LITERATURE
vs. DIPLOMACY
I
used to wonder why people would be annoyed with me–not the workaday man, but
the man-in-power–and I believe I know the answer. As a literary man I could not
help speaking the truth–and the whole truth–not realising
that it does not pay to speak the truth. And I am reminded of Francis Bacon’s
famous essay on Truth beginning with: “What is Truth?” asked Jesting Pilate and
would not wait for an answer! And, come to think of Pilate. He cared two straws
for Christ and let Barabas be free! And this is what
is being done everyday and it pains me that this should be done with such
regularity as to make truth-speaking synonymous with lunacy in our country.
George
Orwell knew the joy of Truth which makes men free his Outspoken Essays (I
am sorry the publishers have called them Collected Essays) are
worth reading in the paper cover backs recently brought out by Mercury Books,
Another
man who has uttered a great many truths both at home and abroad is that genius
Bertrand Russell and though I have not met him I feel I love him as I love very
few. He has gone through hell for his outspoken views (please read his Outspoken
Essays) and even now he has
had the misfortune to go counter to public or Government opinion in his
country. I remember seeing his photograph and his wife’s on their way to the
Lock-up because of his sit-down strikes in
I
have known engineers and men of science who have craved for the wealth of
literature; and we have examples of men of science and engineering who have
taken to the ways of literature because they felt free and saw in themselves the wealth of the Eternal. Their discovery of literature
could be likened to the discovery of Chapman’s Homer by Johnny Keats. There are
others who kick against the good things of literature and life and they can be
compared to Saul of Tarsus. He was a man who saw the idiocy of the things of
the spirit and believed in the here and the now. He poked fun at Christianity,
seeing it as the religion of the idiots–but then there came a day when he was
transformed, resurrected as King Asoka was, and
followed the things of the Spirit. All great and lasting memories are those of
people who believed in the Truth and fought for it tooth and nail–and whether
we call them
One
would have thought that with education things would pave the way to a Bright
New World, but it is in the field of education that we see the greatest number
of rats! And these rats do all they can to stay the progress of education or
enlightenment by methods only known to people of devious means. Some call them Machiaevelis–and it is a pity that such men are being
elevated to positions of honour when they are doing
all they can to crush the power of man as man and reduce him to abject
servitude. There was a time when people treated others as slaves on questions
of colour or creed, but today we are beginning to
have a subtle form of slavery even among our people and we invoke the past for
the continuation of slaves or slavery in one form or another. I have seen in
Whatever
be said of the drawbacks of Britain in education, there is no denying the
people, including the rulers, a love for the country and traditions and
naturally we see Britain progressing and democracy a safe thing in their hands.
Where there is a dignity of the human spirit and in labour
there is bound to be progress–instead of petty jealousies and backdoor methods
to seats of power or responsibility. We have few people of blue blood in our
country–but we have a good many whose talents are such as
to make them appreciated by humans in any part of the world; and it would be a
sorry day, if we cast such people into oblivion through shortsighted policies.
But then what is to be done when Godses are in the
uppermost and the Gandhis die? Why talk of our
philosophy and our scriptures and our holy men and women when we do not allow
such people to live and when we do all we can to send them post-haste to the
next world? How many of our teachers are even given the elementary requirements
or amenities to keep them alive and respected in the neighbourhood?
I have seen–and so have you–good
teachers taken to task because they believed in pulling up the mischievous
students in or out of class. For a good teacher there is no high-class student
or low-class student; all are the same! And in countries that respect tradition
the teacher is regarded as the rock or foundation of life; and only in immature
countries teachers are taken to task or reduced to ashes. A good teacher
believes in doing his job: of elevating those who come to him and, truth-speaking
as he is, he believes in showing the children he teaches the many obstacles to
sound living. No teacher worth his salt ever tells lies or seeks the patronage
of the rich or the well-to-do–only the quislings do
and their numbers, sad to say, are beginning to be on the
increase and we should not one day be surprised to see Gresham’s Law operating.
I
have to thank all those who have made my job as a teacher and writer a pleasant
one; and I believe a good teacher is also a good writer; and it is a great pity
to see the teacher as one who is eternally teaching another, and not learning
anything himself. There are a good many examples of teachers who have stopped
learning and begin to teach so monotonously well that is
a trial to the teacher as much as the taught. How can one teach
when one feels that there’s no sense or fun in teaching? How can our teachers
be efficient if they see in their jobs a dead monotony and seek other avenues
of employment to supplement their meagre income? How can such teachers bring
out the best of those they teach if there is no team-work spirit among the
teachers themselves? What has gone So wrong with our
education that we have ceased to respect or trust our colleagues? How can
students respect teachers when those in authority disrespect them, often in the
presence of students?
You
know how mightily angry Christ was when Temple of the
Most High
(which
schools and colleges are by right of tradition) was being invaded by the
moneylenders! What did this Man of Peace do? He took a whip and used it to good
effect on those who had made the Temple a Den of Thieves!
And, come to think of it, we are beginning to have our Pharisees and Sadducees
who love to go to the top seats in temples and pray aloud and beat their breast
and make a mockery of religion and God! T. S. Eliot who has a good word for the
Ancients, and sees our progress through the lessons of History believes–in
Values–in the Sanctity of Truth and in the Human Personality; and his chapter
“Tradition and the Individual Talent” is a landmark in literary and cultural
criticism. And T. S. Eliot, like Lord Russell, won the Nobel Prize for
his contribution to humanity–and can we not, in this ancient land of ours, of stupas and pagodas, build for ourselves a cultural wealth
by understanding the human spirit and mind–rather than bicker in things that do
not matter?
Alas!
there are those who want to be heard and cry from the house top not for the
human good so much as their own good! And the fact that they talk the language
of diplomacy or ambiguity to bamboozle others makes the path of Ignorance most
steep and where humans are divided by seas and lands of prejudices and illwill nothing good can come to humanity. How can we talk
one language when we do not believe in the oneness of humanity? There is, thus,
a constant tug-of-war between litterateurs and politicians, between the
enlightened folk and the men of darkness and when the two clash, as they are
bound to do, there is the hope that good will triumph and the evil will come to
roost; and talking of hope brings to mind the hopeless lot that politicians
are, seeing as they do their power on this earth–and theirs being the power of
the Brute they use it (often with the Brute Majority) to crush the minorities
and others.
Litterateurs
believe in creation–politicians in destruction–and unless our men and women in
power the world over see the suicidal policy of their ways there will be no
hope for man but Nuclear Warfare, which Lord Russell and all good men and women
are fighting against. There is much in the world that needs
eradication–Ignorance, Disease, Anti-Social Elements, Poverty–and we need to
put our heads together and fight these. The nations of Asia, as much as Africa
and Europe, have their problems, but then the more international-minded we are
the better it is for us all; we will speak the language of enlightenment and
understanding, peace and goodwill and will achieve them. No enemy is greater
than doubt; doubts make for limitations; diplomacy!