PK - life emulating art?

If you have been living in India in the year 2014 (or an Indian living abroad, but in touch with happenings in India), you would be hard pressed to miss the controversy surrounding the film PK. The film seems to be a darling of controversy (if measured by number of FIRs and legal actions initiated against it) - in the filming stage FIR was filed as allegedly Lord Shiva was filmed pulling a rickshaw being occupied by two woman in burqa (the scene if ever filmed never made it to the final film, was probably cut in the editing process), when the posters came out there was another round of FIRs which alleged that half nude posters were obscene (thinking of it, if no one files FIR against the works of vile sex addled Chandelas which have been corrupting the young for over a thousand year, I am going to do so) and finally when the film was released a raft of FIRs were filed against the film on the alleged grounds that it outraged religious feelings and it promoted enmity between religious groups.

Supreme Court and the censor board has been steadfast in its stance, the SC stated that if one does not like a film one should not watch it and not bring in religious concoctions to everything (this was in response to PIL filed during the poster release); the censor board refused any additional cuts (I am waiting for the director's cut if and when it it is released).

If one looks at the film and the ensuing controversy we would find some A+ predictive power between the film and the subsequent chain of events:

• in the film the main antagonist asks who is PK? is he some Khan? what is his religion? strangely after the controversy over the film erupted Amir Khan has to publicly state that 99% of the crew were Hindus and he meant no disrespect
• in the film the family of the Hindu girl is opposed to the marriage to a Muslim boy - classic love jihad arguments are brushed aside but the pith of the arguments remain the some and voilà some right wingers have commented that PK promotes love jihad. 
• in the film babas are mocked (getting flower out of thin air) and as expected the followers of the babas have beaten up the journos, soon after the film is released the film got bashed by supporters of various babas and even the babas (not babalogs) themselves.

Just like in the aftermath of Doniger controversy several right winger blogs have given arguments against the film, one of the 'best' is Sanskriti. Though most of its arguments are fallacious and can be proven wrong with even the gentlest of probings, one argument in somewhat modified form does have some strength. While the writer of the Sanskriti blogpost watched it on pirate videos this writer had watched it in theatres and had a similar gripe. The absurdity of using godmen and rituals to connect with God was primarily emphasised in the context of Hindu culture and only a lip service is paid to other religions (re - the film shows self flagellating rituals of Shia in Muharram; financial incentives offered by some evangelicals for conversions etc.), as per sanskriti blog the ratio is 98:2, but I would take a more charitable view and say it was 95:5. There is a wide plethora of materials available with which to beat other organised religions, hopefully the sequel would use it properly. Another complaint which I had was the film never fully came out as a ful blown critique of organised religion (in the manner of OMG did), it walked a middle path of gently mocking godmen instead of God.

Overall the controversies surrounding the film shows that resurgent Hindu rightwingers have got a free rein to commit wanton destruction of property, vandalism etc. and would be harnessed like the Congress did with the Muslim extremist in the aftermath of Shah Bano case. It is time that extremist ideologies are crushed and the moderate pathways in every religion should be promoted - bhakti marg, sufi thoughts and episcopalian/quaker philosophy (I would prefer a Humanist society without any religion except concerns for fellow beings and everything around us - kinda like a cross between nature worshippers, hippies and Dawkins). Above all being a rabid nationalist I would state that India needs a Uniform Civil Code (I know it sounds out of context and has nothing to do with the post, but could not resist one of my pet agendas).

