BOOK-REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

India: A Cultural Decline or Revival?

The book is a compendium of several short and crisp essays. Bharat Gupt has brought to bear a good deal of fresh thought on a variety of specific topics of contemporary relevance but of lasting importance to people who call themselves Hindus and also to Indians. The topics have been innovatively classified as applicable to the Uprooted Individual (Eka); Broken Homes (Kula); Dusty villages and dying cities (Grama); Regional defacement (Janapada); Diminishing boundaries (Prithvee) and The self in doubt (Aatman). There is no doubt that issues that are important to Indians do call for such classification particularly to facilitate examination in the context of their ancient heritage and traditions. But as the writing moves on into different chapters this connectivity to the ancient categories becomes less clear. This is perhaps because of insufficient exposition of the ancient categories as the book advances. Of course, if the author had done it the book would have become much bulkier and perhaps less easily readable by a large number of people who ought to read such a book.

The book abounds with powerful and evocative words, fascinating one-liners and metaphors. Such eloquence combined with thought-provoking ideas make the book a valuable reading, yet lucid and easy.

One continuing idea may be mentioned at the outset, namely the enormous impact Nehru had in fashioning independent India's priorities and the approach to them. The book explains how in every aspect of classification adopted in it this impact was unfortunately less than wholesome. The manner in which India was dragged on its independence journey after political and military colonialism betrayed the skewed knowledge of Nehru, based on Fabian European socialism, Marx and Lenin all of which were based on half-baked thinking.

Some of the results of the Nehruvian model of nation-building, explained in the book, are the complete shelving of a colossal and still living cultural heritage, the ill-balanced importance between economic prosperity and cultural revitalization after the very long period of subjugation, oppression and colonial exploitation, blind adoption of the Westminster model of electoral democracy which maintained the huge distance between the governed and the governors, the horrendous corruption in public life fostered by socialism and statism and the greatly misconceived notion of `secularism' which `belittled classical heritage' mistaking it as `Hindu past'. The author has within a few pages illustrated how the entire education system built up in post-colonial India, by ignoring cultural moorings of the populace, ended up validating Macaulay.

One finds the author lucidly explaining and bemoaning how education in post colonial India has totally ignored traditional arts and sciences of the people in their various manifestations. The price already paid by the society and is likely to be paid has been heavy, not only in respect of self-esteem and sense of identity of the people of India, but in social ethics, individual morality in public life, balanced economic development and social harmony. The deadening manner in which State interference in education has marginalized the teacher and the emotional connection between the teacher and the taught is highlighted by the author.

One of the essays deals with evangelization and religious conversion activities of missionaries. The overseas connections and support of the proselytizing outfits and their financial and political clout have been briefly referred to. Cultural delocalization of Indian Muslims with increasing Arabization of Islam, with petro-dollars from the Middle East and the consequent growth of Wahaabism and Salafism, is also highlighted. These two phenomena are gathering strength and it is a danger to social harmony in the country, not to talk of their agenda of weakening Hindu traditions in the country.

Short but effective essays cover the great harm done by `Mandalization' in education, public service and worst of all in electoral democracy by giving a big boost to `caste-consciousness' as a means of aggrandizement of all sorts; the very limited vision behind the Ayodhya Ram Mandir agitation (without a comprehensive revitalization of the temple culture as it used to exist in the country till a few centuries back); and the futility of reservation for women in legislatures without a comprehensive feminine agenda for the society as a whole shorn of political ideologies.

The banishment from education curricula of our value system, deeper elements of religious diversity and pluralism as opposed to mere external marks, is the subject of one of the finest essays in the book. It explains convincingly how comparative religious curriculum "can make sense when taught in relation to architecture, dance, drama, music, painting, poetry, history, mythology, traditional medicine and other knowledge systems preserved by the forest and mountain people". The very useful role nonresident Indians can play in persuading the proper treatment of their religion and culture in the host country education is another aspect referred to by the author.

The book ends with an imaginary conversation, amusing but educative, among Greek philosophers Aristotle, Socrates and a couple of others and an Indian philosopher, popularly known 500 years before Christ as "Pharatos". It brings up subjects such as the difference between ananda and shunyata, between sanaatana and shramana. An interesting thought is how Islamic invaders could easily plunder and denude shramanic following populace which neglected organized civil and military government.