Frames of low self-esteem

Generally, the Right, having the weaker case, dresses up its arguments withgreater elegance. William Safire and George Will have to be elegant to beplausible. If the leadership, its thinking elements included, had anappraisal of the larger trends which breed events like Water and Valentine,it would have articulated it with some sense of decor. But no suchanticipation has been in evidence. The result is acquiescence in mob rule.

Some of the reasons for this are obvious. A strong right-wing pressure groupwhich burgeoned into a mass movement in the wake of the Mandir-Masjidagitation has not had time to call back its cadres, retain them, persuadethem to unlearn past tactics. L.K. Advani has been talking of the BJPgraduating into a party of governance. But the cadres have not yetdisengaged themselves from past attitudes.

The BJP government, I am inclined to suspect, is not deliberately allowingthese things to happen. It simply has no control on the cadres led bymofussil, homespun ideologues whose appreciation of culture has neverexceeded calendar art. My point is not that the purveyors of Valentine orDeepa Mehta are on so-me aesthetic pedestal. To the contrary, they couldhave been elegantly debunked if the leadership had its mind tidily furnishedwith concepts of religion, culture and civilisation.

The agitators forgot the famous Urdu dictum: Badnam agar hongey, to kyanaam na hoga? (All publicity is good publicity)

Deepa Mehta has had millions of dollars worth of pre-publicity andconversation of Valentine has percolated to the larger villages below thedistrict level. The banning of Salman Rushdie pushed up the sales of SatanicVerses.

Someone asked a strange question: If Satyajit Ray can exhibit Hindusuperstition in Devi, why can’t Deepa Mehta expose some dark aspect of lifeon the Ganga in Varanasi? First, you cannot compare apples with oranges.Secondly, you have to establish your credentials as someone who cares, onewho contemplates the warts on my face with compassion. Deepa Mehta, al-as,came across to the untutored protectors of Varanasi culture as a purveyor ofsalacious aspects of life on the ghats disguised as Hindu exotica.

Remember, anyone pretending to create socially relevant art from theunwholesome aspects of our life will have to live here, experience our livesto carry conviction. You will always remain suspect if you fly in fromCanada to make a “socially relevant” film.

There is another aspect, I remember my first Christmas in London in the’60s. The usual Christmas sales were on, but on TV, I spotted no trace ofreverence. In fact, quite the contrary. Suddenly a comedian would appear onthe screen carrying a pair of panties. “Do you know what these have to dowith Christmas?” the comedian would ask and proceed to supply the answer.“Well, these are carol’s” (canned laughter). It took me a while to spotthe humour in this somewhat crude pun on Christmas carols.

What stood out was not so much the poor quality of humour but the enormousroom British society had created for outrageous irreverence even about theholiest of days in the Christian calendar. It was a function ofself-confidence.

Urdu poetry is replete with instances of the total debunking of theorthodox, formalist clergy. The “Sheikh” or the “Zahid” (one who abstainfrom worldly pleasures) is forever the butt of the poet’s humour.Pardon my ignorance, but are we, in our Hindu incarnation, short onirreverence in our higher art forms? At the popular level, of course, therehave been a whole series of Bollywood blockbusters exposing Godmen andreligious hypocrisy. Is there a body of writing in Sanskrit or Hindu whichis informed by an elegant irreverence to things we hold dear and sacred? Iam asking this question with all humility.

As for St. Valentine’s Day, let me tell you another story. In Chennai thereis an elite institution called the Madras Club, which admitted its firstIndian member only in 1964. And even as late as 1984, Deepawali wascelebrated in the club as Guy Fawkes Day! In other words, 100 years ofMacaulayism had created an Indian elite which revelled in its westernaffiliations. And it is this elite, that the burgeoning middle class stillfancies as being worthy of emulation. Naturally, commercial interests,riding piggyback on notions of globalisation, exploit this weakness. Themarketing of St. Valentine’s Day is part of this framework.