LIBERATING INDIAN MIND -18
PERSONAL IS UNIVERSAL

“Have you heard about cheats, pickpockets, snatchers and gangsters or not?”

He simply smiled without uttering a word.

“ Your historians have been all in one and each one all.”

“I know you are so sore because of your personal grudge.
There are people who universalize their personal issues to set score while others try to gulp the poison down to avoid being stuck up in a muddy pond.You fall in the first category, the category of light-headed, peevish ones.That is one reason you do not count for much as a scholar. “ he didn’t miss any opportunity to berate me.

“In normal discourse I should not defend myself despite the fact that your imputation is wrong. I would like to underscore only one thing: there is nothing personal except material gain or loss which I did not suffer. In absolute terms personal is universal and universal indeterminate. You cannot collect information about love and write a single line on love that may impress even your neighbor, not to talk of the universe. Only personal sufferings and agonies expressed even with personal touch or through imaginary characters takes you in its grips.

“What you call personal is first hand knowledge of something, while universal is obsolete information much of which is of little use in forming even an opinion regarding something, not to talk of solving a problem. Read as much you can about Shakespeare and his plays, but unless you have read any of his dramas or seen any of them enacted you cannot know what Shakespeare is. The difference between your historians and me lies in the fact that while in the most taxing situations I tried to go to the original sources of whatever I wrote, they disdainfully avoided to reach-out to them and gathered whatever they could from secondary sources. Likewise they avoided to face me and yet did not hesitate from spreading all sorts of canard Against me, and adopted sacrilegious tricks to gag the voice of dissent, in order to perpetuate the incoherent history they had written, whereas I was ready to sit at their feet to learn the shortcomings, if any, in my writing, despite it all.”

“I could believe you if I did not know that they are abundantly more informed than you, and in their personal life, normal behavior and speech they are much more polished, sober, and caring than you. You were deprived of the opportunity to come in their closer contact otherwise you could be much more cautious in use of your tongue and much more dignified in response.”

“I agree with you more than you might expect. But that is the ploy. People mistake outward sophistication for honesty, and store of knowledge for correct understanding. You are no exception. Did you read that best seller The Godfather, or see the picture produced in the same name. Have you heard anything about the competence and mesmerizing sociability of legendary Natwarlal? if yes, you may catch my point.

The test of prudence does not lie in racks of books transferred to your head and your ability to shuffle them deftly. I make a simple query as to why did they fail to learn the language through which they could have a first hand glimpse of the age which they chose to specialize and taught throughout their teaching career? How could one prefer to remain blind in the area which they claimed to illuminate? Through mirror effect? taking light from those who were eager to rub down the haughty culture looking at their colonial and missionary prejudices with derisive smile?”

.”What do you think to be the reason?” He asked with genuine curiosity.

“I have myself not been able to sort it out but the possibilities that flash are many and inter-connected.

“The first one is that the Western educated and occidental leaders who launched Communist movement were as remotely controlled by their mentors as the Congress of initial years. Those who ignited the fire of socialism in the Hindu youths who spent years in British Universities, ignited the sense of insecurity among the Muslim youths to gravitate them covertly towards separatist Muslim demand. They aimed to disrupt the call for unity by the national movement under the banner of Congress. In India they had overtly and covertly planned the formation of the Muslim league, Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, urge for Khalistan and the most impracticable demand for Dalitistan, I forget the exact name Baba Saheb had given it. The bane of the communist party was that It lacked the touch of soil and national fervor which other Communist parties of the world had.

Secondly, it was from its very birth a parasite organization.

Thirdly, it lacked the sense of direction and suffered from self contradictions. For that matter, on the one hand it ridiculed reformatory measures as deceptive and detrimental to revolutionary zeal on the other, in its progressive craze it tried to play the role earlier played more successfully by Arya Samaj. The other CPs throughout the world deferred it for post revolutionary projects.

Fourthly, It became the gravitational core for brilliant, ambitious, well-off guys more interested in collecting the crop raised by Congress, than tilling and preparing their own field and scatter the seed of their ideology. In other words it was ready to capture power without doing any hard work and in a sense it was crowded by talented idlers.

