To make sense of Kathua, Un­nao and the In­dia of the Bharatiya Janata Party, columns of news­pa­pers, on­line jour­nals and videos proved a lit­tle in­ad­e­quate. I re-read No­bel Prize for Lit­er­a­ture win­ner Sir William Gold­ing’s Lord of the Flies.  Af­ter read­ing this, I in­vite you to read the novel and watch the movie too. See if you can get some an­swers.

When, men eat flesh, tear­ing apart a child and smash her head with a stone and do not wink an eye­lid, when their clan sup­ports them with­out bat­ting an eye­lid, When ba­bies die in a hos­pi­tal and those who should shoul­der re­spon­si­bil­ity shout at and ad­mon­ish a doc­tor who kept hope alive, when those claim­ing to be chil­dren of a big­ger god pub­licly flog those con­sid­ered chil­dren of a lesser god, when those meant to speak main­tain si­lence, when those meant to lis­ten re­sort to dou­ble­s­peak and lies, then hu­man­ity dies and forces us to look be­yond the rou­tine.

While the Lord of the Flies was part of jour­nal­is­tic ref­er­ence and re­port­ing of the 2016 Trump elec­tions in the US, one rarely comes across a lit­er­ary ex­pla­na­tion of a po­lit­i­cal hap­pen­ing in In­dia. I re-read Sir William Gold­ing’s Lord of the Flies and George Or­well’s An­i­mal Farm to make sense of the can­ni­bal­is­tic acts in Kathua and Un­nao of mod­ern-day In­dia of the Bharatiya Janata Party, dream­ing for an Utopian heaven on earth. 

Squirm­ing dur­ing sleep­less nights, I would wake up ask­ing, how could men be so beastly? How could 8 men over 7 days “eat” the flesh of and 8-year-old girl child?  Make no mis­take. Look nowhere else. In­dia is a ba­nana re­pub­lic where stan­dards of ci­vil­ity are at its nadir. Per­sonal and mass be­hav­iour has crossed all lim­its. In­di­vid­ual and even the col­lec­tive con­science has stopped prick­ing. Pol­i­tics has failed. Democ­racy is a farce. Eth­i­cal at­ti­tudes, truth­ful­ness and so­bri­ety have taken wings! Lead­ers are fe­ro­cious dogs un­leashed on a dumb self­ish peo­ple. Nei­ther the lead­ers nor the peo­ple see be­yond their noses.  It is be­com­ing in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult and im­pos­si­ble to di­gest the in­creas­ing crimes against women, the poor and the caste un­der­priv­i­leged.

“How does one see eye to eye with the photo of Asifa Bano of Kathua, Lakhwinder Kaur of Delhi and Za­kia Zafri of Ahmed­abad? Do you know who these peo­ple are? ”

How many paused their lives to shed a tear for the 8-year-girl child in Kathua? Across the coun­try, from mo­fussil towns to cities, peo­ple cried and ag­i­tated. Un­for­tu­nately, that is not enough. This is not enough to stop Nirb­hayas and Asifa Banos from oc­cur­ing again. The malaise goes deeper.  

How does one see eye to eye with the photo of Asifa Bano of Kathua, Lakhwinder Kaur of Delhi and Za­kia Zafri of Ahmed­abad? Do you re­mem­ber who these peo­ple are?

Notwith­stand­ing the pun­ish­ment that may be given to the can­ni­bals by the courts, which in­ter­na­tional fo­rum will be al­lowed by In­dia to in­ves­ti­gate the ba­sic rea­son for the das­tardly at­tack on an un­sus­pect­ing child as a tool to stop a no­madic herd of Bakker­wal Mus­lims per­ceived as spoil­ing the en­vi­rons and de­mog­ra­phy of the Jammu re­gion.

As in Kathua and Un­nao, as in Una of Gu­jarat and Phag­wara of Pun­jab, be­fore the slaugh­ter and the mur­der, the chant is ruth­less and bar­baric. Chants are al­ways so. The chant in the Lord of the Flies of William Gold­ing  is, “Kill the pig, cut her throat, Bash her in.” The chant is re­peated four times in the novel. In the last time, there is an ad­di­tion, “Spill its blood, Do him in.” The chant and the killing seeks to ex­tract power from the act of rape, pil­lage and killing. The bar­bar­ics se­dated and as­saulted the girl, then se­dated and as­saulted the girl and then smashed her to death. Not sat­is­fied, they again as­saulted the dead body of the girl. Can you see the par­al­lel?

