HOW DO IDEAS SPREAD?-3

A WIDE  CANVAS

HOW DO IDEAS SPREAD ? -3

Literary ideas

Ideas about literature are usually confined to the academic world. They spread through or stagnate in the academic system. General public  may read literature- even serious ones like poetry; but they have no idea how such literature is treated or interpreted in the academic community. The post college generation- those who left college 20 years ago, say- would have a certain view of some great works of literature or literary figures, like Shakespeare and Milton.But the current academic stress may not be on them. More than that, they may even question the relevance of such figures today! This poses a great danger to the cohesion and cultural traditions of a society. Ideological gaps between generations may develop due  to this. Figures considered icons for two centuries are dropped without a debate! One link between generations and a value are quietly lost! It is one thing to change one's opinion consciously after due consideration; it is quite another for something to get dropped, just like that!

This is not speculation. This is what is happening in the Academic world in the US. Today, students of literature are taught a theory called deconstruction. It says (if it says anything sensible at all) that no piece of literature  has a cohesive or inherent meaning. The meaning is what we "construct". So, it can be dismantled. Multiple interests can be identified in any text or piece of literature, and alternative, or even opposite meanings developed.Thus it is possible to view the works of Virginia Woolf as expressing her anger at paternalistic society. It is possible to view Othello or Macbeth in racial or feminist terms etc. It can be shown, on the basis of the writings themselves that such views are totally unfounded; but once an academic power point decides something on the basis of a theory, nothing else would be allowed in the university. This is actually happening. The public is not aware how the old works are interpreted. One day they wound find Shakespeare is no more read, no longer wanted. A recent survey in the UK indicated that most students do not want to read Shakespeare because his language is not spoken today and cannot be understood. This in the land of Shakespeare! At this rate, newspaper would be the only 'literature' the younger generation  reads! Thus, literary ideas do not spread at all except in closed circles, and that due to institutional fiat! For that very reason, only some ideas spread or rather,are circulated deliberately by vested interests.

All other important ideas would be found outside the system!

General Ideas

It is really strange where we get our ideas from. Most of us do not indeed bother to learn anything new, one we leave school or college. When such people become leaders- in any field,not necessarily politics- they become not only the spokesmen or guardians of the old theories; they become immune or hostile to new ideas. Their mind is closed. They really become senile.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Perhaps, the greatest  example of this in modern India is Jawaharlal Nehru. He visited Soviet Union in the 20s and was shown around by officials. He listened to what they told him, he read what they gave him, he saw what he was shown. On this basis, he became a convinced socialist, fanatical believer in their system of planning. He continued to move with Gandhiji for another 20 years, and was even anointed heir by Gandhiji who said that 'Jawaharlal would speak my language'.  Yet, when Nehru became Prime Minister, he did not adopt or implement a single program of Gandhi, but went in for wholesale imitation of the soviet model.The great violence unleashed by Lenin and Stalin, the suppression of the peoples and nations of Eastern Europe by the soviet military machine, the suppression of even the basic human freedoms- none of this made a change to Nehru's mind. It was as if he had no mind- it was only a receiver, with a line only from Moscow! We got slogans in his regime: Aaram haraam  hai, non-alignment, Panchsheel, Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai,  Socialistic Pattern of Society, Mixed Economy, etc. But was there anything new in any of them? And how did they all end up? Politicians and bureaucrats did indeed work without rest (aaraam) to make  themselves rich by corrupt means; non-alignment brought us two wars- with China and Pakistan; Panchsheel  and  the bhai-bhai slogan were shown bye-bye  by China when they invaded us; mixed economy became mixed-up economy where nothing worked-except shortages and high prices; the socialist pattern led to total bankruptcy of the economy by 1991 so that the country's gold had to be pledged with IMF for a loan! All because Nehru as a leader had no capacity or will to learn new things and absorb new ideas!

Indeed, read his biographies. In all his public life- he did not do a single constructive thing! He is indeed one who has had greatness thrust upon him. 

RAJAJI

In contrast, look at Rajaji- you don't have to agree with him.
After leaving active politics at 70, he returned to our itihasas and started writing on them, interpreting  along the way. After the Avadi congress (1954) where the socialist pattern resolution was passed, he became its main and strong critic. He found that the govt. was turning statist and authoritarian  and commented on that. He found that planning was leading to economic distress and he wanted people to be given freedom to work and progress. He found that it was leading to the politician-bureaucrat-businessman nexus, resulting in the 'permit-licence-quota Raj' and raised his voice against it. Finding that isolated voices would not be effective against the huge establishment of vested interests, he started the Swatantra Party, collecting some brilliant minds as colleagues. He was already past 80 then! And he opposed the imposition of Hindi on non-Hindi speaking people!

