98. TIMELY AND THE TIMELESS

LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT

98. TIMELY AND THE TIMELESS

"The Timely And The Timeless" - this is the title of a book from 1970,  by Bentley Glass, then Prof. of Biology of the State University of New York. It examined the interrelationships of Science, Education and Society. The theme of the book is that "science as a social and historical process is  surely not the same as the nature of science as an individual scientist's process of investigation". The sheer volume of 'scientific knowledge' is so huge and overwhelming , and yet multiplying so fast, that no one 'scientist' can claim  to know everything even in his own specialisation, narrow as it is. Society at large is turned into a consumer of the products of science and technology, with very little understanding of the processes of science. The whole society is thus affected by science, but this understanding is not fostered by education, which fails to keep pace with the advancements. But more serious is the fact that the long term consequences on society of the products of science are not reckoned. Glass said :

Science is indeed an instrument of service, but only if its course can be understood and its technological applications regulated and constrained in the service of man.....one must agree with ...Alexander Meiklejohn, when he wrote: "Our final responsibility as scholars and teachers is not to the truth. It is to the people who need the truth."

 .....the scientist .....must reach beyond the immediate  consequences of any technological application of his discoveries and strive to grasp its most far-reaching  and long-lasting effects upon the terrestrial environment and the social system of man as a whole.

Here we shall find  relief from the trivial. Here we may seek and join the timely with the timeless, the socially relevant with the eternally true, the goals of man with his status in the universe, of which he is indeed so small a part......the end is not even the advancement of science, though that will accrue. The true end is quite literally the salvation of man.

 From: Bentley Glass: The Timely And The Timeless, Basic Books, New York,1970.

Image from Stony Brook University

The phrase 'Timely and the Timeless' struck a chord in me. This is what our religion has been trying to express. Life is endless, eternal; but our individual lives are so short, so full of suffering and struggle. In trying to cope with the immediate, we lose sight of the eternal. The world we see and experience through our senses hides a larger reality behind it. So the scriptures tell us to use the short term means and instruments to attain the eternal goal- this indeed is  both the wisdom and fortune of man, as the Bhagavata makes it clear. We have to use the perishable body to attain the imperishable state!

This too has been the vision of poets and men of literature. Like true philosophers, they see that the the phenomena of the world distract us from our true purpose. In playing with the small toys, we lose hold of the true gems.

But in the modern age, poets and authors are more concerned with the current developments, than with the more permanent verities. Poets are more sensitive than the rest and so are quick to be touched by what happens around them. But these days they seem to be touched more by the negative aspects. Adrienne Rich, the celebrated feminist-civil rights activist-poet refused to accept the National Medal for the Arts from President Clinton in July '97, and in an article explaining her stand wrote:

"Both major parties have displayed a crude affinity for the interests of corporate power, while deserting the majority of the people....I 've watched the dismantling of our public education, the steep rise in our incarceration rates, the demonization of our young black men, the accusations against teen-age mothers, the selling of health care- public and private- to the highest bidders, the export of subsistence-level jobs in the United States to even lower-wage countries, the use of below-minimum-wage prison labour to break strikes and raise profits, the scapegoating of immigrants,the denial of dignity and minimal security to working and poor people.....we have witnessed the acquisition of publishing houses , once risk-taking conduits of creativity, by conglomerates driven single-mindedly to fast profits, the acquisition of major communications and media by those same interests, the sacrifice of the arts and public libraries in stripped-down school and civic budgets....the democratic process has been losing ground to the accumulation of private wealth.

  All this is substantially true, and cannot be found in the academic textbooks. And these developments are repeated wherever the same style of economic organisation is followed- as is happening now in India! She goes on to say:

the all-embracing enterprise of our early history was the slave trade, which left nothing, no single life, untouched, and was, along with the genocide of the native population and the seizure of their lands, the foundation of our national prosperity and power....

And what about art? Mistrusted, adored, pietized, condemned, dismissed as entertainment, commodified, auctioned at Sotheby's, purchased by investment-seeking celebrities, it dies into the "art object" of a thousand museum basements.

 All this is also true. Yet what is new in all this? This is what Goldsmith had foreseen two hundred years earlier, and simply said: "Where wealth accumulates and men decay". The money culture turns everything into a tradeable commodity. 

Adrienne Rich, 2001 By Katharyn Howd Machan
(Katharyn Howd Machan [CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons.

But this is not the fault of a Clinton, or any one. It is not that these people were particularly bad, or ignoble. They are all prisoners of a system, as we all are. Yet I feel Rich had reason enough to celebrate: that she could write such a letter and send a copy  to the President! With all her leftist enthusiasm, in how many leftist countries, calling themselves democracies, could she have attempted that and hoped to remain alive or free?

Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th century feminist thinker and writer wrote (and this is quoted by Rich in her poem 'Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law):

To have in this uncertain world some stay which cannot be undermined, is of the utmost consequence.

