Hindus believe that Lord Ram used the Ram Sethu to travel from Bharatbhumi to Sri Lanka to defeat the demon Ravana . It is believed that Ram Sethu was built by the holy vanar sena of Lord Rama . It is believed that it is a site that is so sacred that mere sight of the Sethu at Sethubandha Rameshwaram gets rid of all ones sins . To Hindus the Ram Sethu is a matter of faith and the Ram Sethu is a “sacred site”. The local people at Rameshwaram and the surrounding areas also strongly hold that belief .
All over the world as the demon of development is progressing at a break neck speed , the biggest victim of development has been culture and nature . To cultures and peoples who have historic , traditional and religious ties with the land they live in, the biggest conflict that has arisen is between the idea of development and the idea of “sacredness” and “sanctity” of certain areas , which have been treated as sacred by the culture / tradition / religion of the people of the surrounding area or those indigenous / local to that area .
In this context there has been lately over the last decade a fructification of a very long struggle to protect sacred sites of local and indigenous people . The idea of the need to protect “sacred sites” is fast becoming an integral part of the law of environment and the norms and regulations dealing with development .
There has been an international movement for the recognition of “sacred sites” , be they be by the Native American Tribes of the USA and Canada[1] , the Aborigines of Australia [2], or the tribes of South America and Africa which have not stepped into “civilization” as we know it [3].
This struggle has been reflected and articulated in various International Treaties and Covenants , some of which have formulated guidelines , which India has actually complied with , though some would say selectively .
The protection of “ sacred spaces” today has become an integral part of Environmental jurisprudence .
The Convention of Biological Diversity ,1992 had been signed by India. The Convention broadly laid down the obligations of various countries in the world to protect biological diversity or the diverse plant and animal species which exist in the world today . It created a regime as to how to protect some of the most important and fragile “environmental hotspots” and “ biodiversity zones” . It also created obligations on all countries of the world to protect and preserve the remaining biological diversity of the planet . The Supreme Court in T.N. Godavarman’s Case[4] directed the Government of India to implement the Convention . The Government of India in pursuance of it’s obligations came out with the Biological Diversity Act , 2002 .
The said Convention also created a Secretariat which comes out with guidelines from time to time to protect various aspects of the environment .[5]
The Secretariat under Clause 8 (j) of the Convention dealing with respect and preservation of practices of local and indigenous communities has come out with a guideline to protect “sacred spaces” known as the Akwe Kon Guidelines i.e. “Akwé:Kon Voluntary Guidelines for the Conduct of Cultural, Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Regarding Developments Proposed to Take Place on, or Which are Likely to Impact on, Sacred Sites and on Lands and Waters Traditionally Occupied or Used by Indigenous and Local Communities,” [6]named after the words of a Native American tribe meaning “ everything is creation”, which lays down that before allowing any project the impact on “sacred sites” have to be considered , addressed and resolved to the benefit of those who hold it sacred.
The said Guidelines in Article 6 (e) defines “ sacred site” as “ Sacred Site : may refer to a site, object, structure, area or natural feature or area, held by national Governments or indigenous communities to be of particular importance in accordance with the customs of an indigenous or local community because of its religious and/or spiritual significance”
Though the said guidelines are voluntary , the Government of India has in it’s 3rd Annual Report to the Secretariat of the Convention , as to the implementation of the said Convention clearly stated that it is implementing the said Akwe Kon Guidelines [7]. In the said report submitted to the Secretariat , the Government of India said that in pursuance of the said Guidelines it was protecting 19,000 “sacred groves” all over India and was taking various measures for fuller and better implementation of the Guidelines in India .
The Government of India has further in it’s New Environment Impact Assessment Guidelines ( framed under Rule 5 (3) of the Environment ( Protection ) Rules , 1986 ) of 14th September , 2006 , has for the first time included “sacred site” in the Checklist mentioned in Appendix II clause 7.3 . The said checklist specifically demands that the intending project specifically declare that whether any “sacred site” of the local people is going to be affected by the intended project and how the pursuers of the project intend to address such grievances and protect such “sacred sites” . Needless to say that such compulsory obligations to protect sacred sites was not there in the older 1994 guidelines .
The Ram Sethu clearly and unequivocally falls under the definition of “sacred sites” under the Akwe Kon guidelines and therefore is clearly entitled to protection .
There have been other major Declarations ,Conventions and Guidelines for the protection of “sacred sites” namely :
The Tokyo Declaration on the Role of Sacred Natural Sites and Cultural Landscapes in the Conservation of Biological and Cultural Diversity[8] states amongst others : We…
“Call upon governments, international organisations, non-governmental organizations,
religious institutions, indigenous and local communities to work together to ensure respect for religious and spiritual traditions and practices linked to sacred natural sites, and to protect such sites against desecration and destruction “
UNESCO has come out with Draft Guidelines for protection of “sacred sites” titled “UNESCO /IUCN Guidelines for protection of sacred natural sites”[9] .
The other relevant conventions are the UNESCO Conventions of , “Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage” and “Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage”. The said Conventions have been ratified by India.
In the Vth World Parks Congress in South Africa in September 2003, delegates produced the Durban Recommendations on the Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas [10], which called for the recognition of the spiritual values of protected areas around the world, and the full inclusion of indigenous communities and spiritual leaders in the management of sacred natural sites.
Now it has been the view of the Supreme Court that International Conventions can be used as tools to interpret Fundamental Rights and municipal statutes even if they are not ratified.[11] . The obligations under the Convention are therefore binding on the Government of India.
The Government of India is as usual intently trying to shore up it’s duplicitous anti people and anti Dharmic , and Marxist ideology , whereby on one hand it is attempting to rush through a project in the supposed name of “development” for the benefit of a few corrupt allied politicians , even though it hurts the sentiments or possibly because it hurts the religious sentiments of millions of Hindus , whom it has always taken for granted , all the while playing the savior of small / insignificant “sacred groves” which it supposedly is protecting , since it seems to be fashionable and in line with “liberal” International consensus .
The Ram Sethu case has gone a long way to expose the present Government’s hypocrisy ……
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Yablon Marcia ; “Property rights and sacred sites: federal regulatory responses to American Indian religious claims on public land” ; Yale Law Journal ( May , 1 , 2004 ) < http://www.sacredland.org/PDFs/Yale_Law_Article_5.04.pdf > ( 10.06.2008)
[2] Central and Northern Land Councils ; “ Our Land , Our Life” ; < http://www.clc.org.au/media/publications/olol.asp#history > ; ( 10.06.2008)
[3] Prussin , Labelle ; “ Non Western Sacred Sites : The African Model” ; < http://www.jstor.org/pss/991536 > ( 10.06.2008 )
[4] 2002 (10) SCC 606
[5] Article 24 of the Convention.
[6] < http://www.sacredland.org/PDFs/Akwe_Kon_Guidelines.pdf > ( 10.06.2008)
[7] Answers to Question 59 and 60 of the Report .
[8] < http://www.sacredland.org/PDFs/Tokyo_Declaration.pdf > (10.06.2008 )
[9] < http://www.sacredland.org/PDFs/UNESCO_Guidelines_v5.pdf > (10.06.2008 )
[10] Chapter V.13 ; pages 168-170 ; < http://www.sacredland.org/PDFs/Durban_recommendations.pdf > ( 10.06.2008 )
[11] Vishakha 1997 (6) SCC 241 para 14 & 15 : PUCL v. UOI 1997 (3) SCC 433 para 13 , 20 , 22 :
V.O. Tractororexport 1969 (3) SCC 562 ; para 16 : Intellectuals Forum 2006 (3) SCC 549 ; para 82
Also See : Maganbhai Ishwarbhai Patel (1970 ) (3) SCC 400 ; para 29 .
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The conception of “secularism” in the Constituent Assembly Debates
At the time of the framing of the Indian Constitution, the question came up a number of times as to whether “secularism” as a term should be brought into the Indian Constitution and what should it mean. Interestingly three amendments attempting to incorporate the word “secular” into the Constitution were proposed by K.T. Shah and all of them were eventually rejected by the Constituent Assembly. Other amendments proposing to incorporate “secularism” in the Constitution were also negatived by the Assembly[1]. The first amendment was in relation to the first article of the Constitution and the second in relation to fundamental rights.
The first amendment proposed by Professor K.T. Shah was:
That in clause (1) of Article 1, after the words “shall be a” the words ‘Secular, Federal, Socialist’ be inserted,[2]
Professor K.T. Shah in moving the amendment submitted:
Next, as regards the secular character of the State, we have been told time and again from every platform, that ours is a secular State. If that is true, if that holds good, I do not see why the term could not be added or inserted in the Constitution itself, once again, to guard against any possibility of misunderstanding or misapprehension. The term “secular”, I agree, does not find place necessarily in Constitutions on which ours seems to have been modelled. But every Constitution is framed in the background of the people concerned. The mere fact, therefore, that such description is not formally or specifically adopted to distinguish one state from another, or to emphasise the character of our State is no reason, in my opinion, why we should not insert now at this hour, when we are making our Constitution, this is very clear and emphatic description of that State.
The secularity of the State must be stressed in view not only of the unhappy experiences we had last year and in the years before and the excesses to which, in the name of religion, communalism or sectarianism can go, but I intend also to emphasis by this description the character and nature of the state which we are constituting today, which would ensure to all its peoples, all its citizens that in all matters relating to the governance of the country and dealings between man and man and dealings between citizen and Government the consideration that will actuate will be the objective realities of the situation, the material factors that condition our being, our living and our acting. For that purpose and in that connection no extraneous considerations or authority will be allowed to interfere, so that the relations between man and man, the relation of the citizen to the State, the relations of the States inter se may not be influenced by those other considerations which will result in injustice or inequality as between the several citizens that constitute the people of India.[3]
Opposing the motion Babasaheb B.R. Ambedkar memorably said:
Mr Vice-President, Sir, I regret that I cannot accept the amendment of Prof. K.T. Shah. My objections, stated briefly, are two. In the first place the Constitution, as I stated in my opening speech in support of the motion I made before the House, is merely a mechanism for the purpose of regulating the work of the various organs of the State. It is not a mechanism whereby particular members or particular parties are installed in office. What should be the policy of the State, how the society should be organised in its social and economic side are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances. It cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself, because that is destroying democracy altogether. If you state in the Constitution that the social organisation of the State shall take a particular form, you are, in my judgment, taking away the liberty of the people to decide what should be the social organisation in which they wish to live. It is perfectly possible today, for the majority people to hold that the socialist organisation of society is better than the capitalist organisation of society. But it would be perfectly possible for thinking people to devise some other form of social organisation which might be better than the socialist organisation of today or of tomorrow. I do not see therefore why the Constitution should tie down the people to live in a particular form and not leave it to the people themselves to decide it for themselves. This is one reason why the amendment should be opposed.[4]
The second amendment suggested by Professor K.T. Shah was:
18-A. The State in India being secular shall have no concern with any religion, creed or profession of faith; and shall observe an attitude of absolute neutrality in all matters relating to the religion of any class of its citizens or other persons in the Union.[5]
This was also negatived by the Assembly summarily[6].
Professor K.T. Shah tried to get the said words incorporated a third time through a third amendment and failed.[7] A further proposal for incorporating the words “secularism” as part of the preamble was also rejected by the Constituent Assembly.[8]
Admittedly there was broad consensus about the creation of a “secular” State but then as in today, there was a general confusion as to what that meant and what was the object of the secular State, whether it was a means to an end or the end in itself, whether it was a compromise or a worthy goal. During the entire discussions which were held the views of the three great protagonists in the framing of the Constitution, Pandit Nehru[9], Sardar Patel[10] and Babasaheb Ambedkar[11], were put forward during various occasions, and interestingly and almost presciently reflect the political debate which still haunts the country in discussing the concept of secularism and therefore the method to protect the religious minorities.
