Power versus Culture

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.