Ram Mandir: A Civilisational Crossroads | 3. A Decisive Turning Point

India became independent on the 15th August 1947 but though it regained political freedom it was not yet free from the heavy impact upon its soul that centuries of foreign domination has had. Weak and wounded, helpless and alone it started charting its course along the lines to which she was made accustomed to.  Her mind chained and enslaved to the Western domination had adopted the western way of thought.  Its mind enslaved to the western model could think no better than merely imitating and transposing the western way of life.  But as the new India began to grow, its heart began to stir with new possibilities, it began to grope for its true identity and not merely repeat and become yet another powerful nation replicating the west.  India began to search for its secret soul.

In a way this process has started in many nations. Before mankind marches towards world unity it must first secure the nation unit. But what is a nation? Is it just a mass of land? If so then there is little meaning in fighting and dying for it as the patriotic sentiment suggests. Or is it merely the people who live on the land, people of the soil so to say.  That is how modern-day human-centric democratic idea of a country would suggest, – by the people, of the people, for the people.  If so, then again, a nation unit serves little purpose other than dividing people.  For if there are no differences between one group of humanity and another then again preserving a separate nation unit is simply a wall between people who are one.  Or is a nation a space for the upholding of, practice of certain unique shared values received through vertical cultural transmission by a group of people. If so then there is merit in the idea of a nation and the need to secure its boundaries and unique cultural heritage. This does not mean getting entrusted in a loop of Time. Change is the law of earthly life. But just as each nation must have its own unique cultural history and shared values through which it evolves so too each nation must evolve along the lines determined by the nation’s dharma. It must traverse its own curve and fulfil its own unique destiny.  The unique culture of Bharat and its people built by the seers of the Vedas and guarded within the land surrounded by the Himalayas and the three seas by countless heroes and sages and saints gave itself the name of Aryan culture.  Far from being invaders, a myth now busted beyond doubt, were not defined by geographical region to a clear psychological type. Sri Aurobindo reveals the truth behind the word:

‘For in the Veda the Aryan peoples are those who had accepted a particular type of self-culture, of inward and outward practice, of ideality, of aspiration. The Aryan gods were the supraphysical powers who assisted the mortal in his struggle towards the nature of the godhead. All the highest aspirations of the early human race, its noblest religious temper, its most idealistic velleities of thought are summed up in this single vocable.

In later times, the word Arya expressed a particular ethical and social ideal, an ideal of well-governed life, candour, courtesy, nobility, straight dealing, courage, gentleness, purity, humanity, compassion, protection of the weak, liberality, observance of social duty, eagerness for knowledge, respect for the wise and learned, the social accomplishments. It was the combined ideal of the Brahmana and the Kshatriya. Everything that departed from this ideal, everything that tended towards the ignoble, mean, obscure, rude, cruel or false, was termed un-Aryan. There is no word in human speech that has a nobler history.’ [Sri Aurobindo, CWSA 13:441]

Rama to the Indian mind is the living embodiment of the highest Aryan culture.  The revival of India therefore quite aptly begins by placing before itself the ultimate Aryan in the persona of Arya, Maryada Purushottam Rama.

It is however here that India suffered the most since the foreign invasions, especially the Portugese and the Moslem, less so the British, much less so the Greeks and the French, did not merely occupy the land and loot its resources. They invaded the mind space, obliterated the heart and stifled the soul.  They did so by various means such as coercion and conversion, imposition of foreign languages, destroying the indigenous systems, transposing an alien education, rewriting the history to suit the purposes of the invaders, and demolishing and replacing monuments that stood as high points of the native culture and reminded us of our roots. The destruction is everywhere and though it could not be thorough and complete, thanks to the Indian genius and its resilient spirit, yet it has left deep scars and a wounded civilisation. 

These wounds need to heal. The Ram temple is not just about reclaiming a temple but also about reclaiming our civilisational pride. One way that the wounds could heal is when the aggressors show goodwill and generosity, sympathy and understanding about the damage, the suffering and pain that has been inflicted upon a civilization. Instead, what was portrayed and still is being portrayed by vested interests is as if the Hindu of the land is at fault whereas those who destroyed are the victims. Nay, worse still, it is the invaders who civilised India. For those who still believe in this deliberate twisting of things they should read Sri Aurobindo’s rebuttal to William Archer on the question ‘Is India civilised?’ 

In 1914, Sri Aurobindo wrote with such a clarity of vision about this issue that a whole treatise on the theme is available under the title ‘Foundations of Indian Culture. ‘ A few excerpts are presented below. 

‘India’s central conception is that of the Eternal, the Spirit here incased in matter, involved and immanent in it and evolving on the material plane by rebirth of the individual up the scale of being till in mental man it enters the world of ideas and realm of conscious morality, dharma. This achievement, this victory over unconscious matter develops its lines, enlarges its scope, elevates its levels until the increasing manifestation of the sattwic or spiritual portion of the vehicle of mind enables the individual mental being in man to identify himself with the pure spiritual consciousness beyond Mind. India’s social system is built upon this conception; her philosophy formulates it; her religion is an aspiration to the spiritual consciousness and its fruits; her art and literature have the same upward look; her whole dharma or law of being is founded upon it. Progress she admits, but this spiritual progress, not the externally self-unfolding process of an always more and more prosperous and efficient material civilisation. It is her founding of life upon this exalted conception and her urge towards the spiritual and the eternal that constitute the distinct value of her civilisation. And it is her fidelity, with whatever human shortcomings, to this highest ideal that has made her people a nation apart in the human world.’ [Sri Aurobindo, CWSA 20:56-57]