I.D. Soni
There is a controversy between the ‘ancient’ and the ‘modern’. And with reference to this controversy there are two different attitudes, two outlooks. They cannot be termed as two different ‘schools’. The first attitude or outlook may be named ‘retreatist’ or withdrawing. The word ‘reactionary’ is often used, but has not a very good connotation. The word ‘retreatist’ may also, the intellectuals think, be objected to by some as a word not having a very happy, connotation. We may, also, use the negative word ‘anti-modern’. It cannot be denied there are many who are frankly ‘anti-modern’. This attitude needs to be examined carefully. It is the attitude of many; and some of them are very intellectual. Great scholars have also mentioned in their writings that they do not feel at home with the ‘modern’. Tolstoy had strong intellectual equipment. And it is significant that the very last words in his ‘Diary’ are : “Escape! Escape!” He wished to escape his ‘modern’ environment! His ‘Diary’ does not go further, because soon after he wrote these words he passed away. “Escape! Escape!” Tolstoy felt oppressed by the ‘modern’ environment. So in America, Thoreau felt oppressed by the ‘modern’ so much that he ran away from the haunts of ‘civilisation’ and for some time lived in a forest. He could not live there as long as he wished. His health failed him. He returned from the forest to the city. But in his heart was a feeling of homelessness. He fain would run away from civilization.
It is not right to reject the ‘modern’ altogether. It will be proper that we, must understand the ‘modern’ and come to terms with the ‘modern’. This does not mean that we must accept the ‘modern’ in toto. We can say that, too, emphatically that there are certain elements in modern which we may accept, and other elements we must try to reject. There are other elements, I submit, we must accept in order to build the India of the Future. We should not, therefore, form an attitude of anti-modernist. We must see God’s rich revelations in the modern and the ancient. The India of the Future must be a New Creation. This New Creation will take up in a higher synthesis elements of the ancient and the modern. We need a civilized society for the good of this great Nation. Civilisation is a complex of security and culture, of order and liberty : political security through morals and law, economic security through the continuity of production and exchange; culture through facilities for the growth and transmission of knowledge, manners, dedication and arts. It is an intricate and precarious thing, dependent on a score of factors, of which any one may determine greatness and decay.
Anti-modernists are right to ask us to reject certain elements in modern life. One such element we may call ‘lust for power’. Often these 4 go together : (i) Power-lust (ii) greed of gold, (iii) pursuit of pleasure and (iv) cruelty. So many, today, act on the assumption that man is an acquisitive animal. They believe that we must acquire things and make money and pile up fortunes. These go together in modern life, power, money, bhoga and himsa or violence. Modern science, too, has helped this lust for power which is so prominent a factor in modern life.
Modern science was born in the conviction that man could control the forces of nature. The secret of science lies in control of the forces of nature. And, indeed, this control is desirable provided it goes hand in hand with self-control. If we control the forces of nature and also, control ourselves then, indeed, we shall build up a great civilisation. Unfortunately this truth of self-control has not been much remembered in modern life. Science has given us many things for making our lives comfortable, but science has not taught us how to live on this earth in harmony, in peace, in amity, in tranquillity, in serenity and in neutrality with our neighbours. This is the tragedy of modern science. Civilization need no longer die. Perhaps it has to outlive even man, and pass on and upward to a higher race if there is a self-control along with the control of nature. Unfortunately, this truth of self-control has not been much remembered in modern life.
Europe has tried to control nature. Europe has not studied the science of self-control. What is the result? Love of power! Here is the difference between power and shakti. A man of shakti has disciplined himself, controlled himself, and so developed the energy which he spends in the service of others. But the man who has only learnt to control natural forces, but not himself, is tempted to be selfish. He uses power for his own advantage. The utilitarian philosophy was born in the day when Europe was flushed with her scientific successes. The utilitarian theory of life in wrong, for it regards other man as means or tools to personal ends. This, from my point of view, is not the right conception of life. The right attitude is the regard every person with reverence. Shakti is unselfish, but power is selfish. And to build up selfish power, a man wants money. He regards, himself as an acquisitive animal; who must acquire more and more, and build up more and more property. When William, the Conquerer, came from Normandy and conquered England, he said, “England is my property, and I hold it as my fee.” However, parliamentary the Government of England even today is “property” of the king in name, though not, thank God, in reality.
