Higher officials, not content with the official number-plates, get the vehicles fixed with hooters/sirens, flash-lights and aerials. — File photo.

The moment we step out of our homes we virtually face the visual bombardment of signs and symbols though they are not new to social life. They have been there since the beginning of organised social life. They perform a useful and perhaps necessary function of communicating what needs to be communicated to all in order to keep the society regulated in a manner deemed appropriate by the Czars of religion, politics and culture. The ones of a religious nature are perhaps the oldest, refusing to change or fade out simply because they are as stable and stubborn as the religions or faiths they signify.

Signs and symbols have a dual function; they reveal as well as conceal. Saint-poet Baba Farid, way back in the 12th century, exposed how religious and spiritual symbols hide reality despite their public signalling to the contrary: “Prayer mat on their shoulders, clad in a coarse robe of piety, they have a tongue as sweet as sugar but their heart is as sharp as a dagger —”. So signs and symbols may hide as much as they communicate.

The signs and symbols of social and cultural significance undergo changes keeping pace with the changes in socio-cultural life. In advanced and stable societies that have certain defined patterns of social conduct and public behaviour: They mostly have commercial and functional purposes, as advertisements and road signs suggest. But in a society like ours which has hitherto been unable to evolve norms compatible with the complex needs of contemporary life, what defines social conduct and public behaviour is a sense of raw power, providing a protective ring against any kind of legal and public intrusion.

We are too familiar with the ubiquitous presence of symbols of the state. Who can forget the general who settled the dispute between our president and prime minister with his stick in 1990s? He, waving his stick, sent both the gentlemen packing. So the stick as a symbol, signifies much more than what it actually is; a piece of wood.

Thorstein Veblen, an American economist gifted with unusual insight and famous for his ‘The theory of the Leisure Class’, describes a stick in public life as “an advertisement that the bearer’s hands are employed otherwise than in usual effort”. He sees it as a weapon: “The handling of so tangible and primitive a means of offense is very comforting to anyone who is gifted with even a moderate share of ferocity.”

All officials tagged with the symbols of state in our part of the world, are invariably gifted with an abundant share of ferocity as representatives of a ferocious state. What is displayed at the level of the state also has bearings on social life.

A traditional Punjabi poet, one of the ‘Ustads’ (masters) some decades back in a radio interview was asked a question as to who was the most appreciated poet in the poetic recitals in his youth. He answered without the slightest hesitation: “The one whose fans carried more sticks.”

We are quite familiar with the official number-plates of vehicles. They too need to be looked at with care! We daily witness on our roads the drivers or the family members of state officials in vehicles with official number-plates violating the traffic rules with impunity. The official number-plates have an almost metaphysical aura that mysteriously mesmerises the riders into believing that human rules do not apply to the ones in possession of the magic of signs and symbols created by the supra-human state. They are their shield with invisible spikes that emit threatening sparks, keeping the lowly traffic warden at bay and forcing the other to give way.

Higher officials, not content with the official number-plates, get the vehicles fixed with hooters/sirens, flash-lights and aerials that with their egregious sound and flash announce to all and sundry to clear the way if they want to be out of harm’s way. Anyone who fails to realise that the whole spectacle is nothing less than the contemporary version of royal processions of yesteryears, does so at a great personal risk. So mind the sound, mind the light if you want to save yourself from being crushed under the royal wheels powered by the metaphysical force of the state that do not stop at earthly traffic signals.

You can afford to act otherwise if you have the courage of a saint like Madho Lal Hussain, the great saint-poet of Lahore who, Prince Dara Shikoh writes in his book ‘Hasnat-ul-Arifin’, remained indifferent and continued singing and dancing in the middle of the street when grand cleric Mullah Abdullah Sultan Puri during the reign of Akbar, the great, entered the bazaar of the city like a royal with his fully decked out formidable escort, ringing the warning bells.

On being summoned the saint confronted the grand Sheikh who wanted to issue a religious decree against him for his so-called un-Islamic practices. In a public dialogue the saint exposed the rich cleric who despite having all the resources had not paid ‘Zakat’ (religious tax) and not gone on pilgrimage to Mecca. The cleric’s religious symbolism i.e., official procession, robe, turban and beard, betrayed his hypocrisy rather than his piety it apparently hinted at. The saint had his own symbols; a red robe and a music instrument, signifying a world of counter-culture of mystics.

