Thoughts on the Current Crisis in the Hindu Right

For starters, let's be clear: there isn't a general crisis, ideological or factional, in the Hindu Right. We're talking, therefore, about a crisis in the principal parliamentary party of the Hindu Right, the BJP. I want to put forward three theses on the crisis within the BJP.

First, although it is being suggested by many media commentators that the BJP is fallen prey to factional squabbles, there is no clear evidence for this. The "secular" media in India, on account of its right-liberal tendencies nowadays, imagines a deep-seated ideological and factional divide separating moderates and hardliners in the BJP. For the past decade, Vajpayee and Advani have been the representative faces of these two imagined factions. Post-election dissidents such as Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh, and Arun Shourie have been labeled "Vajpayee's men" whereas Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, and Arun Jaitley have been implicitly assumed to be Advani's chelas. These remarks actually have deep roots that go back nearly two decades to a theoretical statement by the political scientist Amrita Basu that the BJP is a Janus-faced creature that attempts simultaneously to woo hardcore right-wingers as well as more moderate right-liberals. The main problem with this view is that the two imagined factions have never acted as factions or undercut each other's power within the party. Advani and Vajpayee, apart from being personal friends for decades, share much in common, including their early political training and formative experiences. If any substantial ideological or personality differences existed, how could they have coexisted so happily for so long? Vajpayee may not have led the Ramjanmabhoomi movement alongside Advani, but, contrary to opinion in certain quarters, he most certainly backed it fully. The movement even won him the prime ministership in 1996 and 1999. As such, while there may be different shades of right-wing opinion (softer and harder Hindutva, if you please), we cannot conclude that the BJP is divided along factional or ideological lines that mirror differences between Advani and Vajpayee.

Second, the crisis within the BJP today derives, above all, from its top-heavy, highly centralized party structure. This problem is peculiar to the BJP and does not apply to the decentralized units of the RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and other constituents of the Hindu Right. However, the problem is actually rather commonplace, historically speaking, in Indian politics. It afflicts every Indian party with the exception of the Congress, which remains, relatively speaking, the only properly national party in the country, whose local and provincial units conduct their everyday activities relatively independently of the CWC (party discipline is, therefore, a permanent problem in the Congress compared to its rivals). In the typical Indian political party, either a single leader or a bunch of charismatic characters dominates the show, and the rank and file at the provincial and local levels must simply accept this "monarchical" or "oligarchic" state of affairs. But when the winds of change blow at the top, party workers suffer from a certain inertia that lingers from the past, for which reason conflict between the "high" and the "low" is virtually built into these centralized party structures. In the BJP today, the old Jan Sangh order is yielding place to a new regime dominated by technocrats and petty bourgeois types. Neither party workers nor traditionally right-wing voters appreciate this change of guard. They signed up mainly because they sympathized with the Ramjanmabhoomi movement or Narenda Modi's pogroms. The party is presently in the throes of a life-threatening crisis because its primary social bases, as revealed by a close reading of its 2009 election manifesto, the petty bourgeoisie and the big bourgeoisie that dominate the metropolitan cities, are electorally insignificant and impotent. In other words, the BJP cannot win elections in its current avatar, as the past couple of years have shown. The RSS has stepped in to resolve the current crisis because it believes, rightly, that party workers must be appeased if the BJP is to have any meaningful political future. The likes of Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh are the Sangh's best bets, of course, since they represent old-fashioned Hindutva in the minds of party workers. In contrast, the likes of Arun Shourie and Arun Jaitley, urban professionals with no mass base, must be made to operate in the background. While this patchwork solution calms nerves within the party for the moment, it cannot, however, wish away the fundamental structural opposition between the party's top leadership and its base.

Third, since the crisis within the BJP is primarily structural rather than ideological or factional, the publication of Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah or Yashwant Sinha's dissenting views are quite simply besides the point. Jaswant and Yashwant were always fringe figures in the party whose restricted support bases in Darjeeling and Hazaribagh rendered them insignificant to the ebb and flow of party politics at the all-India level. In short, they are dispensable. Furthermore, although much is being made of pro-Jinnah statements by Advani and Jaswant in the recent past, there is not much new here actually. Staunch RSS ideologues have noted in the past that Jinnah was a secular man, and was compelled, by the pseudo-secularism of Gandhi and Nehru, to abandon the mainstream anti-colonial movement during the Khilafat Movement. According to the RSS, when Jinnah emerged after his self-imposed exile, he had no option but to take up the two-nation theory in order to oppose the pseudo-secularists in the Congress. In this manner, the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha made common cause against the Muslim-appeasing, Hindu-baiting Congress, most spectacularly in the 1946 elections in undivided Bengal. Jinnah's speech on 11 August 1947 has come in for much praise recently in the saffron camp, but most commentators fail to mention that, by this time, the two-nation theory had already become a reality. The Sangh Parivar is effectively suggesting that Jinnah was a truly secular Pakistani just as they are truly secular Indians (unlike the Congress and the Left). They are NOT suggesting that the Congress should have accepted the 1946 Atlee Cabinet Mission's proposal of a three-tiered confederation to replace the Raj, and therefore, the Hindu Right is NOT offering a revisionist history of independence and partition but simply maintaining their old line that Hindus and Muslims in South Asia ought to "live together separately." It is not surprising that Vallabhai Patel has been the Right's traditional hero because his historical views on the subject most closely mirror their own. Had Jaswant thought through this logic clearly, he would not have been unceremoniously kicked out by his party. As it turns out, he's neither a secularist nor a pseuo-secularist, just a confused man.

What are we to conclude from all of this? Is the crisis in the BJP a happy sign that communalism is a thing of the past? Sadly, I think not. The current crisis will blow over eventually. Either the party will reform its structures and develop a mass base, as it had hoped over two decades ago, or what is more likely, it will split into two saffron parties, one committed to old-style Hindutva with chariots and tridents and the other devoted to right-wing economic policies and technocracy moderated by a calm belief that appeased minorities ought to be put in their place. The latter appeals greatly to the India Shining public in India and abroad. But it cannot hope to win power at the all-India level unless it allies with similar-sized regional parties such as the Akali Dal, the Ahom Gana Parishad, and the AIADMK. The most likely situation is that it will become the millennium edition of the old Swatantra party, albeit with a communal flavor. It would be erroneous, however, to believe that the BJP's decline in electoral politics means the end of communalism in India. A useful analogy is the decline of the parliamentary Left for similar reasons, and its supercession by more extreme-left groups. There's every reason to infer that right-wing extremism and intolerance in contemporary India is on the rise in much the same fashion. The formation of senas to impinge on the rights of minorities, women, and homosexuals suggests that communal sentiments are growing in Indian society today. Economic liberalization since 1991 has, in fact, given a new lease of life to communal elements in Hindu society, who not only have the support of the urban petty bourgeoisie but are also increasingly winning the favor of Sanskritizing, upwardly-mobile lower-caste and tribal groups. Gone are the days when "votes and violence" won the day. As the state has withered away in a neoliberal age and previously subordinated castes have come into their own, civil society in India, dominated as it is by brahmins and banias, has moved steadily towards the Right. Communalism has thus redefined itself amidst the shifting class and caste dynamics of neoliberal India. The Hindu Right remains stronger today in India than ever before, and the right-wing challenge cannot be written off as trivial simply due to the BJP's failure to win elections. The saffron wave that once focused its energies on winning state power is now happy to simply spread its tentacles over every inch of Indian society, especially as it seeks to "Hinduize" tribals, lower-caste groups, and religious minorities. This new strategy is entirely consistent with the logic of fascism, which appealed so much to men such as Savarkar and Golwalkar, which seeks to create an internally-homogenous organic community underwritten by an expanding urban bourgeoisie and a secular creed. For the Hindu liberal as for the Indian Muslim or Christian, who are most threatened by these social tendencies, it is, to paraphrase the political scientist Paul Brass, not that India is steadily approximating a chaotic, intolerant mess, but it is already such a mess. Of course, one must swim against the tide of hate and intolerance around us, but it's best to be clear-eyed about the choppy waters in which we swim today.

