Interpretations matter

In Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classical book, The Little Prince, a fox shares a secret with the eponymous prince in return for a favour from the prince. “And now here is my secret,” says the fox, “a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

The favour that the fox wanted from the prince was to be tamed. “Tame me,” the fox requested. The prince didn’t know what taming was. Taming means “to establish ties,” explains the fox. It is relationships that make any entity unique. There are flowers and flowers, for example. But all those flowers mean nothing to you unless you establish a “tie” with one or more of them. “It is the time you wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important,” the fox counsels.

The fox doesn’t like the system he has to follow. He has to hunt chickens of human beings, and human beings hunt him. That is the fact. He would like to reinterpret that fact. He would like to create a new reality, one that is based on relationships, one in which creatures will see with their hearts.

When I suggested philosopher Nietzsche’s quote, “There are no facts, only interpretations,” for Indispire Edition 300, I had this fox in mind. Of course, the quote is not to be taken literally. It requires interpretation. There are facts and facts. And we can’t live without them. But what matters more is how you interpret those facts. At least quite many of them.

For example, until recently Mahatma Gandhi was the father of the nation and Nathuram Godse was his killer. Such ‘facts’ are being reinterpreted these days. Gandhi is being evicted from the venerable position and his killer is being deified. Odisha government recently distributed a booklet in the state’s schools during the 150^th birth anniversary of the Mahatma. The booklet claimed that “Gandhiji died … because of an accidental sequence of events.” That is going far beyond interpretation of a fact: it is a grotesque distortion of the fact, something which the present ruling party in India is specialising on.

Misinterpretations and distortions of facts abound in India now. It happens because too many Indians now fail to see with their hearts. Eminent institutions of the country including the judiciary are afflicted by this malady of not being able to exercise the heart.

India is fast becoming a dark subcontinent because of that malady. It is imperative now to reverse its gravitation towards dark deeps. One way of doing that is to follow the above fox’s counsel.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 300: #NoFacts

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