HVK Archives: A case of civilizational failure
A case of civilizational failure - The Hindustan Times
Jagmohan
()
29 June 1997
Title: A case of civilizational failure
Author: Jagmohan
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: June 29, 1997
Why have we instead of building a mighty India - "mighty in thought, mighty
in deeds, mighty in culture and mighty in service to humanity" - landed up
building an India that is mighty in corruption, mighty in casualness,
mighty in callousness and mighty in criminalisation of politics and
politicisation of crime? How have we collected so many rotten eggs in our
baggage?
To me, the reason this is quite clear. On August 15, 1947 we had our tryst
with destiny. But were we clear about the of destiny that we wanted to have
for ourselves, our children and grandchildren? Had we an inspired and
clear vision, we would have perceived that the pre-eminent issue that
confronted us at that time was civilizational and cultural. We should have
first decided what was the nature of the civilization that we wanted to
build and what cultural values, what motivation and what frame of mind
would be needed to create and sustain that civilization. The fundamental
question was of evolving a new design for fife, distinctly our own, and a
new style of living, born out of our new needs and new aspirations.
Our primary task should have been re-generation of the power of the Indian
mind, re-creation of the ancient nobility of temper and reconstruction of
those ideals and concepts which had once made India the mother of
civilization, which had inspired men like Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma
Gandhi.
A powerful, creative and constructive mind should have been our main
instrument in building a new civilization, a new culture. 'The edifice of
the new India should have been erected on the soil and in the climate
created by that civilization and culture. lie bricks of this edifice should
have been baked with the fire of new spirituality and cemented together
with the values Of compassion, commitment, balance, harmony, justice and
truth. The hands that should have gone to work should have been those of
Karma Yogis.
Clearly, at the most crucial turning point of our history - these 50 years
- there have been three major failures of leadership - failure to evolve an
inspired vision; failure to get rid of infirmities that we acquired during
our long march to decline in the second millennium; and failure to keep
alive the strands of Vivekananda's cultural awakening and Gandhiji's
mission to spiritualise politics. We have largely been imitating and
looking to models which are relevant to other needs, other situations and
other stages of history. We have, at different points of time, been
dazzled by the outward glitter of the western systems, be they socialist,
capitalist or a combination of both.
No wonder, we have, at the end of the second millennium, been caught in the
worst of both the worlds. The social, economical and political weaknesses,
acquired by our system due to the decay and decadence of our once great
civilization, are getting compounded by some of the worst features of the
western civilization. And we are fast heading to a stage where we may have
nothing to look back with pride and nothing to look forward with hope.
Ale failure has another dimension. India lost an opportunity to act as a
model for a new style of life which could transmit new civilizational and
cultural impulses all over the world and thus help in the evolution of a
new world civilization - a civilization whose reflexes were shaped
primarily by India's ancient nobility of temper, her values of contentment
and compassion, her ideals of Karma Yogi, her concept of universe being an
organic entity and of one dynamic Equilibrium continuously replacing
another, and her belief in man's capacity to acquire greater and greater
insight and move from a lower level of truth to a higher level of truth.
In 1952, Arnold Toynbee, the celebrated historian of civilizations,
observed: "In fifty years, the world would be under the hegemony of the
United States, but in the twenty-first century, as religion captures the
place of technology, it is possible that India, the conquered, will conquer
its conquerors."
The first part of Toynbee's observation has practically come true. But, at
the moment, there is little likelihood of the second part of his
observation coming true. his is because the post-Independence India has
frittered away a historic opportunity to recapture and reconstruct the
fundamentals of her civilization and work out a model for herself and also
act as a pace-setter for adoption of new civilizational norms by other
countries. What Toynbee meant by India conquering her conquerors was that
her civilizational and cultural values would become the dominant values all
over the world, particularly the western world, in the twenty-first century.
Thus, the failure of the post-Independence India has been. twofold. One,
it has failed to acquire an inspired vision and rebuild India in the mould
of that vision. Second, it has failed to make a solid contribution to the
emergence of a new world-wide civilization the norms of which could have
brought about a truly fair, just, equitable, humane and enlightened
international order - an order which would have been conducive to the
growth of happy and harmonious communities everywhere.
If we subject the contemporary world - the world that has come into being
after the Second World War - to close scrutiny, we will find that it is
full of complexities and contradictions.
Undisputedly, the contemporary world has seen mind-boggling revolutions in
science and technology and also unprecedented increase in the wealth of
some of the nations. It has also committed itself, through the United
Nations and its agencies, to the preservation of international peace and to
advancement of human welfare all over the globe.
