Anand Neelakantan's Blog
October 19, 2021
The reservation question
The union government recently announced 27% reservation for OBC and 10 % reservation for the economically weaker societies in medical courses. As expected, this decision gave rise to extreme reactions supporting and condemning this move from various quarters. Caste is an eternal curse of India and like any other bane, it cannot be just wished away.
For thousands of years, caste discrimination had kept away most members of our society from positions of power. Contrary to popular perception, the quota system didn’t begin after Independence. In fact, the idea of the affirmative program that started in 1950s was the culmination of at least seventy years of effort. During the British era, some communities like Brahmins dominated in the government service despite being less than 3 percent of the population. In Travancore, on 1st of January 1891, a plea known as the Malayali memorial was submitted for fair representation of other communities in Travancore’s government jobs that were dominated by Brahmins. Though no immediate government action followed, it paved the way for the idea of social justice and representation by the quota system. In 1882 and 1891, the princely state of Kolhapur introduced reservations in favour of non-Brahmins in the government. In 1921, the provincial government of Madras Presidency under the Justice party passed a government order that entailed power-sharing agreement between six communities, Brahmins, non-Brahmin Hindus, Mohammedans, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, and Europeans. The quota system as we know now started in 1954 with the ministry of education reserving 20 percent quota for SC and ST and relaxation of qualifying marks by 5 %. In 1982, the quota was split between SC and ST as 15 % and 7.5 % respectively.
The biggest and most controversial change that happened was when Mandal Commission was implemented in the 1990s. The commission constituted in 1979 had no contemporary data regarding the population of each community or their social status and used the 1931 pre-partition, pre-independence census to arbitrarily decide the communities to be included in the OBC and allot 27% quota. This was a purely political decision and the most powerful and numerical castes forced their way into this quota system with their vote banks. In 1992, Supreme Court put a cap on the quota system at 50%, but this hasn’t stopped many states from adding more and more communities into the OBC categories and even SC and ST. In Tamil Nadu, the reservation applies to 89% percent of the population, defeating its entire purpose.
As expected, the vast majority of those who criticise the quota system are from the upper castes. The most vociferous argument is about the erosion of merit due to reservations. They argue for economic status-based reservation. The pro-quota proponents counter this by saying reservation is not a poverty alleviation programme but is meant for social justice and representation. Both these arguments are tenuous at best and absurd at worst. How do we measure merit? Performance in a competitive test taken in one’s twenties is a measure of a person’s worth for the rest of his life? Does any test measure compassion, competency, creativity, etc that is needed to perform a job? How is someone who has the privilege of money, caste, and means for specialized coaching to crack competitive exams meritorious than someone having none of these and yet scores slightly lesser marks in a test? If we take reservation as just a means of representation, what is the purpose of the test itself? The communities should elect or nominate their representatives for each job and profession rather than ask them to compete. How is a community as a whole benefitted if a few members of it gets some privilege?
The caste system in India is more layered, hierarchical, and complex than the racial discrimination practiced in many countries. Solutions like positive affirmation which may work in a society that has clearly defined privileged versus underprivileged like white versus black in USA, will not work in a society like ours where every caste is an oppressor and privileged compared to the ones that are one rung lower to them. In many Indian states, castes that hold vast swathes of lands and from who the scheduled communities face the most oppression are now beneficiaries of other backward community quota. Where is the social justice here? There are countless sub-castes in SC and ST and the benefit of reservation has gone only to the creamy castes within the Dalits, leaving many sub-castes in lurch.
In a country like ours with so much inequality, most of which are caste based, there should be no debate about the need for reservations for the underprivileged and the marginal. The debate should now move on to how we rationalize the quota. How can we ensure more equality? Perhaps, a social backward index could be the answer. Each individual can be ranked based on criteria like their caste, economic status, the caste’s relative status with respect to other communities, family status like how many members have already enjoyed/enjoying the quota, and so on. The total marks obtained in a test could be multiplied with such an individual index to arrive at the actual merit. This is not a foolproof method, but it would stop the clamor for every community vying for backward status and a creamy layer hogging all benefits.
For thousands of years, caste discrimination had kept away most members of our society from positions of power. Contrary to popular perception, the quota system didn’t begin after Independence. In fact, the idea of the affirmative program that started in 1950s was the culmination of at least seventy years of effort. During the British era, some communities like Brahmins dominated in the government service despite being less than 3 percent of the population. In Travancore, on 1st of January 1891, a plea known as the Malayali memorial was submitted for fair representation of other communities in Travancore’s government jobs that were dominated by Brahmins. Though no immediate government action followed, it paved the way for the idea of social justice and representation by the quota system. In 1882 and 1891, the princely state of Kolhapur introduced reservations in favour of non-Brahmins in the government. In 1921, the provincial government of Madras Presidency under the Justice party passed a government order that entailed power-sharing agreement between six communities, Brahmins, non-Brahmin Hindus, Mohammedans, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, and Europeans. The quota system as we know now started in 1954 with the ministry of education reserving 20 percent quota for SC and ST and relaxation of qualifying marks by 5 %. In 1982, the quota was split between SC and ST as 15 % and 7.5 % respectively.
The biggest and most controversial change that happened was when Mandal Commission was implemented in the 1990s. The commission constituted in 1979 had no contemporary data regarding the population of each community or their social status and used the 1931 pre-partition, pre-independence census to arbitrarily decide the communities to be included in the OBC and allot 27% quota. This was a purely political decision and the most powerful and numerical castes forced their way into this quota system with their vote banks. In 1992, Supreme Court put a cap on the quota system at 50%, but this hasn’t stopped many states from adding more and more communities into the OBC categories and even SC and ST. In Tamil Nadu, the reservation applies to 89% percent of the population, defeating its entire purpose.
As expected, the vast majority of those who criticise the quota system are from the upper castes. The most vociferous argument is about the erosion of merit due to reservations. They argue for economic status-based reservation. The pro-quota proponents counter this by saying reservation is not a poverty alleviation programme but is meant for social justice and representation. Both these arguments are tenuous at best and absurd at worst. How do we measure merit? Performance in a competitive test taken in one’s twenties is a measure of a person’s worth for the rest of his life? Does any test measure compassion, competency, creativity, etc that is needed to perform a job? How is someone who has the privilege of money, caste, and means for specialized coaching to crack competitive exams meritorious than someone having none of these and yet scores slightly lesser marks in a test? If we take reservation as just a means of representation, what is the purpose of the test itself? The communities should elect or nominate their representatives for each job and profession rather than ask them to compete. How is a community as a whole benefitted if a few members of it gets some privilege?
The caste system in India is more layered, hierarchical, and complex than the racial discrimination practiced in many countries. Solutions like positive affirmation which may work in a society that has clearly defined privileged versus underprivileged like white versus black in USA, will not work in a society like ours where every caste is an oppressor and privileged compared to the ones that are one rung lower to them. In many Indian states, castes that hold vast swathes of lands and from who the scheduled communities face the most oppression are now beneficiaries of other backward community quota. Where is the social justice here? There are countless sub-castes in SC and ST and the benefit of reservation has gone only to the creamy castes within the Dalits, leaving many sub-castes in lurch.
In a country like ours with so much inequality, most of which are caste based, there should be no debate about the need for reservations for the underprivileged and the marginal. The debate should now move on to how we rationalize the quota. How can we ensure more equality? Perhaps, a social backward index could be the answer. Each individual can be ranked based on criteria like their caste, economic status, the caste’s relative status with respect to other communities, family status like how many members have already enjoyed/enjoying the quota, and so on. The total marks obtained in a test could be multiplied with such an individual index to arrive at the actual merit. This is not a foolproof method, but it would stop the clamor for every community vying for backward status and a creamy layer hogging all benefits.
July 29, 2021
The Government and the business.
Recently, Kitex, the world’s third largest supplier of infant wear, announced the withdrawal of a 3500 crore expansion plan from Kerala alleging harassment by the state government. As per the director of Kitex, there has been no less than 73 inspections from government officials in a span of one month. The announcement was followed by a high stake drama with nine Indian states vying for investment by Kitex. Telangana government sent a private jet to the officials of Kitex to take them from Kochi to Hyderabad and offered mind boggling incentive. Pleased with the royal treatment of its new suitor, Kitex has announced a thousand crore investment that may lead to four thousand jobs in Telangana in the future.
Despite its stellar achievements in human development indices, Kerala always had a business unfriendly image. Kerala’s social reforms of the past century had resulted in a literate population who were savvy enough to take advantage of the booming oil economy in the Middle East. The huge remittance, sometime more than the entire GSDP of many bigger Indian states, have catapulted Kerala to have the highest standard of living in India . It was spared the fate of Bengal thanks to the foreign remittance by non resident Keralite. But its disrepute as a haven of militant trade unionists resulted in it missing the IT bus that helped the Bangalore and Hyderabad become global cities.
In the recent years, Kerala has been desperate to shake up the negative image. Its trade unions no longer hold the same terror as it used to be a decade ago. Trade unions are controlled by the politicians and is relatively easier to control if the political leaders sense a change of mood in the people’s tolerance level. The state bureaucracy, especially at the lower level, is a different story altogether. Fed by years of anti -capitalist slogans, the petty officials go with a vengeance against any form of enterprise, whether it is a tiny corner store or a multi-national. There is no dearth of archaic rules in India. Any local official can find some violation or another at most enterprises if he wants it. It is this army of lower level bureaucracy than the often blamed militant trade unions that is making Kerala business unfriendly in the recent times. Unimaginative politicians who cannot think of any other protest methods other than Hartals adds to the problem. Add to these, is the issue of higher population density, higher wages, a working class that is aware of its rights, higher environment consciousness and you face an almost impossible hurdle to industrialise Kerala.
Kerala has the highest minimum and actual wage in the country. A labour intensive industry like Textile will always find it cheaper to set up factories in places that has far lesser minimum wages. The nature of modern capital is such that it flees to the places of least cost. It is time for Kerala to think out of box. It is better not to have manufacturing industries that pollute this pristine state when one cannot compete in wages with other parts of the country. It would better to strengthen the tourism and service industry more and rein in the lower level buoerocracy than get into a bidding match for transferring government money into private coffers.
