In A Democratic Process, Every View — Tark, Vitark And Kutark

In a democratic process, every view — tark, vitark and kutark — needs to exist for a truly encompassing and empathetic worldview to evolve and make a positive difference, writes PIYUSH ROY

Bhakti and logic do not make comfortable bedfellows. The reality of the former is affective or emotive, while the realism of the latter is cognitive. One appeals to the heart, the other to the mind. One aims to move you through feelings, the other through facts. One calls you to believe, imagine and go beyond your immediate, the other asks you to think, perceive and evaluate truth in the context of relatable and ‘experienceable’ immediacy. The pitch of the former is a promise for the future. The pitch of the latter is action in the present.

Notionally, the object of bhakti has always been a god or a divine being not from the earthly plane or from one’s tangible present. In the distance, are the assurance of a belief for fair play and the sustenance of a legend.

By nature, to err is human. Perfection — physical, moral, spiritual — is a cherished goal of human existence, and the purpose for human birth if most faiths with an east Asian origin are to be believed.

We are here for karmic correction. We will make mistakes, but we have to develop the faculty to recognise them and strive to correct and not repeat them, as a character in this year’s global blockbuster, Avengers: Endgame, says — ‘Don’t judge people by their worst mistakes.’ Logic allows that luxury; Bhakti doesn’t, because the locus of bhakti is someone ‘ideal’ and beyond fault, and hence incorruptible and beyond correction.

Any one-ideology, one-party, one perspective, one-vision, one-person skew in our sources for guidance tends to deflect the need from a statesman like guide to that of a messiah in our leadership models. But messiahs have rarely stayed on to deliver results; they deliver ideas, which are meant to shape future results, where the outcome of the action — good or bad — becomes the onus of the followers.

History tells us that even the greatest leaders of men and women in retrospect haven’t always been blemish free. The pros and cons abound because they are human; but they learnt from their mistakes, frequently improvised and occasionally admitted. Closer home, M K Gandhi’s experiments with politics are a classic example of a political leader’s admitting and correcting of failures through the journey.

A messiah, or a god cannot do that. And even he genuinely wishes for a retake — the bhakti of his bhaktas becomes a haunting albatross preventing any crossing of the Laxman Rekha to recovery and reconciliation. Hence, he is denied the luxury to say — ‘I made a mistake’ or ‘I will make a correction’— and move on. Consequently, for his followers guarding any ‘cult of individualism’; logic and nuance inadvertently have to frequently take a backseat.

Debate and discussions, the essential and integral tools of any liberal, freethinking process start giving way to diatribes — often personal and generally irrelevant. Facts are exchanged for fiction; objectivities deviate from issues to personalities and performance reviews give way to fairy tale like imageries or promises of utopia. And like fairy tales, the opponent ceases to be another like you; instead he is demonised as a stereotypical villain, with no shades of grey, but all black, only.

Traditionally, and long before the democratic institutions and practices came to vogue as we understand the western way, the Indian civilisation has had a culture of rigorous discussions at multiple levels using the tools of tark, argument and vitark, counter-argument. Even the shastras have been renegotiated or critiqued after multiple sessions of tark and vitark, some often going for days on end as the famous debate between Adi Shankaracharya and Mandana Mishra on the banks of Mahishmati, 8th century CE. Such a healthy, logical challenge wasn’t limited to the scholarly sphere alone. Stories abound about how the famed Tansen had to frequently make himself available for musical duels by talented aspirants to retain his title as the Mughal court’s most celebrated musician, 16th century CE. The Mukti Mandap of the Jagannath Temple in Puri bears testimonies to many socio-religious debates on the manifestation and ritualisation of bhakti itself or its practices thereof. USA’s pre-election faceoff between presidential candidates on the American TV, isn’t a modern 20th century idea, alone.

However, what is happening today in the context of unaccountable discourses is the giving away of tark and vitark to kutark. Fact-based reviews are thus subtracted to a personal attack with energies channelled towards defending the attack instead of debating a concern.

The process of tark-vitark was always guided by a purpose to win the other to one’s point of view through logical convincing, failing which one accepted the opponent’s perspective, gracefully. That openness of the mind with which one enters a debating process is disallowed by kutark, where the aim is to win at any cost — ‘my way or the highway’.Kutark is the outcome of half-baked knowledge, partial information or total untruths. Predictably, its tools go from the realm of logic and reason to emotions. Hence, imaginary tales, concocted facts, irrelevant personal histories, private jibes… and other elements of communication catering to the primary (negative) human emotions of fear, anger, disgust and hate take over the pleasurable highs of an informed debate like joy, courage, wonder or compassion.

The end motive of any discussion — to leave your audience in a state of calm, to contemplate and gravitate towards a logical discussion — is abandoned. Debate thus becomes a theatre of the absurd where oratory becomes the tool. Truth then becomes ‘subjective and only’.

But then human life, like human experiences, is the outcome of multiple experiential truths. Even a ‘one truth’ perspective can have multiple sub-truths contributing to its understanding, if one goes by the Rashomon case study (also a classic Akira Kurosawa film) or the Indian sutra — Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti ‘the one truth about the one that exists too can be perceived or named differently’.

That is life, and that’s the essence of the multi-nation like diversities housed within India’s geographical boundaries. It also is the essence of the democratic process, where every worldview needs to and should exist — the Left, the Right and the Centre — for a truly encompassing and empathetic worldview to evolve, exist, deliver and make a positive difference to maximum life.

The writer is an author, critic, filmmaker and associate professor at Jain University, Bengaluru

Contact: criticpiyushroy@gmail.com