Fanatical Devotion and Humiliating Submission

Chaavva is a Hindi historical action film about the life and death of Sambhaji, the second son of Chatrapati Shivaji who founded the Maratha Empire and fought against the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. It is causing an uprising of nationalistic fervor in India. Shivaji has long been a rallying cry among Hindu Nationalists in their often bloody conflict with Indian Muslims.

After the film ends viewers stand while the Indian National Anthem plays. Many movie goers can be seen shouting devotional epithets with fanatical zeal to Sambhaji and Shivaji. They are shouting titles such as "Gajapati, Chatrapati" etc while crying with hands folded or hands on hearts. This mirros the fanatical devotion expressed by devotees towards their gurus, and towards Prabhupada, I witnessed in ISKCON.

If movie goers are deemed disrespectful they are forced to kneel by a mob. While on their knees with folded hands they are forced to chant the same epithets, names and slogans shouted by others. This also reminds me of ISKCON.

Devotees are forced to live their lives in both of these states. They are either on their knees begging forgiveness for the slightest independent thought or action, or swept up into the exaltation of fanatical expressions of obedience and reverence.

This can be found in dictatorial regimes such as in North Korea where people cry out of devotion to Kim Jung Un or cry hysterically over the death of his father Kim Jung Il.

Ideal social environments are founded upon ideas of the dignity of the self. The soul is seen as a spark of the divine and therefore in possession of inalienable rights. Thus every individual has a right to dignity and respect. Every individual possesses divine reason and has a right to approach the world rationally, to determine what it wishes to believe or disbelieve and to determine its future, which goals it wants to pursue. Every individual has a right to justice and equality under the law.

Most social environments in the history of the world debase the soul. The individual has no rights. The individual is by nature powerless. In it's natural state the individual is a slave to be abused and exploited by those with power. All power resides in the ultimate authority figure or figures and is granted the individual in reciprocation for authentic obedience. The authority figure grants the individual a minuscule amount of his power and is thus lifted from the lowest level of contempt and abuse to the next rung of society. From that position he is abused slightly less than before and he can now abuse those on the rung below him.

Attention to hierarchical differences are thus very important. An individual with the tiniest amount of power demands that power be recognized and submission be shown. That power is often wielded without any ethical concern. It is used to gain illicit profit through bribes. It can be used to bend the law, after all the real law is the power hierarchy alone. Members of powerful families can use their name to get rape charges dismissed for their son or cousin or brother, as long as the victim is considered in a lower rung of society.

The tendency is for persons raised in such authoritarian environments to be at your feet or at your throat. Those above you are showered with full throated expressions of submission, those below you are beaten down and humiliated.

Such societies embrace obvious in your face expressions of social hierarchy such as bowing down on the ground, debasing oneself, kowtowing, kneeling on ones hands and knees with forehead to the ground before other human beings, or laying prostrate before other humans. Children are trained to touch the feet of their parents, and anyone else slightly higher than oneself in the social hierarchy.

These cultural tendencies then mix with religion. God is anthropomorphized and fashioned as the ultimate dictator. God's representatives are addressed as "Maharaja" or Great King, and addressed in the same epithets as Shivaji and Sambhaji. All power resides in God and it is meted out by his self appointed representatives, the same repressive authority figures that dominate society, exploit others, abuse others, and demand submission. The idea of God is misused to psychologically enslave people to the social hierarchy, to make sure their remain in their caste and continue to serve as dasas or slaves.

In such societies of hierarchical abuse and control, resources move upward and violence moves downward. Thus the power structure at the top of the society is able to effectively extract wealth and privilege. Abusive religion is a tool of psychological and emotional enslavement to gain the willing participation of the abused. This is often bolstered by the strategic use of fear and hatred for the other.

ISKCON is an extreme expression of such a culture.