[Reader-list] What's pain got to do with it?

[Gargi Sen]

Hello Everybody,
I am not a writer but have nevertheless discovered the two banes in the life
of a writer. First, how to start, and second, how to stop. As I have merely
crossed the first hurdle I crave your indulgence. And apologies for another
mail addressed to a few people on the list.
Gargi

Dear M. Ray (and of course my young friends Aditya, Rashneek , Kshemendra ,
Pawan and Rahul)

M. Ray I am a little annoyed with you. How could you forget my Œboddi¹
lineage and its implication? While the non-Bengalis on this list will not
know what I am talking about you should know better. Because either you are
a Bengali or you know enough about Bengalis - who insist on seeing the world
divided into two simple camps: Bengalis and non-Bengalis - to so astutely
identify my roots. But how could you forget the boddi bit? After all most
all boddi women, and men, are enormously proud of their levels of education.
And to the best of my knowledge, from that part of the world, after the
Khasi women, I believe it was the boddi Bengali women who took to education
like fish to water. And even you will agree that to construct convoluted
arguments some form of education is necessary. So please do correct your
definition.  

The term Boddi basically delineates ­ draws the boundary of -  caste. And in
Bengal - Bengal/ West Bengal/ East Pakistan/Bangladesh/ whatever, or if you
want another take Bangla/ Goudiya/ Kalinga/ whatever, for sake of simplicity
lets go with a concept called Bengal that is not connected to geography or
nation but is perhaps necessary to root the Bengali - who still insist that
the world has two simple of camps of Bengalis and non-Bengalis. (I won¹t use
Language as a definer for fear of digressing into another messy story.) So
in this concept called Bengal emerges a caste called Boddi. Stuck between
the Brahmin and non-Brahmins they insist on being more on the side of
Brahmins than non-Brahmins. The men wear the thread, the death-retreat is
for 11 days as versus 13 of the non-Brahmin Bengalis. But you know because
caste is far more vigilant than human wishes you can¹t be more or less, you
can only be this or that, or here or there. So the Boddis, grudgingly
allowed many Brahmin privileges including education are denied the
penultimate one: access to God. They can¹t carry out the ritual of religion.
That is kept for the Brahmins only.

But despite their attempts at creating an exclusive space the Bengali
Brahmins are considered a bit outside it all by other Brahmins. As are the
Kashmiri Brahmins. Both eat meat you see. I mean the Brahmins from the
concept called Bengal and Kashmir eat meat. In the concept called Bengal,
quite a few hundred years ago my sir-namesake, one Ballar, invited 7
Bhramins from Ujjain to initiate the caste system and watched in mute agony
his personal love life wash away in the deluge he unleashed. I am sure you
know better than me the story of genesis of caste in Kashmir. You are after
all the RIK. And you might know that in these conceptual states, having
begun late, they took to caste with the zeal of the new converts and forgot
to watch out for its evolution. Caste, though rigid, is not ossified and
continued to evolve and Brahminism went on to marry the virtuous
vegetarianism. The two Brahmins forgot to join the brigade and hence earned
contempt from the brethren. But perhaps both these communities, with
different histories, are similar in their love for food, and maybe they
didn¹t really want join the brigade fully because that would have been very,
very inconvenient. Where will be the great cuisines of Bengal (or Kashmir)
be without the flesh of dead animals? Although I must admit the Bengalis
tried quite hard. They have almost managed to convince themselves and quite
a fw others that fish is basically a vegetable from the sea.

The logic of Caste is compelling and seductive. It delineates humans into
fixed boundaries of hierarchy determined at birth. At its root it provides
two very interesting principles: the first the doctrine of inequality (some
are born higher and thus must fare better than those born lower), the second
of divinity ­ God decreed that some are born higher and some lower, so
accept without question, it¹s authorised by God you see.