The Renouncer as Hero in Indian Cinema

This post ought to begin with an apology to friends who have noted the absence of film-related posts thus far despite film, cricket and politics forming my trinity of interests on this blog. I offer no excuses except that recent political events have detained me more than I had anticipated. This post, however, seeks to correct that anomalous state of affairs...

I am interested in exploring here a rather interesting character in Indian cinema, the renouncer-hero, the male protagonist who finds himself at odds with his milieu and revolts against society in dramatic fashion. The renouncer-hero is neither rare in Indian film history nor someone we can confine to a particular generation of films. He has existed in every generation of films, from the silent era through the turbulent decades of the anti-colonial struggle and the social upheavals of postcolonial India to the present decade. Yet the renouncer-hero has curiously escaped the attention of those writing on Indian cinema, or indeed, on Indian social history. This post seeks to fill that lacuna by probing into the socio-political and psychological dimensions of this enigmatic character, and highlighting his significance in South Asian political culture over the last century or so. Since the subject is vast, I shall focus on what I consider the three most outstanding examples of the renouncer-hero in three distinct historical moments in Indian cinema (Devdas, Pyaasa, and Gulaal), and refer et passim to many others.

Devdas: The Timeless Tragic

Devdas (1917), written by the Bengali novelist Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya, made a huge splash among its urban Calcutta readership in the 1920s, but its author could never have known that it would end up as one of greatest films of the pre-independence era. There was a silent film bearing the novel's name in 1928, but its limited scope for dialogue meant that audiences were expected to be already familiar with the basic plot and characters. Seven years later, most of the subcontinent was exposed to Sarat Babu's novel via popular cinema: the dynamic and controversial filmmaker Promatesh Chandra Barua made simultaneous Bengali and Hindi versions of Devdas, casting the debonair actor-cum-singer Kundan Lal Saigal in the lead role. Because these early cinematic adaptations closely follow the novel, my interpretation of these films may also be taken to be an interpretation of the novel itself, and by extension, of the socio-cultural circumstances that gave rise to both the films and the novel.

Devdas is the tragic story of a scion of a wealthy landed family in late-19th-century rural Bengal. The young Devdas is sent, like so many young men of his time, to study in Calcutta, the capital of British India and among the leading centers of Western learning and culture in the East. Being in Calcutta exposes him to modern/urban/Western ways of life even as it severs his ties from his childhood companion Paro. After thirteen years, when the time arrives for Devdas to return to his family mansion in the countryside, it is clear that he has changed irrevocably from his childhood days. Not only he is a young man now, he is also a modern Anglicized Calcutta gentleman who has only the faintest connection with his feudal background. His only emotional connection to his rural childhood is Paro, who despite her family's low social status and merchant-caste origins, harbors a forbidden love for her old playmate. Devdas imagines himself to be a modern man, ostensibly since his education in Calcutta has made him think so. On his return, he embarks on a torrid romantic affair with Paro, completely oblivious to the traditional norms of the caste-conscious society into which he has been born. For the novelist and the early filmmakers, Paro is merely the temptress whereas it is Devdas who succumbs to her rustic charms, so much at odds, he feels admiringly, from the ways of the city.

His love for Paro places Devdas in a double dilemma. Firstly, he is in love with this rustic beauty, an idealization of the country by the city, yet he himself is undeniably a member of the new modern/urban class of Indians, living entirely at odds with the countryside and tradition. Secondly, although he imagines himself to be a modern man, free from the shackles of traditional society, he is tied inextricably to his feudal background and its traditional caste basis. These personal-cum-social dilemmas are unresolvable for men such as Devdas. They are condemned to live, in Matthew Arnold's words in Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse, "wandering between two worlds, the one dead, the other powerless to be born." Their modern, urban Western education and lifestyle cannot be reconciled to the traditional, caste-ridden society of their birth. A distinctly Indian modernity cannot be expressed by Devdas and his peers, who are trapped between two unceasingly hostile worlds of modernity and tradition. In the end, Devdas must capitulate before the forces of traditional society: he cannot marry Paro due to her low social/caste status.

To escape this life-denying world of tradition, Devdas renounces his hereditary privileges and seeks refuge in the modern and urban realm of Calcutta. But, the author and filmmaker ask, does such a refuge exist at all? As Paro is married off by her parents to a rich widower, Devdas takes to drinking heavily in the company of his friend Chunnilal, under whose influence he is drawn slowly into the arms of a courtesan named Chandramukhi. For Sarat Babu, the courtesan typifies the urban woman, worldly-wise yet bereft of morals, caring yet incapable of feminine virtue as demanded by traditional society. Bengali literature of this period routinely inserted the courtesan into popular narratives because such women were frequent companions of upper-caste/class men in the city. Yet Devdas cannot become one of these absentee landlords revelling in the degeneracy of the city. His alcoholism is a desperate attempt to escape from the real to the imaginary and from the actual to the desired. He can neither settle down with his beloved Paro in the countryside nor can he live like Chunnilal who has made his peace with the urban world of courtesans like Chandramukhi.

Torn between the country and the city, between the traditional and the modern, and between Paro and Chandramukhi, Devdas endures a hellish existence, against which he revolts with the aid of alcohol. He has renounced his aristocratic privileges already, and there is no question of returning to the very people who made him give up Paro. Yet he has also renounced the modernity of the city, whose offerings are morally unacceptable to him. His alcoholism permits him to revolt dramatically against his past and present, that is, against both the traditional and the modern. Devdas is not your everyday hero, but a tragic one whose revolt against society is destined to end in physical death. Although he differs from the typical film hero, Devdas is most certainly a hero for film audiences, whose anxieties and dilemmas he plays out in extreme form. In a certain sense, Devdas could be an exaggerated version of just anyone in the audience, grappling each day to make sense of the contradictory impulses of tradition and modernity in Indian society. Whereas others experiencing similar pressures might compromise with their circumstances, Devdas does not. Therein lies his heroism. He pushes the contradictions of his social circumstances to their logical conclusion, that is, to his death.

