In America, Quiet is not Peace

Many moons ago on an intersection in Brooklyn, I was pulled over by a traffic cop. He was white. He was polite and we went through the drill — license, registration, insurance. He then let me go.

But before he did, he asked a harmless question.

“Is this car yours”?

I am a dark skinned person of Indian origin. I had been living long enough in America and in Brooklyn to have known, seen and experienced racism. As a documentary filmmaker I had worked on several films about America’s deep and abhorrent history since slavery.

When I arrived in the US in 1992, the barbaric flogging of Rodney King had gone “viral” shattering my mirage of America.

On a campus in Ohio, I had my customary “go back to where you come from” moment.

So when the policeman asked me if the car I was driving was in fact mine, the first thing that popped in my mind was, would he have asked this question to someone who looked different and maybe had a name he could pronounce. If I looked darker and had an Afro would my treatment be different? The answer was obvious then as it is now and has been so for decades.

My moment of unease, pales in comparison to those my black friends and compatriots have narrated in casual conversations.

The public lynching of George Floyd began in a similar fashion. A fake $20 bill prompted a visit from the police. What happened next has been seared into everyone’s being, just as Rodney King’s lashing and the countless others before and after have, since as long as I can remember.

The murder of George Floyd was more than just about racism. It was about a rot that has infected men in uniform, that has sullied their code to serve, respect and protect those who pay their salary. The militarization of America via the police has brought home a level of violence, especially against a certain group of people, which has never been acceptable, but has gone on unabated.

As Cornel West passionately put it, this has gone on for far too long even when we had “black faces in high places”. He frames America as a failed “social experiment” within which many have not had a chance to prosper and live decent lives. Where the inequities have become so stark, that as a society we have reached a tipping point.

The killing of George Floyd was certainly not the first to be caught on camera and it is not going to be the last.

The wheels of change move much too slow, and they move only when pushed with overwhelming peaceful resistance.

And so what got people of all shades to the streets across the nation, was shock mixed with empathy, exacerbated by an uneasy confinement the pandemic had imposed. People were glued to their social media feeds with no jobs, dates or bars to go to. And so their conscience was placed front and center, asking them, what are you going to do about this?

Disregarding all social distancing norms that were still in effect, they poured into the streets with purpose.

Having a president who has been spewing divisiveness and egging on his supremacist supporters added much needed fuel to the mostly young energized protesters of every hue.

Ten days into the protests with people across the nation chanting “black lives matter”, “no justice no peace” and “ I can’t breathe” people all over are having a moment of soul searching, on how to react to what they are seeing.

Protests have erupted from New York to New Zealand, as police misconduct is not just an American phenomenon.

Any soul searching moment exposes complexities and the limits of one’s good conscience. There are those who are religiously going down to rallies and literally pounding the pavement, braving

tear gas, shoving, kicking and wearing the white plastic cuffs.

There are others who are feeling guilt and are posting gratuitous images of themselves with their black friends/acquaintances on Facebook and are sending token “feel your pain” messages of support, while draping themselves in a kind of righteous indignation that feels misplaced.

Then there are those who are falling prey to a “victim complex”. Going as far as endorsing and supporting looting, making the argument that “looting” is not just the prerogative of the 1% tax evaders, bankers, politicians, and Wall Street speculators and that Target carries insurance to rebuild so it will just be fine.

Watching young men in hoodies loot and pillage high-end stores in Manhattan, it was not clear if the intent was to send a message to the 1% or act on an abhorrent kind of brand consumerism that has been insidiously promoted via a hip-hop culture, that has made many filthy rich riding off the backs of the poor.

Dr. King and his foot soldiers who fought for justice, equality and an end to racism, were very aware of this fact. They knew the dangers of consumerism, the militarization of America, internal and external, and most of all the dangers of victim hood. They came from a place of faith and pride and demanded only that which was just and deserving of all fellow human beings.

Dr. King also eloquently said, which sounds like it was said yesterday, “certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met".

The moment we are currently in, certainly feels significant. While I heard people make speeches at George Floyd’s funeral, I could not tell if this could be compared to what had happened after Emmett Till’s funeral. Whether this will bring about seismic change in the mindset of people, is something only time will tell when the dust settles.

Whether there is momentum to push Washington and local governments to act to reform those in uniform, will depend on what powerful people in good conscience decide to do. And most importantly, will people come out in large numbers to oust a regime that is antithetical to all decency and justice, is uncertain.

This moment is more than justice for George Floyd.

This is about addressing violence that has plagued America since its founding. The violence that kills children in classrooms, black men, women and children in streets, people in foreign lands, unarmed immigrants seeking refuge and the brutality of incarceration and a failed criminal justice system that is eating away at America’s soul.

