Jignasa Journal Of History Of Ideas And Culture Part 01

Author(s): Vibha Upadhyaya and Others
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

Page 183

A Historian of Culture Looks at Contemporary India
145
and Vietnam, to mention only the most obvious instances, underline the fact that nationalistic interests and sentiments are difficult to be dispensed with. In our obsession with the modern we tend to forget that the concept of the universal and global man is not a modern discovery. Moreover, the universal and the local in the context of human aspirations, and the expressions of those aspirations, do not have to be set against each other. The one set does not have to triumph or trample over the other, they can be reconciled with each other and they can co-exist in harmony. It may be mentioned in passing that Indian culture generally strove to achieve this reconciliation. In fact, the ideas and idioms that were prominent in Indian culture did not think in the categories of geographical or ethnic terms; they rather thought in terms of universal human categories. Such phrases as 'Indian philosophy. 'Indian metaphysics', 'Indian religions', etc., are modern modes of thought and expressions. The thinkers of Nyāya and Vaiśeşika, Sankhya and Yoga, Mimāmsā and Vedanta did not ever think that their views were valid only in India or only for Indians. They thought in terms of man. We will be coming back to this point later.
One does not have to labour too much to show that as serious intellectual discourses relevant to India, both of these two viewpoints, the Marxist and the Liberal Western, contain serious deficiencies. That the Marxists themselves have lost faith in the Marxist interpretation of history is clear from the behaviour of the Marxist political parties all over the globe. From Bengal to China, all the so called radical Marxist parties are vying with each other in emulating the fast-track capitalist path of economic growth. Against the perspective of these facts, the holding on to a narrow and orthodox Marxist interpretation of history by a large number of Indian intellectuals looks awkward and out of place. However, we would like to add that in our opinion the Marxist interpretation, when freed from the dogmatic intolerance of other views, can provide useful insights in understanding certain aspects of our past. It is the dogmatic and blinkered approach that makes one blind to see anything of value and of relevance in our past that we object to. It is interesting that the earlier generation of Indian Marxists were much more liberal in their outlook on Indian history and culture compared to the present day ones. This growing rigidity has been counterproductive in diverse ways.
As for the Liberal Western standpoint, it may be pointed out that the political and economic dominance of the West over the last three hundred years or so has produced a curiously false belief that science, technology, rational philosophies and democratic aspirations and endeavours and features of the Western civilization alone. The fact of the matter is that in all these areas before the advent of the modern age, it was the Orient that was way ahead of the West. A mere history of three hundred years can by no means be taken as permanent indicators of an irreversible trend. It is worth pondering over that the introduction and growth of modern science did not face the kind of hostility from religious establishments in India as it had in Europe when modern science was taking roots there. The flair with which many of the Asian countries have adopted the modern technologies and the economic progress they have achieved demonstrate yet again the age old maxim that science technology and rationality are no monopolies of any specific culture. In fact, these features are the parts of the assemblage that constitutes civilization, which should be distinguished from culture. This distinction will be clarified in the succeeding sections.
The notion of Composite Culture:
This view deserves a closer and more detailed examination than the Marxist and the Liberal Western. One of the great merits of this standpoint is that unlike the Marxist and the Liberal Western