(Talk delivered by Maj.Gen. Vinod Saighal (retd) at the Rajiv
Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi on May 10,
2003)
The ‘Idea of India’ has been variously commented
upon by several persons, many of them well known, from the perspective
of their own background, whether they be writers, expatriates,
political scientists, constitutional experts, philosophers and
the like. Almost invariably the discipline or the academic background
of the person putting forward the ideas has manifested itself
in the views expressed, perhaps naturally so. This point is mentioned
because the diversity of views of the idea of India can be seen
to be as abundant as the idea of India itself. On the academic
plane, i.e. from the perspective of persons who are able to put
across their views to a larger audience through their writings
or discourses the ‘Idea’ has been regarded, or at
times discredited as one or the other label, most notably cultural,
civlisational, political or an amalgam of complexities, too difficult
to discern with any degree of clarity. As if these complexities
were not enough, the present dialogue on the idea of India has
been overwhelmingly coloured by the controversy raging over secular
and non-secular debates that have taken place or are taking shape
at the very moment when the world itself is being buffeted by
contradictions that it thought it had wound down for a century
or more.
To
a lay person standing aside from the debate on the idea of
India, which itself is a subliminal thrust towards a perceived
ideal for the person informing the debate, the idea per se becomes
a superimposition of the beliefs or prejudices of the person
concerned. Standing back, at some remove from a direct involvement,
it should be possible for any objective observer to anticipate
with a reasonable degree of accuracy the position that would
be likely to be taken by a well known person putting across his
or her idea of India. This statement should not be construed
as a criticism of a given mindset of the idea of India, which
in several cases would be seen to conform to the ideal of the
person formulating the idea of India. The digression at the start
of the paper is made to show that the very subjectivity attached
to the idea of India makes it an imperfect ideal for being accepted
as such – in case it is meant to be so – by the majority
of the people who go through the humdrum of Indian existence
without trying to look for anything beyond the travails of their
existence. To that extent the debate remains esoteric.
The
amorphous nature of the idea of the ‘Idea of India’ allows
for as many interpretations as there are people pondering over
it as an intellectual exercise. There are so many ways of looking
at a country whose civilisational base goes back to the dawn
of civilization itself. An individual, or groups of individuals,
who in their remoteness remain steeped in the traditions patterned
on the lives of their forefathers since time immemorial do not
have to delve into aspects that are of analytical, philosophical
or historical interest to writers and savants, who debate these
issues. They live the tradition. It is part of their very being.
It is the continuum that in their mind was without beginning,
flows effortlessly into the present, and by their reckoning,
moves as easily into the future. It is a faith and an understanding
untrammeled by self-doubt or doubt about the tradition in which
they are steeped.
There
are others, comprising the bulk of the people of India, living
in India, who may share the attitudes of their brethren,
although the pre-modern type of existence would appear to be
an anachronism to many people who have stepped into the modern
world. Here again, by and large the new lifestyle adopted by
them – by some as recently as the last 30 or 40 years – need
not lead to questioning of their civilisational past or their
idea of what that past was and how it is to be lived in the present.
Therefore, in a statistical sense it would be only a small percentage
of Indians who would be grappling with the question of what the
idea of India represents to them or for them.
A re-worked idea of India, shaped at the beginning of the new
century through the dizzying scientific breakthroughs taking
place at a myriad points on the scientific horizon, must take
into account the externalities that will have a major effect
on the thinking of the Indian nation, of all nations, for that
matter. True, that in a country like India the external impulses
are felt most keenly, in the first instance, by the power elites
and the globalised elites in the metropolitan cities most receptive
to them. On the face of it they do not directly buffet the minds
of people in communities still steeped in the ways of their forefathers.
Although the trickle down effect is slower, much slower, it cannot
be escaped altogether, even by people living in remote regions
of the country, cocooned in their time warp due to their relative
inaccessibility. Nevertheless, since the policies being enacted
by the governing elites are directly influenced - or imposed
upon - by the prime movers of globalisation they will, over a
period of time, have an effect on the lives of most people; whether
it would be to a lesser or greater degree will be determined
by the distance of the communities from the centers of globalisation.
Naturally, there will be other determinants as well.
* * **
The
India, which now situates itself at the dawn of the third millennium
after Christ, must take into account the political
aspect. Modern India, after attaining its independence in 1947
has been shaped, reshaped or become misshapen by the parliamentary
form of government that the founding fathers of post-independent
India chose for it in the belief that it represented the best
ideal for ‘their’ idea of India; for transforming
it after centuries of subjugation into a strong healthy society.