Devdas is the classic renouncer-hero. His tragic story carries a powerful critique of the society that drives him to his death. Sarat Babu's critique is an unmistakably modern one. Although tragic tropes are common in pre-modern Indian literature, most notably in epic poetry, tragedy as a literary genre is conspicuous by its absence before the late 19th century. Ironically, Devdas itself marks the finest expression of a fledgling Indian modernity, germinating in a colonized society and adapting a European literary genre to a distinctly Indian/Bengali social context. The distinction between literature and film blurs in Devdas. So too does the distinction between fiction and reality. Audiences in the '20s and '30s were certainly not the only ones to connect the film's storyline to their own circumstances. Remakes starring Dilip Kumar in 1955, Shahrukh Khan in 2002, and Abhay Deol in 2009 serve to suggest that Sarat Babu's social critique retains its power over audiences nearly a century after it was written. During this lengthy lifespan, Assamese, Tamil, Telegu, and Bengali versions have ensured an all-India appeal. For every generation and in every region of the country, therefore, Devdas typifies the renouncer as hero, an outstanding figure whose uncompromising revolt against society resonates strongly with moviegoers who recognize their inability to emulate their tragic hero.

Pyaasa: The Thirst for Freedom

Pyaasa (1957) is widely regarded among the finest films ever made. The director, producer and lead actor in the film, Guru Dutt has been retrospectively labeled the Indian Orson Welles, though this label fails to do justice to his genius. Pyaasa was arguably his best film, and it did remarkably well at the box office. It is the story of a struggling poet Vijay, whose name ironically means "triumph" or "victory." Vijay thirsts for freedom in a society that finds no value in his poetry. His own brothers dump reams of his Urdu poetry into the recycle bin. Despite being a brilliant student in college, he now wanders unemployed in the streets of Bombay, futilely seeking patrons for his poems. Vijay is not just sad. He is bitter about the world and its ways. His persona appeals to those many moviegoers who thought that India's formal independence from colonial rule in 1947 has not translated into freedom for ordinary men and women. Like them, Vijay is dissatisfied by the world around him, one that venerates money and power rather than art and integrity.

Pyaasa bears more than a passing resemblance to Devdas. Indeed, Guru Dutt reached his intellectual maturity in Calcutta, where the social critique laid out in Devdas sought to express itself politically as a radical alternative to the nationalist politics led by the Congress. Moreover, two years before the release of Pyaasa, Dilip Kumar had starred in a popular remake of Devdas. Initially, Dilip Kumar was supposed to play the protagonist's part in Pyaasa too. In terms of the structure of the plot itself, of course, the resemblance is strongest. Like Devdas, Vijay too is compelled by society to give up his lady love (Meena). Vijay and Meena were lovers during their college days, but Meena chose to marry a rich owner of a publishing business (Ghosh) instead of a struggling poet. It is not so much Meena he blames for her decision, but a society in which status and money mean everything. Again, like Devdas, Vijay too is forced to live a life of penury and humiliation on the streets of Bombay, struggling to make ends meet and seeking solace in alcohol. Nonetheless, Vijay is defiant in defense of his poetry and his way of life, however much at odds they may be with his millieu. Once again, like Devdas, Vijay meets a man (Abdul Sattar) who is well-versed with the cruel ways of the city and agrees to help the struggling protagonist selflessly. Sattar is a funny man, who laughs at the world when it mocks him. Much like Devdas' Chunnilal, Sattar is someone whom Vijay can never become because he can never accept the vulgar, materialistic world for what it is. Lastly, like Devdas, Vijay befriends a prostitute (Gulabo), who falls in love first with his poetry and then with him. Gulabo's love, like Chandramukhi's, is characterized as pure of heart, quite unlike that of Meena, for whom material comforts and high status matter more.

And yet, Guru Dutt differentiates Pyaasa from Devdas in the film's latter half. Unlike Devdas, Vijay does not self-destruct in his rage against society. By a strange quirk of fate, Vijay attempts unsuccessfully to save a beggar on the rail tracks but loses his coat in the process. The dead beggar in Vijay’s coat is taken by everyone to be Vijay, who is, however, alive and recovering in hospital. Gulabo, determined to publish her dead lover's poems, approaches the publisher Ghosh, who is only too eager to make a quick buck. The poems are hugely popular, and everyone in Bombay, including Vijay's greedy brothers, seems keen to claim the "dead" poet as their own. Yet when they learn that Vijay is, in fact, alive, Ghosh and his brothers disown him as an impostor and banish him to a mental asylum. The scenes that follow raise the crescendo of action progressively. First, Vijay, finding himself among lunatics, wonders whether those outside the asylum might be more insane than those inside. Then, his friend Abdul Sattar finds him in the asylum and rescues him. Together, they visit a public function where his poetry is being commemorated, and declares himself alive. Soon after this declaration, his brothers and a rival publisher flock to his side, looking to claim him and encash his fame and popularity. Vijay is sickened by such hypocrisy and crass materialism around him, and dramatically declares that he is not the famous poet they seek. Accompanied by Gulabo, he walks off in the final scene stating his intention to renounce the world as he finds it and begin a new life far, far away from it.

Unlike Devdas, Pyaasa is not a tragedy. Nor is Vijay a tragic hero in the Devdas mould. Unlike Devdas, Vijay does not have to self-destruct in the climax as the logical conclusion of the personal and social contradictions he faces. Vijay is clear-sighted enough to avoid Devdas' mental contradictions and failings. He is aware, like Devdas, that he cannot make peace with society, but as a poet and an intellectual, he is aware of possibilities beyond the mundane world into which he has been born. As such, Pyaasa brings the renouncer-hero to the fore far more sharply than in Devdas. At the beginning of the film, we are informed that Vijay has already renounced the financial security sought by the petty bourgeoisie in favor of the vagaries of intellectual and literary life. At the end of the film, we watch awestruck as Vijay dramatically renounces the crass materialistic world of the modern postcolonial city (Bombay) and walks away with Gulabo into the unknown. Vijay is, therefore, the quintessential renouncer-hero who, unable to find peace within society, walks away from it in search of a better life.

