INCLUDE MENTAL HEALTH IN THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS!

 Ours is a constitution of a before mental health era. Today, when we know so much about the nuances of mental health, Why the state cannot guarantee us Mental health as a fundamental right? 

Okay, if you are provoked enough by my straightforward and probably naive assertion of a not so obvious proposition, let me dive deep into the correlations, problems and history of mental health as a fundamental right. 

I got in touch with the issue of mental health back when I was doing my BSc. I got to know about Rohith Vemula. Okay, I know, it is again a provocative standpoint that I got to know about it from an incident of death by a systemic and societal problem. The problem of Rohith was so symptomatic of the deeply entrenched nexus of the Bourgeois Hindu consciousness and its regressive hate towards its own people. The political nature of the caste hatred and how the mental health aspect of these issues we often ignore and even if we accept the discussion, the discussions are often very trivial. 

Rohith was the product of a consciousness which traces its history back to times of Ambedkar and Jyotiba, Dalit emancipatory politics and Dalit consciousness. His thought process was very scientific and very rational. I could make it from the suicide note that he wrote. I will paste the whole of it here and will do our arguments analyzing the suicide note. I believe it is in the most dreadful and sad notions of society, we find the most emancipatory and hence positive insight. 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A LEFTIST TODAY? [ A GUIDE TO YOUNG COMRADES]

 And I am not talking about being a liberal or a socialist and for that matter having shades of left. I am talking about communism here. No bullshit, serious reconstruction of political institutions like State and other machineries and creating new improved versions of social institutions based on emancipatory values. It is wrong to say that left is on a decline now a days. The left never rose in this country properly. May be in the case of Bhagat Singh for a brief moment, a bit in MN Roy and in a naive way in Nehruvian policies, but not fully. Here, I outline what it means to be a leftist in India right now. 

There are problems that an Indian leftist has to tackle which are multi-fold. There are some problems which I ascribe to the universal left ideology, that is, left everywhere, whereas there is a problem of Indian Left. The problem is in general, a problem of Modern Indian Political theory and Political thought. Let's deal with it one by one. 

1. The Non-indigenous nature of Indian left 

        This is a problem of hitherto all post-colonial countries where the role of colonialism is seen as a destructive one. Post-colonial thinkers point out how the discourse of political theory has always been Eurocentric, and how Eurocentric thinkers try to universalize what they claim is not universal but particularistic. 

The communist ideology suffers here because thinkers of decoloniality and post-colonial discourse try to discard it based on the fact that the origins and categories of the communist ideology is European and there is nothing "particularly Indian" about it. To which, the communists do not try to retaliate. They, in some sense, do not have an answer. They might quote Lohia, Ambedkar here and there. But I have a stance particularly Eurocentric here. 

We are particularly in a deadlock here because the problem is not that communism is discarded by calling it Eurocentric. What is deliberately being kept out of the picture is the concept of universality itself. Of course, Eurocentric approach should not be accepted but we need to ask what does Europe represent? And the answer is not in the naive sense of imperialism, capitalism and colonialism. It is much more nuanced. I believe Europe represents the confrontation with the problems of a collective of the globe and find a universal solution to the universal problems which are common to different societies. So, what post-colonial thinkers end up doing is they present particularities not as universalities, but they discard the concept of universality itself. This is the philosophical temptation we should resist. This is laziness of thought. We should not give up hope of a universal system. We can and in a sense must leave the Eurocentric lens, but We need to make another strong lens of seeing universal systems and systems in toto. 

So, the answer to the allegation that left is not Indian enough is precisely that the problems that India is facing today is not Indian only. It is a blend of International and national problems, it is a global problem of organizing political systems, to tackle climate change and to organize economy in a better manner. We should try to make Left indigenous, but we should not fall for creating a sole and sole Indian Left. In a radically provocative sense, all that is Indian is not left, so How can all the left be Indian. 

