Indians in the Age of Reason

The recent murder of Gauri Lankesh rightly aroused national anger, and also brought public attention to ‘rationalists’, arousing curiosity about their perspectives. The ‘scientific approach’ or the ‘attitude of questioning’ is the hallmark of the ‘age of reason’, popularly linked to the Renaissance era, and traced to the times of Plato and Socrates with Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz being the later flag bearers — astonishingly a tablet was recently discovered in Syria with trigonometric tables, predating Pythagoras by thousand years. There have been great scholars and thinkers in the subcontinent in the past three millennia. Most of the recent ‘desi’ variety has focused on the ‘theological’, interpreting it as ‘religious rationality’.

How can anyone object to rationality in observation or reaching conclusions? Till 500 years back, before Copernicus, the earth was considered the centre of the universe. Today, electron microscopes have discovered stars a million light years away, at distances of 10^22 km, and particles as small as a fraction of an angstrom (10-16). Our own universe has four dimensions — can man be sure that there are no other dimensions beyond the space-time continuum? With a billion stars, possibly life on a number of other planets (ranging from 0 to a billion or more), with possible life forms unimaginable to us, it is certainly brave of a human to consider that he can approach every universal issue through his own eyes and brains!

Descartes once famously said, ‘I think, and therefore I am’. Today, a two-line AI (Artificial Intelligence) code, created by a junior computer engineer, can think! — is the code ‘matter’, or ‘thought’? We need a Newton to define it. Indian philosophy has often treated the universe as ‘Maya’. Is life in the universe itself an elaborate chemical computer code, which unravels for the Creator’s amusement? In Kant’s time, there was no human ‘consciousness’ of any ‘waves’ (apart perhaps from the ‘Om’ of Hindu shastras permeating space!). About 75 years back, there were no TV/4G or other waves which we now are aware of, nor was there ‘satellite surveillance’. Could we even admit to the possibility now that unknown types of waves, possibly from alien civilisations, perhaps in other dimensions, could be circumambulating us? Many scientists, ‘rationalists’ all, when they made path-breaking discoveries saw great beauty, symmetry, and coherence in every aspect of nature that they peeked into. Is the universe ‘Swyambhu’? — who created this order and how is there no chaos? Einstein once said: “There are two things infinite — universe and human stupidity; I am not sure about the universe”. Hoyle had once famously said that “life could not have had a random beginning”.

A character in Heller’s Catch-22 is described as having very high IQ and ‘no brains’. A recent thesis on the lives of Ramakrishna and Ramana by Arun Shourie takes an erudite ‘analytical’, and ‘rational’ approach to decoding these saints and ‘godmen’. It may be unfair to summarise 400+ pages, but the main impression on the reader is that all the remarkable manifestations, experiences, the very life of these two great savants has a simple explanation — they had ‘tumour’ in their brains! Perhaps Meera, Chaitanya, and a million great rishis and munis of India, Jesus and others in different parts of the world had severe abnormalities in their brains. Thyagaraja was in a state of ecstasy as he composed his immortal poetry. Countless others have contributed to mankind, which has gained enormously through their lives. Is it time for the government to consider a “Genetically Modified Saint” (GMS) programme to induce special brain disease into selected potential sadhus? Any such initiative may usher in a Monsanto-like MNC and a porous government regulator on the scene, and it may end up creating batches of new Ram Rahims!

Many have argued that Hinduism is more a ‘way of life’, than a religion. For ‘irrational’ people constituting 99 per cent of Indians, is it illogical to see the almighty or supreme in the form of Krishna, or Ganapati or Durga? Indeed, the Gita points out the way of ‘Dharma’ and is a prescription for the art of living. It addresses the issue of ‘values’, much of the essence of which is sorely missed in today’s schools, and society in general.

In the middle of the 20th Century, Swami Sivananda used to chant: “Don’t read Govinda, Herbert Spencer Govinda”! At that time, the Indian ‘rationalists’ were atheists or agnostics — at least they made their position quite clear on theological issues. Today, any religion, in canon or practice, is fair game for our latter-day rationalists. The human being has many dimensions. Apart from an unshakable belief in the existence of a supreme creator (which cannot be considered unreasonable), the faith or religion of an individual has major significant contribution to human welfare. In diverse circumstances, it can provide solace while in distress, peace when mentally troubled, hope in despair. The human needs emotional and psychological support in uncounted ways. Shankaracharaya had once sung “samsara sagaram dukkham” (the ocean of life is embedded in sadness) — religion, faith, and belief all have a potential role in mitigating adversity, providing succour and nourishing hope. It will be callous of any ‘rationalist’ in a vain, selfish and self-important, self-delusionary exercise to destroy these sops that the common man has, and to spread unhappiness and discord. Ultimately, is the Indian ‘rationalist’ creating anything new — or just engaged in rehashing old events and religious history, to titillate himself, on the pretext that he is pursuing ‘truth’.

I am not on personal speaking terms with God — my surmise is that the ‘Supreme’ is even-handed, and looks at believers and agnostics, indeed atheists, as well as ‘rationalists’ with equal compassion.  

The author is a former cabinet secretary. Views expressed are personal.