Emulation of Fallacies

Emulation of Fallacies
By U. Mahesh Prabhu

Every being has two sides—the good and the bad. This is a well-acclaimed fact. Even the unlawful have something in them for good and wise men to emulate. But how easy is it for us all to really look at only the brighter side of men and ignore their darker side? Arduous, immensely difficult!

In India, since time immemorial, we have been in pursuit of a society which is laudable as far as principles, ethics, and rationale go. Our pursuits have not [just] been towards creating a financially affluent society. We have been rather immensely zealous in working towards a civilization where all and sundry would live in peace, dignity, and with honor.

Yes, it is very much possible that we, especially a large section of the youth, can begin a self-defeating argument against ‘evil practices’ once practiced in our society such as caste-ism, ‘Sati’, dowry, and all that. By this argument, all that would be proved is that ‘ours was never a nation of good men’, and also that ‘wisdom never existed here’. Words are slaves of those who have a command over them. In the court of law, lawyers by mincing words, present truth as untruth and vice versa. By this, does the truth turn into a lie? No, truth certainly remains undeterred in the actual. It may be forgotten, or may never be known—but it remains unchanged.

For ages, in India, due to a lack of interest among masses in documenting our history, and also due to the onslaught of barbaric invaders, which played havoc on our libraries, we have lost track of several such truths about ourselves. Further on, a generation of people began a series of real politick measures to negate whatever little proud moments that might have been left in the minds of nationalists by way of legends.

A great part of history documented in Sanskrit, was declared by self-styled ‘modernists’ as ‘mythology’. The recent Booker Prize winner and author of ‘The White Tiger’, Aravinda Adiga, as well as previous Booker Prize winner , Arundathi Roy have targeted this land in their works, for things which they consider ‘unwise’. The sad part is that they failed to write even one word in appreciation of their own country!

What is worse is the manner in which the media here idolizes Adiga who has showed no consideration to the country of his birth! They, and of course their readers or viewers, are ‘proud’ of him. But has any one cared to at least flip a few pages of the book and read through it? Not many, I’m afraid. And yet they want ‘future generations’ to emulate them!

The British may have left India but they still continue to rule the psyche of Indians. Yoga and Pranayama have been in India for ages—but a great part of our populace began practicing them only after the stamp of some western health institutes was imprinted on them.

Our traditional Gurukula system of education was set aside and Macaulay’s influenced version was put in place. The joint family system was put to death, simply, and mostly, to emulate the western style of living. We want to emulate the west for we have declared that, unconditionally, ‘whatever the west does is progress and others are orthodox’, and thus they are to be shunned.

Wearing ‘kurtas’ and ‘pajamas’ and ‘chudidars’ or ‘sarees’, is termed primitive and jeans and short skirts have been termed ‘fashionable’ and moreover ‘feasible’. Do they say feasible? In hot Indian weather conditions, ‘dhotis’ and kurtas are more logical attire for they allow your skin to breathe. On the contrary, jeans are completely far removed from this ‘feasibility’. Won’t you agree?

But why do our youth love jeans? Simple, because its ‘fashionable’. But have they ever tried wearing dhoti/pajamas with kurtas? Or chudidars and sarees? Definitely not!

The mental slavery of our men is still bowing to the west—at large. In politics, management, medicine, or education, in every sphere of life, we are in total comparison with the western way and their standard of life in terms of ‘well-being’. Our know-how of our legacy, tradition, and culture, is so feeble and yet we are all for denouncing it outright. Ridiculous!

Is that a sign of wisdom? Is that even right by a commoner’s common sense? If not, then why are our youths, mostly in the metros, so? Without our roots, we are no better than creepers. Creepers serve no worthy purpose. Emulation of good is a positive development. But blind emulation is fallacy; it’s insane; a real waste. Let that emulation of fallacy be not ours.