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by Eunnuri Yi.  Earlier this year, nearing the end of spring semester as the weather finally warmed, university campuses across the United States were suddenly overtaken by a flood of encampments. It began on April 17 at Columbia University in New York City, when students pitched tents on the school’s South Lawn to create a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” as their University President prepared to testify in Congress on the purported problem of antisemitism at universities. In the following days and weeks, over seventy encampments sprang up in the U.S., with police and university administrations arresting more than three thousand protestors and cracking down on the encampments in a massive draconian reaction.
The images were striking: young students, often wearing keffiyehs, sitting and defiantly locking arms with their peers, and getting handcuffed or zip-tied by the police, often holding massive batons. The students were white, Black, Jewish, Arab, Asian, and every shade of brown. The videos showed students chanting, “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest!” — in reference to the demands for universities to disclose the investments of their endowments and to divest from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and war — and singing spirituals and protest songs like “We Shall Not Be Moved,” all while being met with violence and brutality from the police. Beyond college campuses there were other images, too, of massive marches containing thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people carrying colourful signs and banners with slogans, coming out of broad public demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza. Many of these images have reached the non-Western world. From a distance, they may blur together to perhaps appear similar in form or in meaning to other protests in recent American history, such as the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests over the murder of George Floyd, which merged with protests against Donald Trump. The encampments may also be compared to other demonstrations involving students and youth in the U.S. and around the world — like the Hong Kong protests in 2019, the youth climate strikes in the West, and various LGBTQ marches. But as someone who has been witness to — and sometimes a participant in — many of these protests and so-called movements, there was and remains something qualitatively different about the student protests for Gaza this spring. The outer form taken by the encampments can be misleading or incomplete; it was this exterior form which the American mainstream media sought to distort. Students were cast either as well-intentioned but ultimately naive, or as maliciously terrorist and radically anti-American. But this was not merely a youthful, naive rebellion against authority for its own sake: it was something deeper, which must be cracked open and probed. The substance and the inner meaning of the encampments hold much greater political significance. First, the protests threatened the American state, identifying it as a white supremacist, imperialist, and warmongering entity responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people in Gaza, of whom 16,000 are children. The speed and desperation with which the encampments were attacked on all fronts revealed the intricate web of the state. Media outlets trivialized the encampments, distorting and cutting interviews to fit their narrative; career politicians at all levels of government, from the governor of Pennsylvania to the President of the United States, discredited and criticized the students, calling for “order” and encouraging the deployment of police; and university administrators denounced their own students, faculty and staff, despite the majority being in favor of ceasefire and divestment. It was not a revelation that politics, media, and corporations were conspiratorial arms of the state, especially regarding war. However, what was shocking was how brazenly the universities, especially the elite ones, dropped all pretense of being founded on ideals of truth, the pursuit of knowledge, and the education of young people to both self-actualize and to contribute to bettering society. Instead, the university clung to its secret investments and Department of Defense grants as determining its true ideals, cherishing its ties to Israel and the weapons industries over its own students and professors. Second, the true role of the university was brought to light. Israel and America proclaim themselves as protectors of the West and it is the elite university which functions as the defender of Western civilization in the world, to train young people in the ideological and technical prowess needed to sustain the American state. This university, representing the “enlightened” state of Western civilization, considers democracy and freedom not as living ideals to strive towards, but as fictions of language that can be weaponized against its enemies. The