I reflect in this essay on the significance of Bijaya, a celebration of divine victory that concludes the Bengali religious Fall festival of Durga Puja. I examine what it means to frequently prostrate before the notion of the age-worn dictum of "The Triumph of Good Over Evil." I attempt to show that this dictum, while essentially well-intended, is fraught with the potential for abuse and intentional misinterpretation.

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At Bijaya, 2012

   Given the long and varied history of worship and devotion in India, we commonly hear the significance of the Bengali religious festival, Durga Puja, in simple, perhaps layman's terms, as the "victory of good over evil".   Somehow, throughout the world, this idea finds great resonance, and in every culture we find this wish to be triumphant over some imagined (or occasionally real) "evil" that is out there, waiting to disrupt or otherwise damage the presumed "orderliness" of conscious life.

   For the longest time, I have myself accepted this notion of "good over evil" at face value, and have even spoken of it in what now seems to me to be simplistic terms.   In more recent times, however, upon witnessing the state of events in the human world over several years, and reflecting upon this good and evil paradigm, I have now come to the conclusion that it is incumbent, in fact absolutely essential for all human beings (not just Bengalis or Indians) to move away from this paradigm.   In other words, I am asking for a fundamental paradigm shift in this regard.   Some might see this as rather radical, and likely invoke ideas from established and venerable sources that clearly sustain or reinforce the paradigm.   Are the established authorities, then, in error?   I shall come back to this issue a little later.

   Let me discuss first why I believe the good and evil paradigm has serious problems in its application or interpretation.   To examine the paradigm, we must first establish whether evil exists in this world, and if it does, how it affects humans and other living beings.   The obvious straight answer to the question of evil is of course, yes, evil does exist- it has existed from the very first time Being manifested itself.   When that primal Sattva (the conscious Being) first appeared, as Tagore tells us, it was full of questions, and had few answers:

   (MRC translation from Rabindranath Tagore's Prashna)

   The Sun of the first Dawn

   Witnessing the fresh manifestation of Sattva

  Queried, Who art Thou?  

   The response was silence and enigma.   

   Eons passed.   Then, the last Sun of the very last sunset,

  Pronounced its very last question

   In the stillness of dusk upon the western seashore,

   Who art Thou?   And there was no answer.   (Trans. MRC 10 2012)

   The passage of the eons, however, has brought with it unimaginable varieties and complexities of life-forms, as far as we know, essentially upon our Mother earth.   As Tagore profoundly described in his poem Prithibi, the human entity from time immemorial has been struggling to advance its divine nature, and also to suppress or (perhaps wishfully) destroy its demonic nature.   The appearance of art, culture, music- in fact, language itself, tempered the best within the human being over vast expanses of time.   Namra Holo Shikale Bandha Danob (the Demon, in chains, became soft and mollified), Tagore says.   However, elsewhere, Tagore maintains, Tobu Sheyi Adim Barbar Aankre Roilo Tomar Itihash (yet, the old barbarian continued to afflict your history).   How utterly and starkly true, I feel, to this day.   

   Evil, in its simplest manifestation, is that which causes suffering.   Suffering in its various forms (except for voluntary suffering to end the suffering of others- this is on a nobler plane) is the most fundamental aspect of evil.   Thus, physical harm inflicted upon other beings is evil.   Starvation is evil.   Disease and epidemics are evil.   Bombing, shooting, poisoning and maiming living beings (by use of nuclear weapons, toxic chemicals, agent orange, depleted uranium, cluster bombs, bunker busters or remote-controlled drones- the list really goes on and on, and in this age of instant knowledge, we should all know who the greatest users of these are)-   these are all evil, and the degree of evilness varies with whether these occur in small or large numbers.   Deprivation is evil, as is privation.   Colonizing people or their territories, in material or in spirit, is unimaginably evil.   Annexing peoples' homes or their homelands, invading sovereign territories, creating homelessness and refugees by uprooting entire populations- these evils have been with us from the earliest times, and are with us even as I write.  

