Life as I find it

Was talking with someone about the problems wildlife sanctuaries face with local populations. On one end, there is the need to conserve the wildlife, to ensure that natural life survives in an increasingly crowded world.

On the other hand, what happens to all those people who live in close proximity to nature?

Over the years, in my life as a wanderer, I have lived the life of a nomadic Khampa horsewoman in the Himalaya, been in close touch with other nomads – Gaddi (shepherds), Gujjars (buffaloherds), etc. This has made me sensitive to the “people of the land”. I can’t see a rich, luscious lawn without feeling a sense of well being, even though I don’t own livestock anymore. I can’t see barren land without wondering where the nearest greenery is. It is a part of me.

I see nature in a continuing cycle, but I see humans as a part of it, not just the protectors of something different from them. In a way, perhaps, I see cities as the anthills of humans.

We are different, yes. We are perhaps the only animal on earth to own the very land they live on. Not just territorial within our species, but with other species as well – We kill pests in our home, we don’t want pigeons or stray dogs inside, etc.

On the other hand, in my life as a nomad, my horses were family, and there was a deep sense of nurturance for all life no matter who owned it or if it was wild.

Today, as we “protect” our natural life, we isolate it and frame it and put it on display as something “other”. Sanctuaries showcase “wildlife” and restrict tribals from using natural resources in it.

Some of it is essential – poaching, hunting endanger animals and need to be protected from. Yet, how does a nomadic shepherd deal  with not being able to wander grasslands at will? Already, Himalayan shepherds face problems in the winter months with reduced grazing in low altitudes with increase in population and development. If they are also restricted in their summer months, soon we are going to lose an entire part of our living history, because of our inability to understand that not all lives can be slotted and allotted only specific amounts of land.

I have been absent from this blog for quite some days related with my own learning journey.

Been thinking a lot about all these India-Pakistan thingies.

For all people  of the two countries, there is a perspective i’d like to share:

• Identity: Pakistan seems to still be in teenage rebellion mode when it comes to India and the world for that matter – seeking approval from the world, needing support, hating the supporters, the family it grew up from… Its not a matter of if it is a current crisis or a new one. The important thing is to identify the emotional alignment and respect it, regardless of the “price in the moment”. Mindsets can’t be bullied into change – they can only be influenced into evolving.
• India on the other hand seems to be the patronizing elder brother who can’t really understand that teenager and seems to do everything “wrong”, including setting up of family functions (trade, communications…) to encourage the rebellious kid to come to terms with its fold.
• While the teenager may attend, hiding that anger doesn’t make it go away, but pushes it deeper into the psyche, where perhaps the teenager is not even aware of it at times, but it manifests in the tone, the smaller actions…..
• The “firm hand” is seen as supression. So at the moment, India is only unfair, patronizing and superior from the Pakistani perspective.

Unlike the rest of the world, I don’t believe Kashmir is the cause of the “differences” between the two countries, but a manifestation of those differences. Going by the earlier model, its the teenager encouraging the younger sibling to join its rebellion somewhat as a validation of itself as well, while the “patronizing elder” doesn’t think its for the good of that sibling. Of course, what the sibling wants is out of the equation entirely – from the King’s choice at freedom to the people’s in this time.

The rest of the world is unwilling to interfere or voice an opinion in a “family matter”.

If we have to be able to move on with this unending cycle, we need to first recognize it and be able to stop enacting it. It can’t be easy, but it can’t be impossible either.

First, I think its important for both countries to acknowledge their anger and their judgments that hinder them from seeing and being able to work with “the good” in the other. If this means an all out war, so be it. If it means media, cricket, …… that’s preferrable, I guess. In some ways I agree with Bal Thackeray when he calls for a decisive war – it would be an honest expression of the pent up hostility and we would be able to move on. Sure it would be violent and there would be a price in lives – but the option seems to be paying it upfront or in instalments with interest. Getting all that anger out in the open and seeing what it does to both would be the first step to moving on. The point is to get all that anger out in the open, acknowledge its there and work with the awareness that it influences both. Pretending to be saintlike “peace loving” people wronged by the other hasn’t worked for the last 60 years, and I don’t see this camouflage working in the next 60 either.

