Speaking with the Enemy and Subramania Bharati

Pic credit: Wikipedia

பகைவனுக்கருள்வாய்-நன்னெஞ்சே! பகைவனுக்கருள்வாய்!

புகை நடுவினில் தீயிருப்பதைப் பூமியிற் கண்டோமே-

நன்னெஞ்சே! பூமியிற் கண்டோமே.

பகைநடுவினில் அன்புரு வானநம் பரமன் வாழ்கின்றான்-

நன்னெஞ்சே! பரமன் வாழ்கின்றான்.

சிப்பியிலே நல்ல முத்து விளைந்திடுஞ் செய்தியறியாயோ?-

நன்னெஞ்சே!

குப்பையிலேமலர் கொஞ்சுங் குரக்கத்திக் கொடி வளராதோ?-நன்னெஞ்சே! 

 

Be gracious to the enemy, my good heart!

Have we not seen flames amidst dense smoke?

Do we not know that God lives amidst all this enmity?

Do you not know that pearl grows in oysters?

Don’t you know that flowers grow amidst a garbage dump?

-         - Subramanya Bharati, the Tamil Poet.

 

The best line in the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign came from John McCain. In one of his political rallies, a woman had a “question”. She remarked that she did not trust Barack Obama because “he was an Arab”.  If she indeed had a question, she never got to it.  McCain, taking the microphone back from her, shook his head vigorously, and said, “No Ma’m. He is an American, a decent family man, whom I happen to have political disagreements with”.

Jagmeet Singh did something similar in his first Canadian federal election campaign. A woman heckled him at a political rally and accused him wanting to impose Sharia law in Canada. While the others tried to escort the woman away or correct her, Singh encouraged the audience to listen to her. He would later explain that he did not want to clarify to the woman that he was not a Muslim and hence did not believe in Sharia. Doing so would have implied that heckling would have been acceptable if a Muslim had stood in his place.

Going farther back, Narasimha Rao, the Indian Prime Minister sent A B Vajpayee, the leader of opposition to represent India in the World Economic Forum in Geneva.

There may have been some showmanship involved, but these episodes come to mind when I think of tolerance in political context. 

Did I say ‘tolerance’? It does not seem appropriate. It implies that you don’t really like the person, and put up with him or her, just to act civil. The words 'Empathy’ and 'non-partisan' are a little closer to what we want to convey. Americans use the word 'bipartisan'. I think it is a horrible word, but I digress. 

Polarized political views seem to be both the cause and effect of the noise we see on social media. More media outlets seem to be siding with one political camp or another. It takes a special mind to stand apart from the mob psychology in your camp, and sense why your opponent says something or behave in a certain way; to learn to see things from the other's point of view; even accept a valid point that the opponent raises.

My own lightbulb moment came from an interaction I had long ago with a writer I disagreed with. Varsha Bhosle (daughter of the famous Asha Bhosle) was a writer with right-wing views. She was known not to mince her words. She had a scornful, confrontational style. She would coin nicknames for the people she disagreed with.

The episode started with an article she wrote about the murder of someone that she didn’t see eye to eye with. The article listed the many flaws of the departed man and implied that he had asked for it. Further, the title of the article seemed to suggest that she was even rejoicing at his death.

I thought the piece was in poor taste. I wrote to the editor, pointing out that Bhosle was entitled to her opinion, but by publishing the article, the publication was participating in her celebration of someone’s unfortunate demise. I may have also said something to the effect that the publication risked skewing its reader base given the pattern in Bhosle's last few articles. Instead of giving me the stock response about the opinions not representing the publication, the editor copied Bhosle in his e-mail, and encouraged us to directly talk to each other.

Having been outed thus, I sent a more elaborate critique of the piece to Bhosle. She thanked me for my comments and asked if I would still be upset at her if she had written the article, but not the title. I realized that I didn’t like the article, but what had sent me over the edge had been the title, which was something like ‘Another one bites the dust!’. On hearing this, she revealed the original title that she had given the article that was significantly more civilized. Someone in the editorial board had changed it. I sent her a concluding note, thanking her for indulging an unknown reader. A much younger reader too, but she did not need to know that!

Having read a few of her pieces before, I knew that she was reasonably famous, not just as a writer but also as a singer. Her family was the equivalent of royalty when it came to music. I was impressed by how much effort she had spent in talking to an (initially) unfriendly and persistent reader.

A couple of years later, she wrote a piece on her Diwali memories from childhood, giving the readers a vivid account of an excited child in a traditional Maharashtrian household. This time, I was impressed by the article, and had sent a backhanded compliment to the editor, to the effect that that Bhosle was clearly capable of writing well but had managed to conceal it most of the times. I had not copied the author.

The next day, I had a note from Bhosle that just said, ‘Hey, thanks. That was a pleasant surprise. I thought you believed I should be gagged!’.

I responded with something equally light and forgot all about the episode. I recalled these exchanges a decade or so later with a heavy heart when I read that Bhosle had ended her life. Here was a human being that was capable of connecting with a person halfway across the world, despite the political differences. 

Watching the news, political debates, and my twitter feed, I am wondering if we have permanently lost the ability to talk to, reason with, or even put up with people with opposing points of view.  Is it not possible to support a political party, stand up for your religion, assert your rights, or take a stand on an issue without attacking people in the other camp? If you knew everything you know now, but were born in a household belonging to the 'other' side, would you still act the way you do now? Would you still coin those insulting phrases? When you condemn an act in the opposite camp, can you not do that without saying or implying ‘they are all alike!?’