There is a theme, repeated through this series of columns, which I wish to draw attention to. The Indian English community, I have suggested, is growing increasingly beleaguered and restless. Of course, this is not without cause, for as anyone can see, threats to liberal values are growing too. Yet the panic these threats have provoked in us testifies to an internal malaise: the hardened spirit of ideologues. Thus, for example, when a Gauri Lankesh is killed, we admit very little space for human grief and mourning; for the woman, who was much more important than the journalist; instead we immediately weaponise the event. And in the general consternation over the rise of the right-wing, it is fear and aggression towards the other that seems to animate us, more than respect for what is our own.
Put bluntly, we are verging on a state of panic, and showing no confidence in our victory. And since confidence comes from knowing that you have something stronger on your side, we evidently do not believe that freedom is stronger than oppression, or truth stronger than falsehood, or peace stronger than war. So we do not believe that that which is good is almighty. In other words, we do not believe in god. Which sounds about right, because a more or less unreflective atheism is indeed widespread among the Indian English community. It is something we are generally proud about. But if we were once to glimpse that it is directly linked to our panicky political and social responses, to our continual and mounting stress, perhaps that would give us pause.
‘Everyone worships’
Now more than ever it is vital that we grasp what David Foster Wallace pointed out in his famous Kenyon College commencement speech:
“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship... If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough... Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you... Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”
Living as he did in the U.S., Wallace did not mention the worship of babas and godmen. But we must add these to the list, and place them side by side. The recent downfall of Gurmeet Ram Rahim, his conviction as a rapist, and the violence this sparked in several of his followers, should not then become for us only a matter of observation, but also introspection, along the following lines. Believers in the likes of Ram Rahim have their belief shattered when their god is assailed and corruption discovered in him. Were they able to maintain their belief under attack, they would remain calm — because god, by definition, is almighty. Since they cannot, they succumb to depression or rage, the likes of which ravaged Panchkula. But the corollary conclusion applies to all who are despondent or outraged — as many of us in the Indian English community certainly are. In whom or what have we placed our faith, which, being unsustainable, results in our pathos?
It is important that we take the trouble to ask ourselves this question, because, unlike a baba’s believers, we have no stated object of worship and are, therefore, doubly prone to deception. The believer’s folly, if it be folly, will eventually stare him in the face, but the self-proclaimed atheist worships unawares.
Wallace spoke of some of the common false gods. To these can be added the worship of talent, career, and friendships; a kind of worship which prevails greatly in our community, but which is quite useless to save anyone, as the tragedy of Karan Joseph’s death once again reminds us.
At all times, an urgency attaches to this question of belief because so much depends on it. But for the Indian English community, now especially is the time to reflect, because we have been cast in a fire, which is revealing what we are made of.
Now, the proud and fatal mistake would be to conclude that since the good we clung to is failing, therefore all good must fail; that since we are unable to help ourselves, therefore no help is to be had. Treading this path, we can only be nourished by hatred — not of our flesh and blood enemies — but, far worse, of hope itself. Yet, there is another path to take, which begins simply with humility, a realisation that we have been deceived and deceiving, and a seeking for what we lack; a path along which — happy surprise! — we will find ourselves joined by Ram Rahim’s erstwhile followers, and even more unlikely companions.
Aditya Sudarshan has spent the last decade writing novels and wrestling with the things described over the course of this column.