To accept the differences and to be able to work with what it would like to work with. We don’t need to fall in love. What we need to be able to do is recognize that while there are fundamental differences, their existing in the other okay.

What are these differences and where do they come from?

• The birth: Pakistan got carved out of India on the basis of religion. The greater land, the name remained with India. Somewhere, unconsciously, there seems to be a righteousness to India – as though any problems arising from this birthing process belong to Pakistan, as it is what it always was. That’s untrue. The name may have remained the same, but we are a new country. We also have a birth in our current form. Pakistan on the other hand, seems to operate from an unconscious assumption that it owes its identity to “differences”, therefore, finding common ground with India, threatens its very existence. Not logically, but unconscious fears are rarely logical.
• The enactment of differences: These create further differences to hide the unconscious need to hide anger (notice how it layers?). Wars, media hostility, disagreements…. keep adding fuel to the fire.
• The fantasy in India seems to be that we are a peaceful country, because we are nice people. It doesn’t seem to matter that the comparitively larger size of India cushions and nourishes the prosperity by allowing distance from the hostility. Ask those who live in Kashmir, the north-east or other parts that see regular violence about their experience of their country to discover how those busy surviving would like to paint the picture. One terror attack shakes Mumbai till the next lull comes – why? Because Mumbai is distant from the violence, and when it sees it, its shocked. No one notices the reassuring lull that happens, simply because the distance from the violence allows prosperity to flourish. No such lull happens in Kashmir, Pakistan, or other places close to the violence, not because they are bad people, but because they live closer to the manifestation of differences. The Indians who call India peace loving really need to examine their need for this white-wash. Are we saying that Kashmiris fighting for independence are not currently Indians? Are we saying that rioting Hindutva guys are not Indians? Why then do we have a police force at all?
• The fantasy in Pakistan seems to be that Pakistan somehow needs to be more powerful than India to survive. Their obsession over their identity being based on differences and then one side of the difference having to be “right” and the other “wrong” and their inability to co-exist makes them tremendously vulnerable to every difference that arises – because it must be overpowered or overpower – be it extremists and moderates, army and civilians, Baluchistan/FATA/POK and the rest of Pakistan. It is as though legitimizing any difference threatens disaster. This perhaps arises from the “difference of religion” being thier cause of splitting from India, so other differences seem to call for more and more splits. It also colours their perception of India and how hostility in India over differences is perceived by them. Fighting of any land for its differences seems to legitimize its not being a part of India.The way I see this, the question is not what the differences are, or how the other is “bad”, but what that difference means to us. If the other is evil, what is the threat to us? Is it a legitimate threat or are we operating from primitive responses? Is it possible that the other can be doing very bad things, but they are their actions, and we can still flourish?

What we need is less judgments and more operating from empowerment than threat that frees us to accept differences without fear and striking back.

I’d written about people pestering smokers, now its the government doing it. There’s a whole list of “public places” that people can’t smoke in, in Mumbai. Apparently, some people are more equal than others. If you don’t want to inhale smoke, you don’t even need to move away a little anymore. The government takes care of it for you.

I was really surprised to know that you can’t smoke in the premises of the society you live in. Open air really blows all the smoke away, so where is the logic in this? Its not like smokers find vulnerable non-smokers to blow smoke in their faces, you know?

I find this quite disgusting the way some people (read government) think they can decide for an entire population. Has the number of people dying from passive smoke exceeded those dying from diseases spread by mosquitoes and flies and rats? Where are the fines for lack of pest control – not newsworthy enough?

I see India going the phobia way straight into paranoia. Everything that scares you (whether real or imagined) needs to be destroyed. Smoking causes cancer. Awesome. Get rid of smoking, quick! Project every fear of ill health out of your control and get rid of smoking and fantasize that you will now not get any illness.

A few decades ago, it was the Hindu-Muslim riots, where Hindus thought all Muslims were basically killers who would get them one day and vice versa, and went ahead to get rid of them. Look what a beauty that was.