The Chief Ministers of various states are competing with each other by offering mind boggling incentives for businesses. The ostentatious reason is that these manufacturing units give jobs to the locals. Take the case of Kitex which has promised 4000 jobs. Most of it would be in the minimum wage level. Even if it provides another 8000 indirect jobs at less than minimum wages, it is a miserable return on investment on the tax payer’s money. The state governments would be better off using that money for direct transfer benefit for 12000 people instead of offering huge incentives to Kitex.
For the country to prosper, we need to encourage private enterprise, but that shouldn’t be at the cost of providing basic facilities to people. In the last Covid wave, we saw how inadequately prepared is our health infrastructure. Education system is in shambles. We are debating whether sustenance farmers should be given their tiny subsidy or not. There is raging debate on whether higher education should be subsidised. But when it comes to attracting private investment, there is no debate. The consensus now is that the poor rich businessmen should be given all possible subsidies. The private entrepreneur who cannot succeed without government subsidy, free land, electricity and tax benefits should wind up his business and take up a job.
When people and media rank states based on how many private billionaires they wooed, than on how well they perform their basic duties like providing health, education and law and order, we are walking in a perilous path. Big businesses are pitching one state government against another. For fear of the private industry fleeing to choose another rival state, the governments cannot even ensure statutory requirements from the factories. We now have a strange system where public money that should go for basic infrastructure development is siphoned off to ensure the private business is profitable. Some of the most industrialised states in India has the highest poverty level too should be an eye opener. Industrialisation is not an end in itself, giving a decent standard of living for the people is.
Despite its stellar achievements in human development indices, Kerala always had a business unfriendly image. Kerala’s social reforms of the past century had resulted in a literate population who were savvy enough to take advantage of the booming oil economy in the Middle East. The huge remittance, sometime more than the entire GSDP of many bigger Indian states, have catapulted Kerala to have the highest standard of living in India . It was spared the fate of Bengal thanks to the foreign remittance by non resident Keralite. But its disrepute as a haven of militant trade unionists resulted in it missing the IT bus that helped the Bangalore and Hyderabad become global cities.
In the recent years, Kerala has been desperate to shake up the negative image. Its trade unions no longer hold the same terror as it used to be a decade ago. Trade unions are controlled by the politicians and is relatively easier to control if the political leaders sense a change of mood in the people’s tolerance level. The state bureaucracy, especially at the lower level, is a different story altogether. Fed by years of anti -capitalist slogans, the petty officials go with a vengeance against any form of enterprise, whether it is a tiny corner store or a multi-national. There is no dearth of archaic rules in India. Any local official can find some violation or another at most enterprises if he wants it. It is this army of lower level bureaucracy than the often blamed militant trade unions that is making Kerala business unfriendly in the recent times. Unimaginative politicians who cannot think of any other protest methods other than Hartals adds to the problem. Add to these, is the issue of higher population density, higher wages, a working class that is aware of its rights, higher environment consciousness and you face an almost impossible hurdle to industrialise Kerala.
Kerala has the highest minimum and actual wage in the country. A labour intensive industry like Textile will always find it cheaper to set up factories in places that has far lesser minimum wages. The nature of modern capital is such that it flees to the places of least cost. It is time for Kerala to think out of box. It is better not to have manufacturing industries that pollute this pristine state when one cannot compete in wages with other parts of the country. It would better to strengthen the tourism and service industry more and rein in the lower level buoerocracy than get into a bidding match for transferring government money into private coffers.
The Chief Ministers of various states are competing with each other by offering mind boggling incentives for businesses. The ostentatious reason is that these manufacturing units give jobs to the locals. Take the case of Kitex which has promised 4000 jobs. Most of it would be in the minimum wage level. Even if it provides another 8000 indirect jobs at less than minimum wages, it is a miserable return on investment on the tax payer’s money. The state governments would be better off using that money for direct transfer benefit for 12000 people instead of offering huge incentives to Kitex.
For the country to prosper, we need to encourage private enterprise, but that shouldn’t be at the cost of providing basic facilities to people. In the last Covid wave, we saw how inadequately prepared is our health infrastructure. Education system is in shambles. We are debating whether sustenance farmers should be given their tiny subsidy or not. There is raging debate on whether higher education should be subsidised. But when it comes to attracting private investment, there is no debate. The consensus now is that the poor rich businessmen should be given all possible subsidies. The private entrepreneur who cannot succeed without government subsidy, free land, electricity and tax benefits should wind up his business and take up a job.
When people and media rank states based on how many private billionaires they wooed, than on how well they perform their basic duties like providing health, education and law and order, we are walking in a perilous path. Big businesses are pitching one state government against another. For fear of the private industry fleeing to choose another rival state, the governments cannot even ensure statutory requirements from the factories. We now have a strange system where public money that should go for basic infrastructure development is siphoned off to ensure the private business is profitable. Some of the most industrialised states in India has the highest poverty level too should be an eye opener. Industrialisation is not an end in itself, giving a decent standard of living for the people is.
May 25, 2021
Time for open-book examinations
Anand Neelakantan
The Class XII examination of CBSE and other boards have been in limbo for the past few weeks. It has thrown lakhs of students and parents into a tizzy. There
have been calls for scrapping the board examinations, like how it was done for Class X. Considering the rising Covid cases, it would be wise not to conduct
the examination. Postponing the same indefinitely would affect the mental health of the students. While the debate rages on, isn’t it time to radically
reimagine and redesign the way examinations are conducted in our country?
We have been conducting the examinations the same way we used to do it a hundred years ago. A lot of information, primarily outdated, are dumped in textbooks.
In a rapidly changing world, the syllabus is changed once in a decade. Students learn lessons by rote, and at the end of the term, they are judged based on
their memory skills. The weightage for any creative or analytical thinking is next to nothing. The result is that many students come out of our educational
institutions with no skills that would be of any use in their lives. Apart from putting students through the torture of memorising textbook information, it
also leads to unhealthy competitions and rat races. It would have made sense in a different era when information was expensive and inaccessible to memorise
facts with the hope of using it some time in life. We live in an Information Age, and everything is available at our fingertips. I remember my maths teacher
harassing me to learn the multiplication table. Calculators were a novelty then, but I dared to ask her why I should know the multiplication table when we all
would be having calculators soon. The answer she gave is still fresh in my memory even after 40 years. Do you think you will have a calculator with you every
time? Yes, teacher, the technology has ensured that most of us have a mobile phone in our hands: a calculator, an encyclopaedia, a thesaurus, and much more.
The hours spent memorising the names of the capitals of different nations, rivers flowing through various Indian states etc, are all wasted. What is there in
any textbook that is not available by a single Google search now? All the information in the school or college textbooks are redundant and a minor subset of
what is available with much less effort. Even the time spent on improving our handwriting has gone to waste. With voice replacing even typing, writing will
become like calligraphy, an artistic hobby in a decade or perhaps lesser. But we still torture little kids to improve their handwriting, fully knowing that
most of us have not written much with a pen or pencil for years.
Information might have become ubiquitous and cheap, but how to use the information is a skill that requires to be taught. Unfortunately, other than giving
redundant information, our education system scantily prepares the students in critical, creative and analytical thinking. The examinations should change to
reflect the need of the hour. There is no need to test the memory of any student. We can shift to open-source text. What we would be testing is not the
knowledge or information but the skill to use it. Imagine a scenario where the Class XII exam is spread over a week for each subject. Students can answer any
time they want in this period. This would solve the issue of unequal internet connectivity to an extent. And answering kiosks could be set up in bio bubbles
for students who do not have access to a laptop or internet. The students can access any source, including their textbooks, the internet etc., to give
analytical answers. This would reflect a real-life scenario where no one is expected to memorise solutions but to use all resources available to arrive at
answers. One issue with this system is the unequal resources available for students, but that is a problem we face even with the present system. The students
belonging to economically and socially advantageous families enjoy private tuitions and access to more study material when compared to others, even now. A
solution could be to have an open-source online library available for free for all students and allow the students to access the same while answering
questions. Perhaps, this is the right time to move from a system that rewards memory to one that rewards critical, analytical and creative thinking in
students.
The Class XII examination of CBSE and other boards have been in limbo for the past few weeks. It has thrown lakhs of students and parents into a tizzy. There
have been calls for scrapping the board examinations, like how it was done for Class X. Considering the rising Covid cases, it would be wise not to conduct
the examination. Postponing the same indefinitely would affect the mental health of the students. While the debate rages on, isn’t it time to radically
reimagine and redesign the way examinations are conducted in our country?
We have been conducting the examinations the same way we used to do it a hundred years ago. A lot of information, primarily outdated, are dumped in textbooks.
In a rapidly changing world, the syllabus is changed once in a decade. Students learn lessons by rote, and at the end of the term, they are judged based on
their memory skills. The weightage for any creative or analytical thinking is next to nothing. The result is that many students come out of our educational
institutions with no skills that would be of any use in their lives. Apart from putting students through the torture of memorising textbook information, it
also leads to unhealthy competitions and rat races. It would have made sense in a different era when information was expensive and inaccessible to memorise
facts with the hope of using it some time in life. We live in an Information Age, and everything is available at our fingertips. I remember my maths teacher
harassing me to learn the multiplication table. Calculators were a novelty then, but I dared to ask her why I should know the multiplication table when we all
would be having calculators soon. The answer she gave is still fresh in my memory even after 40 years. Do you think you will have a calculator with you every
time? Yes, teacher, the technology has ensured that most of us have a mobile phone in our hands: a calculator, an encyclopaedia, a thesaurus, and much more.
