Today I will relate to you an episode of Tantric history – an episode which has almost been lost.
In that early phase of human civilization, there were more rifts and clashes among the different clans and tribes than there are today. It was therefore safer for human beings to live on hills. The hills on which people used to live were called gotras in Vedic Sanskrit. So if a person called Ráma lived on a certain hill, the hill was called “Rámagotra”. Prior to that [patriarchal system], each hill was ruled by a gotramátá, or clan mother.
(Traces of the matrilineal order and matriarchal social system can be found even today in south India, especially in Kerala, Mizoram and some other hilly regions of eastern India.)
Those people who lived on the same hill under a common patriarch lived just like brothers and sisters. However, they considered the members of other hill communities to be their deadly enemies. And since all on one hill were brothers and sisters, they could not marry among themselves. So what would they do in order to marry? One clan would defeat a neighbouring clan in battle, and they would forcibly drag the vanquished women, with hands bound, back to their own hill for a life of domestic servitude. The males of the defeated clan were utilized as slaves.
So even today women bear the mark of servitude by wearing iron bangles on their wrists, thus giving the impression that they have been vanquished; they still use the vermilion which originally symbolized bloodshed; they still tie the gánt́chaŕá after marriage, which symbolizes their being forcibly carried away;
In olden times, when the Aryans came to India, there was no compact social order in the land of India. The population of India consisted of small or big tribes of Austric, Dravidian and Mongolian origin. An absolutely different race (Caucasian Aryans) [Mediterranean Aryans from Caucasia] came to India. They brought with them the Vedic lifestyle and language; and the Vedic administration, social order and methods of warfare. They began to use the derogatory word Anárya [non-Aryan] for all the indigenous people of India. Slowly India was divided into two clearly different mental structures. One was the sentiment born of the vanity of the victorious Aryans, and the other was the sentiment created by the inferiority complex of the vanquished non-Aryans. Thus, two nations were formed in India the Aryans and the non-Aryans
Years rolled on. As a result of contact with the non-Aryans, the Vedic language of the Aryans underwent a change. Different regional languages came into existence. All efforts to avoid blood relations between the Aryans and the non-Aryans proved futile. Racial blending between the Aryans and the non-Aryans took place.
Gradually the non-Aryans were accepted as Shúdras or the fourth group in Aryan society, and as a result of this social blending both the Aryan sentiment and the non-Aryan sentiment lost their respective specialities. These two nations died out with the weakening of the two sentiments which had caused the formation of the Aryan and the non-Aryan nations. In other words, India again became nationless.
In this nationless age, or age of chaos, the Buddhist upheaval in India occurred….Towards the end of the Buddhist period, two nations, roughly speaking, were to be found in India one based on Buddhist sentiment, and the other on anti-Buddhist sentiment…The new sentiment, known as the Sanátanii or Bráhmańya [Brahmanical] religion, which came into existence with the cooperation of Shankaracharya and the patronage of various non-Buddhist kings, was based on anti-Buddhist feelings. This is why, after the death of the Buddhist nation, the Brahmanical nation could not last long. Again India became nationless.
But as ill luck would have it, when India became nationless for the second time after the demise of the Buddhist and the Brahmanical nations, there was no internal revolution. Instead there was the Muslim invasion from outside.
Thus two nations were formed the victorious Muslim sentiment based on the Persian language created one nation, while the Hindu sentiment based on the Sanskrit language created another. These two nations existed for a long time side by side in India.
The Hindus and the Muslims began to treat each other as brothers and sisters. The Muslim sentiment of the Muslims weakened beyond expectation. With the disappearance of both sentiments, both the Hindu and Muslim nations died. India became nationless for the third time.
And when India had become nationless for the third time, the British incursion into India began.(5) The British very easily conquered the nationless India.
After conquering India they started their machinery of exploitation in full swing, and formed a strong government to facilitate exploitation…The whole of India was united on the basis of an anti-British exploitation sentiment. This was the first time that all India had formed a nation. The English language served as the unifying link in India.
