As we celebrate yet another Independence day I am enveloped in a feeling of dread, a fear that my life is a precarious one. I may not be economically in a state of precarity, but I live in fear of being mob lynched, of being hunted down as the Other, of my state turning into a vengeful entity bent upon destroying me, my family and my whole world. I fear the technology that eases my existence will be used against me. I fear my words will be cherrypicked and used to unleash violence against me. I do not see a benevolent state – I see a vengeful state that demands from me absolute subservience – absolute obedience- complete surrender to the state that is evolving into a force of power with the ability and the will to destroy its own people.
Thoughts that mire my life on the day of Independence are not bright, optimistic ones. I remember my childhood friend cautiously expressing her fear as her son grows up in this toxic environment. She says: “I am scared. I am not a practicing Muslim, but people around me see me not as a doctor, not as a daughter/mother/wife, not as a woman. They speak to my religious identity as a Muslim. When my fellow doctors do the same, when conversations are about us and you, I shudder with fear. I am scared my son will grow up with the trauma of alienation and fear”. Independence Day then becomes a profoundly sad day reminding me that hatred seems to prevail over compassion.
Independence Day reminds me of Gandhi’s clever strategy of walking through the length and breadth of the country, to establish a sense of solidarity among the people, most of them illiterate and ignorant and divided in multifarious ways. I remember my grandfather talking about walking several miles to have a glimpse of the leaders who sought to stand by and sacrifice their youth for independence. If these yatras were meant to unite people then, in contemporary times, yatras are nightmares. As they pass by, especially the religious ones, they unleash violence and aggression. They are accompanied by strict rules demanding closure of businesses of minority communities, and they become tropes for a display of power. Yatras divide and polarize an already fragile ecosystem and the schisms are growing wider each day.
This Independence Day reminds me of my role as a teacher. As early educationists spoke of education and its transformative role in turning a society into a democratic one, I envision my classroom as a space for critical engagements and debate. Yet, as of now, I fear to initiate such discussions. My students, who are fed on fake news and half-baked truths and pseudoscience, are no longer aware of the noble objectives of education. They do not see their classrooms as spaces for learning and evolving, for them, they are merely steps towards a career. Hence any discussion on social processes is viewed with indifference or with caution. It is no longer about constructive conversations, about shaping sensibilities of citizens, of building a culture of proactive communication and interventions in the democratic processes. It is more about disciplining the body and mind to be obedient subjects to the hegemonic class enjoying the fruits of power. With capitalism as the flavor of the season, state has evolved into the enabler, the sidekick that ensures the victory of the exploiting class, be it in the form of exploitation of labor, or natural resources.
So, for me, this Independence Day is not a day for celebration, it is a day to retreat, to embrace silence, to renounce my hard-earned abilities to discuss and deliberate. It is a day to remind myself that I am a minority that dares to see and hear hatred percolating into society. I am the few who cringes as the majority engage in the violent and garish display of toxic, aggressive violence while a section of society hide and tremble with fear, or leave their homeland for good.
Swapna Gopinath,Associate Professor, SIMC, Pune