I re-read Sir William Gold­ing’s Lord of the Flies to make sense of the can­ni­bal­is­tic acts in Kathua and Un­nao of mod­ern-day In­dia of the Bharatiya Janata Party, dream­ing for an Utopian heaven on earth.The chant in the novel Lord of the Flies and that of “Khoon ka badla khoon se lenge -blood for blood” in 1984, of “Mandir wahi ba­nayenge -we will build the Tem­ple at that very spot”  in 1992 and the false alarm that “Mus­lims set fire to the train in Godhra” in 2002 should be enough to send a chill down your spine. Can you see the par­al­lel?

The al­le­gory of The Lord of the Flies is stun­ningly rel­e­vant. Sir William Gold­ing, in this 1954 novel uses vast sym­bol­ism to demon­strate that hu­man be­ings when lib­er­ated from rules and reg­u­la­tions, taboos and re­stric­tions, al­low their evil to dom­i­nate their ex­is­tence and then all hell breaks loose. He says, “It seemed to me that man’s ca­pac­ity for greed, his in­nate cru­elty and self­ish­ness, was be­ing hid­den be­hind a kind of pair of po­lit­i­cal pants.” Asked to ex­plain why there are only male char­ac­ters in his novel, William Gold­ing said that he wrote from what he un­der­stood as a boy. He added, “I think women are fool­ish to pre­tend they are equal to men, they are far su­pe­rior and al­ways have been.”

In In­dia, the downslide to bar­barism started three  decades back. Prior to that bar­bar­ity of the po­lice, para-mil­i­tary and mil­i­tary did not have a con­spir­a­to­r­ial and pre-med­i­tated colour.  The no­tion of In­dia as a civ­i­lized part of earth died in the first three days of No­vem­ber 1984. What­ever re­mained died in Ay­o­d­hya in 1992 and in Gu­jarat in 2002. What is more un­civil and bar­baric than the be­lief that there was no con­spir­acy or in­volve­ment of higher-ups in the killing of Sikhs in Delhi in No­vem­ber 1984 de­spite a reser­voir of ev­i­dence and live wit­nesses. It seems as if, no one “brought down the Babri Masjid” in 1992 at Ay­o­d­haya de­spite the chill­ing de­tails with graphic im­ages and videos of the state ac­tors in Ram ke Naam doc­u­men­tary of Anand Pat­ward­han and au­then­tic jour­nal­is­tic re­portage.  Even in the day of the in­ter­net and TV chan­nels, is not a hel­luva sur­pris­ing that “no one killed the Mus­lims in Gu­jarat in 2002” de­spite video ev­i­dence and more, still avail­able on YouTube and TV chan­nel archives. 

The ubiq­ui­tous chief -on TV, on Twit­ter, on Face­book, in News­pa­pers, on for­eign lands keeps telling the res­i­dents of Bharatiya Janata Party that “Delhi lis­tens to you.”  Dr. Kafeel Ahmed Khan, the young con­sci­en­tious pae­di­a­tri­cian who spent money from his own pocket to buy cylin­ders to save dy­ing chil­dren at the Baba Raghav Das Med­ical Col­lege Hos­pi­tal in Sep­tem­ber 2017 where 70 ba­bies died within four days, was sent to prison, be­cause CM Yogi Adityanath felt, “he had ex­posed the sys­tem.” Re­leased af­ter 7 months from Gorakh­pur prison he asks all of us, “Why me? What did I do wrong? Those who wronged are al­ready on bail? If this is not bar­baric then what is?

In the last four years, the In­dia of the Bharatiya Janata Party has un­folded in its full might. In the novel, the beast is the per­ceived source of evil on the de­serted is­land where the plane-wrecked British boys reach, away from so­ci­ety and civil­i­sa­tion. Yet, it is later dis­cov­ered there was no beast, it was imag­i­nary and ac­tu­ally the writer was al­lud­ing to the beast within.  With­out rules, with­out reser­va­tions, it is so easy to chant and hunt, so easy to kill with im­punity as there is no so­ci­ety!! Can you see the par­al­lel in In­dia to­day? 

One of the char­ac­ters in the novel is the stout short-statured Piggy who wears specs. Glasses are a sym­bol of in­tel­lect and rea­son. The likes of Piggy -like Gauri Lankesh who bore the brunt of rea­son tol­er­ance, who up­hold the ra­tio­nale for hu­man ex­is­tence and who en­sure that life and so­ci­ety move on de­spite so much of muck, hate and in­tol­er­ance all around. What hap­pens to Piggy in Lord of the Flies, hap­pened to Gauri Lankesh in the In­dia of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Piggy is taunted and hunted down, some­times his specs are stolen, some­times bro­ken and some­times de­stroyed for­ever. Ul­ti­mately, there is a Roger sit­ting some­where on a high pedestal who throws down a rock and kills Piggy! He also smashes the “conch” which Piggy was hold­ing sig­ni­fy­ing the end of reg­u­lated be­hav­iour. Ex­actly in the same way, Gauri Lankesh is killed. The killers suc­ceed in smash­ing the “conch” held on by the lib­er­als, who are torch-bear­ers of fear­less jour­nal­ism. Like Piggy in the novel, Gauri Lankesh rep­re­sented civil­i­sa­tion and com­mon sense.  From Peelu Khan to Ju­naid Khan, the chants are grow­ing. Even when the Dal­its want to con­vert to Bud­dhism, there is no let-up in the omi­nous war cries. Can you hear sim­i­lar chants around you?

