Thomas Hobbes, in the 1600s, described life before government as a “nasty and brutish” affair. He could well have been talking of life for the average Indian today.
You, dear reader, perusing this English newspaper in air-conditioned comfort, are not the average Indian. You are the one who waxes and wanes righteously when the followers of the convicted rapist Ram Rahim spill into the streets with rage. You swell with indignation at such lawlessness. You are speechless that so many people trust such a poseur. You then leave for work in your chauffeured car. Damn, all that reading made you late, so your driver jumps several signals and parks in front of a gate, but you’re not the average Indian. You are an Important Person in an Important Job.
Descriptors like ‘nasty’ and ‘brutish’ are best applied to the mobs that ransacked Panchkula last week.
But who are these people? Which India do they come from? And why do they continue to be so brutish despite all the money we waste civilising them? Just look at that clown Ram Rahim — he wears bejewelled outfits and drives a red souped-up motor. Who even follows him and makes him a cult figure? He’s not a patch on Elvis Presley in a sequinned jumpsuit, the one in which he thrust his pelvis and made grown women cry and swoon.
Why, I remember you wept like a baby even for Queen. But that was in London, of course. Here in India, you wear kalamkari saris and kohl in your eyes and attend Bharatnatyam lecdems.
But I digress. They say Ram Rahim’s followers are mostly Dalit. Ah! That’s why they are so uncivilised! I tell you, we really must stop reservations. It makes Dalits very out of control. They immediately want to wear flashy clothes and drive cars. Put away their godman, and they show their true selves, hockey sticks and all.
We were discussing just this that night at the pub on Main Street, remember? Just before Vicky insisted on driving home in his new Merc and mowed down that idiot sleeping on the pavement. Shona got fab pictures of it all on her smartphone — she posted them on Facebook and got 5,000 likes in 15 minutes, can you believe it? When will these people learn not to sleep everywhere?
Nope, civilisation isn’t easy to acquire. Not only is it a tight-rope totter between French wine and Kolhapuri chappals, it’s all about the right gurus. Our holy men give real holy herbs before they fertilise our daughters-in-law. And they’re very classy — they talk softly, quote the Upanishads, have only a few wives and when they preach free love, they do so in stylish designer robes (or silk dhotis), not tacky pink tights.
The followers of all these deras and babas just don’t get it. There’s a reason why we keep them out of jobs and temples and gurudwaras and even our cremation grounds. Yet, there they go, trying to behave like they are mainstream. They find a guru who makes them feel good about themselves — some pumped-up, slick-talking praying mantis like this Ram Rahim — and they think they’ve arrived.
Don’t they see how hard you work for spirituality? With your chanting and meditation class, your branded yoga mat and bhajan DVDs. You even paid extra for the ad so that you would get “only vegetarians” and “only heteros” as tenants for your house. Now, that’s real bhakti.
What really offended me this time was all the violence. Who do these people think they are? Politicians? Rich businessmen? How dare they burn and pillage? If a neta and his followers burn a bus or two, one understands the angst. When an upper-caste farmer burns down a Dalit colony, it’s just what Manu ordered. But that’s about as far as we can let this go.
It’s very hard, gentle reader, when the rabble wants to follow the rouser and take law and religion into its own hands. We have laboured long; we have used our hard-earned money and voting rights to give real swamis and politicians the trappings of power — the paid gangs, the unctuous disciples, the spectacular assemblies, the slave girls, the right to rape and plunder. Now everyone wants to have them. What’s the country coming to?
Where the writer tries to make sense of society with seven hundred words and a bit of snark.