This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
Walking to my neighbourhood last evening, I was confronted by dozens of garish saffron flags put up on electricity poles in anticipation of the consecration of the unfinished temple in Ayodhya. I don’t know what others feel about this, but the only emotion I could summon up was contempt. Maybe, as a Muslim, I am supposed to feel anger or humiliation, maybe I am supposed to feel betrayed by my country and my friends, but those emotions escape me. My friends have remained true – not just to me, but to the simple ideas of truth and justice – which is why their friendship has always been an honour to have and to hold. A privilege.
My Indianness has been more complex, and a much more difficult privilege. As a child who studied in international schools, I was never allowed to forget it. Whether through outright bullying or merely the reality that I was from a country that was populated by the poor and hungry, I was never allowed to forget that my brown skin meant that I was from a place where cruelty, injustice and inefficiency were rampant. It bred a sort of mulish nationalism, a contrarian prickliness with which I confronted the inhabitants of richer countries.
Being a privileged person from a country of the underprivileged, I am part and parcel of the decision-makers, its representatives. The country cannot betray or fail me, only I can fail or betray the country.
Due to that same logic, I have absolute contempt for the decision makers and the rich who do fail the country, who betray its people and its promise, who are destroying its future. As Narendra Modi consecrates an unconstructed temple built on the debris of a mosque destroyed by bigotry, cowardice, and lies of its politicians, bureaucrats and judiciary I cannot describe in words the total contempt I feel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the consecration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22, 2023. Photo: X (Twitter)/BJP4India.
Amid the hype and hoopla orchestrated by the rich and powerful, we are somehow okay with lying about the fact that millions live without enough to eat properly. We are okay with the fact that the country’s leaders are too cowardly to even admit that our border is threatened by China, that we have lost men and territory. We are okay to ignore the simmering civil war in Manipur; the constant stream of deaths does not disturb us. We are okay to ignore that our education system lies in tatters. We are okay with the tyranny that we inflict on Kashmir, which the pusillanimous Supreme Court justifies under the furtherance of a supposedly democratic constitution. We are okay with the fact that our foreign policy is so full of bombast and boasts that we have become a joke within our own region, much less further abroad. We are okay to lie about our female labour force participation when the world knows that we are the laggards of the region, competing only with Pakistan and Afghanistan for the bottom place.
Ruled by liars and cowards, India has been reduced to being a country where we go to bed praying that our government does not embarrass us further, and yet, inevitably, it does. Being from Uttar Pradesh, the stories of Rama have been with me throughout my life. After all, it is in the forests of Poorvanchal that his sons, Luv and Kush, are supposed to have confronted the godking. One of the central themes of the Ramayana is Rama’s willingness to forego his crown due to the scheming of his stepmother and the thoughtless promise of his father. When his stepmother compels him to go into exile so that her son, Bharata, can rule in his stead, Rama honours his father’s promise made in a time of weakness.
Even when Bharata pleads for him to stay, Rama cannot accept the crown that is tainted by controversy. How ironic then that a temple in his name is being foisted on India that is not only tainted by controversy but by the crime of demolition of a mosque on December 6, 1992 – which even the Supreme Court felt compelled to describe as an ‘egregious violation of the rule of law’
Omair Ahmad is an author and journalist.
A Time of Contempt
13
9
23.01.2024
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
Walking to my neighbourhood last evening, I was confronted by dozens of garish saffron flags put up on electricity poles in anticipation of the consecration of the unfinished temple in Ayodhya. I don’t know what others feel about this, but the only emotion I could summon up was contempt. Maybe, as a Muslim, I am supposed to feel anger or humiliation, maybe I am supposed to feel betrayed by my country and my friends, but those emotions escape me. My friends have remained true – not just to me, but to the simple ideas of truth and justice – which is why their friendship has always been an honour to have and to hold. A privilege.
My Indianness has been more complex, and a much more difficult privilege. As a child who studied in international schools, I was never allowed to forget it. Whether through outright bullying or merely the........
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