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Note: The original e-mail sent to LiveMint has been corrected for the more visible typos. The original article can be accessed here.
From merchant.kushagra@gmail.com Fri Jan 03 15:52:04 2014
Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2014 15:52:04 +0530
From: Kushagra
To: sundeep.k@livemint.com
Subject: On "A Time to introspect"
Dear Sundeep,
It was an unsual article in terms of feeling somewhat out of place in the paper.
Some of the points of criticism raised in the third paragraph are valid and common-place: especially, those concerning our poor civic sense. It is interesting that the same paragraph also hinted at an insular (and somewhat strangely a xenophobic attitude). Because that paragraph and a large portion of the article does the exactly the polar opposite: pick some of the accepted short-comings and pit it against some of the popularly perceived (and possibly true) characteristics of select European nations and, expectedly, China and the U.S.
This point needs mention because this line of argumentation contradicts the very term "introspect" which is actually the term that makes this article seem out of place in a newspaper of this nature. A true introspection would follow a route precisel opposite to yours: it would look really inside and so deep so as to traverse history, cultural context, and the general nature of the society and individuals that occupy the Indian subcontinent.
Rather the question that you needed to probe was: what makes us the way we are today? If probed deep enough, it will reveal the answer. And one would not have to search for answers in comparison with a predominantly European temper. One possible hint to such an answer lies in the respective philosophies of the two continents. Here I quote an excerpt from "Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol. 1" by Sir Charles Eliot.
"
The European view of life differs from the Asiatic chiefly in attributing value to actions in themselves, and not in being disturbed by the fact that their results are impermanent. ... An Englishman according to his capacity and mental culture is satisfied with some such rule of existence as having a good time, or playing the game, or doing his duty, or working for some cause. The majority of intelligent men are prepared to devote their lives to the service of the British Empire: the fact that it must pass away as certainly as the Empire of Babylon and that they are labouring for what is impermanent does not disturb them and is hardly ever present to their minds. Those Europeans who share with Asiatics some feeling of dissatisfaction with the impermanent try to escape it, by an unselfish morality and by holding that life, which is unsatisfactory if regarded as a pursuit of happiness, acquires a new and real value if lived for others. And from this point of view the European moralist is apt to criticize the Buddhist truths of suffering and the release from suffering as selfish. ... Many of the best Europeans would probably say that their ideal is not continual personal enjoyment but activity which makes the world better. But this ideal implies a background of evil just as much does Buddha's teaching. If evil vanished, the ideal would vanish too.
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The specific mention of Buddhism need not concern us here. What is to be noted is the emphasis on conjoining of the word activity with the temper of a European. It is interesting that you state "Nations that are driven by the vim and vigour of their people exude a soft power that far exceeds the mere economic or military might." One would have to agree about the soft power but not necessarily with vim & vigour. For a long time, Asians, and Indian sub-continent in particular, exuded a rather spiritual power (and some say it still does) that exceeded even the soft power that you mention. Question is: what gave rise to this kind of soft, spiritual, and other powers and today how is that power evident even if in a sublimated, dissipated form, and importantly, how can it be revived again?
The prescription cannot be to look West and to the Scandinivian countries, or any other trend of the moment. For if an individual is sick, the doctor can only cure so much. And especially, a sickness of the pysche is something that can only be cured by the patients themselves, and as you rightly say, by introspection.
Except that the route to introspection that the article proposes sounds more like the preachings of a "European moralist". Indeed, in the sentence, "As societies evolve individuals take over the responsibility of social progress. Monarchs, governments and other authority figures only for such time as citizens take over the running of their lives." What the definition of progress is you would need to define because by all accounts Indian society did progress and then declined. And at its peak of progress, which preceeded the European progress by at least 1,000 years there were Monarchs, republics, feudal lords, and all other kinds of governments. It would have been more instructive to look at them first. What the article espouses traces its roots in the Enlightenment period of Europe. And, in particular, you would find a more mature, subtle and rational echo in the works of Wilhelm Humboldt, and especially "The Spheres and Duties of Government." Unfortunately, that work which outlined the proper role of the Government in context of European civilization at that point in time (late 18th and early 19th century) has been read, misinterpreted, and misapplied time and again in the West, and especially by the so-called libertarian blocks in U.S. and Europe. It is really unfortunate to see the same kind of errors creeping into the Indian discourses, and that too without a due understanding of the history and relevance of these assumptions.
As Noam Chomsky points out, it would be good to ask how many have actually read Humboldt, or for that matter, Adam Smith, whom they (the supposed readers) claim to know, quote profusely and derive their own conclusions from writings of these far more reflective thinkers. The article unfortunately falls in this bracket. It starts with a set of assumptions about how societies should progress and then goes into a critique of the current way of Indian society, all in the name of introspection. I myself am very much a harsh critique of the way we lead our lives in India today. But, at the same time, I am firm believer that the road to understanding is looking within and making an effort to understand our being. And it is indeed ironic that when I criticize India harshly it is two of my European clients, one German and another French, who question me and are even surprised. Both indeed have so much told me that they have escaped Europe. One from the almost perfect life of Germany and other from the same self-defeating atittude that plagues the French pysche that the article attributes to the Indian pysche. And it is even more surprising that they find much to gain from India and continue to be drawn here. I am sure we have enough soft power (if not spiritual power) left to offer people. Only provided that those who claim themselves to be committed to Indian society first stop looking West, and that too, without fully understanding the West. It is not a question about West or East, it is only a question of trying to go a little bit deeper than a superficial comparative analysis.
Best,
Kushagra
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