India's Rebirth

India’s Rebirth
Shrikant Soman, 10th March 2009

India, the Great Nation once she was, has to regain her past glory. This is not only in the interest of her people but also for World Peace and Prosperity. We need to have a fresh look at ourselves, caste away old outdated ideas and turn our face resolutely to the future. At present we are caught in the juxtaposition of our old emphasis on ‘ascetic’ values and the modern concept of ‘consumerism’. What we are practicing today is like sewing a patch of new velvet on old fustian or of new fustian on old velvet – a sort of botcher. Instead of realizing the error, we are in the habit of self-appreciation for our handiwork. Our cautious advance is no advance. It is an accumulation of shams, fictions and dead conventions. This will go on till the burden of falsehood becomes too great for life to bear. This will eventually lead to the violent revolution to deliver the soul of humanity out of the immobilizing cerements of the past.

We need not shy away from the future’s offer of death as well as its offer of life. It is by constant death to our old names and forms that we shall live most vitally in greater and newer forms and names. And we do not have any choice here. If we do not advance, Time will push us forward in spite of our fancied immobility – in which case it will be the most pitiable and dangerous movement, for it will ensue all round reckless destruction. We are already witnessing a trailer of this in the form of Naxalite and Maoist movement and riots in the name of religion, region and what not. It is pitiable to be dragged forward while clinging to the old values that disintegrate in spite of our best efforts and shrieking frantically in the dead ghosts and dissolving fragments of the past to survive. We cannot hope to succeed by imposing immobility on that which is in its nature mobile. This attempt will only result in an increasing and horrible rottenness. It is an attempt to persist on as a putrid and stinking corpse instead of a lively and self-renewing energetic life.

If India has to progress, we should cast away our fear of future and accept its challenge. We are blessed to have inherited the greatest knowledge and the greatest riches that man can possess. India has that for which all humanity is waiting. For us to gain by this inheritance, we must have a system of National Education which is NOT based on radically false principles, its vicious and mechanical methods, its dead-alive routine tradition and its narrow and sightless spirit and its blind and hotchpotch imitation of western values. We must have a new spirit and a new system born from the heart of the Nation which is full of the light and hope of its resurgence. Our education system should open careers which will be at once ways of honorable sufficiency, dignity and affluence to the individual while at the same time follow the paths of service to the country. The individual interest and the national interest should be aligned and move in the same direction.

We are habituated to move in the customary groove, following a safe and prescribed well defined path. Even after we realize that our path ultimately leads us nowhere in the long run, we are reluctant to adopt the great and effective way presenting itself in a new and untried form which is the need of the hour. This is the littleness of the spirit which India must shake off so that she may have the courage of her destiny.

This is the moment in the history of India and of the whole world, in the shadow of economic crisis, besieged by terrorism and religious bigotry, wherein every step that India takes will decide the turning point, an immense turn-over in the inner and outer history of mankind. It is at once an opportunity, a choice and a test offered to the spirit of our people. It is the Call of our Destiny.

…………….. inspired by the wisdom of Sri Aurobindo