna, the animal kingdom and humans. He provided for them and cared them lavishly. All were equal in front of God.
Slowly the evil-doers popped up. It grew to un assumable quantity and God had no other choice than to shower the rain of fire on earth, resulting the destruction of all living beings. One pair of human being (boy and girl) saved from the wrath of God by taking shelter in a crab’s burrow. As a result of the loss of life on earth the offering to God came to an end and God became hungry. On his way to hunt for food his hounds found the hiding pair in the burrow. God took care of them, taught them the lessons of agriculture. He also taught them the ‘danda kata’ pooja which would serve as a defense from enemies and famine. From this pair originated the Oraons tribe.
From this myth we could comprehend some of the cosmic vision of this tribe.
1. God’s creation of earth could be fulfilled only with the assistance of silly creatures like earth-worm and crab. This gives us a message that every one is important in the creation work and they all do have a role to play.
2. There exist good and evil in the universe. Good deeds lead to welfare and evil one to destruction. The tribe believes in and expects divine intervention when ever necessary.
3. The Oraon community intend to eliminate the evil forces through the ‘danda katta’ pooja . This point to the need of religious rituals in life.
4. All the tribal festivals are connected with agriculture and nature. They celebrate life. On each occasion the ‘pahan’ (poojari) reminds the people of the myth of origin.
5. Each festival is a community celebration. They give importance to society than individuals. The fraternal attitude and feeling remains in them.
Tribal spirituality
Spirituality is a way of seeing, a way of feeling and a way of relating to the reality: the Nature, the Human and the Divine. It is an attitude and a relationship between these three principles. According to Indian tradition there are two inner faculties of perception: manh (mind) and budhi (intellect). Manh objectifies everything and analyze reality. Budhi enters into reality becoming one with the perceiving subject. Manah operates with subject-object polarity (I-THOU). Budhi transcends this polarity. Tribal spirituality comes in the second category. There is no subject-object polarity; no sacred-secular division. All are one and life is a continuum. For tribal culture is a web of relationship: A vision of cosmotheandirc unity. It is the core aspect of tribal spirituality.
In 1854 the Seattle tribal Chief wrote a letter to the president of USA. It is an eye-opener to the so called civilized society on the matters of tribal world view and spirituality. “How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do no own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how ca you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. … .We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the body heat of the pony and man- all belong to the same family.
This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know; all things are connected like the blood which unites one family. …” (J Mattam,ed. 1998) . It is the tribal vision of life and spirituality; A spirituality which upholds cosmic family spirit. We can name it as Earth spirituality.
Features of tribal spirituality
1. Nature friendly
2. Community centered
3. Celebration of life and love
4. Absence of sacred-secular division
5. It is a spirituality of struggle and resistance; a struggle for survival, a struggle for identity. Eg. Plachimada, Muthanga, Chengara,…
6. It is the spirituality of the masses; people on the periphery
The main stream society holds a negative notion about tribal religion and spirituality. They consider it as one of animistic, pantheistic and superstitious in nature. It is a wrong understanding of tribal religion and spirituality. The researcher’s experience, observations and understanding of tribal spirituality proves the contrary. It is a dissident stream in spirituality which is very much holistic, biological and humane. The main stream society needs a new vision and openness to understand the rationality of tribal spirituality.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
THE CONCEPT OF SPIRITUAL DISSENT:a critical note
A.V.G.Warrier:
The theme note started with the phrase “spiritual dissent”, but somewhere downstream we find ourselves drifting to the idea “dissident spirituality”. For me the superposition of the two is what, I feel, is the source of confusion.
When spirituality is the cause of dissent we have spiritual dissent. Spirituality is the cause and dissent is the effect. This dissent is the discarding of the several hypotheses we come across while searching for the universals. The spirit of this dissent is embedded in the neti neti approach where one keeps dissociating from the imminent things while searching for perfect immanence.
Dissident spirituality could mean something quite different. Here dissident is someone who has decided to strike out a path that differs from the mainstream. The dissent could be for any reason. It may or may not be on account of spirituality. When dissent is not on account of spirituality, the spirituality of a dissident could vary widely from each other and from those sticking to the mainstream. Anybody who flouts the norms could get himself branded as a dissident. A dissident could also very well be a very non-spiritual person. Ali Baba who decided to live in the caves with his band of forty thieves could also qualify himself to be dissident. So where is the common thread in the variety of spiritualities of the innumerable dissidents that is worthy of serious exploration!? Even though the small band pursuing spiritual dissent also is a subset of the domain of dissidents, it is unproductive to club them with the rest for any analysis.
A classical example of spiritual dissent is Prahlada. By all worldly standards his dad Hiranyakashipu was a fantastic man. People burn midnight oil and write entrance examinations to emulate him. But his standards were not good enough for his son. Prahlada felt, and advocated, that the recipe for true prosperity and happiness is something that transcends material wealth. For Hiranyakashipu his son was a horrendous fundamentalist. He tried his best to suppress Prahlada by all means available to him. But the grace of the higher spirit made Prahlada immune to all attempts to destroy him.
In the final encounter Prahlada imparts to his father the wisdom of looking for the higher spirit in all mundane phenomena that appears to be grossly different from each other. The energy released by this revelation was so great that it consumed the ego of Hiranyakashipu and liberated him from his shell.
The lore of Hindu religion is full of such examples of spiritual dissent. It is quite possible that it is so in the case of other religions too. The picture of Christ driving away the potbellied priests is not very different from that of a serene Buddha revolting against gross ritual practices. And was Muhammad very different? Or for that matter Moses? Perhaps the spirit of Nachiketas lived through all of them.
In all these cases the dissent was from the corruptions of established practices. We run into problems when we focus on the dissent of the follower of a particular path from the followers of other paths or from the mainstream and arbitrarily assign spirituality with every instance of dissent. It is quite possible that in many cases the inability to conform to mainstream could be the result of inadequate development of spirituality. Focusing on avenues of dissidence and trying to look for the spirituality associated with them may not yield any useful results. When that exercise is used for making comparisons between them it could even be harmful. And when all differences start being equated with dissidence it could become totally absurd. Take for instance the possibility of male chauvinists and feminists arguing with each other over male spirituality and female spirituality. This possibility exists not only for men and women but for all complementary pairs. Playing on dissents generally yield to vertical divisions that compartmentalize the thinking process.
Spiritual dissent is a vehicle for the descent of spirituality. Kathopanishad talked about the descent of spirituality. “Rain that falls on a peak of subtleness flows down the slopes of the mountain. Like this the different paths of dharma are to be seen. Each person may follow a different stream. Pure water, when it is poured into a clean vessel, remains pure without contamination. Likewise a muni who knows the unity of the source of all dharmas becomes the seat of effulgence”. In recent past Aurobindo talked about the imminence of the descent of spirituality. More recently a team of German engineers brought down the spirit of enterprise exploiting the explosive developments in Information Technology to create paradigm shifts in the field of business management.
The relevant thing for society is spiritual dissent and the accompanying descent of spirituality. When Budhdha, Mohammed or Christ made a departure from the corruptions of their respective mainstreams they were operating in domains not affected by others. The question of how he can accommodate the followers of Mohammed or Christ never pestered Buddha. And same was the case with the others. The remaining together of many streams of spiritual practices in close proximity is a recent phenomenon brought into being by the growth of technology that closed distances and speeded up events. What ought to be the parameters for descent of spirituality or spiritual dissent in the modern scenario? How can a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or a follower of any other stream of spirituality be made to feel enriched and enhanced by the others in the neighborhood instead of being threatened by their presence?
This is not an easy question. The divisive powers are very strong and keep dictating what is progressive, what is retrogressive, what is just, what is unjust and so on and so forth. They even hijack the paths created by well-intentioned social reformers and palm off their agendas disguised in the respectability of the old departed souls. The collective intellect is chained to such an extent that one can predict the responses of most of the acknowledged cultural leaders to events. And when we can predict so easily, it means that nothing creative is actually happening. The voices are noises that keep eroding what ever little spirituality is there left in society.