education of students in their chosen field or study is secondary to teaching the passive acceptance of war and the subsequent degradation of darker humanity. Once the students break or deviate from these priorities, an existential crisis must ensue: for the complicity and consent of the students is necessary to the continued functioning of the state towards war. However, students took a stand to say that despite the cost, they could not accept this relationship as law. In bearing witness to slaughter and genocide borne of hatred and inhumanity — in seeing the humanity of the Gazan child in the camp and under the rubble, the mother on the road and in the market, and the father grieving, holding his family — the students recognized a principle still higher: that this humanity binds the witness to history, and compels them to become a participant in history. It demands courage and sacrifice in return, to define humanity on collective and civilizational terms rather than individualistic terms. The police would often attack and sweep encampments in the early hours of the morning, while students slept and were most vulnerable. A student interviewed the morning after the destruction of the University of Chicago encampment said: “There are limits to when we continue following orders. When you talk about genocide visited upon a colonized population of two million trapped in a ghetto as long as a marathon and six miles wide, [with] every hospital, universities bombed, 40 thousand people murdered, the people on the brink of starvation... If our government and academic institutions are complicit in this, there comes a point where we say we’re not following orders, and it doesn’t matter what you do to us, because there are principles and there are human lives that matter more than our careers and our futures, and that’s what separates us from us and people like Paul Alivisatos [the president of the University of Chicago] and these coward administrators, coward cops that terrorize an encampment while people are sleeping.” Seeing the reality of Gaza, which went beyond the imagination in both horror and in heroism, allowed for students to develop new moral standards. They could not accept the civilizational assumptions or conclusions of the university: neither for their own lives, nor for the future. The epistemology of the university, and thus all its authority and influence, broke and snapped. Economic or technological divestment from Israel and war could only happen at an authorized, institutional level, but en masse, students began to personally divest: emotionally, intellectually, and ideologically. The cowardice of so many false authority figures was easily eclipsed by the morality of the Palestinian people, who suffered immensely and yet struggled together. They extended kindness and bravery amidst inconceivable grief and trauma, and held firm to their essential humanity even as Israeli soldiers degraded themselves with the gleeful destruction of civilization. Indirectly and directly, the Palestinian people inspired the students to have more courage, more strength, more faith, and to keep turning their gaze curiously outward to the world that lay beyond their own. It was clear that the people of Palestine were nurtured by a sense of civilization that was able to bear the weight of reality—its pain and tragedy—in order to nurture a sense of the future. This civilizational lifeworld was evidently much stronger than the lifeworld of white America, which denied all pain and tragedy, and would censor and jail those who spoke up seeking to correct the course of this country out of love and concern. The thousands of students of the spring who protested the genocide meaningfully, dedicatedly, and with willingness to sacrifice, declared themselves fundamentally incompatible with a morally intolerable, warmongering state. They did so hoping that the country could correct itself. They questioned the potential future of a country so committed to war and genocide. What could possibly be the future of a country so invested in death and destruction? Of one so determined to pursue such a course, even at the cost of harm to its own citizens and turning on its youth? Ultimately, the students’ efforts revealed two lies to the American public and to the world: the premise of the university as an institution for the truth, and the illusion of the United States as a democracy. Both the university and the state can only function with broad assent and cooperation. In their refusal to consent or give legitimacy to the university’s ideology of war, students, especially those at elite universities, are defecting and divesting from America’s elite, warmongering minority. This can only intensify the pre-existing crisis of legitimacy within American society. In rejecting the white supremacist world order, which is spearheaded by the American state, and ideologically divesting from the elite university and its claims regarding Western civilization, students want to join the world to fight with darker humanity as it moves to finally