2. The Hermeneutic Temptation 

        This is a problem of Global left today. Hermeneutics refers to the art of interpreting texts. The problem with the global left today is not the lack of understanding of current events through a Marxist or left perspective but actually over-interpreting things that do not matter. This makes the Left ridiculous. For example: What is this concept of Pseudo-feminist? Someone who overanalyzes the problems of society and for whom everything is because of patriarchy. To give an unnecessarily provocative example, ascribing every rude male behavior to patriarchy and calling it toxic masculinity is precisely falling into the hermeneutic trap. For instance, the provocative film Animal, the scene where the protagonist asks the woman to lick his shoes. I do not agree with the liberal space interpreting it as anti-woman and so on. But why? Precisely because I do not think this needs to be interpreted. This is what the director wants from us. To interpret it that way. To provoke a public sphere unnecessarily. The Hermeneutic temptation is a trap, a sort of bait offered by the ruling ideology. Let us say, we interpret it as anti-woman. The next question arises, what next? Will boycotting this film or prohibiting these films provide cure to the deeply patriarchal power structures of the society. No, they will not. At max, we should see this film as mere symptom of the much much bigger problem. A pimple on skin, indicating a lethal skin disease. 

So, what the left should avoid today the most is Over-analysis and interpreting things which needs no interpretation. They are just intellectual bait offered by the ruling ideology and nothing else. 

3. READ AND THEORIZE MORE

        The major criticism that Philosophers like Slavoj Zizek face today from the likes of Noam Chomsky is that in these times of a so called post-theoretic and post-ideological era, Theorizing and trying to understand instead of doing something to change it is actually flawed. To which, Zizek gives a fantastic explanation. 

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it."

            - Karl Marx

After Quoting this, Zizek says, "Hey, but may be, in the 20th century, we tried to change the world too much too soon without enough interpretations. So, let us go back to understanding the world, theorizing and interpreting. 

The second and third point might seem contradictory to each other, but they are not. The gist of the second point is not to not interpret at all, it is not to fall prey to ruling ideology and interpret what the ruling ideology wants you to interpret. 

4. Deal with concrete problems and not romanticize with revolution!

            Let us not fall in love with our miseries and make revolution our fetish. Let us focus on four major and concrete problems namely, Reconstructing the State apparatus such that it delivers, reconstructing religious consciousness to lead to emancipation, reconstructing theory of Marxism to include intersectionality and finally, provide a macropolitical framework of how to proceed the changes that will lead to revolution. 

 In a nutshell, these are some aspects of left. It is not being a cynic and skeptic in a naive sense. The left should also, cynically see itself and find flaws that lead to the global hegemonic order of the right. The criticism of hitherto all existing ideology, as Marx said, will include today all of critical left as well. 

RAM JANMBHOOMI MOVEMENT: A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS

 Recalling a Doha from Tulsidas's Ramcharitmaanas, 

                        "Harit bhoomi trin sankul, samujh parit nhi panth!

                        Jin Paakhand baad te, Lupt Bhaye sab Granth!"

                        ~ from Aranyakand

The meaning of it is," In the rainy season, due to heavy rain, when grasses grow everywhere, it becomes difficult to find the right path. Similarly, When the false interpretations from Charlatans of religion rise, the true discourse gets lost." 

We need to be very vigilant about our analysis of the issue not because it is a sensitive issue but because it is philosophically intricate and requires skills to get a clear philosophical picture of the issue. Let us go bit by bit. 

We ask the following set of questions. What does the historicity of the movement represent in the present socio-cultural and even economic context? What does Ram as a figure inherently describe about the psychology of the Upper caste Hindu and in general, the people of this country? How do we see the culmination of the movement in 1992 in the socio-economic scenario of that time? Finally, we get into the question of a theological nature. Can the religious suspension of the ethical, a phrase coined by Schopenhauer, be tackled by a purely radical rejection, ontological in its claims, of the whole premise of religiosity? 

But let's start with the followingly elementary question, what does the word "Kaar-Seva" mean? Obviously, I am not asking a naive general question. Of course, I know, the word describes the act of marching of 3 Lakhs of Hindus to the Babri Mosque of Ayodhya and eventually leading to its demolition. But I am asking it in this sense that, Did the average Hindu marching to the Mosque know that this is the actual meaning of Kaar-Seva? Did the word undergo a historical accumulation of meaning? Was it in the consciousness of an average Hindu that Kaar-Seva, a seemingly harmless word, actually means to finally demolish the Mosque? Let us understand it. 