Interestingly, because god is not restricted to  the private domain of the
practicing Hindus many other religions/ systems too accept god, and as a
corollary, caste. Its simply one of the most brilliant ruling-class
strategies. How very wonderful if the subjects believed that they deserved
to be ruled, and how even more wonderful if they believed that they deserved
to be ruled by the present ruler. So Islam, the most liberal and emancipated
organised religion at its time of emergence, an organised religion that
recognised even say the rights of women to property and partner, comes to
India through many routes but conveniently adopts a version of caste system
when its readying to rule. See how could a Thakur converting to Islam for
convenience call a dhobi convert his brother? The roots of the  Dalit
Christian is newer still. Even the newest organised religion Sikhism ,
drawing heavily from philosophies of Islam, couldn¹t resist playing footsie
with caste. 

So M. Ray, call me a Hindu if you must but don¹t forget the boddi bit, its
important for this narrative.

Hitler, drawing up the blue print of a ruling philosophy draws upon a
treatise of Nietzsche who draws this one from the Manusmriti written by one
Manu, the man who writes down the rigid structures of caste. You see in the
1920s Hitler and his party the Nationalsozilistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
(NSDAP) or the Nazi party, outside of a small groups of fanatical Bavarian
Nazis, are considered to be vulgar rabble-rousers.  When he becomes the
chancellor in 1933 the percentage of vote is a mere 33% and people predict a
demise of the Nazis. But soon all that changes and the Nazis win the support
of the majority of the majority ­ they are able to convince the majority
about the superiority of some over other, a doctrine drawn from India,
defining the Aryan presented as Fascism. Films played an important role in
this shift. Film after film extolled a few principles and themes. The two
common and recurring themes in the Nazi films are blut und bloden (blood and
soil) and Volk und Heimat (People and homeland).  The films though might not
have been so effective without ensuring that these were the only films seen.
All other voices needed to be blocked without blocking out all other voices
propaganda looses its power.

Can you begin to see the torturous route of history? Don¹t the Nazi themes
still ring true? Blood and soil, people and homeland? The blocked voices?
Can you hear them? 

Another day if you remind me I¹ll tell you the story of Leni Reifenstahl and
the persistence of memory. No not the painting, but images that she created
that live on till date, images that dazzle, captivate and seduce. But allow
me today to tell you a quick story of my grandfather, the father of my
father the socialist. You see M. Ray my grandfather fitted your bill better
than me ­ today I am not many of those you describe me as ­ my grandfather
is/ was. Only in his case I am not sure about secular. Wonder what it means
really. Anyway my grandfather being a Bengali, Hindu and a refugee to boot
was probably a part of that bunch of backboneless cowards who couldn¹t
protect hearth or home. Maybe. But his problems were a little more
complicated. You see when he left, another bunch of people, some of who had
also butchered and raped and destroyed home and hearth, looked after his
property and practices ­ of a Hindu ­ with their entire strength. How does
one wish them away?

You see, till Ayub Khan makes an appearance in the scene the borders were
open, with some minor restrictions. And my grandfather returned faithfully
each year, with his family, to carry out the yearly pujas. For some
inexplicable reason when he left in 1947 his neighbours, mostly Muslims,
looked after his house and the family god, the narayanshila which literally
is a black stone, but still needed to be fed, bathed and prayed to twice a
day. They ensured that that happened.  Look at the irony. My grandfather and
his family and progeny were not, and are still not, allowed to touch the
narayanshila. Because only Brahmins can touch Gods, even when they are mere
stones representing god. The Muslim neighbours looked after not only the
property but also the narayanshila and ensured that a Brahmin did the
needful daily. Of course this story ended in 1952. And as he was not going
to be able to return my grandfather gifted the house to the local villagers
with a request to run a girls school, slipped the stone/ god into his pocket
and never returned. The black stone needed to be purified. It had been
touched by a non-Brahmin. But to the best of my knowledge the girls school
is still going on in one of my ancestral villages called Itna, nestled in
the banks of Madhumati, in the disrict of Jessore (or Jashore) in
Bangladesh.

