Posted on 22/01/2024 (GMT 18:00 hrs)
“The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.”
“The weapon of criticism”, in the case of the present dreary Indian context, is supplied by the syncretic heritage of the formation of the idea of India, which is different from being a mere geo-political construct, a mere outcome of the 200 years of colonial rule. Such an idea encompasses the unique nature of the South-East Asian subcontinent, which consists in the spirit of heterogeneous diffusion and mutuality of tolerant exchange. It does not call for a reign of communal/religious terror or violence.
It talks of art, creativity, architecture, music, dance, drama, social cohesion, intellectual exchanges and so on. It takes “dharma” not as a tool for effecting divide, but one that is a form of creative expression in conjunction with other fellow beings, irrespective of their particular religious, caste-based affiliations. It foregrounds the human in the most humane way possible, making us all thrive inclusively in the spontaneity of creative aesthetic and splendour. It distances itself away from the cheap politicization of any one particular religion.
The spirit of religious syncretism calls for pluralism. It does not exclude people based on food-habits, dress-codes or modes of worship.
We are inhabiting an era of forgetfulness, where history and news are appropriated, twisted, and presented in unrecognizable inverted forms— lacking any substance: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
We are being made to forget about what happened in Ayodhya on the 6th of December, 1992.
The 22nd of January, 2024, feels like an ensemble of aggressive thorns that is rendering the commonality of thought-processes a dumbfound enterprise. It is shameful.
One feels hollow at such a time.
The lights, the garlands, the spectacle of the red powder dropping from the state-sponsored helicopters, the expensive clothing and “touch up” of the photo-fetishist “King”: all of these are foreclosing our real miseries, making us enter into a multiplicity of simulacra.
The masses, as if standing before Ceaser’s mutilated corpse, are ready to kill, are ready to seek vengeance against an illusory enemy, a supposed enemy who does not exist. However, one thinks that the enemy exists, and the enemy must be eliminated.
Oh judgment of nowhere! Where have we lost our capacity to think for ourselves, to “reason out” things on our own?
In that case, we must turn back (without being crude revivalists necessarily) to our history, to our roots, to our diverse originations in a web of reciprocity and celebration of life’s spirits.
It makes us think of our shared commonality of cultural upbringing. It lies at the heart of peaceful coexistence of pancasila.
Thus…
Watching these videos shall make us question the false dichotomies that are being narrativized all across the mainstream. It would make us say, following the lines of Lalan Faqir, Sant Kabirdas and Rabindranath Tagore:
Where dost thou seek me, fool? In temples, mosques or cathedrals?
In sculptures of wood and mud?
You search for me in Ka’bah and Kashi?
O dear servant of self-imposed fate, why do you keep on running after mirages?
Does not the drudgery of it all make your breaths a little shorter,
A little more difficult to take?
Why do you keep on searching for the “whole” in mere circumscribed pots or wells?
The ocean of wisdom is vast,
as unfathomably vast as reflected in our infinite imagination
We cannot grasp it within the small clutches of our unforgiving hand
Or it will definitely slip away
We must leave it there
“As it is”
To be appreciated
To be admired
With many names, and forms, and manifests
We must learn to sublimate ourselves into it completely
For
The ocean never distinguishes
between the river and the drain!
Yet
We see that the final sacrifice has been made
The stairs of the temples are drenched with the scent of fresh blood
Dripping all the way towards the ocean
The ocean accepts it
But it never forgives the temple.
Rather, it curses the temple
“Never shall God reside in thine temple!
Your Temple of Arrogance shall fall!”
The curse resounded all across the ocean
Raging ever-furious storms on the way
The Temple shall fall, one day!
Inevitably….
Inevitably….
We must have a little patience.
SEE ALSO:
DEVIL’S ADVOCACY: SABOTAGING HINDUTVA VIEW HERE ⤡
Foregrounding Fundamentalism, Foreclosing Fundamentalism VIEW HERE ⤡
Once in a Blue Moon Academia 
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