achieve its freedom. The students’ unfinished task is to fully join with the majority of Americans, who are discontented, want peace, and are increasingly immiserated — and to locate the central force of the Black proletariat as the anchor of any potential civilization to come in America. If they achieve this, then, in this American crisis, they may realize the possibility of achieving what the prophetic writer James Baldwin called the “last white country.” “An old world is dying, and a new one, kicking in the belly of its mother, time, announces that it is ready to be born. This birth will not be easy, and many of us are doomed to discover that we are exceedingly clumsy midwives. No matter, so long as we accept that our responsibility is to the newborn: the acceptance of responsibility contains the key to the necessarily evolving skill… People, even if they are so thoughtless as to be born black, do not come into this world merely to provide mink coats and diamonds for chattering, trivial, pale matrons, or genocidal opportunities for their unsexed, unloved, and, finally, despicable men—oh, pioneers! There will be bloody holding actions all over the world, for years to come: but the Western party is over, and the white man's sun has set. Period.”
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by Archishman Raju  ‘Hope’ by Sliman Mansour. “I always wonder
what they think the niggers are doing while they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists, are containing Russia and defining and re-defining and re-aligning China, nobly restraining themselves, meanwhile, from blowing up that earth which they have already blasphemed into dung: …. My days are not their days. My ways are not their ways. I would not think of them, one way or the other, did not they so grotesquely block the view between me and my brother. And, so, I always wonder: can blindness be desired? Then, what must the blinded eyes have seen to wish to see no more!” James Baldwin - Staggerlee wonders The news from West Asia today makes one wonder with James Baldwin if blindness can be desired. This last ugly act of a decadent western establishment supporting the Nazi state of Israel will be remembered by history. Could they sink lower than they have already? Perhaps they can no longer restrain themselves and are ready to blow up a world rather than accept that they are no longer at the center of it. The Israeli leadership is salivating at the thought of a regional war with Iran with the help of its backers in the West. They have sunk to a level of barbarity previously unseen. The Israeli state and society is in urgent need of a de-Nazification campaign. This should not be taken as mere rhetoric but is the inescapable conclusion of the events that we have witnessed. Nor does the status of Jews as victims of the Nazis provide any justification for Israeli acts. As the South Africans have documented, the Israeli intent has been single-minded: the complete elimination of the Palestinian people as such. Take the comments of the Israeli minister for “Heritage”, “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes” or the motivational speech given to Israeli soldiers by a reservist “Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live”. Such messages are commonplace in the Israeli media and popular discourse. The Israeli Prime Minister said in his Christmas message, “This is a battle not only of Israel against these barbarians, it’s a battle of civilization against barbarism”. Clearly, the Israelis are attacking an entire civilization with the intent to totally destroy it. Despite the Israeli state engaging in one of the worst and most cowardly military campaigns in recent history, and possibly in modern history as such, which has destroyed Gaza and killed mostly women and children, 34% of the Israeli population believes the military campaign has not gone far enough. This state can not persist without the support of Israel’s western backers who are in a symbiotic relationship with Israel. Their depth of the relationship is exposed by the punishment meted out to the American college students who show the moral courage to protest against this immoral and unjust war. What are the Western elite thinking? They continue to provoke Russia and are considering providing Ukraine with long-range missiles that can target inside Russian territory. All this while they work towards their main objective, which is to “contain” China. People around the world can only assume that it is a leadership that has completely lost its mind. It lies openly and shamelessly, makes promises that it does not keep. None of this is new, but it is the scale and brazenness that has reached a new historic low. While the main objective of the Western leadership has been to counter China and Russia, they continue to spread chaos in the rest of Asia. In South Asia, the western leadership has worked in more devious ways by spreading instability and color revolutions. Most recently, they have successfully manufactured a color revolution against Sheikh Hasina and put in place Mhd. Yunus, a person with no political experience but innumerable western accolades. The principal achievement of Mhd Yunus has been the opening up of the most poor and vulnerable to international finance. He has thus obtained powerful backers like Hillary Clinton who have historically supported him and continue to do so. It was only last year that Imran Khan was arrested a few months after an attempted assassination. His great crime had been to openly criticize the West. As he said in a public meeting addressing himself to the West, “What do you think of us? Are we your slaves?”