Never before has civilization prepared for it so vast an economic base. A stimulating climate, knowing every wholesome variation, a fertile soil, still destined to yield many times its present harvests when irrigation and scientific tillage husband it; strata rich in almost every metal, and flowing with full oil; railways setting the pace for the world, and improving every day; waterways kept idle by jealous rail roads, but needing only a liberating hand to make them unsurpassed; factories well equipped and sprucing up with belated decency; inventors better organised and more enterprising than anywhere; explores and aviators writing epics and lyrics in the air; investors holding out their gold and begging industry to use it; a government at least wedded to science and rising to statesmanship; what shall we do with all this good fortune?
Perhaps we shall be ruined by it. Let us do something to ourselves, for the good of our souls, that wealth alone does not make a nation great. It shall destroy the family instead of building homes; it can corrupt government instead of patronizing art; it can pursue power instead of wisdom, coarseness instead of courtesy, luxury instead of taste; it can give us rotting India.
Consider, again, how the modern man runs after pleasures. Aristotle said man was a rational animal. So many today are not rational but passional. There is pursuit of pleasure in modern life. See how in big cities man struggle hard in the day to make money and night to spend it in pleasures and excitements. Young men in India have forgotten that this comfort cult is devitalising. I am not an advocate of the ascetic theory of life. A nation must not accept asceticism as its goal of life. I recognise, too, the place of limited “comforts” in the life of the natural man. I do not believe in the comfort-cult, the cult of pleasures. Nor do I say that we must not think of money. A nation has to think of money, of material prosperity and material values. There is a harmony between the material and the spiritual. All I submit is that material comforts should be subordinate to moral and social values. And where this subordination does not exist. The nation is on the path of decline.
Therefore, it is imperative on our part that we should read economics in the light of ethics. Much of what is taught in the college as “politicized economy” is capitalist economy, it is an economic system built on assumption of capitalism; and I submit that a new system is needed in moral values will be recognised as supreme. Every young man is urged upon to study “Economic Morality.” It is necessary to revise economics in the light of a moral and spiritual ideal. We need new economics; for civilisation should be built on the science of Control, not the cult of pleasure. The science of Control is two-fold : (i) Control of nature’s forces, and (ii) Self-Control. We become truly civilised if we are able to have self-control. We must reject these two elements of modern life (i) the lust of power, and (ii) the cult of pleasure.
There is the third element which, also, we must reject. There is an element of violence or himsa, in modern life. There is some truth in the statement : Scratch the civilised, and underneath is the barbarian. Some time much of current civilisation is baptised barbarism. Many “civilised” men are cruel! Think of what General Dyer did in Amritsar! And, strange enough, this man who could give a cruel order for shooting down men was called by some the “Saviour of the Empire”! one admirer even compared Dyer with that soldier saint, General Gordon!
There is himsa in modern civilisation. Read the story of world-war. What cruelty was inflicted upon the people of Belgium. It may be noted, in this connection, that literature concerning crime has been on the increase in recent years. People take much interest in reading literature on crime. Consider again how cruel devices are being invented by modern science. The coming war, it has been said will be a chemical war. It will be a war of chemistry. A war which will be fought, largely, by means of poisonous gases. Many men of science are busy making more and more poisonous gases. They have invented a gas which if thrown, say, in Simla can travel all the way and affect people in Karchi. This is cruelty in science. Against this element of himsa in the modern, too, we must raise our voice of protest.
Connected with this himsa is another element, that of noise. The modern man has become a very noisy animal. Cities are concern of confusion. We believe too much in storm and rapidity. We have confounded progress with speed. We are forgetting the value of quite leisure. We do not realise the importance of periods of silence. We are in hurry. Men and women in our days are suffering from nervous breakdown. Because we live too much in the world of noises. Nothing creative was ever achieved without silence, without periods of sanctified communion.
The great and wonderful systems of Hindu philosophy have survived centuries and will survive modern civilisation, the great and profound scripture of the past, India’s great literature and art, India’s great thoughts, systems and visions of God were developed in periods of silence. Current civilisation must become less noisy if it is to live at all. This civilisation will burst if it continues to swirl and swell in noise.
If civilisation is to live, there must be born in our hearts a love of silence. Creativeness is born silence.
(The writer is President Home for the Aged & Infirm, Ambphalla, Jammu).
