24.MAGIC OF WORDS
MANKIND is madly in love with its own words- words it can utter and write. Politicians in India live out of their words, of which there is an endless supply. Most of their words mean next to nothing, recalling the words of Macbeth:
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense,
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.
Economists: spin doctors
But here, so called economists can't be beaten- either for the number of words they spin, or for the little sense they convey. In college in the late 50s, we learnt that the job of the Reserve Bank of India was to control inflation (ie ensure monetary stability), while promoting/facilitating economic development :" growth with stability ". If one read the annual reports of the RBI since then, one would learn a hundred ways of rephrasing this idea, but not much about inflation, leave alone controlling or taming it!. Our efforts to even accurately measure it have slackened. Why bother about measurement when you can manipulate?
The world of books
Writing is more lasting than talks. And more fascinating. Good writing is difficult, but that has not daunted would be authors. According to publisher Berret Koehler, while traditional sources published 3 lakh new books in the US in 2015, 7 lakh books were self published by the authors! Thus over a million books were published, while 13 million older publications were available for sale! It is said that an average nonfiction book sells less than 250 copies a year, and less than 3000 in its lifetime! Now, the author himself has to assume the main responsibility for marketing! It is said that the UK publishes more books per head of the population than even the US, though the average person is said to read not more than 1 -5 books a year!
Blissful without books!
We in India are quite blissful. Our youngsters do not read anything other than their prescribed textbooks, and may be, just newspapers after leaving college! I think there are other reasons than the spread of Internet and mobile phone for this. It has something to do with our academic structure and standards.
We acquire reading habits through example, peer pressure, parental influence or guidance and direction from the teachers or mentors. The subjects we study have also a bearing. Half a century ago, most of us studied 'arts' subjects ie history, economics, political science, literature, philosophy etc. Most 'bright' students took up science or maths group. Later 'commerce' stream became popular. [Now, the former 'arts' subjects are divided into humanities (history, philosophy, literature,ethics, comparative religion,criticism and appreciation of
arts ) and social sciences ( political science, economics,sociology, anthropology, psychology and geography). Our 'arts' subjects were limited and simple. We did not have so many burdensome branches back then in India. The syllabus was not heavy, diversions few, and left us ample time for general reading, ( and idling) which the very nature of the subjects demanded and fostered.
Compulsive reading
Besides, the very teaching method was different. There would be a syllabus, prescribed text books, recommended reference books. The lecturer would take up a topic, give an outline and assign a subject for us to write on. Often, there would be serious discussions in the class room, and the lecturer could not cover a topic fully. At the end of the year the formal syllabus remained uncompleted. But we had by then learnt how to study. We would go to the library, consult various books, take notes and then submit our essays. There was no question of sticking to one book.[Lecturers in most colleges would dictate notes, and most students who just aimed at a pass would be satisfied with that.] Though we were free to read anything in the library, some books would not be issued. I was once on a spree of reading all the Thomas Hardy novels available. But being a Catholic college, the principal had ordered that Jude The Obscure should not be issued!
In the post-graduate classes, there were only books of reference, which were beyond our means! We had to go to the library to read them. In our college, the lectures were confined to three hours in the morning. The afternoons were "library hours" where attendance was compulsory. The professors kept track of the books we read, of which a record was kept. If we read too many general books, they would caution us that we should be more focussed on the subject as we had an examination to face! There was no question of anything being considered 'out of syllabus'!
[However, one general defect in the system was that we were not required to read even a single classic work in the original in any subject even at the post graduate level! Thus we would learn Keynes' "General Theory" without actually having to read it! [ It is however doubtful how many could have read it, even among the faculty! It is a tough book.] We would go to Dudley Dillard or Alvin Hansen, at the most! I liked Dillard more. Incidentally, more people are Keynesians without having read him, like most people talk of Gandhi without having read him.]
Rote learning now!
The situation is different now. Engineering and Medicine, followed by Commerce , Science and Management/ Business Studies have become the preferred subjects, as they are perceived to provide better employment or earning prospects. The syllabus is heavy, but well defined, and subjects many. The stress is on percentage of marks, even decimal points are critical! The books are prescribed, and learning is by rote! You cannot go beyond the book, nor question the teacher even if he/she is wrong! These professions are also such as to induce tunnel vision. In the humanities and social sciences, the scope is wider, but the establishment view is indoctrinated in the name of education. One does not really find a "liberal scholar" now. As the American Chesterton Society said in a recent communication:
Our educational institutions have done away with classical thinking. They have abandoned truth, beauty and goodness, replacing it with relativism, ugliness, and self-indulgence. Our students are not taught the real lessons from history, they are not taught to strive for virtue, and they are certainly not taught to honor God. They are not any of the arts, especially the art of thinking. The passing on of bad ideas has taken place in the academy but it has been simply reinforced in our arts, our entertainment, our media.
