Politics in India cannot be ever divorced from issues of religion and caste

Those Days and These Days
from Around and About by shantanu dutta

Jawaharlal Nehru was one who earnestly and passionately wanted a political order that was above the dictates of caste and creed and through out his long innings as a leader both before and after independence, he sought to lay its foundations, often by battling it out with other conservative ideas. But as in the nineteenth century; so too in the twentieth century – Nehru’s charisma in his time; the same as the charisma of the nineteenth century aristocracy in their time ensured that their thoughts reigned for a time and then after they were gone; caste and religion based politics slowly gained re entry and even have come to occupy centre stage.

The communist parties are supposed to be above caste, class and religion but this commitment perhaps is as best seen in the uppermost echelons. And as for the Dravidian parties, every one knows how after the old guard passes on, there would be very little left of Periyar’s (again charisma driven) legacy of rationalism.

Religion is too deeply etched on the human psyche ; and for any one to pretend that politics or any other social activity can be carried out by ignoring this interface is sheer naiveté. The experience of Swami Vivekananda and his turn around is a case in point. An avowed agnostic and rationalist with little to with matters of religion, an encounter with the illiterate and rustic Ramakrishna Paramhansa changed his destiny and the contour of Indian society at the turn of the century exactly a hundred years ago.

Politics in India cannot be ever divorced from issues of religion and caste. It wasn’t then in Those Days and it isn’t possible These Days. What history teaches us though is that it can be harnessed and controlled so that the forces of fanaticism, bigotry and intolerance do not ever hold sway. That much is possible. That much is what a man of Mahatma Gandhi’s stature was able to achieve. We may expect no more than this or we live in a fool’s paradise.

The Social Brain Hypothesis: Are our brains hardwired to deal with social hierarchies?
from Anthropology.net by Kambiz Kamrani

Almost all primates live in groups with an observable and definable social hierarchy, and humans aren’t an exception. We may overlook it in our day to day lives, but every so often it becomes evident that we interact best when we understand the pecking order. The social brain hpyothesis argues that the cognitive demands of living in complexly bonded social groups selected for increases in executive brain. Two new papers in the current issue of the journal Neuron investigate this phenomenon by looking at the activity in specific regions of the brain, like the striatum, which reflects a common signal of reward in both the economic and social domains.

The research was conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health. fMRI was used to monitor the activity of the brain of 72 participants who were playing an interactive computer game for money. From this press release,

Brahma or spiritual power and Kshatra or political power must always go together

A Call for the Intellectual Kshatriya David Frawley

Hinduism has produced many extraordinary minds in modern times. Excellent Hindu critiques of the West and of the modern world can be found in the writings of great Hindu gurus like Aurobindo, Vivekananda, Shivananda or Chinmayananda. The problem is that their works get placed in the religious or spiritual field and do not enter into the intellectual realm. Their teachings are often confined to their disciples, who personalize them rather than promote them for their global relevance. Much of the work of creating a new Hindu intelligentsia should consist of taking the works of these great gurus and reformulating them for a broader and more intellectual audience. Hindu intellectuals have generally failed in the modern information revolution. They have not articulated their views in a clear way. They have produced little by way of books, and almost nothing by way of magazines and newspapers to express what they hold to be true, even in India...

The language of modern discourse, perhaps unfortunately, is English. This should be of some advantage to Hindus as English is often their second language. However Hindus seldom learn to write good English. They often emulate nineteenth century British English with its long sentences, redundancy and antiquated words. To gain a place in this media dialogue they must sharpen their media skills and learn to use the English language to their benefit. Clearly there needs to be a new Hindu intelligentsia to deal with this current challenge. Hindus must set forth their ideas in a modern and rational way that appeals to people, just as the great Rishis did of yore...

An Intellectual Kshatriya

In this information war a different kind of warrior is necessary and a different strategy is required. This is not an entirely new issue because there has always been something of an information war in the clash of cultures, nations and religions that has occurred throughout history. But today it has much more importance in the information age and has become the central issue. Each culture has its intellectual defenders. These are its great thinkers who articulate its cultural values. These intellectual defenders serve to challenge negative views. They also serve to present a favorable image of the culture and define its future. Hindus traditionally had their Kshatriya or warrior class to defend them. There has always been an intellectual Kshatriya as well, those who defend the culture from attack in the realm of ideas, which usually precedes or accompanies physical attack. However, Hindus today have failed perhaps more than any other group to create a defense for their culture in the media world...

The Vedas declare that Brahma or spiritual power and Kshatra or political power must always go together. When Brahma or spiritual power develops it creates an appropriate Kshatra or social power to extend its influence into society. It provides a Dharmic order to human relations, both individual and collective. If Brahma or spiritual power fails to impact the social order and cannot raise the social Dharma, then it is a sign that this Brahma or spiritual power itself has failed, that it is not legitimate or real.

This true combination of Brahma and Kshatra creates an intellectual Kshatriya. For the true Brahmin his weapon is his speech. Many such Kshatriya Brahmanas existed in the past. In fact the Puranas relate that the Angirasa Rishis, the oldest Vedic seer family, was one of Kshatriya Brahmanas. This movement of a new spiritual Kshatriya of modern Hindus needs to be completed today, not only for the generation of Hindu society but for the revival of Sanatana Dharma or the universal tradition of truth throughout the world. The main Kshatriya that can carry the day today is the intellectual Kshatriya. Hindus must create a new intelligentsia that has the power to overcome and absorb the alienated and Western dominated intellectuals of India, projecting an intellectual view that is articulate and compelling. They must turn Sanatana Dharma into a world cultural force, not merely a religious curiosity. For a culture that has produced such thinkers as the Vedic seers, Upanishadic sages, Kapila, Buddha, Patanjali and Shankara, and in the modern times Sri Aurobindo and Ramana Maharshi, this is certainly possible. In fact such great modern figures of India as Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda are good models of intellectual Kshatriyas as well as spiritual masters. Clearly the success of Hindus in such intellectual fields as science and medicine shows that they have the capacity. What is lacking is the motivation, the guidance, and perhaps the inspiration.

This article is taken from the book 'Awaken Bharata: a Call for India's Rebirth', by David Frawley. The full text of the book can be accessed on line. David Frawley is currently the director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies, which runs numerous study courses of various branches of Vedic systems of knowledge. More information can be found at the institution's website.

In this age and in this creation Sri Aurobindo represents a new Truth and a new Power

The 15th August — PRAPATTI
In Mother’s Light, AUGUST 15 , 2006

Apart from being the independence day of India the 15th of August is the Day of Sri Aurobindo’s embodiment. In this age and in this creation Sri Aurobindo represents a new Truth and a new Power. That Truth and that Power is the Principle and Force of the Supramental. Sri Aurobindo had wanted the earthly life of entire humanity to undergo a revolutionary change by the action of this Principle, Power and Light. It is quite possible and inevitable that passing through much suffering, trouble, discomfort and storms, humanity will arrive at this Destiny. If man consciously and knowingly be opens towards this new Truth and Light , then suffering, danger and discontentment of humanity and the earth would be reduced to a great extent.

