Indian Liberals

Nothing Wrong with Learning any language in a Diverse Country like India Nothing Wrong with Learning any language in a Diverse Country like India Chandrasekaran Balakrishnan November 20, 2024 Indian Liberals   In the past couple of weeks, the debate on learning second or third languages other than the mother tongue erupted once again in the mainstream media focusing on Hindi or Sanskrit, although misinterpreting the long legacy issues with vested interests of dynastic regional parties, especially in Tamil Nadu. We, as a diverse society, are still far from learning and recognizing the fact that many of our founding fathers were multilingual throughout their life and work, which helped them to stretch for freedom struggles covering the length and breadth of the vast country. We need to inculcate attitude and aptitude among young minds with zeal to further develop, encourage and cultivate India’s rich and ancient languages. With the blending of technological revolution, much could be done to bridge the gaps in learning disabilities of a particular language, including Hindi and Sanskrit. One should have a little passion for learning about the beauty of a language before being judgmental of any aspect of the language or aiming to propagate the lacking in a language. The evolution of a language is a spontaneous order among the diverse community, and one man or a community alone is not responsible for its creation and nurturing of it. On 2nd September 2022, the Supreme Court declined to entertain a PIL plea for a “declaration to make Sanskrit the national language of India” the PIL was moved by a retired senior bureaucrat of Gujarat. Whether the PIL is good or bad is a different matter, the love and passion for the ancient language must be appreciated for reviving it in the larger interests of the people of India. While hearing the PIL in Supreme Court, the bench asked the pleader, “How many cities in India speak Sanskrit? Do you speak Sanskrit? Can you recite one line in Sanskrit or at least translate the prayer in your writ petition to Sanskrit.” Rather, the honorable court should have asked the right question, how and who had systematically destroyed the beautiful ancient language of India? It must be a strange situation in a vast subcontinent country like India, where Sanskrit, as the world’s ancient classic language, is in death senile for several decades, if not centuries, in modern India.   While addressing the Hindi Vivek Magazine on 16th September 2022, the eloquent Union Finance Minister shared her experience in Tamil Nadu while studying for an undergraduate degree in economics and the sad state of affairs of pity state politics against the students who are interested to learn Sanskrit of Hindi as second or third languages. She said that for decades and even now, in Tamil Nadu, the anti-Hindi agitations propagandas are played for pity politics indoctrinating young school and college students. She shared that in her college days, the students who chose either Sanskrit or Hindi as a second language would not get state government scholarships despite their names being on the merit lists of their respective universities. On 29th September 2022, while speaking at the “Karnataka Samskrit University,” on the occasion of Pre-graduate Convocation and “Sanskrit Week Celebration,” she said that in her school and college days, learning Sanskrit was not easy at all because of the “political environment in which we lived.” She further said, “and it’s not as if I lived in a foreign country. I lived in Tamil Nadu. Sanskrit was discouraged, and I think even today they discourage,”. She also said that “learning Sanskrit or learning Hindi was not encouraged at all (in Tamil Nadu)..” It would be interesting to remember the beautiful slim book titled “Sanskrit Proverbs” by Champak C Shah, published in 1923. The book is a collection of hundreds of beautiful rarest Sanskrit proverbs in English, which covers the entire human lifecycles of ups and downs, all possible situations of pleasures, pains, etc., embedded in nature, community, harmonious living, cultural ethos, and antiquities, governance, leadership, etc. Each proverb has multiple perspectives which are quite enthralling to relate to practical life in all sections of society: as an individual, family, community, and society as a whole. The following proverbs on nature, people, learning, governance, leadership qualities, etc., are quite enlightening from the generic of our ancient language. On nature, country, and people: “Mountains-are beautiful at a distance, rugged when near.” “The ocean is the course of rivers.” “Perseverance, daring, courage, wisdom, strength, and valor—where these six are, there is God.” “A fool is honored in his own house; a proprietor is honored in his own village; a king is honored in his own country; a learned man is honored everywhere.” “You should forsake a man for the sake of your family; you should forsake your family for the sake of your village; you should forsake your village for the sake of your country; you should forsake the earth for the sake of yourself.” “In sandal trees, there are serpents. In the waters with lotuses, there are also alligators. There are no unobstructed pleasures.” “The rivers themselves drink not (their) water, nor do the trees eat (their own) sweet fruit; the clouds eat not the crops—the riches of the good are (employed) for the benefit of others.” “The soul is a river, whose holy confluence is self-restraint, whose water is truth, whose bank is morality, whose waves are compassion. Here perform ablutions, 0 son of Pandu! The inward soul is not purified by water”. On India’s ancient traditions and values: “What will the Shastra do for him who has no sense of his own? What will a mirror do for him who has lost his eyes?” “There is no village—how can there be a boundary? There is no learning—how can there be fame? There is no wisdom—-how can there be salvation? There is no faith—how can there be understanding?” “The strength of men is rooted in food.” “Fasting is the best

