Author: murali

In our country, today, if you ask me for one most misused / abused word, I would say ,it is the word “secularism” . It is closely followed by communal-ism.

The word secular originated from Latin saecularis or Old French seculer, meaning a generation or an age used to mean this world as different from Spiritual world.  

Today, as defined by any dictionary , say wictionary, it means

Not connected with religious or spiritual matters . Some of the synonyms are non-religious,non-church,temporal,worldly,earthly etc. Some examples are Secular music, secular books, secular building etc.

A secular person is a non-religious person (definitely not someone who attends every iftar and Christmas gathering)

A secular state is a non-religious state . Ancient India did not have a concept of a religious state, so one needs to look at European history to understand what a religious state is. As it happens , even in the present day there are many modern Western States who are bound by constitution / laws to promote a particular faith.    A case in point is the composition of the House of Lords wherein Up to 12 Church of England bishops may sit in the house as ex officio “Lords Spiritual”. (Only the Church of England, mind you, not any riff-raff denomination like Catholic or Presbyterian) In our country, the liberals are up in arms , even when a  person gets duly elected to the parliament or the assembly, if he is religious.

Now , let us see how the religious states evolved to delink religion from state affairs, and in the process “discovered secularism in politics”.

There was a time when the Church was very powerful, more powerful than the kings. It had its own army and a hierarchy of officials for implementing the Lord’s will across the length and breadth of its domain , which was striving to expand forever.

Being  a chess enthusiast, as a child I often wondered what a bishop had to do on  the battle field . Chaturang (the four arms , infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots  under the king and prime minister ) in Europe , had become Chess .( pawns,bishops , knights and rooks under the King and Queen) . Later , I realized , If the Pope had to wield political power, the cardinals and bishops had to go  into the battle along with the Knights. Even now when I look at a chess board I can visualize the Bishops and Knights criss crossing ‘battlefield Spain’ under the directions of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella enforcing the Spanish Inquisition.

Now, let us have a look at the History of India , Ancient or medieval. Buddha or Shankaracharya or any other religious leader did not have  armies like the ones Caliphs and the Popes had. So the idea of a Secular State was inherent in any Hindu Kingdom. Each dynasty had a favorite sect or God , keeping with the idea of Ishta devata. Ups and downs in popularity of a particular sect were more fluid and least violent. While  Mahendra Pallava patronized the Jains more, his son Narasimha Pallava patronized the Shaivites more; but by and large all faiths were promoted and none were persecuted.

The only exception was the Sikhs under Guru Gobind Singh  ; but this army was born to fight oppression rather than for persecution of heretics/ kafirs like the armies raised for crusades or the Spanish Inquisition. Still , a religious army has no place in a modern state and the country has already paid a heavy price  in the effort to contain Khalisthan movement.

We come to 1948.  The Indian Constitution was being drafted ,and  it was proposed by KT Shah  to include the word “Secular ” in the preamble,  and it was Dr BR Ambedkar , who vehemently opposed it. He opposed it, not because he wanted a religious state(opposite of secular is religious , not communal ,we’ll come to it later) , but just found the word superfluous.  Jawaharlal Nehru, who was keen on a socialist state was also happy  omitting ‘secular’  and ‘socialist’.

It was left to his daughter Indira Gandhi to introduce the word in the preamble , that too during the Emergency period ,in 1976.  Why was it introduced ? It was part of the 42nd amendment in a bid to retain power with herself  and her party. The amendment was also called mini constitution as it was quite exhaustive in changes across the board. Mainly, she went after curbing the powers of Judiciary. Clauses like ‘anti national activities ‘ were introduced so that any one questioning her could be booked. The word ‘secular’ was introduced to beat the RW parties with , but even she would never have imagined as to what degree that word would be misused as it is being done today.

Suffice to say that the Amendment was unpopular and was forced down the throat of the nation, under emergency conditions.  As it happens, some of the States who use the word Secular frequently did not ratify the 42nd Amendment; to name a few,  J & K, Kerala and Tamilnadu.

Another joke is that opposite of “secular” is “communal”. Communal society is defined as a society in which everyone lives and works together and property and possessions are shared rather than being owned by a particular person. The community can be based on religion , ethnicity or any other factor.  Living as a non religious community is actually called  secular communalism. Now, try chewing on it.

How do we differentiate  secular from communal in modern India ? A tall order indeed.

To simplify the process, RW community is called communal society while other religious communities are secular communities !!!