On this great auspicious day of 15th August, others may not but the people of India should be conscious of the working of this grand Truth and Light. In the coming days India’s greatest contribution to the world will be this Truth and Light, because by the strength of this Supramental Truth and Light humanity could be free from animality and brutal tendencies; leaving behind the animal nature, man would be initiated into divine nature. For the good of humanity, achieving the independence and the New Birth, India is slowly rising out of slumber. Western countries have achieved prosperity in the material world through science, industry, rationality and organisation, but they do not have the capacity to dispel barbarism from man and replace it by divinity.

The West, by outer material success, is unable to address this aspect of human development. It is only India who has the right to this secret. India alone knows the true meaning of inner liberation, freedom in work and life, establishment of Light and Knowledge in earthly nature, transformation of human nature into divine nature. These great truths are to be evolved and spread for the conservation of human species. Sri Aurobindo has evoked the attention of his countrymen on the message of India to humanity – animal man has to be transformed into divine superman. When other countries of the world are working out their destined role, India is not yet conscious of her own talent, strength and capability. By remembering the life, ideal, sadhana and works of Sri Aurobindo, on this auspicious day like 15th August, people of this country will become more conscious. (Nab,15th,aug,68/71)

One wishes that Mohanty's book is read by all the students graduating from Indian universities, IIMs, IITs and other centres of knowledge

He foresaw the future The Pioneer Sunday April 20, 2008

Aurobindo warned Nehru about China's aggressive designs more than a decade before it invaded India in 1962. Sadly, he chose to ignore him, says Claude Arpi

Sri Aurobindo: A Contemporary Reader Author: Sachidananda Mohanty (ed)Publisher: RoutledgePrice: Rs 275

It is difficult to resist starting the review of Sri Aurobindo: A Contemporary Reader, edited by Prof Sachidananda Mohanty, from the epilogue, which reveals the contemporary vision of Sri Aurobindo. Mohanty tells us that in 1963, Sudhir Ghose, an emissary of Jawaharlal Nehru, showed US President JF Kennedy the 'last letter' written by Sri Aurobindo on November 11, 1950, less than a month before his death. It was about China's invasion of Tibet in October that year.

The recluse of Pondicherry wrote: "The basic significance of Mao's Tibetan adventure is to advance China's frontiers right down to India and stand poised there to strike at the right moment and with right strategy, unless India precipitately declares itself on the side of the Communist bloc. But to go over to Mao and Stalin in order to arrest their wrath is not in any sense a saving gesture. It is a gesture spelling the utmost ruin to all our ideals and aspirations."

Kennedy could not believe that this letter was written 13 years earlier by a man living a secluded life in south India. The sage had not stepped out of his room, on the first floor of his ashram, for the past 24 years. How could he analyse with such lucidity the political situation facing India? Sri Aurobindo believed that India should take the support of the US to prevent, what he had called in another letter, the "Bolshevik menace".

The US Government was certainly no saint, and Sri Aurobindo knew it. But Mao's regime (like Hitler's 10 years earlier) meant the ruin of India's destiny. On August 15, 1947, India became independent and Sri Aurobindo, who was the first Indian to asked for Purna Swaraj in the early years of the 20th century, celebrated his 75th birthday. On that day, in a memorable message, he spoke about his dream of a new

"step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society".

The person that Karan Singh has called the "Prophet of Indian Nationalism" could already see beyond India's freedom. Bharat had a larger role to play for the future of humanity. Mao's 'perfect' society was dictatorship of a few; diversity of thought and belief was not part of the Great Helmsman's scheme. For Sri Aurobindo, it was one of the reasons why India had to stand up to Mao's Army in the Himalayas. In his life and writings, however, Sri Aurobindo stood for integration. Mohanty says,

"In him, binaries and conflicts are harmonised: The West and the East, English and the Indian languages, the city and the region, merit and social justice, religion and secularism, pacifism and militancy, conservation and development, nationalism and internationalism, et al."

Though acclaimed by many - he was hailed by Aldous Huxley as one of the greatest nationalists, visionaries and poet-philosophers of the 20th century - Sri Aurobindo is completely misunderstood. How could he be a yogi and yet follow politics?

Sri Aurobindo's 'last' letter is a sad reminder that his vision is far from having percolated to our 'contemporary' leaders in the South Block, more addicted to the Bolshevik (now called Marxist) diktats than to national interests. What Sri Aurobindo wrote 58 years ago is still valid today:

"Militarily, China is almost 10-times as strong as we are (this has recently been admitted by Defence Minister AK Antony)... the primary motive of Mao's attack on Tibet is to threaten India as soon as possible."

Though the recent intrusions in Tawang or the planned diversion of Brahmaputra are signs that the danger looms large over India, who realises the relevance of Sri Aurobindo's words? Will India have to go through another traumatic experience? Let us hope not.

Having been in touch with Sri Aurobindo's thought for nearly 40 years, I have always felt that one of the greatest tragedies of modern India is that politicians, intellectuals, philosophers, scientists, social workers or historians have not been able - or are unwilling - to grasp the visionary thought of the Master. That is why we should be grateful to Prof Mohanty, whose book with a simple and easy introduction, including a brief life-sketch of Sri Aurobindo, is an excellent first approach.

Mohanty has divided his compilation into five parts in which he studies the main works of Sri Aurobindo - The Ideal of Human Unity, The Human Cycle, War and Self-determination, The Foundations of Indian Culture and, finally, Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest. Each of the parts has an introduction which goes a long way in making the judiciously chosen extracts extremely readable even to a lay reader. The editor explains his objective:

"The basic purpose of this book is to underline some of the futuristic ideas of Sri Aurobindo and to look at him in the context of the crisis of contemporary culture that confronts us today. I shall suggest that many of the issues that we are currently struggling with, such as one's relations to the state, language, ethnicity, self-determination, identity politics and multiculturalism are ideas that Sri Aurobindo was greatly concerned with."

Mohanty has restricted himself to the political and social work of Sri Aurobindo and does not touch upon his yogic approach, developed in The Synthesis of Yoga, The Life Divine and Savitri: A Legend & A Symbol. One wishes that Mohanty's book is read by all the students graduating from Indian universities, IIMs, IITs and other centres of knowledge.

Bande Mataram comes to an end in 1908

The Mother asks us for no schemes, no plans, no methods. She herself will provide the schemes, the plans, the methods better than any we can devise. She asks us for our hearts, our lives, nothing less, nothing more. Swadeshi, National Education, the attempt to organise Swaraj are only so many opportunities for self-surrender to her. She will look to see not how much we have tried for Swadeshi, how wisely we have planned for Swaraj, how successfully we have organised education, but how much of ourselves we have given, how much of our substance, how much of our labour, how much of our ease, how much of our safety, how much of our lives.

