Joe the Plumber
Curiously, stupid questions but put to famous people could make you famous and therefore Joe the Plumber was no exception. Almost as famous as being at the helm of US Fed in a recession or marrying a spouse who is famous would make you.
But what is critical is the fact that the Plumber did question. And who. None other than a candidate running for presidency. How many societies in the modern world today encourage such debate and accountability. And we Indians despite having had an age old tradition of questioning and debating, reasoning and rationalizing, seem to of have abandoned such cognitive pursuits. Of course questioning has its own perils. Had it not been for the audacity of questioning, Ashtāvakra would have been born without deformities, perhaps the world would have known him with a different name too.
But in modern India, can even the most powerful today dare ask, how Sonia Gandhi runs her house. The very thought would be blasphemy. Why Z level security cover is deemed essential for Robert Wadra. How much wealth a Pawar or Mayawati possesses.
Even during the rule of descendants of Raghu, a petty washerman could question the legitimacy of a legendary King and Maryada Purshottam Ram’s decision to restore Sita. Saktar and Chanakya could question the mighty Nanda. Today, my wife a civil servant questioned probity and demeanor unbecoming of officers of some her bureaucrat colleagues, and many of her well wishers cautioned her to stop “rubbing people on the wrong side.” From childhood, we are coached to not call spade a spade. Not be abrupt. Not raise our voice against injustice and corruption. Not to question the system. Also how feeble our voice would be against the entire system. But in the same vein we are also taught lessons in diligence and industriousness that would either catapult us to an orbit where we will be beyond the corruption or be a beneficiary of the malaise than a victim.
Today in modern India, we are quite wary of un-ruffling feathers or as we prefer to say, rubbing people on the wrong side. The children of Vedas, Brahmanas and Upanishads, where the axiomatic Pari Prashnen was the fundamental basis of learning and wisdom, today desist questioning. What a 180 deg we have done. Increasingly I have a feeling, more than lack of national character, which has been my favorite theory for the ills of India ( and I sometimes recommend compulsory NCC as a remedy ) it is the withering of the tradition of questioning that is responsible for the all round rot.
May be, this blind allegiance to a diktat or acquiescing to organized malpractices was an outcome of Islamic rulers overrunning the country. India is perhaps the singular exception where Islamic rulers overran the country but Islam couldn’t. Of course, the monolithic system of Islamic tradition, did not allow any questioning. Questioning Allah or quoran was clearly punishable blasphemy. Just about when this system was collapsing under its own irrationality or due to fatigued armies - fatigued not from denuded military superiority but for want ideological sustenance, the land saw a similar onslaught in the form of British where the guiding force was even more vicious commerce instead of religion. It is true, post Power Loom west made immense material and philosophical progress, and it was simply for that reason, many of them realized in no time, that they had ahead of them a task to exploit a civilization - India that had not so long ago been far superior to theirs.
Then this gargantuan task was not to be achieved by military supremacy alone, but with a definitive politico – cultural strategy where establishing cultural superiority of the western thought and tradition was integral to long term protection of politico-military hegemony and commercial interests. Commercial gains would not be sustainable without political hegemony. India even today is wallowing in the travails of such systematic thinking, loot and plunder and worse still even after independence, when the Burra sahib has been merely replaced by the brown sahib. While political independence has been clearly achieved the mental yoke continues to plague us.
May be if the generation of our children will have more Joe the Plumbers, we could overthrow the yoke of the 1000 years of thraldom and make real progress.
Curiously, stupid questions but put to famous people could make you famous and therefore Joe the Plumber was no exception. Almost as famous as being at the helm of US Fed in a recession or marrying a spouse who is famous would make you.
But what is critical is the fact that the Plumber did question. And who. None other than a candidate running for presidency. How many societies in the modern world today encourage such debate and accountability. And we Indians despite having had an age old tradition of questioning and debating, reasoning and rationalizing, seem to of have abandoned such cognitive pursuits. Of course questioning has its own perils. Had it not been for the audacity of questioning, Ashtāvakra would have been born without deformities, perhaps the world would have known him with a different name too.
But in modern India, can even the most powerful today dare ask, how Sonia Gandhi runs her house. The very thought would be blasphemy. Why Z level security cover is deemed essential for Robert Wadra. How much wealth a Pawar or Mayawati possesses.
Even during the rule of descendants of Raghu, a petty washerman could question the legitimacy of a legendary King and Maryada Purshottam Ram’s decision to restore Sita. Saktar and Chanakya could question the mighty Nanda. Today, my wife a civil servant questioned probity and demeanor unbecoming of officers of some her bureaucrat colleagues, and many of her well wishers cautioned her to stop “rubbing people on the wrong side.” From childhood, we are coached to not call spade a spade. Not be abrupt. Not raise our voice against injustice and corruption. Not to question the system. Also how feeble our voice would be against the entire system. But in the same vein we are also taught lessons in diligence and industriousness that would either catapult us to an orbit where we will be beyond the corruption or be a beneficiary of the malaise than a victim.
Today in modern India, we are quite wary of un-ruffling feathers or as we prefer to say, rubbing people on the wrong side. The children of Vedas, Brahmanas and Upanishads, where the axiomatic Pari Prashnen was the fundamental basis of learning and wisdom, today desist questioning. What a 180 deg we have done. Increasingly I have a feeling, more than lack of national character, which has been my favorite theory for the ills of India ( and I sometimes recommend compulsory NCC as a remedy ) it is the withering of the tradition of questioning that is responsible for the all round rot.
May be, this blind allegiance to a diktat or acquiescing to organized malpractices was an outcome of Islamic rulers overrunning the country. India is perhaps the singular exception where Islamic rulers overran the country but Islam couldn’t. Of course, the monolithic system of Islamic tradition, did not allow any questioning. Questioning Allah or quoran was clearly punishable blasphemy. Just about when this system was collapsing under its own irrationality or due to fatigued armies - fatigued not from denuded military superiority but for want ideological sustenance, the land saw a similar onslaught in the form of British where the guiding force was even more vicious commerce instead of religion. It is true, post Power Loom west made immense material and philosophical progress, and it was simply for that reason, many of them realized in no time, that they had ahead of them a task to exploit a civilization - India that had not so long ago been far superior to theirs.
Then this gargantuan task was not to be achieved by military supremacy alone, but with a definitive politico – cultural strategy where establishing cultural superiority of the western thought and tradition was integral to long term protection of politico-military hegemony and commercial interests. Commercial gains would not be sustainable without political hegemony. India even today is wallowing in the travails of such systematic thinking, loot and plunder and worse still even after independence, when the Burra sahib has been merely replaced by the brown sahib. While political independence has been clearly achieved the mental yoke continues to plague us.
May be if the generation of our children will have more Joe the Plumbers, we could overthrow the yoke of the 1000 years of thraldom and make real progress.
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