Religion Blinds

Religion comes with theology; but most religious people do not indulge in it. Religion comes with spirituality; but very few devout people actually concentrate on it. Religion however comes with huge paraphernalia of rituals, customs, traditions seeped in blind belief and superstition. And most believers actually practice this kind of religion.

This ritualistic and superstitious facet of religion is the most prevalent form the believers practice. It blinds people. It blinds them from receiving new knowledge, stops them from becoming wiser, and curbs originality and creativity. It forbids them from thinking farther and beyond, and makes them more of a robot and less of a thinker.

Religion stems wisdom, stops people from making sense, rationalize, think and reason. It makes them unreasonable and dogmatic. These people refuse to change views in spite of counter evidence. It makes them hang on to blind belief, orthodoxy and superstition.

There are many ideologies and belief systems that make a person blind to reason. So why single out religion in my attack?

Many other ideologies qualify for the same problems posed by religion. However, there is no other potent force on earth that comes close to religion in terms of its extent, depth, longevity and effectiveness. Religion is altogether a different beast.

For example, people who subscribe to an ideology like communism tend to face the same problems cited above. They are blinded. They do not reason, they are dogmatic, and unreasonable. However, communism as an ideology started less than hundred years ago, gripped only certain portion of people, and is already dying. The newer generations coming from the shadow of communism tend to detest it with more vigor than others.

Religion is embraced by more people than any other ideology, and exists for much longer time and continues to increase in efficacy with time. It has killed more people, made more people act barbaric, act uncivilized, commit genocide, rape, and murder than any other ideology.

These are some attributes where religion beats all other ideologies.

Kill and Die

No other ideology produces people with the same level of commitment and fanaticism to kill and die. More religious fanatics are ready to kill and die to defend their belief system and impose their belief system onto others. Unlike adherents of capitalism, communism, or globalization, the adherents of religion are ready to kill and get killed much more enthusiastically. The only other ideology that comes close to this is patriotism (but it ranks lower than religion).

Inheritance

No other ideology gets inherited the way religion does. A child in Christian family is invariably a Christian. For ages, kids born into Christian families tend to be Christians. (In some cases, proselytizing and conversion tend to change the ratios, but the neo-converts tend to practice this inheritance with more vigor). People born into a religious family tend to be religious. That is not true to most other ideologies. A son of communist need not be a communist. A son of capitalist need not be capitalist.

Catch them young

No other ideology seems to target young children the way religion does. Unlike most other ideologies, religion is taught to young children. Indoctrination of religion starts very young and the concept of God and the concept of heaven and hell, sin and blind rules are introduced to kids who are just two or three years old. They are told, ‘God forbids this, God likes this. Do it this way, God will reward you! Don’t do this, God will punish you!’

Not many communists teach their young kids Communism. Nobody says to his three-year old kid, ‘Don’t do this! Lenin will not like it’ or ‘Do this! Lenin will praise you for it’

Curb creativity and original thought

No other ideology curbs creativity and original thought the way religion does. Though patriotism qualifies for the above three attributes, religion beats it on this. Also, it starts doing its job attacking people at a quite young age. By answering most mundane questions by saying ‘God said so, and hence it is so!’ and ‘God created this, and hence it is so!’ the original thought is curbed. By forbidding people from doing things calling it a sin, and imposing mundane habits as if they are unquestionable diktats of god, and introducing prejudices quite early on as if they are unchangeable rules, religion curbs creativity, makes people illogical, prejudiced and unreasonable.

Blind belief is a virtue in religion. Faith in extremely nonsensical things is hallmark of devoutness. Subscribing to most ridiculous practices is hallmark of piety. Many other ideologies seem to prescribe these attributes, but religion does this more effectively – affecting the state and its apparatus, the institutions, society, and the individual.

Abandon and reject rational thought

Other ideologies such as communism, patriotism, nationalism and even racism seem to have evolved and at some level they have incorporated rational thought and results of science, sometimes flawed. But not religion! Religion stands against all rational thought, suppresses debate, discourages empiricism, thwarts logical reasoning, and in most cases rejects the theories and results of science.