What will truly honor all those who have died in vain under a knee, in a choke hold or a tree hanging, is when there is a shift in the culture of the land. Lulled by consumerism, we have gotten too used to the “quiet” for way too long, thinking it is “peace”.

There is no place in the world that is devoid of racism and the violence of tribalism. But the basic responsibility of a human being, in uniform or otherwise, is to feel empathy — that is all.

Only genuine empathy can eradicate and evaporate guilt. If you are feeling guilt then turn it into action and bring about a change in your mindset. The rest will follow.

It is what it is.

VIRAL FEAR

My quarantine routine involves me taking my dog for a walk at 6:30 PM everyday. As we make our way through the picturesque tree lined brownstone neighborhood of Clinton Hill, we avoid people by crossing the street to make sure “social distance” is maintained.

At 7 PM sharp, the city sound erupts in loud cheer. Faceless people join in unison, clapping and screaming, banging pots and pans, blasting loud music out of their windows, all in applause of the doctors, nurses, delivery people, the police and other “frontline” workers who have kept the city afloat in the midst of a pandemic.

Months have gone by now, and the inflow of patients in New York City hospitals has dropped to a trickle. The spread of the virus has been stymied to a degree and the curve has been flattened. But we are told we are still not out of the woods.

Everyone walks around in masks reminding you of this fact and the cheering still continues while hospital beds lie vacant and the city remains largely shut, out of fear of another peak.

The question of lives versus livelihoods is now at the center of the discussion as the country and the city plans to reopen. Small and large business are on the brink with many filing for bankruptcy. The rate of unemployment is at an all time high and the prospects of an uncertain future is making people even more edgy.

While Wall Street is riding high on optimism based on glimmers of a return to business, the damage done to the economy by some estimates, is expected to last a decade.

While the virus is still circulating and taking its toll there is another virus that is simultaneously gripping many. The virus of “fear”. And this one may prove even more deadly if not dealt with equal seriousness.

When it all started the fear was heightened and amplified. Watching the daily global Covid-19 death toll ticker website, had become an obsession. Every person, surface and space was suspect. News reports made you feel the virus was everywhere, on your door handle, in the sky and in the wind. I was wearing gloves all the time, had stopped using toilet paper and Purel and Clorox had become my lord and savior.

It felt as though the virus was lurking waiting for that careless moment to pounce. Paranoia was just round the corner even though my intelligence was asking me to be prudent.

For me much has changed in ten weeks. For others it seems to have gotten worse.

We are surrounded by bacteria and viruses in ways we seldom stop to think about. There is a close connection between microbes and humans. Experts believe about half of all human DNA originated from viruses that infected and embedded their nucleic acid in our ancestors’ egg and sperm cells.

Microbes occupy all of our body surfaces, including the skin, gut, and mucous membranes. In fact, our bodies contain at least 10 times more bacterial cells than human ones, blurring the line between where microbes end and humans begin.

Microbes in the human gastrointestinal tract alone comprise of at least 10 trillion, representing more than 1,000 species, which are thought to prevent the gut from being colonized by disease-causing organisms. Microbes synthesize vitamins, break down food and stimulate our immune systems.

In many cases, microbes derive benefits without harming us; in other cases, both host and microbe benefit. And though some microbes make us sick and even kill us, as in the case of Covid-19, in the long run they have a shared interest in our survival.

The human immune system is designed to keep us safe from foreign invaders. As in the case of Covid-19, a vast majority of people do recover as their immune system does what it is designed to do. But for others, like with any other disease, if the immune system is compromised by underlying factors, then the outcome can be dire.

Risk is an inherent and integral part of living. If “fear” of a sneeze or a delivered package makes us develop an obsessive compulsive disorder, partly fueled by a constant barrage of information and misinformation, then we might as well accept defeat.

In reality, we are in the early stages of learning about this virus and how it behaves. Yet a result from any new study alarms people in the way it is announced in the media, and in some instances gives hope.

But what everyone in the scientific community agree on, is that the only way we can possibly think of returning to a pre-Covid state of mind, is by developing a full proof vaccine - which despite all positive estimates is months if not years away. And then vaccinating planet earth, which will be a long, monumental and laborious task in itself.

Therefore the only viable solution in the short term is to develop herd immunity or hope and pray that the virus runs its course and becomes manageable like its predecessors SARS and MERS.

Everyone agrees that this virus will become endemic, and we will have to calibrate risk and learn to live with it, or stop living all together out of fear of contracting it.