Therefore, the country’s political identity is based on
its commitment to certain fundamental principles, namely justice,
liberty, equality, fraternity and the dignity of the individual.
Fundamental rights institutionalize, respect and protect the
individual’s dignity and freedom. The Directive Principles
go further in that they have a strong egalitarian thrust. After
50 years of what many would call national decline, at least in
the realm of governance, blame is being put upon the constitution,
which India gave itself on achieving independence. Rightly or
wrongly, whether condemning it outright or picking holes in it
from time to time, it remains undeniable that the people at the
helm of affairs who guided India’s destiny through that
turbulent period of the partition of India must have based their
actions upon their idea of India. Something akin to what is being
attempted now; except that in the present case the projections
remain academic and possibly idealistic without the compelling
burden of transforming those ideas into actions that could shape
the country’s future for the next 50 years or more, as
was the case with the decisions that followed the ideation of
the founding fathers of that earlier era.
It
would be futile to keep harping on the rightness or otherwise
of the decisions taken at that time by the leaders of the country
whose stature and idealism as well as the sacrifices made by
them during the freedom struggle conferred upon them an aura
and mystique that few leaders can hope to achieve in the present
day. Their stature as leaders beloved of their people reverberated
beyond the confines of the India’s geographic boundary.
It cannot be a matter of satisfaction that charismatic leaders
of yester year who rode as colossi on the national as well as
global arenas have almost disappeared from the face of the earth,
yielding place to pygmies who lead their people through autocratic
dispensations or the vagaries of the ballot box. In the latter
case, often coming to power for reasons far removed from their
ability to lead their people.
Whether
the Constitution failed India or the people who were in the
ascendant over the years as educators, intellectuals,
governing elites as well as the haves, failed the constitution
and the country is a debate that is not likely to die down any
time soon. Nor is it likely that the constitution, which for
all its failings – real or imaginary - has become reasonably
well embedded can be displaced or turned over in the foreseeable
future. Fed up with the state of affairs, public ferment is bound
to lead to changes, mostly for the good of the people as well
as the country. Whether intellectuals and the educated elite,
both within the country and the expatriates, will play a significant
role as harbingers of salutary changes remains an open question.
In the earlier centuries, men of letters influenced the thinking
of their countrymen, or even the world, over long periods of
time. In some cases the movement of ideas would be considered
to have been glacial by present reckoning. This is where the
most significant change has come in for the men of letters, the
shapers of ideas, in the form of information technology. Hence,
the ivory tower appellation of rarefied intellectual debates
need not apply any longer, or at least not to the same extent.
Diffusion and dissemination can take place very fast, with lightening
speed if the mediums of transmission and diffusion happen to
be receptive to the idea.
The
political shape of the nation is bound to play an over-sized
part – overwhelmingly larger, when compared to other factors
that determine the future of the country. Ignoring this fact,
building an ideal that does not take into account the ground
reality in which India is anchored in the opening years of the
21st century, or mired as some others might like to word it,
would make the idea devoid of substance.
* * *
Two
major streams that dominate the intellectual as well as political
discourse of the country today relate to the place
of religion in modern India and the relevance of the philosophy
and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. Coming first to religion, it was
denied sufficient space in the political mainstream - as well
as by officialdom - due to the political philosophy and the thinking
of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India
and the Congress Party that played an overarching role in the
country’s affairs in the opening decades after independence.
Moreover, it might have been a conscious effort on the part of
all concerned to exorcise the ghosts of the violent partition
of India. Whether the post- secular society that India became
in the last decades of the 20th century was inevitable on account
of the transformations taking place in neighbouring countries
and their influence on the two largest religious communities
in India is a question that could be taken up by future historians.
Whatever be the case, religion, in its more assertive and virulent
form came up front in many parts of the world. India was no exception.
Even if externalities had not impinged upon India, the country
would have reached the same point, almost inevitably so, by a
different route. If interdenominational clashes between the two
main communities had not come to the fore earlier, it was also
on account of the firm governance that obtained in the first
few decades after independence, due as much to the latent stability
resulting from over one century of strong, well regulated centralized
authority in India. It was this latent stability, added to the
competence and commitment of the leaders and civil servants who
governed the country in the period immediately after independence
that kept a lid on many of the ills seen raising their ugly heads
today in the country. Matters, of course, came to a head during
the emergency. The post-emergency decline in almost all spheres
of governance and in almost all strata of society has led the
country to the state that it finds itself in at the beginning
of the new century. That it is not a happy state of affairs hardly
needs reiteration.
The second important aspect relates to the philosophy of Gandhi.
