Valson Thampu

You’ve watched the bhoomi poojan at Ayodhya. Remember the words of Prime Minister Modi? The launching of Hindu Rashtra could not have been made more intelligible than by what he said on the occasion. Ram will be the nucleus of India. Maybe, that unity could go beyond India. Who knows? Expansionism, as Toynbee said, is the familiar face of hubris in history. It is not pride, it’s the empire, that goes before a fall.
The good thing about Modi is that he does not play hide and seek. He is not a hypocrite. I’m told that he lies. I wonder who doesn’t. We are all liars; except that there are liars and liars. Some are more effective and convincing in lying. Others are timid and tentative. I wish they’d stop lying. What’s the use, if your lying doesn’t take you where you wish to reach? There is, by the way, a school of opinion which maintains that lying keeps a person mentally agile. Cute, no?
But, right now, we are on the question of majoritarianism. Lying is relevant to it. But we would be lying if we say that only the proponents of the Hindu rashtra employ this art. We all are in the business of lying. And smartly too. One of our favourite lies is that only the RSS is majoritarian.
Don’t be surprised. I don’t believe that there is anything like majoritarianism per se. If we insist on the contrary, we will mistake the effect for the cause. That doesn’t help very much. Let the cause be cause; and effect, effect. We have plenty of other things to jumble up to make aviyals of confusion. The cause is not majoritarianism. It is power. (And I am not so sure if we are allergic to it). In a democratic set up, power is numerical, till elections are over and done with. Then real power takes over. The corporates kick in. We call this thing democracy.
Did Muslims destroy Hindu temples in the past? Did Christians ill-treat Hindus in Goa? Do the big-wigs of the church crush dissent in our midst? What do you think? Have we improved on the track-record of our great ancestors in tolerating prophets? Why were the prophets stoned and killed? Who did that? Not the majority? Or, is majoritarianism only what others do to us? I say these silly things because it doesn’t help to live in denial. It cannot be that it is right when we do it to others. But it’s horribly wrong, when others do it to us. That doesn’t work; no, not for long. Else, Jesus would not have said, “Do to others what you would that they should do to you.” Or, “With what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.” We are all blooming majoritarians, except that we lack the wherewithal to go marching with it.
That’s not all. There is this other thing about majoritarianism we need to note. Majoritarianism is a function –don’t be surprised- of a vacuum. Hindus always comprised the brute majority in India. Then, why did it take so long for the majoritarian ghost to break loose and roam free? The point is that mere numbers doesn’t –contrary to what I have implied so far- unleash this ghost. Like evil in general, majoritarianism also needs a vacuum to flourish. The paradox is this: the crushing power of majoritarianism is, for the most part, the power of a vacuum. That facility was offered on a platter by UPA-2. (Ten years ago, we weren’t so slick with names; otherwise we’d have called it UPA 2.O. Now UPA-2 sounds pre-historic!). The terrible achievement of UPA 2.0 was the creation of the national carnival of a vacuum.
At risk of sounding heretical and anti-national let me say–nay, assert-that the invincible power of Narendra Modi is the power of a vacuum. I give him full credit for demonstrating to the country that a disastrous vacuum was created by the Congress-led UPA. This is only too obvious. He came to power by ridiculing and deriding the Congress. Modi’s election plank was Pappu. That it was a lie, a mere figment of one’s imagination, did not matter. In a vacuum anything sells, you see? The so-called election promises, we were told later, were made in jest. If anyone expected to be rewarded Rs. 15, 00000 for casting a vote, he is the choicest poltroon in the world.
Nature abhors a vacuum. I learned that in school science more than half a century ago. This thing continued to haunt me. I slowly realized that the principle had a wider relevance. Indeed, it is a cardinal spiritual principle. Jesus taught the same through a parable. Satan is driven out of a person. He does a global race to choose an ideal location for himself. Finds none. Returns to the original site. Finds it, Ah!, empty! Emptiness is, for Satan, red-carpet welcome. He takes violent hold of the former victim! It is the same thing, folks, today. Beware of a vacuum!
Why should be we mind this? Well, that question is, frankly, a no-brainer. Look at us! Paradoxically, we are full, very full. But our present fullness is the fullness of a vacuum. Or, a vacuum fill us. The gravity of this becomes clear when we examine our plight as Christians by the yardstick of biblical spirituality. We don’t do that, for the most part. So, we stay smug. Great, especially if it lasts. Remember, I pray, my school science: nature abhors a vacuum.
In a vacuum, the living feel suffocated. It is not an issue for the metaphorically dead. So, not everyone feels the oppression of it equally. But one day, we shall wake up, and find that the vacuum is filled with forces like our own. There’ll be a difference, though the boots will be on the other the other majoritarian feet. Then we will cry aloud and beat our breasts against majoritarianism. We’ll scour the pages of the Bible and the cellars of theology for imprecatory stuff to blight it. It wouldn’t be easy, though, to convince ourselves majoritarianism crept in through the backdoor of the spiritual vacuum we are busy enlarging. We are doing a good job of imitating UPA. 2.0!
Blessed are those who realize that the seeds of majoritarianism are sown by the minorities. It’s the old, old story, my masters. Sow the wind; and reap the whirlwind. Right now it is the season of sowing. So, go on smiling. Look smart. Pull off your tricks. Have a great time. Thank you.