The approach most nations took to deal with the virus was a blunt one. As the death toll began to overwhelm fragile healthcare systems and models projected deaths in astronomical numbers. It was the only option seen to contain the spread, as nothing else was planned or prepared for. Had there had been an early globally coordinated response, maybe shutdowns could have been avoided.

One nation, Sweden, sought to take a more nuanced path. They opted for a partial shutdown putting the mental health of their children front and center. They took a risk assessment as data showed children were least susceptible to the virus.

So they kept their lower grade schools open and protected the more vulnerable and asked the rest to practice social distancing and other preventative measures. Being a small and sparse nation they took a bet on herd immunity. They concluded, a lockdown was an easy thing to do, but coming out of it would prove much more challenging, as most nations are experiencing at this moment.

The lack of any unified approach, preparation and risk assessment has made America acquire the dubious distinction of a nation with the world’s most Covid-19 deaths.

With more than 100,000 dead and counting, one of the world’s wealthiest nation thoroughly botched its response to a pandemic that was predicted for years by experts in the private sector and within the establishment.

And then the worst crisis to hit America was met by the most inept administration in disarray.

Up until the virus, Donald Trump had only dealt with crises that he had engineered himself. But when confronted with an external one such as a pandemic, his inability to do what was necessary, before and during, based on scientific advise and sound strategy exposed his utter lack of leadership. Even though he was quick to frame a public health crisis as a “war against an invisible enemy”, he pretty much laid down his defenses even before the war began in earnest.

Further the death toll and the rate of infection in America exposed weaknesses in the American way of living. From a poor healthcare system, the lack of preparedness, inequality, poverty to the fragile health of its population, the virus laid bare all that is wrong with this country and that which has been debated election after election but never mended.

Now as America begins to open its economy state by state, the chaos is more blaring than ever. The lack of a unified approach sows doubt in a sustainable and safe recovery. Due to a lack of planning once again the pendulum continues to swing between extremes. A lack of consistent messaging coupled with alarmist media headlines makes people more fearful than they need to be.

Being an election year the pandemic has also become a flashpoint for politics, further exacerbating the situation causing lives to be lost and livelihoods decimated.

On a phone conversation with my 88 year old father who lives in India, I asked if he had ever witnessed a moment like this in his lifetime in a poor country like his. He could not recall an unconditional halt to life he was experiencing, even though quarantines were common during outbreaks.

But then I wondered, small pox, measles and polio were common when he was a child. Vaccines were a relatively new invention. Other kinds of waterborne seasonal tropical epidemics like cholera, jaundice, malaria etc. were and are common. People died like flies, from all sorts of endemic ailments. Sure Covid-19 is far more contagious and there is no undermining this fact, but what was different then?

What did not exist was the Internet, Smart Phones, Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Cable Television and a non-stop barrage of information warping the whole world right in front of ones eyes day in and day out.

If we are to conquer Covid-19, we would have to conquer our fears first and then use our intelligence and civic sense to keep ourselves and others safe.

It is what it is.

A Manmade Catastrophe

I recently finished watching the Netlfix hit documentary series Tiger King, which has become a pop culture phenomenon in these quarantine times.

This seven part series at its core is about despicable people doing deplorable things. Even though Netflix calls it a documentary series, it is more a reality show about people who are bizarre train-wrecks. Like many who came before them, from Kardashians to Duck Dynasty, they are just the new flavor of the month.

Heck, we even elected one to lead the country.

The show mainly circles around a feud between Joe Exotic, a man who breeds “big cats”, mainly tigers, and operates a private zoo in Oklahoma and Carole Baskin who claims to rescue big cats from abuse from operators like Joe and is determined to shut him and his kind down.

While you watch these narcissistic characters over a period of five years, everything as the show tag line promises “murder, mayhem and madness” comes into focus.

The show in many ways is a perfect reflection of Trump’s America, as it embodies how far the culture has fallen in every manner possible.

The show ends with a jaw dropping statistic which to a certain degree speaks to the crisis we find ourselves in at this very moment.

There are more tigers in captivity in America than there are in the wild. Most of them bred by private zoos catering to a growing fetish of people taking pleasure in petting them and taking selfies for their Instagram posts and mantle displays. Joe in the show claims he has more than 200 tigers in his facility and keeps breeding more and more for money.

Private zoos big and small dot the nation and the USDA has issued more than two thousand licenses over the years. Watching animals in cages has become a sadistic kind of entertainment that has been normalized by wide social acceptability.

Wild animals have been a fixation of the west, since big game hunting decimated wildlife in Africa and India during colonialism.

Circuses used and abused animals till recently. Big fish are still made to perform for humans in aquariums all around the country to the delight of many. Most animals perform for humans only for food. This is a known fact.