An interesting aside to this entire debate and an illustration of the forces which were pulling in different directions in relation to the place of religion in public life of the future Indian Republic was the debate about the inclusion of the prohibition of cow slaughter in the Constitution ( which is today Article 48 of the Constitution ) as a Directive Principle of State Policy, which was about the broader question of allowing the state to intervene in public life to protect religious values . It is instructive here to replicate the exchange between K. Hanumanthayya and Frank Anthony regarding the said provision :
Mr. Frank Anthony : ………While on the matter of Directive Principles, I would like to refer to this provision regarding cow slaughter. I know, again, here, that I will be treading on difficult ground. But, I want to make my position clear. What I resent in this Directive Principle is the insidious way in which this provision with regard to the banning of cow slaughter has been brought in. It was not there before. I cannot help saying that those fanatics and extremists who could not bring in this provision through the front door have succeeded in bringing it through the back-door. Sir, I am not a beef eater; I am not holding a brief for beef eaters. I say, you may ban cow-slaughter, but we should have done it honestly without our tongues in our cheeks, without resorting to methods which may give rise to the accusation of subterfuge. I ask my Hindu friends, does cow-slaughter offend your religious susceptibilities.
Shri K. Hanumanthaiya : (Mysore State) : Yes; it does.
Mr. Frank Anthony : All right; I am glad you have said so. If you had said that, I would have sponsored a provision that a ban on cow-slaughter should have been introduced in the Fundamental Rights and that cow-slaughter should be made a cognisable offence. But, there were not people who were prepared to do that. Why bring in this provision in an indirect way? If it offends your religious susceptibilities, just as much as I expect you to respect my religious susceptibilities. I am prepared to respect yours. As I said, why bring it in, in this indirect way, as an afterthought into the Directive Principles? Look at the way you have brought it in. The clause reads :
“for the purpose of protecting the cattle wealth of India, for the purpose of protecting cattle, milch and draught cattle, a ban on cattle slaughter may be imposed.”
Shri K. Hanumanthaiya : On a point of order, Sir, is it right for the honourable Member to attribute motives, subterfuge and all that? I draw your kind attention to it. The honourable Member is saying that we have introduced a provision by way of a subterfuge. He has attributed motives in regard to the way we have put in this provision in the Directive Principles. Whether attributing motives is right, I leave it to you, Sir to Judge.
Mr. Frank Anthony : I apologise to you and to the House if what I may have said even remotely raises the suggestion of unparliamentary language. I was not attributing motives. I am merely stating objectively what had happened. As I have said, what has happened raises the accusation that perhaps motives may have been there to bring in this provision in an indirect way; I will not say it tantamounts to subterfuge. As I have said, I repeat, if this gives you offence, I would have been the first person to suggest that it should have formed part of the Fundamental Rights. In the way it has been done, it has been attached to a clause purporting to protect the cattle wealth of this country. Any child knows that in this country, in proportion to the population, we have more cattle than in any other country in the world. Any intelligent child also knows that in spite of this huge cattle population, our output for milch and draught purposes is the lowest per capita in the world. The preservation of cattle-wealth and the preservation of the best interests of the country would have required not the banning of cattle slaughtering but the slaughtering of over half of your present cattle population in this country. That is why I say, it should not have been done in this particular way. I only draw your attention to it and I leave it at that.[12]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 17-10-1949.
[2] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 15-11-1948 at p. 399.
[3] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 15-11-1948 at p. 400.
[4] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 15-11-1948 at pp. 401-02.
[5] Constituent Assembly Debates, Friday, 3-12-1948 at p. 815.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Constituent Assembly Debates, Thursday, 25-11-1948.
[8] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 17-10-1949.
[9] In relation to the debate regarding framing the provisions regarding citizenship Pandit Nehru stated:
One word has been thrown about a lot. I should like to register my strong protest against that word. I want the House to examine the word carefully and it is that this Government goes in for a policy of appeasement, appeasement of Pakistan, appeasement of Muslims, appeasement of this and that. I want to know clearly what that word means. Do the Honourable Members who talk of appeasement think that some kind of rule should be applied when dealing with these people which has nothing to do with justice or equity? I want a clear answer to that. If so, I would only plead for appeasement. This Government will not go by a hair’s breadth to the right or to left from what they consider to be the right way of dealing with the situation, justice to the individual or the group.
Another word is thrown up a good deal, this secular State business. May I beg with all humility those gentlemen who use this word often to consult some dictionary before they use it? It is brought in at every conceivable step and at every conceivable stage. I just do not understand it. It has a great deal of importance, no doubt. But, it is brought in in all contexts, as if by saying that we are a secular State we have done something amazingly generous, given something out of our pocket to the rest of the world, something which we ought not to have done, so on and so forth. We have only done something which every country does except a very few misguided and backward countries in the world. Let us not refer to that word in the sense that we have done something very mighty. (Constituent Assembly Debates, Friday, 12‑8-1949 at pp. 400-01.)
[10] In moving the Report of the Advisory Committee on Minorities Sardar Patel said:
… Now our object is, or the object of this House should be, as soon as possible and as rapidly as possible to drop these classifications and differences and bring all to a level of equality. Therefore, although temporarily we may recognise this it is up to the majority community to create by its generosity a sense of confidence in the minorities; and so also it will be the duty of the minority communities to forget the past and to reflect on what the country has suffered due to the sense of fairness which the foreigner thought was necessary to keep the balance between community and community. This has created class and communal divisions and sub-divisions, which in their sense of fairness, they thought fit to create, apart from attributing any motives. We on our part, taking this responsibility of laying the foundations of a free India which shall be and should be our endeavour both of the majority—largely of the majority—and also of the minority community, have to rise to the situation that is demanded from all of us, and create an atmosphere in which the sooner these classifications disappear the better. (Constituent Assembly Debates, Wednesday, 25-5-1949 at pp. 271-72.)
[11] In moving the Resolution proposing the Draft Constitution, Babasaheb Ambedkar submitted to the Assembly that:
The Draft Constitution is also criticised because of the safeguards it provides for minorities. In this, the Drafting Committee has no responsibility. It follows the decisions of the Constituent Assembly. Speaking for myself, I have no doubt that the Constituent Assembly has done wisely in providing such safeguards for minorities as it has done. In this country both the minorities and the majorities have followed a wrong path. It is wrong for the majority to deny the existence of minorities. It is equally wrong for the minorities to perpetuate themselves. A solution must be found which will serve a double purpose. It must recognise the existence of the minorities to start with. It must also be such that it will enable majorities and minorities to merge someday into one. The solution proposed by the Constituent Assembly is to be welcomed because it is a solution which serves this twofold purpose. To diehards who have developed a kind of fanaticism against minority protection I would like to say two things. One is that minorities are an explosive force which, if it erupts, can blow up the whole fabric of the State. The history of Europe bears ample and appalling testimony to this fact. The other is that the minorities in India have agreed to place their existence in the hands of the majority. In the history of negotiations for preventing the partition of Ireland, Redmond said to Carson “ask for any safeguard you like for the Protestant minority but let us have a United Ireland”. Carson’s reply was “Damn your safeguards, we don’t want to be ruled by you.” No minority in India has taken this stand. They have loyally accepted the rule of the majority which is basically a communal majority and not a political majority. It is for the majority to realise its duty not to discriminate against minorities. Whether the minorities will continue or will vanish must depend upon this habit of the majority. The moment the majority loses the habit of discriminating against the minority, the minorities can have no ground to exist. They will vanish. (Constituent Assembly Debates, Thursday, 4-11-1948.)
[12] Constituent Assembly Debates Friday, the 25th November, 1949.
The first amendment proposed by Professor K.T. Shah was:
That in clause (1) of Article 1, after the words “shall be a” the words ‘Secular, Federal, Socialist’ be inserted,[2]
Professor K.T. Shah in moving the amendment submitted:
Next, as regards the secular character of the State, we have been told time and again from every platform, that ours is a secular State. If that is true, if that holds good, I do not see why the term could not be added or inserted in the Constitution itself, once again, to guard against any possibility of misunderstanding or misapprehension. The term “secular”, I agree, does not find place necessarily in Constitutions on which ours seems to have been modelled. But every Constitution is framed in the background of the people concerned. The mere fact, therefore, that such description is not formally or specifically adopted to distinguish one state from another, or to emphasise the character of our State is no reason, in my opinion, why we should not insert now at this hour, when we are making our Constitution, this is very clear and emphatic description of that State.
The secularity of the State must be stressed in view not only of the unhappy experiences we had last year and in the years before and the excesses to which, in the name of religion, communalism or sectarianism can go, but I intend also to emphasis by this description the character and nature of the state which we are constituting today, which would ensure to all its peoples, all its citizens that in all matters relating to the governance of the country and dealings between man and man and dealings between citizen and Government the consideration that will actuate will be the objective realities of the situation, the material factors that condition our being, our living and our acting. For that purpose and in that connection no extraneous considerations or authority will be allowed to interfere, so that the relations between man and man, the relation of the citizen to the State, the relations of the States inter se may not be influenced by those other considerations which will result in injustice or inequality as between the several citizens that constitute the people of India.[3]
Opposing the motion Babasaheb B.R. Ambedkar memorably said:
Mr Vice-President, Sir, I regret that I cannot accept the amendment of Prof. K.T. Shah. My objections, stated briefly, are two. In the first place the Constitution, as I stated in my opening speech in support of the motion I made before the House, is merely a mechanism for the purpose of regulating the work of the various organs of the State. It is not a mechanism whereby particular members or particular parties are installed in office. What should be the policy of the State, how the society should be organised in its social and economic side are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances. It cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself, because that is destroying democracy altogether. If you state in the Constitution that the social organisation of the State shall take a particular form, you are, in my judgment, taking away the liberty of the people to decide what should be the social organisation in which they wish to live. It is perfectly possible today, for the majority people to hold that the socialist organisation of society is better than the capitalist organisation of society. But it would be perfectly possible for thinking people to devise some other form of social organisation which might be better than the socialist organisation of today or of tomorrow. I do not see therefore why the Constitution should tie down the people to live in a particular form and not leave it to the people themselves to decide it for themselves. This is one reason why the amendment should be opposed.[4]
The second amendment suggested by Professor K.T. Shah was:
18-A. The State in India being secular shall have no concern with any religion, creed or profession of faith; and shall observe an attitude of absolute neutrality in all matters relating to the religion of any class of its citizens or other persons in the Union.[5]
This was also negatived by the Assembly summarily[6].
Professor K.T. Shah tried to get the said words incorporated a third time through a third amendment and failed.[7] A further proposal for incorporating the words “secularism” as part of the preamble was also rejected by the Constituent Assembly.[8]
Admittedly there was broad consensus about the creation of a “secular” State but then as in today, there was a general confusion as to what that meant and what was the object of the secular State, whether it was a means to an end or the end in itself, whether it was a compromise or a worthy goal. During the entire discussions which were held the views of the three great protagonists in the framing of the Constitution, Pandit Nehru[9], Sardar Patel[10] and Babasaheb Ambedkar[11], were put forward during various occasions, and interestingly and almost presciently reflect the political debate which still haunts the country in discussing the concept of secularism and therefore the method to protect the religious minorities.
An interesting aside to this entire debate and an illustration of the forces which were pulling in different directions in relation to the place of religion in public life of the future Indian Republic was the debate about the inclusion of the prohibition of cow slaughter in the Constitution ( which is today Article 48 of the Constitution ) as a Directive Principle of State Policy, which was about the broader question of allowing the state to intervene in public life to protect religious values . It is instructive here to replicate the exchange between K. Hanumanthayya and Frank Anthony regarding the said provision :
Mr. Frank Anthony : ………While on the matter of Directive Principles, I would like to refer to this provision regarding cow slaughter. I know, again, here, that I will be treading on difficult ground. But, I want to make my position clear. What I resent in this Directive Principle is the insidious way in which this provision with regard to the banning of cow slaughter has been brought in. It was not there before. I cannot help saying that those fanatics and extremists who could not bring in this provision through the front door have succeeded in bringing it through the back-door. Sir, I am not a beef eater; I am not holding a brief for beef eaters. I say, you may ban cow-slaughter, but we should have done it honestly without our tongues in our cheeks, without resorting to methods which may give rise to the accusation of subterfuge. I ask my Hindu friends, does cow-slaughter offend your religious susceptibilities.
Shri K. Hanumanthaiya : (Mysore State) : Yes; it does.
