By Rajshekhar Pant
In order to express disagreement, has it now become necessary to set aside civility of conduct—to descend into rudeness, to indulge in abuse, to discard all restraint, and ultimately to turn violent? Is it no longer possible to register dissent without resorting to such means? From Parliament to the streets, and in television shows bearing frenzied titles like Halla Bol, Dangal, Kurukshetra, or Aar-Paar, it has become commonplace to witness the daily shredding of the established norms of decorum expected of a supposedly educated and civilised society. Most of us, perhaps, are no longer even disturbed by it. A strange acceptance of such conduct has set in—and that is both unfortunate and dangerous.
To disagree is natural and normal. It is, in fact, the hallmark of an educated and aware society. On a broader plane, one may certainly disagree with government policies, with a political party, with an individual, or with an ideology; it is one’s right. As a responsible citizen of a free nation, I have every right not to agree with the ideas or policies of Gandhi, Nehru, Bhagat Singh, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Golwalkar, Subhas Chandra Bose, or any other national leader. I may personally dislike their speeches or writings. I am fully entitled to disagree with them, even to criticise them. But if, in order to register my dissent, I must resort to uncivil language, coin vulgar epithets, or indulge in character assassination, then surely my disagreement stands on hollow ground.
These days it has become fashionable, in the name of debate, to dissect religious scriptures, mythological narratives, even history itself, and to stitch them crudely to present contexts in order to construct shallow arguments. We seldom wish to view these texts within the framework of the time in which they were composed—when, in the hope of a better and more ordered life, they must have been shaped by the prevailing beliefs and circumstances. What sense does it make today to perform a surgical dissection of the Manusmriti, written nearly two thousand years ago, merely to win applause? Or to extract a line such as Tulsidas’s “Dhor, ganwar, shudra, pashu, nari…” and vilify him on that basis? When these were written, social and economic conditions were vastly different. Over centuries, those contexts have receded into history and lost much of their immediate relevance. Had the ashes not been repeatedly stirred for ulterior motives, the younger generation might scarcely have known even the name Manusmriti. In Catholic Europe, those accused of heresy were once burned alive at the stake. That, too, now belongs to the past. The ceaseless flow of time has compelled us to leave behind what was discardable. Changing circumstances have refined us, civilised us.
Religion, in its original form, is a reflection of the society that produces it; it is conditioned by the circumstances of its birth. In the tribal societies of Central Asia, life was often harsh and arduous; religious and social codes evolved there to meet those specific needs. It is only natural that they would differ from the religious and social traditions that arose in the fertile and prosperous plains of the Ganga and Yamuna. Without understanding the roots of religious practices—both their merits and their distortions—to use them merely as fodder for sharp and witty argument is hardly wise. Instead of the folly of proving one’s own shirt cleaner than another’s, it would be better to try to remove the stains from both in time. Unfortunately, debates born of dissent often degenerate into contests of superiority.
Disagreeing with established historical interpretations and re-reading them through the lens of prejudice often reminds me of the English concept of “Jedburgh justice”, derived from the seventeenth-century notion: “Hang in haste, and try at leisure.” First pronounce the sentence, execute it, and let the investigation continue afterward. To brand Pushyamitra Shunga as anti-Buddhist, Samudragupta as imperialist, Ashoka as cruel, or Babur as a mere plunderer—this resembles that very impulse. Disagreeing with history is not a crime, but such disagreement must rest on reason. If these figures are severed entirely from the values, social norms, and political-economic contexts of their times, they may indeed appear anti-Buddhist, imperialist, cruel, or marauders. In the same way, if one were to judge Krishna solely by the episode of the disrobing, Gandhi only by his controversial experiments with celibacy, or Churchill merely by his fondness for drink, their images would shrink to that of libertines or drunkards.
It often seems to me that the sudden eruption of dissent in our times stems largely from such prejudices. As members of particular groups or classes, we often disagree first and only afterward search for—or fabricate—reasons for our disagreement. When we analyse events, ideologies, or personalities in fragments rather than in their totality, we easily construct reasons for dissent that appear convincing at first glance. To dismiss the Mughal rulers as mere plunderers while ignoring their contributions to art, literature, culture, music, architecture, and language is a telling example of this tendency.
Sin and virtue, good and bad, right and wrong, legal and illegal, acceptable and unacceptable—these are all relative notions. Much that was considered wrong or unnatural five or seven decades ago is today readily accepted; history, after all, deals with events centuries old. To reflect upon it, analyse it, and learn from it is legitimate—indeed necessary. But to judge a person or event of another era solely by present standards seems to me akin to delivering a verdict conditioned by prejudice.
Karl Marx wrote “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please…under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”
Nietzsche opens yet another layer of this thought and, to some extent, absolves the individual for the stained pages of history, “Madness in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”
The Bhagavad Gita renders the matter more subtle still:
प्रकृतेः क्रियमाणानि गुणैः कर्माणि सर्वशः ।
अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते ॥
“All actions are performed by the qualities of nature; deluded by ego, the self imagines, ‘I am the doer.’”
As I understand it, the Indian conception of the individual rests upon the duality of body and soul. In ignorance, the body assumes authorship even of those actions that are in truth carried out by the qualities of Prakriti—Nature. And Nature, in turn, is conditioned by Kala—Time.
To me, this is a simple, lived truth; one need not read Marx, Nietzsche, or even the Gita to discover it. Reflect upon it yourself—perhaps then it will not seem so difficult to agree.
And after all, I am, like many ordinary Indians, something of a fatalist—content to sit upon a stone by the riverbank and watch the water flow by in silence.
How right was Omar Khayyam in saying –
‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Day
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
(The author is an amateur filmmaker, a photographer, and a writer, who has written over a thousand write-ups, reports, etc., published in the leading newspapers and magazines of the country. He can be reached at pant.rajshekhar@gmail.com)
