Sambodhi 1989 Vol 16

Author(s): Ramesh S Betai, Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 94

85
"The world is casting off its old garments. Standards, aims and institutions which were generally accepted even a generation ago are now challenged and changing; old motives are weakening and new forces are springing up. Anyone who has an insight into the mind of the age is vividly conscious of its restlessness and uncertainty, its dissatisfaction with the existing economic and social conditions and its yearning for the new order which is not yet realized." (P. 7).
Dr. Radhakrishnan attributes this unsettlement in human civilization to modern science as one of the chief factors. This is because "its pace of progress has become latterly too fast and its range too wide and deep for our quick adaptation." (P. 7). This is all the more true to the modern world with its hydrogen bombs and chemical weaponary, man's astounding researches in all the spheres-medical, nuclear and all. These have brought about revolutionary changes in all the spheres of man's life. The picture that Radhakrishnan has drawn fifty years back is all the more terror-striking and true to-day on one side and showing that the life of man on earth and human civilization have been revolutionized far beyond his expectation and imagination, Dr. Radhakrishnan is yet a man of strong optimism and unstinted faith in the ultimate goodness and gigantic powers of humanity. He, therefore, naturally states
"There is a quickened consciousness, a sense of something inadequ ate and unsatisfactory in the ideas and conceptions we have held and a groping after new values. Dissolution is in the air. The old forms of faith are tottering. Among the thoughtful men of every creed and country there is a note of spiritual wistfulness and expectancy," (10.11).
When next Radhakrishnan analyses the negative results, he refers to and describes the state of affairs in the realms of Religion, Family life, politics, International Relations and through these he gives a most realistic, stunning picture of man and his civilization. Today, after fifty years man has become more individualistic and self-centred, more worried about the ends and not the means, taking recourse to religious fundamentalism and labelling it as revolution, looking upon even the United Nations only as a means of guarding and strengthening ones national interests and so on, the dismal picture drawn by Radhakrishnan becomes all the more horrifying. The Berlin wall breaks and communism is fast losing ground; the same communist ideology and life-style can ruthlessly crush the democratic voice of a people as in China. The white minority that ruled over the vast black majority in South Africa, crushed the