Shrinking Existential Space in the Global Village and Counter Discourses:

A Study of Ajay Bhardwajs Milange Babey Ratan de Mele Te

Umberto Eco, a very famous philosopher, novelist, literary critic and an academician, has very
humbly spelled out the secret of his success in an interview with Mukund Padmanabhan, a
correspondent from The Hindu. Eco takes a metaphor from the field of Physics and elaborates
his point. He says that there are a lot of empty spaces in the universe and if these empty spaces
are eliminated, the universe will be reduced to the size of a ball in our fist. Eco reiterates that he
makes use of these empty spaces and thus finds time for his varied activities. He calls these
empty spaces interstices. This global village inhabited by more than 7 billion people with
different races, religions, nationalities, languages and ethnicities is being deprived of afore
mentioned interstices as the space available to an individual to define his/her identity is shrinking
very rapidly. In fact, our planet because of forces of globalization has become so entwined and
entangled that all the well established categories that formed the basis of a solid identity for
individuals in the past have been fractured and attacked by foreign forces to form a situation
where every individual finds his/her existential space intruded by some alien elements. The result
of such developments is phobia, self-alienation, mutual distrust and suspicion.
There is no easy way out of this very complex but unavoidable situation. However some
fundamentalists, both religious and political, have tried to suggest a way-out out of this
intriguing situation through the virtue of reinstatement of a supposed pristine or edenic purity
that existed in the genesis. According to them, the present fallen state, which has made every one
of us hyper-sensitive towards his /her identity, can result in ultimate catastrophe for humanity in
the form of war, riot, genocide etc. The only way out for humanity, these ultra-wise crusaders

proclaim, is to shelter all humanity under their respective benign bowers. They further claim that
the only universally valid ideas like universal love, tolerance, adherence to membership of global
family and welfare of humanity are intrinsic to and enshrined in their respective sacred books
only. Therefore, the only way out of this entangled and entwined situation is to adhere to a code
of life advocated by them thus making the entire world a homogenous entity and a rainbow with
one colour. What lies at the root of such claims is an anthropocentric world view i.e. a tendency
to see everything in self- image. This anthropocentric world view was one of the driving forces
behind Europeanization of the world in the form of colonialism in the past, or Americanization of
the world in the guise of globalization in the present age. In fact, these loud and tall claims of
curing the world of claustrophobic outcomes are nothing but attempts to build a world in selfimage, where every deviation, every digression will be both- a sin and a crime. What will result
out of this situation is nothing but a new globalization, far more violent and intolerant in its
genesis than the present one.
One more marked feature of a lot religious fundamentalists during our times is their urge
to prove their religion more scientific and progressive than the other religions. There seems to be
a race among these champions of different religions to locate parallels between their sacred texts
and latest scientific discoveries. By drawing parallels between different latest scientific advances
and insights and injunctions of their respective scriptures, they try to prove religious statements
as quasi-empirical statements of direct knowledge belonging to the realm of positive knowledge.
Hence, they very strongly proclaim that the statements of their respective religion should be
treated as the best guide to universally valid human norms. It would be appropriate to mention
Slavoj Zizek here. He has brilliantly analyzed this symptomatic alliance between science and
religion in his work How to Read Lacan. For Zizek:

A fundamentalist does not believe, he knows it directly...the status of universal human

rights is that of a pure belief: they cannot be grounded in our knowledge of human
nature( The moment one tries to ground universal human rights in our knowledge of
humanity, the inevitable conclusion will be that people are fundamentally different, that
some have more dignity and wisdom than others.) (116-117).
It therefore can be concluded that the real threat of rise of fundamentalism is not to
scientific knowledge or secularism, rather, the real threat it poses is to authentic belief itself.
Does it mean that the phenomenon of globalization is inevitable and there is a dire need to
maintain status quo? Lets take a few points into consideration before jumping onto a conclusion.
First of all, global village is by no means a utopian or egalitarian space where everything is based
on equality. In fact, the global cultural and existential space is an entity mostly controlled by
market forces and profit driven mechanisms eroding or reshaping ethnic, national, linguistic or
religious practices as per their convenience. Words like democracy and equality have been
hijacked to help the forces of commodification extend their area of operation and enter into every
sphere of life. This unprecedented spread of market forces very naturally calls for counter
discourses. However, these counter discourses should not fall into luring trap of fundamentalism,
pseudo-scienticism or anthropocentric world view. A counter discourse should peel off the
glittering layers of market forces and highlight the ugly underbelly of the same aiming to
appropriate different dimensions of human identity as per its convenience without caring for
intrinsic nuisances and complexities these dimensions call for. Moreover, an assertive tone or
claims to an access to a path to a better world view should not be accepted without scrutiny;
otherwise one unjust system may give way to one more unjust and sadistic one.

