Introduction

            The paradox of India in the recent years has been that although it has had unprecedented material growth and its international standing is good, it has also been going through a series of crises whether it is arson, communal riots, shooting in public spaces, false encounters, attack on the parliament, bomb explosions, killings by Naxalites and Maoists, caste and creed conflicts, and other such terrifying events, not to speak of individual neuroses manifesting in conflict and violence.  The latest incidents of 26/11 when Mumbai witnessed unprecedented terrorist attacks only served to emphasize how utterly weak, confused, inadequate and chaotic our preparations to face strife and terror have been.  The citizens have not been found wanting at moments of crises but the governing class and structures have been, as always, in at least the last decade or more.  The violence in society both from within and without is a symptom of a more deep seated malaise and we as individuals too cannot escape our responsibility for it:

            Turning and turning in the widening gyre

            The falcon cannot hear the falconer

            Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

            Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

            The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity. ¹

Change must therefore come, whether we will it or not, but if it has to be for the better then there must be a sincere aspiration for it.  Also, there has to be clarity of vision about what kind of change do we want and where and how it is to be brought about. 

Confusion in Values

Any change has to begin with the individual as societal systems and structures are operated by individuals and reflect their modes of thought and action.  However, evil and good today have got so inextricably mixed up that there is an obvious lack of norms, values and ethics. Without these neither the individual nor society can progress. Nor can there be peace and harmony. When Krishna cursed Ashwatthama in Mahabharata that he would wander over the earth, living in inaccessible forests and dreary moors, without any companion, and without being able to talk to anyone, weighed down by all kinds of diseases while blood emanated from him, his quiet reply was: “Within thyself among all men, O holy one, I shall live! Let the words of this illustrious and foremost of men become true!”² And Ashwattmama seems to have had the last laugh as he still wanders together with Krishna among all men.  Dharma and adharma have got bewilderingly intermingled and all has become endless war, confusion and bloodshed.

            It can be argued that one reason for this is that human beings have become so utterly self-centered and self-seeking that they are willing to sacrifice any larger good for their own petty gains.  This manifests itself in different aspects of society and creates conflict.  The fruits of material progress have been distributed unevenly resulting in the constantly widening chasm between the rich and the poor.  There is unabashed conspicuous consumption by the affluent indifferent to surrounding deprivation and even grinding poverty.  Corruption of every nature has seeped into the very entrails of society and the rot it has to be accepted, begins from the top.  But while we point fingers at the politicians we have to also accept that all of us who form a part of the influential civil society are also responsible in varying degrees for the current state of affairs.  We either work the system to our advantage because we know how to, or are passive spectators to what is going on or have just opted out of it.  This is seen in even very small day to day things.  We have learnt to look after our needs irrespective of whether the government functions or not. We do not, for example, demand that the municipal authorities perform their duties, but provide water for ourselves through our tubewells, install generators for electricity, dispose of our own garbage and make our own security arrangements.  We do not use government schools and hospitals and now increasingly, not even the government institutions of higher education if we can help it.  This is not a value judgment, because there is ample justification for it and it can be argued that we have been forced into this situation.  However, the net result is that we have actually ceded from the polity of the country leaving it free to deteriorate.  It is a frightening situation where we, who are opinion makers, are either in collusion with a corrupt and inefficient system or passive but frustrated spectators or on the margins because we have opted out.

            We may think that we desire a real change but it may be frightening because we may have to give up our own privileges that are not equitable and this may hurt us and those close to us. Can we do it? Can we sacrifice our narrow self interests for the larger good?  Yes, but only if we have true aspiration, not vague desires or transient aims.  As Sri Aurobindo has pointed out,

Aspiration should be not a form of desire, but the feeling of an inner soul’s need, and a quiet settled will to turn towards the Divine and seek the Divine. It is certainly not easy to get rid of this mixture of desire entirely—not easy for anyone; but when one has the will to do it, this also can be affected by the help of the sustaining Force.³

Our aspiration has to be something beyond desire because “Desire often leads either to excess of effort, meaning often much labor and a limited fruit with strain, exhaustion and in case of difficulty or failure, despondence, disbelief or revolt”.⁴  Mere desires can become unhealthy and turn into passions and obsessions.  These prevent us from liberating ourselves from the bonds of matter and arising to a higher consciousness. However an assertion can be made that a desire or passion for or even an obsession with a great cause motivates a person towards it.  But it is important to remember that the aim may be good and a desire for it may propel a person towards it, but to really achieve something what is actually needed is an aspiration.  This is because, “a true change can only be brought about by an aspiration…it carries within it calm discrimination, detachment”.⁵  This is “very important, for their opposites impede very much the transforming action.  Intensity of aspiration should be there, but it must go along with these. No hurry, no inertia, neither rajasic over-eagerness nor tamasic discouragement—a steady and persistent but quiet call and working.” ⁶  

