On Perumbadavam's Narayanam

The parallels between life and journey are many. Often, we are encouraged to view life as a journey, not towards a particular destination but as an act in itself. The reason for this analogy is obvious. Like in a journey, in life we will encounter many things that we may or may not appreciate. Again, as in a journey, we will find the going sometimes smooth and at other times rough. The point is to keep walking, to continue the journey while absorbing the colorful and colorless experiences. The good and the bad, like the smooth sailing and bumpy ride, are part of life. Like a traveler, one should learn from them and take them in stride.

Narayanam by Perumbadavam Sridharan
Source: Mathrubhumi Books

Perumbadavam Sridharan's Narayanam dwells on the theme of the journey to interpret the life of Sri Narayana Guru. In his thematic and episodic review of Guru's life (through fictional psychology) the novelist delineates four layers of meanings to Guru's life/journey from a precocious young boy Nanu to become Sri Narayana Guru, a multifaceted personality whose influence, on the intellectual and social history of modern Kerala, has been unparalleled.

For Sridharan, the life-journey of Guru starts when he leaves his home to become a wandering ascetic. Here, the meaning of the journey is tapas. Often translated as 'meditation', it is more accurate to render it as solitude, and the etymology of the word in Sanskrit points to the verb 'to burn'. Tapas is a state of solitude where the ascetic 'burns' his ties to the worldly life, by renouncing social ties and by mortifying his body through various meditative practices. The novelist is right in equating the first stage of the journey with tapas because, the young Nanu decides to 'burn' the bridges that tied him to the world, both social and carnal.

The second meaning of the journey is athmapida, or the torture of the self. This is different from self-torture where a person actively inflicts pain on himself. The novelist, Sridharan, draws parallels with the experiences of Semitic prophets such as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, who went through the phase of self-mortification through fasting and other ascetic practices in which their resolve was sorely tested by the lures of the Devil. The young novice Narayanan accepts that this phase of athmapida is an essential one on the road to enlightenment and like those seekers of Truth who preceded him, he too faces the devils inside him with resolve and determination.

The third meaning of the journey, as the novelist renders it, is mochanam or emancipation. Even as a child, Nanu witnessed and experienced the injustices of the caste-system. Born into an Ezhava family, Nanu's caste was sandwiched between the higher castes such as Brahmins and Nairs and lower-castes such as Pulayas. Owing to their position between the highest and the lowest, Ezhavas suffered the ill-effects of ayitham (a form of untouchability) from Brahmins while simultaneously practicing it against the lowest castes such as Pulayas (please refer to Ambedkar's idea of caste-system as graded inequality). Ezhavas were both the victims and perpetrators of the injustices of the caste system. For people like Nanu's father, caste discrimination and untouchability was the order of life and felt nothing unjust about it. Even if they did, they didn't dare raise their voices. However, for Nanu, the whole system was patently unjust and absurd and his life as an Advaitin only reaffirmed his conviction that the caste system and untouchability had no divine or scriptural sanctions. For an Advaitin (non-Dualist or monist) like Sri Narayana Guru, the theory of Advaita propounded that 'being' is the manifestation of the Being, the One. Whereas the ideology of caste-system ranked and graded the people based on their caste which it asserted was awarded to each individual as a result of their putative deeds in the past-birth.

The final phase of the journey is moksham or liberation, one in which the Guru dies after a protracted illness. In this phase of his life-journey, Guru relived the solitude, pain and the thirst for social justice before finally departing from this world. However, in Sridharan's narrative, death is neither the cessation of life nor of the journey. Like destinations on a journey, death is also something that you reached but only to leave again. The transience of life is repeated and death is the final transient that is soon transcended. In the end, Guru comes face to face with the Truth he has been searching for his entire life.

In the scheme of the eternal journey of the Being through its various manifestations through beings, the journey doesn't end here, although the story does.

