Cultural Sperms

Cultural Sperms

A new discipline is about to emerge in the given context of current politics. The name of this discipline would be bio-political science in its all probability. Currently it is in its nascent stage and its progression clearly explains us about a more viable alternative that goes beyond the rewriting of history. According to this discipline, it is ultimately biology that determines your citizenship. Since current political science does not differentiate between Italian and Indian origin, it is but natural for biology to intervene patriotically. In current bio-political science, our present ancestry defines citizenship so that the reproduced human being is completely soaked up in the soil of our tradition. The more antiquated past becomes, the more uncertain becomes your claim over citizenship. Law, constitution, political mandate—they all become emotional skullduggery in the wake of a ‘profane’ bio-political science.

But how profane is bio-political science historically? In Vedic times, the term ‘foreigner’ (Maleccha) was used for those people who were obscured by shining Aryans due to their black colour. Later, biology was messed up with linguistics. As Shudras were assimilated into Varna system, it was Sanskrit that determined the standards for foreignness. Now all those who could not speak Sanskrit were called foreigners. The meaning of the term was later expanded when a pagan Alexander and a Zoroastrian Darius invaded Indus with their expansionist motives. The medieval period saw Muslims being dubbed as foreigners and then it was turn of the British colonialists.

This is a brief history of the issue of foreign origin and precisely this is the problem with Indian history that it has no symmetry in terms of foreigners. When Aryans invaded India (even if they originated here), the people of this very land were branded as malecchas. On the other hand, the Saffron history suggests that all religious communities other than that of sanatana dharma are foreigners. The problem does not end here. The nationalist and progressive historians see Britishers as foreigners. According to their approach, Britishers were never a part of broader nationalist discourse, though national consciousness emerged during their period. The problematic brief history ends here and does not cover the period after 1947. After 1947, citizenship was promulgated through previous histories and there exists a written constitution for this.

The issue of foreign origin is not specific to India alone. Since antiquity, the issue has been raked up and buried everywhere in the world. Let’s peep into the history of Italy as there is an Italian connection vis-à-vis the issue of foreign origin.

Though migration and invasion had been the destiny of Italy in her earliest times, there was no issue of foreign origin as such. The issue gained momentum in 99 BC after the great slave revolt and thus Italians gained citizenship. A major chunk of slaves was declared as foreigners in the same manner as Shudras had become aliens in their own land. But it was Benito Mussolini who dragged up the issue of foreign origin when he brought Italy into ideological harmony with Nazi Germany and launched a campaign of virulent anti-semitism. In 1938, it was declared that Jews did not belong to the Italian race. All Jews who had entered Italy since the First World War were directed to leave within six months. Vying with Hitler, Mussolini could have equaled the statistics of 6 millions, but fortunately Italy had only 70,000 Jews at that time. Here, biology provided ‘scientific bases’ for ‘pure’ Aryan race and bio-political science determined the foreignness of the Jews. This is how Jews were christened as foreigners.

Now the question is not whether one is foreigner or not. The history has been so asymmetrical that there is no material condition for the issue of foreign origin to exist in the society. The people who have raked up the issue are actually denying the past or upholding it. They are upholding it in the sense that even the original people of the land were declared as foreigners. They are denying the past in the sense that they don’t want to believe that their ancestors were such cruel people who usurped the right of the aboriginals. In a bio-political sense, they have gone the Italian way. Mussolini in fact, propounded the theory of ‘pure people’. Sonia Gandhi who hails from Italy, rejected this theory and went Indian way. On the other hand, people who originated in India have espoused this ideology. This is how in ultimate bio-political analysis, sperms become ideas. If it is cultural sperm, it will invent cultural nationalism. Therefore, fascism which had originated in Italy, found its strong cultural roots in India.