What is Swathanthrya? What is Swarajya?

Swathanthrya for most Indians is an August fever.

We got freedom from the foreign rule on Aug 15th 1947. What we got is political freedom. But what it really means?  Is there a transfer of political freedom to individual freedom? What is beyond political freedom? What individual freedom means?

In India today we do not have Individual freedom largely. Rather it is not there to the extent that we had in ancient times. So what is that Individual freedom?   

People Freedom in India in the Past:

Every region is unique in India. And people in these regions have very rich natural resources. The indigenous people of that region had full freedom to utilize that in a sustainable non-polluting manner. The politics of that day gave full freedom to the communities living by those natural resources to utilize the natural resources to produce the best they could. The communities used that freedom to live happily, produce what is needed for their living and innovate. Raja Dharma protected Samaja Manava Dharma which was guided by Vedic Dharma of “Sarve Janah Sukhino Bhavathu”.

If you see we produced some of the best textile in the world. Besides the muslin cloth of Bengal, we had in each region unique variety of artistic textile produced. For example in Karnataka itself we have ilkal saree, molakalmooru saree, mysooru saree, just to name a few saree varieties only. It was all handloom and hand made.

Besides textiles, we had some of the best pearls, ruby, etc., extracted and exotic ornaments made of them. The Arabian Sea used to be called as Rathnakara. It is AAKARA of RATHNA means = Abode of Pearls.

The diamond extraction & gold ornaments were all innovations of India. Art and craft on Ivory, Animal Horns showed the artistic exuberance of an artisan. The animal leather produced some of the best musical drums to be played at temples and in concerts, besides the foot wear and bags.

The metallurgy in India was very advanced. The Darpana which means mirror used to be made out of many alloys of metals. There is one such famous mirror in a Kerala temple which even today stands testimony giving 99% perfect reflection better than some of our best glass mirrors of today. In front of Kutub Minar in Delhi there stands an iron based alloy still not rusted after several centuries of weather conditions. Look at the beautiful gold, silver ornaments decorating our Gods across the country. Look at the gold based Tanajavuru paintings staying impeccable even today after centuries in some of our people’s homes.

The politics of that day gave full freedom to the indigenous community to experiment with the resources they had to produce the best they could. There was no political compulsion to produce for export. The politics was not economy centric. But it was clearly people centric. It was people freedom centric. They could produce what they could to sustain their living. When people were given freedom to produce what they could, they always produced the best and more.

There was no uprising against slavery, the type we hear in the west during that contemporary time. The large temples, exquisite sculpture were produced by not chained & mimed slaves. But it was produced by the free willing artisans. The cultural freedom was explicit in India during those days. They were fed well by free India. Construction of such gracious temples indicate Prosperity. Its sustenance over milleniums indicate Peace.

There was no Land Acquisition bill. There are so many legislations available to read from various kingdoms, dynasties, but we don’t come across such acquisition of properties against people’s will. (There are educated & graduate Indians today who truly believe there was no Law, Legislation, Rule, Order, Justice, and Judicial system in Ancient India. There is a belief that British gifted all of this to us. But that is unfortunate of our secular education system). Some of the Tamilnadu temples like Tiruvannamalai, Srirangam, Madhurai etc., are so large, that one parikrama (circumference) is about couple of dozen kilometers. The entire city is inside the temple premise. Where was land acquisition problem? We do not hear of it in any sculpture nor ballads, writings, drama available from that era.

What is People Freedom in India Today?

Today India is ruled from one center place call New Delhi. For them India is measured by GDP & GNP. They also give first priority to some foreign agencies ranking India in economy based ease of doing business, mining, ecology clearance for a polluting industry etc., Economy is central to policy making. Not the people freedom.

For example, India is the largest exporter of Undies, Banians and variety of undergarments; It also exports, towels, carpets, T-shirts, shirts, trousers etc., The design for which comes from foreign companies who buy these clothes for consumption in their countries. All of this is produced from few thousand or lakh work force in Thirupur in Tamilnadu. That’s it. Compare it with ancient India producing top class exclusive textile which cannot be produced by anyone else in the world. Because it was Kaushala (artistry) of artesans. And how many of them? Millions, spread across India in very village, town, north south east and west.

Similarly ore export. Simply extract the ore and push it across the world. Do it in rapid & rampant way destroying forests, mountains, bloodying the rivers. Are we mad? We could have given freedom to people living there to extract and give it in small chunks for India’s consumption. Why export? In Vijayanagara era & going back to BC, that’s how the records say, Chitradurga, Tumkur, Kolar, Bellary were rich in Gold, Iron, Copper, several minerals; and extraction & processing used to happen in sustainable way as a cottage industry. With such people freedom our Cholas built formidable large ships sailed across the ocean to spread harmonious Hindu culture in far eastern countries which stand testimony even today in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand etc., .