‘Love Jihad’: Repackaging patriarchal xenophobia

There seems to be a virulent epidemic sweeping across the Hindi heartland. Many call it ‘love jihad’, to an uninformed literal translator it could mean struggle for love. But, unfortunately for the uninformed translator, the meaning is a tad bit more convoluted. Its so notable now that it has got its own wikipedia entry. Ignoring the local variations, the common thread of explaining ‘love jihad’ to the uninitiated would be: Muslim men entrapping Hindu women (note it is only woman who are being entrapped) by feigning love, leading to the Hindu women converting to Islam, simultaneously swelling the cadre of jihadis and reducing the number of Hindus. Mathematically it makes a pretty compelling case, with the Muslim men allowed to follow ‘hum paanch haamere pacchis’ coupled with ‘love jihad’ the growth rate of jihadis should move from arithmeticprogression to a geometric one. And apart from the logical goal of demographic inversion, ‘love jihad’ is supposed to enable Muslim men to proselytise (thereby fulfilling his holy duty of proselytizing or preaching of Islam). And as a by-product it may also pay some (intended or surprising) political dividends. But given that members of our political class (in general) are the most honest and upstanding (in the entire Milky Way), so for the moment we would ignore any aspersion of political motive of those endorsing or impeding ‘love jihad’. Instead we shall try to find out parallels in socio-political history of the world where the political ruling class (usually men) moved mountains to find the antidote for saving the honour of their bitiya. I am a sucker for propaganda videos and here is one on the topic.

 

My 'favourite' propaganda video: touches on all the 'important' points. 

The very first instance which comes to mind would be the battery of anti-miscegenation laws especially in United States and the Apartheid era South Africa. The best way to explain them would be to paraphrase the Fourteen words: interracial marriages should not be allowed ‘Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth’ (note again it is only women who have to be saved). The basic logic behind these Jim Crow laws to prohibit race mixing was to protect ‘White Christian civilization’ which would be endangered by violating ‘God’s original design, the plan God had for every race.’ KKK’s recent literature exhorting purity of bloodline lists the reasons why White women should be protected from Black/non-Whites, some pertinent to our discussion are: ‘1) Negro genes are dominant over that of a White by a 4-1 ratio. This means that any offspring from such a union will always favor the Black parent, even if the Black parent is  not a full-blooded Negro. 2) When and interracial baby is  conceived, a White family line, thousands of years old, has instantly  ceased to exist. In fact, one could say that the only reason and  individual is White today is because all of their ancestors mated only with other Whites. 3) The Low I.Q. of Negroes has  been scientifically proven to be hereditary. Low I.Q. people breed only  more low I.Q. offspring and usually have large numbers of offspring, further polluting the White gene pool. Blacks score 15 to 20 points lower than Whites on every intelligence test ever given: Blacks have brains which exhibit primitive features such as small size, light weight, fewer convolutions (wrinkles linked to intelligence). For this reason, the offspring of interracial couples will have lower intelligence than if the White partner had a child by another White person.’ The list seems to be created out of an inherent fear about the perceived existential crisis faced by the White race. So the only way out is to save the honour of bitiya with violence against the would be suspected violators. Many thousand words (in fiction and non-fiction) have been written about lynching Blacks suspected of raping White women; now transpose White with Hindus, Black with Muslims and purity of race with the purity of culture, tradition (and fear of a supposed foreign invader imposing its own insidious alien culture), the badlands of India seem no different from the Deep South. Stark parallels can be drawn between Marion, Indiana and Muzaffarpur, Uttar Pradesh. It is a sobering thought to remember that as late as 1967 United States had restrictions on interracial marriages.    

We have more examples closer to home but first further away in time, about the Brown man’s lust for White woman. Novelists, columnists and film directors have become famous harping different strains of the widely advertised malady afflicting the White Man’s burden in his colonies. Generals have thought to have proclaimed massacres to uphold the notion that for Brown men White woman is as sacred as God. This was perhaps a direct consequence of the colonial masters trying to create an aura of racial superiority thereby licensing them to rule over the less formative subjects. A similar argument was given to establish and justify slavery. Closer in time we have the historical distrust mixed with inter-caste tension arising out of slogans of lutiya khatiya bitiya. India Today explains it as an apparent strategy to maintain social hierarchy by stoking fears of supposed policies of forcing upper caste men to share water from the same jug, sitting together on the same cot with lower caste men and (the holy of holies) inter-marriage between the castes. Here again the lynchpin for creating an imagined/real enemy is to uphold the honour of the upper caste bitiya who are being eyed by the lustful lower caste men hell bent on upending the customs of thousands of years. To aptly complement these there have been several reported cases of honour killing where couples of inter-caste marriages were put to death, often accompanied by pronouncements from kangaroo courts.