The word "Kaar-Seva" etymologically comes from the complete word "Paropkaar Seva", A term used in several places in different contexts. It is popularly said about the Golden temple, that it was built by Kaar Seva only. In a completely different context, it is also said that Sardar Uddam Singh did a Kaar-Seva when he killed General Dyer. So, obviously, the etymological meaning underwent a historical change. Kaar Seva happened before 1992 two times. Many Hindus died for the cause of the Janm-Bhoomi and may be rightly in their own conscience. We ask this question How this concept of Seva, helping the "Par" or the Other, turned into a false, pseudo-consciousness, however, very revolutionary. 

Let us take the phrase of this Other. Whose Seva, was it? What Paropkaar an average Hindu was doing. I state it is a fallacy to say that the Seva was done of Lord Rama himself. Of course, An average Hindu had Rama in mind, but let us not accept facts on a surface level. Because the ideology wants us to believe that only. I think the other they were helping were actually the other present in them. Now, what does this statement mean? A Hindu mind, specifically an upper caste Hindu mind, is actually a conflicted mind, conflicted between the abstractness of the philosophical religion and the materiality of its manifestations that he wants because he sees other religions like Islam, with a very organized religious outlook. The philosophical foundation of Hinduism is so liberal and accepting and inclusive that it requires a very quenched self to be a Hindu. Any dissatisfaction, be it economic, social and even political might lead to be deviant from the Hindu idea and fall into prey of the ruling ideology of Hindutva. 

The Socio-economic scenario of the time is the explanation why a Hindu fell into the prey of Hindutva. The prevailing poverty of the time, The Hindu rage seen in Sikh riots in 1984 was already in the remembrance. These all events have a dialectical link between them. The Hindutva ideology, unleashed by BJP, in need of Parliamentary seats, was wishing to give enemies to the Hindu society. The victimhood was created in minds of an average Hindu. In Sikh riots, in Anti-reservation movements, in Janambhoomi movement, affirmative actions by the state were misinterpreted to the masses by RSS, VHP and other Hindu organizations. Also, one important thing to note here is the sublime nature of the boundary between the virus spreading the misinterpretation (disease) and the symptoms of the disease itself (Bajrang dal, VHP and others are both the disease and the symptoms). The most hysterical sublime here, was the behavior of Vajpeyi. His statements on alternate days were very difficult to make out that these are statements made by one person only. The other within the Hindu self, is actually the frustrated Hindu, who is ideologically oppressed by the religious ideology of Hinduism. The hegemony of thoughts of Brahmanism that the material life is a facade, a Maya to speak in Vedantic terms, and the irony of not having food and shelter for millions of this country. The Hindu acquired the victimhood not because he saw Muslims as the reason for their poverty, as some Marxists will argue, but because The Hindu had a frustration of feeling a conflict that on one hand, he is poor, on the other hand, he cannot let go the desire of wealth, but the ruling philosophy wants him to be quenched spiritually. He helped himself by demolishing the temple as the other. Paropkaar in this sense became a Swayam-Seva and the Kaar-Sevak became a Swayam-Sevak. He resolved the spiritual-material conflict by combining the two in a destructive fashion. He destroyed the mosque in hope that serving his God materially will quench him spiritually and his god will satisfy his material thirst and help him in spiritual liberation. This spiritual liberation should not be thought as something meta-physical. I believe it is just mental peace, spoken in jargons. 

Now, we come to the question, can these religious outbursts be tackled a complete rejection of the institution itself? I claim not. I think, the reason, religious suspension of the ethical happens is because the human is oppressed mentally in the religious institution. His animal instincts are tamed by sermons of religion. But this treatment of organized religion of themselves as ethical institutions and religion as ethics is the actual reason of this suspension. Ethics and morality of religion always forced on the very needs of the human. Sex, food, life, family etc. Religions should be meta-ethical in their approach. Religious textbooks should be re-interpreted in this regard in a search for ethics of one's own. Religious teachings should be taken as a model of the hitherto all of universe and that of human life to make him aware of the existing and not to tell him what to do. Religions should not preach but to describe. Normative concerns should be left to the individual itself. Religion should be a tool for the man to judge what is good or bad. It, instead, starts preaching what is good or bad. 

