The English translation of Umberto Eco’s novel, The Name of the Rose, was originally published
30 years ago. It’s the only novel of Eco
that sold millions of copies. I started
re-reading it during this brief winter break in order to re-live the thrills I
had gone through reading it about a quarter of a century back.
While I’m about half way through the brilliant novel
set in a Benedictine monastery in medieval Italy, I would like to share a
thought from it on why certain new teachings, especially religious ones, gain
popularity among the masses.
In the medieval Europe, any new religious teaching
[what other teaching was there in those days?] would be viewed as heresy, a
challenge to the authority of the Pope.
Eco’s protagonist argues that the majority of those who flock after the
new teachers are the “simple” people
(who lack “subtlety of doctrine”) who are also marginalised by the dominant
classes.
The marginalised
people are powerless in any society.
What they really want is power, power to earn their livelihood, power to
live with dignity, and power to control their own lives. When a new teacher, a reformer, “passes
through their village or stops in their square” they cling to the man hoping
that his teaching is going to subvert the existing power structure which is
inimical to their interests. The people
[aam aadmi] hope that the new teacher, the reformer, will help them move from
the margins toward the centre of the
power structure.
As more and more people join the new teacher, his
teaching acquires greater force and thus becomes a threat to the existing power
structure. Hence the new teacher is
labelled a heretic and burnt at the
stake.
“Actually, first comes the condition of being simple,
then the heresy,” says Eco’s protagonist.
The simple people create the
heretic. In other words, if the
simple people were not so simple, they would not follow a teacher so
easily. “The simple cannot choose their
personal heresy,” in Eco’s words. They
lack the intellectual sophistication required for that. Hence they follow the reformer.
This is how Maoism,
for instance, becomes a lucrative ideology today for the marginalised
people. Maoism promises them some power
with which they can move from the margins of the outcast existence nearer to
the centre of the power structure.
This is how anti-corruption
movements gain momentum on the spur of a moment.
This is also the reason why new and newer religious
teachers find more and more followers.
Some such teachers may indeed help people move from
the margins nearer to the centre. Eco’s
protagonist cites the example Saint
Francis who wanted to bring dignity to the impoverished people by giving
them the dignity of the “children of God.”
We may recall how Mahatma Gandhi
did something quite similar with the people whom he called “Harijan.”
Eco goes on to show that Francis did not succeed in
his attempt, however, because “he had to act within the church, to act within
the church he had to obtain the recognition of his rule, from which an order
would emerge, and this order, as it emerged, would recompose the image of a
circle, at whose margin the outcasts remain.”
In other words, the church would ensure that Francis’s people would
continue to be outcasts or marginalised!
Otherwise, Francis would have to act outside the
influence of the church’s hierarchy. He
would have to create a new power structure, as the Maoists are trying to do
today in certain parts of India.
The Reformer
must have a profound vision.
Otherwise he/she would be counter-productive. Eco argues (as part of his fiction, of
course) that the marginalised people “tend to drag everything down in their
ruin. And they become all the more evil,
the more you cast them out.”
A reformer without a profound vision will only end up
making the marginalised people even more marginalised. By making them worse enemies of the various
forces in the hierarchy. Their greater
depravity will create worse evils in society.
One of Eco’s characters (his narrator, in fact) gives
the example of lepers. Lepers were the most wretched outcasts in
those days. When the young and beautiful
Isolda was condemned by the King to be burnt at the stake, the lepers made a plea. The stake was a mild punishment, they argued,
for someone who “at your (the King’s) side enjoyed rich stuffs lined with
squirrel fur and jewels.” “... when she
sees the courtyard of the lepers, when she has to enter our hovels and lie with
us, then she will truly recognize her sin and regret this fine pyre of
brambles.”
What the lepers really wanted was not to give Isolda a
just retribution or to teach her penitence for her sins; what they really
wanted was to bring her exotic and unattainable beauty beneath their power.
Every act of
rebellion is a banner for power raised by an outcast – actual or self-perceived. I hope Eco wouldn’t frown at that conclusion
of mine.
The power need not be political, however. It may be
simply the power to live one’s life with a feeling of security and
dignity. The kind of protests that Delhi’s
public grounds witnessed in the recent past were banners raised for such
power. If there was one real leader in India, the maidans of Delhi would have throbbed
with alleluias chanted for him/her. What
a pity – our alleluias are destined to remain unsung! We are a nation of mere sloganeers.
Did Hazare qualify? I guess not.
ReplyDeleteRE
No, Raghuram, unfortunately Hazare proved NOT to be a leader. He lacked the vision.
DeleteDoes a leader necessary have to be a universally admirable? I have a hunch Arvind Kejriwal is shaping up for it. Whether you like him or not, his mobilising skills are formidable, and he's only just started. But maybe I'm an optimist.
ReplyDeleteShovon, I think the only person who can do something meaningful in today's India is Mr Kejriwal. He is a crook. But he also has some ideals, it appears. He knows India and how the country works. According to me, he should be given a chance. Let us vote for his and his Aam Aadmi Party. Let us try it out. Why not when all other options seem to be closed.
ReplyDeleteSorry Matheikal for intruding into your dialogue with Shovon Chowdhury. I believe there would have been a few people thinking along these lines about Adolf Hitler too.
ReplyDeleteRE
You are most welcome to intrude, Raghuram.
DeleteI wish a few more intelligent people intruded!
I wouldn't call myself politically intelligent...I think your post is brilliant by the way of how you have explained it. I loved reading it!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Deepa, for the appreciation.
DeleteTomichan there are so many leaders who can teach anyone how to steal,plunder,rape or more!
ReplyDeleteAlas, Indu! That's our tragedy.
Delete