Viswanathan K's Thoughts

James Carse, in Finite and Infinite Games , defines the key attributes of a myth: “I do not understand the story in terms of my experience, but my experience in terms of the story… As myths make individual experience possible, they also make collective experience possible.” Further: “We tell myths for their own sake, because they are stories that insist on being stories – and insist on being told. We come to life at their touch.” In fact, when you think more about myths: “Myths are not stories that have meanings, but stories that give meaning.” And: “We resonate with myth when it resounds in us.” Carse says this to say about religions in that contex: “Myths of irrepressible resonance have lost all trace of an author (he cites the Vedas as an example). Even when sacred texts are written down by an identifiable prophet or evangelist, it is invariably thought that these words were first spoken to their recorders and not spoken by them… Muhammad heard the Quran and did n...

Most people have problems accepting parts of an idea or an ideology. They prefer an all or nothing choice. In some cases, that makes sense, like when one part of the ideology will necessarily cause a particular consequence that you find abhorrent. Thus, Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian streak is what caused a Bangladesh to be created and also an Emergency to be imposed. But Gujarat’s rating on almost all economic progress parameters is not caused by the BJP’s Hindutva ideology; which means you should be able to admire Modi as CM while still hating Godhra. Unfortunately, most people can’t make such distinctions. Fortunately for India, during our independence struggle, both Gandhi and Nehru were men capable of such distinctions (I personally don’t agree with either on all their post-independence decisions; but on many counts, I do agree with them). Thus unlike other countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, India could separate the components of Western ideologies and pick and ...