The hours spent memorising the names of the capitals of different nations, rivers flowing through various Indian states etc, are all wasted. What is there in
any textbook that is not available by a single Google search now? All the information in the school or college textbooks are redundant and a minor subset of
what is available with much less effort. Even the time spent on improving our handwriting has gone to waste. With voice replacing even typing, writing will
become like calligraphy, an artistic hobby in a decade or perhaps lesser. But we still torture little kids to improve their handwriting, fully knowing that
most of us have not written much with a pen or pencil for years.
Information might have become ubiquitous and cheap, but how to use the information is a skill that requires to be taught. Unfortunately, other than giving
redundant information, our education system scantily prepares the students in critical, creative and analytical thinking. The examinations should change to
reflect the need of the hour. There is no need to test the memory of any student. We can shift to open-source text. What we would be testing is not the
knowledge or information but the skill to use it. Imagine a scenario where the Class XII exam is spread over a week for each subject. Students can answer any
time they want in this period. This would solve the issue of unequal internet connectivity to an extent. And answering kiosks could be set up in bio bubbles
for students who do not have access to a laptop or internet. The students can access any source, including their textbooks, the internet etc., to give
analytical answers. This would reflect a real-life scenario where no one is expected to memorise solutions but to use all resources available to arrive at
answers. One issue with this system is the unequal resources available for students, but that is a problem we face even with the present system. The students
belonging to economically and socially advantageous families enjoy private tuitions and access to more study material when compared to others, even now. A
solution could be to have an open-source online library available for free for all students and allow the students to access the same while answering
questions. Perhaps, this is the right time to move from a system that rewards memory to one that rewards critical, analytical and creative thinking in
students.
May 20, 2021
The abdication of responsibility by the government
The government has five major responsibilities towards its citizens- Law and order, defence, education, transport and health care. We find there is a disturbing trend when we analyse our governments, both central and state, have fared in the last seventy years in all these sectors. Take law and order, for example. The middle class has almost given up on depending on the government for its security. Most of us live in an urban oasis in a sea of squalor, depending on security guards provided by private agencies for our security. Even the resident associations in the smaller towns employ private security guards who man the streets. Small vendors, markets, shopping malls, offices- all employ private security guards. It has become so common that we have stopped thinking about the abject failure of our governments in providing law and order in our cities.
The middle class has given up on the hope of getting even uninterrupted electric supply unless a private company does the distribution at an exorbitant rate as it happens in Mumbai. Every home has at least an invertor if not a polluting diesel generator. We feel sanctimonious by bursting a few crackers less during Deepavali or playing a dry Holi and claim we have contributed to lessening pollution, but no one talks about these dark fume spewing monsters that growl from each shop front in countless lanes of our towns. The government has abdicated the responsibility of providing uninterrupted energy to its citizens.
Take public transport and roads. Only roads that are worth travelling are national highways in some stretches. All these highways are manned by private toll companies. The toll charges are exorbitant, irrespective of the condition of the road. We have been drilled through clever propaganda that we have to pay through our nose for good roads. What they have made us forget is that we have been paying a huge tax on fuel, both petrol and diesel. We also have forgotten there is a road and infra Cess on fuel. If that is not enough, we pay 15 years an advance tax on our vehicles. Despite all these, we must pay a huge toll tax for every kilometre we travel to private companies. It is exasperating to think how we are being robbed to make a few rich for providing a basic facility like roads. But since we are drunk on propaganda and most of us have become swooning devotees, we shall continue to produce a handful of billionaires whose combined wealth is more than that of the 50% of our population. Meanwhile, we are made to dream about bullet trains that costs double our health sector allocation. There are hardly any state transport board that is not in debt.
The health sector is in tatters. When was the last time a reader of this article had gone to a government hospital? The government has conveniently given up its responsibility for the health of its citizens. The total union budget allocation for health last year was 52800 crores and adding this to the total allocations of all state governments, the figure was 200000 crores. To put things in perspective, if the national health policy objective must be met by 2025, the total allocation should have been 800,000 crores. This is the amount required to reach bare minimum standards. We have the lowest ‘hospital bed to per thousand people ratio’ in the world. We have the largest number of people suffering from malnutrition in the world. Except for Kerala or despite Kerala’s stellar performance, we are the worst performer among middle-income countries in the world in the health sector. Our performance is poorer than several neighbouring Asian nations, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and China in the last 25 years. We, the middle class, don’t care, for we can afford to get treated in private hospitals. Since the chattering class doesn’t care, our governments, both state and central, can get away with such horrible performance. They only need to dangle some glitzy one odd hospital in some state capital for making our devoted hearts swell with nationalistic pride and make us flood the social media with unabashed and often embarrassing jingoism.
We have long since given up on depending on the government for education. Except for a few centres of excellence like IIMs and IITs, primary and secondary education has gone into private hands. There are hardly a few public schools of excellence. The result is that the middle class strives hard to put their wards in private schools charging exorbitant fees with an aim to squeeze out those who can afford such education from the subsidised professional education in a handful of premium public colleges. The government also knows we don’t care about the state of public education in the country, as we have formed our oasis in private institutions and tuition centres. In a country that has the maximum population of under 25 years in the world, in a country that is supposed to become an economic powerhouse riding on its youth power and ironically, in a country that has the largest number of illiterates in the world, the allocation for education increased from Rs 81,869 crore to Rs 85,010 crore, an increase of Rs 3,141 crore or a paltry 3.84 per cent only in the last budget. That is lesser than what one would spend for building world record-breaking statues. This is at a time when the total revenue receipts increased from Rs 15.05 lakh crore (2017-18) to Rs.17.25 lakh crore (2018-19), an increase of 14.63 per cent.
Now, as far as their responsibilities are concerned, the state governments have abdicated all their responsibilities to private concerns. The union government has thankfully the defence sector left in its kitty, though it has abdicated all other responsibilities to its citizens and private sector. Ironically, both union and state governments are involved in producing things from condoms to scooters through its loss-making PSUs when they are not fulfilling their fundamental duties of providing health, education, law and order, transport and defence to their citizens. At least in the next elections, it is time for us to remind all political parties about their duties to us.
The middle class has given up on the hope of getting even uninterrupted electric supply unless a private company does the distribution at an exorbitant rate as it happens in Mumbai. Every home has at least an invertor if not a polluting diesel generator. We feel sanctimonious by bursting a few crackers less during Deepavali or playing a dry Holi and claim we have contributed to lessening pollution, but no one talks about these dark fume spewing monsters that growl from each shop front in countless lanes of our towns. The government has abdicated the responsibility of providing uninterrupted energy to its citizens.
Take public transport and roads. Only roads that are worth travelling are national highways in some stretches. All these highways are manned by private toll companies. The toll charges are exorbitant, irrespective of the condition of the road. We have been drilled through clever propaganda that we have to pay through our nose for good roads. What they have made us forget is that we have been paying a huge tax on fuel, both petrol and diesel. We also have forgotten there is a road and infra Cess on fuel. If that is not enough, we pay 15 years an advance tax on our vehicles. Despite all these, we must pay a huge toll tax for every kilometre we travel to private companies. It is exasperating to think how we are being robbed to make a few rich for providing a basic facility like roads. But since we are drunk on propaganda and most of us have become swooning devotees, we shall continue to produce a handful of billionaires whose combined wealth is more than that of the 50% of our population. Meanwhile, we are made to dream about bullet trains that costs double our health sector allocation. There are hardly any state transport board that is not in debt.
The health sector is in tatters. When was the last time a reader of this article had gone to a government hospital? The government has conveniently given up its responsibility for the health of its citizens. The total union budget allocation for health last year was 52800 crores and adding this to the total allocations of all state governments, the figure was 200000 crores. To put things in perspective, if the national health policy objective must be met by 2025, the total allocation should have been 800,000 crores. This is the amount required to reach bare minimum standards. We have the lowest ‘hospital bed to per thousand people ratio’ in the world. We have the largest number of people suffering from malnutrition in the world. Except for Kerala or despite Kerala’s stellar performance, we are the worst performer among middle-income countries in the world in the health sector. Our performance is poorer than several neighbouring Asian nations, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and China in the last 25 years. We, the middle class, don’t care, for we can afford to get treated in private hospitals. Since the chattering class doesn’t care, our governments, both state and central, can get away with such horrible performance. They only need to dangle some glitzy one odd hospital in some state capital for making our devoted hearts swell with nationalistic pride and make us flood the social media with unabashed and often embarrassing jingoism.
We have long since given up on depending on the government for education. Except for a few centres of excellence like IIMs and IITs, primary and secondary education has gone into private hands. There are hardly a few public schools of excellence. The result is that the middle class strives hard to put their wards in private schools charging exorbitant fees with an aim to squeeze out those who can afford such education from the subsidised professional education in a handful of premium public colleges. The government also knows we don’t care about the state of public education in the country, as we have formed our oasis in private institutions and tuition centres. In a country that has the maximum population of under 25 years in the world, in a country that is supposed to become an economic powerhouse riding on its youth power and ironically, in a country that has the largest number of illiterates in the world, the allocation for education increased from Rs 81,869 crore to Rs 85,010 crore, an increase of Rs 3,141 crore or a paltry 3.84 per cent only in the last budget. That is lesser than what one would spend for building world record-breaking statues. This is at a time when the total revenue receipts increased from Rs 15.05 lakh crore (2017-18) to Rs.17.25 lakh crore (2018-19), an increase of 14.63 per cent.
Now, as far as their responsibilities are concerned, the state governments have abdicated all their responsibilities to private concerns. The union government has thankfully the defence sector left in its kitty, though it has abdicated all other responsibilities to its citizens and private sector. Ironically, both union and state governments are involved in producing things from condoms to scooters through its loss-making PSUs when they are not fulfilling their fundamental duties of providing health, education, law and order, transport and defence to their citizens. At least in the next elections, it is time for us to remind all political parties about their duties to us.
May 12, 2021
A sense of history
A sense of history could be a great asset. It could be a painful burden too. It depends on how we decide to carry it. India is a country whose civilization started in pre-historic times and is still living. All the civilisations that started the civilizational journey with her or a few centuries before or after her have shrunk to museums.