But his thirst for knowledge, quest for new ideas did not abate. He found time to read the latest novels like Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and review it in Swarajya! He found time to be in touch with serious political thinking and writing: he was the one to bring to the notice of Indians the brilliant truths of Parkinson's Law: work is elastic in its demands on time ie work expands to fill the time available; officials make work for each other, expenditure rises to meet the income available etc.. The bureaucracy keeps bulging and grows not only unresponsive, but uncontrollable! He wrote his columns regularly in Swarajya week after week- till the week he was admitted to the hospital and died, at the age of 94. And in the 'Dear Reader' column, he wrote on every subject on earth, including on Tamil grammar and English idiom!

The leaders of Madras state decided to name it Tamil Nadu.This is incorrect according to Tamil grammar. There are certain situations in which the last u sound is not fully pronounced or elongated, but shortened. Nadu is one such word. But if the U is added at the end, non-Tamilians, and even half-learned Tamilians would be pronouncing the word wrongly! (This is a problem non-Bengalis face now in pronouncing Kolkatta!) This rule is called in Tamil grammar: KUTRIYALUGARAM ( where the u sound is somewhat shortened in pronunciation.)Rajaji pointed this out. That the bigoted Tamil chauvinists did not listen is different .

Rajaji at a meeting, with three local leaders who became Chief ministers1968
MohanV Raman CCBY 2.5 in http;//creativecommons.org/licences/by/2.5/in/deed.en] via wikimedia commons


The matter relating to English idiom is interesting. During the election campaign in 1962, Rajaji addressed many meetings. He was 84. In one meeting, he used the expression: catch the blackest crow. The chauvinist Tamil newspapers, which circulate mainly among 'the pit' went on overdrive  and overkill mode. They alleged that 'black crow' referred to Kamaraj who was dark in complexion and Rajaji who  was fair, and a Brahmin at that, was thus abusing Kamaraj. The view spread like fire among the people and there was great resentment. Not a single newspaper cared to understand the meaning. Finally Rajaji himself had to issue the clarification: 'catch the blackest crow' is an idiom, where  the true meaning is not what the words normally convey individually. It means when you aim at opposition, aim at the strongest opposition. At that time, Congress was in power, and the strongest party, and every opposition party had to aim at them.It did not refer to any  individual or his skin colour at all!

Thus, till the very end, Rajaji was intellectually active, learning and teaching all the time! And his legacy lasts! The socialist regime was thrown out in 1991 and a new era of liberalisation was ushered in- by a Prime Minister who did not belong to the Nehru blood-line! Rajaji proved right!

 Yes, it is important to remember that good leaders always teach, but not necessarily in word. What can be a better lesson than a life well lived! I salute Rajaji!


Swami Ranganathananda

From a book cover in LKAdvani blog.


A monk of the Ramkrishna Order, we expect him to talk of religion, philosophy, Gita etc. And he did that. Most monks do that, any way. In fact they are meant to do that. But what Ranganathananda did was something more, something different.

In a newspaper article in the mid-70s ( I think it was Indian Express), he referred to a book: "TAO OF PHYSICS   by an unheard of (then) scientist: Fritjof Capra. The book dealt with the latest advances in subatomic physics. The author was a leading researcher in that field. But he was something more.

He kept his mind open to areas other than physics (which most scientists do not do). He found that the findings of subatomic physics seemed to accord with some of the mystical insights found in the Eastern religions: Tao, Yin-Yang of China and Vedanta. Of particular interest to Hindus is the fact that he understood the movements of and in the universe as the Dance of Shiva! I cannot refrain from quoting him:

Five years ago, I had a beautiful experience which set me on a road that has led to the writing of this book. I was sitting by the ocean one late summer afternoon, watching the waves rolling in and feeling the rhythm of my breathing,when I  suddenly became aware of my whole environment as being engaged in a gigantic cosmic dance. Being a physicist, I knew that the sand,rocks, water and air around me were made of vibrating molecules and atoms, and that these consisted of particles which interacted with one another by creating and destroying other particles. I knew also that the Earth's atmosphere was continually bombarded  by showers of 'cosmic rays', particles of high energy undergoing multiple collisions as they penetrated the air. All this was familiar to me from my research in high-energy physics, but until that moment I had only experienced it through graphs, diagrams and mathematical theories. As I sat on that beach my former experiences came to life; I 'saw' cascades of energy coming down from outer space, in which particles were created  and destroyed in rhythmic pulses; I 'saw' the atoms of the elements and those of my body participating in this cosmic dance of energy; I felt its rhythm and  I 'heard' its sound, and at that moment i knew that THIS WAS THE DANCE OF SHIVA , the Lord of Dancers worshipped by the Hindus.

