All Masks Should Speak in One Voice

EVERYONE TRYING TO TELL YOU “WE NEED TO SPEAK IN ONE VOICE” SIMPLY MEANS – “YOU NEED TO SPEAK IN MY VOICE”.

A few decades ago, the television serials “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” caught the fancy of the Indian audience, striking very deeply resonating chords, unleashing a viewership craze never before experienced in the history of Indian television till that point of time.

The serial, Mahabharata, flaunting a whole bouquet of invincible warriors was a visual delight. Watching those warriors walk with such self-pride used to swell our hearts with immense pride and nostalgia for a bygone era.

However, the same serial, created by a crew and cast that had a history of innumerable iconic movies behind them, had all ingredients of those extra spices required to connect with the masses, and it used one such powerful weapon – rabble rousing – to a very delightfully effective measure.

For example, in the scenes that narrated The Bhagvad Gita, the Song of the Divine, revealed by Krishna to his favourite disciple and friend Arjun on the battlefield, showing him the necessity of following his own “dharma” – the righteous duty – even if it required pitching up a battle against his own bloodline. 

The plot of Bhagvad Gita has been set up in a way that it is narrated to the Emperor Dhritarashtra – the father of Arjun’s opponents in the battle and his uncle by relation – by his charioteer, Sanjay, who was blessed with a divine vision to see what was happening in the battlefield and narrate what he saw to the Emperor. The elucidation of Bhagvad Gita was a part of this narration.

To this extent, the serial was accurate in its depiction, but it often stretched it a few miles ahead than the facts, to provide a populist cinematic depiction. For example, during the course of narration, the serial would show Emperor Dhritarashtra feeling very relieved that Arjun has decided not to fight against his cousins. That would mean a straight victory for Dhritarashtra’s sons, who would win by a walk-over.

There were many scenes showing Dhritarashtra praising Arjun for displaying his respect for personal relationships by refusing to participate in the battle.

As the narration of Bhagvad Gita progressed in the serial, and Arjun appeared to be a little more convinced to fight, the serial often showed Dhritarashtra getting nervous and screaming out – “Why is Krishna misleading my beloved Arjuna and provoking him to fight my sons?”

How did the audience react to such scenes?

Anybody with the slightest familiarity with The Bhagvad Gita would know that such scenes did not exist in the narration of the original scripture.

But a good drama never hurt anyone.

As a child, it was intriguing for me to notice even people who had the scripture memorized by heart, reacting to such scenes with the same emotional gusto as they would react to a vile dialog by the then popular Bollywood villains, Pran or Prem Chopra. In the popular movies, the villainous characters were often created to be as abominable and disgusting as one could imagine in order to stir out maximum hatred in the minds of the audience, to align the audience’s reaction to the heroes of these movies.

Surprisingly, people well-versed with the text of The Bhagvad Gita, who knew all too well that these scenes are not part of the original story, never failed to be totally rabble-roused and curse this villainous character for dialogs that do not form part of the original story.

These moments of shared outrage by the audience, even by those who knew these scenes not to be part of the original text, gave this serial an extra push in terms of a populist connection with the masses.

Nothing brings people close more than shared outrage, and everyone who has ever tried to manipulate the masses, whether for good or bad, realizes this truth inside out.

As I often repeat, regardless of what century we live in, human beings are no more evolved than the Roman Mobs of two millennia ago. We just need our daily bread and our daily circus, and those who provide us the best circuses become our leaders, guides, philosophers, saints and prophets.

Nothing brings people together better than a shared outrage, and the easiest way to having people follow you like sheep is to create a shared outrage against a common enemy.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak, one of the most valiant of our freedom fighters, and an exponent of The Bhagvad Gita, expressed his vision of having “Sthitapragya” as the foundation of Indian Nationalism. “Sthitapragya“, a term from Bhagvad Gita, roughly translates to “steady-in-mind”. In practical terms, it could be perceived as “equanimity” taken to sublime levels.

