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Why Do We Need a Framework?
Cultural phenomena progress through three phases: Naïve, Sophisticated and Decadent. A few of them however escape the downward turn towards decadence and acquire a canonical status. It is artefacts such as a definitive book, an anthem or a ritual that distinguish a canon from a mere trend.
With time, that becomes tradition.
Tradition is not static, it is dynamic and living because it has an unchanging core that adapts to the changes in the environment. Sri Kapil Kapoor ji’s memorable metaphor of ‘Sanātana Gaṅgā Pravāha’ to describe our tradition captures the ‘civilizational flow’ evocatively.
The Hindu civilizational discourse has arguably entered the sophisticated phase. This is marked by a shift in the content of the discourse, a transition from the political to the cultural, civilizational and metaphysical.
Like all transitions, this will generate much upheaval and intellectual churn that leads to social reconfiguration downstream. There is a real danger that we might skip the sophisticated phase and leapfrog directly into decadence due to the performative anxiety that is incentivized and amplified by the medium(s).
Therefore, the responsibility of those engaging in this churn is to steer the conversation away from decadence and towards our tradition.
What then are the challenges and how can we develop the thinking resources to overcome those? Colloquially speaking, how can we think about a ‘thought framework’?
When we enter a cultural discourse, we step out of comfort, and into the vulnerable. We expose our deepest part and put it out there for scrutiny. The rate of ‘opinion growth’ outpaces our intellectual and spiritual growth; the heart trying to masquerade as the mind. This is inevitable, it is perhaps even necessary.
At this point, we need something to hold on to: an idea, a role model, a vocabulary. The magical alchemy of śraddhā. In the age before social media, we had a sustainable cadence for feedback loops. We could hold on to some ideas and direct our action. Such action was a means for our transformation – At some point in this process, the agency was shifted from the object to the subject. We had anubhūti and that became our pramāṇa.
This process is aborted today. The shelf-life of our ideas is shortened. Our heroes are stillborn. We have a lot more information but it generates doubt due to the rapidity of the feedback loop. As Pico Iyer noted,
‘an abundance of information creates a poverty of attention’.
It is not just attention but the very basis for trust that is denied. At this juncture, the need is for clarity – Not so much about one idea but about our own process of arriving at ideas that inform action.
This is the most critical need for the Hindu Civilizational discourse today – A meta-framework. Something that allows us to organize our thoughts; creates a space for self-authoring that can lead to the ‘self-vision’ that Śri Aurobindo spoke of.
To know that you know how to know is the greatest asset – Our framework is an effort in service of this goal.
The Greatest Problem that Hindus Face
What is the greatest problem that the Hindu society currently faces? Is it a ‘lack of unity’? Let us take a look at societies and civilizations other than Hindu.
Looking at Islamic and Christian societies it is more than evident that they are not united. Both Islamic and Christian societies are divided into thousands of sects which are constantly at war with each other. What gives them an edge and what always keeps them growing is their extremely sharp Śatrubodha – a sense of the enemy. No matter how much infighting they engage in, they know that a non-Muslim, or a non-Christian in respective cases, is always an enemy even if a tactical alliance has to be made.
Śatrubodha with a Hierarchical Sense of Priorities
The sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is extremely developed in Islamic and Christian societies. Their theology has terms and phrases to denote the other, like ‘heathen’ or ‘Kāffir’ and the Kāffir (the other) is always an enemy. The othering of the Kāffir is institutionalized and all-pervasive. This is what gives them an edge.
It turns out that a society can have as much infighting as it wants, until it has a highly developed Śatrubodha with a hierarchical sense of priority in which the ‘in’ group is always preferred when a choice has to be made. Internal faultlines don’t matter if the pyramid of priorities coupled with Śatrubodha is put into practice. It is this practice which led one of the Ali brothers, who were ‘friends’ with M. K. Gandhi, to say this: “According to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mahatma Gandhi.”
This sense of discrimination and othering leads to a scenario where sects like prophetic monotheism always keep growing, whether in war and in peace, in favorable circumstances and in adversity. For example, the Islamic kings who came to rule non-Muslim lands converted the population to Islam. And on the other hand, in Baghdad, it was the Islamic population which converted the non-Islamic Mongol king.
Prophetic Monotheistic sects keep winning because they have a highly developed Śatrubodha. Hence if there is something for Hindus to learn from the ‘others’ it is a highly developed Śatrubodha with a hierarchy of priorities in which the ‘out’ group is always at a lower rung than the lowest of the ‘in’ group.
Some Hindu scholars, saints and groups have been focusing on developing this Śatrubodha. Starting from Swami Dayananda, Swami Vivekananda and Śri Aurobindo and continuing to Śri Ram Swarup and Śri Sita Ram Goel and their followers, attempts have been made in the past 150 years to develop Śatrubodha in Hindus, although very few groups barring one or two have used the word ‘Śatrubodha’ in this context.
