Monsoons evaded Maharashtra in 1992. In a country where even today agriculture is largely dependent on rains, this naturally made people distraught. In this helplessness, blankness and void came Maharashtra governor’s appeal (rather a dictate). On a particular day at 11 am, people were to collectively pray. Authorities jumped in to enforce the governor’s appeal. Directions were issued left, right and centre. And pray people did. Newspapers were awash with pictures of people praying for relief from imminent danger, ordinary people to district collectors to workers. Everyone obliged. If WhatsApp University existed then, I’m sure its double degree holders would churn out theories of how collective prayer would kindle the kundalini and force gods of rain to bring showers upon them. And we will all be sharing these forwards because why not?!
Fast forward to 2020 and coronavirus. Modi came on national television, and like the big boss from that horrible show, gave task after task to his subjects and his subjects duly complied. First, they came into the balcony and banged their thalis (plates) at 11 am, then they came out to light diyas (lamps) at 9 pm, all the while generating theories after theories of how these actions will beat corona black and blue. None of those have of course born any fruits, they were never meant to be anyway. Despite all the divine energy lamp lighting generated and astrological brilliance of the sounds at 11am, India has moved up to stand in the top five worst affected countries of the world as of today.
In both cases, there were discussions about why this was wrong. But in 2020, nobody invoked the constitution or shouted superstition like it was done in 1992. Sadly, Narendra Dabholkar who spearheaded opposition against such a dictate by then governor is no more with us; he was murdered by right-wing for speaking against superstitions while on his morning walk. In 1992, the reason for drought was not the absence of rains alone. Maharashtra uses its water with zero planning and in extremely unscientific ways. Do I need to mention multiple sugar mills and water-guzzling sugarcane crop that’s grown everywhere even today in Maharashtra? The disaster was not natural but man-made. So solutions were to be man-made too. But of course, praying at 11 am and thereby giving an impression of something was done was far easy and way convenient than exploring and implementing real solutions. 2020 is no different. Our government failed to prepare itself when it had examples of successful and failed countries to follow by. India was not the first country to be affected by a coronavirus. At every step of our way, we had countries which had faced worse and also those that recovered from it. We deliberately choose to look away and not learn. And when the time was up and the storm was at the door, the emperor suggested, for his subjects to turn to superstition. And we did. Not for a moment did we pause and asked why? Or how was this going to help in any way? We did not question the first and so we were given the next task. This sequence of events did not start with thali-banging though. The dice of subservience was thrown way back in 2016. Demonetisation was the pilot for many of these things. The way we embraced and defended demonetisation had signalled to the highest offices what kind of brains their subjects had.
One of the fundamental duties listed by the Indian Constitution includes the exhortation to cultivate a scientific temper. The Constitution upholds scientific temper as a guiding principle for society and the new education policy calls for the inculcation of scientific thinking. Was there any scientific or rational reasoning behind 11 am praying in 1992? Or now with thali and diya? You bet not. Then why did the state, people in government, who are all required to uphold scientific temper, discarded it and asked its citizens to embrace unscientific garbage? The answer isn’t too hard if one used their rational part of their brains. Because, it is easier to ask citizens to pray, bang thalis or light diyas. What are the alternatives? In 1992, the state of Maharashtra was required to institute an expert committee to study water usage patterns, suggest changes and implement those changes. We have so many committee reports now. And successive govt bodies have failed to implement them. Of course, in Maharashtra, there is all-powerful sugar-mills lobby and dealing with it requires an amount of political will. Then to get farmers on-board, make them stop what they are growing and help them switch to different crops requires thorough planning and grit as well. But those are the required solutions. No amount of praying, no god will help Maharashtra save itself from becoming a desert if it did not act on the ground. Less said about coronavirus and how thali-banging has helped to contain the virus the better. Our graph is only climbing up. There is no flattening of the curve happening soon except if we start fudging the data which we have already started doing here and there.
Governments won’t change by themselves. It is easy for them to control a population that is god-fearing and superstitious. It is us that need to change and cultivate scientific temper and rationality. That is the only way which will enable us to question our governments, their nonsense, and thereby progress this strange democracy further. Right now, sadly, we are sliding into an abyss with no known bottom in sight.
P. S. Thali-banging and diya-lighting apart from being superstitious are political tools of a master politician, they have political capital riding on them. These superstitious activities were also aimed at strengthening the unquestioning relationship between the leader and the governed.
Dheeraj DeeKay 