One of my favourite authors of all time is Munshi Premchand. He has written so many timeless classics where he describes the life of a common person in India, his situations, and his emotions. The beauty of his writing is that each word he uses, describes the reality of life. The emotion of a farmer, of poverty, of the struggles of life.
He makes you feel the situation of Hamid who buys a chimta for his grandmother instead of buying a toy for himself, his innocence and empathy touches you.
Munshi Premchand is a great author because he “keeps it real”!
On the other hand, there is a new generation of authors and people, who think that expressing their knowledge of fancy words in itself is of some great value. Look at this tweet-
This is just throwing of words in order to showcase the profoundness of someone’s knowledge.
There is no great value in knowing a lot of fancy words, as all those words are present in a dictionary and we don’t give great importance to a dictionary. However, if someone is able to use words in a well crafted manner to describe something and it either moves, entertains or teaches you something, then it is good writing.
To be honest, the case here maybe just an honest expression by Mr. Shashi Tharoor, but I have seen this too many times done by others so I am a bit skeptical. Many such people who don’t have any original thoughts or ideas, just throw in some fancy words because they know that there would be a group of blind followers who would be so impressed by vocabulary of the person, they would become fans of that person. That should not be the case for most people, in fact it is not the case for most people, except for a small group of anglicised illiterates.
Here are few traits of the anglicised illiterates that I see in India-
- Yoga is bad and of saffron nature when done by Baba Ramdev, but our culture when done by Julia Roberts.
- Holi is a waste of water and too much hooliganism but La Tomatina is a beautiful Spanish festival and is on their bucket list.
- Deepawali celebration is bad for the environment but they can’t wait for 4th of July fireworks if they happen to be in USA, and they should reach their in a big car!
- Jallikattu in which Indian Tamils play with a bull but don’t injure it is animal cruelty, however Spanish bull fighting by a matador is display of grace and courage! Also killing and eating that same animal is not cruelty.
- Any Indian religious celebration in which people take a procession our with music is creating noise. But they can’t wait to go out to the next EDM(electronic dance music) festival, create lots of noise, burn firecrackers and eat a cooked killed animal. That is progress.
Basically anything which is remotely a long drawn tradition of Indian forefathers, is abhorrent to such intellectuals because it is regressive. But the same thing, when presented with a different packaging, becomes an exercise in modernism to them.
Lets assume for a second that 200 years ago, some politician in Britain, was devising a plan to enslave the civilisation of India, what would his goal be? His goal would be, to produce an Indian citizen who thinks like a slave. The citizen should think that everything of his own culture is inferior, just by being associated with it. Has that politician succeeded? Yes, partially. There is a generation of such people I see, who think they are thinking independently, but they are really not! They are thinking like a slave.
But I am optimistic about India, because they are a small percentage of the population. The wisdom of an ancient civilisation can be easily seen, even when you talk to an uneducated cobbler, because he is able to make sense of life. Only this small group of people, who know how to read, but don’t know how to think, or to empathise are the ones who belong to this group of anglicised slaves. Its unfortunate to see them though. Because normally you would think that education should open the minds of people, but for this small group, it has instead instilled a sense of moral superiority, which has closed their mind. Moral superiority should come from morality and from actions, not from knowing fancy english literature.
India got its independence in 1947. Before India was a British colony, it contributed around 25% to the world GDP. Its intrinsic culture has all the constituents of innovation, love, music, colour and compassion. It would reach that same place, if we work hard and steadily. But at the same time, we should keep the anglicised slaves from chipping away our own self respect.
We should not be too proud of our heritage, because heritage is nothing but a creation of passage of time, but we should not be ashamed of our heritage as well, because to be honest, we have been handed a very rich and diverse one. We shall move forward to creating more richness and more heritage.
And we shall move forward, not with the thinking of a slave who assumes that anything associated with his master is good, but of a fully functional, divine and creative human being, who is innovative, accepting, analytical, and moving forward with compassion and love.
neeraj's 