From the preface to the first edition: Tao of Physics, 1974.

Eight years later, in the preface to the second edition, he wrote:

When I discovered the parallels between the world views of physicists and mystics, which head been hinted at before but never thoroughly explored, I had the strong feeling that I was merely uncovering something  that was quite obvious  and would be common knowledge in the future; and sometimes, while writing the Tao of Physics, I even felt that  it was being written through me, rather than by me. The subsequent events have confirmed these feelings.

.......the connection between physics and mysticism is not only very interesting but also extremely important. It shows that the results of modern physics  have opened up two very different paths for scientists to pursue. They may lead us....to the Buddha or the Bomb......at a time when close to half of our scientists and engineers work for the military, wasting an enormous potential of human ingenuity and creativity  by developing even more sophisticated  means of total destruction, the path of the Buddha, the 'path with a heart', cannot be overemphasized.

From preface to the second edition, 1982. There are many editions in the market. 

Some of the words here are worth noting, He felt he was merely "uncovering". The facts were there. And he felt that the book was being written "through'" him!. If we think deeply about it,we will realise, with a pleasant shock, that this is exactly what our Vedic Rishis did: they 'uncovered' the mantras which were then revealed through them!

For my part, I will only add one thing: today, the choice is not only between the Buddha and the Bomb_- there is also BUSINESS! Modern economic and industrial arrangements are thoroughly destructive of Nature ( which people celebrate as "development" and human nature  ( which people celebrate as 'progress")!

The manner in which this book spread in the world without undue publicity and promotion, almost entirely by way of mouth, is an instance that an idea cannot be stopped whose time has come! And good people spread good ideas. Such was our Swami Ranganathananda!

Ranganathananda is interesting in other ways too. He was the one, after Vivekananda, among our Swamis who was always explaining our religion in a scientific spirit and always sought to connect it with modern science. In his exposition of the Gita and the Upanishads, he cites numerous modern scientists and explains the true basis of the theory of evolution: it is evolution of consciousness/awareness. This he has argued with Huxley himself.( This is an aspect on which Sri Aurobindo wrote long ago- nearly a century ago! But somehow, RK Math swamis will not acknowledge Sri Aurobindo openly or wholeheartedly.)

Thus we see great leaders in all areas are open to ideas and are themselves purveyors of great ideas. They make people think. They don't  create or head mobs. They work silently, and it lasts.

Knowledge has many dimensions. But true knowledge has only one direction- towards Wisdom, Unity, God. That is where both science and mysticism have to converge. Rather, mysticism is already there: science has to catch up!

Shiva Nataraja at CERN, European Organisation for Nuclear Research, Genvea Switzerland.

By Kenneth Lu (Flickr. Nataraja at CERN)[CC BY 2,0 http://creativecommons.org.Licences/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

 Another view of the  image. 

TIME-SPIRIT AT WORK?

A WIDE CANVAS

TIME-SPIRIT AT WORK ?

Keen students of history or literature, if they stand aside and reflect on what they read will notice how the over-all ideas of the writers or leading personalities of the times converge on some themes. It is as if they are all part of an orchestra, being directed by an unseen conductor, with an unseen baton! We may perhaps call it the time spirit.

In English literature, this has long been perceived and the different themes and ages named and labelled: Middle ages, Elizabethan Age, Romantic Age, Victorian Age, Modern Age, Post-modern, etc. While some of the differences are real ( eg.Classical as against Romantic), some seem to be merely semantic fashion ( Structuralism, Deconstruction, etc.) The modern tendency is to stress any difference for the sake of it,exalt it and celebrate it as a cult, and build a power-structure round it- be it academic, or bureaucratic.

But in history, the subtle change in ideas or approaches goes largely unnoticed. Our historians divide the whole into periods according to their convenience, which often can be arbitrary. For independent students, somethings can be striking. And such things are  mainly related to individuals.