Although Gandhi continues to form an important part of the ongoing
political and economic discourse taking place in the country,
and elsewhere in the world for that matter, it has to be mentioned
that in spite of the ideals of the Mahatma quoted with reverence
at most forums discussing the future course of the country, his
economic and political philosophy has not really found acceptance
in the country, in so far as their practical application goes.
And at the end it is difficult to think of an idea of India that
completely dissociates itself from the maxims of the Mahatma,
whether they relate to governance, sustainable development, harmony
in pluralistic societies or for the conduct of nations in the
global arena. It is not surprising that Gandhi continues to attract
the attention of so many people around the world, both as the
man and the ideals that he stood for. Unfortunately, the debate
around the Mahatma rages, especially in India, around elements
that were never put into practice in the land where they took
birth.
Looking back on the events of the 20th century, both pre- and
post-independence in India, one cannot fail to get the impression
that although he did not lose hope or his faith in his ideals
Gandhi might have died a disillusioned man. If not disillusioned,
certainly heartsick at the turn of events. Did the bloodletting
that took place at the time of partition in the land where for
over four decades he had preached ahimsa indicate that his philosophy
had failed? Amongst others, this was the land of Mahavira and
Buddha. It did not end with partition. The bloodletting continues
to this day, in every part of the subcontinent where the father
of the nation traveled. If present indications are anything to
go by it could continue till well into the future seeing the
current trends across national divides in all directions in the
subcontinent. Hence, it can be seen that the ground reality is
almost diametrically opposed to the Gandhian tradition that so
many Indians continue to extol in public forums, be they intellectuals,
social workers, politicians or economists. The ordinary Indian
too continues to revere the memory of the Mahatma. When the state
of affairs threatens to get out of hand people still go to Rajghat
in ever increasing numbers to take a pledge at the samadhi of
the Mahatma.
The
increasing hiatus between Gandhianism and the policies followed
by Gandhi’s successors in India, regardless of
their political leanings, raises fundamental questions for the
idea of India. For the people of India, and for people around
the world there can be no perception of India, real or imagined,
where the ideals of the Mahatma do not loom large. How is this
contradiction to be reconciled? Because, if it is not addressed
and is merely glossed over at every public place within the country
and without, where the name of Gandhi is taken, India will not
be able to emerge unscathed from this troubling dissonance between
the precept and its practice.
Seeing
that India itself has veered so far away from the Gandhian
mould it should have been possible to reject Gandhi’s
philosophy out of hand and move forward without a backward
glance at an
ideal that was considered impractical; or could not be put into
effect in a land were shallowness, hypocrisy and untruthfulness
have become the order of the day, at least in public life. In
which case, getting rid of the baggage of Gandhianism and getting
on with the governance of the country in the non- Gandhian mould
that it has adapted should have been easy.
This
has not been the case. At the same time that untruthfulness
and venality are in full cry, the very leaders who have propelled
the country in that direction have not been able to dispense
with the trumpeting of Gandhi’s legacy because of a lurking
fear that should it be discarded India would not only have lost
its way, it would have lost its soul. Then there would be no
turning back. The thought of that final break, even shedding
the pretence that is, troubles these peoples. They know that
without the pretence they would not be able to face their countrymen,
not at the hustings, not in public, possibly not even in private.
At a deeper level they are not unaware that a final abandonment
of Gandhianism would be tantamount to condemning themselves to
a karmic descent too horrid to contemplate. For, no matter how
immoral the lot that governs the nation, in their heart of hearts
they are deeply religious, albeit in a very warped sense of what
their understanding of being religious should be. They also know
that in India the vast majority of their countrymen revere the
Mahatma and in spite of their poverty, deprivation and misery
still closely adhere to the thoughts and ideals of Gandhiji.
For they are the ideals of Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and so
many other sages and seers who moulded the character and destiny
of India through the ages. That destiny that awaited India at
midnight of 15th August 1947 has still eluded the country. Beneath
the despair and turmoil that afflicts the land that destiny still
awaits India. India will yet produce the leaders who will take
India to the pinnacle that the Mahatma and the sages before him
dreamed of. And therefore, the ideal cannot be lost sight of.
The ideal of Mahatma Gandhi is far too important for the redemption
of India, if it is to find its feet and its true destiny. For
the very same reason it is important for the world as well.
It is necessary to go a step further. The reasons as to why
when the majority of Indians believe in it and the political
leaders profess to believe in it, Gandhianism has not prevailed
in the country of its origin have to be gone into. The main reason
could be the difficulty of transplanting the Gandhian ideal of
the early 20th century. Under an alien dispensation that ruled
the country, and because of it being alien, it started uniting
the country ideologically in the earlier decades before independence.