The desi ghee that was once liberally served for promoting good health, is missing from the tables of many families I know – for good health. No one is really bothered to know how that uncle of theirs could drink a glass of it everyday and lived into a bright old age.

People want black and white. If I do this, I will always remain safe. Never mind if it is an illusion. I want it to be true.

So now, it is the turn of smoking. Something that has survived centuries is bad for your health, until the next hype hits – it prevents Alzheimers. Then I guess, health conscious people will begin smoking that one or two cigarettes a day as “medicine”, like many heart patients have their glass of brandy (or whatever).

I’m feeling really disillusioned with this tendency to not just be a part of the herd, but get rid of all the non-herd possibilities.

Can we face it people? We are not immortal, there are no guarantees. We all have one life which each of us would like to live how we want. Can we stop making unnecessary rules without first researching their need, the impact of their lack and their consequences and only make them where we are convinced that their lack is a bad thing and making them will resolve the issue? For example, I wouldn’t be whining so much, if I had data on how harmful my cigarette smoked in open air is to the people living in the house nearby. Don’t give me guesses. Give me data. Tell me how many people in lung cancer wards are there because of the presence of a smoker in their immediate vicinity. Compare that with an estimated number of all passive smokers and give me that dangerous percentage that convinces me I’m killing people.

While you are at it, do put a ban on the religious fires with people sitting right next to them, or you’ll count their victims as passive smokers and ban cigarettes again. Went to a ceremony last week, and my seasoned smoker’s lungs near burned out in the smoke in that hall. I was certain I was going to faint. I actually walked out till the fire business was done. I wasn’t the only one. People were heading out for a breath of fresh air at regular intervals, eyes streaming, make up washing away. So now what? Any one want to take an initiative into measuring the carbon monoxide levels in that ill ventilated hall?

I am currently involved in an online debate about the conditions of women in society. As a self-aware individual, I am aware that I find the perspectives put forth extremely repulsive.

There seems to be a stereotype of “woman” that is endlessly needy, fragile and “requiring encouragement” for their “upliftment”. Worse, there are women who see themselves like that, rather than choosing to see what it is that they are doing that they could change to be in a condition they would enjoy better.

It is really superficial to say that women are victimized. What I see happening is a callous lack of looking beyond stereotypes. I see men victimized too, when their emotions need to be in a certain format for the world to acknowledge them as humans. Really, is crying the only symptom of sorrow?

What I see is a sheer lack of sensitivity toward self and others leading to messes that just don’t get solved with patchwork.

The woman is a victim, because the husband yells at her. Fabulous. Here, we are de-humanizing this said husband, who seems to be like a comic book villain, incapable of having anything good in him. What is really happening, is that there is a lot of emotion churning in this guy, that leads to him yelling to force his point home. Do we yell, when we feel that we are being heard? On the other hand, this woman is a pure victim, and someone needs to rescue her from the aforementioned villain. Does she have no responsibility for what is happening? Is she indeed so powerless that a person can come and yell at her and she will not respond? And if she is, how is setting her free going to achieve anything beyond changing villains? Because, believe me, there are plenty of people who are happy to walk all over people who will take it. We are de-humanizing the woman as well, by believing her as incapable of acting in her own self-interest.

Then, we have a whole rush of patchwork to explain how the yelling must not be done, and how the woman is a “poor thing” who is basically dependent on the man to do her a favour and change.

It happens in all situations. Yet, solutions are not looked for by looking at what people in healthy relationships do. Solutions focus on erasing symptoms and creating a “happily-ever-after” image ASAP.

Wake up folks, there is no such thing as happily-ever-after except in fairy tales. Good relationships require commitment from both  ends. They need acknowledgment of the other’s perspective (not necessarily agreement). I find a very subtle but important factor at play here.

