{"id":1172,"date":"2012-11-10T21:00:06","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T15:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teekhapan.wordpress.com\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2012-11-10T21:00:06","modified_gmt":"2012-11-10T15:30:06","slug":"what-karnad-just-found-out-india-is-a-nation-of-holy-cows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/2012\/11\/10\/what-karnad-just-found-out-india-is-a-nation-of-holy-cows\/","title":{"rendered":"What Karnad just found out: India is a nation of holy cows"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\n 
\nVivek Kaul<\/strong>
\nTwo-thirds of the way through singing\u00a0Kolaveri Di,\u00a0<\/i>Dhanush sings a few words which you notice if you are the kind who listens to the lyrics of songs very carefully. He sings \u201ccow-cow holy cow, I want to hear now<\/i>\u201d.
\nThese few words can be used to best describe the situation which prevails after Girish Karnad said \u201cTagore was a great poet but a mediocre and second-rate playwright.\u201d Not surprisingly the Bengali\u00a0bhadralok\u00a0<\/i>are up in arms.
\nThere are five holy cows that the\u00a0bhadralok\u00a0<\/i>have and it\u2019s best that people stay away from criticising or critiquing them. Here is the list.
\nMohun Bagan is the best football club<\/i>: This is not much of a holy cow now but in the eighties and till the mid nineties any criticism of this football club could have got you lynched. Then came ESPN-Star Sports and Bengal realised that their football is a slow motion version of the real football played in Europe.
\nRossogulla\/Sondesh is the best sweet<\/i>: This can lead to minor battles especially if you have a bong girl friend who loves her food. She will never come around to appreciating the pleasures of eating Mysore Pak. Another version of this debate is whether the\u00a0Hilsa\u00a0<\/i>is the best\u00a0mach\u00a0<\/i>i.e. fish in the world?
\nSourav Ganguly is the best cricketer<\/i>: I realised how strong this holy cow was when in the late nineties India was struggling to find a good wicket keeper and a Bengali colleague of my father suggested that \u201cSourav se wicket keeping kyon nahi karata hai?<\/i>(why don\u2019t we get Sourav to keep wickets?\u201d In a land of few heroes Sourav could do no wrong.
\nManika Da is the best director<\/i>: Manik\u00a0Da<\/i>\u00a0was the\u00a0daak naam<\/i>\u00a0or nickname of the great Satyajit Ray. I have watched almost all of what Ray directed and watching his movies has been a brilliant experience. But\u00a0Pather Panchali\u00a0<\/i>isn\u2019t my favourite Ray movie (Now did I do a Karnad here?).
\nIn fact I loved the sequels\u00a0Aparjito<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Apur Sansar<\/i>\u00a0much more. My favourite Ray movies are the ones he made in the seventies. The Calcutta trilogy of\u00a0Pratidwandi<\/i>\u00a0(1970),\u00a0Seemabaddha<\/i>\u00a0(1971) and\u00a0Jana Aranya<\/i>\u00a0(1976), and\u00a0Aranyer Din Ratri<\/i>\u00a0(1970) remain perennial favourites. And I can watch\u00a0Shatranj ke Khiladi\u00a0<\/i>(1977) over and over again.
\nRay was a rare director whose movies were much better than the books and stories he based them on. Anyone who has read Sunil Gangopadhyay\u2019s\u00a0Pratidwandi<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Aranyer Din Ratri<\/i>\u00a0and watched Ray\u2019s movies based on the books would realise that. The same is true for Sankar\u2019s\u00a0Seemabadha<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Jana Aranya<\/i>, and Prem Chand\u2019s short story\u00a0Shatranj ke Khiladi<\/i>. Also I am not getting into the debate of whether Ray\u2019s\u00a0Charulata\u00a0<\/i>was better than the original novel written by Rabindranath Tagore.
\nNevertheless, a lot of what Ray directed after\u00a0Hirok Rajar Deshe<\/i>\u00a0in 1980 was very mediocre and nowhere near his best. But I wouldn\u2019t recommend you say anything like that in and around Kolkata.