By attaching a nature conservation and education agenda, animals are kept in enclosures for our pleasure. Some animals are justifiably rescued from the wild and cared for in these facilities, but the business of using animals for profit is ethically problematic no matter how you approach it.

The smaller private zoos are only in for the profit. In the show you see snakes, monkeys, big cats of every pedigree, exotic birds and some claim over two hundred species in cages.

On sprawling ranches in Texas today one can shoot big game for big money. You can hunt African wildlife in Texas, and it is legal. Some owners say the proceeds go for wildlife conservation in Africa.

In the present moment we are in the midst of a pandemic caused by messing with the wild. While we point a finger at China and its eating habits and focus on the barbarism of its meat markets, we conveniently ignore the barbarism we tolerate right here in America in the name of “freedom”.

“Zoonotic Spillover” or “Zoonosis” is the term used when a virus spills over from an animal to a human. This happens when humans come in close contact with wild animals in ways they should not.

Zoonosis is a common phenomenon and about two thirds of viruses circulating among humans are of this nature.

Zoonotic spillover has increased in the last 50 years, mainly due to environmental degradation, deforestation and shrinking wild habitats bringing humans closer and closer to the wild.

HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Anthrax, West Nile, Zika, SARS and MERS are just a few viruses that have made the jump into humans.

In the case of the new coronavirus, researchers believe the virus may have originated within horseshoe bats in China and then could have possibly spread to other animals — which people then ate.

This is still a theory, as conclusive evidence is still murky. But since this is not the first “coronavirus” known to mankind, the theory that this transfer may have happened in a Wuhan wet animal market, is more plausible than not.

David Quammen’s 2012 book, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, traces the rise of different zoonoses around the world

Quammen noted in a February interview on NPR, when only 500 people had died in China, that the outbreak was a serious threat and a rapid global spread was imminent.

Quammen noted that humans are the common link in all zoonoses: “We humans are so abundant and so disruptive on this planet. … We’re cutting the tropical forests. We’re building work camps in those forests and villages. We’re eating the wildlife,” he says. “You go into a forest and you shake the trees — literally and figuratively — and viruses fall out.”

It is all but clear in this crisis, that there are too many of us on this planet taking up too much space. We are causing biodiversity to disappear at an alarming rate and have lost sight of our boundaries.

Interacting with wild animals in their natural habitat as an observer is one thing. To breed them, eat them, smuggle them and enclose them for our pleasure is not only barbaric but has proven lethal.

If we do not learn this lesson from this pandemic, then nature will scold us one way or another - over and over again.

It is what it is.

The Invisible Equalizer

As people are confined in their homes and have nothing better to do but tap “forward” on their social media accounts, in hopes of relieving stress, a meme caught my eye.

It was a picture of the planet floating in black space with the words in bold “Planet Earth: Closed for Repairs”.

As humanity has taken over more and more of earth’s real estate, it has begun to assume that the planet belongs to it and the meme boldly assumes we are the owners. On the contrary it is the human race that needs repairing, as its trajectory has come to stand still.

Planet earth will repair itself just fine regardless of what happens to humanity. The earth is just deciding, which virus to keep and which to cull.

While a pandemic is not an anomaly to human history, no one thought a microscopic germ, in this day and age, would bring all of humanity’s engine to a grinding halt.

Humans had gotten complacent and over confident in their faith in modern medicine. Now an economic collapse of gigantic proportions is imminent, and as we “fire-fight” our way out of this one, one thing becomes ever so clear.

As a human race the way we largely live, is unsustainable.

If we are willing to learn, the virus is here to teach us many lessons. There can be no better teachable moment than this one. This is an once in a generation opportunity that is before us.

There is gloom all around us. But as history shows us, this is when the human spirit shines the brightest. Pushing us towards great innovation and greater change.

One silver lining to this crisis, is that the earth is healing as a result of a withdrawal from frenetic human activity.

The skies are clearing, fish are returning to the canals of Venice, Dolphins are returning to the Mumbai harbor and birds can be heard in the concrete jungles of the world.

To those who still believe human activity is not altering the environment, here is an opportunity to witness it first hand.

While some talk about a planet being one big village, this is the first time in a long time, we have been reminded how true that is.

While boorish leaders talk about building walls and enforcing borders and treating immigrants and refugees as the “other”, the virus teaches us, there is no “other”. Every individual is obligated in the survival of every other.

Stopping air traffic, closing borders, quarantining people has not stalled the virus from wreaking havoc. But it is clear, if the world had worked as one organism, as one entity, sharing and caring for each other regardless of our divisions, probably things would have progressed in a less dire fashion.

