Commerce of Godmen

Commerce of Godmen

Spiritual entrepreneurs start with the peddling of intangibles by way of highfaluting sermons in florid flourishes of language, using arabesque turns of phrase and idiom. It is often accompanied by spectacular rituals that compel attention and the recycling of fossilised wisdom from old texts, all in exchange for the not so intangible collections from their followers ostensibly for the promotion of the Faith, the best Instrument to tackle the problems of the modern world. As Meera Nanda taunts in The God Market ‘...tradition is modernity and to go forward, Indians must face backward.’

Intoxicated by the unexpected success of these start-ups, the purveyors of supernatural and theological virtues first enter the fields of education and health care, both highly rewarding areas, and follow it up with obtaining grants of land from a benevolent government to aid their socially beneficent schemes. Exercising a business acumen that has been highly developed from the handling of large finances some eye real estate and parcel out land (against substantial donations) originally acquired for an Ashram, retailing it for the stay of devotees in the larger family defined by the ashram which is now lorded over by the New Age Guru.  Such is the usual trajectory of the Babas that a gullible population worships and deifies.

However, the ambitions of unbridled ascetics soar high and aspire to match the successes of the tycoons of commerce and industry. Diversification is the tool to use and the manufacture of fast moving consumer goods provides a potent answer. The constituency of devotees becomes a captive test market and in some cases acts as a distribution network greatly subsidising the costs of selling. Even the tasks of copywriters and advertisement managers become easy by using terms like Ayurveda, Patanjali, Science of the Ancients, Naturopathy, all of which tug at the emotions of a people not yet unburdened of tradition. The competition which starts by facing organised industry takes on a different fierceness when pitted between different ashrams. Brand loyalty is yoked to Guru loyalty.

If these spiritual enterprises, having co-opted the temporal without deviating from the spiritual, are to follow the well trodden path of modern industry, we may soon see black knights and white knights manoeuvering for control of the smaller corporations and even perhaps mergers and acquisitions. There are quite a few ashrams in decline and in need of resurrecting. Will the larger spiritual corporations come to their rescue?

As Gramsci said “The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions while not becoming disillusioned.” 

Men and Women Pray Together

Men and Women Pray Together

At last the Bombay High Court in a landmark judgment observed that it is the Fundamental Duty of the state to protect the Fundamental Rights of women. This was made in a verdict on a petition pleading for the entry of women into a temple which discriminated against their entry into specified areas. Interestingly and immediately some temples have taken to heart the recent advice of a Spiritual Guru advocating equidistance of both genders from sanctums and restricted the entry of both men and women to areas hitherto allowed to men only. 
There can be no better example of the superb art of living by cutting off the nose to spite the face. 
The High Court was hearing a public interest litigation challenging the prohibition on women’s entry to the shrine area at Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar district. The provisions of The Maharashtra Hindu Places of Public Worship (entry Authorisation) Act, 1956, would apply. The implementation of this law, which perhaps had been deliberately overlooked, would have a bearing on all the places where people are banned from entering temples on the basis of gender.

As it appears that the decision of a High Court of any state would be followed by all lower courts in the country, provided that a contrary judgement has not been passed by the High Court of that particular state where the lower court exercises jurisdiction, it would be interesting to see what would happen in the case of Sabarimala in Kerala (which is now before the Supreme Court) where  the Kerala government in its latest affidavit has said the prohibition of women is a matter of religion and it is duty-bound to “protect the right to practice the religion of these devotees”. Curiously enough, in a previous affidavit, it had supported a PIL seeking women’s entry in Sabarimala.

The Bombay High Court is waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on entry of women in the Kerala Sabairimala temple before deciding on the case of Haji Ali Dargah where women are not allowed entry and has kept a petition pending.

In this bewildering scenario would we have the industry of  ‘offended sentiments’ descend upon us if we enquire what the position of the temple and other shrine guardians would be if and when pious transgenders seek to pray at those shrines that exclude one gender.

KANHAIYA RE !

Kanhaiya  Re!

Breaking into a universe utterly bereft of ethics in politics we heard the voice of Kanhaiya exhorting his audience to free the nation of hunger, of poverty, of class, of caste and of capitalism among other inequalities.  The chant was for Azadi from the various deprivations and inequalities afflicting the nation, for freedom within the nation.  With the advent of television the source of connectedness is the televised speech and the print medium takes a back seat. Kanhaiya’s address at the JNU after his release was electric and in that one widely televised speech he stood in striking contrast to that other orator who won the BJP a stupendous electoral victory in 2014.

