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Every now and then one gets invited to speak at panels and discussions, at litfests and other public platforms to hold up the minority card. There was a time I would agree but increasingly now, I have come to believe that in a democracy it should not be left to the minorities to speak up for themselves, and the majority must speak for and about the fate of the minorities.
It’s time for all Indians to speak up for ‘hum-sab’ rather than live in our self-made islands of ‘I’, ‘Me’, ‘Myself’. What is just as important is for all Indians, and not just the much-derided ‘libtards’ and ‘sickulars’, to dig their heels in against the sweeping tide of populism, and a growing sense among the average Indians who feel their concerns have been disregarded for far too long by established elite groups.
Let us see how the Urdu poet has interpreted the idea of commonality, of finding and making common cause, of speaking up for each other.
Eik hii dharti ham sab ka ghar jitna tera utna mera
Dukh sukh ka yeh jantar-mantar jitna tera utna mera
This one Earth, our home, is as much mine as yours
This observatory of joys-sorrows is as much mine as yours
The fiery activist-poet from Hyderabad, Makhdoom Mohiuddin, too, speaks for working together towards a common goal:
Hayat le ke chalo kaainat le ke chalo
Chalo to saare zamaane ko saath le ke chalo
Take along all of life and all of the created universe
When you move forward take along the entire world
The Mumbai-based Sayyed Riyaz Raheem gives voice to a quiet discontent that nags away at the heart of a section of the population:
Bahut kuchh kaam hum sab kar chuke hain
Dilon mein ghar banaanaa rah gayaa hai
We’ve all done much work and achieved a great deal
What’s still left is to create a place in people’s heart
That those whose job it was to keep us on the right path actually misguided and lead us astray is voiced by some poets such as this by Krishna Mohan:
Bhatak ke raah se hum sab ko aazmaa aaye
Fareb de gaye jitne bhi rahnumaa aaye
Led astray from the path we saw everyone’s true worth
All the leaders who came only gave us deceptions
Though, of course written in another time and context, there’s this sher by Momin Khan Momin, brimful with regret for a lost world of togetherness:
Kabhi hum mein tum mein bhi chaah thhi kabhi hum se tum se bhi raah thhi
Kabhi hum bhi tum bhi thhe aashna tumhein yaad ho ke na yaad ho
Once there was liking between us, once there were paths between us
Once you and I were friends, whether you remember it now or not
To conclude, let me allude to two examples from recent history, both from outside India.
We seem to think we are the only functioning democracy and our public positions are peculiar to us.
In any public discourse on populism, we invoke a set of totemic images drawn from, let's say, the partition, or successive elections, communal riots, Ayodhya, Mumbai, Gujarat and so on coming to recent events around cow slaughter or ‘love jihad’.
The first is the rather obvious case of Hitler and the rise of fascist forces that tapped into a populist sentiment in a Germany that was on its knees after the Treaty of Versailles and a people who were looking for a way to feel good about themselves after a humiliating defeat. Hitler, who didn't have a majority in the German Reichstag, went on to form a one-party dictatorship based on totalitarianism and autocracy.
The outcome is too well known to be discussed in any detail. But it bears some reflection for us in India how far a popular sentiment based on hating the 'other' can go, and how the silence of a majority can eventually be so damning for the minority.
The other example I have in mind is that of Vaclav Havel, the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. Here's man who was an extremely well-regarded playwright, essayist, memoirist, born into a wealthy and influential family, a man who brought together politics and culture in many imaginative ways, a man who enjoyed great popularity in his own country, a man of moral authority, a public intellectual such as few politicians can aspire to be. He also had the ability to go against popular sentiment when he felt it was required.
Let me end by quoting Vaclav Havel, though out of context, because he said it for post-world war Czechoslovakia, but I want to use it for populism in a democracy such as ours: “We are all responsible; we are all guilty.”
(Dr Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and literary historian. She writes on literature, culture and society. She runs Hindustani Awaaz, an organisation devoted to the popularisation of Urdu literature. She tweets at @RakhshandaJalil. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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