Land of Lime

This Churumuri post (Everything is fine till something happens to you) by C H Swaroop was disturbing even for the cynic within me.

We all have moments of cynicism and find nothing redeeming, in our personal lives, communities and especially, nation.

So Swaroop has a question: ‘Post-independence, does India, as a nation, have achievements to be proud of’?

I have ranted before on many of our shortcomings; my previous post itself is a good example. Still, I could come up with a good response to this question, whatever parameter for achievement Swaroop wants to choose.

I couldn’t, however, begin to address the confused thinking and mixed up anologies. Take the following example:

Well, people can say that Singapore has no real freedoms, you’re just a puppet and so on. I have an analogy for that. We need a class teacher to maintain discipline (law and order) so that the classes can proceed and progress can be made, otherwise there will be just noise and only people who somehow learn to not get affected by the noise and study on their own (businessmen who succeed). It’s not like there is no freedom, you can always raise your hands and talk to the class teacher (citizens representation to the government) or at least approach the teacher after class hours (write to them)….

Irrespective of the type of government (democracy or autocracy or whatever), maintaining discipline should be the primary responsibility of the government, which is what is lacking in India today.

A nation is no school teacher. A government doesn’t teach morals nor does it inculcate discipline. What it does do is to prevent violence because the state has monopoly over violence, as the classic definition goes. It is the responsibility of parents and communities to teach morals and inculcate discipline. We are disciplined inside a classroom not because teacher (or class monitor) enforces discipline. Our parents teach us that, a lesson which may get reinforced in the school and community.

I got to say this: while the post seems to be raising a provocative question, it is a framed incorrectly and the thinking is quite sloppy.

The question should have been directed within, asking ourselves (as parents, citizens, community members) whether we are failing ourselves and then in what areas. The nation is no separate entity, outside of ourselves. Also, there are too many factual inaccuracies in this post, which I must leave for another occasion. I, however, had to respond to the misplaced cynicism, angst and disillusion, which funnily enough seems to be prevalent generally among middle classes and upper castes generally.

In Churumuri, Gauri Lankesh holds a mirror to contemporary Karnataka: How Karnataka is becoming Gujarat. While majority of the comments have been what I can only term as moronic, I wanted to highlight the three real dangers that Gauri points out.

First, suspecting all Muslims as terrorists and presuming/declaring their guilt even before it is established. Let us face it. The notion of ‘benefit of doubt’ has disappeared entirely.

Second, how the media in Karnataka has become incapable of asking even the most elementary of questions, abandoned fairness as a principle, and do a decent investigative report. In fact, TV9 and our tabloids seem to be in the business of sensationalizing news. Further, our intelligentsia too has become saffronized; but the threat isn’t merely ideological polarization but the accompanying intolerance towards others who hold a different view.

So then the third, and perhaps the most important danger to our collective wellbeing, is the attitude of intolerance and the form in which this intolerance is displayed by Sangh Parivar: the threat of physical violence. To be fair, I must point out that apart from the Sangh Parivar, even Kannada activists and occasionally progressives too are guilty on this count.

The threat of physical intimidation that hangs over public life is perhaps the most serious of all threats that we need to wake up to. Gauri doesn’t stress on this aspect as much as I would have liked her to, since she has concentrated on the first two points.

Absent civility and a genuine commitment to non-violence, there will not be much worth defending, in Karnataka or anywhere else. For violence and intolerance taints even progressive causes and can only beget more violence. Hence, Gandhi is more relevant than ever, in teaching us how we should engage our adversaries.

I know this is the kind of post that often creates trouble, especially for myself and even if written responsibly.

But I must write nevertheless, if only to raise questions about what passes for research.

The Hindu had a report from Bidar with the heading: ‘Anubhava Mantapa’ site eludes researchers.
As the story stated:

Basaveshwara, social reformer of the 12th Century, founded Anubhava Mantapa at Basavkalyan with an aim to provide a platform for philosophical debate leading to a casteless society, bring about equality and to popularise the concept of “dasoha” (eating together).

Now, the search for Anubhava Mantapa, the meeting place of all the 12th century Vacanakaras, has been going on for a century and in principle, I think it is a worthwhile search. But we need to clear about what is that we are searching, and then where and how.

Senior officials of Basavakalyan Development Board, on condition of anonymity, said: “We are on the look out for traces of the existence of Anubhava Mantapa here. But it is believed that the mantapa might have existed in and around Tripuranta tank premises, located in the heart of the town.”

They said that at present cleaning work was going on in the tank bed and till date there were no traces of Anubhava Mantapa there. The officials said that based on the vachanas, a well-known painter Murugeppa Chettiar of Gadag had depicted a picture of the proceedings at Anubhava Mantapa with Allama Prabhu, who was the first person to preside over the mantapa, conducting the proceedings. The paintings throw light on the Anubhava Mantapa but again its existence in physical form was questioned.

