An idea of India

What do I say? The well of words has dried up in me, as it were. A tsunami of sorrow washes through the concentric circles of my being, which begin with the personal ‘i’, as in me, and goes on to embrace the parts of me that are linked to family, colleagues, society, nation, humanity, the whole universe. Where does this darkness end?

This tragedy has left us feeling raw, vulnerable, wounded. As a nation, as a culture, as members of humankind. In this situation, it is easy to find solace in righteous anger, hatred, fantasies of violent retribution. As each moment brought fresh news of this senseless, inhuman massacre, I found myself alternatively feeling angry, despondent, helpless. And then, a moment of quiet grace. The insistent thought — what can I do to help? And a response – anything can be neutralised and defeated by bringing into play its exact opposite.

It is actually a very simple dictum that each one of us has felt so many times in our lives. If you feel hot, drink something cool. If you ate something spicy, follow it up with something sweet. If somebody is angry with you, reacting with anger only adds fuel to fire.

If, as so many analysts have pointed out, this was an attack on the very “idea of India”, the best we can do to counter it is to strengthen that core ideal. It is a good time to think what India means to each one of us, what is it about India that we love and cherish. And then pour ourselves into actualising these values consciously and mindfully. With our complete dedication and sincerity.

It might mean, we don’t pay bribes to find an easy way out of a mess. Or, it could mean we speak up when we see an injustice is done. It could mean joining politics to see if we really can change the way things work. For me, personally, it is finding a way of rejuvenating the ancient streams of wisdom and insight this land has birthed and nurtured over centuries, through my living, my writing and through communicating the voices of men and women who are immersed in this endeavour.

If each one of us becomes a keeper of the idea of India, a custodian of this precious inheritance, a warrior of peace and compassion, something constructive would have emerged out of this cesspool of pain and suffering. Most importantly, we would have negated the terrorist attack in mind and spirit as well. We would have honoured those who lost their lives with an offering from the deepest part of our selves. And we would have forged bonds of togetherness as human beings, and as children of this great mother culture that has nurtured so many, and so much….

The Valley of my Heart

During my adolescence spent in a girls-only convent school in Delhi, we would often talk rather dreamily about love. We were waiting for our Prince Charming you see, and we wanted to be prepared when our soulmate, The One, looked deep in our eyes and asked us to marry him. Gosh, it all sounds so faraway and foolish now! But, we did bandy about some cliches that were actually rather wise in hindsight, such as, “You cannot force somebody to love you,” and “If you love somebody, set them free. If they come back to you, they are yours, otherwise they never were,” or words to that effect. You get the picture.

I was reminded of these two pieces of adolescent schoolgirl love wisdom recently, while watching the return of the ‘azadi’ sentiment in the Kashmir valley. Having grown up with a strongly nationalistic streak, having witnessed the separatist sentiments and the violence that accompanied them both in Punjab and Kashmir, and having lived through years of being told and believing in the slogan that “Kashmir is an inseparable part of India”, I must say that I have been forced to rethink. Can we, as a country, really force the people of Kashmir to love us and be a part of us, if they don’t really want to? Why must India enforce a people to be part of it if they don’t see any reason to, who don’t feel emotionally and psychologically connected to the idea of India, and don’t feel part of its civilisation?

Perhaps Kashmir has just cause to feel aggrieved and fed up with India. After all, it has been heavily militarised, the people have seen years of violence, and the political process has been compromised on many occasions. There are people far more competent than I who have spoken about the failure of the Indian state in Kashmir. I say, let’s recognise this failure. Let’s see the writing on the wall. Let’s be real. And let’s stop any possibility of another cycle of bloodshed immediately. Let’s hold a plebiscite in Kashmir. Let’s learn from the schoolgirls a bit of wisdom, and let’s set the people of Kashmir free to decide their destiny. If they feel any love towards India, they will vote accordingly. If not, then I say we let them go.

I never thought I’d be saying this. As an Indian who loves her country, but who loves the values this civilisation has stood for more than any jingoistic nationalism, I am compelled to think about the fact that India has never in her long history colonised any other nation. Wherever her impact has been felt outside the subcontinent, it has been in the form of an exchange and export of ideas, of spiritual wisdom. Never of bloodshed and political power. If a people don’t want India’s presence in their land, then for her to continue to do so, amounts to colonisation. These are issues that must be contemplated before Kashmir becomes a violent flashpoint again.

The Olympian Spirit?