Winston Churchill is an outstanding example. He was active in politics and public affairs for half a century.He had a dramatic escape in South Africa during the Boer Wars. In politics after the First World war, he became the Chancellor of the Exchequer during 1924-29 and returned England to the gold standard at the pre-war parity- an act of unimaginable economic unwisdom! It led to a period of great economic distress for England. He was in the political wilderness in the 30s but this was the period in which he kept warning England and USA about the dangers from Nazi Germany. He was taken as a war-monger, and consistently ignored. But Germany started the Second World War ( even as it had started the First) on 3 September 1939. PM Neville Chamberlain stood discredited, and Churchill was made PM on 10 May 1940. He resisted the ideas of surrender, galvanised the nation and led England to a magnificent triumph.  But in the general election in 1945, his party was defeated and he had to sit in the Opposition! He became PM again in 1951.

Churchill making his famous V sign ten days after taking over as PM. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

In this life, we see how the Time Spirit played with him. In the spell as Chancellor, he was acting as the arch-conservative, keen on restoring England to its past glory and chose the the return to gold standard at pre-war parity as his instrument- a monumental blunder. But as PM, he was an instrument in the hands of the Time Spirit, resisting the gravest evil force the world had seen, in the form of Hitler. Later, he had misgivings about Stalin too, but by that time, the US had become the real power, and Roosevelt did not listen to him. The Time-Spirit would not let Churchill remain silent.  No longer the PM, invited to the US by president Truman, Churchill delivered his historic "Iron Curtain" speech on 5 March 1946:

Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing  tendencies........

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended  across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and eastern Europe: Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia. all these famous cities  and populations around them lie in the Soviet sphere and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and increasing measure of control from Moscow.

In the complacent glow of the post-war peace that the West was enjoying, and weary of any more war, the US and the West ignored Churchill, while Stalin promptly called him war monger! Yet within a year, Stalin repudiated the agreement reached at Yalta  in February 1945 and went ahead to build up his East European empire, which the US was unable to stop. (But Churchill had also made a slip: he did not fully trust Stalin, but somehow yielded at Yalta.. He had hoped that he was not making a mistake, unlike Chamberlain who made a mistake in trusting Hitler. But this was Churchill's mistake.)

Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta: Feb, 1945
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

It took nearly half a century for the countries of Eastern and Central Europe to come out of the Soviet orbit, when the USSR itself disintegrated. But those countries have not yet recovered economically and fully regained their former poise. Meanwhile, the world has also come to realise that Stalin was far more cruel, and had killed more people than even Hitler. Hitler killed about 6 million Jews in the Holocaust; Stalin is said to have killed from 20 million to 60 million civilians in different stages!

I am inclined to think that today the West is committing the same mistake in underestimating the menace from Islamic forces. US is coming closer to Iran , like Chamberlain did with respect to Hitler. There is no outstanding figure in the West like Churchill today, though independent scholars are warning about the danger from Islamic forces. The Western leaders are seeing and believing a non-existent difference between Islam as such, and its militant form- which Muslims themselves do not believe in! They are appeasing the Muslims, in country after country. We do not know how the Time-Spirit is operating now!

In India we have seen other aspects of the Time Spirit. While Gandhiji was fighting for freedom, Dr.Ambedkar was supporting the British govt. Gandhiji and his associates were arrested  and put in prison in August 1942, while Dr.Ambedkar joined the Viceroy's council! Yet in Independent India, it is his followers who wield power and his pictures are seen along with those of Gandhiji in public places! In Tamil Nadu, E.V.Ramasway Naicker, the leader of the Dravidian party cabled  Attlee on 3 July 1947 that  they should create a Dravidanadu for the Muslims and Dravidians of Madras! Yet, it is his followers who have been ruling Tamil Nad for the last 40 years, and the self-styled Indian National Congress is courting one or the other Dravidian faction for its survival!

Pandit Nehru was anointed his heir by Gandhiji himself. Yet, Nehru did not take up even a single programme or idea of Gandhiji for implementation! He had opted for the Soviet model, and was now increasingly surrounded by leftists of different hues.All true Gandhians left him, but they operated individually. The power structure and party machinery so changed after Independence that communal considerations weighed in governance, while economic policies became more and more authoritarian and Statist. Only Rajaji was able to see the danger it posed for our democracy and economy and he raised the banner of revolt against the Permit-Licence- Quota Raj! Yet , he went without mass support. He formed the 'creative minority'. It took 30 more years, a near total economic collapse on the external account and a temporary break from the hold of the Nehru dynasty for the Govt to make a shift in policy, introducing the so-called Liberalisation! It is more than 20 years since, but we are still talking about it! The more it is said to change, the more it looks like the old dispensation!

