February 6, 2021

The Sultans of Swing

By the third century BCE, India was verily a hotbed of action. By this time, word had gotten around that India was El Dorado, a land of untold riches. Tales of the mysterious sub-continent where mystics roamed freely and people lived in shining cities along great rivers had reached a young Alexander in Greece. There is an apocryphal story of Alexander and an Indian mystic worth narrating just for the fun of it. On reaching the western borders of India, Alexander’s hordes were tired and mutinous. India was not the hedonistic and decadent Persian empire, which the Greeks had swatted aside in their march into Central Asia. India, they had heard, was a whole different ball game. 

It is said that Alexander ran into a strange, naked man with matted locks and an ash smeared body, standing under a tree. On seeing the Greek, the mystic simply stomped his foot once and showed no further interest. When asked to explain his odd behavior, he replied, “Every being needs only so much land. Two yards long and two yards deep for when he dies. You will soon be dead. Then you will own just as much of this earth as will suffice to bury you. You’re far from home, causing nuisance to the world by seeking to possess that which will never belong to you.” Alexander, a student of Aristotle, was no stranger to flights of philosophy. While he approved of the man’s words and admired his courage, Alexander remained a slave to ambition. He responded with the arrogance of a man who had scattered the Persian army and brought the mighty Darius to his knees. “Be aware of who you speak to. I am Alexander, the son of Zeus, the king of Gods.” To which the mystic replied, “You say that you are the son of God. But I am God itself. Death holds no fear for me.” Alexander came to realize that the Indians were made of sterner stuff. A few months later, he abandoned his expedition. He died on his way back, in Central Asia at the age of thirty two.

The story of Alexander and the mystic is apocryphal. Fictional as it is, the narrative illustrates a point that has held true about the sub-continent’s peoples over thousands of years, which is that you cannot subjugate them by force. No conqueror has been able to bend India to his will or break its spirit. No delusions of grandeur have swayed their persuasion.

Fast forward to 14th century India, we find another strange story of another megalomaniac. This time, it’s a son of a Hindu mother and a Turkish king, and himself an Emperor of Delhi. When Mohammed Bin Tughluq passed into the great beyond on March 20th, 1351, his subjects heaved a sigh of relief. For twenty five years, they had suffered wild swings in policy along with brutal repression and breathtaking incompetence. To be sure, Tughluq was no fool like Trump. "He was perfect in the humanities of his day, a keen student of Persian poetry, a master of style, supremely eloquent in an age of rhetoric, a philosopher trained in Logic and Greek metaphysics, with whom scholars feared to argue, a mathematician and lover of science." One time, he relocated his capital 300 miles south to keep away from the reach of invaders. He ordered citizens to move, laid broad roads and planted trees for shade to make it easy for them to travel. But, he forgot an essential aspect of governance. No matter who you are, king or god, you cannot hold the people at sword’s edge. Many refused to move even at the peril of death. Thousands died on the way. Delhi suffered huge losses, from which it took decades to recover. Eventually, Tughluq abandoned his project. The idea was not a bad one. But the mission was never about reform or doing good for the people. Instead, it was about exercise of power. Tughluq’s bright ideas were defeated by his own arrogance, incompetence, unwillingness to negotiate and inability to conduct a conversation. 

Speaking of arrogance, incompetence, unwillingness to negotiate and inability to conduct a conversation, there is a battle afoot in India between its farmers and government. If you’re not familiar with the details, here’s a gist: The Indian government is attempting reform of how farm products are distributed. From what I have read, the reforms are good and progressive. If successful, they will break the hegemony of the elite and improve an average farmer’s income. The elite which includes landholders, wealthy farmers and distributors are naturally up in arms. ‘If the fat cats are protesting then it must be a good idea’ is one way to look at it. So far so good. 

What has been objectionable has been the tactics of the government in handling dissent. They have arrested journalists and protestors, cut off the internet and created an environment in which any dissent of any form, peaceful or not, is equated to treason. Everyone has joined in the fight, from Meena Harris, Rihanna and Greta Thunberg on the farmers’ side to Indian cricketers and movie stars on the other. India is not easy to reform. No one envies Modi, India’s right wing Prime Minister. He has a difficult job. He has made it only harder for himself with a belligerent and divisive approach to people and politics. Like Alexander, he suffers from delusions of grandeur. Like Tughluq, he has tremendous capacity to botch good ideas.  

Backing divisive guys because they talk like reformers is bound to end in grief. We saw that with Trump. Incompetence and divisiveness tend to go hand in hand. In a sense, dividing people into warring factions is the very definition of incompetence. Even when “bad guys” try to do the “right thing,” people will instinctively rise up in opposition. It is not about reform. For the disenfranchised, it’s about resistance. For Tughluq or Modi or Trump, it is about power play, and breaking the other guy down into a weeping mess. Moral of the story: Try not to let the bad guys in.

It’s hard to pick a side in the farmer vs Modi fracas. But it’s becoming plain as day that Modi is a modern day Tughluq, arrogant, authoritarian and incompetent. What Indians do with this information remains to be seen. It’s scandalous that a country of a billion and half people does not have better ballot options. To be a voter in India, the world’s largest democracy, may be the hardest job there is today.

Trying to avoid a traffic jam, an Australian man took a detour and ended up lost in the Australian bush.  “It was bumper to bumper, so I’ll swing a right and go up the mountain and come down the other side,” he explained. He was rescued after 18 days, having survived on eating mushrooms. Taking detours, getting lost and surviving on mushrooms. Sounds a lot like the Republican party these days.

Super Bowl Sunday is here. It’s the Chiefs versus the Buccaneers. Yes, Tom Brady is the GOAT. I get that. But, I’m begging you, Mahomes. For the love of God, please beat this guy. 

As always, stay safe. Double mask if you need to. More doses of the Vaccine are on their way.