On January 22, the international page of this paper carries three stories on gods, living and dead; stories juxtaposed so aptly that one is tempted to ascribe the coincidence to the divine rather than to divine editorship! The first relates to a statue of B.R. Ambedkar that was found vandalised in a village near Gurgaon, leading enraged protesters to block traffic (‘Broken Ambedkar statue causes tension’). The second describes public excitement at reports that an idol of Lord Hanuman is shedding tears in Rajkot (‘Devotees flock to see tear miracle’). And the third and the most entertaining story is on how ‘avowed atheist’ DMK leader, M. Karunanidhi, graciously played host to that embodiment of God, Sri Satya Sai Baba (‘Heart for an atheist, gold ring for believer’). Three stories, revealing that in India we see nothing odd about destroying images of God here, worshipping images of God there, and genuflecting before images of ‘divine’ humans, living or dead, elsewhere. It is ignorance that leads throngs of people to see ‘miracles’ manifest in images of stone and clay. Such miraculous events are not restricted to Hindu temples; they find place in innumerable forms in all religions of the world, and serve but one purpose — to fatten the priests. It may be argued that there is nothing wrong in building statues of great humans such as Ambedkar — after all, he and Gandhi brought the beginnings of social justice to dalits after centuries of inhuman exploitation by upper castes. But by investing his statues with attributes of divinity we only make ourselves vulnerable to hurt when the statues are damaged. Death claims all human bodies; so too statues will crumble, whether by acts of vandalism or natural forces.It might seem strange that ‘rational’ DMK leader Karunanidhi should recognise Satya Sai Baba to be God, especially when the DMK ascended into political power on a doctrine of militant iconoclasm that saw its cadres beating images of Hindu deities with chappals. But then, the Tamil Nadu countryside is dotted with statues of DMK leaders — including Karunanidhi — that are worshipped by followers with all the fervour of true religious zealots. Also, Sai Baba has put aside Rs 200 crore for the supply of Krishna water to Chennai — and obligingly produced a couple of golden rings for DMK leaders, Durai Murugan and Dayanidhi Maran!It is also possible that the ‘godliness’ of a human or statue depends on whether the worshipper is ‘secular’ or ‘communal’. Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Railway Minister Laloo Yadav were present with Karunanidhi to receive Satya Sai Baba’s grace. “Baba is beyond space and time, he is divinity,” Patil said. “Baba is God now,” Laloo Yadav added. Now, if only some BJP leaders had said these things, how much easier it would have been for us to trash them as irrational, communal Hindutva obscurantists! Was that the sound of a ring falling — or a cosmic chuckle?