In my opinion, this, in itself is the biggest corruption in the religious thought. This is the precise difference between, If I may digress, between Buddhism and Christianity. Christianity gives sermons, Love others, do not kill, etc. Buddhism does give sermons, at least not until Buddha. Buddha gives an analysis of the world and human affairs and based on that; he wants the individual to arrive at his own ethics. 

In a nutshell, the ruling power will always try to subvert, suppress and misinterpret some sections of religion. It is in re-interpretations and re-re-interpretations that religious teachings can tackle these perversions and avoid the religious suspension of the ethical. Osho's commentaries on religious texts, Gandhi's Geeta, Tilak's Geeta are some good examples of re-interpretations. So, obviously, blatant rejection, even on ontological level, cannot be done and should not be done. Also, because religion is not false since poems are neither true nor false. They are in a sublime state. They need to be interpreted right. Otherwise, as Zizek says provocatively, No Genocides without Poetry and I add in it, no emancipation without poetry, if we interpret it right.  

THE IDEOLOGY OF ALLOWED HONESTY: A LOOK INTO CIVIL SERVICES OF INDIA

 Ideology, as defined by famous Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Zizek, is that "People in ideology very well know what they are doing is wrong and has not right consequences but still they proceed with it because the system in which they stand upon deems it right". The most often said quote, "They know very well what they are doing, still they do it!". 

Allowed honesty is also such an ideology in Indian Bureaucracy. Honesty is an extremely personal ethical and moral virtue, and it should be a personal choice to choose what honesty means to a particular person. But the Bureaucratic system of India suffers from a fixed set of dressing of Civil services values a civil servant should have. It is the property of in general all working systems that wish to change the individual agency of the individual and to make the subject a mute replica of the system itself.  I will substantiate with the help of an example. 

Suppose someone comes to you in dire needs and you are a civil servant but technically you cannot help him. The civil service values dictate that you should find some way of going about the rules in order to help the individual. But the hidden catch here is it does not work. The out of the way or the extra mile work expected here from a Civil servant act as a de-incentive to not do it. To which the current ideology replies but this is a quality expected and not the necessary demand. But we should keep in mind that Ideology is not like rules. These are unwritten rules of society which are always in sublime state. People expect without knowing that they do, and people follow knowing that they do. if you are asked a question in Interview of civil services panel, and You take a stance which is not within the domain of "acceptable domains" of answers in civil services, you might get rejected. The key point here is, here opinions of a civil servant is also curtailed to some extent, manufactured to some extent and made in a perfect Mould of opinion what an "Ideal Civil servant" would say. 

Allowed Honesty can be defined as the honesty or set of values of honesty which the system conceives as honest. Rest kinds of honesties can be deemed as blunt, unsophisticated and politically incorrect. Sometimes they are considered symptomatic of the social conditioning while other times, it is called idealistic and non-practical. The system somewhat has a blueprint of what is possible in a naive common sensical fashion and hence tries to Mould everything according to that. 

Innovation, or unique solutions to problems, are also accepted within the narrow domain of executionary field. No radical or mass change is acceptable. No serious bureaucracy. Just within the present executionary paradigm, do what is the systemic definition of "Innovative". 

The conclusion of the write-up is to not demean Indian institutions. Neither is it to say that the system should change. I believe it is just an observation that systems functions like this. By manufacturing allowed honesty. Just like all political systems and specifically the State. Violence done by state, is justified as justice while private justice is called reactionary and violent. State actually fakes all human values by creating a farce of these values, a cheap copy of these values. The difference between Liberty and freedom is exemplary. The difference between peace as we know, and peace as established in peace treaties is another. State is actually a shadow of God. Whatever God created (If someone did), State tries to Mimic them in a farce duplicate way. and it fails. 

