“Idea of an Ideal
India”
"The spirit of
Advaita is not to keep away from anything, but to keep in tune with
everything." - Swami Chinmayananda
“In the end
nothing less than the whole of everything can be the truth of anything at all”-
William James
All
these three terms have to be very clearly defined, at least with legal
fraternity conducting it, i.e. Idea,
Ideal, India.
Without
clarity in definition it is difficult to proceed based on wishes, conjectures
and vague assumptions.
Definitions
are also in peril , especially with professional lawyers and main stream media
personalities [ the two experts of terminological terrorism] around.
I am
not saying this out of any bias, but because recently a combo of lawyers and
journalists have given a new definition for pedophilia as ' cross generational
physical attraction'.
They can
kill everything with their verbal narratives, and sometimes, worse still, these
self acclaimed intellects act as mass opinion molders for the gullible public.
Debates
with differing views are conducted with lot of dignity and panache in BBC. I
shall give just one link to show how it is done even on very controversial
topic without politicizing, sensationalizing, or extrapolating it with any
exterior influence or propagating it with any ulterior motive or hidden agenda.
Besides, ideas too, like everything else
emerge and evolve in due course not necessarily sponsored by any individual or
group but by the exigencies of life’s imperatives and as a result of the churning
process of life and ends up injecting meaning to life itself.
The individual who
delivers those ideas or the group that espouses such ideas are just the
privileged and trust worthy means or tools.
It is ideas whose time
has come and in certain cases it is hastened due to excessive depravity, crisis
or damage that want of such ideas can cause.
How to have a dignified
debate or discussion? [You may listen to it at your leisure time]
Very interesting group
discussion on evolution especially with reference to gender
The Darwin Debate:
Steven Pinker, Jonathan Miller, Steve Jones and Meredith Small - BBC
Evolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjJAwbc5IaE
Coming back to the
very interesting topic ‘Idea of ideal India’, and unfortunately I
don’t have the luxury of changing the topic as ‘Idea for a greater or better
India’.
However, I request,
the organizers, if possible to slightly ensure contextualizing the topic
as ‘Idea of ideal India at the moment’ as that would not imply
there was never an ideal India before and also ensure the speakers to confine
to context rather than resurrecting selectively historical events or issues or
individuals, though those things could be very spicy but not in Chennai’s heat.
In fact the most ideal
thing is not even to confine the idea of a nation by identifying it to a real
estate space in atlas with a name but to
the real contributions it has made, makes and its willingness and ability to
create conducive atmosphere to others everywhere to make similar contributions
or at least enjoy the benefits of such contribution for the sake of all species
inhabiting a planet called earth.
Hence forth for reasons
of brevity let us confine the ideas and ideals to human species.
When we look from any
perspective at the functioning real world out there, we know, does not allow practically
a very conducive and cooperative atmosphere for various reasons both
justifiable and otherwise.
So, this
dichotomy of natural variety and the inability to create unity bothers
humanity.
However, if we observe
without any bias there are certain aspects, areas of life and things that unite
and generate enthusiasm among people everywhere. They can be broadly summarized
as:-
The benefits of systems
of science further enhanced through tools of multiple technologies ; the
systems of economic developmental activities and the benefits that they
deliver; the humanitarian approaches to social systems; the systems of
spiritual aspects and philosophical concepts of religious sermons that
contribute to the betterment of life; various systems of artistic
expressions like painting, literature, music, dance and so on that help to
manifest many human aspirations and imaginations; multiple systems of optimum
generation and better utilization of natural resources and energy; different
systems of agricultural growth; myriad systematic ways of preparing
food; certain fundamental humane value systems and pleasant
attitudes common to whole of humanity etc.
There is one common
thing for all the above i.e. the word system.
So, if some
systems are in place then competition is a healthy cooperation, cohabitation
leading to comfort and not a conflicting confrontation.
If systems are in place
then the scope for individual or group whims and fancies mutilating it are
minimized, even if it cannot be totally avoided.