Svayaṃbodha and Śatrubodha joined by the Axle of Dharma
The good news is that more and more Hindus are waking up and developing a sense of Śatrubodha, understanding and studying the enemy to be able to defeat them. But is that enough? Is it enough to know your enemy?
In the past two decades, even those Hindus who have a highly developed Śatrubodha faltered on their own identity, culture and civilization. In their eagerness to recognize, call out and differentiate from the enemy (Śatrubodha) they have lost all sense of ‘Svayambodha’. They have started thinking that it is enough to recognize and fight the enemy and it does not matter what our identity is, so far it remains different from the Śatru, the civilizational enemy.
But this is not so. Svayaṃbodha (the sense of ‘us’) is as crucial as Śatrubodha (the sense of ‘them’). We need to know exactly who we are. And we also need to know, who we are not. Svayambodha and Śatrubodha are the two wheels of civilization. One is insufficient without the other and both are necessary.
The ratha of Bhāratiya civilization rests on the axle of dharma with two wheels of Svayamabodha and Śatrubodha on each end. No wheel is greater or lesser than the other. For a civilization to sustain and continue it needs both in equal measures. To understand how crucial both are, let us see what happens in the absence of one of the bodhas.
When a Civilization Lacks Śatrubodha
At many points in our history, it is the critical lack of Śatrubodha which has defeated us. The misplaced magnanimity and chivalry of our Kṣatriyas who would let the Islamic invaders go after defeating them on the battlefield proved fatal for them and everything they held dear.
They could not see that the ethics that they were extending to the enemy were not what the enemy practiced. Even after showing mercy and chivalry to an invader many times and letting him go after defeating him in battlefield, when the same invader defeated them once he would behead him alive, molest and enslave women and children in his civilization and destroy all that the Hindu king loved.
This happened because of the loss of Śatrubodha at a critical juncture. Here, Svayambodha would not help; for no amount of Svayambodha for a Hindu would prepare him for the inhuman barbarity that was practiced by the invaders. The ethical system that the Islamic invaders brought into Bhāratavarṣa was something we Hindus were totally unfamiliar with.
A Hindu believes that respecting women, children, elders, saints, temples and ecology are fundamental benchmarks to be followed. But the new enemy followed none of these practices. They targeted women and children; fought during the night; killed innocents and unarmed; desecrated and destroyed temples; massacred cows and Brahmins. Everything that the Hindus did, they did the exact opposite. Islamic ethics and modus operandi had no precedence in Bhāratavarṣa. No amount of learning more Svayambodha from his co-dharmiks would ever prepare for the barbarity that was beset upon them during the Islamic invasions of India. One cannot prepare for every single emergency like this, a priori. One can prepare for it only after exposure.
The only possibility for a culture facing an existential threat from a barbarian enemy with a completely different ethical standard is to study the new enemy upon first exposure and prepare a response which is emergent at first and then institutionalized later. For sheer survival, the defending culture and society should be able to absorb the first impact of such an enemy and prepare its society with behavior, institutions and mechanisms to fight for survival. The pūrva pakṣa of such an enemy should be thorough and should be defined in clear and simple terms which are capable of seeping down to every last person of the ‘in’ group.
To be able to formulate a response, create institutions and even scriptures instructing for the emergent situation, and spreading it to every individual of the native society is called Śatrubodha. And there is no substitute for it.
When a Civilization lacks Svayaṃbodha
Let us now analyze what happens when Svayaṃbodha is missing in a society. Many Hindus with highly developed Śatrubodha in the past few decades have correctly identified that they are culturally and civilizationally ‘different’ from Islamic and Christian civilizations. They have condemned the barbarism and arbitrariness of Shariat like legal systems. But this has led them to believe that just because they are different from monotheists it means that the Hindu society has no rules and regulations whatsoever; just because Hindu dharma is not a belief system like Islam, it has no customs, rituals or traditions at all. They have come to believe that ‘being Hindu’ means following no rules and customs, having no beliefs, and having no clear sense of identity.
In pursuit of Śatrubodha they have lost all sense of Svayaṃbodha. And when Svayaṃbodha is lost, no matter how well one fights the enemy, there is nothing worth left defending. You become ‘Hindu in name only’ – HINO. You defend the borders well, but inside the civilization crumbles, culture decays, multiple identities wither and a universal political identity takes over which considers ‘lack of unity’ as the overarching problem of Hindus and aims for a Hindu society devoid of all identities except that of political Hinduism, which treats individuals as nothing more than identical units, who can be mobilized for a political response. In an attempt to ‘be different’, all sense of ‘being Hindu’ is lost. An identity which hinges just on ‘difference’ loses sense of the core. THAT is why Svayaṃbodha is as important as Śatrubodha. It is equally critical to know ‘who we are’ and not just ‘who we are not’.
Being Hindu: Developing Svayaṃbodha
What then is this Svayaṃbodha for Hindus? What is Sanātana dharma or Hindu dharma? What does it mean ‘being Hindu’?
Hindu dharma, at its most fundamental is its rituals and customs on one hand and its sādhanā paddhatis, practice of meditation on the other. Let us take them one by one.