Mary Wollstonecraft, c.1797
National Portraits Gallery, London.

She was writing of course about the aspirations of women. But is this not after all what every one would like- men or women - to have  some stability or certainty in the uncertain world? Yet it is the very essence of philosophy that it cannot be had in this world! We cannot find the timeless in the phenomena bound by time! Yet, we have to use the timely to attain the timeless! We may make bold to say that this is the 'skill' involved in living in this world meaningfully- the real yoga- Yaga karmasu kausalam, as the Gita says!

97.ACTIVITY AND CONTEMPLATION

LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT

97. ACTIVITY AND CONTEMPLATION

Human nature expresses itself mainly in three modes: indolence, activity and contemplation. Hindu psychology will classify it as three gunas: Tamas, Rajas and Satwa. Every society is a mixture of the three to varying degrees; and the three facets are also present in each individual. But each society shows the predominance of one or the other at different times. 

Historically, all  societies have valued contemplation above activity. When the ancient Greeks said that the unexamined life was not worth living, it was at contemplation that they were hinting. All activity ceases some time; all  earthly glory departs as poets such as Thomas Gray and James Shirley graphically described. Andrew Marvell, the seventeenth century poet sang in his celebrated poem The Garden:

The Garden

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays
And their uncessant labours see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all flowers and all trees do close
To weave the gardens of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men.
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow. 
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.

This poem has been understood and interpreted at many levels, as all great poems  are. Simply stated, it means that men value and  strain to pursue an active life or career in the army (palm) or political (oak) or poetical endeavour ( bays). But the rewards they get are limited- for the wreaths made of the flowers and leaves of the plants mentioned are just cuttings or trimmings from them, while the whole plants flourish in the garden, which we can share only when we are in and with the garden! These activities must one day cease, and we must get the Quiet and Innocence only in solitude, as ceaseless activity in society is not conducive to such a state. Dame Quiet and Innocence, her sister, are not to be had in the busy companies of men! So we must retire into solitude and enjoy quiet contemplation!

An engraving.

Andrew Marvell
By Ruralhistorian (Own Work)
[CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons

Yet the history of Europe since the Renaissance (15th and 16th centuries) is a direct repudiation of such an attitude! Colonial expansion and imperialism, capitalism born of and fed by the  Protestant ethic,expanding and intensive industrialisation, and Marxism have discounted the life of contemplation  in their own disparate and syncretic ways, and spread the attitude the world over. It is only in the mid-20th century that the serious ills of the society, especially in the form of depression and mental illness made psychologists pause and think and come up with solutions like TM, Relaxation Response, etc. The therapist became the new priest, and the tribe has grown since the days of Freud in unexpected ways. But psychology has not yet become a true science, nor has it taken the place of religion!

Religion, till the rise of Scientism as a cult, gave society some fixed rules and ideas regarding the three fundamentals of existence: Man, Nature and God. Nature and God were fixed, and Man could only adjust his reaction and plan his conduct accordingly. Religion induced a sense or duty of contemplation at least on a Sunday! Science questioned every belief, every practice without providing a substitute! Science has no clear idea on any of the three fundamentals, yet people believe in 'Science'!

Literature has followed the same trend. Our poets and novelists, from being men of vision  and guides of humanity, have now become one of us, just like us! Like the modern scientists and philosophers, they too do not know the final truth of anything , but can only advance theories! When Enlightenment and Science questioned religion (Christianity) and God, the German and British Romantic philosophers and poets could take refuge in Nature. It was still fulfilling, even without any supernatural connotations. But Science has removed all the mystique from nature itself! A flower is no more an object of beauty, subject of contemplation, but an item to be observed under the microscope, and dissected! There is no more beauty in Nature but only utility for the economist and information for the scientist! 

" I always seek in what I see the likeness of something beyond the present and tangible object", said Shelley. But this is exactly what science has done away with!

Percy Bysshe  Shelley
By Alfred Clint.

But the romatic poets were not simply 'nature' poets.For them nature was a symbol of something greater. In The Prelude, Wordsworth said:

Our destiny, our being's heart and home
Is with infinitude and only there....
something evermore about to be.

William Wordsworth

William Blake said:

Less than everything cannot satisfy man.

(Incidentally, this recalls to mind the Upanishadic dictum:Yo vai bhuma tat sukham. = There is happiness only in the Infinite.)

William Blake

Our problem today is that man has lost faith in God and religion. So, contemplation has lost its traditional significance. Activity only leads to endless cycles of restlessness, laying waste our powers, as Wordsworth said. Here , science ends in agnosticism and uncertainty about everything. Our modern literature also reflects the same trend. Our only recourse seems to be to turn to the old Classics, if at all we want any consolation or guidance from literature.

