India IS its Brother's Keeper

[Guest guest]

India's time has come

By M.S.N. Menon

 

"In their own way, Indians do more good in a day than the rest of the

world. They water the plants, they feed the ants. It is a daily

prayer with them. All out of love for creation."...."India has chosen

liberty and diversity. Not now, but millennia ago—during the Vedic

Age. And it has acquired a vast amount of experience in multicultural

existence."

 

THE world is going through a moral and spiritual crisis. "If we are

to survive it, (we need) a moral and spiritual revolution" says Dr S.

Radhakrishnan.

 

But who can bring about this moral and spiritual revolution? Only

India. Destiny has cast it in that role. And the time has now come.

India is going to be a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council.

It is to be a super power.

 

Look at its history? The Rig-veda exhorts the humanity: "Walk

together, speak in concord, let your mind comprehend alike, let your

efforts be united, let your hearts be in agreement... that we all may

be happy."

 

India has a deep concern for the entire humanity. The Buddha gave up

his throne at the sight of human misery. And Ashoka, the great

Buddhist emperor, gave up war when he saw the devastation it brought.

This is India's tradition. There is no parallel. And we have Gandhi—

the man who inspired colonial peoples to be free from bondage.

 

What is it that inspired independent India's foreign policy? Was it

plunder, markets or hegemony? Not any of these things. Its objectives

were civilisational. And that is how it will remain.

 

And its civilisation has conditioned India to be its brother's keeper—

a task few others are fit to take up. India has never drawn a line

between the faithful and the faithless, the blessed and the damned.

Nor has it divided mankind into children of God and of the Devil, as

Christianity and Islam have done, or the world into two hostile camps—

Dar-ul Islam and Dar-ul Harb.

 

Ashoka carried Buddha's message of peace and non-violence to the far

corners of the world. But always through persuasion, never by force.

And Buddhism never tried to wipe off the past of the people as Islam

tries to do.

 

But propagation of Buddhism was not the only objective of Ashoka. The

real obejctive was to serve mankind. He says: "There is no higher

service than the welfare of the whole world."

 

Unlike the West, India concentrates its efforts on the creation of

the perfect man, for without the perfect man there can be no `just'

republic. Which is why Gandhi's emphasis was on the perfect man. The

ideal of the perfect man continues to inspire India.

 

Europe followed the path of manly vigour, public spirit and private

virtue, but India followed the contemplative and reflective side of

human nature. "I suppose," says Nehru, "that Indians, by and large,

are gentler than almost any people of the world. They dislike

violence."

 

In their own way, Indians do more good in a day than the rest of the

world. They water the plants, they feed the ants. It is a daily

prayer with them. All out of love for creation.

 

India has never been parochial. Its message is universal. And it

continues to produce universal men—men like Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore,

Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Dr S. Radhakrishnan. They were the men who

shaped the thoughts of modern India.

 

Every being has within him/her a code of growth (it is called

swadharma in Indian philosophy), a principle that guides his/her

evolution. Similarly, such nation, says Vivekananda, has one

principal note around which every other note comes to form a harmony.

In India's case, that principal note is its spiritual life.

 

Nationalism is an enemy of the universal spirit. Yet it is not an

evil. The evil comes from its narrowness, selfishness, and

exclusiveness, says Gandhiji. Hatred of other people, so often

associated with nationalism, ethnicism and fundamentalism had no

place in India's outlook. Gandhi hated the British colonial system,

but refused to hate the British people. This had a powerful influence

on all colonial peoples. To a Japanese Member of Parliament, who

sought a message from him for his party, founded on the motto

of "Asia for Asians", Gandhi wrote back: "I do not to the

doctrine of `Asia for Asians' if it is meant as an anti-European

combination."

 

India has always believed in a world order. Which is why it has been

an ardent supporter of the UN. Nehru had warned: "If there is going

to be no world order, then there might be no order at all left in the

world."

 

Aurobindo used to say that there are only two alternative world

orders before mankind: a world state founded on the principle of

centralisation, uniformity and mechanical unity or a world union

founded on the principle of liberty and diversity.

 

India has chosen liberty and diversity. Not now, but millennia ago—

during the Vedic Age. And it has acquired a vast amount of experience

in multicultural existence. The world needs that experience, so say

the men who know. India is more than willing to share it with the

world.