When we were at school, there was a lot of romanticism in us about the Indian freedom movements. Especially, the armed revolutions led by underground militia groups in Maharashtra, Bangla and Punjab captured our imagination the most. As you very well know if you belong to my generation, – these armed efforts were not a single event; there were many phases to it, and many different teams led by many different leaders had contributed to its development. The spirit, however, was the same: speaking power to power.
There are times in history when the head of the commoner – the head of the dissenter against a tyranny – is made to hit rock bottom. At this point, there is nowhere for the dissenter to go but up. And often, when they go up, they go up like a bomb.
You see how schoolboys in their mid-teens would be enraptured, don’t you?
Here were men (and yes indeed, women) who played dice with death as they took on the full force of the British empire, operating under the nose of the CID, meeting around shaded lamps in the darkness of the night, coordinating with agents abroad to amass ammunition for armed encounters with the police. There were secret societies hidden inside youth clubs, circles within circles to ensure perfect secrecy, code words and tests of endurance, the deathly stealth of the Bengal tiger along with the idealistic fury of fallen gods. There were brilliant young men shunning their careers to become Swadeshi fighters, trips to Paris to learn from Russian political emigrants how to make bombs, secret bomb factories, and printing presses publishing banned magazines that rattled the British more than any guns did.
My best friend and I spent hours talking, speculating what it would be like to live in those times. Did you notice that earlier I said ‘if you belong to my generation‘? That’s because these days the history textbooks have been purged of these stories. That’s the point I am coming to, actually.
We are a generation that grew up with the lesson that to be patriotic is to be revolutionary. Today, we have a generation that is growing up with the lesson that to be patriotic is to be compliant.
The misstep is basic. You can equate the country with the people, or you can equate it with the government. The British rule was overthrown because the people took precedence over the prince. Independence took precedence over allegiance. We were clear about the fact that duties are only justified if they are directed towards strengthening the rights.
Young students today repeat very easily, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Ask them whom they are quoting and they’d give you the names of Indian politicians currently in office. But in truth, the line has been removed from its original context by miles.
This line was uttered – and made famous – by JFK in his 1961 inauguration address, but even he isn’t the one who came up with it. He was borrowing from his old headmaster, George St John, under whom he had studied at Choate School in Connecticut. The headmaster’s notes reveal a line by a Harvard College dean – ‘As has often been said, the youth who loves his Alma Mater will always ask not “what can she do for me?” but “what can I do for her?“‘ George St John frequently quoted this to the students, and in 1961, his pupil simply remembered and picked the line for use in his speech.
This is a perfect case of mis-grafting sentiments. The relationship between an alumnus and his Alma Mater is not the same as the relationship between a citizen and his country. And furthermore, the USA of the 1960s is not the same as India of the 2010s and ’20s.
Young boys and girls today believe that they owe their country. Well, they think they believe so. In fact, they believe that they owe their government. They are completely out of touch with what constitutes the country, and they don’t have an inkling of what their government owes them.
So where are we headed? The lay of the political land indicates we have already plunged into the abyss of dictatorial tyranny. The power bases have changed, so has the thinking of the public. This is the wheel of time coming full circle – now the majority of our own people are on the wrong side of history, boiling with exclusionary nationalism and hate-based pride.
A huge number of my own classmates – who grew up idolizing revolutionary freedom fighters – now actively supports incumbent fascism. That’s not the worst of it. I’ve found that many of our teachers – the same ones who taught us fairness, impartiality, non-discrimination and integrity – are soft fundamentalists. They are apologists in public, and fiercely bigoted in private. And as you have no doubt guessed, many of the upcoming generations are hardened extremists already. Left, right and centre – this is how things stand now.
Freedom-fighting was a minority business even a hundred years back. This is the difference between reading about dead heroes and facing contemporary tyranny in the flesh. The dead are heroes after their death; but while they were alive, they were outcasts. If history repeats itself (it always does), we would have to face this seething majority of zombies and get branded by the current administration. Now that’s an unsavoury thought for an aspiring ‘hero’.
It’s a Hobson’s choice, my dear reader. If you want to be the Christ, first you need to hang on the cross.
“Insurrection is the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties.”
Marquis de Lafayette
And don’t wait for too long either.
The saddest part is, as time evolves, it becomes very difficult to dislodge tyrants. They have the upper hand now through unlimited resources, social media and a huge illiterate population. I do not see a end, until India suffers terribly first, within the next 10 years.
The citizens are addicted to toxicity.
It made me think of something I heard about martyrdom last year. That once you make a freedom fighter into a martyr, then their legacy becomes less dangerous for the establishment. It means all of the focus is on what they acheived rather than what is still left to achieve.
It’s believed that this happened to Jesus & MLK. That they died to give us this great gift. So now we have the gift and we don’t have to strive for anything else beyond paying them homage publicly.
When in reality, they were just people who died in the middle of a larger process. One that needed to be continued and threatened the status quo.
Yeah. Take the flesh and turn it into stone.
Then you don’t need to bother about keeping it alive any more.
It’s I think shown to some extent in OMG, where “flesh” is turned to “stone”, as you say. Because stone, is an image, easier to sculpt than flesh. Flesh breathes. Flesh lives. Flesh grows. Stone can be cut to show what you want it to show. Stones gather dust. Flesh moves.
Oui.