In his comment to the reply he got
from Mr Irfan Husain (the columnist of
The conservative mind in the
subcontinent must open sufficiently to the necessity of new social order,—if
that is the kind of change which can lead to the betterment of common life, it
waiting for that to happen. Unless the elite come forward and take charge of
things there seems to be no hope. Will that happen? That’s the question. There
have to be not mega-political setups governing everything from top downward,
but self-determining and self-governing smaller communes rising from below
upward. Perhaps it is that which will ensure the coming together of the diverse
groups each yet finding its fulfilment in the totality of organization. The
recent heavy 20-tonne cast-iron road roller costing US$150,0000, that is,
globalization has, paradoxically, contributed injuriously to fragmentation of
societies and this ought to be corrected without throwing away the benefits it
brings. Perhaps the subcontinental psyche is better suited for such a task of
integration than possibly elsewhere, but before that we have to do our homework
also, we have to remove the distortions which prevent progress in any genuine
sense. That is the primary task the elite of the subcontinent must attend to.
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/1/4337568.html#1267734
The above comment prompts several
considerations. To begin with, a reader of history will be aware that those who
strive for great societal changes often belong to the upper class. For example
in Western Civilization, the two Gracchi brothers of Roman antiquity,
patricians who both suffered martyrdom; the nobles who were spiritual leaders
and protectors of the heretical medieval religious sect, the Cathars, who were
immolated on a pyre; down to the many revolutionary leaders embracing the creed
of Marx and Engels, who, like their prophets, were cultivated upper class
bourgeois. A contemporary example is the Senator Edward Kennedy, who passed
away just a few weeks ago: a Roman Catholic and a millionaire who stood in
defense of the poor and the oppressed for over four decades, he passed into
history as the foremost legislator of the
On June 29, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI
made public the encyclical Caritas in veritate, Charity in Truth. It
begins with the words: “Love—caritas—is an extraordinary force which leads
people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice
and peace”. The 49 page document further explains that “Charity [Love] …
gives real substance to the personal relationship with God and with neighbour;
it is the principle not only of micro-relationships (with friends, with family
members or within small groups) but also of macro-relationships (social,
economic and political ones).” A realistic acknowledgment follows, “I am aware
of the ways in which charity has been and continues to be misconstrued and
emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being misinterpreted, detached
from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued. In the social, juridical,
cultural, political and economic fields—the contexts, in other words, that are
most exposed to this danger—it is easily dismissed as irrelevant for
interpreting and giving direction to moral responsibility.”
But charity—love!—explains the
pope, cannot be separated from truth. The encyclical continues, “Through this
close link with truth, charity can be recognized as an authentic expression of
humanity and as an element of fundamental importance in human relations,
including those of a public nature. Only in truth does charity shine forth,
only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives
meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the
light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and
supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and
communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes
an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth,
this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective
emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point
where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints
of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a
fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space.” Furthermore,
“Charity is love received and given.” … “Development, social well-being, the
search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socio-economic problems
besetting humanity, all need this truth. What they need even more is that this
truth should be loved and demonstrated. Without truth, without trust and love
for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social
action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in
social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times
like the present.”
The encyclical is a peremptory
warning to a collapsing socio-economic order. But what Sri Aurobindo calls “a
religion of humanity”, which he sees as a remarkable achievement of the West,
cannot be confined only to progressive Catholics and a fringe group of
Christians who, abiding by Jesus’s gospel of love and brotherhood, are
concerned about the welfare of their fellow-beings,—or, conversely, to Marxian
idealists. Such a humanitarian concern has to truly become an expression of a
universal religion, above dogmatic religion, creed and race; made manifest in
life, and not just a generic declaration of principles. Striking even deeper
than the Christ’s message of brotherhood, oneness is the creed of Yoga, which
is the basis for the real sanatana dharma or eternal religion! Beyond the
Christian gospel of “do unto others as you would be done unto yourself”, the
Self-realized being abides in the awareness that we are all one. With such
understanding, how can we exploit, torture, kill each other?