I feel the relevant thing for present day world is to devise means to keep the divisive powers at bay. Just as the management scientists had caused the descent of spirituality to the field of management, perhaps, it is the role of philosophers to be instrumental in spiritual evolution of society. And I believe they can effectively perform in this role only when they keep the word ‘spiritual’ always in front of the word ‘dissent’. May be they should now be the vanguards of spiritual dissent in a world dominated by the politics of being.
The theme note started with the phrase “spiritual dissent”, but somewhere downstream we find ourselves drifting to the idea “dissident spirituality”. For me the superposition of the two is what, I feel, is the source of confusion.
When spirituality is the cause of dissent we have spiritual dissent. Spirituality is the cause and dissent is the effect. This dissent is the discarding of the several hypotheses we come across while searching for the universals. The spirit of this dissent is embedded in the neti neti approach where one keeps dissociating from the imminent things while searching for perfect immanence.
Dissident spirituality could mean something quite different. Here dissident is someone who has decided to strike out a path that differs from the mainstream. The dissent could be for any reason. It may or may not be on account of spirituality. When dissent is not on account of spirituality, the spirituality of a dissident could vary widely from each other and from those sticking to the mainstream. Anybody who flouts the norms could get himself branded as a dissident. A dissident could also very well be a very non-spiritual person. Ali Baba who decided to live in the caves with his band of forty thieves could also qualify himself to be dissident. So where is the common thread in the variety of spiritualities of the innumerable dissidents that is worthy of serious exploration!? Even though the small band pursuing spiritual dissent also is a subset of the domain of dissidents, it is unproductive to club them with the rest for any analysis.
A classical example of spiritual dissent is Prahlada. By all worldly standards his dad Hiranyakashipu was a fantastic man. People burn midnight oil and write entrance examinations to emulate him. But his standards were not good enough for his son. Prahlada felt, and advocated, that the recipe for true prosperity and happiness is something that transcends material wealth. For Hiranyakashipu his son was a horrendous fundamentalist. He tried his best to suppress Prahlada by all means available to him. But the grace of the higher spirit made Prahlada immune to all attempts to destroy him.
In the final encounter Prahlada imparts to his father the wisdom of looking for the higher spirit in all mundane phenomena that appears to be grossly different from each other. The energy released by this revelation was so great that it consumed the ego of Hiranyakashipu and liberated him from his shell.
The lore of Hindu religion is full of such examples of spiritual dissent. It is quite possible that it is so in the case of other religions too. The picture of Christ driving away the potbellied priests is not very different from that of a serene Buddha revolting against gross ritual practices. And was Muhammad very different? Or for that matter Moses? Perhaps the spirit of Nachiketas lived through all of them.
In all these cases the dissent was from the corruptions of established practices. We run into problems when we focus on the dissent of the follower of a particular path from the followers of other paths or from the mainstream and arbitrarily assign spirituality with every instance of dissent. It is quite possible that in many cases the inability to conform to mainstream could be the result of inadequate development of spirituality. Focusing on avenues of dissidence and trying to look for the spirituality associated with them may not yield any useful results. When that exercise is used for making comparisons between them it could even be harmful. And when all differences start being equated with dissidence it could become totally absurd. Take for instance the possibility of male chauvinists and feminists arguing with each other over male spirituality and female spirituality. This possibility exists not only for men and women but for all complementary pairs. Playing on dissents generally yield to vertical divisions that compartmentalize the thinking process.
Spiritual dissent is a vehicle for the descent of spirituality. Kathopanishad talked about the descent of spirituality. “Rain that falls on a peak of subtleness flows down the slopes of the mountain. Like this the different paths of dharma are to be seen. Each person may follow a different stream. Pure water, when it is poured into a clean vessel, remains pure without contamination. Likewise a muni who knows the unity of the source of all dharmas becomes the seat of effulgence”. In recent past Aurobindo talked about the imminence of the descent of spirituality. More recently a team of German engineers brought down the spirit of enterprise exploiting the explosive developments in Information Technology to create paradigm shifts in the field of business management.
The relevant thing for society is spiritual dissent and the accompanying descent of spirituality. When Budhdha, Mohammed or Christ made a departure from the corruptions of their respective mainstreams they were operating in domains not affected by others. The question of how he can accommodate the followers of Mohammed or Christ never pestered Buddha. And same was the case with the others. The remaining together of many streams of spiritual practices in close proximity is a recent phenomenon brought into being by the growth of technology that closed distances and speeded up events. What ought to be the parameters for descent of spirituality or spiritual dissent in the modern scenario? How can a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or a follower of any other stream of spirituality be made to feel enriched and enhanced by the others in the neighborhood instead of being threatened by their presence?
This is not an easy question. The divisive powers are very strong and keep dictating what is progressive, what is retrogressive, what is just, what is unjust and so on and so forth. They even hijack the paths created by well-intentioned social reformers and palm off their agendas disguised in the respectability of the old departed souls. The collective intellect is chained to such an extent that one can predict the responses of most of the acknowledged cultural leaders to events. And when we can predict so easily, it means that nothing creative is actually happening. The voices are noises that keep eroding what ever little spirituality is there left in society.
I feel the relevant thing for present day world is to devise means to keep the divisive powers at bay. Just as the management scientists had caused the descent of spirituality to the field of management, perhaps, it is the role of philosophers to be instrumental in spiritual evolution of society. And I believe they can effectively perform in this role only when they keep the word ‘spiritual’ always in front of the word ‘dissent’. May be they should now be the vanguards of spiritual dissent in a world dominated by the politics of being.
FURTHER COMMENTS-3
C Radhakrishnan:
The summary provided interesting reading.Dissent should lead to learning as in the Upanishads where the disciple represents dissent. Dissent as an ex-pression of inviolable personal belief is not creative....
The difference between deprecating dissent and discerning dissent is very obvious, I suppose. The former operates on the principle of himsa and the latter on ahimsa. The former leads to moha or ajnana and the latter to enlightenment. Most dissent in the world today belongs to the former kind. Inter-religious, intra-religious, international or internal-national, it is the same. It leads only to friction, hatred and violence.
The summary provided interesting reading.Dissent should lead to learning as in the Upanishads where the disciple represents dissent. Dissent as an ex-pression of inviolable personal belief is not creative....
The difference between deprecating dissent and discerning dissent is very obvious, I suppose. The former operates on the principle of himsa and the latter on ahimsa. The former leads to moha or ajnana and the latter to enlightenment. Most dissent in the world today belongs to the former kind. Inter-religious, intra-religious, international or internal-national, it is the same. It leads only to friction, hatred and violence.
FURTHER COMMENTS-2
Dr. Partha Sarathy Mondel:
The responses are encouraging. Why not organize another in-situ Workshop after the rainy season?....We can think of a traveling workshop. We can ask a few interested people if they can host the workshop at their respective places for two days and if each of them can help organize a visit to a site of dissident spirituality. One of the sites of course you can arrange. Let us try this way and then we can think of other ways.
The responses are encouraging. Why not organize another in-situ Workshop after the rainy season?....We can think of a traveling workshop. We can ask a few interested people if they can host the workshop at their respective places for two days and if each of them can help organize a visit to a site of dissident spirituality. One of the sites of course you can arrange. Let us try this way and then we can think of other ways.