Fifthly, Learning Sanskrit and Vedic demanded some hard and dry work not liked by brilliant brains. In its tentative approach in most of the matters, it encouraged a misleading belief that Sanskrit language and the liturgical literature in it could foster reactionary /revivalist tendencies. This last belief created a despise for the language, suspicion towards the people who learnt it adequately well and in turn a despise for the entire period of ancient past.” I turned to ask him.”I think I am not over-amplifying it? “

“Although the approach you have taken is dubious, some of the conclusions baseless, such as despise for Sanskrit, as many of our leaders had good background of Sanskrit, yet I don’t mind the elaboration. The angle is new. You may continue. I want to read what those who have developed the skill of slurring the immaculate movement can read in the text prepared by sweat and blood of revolutionary workers.”

“I know there is no sense in playing the flute before a buffalo, but irrespective of its rumination, the joy of playing the flute is not neutralized. I simply wanted the emphasize that the communist movement in India look a reverse course at the very outset. It failed to correct fundamental errors, as its discomfiture suited those who were adamant to prove India a cultural vacuum deeply indebted to it’s western neighbor in all matters.’

Ultimately you have come to admit that the Marxist historians were writing their textbooks on the principles of Marxism as understood by them and were not playing in the hands of any individual or group as unjustly alleged by you. That is all I wanted to listen from you. The fisher has been caught in his own net.” He rose to leave with the air of a victor.

I tried to stop him, “wait. Let me complete my argument, but he was in no mood to listen anything further.

LIBERATING INDIAN MIND -17(B)
DEMOCRATIC TEMPERAMENT (II)

“Wait a minute! wait a minute!” He shouted me back.

“I think it is you who counselled that people should devote all their energies to the field of their choice and must not shirk to other fields. And it is perhaps you who advised us to keep away from politics. Why should you worry so much about educational system to which we belong and find nothing wrong in what you perceive as a menace?”

“You mostly listen to unlisten me, as you yourself brag, how can you understand the implications of what I advise? Listen attentively. I have claimed to be the most consistent political writer which may appear to you a bit inflated. My agitation is against our numbness, our cultural impotence and frigidity, our colonial mindset but more than any other thing I fight exposing the dirty game of sober-looking miscreants who we look for academic certification. I have written chapters in defense of a political leader who in my opinion pledged to go ahead of the divisive and parochial politics for the larger interest of the country, its neighbors and ultimately the entire world. I did it and intend to do it all through my pen, not mass agitation. I only disapprove active politics because the tricks to attain and retain power are mostly demeaning. You should not introduce it in your educational system to demean our future generation. And last of all, note it that you had not even the sense of political participation as you did not agitate, did not even identify the threat which ate the very elan of our teaching system.”

I felt I was forgetting something which flashed while I was elaborating and faded away. I strained to recall it while he appeared toying for some escape route. It flashed again, “and remember two more points. “the communists who advocated study of history so intently, started dissuading people to engage themselves with history after they had poisoned it, lest someone should find an antidote. Secondly, I never advocated complete hiatus between specialized field and areas of general interest. I appeal that those who are expected to handle it must not be disturbed by outside interference, but once it becomes clear that they are least interested in doing their job or are doing it in a manner that aggravates the problem, interference in those areas may be warranted even through active agitation.”

He had found his escape route, “You blame Prof. Hasan for a mischief whereas he tried a solution. If secularism or national integration really amounted to communal poisoning and lust for superiority of Iran and Islamic state, at least half a dozen education ministers followed him who were Hindus as far as I remember, why could they not correct it?”

They were mostly from the Congress which benefited from it. Promotion of communalism with slogans of secularism, that, in short, it encouraged throughout. The others realized the misadventure but had not the cunning even to complete a full tenure. They fell prey to dirty manipulative tricks of the Congress which is so insecure without power that it can even redivide the country failing other options.”

“Arguments apart, I don’t think you care as much for social harmony as you apparently try to show.”

