Many universities in India are closing down their philosophy department for lack of applicants. Hindutva love for Hindu wisdom is least visible in BJP-led states. Our fanfare today is about Ayodhya and Mathura, not about the Vedas, Nyaya or Buddhist schools of thought. The level of philosophic competence has fallen and keenness of interest dipped. ‘Bania’ instincts are evidently in another direction. 

Under Hindutva inspiration, polarised issues have drawn the best attention. Sectarian ridicule has replaced rational thought. RSS-guided universities concentrate on the benefit of caste-system and role of women in the kitchen! Surprisingly there is greater interest in intelligent thinking in non-BJP states like West Bengal, Kerala, Odisha and Delhi. Philosophy-related programmes are vibrant there. Creative thinking guides social processes, reforms faltering institutions, and sustains participative values. 

Great thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Angelia Davis linked philosophy with public life. They made entire populations reflect over concrete issues. We need studied answers to life-related anxieties like human-trafficking, social responsibility of business, threat to environment and future-oriented questions like erosion of ethics. 

European and American universities invest heavily on Indian thought, traditions, and heritage. Despite allegations of western bias and colonial distortions, some of the western scholars remain the only reliable authorities on several Indian classics. We must remain open. Ram Nath Kovind, the former President, insists that universities should cultivate a universal perspective. They cannot be lost amidst concepts of narrow-minded nationalism.

Mother of Democracy

Narendra Modi is proud in claiming that India is the Mother of Democracy. Please note: The BJP and RSS are quick in appropriating all that was positive in Indian history, ignoring their own ruinous contribution. The entire wisdom of Indic thought they claim as theirs; they press their ownership over Vivekananda, Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, even Ambedkar…in spite of the fact these stalwarts were standing directly against everything the Saffron School is propagating. 

It is true that the Vaishalis, Lichchavis, Sakyas and other tribes (in today’s Bihar and neighbourhood) in Buddha’s day had a democratic social structure, much like that of the tribal people of the Northeast today. But it is equally true that violent Aryan hordes crushed them and their democratic traditions over a period of time, the dominant classes reducing them to the status of Shudras and outcasts. With the expulsion of Buddhism from India, their last traces disappeared except in the Northeast…their next target. 

The political drama that is being enacted today by the BJP-RSS alliance is a repetition of the same suppression of the weak. It is a determined effort to keep two-thirds of India’s humble population at their humble level. Dalits, tribals, OBCs and Muslims are the victims.

Stifling of Democracy

While the entire world hails India as the biggest democratic nation in the world, an acute consciousness is awakening to the fact that the quality of our democracy has fallen, and fallen very low. On the Electoral Democracy Index of Sweden’s V-Dem Institute, India has slipped from the 100th to the 108th position. Political critics are being arrested, and cases are brought up continuously against Opposition leaders. Six people were held the other day in Delhi for putting up anti-Modi posters. Of over 50,000 posters printed, 20,000 were intercepted. 

Priyanka Chaturvedi of the Shiv Sena says, Enforcement Directorate has become as popular as the “Extortion Department”. Over 95% of the victims of the ED have been Opposition leaders. Meanwhile, BJP remains a “washing machine” that clears corrupt leaders of all their crimes and promotes them to cabinet rank. A journalist, Sanjay Rana, was beaten and arrested for questioning the UP Education Minister. He was baselessly accused of being a threat to peace and taken to an unknown destination. 

Our democratic institutions have suffered most. Parliament sessions go mute or end up as a farce. Crime-accused parliamentarians have become more comedians in the assembly hall than presenters of creative political proposals. In Bihar Assembly, laddus were flung in all directions, not studied evaluations of the social scenario.

Mistakes on Either Side

There is no doubt that there have been occasions when the so called “secular” heroes humiliated Hindu sensitivities. Even today a section of the “liberal” thinkers press for same-sex marriage. Thus, there have been exaggerations that damage the ‘secular-liberal’ image. 

Meanwhile, Hindutva response to liberal insensitivities has been steadily growing. For example, there have been vigorous protests against Bollywood’s projection of Hindu beliefs and customs in bad light. While social criticism is legitimate, insensitive descriptions of valued traditions can be hurtful. Mutual accusations, baseless allegations, and calculated provocations, have gone to excess. This is a moment for inviting relaxed relationships. 

Anger is in Command

The political ecosystem that BJP and RSS have created fosters anger about anything. Emotions are being built up. Saeed Akhtar Mirza says that biased scholars are weaponising history; it is not true that perfect peace reigned in India before the arrival of the Muslims. Hindu kings fought each other and plundered treasuries and temples. Today’s Hindutva violent groups continue that tradition. 

For example, Sakal Hindu Samaj in Maharashtra has retained an aggressively Islamophobic front. Cow-related lynchings continue. Cow-departments assume greater powers in BJP-led states. Embarrassing tales multiply. Recently there was an account of a “purification” service conducted with cow urine in Shimoga district, at a place where a Muslim had recited a prayer.  

History Repeats Itself

Then comes a moment when people driven to the corner respond in their own style: e.g.  Americans responded to British exploitation, Shivaji to Mughal domination, Ukrainians to Russian bullying, Mahatma Gandhi to British imperial system, unhappy citizens to BJP autocracy. Will the masters of “muscular nationalism” and aggressive promoters of Hindu rashtra take responsibility for the consequences of their exaggerations?  

Over 2,000 pro-Khalistani protesters gathered near the Indian mission in UK. Others have been active in Canada, the US and other places. The issues are too sensitive to be discussed at this sensitive moment, but will the “majoritarians” who want to homogenize India understand? Can they learn from the negative experience of Pakistan with ever-widening fault lines of diverse loyalties in their country? 

