(This is the text of my paper presented at Maharaja Siyaji Rao University seminar on Heritage, held at Gandhinagar, Gujarat,as part of the State Government's 'National education Summit' during September 2013)
Theme of the seminar : 'Towards educating young
India'
The task of sieving-out
the evil aspects of heritages, and preserving only the best about them
Abstract
Discussions on heritage always
revolve around what in the past was deserved to be preserved. They never touch
the very difficult task of successive generations and cultures in weeding out
the evil aspects of every heritage.
No culture has ever produced
a heritage that was free of evil aspects. Take for example our own Indian
culture and heritage. Weeding out its evil practices like caste based
un-touchability, ‘sati’ etc. was an equal or even more difficult task than that
of preserving what was unique about it. So, whenever we discuss heritages, we
should also include the difficult process of sieving out their evil aspects
too, so that we could stop the unrealistic and unhealthy trend of glorifying
the past blindly by sections of political and religious groups. Political
groups often use such techniques to sway voters emotions, and come into power. .
In fact the task of every culture and civilization was
this weeding out the evil aspects of past cultures, and contribute a more
civilized history for future generations. If we look the history of the world
it becomes evident that, this process
often took place naturally, at times through the eruption of bloody revolutions
and foreign invasions, or at other times, by the work and activism of great writers,
and great men of mind and wisdom.
If we look at the net result of
the above natural process today, we would observe that the very evolutionary direction
of human civilization throughout the history was a story of such cultural and
heritage-wise improvement. The course of nature itself ( or the evolutionary direction
) has defeated many attempts to impose dangerous and divisive cultures and
traditions upon humanity. How did the 2nd World war take place, and
how did Hitler’s dangerous attempt to rule the world by invoking and
indoctrinating his countrymen about the glory of Aryan heritage, is still alive
in our memory.
This paper will attempt to
remind the educators, and the scholastic world in general, about the need of including stories and task
of nations and cultures in fighting the evil aspects of every heritage also, in
their discussions, conferences and
seminars on Heritage.
Keywords: Heritage, evils
of wrong heritages, fight of nature to weed-out evil aspects of heritage,
evolutionary direction.
Full
paper
Introduction
This
paper intents to touch the following 3 aspects of Heritages:
1)
The
responsibility of the scholastic world to necessarily include mankind’s fight
against its own evil Heritages also in its education endeavors, besides the
glorious aspects
2)
While preserving
the Heritage, the special care needed in choosing the net essence of every
Heritage, instead of roaming around its popular and superficial symbols.
3)
The paper also
attempt to expose the connection between Heritage preservation and the
political power-structure of the States.
Human
civilization seems thriving on a perennial conflict; between its tendency to
hold on to the past, and its evolutionary needs of future. If we look at the history,
we always see a clear tendency of nature, always favoring the winning of such evolutionary
needs of the future. For this reason, our age is today free from the many evil
practices of the past like human sacrifice, witch hunting, slavery etc world
over, and sati, child-marriage, un-touchability etc. in our own country.
For
this paper, only intangible heritages are referred to, as tangible monuments
are considered as mere symbols of the total cultural aspects of a heritage.
Heritages, when it is preserved for the sake of history, it is meant for future
generation’s knowledge purpose. But it should be carefully distinguished when
it is preserved for sole political purposes. In the second case, the process would
high-light only what was best about the past, while they tend to hide the evil
aspects under the carpet. In the American history, the blood and annihilation
of the native Red-Indians would always be hushed down, and only the hard-toil
and sacrifices of the early pilgrim-fathers would be highlighted as stories on
Heritage. In India
This assembly here is an assembly of philosophers,
thinkers and other men of mind. We are not supposed to be blind followers, or
flag-bearers of any particular heritage. Instead, we are supposed to be the
torch bearers of the wisdom and light for the entire world. So our
responsibility do not end in merely exposing the evil aspects of every
Heritage, but we should also be clever enough to dig-out the unique aspects of
every past Heritages that would be the leading light for every age and culture.
When we follow this responsibility, one thing about the sharp contrast between
the Eastern and Western cultural Heritages that has not received world’s close
attention yet, deserves special mention here. It would also reiterate the
great prospects of Eastern, or more
specifically the Indian cultural Heritage here.
It
was merely a historical accident that the Westerners had built-up the modern
world around the ancient Greek Heritage, instead of the opposite world view
always advocated by the Eastern Heritage. This was the reason why modern world
was predominantly built-around the principles of materialistic science, and we
always follow a development model akin
to capitalism and its blind exploitation of natural resources. The two Heritages
were always at opposite poles as far as their attitude towards life and
existence was concerned. Let us listen it from a Western writer himself:
Mr.
