Every intellectual is always looking towards the West for approval

francois gautier Tuesday, April 28, 2009 THE KAFKAIAN STREAK OF INDIAN POLITICS

Kafka (1852–1931), was a Czech writer, most famous for his novels, the Trial, and the Metamorphosis, where the Absurd, the Grotesque and the Illogical were given a new life with impossible twists. The word ‘Kafkaian’ has today transcended the literary realm and is pertaining to real-life occurrences and situations that are incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, illogical, often with a sense of impending danger.

The term ‘Kafkaian’ could be very well applied to today’s politics in India, for things have gone to such a pitch of absurd, unfair, blatant and outrageous illogical state, that it baffles the mind. Yet neither the politicians, nor most of the press find anything wrong in it. [...]

India is all about equality and rising above castes, yet since 1947, politicians of this country, particularly the Congress, and later V.P Singh, Mulayam Singh, or Lalu Prasad, have hopelessly divided India along castes and religious lines. But Mayawati tops them all: she just gave a push to her prime ministerial aspirations, by promising Scheduled Caste status to 16 more castes if she came to power at the Centre. Can you think of a more Kafkaian way of obtaining votes? [...]

Ultimately democracy in India has become a Kafkaian affair, as it has been so perverted, so hijacked, to the point of absurd...The tragedy is that the Indian press does not play its role... The real problem is that India has been colonized for too long, contrary to China whose people remain proud of their culture and intensely nationalistic. It has resulted in a deep-rooted inferiority complex in the Indian psyche, whereas every intellectual is always looking towards the West for approval and Indians are so obsessed with having the western type of democracy, without adapting it to the Indian conditions.

The system has become so perverted that only radical surgery to remove the diseased parts will start the indispensable cleansing process. O Kafka, you should have been born in India…
François Gautier