The intellectual scene in Post-independence India

A speech of S. Gurumurthy given to IIT Chennai

... Defeat and anger go together. Abuse and defeat go together. So, it
is in this norm and with this understanding of what an intellectual
debate means, I would like to place before you some of my thoughts
today. Some of may find it provocative. I am confident that the
audience is competent enough to absorb this and think rather than get
into the mood which all of us have got used to in the last 30-40 years
abuse.
Background: India before Independence
Let us see the pre-independence background, the intellectual content
of India. See the kind of personalities who led the Indian mind Swami
Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Gandhiji, Tilak- giants in their own way.
Most of them were involved in politics, active politics, day-to-day
politics, handling men, walking on the road, addressing meetings,
solving problems between their followers. And, meeting the challenges
posed by the enemy, the conspiracies hatched against them. They were
handling everything, yet, they were maintaining an intellectual
supremacy, and an originality which history has recorded.
Let us look at the academic side. Whether it is a P.C. Ray who wrote
on Indian Chemistry in 1905 or Sir C.V. Raman who wrote about
mridangam, tabala, and violin, and saw the physics in it (this was in
1913); whether it was R.C. Majumdar or Radhakumud Mukherjee who saw
greatness in the Indian civilization; trying to bring up points,
instances, historical evidence to mirror the greatness of India to the
defeated Indian race, they were all building the Indian mind brick by
brick.
Sri Aurobindo spoke of Sanatana Dharma as the nationalism of India. He
didn't rank it as a philosophy. He brought it down to the level of
emotional consciousness. Swami Vivekananda spoke of spiritual
nationalism; it was the same Swami who spoke of Universal brotherhood.
For them philosophy was not removed from the ground reality. The
nation was at the core of their philosophy. Swami Vivekananda was
called the "patriot monk".
Mahatma Gandhi spoke of Rama Rajya. Bankim Chandra wrote Bande
Maataram. The song, the slogans in it, the mantra in it made hundreds
of people kiss the gallows smilingly and many others went to jail. It
transformed the life of the people. This was the intellectual scene,
this was the content. This is what powered the intellectual as well as
the mass movement in India. This was the core of India, the soul of
the Indian freedom movement.
The symptoms: India immediately after Independence
Imagine what happened in 1947 and after, India was able to
intellectually lead not only Indians but also the whole world because
of the intellectual assertion that the freedom movement brought about.
Let us look at post Independence India. The persons who led
post-Independence India were also trained in the same freedom
movement. They went to jail, but they were not rooted in the
intellectual content of the Freedom movement!
The first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru was in jail for 7
years. He was a great intellectual, purely in the sense of his
capacity to reason, understand, read, and expound a thought. He told
Galbrieth once, "I would be regarded as the last English Prime
Minister of India." See the intellectual capability of the man, the
enormously competent mind.
But intellectualism doesn't exist in a vacuum. It has to be rooted in
something concrete. Swami Vivekananda's universal brotherhood was
rooted in India's greatness as a civilization. The concept of
"Vasudaiva Kutumbakam" cannot exist without a living form, a
population which believes in it and believes in itself. You need to
have a society which believes in it.
That is why India could invite the Jews who were butchered, raped, all
over the world. In 107 out of 108 countries, this race was butchered.
At least they had the courtesy and the gratitude to publish a book.
The Israeli government published a book that out of 108 countries that
we sought refuge, the only civilization, the only country, the only
people, the only ideology that gave us refuge was the Indian
civilization. They published a book, which most Indians are unaware
of.
And we invited the Muslims. The refugee Muslims first landed in Kutch.
And they are called the Kutchy Memons even today but not the Memons
who bomb Mumbai. But the Memons who lived with us.
In the year 1917, many of you might be aware, a case went to the Prey
Council, equivalent to the Supreme Court now. The Kutchy Memons went
and told the Prey Council that we are Muslims for namesake, but we
follow only the Hindu law. Please don't impose the Shariat on us. The
Prey Council ruled that they are Muslims but the only sacred book they
have is called "Dasaavathaara", it is not Koran. In fact they knew no
language other than the Kutchy language.
And in the "Dasaavathaara", nine avatharas were common between Hindus
and Kutchy Memons. We call the tenth avathaara "Kalki" and they call
him "Ali". The Prey Council ruled that the Shariyat law is not
applicable to them. The All India Muslim League took up the case, went
to the British and told them that this finding is dangerous to Islam
and requested them to pass a law which will overrule this judgment.