The World Health Organization (WHO) was established to tackle epidemics on a global scale. Its mandate is to be on a constant lookout for the next epidemic and clamp it before it explodes. But the WHO can only coordinate a global response when it is well funded by member nations, and given the power to act.

The way the current pandemic has been handled, is by every nation going at it alone. There has been a lack of a unified response, which is what was needed back in December when the first case was reported in China.

Now the pandemic is full blown in Europe and in America, and chances of it getting out of hand in other nations is very real.

While some nations like Singapore and South Korea have been able to manage it better, it is only because they were prepared. While other nations were watching the wave approach from afar and waiting for it to crash to then act.

The virus is unrelenting and unsparing. It does not discriminate and also exposes the frailty of the human race.

The panic buying and hoarding of commodities like toilet paper and bottled water exposes how ill-prepared and misinformed we are as a people in times of crisis. It also shows how humans, especially the urban ones, have become accustomed to a plethora of things that are not needed to exist. The loss of some basic comforts is perceived as the end of days by many.

As soon as the virus began to spread the immediate response of some wealthy people was to escape if they could, leaving the rest behind.

Many from Manhattan scurried to the Hamptons, hoping to ride it out in luxury, breathing fresh air from the Atlantic.

As we have found out, rich, poor, celebrity, powerful, healthy, old, young, fat, thin, black, brown, white, short, tall, man or woman, the virus does not discriminate. It is the great equalizer.

Whenever there is a pandemic or an impending disaster, humans begin to conjure up images of an apocalypse. Especially in America, Hollywood has imagined every kind of apocalypse, which gives fodder to the imagination in times like these.

From Zombies, Killer Robots, to Geo-storms, Godzilla, Alien Invasions, Nuclear Holocaust, to Contagion, every possible scenario that brings humanity to the brink of extinction has been imagined with horror while entertaining the masses. The source of these bizarre machinations is rooted in the Christian faith and the notion of a “second coming”.

And so social media is awash with videos of an apocalypse coming and the alarmists are imaging breadlines from the “Great Depression” or “Weimer Germany” of the 1920s.

Wall Street is crashing and that is sending people’s financial security into a tailspin. The government is having to resort to anti-capitalist and un-American ideas of “socialism” by handing out money to companies and people as the bottom falls out.

Only in America, gun sales are spiking as people think intruders might come for their toilet paper or they might have to go hunt in case meat in their refrigerators runs low.

In the midst of all this, the contagion is spreading and confining us to our homes and families, asking us to contend with our loved ones and contemplate the meaning of life.

Life as we knew it before the virus may or may not return. But one thing has been made abundantly clear. We can no longer continue to live the way we do.

If in our absence the earth heals, it is a profound sign.

We need to do more to make it mend while we are present. As in the end we are too many to be extinguished by a mere virus.

It is what it is.

Hypocrisy and Hate

An image that jarred me the most this week was a photograph of the Indian Prime Minister standing by President Donald trump as he signed the guest book at Sabarmati Ashram. He signed the book saying, "to my great friend Prime Minister Modi, thank you for this wonderful visit".

Sabarmati Ashram is probably one of the most sacred places in India. This is where Mahatma Gandhi, who is the "father of the nation" (not the one Donald Trump chose to elevate) lived for twelve years of his life with his wife and his followers. It is from here he launched the "Dandi March" which was a significant moment, in the resistance against the British. The Bhagwat Gita was recited here every day as per the ashram schedule.

I visited this place about a decade ago. It is a museum today. The atmosphere along the Sabarmati River is still serene and stirs the soul. It can transport you to a time when things were simpler, while the world was in as much chaos as it is today.

Even though Gandhi has become passé to many in India, and has been reduced to just a face on a currency note, it so happens, Indian politicians like to drape themselves in him whenever an opportunity arises.

So for any dignitary visiting the country, the ashram has become a requisite stop. More so since Narendra Modi became prime minister, as the ashram resides in his home state of Gujarat. This gives him ample opportunity to drape Gandhi to his hearts content.

Every visiting head of state now visits Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat. Xi Jin Ping was wined and dined here sometime back, and now it was Donald Trump's turn.

After delivering on a promise of a stadium full of people in white hats cheering, which looked as fake as a North Korean parade, Trump was taken to the ashram. There he was seen spinning the "Charkha", the wheel that Gandhi had turned into a symbol of resilience while churning the Indian independence movement.

Here were two men who did not belong here in every sense of the word, posing for cameras. Neither one of them would have found themselves in Gandhi's circle if he were alive today.

Narendra Modi was and still is a foot soldier for the RSS. The RSS (Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangh) is the ideological backbone of the BJP, the political party Modi usurped much like Donald Trump did with the Republican party. A populist strong man, he has managed to win two elections with a landslide unheard of in modern Indian politics.