“Social harmony is a dangerous proposition where one faction is rigid as a deadwood and entire responsibility of cohesion depends on bending and twining of the other. The result of every resilient attempt to cohere by the one was attended by added stiffness in stance and enlargement of demand by the other in general and by violent response to maintain the distinct identity in several cases. I don’t preach love where love begets despise or surrender. I advocate understanding, maintenance of safe distance and vigilant cooperation to the extent it is necessary. Sweet words must be responded sweetly, tough gestures must be answered suitably. Mutual respect is still possible where love is lost and hatred is garbed to elude you to mistake it for peace. There are dangerous things without which we can not do such as fire and electricity, but handled with care the prove to be boon, so are some of the social relation. They are invariably harmful if you come too close.”
“We are already late”, he pointed towards the watch, fearing that I may go on amplifying the theme.

LIBERATING INDIAN MIND -17
DEMOCRATIC TEMPERAMENT

Night’s interval is enough for us to cool down. I was a bit remorseful after losing my temper, so I myself made an advance, “We looked for the baby in wilderness while it was all the time in our lap.”

“The day you shall learn to speak straight, people shall start listening you. Presently they listen to unlistine you. Just for courtesy.

“I mean we have shown all the concern for communal harmony, all the worry on communal tension but did not understand where the problem lies. Not even Gandhiji, who spent maximum time fighting the social divide, could identify the root cause and therefore failed to reach the solution available.”

“I was expecting just this. You have road-rolled Marx, Gandhi stood safe and tall. The day will come, you shall smash him down, I thought, and lo! it has come to-day after such a long wait.” he laughed sardonically to temper his sarcasm.

I ignored him. “Gandhiji, and almost all our intellectuals, thought religious divide to be the culprit. They tried to make Allah and Iswar sit side by side, or at least the words to be uttered indiscreetly with equal reverence across religious divide. It was an easy task for the Hindus who had a thousand synonyms of the Lord Supreme and had already added a few from Muslim inventory, such as Khuda, Rabb, and had no problem with Allah, as those who thought no other synonym, not even Khuda could rightly signify the One who tolerated no Other. But even so they had no problem so long others used
the synonyms inadequately defining the Allah.

“It was the elite section of the Muslims, claiming non-Indian heredity and converted upper caste Hindus who formed a tentative solidarity and claimed for lion’s share in despicable democratic set up, but had a greater inclination towards oligarchy. Earlier Indians had religious divide, communal segregation as well. But the clash on social plane was missing as most of the converts to Islam had been Hindus and still retained the old ties.”

“That is half truth yaar. They formed the oppressed castes of Hindu society which they hated because they had been hated by them and found their salvation in Islam.”

“This may lead us astray. But in brief let me tell you that with rare exceptions, all of them were forced to change their faith through different measures. Even in Iran the same had happened. As a test case, see that none of the most oppressed castes got converted. Those who had changed their faith followed their old customs and beliefs, otherwise you shall neither be able to understand why a muslim Kabir advocated yoga and Upanishadic unity, criticised Hindus in tune with the Siddhas, why those converted belonged to weaver, smith, and dyers etc. who had something ready or in process, of which they could be deprived on slightest pretense as the land owners on their failure to pay the land rent due to recurrent failure of crops or famine but the cobblers, washermen, even those tortured to serve as scavengers did not avail the opportunity. But that is not the moot point.

“I simply say that communal-ism was missing in medieval India, it was wedged by the British. They themselves had racial, and colour biases ingrained in their psyche. Moreover colonial compulsions left them with the only remedy. They created and manipulated the fissure to deepen and engineered it to widen at the time of their imminent departure. Our political leaders right from the time of Nehru retained it as a shuffling device. How strange that Indian communal-ism in its last analysis proves to be secular. It has been donned as such by those who perpetuated it to enlarge their democratically unjustified demands.” I felt I have explained it threadbare.

“My dear, you have again come to zero point: communal-ism is secularism and secularism communal-ism. Why do you waste so much of your time and waste mine as well? Don’t you advocate Brahmvad in a different name?”

