Glory of Bharata: Tagore: Is India ready to invest?

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Glory of Bharata: Tagore: Is India Ready to Invest?

 

 

I"ve read this article and it has moved me.

 

The story in Tagore's call for the study of the true India hides the real

mission. The mission is not just for each of us to study India's 'true'

history. The real story is how much the foriegners, primarily the English,

invested in creating thier skewed history. They backed their message with the

equivelent of billions through national educational programs, sponsoring

millions of students to go to those schools and then handsomely rewarded

academia and followers that studied and promoted their cause.

 

The real question here is not whether we can interest people in reading India's

true historical accounts as told from Bharatavarsa's people. The fact is that

millions in the West are already beginning to do so vai way of yoga practice,

cultural affinity of food, music and fashion or through religious pursuits.

Hundreds of millions more in India do so as well. The Hare Krsna's, ISKCON,

alone has distributed over 10 million copies of Bhagavad Gita. This does not

include their other books or other groups following some ancient Indian

tradition. The real question here is whether the Indian community and India

itself is ready to commit a fraction of the same resources the British did to

develope and promote their world view. The British never had such a receptive

audience as India does today for their 'ancient cultures' sciences and arts.

 

At this juncture, we need not look to blame foriegners for having successfully

promoted their agenda's but rather why India has been so slow to promote their

own inspite of the decades of time, billions in resources and an appitite from

a global audience far outstripping India's supply of facilities and materials.

Answer this question and you will have answered the call Tagore asked of us

those hundred years ago.

 

Raghunatha Anudasa.

 

 

Bal Ram Singh [bsingh (AT) UMassD (DOT) Edu] Sent:

Friday, August 23, 2002 5:37 AMbsingh (AT) UMassD (DOT) EduSubject: Glory of Bha_rata:

Tagore

Dear Friends,The following article written by Nobel Laureate Rabindra Nath

Tagore was forwarded to me by Dr. S. Kalyanraman who had presented the Academic

Inaugural Address at the recently concluded WAVES Conference. The article

presents an impassionate yet compelling articulation on behalf of India for its

values and relevance. Although the article was written about 100 years ago, its

reading does not let you feel that, perhaps due to the continuation of the

dominance of the forces which were active at that time.Even though the article

is relatively long, 15 min time spent on this was worth for me. I hope you find

it equally enjoying.Bal Ram The History of BharatavarshaBhadra 1309 Bengal Era

(August 1903) by Rabindra Nath TagoreTranslated from Bengali by Sumita

Bhattacharya and Sibesh Bhattacharya, Indian Institute of Advanced Study,

Simla.The history of India that we read and memorize for our examinations is

really a nightmarish account of India. Some people arrive from somewhere and

the pandemonium is let loose. And then it is a free-for-all: assault and

counter-assault, blows and bloodletting. Father and son, brother and brother

vie with each other for the throne. If one group condescends to leave, another

group appears, as if, out of the blue; Pathans and Mughals, Portuguese and

French and English together have made this nightmare ever more and more

complex.But if Bharatavarsha is viewed with these passing frames of dreamlike

scenes, smeared in red, overlaid on it, the real Bharatavarsha can not be

glimpsed. These histories do not answer the question where were the people of

India? As if, the people of India did not exist, only those who maimed and

killed alone existed.It is not that these bloodletting and carnage were the

most important things in Bharatavarsha even in those miserable days. Despite

its roar, the storm can not be regarded as the most important event in a stormy

day. In that day too, with sky overcast with dust, it is the flow of life and

death and of happiness and sorrow that moves on in the countless village-homes,

even though beclouded, which is the most important thing for man. But to an

alien passer-by the storm is the most important thing; the cloud of dust

devours everything else from his view. For, he is not inside the home, he is

outside. This is why in the history narrated by the foreigners we get the

accounts of the dust, of the storms, but we do not get even a word about the

homes. These histories make you feel that at that time Bharatavarsha did not

exist at all; as though, only the howling whirlwind of the Pathans and Mughals

holding aloft the banner of dry leaves has been moving round and round across

the country from north to south and east to west.However, while the lands of

the aliens existed, there also existed the indigenous country. Otherwise, in

the midst of all the turbulence who gave birth to the likes of Kabir, Nanak,

Chaitanya, and Tukaram? It was not that only Delhi and Agra existed then, there

were also Kasi and Navadvipa. The current of life that was flowing then in the

real Bharatavarsha, the ripples of efforts rising there and the social changes

that were taking place, the accounts of these are not found in our history

textbooks.But it is with the Bharatavarsha, which lies outside our textbooks,

that we have our real ties. If the history of this tie for a substantially long

period gets lost our soul loses its anchorage. After all, we are no weeds or

parasitical plants in India. Over many hundreds of years, it is our roots,

hundreds and thousands of them, which have occupied the very heart of

Bharatavarsha. But, unfortunately, we are obliged to learn a brand of history

that makes our children forget this very fact. It appears that in India, as if,

we are nobody; as if, those who came from outside alone matter.From which

quarter can we derive our life-sustenance when we learn that our tie with our

own country is so insignificant? In such a situation we feel no hitch

whatsoever in installing others' countries in place of our own. We become

incapable of feeling a mortifying sense of shame at the indignity of

Bharatavarsha. We effortlessly keep on saying that we did not have anything

worth the name in the past and thus we have to now beg for everything, from

food and clothing to conduct and behaviour, from foreigners.The countries,

which are fortunate, find the everlasting image of their land in the history of

their country. It is the history that serves as the introduction to one's own

country during one's childhood itself. In our case it is just the opposite

thing that happens. It is the history of our country that has kept our own land

obscured to us. From the invasion of Mahmud to the arrogant imperial declaration

of Lord Curzon, that is, all the historical annals till yesterday, are only a

mass of strange mist for Bharatavarsha. These accounts do not help clarity of

vision about our motherland. In fact, these only serve to cloud it. These

accounts throw a beam of artificial light on such a spot that in our own eyes

the very profile of our country is made dark. And in that darkness the

illumination of the pleasure chamber of the Nawab makes the dancing girl's

diamond ornaments gleam and the purple froth of the wineglass of the Badshah

appears as the bloodshot sleepless eyes of excess and dissipation. In that

darkness our ancient temples cover their heads and the peaks of the tombs of

Sultans sweethearts fashioned in white marble and embellished with gorgeous

craftsmanship haughtily bids to kiss the world of stars. The sound of galloping

horses, the trumpet of elephants, the clanking of weapons, the wavy grey of the

vast array of army camps, the velvet covers flashing golden rays, the foamy

bubble-shaped domes of masjids, the eerie hush of that abode of mystery ­ the

inner apartments of the royal palaces with eunuch guards keeping vigil over

them ­ the ensemble of all these strange sounds and colours and sentiments

produce an enormous magical world in that darkness. What is the point in

calling this as the history of Bharatavarsha? All these have kept the Indian

ancient text of eternal and beatific value (punyamantra) covered within the

jacket of an Arabian-nights romance. Nobody any longer opens that book; and our

children commit to memory every line of the Arabian-nights romance. And later,

on the eve of its dissolution, as the Mughal Empire lay dying, it signaled the

beginning of a spate of deception, treachery and murder among, as though, a

group of vultures coming from afar and descending on the crematorium. Is an

account of this too the real history of Bharatavarsha? And then began the

English rule with its five-yearly divisions like the crisscross houses on the

