Whom do you idolize? Obama, MJ, Rakjnikant or Gurus

Idolatrous thinking

Two events in recent times brought to my mind a characteristic of human thinking that needs examination. The media hype and mass hysteria surrounding the death of Michael Jackson was, to put it mildly, a case of overdose. It was said that M.J was an ‘icon’, a world class performer and had a magnetic stage presence .Yet I felt the reaction to his death was overdone—to such an extent that one woman went on TV to ask if Americans had even obliquely noted that her soldier son had died in Iraq on the day MJ died. A Senator asked if the country had forgotten M.J’s unsavory deeds.

ibn rhrwv rhRwV 22980

The other instance is that of Mayawati who brazenly announced that several hundreds of crores of rupees that could help alleviate the many crises that her state faces will go to install hundreds of statues of the Dr. Ambedkar, Sri Kanshi Ram and Mayawati herself.

Let me begin by examining Mayawati’s action . In a larger sense what she is doing is a part of what sociologist M.N.Srinivas termed ’ sanskritisation’ in which people of the ‘lower castes’ attempt to imitate the’ upper castes’ whenever they move up the socio- economic- political ladder. Thus Mayawati is doing what is essentially Brahminical—idolization ,in this case herself. After all a unique feature of Hinduism is the idolization of God or anyone perceived to have ‘ attained ‘ God or exhibited exemplary qualities associated with divinity. Thus there are any number of idols to what are essentially human beings in almost any Hindu temple..

My observation about idolatrous thinking is as follows :

This line of thinking can and almost always does lead to cult formation, hero worship, personality cult, to people surrendering their own ability and right to think for themselves.

Just look at India’s political parties. In most parties the leader is idolized to such an extent that there is no second line of leadership outside the ruling family, there is no inner party democracy, no fresh ideas emerge over decades. The difference between most of these leaders and the ‘Dear Leader’ of North Korea is marginal.

This goes to extreme lengths when roads, bridges, stations, airports, are named after these cult leaders. I find it difficult to name a single city where there are ONLY three structures named after say Rajeev Gandhi.

In a recent discussion in a U.S paper about the prospects of India emerging as a superpower an analyst pointed out that the hierarchical nature of Indian society and institutions prevents creativity and no country that merely copies what others have discovered or invented can ever become a superpower.

Our idolatrous thinking in relation to those perceived as ‘higher’ than us prevents free thinking and therefore stifles creativity.

Those ‘higher’ than us includes parents, teachers, ministers, those ‘higher’ than us in the office hierarchy, those’ higher’ in the caste system, those richer than us, those who dress better than us, those who are better looking than us, those whose skin is ‘ fairer’ than ours.

In one survey conducted by a Mumbai tabloid it was revealed that people living in the tony localities of south Mumbai considered people living in modest suburbs to be’ genetically inferior’!.The list of ‘ higher’ people who need to be therefore idolized ensures that most of us end up with an inferiority complex.

I may add that the U.S also exhibits some form of idolatrous thinking in the tendency to make larger than life heroes of its achievers, Many readers may know that Thomas Alva Edison is rated the greatest inventor of all time—he has the largest number of patents to his credit. But few may know that Edison was more a leader ,a motivator than an inventor The credit for his inventions ought to go to the many scientists who toiled in his laboratory at New Jersey . That has not happened and in typical Hollywood fashion it is Edison who emerges as a ‘sole’ hero. This is also the case with the many corporate heroes one reads about in business books. The CEO gets almost all the credit though it is always team work that lifts a company to great heights—this is something that American business books will admit in their more sober moments.

The excessive TV coverage of US presidents can be disconcerting .U.S TV will tell you which restaurant Obama went to, what dish he ordered, what toppings did he add to his pizza,. what dress Michelle Obama wore, and what the White House dog had for breakfast ! Not unlike the bad old days in India when Doordarshan the only TV channel at that time seemed to have its cameras attached to Ministers’ behinds trailing them everywhere bar the bar and the toilet.

A paradox in all this is that in India atheists indulge in more of idolization than the devout Hindu. Thus the DMK that officially is a party that upholds atheism and ‘ rational’ thinking is among the most idolatrous and irrational of political parties in India. They have set up more statues in Tamilnadu than even the RSS or VHP would have done were it ever to come into power!

The manner in which their top leadership—the ruling family—is treated with obeisance with people falling at their feet, is more reminiscent of the much reviled[by the DMK] Brahmin touching the feet of ‘saints’. Jayalalitha carries this idolization to great horizontal lengths when even her cabinet colleagues[when she was the Chief Minister] were mandated to prostrate at her feet at the start of every cabinet meeting. Outside of politics one can see idolatrous thinking and behaviour in religion and business.

I have seen at a Mumbai meeting many people idolizing and literally worshipping Dhirubhai Ambani .The man would ‘ bless’ prostrate people sometimes without even looking at them. He would talk to someone else perhaps striking a lucrative deal, even as he waved his ‘ divine’ hands over the supplicant! I imagined the possibility that that deal may have been at the expense of the man pitifully lying at Dhirubhai’s ‘lotus feet’.

In religion—essentially in Hinduism—one sees the power wielded by gurujis and matajis.. I have met respected scientists suspending their scientific thinking when talking about their favourite guruji. One ‘ scientist’ told me that she had seen one of India’s most popular Babas make the sun rise in the west !The many miracles attributed to these gurujis and blindly believed by masses of idolatrous people attest to the dangers that befall us when we allow idolatrous thinking to jettison even common sense,

Talking of ‘ icon’s this word may have many meanings that the one that comes up in most minds could be of Christian origins viz.

Eastern Church. a representation of some sacred personage, as Christ or a saint or angel, painted usually on a wood surface and venerated itself as sacred. What does Indian society need urgently?

ICONOCLASTS !

K.R.RAVI