The RSS ideology was also the one that guided Nathuram Godse to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi. To have Narendra Modi now promote Gandhi, just seems jarring and nauseating to say the least.

I wondered what Modi really thought about the whole affair, when the RSS leaders openly held Gandhi responsible for partition and for allowing Muslims to remain in India. Narendra Modi rarely takes questions from anyone, so we would never know. The RSS in the recent past has tried to soften its image a little, yet it still holds true to its founding principles of India being a nation for Hindus, and has had a resurgence in the present climate.

Donald Trump, who has made no secret of his xenophobia, racism and just about everything repulsive to the human spirit, was standing in this hallowed ground, probably not knowing anything more than the name Mahatma Gandhi, which he would most certainly struggle to pronounce. The lack of any gold in the architecture and him having to remove his shoes must have irritated him the most. If he had seen the movie "Gandhi" by Richard Attenborough, the ostentatious depiction of The Raj would have intrigued him more than anything else.

Trump had just come from butchering the name of another illustrious Indian, Swami Vivekananda, in front of a stadium full of applauding mostly Hindus. The optics of the whole affair was loathsome to say the least.

Modi and his political party rose on the heels of a desecration of an ancient structure. A Mosque was torn down by a violent mob claiming it had in-turn desecrated a temple that once stood there.

Last year a court ruled that the vandalism was legitimate and permission was granted for a temple to be returned to the site. After two decades of litigation, the vandals were absolved of their crime by the Supreme Court. Modi, a foot soldier that got it done then, was finishing the task as prime minister. This was seen as a promise kept by a party that is now ruling the country with an overwhelming majority in parliament.

For many across the spectrum, the rise of Modi has been seen as also the reclamation of Hindu pride. Many see him as the unabashed guardian of Hindu identity as he publicly exhibits his religiosity visiting temples and engaging in rituals. Many see him as finally restoring Hindu divinity and dignity to its rightful place, which was banished and buried by decades of secularism and a western hegemony. Which is broadly now termed and dismissed as a left, liberal, Marxist, communist, secular force.

So in this moment of Hindu revivalism of sorts, the fault lines that have always existed between communities, are now being heightened.

The re-litigation of Indian history has become a preoccupation of many academics and politicians alike. The history that was written before "now", is being called into question and is considered suspect, as the authors are seen as tainted by a western Hinduphobic/Indophobic imperialist bias.

There is a notion that is being peddled, that there was a glorious period in Indian history, where Hinduism flourished and knowledge unseen and unheard existed here in the ancient texts. The prime minister has openly said that the fact that Ganesha exists in Hindu mythology with an elephant head on a human body, shows that Hindus had advanced skills in surgery. Some of his supporters at science conferences have proclaimed “Hindu India” had figured out flight and the atom long before the west. Mythology was now being considered history, with conviction in some circles.

And then came the Muslims invading and pillaging the land and destroying a Hindu/Indian utopia. Temples were obliterated. Hindus were killed in droves, women were raped and idols desecrated and many forcibly converted to Islam.

Bollywood films  followed suit supporting this narrative, making historical films using grandiose special effects showing Muslim villains as extreme diabolical barbaric creatures while celebrating the Hindu heroes overtly, showing them to be devout and brave. All the while negating the fact that the British gave us the current identity of India, exploiting divisions between warlords and kings that had existed since the beginning of time.

The plight of Kashmiri Pundits also began to gather attention after being on the fringes since the 90s. Islamic militancy had driven the Pundits out of the valley in the most vile and violent manner imaginable. Government neglect, Islamic fundamentalism and support from across the border and a total collapse of law and order had created a situation that caused thousands to leave their homes in search of security. This was yet another exodus in India's painful history caused by sectarian violence, which still has no clear resolution in the midst of further chaos and sectarianism.

The undemocratic suspension of human rights in Kashmir under the barrel of a gun and the indefinite incarceration of political leaders is being seen and shown as a start to a resolution to their plight. But this cannot be farthest from the truth.  

Also if you were not into temples, idols, rituals, yoga, saffron, tilaks and not following a spiritual leader or some nefarious and flamboyant godman/woman, you are considered not a “practicing Hindu”. Whatever that means. And hence you are branded a traitor to the religion and dismissed as a lesser being, an atheist or even worse a "liberal". In effect using the Islamic playbook of branding someone who does not believe in the one true god/religion, a Kafir. If you were not the right kind of Hindu, you were pretty much an anti-national.

