It appears that we seem to be facing a general sense of loss of sense. This loss of sense is a loss of what matters to us to day. Sense points to meaning, value and direction. Sense enable us to think, philosophize and ideate. Hence, with a kind of death of sense, we might even say that we are going through a phase of disorientation in our thinking. This disorientation is not an occasion for mourning. It is and event of sense in our time. It is how we sense our life, our world, our country, our religion etc. This event of loss of sense triggers our thinking of sense, freedom and being -in-the-world. The loss of sense is an impoverishment. It leads to the death of philosophy leading to inability to ideate. But loss of sense is not a disaster. It is an opportunity to sense again. We can think , ideate and Philosophize again from a new horizon that will enable us to sense again.
Maybe while thinking the general loss of sense, we have to think the loss of sense of being Indians. We have lost all sense of being Indians and closed it to a singularized monadic sense today. We seem to be thinking this singularization of sense of being Indian is the only true sense. But we cannot close of sense of being Indian to a singular closure. We as Indians have been and are singular plurals. I am a Goan, Christian, Chinchonkars, Deuskar etc. But several of these senses die when I singularize the sense of being Indian much against my experience and everyday existence. Hence, the loss of sense is closure of the sense of other ways of being that each of us live as singularly plural Indians. Unfortunately, this loss of sense has brought about a politics of hate and set up Indians against other Indians. This is why we are summoned to thinking about being Indians in our time.
Somewhat somewhere a horizon of being Indian is lost. The limit is further limitified. It is brought closer and being Indian is constricted, narrowed made unfree. The sense of being Indian is spilled out of itself like a ink stain on a word. We are made to live on the limit. We cannot be otherwise. There is only one sense of being Indian that is privileged. Other senses of being Indian are unIndianized and even seen as betrayal of being Indians. We are dislocated and de-Indianized. The deconstruction of Indians is complete. We cannot even sense other ways of being Indians. We are living on the limit and are limited by it as Indians.
This living on the limit of what is sensed as authentic way of being Indians haunts us and we cannot truly live what we narrowly sense as Indian. Being Indian has become a hauntology. But the loss of horizons is indeed an opportunity to sense being Indian in a new way and embrace larger and wholesome way of being Indians. It is our moment. We are summoned by It to leave our Platonic caves and come to sense the sun or rise above the maya of everyday life of today and come to sense the paramartika sense of being Indians. We, therefore, have to sense the imperative to arrest the flight of sense of being Indians today.
The death of the sense of being Indians is also a death of not just Indians but also India. What we sense as Indians have come to mean a specific faith community (Hindu). What we therefore sense of India has narrowed down and lost itself and, therefore, has transmuted and truncated to mean a religio-ethnocentric culture-laden place. Thus, the civilizational sense of India is dying if not already dead. Concretely before our eyes, the sense of the nation, community, people , sovereignty etc., have lost its sense. They have acquired another sense and have become oppositional to those that are sensed as others, aliens and even anti-nationals. We are fast losing all sense of being Indians and are defining ourselves by othering other Indians. Therefore, it is a question of thinking of a fuller sense of being Indians in the context of absencing of sense is urgent and necessary.
The task before us is immense. It does make sense to think sense again and recover our singular plural ways of being Indians. Thus, we have the challenge to open the limits forced on us. We have the challenge to open the closures that have closed us to India and Indians. This limits and closures have closed us and built walls around us. We have become closed Indians. Therefore, we have the challenge to rebel, to revolt and cross the boundaries and be free Indians again.
Our Indianizing, therefore, has the opportunity to not just inscribe the limits that have robbed the sense of being Indians but we also have the possibility to exscribe and cross the limits that limit our being Indians and open a new horizon of being-humans/ Indians in India. This new horizon will pave the way for the compearance ( Coming appearance) of being singularly plural Indians. Disappearance of Indian and India into (H)Indians and (H)India appears to be complete. One may sense that it does not take India to any morally high space. Hence, we have the imperative to rediscover the horizon that expands the narrowed India and being Indians.
There is no final transcendental point that we all have to aspire to ascribe and become Indians. At the moment, we seem to be under the maya that this transcendental point truly exists and it is Hindu. Therefore, we all have to copy it , mimic it and become Indians. If we open this closed point of being Indians, we will open other possibilities of being Indians without ceasing to be singular like being Hindus, Goans, Humans, etc or narrowly understand India as we do today. We do have to understand how this constriction of our horizon of being Indians restricts and narrows our sense of being Indians and closes us and sets us against each other. This is why for the sake of India and Indians, we are summoned to face the loss of sense of being Indians and work to recover it and let it flourish again. This will lead to coming of or compearance of new Indians to come who will live their communality/ commonality in difference harmoniously.