Why is Vijay able to revolt against society and then walk away with dignity whereas Devdas must self-destruct to complete his revolt against society? I am tempted to conjecture that, in Pyaasa, Guru Dutt comes close to Albert Camus' conception of "revolt" as an essentially human impulse within us all that finds its ultimate expression in art and literature. Perhaps a poet's revolt against society encompasses within itself possibilities that are not open to ordinary mortals such as Devdas. Perhaps, too, a poet is not beleaguered by the kinds of social and personal contradictions that Devdas faced. The pyaas or "thirst" for freedom and enlightenment enables the poet/artist/intellectual to rise above social circumstances that may lead others to self-destruction or violence. Unfortunately though, Guru Dutt's own life followed Devdas' more than Vijay's. Six years after Pyaasa, he committed suicide after suffering from acute depression, following an extra-marital affair with co-star Waheeda Rehman that effectively terminated his marriage to actress-singer Geeta Dutt. In retrospect, it may be fair to say that Pyaasa represents Guru Dutt's optimism that poetry or art can offer some a sanctuary that shields them from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and from society at large, yet we also know that self-destructive tendencies are always at hand and we may succumb to the contradictions inherent in our selves and society. In a social-historical sense, formal freedom from colonialism may explain the cautious optimism of Guru Dutt's generation of filmmakers, but their personal and social lives convinced them that genuine freedom may be nigh unachievable. The colorful package of freedom, therefore, may be sadly a mere counterfeit.

Did the rest of Guru Dutt's generation sympathize with his damning assessment of postcolonial Indian society? Certainly, the evidence for the Sixties and Seventies seems strong. Guide (1965) remains a landmark in Indian cinema because the protagonist, following R.K. Narayan's novel, goes so far as to assume the traditional saffron robes of the ascetic renouncer in the climactic scene. Zanjeer (1973) represents another landmark in the cinematic career of the renouncer-hero since its angry young protagonist violently turns his own self-destructive tendencies against identifiable villains in society. Postcolonial frustrations in the Seventies could no longer be contained as before. There was a marked increase in cinematic violence perpetrated by the (leftist?) protagonist against politicians, businessmen, and/or criminals. The lines between good and evil were blurred as the renouncer-hero, best personified by Amitabh Bachchan, frequently resorted to violence to cleanse society of the villains who were oppressing ordinary people. By the Eighties and Nineties, however, the hero was no longer a renouncer: despite mimicking the violent methods of the renouncer-hero of the Seventies, the new hero fully intended to wallow in middle-class comforts, preferably by romancing a rich man's daughter. The radical tradition of the renouncer-hero, therefore, seemed to be dying a natural death as popular cinema began to be dictated increasingly by middle-class priorities or by the very society that Devdas and Pyaasa sought to criticize.

Gulaal: The Color of Revolt

Inured as we had become to life without the renouncer-hero for two decades or so, it became a truism that an age of "entertainment" is upon us, and therefore, meaningful cinema, both inspired by and inspiring art, became a relic of the past. Some film critics even told us unabashedly that the masses only want sex, violence, and raucous humor. These shockingly elitist remarks neglected to mention, however, that Indian cinema over the last decade has moved into mulitplexes, and the so-called masses have been shut out of the theaters. In neoliberal India, particularly post-2000, the top quarter of the population, calling themselves the "middle classes" (middle of what exactly?), is the primary consumer of Indian cinema at home and abroad. Much tasteless, nonsensical fare caters to their palates though the blame is conveniently shifted to "the masses" without the slightest shame. Yet there occasionally comes along a film that makes us sit up and think. Anurag Kashyap's Gulaal (2009) is certainly one of them. The director of a postmodern remake of Devdas, Kashyap has singlehandedly revived the career of the renouncer-hero in the new century.

Gulaal is the tragic tale of Dileep, a postgraduate student of law in Rajasthan, who struggles to make sense of society and politics around him, and ultimately, fails miserably. Dileep, along with a young female lecturer Anuja, is physically harassed and humiliated by goons at his university, and seeks help from Dukey Bana, a local strongman and Rajput separatist leader. Although he wins the battle against the bullies in his university, the naive Dileep now unwittingly enters the dark world of postcolonial politics. Meanwhile, Anuja and he become friends, though theirs is a platonic friendship. Soon, however, Dileep ends up as Dukey's candidate for the university general secretary's post, where he is pitted against the beautiful and ambitious Kiran. The novice Dileep's chances of winning are deemed slim, but bribery and ballot-rigging lead him to victory. Kiran then starts seducing Dileep, and they soon move in together. As love blossoms, Dukey uses Dileep's position to siphon off university funds to finance his party's drive for a separate Rajputana state. When Dileep finds out and confronts Dukey, he is told off. Around the same time, Kiran gets pregnant, blames Dileep for not taking precautions, and leaves him promptly. She soon replaces Dileep as general secretary as part of Dukey's machinations. Frustrated with politics and love, Dileep starts losing his sanity. He first spits venom on Anuja, which forces her to leave his side despite her best intentions. Then, he kills Dukey, who, in his dying moments, reveals that Kiran had merely used Dileep to get to him. Finally, Dileep confronts Kiran, who readily admits to using him for political gain. Distraught, Dileep nearly shoots Kiran, but decides against it in the end. He is, however, shot himself by goons loyal to Kiran's brother Karan. As the injured Dileep walks back to his house, a rousing rendition of Sahir Ludhianvi's masterly composition in Pyaasa, Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye To Kya Hai ("What does it matter even if one can master the world?") plays in the background. Dileep dies at the end of the final scene after failing to make sense of the cynical milieu into which he was thrust.

There are, of course, numerous parallels between Gulaal and the two films discussed earlier. Like Devdas and Vijay, Dileep struggles to make sense of the world, particularly its brazen pursuit of power and profit above all else. Like Devdas and Vijay, Dileep, too, is unable to find happiness in love. Neither can he find satisfaction in his platonic friendship with Anuja. Like Devdas and Guru Dutt, Dileep becomes so exceedingly disillusioned by events in his life that death seems to be the only way to renounce the harsh realities of life. Like them, too, Dileep struggles futilely to manage the contradictions in his life: his love for Kiran and his personal ambitions. More generally, we must acknowledge the director Anurag Kashyap's debt to Guru Dutt's Pyaasa, expressed in the storyline as well as in the dramatic song at the climax. Additionally, we must appreciate the fact that Kashyap has directed a popular remake of Devdas titled Dev-D (2009), whose lead actor Abhay Deol believes that the contemporary, postmodern feel of the film should not obscure its close reading of Sarat Babu's novel. As such, it is no coincidence that Gulaal bears some striking similarities to Devdas and Pyaasa.

But there are also some interesting points of departure in Gulaal. Although Dileep is drawn into postcolonial politics in ways that remind us of how Devdas and Guru Dutt were drawn into their social milieus, the postcolonial world is much darker than its predecessors. The film's title Gulaal, or the red powder sprinkled during the spring festival of Holi, suggests a bloody celebration of power. At the same time, however, Gulaal also connotes the color of revolt. But both the power-play and the revolt in Kashyap's film are more violent, more cynical, and ultimately darker than what the makers of Devdas and Pyaasa could have ever imagined. The iconization of violence throughout the film stands sharply apart from films prior to Zanjeer. The popular acceptance of violence since Zanjeer is reflected in the filmmaker's treatment of the theme. In real as well as reel life in postcolonial India, therefore, one finds the progressive deterioration of civic and political order, so much so that violence is now regarded as inseparable from both power and revolt.