The British government passed a law in 1923 which was called the "The
Kutchy Memons Act" declaring, "If a Kutchy Memon wants to follow the
Shariat, allow him to do so".
It doesn't mean a Muslim must follow the Shariat. Between 1923-1937,
before the All India Shariat Act was passed not a single Kutchy Memon
filed an affidavit with the plea that he wants to follow the Shariaat.
That was the integration prevalent in India.
In 1937, when the All India Shariat Act was passed, the preamble to
the act mentioned that this was being passed by a demand made by the
AIML leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Today, the Shariat has become a part
of Muslim consciousness.
The purpose behind making you aware of this background is that 99% of
the people who speak about the constitutional rights of the minorities
or the distinctiveness of Muslim life are unaware of the facts. Till
the year 1980, in Cooch Behar district, the Shariat law was not
applicable. In 32 instances between 1923 and 1947 by legislation, the
Shariyat law was not applicable to the Muslims. This is the extent of
the intellectual gap in India.
Secularism: A Reversal and perversion of the Indian mind.
And now, coming to what is the position today. Everything that drove
the freedom movement - everything that constituted the soul of the
freedom movement, whether it is the Ram rajya of Gandhiji or Sanaatana
Dharma of Sri Aurobindo or the spiritual patriotism of Vivekananda or
the soul stirring Vande Maataram song, came to be regarded not only as
unsecular but as sectarian, communal and even as something harmful to
the country.
Thus, there was a reversal, a perversion of the Indian mind. How did
it occur? Today, the intellectualism of India means to denigrate
India. There are mobile citizens and there are non- citizens deriding
India. Go to the Indian Airlines counter you will find people deriding
India. Go to a post office they will deride India. Go to a railway
station, they will deride India. It is the English educated Indian's
privilege to deride India.
When I was talking to postal employees in the GPO, Chennai (a majority
of them were women). I told them the basic facts about the post
office. I said it is one of the most efficient postal systems in the
world, one of the cheapest in the world, one of the most delivery
perfect postal systems in the world. For one rupee, you are able to
transport information from one end of the country to the other.
And you have a postman, no where in the world this happens the postman
goes to the illiterate mother and reads out the letter, he is asked to
sit there and shares a cup of coffee and comes away. Money orders are
delivered to the last rupee. It is an amazing system, one of the
largest postal systems linking one of the most populous nations, one
of the most complicated nations with so many languages.
Somebody writes the address in Tamil and it gets delivered in Patna!
It gets delivered to Jawaan at warfront! When I completed my speech
many of the women were wiping their tears. I asked why are you crying
I have only praised you. They said, "Sir, this is the first time we've
been praised, otherwise we've only been abused!"
You know how many people use the railways in India? A million people
and that is equivalent to the population of Australia! And we have
only abuses for them!
Have we any idea of what this country is? India has been compared with
Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. You can walk across
many of these countries in one night (laughs)! The best politicians,
intellectuals, sociologists in India have compared us with them
because, we have never understood what we are and unless you do that,
you can never relate us with others.
Demonising India: Projecting a negative image.
This enormous intellectual failure, to the extent of being
intellectually bankrupt, did not occur overnight, it was no accident.
There is a history behind this enormous erosion. And I told you about
these mobile citizens, what they have done to us. Every country has
problems. There is no country without any problem. Are you aware of
what is one of the most pressing problems in America today? It is
incurable according to the American sociologists; even American
economists have begun to agree with them. American politicians are
shaken, one third of the pregnant women are school going children. And
mothers mix the anti-pregnancy pill in the food without daughter's
knowledge everyday.
But this is not the image of America. The image of America is a
technologically advanced country etc. etc. Ours is the only country
where the mobile citizens of India have transformed the problems of
India into the image of India -its identity is inherently related with
its problems.
Go to any country and the same negative stereotype is echoed that
India is suffering from poverty and malnutrition. India has no
drinking water. Indian women are burnt. If they are married, they are
burnt, if they are widows, they are burnt. See the image that has been
built about this country. Who did this? The English educated Indian.
And one Kaluraam Meena (have you ever heard of him? Asks the audience
to raise their hands if they have), only a small fraction of this
large audience has heard of him. When Clinton came to India, he went
to a village called Nayla where the villagers interacted with him. And
one of the panchayat board members asked him, "Sir, I am told that in
the West, all of you believe that this country is a rotten country, a
backward country, a poor, hungry country. Do you also think like
that?"
