Spiritual Democracy – Integral Humanism For The New India

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Tikas Kumar P. resides in Mangaluru, Karnataka. He is a Postgraduate with specialisation in Business & corporate Law, Political Science and Economics. He is a prominent Young Karyakarta of the BJP having served the party for over a decade with various responsibilities from District to National levels. Vikas is one of the Co-founders of the torch bearing Mangaluru Literature Festival. Inspired by Shri Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, his keen life interest is o connect Bharathiya philosophies with various aspects of politics and overnance.

We are at the crossroads of witnessing most exciting times in India Wtoday. On the one hand, there is a change that has begun in Indian politics; many would say that we are witnessing an aspirational India. On the other hand, there are others who would like to argue that democracy is in danger, there is an increase in fascist tendencies and so on. These stories have reached a point where today the differences between these two groups of people is not only becoming sharper and deeper but is also becoming wider. Post-2014, there is a new India that we are witnessing which is unwilling to buy hatred and contempt for India and her traditions. The gap between these two groups has not only become huge, but the weights around each of these halves are also unequal, as it used to be the case, but in a different direction.

We are also witnessing a time in the world where any ordinary person is suspicious of contemporary intellectuals. I was born in a society where scientists, teachers and thinkers were revered as Gurus. People sought guidance from them. But today, many among them have lost their credibility. They have become part of the larger vehicle of carrying lies and hatred in the name of thinking. They have created a world of hate-filled logics, alternative facts, post-truth, bluffocracy and so on. They even teach these things, propagate and reproduce it endlessly through media and many other channels where, actually, knowledge has to be showcased. It is in this milieu that the new India has to emerge. It is this cesspool from where goddess of learning, Sarasvati, has to emerge. There seems to be a ripe time and conditions emerging for the Indian renaissance.

It is at this crucial juncture that India is waking up out of the slumber, the India which was struggling to resist the onslaught of two colonialisms, the India which was plundered and looted. It is that India, which was hated by pseudo intellectuals, who hated the resilience of this culture to preserve its traditions and exist peacefully. But times have changed today. Not only that India is getting out of its slumber, but it is going to lead the world, neither by the military power nor by its trade control, but by spreading knowledge and happiness.

If this India has to come into being and take the next steps to move forward, we need to invest our energies on reflecting about creating conditions for providing happiness to people. In other words, the search for what kind of politics and governance models are necessary under which people of this country can pursue the goal of happiness remains central question. It is this goal of happiness, Ananda, which has been the central part of the enquiry from the Vedic times, Shramana p and all the Rishis whom we remember today as our ancestors. We are the parampar happines heirs of that legacy. If we are the heirs of such a thinking c we must also ensure that people are provided with the conditions to choose their path to happiness. It is that pursuit which is at the centre of the new age politics of India. This is what exactly the old political establishments are failing to understand.

There is something more to this. The pursuit of happiness is normally understood as Adhyatma in Indian traditions. The modern-day scholan have distorted the understanding of this domain called My Though they use the word spirituality, which may not capture wh Adhyatma is, they have essentially reduced these practices religious or something like moving away from life. (We will uses as synonym to either spirituality n for Adhyatma now, for lack of better formulation in English), If one is familiar with the life of Rishis, they always lived with all posible" emotions in this world, they were married, they intervened in this world. Be it Vyasa, Valmiki, Vishwamitra or Tukaram, all of them participated in the affairs of this world. Not only they participated in the world affairs, but they changed the world through the knowledge they had Therefore, this modern-day idea that spirituality is devoid of social dimension is an utter nonsense and this nonsense today gets debated a scholarly thinking in universities, as though this is Adhyatma.

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