96.DIAMONDS IN THE DUNG HEAP

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT
96. DIAMONDS IN THE DUNG HEAP

According to available statistics, over 22 lakh books are published annually in the world. The country wise figures according to UNESCO are:

China                  : 4,40,000
US                      : 3,00,000  (new and reissue)
UK                      : 1,50,000  (new)
Germany, Japan}
India                } :    85,000  

One can imagine what a heap is growing year upon year! It is like our Sanchita Karma!

At the same time we are also told that book sales are falling. There is a debate about the state of reading habits, due to the onslaught of the visual media, especially among youngsters. At one time it was felt that reading books in the electronic form would drastically reduce the demand for hard copies, at least the paper backs. But this has not happened. Actually, the demand for hard bound editions has grown, while the paperback has held its ground- mainly because the same copy can go round and round, either by sharing or second hand sales.The electronic version can never be shared.

Such immense numbers pose a problem for serious readers. Even in fiction, it is not easy to select a good author or book. We go by so called best-seller lists,or reviews in newspapers, but these are so few. Nor are they sure guides, and tastes do differ. The more conservative among us may like to stay with the tried and trusted Classics, though any number of writers try to smuggle in new authors or books into the hallowed company, according to their fancy. My own criteria for something to be considered a Classic is:

• does the author have a vision or a universal or lasting message?
• does he have a style?
• does he avoid sensation and vulgarity, naked description of unwanted details?
• does the writing elevate us as human beings? Does it have that extra, unnameable element which contributes to making us realise our own humanity- its weaknesses and strengths, and ever aspire to become better?

By this yardstick, most of current writing should only be considered the dung heap.

But there are diamonds in it- real gems. And merely because  so much is added each year to the heap, the gems get buried deeper.  I would like to talk of two real gems. 

Nevil Shute Norway (1899-1960) was an English aeronautical engineer who saw service in World War II and later started an aircraft construction company. He started writing in the twenties  under the pen name 'Nevil Shute' and his last novel, 'Trustee From The Tool Room'  came out in 1960. He rode these two horses without any conflict. His novels reflect the background of his life and work- the pre-war (II) years, the war years and the later years. Like him, his heroes were drawn from the middle class, practising the professions like engineers, doctors, lawyers, soldiers, accountants, bankers. But The Trustee could be regarded as celebrating the virtues of the conscientious artisan, who has a thing or two to teach the men who have been to the university. His style is simple and direct, his plots well drawn, his prose flows gently. There is absolutely no vulgarity or cheapness in his descriptions and he is not the one to confuse  romance with sex. Reading his works is like having a conversation with a man of dignity, who does not have to 'seek' cheap popularity.

 Amidst all the action that his novels cover or portray, he explores some deeper aspects of our life on earth, the human condition: the effect of science on society, the connections between rationality and belief, the mystical elements of life such as rebirth, prophecy or astrology, the psychical elements, such as the powers of aboriginal tribes, etc.Being a scientifically trained engineer did not make him blind or insensitive to these aspects of life which we all encounter sometime or other in our lives but we cannot articulate and for which science does not have an answer, except an arrogant outright denial or more dignified agnosticism.

Some of his characters and situations are so thrilling. As when a scientist in the middle of a flight suddenly discovers that the aircraft is reaching the point of metal fatigue! (No Highway);  As when a man wounded in the war with a bullet lodged in his head but inoperable is told he has but a few months to live. On a sudden impulse, he tries to trace out three old comrades who were in the hospital along with him and to find out how they have fared ( The Chequer Board); As in the gentle romance of 'A Town Like Alice' where two prisoners in Malaya search to find each other after the War; As when a pilot on a photographic mission over Greenland  recalls his former life as an ancient Viking.( An Old Captivity); As when an old man smuggles  seven  trapped children out of Nazi-occupied France ( Pied Piper); As when an ordinary worker-mechanic has to trace out a legacy of diamonds in a wrecked boat which takes him across the Atlantic and to the US Northwest!

After the war, Nevil Shute did not like the socialist dispensation in England and left the UK to settle in Australia, which too spoke English, like England! This is the backdrop for his novel, The Far Country. But he did not like the pro-white racial policy of Australia , to which sentiment too he gave expression in 'Round the Bend' which Shute considered his best novel. His novel "On The Beach" deals with the after-effects of a nuclear war, when the population simply waits for death. 

Through all his 24 books, Nevil Shute reveals himself as a fine representative of the enlightened human race- reflecting its  sensitivity and upholding the basic human 'goodness'. It reinforces my belief that only a good person can write good fiction- fiction which endures. It is a shame and sad reflection on our publishing industry that hard bound editions of his books are priced outrageously, and the paper backs are too cheap- in quality.What a way to insult a great author.

  

  

If Nevil Shute left England unable to stand its socialist turn, the other novelist I wish to talk about is indirectly responsible for this very turn- especially its health services! It is A.J.Cronin, (1896-1981) the Scottish doctor-turned writer. Diagnosed in 1931with a medical condition which required complete rest for six months on a diet of milk, he wrote his first novel 'Hatter's Castle' in three months, it was accepted by the first publisher it was sent to and became an instant success. Cronin never looked back- adding a string of excellent novels over the years:  Stars Look Down, The Citadel, The Keys of The Kingdom, Shannon's Way, The Judas Tree, A Song of Sixpence etc . ( I have included only those which were available in India in the 60s and 70s.) There are many more.