Clinton was shaken, because he might have thought that this person
might be approaching him for some favour. I will relate my experience
when I went to the Carter Centre in 1993. They were talking about
dispute resolution and all that. I went there to meet somebody, if not
Carter, somebody else at least. His Deputy, a lady, was very hesitant
to receive me. "Mr. Gurumurthy", she said, "Mr. Carter is not around,
anyway,
I can spare seven-eight minutes for you." I said three or four minutes
of your time would do. Even before I could start, she said,
"Mr.Gurumurthy, we don't have funds, we will not be able to help"
(laughter from the audience). I replied, "Let us assume you have a
hundred billion dollars, how much will you give me? One billion? One
million?" She kept quiet, I said: "I don't need your money. I came
here to discuss whether community living is an answer to disputes. I
have come to discuss this because you have suggested electoral means
to resolve problems in communities which have no damn idea of what an
election is; whether community living is an answer because you don't
what that means. She sat and discussed this with me for two hours.
This is the image we have projected that anybody, who comes from
India, comes to beg. Ordinary Indians did not create this impression;
educated Indians created it. This is the work of civil servants, NGOs.
Christian missionaries during the freedom movement created this.
Indians are filthy, rotten, dirty and unhealthy, advertising abroad
these are the people who need to be saved. We have to Christianise
them, enlighten them, and give us money. I can understand that because
it is their business. But what did we do after 1947?
We repeated the same mistakes. We projected India as a country of
unending problems. As I said, every country has problems. Only in
India, problems become identities. How many dowry deaths take place in
India in a year? Yet, India is projected as a country burning its own
daughter-in-laws. And we also talk about it. Every damn newspaper will
be writing about it. We believe in self-deprecation. And this goes on
in the guise of intellectualism in India. And one woman, she attempted
to take a film of the widows. I wrote an article, asking her to go to
Lijjat Paapad. A widow brought me up. Millions of widows have worked
to bring up their children. It is a nation, which believes in Tapasya.
You may not believe in it but you are an exception. Compare Deepa
Mehta"s attitude with Sarada Maa's who was the wife, who became a
widow after Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's passing away. She went to
the very same place where Deepa Mehta went and saw the widows. Sarada
Maa said, "These widows are so pure, they are an illustration and an
example to me." Deepa Mehta saw them as prostitutes. The widows have
already been hurt once. Why are you sprinkling salt on their wounds?
I am very sorry to speak about this, but I have to, this audience is
enlightened enough to understand me. Indian women are sexually
unsatisfied and so they are becoming lesbians? This is one bloody
story against us, about us. This is the image of Indian men and women,
and this film is in English. Catherine Mayo wrote a book and Mahatma
Gandhi said about it, "I have no time to read this filth. But I am
under a compulsion, under pressure because this has been published
abroad. The image of India has been rubbished and I have to counter
it." With this introduction, he wrote about the book and said that
this woman is a gutter inspector (laughs).
The intellectualism in India is gutter inspection- people are of this
kind etc. Understand the level of erosion.
Indian Politics: Weaknesses and Pitfalls
Let us look at the post independence scenario from the macro level. We
installed a system of governance and it postulated all the important
goals for the Indian society and polity, which was gulped by the
Indian academia, by the Indian intellectuals. We will have a classless
society through socialism. We will have a casteless society through
equality. We will have a faithless society through secularism. We will
have a modern society devoid of tradition.
Instead of politics restructuring caste, caste has restructured
politics today. Political parties are talking only in terms of castes.
Has any Indian intellectual come to terms with caste? You must
understand caste if you want to handle the Indian society. You cannot
say that I want to have a very different kind of society. You have to
handle the Indian sentiment, the Indian tradition and Indian beliefs.
You can't clone a society of your choice in India. Social engineering
has failed everywhere; the masters of social engineering have given up
the Communists - whether it is sociologists or economists you have to
accept a society as it is. You can only increase the momentum of
evolution in the society; you can't forcibly bring about a revolution
today. But, Indian leaders and intellectuals, till today, keep abusing
caste. They don't know how to handle the caste.
Let me narrate to you how a community in Karaikudi handled this issue.
The Chettiyar community assembled top businessmen, professionals from
all over the world for 3 days to discuss their culinary act, how to
construct houses, what languages they use, what old adages and stories
their grand parents used to tell, what clothes they used to wear; not
one word of politics, mind you. This was not even published in the
newspapers. Intellectuals were not even aware of it. So, caste is a
very important instrument in India, you may not like it.
Unfortunately, every intellectual leads a caste life inside, but
outside he is casteless! He is cloning an approach outside. There is
no intellectual honesty at all.