Regeneration is literally re-birth, and re-birth comes not by the intellect, not by the fullness of the purse, not by policy, not by change of machinery, but by the getting of a new heart, by throwing away all that we were into the fire of sacrifice and being reborn in the Mother. Self-abandonment is the demand made upon us. She asks of us, "How many will live for me? How many will die for me?" and awaits our answer. -- Sri Aurobindo Bande Mataram, April 11, 1908

India And The Mongolian 1-4-1908
Religion And The Bureaucracy 1-4-1908
The Milk Of Putana 1-4-1908
Oligarchy Rampant 2-4-1908
The Question Of The President 3-4-1908 5-4-1908
Convention And Conference 4-4-1908 5-4-1908
By The Way 4-4-1908 5-4-1908
The Constitution Of The Subjects Committee 6-4-1908
The New Ideal 7-4-1908 12-4-1908
The "Indu And The Dhulia Conference 8-4-1908
The Asiatic Role 9-4-1908 12-4-1908
Love Me Or Die 9-4-1908
The Work Before Us 10-4-1908 12-4-1908
Campbell-Bannerman Retires 10-4-1908 12-4-1908
United Congress (Speech) 10-4-1908
The Demand Of The Mother 11-4-1908 12-4-1908
Baruipur Speech 12-4-1908
Peace And Exclusion 13-4-1908
Indian Resurgence And Europe 14-4-1908 19-4-1908
Om Shantih 14-4-1908 19-4-1908
Conventionalist And Nationalists 18-4-1908 19-4-1908
The Future And The Nationalists 22-4-1908 26-4-1908
The Wheat And The Chaff 23-4-1908 26-4-1908
Party And The Country 24-4-1908 26-4-1908
The "Bengalee" Facing-Both-Ways 24-4-1908 26-4-1908
Providence And Perorations 24-4-1908 26-4-1908
The One Thing Needful 25-4-1908 26-4-1908
Palli Samiti (Speech) 26-4-1908
New Conditions 29-4-1908 3-5-1908
Whom To Believe? 29-4-1908 3-5-1908
By The Way: The Parable Of Sati 29-4-1908 3-5-1908
Leaders And A Conscience 30-4-1908 3-5-1908
An Ostrich In Colootola 30-4-1908 3-5-1908
I Cannot Join 30-4-1908 3-5-1908
By The Way 30-4-1908
Ideals Face To Face *1-5-1908 3-5-1908
The New Nationalism
Bibliographical Note

Location: Home > E-Library > Works Of Sri Aurobindo > English > Bande Mataram Volume-01 > Contents

Retreating to ideal communities from an imaginary past is no solution

Adam Smith on Sympathy
from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy

Adam Smith’s notion of sympathy was fundamental to his theory of moral sentiments. I. W. Berger sees it as expressing ‘supportive community behavior found in well functioning human societies’. He then restricts it to ‘communities’, when in fact for Adam Smith’s ‘theory’ to have validity, it had to function in all societies (historically and contemporary) and not just ‘in well functioning human societies’. Smith speaks of it applying in a ‘society among robbers and murderers’ too (TMS II.ii.3.3, p 86).

The essential characterisation of harmonious society is the absolute necessity of justice, not necessarilly through beneficence. It was the observation that men stand in need of ‘each others assistance’ and each is exposed to the risks of ‘mutual injury’. This is not something only applying today or in the 18th century; it is a universal truth of all ages.

Adam Smith’s point was that ‘where the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy’ but if this was a necessity for happiness, then 'society’ would be confined to a small number – it being impossible to know everybody outside of a small community in face-to-face contact...

Society exists in time and space, not in abstract equations of narrow elements of its constituent parts. ‘Mercenary exchange according to an agreed valuation’ covers a wide range of possible behaviours; humans have a long history and continuing present of exchange by plunder, fraud, force, and violence. The institution of justice is a counter-force to these behaviours. The arrest, imprisonment and heavy fines of those who breach necessary laws to preserve voluntary exchange against fraud, and such like, is evidence of a healthy society (or as healthy as it is reasonable to expect any human society, given the impossibilty of utopia) and not one that is terminally beyond repair.

Within distant societies (beyond the neighbourhood) the same conditions of sympathy operate within them. It is not a question, as implied in I. W. Berger’s understanding of Adam Smith, that our community exudes sympathy and there is a chasm between us and the rest of humanity, even the most distant. In Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith discusses the parable of a ‘man of humanity in Europe’ and an ‘Earthquake in China’ ...

In short, Smithian sympathy is of far wider applicability than merely our own personal interests and does extend to distant communities. This theme is elaborated throughout Moral Sentiments and sits at the core of Wealth Of Nations. China is no longer a distant country from anywhere else on earth. Every country is right in our homes via tv and the Internet. We see distant people in their homes too (U-tube, etc.,) and they are not abstractions. International travel abounds and we supply and consume distant products (according to mercenary valuations) and we may not even know our neighbours in the manner of our grandparents’ generations.

Of course we quarrels – sometimes violently – because humanity was ever thus, and not just with distant anonymous people – check out the tyrannies and injustice within families and neighbourhoods. We also live in relative harmony – even in celebration - with distant people. How many fans of ‘Manchester United’ have even been near Manchester? and how many weep when a distant person among celebrities, leaders, and popular figures that they do not know personally falls ill or dies? Human tragedies to distant others move millions to sympathy.

It’s not more regulation and government we need – we need better, because fewer, of both. We need fewer and better laws and certainty of punishment. We need incentives to increase participation in markets, not protection for producers in some of them and damn the consumers. Retreating to ideal communities from an imaginary past is no solution, though it may be part of the search.

Problem of attempting to squeeze 18th-century figures into a post-20th century political spectrum

Tom Paine, Edmund Burke and Adam Smith
from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy
Peter Risdon writes in Freeborn John (11 April) Freeborn John - on Burke and Paine, prompted by a recent post by Peter Ryley...

Comment: The whole post is interesting and you should read it (HERE) to cover some interesting contrasts in political philosophy between two important 18th century figures. I liked the Peter Riley sentence: ‘However dramatic their declarations of human rights, they are Tom Paines abroad but Edmund Burkes at home.’

Partly, this is a problem of attempting to squeeze 18th-century figures into a post-20th century political spectrum. Frankly, it can’t be done without rounding out rough edges and ignoring evidence of greater complexity than is covered by the revolutionary French convention, and its accidental ‘left-right divisions – the Jacobins had sat on the opposite side of the hall the labels would have been quite reversed so Marx would have been a rightwinger and Pat Buchanan a leftwinger (a theme for a playwright to work with?).

Labor is by definition finite, but potential jobs infinite

February 21, 2008
A Review of Don Boudreaux's Globalization By John Tamny

When trade is free, workers are able to specialize at one task, while letting others achieve their own comparative advantage in other areas. Closed markets retard this process in that while the average New Yorker may be good with numbers, that same person may not be good with a sewing machine. Free trade solves this in that the Wall Street analyst is able to “produce” clothing thanks to numerical and industry-specific knowledge, whereas a haberdasher over in Hong Kong is able to produce a stock portfolio through a unique ability to design the clothes that Wall Street-types want.

And there lies the problem with tariffs. Beyond impinging on the individual freedom that allows us to purchase what we want from whom we want, tariffs redirect scarce resources of the human and mineral variety into “industries where, as a group, these resources produce less value than they would produce with free trade.” Owing to the sub-optimal allocation of resources that tariffs necessitate, according to Boudreaux, “the ability of American workers, in general, to earn higher wages is thwarted by protectionism.” Simply put, tariffs allow us and sometimes force us into professions that don’t maximize our talents. Markets and consumers sniff this out, and it’s reflected in our pay... John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, and a senior economist with H.C. Wainwright Economics. He can be reached at jtamny@realclearmarkets.com 9:41 AM

Resources are more efficiently used when a population is geographically concentrated

As we have been discussing, economic freedom is central because the raw ingredients for economic development exist in India. It has a large population and considerable natural resources. Given economic freedom, people would naturally produce wealth. Liberalization—the notion that people should be economically free—is the key concept. Free people grow and realize their potential naturally...

