How India Marched Towards the ‘New Normal’ of Bigotry, Communalism

‘Creeping normality’ (also called gradualism, or landscape amnesia) is a process by which a major change comes to be accepted as ‘normal’, even ‘acceptable’, if it happens slowly through small, often unnoticeable, increments of change. A change that might otherwise be viewed as objectionable if it were to take place in a single step or short period, is seen as quite all right – as we living in 21st century India can bear witness to the slow-building horror some of us have felt over the decades.Slow, small, seemingly insignificant events, beginning with the country-wide Rath Yatra of the 1980s, kept adding a layer of ‘normal’ till we reached this stage of the ‘New Normal’ where blatant bigotry, bare-faced communalism and publicly-aired prejudices are considered perfectly all right.‘Creeping Normality’: How Has The Urdu Poet Looked At ‘Gradual Changes’?The American scientist Jared Diamond describes ‘creeping normality’ in his book written in 2005, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Diamond gives the remarkable example of the natives of the Easter Island who, seemingly irrationally, in just a few centuries, chopped down the last of their trees, wiped out their rich ecosystem, drove their plants and animals to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral into chaos and cannibalism. As Diamond writes:“I suspect, though, that the disaster happened not with a bang but with a whimper. After all, there are those hundreds of abandoned statues to consider. The forest the islanders depended on for rollers and rope didn’t simply disappear one day—it vanished slowly, over decades.”How has the Urdu poet looked at gradual changes, so gradual that they creep up unannounced as a fait accompli? As Shaz Tamkanat admits, often there’s a self-denial that this will not happen, not to me, not now at the very least:Abhi kyunkar kahun zer-e-naqab-e-surmagin kya haiBadalta hai zamane ka chalan ahista ahistaWhy should I say what is under the grey veilThe ways of the world change slowly, slowlyAnd Ateeq Asar is ruing the gradual absence of trustworthy voices which is possibly an early warning signal that goes unheeded:Utthe jaate hain dida-var sabhi ahista ahistaYe duniya mo'tabar logon se ḳhali hoti jaati haiAll the connoisseurs leave one by oneThis world empties of wise men slowlyCan Women Really Not Write Urdu Poetry? Let’s Examine Progressives‘Look At The Speed Of Revolution... So Slow, Yet So Swift’And the much underrated but marvellous poet, Asad Badayuni, who died tragically young, speaks as though he has foreknowledge of what the future might hold. As is often the case in Urdu poetry, it is implied, obliquely, rather than stated directly, and the references to roses and thorny bushes is implicit rather than explicit. In a sher, eerily reminiscent of what happened at Easter Island, he writes:Ye dharti ek din banjar zamin ban jaaegi jaananGulabon ki jagah lenge babul ahista ahistaThis earth will turn into a barren land one day, dearestThorny trees will slowly and steadily take the place of rosesSometimes, the poet draws solace from placing the blame squarely on Time and, therefore, absolving himself of all culpability as, for instance, in this sher by Shahryar:Waqt teri yeh ada mai aaj tak samjha nahiMeri duniya kyun badal dii, mujh ko kyun badla nahiinTime, I have till today never understood this trait of yoursWhy have you changed my world, but not changed meFiraq Gorakhpuri has the last word when change, especially revolutionary change, manifests itself:Dekh raftar-e-inqalab 'Firaq'Kitni ahista aur kitni tezLook at the speed of revolution, FiraqSo slow and yet so swiftC’mon India, Convert Anti-China Fury Into An Economic Revolution What We, In India, Must Dwell UponComing back to where we started, to gradualism and creeping normality, it is never about pulling down one advertisement, renaming one road, removing one book from a syllabus, issuing one letter of apology, retracting one seemingly benign statement, dropping one member from a committee… and so on and so forth in a long list of solitary acts.It is, rather, about the cumulative impact of these solitary acts of omission or commission. It is about the Sorites Paradox (also known as the Paradox of the Heap). Imagine a heap of sand, from which grains of sand are methodically removed, one at a time. One might think that removing a solitary grain here or there makes no difference to the heap. But what if this process is repeated over a period of time with persistence and regularity? What if only one grain remains from the original heap? Will it still be a heap? If not, when did it change from a heap to a non-heap? Was it that first time, when the first solitary grain was removed?These are questions we in India need to ponder.Dear South Asian Americans, This Is Our Chance to Fight BigotryHow Naushad Noori, Bangladeshi Urdu Poet, Drew Our Attention To The ‘Mound of the Dead’Naushad Noori, one of the most remarkable Urdu poets from Bangladesh, draws our attention to the ‘Mound of the Dead’ and the lessons to be learnt from it. An ardent supporter of the Bangla language movement and the creation of a new country based on linguistic and cultural affinity rather than religion and jingoistic hyper-nationalism, Noori seems prescient, pointing towards the disaster waiting to unfurl in this poem entitled Mohenjodaro written in 1952:Ho sakta hai, koi toofanHo sakta hai, koi daryaHo sakta hai, koi faatehHo sakta hai, koi luteraShehr-e tamaddun dhool ke neecheyDhool ke neechey boli bhashaAur issey tarikh-naweesLog kahein murdon ka teelaKoi vaba to phooti thhiiKoi bala to tooti thhiiMere shehr ke rehne walonApni Pothi, apni GitaApni apni lok kathayeinApni apni geeti malaApna apna harf-e tahajjiApni apni boli bhashaPattey, patthar, poste, papyrusTambe, lohey par likh rakhnaWahi waba phir phooti haiWahi bala phir tooti haiIt could have been a stormOr a riverOr a vanquisherOr a plundererThat buried an entire civilisationUnder a mound of dirtLanguages and dialectsUnder a mound of dirtToday, the historians call itThe Mound of the DeadPerhaps an epidemic broke outOr a calamity fell upon itO people of my cityHold on to your Geeta and PothiYour folk tales and fablesYour songs and balladsYours letters of the alphabetYour languages and dialectsInscribe them on copper and ironAnd on leaves, stones, skin and papyrusThat same epidemic has broken out againThat same calamity has befallen.Coronavirus Outbreak: What Our Urdu Poets Wrote About Pandemics(Dr Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and literary historian. She writes on literature, culture and society. She runs Hindustani Awaaz, an organisation devoted to the popularisation of Urdu literature. She tweets at@RakhshandaJalil. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

BECOME A MEMBER

How India Marched Towards the ‘New Normal’ of Bigotry, Communalism

Slow, small, insignificant events kept adding layers of ‘normal’ till we reached the New Normal of blatant bigotry.

Read Latest News and Breaking News at The Quint, browse for more from opinion

Topics: Bangladesh Hindutva India-Bangladesh