The circumstances that obtained post-independence after the partition
of India are not the same. And as the years went by, leading
ultimately to the dominant market capitalist economy model pervading
the world in the 21st century, the implementation of those ideas
became even more difficult. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, the
conditions had altered radically, and secondly, having moved
so far away from the Gandhian philosophy and its economic derivatives
it became increasingly difficult to retrace the steps taken.
Having said that, the attempts at strengthening panchayati raj
and the adherence to the principle, if not the practice, of sustainable
development would qualify as a bow in the direction of Gandhianism.
Meanwhile
a fundamental change has taken place in the make up of the
people of India - and the world as well. More than
fifty years after Gandhi’s death, the capitalist model – and
the morality that goes with it - have become the norm. Even countries
most staunchly opposed to it earlier, have embraced it whole-heartedly,
notably Russia and China. Could people of those days when Gandhi
was popularizing the charkha have anything in common with Deng
Xiao Peng’s famous exhortation to his countrymen that, ‘it
is glorious to be rich’. If it is glorious to be rich,
then there is nothing left of the Gandhian philosophy. If not
the masses, at least the political class and the elites of modern
India have embraced Deng’s dictum as fervently as the Chinese
in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, in most cases as strongly
as the American themselves. Whatever be the reason for this departure
from socialism to capitalism, it is undeniable that going back
to the economic idealism contained in Gandhi’s writings
would relegate India to an economic abyss from which there would
be no recovery in the world of today. May be, when consumerism
that is fast overtaking the globe makes life itself unsustainable
on the planet, people across the world will start reappraising
the economic philosophy of Gandhi. That is why the world is not
going to forget Mahatma Gandhi. By association India, rightly
or wrongly, will benefit from that grand reversal, whenever it
takes place on a global scale. If India is to remain as part
of the global economy, without completely shedding some of the
desirable aspects of its socialist past, it must start its own
reappraisal for benefiting from the vision of Gandhi wherever
it is possible to transform that vision on the ground under the
prevailing conditions in the country and the world. If the world
has to save itself from self-destruction Gandhian non-violence
must become the leitmotif of a globalised world, and a reformed
UN structure that allows non-violence between states to become
the norm for the 21st century.
It
was possibly Mahatma Gandhi who said: ‘for my worldly
needs my village is my world; for my spiritual needs the world
is my village’.
* * *
The
Indian diaspora is playing a much bigger role in moulding India’s selfhood than it did before the 1990s. There could
be several reasons for the renewed interest and what is more
the new activism of the Indian expatriate community, which is
now far more affluent and self-assured than their counterparts
who left India to seek their fortunes in other lands before and
after India’s partition. The self-assurance and higher
incomes have allowed people of Indian origin from around the
world to participate more directly in India’s development.
The pace at which the interaction is taking place could have,
over the ensuing decades, a positive effect far out of proportion
to the strength of the Indian diaspora that is actively engaged
in the exercise to move India forward. More importantly, the
Indian diaspora is making itself heard in safeguarding the country’s
interest in the corridors of power in USA and elsewhere. The
idea of India of the expatriates is in many ways distinct from
that of their fellow Indians, in India. It is born out of their
need for self-assertion in their adopted countries in a world
where civilizations appear to be actually clashing - with the
attendant uncertainties that such clashes generate for non-local
persons.
The
image of India for consumption in the West, notably America,
as well as for home consumption in India is also being shaped
by Indian expatriates who now number in the tens of millions
and whose wealth has grown into the tens of billions of dollars.
Their writings, actions and interactions have left an indelible
impression on India’s image abroad. The new lot of expatriates
that went to find their fortunes in the West after the information
technology revolution represented a different breed from those
that had gone earlier. The latter day emigrants being largely
the products of prestigious Indian institutes started off at
higher base income levels and quickly rose to prominence in several
fields. For the same reason they were far more self-assured,
articulate and conscious of the need to rebuild India, as well
as to refurbish its image. Their common institutional backgrounds
allowed them to network far more effectively than their predecessors.
Networking allowed them to form pressure groups for influencing
policy and thinking about India in the countries of their adoption.
This cohesion did not go unnoticed in India, by the government
of India, the political parties, the states, as well as the Indian
media. In-country networking led to inter-country networking.
As their self-confidence grows, along with their ability to influence
developments in India, it suggests that the Indian diaspora will
continue to play a significant role in the years ahead in remoulding
India’s image. Over a period of time this interaction between
India and Indian expatriate communities is bound to enrich India
in several ways.