The countdown to the Olympics has begun. Every day, we are assailed with news items and video clips of how grand everything is going to be, how hard China has worked to make this a truly spectacular spectacle, how magnificent all the new buildings are, etc, etc. And the Indian media is particularly enamoured of the magnificence of everything, the Chinese ‘will’ that has stopped cars and bulldozers to clean the Beijing air, how grand their stadia are…

All of which might be so, but who is looking behind the facade? Who is digging deep enough for the truth? Who is trying to see the face beneath the mask of make believe, make up? Anyone who has been to China as a tourist, businessperson, member of the media, or as part of a delegation, will vouch for the fact that it is difficult to veer away from set itineraries — that are designed and controlled by local authorities. A gentleman visiting Tibet was so sick of the official line of how everything is rosy and lovely that he feigned sickness, shook off his Chinese ‘host’, and sneaked out of the back door of the hotel to do some sightseeing on his own. And this was long before the March protests, or the paranoia brought on by the Olympics.

In their long history, the Olympics have not just stood for sport, nor an excuse for entertainment, nor as a platform for showing off material wealth and prosperity. They have symbolised the urge of the human spirit towards excellence, towards striving, towards all that is higher, faster, stronger.

China has ignored all these humanistic goals and reduced the games to a mere spectacle. Sure, a grand one, but an empty, soulless one that is all glitter and no soul. That is pretty for sure, but well, that’s all there is. Why do I say this? Because of the cruel oppression that has been intensified in the wake of the Olympics. Because of the fact that the wealth that has helped create this spectacle comes from a highly polluting, unsustainable model of development borrowed from Western market capitalism.

For an eyewitness account of the repression in Tibet, read this Huffington Post article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-novick/guilty-of-being-tibetan-s_b_115302.html

Blood on their hands

If there were any doubts about the repression perpetrated on the people of Burma by their rulers, Cyclone Nargis has effectively dispelled them. Even before disaster struck, there were signs of the tragedy that was to occur. The Burmese government, which had been warned of the impending cyclone by India, chose to do nothing. After the cyclone struck, it dragged its feet on disbursing aid, calling out its troops and pressing them into disaster management, and asking for international help.

The junta’s paranoia derives from its insatiable thirst for power, that one can equate with bloodthirst given its track record, which it has already lost in a way to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in the last free elections held in the country in 1990. While it found itself unable to use its army to begin immediate rescue operations, the junta lost no time in bringing the soldiers out against unarmed monks marching in the streets of Rangoon last year.

There is blood on the junta’s hands. But can India escape its part in supporting the dastardly regime?

Some days ago, at a forum that discussed Tibet in New Delhi, an esteemed foreign ambassador declared that India has effectively given up the “moral imperative” in her foreign policy and follows only its own self-interest. As a product of the last days of Nehruvian socialism, where one was brought up believing in the solidarity of the community of nations that condemned repression, colonialism and imperialism in all its forms, I must say I was shocked. But I needn’t have been. I should have just remembered India’s tacit support of the Burmese junta, and her inability to raise a voice in favour of the incarcerated “lady of Rangoon”, the symbol of democracy, grace and peaceful, non-violent resistance in the face of unimaginable brutality.

Today, India went a bit further in losing her liberal, democratic credentials. She invited/supported Burma’s bid for membership of SAARC. How ironical! The country that championed the international ban of the racist, apartheid regime of South Africa, is today best buds with one of the most murderous regimes in the world. And has invited it to the very forum that was once used to pressurise repressive regimes elsewhere.

If there’s blood on the junta’s hands, India must introspect whether she wants it on hers too.

[Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's website: http://www.dassk.com]

A new experiment with truth

Ever since protests broke out in Lhasa on March 14, the Dalai Lama’s ‘middle path policy’ has been criticised by many as being politically naïve and ineffective. It has been suggested that non-violence as a weapon of dissent cannot work against a totalitarian regime, that nobody in China is moved by his “appeals to their conscience”, even that he must stick to spirituality and leave politics to others better suited to its demands.

 

So, what are the demands of politics in our times? Ideology that appeals to narrow self-identities, cynicism that allows for the manipulation of people and systems, a way with words that might be persuasive but lacks sincerity, a posse of skilled spin doctors, deep pockets, and so on? Surely there is space in our world, not to mention a crying need, for a politician of a different sort. A spiritual politician in the tradition of the Platonic ‘philosopher-king’, who is motivated not by personal ambition but by the wish to serve. In the 14^th Dalai Lama, this ideal is a living reality.

 

Take, for instance, his refusal to hate the enemy or resort to a divisive rhetoric. While stating the facts about the repression of Tibet and standing by his beleaguered people, the Dalai Lama has tried to keep channels of communication with the Chinese government open. At a teaching in New Delhi in the last week of March, when every day brought fresh news of the brutal crackdown in Tibet, the Dalai Lama said, “Every evening, I give and take. I take all the hatred and negativity the Chinese direct towards me. And I give back compassion, loving kindness and peace to them.”

