Skip to main content

Civilisation is skin-deep



R G Collingwood, professor of metaphysics, regards civilisation as an attitude which enables ideal social relationships of ‘civility’.  In practice, this means becoming progressively less violent, more scientific and more inclusive. This never happens, though. Most people remain savages at heart. Scratch any civilisation and savagery will bleed out.

If there is a little support from the government, even tacit support, then savagery will become the dominant force in any nation. Savagery appeals far more to people in general than civilisation. Let us take a quick glance at what is happening to India now.

Both the society and the polity in India have been transformed into sites of discursive and physical violence, increasing fidelity to myths and superstitions, and burgeoning hatred of certain communities – just the opposite of what Collingwood described as characteristics of civilisation.

This situation is largely a creation of the government at the Centre which is doing all that it can to convert India into a Hindu nation. Making Gandhi a Hindu icon, pitting Patel against Nehru, and designating 14 Aug as Partition Horror Memorial Day are just a few examples of reshaping history and thus reshaping the nation itself. Institutions, persons and practices that embody secular ideals are attacked systematically one way or another. Savarkar and Godse are made heroes.

There are open calls for genocide of both Muslims and Christians, the former bearing the larger brunt. The Dharam Sansads convened in Haridwar and Delhi in Dec 2021 pledged to exterminate Muslims from India altogether. The Haridwar Sansad started with making a public mockery of the Indian Constitution which was brought on the stage and lampooned. Soon the audience was exhorted to take up arms against Muslims. One of the speakers said that if he was an MP in Manmohan Singh’s parliament, he would have pumped bullet after bullet into Dr Singh’s heart for defending the rights of India’s minorities. Another said, “If we have to finish their (Muslim) population, we are ready to kill and go to jail.” In the Delhi Sansad, 250 people took a solemn pledge to kill the minority community people in order to facilitate the creation of a Hindu nation.

This is just how Nazism ran its roots in the German soil. Collingwood cites the Nazi Germany as an example of a highly uncivilised nation.

India is claiming to be the cradle of an ancient civilisation while perpetrating atrocities against chosen people. Collingwood must be sneering in his grave.

Violence is the most conspicuous characteristic of the present dispensation in India. In the first three years of Modi’s tenure as Prime Minister, a research report found that 97% of all cow-related violence in India came after he came into power in Delhi. The Indian Express reported on 20 Jan 2020 that offences promoting enmity between groups more than doubled over 2016. From 478 case in 2016, the number rose to 958 in 2017 and 1114 in 2018. The numbers for the next years will come in due course of time. Will we be shocked? Or will we feel smug?

The answer depends on what bleeds out when your civilisation is scratched.


PS. I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 

Previous post: Bhatti Mines is a symbol

Tomorrow: The Desert Teaches

Comments

  1. Rajeev MoothedathApril 4, 2022 at 7:12 AM

    "Most people remain savages at heart. Scratch any civilisation and savagery will bleed out- very interesting observation. Sadly, we see the scratching happening frequently these days.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yamini MacLeanApril 4, 2022 at 7:25 AM

    Hari OM
    Clear Collation of the Concept... the very root of 'civilisation' is that there be civility! Something that has been cruelly crushed these days... YAM xx
    C=Connections

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 4, 2022 at 7:32 AM

      I have repeatedly spoken of the role of the leader in the shaping of a nation's attitudes. India unfortunately has a leader who is going to take the nation to its worst history. That's my prediction.

      Delete
  3. ArtiApril 4, 2022 at 1:16 PM

    After reading the post and the comments shared above, I'm left silent. Poetry is what I'll be reading to find solace. I know it's not the thing to do but for now--that'll have to do for me. It takes courage to write what you write Tomichan. Clarity and courage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 4, 2022 at 5:31 PM

      A hug to you, Arti. Most people think that I'm just an armchair critic of Modi government. The truth is i would love to be part of a revolutionary movement in this country. But i too choose the way of poetry though my lines jar almost invariably - like in this post. Another thing which most of my critics fail to understand is my love for the genuine version of Hinduism which is so very tolerant. My happiest years were spent in a Hindu residential school - not 1 ot 2 years, a decade and a half, the longest i ever had in one single institution....

      Delete
  4. Pandian RamaiahApril 4, 2022 at 6:44 PM

    Caste and religion are easy weapons to activate the commoners in to criminals. Communalism - in any form , by any sides - are threat to our growth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 4, 2022 at 6:46 PM

      Exactly. The more number of people realise it, the better for all of us.

