Thursday, August 7, 2008

Self Mutilation can’t be Survival



Cultural cringe has plunged us into morass; we axe the branches we sit on.

Thanks to the efforts of Sinan’s parents, Kashmiri immigrants in Great Britain, and frequent visits to UK by his grand parents, he speaks his mother tongue fluently and is working on the pronunciation of few words he finds difficult to utter, He can read a bit of Kashmiri too.

Sinan was born the same time around when millions in Kashmir took memoranda’s to the UN peace keeping groups’ office in early 90’s, demanding Nationhood. They built the political argument on various grounds, and one of the profound views that echoed undisputedly was that of distinctive ethnicity (Arts, Culture, Literature, Traditions, Heritage etc) and dissimilar life ways, then those who ‘claimed’ and ‘occupied’ it since 1947. Well, the same argument had kept the unremitting feeling alive for centuries, since Mughal imperialist Akber Occupied Kashmir by deceit, followed by many conquerors ruling this part by sheer military power, duality of opportunist few and unending suffering inflicted on the defenceless Kashmiris.

This Eid, Sinan is worried and his concerns’ are genuine, all but few SMS’s and e-mails he has received are in an alien language he does not understand, although he recognises the script that has been used, the roman. His worries are more so because these have travelled the airwaves from Kashmir, he would have been overjoyed to read these SMS’s from his motherland. Alas! the Cultural cringe, that has gripped the people of his promised land, has taken away the joy from his face. They are in Vurdu, the language of the officialdom.

Koun dimaag chaatte hain aap, balla yeh ‘cringe’ kis chidyaa ka naam hai” our backyard intellectual, who quotes Allama, even while answering a promotional call on the mobile that hangs around his neck, may wonder. Well it’s not going to make any difference to indifference of this man, if his query is left unanswered, but I think it has to be explained for others who might want to read further. Also, I should get a chance to put all previous 332 words into a perspective and further the debate and try to make my point.

So let me copy and paste the definition from an on-line encyclopaedia and not give some more ‘intellectuals’ a chance to deviate by starting a debate on the meaning of the phrase, while ‘reflecting’ on the article, rather then trying to understand the severity of the matter and further the discourse.

‘Cultural cringe, in cultural studies and social anthropology, is an internalized inferiority complex which causes people in a country to dismiss their own culture as inferior to the cultures of other countries. Often linked with the display of anti-intellectual attitudes towards thinkers, scientists and artists who originate from their own cultures’.

I am sure that all of realise that we have fallen prey to this and have numerous examples to quote, where we can find this ‘internalized inferiority complex’ has increased the susceptibility of all of us, and have been hunted down by the devises that are applied, and are working overtime to vanquish our exclusiveness.

All this happens and we lay silent and let it happen, our ignorance makes us a party to self mutilation. Day in and day out we do it, when we fail to converse with our toddlers in their ‘mother tongue’ and retard their growth. We never forget to make them recite ‘machli jal ki’ when proudly we display their ‘talent’ to our guests, but hardly make an effort to make them remember ‘bisht bisht biyaaroo’ with which they can relate easily.

The institutions and estates are collaborating instruments, every stone is turned and the pores smoked to look for a indigenous idea that seems assertive, it is cut to size and made to toe the line using sam, dhaam, dand , beaid and where even Kutalya’s Arthshastra fails to get results, we voluntarily offer solutions against petty interests that our very own notions seem to define as survival in the ‘dark times’.

Dear Sinan if you really want to enjoy the messages from your friends in Kashmir, start learning vurdu and don’t tell any Kashmiri that you can speak your mother tongue and have learned it despite odds. They will laugh at your ‘stupidity’. Your troubles will increase further, if you ever decide to marry a kashmiri girl from here, who will be more then happy to announce that ‘muj ko londann sey baateen aati hain’. And if you fail to quote Iqbal in any of your discussions you will be lined among the ignorant who are as good as apes. So better late then never, you can take the liberty of not knowing Kashmiri even if you have lived here all your life but never make a blunder of calling your self a Kashmiri and not knowing Vurdu.

So my dear friend you will always hear the rhetoric as Kashmiris will continue building the political argument on ground of ‘distinctive identity’ but will not use its power embedded in its philosophy to overwhelm the darkness that engulfs their very subsistence in the real term.

They have to realise that this is the only guiding force to carry on, the only beacon of hope. Sooner they understand, better it is.

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