Sankara's lasting legacy - II

Greetings on Sanakara Jayanti - 2021

The first piece of this essay was written last year and is available here. 

After a year, on to the second part! 

Fundamentally, there are two ways in which unity can be fostered among a group of people.

People would unite based on mutual need. The need could be the safety or security. The strength of this unity fluctuates based on the changes in the resources people have to fend themselves. This is seen in case of nations as well as families. Nations with similar needs try to forge a front. Families stay together based on the mutual needs of the members. This unity is largely resource driven. 

The second type of unity is a cultural unity. It is based on the shared beliefs/value systems and where the beliefs are not common, with a mutual respect of individual beliefs. This unity is strong as long as there is cognizance of the shared belief, knowledge of the common goals and a mutual respect. This is true in nations as it is in families. As the saying "birds with same feathers flock together" goes - humans with similar beliefs also flock together as they find that common thread to be one of sustenance. This unity is largely belief driven.

Given the social nature of human beings, sustainable unity can be brought through the exploration and understanding of beliefs and consequent value systems. A family is a good reflection of the society. It is common experience to see that families which are tied by cultural threads meet more often, derive mutual support in times of crisis and due to that tide over the crises more effectively. On the other hand, families that don't have cultural ties among its members find it extremely difficult to tide over hard times in spite of availability of large amount of resources.

Like the cultural unity in families comes from its wise elders, the cultural unity among various groups is identified by once-in-a-millennium reformers like SankarAchArya. Like it was delineated in the part I of this essay, the AchArya went beyond the symbolic ritual practices to identify the unifying themes among the various sects. 

However rituals are important engagements for people. Therefore in order to prescribe such rituals, he created a framework for the worship of all gods as the manifestations of one God. Thus the rituals were enriched to relate to the higher goal and were no longer mechanical engagement. 

Of course, even after the advent of AchArya from time to time, there have been clashes in sects of diverse beliefs but there have also been messiahs that have appeared at those times and by deriving strength from the spring of Sankara's teachings, unity has always been fostered in the society. 

Pic taken from here.

The above pic adapted from here is a classic example of showing unity in diversity. The harvesting festival is celebrated in every part of India with a different name. We can find so many differences in the cuisine, clothing, celebrations of this festival in all these states. But what is common is that it is a festival of harvest and time to show gratitude to mother nature for the blessing of bounty. 

But this is not a magic wand to create unity. This calls for constant engagement with people who do not share our beliefs. The idea should always be to find common and unifying grounds rather than spotting the differences. Two important aspects to achieve this are 

1. Commitment to engagement 

2. Open mind

Commitment to engagement reflects the determination to find the unifying glue while the open mind ensures that neither the interests of the groups suffer nor does the goal. 

Much of the chaos in today's society can be attributed to lack of open mind. This results in biases and almost everyone is approached with a bias if not suspicion. Symbolism has scored heavily over spirit. Since every group has a different symbol and are avowed to follow that, every sect feels insecure at the comments from other sects. But if we look beyond the symbolism and identify the common spirit there can be unity and peace.

The open mind is not needed only for unity in the society, it should be the second nature to any human being in any pursuit either personal or professional. Corporates are trying to exploit this in the name of diversity. But even there the diversity mostly stops at gender balancing! Real diversity that would benefit any organization is the diversity of opinions. But most leaders shy away from this and want to be surrounded by yes-men! 

Handling diversity of opinion coupled with clarity of the goal will not only pay rich dividends to organizations but also ensure a healthy, peaceful and productive environment. 

If one reads the life and works and achievement of SankarAchArya and how he brought about the unity of the land, there are many lessons lurking there for us to imbibe and solve many of our conflicts today. 

I pay rich tributes to the memory and teachings of Sankara on this day. We are indeed enriched by his advent. May we explore his teachings more and find direction.

Whither Goes, my country......

...... yes, it is a question each one of us must ask, ask our selves, ask our police, ask our law makers, ask our establishment. The worst fears of conscientious people of the country came true this morning as the Delhi rape victim breathed her last in Singapore. I am ashamed to think that some among us have resorted to this most heinous and barbaric act. I am not able to collect my calm as I attempt to say a prayer for her should to rest in peace. My mind is not ready to believe that her soul can have peace. How can it have? Knowing us, we'll talk about it, blog, make her trend in twitter and facebook, express outrage for the next few days and then resume our lives like nothing is wrong at all. Oh, my country, why is your memory so poor? Do you know how many scars are there on your conscience?

All the sisters of my country must be told not to venture out alone and at unearthly hours.  They must anticipate that there are shameless men inebriated by desire, intoxicated with lust, bereft of values - so much so that the parents who gave them life will regret for having done so - are lurking everywhere. And our police cannot do anything about it. The most amusing thing about the police when I've visited them in the past in connection with various issues in our neighborhood is their unnecessary zeal to broker peace and deliver justice. I realize, that is where the out-of-court-settlements start. Does someone tell them what exactly their duty is when they join service? Shouldn't they duly register complaints, raise FIRs and follow up honestly? No, that's not what they do. On many occasions I've see that it takes a humongous amount of persistence or political pressure or connection with higher-ups for the FIR to be registered. Understandably once the FIR is raised the police will have to act on it and 'close' the case as soon as possible. If there is no FIR though, they can freely lecture us about how to be careful, how to secure our home and blah. In other words raising an FIR is extra work. I'm glad that FIRs work. Someone I know of recovered every gm of the fifty odd grams of gold jewelry that was burgled from their home, three months after they succeeded in lodging an FIR, thanks to the political connections they have. I just couldn't help marveling at the ability of the police. While I've seen this indifference sometimes I've also noted with admiration the work of Indian police in cracking down and catching the guilty. A case in point is the way Ajmal Kasab was nabbed in the aftermath of 26/11. The whole point of this digression on the way police behaves is that they should do justice to their abilities in the service of common man and not just in high profile cases.  My experience with traffic police also suggests that they behave either as onlookers or as fine collectors. They rarely regulate traffic. I've never seen a traffic cop come and guide me with parking. I've only seen them with tickets, ready to be pasted on your car or key that into the blackberry. In my opinion this is against the spirit for which the police force was constituted. We teach policeman as being a community helper to our young kids. Are we getting help? It is high time to sensitize the police ranks about the need to be of service to people. This has to be a strategic step. FIRs should be registered automatically, justice should be delivered expeditiously.