This is our stereotype of men. “Men don’t cry” “Men provide for the woman” “Men are stronger” “Women are emotional” etc. This is reinforced so strongly with time, that even men who will proudly say that they cry at times will not be able to admit that they “don’t know” or “are helpless” when they are. What is really happening to the men here, when their emotions are not even looked at as relevant to their being? Is it any wonder that the few times we see emotions, they arise from frustration/desperation and come out with excessive force? Who wouldn’t use all the force they have to ease their own discomfort and make stand if they believe that it will not be heard?

An excessively possessive man, is looked on as an extremely undesirable thing. Yet, do we see the caring and wish to protect and need to continue being loved that drives that insecurity (even if we don’t want to be protected)? Do we see it? So, if his caring hasn’t registered, and he sees the object of his love doing somethig he perceives as dangerous, how many choices does he have that don’t involve “laying rules”?

Does the woman really acknowledge his love for her and reassure him that she will be careful, and not take unnecessary risks, or does she simply see the dominance and rebel or succumb? What choices does she have when her freedom is sacrificed that are other than rebellion or becoming victim?

I don’t see how we, as a society can lay down endless rules for behaviour and upliftment, without empowering people with self-awareness and sensitivity toward others.

A Day Charged with Humanism

The Leadership Training Camp for Dalits that was being organised in
Suryapet town (14 and 15 July ’07, Andhra
Pradesh, India) through the International Humanist and Ethical
Union’s support was going on full-speed. Mr. Veeraswami the leader of Spoorthi, the local implementing organization,
and Mr. V.B. Rawat, Director of the Social Development Foundation,
the event’s sponsor were participating as resource persons along with Hyderabad-based
Dalit women’s rights campaigner, the sociologist Sujatha. There were
a hundred Dalit youth, men and women, eager to learn about modern science,
about the situation of Dalits and that of women in the country, about
superstitions, and about the plight of untouchables worldwide. 

It was a day charged with Humanism, which the newspapers would report
later as being the only alternative for Dalits. Amongst the participants there
was a keen sense of involvement and a burning desire to change their lot – this
was the first time I saw that participants stayed on in the meeting hall till
well past midnight discussing and sharing information. Of course, during the
day they had heard many ideas challenging long-held views. We had questioned
whether they really thought they were Hindus, whether they needed to be part of
the caste system, whether affirmative action was really benefiting them or
diverting them from the real issue of emancipating themselves culturally and
socially. This was also the first Humanist event in India where participants after their
self-service lunch washed their own plates. It feels good to spend a
few days amongst those who speak of the dignity of labor and who also practice it.

New Resolve

When
at the end of a full day of discussions and lectures, Chandraiah the
miracle-exposure activist that we had invited concluded his demonstration, many
of the Dalit youth, several of them superstitious themselves, had a change of
orientation. Some of them declared that they were now inspired to work against
superstition in their community as they understood the tricks being played
on them by charlatans, and as they now realised the harm it does to their
fellow Dalits. Some others informed us that they heard of plans in their village
to kill a suspected witchcraft practitioner, and that following the day’s training
they were now determined to prevent it by educating the villagers and also
informing the local authorities. Veeraswami then clarified to us that the
reason the next day’s miracle-exposure programme was going to be held in Pasunur
village of Tungathurthi Administrative region was because the Dalits in the village were
traumatised and terrified – there has been talk of human sacrifice for some
time there. 

Killing of witches? Human sacrifice?

As
what we heard sank in, I could feel goose pimples of disgust and horror all
over me. We were just 6-hours away by car from Hyderabad – one of India’s Hi-tech show piece cities – and how time
rolls back a thousand years in this short distance!

Because the Gods Want it

“In
the 60s whenever a rice mill or a new industrial unit was to be inaugurated in
the region, one of the workers or a villager would mysteriously die in the
factory premises. Everyone remained silent, but all knew that the gods wanted a
sacrifice and they were now satisfied; the victim’s family would get ten
thousand rupees and all was forgotten,” Chandraiah was talking to me and to V.B.
Rawat about his experiences as a child who grew up in the region. In the other
car were Veeraswami and other Dalit leaders from the region, along with a
reporter from ETV, (one of most important TV channels in South India), who we woke up at 5.00 am to take with us. We had to urgently intervene.