Urbanization is a cause and consequence of economic growth and development. If you recall, I had pointed out that specialization and the division of labor increases productivity and therefore greater production. Cities allow what we call economies of scale, scope and agglomeration to occur. In other words, resources are more efficiently used when a population is geographically concentrated. Most significantly, infrastructure is cheaper to provide per capita if the population were concentrated compared to if they were dispersed. People need infrastructural services – such as power, water, telecommunications, transportation, sanitation, security, medical, entertainment, etc. – to live productive and enjoyable lives. Cities are the natural outcome of the need to provide infrastructure as efficiently as possible...

What India needs the most is for its citizens to achieve economic freedom. The people are entrepreneurial and inventive enough that they will figure out most of the problems by themselves. Education has to be freed from the control of the government.

The role of the government has to change from being a meddlesome overlord to one of facilitating development. The government has to become an institution that the people use for the provision of public goods. It has to stop attempting to control the economy because control is inimical to the creation of wealth.

India needs energy for development. The primary public good that the government has to facilitate is that of funding research and development of technologies for energy... Atanu Dey has a fantastic conversation with the spirit of Adam Smith

Like many other things he has written, equally & perhaps especially valid almost a hundred years since then

[SA] On Original Thinking By uday March 27, 2008
These are interesting times, to say the least. There are many events taking shape around the world, and certainly if this is a time for anything useful or productive, a first step would be to observe and ask questions. A myriad questions.
In this context, and before we actually dive deep -a preparation. This is an essay titled “On Original Thinking” written by Sri Aurobindo sometime between 1910-1920. But like many other things he has written, equally & perhaps especially valid almost a hundred years since then.
A minor note - at the time this was written, let’s remember - itwas Europe, generally that was the world’s center-stage, much likeAmerica is at present. So all references to Europe in the essay could potentially be broadened to include America as well to give current context.

I have tried hard to include a portion, a subset from this current of thought to include inline as part of the email, but this was not possible. Every word, every phrase has been so carefully chosen so as to almost preclude any cut & paste with obvious deterioration in the quality and manner of the thought presented.- thus the essay is left as is. Its 4 pgs, back-to-back.
If there was a way to pin up the central ideas from here and put these up at home, at work and keep them at the back of mind, I would.
More soon. The essay Topics: Uncategorized

Paine was a firm believer in a natural social order

Against Centralized Democracy from ANTIDOTE by Sauvik

Many years ago, just before the last elections, Ilana Mercer wrote a piece called “Democratic Despotism” that really shook me. Here she contrasted Rousseau with Voltaire – heaping a great deal of much-deserved abuse on the former. Jean-Jacques Rousseau embedded the weasel word “social” into political discourse with his “social contract” – and ever since the individual has been sacrificed at the altar of the collective. He exalted the role of the legislator, and it is indeed he who brought about this “democratic despotism” we suffer from today...

The problem, then, is over-centralization – a problem that both India as well as the US suffer from. Powerful central governments make a nonsense out of “democracy” because the democratic ideal is to diffuse power, not concentrate it...

If America needs a real leader in thought – which always must precede action – then the man is Lew Rockwell. His latest article, “We Don’t Need A President” should be read by all Americans – and all Indians as well. The long quote from Thomas Paine should be inscribed on all public walls, for all the people to read. Paine was one of the giants of the great American Revolution – and a firm believer in a natural social order. Lew Rockwell follows the tradition, and he has noted that I do too. Rockwell calls for canceling the elections – or putting up a president who will dissolve the central government. This is an idea India needs as well. And elections here are just a year away. We must think now.

The Aurobindian movement's larger context is colonial and postcolo­nial India

Tradition and the Rhetoric of Right: Popular Political Argument in the Aurobindo Movement by David J. Lorenzo

1 Tradition, Rhetoric, and the Aurobindo Movement
Introduction
Sightseers in the southeastern Indian coastal town of Pondicherry quickly discover the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and learn about the model city of Auroville. As the legacies of Pondicherry's most-famous moderncitizens--the revolutionary-turned-mystic Sri Aurobindo Ghose( 1872- 1950) and his collaborator, Mirra Richard (1878-1973, known asthe Mother) -- the two institutions dominate the town. The statues of the soldier-statesman Dupliex and Mohatma Gandhi may jointly overpower the seaside, but it is the heritage of Aurobindo and his yogic partner, rather than the town's unique Indo-French history and the nation's collective struggle for independence, that most colors how people view Pondicherry.
The Ashram's1 voluminous literature depicts it as a spiritual labora­tory. It is intended as a place where the practitioners of Aurobindo's yoga can experiment with human evolution. Auroville, meanwhile, is advertised as a new age, transcendent city that will spur and eventually realize humanity's evolutionary goal of unity in diversity. Where the Ashram sits four square in Pondicherry, participating in full in the political, economic, and educational establishments of that place, Auroville melds into the surrounding countryside. It is a "city" whose buildings are scattered amid the villages of rural Tamil Nadu state. Auroville has no stop lights and few motor vehicles. It possesses instead a kind of visual and auditory quiet that is an outgrowth of its Aurobindian heritage. Aurovilians, many of them veterans of the Euro-American social upheavals of the 1960s, have dedicated themselves to the attempt -13-

2 The Rhetoric of Right as Interpretation, Tradition, and Symbolic Capital
Introduction
Political Interpretation and Action
Why should we study the rhetoric of right? Of what importance is it inthe attempt to understand the political world?
Understanding the rhetoric of right gives us insight into an old maxim that has regained favor over the past few decades: that to act politically, people must first understand the world.1 Brute facts and bare economic conditions do not provide a sufficient framework for action. They may provide reasons for acting, but crucial questions remain unanswered: How do we act? What is to be done? Where do we start, with which problem? How do we solve problems? How can we be effective? What do we want to achieve? People must first interpret the world in order to know what action to take.
For example, consider the situation in India at the turn of the century. Brute facts pointed to a troubled existence for Indians. The subcontinent had just experienced a series of severe famines. Religious unrest was on the rise. Crime was also rising, while there was no sign that education was doing likewise. What was one to do? Several options were open to Indians, among which were: 1) to do nothing, and trust that the British would solve the problem; 2) to cooperate with the British; and 3) to resist the British. Now the question became how to choose. And this is where the act of interpreting the world became important, because it was the foundation for different choices. Some Indians examined the facts, -24-

