The Hindu Business Line : The idea of India

A transformation is happening, not just economically but socially too. Yet, many commentators talk of where India is found wanting but not of how far the country has developed beyond where it was. What critics paint is one-sided picture. India may be shining even if only here and there, but still it is shining as never before, says P. V. Indiresan

A NEW volume The India Mosaic: Searching for an Identity comprising 17 contributions at a seminar on the "Idea of India" (organised by the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies, Delhi) has just been released. The expression "Idea of India" is not the same as a Vision for India, though a couple of articles in the book are actually titled Vision of India. As it often happens in intellectual exercises of this type, the general tone is critical, not optimistic: typical chapters titles are: "Ideas of India in Conflict" and "To Kill the Mocking Bird".

Few commentators on India realise, let alone accept, that we are privileged to witness a fantastic transformation of India. My generation actually saw the transition from colonialism to Independence. After centuries of economic stagnation, the much-maligned socialist planning brought us a halting and yet useful economic growth rate of 3.5 per cent, sneeringly dismissed as the Hindu Rate of Growth. With the liberalisation launched by the then Prime Minister, Mr P. V. Narasimha Rao, and his Finance Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, that rate has risen to a trend rate of 5-6 per cent, perhaps more.

More than economic growth, an undreamt of social transformation has taken place. Fifty years ago, isolation of castes was total and accepted as normal. Few people of the present generation know that, in those days, in Southern India, a servant maid could not even see a Brahmin eating: the Brahmin was not merely not touchable, his or her eating was unseeable too! A shirt on the back and a slipper on the foot were luxuries afforded by few.

The Grand Trunk Express was the only train that linked Chennai (sorry, Madras) with Delhi, and it was neither grand nor an express. Manufacturing industry was virtually non-existent; virtually everything was imported.

Currently, India may be shining only here and there, but it is still shining as never before. Eating taboos have all but vanished. Indian talent is held in awe all over the world. Those were the days when we were the protectionists; now, we have forced even the Americans to raise protectionist barriers against us. Virtually everything, space satellites and nuclear power stations included, India makes. Now, the country exports locally designed cars to — of all places to England. Fifty years ago, it was common for widows to shave off their heads. Would anyone have imagined then the degree to which Indian women have now been emancipated? We are going through a social revolution. Only, we are too close to realise how great it is.

Practically most contributors to The India Mosaic appear to be insensitive to the rapid (and on balance positive) transformation that has taken place, and is taking place in culture, in society, in the industry, even in the psychology of the people of the country. Most commentators talk of where India is found wanting but not of how far the country has developed beyond where it was. What critics paint is one-sided picture, as one-sided as to talk only of India Shining.

Though not always stated explicitly, the volume has an undercurrent that caste Hindus pose a serious threat to the cultural diversity of India. Strangely enough, that fear is expressed by the caste Hindus themselves. It appears that the ideological conflict within caste Hindus is no less bitter, probably it is more bitter, than that between caste Hindus and others.

It is said that the former Russian President, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, sought the former British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher's advice on how to tackle the cultural fissions that were tearing apart his country. She is supposed to have advised him to go to India to see how apparently irreconcilable diversity is managed, and managed quite successfully too. That was, of course, before Operation Bluestar. Even its perpetrators would agree (at least in private) that Bluestar was a mistake, even a disgrace. The fact that, for the Indian polity, Bluestar was an aberration, and not the norm, is also an "Idea of India". That is demonstrated by the fact that the Sikh community has more or less forgiven the country, and even the perpetrators.

Such communal wounds have healed in the past, are healing even now. If we are biased negatively, we will ask, why are such wounds inflicted?

If we are biased positively, we would ask, why do such wounds heal in India and much better than in most other countries?

Apparently, the Indian body politic is susceptible to bouts of communal fever. However, it appears to have enough antibodies within itself to fight such infections without outside intervention — something few other countries can manage. That is yet another Idea of India.

The contributors to this volume are not of the saffron variety; quite the opposite in fact. Yet, a few of them have found it useful to underpin their arguments with what the Gita says. There is an interesting argument that jnana marga leads to tolerance; bhakti marga to intolerance and the karma marga is somewhat in between. Here is an intriguing thought. Bhakti is what Al Qaeda, the warring sects of the Balkans, the Christians of Northern Ireland, and the bitter foes in Palestine have all in common with the VHP. However, there is a crucial difference between the VHP and the others.

Unlike the others, almost definitely, sympathisers of the VHP would not have studied any sacred text. Except for a rare few, even Brahmins do not study the Vedas, not even the Upanishads. (How many Brahmins can tell what the Gayathri Mantra means?) For everybody else sacred texts are the ultimate guide, but not for caste Hindus.

The Mundaka Upanishad is quite explicit: It divides knowledge into two categories, the upper and the lower. Under the lower category, it includes such topics as astrology, prosody, grammar, rituals and to top them all, the Rg Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda. The Gita is even more explicit: It says only the ignorant think that the Vedas are everything; there is nothing else. Would any other religion take a similar view of its most sacred text?

Bhakti is the belief that all knowledge was codified in the past and will remain valid forever in the future; jnana is the realisation that knowledge is endless, impossible to comprehend in full. Bhakti needs focus. The Hindu has far too many Gods, too many conflicting concepts to locate a focus with the kind of self-assurance that others can.

Reverting to the Mundaka Upanishad, it describes upper knowledge not by what it is but by what it is not: Upper knowledge is unseeable, ungraspable, originless and indescribable. That is why, great Indian Gurus are not known to answer questions except to say, neti, neti, neti — not that, not that, not that.

They specify what is untruth but not what truth is! Could that be the reason why, however assertive a Hindu may be, at the back of the Hindu mind there is always an element of self-doubt? Could that self-doubt be the seed of jnana, and hence, a source for tolerance too?

India's indigenous philosophy was honed and moulded in the forest; the philosophy that came from outside was born in the desert. Forests support innumerable flora and fauna; deserts offer large vistas.

The institutions that came to India from the desert background are like a Macdonald franchise with standardised menu, with assured standardised quality. Our indigenous forest-based variety is like a bazaar; it is disorganised but has always room for anything new. What India absorbs with ease, others would not even taste. That too is an Idea of India.

Most of the contributions in the volume The Mosaic take a sombre view of India the way it is, and the way it is likely to be. However, their idea of India is not a holistic one but a fragmented one. They examine select narrow topics of their choice under the microscope. The India they find is rather ugly. That should be no surprise; even a baby's skin will look blotched if viewed under a microscope.

The editor of the Mosaic concedes that "the book did not intend to find any answers, possibly because there are no answers". No solution can be perfect, but let us not assume that there are no solutions at all, or that there can be one and one solution only.

If a bee were placed in an open bottle with its bottom facing the one, and only one lighted spot in a pitch dark room, the bee will make a bee-line again and again towards the lighted spot and collide each time with the bottom of the bottle to die eventually.

If instead of a bee, a fly were placed in that bottle, the fly will flitter hither and thither and soon escape through the open mouth.

Fundamentalists are like the bee; they will repeat the same mistake again and again, and knock themselves out. The Hindu mind is like the fly; it makes no bee-line but will find ways to escape. Let us not under estimate the Hindu's ability to get out of difficult situations.

(The author is former Director, IIT Madras. Response may be sent to: indresan@vsnl.com)

(This is 120th in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article was published on March 22.)