Understanding the meaning of an Indian Identity : Dr. Swamy Source: IBTL
Points from Dr. Swamy's keynote address to world congress on
"India's Identity" at the JNU campus.Below are points from Dr.
Swamy's Keynote address.
• Since becoming free of British Imperialist rule in 1947,
modern India’s ideological space had been for the subsequent four
and half decades circumscribed by an essentially a pro-Soviet Union
and Left--leaning socialist, secular and ostensibly democratic
framework,Philosophical issues were also debated within that
framework, termed loosely as “Marxist”.
• The Left-leaning intellectuals saw the Indian identity in a
geographical and not civilisationally or philosophically, as of a
peninsular area created as a by-product of British Imperialism and
colonisation, as a multi-national, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual
modern state. Any argument that India has an overriding
civilizational identity was condemned as “communal” or “saffron”.
They advocated that secular focus required that history and the
social dynamics be interpreted as economics or materialist
driven.
1. The renaissance in thought initiated by Bankim Chatterjee, Sri
Aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda, Dr. Ambedkar, and Mahatma Gandhi in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in harmonizing the
material growth and spiritual advancement, was aborted after 1950
when the Soviet Union’s influence took hold in the academia and
intellectual discourse. The Left version of Indian history was
fundamentally no different from what Macaulay to Max Mueller had
designed for a purpose.
2. But now a certain consensus is thus taking shape all over the
world that material progress alone will not increase the feeling of
well-being of a people. It has to blend with spiritual and implied
moral values, that is values to make national development
meaningful to the people.
3. Society of course as Swami Vivekanand observed, needs to eat and
live tolerably well.Material progress is thus necessary, but it
must not be an end in itself. We thus have to modify today’s
Globalisation phenomenon accordingly.
4. This is a fundamental philosophical issue, and the premise of
our true national identity— the development of an integral human
empowered to pursue material progress and one who does not
sacrifice spirituality or the basic values of inter-personal
relationship, moral values and environmental concerns.
5. We Indians have however been waffling on the question of
identity now for over six decades.Since Independence from colonial
rule, in 1947 Indians have been grappling with the question of ‘who
are we’? This as-yet-unanswered question represents India's
identity crisis.
6. We have now to call for a closure on this subject. The failure
to date, to resolve this crisis, has not only confused the majority
but confounded the minorities as well. However, without a
resolution of the crisis, which requires an explicit clear answer
to this question, the majority will never understand how to relate
to the legacy of the nation, and to the minorities.
7. Minorities would understand how to adjust with the majority only
if this identity crisis is resolved. In other words, the present
dysfunctional perceptional mismatch in understanding of who are we
as a people, is behind most of the communal tension and
inter-community distrust in the country. It also weakens India's
integrity.
8. In India, the majority is the conglomerate Hindu community which
represents about 81% of the total Indian population, while
minorities are constituted by Muslims [13%] and Christians
[3%].
9.Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, and some other small religious groups,
represent the remaining 3%.Though these groups are also considered
minorities, but are really so close to the majority community in
culture that they are considered as partners of Hindu society.
10. Unlike Islam and Christianity, these minority religions were
born as dissenting theologies of Hinduism. They share the core
concepts with Hindus such as re-incarnation, equality of all
religions, and ability to meet God in this life. That they feel
increasingly alienated from Hindu society nowadays is also the
consequence of India’s identity crisis.
Continued at
Philosopical issues of Indian Identity
: Dr. Swamy