The struggle is to create a system or state which mimics life perfectly. Yes, I know many issues with the statement. But Not life entirely. Not the daily brutality of life to be included of course. Rest, I rest. 

THE IDEOLOGY OF EMPTY GESTURES

 also known as Jhoot-puraai in Bihari dialects, 

governs all of our bourgeois social life. You ask for tea to someone even if you do not want to serve tea and you wish they say no and they say no because they know you do not want to serve tea and it is just an empty gesture. But the message is propagated. The message of being nice to each other. Fake niceness of course which helps to break the continuity of directly coming to business. 

Directly coming to business somewhat sounds materialistic and hence to add a flavor of spiritual kindness, one behaves in this fake kindness.

So, the question arises? Are these empty gestures that empty? The so called empty in the philosophical discourse is never a null discourse. It is filled with a message, often an ideological message. This message can vary according to its use. Why it is essential to understand Empty gestures? 

Empty gesture is actually an accidental discovery of Human where it can safeguard its unwillingness to conform with the societal and psycho-social norms and just for a bit, breathe in some air of freedom. 

Let us take an example. There is a spouse or say to be specific, a husband, who loves his wife. A husband should love his wife, so far so good. This is what society expects from you. But the human tendencies are not always in sync with this monotonous feeling of always in love. I assert that Love in transit is the only revolutionary entity there. A constant feeling of affection and love is a bourgeois and a conformist category. Love, which is passionate, and revolutionary has always been transitory and to some extent evil. I am all for the Selfish love which categorizes few over all and says, I will love only these. Universal and spiritual love is a facade and is fake. Love in its foundations has to be evil and there is nothing wrong with it.  The only wrong here is the fixation of human nature to establish a universalist category of love. 

Coming to the example, So, since he truly loves his wife, he is not always in pro-active loving mood. But the pressure upon the couple is great and hence, we see inventions of emojis, and heart reacts on social media. I recall the example of the Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Zizek, when we watch a sit-com with a laugh track after every joke, Zizek asserts the function of the laugh track is not to induce laughter but to laugh on your behalf. Similarly, the function of the emojis is purely ideological. It does not induce love. It is an empty gesture which loves your wife on behalf of you. It is like you hired a person to kiss your wife when you are not in mood, and it kisses your wife through a Kiss emoji. 

In this sense, the function of empty gestures is exactly in the service of the neo-liberal economic structure, to de-humanize human tendencies and make them extremely ceremonial. I however, advocate the use of them because only through that you can survive in the system. A true revolutionary act, however, would be to rebel against even this miniature ideology at work. But I do not think it is advisable if you want to live a happy life. Empty gestures are actually now a way of life. 

THE WORLD AS I SEE IT: wrote whatever came to my mind.

 Long time back, I read Albert Einstein's Autobiographical accounts or views in his book, "The world as I see it!". It was a very revealing experience for me to learn about a Scientist's views about general matters of this world. A person so distinguished in his field, when he delves in the day to day matters of the world, there is a chance that his views might be entirely controversial and at times unacceptable to the present perceptions of the society. Nevertheless, his views still remain important for two reasons, namely, his views as a person living his life are crucial as everyone's views and second, the methods of analysis that he learnt over the years might as well help him to get a clearer picture of the world than an average lay person. 