Cronin  gave up his medical practice after ten years, but made use of his medical knowledge and experiences in his novels. His characters are colourful and the result of acute observation. His narrative is detailed, but there is a dignified, but smooth flow , combining witty dialogues. His heroes display a social conscience, out stepping their own backgrounds. The best example is The Citadel,published in 1937, which captures the way the medical profession played with the miners, making money in the process, in unconscionable ways. It exposed their incompetence as well as greed. This was based on his own experience as a doctor among the miners. This created a great uproar among the medical profession who tried all they could to get the book banned! It also created lot of enmity for Cronin in the profession.

But the authorities took note! Like in the case of Dickens, his gentle social criticism had more effect than a frontal attack on a revolutionary platform. The result was the institution of the National Health Service ( Which , ironically Nevil Shute did not like.) The British socialist party fully subscribed to his line and this is considered one of the factors contributing to the Labour victory in 1945. Aneurin Bevan, the labour leader had also worked among the miners.

Personally, his novel 'The Judas Tree' somehow disturbed me, and I gave up reading novels for more than 25 years after that!  His articles used to appear occasionally in the Readers' Digest and I remember one or two which were of the Self-improvement type, giving practical advice, which were helpful. Somehow, his books too have not been available in good, affordable editions in India. Like Gresham's law says for money, the bad novels drive the good ones out of sight, if not circulation!

Cronin with his family, c.1938.

It is only a happy family man (or woman) who can write a healthy novel. 

95. ONE HEART, MANY WAYS

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

95. ONE HEART, MANY WAYS

Humanity is one in its basic urges- its fears and hopes, necessities and needs. Cultural conditioning and exposure to social systems lead to manifold ways of meeting these needs and expressing these hopes and fears. This accounts for the richness of human societies on earth; unfortunately this leads too to much  hatred,strife and violence.

Great thinkers- whom we would call savants- from all lands have always felt this basic unity in their being.They have expressed it in poetry and philosophy. Aldous Huxley brought out an anthology of such thoughts  70 years ago, calling it the Perennial Philosophy. Some may feel that it is after all some religio-mystical stuff. But this is the region where whole truths are perceived.

At the end of the First World War, when The League of Nations was established many people felt happy. But the incredulity and irony of the situation was not lost on some deep thinkers. Writing shortly after, Einstein said:

As late as the 17th century the savants and artists of all Europe were so closely united by the bond of a common ideal that co-operation between them was scarcely affected by political events. This unity was further strengthened by the general use of the Latin language.

Today we look back at this state of affairs as a lost paradise. The passions of nationalism have destroyed this community of the intellect, and the Latin language which united the whole world is dead. The men of learning have become representatives of the most extreme national traditions and lost their sense of an intellectual commonwealth.

Nowadays we are faced with the dismaying fact that the politicians, the practical men of affairs, have become the exponents of international ideas. It is they who have created the League of nations.

Einstein's apprehensions came true. Any agreement among politicians is only a temporary marriage of convenience. The League failed and we had one more World War in 20 years. The second war had introduced the nuclear arms, which began  a competitive race, which has not ended but only intensified with time. U.N Radio interviewed Einstein on June 16, 1950 when he said:

Competitive armament is not a way to prevent war. Everything in this step brings us nearer to catastrophe. The armament race is the worst method to prevent open conflict.....real peace cannot be reached without systematic disarmament on a supranational scale....Arms must be entrusted only to an international authority.

Taken on the whole, I would believe Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit....not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in what we believe is evil. 

Quotations taken from: 'My Views', Published by Rupa &co, 1976

How ironical things have turned out to be! There is a clear race for nuclear armaments today. And there is great fear of such armaments finding their way to extremist hands. And Gandhi's own land entered the nuclear arms club! Of course, India was forced to fight in defence, and has never dipped its hand in neighbour's blood any time in history.

It does not mean Indians have not or do not now fight among themselves. Indeed such fighting has only increased after Independence. European nations which were politically divided and antagonistic for centuries have come together, while India which has been one historically is now divided on linguistic lines. Linguistic  loyalties have displaced pan-Indian intellectual affinity. This has pervaded the whole society- from the academies to the street. 

"Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by  narrow domestic walls", sang Tagore. This has come true in a large part of Western Europe; but the poet's own land was divided into two nations at the time of Independence, and subsequently, the whole country has been divided into narrow linguistic walls.