Mr. Frank Anthony : All right; I am glad you have said so. If you had said that, I would have sponsored a provision that a ban on cow-slaughter should have been introduced in the Fundamental Rights and that cow-slaughter should be made a cognisable offence. But, there were not people who were prepared to do that. Why bring in this provision in an indirect way? If it offends your religious susceptibilities, just as much as I expect you to respect my religious susceptibilities. I am prepared to respect yours. As I said, why bring it in, in this indirect way, as an afterthought into the Directive Principles? Look at the way you have brought it in. The clause reads :
“for the purpose of protecting the cattle wealth of India, for the purpose of protecting cattle, milch and draught cattle, a ban on cattle slaughter may be imposed.”
Shri K. Hanumanthaiya : On a point of order, Sir, is it right for the honourable Member to attribute motives, subterfuge and all that? I draw your kind attention to it. The honourable Member is saying that we have introduced a provision by way of a subterfuge. He has attributed motives in regard to the way we have put in this provision in the Directive Principles. Whether attributing motives is right, I leave it to you, Sir to Judge.
Mr. Frank Anthony : I apologise to you and to the House if what I may have said even remotely raises the suggestion of unparliamentary language. I was not attributing motives. I am merely stating objectively what had happened. As I have said, what has happened raises the accusation that perhaps motives may have been there to bring in this provision in an indirect way; I will not say it tantamounts to subterfuge. As I have said, I repeat, if this gives you offence, I would have been the first person to suggest that it should have formed part of the Fundamental Rights. In the way it has been done, it has been attached to a clause purporting to protect the cattle wealth of this country. Any child knows that in this country, in proportion to the population, we have more cattle than in any other country in the world. Any intelligent child also knows that in spite of this huge cattle population, our output for milch and draught purposes is the lowest per capita in the world. The preservation of cattle-wealth and the preservation of the best interests of the country would have required not the banning of cattle slaughtering but the slaughtering of over half of your present cattle population in this country. That is why I say, it should not have been done in this particular way. I only draw your attention to it and I leave it at that.[12]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 17-10-1949.
[2] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 15-11-1948 at p. 399.
[3] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 15-11-1948 at p. 400.
[4] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 15-11-1948 at pp. 401-02.
[5] Constituent Assembly Debates, Friday, 3-12-1948 at p. 815.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Constituent Assembly Debates, Thursday, 25-11-1948.
[8] Constituent Assembly Debates, Monday, 17-10-1949.
[9] In relation to the debate regarding framing the provisions regarding citizenship Pandit Nehru stated:
One word has been thrown about a lot. I should like to register my strong protest against that word. I want the House to examine the word carefully and it is that this Government goes in for a policy of appeasement, appeasement of Pakistan, appeasement of Muslims, appeasement of this and that. I want to know clearly what that word means. Do the Honourable Members who talk of appeasement think that some kind of rule should be applied when dealing with these people which has nothing to do with justice or equity? I want a clear answer to that. If so, I would only plead for appeasement. This Government will not go by a hair’s breadth to the right or to left from what they consider to be the right way of dealing with the situation, justice to the individual or the group.
Another word is thrown up a good deal, this secular State business. May I beg with all humility those gentlemen who use this word often to consult some dictionary before they use it? It is brought in at every conceivable step and at every conceivable stage. I just do not understand it. It has a great deal of importance, no doubt. But, it is brought in in all contexts, as if by saying that we are a secular State we have done something amazingly generous, given something out of our pocket to the rest of the world, something which we ought not to have done, so on and so forth. We have only done something which every country does except a very few misguided and backward countries in the world. Let us not refer to that word in the sense that we have done something very mighty. (Constituent Assembly Debates, Friday, 12‑8-1949 at pp. 400-01.)
[10] In moving the Report of the Advisory Committee on Minorities Sardar Patel said:
… Now our object is, or the object of this House should be, as soon as possible and as rapidly as possible to drop these classifications and differences and bring all to a level of equality. Therefore, although temporarily we may recognise this it is up to the majority community to create by its generosity a sense of confidence in the minorities; and so also it will be the duty of the minority communities to forget the past and to reflect on what the country has suffered due to the sense of fairness which the foreigner thought was necessary to keep the balance between community and community. This has created class and communal divisions and sub-divisions, which in their sense of fairness, they thought fit to create, apart from attributing any motives. We on our part, taking this responsibility of laying the foundations of a free India which shall be and should be our endeavour both of the majority—largely of the majority—and also of the minority community, have to rise to the situation that is demanded from all of us, and create an atmosphere in which the sooner these classifications disappear the better. (Constituent Assembly Debates, Wednesday, 25-5-1949 at pp. 271-72.)
[11] In moving the Resolution proposing the Draft Constitution, Babasaheb Ambedkar submitted to the Assembly that:
The Draft Constitution is also criticised because of the safeguards it provides for minorities. In this, the Drafting Committee has no responsibility. It follows the decisions of the Constituent Assembly. Speaking for myself, I have no doubt that the Constituent Assembly has done wisely in providing such safeguards for minorities as it has done. In this country both the minorities and the majorities have followed a wrong path. It is wrong for the majority to deny the existence of minorities. It is equally wrong for the minorities to perpetuate themselves. A solution must be found which will serve a double purpose. It must recognise the existence of the minorities to start with. It must also be such that it will enable majorities and minorities to merge someday into one. The solution proposed by the Constituent Assembly is to be welcomed because it is a solution which serves this twofold purpose. To diehards who have developed a kind of fanaticism against minority protection I would like to say two things. One is that minorities are an explosive force which, if it erupts, can blow up the whole fabric of the State. The history of Europe bears ample and appalling testimony to this fact. The other is that the minorities in India have agreed to place their existence in the hands of the majority. In the history of negotiations for preventing the partition of Ireland, Redmond said to Carson “ask for any safeguard you like for the Protestant minority but let us have a United Ireland”. Carson’s reply was “Damn your safeguards, we don’t want to be ruled by you.” No minority in India has taken this stand. They have loyally accepted the rule of the majority which is basically a communal majority and not a political majority. It is for the majority to realise its duty not to discriminate against minorities. Whether the minorities will continue or will vanish must depend upon this habit of the majority. The moment the majority loses the habit of discriminating against the minority, the minorities can have no ground to exist. They will vanish. (Constituent Assembly Debates, Thursday, 4-11-1948.)
[12] Constituent Assembly Debates Friday, the 25th November, 1949.
The Serious Question of Judicial Accountability , the case of CPIO , Supreme Court of India v. Subhas Chandra Agarwal , and some Indic thought
“ It nowhere obliges disclosure of assets of spouses, dependants and children – of judges. Members of the higher judiciary are, in this respect entitled to the same protection – and exemptions- as in the case of other public servants, including judicial officers up to the District Judge level, members of All India services, and other services under the Union” – para 73 of Justice S. Ravindra Bhat’s Judgment in CPIO , Supreme Court of India v. Subhas Chandra Agarwal
The question of declaration of judicial assets is an ongoing struggle to make judges more accountable and therefore more responsible to justice . However we all know that the present fight being fought so ostentatiously before the media and the public is more of a shadow fight between a Government which has been responsible in the past of attempting to corrupt and influence the judiciary and as indeed of trying to produce a “committed judiciary” , and it’s proxies , on the one hand , and a judiciary which having extricated itself from the powers of the executive in the power vaccum of the 1990’s is reluctant to put itself for more than usual scrutiny , since it realizes that the present government will use the case of “rotten apples” to attempt to again bring the judiciary within it’s grip and replicate the model of a committed judiciary , so much in vogue in the 1970’s by the predecessors of the present Government , on the other .
The judgment of Justice Bhat must therefore be read with that caveat in mind . The judgment is indeed laudatory and extremely well researched . The points which Justice Bhat makes both on the Right to Information Act and the jurisprudence surrounding the same are extremely persuasive . However it is the broad points which are raised by the judgment , which should be discussed . Since not discussing the broad points and discussing the fine print and mere legal niceties would make us miss the wood from the trees . It is therefore my intention to discuss the judgment of Justice Bhat in relation to the points and issues of judicial accountability which seems to be raised by him , before bringing forward my views on the subject .
Justice Bhat raises a number of points regarding judicial accountability and disclosure of assets in his very extensive judgment of nearly 72 pages . The most important are :
(i) That the reason for protection of Judges has been provided in the constitution is to ensure that judicial independence is protected ( para 42) , and a judges duty is therefore to do justice ( para 43) , and being completely independent , even contrary to public opinion ( para 44) .
(ii) That since the decisions of Judges of the High Court and the Supreme Court affect every person , Judges have to be accountable to some body or the other ( para 46 ) .
(iii) That since the Judicial Resolutions ( quoted in extenso in the judgment) of 1997 and 1999 provide standards of probity amongst the judiciary , declaration of assets is to be seen as “ an essential ingredient of contemporary acceptable behaviour and establishing a convention” ( para 48) as it would be seen as Judges commitment to ethical behavior ( para 49 ).
(iv) That to ensure that the Judicial Resolutions as quoted in the judgment are followed it is important that there be scrutiny to ensure that they are being followed in practice and therefore it is important that the Judges of the higher judiciary disclose their assets.( para 50 and 52)
(v) That public servants cannot take the defence of privacy as the protection of privacy decreases because they are public servants ( para 67 and 68). However the same are subject to the exceptions provided under the Right to Information Act and should be decided on a case to case basis.
(vi) That other public servants have the obligation to disclose assets periodically and therefore it is apparent that the defence of privacy is not available to public servants in general .It is here that Justice Bhat makes the comment as stated above that the Act however does not oblige disclosure of assets of spouses, dependants and children – of judges. As we all know herein lies the rub. The seriousness of the Judgment is clearly destroyed by this very simple observation .( para 73).
(vii) That the disclosure of assets would be governed by Section 8 (1)(j) of the Right to Information Act and would not be a blanket right to force the disclosure of every type of assets .This decision would obviously be made on a case by case basis . This in my view is a further dilution of the big assurances of the judgment .
(viii) That subsequently in discussing what constitutes “assets” and what are “investments”, Justice Bhat went on to say that the format of disclosure needed to be worked out “these are not insurmountable obstacles; the CJI, if he deems it appropriate, may in consultation with the Supreme Court judges, evolve uniform standards, devising the nature of information, relevant formats, and if required, the periodicity of the declarations to be made.” ( para 77). I fear that that the assurances of probity may completely be undone by the fine print .
An interesting part of the judgment and this is what got me to write the present article is the reliance of Justice Bhat extensively on Australian and American precedent , besides the odd British one thrown in . It is therefore important that we explore what does Bharatiya jurisprudence have to say on matters of judicial accountability . To test the above proposition I explored the two most famous Bharatiya texts on jurisprudence , Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Manu’s Manava Dharmashastra .
Manava Dharmashastra lays down the obligations of a king to “eradicate thorns” :
“Bribe takers , frauds , cheats…….., high officials…..- people such as those should be recognized as open thorns on his people’s side . After identifying these through honest undercover agents practicing the same occupations and instigating them through mobile agents posted in various spy establishments , he should lure them into his power. After publicizing accurately the crimes that they have committed in their respective activities , the king should duly punish them, each in proportion to his capacity and his crime. For without punishment , it is impossible to suppress the crimes of evil minded thieves who prowl the land in secret” (9.258-263)
Kautilya’s Arthashastra puts the mechanism of policing judges into practice :
“13. If the judge threatens , upbraids , drives away or browbeats a litigant , he shall impose the lowest fine of violence on him , double that incase of verbal injury . 14.If he does not question one who ought to be questioned , questions one who ought not to be questioned , or after questioning dismisses ( the statement) , or instructs ,reminds or prompts him , he shall impose the middle fine for violence on him . 15. If he does not ask for evidence which ought to be submitted , asks for evidence which ought not to be submitted , proceeds with the case without evidence , dismisses it under a pretext, carries away one tired with delays , throws out of context a statement which is in proper order , gives to witnesses help in their statements (or) takes up once again a case which is completed and in which judgment is pronounced , he shall impose the highest fine of violence on him . 16. In case the offence is repeated double ( the fine) , and removal from office ( shall be the punishment).