India is so much steeped in history that we scarcely value the historic monuments and ruins that are spread across the length and breadth of the country. Every village has some history to tell. Every city has ruins of some medieval or ancient palaces and forts. There are many living temples, especially in the South and Eastern parts of the country that were built a thousand years ago. The North and West are filled with palaces and beautiful mausoleums of the Muslim era.
The archaeological survey of India and its counterpart in different states has not covered even ten per cent of our historic monuments. We can see how historical monuments are vandalised, appropriated or encroached upon. In history, we study marauding hordes that invaded our land and laid waste to magnificent cities, burned ancient universities and demolished temples. Yet, no invading barbarian tribes would have done as much damage to what we are doing now to our heritage. Bricks of ancient forts get stolen to make gaudy houses, walls of mausoleums have ‘I love you’ messages scribbled over them, ancient murals are disfigured, and sculptures get disfigured regularly. Adding to this is the administrative apathy that has scant regard for history. In my hometown, there was a stage that was built for Gandhiji’s visit in the early 30s. In any other country that would have been preserved for future generations. The Municipality found it prudent to build a thatched bus stop at this place. One could not blame them, for the previous governing council had demolished the three-hundred-year-old Royal stables to build a shopping complex. I have been horrified by the action of many temple authorities who white wash ancient murals and put bathroom tiles as a part of modification. The historic Cheraman Masjid, the first mosque outside Arabia in the ancient port city of Muziris in Kerala was knocked down a few decades back by the Masjid committee to build a concrete structure and painted the building with kitschy colours.
Same is the case with age old Churches and Gurudwaras. Taking a walk through the Old Delhi is a heart wrenching experience for anyone with a sense of some history. In any other country, these would have been a prime tourist attraction. Instead, these streets look like the black and white footage of post-second world war cities that were carpet-bombed. Grim, dirty and stinking, one can only imagine how beautiful it would have looked at the time of the Mughals. Tamil temple gopurams that have exquisite sculptures are painted like Disney theme park. It seems the painting contractor has not spared a single shade of colours in the paint company’s catalogue and has randomly applied it wherever he pleases. The irony is that the people who take to the streets against even Supreme court orders that strike down regressive practices have no qualms in accepting this vandalisation of our heritage.
Most of our museums are in a pathetic state. A visit to any European museum will make us understand how primitive our exhibition practices are. How every painter, sculptor and writer in Europe is celebrated is something we must learn from. A Kailasa temple, A Brihadeswara, Kanchipuram, Srirangam, Padmanabha, Konark, Halebidu and countless other temples have thousands of sculptures that would have amazed Michelangelo. How many Indians would even have heard about the sculptors like Manibalaki, Mabala, Ketana etc who build the poetry in stone called Channakesava Temple of Belur in Karnataka? How many would have heard about the legendary architect Kokasa who built Kailasa temple? Or about Kunjara Mallan Raja Raja Rama Perunthachan? If you are wondering who the last-mentioned architect and sculptor was, he designed and built Brihadeswara Temple of Tanjore a thousand years ago. Indians pay thousands of Euros to admire the statue of David by Michelangelo, who undoubtedly is one of the greatest artists in the world. However, I have watched the same Indians casually walking by the gigantic statue of Gommateshwara of Sravanabelagola, build almost a thousand years ago. One can find people clicking selfies and munching potato chips in its holy precincts, with no sense of grandeur, aesthetics and the towering human effort and artistic skills that have gone into sculpting it. If any reader must Google to find out where Sravanabelagola is, it just proves my point about our lack of sense about our history. In the temple of Sri Padmanabhan in Trivandrum, tourists are happy with a quick darshan and a discreet enquiry about the buried treasures. Hardly anyone pauses to admire the musical pillars that the sculptors would have spent years to perfect. Do we have a tourist circuit in Ujjain for Kalidasa like the tour of William Shakespeare’s London?
Maybe, it is time we change how history is taught in schools. The school syllabus teaches a Delhi centric history. I remember pouring over countless pages of Delhi Sultanate or Mughal Empire in my high school history. The only problem was the borders of Mughal empire ended a thousand kilometres north of where I lived. There was nothing around me to remind me about the greatness of Mughals. While what was there around me was rarely thought. It was in my late thirties, a few years ago, that I discovered the great Tamil Epic Chilapathikaram was written in Kodangallore, the ancient Chera capital fourty kilometres away from my hometown. The history teaching has to be localised. The lore and legend should also be taught along with mundane dates of some king’s reign or some obscure wars that happened many thousand kilometres away, many hundred years back. It is only when each citizen is aware of how much history his humble town can boast off, will every Indian start feeling proud and make the knowledge of history an asset.
India is so much steeped in history that we scarcely value the historic monuments and ruins that are spread across the length and breadth of the country. Every village has some history to tell. Every city has ruins of some medieval or ancient palaces and forts. There are many living temples, especially in the South and Eastern parts of the country that were built a thousand years ago. The North and West are filled with palaces and beautiful mausoleums of the Muslim era.
The archaeological survey of India and its counterpart in different states has not covered even ten per cent of our historic monuments. We can see how historical monuments are vandalised, appropriated or encroached upon. In history, we study marauding hordes that invaded our land and laid waste to magnificent cities, burned ancient universities and demolished temples. Yet, no invading barbarian tribes would have done as much damage to what we are doing now to our heritage. Bricks of ancient forts get stolen to make gaudy houses, walls of mausoleums have ‘I love you’ messages scribbled over them, ancient murals are disfigured, and sculptures get disfigured regularly. Adding to this is the administrative apathy that has scant regard for history. In my hometown, there was a stage that was built for Gandhiji’s visit in the early 30s. In any other country that would have been preserved for future generations. The Municipality found it prudent to build a thatched bus stop at this place. One could not blame them, for the previous governing council had demolished the three-hundred-year-old Royal stables to build a shopping complex. I have been horrified by the action of many temple authorities who white wash ancient murals and put bathroom tiles as a part of modification. The historic Cheraman Masjid, the first mosque outside Arabia in the ancient port city of Muziris in Kerala was knocked down a few decades back by the Masjid committee to build a concrete structure and painted the building with kitschy colours.
Same is the case with age old Churches and Gurudwaras. Taking a walk through the Old Delhi is a heart wrenching experience for anyone with a sense of some history. In any other country, these would have been a prime tourist attraction. Instead, these streets look like the black and white footage of post-second world war cities that were carpet-bombed. Grim, dirty and stinking, one can only imagine how beautiful it would have looked at the time of the Mughals. Tamil temple gopurams that have exquisite sculptures are painted like Disney theme park. It seems the painting contractor has not spared a single shade of colours in the paint company’s catalogue and has randomly applied it wherever he pleases. The irony is that the people who take to the streets against even Supreme court orders that strike down regressive practices have no qualms in accepting this vandalisation of our heritage.
Most of our museums are in a pathetic state. A visit to any European museum will make us understand how primitive our exhibition practices are. How every painter, sculptor and writer in Europe is celebrated is something we must learn from. A Kailasa temple, A Brihadeswara, Kanchipuram, Srirangam, Padmanabha, Konark, Halebidu and countless other temples have thousands of sculptures that would have amazed Michelangelo. How many Indians would even have heard about the sculptors like Manibalaki, Mabala, Ketana etc who build the poetry in stone called Channakesava Temple of Belur in Karnataka? How many would have heard about the legendary architect Kokasa who built Kailasa temple? Or about Kunjara Mallan Raja Raja Rama Perunthachan? If you are wondering who the last-mentioned architect and sculptor was, he designed and built Brihadeswara Temple of Tanjore a thousand years ago. Indians pay thousands of Euros to admire the statue of David by Michelangelo, who undoubtedly is one of the greatest artists in the world. However, I have watched the same Indians casually walking by the gigantic statue of Gommateshwara of Sravanabelagola, build almost a thousand years ago. One can find people clicking selfies and munching potato chips in its holy precincts, with no sense of grandeur, aesthetics and the towering human effort and artistic skills that have gone into sculpting it. If any reader must Google to find out where Sravanabelagola is, it just proves my point about our lack of sense about our history. In the temple of Sri Padmanabhan in Trivandrum, tourists are happy with a quick darshan and a discreet enquiry about the buried treasures. Hardly anyone pauses to admire the musical pillars that the sculptors would have spent years to perfect. Do we have a tourist circuit in Ujjain for Kalidasa like the tour of William Shakespeare’s London?
Maybe, it is time we change how history is taught in schools. The school syllabus teaches a Delhi centric history. I remember pouring over countless pages of Delhi Sultanate or Mughal Empire in my high school history. The only problem was the borders of Mughal empire ended a thousand kilometres north of where I lived. There was nothing around me to remind me about the greatness of Mughals. While what was there around me was rarely thought. It was in my late thirties, a few years ago, that I discovered the great Tamil Epic Chilapathikaram was written in Kodangallore, the ancient Chera capital fourty kilometres away from my hometown. The history teaching has to be localised. The lore and legend should also be taught along with mundane dates of some king’s reign or some obscure wars that happened many thousand kilometres away, many hundred years back. It is only when each citizen is aware of how much history his humble town can boast off, will every Indian start feeling proud and make the knowledge of history an asset.
The Vaccine is a fundamental right
Twenty-four years ago, a poor third world country decided to vaccinate 12.1 crores of children against Polio on a single day. It was not an aspiring superpower at that time but was limping back to normalcy after tottering at the brink of a total economic collapse a few years ago. The information revolution and computers lay many years to its future. But it decided to go ahead with this mammoth task anyway. It opened 6.5 lakh vaccination posts across the country and 26 lakh health workers and volunteers took this challenge. Despite all its efforts, it did not achieve the target of 12.1 crore vaccination on December 7, 1996. It could do only 11.75 crore vaccination from sunrise to sunset of that day. It was a world record, but it had fallen short of the target. So this battered, poor, third world country decided to repeat the exercise once again in a few weeks. On January 18, 1997, it vaccinated another 12.73 crore children across the length and breadth of this vast country. There was no pandemic raging, crippling its economy then. It did not even have a strong leader at the helm. It was a lame-duck coalition government of H D Devagowda hanging with its teeth to power that presided over this mammoth achievement.