[Communication dated 24 May 2017
Perhaps, we can't blame the youngster alone for not acquiring the habit of wider reading.
Reading-is it a virtue?
Not reading- is it such a bad thing? Yes, not reading good books is plain bad. How else do we connect with the world of ideas and the great minds behind them in any field? That is the only way we grow ! As Tom Butler- Bowdon said recently:
Every book is a kind of mental edifice erected by the author, and we enter the house that they have built. This is why reading is such an intimate experience. You can be reading someone who died five-hundred or a thousand years ago, but it is like a friend is right there with you in the moment, having a deep conversation that means everything.[ email 15 June 2017 ]
Every generation gains an idea of the enduring bases of its civilization through its old literature.This imparts the sense of its stability and continuity.But we have to exercise discretion in what we choose to read.
Social sciences
Most of the general books on socio-economic matters, especially by Indian authors are not worth reading. They are generally not original, and only repeat or echo the American/leftist views on most things. The books prescribed by the universities are also of leftist orientation. The problem with these books is that they do not discuss fairly the other points of view. Our youngsters do not lose much if they do not read such muck. But there are great authors in all subjects all over the world, especially outside the academic orbit, and it is indeed a misfortune if we do not read their books which contain the fruits of latest research in the disciplines. And sometimes something beyond the disciplines themselves: like the works of Rachel Carson, E.F.Schumacher or Fritjof Capra. These works caused a fundamental shift in our consciousness.
On the contrary, so many people have got the Nobel Prize in the last 100 years. Has the world really benefited from their labours? The Nobel Prize is a huge hoax these days.
There is a special problem for Indians in accessing books by foreign authors. Most new books come late to our attention here in India, and most serious books are outrageously costly. For instance, Howard Gardner's book "Frames of Mind" on the theory of multiple intelligences, which has a bearing on learning, costs Rs.1000 even in paperback. This may not be costly for those in the IT sector, earning salary in dollar standards,but not for the others. Books of poetry are difficult to get, and burn a big hole in the pocket. We do not have good libraries.Most libraries have mainly pulp fiction. However,with online booksellers, we can get most books as and when they come out, but the price is high. Though we are also beginning to get used books at low prices, many classic nonfiction works are still costly by our standards.
80 years after its publication, Lewis Mumford's 'Technics and Civilization' is still not available in our libraries, and not affordable in the market. The same can be said of the books of Jacques Ellul. We have to depend on extracts even from online sources.
Our youngsters are consequently deprived of the chance to get in touch with some of the original minds who had reservations about our industrial civilization. They develop a one-track mind based on what they are told in college.
Religious studies
But the real danger is from foreign authors writing on Indian issues, especially our religion and philosophy. Most of our youngsters lack even rudimentary knowledge in these matters. They may follow some form of ritual or worship, but they do not know beyond. Our educational system is peculiar: it exalts the foreign religions, while denouncing or disowning our own. This is our secularism! Indian students do not learn about the ideals and practices of ancient India from sympathetic, or even neutral interpreters.They do not know about the philosophical or psychological bases of our religion. Most of them have lost touch with the original sources, thanks to Macaulay whose system still continues with reinforced leftist vigour. We cannot check if someone misquotes or misinterprets.
Foreigners learn Sanskrit, read our originals but with an agenda. They interpret them without practice,understanding, experience or objectivity or sympathy! Their motive is not right understanding or devotion to truth, but to denounce India and make it a colony of America.But they write well, very well indeed. In the circumstances, if our youngsters are exposed to their works without prior knowledge or preparation, they are likely to be misled.This is already happening.
As Wilfred Cantwell Smith of McGill [later Harvard] University said long ago:
[Quoted in Dr.V.Raghavan: An Anthology On Aspects of Indian Culture, Raghavan Centre For Performing Arts, Chennai, 2002; page 222.]
Meaning of religion
In fact, Smith is noted for another important idea about religion.He said:
"One's own 'religion' may be piety and faith, obedience, worship, and a vision of God. An alien 'religion' is a system of beliefs or rituals, an abstract and impersonal pattern of observables. A dialectic ensues, however. If one's own 'religion' is attacked, by unbelievers who necessarily conceptualize it schematically, or all religion is, by the indifferent, one tends to leap to the defence of what is attacked, so that presently participants of a faith - especially those most involved in argument - are using the term in the same externalist and theoretical sense as their opponents. Religion as a systematic entity, as it emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is a concept of polemics and apologetics" (p. 43).