Balanced Muslim intellectuals have been calling on their co-believers not to go by a type of “religious-absolutism” that undermines universally accepted human values. Thinking sections in the Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and other communities have done similar things. Listen to sober voices, attend to facts! Unfortunately, facts alone are not enough. Bruno Latour says that facts find acceptance only if there is a shared culture, credible institutions, and reliable media. These have been effectively marginalized in India. A new culture has been created in which truth has no place any more. All are waiting for His Master’s Voice.

Going further, all are racing ahead to please the Master with “anticipatory obedience”. Timothy Snyder in his book ‘On Tyranny’ says, “Individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and offer themselves without being asked”. Many Nazi atrocities were the initiatives of individual leaders in the field who were competing to please Hitler in advance, interpreting his mind. Similarly, petty men today are rushing ahead to defend the Prime Minister and his policies or make nasty remark about Rahul Gandhi or the Gandhi family. 

Modi-defenders are many, whether they be Amit Shah, Shivraj Chouhan, Rajnath Singh, S. Jaishankar, Himanta Biswa Sarma or Kiren Rijju. Rijju even went to the point of calling retired judges an “anti-India gang”, shocking the entire judiciary. Others express their zeal for Hindutva causes in fervent Hindutva styles. Leaders in Himachal Pradesh charge Rs. 10 as “cow cess” on each bottle of liquor. Cow-related lynchings continue. Ajanta Neog in Assam announces 2.5 lakh rupees for each of the 800 new Namghars (Hindu prayer houses).  Himanta Biswa Sarma arrests 4,111 people for child marriages. 

Meanwhile, balanced men like Hiren Gohain raise their voices, asking the government to remedy the situation that caused the evil than punish the victims. They recommend a holistic approach.  There are so many other serious problems to think about, they say, for example, the top 10% in India own 77% of the national wealth, Bihar literacy rate is as low as 61.8% and Arunachal 65.3%. About 61 students of premier engineering and management institutes in India have committed suicide since 2018, many of them due to caste discrimination. Suicides have risen of late with 13,089 terminating their lives in 2021. These are real issues that call for serious attention.

Problems Aggravate

Social scientists notice that, while the educated middle class in Turkey or Israel stand for democracy, Indian middle class are eager for an authoritarian government that controls minorities and silences critics. What intrigues them more is that Non-Resident Indians in the US subsidize obscurantism and communal violence back in India! What surprises the world even more is the flight of Indians, who can afford, from the golden land of Modi. In 2022 over 683 Indians crossed the English Channel illegally on boats! More are in line to the US and the entire West. 

With arrest warrant for Rahul and his dismissal from the Parliament, the general atmosphere has further deteriorated. Mamata Banerjee sees a new low for constitutional democracy with opposition leaders daily under attack and criminals raised to Cabinet ranks. Hemant Soren says, that the ruling clique is having Amrit Kaal, while others are under Emergency. Mutual name-calling has touched the roof. BJP spokespersons call Rahul Gandhi today’s Mir Jaffar, for betraying India to the British through his talk at Cambridge, criticizing the autocratic style of Modi government. The usual Congress retort has been to call the BJP-RSS family Jai Chands who betrayed the Hindu cause. Don’t forget Jagath Seth who financed Clive’s Plassey venture. Is that the measure of loyalty of the business community to India?
 
It Pays to be Polite

Rahul’s remark about Modi sharing the name with defrauders, though said in good humour, could have been avoided. However, no one with good sense would think of two years in prison for such type of political teasing. Modi had been merciless ridiculing the Gandhi family. Mamata would have hit back, but Sonia merely kept her dignity; Rahul just teased back. Fairness should be both ways. Words return to pin the speaker to his own place when there is no truth and propriety in what has been said.

Kejriwal’s comment may be considered far more humiliating than Rahul’s. He said after Sisodia’s arrest, how he realized that the country needed an educated Prime Minister, not someone who would suggest beating the plate to keep away coronavirus! Modi himself had humiliated our country during a visit to China and Seoul in 2015. He had proclaimed loud how “earlier people were ashamed of being born Indians”. His pretended claim was that he had redeemed the image of India. He is little aware that ancient Chinese used to long to be reborn in the land of Buddha. This is a matter of history.  

In any case, Modi-defenders have made the biggest blunder drawing attention of the entire world: they have proved Rahul right at Cambridge by silencing him in the Parliament, issuing an arrest warrant against him and expelling from parliamentary membership! Human Rights are dispensed with. Opposition parties unite. Autocracy moves from blunder to blunder. History repeats itself again. 

Chinese General Sun Tzu (4th cent BC) would thus instruct his troops, “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle”.  It would seem it is in that direction our leadership is taking us. They have encouraged too much untruth-telling, so that our understanding of our civilization, of each other and of our neighbouring nations has grown distorted. 

Our universal outlook has been reduced. The participatory political style of ancient Vaishali has been set aside. Our philosophical outlook has been replaced by temple-building mania, just like the period before the Islamic invasions. “You will succumb in every battle” in this way. The greatest dangers are averted through mere alertness. Sun Tzu admits, the best battles are won without fighting.

Thoughts Shape Future

Kim Jong-un of North Korea has been accused of caring more for his cattle than his fellow-citizens. We have failed more in this respect. Cow-lullabies seem to have become the national anthem of India as a nation. But in Happiness Index we fall low, while Finland has remained the happiest country in the world for the 6th year running, with an impressive measure of: social support, income, health, freedom, generosity, absence of corruption. 

These are human values and achievements which we cannot afford to ignore. They are brought into existence through intelligent thinking, scientific planning, a clear-sighted vision for the future, and joining hands across communities. Bridaharanya Upanishad says, our thoughts and words become our actions, habits, character, and destiny. Set your thoughts, then, in the right direction.