To quote the detective ‘There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.’ ‘Love jihad’ is a mere repetition of a long tradition of the patriarchal view of women as possession. Instead of interracial marriage or inter-caste one this time the focus is on inter-religious marriages. By no means is this endemic to India, recently in Israel an Arab-Jewish couple had to exchange their vows amidst tight security after hardline Jewish groups raised the same spectre of Muslim men marrying non-Muslim girl to swell their cadre. In all these contexts the women is viewed as a mere vessel to carry and care for offsprings, without any independent existence, whose only purpose is to propagate the patriarchal bloodline. It is just another fact to note that ‘love jihad’ got traction in the boondocks of a state with high crime figure, low income per capita, site of most divisive religious structures and highest number of seats to parliament. 

For some more information/insight have a look at these two articles: 'Myth of Love Jihad: What’s Faith Got to Do With It?' and '“Love jihad”—the Sangh Parivar’s sexual politics by another name'

Delhi the enduring capital

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than to read some quality articles from a magazine, given that Carvan would be one of the very few that fulfil the criteria of a proper magazine printed in India, the choices are rather limited. Usually I overlook the arts section, however this month I had already read the main essays and reportage so I decided to give the arts section a try and I was pleasantly surprised.

I came across an article titled 'Reeling in the Raj' reviewing the focus of Raj era documentary styles which was mostly in the words of the author 'an orgy of Orientalist clichés' with a heavy imperial overtones showing 'British in close-up, and the Indians—represented by faceless crowds or uniformed troops and servants—relegated to the background.' The paternal overtures of foreign occupiers in those Pathé clips mixed with the stranglehold of  Cinematograph Act of 1918 (which still survives today in different avatars) create a somewhat 'all is well' metauniverse. The author rightly points out that these newsreels were meant for British public and they had to be shown that the White Men have burdened their weights well. This style was jarringly contrasted with Indian directors from late 1930s and early 40s whose 'coverage was gruesomely real.'  

The author meticulously dissects the of wavering fortunes of docu-newsreel and reserves particular scorn for 1930s British productions one of which was A Road in India. Its copyright has expired and it is available on Youtube, so I am embedding it below.

However this post is not about A Road (no matter how juicy it would be to criticise it), this post is about a second newsreel-docu hybrid also released in 1938 titled Delhi (which comes as a suggestion on Youtube if you complete watching the A road docu). This was the time when Lutyens' Delhi has been built and in the inter-war period the jewel in the crown of British Empire looked as stable as it ever could be. The tree lined boulevards with well manicured lawns of LBZ was a stamp that Raj has finally triumphed. The docu opens with a potted (and mostly wrong) history of North India and intones that it is a belief in 'Hindoustan' that every empire has built its capital in Delhi but the ninth 'would endure and rule for ever'. And the narrator in a conspiratorial tone lets us know that the city being built by the British is this fabled ninth city. 

The docu (obviously) portrays British as a positive influence over the 'unwashed, rag-tag' Indian milieu, it has subtle visual clue to show what can only compared with a serious version of 'what did the Romans do for us.' There is an Indian woman who is shown driving a car, the narrator emphasises that wide roads and beautiful gardens with plentiful water is now available for every Indian to enjoy (at least in public places) which was otherwise reserved for the Maharajas. And a shot of the Parliament Building (then known as the House of Assembly) while the narrator explains is the way that India would be ruled by British in cooperation with Hindus and Muslims.