If we give people freedom they will come up with technology even to develop world class Submarines & War ships. But with no people freedom, Ford, Toyota are coming in hordes to destroy our city living by excessive personal luxury cars production; Our rural environment also is destroyed. What are we achieving? GDP. With that what can we achieve? The ‘Haves’ will have luxury cars, the ‘Have Nots’ will lose their ancestral dwelling, land, water & migrate to city slums.

So Swathanthrya today for Middleclass educated is: eat what you like, live however you like, get any job you can get to work like a donkey and earn some money to party like hell.

For the not so privileged rest of India, Swathanthrya is a dream.

Is all Inclusive better life possible in India?

As I have understood India of the past and the present, if we become Agri based country, it is possible. It gives a lot of freedom to achieve all inclusive decent living & become a great economy too. That’s how ancient India was. 90% of India was Agri based. In agriculture, for a land owner it gives work for almost 150-200 days in an year. And for a landless agri dependent labour it gives about 90-100 days labour. It gives them enough grains to sustain themselves through the year and trade or export the grains also. Rest of the days they can use to freely explore what can be done from the resources they have around. And also to build bridges, canals, drainage, road, temples, tanks, lakes, desilting etc., That is what is Swarajya. Ruling and developing their locality and giving back to the nation. Not the way today it is happening like Central government is giving grains to people through PDS.

And entertainment can be localized to develop local culture. That’s how some of our classical languages, their literature survived for centuries. For example, in Kannada not only the colloquial ballads but some of the Raja Asthana’s classical literature like Ranna’s Gada Yuddha, Kumaravyasa Bharatha passed on from generation to generation from around 8^th century till 20^th century. It was a good pastime to recite & dramatize it in every village. Everybody was an artist. For 12 centuries it remained on people’s lips & actions. Now it is in records. Closed shut.

Can we become Agri based country at all in future? It is a dream. It requires change of education, mending the minds.

• ·         Firstly the rural people should exercise their rights over their land and water.
• ·         Then policy makers have to heed to them. Make policies to protect India, its people, its resources
• ·         The urban middle class have to understand righteous way of living.

All this is possible, by not our generation itself. It will take many generations. But in our generation we have to change our education. It should be India pride based. It should teach local culture, local history, local heroes, pride in protecting locality. It should teach a child what is freedom. How to excise it in righteous way of protecting others right to live, protect environment, strengthen society. 

India’s Glorious Past. How relevant it is today?

The recent Shashi Tharoor’s speech at right time at right place hit social media big way. It raised lot of debates and articles. I for one became a fan of it and was swept by its revelations in the aftermath. Here it is for reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4

One offshoot of that debate is also on India’s glorious past. And how relevant it is for us today?

Did India Really have a glorious past?

India was a fascinating land. It was a dream land for the foreigners.

During Maurya, Kushana and Gupta period, it reached the zenith of its glory. Post those periods it saw many ups and downs through many invasions. But it still held its world leadership at least on the economics & trade front till the Mughal’s period. The greatest decline for India is obviously during British period. The greatest damage done by the British is to impoverish the common man economically and intellectually.

Swami Vivekananda put it neatly – That Indian civilization developed by the inner exploration and Greek civilization by exploring outer world.

During those bygone era of “Poorna Swarajya”, through inner exploration, Indian’s produced some of the best theories from Artha Shastra to Kama Shastra; from Natya Shastra to Vyakarana Shastra and many others. All of these travelled across oceans and through land to Europeans. Some of the exotic exports included motifs on Ivory, Sandalwood, Mehegony, Gold, Silver and many other alloys. These depicted fascinating creatures which were unnatural to foreigners. The lions, tigers, peacocks, elephants are some of the animals & the pepal, banyan trees were magnificient flora to fathom for foreigners. The Indians ‘had and even now have’ so much to explore within India, within a locality. The number of unique diverse species in a 100 Sq KM in Europe is equivalent to 100 Sq ft in Sahyadri ranges.

The famous spices travelled through the seas, attracting westerners by its aroma. The art, literature like Panchatantra, Jataka tales travelled through the Arabian lands to the western countries. Kavya, Meemamsa, Vedanta flourished unhindered under the royal tutelage.  

When it comes to science and mathematics, the Indians were masters at it. They explored moon, sun, the planets, comets without sending satellites. By inner exploration, through meditation itself they reached stars and understood how they worked. When Aryabhatta was calculating earth’s diameter using its shadow on Moon during Chandra Grahana (Lunar Eclipse), Europeans didn’t have scientific temper to even ponder whether earth is round or flat.