Longevity

We have had problems with other ideologies, either it is nationalism, fascism, Nazism, or communism, but many of these ideologies have not been there forever. They had their own times when they reached the pinnacle and then they subsided. Not religion. People have been fighting over religions since the inception of religion itself. And it has not subsided and it has not let up. More and more people join in throngs and swell the ranks. It has more adherents than any other ideology and the enmities and persecutions continue for thousands of years. Casteism in India would have not have survived for two thousand years if it was not made a part of the religion itself. The same is with persecution of Jews.

Intelligent but lack in reason

It’s not that religious people are dumb. In fact, they can be very intelligent. Some of them could be more intelligent than the entire non-religious people combined. What the religious people lack is not intelligence. What they have given up along the way is their ability to reason when it comes to certain issues of life and society. In face of counter evidence, instead of looking at it and inspecting it, the religious people would like to dismiss the evidence as false. They would like to say, ‘Look! What you say seems to make sense, yet I would not like to get convinced by you’. Religion legitimizes foolishness like no other. It’s like saying, ‘what you are doing is actually foolish, but since it is prescribed by religion, I respect that!’

Secularism Redefined II

This follows the first part: Secularism Redefined.

So, what is the big difference between original definition of Secularism as “No importance to any religion” and the Indian definition of “Equal importance to all religions”? Some people don’t see much difference.

Unfortunately, Religion does not just come with philosophy, rich literature, spirituality, great buildings, moral code, universal brotherhood, altruism, love of mankind and colorful festivals, which are all considered good.

It also comes with blind belief, superstition, orthodoxy, fundamentalism, irrationality, illogic, stupidity, idiocy, which are not necessarily the tools that you want to include in running the state and its machinery.

Since one cannot just filter out good things about Religion from the bad things, it is best avoided by the state in its daily functioning while allowing its people to celebrate the goodness and revel in its badness. That is called the separation of state and church.

It’s like saying: People, do what you want to do. If you want to believe Tuesday is a bad day for meetings and taking decisions, don’t take them up. If you believe water shouldn’t be drunk on a Saturday, don’t drink it. It’s up to you. But please don’t push those beliefs onto the state making it a universal rule where in everyone has to abide by it.

When we say the above, what we actually mean is: We understand that you are being foolish. We allow you to be foolish. But don’t expect everyone to be foolish. That’s a little too much to expect.

So, what a secular state wants is to separate foolishness from the state so that foolishness is confined to individuals as part of their freedoms. It’s like saying: You have the right to be foolish, but don’t expect us to create rules and laws based on your foolishness. Hence, the definition – ‘No importance to any religion’.

However, Indian definition of secularism – ‘Equal importance to all religions’ translates to ‘as a state, we promote foolishness, encourage it, and employ it in our courts, legislature, executive and daily working. In fact, we embrace all your foolish ideas with equal vigor and interest as long as you belong to a religion.’

While the actual version of secularism tries to keep the foolishness out of state machinery, the Indian version of secularism includes foolishness to celebrate it and institutionalize it.

That’s when our courts will give verdicts like, ‘You have dug a well in your backyard. You have raped Mother India. You are convicted of rape’. Or the government will take decisions like, ‘Lord Rama along with thousands of monkey friends constructed this dam across the sea nearly 2 million years ago, and henceforth, it shall be considered a man-made construction’.

MF Husain Nudes: Nude God

In one of the comments in MF Husain Nudes: Judgment, Rags said:

You guys are terribly mistaken if you think nude sculptures are not being done now. Go to Mahabalipuram or some other place, there are plenty of artists who do nude or semi nude sculptures of Gods and Goddesses to be installed in temples. In fact nude sculptures are more common in India than any other country because it has been officially sanctioned for centuries to be used in temples. Please travel and know more about your own country.

Yes, it’s true that there are many temples being built as we speak where there are nude gods and goddesses. Here I include a picture that I took recently when I visited my hometown in Telangana. Here’s a god standing in glory in one of the temples. This god is a recent addition.