. Sri Lanka continues to struggle under its financial debt to the IMF. South Asia is going through a period of instability and crisis. While doing all this, the West claims to fight for “democracy”. But “democracy” is just a code-word for the supremacy of western civilization. It always has been. The British were fighting for democracy even when they were colonizing us. They argued that we were simply not “fit” to democratically rule. One must understand that what all of this points to is that the West is involved in a full-scale civilizational war against Asia. In all this, the West has the support of the “good” Asians: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan who, however, are less than 5% of Asia’s population. The role of India in Asia thus will be closely watched by the world. India’s position carries historical weight as a result of our clear foreign policy since the days of Nehru and Indira Gandhi. The current Indian leadership has vacillated and failed to show any such clarity. What purpose does it serve to engage in the Quad and discussion of the “Indo-Pacific”, a totally artificial category meant to facilitate U.S. involvement in Asia? Why is there news of India providing military assistance to Israel? The people must work to pressure the leadership to take a clear stand on these issues otherwise India will be left behind by history. The other side of our changing times is the emerging new world order. China facilitated the Beijing Declaration on ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian Unity uniting several different political forces in Palestine. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister speaking at the U.N. condemned the Israeli attacks on Lebanon which tampered with and blasted pagers, as terrorist. He said, “Another outrageous example of terrorist methods as a means of attaining political aims is the inhuman attack on Lebanon by means of turning civilian technologies into deadly weapons. This crime must be investigated immediately,”. The Russian Prime Minister has just traveled to Tehran signaling their support for the Iranian leadership. China and Iran have already signed a 25 year strategic cooperation agreement. The Russian leadership is looking to enter into a strategic partnership with Iran. Similarly, Russia entered into a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with North Korea. One of the most significant developments is the rise of BRICS. It is now clear that BRICS will become an alternative to Western institutions. There is increasing discussion on the possibility of de-dollarization. While de-dollarization will still take some time and effort, BRICS is slowly becoming the center of a new democratic world order. BRICS has exceeded the G7, the grouping of white nations (and Japan) in terms of GDP per capita and will only continue to grow. There is a need to theoretically understand and explain our moment. Samuel Huntington in his “Clash of Civilizations” argued that civilizations were the right unit for historical and geopolitical analysis rather than nations. In this, he was building on Toynbee and others who themselves took from the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun. This concept of civilization is gaining more and more importance in our times. It was brought up by Vladmir Putin in the Valdai discussion club meeting last year. China also started a Global Civilization Initiative last year which had three aspects to it: 1) A respect for civilizational diversity, 2) Increasing people-people exchanges, 3) Exploring different civilizational paths to modernization. The question of a civilizational path to modernization has become pressing in our times. However, the question of civilization must be put within a historical framework. We must recognize that the enemy of civilizational diversity is the supremacy of western civilization. Second, civilization must not simply be taken to mean culture in the abstract but must rather be seen as a dynamic entity shaped by the masses of people. The dialectical understanding of historical movement in terms of civilizations remains an outstanding intellectual challenge. In Asia, India and China, given their long history of peace and civilizational exchange (temporarily interrupted in the modern era) are uniquely positioned to take on this task. Both Huntington and Toynbee display their racism in their treatment of Africa. Both consider it doubtful that Africa has