In a society that is tradition bound and authority driven due to myriad historical factors, power wielders and state officials tend to appear larger than life riding the waves of signs and symbols with a resultant misty ambiance that induces the people to take them as inaccessible aliens with a mission from another planet, deciding the destiny of ‘children of a lesser God’ who, devoid of freedom that is otherwise their natural right, are condemned to suffer their submissive existence on this earth. soofi01@hotmail.com

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The Dawn: July 19 - 2013

It is not just signs and symbols of the state that we have to negotiate with in our daily social life. There are a number of non-official signs/symbols that have assumed the status of virtual authority, imperceptibly impacting our conduct in public and private spheres. Since the state in its dealings with the public exhibits its predatory nature, all those who are likely to share some measure of power with the state authorities (bureaucracy both civil and military) have evolved their own symbolism that points to their seemingly umbilical links with power structure, setting them apart from the people who are thought to be subjects rather than citizens.

Look at our politician whether in power or out of power. He invariably wears laundered ‘shalwaar qameez’ (long and loose shirt and baggy trousers of Turkish/Kurdish origins) with a slick waistcoat whenever he appears in public life. Waistcoat is a trademark of our politician. The politician with his shalwar qameez creates a semblance of connectedness with the people and with his waistcoat he distinguishes himself from them. The former apparently establishes his credentials as a commoner and the latter stamps him as someone especially who can represent the commoners.

The former and the latter both are deceptive in the sense that they actually reveal what they intend to hide. What the symbolism is designed to hide is an unpalatable political fact that our politician with all his trappings is neither a commoner nor a representative of the commoners.

The symbolism sends two different signals to both the establishment that wields power without any check and the people who are powerless. It seemingly assures the public that politician is from the people and their equal but at the same time it attempts to persuade them that he is more than equal. Hence the right to represent them. To the establishment it sends a message loud and clear that being accepted by the people as their representative, he cannot be denied a share in power.

Once the politician manipulates his entry into the corridors of power, the veneer comes off and he is no longer seen by the people as their representative for what he represents. He is a sort of political leader who can manage to rouse and pacify the rabble as and when required by the exigencies of power struggle. Precisely for this quality of his he is accepted as a representative by the establishment which knows fully well that he being not genuine voice of the people can be manipulated with ease.

Content with a few crumbs, the gentleman in waistcoat becomes a handy tool for the establishment in its devious dealings with the people he is supposed to represent.

In an extremely insecure society that we are, almost all consciously and unconsciously rely on the display and use of power which seem to provide a modicum of security needed in day today life. It appears to be a universal malady which has come to be employed as a weapon of defence and aggression. Power as a social sign has been honed into an art that stinks of inner rottenness of social norms born of a value system gone horribly wrong. Strangely those who seem to be more secure like members of parliament, use this weapon more blatantly, betraying a pathological sense of insecurity.

Vehicles carrying plates in addition to registration number plates with MNA and MPA written in bold are frequently seen on the roads. Silent message to all in popular lingo is ‘touch me not’ as if sign of public representation gives the politician authority to make as well as break the law.

The story does not end here. The virus, it seems, is uncontrollable. It has spread to other sections of society which have not been traditionally an essential part of pyramid of power like journalists and lawyers. They too, though not all, love to flaunt the power of the signs and symbols that emanate from their professions. They go displaying the signs of their organisations and chambers, secure in their belief that they will act as an effective safeguard against any mischief in social life.

Even the language is used as a sign of power. Seemingly a well-groomed gentleman or a lady when stopped by traffic warden or confronted by a commoner in an argument would invariably switch to English, a sign of upper-class status, creating a ring of security around himself/ herself that is now a hallmark of the touch me nots.

The use of signs and symbols in its implications is a complex phenomenon. It plays the role of a silent dictator. It, without so much verbal expression, invisibly coerces the people psychologically to accept what is not acceptable and not to reject what is rejectable. What is not acceptable is the right of a person to appropriate means however innocuous they may appear that through implied threat of coercion or intimidation create a space physical or mental where he is placed above law and is indifferent to the civilised societal norms. The internalisation of fetishism of authority however symbolic it may appear, born of historically conditioned mass psyche, makes the unacceptable acceptable for the people. And what is rejectable and is not rejected is self-denial, the genuflecting to the gods who scare the ordinary mortals with the signs and symbols of being invincible and hence not to be questioned or argued with. So signs and symbols are much more than lines and shapes. They are in fact complex symbolic rings of power structure, religious and secular, designed on the one hand to convey to the people the force of authority and on the other hand to conceal the reality of insidious use of it in pursuit of personal power. — soofi01@hotmail.com