No one can grudge any hardworking person some rest, some downtime. Whether an ordinary mortal or a divinely-inspired being. Most world leaders catch a break during the year, to recover and refresh. We cannot grudge a generally well-deserved hiatus from the business of governing and administration, especially at a national level – probably among the most taxing of roles.
Mr. Modi has chosen to spend quiet time on this occasion, between the end of campaigning and the announcements of election results on June 4th. It is his personal choice, and it would be difficult to find fault with someone electing to immerse himself in the time-honored, nobel tradition of reflection and meditation, rather than, say, something more mundane as a vacation by a beach. Though, one must take note that Mr. Modi did treat himself to a breather at Lakshadweep not very long ago, by the ocean.
This has been a hectic election season, and as the chief and star campaigner for the BJP, miles ahead of anyone else, Mr. Modi has maintained a punishing schedule of campaigning, especially during a scorching Indian summer. One could observe his voice going hoarse towards the end.
One only hopes that in this quiet time, in this space for contemplation, Mr. Modi can take stock of how he has endeavored to convey his message, how he has reached out to the people; people who are citizens of the country, his own praja. Also, why the meditation needs to be televised is another aspect that can be pondered over. One would imagine that solitude – ekanta – and silence would be key aspects of any serious endeavor of inward-reflection, rather than having camera-persons hovering around.
On social media there has been consistent evaluation of many of his statements and claims, which have seemed unapologetically bigoted and many of them completely uninformed and bizzare.
But don’t we cut some slack to politicians, especially in the mental-coherence and general-knowledge departments? We have caricatured Rahul Gandhi over many inopportune and unflattering remarks. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump – and Kamala Harris – in the US have often been caught making incoherent statements.
So, in that vein, we might pardon, with rolled-eyes if needed, the egregious observations regarding Mahatma Gandhi – or even the one in which Mr. Mod felt intimations of some divine connection and inspiration. The former is surely a symptom of weak “GK,” while the latter can possibly be squared with the mahatma-complex that too many people in this country begin to exhibit.
As is said, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and yet others have greatness imposed on them – or, possibly, communicated to them from on high.
From the events leading up to the Ram Mandir consecration and the actual ceremony, one could easily deduce how seriously Mr. Modi had taken all of that to be literally and figuratively God’s work. He had fasted and undergone penance in excess of what was scripturally prescribed. He had summarily dispensed with all ranking religious office-holders, like the Shankaracharyas of the various maths, and taken it upon himself, a ranking political office-holder, to perform the rituals. Leading to a sense of utter helplessness and sidelining of the Hindu clergy, one among whom exclaimed if his role would have been to applaud Mr. Modi had he been invited. Talk of the priestly class being the hand-maiden of the political class.
Such self-anointing is not totally unknown, and surely in the annals of various esteemed journals of psychology, will be found cases of gradual-or-sudden inflated self-esteem and self-image. They might be discussed under symptoms of megalomania, a sense of invincibility and moral infallibility.
Most methods, processes and paths of meditation aim at deeper self-awareness and self-examination. They suggest attempts to shed all layers of illusion and delusion one might have taken on.
One can hope Mr. Modi can also dwell on any instances of false, hurtful and insincere speech that he might have indulged in, even if unselfconsciously. Right Speech, Samma-Vaca, wherein one avoids all manner of hateful, divisive, slanderous speech is one of the teachings of an eminent teacher of India, the Buddha.
It is an integral part of the path to remove distress all around us. Swami Vivekananda would have approved. He observed in his famous speech in Chicago in 1893: “Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth.”
Referring to one’s own people as ghuspaithiye (infiltrators) is a very low blow. It is insulting and accuses a section of one’s own population from a public platform.
Engaging in unsubtle – and unsubstantiated – maligning by accusing Muslims as “they who give birth to more children” – is truly an undignified and irresponsible act.
The context, the frame for viewing the exercise of political authority are the protocols governing the office of the country’s prime minister. As part of that, one hopes there must be a semblance of dignity, equanimity and civilized discourse when utilizing public platforms. As well as, and more importantly perhaps, indications of the joyous embrace of the diverse population one governs.
Instead, what one witnessed were repeated instances of direct name-calling and accusations leveled at the minorities.
One could, maybe, rationalize such loose speech and virulent attacks coming from what was termed “the fringe element” not long ago, in cases of lynchings then rampant in the country. But this “lynching by speech” is coming from the mouth of an elected prime-minister of the country who has been at the helm of affairs in a vastly diverse country as India. Were we wrong about who the “fringe element” was all along?
One would hope that someone with all these years as the leader of the country would develop some awareness of the divergent beliefs and practices of one’s own people. He is also someone who gleefully visits Arab nations and boasts of strong relations with Arab heads-of-state, who all are Muslim.
Yet he seems to forget all that when he climbs on the stage to campaign for electioneering. He seems like a man possessed. He sheds all decorum befitting a national leader and threatens all kinds of punitive action based on unsubstantiated data. He seeks to blame and “other” the minorities of India, and seems to revel in his own characterizations and pronouncements.
He forgets – either consciously out of some hubris or out of some grand sense of historical justification – that he might be addressing a mixed, diverse crowd. He launches straight into the narrative of the 500-hundred-year wait for the Ram Temple, and then demands people tell him if they are not glad that they have had such dreams fulfilled finally.
Sure, one can talk about the Ram Temple as a glorious achievement of one’s term. But pitching it as the righting of a historical wrong is shorthand for exacting vengeance against all those who supposedly caused the loss of the temple in the first place. Such expressions are laden with very dangerous and damning accusations – and they come from a place of unconcealed anger and hate.
One can hope Mr. Modi can find the opportunity to mindfully attend to all that which causes such agitation and angst in him. For what else is meditation but if not confronting one’s own demons and deformities of thought and beliefs?
The samma-vaca – Right Speech – of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path and of course the slogan on our national emblem, Satyameva Jayate, are also parts of a call for truthfulness to oneself.
However, on several recent occasions, especially in interviews, Mr. Modi has seemed to engage in artful denials of making any sort of demeaning, bigoted statements.
Often, when our sense of our righteousness and moral superiority clouds our senses, we stop seeing how we delude ourselves. We allow ourselves to be lulled by our own sense of irreproachability. We deny the unsavory Mr. Hyde aspect of our alter-ego. We forget that when we play god, we could be creating many Frankensteins, including our own transformation to one.
Ananda Maitreya is a writer on social issues