Tilak envisioned India as a country of “Sthitapragyas“, a country with highly evolved, deep-thinking individuals, with a sense of self-pride and self-respect that couldn’t be deterred by the vileness and meanness of its opponents, adorned by a  high degree sense of self-discipline and responsibility.

In his words, “What government, what police, what military, what laws, would you need to regulate such people?” Such citizens would be governance personified in their own rights, and would epitomize the best of self-governance.

He envisioned a level of nationalism that was constituted out of brave lion-hearts.

In a world where being a sheep has more perks than being a lion, the ideal of “Sthitapragya” is bound to lose out to the lust for the Roman Mobs’ Daily Circus.

There are two ways of building a nation – you can help the citizens evolve into gigantic personalities with mighty individualism, lion-like persona, unbreakable spirit, indomitable sense of freedom, non-negotiable ethos, a strong sense of personal and universal reality and living by it, without disrupting or disregarding others’ rights to do the same.

There is another way – much simpler and much easier to adopt and follow by all parties concerned, and hence the path of choice for the masses.

You turn people into a bunch of sheep and allow a few monstrous wolves aided with conniving foxes to rule these sheep. The path of “accept me as your leader and I will protect you for eternity”.

A lot of global ideologies have taken this approach. Since this approach appeals to our most basal human instincts, it has a lot of appeal, glamour and X-factor. It is way too boring to live a life of steadiness in mind and an equanimity of consciousness. It is far easier to gather together and chant slogans against those who have been made to perceive as your enemies.

I repeat – “nothing brings people together more than shared outrage”. It is this shared outrage that allows the wolves and foxes to grab their intended seats and designations.

Hinduism is one of the rare ideologies and probably the only surviving one that has always called for unleashing the inner lion in you. Rather than being a follower to some one else’s wisdom, Hinduism encourages every individual to ask your own questions, find your own answers, and traverse your own path.

However, it is too much of an effort, and most Hindus end up choosing the easy way out – falling for the same trappings of guilt and fear used by the proponents of popular global ideologies, whether it be the ideology that has a record of massacring 80 million people, or the one that massacred 100 million people or the one that massacred 500 million people, for not aligning with their perfect ideologies.

The reason why Hinduism fell to ugly opponents of different shades was plenty. To illustrate it simplistically, just imagine a bright young individual in your neighbourhood, who works hard to generate immense material, intellectual and spiritual wealth for himself, and lives by the ideals of “live and let live”, minding his own business, and working incessantly for the betterment of his own life and those around him, totally unaware of what evil minds have been taking root in other parts of the existence.

He starts off with being wise enough to realize the need for protecting himself, but misled by either ignorant or malicious advices that force him to start believing in an angelic world. Starting to believe in the ideals of “one world without boundaries”, he feels tempted to drop all his defences.

He doesn’t realize that most lofty ideals, like the ones propagated by John Lennon’s song “Imagine” are carefully planted by the manipulators and propagandists, so that you are convinced into dropping your defences, so that you could be easily walked over.

That’s what happens to this bright young achiever. Having thrown all self-defence to the winds, he starts suffering a series of burglary attacks. Some burglars plunder his home and carry away the goodies. Some do not only rob him off his wealth, they even pitch tents illegally in his house, sucking him off drop by drop for a long long time, robbing him of his wealth, his opportunities, his talents, his brilliance, and in due course of time his self-belief and self-esteem.

In times to come, he, and more so, his children start getting sold out to the “power and might” as well as to the “brilliance and intelligence” of those occupying their houses and getting richer on their money, not realizing that these guys are rich and powerful only to the extent a serial bandit could be. To these children, their father is a weak loser who has nothing, knows nothing and does nothing.

In a span of a few years, this bright, rich individual ends up becoming a “3rd-world individual”. His children aspire to emulate their plunderers, vie to be in their good books, and go out of the way to please them.

That’s the history of Hinduism in a nut-shell. 