“I wanted to tell you that communal-ism is anti-democratic in nature. It persist because we did not adhere to democratic principles. I wanted to tell you that democracy is a great leveler. Genuinely followed, it can change our psyche as its compulsions are different. But if you want to identify a group as communal, identify the one with lurking tendency to get more than its share; the inbuilt love of autocracy, dictatorship in it; the readiness to use force as a weapon of quick solution.”

“You mean…”

I cut him short, “I don’t mean anything beyond what I have said. But the very fact that Indira Gandhi resorted to dictatorship, she herself was not free from the slur. The moment Prof. S. Nurul Hasan took over as education minister and started to gain absolute control over a subject in concurrent list in violation of fair play, the day the tool of molding minds was usurped he initiated the formidable program of revising Indian history. This was the first time that a coercive attempt was made to prove that all that is glorious in India came from Iran and civilization in India started with the Muslim rule in India. The virus entered our national psyche denying it any initiative, accomplishment, and innate ingenuity. It has destroyed our immune system, that is one reason you fail to receive the correct signals. If cultural castration hurts you, destruction of immune system may be another option.”

LIBERATING INDIAN MIND -16

FIGHTING COMMUNALISM

There is an element of legendary Vaital in my friend: even when he goes satisfied he comes the next day waving a new straw as a new-found weapon. “You charge, they wrote a history not suited to your taste with ulterior motives, while the fact is, they wrote it to fight input of communal-ism increasing in our textbooks of literature and history. They did it as an urgent move to save national integration.’

“And they as per their claim fought the nationalist historians, as if nationalists aimed at disintegration?”

“They could be inaccurate in presentation of facts with a tilt towards communal-ism.”

“What in your assessment is communal-ism, you explain first. do you mean nihilism Is another name of secularism?”

He did not answer. I added further, “do you want me know what National Integration is ? how all of a sudden it got relevance? Not that I know anything which you do not know, I only do not allow you to ignore the fact that it was a weapon of emergency to suppress those who rose to oppose it. It is an old song sung at different turns of our history from the last quarter of 19th century till imposition of emergency by the power that had no legitimacy to remain in power; from the slogan of Hindus and Muslims are two beautiful eyes of mother India but only so long as the Hindus although in dominant majority, do not forget that Muslims have been ruling them for thousand years, that they have ability and experience to handle state affairs; that the British replaced Muslim rulers and after they depart, the power should go to those from whom it was snatched; and that Muslim culture and Urdu language, Arabic script in which it is written is refined, civilized and has to be accepted for maintaining the beauty of the two eyes, solidarity of Indian society and unity of the country.

“This was the first ever proposal of integration of India as put forward by Syed Ahmad Khan and resented among others by Bharatendu and Madan Mohan Malaviya. Our own authors have discussed through hundreds of pages of their book to prove that the conditions laid down by Syed Ahmad were secular and those who wanted Hindi written in Nagari script as well to be accepted as medium of instruction were communal, and have duly been awarded for their service.

“A scenario in which even Hindu leaders like Advani could find Jinnah to be secular, and held back the other half that Gandhi and Congress were communal which the League headed by Jinnah chanted throughout I have no courage challenge anyone of them. But the dictionary meaning of the word integration is.’The intermixing of people who were previously segregated.’

“While the textbook writers undertook to vitiate the entire social fabric by pumping down the heads of their readers that Hindu is bad, its history is devoid of any positive achievement on its own and all it owes has come from the west, naturally from its western neighbor Iran. The accumulating fume against this intellectual barbarity fed and irrigated the ground in which the forces which symbolized Hinduism benefited the most in a Hindu society which was secular enough to make adjustments through this insult.”

As I turned round to see how he had received what I said, I found him gazing at the mating birds at a distance with rapt attention. I nudged him reprimanding, “you idiot. I have been explaining you the meaning of…”

“Despite my attempt I went listless because you were tellibg nothing new. I have heard this bhajan hundreds of time.”

“And you have acclimatized yourself to it? Is it? People living close to sewage drains lose the sense of smell, in fact they feel uncomfortable in healthy surroundings. That is what secularist acclimatization to cultural degradation means.”

He laughed to make it light. It enraged me all the more. “And know you why they feel uncomfortable? The nitrogen has toxic effect and that they miss in changed atmosphere.” I rose in displeasure to leave.

