Tuesday, 20 April 2021

The Word Bhakt as a Political Tool

 

Someone asked me if I was a bhakt. I said I light the evening lamp before the gods and i pray to the gods. As does each person in my village.
All my children apply the sacred ash on their forehead from the small coconut shell in the temple as they run in droves to the government school.
And I wondered anew at the deracination that can allow use of a simple word based on bhakti as an abuse. As a political tool.
  • Chittaroopa Palit
    I was asking whether you are a Bhakt of Modi and BJP who are baking their political Roti's shedding blood and spreading hate in the name of religion .
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    I will not repond to that question unless it is worded in acceptable terms. Bhakti and bhakt are very high words and values for me. To reduce them thus is a parody on my land and on my gods.
    Words have power.
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    BJPs come and go, Congress comes and goes. They are soulless political animals. The gods of my land, the traditions of my land, the people of my land cannot be mocked at because of them.
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  • Chittaroopa Palit
    What about the Dalit children in your village Aparna. Do they also enter the temple to put the sacred ash on their forehead. How many of them go to school and how many go to herd goats and cows or stay at home to look after younger children and tend to the house hold tasks while their mothers go out to get water or fuel or for mazdoori.
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    • Narayana Sarma Ghadiyaram Venkata
      The village palaguttapalli is a fully Dalit village. Probably because of this segregation, the villagers enjoy a fair degree of autonomy even in that otherwise Naidu dominated region of AP.
      Aparna is not a Modi fan, and she is not a fan of the left either. She feels the villagers know what is good for them and they need no city dwellers to tell them what they should be doing any time. (And I hope i don't get blasted from both sides for intruding😊) 
      Chittaroopa Palit
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Thank yoy 
      Narayana
      . i have little interest in trying to explain myself, and I saw little need.
      Anyway you have given the background for what its worth !
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    • Chittaroopa Palit
      Thank you for the reply Narayan Sarma ji.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Amazed at the hackles that get raised when I say that villages are fine, they are wise spaces, and they make the best choices for themselves. If the economic ruination we can driven them to to addressed, the rest they will straighten out.
      But urban activists are happiest if they see villages as foolish, depressed, and themselves as saviours.
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    • Chittaroopa Palit
      Unfortunately I am not an urban activist and I have never treated any villager as depressed or foolish. So you can't write me off. 30 years of my life was spent in the villages of Narmada valley. Economic ruination of villagers can only be achieved through joining politics. Small
      or tiny sector industries have no chance to survive in today's economic regime. AAP madhya pradesh is working with supporters to develop the notion of micro industrial zones.
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    • Narayana Sarma Ghadiyaram Venkata
      In a centralised schema of things, where the State is getting increasingly powerful, exerting more and more control over the citizen, positions such as yours 
      Aparna
       , will be repeatedly questioned or rejected outright.
      Issue is how to handle centralization, in ways that are too decentralised.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Chittaroopa Palit
      , You and your work are not being questioned or commented on.
      It is the larger left discourse, which maybe includes you, that chooses to see villages as oppressed and depressed, and as 'casteist, feudal and patriarchal', instead of placing these adjectives in te midlst of another ten adjectives that define the richness of these spaces as well. That positioning also defines if we primarily wish to 'school villages', or primarily wish to restore the sustainable livlihoods that sustains them - respecting the while their gods and their practices.
      Also please refer to the post. That is another issue as well.
      That the change had to happen at policy and political level, starting from quitting WTO is not debated.
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    • Chittaroopa Palit
      We agree at last on quitting WTO.
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  • Chittaroopa Palit
    Or are there no Dalits in your village at all. Who has silenced your voice Aparna that you fear to speak out against marginalisation exclusion oppression. For you everything that is happening in your village is wonderful. I have also lived and worked in villages Aparna. And I can say that there is as much oppression there as anywhere.
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Each one of them goes to the temple and applies vibhuti and prays. All of them also go to school, and also herd cows of holidays and also do housework before and after school.
    Are you implying that herding cows and helping at home chores is inferior in any way ?
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    "Who has silenced your voice Aparna that you fear to speak out against marginalisation exclusion oppression."
    I am ending the conversation here. I do not stoop to these levels of unwarrented personal attacks. My village, yes it is an SC hanlet, has taight me to expect certian standards of engagement. Thank you very much.
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