MF Husain Nudes: Judgment

This follows: MF Husain Nudes: Talibanization of India Slowed Down

 

Sanjay Kishan Kaul has a done a good job in penning down his reasons on why he has quashed some criminal cases pending against M F Husain for allegedly hurting sentiments of many Indian Hindus. His judgment has far reaching consequences for our constitutional democracy. This landmark judgment is historical and should be celebrated. 

The judge has used this opportunity to discuss many other things, about Art, about freedom of expression, about Indian History, definition of personal morality, etc.

This is what the judge had to say [All emphasis mine]. He began by quoting Pablo Picasso.

“Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art.”

Many people don’t understand Art really. There is no need for everyone to understand it either. Does every Tom Dick and Harry pick up Milton to read his poems or do common men go and see Picasso’s paintings in a museum? How many Indians have read the sordid and erotic stories of Shakuntala and Dushyanth? And how many of them have enthusiastically admired fornicating deities in Kajuraho?

The judge ventures into the history of India which was surfeit with erotic art.

With a 5000-year-old culture… Ancient Indian art has been never devoid of eroticism where sex worship and graphical representation of the union between man and woman has been a recurring feature.

The sculpture on the earliest temples of ‘Mithuna’ image or the erotic couple in Bhubeneshwar, Konarak and Puri in Orissa (150-1250 AD); Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh (900-1050 AD); Limbojimata temple at Delmel, Mehsana (10th Century AD); Kupgallu Hill, Bellary, Madras; and Nilkantha temple at Sunak near Baroda to name a few.

These and many other figures are taken as cult figures in which rituals related to Kanya and Kumari worship for progeny gained deep roots in early century A.D. Even the very concept of ‘Lingam’ of the God Shiva resting in the centre of the Yoni, is in a way representation of the act of creation, the union of Prakriti and Purusua. 

The judge then cites the link between erotic art and religion itself. Here, it is important to understand that eastern religions did not develop the way Abrahamic religions have developed. The modern Hindu accustomed to, or overwhelmed by the morality inherited from Abrahamic religions, tends to believe that Hinduism is somehow very similar in its moral teachings as that of Abrahamic religions and in an earnest attempt to compete with Abrahamic religions he wants Hinduism to impose more stringent rules and codes on personal morality.

The ultimate essence of a work of ancient Indian erotic art has been religious in character and can be enunciated as a state of heightened delight or ananda, the kind of bliss that can be experienced only by the spirit.

He asks: 

We have been called as the land of the Kama Sutra then why is it that in the land of the Kama Sutra, we shy away from its very name?... Indian art has always celebrated the female form. There is nothing salacious about it.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and so does obscenity. It is our perception to objects, thoughts and situations, which rule the mind to perceive them in the way we do. 

He quashed the plea “that the said painting uploaded on a website could be accessed by any person sitting across the globe who in consequence whereto could get affected by viewing the same.”

There can be no exasperation caused by viewing such painting on the website for the reason that a person would firstly access such a website only if he has some interest in art and that too contemporary art and in case he does view such a website, he always would have the option to not to view or close the said web page.

It seems that the complainants are not the types who would go to art galleries or have an interest in contemporary art, because if they did, they would know that there are many other artists who embrace nudity as part of their contemporary art. 

To calm down those complainants who accused MF Husain of deliberately hurting their sentiments, the judge says:

…there seems to be no deliberate intention on the part of the petitioner [MF Husain] to hurt feelings of Indians as already stated and as a matter of fact, the subject matter i.e Bharat Mata could be alleged to wound nationalist feelings of an individual and not any religious feelings.

This is interesting. He asks the pertinent question, ‘Why are Hindus considering Bharat Mata a religious icon?’ The claimants to hurt sentiments ask MF Husain the question, “Why do you paint ‘our’ icons nude and not ‘your’ icon nudes?” by which they conveniently put M F Husain and his identity (that of a Muslim) as an outsider which is the wont of most nationalist and Hindu Indians to naturally assume that Muslims are outsiders.

