In Valmiki's Ramayan Sita asks how a 'monkey' like Hanuman can be connected to human beings.
Anyone who has ever genuinely immersed themselves in Ramcharitmanas will recognise the singular poignancy of one moment in the Sundarkand where Hanuman meets Sita.
Sita was neither the hostess of a cocktail party nor was she interested in 'meeting people'. She was meditating upon Lord Rama in a manner univocal with His own meditation upon Her.
I have previously pointed out that Mehta does not understand that, in Hinduism, substance can act on substance. Grace is efficacious. Moreover reciprocal meditation even between Deity and devotee is commended. If, through shradda, devout Faith, one thing can be known unequivocally, then reciprocity obtains otherwise kaivalya is not univocal. For completeness to obtain there must be a Henkin 'witness' or certification. This itself gets rid of the supposed Vrishakapi 'scandal' or 'enigma'. The least marked reading of Veda shows the theistic solution is non-arbitrary- i.e. the vidhi is unique, 'natural' and unambiguous though the arthavada is quite gorgeously suggestive.
We are welcome to say nothing can be known completely, till kaivalya, and follow the Jain path with our heart and soul. However, in that case Jain 'shradda' is a 'Tarksian primitive'. But, in at least one respect, it must not be. Why? Otherwise Jainism can't get minority status- which we all want. For what reason? Because Jainism hasn't just been good for Jains. It has been good- very very good- for Hindus of the ordinary sort who must perforce put their Faith in Grace because (in my case) we are not fit to be 'strivers' by reason of stupidity, ignorance, sloth, gluttony etc.
I suppose, being an Indian Socioproctologist, I should try to say something erudite about Delueze's 'Minor' at this point. I suppose the canonical place to start would be by pointing out that “vyatireko viśeṣaścedupamānopameyayoḥ” does not mean hierarchical difference at all. Nor does it mean 'exclusion' or 'enmity' in the traditions of either Religion. But Mehta, in the grip of stupidity and ignorance, is trying to create such enmity.
Hanumanji first drops down Rama's ring and only utters sound, singing the praises of the Lord, once Sita Devi is assured that it belongs to her husband. The ring is like the 'Lakshman Rekha'. The devotee is always secure within such an enclosure howsoever small. However, the occassionalist metaphysics of the Epics must continue to unwind for the stated soteriological purpose. The relevant shloka is considered the 'bija' of the entire epic.
Mehta appears completely ignorant of all this. It seems he has read a comic book. Where others see 'maryada bhakti', the cretin sees 'poignancy'.
Until that point the story is hurtling towards disaster.
No. Every couplet has soteriological value dispelling 'disaster' of all types.
Sita has been abducted. Ram is distraught and unsure of himself. But the moment Hanuman meets Sita is the point at which the epic turns; the confidence that order will be restored reappears.
This is nonsense. Sita herself represents the univocal cosmic principle. She is not inferior in any way on account of gender or status. Maryada bhakti is not hierarchical. It does not feature stereotypes. Mehta thinks this is an adventure story featuring a damsel in distress.
Hanuman drops Ram’s ring from the tree. Sita experiences contradictory emotions: Joy at recognition of the ring; fear about what its presence might mean. (In Tulsidas’s rendition: Harsha vishaad hridya akulani). Sita is thinking many things.
In Valmiki, Rama's mixed emotions at reunion each has causal efficacy. Affects are effects for the Godhead but, for the incarnation the reverse is the case. What is notable is the esoteric pyshology underpinning that emulsion of emotions.
Tulsidas's metaphysics is more explicitly occassionalist than Valmiki's because the adhyatimic Ramayana had become so well known in the intervening period. On the other hand, one may speak of a meta-nominalism or onomatodoxy of a type which sublates ontology.
Suddenly Hanuman’s words of reassurance break out as he identifies himself.
Hanuman sings the praise of the Lord. Mehta misrepresents Tulsi because he does not know the first thing about bhakti doctrine.
In all musical renditions, whether by Channulal Mishra or the underrated version by Mukesh, the gentle line “madhur vachana bole Hanumana (Hanuman spoke, his words like honey)”, always stops you in your tracks.
Has Mehta stopped in his tracks? No. He has more stupid shit to get off his chest. Why? He is not a devotee. Why should he be? He has a perfectly good religion of his own which denies the efficacy of Grace. He is welcome to rise up by the proper study of his own Scripture. Why is he mangling a Hindu text? He says it is because Hinduism is 'hurtling off an abyss'. But Amit Shah is a Jain. Let Mehta criticise Shah by drawing on their common Scriptural texts. Why shit on Hinduism? Is it so that ordinary Hindus like me will be able to see that the enemies of Hindutva are also enemies of the simple theistic Hinduism of the masses?