Marc Edmund Jones (in his Book ‘Occult philosophy’– ‘SAMBHALA’ USA
He
writes: “Any effort to determine causal connections more than two millennia
afterwards would be futile, but it must be remembered that developments in
philosophy east of Indus , paralleled vary
completely to those among the Hellenic thinkers. It may as well have been pure
historical accident as the circumstances of any particular genius, that led to
the building of modern western idea upon the Grecian rather the Hindu
Contribution”
The
drastic difference between the two mother Heritages of the world as far as
general outlook towards life and existence concerned, is evident from the
various writings of Francis Bacon, one
of the pioneers of modern science. Science’s
general attitude towards nature and life, is crystal clear from his
following coinages:
Ø Nature had to be haunted in her wanderings ( word ‘haunting’
refers to that age’s witch hunting traditions in Europe )
Ø She should be bound into service
Ø made her a slave
Ø put her in constraint
Ø to torture-out the secrets of from her
Against the above world-view of science, what the eastern
thought, especially Hinduism stood for was :
Ø Take care of, or even worship
rivers, trees and mountains
Ø Feed and protect every life form. Hindus revere
cows,rats, monkeys and even snakes.
Ø Bow even before one’s enemies before putting them to
death.
Ø Treat the reproductive organs like penis and vagina
as sacred and pure.
Ø Treat guests as
one treats his God
We
know how great was the loss to humanity on account of the said historical
accident, as world is paying its high price
today in the form of innumerous issues of exploitation of the weak by the
strong, gigantic inequality of income, status and living standard in society, blindly exploited oceans, rivers,
mountains, forests and even the atmospheric life-air ! The newly discovered
science, or the principles of Ecology emphasizes and reiterates the relevance
of the Eastern way of life and development. In order to survive for long, we
have to look after our water resources, mountains, forests, air, and even other
species in the life sphere, instead of blindly exploiting them in the name of
science and development.
If
the East is serious about a reversal of the course of the present world, it
must work-hard to propagate our kind of opposite heritage and life-view in the
world. Such an initiative would be our paying true homage to our Heritage, and improving its prospects in the
world.
Another
unique Heritage of this great nation that did not receive deserving exposure
and popularity in the world was the non-violent
way in which the Father of nation Mahatma Gandhi had defeated the mighty
British-empire. His method, though popular in modern world, has not gained a
deserving wide-spread acceptability as a leading principle in our multitudes of
fights for freedom.
What
we touched in the above few paragraphs was
the extreme caution needed from our part in choosing what to preserve
about every Heritage, while giving equal care in throwing light upon mankind’s
fight against eradicating the evil aspects also, of every Heritage. Only our
strata of men in the world, that of thought, philosophy and mind could undertake this job with responsibility
and balance, as political and religious class may twist the facts to suit their
goals.
Power
and Heritage, and the ultimate direction of nature
We
can always observe a close relation between power structure in any society, and
the heritage it leaves behind. Past glory will always be around the achievements
and success of the powerful and their agents.. So, all heritages tend to be intangible
stories and tangible monuments and artifacts around their great successes and
achievements. A nation, or a region under slavery would never want to pass over
their kind of heritage to her future generations !
Such
plain examples lead us to suggest that man invoke heritages to identify his
‘self’ with something glorious in the present or past. His superficial self,
the ego, does not have any other means to relate itself with, other than what
is tangible in the external world. To keep his self-identity even after his
life time, the ones in power always attempt to build tangible symbols of their
power and glory. The history writers, poets and artists of all the past ages
were fearful subjects of the Kings, and they
were under compulsion, or under sacred duty to praise the ruler as a matter of custom,
practice and tradition. So, what we have in the form of evidences of past
heritages may not be always genuine evidence of truth, but intentionally
constructed symbols of their glory, specially made for the future.
It
was only after Renaissance and the European enlightenment that the mind of man
had become free, and he was able to picture true realities of the past,
fearlessly. Thereafter, the scientific and scholastic world could account and describe past Heritages truthfully.
It is today that our class of men, thinkers and writers and philosophers got
hold of our sense of reason and enquiry liberated and free, and are able to
objectively analyze every fact truthfully.
When
we have a close look at the direction of overall human civilization so far with
such an open and free mind , it becomes obvious that the story was that of a
slow but steady win of a certain kind of
human progress; ie, the win of more and inclusiveness, plurality and equality
over the past tendencies of exclusiveness, highhandedness and inequality.
Therefore, any open minded enquiry on the direction of human civilization would
be compelled to accept the above stated, clear evolutionary direction of human
progress, ie. despite the tentative win of the forces of exclusiveness and
highhandedness of the rich and powerful at many instances in history, the
overall net effect was the victory of the opposite forces.
In
India
Specific efforts of the world, and its eminent men and institutions in
saving it from the evil effects of negative heritages
Now
let us focus on the great task that the world and its eminent men and
institutions had put-in to fight the
evil aspects of its negative heritages:
First
let us consider major stories from foreign nations.
Slavery: Let us first
take up the case of slavery, one of the most heinous heritages that the western
world had created. Though slavery existed all over the world from time
immemorial, its institutionalized form had started with the colonization of the world by the Western powers in the 15th
century. In the new institutionalized form, the chief victims were the various
African people. As the newly found land
of America
Abraham
Lincoln, though his chief intention was said to be a unified America
Slavery
was one of the most heinous heritages of the Western world, and what we have
seen above was the huge prize that it had to pay in eradicating it.