Don¹t mistake me my friends Aditya, Rashneek , Kshemendra , Pawan and Rahul.
My family has also seen the other side. What I call the horror stories. But
how can I see one and not see the other? And you know,  stories like my
grandfather¹s are quite common too. I grew up in the western part of India.
Stories of neighbours protecting neighbours land, house, mango orchards
abound. In case you haven¹t noticed, I am now talking about Hindu¹s
protecting the property of Muslims who left. So teach me to how do I achieve
your vision? The ability to ignore and focus, or focus by ignoring? How do I
see one and not see the one next to it? How did you achieve this, and what
did you do to get it?

Is it the steadfastness of Arjuna that inspires you? His ability to shut
everything out and shoot the moving target above his head, through a
whirling wheel to be seen only by looking down into its image reflected in
water? But even Arjuna dared to step out and explore. Not just out of his
kingdom but out of one of the strictest the boundaries of human race, that
of gender. As Brihannalla. For a whole year. Maybe that¹s why poor soul
couldn¹t quite make it as a Hindu icon. Its difficult indeed to ignore
Brihannala, or the questions s/he raises.

Remember my father the socialist? He was a socialist till his death. But
when I was young, somewhat younger than you Aditya today, I became
fascinated  by the words on the tombstone: philosophers have interpreted the
world, the point however is to change it. So I became passionately committed
to changing the world and my father the socialist and I argued endlessly,
passionately, continuously, till he died. I accused him and his ilk of
playing footsie with both Gandhians and Congress and thereby legitimising
both, later I accused him and his mentor of legitimising the Jan Sangh. He
accused me and my ilk of worse. In fact Rahul, had he been alive today he
would have happily, and wickedly, helped you enlarge your list and perhaps
your vision too. Anyway, we just didn¹t agree, on most things. But when I
worked on my first film, I must have been a little older than you are today
Aditya a film called the Right To Life  that investigated the Jehanabad
massacre, he came to see it. Even though I was a lowly assistant to the
assistant, even though he vehemently opposed everything the film espoused.
He came and watched. He thought the the film was utter crap, not just
politically but craft-wise. Today, had he been alive I might have told him I
too think so, today. Anyway, the film had disturbed him in some ways, in the
violation of human rights it talks of, and my father the socialist, the
champion of unpopular causes organised many screenings of this film.
Remember it was a film with oppositional politics, remember it wasn¹t very
well made, and incidentally his daughter¹s name didn¹t get any significant
credits (just in case you think ah ha! nepotism!) but he thought there was
some redeeming feature and the film needed to be seen and argued about. Even
if he hated most of it.

Today I wonder how was that possible? And tell me M. Ray what makes you
think  I, or my family, have not witnessed pain or run away from truth? Just
because I don¹t talk about one kind of personal pain on a public list? Has
it even occurred to you that pain needs to be shared in different ways? Have
you seen Jash-e-azadi? Dare to see it, or at least see if you have the
courage to even think about seeing this film.

My father the socialist also used to tell us stories. You see he loved many
things in his life, many many things: unpopular causes, his three pegs of
whisky every night, story telling, tinkering with new electronic gadgets,
but most of all he loved arguing, and nothing pleased him more than a well
crafted argument. Do you see? Which side the argument came from didn¹t
matter, the craft did. Now you should know M. Ray that to craft a good
argument you have to know a lot. So my father, a man without any formal
degree, read extensively, and everything. Because what used to annoy him was
a lazy argument. Does it surprise you if I say that I have seen this deeply
irreligious man read the Gita many times, and even the vedas and upanishads,
and of course various katha mritas of various saints from that concept
called Bengal? It shouldn¹t surprise you but I am afraid it will.

So allow me to advance you a simple argument I learnt as a child on his lap.
I can¹t be a Hindu, and a secular, together. Not possible. Secular is
without religion and Hindu is a kind of a religion. The two don¹t go
together. Like night and day, both exist, can turn into each other, but
can¹t exist together in the same time and space.

