In recent times, there have been challenges thrown by several individuals and civil society groups towards the democratic institutions or peoples representatives in the country. A parallel line of argument upholding the supremacy of the citizen over democratic institutions have not gone well with everyone.
Most would agree that many things are seriously amiss in our sixty year old state. But the recurring political argument invoking the sacredness of democracy and any insinuation on it amounting to blasphemy fails to garner honest support. Sections of the Indian populace may still be found to concur with it - but, they are invariably always a small minority and people who have made the most of a defective and rotting system. The absurdity of this argument, though, is becoming increasingly apparent to one and all.
Respect is never deserved by an individual or an entity. The respect any individual evokes is due the fact that the object of respect by virtue of his actions, thoughts or works, becomes a symbol of certain underlying Ideals that people respect and consider to be the pinnacle of human achievements. People are driven for constant development and evolution only when ideals shed light on their path. It is not actually the constitution or the parliament that people respect - it is the set of underlying ideals that people have regard for. Ideals such as equality, civilisation, democracy. Institutions, books, individuals etc are like the moon that derive their respectability from the solar brightness of these ideals. So, it may be said that the ideals are the Primary objects of respect while all others are Secondary objects that are dependent on the primaries for any significance.
The misfortune of India has been in the progressive annihilation of all such ideals that fuelled Indias survival over the past several millenia. Following the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism, a global trend has been in operation, ever gaining momentum, that seeks to substitute these fundamental ideals with the ideal of a new generation - the ideals of power, money and self-preservation.
Ideals are not permanent. With the evolution and involution of human civilisation, the ideals similarly catalyze or immobilize and even retract the progress of civilisation. In India, however, the problem underlying all others is that the above phenomenon of substitution has gained great momentum and is very difficult to stop today.
The fact that this substitution is in full force is not hard to observe in our surroundings today. The symptoms are in plenty - but, most are shrewdly garbed or misrepresented. The horridness of the railway incident in which a 19 year old girl was thrown out of a running train by a group of four animal molestors or the murderous instincts of doctors in Jalandhar are only symptoms of this underlying disease. The base symptom is a rapid proliferation of the instincts of self-preservation. It is this same self-preservation instinct that makes hundreds of people witness such horrors in shameless silence while one of their own suffer.
What is paramount today is to initiate a systematic process to re-establish ideals that drive human evolution. There are plenty of forces within the country that dont want to see this happen - these include people who consciously downplay this and dont allow this to assume the foremost priority in the minds of their countrymen; and those others who do the same without being conscious of the harm they are doing in the process. The former are mostly elements who control the information network within the country, while the latter are countrymen who are the better off section of India, people who have exploited a defective system from its birth.
The large masses of the country are unfortunate as they dont have the means to correct or even understand this systematic corruption. While the rest of the country are engaged in promoting the system of exploitation. What is forgotten in the process is the limits are not asymptotically elastic. Our state has failed in being able to provide for the most basic necessities of the masses over the last six decades, while it has been able to preserve and even promote the exploitation of the deprived.
Today, India lies stretched to the limit. The future of this country of a glorious past can be insured only by the sacrifice of a generation. This sacrifice has been long overdue. It will be interesting to see now how good are we at being blind.
Why do you think then these ideals of "new generation" have had such wonderful effects on the western countries? The parameters you have used to judge our decline (corruption, immoral behavior etc) are hardly present in many nations thriving on these new ideals of capitalism.
ReplyDeleteLook back at the time before capitalism was accepted by India. Until 1950s there was widespread hunger and poverty in India. Social practice against women and people of lower caste were at levels far greater than today. The state of the society was no better before British arrived. There was rampant lawlessness. Compared to those times the lot of ordinary Indians is far better now.
What capitalism has done is taken the emphasis from collective benefit to individual benefit. This has had a huge positive impact on individual freedom and growth. It has made people responsible for their own lives and has removed many socio-economic evils. Capitalism has not caused decline in India, it has been declining for centuries because we had forgotten our Vedic principles. Our society hasn’t had a foundation for ages but it just now that it has found a substitute in capitalism. So my contention is that capitalism is in fact raising the living conditions of our society but it is making increasingly harder for us to go back to the truly lofty foundation of Vedas. People who have been living in want have suddenly found something in the material realm and taking them to a spiritual realm is becoming a harder task by the day. Yes, religion used to provide checks to immoral human behavior but western countries have demonstrated that that is not the only way. The solutions to the social problems of corruption, immorality, etc. are well within the reach of the new ideas of the west. It is the spiritual problems for which we need to revive ancient Indian ideals.
To draw a parallel between the west and India is not appropriate. There is an inherent difference in the way the two societies have evolved and now operate. When capitalism evolved at West it was not a substitution of values that drove the American War of Independence or the French Revolution. Rather, there was a coexistence - which compelled the State to adopt welfare'ist policies and put a check on rampant profiteering - unlike India where the political class apparently conspires with the capitalist sections to indulge in shameless loot.
ReplyDeleteWhen the West was made, it was made by the sacrifices of a generation of brave idealists. These great people did not necessarily stand for or against capitalism. What is important though is the countries and societies they built did not forsake the ideals that built them. Effectively, though Individualism was promoted but, the individual interests were always subservient to the state interests.
On the contrary, what India witnesses today is a substitution. All ideals worthy of respect have been forsaken - including Vedic principles. If a person speaks in the interest of society in preference to ones own self - he is laughed at.
Ideals in India today is everything in the West - minus all ideals that actually 'built' the West. A discussion on the merits and demerits of capitalism is a separate issue though - and I did not intend that to be discussed here.