The Elephant In The Room

Manipur is still hurting. The crisis does not seem to end, with fresh updates every day. UN experts are alarmed at the continuing violence. Around 175 people are dead, and 1,100 injured, 4786 houses were set on fire and 386 religious structures were vandalised. The mobs continue to storm police stations and last we heard, even the Chief Minister’s house was targeted.

Curfew keeps getting imposed and re-imposed. The internet connection is barely restored. This is just a broad view of what is happening. Definitely not everything that has happened since the problem began, months ago.

Let us now turn our attention to other recent instances. Everyone is aware of the Ujjain case where the CCTV captured a heartrending video of a man leaning nonchalantly against his front door, pretending not to notice a half-naked bleeding Dalit child. We saw the crowd shutting the doors and shooing away the twelve year old rape victim who was in clear distress. We saw how the locals turned a blind eye when she went about from door-to-door begging for help.

The second case is of a disabled Muslim man, who happened to eat prasad at a Delhi temple. He was tied to a pole and lynched to death. The third is of a woman in Mumbai, who claims she was denied office space by a co-operative society due to her Marathi ethnicity.

And finally, in Pune, a family mourning their son's death requested the Ganesh Visarjan procession to reduce the volume of the loud music. But instead of agreeing to their request, the family members were attacked by the mob.

These are not everything that has happened or is happening. These are just some random instances. What is wrong with us? As a society, what have we become? Everything that can go wrong, is going wrong. We are talking about clear ethical flaws and the lack of will to try and change. Why are we becoming less of humans and more like zombies?

Let us forget the realities and turn to fiction. Let us listen to a story. One day an elephant was brought into a room. Everyone who was led into the room was blind. Each person was asked to touch the elephant and form their opinion.

Some touched his trunk and said it was a tree. Some touched his legs and said it was a pillar. Some touched his tail and said it was a rope. Some touched his stomach and said it was a wall. And those that touched the tusk said it was a pipe. And when they finally compared their thoughts, they all disagreed. There was a violent reaction from everyone.

Nobody was wrong you see, because each of their personal opinions was true. However, since it was limited by their failure to actually ‘see’ the elephant as a whole, the totality of the truth was lost. Had all of them calmly analyzed each other’s theories, perhaps things would have been sorted out. But they continued to argue.

Some in the crowd closed their ears to all this noise pollution and started to meditate. It was then that they heard the trumpet and they understood it was an elephant. And yet the arguments continued; because now it was a question of ego, of pride and of prejudice. No one wanted to give in.

The arguments rose to such a dangerous level that with all the noise pollution, the whole crowd also became deaf. By now, even though the scared elephant was desperately bellowing in his own beautiful language to tell them who it was. But unfortunately no one was able to hear him.

The metaphorical elephant represents our nation and its multiple issues. There is an important lesson to be learnt from the story above. The Jains use the theory of 'manifold predication' to illustrate the principle of living in harmony with people who have different belief systems.

If only everyone had come together and ‘listened’ to each other, then perhaps they could all come to a final conclusion. But the fact that is different from this fiction is that none of us are blind.

Even if everyone can see the ‘elephant in the room’, no one wants to talk about it. Those that do are either told to shut up or leave the room. Some of them do not even open their mouths because it makes them uncomfortable.

For some it is personal. For some it is controversial. For some it is socially and politically embarrassing. And for those who live in fear, every topic seems either inflammatory or dangerous.

Meanwhile, the elephant in the room continues to howl and holler. And it is left to only a select few to somehow try to quieten it down and listen to the elephant’s real problem.

Rumi the Sufi saint uses this story as an example of the limits of individual perception. He attributes the palm of every person feeling the elephant as ‘a sensual eye’, which sadly does not have the means of covering the whole of the beast. But even interesting is a modern poem from where I’ve just taken the first and the last stanza:

“It was six men of Indostan

To learning much inclined

Who went to see the Elephant

(Though all of them were blind)

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind

So oft in theological wars

The disputants, I ween

Rail on in utter ignorance

Of what each other mean

And prate about an Elephant

Not one of them has seen!”

If one does not show any respect for multiple beliefs; if one does not feel there is any need for communication, if one does not want to conquer the inexpressible nature of truth, if people who can actually see, use their eyes only to ‘behold the foam but not the Sea’, none on earth will be able to solve the missing ‘peace’ in the puzzle of life!

Views expressed here are the writer’s own.