Saffron Rock

There’s an oily sort of feeling to the politics of India today. There is a nausea inducing sort of slipperiness masquerading as the process of governance. Faith and religion’s imperatives are working their way into the oh-so-fragile skin of reason that is attempting to hold this billion plus collection of ego and emotion together.

And, it all feels so familiar. There is déjà vu happening all up in here. It’s like I’m hearing Carl ‘Retro’ Rove and his Christian Crew tuning up to play a gig in India; Christian Rock morphed into Saffron Rock (lyrics by RSS). Thrash music that assaults and overpowers the sense of the listener; rhyme and reason battered into submission by the screaming chorus of Because My God Says So.

Not that I’m accusing the Hindu Right of plagiarism, not at all, I hasten to add, as quickly as possible. I just think that the brains trust of India’s new Governors saw something that worked and by adding the much richer masala that is this ancient culture, made it their own.

Take this business of Ancient Culture as a simple solution to the trials and issues of a not at all ancient, far from simple, social organism. Do this. Don’t do that - Edicts of a simpler time as the way to manage the mad mélange of self-interest that is this modern construct, India. Any suggestion that those Ancient Rules of Behavior might not be an exact, or even comfortable, fit on the modern body politic is dismissed as the work of the devil, quite often, the foreign devil. Any argument that Ancient Writings, Vedas, Commandments, what have you, are guidelines and not, as it were, carved in stone, is howled down as anti-national and disloyal, treasonous, Christian America and Hindu India. Culture elevated to the status of Religion. It wasn’t that good a song when Ronnie and the Republicans were doing their thing; it hasn’t gotten any better by adding masala to it. But for some reason, or the lack thereof, Ronnie and the Reps were able to spawn a faith based form of governance that produced George W. Bush and the Democracy Destroyers. It took a while, but Carl and Crew got there. I don’t think it is going to take that long in India. After all India is doing in 60 years what took the USA 200 years to do.

I guess I’m hoping that India’s lean and hungry youth will do better than the fat and happy US electorate. Maybe India’s youthful intelligence will recognize the dangers of isolate purity and vote for the exhilaration of diversity. Festivals are best when new meets old and dances in the melodies so created.