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ARTICLE : Sri Aurobino on Indian Chauvinism
"...For there are a plenty of Indians now who are for a
stubbornly
static defence [of ancient Indian culture], and whatever aggressiveness
they
put into it consists in a rather vulgar and unthinking cultural
Chauvinism
which holds that whatever we have is good for us because it is Indian
or
even that whatever is in India is the best, because it is the creation
of the
Rishis. As if all the later clumsy and chaotic developments were laid
down
by those much misused, much misapplied and often very much forged
founders
of our culture. ... It [such defence] amounts to an attempt to sit
stubbornly
still while the Shakti of the world is rapidly moving on her way, and
not only
the Shakti of the world but the Shakti of India also. ...The past has to
be
used and spent as mobile and current capital for some larger profit,
acquisition and development of the future: but to gain we must release,
we must
part with something in order to grow and live more richly, - that is the
law
of universal existence. Otherwise the life within us will stagnate and
perish
in its immobile torpor. Thus to shrink from enlargement and change is
too
a false confession of impotence. It is to hold that India's creative
capacity in religion and in philosophy came to an end with Shankara,
Ramanuja,
Madhwa and Chaitanya and in social construction with Raghunandan and
VIdyaranya.It is to rest in art and poetry either in a blank and
uncreative void
or in a vain and lifeless repetition of spent forms and motives. It is
to cling
to social forms that are crumbling and will continue to crumble in spite
of our efforts and risk to be crushed in their collapse.
"The objection to any large change - for a large and bold
change is needed and no peddling will serve our purpose - can be given a
plausible turn only if we rest it on the contention that the forms of
a culture are the right rhythm of its spirit and in breaking the rhythm
we may expel the spirit and dissipate the harmony forever. Yes, but the
though the Spirit is eternal in its essence and in the fundamental
principles
of its harmony immutable, the actual rhythm of its self-expression in
form
is ever mutable...To recognize defect in the form is not to deny the
inherent
spirit; it is rather the condition for moving onward to a greater future
amplitude, a more perfect realisation, a happier outflow of the Truth we
harbour. Whether we shall actually find a greater expression than the
past gave us, depends on our own selves, on our capacity of response to
the eternal Power and Wisdom and the illumination of the Shakti within
us
and on our skill in works, the skill that comes by unity with the
eternal Spirit we are in the measure of our light labouring to express;
yogah karmasu kaushalam.
"This from the standpoint of Indian culture, and that must be
always for us the fist consideration and the intrinsic standpoint. But
there
is also the standpoint of the pressure of the Time Spirit upon us...Here
too
the policy of new creation imposes itself as the ture and only
effective way.
Even if to stand still and stiff within our well-defended gates were
desirable, it is no longer possible.
...For good or ill the world is with us; the flood of modern ideas and
forces are pouring in and will take no denial. There are two ways of
meeting them, either to offer a forlorn and hopeless resistance or to
seize and subjugate them. If we offer only an inert or stubborn
passive resistance, they will still come in on us, break down our
defences where they are weakest, sap them where they are stiffer, and
where they can do neither, steal in unknown or ill-apprehended by
underground
mine and tunnel. Entering unassimilated they will act as disruptive
forces,
and it will be only partly by outward attack but much more by an inward
explosion that this ancient Indian civilisation be shattered to pieces.
Ominous sparks are already beginning to run about which nobody knows
how to extinguish, and if we could extinguish them we should not be
better off,
for we should yet have to deal with the source from which they are
starting.
Even the most rigid defenders of the present in the name of the past
show in their every word how strongly they have been affected by the
new ways of thinking. Many if not most are calling passionately,
calling inevitably for innovations in certain fields, changes European
spirit and method which once admitted without some radical assimilation
and Indianization, will end by breaking the social structure they are
defending. That arises from confusion of thought and an incapacity of
power.
Because we are unable to think and create in certain fields, we are
obliged
to borrow without assimilation or with only an illusory pretence of
assimilation. Because we cannot see the whole sense of what we are
doing
from a high inner and commanding point of vision, we are busy bringing
together disparates without any saving reconciliation. A slow combustion
and a swift explosion are likely to be the end of our efforts.
"...What we have to do is to front the attack with new and more
powerfulformations which will not onlu throw it back, but even, where
that is possible and helpful to the race, carry the war into the
assailant's country. At the
same time we must take by a strong creative assimilation whatever
answers to
our own needs and responds to the Indian spirit. In certain directions,
as
yet all too few, we have begun both these movements. In others we have
simply
created an unintelligent mixture or else have taken and are still
taking over
rash crude and undigested borrowings. Imitation, a rough and haphazard
borrowing of the assilant's engines and methods may be temporarily
useful,
but by itself it is only another way of submitting to conquest.
A stark appropriation is not sufficient; successful assimilation to
the Indian spirit is the needed movement. The problem is one of great
immediate difficulty and stupendous in its proportions and we have not
approached it with wisdom and insight. All the more pressing is the need
to awaken to the situation and meet it with original thinking and
a conscious action wise and powerful in insight and sure in process.
A mastering and helpful assimilation of new stuff into an eternal body
has always been in the past a peculiar power of the genius of India."
Sri Aurobindo
From "Foundations of Indian
Culture"
