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On symbols
- Prof. Narasimham Brahmandam

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On symbols From times immemorial, man has used material symbols to represent abstract ideas. Man finds it easier to deal with symbols than the more difficult task of comprehending reality. A nation, for instance is a vague idea that becomes more and more confusing as you attempt greater and greater precision and reason to define it. Nations seem to be transient in both time and space. In olden days, a territory ruled by a monarch was a nation and, naturally, its boundaries extended or contracted according to whether he won or lost wars. In modern times, we have noticed nations being split or fused according to the whims of some super nation or, sometimes, of their own leaders. In political terms, a nation is what its leaders can hold together. If the earth can be considered a geographical unit, can the entire humanity be a nation? Certainly not. It is only the impractical philosophers that nurture such Utopian ideas. How can you have the pride of belonging to a nation unless there is another nation in comparison with which you can claim to be better? Therefore, the politicians have decided that the people of a nation should have something in common other than just being humans. Can people professing the same religion constitute a nation? Yes, so far as it suits the politicians. There are different nations with people professing the same religion and several nations with people professing different religions. Secularism means eschewing religious affiliation in national matters. Our national leaders, who are covered with a thin skin of secularism, cast it off for a short while to allow the country to be divided in to two nations solely on the basis of religion. But they soon adopted the garb of secularism again. And the common man is shuddering to think when the time would be ripe to cast it off again. Being desirous of being both a patriot and a secularist, he is, naturally, confused about when he should give in to which religion and who the arbiter is to decide it. Can language make a nation? No. There are different nations speaking the same language and nations with a multitude of languages. Do geographical boundaries define a nation? Some nations have been demarcated by planting stones in the middle of a single cultivated field. Is a nation its land, mountains, valleys and fields? As the Telugu poet, Gurazada, puts it, a nation is not the inert soil but the teaming people that inhabit it. Teaming people cannot remain anchored to the soil; they overflow into other countries as visitors, emigrants, colonists, conquerors, marauders, tycoons etc. While administrative documents may declare the moment of their change of nationality, it is political knowledge that it would take a number of generations or, possibly, a few millennia before the minds accept the change. Statesmen, therefore, define a nation as a people with common historical, cultural, ethnic bonds and common aspirations, whatever these vague terms may mean. More recently two words have been on the lips of such leaders, ‘protecting the territorial integrity of the nation’ and ‘recognizing the right of self determination’, which seem to contradict each other. Each is upheld as an inalienable right as it suits the leaders. With all this confusion over the criteria to identify a nation, the common man is at a loss to know on what he should shower his patriotism. The piece of land for the love of which he shed his blood yesterday is no longer his nation today; and his continued love for that land would be considered treason now. It is here that the symbol comes in. The nation is symbolized by a flag and a song. Every citizen has to shower on this flag all his love and affection for the nation and sing the national anthem with a full-throated voice and reverential attention. The conqueror can plant his flag in the territory he has annexed and ask the people inhabiting it to salute the flag in token of acceptance of the nationality. The point to note is mental acceptance of the nationality is not what matters but only the obeisance to the symbol. This is where the symbol differs from reality. It is the same thing with religions. To obey all he commandments of a religion or developing faith in its doctrines in the face of evolving scientific methods of enquiry is a difficult task. It is very much easier to go in for symbols, which give one a sense of belonging to some mysterious power, which will ensure the fulfillment of all his wishes for the mere asking for it on bent knees. Hence the carrying of symbols around the neck, or on the forehead, or periodical visits to a place of worship – notwithstanding the conflict between the concept of omnipresence of god and his confinement in an abode of brick and mortar. Thousands of years of symbol-ridden religions have not changed the man a wee bit. But they have surely been useful tool of the politicians and power seekers who think nothing of the rivers of blood that have flowed supposedly to ‘protect’ a religion. It is in the field of art that symbols reign supreme. In fact, if symbolism is absent, a work is seldom accepted as a piece of art. A truthful