When
one speaks of global projection of the idea of India, there
is a dual purpose attached to the idea of India. Firstly,
it refers to the idea, which harmonizes with the idea that the
Indian diaspora have formed and are propagating. It has to be
dynamic. It cannot be something that is congealed in some hoary
past and frozen at a given point in time, to be resurrected for
showing India in a better light than the situation in the country
at the dawn of the new millennium would warrant. Similarly, an
idea of India that is superlatively formulated to show India
as the repository of all earthly wisdom from time immemorial,
to the exclusion of the contribution made by other civilizations
would be at variance with the true spirit of the very wisdom
that is being extolled. Arrogance, be it intellectual or on account
of a great heritage, would not go down well with other components
of the human mosaic of the 21st century. Therefore, the other
aspect of the image that India wishes to transmit to the world
must bring out the harmonizing effect of the ancient message
that traveled from India to many parts of the world before many
of the world’s religions in the ascendant today had come
into being.
India will not be able to find its true identity or realistically
arrive at an idea of itself, which the country can live comfortably
with, as also make it a worthwhile idea for global projection
unless the internal contradictions that are coming up are first
addressed.
* * *
No set of people can really live in isolation or remain indifferent
to the crosscurrents being generated in the globalised world.
The advance of technology will soon invade every remote niche
that remains in the world, be it spatial, in the geographical
sense, or the privacy of the human mind, in the metaphysical
sense. Hence, seeing the pervasiveness of the processes that
are being mobilized for invading the last bastions of the human
as well as the natural environment it would be appropriate to
look around the world to see whether there is any country whose
society can be seen, or can be deemed to be progressing towards
the ideal state that a conclave of this nature would be attempting
to interpret, or define, even if it were to remain a process
of mere intellectualization, at some remove from the practicality
of the ideal sought.
Who shapes the national - and international - dialogue? It
is an important question, because it is those people who have
gathered unto themselves the instruments for shaping the dominant
discourse of today, who are leading the world into the cul-de-sac
of negativism and violence. When scanning the global horizon
in pursuit of seeking out societies that my be headed toward
an idea of an ideal state that comes nearest to the global ideal
of the 21st century, one finds that wherever one looks, be it
USA, Russia, China, the countries of Latin America, Africa, Asia
or Europe it is seen that almost all these societies have developed
into systems that have been unable by and large to maintain or
improve upon the social cohesion of societies, which is fast
breaking down in most parts of the world. There are many factors
that are leading to the fragmentation of stable or relatively
stable systems - and societies - that had enjoyed a greater measure
of peace and harmony than they do now. Whether the state of churning
or flux has been brought on by the post-World War II, followed
by the post-Cold War reordering of the world order, or whether
it is a byproduct of rapid modernization and globalisation, is
a question that can be debated at length. Whatever be the case,
the ambient condition today within societies - and between nations
- is far from harmonious. Nor, on the face of it, does it seem
to be heading in a direction that could bring comfort to people
or nations.
* * *
The
questions that would be uppermost in one’s mind when
contemplating India’s future must take into account some,
if not all, of the aspect that are tabulated below: -
Has
the political self-assertion, or the attempt at self-assertion
by some of the deprived segments of Indian society now finding
political representation ameliorated the condition of these classes
as a whole or has it merely enabled the new leaders of the backward
classes to exploit the situation for their own aggrandizement
at the cost of their communities, without bringing any real benefits
to the latter? Carrying this thought process further, ‘ will
these new leaders be co-opted into the governing elites once
the process of self-aggrandizement has reached levels that allow
them to emulate the sections that they were agitating against’?
What will be the outcome a few years hence of the metropolitan
elites around the world consciously collaborating with the forces
of globalisation? These forces might have started from America.
However, they are no longer limited to that country.
Leaders of political struggles, revolutionaries, upholders of
public morality, social scientists and many others in similar
categories have sought to describe their struggle or movement
as one of liberation. It can be argued that the phrase ‘struggle
for liberation’ has fallen into disuse, or become hackneyed.
Nonetheless, it may become necessary to have another look at
these clichés. Since they served their purpose admirably
in the past, are they still relevant or do they sound hollow?
Hollowness can result from overuse or misuse or it can be the
result of the quality or worth of the people who use these slogans
for purposes that may be far removed from the ideology that they
proffer. At the end of it all when applying the term liberation
to India, some clarity must obtain as to where the process of
liberation would lead i.e., liberation from or liberation to?
