Secrecy is indispensable to a mason, how profound a folly it would be to betray our secrets to those who(m)...the peremptory mandate of our obligation compel us to do a brother's duty to a base imposter.
-a Freemason saying
IN almost direct contravention, the Freemason Hall in Delhi recently took an unprecedented exorcistic exercise, inviting the public for a two-hour-long q&a session. The process was repeated in Mumbai on January 15 through a Divine Service, held after a yawning 25-year gap, also open to public participation. The world's most secretive sect was shedding its cloak.
Did you know in India taxiwallahs are sent to the Bhoot Khana, instead of the Freemason Hall? We want to explode the myth, inform the public that we also do charity. We have never sought publicity, but charity is a masonic requisite, says S. Krishnan, grand secretary of the Grand Lodge of India in Delhi.
No fanfare announced their contribution in building Delhi's General Williams Masonic Polyclinic, the Masonic Public School, Coimbatore's Masonic Medical Centre for Children, adoption of a Visakhapatnam village for development, or construction of sheds for Andhra Pradesh cyclone victims. Neither is the masonic trumpet blown over their scholarships, health camps for blood donations, eye check-ups. For funds they dip into the GLI Fund of Benevolence, mostly internal donations currently. They also appreciate the need to infuse fresh blood in the 250-year-old body. Though the joining age is 21 (with masons' sons permitted at 18), there's only a negligible youth among us, rues Mehar N. Gimi, grand secretary (western region). Though the membership numbers 15,000 now, including names like Madhavrao Scindia and the Nawab of Pataudi, not all actively attend meetings. The numbers game is also critical following GLIs split from its parent Grand Lodge of England, Ireland and Scotland.
The parent lodge, with a significant Indian membership, doesn't share this willingness to go open. It's against the very tenets of freemasonry, notes Dalal T., freemason and advocate representing GLE. Gimi differs: How can any institution in existence for so many centuries, conducting regular meetings, printing all its periodicals regularly, having a following of roughly 10.5 million people princes and common men, sages and savants be called a secret society?
GLIs demystification process included distribution of Discover Freemasonry pamphlets and an eagerness among the fraternity to field rather naive questions. Masonry, according to Gimi, had Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras as its initiates. Indian names include Swami Vivekananda, C. Rajagopalachari, Motilal Nehru and Fakruddin Ali Ahmed.
No atheist or agnostic is admitted. It's not a religion. Though our halls called a temple all major religions are represented here; Bible, Gita, Zend Avesta, Koran, Granth Sahib are all placed here, says Krishnan. The GLI is only following the Grand Lodges in America and Europe that, by going open, smacked at the closed suspicion in the Mid-eastern countries that have banned the fraternity. Their symbolic veil had created a crisis during Emergency when Indira Gandhi decided to ban them. The then grand master Dinshaw Madan had revealed to her their beliefs. It so impressed her that she said if all Indians were like them there'd be peace all round.
About 350 persons participated in the open session; most verbal missiles thrown by women. Some asked about clandestine rituals, others about why they wore regalia, if the rituals were not an anachronism today? The masons gentle retort: Don't doctors wear white coats, butchers their aprons? There's nothing clandestine except our signs, tokens and words. Earlier, each profession had its own guild. It protected its members and also through oath kept a close watch that the secrets didn't leak out. It serves a dual purpose helps us identify each other; protects us from insidious attacks. Is it wrong if it regards, like many other societies, some of its internal affairs as private? And that, it's not covert about its aims or principles. Copies of its constitution are available to the public from its offices.
We want to come a step closer to the public. And open, if not all, at least some doors. With their numbers in India plateauing, masons appreciate their old saying Put no faith in tomorrow, for the clock may then be still.
