NOW IS THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT

What a glorious failure of imagination this has been. What

a glorious victory of the brute and the bold. When little men
with lots of power have looked at the world, said "I want
this or that" and proceeded to get, devour, demolish,
degrade, despoil what they desired with nary a discourse.

Desire. What years of growing desire these have been. It

has been sold to us as a virtue in itself.

At best, to desire is to work hard to attain your desires. To

work hard, is to be a good citizen. Indeed, a good, moral
and righteous human being above all.

The more you desire, the more righteous you are -

billboards tell us this every two meters on our way to work
and school.

But what should be one's object of desire? It matters, does it

not?

Is the proper object of our desire, aiming to understand the

works of a Hugo, a Zola, a Premchand? Or is it sufficient
that our desire stop at a Mercedez Benz?

A Mercedes of course. Of what practical use is fiction,

except to pass the time?

Should we aim to grasp Thomas Paine's Common Sense,

Aristotle's Poetics, and Ambedkar's Annhilation? Or is
owning an iPhone enough?

The iPhone by far. We are already free, aren't we? Of what

use is Paine in a free millennium? And if downloading
Annhilation costs nothing, is it worth anything?

After all, isn't cost a measure of value? Isn't how much you
make, a measure of how much you're worth? Isn't that
Capitalism 101?

At worst, desire is lust. Not passion, no. For passion

requires a continuing commitment to values, at a time when
the idea of value itself has been redefined.

Passion requires an ability to act against the tide, at a time

when we feel safer in numbers. Passion requires the mind,
while desire will make do with the groin.

Those who've sold us desire between soap operas and

primetime news, have not chosen to speak of value.
Billboard journalism has not learnt to distinguish between a
degree and an education; between education and
knowledge; prosperity and wealth; power and authority; or
even between money and value.

The fact is, money is only as valuable as the things it buys.

And it's time to ask – what is money buying us today?

Choice. These have been the decades of choice. From four

soaps to 20. From one school to five schools. From two
doctors in two hospitals to 5 doctors in 15 hospitals.

We doctor shop, teacher shop, school shop, husband shop.

We can idea shop on Facebook. Kya achcha idea hai sir ji.
Today one idea, tomorrow, another. These are good choices
to have. Even great choices. Freedom requires the freedom
to choose.

And if we can choose from 140 varieties of cheese, does it

truly matter that beef is branded sacred and untouchable?
If we can choose from 110 television channels and soap
operas, does it matter that free speech is branded
dangerous?

And if one billion people can roam the streets free, does it
matter that a few million people are branded seditionists,
separatists and unfits? With this great benediction of
individual autarkies upon us, does it really matter that some
get left out?

Questions. These have been the years of questions.

Development over freedom? Security over sovereignty?

Education over the right to dissent? Freedom of conscience
over an un-free but homogenous society?

These are not trivial questions. They face us today as they

faced the constitution makers 60 years ago.

But every generation or so, these questions must be asked

and answered. Not in hidden rhetoric and mis-targeted
animosities. But straight out.

- You may have 5 star-rated refrigerators and

online clothes shopping. But some people will
disappear in the night, never to return. Where is
Najeeb?

- Neighboring countries won't come marching onto

your streets. But you might hear a knock on your
neighbor’s door one night. He will never been seen
again. Prisoners may disappear from prisons, but no
one may ask how.

- Your kids may go to college, but if a student kills

himself, or is thrown out of college for unknown
reasons, your kids may not protest. They must carry
on. Education for millions must proceed unhampered.

- I may take away all your money in one fell swoop.

I will replenish as I wish. Or not. But meanwhile, you
must stay calm. Dissent is manufactured. So is aakrosh
(angst). What people manufacture is unreal. Only the
government is real.
In fact, the only real thing is Calm and Peace .

Peace. These have been the decades of peace. Islands of

violence have not bothered us.

Gujarat 2002. Muzaffarabad. Una. Chattisgarh. Manipur.

Hyderbad Central University. Orissa. JNU. 60,000 farmer
suicides.

We are each, a continent unto ourselves, vying to be a

nation united. These islands are pinpricks, irritatingly
floating into our consciousness, easily dismissed. They
interfere with our idea of ourselves and must be discarded
from the larger narrative.

We barter our individual consciences, piece by piece, for the

greater good.

The greater good. But hasn't it always been about the

greater good? The needs of the many over the few? Of the
majority over the minority? Of the many over the one.

We've heard that for centuries now, not just years.

On the right, the Utilitarians have told us "the greatest

happiness of the greatest number is the measure of right
and wrong."

On the left, we've heard: from each according to his ability,

to each according to his need.

We've never been told: Who is to measure this happiness?

Who shall be the judge of it? The Judge of us? Who shall
measure, how much of our ability we are to sacrifice for an
un-measurable greater good? Whose need are we to
sacrifice for? How much are we to sacrifice? For how long?

Would we rather pay for the education of a bright young kid

next door? Or a bureaucrat's salary? For a park in the local
community, or A15s? For Japanese Encephalitis
vaccinations, or a political party's election coffers?

As worlds became freer, these were supposed to be our

choices to make.

Yet, today, these choices hardly seem to exist. These

questions are forbidden. Irrelevant. Unasked.

Perhaps even, forgotten.

One of the most telling remarks in the recent

demonetization episode was, Narendra Modi surrogates
saying: the communists should be happy with the move.
Modi had fulfilled Marx’s dream of a cashless society. A few
days later they went further – Finance Minster likened the
move to Mao’s cultural revolution. Gold is now rationed.
Married women get 500 grams; unmarried-250 gms; men –
100 gms.

New Age, right wing apparatchiks are now to monitor gold;

gram for gram, marriage for marriage.

The left and the right have merged. Marx, Mao and Modi
look all alike. A dream turned into reality, looks too much
like a nightmare.

Nightmares. These have been the years of nightmares.

Burnings, lynching, constitutional anarchies. The supreme
court passes a judgment legislating compulsory patriotism.
In response to an appeal, the court mandated that all
cinema theatres must compulsorily play the national anthem
before all screenings. “Time has come for people to realize
that the national anthem is a symbol of CONSTITUTIONAL
PATRIOTISM…” These are the exact words of a Supreme
Court bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra.

Yet, when another appeal was immediately asking that it

also be played in the court, a bench declined to hear the
plea, seeming to say saying, “Let’s not stretch it too far.”

Constitutional patriotism it seems, must stop at the door of

the protectors of the constitution.

The nightmares have only just begun. But the choice now is
to decide whether to remain asleep, or wake up and
embrace daylight. The comfort of nightmares is, that you
can pretend you are not an actor in the play, just a
spectator. However bad the nightmares are, we can safely
say: but what can we do?

The problem with daylight is we have participate in our own

lives, however little that part might be. It might just be to
wake up, breathe the air, shake our fist at the those who
sold us rotten dreams, and tackle the day, one day at a time.
It might be more. Both Thomas Jefferson and B.R.
Ambedkar believed that subsequent generations are not
required to bear the burdens of their predecessors’ choices.
That every few generations at least, a people are required
to ask some fundamental questions, answer them, and make
their own choices. Perhaps even, make their own mistakes.
The burden of history can start afresh. The idea of India was
once defined for us in 1947. Perhaps it is time to participate
in redefining it now.

EOM.

Sarita Rani