PRACTICAL LESSONS IN SPIRITUALITY

Events of the recent past indicate that India is gradually becoming unmanageable. It is not just about the chaos at Panchkula, or mob lynching or even violent attacks on the media. There are many incidents indicating weakening of the state apparatus. The media, that was earlier looking over the other side, has started reflecting popular perception about the crumbling state machinery. But against this backdrop, the one silver lining has been the conviction of the so-called Godman, Gurmeet Ram Rahim, by the unassuming CBI judge, Jagdeep Singh, who delivered that reassuring blow to restore faith of the populace in the system. What is the moral of this sordid story of the misdeeds of Ram Rahim? No matter how powerful or highly connected one is, nemesis will catch up and the misdeeds will have to be paid for. Looking at the Ram Rahim story rather incisively, we will come to an interesting conclusion. Evil has a limited life and ultimately gets trounced at the hands of the good.

Someone very sportingly gave credit to a team of 11 who were the face of the fight that was an unequal battle by all counts, but for the fact that dharma was on the side of this team. Looking at the team first: Two strong willed youngsadhvis decide to call a spade a spade and had the gumption to pursue with their war of attrition for 15 long and torturous years. Every moment they were risking their lives. But they persisted. And won. Then there was this upright CBI judge with a spine that is so very rare these days. Anything could have been his for asking. Yet he fought all risks and allurements for his duty that was his cause. Then there were those four lawyers who fought the case pro bono. Money then did not matter. Then the CBI DSP and the DIG who held their ground along with the team. The kind of pressures that they must have faced from the high and mighty can well be imagined.

They did not succumb. And then there was the spirit of the assassinated journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, who had the courage to bring out the poora sach and of course his son Anshuman who kept flying high the legacy of his deceased father. These 11 noble souls and the goodwill of a large number of people could make this herculean task possible. The triumph of the good over evil does take place, but only when the righteous choose to stand up for being counted. And there are those who do it. But there is a question —what was the big thing that these people did? They only did what they were supposed to do. They followed their duties conscientiously. The problem of our country is that people are not doing what they are required to do. Satyamev Jayate, the famous Munduka Upanishad dictum that forms the core of our values system, is not an impossibility. But we need to do our duties. This cardinal truth was picturesquely brought out in the famous Bollywood blockbuster, Nayak. The central theme of this Anil Kapoor starrer was the simple statement made by the lead character, the one-day Chief Minister, “I did nothing big. All I did was what I was supposed to do.” The greatest spiritual question that we need to ask is — “Are we doing what we are supposed to do?” That is spirituality in practice.

THE LONELY CHILDREN

Robots, it is now being feared, will replace humans at workplace. Why only at workplace, they will replace humans everywhere, even in families. A very appropriate depiction of this was given in the popular movie Robot in which Rajnikanth’s lookalike robot falls in love with the leading lady, Aishwarya Rai.

Already we are now finding chat bots replace receptionists and there are sex bots, too, on the anvil ready to replace spouses. And mind you, the idea is not farfetched. Artificial intelligence is not only creating artificial people but artificial emotions too. The signs are already there in society as we find people obsessed with themselves. It is ‘I, me and myself’, and my electronic gadget. From gregarious socialite to the lonely individualistic — human beings have ceased to be human. The killer instinct that competition and technology developed seems to boomerang. At this rate, a time will come when humans will forget to behave like humans. Some kind of desocialisation process has already been set in motion.

The one dangerous outcome of this process has been the lonely children. As they crave for company and emotional stroking, their frustrations mount when they get none. In social transactions, stroking plays a crucial role. A stroke in transaction analysis language is a unit of recognition, when one person recognises another person either verbally or non-verbally. It is a critical determinant of child development. But in modern times, this stroking is missing. The Blue Whale deaths of children are fair enough indication that the human being has become an emotional wreck. The children are lonely, depressed, and melancholic. The emotional sensitivity is so high that they break down and end their lives. The gaming world has replaced the real world, leading to a strange psychological syndrome. A mix of depression and fantasy, which earlier did not go together. But the combination today is a new hybrid that is proving lethal. The games are not bloody. The guys are becoming bloody. Perversions are on the rise and tendencies like sadism and masochism, the propensity to inflict pain on others, or on oneself are on the rise.

