Eugène Ionesco was a playwright born in Romania, where he witnessed the Iron Guard fall to fascism. His avant-garde play, Rhinoceros was released in 1959 – a manic physical portrait of a city where everyone turns into a rampaging beast. The three act play begins in a quiet, unidentified provincial village in France. Everything changes with the appearance of a powerful rhinoceros and soon, unassuming folks start metamorphosing into violent, untamed, thoughtless rhinoceroses. Sixty years after it was released, watching a re-run of Rhinoceros sent shivers down my spine. The play is not just a light comedy as it was first understood, but a brutal allegory of fascism.
Bérenger, a simpleton, observes “I am not frightened any longer,” while his self-righteous friend Jean declares, “The superman is the man who fulfils his duty.” The audience have heard this clichéd statement many times, but in its cliché lays an alarm bell. The person who conforms is the one who can be moulded into a rhinoceros.
It reminded me of the numerous WhatsAap chats where I realised that people no longer understand what is happening and there is a consensus to conform – whether through subversion, intimidation or euphoria – that my safe place is now a place of unabashed rage and outspoken bigotry. Were we always this bigoted, or are we doing it because hate is easier than ethics? Bérenger scrutinised that if we were to read about the rhinoceros events, away from action, we could be rational and detached. But in the midst of things, one can’t help getting involved.
Are Indians being pulled by the forces of social media and the temptation to be viral? Photo: TT Marketing/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
It is always easy to hate the unknown, especially if they are supposedly inferior to us. When Zomato stood by its decision of cancelling the order of a customer who objected to his food being delivered by a Muslim, many chose to stand against Zomato. The tweet was widely shared and Zomato accused of disrespecting religious beliefs. While the suggestion of forced victimisation was amusing to many, the smiles soon faded away – not everyone is a paid troll or an agenda driven political activist. So is this hate a new trend? Are Indians being pulled by the forces of social media and the temptation to be viral?
Also Read: Zomato: Decoding the Recipe of Hindu Victimhood
Surely, fascist thinking, attitudes and actions are seductive and we have to constantly be wary of them. Top functionaries, including the prime minster, have been accused of following those who issue rape and other threats. For an average person who may not fundamentally be a bigot, this incentive for hate is enticing. It can be the shortcut to changing their middle class lives. A “follow back” from those in power raises their social stature. As Ionesco’s liberal humanist, aware of the risky business of fake news and manufactured plots considers, “We must move with the times.”
Perils of group identity
This group identity has led to aggressive tendencies and normalisation of violence in form of lynching. Many who took part in lynching saw their social prestige rise. The mob resembles a rhino, fed on a dose of alternative facts. In Ionesco’s play, Dudard, a lawyer and classic apologist who chooses the middle ground, critiques that others are dramatising the situation or that there are “only a few cases”. “If you ignore them, they won’t bother you,” he says. In other words, if we conform we are safe. But is it so? Is violence not a manifestation of superiority?
For a teenager in a tier two city, it is easy to be brainwashed by hate. History is now taught via social media and through songs by local artists with loud techno music that work as a record of hate and forced victimisation. Agendas create aspiration; it could be the promise of Ram mandir or a uniform civil code. They learn to take pride in what is not their personal achievement. They feel powerful by sending threats, for they are made to believe that they are superior and the nation is theirs alone. They refuse to see the contribution of others and censure foreign lobbies for any reports against the nation. The universal family of rhinos saw themselves as an Aryan master race, physically superior to the rest of humanity.
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In this morally repugnant environment of escalating violence, liberals and secular people who thrived with a dash of left intellectualism were taken over by a group high on their political victories and acceptability of hitherto whispered ideas. Like the logician with her word play, anchors on national television have showed their fascist leaning and promoted divisive ideas. The principles of pluralism have become a subject of ridicule. Secular people are forced to put up a display of deeds that were once normal. We always celebrated teej or iftar together; today they are being labelled as unique interfaith affairs.
Always celebrated together, iftar today has become labelled as a unique interfaith affair. Credit: Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
These maladroit rhinos are all around, but the Bérengers are also left standing alone – they affirm their identity till the end and save humanity. The moral fibre of such men and women becomes commendable when all around them fall victim to rising tides. For years, Ravish Kumar was ridiculed and threatened for expressing his views on unemployment and strangling of voices of dissent. The Ramon Magsaysay award notwithstanding, he remains among the most hated journalists, so much so that the government has refused to send his wishes for winning what is termed as Asia’s Nobel. Another journalist, Rana Ayyub, faces multiple threats; her crime: speaking truth to power. The Zomato incident showed that most Indians still look out for each other and are not diffident of taking a principled stand. It was unanticipated that many followers of the right wing stood against the communal tweet.
Rejecting the herd
The strongest message of Ionesco’s play is of rejecting the herd and holding on to humanity. Ionesco did not just criticise the horrors of fascism, but explored the unconscious mentality that makes people surrender to ideas they would have individually rejected but fall to because others are doing it, so it must be the right thing to do. People turn unattractive and rhinos are stunning for their strength and power. True attractiveness, as Berenger demonstrates when he finally decides to fight the rhinos and save humanity, lies in moral strength.
Also Read: How to Tell If You’re Living Under a Fascist Regime
The play also serves as a warning that a scheme that begins small can infiltrate and transform societies. He chose Rhinos as a blunt symbol of man’s inherent savage nature. There is the slow deployment of this idea – the first rhino causes no perceptible damage; the second squashes a cat; later ones destroy more property and finally attack Berenger. They symbolise fascist totalitarianism and the ludicrousness of a universe that could produce such metamorphoses. These ideas crystallise into one question: how could humans be this savage, allowing the barbarity of World War II Nazism? By the time the play ends, it seemed like an echo from the past with its surrealist sensibility. Submissively allowing the rhinos to go on – allegorically turning a blind eye to fascism – is as harmful as direct violence.
In 1940, Ionesco wrote in his journal, “The police are rhinoceroses. The judges are rhinoceroses. You are the only man among the rhinoceroses. The rhinoceroses wonder how the world could have been led by men. You yourself wonder: Is it true that the world was led by men?”
The horrors of the question remain unanswered.
Sanobar Fatma is an academician and a political observer.