A Centenary Tribute

Amal Kiran - A Few Inspirations

I MUST confess at the outset that I possess no credentials to write on K.D. Sethna (Amal Kiran). The sole justification perhaps is that, sometime in 1997, my wife and I had the great good fortune of sitting before him in his home for half an hour or so. It was a sultry afternoon and he was seated in a wheelchair. He hardly spoke, perhaps because of a sore throat. More correctly perhaps, I was unworthy of his profundity. I had not read anything about or by him. So, I was unprepared to receive anything from him. And surely he could have perceived this. Yet the memory of the short visit has lingered. Even then, as I sit down today to write something about Amal Kiran, I do so on the basis of the only book I have of his: India and the World Scene (1997). It is a compendium of his editorials in Mother India, which had the blessings of his guru, Sri Aurobindo, who was still there in his mortal frame when the magazine was launched.

As I began to explore the essays in this volume, the one outstanding note that kept continually sounding from the pages was this: absolute relevance of the fervent hopes and wise cautions uttered by him about Mother India, almost fifty years ago. He is still in our midst. Perhaps he sheds silent tears into the Bay of Bengal about our Mother India - circumstanced as she is in 2004, his birth centenary year. Many smaller souls like us also often find ourselves doing the same.

Let me express myself by using some of Amal Kiran's 'own words':

Mother India born as a vehicle for countering the recent defilement of our Mother India by a book with the same title (Introduction). Well, such defilement has only gathered a

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vaster momentum today - both from within the country and from outside.

• Post-independence India 'has not found its proper line of life.... In the clash of parties the right destiny of India is forgotten' (p. 3). This 'clash of parties' in 1949 has become a 'chaos' of hoodlums in 2004. And with this the 'life-line' and sense of India's 'destiny' are being obliterated with surgical precision.

• 'India as the living Mother', the 'nation as a single being', with 'a presiding genius which animates us' - all this has been and is being given short shrift by the managers of the country. In recent years some sincere attempts had been made to rekindle this sense. But since 2004 the assault mounted by the 'progressive forces' has redoubled - almost with blind fury. They say "Living Mother India - pooh! She is only a geographical landmass with such-and-such things and people in it. India is a 'single being'? - mere Utopian fancy! Numberless castes, tribes, sects, languages, food and dress habits, grotesque Gods and Goddesses - what can be more 'regressive' than being hyperbolic about all this barbaric mess, and call it a 'single being'! A 'presiding genius animates' this 'single being' - what an unscientific, irrational superstition!"

• 'We cannot fulfill our destiny without following the instinct of divinity in us' - asserts Amal Kiran (p. 3). This is our swabhava. Therefore, 'by "secular" we must not understand indifference to the instinct of divinity' (p. 4), he adds. So he declares, 'To be secular can be for Indians nothing except being widely spiritual rather than narrowly religious' (p. 4). But our aggressive secularists today are terrorising only the majority community of India into rejecting all their deepest millennia-long sentiments, symbols, epics and sacred texts - which enshrine nothing else but the instinct of divinity at their core. At this rate, the instinct of divinity might be completely snuffed out from our children and the future generations. At the very least, this is what the 'progressive, liberal, secularists' would be happy to see. For,

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they are never heard saying or writing one good word about Mother India.

India's luminous awareness of the 'typically Eastern spiritual self equips her with 'the most balanced and profound vision of values'. Fidelity to this grain of Indian ethos does not allow her to raise technological and military might to the summit of her vision about her future. Whatever is essential for this end, circumstanced as she is today, must be a 'natural expression of spiritual might' (pp. 6-7). The position of secularist intellectuals and media stalwarts in this regard, contrary to the absolute earnestness of Amal Kiran, is nauseous hypocrisy. When it comes to spiritual achievements, nothing but ridicule flows from them, e.g., 'spiritual bromides', 'navel gazing', 'misty mysticism', and so on. Which way does India go then for her preservation and sustenance? Do the following glowing words of Amal Kiran make any sense today to our hyper-intellectual secularists?

Unless we are aware of living within such a national being, unless we stir to [our] presiding genius... we shall lack the inner cohesion without which no collectivity can come to total fruition and make its most effective cultural mark on the world.

(p. 11)

Our secularist messiahs who thrive on fomenting internal divisiveness in the country would not today touch, even with a pair of tongs, the goal of co

hesion Amal Kiran had spoken of. They say, "India making a cultural mark on the world? An uncivilised, pagan, idolatrous, superstition-ridden, poly-the-istic, divided society dreaming like that? What blasphemy!"