Now, India is an aspiring superpower or has pretensions of being one. We have a government with a brute majority. We boast of being an Information superpower. The data of most Indians are in the Aadhar network. We have glittering malls, the world's tallest statue, metro trains in our cities, a bullet train in the making from a megapolis to a tier II city, some fat cat billionaires and the claim of being the world's Pharma factory. However, as the pandemic is wreaking havoc across the country, our health infrastructure remains exposed to its worth. We have built a glass skyscraper on a foundation of twigs. These things cannot be solved overnight. To get out of the mess we have become, we need to vaccinate the maximum number of people in the shortest possible time. And that is where we are faltering.
The two steps announced by the Union government is baffling. Vaccine makers can sell half their COVID-19-related stock to states and the private sector at a price fixed by them. It is Laissez-faire capitalism at its most brutal format. At Rs 150 a jab, the vaccine maker himself admitted he was making a decent though not an obnoxious profit. Immediately after the announcement, the vaccine makers announced different prices for different entities. The central government, which all Indian citizens pay tax, got it at the lowest rate. The state government, to which every Indian pays tax, gets it at two and half times higher. The private providers get it at four times the central government rate. All this has led to a scramble for vaccines. When the vaccine manufacturer is flooded with purchase orders from different states or from private entities who are willing to pay a higher price, it is anyone's guess who they would give first preference. No state government can go and buy vaccines like tomatoes or eggs from the market. They all would have to go through the cumbersome bureaucratic hurdles to issue purchase orders. In the middle of the pandemic is not a time to teach the state governments the virtues of cutting through the red tape. State governments are struggling to arrange oxygen and medicines for the people. They are now expected to learn how to procure the vaccines, store them and plan the vaccination drive.
We have seen states fighting for Oxygen cylinders, hoarding essential medicines etc. Now, we can see vaccine hoarding and Vaccine fights soon. Already, the vaccination drives have come to a grinding halt in most states. How are the state governments reeling under the economic fall of the past year, going to find funds to fill the Vaccine Capitalists' overflowing coffers? By taxing the people of an impoverished country for something as basic as Vaccine? How will the procurement of medical oxygen, ventilators, hospitals and medicines happen if state governments run out of funds? Most state governments neither have the leadership nor the expertise to run this initiative, even if they manage the funds.
The Union government had allocated Rs 35,000 crore for COVID-19 vaccination in the 2021-22 Budget. At Rs 150 per dose, where the vaccine maker gets a decent profit, this is more than enough to vaccinate enough people for herd immunity. Even if the amount is doubled, it would be less than 0.70 of our GDP. A small amount to pay, considering the vast economic cost, let alone the human one, that the epidemic is extracting from us. Unless the union government takes back the leadership and drives the vaccine drive as a priority instead of letting the markets decide who would survive and who would not, we are in for an era of vaccine hoarding, black marketing and vaccine wars. If we could do it in 1996, we can do it in 2021. Provided we value human lives over the profit of private industrialists.
Now, India is an aspiring superpower or has pretensions of being one. We have a government with a brute majority. We boast of being an Information superpower. The data of most Indians are in the Aadhar network. We have glittering malls, the world's tallest statue, metro trains in our cities, a bullet train in the making from a megapolis to a tier II city, some fat cat billionaires and the claim of being the world's Pharma factory. However, as the pandemic is wreaking havoc across the country, our health infrastructure remains exposed to its worth. We have built a glass skyscraper on a foundation of twigs. These things cannot be solved overnight. To get out of the mess we have become, we need to vaccinate the maximum number of people in the shortest possible time. And that is where we are faltering.
The two steps announced by the Union government is baffling. Vaccine makers can sell half their COVID-19-related stock to states and the private sector at a price fixed by them. It is Laissez-faire capitalism at its most brutal format. At Rs 150 a jab, the vaccine maker himself admitted he was making a decent though not an obnoxious profit. Immediately after the announcement, the vaccine makers announced different prices for different entities. The central government, which all Indian citizens pay tax, got it at the lowest rate. The state government, to which every Indian pays tax, gets it at two and half times higher. The private providers get it at four times the central government rate. All this has led to a scramble for vaccines. When the vaccine manufacturer is flooded with purchase orders from different states or from private entities who are willing to pay a higher price, it is anyone's guess who they would give first preference. No state government can go and buy vaccines like tomatoes or eggs from the market. They all would have to go through the cumbersome bureaucratic hurdles to issue purchase orders. In the middle of the pandemic is not a time to teach the state governments the virtues of cutting through the red tape. State governments are struggling to arrange oxygen and medicines for the people. They are now expected to learn how to procure the vaccines, store them and plan the vaccination drive.
We have seen states fighting for Oxygen cylinders, hoarding essential medicines etc. Now, we can see vaccine hoarding and Vaccine fights soon. Already, the vaccination drives have come to a grinding halt in most states. How are the state governments reeling under the economic fall of the past year, going to find funds to fill the Vaccine Capitalists' overflowing coffers? By taxing the people of an impoverished country for something as basic as Vaccine? How will the procurement of medical oxygen, ventilators, hospitals and medicines happen if state governments run out of funds? Most state governments neither have the leadership nor the expertise to run this initiative, even if they manage the funds.
The Union government had allocated Rs 35,000 crore for COVID-19 vaccination in the 2021-22 Budget. At Rs 150 per dose, where the vaccine maker gets a decent profit, this is more than enough to vaccinate enough people for herd immunity. Even if the amount is doubled, it would be less than 0.70 of our GDP. A small amount to pay, considering the vast economic cost, let alone the human one, that the epidemic is extracting from us. Unless the union government takes back the leadership and drives the vaccine drive as a priority instead of letting the markets decide who would survive and who would not, we are in for an era of vaccine hoarding, black marketing and vaccine wars. If we could do it in 1996, we can do it in 2021. Provided we value human lives over the profit of private industrialists.
May 7, 2021
The language tangle
There is a beautiful legend I had heard in my childhood. Melpathoor Narayana Bhattathiri was an erudite Sanskrit scholar of Mediaeval Kerala. He was afflicted with paralysis, but that did not stop him from writing Narayaneeyam, one of the most celebrated compositions in Sanskrit. Miraculously he was cured after writing the same and he became a celebrated Vedic Scholar who was often invited to the courts of mighty kings. Poonthanam, a poet who wrote in Malayalam was his contemporary. Poonthanam had limited knowledge of Sanskrit. One day, at a discourse held at Guruvayoor temple, Poonthanam recited the shloka Padmanabho Amaraprabhu as Padmanabho Maraprabhu. Melpathoor mocked poor Poonthanam as half-poet and said Padmanabha is the lord of immortals and not the lord of the trees, which was what Poonthanam’s misspelling meant. A celestial voice from the sanctum of the temple answered that “I am the lord of trees too,”. However, this did not teach Melpathoor any lesson, and he remained haughty about his knowledge of Sanskrit.
A few days later, Poonthanam submitted Jnanapana, his devotional composition in Malayalam to Melpathoor and pleaded with him to edit the same. Melpathoor scoffed at the idea of editing a book written in Malayalam which was just a Desa Basha, a local language. He was a poet of Deva Basha, the divine language of Sanskrit, and such a task was beneath his stature as a Sanskrit scholar. A broken-hearted Poonthanam returned home. But that night, Melpathoor was stricken by Paralysis again and he heard the divine voice of Narayana, “For me, Poonthanam’s Bhakti (devotion) is more important than your Vibhakti (Grammar or language)”. A repentant Melpathoor begged forgiveness to Poonthanam for his sin of considering style and language more important than the content. To this day, it is the Jnanapana, Poonthanam’s composition in mundane Malayalam that remains popular than the scholarly and deeply philosophical Narayaneeyam of Melpathoor.
For many centuries, Sanskrit was the language of the scholars in India. It is doubtful whether it was the common man’s tongue at any point of time in history, though it continued to be used by erudite scholars from various parts of the country for a long time. Kalhana of Kashmir wrote Rajatarangani, Jayadeva of Orissa wrote Gita Govindam, Mahendravarman of Tamil lands wrote Mattavillasa Prahasana, all in Sanskrit, showing how widespread the language was across the subcontinent. The eighteen Puranas were compiled, rewritten and changed by Scholars from Kerala to Kandhar and Gujarat to Assam. It is said that Adi Shankara’s eloquence in Sanskrit used to keep his rivals in awe. His skill in language is clear in his works and many Sanskrit scholars opine that, had Shankara not been famous as a Saint Philosopher, he would have been as famous as Kalidasa in poetry. Sanskrit was the literary language and lingua Franca for the educated of ancient and medieval India. By the time, other Indian languages were maturing, Sanskrit had ceased to be the language of common people. Even in classical Sanskrit drama, the dramatists were often careful to make women and Shudras speak in Prakrit or local tongues, while the male characters spoke in chaste Sanskrit, much like how drivers or maids are caricatured in modern films with their rustic Indian languages while the upper- class characters speak in American accented English.
Indian elite always had a link language, earlier in Sanskrit and later in Persian, followed by English. However, for the major part of our history, Sanskrit served as the link language. It was the language of religion, philosophy, science and art that linked the country together. Despite this, there was no political unity in India. India might have had a cultural unity, but it was never a politically united country as we know it now. It shows the mirror to those who vociferously argue for a common language for the entire country. If a common language could bring unity, there would have been only one Arabian country and the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and England would have been one nation. If the common religion would have given unity, there would have been only one Islamic superstate. If a common language would have given unity, there would have been no partition of Bengal or Punjab. So, it shows neither a common language, religion or race can ensure a unified nation.
