It was the time for election and Abraham Lincoln was a candidate for the Illinois legislature. On one occasion he got a lift in his rival’s carriage. Both were to address a public meeting. “I’m too poor to own a carriage,” said Lincoln while concluding his address,“but my friend had generously invited me to ride with him. I want you to vote for me if you will, but if not, then vote for my opponent, for he is a fine man.”
This fact of yesterday will of course read like a fairy-tale today, just as the election anecdotes of today will hopefully sound unbelievably horrendous and embarrassing to a generation tomorrow, if at all the filthy present can yield a sensible future. Miracles, after all, do happen. Out of filthy mud emerges the lotus.
Mutual goodwill, courtesy, idealism and sensible exchange of wit were chased away making place for violence and falsehood at this milestone in our experiment with democracy. But our nation will absorb the shocks just as it absorbed earthquakes and cyclones.
It was with the latest cyclone as the backdrop that this author woke up to a bizarre reality: alas, there are certain unfortunate occurrences the effect of which cannot be neutralised. On May 3, a large chunk of Odisha was battered by the terrible Fani. I reached Bhubaneswar on the 5th. A day later, as my car was pushing through the uprooted trees and scattered branches in the neighbouring city of Cuttack, there was a chance encounter, after some 60 years, with a village teacher in his late eighties. “Life will go on; the damage will become a memory. But what on earth can undo the other damage that is still in the process?” He said and explained
, “My friend, all my life I taught my students never to call anybody ‘chor’ or ‘mithyuk’(liar). And today, decades after my retirement, what chorus do I hear? That fellow ‘Chor hai!’ Can you believe? I had to suffer a group of kids including my great grandchildren chanting the slogan rhythmically and dancing! Look, our leaders are so eloquent about reforming education. The puny little I thought I achieved is demolished by them sportively! Well, all my life I taught my students never to belittle anybody citing his vocation. We are all struggling for existence. There is no difference between a cobbler and a diamond merchant. But all my faith in human dignity crumbles down when I hear a seasoned politician trying to belittle his rival as chaiwala!”
“That politician is of a decadent feudal stock; who took him seriously?” I said. “And that’s the pity,” he responded. “One does not take anybody, father, mother, teacher, leader, seriously anymore!”
I had to push on to keep my appointment. But the old acquaintance—even whose name I had forgotten—grew in dimensions, grew formidable in my mind. To his last observation I added, “None takes seriously even himself or herself any more. That explains the pitiable state of the collective attitude. Anybody in a position to do anything—even as strange a deed as erecting one’s own statues spending the people’s money—could go ahead —and announce that to be the people’s will.”
But I diverted my thought to the immediate issue. The old veteran reminded me with a vengeance that even seven decades after achieving political freedom we have not achieved freedom from our bondage to samskara—our traditional thought-habits. I do not know who first brought ‘chowkidar’ into the currently hot vocabulary. Today the term means simply a watchman. But till the mid-twentieth century it was the bottom-most position in the network of colonial administrative hierarchy. Every village had a chowkidar. Above a dozen or so chowkidars was a duffadar. Both the officials were linked to their police station, but answerable also to an honorary ‘president’ who presided over a cluster
of villages. It was the chowkidar’s duty to report to the police station birth, death and any crime in his village, walking miles the every other day. Villagers held him in affection. I do not know
why a dose of derision should be injected into that innocent stuff.
Like violence, hatred is contagious. This dangerous epidemic spreads through words charged with a consciousness steeped in hatred and corrodes tens of thousands of vulnerable minds. The election passes. But those minds continue to remain affected. Their anarchic conduct that enjoyed an unfortunate kind of legitimacy during the season is bound to look thereafter for other occasions for its explosion. The brunt must be borne by the society.
Scripture says that the common humanity follow the conduct of the great. The great of the scripture is replaced by the powerful politicians today and the phrases, words and the manner of their use by these influential elements impact not only the common man’s expression, but also, inevitably, the language of journalism and gradually but unfailingly our literature. Since the corruption is invisible, this process will not evoke in us any concern. But it will continue to lower or weaken the average level of social communication and behaviour.
We will continue to march on (not necessarily progress) with our science and technology, but each electioneering of this style will eat up something delicate, something subtle and sweet in our life.
And the dignity of the leader vis-a-vis this process? That is another question, pathetic and remorseful.
Manoj Das
Eminent author and recipient of several awards including the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
Email: prof.manojdas@gmail.com