A WIDE CANVAS
OUR INTELLECTUAL BANKRUPTCY-1
The Western tradition traces its intellectual history from Classical Greece. When the rise of Christianity obscured this tradition, Europe entered the 'dark ages'. Its intellectual life was revived after the recovery or rediscovery of its Classical foundations during what is called the Renaissance.(14th to 17th centuries.)
The spirit of free enquiry that it engendered, out of the clutches of church dogma, led to Enlightenment, scientific advancement and great intellectual ferment. The US joined this movement rather late, after its Independence, but it soon assumed the leadership due to force of circumstances.
India rivalled and excelled ancient Greece in the splendour of thought and intellectual inquiry. The range and depth of its philosophical enterprise are still unrivalled. India was also an economic power, contributing about 30% of the world GDP in the Christian era, up to mid 18th century, when together with China it dominated the world economy. India was not traditionally poor, as idiots and vested interests make it out to be. India had never known an official church, had never curtailed free thought and inquiry and had never known any dark age. Except during the modern period!
Just when the the American colonies threw away the yoke of colonial rule (1776), India was enslaved by a mere English trading company (battle of Plassey,1757) and eventually became England's greatest colony- the brightest jewel in the crown! But, in 1836 a new educational system was introduced which sought to kill our genius and has nearly succeeded in it.In the last two centuries, India has lost its intellectual vitality and any trace of originality. It has become an imitator in everything.It was in 1776 that Adam Smith wrote his monumental Wealth of Nations and chartered a course for the economic domination of England. Ironically that is also the time our own economic damnation began, signalled by the famines in Bengal,(1769-1773) soon after the company took over the administration! It caused the death of 10 million Indians, mainly in the areas covered by the Company administration, and it was even reported that there were not enough people left to bury the dead.[ Is it a mere coincidence- that the British rule inaugurated the era of famines in India, and one such famine, in the same Bengal in 1943 signalled the end of the British rule in India? See 'Churchill's Secret War' by Madhusree Mukerjee for details.)
I will just give two examples. Once our people took to English education, it did not take them long to be affected by the ideas of democracy, liberty, revolution which were then current. Some clever civil servants sensed this and to humour the Indians, they created the Indian National Congress to enable the English educated Indian gas bags to air their imitated ideas and petition and pray for token participation in the process of administration. Real national leaders saw this tamasha, and demanded full freedom 'Swaraj' and raised the cry Vande Mataram! Sri Lokamanya Tilak and Sri Aurobindo were the real leaders then- in the first decade of the 20th Century. The British govt was alarmed, unleashed brutal repressive measures, sent Tilak to Mandalay and kept him there for 6 years (1908 to 1914). It kept Sri Aurobindo in solitary confinement in Alipore jail for a year, implicating him in a false case. Tilak's health broke down, and after his release, he had mellowed, diluted his earlier nationalist fervour,and he passed away in 1920. Sri Aurobindo was freed by the British court, the charges against him not proven. But he had had Yogic realisations and soon left politics and left British India and settled down in Pondicherry in April,1910.He remained there till his Samadhi in December,1950. He did not yield to calls to return to active politics, once by Gandhi himself, firm in his conviction that Indian freedom was a given and that his work lay elsewhere.
During the short period he was in active politics (1903-1910), Sri Aurobindo was a terror and even the Viceroy acknowledged that he was the greatest danger to the empire. It was simply because of the intellectual vigour of his writing, which the best of British brains could neither match nor answer! They only sought to silence him, by hook or crook. The originality and daring of his writing is breathtaking. His political writings have been brought together in a huge volume titled "Bande Mataram" and no student of Indian affairs can call himself truly educated unless he has read this. And any one who reads this will realise that all subsequent Indian effort is like the squealing of rats, against the roar of a royal lion. It is entirely fitting that India became free on 15th August, the birthday of Sri Aurobindo, the original leader of true Swaraj!
But alas! All our originality ended with Sri Aurobindo.Gandhi entered the scene, and a period of imitation began. He spoke initially of 'Hind Swaraj' but soon settled for routine political agitation. His non-cooperation movement was actually borrowed from Sri Aurobindo's 'Passive Resistance', but Gandhi claimed moral authority from Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. But Gandhi did not fully succeed in this- he abandoned most of his agitations in the middle. Sri Aurobindo had called for "Swaraj"- complete Independence, and not dominion status in 1905, but it took Gandhi another 25 years to accept it! Swadeshi and Boycott of British goods was again Sri Aurobindo's device, adopted by Gandhi in the guise of Swadeshi. Sri Aurobindo had thought of 'national education', and Gandhi had his own quixotic version of 'nai talim' later on. Sri Aurobindo had also spoken about settling disputes without resort to British courts. And uplift of the downtrodden was an important aspect of his national programme. Gandhi adopted all these, without openly acknowledging the role of Sri Aurobindo- an act of intellectual dishonesty. With the arrival of Gandhi on the scene and the ascent of his anointed heir Nehru, all intellectual originality in Indian public affairs ended. Nehru simply continued from where the British had left. And when he did something different, as in economic planning, it was in imitation of Soviet Russia! Gandhi's one and only original contribution had been in respect of the economy- the revival of the economy- but it was effectively buried by his self-chosen heir, Jawaharlal Nehru!
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo presides, while Lokmanya Tilak delivers his speech- Surat, 1907.
Tilak and Sri Aurobindo broke up the Surat Congress, demanding bolder nationalist approach.
Photo from Sri Aurobindo Ashram sources. Acknowledged with thanks.
Our imitative mentality did not end here. When the American colonies had become Independent, and made a Declaration of Independence, this was a document containing an original vision, of momentous spiritual import, though no ordinary sectarian religious sentiment. Thomas Jefferson, on the recommendation of John Adams, drafted the Declaration and included this fantastic sentence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Historians have called this the 'best known sentence in the English language'. While the colonies declared their Independence from colonial rule, they also declared a moral standard for their own governance! It is so thrilling to any one who takes time to reflect on the true import of these golden words.
The portable lap-desk on which he drafted the Declaration! This was his own invention.
Both images from Wikimedia, Public Domain.
But what did we do when we started drafting a Constitution for us? All those who were involved were products of English education, long exposed to colonial ideas and methods, soaked in the spirit of British jurisprudence and practices, and often their admirers, and were unconsciously guided by that spirit. Like a committee inventing a horse, they went about borrowing from every where. Perhaps the only piece of originality is the word Bharat that they used to designate India! The Constitution contains an unresolved conflict between the President and Chief Executive, it contains innumerable points of friction between the Centre and the States, it has no solid stand on fundamental rights, it has no enforceable vision (the Directive Principles are not enforceable). Above all, it has imposed Hindi imperialism on all non-Hindi speaking people and made them second-class citizens by birth! It is already losing shape, having lost its soul by several sinister amendments.
Just think about the monumental stupidity! India has been one of the greatest civilisations, having had a continuous existence of more than 5000 years in record, while all others like Greece and Rome, ended up in Museums and ruins. We had village republics functioning in complete autonomy centuries before Christ, which even the emperor Asoka could not ignore or bypass. India withstood many invasions, and nearly a 1000 years of Muslim onslaught, but did not become Muslim- only one such example in the whole world in 1300 years. Yet our worthies could find not a single idea from the native soil for our constitution! It is as if Chanakya and Manu, Vyasa and Valmiki, Kalidasa and Tiruvalluvar had not existed at all! What shining example of collective educated unwisdom! The Indian Constitution is a prime example of a product of dull,uninspired, mercenary clerical minds, not capable of any intellectual effort beyond imitation.
No comments:
Post a Comment