As I discussed in the earlier article, ‘does depiction of a symbol in nude same as depiction of a real mother in nude?’ The judge rightly addresses this question:

… the impugned painting cannot form the basis of any deliberate intention to wound the religious feelings of the complainants since the figure, on the basis of the identity alleged, represents an anthropomorphic depiction of a nation as also that to hold a person liable under the above said section, mere knowledge of the likelihood that the religious feelings of another person may be wounded would not be sufficient.

How could the claimants to ‘hurt sentiments’ own up Bharat Mata as their own excluding Muslims from it? Is it to do with the prevailing notion that Muslims are not patriotic enough? That India is Hindu which accommodates Muslims as guests?

MF Husain Nudes: Talibanization of India Slowed Down

In a landmark judgment, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of Delhi High Court has endorsed the right of an artist to paint nudes which include depicting Goddess Saraswati, Sita and Bharath Mata in nude, and overturned criminal proceedings against M F Husain for allegedly hurting public sentiments through his paintings.

The Judge noted [All emphasis mine]:

Our Greatest problem today is fundamentalism which is the triumph of the letter over the spirit. In a free democratic society tolerance is vital especially in large and complex societies comprising people with varied beliefs and interests.

An intolerant society does not brook dissent. An authoritarian regime cannot tolerate expression of ideas which challenge doctrines and ideologies in the form of writings, plays, music or paintings. Intolerance is utterly incompatible with democratic values. This attitude is totally antithetical to our Indian Psyche and tradition.

It must be realised that intolerance has a chilling, inhibiting effect on freedom of thought and discussion. The consequence is that dissent dries up. And when that happens democracy loses its essence.

The judge found the criminal proceedings baseless. He noted, “It is most unfortunate that India’s new ‘puritanism’ is being carried out in the name of cultural purity and a host of ignorant people are vandalizing art and pushing us towards a pre-renaissance era.”

He stressed on the important of tolerance:

A liberal tolerance of a different point of view causes no damage. It means only a greater self restraint. Diversity in expression of views whether in writings, paintings or visual media encourages debate. A debate should never the shut out. ‘I am right’ does not necessarily imply ‘You are wrong’.

Our culture breeds tolerance- both in thought and in actions. I have penned down this judgment with this favourent hope that it is a prologue to a broader thinking and greater tolerance for the creative field. 

He called upon India to welcome back MF Husain:

A painter at 90 deserves to be in his home — painting his canvass!

It comes as a reprieve to some of us Indians, who are free thinkers, and whose number is dwindling with each generation. The onslaught of the irrationality is dimming the light of rational thought in this country. But with this decision it is clear that reason has NOT left India completely; that there are still some sane minds who are ready to reason, who are not caught up in the mass hysteria of irrationality that is sweeping this country; that there are some people out there in the right places that are NOT high on opium of the masses called religion and the heroin of the masses called nationalism.

With this great decision, Sanjay Kishan Kaul has slowed down the talibanization of India. Kudos!

Related Posts: MF Husain and nude paintings, MF Husain Nudes and Mothers

Role of Media: Impact on various cultures

Imagine it was 1800 AD and a Danish cartoonist depicts Mohammed in his cartoons. Would the Islamic world have known about it? And how long would it have taken to know about it? And if some people got to know about it would they have been able to rally the whole of Islamic world to agitate against this?

Not really.

The present day media, consisting of live reports 24 by 7, detailed documentaries, regular news broadcasted on TV, internet that connects the world, people and their opinions on an unprecedented scale, transparent press, is entering our lives unhindered and uncensored on a daily basis. In an instant, we know if France has banned scarves in their schools and we watch this event as it unfolds on a daily basis. Now, we know if a remote town in Oregon has put up toilet seats with pictures of Hindu Gods. The news is beamed to all homes in India (and elsewhere on the planet) on primetime.

