Satiricus
IT has been interesting for Satiricus to see that since our cheaper-by-the-dozen secular parties came to power, they have seriously set about having secularism. It was still more interesting for him to notice that in their crusade against communalism they are wielding a weapon of great verbal value—the precious prefix ‘de-’. They started with the ‘de-toxification’ of education, which had been insufferably saffronised. Its saffron education poisons the mind with the toxin of patriotism. Satiricus hopes that the duly detoxified education would eventually lead us back to those olden golden days of Macaulay, when the first lesson Indians learnt was that they were the scum of the earth.
And now that this initial ‘de-’ has been set into motion, the second ‘de-’ design now being taken up is the ‘de-legitimatisation’ of the RSS. This is indeed admirably ambitious. For it takes great courage (Satiricus was almost going to say Dutch courage) to dethrone the world'sbiggest organisation from legitimacy in its own homeland. But then, secularists rush in where angels fear to tread. So the first fantastic step they have taken is to dismiss four Governors on the very legitimate ground that they are RSS men. This dismissal, says a newspaper report, “goes beyond routine politics and is part of a larger ideological project to ‘de-legitimise’ the RSS, and remove the organisation'spenetration into the state apparatus.”
In fact, without falling prey to the favourite fanciful feline fallacy, Satiricus would say that all science is for human welfare, and as Americans are more or less human (except the animals in Iraq and the predators in the Pentagon), Satiricus was happy to see that the science of the cellphone is heightening their happiness in wondrous ways.
Well, now, what do you know? Satiricus, for one, did not know that a political party (much less a political combine of criminals) had the time for anything resembling an ideological project. Having wasted an entire lifetime in the company of a communal ideology, he is incapable of understanding how removing a few BJP Governors (how about the Vice President?) because they are RSS men makes the RSS less legitimate, if not illegitimate altogether. Having been present at the inauguration of the BJP, Satiricus can say that the RSS was there more than half a century before the BJP came into being. In fact, the RSS was there even before the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the origin of the BJP. And now, if the no-nonsense Nostradamus is to be believed, the RSS will continue to be there when BJP the second comes into being. Does that mean political parties may come and political parties may go, but the legitimacy of the RSS goes on for ever? For the sake of the secularists Satiricus hopes not. Rather, he hopes that the delightful days of ‘de-’ are here again, and that this fixation with this particular prefixation would pre-eminently serve the cause of secularism. After all, what are dictionaries for, if not for spelling out the ideological idiocy of power politics?
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It is said that the end and aim of all science is to make a better mouse-trap. Satiricus begs to differ. Science cannot be related only to mice. It has to be related to both men and mice. In fact, without falling prey to the favourite fanciful feline fallacy, Satiricus would say that all science is for human welfare, and as Americans are more or less human (except the animals in Iraq and the predators in the Pentagon), Satiricus was happy to see that the science of the cellphone is heightening their happiness in wondrous ways. This it is doing by providing the technology for telling lies. And this technology has become so popular that a network of “alibi and excuse clubs” has sprung up all over the US of A, and the New York Times, committed to print “all the news that'sfit to print” has thought it fit to print a whole article on the fabulous phenomenon of falsehood. It tells about ready-made “audio-recordings that can be played in the background during a phone conversation to falsify the caller'swhereabouts”. For instance, “an employee who is actually sitting at the beach might be able to call his boss, play the blaring tones of a traffic jam, and explain why it has been impossible to get to work on time.” Various such deceptive cellphone sounds are on sale at three dollars a piece. See? Once upon a time Indian sages said truth is one but it can be told in many ways. Now American scientists say untruth is one but it can be told in many ways.
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Satiricus lives and learns. He already knows that India is being globalised in vairous ways. He also knows that a globalised India means an Americanised India. But he had no idea that our nation-building would mean building upon the very base of Americanisation—the baseball game. So he was taken aback when he learnt that there was such a thing as the Maharashtra Baseball Association, and that it had recently invited an American baseball coach. This American is reported to have said that “the game certainly has a chance in India”. Of course, of course. Now that we nationals of India have become multinationals in multiple ways, everything American has a bright chance in India. Is that not what globalisation is all about? So globalised Satiricus will not ask why, if globalisation can travel from West to East, it cannot travel from East to West. Nor will he wonder why, if American baseball has a chance in India, Indian kabaddi should not have the same chance in America. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, kabaddi had been played as a demonstration game. In the early 1990s the British were so interested in it that there was a regular kabaddi show on television. And recently kabaddi was included in the Asian Games held not long ago in Thailand. So then, if an Indian game can become an Asian game, why can'tit become an American game too? Oh, well, the answer, as the Americans would put it, is that it'sa different ball game altogether.
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