Burning Evil

How interesting evil is. It makes all else look good in comparison. Without evil, there would be no concept of good. But can evil exist without good? It is like this: evil does not need something to compare itself with. You can see a wrong as an independent entity, as intent too. The right comes with an inbuilt halo, and there is a tendency to assume that a right thing is also the ultimate truth.

Today, on Dussehra, as the effigy of Ravana is burned, it is seen as a triumph of good over evil. I have attended one Ramlila at Mumbai's Chowpatty beach where the story of Lord Rama's battle with the king of demons is enacted. The costumes are garish, the swords covered with shiny foil. The actors are usually from the villages, and the audience is made up of a largely immigrant population from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. After casting curious glances our way, they were totally focused on what was so obviously over-the-top performances and looked fake, including crowns falling from heads, silky dhotis causing a few falls.

They guffawed not at this, but at the loud monologues, designed to produce just such an effect. For them, it was all believable. Even though the seats were plastic and so were the emotions. Even though they were munching peanuts and hollering out to old acquaintances from their hometowns. Even though they would return to the one-room tenements they shared with ten others and would report next morning to work in houses, from palatial to modest, or drive cars that cost a fortune or were bought on easy monthly installments.

They did not even want to think about how Ravana was quite a scholar, had the strength to move mountains, and that in some ways by kidnapping Sita he was only avenging the honour of his sister Surpanakha whose nose was cut by Rama's brother Lakshmana.

All this was inconsequential to this audience, as it is to most devotees. For those few hours, they believed what they had been brought up to believe. My understanding is that these people would not be communal. They were happy in their pragmatic devotion, their idols, their calendar with a photo of a deity on a peeling wall. They would not feel the compulsion to compare. They had seen the good and the evil within what was theirs. They owned and owned up to it.

I do not think the burning of the Ravana effigy is imperative for them. As a finalé, yes. Nothing more. As a sidelight, I might add that fire is a cleanser, and is used in certain cultures as such. Therefore, would it not amount to purifying evil? But that does not seem to be the purpose. It is an aggressive act. If we do it year after year, does it not reveal that evil does not die...it does not even get burned to toast? What we do is to beat an assumed-to-be-dead horse.

It is a cosmetic moral victory. The evil within, and the struggle to overcome our shortcomings, is sorely lacking. It is a vicarious thrill to watch a gargantuan ten-headed monster, a caricature of all that is bad, afire and turning to ash. Then we return to other caricatures and stereotypes in our heads.

Our walls have no mirrors. Nothing will burn. There will be no flame. No light.

© Farzana Versey

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Image: Painting of Ravana's abduction of Sita, and the bird Jatayu coming to the rescue.

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Who is a bad politician, Mr. Salman Khurshid?

When politicians do some introspection, they are planning to quit their party, or have got wind of being thrown out, or they have decided that a little bit of self-whipping adds a tragic edge to their persona, besides being trumpeted as “plain-speak”.

On Sunday, while addressing bureaucrats on Civil Services Day, Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid elaborated on the subject of 'Civil Services: Fit for the Future?' It was a ridiculously-worded subject, to begin with. Does it mean the services are unfit now, or that they will take over the future?

Let us take his words:

"We can make a civil servant fit but the big question is that how do we get fit politicians? It's my opinion that the electoral system we have is actually inclined to find the worst people for politics. Good people stay away from politics.”

The electoral system does not find politicians; it elects what is on offer. It is political parties that recruit members and then, depending on sycophancy, nepotism and, in rare cases, performance, they manage to get a ticket to political heaven.

As usual, the media started discussing the straightforward Mr. Khurshid, who is not quite the perfect politician himself. It turned out to be a smart move, then, for the FM. He was not critiquing political parties that are the root cause of the problem; he used an amorphous idea of politics with the good-bad moral masala to it. If good people are so important, then why are the ones that are proven to be bad allowed to remain in politics and hold important positions? We have criminals who are granted tickets and even contest from behind bars.

Besides, how does one define good people? Are they capable, are they honest, are they team players, are they individualistic? All these questions apply to any profession. Politics is not even seen as profession. You have businessmen, lawyers, doctors, journalists, film stars, armymen being welcomed. One does not appear to need any qualification other than to “serve the people”. Take a look at how portfolios are handed out. Does the industries minister know a thing about industries? Or, the civil aviation, education, environment ministers? These, as the others, would benefit from some knowledge, if not specialisation. Instead, those who are qualified end up in the Planning Commission or such mindless ‘bodies’.

I also have a problem with this ‘good people’ optimism that is floating around. It is clearly an attempt to get hold of the youth/citizens’ groups, assuming that because they are out in the streets fighting for a cause, their heart is in the right place. Goodness, apparently, is about such ‘heartfelt’ expressions.  

Mr. Khurshid chose a non-political platform, and would not dare name the bad politicians. His words were essentially to co-opt the bureaucrats:

"We stopped trusting each other. Both politicians and civil servants can make mistakes but now every mistake is seen as corruption. We need role models in civil servants and politicians for national renaissance.”

There! All those files and scams are now nothing about “good people”, but how every mistake by bureaucrats and politicians gets magnified as corruption. We do not need role models; we need people who can do their job. We do not need a renaissance; we need to clear the garbage.

There was a point when the minister seemed to have become a priest:

He said the idea of 'committed bureaucracy' in some states with civil servants owing allegiance to a particular party was an unwelcome thing and advised bureaucrats to say no to signing files under political pressure. When asked by a secretary-level officer in the audience that he would pay the price since there would be ten other bureaucrats ready to take his place and sign the file, Khurshid said: "Those ten civil servants will not be remembered in history...only that one will be remembered."

For the information on the ‘good’ minister, bureaucrats have a history of being independently corrupt. Mantralaya, and its equivalents in the states and the Centre, is the first stop for businessmen and others who want to get their work done. The “chai-paani” (a little bribe) phrase starts at the peon level and the “kaam ho jaayega” (the work will be done) is the final nod from the boss. This is where files do the good old in-out.

If it is a big ticket passing of orders, it needs government approval.  It does not matter to the bureaucrat who is in power, but who will make him powerful enough or be ignorant enough to ignore what happens. Mr. Khurshid wanted to make the civil servants feel empowered, but putting the onus on a ‘committed bureaucracy’ is like asking a guy to carry a condom in a whorehouse. It is only about saving one’s skin.

As regards history remembering a bureaucrat, the minister might like to take the names of a few. He will find that their achievements are about what they did for which leader. Perhaps, this whole exercise was to prop up one bureaucrat who became a politician and history will certainly remember – our dear Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

PS: It is worth noting that there is no Politicians Day.

© Farzana Versey