Skip to main content

India, Religion and Noise

Japan's latest maglev train
 When Japan was test-running the fastest maglev train in the world, India was discussing whether Taj Mahal was originally Tejo Mahalaya, a Hindu temple.  In spite of all the great slogans like ‘Make in India’ that the Prime Minister bestowed on the nation, nothing has changed for the better since the BJP came to power.  Many things changed for the worse, in fact.  There is more communal polarisation, for example.  There is increasing disgruntlement among the economically weaker sections.  And history is being twisted out of shape.

History as social science is being replaced by history as fantasy and myth, says the editorial in today’s Hindu.  Why is India still so much obsessed with religion and its infantile myths and rituals, when countries like Japan are making rapid progresses in science and technology in spite of the conservatism that runs deep in the people’s veins?

The BJP wanted to come to power and used religion as an easy tool.  Fine.  One can understand the game given the history of the country’s politics.  Having achieved the goal, why does the party still cling on to the tool?  It’s like the hunter searching for the shot bullet instead of the fallen game. 

Why can’t India grow up?  Is it because the right wing is suffering from an acute identity crisis?  No one feels the need to assert a particular identity raucously unless one feels insecure or inferior on account of that identity.  Even the strident assertions of the superiority of one’s religion and culture usually have their roots in some painful feeling of inferiority.

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 22, 2015 at 12:42 PM

    That's true. The last line is very powerful. It must be some sense of inferiority that makes people assert their superiority on others. Or else why a person would leave the path of peace and development if not due to the insecurities penetrating deep within. India should move on. The time has come when the youth shall act. BJP is hopeless. Any political party is hopeless. They are still clinging to their rotten fundamentals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 22, 2015 at 12:50 PM

      So much aggressiveness is also a sign of inferiority complex, Namrata.

      Delete
  2. K V V S MURTHYApril 22, 2015 at 6:56 PM

    Indian politicians simply want power to rob the people easily, and they use different tools howsoever temporary and destructive.And don't under estimate common people,they also seek their own share in it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 22, 2015 at 7:50 PM

      True. Without the common man's support the game can't go on. Perhaps some people also suffer from serious identity crisis.

      Delete
  3. Brendan DabhiApril 23, 2015 at 12:10 AM

    The last time anyone tried to assert their identity on a nation, they ended up losing the Second World War.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 23, 2015 at 7:13 AM

      And there are a lot more parallels between the two situations....

      Delete
    2. Brendan DabhiApril 23, 2015 at 8:56 AM

      I'm actually waiting for you to publish an entire comparative study between these 'situations' as they are.

      Delete
  4. Ismail.April 24, 2015 at 10:00 PM

    Nice blog as well as posts. I have become a fan of you. Please visit and give your valuable suggestions for my blog as well.
    www.differentcolorsofindia.blogspot.in

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 25, 2015 at 7:17 AM

      Thank you.
      My knowledge of Hindi is not good enough to understand your blog. I'll keep trying :)

      Delete
  5. UnknownApril 27, 2015 at 2:11 PM

    When there will be equality things will change, I heard an amazing speech by a farmer now a MP and a weaker class by caste too and was in agreement to his suggestions and woes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD1-arWXGFU

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 27, 2015 at 8:43 PM

      Equality is an impossible dream given the socio-economic system we are following.

      Delete
  6. Arun MuthusamyMay 5, 2015 at 9:44 AM

    What's your view on C missionaries spending millions in converting poor tribals instead of spending on development?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
17 comments
Read more

Ram, Anandhi, and Co

Book Review Title: Ram C/o Anandhi Author: Akhil P Dharmajan Translator: Haritha C K Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2025 Pages: 303 T he author tells us in his prefatory note that “this (is) a cinematic novel.” Don’t read it as literary work but imagine it as a movie. That is exactly how this novel feels like: an action-packed thriller. The story revolves around Ram, a young man who lands in Chennai for joining a diploma course in film making, and Anandhi, receptionist of Ram’s college. Then there are their friends: Vetri and his half-sister Reshma, and Malli who is a transgender. An old woman, who is called Paatti (grandmother) by everyone and is the owner of the house where three of the characters live, has an enviably thrilling role in the plot.   In one of the first chapters, Ram and Anandhi lock horns over a trifle. That leads to some farcical action which agitates Paatti’s bees which in turn fly around stinging everyone. Malli, the aruvani (transgender), s...
8 comments
Read more

The Blind Lady’s Descendants

Book Review Title: The Blind Lady’s Descendants Author: Anees Salim Publisher: Penguin India 2015 Pages: 301 Price: Rs 399 A metaphorical blindness is part of most people’s lives.  We fail to see many things and hence live partial lives.  We make our lives as well as those of others miserable with our blindness.  Anees Salim’s novel which won the Raymond & Crossword award for fiction in 2014 explores the role played by blindness in the lives of a few individuals most of whom belong to the family of Hamsa and Asma.  The couple are not on talking terms for “eighteen years,” according to the mother.  When Amar, the youngest son and narrator of the novel, points out that he is only sixteen, Asma reduces it to fifteen and then to ten years when Amar refers to the child that was born a few years after him though it did not survive.  Dark humour spills out of every page of the book.  For example: How reckless Akmal was! ...
5 comments
Read more

A Curious Case of Food

From CNN  whose headline is:  Holy cow! India is the world's largest beef exporter The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is perhaps the only novel I’ve read in which food plays a significant, though not central, role, particularly in deepening the reader’s understanding of Christopher Boone’s character. Christopher, the protagonist, is a 15-year-old autistic boy. [For my earlier posts on the novel, click here .] First of all, food is a symbol of order and control in the novel. Christopher’s relationship with food is governed by strict rules and routines. He likes certain foods and detests a few others. “I do not like yellow things or brown things and I do not eat yellow or brown things,” he tells us innocently. He has made up some of these likes and dislikes in order to bring some sort of order and predictability in a world that is very confusing for him. The boy’s food preferences are tied to his emotional state. If he is served a breakfast o...
6 comments
Read more