LIBERATING INDIAN MIND -15

THREAT OF REVISIONISM

“You are so obsessed with the rigorous study and frank admission of the shortcomings of the past that you fail on three counts: firstly you become intemperate in your choice of words and prefer strong words for miner failings; secondly, you fail to see the threat posed by the crude versions of history in their waiting; and thirdly, you level all the blame on the Marxist historian while they only followed consensus. Their fault lies in the fact that they are a bit more rigorous than others, but that is what a historian is required to be.”

“I was confused, not able to decide as to which of the charges be neutralized first. I shared my predicament with him and added, the words that you find strong are equal in measure to the default. That is what intellectual honesty demands. Being soft or stern amounts to digression.”

“Then there must be something wrong with your perception of reality. You call us culturally castrated at a time when the world is emulating yoga. How funny!”

“You see it as a recognition of our past achievements but fail to see that while appropriating it, these clever guys are denying the credit due to India. They dilute it to show that it was borrowed by Indians from the Chinese and to deprive the Chinese in turn, they try to prove that it was practiced by many of the primitive societies including the Negroes. While they are doing so, your red-hot historians shall either sit silent or, if someone tells them that it spread to China and Japan through the spread of Buddhism and to Africans through the Ethiopians who were in direct touch with India, some five thousand years back, when we imported some aridity friendly seeds such as ragi, millet from them, and it formed Indian outpost to trade with Egypt, they will cry in chorus that it is revision of history, because it restores the shine rubbed off by them in the name of austerity. In a word, they shall rise to support western denial. I am not unjust to them when I weigh them and show their real worth and recount the damage done by them. I am not well versed in English, you may suggest more apt a term than cultural castration used by me.”

“I am not a man of history, you know. But the little that I know about Egyptian history gives me courage to say that Indians or say Harappans did not have direct contact with Egypt. Only recently, your rightist friends have started making ridiculous claim that even the pyramids were built on the principles of shulbsutra.”

“I myself do not know much about the pyramids or the shulbsutras to settle the issue. But I definitely know that Indian goods were supplied to Egypt from Punt, the Ethiopian port; that Ethiopia got civilized through this intercourse; that Indian artisans like Indian goods and curiosities – monkey, sugarcane, peacock, sandalwood – were in hottest demand in Egypt; that the Egyptians were autocratic and so rough in their behavior that Indian traders did not send their ships direct to Egypt, and remained stationed at a safe distance where they could avail the opportunity to bargain and exchange at their advantage; that the Egyptians paid the workers and artisans employed to built palaces and pyramids in cowries and these cowries were of Maldivian origin, understandably exchanged by the Indian counterparts stationed at Punt ; that cowriy happened to be the first international currency, accepted from Egypt to China; that circumstantially there is nothing to reject the suggestion that these artisans could have applied the principles of shulbsutras in erecting and building whatever they built.”

He appeared disheartened. I knew it in advances . After a brief moment of dismay he came out with a query, “It means you stand with those who call for revision of history.”

“I am in support of those who are opposed to revised history by the professionals, as they called them, and demand that history must be written on scientific basis, supplying concrete evidence in support of anything you claimed. I gave my version, each bit of which is evident, that is supported by facts and evidence. But I doubt that those who wrote our history to force it down three generations, themselves knew it or not. One thing is certain. Such accounts could not find place in their books, nor could be tolerated by them.”

LIBERATING INDIAN MIND- 14

LIBERATING INDIAN MIND-13

अन्तिम दिनों तक सक्रिय

LIBERATING INDIAN MIND-12

LIBERATING INDIAN MIND 11
BEING PATRIOTIC

It is possible to be patriotic without being vulgar in its demonstration. It is both a challenge and a fulfillment to be truly patriotic . It is so simple that most of the people fail to understand it, as they fail to understand that water is the most precious of all liquids and oxygen is as important as hydrogen for our life.” I started as if continuing the debate from the previous day.

“No, no, please do not slip into your habitual preaching mode. Yesterday you told me that I didn’t know the meaning of my country and without that I couldn’t understand the meaning of patriotism. First of all, you please explain what you meant by that.”