18.If the Judge or the Magistrate imposes a money fine on one not deserving to be fined , he shall impose on him double the fine imposed , or eight times the shortfall or excess ( over the prescribed fine) . 19. If he imposes corporal punishment ( wrongly ) , he shall himself suffer corporal punishment or pay double the ( normal) redemption amount . 20. Or , he shall pay a fine eight times the just claim which he disallows or unjust claim which he allows”(4.9.13-20)
And again as to corruption in judiciary :
“6. A secret agent should say to a judge in whom confidence is inspired by him . “Such and such relation of mine is accused ( before you ) ; save him in this misfortune and accept this amount” . 7 . If he were to do so , he should be exiled as one given to receiving bribes” (4.4.6-8)
There are two lessons which need to be drawn from the discussion of Bharatiya jurisprudence that we have to keep in mind , (a) that discussion of corruption in government and specially judges before investigation into the corruption is complete should be kept secret , it should not be a political football and be subject to public scrutiny before that stage, and (b) after the guilt is established there should be maximum punishment for the same and wide publicity to the said punishment must be given . The judgment of Justice Bhat to me therefore puts the cart before the horse , that is while it talks about disclosure of assets of judges effectively making place for vested interests to take advantage of the information , it puts in a number of caveats at the very end effectively making it impossible to do anything about further investigation .
It seems also to be important that judges not only be held accountable for corruption only but also for the quality of justice they deliver as Kautilya recommends , since the question of corruption in higher judiciary may be a big problem for some of the big and wealthy commercial interests in the country and outside ( possibly more by outside players since they seem to be outwitted by big national players in the court system and therefore they are the most concerned about corruption in the higher judiciary ) , but the crucial problem which concerns most people in the rest of the country is the quality of justice , and till the courts cannot and do not deliver justice , they will continue to be ineffective and will not enjoy the confidence of the people .
The question of declaration of judicial assets is an ongoing struggle to make judges more accountable and therefore more responsible to justice . However we all know that the present fight being fought so ostentatiously before the media and the public is more of a shadow fight between a Government which has been responsible in the past of attempting to corrupt and influence the judiciary and as indeed of trying to produce a “committed judiciary” , and it’s proxies , on the one hand , and a judiciary which having extricated itself from the powers of the executive in the power vaccum of the 1990’s is reluctant to put itself for more than usual scrutiny , since it realizes that the present government will use the case of “rotten apples” to attempt to again bring the judiciary within it’s grip and replicate the model of a committed judiciary , so much in vogue in the 1970’s by the predecessors of the present Government , on the other .
The judgment of Justice Bhat must therefore be read with that caveat in mind . The judgment is indeed laudatory and extremely well researched . The points which Justice Bhat makes both on the Right to Information Act and the jurisprudence surrounding the same are extremely persuasive . However it is the broad points which are raised by the judgment , which should be discussed . Since not discussing the broad points and discussing the fine print and mere legal niceties would make us miss the wood from the trees . It is therefore my intention to discuss the judgment of Justice Bhat in relation to the points and issues of judicial accountability which seems to be raised by him , before bringing forward my views on the subject .
Justice Bhat raises a number of points regarding judicial accountability and disclosure of assets in his very extensive judgment of nearly 72 pages . The most important are :
(i) That the reason for protection of Judges has been provided in the constitution is to ensure that judicial independence is protected ( para 42) , and a judges duty is therefore to do justice ( para 43) , and being completely independent , even contrary to public opinion ( para 44) .
(ii) That since the decisions of Judges of the High Court and the Supreme Court affect every person , Judges have to be accountable to some body or the other ( para 46 ) .
(iii) That since the Judicial Resolutions ( quoted in extenso in the judgment) of 1997 and 1999 provide standards of probity amongst the judiciary , declaration of assets is to be seen as “ an essential ingredient of contemporary acceptable behaviour and establishing a convention” ( para 48) as it would be seen as Judges commitment to ethical behavior ( para 49 ).
(iv) That to ensure that the Judicial Resolutions as quoted in the judgment are followed it is important that there be scrutiny to ensure that they are being followed in practice and therefore it is important that the Judges of the higher judiciary disclose their assets.( para 50 and 52)
(v) That public servants cannot take the defence of privacy as the protection of privacy decreases because they are public servants ( para 67 and 68). However the same are subject to the exceptions provided under the Right to Information Act and should be decided on a case to case basis.
(vi) That other public servants have the obligation to disclose assets periodically and therefore it is apparent that the defence of privacy is not available to public servants in general .It is here that Justice Bhat makes the comment as stated above that the Act however does not oblige disclosure of assets of spouses, dependants and children – of judges. As we all know herein lies the rub. The seriousness of the Judgment is clearly destroyed by this very simple observation .( para 73).
(vii) That the disclosure of assets would be governed by Section 8 (1)(j) of the Right to Information Act and would not be a blanket right to force the disclosure of every type of assets .This decision would obviously be made on a case by case basis . This in my view is a further dilution of the big assurances of the judgment .
(viii) That subsequently in discussing what constitutes “assets” and what are “investments”, Justice Bhat went on to say that the format of disclosure needed to be worked out “these are not insurmountable obstacles; the CJI, if he deems it appropriate, may in consultation with the Supreme Court judges, evolve uniform standards, devising the nature of information, relevant formats, and if required, the periodicity of the declarations to be made.” ( para 77). I fear that that the assurances of probity may completely be undone by the fine print .
An interesting part of the judgment and this is what got me to write the present article is the reliance of Justice Bhat extensively on Australian and American precedent , besides the odd British one thrown in . It is therefore important that we explore what does Bharatiya jurisprudence have to say on matters of judicial accountability . To test the above proposition I explored the two most famous Bharatiya texts on jurisprudence , Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Manu’s Manava Dharmashastra .
Manava Dharmashastra lays down the obligations of a king to “eradicate thorns” :
“Bribe takers , frauds , cheats…….., high officials…..- people such as those should be recognized as open thorns on his people’s side . After identifying these through honest undercover agents practicing the same occupations and instigating them through mobile agents posted in various spy establishments , he should lure them into his power. After publicizing accurately the crimes that they have committed in their respective activities , the king should duly punish them, each in proportion to his capacity and his crime. For without punishment , it is impossible to suppress the crimes of evil minded thieves who prowl the land in secret” (9.258-263)
Kautilya’s Arthashastra puts the mechanism of policing judges into practice :
“13. If the judge threatens , upbraids , drives away or browbeats a litigant , he shall impose the lowest fine of violence on him , double that incase of verbal injury . 14.If he does not question one who ought to be questioned , questions one who ought not to be questioned , or after questioning dismisses ( the statement) , or instructs ,reminds or prompts him , he shall impose the middle fine for violence on him . 15. If he does not ask for evidence which ought to be submitted , asks for evidence which ought not to be submitted , proceeds with the case without evidence , dismisses it under a pretext, carries away one tired with delays , throws out of context a statement which is in proper order , gives to witnesses help in their statements (or) takes up once again a case which is completed and in which judgment is pronounced , he shall impose the highest fine of violence on him . 16. In case the offence is repeated double ( the fine) , and removal from office ( shall be the punishment).
18.If the Judge or the Magistrate imposes a money fine on one not deserving to be fined , he shall impose on him double the fine imposed , or eight times the shortfall or excess ( over the prescribed fine) . 19. If he imposes corporal punishment ( wrongly ) , he shall himself suffer corporal punishment or pay double the ( normal) redemption amount . 20. Or , he shall pay a fine eight times the just claim which he disallows or unjust claim which he allows”(4.9.13-20)
And again as to corruption in judiciary :
“6. A secret agent should say to a judge in whom confidence is inspired by him . “Such and such relation of mine is accused ( before you ) ; save him in this misfortune and accept this amount” . 7 . If he were to do so , he should be exiled as one given to receiving bribes” (4.4.6-8)
There are two lessons which need to be drawn from the discussion of Bharatiya jurisprudence that we have to keep in mind , (a) that discussion of corruption in government and specially judges before investigation into the corruption is complete should be kept secret , it should not be a political football and be subject to public scrutiny before that stage, and (b) after the guilt is established there should be maximum punishment for the same and wide publicity to the said punishment must be given . The judgment of Justice Bhat to me therefore puts the cart before the horse , that is while it talks about disclosure of assets of judges effectively making place for vested interests to take advantage of the information , it puts in a number of caveats at the very end effectively making it impossible to do anything about further investigation .
It seems also to be important that judges not only be held accountable for corruption only but also for the quality of justice they deliver as Kautilya recommends , since the question of corruption in higher judiciary may be a big problem for some of the big and wealthy commercial interests in the country and outside ( possibly more by outside players since they seem to be outwitted by big national players in the court system and therefore they are the most concerned about corruption in the higher judiciary ) , but the crucial problem which concerns most people in the rest of the country is the quality of justice , and till the courts cannot and do not deliver justice , they will continue to be ineffective and will not enjoy the confidence of the people .
The Economic Phillosophy of Swami Vivekananda
It is not a matter of doubt that Swami Vivekananda had a profound effect on the idea of nation building in India . In many ways Swami Vivekananda has given and continues to give direction to those who want to actively be engaged with India and more importantly it’s people . He remains along with Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. B.R.Ambedkar one of the most important political philosophers and icons of the country .
Swami Vivekananda is also interestingly a person whose philosophy and reading of the conception of India , Hinduism and the people of India , is very much touched with his experiences in the United States of America and the New World, unlike most of India’s other political philosophers like Mahatma Gandhi whose experience of the west came from the British and or Britain.
Swami Vivekananda is a man in any ways engaged with the ideas which still haunt us today . He is also a person who had traveled extensively across the world , speaking about India . He is possibly the foremost person of his times who confronts the question of caste , religion , minorityism , modernism , economics and politics of India and he brought a refreshing viewpoint to the same . He is articulate and very clear and with his writings and sayings managed to set the agenda which is still with us today as Nationalists.
Vivekananda was a radical for his times . His version and interpretation of high religious philosophy was also marked with a very specific political / economic outlook which arose from his concern about the people of his country , or his co-religionists .
Interestingly this leads him to two broad presumptions , one that religion cannot be given on an empty stomache and two , the poor of India or as he would like to term the “sudra” should be awakened . This has lead to attempts by socialists and communists to appropriate the legacy of Swami Vivekananda . However Vivekananda was clearly and completely against formal rigid equality though he did claim to be a socialist in a very colloquial sense . Vivekananda recognized clearly that for a society to work in the long run , man had to be given the opportunity to excel and make money … and he has memorably and famously equalized the Grihasta making money with an anchorite ( sadhu) praying in his cell .
His political vision or lack thereof , seems to arise from the fact that during his time , it was impossible for anyone to take on a political role without taking on the British and thereby endangering the extensive socio-economic and crypto political work that Vivekananda was involved in doing .
He seems to be the first person to have discovered the link with what is today known in India “ caste is class” theory and also to have seen that such was not a perfect formulation. His vision of combining and reading caste and class together is even by today’s standard extremely radical and innovative.
The Economic Philosophy of Swami Vivekananda
His most influential book which lays down the core of Vivekananda’s economic philosophy is his “ Karma Yoga”. He says :
“The householder is the basis, the prop, of the whole society. He is the principal earner. The poor, the weak, the children and the women who do not work — all live upon the householder; so there must be certain duties that he has to perform, and these duties must make him feel strong to perform them, and not make him think that he is doing things beneath his ideal. Therefore, if he has done something weak, or has made some mistake, he must not say so in public; and if he is engaged in some enterprise and knows he is sure to fail in it, he must not speak of it. Such self-exposure is not only uncalled for, but also unnerves the man and makes him unfit for the performance of his legitimate duties in life. At the same time, he must struggle hard to acquire these things — firstly, knowledge, and secondly, wealth. It is his duty, and if he does not do his duty, he is nobody. A householder who does not struggle to get wealth is immoral. If he is lazy and content to lead an idle life, he is immoral, because upon him depend hundreds. If he gets riches, hundreds of others will be thereby supported. If there were not in this city hundreds who had striven to become rich, and who had acquired wealth, where would all this civilization, and these alms-houses and great houses be?Going after wealth in such a case is not bad, because that wealth is for distribution. The householder is the centre of life and society. It is a worship for him to acquire and spend wealth nobly, for the householder who struggles to become rich by good means and for good purposes is doing practically the same thing for the attainment of salvation as the anchorite does in his cell when he is praying; for in them we see only the different aspects of the same virtue of self-surrender and self-sacrifice prompted by the feeling of devotion to God and to all that is His.”