What is striking (apart from the sheer presumptuousness of the lovely paradise being created by the colonial overlords) is the unbound fecklessness/arrogance with which the narrator reminds the viewers that India is destined to be ruled by the British for all time to come. Its quite amazing to note that similar claims were also being made about a certain thousand year Reich. While the Reich lasted for a dozen years coming to a cropper in 1945, the Raj outlived it by a couple more years and finally dissolved in 1947 a mere 9 years since the 1938 docu (such are the courses of history which no man can predict or tame). I will leave you with a final video by Pathe released in 1947 on subcontinents change of rulers where the last line by the narrator is 'Britain has fulfilled her mission, it is for India now, to make her destiny'.

Law and Buddhism

Youngest of the three religions to evolve in BCE India, Buddhism has taught itself from the follies of its predecessors and as a result charts out ‘an equitable path to lead life’. Thus from the point of view of a law student, a study of Buddhist mores and culture presents a unique scenario where one can delve into ancient religious texts and sanctions and impute a contemporaneous legal understanding to them. This short treatise would analyze the fundamental teachings of Gautama Buddha and try to evaluate as to how it has or may affect the myriad of law, morality and legal system that we adhere to today.

Buddhism evolved from the teaching of a ‘sheltered prince turned ascetic’ Siddhartha Gautama who one day ventured outside his palace and set his eyes on the ‘four sights’. Troubled at heart he renunciated princely life and sought the meaning of life, he meditated under a fig tree and achieved spiritual awakening and came to be known as Buddha or the awakened/ enlightened one. Buddhists believe that there is an eternal cycle of life and rebirth, this cycle causes suffering from attachment and the only way to get out of this cycle is by eliminating desire by following path of Buddha. Aware of varying levels of commitment, Buddha laid down the Five Precepts of the basic code of ethics for a common man, for those who wanted to lead more ascetic lifestyle there was the Noble Eightfold Path represented by the eight spokes of the Dharmachakra, for the novice monks and nuns there was the Ten Precepts and finally 277 rules for fully ordained monks and 311 for nuns.

Let us analyze these Buddhist rules and precepts and try to glean out the ‘God particle’ out of it. The Five Precepts or the pañca-sīla in Pali refers to the very basic of Buddha’s teaching and lays down commitments to abstain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication. The Noble Eightfold Path builds on the pañca-sīla and adds abstinence from overindulgence in eating, decorative accessories and luxurious abode. For the novice monks and nuns apart from the eight precepts there is bar on attending entertainment programs and accepting money. For the ordained Buddhist ascetic living at the monastery the rules were contained in the Patimokkha which lays down in detail how a monk or nun should carry out his/her daily activities, it contains varied rules from expulsion, probation to a step by step account of dispute resolution processes that concern monks only.

A quick review of the stair case approach followed by Buddhism shows the innate understanding of Gautama Buddha and subsequent Buddhist sanghas that even to lead righteous life and attain nirvana unequals must be treated unequally, thus while for a common person there are five guidelines to follow for an ordained nun there are 311; but the magnificence of the scheme lies in the fact that the core in 5 and 311 rules are same ‘to encourage the relinquishment of harmful mental qualities and the nurturing of beneficial mental qualities’. Buddhists try to attain this by wisdom, ethical conduct and proper concentration. This forms the bedrock of Buddhist understanding of Middle path.

Question arises as to how we can use such high placed idealistic edicts and moralistic concepts and accord them their correct position in our so called contemporary legal structure or how is it different from various other religious dictates on similar issues. We find lot of encouragement in the writings of Colleen Walsh, Rebecca R. French, Vesna Wallace to name a few. The most important inspirations that we can draw from Buddha’s teachings that have direct bearing on our law, morality and legal system today would be the principles of non attachment and open-mindedness in ADR proceedings especially negotiation and following restorative instead of retributive justice. Buddhism teaches one to remain unattached to ones surroundings; this is the soul of every successful ADR proceeding where an open minded approach would make wonders in solving a dispute. Also given Buddhist abhorrence to violence it is natural that it would propagate ‘a version of’ universal love and would try to reform the offender and restore the victim. 14th Dalai Lama has tried to describe the existence of law as a compassionate way to protect people which essentially contains the precept that we look at greater social concern and the effect on society by punishing the offender, thus where a victim offender mediation can bring out the best possible result Buddhist teaching would encourage us to follow that path instead of blindly adhering to the retributive form of criminal justice system.