\nRabindranath Tagore is the foremost intellectual:\u00a0<\/i>This is the holiest of holy cows for the Bengali\u00a0bhadralok.\u00a0<\/i>Tagore cannot be criticised. Any criticism of Tagore, reasonable and unreasonable, is totally unwelcome. Girish Karnad is finding that out now. A stream of Bengali intellectuals and politicians have queued up to criticise Karnad. The basic argument is that what does Karnad know of Bengal? Even the criticism on Twitter and Facebook has been scathing. A struggling actor who happens to be a Bengali had this to say on his Facebook page \u201cKarnad calls\u00a0The tagore<\/i>\u00a0a second rate playwright!!coming from a mediocre actor and a boring playwright..I have said it..!moving on..\u201d
\nAnother interesting comment that I came across on my Facebook page was \u201cEven Poonam Pandey and Sherlyn Chopra know how to seek attention. Girish Karnad would do better in taking a lesson from them.\u201d
\nThe backlash on Karnad\u2019s comments raises several questions. Is any creative person above criticism? Even Tagore. Also Tagore was not a one dimensioned intellectual. He was a poet. A novelist. A playwright. A musician and even a painter. His interests were not limited to one particular domain. But that does not mean he was the best at all the things he did. And that\u2019s precisely the point that Karnad was trying to make.
\nAs he said \u201cHe was a great poet certainly, one of our greatest. And he got the Nobel Prize in 1913 when most of our modern literature was still in the state of formation. His greatness as a poet is there, his greatness as a thinker is there… he wrote plays, he certainly was a pioneer in breaking away from the unexciting commercial plays…he didn’t direct great plays. The point is he was a mediocre playwright.\u201d
\nAnd Karnad does know a thing or two about writing plays having written several plays himself. He also won the Jnapith award in 1998, which is the highest literary award conferred in India.
\nTagore was a great poet. But whether he was a great musician, painter or playwright remains debatable? And this debate or discussion one cannot have with the Bengali\u00a0bhadralok<\/i>. As George Soros\u2019 Theory of Reflexivity states \u201cPeople\u2019s understanding is inherently imperfect because they are a part of reality and a part cannot fully comprehend the whole.\u201dBut why blame only the Bengalis. India as a nation is full of holy cows who cannot be critiqued. And here are some of the bigger holy cows whose criticism can get you into trouble.
\nNarendra Modi is the best leader:\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>There are three ways to get people to read things on the internet in India. Criticise the Congress party and the UPA. Praise Narendra Modi (or NaMo as his fans like to call him). And the third and the best way is to criticise NaMo. That will unleash a barrage of negative comments on the website, with a lot of them bordering on abuse. But yes the website will get a huge number of hits, something that it has never seen before. The broader point being that any criticism or even an objective evaluation of his persona is immediately run down. But there are chinks even in NaMo\u2019s armour starting with an abandoned wife and the fact that he doesn\u2019t really come across as a team man and likes operating on his own most of the time.
\nMahatma Gandhi:\u00a0<\/i>The father of the nation was a great man. But he had his weaknesses. The Mahatma did not have a great family life. And his eldest son Harilal converted to Islam. His opinions on sex for a family man were slightly weird. As an article in\u00a0The Independent<\/a>\u00a0points out \u201cIt was no secret that Mohandas Gandhi had an unusual sex life. He spoke constantly of sex and gave detailed, often provocative, instructions to his followers as to how to they might best observe chastity. And his views were not always popular; “abnormal and unnatural” was how the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, described Gandhi’s advice to newlyweds to stay celibate for the sake of their souls.\u201d
\nBut any discussion or debate which does not show Gandhi in positive light is likely to create trouble.
\nJawahar Lal Nehru and his relationship with Edwina Mountbatten:<\/i>\u00a0As Ramachandra Guha wrote in\u00a0The Hindu<\/i><\/a>a few years back \u201cThe Indian public in general, and the Indian press in particular, has shown a keen and perhaps excessive interest in the relationship between Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten. That they were intimate is not to be doubted \u2014 but did the bonds ever move from the merely emotional to the tellingly physical?\u201d
\nUniversal Studios was supposed to make a movie on the relationship but they later shelved the project. As\u00a0The Telegraph<\/a>\u00a0reported \u201cThe Indian government had given permission for the movie, Indian Summer, starring Cate Blanchett and Hugh Grant, to be filmed on location there but only if physically intimate scenes were removed.\u201d This is another holy cow which cannot be questioned.
