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Jan 24, 2022
Rajat Mitra

Why We Must Stop Playing the Hymn ‘Abide With Me’ in Our Ceremonies?

In his classic book on anti-colonialism ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ Franz Fanon concludes by saying, “…Let us leave this Europe which never stops talking of man yet massacres him at every street corner, at every opportunity and at every corner of the world...” For Fanon, the call was meant to reject the symbols of Europe that bound and chained the Native and which he described as created by the White man for his Empire and subjugation of the Native. He had in mind the world wars, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and even the concentration camps and the holocaust. It was the same Europe that on one hand sang ‘Abide With Me’ when its Kings and Generals retired or in Churches and other occasions when they were having wars and mass murders exterminating people of colour, seeing them as savages. Whether it was Jallianwalla Bagh or mass extermination in the concentration camps of Kenya, ‘Abide With Me’ was played on most occasions in giving farewells, eulogizing the King or the General saying that the good Lord stood by the White man in his responsibility towards controlling the savage. ‘Abide With Me’ was played at ceremonies by the same armies that legitimized mass massacres and slaughters for centuries, most of the victims numbering millions being dark Natives. How come then some label it as a romantic, beautiful, and spiritual piece that uplifts the soul? How would General Michael Dwyer have felt hearing it if it was indeed played at his farewell from India? When Fannon talked of ‘colonialism leaving the empire’ he talked of throwing away, destroying the symbols putting these symbols in their place, ones that bound former slaves to their masters. Why did the Indians held on to these symbols and continue to do so till today? How is it that the former colonial subjects of the Empire continue to see such practices as inseparable, pervasive and one that permeates the very breath of the nation without rejecting it? In fighting slavery, there has to be an anti-colonial philosophy of relinquishment when subjects carry out their struggle against their colonial masters. The struggle for freedom must be combined with creating a national culture and consciousness of disavowal of the slave owner, failing which the colonialism perpetuates itself in another form long after the master is gone. We in India missed this transformation so our national psyche remains the same as it was a hundred years ago. I wonder why is it that our Father of the nation who wore home spun clothes and sang bhajans, got enamoured with a Christian hymn that foisted a God, a religion as superior and exclusive over our faith? Isn’t it the faith that carried unmitigated violence in its name on our people and felt that God was on the side of the White man? So, why couldn’t the two most important leaders of independence see the wounded civilization that was India? Why did they not vow to build a culture committed to relinquishment of the colonial one, a disavowal and refusal of an alien subjugating one and its various symbols necessary for an anti-imperial consciousness for an independent people? As a result, what we have left today is a fragmented identity where we continue to be ashamed of our national symbols and our roots whether in the form of playing of Christian hymns or going to memorials that do not commemorate our fallen dead? Can we as a nation ever claim that this kind of thinking has created an uncertainty as to where we stand as people and whether we are truly liberated from colonial subjugation? The last stage in the anti-colonial struggle was to quit, stop and then leave. It was an act done as the last act of desperation by every other revolutionary who saw it as his last attempt at freedom. It was an act that heralded an end without being an end, one that brought in the death knell for the colonialist. It was also the most impossible of all steps done by the revolutionary, one that was done by a Subhash Chandra Bose or a Bhagat Singh who knew death existed at every corner for them and they may have to leave anytime. Those who didn’t choose this path that is choose to quit and die as an option called it nonviolence. Ambedkar had once prophesied that the colonial regime of British would not suffer any atrophy in the shift from Viceroy Lord Mountbatten to Prime Minister Nehru. If he were alive today, he would have made the same remark seeing how little we have moved on from there. It is said that for any country that has been enslaved, the colonial world outlives the colonizer long after he has left the country. In India, the hope of a social, egalitarian system that will liberate us when colonialism left this land died long ago. The belief that we might achieve it one day had receded so far that it didn’t seem to be having any more promise for its possibility. That is why on this Republic Day, the destruction of the symbols of colonialism holds on a promise that it may undo an injustice that had become a part of us. As Albert Memmi famously said that the progress for a freed nation begins with new symbols that they do by relinquishing the old. So, what will the Indian of the future, say one after fifty years from now see in the statue of Subhash Chandra Bose under the canopy at India Gate, or the eternal flame shifted to a War Memorial made for soldiers who fought for us? What will he learn as to why ‘Abide With Me’ was discontinued after seventy years of being played without being questioned once? Will he see them as a slave nation finally relinquishing its past and erasing the last of the symbols that chained him? For our revolutionaries who kissed the rope before being hanged to death, the anti-colonial struggle was sustained through fleeting moments of egalitarian fantasies, a utopia. It was an unknowable world, an unguaranteed future that a new nation and its people will build, not carry on the dead relics from a colonial past and best relegated to the dustbin of history. For every symbol of colonialism that we continue to use and refuse to question and shake off, are we not desecrating that sacred memory of their sacrifice? The British never stopped placing their culture in opposition to our culture. From Macaulay who said that the entire Indian civilization will not fill more than one rack in the British library, to Churchill, to every Viceroy who carried out atrocities, everything about the Indian was inferior, slow. The Indian was one whose art, whose music and culture didn’t deserve to be on the same pedestal and it goes without saying at whose farewell ‘Abide With Me’ was sung to let him know he was doing the duty of a White man. The emotional aura of the song, can it be ever separated from the way the British practiced their race and religion? The independence that Indians got in 1947 could not be equated with the cessation or stopping of colonialism from the minds of people. Colonialism didn’t stop in India in 1947, it only changed faces because the new leaders after independence only slurped every lesson from their colonial masters. Is that why Gandhi liked ‘Abide With Me’ and Nehru is supposed to have said ‘he is an Englishman by education and Hindu by accident’. Didn’t we need people who were more authentic and true to their culture, roots and civilization? Only history can answer. Jean Paul Sartre once famously said that only the colonizer is thought as qualified to speak on the colony through his writings, his poetry, and his hymns. That he alone is the one who keeps a scoreboard over how the consciousness of the people enslaved remains the same or changes with the passage of time. The British when they left made it sure that they continue to rule over the minds of Indians as long as Indians do not begin to start questioning. For this they even prepared a group of Indians who will prevent such questioning. It is time Indians decide who will choose to express and speak for them. www.rajatmitra.co.in Image source: Stuff Unknown