And what happened in the case of secularism? In India, any one who is
not a Hindu is per se secular. In the year 1947, just 10 years had
passed after the Muslim League demanded and got the country
partitioned, the leader who voted for the resolution for the partition
of India was Quazi Millath Ismail, (who was leading the same Muslim
League on the Indian side), the Congress certified that the Muslim
League in Kerala is secular and hence it can associate with them. The
Muslim League outside Kerala is communal with the same president!
Three hundred and fifty crores are spent today for the Haj pilgrims
out of the funds of secular India every year. No one can raise an
objection. At least I can understand why politicians don't want to do
that because they want the Muslim votes. But what about the
intelligentsia. What about newspaper editors and journalists? And
academicians? None of them speak out. The reason is that we have
produced a state dependent intellectualism in India. We don't produce
Nakkeerans anymore, our intellectualism is a derivative of the State
and the State is a derivative of the polity. And in turn the polity is
a derivative of the mind of Macaulay and Marx.
The Indian education system: A Legacy of Macaulay.
This Macaulayian system of education is a poison injected into our
system. At least I had the opportunity of schooling in Tamil and hence
could withstand the corruption that this English education brings with
it. This corruption begins the moment the child steps out of the
house. He is told to converse in English at home. This did not happen
even in pre-Independence India, even when Macaulay wrote that
notorious note sitting in Ooty. How many of you know Macaulay's
formulation? Just those two or three sentences at least which form the
crux - "We require an education system in India which will produce a
class of interpreters, who will be Indian in colour and Englishmen in
taste, opinions and morals."
This is the education system, which we have been continuing with,
which was earlier conceived to produce clerks for the British Empire.
If you have to differ from an English educated person you have to
differ only through the English language. If you have to abuse
somebody, even that has to be done in English! If you abuse the
Anglicised Indian, he will not find fault with the blame but with the
grammar in your language! This is the extent to which a foreign
language has possessed us. But, we must master English, that is
needed, but why do we have to become slaves of the English language?
We must use that language as a tool, but why do we consider it as a
status symbol? This is the influence of Macaulay.
If you want to understand the Macaulay/Marxist mix in India, you have
to go a little back to see how Marxism grew out of the Christian
civilisation. I recommend that you read the Nov 27, 1999 edition of
the Newsweek, which describes how the Christian idea of the end of
time called the "apocalypse", influenced the entire history, art,
music, prognosis, sociology, economics, and the entire attitude of the
Christian civilisation towards the non-Christian civilisations.
A Christian scholar who describes how Communism grew out of
Christianity has written it. In 1624, Anna Baptists, a group of
Christians who believed in the basic tenets of Christianity seized
power in a particular place, banned private property and use of any
book other than the Bible. When Marxism came up later through the
exposition of Das Capital, the Marxists began expounding their
doctrine as an extension of Christianity.
The thesis, antithesis and synthesis of making Christianity acceptable
to the age of enlightenment was the Hegelian way demanded
rationalisation of Christianity in the days of the Protestant
movement. Hegel began with a disagreement, then started interacting
with Christianity and ultimately ended up accepting Christianity.
You can see the same phenomenon with Marxist postulates- "capitalism
is my enemy, we have to deal with capitalism" and finally "we have to
find a synthesis with capitalism".
.

Marx on India
In fact in the year 1857, Marx wrote about India, " India was a
prosperous civilisation. It had a very high standard of living. Their
productivity was higher. India was an economic giant." It was so. If
you look at the statistics in 1820, India's share of world production
was 19%, and England's share was 9%, please note that Britain was deep
into the industrial revolution at that time. 18% of the world trade
was in Indian hands at that time whereas 8% was the figure for Britain
and 1% for US. When 80% of the American population was engaged in
agriculture, India had 60% of the population engaged in
non-agricultural occupations. This is supposed to be an index of
development. All these statistics can be found in Paul S. Kennedy's
"Rise and Fall of Great Powers".
So, Marx says, "This was a great civilisation which had produced
prosperous communities." A prosperity which went deep into the
villages. In the early stages, when the East India Company came to
Murshidabad, an unknown name in Bengal today the Britishers were awe
struck with its prosperity and wrote that it was more prosperous than
London. This is no more disputed anyway, even by Indian intellectuals.
Marx acknowledges the fact that this was a prosperous country and also
had equality but unfortunately, he says for 2000 years the society did
not change nor did it allow any revolutionary forces to enter! In his
worldview human beings cannot progress without a revolution!