There is, however, something still more disturbing in Kashyap's film in comparison with those discussed earlier. Dileep is far more deeply complicit in the structures of power than either Devdas or Vijay or Guru Dutt. He is a weak character like Devdas, but he is also ambitious and seeks power as a means to avenge his humiliation by the goons in his university. He, like Devdas, lacks the means to revolt via art or poetry, which may offer us solace amidst the vagaries of life. Yet, despite his ambition and his complicity in the power play of his times, Dileep is much more naive than either Devdas or Vijay, those weary travelers whose revolt against society stemmed from their extensive experience of its flaws and failings. Can one be both naive and complicit in power play then? Yes, thinks the filmmaker, who suggests that it may not be possible any longer in postcolonial India to avoid being shaped by "the system," as it were, or to be complicit in its machinations and blind to its flaws. The only freedom or revolt possible under such circumstances is via death, one's own and of others who run the show. Here we have a latent message of nihilism, rather similar to the one presented by suicide bombers claiming to be fighting for a better world. It is hard not to be disturbed by this discovery, mainly because it suggests that there might be a moral-political justification for violent revolt against the status quo of our times, and that without systemic change, the best option can only be death. Furthermore, Kashyap seems to be telling his audiences that they are naive yet complicit in maintaining the status quo, and that the few Dileeps among us are heroes precisely because they have the courage to violently throw off their yokes and renounce the world-as-it-is. In other words, the filmmaker is challenging his audiences to reject and renounce the world-as-it-is, which he portrays as corrupt, ignoble, and incapable of reform. Gulaal is, therefore, nothing short of a clarion call for revolt.

Conclusion: The Politics, Aesthetics, and Metaphysics of Man in Revolt

The cinematic history of the renouncer-hero in India unsurprisingly parallels the socio-political history of the country. In Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya's Devdas, especially its pre-independence adaptations, the protagonist grappled between the contradictory forces of tradition and modernity, each of which promised as much as threatened him. Standing between a dying world and one yet unborn, Devdas could not articulate a distinctly Indian modernity that could have helped him escape his tragic fate. Yet there was hope because, although the author, filmmaker, and the reading/viewing public may have empathized with Devdas' struggle to reconcile tradition and modernity, they knew that art, particularly cinema, offered a way to escape the tragic hero's predicament. What they thought could be articulated explicitly in films such as Pyaasa, which recognized the crude, cynical core of society but also offered art (poetry) as a way to revolt against it. Art could thus be more than merely escapism. It could be the setting for modern man to revolt against the society that so oppressed him. In 1957, Guru Dutt ostensibly felt that optimism with respect to his own art. But in seven years' time, he himself had gone the way of Devdas, disgusted by his personal life as well as his social milieu. In the same year, 1964, Nehru died too, formally ending the fledgling nation's age of innocence.

The end of the Nehruvian era inaugurated an age of revolt against society in reel and real life during the Sixties and Seventies. The optimism that had characterized the first decade after independence seemed a distant memory for filmmakers and audiences alike. The next two decades, characterized by Naxalism and culminating in Mrs. Gandhi's assumption of dictatorial powers, represents the heyday of the renouncer-hero. From Guide to Zanjeer, the biggest names in Bombay films played the renouncer-hero's role. Amitabh Bachchan's "angry young man" antics, in particular, filled his fans with the hope that some leftwing populist might bring radical reform to politics and society and thus fulfill the wishes of the demos. The hopes of these young populists were dashed on the hard rocks of real politik, at which Mrs. Gandhi and her cronies specialized. For someone like Anurag Kashyap, who came of age in the late 1970s, cynicism regarding politics and meaningful social change must have seemed almost natural. Kashyap's Gulaal indicts us all as irreparably complicit in sustaining a vile system, and challenges us to take up the gauntlet thrown by his protagonist Dileep. For those sympathetic to the filmmaker’s nihilistic call, reform is no longer an option: postcolonial history appears to be little more than a chronicle of steadily-accumulating oppression, the response to which can only be a violent destruction of both self and society.

Beyond twentieth-century Indian history, however, the renouncer-hero in Indian cinema has much to say to us. He cannot be hemmed in by the coordinates of time and space, that is, by history and geography. His appeal is timeless for he speaks to the deepest anxieties and most imponderable existential dilemmas of modern life. At this point, I am reminded of Albert Camus’ The Rebel, appropriately sub-titled “a study of man in revolt.” Camus traces the modern history of revolt from the French Revolution to the mid-20^th century, describing at each historical moment the social and psychological dimensions of those who revolted against society. More importantly, he makes a vital distinction between “rebellion” and “revolt.” Both emanate from the same metaphysical wellspring within human beings, but the former seeks to remove all imperfections from society, usually via violent schemes in search of utopian outcomes, whereas the latter gives voice to man’s capacity to creatively express dissent, articulate resistance against tyranny, and imagine possibilities that may exist beyond the realm of the ordinary, especially via art. There is good reason to believe that we, in India and elsewhere, have blurred this all-important distinction between rebellion and revolt, largely due to the disheartening trajectory of modern history. And by doing so, we are in danger of succumbing to nihilism in both art and politics.

The problem is hardly a peculiarly Indian one. It is a global problem that enshrines violence against the established order above all. It refuses to accept the compromises that political and social life demand in all times and places. It strives for a perfect society, from which all defects are obliterated, and which only millenarianism or theodicy can seemingly install. It is not difficult to see that the aesthetics of rebellion being described here are distinctly modern rather than postmodern. The millenarian option is nothing but the one favored by leftist radicals in France, Russia, and China. The option of theodicy, which was raised by that most sober and pragmatic theorist of modern politics Max Weber, is the one favored on the center-right, whether in the form of the Ayatollahs’ rule in Iran or as the rise of “Obamamania” in the United States. The roots of the problem lie not so much in this or that ideology, but in the modern progressive philosophy of history that endeavors to “correct” every social and metaphysical contradiction in human lives in due course.

I should clarify here that I do not oppose, in a blanket sense, either utopian schemes or violence as a means to an end. Utopias can be articulated and attained in practical forms, but only as long as they emerge beyond the minds of disaffected elites and take root in the popular realm. As an example of these practical utopias with a mass basis, consider the medieval bhakti movements across the Indian subcontinent, which sought a more just social order without a violent French-style revolution. Similarly, a principled defense of violence is also possible, but only as long as it is well-targeted and self-limiting. Here, I offer pre-Reformation Europe as an example of a society in which wars were commonplace yet casualties extremely low and treaties many, unlike in the modern world, where Clausewitzian “total war” has moved from theory to reality.