3 Texts in Context
Not only did Sri Aurobindo expose the deficiencies and errors of the Congress, but his political knowledge and insight led him to predict the dire consequences of its half-hearted and opportunistic policies upon the teem­ing, sweating, and starving masses of the Indian people, driven to despera­tion by ravaging famines and oppressive law and levies of the [British]government. -- A follower of Aurobindo, writing on the centennial of Aurobindo's birth
Introduction
In order to understand and fully appreciate a rhetoric of right, one must put the texts that constitute that rhetoric into the contexts of time and place. It is only by grasping political and historical environments that one can detect the nuances of textual invocation that come into play when participants use a rhetoric of right to defend and further their interests within the discourse community. In a sense, one must attempt to understand the world as it is seen through the eyes of the participants. Otherwise the observer is tempted to impose his or her own understand­ing of concepts and arguments onto invocations, thus losing a real appre­ciation of their power. Of course, seeing the world through the eyes of participants does not necessarily mean agreeing with their political agenda.
The Aurobindian movement's larger context is colonial and postcolo­nial India. In their own fashion, Aurobindian texts answer in succession the important questions taken up by both Indian political leaders and the rank and file during the past ninety years: How should Indians respond to -44-

4 Cosmology: Mysticism,The Evolution of Consciousness, and Freedom
Many societies see nowadays the rebirth of an aggressive fundamentalism or a conservative purism to halt indulgence and a laissez-faire attitude which institute themselves little by little in the name of tolerance. Not to fallinto this trap--this is the challenge every new society has to take up,especially if it wants to bring about in man a change in the level ofconsciousness. -- Yanne, "Credo,"Auroville Today 26 ( February 1991): 3
Systems are tempting; there is gratification in keeping things in order. Computers are really good for that; humans, since they're given the oppor­tunity of not being plugged into wall sockets, should try something else. -- François, "Defining Ourselves,"Auroville Today 20 ( August 1990): 1
Introduction
Chapter 3 introduced the Aurobindo movement by tracing its general texts within the context of Indian politics. Chapter 4 begins an analysis of the particular texts that form the discourse from which the Aurobindian rhetoric of right is derived. This analysis explores the three sources of symbolic capital described in chapter 2--cosmology, the virtues and example of founders and heroes, and history.
This chapter begins with a description of cosmology in general as a source of symbolic capital, then moves to a description of the text of -103-

5 The Description and Authority of Founders and Heroes: Aurobindo and the Mother as Mosaic Mediators
[The Mother] was not terribly impressed when questioned about more rigidand now computer-aided organizational methods that most modern systems have relied on in the past to get results. "This is a makeshift," she said,"which we should tolerate only very temporarily." And later in the same exchange, she said that "an organization is needed for the work to be done--but the organization itself must be flexible and progressive." --Sun-Word Rising
Introduction
Chapter 4 began the analysis of the sources of tradition in political rhetoric. We saw that, for the Aurobindo movement, problems identified by cosmology were conceptualized in terms of egoism, that the resolu­tion of all problems necessitated a change of consciousness, and that human success was measured in the movement to a state of being wherein political structures are replaced by an organic and flexible mode of organization founded on an intuitive self-discipline. In the cosmologi­cal texts of the movement, symbolic capital is contained in the concepts of consciousness and evolution.
Here, we turn to texts containing the description and authority of founders and heroes as another source of tradition. We shall see that, for the Aurobindo movement, the solution to problems, understood to -150-

6 History: The Path to the Promised Land
Today's trend of individuals and working groups managing and directing their own affairs has probably turned out to be the most positive develop­ment in Auroville's administrative structure in the last years. First, because who is in a better position to decide what to do than those who have taken up the particular responsibility? And second, but equally important, the increased concentration on one's own work makes it all the more difficult to meddle in other people's concerns." -- François Grenier, "Decision-Making in Auroville, "Auroville Today 16 ( April 1990):6

Introduction
In the previous two chapters, we examined the role of cosmology and of portrayals of founders and heroes in the rhetoric of right. Along the way, we have seen how cosmology creates symbolic capital that can be used in the rhetoric of right by defining the core human problems at the root of every situation, and dictating the correct epistemology, ontology, and methodology to be used in identifying and understanding those problems. Likewise, we have examined how descriptions of founders and heroes define a range of preferred solutions to problems by identifying and describing the authority and example of respected persons. In this chapter, we will explore the role of history in creating symbolic capital relating to the right "ends" of the community.

8 Summary and Applications
Summary
Before moving on to give examples of how we may apply this study ofthe rhetoric of right to the larger field of political analysis, we should summarize the general results derived from this particular case study.
First we saw that the rhetoric of right provides taken-for-granted prin­ciples, descriptions, and calculations linked to a discursively constructed conceptualization of the common good that people use to judge the "rightness" of policy. Those taken-for-granted elements are embedded in a discourse that conceptualizes the common good as part of a general response to problems thrown up by particular contexts. Here, Aurobindo and his followers created a discourse as a means of responding to the problems of colonial and postcolonial India. Those problems included the worth of Indian culture and spirituality in an empire that took Western rationality as the highest form of knowledge, the status of individuals in a traditional culture that assigned women and certain castes to inferior status, the relationship between two religious traditions that simultaneously aimed for the highest values and sank to legitimizing intimidation and violence, and the authority and role of leaders in a soon to be independent country in which Western and traditional models were both present and to a degree discredited. What emerged was a set of texts that conceptualized the common good in terms of the need to evolve spiritually, the duty to be flexible and open to the mystical forces present in contexts, and the goal of a synthetic joining of human cultures in ananarchic "unity in diversity." In turn, those texts were passed down through time in the form of a cosmology, a celebration of the example and authority of leaders and founders, and a secular history.

Notes Tradition, Rhetoric, and the Aurobindo Movement The word "ashram" corresponds roughly to "monastery," but as we shall see below, it does not always carry all the connotations of that Western concept. In general, the word refers to a group of people who live together in order collectively to live a spiritual life. In turn, members of an ashram are usually termed "ashramites" or "sadhaks" (the followers of a spiritual discipline or"sadhana"). Some political analysts have usefully examined the substance, but not the power, of rhetoric as a tool of persuasion. See for example, David Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation( Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986). One of the few exceptions to the general neglect of rhetoric as argument is Albert O. Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy ( Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991). Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power ( New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 555. By "right," I do not mean the strict philosophical definition confined to deontolog­ical modes of argument. As will become apparent in the course of this book, the rhetoric of right can be used in the contexts of both deontological and teleological arguments--and thus in arguments concerning both "right" and "good." Rather, Imean "right" here in the more general sense of "correct," "accurate," and"appropriate." In this sense, contemporary conservatives' identification of a mode of argument and political analysis that they dub "political correctness" is the idenU3tification of a variant of the general American rhetoric of right whose generalapplication they oppose. Conservatives acknowledge the power of this rhetorical variant in its ability to link arguments with a supposedly "correct" view of things,but they disagree as to the "correctness" of that view. The ultimate result, of course, is normative theory based on the analytic, decontex­tualized depiction of politics. The most famous, and egregious, of these are John Rawls, A Theory of Justice ( Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of the HarvardUniversity Press, 1971), and Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia ( NewYork: Basic Books, 1974). See Murray Edelman, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana:.University of IllinoisPress, 1964). 11:49 AM

