Of Gods, Myths, And Marxists

It is rush hour on tirade street in Kerala. If last week was filled with outrage over death chants against Hindus, by the Muslim League at a town in North Malabar, this week’s fracas-du-jour is the Communists declaring that, while Ganesha is a myth, Allah isn’t.

It all began when AN Shamseer, Speaker of the Kerala Legislative Assembly, implied at a public event in Cochin that Lord Ganesha was a myth. This was, at one level, a sly dig at Prime Minister Modi, who had once said that Ganesha could be construed as a symbolic representation of the marvellous surgical advances made in ancient India.

At another, baser, level, it was a low-brow regurgitation of the standard Marxian line, that religion was the opium of the people. That is why Shamseer tried to intellectualize his words by couching them in a broader urge for scientific temper.

Unfortunately, he got both his timing and his approach wrong. This sort of turpitude might have worked in the 1950s, but it won’t in 2023, because India is now awake. In this day and age, if a man is going to deride Hinduism, then society will demand that he do the same for other religions as well, for balance, and as a mark of objectivity.

But obviously, Shamseer can’t do that, at least not without setting a vote bank cat among precious electoral pigeons. He can’t say that Jesus or Moses were myths, as that would enrage the Christians.

He can’t say that Allah or Abraham are myths either, since that would be the end of his party’s assiduous, ongoing, year-long efforts to try and woo the Muslim League into the Left camp.

And that is where he was caught out. Shamsheer’s statement showed that the Hindus are not just a soft target for the Left-Liberal ecosystem, but their only target in fact. K Surendran, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Kerala unit, was scathing in his commentary on the words of a purported atheist (a mandatory requirement for becoming a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the CPIM, in Kerala). 

To paraphrase Surendran: ‘…this fellow Shamseer will observe the Ramzan fast… this fellow will go to a Mosque for Friday prayers…fellow won’t tell the press whether he is a believer or an atheist. Who is he to ride his horse upon the backs of Hindus? If this fellow is truly an atheist, then let him not pray in a mosque, let him not keep the fast for Ramzan. If he is a believer, then let the fellow follow all Islamic rules strictly. All we are saying is that fellows like these have no right to run down our Gods”

It was a calculated response which trapped both Shamseer and the Communists in a bind. If Shamseer was an atheist, then this was an attack by the Left on Hinduism, and if he was a believer, then, dear God, this was an attack on Hinduism by a senior Muslim politician!

Simultaneously, Valsan Thillenkeri of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), who led the Sabarimala agitation in 2018, smartly tripped Shamseer up on the ‘intellectual’ point of scientific temper.

He said that faith and science in a Dharmic way of life, far from being mutually exclusive, were, in fact, complementary. Plus, if scientists like Einstein and Oppenheimer could draw inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita, then what logic could Shamseer ever hope to invoke, to sell his Marxian tripe?

In desperation, and after Shamseer refused to apologize or retract his statement, the CPIM was forced to send in its big gun – MV Govindan, General Secretary of the party in Kerala. With his slicked-back hair, severe features, and a cocky, arrogant, smirk, the veteran Communist was a past master at deftly defusing tricky matters.

Unfortunately, his attempt at damage control only ended up worsening the situation. He made two terrible points. One, he emphatically said that Ganesha was a myth: “Of course Ganesha is a myth. If Ganesha is not a myth, then what else is he?”

But when asked if Allah was also a myth, Govindan laboriously dissembled to answer in the negative. No, he said, Allah was not a myth because Muslims believe in only one God, whereas Hindus believe in many.

This was so foolish, foolhardy, unwise, and absurd, at so many levels, that it beggars enumeration. Ah, so some Gods are myths, but others were not, and the adjudication of which God was a myth, and which one was not, was the sole preserve of those who did not even believe in the Gods.

In pure Orwellian terms, and there is no better analogy, this feckless doublespeak was ‘Animal Farm’ redux! All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. Govindan’s answer was but a derivation of this specious syllogism: All gods are myths, but some are not.

We are almost tempted to ask Govindan if he might provide a list of those Hindu gods who are myths, and those who are not; but we can’t, because that is not who we are.

Nonetheless, the episode highlights the depraved nature of Marxian thought, and the selective nature of Marxist ‘secular’ politics. It also reveals that while all Marxists are equally duplicitous, some are worse than others.

This is the Marxist way: the Islamist Popular Front of India (PFI) is granted free rein to grow and flourish in Kerala, to the extent that the National Investigative Agency had to step in, take the organization down, and recently attach the PFI’s oldest, largest, arms training centre in the heart of Malabar’s Malappuram district.

The Muslim League can openly raise death chants against Hindus on the streets of a town in North Malabar. Catholic priests can hinder construction activity at a strategic port being built in South Travancore, and raise the Vatican flag on Indian soil, both in direct contravention of Indian law. And Ganesha is a myth.

As things stand, a police complaint has been filed against Shamseer, alleging that he “insulted” Hindu beliefs in the guise of promoting rational thinking.

Govindan has gone back on his statements, and preposterously denied that he ever made them. Instead, over a thousand members of the Nair Service Society have been booked for unlawful assembly in Thiruvanathapuram, after they took out a protest march on 2 August. And Union minister K Muraleedharan has demanded that Shamseer either apologize for his statement, or resign.

When the history of postmodernist attempts at defending the indefensible is written, a separate chapter will surely be needed to satisfactorily cover Govindan’s deplorable, and downright insulting, effort. As a Keralite, albeit one of the confirmed atheist variety, he of all people should have known the old Malayalam saying, that Saraswati should always sit at the tip of one’s tongue.

Neither Ganesha, Jesus, or Allah are myths, but the Marxists could very well become one in Kerala if they keep up these tirades against Hinduism. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.