Neither here nor there

Sunday Musings

BJP’s Kerala state general secretary, Surenderan, has an opinion that is quite different from that of his party about women’s entry to the Sabarimala temple.  He thinks that Lord Ayappan, the presiding deity at Sabarimala, is not a misogynist though he is a “perpetual celibate.”  But his party was quick to distance itself from the Facebook post of the state general secretary.  The state president, Kummanam Rajasekharan, dismissed the secretary’s view as “personal.”

How many compromises can we make between our personal views and those of the organisation or party or system to which we belong religiously?

I am an absolute hypocrite when it comes to religion.  I find it impossible to believe anything of what religions teach.  My very being rebels against the teachings much as I acknowledge the inevitable role of delusions and illusions in a normal man’s life.  In spite of the nausea they germinate in me, I participate in certain religious rituals. I participated in the Hindu rituals performed in the school where I worked in Delhi as religiously as I could.  That was part of my duties as a teacher.  I do the same now with Christian rituals when I’m working in a Christian institution.  I wish there were secular institutions where I could be the real me.  But secularism in India is a joke.

The jokers who rule the roost make compromises inevitable.  There is no survival outside some system or the other.  And systems are made by human beings as limited and imperfect as you and me.  So the systems are necessarily limited and imperfect.  Even the supposedly perfect God could not create a perfect world; how can we expect imperfect human beings to create perfect systems?

Imperfect systems require compromises.  Hypocrisy, in plainer words. But how many compromises, how much hypocrisy?

I think we should make it clear where we really are.  For example, Surendran who is the most vocal leader of BJP in Kerala should make it clear how far he distances himself from his Party’s official stands.  If there is a big gap between him and his Party, he should make that clear to the people whom he is leading to some utopia promised by his Party.  A utopia without women, for example.  Menstruating women, that is.  His Party has a problem with women’s menstruation (among many other more bloody things) which he thinks is a “natural” and “divine” process.

I think Surendran is more intelligent than the system.  The system belongs to the mediocre.  Surendran deserves to lead the system simply because he is more intelligent.  How much can he alter that system for the better?  That’s the question that matters really.  Kummanam Rajasekhran belongs to the medieval period and is fit to be a mere politician. 

The tragedy, however, is that Kummanams will continue to rule the roost.  Kummanams will become chief ministers and prime ministers.  Surendrans will be chucked out unless they toe the line drawn by the system.  Success belongs to the one who sticks to something even if it is bullshit.  The nowhere land belongs to the intellectual who has no ambitions.  The intellectual is neither here nor there.