chessboard. Bharatavarsha is even smaller there. In fact, the only difference

it has with the chessboard is that here houses are not evenly distributed

between black and white; here ninety percent are only white. For the sake of

just a morsel of food we are now buying everything, from good governance to

good legal system to good education, from a huge 'Whiteway Ledle Store'. All

other shops are now closed. May be, that from courts to commerce, everything

relating to this concern is 'good', but in it in a corner of its clerical

office the space assigned to Bharatavarsha is awfully small.The superstition

that history has to be similar in all countries must be abandoned. The person

who has become hardboiled after going through the biography of Rothschilde,

while dealing with the life of Christ is likely call for his account books and

office diary. And if he fails to find them then he will form a very poor

opinion of Christ and would say: 'A fellow who was not worth even a nickel, how

come, he can have a biography?' Similarly, those who give up all hope of Indian

history because they fail to find the royal genealogies and accounts of the

conquests and defeats in the 'Indian official record room' and say: 'How can

there be any history when there is no politics?' are like people who lookfor

aubergine in paddy fields. And when they do not find it there, in their

frustration they refuse to count paddy as a variety of grains of at all. All

fields do not yield the same crop. One who knows this and thus looks for the

proper crop in the proper field is a truly wise person.An examination of

Christ's account book may lead one to from a poor opinion of him, but when one

inquires into other aspects of his life the account books become utterly

irrelevant. Similarly, if we view from a special perspective with the full

knowledge that in matters of politics Bharatavarsha has been deficient, this

deficiency can not be dismissed as of no consequence. By not viewing

Bharatavarsha from Bharatavarsha's own perspective, since our very childhood we

learn to demean her and in consequence we get demeaned ourselves. An English boy

knows that his ancestors had won many wars, had conquered many lands and had

done extensive trade and commerce. He too wants to be an heir to the glory of

war, of wealth, of success in commerce. We learn that our ancestors did not

conquer other countries and did not extend trade and commerce. To make just

this fact known is the very purpose of the history of India. What our ancestors

did, this we do not know; therefore we also do not know what we ought to aim

for. Therefore we have to imitate others. Whom should we blame for this? The

way we get out education since our very childhood, with every passing day, we

get increasingly alienated from our own country till a sense of rebellion

against the land of our birth overtakes our mind.Even the educated people in

our country are often dismayed and are found asking every now and then, 'What

do you mean by our country? What distinctive attitude marks it out? Where is

that located now? Where was it located before?' We can not have answer to these

merely by raising questions. Because the issue is so subtle and so vast that it

can not be comprehended through mere arguments. Neither the English nor the

French, or for that matter, the native of no country can answer in one word the

question: what is the distinctive attitude of one's own country or where is the

real location of its spirit? Like the life inside the body this spirit is a

directly perceptible reality. And like the life it is extremely difficult to

fathom through logical definitions. Since the very childhood it enters our

being through diverse avenues in diverse forms; and it finds passage into our

knowledge, our love, our imagination. With its wonderful powers it

unobtrusively fashions us; it does not allow the growth of a barrier separating

our past from the present. It is by the grace of it that we are not delimited,

we are not atomized. How can we give expression in a few words of logical

precision to this primordial and hidden spirit endowed with wonderful vigour to

satisfy the skeptic inquirer?What is the chief significance of Bharatavarsha? If

a precise answer to this question is sought, the answer is available. And the

history of Bharatavarsha upholds that answer. We find that a single objective

has always been motivating Bharatavarsha. This objective has been to establish

unity among diversity, to make various paths move towards one goal, to

experience the One-in-many as the innermost reality, to pursue with total

certitude that supreme principle of inner unity that runs through the

differences. It has also been her endavour to achieve these without destroying

the distinctions that appear in the external world.The ability to perceive this

oneness in diversity and to strive to extend unity are the native

characteristics of Bharatavarsha. It is this quality that has made her

indifferent to political glory. For, it is the mode of conflict that forms the

basis of political achievements. Those who do not wholeheartedly regard others

as truly outsiders can not accept the achievement of political glory as the

supreme goal of life. The urge that impels one to establish oneself against

others is the foundation of political achievement. And the endeavour to form

communion with others, and the effort to harmonize divergences and

contradictions within one's own fold are the basis of ethical and social

advancement. The kind of unity that the European Civilization has opted for is

discord-centered; the kind of unity that Bharatavarshiya Civilization has opted

for is concord-centered. Although the noose of discord that the political unity

of European kind wears around its neck is able to keep it arrayed in a tight

pull against others, it is unable to provide harmony to its own self. And

because of this, the antagonism and distance between man and man, between

rulers and the ruled, between the rich and the poor are constantly kept alive.

It is not that these various sections carry in harmony the whole society

together with their distinctive roles in their respective spheres. In fact,

they remain mutually antagonistic. The constant and ever alert effort of each

section is to try its utmost to prevent the increase of power of other groups.

Where everybody is thus engaged in pressing and jostling, equilibrium of power

is not possible. There numerical strength acquires ascendancy over excellence

and collective accumulation of wealth from commerce overwhelms the

householders' savings. Thus the social equilibrium is lost. And in an attempt

to keep these mutually antagonistic and repugnant parts somehow cobbled

together, the government keeps on enacting law after law. This is inevitable;