Oh yeah, some of the children do see through the unfairness of it all. But then, they find the most bizarre way out of this – they now aim to become highly successful bandits and manipulators in their own right, because to them, this appears to be a proven, workable formula for success.

The current “Hindutva” movements are a happy marriage of conniving crookedness and wilful ignorance.

The entire emphasis is on turning the country into compliant sheep. The leaders generously peddle out examples of the invaders and plunderers – “Look, how united they are. Look, how they speak in one voice. Look, how they donate for their communities”. There are countless leaders, each proclaiming, “accept me as your leader and I will protect you for eternity”.

The short summary of all this being – “Follow me blindly and give me the money I want“. They often use fear of the “threats of extinction”, sending their “followers” into guilt-trips to gain total control of their minds, lives and to a great extent, their money.

The exhortation to “speak in one voice“, in all cases, simply means – “agree to me unconditionally“. There is never a leader enjoying a celebrity status who would say – “we need to speak one voice, therefore I agree with you“. They use benchmarks like – “the others tithe 10% of their earnings to their religious organizations“, and hence, you need to do the same as a mandatory religious obligation, of course, for your own survival and prevention of your extinction.

The primary theology of Hinduism is about the unity with the cosmic consciousness, and the whole spiritual endeavour is for the individual consciousness to merge into that cosmic consciousness, by realizing that we are the drop of the same universal ocean.

You cannot become cosmic consciousness by being blind, docile, sheep.

When the world was using statements like “the meek shall inherit the earth” to brainwash people into being meek and submissive, so that they could kill, butcher, torture and burn them at stakes without much resistance, Hinduism was one ideology encouraging people, even the masses, to discover the lion within.

I am not sure where did the makers of “The Lion King” found their direct inspiration from, but the story of the movie is a straight rehash of a popular Vedantic parable of re-discovering the lion within. The story has been told for ages and was popularized in the west by Swami Vivekananda (links to the parable provided in the “references” section at the end of the article).

The closest you can get lions to speak in one voice is to have them sound off their resonant, echoing, resounding roar – each with it’s own distinct persona.

Of course, this is not conducive to the ambitions and designs of the wolves and the foxes who would rather have all of us bleat in one uniform voice. 

If I have been losing consistently to an opponent that plays foul, it requires me to be smart, wise and prudent enough to not let their dirty games work out, but it doesn’t require me to become cheats and crooks like them.

Indian thought has always been about freedom of spirit, about assertion of individuality, about discovering the lion within. India cannot arrive at its destiny by trying to convert people into docile, obedient, good-mannered, well-behaved sheep.

No shepherd takes care of his sheep because he loves them.

Every shepherd takes care of his sheep to ensure the sheep grow up fat, fleshy and juicy enough to make good, delicious meal at some point in the future, or provide warm, cosy winter clothing.

I totally agree with Tilak that the ideal nationalism for Indians would find its place, with its citizens being “Sthitapragya” – each citizen a lion in his own right – bright, brilliant, intelligent, brave, free-thinking souls, “children of immortality” as the Vedas describe.

We cannot achieve our destiny by behaving like Roman Mobs, addicted to our daily breads and daily circuses. We need to give up our addictions to being emotionally aroused, our obsession for rabble-rousing entertainment, and our compulsive need to “follow”.

We DO NOT need leaders who find their ways into our minds and our pockets by showing us the fear of extinction, and setting up examples of our vile and mean opponents as benchmarks for us to be emulated.

We need leaders who will bring out the high and mighty within us to the fore, to enable and empower each of us to have our individuality and individual brilliance shine forth, to ASK our own questions and find our own answers, and yet, truly become a powerful, mighty nation, deserving of the “children of immortality“.

Not the nation of Circus-lovers, but the nation of “Sthitapragyas”, as Tilak envisioned.

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References –

(1) A visual story of the Lion who grew up as a Sheep – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHiAUpKs0Ys

(2)The Vedantic parable of the Lion as a part of a speech by Swami Vivekananda – https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_8/Notes_Of_Class_Talks_And_Lectures/The_Essence_Of_Religion