Editorial on Indic Studies
New European, Volume 13, No. 6,
2001
When a journalist asked Mahatma
Gandhi what he thought of Western civilisation, he famously replied that
it would be a good idea. Like so much humour, this remark had an underlying
seriousness, which is why it is remembered and quoted so often. I doubt
that Gandhi regarded the West, or Westerners, as wholly barbarous, or that
he dismissed every aspect of Western culture. This is highly unlikely,
given that he had mastered UK law and used it successfully against the
UK authorities. More importantly, he was influenced by the pacifist-anarchist
philosophy of Henry David Thoreau, a pioneer of what we now call "green"
thinking.
Nonetheless, it is clear that the
Mahatma was aware of certain tendencies in Western culture and thought
that pointed away from civilised values towards the conquest and subjugation
of others. This was true of the British Empire , the authority of which
he challenged through a non-violent "truth struggle". However, it must
be said that British dominance, although often arbitrary, corrupt and cruel,
compared favourably with the rival imperialisms of Europe and with future
empires, from the overtly conquering Soviet Union , now destroyed, to the
subtler but no less ruthless hegemony of the USA . A good number of British
administrators, after all, were humane and scholarly men, who studied the
cultures and religions of their "subject peoples" and sometimes protected
them from zealous missionaries.
The desire to conquer and oppress
is not confined to the West or its increasingly shaky "civilisation". It
is one of the attributes of man (and woman, too, but that is another story),
along with compassion, sexual urges, or the ability to think, reason, love
and create. True civilisation, as Gandhi realised, means creating the conditions
where the best human qualities can express themselves. It does not mean
refashioning human nature, to make man wholly "good", but it does mean
enabling individuals to live both virtuous and fulfilled lives. "Fulfilled"
here should not simply mean materially abundant, for true civilisation
values the life of the mind and the spirit far above the profit motive.
In modern Western civilisation, by contrast, Gandhi saw crass materialism
combined with an intolerant certainty about its own rightness and about
the inevitability of "progress" towards Western norms, because these possess
a universal validity.
David Frawley reminds us of the
Mahatma's famous joke as he urges India to look within herself, and not
to the West, to solve her human and ecological problems. Frawley is a US
citizen who is recognised in India as a teacher of Vedic philosophy and
science. In the USA , he is known for his writings on Vedanta and Yoga.
There is, therefore, a double irony in Frawley's exhortation which I am
sure would not be lost on him, but which in our letters to each other I
have not yet dared to point out. In the Indian context, he denounces missionary
activities, religious or secular, with a rage that is reminiscent of missionaries
of old. In the US context, he seeks with some success to fill the spiritual
vacuum created by consumer culture with the insights of a far older and
richer civilisation. There is a sense, therefore, in which Frawley's position
verges upon the missionary, but such paradoxes are the stuff of these disturbed
times.
A Westerner who has sloughed off
the Western world view, Frawley looks Eastwards, finding in the ancient
Indo-European tradition of the Vedas spiritual nourishment and superior
insights into the moral, environmental and political questions faced by
all mankind. He sees in Western monotheism the basis for the present commercial
monoculture of "globalisation". That is to say, the singularity and certainty
underlying so much of the Judaeo-Christian mindset is finding new and secular
outlets. Those who promote Western notions of "democracy" and "human rights"
above all other forms of social organisation, who regard "market forces"
as all-powerful (surely a modern superstition) and who wish to impose a
politically-correct blandness on the world are "secular missionaries" as
fanatical as their religious antecedents, if not far more so.
Frawley values the ancient wisdom
of the Vedas above the mainstream Judaeo-Christian tradition because the
latter (with notable exceptions, such as the Cabbalists and the followers
of St Francis) has falsely enthroned man over nature. The Vedic tradition,
by contrast, is pluralistic and ecologically aware. In this sense it is,
like the cosmology of native Americans, better equipped to grapple with
the conclusions of modern science which are, at their best, holistic and
conscious of the interconnectedness of all life. Frawley, whose native
"civilisation" (the USA ) is ethically challenged, calls for a renaissance
of Indian culture. He believes that there should be a new form of "truth
struggle", or satyagraha, to use Gandhi's word, against the soul-destroying
influence of global monoculture.
Alan Pond writes in almost bucolic
tones. These are, in a sense, deceptive. Pond writes in a gentle, reassuring
way but his arguments are incisive and the intellectual task he sets himself
is bold indeed. For he is seeking to reclaim England and "Englishness"
as force for good, both in England and in the world at large. He believes
that a positive form of "English nationalism" can develop, or rather that
it has always existed, but in a largely unspoken form, beneath the Norman
yoke that has bound the English peoples and shaped their dominant institutions.
This form of English nationalism delights in English distinctiveness, but
is respectful of other cultures. It is a "green nationalism", because it
is linked intimately with the English landscape and the variety of local
cultures that make England unique.
Were Allan Pond a Welshman, instead
of an Englishman, his arguments would be uncontroversial, even slightly
banal. Welsh nationalism, although often far from "inclusive", has always
contained a strong ecological component. Plaid Cymru, the "Party of Wales",
was green before the Ecology Party existed. Yet Pond is an Englishman and
that is a crucial difference. English patriotism is the new love that dare
not speak its name, because of the influence of politically-correct prigs
and prigesses. In the media and what now passes for academic life, they
are the new Puritans, who seek to destroy what they are too brainwashed
to understand. Pond shows an old-fashioned English courage and a refusal
to bow before trivial fashion. I believe that George Orwell would be proud
of him.
Pond could be said to be doing for
England what Frawley is doing for India. He is reviving its ancient wisdom
as a defence against the sterile internationalism of the marketplace. At
the same time, he is showing that nationalism and its political expression,
the nation state can be a benevolent, peaceful force, unlike the passionate
intensity of the Balkans. Both in Europe and on the Indian subcontinent,
a humane vision of nationhood is desperately needed. This requires us to
respect natural differences between peoples and cultures, value the spiritual
above the material and restore economics to its rightful place: the servant
of man, instead of his slave driver.
