A Note for Campaign for composite culture of India:

A Note for Campaign for composite culture of India:

Our country is going through a phase when Scientific thought, freedom of expression, pluralistic tradition and democracy are in grave danger and the worst form of intolerance is staring us in face. Many scientists, historians, writers, intellectuals, journalists and activists have been put to death for their independent thoughts and works. The scientists, intellectuals and artists community is being targeted for its words and tortured for voicing its opinions. On one hand, very unscientific boasting is taking place, which is nothing short of falsification by describing ancient India as one of unqualified glorious past. On the other, ,while on the other, the budget for scientific research has been drastically cut down. By creating controversies around the food, ways of living and ways of dressing of ordinary people, a climate of hate and intolerance is being created. Our scientists, writers, intellectuals and artists have stood up against this and are protesting against it in different ways. More than 100 scientists, writers and film-makers have returned their Padma Bhushan and other National awards along with Sahitya Akademy and State Akademy prizes, while Many others have resigned from their posts in different institutions. This unique protest which has spread to all languages and states of India is one of its kind in the world.

We, the people of India, are the inheritors of a composite and pluralistic culture which has evolved through the ages and these are reflected in our personal and social life. They are found in our art and literature. Kathak , which was enriched in the Mughal courts may have bhajan recital in the background. The silk sarees that the Bharatanatyam dancers adorn have Indian designs on them but silk as a material for clothing was introduced by the Chinese. The famous Mysore silk, took its roots at the initiative of Tipu Sultan, who brought the cocoons from China and encouraged mulberry cultivation in his state, with state patronage. Mysore's Channapatna dolls were first crafted there by Persian artisans. The paper that we write on was an invention of the Chinese , brought to India in mass scale via Persia and later the know-how was modified significantly in our own country. The sitar derived its originality after several modifications of the Veena in the Moghal court: the name is derived from the Persian word “setar”, which means a three-stringed instrument, of the type that was used in Persia. Apart form these, the variety of drums, string instruments and pipe instruments that we use, arose first from our different tribal societies and are also played there with unbelievable perfection with the accompaniment of vibrant musical and dance forms. The vanishing wax technique, designed to make the famous Chola bronze idols, or the iron pillar of Kutab Minar and the Damascus steel made around Hampi in Karnataka had the elementary technical know-how developed by tribal societies.

We , the people of India, have always defended this plurality and compositeness. Our languages are testimony to that. According to the famous linguist, Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, the Bengali language has about 2000 words that are of Persian, Arabic and Turkish origin.  It is not only that we have accepted things that have originated in lands far away but our contributions to world culture are immense.  Discovery of ancient Roman coins in Arakkamedu, near Pondicherry and  Tamil- Brahmi scripts found in Quseir al Quadim in Egypt and Khor Rori in Oman, being dated as 1^st BCE - 2^nd CE, show the mutual interrelations between these societies.  

 Today, we need to uphold our composite and pluralistic culture by securing and strengthening the values of scientific outlook, secularism, progressivism and our strong tradition of unity in diversity. The role of Science and technology is not limited to laboratories, in fact, it provides us an outlook to solve the problems of our lives and make our life easier. Science and technology has always shared its fruit of knowledge and inventions in the whole world, without which the world wouldn't have progressed. The things that we wear, we eat, all are not our own, they are taken from the world and that's how things develop. The things which seem integral part of our being may have their origin in a faraway land. The humble tomato, which has become an essential part of our curries, has its origins in South America. Iran gave as our delicious 'biriyani'. The 'shirts', 'pants' and nickers' that we flaunt today, are actually European dresses.

We know that Indians introduced the present day numeral system to the world and also the number zero. Their profundity can hardly be overestimated.  'Aryabhata's (5^th CE) importance can be judged by the fact that he was the pioneer in mathematics, astronomy and mechanics. His pioneering role in India is acknowledged by all and planted the seeds for the development of the Kerala  school about a thousand years later. Early Indian astronomical knowledge travelled to Persia and Central Asia, got enriched there, in a more precise form and returned to India to be practised by Maharaja Jai Singh. Interactions between India and South East Asia flourished through the port of Tamralipta, which acted the gateway from Emperor Asoka's time to seventh century AD. Similarly, cultural and trade related contacts between South India and South East Asia continued for several centuries until the 15^th century AD, i.e. up to the advent of competition between colonial merchantile capital. Comparison between the Pallava scripts of South India and those discovered in South East Asia are topics of interesting research by present day historians.

Unlike the example given above, in the present day world, it is possible for knowledge to travel with tremendous rapidity. In making this possible, the role of the European renaissance, the nineteenth century industrial revolution and the twentieth century revolution in science are to be acknowledged. How important this was can be found from the following quotation from the Nobel Prize winning physicist , Abdus Salam ( be was born in pre Independence India, was a Pakistani citizen) :

“It is good to recall that three centuries ago, around the year 1660, two of the greatest monuments of modern history were erected, one in the West and one in East: St. Paul's Cathedral in London and the Taj Mahal in Agra. Between them, the two symbolize, perhaps better than words can describe, the comparative level of architectural technology, the comparative level of craftsmanship and the comparative level of affluence and sophistication the two cultures had attained at that epoch of history. But about the same time there was also created- and this time only in the West- a third monument, a monument still greater in its eventual import for humanity. This was Newton's Principia, published in 1687. Newton's work had no counterpart in the India of the Moghuls.” 

