Open Letter: A slave ship trooper hits back

This is an open letter in response to Meena Kandasamy’s open letter to Young India, which appeared in Outlook magazine.

Dear Ms Kandasamy,
Hi!
Spare me. Please. Spare me your sanctimony, your misplaced righteousness, and most of all the spasms that are making you writhe in guilt.

Have you seen Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day? I remember watching it, as a teenager, filled with Pepsi and hormones, not yet christened a Youngistani. What struck me even then, as ensconced as I was in my cocoon of upper-middle-class comfort, was the sheer temerity of the Americans to consistently believe that they were the chosen ones, the anointed guardians of global welfare and safety. Your piece reminds me of that vacuous and undeserved hubris.

Yes a certain section of the youth is certainly apathetic as you write. And they shouldn’t be. They should be more aware, and be more empathetic. I agree with that too. But what I disagree with is this: “Perhaps you will heed the call to arms, some day you will don combat gear. Some day you will step out of your selfish skin and speak up for the people. Some day you will wage war against every injustice and uproot every oppression. Some day your sacrifice will set us free.”

How would you feel if someone wrote a piece addressing the men of this world saying, “Someday your sacrifices will set women free?” Would you not think it is sexist?

You believe that it is the moral imperative of the middle class — specifically the Pepsi-drinking, iPod listening, (Fab India wearing?) class — to deliver all victims of oppression and tyranny from evil (amen) and lead them to the promised land. You know why you believe this, right? Because you also believe — and here is where the hubris comes in — that it is only the middle class who can. Because they are the ones not being oppressed, so they have the leisure.

I can quite imagine you raving, “Wake up you long-haired, tattoo-sporting, mall-hopping pillocks! If you don’t, who’ll help the poor, or ?”

You know who’ll help the oppressed? Well, they will, themselves. Just like they did in Kudankulam by going on a hunger-strike and forcing the government to reconsider its nuclear plans. And just like they did by protesting against the Khairlanji massacre in Azad Maidan and making sure the ones responsible were sent to jail.

Look, I am not condoning apathy or ignorance. And I do admire and respect the work done by middle class activists. What I do not like is the messiah-complex so lavishly slathered all over your piece.

In the history of human civilisation there hasn’t been a single protest that made any sort of lasting impact, that wasn’t led primarily by those directly affected. Not one single protest. Figureheads might come from various sections of societies. But the body of protesters, the critical mass that forces change through the sheer weight of expression, has to come from the oppressed, the victimised. Neither Danton nor Robespierre actually embodied the struggle of the French peasants, as their severed heads will testify.

So all this rousing of the apathetic middle class youth is not really necessary, because they can blog and shout and assemble, like the million-strong protesters did against  the war in Iraq, but it won’t do much other than momentarily sate the guilt of their ‘privilege of exclusivity.’ A body of people, crying for justice on an issue that is not their own, who haven’t been oppressed or tyrannised, will only have a perfunctory and cosmetic effect. Because it is the voice of the victim, and not that of the empathiser, that resonates.

This doesn’t mean that the middle-class, heck any class, should be callous enough look the other way. But they cannot fight someone else’s war. They can support, provide solidarity, spread awareness, but the war has to be fought by those who have the most at stake. Only then can it be fought with the fury required to win it. So please don’t seek to impose empathy or passion. It doesn’t work. Don’t try to institutionalise activism. It’s a fool’s quest.

Oh and if you can, pretty please, stop writhing in whatever guilt it is that is causing you anguish, that would be tops as well.
Love
R