I intend to do the same this time. The only difference remains that I am no Albert Einstein, neither am I planning to be one. I am a master's student in an elite Indian institute of Research and in 3-4 months, I am seeking to do some work and take my degree of MS in Physics. And changing the field entirely, Now I am pursuing Civil services exam of this country for one year. This year, I am going to give my first attempt and possibly not my last attempt. The fall out of mine from my present career path was not accidental in my eyes but it seemed accidental to many including me for a long time. The question as to why I thought of leaving the avenue of research, even though, it was so dear to me from my childhood. The answers were in front of me, and I was not ready to accept it. In any circumstance, the world has a general tendency to give you easy answers to the most difficult questions of your life. When I decided and the world knew, people around me knew the I am leaving research, People were ready to tell me through their eyes that I was always an incompetent chap with lots of fake confidence. My closest of friends were ready to confirm their predictions that I was incompetent and was just lucky when it came to Physics or for that matter anything. I now think, why this is the case? Why, people around us, are so much in Itch that they are just ready to come out as toxic people? I believe they do not have any share of fault in this. This world and somewhat your own psychology over the years since we were hunter gatherers has made us so insecure, greedy, selfish, jealous and fearful of the other that we not only live our lives to justify others that we are big in our lives but also when the other falls, we laugh the hardest in our heads. This fact is so harsh for us to grasp that we all are intrinsically bad people that we keep a self-denial mode on till the point a big rupture of this perception happens, and our true faces are revealed in front of us. Many might argue, but then from where the good qualities arises in human beings. My perception about this is Goodness and virtue is a sweet human imagination. Some try to inculcate it within them, some make a pact with it to be good only on transactional basis and some keep on struggling with the imaginations of goodness. Self-illusion, as I name it. 

The reason to why I left the avenue of research is maybe it was too stable for me. A stable secure life for a lower middle class struggling with the self-boy is a bit harsh to manage. People of my age and even above and below my age do not analyze life to this extent. They might call it over-thinking. But, in my opinion, if you are not capable of thinking, you coin a term called overthinking and you shame everyone who is of high caliber with this tag. People around me try to live a stable normatively successful life. They try to achieve certain things; they achieve it and get quenched or do not achieve it and keep on striving. But nobody stops and thinks but for what? Ok, I am not naive to think only I think these things. I know that many people, in some evening when they are free, think this and tackle with these questions of emptiness of life. But, from next day, they go to work. They keep on living. So, I understand when people call me an overthinker and doer of an unnecessary intellectual exercise with no practical outcome. They do this as an unnecessary intellectual exercise themselves. For them, it is not a priority. For them, it is just a short-term detour before they jump to the next day and go to work and keep on living the same life over and over again. For me, this itself is Life. Everything else is just accessary. Money, for instance, is for me, an enabler to let me keep thinking and I do not starve, although I have a habit of spending too much money on chocolates and books. Goals and passion now, for me, are mere games which I set for myself to entertain me. People and related emotions with them, be it that of envy, joy, hope, anger, jealousy are also games that I only play with myself. Whenever I am genuinely angry at someone, I go in a mental hibernation to question, what is this feeling of itch that is so intense within me? And I get an answer that there is nothing natural about it, nothing very universally unavoidable. It is somewhat a self-created poison. Why do we keep on poisoning ourselves? Because, we have an incentive in it. We create selfish emotions like love, lust, happiness and as a reaction, hate, insecurity, sadness and jealousy are created. I will go to this extent and say, it is us who create the other side of emotions as well. This is a game we devised for ourselves so that we do not experience the emptiness and boredom of life. I say, it is you and not your murderer who has a blood lust when he kills you if you are crying for your life. In your sub-conscious, you wanted to see your blood to come out. 

When, at this point in time, I analyze myself, I come to a conclusion that I am not comfortable not to play these games anymore. For me at this point in life, Success and failure mean the same. for me, at this point, people hating me and people loving me sound the same. Even if I end up life as a failure, as the world likes to categorize, I find no issues in that. Maybe I am a failure in this sense. But then the important question is, what quenches me? What is so satisfactory in my life that I keep on living in this manner and do not wish or regret anything? I say the following, "The feeling of satisfaction of existence itself." Existence itself, in some way, is so much satisfying, it is so enriching an experience that I do not seek external validations from Life now. This feeling of being in a body of carbon atoms, this feeling of "to be able to feel how it feels like to be me" and "to be able to think", it is all so satisfying that I can cost anything for it, even my life. But this does not make me lethargic. This makes me stronger than ever. Now, I do my work so unattached and already satisfied, it is almost like freedom from within. I stop here, I have a flight to catch back to my workplace in Pune. I do not know what life has to offer but isn't the unknown so enthralling and satisfying. I end here. 