had civilization at all. If we are to fully understand the paradoxical development of Western civilization, it can only be done by an epistemology that gives Africa its proper place in history. There is a need to struggle not just for maintaining and strengthening civilizational diversity but further to fight for intercivilizational unity. This fight necessarily involves the struggle against the supremacy of Western civilization and therefore must be based in the unity of Asia and Africa. The struggle against the Western civilizational War is in the intercivilizational unity with Asia and Africa at its center. राम मोहन राय  यह व्याख्यान टैगोर की चीन यात्रा की शताब्दी के अवसर पर २३ सितम्बर २०२४ को गाँधी शांति प्रतिष्ठान में हुए समारोह में दिया गया था। प्रिय मित्रों,
आज का यह समारोह एक ऐसे ऐतिहासिक दिन में है जब हम गुरुदेव रबींद्रनाथ टैगोर की चीन यात्रा की शताब्दी मना रहे हैं और उसके साथ-साथ इस महात्मा गांधी के वैचारिक केंद्र 'गांधी शांति प्रतिष्ठान' में गुरुदेव की मानस पुत्री चमेली रामचंद्रन का गांधी ग्लोबल फैमिली की ओर से और तमाम गांधी फ्रेटर्निटी की ओर से अभिनंदन कर रहे हैं। नंदिता ने सही कहा कि यह अभिनन्दन उन्होंने स्वीकार किया गुरुदेव के तमाम प्रिय शिष्यों, पारिवारिक जन और उन तमाम लोगों की तरफ से जो शांति और भाईचारे और आपसी सद्भाव में यकीन करते हैं। जो यकीन करते हैं कि एक नई दुनिया संभव है जिसमें युद्ध नहीं, आपसी नफ़रत नहीं होगी, जिसमें हिंसा नहीं होगी। इसलिए मैं चमेली जी को आज के इस अवसर को बहुत बहुत बधाई देना चाहूंगा, उनका आभार व्यक्त करना चाहूंगा ये अभिनंदन ग्रहण करने के लिए और ये कहना चाहूंगा कि अभिनंदन तो गांधी ग्लोबल फैमिली का है, गांधी फ्रेटरनिटी का है जिसे आपने प्राप्त करके उन सब का अभिनंदन किया। दोस्तों, मेरी व्यावहारिक चेतना सत्तर के दशक में शुरू हुई थी, जब हमारे देश में एक नए परिवर्तन की हवा थी। हमारे देश को आज़ाद हुए लगभग 25 वर्ष होने को थे और साथ-साथ हमारे देश में एक नया वातावरण भी तैयार किया जा रहा था। जैसा कि हम जानते हैं भारत की आज़ादी की लड़ाई हम लोगों ने सिर्फ इसलिए नहीं लड़ी कि हम आज़ाद हो जाएंगे, हम भी एक स्वतंत्र राष्ट्र के रूप में विकसित होंगे और फिर एक दिन ऐसा आएगा कि हम विश्व गुरु बनने का ख़्वाब सँजोएंगे। पर हमने तो इसलिए लड़ी थी, महात्मा गांधी के शब्दों में, भारत को आज़ादी इसलिए चाहिए ताकि वह दुनिया की सेवा कर सके। जब हमारे देश में आज़ादी की लहर आई और आज़ाद हम हुए तो, उसके 25 साल के बाद हमारे जैसे लोगों को, जिनका जन्म आज़ादी के काफी बाद हुआ था, उनमें व्यावहारिक चेतना जागृत हुई और वह व्यावहारिक चेतना का आगाज़ था बैंको का राष्ट्रीयकरण, राजाओं के भत्ते बंद हुए और 1971 में हमारे देश में नई आवाज़ उठी: गरीबी हटाओ। हमको स्वावलंबी बनना है, हमें गरीबी को ख़त्म करना है, हमने जो राजा रजवाड़ों का बोझ उठा रखा है हमें उसको दूर करना है और हमने ताकत देनी है उस हर गरीब के हाथ में हर उस व्यक्ति के हाथ में जो सबसे निचले स्तर पर है। ये वो दौर था जब हमारे जैसे लोगों में व्यवहारिक चेतना का आगाज़ हुआ। मैं ये नहीं कहता राजनीतिक चेतना का आगाज़ हुआ, व्यवहारिक चेतना का आगाज़ हुआ। ये वो समय था जब बांग्लादेश का उदय हुआ और वहां एक नई लहर चली और वहां भी उसी तरह की आवाज़ थी जैसे हमारे देश में। वहां अवामी लीग जो शेख़ मुजीब उर रहमान की पार्टी थी उसने बांग्लादेश कृषक श्रमिक आवामी पार्टी के नाम से एक नई पार्टी बनाई जिसमें वो तमाम लोग थे, जिसमें किसान थे, मजदूर थे और उसमें वो तमाम सपने थे जो उन सूखी आंखों में लोग देखते हैं। साथ साथ हमने ये भी देखा कि हमारे पड़ोसी देश पाकिस्तान में जनतंत्र का उदय हुआ। ज़ुल्फ़िकार अली भुट्टो उस देश के प्रधानमंत्री बने और हमें ये भी याद है बेशक हमने लड़ाई लड़ी, बेशक नारे उछाले गए इसके बावजूद शिमला में समझोता हुआ जिसको इंदिरा-भुट्टो के नाम से नाम से जाना जाता है। मेरा यह फ़क्र है कि उस सरकार को बनाने में मेरे शहर के बुज़ुर्ग डॉक्टर मुबाशिर हसन का एक बहुत बड़ा हाथ था। पाकिस्तान में जनतांत्रिक सरकार बनी, श्रीलंका में भी सिरिमावो भंडारनायके के नेतृत्व में एक सरकार बनी, भारत में लोकतंत्र मज़बूत हुआ और हमारे देश के अंदर अनेक कार्यक्रम चले। ये वो दौर था जब हमने संविधान का 42वा संशोधन किया और हमने समाजवाद, धर्मनिरपेक्षता जैसे शब्दों को हमारे देश के संविधान की भूमिका में रखा। हमने बीस सूत्री कार्यक्रम पेश किए जिसमे हमने स्पष्ट रूप से कहा था कि हम बँधवा मज़दूरों की मुक्ति करेंगे, हमने स्त्रियों, विद्यार्थियों और बच्चों की सशक्तिकरण की बात की थी। और इन तमाम के साथ साथ हम एक नया नज़ारा भी देख रहे थे और वो ये था की जब हमारे पूरे एशिया के अंदर इस तरह के हालात पनप रहे हैं उस समय दूसरी ओर अमेरिका की रहनुमाई में उनकी एजेंसी सी आई ए भी काम कर रही थी। हमने वो भी देखा कि एक के बाद एक 1975 के अंदर शेख मुजीबुर रहमान का क़त्ल किया गया उसके बाद ज़ुल्फ़िकार अली भुट्टो को फांसी दी गई उसके बाद सिरिमावो भंडारनायके की भी हत्या की गई और आखरी हालात में 1984 में जब हमारी प्रधानमंत्री इंदिरा गांधी को क़त्ल किया गया। ये वो दौर भी था जब हम गुटनिर्पेक्ष आंदोलन के एक बहुत बड़े नेता के रूप में आगे बढ़ रहे थे। हमारी भूमिका वर्ल्ड पीस आंदोलन में थी, हमारी भूमिका थी पूरे दुनिया के अंदर। शांति का झंडा लिए हुए हमारे देश के रमेश चंद्र, ई एस रेड्डी जैसे लोग पूरे दुनिया में विश्व शांति के आंदोलन का नेतृत्व कर रहे थे। ये वो दौर था जिसने जहाँ सकारात्मक भावना पैदा की वहीं नकारात्मक भी। हमने उन साजिशों को भी देखा जो हमारे देश के साथ हुई। हम और चीन के रिश्ते कोई नए नहीं है, हज़ारों हज़ारों साल के हैं। ह्वेन त्सांग, फाह्यान जैसे अनेक यात्री आए। और जब माओ से-तुंग, जो चीन के पहले राष्ट्रपति थे, कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी ऑफ़ चाइना के अध्यक्ष थे उनको हमारे राजदूत अपने क्रेडेंटिअल्स देने गए तो माओ ने कहा जानते हो हमारे देश में क्या प्रसिद्ध है? उन्होंने कहा क्या प्रसिद्ध है? माओ ने कहा हमारे देश में प्रसिद्ध ये है कि जो सारे जीवन पर्यंत पुण्य कर्म करता है उसका अगला जीवन, अगला जन्म बुद्ध भूमि भारत में होगा। ये कौन बोल रहा है? ये कॉमरेड माओ से तुंग जो कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी के नेता हैं, जो किसी धर्म को नहीं मानते वो कह रहे हैं। ये है हमारी अध्यात्म गण भूमि। और ये वो दौर था जब पंडित जवाहरलाल नेहरू और चीन के प्रधानमंत्री चाउ एन लाई ने हमारे देश के अंदर हिंदी चीनी भाई भाई, भाई भाई के नारे लगाए। मुझे वो दिन याद हैं, मैं बहुत छोटा बच्चा था और मैंने अपने माता पिता से उन नारों की व्याख्या को सुना। मैंने पूरे देश के अंदर उन नारों को सुना है: हिंदी चीनी भाई भाई। 1962 का दौर आया जब हमारे में और चीन के अंदर एक युद्ध हुआ और दुनिया में ये पहली बार हुआ कि अंतरराष्ट्रीय आंदोलन में एकीकृत कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी का विभाजन, या चीन परस्त या रूसी परास्त, इन दो नामों से हुआ। मैं पार्टी के प्रोग्राम की तरफ नहीं जाना चाहता पर जरूर कहना चाहता हूँ कि ये वो दौर था। और ऐसी त्रासदी में हमने अपने प्रिय नेता भारत के प्रधानमंत्री जवाहरलाल नेहरू को 27 मई 1964 को खो दिया। मैं आपके सामने ये बात इसलिए रखना चाहता हूं कि आम मानस क्या समझता है? आम मानस के भीतर भारत और चीन और एशिया को लेकर क्या विचार हैं इस बारे में मैं आपको जानकारी देना चाहता हूं। मेरा संपर्क निर्मला देशपांडे जी के साथ सन 1980 के आसपास हुआ। जैसा की आप जानते है निर्मला जी ने अपना पूरा जीवन सर्वोदय विचार को समर्पित किया। विनोबा जी के साथ लगभग 40 हज़ार किलोमीटर चलीं पर वो मानती थी कि मेरा जो सबसे लोकप्रिय काम है वो है भारत और पाकिस्तान के लोगों के बीच दोस्ती। निर्मला जी की तो स्थिति यह तक थी, वह कहती थी कि भारत और चीन एक दूसरे से जुदा नहीं हो सकते और इसलिए उन्होंने एक उपन्यास लिखा उसका नाम रखा चिंगलिंग। चिंगलिंग एक चीनी यात्री है जो विनोबा जी की यात्रा में पूरे भूदान के आंदोलन में जुड़ी। निर्मला जी कहती थी मेरा पूर्व जन्म तो शंघाई में हुआ था और कोई मुझे उंगली पकड़ कर ले जाए तो मैं शंघाई के सारे रास्ते बता दूँ क्यूंकि मुझे अपना पूर्व जन्म याद है। निर्मला जी की यह बातें कल्पना मान सकते है, हम कुछ और नाम भी दे सकते हैं, परंतु ये बात ज़रूर कह सकते हैं क़ी उनकी एक ऐसी अपेक्षा थी कि एशिया के देशों के अंदर एक दोस्ती की भावना बने और ये दोस्ती ही पूरी दुनिया के अंदर शांति का संदेश दे। उनके गुरु संत विनोबा भावे एक सूत्र देते: ए बी सी, अफ़ग़ानिस्तान, बर्मा और सीलोन। उनका कहना था अगर ये तीन एशियाई देश एक हो जाएं अगर उनका एक संघ बन जाए तो हम विश्व शांति के एक बहुत बड़े पैगम्बर साबित होंगे। और उनकी ये शिक्षा को, एसोसिएशन ऑफ़ पीपल्स ऑफ़ एशिया की स्थापना करके निर्मला जी ने उस काम को बहुत आगे बढ़ाया। निर्मला जी की सोच थी कि वह ग्राम स्वराज से लेकर विश्व परिवार तक, जिसे निर्मला जी ने, विनोबा जी ने और सुब्बाराव जी ने जय जगत का नाम दिया, उस परिदृश्य को देखकर रहेंगी। आज की स्थिति एक अलग रूप में है। आज पूरी दुनिया के अंदर अशांति का वातावरण है। रूस और यूक्रेन के अंदर काफी लंबे समय से लड़ाई चल रही है। वास्तव में ये लड़ाई तो, जैसा हम जानते है, अमेरिका और नाटो के जो समर्थन से लोग खड़े है उनकी लड़ाई है। और वो ही इस लड़ाई की आग में पेट्रोल डालने का काम कर रहे हैं। पर हम ये भी देख रहे हैं की आज यु एस और नाटो कमज़ोर हो रहे हैं। इसके विपरीत रूस और चीन दोनों एक साथ खड़े दिखाई दे रहे हैं. ऐसे समय में हम समझते हैं अगर एशियाई देशों में जो एकता, एशियाई देशों में जो भाईचारा, एशियाई देशों में मैत्रीपूर्ण संबंध स्थापित होंगे वह ने केवल एक आध्यात्मिक रास्ता दिखाएंगे अपितु राजनीतिक रूप से कूटनीतिक रूप से एक मजबूत संबल साबित होंगे। मैं इस अवसर पर गुरुदेव रविंद्रनाथ टैगोर के भाषण के तीन अंश सुनाना चाहूंगा जो उन्होंने अपनी यात्रा के दौरान चीन में कहे। “आज ऐसे बहुत से लोग हैं जो विश्वास नहीं करते। वे नहीं जानते कि एक महान भविष्य में विश्वास करना ही उस भविष्य का निर्माण करता है; विश्वास के बिना आप सही अवसरों को नहीं पहचान सकते। विवेकपूर्ण लोगों और अविश्वासियों ने मतभेद पैदा किये हैं, लेकिन यह बच्चा जो हम में शाश्वत है, जो इंसान सपने देखता है, वह सरल विश्वास वाला व्यक्ति, इन्होनें महान सभ्यताओं का निर्माण किया है। आप अपने इतिहास में देखेंगे, एक रचनात्मक प्रतिभा में विश्वास था जिसकी कोई सीमा नहीं थी। आधुनिक संशयवादी, जो सदैव आलोचनात्मक रहता है, कुछ भी उत्पन्न नहीं कर सकता - वह केवल नष्ट कर सकता है।” गुरुदेव ने कहा “आइए हम इस दृढ़ विश्वास के साथ खुश हों कि हम ऐसे युग में पैदा हुए हैं जब राष्ट्र एक साथ आ रहे हैं। यह खून खराबा और दुख हमेशा के लिए नहीं चल सकता, क्योंकि मनुष्य होने के नाते, हम कभी भी अपनी आत्मा को अशांति और प्रतिस्पर्धा में नहीं पा सकते हैं। ऐसे संकेत हैं कि नया युग आ गया है। आपने मुझसे अपने पास आने के लिए कहा है, यह उनमें से एक है।” अंत में उन्होंने कहा “वह समय आ गया है जब हम एक बार फिर उस महाद्वीप से होने पर गर्व महसूस करेंगे जो संकट के तूफानी बादलों के बीच से निकलने वाली रोशनी पैदा करता है और जीवन के मार्ग को रोशन करता है।” ये है गुरुदेव रबीन्द्रनाथ टैगर का सपना ये थी उनकी भविष्यवाणी और ये थी उनकी चाह, एक मज़बूत एशिया का निर्माण। भारत और चीन जैसे देशों के बीच मज़बूती के रिश्ते। आबादी हमारी भी बड़ी है उनकी भी बड़ी है पर हम क्यों नहीं सीख सकते? उन्होने अपनी आबादी को पावर बनाया हम क्यों नहीं सीख सकते उन्होंने गरीबी निवारण की अनेक योजनाएं शुरू की हैं। हम एक दूसरे से सीखें हम एक दूसरे को समझें तो निश्चित रूप से एक नए एशिया का उदय होगा और एक नए एशिया के उदय का मतलब है एक नए विश्व का उदय और एक नई विश्व शांति की चिंगारी का उदय। राम मोहन राय गांधी ग्लोबल फैमिली के महासचिव हैं। वह लंबे समय से पानीपत में अनेक संघर्षों में सक्रिय रहे हैं। वह निर्मला देशपांडे संस्थान के संस्थापक हैं। by Manoranjan Mohanty.  