Hum mehnatkash is
duniya se jab apna hissa mangenge
Ik bagh nahin, ik khet nahin, hum saari duniya mangenge
Ik bagh nahin, ik khet nahin, hum saari duniya mangenge
Hasan Kamaal had slightly modified the words of Faiz
Ahmed Faiz’s ghazal for this song for the 1983 Hindi movie Mazdoor. But
the powerful idea brought out by the Marxist poet comes across very clearly.
The toiling, the “working-class” people of the world are not forever going to
wait for crumbs to fall from the tables of the high and mighty of the world.
Once they rise up to demand their share in world’s wealth and resources, they
would actually go on and seize it all. This is a legitimate aspiration of the
people of our country. Our history has been a story of the chosen few ruling
over the vast majority. There was one set of people whose birthright it was to
rule our minds. And there was another set, who exercised its own birthright in
ruling our bodies. Brahmins and Kshatriyas had held the intellectual and
physical—religious and political—power in their tight grip through centuries. It
was not till the middle of the 20th century that we Indians experienced what it
means to have people decide who would rule them. It was only in the last
decades of the last century that people from the toiling classes, the oppressed
majority, Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs began tasting the fruits of political power
in India Kingdom of God
Published in Punjabi–English fortnightly Masihi Sansar (15–30 March 2014) published from Jalandhar
Published in Punjabi–English fortnightly Masihi Sansar (15–30 March 2014) published from Jalandhar
2 comments:
Thanks Ashish, well said that we have had our minds controlled in the past. Social power, as somebody has said, is the exercise of social control by one group over another, operating more through mind than physically. The exercise of social power presupposes an ideological framework based on the interest of the powerful group, and requires that the ‘powerless’ group, for whatever reasons, accepts or agrees to do what is in the powerful group’s interest, perhaps thinking it to be in their best interest.
These days it is the electronic media which tries to control our minds by setting the agenda for discourse. It is my opinion that the electronic media is ‘of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.’ We are being convinced that there is a wave for the only saviour for this nation.
It is well said that only recently have the ‘marginalized’ or ‘powerless’, those whose voice is not heard over the electronic media, begun to express their independent aspirations. A fractured mandate is only indicative of this expression and is in my opinion only to be welcomed. We all finally have to learn to live together with a sense of mutuality and a fractured mandate is the first step to that.
Thanks, Sushant! Yes, many of us do feel that a coalition government will be relatively better, because it will then be forced to keep all factions within the nation and the society happy. But this administrative arithmetic may still move towards totalitarianism, if not backed by a constant quest for a values-based existence.
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