It is in this climate the BJP government passed two controversial bills, which have ignited simmering fault lines across the nation. The CAB (Citizenship Amendment Bill) and the NRC (National Register of Citizens) were passed with ease in the parliament, as the BJP with its numbers adopted a majoritarian style of governance.

The CAB gives refuge and fast tracks citizenship to people fleeing persecution from neighboring countries as long as they are not Muslim. The NRC's goal is to verify citizenship of 1.3 billion Indians by determining who belongs and who does not, by verifying documentation, like a birth certificate or a government issue license. The objective is very similar to what Donald Trump had when he wanted to add a citizenship question to the census form, which was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Many Indians do not posses documentation to prove their origins. So those who don't would be left out and then would have to be granted citizenship under the CAB, as long as they are not Muslim.

The government went on the offensive to proclaim these were bills that were not discriminatory and in the interest of the nation. The message that was read between the lines was something different. Two hundred million Indian Muslims are to be rendered second-class citizens or non-citizens, by virtue of their religion.

This bill would give undue power to the person parsing the information to play god, determining who is or isn't a citizen. In a nation like India, this could lead to profiling and corruption on an unprecedented scale.

As one would expect protests broke out all across the nation. It was only a matter time they would get violent. As supporters of the bill openly exhibited their bigotry, trying to rationalize its merits, the detractors vowed to protect and maintain the secular nature of the nation that was enshrined in the constitution.

Three months relative non-violent unrest, this week erupted in deadly communal mayhem. The Chief Minister under whose leadership the nation witnessed one of the worst communal riots unfold, now as Prime Minister had another one on his hands. After dozens dead and property pillaged and burned, he appealed for calm. But stopped short of reprimanding his party members and ministers for publicly engaging in words of communal hate over the past months.

Mahatam Gandhi was a religious man. The Hinduism he spoke of and practiced was of an inclusive kind. A kind of Hinduism which is less of an organized religion, and more of a humanistic approach to living, being and breathing. A Hinduism that only sees humanity in every one and nothing else. The kind of Hinduism that is in diametric opposition to all hate of all kind.

If he were around he would be on a hunger strike asking all parties to come to their senses and stop all violence in action, thought and intent. Prime Minister Modi was more interested in showing Donald Trump the Taj Mahal and hiding real India behind walls, not to jar the senses of a man used to living in gilded rooms.

While humans dance on divisions and think we can separate ourselves with religious borders and intellectual walls, there is a microscopic germ that is here to teach us a lesson.

It is what it is.

India Paradox

I am on my annual visit to the city of my birth. As always I am here for several reasons. The primary one being to spend time with my aging parents, a requirement for all us expats in our fifties. I am also here to screen some of my films and commence filming on a new one.

To begin filming, I arrived in a quaint temple town in Tamil Nadu, called Thiruvannamalai, a four hour rocky drive from Bangalore. This town is known for one of the oldest Hindu temples in India and an Ashram established by a saint named Ramana Maharshi.

Many from around India and the west come here to find inner peace and contentment and also Yoga and your Ayurvedic massage.

I was here to interview a person who is significant to my film.

During our conversation, this British lady of 83, who has spent a lifetime in India said something that grabbed me.

She said "Everything you hear about India is absolutely true and so is exactly the opposite".

I have written many essays about this profound land of my birth, trying to capture its beauty, problems, contradictions and paradoxes.

This one sentence for me, pretty much captures what India is, has always been and will always remain.

This maybe true for many other countries as well, but for me it rings true more here than any place else. It would be pedantic to give examples. One would have to experience it to believe it.

It is what it is. 

End of a Decade

My daughter came home from school and announced joyously, "Today was my last class of the decade".

It had not dawned on me until then, that a decade was coming to an end. A whole ten years in human history was going to be in the past to reflect and learn from. How much we would learn from it was the big unknown.

The previous decade started with one of the most horrific events of my life time. Just over the bridge from where I live, two towers came crashing down in a pile of concrete and human flesh. Hundreds of innocent people were incinerated in jet fuel, while others jumped from windows in hope of flight.

This singular act of evil would cast a shadow into this decade in more certain terms than ever. That deathly blow, lead to more evil across the world through illegal and illegitimate wars, terrorism and  hatred of the other, that continues till this day.

The eight years of a Neo-conservtive administration of president George Bush Jr. in the previous decade started wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under the pretext of a global campaign against an amorphous enemy dubbed a "war on terror". After thousands dead, the war continues and its unholy symbol, Guantanamo, still remains open like a pus wound on humanity. George Bush also oversaw a financial meltdown, that affected every economy of the world, questioning the virtues of capitalism.