Thus we find that Buddha taught us to empathize, practice non violence and lead a life of wisdom, if we had indeed followed that path then we would hardly need any law, but given that we live in an imperfect world we must have law to restore order and to protect people albeit in a ‘compassionate’ manner. We find reflection of Buddha’s teachings in many aspects of our present day law like professional ethics, legal sanction against adultery etc.; but the main foundation of Buddhist thoughts resonate with love and respect for others, this can be the elusive ‘god particle’ which can be given a contemporaneous legal interpretation to champion the cause of ADR mechanisms in both criminal and civil dispute. It is perhaps in this area of contemporary law where Buddhist tenets may have their greatest practical impact.

Who are my leaders – some musings

In January 2011, Outlook magazine published a book excerpt from Patrick French’s ‘India: A Portrait – An intimate biography of 1.2 billion people’. The book was immensely readable and moderately enjoyable. However the excerpt in Outlook focussed on the hereditary nature of our leaders especially in the parliament. It was aptly titled ‘The Princely State Of India’. I especially liked the quantitative analysis (which on Indian political genealogy is always in short supply) and was mildly surprised when it was revealed that all MPs aged less than 30 are hereditary linked to a previous leader/MP. The usual scenario the previous MP dies and the son (or in some instances daughter) steps in to fill the ‘void’. The elections are merely a formality or a ‘rajyabhishek’ (coronation). The excerpt gave a number of examples of such lateral familial entry to politics, and even if someone is completely ignorant of what happens at the level of parliament one does not need to look further than the 'First family' to know how political succession works in India.

Being a proud Bengali (and like most Bengalis thinking rest of India as uncultured, steeped in ‘aya ram gaya ram’ political culture) I decided to check how do MPs from Bengal fare. Remember this is 2011, the time when the Red citadel is about to be breached in state level elections, the Lok Sabha votes of 2009 have been plentiful and TMC candidates were winning at many places (but the state was still run by communist parties). As per the data mined by Patrick French only 1 out of 15 communist MPs from WB had any hereditary linkages, around 3 TMC MPs out of 19 had family connections (basically second generation political leaders), for Congress 4 out of 6 elected MPs had direct family connections with previous leaders. TMC also had three non-political inducted MPs who were either actors or singers. One of these later rebelled and started abstaining from parliamentary proceedings leading to almost no political representation from this constituency. Two others were show caused by the party for siding with a tainted Rajya sabha MP.

How is the situation for 2014 election, well the hereditary MPs have been retained and new ones are being inducted. A young man whose only qualification is that he is related to our dear leader. He seems to have run a political platform which is web based and in recent days have been censured by supreme leader for excesses in promoting himself. Being a political junkie (like most Bengalis) it seemed that there is a sure shot formula to deduce a median Indian MP – male, 45-50 yrs, worth over 5 crores and a strong family background in politics. Unfortunately this trend, to some extent, is also being manifested in Bengal, it is indeed sad that people like me who voted for change are being increasingly saddled with a nepotistic list of MPs and it seems that there is no way out of this vicious cycle of hereditary rule in India.    

Why the hoopla about The Hindus?

A lot of controversy is going on about 'pulping' a book 'The Hindus: An alternative history' by Wendy Doniger, a professor at University of Chicago. What I can gather from various news reports - the book was published in 2009, in 2010 a group of people who thought that the book offends religious sentiments of Hindus in India filed civil and criminal cases (and in cases like these throws every possible accusations and the kitchen sink) for withdrawing the book from India. There was an online campaign as well to banish the book worldwide. Nothing much happened since 2010 except perhaps courts giving dates and the case progressing in a glacial pace (if at all). In 2014 Penguin in an out of court settlement decided to withdraw the book from India and pulp it.  