(Emphasis mine and let me say I do not understand why the officers sought to remain anonymous. But what do I know for I do not see how the paintings help either.)

Well, the quest is no doubt to find the actual building, where Basavanna, Allama and others met. There are two possible approaches: archaeological and literary-historical. If there is a comprehensive archaeological ‘dig’ and investigation of the city of Basavakalyana, there is a small possibility we might find it. That depends on whether Basavanna had actually built a monumental building for Mahamane and Anubhava Mantapa. Given the fact that Basavakalyana is a town inhabited by people in the present, however, the possibility of an archaeological dig ever happening is remote.

So our only hope is to rely on literary texts - vacanas and Virasaiva kavyas. Any testimony from vacanas with regard to the existence of Anubhava Mantapa is likely to be sketchy and not very helpful in establishing its historicity, location and form. More fruitful is an approach wherein all the references to Anubhava Mantapa in Kannada kavyas is compiled and analyzed.

The two doctoral theses referred to in The Hindu report should have focused on that aspect. While I haven’t read these two works, I also haven’t come across any useful research on anubhava mantapa and its historical antecedents.

In my own research, I realized the references to Anubhava Mantapa in kavyas is fairly late (mostly in the post-Vijayanagara texts) and often sketchy. But the bigger problem is the inability of our scholars to see these late texts as precisely that: late texts, which often provide fictive accounts and not historical evidence about the 12th century Anubhava Mantapa. Instead, they see them as historical evidence for its existence.

In the absence of other historical documentation, such as inscriptional evidence that might corroborate these textual references, any speculation on this issue is quite worthless. That’s not, I hope, an irresponsible or offensive statement.

I like a good conference as much as anyone else. But reading this report (entitled ‘R.K.Narayan’s concern for Children recalled‘) in The Hindu today, I couldn’t help but be snarky.

R.K. Narayan’s insight into a children’s world and his concern for their emotional sensitivity came under focus at the inaugural session of the three-day national seminar on the late novelist organised by the Regional Institute of Education (RIE), Mysore, on Tuesday.

This is indeed true, and the subject is worthy of a lecture by a sensitive reader of Narayan’s novels. The students and faculty members of the Regional Institute of Education (RIE) in Mysore ought to spend an evening discussing these matters. But a three day national seminar? What will they discuss?

The seminar is expected to discuss the following themes — Child and Family in R K Narayan’s work; Depiction and treatment of child and family in the context of Indian culture and way of life in the writings of R K Narayan; Narayan’s ideas and concern for children and childhood; R K Narayan: The Man and his life.

There you go!

Narayan is a great writer but an educationist, he is not.

And these guys are in charge of educating our children!

I am already sleeping better.

If the people of Karnataka haven’t had an elected government, then the two individuals squarely responsible for that are Kumaraswamy and Yedyurappa. Now having firmly settled that matter, I must also state unequivocally that it is unconscionable to have Governor’s rule beyond a point. However efficient a Governor and his bureaucrats may be, as a matter of principle, I would rather be governed by an elected government.

So far ‘delimitation of electoral constituencies’ has been an easy explanation to postpone elections to the Karnataka Assembly. The Election Commission wants to wait until electoral rolls are revised for the newly demarcated constituencies. Perhaps, this suits the Congress government at the Center, which may want to wait until the tide turns in its favor. Perhaps, local Congress politicians may want to enjoy the benefits of ruling the state indirectly through bureaucrats for a while.

But yesterday’s editorial in The Hindu makes a compelling argument in favor of conducting elections before the end of May. The editorial suggests that electoral rolls could be prepared within a month, giving ample time for the Commission to hold elections and constitute a new Assembly before May 28th.

If the Election Commission immediately announces its resolve to hold Karnataka Assembly elections by the due date, it should have a clear 40+ days to do its democratic duty. By invoking Rule 24, it will put an end to unsavoury efforts to force a postponement of the contest through the instrumentality of delimitation. In addition to being anti-democratic, any avoidable delay beyond May could lead to uncharted constitutional areas.

We need our government back.

The Indian Express reports a Bombay High Court judgment with a slightly misleading heading: Every father has to get his daughter married: HC.

Before I read the story, I wondered about the strong tone of a moral injunction, previously found mostly in the texts of Dharmashastra.

While the judgment seems to have included the sentiments that the headline conveys, the premise of the case appears to be different. Kusum Rewatkar (58) of Wardha district had filed a case asking that her husband, from whom she had been separated for over 25 years, to compensate her for the wedding expenses. Basing his ruling on Hindu law, (under which a daughter is entitled to be maintained out of the estate of the father) Justice C L Pangarkar ruled that “(t)he obligation to maintain the daughter and get her married arises from the very existence of the relationship”.

Does this entail a general proposition that the headline (quoted above) or the first paragraph of the IE report suggested!: “The Bombay High Court has held that every father is under obligation to maintain his daughter and get her married.”

What if the daughter doesn’t want to get married?

More broadly though, what are the obligations of a father?