Each system generates
its own beliefs, isms, ideology leading to the inevitable identity.
This is a vicious circle
which leads us back to square one i.e. Varieties of identities trying
to dominate and in the process homogenizing for uniformity rather than
contributing to unity.
So, it seems more
complicated but then if we make a ven diagram of the statements above and leave
out the circle of systems and do not bother about generators of systems and
resulting isms, beliefs and so on. Then the items that stand out are
what humanity actually need and want.
However, unfortunately
we create conflicts and confrontations clinging on to the generators and the
result, making dubious claims and appropriating credit for or assigning labels
and worse still look out for numerical strength to justify especially through
predominantly two wheels Politics and Religion and propagate everything as if
they run on only these two wheels.
We give more than due
importance to politics and religion and try to look at, perceive and portray
everything and everyone only through these two prisms of politics and religion.
Let us recapitulate the
items that stand out which are what humanity actually need and want:-
Science; [electricity
has no political identity or religion]
Economic benefits; [currency has no political identity or
religion]
Humanitarian approaches; [Kindness has no political identity or
religion]
Spiritual aspects and
philosophical concepts of religious sermons that contribute to the betterment
life; [Helping and sharing
with others have no political identity or religion]
Artistic expressions
like painting, literature, music, dance and so on; [the sound of music or the color of a painting
have no political identity or religion]
Better utilization of
natural resources and energy; [Sun light has no political identity or religion
Agricultural growth; [plants and trees have no political identity
or religion]
Food; [Coffee or a fruit has no political identity
or religion]
Humane values; [compassion has no political identity or
religion
Pleasant attitudes [helping a child or a old person has no
political identity or religion] etc.
So, in this context what
an ideal India needs is not refrains of [repeated references to] its past glory
[which has survived and shall survive at any cost] nor restless
anti-nationalism masquerading as revolution and freedom of speech to restrain
ideological emancipation of Indian youth to benefit from multiple options as
global citizens with broader perspective and act as ambassadors with pride of
ancestry and hope for the future rather than sulk under the umbrage of
projected and exaggerated victim hood [whose sponsors have a political agenda]
while media which prioritizes sensationalism over sense propagates it.
All these negative
influences want to leave the youth in suspended animation in vacuous inanity or
inane vacuity so that the sponsors can fill in that vacuum or feed into that
inanity with their ideology.
Idea that need to be
emphasized for an ideal India are governance imbued government;
Policy driven
governance;
Execution and delivery
of policies;
Economic development as
a result of those executions and delivery ;
Deliveries of policies
becoming the focus of parliamentary debates and discussion;
Parliament debates not
to be misused to settle political scores;
Political scores not to
be projected over everything else by main stream media;
Main stream media
learning something known as positive aspects and contributions by India,
Indians and for India;
Indians must stop giving
too much of importance to main stream media and instead try to savor and share
all the benefits of positivism through social media;
Social media to emerge
as a mass moment to ensure all the above are put in place as a system;
That system will
result in positive economic development and social welfare oriented activities
leading to a better India.
It is
actually good and healthy to have debates and discussions with people with
various and different ideas and not pronounced biases, especially the ones
scrupulously nurtured through outdated ideological identities [ideologies which
deserve to be kept in the attic of a museum for fossil genetic samples-
especially the breed of leftover Indian Left not the real socialist Left of the
West].
There
is a world of difference between exchange of ideas, thoughts and reasons on one
side and ideology based masturbation of
opinions ensconced in pleasant vocabulary on the other side.
So,
it would be better that participants speak with conviction and clarity, and
courage born out of them, which may not necessarily be liked by all, but will
motivate thinking and not generate and instigate controversies.
Besides, whatever idea that is envisaged to be made as a suggestion in good faith must not be too idealistic and thereby becomes practically not executable and hence, every idea proposed in any domain of activity must look into ground realities.
Otherwise, they will only remain as sound policies only on paper or end up as noisy theoretical headlines for debate and empty political rhetoric.