On
the way the situation was explained to us: the government had constructed an
impressive school building at the expense of 3.5 million rupees, with wide,
spacious and well-ventillated rooms: it was the pride of the region, yet, because
the building was awaiting a sacrifice, no classes were being conducted one
month into the new school year. It was the practice that goats or chicken were
sacrificed at the time of a house warming, but this was a special case: a man ‘possessed
by God’ had declared that the school building demanded ‘aarambham‘ of 6 children before it could be inaugurated safely. Aarambham is the local code for human
sacrifice.

Pasunur Village Dalit Colony

At the Dalit colony a welcome party was waiting; meeting banners were
set up, and a man with a drum went around the village summoning everyone
for the morning meeting. Quite agitated in mind, I asked the village president
about this matter of aarambham.
He denied it. When we asked the other villagers they denied any knowledge of the
matter. V.B. Rawat said children always tell the truth – so we had a talk with
the children and asked them why they were not going to school. When the
children spoke, and this time to the TV cameras, the adults had no choice but
to acknowledge that they were in fact terrified that their children might be
sacrificed for the school inauguration and that was why they were not sending
them to school. After all, who heard of upper caste children being sacrificed?
If it were to happen, it would be theirs that would be the victims.

We soon realized that it was a ‘skeptical’ crowd that had gathered to
listen to us, and to the local elected official. One woman loudly whispered
“Are you going to give us money for coming to this meeting? Because of you
our men are not going out today to work”. It was a Sunday, but in the
Dalit colony life is on a day-to-day basis and everyday one has to work to get
some money – after all in this period of India’s vertiginous but jobless
growth, the National Employment Guarantee Programme provides employment
support for a mere 100 days per year per household – did not Charles,
from the Dalit Social Forum tell us the previous day that Globalization
was of no real use to the common, hungry, downtrodden Indian? When I was
speaking, one of them shouted “You tell us what you know and we will tell
you what we know”. She, and her fellow villagers knew a lot about ghosts,
and how they possess people. They were aware of how spirits kept a cloth dipped
in water from becoming wet – their local godman had already demonstrated this.
They knew about spontaneous roof fires, and they knew about getting healed
through mantras or magical
incantations.

Now, Chandraiah proceeded to create fire by pouring water on sand. He
cut a lemon which dripped blood-red juice. He dipped a piece of cloth in
water and it came out dry. He broke a coconut and out came blood-red water. He
performed every feat the local charlatans performed, and then also explained
the tricks behind what he had done. He over-turned a glass full of water but
the water did not spill fall, supported by a paper – some said it was not
science and tried to do it themselves. They soon got the trick – it was not a
spirit that was holding the water up, it was atmospheric pressure. As the
interaction continued, and when Chandraiah first played with a piece of burning
camphor and then swallowed it and claimed it was tasty, the mood relaxed. When
he made the children do the same, there was much excitement.

It
was a quick thaw for a group of villagers who were till then
terrified that their children might be sacrificed for the inauguration of
the school building, and for those who feared that ghosts lived in the shadows
and in the trees. The show continued to work its magic – and soon the children
were shouting with Chandraiah “There are no ghosts! There are no miracles!
We are not superstitious”. Sujatha was mingling with the children and
asking them about the talisman they were wearing and explaining how hygiene,
rather than the talisman, was a better cure for diarrhea. Meanwhile, Chandraiah
made an old woman feed milk to a statue of Ganesha, in imitation of a shameful
hoax that fooled India for two full days over a decade ago.

Soon,
some of the men came to us to say that they agreed with us, but that they still
had some doubts. So I made bold and asked, “How many of you are ready to
tackle the rascal who said that the new school building asked for human
sacrifice and caused you so much of suffering?”.

We Will Defend Ourselves

Several children came forward, as well as some ten men. Because it was
not an entirely safe activity and as we had no security with us, we set out
with just a few children and the adults. As we walked through the slush of the
recent rains to confront Devudu Chandraiah the goat herd who claimed to receive
divine messages (no relation to our own Chandraiah!) we encountered many who
were going to the temple where Chandraiah was – they were going to seek his
blessings to cure infertility or to cure sick children. His weekly earnings
were estimated to be about Rs. 10,000.