The Human Cycle; The Ideal of Human Unity; War and Self-Determination

Books › "Sri Aurobindo"
25. The Supramental Manifestation & Other Writings by Sri Aurobindo and Sa Ashram (Hardcover - Dec 1998)
Buy new: $18.95 14 Used & new from $14.88 Other Editions: Paperback
26. Foundations of Indian Culture: the Indian Edition by Aurobindo Sri (Hardcover - Dec 1, 1998)
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27. Psychic Education : A Workbook ; A Based on the Writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by Sri Aurobindo (Paperback - 2001)
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28. The Human Cycle; The Ideal of Human Unity; War and Self-Determination by Sri Aurobindo (Hardcover - 1971)
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29. Sri Aurobindo On Himself and On the Mother by Sri Aurobindo (Hardcover - 1953)
1 Used & new from $40.00
30. The Riddle of This World by Sri Aurobindo (Paperback - Dec 1989)
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31. Ausbildung im Einzelhandel. Einzelhandelsprozesse. Bayern. Materialienband by Sri Aurobindo (Paperback - Dec 31, 2006)
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32. The Bhagavad Gita With Text, Translation : Commentary in the Words of Sri Aurobindo by Sri Aurobindo (Hardcover - Jan 1, 2006)
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33. The Human Cycle; The Ideal of Human Unity; War and Self-Determination by Sri Aurobindo (Paperback - Dec 1985)
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34. Life Divine Volume 2 by Sri Aurobindo (Hardcover - 1944)
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35. The Message of the Gita by Sri Aurobindo (Hardcover - 1946)
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36. The Secret of the Veda by Sri Aurobindo (Hardcover - Dec 1982)
3 Used & new from $29.95
Other Editions: Hardcover, Paperback

Self interest is not a catchall synonym for something that always has ‘positive’ outcomes

"Earth Hour" and the Dark Ages (by Don Boudreaux) from Cafe Hayek by Don Boudreaux

I sent the following letter to Carter Roberts, President of the WWF:
Dear Mr. Roberts:
You and members of your organization worry that industrialization and economic growth are harming the earth's environment. I worry that the intensifying hysteria about the state of the environment - and that the resulting hostility to economic growth - might harm humankind's prospects for comfortable, healthy, enjoyable, and long lives.
So I commend you on your "Earth Hour" effort. Persuading people across the globe to turn off lights for one hour will supply the perfect symbol for modern environmentalism: a collective effort to return humankind to the dark ages.
Sincerely, Donald J. Boudreaux

***

Correct Vision of Outsourcing (though not about Adam Smith) from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy

I agree that ‘self-interest is tied to creation, not preservation’ if this means that self interest should be tied to innovation. That it isn’t underlines my remarks in the previous post that self interest is not a catchall synonym for something that always has ‘positive’ outcomes.

Unless we realise this, unlike the Chicago epigones who have created a different Adam Smith than the man born in Kirkcaldy, we could make errors in equating a business person’s, any and every business person’s, behaviours and actions as being in the best interests of society. They may be and should be so but the evidence suggests they are not always so.

Youth should follow the path of Sri Aurobindo's political fervour, cultural depth and spiritual evolution

`Sri Aurobindo embodies national spirit' TOI 19 Aug 2001 allahabad:

Sri Aurobindo embodied the true spirit of nationalism surcharged with spirituality. yet divisive forces might prevent the fulfilment of his prophecy that "partition will (have to) go," stated prof g c pandey. pandey, chairman of allahabad museum society, made his views known as the chief guest on the occasion of seminar on `indian nationalism and sri aurobindo,' as part of the prophet's 129th birth anniversary which recurs on the independence day. the well known historian dwelt at length on sri aurobindo as nationalist and revolutionary par excellence, during the early years of the freedom struggle. indian nationalism is no ordinary geography or politics but combines sanatan dharma and spirituality.

Quoting scriptures and sri aurobindo, mr g c tripathi, an erudite sanskrit scholar, pertinently pointed out that sri aurobindo's concept of nationalism is both international and humanitarian. in his key note address, the scholar said imbibing of eternal values by the present generation is fast declining and resulting in erosion of nationalism. tripathi quoted sri aurobindo: "indian nationalism will fulfill an international spirit and outlook and international forms and institutions will grow." this he concluded, is the concept of indian nationalism. in his presidential address, prof k b pande, chairman u p public service commission, exhorted youth to follow the path of sri aurobindo's political fervour, cultural depth and spiritual evolution. he urged them to start thinking for the welfare of the society and the nation. otherwise the country might disintegrate at the hands of `pseudo-secularists' and midget -politicians. the nation is a living entity, it must be worshipped and adored. everything else is of secondary value, concluded prof pande.

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Sri Aurobindo birth anniversary on Aug 15 TOI 13 Aug 2001, allahabad:

A seminar on "indian nationalism and sri aurobindo" is being organised by the centre at annie besant hall, theosophical society, lowther road, on august 15 at 5.15 pm. secretary of allahabad centre of 'sri aurobindo society, prof awdhesh agnihotri said the seminar is being organised to celebrate sri aurobindo's 129th birthday and 54th birth anniversary which falls on the independence day. noted historian prof gc pandey, who is also chairs allahabad museum will grace the ocassion. prof k b pande, chairman, uppsc, will preside over the function. the key speaker and guest of honour would be prof n k sanyal, vc, rajarshi tandon open university, erudite, sanskrit scholar dr gaya charan tripathi, principal pt. ganga nath jha sanskrit vidyapeeth would be the other illustorious speaker.

The citizen should find himself in perfect liberty to engage in the capitalistic exchanges

Columns by Sauvik Chakraverti Antidote: A politics to end politics

Politics as a means to using government action should be resorted to in only exceptional cases. There should be a list of what the government must do, and also a list of what it must not do — with no discretion whatsoever for the politician.

We in India need to embark upon ‘a politics to end politics’. We need political rule over our cities, and this should be our first goal. But this free, civic politics should be circumscribed to the basics (garbage, roads, police) and in each cosmopolis the citizen should find himself in perfect liberty to engage continuously and relentlessly in the processes of capitalistic exchanges. After all, the ancients said that the Four Ends of Man are dharma, artha, kama and moksha. Let us not add ‘politics’ to the list.

The writer is the author of Antidote: Essays Against the Socialist Indian State and its sequel, Antidote2: For Liberal Governance
Others. Holmes rolls in Goa . Do we need socialism? . My 115th dream . ‘Competition is liberty’ . When freedom comes first . A global agenda? . A huge slum? . Role of the Indian Left . The real outlaws . A natural social order . The purpose of politics . Building a merchant ship . Raising the civic sword . A natural order exists . Riches for the poor . The real apes . Bureaucrats and chairocrats . End to central planning . The scourge of math . A teenage wasteland . Real histories, please . Knowledge: why less is more . A case for liberalism . The big catch out there! . The navel and the WTO antidote

It is the international form of the fundamental elements of Indian culture

All the energies of the leaders were taken up by the freedom movement. Only a few among them attempted to see beyond the horizon of political freedom some ideal of human perfection; for, after all, freedom is not the ultimate goal but a condition for the expression of the cultural Spirit of India. In Swami Shraddhananda, Pandit Madan-mohan Malavia, Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi—to name some leaders—we see the double aspect of the inspiration.

Among all the visions of perfection of the human Spirit on earth, I found the synthetic and integral vision of Sri Aurobindo the most rational and the most satisfying. It meets the need of the individual and collective life of man today. It is the international form of the fundamental elements of Indian culture. It is, as Dr. S. K. Maitra says, the message which holds out hope in a world of despair.