Though India rarely had political unity in its history, culturally it was always united. To understand this miracle, one should look at how Hinduism spread across the continent. Hinduism as we know now has little to do with Vedic rituals or the philosophical speculations in Upanishads. For elite scholars, those may remain fascinating, but the Hinduism of the common man is far removed from such Sanskrit texts. Hinduism spread by assimilating a hundred subcultures, giving respect to each, accepting often contrasting and even contradicting cultures under its broad umbrella. Only a few would have read Valmiki’s Ramayana or Vyasa’s Mahabharata in Sanskrit. Tulsidas, Kambars, Ezhuthachans, Kritibhasa and countless of such Desa Basha poets popularised the epics. Though Sanskrit was a liturgical language, the oral tradition of tales and retellings in Desa Bashas made the religion take roots among people worshipping many million gods in many million ways. Hinduism did not impose the concept of one God, one method of worship, one right way of religion or one common festival. Instead, it celebrated everything, including a few festivals where Gods are questioned. It has a place for festivals like Onam, one that honours an Asura called Mahabali, and it is open enough to accept many tribal gods as the manifestation of the Brahman. The unity was not achieved by imposing anything, but by accepting and assimilating many things. That helped it withstand the shock of mediaeval pogroms and the yoke of colonisation.
All these hold lessons for those who think India needs one common language, one common religion and one common culture and are determined to impose these things with force. If the lesson that Hinduism offers is not enough for them, they might learn from the history of the USSR that tried to impose such forced unity of language, culture, and a newfound intolerant religion called Marxism and what happened to such forced attempts.
Published as a column in the NEW INDIAN EXPRESS (SUNDAY EDITION)
A few days later, Poonthanam submitted Jnanapana, his devotional composition in Malayalam to Melpathoor and pleaded with him to edit the same. Melpathoor scoffed at the idea of editing a book written in Malayalam which was just a Desa Basha, a local language. He was a poet of Deva Basha, the divine language of Sanskrit, and such a task was beneath his stature as a Sanskrit scholar. A broken-hearted Poonthanam returned home. But that night, Melpathoor was stricken by Paralysis again and he heard the divine voice of Narayana, “For me, Poonthanam’s Bhakti (devotion) is more important than your Vibhakti (Grammar or language)”. A repentant Melpathoor begged forgiveness to Poonthanam for his sin of considering style and language more important than the content. To this day, it is the Jnanapana, Poonthanam’s composition in mundane Malayalam that remains popular than the scholarly and deeply philosophical Narayaneeyam of Melpathoor.
For many centuries, Sanskrit was the language of the scholars in India. It is doubtful whether it was the common man’s tongue at any point of time in history, though it continued to be used by erudite scholars from various parts of the country for a long time. Kalhana of Kashmir wrote Rajatarangani, Jayadeva of Orissa wrote Gita Govindam, Mahendravarman of Tamil lands wrote Mattavillasa Prahasana, all in Sanskrit, showing how widespread the language was across the subcontinent. The eighteen Puranas were compiled, rewritten and changed by Scholars from Kerala to Kandhar and Gujarat to Assam. It is said that Adi Shankara’s eloquence in Sanskrit used to keep his rivals in awe. His skill in language is clear in his works and many Sanskrit scholars opine that, had Shankara not been famous as a Saint Philosopher, he would have been as famous as Kalidasa in poetry. Sanskrit was the literary language and lingua Franca for the educated of ancient and medieval India. By the time, other Indian languages were maturing, Sanskrit had ceased to be the language of common people. Even in classical Sanskrit drama, the dramatists were often careful to make women and Shudras speak in Prakrit or local tongues, while the male characters spoke in chaste Sanskrit, much like how drivers or maids are caricatured in modern films with their rustic Indian languages while the upper- class characters speak in American accented English.
Indian elite always had a link language, earlier in Sanskrit and later in Persian, followed by English. However, for the major part of our history, Sanskrit served as the link language. It was the language of religion, philosophy, science and art that linked the country together. Despite this, there was no political unity in India. India might have had a cultural unity, but it was never a politically united country as we know it now. It shows the mirror to those who vociferously argue for a common language for the entire country. If a common language could bring unity, there would have been only one Arabian country and the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and England would have been one nation. If the common religion would have given unity, there would have been only one Islamic superstate. If a common language would have given unity, there would have been no partition of Bengal or Punjab. So, it shows neither a common language, religion or race can ensure a unified nation.
Though India rarely had political unity in its history, culturally it was always united. To understand this miracle, one should look at how Hinduism spread across the continent. Hinduism as we know now has little to do with Vedic rituals or the philosophical speculations in Upanishads. For elite scholars, those may remain fascinating, but the Hinduism of the common man is far removed from such Sanskrit texts. Hinduism spread by assimilating a hundred subcultures, giving respect to each, accepting often contrasting and even contradicting cultures under its broad umbrella. Only a few would have read Valmiki’s Ramayana or Vyasa’s Mahabharata in Sanskrit. Tulsidas, Kambars, Ezhuthachans, Kritibhasa and countless of such Desa Basha poets popularised the epics. Though Sanskrit was a liturgical language, the oral tradition of tales and retellings in Desa Bashas made the religion take roots among people worshipping many million gods in many million ways. Hinduism did not impose the concept of one God, one method of worship, one right way of religion or one common festival. Instead, it celebrated everything, including a few festivals where Gods are questioned. It has a place for festivals like Onam, one that honours an Asura called Mahabali, and it is open enough to accept many tribal gods as the manifestation of the Brahman. The unity was not achieved by imposing anything, but by accepting and assimilating many things. That helped it withstand the shock of mediaeval pogroms and the yoke of colonisation.
All these hold lessons for those who think India needs one common language, one common religion and one common culture and are determined to impose these things with force. If the lesson that Hinduism offers is not enough for them, they might learn from the history of the USSR that tried to impose such forced unity of language, culture, and a newfound intolerant religion called Marxism and what happened to such forced attempts.
Published as a column in the NEW INDIAN EXPRESS (SUNDAY EDITION)
December 2, 2012
INDIAN EXPRESS covery story by me for Deepavali
Is Deepavali more than just a festival of lights? Generally, Diwali in the Northern parts of the country is celebrated to commemorate the triumphant arrival of Sri Rama in Ayodhya after vanquishing Ravana. In the south, Deepavali is associated with the killing of Narakasura by Sathyabhama and Krishna. In both cases, it shows the triumph of good over evil, or so we have been taught. Different cultures celebrate the same festival for different reasons.
It is perhaps the only Hindu festival which is celebrated on a new moon day. The new moon day is generally considered inauspicious. It is the day of mourning, a day to remember one’s ancestors. Many Hindus choose this day to make an offering (Tharpanam) to their ancestors. Generally astrologers do not advise the believers to venture upon anything new on Amavasya day. In many parts of South India, Deepavali rituals include the sesame oil bath, the feeding of crows, the distribution of new clothes, the bursting of crackers etc. Ironically, most of these customs also form a part of death rituals among many communities. Are we missing something here?
Do such customs point to some ancient historical event? Did Deepavali in the south start as a remembrance of some illustrious ancestor and later got Sanskritised to its present form? In parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka, the third day of Deepavali is celebrated as Bali Pratipada. The legend is that, Deepavali is the day when emperor Mahabali of Asuras was banished to netherworld by Vamana. A pyramid-shaped image of Bali is made out of clay and is placed over a wooden plank designed with Rangoli decorations and bedecked with flowers and worshipped. The similarities with these customs with the Onam festival of Kerala are hard to miss for anyone who is familiar with Onam. Onam is in remembrance of the same Asura king, Mahabali. Flower mats are made and similar pyramid shaped clay image of Mahabali is worshipped during Onam. The belief that Mahabali’s reign was the most ideal one runs strong in the collective psyche of the people celebrating these two distinct festivals. Though it is believed that Mahabali’s capital was in Kerala, Vamana Purana states that Mahabali was performing Aswamedha Yajna on the banks of the Narmada, when Vamana approached him with the request for three paces of land.
It may not be a coincidence that people in and around Narmada celebrate the Asura emperor’s memory in an almost similar fashion in which it is being done in far away Kerala. Like their cousins in distant Kerala during Onam, the common rural folks of Maharashtra and North Karnataka celebrate the memory of a shared dream during Deepavali. Unlike the North Indian Diwali where homecoming of Rama is celebrated, it is the memory of a vanquished Asura king that gives life to the celebration of the rural folks of Deccan. They do not yearn for Rama Rajya, but for the ideal kingdom of Bali. They mourn the fact that three little steps of a dwarf grew big enough to crush their entire world and dreams. An ideal world lay shattered on the altar of jealousy; the jealousy of Gods towards an Asura ruler who brought peace, prosperity and equality to his people. The people of this country, then as it is now, do not deserve anything better, or so it is willed by the Gods. But such precious dreams of men do not wither away at the will of the Gods.
The differences between Onam and Deepavali disappear in this collective yearning for an ideal world. Now the strange customs of Deepavali that resembles many death rituals start making sense. The reason for the most important of all festivals being celebrated on an Amavasya day becomes clearer. The rituals of Deepavali are a part of “Bali Tharpan”, the homage to an Asura emperor who gave up his life for upholding the truth and Dharma. Like any death in rural South India, this day also gets celebrated with the same exuberance of life. In its bursting of crackers, in its feasting, in its new clothes, in its ritual bath with sesame oil, the bitterness of the death goes hand in hand with the life and its sweetness. The agony of a lost past mixes with the hope of a better future. Thus, Deepavali is a tribute to the spirit of our people who keep dreaming about an ideal rule. It may be as Ramarajya in the north or as Bali Rajya in the south, but the yearning remains the same. Such optimism is indeed remarkable when we consider how our Rulers and our Gods have short-changed us for so long. Yet we refuse to stop dreaming. And in such dreams lie our hope and salvation.
Anand Neelakantan is the author of Asura — Tale Of The Vanquished, The Story Of Ravana And His People
Asura- Tale of The Vanquished
It is perhaps the only Hindu festival which is celebrated on a new moon day. The new moon day is generally considered inauspicious. It is the day of mourning, a day to remember one’s ancestors. Many Hindus choose this day to make an offering (Tharpanam) to their ancestors. Generally astrologers do not advise the believers to venture upon anything new on Amavasya day. In many parts of South India, Deepavali rituals include the sesame oil bath, the feeding of crows, the distribution of new clothes, the bursting of crackers etc. Ironically, most of these customs also form a part of death rituals among many communities. Are we missing something here?
