Yes! but from What? and now Where?

Prof. DEJ often talks about his opinion on who the "Last Great Indian" was/is. He always awarded Barrister Mohandas Gandhi as the one who was the "Last Great Indian" and PM AB Vajpayee as the one who is the one. Well... this was good 5 years back. Now the former is has almost become a was, and today I am in quite a lock on who is the one. It is difficult for me to choose between two of the good friends in the country today - Shri Arun Shourie and ThiruvALar S Gurumurthy.

I am writing this post in the eve of completion of 62 years since India's political Independence from British Rule. But, in Shri Arun Shourie's perspective, it was merely a transfer of power and not really an independence. Not many of us are taught the real truth; Local democracy existed even before 1947; Indians were allowed to contest elections for the legislative assemblies in the Presidencies (states were called presidencies back then). Congress controlled most of the states, and apart from Congress, Muslim league, Justice Party and Swatantra were the dominant parties. It was the British constitution which was the "Super" Government over the Legislature and the constitution that was forced on us in the form of the "Super" Government was the subject of the dispute and that was what we demanded Independence from. Shri Shourie's book "Worshipping False gods", narrates almost every significant incident from the 'Liberation Day'(not 1947) till the framing up of constitution to neccessary details. We had copied the exact same ideology that we had opposed and the Constitution of India, in its first draft was a near carbon copy of whatever existed till then.

Many modern "Indians" blame it on McCaulay's policies for the intellectual slavery we were into, till then, and even after Independence, we have made no serious attempt to get ourselves out of the mess we had been subjected to. Shri Shourie cites often about the timidity of the intellectual class in the society as one big reason for our inability to get out of the shell. Bharat is a land of very vibrant societies, and could hardly be confined to a book in the name of Constitution. But unfortunately the framers modeled a large unit which is as big and rich and diverse as the world itself into a State, and thrusted words, lines and pages to dictate how the complex commonwealth of societies would, rather should, behave.

More so, the modern day intellectualism is only as good as how Thiru Gurumurthy has put in his latest article as "Most Indian intellectuals, including the media, often love to draw a contrast between ‘India’ — meaning the urban — and Bharat — meaning the rural; the former as ‘modern’ and the latter as distanced from ‘modernity’ ". Today, IPC has replaced Morality, Professional ethics as a course taught in classrooms has replaced Value Education at home by elders, Disputes to be solved at home are braught to Judiciary, Local Democracy gotten crushed by State Legislations, in short, whatever that was native of the land getting replaced customarily in the name of modernaisation without debate on the need for a change. I, being a conservative Old-Schooler, often face with a funny question "are your ideas still applicable in this modern society?". We still intake through our mouth and ______________. Can you please change that ?

Marx in his expositions about India had interestingly contradicted with himself: Calling India to be a successful society right from time immemorial with richness in social order, success in achieving democracy even at the lowest level, criticised the civilisation, in a later piece of writing, as a semi-barbaric society, since it did not accomodate a revolution. So, according to him, even a successful society must face with a revolution and become 'modern' despite being short of a real need to change. So, in similar lines, we must shed all our civilisational input, and become modern in order to be successful.

Now things seem more consistent. The so called "Modern" thinkers, who largely identify themselves with the ideas of the West, demand modernisation by shedding originality without a need, which falls in socialist lines. In short, they want something which they originally are opposed to. Such is the intellectual slavery and so is upheld the 'Land of Paradox" title annointed by the West.

We were subjected to Intellectual slavery back until 1947 and today marching towards grand success in subjecting ourselves into deeper pits, in looking at the rest of the world to define and redefine ourselves.

My job is here not to pass a judgement like how the 'Modern Intellectual Class' of today does, without being able to appreciate differences between 'opinion' and 'fact'. My plead is same as what Thiru Gurumurthy pleads with all the responsibile sons of the land, the same thing what Kullachaamy directed Aurobindho Gosh to do in a tea shop in Pudhuchchery, "empty your cup and start thinking afresh"

Looking at the past to find solutions for our today's problems is in no way disrespectful, and the world is not going to grade you on your level of modernisation but on your success. If we can be successful with our originality, then why look to change?

Let me close this seemingly incoherent post with this -