In the novel, Jack -the leader says that it is more im­por­tant to slaugh­ter pigs than to be res­cued from the is­land or re­turn to civ­i­liza­tion.  Like­wise, in the In­dia of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the face of sav­agery is with­out re­morse. The Jacks of 2002 and 1984 -masked men and women showed no re­gret or re­morse. 1984 hap­pened for 3 days and nights, Gu­jarat was burn­ing for full two months. Tehelka doc­u­mented the boasts of po­lice and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers as to how they raped, pil­laged, de­stroyed homes and killed Mus­lims in the Gu­jarat of 2002. Jack never ac­cepted a mis­take in the novel and man­aged to sur­vive till the end. With the mask of per­verted re­li­gios­ity, the faces of sav­agery con­tinue in our midst. Can you see the par­al­lel?

The blood­thirsty snarl of the per­pe­tra­tors has to­tally lib­er­ated them from cow­ardice, shame and nor­mal hu­man be­hav­iour. They are the new sav­ages.  Who will re­move their masks be­fore they can wreak havoc and ac­tu­ally de­stroy any sem­blance of nor­mal civ­i­lized ex­is­tence? Is this not the same masked mob which Rav­ish Ku­mar  of NDTV In­dia says is “lurk­ing in your neigh­bour­hood wait­ing to pounce upon you if you do not fit in!”

William Gold­ing’s search for the roots of an­ar­chy go deep. Stranded on a vir­gin is­land with­out rules and reg­u­la­tion, the boys’ pri­mal urges takes wings and the sit­u­a­tion be­comes an­ar­chic and bar­baric. When the son of a tem­ple priest in Kathua traps a child and takes turn to vi­o­late her, it is not just lust, it is power -the man­i­fes­ta­tion of a pri­mal urge to de­throne the other per­son ir­re­spec­tive of age, gen­der or affin­ity. Fur­ther from Kathua, in Un­nao and else­where, there is no other ex­pla­na­tion ex­cept than the bes­tial­ity of a hu­man be­ing. This per­son dom­i­nates re­al­ity as he hides be­hind the mask of a po­lit­i­cal party, na­tion­al­ism or mere knowl­edge that the ju­di­cial sys­tem and so­ci­ety will not be able to catch up. The in­di­vid­ual im­bibes that he will get away with bar­barism and in­hu­man­ity. The par­al­lel is as com­plete and clear as day­light. 

In the In­dia of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the struc­ture and ed­i­fice of so­ci­ety has col­lapsed. What the pre­sent-day rulers of the coun­try do not re­alise is that, as es­tab­lished in the novel Lord of the Flies, when pri­mal urges be­come un­con­trol­lable, the masked killers will kill their own with­out much rhyme or rea­son. Look at the fate of the for­mer UP Chief Min­is­ter Kalyan Singh and the for­mer Vishwa Hindu Parishad chief Pravin To­ga­dia, not to men­tion the Ram Ra­jya pro­tag­o­nist Shri L. K. Ad­vani.  The new Franken­stein mon­sters have taken over from them and now the pre­sent ones are un­con­trol­lable. The new ones will prof­fer new icons to over­awe the pop­u­lace and spread their per­verted logic and may­hem. 

So, who is the Lord of the Flies in mod­ern day In­dia? Who is the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of evil? Is it within or with­out or both? Are we fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle against this evil? How long will we al­low Kathua and Un­nao to be re­peated?  Can you bear the sight of men beat­ing men only on the ba­sis of caste. Think!

Jux­ta­pose each im­agery, scene and sym­bol in the Lord of the Flies to mod­ern day In­dia of the Bharatiya Janata Party, each char­ac­ter with the can­ni­bals un­leashed on us and the sim­i­lar­ity is stark, stun­ning and dread­ful.  Mankind’s in­her­ent ca­pac­ity for evil ex­ists but it can be dis­ci­plined and con­tained by ethics and spir­i­tu­al­ity, it can be con­trolled by equal laws and equal­ity be­fore the law for all, it can be mon­i­tored by im­par­tial rulers, it can be ad­min­is­tered by ju­di­cious lead­ers and it can flour­ish in a so­ci­ety which re­spects hu­mankind -mankind and wom­ankind.

