Faith of the matter

 

The last post was meant to be about stampede that killed more than hundred people and maimed hundreds more but I meandered into something else and decided I may not have to express thoughts on something that happens at regular basis in this blessed part of the world. But the way barbarians in the media are going for the onslaught, and the narration that is sought to be consolidated leaves me deeply troubled. Need to also add I avoid TV nor waste time on popular media of what is essentially a mediocrity thriving society that has potential to ensnare and waste you (apart from regular nonsense, including necessary slant to the news to conform deep narration, there is an obsessive interest in private life of entertainers and attention seeking upstart sundries, the voyeurism is intended to infect people while they gain attention and life affirming branding of superficial lives). I generally catch news trends on social media since I am located here, one must have a side glance on local, as also national, and international trends that excites herd since an excited herd has the high probability to intrude your world. If you don’t keep an eye on herd, you could be caught off-guard and trampled.

 So, in the aftermath of stampede that killed more than hundred and left many more seriously injured the nasty media was working on controlling narration. Instead of focusing on administration they were consolidating narration that was meant to demean and degrade the victims. What we saw was criminal negligence by essentially an incompetent administration. Incompetent because they are incapacitated to be responsible since once they get job security, influence over common people, they deem themselves blessed and will emulate all the debauchery of sanctum squatters. So, people gathering, stampeding, dying, not yet dead, dead, bodies (it is even difficult to show some dignity to dead body, the rote is deep), are all play of fate. They all share the same value system hence the market media play savior by focusing on lowest hanging fruit to milk the issue for daily wage as also consolidate their world view and blessedness. This arrogant display of power, influence and indifference in the most unfortunate of circumstances is what makes it especially depraved.    

Market media and legacy outlets -that were fed and fattened for decades, were seen focusing on nature of cult, vituperative details of hapless people’s faith while concurrently showcasing squatter authenticated pure worldview. They were highly critical of the idea of “human god”. Castetva and hindutva media were both vociferous in their contempt while they wrangle to play savior. Let’s be very clear this incorrigible debauchery in the guise of dispensing news is meant to insult the victims and an assault on faith of dead who died due to criminal negligence. What people want to follow, or not follow, as their faith is their choice. They face immense tribulations and have coping mechanism that is quite ancient system in this part of the world. What is important is whether it violated any law, rule of law is the only matter that is open for investigation. Even here conjecturing is being used by narration controllers to demean and degrade. And yes, in case you want to question the nature of cult then you must be open to these questions every time some tragedy happens, or even otherwise -I believe everything must be open to question and scrutiny (except something that is personal and doesn’t have any impact on others or society). Hinduism is essentially about cult, and cannot be sanitized into sanctum squatter’s infective ‘purity’ or sanitized temple space. In this society if people find someone of value they assign godly attributes, it can be good or bad (personally I think it is problematic particularly when deified or assigned inscrutable faith, but respect for great soul is valuable since through this evolved values get rooted, helps in betterment of individual and society) and can be manipulated by charlatans. But then what is it about religions that is different? Dude in imaginary space sending someone (worked as prophet) to write holy book that excites cave minds or god dude’s son worked his way up as carpenter to walk on water, performing miracles including coming out of dead, while another dude is habituated to drop in as avatar even for minor family dispute, working fantastical narration of simultaneously saving dharma, sometimes quite fortuitously as a king to fight devil in human form weaving compelling stories as moral study and message, another carried empathy to understand human condition but was converted into dude (so much so that hindi word for statue is budh). Millions pray on these as their focus of faith, they also fight and kill to establish superiority of their dude over other dude. Some peacenik arbitrate reminding that all dudes are same why fight! Ofcourse it rarely works with herd hooked to fantastical stories and supremacist ideas.

The point being made here is that cults consolidating few centuries back are normalized as ‘religion’, and passed on without scrutiny, even seeking protection for their herd as cherished identity, while recent herd working on the same framework are classified as unthinking peasants. This is unacceptable premise and grossly discriminative. Organized religions (as also organized hinduism) have contempt for “human god” hence legacy media and market players find these as easy prey, it’s easy to conform with powerful organized force than with righteous and unbiased scrutiny. Will they ask question, in case there is stampede during Ganesh chathurti, as to the ridiculous tradition of praying to God with elephant head or inane rituals, and eviscerate the faith through panel discussion and call for rational way of life? Will they question people stampeding in mecca or self-flagellating herd (such brutal self-flagellation in public space must be unlawful) as to why do they do such nonsense, of rotating around big cube or whatever, and initiate validity of mentioned in so called holy book, or praying a dead man’s statue screwed on cross? So, people have right to faith, or no faith, and they can follow whatever crap they fancy. In a free liberal society there is space to pursue one’s interest. Better ideas, evolved thoughts and innovative pursuits emerge in open societies. Such societies also see liberty misused and insecurities exploited. Ofcourse it is a different matter that these indicate failures of education, collective loss of society and incapacity of individuals. There will be cults, there will be degradations in the name of faith, there will be exploitation of insecurities -authenticated through long tradition of faith. Regressive values and dehumanizing traditions must be questioned across the board. Therefore this bourgeoise elitist attempts to classify faith into bigger -hence unquestioned as belief, and minor -hence ridiculed as superstition (on these matters sociologists and anthropologists suffer from dominant narration sycophancy hence cannot be taken seriously), must be questioned. The only thing that matters is; is it within the law, does it physically impact other (like blocking/noise/stampede) as also what steps state machinery has taken to see that it is properly conducted. Ideally, we should also seek to scrutinize how much these miracles driven nonsenses, holy texts, sacred traditions so on impact society as also individuals particularly vulnerable children, that is what is expected from civilized society and need to be focus of scholars. Critical scrutiny shouldn’t be confined to small cults or vulnerable people -indeed these diversity of faith connected to local reality could be serving immediate existential purpose with limited harm against colossal damage religions continues to unleash on the world. If you seek to eviscerate cults when hundreds have died recently then the same stringent standards and ridicule must be applied to religions. By making fun of common people’s faith and choices meanwhile safeguarding miracle driven balderdash of powerful religions legacy media and marketeers are showing their prejudices and essential incompetence that defines such ogle. They emulate organized religion's contempt for pagan thus reducing world into binaries to severely degrade humanity. What must be reiterated is that these kinds of recurring tragedies are due to state apathy and criminal failure of district administration therefore there must be criminal proceeding against them. Government job/money is not for showcasing blessing but performing duties efficiently and effectively. What is needed is empathy driven quality education. Meanwhile a civilized society will stricture media; ideally minimum decency would self censure ridiculing faith of recent dead. What is yet again made clear is that we don’t live in ideal world -not even decent, it is a crass crude world of beggar minds stampeding for next joint of opportunism. The irony not missed here is that when others die in stampede of different setting there isn’t any moment of self-reflection.