The privilege to delve in philosophical inquiry and nature of self, is a rare one. It involves not only a satisfied stomach, but also an inquisitive mind. A stomach, satisfied without an inquisitive deposition is more likely to pass-out than inquire anything, just as an inquisitive mind with non-satisfied physical hunger is likely to be not able to think freely. But, does this make philosophical inquiry, usually associated with lofty thoughts of a well fed and read university-goer, totally irrelevant and frivolous in the real world? Ranging from chaiwalas, rickshawalas and small time wage earners to doctors, professors and big time intellectual wage earners? I`d say, not at all, for philosophical inquiry, with all its vague metaphysics and high sounding ideas, IS, the most immediate and physical inquiry into the motley brackets of humans, based on sound logic and reasoning of the world. In this sense, philosophical inquiry, tries to put out all absurdities and harmonizes the world, making it a better place to be in.
Picking this strand of inquiry, a highly relevant form of it is manifested in a cultural context called political philosophy. Inquiry in to the nature of a cultural entity. In today`s world it is outlined by the national boundary of a modern nation-state or a country, on a most basic level. It seeks to put straight all the complexities and bizarre within the boundary to provide an atmosphere where its body of humans can live peacefully, constantly striving toward self actualization, the highest achievable goal of a human life. And an inquiry within this, more or less imagined boundary of a culture, situated in the southern hemisphere of a little blue-green planet, third from the a star named sun, of a solar system somewhere in the lower left corner of a galaxy suspended freely in a timeless-spaceless capsule called universe, doesn’t make it meaningless or irrelevant, for it IS, aimed at making its inhabitants achieve all that limitless possibilities, that a non-starting-unending-time-space construct, essentially promises.
Given the fact that this culture of India, is about to plunge itself into another political construct of this inquiry named democracy, we have to stop for a second and inquire into the nature of this construct. Democracy, which has been going on in some form or the other, for the past 50 centuries or so, is considered much saner and efficient than the remaining wide array of mostly failed human attempts to create a perfect one. And the utter inescapable duty to give a name and face to our highest decision making facility, and the most important decision making unit of it, from within and without and try to harmonize them with the present absurdities.
Democracy, has been there on this little-third planet from sun, essentially since its ancient times of, History. Political philosophers from the Greek Aristotle to close cultural one Chankya, have all tried put it forward, where the decision making capacity is invested in a body of its cultural inhabitants, rather than a sole ruthless or enlightened inhabitant. An inhabitant-run construct which tends to turn into a perfect horror-show every modern, post modern or present time. Our memory knows How, whenever a Hitler or a Genghis Khan or even a delusional Asoka has played the show, it has ended with howls and heart-attacks. The Present cultural memory aches with these late realizations of the faulty choices embedded in the Past. But on hindsight. Whenever a show is being put, it is for a certain brackets of humans to enjoy, who keep them running, till these brackets become so insignificant that they cannot hold the ocean-size amount of faith put in them, by the political constructs of that culture, by the entire body of humans within it.
Democracy, in this post-colonized cultural construct of the Republic of India, started evolving, post-14th August 1947. This Democracy, essentially similar everywhere, is the world`s largest one with a rendition of the universal suffrage construct, Universal Adult Franchise. This gives a power to every Adult of this culture. Without being discriminated, based on any color/caste/creed/sect/region and religion. She
has the Right to Choose the facility to make the right and meaningful kind of decisions for her, without curtailing his possibilities.
This democracy is some mature 60 birthdays old here, after rising and falling with the tides of time. But this construct of Democracy of the Republic of India is identified with a meaningless tussle between these mindbogglingly motley brackets of humans and an increasing sense of insecurity in the much larger body of humans within the larger cultural bracket. This contradicting situation has created stark absurdities and dichotomies, just so inhumane, that one feels incredulously dizzy and downright deranged, even while peacefully strolling down a gali on a, calm-Sunday-late-afternoon, pondering 'not really bad show, after all,eh?'.
Most of the non/metropolitan members of the various sub-political communities of this culture fight for the basic physical aspect of survival and meaningless procreation or lacking insightful inquisitive disposition. A rat in some of the many rat races going on and on without ceasing, the bracket with capacity to make decisions, in itself has become one of the most coveted pieces of cheese, for it seems the biggest, brightest, cheesiest. In a culture were, the decision making bracket of humans have become so fruitlessly insignificant that it is not able to nourish and educate even a forsaken minuscule 4 year old, who comes, trying desperately to sell some red and blue cheap ball-pens, followed by her brother, elder sister, third cousin, fourth son, fifth neighbor and some four or five equally helpless friends, at the red light in front of that burnt building on Barakhamba Road. And one need not go anywhere else within this culture to know any better about ‘possibilities’ and ‘self’ and its ‘actualization’ and whatnot, because this Barakhamba Road is at the center of the center from where Democracy is emanating here. This is just one single strand of that gigantic trichobezoar of an absurdity that this body of humans in this culture are so starkly unaware of, for the rat-race doesn't leave much scope for inquiry into any condition.
But, as the maddening timeless-spaceless capsule boils down to some mere hours, days, years on this certainty of a planet, a chance to take that small initiative that can turn millions and billions of coming possibilities actually possible, is quiet possible. And this time the body of humans of this culture, has found a totem of Change in the form of a ‘cap’. Sadly, this totemic God of a Change is already taking forms which would even make a vision-less see the future in invisible darkness. Falling off of an inactive Creator, passing to his renegade of a Messenger, the latest version of this ‘cap’ says, 'MODI for PM'.