An Indian nation developed as a result of the British, though they did not intend it. India, which had been split up into hundreds of parts, became united in the form of a country or a nation, which had never occurred in the past…From time immemorial India had been divided into many kingdoms. Each had its own history. Neither the Pandavas, nor Ashoka, nor Kanishka, nor Samudragupta could form one government throughout India. But the British did.
While it is undeniable that Mahatma Gandhi awakened mass consciousness, he did not channelize this awakened mass consciousness along the path of struggle. Rather, the so-called originality of all his principles and policies was directed into a negative and passive movement which was averse to struggle.
On the other hand, the style of functioning of Subhash Chandra Bose was just the opposite. He wanted to make the best utilization of the available opportunities. To state it more clearly… he wanted to strike at the enemy while the iron was hot. This strategy was the basis of the conflict between his style of working and that of other contemporary leaders.
In fact, the contest between Subhash Bose and Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramaiya for the Congress Presidency in the All India Congress Committee was a contest between these two styles of functioning. Subhash Bose never allowed this question of the difference between himself and Gandhi to interfere in their personal relationship. Gandhi also did not allow this to happen. But some ambitious leaders of the Congress exploited this situation. The expression of their personal animosity and the serpentine noose of so-called Ahimsa was one of the main reasons why Subhash Bose had to leave the country.…Subhash Bose only longed for the independence of his country and he longed for this passionately.
During the struggle for independence, a great blunder was committed by Mahatma Gandhi. In order to show his innocence, he said that he would not support the communal award (provincial autonomy), but nor would he vote against it. That is, indirectly he supported it…At that time he should have said, “No. I do not support the communal award.” He did not say this because his party workers and party leaders were eager to become ministers, so they pressed him for provincial autonomy.
As a result of the communal award, the country was trifurcated into Pakistan, India and Bangladesh….The philosophy of Gandhi died before India got independence – it died long before Gandhi died.
They should have engaged themselves in an economic fight instead of starting a political movement. The British took advantage of this blunder of the Indian leaders. They got the opportunity to divide India into two parts.
They wanted liberty keeping capitalism (social, economic, psychological, etc.) alive. For this reason they accepted the political independence of divided India…Still the leaders committed that very mistake by taking up the work of forming provinces on a linguistic basis
The masses were inspired to fight for independence without arousing consciousness. As a consequence, India ultimately attained political independence, no doubt, but the people have not attained politico-economic independence as yet. Even today, they are victims of psycho-economic and politico-economic exploitation.
What is to be done now? The leaders should totally forget the question of organizing states on the basis of language and instead take up the task of reorganizing the states entirely on the basis of economics.
Most of the people of India are poverty-stricken. They want to get rid of exploitation. Political independence has no value for them if it cannot give them economic independence.
If an anti-exploitation sentiment is created among the poverty-stricken mass of India, not only will a strong nation or a strong group of nations be formed, but this nation or group of nations will continue with due solidarity for a long time. The leaders should, therefore, rectify the errors of the past and vigorously launch a fresh anti-exploitation campaign. There is no other alternative to save India.
Politics is neither my hobby nor my profession. I am a student of history. I feel it my duty to draw the dreadful picture which I visualize about India, otherwise future historians will not forgive us. The highest responsibility in this respect, however, rests with the leaders of the country. They can save or sabotage the country.
I am an optimist. I hope that the leaders will realize their mistakes and will face reality with courage. If they fail to do so, India will create new leaders in the future, and those future leaders will save India from destruction. India will not die…As soon as administrative power passes into the hands of moralists, then exploitation will cease to exist.
Today human beings, to whatever country they may belong, should, on the one side, propagate an anti-exploitation sentiment… and, on the other side, preach the theory of one spiritual inheritance that every living being is the child of the Supreme Entity, and that all the people of all nations belong to the same family…. And if people dedicate themselves to the welfare of the entire human race, their respective nations will also be benefited indirectly because their nations are not outside the universe!
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