Liberty Leading the People: A Reinterpretation

Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix
Source: Wikipedia

Liberty Leading the People is a famous painting by the acclaimed painter Eugene Delacroix. One of the most recognized pieces of art, it has become iconic of the French Revolution (although it was a commemorative of the 1830 July Revolution in France. By its use of the tricolour it invoked again the ideals of the earlier French Revolution). While I accept the validity of the intentional meaning the auteur-painter has advanced to his work, I will try to reinterpret the meaning of the painting that will act as an interpretation not only of the work but also of the moment it portrays, the French Revolution.

The centrepiece of the painting is the bare-breasted lady with the French flag who leads an armed crowd over the corpses of slain officers. Even though female nudity is normal in paintings, and is assigned various meanings, what is intriguing in this one are three things: identity of the lady, the location of the lady and the bearing of the location to the meaning of nudity.

Firstly, the identity of the lady. Who is she? She is a woman from the lower-classes (evident from her clothing). She holds aloft the French flag. She is Marianne, the allegorical representation of the nation of France and also the ‘goddess of the liberty’. Secondly, the location of the lady. She stands in the middle of the battle, heroically leading the people against the police and the military. As the two arms of the state, police and the army represent the French monarchical state and Marianne is leading the French nation against the state in a revolution. Thirdly, the significance of the location to the meaning of the nudity. Marianne’s frontal nudity is suggestive of quite a different meaning than the one usually assigned to nude females in paintings. She is not either a Venus-like goddess figure or an aristocratic lady who is reclining in a dewan in her boudoir. She doesn’t represent purity or conveys a sense of sensuality. The place where she stands, the battlefield, precludes both. Also, her nudity doesn’t seem to be voluntary. The top portion of her gown has been forced down and is indicative of an assault. She has been violated and she is in a murderous rage. Marianne represents the honour of the French nation which has been violated. Marianne, the personification of the French nation, leads the people against the state who violated her, in search of justice through retribution.

For me, the painting represents the quest of Marianne, the French nation, for justice through revolution. As such, Marianne exacts justice through violent retribution. Therefore, we may interpret the meaning of the French Revolution, the moment the painting portrays, as the revenge of the nation (the people) against the state and the Old Order who exploited them without bounds. The revolution represents the moment of retributive justice in the history of France. The validity of the interpretation i.e. ‘revolution as vengeance’, is amply borne out by the violent history of the revolution.

Lessons for a Democracy: On the Meaning of the Abrogation of Article 370

The Indian Government's decision to revoke Article 370 and bifurcate J&K into two Union Territories has been criticized by its detractors as 'majoritarian', 'unconstitutional', and denounced as a 'betrayal'. The ruling party's majoritarian ideology is an open secret and the constitutionality of the action is something for the Supreme Court to decide. However, it's within the purview of public reason to deliberate whether or not the action of the Indian Government constituted a betrayal of the Kashmiri people and their trust in the Indian state.

It constituted a betrayal as far as how the whole procedure was carried out. To ensure that their bill would see the light of day, the government took unprecedented actions to stifle the opposition. They cleared the valley of pilgrims and tourists, declared a tight curfew on the state, and put the leaders under preventive detention. Even the leaders of the state were kept in the dark about this critical piece of legislation that fundamentally altered India's relation with Jammu and Kashmir. Adding insult to the injury, the state ceased to be one and was bifurcated into two Union Territories. None of this is to the credit of the government. The feeling of betrayal is justified.

For me, the government's action betrayed two lessons about the nature and working of a democracy. Firstly, it proves the limitations of procedural democracy, one without a sense of the spirit of democracy. In terms of the law, nobody can accuse the government of illegality. The Indian Government is fully authorized to bring amendments and change the parts of the constitution, as long as it got the numbers in the two houses. Yet, the feeling of deceit is palpable. Secondly, even in a democracy, the government has near-absolute powers that could rewrite the destiny of millions at the stroke of a pen. The critical difference between a democracy and an autocracy is the sense of restraint and fair play and that's what the government flouted. That's the margin where democracies are made and unmade.