\nShivaji Maharaj:\u00a0<\/i>In the state of Maharashtra any critique of the great king who fought the Moghuls like no one else did can get you into a lot of trouble. As James Laine who wrote the book\u00a0Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India<\/em>\u00a0<\/i>found out a few years back. Those who wanted the book banned felt that the book insulted Shivaji. Those who read the book felt that it was not a book about Shivaji but more a book about how Shivaji\u2019s legacy has been hijacked by<\/em>\u00a0<\/i>various castes and communities in Maharashtra to further their own ends.
\nSachin Tendulkar is the best cricketer:\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0This for a very long time was even holier than the holy cow. Any criticism of the great man was likely to attract trouble irrespective of the fact whether you were in Mumbai or Muradabad. But things have changed over the years and people are more open to the God being criticised. Nevertheless, any criticism of Sachin can get you a lot of abuse, as I found out when I wrote\u00a0this<\/a>.
\nIslam:\u00a0<\/i>Any criticism of the religion can create major trouble as Salman Rushdie found out. Salman Rushdie’s\u00a0The Satanic Verses<\/em>\u00a0was released on September 26, 1988 in the United Kingdom. Madhu Jain, a journalist working for India Today reviewed the book for the magazine. As she wrote in a recent column in the\u00a0Open<\/i><\/a>magazine \u201cIt all began with my review of\u00a0The Satanic Verse<\/em>s, published on 15th September 1988 in\u00a0India Today<\/em>\u00ad (probably the first review of the novel.)…Unfortunately, the editor of the books pages of the magazine at the time, who later went on to edit a national daily, plucked some of the more volatile extracts from the novel\u2014those about the Prophet\u2019s wives\u2014and inserted them into the book review. Not too long after the IFS bureaucrat-turned-politician Syed Shahabuddin read the excerpts (not the book as he admitted ) and demanded that\u00a0The Satanic Verses<\/em>be banned. Protests erupted in India and Pakistan. In Karachi, a few protesters died when they were fired upon. It is believed that Ayatollah Khomeini watched this on television and ordered the\u00a0fatwa.\u201d<\/em>
\n<\/i>India became the first nation to ban the book on October 5, 1988, after Syed Shabbudin, a member of parliament, petitioned the government to ban the book. Rajiv Gandhi, the political novice that he was, banned the book immediately.\u00a0 Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa on Feb 14, 1989, Valentine’s Day.. Rushdie had to go into hiding after that and his been unwelcome in India since then. He had to pull out of the Jaipur Literature Festival last year.
\nMF Hussain:\u00a0<\/i>This is an interesting story. Hussain had to live a large part of his later life in exile given the large number of court cases pending against him in various parts of the country for hurting the sentiments of Hindus through his paintings. This included drawing several Hindu gods and goddesses in the nude. Those in his favour say that artists need to have their freedom of expression, which is true.
\nBut let me reproduce a paragraph from a\u00a0piece<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0that Shobhaa De wrote on him in The Times of India during his exile in Qatar. \u201cDressed in traditional Emirati gear, the painter is wearing socks , but no shoes. Mustafa, his handsome third son explains this is to respect local sensibilities regarding bare feet,\u201d wrote De. Hussain had always walked bare foot but he was respecting the local sensibilities in Qatar and wearing socks. If he could respect local sensibilities in Qatar, couldn\u2019t he do that in India as well? But any criticism of Hussain can get the so called intellectual class in Delhi and Mumbai ganging up against the person who dares to criticise Hussain.
