When mother’s milk becomes poison…

(The Kannada writer and poet who has been getting death threats from religious fundamentalists writes in anguish that those in responsible positions are instigating attacks on “anyone who speaks the truth” and are destroying the pluralism of thought that has characterised our land since its hoary past)

All through human history, reason and unreason have been in conflict. At every age, beliefs are challenged when they degenerate into blind faith. Those asking rational questions resist those making irrational claims. Even when the latter lose, they refuse to concede defeat. They go on the offensive. When blind faith has a field day, truth and reality are jeopardised. This happens across time and space.

In the West, societies blinded by unreason tormented truth-seekers like Socrates and Galileo. Christ was crucified when he asked questions about the existence of God. Buddhism came into being by breaking the shackles of Vedic society, and was eventually pushed out of our country by the very society it had sought to change.

In the hoary past, the Charvakas enjoyed a status equal to the Vedantins. Brihaspati was the founder of this school of philosophy. This philosophy of materialism and hedonism, also known as Lokayata, was further propagated by his disciples Kambalasvatara and Purandara. They find mention in the Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, and their historical antiquity is beyond question.

The Charvakas were convinced that the planets had no influence on human life. They argued against heaven and hell, pointing out that their existence could not be proven empirically. They asserted that there was no such thing as rebirth, and exhorted people to live a life of intense pleasure. They rejected the concept of soul, saying the Vedas contained no wisdom or honesty. They challenged the Vedantins: “If, as the Vedas say, an animal sacrificed in a yajna can go to heaven, why doesn’t a son sacrifice his father and help him get there?” They maintained that sensual experience was paramount.

Since the Charvakas campaigned against animal sacrifice and meaningless rituals, the Vedantins began to refer to them as rakshasas (demons). Hiranyakashipu, Narakasura and other rationalists are natives of our southern soil. Vedic religion goes all out to obscure this truth. From time to time, the Vedantins do their best to annihilate this reality, but it survives and continues to shine a light.

In the Kannada epic Vikramarjuna Vijaya of the 10th century, Pampa writes, “Why talk of this creed and that/All of humanity is but one”. He denounced the inhuman actions of the rulers of his time. In the 12th century, Basavanna led a revolution against feudalism and caste, embracing everyone without discrimination.

In the late 12th and early 13th centuries, Raghavanka said he was impelled to poetry so that people might find the strength to live. In the 16th century, Kumara Vyasa, who pioneered the Bhamini Shatpadi (six-line) poetic form, wrote in despair, “When the king and the ministers are an ambush of tigers, who heeds the voice of the poor? The country is up in flames, and the people have had enough of their misery”.

The Haridasas, his contemporaries, have also written tellingly against the inequities of their time. Protests stemming from rational thought have thus emerged from time to time. But it is a sad fact that such visionaries invariably face an untimely death. Stories are then told of how the gods arrived in a flower-decked plane and took away the troublemakers to heaven.

Poet Kuvempu described our country as a “tranquil garden of all faiths”. In the 12th century, about 1,200 Sufi saints travelled from Persia and Arabia and settled in various parts of our country. They strove to build bridges between our religions. Our country is made up of hundreds of languages, hundreds of communities. Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis are among those who fought to free India from colonial rule. Many were martyred. Followers of Islam have taken the art and culture of this country to all corners of the globe. Mughal emperors got Hindu scriptures and epics translated into Persian and Arabic. Dara Shikoh and Jahanara Begum are among those who have shown exemplary love for this land.

Fundamentalists are wreaking havoc on a country described by poet Allam Iqbal as “the best in the world”. Holy men wearing saffron, who ought to be the very epitome of non-violence, are threatening Muslims with rape and murder. Right-wing groups are instigating the more gullible among our youth. The ruling BJP is prodding them to attack the constitutional rights of the minorities. Ministers are openly or clandestinely encouraging goons masquerading as champions of Hinduism. Doesn’t all this violate the basic tenets of democracy?

Such behaviour is not confined to Hinduism. Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam began as atheist or monotheistic faiths, proclaiming that God is one. The compassion that ought to have characterised religions has vanished. A toxic air pervades them. The poison comes in a variety of heady tastes and in bottles of all shapes and sizes. It seeks to displace the future with the past. This bizarre time transposition wants nothing to do with rationality and the scientific temper. It is destroying the pluralism of this country.

The fundamentalism raging now can’t tolerate any propagation of truth. It is out to physically eliminate anyone who questions it. The same state of mind that destroyed Socrates and Galileo has, in recent years, claimed the lives of rationalists Dabholkar, Pansare, M M Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh. The same evil forces are on a rampage on social media, targeting Leftists with obscene insults. Going a step further, they are terrorising writers like me by writing anonymous letters and threatening to kill us.

This is no longer in the shadows — it is all happening in broad daylight, and it is happening all over the country. Our governments are slyly supporting them. In this state of utter helplessness, all I can think of is this vachana by Basavanna: “You can stand around if a stove is on fire/But where do you go when the world is on fire?/When the embankment drinks the water/And the fence eats the crop/When mother’s breast milk turns to poison/Who do I complain to, my lord?”

(Translated from Kannada by S R Ramakrishna)