What the people are being liberated from has been variously described
as hunger, want, deprivation, marginalisation, humiliation and
all the ills that are visited upon the proverbial have-nots anywhere
in the world. ‘Liberation to’ in its ideal sense
can best be described in Tagore’s immortal poem, which
reads:
Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high,
Where knowledge is free,
Where the world has not been broken
Up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the
depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its
arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward
by
three into ever-widening thought and action –
into that heaven of freedom,
my father, let my country awake.
***
All countries have their religious practices, faiths and beliefs.
The distinctiveness of India lies in the primacy attaching to
the concept of self-abnegation and self-denial. In many ways
it goes deeper than similar tendencies that manifest themselves
in many other religions and countries. It is for this reason
that absolute poverty cannot be assigned a true statistical value
in India. Because, at any given time, it is difficult to guess
as to what percentage of the poor follow a lifestyle, which can
be deemed to be below the poverty line due to circumstantial
indigence, or the state of poverty being induced volitionally.
It is practically impossible to fathom the number of mendicants
who go around the country because they have chosen to adopt that
particular way of life. Similarly, stories are still heard of
well to do people giving up their wealth, finishing their duties
as householders, and retiring to the banks of the Ganges to pass
their remaining days in prayer, fasting, meditation and the like.
Most
religions in the world, if not all of them, stress on the need
for forgiveness, tolerance and compassion. In India
compassion extended to all living beings. Many followers of Jainism
to this day go to great levels to ensure that no harm comes to
other living creatures. Compassion for all beings must remain
at the forefront of societal activity and, when the country is
strong enough, even form part of India’s relations with
other nations.
** *
When
looking at the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East and the
region on account of the unilateral US intervention, shedding
at some stage even the fig leaf of justification for occupying
Iraq the supine-ness of the leaders of the countries opposed
to the intervention has to be examined. This is especially so
in the case of India. In spite of the widespread anger against
the Anglo-American intervention, the government chose pragmatism
as the state response to the tragic event. Although the government’s
response was in conformity with the response of practically all
the governments in the world that chose to play it safe, the
issue is raised in this discussion because it is in juxtaposition
to the idea of India, which leaders of India after independence
have been propagating to the world. Although the world has long
become weary of the sermonizing coming from Indian shores, the
message that came through was that India was a country that cherished
the ideals of rightness of action and rightness of response.
In abandoning its core values - the idea of an ancient civilization,
steeped in wisdom and conscious of the difference between right
and wrong - as a basis for conduct of foreign policy, the governmental
elite of the country has vacated the space for basing international
relations on the higher plane of moral principles to non-governmental
entities or individuals who might command a measure of respect
in public life. Needless to add that such abandonment of the
path, or even the pretence, of right conduct, is in conformity
with the prevailing norm across nations as the forces of globalisation
infuse the world with their non-virtues or the pleasure principle
as the fulcrum of all actions.
** *
To
project or even propel India into a future which many people
view with trepidation one must look over one’s shoulder
into the past. Not that remote past from which many people today
want to draw their inspiration - more consciously than the ordinary
consciousness that inheres in the minds of most Indians as to
what that past might have been. That would be going too far back.
Here, the past merely refers to the period after independence,
divided into those early years when many of the participants
(at the discussion) were very young, the Republic of India even
younger. How did people of this generation look at India at that
time, as it was unfolding in the ever present and flowing into
a future that beckoned enticingly, even enchantingly. Doubtless
there were difficulties, trials and tribulations, which the nation
was undergoing. Whatever may have been happening, dejection and
despair were not in the ascendant to the same level that they
are today. A few decades on, having journeyed with India into
the new century, the same generation has a different vision of
India. In spite of the remarkable progress made in many fields – and
the achievements are certainly there for everyone to see – the
spirit that pervades the nation seems to have lost the freshness
and innocence, perhaps naiveté of those early years. What
India has evolved into in the first decade of the new century
is certainly not in keeping with the vision of what India should
have evolved into that people in the first decades after independence
cherished.
Here we come to the first dissonance. India has gained in many
respects. In several other ways India has declined. How does
one strike a balance between the gains and losses when the gains
are in the material plane and the losses in planes other than
material. Care is being taken to avoid the use of the word spiritual
when chalking up the gains and the losses. For while efforts
to resurrect the hoary past merge into the realm of the spiritual,
the understanding of spirituality obtaining now in India - and
perhaps the rest of the world - is not the same as it might have
been when the great Vedic hymns to creation were being first
sung on the banks of sacred rivers that now stand as polluted
as the spirits of the souls that still ritualistically immerse
themselves in these flows to seek salvation. Looking at it this
way, the foremost image that leaps to the surface in the consciousness
plane of the beings of today is a vast sea of pollution where
the scum that rises to the surface represents, symbolically,
the spiritual progress, even if it cannot be measured so as to
be able to offset it against the material gains; represented
almost exactly on the day of the discourse by a figure of 77
billion US dollars (the external reserves of the country in early
May 2003).
