term yogin also appears in the Katyayana Shrauta-sutra and
in Chapter 6 of the Maitri Upanishad, where it means ‘a
follower of the Yoga system, a contemplative saint’. The term also sometimes refers to a person who belongs to the Natha tradition.
While the term yogi clearly has a very specific meaning, it can, by extension, be applied to people who demonstrate the qualities of yogis without necessarily being trained in yoga or meditative practices. I remember describing my old boss, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as someone who was ‘anchored in himself like a yogi’, immune to either pleasure or pressure, able to focus on the challenges before him with serene detachment. To the best of my knowledge, he had never practised yoga, but was rather a Wise Man in the African tradition, someone who practised these virtues as hallmarks of personal character rather than as the fruits of a spiritual or religious system.
Yogi Bear is a totally different phenomenon, and I remain at a loss at to why his creators dreamt up his first name, since the avaricious bear in question displays not a single yogic quality. Nor does the other famous American ‘Yogi’, the baseball player Yogi Berra, who no doubt acquired his monicker only because of the similarity of his Italian-derived surname to that of the eponymous Bear. Still, this has led many Americans to be bemused by the term, precisely because they associate it with a cartoon bear and a baseballer rather than with any otherworldly spiritual wisdom.
On the other hand, we in India have the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Ajay Bisht, who chooses to go by the name ‘Yogi Adityanath’. From his sponsorship of the rough-and-ready ‘Hindu Vahini’ to his propensity for proposing changes to the names of towns across the country, there seems nothing remotely yogi-like about Mr Bisht. Still, it is one of the anomalies of the Hindu faith that there is no single recognized spiritual body to award official certificates of yogi-hood. Various bodies award the title of yogi, for people of varying qualifications and spiritual merit. At the end of the day, all that matters, if you want to be a yogi, is the number of people who are prepared to take you at your word, and accept you as one.
52.
Zealot
noun
A PERSON WHO IS UNCOMPROMISING AND OFTEN FANATICAL IN PURSUIT OF HIS RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS, POLITICAL BELIEFS, OR OTHER IDEALS
USAGE
Arguing with a zealot is futile; it is like trying
to read a newspaper in a high wind.
The term zealot is now used only metaphorically, but it is derived from a real group of people who actually existed in recorded history. The Zealots—the term is derived from the Greek zelotes, meaning ‘emulator, zealous admirer or follower’—were members of an ancient Jewish sect, founded by Judas of Galilee in first-century Judea, who were fanatically devoted to the idea of a world Jewish theocracy. They conducted a fierce resistance against the Romans and sought to expel them from the Holy Land by force, most notably during the First Jewish–Roman War (AD 66–70), which ended badly for the Zealots with the destruction of Herod’s Temple and of Jerusalem itself. Their founder paid a high price for his beliefs: two of Judas’ sons, Jacob and Simon, were executed by the Romans for their involvement in a revolt.
The Zealots habitually fought to the death and were implacable in their beliefs, including being ruthless with any fellow Jews they believed to be collaborating with the hated Roman Empire, executing or severely persecuting any they could find. Josephus wrote of a murderous ‘reign of terror’ against Jewish apostates and those who wished to live in peace. Zealots resorted to terrorism and assassination and became known as Sicarii or ‘dagger men’, lurking in public places with hidden daggers to kill people they considered too friendly to Rome.
Zealotry was not just a term for their cause but was even considered a fourth school of Jewish philosophy by the historian Josephus. They had ‘an inviolable attachment to liberty,’ he wrote, ‘and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord.’ Simon the Zealot was listed among the apostles selected by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke and in the Acts of the Apostles.
Most Jews did not regard the Zealots very highly: they were largely condemned for their blind fanaticism and congenital aggression, their unwillingness to compromise, and their refusal to agree to peace treaties negotiated by the rabbis to save besieged Jerusalem (they preferred to fight on even knowing that death was certain). In the Talmud, the Zealots are described as irreligious and also as ‘boorish’, ‘wild’, or ‘ruffians’, and are condemned for their aggression and blind militarism. (The Zealots even destroyed decades’ worth of food supplies and stocks of firewood in besieged Jerusalem to leave the resident Jews no choice but to fight the Romans out of desperation.) Many blamed them for forcing a civil war within the Jewish community that ensured the Roman victory.
The fate of their modern-day descendants is no better; nobody likes a zealot. The term is always uncomplimentary in its usage, meant to denote an unreasoning fanatic who not only refuses to entertain contrary views but is so convinced of the rightness of his beliefs that he tries to convert you to his way of thinking. While zealots are always passionate, fervent and ardent, filled with intense enthusiasm for their convictions, like their historical forebears their zeal is not always matched by good judgement.