Take, for example, medical sciences. Many dreadful diseases are being
contained or eliminated. Heart bypass surgery has become as routine as
appendicitis operation. Gene transplant from higher organism holds the
promise of raising the physical and intellectual level of mankind.
Consider another field - chemistry. Chemists have already synthesised over
eight million compounds. Bio-technology is on the threshold of providing
thousands of new materials - from fuel to medicines, from foods to
vaccines, and from chemical to plastics. Never before in history have such
profound, dramatic and all-pervasive improvements taken place.
There has also been a remarkable upswing in the economic development of
quite a few countries. For example, the per capita annual income in the
United States has soared from $1600 in 1948 to $25,000 in 1993. Likewise,
in South Korea and Singapore the per capita GDP has increased by about
550-per cent between 1960 and 1990.
Setting up of the United Nations has been another significant feature of
the contemporary world. Freedom from war was not the only aim. Freedom
from hunger, diseases and ignorance was also sought. So was all-round
social and economic development. To effectuate these aims and objectives,
a number of agencies, such as FAO, WHO, UNESCO and UNDP were established.
And with a view to making the international system more equitable and just,
quite a few high level Commissions - Pearson Commission, Willy Brandt
Commission, etc., - were set up. Scores of international conferences on
population, health and environment were also held and hundreds of
declarations made and covenants signed.
With all these advances, one would expect that the present day world would
he a veritable paradise on the earth. But what is the position?
There are about 1.4 billion people who are absolutely poor. About 18
million people die annually due to hunger or hunger-related diseases.
Malnutrition kills about 13 million children, under the age of five, every
year. Vitamin A deficiency impairs the physical and mental faculties of
about 40 million children, causing even blindness to about 250,0000 every
year. About 600,000 women die each year in pregnancy and childbirth, and
30 times that number suffer injuries which, to use the words of the UNICEF,
"are usually untreated and unspoken of and which are often humiliating and
painful and debilitating Lifelong; it constitutes the most neglected
tragedy of our times."
About 1.7 billion people are without pure water supply and about 3 billion
have no access to sanitary facilities. In cities alone, about 600 million
people are either homeless or live in what the United Nations Centre for
Human Settlements calls 'life and health threatening environment'.
All is not well with the developed world, too. It has sizeable areas of
darkness. For example, crime has increased and assumed sinister form. In
1992, 14 million criminal cases were reported to the police in the United
States. Three million children were abused and 7,000 children, that is, 20
a day, suffered gunshot wounds. There were about 150,000 cases of rape.
And annual expenditure on narcotics exceeded the combined GDP of 80
developing countries.
Large disparities of income constitute another sad part of the picture.
The developed countries have only about 20 per cent of the world's
population but have cornered about per cent of its resources. The most
inhuman part of the disparities is seen in the pattern of food consumption.
A person in a developed country consumes, on an average, 1,000 calories
more than a person in a developing country.
The above facts should impel us to ask a few questions. Why, with
phenomenal knowledge and skill at mankind's command, should things be
failing apart? Why, in an age intellectually dominated by theories of
liberty, equality, fraternity and human rights, should there be stark
inequities and injustices? Why, despite unprecedented affluence in the
present day world, should there be widespread hunger, diseases and death?
Why a rich European or American, ostensibly enlightened, should be
over-consuming the resources and acting as a "veritable cannibal and eating
the children of the poor countries"?
Clearly, the current paradoxes have arisen mainly because the post-World
War world has continued to be guided by old attitudes, values and reflexes
that were rooted in unabashed materialism and theories such as 'survival of
the fittest.' It has failed to realise that the challenge it faces is
civilizational and cultural. What is needed is a new design for life, a new
orientation of human mind, a new worldwide civilization is shaped by
culture of contentment, compassion, balance and harmony and illumined as
much by knowledges as by spiritual radiance. And in fulfilling that need,
India could have played a pioneering role. Unfortunately, it has let
herself down and the world, too.
It needs to be emphasised that emergence of a new worldwide civilization is
necessary to end the incipient barbarism of the present day world and its
hidden injustices, inhumanities and paradoxes. Without the coming into
being of such a civilization, neither India nor even the developed country
nor even the developed world can really solve the basic problems of a happy
and harmonious living. Both the parts of the world, the developed and the
developing, would continue to be bedevilled by their own kind of problems.
Both ruin the risk of being wholly dehumanised - one by the increasing
impact of deprivation and the other by the rising tide of affluence.
(The writer is MP (Lok Sabha) and former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir)
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