In the two articles on British rule in India and the East India
Company- history and results written by Marx, quoted in the New York
daily "Karl Marx does grant though somewhat in a grudging manner that
"materially, India was fairly industrious and prosperous even before
the onset of the British rule. He said that India was an exporting
country till 1830 and started importing because it had opened its
trade to the British." Many of you may not be aware that the kings in
India had no right to over the lands, which came under the
jurisdiction of panchayats. Whether it was Emperor Ashoka or Bhagavan
Sri Ramachandra, the rule was the same. It was changed only during the
British rule under the Ryotwari system. Even the Mughals could not
change it. It was also found that family communities were based on
domestic industry, with the peculiar combination of hand-spinning,
hand- weaving, agriculture etc. which gave them a supporting power.
The misery inflicted by the British on Hindusthan is of an entirely
different kind and infinitely more intense than what it had to suffer
before civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines all
these did not go deeper than the surface. But, England broke the
entire framework of Hindusthan, the symptoms of reconstitution are yet
to emerge clearly. This loss of the Old World without the emergence of
a new order imparts a particular melancholy to the present misery of
Hindus and Hindusthan. Marx goes on to say that the British
interference destroyed the union between agriculture and the
manufacturing industry. Suddenly he remarks that the English
interference dissolved this semi barbarian, semi-civilised community.
He concedes that they were prosperous, that they organised their
affairs well, they have a measure of independence, they have a
democracy at the lowest level, all this has been conceded. Then, how
does he classify us as "semi-barbarian and semi-civilised
communities"? He notes that India's social condition remained
unaltered since remote antiquity. This is important, for him
revolution is the core, the soul and centre of the society. This
society never had a revolution; hence it cannot be modern! There is an
underlying assumption, which considers revolution as a pre- requisite
for being modern.
Hence, he feels that the destruction wrought by the British is the
inevitable revolution needed for the development of the Indian
society. England had vested interests, violent interests in bringing
about this "revolution". But, the question in focus is whether mankind
can fulfill its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social
state? Whatever might have been the crimes of England, she was the
unconscious tool of history in bringing about a revolution, whatever
bitterness the spectacle of crumbling of an ancient world may evoke,
from the point of history, we have to exclaim - should this torture
torment us?
Since it brings us great pleasure, were not the rule of Taimur, souls
delivered without measure? It is a creative destruction in the cause
of revolution according to him. If you see Indian Communism which was
expounded by a man called Rajane Palme Dutt. Has anyone heard of his
name? (Two persons from the audience raised their hands). Two. He was
born of a white woman and an Indian father in England. He was in
charge of Indian Communism for 25 years. He never came to India
though. In his book, "India Today", he laid down the framework, the
policy for Indian Communists, what must be done, what is the kind of
revolution needed in India, the development model etc.
In those days, even good photographs of India were not available, yet
this man spoke about India sitting in London. He came to India for the
first time in 1946, ten years after he wrote this book and realised
that he had to revise it. He stayed for 30 days! A visitor to India
was the father of Indian Communism! And from that day till date, the
Indian Communist has never been with India. Not only that, they took
over the Indian mind in the post- independence period. It is these
Marxist/Macaulayist intellectuals who will certify whether somebody is
modern or traditional, backward or secular or communal, progressive or
regressive. They were running an Open Air University issuing
certificates every day through the press. They have branded me as a
communal man.
Labels: Tools for stultifying important debates
Labels substituted debate in India. Simply a label - communal, that is
enough. Four or five editorials will appear preaching that Gurumurthy
is communal and the matter must end there. No one would even discuss
what communalism is! Religious fundamentalism, RSS/Bajrang Dal
fundamentalism! Anyone, who exposes the Hindu cause in India is a
fundamentalist! We have seen this term being used so casually and
superfluously and incessantly by politicians and newspapers. Has
anyone bothered to understand the meaning of religious fundamentalism
going beyond these slogans?
Secularism is an intra-Christian phenomenon. It has no application
outside Christianity at all. Secularism resolved the fight between two
powerful persons, the King and the Archbishop who were loyal to the
same faith, to the same prophet, to the same book and to the same
Church. It is not a multi-religious virtue.
A multi-religious idea, a multi-religious living, a multi-religious
culture, a multi-religious fabric or a multi-religious structure was
unknown outside India. There was usually only one faith and no place
for any other, not even for a variation of the same faith.