Different civilizations on this planet are exposed to the same media content but in reality each of these civilizations hasn’t matured along the same lines and hence we see different reactions to the same news from different parts of the world. The West which has actually invented the instrument called Press, using it as a potent force for bringing in the first people’s movement in Reformation, and which later on brought in Age of Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, Scientific Revolution, has also used this potent force to mass hypnosis and propaganda during both the World Wars.

Right after WWI, seeing the impact the media and news coverage has on the swaying opinions of the masses, it was clear that this new tool had a very big role to play. America, a constitutional democracy, consistently uses media to manufacture public opinion to wage it wars. However, the long tradition of media with necessary checks and balances in these countries has a maturing effect on its people – not that it is a permanent one.

The populations in the West do not go to streets the minute they see an American flag being burnt in a remote town in Palestine. They do not get onto streets to protest against Da Vinci Code though it targets at the fundamentals of its religion. However, the same movie raises massive protests in other parts of the world, such as in India, Philippines, etc, where the movie is eventually banned. Here, we can see the clear difference in maturities of different civilizations. Not all of us are at the same maturity level when it comes to dealing with international events as they unfold before us.

This particular point, that we have different temperaments and maturity levels, is completely missed out by local media. In an attempt to ape the West and their media, these local media people ignore the maturities and sensibilities of local populations and instead put them through same exposure as the West resulting in completely unexpected reactions from the people.

Indian people were not exposed to this kind of media content on such a massive and transparent scale even few years ago. It all started quite recently and we have already reached the exposure levels of West within a short period of time. While the media has gone an exponential acceleration in this country, the culture and maturity level has not. Indian mindset is still set in 16^th Century while being exposed to the information content of the 20^th Century.

We have not got our reformations, we have not got our scientific revolutions, we have not got out Age of Reason, Age of Logic, we have not got our Industrial Revolutions, and we have not got our Age of Enlightenment. We are still a superstitious, blind belief-led, orthodox culture set in Middle Ages of Europe, with heavy doses of religious ignorance and antagonism, with feudal mindset and heavy casteist divisions, but watching the events as they unfold in remotest corners of the earth along with much mature civilizations.

The media blindly aping the West is not just suitable to Indians or many other civilizations. Most Indians media play the role of relayer of information but do not take pains to explain it. For example, in a recent episode of hike in fuel prices, the media sounded shenanigans and spelled the doom for the consumer but did not take pains to explain how the soaring prices in the world market could have influenced it. Such irresponsible behavior can cause lot of turmoil.

On a daily basis the untrained Indian audience, which applies to audience in most post-colonial emerging nations, is witnessing the conflicts arising in remote corners as they are relayed without being prepped up. An Indian who is used to considering legs as filthy and impure watching someone in the West wearing sandals with pictures of Indian gods would be completely shocked. Such information does not make his life better. In fact, it had made it worse. He is not used to seeing it in his daily life, and with his limited exposure to his surroundings where legs are given their lowest place in the hierarchy of things, this sacrilege doesn’t go well. However, if the media wants to play a constructive role, it can precede the news items with how cultures differ in their view of feet and why West does not think feet to be impure. That explanation may help. However, it is starkly missing. Instead, jingoism is used while breast-beating young journalists foment hatred by showing the footage in such a light so as to elicit more antagonism and not understanding.

Some of us may be stumped to see why a remote town in Lebanon protests Danish Cartoons of Mohammed. How come similar caricatures of Jesus Christ in a town in Bangladesh go unnoticed by the West? How come Indian Hindus run to the nearest deity of Ganesha to see it drink milk, while all such miracles in the West are news items in a tabloid read by a whimsical few?

Danish Cartoons united the whole Muslim world to rally against Danish citizens and it embassies and launch major protests across the world. In near future, we will see more such events which will trigger even massive conflicts, civil wars, local wars, international wars, etc. Unless the media plays a constructive role, it can actually trigger conflicts as is the case in the USA where war is actually brought on by the media.

The idea of this article is not to regulate or control the media, or to accelerate the maturities of civilizations, but to agree that we have an issue at hand, a factor which we should not ignore when we broadcast various conflicts.