There indeed has to be a multi-pronged approach to reduce crime in the society. Making police more sensitive to the needs of common man and be of service to them is the most necessary first step. Making tougher laws and implementing those honestly and in a reasonable time frame is the next step. And the more enduring approach that will pay dividends over time is to bring in value based education that I wrote about in my previous post . While we need to be thinking ahead in shaping our younger generations to have better hearts and values, we have to urgently plug the holes of lack of credibility that we are developing as a country in providing the citizens with a safe and just environment.

We should also go ahead and observe a national day of shame every year or even every month if that helps us fight amnesia and be reminded of the goriness that our weaker sections are subjected to. The more enduring the shame is, more is the likelihood that we'll do something about it. Unless we do that something which will make life better for our women who are indeed the custodians of the home and the country, we will keep expressing outrage periodically and will be so shamed one day that we'll lose the zest for living in such a society. Unless we do that something the soul of the young medico will not rest in peace. Nor should our minds rest in peace.

Like Vivekananda famously said

उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान् निबोधत 

Arise, Awake and Stop not till the goal is reached.

Letter to Justice Verma

The recent incident of gangrape and brutalization in Delhi has shaken the consciousness of the nation and there has been a huge protest in Delhi. The establishment has been lackadaisical in its approach and there is confusion of whether to tackle this particular incident by fast tracking justice delivery (when the victim is fighting to be alive, I don't what can be called justice) or bring in better laws to punish the perpetrators or shut down protests. Justice Verma is seeking our opinions. Please do write to: justice dot verma at nic dot in. 

My thoughts to him below:

Respected Justice Verma,

It is very kind of you to have sought inputs into the recent very unfortunate episode of unprecedented brutality in Delhi. To say that the act was bestial would be an insult to beasts. Humanity touched a huge new low on that night. By not responding to that particular event and providing justice and not addressing the bigger issue of what ails us we’ll be shoving our society to a low that’ll be beyond redemption. Therefore, this expression of anger, this expression of rebellion, this expression of solidarity is most welcome. In my mind it represents a churning like what we have read in our mythology – that of the milk ocean which gave out various goodies while also subjecting the worlds to the poison of kalakuta. Again like the Lord saved us on that fateful day, I am hopeful He’ll do so again through learned people of the society who’ll bring wisdom and enact laws that’ll serve as deterrents.

What ideas can aam aadmi give to the learned benches about laws? Aam aadmi represents mostly emotion and doesn’t always see the big picture. Even the honourable law makers called in unison for capital punishment for the perpetrators in the recent episode. The recent perpetrators of the crime deserve this punishment for more than one reason, viz. Rape as well as attempt to murder and many other acts of utter cruelty that have dented and shaken our consciousness. However, on second thought I keep wondering would there be a deterrent at all for this trait which is probably few moments of utter madness? This led me to thinking what is better – deterrent or prevention? I’m conscious that the latter will be the preferred, although lot harder to implement.

In my humble opinion the moral fabric of the society is fast disintegrating and this is the reason for all the myriad manifestations of greed, cruelty, immorality and crimes. To be moral today is to be old fashioned. To talk right things is to sound absurd. Values have become archaic. We gyrate to Sheila ki jawani’ with family. The definition of family based entertainment is changing for worse. More and more of unparliamentary words are finding place in our regular vocabulary. What was taboo 20 years back has not only come to passé but embraced warmly. This is not an old fashioned rant about how bad the society has become. These are all small symptoms that are manifesting as bigger crimes with alarming frequency. Sir, in order to tackle these crimes, we must urgently re-introduce moral science in the primary schools. There is no shame in being moral. It is only the right state of man.

I read painfully about how hypocritical we are in celebrating women as adi shakthi, the primal power and worshipping her and at the same time heap abuse on them. Sir, our festivals have gained in color, lost in spirit; we spend more, enjoy less; we celebrate pompously, imbibed hardly. Therefore, while we worship the Goddesses for mythical reasons we hardly treat our fellow women as expressions of that divinity. Bereft of conviction and spirit our festivals have become demonstrations of opulence that are at best pompous pastimes.

I strongly believe that bringing back moral science into the curriculum and providing a value based education to the children and parents (parents read through children) will secure us a more peaceful and healthy future. Let mothers be worshipped, let fathers be worshipped. Let them also be worthy of it. Such worship worthy mothers will mould their children in a manner that they respect fellow human beings, be good citizens and not be burden on the society and judiciary.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba famously declared while opening a college for women at Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh several decades back that the aim of the college is to generate adorable mothers not desirable wives. We need more such colleges and more such orientation in our education.