The European Union 

 History forgets some heroes

The partition of India , which killed the ancient unity of our motherland was an act of unpardonable folly. All the Indian leaders lost their head during those last years of the British rule. Surprisingly , the one man who strove to maintain this unity was an Englishman, that too an Imperial guard: Lord Wavell, the second- last Viceroy of India. He was a professional soldier and knew that India had a geographical integrity which should be maintained for its security. He did his best, through two plans and negotiations, to bring the Indian leaders together on some working arrangement. But they failed due to lack of clear thinking on the part of Congress leaders, who were eager for quick power. The course of the talks were tortuous, and it is doubtful if the leaders were at least sincere in their discussions. Unfortunately, Churchill as the British PM was against Hindus and pro-Muslims and he was determined to create Pakistan and encouraged Jinnah. Wavell got a bad name and was summarily replaced by Mountbatten to speed up the process. By this time, Gandhi had been totally sidelined, and between them, Mountbatten, Lady Mountbatten and Nehru sealed the fate of India with Partition.

Our historians have neglected Wavell. He faced very peculiar problems: Britain had ruled India by dividing the people on all conceivable lines: race, religion,caste, community.But Wavell, with his soldier's acumen, realised the importance of a united India  for even the future of the commonwealth .He wanted to avoid partition- a task which involved reversing the British historical role! He could not stall the partition. Unfortunately, the lines of division planted by the British have now grown into mighty trees, with our own leaders adding some of their own, especially language.

The vision of unity does not come to everyone, or easily. I feel Wavell got it from literature! He had been a lover of poetry and could recite thousands of lines from memory! He was persuaded by his son and others to write them down, which were published in a wonderful anthology, titled " Other Men's Flowers". First published in 1944, it is still hugely popular and in print. An anthology reveals the mind and heart of the compiler and here we see Wavell the man. The very first poem is a great gem : The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson. The man who begins his anthology with this supremely mystic poem cannot be an ordinary person! Then there is this gem:

SWEET CONTENT by Thomas Dekker (1572-1632)

 Art thou poor, yet has thou golden slumbers?
                    O sweet content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd?
                    O punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd?
To add to golden numbers golden numbers?
 O sweet content! O Sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny nonny - hey nonny nonny!

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?
               O sweet content!
Swim'st thou in wealth,yet sink'st in thine own tears?
               O punishment!
Then he that patiently want's burden bears,
No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
 O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny, nonny- hey nonny nonny!

What a wonderful poem this is! It recalls to mind Shakespeare's "Under the greenwood tree". And also reminds us of the lines of Goldsmith:

Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that the states of native strength                                                             possess'd
Though very poor, may still be very bless'd.

That an active soldier who rose to become Field Marshal could remember such splendid poems speaks volumes about the man! That he strove to maintain the unity of an ancient land is no wonder! Alas! the world can celebrate only glitter and glamour and cannot recognise pure gold!

As a soldier, he included a number of war poems. But he also knew that "while love poems are written by those who have been in love, battle poems are seldom  written by those who have been in battle".He said that " A poet is a man  to whom vision is given beyond his fellows." and that "without vision...the people perish". It is one of the quirks of history that a Viceroy with a vision to maintain unity failed, and a people with leaders lacking vision, succeeded in dividing this ancient land!

 

Wavell , at his desk in Delhi during World War II
Photo by Cecil Beaton. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

94. LANGUAGE: CONFLICTS AND CONTROVERSIES

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

94. LANGUAGE : CONFLICTS AND CONTROVERSIES

So, our native litterateurs are at it again: condemning English and pleading for the native tongues in education.

This time, Bhalchandra Nemade, the Marathi writer who won the 2014 Jnanpith Award said recently that English should be eliminated from our educational system. It is killing the other languages. 'What is so great about it?' he asked, and said 'it did not even have an epic'. He could have stopped there, but didn't: he went on to say that Mahabharata alone had ten epics in it. He could have stopped at least there, but didn't. He questioned the literary merits and style of Salman Rushdie and V.S.Naipaul, accusing them of pandering to the West.. And Rushdie gave him back.

The surprising thing is that Nemade has studied  and taught English and comparative language! In expressing such hatred for an international language, he is acting like a typical local politician, and not like a man of letters. 

Gandhiji started the trend of attacking  learning through English medium, and excessive time spent on learning it and its literature for which he had no use; but he did not belittle the language.He referred to his own experience and said that "English medium created an impassable barrier " between him and members of his family who did not know English. He said in the 'Harijan' on 9 July 1938:

We had to learn several books of English prose and English poetry. No doubt all this was nice....I am unable to say that if I had not learnt  what I did of English prose and poetry, I should have missed a rare treasure. If I had, instead, passed those precious seven years in mastering Gujarati and had learnt Mathematics,Sciences, and Sanskrit and other subjects through Gujarati, I could so easily have shared the knowledge so gained with my neighbours.

I must not be understood to decry English or its noble literature.....But the nobility of its literature cannot avail the Indian nation any more than the temperate climate or scenery of England can avail her. ....Why need I learn English to get at the best of what Shakespeare and Milton thought and wrote?