Now for some light hearted diversion ……

here’s an article calling bharathanatyam as cutural nationalism

https://thewire.in/books/from-national-culture-to-cultural-nationalism-an-extract-from-on-nationalism

The day when rasam (mulagutawny soup) became brahminical

Can wearing a saree make you communal ? may be it can, as Asgar Qadri in Ny times says it is a symbol of hindu nationalism.

Is bindi secular ? Christian educational institutions don’t think so . They do not let the children sport bindi.  However, for Rana Ayub , a bindi is mandatory to prove her secular credentials.

There are many more questions one finds on  the social media platforms .Just posting a random tweet to have an idea of  the  the line of thinking… There are others tweets debating if idli is secular food  or if  a game of chess is secular ? Then we have a you know who , with a long secular beard lecturing on   the kind of emoticons the secular community can use. As per him,

,  or 

are  haram , thereby meaning not secular.

Finally, a picture which all “secular people” generally agree to be a  truly secular image. Obviously , there seems to be Nothing Religious about it .

It has been learnt from a survey conducted by Harvard University in Collaboration with Fox TV Network that on an average a mobile phone user spends 90% of the air time on Whatsapp or Face-book. Don’t ask me where I got this figure from ; I just thought of it. No worries; just spin it around through Social media apps .Our Whatsapp Warriors (WW) and Face-book Philosophers would forward it on so enthusiastically that it might become true now even if there had been a  doubt earlier.

What would happen if that little curved arrow is not available on Whatsapp ? Well, the traffic on the app will be down by 90%. How can people forward stuff without reading ? How can people pass judgments on stuff they are clueless about ? Why do people forward stuff in languages , they don’t even recognize , leave alone understand ?

Well, to ‘like’ is twice blessed and to ‘forward’  divine.

So much is conveyed with so little vocabulary. The entire vocabulary of a WW is restricted to just two actions; a long press and short press. With this limited vocabulary, you can even  send a plethora of emojis to express yourself. How exciting !

The social media is here to stay. It requires a great degree of patience and detachment to go through others’ posts and sometimes post your own views without the post-delivery pains.

The first time I learnt about the term ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ was in high school physics . When light rays actually meet, it is a real image and when they appear to come from a point, it is a virtual image. An image is an image; what difference does it make if you see it in a concave mirror or a convex mirror. Well we can leave that to the physicists .

The next time I came across the term was in the context of computer gaming,”Virtual Reality” . The term is even more confusing.  After years of involvement in a VR Project I learnt that VR simulates experience through senses and perception. You ‘see’ things which are not there, feel a hit when no one has hit you and so on.

Nowadays one hears a plethora of terms “Perception management” , “Image Projection”, “Optics”, “Image building” and so on. Doesn’t it all amount to creation of a simple Virtual Image or may be an ant throwing up a shadow the size of an elephant ?

Sometimes, I feel , the Real World we live in full of virtual images, where everyone is practicing their own version of perception management in personal and professional Spheres.

Recently, while talking to a finance professional about IPOs, I was amazed to learn about the extent companies  go to ,to project the desired image for success of an IPO. They need to manage ‘TV Channels, Web portals, independent finance consultants, HNIs and so many entities to project a favorable image. This of course is in addition to window dressing of balance sheets  and cooking up of accounts through highly paid bean counters.

Cinema is the domain of dream merchants selling virtual images , but they too resort to image projection to sell the make-believe world they produce.  And publicity tours by stars have reached absurd levels. Simply can’t imagine Rajesh Khanna or Hema malini doing a blitz tour of schools and colleges to promote their movies. Nor can one imagine writers Kalki or RK Narayanan bombarding the world with Tweets and face-book posts to promote their books.  It is not just actors  and writers who need image projection, but even doctors,lawyers and teachers need to project their images and these are professions where ethics forbid any advertisements.

The matrimonial columns in newspapers and matrimony platforms on visual media are the ultimate exercises in maximum image building at minimum costs. The stakes are also high here.

So, be it TV, Newspapers, Social media friends and the ‘real’ people around , all seem so virtual.

Ironically, it is only during interaction with  on-line strangers that I get a feel of interacting with real people.  The financial transactions on-line are so real and honest, though money doesn’t really change hands in the literal sense. While playing chess online with absolute strangers, I can sense the feelings of triumph or frustration of  my opponent. Even the Google translated chats in a foreign language appear more real than interactions with some friends on the face book. What is social media but ultimate form of Narcissism and playing to the gallery.