SHORT STORY: CHAI (TEA) or [ "Mere Sang ki Auraton ki baat hi kuch aur hai"]

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Sannyasa: An innovation of the Indian Sub-continent

 God is the representative of the only "non-transactional relationship" there is of man with oneself. 

And since the truth remains the same, that there is no such thing as God, Man finds himself continuously in a market of relationships full of transactions happening now and then. Sometimes latent so that he may not find about it, sometimes in the garb of familial love, sometimes in the garb of friendship, but when this latency fades away and the truth is released, Man shocks himself every time thinking when did all his relations turn into transactions? The truth is there always were only transactional relationships mistaken as unconditional ones. 

Escaping truth is not the route of a dharmic man. A Dharmic man confronts it. For once, when he finds that there is no God, he no longer fools himself into believing that. But, also, at the same time, a true Dharmic is one who understands the myth of worldly relationships to be good and attaching as false. 

Then he turns into a Sannyasi. 

Sannyas is the declaration of the Dharmic man that there is no God and hence no-non-transactional relationships in this world and hence, to attach oneself with God (which isn't there) is the only way to live and no other. 

Here we see, an amalgamation of the atheist and the theist thoughts. To conclude, Religiosity and Atheism should not be seen as distinct truths but rather dialectically intertwined truths. Yes, There is no God, and that is the reason one should turn into a Monk. To say, The post of God is empty, one needs to fill it. 

Or rather, go the other way, Yes, There might be a God, all the more reason to turn into an atheist, Because To be religious in the worldly sense is to expect from God something beneficial. God gave you consciousness and hence freedom, all he wants is freedom in exchange. No expectations is freedom. 

Atheism is declaration of God's freedom. 

The dialectics of religiosity is a unique Indian thought to be found in texts if Nagarjuna and repeated by Osho. 

Ideology critique and Materialist Revolution in India

Philosophy in India, has highly been prejudiced in the favour of idealism and in its specific forms of Spirituality. Vedic Philosophy and it's high and mighty claims on the after life and hence before life, beyond the world, and hence of this world cemented, undoubtedly the Vedic philosophy as the representative of Indian Philosophy. Vedanta, in it's pinnacle eras, became representative of Spiritual ideas. 

To throw oneself back in what went in the favour of idealist thinkers, we see a neutral point in History, which was neither materialistic nor idealistic in it's content. I claim, It was the rise of Gautam Buddha where Ideas were at par with Matter and from there starts a decline of materialism in India. Where perversion of thought process, a claim to spirituality became a disdain for materiality and hence, the whole conceptual underpinning of this world business. The answer to why India, in it's business,highly motivated by "that worldly" Affairs, if they exist, is this period where Buddha starts a synthesis of Matter and Idea somewhere in the sublime state. From there on, Buddhist and Vedantic thinkers take on and it goes to the valleys of Idealist thought and the zeniths of Materialism remains hidden and even became invisible with coming age. 

The answer to why a Materialist revolution is needed is not hard. India, in the garb of idealism, today, founds itself within layers of Ideology often misinterpreted or interpreted in their right way, where they elude a civilisation with charms and grab power in their hands. Materialism frees human from extra terrestrial conceptions of the world and makes it self-dependent and independent enough to question authorities and authorities even of extra terrestrial nature. Materialism is revolution against the world of spirits,if any. It is the fight for the right in it's material form and not some sublime, pseudo-, or feeling way. Materialism derives it's conceptual power from the fact that man is able to grasp the totality of his being and the collective that he forms. The concept of totality being totally graspable by man, is what Hegel is all about. Hegel, although being a German Idealist, is the key thinker who opens the doors to ultimate materialist thinking and revolution all over the world. He acts as a "Vanishing meditator" Between Kant and the subsequent world which is then led by Karl Marx and successors. The disrespect for Materialism as a philosophy in India stems from a time immemorial. But, to locate it, It can be seen in the decline of Charvakas and how brutally they are critiqued in all of Indian philosophy. The leaders of critique and critical theory are materialist thinkers, and in India, they are the ones critiqued the most. Why is this the case? The ruling class never wanted a democratic materialist perspective for the Commons to be achieved and hence, it was kept always suppressed in the garb of it being called the unclear, vague, selfish and less-thorough conception of the world. 