Self Interest and Conflict

            As the Mahabharata points out, the pursuit of wealth and pleasure is a dominant fact of human life.  Self interest is the spring of all human actions and also at the root of all human conflicts. The Shanti Parva states quite unequivocally that everybody adopts whatever means are required to serve self interest.  Neither is friendship permanent nor is enmity; it is self-interest that makes somebody now a friend and then an enemy.  The material world is shot through with self-interest and no one is beloved of anyone.  The affection between brother and brother, between man and wife is based solely on self-interest, there being no love or affection without reason.  Reasons are altered by time and so is self interest.⁷ 

            However, as the Mahabharata shows us, the problem is that since most people have a very limited view of self interest, they live in a state of perpetual conflict as their interests keep colliding with those of others.  A larger view of self interest does not necessarily end all conflict because conflict is an inevitable part of human life.  What it does is to change one’s attitude towards others and therefore towards the problem of conflict. 

            There is conflict and violence in human relationships not because there is absence of selfless love from the generality of human affairs but because there is not even serious self love.  But is selfless love anything more than an idealistic sentiment?  A moment’s thought, however, would make it quite obvious that our self interest, at least to a certain extent, can only be served by serving the interest of others.  The two are inseparably bound. For instance, we can enjoy freedom only if we are willing to let the others enjoy it too.  Again, acquiring wealth is one of the aims of life but wealth is also a source of conflict.  However, the solution is not poverty because that would not be either in individual or societal interest.  Therefore, intelligent self-interest would make us clearly realize that wealth has to be generated, earned and enjoyed but to do so would require the conditions for social peace and harmony.  These cannot be created without the pursuit of dharma.  Hence the pursuit of wealth must necessarily be subject to dharma.  That is why the Mahabharata says that wealth and its pursuit is not adharma.  Only that wealth which is acquired and enjoyed through adharma is improper and leads to conflict.⁸  

Knowledge and its Power

So it follows that it is in our enlightened self interest to ensure that the gains of material progress are more evenly distributed than they are at the moment and that all human beings are treated with respect and dignity. Bertrand Russell has analyzed the far-reaching effects of modern knowledge on the growth of our mental life that infuences our way of thinking, willing, and feeling.⁹  The three are interconnected because knowledge has given us the kind of power unimaginable before and made us thus capable of both great good and bad.  We have, on the one hand, created instruments of mass destruction like the nuclear bombs but we have also, on the other hand, made medicines that can affect miraculous cures. 

            We can mould life on earth or put an end to it because science has vastly extended human power.  We have the power to control the weather, cause drought and flood, change the tides, raise levels of the sea and alter climates.  As Russell points out that hitherto man has not been to do too much harm because of his ignorance and his inefficiency but at the bottom, unless molded by civilization and educational influences, he is a ferocious animal.¹⁰ Tyrants and bigots in the past have pursued horrifying objectives and if the working of the mind is not transformed, human beings will continue to do so with even worse consequences.  We will perish as the dinosaurs did in spite of once being the lords of creation because now our objectives can be followed more efficiently, completely and ruthlessly due to the increased power that enhance knowledge has put in our hands.

            As Russell has pointed out that increased command over the forces of nature derived from scientific knowledge may lead to all kinds of progress but by itself it does not ensure anything desirable without being accompanied by moral ideas.¹¹ Hitherto, the harm that we could do to our neighbor by hating him was limited by our incompetence, but in the new world of science and technology there will be no such limit, and if we indulge in our hatred we can only land into disaster.

            How prophetic are Russell’s word is borne out by what Stuart W. Twemlow has to say about the psychology of a terrorist.¹² A terrorist, he points out, is an offspring of the prevalent social system which he perceives to be unjust and against which he feels it is his mission to revolt so as to destroy it.  The characteristics of terror are fear, horror and shock.  He takes the example of a woman who escaped from a husband who had kept her chained to a chair for four years.  Even after she got her freedom, she remained terrified that he would kill her.  Twemlow points out that there is widespread domestic violence in the world.  In  U.S. alone, it prevails in 18,000 out to 100,000 families.  Then there are school shooters who are called “anarchic terrorists” by the FBI.  However, what is vital to understand is that these are products of the system.  They see themselves as humiliated because of incompatible political, religious or personal ideologies and want to avenge themselves.

            Twemlow points out that labels are misleading and damaging.  It can be counterproductive to call people terrorists.  In any case, one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.  For example the Japanese suicide bombers or kamikaze pilots during Word War II were heroes to the Japanese.  They did not see their actions as suicide, but a mission to be done with a messianic zeal.  Mostly the young are involved because it is easier to sway their minds and arouse their courage.  Referring to the psychoanalyst Volkan, Twemlow explains that the perpetrators of violent terrorist acts see themselves as “avenging victims” for past injustices.  Besides no one can really be labeled a  “terrorist” because often ‘today’s terrorist’ may be ‘tomorrow’s hero.’  The example of Bhagat Singh, a ‘terrorist’ from the British point of view, comes to mind. Or again, the Maoists in Nepal who were declared ‘terrorists’ now form the government.  Twemlow describes a terrorist as a “bottled-up activist with the idealism gone wrong.”  He usually has a great sense of injustice which gets reinforced when the justice system itself denies him his rights.  What is actually needed is to deal with the ‘terrorist’ as a human being with a cause however misguided it may be and not as an enemy.  Animosity only makes him feel more grandiose and important and reinforces his feelings of self-righteous anger at perceived injustices.