Its power is not just the simple poetry but the magical calm it produces, an almost irresistible effect that, for a moment at least, bathes you in gentle reassurance and bliss. That moment is itself the deliverance from all worry, and from evil.
But a 'momentary' deliverance has no soteriological value. Bhakti marga delivers ultimate salvation. For a Saivite, there is no doctrinal reason to say that hearing Tulsi can't generate a jivanmukhta.
Mehta has severely missed Tulsi's message. What is the result? He tells a stupid lie.
It is a measure of our perversion as a society that Ram and Hanuman are now tropes to prepare the ideological groundwork for pogroms.
The 'ideological groundwork for pogroms' arises out of an evil imputed to its victims. Jews were accused of killing Christian children for some religious purpose of their own. That was the excuse for 'pogroms'. In the case of communal conflict in the subcontinent, retaliation for some act by the other community is the normal justification. However, as Iqbal said the real reason was economic 'zaminbhook'- 'land-hunger'. The problem here is that riots are associated with claims and counter-claims which have to be investigated by the police. If the police are themselves attacked and there is a history of organized crime in the area then Mehta type hysterics are out of place. There is a genuine Law & Order problem which needs to be resolved. If the Municipal Corporation is starved of cash because the Assembly is dominated by another party and if the C.M gets votes by bribing voters then a political vacuum may exist. Corporators have no money and no bureaucratic clout to get things done in the locality while the ruling party in the Assembly stays away from the locality. This is the situation we see in Jahangirpuri. The Center is bringing in a measure to restore the position of the Corporation but the underlying problem will remain so long as the C.M hopes to gain from this type of strife.
A quite separate point has to do with organized crime. One of the accused in the Jahangirpuri owns a high end BMW and has a thriving scrap metal business in Haldia, West Bengal. Clearly, Mamta's goons are diversifying and moving into new territory. It remains to be seen whether Kejriwal will support this type of expansion. It is notable that Maulana Madani considers the events there to be a product of the breakdown of Law & Order. It is clear that there was a criminal conspiracy with some political clout. Kejriwal needs to put his house in order.
It is a measure of the perversion of Mehta's mind that he condemns only one, not both, the religions involved though he belongs to neither. This is blatant bigotry aimed at only one community. Notice Mehta does not say 'Lord Ram' or 'Lord Hanuman'. As a Jain he may have different beliefs from Hindus in this regard. But, precisely for that reason, he has no locus standi to say anything about Hindu society. Let him frankly confess the shortcomings he thinks are peculiar to Jain Society. Why should Hindus lend credence to his claims when it is obvious he does not understand the Tulsi Ramayana which he himself quotes?
The communal frenzy that has accompanied Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti,
Were no other religious events occurring at the same time? Why is everything the fault of Hindus? Is it because Mehta is a Jain and hates a rival religion? Perhaps he would feel happier in Pakistan. His ancestors come from Jodhpur. The Maharaja of Jodhpur, Hanwant Singh, did flirt with Jinnah in 1947 but acceded to India. This may greatly grieve Mehta who is stuck in a country where he disapproves of the religion of the majority of the people.
spread across several cities, should leave us in no doubt about the direction in which India is headed.
It is the same direction it has been headed in since 1946.
On the surface, the narrative circulating in society is simple “Hindus were taking out processions celebrating festivals. We were asserting our right. We got pelted by stones or worse. The minorities are responsible for this. It shows Hindus are not safe nor do they have space in their own country”. And then the ominous “We need to get rid of them.” This narrative is designed to feed the most contrived sense of Hindu victimhood. This is an old playbook.
It is the playbook of the Constituent Assembly which decided, in 1948, to restrict the return of Muslims who had fled across the border. Non-Muslims were resettled on land taken from Muslims. This happened in Delhi and Haryana and Punjab and Rajasthan. If Mehta is a scholar, he must be aware of this. The plain fact is that minorities get the worse of any communal conflict anywhere in the sub-continent. However, in neighborhoods where they become majorities the process is reversed. This may not matter to the affluent. It is a matter of life or death to those in 'resettlement' colonies or other marginal spaces.
What should give us nightmares is
the fact that India is as poor as shit. There will be increased conflict over land and water and jobs and so forth. Religion provides a basis for mutual self-defense- or aggression. Good governance- having Corporators and Assemblymen on the spot who can resolve problems quickly and enable the administration to build capacity- can solve the underlying problem. Mehta can't. He is too stupid. He hates Hinduism because he does not understand that Hinduism, unlike Jainism, is a theistic religion. People worship Lord Rama for a purely soteriological reason. Mehta may not like this but it is a fact. He is wrong to say that Hindus only utter 'Jai Sri Ram' because they want to conduct pogroms.
this. The simple fact is that this narrative is very widespread.
