Midnight's Children

So.....Happy 63rd Independence Day, India!
(Left-click on this image to see how dramatic it is, full size.)

Nationalism and tradition celebrate together in this image of dancers whose coordinated movements bring to mind red-robed Durga, the many-armed Mother Goddess in her warrior aspect. Instead of mace, sword, disc, arrow, trident, she hold flags as attributes of her power. Durga is the mother with a thirst for the sacrificial blood of animals as well as devotees. So reinvigorated, in some ancient versions she bestows fertility on the land. Durga originated as an mountain goddess among the non-Aryan cultures of India. She began as a liminal sort of deity, eating meat and drinking liquor and blood, which are polluting to Aryans. Likewise, her strong warrior spirit distinguishes her from the traditionally submissive Hindu woman. Later she took her place as an establishment goddess who protects the stability of the cosmos, a challenge she takes in stride and treats as play.

In Hindu mythology, she springs from a great convergence of light and heat energy emitted by male gods frustrated by their inability to defeat the dangerous buffalo demon Mahisha. They surrender their potency so she can save the universe. She operates without male allies--sometimes creating female helpers from herself on the battlefield--and always wins.

Durga is not the center of Indian independence festivities, though. That is Bharat Mata, Mother Goddess India. More about her another time. Consider, rather, the president of India, Smt. Prithaba Devisingh Patil, a Durga-like figure as Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. She is decidedly not Durga-like insofaras she must rely on her male and female allies in Parliament who both limit and enable her power.

Her address to Indian citizens on their national birthday spoke directly about communal violence (the commonly used term used for religious strife), the politics of water, the rights of women, swine flu, the need for social justice in the continuing economic development of the country, and the maintenance of India's ancient civilizational heritage. She portrayed India as the land, its oldest image, but as the "noble mansion" described by Jawaharlal Nehru in his 1947 Tryst with Destiny speech , an edifice President Patil said is supported by four pillars of democracy, inclusive economic development, social empowerment and a value system based on a civilizational heritage. Her speech was, of course, delivered at midnight, as was Nehru's on the occasion of the birth of independent modern India. With this new metaphor of the country as a living space built for and by its people delibered at the "stroke of midnight" (he called it the ending of a period of ill fortune brought about because "we have endured all the pains of labor," he created a new mythological space and time for the nation.