Fast-changing human nature cannot hold any ideology or principle for long. As circumstances change, the human mindset also changes. Today’s political ideology and goals become irrelevant tomorrow. What we call a change in the world is merely the change in human aspiration and mindset. Even material changes are susceptible to rapid changes.
Principles, ideologies and identities are human creations. These creations make human life a more complicated one. As nature changes, the nature of the human race also changes. It is from our boastful identity all identity crises emerge. Ideologies create rifts in society and conflict in human minds. The principle is personal. These are unique to human beings. The other animals hold no principle, ideology. They don’t bother with constant changes in their living environment until human beings interfere in their life. It may be because other animals are not civilised. We can argue it so.
So much has been written about principles, ideologies and identities. These are adopted or borrowed constitutions. People and their next-generation do not follow anything unrelentingly, after all the basic human nature is inconsistent. If anyone claims to follow any legacy of these, it can probably be a pretence or an act of stealing.
In India, when a political leader dies, his family member takes over the position with a claim to continue the legacy of the deceased. What might have been his legacy? His leadership, ideology or principle? Can people expect the same legacy or something new from the new heir? One could hardly see it. The mantle is passed on to the generation down the line. Political parties have become either a kingdom that follows a feudal system or a monastery with monks to inherit generational changes.
A political party, formed 150 years ago for securing freedom from alien rule, remains a political party long after the purpose is over. The family of earlier leadership retains the legacy of success with no justification. The wrong legacy has infused a wrong sense of right to rule the country post-independence. As time has changed, the original purpose of political goals has become irrelevant. The generation has changed along with the change of time.
There were many leaders and volunteers in the freedom movement of India. When inheritance becomes an admissible issue we need to accept the claim of the next generation also as freedom fighters. Behind the formation of many established political parties, there were leaders linked with the freedom struggle. That makes no particular party claim the credit of the freedom struggle. Yet we could see claims of leadership on blood relations.
While many political parties follow the feudal system of inheritance, dumping the original ideology, some are having a leadership change holding on to the same doctrine. Can the next generation be comfortable with the ideology that the old generation had adopted? An answer can only be ambiguous. We have to admit that we have changed with the generational change or we are against a change. Whatever be the answer, there is a contradiction inherent in it.
Annie Besant was the president of the Congress party. She was a British woman. A British woman was fighting the British empire in a British colony. But couldn’t it be a bit difficult for Indians to accept her in that position? Here ideology was not a matter. What mattered was the purpose. That was why we had had no problem with the British woman at the helm of the party founded for the freedom struggle.
Everything keeps changing. Yesterday’s ideologies and policies are today’s mockeries. Look at the American policies. Its policies make friends. Soon the policies make the old friend its bitter enemies. After giving weapons to its friends, it finds some reasons to fight against the old friends-turned enemies. Sanctions and embargoes follow. Soon there is a reconciliation and peace accord. Then, where is the scope of ideology here? What can a commoner expect from a country that keeps changing policies?
Look at human psychology about the ideology of the Communist Party. The Communist Party was for proletarians and against capitalism. It considers every individual as equal. While it claims that it is following its doctrine, it works against its claims. Its cadre cannot question the ideology though the world has come a long way with capitalism in control of the world. That has made the ideology unworkable. The collapse of the Soviets and the Eastern European bloc proved it. The ideology speaks only on paper when it comes to regimentally framed Communist ideologies. In the capitalist controlled modern world, there is no scope for the communist ideology. Again I emphasise, what matters is the purpose that time demands, not the ideology of yesterday or today.
In the present ruling party also we can see examples of rapid change in human nature. Nearly a century ago, RSS was formed with certain ideologies. The organisation initially had no political outfit. Later, it admitted a political party’s ideology with its core principle. After every election or as time passes, mixing ups, divergence and convergence happen in Indian polity. Some would distract, some combine, and some go extinct. Ideologies also go off with it.
When new people come in, old people may go out. None is bothered about the ideologies then. They justify it with the statement that this is the need of the time. They can easily make people believe the same because human nature is susceptible to changes every time. No theories or ideologies have an all-time relevance. I am not against any political party. But I intend to unmask the changing colours of a human being. Given the nature of the human mind, it is possible for any miracle in a person’s nature. At times, in a split of a second, people behave so differently from the one they used to be. We often say ‘he has changed a lot’ and ‘I can’t recognise him anymore’.
Change is unavoidably rapid. No surprise then that an anti-alcohol activist sometimes becomes addicted to alcohol under the new circumstance. He could be under any influence or have any emotional breakdown. Most people use alcohol as an excuse to stem from the breakdown, showing the absence of a mellowed and matured mindset.
Today many people follow ‘spiritual gurus’ as if a call from heaven. Do such people follow any particular principle? People need a mentor. According to the taste, each person chooses some or other. They do not know anything about the person but follow him by seeing his front face. We have seen many spiritual bigwigs having criminal histories. But if they are coming up by revealing, accepting their mistakes and longing for a better future they can be our gurus. This may sound a bit contradictory, but settle down and think. Isn’t it so? One cannot stick with an ideology throughout life without fail. We accept spiritual gurus as businessmen without questioning our rationale. The public has a herd mentality. They will follow the Shepherd until the wolf is away.
Ultimately, we have stitched so many skin tight dresses to cover up the naked animal in us to show that we are special in this world. We are homo sapiens. But we have gone through many phases of civilization, spiritual transformations, ideological adoptions and many more. We have shown off thousands of attributes to make our stand in the society that we have built. I am of this caste, this religion, this community. I hold these privileges, I am honoured more than the other, and my status is higher than the others and so on. All these are to hide our fundamentals as an animal as we’re not ready to accept ourselves as equal to an “animal”. The more we cover our face with civilization the more we become naked! The inner contradiction cannot remain sealed forever.
We are struggling with this fabricated makeover. Being human it is not possible to retain all these skins. It is difficult for us to change and find out the core of human beings within us. Many catastrophes hit us hard. Flood, pandemics, wars and so on killed countless lives. Many souls bid goodbye to the world leaving all these artificial outfits of false pride and richness behind them without even receiving a deserving funeral. Very strange…!
A theory should be for life, but life doesn’t need any theory.