But word that we were coming reached him before we did, and he was
nowhere to be seen. We had an altercation with his sister at the temple who we
questioned about her brother’s desire to see human blood. She denied it, but
both children and adults who were witnesses to his pronouncements said they had
heard him say this. There were angry confrontations and we threatened that we
would get them all arrested. I cannot forget that the woman said to me that if
people die at the time of an inauguration they are not responsible. She asked
whether coconuts are not broken at a function? She did not dare say more, but
we all understood the dangerous mindset of the people.

It
was disgusting and alarming, but this was a good day for the TV reporter who
could capture what was happening and turn it into a good news item and also turn
it into a Crimewatch-style story.

The Relevance of the Humanist Approach

We
went back to the village, determined to spread the word that a group of Dalits
from the village decided to confront the charlatan who came from a higher caste
and that he fled the scene or did not dare to come to the temple that he regularly
haunted, because of us. We agreed that we would at the appropriate time print
posters of the charlatan and display them widely so that his humiliation would
be complete and the self-assertion of the Dalits would be announced to the
world. Spoorthi also intends to file
a police complaint for incitement to murder against him if they hear the mad
ravings of this blood thirsty charlatan again. But it will be some time before
he will recover from the disgrace. And we had to balance the educational
elements and the confrontational elements of our campaign in the area.

We
then moved to the school building itself where the reporter wanted to do a
special interview. There we met with representatives of the well-known M.V.
Foundation which was organizing a training program for literacy workers. We
were cordially invited to join them, and to tell them about our work. But soon
we were disappointed to find out that the idiom they were going to use to
encourage the people to become literate was a religious one, and that their
mobilization of the people would be on the lines of and in the context of Bonalu, a festival where animal
sacrifice is called for, and where people swoon and get ‘possessed’ and  speak on behalf of God. The MV Foundation
officials are of course against superstition and animal sacrifice, and expect
that literacy will drive away the bad practices – they seem to ignore the counter
evidence of the number of educated fools in the country who patronize cheats in
religious garb and are willing to perform similar animal sacrifices. Sujatha
found the use of the religious idiom inappropriate – and specially this
particular one – after all, the original demand for sacrifice of human lives
was voiced during a bonalu like festival!

Reviewing
the events of the past two days we found that this was one of the most
satisfying of our activities in recent times. While the preparation and organization
for putting in place these training and demonstration events took a few weeks,
the Dalit leaders found what they were looking for – a route out of the
traditional religious thinking, and a forum where they could discuss these
ideas as equals. They found a new determination and resolve to take their lives
into their own hands.

And
in one single magical morning from amongst a group of cowering, frightened and
terrorized villagers we found enough number of people who were willing to
challenge superstition and confront the source of their terror and deal with
the problem. They do not need outsiders to defend themselves anymore, because
most satisfyingly, they have found amongst their own colony members the
resources and the strength to help themselves. At least in that area there will
not be anymore witches or witch killings; and enough noise has been created to
be sure that none will speak of human sacrifice or suggest it in that little
pocket of Andhra Pradesh as the police and the local elected officials are all now
alert to this danger. The disinfecting power of reason and the light of science
and scientific temper made its first entry even if only through a narrow crack.

We
will now have to nurture the new desire and ability to think critically which
we kindled, so that a permanent defense can be created in their minds against
medieval and barbaric practices and pave the way for a society of equals where
modern values will prevail.

Photo Captions:

Picture 1: Veeraswami of Spoorthi welcomes the Dalit Youth

Picture 2: Training Session in progress

Picture 3: The abandoned School building

Picture 4: The children speak to the television cameras. Sujatha looks
on.

Picture 5: The villagers watch the demonstration

Picture 6: Chandraiah shows a trick to an old woman

Picture 7 and 8: The expedition to confront the charlatan

Babu Gogineni

International Director

International
Humanist and Ethical Union

www.iheu.org