Wednesday 24 January 2018

Padmaavat, Davos & An Indian Tragedy



It’s been a rather bittersweet week in the story for India. And as we come to celebrate our 69thRepublic Day, such weeks have become quite regular as we continue to be a land of gigantic contradictions.

The violent ruckus over the movie Padmaavat and the celebration of the Indian story at the World Economic Forum, Davos, are more than testament to those contradictions that continue to hurt India. The story of our economic growth needs to be juxtaposed against the state of our society, politics and culture. Neither can thrive alone and one cannot be at the cost of the other.

The irony of the week is that as we rooted for our Prime Minister to give the keynote at Davos for the first time, at home we also had to deal with vandalism from a splintered fringe group demanding a ban on a movie while the state remained rather silent as freedom of expression was compromised at the hands of people who seem to have no respect for our apex court.

As we sought to attract billions in foreign investment, we’ve had masked men causing great economic, social and cultural setbacks to the nation and its people. While economic inequality is a recognised problem, what do we do about the inequality in our minds?

While the unrecognized and self-declared custodians of Rajput pride have the right to peaceful protest, their acts of vandalism and calls for beheading must be met with strong legal and police action. The episode is rather symptomatic of India. Here’s a community (a part of it at least), not in sync with modernity and consumed by its complex past, reluctant to adapt to the new world around it. Yes, cultural nuances must be respected, but they cannot be made tools to mislead and extort some form mileage.  

And while some recalcitrant elements of this community held the country to ransom, a popular Indian Prime Minister addressed the world about India’s growth story. Is the ruling party’s silence a nod to the fringe or is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite his well-placed intentions, unable to control the mighty Indian cultural right and the fringe?

But it would be shortsighted to blame the government of the day alone, the previous ones, dominated by a decadent Congress that attempts to reinvent, let us down as well, especially with poor education standards and lack of commitment towards corrupt-free and strong institutions, or else wouldn’t we have had more developed minds that dealt with the graver challenges of the day?

It’s a tragic story that’s been in the making for years now, as the grip of capitalistic pursuit blinds us and is fostered further by the undercurrents of rising inequality and poor education that fringe exploits to their utmost.

Informed education and collective memory are crucial to build imaginations and strengthen norms that stitch together communities, and promote social cohesion while also providing rehabilitation. But perhaps an educated India is not in the interest of the political elite or why else would the standard of government schools be as low or why would there be little space for disparate narratives to co-exist and too few public spaces that are testament to social unity. For like George Orwell simplified it for us, “Those who control the past, control the future. And those who control the present, control the past.”

Now from the collective memory perspective, getting back to the Padmaavat conundrum. In the absence of any facts about the existence of such legends as being depicted, (not that the existence of such an story would validate the ruckus) it’s crucial to attempt to understand how these legends come into existence, are strengthened in articulation and used to influence actions.

There are multiple purposes such legends serve as academics have talked about. For instance here, the story helps create a narrative of Rajput valour via which it attempts to reclaim the glory after a complex past of triumph and failure. The legends then permeate across the community and serve as a tool to imagine a feminine space by creating an idol woman figure in the mind of the man, and thus society. And well, the political weight that these legends carry along with and their not so nonchalant believers is a story we are all quite familiar with.

Meanwhile, at Davos as world leaders got together, each carrying within them the desire to attract investment and chase economic growth, they also had to camouflage and confront the political baggage they carried. The contradictions that face them couldn’t have been mirrored more with talks focused around building a “shared future in a fractured world”; a world fractured not only across at a macro level; but one with fissures running deep on the micro level as well. Attitudes towards women, parochial mindsets, overreaching corruption and the resultant unfulfilled aspirations and communal harm to name a few; all elements that affect our world globally, as much as locally.

And when it comes to mending those fissures and healing global fractures to secure inclusive growth, freedom and social cohesion, the impact of the merging strokes of the numerous episodes like Padmavati around the world, the consuming chases of economic growth at the Davoses of the world, and everything in between becomes visible on the world we paint. The Indian Prime Minister warned against the perils of protectionism at Davos. To go further if there’s any protectionism world leaders seek, may that be in form of protection against those fissures and fractures of the world.

These fractures, that have already hurt many in the past, threaten to hurt even more by holding us back. That is the tragedy: Unfulfilled potential, unaccomplished aspirations and greater visible divides rarely promise peace as we fall short as a collective and hurt the future generations. In that context, the apparent cowing down of the state to vandalism, it’s longstanding failing to rehabilitate communities and provide quality education will be judged with the same vigour with which we praise the Prime Minister’s speech and the unprecedented Indian presence at Davos.

The valour that the fringe talks about is in working towards meeting those challenges as we attempt to avert those tragedies. In the modern times of today, there’s no valour in suppression of expressions; that indeed is a sign of fear and regression. There’s no bravery in vandalism with masked faces; it’s only in accepting new narratives and challenging them via words, if at all. Valour in civilized society is in freedom of the mind, dialogue and in upholding democratic values and constitutional veracity.

In a misplaced attempt to cause alarm, the fringe also called for locking down of tourist sites in the state of Rajasthan. While this has gotten them momentary fame and some gain, it causes long-term harm to the state and it’s people. Who’ll come to a regressive state where law and order aren’t guaranteed? Which filmmaker will bring in her caravans to shoot at and showcase the magnificent forts that reek with Rajput pride? In the world of forever breaking news and instantaneous social media, rather negative perceptions still stick on longer.

Rather than forcing the shutting down of forts and palaces for tourists, we need to build new ones for the residents of the state. We need Museums of Harmony, Museums of Unity, Museums of Our Mistakes and Museums of Memory to constantly remind and educate ourselves about our glorious yet not unscarred past. It’s only with the maturing of collective memory and creation of inclusive public spaces that we can continue to reap the benefits of the economic prosperity that beckons us.

We can overturn things together and our leaders must show the way. We all, including our political, economic and societal leaders, must introspect about what we stand for and what we want to be. Let’s avert the tragedy.