In sum, we may ask, in the manner of Lenin, what must be done? I am afraid I can do no more than offer some tentative solutions here. First, I think revolt in Camus’ sense of expressing oneself against the status quo through art is a worthy endeavor. From Sarat Babu to Anurag Kashyap, one finds recognition of this thesis in the form of the renouncer-hero of Indian cinema. Second, the nihilistic glorification of violence in art and society ought to be restrained. Sadly, this is a task easier said than done since the roots of nihilism are more metaphysical than socio-historical and metaphysical consensus is a seemingly impossible goal. But here again, I think the aesthetics of popular cinema offers the best way to converse with and challenge the metaphysics underlying nihilism. Third, artistic and intellectual endeavors ought to step beyond the academic groves, and help bridge the widening gulf between elite and popular classes in modern society. Again, this is a task easier said than done, but once more, cinema offers possibilities than neither fine art nor literature can. Fourth, there is an urgent need to seek a moderate politics, one that rejects the status quo and seeks social change without making unreasonable demands upon one’s fellow citizens. Here, I think one must venture beyond cinema for a way out of the current rut in which we find ourselves. The solution will come, if at all, from ordinary citizens getting together to mobilize for particular ends, to employ the instruments of democracy (mass media, civil disobedience, social audits, etc) to strengthen popular control over governmental agencies, and to remain eternally vigilant in defense of freedoms fought for and won. For, no matter how much we may sympathize with the predicament and fate of the renouncer-hero, we cannot be him since we must affirm life and liberty within the imperfect realm of society itself. In the final analysis, Devdas, Vijay and Dileep should be seen as elements of a cautionary tale that has retained its popular appeal across generations, one whose lessons we would do well to heed today…

Humans and Other Animals: A Modern Heretic's View

During my year at the London School of Economics in 2004-05, I heard the British philosopher John Gray offer one of the most provocative and compelling arguments of our times. He argued that human beings were merely one among many animals on the planet, but "secular" Western philosophers, historians and scientists, particularly those since the 18th century, had inherited the anthropocentric prejudices of their Christian predecessors and had thus exaggerated modern ideological notions of human progress, development, and mastery over nature. Gray, ever the maverick philosopher, saw his task as demystifying (and occasionally demolishing) these modern myths, especially secularism and progress, in order to posit a more harmonious balance between humans and other animals. Let me point out here that Gray is not your regular postmodern professor in the United States: for most of his career, he positioned himself as a liberal theorist, writing erudite tomes on John Stuart Mill and Isaiah Berlin, but has grown increasingly disillusioned with contemporary liberalism, particularly after his involvement in Lady Thatcher's neoliberal project in the 1980s. At the very least, Gray's views ought to be considered carefully.

The Argument Against Anthropocentrism

I shall leave aside my views on John Gray's understanding of liberalism for another post. My focus here is his "anti-humanist" stance that puts human and non-human animals on par with each other. Some of us may find Gray's stance disagreeable or eccentric, but I take it very seriously. Why? Because it questions our deepest assumptions in the social and natural sciences. It challenges us to question our inherited understanding of politics, society and history. And it urges us to rethink our interactions with nonhuman animals in our personal lives.

The most obvious evidence for putting humans on par with other animals comes from evolutionary theory. (As many of you know, I find no contradiction between being a firm Darwinian and upholding my religious/spiritual commitments). If natural selection, a fundamentally amoral process (as Richard Dawkins keeps reminding us), is the basis of life on earth, then there is a radical equality inherent in the evolutionary process. Some organisms are bigger, others are smaller; some are fat, while others are thin; some look cute, others do not. But the fact remains that the building blocks of life are the common denominator for all organisms. More importantly, if we regard evolution as an amoral process rather than one driven by a benevolent deity, then we cannot attribute human survival or evolution to intelligence, sociability or any "talent" that is unique to the species; these are merely adaptations to the environment, effects rather than causes of evolution. In short, from a purely biological/biochemical perspective, it is fairly simple to put humans in their place, that is, with other animal species on the planet.

But surely, you may argue, language, intelligence and emotions distinguish humans from other animals? I disagree. Linguistic ability is hardly unique to humankind. We know at least since Aristotle that bees, for instance, have complex linguistic systems to communicate. So too do dogs, cats, horses, tigers, elephants, and countless other animal species. It's quite another matter that we may not be horse-whisperers. But that does not give anyone the license to conclude that nonhuman animals do not possess the gift of language. That sort of impertinence is akin to the ignorant Spanish conquistadors labelling the Amerindians "savages" and "barbarians" because they were neither Christians nor speakers of a European language. There is every reason to believe that nonhuman animals express verbally and non-verbally thoughts that humans can express in words alone. Likewise, intelligence is hardly a singularly human trait. Skeptics may argue that there is no Shakespeare or Netwon outside the circle of humanity, but I can easily retort that these intellectual standards are peculiar to humans alone. There are certainly animal geniuses whose olfactory abilities or endurance are well beyond human capabilities just as composing splendid sonnets might be out of reach for most nonhuman animals. Also, it isn't clear to me whether the average human is smarter than the average nonhuman animal. The same mix of dolts, average joes, and geniuses occur among human and nonhuman animals. IQ or some such humanly-designed test doesn't help to settle matters; we are almost certain to struggle on any nonhuman test of intelligence that involves navigation, catching prey or smell. And if you thought only humans could experience or express emotions, think again! Recent research, despite all its limitations, suggests otherwise. Nonhuman animals can, therefore, express regret, happiness and a wide gamut of emotions commonly imagined to be uniquely human.

Some Key Implications

Rejecting anthropocentrism in the natural and social sciences as well as in everyday life has rather profound implications. The entire edifice of Western philosophy and science is built on the Judeo-Christian premise that man (anthropos) is the center of the universe. Why? Because the Scriptures say so in order to posit a sacred covenant between the human species and the Abrahamic God. Any reader of the Torah or the Christian Old Testament can hardly dispute the centrality of human beings in the narrative that unfolds.The doctrine of human exceptionalism on which Western humanism rests historically is a demonstrable fiction of Judeo-Christian origin. Why then should we continue to retain a secularized version of the same demonstrable fiction? At least in my opinion, doing so is about as intellectually unsound as defending creationism.

By rejecting anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism, we open up the possibility of more equitable relations between humans and other animals. Furthermore, we open up the possibility of extending the social contract beyond humans to the animals that coexist with us. In a certain sense, such social contracts already exist for centuries in rural and urban communities in the Orient and Occident alike. There is nothing peculiarly rural or non-Western about social contracts that cover wild animals, farm animals, pets or even animals for slaughter. Yet there is something that is being lost in our cities today, especially among the ruling class everywhere (by contrast, humbler folks happily share their world with nonhuman animals). Intellectuals emerge largely from this same class, and hence, our theories reflect their anthropocentric prejudices. Recognizing the falsity of human exceptionalism paves the way for a new philosophy, science, and history. The obsessive Continental quest for discovering the expressive aspects of our being or our phenomenological selves can perhaps be thwarted in this manner. So too can science regard nonhuman species as intelligent, sentient beings rather than mere instruments for human experimentation and play. And historians can explore and appreciate the dialectics that define human-animal relations in different times and places.