This is the text of a speech given at an event to commemorate the centenary of Tagore's trip to China on the 23rd of September at the Gandhi Peace Foundation, Delhi. This is a very special occasion, I am very fortunate to be present. First of all, I would like to tell you about my relationship to Chameli Tan Ramachandran’s family. I remember it was August of 1965, I saw a signboard with an arrow, on Mall Road near Delhi University on which was written Centre for Chinese Studies. Nobody seemed to know about this center. In my hostel, Jubilee Hall, there was a Lecturer in Sanskrit teaching in Deshbandhu College. I was teaching Political Science in Zakir Hussain College at the time. On a quick enquiry I ascertained that he was already in the course. I told him I wanted to learn Chinese. I had not gotten an opportunity till then. I had actually joined Russian one month back, but I did not know that Chinese Language Course had started. He said he had two Chinese teachers, Tan Chung and his wife Huang Ishu. He said they were so good human beings that we could right away go to their house and find out. At 9 PM at night we reached their house. First, Ishu gave us some sweets and after a short conversation Tan Chung said I could join his class the next morning. This is how I started my Chinese language. Having made up my mind to study some non-western region of the world after my MA, I had already started doing research on Chinese Foreign Policy.
That was the beginning of my association with the Tan family that has lasted till today. After my Ph D in the US I came back and became Tan Chung’s colleague in Delhi University. Then I moved to the Political Science Department in 1980. In 1978, Tan Chung moved to JNU but Ishu continued at DU. We have remained lifelong friends. Tan Chung is not only my teacher but also my mentor. As I was Chameli Ramachandran earlier I last met Tan Chung in 2019 in Changsha, Hunan when we attended the centenary celebration of Tan Yunshan, Tan Chung’s father, at Changling, the Tan family’s native place- in which County, incidentally, Mao Zedong was born. Tan Chung is now 96, but still agile and full of ideas. I can go on telling about him. I had met Tan Yun Shan in 1980 in Santiniketan and we had a wonderful conversation there. Now I will come to what I want to talk about in this momentous celebration of the centenary of Tagore’s visit to China and the perspective on India-China civilizational understanding that the Tan family has carried forward. I must emphasize that Tan Chung greatly shaped my thought process on this subject. I have an article called Alternate Historiography: Tan Chung’s Geo-civilizational Perspective. He mentored us to believe that state is a relatively new formation in history. India and China became republics in 1950 and 1949 but these are great civilizations with thousands of years’ history. That is a major element in the discourse in our intellectual journey associated with the Institute of Chinese Studies which we had started as a seminar group over fifty years ago, Tan Chung, me and a few other colleagues started meeting as the Wednesday China Seminar in 1969 August. Coming back to our topic of civilizational understanding. When Archishman Raju writes to me some one year back saying that they have something called the Intercivilizational Project and they want to hold a series of celebrations. I was very excited. Then I discovered Nandita. This couple, scientists in Bangalore, thought of this celebration even before professional China scholars like us had thought about it. We hadn’t planned it yet, we knew we would do something. Santiniketan had already started the planning. What attracted us all to this initiative was our common commitment to the civilizational perspective. Tan Chung had gone deep into the multiple dimensions of that perspective and carried forward Tan Yunshan’s efforts to crystalliza the Tagore vision on seeing the world as a civilizational universe. That presents before us what can be called the Tagore path to global civilizational dialogue. The Tagore path has three characteristics. When we talk about civilizational east, we imply that West is not just a geographical region but a civilizational space, West and East constitute the globe. In other words, firstly, all parts of the globe have history, culture and civilization. That is why Tagore thoughtfully named his educational initiative as Visva Bharati. What he meant by Bharati was learning and Vishva Bharati was envisioned as a centre of civilisational heritage of the entire world, the language, literature and culture and knowledge systems of the whole world . His concept of mahamanav ( human with the highest qualities ) vishwamanav ( human belonging to the whole planet or embodying the cumulative heritage of