The world as a union of free independent nations

World order through Indian eyes M. S. N. Menon

THE world is going through a moral and spiritual crisis. Terrorism is an expression of this crisis. Can humanity survive this new threat?“If we are to survive,” says Dr S. Radhakrishnan, India’s famous philosopher, “We have to effect a moral and spiritual revolution.” The crisis is not new. It had begun before World War II with the growth of such ideologies like Fascism and Nazism. Now that the age of ideologies is over, we can no more hold the world within the framework of an ideology. And yet there is no way by which humanity can advance except by accepting a framework — a world order. And this world order must be a moral order.If men had gone through two world wars and much devastation during the last century, it was because the ideologies that dominated the world were not moral. They were far from it. Indeed, while capitalism was inequitous, communism was tyrannical. They discredited themselves.

Today globalisation is offered as an alternative to capitalism. But it is as inequitous as capitalism. Perhaps, that is the character of Western civilisation. It is unable to put up with a moral order. Has the East something nobler to offer? Let us recall the thoughts of India’s eminent sons. They had a definite view on the kind of global order they wanted to promote and the role they wanted India to play.

The Rig Veda (3000 BC), the oldest scripture of the world and the most sacred document of the Hindus, has this message for humanity: “walk together, speak in concord, let your hearts be in agreement, let your minds be united that we all may be happy.”Ashoka, judged the greatest emperor by history (3rd century BC), still speaks to India through his Rock Edicts. Thus, in Rock Edict VI, he says: “There is no higher service than the welfare of the whole world.” He dedicated his life to the service of the world. According to D.R. Bhandarkar, the historian, Ashoka was seized by a great passion for the moral elevation of the whole world.“Ashoka shines,” says H.G. Wells, “and shines alone, a star.”

To Vivekananda, the greatest Hindu missionary, it is India’s spiritualism which is the centre of India’s life. It is the principal note, he says, around which every other note comes to form a harmony. It is this spiritualism which, through aeons of time, evoked the highest devotion and the greatest sacrifice. Gandhi is the supreme example. No other country could have produced a Gandhi. Indian civilisation is universal. It is the only primordial civilisation to have survived in tact. Its appeal was to humanity. It never spoke of “we” and “they”. It never degenerated into a narrowly defined religion. Gandhi was a nationalist. He was also an internationalist. It is not nationalism that is evil, he used to say, but narrowness, selfishness and exclusiveness. “My nationalism is intense internationalism,” he once asserted. His nationalism included the good of all. Hatred of other peoples had no place in his nationalism. He loved the British, but not their system. And he never wanted India to gain at the expense of other nations. “I do not want India to rise on the ashes of other nations,” he had said.

But while he was ready to keep the doors of India wide open, he did not want to be swept off his feet by the winds of the world. He wanted India to be firmly rooted on its own soil. It is here that he would not agree with the Westernised people of India, who are ready to copy the Western way of life. Gandhi was a universalist. “I do not subscribe to the doctrine of Asia for Asians if it is meant as an anti-European combination,” he told the Japanese parliamentarians.

Sri Aurobindo, the great mystic of India, saw the world as a union of free independent nations with unity in diversity as the cardinal principle. Naturally, he would have opposed globalisation, which seeks to destroy the sovereignty of nations. He saw the civilisational advance of man as a march of nations, the most advanced being in the front and the backward at the rear. And he saw India at the head of this civilisational march. There are only two alternatives before mankind, he used to say: a world founded on the principle of centralisation, uniformity and a mechanical unity, and a world union founded on the principle of liberty and variety. The Indian civilisation is based on freedom and variety. To accept a uniform world will do violence to the very foundation of our civilisation.

The very spirit of India is for universalism. All its leaders were universalists. But it does not mean that they loved India less. Tagore was a true universalist. He was against all forms of extreme nationalism. But he neither believed in a universal doctrine or a universal way of life. “We must seek for our own inheritance and with it buy our true place in the world,” he had said. Tagore was a great lover of India. “I shall be born in India again and again. With all her poverty, misery and wretchedness,” he said, “I love India best.” He was proud of the great rishis of India, who had left for posterity so much of “imperishable thoughts” behind. Religion is a unifier. But not Book and Church. They separate men, Tagore said. It was a reaching out to humanity that was the religion of Tagore.

Nehru was a firm believer in a world order. According to him, “if there is going to be no world order, then there might be no order at all left in the world.” He believed that a world government is the only remedy for the world’s sickness.Like Tagore, Nehru was against extreme nationalism, but he also asserted that without nationalism, one remained rootless. Rootlessness is one of the principal causes for this nation’s malady.

The world is going back to moral standards. America, which tried to build a civilisation purged of morality, has discovered to its dismay that a world without morals will be like going back to the law of the jungle. Terrorism is one of the offshoots of an immoral world. Unless we bring back a moral order, we cannot contain the evil in society.Dr Radhakrishnan says that only on the rock of moral law and not on the shifting sands of political and economic expediency can we build a civilised society with individual freedom, social justice and political quality. And India has had a longer record of adhering to morality than most of the nations of the world. posted by Tushar Kansal Tuesday, December 06, 2005 at 11:18 AM