Skip to main content

Zeitgeist


This is the last post in the A-to-Z series that I have been writing in April. Most of the posts in the series touched explicitly or implicitly the post-truth politics of present India. Post-truth is the zeitgeist of India now. Facts don’t matter here. Emotions do. Slogans do. We have a Prime Minister who loves to play with words. He keeps on giving us new slogans every year, if not more frequently. Remember slogans or jingles like Achhe din aane waale hain? Make in India (which has now become Break in India), Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Minimum Government Maximum Governance, Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas… Hollow slogans. That has been the zeitgeist of India from 2014. Hollow. Resounding hollowness.

What is the reality behind those slogans and rhetoric? I found the following illustration from a Malayalam weekly the most apt depiction of our present reality. 


You know what it means. A thickly populated area in the national capital is bulldozed after Mr Modi’s supporters orchestrated a riot-like situation there. Some 200-odd people carrying tridents and rods march into the area playing high decibel music on a DJ system under the pretext of celebrating Hanuman Jayanti. Why choose a place like Jahangirpuri for such a celebration? You know the answer. It was a tailor-made communal clash. Tailor-made communal clashes are integral parts of present India’s zeitgeist. I bet we can expect many more of them soon.

If you think Modi and his supporters are the only people who are possessed by this zeitgeist you are mistaken. Kejriwal is going out of the way to own that spirit. He has suddenly become a Hanuman bhakt. He visits Hanuman temples, sings Hanuman chalisa there, and arranges Sundara Kanda of Ramayana to be recited in the temples of his constituency.  

Rahul Gandhi also flirted with gods for a while. Since he doesn’t know the game, it didn’t work. Nothing works in his case. Poor man in a wrong place. He doesn’t understand the zeitgeist at all.

While the hollow zeitgeist marches on holding tridents and rods, the country is reeling under price rise, ever-increasing taxes, unemployment, poverty, and overall misery. Nobody in the ruling party seems concerned. They are concerned about Rama and Hanuman. Zeitgeist of GST Raj. 


Last month the Gujarat High Court remarked that it was easier to reach the moon than understand the intricacies of the GST tax system. The truth is that the entire politics of Narendra Modi is beyond any human understanding. May the 33 million gods of our pantheon save us!

PS. This is the last part of #BlogchatterA2Z

Comments

  1. magiceyeApril 30, 2022 at 11:32 AM

    Perfect conclusion to the series...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Afshan ShaikApril 30, 2022 at 3:52 PM

    Zeitgeist a new word for me almost sounds like "Poltergeist" if u know what I mean. I was wondering what u would write as an end post. This is like a perfect epilogue to all ur remaining posts. It was good knowing u and ur blog...


    Congrats on completing a to z. From "The Pensive"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 30, 2022 at 4:28 PM

      Poltergeist 😅 The similarity is not only in sound!

      Hope you will return to this space occasionally though A2Z is over.

      Delete
  3. Yamini MacLeanApril 30, 2022 at 5:30 PM

    Hari OM
    Yes, a good roundup to conclude this month's offerings... and I wish it only pertained to India (no disprespect), but we have a completely scary situation here in the UK (I haven't dared look to see how OZ is shaping up). Ours is not comparable in the misuse of religious application, but there is so much going on under the table and folk appear to be totally blind to the encroachment on freedoms. Fascism is alive and swelling...

    Thanks for an entertaining, engaging and enthralling April - now keep it going!!! YAM xx
    Z=Zany

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 30, 2022 at 7:49 PM

      April became richer with your presnce here, Yam. You made this space international. Your comments added to my interest in the world beyond Delhi.

      Delete
  4. Janaki/Ishaan SaiApril 30, 2022 at 6:44 PM

    Can't agree more. And in the absence of a strong opposition this will continue. Hope our 33 million God's help our country with a strong opposition and get us out of this circus!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 30, 2022 at 7:52 PM

      Lack of opposition is detrimental even to gods, as our scriptures show. Modi is scaling heights that he doesn't even understand. A big fall is imminent.

      Delete
  5. Prasanna RaghavanApril 30, 2022 at 8:22 PM

    Oh well, how nicely your post captures the spirit of India of the present. But that spirit embodied in the facades of those muppathimukkodi gods of India were constructed India, not originated there!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 30, 2022 at 8:54 PM

      A constructed India, you said it. Orchestrated, as I put it in the post. Fabrications.

      Delete
  6. GBMay 1, 2022 at 6:57 PM

    Lovely! I love reading your posts. One of the few people who speak the real truth in a world filled with deception.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Chinmayee Gayatree SahuMay 2, 2022 at 11:01 PM

    The situation is grim and the economic crisis is really to worry about. I could not stop laughing after reading the last line ! Amazing write , as always.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Deepa DuraisamyMay 5, 2022 at 7:20 PM

    It's almost as if several in our populace are waiting with bated breath, more of a wait and watch game to see how the country shapes up in the coming decades. So much of 'Zeitgeist' (a new word for me!) becomes game changes, or rather a fork in the road. The whole world seems to be going crazy.

    Cheers,
    Deepa from FictionPies

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country where humour died

Humour died a thousand deaths in India after May 2014. The reason – let me put it as someone put it on X.  The stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra called a politician some names like ‘traitor’ which made his audience laugh because they misunderstood it as a joke. Kunal Kamra has to explain the joke now in a court of justice. I hope his judge won’t be caught with crores of rupees of black money in his store room . India itself is the biggest joke now. Our courts of justice are huge jokes. Our universities are. Our temples, our textbooks, even our markets. Let alone our Parliament. I’m studying the Ramayana these days in detail because I’ve joined an A-to-Z blog challenge and my theme is Ramayana, as I wrote already in an earlier post . In order to understand the culture behind Ramayana, I even took the trouble to brush up my little knowledge of Sanskrit by attending a brief course. For proof, here’s part of a lesson in my handwriting.  The last day taught me some subhashit...
11 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Violence and Leaders

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...
11 comments
Read more

The Ramayana Chronicles: 26 Stories, Endless Wisdom

I’m participating in the A2Z challenge of Blogchatter this year too. I have been regular with this every April for the last few years. It’s been sheer fun for me as well as a tremendous learning experience. I wrote mostly on books and literature in the past. This year, I wish to dwell on India’s great epic Ramayana for various reasons the prominent of which is the new palatial residence in Ayodhya that our Prime Minister has benignly constructed for a supposedly homeless god. “Our Ram Lalla will no longer reside in a tent,” intoned Modi with his characteristic histrionics. This new residence for Lord Rama has become the largest pilgrimage centre in India, drawing about 100,000 devotees every day. Not even the Taj Mahal, a world wonder, gets so many footfalls. Ayodhya is not what it ever was. Earlier it was a humble temple town that belonged to all. Several temples belonging to different castes made all devotees feel at home. There was a sense of belonging, and a sense of simplici...
35 comments
Read more