A few days ago I decided to drive my vehicle on the day of a strike (harthal) to do some urgent business. The leader who knew me and stopped me said: Swamiji, do you have no sense to drive on the day of a harthal?! I replied: The problem is I have more than enough sense to assert my freedom of using a public road which no one has a right to stop me from using it. Gandhiji (the father of the nation) would never allow it. This is violence you are engaging in. Violent stopping of all work and movement, and the virtual shut-down of the entire state cannot take place in a democracy. Of course his argument was that he had a right to strike precisely in the name of democracy and force the strike on others and paralyze the entire state no matter what others who disagree with him think, no matter if his demands are reasonable. As his followers surrounding my jeep were getting antsy and restless, and as their leader was as irrational, arrogant, and prone to violence as his leaders in the legislative assembly who declared the strike to begin with were, I had no non-violent choice but to turn my jeep around, park it, and walk to my destination hoping the jeep would be safe when I return. This time I was not as lucky as the time a few years ago when I had arrived from the US after a long stay (thirty-two years), and drove gleefully across the state without anyone stopping me on a day of harthal for about four hours on traffic-free roads to keep an inauguration and chief guest function I was invited for. Last night (July 17, 2013) I was forced to drive at night on ghat (mountain) roads in heavy monsoon down-pour to reach my head quarters in Munnar as the following day is a day of another harthal. In a country that is reeling from poverty, diseases, floods and other devastations, do we need these mad harthals dominated by anti-social hoodlums?!

             In my recent journey across the state I heard another painful but true story. In a devout Catholic Christian family in Kerala there were five sisters and a brother. The brother was much younger in age as he was born very late and unexpectedly. The parents did not think they would have a male child. Some years after he attained majority, he expressed his desire to get married. Now his mother is gone, only his very aged father alive. His sisters and their husbands colluded to get him declared mentally insane so they could share the entire ancestral property among themselves. They did not think he was fit to marry. He went to the parish priest to get the necessary document (kuri) for a Catholic marriage. The priest denied it. He asserted that he would go for a registered court marriage. The priest gave a veiled threat cautioning him against it as he has a very old father who needs to be buried in the church cemetery according to church regulations and Catholic customs of the area. I have personally known a young man with some mental problems living in a structured but physically free environment tell me that his home visits even are not welcome because his family thinks that his visits would come in the way good matches for the marriages of his siblings. I was appalled to hear about this dark, cruel, medieval situations.

             When many politicians are indulging in anti-social activities, when some priests are callous to the plight of ordinary people and are helpless and even anti-social themselves, are we far away from anarchy? When the ordinary persons I meet with have lost faith in their political and religious leaders, and suffer from a pernicious kind of depression coming from learned helplessness to use the expression of a famous psychologist, I see the powerful ingredients of a violent revolution. Now many politicians do not have the value system or the stamina for politics with principles. The corruption-ridden politics is in disarray. Many religious leaders do not have the credibility. Moreover, they do not have the willingness to come out of their narrow vested interests to join hands with persons of good will for an ethical, moral, and spirit-guided society to effect a minimum plausible program in a multi-cultural, multi-religious society. The judiciary has the bark but not the bite. When the chief minister or the prime minister is constantly challenged, and when civil parliamentary procedures are mercilessly and violently disrupted, the nominal executive, that is the governor or the president, sits helpless tied down in bureaucracy. Looks like we are on a slippery slope to anarchy. I, for one, strongly believe, the dark forces in the horizon cannot snub out the bright rays behind the dark clouds. Let us all work together before it is too late. Let us instill hope; let us wipe out fear from our face. Arise and awake literate Kerala! Arise and awake India. Your time has come to awake into a new awareness.

Globalization of Indifference

            Recently referring to the plight of refugees from North Africa at the door steps of Europe, Pope Francis spoke about the globalization of indifference, an apt term to describe the callousness, insensitivity, and the growing lack of concern for others in suffering in our age. We have become so used to the news of unspeakable, atrocious crimes that we have become numb. The news hungry media has lost their moral role and social conscience to present news-worthy items in order to thoughtfully reflect, conscientize, and enlighten the public through pungent and thought-provoking editorials and articles about the pathetic condition and suffering of humanity to create changes for a better world. Instead they focus on anachronistic news items and sexy salacious, irrelevant reports to seduce the world to buy their publications and other wares. Today (July 24, 2013) the biggest item on the menu of the media headlines going around the world scene is the birth and the consequent naming of the child of prince William in England. That the news media cater to our voracious appetite for sensational news, and our penchant for titillation and momentary entertainment is itself a sad commentary on the status of humanity. In fact a good bulk of news is produced by the media. In a world where the medium is the message, to quote Marshall McLuhan, Pope Francis stands out as a beacon of hope to high-light the condition of the poor and the disadvantaged even though his message is not widely disseminated by the media.

             What happened to the Parable of the Good Samaritan of Jesus Christ where every suffering human is our neighbor, our brother or sister who is desperately in need of our help for sheer survival. I remember years ago when I helped educate two very poor girls to become registered nurses in my village of origin. They belonged to a different religion and community from mine. One of the girls also had a severely alcoholic father who virtually abandoned the family. Their community at that time was in great tension with my relatively well-to-do community of origin in the context of a very dilapidated and abandoned little religious shrine (kavu) of theirs that happened to be in the property of a land-owner of my community. There was communal polarization in the village, and a contingent of police had to camp in the village to avoid violent conflicts. A few of my relatives did not appreciate my financial assistance for those girls in abject poverty in order to lift them out of the deep pit of poverty. They thought they could use that money themselves. They were not persuaded by my argument that those innocent girls needed a break in life, and it was not their fault that they were poor or one of them had an alcoholic father, who wasted whatever little money he had on alcohol, and that my mission in life was not to make my relatives, who had enough to live on, richer. They were like most others in the world were engrossed in their immediate needs and desire for more wealth. Then are we our brother's/sister's keepers? Are we so immunized from being affected by persons in dire need? Are we so insensitive, and indifferent to the precarious situation of others?!