Hitler, Mussolini and nationalism!

On the 30th of April 1945, exactly 75 years ago today, Hitler shot himself in the head; Just two days before, on the 28th of April, the Italian premiere Mussolini was shot by few of his own party members when he tried to run to his safety in disguise. Two men, two world leaders, both enamoured with power and respect, had to die such sad deaths within days of each other. Why? What did them in? Not only did they lose their lives, but also became the scorn of the world for years to come. What do we learn from them?

Mussolini was the biggest leader of Italy leading them to the world war II. He became the country's youngest prime minister in the year 1922 through democratically elected means and was its premiere for two decades, almost till his death. He wanted to make Italy the biggest country in the world, and bring back the glory of the Roman empire. At the same time, he had the idea of bringing together a group of people to have a shared sense of purpose and destiny. The very idea of a government was to give people a shared identity! Revolutionary nationalism was what it was called then.

When we think of Adolf Hitler, images of the holocaust and the gas chambers come to our mind. He led Germany for more than a decade, till falling over dead by the end of the second world war in 1945. Hitler had a fascinating ideology of the state(government). His construct of the state is to preserve the racial characteristics of mankind! In short, he wanted the state to preserve the purity of his race.

In a world and more so in a country, which is having a re-look at nationalism, and starting to have a monolithic ideology of the concept of state, Hitler and Mussolini stand as a stark reminder of what can go wrong in this path.

A philosopher once said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". Are the nationalists listening? 

Has COVID widened the gap?

The virus does not discriminate said, my friend. or does it? My curious mind started the debate within.

Surely the virus does not discriminate, but is the pandemic partial? Are the poor, people from the lower caste and class affected more than the rich? Does the wedge between the have's and have-not's become bigger by the day after COVID-19 lockdown? And the bigger question, have our cultural and religious differences been magnified by this tragedy?

So I thought of examining these questions with simple examples.

Me, the quintessential upper-middle-class boy from among the bigger cities in the world. How has it affected me? Almost nothing, but for the mental trauma of sitting through the day inside closed rooms. My salary has not been affected at all; I still have my house close to the beach and my life is as peaceful as it had always been. Right behind my house is a small slum. An area of people living along a small rivulet of the Adyar. The Indian city version of a rivulet! So the people there have lost their business, for the markets are closed. They have lost money, many I heard go to bed with a single meal a day; Most people would have used up all their savings if at all they managed to have some. Will their lives ever come back to normal again? In this story, have our lives trod different paths? Ain't the gap widening?

Did you hear the story of the many migrants walking hundreds of kilometres, many even falling dead? You can't miss such stories, can you? But did you also hear that the GOI arranged flights to pick people up from across the oceans?  No, I'm all for picking people up and dropping them in their respective places; but why not do that to the migrants as well? Ah, their lives matter less than those living abroad, ain't it?

I wish some NEWS to be false, but they are on your face every day that you hardly can miss them. The NEWS of people from one religion being vilified, the sad reality of them not even given admissions in hospitals. Oh yes, there were children found to be eating grass and guess what, they belonged to the most backward community. Has the pandemic even dug deep our gaping wide cultural holes of caste and religion?

When it is cloudy and dark, sadly my society disintegrates instead of coming together; For we don't want them together when the sun is out and the skies are clear and blue.

What Ambedkar means to me!

Who am I to write on the great man? I was fighting my insecurities.

Of course, I have read a few of his essays. I live in the country abiding by the book(constitution) he helped draft and of course, I'm a big fan of him! But does that qualify me to write on one of the greatest men this country has seen? 

I mean that man was a genius! To have done his doctorates in two of the greatest universities in the world(Yes, two doctorates!); for someone who was considered to be an untouchable is mind-numbing. Here was this 14th child of the family going to school. The school does not allow him to sit along with other children owing to caste. And all the other 13 quits. Only he survives. In fact, he was the first from his community to have completed schooling. It was that tough!  The first Mahar to have ever entered the prestigious Bombay university. The man was so good that he gets a scholarship to enter Columbia University and then to the hallowed lanes of the London School of Economics. 

What would have I done? Had I been in his shoes! Being ill-treated at every step. Made to sit alone in a class. Poured water from above by a clerk so that my body does not touch the glass. What would have I done? Would I have survived? It was so easy for him to just quit and go back to the daily wage labourer job or join the army. No?

The man is being inherited by everyone around. His community of course; The socialist ideological left-wing since he wanted the governments to be running the industries, also the economical right-wing since he advocated for markets in a few areas. The 'liberals', think of Ambedkar as his own since he fought for the rights of the individual, while the constitutionalists want his piece too, for Ambedkar drafted the Indian constitution. Strangely even the casteist right-wing, who he so much abhorred, want their pie too! For the man could not be dispensed with.