Gandhiji said that Gujarati boys and girls could have learnt Tagore's "matchless productions" or the short stories of Tolstoy , without knowing  Bengali or Russian, through Gujarati translations! He said that higher education through the medium of a foreign language has "caused incalculable intellectual and moral injury to the nation."

There are some basic confusions here. The damage was caused not by the English medium as such but through what was taught through that medium. Macaulay's scheme eliminated Indian thought and and science, and allowed Indian literature to a limited extent . 


 Vivekananda, Tagore, Sri Aurobindo , Jagadish Chandra Bose,Ramanujam, Dr.Radhakrishnan, R.K. Narayan etc could make the world understand India and her greatness only through English! They mastered English to advance India and Indian subjects, and promote Indian interests. It is not the fault of the medium that we faltered; the fault is with us- our colonial status before Independece, and colonial mind-set since then.

Jagadish Chandra Bose Lecturing at the Sorbonne,Paris
1926, on the nervous system of plants.

Srinivasa Ramanujam

It is not easy to translate great literature even from one Indian language to another. And today, it is absolutely impossible to teach Mathematics, Sciences and other subjects through translations into Indian languages.

Gandhiji talked of our " false, de-Indianizing education". This has more to do with the content of that education, not the medium,necessarily. After all, has not the govt of "free" India continued with the same arrangements?

Disappearing languages- global trend.

Languages have been disappearing throughout history. Within each language group, many dialects have become extinct. The rise of imperialism and spread of colonialism led to the dominance of European languages. This was also the period of the rise of modern science. Economic strength and commercial interests were mainly responsible for the spread of English. Now it has become truly international. 

Dorothy Pentreath, last native speaker of the Cornish language.
1781 engraving.

Last three speakers of Magati Ke, one of the six dialects of an aboriginal language in Australia, whose total population was 100 in 2001.

It is estimated that there are between 6000 to 7000 languages in the world. Experts consider that 50 to 90% of these languages will disappear by 2050.

The problem faced by local or regional languages vis a vis English has to be understood in the right historical context. With the rise of globalisation a new type of  international commercial colonialism is ruling the world. The UN, World Bank, IMF and WTO are its executive arms and agents. No country is really or totally independent today, even in internal matters. Economy of no country can function alone. Even the seeds used by farmers are genetically modified, controlled and purveyed by multinational giants, thus restricting their natural variety and proliferation, against which govts are powerless. 

The world is losing bio-diversity; animal and plant species are disappearing. Local communities are losing their autonomy and identity. Smaller cultures with different styles of life are vanishing. With large scale migration to the cities and towns, countryside is getting deserted. Problems faced by languages are to be seen in this context. It is another form of monoculture.

With such migration comes the loss of not just economic independence, but  loss of  cultural independence too,and the gradual loss of dialects and variations; the richness of languages is arrested by the standardisation of language use under state-sponsored education.

Colonialism spread the European world view and the European ideas  and approach to everything. People were taught and indirectly forced to look at themselves and their systems through European eyes. Today, the world economic order is accomplishing this silently, but with greater force.

 In his 1909 book "Hind Swaraj"Mahatma Gandhi identified the problem as the rise of "modern civilisation" and not just "western" civilisation. He thus correctly understood the core issue- it was a 'clash of civilisations', in the words of a modern scholar- Samuel Huntington.Gandhiji said his Swaraj was  "to keep in tact the genius of our civilization". But later on, he took on too many issues and lost focus.

If we take all factors together dispassionately, we will understand we are up against "COSMIC" forces, and the dominance of English language is just a symptom.

All Indian languages, including Hindi, face the same problem: they may have rich literature, but they are just that: literary languages,in none of which any modern subject can be taught- not only the hard sciences, even the humanities and every variety of technical subjects. In the last thousand years, our languages have not grown at all, to be able to handle modern developments in the sciences.. For two hundred years, our youngsters have been brought up without much touch with our own classic literature and its traditions. This trend was only reinforced under leftist and 'progressive' forces. We have followed every Western trend even in literature. Those who study through the medium of their mother tongue will be totally cut off from the world of advanced  thought, be intellectually stunted, and face a dead end. 

Add to this the tremendous strides made in the area of Information Technology for which none of the Indian languages is fit or adequate.

There is just no solution to this problem. Reality has to be faced.  The best we may hope to do is to use English to promote our interests, not  drop its use.. Mahatma Gandhi missed this simple truth. What can we expect from lesser mortals?

The footwear may be from Japan, the pant may be from England, our breakfast cereal may be from the US, but what prevents us from being Indian in heart and mind? It is the content of the education we have received . Blame the men who kept it so even after Independence, and not the medium of the language.

India is the second largest English-speaking country in the world. This position can surely be used for our advantage. Let Indians first learn to treat other Indian languages with respect, and not discriminate against linguistic minorities.