            We are quick to deal with others but, we fail to look within and see how our own actions and attitudes may have contributed to an environment of injustice and cruelty.  Hence it is also important to simultaneously take a dear look at ourselves, our own motivations, integrity and sincerity of purpose.  Not to do so is to be hypocritical and dishonest which can be destructive.  No transformation can take place only by blaming the others.  In any case our motives and actions have to be honest.  There is no time left to play political games for selfish interests. 

In the past our capacity to do both good or bad was limited but not now.  Every increase in knowledge has meant an increase in a human beings capacity to act.  Science and technology have ensured that good men can do more good and bad men more bad than our ancestors could have dreamed possible.  Hence knowledge, and the power that it brings, need to first influence feelings because it is feelings that decide  what an individual will do with power.  As Russell has pointed out, feelings too, have evolved through the struggle for existence.  The natural feelings are one of competition and group rivalry but today they do more harm than good.¹³ As humankind formed itself into a society, it grew large groups with two opposite systems of morality: one for dealing  with one’s own social group; and the other for dealing with outsiders.  It came to be considered as ‘moral’ to support members of one’s group while waging wars against the other.  The fame of many ‘so called’ heroes of history rests on their role in helping their own group to kill other people’s groups and to steal from them.  This has now become disadvantageous.  Previously, when a tribe killed the other tribe and occupied its lands, it acquired greater prosperity and lived more comfortably.  But now the consequences are the opposite.  Two nations that cooperate are more likely to achieve economic prosperity than those who compete. 

            However, the faith in competition continues as we are conditioned from the past and cannot make our emotions grow at the same rate as our skills.  We see everyday that in a technically developed world what is done in one region has enormous effects in other regions but as long as we feel for only our region, conflicts will remain because we will go on acting in our narrow self-interest unmindful of the consequences on others in spite of knowing intellectually that the is interconnected. 

Conclusion

            Today the interdependence in the world is becoming as close as that which exists between the cells of a body.  What one eats nourishes every part of the body but the mouth does not say why it should take so much trouble for the entire body. Similarly the hands cannot be in conflict with the feet and the stomach cannot be at war with the liver.  Human society is becoming more and more like the human body and so feelings of welfare towards the whole society will have to become necessary for human being to be able to live and enjoy the fruits of what they have created. We will have to realize that it is in our enlightened self-interest to forgo short term gains to achieve long term goals.  This requires an expansion of the mind and vision not anger, hatred and feelings of revenge.   But will this happen?

            At the end of the great Mahabharata war, Vyasa cries in anguish, “With uplifted arms I am crying aloud but nobody hears me.  From Righteousness is wealth as also Pleasure.  Why should not Righteousness, therefore, be courted”?¹⁴  What Vyasa is saying is that the pursuit of wealth and pleasure is essential but it must be done righteously otherwise it will defeat its own purpose and inevitably create conflict, violence, war and bloodshed.  So will the cry from the forest be heard or go in vain?  It will fall on deaf ears and darkness will come again and again unless there is a true aspiration for change and a movement towards a more ethical world order.

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1. W.B. Yeats, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats, ed. PeterAllt and Russell K. Alapach, 6^th edn. “The Second Coming,” New York; Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. 1973, pp 401-402.

• Mahabharata, “Sauptika Parva,” Section XVI, Vol.VIII, p.37, Kisari Mohan Ganguli, trans, The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, New Delhi: Munshiram Manohar Lal, 1970, 5^th edn.1990.  See also, Rajmohan Gandhi, Revenge and Reconciliation, New Delhi: Penguin Books India 1999, pp 1-35.

• A.S. Dalal, Compiled and Introduction, Looking from Within: Gleanings from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1995, 2^nd edn.1996, p.114.

• Ibid.

• Ibid., p.115

• Ibid

• Chaturvedi Badrinath, “Resolution of Conflict: Potential of Dharmic Methods,” Dhama, India and the World Order, pp.50-51

• Ibid.

• Bertrand Russell, “Ideas That Have Helped Mankind,” Unpopular Essays, London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., p. 162-283.

1. Ibid.

1. Ibid., see also, Bertrand Russell, “Causes of the Present Chaos,” The Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell, New York: The Modern Library, pp. 242 –262.

1. Rakesh Shukla’s interview of Stuart W. Twemlow, “The `terrorist” is no fir-beathing dragon,” Himal Southasian, December 2008, pp. 66-67.

1. Bertrand Russell, “Deciding Forces in Politics, “Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell, pp. 295-300

1. Mahabharata, “Swargarohenika Parva,” Section VI, Vol. XII, p.12