Vikram Seth tells a moving story about power versus culture in his poem ‘The
Frog and the Nightingale’. The nightingale has the innate culture and the
art of music. The frog has arrogated to himself the power over the area. The
denizens hate the frog and love the nightingale. However, the nightingale is decimated
soon by the contriving frog. The frog is not without culture, however. He is a self-proclaimed
critic of music and a writer too. He knows how to project himself as a great
personality. He knows how to rewrite history. He is the master of chicanery.
Does that mean that power and culture are antithetical to each other as
Arvind Passey seems to suggest at In[di]spire?
“Power and culture are in perennial conflict with each other,” his opening line
says. No, I don’t agree. There were kings in the olden days and statesmen in
the modern world who were great artists or promoters of art.
But we have travelled a long distance from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra
Modi, from the Pundit to the delinquent. How do we survive in a world run by a
mafia don without losing our inner refinement which sustains culture? It is
difficult to find culture where power reigns ruthlessly. Culture thrives when
the reigning power possesses the sensitivity and sensibility contributed and
required by it.
Yes, culture is all about sensitivity and sensibility. Craze for power
is usually ruthless. The last Mughal, Bahadur Shah Zafar, wrote shortly after
his imprisonment:
Delhi was once a
paradise,
Where Love held sway
and reigned;
But its charm lies
ravished now
And only ruins remain.
That enfeebled emperor was a great promoter of art. One of the greatest
lyric poets of India, Ghalib, was his poet laureate. Political power sustained
that poet. Political power in India today kills poetry and arts. Where does the
problem lie? I leave the answer for you to discover.
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