A Prime Minister of this culture`s form of democracy, is the most important decision making unit and its incumbent upon that personal unit serving under a responsibility to make the geographical region within the country, at least bearable for every human being in it. And the fact that more and more inhabitants are adopting the hippest new totem of Change, (itself three generations old) makes it clear that they are being spoon-fed on a different arrangement of things rather than Change. Carbon is carbon even in its differently arranged forms of, chandan, churan or the charred remains of life in a shamshan.
MODI, who is reselling this recycled 'cap', broadly bases his viability, bordering on demanding with looming Orwellian postures everywhere, on an apparently modern notion. Within the confines of a small sub-political entity, Gujarat, within this much larger collection of some 30 such entities, this tout of change, has created a highly complex and possibly evolved mechanism which keeps throwing these tantalizingly amazing figures and stats which claim to be defeating the West at their own game. Firstly, the West is not this part of this perfect sphere of mamma Earth, at least not immediately, and stats don't create possibilities, but rather point out to where things are going. Even the basic structure of smoke, from a car or a factory or even a smoldering funeral pyre, IS, essentially carbon. But with all due respect to the ongoing oncoming fellow passengers of recent or earlier times, this culture today offers a far limited, suffocated, badly truncated, curtailed rip-off disk of a possibility. Even some 25 centuries ago, it offered better, much better. This is a dichotomy, which simply put means, can modern be Modern? without being meaningfully better than Ancient?
But in the light of the ongoing public discourse, happening through the omnipresent channels of communication, a rather vaguely-morbid-mystery surrounds MODI. A highly complex and unprecedented list of awards and accolades never heard before, cloud that entire red-autumn which ended with a lot of non-live carbon, now in the atmosphere of this culture. MODI came to light outside the confines of that little subculture for his total lack of empathy and horror, still remaining an essential 'Why?'. Even the body of humans supporting or not supporting MODI cannot help but smart or wonder why the whole grand MODI-syndrome is grander than those little kids knocking, trying to sell the tools of evolution and enlightenment and everything along with it. They essentially remain curiously-oblivious of anything, red lights, cars, closed doors or even Life.
There isn't any way to be absolutely sure what happened then, for most of the people immediately involved are either no more or are conspicuous by their absence. This, leaves us to trace the developments through the recorded but forever evolving, anthologies of History, on newspapers, on magazines, in chat rooms, on line discussions and court records. But History, essentially a collective memory of the body of humans involved in its making, remains subjective, and can change from one telling individual to another. But the essence remains, just like a lotus, in a quagmire, smiling like Truth. The horrifying news of a genocide in that sub-political unit of this culture, which was making decisions through MODI, was followed by the 'justice drive' to find a culprit. A face and name for this amazing but not unprecedented suffering and terror. The process still continues, more or less, trying to justify or denounce the phantom phenomenon, by chasing names and faces of which essentially remain nothing more than formless carbon, floating throughout this timeless-spaceless capsule, probably at peace, forgetting, forgiving. And for all the literature/advisement/propaganda/senselessmindbog, arising out of this ‘justice drive’, we can just see one single meaningful metaphor, complete even in its isolation, like Truth, that can possibly be the only way to understand the genesis of this ‘cap’ we are on the threshold of placing above us. That highly ambiguous uncertain Kafka`s K of a metaphor, is a woman shrouded in black, constantly changing her statements, endlessly shuffling through the labyrinth of all local, district, state, national, ultra national courts and stalls mongering justice, all of which would probably cease to even exist, realizing their own meaningless existence based on carbon in its very primitive form, if she could even utter a single cry of the horror she must have felt or say what really passed and not just keep proving ceaselessly, with no logic or even reason in asking. The dread she must have felt when she saw humans chopping each other like dead bloody-black carcass of a buffalo, the essence of that red-autumn-massacre, somehow comes back. But because even a physically-satisfied-philosophically- inquisitive mind behind this construct of a construct of a construct cannot remember the name of that Woman, I think, the relevance of it is already lost on this humongous body of humans, who ARE nothing more than a fallen from grace cow of a buffalo, in today`s Republic of India, ready to exercise Choice.
But this inquiry into the essentially 'MODI for PM' discourse, will remain crooked and unsubstantiated, without the 'within' aspect of the inquiry. MODI, born Narendra Damodardas Modi, during a time when, the sub-political community of Gujarat today, was a part of the bigger Bombay state then, spent some time of his childhood selling chai in trains going in and out of the Vadnagar station, before he opened a tea stall along with his brother, near a bus terminal. As a satisfied inquisitive mind whose only knowledge of the little Narendra, comes from the few scattered literary references here and there, I cannot help but speculate. Some-were in the unending clatter of cups and kettles of this much bigger industry of a tea stall the little boy from back in theteastall days, possibly about to acquire as MODI in a few weeks, is not *actually* hiding in one of the compartments of a train going in and out the Vadnagar station in the 1950s, doing what he loves best, adding different forms of carbon and watching it magically turn into a soul-quenching-warm-cup of chai, and giving it to people making them calm and content, feeling proud of justifying his name, Narendra, the King of (wo)Men. A King, who keeps all his people happy and satisfied on an unending stressful train journey, helping them reach wherever they want to go. And if that little boy, so perfect within the constraints of this construct, can somehow shed the contradiction, Damodar-das, from his true self, this complete postmodernist horror show promoter of a MODI will dissolve and the body of humans within this culture so insignificant in the eyes of the non-starting-unending universe will bow to a little Krishna, an old fakir of a Narandra, knowing that they are in Godly hands, being lead where they will be at peace.
But, this Speculation remains to be proven right, and the minuscule 4 year old, along with her own hopeless gangs, is becoming more and more aware that she is being wronged, in every city or village, of every district, in every state of this imagined construct of a nation, so ready to plunge into just another 5 year construct, where ever day is an year in itself.