Mordechai Levy-Eichel, Hannah Fry and the Growing Importance of Mathematics

In his article Mathematics as Thought historian and political scientist Mordechai Levy-Eichel asks us to reimagine mathematics as an integral part of intellectual history. Far from being an abstruse discipline, manned and operated by hermit-like scientists, mathematics and mathematicians have played a vital role in shaping the history of the world. The most popular example is the story of Alan Turing and his team of mathematicians and cryptographers in Bletchley Park who worked around the clock to decrypt the encoded messages from German Enigma and Lorenz machines. During the article, Levy-Eichel draws our attention to the undue importance accorded to political theories of philosophers, who were never rulers or administrators themselves. While he doesn't dismiss political theories as unimportant or inconsequential, Levy-Eichel argues that mathematics has had a more defining influence in shaping the politics and statecraft of modern administration. The historical cum theoretical accounts of early modern Europe by scholars such as Michel Foucault who pioneered the study of the emergence of new technologies of administration (biopolitics) failed to account for the role of mathematics. Levy-Eichel's criticism persuades us to reimagine the contours of intellectual and political history and re-evaluate the place of mathematics and the role it has played in shaping the world around us. Also, political theories can't be taken as descriptive theories of politics but critical and prescriptive theorization of politics, often done by non-politicians.

In a recent news piece by The Guardian, mathematician Hannah Fry has raised the problem of the 'amoral' in the fields of mathematics and computer science. She says that mathematicians and computer scientists don't consider the ethical dimensions of their works and aren't bothered by the real-life implications of the methods and technology they develop. To counter this divide between science and ethics, Hannah Fry advocates for a Hippocratic Oath for these young scientists that will encourage them to ponder over the ethical ramifications of their work, and its relation with the larger society around them.

Both the articles I have discussed highlight the growing importance of mathematics in shaping the future of human societies, as humanity starts to harness the power of the abstract more and more for concrete purposes.

Proof of a Promise Gone in a Puff: A Reaction to the Revocation of Article 370

On the 5th of August, 2019, the Government of India announced its decision to revoke Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. Article 370 granted the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir special status and accorded a degree of autonomy for its state government that's not accorded to other Indian states. As per the amended version, Jammu and Kashmir has ceased to become a state and is now a Union Territory of Indian Government with a legislature, like Delhi. Ladakh, which was a part of the state, has been made a new Union Territory but without its legislature. Kashmiri leaders such as Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad have accused the government of betraying the trust Kashmiris had reposed on the Indian state. Very rarely do we see such an emotional outpouring over a piece of legislation. Countless legislations are passed every year yet this one has struck a nerve. Why?

In the heat of partition and the Hindu-Muslim riots that claimed the lives of the millions, the accession of a Muslim-majority province into the Indian Union was an action based on the trust that Indians would respect the cultural integrity of Kashmir and wouldn't mistreat and discriminate them on the basis of religion, language and culture, by the rest of the nation. The now-abrogated article was proof of this promise that Indians would abide by their word. Also, the mainstream political parties used Article 370 as evidence of Indian reliability against the more extremist factions who advocated either independence or merger with Pakistan. The Indian Government's actions have vindicated the extremist narrative and have inflicted a great deal of damage to the credibility of the mainstream leadership of Kashmir. While they feel hoodwinked by the Indian Government, they have been left shame-faced in front of their people. Indian  The feeling of betrayal is justified.