When the real world is saturated with virtual images, one looks to the virtual world for some reality.

Which way to go when you need a shrink for growth !

Mental health is not just about abnormal psychology, but it covers the whole gamut of issues that makes a person happy and productive. I remember reading a Tamil book on psychology the title of which roughly translates to “Some are inside; some outside” . The book is a series of case studies, where the first part deals with patients in a lunatic asylum and the second part about socially acceptable people from all walks of life. The studies goes on to show that people from the latter category are as abnormal as the former the only difference being that their peculiarities are dismissed as harmless idiosyncrasies.

India is no place for people needing  mental health-care. Any violent cases are physically retrained and kept away from the eyes of the society. People with mild to serious problems not leading to violence  are considered absolutely normal and they go about their day to day life, as long as they can fulfill certain criteria. A child is OK as long as he or she gets good marks(or grades as called in the West) in school. Habitual lying, extreme laziness, reluctance to interact with other kids or whatever other abnormalities would be condoned as long as the marks keep coming. In fact the parents find ingenious ways to defend every shortcoming. A child scared of jumping into a swimming pool or riding  a bicycle would be called a cautious type and the kid who wouldn’t talk to other kids, a reserved type. So is it with adults. A man who can earn a livelihood, and a woman who can keep a job or run a household may be absolved of any form of mental illness.

Can we define a mentally normal person ? Very subjective definition it would be. An adult should be able to develop himself or herself to be fully self-dependent physically, mentally and financially. The person should be in a position to realize  her full potential or for self-actualization as in Maslow’s theory of hierarchy. Most importantly he  should not be emotionally dependent on others for his very survival. Loneliness is a legitimate and socially acceptable ruse to become an emotional parasite on parents ,spouse or children.  I don’t suggest that  everyone should stay alone , but I feel one should develop such a capacity for self dependence that would lead to healthy inter-dependence  and a win-win situation in a relationship. Lastly , one should be mentally strong enough to face the myriad challenges that life throws at you in personal and professional fields.

In the West people are generally encouraged to get out of harmful relationships or work environment. By harmful, I mean not very conducive to physical or  mental health. Here, most people are virtually locked into an environment at home or the work-place.  Till the last generation, one joined a profession or a company to retire from that profession or organization at 60. Job hopping was generally looked down upon.  At home, not one or two, but three generations lived together , be it a nurturing or abusive relationship.

I am reminded of kahil Gibran’s words

Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

In India , we don’t talk about Oak and Cypress but a family or a clan is likened to a clump of banana trees , one taking root from the other and feeding on the other and has just one identity as a clump.

Now that clump is falling apart and the individual identities are being recognized , the warts are  also show up. It is only recently that terms like depression, OCD and neurosis are being talked about. Obviously, it does not mean that people did not suffer from these maladies earlier.

So how did people cope up ? Going to a psychiatrist was neither a socially accepted option nor was it financially viable. One just looked to friends and religion for solace. May be that is the reason every part of the country had a place for all kinds of religious figures. (God-men somehow does not feel right). In a way, these holy men and women , though not trained for this role had some sort of  ability to identify mental problems and provide some comfort to the troubled souls. Of course , in an unregulated field there is bound to be exploitation  of  the willing victims.

Depression and Neurosis apart, , mental well being should be seen as , not just staying away from trouble, but to consistently evolve into a better person, to grow mentally and spiritually. We see many children and adults stuck in such environment at home and at work place where their spirits are constantly under assault, their talents are not allowed to bloom and fun goes out of their lives. Their lives are spent in monotony and mediocrity.

It is only of late , we have counselors appointed at schools for advising students and parents. This  is prompted by the spate of suicides by students failing in exams., rather than to help good students perform better. There is such a stigma attached to being counseled that no student wants to be seen outside the counselor’s room.

Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experience mental illness in a given year. For details click here. That’s an alarming figure.  From the data one  can either deduce that , it was indeed  a mentally sick society,  or one can also  see it  as a society that caters to the needs of mental health care for all to live  a happy and productive life; a society not willing to accept mediocrity.  Here again , welfare states spend more time, effort and money on preemptive health care. That is where  rights of children assume great significance.

Today, we are moving towards the West in every aspect ; language , food, clothing, music and so on. Oats and orange juice are replacing the traditional puri or idli for breakfast. Parents actually restrain  children from speaking in an Indian language; sadly so. Why can’t we get something good from the west ? Why can’t we look at mental health care as a need for overall development of a child or an adult , with no stigma attached to psychotherapy ?