July 14: Day 1 of my fast, day 506 of our chain.
The custodial death of Father Stan Swamy was, among many things, an assault on all those who dream of freeing the majority of Indians from the greatest source of injustice: poverty. As Nelson Mandela said, poverty is manmade, not natural. It exists to perpetuate an unnatural distribution of privilege. Being born into the caste system, most Indians need a figure like Father Stan Swamy to open their eyes to such the injustice it does, holding us all back collectively.
Why did Modi’s BJP see such an enlightened, saintly person as their enemy? Why are others working selflessly towards the upliftment of our poorest still behind bars under unsubstantiated charges of terrorism?
#ResignModi #VoteOutBJP #ChainFastingForPeace #FastingAgainstFascism #FreeSanjivBhatt #ResignAmitShah
July 15: Day 2 of my fast, day 507 of our chain.
I read this article today on how the poorest of India were left to fend for themselves during the pandemic, pushing them to the brink of starvation (https://ruralindiaonline.org/…/eating-less-earning…). It is always a revelation of sorts to see how crippling poverty really is. Having to chase after food and shelter all the time appears so fundamentally depriving, that the poor person is robbed of the freedom to choose the course of their life, and forced to resign themselves to the path of least resistance.
India’s endemic poverty affects us all, even if we may not be poor ourselves. Because misery is infectious. It sets us all back. If we were really committed to Vikaas, poverty should be treated as one of the most pressing problems we need to solve.
I know none of my scientific problems have ever been as complex and multidimensional as poverty. And most politicians should know it too – that even beginning to alleviate endemic poverty is much more difficult than winning elections. Which is why most don’t even try?
Father Stan Swamy and others like him embraced this problem so many of us shrink away from, too fazed by its enormity to even spend any time thinking about it. A committed government would treat such people as heroes, and beg for their advice. Ours sadistically tortures them and kills them without repentance.
#ResignModi #VoteOutBJP #ChainFastingForPeace #FastingAgainstFascism #FreeSanjivBhatt #ResignAmitShah
July 16: Day 3 of my fast, day 508 of our chain.
The cost of poverty is tremendous and affects everyone, even if they are not poor themselves. The problem is complex, and because it is difficult to find simple solutions in a country like ours, we adopt varying attitudes of contempt towards the poor – which is neither fair, nor does it alleviate the problem in any way. All it does is rob each and every one of us of our inborn compassion and humanity.
How does the BJP work to alleviate poverty? It doesn’t. The Gareeb Kalyan Yojana can’t do much when the economy is in a nosedive, and the rich are parking their money in foreign banks, if not leaving the country in droves. Our government devotes itself to depraved crony capitalists like Ambani and Adani, while keeping everyone else distracted by intense religious polarization and shallow majoritarian appeasement.
No wonder then, that our boldest and most brilliant anti-poverty crusaders languish in jail indefinitely, while our masses are kept preoccupied with concocted issues like love jihad, cow protection, and Hindu Rashtra.
#ResignModi #VoteOutBJP #ChainFastingForPeace #FastingAgainstFascism #FreeSanjivBhatt #ResignAmitShah
July 17: Day 4 of my fast, day 509 of our chain.
Ever so often, the greatest obstacle holding India back from a decent, progressive, meaningful future seems to be the bhakts, who seem to be guided by dogma alone – a belief system that they have subscribed to and that they will adhere to without question, regardless of the consequences.
George Orwell wrote:“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
This is clearly not an option for a prisoner of dogma, leaving the bhakt hungry for power even as they fight the true source of their own empowerment by all means at their disposal. No wonder then, that power, in the eyes of the bhakt, can only be grabbed by force and maintained through tyranny.
#ResignModi #VoteOutBJP #ChainFastingForPeace #FastingAgainstFascism #FreeSanjivBhatt #ResignAmitShah
July 18: Day 5 of my fast, day 510 of our chain.
The last few days in India have seen a number of tidal events, starting with the cruel and meaningless custodial death of Father Stan Swamy, the death of India’s Pulitzer prize-winning Danish Siddique while on duty in Afghanistan without a word of condolence from either Modi or the MEA, and recently breaking news in international media of the unsparing use by the Modi government of malicious Pegasus software to frame journalists, opposition leaders, activists, lawyers and judges.
I hope these events, as tragic as they are, will help turn the tide of tyranny in India. But my hope is tempered by the knowledge that we have seen considerably worse in the past 7 years without a lasting dent in public support for Modi. Our relentless facts, feelings and forewarnings keep on getting shattered like ocean waves splashing against the granite wall of the bhakt’s dogma.
I find it informative to look for signs and symptoms of this dogma, what feeds it, what inures the bhakt to sensible, constructive arguments and the teamwork needed for meaningful nation-building. Some signs I have personally experienced (with the acknowledgment that my experiences are likely to be much more sanitized than most thanks to my relatively privileged upbringing) and find striking are:
1. The continued preference for a male child,
2. Becoming a doctor, engineer, or chartered accountant as a defining mark of success,
3. Socialization that is predicated on loyalty to one’s caste-lineage, to the detriment of all morality, logic and individual inclination.
None of the above parameters encourages a status-quo-burdened child growing up in India to see the world in its natural form, to recognize their own innate power to affect change, to think about problems that they could dedicate themselves to to make the world a better place. The “well-adjusted” bhakt, having spent their whole lives conforming to external expectations, spends so much of their energy “fitting in,” that every other stimulus can be afforded only a lowest-common-denominator response.
This cannot be refuted, and reflects itself in our uniformly asocial public conduct, general lack of bureaucratic professionalism, and substandard public hygiene. All our many bhakt doctors, engineers, and chartered accountants don’t know how to think on their own two feet unless controlled by a strict superior. Rudderless in a fast changing world, the bhakt needs their strongman Modi to keep their familiar world intact, the loss of which means an existential threat to them. Hence the sudden longing for a “Hindu Rashtra.”
I wish I had a less despondent note on which to end my fast, but how much degradation will it take for the bhakt to finally wake up and feel some shame? Will they ever? I don’t know. But we have to fight back, we have to resist. Tiny, sparsely populated Afghanistan, in the grip of the Taliban, has brought untold misery and destruction, not only to itself, but has destabilized the whole world. A similar trajectory for India would pose a threat to all of human civilization as we know it.
Defeat the dogma! Choose to choose!
#ResignModi #VoteOutBJP #ChainFastingForPeace #FastingAgainstFascism #FreeSanjivBhatt #ResignAmitShah
Chain Fasting For Peace 