One cannot ignore the contributions from Indians for the basic Arithmetic, Algebra & Geometry. In the below interview Dr. Alok Kumar gives glimpse of European thinkers giving due credit to Indian contributions in their productions. http://aseema.net.in/ancient-sciences-and-voices-of-knowledge-an-interview-with-dr-alok-kumar/. But the later day Imperialist Europeans and the famous educators, Macaulay & Co., discarded it to suppress the Indian’s pride.  

The advancement in metallurgy and Ayurveda are depicted by live examples even today. Thanks to our freedom now, Ayurveda is being revived in a big way now.

In every aspect, India fascinated the world. When the Europeans being “outer explorers” mastered navy, they set out first to see India. There was rush to reach India. Portugese set out. Spanish set out. Dutch did not fall back. When they rocked something outside their land on ocean, they called it India and its people as Indians. That’s how the Native Americans are now called Indians!! :)

Why Then We Lost Intellectual Freedom?

We lost political freedom first. We lost it through treachery, extreme cruelty. When we were making gun powder to blast rock to construct forts and temples, Europeans invented canons by which they can use gun powder to destruct the constructions. When they used that to even kill humans; that was a cruelty the Indians had never heard or seen of. The British started their military campaign by 1700’s and within few decades they were rulers for half of India and subsequently got hold of entire India.

During the 1800’s there was debate by British on how best to loot India keeping in view of the raising nationalism of Indians. The Sepoy Mutiny they termed, they knew was not just a mutiny but a great upraising of Nationalism. The various contingents across barracks were meeting for bhajans, dharmic utsavs, chapatti utsav etc., and did this greatly coordinated upraising across the country. This shook the British very much.

They had to at least corrupt the intellectuals, village henchmen, royals to somehow rule them very well. They took away the economic freedom through various measures of loot. They enforced cash crops production only for export to England, destroyed handloom industry, etc.,

For intellectuals, they said government jobs are for those who pass English schooling. They successfully killed Indigenous education which was Inner exploratory, art, craft, language, dharma, Vedanta development. The rajahs who were patronizing these were given diktat to stop it. They corrupted the thinking of the average educated Indian, that what is important is material success. And for that it is important to become good in accountancy, tax collection. That’s it. Maths and English required for that is sufficient. No more science, maths was encouraged beyond some basics.

They couldn’t tolerate Sir M Visweswaraya eligible to head the public works department in Mumbai Government, they shunted him out. They put so many hurdles for him to start Iron & Steel factory in Bhadravathi; KRS dam would have remained dream but for his grit to take on their hegemony. Even he was of the opinion in the end that we cannot self-rule ourselves. We need dominion status. Thank god our political leaders fought for full freedom & got it.

Should we revive our Intellectual Freedom? If So Why?

We ultimately became intellectual slaves. To this day we continue teaching even our Independent sons and daughters, what British put in text books during their hay day. The lies of Aryan Invasion theory, European superiority in science, maths, engineering is still being taught. Everything we read today is through the European view only. The science of destruction, the engineering of fast exploitation of earth resources is considered as true development. Research and development in aids, flu, cancer goes on forever with billions spent and not really addressing the causes of it. The economics of stock trade, loan based banking system, is considered as ultimate developmental formula. Almost every Nobel awardee in economics is just a formula tweaker in some trading exchange. False trading is true trading!! Did it solve poverty? Contrary.

But is there a better solution?

We must revive our Intellectual freedom. The solution is to understand and accept firstly, that India had a glorious past. And not ignore or discard it. And then delve deeper into that. Understand why was it glorious? What was the education system? What was the Raja Dharma (Political system)? What was the freedom at individual level? How was the Self-rule at grass root level? Were these contributors for its glory?

The solution lies in taking our great ancient tradition and marrying it to the present day technological advancement. Firstly we must bring in education which teaches our children PRIDE in our culture, civilization, tradition & heritage. Then automatically they’ll bring glory to India and hence to the world.

May be the British designed our education to suppress India’s pride. Or May be they followed their pride in educating their children about their scientists and heroes. And since India was their colony, they passed the same heroes to us also. But since we are free now, should we not put our scientists and philosophers in our kids’ education? Would it be looked at as removal of Copernicus and introduction of Bhaskaracharya? Or would it be looked at just introduction of our scientists in our education? Did Europeans try to teach their kids whether Japanese or Indians found out early that Earth was round? Or did they just want to teach their kids who amongst their civilization found the first truth to raise pride of scientific temper in their kids?

We must recognize that we cannot isolate Science, Mathematics from that of Sociology, Politics and ultimately Spirituality. All of them are intertwined in the real sense. We must revive that thought process and induct it into our system of education and administration. Then we can claim back our world leadership without attacking other civilizations but by spreading through peaceful means.

I think International Yoga Day is also one small step in that direction!! :)