Identifying a Public Intellectual

 

Identifying a Public Intellectual

For no reason at all, I wanted to find the meaning of the word, “Intellectual”. Of course, I went to Google, to start with. Google sends me to dictionaries.

A necessary digression (a misnomer). I use a dictionary for a reason different than what most, or at least many others do. They seek a definition of a word. They are blissfully unaware that a dictionary has no authority to define a word (except perhaps in French, where the French Academy rules its marked off area). It merely puts forth the meaning that attaches to a word in common parlance in a place and at a time. This is why we see in a dictionary a meaning mentioned against a word carries a modifier, obs., obsolete.

With that out of my way, Collins Dictionary (Google threw this up for me) gives the usage of the word: [A] person who relies on intellect rather than emotions or feelings. This does not sit well with me and I will explain when I get to a Public Intellectual.

Merriam-Webster: [E]ngaged in or given to learning and thinking.

OK. And, I find that learning precedes thinking. Is it not the normal way that one thinks on what one has learned (at least chewing on what one has heard). Sure. Then, this is what will drive me in the understanding of the meaning of Public Intellectual, a necessary step in identifying anyone as such, or not.

Only a few days ago, I read an article on Prof. Amiya Kumar Bagchi in which he was celebrated as a public intellectual. This dogtag (no offence meant) gives me the point on which I can hang this article. He was an economist, definitely very learned, highly accomplished, guided the state government towards meaningful economic policies, and was an institution builder.  Yet ... beyond economics? The article does not say. To my mind, even if this is not negative, it definitely is not positive. Was C V Raman a public individual? I would say not.

Take any of the Nobel Prize winners in the hard sciences (Economics, sorry economists, is not hard science, indeed, if its science at all), physics, chemistry, and even medicine. The recipients are all great in their fields. Does this make them a public intellectual? I have gone through maybe two dozen lectures delivered by these on the occasion of being conferred the prestigious awards. I came across none (in my sample; sampling error!), going beyond the four walls they constructed for themselves, in a way, in the mould of Prof. Bagchi.

Refer many of the notables who received National Awards (at least some of them of dubious accomplishments). I do not find any public individual among them.

Now, to some of the positives. Satyajit Ray. I proudly declare my ignorance of anything Bengali, even the yummy, diabetes bringing on Bengali Rosogolla! Yet, I believe that he was a humanist, not necessarily going beyond his culture, yet reaching beyond. Likewise, even if not up to the same mark, Subrahmanya Bharathi. One has to read/listen to just one of his songs, “சிந்து நதியின் மிசை நிலவினிலே...”  to understand how within India he embraced everyone, every culture, and every sub-culture, if you wish.  Though a Tamilian, he sang vividly the sweetness of Telugu, “... சுந்தர தெலுங்கினில் பாட்டிசைத்து...”.

Again, an aside, Italian and Telugu share a common trait that words generally do not end in consonants. This automatically creates a sweet connection between words, segueing the two, and this connectivity is what makes these languages the sweetest of them all.

Coming back, Bhagat Singh. I consider him a public intellectual despite the fact that he did not have any stellar educational attainment to his name. Yet, he was courageous, and how! Yes, he did escape after killing someone to avoid death penalty, but faced up to one without fear later. He did not plead for mercy is one thing; but when waiting for the hangman he did not ask for guidance from above. Indeed, he penned a  short essay why he is an atheist. I have read it (an item in my personal library) and it is irrefutable in that the case he makes cannot be punctured.  I do not know whether he wrote while in prison or earlier, yet he stood by his convictions: freedom for India and no belief in God. 

No, I am not establishing a parallel between Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Bhagat Singh as the former too was stoic and an atheist (as per reports) when it was, "Hangman is coming down from the gallows" in the background. I would NEVER consider Saddam Hussein a public intellectual, and am only trying to show that the tag is difficult to attach: Yes to Bhagat Singh and  a loud no to Saddam Hussein.

Next, Jayant Narlikar. He is an institution builder par excellence and has made tremendous contributions to astronomy and astrophysics working with Fred Hoyle, the redoubtable physicist. But, why the tag public individual. Disconnected to his work, he tirelessly promoted rationalism, not necessarily the way to solve problems, but as a secular look at society and as a possible guiding light in the sky.

I would be remiss if in the same breath that mentions Narlikar I do not add Narendra Dabolkar, a doctor, but more relevantly, a social activist, a rationalist, unconnected to his educational qualification, training and early career. His metier was abolishing the scourge of untouchability. Yet, the Government of Maharashtra woke up to him only after he was assassinated! He truly must have left a void. A public individual, if ever there was one.

Aruna Roy is one. An IAS officer, who gave up the power of the government (I have experienced the rudeness of IAS officers; for them, all but IAS ofiicers are commoners!), and toiled for the poor and the voiceless in Rajasthan. An institution builder too, she was the head of  Mazdoor kisan shakti sangathan, a grass-roots organization that rural power centres feared. From IAS to sleeping on the mud floors of villages? That is a public intellectual, in the mould of Dabolkar, I would say. Perhaps the analogy should be reversed. I revere them both.   

Going beyond India, I would name Edward Said, a Lebanese as a public intellectual. A linguist, a concert pianist, but most of all, an indefatigable fighter for Palestinians. Only when I read Orientalism, I realized as deeply as I could ever have the evil of imperialism and colonialism. This was in the mid 1980s. I read the book and his next book The Question of Palestine and I would not believe anyone who has read either of the two books not being sympathetic to the cause of Palestine and also, this might be a surprise, with blacks in South Africa. The two are treatises on the topics.

 Noam Chomsky is one, besides being a formidable linguist, a rebel against oppression and oppressor everywhere. Yes, he is a public intellectual.

To fulfil a promise made in the begiinig, I find Collins Dictionary truly bad in saying that public intellectuals are bereft of emotions and feelings. In their decision making, they go only by reason. This is balderdash. Without emotions and feelings, they could not have set themselves on the path they travelled and also propelled them towards their goals. At every stage of their journey, the motive power was emotions, emotions and emotions. 

Coming to end this – I may not be able to define a public individual, but I can identify one if I know some features of their life. Echoes what a US Supreme Court justice said about obscenity – can’t define but can identify!

Raghuram Ekambaram