In the midst of such cacophony and confusion, Ajay Bhardwajs latest documentary
Milange Babey Ratan de Mele Te (2012) comes as a soothing melody avoiding any direct or
simplistic value judgment. The documentary does not claim to offer an all encompassing solution
overcoming the problematics of the given situation. The documentary focuses on the shrines in
Indian Punjab which survived the holocaust of Partition and still successfully continue to evoke
that unbreakable shared way of life. The documentary also highlights the common platform that
these shrines offer to the people from the different walks of life forgetting their religion, caste,
creed and gender to offer themselves at the altar of love. As a counter discourse, it celebrates
multiplicity and complexity of culture as a lived experience which cannot be turned into a
monolithic religious, ethnic or racial formula. The documentary very beautifully portrays the
interwoven strings of the Punjabi culture foregrounding its busy courtyard peopled by characters
from Mahabharta and Ramayana, Suffi Saints, Bhagats, Gurus, Heer-Ranjha- all discussing love
and emanating the fragrance of divinity. Interestingly enough, there seems to be no desire to spell
out commandments for the chosen few or to denounce an existing sect as it is not rational enough
or doesnt believe in equality or egalitarianism. In fact, it is a very strange amalgamation where
creation is within the Creator and the Creator within creation, where Goddess Saraswati
resided on Babu Rajab Alis tongue, where Babu Rajab Ali sang not only about Shah Ali and
Dahood but also about the martyrdom of sons of Guru Gobind Singh which would reduce the
audience to tears, where Babu Rajab Ali would never forget to sing verses from Mahabharta
about Radhas yearning for Krishna or about Bhinsens exploits. This somewhat chaotic space is
testimonial and symptomatic of the state of culture at any given time and any given space. To
delimit any culture to any one single narrative is not only nave but also very dangerous as this
very tendency might contain the germs of cultural and racial chauvinism, ethnic cleansing and

other such horrible practices. Moreover, this reduction of culture to one dominant narrative is
even more unjust in case of culture of Punjab as this geographical area has witnessed many
civilizations, multiple believes and n number of religious practices. So, any form of
appropriation of the Punjabi culture in the form of monolithic Punjabiyat is to be resisted and
contested tooth and nail.
The timing of the documentary is apt as in recent times there have been high pitched
battles among many fundamental groups to hijack the socio-cultural space of Punjab by
constructing exclusive cultural-religious practices. All these reductive practices are trying to
achieve what 1947 could not achieve- the separation and segregation of Ram, Mohammad and
Nanak. At the same time, the documentary reinforces that Ram, Mohammad and Nanak are so
strongly imbibed in the soil and soul of Punjab that any attempt to draw dividing lines among
them can draw corresponding lines on the political map of the country; but it can never draw any
line whatsoever in the hearts of people where there is the real abode of Ram, Mohammad and
Nanak.
The documentary is also significant from one more perspective. Entertainment industry
today, feeding itself on reification and thingification of culture, has become a golden bird.
Almost everyone involved in entertainment industry wants to sell shallow, dehistoricized but
decorated version of his/her culture. In fact, cultural practices are being deprived of their inherent
nuisances and situatedness in a particular time and space. What is presented in front of
hypnotized audience is a very hollow and soulless representation of cultural practices wrapped in
glittering covers. The real tragedy is that we the masses have been duped so much by the glory
of these outer covers that we have been turned into the consumers of the very cultural practices
that we mastered not so long ago. There is no doubt that cultural practices have always been

consumed in one way or the other. But what is the real issue here is the turning of these practices
into cultural fetishes deprived of their innate complexities. There is no doubt that even this
documentary is ultimately meant for consumption. However, there seems to be a very serious
attempt on the part of the director to provoke the audience to think; and not to hypnotize them
into passive consumers. This purpose has not been achieved through strong authorial intervention
or omnipresent narrator, rather the documentary represents different sequels through characters
that are connected to a particular history and they do not bypass their complex and entangled
place in a given history. The cultural practices represented here foreground their forked and
fractured nature that itself shatters any illusion of singularity and leaves very little room for
decoration and childish glorification.
On the whole, this very valuable and timely documentary addresses two very pertinent
areas. The first one is the plurality, interconnectedness and multivarious nature of our cultural
and religious practices and by highlighting this plurality and interconnectedness it warns us
against the pitfalls of any monolithic and singular approach and the catastrophe that could result
from any such approach. Secondly, the documentary situates the cultural and religious practices
in a particular history; and history here is not one particular date. It is, in fact, an ever changing
and continuous narrative connecting past, present and future; not through a straight jacketed
blanket vision, but by highlighting the fractures which are the common link among past, present
and future.

Works Cited

Milange Babey Ratan de Mele Te. Dir. Ajay Bharadwaj. Frank Brazil, 2012. DVD.
Zizek, Slavoj. How to Read Lacan. London: Granta Books ,2006. Print.

KAPIL DEV, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, PANJAB UNIVERSITY CONSTITUENT COLLEGE,
GURU HAR SAHAI