Awaiting Burial
Sophocles, was a Greek general, who wrote the play Antigone, around 440 B.C. Creon is Antigone’s mother’s brother and his
son Haemon, is engaged to marry his cousin. Their marriage is doomed, because
Antigone’s brother, Polynices, returning from exile is killed in battle with
his own brother, Etiocles, who dies too.
With the death of Etiocles, Creon, as their nearest relative, ascends the
throne. Antigone, her sister Ismene, Etiocles and Polynieces are all children
of Oedipus, who through ignorance slept with his mother, and then put out his
eyes, when he came to know of the terrible sin he had unwittingly committed.
The chorus has the most important part to
play, and through its sepulchral lines it intervenes at all levels to counsel.
We, too benefit on hearing it’s voice, for they say, ironically speaking of
fate, “The future is ordered by those
who should order it.” Destiny lulls us
into accepting our fate, and free will liberates us.
The real focus of the play is the arrogance of Creon, who
dispenses justice by the measure of his egoism, and it counterposes Antigone’s love for the divine, and for the ordinances of
the Gods, which she will not disobey. There is some cultural motive, some social habit, or instinct
here, of separating the human from the
animal, some space of tremendous courage, where the love for the brother,
amounts to a duty, which involves honouring the body, in death.
We often carry out commands because we have
no alternative, much like the population of Thebes which was given to mutter.
We are under the rule of a variety of despots, national and international, who
make no bones about their ability to rule over the destiny of humans. We are
pushed and buffeted by oligarchies. We know that school children are blinded by pellets, in
Kashmir, that people are shot in Manipur and not given a burial, but unlike
Antigone, we do not press for enquiries and justice. Curiously, though, human beings everywhere, resist
despotism. They protest, they flee, they resist.
Demonetisation came upon the Indian public
without warning, since hoarders and black money funds had ostensibly to be pounced upon, by submitting
all to the same punishment. No one has asked
about hawala and Swiss bank accounts, or the role of the Income Tax department
in revealing where exactly the black money lies.
People have stood in queues, and have got
used to it. They are adjusting to the new dispensation much as if it were a war
zone, where rations will soon be distributed through just such queues. As those vulnerable, and accepting of
government claims to legitimation of these political drives, they must accept their fate.
Ismene pleaded with Creon to release
Antigone, and then pleaded with Antigone in turn to accept her, “But amidst
your troubles I am not ashamed to make myself your companion in misfortune.” Ismene has many lines in the play, trying
desperately to mediate, speaking as a woman, who understands that laws when
passed are totalising, and subjects have no voice. She tries so hard to translate between her sister and Creon, bringing in Antigone’s faithful lover Haemon into her
conversation with Creon, using marriage as a plea for her sister’s life.
Antigone will not accept Ismene’s delayed overture, for her brother lay without
ritual burial, and Ismene had initially refused
to help her.
The
Indian population seems Ismene like, believing that the Finance Minister and
the RBI had together really, really wanted to prove the loyalty of the people
to their Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the five hundred and the thousand rupee
notes lie, waiting to be ritually incinerated. The freedom of speech allows
many to ask, “Is digitalisation, electricity dependent and hacker vulnerable,
really the answer to an economy such as ours?” Do we really want to do away
with the friendly grocer who provides the busy housewife with credit when
needed and conversation between routine tasks. Do we all want to stand in malls
to have Reliance company vegetables sent in by phone and card? Do we want to
support rapid industrialisation which
will pull out iron from holy mountains and render local communities destitute
so that urban roads can be further clogged, or outer space rendered dissolute
with war heads and missiles piling up? We have a right to our opinions, and the
Greens movement worldwide has supported tourism and local communities, with
their horticultural and organic food farms. These are political movements as
much as ideological ones. If the hostile terrains had people friendly policies,
such as access to food, medicine, shelter and education the death rates on all
sides would immediately decrease. We could extend this to international
politics, which have created a dead land of continuous bombing in the Middle
East. Terrorism terrifies, but so does totalitarianism. Creons appear
everywhere.