Yet, what does he mean for me? The common man, who hardly understands ideologies?

He is the ultimate middle-class dream. If that man can challenge himself and resist the world and be the absolute best, why not me? He embodies everything which I wish have! The dog in the fight. If I can challenge myself and challenge the world and be the best I can be, Columbia University, LSE, two doctorates, scholarly knowledge in all of economics, law, constitution and political science, can never be far behind.

Ambedkar mean to show me the meaning of what it takes to be the best, come what may! 

What if your people have different ideologies?

This friend pinged me crying bored! I'm bored sam; can't even watch TV. "My entire family is watching Zee TV and ABP news through the day and I can't bear them and their ideologies", said she.

"What do you do sam, if your entire family has a completely different ideology from you? What do you do? They blame my one year stint in the western world for my liberal views. Oh, you have been brainwashed by them; Ain't good for you, and on and on and on"! You get the drift right? That your people, the family you live with, the friends you go out with, the neighbours with whom you share food with, or even the modern-day relationships on Facebook and Twitter have all different viewpoints; rather they sometimes abhor you and your thinking for they were poles apart.

Have you guys felt the same? I have often felt it. Have often fought and rebelled!

What do you do? Do you fight? or just keep going, acting unawares? Or just let it be, they are just ideologies; Why does it matter so much? After all, they are your people; ideologies cannot be coming in between relationships, can they?

Of course in an ideal world, ideologies or viewpoints cannot and should not be relationship breakers; But is it really possible in this day and age of rampant media where dividing people is the order of the day and they intentionally want you to be divided. Is it even possible to brush these differences aside? I mean, I for one cannot carry on my relationship with a rabid Islamophobe, rather someone who divides people rabidly on the basis of any religion for that matter.  I personally cannot tolerate anyone talking casteism. I better stay away from the arrogant 'I'm the superior' caste or the 'they are the Dalit' discourse'.

The complexity of the modern-day relationships!

Well, I don't have answers. I guess it is for each individual to decide where and how do we draw the line between our emotional ideas and the quality of the relationship.  Maybe some relationships are not worth the debate, and maybe some debates are not worth losing a relationship! 

Lessons learnt from you uncle!

I'm an Indian and obviously being a cricketer was one of the big dreams growing up. So, I meet this man, white-haired, but still physically very fit in the workplace. Someone had told me he was Indian Cricket team's physiotherapist for some time. The child in me woke up. "Ivara pidichu yepadiyaavathu Rahul Dravid kitta oru photo yeduthukidanum", I told myself! And for that selfish reason, I became friends with him. Of course, he was the boss's father. You had to be good with him! 

I slowly developed the conversation and brought up cricket. Uncle was nonchalant about it. Oh, that was during Pataudi's period. 'Pataudi ah, appa Rahul Dravid ah theriyaathaa', my mind switched off! But he kept going, And suddenly he said, then I went to Disney for some time. Disney ah? I was still trying to comprehend that statement, but uncle went on. The nonchalant body gyration went on too. I was there when Asha Kiran was being developed. Then I worked here and then there. On and on and on! Uncle, saapdelaama, pasikithu; My mind was still trying to comprehend his life. As you would have noticed by now, for my mind to work, I have to eat. Oh, I forgot, in between, he spoke about writing some books. See, I remember a few things at the name of food! 

Sam, do you like beef; We went early in the morning and brought this beef specially cut in this size and this shape. "Oh, ivarukku samayalum theriumaa, appada, thalai suthuthu" I told myself. 

One of those days I and the best friend were talking! Or should it be called gossip? Benji, avarukku yelaame theriyuthu, ana apadiye amaithiyaave irukaare benji, I told him. He nodded! 

Those were my dreams. Being with a cricketer, being in Disney, working in remote mission fields and of course being an author! He has done everything I wanted to ever do in life. Every damn thing! Yet, when he looks back at his life, there is no sense of achievement! Just a plain acceptance of grace. Those nonchalant body gyrations I spoke about, they were reflections of that acceptance I presume. 

Then we became good friends. You can call us Beef friends, for every time I come to Vellore, Uncle makes sure he makes beef. And they are some of the best beef I have ever tasted. He helped my mind work faster I presume. The faster it works the more lesson I learn you see. 

When I look at his life and reflect on it now, there is one thing which is remarkably striking. For a man to have left high profile jobs in his prime of life, to do what he wanted to do, he must have listened carefully to the inner calling. Cricket and Disney might not have been his dream, but leaving them would never have been easy. At a time when the 'what next' question is knocking loud at my door, reflecting on his life, so beautifully lived, is a lesson in itself.

70 years of life lessons uncle. So much more I can write! but leave them for our future conversations. Here is to many more years of life and being a source of inspiration to many like us. God bless!