On Good Friday, two millennia ago, a Palestinian carpenter-turned-teacher called Jesus of Nazareth was executed for speaking truth to the religious powers of his day. He had dared to suggest that in God’s eyes, all men and women are created equal. For that, he paid the ultimate price.
Many of the truths Jesus spoke were delivered in parables – short stories that taught a lesson. One of the better known of these is the ‘Parable of the Sower’, which, interestingly, holds particular relevance to the propaganda-saturated ‘amrit kaal’ times we find ourselves in:
‘A farmer went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the road, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky earth, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up, but since it had no depth of soil or roots, when the sun rose, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. But other seed fell into good soil and grew, yielding grain thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.’ (Mark, Chapter 4)
Jesus went on to explain that the four kinds of ground are symbolic of four kinds of people and their reactions to the truth that is shared with them.
“There are those who are like the road on which the seed fell. Like the birds, Satan immediately comes and takes away the truth that is presented in them.
Then there are those who are like the rocky earth: the ones who, when they hear the truth, receive it with joy, but because they don’t have much depth, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the truth, immediately they fall away.
Then there are those who hear the truth, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in like thorns and choke the truth, and it proves unfruitful.
But there are also those who, like fertile ground, when they hear the truth with a good and honest heart, accept it and the truth bears a great harvest in their lives.”
The four types of ground mentioned above also correspond to the four kinds of responses people have, broadly speaking, to the often-inconvenient truths told by the truth tellers of our day – activists, journalists, satirists, comedians, academics, and so on.
The Road, with its rocky, hard, unyielding surface, is an apt metaphor for those who are least receptive to any truths that run contrary to power’s prevailing narrative (for example, the colony ‘WhatsApp Uncles and Aunties’). The surface of a road is hard and stony, not unlike the hearts of those who have no compunctions in calling those who question the current dispensation ‘traitors’, ‘urban naxals’ and worse. These are also those don’t think twice before attacking anyone who is part of a religious, political, or social minority.
(The word ‘Satan’ in Hebrew, incidentally, means ‘accuser,’ a fairly accurate descriptor for the majority of the news media that broadcasts hate and bigotry daily.)
The Rocky Earth is symbolic of those “who, when they heard the truth, received it with joy, but because they didn’t have much depth, when tribulation or persecution arose on account of the truth, immediately fell away.” Perhaps these are those who might even have attended a protest or two, posted about it on social media a bit, but who, when things got tough, left the activists and journalists to fight their battles, and quietly went back to living their lives.
A heart-breaking line from an open letter that imprisoned activist Umar Khalid wrote some time back comes to mind:
“At times I feel lonely. Lots of people far more privileged than me who were together in this fight against fascism, in the movement against CAA-NRC/NPR, today choose to remain silent when I am singled out …It makes you feel unwanted. It makes you feel a stranger in your own land.”
The Thorns: It is not easy to live the life of a concerned and active citizen in a democracy, especially when one is constantly surrounded by “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things”. The relentless din of consumerism can very easily drown out the voice of conscience even amongst the best-intentioned. It takes daily effort and focus to remain well-informed and conversant with the events that are shaping our lives and our future, especially in this age of massive misinformation.
The Good Ground: So what is it that makes for ‘fertile ground’? Jesus gives a clue when he talks about those who ”when they hear the truth with a good and honest heart, accept it and bear a great harvest.” Those with ‘good and honest hearts’ possess the capacity to not only honestly see what is going on around them, but also to listen to the voice of conscience and respond in whatever ways they can.
Perhaps one of the best things we can do as citizens of a faltering democracy is to be ‘good ground’ – to make the commitment to stay well-informed, and take the time daily to listen to those who have the courage to speak the truth on their websites, blogs and YouTube channels. That truth, based on facts, will give us the courage, conviction, and direction we need, to do what is required of us in these dark times.
Rohit Kumar is an educator, author, and independent journalist and can be reached at letsempathize@gmail.com