Do such customs point to some ancient historical event? Did Deepavali in the south start as a remembrance of some illustrious ancestor and later got Sanskritised to its present form? In parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka, the third day of Deepavali is celebrated as Bali Pratipada. The legend is that, Deepavali is the day when emperor Mahabali of Asuras was banished to netherworld by Vamana. A pyramid-shaped image of Bali is made out of clay and is placed over a wooden plank designed with Rangoli decorations and bedecked with flowers and worshipped. The similarities with these customs with the Onam festival of Kerala are hard to miss for anyone who is familiar with Onam. Onam is in remembrance of the same Asura king, Mahabali. Flower mats are made and similar pyramid shaped clay image of Mahabali is worshipped during Onam. The belief that Mahabali’s reign was the most ideal one runs strong in the collective psyche of the people celebrating these two distinct festivals. Though it is believed that Mahabali’s capital was in Kerala, Vamana Purana states that Mahabali was performing Aswamedha Yajna on the banks of the Narmada, when Vamana approached him with the request for three paces of land.
It may not be a coincidence that people in and around Narmada celebrate the Asura emperor’s memory in an almost similar fashion in which it is being done in far away Kerala. Like their cousins in distant Kerala during Onam, the common rural folks of Maharashtra and North Karnataka celebrate the memory of a shared dream during Deepavali. Unlike the North Indian Diwali where homecoming of Rama is celebrated, it is the memory of a vanquished Asura king that gives life to the celebration of the rural folks of Deccan. They do not yearn for Rama Rajya, but for the ideal kingdom of Bali. They mourn the fact that three little steps of a dwarf grew big enough to crush their entire world and dreams. An ideal world lay shattered on the altar of jealousy; the jealousy of Gods towards an Asura ruler who brought peace, prosperity and equality to his people. The people of this country, then as it is now, do not deserve anything better, or so it is willed by the Gods. But such precious dreams of men do not wither away at the will of the Gods.
The differences between Onam and Deepavali disappear in this collective yearning for an ideal world. Now the strange customs of Deepavali that resembles many death rituals start making sense. The reason for the most important of all festivals being celebrated on an Amavasya day becomes clearer. The rituals of Deepavali are a part of “Bali Tharpan”, the homage to an Asura emperor who gave up his life for upholding the truth and Dharma. Like any death in rural South India, this day also gets celebrated with the same exuberance of life. In its bursting of crackers, in its feasting, in its new clothes, in its ritual bath with sesame oil, the bitterness of the death goes hand in hand with the life and its sweetness. The agony of a lost past mixes with the hope of a better future. Thus, Deepavali is a tribute to the spirit of our people who keep dreaming about an ideal rule. It may be as Ramarajya in the north or as Bali Rajya in the south, but the yearning remains the same. Such optimism is indeed remarkable when we consider how our Rulers and our Gods have short-changed us for so long. Yet we refuse to stop dreaming. And in such dreams lie our hope and salvation.
Anand Neelakantan is the author of Asura — Tale Of The Vanquished, The Story Of Ravana And His People
Asura- Tale of The Vanquished
My cover story in ASIAN AGE during Dusseraha
Dussehra is all about celebrating the victory of Dharma over Adharma. It is on this day that the evil demon Ravana was slain by Sri Rama, the avatar of Lord Vishnu. Rama is considered as the epitome of virtue — the Maryada Purushottama, whereas Ravana is often portrayed as the devil incarnate.
Ravana’s death is the most celebrated death in the history of mankind. Year after year, Ravana keeps dying spectacularly in every nook and corner of India during Dussehra.
Sri Rama represents an idea of how to lead a life. Most saints have called it an ideal way of living and most Indians do believe it to be so. The unapologetic spiritual quest of Indian philosophy, which sees everything materialistic with derision, has not always gone unchallenged. In Ramayana itself we can find thinkers who have put materialistic pleasures over abstract ideals.
SCHOLAR & SENSUALIST
Valmiki Ramayana speaks about a materialistic philosopher Jabali, who tried to stop Lord Rama from going to his fourteen years of exile, with his rational arguments. Jabali was a pioneer in the philosophy of “Lokayata Darshana”, which gave importance to man’s materialistic pursuit over vague concepts of spiritualism. Different Ramayanas give varying versions of how Rama had reacted to these arguments. But most agree that Lord Rama lost his cool and a terrified Jabali meekly withdrew fearing for his life.
Ravana lived his life according to the tenets of Jabali. Though a devout Shiva Bhakta, he never tried to imitate the ascetic lifestyle of his favourite God. He grabbed life with his twenty arms and drank the nectar of pleasure with his ten mouths. Ravana was someone who lived life fully. Unlike Sri Rama, he had no reverence for his parents. Though a Brahmin, he did not offer any special privileges for Brahmins in his kingdom.
He was considered the greatest Vedic scholar of his times, yet his followers were always disrupting yajnas and it fell upon Sri Rama to protect such religious sacrifices. While Rama was willing to forgo his kingship for the sake of his half-brother Bharata, Ravana grabbed Lanka from his half-brother Kubera through deceit and cunning.
STEADFAST SPOUSE
It will be interesting to ask this simple question. Had Ravana won the final war instead of Rama, would our concept of right and wrong have undergone any change?
Maybe, the poets would have told us that Ravana followed the Dharma to the last word. History is always written by the victors. His abduction of Sita might have been justified as a revenge for mutilation of his sister by Lakshmana. When Rama could not accept his wife without a test of purity by fire, Ravana had stood by his wife in a much more serious circumstance.
Valmiki Ramayana speaks about an incident when Angada and other vanaras entered Ravana’s harem and molested Mandodari. This was done as a war strategy to prevent Ravana from completing his prayer that might have made him invincible. However, Ravana accepted his wife even after the incident and was not worried about what the world would think about her. There was no Agnipariksha for Mandodari.
This may earn him lots of fans from the modern day feminists, but a deeper reading of the epic will make them understand that while Ravana could charm any number of ladies to his bed, he was not above using force whenever he felt necessary.
OWN CODE OF ETHICS
He lived by his own code of ethics. Unlike his foe who is Dharma incarnate, Ravana is a mixture of good and the bad, the magnificent and the mundane. He is great and mean at the same time. Even if he had won the decisive battle with Rama, he would have never become a God like what Rama became in later years. Ravana had his flaws that made him too humane to be a God.
The followers of Jabali might even now argue that it was Ravana who won the war ultimately. They might point out that while Sri Rama for all his virtues led a miserable life, it was Ravana who was successful as per their tenets.
Lord Rama suffered an exile of fourteen long years, his wife was abducted by a powerful man and he had to struggle hard to reclaim her. He was forced to kill Bali against his conscience. After his victory, he had to order his wife for a test of purity just to satisfy the society. Even after regaining his kingdom and ruling exemplarily, happiness eluded him. He was forced to abandon his beloved wife fearing slander and his sons were born away from him. When he was reunited with his family, it was not the happiness of a reunion that awaited him. It was the grief of losing his wife forever when he ordered her a second Agnipariksha.
Rama’s uncompromising sense of Dharma also claimed the life of his faithful brother, Lakshmana. Yama had extracted a promise from Rama that whoever disturbs their meeting shall be put to death. Durvasa, the short-tempered ascetic, needed an audience with Rama at the same time and threatened to curse the entire country if he was made to wait. Rendered helpless, Lakshmana disturbed the fateful meeting. Rama, to keep his promise, had to order the death of Lakhshmana. Rama’s end also was quite undeserving for a great warrior like him.
Life philosophy
The Jabalists may argue that, in contrast, the materialistic Ravana lived his life in his own terms, ruled a huge empire, wallowed in luxury, stood by his wife when required and died a warrior’s death in his old age. The arguments the conventional society will offer them, like Rama’s life shows how one has to be steadfast in one’s Dharma irrespective of the consequences, will only invite their derision. Justifications such as a better afterlife or the attainment of Moksha also will not have any meaning for Jabalists as they do not believe in the unknown. They will just point out the contrasting life and death of the Dharmic Rama as against that of the materialistic Ravana for supporting their argument.
The Jabalists may even say that, people may be worshipping Sri Rama as God, but they follow Ravana in practice. The mad rush towards the materialistic pleasure that marks the modern lifestyle shows that people have embraced Ravana’s life philosophy of enjoying life at any cost rather than the self- sacrificing Dharma of Rama.
Like so many Dussehras of past three thousand years or more, Ravana will get burst into a million pieces in every street of India this Dussehra too. The Asura king will be roaring with laughter at the irony of it, for he knows that despite the deification of his foe, it is his life philosophy that has finally won out among the people.
In ultimate reckoning, the great materialist philosopher has the last laugh, for he has achieved what the great avatars, prophets, saints, Mahatmas, Bodhisattvas and sons of God have collectively failed to achieve despite all their preachings, holy books, efforts and sacrifices since the dawn of civilisation. Going up in flames a million times over and over is a small price to pay for the universal practice, if not acceptance, of one’s life philosophy.Asura- Tale of The Vanquished
Ravana’s death is the most celebrated death in the history of mankind. Year after year, Ravana keeps dying spectacularly in every nook and corner of India during Dussehra.
Sri Rama represents an idea of how to lead a life. Most saints have called it an ideal way of living and most Indians do believe it to be so. The unapologetic spiritual quest of Indian philosophy, which sees everything materialistic with derision, has not always gone unchallenged. In Ramayana itself we can find thinkers who have put materialistic pleasures over abstract ideals.