for, when discord is the seed, the harvest too would only be discord. The

well-nourished and luxuriant thing that is seen in between is only the

sprightly and strong tree bearing the fruit of discord.Bharatavarsha has

endeavoured to knit together in ties of relationships diverse elements, even if

these elements are disparate. Where there are real differences, it is only by

ordering the differences and assigning the differences their proper places and

by reining them in can unity be really achieved. By enacting a law to the

effect that henceforth everybody is united does not bring about unity. The only

way to knit together in ties of relationships those that can not be unified is

to distribute them over different areas of special preserves. If the

incompatibles are artificially forced into a unity, through force again they

split. And the breakup is accompanied by shattering events. Bharatavarsha knew

the secrets of integration. The French Revolution had the haughtiness to think

that it would wipe off all differences among men with blood. But it has

produced the very opposite results. In Europe, the rulers and the ruled, the

wealthy and the common people, all the repositories of power, are gradually

becoming fiercely antagonistic to each other. The goal of Bharatavarsha too had

been to tie everybody in a bond of unity; but the method she adopted was

different. Bharatavarsha tried to delimit and demarcate each of the

antagonistic and competitive forces of the society and make the body- social

fit for both functional unity as well as diversities of occupations. She did

not allow conflict and disorder to remain ever active by giving room to

constant attempts at overstepping the area of one's own rights. She has not

made the duties and works, the home and the hearth and everything else subject

to a terrible vortex of sullied directionlessness by driving all the energy of

the society to the single path of twenty-four hour fierce competition. To

discover the heart of unity and to achieve integration and to secure the space

for attaining the ultimate fulfillment and liberation in peace and stability

were the quests of Bharatavarsha.The Providence has pulled in diverse people on

to the lap of Bharatavarsha. Since antiquity Bharatavarsha has been provided

with the opportunity to put into practice the special talent her people were

endowed with. Bharatavarsha has forever been engaged in constructing with

varied material the foundation of a unifying civilization. And a unified

civilization is the highest goal of all human civilizations. She has not driven

away anybody as alien, she has not expelled anybody as inferior, she has not

scorned anything as odd. Bharatavarsha has adopted all, accepted everybody. And

when so much is accepted, it becomes necessary to establish one's own code and

fix regulation over the assorted collections. It is not possible to leave them

unrestrained like animals fighting each other. They have to be appropriately

distributed into separate autonomous divisions while keeping them bound on a

fundamental principle of unity. The component might have come from outside but

the arrangement and the fundamental idea behind it were Bharatavarsha's own.

Europe wants to make the society safe by driving away the strangers, by

decimating them. Specimen of this behaviour can be seen even now in America, in

Australia, in New Zealand, in the Cape Colony. The reason for this is that they

lack a proper sense of cohesion within their own social fabric. They have not

been able to give appropriate places to the various communities of their own

and many a limbs of their own societies have become burdensome to them. In such

a situation where would they find room for outsiders? Where one's own relatives

are ready to create trouble, there the outsiders would never be offered

hospitality. A society that has order and has a principle of unity and where

everybody has one's own demarcated place and rights, only in such a society it

is easy to accommodate others as one's own. There are two ways of dealing with

others: either by thrashing and killing and driving them away and thus making

one's own society and civilization safe or by providing them proper places in

one's own system and by disciplining them with one's own customs. While Europe

by adopting the former method has kept alive its antagonism to the whole world

and remaining ever ready to strike, Bharatavarsha by adopting the latter method

has been trying slowly and gradually to make everybody her own. If righteousness

(Dharma) deserves reverence, if righteousness is regarded as the highest ideal

of human civilization, then the superiority of the method of Bharatavarsha has

to be accepted.It needs talent to make outsiders one's own. The ability to

enter others' beings and the magic power of making the stranger completely

one's own, these are the qualities native to genius. That genius we find in

Bharatavarsha. Bharatavarsha has unhesitatingly entered other's beings, and has

effortlessly accepted things from others. Bharatavarsha was not frightened at

the sight of what is termed by foreigners as idolatry and did not sneer at it.

Bharatavarsha has adopted even grotesque elements from communities like the

Sabara, Pulinda, Vyadha, etc., and has infused her own philosophy into these

elements and has given expression to her spirituality through them.

Bharatavarsha has not discarded anything and has made everyone her own after

accepting him or her.It is not only in social organization, but also in the

area of faith and belief we notice the same trend of the building of unity and

harmony. The effort to establish harmony between knowledge, action and devotion

that we see in the Gita is a trait that belongs especially to Bharatavarsha. It

is impossible to translate in Indian language the expression called 'religion'

that exists in Europe, for within the domain of faith Bharatavarsha has

resisted the dividing of the mind. Our intellect, our belief, our conduct, all

that we hold dear in this world and in the next, all of these together

constitute our Dharma. Bharatavarsha has not divided the faith into the

pigeonholes of 'everyday use' and 'formal occasions' . For example, the

life-force that courses through various limbs of the body like hands, feet,

head, stomach, etc., is really the same entity and is not divisible as the life

in hand, the life in feet, and so on. Similarly, Bharatavarsha did not slice the

Dharma into various pieces like the Dharma of belief, the Dharma of conduct, the

Dharma of Sunday, the Dharma of other six days, the Dharma of the Church, the

Dharma of the home, etc. The Dharma of Bharatavarsha is the Dharma of the

entire society. It has its roots struck into the earth while its head soars

into the sky. Bharatavarsha has not looked upon the roots and the top as

disjoined parts. Bharatavarsha has looked upon Dharma as one magnificent tree

stretching from the earth to the heavens and covering the entire life of

man.Amongst the civilizations of the world Bharatavarsha stands as an ideal of

the endeavour to unify the diverse. Her history will bear this out. Amidst many

travails and obstacles, fortunes and misfortunes Bharatavarsha has been seeking

to experience the One in the universe as well as in one's own soul and to place

that One in the variegated, to discover that One through knowledge, to establish

that One through action, to internalize that One through love, to exemplify that

One through one's own life. When through the study of her history we would be

able to realize this everlasting spirit of Bharata, then the rupture of our

present with the past will disappear. ------------------------

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