A knowledge of karma and punarjanma is at the core of ‘being Hindu’; all else flows from it. Individual actions accrue karma and karma leads to prārabdha based punarjanma. Every successive birth entangles us deeper into an endless cycle of birth and death. True knowledge is thus shrouded from us due to our own actions. It is by doing sādhanā and meditation under the guidance and grace of a guru that layers of ignorance are removed, true knowledge dawns, and liberation happens from the cycle of birth and death. Attaining self-realization is considered the highest activity in Hindu dharma.
This path however, is not for everyone, as everyone is not capable of doing intense sādhanā. For the rest of the society there is the other path, the path of performing rituals and customs according to our circumstances. This path is called dharma for the common man. Most of the Hindu śastras are employed to elucidate this dharma for everyone.
The operating principle of being Hindu is this: there is a cosmic rhythm ऋत (ṛta), the hidden order of saṃsāra, as in both nature and culture. Every living being benefits from this order, ‘ṛta’ from the moment he is born. This creates a ऋण ‘ṛṇa’ on us. To repay those (ṛṇas) is धर्म ‘dharma’.
The Vedic tradition defines five kinds of ṛṇas – panca ṛṇa. deva ṛṇa; ṛṣi ṛṇa; pitṛa ṛṇa; brāhmaṇa ṛṇa & nṛu ṛṇa – the debt paid to deities, saints, ancestors, Brahmins and fellow men. These debts are redefined as duties for individuals and groups. To play those responsibilities is to repay those debts to nature and culture. The Hindu cosmos functions on the basis of duties, responsibilities that individuals and groups have to fulfill. These responsibilities are both towards nature and culture. It is through the fulfillment of these kartavyas, duties that one becomes a Hindu. It is through rituals and tradition that dharma makes itself tangible to us.
A Hindu cannot be a nihilist who does anything that strikes his fancy; follows any cult that suits his idiosyncrasy; holds no beliefs of any kind; maintains no sanctity of any kind in his life. In short, Hindu dharma is a specific set of rituals, customs and actions that every Hindu is supposed to do. It is the exact opposite of the ‘anything goes’ attitude that many Hindus have come to adopt today.
Being Hindu means to follow our duties and responsibilities towards Nature and culture as ordained in the Panca Ṛṇa system. Being Hindu means to live multiple identities allowing for all diversity of life and human nature, but at the same time developing a sense of priority amongst these identities based on the pyramid of dharma in which the highest and most critical peg is always dharma followed by deṣa, varṇa, jāti and all other ancient and contemporary identities.
How and Why Do We Apply the SS Framework on our World
The Hindu today stands on a crossroads. Great changes are happening to our world, some good, some bad. Some might lead us towards cultural rejuvenation and the establishment of a dharmic world order. Some threaten to dismantle our world by breaking it apart, by destroying our institutions and by changing us from within. The SS framework will help us navigate in ascertaining and choosing what is our core, what has to be firmly rejected; what needs to be carried forward and what needs to be jettisoned.
Every age has its own contingencies and emergencies. The SS framework will help us in responding to them and come up with a working plan, reduced to a simple yet holistic worldview which is mobile, transferrable and scalable. Some of the basic questions and problems that this framework will help us navigate through are:
- What is the role of dharma śāstras and other śāstras in the present world and times?
- What is the role of varnāśrama dharma in contemporary society? What are its alternatives if any?
- How did dharma uphold even in the absence of some of its most basic institutions until yesterday?
- What is the relation of dharma to science?
- What is the place of the ‘rational-logical’ thought system that is the foundation of all modern institutions including the ones that are prevalent in the modern Indian state?
- What is wrong with our institutions today and what is their replacement, if necessary?
- How do we respond to the gender debate involving more than three genders?
- What is the need for cultural and civilizational boundaries? What does it mean to be a Hindu? What makes one un-Hindu?
- How do we identify the ‘other’ and make sure that our identity is kept secure and flourishes in future?
- How do we turn this battle of attrition into one that we can win?
- How do we reclaim our culture, language, institutions and individuals from the grip of alien ideologies and cultures?
- How do we ensure that a dhārmika generation is raised which will usher in the dhārmika rejuvenation?
- Every great leader, thinker and saint of our culture has said some things which are absolutely crucial for our way forward and some things which need to be jettisoned in order for that same framework to work. How do we navigate through their works and sayings in order to know what to accept and what to reject?
The current framework proposes to answer all these questions. At Bṛhat, we are committed to evolve this framework into a practice. A set of ideas, resources and interactive avenues that drive cogitation, awareness and network. Towards this, we are working on:
- An interactive learning zone on our website which will help any seeker to progress gradually through the concepts and develop critical faculties.
- Long format discussions centered around the ‘Ledger of Dhārmika Concerns’ (like the questions listed above). The purpose is to be a generative medium for building clarity and community.
- Interactive ‘question hours’ to enable a 2 way dialogue and real time sync.
- Courses for deeper engagement and building thinkers, scholars and synthesizers.