This aspect of Sri Aurobindo's vision attracted me as much as the natural affinity which I had felt on seeing him. I found on making a serious study of the Arya that it led me to very rational conclusions with regard to the solutions of the deepest problems of life.

EVENING TALKS with SRI AUROBINDO FIRST SERIES Recorded by A. B. PURANI
Publisher: SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM TRUST PONDICHERRY
All Rights Reserved First Edition — December 1959 Second Edition — July 1970 PRICE : Rs. 15.00
PRINTED BY: KAIVALYA SHAH AT LIPINI PRINTERY 380, GIROAUM ROAD, BOMBAY-2.

Politics is perhaps the noblest of all endeavors because it is about reconciling the limited resources with unlimited wants

Dr. JP Calls Upon the Brightest to Enter Politics
from Jayaprakash Narayan's Blog by JP
Lok Satta Party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan (Dr. JP) has underlined the need for ensuring that the best of people enter politics since never before in India’s history the opportunities for resolving people’s problems are as many as they are today...

Dr. JP said large sections of people feel that everybody in government -- politicians, bureaucrats, judges -- is a scoundrel -- and generalize that all rotten people in the country go into politics and all good people stay back. “Shunning politics and public office with such notions is, however, unwarranted and irrational. There are some very fine people in government just as there are very fine people in other walks of life. It is, therefore, absurd to conclude that scoundrels enter government and saints stay away”.

“Politics is perhaps the noblest of all endeavors because it is about reconciling the limited resources with unlimited wants, and reconciling seemingly irreconcilable conflicts among various groups in society, particularly in a very diverse and complex society. Without governments many things that are vital cannot be done.

“But unfortunately, politics has become the playfield of people who do not deserve to be there. Some are there because of their pedigree while many are there because of their money power or caste or muscle power. Strange circumstances catapult some others into high office.

“Such leaders rule the roost not because Indian people are stupid or irrational but because the problem is systemic. In the past 25 or 30 years, we have created disincentives for the right kind of people, and huge incentives for the wrong kind people, to enter politics”.

Dr. JP pointed out that there are answers to most problems. “Leadership is about identifying those answers, leveraging our strengths, and dramatically transforming the situation in the shortest possible time”.

Dr. JP added that great changes in history all over the world had been wrought only when middle classes, the elite and the media joined hands, built appropriate platforms and launched concerted movements. “Do not expect the masses to be at the forefront of historical changes.”. Dr. JP specifically dwelt on certain sectors, which call for transformational leadership.

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Emotional and Ethical Dwarfs (by Don Boudreaux)
from Cafe Hayek by Don Boudreaux
Speaking of all-too-many successful politicians, David Brooks -- in his New York Times column today -- notes that "their sensitivity synapses are still performing at preschool levels" and that they "have an almost limitless capacity for self-pity."

In other words, politicians are children disguised as adults - persons who ought to be playing with wooden blocks while seated at their little desks in Romper Room rather than playing with our liberties and resources while seated at their mahogany desks within marble-domed monuments to their stupid power.

The secular/communal divide is a fissure that runs within most citizens

Home > Edits & Columns > COLUMN Why the idea of Modi wins
Pratap Bhanu Mehta Indian Express: Monday, December 24, 2007
The worrying trend for our democracy is that Modi is yet another symptom of our yearning for a politics that is anti-political.

Modi has created a new paradigm in Indian politics, whose ramifications will be felt for years to come. Modi’s win calls for a serious reflection on the so-called secular/communal divide.

• Why does secular politics carry less credibility than it ought to?
• Why does secularism remain a mere slogan, a straw that bends in every wind?

Part of the reason is that the secular/communal divide is not, as the Congress would like to believe, a divide between two species of Indian citizens: one secular and one communal. It is a fissure that runs within most citizens, rather than between them.

• On the one hand, there is an easy acceptance of diversity, a discomfort with a politics that is too polarising, and an acknowledgment of modern constitutional values.
• On the other, there is group competition, a sense of incomplete nationhood for which someone must be held responsible, and fear.

What gains the upper hand in our psychic economies, is a product of a complex politics. Managing this contradictory psychic complex requires, as Gandhi understood better than anyone else, a subtle therapeutic politics.

But such subtlety is beyond the Congress. It too has acquired a deep investment in a politics of competitiveness amongst groups. It has exacerbated a paradigm of citizenship where caste and religion, rather than becoming irrelevant to people’s rights and opportunities, become more central to their self-understanding. And it projects opportunism rather than trust.

Secular politics India has become an astonishing combination of imbecility, indecision and indolence. With Modi now becoming a preeminent figure in national politics, the risks of running with the Congress’s construal of what constitutes secular politics are even higher... In politics, if the contest is between sincerity and an utter lack of trustworthiness, the former will always have an advantage even if tied to an unsavoury cause.

Anilbaran Roy and A.B. Patel: plea for human unity

The Labor Government in Britain was made an instrument. Lord Attlee, who voluntarily gave freedom to India, had high hopes that a free India would play a great part in world affairs. After Independence he thrice came to India and appealed to the people and the Government to bring a resolution in the UN General Assembly for turning itself into a World State with the constituent nations as equal members and an international Army for preserving World Peace. He confidently declared that if India brought such resolution, it would be passed unanimously. But Pandit Nehru did not agree… Unless we clearly see the destiny and mission of the nation as visioned by Sri Aurobindo and consciously move in the direction of its fulfilment the crises will be there…

It is, therefore, hoped that the wisdom will dawn on the Indian mind and the people of India without further delay and inviting another and more engulfing crisis will see the Divine Will in the present one and move in accordance with it to re-unite India so that united India, inspired by the ideals of Sri Aurobindo, may truly serve herself and the world -- Anilbaran Roy [The Future Vision of Sri Aurobindo by Om Poorna Swatantra. Sringara Prakashana, Chikkanayabanahally, Karnataka. Pages 154. 1972] ANILBARAN ROY. Extension Lecturer, Sri Aurobindo International University Centre, Pondicherry. Formerly Professor of Philosophy, West Bengal. Sometime member of the Bengal Legislative Council. Author of: The Gītā; The Message of the Gītā as Interpreted by Sri Aurobindo (editor); Mother India; The World Crisis; Songs from the Soul; India's Mission in the World; Sri Aurobindo and the New Age; and several books in Bengali. 5:52 PM

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To understand and grasp the most important aspect of Sri Aurobindo’s message we have to remind ourselves that we are living on an evolutionary planet… Earth has continuously manifested new forms, new principles of existence, and new forms of consciousness, and will continue to do so. Modern science and technology have set in motion a revolution bringing rapid and radical changes in outer conditions. The potentialities of the future cannot be judged by what has happened in the past. The potentialities of the future also cannot be judged by what exists today in earthly life…

Sri Aurobindo foresaw that a time will come when man realizes human unity and creates new conditions for the transformation of human consciousness and the advent of a spiritual society. -- A.B. Patel [The Future Vision of Sri Aurobindo by Om Poorna Swatantra. Sringara Prakashana, Chikkanayabanahally, Karnataka. Pages 154. 1972]

