Skip to main content

The Futility of Revolution



One of the shortest but classical works of fiction on the futility of revolution is George Orwell’s Animal Farm [1945]. The animals on the farm revolt against the oppressive human master and seek to establish an egalitarian society where all animals are equal. The revolution is driven by very noble ideals which have the potential to create a paradise on the farm. But sooner than later, the ideals give way to venality and the new rulers among the animals become far worse than the erstwhile human master. The human master only exploited the animals for labour. Now the animal masters are utterly vicious. They enjoy the highest forms of luxury at the cost of the other animals which are treated as worse than slaves. There is not only inequality but also injustice, cruelty, violence, government’s surveillance on the citizens, and plain butchery.

It was the aftermath of the Russian Revolution that inspired Animal Farm. The Russian Revolution sought to replace the dictatorial Tsar with a people’s government founded on socialist ideals. What Russia got, however, was a government far more inhuman than the Tsarist one. Something very similar happened with the French Revolution too which began in the name of the noble ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.

Revolutions are too idealistic to be practical. That is why the great thinker and writer, Albert Camus, said that revolutions culminate inevitably in police or in folly. The kind of perfection quested after by revolutions is impossible in the human world. The humankind has not evolved yet to that level of sophistication (emotional, intellectual and spiritual) required to create such paradises on earth. The human is far too fallible for that. Too frail. Too guilt-ridden.

The human fallibility, frailty and guilt require gods. To fear and worship. To forgive and give a pat on the back. To take revenge on the enemies, whole races of them if possible.

It is not Ram Rajya that the bhakt quests after. It is Ram – with all his might and hate and vengeance. Let us build glorious temples for him. Let us sacrifice fellow beings for him.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal.” That is how one of the ideals in the revolutionised Animal Farm of Orwell had metamorphosed under the new leaders.  

PS 1. This post is provoked by a Facebook visitor to my space who told me bluntly that I, being a non-Hindu, am “only an unwanted guest” in his country which was destined to become Ram Rajya under the present political leadership.

PS 2. Thank you Blogchatter for the following award.


 

Comments

  1. A Hundred QuillsFebruary 22, 2022 at 9:01 PM

    Brilliant. I really enjoyed this piece. It triggered another thought in my mind, something similar that I shall soon share. Sometimes I think we are all in a spiral, and there's no one better than the other. I am so sorry about the Facebook trolling. It's become some sort of culture. Congratulations for the award.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 22, 2022 at 9:05 PM

      Thanks, Sonia. Don't worry about the FB thing, I've got used to that sort of things. I look forward to your post on "something similar".

      Delete
  2. Yamini MacLeanFebruary 22, 2022 at 10:49 PM

    Hari OM
    Interesting you should use Animal Farm (and appropriately, I may add)... have you seen the news that in some of the [dis]United States, there is a move to ban books because they are perceived as having potential to 'misguide our youth'? (An article on this...) Driven by fear of the mighty word, requiring the censorship sword???

    Congrats on being recognised for your contribution at Blogchatter! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 23, 2022 at 6:31 AM

      It's rather odd that the US is seeking to ban books. They're supposed to be liberal, aren't they?

      Delete
  3. विकास नैनवाल 'अंजान'February 23, 2022 at 11:16 PM

    Interesting post. I don't think bhakts quest after Ram too. In fact i think they don't even know Ram because what they are doing is directly opposite to what Ram stood for. Facebook trolls are funny things. I have lost count how many times i have been called a Vampanthi (communist). Congratulations on winning top blogger award.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 24, 2022 at 7:29 AM

      Those who really know their god and religion won't indulge in hatred and violence.

      I take trolls in my stride, no problems. 😊

      Thanks.

      Delete
  4. Anupama JoshyMarch 12, 2022 at 2:30 PM

    👏

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Veiled Women

One of the controversies that has been raging in Kerala for quite some time now is about a girl student’s decision to wear the hijab to school. The school run by Christian nuns did not appreciate the girl’s choice of religious identity over the school uniform and punished her by making her stand outside the classroom. The matter was taken up immediately by a fundamentalist Muslim organisation (SDPI) which created the usual sound and fury on the campus as well as outside. Kerala is a liberal state in which Hindus (55%), Muslims (27%), and Christians (18%) have been living in fair though superficial harmony even after Modi’s BJP with its cantankerous exclusivism assumed power in Delhi. Maybe, Modi created much insecurity feeling among the Muslims in Kerala too resulting in some reactionary moves like the hijab mentioned above. The school could have handled it diplomatically given the general nature of Muslims which is not quite amenable to sense and sensibility. From the time I shi...
13 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more

You Don’t Know the Sky

I asked the bird to lend me wings. I longed to fly like her. Gracefully. She tilted her head and said, “Wings won’t be of any use to you because you don’t know the sky.” And she flew away. Into the sky. For a moment, I was offended. What arrogance! Does she think she owns the sky? As I watched the bird soar effortlessly into the blue vastness, I began to see what she meant. I wanted wings, not the flight. Like wanting freedom without the responsibility that comes with it. The bird had earned her wings. Through storms, through hunger, through braving the odds. She manoeuvred her way among the missiles that flew between invisible borders erected by us humans. She witnessed the macabre dance of death that brought down cities, laid waste a whole country. Wings are about more than flights. How often have you perched on the stump of a massive tree brought down by a falling warhead and wept looking at the debris of civilisations? The language of the sky is different from tha...
13 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more