FURTHER COMMENTS-1
Dr.Giorgio De Martino:
My real preoccupations, concerning "dissident spirituality" and technology, are about manipulations and the marketing of spiritual insight - and human relations, obviously. When I suggested, to the group of people that met at Shancaracharia University end of april, about reading the article by Leeb ("Walking by thoughts") I had a specific purpose: going deeply in understanding how much we'll be affected by neurosciences tech, in our researches. I suggested to read the article because, in few years, it will be possible to connect millions of brains throught the Internet (in a trance-like state: ASC - altered states of consciousness), probably even in a "wi-fi" style, not so different from how mobile phones work. Shortly: and if all this will happen, like William Gibson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson ) wrote, in the mid of the 80s, in his best-seller "Neuromancer", what will happen to our dissident spirituality? What kind of reactions will cause this cyberspace revolution? And our consciousness?
My real preoccupations, concerning "dissident spirituality" and technology, are about manipulations and the marketing of spiritual insight - and human relations, obviously. When I suggested, to the group of people that met at Shancaracharia University end of april, about reading the article by Leeb ("Walking by thoughts") I had a specific purpose: going deeply in understanding how much we'll be affected by neurosciences tech, in our researches. I suggested to read the article because, in few years, it will be possible to connect millions of brains throught the Internet (in a trance-like state: ASC - altered states of consciousness), probably even in a "wi-fi" style, not so different from how mobile phones work. Shortly: and if all this will happen, like William Gibson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson ) wrote, in the mid of the 80s, in his best-seller "Neuromancer", what will happen to our dissident spirituality? What kind of reactions will cause this cyberspace revolution? And our consciousness?
NOTE FOR THE WORKSHOP DISCUSSION- Dr. M. Gangadharan
A Note on Religion and Dissident Spirituality- Dr. M. Gangadharan
Religions are cultural systems which decide in a general way the life-style of the believers. They are mostly institutionalised and provide support to the individuals of the religious community by inculcating self-confidence in them. Religious spirituality is generally expressed in prayers, pilgrimages and rituals sanctioned by religious texts and priests, or those well versed in the texts and traditions of the religion. Occasionally there will be some new philosophical interpretation of the basic texts of the religion which will expand its intellectual dimentions or re-form its ethical and moral precepts. But the religious orthodoxy built up by almost all religions are able to absorb the new ideas resulting from new interpretations of basic texts and re-formation of ethical and moral precepts. And they soon become part of the religious orthodoxy. The interpretation of vedic texts by Sankaracharya and the incorporation Neo Platonist ideas into Christian theology by Saint Augustine (354 - 430) may be taken as examples of new philosophical views on religious texts becoming part of religious orthodoxy in course of time.
Dissident spirituality is generally an expression of discontent with the orthodoxy of religions. Such discontent has been in India caused by social problems which the orthodoxy of religions failed to confront and solve. I can point out three cases in which dissidence was expressed spiritually and creatively in times of social change:
1. Thunchath Ezhuthachan, the poet of Kerala popularly considered the 'father of Malayalam language', though not literally true, is undoutedly the greatst poet in the language. His time has been variously reckoned by scholars and historians, as there is no clear indication of his time in his works. However, it may be safely assumed on the basis some literary evidence that he lived and wrote in the 16th century. Recent studies on the oceanic trade on the Malabar (Kerala) coast has found this period to be one of vigorous trade in spices. The arrival of the Portuguese on the Malabar coast did disrupt the trade for a short period due the ambition of the Portuguese to establish their monopoly in the trade in spices. But the trade revived soon and by the middle of 16th century the Portuguese had become part of the ongoing trade in spices. This in fact increased the volume of trade and made Malabar, especially regions near important harbours, prosperous. Ponnani, an harbour town to the south of Calicut, was one of the most important harbours in the Kingdom of the Zamorin. Nila (Bharata Puzha), one of the two longest rivers in Kerala, originates from the Western Ghats in the east and joins the Arabian Sea at Ponnani. This increased the value of Ponnani as a centre of oceanic trade in spices, as the spices were mostly grown in the high ranges and the long river provided a means of transporting them to the coast for export by maritime traders. Poonthanam Nambuthiri, a gifted poet of the second half of the 16th century, describes how "They earn lots of money/ Trading in jewels and gold/ In elephants and horses/ And by onstructing ships" . He also laments the moral decadence that accompanied the competition to make more and more money. But Ezhuthachan do not mention the condition of life of his time. Instead he translated the two great epics , 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata', into Malayalam poems of exceptional aesthetic quality with stress on sincere devotion to a God who knows everything and who is just and kind to everyone irrespective of caste and gender,.and who forgives anyone who repents sin committed in ignorance. These translations soon became very popular and began to be read ritually by all literate non-Brahmin communities. Ezhuthachn's works may be considered the creative expression of a kind of dissident spirituality as they did not conform to the dominant Brahmanic ethos which were totally influenced by the ideology of very rigid caste system. The great creative works of 17th and 18th century in Malayalam (by Unnayi Warriar, Kunchan Nambiar and Ramapurath Warriar) by non Brahmins as well as the emergence of art forms like Krishnanattom, Kathakali, Chavittu Natakam, etc., may be considered the consequence of Ezhuthachan's dissidence which opened up learning, literature and arts to non- Brahmins..
2. Mahatma Gandhi who dared to be different in his approach to religion may be considered to have opened up Hiduism through his dissident spirituality.
He declared himself to be a 'Sanathana Hindu'. But he never visited any temple and never cared to perform any of the rituals of orthodox Hinduism in his mature years. He always organised prayer meetings in which he discussed various social, political and spiritual problems. There were also songs at the prayer meetings in which the ideas of all religions were respectfully mentioned. Gandhi also insisted on eradication of untouchability among Hindus and worked for temple entry of all castes which was not allowed by the traditional Hinduism. His dissident practise of Hinduism may be considered as sanctioned by his spirituality. And this had impact on large number of Indians. In fact Hindu orthodoxy was effectively challenged by the transparent humanist position taken by Gandhi. The good relations between various religious and caste communities in India was made possible mainly through the break up of Hindu orthodoxy by Gandhi's spiritual dissidence.
3. Narayana Guru of Kerala (1856 - 1928), born in a family, considered to be of low caste at the time, in the southern part of the Princely State of Travancore received good education in Sanskrit and also training in Yoga from his early years. Though he was a devotee of a local temple for some time later he became an avadhootha and wandered in the hills and forests of southern Travancore. Finally he settled down at Aruvippuram, an hamlet on the banks of Neyyar river. Local people found him to be a wise guru in both religious and temporal matters. As the people who came to visit him increased he consecrated in February 1888 a Siva temple there without any of the traditional rituals related to such cosecration. When Brahmins questioned his authority to consecrate a diety he said it was only the Siva of Ezhavas thereby asserting that even those of the low caste has the right to worship Siva in their own way. He also built an ashrama near the temple and wrote on its wall the following verse:
'This is the model place where everyone
Shall live as brothers
without distinctions of caste or religion'.
This was an announcement in total contradiction of the norms and practices of the caste ridden Hindu society of those times. While living as an avadhuta Narayana Guru had composed a number of poems which explained the essence of advaita philosophy. He maintained that as all creation is the manifestation of the supreme being in various forms there is no fixed identity for anything in the world. His Atmopadesa Satakam' says: 'That which appears as oneself and the other are but the same Spirit that burns from the beginning'. This understanding of advaita was used to establish that there cannot be distinctions of caste or religion between human beings. His spirituality, clearly distinct from the Hindu orthodoxy of the times, was accepted by a large number of ordinary people and he began to be accepted as a Guru of great wisdom. This led to the formation of a society for the maintenance of the temple consecrated by him. This society was later (in 1903) constituted as Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sanghom (S.N.D.P. Sanghom). Guru was assisted by the Sanghom to travel to all parts of Kerala to speak against meaningless and costly rituals of orthodoxy and to give more attention to learning and productive employment. He vehemently propagated against use of intoxicants which was draining the people of their energy. He advocated simple life dedicated to uplift of the poor and the downtrodden. The Sree Narayana Movement in course of time became very popular and brought about thorough change in life-styles of large number of people. Guru was accepted as the incarnation of a new spirit of humanism. This was the result of the recognition of Guru's dissident spirituality as genuine and humane.