The Azadi chant was spontaneous, not the manufactured ‘Modi ! Modi !’ orchestrated like a number of Bhakts singing bhajans; no expressionless Modi masks but bright eyed young faces with a dream in their eyes; no rhetoric questioning begging for sycophantic answers, slily turning spectators into participants; no pejorative taunts but civilised disagreements with the opposition (not enemy); genuine applause not manufactured clapping - and replete with wit, sarcasm and humour, putting to shame our Members of Parliament. Kanhaiya will not need the aid of life imitating holograms for he will soon be having live replicas all over Universities in India.

       

        Why does Kanhaiya strike a chord in the hearts of his audience both live and televised?  He is the clever lad who turns Modi’s tweet on its head; the bright young man who reasons out his arguments and does not tug vainly on emotions; the boy who talks his jailer into understanding the meaning of Lal Salaam; the cheeky youth who deplores the Prime Minister merely talking his mind to the nation, not listening to it; he is the brave knight tilting at an overpoweringly mighty state. It seems utterly hopeless but we wish him to win.

        As I write this I read about the posters offering a bounty of 11 lac rupees on the head of Kanhaiya.  The posters have appeared all over Delhi and the redoubtable Delhi police are considering booking the authors for the defacing of public property! 

       

WATCH IT HERE     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jkQhAE-j8s

       

       

       

The Gender of the Gods

The Gender of the Gods

It starts before the beginning with a denial of entry to females into the womb by using an enterprising Godman’s  Divya Putrajeevak Beej medication which claims to install a divine gatekeeper at the womb keeping out prospective life which has XX chromosomes. If the gatekeeper has been careless the error is corrected with a murderous termination of the female foetus after a prenatal determination of its sex.

It is not only into some temples that one half of humanity is being denied entry.  They face a denial of entry into life itself.

The Semitic religions have male gods, Jehovah, the Lord Almighty and Allah but the polytheist Indic religions have been devised as gender equitable with space for both gods and goddesses.  So their places of worship have either a god or a goddess as the principal deity. And in the notable Sabarimala even the miraculous offspring from a transgender Mohini has been installed as a deity.

It makes one question the gender of the gods.

Whatever be the origin of this bias against women entering some temples and worshiping alongside with men we as a society must realise that the times have changed.  Old arguments of ‘centuries old traditions’ or of ‘the restriction ... ...prevailing in Sabarimala from time immemorial’  do sound ludicrous when mouthed by agents of a modern, elected  democratic government.  Kerala with its high literacy, higher than average Quality of Life index and a relatively high participation of women in public life finds its government anachronistically debating for the ban.

Political activity represents the aspiration of a people.  We are well past the age of monarchs and feudal chieftains who in earlier times claimed centuries old traditions and practices from time immemorial. We are striving to be modern and have welcomed women in the work place, in various professions (including soldiering) and in the conduct of public affairs. In keeping with this #gender justice diffusing in all other orders of society religion too must assign an equal place to women in all places of worship. 

The representatives of the people have a major role in doing this. 

After the Kerala government's stated position in the Supreme Court we now have the parties to the dispute in the Shani Shignapur temple pass the onus for a decision saying "now the ball is in the chief minister’s court.”

THE BIHAR EARTHQUAKE

THE  BIHAR  EARTHQUAKE

There has been an earthquake in Bihar.  All the seismologic instruments failed to forecast or even register the high magnitude quake as it occurred when the earth shook in disapproval of the despicable attempts to rip wide open ancient fault lines in Indian society. In that giant tremor some Colossuses fell from the high pedestals they had mounted, their feet of clay caving in with the upheaval.

What does one make of this? Commentators have been profuse in their explanations, their post facto vision as always being 20/20. Few gave credit to the farsightedness of Nitish Kumar who turned his back on hate politics well before Modi strutted across the All-India horizon. On hearing of the anointment of Narendra Modi as potential Prime Minister he had distanced himself more than two years ago from the BJP and started on that lonely long journey that culminated in the grand victory.

In an old film, Kalpana by the dancer Uday Shankar, a song stereotypes India’s regions with colourful adjectives;

veera panchanadi vasi,  -  valiant people of the five rivers

ganga jamuna ke buddhi vikasi, -the intellectually mature of Ganga and Jamuna

banga desh ke kala prakashi,  - the artistically developed of Bengal

karmakushala dakshina adivasi – the diligent people of the South

#Bihar, the land that gave the world the Buddha, has vindicated that old description of the riparian lands with an intelligent assertion of the primacy of social justice and dignity. They have rejected the insidious overtures to consolidate on religious identities; they have dismissed the overwhelming pleas to conform by voting for a party because it rules in Delhi; they have seen through the duplicity of lies and misinformation about caste and reservations; they have refuted the domination of power and money; they brought the proudly proclaimed ‘largest political party of the world’ to its knees.