Interestingly he inserts a subsequent caveat in the next chapter :
“This idea of charity is going out of India; great men are becoming fewer and fewer. When I was first learning English, I read an English story book in which there was a story about a dutiful boy who had gone out to work and had given some of his money to his old mother, and this was praised in three or four pages. What was that? No Hindu boy can ever understand the moral of that story. Now I understand it when I hear the Western idea — every man for himself. And some men take everything for themselves, and fathers and mothers and wives and children go to the wall. That should never and nowhere be the ideal of the householder.”
Vivekananda is very clear that the householders obligation includes charity and the purpose why the householder gathers wealth is to distribute it :
“Do you ask anything from your children in return for what you have given them? It is your duty to work for them, and there the matter ends. In whatever you do for a particular person, a city, or a state, assume the same attitude towards it as you have towards your children — expect nothing in return. If you can invariably take the position of a giver, in which everything given by you is a free offering to the world, without any thought of return, then will your work bring you no attachment. Attachment comes only where we expect a return.”
Most importantly , Vivekananda was not a rigid adherent of equality of all , infact he was greatly skeptical of the idea and it’s excesses were not unknown to him , however he was of the view that the forces of equality were necessary to balance the forces of inequality :
“The next idea we take up is the idea of equality. These millennium ideas have been great motive powers to work. Many religions preach this as an element in them — that God is coming to rule the universe, and that then there will be no difference at all in conditions. The people who preach this doctrine are mere fanatics, and fanatics are indeed the sincerest of mankind. Christianity was preached just on the basis of the fascination of this fanaticism, and that is what made it so attractive to the Greek and the Roman slaves. They believed that under the millennial religion there would be no more slavery, that there would be plenty to eat and drink; and, therefore, they flocked round the Christian standard. Those who preached the idea first were of course ignorant fanatics, but very sincere. In modern times this millennial aspiration takes the form of equality — of liberty, equality, and fraternity. This is also fanaticism. True equality has never been and never can be on earth. How can we all be equal here? This impossible kind of equality implies total death. What makes this world what it is? Lost balance. In the primal state, which is called chaos, there is perfect balance. How do all the formative forces of the universe come then? By struggling, competition, conflict. Suppose that all the particles of matter were held in equilibrium, would there be then any process of creation? We know from science that it is impossible. Disturb a sheet of water, and there you find every particle of the water trying to become calm again, one rushing against the other; and in the same way all the phenomena which we call the universe — all things therein — are struggling to get back to the state of perfect balance. Again a disturbance comes, and again we have combination and creation. Inequality is the very basis of creation. At the same time the forces struggling to obtain equality are as much a necessity of creation as those which destroy it.
Absolute equality, that which means a perfect balance of all the struggling forces in all the planes, can never be in this world. Before you attain that state, the world will have become quite unfit for any kind of life, and no one will be there. We find, therefore, that all these ideas of the millennium and of absolute equality are not only impossible but also that, if we try to carry them out, they will lead us surely enough to the day of destruction. What makes the difference between man and man? It is largely the difference in the brain. Nowadays no one but a lunatic will say that we are all born with the same brain power. We come into the world with unequal endowments; we come as greater men or as lesser men, and there is no getting away from that pre-natally determined condition. The American Indians were in this country for thousands of years, and a few handfuls of your ancestors came to their land. What difference they have caused in the appearance of the country! Why did not the Indians make improvements and build cities, if all were equal? With your ancestors a different sort of brain power came into the land, different bundles of past impressions came, and they worked out and manifested themselves. Absolute non-differentiation is death. So long as this world lasts, differentiation there will and must be, and the millennium of perfect equality will come only when a cycle of creation comes to its end. Before that, equality cannot be. Yet this idea of realising the millennium is a great motive power. Just as inequality is necessary for creation itself, so the struggle to limit it is also necessary. If there were no struggle to become free and get back to God, there would be no creation either. It is the difference between these two forces that determines the nature of the motives of men. There will always be these motives to work, some tending towards bondage and others towards freedom.”
However in his work “Privilege” he came down against the exploitation of the underprivileged to the extent that their very existence is threatened :
“Therefore the absolute sameness of conditions, if that be the aim of ethics, appears to be impossible. That all men should be the same, could never be, however we might try. Men will be born differentiated; some will have more power than others; some will have natural capacities, others not; some will have perfect bodies, others not. We can never stop that. At the same time ring in our ears the wonderful words of morality proclaimed by various teachers: "Thus, seeing the same God equally present in all, the sage does not injure Self by the Self, and thus reaches the highest goal. Even in this life they have conquered relative existence whose minds are firmly fixed on this sameness; for God is pure, and God is the same to all. Therefore such are said to be living in God." We cannot deny that this is the real idea; yet at the same time comes the difficulty that the sameness as regards external forms and position can never be attained.
But what can be attained is elimination of privilege. That is really the work before the whole world. In all social lives, there has been that one fight in every race and in every country. The difficulty is not that one body of men are naturally more intelligent than another, but whether this body of men, because they have the advantage of intelligence, should take away even physical enjoyment from those who do not possess that advantage. The fight is to destroy that privilege. That some will be stronger physically than others, and will thus naturally be able to subdue or defeat the weak, is a self-evident fact, but that because of this strength they should gather unto themselves all the attainable happiness of this life, is not according to law, and the fight has been against it. That some people, through natural aptitude, should be able to accumulate more wealth than others, is natural: but that on account of this power to acquire wealth they should tyrannize and ride roughshod over those who cannot acquire so much wealth, is not a part of the law, and the fight has been against that. The enjoyment of advantage over another is privilege, and throughout ages, the aim of morality has been its destruction. This is the work which tends towards sameness, towards unity, without destroying variety.”
Vivekananda was a spiritualist , but he realized that without “materialism” spirituality cannot exist. He wonderfully stated in a letter to Alusinga Perumal titled “ My Brave Boys” in the year 1894
“We talk foolishly against material civilisation. The grapes are sour. Even taking all that foolishness for granted, in all India there are, say, a hundred thousand really spiritual men and women. Now, for the spiritualisation of these, must three hundred millions be sunk in savagery and starvation? Why should any starve? ………….. Material civilization, nay, even luxury, is necessary to create work for the poor. Bread! Bread! I do not believe in a God, who cannot give me bread here, giving me eternal bliss in heaven! Pooh! India is to be raised, the poor are to be fed, education is to be spread, and the evil of priestcraft is to be removed. No priestcraft, no social tyranny! More bread, more opportunity for everybody! Our young fools organise meetings to get more power from the English. They only laugh. None deserves liberty who is not ready to give liberty. Suppose the English give over to you all the power. Why, the powers that be then, will hold the people down, and let them not have it. Slaves want power to make slaves.”
Interestingly Vivekananda has his own very original analysis of the history of civilization and it is here that he is the most interesting and the most stirring .The piece de resistance of the theory is his article “Modern India” written in the year 1899. It is a brilliant piece and should be read separately and independently , because it is highly multilayered and brilliant .In this article Vivekananda analyses “Human History”. It could be read in a manner as his social, political and economic manifesto .He analysed history saying that India’s history could be read in stages , the first where the Brahman ( the priest) was dominant and it had it’s advantages and disadvantages , and from it’s disadvantages sprung the next stage that of the Kshatriya ( or the king ) , from where sprung the present age of the “Vaishya” and it is here that he gives the most stirring of the passages , and he ends up by predicting an age of the “Shudra” . Interestingly the conflict and the change of ages in India he says has always happened through religion as religion is the truest manifestation of the societal thinking of India . Being such an important piece in his philosophy it is important that a number of parts of the essay be quoted :
On his theory of cyclical ages of caste and individual qualities :
“According to the prevalence, in greater or lesser degree, of the three qualities of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas in man, the four castes, the Brahmin, Kashatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra, are everywhere present at all times, in all civilised societies. By the mighty hand of time, their number and power also vary at different times in regard to different countries. In some countries the numerical strength or influence of one of these castes may preponderate over another; at some period, one of the classes may be more powerful than the rest. But from a careful study of the history of the world, it appears that in conformity to the law of nature the four castes, the Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra do, in every society, one after another in succession, govern the world.”
On the present age dominated by the Vaishyas ( here he equates the Vaishyas with the British since he states that the British are not representatives of power like the Kshatriyas but of trade like the Vaishyas ….but it seems that it is applicable even to the present age much after independence and the departure of the British …showing further that Vaishya is not just a group of people it is as indeed as Vivekananda said an ethos of a period of time in history) :
“As in the ancient days the priestly power, in spite of its long-continued struggle, was subdued by the more powerful royal power, so, in modern times, before the violent blow of the newly-risen Vaishya power, many a kingly crown has to kiss the ground, many a sceptre is for ever broken to pieces. Only those few thrones which are allowed still to exercise some power in some of the civilised countries and make a display of their royal pomp and grandeur are all maintained solely by the vast hordes of wealth of these Vaishya communities — the dealers in salt, oil, sugar, and wine — and kept up as a magnificent and an imposing front. and as a means of glorification to the really governing body behind, the Vaishyas.”
And then the benefits of the age of the Vaishya :
“As during the supremacy of the Brahmin and the Kshatriya, there is a centralization of learning and advancement of civilization, so the result of the supremacy of the Vaishya is accumulation of wealth. The power of the Vaishya lies in the possession of that coin, the charm of whose clinking sound works with an irresistible fascination on the minds of the four castes. The Vaishya is always in fear lest the Brahmin swindles him out of this, his only possession, and lest the Kshatriya usurps it by virtue of his superior strength of arms. For self-preservation, the Vaishyas as a body are, therefore, of one mind. The Vaishya commands the money; the exorbitant interest that he can exact for its use by others, as with a lash in his hand, is his powerful weapon which strikes terror in the heart of all. By the power of his money, he is always busy curbing the royal power. That the royal power may not anyhow stand in the way of the inflow of his riches, the merchant is ever watchful. But, for all that, he has never the least wish that the power should pass on from the kingly to the Shudra class.
To what country does not the merchant go? Though himself ignorant, he carries on his trade and transplants the learning, wisdom, art, and science of one country to another. The wisdom, civilization, and arts that accumulated in the heart of the social body during the Brahmin and the Kshatriya supremacies are being diffused in all directions by the arteries of commerce to the different market-places of the Vaishya. But for the rising of this Vaishya power, who would have carried today the culture, learning, acquirements, and articles of food and luxury of one end of the world to the other?”
He then goes on to narrate the darkness of the present age :
“ A cloud of impenetrable darkness has at present equally enveloped us all. Now there is neither firmness of purpose nor boldness of enterprise, neither courage of heart nor strength of mind, neither aversion to maltreatments by others nor dislike for slavery, neither love in the heart nor hope nor manliness; but what we have in India are only deep-rooted envy and strong antipathy against one another, morbid desire to ruin by hook or by crook the weak, and to lick dog-like the feet of the strong. Now the highest satisfaction consists in the display of wealth and power, devotion in self-gratification, wisdom in the accumulation of transitory objects, Yoga in hideous diabolical practices, work in the slavery of others, civilisation in base imitation of foreign nations, eloquence in the use of abusive language, the merit of literature in extravagant flatteries of the rich or in the diffusion of ghastly obscenities! What to speak separately of the distinct Shudra class of such a land, where the whole population has virtually come down to the level of the Shudra? The Shudras of countries other than India have become, it seems, a little awake; but they are wanting in proper education and have only the mutual hatred of men of their own class — a trait common to Shudras. What avails it if they greatly outnumber the other classes? That unity, by which ten men collect the strength of a million, is yet far away from the Shudra; hence, according to the law of nature, the Shudras invariably form the subject race.”
Then comes the most famous passage of the awakening “Shudra”. Interestingly he is possibly the first person who attacks the isolation of the actual “Shudra” caste in India :
“Yet, a time will come when there will be the rising of the Shudra class, with their Shudra-hood; that is to say, not like that as at present when the Shudras are becoming great by acquiring the characteristic qualities of the Vaishya or the Kshatriya, but a time will come when the Shudras of every country, with their inborn Shudra nature and habits — not becoming in essence Vaishya or Kshatriya, but remaining as Shudras — will gain absolute supremacy in every society. The first glow of the dawn of this new power has already begun to break slowly upon the Western world, and the thoughtful are at their wits' end to reflect upon the final issue of this fresh phenomenon. Socialism, Anarchism, Nihilism,* and other like sects are the vanguard of the social revolution that is to follow.”