Jan 22, 2022
Aparna Jandhyala

Are Indian Americans turning Red? A case in point- Suparna Dutta

Few months back GOP got a surprise victory in Virginia when Glenn Youngkin defeated Terry McAuliffe by 1.7 percentage points [1]. Post poll analysis shows that at least part of the victory is attributed to parents especially moms showing up and voting for Youngkin. Virginia is the same state that Biden won over Trump by 10 percentage points in 2020[2]. So why are parents turning to GOP in battleground states? Though extensive research needs to be done to find out the reason, one thing seems clear: many whites are fed up with scapegoating of white kids for the sins and omissions of their ancestors. In a surprising twist, many immigrants are fed up with what they see as betrayal of American dream: meritocracy being destroyed in the name of racial justice. Thus, two disparate groups of people are coalescing to give GOP a decisive win. Note that despite his loss, Trump also tried to create a coalition of middle class workers cutting across race lines in 2020 elections [3]. When Youngkin was sworn in as 74th Governor of Virginia, a saree clad Suparna Dutta was seen giving a short but impassioned speech at the inaugural ceremony [4]. Suparna Dutta is an accidental activist who took up “arms” to protest Critical Race Theory (CRT) being taught at her son’s famous Thomas Jefferson High School. She wrote to her son’s school in a now famous letter [5]: “My chosen home, America, has been the beacon of freedom and hope in the world. “Anti-racist” ideology pits people against each other, divides them into oppressors and oppressed warring factions based on immutable factors. Everything gained since the civil rights movement is being lost now, with this cancerous Marxist ideology being inculcated in the youth. It encourages hatred and discrimination. A core tenet of CRT claims “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” “I hope you don’t indulge in the bigotry of low expectations against some groups, like Ms. Bonitatibus does. She said in an email last year that there are “so few black and brown children” at TJ. She also said at a TJPTSA meeting that when she pokes her head into classrooms at TJ, she’s saddened that the demographics do not reflect the geographic area. Imagine how that makes the parents feel?! Treat children as humans, NOT identities or objects to be experimented with.” Determined to keep merit as the criterion for admission alive, Ms. Dutta along with some other parents organized Coalition for TJ Parents. After Youngkin won the Republican nomination for Governor and expressed his support for merit-based admission, Dutta led Educators for Youngkin Coalition effort [6]: “She worked tirelessly, organizing webinars and door-knocking for Youngkin, going from being an anonymous mother to introducing him this past week to a crowd of about 500 cheering supporters in his last campaign stop in Fairfax County. Dutta is the living embodiment of the best of a mama bear and the American Dream, expressing it, protecting it, and allowing her teen son a late night so he could be a part of history, before scooping him up and taking him safely home, to awaken to the new day that she and the mama and papa bear movement had forged for the Commonwealth of Virginia.” As he had promised, Youngkin banned teaching of CRT in schools on his first day of office [7]. It is interesting to note that James Lindsay who has written a lot on CRT [8] recently appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast and claimed that CRT robs children of their innocence, is rooted in Marxism, aims to separate younger generation from the old and seeks to destabilize the child’s identity [9]. Whether these claims are true or not, it does seem that the political tide that has been veering Left for a long time is slowly turning Right at least in USA. More importantly, whether people of America can come together to forge better future for their offspring remains to be seen. One can only hope for the best. [1] https://www.cnn.com/election/2021/results/virginia/governor [2] https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/virginia [3] https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/09/the-republican-partys-multiethnic-working-class-coalition-is-taking-shape/ [4] https://twitter.com/AsraNomani/status/1482428478100320258?s=20 [5] https://fairfaxgop.org/immigrant-mom-to-school-officials-treat-children-as-humans-not-identities/ [6] https://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/fairfax_county/hopping-mad-mama-and-papa-bears-elect-youngkin/article_c675c506-3d8b-11ec-a454-1b6ff223b791.html [7] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/youngkins-new-executive-orders-on-crt-are-great-but-keep-fighting-to-change-the-culture [8] https://www.amazon.com/Cynical-Theories-Scholarship-Everything-Identity_and/dp/1634312023/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= [9] https://twitter.com/MythinformedMKE/status/1484624026610049024?s=20 Image source: Reuters