Every morning, as I get up and make my coffee, I wonder what might have happened the previous night in Ukraine, Gaza, Kashmir, Israel or Iran. I am shown bombs lighting up and moving across the skies as though it is Dipavali. Then, just to remind me that this is all real, cameras capture flattened buildings, rubble, ambulances, bleeding children, hospitals and dead bodies. I finish my coffee, close the window, and then switch to doing ‘my things’. From being a concerned citizen of the world, I become absorbed in my life. This happens in a split second without any thought. There is a dissonance between these two actions that I often ignore.
I am not suggesting that we should give up all that we do on an everyday basis or stop seeking our own safety and happiness. Neither is it sensible for us to remain in a state of shock and become non-functional. The instinct of self-preservation kicks in and we move away psychologically from the horrors of violence. At the same time, we have to acknowledge the privilege that social and geographical separation provides us. It is this security that enables this back and forth.
Beyond the disturbance that the unabated killings cause, is there anything else we carry into the way we live our lives? Political scientists and politicians have consistently told us that these are geopolitical and historical conflicts that we can do nothing about. This abstract framing removes people and the natural world from the conversation. Somewhere within our minds, we have accepted this notion of collateral damage. Hence, we respond by quickly choosing sides and taking a geopolitical position. This sanitises us of any human sensibility. Once this mental movement is complete, we can go about our lives with absolutely no care. After all, these are wars between good and bad people, old vestiges are at play, and the final nail in this explanatory coffin is that proverbial word: fate.
How are these wars and other events happening across the planet connected to you and me? This seems like a far-fetched rumination. But it is not. For one moment, if we remove the political, social, cultural, linguistic and historical demarcations that keep us all apart, we will be able to see quite clearly that nothing really differentiates all of us. The human species is predictable and has been behaving in exactly the same manner from time immemorial. No religion or rationality has changed who we are beneath these scaffoldings. There is one immediate crisis that reveals this universality, and that is the climate crisis. Political positions, border disputes and constructed walls do not stop its pervasiveness. It also shows that insularity, greed, power and a lack of empathy are at the foundation of the disasters we are facing. This also means that these global and geopolitical problems emerge from the personal and the local. How each of us engages and learns from and shares with the local determines wars.
In the past month, I had three very distinct local experiences which I believe contribute to how I see people, the planet, and the world at large. In late May, I travelled to Puducherry to participate in a celebration of a well-respected Tamil writer and translator, M.L. Thangappa, and his wife, Thadanganni Thangappa. I knew little about him and even less about what the evening was going to be like. I was informed that we would witness a performance of ‘people’s music’. The concert took place on the terrace of a building, which had been converted into a theatre space. The locality was not exactly where one would imagine a music performance. This observation was, possibly, born out of my own social conditioning. The concert itself consisted of music that transcended many social and aesthetic boundaries. Words like classical, folk, refined, raw, pure, impure, appropriate and inappropriate were put in their place. By which I mean they were challenged and correctly discarded. It was an overwhelming experience that said a lot about cutting across and crossing over cultural and emotional partitions.
Kalasapakkam is a small village in Tamil Nadu. I participated in the World Environment Day event organised by the Traditional Seed Centre there. We met under a neem tree, on the banks of a lake, just behind a village temple. For the past twenty-five years, organic farmers from around the region have been coming together every month to discuss what it means to farm ethically, freely share seeds and knowledge, access markets together, spread awareness and ensure sustainability. These farmers strongly believe in a way of life that is not driven by avarice. They share freely amongst themselves and allow for varied opinions. I am certain that there are times when differences are irreconcilable. Yet they come together without fail and keep trying to take another step forward together, despite being told repeatedly that their way is a lost cause.
We met at the Bar High Council Auditorium in Chennai for a conference on federalism. On the stage were judges and advocates, past and present. Along with them were also an advocate-stand-up comic and me! The audience comprised young lawyers from various sections of society, some of whom doubled up as activists. The discussion was robust, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious. Speeches were political, historical, contextualising and pointed to the federal lacunae in our everyday life and constitutional legacy. There was one thing missing: gender diversity on the stage. As someone pointed out, it was a ‘manel’, a point that was raised on stage and acknowledged by the organisers. Listening to some of the speakers passionately articulate their belief in federalism as a governing and social principle, I left with hope.
These three events seem disjointed, even arbitrary, but they are not. These are attempts, in their specific areas of functioning, to bring people together, find common ground, and share principles of living. All of them were dealing with different ‘locals’. For the young musicians in Puducherry, it was about finding a musical discourse that they could communicate with everyone irrespective of their background. The farmers shared their learnings about healthy, safe and viable living, a way of life that has no shortcuts. The judges and lawyers wanted conversations on federalism to go beyond their chambers. Participating in these sessions brought me closer to an understanding of who I am and what I do not perceive and comprehend.
Gaza is not a faraway land, Ukraine is not a Russia problem. Kashmir is not just about terrorists. All these events are representative of our inability to feel with abandon. For us to come in contact with that precious feeling, we need to be in touch with our local, one that is not limited to the contours of our social address.
T.M. Krishna is a leading Indian musician and a prominent public intellectual
