Almost nine months after the brutal killing of Gauri Lankesh outside her Bengaluru home, the Special Investigative Team (SIT) probing the murder claimed in its chargesheet that the accused, KT Naveen Kumar was angry with her for speaking against “Hindu Dharma”. So, it asserted, was Parshuram Waghmore, the man who is believed to have pulled the trigger.
This anger appears symptomatic of a larger phenomenon taking over the world. In his book, Age of Anger: A History of the Present, Pankaj Mishra identifies it by the French word ressentiment, a uniquely contemporary rage in response to a perceived threat of the “other” as the source of one’s own misery. For Mishra, this ressentiment is a response to the western ideas of enlightenment, modernity and globalisation, which are presented as mandatory milestones in the universal teleology of progress, only to reduce communities into isolated individuals. The resulting ressentiment is what defines the contemporary age for Mishra.
Chidanand Rajghatta’s book Illiberal India: Gauri Lankesh and the Age of Unreason is in some senses an extension of the same project. However, while Mishra approaches our time through an academic lens which affords him a scholarly distance, Rajghatta confronts it as a journalist, an ex-spouse and a friend who lost someone he loved to ressentiment. Hence, more than a contemporaneous snapshot of the world, what emerges in Illiberal India is an intimate portrait of a woman who became a symbol of courage posthumously.
The portrait of a woman as a friend
Much like Rajghatta’s initial surprise over the fact that someone wanted to kill Gauri Lankesh, Kannada literary and journalist circles too shared a similar bewilderment about the choice of victim. The other “people of letters” who have been murdered recently by right wing extremists were Narendra Dabholkar, MM Kalburgi, and Govind Pansare, all of them scholars. In contrast, Gauri Lankesh ran a Kannada newspaper known for its relentless attacks on political corruption and misdemeanour of all sorts, cutting across party and ideological lines. Of course, what bound them together was a commitment to rational thought.
In Illiberal India, the question “Why Gauri?” takes a backseat while “Who Gauri?” is answered in some depth by someone who Lankesh grew with, literally as well as figuratively. From a young student at National College Basavangudi to an English language journalist and, later, a woman who took the reigns of her father P Lankesh’s Kannada tabloid, Lankesh Patrike, hers was an eventful life. Lankesh was accompanied during much of this journey by Rajghatta, not always as a husband, but consistently as a friend.
P Lankesh was a literary giant who could write as effortlessly about François Mitterrand as he could about Devraj Urs. Emerging from this shadow of her father’s intellectual and literary prowess, Gauri Lankesh exuded a passion, courage and resolve for fighting for what she believed was right. Unlike himself, Rajghatta writes, she always seemed to know what this “right” was supposed to be. More than anything else, she was an activist.
A book of this nature is likely to eulogise its subject as yet another casualty of the fight against violent right-wing elements at the expense of her personhood. However, Rajghatta presents us with a “personal, private” persona of the activist-journalist. There are several instances that demonstrate Lankesh’s politics. However, it’s the stories from her private life that most memorably constructs a picture of Lankesh: a secular person who fought for Dalit and minority rights; a loving and generous friend who opened her doors to many young, struggling journalists; a rationalist daughter who made sure her father’s legacy wouldn’t be sullied by silly rituals and final rites.
Lankesh’s piercing black-and-white photograph on the book’s cover, looking directly into the eyes of the reader, emphasises this humanness, not the larger-than-life idea of Gauri Lankesh she became following her death. The bold, saffron-hued “Iliberal”, however, overpowers this humanity, alluding to the fact that this is not just a story of a slain journalist, but also of a nation that’s failing its citizens.
A state of exceptions
As we learn more about Gauri Lankesh, what also comes through the pages of the book is an insider’s look at Karnataka, which acted as the fertile ground for the ideological development of the two protagonists. Though the title alludes to an India that is not illiberal per se, but on a “slippery slope to illiberalism”, it is Rajghatta’s home state that’s in focus. For Rajghatta, it is here in Karnataka, a “mini-India” that the “idea of India is being hashed out”.
Hence, when the author talks about Gauri Lankesh, he is also talking about the Kannada-Karnataka identity and culture, shaped by its literary and intellectual heritage. Despite dedicating a single chapter to Basavanna and the resulting sharana tradition, the saint-poet’s thoughts flow like an undercurrent throughout the book. In fact, the 12th century reformist movement introduced the concept of equality irrespective of birth or gender, centuries before Western civilisation propagated the same. Gauri Lankesh supported the separate religion movement for Lingayatism because she believed it had lost its anti-caste, egalitarian roots.
The Karnataka in Rajghatta’s book is a secular place where myths flow into each other, where Dada Hayath could become Dattatreya, worshipped by both Hindus and Muslims. The confluences and conflations of multiple faiths are abound in the state, be it the coast or the mainland, much like India itself. However, as she expressed in her emails to Rajghatta, Lankesh was worried about the direction in which the nation was heading. Whatever “horaata” (struggle) she did was an attempt to uphold the values she imbibed from growing up in an environment that was intellectually and culturally enriching. She had seen her father’s fights with many of his contemporaries, fellow Kannada literary giants. However, unlike her detractors, the only weapons they had used were their pens.
Age of violence
If there has always been a culture of dissent and valorisation of egalitarian values in Karnataka (and by extension, India), then why did Gauri Lankesh die? Why have multiple journalists died since then? While writing about Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, Rajghatta reflects on the possibility that India has always been a violent society and that is why it produced figures like Gandhi and Ashoka to contain its extremist sensibilities. Though he seems to refer to Indians in particular, it can be assumed by extension that human beings as a species are prone to violence. A political entity such as a government exists to protect us from our intrinsic violent tendencies, from returning to, what philosopher Thomas Hobbes called, “the state of nature”. Though artificial, a state apparatus like a government provides much needed stability.
However, in an era of unprecedented technological strides, the power of governments is changing. Even the most extreme idea can find validation in some corner of the world wide web and spread like wildfire, as witnessed in the lynchings across the country over Whatsapp rumours. The “fear of the other” can now converge, build up and fester in unprecedented ways, waiting to implode. It is an especially catastrophic implosion when, instead of actively resisting and challenging such extremist thoughts, those in power endorse and encourage them.
This ressentiment seems to have an insatiable appetite. Gauri Lankesh’s killing was just the beginning.
Illiberal India: Gauri Lankesh And The Age Of Unreason, Chidanand Rajghatta, Context.