Fifty six thousand Bahais were butchered in one hour in Tehran! They
believed in the same Koran, in the same Muhammad, the only difference
was that they said that Muhammad might come in another form again.
That was their only fault and they were all butchered.
But we have no such problem. We can play with God, we can abuse God,
and we can beat God!
If I say that monotheistic religions have had a violent history, and
the reply will be "you are communal." But this is exactly the same
conclusion that a study in Chicago revealed, probably, the only study
on fundamentalism conducted by anybody so far. This fundamentalism
project brought out five volumes each volume about eight hundred to
nine hundred pages. The conclusion they have reached is that,
"Fundamentalism is a virtue of Abrahamic religions. It is not
applicable to eastern faiths at all.
What about the Indian intellectuals? Day in and day out, they keep
abusing us as fundamentalists, communalists, that we are anti-secular
and it is being gulped down by everyone including those from the IITs
and IIMs, lawyers and police officials, journalists and politicians.
Look at this intellectual bankruptcy.
An inner revolution: The much needed change
We need a mental revolution, an inner revolution; we need to get
rooted in our own soul. There is a missing element in India today and
it is this. That element has to be restored otherwise Indian
intellectualism will only be a carbon copy of Western intellectualism.
We are borrowing not only their language and idiom but also we trying
to copy the very soul of the West.
So, all that we need to do is (it is impossible to share the entire
depth of the subject in one evening's lecture programme. I have only
tried out point out in an incoherent way, how a completely fresh
mindset has to be evolved. And unless it evolves, the Indian mind,
which leads India, will be in a perpetual state of confusion ordinary
people are perfectly all right.
Consider for example how thirty years before there was a question
whether Tamil Nadu will be a part of India or not. The Dravidian
parties have taken over the mind of Tamil Nadu. It had virtually
ceased to be a part of India. And their attack was aimed at Hinduism.
The moment you attack Hinduism you attack India. This is a fact.
Neither politicians nor intellectuals nor academicians realised this.
But, the ordinary people did. Just three religious movements- the
Ayyappa movement, the Kavadi movement and the Melmaruvatthur Adi Para
Sakti movement- have finished the Dravidian ideology to a very great
extent. It is only the outer shell of Dravidianism that remains today.
Tamil Nadu has been brought back successfully by Ayyappa, Muruga and
Para Sakti, not by the Congress or the BJP or any other political
party.
How many people have intellectually assessed the depth and the reach,
the deep influence of religion over the people? A paradigm shift in a
study of India would be an intellectual approach to this subject. Or
consider for example its influence on economics. Many of you by now
would have studied economics in some detail. Take a look at the
society in India and compare the figures for public expenditure for
private purposes, which is called the social security system in the
West. 30% of the GDP in America is spent for social security, 48% in
England, 49% in France, 56% in Germany and 67% in Sweden. This private
expenditure is nothing but what you and I do by taking care of
parents, our wives and children, brothers and sisters and
grandparents, widowed sisters and distant relatives. This expenditure
is met by the society in India.
And there is no law in India that people should do this. We consider
it as our dharma. A person went to a court and demanded a divorce from
his father and mother. The American court granted it saying that the
only relationship that exists between two persons of America is their
citizenship. The law in America recognises no other relationship ...
In the year 1978, an interesting incident occurred in Manhattan. There
was a power failure for six hours. Manhattan is in the heart of New
York where you find the UN building, the World Trade Centre and the
head quarters of many multi-national companies. One third of the
world's health is concentrated in Manhattan. Within six hours,
hundreds of people were killed, robbed and assaulted. We don't need
electricity to behave in a civilised manner. How many intellectuals in
India have ever articulated from such a sympathetic approach? We have
only tarnished the image of this country. We must be ashamed of this.
Conclusion
I shall conclude my speech with this example. When Sri Aurobindo came
to Pondicherry in search of a new light. He used to get five rupees
from a friend and four persons used to live on this. A cup of tea was
one of the luxuries they used to have everyday in the morning, on the
Pondicherry beach.
Sri Aurobindo used to always look at a mystic called Kullachamy
(Subramanya Bharati has written a poem about him). He used to behave
like a madman, wandering here and there, throwing stones ... One, day
he came near Sri Aurobindo, lifted his cup of tea and emptied it in
front of him. Then he showed the empty cup to him, placed it on the
table and went away. Sri Aurobindo's friends were angry and wanted to
chase him. Sri Aurobindo stopped them and said, "This is the kind of
instruction I had been expecting from him. He wants me to empty my
mind and start thinking afresh."
That is my appeal to you