C.Rajagopalachari’s Venerable Thoughts on Culture C.Rajagopalachari’s Venerable Thoughts on Culture Chandrasekaran Balakrishnan November 20, 2024 Indian Liberals   Around the world, a human civilisation evolved over thousands of centuries ago on an undesigned pattern but their understanding of nature and by its forces paved actions shaped their desirous and quests. The laws of nature were the first instrument to form their quests to understand the reasons for human evolution and embarked on various dimensions like culture, social norms, and economic prosperity.   Since then, the human civilisation continues to make attempts to progress further on cultural values, shared social norms, and materials accumulation through trade. Whilst, we tend to track back the origins of human civilisation along with their pattern and endurance of culture, social milieus, and economic status giving importance as much as the future.  Since time immemorial, human civilisation seems to be pursued to inquire about the evolution of the cosmos, man, and desires in life. It so happens that many things that evolved around the man and his community were always quite spontaneous combining the collective behaviour of a group of people or a community. Some of the basic aspects are like desires of pleasures, languages, desire to accumulate materials, cultivate norms and values for social virtues including culture, etc. As we look back from the perspective of the twenty-first century; several centuries ago, man paved and nourished many facets of sobering endurances of culture which penetrates among the community and individual practices in daily life. The most inevitable aspect of any culture across the world is keeping oneself cleanly in body, dressed up with clothes, etc.   According to a great scholar, C.Rajagopalachari “civilisation in the true sense of the word is the development of restraint. The consensus of society, the total combined will of the people living together, seeks to curb the individual’s tendency to overdo the use of his senses. This is the difference between civilisation and barbarism.”  The word culture denotes many things to many countries. But undoubtedly, it is one of the most misused and abused words in every literature. The word culture is also most confused among people during the debate and discussions in the domain of politics, administrations, social reforms, renaissance, etc.  Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878-1972) was one of the greatest scholars of twentieth-century India. He was a multifaceted personality. He was a visionary and thinker. He ventured into many fields and excelled at great depth, like a legal and constitutional expert, freedom fighter and astute politician, a scholar in Indian literature, classical liberal thinker, statesman, an able administrator, scholar in Tamil literature, prolific writer, and author of hundreds of books, etc.  He was fondly called as Rajaji or C.R. by many. He was among few scholars who applied their mind into deep musing about what is culture not just in India but also of the other nations and how it evolves around the people’s social and economic progress. In the late 1950s, Rajaji was invited by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai to deliver a series of lectures on Culture. The Bhavan later published the lectures in a slim book which went several editions over the years since then.  Rajaji was a principled man and hesitated to give lectures on Culture. Though he has mastered and written quite copiously on Indian literature and knew world history, philosophy, and culture. He warned, however, that “nothing can be expected from me on music, dance, the theatre or the silver screen” which were and still considered as the culture but these alone did not describe Rajaji. He spoke about the process of evolution of the culture of different nations and the case of India.   He succinctly asked “how to utilise the traditional position to the best advantage for the general community, Shall we try to enforce the obligation on the individual in respect of the entire whole and reconcile ourselves to lapses and failures? Or Shall we utilise the natural force actually prevailing in smaller circles and add it all upto make it serve the whole?”  According to Rajaji “the way of living built up by groups of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another. People each with their own long history build up separate patterns of cultures. There is much that is common, but also a great deal that is particular to each nation.” Further, “culture is not literacy or ability to play on the veena” said Rajaji, but “it has to do with general behaviour, speech, and conduct, and is different from goodness and badness of character.” Think about behaviour of political leaders in contemporary India. Also, think about behaviour of spiritual leaders across different faiths, the goodness and badness would vividly expose their character and their culture.  Unlike our confused textbooks in schools and colleges, Rajaji defines that “culture is not just character or morality. Character is the inside of a man. Culture is external rather than internal. Culture has more to do with behaviour and way of living than with character. Broadly speaking, culture is external though of course, it has much to do with character too. Because, the outside has always much to do with the inside.” In contrast, we tend to witness mostly in our public life wherein one conducts on a confused state of affairs of both character-wise and established morality of the culture.      Most of the contemporary social ills have strong negative influences of distortions of cultural values of communities in different countries including India. Partly, the government system seems to be a vital force paving towards distortions of communities’ culture which imposes restraints on an individual without force or completion. “Civilisation is not mere advance in technology and in the material aspects of life” warned Rajaji. “We should remember it is an abstract noun and indicates a state of living and not things. Mainly, civilisation connotes the curbing of wildness, barbarity, and over- indulgence of passions and appetites” observed Rajaji.  According to Rajaji “civilisation has two instruments to achieve the object of curbing the sensual instincts and preventing or deterring over-indulgence.” He explains that one instrument is the government’s enforcement of the