Where
does one go from here? Should the country pitch headlong into
the globalising mainstream and let the currents carry it
in the direction of the new forms of nirvana, attained by the
leaders of globalisation - the USA and the West, ably followed
by their counterparts in the extreme east, China and Japan. Following
the leader, in the true spirit of globalisation and the direction
in which it is headed, will prevent people in India from falling
between two stools, in this world and the next. The dilemma is
very real. There are no easy answers. Having said that, answers
have to be found. For it is not a question of black and white,
of simply tossing a coin and then following the path indicated
by the upward face of the coin, pointing towards the sky, the
sun and the stars. It may be easier for other countries to do
so, like China has done. India’s manifest destiny does
not lie in that direction. It lies in realms that can never be
reached by true practitioners of globalisation. Writing in The
Hindu (October 1, 2002), Naresh Gupta aptly sums it up when he
states: “the world of today has achieved much, but for
all its declared love for humanity, it has based itself far more
on hatred and violence than on the virtues that make man human.
There
is a need to engage with those who belittle and condemn India,
so that their varied and rich talent does not remain tied
to an acerbic condemnation of their country – no matter
how real their concern – in a language that can only be
appreciated by the educated elite and foreigners who joyously
lap up this condemnation and confer great honors upon the authors.
Condemnation for the sake of condemnation no matter how beautifully
expressed is not likely to lead to any real amelioration of the
conditions that gave rise to the anger or the condemnation. Writing
in Young India in 1929, Mahatma Gandhi said: “My mission
is not merely brotherhood of Indian humanity… My patriotism
is not an exclusive thing… The conception of my patriotism
is nothing if it is not always, in every case without exception,
consistent with the broadest good of humanity at large.” Rabindranath
Tagore said that while nationalism was often a blessing, too
often it has been a curse. The Indian philosophy of Vasudeva
Kutumbam promotes the feeling of ‘one world’. Jawaharlal
Nehru propounded the concept of ‘Panchsheel’ as the
basis of mutual relationship. The Bhagvad Gita and the Isavasyopanishad
tell us that the yogi sees himself in all beings and all beings
in himself. He sees the same in all. If one sees all living things
as if they were in his body i.e. feels their joys and sorrows
as his own, and sees the same Universal Spirit in all things
then there is no need for protecting oneself against others.
When a man understands that all beings are, indeed, the all-pervading
Spirit, then he realizes the oneness of all things.
***
Whatever
be one’s station in life - from those who are
below the poverty line to those who are the wielders of power
- all need to be reminded that the primary status of everyone
in the country is first and foremost that of a citizen. In that
respect, all are coequal. Similarly, the comity of nations will
have to push towards a United Nations dispensation wherein from
the most deprived nations barely existing as civilized structures
owing to over-exploitation and marginalisation, to those mighty
nations who decide what is good for the world, all must strive
for the democratization of the UN. Therefore, in reshaping the
idea of India, its leaders have to recast their philosophy. They
must resume engagement with all those who were being referred
to as the ‘third world’ countries. The concept of
the third world can be redefined to embrace all deprived nations
whose primary impulse is towards global stability and harmony.
In an over-exploited world these are mostly nations who are struggling
to simply find a place in the sun. The idea of leadership itself
must undergo fundamental transformation. Traditionally, when
talking of a leadership role amongst nations, the implication
was to unite the group to confront other groups of nations seeking
dominance in some form or the other. That remained the mindset
of the post-colonial era after World War II, when the marginalized
nations of the world were trying to position themselves as a
third force between the two superpowers of the day.
The
21st century reality of the unipolar world does not confer
any leadership role upon India, should the country remain wedded
to the prejudices of its earlier experience. If India wants to
be heard, if it wants to strike out independently for charting
a course that propels the world away from confrontation and the
growing spiral of violence, it must adopt as a nation the values
that enriched India in the past and continue to enrich mankind
wherever those values take root. Simply put, those values relate
to non-violence and self-abnegation. The aspect of non-violence
has already been touched upon. The point at issue now is, as
to whether self-abnegation or self-denial, the greatest of human
virtues in an individual can be extended to a nation. If the
course of the history of violence since the last century, added
to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is taken
as a guide, the answer must be in the affirmative. There does
not seem to be any other way. India is ideally positioned to
take the lead. It must continue to make economic progress and
strengthen itself internally and externally. However, having
achieved these goals it should deny itself a position at the
top table. It should not hanker after a permanent seat in the
United Nations Security Council, as that body is presently structured.
