LIBERATING INDIAN MIND -22
CALLING BY NAME

“I listened you attentively, without interference. I understand how much you hate the failure of the authors in writing an objective history. I gathered that you are, in some respects, more informed than them…“

I did not allow him to proceed further, “you fail to read me. I do not hate anyone. Historians fall from their elevated position the moment they start loving or hating. I had referred Kautilya to show the general proclivities of well off men. To me it is something like the habit laced drink – the more you gulp down the more thirsty you are – the secret of yeh-dil-maange- more.That was enough a statement of my positiveness. And another thing; I can not be more informed than those who had long leisure hours with libraries at their bedside and informed circle to exchange their ideas as close as their living room, and study-leave and foreign assignments at their whim.

Can you see through the design to placate and disorient our educational system by allowing the teachers to be luxury loving guys. It granted unprecedented permissibily to students not to outshine but to make them mast-mast-cheez ? On my part, I did my best to keep upright, to use every drop of time usefully; to remain content with the little that came my way curtailing my needs without making complaints.”

“Don’t hide yourself behind sanctimony. I kept counting recurrence of the word ‘despise’ in your discussions.

“That was because of my inability to find precise terms at the spur of time. I meant, I do not like or love them, but I have always expressed my willingness to learn my own shortcomings, as noted by them but I found them inadequately equipped t point out even one substantial mistake.”

“That means they silently certified you be correct. But why did they not change their course after they admitted themselves to be wrong that case?”

“They had double standards. They pleaded, there are different theories and different approaches. They had perhaps negotiated their freedom of thought and expression for ever. Or perhaps, because it amounted to committing academic suicide.”

“Don’t you really feel angry when you call them cheats and miscreants.”

He had ultimately caught me at his fish-hook. I really found it a bit difficult to slip away but as my intentions were clear, I did not feel shaky. I paused to find a convincing reply, and then said in a measured tone, “left to myself I can order them to be hanged with the coolness of a judge pronouncing his verdict.They knew they are wrong, and yet maintained their stand because of ulterior motives.These dubious luminaries through their laced history have caused more harm to many generations by creating disoriented, vulnerable and unresistant Hindu and on the other hand overbold, over demanding, and horrendous Muslim generations, producing a problem ridden, unmanageable crime world from top to bottom. All the criminals and underworld operators combined together can not come equal to them.”

“Don’t you excel them all alone by keeping the arsenal of communalism run day and night in cyclic shift, looking for Hindu and Muslim in everything and everywhere? You lie over and above when you profess objectivity and matter-of-fact-ness in observation and description for a historian, covertly claiming to be one youself. Is this discrimination a proof of your objectivity?” He turned rude all of a sudden both in gesture and speech.

I did not expect a melody, but this was an indication that the discussion may take an ugly course. I could not lighten it even by a dismissive smile. I had to manage my cool both in gestural and verbal expression, “shouldn’t we talk a bit patiently?”

He didn’t answer but showed his approval by relaxing a bit.

“I shall be a bit abstract, but that is imperative.” I said and waited for his objection. He gave an approbative jerk to his head, but said nothing.

“Things unnamed, unknown, and lying in darkness are more dangerous because we fail to comprehend them.” I said and paused for his reaction. He mellowed in his effort to grasp my point.

“Concealing the name or obscuring the identity is in an undefined way, making them more formidable than they are, because it permits free use of imagination and creates space for rumor which inflates the magnitude and aggravates the problem out of proportion. This has been a foolish approach adopted in the name of secularism but resulted in keeping the fire smoldering in the background non-stop.”

“That may be your perception.” He broke his silence. He was normal.

“Mans first conquest on Nature was through language, not through a tool, unless you take language also as a tool. It was by attaching a name to objects and through that name man’s ability to make their ideal presence possible as and when he required. The first step towards problem solving is calling things by their exact name. Mind it, one object in one condition has only one name and no other, and the moment we allow that name to slip we allow the problem to slip from our grasp.”

His face beamed with softened intimacy.

“The authors who named, even though inappropriately as Hindu period, Muslim period, British period, did not commit those atrocities even when they were biased than that deliberately committed by the historians in their text-book writings with ancient and medieval tags but with more sordid and salutary depictions as Hindu and Muslim ones. When I say a scientific narration of events and social forces at work does not attach any importance to pleasantries because of timidity, but calls them by name, I mean simply this.

“They had no courage to say that the history was being revised under the direction and control of Muslim heads, and was commissioned to be written by Hindu authors because of their guilty conscience. But this was what precisely happened. This was why it became so conducive to growth of communalism.

This is how they first drew a formidable picture of Hindu backlash, creating general fear and sense of insecurity in society and with added doses of uncalled for communal insults through inventions and false justifications injected life blood in their own picture and made it possible for it to march with menacing pace and now they really cry hoarse that the worst has come. No, even the worse has not come and that is why people keep their hopes alive, but I fear with promoting lynching doling out money to enthuse cattle protectors and rapists with visual clips to prove the rulers that be inefficient to handle law and order front, they may make even autocracy possible. We all have joint responsibility to save and ensure the nation. Lawlessness must be discouraged. It is counter-productive as well.