In the Lord of the Flies, ci­vil­ity comes to res­cue in the end and the bar­bar­ians re­gret. I do not see this hap­pen­ing in the mod­ern day In­dia of Bharatiya Janata Party and I wish that I am wrong. No­body wants to res­cue no­body. No so­lace can be found in small mer­cies -new strin­gent laws, bravado talk in for­eign lands and side-track­ing the is­sue through glee about other suc­cesses. There is no choice. The Good must take over and con­quer the evil -first within and then with­out. 

Many do not say it, many oth­ers are bliss­fully un­aware, still oth­ers ex­pect mir­a­cles, but if so­ci­ety is al­lowed to have its run of in­ci­vil­ity, then the tur­moil and an­ar­chy will lead to a rev­o­lu­tion – a kind of French rev­o­lu­tion, which the In­dian  sub-con­ti­nent has not seen hereto­fore. Take note, there is no es­cape. 

The greed for money and power rests within peo­ple. Hate and evil ex­ist but have to tamed by con­stant train­ing of the soul, mind and body. Char­ac­ter build­ing, eth­i­cal train­ing, spir­i­tual strength­en­ing, or­derly ap­proach and a sea-change in at­ti­tude and style alone can sal­vage the sit­u­a­tion. The same per­son can be kind­ness per­son­i­fied and if let loose, can rape, plun­der, loot and de­stroy. A critic of the novel, Samuel Hynes aptly puts it, “the devil rises, not out of pi­rates and can­ni­bals and such alien crea­tures, but out of the dark­ness of man’s heart.”.

Like in the real world, there is a con­stant con­flict be­tween the im­pulse to civ­i­liza­tion and the im­pulse to sav­agery. In Lord of the Flies, Gold­ing uses Ralph and Jack’s strug­gle for power to show that greed and lust for power can cor­rupt the best of in­di­vid­u­als. Can you see the par­al­lel?

At one point in the novel, Jack shouts, “We don’t need the conch any­more.” At this point in the novel, Gold­ing shows that lust for power turns Jack into a fe­ro­cious mon­ster, a rock-solid bar­bar­ian. He kills with im­punity, ex­pands his gang and de­sires to be­come the leader again and again. Just a few days ago, it was re­ported that come what may, the Bharatiya Janata Party wanted to rule In­dia for more than 50 years. Can you see the par­al­lel?

 “The novel por­trays that, “the devil rises, not out of pi­rates and can­ni­bals and such alien crea­tures, but out of the dark­ness of man’s heart.” ”

Samuel Hynes, critic

Ayn Rand said, “Civ­i­liza­tion is the process of set­ting man free from men.” The In­dia of the Bharatiya Janata Party is with­out or­der, with­out truth­ful and eth­i­cal lead­er­ship and with­out ra­tio­nal­ity. Chaos on the streets, chaos in the trains, chaos in the fields, chaos in the class­rooms, chaos in hos­pi­tals, chaos in Par­lia­ment and chaos in the ju­di­ciary. Ralph saves the boys and civ­i­liza­tion in Lord of the Flies. Who will save the dystopian In­dia?          

In a lec­ture en­ti­tled ‘Fa­ble’, pub­lished in The Hot Gates, Gold­ing dis­cussed what in­spired him to write Lord of the Flies. He sug­gested that any­one who had lived through the hor­rors of the Sec­ond World War, and the evils of au­thor­i­tar­ian gov­ern­ments of the pe­riod, would un­der­stand that ‘man pro­duces evil as a bee pro­duces hon­ey’.

Sir William Gold­ing’s Lord of the Flies brings out the in­her­ent sav­agery and evil in every hu­man be­ing.  Jack in the Lord of the Flies is the leader who is more in­ter­ested in his self-built goals rather than the com­mon goals, he is more keen to hunt and kill rather than take every­body along. Can you see the par­al­lel?

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With­out a rev­o­lu­tion to save civ­i­liza­tion, the Lord of the Flies will re­main un­leashed wait­ing to de­vour who­ever is within reach! Can you see the par­al­lel? Mod­ern day In­dia does not need re­form and slow trans­for­ma­tion. We have waited enough for all this in the last seven decades. Noth­ing short of a French rev­o­lu­tion type up­heaval can de­stroy the rut and make the sub-con­ti­nent and its peo­ple civil and hu­mane. It is time for hu­mane souls to buck up and usher in a rev­o­lu­tion to re­store faith in civ­i­liza­tion oth­er­wise a re­ver­sal back into the stone age is on the hori­zon.

Utopian In­dia is a cheater’s dream. Dystopian In­dia is a stark re­al­ity.