Example from Indian Context

Let me give an innocent example on how aping West in does not seem to make sense. During the Da Vinci Code episode, CNN-IBN ran a week long program called ‘Sacred Feminine’. These TV anchors just took the phrase aping the West and started to push it into India not knowing how and where it applies.

Sacred Feminine comes as a challenge to church’s orthodoxy in the West because Abrahamic Gods are all men and the Church has always seen women in poor light. Even now the Church and the religion in the West is dominated by men. However, the current socio-political structure in the West running counter to the religion has liberated its women and made them (almost) equal to men. Their women do not suffer the same ignominy as Indian women. On the other hand, India is quite the opposite. It has always given equal status to women in theology and religion but has not liberated its women in socio-political structure.

Sacred Feminine of Da Vinci Code challenges the theocracy and religion to introduce role of a woman as an equal partner. That has no relevance in India because a woman is already an equal partner in religion. This topic has to be dealt exactly opposite if it has to be applied in India. One has to challenge the existing socio-political structure while celebrating the sacred woman already depicted in Indian Scriptures.

Our media is immature too. Just to create news, so that they can ape the West, CNN-IBN unnecessarily rakes up Sabirmala issue. When all temples do not allow women, it is a case of discrimination, but when only one temple does not allow women then it is a special case. So, why even rile against it?

MF Husain Nudes and Mothers

This is a response to the questions posted on MF Husain and nude paintings. A commenter asks:

“Think if MF Husain has painted your Mother in nude. Can you still support him? If so, it’s ok. But I can't!”

Many commenters had suggested the same line of reasoning. They have asked me what I would do if someone painted my mother in nude. The whole reason why they ask such a question in this episode is the following train of thought:

“Goddess Saraswati is LIKE mother to me; my country India, called Bharat Mata, is also LIKE mother to me. Therefore, portraying Goddess Saraswati or my country in nude is like portraying my biological mother in nude. Since I do not like anyone portraying my biological mother in nude, I do not like to see anyone portraying Saraswati or Bharath Mata in nude”.

At the outset, to those who have not asked enough questions in their life OR to those who did ask these questions but did not wait long enough to listen to a reasonable answer, the above logic may sound sensible. 

One could easily extend this line of thought and come up with the following situation.

A person who is drilling a bore well in his property gets raided by Indian nationalists. They beat him up, ransack his home and break up all the heavy machinery that is being used for drilling. In addition, they go to an Indian court filing a case against this man. The reasons cited for such raiding, beating him up, ransacking his house, breaking up the machinery and then filing a court case against this man are the following:

“Earth is like mother to all of us. We refer to it as Mother Earth. Here is the documentary evidence of all poems and mythologies written in our history which suggest that this Earth is our Mother and that she has come to life in many of our stories to intervene in the matters of men. And drilling a hole with this plunging equipment is equivalent to raping her. Therefore, we charge this man with the crime of raping our mother. He should be arrested and convicted on the charge of rape and inflicting injuries to our mother.” 

Some of you who have been using some portions of your brain during the last many years may find the above argument a little ridiculous. If that is the case, congratulations, you still have the power to reason, you have not lost all of it to the opium called religion and the heroin called nationalism.

To know more about this line of thinking, read People vs Larry Flynt [Part I, Part II] on this blog. The lawyer in that story says that it is matter of personal taste, not about law.

He puts the premise of the case as:

The question you have before you today is whether a public figure's right to protection from emotional distress should outweigh the public interest in allowing every citizen to freely express his views.

Painting someone nude is a matter of taste, something that should be dealt with by the person who has been painted nude. Lots of Hindu gods and goddesses have been depicted nude in our temples. They stand in provocative poses, much provocative than what MF Husain has depicted them. If you go to a French Art Museum, you will see scores of paintings in which many women are depicted nude. Every woman who has gone into those French paintings or those statues in Indian temples is a depiction of some character – real person, mythological figure, or a symbolic figure. Many of those women are mothers to someone or the other. Goddess Parvati sitting nude on Shiva’s lap, depicted in Ellora caves, is a mother to other gods like Vinayaka and Karthikeyan. Many symbolic and real women are also mothers to someone or the other. In spite of that there are many depictions of those mothers in our literature, temples and mythologies where they frolic in nude and participate in sex, adultery, and seduction. 

