Colour Colours the Reality

In our childhood we have studied that there are seven colours in the Rainbow. There are three primary colours - red, yellow and blue; three secondary colours – green orange and purple and six tertiary colours obtained as a result of mixing the first two groups. All other colours are combinations and shades of these. According to the psychophysicists, human being can perceive almost 10 million colours. Depending on the viewing conditions, the perception varies. However, what I want to reflect is not the scientism behind it, but the phenomenology of colour in the socialism. 

If someone is asked a question, “which is the natural colour?” obvious answer would be “White.” However, white is not considered the basic colour. In the spectrum, white is the result of seven colours of the rainbow. On the other hand, the most hated colour is, “Black.” Can anyone call ‘black’ as a colour? It is colourless or at least the absence of colour. Scientifically, when a ray of light is absorbed and not reflected back, it is called ‘black’. Therefore, neither white nor back are colours!? Yes, very much debatable. I am not going into it.  

White is the colour some people are proud about and think that it is ‘pure’ and ‘black’ as impure and vice-versa. The world has seen many wars, fights, bloodshed ever since human beings began to reflect over ‘colour.’ In the past, some colours enslaved and colonized the other. The shame is, this even continues in today’s postmodern globalized society! Can one colour be superior to another? If one colour were to be superior to the other, the whole equilibrium of the nature would collapse. 

The colour dominance depends on the light availability, its absorption and reflection. Light availability in the Polar Regions and the Tropical Regions is not the same. The pigmentation in the mineral rich and natural places like dense forest regions and arid desert landscapes varies. Temperate and cold regions have different equation. Therefore, claiming one colour to be superiority in one region and applying it to all other regions is a sweeping generalization and argumentum ad ignorantiam (fallacy of appeal to ignorance). Can anyone say a brown cow is superior to the black-spotted red cow? Absolutely no. If so, why should some human beings are to be considered superior or inferior to the other? Superiority should be gauged not with colour but with the internal traits – ones character, nature, personality, culture and behavior. In other words, your greatness is measured not with the kinds of attire you have, but with your ‘softness of heart’. 

Colour garnishes the reality. Often, multi-colour is preferred over unicolour. If the nature had only one colour, like the Arctic region (in fact not the case there) full of white ice, there would not be any creativity and life. The more colours in the nature, life bubbles out with joy. Varieties of trees and their flowers, colourful birds and animals, varieties of climate and landscape speak wonders of creation. This verily applies to human society. Varieties of cultures, people, habits, way of life, languages, relations, traditions etc. add life to the earth. The more varieties accepted by each other, there emerges a better harmony and peace. The world becomes habitable and in its real sense can be called ‘the earth’. If not accepted, the earth becomes a battle field, a hell. 

Psychologist and Counselors speak about the ‘Colour Therapy’ to treat the ‘unresolved’ brokenness of the self. It is a therapy where by a disorder or ailment is identified with an unpleasant colour. As a treatment, a colour which is pleasant and healing is filled within or the person is immersed in the healing colour. Thus, the unpleasant colour is taken away or abandoned. This heals the person. If a culture or a tradition is not a soothing one, unpleasant or if it is not making one a ‘human being’ it needs to be discarded and a culture / tradition which makes the person ‘truly human’ is to be imbibed. Years of unpleasant and subjugated life will only add agony and not happiness. Increased dose of pleasant colours will make life palatable. 

Colour blindness or Chromatopsia is disease whereby the person is unable to detect a particular colour. It can vary in number of colours. In our social life, many are not just blind to colours but also blind to the reality. Having eyes and sight is not able to see and judge. Even within the family, children do not recognize parents and parents their children and often from such families elderly parents end up in the ‘old-age homes’. What a pity! One community of people, do not recognize the other community. Many are blind with culture and tradition. Some see only the traditional language and letters inscribed in the scriptures and are unable to translate them into the vernacular language and culture and end up as fundamentalists. This is not just the case with some religions, but seen within one’s own religion and culture too. Religion, instead of binding (re-ligare = to bind) the scattered, scatters the bounded. Should I call such religions as salvific? 

I do not want be a Christian if my religion does not allow me to relate with a Muslim.

