Tulsi Prajna 1993 01

SR No.: 524573
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Parmeshwar Solanki
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1993
Total Pages: 156
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 9 MB

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24 Value in the Tradition of Indian thinking & Values Relevant primitive and destroying it to its core and marrow. The foreign rulers not only spread an image of superman about themselves but took all pains to prove the inferiority of the traditional culture and establish in converting many Hindus to christianity but also to culturally alienate the English-educated elite to subvert Indian culture through their westernized mentality.
Swami Vivekananda, an English-educated Indian, was one of the few pioneers who fathomed the depth of the danger and a life-long teacher tried to uphold the superiority of the traditional culture in eloquent and argumentative way. He gave a new focus and direction to the Advaita Vedānta, usually scoffed off as totally inapplicable to worldly affairs, in a strongly action-oriented pattern for the benefit of the man in the street in his ordinary way of living. He tried his best to generate a new hope through reasserting our faith in our humanistic, noble culture and resurgence of patriotism. This was a direct confrontation between the culture of the conqueror and that of the conquered. Sir John Woodroffe, a sincere admirer of Indian tradition and culture, sensed a peril Indian culture was running in the broad perspective of the conflict between European and Asiatic cultures and expressed his deep concern for the preservation of Indian culture as its destruction, in his estimate, would be a disaster for the entire human community. Another great personality to visualize the impending danger attempted to be created through the lure of material prosperity and Macaulization of the indigenous system of education was Sri Aurobindo, the great revolutionary turned a Yogi in the wider and deeper interest of the country for spiritual revitalization. He warned about seven decades ago that 'material comfort, material progress and material efficiency' become the 'gods of worship'. He observed that the cultural dominative of the alien colonizers did tend not only to dominate but also to ruin the rich cultural heritage of India. Sri Aurobindo writes:3 "Already she (India) has been largely affected by European culture and the peril is far from over, on the contrary it will be greater, more insistent, more imperatively violent in the immediate future". How much true is it today. In my own experience I have come to see, while touring the length and breadth of the country along with the National Commission on Teachers (1983), that "English-medium Schools” have mushroomed even in remote villages and even the poor, the simple tribal tries to send his ward to these or missionary schools in the hope of securing a white-collar job for his wards when grown up. This tendency exposes the cultural confusion that exists in the mind of the “educated” power-elite which has not been able to get over the colonial hang over. Almost in every educational cupboard Macaulay's ghosts are discovered. The elite has tried to pass it off as a conflict between “tradition and modernity” and squarely places the blame on the “illiterate” mass of common people. But the reality is that the common man is ready to accept the benefit of all scientific and technological innovations provided in his native wisdom he is convinced of its efficacy. But it is the elite who suffers from the conflict as he cannot totally get rid of the cultural moorings nor can he avoid the effects of his education. For him “modernization” is a synonym for “westernization", a senseless aping of the western culture. “Modernity" can never be achieved by trying to ape or graft January March 1993