The result is that the virtual world is causing real deaths. What causes this is not far to seek. It is a simple case of emotional disequilibrium. Despite all the advances of science and technology, the basic emotional mix of human being comprises the essential ingredients of love, hate, and rage. The positive being love and the negative ones being hate and rage. Other emotions are gradually learnt. The problem today is that the positive content, that is love, is slowly diminishing as people are too confined to themselves. Love and emotional stroking is a basic requirement of healthy personality development and when that is insufficient, negative tendencies rise. The dreaded outcomes of the online suicide games are a result of this. Children easily fall prey to this because of their emotional instability and premature thinking. They are more gullible and become victims of such self-harm and suicide games. The question is where do we go from here? There is only one answer. The human beings to remain human need to be loved. A love-starved human is a wild, enraged beast. It is love that makes a beast a human. The sooner we realize this the better. Particularly parents who have also of late started behaving like chat bots.

THE SUPREME COURT

For the religious minded, the Supreme Court is of course the court of the Lord that takes decisions depending on the merits of the case, supposedly delivering what a person deserves. Then there is the ultimate day, the day of the judgement that decides the final fate. Referred differently as qayamat, the last day or Yawm al-Qiyamah, it is part of the eschatological worldview of several religions. But for that day to arrive, the day on which the final judgement will be pronounced, there is a long wait. When will that day come is not known. However, apart from the canonical gospels, there is a Supreme Court for the mundane world, too, that pronounces judgements of far-reaching consequences and charges the believers when the chips seem to be down. The two recent judgements of the Apex Court pronounced in August fall in that category.

August has a historical significance for other reasons too, but the two judgements pronounced in this month — the one on Triple Talaq and the other on Right to Privacy — lend further credence to this month of August. Declaring that the Triple Talaq practice is unconstitutional and privacy is a fundamental right put, rather catapult, India further in the 21st century, raising the level of society to a more progressive one. Archaic laws made by the powers that subjugated India for centuries have remained a bane for the country that entered into the democratic club 70 years ago. The Indian Supreme Court, however, has time and again stood with the citizens of this democracy through several landmark judgements, including the Golak Nath case, the Keshavanad Bharti case, or the Minerva Mills case. The two August judgements may well fall in the same category given the implications they hold for the citizenry. That citizens’ rights are supreme and inalienable is a basic doctrine of a democracy which for all practical purposes should be a ‘Government of the people, by the people and for the people’. That is what the term janta janardandenotes.

The Latin “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” also signifies the same. Aberrations do arise but the wonder of Indian Constitution is its resilience to re-establish the equilibrium whenever it is being threatened. And the one institution that has withstood the test of the times by standing up to these threats has been the Supreme Court. Both Triple Talaq and the privacy judgement can be seen from the point of view of citizens’ right to life and liberty. While the Triple Talaq judgement upholds the rights of womenfolk subjugated by the clergy, the privacy judgement upholds the right of all citizens from subjugations through excessive governance. It would certainly strengthen the citizens’ right to question the Government as very aptly stated in the Apex Court judgement that “who are governed are entitled to question those who govern”. Too much governance is an anathema to progressive governance, which must rest on the premise laid down by Henry David Thoreau that “Government is best that governs the least”. The problem with our country and countrymen has been the worldview of the Governments about citizens and that of the citizens toward Governments. For the Government, the citizen still is the praja or the subject, a legacy of the alien rule mindset, and for the citizen the Government is the maibaap. Though there is still some way to go, we certainly have covered a big distance.