In its broadest usage the term can apply these days to anyone who is almost religiously devoted to a belief, an ideal, a cause, a culture, a person, a way of life or even an object. Most football fans, and all football hooligans, are zealots for their teams. Most good diplomats are not. That master of diplomacy, the eighteenth-century French statesman Talleyrand, famously admonished his young trainees: ‘surtout, pas trop de zèle’ (‘above all, not too much zeal’). After
all, too much zeal signifies an unwillingness to listen to the other person’s point of view—and what could be a worse failing in a diplomat?
53.
Zugzwang
noun
IN CHESS AND OTHER GAMES,
A ‘COMPULSION TO MOVE’ THAT
PLACES THE MOVER AT A DISADVANTAGE
USAGE
The grandmaster, outwitted by his opponent, found himself in zugzwang and chose to resign.
Zugzwang, a word of German origin, comes from two German roots, Zug (move) and Zwang (compulsion), so that zugzwang
means ‘being forced to make a move’. It refers to a situation often found in chess (and sometimes in other board games) in which the player finds himself at a disadvantage because he is forced to make a move that will have adverse consequences for his position in the game. Zugzwang applies particularly in those situations where the rules of the game do not permit one to simply pass and decline to move. In zugzwang, the player being compelled to move always means that their move will create a significantly weaker position for them in the game. A player is said to be ‘in zugzwang’ when any possible move will make their situation worse—but they have no choice but to do it even if it leads to certain defeat.
Although the term emerges from games such as chess, it is also used in combinatorial game theory to denote a move that directly changes the outcome of the game, turning it from a win to a loss. This is why I found it appropriate to recall the word when the Maharashtra political crisis of 2019 reached its climax and the three-day government of Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar was forced to resign. When they were sworn in in a ‘midnight coup’ in the wee hours of a winter Saturday, it looked like the BJP had pulled a fast one on their rivals, the Shiv-Sena-NCP-Congress combine that had been spending several weeks putting together a coalition government for the state. The adroit manoeuvring of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, the resort to ‘resorts’ that placed vulnerable legislators of the three parties out of the reach of BJP poachers, and the decision of the Supreme Court forcing a confidence vote on 27 November, placed the short-lived government in zugzwang. Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar had no choice but to resign. Their triumph had turned into a fiasco.
The tables were turned in Madhya Pradesh a few months later, when th
e BJP placed Congress Chief Minister Kamal Nath in zugzwang. First, by packing off twenty-two MLAs to a resort in Bangalore, they deprived him of the opportunity to persuade them to change their minds. Then, by prolonging the Parliament session in Delhi despite the coronavirus outbreak, they prevented him from using the COVID-19 crisis to suspend or defer the legislative session and so buy time. Finally, the chief minister, acknowledging the reality of his diminished numbers and the unavoidability of a confidence vote he was doomed to lose, resigned.
The term zugzwang was first used in German chess literature in the mid-nineteenth century, and seems to have passed into the English language when it was used as such by chess World Champion Emanuel Lasker in 1905. Indians, however, knew of the concept of zugzwang in our writings about the ancient Indian game of chaturanga (later Persianized as shatranj) dating back to the early ninth century, though I have been unable to trace the Sanskrit equivalent of the term, which now seems to have lost out to its upstart German version, even if that was invented a thousand years later. In early Indian chaturanga (c. 500–700), the king could be captured and this ended the game; this was when compulsory moves left the opponent in zugzwang. (The Persian form of the game later introduced the checkmate concept, so the king could not be captured, and zugzwang merely resulted in resignation.) The earliest written reference to zugzwang found so far occurs in writings on shatranj by Zairab Katai, published sometime between 813 and 833, more than a millennium ago!
Positions with zugzwang occur fairly often in chess endgames, especially in king and pawn endgames. ‘Putting the opponent in zugzwang is a common way to help the superior side win a game,’ says one chess source, ‘and in some cases, it is necessary in order to make the win possible.’ One could very well apply that lesson to Maharashtra or in Madhya Pradesh.
In fact when the Fadnavis/Ajit Pawar swearing-in occurred, I had first dusted off another word from my lexicon on Twitter, recalling ‘snollygoster’, an 1845 American coinage for a ‘shrewd, unprincipled politician’. But once the swearing-in turned into a swearing-at, a new word seemed apposite. After all, the coalition had not actually yet staked their claim to form a government. It was the position of their opponents in zugzwang that finally made their win possible.
THE BEGINNING
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This collection published 2020
Copyright © John Butt 2020
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