A backlash to the chaos the world was plunged into, saw the most unlikely candidate ascend to the presidency in America. The eight years of president Barack Obama brought some pizzazz to the White House, while the military industrial complex continued with its excesses behind the scenes.

Liberal policies saw some reform in the areas of healthcare, environment and in the reigning of the banking system along the edges. The first African American president set a liberal tone to his administration, by signing the Paris climate accords, tackling nuclear weapons and engaging with the middle east while keeping the wars going. When he was given the Nobel Prize there was sharp criticism from all quarters for it being premature. But his charisma and infectious smile won him tremendous support around the world, but it also energized his conservative detractors.

The right wing propaganda machine was put into high gear via Fox News, to de-legitimize his presidency by calling him a birth certificate forger and a closet Muslim.

The constant barrage from Fox News eventually bore fruit in the election of Donald Trump.

The rise of Trump was not an anomaly. Large nations around the world decided to take a turn to the right in their outlook for the future. In India, the world's largest democracy, a party came to power with a resounding mandate, twice under a nationalist populist leader. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro came to power by running a divisive campaign much like Donald Trump. Right wing parties across Europe gained more ground than ever before. In Russia, Vladimir Putin eliminated all opposition by any means necessary. In China, the communist party made it's leader Xi Jinping,  as powerful as their master and founder Mao Zedong, anointing him president for life.

The end of the decade saw a decrease in democracy and democratic values and an increase in authoritarianism both within democracies and inside established dictatorships.

The decade also saw technology companies become unshakable behemoths. Companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft became more powerful than nations and more profitable in all of human history. The words "Trillion Dollars" entered the vocabulary while defining market capitalization of some of these companies.

The obscene wealth generated by the employees and CEOs exposed the income inequality more starkly than ever before. Beyond all of the above, these companies changed the way humans interact in the most fundamental way around the globe. "Social Media" began to upend established societal norms. It became easier to polarize people trapped in their echo chambers. The slow and steady push into this world globally, was probably the most defining movement of the decade.

While some were kept entertained on Whatsapp and Tik Tok by imbecile human behavior and cats doing calisthenics, people with "followers" and an inordinate number of "friends" started to feel they and their opinion mattered. And so began a "war of narratives" as more and more people began to indulge in Digital Masturbation.

Companies like Cambridge Analytica saw a business opportunity. The Russians saw a weakness to exploit. A president found a base he could reach while in his bathrobe any moment of the day. And other leaders around the world and their followers began to harness the power and vulnerability of the digitally opiated masses, to swing elections and usurp power.

At the end of the decade the war of narratives was the only war that mattered. The war between religions. The beef between liberals and conservatives. The conflict between the right and the left.
The name calling between the secular minded and the traditionalists. The feud between consumerism and environmentalism, capitalism and socialism, rich and the poor and men, women and everyone in between rages on into the next decade. And all that rises to the surface is a loss of civility and a banishment of discourse based on reason and humanity.

While wars are waged in cyberspace and elsewhere, there is one constant. The planetary engine keeps chugging along, as us as ants on its back mess with its timeless eternal motion.

We officially entered the Athropocene era. For the first time in the history of the planet, it is humans that are altering the crust far more deliberately than nature. Mining, agriculture, urban sprawl and heavy construction is altering the surface much more rapidly than the sun, wind and the waves.

The environment has been sending alarms for more than half a century, but humans have not been paying much attention. It is in this decade, that the urgency has been felt in the most dramatic fashion. But still many wish to let their heads remain buried in the sand.

Climate change caused by human activity is real. The pollution of our oceans with plastic is real. Toxic air in urban cities is real. Yet nations cannot come together to find a common solution. The COP25 talks in Madrid this month, failed after delegates from nearly 200 countries struggled to reach agreement on key issues on the framework underpinning the Paris climate accords.

It is more than irrefutable that making electric cars, hoisting windmills and solar panels, changing light bulbs, recycling garbage, joining the Greta Thunberg fan club and eating Kale is not going to solve the crisis we face today.

If there is one thing the last decade teaches us, is that it is all but certain that things are not going to change until they have to. The current leadership around the world is impotent and emaciated to make any tangible change. So we wait on the shore in hope of a miracle.

As we end this decade, looking at the past, I cannot say there was much progress made in tackling the big issues that face us. All the inhumane ideas that we thought we had left behind after the end of the big wars and colonialism, were resurrected by leaders who had no new vision to offer. Sectarianism, bigotry and the re-litigation of history was again on the menu. Common ideals that we had agreed on, regardless of one's political bent and belief system, were no longer a given.

Yet we must stay hopeful. As it is only in the dark that the stars shine the brightest.

“Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul”

Walt Whitman

(May 31, 1819–March 26, 1892)