Not out of a mere surface sentiment of love and sympathy

To live an inner life does not mean imprisonment within the four walls of one’s personal self; on the contrary, it is the first step towards a true universality. It brings to us the truth of ourselves as well as the truth of other selves, for this inner living can penetrate the life of all much more thoroughly than any surface consciousness can do. It is for this reason that in the gnostic or divine being, in the gnostic or divine life, there is a complete and intimate knowledge of the self of others, a complete and intimate knowledge of their mind, life, physical being. This enables the gnostic being to act not out of a mere surface sentiment of love and sympathy, but out of this full and intimate knowledge of other selves…

Well, the solution is that given in the last chapter of The Life Divine. Live your true inner life, for that is the first step towards the divine life. That will be the best way to create a life of unity, mutuality and harmony. -- An introduction to the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo by S.K. Maitra Publisher: The Culture Publishers (1941) 73 pages, Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publications Department (1993)

We are terribly confused by money...Our folk heroes are still the billionaires who travel economy class

Home Views Editorials Big Idea The fortune tellers
Third Eye Barkha Dutt Email Author HT March 07, 2008

We are enamoured of belonging to the country with the largest number of billionaires in Asia. But our eyes glaze over if you lecture us on how three hundred million of us still live on less than a dollar a day. Despite politically correct gripes, I don’t think this seeming callousness is necessarily the result of neo-liberal capitalism. Nor do I believe that the tyranny of the free market has created an invisible dictatorship of wealth. On the contrary, in ways that we don’t fully understand yet, new wealth is playing challenger to old class monopolies, liberating some of us, and pushing others into paranoid insecurity. And perhaps we don’t respond as passionately as we should to alarming statistics of poverty because many of us have spent decades shrugging off the global stereotype of India as a land of cows, beggars and naked fakirs. Hence, the childish and competitive vindication at stacking up billionaires and millionaires — this is our chance to buy Bond Street on the Monopoly board game of globalisation.

The fact is that we are terribly confused by money. Our cultural response to wealth remains schiz-ophrenic and marked by all sorts of contradictions. This is probably because this is an India still evolving and adjusting to the social aftermath of economic reforms.

Many of us grew up on the other side of 1991, in pre-liberalisation India, and today we are caught smack in the middle of a society in flux. For those of us who still remember, this was an India where the only car most of us owned was an Ambassador or Fiat. McDonalds and Pizza Hut hadn’t yet come to a multiplex near you. With their imported Pajeros and BMWs, countries like Pakistan seemed more western, and thus, in those days, more modern. A trip outside India was by definition a gigantic shopping expedition and we thought malls with escalators existed only in the movies. Mobile phones hadn’t yet infiltrated our every waking moment and chocolates lugged back from Heathrow seemed like grand gifts to dole out to relatives who may never be lucky enough to get onto a plane.
It may sound unreal today, but back then, ‘elite’ was an intellectual construct rather than a monetary one. And influence and opinion was controlled by a charmed circle of bureaucrats, artistes, professionals, and of course, by politicians.

In our sepia-tinted memories we were somehow culturally superior to today’s brash, ambitious, big-bucks and blackberry generation of India. But, perhaps this is the sort of sentimental claptrap only lazy nostalgia can permit. Could it be that we were not ostentatious because both how we made our money and how we could spend it (right down to how many dollars we would sneak out in foreign exchange) was controlled by the government? We like to say that we only spent our money on books and music, but aren’t we imbuing ourselves with a supercilious superiority? What we don’t say is who you knew back then possibly mattered much more than what you read. Power and influence were contained and controlled within a tiny circle that doled it out occasionally in morsels of patronage. And the stranglehold of government control meant that if you didn’t want to bribe your way through the maze of restrictions, wealth could only be inherited, never created.

There is some irony to the fact that the man who defined economic change in India — Manmohan Singh — had to appeal to last year against “vulgar spending”. The PM’s own spartan lifestyle has happily co-existed with an economic philosophy driven by wealth-creation. But not everybody knows how to manage or understand that paradox and today’s India is struggling to find the middle ground between aspiration and austerity.
There are still lingering (and not necessarily dark) shadows of the Old India. We have grudging admiration for the ruthless and covert battles that corporate giants fight in the IPO war zone, but our deepest respect is still reserved for business houses that don’t pay bribes. We marvel at the glitz and glamour of the Big Fat Indian wedding, but our folk heroes are still the billionaires who choose to travel economy class. We salivate at the thought of driving and owning a Jaguar but are irrationally swept away by the notion of a ‘people’s car’. We are awestruck and even envious of personal wealth, but our heroes belong to corporations where the company peon had a chance to treble his wealth as well. We celebrate wealth, but still value accomplishment over money.

So, as we go gaga over the latest Forbes list, let’s celebrate by all means. But let’s celebrate because all four men on the global list of the super-rich are men who for the most part, built or expanded their own empires, crawling and climbing their way up. None of them were born to money (not even the Ambanis in the strictest sense). And if they can get here, so can the rest of us. It’s this can-do spirit that the New India is so excited about. Barkha dutt is Managing Editor, NDTV 24x7

The propensity to truck, barter, and exchange goes back into pre-history

Markets Are At the Core of All Human Relationships
from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy

The fact is that markets long preceded capitalism, a point completely missed by Karl Polanyi (‘The Great Transformation', 1944), who considered markets to be part of the title of his book and occurring only in mid-19th century, is well established by Adam Smith (among many others, contemporaries and those who preceded him) and by modern research (see Morris Silver, Economic Structures of Antiquity, Greenwood Press, 1995, ‘Markets in antiquity: the challenge of the evidence’ pp 95-177).

That several respectable modern authors have followed Karl Polanyi’s theory is regrettable.

Adam Smith recognised markets as being an ancient institution, indeed, he was for some reason more accurate than he realised (or than Polanyi gave him credit) when he introduced in Wealth Of Nations that most prescient of ideas, that describes his iconic statement of ‘the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange’:

‘Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature, of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to enquire’ (WN I.ii.2. p 25).

Exchange, individual, bilateral, and social goes back into pre-history and covers markets in language development, ideas, and knowledge, law and justice, customs, modes of living and subsistence, moral sentiments, international relations and, in fact, all aspects of human relations.

***

'Holey Moley' and Myth of the Invisible Hand
from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy by Gavin Kennedy... I do have fairly strong views on the use of the metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’, as readers of Lost Legacy will recognize...

I hope that we may reach a situation where the misuse, misattribution and misleading promotion of the metaphor is sidelined in economics at an early date. Failing that goal, I hope that its automatic tagging as an idea of Adam Smith’s is at least neutralized in the near future, which presently gives a respectable cover for modern economists to accord it an authority that it does not deserve, without realizing how ridiculous they make themselves amidst their insistence of their claims to the status of a science.

Nobody has yet accounted for the invisible hand in their use of it in markets, nor how it is alleged to operate as a disembodied body part, nor even what it adds to the theory of markets. Adam Smith knew better than to make such a claim for the metaphor, which he used to

• a) describe as ‘pusillanimous superstition’ by pagan savages (History of Astronomy);
• b) to give literary flair to the behaviour of rich landlords feeding the ‘thousands they employed’ and their families (they could do no other and survive themselves) (Moral Sentiments), and
• c) to refer to the risk-avoidance by domestic merchants (Wealth Of Nations).

In none of the only three cases in which he used the metaphor of the invisible hand did he include its use in his theory of markets.