The world of politics is a multiple interactive domain, perhaps the most hybrid of social spaces, full of contraries and contradictions, harmonies and oppositions. It teems with paradoxes and ironies. It aims at both destroying harmony and building cultures and nations. The content and subject matter of politics range from personal greed to utopian imagination. Aren’t you surprised when anti-Ramdev politicians waved him away saying (in Hindi): unkoto yoga sikhana chahiye, politics me santo ka kya kam (he should continue teaching yoga; spiritual gurus have no work in politics)?
Who decides the space allotment for politics? When I say students should not join politics; I am always hesitant about my proposition. They have every right to join politics. There, however, is a slight problem: A student should decide what his/ her prime responsibility is like a singer who should be able to decide what her prime work is. Joining active politics cannot be the prime responsibility of an academician. One can always join politics depending on what his/ her aim is. But if I am a teacher my joining active politics should not hamper my professional responsibilities.
After arguing in this mode, one may not criticize Ramdev for wanting to join politics whether he wants to leave yoga, join politics or engage in both. There once was a wonderful teacher and a brilliant actor. He joined a third space. Now he is neither a good teacher nor a good actor. I know him now as a grumpy man. Hence Ramdev should be careful but he can join politics by any divine right or not. I met the former after many months and he is nothing but an out and out middle-aged grumpy misanthropist nowadays.
My second concern about the objection on Ramdev is regarding the use of language against your opponents. Ramdev was called a thug while his associate Balkrishna was labeled a criminal. Some veteran Indian politicians made such comments. You are free to call a person a thug but with reservations of various kinds.
This is my line of argument. Ramdev may be disliked by professionals of consumer culture and multinational bosses of successful companies but he has served millions of people with health awareness in and outside India. He may be snared at by allopathic physicians but he has popularized with tremendous success the ancient wisdom of yoga. The practice of yoga is a serious threat to those who have compartmentalized vision of things. They vehemently oppose yoga and do not even think that modern western medicine can take help from yoga and vice versa. One thus must pay tribute to Ramdev’s professionalism which can be conceived as a mass revival of ancient wonder in the space of visual and virtual world.
Ramdev may be disliked by professionals of consumer culture and multinational bosses of successful companies but he has served millions of people with health awareness in and outside India. He may be snared at by allopathic physicians but he has popularized with tremendous success the ancient wisdom of yoga.
Ramdev may have acted immaturely in his newer domain. He may be disturbingly nationalistic, orthodox in opinion and syndicated at times, but he is a simple yoga guru with a passion for rightness without pretensions of any kind. I would not call him a thug even if he irritates my political domain with his modes of political performance.
I may dislike such a person to the core but will never use foul language against him who has done so much of socio-spiritual work in the last two decades. The language we use in popular public domain must be a matter of discretion. What is rhetoric in politics? Someone asked me.
I thought about his question and came up with the following proposition by my study of logic and rhetoric. It is a verbal or a written effort to persuade someone to believe and act or linguistically force someone to believe and act with the power of the words used. Rhetoric also calls for sophistication in the use of words and is the best communicative weapon in the culture of politics.
But the use of language in party-political culture is turning us cynical as audiences. It is a matter of how you propagate a culture of linguistic cynicism in the domain of media. The political speakers in popular news media pass on weird body communication added by uneducated uses of language.
The problem lies with yoga guru Ramdev as well. He is a passionate, intense person, one who decides and speaks with haste. He seems to be an impractical moralist to the extent of being a bit out dated. His arguments for me are fallacious at time. But I respect him because he is one of the foremost professionals of spiritual pragmatism. He may be direct in beliefs and attitudes but does not use much foul language. I do not frequently drink popular soft drinks, but when I do, I do not like remembering guru Ramdev’s adjective “toilet cleaner.”
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