I do not want to be a Muslim, if my religion does not allow me to relate with a Hindu.

I do not want to be a Hindu, if my religion does not allow me to relate with a Buddhist.

I do not want to be a Buddhist, if my religion does not allow me to relate with a Jain.

I do not want to be a Jain, if my religion does not allow me to relate with a Sikh.

I do not want to be a Sikh, if my religion does not allow me to relate with an indigenous.

I prefer to be an atheist, an agnostic, a Carvāka, an Epicurean, a Materialist and Irreligious, if my religion does not allow me to relate with the last, least and the lost of the society hailing from any traditional background.

I prefer to be blind than to see.

Fr. Raju Felix Crasta

Picture source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/colours-important-trademarks-fashion-in-season-2019-a7705261.html

Tribal Eviction for Corporate Profit

We are shocked and appalled by the Supreme Court order dated 20/2/2019 for eviction of Adivasis and other Traditional Forest dwellers from their Traditional habitats, thus depriving them their right to life and livelihood guaranteed by Article 21 enshrined in Indian constitution. We unequivocally appeal to the Supreme Court to reevaluate this retrograde anti people order which will throw Millions of Adivasis and other traditional Forest Dwellers into the streets., which is against all humanitarian precepts, Natural Justice, the spirit of the Indian constitution and various covenants and declarations of the united Nations charter on the Rights of the Indigenous people. The Supreme Court gave this order on a petition filed by Wild life First which is an extremely callous anti people, regressive conservationist NGO.

It should be noted that the Adivasis and other Traditional Forest Dwellers have been co existing with flora and fauna since millennia in a mutually cooperative symphony and harmony. It is a sheer travesty of truth and historical inustice to blame the Adivasis and other Traditional Forest Dwellers for destroying the eco system and wild life. One should clearly see the nefarious game plan of this anti people wild Life NGO Acting on behalf of the corporate sector and other vested interests to handover the forest land to the corporate sector for commercial exploitation. Already the sword of Damocles is hanging over forests and forest dwellers by the new draft Forest Policy and CAF Act, with a clear cut intention to handover the forest lands to the corporate Sector.

It is quite outrageous that the Government of India which is elected by the people to safeguard their interests did not appear or argue in different hearings of this case before this anti Adivasi order was past.

This is not only a serious dereliction of Constitutional duty of the Central Government but also a conspiracy of complicity to handover the forest lands to the corporate sector. The court order violates Section 6 of the Forest Rights Act which says It is a Criminal Offence not to process the claims of Adivasis and other Traditional Forest Dwellers for their rights to the Forest land Under the Forest Rights Act 2006..

The Supreme Court has asked the Chief Secretaries of 16 State Governments including Karnataka to evict the Adivasis and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers whose claims were rejected by the respective Forest Departments. In Karnataka a Total of 2, 27,014 claims were filled Under Forest Rights Act from this 35,521 claims of Adivasis and 1, 41,019 claims of Other Forest Dwellers were rejected.

We hereby wish to firmly state that the claims of forest Lands under the Forest Rights Act is neither a gift nor an act of charity by the Government of India. This Act was a necessary course correction of the Historical Injustice meted out to the Adivasis under the Draconian provisions of the Indian Forest Act and The Wild life Protection Act. We strongly emphasize that the enactment of the Forest Rights Act was not a result of the magnanimity of the central Government, but was the result of years of arduous struggle by millions of Adivasis. It should also be remembered that historically, Adivasis constitute as a key force in conserving India’s forests, rather than destroying it. The forests in India can not be protected without recognising this key role of the Adivasis. The Forest Rights Act rightly recognises this key role and therefore, we remind the Supreme Court not to violate it.

We earnestly appeal to the mass organizations of the Adivasis, political parties and other progressive and democratic forces to express your deep reservations against this anti people Supreme Court order which violates our right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of Constitution of India.

We would also appeal to you to take these concerns of the rights of the Adivasis within all sections of the civil society, media, activist organisations and the concerned individuals within political parties.

On behalf of Tribals.

(Post appeared in Facebook. Found it worth circulating to conscientize people in this regard.
The Blogger)