When India was under colonial rule, the official policy of the British government was to regard the social and religious spheres as "apolitical". Thus censorship and legal action were restricted to other spheres of life that were regarded as political. This meant that religious metaphors were often used to convey political messages to the masses, since they were safe from action by officials. Even though the vast majority of people were illiterate, these messages were comprehensible to them but the rulers had no idea what was being said. The political ideas that were implied in these religious messages were spread through the press, popular images and talks.
The Mahabharata, having many parables and fables, became a favourite medium for spreading political messages. The Gita forms the central drama of the Mahabharata. It takes the form of a dialogue between its hero, Arjuna, and his divine charioteer, Krishna. This conversation occurs in the no-man’s-land between opposing armies, where Arjuna has halted his chariot to wonder at the senselessness of a war that requires the killing of his relatives, friends and teachers. Krishna’s role in the dialogue that follows is to rouse Arjuna to action by preaching to him the doctrine of acting out of duty alone, without the desire for any particular result.
The Gita was not widely read in India till it was re-discovered in the colonial period, thanks to the interest it had generated among different sections of European and American readership. Though other ancient texts, like the Arthashastra might vie with the Gita in terms of international celebrity as a text of political philosophy, only the latter became a source for Indians. Modern interpretations of the Gita have focussed on war and violence, rather than peace and stability. Tilak, Aurobindo, and many other so-called Extremists tended to justify their actions by quoting the Gita.
In 1915, while he was in prison at Mandalay, Burma, Tilak wrote Shrimad Bhagvad Gita Rahasya, a Marathi language book. In Political Thought in Action: The Bhagavad Gita and Modern India, the authors say that it is the analysis of Karmayoga which finds its source in the Bhagavad Gita. According to Tilak, the real message behind the Bhagavad Gita is Nishkam Karmayoga (selfless action), rather than Karma Sanyasa (renouncing of actions), which had become the popular message of Gita after Adi Shankara. He defended action, even violence, as long the action was selfless i.e. without personal interest or motive.
In his commentary, Tilak focused on the themes of sacrifice and detached action as the key. He opposed all interpretations that concluded that knowledge or devotion were the ideal paths to self-realisation and freedom. According to him, the pursuits of knowledge or devotion, while worthwhile in themselves, left the central dilemma of the Gita unresolved - whether or not to kill one's kinsmen. While he accepted the virtue of truth and non-violence, he marked out exceptions. "Forgiveness in all cases or war-likeness in all cases is not the proper thing", he said.
When Tilak mentions the anti-hero Duryodana, it is to point out his utter failure to sacrifice his self-interest which brought about the war. He criticised Hobbs, arguing that the latter's concept of sacrifice for the sake of another person’s interest was merely a "long-sighted variety of selfishness". Tilak's ideal person was a warrior who was identified by his ability to act without desire. But the detachment was not that of a celibate monk but of a person who was engaged with the world. He debunked renunciation which had long been idealised in the Indian tradition.
His ideal person did not call for a submission to the prevalent norms but fought for the suspension of these norms during exceptional events like famine or war. Like Arjuna, he is prepared to kill in order to restore the moral order. Even before writing about the Gita, Tilak had said that "political questions are all Kshatriya [warrior] questions." Tilak's Gita was a call to recognise and declare colonial India a state of exception where what was practised in normal times had to be suspended.
Gandhi’s initial differences about the interpretation of the Gita was with Savarkar and other revolutionaries he had met in London at the start of the twentieth century. He was not willing to accept an interpretation of the Gita that argued for violence and warfare as part of a political strategy. Gita was his most treasured scripture but even to this text, he consciously gave his own interpretation. He contended that the Gita was not about the ethic of war but about the ethic of right action. He said:
The author of the Mahabharata has not established the necessity of physical warfare; on the contrary he has proved its futility.
One major problem that Gandhi constantly wrestled with was the worth and authority of scriptures. Although he valued the writings, he rejected any fundamentalist interpretations of it. He did not view the scriptures of any religion to be beyond moral scrutiny. He viewed them as human creations that had to be interrogated. If the text contradicted his lived experience, he rejected it. He thought that the scriptures must be interpreted according to the needs of society as it evolved. What in the scriptures did not accord with reason could not be accepted. Every claim made on behalf of revelation should be capable of being tested "on the anvil of truth with the hammer of compassion".
No comments:
Post a Comment