Deluged - The Idea of India? - sagari chhabra

DELUGED – THE IDEA OF INDIA?

As the tragedy unfolds in Uttarakhand with the death toll mounting, thousands injured and dispossessed, I have been wondering if the very idea of India, is under deluge? Was India just a nation state created, by  the rulers of an  island in Europe, that enacted a mindless act of Partition, and displaced millions? Or was India a geographical and cultural concept that grew along the banks of the river Indus, with our ancestors being called Sindhus. It is along the river that a certain way of life; ‘arth, dharm, kaam, moksha’ played out. The chaar dhams: Yamunotri, Gangotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath are contiguous with a way of life that is intrinsically spiritual. Till the advent of globalisation, under the effect of which we are still reeling, millions of Indians lived in voluntary simplicity; which was to consume only what is needed and to practice ahimsa by regarding all life - animals, plants, trees and mountains as sentient beings. This is the moral and ethical basis of the Shanti Path – ‘Antarikshum shanti, prithvi shanti, …’  It is this all embracing compassion that enabled Jews to settle here, while they were persecuted elsewhere, and the so called ‘outsider’ being embraced in a composite and syncretic culture, called India.

 As a traveller to Hardwar, Rishikesh, Uttarkashi and Gangotri, I have witnessed with silent horror the damming of the sacred river Ganga. It is in this river, that millions bathe to wash away their sins and float the ashes of their loved ones. To divert the course of this river by envisaging several dams, is to court disaster, for ecologically the Himalayas are in an ecologically fragile zone; but it is around the river that a whole spiritual way of life has played out for centuries. Today with a click of a mouse everything is up for sale. Foreign direct investment is courted and tunnels are blasted diverting the course of the river, while huge hotels come up along the banks. While attention is being paid to Uttarakhand as the tragedy unfolds, let us know what is happening elsewhere along the Himalayan range.

Last week I was visiting Dharamshala, by the Dauladhar range of mountains.  Dharamshala, is the seat of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama who has kept six million Tibetans non-violent as China stole their permanent address.. This in itself is an exercise in beauty, restraint and self-discipline. The Tibetans have show-cased their culture at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. The museum has exquisite pieces of work rescued from Tibet and the library offers courses in Buddhist philosophy. Up in Mcloidganj however, masses of tourists in large SUV cars over-run pedestrians and the mountain is being blasted to make room for hotels. The fact that India gave refuge to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans is yet another example of our compassionate, secular and plural culture. It is the idea of India that the Tibetans can live peacefully, practice their religion, indeed flourish as they remain persecuted in neighbouring China. We need to preserve that idea and treasure our forests and mountains as sentient beings. I am haunted by Gandhi’s statement in Hind Swaraj, ‘I bear no enmity towards the English, but I do towards their civilisation’. In the twenty -first century as the western model of development has been proven to conclusively lead to climate change, we in India, seem to be following that model slavishly. We need to remember that the idea of India was swaraj;  ‘swa’ meaning self. It is that sense of self that has been nurtured for centuries and is now under deluge.

Sagari Chhabra  (‘Deluged – the idea of India?’ published 26 june 2013, The Hindustan Times, edit page, 12)