Let us see how important this is in our present day life. The information, whether in our mobile phones, e-mails or in our television programmes are transmitted with the help of satellite communication. When we say that we have succeeded in sending a rocket to Mars, it is not without the essential knowledge of western space science and shared technology. There is also a similar mutual exchange between the states of our country, reflecting our composite culture.

In all our Indian languages, during different times, there has been a progressive and secular tradition which stemmed from our composite culture. A tradition which talked of a larger human equality and created new concepts of equality, dignity and secularism by fighting the tradition values. Our languages have a vast literature on criticism of divisions caused by casteism and religious fanaticism at the same time striving for equality of women. The social life and works of Basvanna and Mahadevi in Kannada, Vemana in Telugu, Thiruvalluvar in Tamil, Sant Tukaram and Sant Namdev in Marathi, Kabirdas and Meerabai in Hindi, Nanak and Farid in Punjabi have created an alternative progressive tradition. The vibrant sufi culture nurtured an assimilation of those cultures from east and west.

Birth of Indian nationalism took inspirations from these and also from experiments in the west. One of the by products of that was the emergence of modern science in India. rld wide recognition through the works of JC Bose, Sriniviasa Ramanujan, MN Saha, CV Raman, KS Krishnan, SN Bose, PC Mahalanobis, SS Bhatnagar. Though a late starter, these scientific contributions by Indian scientists gained wor, HJ Bhabha, CR Rao , RC Bose, GN Ramachandran etc. Social experiments elsewhere, brought in fresh thinking in our minds about the future of India. While analyzing the positive aspects of many of the practices, the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity resonated in the socio political scene of India, as the country struggled to throw away colonial rule. In fact, many of the concepts and experiments that were attempted in western societies made us conscious about equality of gender, questions of social justice and scientific temper.

Indian social reformers thus sought to modify what was thought to be unchangeable. For example, we have today abolished the practice of Sati, and questions of women's rights like in education, employment and social equality are being emphatically championed by many, challenging the forces of conservatism. It was also understood in our freedom movement that science and technology would give future India the material basis for a better quality of life for the citizen and a scientific outlook would invigorate the society for progress towards a more just social system, with deep roots in democracy and material and social equality. The Indian constitution takes cognisance of many of these above ideas. Their practical realization is yet to be fulfilled. But these aspirations are to be the points of unity for people of diverse cultural background, such as those from Kashmir to Kerala and Kanyakumari or from Manipur to Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Unfortunately, today this shared culture and diversity is in a grave danger as there has been a constant attack on these. The sources of our diversity are under attack and they are being erased. This alternative progressive tradition is being forgotten or being turned and twisted. False information are being flaunted on so called epoch making achievements, while the real ones are never spoken about. The people who see this world from a scientific and progressive viewpoint and believe that the country should be working on  scientific principles need to reconnect with this alternative tradition. We need to bring it back in today's context for the new generations. It is thus necessary to bring forth again our pluralistic culture and our natural propensity to present dissenting alternatives based on objective understandings of nature and society. Argumentative Indians did not consider traditions and values as immutable and this aspect needs further elaborate expression in the present juncture.

The role of dissent in Indian tradition needs to be emphasized. It is being  believed by many that Indian cultural is embodiment of spiritualism. This is not entirely true. While spiritualism of various hues do survive, Indian culture has also seen the evolution of several schools which are materialist in their core, e.g. those propagated by Budhdha and the Carvakas.

It has often been argued that India's decline took place due to foreign invasions. The need is to look at India's history objectively. It is necessary also see the internal contradiction in the Indian society as perpetuated by the caste system. The separation of theory and practical hands on experience led to collapse of innovations on the one hand and intellectual field was taken over by decadence. P.C. Ray, in his History of Hindu Chemistry has thus commented, “The caste system was established de novo in a more rigid form. The drift of Manu and of the later Puranas is in the direction of glorifying the priestly class, which set up most arrogant and outrageous pretensions....The intellectual portion of the community being thus withdrawn form active participation in the arts, the how and why of phenomena- the coordination of cause and effect – were lost sight of-the spirit of enquiry gradually died out among a nation naturally prone to speculation and metaphysical subtleties and India for one bade adieu to experimental and inductive sciences. Her soil was rendered morally unfit for the birth of Boyle, a Descartes or a Newton and her very name was all but expunged from the map of scientific world.”

The people who see this world from a scientific and progressive viewpoint and believe that the country should be working on scientific principles need to reconnect with this alternative tradition. We need to bring it back in today's context for the new generations. What does the world really need today? Quality health, quality education, safe housing, drinking water, food supplies and similar essential things, whereas in the name of 'smart cities', we are creating gated communities and a new kind of elitism, which leaves a big chunk of population out of the development index. This is not inclusive development in which every human being's equality and dignity is not ensured. On the foreground, there is great talk of everyone's inclusion and development, but in the background, access to basic necessities is being weakened, be it education, health or food. Policies aiming to profit the corporate sector and foreign multinational cannot be termed as development as it creates further divides in already unequal and unjust income levels. Maybe, the time has come to rethink and rework on our concept of real development where equality and dignity of every human being is ensured.

Keeping the challenges of this time in mind, we need to prepare a campaign; on the lines of scientific outlook, pluralistic tradition, and equality and dignity of all by combining contributions of Indian sciences, history, literature and arts, to include and reach all people: literate and semi-literate in the true act of nation building.