Here To Remain - The Charltan

                              



1996 undoubtedly has been a let-down by all means. All along the worse side of things has prevailed leaving behind a trail of disappointment and despair. Internecine strife and genocide in Africa, continued fighting in Bosnia, terrorist killings and bombings, bizzare accidents,cyclones and famines taking more than their usual toll : disillusioned all. Polarization of power showed its bully-boy face with the U.S. dictating terms to the U.N. One has to be unreasonably optimistic to believe that there was a brighter side.

The scene in India was dominated by political instability and kickback culture. An anthology of scams exposed senior politicians and their pelf. The common man questioning the politician's credibility every other day and forgetting about it after his nine-to-five efforts; the judiciary suddenly realizing that it has to rise above its judicial powers to control corruption and going all out to prove it; politicians busy mud-slinging and riding rough-shod over each other; strong emergence of the Hindu fundamentalist, claiming to square the act of the Islamic fundamentalists; alliances of all contrasts —That was the Indian scene in 1996.

Amidst all this 1996 saw the entry of the con-man (not the ubiquitous khadi clad venal kind or the saffron clad one with the Third Eye). With no previous credit to his name, this man did the impossible, grabbed the headlines with his miraculous feat and then.....? And then, yes he simply vanished from the scene. Did someone say its happened before ? But this one was different, he had an appetite for publicity and was not scared of the cameras. There was one Ponaiah Ramar who claimed to have extracted petroleum fuel from herbal plants, demonstrating this miracle in front of a sizeable crowd . Scientists were baffled at the same time excited but hardly sceptic. The Indian public ( the easiest believers) were awaiting enthusiastically for something - I heard someone say, would have made India an economic superpower. The total world order would have changed (Imagine the Sultan of Brunei saving money for holidays or those oil-owning sheikhs toiling for a living). But the miracle turned out to be a big hoax. Ramar still claimed that his feat was a genuine one even though it defied the law of conservation of mass. Senior scientists after seeing the demonstration, dismissed it as a dirty trick copied from some magicians book (for those who are interested, details of this trick is available with Mr. P. C. Sorcar Jr.). A resentful silence followed. The belief that an Indian can also do the impossible has been shaken. Then came Mr. Dhani Ram Baruah, a heart surgeon by profession. He claimed to have transplanted a man's heart with that of a pig. This claim seemed more genuine as it was a future possibility. The Indian doctor has finally done something which would make his counterparts in the west go mad with jealousy. It turned out so that this claim too was false and he too was another trickster. Yet again the Indian public had been taken for a ride, for the umpteenth time. The government has not yet issued a clear public statement regarding these hoaxes. Strictest possible legal action should be taken so that it sends shivers down the spines of prospective frauds. The most annoying part was the way in which some leading newspapers in their headlines reported these claims as achievements initially, though the real story followed much later. Such carelessness and child-like exuberant imagination is not expected of the fourth-estate.

The only thing common between Ramar and Baruah was that besides being cheats, both relied on the gullibility of the Indian public. Remember ' The Ganesh idol devouring milk' incident? That was an absolute epitome of the credulity, of the Indian masses. Let us address the situation regarding Babas and Sadhus. The word Baba immediately draws an image in the mind. Bearded with unkempt hair, either totally clad in a saffron robe or scantily clad with rickety legs; sometimes their creepy appearance makes one wonder that there might be spiders crawling under their clothing. Politicians, top bureaucrats, the rich and the poor, the sane and the insane; people from all walks of life flock to these Babas hoping an end to their catalogue of misfortunes. What it takes to be a Baba? Intelligence, experience in handling situations of domestic interest, patience to listen to jeremiads, adept at the art of blarney and some hocus-pocus up their sleeve, (quite a lot)— That is the potent recipe for being anointed a Baba. Other than these Babas and Sadhus we also get to see a few of those ultra-sophisticated, bon vivant self-styled gurus, faith-healers, reincarnates and even doomsday predictors. Before I proceed further I must hurry to add that there are a few Babas who are different; different in the good sense. What if the government decides to ban the practices of these Babas. There would be premonitions, warnings, curses galore with a constant threat of Babas running amok (history warns those who dare to incur the wrath of the Sadhus). Their number is so large that the government would even have to open Babas rehabilitation centres. But this proscription is as likely as the extraction of fuel from herbs. Babas will continue gathering money in form of donations, reverence and tributes from the faithfuls, even the cash-strapped ones. One just cannot imagine to what extent some Babas can go. One Baba in Calcutta, lying on his death-bed had a look-alike in hiding just to instill a belief that he was immortal. 1996 was just another year for the Babas. Their popularity is never going to change, only competition will get stiffer with Babas trying to outdo each other with their bag of tricks.

One can understand the credulous nature of the proletariat but what about the section of the intelligentsia who kowtow? Ask them. The worst part is that other than gulping up the palpable nonsense they end up mentally shanghaied. Some advice is always of great help, but it should end there. There is a moral compass within each one of us and we do not need any kind of Babas to control us. Unless the Indian public sheds its inability to accept things according to jurisprudence and adopt a practical and rational approach, the Ramars and Dhani Rams will keep coming back with better tricks. Thoughts of the possibility of paranormal activity fascinates everyone. There are a lot of mysteries in this universe yet to be unravelled on a scientific basis. Everyone will agree that a world without customs, beliefs and superstitions would indeed be dull and insipid. Needless to say but where one has to make a choice between beliefs and rationality, logic and principles should reign.

We talk about indigenously built hi-tech missiles, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering and all that jazz, yet we are hard-core fatalists, highly superstitious and great Baba-believers.Regardless of what we achieve on the economic, scientific and technological front, as long as superstitions rule occasions and fabled beliefs govern actions, we Indians just cannot convince the developed world that we have arrived.              

                                             This is Sidhu's second one at Zulu's den. This piece has also been published in a leading National Daily ! .