And the clash with the west and the awakening of India :
“It has been said before that India is slowly awakening through her friction with the outside nations; and as the result of this little awakening, is the appearance, to a certain extent, of free and independent thought in modern India. On one side is modern Western science, dazzling the eyes with the brilliancy of myriad suns and driving in the chariot of hard and fast facts collected by the application of tangible powers direct in their incision, on the other are the hopeful and strengthening traditions of her ancient forefathers, in the days when she was at the zenith of her glory — traditions that have been brought out of the pages of her history by the great sages of her own land and outside, that run for numberless years and centuries through her every vein with the quickening of life drawn from universal love — traditions that reveal unsurpassed valour, superhuman genius, and supreme spirituality, which are the envy of the gods — these inspire her with future hopes. On one side, rank materialism, plenitude of fortune, accumulation of gigantic power, and intense sense-pursuits have, through foreign literature, caused a tremendous stir; on the other, through the confounding din of all these discordant sounds, she hears, in low yet unmistakable accents, the heart-rending cries of her ancient gods, cutting her to the quick. There lie before her various strange luxuries introduced from the West — celestial drinks, costly well-served food, splendid apparel, magnificent palaces, new modes of conveyance, new manners, new fashions dressed in which moves about the well-educated girl in shameless freedom — all these are arousing unfelt desires. Again, the scene changes, and in its place appear, with stern presence, Sitâ, Sâvitri, austere religious vows, fastings, the forest retreat, the matted locks and orange garb of the semi-naked Sannyasin, Samâdhi and the search after the Self. On one side is the independence of Western societies based on self-interest; on the other is the extreme self-sacrifice of the Aryan society. In this violent conflict, is it strange that Indian society should be tossed up and down? Of the West, the goal is individual independence, the language money-making education, the means politics; of India, the goal is Mukti, the language the Veda, the means renunciation. For a time, Modern India thinks, as it were, I am ruining this worldly life of mine in vain expectation of uncertain spiritual welfare hereafter which has spread its fascination over one; and again, lo! spellbound she listens — —"Here, in this world of death and change, O man, where is thy happiness?"”
He ends off with that famous invocation , which rivals any other political slogan in India in it’s brilliant rhetoric and call to action :
“O India! With this mere echoing of others, with this base imitation of others, with this dependence on others this slavish weakness, this vile detestable cruelty — wouldst thou, with these provisions only, scale the highest pinnacle of civilisation and greatness? Wouldst thou attain, by means of thy disgraceful cowardice, that freedom deserved only by the brave and the heroic? O India! Forget not that the ideal of thy womanhood is Sita, Savitri, Damayanti; forget not that the God thou worshippest is the great Ascetic of ascetics, the all-renouncing Shankara, the Lord of Umâ; forget not that thy marriage, thy wealth, thy life are not for sense-pleasure, are not for thy individual personal happiness; forget not that thou art born as a sacrifice to the Mother's altar; forget not that thy social order is but the reflex of the Infinite Universal Motherhood; forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper, are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers. Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother." Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother." Thou, too, clad with but a rag round thy loins proudly proclaim at the top of thy voice: "The Indian is my brother, the Indian is my life, India's gods and goddesses are my God. India's society is the cradle of my infancy, the pleasure-garden of my youth, the sacred heaven, the Varanasi of my old age." Say, brother: "The soil of India is my highest heaven, the good of India is my good," and repeat and pray day and night, "O Thou Lord of Gauri, O Thou Mother of the Universe, vouchsafe manliness unto me! O Thou Mother of Strength, take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness, and make me a Man!"
However the fact that he understood the importance of modern technology and science and how important that was to India , was apparent from a conversation which he had with his disciple in the year 1899 :
“Laziness, meanness, and hypocrisy have covered the whole length and breadth of the country. Can an intelligent man look on all this and remain quiet? Does it not bring tears to the eyes? Madras, Bombay, Punjab, Bengal — whichever way I look, I see no signs of life. You are thinking yourselves highly educated. What nonsense have you learnt? Getting by heart the thoughts of others in a foreign language, and stuffing your brain with them and taking some university degrees, you consider yourselves educated! Fie upon you! Is this education? What is the goal of your education? Either a clerkship, or being a roguish lawyer, or at the most a Deputy Magistracy, which is another form of clerkship — isn't that all? Open your eyes and see what a piteous cry for food is rising in the land of Bharata, proverbial for its wealth! Will your education fulfil this want? Never. With the help of Western science set yourselves to dig the earth and produce food-stuffs — not by means of mean servitude of others — but by discovering new avenues to production, by your own exertions aided by Western science. Therefore I teach the people of this country to be full of activities, so as to be able to produce food and clothing for themselves. For want of food and clothing and plunged in anxiety for it, the country has come to ruin — what are you doing to remedy this? Throw aside your scriptures in the Ganga and teach the people first the means of procuring their food and clothing, and then you will find time to read to them the scriptures. If their material wants are not removed by the rousing of intense activity, none will listen to words of spirituality. Therefore I say, first rouse the inherent power of the Atman within you, then, rousing the faith of the general people in that power as much as you can, teach them first of all to make provision for food, and then teach them religion. There is no time to sit idle — who knows when death will overtake one?”
His allegiance in the end was the poor of India about whom he was always concerned as would be apparent by the conversation in 1902:
“Alas! nobody thinks of the poor of this land. They are the backbone of the country, who by their labour are producing food-these poor people, the sweepers and labourers, who if they stop work for one day will create a panic in the town. But there is none to sympathise with them, none to console them in their misery. Just see, for want of sympathy from the Hindus, thousands of Pariahs in Madras are turning Christians. Don't think this is simply due to the pinch of hunger; it is because they do not get any sympathy from us. We are day and night calling out to them, 'Don't touch us! Don't touch us!' Is there any compassion or kindliness of heart in the country? Only a class of 'Don't-touchists'; kick such customs out! I sometimes feel the urge to break the barriers of 'Don't-touchism', to go at once and call out, 'Come, all who are poor, miserable, wretched, and down-trodden', and to bring them all together in the name of Shri Ramakrishna. Unless they rise, the Mother won't awaken. We could not make any provision for food and clothes for these — what have we done then? Alas! they know nothing of worldliness, and therefore even after working day and night cannot provide themselves with food and clothes. Let us open their eyes. I see clear as daylight that there is the one Brahman in all, in them and in me — one Shakti dwells in all. The only difference is of manifestation. Unless the blood circulates over the whole body, has any country risen at any time? If one limb is paralysed, then even with the other limbs whole, not much can be done with that body — know this for certain."”
Yet , Vivekananda was against taking the help of the state to benefit the poor since he was of the clear view that no one can eventually help any person and the person has to help himself. As he wrote in the article “ My Life , My Mission” :
“Then there is the other great point to learn: that you can never help really. What can we do for each other? You are growing in your own life, I am growing in my own. It is possible that I can give you a push in your life, knowing that, in the long run, all roads lead to Rome. It is a steady growth. No national civilisation is perfect yet. Give that civilisation a push, and it will arrive at its own goal: do not strive to change it.”
Interestingly in relation to the help of the state in that famous letter with Swami Akhandananda dated 21st February , 1900 he wrote :
“ In these days of dire famine, flood, disease, and pestilence, tell me where your Congressmen are. Will it do merely to say, "Hand the government of the country over to us"? And who is there to listen to them? If a man does work, has he to open his mouth to ask for anything? If there be two thousand people like you working in several districts, won't it be the turn of the English themselves to consult you in matters of political moment? " — The wise man should achieve his object."”
In conclusion : Vivekananda’s future vision :
Vivekananda however even though extremely proud of India’s past spoke about the creation of a new India based on the old but a completely new one , which would replace the old and would once more lead the world and he had this to say about the old India :
“ However much you may parade your descent from Aryan ancestors and sing the glories of ancient India day and night, and however much you may be strutting in the pride of your birth, you, the upper classes of India, do you think you are alive? You are but mummies ten thousand years old! It is among those whom your ancestors despised as "walking carrion" that the little of vitality there is still in India is to be found; and it is you who are the real "walking corpses". Your houses, your furniture, look like museum specimens, so lifeless and antiquated they are; and even an eye-witness of your manners and customs, your movements and modes of life, is inclined to think that he is listening to a grandmother's tale! When, even after making a personal acquaintance with you, one returns home, one seems to think one had been to visit the paintings in an art gallery! In this world of Maya, you are the real illusions, the mystery, the real mirage in the desert, you, the upper classes of India! You represent the past tense, with all its varieties of form jumbled into one. That one still seems to see you at the present time, is nothing but a nightmare brought on by indigestion. You are the void, the unsubstantial nonentities of the future. Denizens of the dreamland, why are you loitering any longer? Fleshless and bloodless skeletons of the dead body of Past India you are, why do you not quickly reduce yourselves into dust and disappear in the air? Ay, on your bony fingers are some priceless rings of jewel, treasured up by your ancestors, and within the embrace of your stinking corpses are preserved a good many ancient treasure-chests. Up to now you have not had the opportunity to hand them over. Now under the British rule, in these days of free education and enlightenment, pass them on to your heirs, ay, do it as quickly as you can. You merge yourselves in the void and disappear, and let New India arise in your place. Let her arise — out of the peasants' cottage, grasping the plough; out of the huts of the fisherman, the cobbler, and the sweeper. Let her spring from the grocer's shop, from beside the oven of the fritter-seller. Let her emanate from the factory, from marts, and from markets. Let her emerge from groves and forests, from hills and mountains. These common people have suffered oppression for thousands of years — suffered it without murmur, and as a result have got wonderful fortitude. They have suffered eternal misery, which has given them unflinching vitality. Living on a handful of grain, they can convulse the world; give them only half a piece of bread, and the whole world will not be big enough to contain their energy; they are endowed with the inexhaustible vitality of a Raktabija. (A demon, in the Durgâ-Saptashati, every drop of whose blood falling on the ground produced another demon like him.) And, besides, they have got the wonderful strength that comes of a pure and moral life, which is not to be found anywhere else in the world. Such peacefulness, such contentment, such love, such power of silent and incessant work, and such manifestation of lion's strength in times of action — where else will you find these! Skeletons of the Past, there, before you, are your successors, the India that is to be. Throw those treasure-chests of yours and those jewelled rings among them, as soon as you can; and you vanish into the air, and be seen no more — only keep your ears open. No sooner will you disappear than you will hear the inaugural shout of Renaissant India, ringing with the voice of a million thunders and reverberating throughout the universe, "Wah Guru Ki Fateh" — victory to the Guru! “
Swami Vivekananda is also interestingly a person whose philosophy and reading of the conception of India , Hinduism and the people of India , is very much touched with his experiences in the United States of America and the New World, unlike most of India’s other political philosophers like Mahatma Gandhi whose experience of the west came from the British and or Britain.
Swami Vivekananda is a man in any ways engaged with the ideas which still haunt us today . He is also a person who had traveled extensively across the world , speaking about India . He is possibly the foremost person of his times who confronts the question of caste , religion , minorityism , modernism , economics and politics of India and he brought a refreshing viewpoint to the same . He is articulate and very clear and with his writings and sayings managed to set the agenda which is still with us today as Nationalists.
Vivekananda was a radical for his times . His version and interpretation of high religious philosophy was also marked with a very specific political / economic outlook which arose from his concern about the people of his country , or his co-religionists .
Interestingly this leads him to two broad presumptions , one that religion cannot be given on an empty stomache and two , the poor of India or as he would like to term the “sudra” should be awakened . This has lead to attempts by socialists and communists to appropriate the legacy of Swami Vivekananda . However Vivekananda was clearly and completely against formal rigid equality though he did claim to be a socialist in a very colloquial sense . Vivekananda recognized clearly that for a society to work in the long run , man had to be given the opportunity to excel and make money … and he has memorably and famously equalized the Grihasta making money with an anchorite ( sadhu) praying in his cell .
His political vision or lack thereof , seems to arise from the fact that during his time , it was impossible for anyone to take on a political role without taking on the British and thereby endangering the extensive socio-economic and crypto political work that Vivekananda was involved in doing .
He seems to be the first person to have discovered the link with what is today known in India “ caste is class” theory and also to have seen that such was not a perfect formulation. His vision of combining and reading caste and class together is even by today’s standard extremely radical and innovative.