A necessary caveat is in order here. My argument does not imply that relations between humans and other animals are meant to be cuddly or cute. Human animals relate to other animals in much the same way that nonhuman animals relate to each other (though each species obviously has its own "stereotypical" or peculiar ways of doing so). The lion does not lie with the lamb, except in the wildest fancies of utopian theologians. Neither can humans be expected to deviate from their omnivorous ways (except in special circumstances and contexts) to conform to some utopian project designed by a small minority. This is a vital consideration because some human societies today and earlier have tended to attach great cultural capital to abstinence from meat and other animal products. Such elitism, vegan, Buddhist/Jain or otherwise, which I label "Neo-Brahminism" in today's context, is a minority response that ought to be studied sociologically as a peculiar tendency of homo hierarchicus across time and space. It is, however, hardly the default option because the majority of humans everywhere continue to be stubbornly omnivorous. Let's face it: Peter Singer's utilitarian calculus isn't likely to convert most of us to the Neo-Brahminical camp. For the majority of humankind, therefore, veganism, vegetarianism and their cousins will forever remain the domain of a bunch of effete socially-detached ideologues whose idea of human-animal relations is restricted to their expensive lapdogs or some such marker of their superior social status.

For many, my argument might sound paradoxical or even contradictory. How can I argue for treating humans on par with other animals yet defend omnivorous behavior? Just like one can treat all human societies/cultures, past or present, on par in moral terms, without necessarily committing to the utopian/minority project of pacifism that persistently emerges across human history. I see no contradiction in my argument. It is a pragmatic rather than a utopian one. It acknowledges that all relations, human-human or human-animal, involve trade-offs that cannot be simply wished away. It is quite justifiable for us to be concerned about the well-being of horses, tigers or dogs, while consuming beef, pork, lamb, chicken or any other animal meat. In fact, it is quite justifiable for us to be concerned about the treatment of animals in mega-industrial farms and slaughterhouses while consuming animal meat. Recognizing animals as intelligent, sentient beings does, by no means, imply that some of them cannot be eaten. What can be eaten and what cannot is ultimately a culturally-specific question, certainly a worthy subject for anthropologists and historians to study. My detractors may claim that the logic of my argument could justify even cannibalism. I agree that this is a distinct possibility, however limited its scope may be historically or today, but like Herodotus, I am too much of a cultural relativist to denounce even cannibalism in the manner that Spaniards and other Europeans did at the dawn of modernity.

Conclusion

So what might one reasonably be expected to take away from this post? You are, of course, welcome to view it as an eccentric contribution by an oddball. But, by doing so, you would merely be guilty of perpetuating the theological, philosophical and scientific prejudice of anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism that plague our planet. Most of us who call ourselves "modern" live in a manner that is deeply at odds with other animals. I tend to agree with John Gray that such an existence is fundamentally delusional and is responsible for the grossly irresponsible manner in which modern human animals relate to their nonhuman peers. So here are my suggestions: be a bit kinder to the nonhuman animals around you, pay a bit more attention to their needs and interests, and try to coexist a bit more meaningfully with them. Such a change in orientation is hardly a substantial one in the context of our everyday lives, but its implications will be nothing short of revolutionary. Whatever else happens, guard against the false temptation of utopian projects, and try to share the joys, sorrows, or even banal existence of our nonhuman friends. We may or may not succeed in creating a better tomorrow for everyone, but at the very least, there is the tantalizing prospect that we may become more humane, and I dare say, truly liberal souls...

Between the Suffering and the Will

Here's a first look at my upcoming novel "Between the Suffering and the Will."

When Vikram Arora, an eighteen-year old from the north Indian city of Chandigarh manages to gain admission into Neverland College in the American Midwest, he has no idea how his life will change in the next four years. His is not your usual coming-of-age story, but one in which self-discovery, the quest for knowledge, and adventure blend together into an explosive cocktail. Vikram's self-doubt, his intellectual journey and his love affairs may appear familiar to most of us, but his nagging ambition, patriotic fervor, and the love of his life lead this mild-mannered middle-class boy to metamorphose into a cunning Maoist strategist and commander of a liberated zone on the Bengal-Jharkhand border.

Vikram's story is heroic because it represents a Promethean struggle between the human will to combat the slings and arrows of fortune and the suffering that is the necessary consequence of our worldly decisions, perhaps even of our very existence. Hence the title from Byron's Prometheus. Readers are aware from the opening pages that Vikram is dead though his diaries offer vivid glimpses into the last five years of his tortured existence. Juxtaposed with fragments from the diaries are the narratorial interventions of Joe, a Neverland student writing his senior thesis in anthropology and literature. Joe, who shares a charismatic adviser with the ill-fated Vikram, is interested in filling in the gaps left by Vikram's diaries. As he proceeds to interview the people who appear in these diaries, he is drawn into Vikram's story, its darker and unstated aspects, and ultimately, its tragedy. Soon, the lives of the narrator and the protagonist get entangled in ways beyond Joe's wildest fancies. Struggling to find his own feet and to avoid being sucked into the vortex left behind by Vikram, Joe must use the clues hidden in the diaries to regain his own freedom and sanity.

The non-linear narrative structure in the novel enables Joe to parallel Vikram's journey, yet allows him to escape the latter's fate. Non-linearity also demands that readers construct their own meaning from the diary fragments, interviews, and narratorial experiences that feature in the novel. Readers are thus placed in a position somewhat analogous to that in a traditional play or music performance, especially in South Asia, where the audience is expected to participate in the construction of the narrative or performance. The critical reader is, in this sense, a literary critic making sense of the narrative structure, a historian seeking coherence from fragmented textual and oral sources, and an anthropologist flitting back and forth between diverse cultural contexts.

Resisting Political Correctness

Consider these three anecdotes. The first, which I shall christen "PC Unabashed," concerns a link posted recently by a friend on Facebook, arguing for the rights of "introverts" as a special group that is often misunderstood and even discriminated against by the rest of the population. The "science" of psychology has thus constructed a new category of minorities whose "rights" must now be appreciated and defended because the politically-correct Orwellian thought police says so. Needless to add, every response to the FB post was approving in an unqualified sense.

The second, which I shall call "PC Interrupted," occurred during my first year of college in Grinnell, Iowa, a friend of mine spotted a bunch of students drawn exclusively from the US racial majority, camping outside the dining hall and collecting cash to be sent to educate "poor kids in Third World countries." My friend, who hails from postcolonial South Asia, went up to the do-gooders, and asked, only half-jokingly, whether he might not benefit from their fundraising spree. A stunned silence followed.

