Creating Diversionary Gods

In one place, Hindutva is trying to create a god out of Ambedkar by continuously shouting that the Congress committed blasphemy against him and on the other hand, it’s jailing Dalit scholars who embody Ambedkar’s intellectual outlook in the public life. This zeal to make Ambedkar a hallowed figure who should have been respected more is a diversionary tactic. Most of our gods serve the same purpose.

Ambedkar was a scholar who once observed drily that both Gandhi and Jinnah had been made demigods by Hindus and Muslims respectively. For him, that kind of personality cult was detrimental to society in general. Now, of course, the question is, can there be any good in this? Gandhi as a representative of a pacifist god who fought against colonial slavery or, Jinnah as a secular god (since that was what he wished for Pakistan after dividing the country in the name of religion), could have made any difference?

We do know that neither of them turned into such gods. Basically, the personality cult is created by the followers and it’s their idea how a person needs to be worshipped that creates the legacy (unlike the godmen/women who create their own personality cults). Many rationalists and social scientists have opined that creating gods has been beneficial for the dominant classes as they could control the common people with a system called religion. However, in many cases, the gods or spirits come from the lower strata of society. How does that fit here?

In my region, we propitiate many spirits whose origins were from lower castes or women who suffered. According to Marxist historians (or at least a Marxist historian from Kerala), it’s a way for the underprivileged castes to create a safe space for themselves from the oppressing privileged castes. We have Kordabbu, a Dalit who suffered because of the casteism becoming a ‘daiva’(spirit) or Siri, a woman who suffered because of the patriarchal (even though the region was matrilineal) oppression becoming a ‘daiva’. Did Dalits and women get their safe space in old times because they had these spirits guarding them? A laughable conjecture. In fact, the privileged caste males had easily assimilated those worship within their religious sphere and actually oversaw them. The worship is not about the suffering but about the miracles or materialist betterment or about the basic fears of infertility and diseases. None of these has anything to do with societal drawbacks that led to the sufferings of those people and which continued to oppress the majority of the population.

Could Kordabbu have been a more effective spirit? What if the power of the spirit was in protecting people who suffered caste oppression or in punishing people for the caste oppression? Would that have put doubts in the privileged caste men? Would that have brought down the caste system?
In the story of Siri, she was conned and made to fend for herself by the menfolk. She was attacked too. However, while she suffered the material loss, she didn’t get raped. She performed a miracle and escaped from the situation (or punished the men). I suppose a tragedy figure because of physical and material suffering was acceptable to become a spirit but getting raped would have made her impure and she would never have been treated as a spirit. I wonder if we have any spirits who were raped. Could they have been effective spirits against the sexual attacks against women? Could Siri have been more effective as a daiva against abusive men?

Neither Kordabbu nor Siri as spirits could change the system that made them suffer in the first place. As I discussed previously, in the folk story of Mangale, she renounced the privileged life to be with her love. However, Brahmanical narrative has turned her into a materialist goddess(who in the earlier days was worshipped as a spirit) for the aspirational class. Whatever might be the origin of these spirits, the later narratives were created by privileged men. Whatever might be the identity and background of those spirits, now they speak the privileged tongue. The privileged men could never understand or identify with the caste or women oppression as they themselves were oppressors and more importantly hugely benefited from it. And for generations they knew that they got away with it, so it’s inconceivable for them that any spirit would punish them for those atrocities. Their fear and desire were related to wealth, health and security which they had, unlike the underprivileged ones.

The Marxist theory that religion for privileged men is a way to control society and for underprivileged people is a way to create a safe space for them is only half-truth. In reality, religious space has always been controlled by privileged men. They allow a token identity for the underprivileged in their sphere to give them an illusion of dignity.

This is the same game plan being played by Hindutvites. Ambedkar’s natural heirs are the intellectuals and scholars of the Dalits. Ambedkar’s true spirit lives in them. However, Hindutva wants to suppress them but wants to create a god out of Ambedkar for the aspirational class Dalits to give them a token identity. I wonder if they will succeed or not.

Random thoughts - Positivity or Wishing Away?

In my opinion, symbolic solidarity should be community-driven events. The government shouldn’t get involved in it. People should show solidarity with the government by following the rules and regulations enforced by it to mitigate a situation. Any symbolism, they should be sceptical.

In any dire situation, you could be one of the three players. A person in power, who needs to make decisions and come up with plans to mitigate the situation. A person not directly affected by it but also has no say in anything. A person who is directly affected by the situation. I would consider the issue of manual scavenging as an example here. 

Mr Modi in his book(now withdrawn) ‘Karmayog’ wrote that manual scavenging could have been a “spiritual experience” for some of the Dalit castes. It is one of the positivity that the caste apologists routinely dispense of.

Manual scavenging is a problem. Wishing away the problem by viewing it in a positive light as a spiritual experience means different things to all those three players.

For a person in power, it’s just shirking responsibility under the guise of hoodwinking positivity. For an unaffected person, it’s a way to feel good about themself by reinterpreting the guilty feeling and imagining it non-existent. For the person affected, that kind of thought is unthinkable(the statement angered many Dalits) or if they are forced to accept that, it shows the total breakdown of their life or total hopelessness of their situation.

That is an extreme example. Normal people might not think in that way. But there are other situations, where people try to channelize positivity in the name of solidarity. But the difference, between the people who have power and the people who don’t, remains the same as in the above example. Italians showing regular solidarity during the crisis which is organized through social media messages or we holding candlelight vigils for our fallen soldiers within our own communities are like second or third group people with no actual power. But if a government does it, it’s a different matter.

We need to show solidarity with the government by being obedient to the laws it enacts to mitigate the situation but we need to be sceptical if the government itself indulges in symbolic solidarity. It’s basically shielding itself from any kind of criticism by equating its inadequacy even with all the power to the common people’s guilt feeling borne out of the helplessness or lack of power. It’s also very evident from the previous solidarity symbolism that people tend to misunderstand it and make the matters worse. The community-wise spontaneous solidarity gestures are still welcome as it doesn’t give additional work to government organizations to clear up other mess that might arise.

Reference:
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/pm-modis-views-manual-scavenging-have-changed-quite-bit-over-seven-years