Surprises do not end there. In an unusual flash of brilliance we have the aspiring Rahul say that truth prevailed, reiterating that the national motto of Satyameva Jayate has been proved once again.

Yet another natural phenomenon seems to be playing out here. Evolution through the occasional mutation starts by producing monsters.  The rest of the species when faced with abnormal deviants unite in a mahagathbandhan, a grand alliance, to pounce upon such monsters and destroy them until a hardier mutant evolves and proves fit enough to survive. This generation is being privileged to the witnessing of such an evolution.

THE GATHERING STORM

THE  GATHERING  STORM

Writers of India have united in protests and over a hundred writers and thinkers have marched on the streets of Delhi.  What they have demanded is the obviation of any intimidation of free artistic formulation and an unchained freedom for the artist. Murder is not a response to the penning of #dissent or expression of a differing opinion.

We should be pleased with this spontaneous reaction of an otherwise passive community like artists who prefer to have their opinions expressed through their talents in artistic reflection. Taking to the streets is alien to their nature and being compelled to do this speaks of the provocation that has driven them to this pass. When aggregated across the various languages writers and their fans do form a substantial constituency.  To the politicians who seek mass followings of any kind (even of the multitudes of devotees of God-men and Babas) this must seem a considerable challenge. They can ignore it only at their peril and so they try to meet it in the only way they know – the way of the street - organising a counter challenge of wiling collaborators in public and the not so cleverly concealed intimidation in private.

Now we have a gaggle of scientists from various laboratories including the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research protesting the imposition of policy by ideologues with no great achievements in science upon their Institutions.  This is also of a piece with the long drawn protest of students of The Film and Television Institute of India who contest the appointment of a pedestrian film actor to the high position of Director of the Institute. Again we find practitioners of the visual arts and performing arts taking part in the protests.  Today a clutch of filmmakers have also returned the very prestigious awards.  Protests have also filtered down to students who were being ridden roughshod on the non-NET scholarships and who marched against the UGC.

What do these disparate groups have in common?  Why have they called it a ‘collective onslaught on reason’? The ‘perverse consistency’ of the BJP would make it respond uniformly to all of these with a single answer stating that they are all Modi-haters. An otherwise sober Finance Minister has now called them  "rabid anti-BJP elements." Unable to distinguish shades of gray and accustomed to only the black and white of obsequiousness or hate they have to lump all varieties of opposition into one corral and then proceed to attack them more with emotion than with reason curiously labelling it as #intolerance..

But the protestors must see hope in the recent past.  Language, Literature, Art, and the very many other soft arts and sciences have an overwhelming power beyond their silent strength.   It was the Bengali language and its promoters that crystallised the birth of Bangladesh; it was language and the denial of status to Tamil that gave rise to the deadly LTTE and a prolonged crisis in Sri Lanka; it was the fraternity of lawyers that toppled the military dictator Musharraf in Pakistan. What will take place in India when the various trickles of dissent and discontent growing across this vast land combine to form a mighty overpowering wave?   That will be the gathering storm against which the gossamer umbrella of the Parivar will be no protection.

The flood of returned awards

Prestigous  awards are milestones in an artist's life and one does not lightly decide on returning what one has laboriously earned. Notwithstanding such returning of awards the honour and prestige that the recipient has garnered does not get diminished and in fact seems to get enhanced. The returning of a once conferred award signifies a growing discontent that erupts into an act of withdrawal or relinquishment as Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes when reminding us that Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi both returned their awards after the massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh. 

The target of disillusionment seems to be government authorities, Central and State arising from the fact that the Sahitya Academies are institutions supported solely by the state. Rulers have always supported the arts and patronage from Kings has yielded now to patronage from elected governments. With the rise of giant corporations in the modern industrialized world one finds an expression of corporate social responsibility in corporate supported foundations  encouraging 

artists with awards that carry substantial purses and coveted for the enormous prestige that accompanies them. 

Here then is a wonderful opportunity for enlightened Indian corporates to enter the vacuum being created and produce bodies like the Man Booker foundation and the Pulitzer foundation, instituting independent juries of learned persons to select men and women of distinction in the various forms of arts.With such actions can they overcome the tag of Philistinism and ensure that unfettered creativity in the arts will always prevail. I only know of the Hindu Literary Award from the Hindu Group of publications that is seeming to be the exception that proves the rule.