Skip to main content

Of men and beasts: Political masculinities

By Philip Vinod Peacock, Ashley Tellis* 

My newsfeed on Facebook and other forms of social media has been flooded with pictures and videos exhibiting Rahul Gandhi’s physical prowess. Swimming in the ocean, his chiselled abs are visible through a black shirt and videos of him doing push ups effortlessly are trending. These images are framed in the larger narrative context of the Congress trying every possible (pathetic) way to make him appear like a worthy rival of Modi. A ‘people’s person’, Gandhi is always photo-oped in the midst of common people, fisherfolk and college students in this present situation.
The intentionality behind constructing a narrative that is as good as if not better than Narendra Modi is more than amply evident. The six pack versus the fifty-six-inch chest, the push ups as opposed to yoga, the ‘people’s person’ as against the monk who reflects in solitude. Yet as both parties attempt to control the political space as well as the larger narrative, it is also clear that both ultimately draw from the same well of masculine tropes, a macho masculinity.
This leads us to consider the larger sphere of politics in India and perhaps even the South Asian subcontinent, encapsulating India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. While we are led to believe that there is an opposition, in the case of India framed as the binary between the BJP and the Congress, this is actually a false proposition. Frankly salvation, humanisation, or even a recognition of human dignity will not come from either.
The spectre that haunts India is an ancient, many-headed beast. Its heads are misogyny, patriarchy, caste, communalism and inequality. This is a beast that has been recently fed on the heady concoction of hypernationalism and crony capitalism and has been made to drink from pools of hatred. It is a fearsome beast made all the more frightening by the fact that the beast is us. There is no way we can separate ourselves from it. We are the beast, and it feeds on us. Even a casual audit of how we treat the poor and dispossessed in this country would reveal our ugly faces, a truly grotesque spectre.
Past regimes have made attempts to cage the beast by various means, yet they have also let loose the beast when it has served their own interests. The riots of 1984 are an example of this, Bhagalpur, Shah Bano, Ayodhya, Kandhamal – the list is endless. When the beast has satiated itself, it lopes back to its cage one more time.
The difference now is that the beast is let loose more often than it is in its cage. It is almost as though the cage has been forgotten, the zoo has turned into a safari and the poor, minorities, indigenous people, Dalits, women and sexual minorities are its prey.
The point is not to cage the beast once more but to forever kill it. But this cannot be done, not least because it means killing ourselves. What might be done, following Freud, is to keep it under control. Freud is often thought of as a writer only on sex but actually he wrote much more, and much more powerfully, on violence, from Mass Psychology (which warned against the impending doom of World War II by analysing the detritus of World War I) to the historical origins of violence in Totem and Taboo. But we have learnt nothing from Freud and stick to banal caricatures of him as a sex-obsessed guru.
Yet sex is at the heart of this kind of political masculinity that both Gandhi and Modi represent. Gandhi is the modern, gym-going, Speedo-wearing gay icon who tries swimming in the ocean to show he is as much a man of nature as Modi with his yoga, peacocks (no pun intended) and desi gay icon appeal.
Both are masculinities based on poisonous notions of the male self. Sexual abnegation (both men are not really married (one is a modern bachelor, the other a semen-retention akhara type); the misogynist abjuring of women (poor Mrs. Modi did not even exist for the longest time and Gandhi, cowed down by his mother and sister, shows no sign of any other woman in his life) and the clever sublimation of sexual energies into vicious forms of politics (Gandhi pretends to be the modern, secular Congress leader but we all know what violence against minorities the Congress is capable of; Modi pretends to be the contemplative guru who kills Muslims purely for fun and destroys any other minorities that come in the way of his ‘development’ plans).
But both these forms of masculinity are also in us, the middle classes of India, and also really in most Indians, across class and caste. They take on certain forms: the sexual governance of women (killing them if they dare marry outside caste or show any sexual expression at all); caste governance (killing Dalits for similar transgressions, mainly done by OBC castes); class rapaciousness (nothing, just nothing, can come in the way of our making money) are just three of these forms.
Till we realise that the beasts are in us, the beasts are us, nothing is going to change.
In the meantime, let’s admit that the radical feminists of the 60s were right: we are a homosexual society. Men only dig each other, they compete only with each other, they want only each other. Let’s remember that while we salivate over Rahul Gandhi’s abs.
---
Philip Vinod Peacock is Executive Secretary of Justice and Witness of the WCRC and is based in Hannover, Germany; Ashley Tellis is an LGBH activist based out of Hyderabad

Comments

TRENDING

'Very low rung in quality ladder': Critique of ICMR study on 'sudden deaths' post-2021

By Bhaskaran Raman*  Since about mid-2021, a new phenomenon of extreme concern has been observed throughout the world, including India : unexplained sudden deaths of seemingly healthy and active people, especially youngsters. In the recently concluded Navratri garba celebrations, an unprecedented number of young persons succumbed to heart attack deaths. After a long delay, ICMR (Indian Council for Medical Research) has finally has published a case-control study on sudden deaths among Indians of age 18-45.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad 'declared' two-nation theory in 1937, Jinnah followed 3 years later

By Our Representative One of the top freedom fighters whom BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi revere the most, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was also a great supporter of the two nation theory for India, one for Hindus another for Muslims, claims a new expose on the man who is also known to be the original proponent of the concept of Hindutva.

Reject WHO's 'draconian' amendments on pandemic: Citizens to Union Health Minister

By Our Representative  Several concerned Indian citizens have written to the Union Health Minister to reject amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted during the 75th World Health Assembly (WHA75) in May 2022, apprehending this will make the signatories surrender their autonomy to the “unelected, unaccountable and the whimsical WHO in case of any future ‘pandemics’.”

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Union Health Ministry, FSSAI 'fail to respond' to NHRC directive on packaged food

By Our Representative  The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has expressed deep concern over the adverse health effects caused by packaged foods high in salt, sugar, and saturated fats. Recognizing it as a violation of the Right to Life and Right to Health of Indian citizens, the quasi-judicial body called for a response from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) regarding its selection of front-of-pack labels aimed at providing consumers with information to make healthier choices.

Why is electricity tariff going up in India? Who is the beneficiary? A random reflection

By Thomas Franco*  Union Ministry of Power has used its power under Section 11 of the Electricity Act, 2003 to force States to import coal which has led to an increase in the cost of electricity production and every consumer is paying a higher tariff. In India, almost everybody from farmers to MSMEs are consumers of electricity.

SC 'appears to foster' culture of secrecy, does not seek electoral bond details from SBI

By Rosamma Thomas*  In its order of November 2, 2023 on the case of Association for Democratic Reforms vs Union of India contesting constitutional validity of electoral bonds, the Supreme Court directed all political parties to give particulars of the bonds received by them in sealed covers to the Election Commission of India. SC sought that information be updated until September 2023. 

British companies export 'deadly' asbestos to India, other countries from offshore offices

Inside a UK asbestos factory in 1994 before the mineral was banned By Rajiv Shah “The Sunday Times”, which forms part of the powerful British daily, “The Times”, has raised the alarm that though the “deadly” asbestos is banned in Britain, companies registered in United Kingdom, and operating from other countries, “are involved in shipping it to developing nations”, especially India. India, Brazil, Russia and China account for almost 80% of the asbestos consumed globally every year, it adds.