Tradition Of Embracing Disagreement Shaped India

Protest, debate, disagreement, dissent etc., are words and concepts of the same family. Debate may start or end up in disagreement; disagreement may esc­alate into dissent; dissent may lead to protest. It cannot be denied that right to protest, to dissent, to interrogate is not merely a right ack­nowledged in many ways in the Constitution of India, but also deeply marks the Indian traditions of social conduct, creative expression, philosophical and metaphysical explorations and spiritual endeavours. To cite one example, it may be recalled that in Tulsidas’ Ram­chari­t­manas, an epic which enjoys in North India the status of a scripture, Rama, soon after being coronated as the king of Ayodhya, bese­eches the citizens to intercede without any fear if they ever feel he is acting unethically. It is ironical that the same Ayodhya today has been converted into a ‘spiritual’ polis of fear from which civic protest and dissidence have been sought to be permanently banished.

We can easily go back to the Vedic corpus and find that in the Nasadeeya Sukta (the Hymn of Creation) the sage strikes a note of scepticism:  

But who really knows?
Who can tell where all where all arose?
For the gods themselves came after Creation.
Who then shall proclaim how Creation happened?

This is evidently the beginning of Indian scepticism. Nothing, not even the creation of the universe, or the supremacy and omniscience of God, is taken for granted. Into a major sukta of perhaps the oldest and one of the most important texts of Hinduism, then the Vedic seers ins­erted a deeply metaphysical note of dissent.

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A similar note was struck by a rishi named Kauntya, who declared that if what had been said in the Vedas could not be communicated in any other language or in any other way, the Vedas must be meaningless. This was pure blasphemy since the Vedas were held to be inviolable, apourusheya. But Yaka, an ancient gra­m­marian and commentator on the Vedas, includes this view in Nirukta, his compilation of Vedic interpretations which become one of the central texts of Sanskrit scholarship.

These traditions continued and grew with the other major religions that arose in India—Bud­dhism, Jainism and, later, Sikhism. Their founders, Buddha, Mahavira and Nanak, dissented from the ritualistic and caste rigidities of orthodox Hinduism to discover new paths of spirituality, metaphysics, social organisation and libe­ra­tion. Here was religious plurality being created through religious dissent. Buddhism and Jainism were particularly radical faiths; they were not posited on the notion and existence of God, and they rejected completely the scriptures of Hinduism and many of its foundational concepts like the eternal soul and the four goals of life. The rejection was forceful, fearless and rooted in intellectual inquiry and debate. A verse from a Buddhist poet says:

Believing that the Vedas are perfect and holy,
Believing in a Creator of the universe,
Bathing in holy waters to gain merit,
Having pride about one’s caste,
Performing penance to absolve sins:
These are five symptoms of having lost one’s sanity.

—Dharmakirti

The vital condition of plurality has often been strengthened and expanded through dissent. For instance, when the tyranny of classical Sanskrit was questioned and subverted, the many modern Indian language we speak today came into being. The vernacular did not demolish the classical, or even aspire to occupy the hallowed space of the classical; instead, it bec­ame a dissenting parallel. The presence of nearly a thousand versions of the Ramayana in India, ranging from Santhali and other tribal versions to retellings from the Jain point of view, is evidence that the dominant narrative and the world-view it enacted and expressed was creatively challenged and transformed. A Kannada Ramayana or a Hindi Ram­char­it­ma­nas deviate quite substantially from the original in Sanskrit by Valmiki.

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We could recall these bold verses:
There is no God in the mosque,
There is no God in the Ka’aba
There is no God in the Book,
There is no God in prayer.
Tear down the mosque
And tear down the temple
And shatter what will be broken.
But do not ever break a heart—
for that is where God lives.

—Bulleh Shah

In Sanskrit drama, a lot of which has been preoccupied with the ironies of life and fate and the celebration of gods and regal heroes, there was, too, the irrepressible vidushak, the fool, the court jester, who not only provided comic relief but also sarcastic comments on gods, fate and so on. He spared no one and his utterances were never censored or objected to. This tradition seems to have continued in more earthy and rob­ust ways in folk theatre across the country. In many of these popular forms, watched night after night by thousands of faithful viewers, sometimes it is the narrator who assumes the role of the vidushak, just as he or she also enacts the hero or other heroic or divine characters.

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The easy morality of the pious was also challenged—or ignored altogether. In the twelfth century, Jayadeva composed Geeta Govind, a bold erotic poem which depicts in vivid detail the love and lovemaking of Radha and Krishna. Apart from occupying a central place in the classical dance form Odissi, this masterpiece of the Bhakti movements is still sung daily in temples across India, from Kerala in the south to Manipur in the Northeast.

The Bhakti period, beginning in the sixth century, saw a great and golden flowering of poetry and many other arts. While making God or gods accessible to all, without the negotiating instruments of priesthood, mosque, temple or holy books, this poetry democratised religions and spirituality, Most of the poets belonged to the lower classes (for instance, Kabir, a weaver; Mad­ara Chennaiah and Ravidas, both cobblers; Soyarabai, a Mahar; Namdev, a tailor) and their poetry liberated devotion and poetic expression from the stranglehold of the Brahminical class. This poetry, widespread and popular till today, has been the most eloquent and passionate articulation of dissent, subversion and inte­r­rogation.

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It may be recalled that during the freedom struggle, important political leaders recalled the work of Bhakti and Sufi poets to evoke a spirit of freedom and forge a unity of purpose amongst the masses. This was done most crucially and eff­ectively by Mahatma Gandhi. In the prayer meetings of the Mahatma in Sewagram and elsewhere, the devotional poetry of all the major religions of India and the rest of the world was sung. These prayer meetings became a unique forum of political dissent vis-a-vis the colonial power.  

It would be labouring the obvious to say India has lived and survived through a complex but vital tradition of dissent, disagreement and protest which has sustained and enriched it in its grand civilisational enterprise.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Act of God")

(Views expressed are personal)

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Ashok Vajpeyi is a poet and critic