SCHOLAR & SENSUALIST
Valmiki Ramayana speaks about a materialistic philosopher Jabali, who tried to stop Lord Rama from going to his fourteen years of exile, with his rational arguments. Jabali was a pioneer in the philosophy of “Lokayata Darshana”, which gave importance to man’s materialistic pursuit over vague concepts of spiritualism. Different Ramayanas give varying versions of how Rama had reacted to these arguments. But most agree that Lord Rama lost his cool and a terrified Jabali meekly withdrew fearing for his life.
Ravana lived his life according to the tenets of Jabali. Though a devout Shiva Bhakta, he never tried to imitate the ascetic lifestyle of his favourite God. He grabbed life with his twenty arms and drank the nectar of pleasure with his ten mouths. Ravana was someone who lived life fully. Unlike Sri Rama, he had no reverence for his parents. Though a Brahmin, he did not offer any special privileges for Brahmins in his kingdom.
He was considered the greatest Vedic scholar of his times, yet his followers were always disrupting yajnas and it fell upon Sri Rama to protect such religious sacrifices. While Rama was willing to forgo his kingship for the sake of his half-brother Bharata, Ravana grabbed Lanka from his half-brother Kubera through deceit and cunning.
STEADFAST SPOUSE
It will be interesting to ask this simple question. Had Ravana won the final war instead of Rama, would our concept of right and wrong have undergone any change?
Maybe, the poets would have told us that Ravana followed the Dharma to the last word. History is always written by the victors. His abduction of Sita might have been justified as a revenge for mutilation of his sister by Lakshmana. When Rama could not accept his wife without a test of purity by fire, Ravana had stood by his wife in a much more serious circumstance.
Valmiki Ramayana speaks about an incident when Angada and other vanaras entered Ravana’s harem and molested Mandodari. This was done as a war strategy to prevent Ravana from completing his prayer that might have made him invincible. However, Ravana accepted his wife even after the incident and was not worried about what the world would think about her. There was no Agnipariksha for Mandodari.
This may earn him lots of fans from the modern day feminists, but a deeper reading of the epic will make them understand that while Ravana could charm any number of ladies to his bed, he was not above using force whenever he felt necessary.
OWN CODE OF ETHICS
He lived by his own code of ethics. Unlike his foe who is Dharma incarnate, Ravana is a mixture of good and the bad, the magnificent and the mundane. He is great and mean at the same time. Even if he had won the decisive battle with Rama, he would have never become a God like what Rama became in later years. Ravana had his flaws that made him too humane to be a God.
The followers of Jabali might even now argue that it was Ravana who won the war ultimately. They might point out that while Sri Rama for all his virtues led a miserable life, it was Ravana who was successful as per their tenets.
Lord Rama suffered an exile of fourteen long years, his wife was abducted by a powerful man and he had to struggle hard to reclaim her. He was forced to kill Bali against his conscience. After his victory, he had to order his wife for a test of purity just to satisfy the society. Even after regaining his kingdom and ruling exemplarily, happiness eluded him. He was forced to abandon his beloved wife fearing slander and his sons were born away from him. When he was reunited with his family, it was not the happiness of a reunion that awaited him. It was the grief of losing his wife forever when he ordered her a second Agnipariksha.
Rama’s uncompromising sense of Dharma also claimed the life of his faithful brother, Lakshmana. Yama had extracted a promise from Rama that whoever disturbs their meeting shall be put to death. Durvasa, the short-tempered ascetic, needed an audience with Rama at the same time and threatened to curse the entire country if he was made to wait. Rendered helpless, Lakshmana disturbed the fateful meeting. Rama, to keep his promise, had to order the death of Lakhshmana. Rama’s end also was quite undeserving for a great warrior like him.
Life philosophy
The Jabalists may argue that, in contrast, the materialistic Ravana lived his life in his own terms, ruled a huge empire, wallowed in luxury, stood by his wife when required and died a warrior’s death in his old age. The arguments the conventional society will offer them, like Rama’s life shows how one has to be steadfast in one’s Dharma irrespective of the consequences, will only invite their derision. Justifications such as a better afterlife or the attainment of Moksha also will not have any meaning for Jabalists as they do not believe in the unknown. They will just point out the contrasting life and death of the Dharmic Rama as against that of the materialistic Ravana for supporting their argument.
The Jabalists may even say that, people may be worshipping Sri Rama as God, but they follow Ravana in practice. The mad rush towards the materialistic pleasure that marks the modern lifestyle shows that people have embraced Ravana’s life philosophy of enjoying life at any cost rather than the self- sacrificing Dharma of Rama.
Like so many Dussehras of past three thousand years or more, Ravana will get burst into a million pieces in every street of India this Dussehra too. The Asura king will be roaring with laughter at the irony of it, for he knows that despite the deification of his foe, it is his life philosophy that has finally won out among the people.
In ultimate reckoning, the great materialist philosopher has the last laugh, for he has achieved what the great avatars, prophets, saints, Mahatmas, Bodhisattvas and sons of God have collectively failed to achieve despite all their preachings, holy books, efforts and sacrifices since the dawn of civilisation. Going up in flames a million times over and over is a small price to pay for the universal practice, if not acceptance, of one’s life philosophy.Asura- Tale of The Vanquished
My artcile about Onam in Deccan Chronicle
Maybe Onam is a remembrance. Or maybe it is a lament. Or perhaps, it is just a dream that withered away.
Onam is the only festival in India that is celebrated in honour of an Asura. All other festivals like Deepavali or Navarathri belong to the gods.
They celebrate the victory of one god or another over the evil forces of darkness. Whose evil and whose darkness is another moot point.
Festivals are all about victory. Rarely are they about lost dreams. It is not often that ideas get celebrated.
But Onam is an idea that is worth celebrating. In a society that was tied up in convoluted knots of caste hierarchy for centuries, such a thought of equality sprouted in it, is indeed a miracle. Does the hazy legend of Mahabali hide the shame of a subverted race?
Is there something more to be read about the Vamana avatar and Parasurama avatar of Lord Vishnu? What the little dwarf, Vamana asked was for three feet of soil. What was granted was three feet of soil. What got taken away was the entire earth and the sky.
Asuras had nowhere to go, other than under the feet of the dwarf who had by now grown into a giant. The legend of Parasurama, who is the next avatar of Vishnu, also has to be read along with this.
It is said that after his many rounds of regicide that exterminated innumerable rulers, he decided to find a land for Brahmins.
He threw his axe and the god of the sea, Varuna, retreated from Gokarna to Kanyakumari. This is the land that the fifth avatar of Vishnu found for the Brahmins.
If we read both these legends together, some vague pictures of history emerge from the misty folds of myths.
Perhaps, Vamana is a symbolic representation of the first wave of migration of Brahmins to the kingdom of Asuras.
A small group of migrants arrive at the kingdom of a powerful king and asks for asylum. The migrants get a foothold and then they grow so powerful to subvert the king and the entire culture.
The kingdom is weakened within. It is in this weakened kingdom that the Rama with an axe to grind comes to establish his social order.
History is always written by the victor. These legends when stripped of all the contrived dogmas tell a simple tale - a tale of the people who got run over by another culture.
When we think about it in this manner, Onam becomes more than just a harvest festival. It becomes a cry of agony. It becomes a trip of nostalgia to a vague memory, a flight of fantasy to what could have been.
It is a collective sigh of a people who dream about a past that has got coloured and glorified in the hands of time. Not many cultures of antiquity had cherished the ideals of equality of all men.
More than anything, Onam is a tribute to such a culture that had dared to think about all humans being equal when the ideas of conquest, war, caste, slavery etc ruled the world.
In that way, Onam is more about yearning for a future that may never be than the remembrance of a past that never was.
(The writer is the author of the novel ‘Asura- Tale of the Vanquished’)
Onam is the only festival in India that is celebrated in honour of an Asura. All other festivals like Deepavali or Navarathri belong to the gods.
They celebrate the victory of one god or another over the evil forces of darkness. Whose evil and whose darkness is another moot point.
Festivals are all about victory. Rarely are they about lost dreams. It is not often that ideas get celebrated.
But Onam is an idea that is worth celebrating. In a society that was tied up in convoluted knots of caste hierarchy for centuries, such a thought of equality sprouted in it, is indeed a miracle. Does the hazy legend of Mahabali hide the shame of a subverted race?
Is there something more to be read about the Vamana avatar and Parasurama avatar of Lord Vishnu? What the little dwarf, Vamana asked was for three feet of soil. What was granted was three feet of soil. What got taken away was the entire earth and the sky.
Asuras had nowhere to go, other than under the feet of the dwarf who had by now grown into a giant. The legend of Parasurama, who is the next avatar of Vishnu, also has to be read along with this.
It is said that after his many rounds of regicide that exterminated innumerable rulers, he decided to find a land for Brahmins.
He threw his axe and the god of the sea, Varuna, retreated from Gokarna to Kanyakumari. This is the land that the fifth avatar of Vishnu found for the Brahmins.
If we read both these legends together, some vague pictures of history emerge from the misty folds of myths.
Perhaps, Vamana is a symbolic representation of the first wave of migration of Brahmins to the kingdom of Asuras.
A small group of migrants arrive at the kingdom of a powerful king and asks for asylum. The migrants get a foothold and then they grow so powerful to subvert the king and the entire culture.
The kingdom is weakened within. It is in this weakened kingdom that the Rama with an axe to grind comes to establish his social order.
History is always written by the victor. These legends when stripped of all the contrived dogmas tell a simple tale - a tale of the people who got run over by another culture.
When we think about it in this manner, Onam becomes more than just a harvest festival. It becomes a cry of agony. It becomes a trip of nostalgia to a vague memory, a flight of fantasy to what could have been.
It is a collective sigh of a people who dream about a past that has got coloured and glorified in the hands of time. Not many cultures of antiquity had cherished the ideals of equality of all men.
More than anything, Onam is a tribute to such a culture that had dared to think about all humans being equal when the ideas of conquest, war, caste, slavery etc ruled the world.
In that way, Onam is more about yearning for a future that may never be than the remembrance of a past that never was.
(The writer is the author of the novel ‘Asura- Tale of the Vanquished’)