\nThe Gandhi family:\u00a0<\/i>During her peak any criticism of Indira Gandhi was unwelcome. Nayantara Sahgal, her first cousin, wrote a book\u00a0Indira Gandhi: Tryst with Power<\/i>, which was\u00a0\u00a0 very critical account of Indira\u2019s tenure as India\u2019s Prime Minister. The book written in 1982 was only released in India earlier this year. This trend has continued and any criticism of the Gandhi family is largely unwelcome. Arvind Kejriwal recently broke this trend by taking on Robert Vadra, Sonia Gandhi\u2019s son-in-law headon.
\nRajinikanth:\u00a0<\/i>Try criticising India\u2019s highest paid actor anywhere south of the Vindhyas and see what happens. Manu Joseph the editor of\u00a0Open<\/i><\/a>wrote a column on the superstar in which he said \u201cHe has no talent, an unremarkable body, and has had no hair for much longer than we realise. When he puts his right elbow on his left palm and the left elbow on the right palm, he demands that everyone accepts it as dance. And his ability to toss a cigarette in the air and grab it with his mouth is attainable even to my mother. Have no doubts, even to Tamilians he looks grotesque in leather shirts and pants and previously unseen shoes. I have watched his films in the cheapest theatres in Madras and know exactly what happens when he makes his grand entry, boots first. The screams and whistles in the theatre are not the awe of respect, but an expression of love for a beloved clown. Nobody in those theatres knew why they were reacting in that manner to him.\u201d
\nAlmost all of what Joseph wrote is true but read the comments that followed his article to see how the people reacted to his critique of the star.
\nAmbedkar and reservation:\u00a0<\/i>BR Ambedkar and the reservation policy first initiated first by VP Singh and then carried forward by the United Progressive Alliance government is a bigger holy cow than even Rajinikanth. You might get away by critiquing Rajinikanth but expect no such mercy if you get around to criticising Ambedkar or the reservation policy. \u00a0Arun Shourie, wrote a book titled\u00a0Worshipping False Gods<\/i>\u00a0in which he challenged.\u00a0Ambedkar’s contribution to Indian Independence.<\/em>\u00a0<\/i>As Shourie wrote \u201cThere is not one instance, not one single, solitary instance in which Ambedkar participated in any activity connected with that struggle to free the country. Quite the contrary–at every possible turn he opposed the campaigns of the National Movement, at every setback to the Movement he was among those cheering the failure.\u201d
\nOf course this did not go down well with people. As\u00a0Rediff<\/a>\u00a0reported \u201cSome Congress MPs did, however, burn copies of the book outside Parliament House, and called for a ban.\u201d
\nThe Holy Cow:\u00a0<\/i>Yes. The holy cow is the ultimate holy cow in the country. And every few years close to the elections the issue is resurrected with demands to ban their slaughter. Ironically enough India is set to emerge as the\u00a0largest exporter of beef<\/a>\u00a0in the world.
\nThe moral of the story is that India as a country has too many holy cows that one cannot critique and criticise. We make heroes, we worship them but we never get around to analysing them. As the Channel V ad went in the good old days, we are like this only.
\nThe article<\/a> first appeared on www.firstpost.com on November 10, 2012.
\n(Vivek Kaul is a writer. He can be reached at\u00a0vivek.kaul@gmail.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Vivek Kaul Two-thirds of the way through singing\u00a0Kolaveri Di,\u00a0Dhanush sings a few words which you notice if you are the kind who listens to the lyrics of songs very carefully. He sings \u201ccow-cow holy cow, I want to hear now\u201d. These few words can be used to best describe the situation which prevails … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,33],"tags":[524,1100,1430,1583,1822,1878,2164,2340,2424,2456,2905,2936,3144,3189,3212,3233,3239,3343,3415,3678],"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"Vivek Kaul","author_link":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/author\/vivekkaul\/"},"qubely_comment":3,"qubely_category":"Analysis<\/a> Firstpost<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"    Vivek Kaul Two-thirds of the way through singing\u00a0Kolaveri Di,\u00a0Dhanush sings a few words which you notice if you are the kind who listens to the lyrics of songs very carefully. He sings \u201ccow-cow holy cow, I want to hear now\u201d. These few words can be used to best describe the situation which prevails…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}