 

This perspective and its relentless daily practice is rooted in the Buddhist understanding of the mind as a dynamic process, as opposed to a fixed thing, which can be transformed through awareness and cultivation of positive mind-states. One may not be able to change one’s circumstances, but one can ensure one is equipped with a calm and compassionate mind to handle them.

 

To arrive at the truth, the Dalai Lama says he uses the Buddhist approach of eschewing extremes and examining an issue from multiple perspectives – a strategy that pre-empts rigid positions. Hence he is able to accommodate the other and see from standpoints other than his own, which has led to openness to dialogue and compromise in the worst situations.

 

Non-harming is crucial to the Buddhist worldview that sees reality as a chain of interconnected phenomena. Ends, therefore, cannot justify the means, it’s actually the means – how you make the journey – that justifies the ends. If you do get independence, and it comes because you have harmed the other, you have already lost what you were fighting for.

 

Those who feel the Dalai Lama’s non-violence has failed to save Tibet must ask, ‘What is the Tibet we are trying to save?’ Is it a geographical area, or is it also a unique civilisation? The Dalai Lama may have failed to liberate the former, but he has undeniably saved the latter.

 

At one level, his policy of non-violent resistance has prevented a holocaust in Tibet. At another, it is an affirmation of the ideals of Buddhism that are inextricably intertwined with Tibetan culture and identity. The Dalai Lama has wrested Tibetan civilization from spiritual decline by challenging it to practise its ancient ideals in the here and now. Just as Mahatma Gandhi inspired India to live up to her civilizational values of satya (the pursuit of truth) and ahimsa (non-harming), and turn them into practicable means to an ethical end.

 

Yet, Gandhi did not wish India to return to some glorified past. He was impatient with aspects of tradition that were unjust and disconnected from modern humanism, like untouchability, caste and communal divides, women’s subjugation, and worked tirelessly to weed them out. The Dalai Lama, too, is a modern mind committed to positive change through social innovation. He has ensured the Tibetan government-in-exile is democratically elected, and has made it clear that feudal Tibet is history. He admires Marxism for its stress on economic equality, is ecologically aware, keenly engages with the sciences, and has ensured modern education for exiled Tibetans.

 

At a deeper level, the Dalai Lama has encouraged his people to develop a strong ethical core. To retaliate with guns and grenades is easy; to choose non-violence by connecting with an inclusive compassion, and viewing life as not shaded by likes and dislikes but as a whole, requires far greater courage. Which is perhaps why the Indic wisdom traditions accorded the greatest respect to those who conquered their inner demons, who raised themselves out of narrow identities to a realisation of universal oneness, rather than those who conquered lands and peoples.

 

Not so long ago, we the people of India threw in our lot with a frail man in a loin-cloth because we were moved by his inner strength. Today, in a world where violence and weapons outweigh dialogue and reconciliation as responses to conflict, the Dalai Lama and his six million people have revived the spirit of Gandhi, just as the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King Jr., and the Anti-Apartheid struggle symbolised by Nelson Mandela, did.

 

Does today’s India have the spiritual strength to support this new experiment with truth?

 

[If you agree with the position articulated in this post, please visit this online petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/indtib35/petition.html]

History of violence

Last night, the television spewed images of the aftermath of violence yet again. There was blood on the streets of Jaipur. The seven simultaneous explosions had left the usually peaceful and vibrant city shell-shocked.

As I tried to call relatives who live there, frantically, because the phone lines were jammed, an old dread returned. A knot in the pit of my stomach that came from living through violence, that had marked me for life.

I was six years old when Mrs Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 and the anti-Sikh riots broke out. At night, we would sit outside in the verandah of our home during power cuts, and sometimes we could hear the roar of mobs out for revenge. Our quiet residential colony was filled with bloodthirsty shadows, and the sturdy whitewashed house my grandfather built after losing everything in the partition, suddenly seemed very vulnerable to the darkness of the night.

My years growing up were filled with the dread of bombs exploding in market places and cinema halls, or people driving by with AK 47s, randomly opening fire on bystanders. The drab Doordarshan news most days would be a litany of so-many-people-died-in-x-district-of-Punjab. Occasionally, Punjab was replaced by Delhi. There was often blood on the streets.

When militancy in Punjab died down, Kashmir took its place. We were again ‘unsafe’. By now, I was older and though perhaps not wiser, able to question the official explanations for all the violence. There was a ”foreign hand”, but weren’t those picking up arms our own people? How did the foreign hand succeed in getting them to do that? There must be a reason, and that was not difficult to find. All ”terrorism” began from some perceived or actual injustice, some grievance, some anger? Perhaps if it were dealt with through dialogue, through mutual respect, through trust and understanding, there wouldn’t be a need for people to be filled with so much hatred that it needed grenades and guns?

