Saturday, September 29, 2018

Indian Circus and The Government

Many years ago, George Orwell wrote,
"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
Most government in power tries to alter history. But no one surpasses the yen and enthusiasm of the present government. In Amartya Sen's book, Argumentative Indian, I had come across an essay where he points out how some artefacts were placed in certain places to Hindu-ize ancient Indian historical places (this was done during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's term and it had later been disproved). Also, this was before the use of rampant social media when the checks and balances were manageable. This morning I was reading about the history of the Indian Circus, and I came across the names of various fledgling circus back during the colonial days- most rising out of Kerala (if I were a Hindutva historian I would lose my shit) which was the cradle of Indian Circus. Altering names and history is something that you can trust your governments with impunity.Here are some of the names, that need immediate government intervention, as attempted by a right winger friend of mine:
Whiteway Circus ~ fair and lovely circus
The Great Lion Circus ~ the gau rakshak circus
The Fairy Circus ~ apsara cricus
The Oriental Circus ~ Bharat Mata ki Jai circus
Ramayana Circus ~ how dare someone use Ramayana and Circus in the same hemisphere; omitted!

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