No. Muslim people are not selling up and moving out of India- at least not to the same extent as Hindus are. Why? They know Mehta is telling lies. Law abiding Muslims are safe in India to the same degree that law abiding Hindus or Christians or Marxists are safe.
All the arguments that we used about majoritarian communalism in India no longer hold. Its logic is no longer merely instrumental (as if that is not bad enough), that will pass with election cycles. It is no longer episodic where we can take reassurance that it will somehow pass of its own accord. It is not local in nature, but has taken on a national character. The orgies of hate and prejudice are not aberrations. They are now the norm. They are the norm because the highest levels of political authority, including the prime minister, by silences or dog whistles, condone it. They are the norm because elites openly spout it, without shame. They are the norm because being communal in some ways has become almost a necessary condition of political advancement and is fast becoming the default common sense of civil society.
All this happened in 1946. There was a vast exchange of population. Mehta did not get the memo. He has been living in a fantasy land all these years. The fact is there has been a 'War on Terror' in which 1.3 million people of a particular religion have been killed. Why did that happen? Was it because of Hanuman Jayanti?
But what is more ominous is this. Think of what might happen to a society whose dominant religious sensibility literally inverts everything of value.
Instead of worshipping in temples, people smash those temples. Is that what Mehta means?
Religion has often been misused and put to grossly perverse and violent uses.
Mehta tried to have perverted sex with the Mormon Religion. Things got violent.
But can you think of another occasion in the history of modern Hinduism where everything sacred has become ominous, forms of worship have become fearsome, singing and text weapons, acts of public piety menacing, a sense of community murderous, and any talk of decency or civilisation constraining?
There has been no such occasion in the past or the present or the future. Mehta is a hysterical liar. He has lost all contact with reality. His continuous attempts to kidnap, decapitate, and then sodomize the eye-sockets of Mormonism does not show that the Jain religion has become a blood thirsty and sexually perverse. We know this because Amit Shah is not emulating Mehta in any way.
That is the fearsome image the organised mobs that masquerade as religious processions now evoke.
The true reason Mehta was sacked by Ashoka is because he would masquerade as a religious procession while decapitating and sodomizing the eye sockets of Mormonism.
Let us be very clear.
Mehta fucks the eye sockets of Religions which he decapitates. That's so not cool, dude. Just take it up the ass saying 'You Tarzan. Me Jain' like others of your ilk.
This new form of Hinduism you are seeing unfolding is not
the crazy shit Mehta is seeing. Our new form of Hinduism tech-savvy. The internet has given us instantaneous access to wonderful expositors of our religion. Also we are becoming more adventurous and going on pilgrimage to different places and also learning about other sects and practices. This is a good thing.
an expression of genuine pride and piety. It is meant to be a raw assertion of power and violence to intimidate minorities.
Strangely, many European nations have citizens who say they feel intimidated by certain minorities. Of course, this may be because Mehta visits those countries and mugs and rapes lots of people there.
It is meant to literally extract reaction (even one photograph will do), that can be used as a pretext to construe all minorities as a threat.
Jains are a minority in India. Mehta definitely feels threatened. He resigned from Ashoka. Now the Hindus are out for Mehta's blood, Biden should take action. Some Ivy League College should give him a sinecure.
The number of seemingly well- meaning people for whom stone-throwing on threatening processions can become a vindication of the deepest prejudices against minorities is truly alarming.
The number of seemingly well-meaning American people for whom 9/11 was a vindication for the killing of 1.3 million Muslims did not alarm Mehta at all.
It is the one factoid they are looking for to sustain their insidious lie that Hinduism will not be safe unless minorities are shown their place if not erased.
Mehta enjoys nothing more than being pelted with stones. Why are some Hindus objecting to the practice?
This was the mission and the aggressive processions accomplished that. It sustains the insidious lie that the murderous perversion of modern Hinduism, now sustained by state power, is entirely reactive; a belated self-assertion against a minority that dominates us, rather than what it is: Increasingly a drive to violence and cruelty.
Mehta may not be aware that people of all religions or no religion at all band together to kill or chase away those who try to kill them.
Writing on communalism has become a futile act.
Mehta's shtick is futile- that is true enough.
Who is it addressed to? Certainly not the state whose ideological practices and power fuel the crisis in the first place. Not civil society, because there is not much of civil society left. Not religious groups. To the votaries of new Hinduism, the only discourse of communalism that matters is one they can use in a discourse of revenge. To Muslims, what reassurance can we now give that asymmetry of numbers, state power and ideological zeal will not be used in a project of their cultural erasure?
Unless they get the upper hand and do the erasure first.