I won¹t tell you how my father would argue that there is no religion called
Hindu, lets leave that for another post. But I understand your problem. You
are trying to etch my profile, delineate my politics and position to create
a distinct identity. And as such delineation is indeed difficult if not
impossible you are condemned forever to using contradictory definitions like
secular Hindu. Together. Forever. Because that vision, that focused vision,
that focused-by-ignoring-others vision cannot see the contradiction,
certainly not an argument you don¹t agree with.

And you forgot the boddi bit. I hope another sir-namesake called Ronen has
redeemed himself in your eyes somewhat? Made up a little for the other two
sir-namesakes? The first a crowned beauty, who has a child without a husband
and brazenly talks about it in public, and the second who develops those
annoying theories that put people before money and leads to the ESG scheme,
and gets the noble prize to boot?

Why is the boddi bit necessary? You see I lost my faith. My father died with
his faith intact; his deep faith in humanity and his lack of faith in god ­
this lack of faith by the way requires faith of truly immense kind. I lost
my faith in my lack of faith in faith. I instead found a man wearing a blue
suit who publicly converted to Buddhism with his people  in Œ56. He had said
- I am born a Hindu but I will not die as one. He died shortly after this
public act. Many years before this he had also publicly burned the
Manusmriti.  By such public performances he added another complicated layer
to an already messy story of our lives and times and I lost my sense of
faith. Because while I can reject Hinduism I can no longer reject caste as a
social construct. Do you see M. Ray why the boddi bit is necessary? So today
I perhaps no longer have the same vision as Shuddha. But does it matter
really? I still love his posts. Especially the precisely crafted arguments,
the nuggets of information, the visuals in the words. And where is the
problem in this? What¹s the problem in accepting differences? To live with
differences? But to live with lazy arguments is another ball game
altogether.

You see, my friends Aditya, Rashneek , Kshemendra , Pawan and Rahul allow me
to be straight forward. I have two problems with most of your posts. Your
arguments are weak. You can¹t keep taking recourse to pain as an argument.
Arguments need to be constructed and pain unfortunately can only be felt. So
to talk only of pain, over and over and over again without adding anything
else, apart from abuse and false accusations, has the danger of skidding
your position into the terrain of boredom. And even your abuse becomes
tedious, repetitive, boring. And the second problem I have is with the
strategy you describe and I read in the sub-texts of your posts and its
consequences. For if you try to stop arguments and points of view  by force
or falsehood, if you try and still voices you don¹t agree with, you run into
two problems. First you end up giving a lot more credence to what you¹re
trying to stop. Second, and this is probably far more dangerous, if you
emerge victorious, i.e. if you are actually able to stop all voices you
don¹t like one day the silence of silenced voices will silence even your
litany of pain. 

Do you understand? Is that truly what you want?
 
Gargi Sen



On 9/1/07 11:19 AM, "MRSG" <mrsg at vsnl.com> wrote:

> Dear
> I have not entered in this Kashmir debate execpt that I informed that
> Kashmir is only 20% of all J&K. (Generally I donot enter this e-debates,
> only because of my fellowship here, I go through this list and sometimes
> cannot resist to get involved)
> HOWEVER MY SUGGESTION TO YOU THAT NEVER LISTEN TO A 'SECULAR BENGALI HINDU
> REFUGEE'. They are the worst of backboneless people on the earth. Bengali
> hindus are being raped, killed, looted everyday in Bangladesh (previous East
> Pakistan) and they are coming in India everyday. But nearly all the refugees
> are not only silent but also go anyway to stop talking about it. While in
> las 50 years not a single muslim has migrated from West Bengal to
> EPakistan/Bangladesh, millions of bengali hindus have come to West Bengal
> and they are coming and coming. Bangladesh's hindu population has come down
> from 30% in 1951 to 9% in 2001, worst ethnic cleansing in modern history.
> Not only that. now Bangladeshi Muslims are coming in hordes. West Bengal's
> demography has changed. Its just matter of time to turn West Bengal into
> Bangladesh. SO PLEASE NEVER debate with them, its useless. Let them go on
> with their intellectual acrobatics till some day their houses are looted,
> their women are raped. If you can do anything yourself, do that only.
> M. Ray
>