Being a firm believer in Streisand effect and being proffered several links (I shall not provide them so as not to fall foul of DMCA) to download the book on Facebook, I decided to read the 'controversial' book and like a good lawyer, on an amicus brief, form my own opinion. It was no easy read - quite voluminous and not really scholarly in nature (my comparable frame of reference would be Halsburys for law and Winfield for torts), but then again I am no expert in religious study in general or Hinduism in special. However I did read various editions of Ramayan ranging from children's illustrated edition to a heavyset volume (which claimed to be authoritative) and of course watched the Ramanand Sagar TV series on the matter. Thus you would say that I have an average (and definitively no scholarly) knowledge on the epic. But one important difference for me was the presence of my militant atheist economics professor grandfather (who frequently clashed with my overtly religious grandmother) who always tried to instil in me a critical de-constructive spirit - questioning the status quo and upending the establishment. So I was always a bit miffed that Ram after fighting ferociously for Sita, abandoned her in name of keeping the people of his kingdom happy. Something did not gel well with my idea of equity and justice. This is a deconstructive ideology of interpreting the epic (and some say that there are over 200 versions of the epic), Karunanidhi (for whom I have no love lost) once said 'Who is this Raman? In which engineering college did he study and become a civil engineer?' and berated the epic as 'a piece of fiction that allegorically represented the conflict between Aryans and Dravidians'.

So I decided to read and compare Wendy's interpretation of Ramayan (Chapter 9 quite forebodingly titled Women and the ogresses in the Ramayana 400 BCE to 200 CE); well for a casual reader like me I could find that her deconstructive (which she calls alternative) narrative was more feministic and definitely more critical (than my children's illustrated version). She talks about sexuality (something of a taboo in India, conveniently blamed on the forceful imposition of Victorian morality by our former colonial oppressors) and interprets part of Ramayan focussing on the sexuality of Sita and other major characters. Sita is one of the holiest of holies in Hindu mythology (at par with the virgin birth or messenger of God for Christianity and Islam) and understandably the fringe attacks this 'phoren' misinterpretation of our beloved religious icons (who by default have to rise above base instincts like sex etc.). 

So the question to be asked is Wendy right in her opinion or should it be stopped from corrupting the mind of impressionable young (to misquote and misuse Hicklin), and the answer can be who cares - if Dashrath was a sex crazy guy (which is quite self evident with multiple wives, easily manipulated by one of them, scientific hypotheses about monogamy being unnatural and then the adecdotalyet rational examples of sexual indiscretions of people in power from Tiwari to Clinton to Hollande etc.); the crux seems to be of a person writing about something, if you do not like it criticise it by writing a counter-piece but instead muzzling by pulping seems to be an utter shortcut (to quote Atal Bihari Bajpayee 'If you want to make a line appear short, do not erase it but draw a longer one beside it.'). And alternative narratives are always controversial because by default they have to depart from the mainstream (if you are still with me and want to explore a similar controversy look at Ramanujam Ramayana or the Mahishashura Martyrdom)

What I can personally take away from this is if a book is banned 9 out of 10 times it is not an interesting read (I read satanic verses and it gave me a headache but then Dr. Zhivago also gave me a headache, so I guess the problem has to be with me rather than the book) and 10 out of 10 times it is useless to have a ban. Without going into further spiel about free speech v hate speech v right to offend or magnanimity of Hinduism what I can summarise is that for Indian readers (if brought up solely on a diet of Ramanad Sagar and Amar Chitra Katha's sanitised version of Ramayan) Wendy's chapter on Ramayan would be engaging (i.e. if you open your mind to it you would have some opinion at the end of it) or if you did have a deconstructivist grandad you would say meh why the hoopla? 

In the end I will leave you with two cartoons from the indomitable Amul girl.