Note:
Some quick number-munching about Indian languages:

1.George Grierson, Irish linguist and Indian civil servant counted about 364 languages between 1894 and 1928.
2. Govt. has not conducted a comprehensive language survey.Its official estimate for the total number of languages was 1652 in the 1961 census but was mysteriously reduced to  182  in the 1971 census.. It does not count a language spoken by less than 10,000 people. Govt. of India is deliberately suppressing linguistic data, and arbitrarily reducing the number of languages. 
3.In its survey directed by Ganesh Devy, the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre (first report issued in 2013) found that:

• India had 780 languages
• Another 100 may be existing

4. About 220 languages have disappeared in the last 50 years; another 150 could vanish in the next 50 years.

6. Though we have linguistic states formed around one language, no less than 10 languages are spoken in each state. Over 200 languages are spoken in the Delhi region.

7. Many largely-spoken languages like Bhojpuri, Kutchi, Tulu, Konkani, Coorgi (Kodava) etc have no state of their own!

8. Hindi is growing fast, edging out other local languages. Awadhi, the language of Ram Charit Manas is spoken by 45 million people,across many states, but it is taken as part or dialect of Hindi, and it has no state of its own! ( There are more than 50 countries in the world with a population of 10 to 50 million!)

93 WHERE KNOWLEDGE IS FREE

LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT

93.  WHERE KNOWLEDGE IS FREE

In the famous poem beginning "Where the mind is without fear"  from Gitanjali,

Accessed from:www.slideshare.net/Tamanna-Amir/lesson 31831199. Copyright status not stated.


Gurudev Tagore speaks of "Where knowledge is free", as a condition or feature of the "heaven of freedom" into which he wants his country to awake.

Everywhere knowledge is sold

When we look around today, we find knowledge being made prisoner of both financial and institutional control. With the so called Intellectual Property Rights, knowledge has been commodified, packaged and is sold like cattle or car. But the absurdity of the scene is that , while if I take away your car or cattle, your enjoyment of the benefits from it will be reduced or wiped out, my quoting or employing your words or works will not interfere with your own enjoyment!

The basic idea behind is to derive a monetary advantage out of a new idea or invention, especially when it is embedded in technology and gets embodied in a product, as in a drug or toy. While it may have validity in respect of physical things, to talk of "property" seems absurd, the very negation of knowledge, in respect of pure ideas. 

Even in respect of things, mere ownership does not confer real property rights. If we own an ocean, but cannot swim, do we really "own" it? A street urchin really owns all the oceans if he can swim!

The real long term effect of such restrictions on free flow of ideas is to limit cross fertilisation and creativity. While a few individuals may make money in the short run, humanity suffers. Leaving fiction aside, there are  very few ideas which are really original. Intellectual property rights seal them in small containers , there to fade into oblivion. It is the very nature of ideas to originate somewhere  outside our mind; our mind is only a receiver, not a creator; others on the same wavelength may receive them, if they contemplate the same problems.

IPR is an off-shoot of aggressive capitalism. The argument is that an inventor or originator of ideas should get some monetary benefit out of it. At least in respect of literature ( I don't have fiction in mind) this is the result of the disappearance of the system of patronage. In the pre-modern days, before the 17th century, writers and scholars pursued  their interests, disinterested in money considerations; they were patronised by kings, lords or local chieftains. With the abolition of all such orders and the rise of capitalism, education and knowledge have also been packaged into goods and services so that they could be traded. 

In his Nobel prize acceptance speech , on 26 May,1921, Tagore said:

....the traditions of our country are never to accept any material fees from the students in return to the teaching, because we consider in India that he who has the knowledge has the responsibility to impart it to the students.

Today, one cannot learn anything in India, even the alphabets, leave alone poetry or philosophy,-the real foundation of true knowledge- without paying for it, often through the nose.

Salutations to two great Masters of our age!

Before the spread of literacy, and cheap printing methods, serious writers wanted their works to remain in manuscript form, and considered it cheap and vulgar to have them printed and circulated. Of course it was a time when such scholarly pursuits were associated with class notions. We are told that:

"Manuscript was seen as a more private, class bound form of publication,....and writers like Philip Sidney or John Donne were extremely leery of appearing in print for fear of seeming common.......The public, commodified circulation of print,on the other hand, was seen by those with court ambitions  as a cheapening, chancy, even dangerous business.......John Milton's late and agonised decision to begin to print his writing......"

From: Anne Baynes Coiro :  'Writing in Service: Sexual Politics and Class Position in the Poetry of Aemilia Lanyer and Ben Jonson' in 'Seventeenth Century British Poetry' Norton Critical Edition,2006.

 Sir Philip Sidney:1554-1586
English poet and courtier of Elizabethan age.

John Donne: 1572-1631
Considered a leading Metaphysical poet.






Both pictures in the Public Domain.Taken from Wikimedia Commons.