   At a more fundamental human level, greed, avarice, fraud and depriving or looting from others- these are the roots of much that constitutes evil.   I would hardly be the first to state this- the great teachers of mankind from just about every corner of the earth have repeatedly issued warnings in this regard.   The greatest irony in all of this is that some of the most depraved, cruel, intrinsically selfish and hateful individuals invoke the names and words of these human exemplars, and then in virtually all their actions and what they propagate, run exactly opposite to what the teachers have taught.   This is true, by and large, of all fundamentalist and right-wing proponents in the world, regardless of religious affiliations.   And even as fundamentalists are busy spewing hatred, exercising the worst forms of hypocrisy and fraudulence, and also when the opportunity presents itself, butchering one another- at some deep, psychological level, I often find narrow, vicious, fundamentalist thoughts and their proponents actually resonating with, and reinforcing one another.   Thus it is that I find that those marinated in absolutist, fundamentalist thinking, actually supporting one another, using false piety and putting on the cloak of religion, even as they periodically exercise vicious violence upon one another, and even more against those that stand apart from them.   The reason I dwell upon this idea of the nexus between right-wing, fundamentalist religious affinity and right-wing politics is as follows.   It is perfectly clear to me that every great soul in history (many of them founders of religious philosophies) have taught lessons that may be briefly summarized as follows:   (1) love all your neighbors, be they white, black, yellow, red; malformed or pleasant to behold; whatever their racial or religious origin; whatever their language or culture; (2) love all the fellow creatures of this earth, and especially love those that need to be protected or sheltered; (3) live by example, not by words alone; (4) above all else, live a humble and simple life, dedicated to uplifting your fellow beings, and selflessly serving the poorest of the poor, and those that have very little.

   The Lord Buddha (who himself renounced great material wealth and became the Enlightened One), Jesus of Nazareth (who repeatedly preached humility and simplicity, and advocated against materialism and wealth, and identified with the poor and, yes, all welfare seekers), and in our time, Swami Vivekananda (the irrepressible Hindu monk who once said, As long as even a single dog remains unfed in my country, I shall appear again and again to serve the needy) -- in every aspect of what these noble humans said, they were indeed advocating what amounts to socialist ideas.   Sharing with others, reaching out to the needy, making the world equitable and just, eschewing amassment of wealth, or its associated vanity and arrogance- these are essentially socialist ideas in the political sense.   None, not a single one of the noble souls would have anything to do with Wall Street, or the various magnates and billionaires that crowd the corridors of vicious political and corporate power.   They have all been the exact opposite.

   Yet- here comes the greatest irony of all.   And the silence of humanity to this cruel irony is truly ear-splittingly deafening.   First let me say that I hold Ayn Rand and even more, her philosophy with the greatest disdain.   Yet, I would at least give her credit for this: at least she did not profess any allegiance to religion; from what I understand, she professed atheism.   Good for her.   At least she was not hypocritical about her brand of intense materialism and self-advocacy.   She formulated an intensely selfish, completely self-oriented, accumulative, materialist philosophy which was every man for himself, the end always justified the means, and anyone or anything that was weak was automatically worthless.   This was essentially an advocacy of social Darwinism at its worst, and those that have since embraced it are invariably drawn to it by its lure of money, power (or as I see it, the illusion of power), and uncontrolled greed, which are all at the root of what I have outlined earlier as the real evil in human life.   These ideas, which are the cornerstone of what I see paraded as capitalism, are exactly 180 ^o in opposition to the messages of the Buddha, Jesus, St. Francis, Vivekananda or Gandhi.   Most ironically, a great many so-called god-fearing, church-going individuals, and more so their pulpit-thumping religious preachers align themselves with right-wing politics.   The basic tenets of right-wing politics are: (1) anyone not like us are aliens; (2) some ill-defined entity (ascribed various names, including God) has "chosen" certain nations and peoples to be special (not too long ago, perhaps even now to a degree, this idea was used to oppress vast populations of "others", enslaving them, impoverishing them, and exploiting their labor in order to amass vast amounts of fortune and wealth), and hence these have an inherent right to the material riches of the earth; (3) those who are impoverished are so because of their own laziness and worthlessness; (4)   a vague notion of personal freedom and opportunity (cleverly put in place by the moneyed interests that perpetually hold the vast majority, including the religious flock, in subjugation) which is nothing but the freedom for the ones of privilege to continue exploiting without end; (5) advocating war and violence anywhere and everywhere in order that (1)-(4) might continue.   Some, if not all, of capitalism's pillars are based on these deeply self-serving ideas.   This perfect comfort with violence, exploitation, bully-behavior, advocating execution (some the most virulently right-wing types are invariably strong proponents of capital punishment; murdering doctors that provide abortion, and of course, dropping bombs, including nuclear, chemical or any other lethal kind, upon those they perceive as enemies, or, "the other"), all while singing paeans to some merciful Father, is irony at its cruelest.   Right-wing politics and religious fundamentalism are thus, most oddly, joined at the hip.   This form of fanatical, self-serving thinking readily lends itself to violence and an intensely cruel pathology.   Thus it is that most, if not all, proponents of guns and firearms (the NRA comes to mind) are right-wing in their outlook, and we also invariably see them shout the loudest about "Christian," "Western", sometimes "Judeo-Christian" and other such "values."   Yet, this cruel and deeply selfish pathology has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth or his message.

