Optimism

A part of the staff quarters demolished partly by RSSB initially and left as such for months just to demoralise the staff

I had a colleague in Delhi who fought two successive cases in the court of justice in order to get his job back. Let me call him Sachin. He won the first case and arrived at a compromise in the second. He went through veritable hells during his fights but never lost his optimism. Yesterday when I posited a question on Facebook whether the Karnataka by-election results were an indication of people’s disillusionment with the BJP, Sachin was one of the first to assert confidently, “Surely not.”

Sachin was a math teacher in the senior secondary section which already had another math teacher. He was brought in because students were unhappy with the existing teacher. It is quite difficult to be a popular math teacher and Sachin too faced an uphill task which eventually became too daunting especially with the uncooperative attitude of the management and a section of the staff. A series of incidents led Sachin into depression and he submitted his resignation letter to the head of academics in frustration.  The very next morning, however, he came to his senses, aided by his family members and some of his perceptive colleagues [among whom I include myself] and applied for the withdrawal of his resignation. There was no technical or legal objection to that withdrawal. However, the head of academics issued him a letter stating that the school had already accepted his resignation and he had to move out immediately. His first court case followed immediately. The court judged in his favour after some four years or so and he had to be taken back by the school.

Soon after that the management of the school changed hands. A religious cult called Radha Soami Stasang Beas [RSSB] took over the school with mala fide intentions. They promised to run the school in a better way than the previous management though none of the staff trusted them. The actions of RSSB justified our suspicions. Soon after taking over the school the new management started dismissing the staff one by one on various pretexts most of which were whimsical or flippant. Sachin was one of the many who lost their job to the religious fervour of RSSB. He filed his second case in the court.

Being aware of the influence that RSSB wielded in the government, among politicians and others with any power as well as the local rank and file, I suggested an out-of-court settlement. Sachin’s sensibility was offended. “Sir,” he told me with an exceptional confidence, “I trust in the judiciary of this country. Satyameva jayate.”

His optimism was misplaced, however. RSSB managed to get the entire staff and students out of the campus in a couple of years’ time. Then they razed every building – the school, a huge library, auditorium, hostels, staff quarters, hospital, dining hall, etc – and the entire 15-acre campus was converted into a parking lot for the cult’s devotees.  The cult had used various strategies, most of which were unfair and many were extremely diabolic, to achieve their final objective of annihilating the school.

I still remember one morning Sachin emerging from his staff quarters wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts and vest when the bulldozer started demolishing a wing of the staff quarters from which he had refused to vacate in spite of repeated orders from the management. I admired his guts. He called the police instantly and complained that the management was trying to kill him and his family. He had actually got a stay order from the court against the management’s order for vacating his residence. He won this time. The bulldozer had to withdraw. The withdrawal was for a few hours, however. RSSB is too powerful for a man like Sachin, however brave and honest he may be.

Sachin had to leave the campus soon. We all followed him in a matter of a few days. Such was the power of the religious cult. Whatever happened during that period added profundity to my inherent cynicism. But Sachin continued to be an ardent optimist.

Ambrose Bierce saw optimism as “an intellectual disorder” which is “hereditary but not contagious.”  I don’t know if it really is hereditary. But I’m convinced that it is a disorder when it crosses the borders of common sense. Bierce defined optimism as “a doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful including what is ugly”.  Everything is right including the wrong, for the optimist. The optimist will admonish you if you say the glass is half-empty because for him it is half-full. The optimist holds on to his faith with “greatest tenacity.” Bierce goes on to say that “Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof.”

Sachin frequently accuses me of being a “negative” and “hateful” man merely because I question the evils like lynching, communalism, fraudulence and chicanery perpetrated by the ruling BJP. His faith in the party is blind in the sense pointed out by Bierce.

I consider myself a realist. I accept the good as good and the bad as bad. I have a very strongly founded ethical system of my own which I follow meticulously though the religious optimists may not understand it. I can understand the aspirations of the man who gazes longingly at the stars in the heavens while standing rooted in the filthiest gutter. I too long to reach the stars. But I know the reality in which I am grounded. I know that real optimism begins from that reality. Mere longing is a hollow dream.