If we start considering every public icon, every mythological character and every symbolic figure as our mother and thus prohibit all references that can hurt sentiments of people, then every such depiction in literature, paintings, statues, and even in thinking should be shunned and stopped since it is tantamount to depicting and thinking about one’s biological mom in unacceptable ways. With that kind of reasoning, almost every work of fiction, every piece of art, every prose and poetry that has dealt with women in ways that are not appealing to some people should be discarded, opposed and removed, since they deal with a woman who is a mother to at least some people. That spells an end to individual expression as we know it.

If someone out there is saying, “we are not talking about individual’s mom here; we are talking about mom of all people, including me and you”, then you have to decide this first: Are you talking about real moms or symbolic moms? Are symbolic moms same as biological moms? If so, shall we stop all drilling into Mother Earth? If not, why the fuss to start with?

Nobody is depicting your biological mom in nude here and we are referring to symbolic moms who seem to be mom to everyone, not just you in particular. Your mom could be a matter of privacy to you and her, but a symbolic mom is a public figure. Ridiculing the symbolic mom, insulting her, depicting her in nude, deriding her, praising her or worshipping her, are matters that are all outside the purview of individuals and their privacy. It’s akin to deriding a politician, caricaturing a leader, spoofing an actor, and making a parody out of mythology. It’s not a private matter and any ridiculous proposition to link them should be rejected. 

If this kind of thought process prevails and starts entering our system, we are going to end up talibanizing India in less than ten years.

Excellence in India II

[This follows the first part, Excellence in India I]

Pursuit of Excellence

I see the pursuit of excellence in a culture as a three step process. First is recognition of excellence. Second is rewarding excellence. Third is celebration of excellence, making it a part of the culture itself.

1. Recognition of Excellence

I believe we are not trained to recognize excellence. It’s not a part of our culture – if it was indeed a part of us in the remote past, we have already lost it. Instead, we deride and ridicule excellence, belittle it, scandalize it, defame it, and then discard it. In turn, we inculcate a culture of celebrating mediocrity – democratizing it. When everyone has it, we are all equals, that way, we all feel good.

We are not trained to recognize what ‘excellence’ is. We are not looking for it. And we fail to see it even when it is thrown at us.

Once in a while we will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened.

– Winston Churchill

It is the same with stumbling upon ‘excellence’. Most Indians just pick themselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened, to stop over at the next place where mediocrity is being displayed. There they stop and relish in it. Excellence makes them feel small and inferior while the mediocrity makes everyone feel like a king.

Indian Crabs

This attitude reminds me of a fable about Indian Crabs. During an international exhibition showcasing crabs from various countries, Indian crabs are the only ones with no lid on the vessel. When an observer asks, ‘How come you do not have a lid on it, wouldn’t your crabs escape?’ the clever Indian remarks, ‘Don’t worry, these are Indians Crabs. If one guy tries to move up, the others will pull him down’.

In a University in India, a renowned scientist who attracts lot of fame is seen as an unnecessary nuisance. If only he just stopped making news; their inadequacies would not come to light. Hence, a plot is hatched to ensure he does not get his next set of laboratory experiments so that he cannot continue his research. This way, the majority is happy, at the cost of misfortune and disappointment of one single scientist. This is how we curb excellence.

Indian Universities or government organizations ensure they never promote excellence. The guy who actually delivers is booted out. The guy who pleases everyone though he never does his job is promoted. We want to be surrounded by mediocre people so that we all feel we are all successful.

This attitude is all pervading almost making it a chronic ailment of Indian psyche. Whether it is politics, economics, governance, movie-making, or IT industry, mediocrity is encouraged, Excellence is snubbed. Everyone gets to say about everything, democratizing almost every aspect of our society, including the most specialized fields such as medicine, technology, astronomy, archaeology, and every other field you name it.