Unfortunately in course of time Guru's teachings were used by some influential persons to create a separate identity for the Ezhava community. This was noticed by Guru in his later years and he even declared that he will have nothing to do with the S.N.D.P. Sanghom's attempts to consider one community to be better than other communities. However, it is a fact that Sree Narayana Movement started the process of community formation in Kerala. The sub-castes in different caste groups collapsed to form one community.
Religions are cultural systems which decide in a general way the life-style of the believers. They are mostly institutionalised and provide support to the individuals of the religious community by inculcating self-confidence in them. Religious spirituality is generally expressed in prayers, pilgrimages and rituals sanctioned by religious texts and priests, or those well versed in the texts and traditions of the religion. Occasionally there will be some new philosophical interpretation of the basic texts of the religion which will expand its intellectual dimentions or re-form its ethical and moral precepts. But the religious orthodoxy built up by almost all religions are able to absorb the new ideas resulting from new interpretations of basic texts and re-formation of ethical and moral precepts. And they soon become part of the religious orthodoxy. The interpretation of vedic texts by Sankaracharya and the incorporation Neo Platonist ideas into Christian theology by Saint Augustine (354 - 430) may be taken as examples of new philosophical views on religious texts becoming part of religious orthodoxy in course of time.
Dissident spirituality is generally an expression of discontent with the orthodoxy of religions. Such discontent has been in India caused by social problems which the orthodoxy of religions failed to confront and solve. I can point out three cases in which dissidence was expressed spiritually and creatively in times of social change:
1. Thunchath Ezhuthachan, the poet of Kerala popularly considered the 'father of Malayalam language', though not literally true, is undoutedly the greatst poet in the language. His time has been variously reckoned by scholars and historians, as there is no clear indication of his time in his works. However, it may be safely assumed on the basis some literary evidence that he lived and wrote in the 16th century. Recent studies on the oceanic trade on the Malabar (Kerala) coast has found this period to be one of vigorous trade in spices. The arrival of the Portuguese on the Malabar coast did disrupt the trade for a short period due the ambition of the Portuguese to establish their monopoly in the trade in spices. But the trade revived soon and by the middle of 16th century the Portuguese had become part of the ongoing trade in spices. This in fact increased the volume of trade and made Malabar, especially regions near important harbours, prosperous. Ponnani, an harbour town to the south of Calicut, was one of the most important harbours in the Kingdom of the Zamorin. Nila (Bharata Puzha), one of the two longest rivers in Kerala, originates from the Western Ghats in the east and joins the Arabian Sea at Ponnani. This increased the value of Ponnani as a centre of oceanic trade in spices, as the spices were mostly grown in the high ranges and the long river provided a means of transporting them to the coast for export by maritime traders. Poonthanam Nambuthiri, a gifted poet of the second half of the 16th century, describes how "They earn lots of money/ Trading in jewels and gold/ In elephants and horses/ And by onstructing ships" . He also laments the moral decadence that accompanied the competition to make more and more money. But Ezhuthachan do not mention the condition of life of his time. Instead he translated the two great epics , 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata', into Malayalam poems of exceptional aesthetic quality with stress on sincere devotion to a God who knows everything and who is just and kind to everyone irrespective of caste and gender,.and who forgives anyone who repents sin committed in ignorance. These translations soon became very popular and began to be read ritually by all literate non-Brahmin communities. Ezhuthachn's works may be considered the creative expression of a kind of dissident spirituality as they did not conform to the dominant Brahmanic ethos which were totally influenced by the ideology of very rigid caste system. The great creative works of 17th and 18th century in Malayalam (by Unnayi Warriar, Kunchan Nambiar and Ramapurath Warriar) by non Brahmins as well as the emergence of art forms like Krishnanattom, Kathakali, Chavittu Natakam, etc., may be considered the consequence of Ezhuthachan's dissidence which opened up learning, literature and arts to non- Brahmins..
2. Mahatma Gandhi who dared to be different in his approach to religion may be considered to have opened up Hiduism through his dissident spirituality.
He declared himself to be a 'Sanathana Hindu'. But he never visited any temple and never cared to perform any of the rituals of orthodox Hinduism in his mature years. He always organised prayer meetings in which he discussed various social, political and spiritual problems. There were also songs at the prayer meetings in which the ideas of all religions were respectfully mentioned. Gandhi also insisted on eradication of untouchability among Hindus and worked for temple entry of all castes which was not allowed by the traditional Hinduism. His dissident practise of Hinduism may be considered as sanctioned by his spirituality. And this had impact on large number of Indians. In fact Hindu orthodoxy was effectively challenged by the transparent humanist position taken by Gandhi. The good relations between various religious and caste communities in India was made possible mainly through the break up of Hindu orthodoxy by Gandhi's spiritual dissidence.
3. Narayana Guru of Kerala (1856 - 1928), born in a family, considered to be of low caste at the time, in the southern part of the Princely State of Travancore received good education in Sanskrit and also training in Yoga from his early years. Though he was a devotee of a local temple for some time later he became an avadhootha and wandered in the hills and forests of southern Travancore. Finally he settled down at Aruvippuram, an hamlet on the banks of Neyyar river. Local people found him to be a wise guru in both religious and temporal matters. As the people who came to visit him increased he consecrated in February 1888 a Siva temple there without any of the traditional rituals related to such cosecration. When Brahmins questioned his authority to consecrate a diety he said it was only the Siva of Ezhavas thereby asserting that even those of the low caste has the right to worship Siva in their own way. He also built an ashrama near the temple and wrote on its wall the following verse:
'This is the model place where everyone
Shall live as brothers
without distinctions of caste or religion'.
This was an announcement in total contradiction of the norms and practices of the caste ridden Hindu society of those times. While living as an avadhuta Narayana Guru had composed a number of poems which explained the essence of advaita philosophy. He maintained that as all creation is the manifestation of the supreme being in various forms there is no fixed identity for anything in the world. His Atmopadesa Satakam' says: 'That which appears as oneself and the other are but the same Spirit that burns from the beginning'. This understanding of advaita was used to establish that there cannot be distinctions of caste or religion between human beings. His spirituality, clearly distinct from the Hindu orthodoxy of the times, was accepted by a large number of ordinary people and he began to be accepted as a Guru of great wisdom. This led to the formation of a society for the maintenance of the temple consecrated by him. This society was later (in 1903) constituted as Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sanghom (S.N.D.P. Sanghom). Guru was assisted by the Sanghom to travel to all parts of Kerala to speak against meaningless and costly rituals of orthodoxy and to give more attention to learning and productive employment. He vehemently propagated against use of intoxicants which was draining the people of their energy. He advocated simple life dedicated to uplift of the poor and the downtrodden. The Sree Narayana Movement in course of time became very popular and brought about thorough change in life-styles of large number of people. Guru was accepted as the incarnation of a new spirit of humanism. This was the result of the recognition of Guru's dissident spirituality as genuine and humane.
Unfortunately in course of time Guru's teachings were used by some influential persons to create a separate identity for the Ezhava community. This was noticed by Guru in his later years and he even declared that he will have nothing to do with the S.N.D.P. Sanghom's attempts to consider one community to be better than other communities. However, it is a fact that Sree Narayana Movement started the process of community formation in Kerala. The sub-castes in different caste groups collapsed to form one community.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
WORKSHOP PRESENTATION: PRANAB MUKHERJEE
UNBOUND-A PERFORMANCE PROJECT ON MAHATMA GANDHI'S HIND SWARAJ
Jottings on Hind Swaraj and locating a few fault-lines:
It is chilling but true. 100 years after Hind Swaraj's publication it is dangerously relevant. As relevant as ever. More real than reality television. Especially at a time when misplaced ambitions and even more misplaced notions development are so rampant that we have lost our rights-based core. That the undercurrent of constructive dissidence have almost disappeared from our notions of spirituality. He argues that did we ever have one?