Sri Aurobindo’s poem The Cosmic Man is
a touching reminder of our oneness: [Collected
Poems, p. 120]
I look across the world and no
horizon walls my gaze;
I see
I see the bombs bursting on
Man’s numberless misdeeds and rare
goods take place within my single self.
I am the beast he slays, the bird
he feeds and saves.
The thought of unknown minds exalt
me with their thrill,
I carry the sorrow of millions in my lonely
breast.
Reading Deshpande’s exhortation, I
am reminded of words written by twenty-one year old Aurobindo Ghose: [Excerpt from Bande Mataram, Vol. 1, SABCL,
taken from New Lamps for Old, 1893-4, p.54]
He [Mr Hume] must have known, none
better, what immense calamities may often be ripening under a petty and serene
outside. He must have been aware, none better, when the fierce pain of hunger
and oppression cuts to the bone what awful elemental passions may start to life
in the mildest, the most docile proletariates. Yet he chose practically to
ignore his knowledge; he conceived it as his business to remove a merely
political inequality, and strove to uplift the burgess into a merely isolated
predominance. That the burgess should strive towards predominance, nay, that
for a brief while he should have it, is only just, only natural: the mischief
of it was that in Mr. Hume's formation the proletariate remained for any
practical purpose a piece off the board. Yet the proletariate is, as I have
striven to show, the real key of the situation. Torpid he is and immobile; he
is nothing of an actual force, but he is a very great potential force, and whoever
succeeds in understanding and eliciting his strength, becomes by the very fact
master of the future. Our situation is indeed complex and difficult beyond any
that has ever been imagined by the human intellect; but if there is one thing
clear in it, it is that the right and fruitful policy for the burgess, the only
policy that has any chance of eventual success, is to base his cause upon an
adroit management of the proletariate. He must awaken and organise the entire power
of the country and thus multiply infinitely his volume and significance, the
better to attain supremacy as much social as political. Thus and thus only
will he attain to his legitimate station, not an egoist class living for itself
and in itself, but the crown of the nation and its head.
Didn’t Swami Vivekananda, the
herald of “socialism on a spiritual basis”, write that we must fill the bellies
first, and only afterwards can we talk about spirituality? How can the
supramental truth manifest, in a world plagued by unemployment, homelessness,
famine, mass suicide, war and genocide?
The same day that RYD posted his
reply to Mr Husain, on October 4, The
Hindu published the following: Driven by a cause, a doctor chooses life on
Dr Rama Indra Kumar in
Inspired by the life and mission of
Jayaprakash Narayan and a chance encounter with the socialist leader years ago,
Rama Indra Kumar, who did his PhD in literature from Delhi University in 1991,
has been carrying on with a series of hunger strikes for the past 13 years here
in the Capital.
Sitting on yet another strike right
now at Jantar Mantar off
For a man well-versed in over a
dozen languages and dialects, the struggle for socialism has not been easy.
After completing his doctorate on “Study of the Doha Kosh”, Dr Kumar, who hails
from Lakhisarai in
Before that he had also worked in a
government school and as a Hindi lecturer at
“I know people do not think highly
of me. But I have always considered myself close to the poor and nothing would
stop me from raising my voice for them,” he says with conviction.
So how does this frail-looking man
cope with the strain of repeated hunger strikes?
“I usually fast for 24 or 48 hours
and then take a meal. Once when I was on a fast unto death in November 2002, I
was forcibly removed by the police from Jantar Mantar and got injured in the
process,” he says.
He also claims to have been beaten
up by some persons in April 2008 and shows how his left upper arm was broken
then.
Speaking in fluent English, he
expounds: “My idea is to highlight and build up a movement against corruption,
poverty and crime in society. I am also trying to create awareness against
imperialism and capitalism and raise issues concerning the poor and the
downtrodden.”
But 13 years after he undertook his
first campaign, Dr Kumar appears to have found little support. Undeterred
nevertheless, he carries on with what he thinks is right.
Ancient
Hail to immortal