   At bottom, proponents of dominant capitalist philosophy use religion or religious symbols as baits to keep the vast majority from questioning the status quo, or redressing society's real ills.   This has long been the modus operandi of imperial governments in cahoots with profiteering and plundering religious establishments (be they in medieval Europe, colonial America, or anywhere else).   This and the associated hypocrisy and deception (which are euphemisms for outright, large-scale lies) define the co-existence of a merciful Father, a Savior, and so forth on the one hand, and the most virulent forms of hatred and merciless barbarism on the other.   Conducting wars and genocide under the cloak of religious piety has worked wonders for the oligarchic elite for many centuries.  

   We note from above that events and conduct that constitute evil have nothing to do with human ethnic origin, language, or culture.   They instead have to do with personal and collective choices, and these may happen anywhere in the world.   Propensity towards violence and the other vices are thus intrinsic to the human being, and are present in humanity as a whole.   It is the minimization of such propensities that is the goal of civilization's upliftment and the advancement of the human spirit.

   Let me now dwell upon what is definitely not evil, yet is frequently depicted as such, quite often from ignorance or deep-rooted insecurities.   Language, ethnic origin, belief system, or sexual orientation are not evil, unless there is any discernable evil intent in their application.   One's physical appearance (skin color, length or shape of the nose, nature or style of hair) has absolutely nothing to do with evil.   People may well have notions of what constitutes physical beauty, yet as has been perennially pronounced, east, west, north or south of the earth:   beauty is only skin deep.   How little attention is paid, sadly, to this fundamental truth.   Simply look at the prolific beauty industry, and the increasingly overwhelming emphasis on fashion trends and tabloid trivialities.   Not long ago, Arianna Huffington, a one-time right-wing affiliate, who turned (in a positive way) away from the warmongering AD 2000-2008 years (even though the frightful warmongering has continued unabated since then), especially from the avaricious and predatory banking industry, started an online news and commentary resource named Huffingtonpost, around I believe 2004 or so.   After a brief period of laudable journalism, I noted with great dismay that this website had also fallen prey to the most shallow and superficial advertising (friends told me this was simply for revenue generation and so forth) and naturally the quality of its journalism likewise also fell right through the floor.   These days, I virtually never visit that website, which has become simply an online version of a combination of the NYT (a journalistic joke in my view) and the New York Post.   Much of the hitherto uncharted worldwideweb has become a super tabloid.   People's languages and cultural practices are not by any means evil.   Yet, these, too, have been historically made to be such because of the very same reasons I have outlined above: insecurity and ignorance.      

   The above bring me to the thesis of this article- what does Bijaya really stand for?   Is it simply a greeting to be exchanged routinely and often mechanically at the end of each Sharadotsav?   Is it nothing more than that?   And, if accosted regarding its meaning, is it simply the worn-out dictum- victory of good over evil?   The answer, I believe, is both a yes and a no.   Yes, it is definitely the celebration of victory, but no, that victory is not what seems to be the conventional notion.   As I have indicated, evil does exist out there, and that evil may indeed be regarded as something demonic.   Hence, we have Mahisasura.   However, this idea that good gets into the gear of warfare (the Devi's many weapons), and goes after a "humanized" or, perhaps dehumanized "demon"- there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that this is all metaphorical.   There really is no demon with bloodshot eyes, frightful fangs and razor-like claws coming to get us.   When we fail to see the metaphor, whether with our Devi versus Mahisasura, or any other good versus evil pairing, that is when societies become vulnerable to constructing demons, or rationalizing the demonizing of some entity or group of entities.