When a man rises from sleep, he twists his limbs and is restless. Similarly, although the Partition has caused an awakening, the comatose condition has not yet disappeared. We are still twisting our limbs and are still restless, and just as the state between sleep and awakening is considered to be necessary, so is the present unrest in India be considered a necessary and therefore, a proper state. The knowledge that there is unrest will, it is highly probable, enable us to outgrow it. Rising from sleep, we do not continue in the comatose condition, but according to our abilities, we are soon restored to our senses......Gandhiji in Hind Swaraj
2009: One hundred years of a seminal work. When Hind Swaraj was first published many raised eyebrows. Many believed that here was a pamphlet of anarchy. A century later, Hind Swaraj still answers many questions especially the disturbing one: Who or what makes a role model? For that matter can the state be a role model? Role model in a is never the figurehead it is always an idea. And what matters is not who did what instead who changed what?
It can be a change in the mindset. It can be a change in the way of national, local or even neighbourhood thinking. It can be bringing/introducing/re-introducing changes that make a tangible difference. Yes, the idea is defined by age but not merely the biological age. As Gandhiji says in Hind Swaraj that it is ultimately the soul force, which is the core.
This force has to be defined by the newness of thinking, the ability to dare and to look the odds into the eye. A change-maker can be a theatre director, sportsman, a peacenik, a labourer, a human rights activist, a sportsman, a painter, a lawyer, a bunch of activists or even a group or collective that gives birth to an idea who's time has come or which is far ahead of times. But the change maker has to be in active change and not some passive theoretical change that is chained by academic pedagogy.
Idea is not something you paste on the walls. You do that for heroes or superstars, the landscape of ideas are a little different. So, it is a tragedy that a Bob Marley ends up more being in the T-shirt rather in the protestscape. Any activist wants activism to be cool but with a philosophical core. We mixed up this manufactured aura coolness as being fashionably trendy. The cultural voyeurs that turned the Swaraj into a marketable commodity than as a light in such noxious times. As Gandhiji so rightly puts it in Hind Swaraj:
Swaraj is when we learn to rule ourselves. It is therefore, in the palm of our hands. Do not consider this Swaraj to be just a dream. There is no idea of sitting still. The Swaraj which I wish to picture is that, after we have once realized it, we will endeavour to the end of our life-time to persuade others to act likewise. This Swaraj needs to be experienced, by each one of himself. One drowning man will never save another. Slave ourselves, it might be mere pretension to think, of saving others. Now as you have seen it is not necessary for us to have as our goal the expulsion of the English. If the English become Indianized, we can accommodate them. If they remain in India along with their civilization we have no room for them. It lies with us to bring such state of changes.
Passive resistance is the method of securing rights through personal suffering. It is, the opposite of resistance by arms. If I refuse to do a thing is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force. For instance, the government of the day has passed a law which is applicable to me. I do not like it. If I use violence to force the government to repel the law, I am employing what is termed as body-force. I don’t obey the law and accept the penalty for the breech, I use soul-force. It is the sacrifice of self.
Our immediate protestscape is a series of images. Ranging from Manipur to East Timor. >From struggles in Aceh to images of Iraq. From the starkness of Bhopal to lost hope in Golan Heights. The body is used as a tool to look at the images that haunt us. And the praxis, the dialectic that guides us through this choppy images is Gandhiji's lines in Hind Swaraj. That hammers away the fact.
We have to realise that world is not a bunch of celebrities doing some inane populist nonsense and pretending that they are the world. They can be "a" world and not "our" world. Our world is individual, a small core and the collective. The individual contain multitudes, the core contains some specific aspirations and the collective nurses that individual flame of dissent. So ideas are humane-yet-out-of-the-box, dense, multi-directional, multi-faceted and believes in a collage of slogans that enhances humanity and not merely showcases individual aspiration. Aspirations that percolate and churn the cesspool. Let's go back to Gandhiji's prophetic lines in Hind Swaraj:
Everybody admits that self-sacrifice is infinitely superior to the sacrifice of others. Moreover if such a cause is unjust only the person using it suffers. He does not make others suffer for his mistakes. Men have before done many things that they have subsequently found to be wrong. No man can claim that he is absolutely in the right or that a particular thing is wrong because he thinks so, but it is wrong for him so long as that is his deliberate judgment. It is therefore meant that he should not do that which he knows to be wrong and suffer the consequence. This is the key to the use of soul force
So whether we like it or not we have to look at the futility of violence especially the state-sponsored ones. But the path still has painful snapshots that keep confronting us.
This year-2010 is an interesting year in terms of landmarks. Centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. Centenary of Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech. Centenaries of EMS and Nripen Chakraborty-two of the Marxist stalwarts of the sub-continent(at a time when the Official Left-in-power in three states have unleashed their brand of oppression). Completion of the Sixty years of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Completion of Twenty Five years of Bhopal Gas Tragedy and the centenary celebration of International Women's Day.
This year is also completion of centenary of an association that had one of the deepest philosophical churnings of our time between Gandhiji and Leo Tolstoy (infact it was in 1909 when Gandhiji translated in Gujarati, Leo Tolstoy's Letter to Hindoo ). The year also marks the centenary long association of Gandhiji with the visionary architect Herman Kallenbach.
On the voyage from England to South Africa aboard the SS Kildonian Castle, Gandhiji wrote Hind Swaraj in 10-days flat. Interestingly, he wrote almost in a trance sometimes writing with left hand when the right hand was tired. Our idea of producing Hind Swaraj's first ever theatre production is to bring out the essence of a classic that talks about the machines that enslaves us. And also tells us unequivocally the difference between development and sustainable development.
Let' s jump cut to a Gandhiji quote: .....I should be prepared to be killed by an arrow of Bhil than to seek unmanly protection...and it is the same person who also says in Hind Swaraj: I can never subscribe to the statement that every Englishmen is bad. Many Englishmen desire Home Rule for India. That the Englishmen are somewhat more selfish than others is true but that does not prove that every Englishman is bad. We who seek justice shall give justice to others. Sir William does not wish ill to India, --- that should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will see that, if we act justly, India shall sooner be free. You will also see that, if we shun every Englishmen as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we are just to them, we shall receive their support in our process towards the goal
Into that realm where braveness become a mindset and not bravado and there is an underlying humanism that constantly runs through the sub-text..... lies our production.
Our at least that is where it should lie.
I do not for one moment believe that my life would have been wasted, had I not received higher or lower education. Nor do I consider that I
necessarily serve because I speak. But I do desire to serve and in endeavouring to fulfil that desire, I make use of the education I have
received. And if I am making good use of it, even then it is not for the millions, but I can use it only for such as you, and this supports
my contention. Both you and I have come under the bane of what is mainly false education. I claim to have become free form its ill
effect, and I am trying to give you the benefit of my experience, and in doing so, I am demonstrating the rottenness of this education
There's this edge. Perched precariously on the cliff you realise that if you tilt a little more you die. If you don't fall you are still convinced still of not living with great relish. It is that state of a queer quasi-adventure where we should locate our Gandhian thoughts. His texts are real.....
the workers in the mills of Bombay have become slaves. the conditions of these women working in these mills is shocking.
when there were no mills, these women's weren't starving.
if the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy land
Standing in a no man's land is a strange feeling. On one hand you have your own country and on the other hand you have the populist notion of the other country always described as other. So, i have to prove myself to be an Algerian in Paris, an Eritrean in Ethiopia, Gabonese in Bordeaux, Ivory Coast refugee in Marseilles, an Aceh in Java, memories of the East Turkestan which the Chinese took away from me in 1949, a displaced Tamil in Jaffna, a Tibetan in Dharamshala, a Chakma in Chittagong Hill tracts
I don't know which country I belong to; clinging on to the immediate notions of motherland
I've always been grappling with definition: Who am I?