The third anecdote, which I shall label "PC Intolerance," comes from President Ahmedinejad's visit to Columbia University a couple of years ago. As he began speaking, a gay couple began kissing as a mark of "protest" against what they perceived to be a repressive sexual regime in Iran. Ahmedinejad, no stranger to controversy or hyperbole, muttered that "we do not have this in our country." An Iranian-American friend of mine interpreted his statement to mean that, while homosexual relations between men are commonplace throughout the Middle East, public displays of affection of the kind witnessed at Columbia were usually frowned upon. In other words, contrary to the opinion of the predominantly US liberal audience that evening, homosexuality can be acknowledged and expressed in ways other than their own.

At first glance, it may not be entirely obvious how these three anecdotes are related to each other. Unless, of course, you happen to have personally experienced (suffered?) first-hand the vigorous imposition of politically-correct contemporary liberal dogma in the university, workplace, government, or some other public location. In its milder form, being PC means resorting to euphemisms for those with mental or physical disabilities, "minority" status, and so forth. In more pernicious forms, the beast reveals its true shape by insisting on attitudes that are certified by its thought-policemen as appropriate for us humble souls. For reasons I shall explain below, it's high time that we put an end to this nonsense, and recognized the imposters for what they're worth. In doing so, I shall also point out why naivete or ignorance, those oh-so-popular excuses, do not pardon the novices in the PC brigade since the problem is a systemic rather than an individual one.

The PC moral police is particularly active with respect to two sets of individuals: physical or mental disabilities, and those outside the charmed circle of the US racial majority. Let me start with the first set. In my first anecdote, introverts are identified by a pseudo-science to be a distinct political group possessing special rights as minorities. We are all aware of such individuals. I can even identify myself as one. I don't always enjoy socializing or being in the company of others. Yet I've never sought a special medical and/or political status. Why? Because I don't regard it as a disability at all. Might I be misunderstood by others, as the article assumes? Sure, but so might people who are extroverts or ambiverts. Or for that matter, anyone. Moreover, I'm not even sure introverts are a minority. No one, to my mind, has calculated the numerical strength of this group, butI guess it might actually be rather large. Only the paranoid who believe themselves to be persecuted by the world would insist on minorityism without any clear warrant. PC attitudes merely validate such paranoia. In effect, reclusiveness and asociability get a facelift, the concerned "minority" believing themselves to be particularly special yet perverse in comparison to the wider population for no good reason. It is assumed implicitly here that a "normal" or "mean" personality exists and these are statistical deviations from the mean. But, in fact, no such social-psychological evidence exists for "normality," so each person is special and we must thus engage with each accordingly. Yet contemporary US liberals, acting under the cloak of "science," have manufactured a problem and a political identity based on the erroneous assumption of "normality." Almost certainly, minorityism is a counterproductive strategy that actually worsens rather than improves matters for the shy and introverted.

The second set of individuals, those outside the charmed racial majority in the US, are located both inside and outside that country. I have found that the farther the distance from the United States, the greater the purported sympathy expressed by liberals. It is preferable if those being sympathized with are too far away to be engaged in dialogue, and even better, if they cannot speak at all (think animal rights!). US liberals can then simply "represent" these silent or mute voices. In my second anecdote, someone irreverent, much like me, talked back to the do-gooders trying to save the planet. Once again, a group (defined racially here) is assumed to be "normal" while deviations from the norm are deemed to be somehow inadequate and in need of representation by the normal folks. We irreverent souls from abroad, however, refuse to be patronized in this manner, as I'm sure many racial "minorities" in the States do too. The pretence of speaking passionately on our behalf doesn't quite work because only a miniscule minority in the States possess a genuine appreciation and understanding of minority or foreign communities, their culture and history, and participate in the everyday lived experiences of those communities. I'm sick of the hordes of US undergraduates who, say, spend a summer in Latin America among "indigenous" communities so that they can pad their CVs for the benefit future non-profit jobs or gradate programs. Their politics is cynical in the extreme, and, sadly, all too common. PC attitudes put a halo around the heads of these characters, and let them believe their own fake messianic proclamations. And what the hell is "Third World" anyway? Jaded Cold War terminology is now being legitimized by the PC brigade as somehow progressive, but is, in fact, reactionary and highly offensive. If you're really keen to educate kids in some postcolonial country, here's my advice: try to find out more about the country, its people and their problems; live among them and share their joys and sorrows; see the world from their perspective as well as your own; and only then try to figure out how their problems might be solved. Stop this PC crap about abstract Third World kids, and stop trying to pretend you care about people you have no clue about!

My third anecdote shows how the two sets of populations patronized by US liberals have much in common. The typical strategy, to recap briefly, is to define what is medically or culturally "normal" in the most arbitary ways, preferably using "science," and then characterize deviations from the normal as political identities and groups that require representation by so-called liberal voices of privilege. The incident that marred Ahmedinejad's Columbia address combines the notions of medical and cultural normality. It is assumed, without evidence, that homosexuality is somehow "deviant," a peculiar American fantasy shared by liberals and conservatives alike, and that only the US normal defines the "correct" attitude towards homosexuals. There's no good reason to assume that heterosexual monogamy is normal in any time or place. Likewise, there's no good reason to assume that the US liberal attitude is necessarily the only one, let alone the best one, that exists today. Making these assumptions serves to worsen the discrimination faced by those who do not meet the homosexual-monogamous norm in the US, apart from widening the vast cultural gulf between the US and the rest of the world. Since both these outcomes are widely considered undesirable or unfortunate, it should be obvious how in-your-face PC attitudes push us into the abyss.

So far, I have used the tone of an anthropologist describing an exotic culture after spending plenty of time amidst the natives. For obvious reasons, I can do so because I fit the bill. But my concerns are global, and frankly, much close to home. Unfortunately, whatever the PC brigade in North America sanctions is automatically lapped up by its lackeys in every other continent. Today, in countries as different as India, South Africa and France, there is a ready clique of flatterers who jump at anything in vogue in the US. Such is the nature of cultural imperialism today. In India today, I am constantly bombarded with silly PC phrases and comments that make a complete mockery of the actual struggles of lower-caste groups, "tribals," religious, gender and sexual "minorities," and so forth. Someone or the other is always preaching to me about the cause of "minorities," completely oblivious that I can carry the minority card on almost every commonly-used criteria used in India. In this manner, I have grown tired of being patronized by US liberals and their lackeys elsewhere, even at home. But whenever possible, I refuse to let the PC thought police from speaking on my behalf and representing my interests; I refuse to let fake sympathy override genuine political struggles for dignity and recognition; I refuse to let some false notion of normality prevent me from regarding each individual as unique, with peculiar gifts and flaws; lastly, I refuse to let the pseudo-cosmopolitan PC alliance set the terms of moral-political discourse. I can't promise much, but I can guarantee that I'll be a feisty opponent that fights to the finish...