Coming to the modern times, we see, in colonial India, The critique of colonialism came with critiques of the ruling ideology again. But, this time, the presence of materialist way was thoroughly missing. Except MN Roy, and perhaps Ambedkar, No one really shows a materialist reading of the society in their writing. But, no! There is a catch here. There are thinkers which can aptly be termed as, Idealo-materialist thinkers in their own way, if I may. These thinkers take idealist and often spiritual texts and  subvert the idealist meanings, do interpretations of these texts that at one time, produced lethargy and inaction in the "Indian" Crowd, to promote action and national agenda. In their re-interpretation, we see glimpses of materialist thought process where in the garb of divine, heavenly and so called out of the world, religious ideas, they underpin the modern ideas of liberty, equality and democracy. We see, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Aravind and even to some extent Ambedkar, interpreting texts in their own way. First question to ask is why was there a need of re-interpretation of texts written hundreds of years old? Gandhians might give an answer that it was the unique approach of Gandhi to create national consciousness in masses. Ambedkarites might argue that the Ideology critique of the Brahminical ideology deemed it necessary for him to interpret texts, Vivekanand followers might say, it was an adhyatmik exercise for him. I claim, It was the Renaissance period of ideology critique, although biased in the favour of idealism, rejuvenated since the time of Buddha and Charvakas. The need to critique the ideology by not directly critiquing it, but rather, subverting it, redeeming some of it's essentialities while making something new out of it, a kind of Hegelian Aufhebung or Sublation. Sublation literally means to uplift something further by keeping something of it and rejecting something of it. 

This ideology critique is all the more essential in contemporary times. All the more needed in a time, where religion, the mass connector in India, is used in order to manipulate people once again. The ruling ideology today, Hindu nationalists, using subversive methods again to establish an ideology of Hindutva that favours them. 

Critical theory is all the more needed where, The contours of ideology is located in the current ruling ideology. What are the instruments they employ to use? Religious texts, critique of Marxist historiography and presenting them as villains, demarcation of the rifts in Hindu and muslim religious ideas, etc. A thorough materialist re-reading of religious and for that matter, political texts and political writings of predecessors is required and they demand a sort of dialectically reversed re-interpretation. For example: The best example of Gandhi interpreting Srimad Bhagwat Geeta as a text of non-violence. Yes! A radicalism in re-interpretation of this sort if required. Not leniency, not lethargy, not liberal interpretation trying to include all sides, but a radical dialectically and diametrically opposite interpretation, calling a book claimed to be written in a battlefield, a sort of battle cry, to be called as a book of non-violence. Gandhi, in this sense remains a strange phenomena. The same gandhi, in earlier days, is seen to uphold the ruling ideology of Casteism, in the guise of Varna, while here we see, a radical Gandhi. We should always be concerned with the critical theorist, Radical Gandhi and not the liberal mouthpiece. 

A materialist interpretation of Geeta is required which is in line. All this for what? Creating something which Marx called the revolutionary consciousness, a consciousness which can call out the ruling ideology at every step. Call out God if needed.A consciousness which can call shackles as shackles and not ornaments or jewelry. A materialist conception of political thought and history is what I seek. This will sow the seeds of a materialist revolution in India. This revolution will not render the idealist ideas redundant, rather it will re-interpret them in an aesthetic way, to point at the urgency to take charge for the humans to their this worldly life not to get it be engulfed by the narrative of that world concepts. A pure theoretical approach to revolution is borrowed from Slavoj Zizek, whose ideology critique will be the lens we will employ here.His interpretation of Christian texts as atheist texts and how the death of Christ signifies the holy Ghost being the collective consciousness and we are the one responsible here is the source of inspiration. Hope, we could achieve it with Indian religious texts. The task is simple, identify the areas where the ruling ideology exists, and do a re-interpretation Or rather, subversion, in order to give a materialist conception of every, hitherto, existing political, social, religious philosophy.