HVK Archives: Land of killjoys
Land of killjoys - The Hindustan Times
Amulya Ganguli
()
3 May 1997
Title : Land of killjoys
Author : Amulya Ganguli
Publication : The Hindustan Times
Date : May 3, 1997
Whether it is the Miss World pageant or Enron or Kentucky Fried Chicken or the
Yanni concert, one can safely predict that a vociferous group will take to the
streets against it. lie reasons may vary from cultural pollution to imperialist
conspiracy to damage to the Taj, but the objective remains the same -to take up
cudgels against the foreign schemers and their Indian agents and drive them out of
the country.
Where Indians were earlier derided for their "craze for phoren", they may soon
come to be known for reimposing the old concept of "kalapani", only this time the
injunction will tie not against those wishing to set out on a voyage across the
dreaded oceans, but against those crossing these expanses to visit our shores.
The time-honoured concept of the mlechha - the unclean foreigner - may well be
revived and those consorting with them face the threat of ostracism.
Interestingly, denoting that Indians are the same beneath their diverse exterior,
both the left and the right display the same antagonism towards the outsiders.
The reasons are, of course, different for it would have been too much to expect
them to start sharing the same world-view, although nothing can be ruled out in
these unprincipled days.
To the left, the men from the West continue to represent the old capitalist ploy
to exploit the poor and reap massive profits. Had they been .from the East, for
instance, like the Soviets who were invited to build the Bakreshwar thermal power
station in West Bengal, the left would not have minded because such a venture
would have underlined the solidarity of the international proletariat. But the
problem is that the east wind has died down and it is the beguiling breeze from
the west that is now blowing across the country. True, there are a few on the
left who have begun to think that not making use of this breeze will be a
historical blunder, but not all are convinced.
So far as the right - or, rather, the ultra-right - is concerned, the main danger
from the west wind is the element of hedonism that it threatens to spread,
especially among the middle classes which the ultra-right believes is its new
constituency. But it is not sure as yet as to how to cope with the menace and it
is scared of a clampdown lest this alienate this specific group. So it has to
watch in dismay as serials like Baywatch or even vegetable burgers at McDonalds
divert the mind of the younger generation from the task of nation-building which,
at the moment, amounts to building the Ayodhya temple. Like the mullahs in Iran,
to whom Baywatch is anathema, the mahants in India too, want a certain amount of
tension to prevail in society which liberalisation tends to dispel.
In addition to the specific prejudices of the left and the right, there are the
do-gooders who quail at the prospect of Enron producing uninterrupted power or a
dam helping irrigation. They hark back to the idyllic India of villages happily
asleep soon after sunset - no television or even transistors blaring out vulgar
film songs - and of farmers content with what nature produces without the
intervention of concrete monstrosities. One of the do-gooders' ally is the
prohibitionist who expects men to return home after an honest day's work, drink a
healthy glass of milk, play ludo with the children and praise their mothers-in-law
before their beaming wives.
Hence, their determined opposition to foreigners entering this happy land with
their materialistic culture and undermining all our cherished values. Given such
an attitude, it may not be besides the point to argue that a major obstacle to
adopting the path of liberalisation is not so much political as attitudinal. The
political objectives may be gradually overcome as even the leftists realise the
unlikelihood of a return to the halcyon days of high taxes, inefficient public
sector undertakings, poverty alleviation schemes allotting 15 paise for every
rupee to the poor, and ministers and officials sitting tight over industrial
proposals.
But attitudes are another matter. To many Indians, pleasure is something which is
not sinful so much as frivolous - unworthy of our noble, plain living and high
thinking ideal of fife. The hedonism of the West is a sign of its immaturity. We
are above all that. It is a different matter that the western world wins all the
Nobel Prizes and sporting medals. We like to look only at their broken homes and
drug addiction and console ourselves that we are much better off.
>From B. V. Keskar's ban on film music on All India Radio in the fifties to the
protests against the Miss World show, there runs a deeply-ingrained suspicion in
the Indian mind about anything remotely sensuous lest they promote depravity. If
our ubiquitous killjoys had their way, Indian TV will have only one channel,
starting with bhajan in the morning ("God is good"), followed by news based on
official handouts ("Mera Bharat Mahan"), afternoon serials in which good prevails
and the bad is punished, Krishi Darpan in the evening ("India lives in its
villages") and classical music - alternately Hindustani and Carnatic - to put you
to sleep. Deprivation in this fife, the Indians believe, will bring greater
happiness in the next one.
In The Continent of Circe, Nirad Chaudhuri writes: "According to Hindu philosophy
suffering is of three kinds; that which proceeds from the 'self ; that which comes
from external sources... and that which is inflicted by supernatural agencies and
acts of God. It should be noted that the classification is only by the sources of
suffering, and not by its nature, which is one - suffering of the body."
According to him, "the idea of universal and inescapable suffering does not come
from moral or spiritual experience, from any feeling of being abandoned by God, or
from the spectacle of evil. No Hindu thinker 'would have understood the agony of
St. Augustus." Furthermore, "to Hindu philosophy... these forms of suffering are
not, to use a musical term, the accidentals of life, but its main key. That
outlook is possible only among those who have been beaten by nature and broken in
spirit. All of it boils down to one simple fact: collapse of courage and
vitality."
Nirad Chaudhuri ascribes this loss of vitality to the enervating Indian weather to
which the migrating Aryans from the colder north could not become accustomed. The
ultra-right, of course, would tend to argue with M. S. Golwalkar that "the Arctic
Home (of the Aryans) in the Vedas was verily in Hindustan itself and that it was
not the Hind us who migrated to that land but the Arctic Zone which emigrated and
left the Hindus in Hindustan." But that is another story.
Nothing quite emphasises the futility of pleasure than a terrifying parable from
Jain literature according to which a man, chased by a wild elephant, jumps into an
old wed "craving to five if only a moment longer... A clump of reeds grew from its
deep wall, and to this he clung... below him he saw terrible snakes, enraged at
the sound of his falling; and at the very bottom... was a black and mighty
python."
Even as the man thought that "my life will only last as long as these reeds hold,"
a honeycomb nearby "shook Those and fell. The man's whole body was stung by a
swarm of angry bees but, just by chance, a drop of honey fell on his head, rolled
down his brow, and somehow reached his lips, and gave him a moment's sweetness."
The commentary on this piece says that the wild elephant is death, the tuft of
reed is man's lifespan, the stinging bees are diseases, the python is hell and the
drops of honey are trivial Treasures. "How can a wise man want them in the midst
of such peril and hardship?"
Reared on such stories, Indians seem to have developed an attitude of pessimism
which frowns on anything which carries a hint of enjoyment. It is interesting
that for all the money wrapped up in bedcovers and stuffed in polythene bags, Mr
Sukh Ram was found staying at his daughter's middle class home in England, not
living it up in Las Vegas. He could not even enjoy the taste of honey, as in the
parable.
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