“We shall have to go at least 12000 to 15000 years back to understand the primeval state of the geographic delimitation of gathering areas allotted to each band of people to avoid recurrent clashed among them who earlier roamed unchecked through any terrain where food was easily available. During the season of abundance they enjoyed being together. They had fixed days and fixed locations where they met for social gaiety every year. Only during the days of scarcity they grew insensitive to the needs of others and occasionally engaged into bloody clashes. They appear to have somehow agreed mutually to divide the land.. Understandably, those areas were demarcated by natural boundaries. It was a taboo after that to overstep the boundaries. This error could cost the life of the errant. This area under control of one family or kula wherein the chief was called the kulapati.

In the course of social formations, economic progress, cultural interaction, bigger and yet bigger units emerged ultimately toaccommodate diverse groups with antagonistic interest-groups, and a bigger land mass incorporating the erstwhile deshas or countries with a ruler not ethnically or linguistically belonging to anyone of them in particular, but claiming superiority over all his peers in terms of might, wisdom, judiciousness, and/or concern for common weal. Initially such leader was elected by the assembly of the people or the eminent persons assumed to represent them, later on it became hereditary or sheer might decided who was the king. In monarchy loyalty to the king amounted to patriotism as all the other boundaries of language, ethnicity, belief and social segments were overridden by the state, whose geographical boundaries could slide back or forward according to the strength and ability of the king. The king, of course fighting to protect his throne appeared to be fighting a patriotic war specially in cases he fought to protect his territory and the people against unknown invader. In democracy the country belongs to the people, they rule themselves through their representatives and as such the concept of patriotism or loyalty to the soil changes accordingly. This, in a very crude and rude language, is the concept of the country and loyalty to it, in my limited understanding.”

He appeared silent, attentively listening to me. Once I paused for respite, he came out, “You mean the noble sentiments attached to patriotism are a mirage?”

“If I appeared to have denied that sentiment, their is some flaw either in my statement or your comprehension. But I must reiterate that the oldest idea of motherland, desha, and an
unfailing loyalty to the country has survived millennia, and the strong sentiment one has for his place of birth excels all other notions of the country or matribhumi. When a laborer having worked for the year takes leave to visit his desha we laugh as idiots without comprehending the essence of it running undisturbed thought millennia. I was amused to find Sarat Chandra calling Kolkata as a nice desha, I do not exactly remember where, but perhaps in a letter written from Myanmar (Barma). Against all odds and risks he chose finally to settle close to his village where he was treated as an outcast and a man of blemished character, with a gun and a dog to protect him. We all feel that enviable bond with our birthplace howsoever distant we are for much longer period than we spent in our village. Our social behavior vis-a-vis people of different geographical, linguistic or ethnic identities is not free from slur in a large number of cases. Only when it comes to another state or country, specially with conflicting interests, the entire state or nation rises in unison.

The second thing, that this process of formation of broader sets from unitary organisations is not limited to India. It is universal, irrespective of the limitations of their collective memories. Even in English countryside means the vulgar side.

Third, people after they settled did not remain home-bound . It was considered an act of bravery to go abroad (videsha) and earn riches there like a trader who ventures out and comes back with bounty to his own country (the village) and add to its prosperity. It was sort of victory and the earning was a booty. The term dhanajit or winner of wealth was laudable but settling abroad was sort of betrayal. Remaining home-bound was a proof of lack of competence. This is reflected in typical behavior pattern of laborers from Eastern UP and Bihar. We recall an adage condemning the home-bound ones तातस्य कूपं अयमिति ब्रुवाणा क्षारा जलाः कापुरुषाः पिबन्ति (only the week-kneed persons drank saccharine water (remain home-bound despite inconvenience) on the plea that it is our parental source of water ).

Now he showed his colors, “you keep descaling the problem so patiently that ultimately there is no problem but scales all around.”

“I know you wanted a capsulized solution which you could gulp and be satisfied that you have it all inside. I have delineated the broader outlines. But the indifference you show is a sign of fatigue and boredom. We may defer the real issue for tomorrow.”