It is when the primitive society
negotiates the realities of egalitarian values and modern setting that the gaps are seen in these compelling sights. And yes let each and every ‘community’
come out on the street and vandalise to show their strength and fight for more clout
and pride. Squatter ensconced mediocre elite and those playing intellectuals (includes
godforsaken sociologists) bargained, ofcourse in their entitled ways, that
these puss filled festers will be scratched and licked in private pleasure and will only
be showcased as amazing diversity when summoned. But alas, this is something that
was not factored and they cringe in their respective ‘community’ pits wondering
what has come to the world. Why are people such brutes, and yes what happened
to Gandhi apostling peace that we are so world famous for? A wonderful
conception where people peacefully come out of their putrid pits and hug the passerby
with nonviolence seeping the street and gandhian values filling the air, and
then dutifully go back to their pits and day dream. Well clearly it is not
really happening that way. The stench of putrid pit fills the street. In such a
discriminatory and amazingly prejudiced and stratified society egalitarian framework
like democracy creates existential confusion and angst that civilised people
may find difficult to understand. Let more and more ‘communities’ come out in
each and every street and fight it out. Nonviolence in this primitive world is
an act of assertive deviance as much as non-vegetarianism is a progressive step when faced with excruciatingly regressive vegetarianism. When it comes to India
conventional wisdom and liberal contexts needs to be re-evaluated. The elite sections attempt
to align with semantics of the civilized world falls well short, the hypocrisy is telling.
Pests in Delhi: This is a chapter in Mr. Kutty’s autobiography
(that I mentioned in my previous blog), it is wonderfully insightful hence I thought
of quoting. The readers will see strong contemporary resonance, well it is but
expected afterall it’s the duty of devious elders to pass on their artform to
progenies as matter of tradition; inbreeding sharpens it to a level that ordinary
mortals are never equipped to fathom the nuances of this deeply degraded ways.
After independence, three ways of Pests (each of different kind) invaded
Delhi. They were the Gandhians, in the early years, followed by Public Relation
people –born during the ‘Permit-Quota-License period’ –and then the Left
intellectuals.
The Gandhians acquired bad reputation, long before Gandhiji died. Gandhiji
was aware of this. The group included gang of unscrupulous people out to earn
quick buck, using that great man’s name. There were Pure Gandhians who claimed they
are vegetarian, but ate even beef privately; believed in truth only, but never
told one. There were other Gandhians who propagated prohibition, but they themselves
drank and enjoyed scotch. All sorts were there. They included criminals,
crooks, conmen, and even common thieves. They all had gone jail ofcourse –but they
never clarified for what. They were the most insincere and untrustworthy people
around. Many of them managed to secure ‘tamrapatras’, and pensions, claiming
they were freedom fighters.
A conversation between GV Tendulkar (a great photographer and writer,
who had written the definitive biography of Gandhiji, in several volumes) and
Gandhiji was reported to us when he visited Shankar at his office…When Gandhiji
expressed some doubts about a project Tendulkar had proposed, the latter retorted
“Bapu you can trust me. I am NOT a Gandhian”. Gandhiji had a good laugh…
After a time, the Gandhians had to give way to the next group who were
active when all business, trade and commerce came under strict government
control –the public relation fellows. These guys were ready to do anything to
get favour for their clients from the bureaucrats and politicians. Some of them
were freelancers. Most of them were attached to big business houses. They had
heavy Expense Account purses, with no restrictions whatsoever. These people continued
to operate for quite sometime. They managed to displace the Gandhians. Some of
them had been operating previously as Gandhians, though!
After them came Left intellectuals who dominated this scene for a long
period. They were mostly people with some academic qualification, professors, so-called
researchers, journalists, actors, painters, and fellows claiming to be writers
and thinkers. The common link that kept them all together was the Scotch,
supplied by various Communist Embassies in New Delhi. These fellows had
communist leanings but did not have the desire to join the party, lest it interfere
with business, which was making money quick, because the party insist on share
of your income for itself, from its members.
They were intelligent fellows who had discovered that Communism was
easiest way to ‘Accumulate Capital.’
Their heyday was during the Indira regime, when one of the top
Communist Party leaders, Mr Mohan Kumaramangalam left that Party, and joined the
Indira cabinet! I knew a lot of journalist in this group. When the pay commission
for the journalists came, one could know the salary of any one of them. But nobody
could fathom their income!!
This group was, unlike the Public Relations crowd, able to make money
without spending any. Indira’s advisers belong to this group. Occasionally you
could spot some of these ‘Left Intellectuals’ in the ‘Right reactionary’ crowd,
probably exploring possibilities here.
People who went to the American embassy for any business, or even to
the US Information Service Library, were branded as ‘Right reactionaries’, even
‘CIA agent’ by these fellows! The rouble for these people was holy, the dollar ‘dirty’,
though if they had the chance to get it, they themselves preferred the dollar. The
collapse of Communist regimes in Europe left these chaps at a loose end! Soon they
dispersed and formed their own individual lobbies for various politicians.
It’s an insight that will help
you understand all kind of fixers, manipulators and pretenders around the power
centres. Their task becomes much easier when
the sycophants are elevated into cabinet positions, indeed they lobby for these
incompetent and unelectable geezers. Sometimes carefully position these as
matter of pride, while the family surrounded by sycophants live in
exaggeration and invincibility, these attribute expertly exploited by
manipulators to hyperbole the hurt and victims readied to be fed. Elevation of
amazingly incompetent people like Salman Kurshid and Ambika Soni can be explained
from this framework, latter’s role in emergency atrocities made her particularly
vulnerable hence easily manipulated by vested interests. How much of national
interest was compromised and privacy of individuals intruded, for personal aggrandizement and private reasons, nobody
will ever know.