   The above paradox is frequently adopted, sadly, by those wielding power and money in society.   This is the persistent danger of the good versus evil paradigm.   It serves imperial governments, or powerful groups trying to exert control over their rivals extremely well.   Hence, we commonly see imperial governments (sometimes cleverly cloaked as "democracies") constantly inventing "enemies" or "those evil others", in order to then go out under the pretext of being the "good ones", and engage in all manner of self-serving warfare and for all practical purposes, a genocidal killing spree.   For such power-wielding governments and societies to continue their looting, profiteering, and "their ways of life", as they sometimes deceitfully proclaim, there always needs to be an evil, a demon, out there.   When there is none, they have to invent one.   After thousands of years of human evolution, we continue to see this playing out in our daily lives.   Imperial wars of aggression, whatever pretexts they are conducted under, all stem from the carefully constructed good-versus-evil paradigm.   I do not for a moment believe that the visionary Rishis would see their Durga versus Mahisasura battle as a power game between the "haves" and the "have nots."   But it is really quite simple to frame power games under this rubric and thereby fool vast numbers of people, and keep them from protesting the true evil inherent in such actions.   The "enemy" is not evil, it is the perpetrators of such aggression that are evil.   The true face of evil is thus not in the fantasy demons that are constructed, but that of the power-hungry, money-hungry charlatans that use religion and well-meaning metaphors to carry out their nefarious deeds.   From the Ramayana down to the many grossly disproportionate "wars" we see right now, there is a constant parade of conveniently constructed demons and "evil."   To me, there is not a better image of the devil than that of the power-brokers and warmongers that create imaginary demons to embark upon nefarious missions.

   This convenient ruse of creating "demons" out of those that a society of exploiters routinely needs to subjugate and repress, is also exactly the point of origin of all manner of racism, classism and other manner of stratification in society that riddle human history.   Anything or anyone that society decides goes against their state of equilibrium, in other words, anything that is "the other," will then be immediately demonized, and consequently victimized without remorse or the slightest sense of outrage vis-a-vis the inhumanity of it.   These rationalizations have made possible the various genocides and mass deprivation and suffering, usually brought about by the imperial cliques.   As I have stated several times, race, class, sexual orientation, gender or one's belief system have nothing to do with evil, per se.   Yet, these have been made contentious issues, and points of divergence in order to continue the stratification, and maintain the status quo.  

   Of course I see Bijaya as a celebration of victory.   But this is a victory against the true evils that plague all of life itself.   Bijaya was when Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine that eliminated the scourge of polio, or when Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin to combat bacterial diseases.   Bijaya was when humans discovered speech, and thereby found the ability to communicate, and indeed to create great works of art, literature and philosophy.   Bijaya is the celebration of those in our history that truly speak for peace and harmony (the Buddha, Christ, Nanak, St. Francis, Kabir, Ramakrishna, Tagore, Gandhi, and the various war --protesters around the world), and quite the opposite of those that conduct, or justify warfare, and collateral damages, or some sort of humane rationalization of killing innocents.

   I see Bijaya when I see the laughter of a child, I see Bijaya when I see the intrinsic beauty of nature, untouched by human hand.   I see Bijaya when I see compassionate human beings struggle on behalf of their suffering brothers and sisters against imperial aggression (where imperial is a combination of government, military, industry, and increasingly these days, crooked bankers and lenders).   I saw Bijaya when I heard about Rachel Corrie, a young American girl, who could simply have lived a comfortable life in the land of plenty, but instead chose suffering in order to fight the obscenity of the mighty bull-dozing the homes of human beings half a world away, and in the process sacrificing her life.   I find it obscene beyond description when those leading comfortable lives, with shiny cars, gadgets and mansions, demonize those human beings willing enough to offer their lives for a noble cause.  