First, policy framers as well as ideas suggesting people must have a clarity about what is meant by ground reality.
Preferably ground
reality must include or at least create conditions to generate synergy between
feasibility factors region or sector wise and the necessary changes required to
be adopted to globally compete.
All said and done, no
nation can afford to either haughtily or out of xenophobia or any ideology
think of either growing or functioning in isolation however, great or large it
may in its real estate area or its natural resources or its strategic
geographical location or its dominant military or economic or technologically
supremacy.
More and more, the world
as a whole, and more so individual nations are being pushed towards the
inevitable realization that no nation can function in isolation in a
intricately and intrinsically inter-connected life where the planet earth [
which by itself is wrongly named though more than 70% of it is water] is seen
as single entity where everyone has some role to play as global citizen with
pride in one's national identity.
Ideas must not pander to
any ideologically confirmation biases but on the contrary it must an exercise
where multitude of ideas must be collated to generate some sort of synthesis
and synergy offering optimum benefit to humanity as whole in the long run.
I always feel that there
are some wise words handed down to us over the centuries which must be running
in the back ground to remain rooted in humility and certain time tested vital
values.
So, in a sense all ideas
must be seriously studied and whenever necessary some ideas must be shed for a
humane evolution of life.
Here are some of vital
words of wisdom :-
“We live
in a changing universe, and few things are changing faster than our conception
of it”-Timothy Ferris
“There is no
tomorrow. There is only a planet turning on its axis, and a creature given to
optimistic fancies”-Robert Brault
“Evolution itself is an open ended and
indeterminate process”… “Given the remarkable progress in our understanding of
biochemistry, molecular biology, and evolution as a whole … we have failed to
develop concepts, ideas, even a language that could capture the dance of this
life” - Guy Murchie
“Humans have a need for a stable frame of
reference. Religion apparently fills this need. In effect, humans crave answers
to questions that no other source of knowledge has an answer to, which only
religion may seem to answer. However, a sense of free will must be given in
order for religion to appear healthy. An authoritarian notion of religion
appears detrimental.”- Erich Fromm,
विद्या ददाति विनयं विनयाद्याति पात्रताम् ।
पात्रत्वाद्धनमाप्नोति धनाद्धर्मं ततः सुखम् ॥ ५ ॥
vidyA dadAti vinayaM, vinayAdyAti pAtratAM |
pAtratvAddhanamApnoti, dhanAddharmaMtataH sukhaM || 5 ||
pAtratvAddhanamApnoti, dhanAddharmaMtataH sukhaM || 5 ||
(true/complete)
knowledge gives discipline[humility], from discipline [humility] comes
worthiness, from worthiness one gets wealth, from wealth (one does) good deeds,
from that (comes) joy.
This particular quote
is an outer shell of the egg which contains these:-
"All intelligent
thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think
them again." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“If I have seen
further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants”- Isaac
Newton
Shakespeare once
said “I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people”.
William Lyon
Phelps puts it, “One of our secrets of life is to keep our
intellectual curiosity acute”.
Or as Thomas H.
Huxley says, “Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up
every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature
leads, or you will learn nothing.”
With
this composition of the team I am not sure whether we can expect to get any
ideas at all which can be collated to the idea of India itself,
leave alone ideal India.
It is
actually good to have debates and discussions with people with various and
different ideas and not pronounced biases.
Polarity
principle is inherent in nature; identity is also inevitable aspect of evolution.
But nurturing polarization and creating divisions are negative aspects leading to puerile perceptions based on petrified ideologies and putrefying the very thought process with senseless slogans and this is precisely these lefties are known for.
They
exaggerate differences and instigate an imagined victim hood projection.
Importance
of definition
Inevitability of
evolution in everything
What is wrong with the
left?
Unity and Variety
How you define decides
what you need as well as what you want
I suggest reading Dr.
S.Radhakrishnan’s ‘Idealist View of Life’.
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