India should categorically state that it remains anchored to
the aspiration of all third world countries that are looking
to change the lot of their people; be they mired in backwardness
and poverty because they were the victims of exploitation in
the colonial era, or on account of misgovernance. Having been
a part of the third world, India must seek a collective betterment
for all the nations who comprise the vast collectivity known
as the developing nations. Either they all benefit from the new
dispensation, even if it were to be so incrementally, over a
given period of time, or they collectively hold out for a more
just world order. India must assure them that it will not desert
them no matter how tempting the offers from the rich man’s
club. In reshaping the idea of India the individual and national
identity must aspire to march together for a better self and
a better world.
* * *
When picking up a daily newspaper at random in any of the metropolitan
cities on any given day the impression is likely to remain that
India is an aggregation of dissonances.
The
images that flicker across the reader’s perceptual
frame could include: unity in diversity in juxtaposition to increasing
disunity - the more the diversity, the greater the disunity;
national integration opposed by national dis-aggregation; cultural
plurality yielding place to cultural segregation; multi-ethnicities
leading to multitudinous divisions; and now at the beginning
of the new century the overarching intrusion of capitalism in
full cry, which in developing countries like India translates
into the accentuation of the divide between the haves and have-nots’.
It hardly needs to be stressed that for India to move ahead it
needs to rededicate itself to the ideas of social justice, equality,
fraternity, individual liberty and human dignity that were so
well set out in the preamble to the Constitution of India.
***
People who gather together to talk about the idea of India or
write about it, wherever they might happen to be have to think
about providing a set of guidelines, if not answers, for the
new generation growing up at the beginning of the 21st century
to shape the future of India. The questions that they would be
grappling with would include, inter alia:
· How
much has the globe impinged on India?
How much is India impacting the world?
What do the young people of India want?
What questions are they posing?
What is our response?
Do we have a response (to their questions)?
When we write about these matters or articulate them in different
forums in India and abroad whom are we targeting?
What audience is it actually reaching?
In the land of tolerance isn’t it strange that discussion
on tolerance has become one of the hottest issues?
Role models. Who are they?
Who or what represents the essence of India?
For whom?
India’s conscience. Who are its minders and keepers?
Do we really need minders and keepers?
***
Whatever the transformation in recent years and regardless of
the polarization between religions and ethnic divides that is
taking place, humaneness as the deeper instinct prevails more
in Indian society than in many other societies. For example,
the type of mass exterminations which were carried out during
the Muslim invasions in many parts of Asia and during the era
of the Christian colonization of the world, have never been attributed
to Indian expansionism. Even the atrocities attributed to Indian
security forces pail in comparison when compared to the scale
of the atrocities committed by the armed forces of other nations.
Any number of examples can be given: Pakistan, in East Bengal
where the Pakistan army slaughtered three million people and
raped half a million women, all of them Pakistani citizens since
East Bengal was still a province of Pakistan when these atrocities
were committed; the US excesses in Vietnam; the Chinese excesses
in Xinjiang and Tibet; and so on.
***
At the dawn of the new millennium after Christ, when one looks
around, it becomes abundantly clear that the spiral of violence
within societies, and between nations, has reached self-energizing
momentum that might only be stilled by a cataclysmic event, the
likes of which has not been witnessed before in human experience.
Between
societies and groupings that cohere to form nations the ideal
situation that must be worked towards would be one
where the need for primacy does not arise. Non-violence appears
to be the antithesis of the global reality in today’s world.
Nevertheless, the concept of non-violence which can be deemed
to be the most profound contribution that ancient Indian thought
made to the world must regain its primacy, within India and without,
if human society is to continue to live in a civilized form.
That the essential harmony of all sentient beings, indeed sentience
itself, as put forward by Mahavira, Gautama Buddha and many others
was made the basis for India’s freedom struggle by Mahatma
Gandhi should not be looked at in isolation, as a mere reiteration
of non- violence. By introducing the ancient precept into the
mainstream of the anti-colonialism struggle in India, Gandhi
may have been looking well beyond to the universal projection
of his innate belief in the virtue of non-violence as a survival
imperative for humanity, just when scientific breakthroughs were
on the verge of putting immensely destructive capabilities into
the hands of mankind.
© Vinod
Saighal
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