Am I a minor minority voice in this huge protest industry? A commodity in such multiplex times.....
I can hear a rumbling from the sky ....I don't even know when the acid rain will fall.....my skin is on fire in such toxic times
The shook the British Power received through the partition has never been equalled by any other act. This does not mean that the other injustices done on India are less glaring than those done by the partition. The salt-tax was not a small injustice. We shall see many such things later on. But the people were ready to resist the partition. At that time feelings ran high. The leading Bengali’s were ready to give up their all. They knew their power, and hence the conflagration
The sky today is sombre. There are thunderclouds drifting all over the place. The river has turned toxic. The mountains have lost all their vegetation. Nowadays, I don’t see dreams; nightmares occur to me with unfailing regularity tan that regularity seems to have taken a normal hue. And I seem to ask myself this question, what is nature? What is against the order of nature? Should traditions inspire us or dictate us? Even a straight line is a concentric circle depending on which dimension you look at it from. I don’t want to be a footnote in your historical trashcan or a deleted file in the recycle bin. I am a strange voice. And my strangeness is my normalcy. But your normalcy is your strangeness.
the fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on the force of arms but on the force of truth or love. therefore, the greatest and most impeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact that, in-spite of the war of the worlds, it still lives on. thousands, indeed tens of thousands depend for there existence on a very active working of this force. little quarrels of millions of families in their daily lives disappear before the exercise of this force. hundreds of nation live in peace. History does not and cannot take note of this fact. History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul
I entered a room. There was one cot; one window; one small shaft of light entering from that hint of a window; one man-hole in the centre of the room; one type-writer in which you type with one finger; one television set which telecasts only a blur; one glass half-filled with stale water; one battered plate and one half-lit sun outside, giving suffused sun-rays
Nowadays, it is painful to be displaced. I don’t hear the rain anymore, consistent sounds of air-crafts from the promised land, hovering over my territory. Each broken building is yet another story of broken dolls, broken limbs, and lost tears from lost retina.
What do I do? My notions of music have changed, every time I lift the charcoal and it touches the paper, figures that come out are of noxious fumes, noxious forms…that seem to choke me. Barbed wires, Barbed fences. Lost fractals in lost time
There can be no advantage in suppressing, an eruption; it must its vent. If, therefore, before we can remain at peace we must fight amongst ourselves, it is better that we do so. There is no occasion for a third party to protect the weak. It is this so-called protection which has unnerved us. Such protection can only make the weak weaker. Unless we realize this, we cannot have Home rule
Inside the forest a variety of sounds play themselves out… screech, howl, roar, or even small low intensity tears. What do I do if I am a minority in a Batticaloa. Isn’t it ridiculous, when you use humans as human shield, the very purpose of existence gets denied.
I have one leg and the other one has became redundant when I stepped into a landmine. I am now hobbling with a makeshift wooden crutch from one relief camp to another. Barbed wires around the camp. Food packets with insufficient quantity. Ceylon datelines keep flying by. 1983, 1984, 1987, 2009 .....as I keep turning the pages of every year, I am reduced to being a "clunker." A political footnote of our turbulent times.
I am an internally displaced refugee. Like a football in a soccer match between the state-of the-mind and the mind-of-the-state. My voice is not heard because I seemed to have lost mine.
The English have not taken India, we have given it to them. They are not here because of their strength, but because we keep them. Let us now see whether these propositons can be sustained. They originally came to our country for the purposes of trade. Recall the company Bahadur. Who made it Bahadur? They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom. Who assisted the company's officers? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who bought their goods? As history testifies it was we who did all this. In order to become rich, we welcomed the company's officers with open arms. We assisted them
So, I cannot relax and shrug off the changes around me. I cannot live in a fancytopia. Pretending that these changes do not bother me. I have to re-orient constantly to include the changes in my context.
To sign off in Gandhiji's words: Not so. The proclamation of 1857 was given at end of a revolt, for the purpose of preserving peace. When peace was secured, and people became simple-minded, its full effect was toned down. If I cease stealing for fear of punishment, I would recommence the operation as soon as fear is withdrawn from me. This is almost a universal experience. We have assumed that we can get men to do things by force, and, therefore we use force.
Faultline 2: Hind Swaraj in action..let’s look at the multi-cultural hues in France..let's look at some scribbles from the digital domain
HOW CAN ONE BE MUSLIM IN FRANCE?
The question posed in the title, which hints at Montesquieu's famous query:- "How can one be Persian?" also focuses both on the debate on culture and religion in the French definition of citizenship and secularism, and on the failure of universalisation faced with the double movement of Trans-nationalism and identity. It is illustrated in French political debate and public opinion by a continuous questioning about legacy, allegiance, intrusion from people of Islamic culture and Maghrebian origin. Several times, the allegiance of populations of Islamic culture has been questioned. On the other hand, Islam both as a religion and as a collective identity is now part and parcel of the French political space. How can we manage this entanglement of relationship, playing over nation states, borders and allegiances?
We have to analyse the place of Islam in the French internal and external political order and the role of transnational relations in this new political game. The visibility of Islam in France with its various sociological ways of life, and the transnational mediators, is questioning the French definition of citizenship and the new building of identities around ethnic and- religious belongings.
DIVERSITY LINKED TO HISTORY
It is difficult to give precise figures of the number of Muslims in France because, since the census of 1986, membership to a religious faith is no longer asked for. We can, however, assert that they represent between 3 and 4 million people. In spite of the frequent references to the Islamic community in France, it is far from homogeneous. It is less and less so because of a plurality of cleavages of nationalities, age, sex, trends linked to' various periods of immigration and identification points, even if all these features are not a decisive factor for the degree of homogeneity of a community. Islam in France was brought by five 'waves' of immigration since the First World War. The immigrants included Tunusians, Moroccans and Algerians among others.
Sunnite in its majority, Islam in Franca is dominated by Maghrebians who 'give the tune'. Today, even if "Maghrebian Islam' becomes more and, more a French Islam because of the French nationality of those belonging to the Muslim culture, it gathers many groups: young Franco Maghrebians (one million), Maghrebians of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco (1,412,000 at the census of March 1990), Black Africans (178,000 half of them belonging to Islamic culture), Turks (201,000), French Muslims (harkis, 500,000), Pakistanis and others (50,000), converted French- (50,000).
Polycentric game
If the image of French public opinion is still full of the old image of a population turned towards its region of origin, the reality is very different. Second generation Franco Maghrebians, new migratory waves from Maghreb, are playing with community feelings and identity self-belonging and are building mediation between politics and religion, lower classes and elites, towns and suburbs, 'here' and 'there' in the transnational political field. But in their behaviour, they are mostly characterized by re-centring their attitudes. These processes and changes are also linked 10 institutions and to formal and informal structures. The main role belongs to the freedom of association, granted by the socialist law of October 9, 1981, when foreigners became ruled like the French
And finally while wrapping up....
Let's debate the force, the use brutality and thought control. Twenty years on the scars of Tiananmen are still fresh. At the end of this constant debate, let us change the context and not the pretext. Let us not "Yes" to the co-oerced "Yes" and also at the same time we also have to shout an emphatic "no." Let us not be co-opted by the regime of status quo. Let us still be the change that attempts to change even if it gloriusly fails each time.
The production weaves in a host of fault-lines to create a collage of words, sounds and silences. And debates with Hind Swaraj rather than just perform the lines.