Those who claim to be secular are bulldozed by the lie that secularism is minority appeasement.
Nothing wrong with appeasing a minority unless the majority kicks your head in while you are doing it. There is a simple solution which 'political scientists' should be peddling- viz. improve governance and find 'positive sum' solutions to local conflicts. Mehta does not want to do this sort of 'mechanism design'. He prefers to scream loudly and shit himself in panic.
To those who want to speak the language of human dignity beyond the vortex of communal identification?
Why talk bollocks when you can do a bit of research and make a useful suggestion? Oh. Mehta is too stupid to do any such thing. Well, at least, Ashoka students don't have to listen to this windbag whining.
Is anybody left in that camp? To the Opposition parties who have no courage of conviction or a grammar of politics that can combat majoritarianism?
To combat 'majoritarianism' you need to champion the right to rule of a minority. Sadly, the British aren't interested in coming back so as to coddle and sooth this hysterical fool.
There is a comforting fallacy out there that somehow a pragmatic, instrumental logic
which must be concerned with discerning and assigning relative weightage correlations to qualify as such
will at some point assert itself over the politics of Hindutva: Inflation and unemployment will show up the cracks.
This is foolish. Inflation and unemployment are likely to increase political instrumentalization of communal violence. Why? Chasing away a minority leaves more goods and jobs to be rationed amongst the majority.
But this communalism is not always rooted in material conditions.
Really? Does Mehta see affluent kids in Defence Colony attacking mosques?
The fact that hordes of young men are seeking vindication and self-esteem through a public display of collective narcissism and violence
Were Ashoka students jumping into the SUVs to go beat up Muslims in poor neighbourhoods? Is that why Mehta ran away from there?
suggests that communalism is now so deep that even social discontent has to express itself in the language of communalism.
Was that what Mehta saw during the Farmers agitation? Or is he pulling this shit out of his own ass?
Almost all the preconditions for widespread pogrom-type violence are now in place in India.
None are in Hindu majority areas. There may be retaliation- as there always has been but absent provocation nothing more can be said. It is when a Religion tries to make its own nominal adherents orthodox that things bubble over in the manner Mehta fears. Hindutva, however, is ecumenical. It recognises that there is a metaphysical essence separate from orthopraxy. Still, the fact is, I'd contribute to a Durga Puja in Mamta's (or even Left Front!) Bengal though I'd feel safe in not doing anything similar in Ahmedabad. Why? I might be a strict Arya Samaji or something of that sort with a fixed objection to 'murti puja'.
You almost dread the thought that India has reached a point where the question is not “if” but “when.”
The die was cast in 1946 when the vast majority of Hindus voted Congress and the vast majority of Muslims voted for the League.
What else would you call the widespread acceptance of vile prejudice,
Mehta has a vile prejudice against the vast majority of Hindus
the dismantling of any semblance of conscience,
Mehta has no conscience. He resigned from Ashoka in a manner which harmed his students
the alignment of the state with majoritarian power,
Mehta thought Ashoka too was 'aligned' with that State. He was lying. Ashoka University is not some shitty little scam designed to suck up to politicos for some mercenary reason. Its reputation has risen since this fool ran away from it.
the complete effacement of the individual by imposed communal identification,
Mehta is imposing a 'communal identification' of all devotees of Lord Ram and Lord Hanuman. Is he aware that Buddhists worship Lord Ganesa and Lord Hanuman?
the self-justification of the majority that has cloaked itself as the victim,
The majority does not want to be the victim. There is no reason it should oblige Mehta in this regard.
the total contempt for rights,
Self defense is a right.
the glorification of violence,
Condign punishment is not violence.
the search for the slightest pretext for revenge, and the radical othering of minorities?
Mehta is engaged in the 'radical othering' of Hinduism.
Even Hanuman Jayanti is not the deliverance from evil
A religious festival is not 'deliverance from evil'. It is merely an occasion when certain customary collective actions are performed. Mehta's hatred of Hinduism causes him to wish those customary actions to be omitted. His argument is that if God exists then they are otiose. His argument fails because no Religion claims that a festival has a magical effect such that ceremonies linked to it may be omitted.
but us hurtling into it, with eyes wide open.
Mehta is welcome to go and stand guard over mosques or other such places. Why does he not do so? Is he an arrant coward? Or is it rather the case that he is simply telling stupid lies? Whatever he is doing, he is doing it with his eyes wide open. It is his brain which is utterly vacant. Mehta is a disgrace to the Jain religion and an enemy of Hinduism. His academic work- as I have repeatedly shown- is utterly worthless. The point about political science is that it should suggest cooperative solutions to socio-economic problems. Talking hateful nonsense about God and Religion is evidence of imbecility.
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