It may have been April 24th, 1950 - the Darshan Day at Pondicherry Ashram. On that occasion Amal Kiran had written, "The air of our country is thick with slogans and catchwords. Many of them are outworn shibboleths and just as many are cries towards a cul-de-sac...' (p. 338).

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Has this achievement by 1950 not been outstripped many times over during the last fifty-four years? What do you say, Amal Kiran - the noble and grand centenarian?

Today (particularly since the 1980's in India) when discussion about values in education is on, we are amazed to hear you emphasising, five and a half decades ago, the task of engaging in a 'harmonious creation of true and absolute world-values' (p. 339). You had envisioned India as a 'giver' of the elixir of immortality to the amritasya putrahs of the world. The so-called progressive forces say, "No, no Amal Kiran. You simply haven't understood the hollow and bankrupt Mother India. She must beg and borrow from every corner of the world. By pursuing this grand policy the open-door liberals of today have ushered in so much light, progress and peace in our homes and towns, in our plazas and pastures! It is some regressive fellow-travellers of your kind who are the blight of modern India. Values cannot be taught, they are all relative, each person has the right to choose his own values. Value education is an imposition. It is smuggling religion into a secular society by the back door. Spirituality is only an euphemism for religion. Supra-mental wisdom is a new brand of opium concocted by the likes of you. Is the ground slipping under your feet, Amal Kiran?"

Luckily, as the above paragraphs were done, I stumbled upon another book of his: The Indian Spirit and the World's Future (1953). In the year 1950 he had felt cut to the quick by a well-known Indian leader embracing Buddhism, while heaping scorn and castigation on Hinduism. He wrote a profound and courageous "A Defence of Hinduism", which is included in this volume. It seems Hinduism had not yet become a word of abuse and shame. It is necessary to recall here some of the masterly insights he had offered there:

(a) 'It is absurd to claim that untouchability is part and parcel of Hinduism. It is certainly no part of those foundational scriptures of the Hindus. ..'hp. 107). He then quoted Will Durant declaring that a British lord's dealings with a navvy, or a Park

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Avenue banker's with an East Side huckster, or a white man's with a negro were not a whit better than the much-reviled Brahmin-pariah relationship (p. 108).

(b) 'But regrettably enough some Hindus themselves have made too much of a song about the evil of untouchabil-ity— This amounts to making Hinduism stand or fall by pariahdom' (p. 110).

Fifty-one years after the above remarks were made, the climate today is worse. It is now being proposed that the country's educational system be 'detoxicated' of the foundational elements of Indian culture and history. And who else but Hindus themselves are doing this! While this is the thrust within, matters outside are equally alarming. I happened to be a delegate to the South-east Asia conference, 2000, in Edinburgh. In one of the heavily attended lecture theatres I saw a renowned American social anthropologist presenting a slide show on India. All of the slides showed the 'darker side' of the country - according to Western standards, of course. One slide showed a householder pouring garbage from a certain distance into the sack held up by a scavenger. The presenter's supercilious comment was heard: "This is untouchability in action. It is something which is not to our taste." Seventy per cent of the 200-strong audience was from India. There was no one from Pakistan. The second largest contingent was from Bangladesh, followed by a mixture of several Western scholars. In another parallel session a French woman-scholar, married to a Bengali Brahmin, was interpreting the use of the banana plant in Hindu festivals and ceremonies. It was being done in terms of sex and procreation. At one stage I observed, "But we always see it used as a symbol of auspicious purity." This drew a condescending remark from her, "Who knows what is profane or pure in Hindu tradition." In a third session which I attended for a while, a woman college teacher from India was alluding, in

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some context, that the practice of putting a veil over their faces by Indian women, especially in the north, had become widespread because of increasing molestations by the Muslims. Immediately, from behind me, a European woman rather furiously shot back at the presenter, "Can you prove your statement?" The Indian woman modestly replied, "Yes." None among the large number of Indian participants in the room uttered a word to support her. But the questioner kept boiling with rage, and continued spewing her venom to some other compatriots well into the tea-break. The most pathetic experience was the one where an Indian woman in jeans, etc., now a citizen of the Netherlands, spoke on Indian cinematics. Very soon she zoomed in upon Satyajit Ray and started reviling his films for projecting a poverty-ridden image of the country. She went on for quite a while on this cheap note. During discussion-time neither any Indian, nor any Westerner explored with her Satyajit Ray's work from the true creative and aesthetic angle. The concluding session was also revealing. Among other things, brainstorming was done for topics to cover at the 2002 Heidelberg conference. The process went on for forty minutes. In a deluge of ideas there was not a trace of anything about spirituality in India. On my suggestion it was also listed. But I doubt if it was addressed in 2002.

