A toast to freedom in the blue mountains

Around the Nilgiris, they seem to have stood up to the BJP's plan to make this a nation of dumbos

I spent this Thursday sitting on a hillside in the Nilgiri Mountains, worshipping a couple of coconuts. The Nilgiris stand like big blue teeth in the welcoming smile of the Deccan — or, as Tarun Vijay calls it, where the black people we live alongside, live. I was at a bhoomi pujan to bless new landowners and their land, throwing my godless good wishes into the mix. After two sweaty hours we buried two tiny silver snakes in the ground, and repaired to a humongous lunch — or, as Ram Vilas Paswan might put it, beyond the regulated restaurant portion.

The pundit and I had a brief chat. He seemed surprised that I wasn’t Australian, which was his first guess.

Where is your child, madam? He asked. I don’t have a child, I said. He wiggled his eyebrows.

Your husband, madam? He asked. I’m not married, I said. No husband? he breathed.

Grey hair, no husband, no child, I confirmed. His face became very still. Then he stuck out his hand.

Best, he said.

Best, I agreed, and we shook on it. I raised my fists and said ‘Freedom.’

Freedom, he nodded. Even I am not going to get married, madam.

Best, I said.

It was so refreshing to be toasting freedom. Everywhere I look, people are obediently giving up autonomy, choice, and individual rights, without a whimper, law by law, rule by rule.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is rolling like a conquering juggernaut over India, on the promise of transformation, and living up to that promise — it is transforming hundreds of millions of fully grown, perfectly competent adult Indians, into helpless, gummy toddlers who must be soothed when they wail, fed regulated amounts of approved food on a predetermined schedule, and re-raised to achieve predetermined dreams.

Welcome to the sovereign socialist theistic majoritarian sanitised playpen that used to be the Republic of India — please deposit your brains and your gonads at the door. The BJP nanny state is relieving us of the stress of having to make our own choices and make up our own minds. If someone is upset, it will stop the whole playdate until someone says sorry. It makes everyone use our indoor voices. It wants us to progress together by finding the dumbest, most regressive toddlers, dragging everyone else down to their level, and proceeding backwards at their rate.

The nanny state is toddler-proofing the room, covering up anything complex or age-inappropriate. It censors words like ‘bra’, and ‘beef’ that allude to impure ideas, and any words with double meanings, and ‘Bombay’, and phrases that the Prime Minister has used. It decides the content and size of your tiffin. Meat is dodgy. Alcohol is bad for you. It tells you when to sit down and when to stand up, and how to love the nation.

It only allows good wholesome fun—no late nights, no premarital sex or romance, no subversive art. Fun is culturally scheduled and features bright primary colours, Bollywood tracks, and family outings for ice cream.

The nanny state will homeschool you, but only as much as you need to be a thriving toddler, including how not to question it. It will make sure it knows where you are and what you’re doing at all times, apparently for your own safety.

Toddlers don’t need democracy; they need a firm nanny. This nanny will not hesitate to beat kids to death for disobedience. That makes all the other toddlers shut up and put their thumbs right back in their mouths. That’s how you build a strong, proud playpen.

I’m thrilled to report that around the Nilgiris, they still seem to like being adults.

Freedom. Best.


Mitali Saran is a Delhi-based writer
mitali.saran@gmail.com