      Delete
  5. Chinmayee Gayatree SahuApril 4, 2022 at 10:11 PM

    As always, you write to the point and back it up with all the facts and show us the real mirror of the current times which is nothing but alarming. I was appalled by what happened during the recent Hindu New year celebrations! I feel numb when I see such news.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 5, 2022 at 6:33 AM

      I, like you and many other Indians, look forward to a better India. My fulminations in writing are only signs of that longing for my nation.

      Delete
  6. KalpanaApril 5, 2022 at 9:09 AM

    Absolutely. "Violence is the most conspicuous characteristic of the present dispensation in India." Unfortunately true.

    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 Art of Subjugation: A Case Study

Two Pulaya women, 1926 [Courtesy Mathrubhumi ] The Pulaya and Paraya communities were the original landowners in Kerala until the Brahmins arrived from the North with their religion and gods. They did not own the land individually; the lands belonged to the tribes. Then in the 8 th – 10 th centuries CE, the Brahmins known as Namboothiris in Kerala arrived and deceived the Pulayas and Parayas lock, stock, and barrel. With the help of religion. The Namboothiris proclaimed themselves the custodians of all wealth by divine mandate. They possessed the Vedic and Sanskrit mantras and tantras to prove their claims. The aboriginal people of Kerala couldn’t make head or tail of concepts such as Brahmadeya (land donated to Brahmins becoming sacred land) or Manu’s injunctions such as: “Land given to a Brahmin should never be taken back” [8.410] or “A king who confiscates land from Brahmins incurs sin” [8.394]. The Brahmins came, claimed certain powers given by the gods, and started exploi...
15 comments
Read more

The music of an ageing man

Having entered the latter half of my sixties, I view each day as a bonus. People much younger become obituaries these days around me. That awareness helps me to sober down in spite of the youthful rush of blood in my indignant veins. Age hasn’t withered my indignation against injustice, fraudulence, and blatant human folly, much as I would like to withdraw from the ringside and watch the pugilism from a balcony seat with mellowed amusement. But my genes rage against my will. The one who warned me in my folly-ridden youth to be wary of my (anyone’s, for that matter) destiny-shaping character was farsighted. I failed to subdue the rages of my veins. I still fail. That’s how some people are, I console myself. So, at the crossroads of my sixties, I confess to a dismal lack of emotional maturity that should rightfully belong to my age. The problem is that the sociopolitical reality around me doesn’t help anyway to soothe my nerves. On the contrary, that reality is almost entirely re...
14 comments
Read more

Mahatma Ayyankali’s Relevance Today

About a year before he left for Chicago (1893), Swami Vivekananda visited Kerala and described the state (then Travancore-Cochin-Malabar princely states) as a “lunatic asylum.” The spiritual philosopher was shocked by the brutality of the caste system that was in practice in the region. The peasant caste of Pulayas , for example, had to keep a distance of 90 feet from Brahmins and 64 feet from Nairs. The low caste people were denied most human rights. They could not access education, enter temple premises, or buy essentials from markets. They were not even considered as humans. Ayyankali (1863-1941) was a Pulaya leader who emerged to confront the situation. I just finished reading a biography of his in Malayalam and was highly impressed by the contributions of the great man who came to be known in Kerala as the Mahatma of the Dalits . What prompted me to order a copy of the biography was an article I read in a Malayalam periodical last week. The article described how Ayyankali...
14 comments
Read more

Duryodhana Returns

Duryodhana was bored of his centuries-long exile in Mythland and decided to return to his former kingdom. Arnab Gau-Swami had declared Bihar the new Kurukshetra and so Duryodhana chose Bihar for his adventure. And Bihar did entertain him with its modern enactment of the Mahabharata. Alliances broke, cousins pulled down each other, kings switched sides without shame, and advisers looked like modern-day Shakunis with laptops. Duryodhana’s curiosity was more than piqued. There’s more masala here than in the old Hastinapura. He decided to make a deep study of this politics so that he could conclusively prove that he was not a villain but a misunderstood statesman ahead of his time. The first lesson he learns is that everyone should claim that they are the Pandavas, and portray everyone else as the Kauravas. Every party claims they stand for dharma, the people, and justice. And then plot to topple someone, eliminate someone else, distort history, fabricate expedient truths, manipulate...
14 comments
Read more