I know, I know. Things aren’t that simple. Reality is a complex knot of facts and perceptions, conditions and contexts. But somewhere, in independent India, the space for non-violent protest has been shrinking. In the country of Mahatma Gandhi, who used fasting as a credible means of political protest, a young woman is being force-fed through the nose, in police custody, since November 2000. Irom Sharmila is not demanding a separate state. Just the repealing of a draconian act, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, that has been used with immense brutality in the northeast, and has ensured that a part of a democracy remains under virtual military rule. [To read an interview with Sharmila, click here.]

If this is the way the state responds to non-violent ways of protest, is it a wonder fewer people use it to voice their grievance? And newer generations are condemned to live with blood on the very streets on which they play?

 

A matter of honour

Karnal is 135 km from Delhi. I often drive through it on my way to Himachal. Karnal’s economy seems to be booming. Which means, there are more cars, more shops, more advertisements for ‘branded goods’. One time, I stopped at a restaurant for a meal, and the gift shop next to it was filled with all kinds of goodies of the faux European kind — fat cherubs holding up clocks, golden fountains, large reproductions of the Manhattan skyline… You get the picture. The small town making good, the kind you’ll see all over India these days. 

The other day, Karnal was in the news, though not for its booming economy. A young woman, six months pregnant, had been killed by a group that included her father, and her body along with her lover’s, was thrown out into the streets. Where they lay, until the police arrived and took them away. The media calls it an ‘honour killing’. I call it a national shame.

The facts I have managed to gather seem a bit hazy. The young woman had been married against her wishes some years ago, though she was in love with another person. Her husband, finding out about this emotional infidelity, divorced her. After which, she chose to live with her lover and was now expecting a child with him. I don’t know if the two got married, or they chose to ignore social convention. Either way, the village decided that by making this choice, they had brought dishonour to the entire community. And since dishonour is worse than death, it must be avenged with death.

What made my blood run cold was a news cast on NDTV channel yesterday. The panchayat, the local governing body that is elected from among the village, had decided to meet so they could ’save’ the perpetrators of the heinous crime who were in jail and charged with murder. As the village ‘elders’ stood around, the reporter, a young woman, asked them about their view. “What happened was right,” they said, one after another, not a wrinkle of sorrow on their brows. By the end of it, the young reporter was visibly shaken, as was I.

Karnal has an abysmal sex ratio — 864 women to 1000 men. Which means it doesn’t find it particularly dishonourable to do away with its female fetuses and infants because of their gender. In recent years, it like many other districts of Haryana and Punjab with skewed sex ratios, has witnessed a shortage of brides. Which are then bought like cattle from other parts of India.  

Honour, it seems, in this context doesn’t really mean adherence to a set of personal ethics and values, of being upright in your conduct. Rather, it lies in what others (society, peers) think of you, how you come off according to set standards of behaviour. Needless to say, it is also a code of conduct that is heavily set against women, and where often, women are designated the repositories and conduits of honour. It is a code that will not brook any disagreement, that will not dialogue, that will eliminate dissent.

A link to a related article in the Indian Express:

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/308156.html 

 

Without a passport

Yes, it’s true. I am 30 years old, and I’ve never physically stepped out of the territorial boundaries of India. Where I was born, raised, educated. Where I write, weave ideas and experiences into garlands of words. Where I live in a nest of familial relationships. Where I have learnt to love with my whole being. Where I have been nurtured by a great mother civilisation, her echoes imprinted on our collective unconscious.

So much is written about India today. Mainly from the perspective of her growing economic might, her widening middle class, and sometimes, her spirituality. As one-fourth of the emerging quartet BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), her star appears to be on the ascendant. And yet, and yet…

It’s not just a question of the grinding poverty or lack of health care or basic education for a huge part of our population. It is not even just about corruption, as omnipresent as air it seems. Nor about a politics of opportunism, or a dysfunctional democracy. It is about ALL these and something more. Something that’s basic. Something which, ironically, India experimented with over the centuries. And that is ethics. Ethics rooted in spiritual insights such as oneness, nonduality, and the prioritisation of compassion over violence and aggression, inclusiveness over exclusion, frugality and the practice of taking only as much as one needs over consumerism.

Ethics that help us choose the real stuff in life — a good heart, a deep cherishing of life and relationships and so on — over the shallow materialism of more money, more things, more, more, more… Where craving for goodies as being the route to happiness is subsituted by other, real ways to happiness.

I do hope to bring this alternative view to the fore with this blog.