Rajaji as Governor General with Sardar Baldev Singh, India's defence minister and the Service Chiefs, 1948. 
The former Governor General became the guardian-general of our democracy, anticipating the dangers of rising statism- so menacingly realised during the Emergency, 5 years after his passing!

During the freedom movement, all our leaders were inspired by our National ideals. Tilak talked of Swaraj,  they raised slogans of Vande Mataram, treating the country as the Divine Mother. This was the slogan dominating our nation before Gandhiji came. It reached its crescendo during and after the Bengal partition of 1905, and reverberated throughout the country. But  the colonial govt.unleashed savage repression , leaders like Tilak were imprisoned at Mandalay, Sri Aurobindo was kept in solitary confinement at Alipore jail for a year from May, 1908 to 1909 and in 4 short years, the complexion of the country changed. A deathly silence descended on the nation.

 Lokamanya Balgangadhar Tilak who taught us: "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it".



Coming out of the jail, Sri Aurobindo did not miss the spirit of the times. He said in his Uttarpara speech on 30 May 1909 :

It is I this time who have spent one year in seclusion, and now that I come out I find all changed. One (Tilak) who always sat by my side and was associated in my work is a prisoner in Burma; another (Lala Lajpat Rai) is in the north rotting in detention.

When I went to jail the whole country was alive with the cry of Bande Mataram, alive with the hope of a nation,the hope of millions of men who have risen out of degradation. When I came out of jail I listened for that cry, but there was instead a silence. A hush had fallen on the country and men seemed bewildered; for instead of God's bright heaven full of the vision of the future that had been before us, there seemed to be overhead a leaden sky from which human thunders and lightnings rained.......But one thing I knew, that as it was the Almighty Power of God which had raised that cry, that hope, so it was the same power which had sent down that silence. He who was in the shouting and the movement was also in the pause and the hush. He has sent it upon us, so that the nation might draw back for a moment and look into itself and know His will. 

Sri Aurobindo. 
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Will any of our present day politicians - who deserves to be called a 'leader'?- think of or utter the word God  or Almighty Power in respect of the nation? Will they utter in public Vande Mataram or even Jai Hind? All those shameless people who enjoy the fruits of the labours and sacrifice of those giants? They can only think of what next to borrow or imitate or import from America or elsewhere. .

As we see the nation in the grip of empty slogans and vain promises, amidst local and petty issues, swayed by every passing fancy, we wonder where the Time-Spirit is leading us!

NOTE:

Indians today have no idea of the role played by Sri Aurobindo, as the Nehru dynasty and leftist historians who dominated our politics and academics have tried to whitewash the part played by him, before the arrival of Gandhi on the scene. Curiously, Gandhiji himself did not openly acknowledge how much he had borrowed from Sri Aurobindo- especially where he was successful! 

But the British govt had the sense to assess the importance of Sri Aurobindo. His role and the govt's attempt to get him implicated falsely in the Alipore Bomb Case were discussed in the House of Commons and the Viceroy, Lord Minto wrote to Morley, Secretary of State, on 14 April, 1910:

I have been somewhat exercised by the questions in the House of Commons about Aurobindo Ghose. He is the most dangerous man we have to deal with at present and he has great influence with the student class.

He repeated this again, on 26 May 1910:

As to the celebrated Arabindo,........I can only repeat.. that he is the most dangerous man we now have to reckon with....and has an unfortunate influence with the student class, and Indians who know him well have told me he is quite beyond redemption.

Two years earlier, on 19 May 1908, when an earlier attempt to implicate Sri Aurobindo had failed, Sir Andrew Fraser, Lt.Governor of Bengal wrote to the Viceroy in a confidential note reviewing Sri Aurobindo's life  that it had been a "deplorable blunder" of the authorities to have excluded him from the I.C.S.


2. In the 19th century and early 20th century,  Hinduism was under attack from various sides: Macaulay's minions, Missionaries, Modern reformers of various hues, politicians, etc. It was the great men of Bengal who rose to the occasion and caused a Renaissance  to save Hinduism: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore. After Independece, it was Bengal which took the lead in denigrating Hinduism and disowning its own great sons: the leftist govt in West Bengal blatantly rewrote history to belittle Hindus and glorify Muslims! Even today, it is these 'eminent' Bengali troupe consisting of people like Ramachandra Guha, Amartya Sen etc who are virulent anti-Hindus ! See how the Time-Spirit is playing! We recall the old saying that nectar and poison came out of the churning of the same ocean! (though here the sequence seems to have changed)