Vamana’s Deception
A few years ago, Home Minister
Amit Shah infuriated the people of Kerala by wishing them Happy Vamana Jayanti
on the occasion of their state festival Onam. While Vamana is the fifth
incarnation of God Vishnu for Amit Shah and his counterparts in North India,
Vamana is a monstrous impostor for Malayalis. (That’s yet another of the
umpteen instances that highlight the impossibility of a monolithic Hindu
religion.)
Vamana sent
Kerala’s most beloved king, Maveli, to the netherworld merely because of
jealousy. Maveli (elision for Maha Bali or Bali the Great) was a demon (asura)
king. But he was beloved to his subjects because during his reign Kerala was a
utopia. There was fraternity, equality, justice, truthfulness, and so on
everywhere in the kingdom. Maveli had become greater than the gods for the
people of Kerala. Obviously, gods didn’t like that. So none less than Vishnu
took the form of a dwarf, Vamana, and deceived Maveli. That deception was
punishment from gods to an asura for being good!
Amit Shah
could not have been ignorant of this legend when he greeted Malayalis on Vamana
Jayanti. Someone who is an arch-villain for a people was being transmuted into
a divine figure with that greeting. Shah and his people are experts at
rewriting histories as well as making villains out of heroes and vice versa. But
Kerala won’t accept those histories and inversions easily. I wonder whether
Shah and his friends have ever tried to find out why their party doesn’t ever
win a seat in Kerala’s elections.
Of late,
there is some tilt among Kerala’s Hindus towards the BJP. This is achieved by
spreading the poison of communal hatred. As I have written in this very space
time and again, hatred is a powerful tool, far more powerful than love or any
good emotion. Even the people of Kerala can be susceptible to its intoxications.
If the nascent sectarianism takes deep roots in the state, that will be a
Vamana moment for Amit Shah and his colleagues.
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To not know the legend or promote anyway - an intentional insult??? Leaders need to respect more.
ReplyDeleteU
I'm sure Shah knew what Onam celebrated. He was playing a game as usual.
DeleteI am just hoping someday, we will be a truly secular country and love will win. It is also ultimately upon us to choose.
ReplyDeleteI would like to share your hope. It's possible but not with the present leadership.
DeleteMust have been testing the waters to see what happens- If it worked good for him and party.
ReplyDeleteThat's more likely. In fact, a few BJP people in Kerala went to the extent of defending Shah.
DeleteThat's expected from those who are rewriting history..it almost made me laugh that he wished. So far I have been very happy by seeing how Kerala is handing the political hatred. Now that you say they are falling in their traps...it's painful!!!
ReplyDeleteI have written something today which is related to this post. If time permits do read. Little long post though!
Dropping by from a to z "The Pensive"
Politics is a power game and in that game anything is grist to the mill. Since all other strategies have failed, BJP in Kerala is doing what it did in other states: rouse up communal hatred.
DeleteSometimes, you suffer less because others are bad and more because you are very good (just too good to be tolerated by the bad ones). People like Amit Shah will only take the side of the tricksters and present them as role models, not the naïve and the nice ones.
ReplyDeleteThe wicked are scared of the innocent. But gods getting scared of others' goodness is quite bizarre.
DeleteWell, this could also be a saazhish (not getting teh exact English word for this at the moment) of Amit Shah ji and his friends, for all you know. These guys can do anything!
ReplyDeleteShahish-Modish 🤣
DeleteMixing politics and religion is a lethal combination. How I wish, as a common man/ woman, that life could be simpler with live and let live policy. Instead of being religious, if we could just be spiritual wont that suffice? The moment all will understand this, no politician would ever be able to milk the cow of religious hatred politics.
ReplyDeleteSpirituality is obsolete today, made so by a man who sat in meditation in a Kedarnath cave for as many seconds as a mushroom in Badrinath longed to be in a Chinese soup.
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