The Economic Philosophy of Swami Vivekananda
His most influential book which lays down the core of Vivekananda’s economic philosophy is his “ Karma Yoga”. He says :
“The householder is the basis, the prop, of the whole society. He is the principal earner. The poor, the weak, the children and the women who do not work — all live upon the householder; so there must be certain duties that he has to perform, and these duties must make him feel strong to perform them, and not make him think that he is doing things beneath his ideal. Therefore, if he has done something weak, or has made some mistake, he must not say so in public; and if he is engaged in some enterprise and knows he is sure to fail in it, he must not speak of it. Such self-exposure is not only uncalled for, but also unnerves the man and makes him unfit for the performance of his legitimate duties in life. At the same time, he must struggle hard to acquire these things — firstly, knowledge, and secondly, wealth. It is his duty, and if he does not do his duty, he is nobody. A householder who does not struggle to get wealth is immoral. If he is lazy and content to lead an idle life, he is immoral, because upon him depend hundreds. If he gets riches, hundreds of others will be thereby supported. If there were not in this city hundreds who had striven to become rich, and who had acquired wealth, where would all this civilization, and these alms-houses and great houses be?Going after wealth in such a case is not bad, because that wealth is for distribution. The householder is the centre of life and society. It is a worship for him to acquire and spend wealth nobly, for the householder who struggles to become rich by good means and for good purposes is doing practically the same thing for the attainment of salvation as the anchorite does in his cell when he is praying; for in them we see only the different aspects of the same virtue of self-surrender and self-sacrifice prompted by the feeling of devotion to God and to all that is His.”
Interestingly he inserts a subsequent caveat in the next chapter :
“This idea of charity is going out of India; great men are becoming fewer and fewer. When I was first learning English, I read an English story book in which there was a story about a dutiful boy who had gone out to work and had given some of his money to his old mother, and this was praised in three or four pages. What was that? No Hindu boy can ever understand the moral of that story. Now I understand it when I hear the Western idea — every man for himself. And some men take everything for themselves, and fathers and mothers and wives and children go to the wall. That should never and nowhere be the ideal of the householder.”
Vivekananda is very clear that the householders obligation includes charity and the purpose why the householder gathers wealth is to distribute it :
“Do you ask anything from your children in return for what you have given them? It is your duty to work for them, and there the matter ends. In whatever you do for a particular person, a city, or a state, assume the same attitude towards it as you have towards your children — expect nothing in return. If you can invariably take the position of a giver, in which everything given by you is a free offering to the world, without any thought of return, then will your work bring you no attachment. Attachment comes only where we expect a return.”
Most importantly , Vivekananda was not a rigid adherent of equality of all , infact he was greatly skeptical of the idea and it’s excesses were not unknown to him , however he was of the view that the forces of equality were necessary to balance the forces of inequality :
“The next idea we take up is the idea of equality. These millennium ideas have been great motive powers to work. Many religions preach this as an element in them — that God is coming to rule the universe, and that then there will be no difference at all in conditions. The people who preach this doctrine are mere fanatics, and fanatics are indeed the sincerest of mankind. Christianity was preached just on the basis of the fascination of this fanaticism, and that is what made it so attractive to the Greek and the Roman slaves. They believed that under the millennial religion there would be no more slavery, that there would be plenty to eat and drink; and, therefore, they flocked round the Christian standard. Those who preached the idea first were of course ignorant fanatics, but very sincere. In modern times this millennial aspiration takes the form of equality — of liberty, equality, and fraternity. This is also fanaticism. True equality has never been and never can be on earth. How can we all be equal here? This impossible kind of equality implies total death. What makes this world what it is? Lost balance. In the primal state, which is called chaos, there is perfect balance. How do all the formative forces of the universe come then? By struggling, competition, conflict. Suppose that all the particles of matter were held in equilibrium, would there be then any process of creation? We know from science that it is impossible. Disturb a sheet of water, and there you find every particle of the water trying to become calm again, one rushing against the other; and in the same way all the phenomena which we call the universe — all things therein — are struggling to get back to the state of perfect balance. Again a disturbance comes, and again we have combination and creation. Inequality is the very basis of creation. At the same time the forces struggling to obtain equality are as much a necessity of creation as those which destroy it.
Absolute equality, that which means a perfect balance of all the struggling forces in all the planes, can never be in this world. Before you attain that state, the world will have become quite unfit for any kind of life, and no one will be there. We find, therefore, that all these ideas of the millennium and of absolute equality are not only impossible but also that, if we try to carry them out, they will lead us surely enough to the day of destruction. What makes the difference between man and man? It is largely the difference in the brain. Nowadays no one but a lunatic will say that we are all born with the same brain power. We come into the world with unequal endowments; we come as greater men or as lesser men, and there is no getting away from that pre-natally determined condition. The American Indians were in this country for thousands of years, and a few handfuls of your ancestors came to their land. What difference they have caused in the appearance of the country! Why did not the Indians make improvements and build cities, if all were equal? With your ancestors a different sort of brain power came into the land, different bundles of past impressions came, and they worked out and manifested themselves. Absolute non-differentiation is death. So long as this world lasts, differentiation there will and must be, and the millennium of perfect equality will come only when a cycle of creation comes to its end. Before that, equality cannot be. Yet this idea of realising the millennium is a great motive power. Just as inequality is necessary for creation itself, so the struggle to limit it is also necessary. If there were no struggle to become free and get back to God, there would be no creation either. It is the difference between these two forces that determines the nature of the motives of men. There will always be these motives to work, some tending towards bondage and others towards freedom.”
However in his work “Privilege” he came down against the exploitation of the underprivileged to the extent that their very existence is threatened :
“Therefore the absolute sameness of conditions, if that be the aim of ethics, appears to be impossible. That all men should be the same, could never be, however we might try. Men will be born differentiated; some will have more power than others; some will have natural capacities, others not; some will have perfect bodies, others not. We can never stop that. At the same time ring in our ears the wonderful words of morality proclaimed by various teachers: "Thus, seeing the same God equally present in all, the sage does not injure Self by the Self, and thus reaches the highest goal. Even in this life they have conquered relative existence whose minds are firmly fixed on this sameness; for God is pure, and God is the same to all. Therefore such are said to be living in God." We cannot deny that this is the real idea; yet at the same time comes the difficulty that the sameness as regards external forms and position can never be attained.
But what can be attained is elimination of privilege. That is really the work before the whole world. In all social lives, there has been that one fight in every race and in every country. The difficulty is not that one body of men are naturally more intelligent than another, but whether this body of men, because they have the advantage of intelligence, should take away even physical enjoyment from those who do not possess that advantage. The fight is to destroy that privilege. That some will be stronger physically than others, and will thus naturally be able to subdue or defeat the weak, is a self-evident fact, but that because of this strength they should gather unto themselves all the attainable happiness of this life, is not according to law, and the fight has been against it. That some people, through natural aptitude, should be able to accumulate more wealth than others, is natural: but that on account of this power to acquire wealth they should tyrannize and ride roughshod over those who cannot acquire so much wealth, is not a part of the law, and the fight has been against that. The enjoyment of advantage over another is privilege, and throughout ages, the aim of morality has been its destruction. This is the work which tends towards sameness, towards unity, without destroying variety.”
Vivekananda was a spiritualist , but he realized that without “materialism” spirituality cannot exist. He wonderfully stated in a letter to Alusinga Perumal titled “ My Brave Boys” in the year 1894
“We talk foolishly against material civilisation. The grapes are sour. Even taking all that foolishness for granted, in all India there are, say, a hundred thousand really spiritual men and women. Now, for the spiritualisation of these, must three hundred millions be sunk in savagery and starvation? Why should any starve? ………….. Material civilization, nay, even luxury, is necessary to create work for the poor. Bread! Bread! I do not believe in a God, who cannot give me bread here, giving me eternal bliss in heaven! Pooh! India is to be raised, the poor are to be fed, education is to be spread, and the evil of priestcraft is to be removed. No priestcraft, no social tyranny! More bread, more opportunity for everybody! Our young fools organise meetings to get more power from the English. They only laugh. None deserves liberty who is not ready to give liberty. Suppose the English give over to you all the power. Why, the powers that be then, will hold the people down, and let them not have it. Slaves want power to make slaves.”
Interestingly Vivekananda has his own very original analysis of the history of civilization and it is here that he is the most interesting and the most stirring .The piece de resistance of the theory is his article “Modern India” written in the year 1899. It is a brilliant piece and should be read separately and independently , because it is highly multilayered and brilliant .In this article Vivekananda analyses “Human History”. It could be read in a manner as his social, political and economic manifesto .He analysed history saying that India’s history could be read in stages , the first where the Brahman ( the priest) was dominant and it had it’s advantages and disadvantages , and from it’s disadvantages sprung the next stage that of the Kshatriya ( or the king ) , from where sprung the present age of the “Vaishya” and it is here that he gives the most stirring of the passages , and he ends up by predicting an age of the “Shudra” . Interestingly the conflict and the change of ages in India he says has always happened through religion as religion is the truest manifestation of the societal thinking of India . Being such an important piece in his philosophy it is important that a number of parts of the essay be quoted :
On his theory of cyclical ages of caste and individual qualities :
“According to the prevalence, in greater or lesser degree, of the three qualities of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas in man, the four castes, the Brahmin, Kashatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra, are everywhere present at all times, in all civilised societies. By the mighty hand of time, their number and power also vary at different times in regard to different countries. In some countries the numerical strength or influence of one of these castes may preponderate over another; at some period, one of the classes may be more powerful than the rest. But from a careful study of the history of the world, it appears that in conformity to the law of nature the four castes, the Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra do, in every society, one after another in succession, govern the world.”
On the present age dominated by the Vaishyas ( here he equates the Vaishyas with the British since he states that the British are not representatives of power like the Kshatriyas but of trade like the Vaishyas ….but it seems that it is applicable even to the present age much after independence and the departure of the British …showing further that Vaishya is not just a group of people it is as indeed as Vivekananda said an ethos of a period of time in history) :
“As in the ancient days the priestly power, in spite of its long-continued struggle, was subdued by the more powerful royal power, so, in modern times, before the violent blow of the newly-risen Vaishya power, many a kingly crown has to kiss the ground, many a sceptre is for ever broken to pieces. Only those few thrones which are allowed still to exercise some power in some of the civilised countries and make a display of their royal pomp and grandeur are all maintained solely by the vast hordes of wealth of these Vaishya communities — the dealers in salt, oil, sugar, and wine — and kept up as a magnificent and an imposing front. and as a means of glorification to the really governing body behind, the Vaishyas.”
And then the benefits of the age of the Vaishya :
“As during the supremacy of the Brahmin and the Kshatriya, there is a centralization of learning and advancement of civilization, so the result of the supremacy of the Vaishya is accumulation of wealth. The power of the Vaishya lies in the possession of that coin, the charm of whose clinking sound works with an irresistible fascination on the minds of the four castes. The Vaishya is always in fear lest the Brahmin swindles him out of this, his only possession, and lest the Kshatriya usurps it by virtue of his superior strength of arms. For self-preservation, the Vaishyas as a body are, therefore, of one mind. The Vaishya commands the money; the exorbitant interest that he can exact for its use by others, as with a lash in his hand, is his powerful weapon which strikes terror in the heart of all. By the power of his money, he is always busy curbing the royal power. That the royal power may not anyhow stand in the way of the inflow of his riches, the merchant is ever watchful. But, for all that, he has never the least wish that the power should pass on from the kingly to the Shudra class.
To what country does not the merchant go? Though himself ignorant, he carries on his trade and transplants the learning, wisdom, art, and science of one country to another. The wisdom, civilization, and arts that accumulated in the heart of the social body during the Brahmin and the Kshatriya supremacies are being diffused in all directions by the arteries of commerce to the different market-places of the Vaishya. But for the rising of this Vaishya power, who would have carried today the culture, learning, acquirements, and articles of food and luxury of one end of the world to the other?”