   I have come to this very fundamental conclusion regarding evil that has been proclaimed for millennia: money and its relentless pursuit (beyond what is needed for survival) are the ultimate root of all evil.   When Gandhi was felled by a bullet, his life's possessions consisted of a pair of eyeglasses, a pair of walking togs, a spinning wheel (which he used as a powerful symbol of self-reliance), and a well-worn copy of the Bhagavad-Gita.   Elsewhere, we see the potent expression, Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.   So much for the violent pursuit of money and power.   So much for the viciously narrow-minded Ayn Randism.   Recall Christ's well-known aphorism:   It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.   Jesus made his ideas deceptively simple.   Yet, how little is the lesson learned.   The professional Jesus-promoters are the greatest purveyors of money, power and tyranny.   Recall Tagore's strident indictment of caste-based repression in his country in his famous poem, My Ill-Fated Country.   Towards the end of this powerful denunciation, Tagore recalls Death as the ultimate leveler through these stinging words (MRC translation):

   Do you not see the messenger of Death arrived at your door

   And the fatal curse writ large upon your vaunted casteism?

   If yet you do not call them all to your doorstep with love

  If yet, filled with contempt, you stay apart

   If yet you keep yourself bound limb to limb

      With the coils of your narcissim

   Be assured (my ill-fated country)- it is in Death, then

   In the ashes of your funeral pyre

  You shall finally be their equal.      (Trans. MRC 10 2012)

   To me Bijaya is the wonderful realization of our own Ramprasad Sen that money and riches are so utterly ephemeral and indeed debilitating.   In one Kali song, speaking as a child to the divine Mother, he says,   (MRC translation):

   Mother, I wish not to be a King, I have no such desire.

  Grant me that I may get enough to eat twice a day.

   Mother, my simple adobe hut is propped up by bamboo poles

  Grant me that I might find the thatch to secure its roof-

   My adobe hut, Mother, is my house of gold-   

  What use have I for a mansion?

   If, Mother, you should place me within a mansion or a palace

  Alas- I shall never say Mother again!

   If perchance, a guest should arrive at my door, Mother

  Grant me that I may not have to hide my face.

   May he be received with warmth, Mother

  May he enjoy a repast in a platter and bowl of kansa.

   Mother, the ways of your sansara

  Rife with the rigors of dharma, I dare not renounce.

   This, Mother is Ramprasad's only desire

  May I find refuge and salvation at your divine feet.  (Trans. MRC 10 2012)

   What manner of elevated and transcendent human is Ramprasad, whose greatest concern in life is the fear that money, and vanity, and thoughtless comforts might keep him from calling Mother like a child, that these useless distractions will act as a wall between him and the Universal Mother.   These lines, as with much that were spoken by Vivekananda, remind us of a divine self within the human being, which is being continuously obscured by mindless pursuits, and by accepting the cruelty and inhumanity inflicted upon fellow humans by tyrants and tormenters marinated to their gills in these vices.   To bring such tyranny of the mighty and the arrogant to an end, and embrace all living beings in fellowship, to me, would be the ultimate Bijaya.   Sadly, such a day, it seems to me, is yet far from realization.

Authors Bio:

Monish R. Chatterjee received the B.Tech. (Hons) degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from I.I.T., Kharagpur, India, in 1979, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, in 1981 and 1985, respectively. Dr. Chatterjee was a faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering at SUNY Binghamton from 1986 through 2002. Dr. Chatterjee is currently with the ECE department at the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Chatterjee, who specializes in applied optics, has contributed more than 100 papers to technical conferences, and has published more than 70 papers in archival journals and conference proceedings, in addition to numerous reference articles on science. Dr. Chatterjee's most recent literary essays appear in Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, published by FDU Press (2004); Celebrating Tagore, published by Allied Publishers (2009); and Tagore: A Timeless Mind by ICCR and the London Tagore Society (2012). He is the author of four books of translation (Kamalakanta, Profiles in Faith, Balika Badhu and Seasons of Life) from his native Bengali. In 2000, Dr. Chatterjee received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2005, Dr. Chatterjee received a Humanities Fellows award from the University of Dayton to conduct research on scientific language. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, OSA, and SPIE and a member of ASEE and Sigma Xi.