(All the quotation in italics have been taken from Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. 2009 is the centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj or the Indian Home Rule)
Jottings on Hind Swaraj and locating a few fault-lines:
It is chilling but true. 100 years after Hind Swaraj's publication it is dangerously relevant. As relevant as ever. More real than reality television. Especially at a time when misplaced ambitions and even more misplaced notions development are so rampant that we have lost our rights-based core. That the undercurrent of constructive dissidence have almost disappeared from our notions of spirituality. He argues that did we ever have one?
When a man rises from sleep, he twists his limbs and is restless. Similarly, although the Partition has caused an awakening, the comatose condition has not yet disappeared. We are still twisting our limbs and are still restless, and just as the state between sleep and awakening is considered to be necessary, so is the present unrest in India be considered a necessary and therefore, a proper state. The knowledge that there is unrest will, it is highly probable, enable us to outgrow it. Rising from sleep, we do not continue in the comatose condition, but according to our abilities, we are soon restored to our senses......Gandhiji in Hind Swaraj
2009: One hundred years of a seminal work. When Hind Swaraj was first published many raised eyebrows. Many believed that here was a pamphlet of anarchy. A century later, Hind Swaraj still answers many questions especially the disturbing one: Who or what makes a role model? For that matter can the state be a role model? Role model in a is never the figurehead it is always an idea. And what matters is not who did what instead who changed what?
It can be a change in the mindset. It can be a change in the way of national, local or even neighbourhood thinking. It can be bringing/introducing/re-introducing changes that make a tangible difference. Yes, the idea is defined by age but not merely the biological age. As Gandhiji says in Hind Swaraj that it is ultimately the soul force, which is the core.
This force has to be defined by the newness of thinking, the ability to dare and to look the odds into the eye. A change-maker can be a theatre director, sportsman, a peacenik, a labourer, a human rights activist, a sportsman, a painter, a lawyer, a bunch of activists or even a group or collective that gives birth to an idea who's time has come or which is far ahead of times. But the change maker has to be in active change and not some passive theoretical change that is chained by academic pedagogy.
Idea is not something you paste on the walls. You do that for heroes or superstars, the landscape of ideas are a little different. So, it is a tragedy that a Bob Marley ends up more being in the T-shirt rather in the protestscape. Any activist wants activism to be cool but with a philosophical core. We mixed up this manufactured aura coolness as being fashionably trendy. The cultural voyeurs that turned the Swaraj into a marketable commodity than as a light in such noxious times. As Gandhiji so rightly puts it in Hind Swaraj:
Swaraj is when we learn to rule ourselves. It is therefore, in the palm of our hands. Do not consider this Swaraj to be just a dream. There is no idea of sitting still. The Swaraj which I wish to picture is that, after we have once realized it, we will endeavour to the end of our life-time to persuade others to act likewise. This Swaraj needs to be experienced, by each one of himself. One drowning man will never save another. Slave ourselves, it might be mere pretension to think, of saving others. Now as you have seen it is not necessary for us to have as our goal the expulsion of the English. If the English become Indianized, we can accommodate them. If they remain in India along with their civilization we have no room for them. It lies with us to bring such state of changes.
Passive resistance is the method of securing rights through personal suffering. It is, the opposite of resistance by arms. If I refuse to do a thing is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force. For instance, the government of the day has passed a law which is applicable to me. I do not like it. If I use violence to force the government to repel the law, I am employing what is termed as body-force. I don’t obey the law and accept the penalty for the breech, I use soul-force. It is the sacrifice of self.
Our immediate protestscape is a series of images. Ranging from Manipur to East Timor. >From struggles in Aceh to images of Iraq. From the starkness of Bhopal to lost hope in Golan Heights. The body is used as a tool to look at the images that haunt us. And the praxis, the dialectic that guides us through this choppy images is Gandhiji's lines in Hind Swaraj. That hammers away the fact.
We have to realise that world is not a bunch of celebrities doing some inane populist nonsense and pretending that they are the world. They can be "a" world and not "our" world. Our world is individual, a small core and the collective. The individual contain multitudes, the core contains some specific aspirations and the collective nurses that individual flame of dissent. So ideas are humane-yet-out-of-the-box, dense, multi-directional, multi-faceted and believes in a collage of slogans that enhances humanity and not merely showcases individual aspiration. Aspirations that percolate and churn the cesspool. Let's go back to Gandhiji's prophetic lines in Hind Swaraj:
Everybody admits that self-sacrifice is infinitely superior to the sacrifice of others. Moreover if such a cause is unjust only the person using it suffers. He does not make others suffer for his mistakes. Men have before done many things that they have subsequently found to be wrong. No man can claim that he is absolutely in the right or that a particular thing is wrong because he thinks so, but it is wrong for him so long as that is his deliberate judgment. It is therefore meant that he should not do that which he knows to be wrong and suffer the consequence. This is the key to the use of soul force
So whether we like it or not we have to look at the futility of violence especially the state-sponsored ones. But the path still has painful snapshots that keep confronting us.
This year-2010 is an interesting year in terms of landmarks. Centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. Centenary of Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech. Centenaries of EMS and Nripen Chakraborty-two of the Marxist stalwarts of the sub-continent(at a time when the Official Left-in-power in three states have unleashed their brand of oppression). Completion of the Sixty years of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Completion of Twenty Five years of Bhopal Gas Tragedy and the centenary celebration of International Women's Day.
This year is also completion of centenary of an association that had one of the deepest philosophical churnings of our time between Gandhiji and Leo Tolstoy (infact it was in 1909 when Gandhiji translated in Gujarati, Leo Tolstoy's Letter to Hindoo ). The year also marks the centenary long association of Gandhiji with the visionary architect Herman Kallenbach.
On the voyage from England to South Africa aboard the SS Kildonian Castle, Gandhiji wrote Hind Swaraj in 10-days flat. Interestingly, he wrote almost in a trance sometimes writing with left hand when the right hand was tired. Our idea of producing Hind Swaraj's first ever theatre production is to bring out the essence of a classic that talks about the machines that enslaves us. And also tells us unequivocally the difference between development and sustainable development.
Let' s jump cut to a Gandhiji quote: .....I should be prepared to be killed by an arrow of Bhil than to seek unmanly protection...and it is the same person who also says in Hind Swaraj: I can never subscribe to the statement that every Englishmen is bad. Many Englishmen desire Home Rule for India. That the Englishmen are somewhat more selfish than others is true but that does not prove that every Englishman is bad. We who seek justice shall give justice to others. Sir William does not wish ill to India, --- that should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will see that, if we act justly, India shall sooner be free. You will also see that, if we shun every Englishmen as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we are just to them, we shall receive their support in our process towards the goal
Into that realm where braveness become a mindset and not bravado and there is an underlying humanism that constantly runs through the sub-text..... lies our production.
Our at least that is where it should lie.
I do not for one moment believe that my life would have been wasted, had I not received higher or lower education. Nor do I consider that I
necessarily serve because I speak. But I do desire to serve and in endeavouring to fulfil that desire, I make use of the education I have
received. And if I am making good use of it, even then it is not for the millions, but I can use it only for such as you, and this supports
my contention. Both you and I have come under the bane of what is mainly false education. I claim to have become free form its ill
effect, and I am trying to give you the benefit of my experience, and in doing so, I am demonstrating the rottenness of this education
There's this edge. Perched precariously on the cliff you realise that if you tilt a little more you die. If you don't fall you are still convinced still of not living with great relish. It is that state of a queer quasi-adventure where we should locate our Gandhian thoughts. His texts are real.....
the workers in the mills of Bombay have become slaves. the conditions of these women working in these mills is shocking.
when there were no mills, these women's weren't starving.
if the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy land
Standing in a no man's land is a strange feeling. On one hand you have your own country and on the other hand you have the populist notion of the other country always described as other. So, i have to prove myself to be an Algerian in Paris, an Eritrean in Ethiopia, Gabonese in Bordeaux, Ivory Coast refugee in Marseilles, an Aceh in Java, memories of the East Turkestan which the Chinese took away from me in 1949, a displaced Tamil in Jaffna, a Tibetan in Dharamshala, a Chakma in Chittagong Hill tracts
I don't know which country I belong to; clinging on to the immediate notions of motherland
I've always been grappling with definition: Who am I?
