The many worldly uses of religious symbolism

This past week’s furore over Indian and Pakistani cricketers not shaking hands after an Asia Cup match again shows how cleverly we use symbolism to cover our tracks.

The two countries, officially enemies, didn’t mind their cricket boards profiting from the tournament. At the same time, presumably, they strategised how to tell their constituencies back home that they weren’t sellouts, and that they remained true to their much vaunted hostility. The Indian team, which won the match, dedicated the victory to the victims of the terror attack in Pahalgam, and our captain walked away without the customary handshake with the rival team. The Pakistan team complained and sulked, and eventually returned to the tournament.

What do we make of all this? A good time was had by all, including the millions who watched the match on TV, till the time the captains had to shake hands, and then symbolism kicked in to save the day, and make everyone feel honourable again.

If you follow the news, you can’t help but notice how such symbolism holds a central place in our lives today. The daily routine of many of our TV news anchors is to outrage over which symbol was insulted and who offended our delicate national sensibilities. Talking heads gather at prime time to bash the ‘anti-national’ of the day.

The most effective and saleable symbolism comes from religion and nationalism. They are two sides of the same coin, going by what the anchors say. But that wasn’t always the case. I can speak of people who went to college in the 1980s – they were believers when in distress, but non-believers otherwise. Rationalists such as Abraham Kovoor, H Narasimhaiah, and B Premanand were speaking out against the god-men of the time, and didn’t fight shy of denouncing what they saw as superstitions. Narasimhaiah, the physicist who served as vice-chancellor of Bangalore University, was an outspoken critic of many deeply entrenched rituals and practices. He had challenged Satya Sai Baba, who enjoyed a huge following among the rich and famous, to produce a pumpkin out of thin air instead of the usual vibhuti, gold rings, and wrist watches. J B S Haldane’s essay on scientific temper was prescribed reading at the undergraduate level – education placed science above religion.

It wasn’t as though everyone was a diehard rationalist or atheist – rationalism and religion coexisted without too much fuss. Religion came into the picture for birth, wedding, and death rituals. And when medical science couldn’t help, or things spun out of control on the personal front, there was astrology. All smooth sailing? The same astrology was consumed with amusement in the entertainment columns. Predictive astrology hadn’t yet become a subject of academic study at the universities.

Have people become more religious today? Shrines have proliferated, sure, but does that mean we have more believers in our midst? Hard to say. But what can be said with some certainty is that, over the last four decades, we have discovered the power of religion for political, professional, and personal gain.

To this day, rationalists point out, we rush accident victims to a hospital, and not to a place of worship. We are rational enough to know that no temple, church, or mosque can help us in a medical emergency. But at the same time, we know where religion works, and how it works. The BJP rose to power by tirelessly building on religious symbolism, first with the rath yatra, and then with the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The party must have realised early on that espousing a secular cause, such as transparency in governance, wouldn’t take it too far. As a people, we are roused by the symbolism of religion, and not so much by the rationalism of science.

In an earlier political era dominated by the Congress, Gandhism provided the safe cover that religion provides today. It wasn’t uncommon for scammers to wear khadi and claim to be freedom fighters, all under a benign portrait of Gandhi.

Marx famously described religion as ‘the opiate of the masses’, and ‘the sigh of the oppressed creature’. Lohia saw politics as religion of the short term, and religion as politics of the long term. Perhaps neither had an inkling how both the ruler and the ruled would one day simultaneously use religion for their political and personal advancement.

The writer often sees high art in kitsch and vice versa.