The Ancien regime and Anna

On Tuesday morning, a group of teachers of the Political Science Dept, decided to take the students across to the Ram Lila Maidan. Would this effort have been made if Ram Lila Maidan was not across the road from where they teach, Zakir Hussain College? Am not sure really.

The students stood around the dais, from where Anna was not visible. news channels sniffed out that they were students and predictably pestered them about why they support and why not. Anna, we were told that, is inside, and today's Indian Express reports that backstage there is a bathroom and a small rest room. So I suppose that's where 'they' were. The team.

The reports which I had heard and read about appeared to be accurate. There were indeed a large number of volunteers. I was led to the women's cordoned off area, where a lot of women, not the university or the activist type, sat. There were a lot of people clowning around too, much to the satisfaction of the media. A 'shiv believer' indulged in an hour long dance. and a man stomped by clanging a plate with a spoon. Buffonry yes, malicious not.

But what surprised me the most, was this unianimous suspicion voiced by my colleagues, in the staff room, in the newspapers, by Pratap Bhanu Mehta who tried so hard to be radical in yesterday's editorial, but no matter how hard he tries, he is as conformist as it gets see (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/fix-the-holes-in-the-house/835536/).

Who is funding Anna?
This does not represent 'civil society'.
The corporates are backing this.
This is 'too middle class'.
What is his agenda?
Does the youth know that Anna believes that liquour should not be consumed (Tavleen Singh in the Express).
Is this 'the people' (Arundhati Roy in the Hindu?)
This is blackmail.
People will start sitting like this for every bill.

The consensus stems from the academic world, who decide to write off this phenomenon which is galvanizing everybody. At this point, it does not matter whether Anna is being funded or not (everybody is funded) or whether he believes in drinking or not (he is not the next Manu, so we need not worry). Nor does this Ram lila maidan protest in any way, belittle the protests and struggles of others. Whether is secular or not. Is shouting Inquilab Zindabad the surest test of secularism. Is the singing of bhajans a blanket indicator that Anna is in arms with the RSS?

The point is that there is a new grammar of politics. and the ancien regime is not learning the new lingo. Sonia, who my plumber believes has 'run away' to the US is not missed. Frankly, I do not see what she would have done either. Nor does her son have much to say about anything anyway.

And in the meantime, after college when I decide to go to Teen Murti library, I am rudely told that its closed, as the Prime Minister is visiting. what can one say to that now?

The Colours of Opposition?

On a gray and breezy morning, a thick and orange crowd of people were collecting outside Ramlila Maidan. This was the ninth of August. and the occasion was a demonstration of the right wing Opposition. The crowd was male, mostly. and as they ambled past the gates of Zakir Hussain college in their mass printed orange T-shirts, policemen in khakhi brown uniforms hovered around. They didnt look worried. or concerned. They were just there. Huge banners had been strung around the maidan. Most of them had Anurag Thakur, in a black Nehru jacket, looking into the distance with an outstretched arm. He looked unconvincing and unconvinced in this exercise. Thats where the oppposition falters in this state. They remain diffident and unpersuaded in the cause that they uphold. and that 'unconviction' speaks loudly. Most loudly, when they wear their orange t-shirts and collect on a gray and breezy day.

Inside the classroom, as the students settled in, I could hear cries of Bharat Mata ki jai from across the road. The students were unperturbed. A few smiled cautiously, the way they always do. they are shy, and sometimes diffident. (but I have noticed, that when I remember their names and treat them with the respect that they deserve, a certain light begins to shine in their eyes.

The lecture began. The year is 1914. The first world war breaks out. and after Germany invades Belgium, the true offensive begins. The soldiers in the French army, Michael Howard tells us, wore scarlet trousers. The colours of the revolution, or atleast, one of them. They wore them to their detriment, as the count of the dead would later reveal. but the tradition of politicizing colours persists.

And finally, I picked Lessing's To Room Nineteen from the library.

the wars within and the wars out there

Friday morning. Nine O clock class. a general discussion on Realist scholars scheduled. I had asked the third year undergraduate to read about three of them: Carr, Morganthau and Waltz. At nine, I find seven students waiting. The weather this morning is not torturous and from this tiny classroom on the third floor of the building, a heavy and sweet breeze flow. the students however, are unprepared and unrepentant.

I walk out. after an agitated outburst, of course. but a minute later, am plagued by dilemmas on whether I should have reverted to a lecture which would have meant, again, that passivity, which I am trying to combat. I decided, that it was right. and on Monday morning, again at nine, we shall see if this worked or not.

I spent this hour instead, in the library, where I read Martha Nussbaum's The Class Within, where she examines the emergence of the right wing in India. Of course, we know that Martha teaches at the Divinity School at Chicago University. Very very impressive. and the radiates with a certain alarm at the rise of bjp and especially the february 27, 2002 incident in Gujarat which resulted in the genocide. I cannot complete the book, but I get a general idea of the book which is not new of course. The college bell rings, and I have to deliver a lecture on the outbreak of the first world war.

All the textbooks, start off with the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand. It is so typical of modern history to want to emperically identify, a time, a date, a place. and just like the Sabarmati express, the assasination is not event. its a manifestation of an unignorable intent. A deep desire which transcends time and space. but results in blood and war.

I showed them pictures of Kaiser Wilhelm II. and they were taken in by the fancy headgear with the eagle on the top. and their eyes widened when I told them why he holds his left hand in his right. but the moment of serendipity took place on the bus home, when I was reading Siddharth Mukherjee's terrific, terrific account of a terrifying disease. and on page 85, Wilhem II swims to the surface, just when I thought I had left him in room no. 312: In 1908 the Kaiser invites Ehlrich, the man who has discovered 'special affinity' to a private audience in his palace to enquire if he has a cure for cancer. The king is a hypochondriac, but doesnt have the patience to listen to Ehlrich's stories of his chemicals and the possibilities they hold. 'he cut the audience short'. thats the last we hear of the Kaiser. what we do hear is the monstrous use of mustard gas, which forces soldiers eyes shut and in agonizing pain. and here I sit in my home, thinking that this comfort is real, and that pain of the seraing mustard gas is far away in time. Its not. the comfort of home is as fragile as the possibilities of peace.

We dont live in 'interesting times'. Not anymore.