I am really thankful to all who are spending their valuable time to criticise the AAP ad that's playing out on television. When the advertisement was designed, it was intended to target a particular audience; we were not sure if it would reach them, but our friends in the opposition and others who used to work with us have made our task easier - they helped create a new curiosity around the advertisement with their vehement criticism. I am really thankful to Prashant Bhushan, the BJP and the Congress for making this a mega-hit.
I know they are all intelligent people and have been working in their fields for a very long time but what I did not know is that they all have such a poor understanding of Indian culture and tradition. They say this advertisement is regressive in nature as it depicts women in a certain way; they also criticise it because in their opinion this advertisement violates the Supreme Court order that bans politicians from being glorified in ads; they are also opposed to the advertisement because they say it promotes the personality cult of Kejriwal and not our party.
There are individuals who genuinely believe that the personality cult should not be promoted as it erodes the process of democracy . I don't want to quarrel with them but just gently want to make them realise that they are talking about largely a western concept which is quite alien to Indian thought. It's basically a borrowed idea which derives its sustenance majorly from Left-oriented thinking. This idea is dead since the demise of the Berlin Wall, but a few of us still want to live in that utopian world. Even the Left has not fully adhered to this concept of not individuals, but historical forces propelling the world.
India as an idea itself is personality-driven. 'Avatar' is well ingrained in our culture and tradition. In fact, it is part of our great civilisation. If other religions have only one God, Hindus have as many Gods as we can think. Every conceivable thing has been worshipped in Hindu tradition. 'Dashavatar', that is Lord Vishnu ,has descended on earth in ten incarnations to save the world.
So it's not surprising that after every brief interval, India witnesses few individuals who attain a superior status in society. M K Gandhi was a mere mortal like us but he was revered so much by other mere mortals that he became a Mahatma, who was called Bapu and also "Father of the Nation". He was so respected that though he was not a member of the Congress party, no decision was possible without his permission. Now it's inconceivable to think if India could have attained freedom without him ! I am afraid if he had been alive now, he would have been condemned by the above-mentioned individuals and parties. By their logic we should not have been using Gandhi's portraits in our government offices and in our homes.
When students of Bihar went to request JP to assume the leadership of the anti- Indira Gandhi movement, he told them that he would be the dictator of the movement and his word would be final. In today's world, JP would have been cut into thousands of pieces for saying so.
My only submission is that India is a spiritual civilisation. People love their heroes when they see a moral force behind them. Avatar is not a material Idea but an ethical boundary. And as long as they are seen as treading the path of Truth, they are worshiped and the minute they digress from the moral high road, they are thrown into the dust bin of history. VP Singh is the greatest example of this.
PS - There is nothing wrong in the depiction of the woman in the advertisement. She is shown to be a politically-enlightened person who consciously chooses her leader ! What's wrong in that?
Sorry, friends.
(Ashutosh joined the Aam Aadmi Party in January 2014.)
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