He then goes on to narrate the darkness of the present age :
“ A cloud of impenetrable darkness has at present equally enveloped us all. Now there is neither firmness of purpose nor boldness of enterprise, neither courage of heart nor strength of mind, neither aversion to maltreatments by others nor dislike for slavery, neither love in the heart nor hope nor manliness; but what we have in India are only deep-rooted envy and strong antipathy against one another, morbid desire to ruin by hook or by crook the weak, and to lick dog-like the feet of the strong. Now the highest satisfaction consists in the display of wealth and power, devotion in self-gratification, wisdom in the accumulation of transitory objects, Yoga in hideous diabolical practices, work in the slavery of others, civilisation in base imitation of foreign nations, eloquence in the use of abusive language, the merit of literature in extravagant flatteries of the rich or in the diffusion of ghastly obscenities! What to speak separately of the distinct Shudra class of such a land, where the whole population has virtually come down to the level of the Shudra? The Shudras of countries other than India have become, it seems, a little awake; but they are wanting in proper education and have only the mutual hatred of men of their own class — a trait common to Shudras. What avails it if they greatly outnumber the other classes? That unity, by which ten men collect the strength of a million, is yet far away from the Shudra; hence, according to the law of nature, the Shudras invariably form the subject race.”
Then comes the most famous passage of the awakening “Shudra”. Interestingly he is possibly the first person who attacks the isolation of the actual “Shudra” caste in India :
“Yet, a time will come when there will be the rising of the Shudra class, with their Shudra-hood; that is to say, not like that as at present when the Shudras are becoming great by acquiring the characteristic qualities of the Vaishya or the Kshatriya, but a time will come when the Shudras of every country, with their inborn Shudra nature and habits — not becoming in essence Vaishya or Kshatriya, but remaining as Shudras — will gain absolute supremacy in every society. The first glow of the dawn of this new power has already begun to break slowly upon the Western world, and the thoughtful are at their wits' end to reflect upon the final issue of this fresh phenomenon. Socialism, Anarchism, Nihilism,* and other like sects are the vanguard of the social revolution that is to follow.”
And the clash with the west and the awakening of India :
“It has been said before that India is slowly awakening through her friction with the outside nations; and as the result of this little awakening, is the appearance, to a certain extent, of free and independent thought in modern India. On one side is modern Western science, dazzling the eyes with the brilliancy of myriad suns and driving in the chariot of hard and fast facts collected by the application of tangible powers direct in their incision, on the other are the hopeful and strengthening traditions of her ancient forefathers, in the days when she was at the zenith of her glory — traditions that have been brought out of the pages of her history by the great sages of her own land and outside, that run for numberless years and centuries through her every vein with the quickening of life drawn from universal love — traditions that reveal unsurpassed valour, superhuman genius, and supreme spirituality, which are the envy of the gods — these inspire her with future hopes. On one side, rank materialism, plenitude of fortune, accumulation of gigantic power, and intense sense-pursuits have, through foreign literature, caused a tremendous stir; on the other, through the confounding din of all these discordant sounds, she hears, in low yet unmistakable accents, the heart-rending cries of her ancient gods, cutting her to the quick. There lie before her various strange luxuries introduced from the West — celestial drinks, costly well-served food, splendid apparel, magnificent palaces, new modes of conveyance, new manners, new fashions dressed in which moves about the well-educated girl in shameless freedom — all these are arousing unfelt desires. Again, the scene changes, and in its place appear, with stern presence, Sitâ, Sâvitri, austere religious vows, fastings, the forest retreat, the matted locks and orange garb of the semi-naked Sannyasin, Samâdhi and the search after the Self. On one side is the independence of Western societies based on self-interest; on the other is the extreme self-sacrifice of the Aryan society. In this violent conflict, is it strange that Indian society should be tossed up and down? Of the West, the goal is individual independence, the language money-making education, the means politics; of India, the goal is Mukti, the language the Veda, the means renunciation. For a time, Modern India thinks, as it were, I am ruining this worldly life of mine in vain expectation of uncertain spiritual welfare hereafter which has spread its fascination over one; and again, lo! spellbound she listens — —"Here, in this world of death and change, O man, where is thy happiness?"”
He ends off with that famous invocation , which rivals any other political slogan in India in it’s brilliant rhetoric and call to action :
“O India! With this mere echoing of others, with this base imitation of others, with this dependence on others this slavish weakness, this vile detestable cruelty — wouldst thou, with these provisions only, scale the highest pinnacle of civilisation and greatness? Wouldst thou attain, by means of thy disgraceful cowardice, that freedom deserved only by the brave and the heroic? O India! Forget not that the ideal of thy womanhood is Sita, Savitri, Damayanti; forget not that the God thou worshippest is the great Ascetic of ascetics, the all-renouncing Shankara, the Lord of Umâ; forget not that thy marriage, thy wealth, thy life are not for sense-pleasure, are not for thy individual personal happiness; forget not that thou art born as a sacrifice to the Mother's altar; forget not that thy social order is but the reflex of the Infinite Universal Motherhood; forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper, are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers. Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother." Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother." Thou, too, clad with but a rag round thy loins proudly proclaim at the top of thy voice: "The Indian is my brother, the Indian is my life, India's gods and goddesses are my God. India's society is the cradle of my infancy, the pleasure-garden of my youth, the sacred heaven, the Varanasi of my old age." Say, brother: "The soil of India is my highest heaven, the good of India is my good," and repeat and pray day and night, "O Thou Lord of Gauri, O Thou Mother of the Universe, vouchsafe manliness unto me! O Thou Mother of Strength, take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness, and make me a Man!"
However the fact that he understood the importance of modern technology and science and how important that was to India , was apparent from a conversation which he had with his disciple in the year 1899 :
“Laziness, meanness, and hypocrisy have covered the whole length and breadth of the country. Can an intelligent man look on all this and remain quiet? Does it not bring tears to the eyes? Madras, Bombay, Punjab, Bengal — whichever way I look, I see no signs of life. You are thinking yourselves highly educated. What nonsense have you learnt? Getting by heart the thoughts of others in a foreign language, and stuffing your brain with them and taking some university degrees, you consider yourselves educated! Fie upon you! Is this education? What is the goal of your education? Either a clerkship, or being a roguish lawyer, or at the most a Deputy Magistracy, which is another form of clerkship — isn't that all? Open your eyes and see what a piteous cry for food is rising in the land of Bharata, proverbial for its wealth! Will your education fulfil this want? Never. With the help of Western science set yourselves to dig the earth and produce food-stuffs — not by means of mean servitude of others — but by discovering new avenues to production, by your own exertions aided by Western science. Therefore I teach the people of this country to be full of activities, so as to be able to produce food and clothing for themselves. For want of food and clothing and plunged in anxiety for it, the country has come to ruin — what are you doing to remedy this? Throw aside your scriptures in the Ganga and teach the people first the means of procuring their food and clothing, and then you will find time to read to them the scriptures. If their material wants are not removed by the rousing of intense activity, none will listen to words of spirituality. Therefore I say, first rouse the inherent power of the Atman within you, then, rousing the faith of the general people in that power as much as you can, teach them first of all to make provision for food, and then teach them religion. There is no time to sit idle — who knows when death will overtake one?”
His allegiance in the end was the poor of India about whom he was always concerned as would be apparent by the conversation in 1902:
“Alas! nobody thinks of the poor of this land. They are the backbone of the country, who by their labour are producing food-these poor people, the sweepers and labourers, who if they stop work for one day will create a panic in the town. But there is none to sympathise with them, none to console them in their misery. Just see, for want of sympathy from the Hindus, thousands of Pariahs in Madras are turning Christians. Don't think this is simply due to the pinch of hunger; it is because they do not get any sympathy from us. We are day and night calling out to them, 'Don't touch us! Don't touch us!' Is there any compassion or kindliness of heart in the country? Only a class of 'Don't-touchists'; kick such customs out! I sometimes feel the urge to break the barriers of 'Don't-touchism', to go at once and call out, 'Come, all who are poor, miserable, wretched, and down-trodden', and to bring them all together in the name of Shri Ramakrishna. Unless they rise, the Mother won't awaken. We could not make any provision for food and clothes for these — what have we done then? Alas! they know nothing of worldliness, and therefore even after working day and night cannot provide themselves with food and clothes. Let us open their eyes. I see clear as daylight that there is the one Brahman in all, in them and in me — one Shakti dwells in all. The only difference is of manifestation. Unless the blood circulates over the whole body, has any country risen at any time? If one limb is paralysed, then even with the other limbs whole, not much can be done with that body — know this for certain."”
Yet , Vivekananda was against taking the help of the state to benefit the poor since he was of the clear view that no one can eventually help any person and the person has to help himself. As he wrote in the article “ My Life , My Mission” :
“Then there is the other great point to learn: that you can never help really. What can we do for each other? You are growing in your own life, I am growing in my own. It is possible that I can give you a push in your life, knowing that, in the long run, all roads lead to Rome. It is a steady growth. No national civilisation is perfect yet. Give that civilisation a push, and it will arrive at its own goal: do not strive to change it.”
Interestingly in relation to the help of the state in that famous letter with Swami Akhandananda dated 21st February , 1900 he wrote :
“ In these days of dire famine, flood, disease, and pestilence, tell me where your Congressmen are. Will it do merely to say, "Hand the government of the country over to us"? And who is there to listen to them? If a man does work, has he to open his mouth to ask for anything? If there be two thousand people like you working in several districts, won't it be the turn of the English themselves to consult you in matters of political moment? " — The wise man should achieve his object."”
In conclusion : Vivekananda’s future vision :
Vivekananda however even though extremely proud of India’s past spoke about the creation of a new India based on the old but a completely new one , which would replace the old and would once more lead the world and he had this to say about the old India :
“ However much you may parade your descent from Aryan ancestors and sing the glories of ancient India day and night, and however much you may be strutting in the pride of your birth, you, the upper classes of India, do you think you are alive? You are but mummies ten thousand years old! It is among those whom your ancestors despised as "walking carrion" that the little of vitality there is still in India is to be found; and it is you who are the real "walking corpses". Your houses, your furniture, look like museum specimens, so lifeless and antiquated they are; and even an eye-witness of your manners and customs, your movements and modes of life, is inclined to think that he is listening to a grandmother's tale! When, even after making a personal acquaintance with you, one returns home, one seems to think one had been to visit the paintings in an art gallery! In this world of Maya, you are the real illusions, the mystery, the real mirage in the desert, you, the upper classes of India! You represent the past tense, with all its varieties of form jumbled into one. That one still seems to see you at the present time, is nothing but a nightmare brought on by indigestion. You are the void, the unsubstantial nonentities of the future. Denizens of the dreamland, why are you loitering any longer? Fleshless and bloodless skeletons of the dead body of Past India you are, why do you not quickly reduce yourselves into dust and disappear in the air? Ay, on your bony fingers are some priceless rings of jewel, treasured up by your ancestors, and within the embrace of your stinking corpses are preserved a good many ancient treasure-chests. Up to now you have not had the opportunity to hand them over. Now under the British rule, in these days of free education and enlightenment, pass them on to your heirs, ay, do it as quickly as you can. You merge yourselves in the void and disappear, and let New India arise in your place. Let her arise — out of the peasants' cottage, grasping the plough; out of the huts of the fisherman, the cobbler, and the sweeper. Let her spring from the grocer's shop, from beside the oven of the fritter-seller. Let her emanate from the factory, from marts, and from markets. Let her emerge from groves and forests, from hills and mountains. These common people have suffered oppression for thousands of years — suffered it without murmur, and as a result have got wonderful fortitude. They have suffered eternal misery, which has given them unflinching vitality. Living on a handful of grain, they can convulse the world; give them only half a piece of bread, and the whole world will not be big enough to contain their energy; they are endowed with the inexhaustible vitality of a Raktabija. (A demon, in the Durgâ-Saptashati, every drop of whose blood falling on the ground produced another demon like him.) And, besides, they have got the wonderful strength that comes of a pure and moral life, which is not to be found anywhere else in the world. Such peacefulness, such contentment, such love, such power of silent and incessant work, and such manifestation of lion's strength in times of action — where else will you find these! Skeletons of the Past, there, before you, are your successors, the India that is to be. Throw those treasure-chests of yours and those jewelled rings among them, as soon as you can; and you vanish into the air, and be seen no more — only keep your ears open. No sooner will you disappear than you will hear the inaugural shout of Renaissant India, ringing with the voice of a million thunders and reverberating throughout the universe, "Wah Guru Ki Fateh" — victory to the Guru! “
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