All these and other experiences at the conference led me to this conclusion: it is essentially a sort of bi-annual gathering for maligning Indian culture and Hinduism. And yet we spineless Hindus perhaps constitute the largest contingent in these gatherings - without a murmur or protest! Why? Because such participation counts for promotion back home. And, of course, there is the lure of the material glamour and glitter of 'advanced' countries - that irresistible temptation!

(c) Let us return again to Amal Kiran. 'Humanism is a very worthy sentiment and creed, yet it cannot be balanced against spiritual experience, against God-realisation, against

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concrete communion with the Eternal. Hinduism stands or falls primarily and essentially by its ability to produce embodiments of such experience, realisation and communion' (p. 111).

(d) 'It is another form of heresy that if Hinduism bore the caste system for several centuries it has failed "to yield anything substantive'" (p. 112).

Yes, right upto this day we often come across vitriolic newspaper editorials about Hinduism being the only blighted religion where a child has a caste right from birth, and other such evils. Correspondingly, we have yet to see any major English newspaper highlighting the archetypal, caste-transcending human being that has always emerged from such caste-ridden Hinduism - either editorially or in centre page articles. How sorely are our opinion-makers devoid of a holistic grasp and courage to speak out like Amal Kiran.

(e) '...there is a subtle trend among Hindus themselves to exaggerate social values and thus play into the hands of critics of Hinduism' (p. 113).

(f) 'Without the least violation of its own character it [Hinduism] can take the essence of the religion of Buddha to its bosom, even as it can take that of Christianity or Mohammedanism.... But neither Buddhism nor Christianity nor Mohammedanism can take Hinduism into itself. They are intent on converting all souls to one type and to confine the illimitable and protean Spirit to a single formula and a solitary revelation' (p. 117).

The above delineation by Amal Kiran is superbly precise. The confusing slogan of 'pluralism' is today harped upon to undermine Hinduism, and to buttress declarations like those of the Pope (New Delhi, 1999) that the goal for the 21st century (or may be the 3rd millennium) is to Christianise Asia.

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Mind you, the venue for the display of such audacity was India, not China or Japan.

How can plurality disabuse itself of the all-important question of priority v. parity? Have multiple religions in Britain or Malaysia, for example, been treated equally at the official level? No. Christianity and Islam are emphatically the priority religions in plural contexts in the respective countries. The clear principle for them has been: 'plurality yes, parity no.' Therefore, the correct philosophical analysis of Amal Kiran, leave aside numbers, etc., accords Hinduism unquestionable priority amongst the many faiths in India. The implied notion of 'parity', in the garb of plurality, is unacceptable from every point of view. The bogey of fundamentalism raised against this stand is absolutely baseless. Not being a 'one-prophet - one book' system, never proselytising or converting by guile or force, the hysteria about Hindu fundamentalism must be buried forthwith. The fact that an Amal Kiran and some others like him can speak for Hinduism -only in its defence - how on earth can this be termed as fundamentalism? In this heyday of 'human rights', when others exercise their right at will to exploit or convert or strike, Hindus alone have no right to defend themselves! Splendid!

That Hinduism, unlike Buddhism or Christianity or Mohammedanism, has respectfully given rightful place to all of them is concretely proved if one visits a Sri Ramakrishna Temple. The main prayer hall always displays pictures of Christ, Buddha, Nanak, Zarathushtra, etc. Christmas eve celebration, introduced by Swami Vivekananda in the late 1880's, still continues at the Mission's headquarters and several other branch centres. Some of the monks of the Order have written wonderfully sensitive books like Sermon on The Mount, The Hindu View of Christ, etc. Can a church or a mosque or a gurudwara or a vihara give us such experiences or sights?

I cannot conclude for now without expressing my joyous amazement: how K.D. Sethna could, as a Parsee, identify with Mother India so completely! How many high-flying Hindus do so today; not to speak of members from other

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communities? My conviction is this: communities or people who came or come to India to seek motherly succour from persecution, lifting their anchors altogether from their original homes, integrate organically. Amal Kiran is just one luminous example from the Parsee community, which has integrated fully with Mother India. But those who came or come as persecutors, with anchors outside India, cannot feel India as their own.

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