Dismantling Hierarchies and Imagining a More Egalitarian World
Published on: 21 November 2020, 06:57 am
The withdrawal of Tanishq ads due to the right-wing onslaught is a reflection of the larger fissures in social relationships. There is a deeper churn taking place which seeks to divide society not only along religious lines but also along caste and gender. This superior v. inferior lens and power dynamic will ensure that humanity eventually comes out as a loser. We need to disrupt this way of seeing power patterns. We as individuals and society need to realise the uselessness of hierarchies and envision a different, more egalitarian world. We can learn a lot from the image of a circle as a way of organising our lives as opposed to a triangular power structure where some are always at the top and others at the bottom, says AVANI BANSAL
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I woke up with a dream. The world around was freezing at a frightening speed. The immense cold was freezing everything and everyone along the way. The chilling wave was headed in our direction. Along with my near and dear ones, I was frantically searching for everything that could help us stay warm so that we could survive this ice avalanche, hoping that we would somehow escape alive from our frozen state.
I wasn't consciously thinking of ice or frozen places before going to sleep, but the world does increasingly seem like a cold place – even beyond dreams – in terms of what we have made of human relations.
Tanishq gives in
The outrage against Tanishq's ads on Twitter, the right-wing onslaught on it and its subsequent withdrawal depicts the sordid state of affairs in the country. The ad in question tried to depict Hindu-Muslim "unity" (ekatvam) by showing a Muslim mother-in-law bonding with her Hindu daughter-in-law and arranging for a special "godhbharaai" (a ceremony in Hindu culture when a woman gets pregnant) in her honour. In a nation known for its unity in diversity and home to a multitude of religions, an outrage of this mammoth proportion to a mere ad by a jewellery house can only be a sign of things to come.
“The oldest strategy in the power-book is "divide and rule" and this requires drawing lines that divide people into "us v. them". It is served on the platter very smartly and sophisticatedly by projecting and celebrating a section of people as superior to others. Those who are being celebrated as culturally superior, of course, do not mind it, but in the process, the "others" who are shown as inferior, go on being marginalised until they are rendered too powerless.