Skip to main content

Holy Dog and Political Power


The short story titled ‘Power’ written by well-known Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha is a metaphor on the nature of political power and the pragmatism of people who are subjects of that power.

In this story there is magistrate who is the favourite of the King. The magistrate is so beloved of the King that he is more powerful than the King. The subjects are all scared of the magistrate. He has no children though he has seven wives. He blames the wives for his childlessness. Finally he adopts a dog named Koel. All the people of the country love Koel. Rather, they pretend to love Koel. They sing Koel’s praises.

Koel’s life is cut short by a disease. The magistrate, rendered unable to bury or cremate the dead dog by his great love for it, gets the dog stuffed and embalmed. When he expresses his desire to have a golden cage built for Koel, the people instantly donate whatever jewels and ornaments they have.

Soon miracles begin to take place because Koel has attained a divine status for the people. Koel in the golden cage is their new god. They try to outdo each other with their claims about the miracles that happen to them because of Koel’s blessings.

When the magistrate dies and the new magistrate expresses his dislike of the stuffed god, people are too eager to discard Koel and present the golden cage to the new magistrate.

You can make any animal sacred and get people to worship it. To kill for it. To die for it. Do anything for its sake. You can construct a phenomenal temple and install an idol in it and, with its help, keep a whole nation in thrall. People are eager to keep your ego inflated and contented because they know their survival, or possibly more than survival, depends on their obsequiousness. They are practical. Cunning too. They will worship you and your dog as long as you have the power over them. The day you lose that power, the same people will dump your holy dog on the trash heap and follow the new ruler. Remember that even Hitler had millions of fans.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Pooja MahimkarMay 25, 2024 at 10:58 AM

    I would like to believe that at some point people realise they are turned into fools and would finally dissent

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 25, 2024 at 11:09 AM

      Won't it be late? History has sufficient examples of people's late realisations.

      Delete
  2. Priyabrata NandaMay 25, 2024 at 11:30 AM

    Gods don't exist when they are not in the consciousness of groups of humans. Just imagine a world where no human beings are alive. In this hypothetical scenario, there will be no Gods no Prophets. These created powers survive and thrive only when their followers rally around them by inventing sacred myths, elaborate rituals, fear, rewards and punishment as well as philosophical systems associated with them. Just like human beings, these sacred entities must also be materially rich in order to be powerful. Sacred entities are nothing but human mediated and dependent symbols. They could be human beings or animals or inanimate objects, etcetera. Additionally, their continuity is also dependent upon the continuity of their willing followers and their metaphysical beliefs in them.
    The religious systems are not different from say, the economic systems, educational systems or the political systems. All of them are required for a functional society.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 25, 2024 at 4:28 PM

      Thank you for the intellectual answer to the fundamental question posed in the post. In short, we can't expect a better world!

      Delete
  3. Yamini MacLeanMay 25, 2024 at 3:22 PM

    Hari OM
    You may have heard, the UK is to go to the polls in a few weeks. Our current leader/ruling party is about to face this inevitability. YAM xx (who is slowing getting over the lurgy - sorry for long absence and thanks for continuing to visit my scheduled posts!)

    ReplyDelete
  4. magiceyeMay 25, 2024 at 7:17 PM

    Better late than never.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Liz A.May 25, 2024 at 11:40 PM

    People will do what they have to do to survive. Sadly, sometimes that means stroking the ego of those that rule. If only they would rise up and expel the one who takes power...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 26, 2024 at 6:48 AM

      Rising up requires courage which most people lack. Moreover, following someone seen as great is one of the easiest things to do.

      Delete
  6. CarolineMay 26, 2024 at 8:07 PM

    Enjoyed reading this story.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
16 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

The Call of Islamic State

A year ago, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT) reported that about 4000 people from the West left their homes and countries to join the Islamic State (IS).  Many of them are women.  The reporters had made a special study of the women who joined the terrorist outfit and found that it was difficult to categorise which type of women were particularly drawn to IS. “While most of the girls are young, some as young as fifteen,” says the report,  “there are also mothers with young children who make the trip. Some of the girls have difficulties in school and are said to have an IQ below average,  but there are also women who are highly educated. It also appears that even though a relatively large portion of the girls had (or still have) a troubled childhood, there are some who come from families with no known problems with the authorities. Most of the girls come from religiously moderate Muslim families,  yet some converted to Islam a...
33 comments
Read more

AAP and I

Who defeated Arvind Kejriwal?  Himself or us? His party ruled for just 49 days.  They were momentous days.  He implemented his promise on setting up a number for reporting corruption; in two weeks instead of the promised two days.  He met people to discuss corruption issues, though the crowd was beyond his control.  He did what he could.  He would have done more if he could.  He put an end to the VVIP culture in politics.  The politician became aam aadmi.  Ministers started travelling in vehicles without the screaming red lights and horrifying screeches.  But the police had to go out of their way to provide protection to the chief minister.  Who defeated the chief minister’s vision that political leaders need no such protection from their own people? He revolutionised the admission procedures in schools.  Schools which charged hefty amounts from parents illegally stood to lose.  The aam aadmi would have g...
25 comments
Read more

The Plague

When the world today is struggling with the pandemic of Covid-19, Albert Camus’s novel The Plague can offer some stimulating lessons. When a plague breaks out in the city of Oran, initially the political authorities fail to deal with it as a serious problem. The ordinary people also don’t view it as an epidemic that requires public action rather than as individual annoyances. The people of Oran are obsessed with their personal sufferings and inconveniences. Finally the authorities are forced to put Oran in quarantine. Father Paneloux, a Jesuit priest, delivers a sermon declaring the epidemic as God’s punishment for Oran’s sins. Months of suffering make people rise above their selfish notions and obsessions and join anti-plague efforts being carried out by people like Dr Rieux. Dr Rieux is an atheist but committed to service of humanity. He questions Father Paneloux’s religious views when a small boy is killed by the epidemic. The priest delivers another sermon on the necess...
28 comments
Read more