The action of the Indian Government has been unilateral. In anticipation of troubles, the Central Government had issued prohibitory orders in the state two days before and placed many of its leaders under house arrest or preventive detention. In the days to follow, the Central Government's move will generate plenty of debates and the line that separates those who support and oppose the government's move will be sharply drawn. Particularly significant is the constitutional debates that this will kick off in the coming days. Since Article 370 is the basis of Kashmir's accession to the Union of India, the abrogation-like amendment of the article seriously upsets the legal basis of Kashmir's inclusion in the Indian Union. Even though the legal lacunae wouldn't negate India's claim over J&K, it would be interesting to observe whether or not we find a new basis to justify India's rights over the people and territory of Jammu and Kashmir. These debates will (and should) question the desirability of revoking Article 370 over retaining it. It also puts the onus on the government (since they are the ones who wish to change the status quo) to convince its critics that revoking the article is more beneficial than retaining it. Or, it has to show that the drawbacks of revocation are less harmful than the ones we suffer already. More than anything else, it has to convince the nation and the people of Jammu and Kashmir that the new move will be advantageous to all sides. For Jammu and Kashmir and India, the next few days will be crucial and almost everything depends on how the principal stakeholders wish to respond.

Democracy, Technology and the Limits of Communication

In a liberal democratic world order, differences of opinion are the normal, standard practice. The liberality of the citizens encourages and tolerates these differences. However, in the last ten years or so, this basic attitude has undergone a radical change. Liberality has stopped being a basic civic attitude and it isn't a courtesy we extend to friends and strangers alike anymore. It's an indulgence that's reserved for the like-minded. The closing-off of ranks is particularly visible around some of the burning political questions of contemporary times viz. refugees vs the nation, minorities vs. the majority, etc. Political dissidence isn't treated as a right of liberal democracy but as anti-national and seditious. The same is true of the dissidents who treat the opposition as akin to fascists. Curiously, this decade of political polarization has also coincided with the rise of technological democratization.

The arrival of social media, android phones, and high-speed internet has brought about a veritable revolution in information and communication technology. This revolution has been a revolution of ‘technological democratization'. By ‘technological democratization', I refer to the sudden and foundational change that has given the people greater access to the means (or, the technology) of communication without the interference of either the state or the traditional structures of power. Communication isn't a mediated process anymore but something more immediate and intimate. By revolutionizing the scope and speed of communication, the technological revolution has fundamentally altered the concept and act of communication per se. Never before in human history have we been constantly and uninterruptedly connected. Yet, people are more divided than ever before. Why? It's beyond the scope of this post to discuss in detail the reasons for this phenomenon. Yet, I will risk a conjecture.

Communication is a means of building society between human beings. We communicate our ideas and emotions with our friends and family. The content and manner of communication build people's perception of each other. Certain theories of communication view it as a fundamental social activity. Pragmatist theories of communication argue that misconceptions and differences arise out of miscommunication. Their solution would be to communicate more, and even more openly. However, such theories of communication fail to account for another facet of communication i.e. the limits of communication. As the name suggests, there are limits to the ameliorative powers of communication and beyond a point  it helps only to rigidify viewpoints. Even though I may communicate without reserve, it may not lead to empathy. Instead, it will convince my interlocutors that their viewpoints are incompatible with that of mine. If I don't assume a studied silence on the bone of contention, the 'communication' will degenerate into a squabble and soon these differences of opinion will become entrenched.

The technological democratization has revolutionized the means of communication but not it's content. People bring their convictions to this new space of communication, and it influences the dynamics of discourse even in here. Technological democratization has given the age-old prejudices a newer and wider audience in an age of political anxieties. The constant and unceasing communication has rigidified opinions into intractable political positions that are often reflective of class, caste, race, and other such biases. There isn't anything shocking about this development but it's disappointing to lose an opportunity to cultivate empathy and understanding to the dictates of contemporary political polarization. For me, it proves that political and social problems of the day influence and shape the content and form of discourse, and there are limits to the 'revolution' that technology per se can usher in.

Afterword

There are a couple of questions I would like to ask before I close this post:

1. To where does the revolution in communication headed towards?
2. What is the role of silence in a discourse?

These are fascinating questions to speculate about but these are for another time.