Revolution and Change !

The Third of May 1808, 1814. Oil on canvas, 266 х 345 cm. by. Francisco Goya

It was the winter  of 1976 or 1977; an old lady from our neighborhood rang the doorbell. I opened the door . The neighbor told me  in her heavy Punjabi laced Hindi,'' Son; you have some guests from Kashmir. They are in the Taxi outside. They were asking after your dad in the street, so I brought them over". Honestly, my face fell. It did not cross my mind to thank my elderly neighbor ; instead I cursed  loudly in my mind. Thinking  bad about whoever it was . My only thoughts were; how long are they going to stay? I was not surprised  by the suddenness of this arrival since our one bedroom home was an established long term; no reservations necessary transit point for  several individuals of our extended family and their friends. Too numerous to count. And I knew I will have to give up my  sofa cum bed  for an unspecified time. What rotten luck!.

Well  as luck would have it , my apprehensions were totally unfounded. At least this time round. The guests in the taxi who the old lady mistook for our relatives from Kashmir turned out to be Iranian students . Supporters of  Ayatollah Khomeini and they wanted  to meet my journalist father. I had the ringside seat on that meeting primarily because my father ordered tea to be served to  these guests and it fell on my young shoulders to bring it in from the kitchen. After that no body paid too much attention to  me; a mere child , since they were discussing the  hot topic of  unfolding Islamic revolution and how everything will get better for the Iranian people immediately after. I listened to their romantically lofty and passionately idealistic talk  with rapt attention . My father may have taken their claims with a pinch of salt  as his profession demanded but I really believed them that day. I was all fired up with the zeal of a neo convert ;ready to go  fight alongside them to dethrone Shah and save the people. I imagined myself as a tank commander leading the  charge of the revolutionary guards;  boldly marching  on the peacock throne..... Laughable but true .  Since then we all know how much the  Islamic revolution has helped the people and if all they have managed to do is replace one despot for another tyrant.

Many years ago  in 1917, modern world's first revolution took place in Czar's Russia.  In the word's of an American Journalist  John Reed , who saw it first hand; it was "Ten days that shook the world". Reed was embedded into Bolshevik forces and his famous book  published in 1919  describes the insider's  view of the Bolshevik revolution . The narrative is full of immense verve, energy and  authentic detail. Anyone who reads it will know the greatly humane and loftily ideal principles of social justice and equal participation  in the power structure by common man  that launched  this upheaval .Russia's bad results in the first world war helped in finding disgruntled peasantry and dejected army as the foot soldiers of the Bolsheviks.  "From each according to his ability ; to each according to his needs". Those guiding principles  of communism and their final victory over the bourgeois forces is nothing but impressive. Roughly seventy years after ; I  was in Soviet Russia. There were many things to like but many more things that  did not fit with the image of a worker's paradise.  As our Project Director had told us during a pre trip briefing. "Eat whatever you get or you'll go hungry. " Jokingly he told us to even eat beef if we get it because as he said " Indian cow is our mother ;Russian cow is not related to us! "  I found long lines every where. People lined to buy  basic things like bread.  They lined up to buy even before they knew what  it was they are lining up for. Maybe it is something they can use!! And this was happening in Moscow and St. Petersburg ( called Leningrad in those days). One could only imagine how  it was in the rest of the country. We were state guests of the people's committee of science & technology .  They had us cocooned in the lap of luxury  and put us up in good hotels .Yet at times even those restaurants ran out of this or that. My friend Sanjiv ordered soup everyday after asking what it was made up of and waitress would say Lamb. One day he ordered soup and slurped it  down before he asked her . That day the waitress said " horse meat". A lot of arguments took place  between the two but he was told firmly  to stop whining and  be grateful for  the soup . So Sanjiv's  other choice was to never have soup after that day.  Collectivization of farms  and  means of production had really made a mockery of the great aims of revolution.   It had failed the Russian people. The lot of the Russian people was not any different from what it would have been if they had not beheaded Czar in the first place. They just replaced Czar and his court with a Polit Bureau. It is another story that they have now replaced the Polit Bureau as well with another kind of despotic regime, completely breaking up their country in several pieces as an added bonus.

Our friends in Nepal fought a Maoist armed insurgency against their  King and  the revolution finally dislodged him.  Since that day  the country has lurched from one political crisis  to another and than to another. The lot of Nepali people has yet to see any sort of improvement. Maybe they are the ones who will prove my thesis wrong but I believe Revolutions do not bring change. Change will however bring a revolution.  This is not to say that one should not do any thing to improve political, social or economical  lot of a nation. Question is what method will bring a qualitative change ? A revolution is top down and in your face. It rams down a change through your throat. That's the reason why society throws up down the sink . A change is a gradual evolutionary process . It is bottoms up.  People get used to it  slowly . They engage and interact with it . Changing and modifying  themselves and the processes itself so everything  kind of fits well. This eventually brings about a revolution and a change for the better. 

Take for instance Britain. Since Magna Carta was signed centuries ago ; they curtailed and defined Kings role in the society  and governance.  They gradually increased  the role of House of Commons in the power structure and before we knew  Britain was a stable and powerful democracy where power devolved to an individual through his vote. This is nothing short of revolutionary but it was brought about by change not by a revolution.

 I have no doubt in the  unbounded patriotism; faith ;zeal and commitment of the Bolsheviks or the  Iranian revolutionaries or even the Maoist  of Nepal. They all wanted the very best for their country and their society. Even at the cost of their own lives. It is how they did it that did them in.

The revolutionaries who are agitating  to remove their despot on Tehrir Square  in Cairo would do well to remember and learn.