representation of a picture or scene may involve considerable skill but it is not fully qualified to be called art because it does not provide symbols for imagination. Modern painters have carried symbolism so far that the communicability of the concept itself in jeopardy. The viewer may never know what the artist meant to convey. Many a connoisseur of art takes recourse to gibberish of jargon purporting to interpret a painting, which leaves us no wiser. While both a scientist and an artist use symbols, the former defines what the symbols stand for while the latter leaves them expressively vague. The mudras of Indian dance are patently symbols of communication much similar to those used by the dumb. The notes of music are symbols of the frequencies of the sound waves they produce. Figures of speech are symbols. Letters or plain and simple symbols, though one of the most difficult things to do is to get a people to agree to change their script. What are languages but symbols of things and thoughts? Yet, the love for one’s language is only next to his love for his religion. Probably, the nation comes only next. In order to facilitate the location of the planets, twelve star groups in their path were chosen as milestones by the astrologers. Joining the stars in each group with imaginary lines much the same way as children do to a dot picture, the resulting imaginary shapes were given names like the ram, bull, lion, scorpion etc., purely for ease of reference. But for some astrologers, the names have displaced the reality and they attribute the characters of the symbols to those persons ‘born under the signs’ like the ferocity of the lion or the unprovoked sting of the scorpion etc. Presents are symbols of the inexpressible feelings of the heart. (the use of the word ‘heart’ here is symbolic because feelings arise in the brain and not in the heart, though the latter may react to feelings, sometimes even stopping altogether). In the Hindu style of blessing, yellow rice grains are sprinkled on the head of the recipient to symbolize the blessing. In ancient India, there is dictum that you should not go empty handed to see a child or a king – a wholesome advice. It is easier to give a present – a one-time gesture, than carry the affection for a whole life. Mementoes given to elite participants of seminars and meetings have become an essential part of such conferences. Even nations indulge in presentations. Apart from exquisite pieces of art, on one occasion an elephant was presented – a jumbo present indeed! Political prophets have also copied the religions in symbolism with colours, flags, epithets and salutes. Construction of memorials and ceremonial visits to them – often, perfunctory and mechanical – celebration of anniversaries, jubilees and centenaries of departed persons are all symbolic. Such are also the gun salutes, guards of honor given to visiting heads of states. Hugs are an elaboration of this. Prime Ministers make aerial surveys of sites of natural disasters at considerable cost to the exchequer not because they can add to the relief that local officials or volunteers on the spot are rendering with scant resources, but a symbolic gesture of sympathy. And such symbolic relief is as much sought by the people as the physical relief. At any rate, opposition parties will raise clouds of dust if the visit is not made. The concessions and reservations granted to certain vote bank classes are symbolic of the government’s concern for them; hell will be let loose if they are withdrawn. When a minister visits his constituency (during elections), he stops at a poor destitute’s hut, hugs his child and sips tea that is offered to him as a symbol of love he has to pretend to have for the destitute. Such degeneration of the symbol into hypocrisy is the hallmark of our times and the bedrock of our political strategy. Scientists tell us that what we see, hear, smell, taste and feel are all images conjured up by the brain on receipt of signals into which external stimuli are converted by our sense organs. The Mountain, the solid image of which is formed in our mind, is really an enormous emptiness dotted by countless atomic nuclei and electrons. Reality does correspond to the image formed in the mind but it is not identical with it. To that extent all our knowledge of the physical world is of symbols. Many concepts of higher physics are understood only in terms of mathematical equations and most scientists have no comprehension of what they are in real terms. The unfortunate fact is that the symbols affect our behaviour more strongly than reality. We react to symbols as mechanically as robots do. Fiction moves us more than truth. The film hero is worshipped off the screen much more than in the fiction film itself. It looks as though all our emotions can be puppetted by mechanical means, the same way the insects are lured by chemical pheromones. This is a make-believe world. We constantly delude ourselves and deceive others through symbols and models. Philosophers ask us to reject the appealing symbols and face the reality behind them. But it is no easy task. For centuries to come, man seems destined to remain captive to symbols shut out from the truth.

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