A skewed tone & tenor

A friend of mine surprised me the other day with his call. I was not expecting the same at all because we chose different paths to tread early in life. He preferred migration and is now working with the North Carolina University. Being passionate about books, he keeps reading a lot and, more so, all the works of Telugus, too.

And so he said: "Kancha Ilaiah's issue is not about what makes a good writing or what makes someone a good writer. We always face the questions at our Writing Centre such as these: Could anyone be taught to write? Or to make someone understand what makes writing and writers ‘good.’ The bigger question, however, is what is writing all about."

Writing has always been an act of response. The act of writing begins when someone puts a pen to the paper or, in the modern context, his finger to the key of a computer to give vent to his response to something that one has seen or experienced. But it is not that simple, too.

It is not a personal act. It is not about the writer and the paper in front of him which he intends to ink. Writing is not done just to say what one has to say like on twitter or any social media which provokes one's anger or frustration. It is more of a thoughtful process. When someone writes, it is more because he needs to reach out to someone, an audience.

So, the question remains why does someone like Kancha Ilaiah, who calls himself an intellectual, write at all? Moreover, the subjects he chooses are of social or rhetorical context, too. Then he should also be knowing who his readers are and whether he is able to create that space for someone to receive and react to his ideas. That is the social context of writing. Writing should also have an appropriate tone, right vocabulary, genre and a placement of evidence which is lacking in his writings.

So, whenever we are writing we should adhere to certain rules. The Writing Centre argues that the "process of putting ideas into words and arranging them for a reader helps us to see, create and explore new connections. So not only does a writer need to “have” ideas, but the writer also has to put them in linear form, to “write” them for a reader, in order for those ideas to be meaningful. As a result, when we are writing, we often try to immediately fit our choices into linear structures (which may or may not suit our habits of mind)"

Ilaiah Shepherd is not that linear for the simple reason that his ideas are not meaningful. They are more laced with a venom against Hinduism which clouds his vision as he seeks revenge through words. No religion is perfect in the world, perhaps. But to understand something that consumes many more lifetimes personal experience is not the right approach. It defies logic. So, has he been non-linear at least? This again baffles us because he starts with a notion and a victimhood feeling.

We all must agree that there are basically two characteristics of humans – logic and creativity which are correlated with linear and non-linear thinking.

The first one is a Socratic method and says: A process of thought following known cycles or step-by-step progression where a response to a step must be elicited before another step is taken. It is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate rational thinking and to illuminate ideas.

There is a method to Ilaiah's writings. He has made it a point to defy logic only to raise tempers with captivating efficiency like our policy-makers. As journalist Jan Helfeld feels, I too "wonder whether any of our policy-makers think through their political conclusions logically. Logic seems lost from our world, like an ancient language that's spoken only by tribes of some distant jungle.” Ilaiah seems to be no different.

(For those who have not seen Jan Helfeld's interviews, suffice it to say that it is equivalent to watching Arnab Goswami's show). While Ilaiah is highly focused like a linear thinking man, he jumps every direction like a non-linear fellow. That is his problem and hence it creates a bitterness.

He categorises his experience in his mind and makes projections comparing his expectations with his experience. Because he chooses the starting point of his argument, his logical conclusions get limited. And because there is no decided-upon truth as a starting point and as he often tends to reply upon something other than truth, because of what he has been used to all his life – a certain falsehood – it restrains his exercise from finding a better answer.

That is, if he is seeking a solution to the problem! If he does not, which is invariably the case, he tends to speak or write more like a politician. Because he has an audience, he does so – tend towards wishful thinking, dreamy and ineffectual nostalgia, unrealistic, fantasy, self-pity and sentimental cliches masquerading as emotion.

There is a triple-threat semantic disorder called IFD disease. It is all about Idealisation (the making of impossible and ideal demands upon life), which leads to Frustration (as a result of the demands not being met), which in turn leads to Demoralisation (or, Disintegration or Despair).

There is this despair in abundance in writers now-a-days. As Wendell Johnson, noted Professor of Psychology and Speech Pathology of the University of Iowa, rightly said, "effective writing is a human necessity in anything resembling a democratic culture, and this becomes increasingly true as the culture becomes increasingly complex.”
If the effective use of language is not taught, or if it is not to be taught to a far greater extent than it has been, we may have occasion to despair of the grand experiment dreamed by the fathers of our Constitution and cherished by our people.

Anyway, Ilaiah's goal is not to express his thoughts alone and, as we all know, it is more political now-a-days. He is not on his own nor does he reflect his own angst. But, let me admit that he is really cheeky in claiming that after Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar, he is the real messiah who has arrived on the scene.

He then goes on to compare himself with Gauri Lankesh and that is unfortunate. Gauri Lankesh's work is somewhat seminal. He is nowhere near it. And also, he is way behind a Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Dabholkar who were all rationalists who opposed superstitions and Hindutva agenda and had a pro-people agenda.

Ilaiah hates Hinduism itself and has converted himself into a Christian crusader. That is not the same as what the other did. He is entitled to his illusions of becoming the leader of the oppressed masses. Hatred is not an intellectual trait.

Yet another drama too unfolded in the form of protests in the Telugu States recently with the Arya Vysyas taking to streets against Ilaiah's book. This social group never protested against Ilaiah's attack on their religion all along but reacted only when he knocked their doors. Quite ironical.