Nehru – The Visionary Democrat

The nation remembered Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru on 14th November this year under full government patronage to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of its first Prime Minister. It was a laudable effort and due credit must go to the present Prime Minister who took personal initiative to organize the celebrations in a befitting manner. In fact, remembering such nation builders is much needed to create a sense of history in our young population. Nehru did not belong to any party. He belonged to the entire nation and was one of the architects of modern India. Organizing the event on such a scale and with due fanfare was certainly a praise worthy attempt to remind the country’s overwhelmingly large young population of one of the nation’s greatest heroes, whose fondness and love for children gave him the name Chacha Nehru. It was an usual sight on a Republic Day to find Nehru shake hands with children standing in a line on both sides of the road connecting India Gate and Rhastrapati Bhavana. This columnist have the privilege of being on of those children on one occasion some half a century ago. A champion of global brotherhood and peace Nehru was one of the founding father’s of the non aligned movement which stood for peaceful coexistence of the nations. His belief in principles of panchsheel was unflinching and his contribution to global geopolitics will always be remembered.
A thinker and philosopher, Nehru was a great visionary and it is only ironical that his ideals, of late, did not find due favour in the very party he led to many electoral victories. His critiques, notwithstanding, Nehru’s contribution to India was crucial. He had seen, felt and understood India and his policies were considered views based on the needs of the time. It would be an understatement to say that he laid down foundations of Modern India. An India battered by depredations of alien rulers for centuries, an India that was trying to recover from the blood and gore of partition, an India whose memories of great famines of those days were still alive.
Nehru knew what course the country needed to take to stand on its feet. He wanted the country to be self reliant. And he knew that science and technology were the means. His ideas of industrialization were prudent and his belief that the public sector would lay down the foundations of modern India was based on sound reasoning. He rightly acknowledged that PSUs were temples of modern India. A self reliant India owes a lot to the public sector. He established the IITs, IIMs, ISI and other centres of excellence which have brought laurels to the country. His economic ideas were rightly rooted in mixed economy as he knew that India did not have strong private sector then.
Those who quote growth stories of the India today forget that the foundation of this India was laid down by Nehru. But Nehru must also be known for his democratic values. A liberal to the core Nehru welcomed criticisms and would often walk that extra mile to keep critics around. A stalwart amongst politicians Nehru knew that dissent was important for democracy. He also respected those who disagreed with him. A man who was in tune with his time, Nehru must be given the credit that is his due.

The Spirit of Spirituality

There are modern times. The times of speed and action. The times of information and choice. The times of change and turbulence. While hardly can anything be done about that, there is certainly the need to realize whether these are really heading towards the right direction. Because without direction such things often end up in disasters. Against this backdrop we need to understand the nature of spirituality, because spirituality too, like all other things is being treated by most as fast food or T-20. As a result spirituality has also become a fashion with as many Gurus as seekers. However, like popular food, or popular sport, popular spirituality also lacks the essence, the ‘tatwa’. But while food or sport can be enjoyed without the essence, spirituality cannot. So all those spiritual gurus, writers and exponents that have grown in droves, notwithstanding, the fact remains that the spirit of spirituality is not understood. As many don’t understand it, they just do it, like we follow fashion. This explains why despite so much of over dose of spirituality, the quality of people and quality of life in the society does not change much.
What is spirituality all about? Our scriptures and Vedic literature have dealt with the subject in depth. While all scriptures of the world are attempts by the finite to explain the infinite our Upanishads are different. Our sages and seers could well nigh understand that to define the infinite by the finite is not possible and only a superficial description can be made. Thus in our Upanishads the ultimate reality that is infinite is described by two methods, both direct method of explanations and indirect methods of indications. The ultimate reality is explained both as truth as well as pure consciousness. Unlike in the modern centers of higher learning Vedanta cannot be learnt by the click of a mouse. A deep and intimate personal insight has to be developed that leads to a transcendental experience inspiring the experiencer to a total sublimation of his egocentric consciousness. It cannot become a theme that can be sung through the instrument of language only. The success in understanding the spirituality and ultimately assimilate the reality will depend on the seekers’ capacity to understand the complex yet basic truth through realization. In the Taittiriya Upanishad the path to attain this realization is discussed. The attempts to explain spirituality involves expressing the inexpressible and finite words are not the instruments to attain the golden silence of spiritual perfection. Even in our ordinary experience we often fail to explain our intimate subjective experiences due to limitation of language.
In the Vedic times the Upanishads were taught to the deserving by sages and seers who had realized the ultimate. Thus, they had a better grasp of spirituality. Fully conversant with the glorious secrets of life and trained in the art of living they had no misgivings. They valued literature, art and culture and they could integrate the mundane with the divine. The present generation deprived of interactions with such masters is getting spirituality packaged in spurious forms that drives them away from enjoying the real beauty of the ancient treasure of knowledge. The lack of correct scientific knowledge of true living in controlled indulgence that was given by Vedic masters is creating misgiving about spirituality. For an over curious and underfed generation the right taste of spirituality needs to be offered.

Re-searching India

As the clamor for digital India gains ground and the Gen Next takes charge one issue and a vital one crops up. In rush to digitize and out pace the twenty first century are we not selectively forgetting the wonder that India was? The treasure trove, the repository of spiritual and cultural richness that was a source of global attraction in the ancient times. We proudly proclaim of the demographic dividend which the overwhelmingly large population of 35 something, seems to provide. We quote the contributions of the software industry that drives our services sector and boosts our GDP. We boast of our satellites that have given us reasons to stare in the eyes of the developed world without batting an eyelid. But we seem to forget our ancient status as a World Guru that was largely due to insightful knowledge acquired by the sages and seers of the yore through their tapa that gave them an observational power that could compare with the most modern research based findings. In this knowledge driven era we need to realize the importance of that tacit knowledge that was the source of our competitive advantage in the ancient times and if retrieved and packaged properly can give us the same advantage today. The sacred India, the hidden India and the spiritual India that was awe inspiring. That India which has been mentioned by scholars far and wide. That was a time when knowledge was our strength. As we struggle to find our universities in the top 100 or 200 rankings of the world, our centres of higher learning need to seriously search for that tacit knowledge that may be gathering dust in some dingy archives and being gradually eaten away by the paper happy termites.
In his foreword to a 1934 book ‘A Search in Secret India’ by Dr Paul Brunton, Sir Francis Younghusband, the then British political minister to the state of Kashmir and President of the Royal Geographic Society of England, had written – “The most scared part of India is the most secret. Now secret things require much searching for; but those who seek will find.” The Indian universities need to take up this job of re-searching India, that India which has been hidden from the prying eyes of all those who claim to have discovered India, the secret India. The land of Raman Maharishi, the land of Nizamuddin Aulia, the land of Kabir. The land to which bestselling international author, Robin Sharma sends his protagonist monk in search of peace. May be, we need to develop advanced centre of research to gaze in the past and dig the grandeur of the ancient land that is becoming alien country to its own countrymen who have been mischievously fed with the spurious information that it is only the west that is knowledgeable. Ironically the same west has taken our past seriously developing centres of research that tell us about our own heritage while we are too busy with our technical education to provide subsidized manpower to the western world. Our neglect of our rich heritage may impoverish us permanently. But there is a need to tread cautiously. Finding real spiritual treasure involves serious scholarly efforts. More so in our country where spurious spirituality does brisk business.