Holocaust : ( The State initiated genocide of the Jewish
people)
Holocaust
was an attempt of a political leader in Germany
There
was no greater shock than the Holocaust to the modern world. It had never
imagined that such a horrible thing could happen during their time ! Hence, the
steps taken by various nations in the world to immune themselves from similar
future happenings have no parallel. Among them, perhaps The United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum may be the most visible institutional
initiative.
Since its dedication on April 22, 1993, the
Museum has welcomed nearly 30 million visitors, including more than 8 million
school children. It has also welcomed 91 heads of state, and more than 3,500
foreign officials from over 132 countries. The Museum's visitors came from all
over the world. Its website had 25 million visits in 2008 from an average of
100 different countries daily. 35% of these visits were from outside the United States
Then the United Nations General Assembly voted on November 1,
2005, to designate January 27 as the "International Day of Commemoration
in Memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Besides the above referred museum in USA , there are scores of other similar memorials and museums in different states of America France
What we have been discussing above was the hard
task of mankind in freeing the world from its evil legacies, and the intangible
heritages. We hinted above that more than any specific work of men in this
direction, it was mother nature who evolved Her own mysterious strategies to
achieve the result of cleansing the world from evil Heritages.
In the
case of Holocaust, it was the defeat of Nazi alliance by the rest of the world
that ended the reign of the evil heritage of ethnic and racial hatred.
Few very ancient evil Heritages :
Now let us move to some of the very ancient evil
Heritages of the world that we were able to successfully overcome. It is about
the ancient practice of selling of old parents for their meat. Bertrand Russell
refers to this old practice of our ancients, in his book ‘POWER’ and how we
might have over-come it.
He says; “ at some stage in the development of
civilization, it must have occurred to some men of unusual foresight that he
could, while his children were young, produce in them a state of mind which
would lead them to keep him alive in old age; presumably he was a man whose
parents were already disposed of” ( book
‘ power’ Unwin -1960, p.160) That highly imaginative foresight really worked.
Respect for parents has become an important pillar of human morality in due
course.
He also refers to the origin of natural aversion of the 6th
century BC Greece Delphi tried to retard the above humanitarian reform, the
good sentiment of the people prevailed over, and gained victory at the end.
Kings always wanted to retain the Heritage of
monarchy. He would say, “ monarchy is good, and I am glad that I am a monarch “
A heritage, when good for some one,
turns pain and death for some others. We should repeat, nature’s task always was
to preserve the universally advantageous heritages for the good of future generations.
European colonization: It was a glorious heritage for many
European nations, but end of life and liberty for many Asiatic and African
nations from 15th century till mid 20th century. It cost
the world innumerable freedom struggles,
blood-baths and destructions to save
itself from the calamity. Many nations and their people under long years of
colonization still struggle to wiggle out form the psychological and economic
deprivation that the calamity had inflicted upon them.
The Indian Story: Though our great nation was the birth place of
few of the world’s most important religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism
and Sikhism, and was the major hub of what we called in the beginning as ‘the
Eastern thought and heritage’, our struggle to save ourselves from some of the
evil aspects of our Heritage like child marriage, Caste based social
discrimination etc are still continuing. We could stop Sati like blemishes from
the list of these evil heritages with the help of social reformers like Raja Ram
Mohan Roy, and the stern legal measures adopted by the then British Viceroy,
Lord William Bentick
Free India India India
Though caste based discrimination is legally
abolished in India , the evil
is said to be still alive in many interior pockets of rural India
Summary:
The chief purpose of this paper was to warn
against the general tendency of Heritage studies to always go for its glorious
aspects.
We are men of mind, the torch bearers of mankind’s
wisdom and mental sanity. We know that modern world is still not fully free
from its past tradition of the upper-hand of the rich and powerful. As the US
World media do not show any responsibility
towards maintaining any such discretion between good and bad Heritages. They are
here for ‘describing and narrating events, and not to judge any of them. They
often get played up in the hands of their political and industry masters.
Therefore, the voices of plain reason and sanity has no effective outlet in the
present world, due to the monopoly of media in the realm of mass communication.
Such sad aspects of the present world demands greater vigil and pro-activism from
our part, the minority men of thought, philosophy and mind. We are supposed to
be the torch bearers for the future generations.
Jai Hind !
Abraham Joseph
Independent scholar from New Delhi
And Founder of conscience of the society: a
registered non-profit organization that is engaged in philosophical and polity
research on themes like Man’s faculty of reason, self, mind, spirituality and
finally, a reinvented democracy
Mob: 9891168448
Blogger profile : http://www.blogger.com/profile/14249415589712707293
Acknowledgement of references :
Edmund Jones, Book ‘Occult Philosophy’ ( Sambhala , USA
Bertrand Russell, Book ‘Power’ ( Unwin books, London
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_and_the_United_Nations_Outreach_Programme
( about UN initiatives to prevent future Holocausts)
And,
memorials and museums )
and,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_Sati_Regulation,_1829 ( Sati abolition
efforts)
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