As the Wikipedia article notes:
The terms for major world religions today, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism, did not exist until the 19th century. Smith suggests that practitioners of any given faith do not historically come to regard what they do as religion until they have developed a degree of cultural self-regard, causing them to see their collective spiritual practices and beliefs as in some way significantly different from the other. Religion in the contemporary sense of the word is for Smith the product of both identity politics and apologetics:
[ This is a correct assessment. G.K.Chesterton had indeed said something like it. Hindus had no name for their religion- it was just sanatana dharma. Buddha called his way simply "Dhamma" or Dharma. It was only the foreigners who invented the names and created differences. ]
Beware of foreign authors!
Traditionally Indian youngsters have understood their religion only by osmosis. As in any culture, many things are taken for granted, practised and only subsequently reflected upon, and that too by a few. [Not everyone using the latest mobile phone knows the details of the technology involved in it.] But since Independence, Indian educational system has been deliberately distanced from the roots of the majority or core culture. Most youngsters passing through the system lack any knowledge and appreciation. In such circumstances, if they get exposed to prejudiced foreign authors what will happen?
The problem is complicated by two factors:
1. The books by foreign writers are edited, printed and published well by international publishers which also promote them world-wide. They easily get entry into foreign academic institutions and libraries. and enter the academic circuit through the influence of the academics occupying university chairs, who form a mutual admiration circuit- especially against Hindus. [ It is an irony that most American academics defend and are sympathetic to Islam, in spite of its advocacy of terrorism, while they are hostile to and prejudiced against Hinduism, which has never dipped its hand in the neighbour's blood! ]
2. Modern Indian writers are also mostly following the foreigners' line. They cannot access the original sources and rely on translations. They also echo foreigners' approach, ideas and interpretation in order to gain foreigners' approval and appreciation (real or bogus.) and to look 'modern'. Most Indians still feel flattered if a foreigner writes a book on Hindu religion, without caring for the motive or substance! Unfortunately, some Indian publishers bring out cheaper/affordable Indian editions of such books! Foreign publishers like OUP or Penguin have been in India for long but they have no loyalty , love, or even sympathy for India and its cause or culture. They usually promote views antagonistic to Indian tradition and its indigenous knowledge systems. They are the living representatives of Macaulay now in India. Macaulay is not dead.
Learn from the old Indian savants
Those Indians who know the original sources and have real knowledge and practical experience cannot write English at all, or well enough. A generation or two ago, we had authorities like Alladi Mahadeva Sastri, Dr.Radhakrishnan, Dr.R.D.Ranade,Dr.V.Raghavan. We have our Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo than whom none can write better in East or West. But our youngsters do not read them! Our education system has alienated our youth from our own roots and masters! It has de-Indianised us.
Editing Indian books
Indian publishers do not care to edit books professionally. Internationally, even the best authors depend on editors. And a good editor is not over-awed by a celebrity name. Many popular and good authors openly acknowledge the editors. [ It is said that even Jim Corbett's books owe much to the editor at OUP.] To know a subject and to even write is one thing, but to write and publish a book is different! Unfortunately, even an institution like Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, which has been in the business for over 60 years and specialises in books on Indian culture do not edit their books well.
Words are weapons
There is no doubt that words and catch phrases capture the imagination of the masses and the elite alike. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Democracy, Freedom, Socialism, Liberalism, Secularism, Progress, Modernism, Scientific Temper, Revolution, etc are words which sway millions across the globe. But ask the people their meaning- even most so called educated people would fumble. Academics too are slaves to some ideas of long ago: evolution, natural selection, Freudian concepts, etc. As they are entrenched in their establishments, it is not easy for new ideas or contrarian views to gain ground there. However, the educated public in the West are now conscious of basic ideas like Entropy, Environment, Ozone hole, Global Warming, Pollution, GMO, etc. We can indeed write a comprehensive history of the last century on the basis of the words mentioned in this one paragraph!
Human society moves on the wheels of words. They create bonds but also cause alienation. It is good to remember, as Thomas Hobbes said:
Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.
--- Thomas Hobbes, (1651), Leviathan (1651) Pt. I, Ch. 4, quoted by Steven Pinker in The Stuff of Thought (2007), p. 151
When I pronounce the word FUTURE,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word SILENCE,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word NOTHING,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.
-Wislawa Szymborska
Polish Poet, Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1996.
Photo: Polish News Agency PAP
Note:
I have only considered English language books.
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