Click an image to view it at full size.
(Delhi police personnel standing outside the gate no. 7 of Jamia Millia Islamia)
Click an image to view it at full size.
(Gate no. 7 of the university was blocked with barricades)
Is
remembering the selective remnants of the time passed, which has become a part
of history now, justifiable? Memories associated with states and humans (both being complex entities and having complexities, intricacies, and contradictions in their nature) of any time period
or of any phase might comprise good, bad, memorable, and unmemorable
components. The question arises here: Why do we see such tendencies in humans
with regard to the memories that they do want to protect the cherished portions
but adopt ignorant behaviour towards those portions of the past that they
consider not to be remembered? Is it because “some memories not to be
remembered” have a relation with the benefits enjoyed by the ones who are
involved in the process of erasing the remnants of the same? Why is there so
much fear towards the same? Paulo Coelho writes, “Forgive but do not forget, or
you will be hurt again. Forgiving changes the perspectives. Forgetting loses
the lesson.” But sometimes the state structures and their machinery want you to
forget the remnants of the past that are not in consonance with the ideologies
upon which the same structure of the state stands. Humans in general and the
state in particular persistently try to erase the memories that are
inconsistent with its ideas, that do not serve their existing sustenance with
ease, and that do not provide any benefits to them. The idea and the logic
behind commemorating the historical events is not to relive those moments
again; one cannot do that; rather, the idea behind the process of commemoration
is to tell yourself and others the right and wrongdoings that occurred in the
past, to remember and pay homage to the ones who paid the price, to remind the
generations to come about the reminiscences of those times, and, most
importantly, the last but not the least, to learn the lessons extracted after a
critical analysis from such histories.
Click an image to view it at full size.
Click an image to view it at full size.
(A closed door and an emptied campus)
Abhinavagupta
(living in the 10th-11th century CE) quotes, “नहि एक हि दृष्टया सम्यंगम् निवर्णनम् निर्वहति,” meaning—“because
the complete description is not possible from any one point of view.” But
do we really understand this? I doubt. Yes, I do have a doubt about that. We
are living in those times where each and every one believes in their own views
and truths existing within the boundaries created by themselves as the complete
description, and one doesn’t want to witness and have a dialogue with the other
prevailing views. Rigveda 1.89.1 reads, “आनो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वत:” meaning—“Let noble
thoughts come to us from every side and all directions.” If I may take some
liberty while interpreting the latter verse differently from that of its
literal meaning, then in such a case I would say that you should try to seek
the truth and validate its veracity from various sources and not confine
yourself enough that you give your adherence to only one aspect or perspective
of the case. But the question remains: do you really want to see and believe
only that aspect of truth and knowledge that suits you and your ideas, that
provides you some benefits because of the favorable prevailing conditions, or
do you wish to learn from other sources and the lessons imbibed in the ancient scriptures,
traditions, philosophies, and ideas about which many philosophers and thinkers
argued? You may misunderstand what my emphasis is if you perceive my arguments
as imposing on you; whatever I’ve said above, the crux of the matter is that
the process of learning includes continuous critical engagements with the help
of dialogues, arguments and counterarguments, agreements, and disagreements
with the sources we have. Also, I want to clarify the point behind citing such
sources is not to get the legitimacy from the same (which we don’t do as we are
not liable to the ideas written in these scriptures, and the same are not the sources of the legitimacy) as we are
living in a democratic country that runs through its own constitution and laws
but to learn from the lessons of the past.
Click an image to view it at full size.
(An emptied campus)
Click an image to view it at full size.
It is cold in Delhi these days. Five years have passed
since the 2019 Jamia Millia Islamia attack happened, which you can read about
in detail. On the 15th of December this year, the university students
wanted to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the event, which the
administration of the university didn’t allow and closed the libraries,
canteens, and main campus of the university in the name of maintenance. This
reminds me of what Chomsky argues: that power structures thrive on silence
and conformity. The first step towards change is the courage to question even
when surrounded by complacency, but the sad reality is many don’t, and that
demands a separate detailed study to understand the nuances involved in such
processes. But what remains disturbing for me is the fact that students were
not allowed to keep their memories to be remembered; they were not allowed to
commemorate a historical event that many of them witnessed personally. Are we
surrounded by a state machinery that doesn’t want to keep all the aspects of
the truth but only that aspect of the truth that they like to keep? If it is the case, then what
about the other truths, the other untold stories and histories? Aren’t they part of the whole picture, or is Foucault true here? (As he argues that power
is strong, this is because it produces effects at the level of desire and also
at the level of knowledge. Far from preventing knowledge, power produces it.
Truth isn’t outside power or lacking in power ... Truth is a thing of this
world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it
induces regular effects of power. ‘Truth’ is linked in a circular relation with
systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it
induces and which extend it.) Will you be able to call the picture as true,
impartial, perfect, and accurate, provided by power?
The written sources and the material remains belonging to a time period never tell you about the mental traumas and psychological
sufferings of humans, but we are trained subconsciously enough to overlook such evidence because they are unwritten ones, and we are used to claiming the
final truth ignorant towards such sources, as these are not part of the normativity.
Click an image to view it at full size.
An anonymous female journalist working for Article 14 was standing midway on the highway (between gate no. 7 and 8 of the campus) and taking some pictures of the contemporary situation when all of a sudden she was surrounded and interrogated by four male and two female Delhi police personnel, and she was trying to manage and answer courageously. During the conversation, one of the female personnel said to her, "Yeh sarkari zamin hai, aap photos nahi le sakti (This is government property; you can't take photos). Some apparatuses act as symbols to instill some kind of emotions like fear, and if such acts are implemented successfully, then the generated feelings might try to discipline you in a certain way, make you silent, and you unknowingly submit your conformities, which is the essential element for the sustenance of power. As Foucault rightly points out that, "Physical pain, the pain of the body itself, is no longer the constituent element of the penalty. From being an art of unbearable sensations, punishment has become an economy of suspended rights."
So, it is time to ask some questions—important and bigger ones, as Chomsky already cautioned us when he argued that "some questions are so important that they are never asked."
___________________
17-12-2024
Rahul Khandelwal
(Photos used in this blog are taken by me and the views expressed here are personal)
