Jaina Political Thought

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 16

militancy which causes trouble, not the fact that some militant ideologies happen to arise from some religious faiths. The moral principle of tole rating differences constitutes a value which the state ought to respect. In a social tradition where religions have been tolerant and where the state has not been given to religious persecution, it is not necessary to invoke the idea of secularism in order to promote amity and tolerance. Such was the situation in ancient India and the tradition continued with limitation in later times except for occasional outbursts of Muslim or Christian fantacism. Jaina tradition, being an integral part of the ancient tradition of India, does not contradict that basic moral value of tolerance for the sake of which secularism has been advocated in recent times. In fact, leading Indian savants like Radhakrishnan and Vinoba have understood secularism in the sense of "sarva-dharma sama-bhava." In this sense, ancient Indian political tradition may, indeed, be described as 'secular'.
If in one sense in India, traditionally religion tended to keep away from politics, today politics threatens to be a veritable religion, though a religion without reverence. As a result of the national involvement in the struggle for independence and the subsequent and continuing task of reconstruction, the social psyche seems to have become radically politicalized. There is hardly any question of public consequence which is not sought to be decided openly or covertly by 'political means. From a tyrannical and exploitative foreign government we have sought to move towards an enlightened and democratic self-government but in practice we face a real danger of drifting into a kind of unenlightened demogogy where public opinion, however, generated and canvassed threatens to assume the role of universal arbiter. We are in danger of forgetting to distinguish between opinion and knowledge, interest and value, power and authority. Seeking to move from tyranny to freedom, justice and welfare, we must take care to avoid the quicksands of lawless anarchy, mob violence and mass tyranny.
In this context it is worthy of note that during this entire period of our modern and contemporary vicissitudes, our political reflections have been shaped by the borrowed light of Western political ideas just as our institutional innovations havebeen similarly inspired. Public leaders as well as university professors have been content to use and paraphrasetheories and ideologies as they have been propounded in the west in successive generations. We have neither been original nor critical. Doubtless there are exceptions. Gandhiji's name well spring to anyone's mind. At one stage Jayaprakash Narayan felt and articulated his dissatisfaction with current modes of political thought. Nevertheless, the educated people in India understand by political theory only the ideas associated with Western