Am I a minor minority voice in this huge protest industry? A commodity in such multiplex times.....
I can hear a rumbling from the sky ....I don't even know when the acid rain will fall.....my skin is on fire in such toxic times
The shook the British Power received through the partition has never been equalled by any other act. This does not mean that the other injustices done on India are less glaring than those done by the partition. The salt-tax was not a small injustice. We shall see many such things later on. But the people were ready to resist the partition. At that time feelings ran high. The leading Bengali’s were ready to give up their all. They knew their power, and hence the conflagration
The sky today is sombre. There are thunderclouds drifting all over the place. The river has turned toxic. The mountains have lost all their vegetation. Nowadays, I don’t see dreams; nightmares occur to me with unfailing regularity tan that regularity seems to have taken a normal hue. And I seem to ask myself this question, what is nature? What is against the order of nature? Should traditions inspire us or dictate us? Even a straight line is a concentric circle depending on which dimension you look at it from. I don’t want to be a footnote in your historical trashcan or a deleted file in the recycle bin. I am a strange voice. And my strangeness is my normalcy. But your normalcy is your strangeness.
the fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on the force of arms but on the force of truth or love. therefore, the greatest and most impeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact that, in-spite of the war of the worlds, it still lives on. thousands, indeed tens of thousands depend for there existence on a very active working of this force. little quarrels of millions of families in their daily lives disappear before the exercise of this force. hundreds of nation live in peace. History does not and cannot take note of this fact. History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul
I entered a room. There was one cot; one window; one small shaft of light entering from that hint of a window; one man-hole in the centre of the room; one type-writer in which you type with one finger; one television set which telecasts only a blur; one glass half-filled with stale water; one battered plate and one half-lit sun outside, giving suffused sun-rays
Nowadays, it is painful to be displaced. I don’t hear the rain anymore, consistent sounds of air-crafts from the promised land, hovering over my territory. Each broken building is yet another story of broken dolls, broken limbs, and lost tears from lost retina.
What do I do? My notions of music have changed, every time I lift the charcoal and it touches the paper, figures that come out are of noxious fumes, noxious forms…that seem to choke me. Barbed wires, Barbed fences. Lost fractals in lost time
There can be no advantage in suppressing, an eruption; it must its vent. If, therefore, before we can remain at peace we must fight amongst ourselves, it is better that we do so. There is no occasion for a third party to protect the weak. It is this so-called protection which has unnerved us. Such protection can only make the weak weaker. Unless we realize this, we cannot have Home rule
Inside the forest a variety of sounds play themselves out… screech, howl, roar, or even small low intensity tears. What do I do if I am a minority in a Batticaloa. Isn’t it ridiculous, when you use humans as human shield, the very purpose of existence gets denied.
I have one leg and the other one has became redundant when I stepped into a landmine. I am now hobbling with a makeshift wooden crutch from one relief camp to another. Barbed wires around the camp. Food packets with insufficient quantity. Ceylon datelines keep flying by. 1983, 1984, 1987, 2009 .....as I keep turning the pages of every year, I am reduced to being a "clunker." A political footnote of our turbulent times.
I am an internally displaced refugee. Like a football in a soccer match between the state-of the-mind and the mind-of-the-state. My voice is not heard because I seemed to have lost mine.
The English have not taken India, we have given it to them. They are not here because of their strength, but because we keep them. Let us now see whether these propositons can be sustained. They originally came to our country for the purposes of trade. Recall the company Bahadur. Who made it Bahadur? They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom. Who assisted the company's officers? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who bought their goods? As history testifies it was we who did all this. In order to become rich, we welcomed the company's officers with open arms. We assisted them
So, I cannot relax and shrug off the changes around me. I cannot live in a fancytopia. Pretending that these changes do not bother me. I have to re-orient constantly to include the changes in my context.
To sign off in Gandhiji's words: Not so. The proclamation of 1857 was given at end of a revolt, for the purpose of preserving peace. When peace was secured, and people became simple-minded, its full effect was toned down. If I cease stealing for fear of punishment, I would recommence the operation as soon as fear is withdrawn from me. This is almost a universal experience. We have assumed that we can get men to do things by force, and, therefore we use force.
Faultline 2: Hind Swaraj in action..let’s look at the multi-cultural hues in France..let's look at some scribbles from the digital domain
HOW CAN ONE BE MUSLIM IN FRANCE?
The question posed in the title, which hints at Montesquieu's famous query:- "How can one be Persian?" also focuses both on the debate on culture and religion in the French definition of citizenship and secularism, and on the failure of universalisation faced with the double movement of Trans-nationalism and identity. It is illustrated in French political debate and public opinion by a continuous questioning about legacy, allegiance, intrusion from people of Islamic culture and Maghrebian origin. Several times, the allegiance of populations of Islamic culture has been questioned. On the other hand, Islam both as a religion and as a collective identity is now part and parcel of the French political space. How can we manage this entanglement of relationship, playing over nation states, borders and allegiances?
We have to analyse the place of Islam in the French internal and external political order and the role of transnational relations in this new political game. The visibility of Islam in France with its various sociological ways of life, and the transnational mediators, is questioning the French definition of citizenship and the new building of identities around ethnic and- religious belongings.
DIVERSITY LINKED TO HISTORY
It is difficult to give precise figures of the number of Muslims in France because, since the census of 1986, membership to a religious faith is no longer asked for. We can, however, assert that they represent between 3 and 4 million people. In spite of the frequent references to the Islamic community in France, it is far from homogeneous. It is less and less so because of a plurality of cleavages of nationalities, age, sex, trends linked to' various periods of immigration and identification points, even if all these features are not a decisive factor for the degree of homogeneity of a community. Islam in France was brought by five 'waves' of immigration since the First World War. The immigrants included Tunusians, Moroccans and Algerians among others.
Sunnite in its majority, Islam in Franca is dominated by Maghrebians who 'give the tune'. Today, even if "Maghrebian Islam' becomes more and, more a French Islam because of the French nationality of those belonging to the Muslim culture, it gathers many groups: young Franco Maghrebians (one million), Maghrebians of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco (1,412,000 at the census of March 1990), Black Africans (178,000 half of them belonging to Islamic culture), Turks (201,000), French Muslims (harkis, 500,000), Pakistanis and others (50,000), converted French- (50,000).
Polycentric game
If the image of French public opinion is still full of the old image of a population turned towards its region of origin, the reality is very different. Second generation Franco Maghrebians, new migratory waves from Maghreb, are playing with community feelings and identity self-belonging and are building mediation between politics and religion, lower classes and elites, towns and suburbs, 'here' and 'there' in the transnational political field. But in their behaviour, they are mostly characterized by re-centring their attitudes. These processes and changes are also linked 10 institutions and to formal and informal structures. The main role belongs to the freedom of association, granted by the socialist law of October 9, 1981, when foreigners became ruled like the French
And finally while wrapping up....
Let's debate the force, the use brutality and thought control. Twenty years on the scars of Tiananmen are still fresh. At the end of this constant debate, let us change the context and not the pretext. Let us not "Yes" to the co-oerced "Yes" and also at the same time we also have to shout an emphatic "no." Let us not be co-opted by the regime of status quo. Let us still be the change that attempts to change even if it gloriusly fails each time.
The production weaves in a host of fault-lines to create a collage of words, sounds and silences. And debates with Hind Swaraj rather than just perform the lines.
(All the quotation in italics have been taken from Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. 2009 is the centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj or the Indian Home Rule)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)