 Of course there are no kings  and courts to patronise authors now, who depend on the  publishers and reading public. Nobles might have gone, but we still have noble minded rich who generously support education and scholarship but it takes an institutional form. IPR has thus become a necessary evil. While it is necessary for freelancers and professional writers who depend upon it for a living, I cannot understand why academics paid well by the universities should seek further unconscionable gain from their writings. After all, the universities had supported and funded their research, directly or indirectly. Perhaps they are guided by a new idea of "class"- that they should price themselves out of the many, and land in a few 'niches' and corners!

 But it becomes absurd and ridiculous when one cannot reproduce a photograph or painting of a leading artist or thinker or scientist or academic due to copyright restrictions. What is the scale of values of a society when the newspapers are full of the photos of criminals and rowdies, politicians and film stars & and starlets. while it is so rare to see a good photograph of a scientist or artist?  "What will sell" is the only guide.

Where the mind is sold out

We Indians suffer from a different kind of loss of freedom. Our academics, intellectuals and writers have completely lost any originality of mind, and merely echo the ideas of the West. They are guided by western frameworks and theories even in evaluating purely Indian themes. In the academic disciplines such as economics, political science, poetics, aesthetics, logic, philosophy, astronomy, metallurgy, mathematics, medicine, literature, etc our scholars are not even aware of India's own achievement. They do not care that we have our own standards and theories. In his Nobel speech in 1921, Tagore also said:

We lost our confidence in our own civilization for over a century, when we came into contact with the Western races with their material superiority over the Eastern Humanity and Eastern culture, and in the educational establishments no provision was made for our own culture. And for over a century our students have been brought up in utter ignorance of the worth of their own civilization of the past. Thus did we not only lose touch of the great which lay hidden in our own inheritance, but also the great honour of giving what we have and not merely begging from others, not merely borrowing culture and living like eternal schoolboys.

And just think- another century has gone by like this!




Nor do our academics and 'intellectuals' even now critically examine the contribution of the West, ancient or modern. Their standard of appreciation is what the West does. The popular culture is becoming mere imitation of pop American ways, but the slavish mentality of the academics is hard to understand.

With the spread of modern science and technology, and the accompanying commercialisation, it is natural that there has been standardisation and uniformity in most spheres of life. However it need not be so in all areas of intellectual activity. For Indians, the 'West' is a uniform monolith. But in the West itself, there is considerable variety and variation in their tastes and approaches. The US and UK are both basically Anglo-Saxon , but they are not copies or replicas of each other. Such variation is the sign of life and growth.Modern Indians can only copy, not adapt. 

Indians have made the monumental mistake of confusing  English language and Anglicised education.We had many leaders during the freedom movement who learned English , but did not give up our cultural roots. The Tagore family and Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo immediately come to mind. They used English language to interpret the genius of India to the whole world, and thus counter the mischief created by the colonial interests. Sadly, free India has blindly continued with the colonial mind set, and made it the standard. All the above leaders transcended the ideas of narrow nationalism and pleaded for universal values, but they were firmly rooted in our soil and psyche. Post-Independence India has mistaken Westernisation for modernisation, Nehru being the chief villain in this regard. It has used English not to uphold and promote Indian interests, but to destroy them.

Most educated persons of older generations could only write Victorian English- to which they were exposed in their schooling. Today, our writers copy mainly the American style. England itself has changed, and America has its own peculiarities. But Indians seek to survive by imitation. Sri Aurobindo alone wrote English in an original style, which was the envy of even Englishmen.

We can stand out

 This is where R.K.Narayan scores easily- with a very natural, simple style, combining a "beauty and sadness" , in the words of Graham Greene that appealed to all cultivated minds in England and other countries.In the obituary note on 14 May 2001, Myrna Oliver of the Los Angeles Times wrote:

(Narayan's) spare,wry English language novels and short stories gave the world insight into the richness and depth of life  and literature in India....

(his) 34 books of elegantly subtle, simple and universal fiction made him India's most notable writer.....

(his) prolific works were translated into all European languages, Hebrew.... Narayan also expanded English lexicon with such India-based words as "swat", meaning ridding oneself of flies.

'The Economist', London wrote in its issue of 24 May 2001:

...seeking to understand India,R.K. Narayan is more accessible than Salman Rushdie and less cumbersome than Vikram Seth....

Gradually, the reader learns to view the world through Indian rather than Western eyes.

We may learn all the English we can, but we must learn to be Indians first for the world to respect us. Imitation attracts ridicule and contempt.

RKN with Lyle Blair of Michigan State University Press  ( American Publisher of Narayan's books) and Anthony West of The New Yorker.
Public Domain via Wikimedia commons.

The revolutionary Tamil poet Subramanya Bharati sang that if it is true literary excellence, foreigners should salute it. This is what RKN proved. 

Subramanya Bharati 1882-1921

Regional politics, linguistic chauvinism and caste considerations have combined in India to  deny Narayan his due place .



We have a long way to go to even glimpse that heaven where knowledge is free.