the whole world) . You have to see in this perspective the unity of the whole world consisting of multiple civilizations. Let us recall the controversy about Tagore’s visit to China in 1924. The radical intellectuals in China opposed his visit and argued that his ideas were not appropriate for China’s needs at the time. However, in my opinion, the great Indologist Professor Ji Xianlin, who later wrote about it, puts it very well: Tagore was anti-imperialist but he was also a mystic. So many in China did not like his mysticism. But we note that later Tagore become very popular- having become the most published foreign author after William Shakespeare. In 2013-2014 in China and in India we together organized innumerable functions, more than 20 of them to celebrate the centenary of Tagore’s Nobel prize of 1913. That year we all recognised the extent of popularity of Tagore in China. Civilizational perspective leads us to see interconnections among peoples, their histories and cultures and the deeper levels of reality in society and life. To promote such an understanding at the global level Tagore wanted Visva Bharati to hace centres of leaning such a Cheena Bhavan, and many other Bhavans to study Japanese, Persian and many Indian language centers. In other words, study of world civilizations was his mission. Second, Tagore made it very clear that Western Civilization was more about materialism while Eastern Civilization was more about spiritualism. That was the usual way most thinkers in India and Europe had characterized Eastern and Western civilisations. There are two ways to read Tagore. Many emphasize the mystical and spiritual in his writings. But if you read the entirety of Tagore’s writings and put them together with the works he undertook then it would be clear that he was not just about spiritualism. Sisir Kumar Das has put it very well, Tagore wanted a syncretic understanding of spiritual and material together and he wanted to convey the message that all civilizations have both spiritual and material traditions. Santiniketan the arena of knowledge cultivation and Sriniketan the arena of production and creation of artifacts together represented the totality of the Tagore cosmology. He showed in practice that, in India too we had both a material tradition along with a spiritual tradition. Similarly, in the West, there is the Socratic, Platonic and Augustine tradition up until Hegel which continued till today along with the evolution of science and industry which demonstrated the materialist tradition. J. P. S. Oberoi in his work, “The Other mind of Europe” has pointed out the non-rational and idealist, the non-materialist mind of Europe. Tagore looked at traditional culture in all its dimensions, material and spiritual together. Third aspect of the Tagore Path to civilizational dialogue is to realize the intimate bond between humans and nature. This was the theme that attracted many people all over the world to Tagore’s poetry. It was this that was celebrated in the first translations by Chen Duxiu the founder of the Chinese Communist Party in the second issue of Xin Qingnian ( The New Youth ) Magazine, the magazine which catalyzed the Chinese cultural stream and literature and inspired the May 4th Movement of 1919. Tagore captured it very well, humans and nature were in unity, and mutual dependence. This should not be called mystic. To understand the beauty and the mysteries of nature and try to explore them. That mysticism I believe as a Marxist, dialectical materialist, I believe that mysticism is a very important part of one’s total understanding of phenomenon recognizing the realm of unknown or yet to be articulated. Thus, every culture, every civilization had all three dimensions: they are all inter-related, each had both material and spiritual elements of tradition and and each was based on integral relationship of humans and nature. Recognizing the variety and beauty in society, in humanity, recognizing the plurality in each tradition each one deserving equal attention and each deserving equal respect. That is the Tagore path. I will conclude by making two suggestions to ourselves, all of us, those who are workers for peace and friendship between all civilizations particularly of Asia, particularly of India and China. Those of us, our distinguished speaker today, Syeda Hamid and I for example, are active in Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy and we are located in the Tagore path. I must tell you, I was active with Pandit Sunderlal and B. P. Mandal in the very tense days of India-China relations during the 1960s in the India China Friendship Association. Then after I returned from the U.S, from 1971 onwards I was very active till it became very easy and normal and a lot of people joined India China friendship association. Indian Government and Indian Business took many initiatives to promote exchanges. We then focused more on research and academic collaboration. But friendship association activities that excessively depend upon governments experience ups and downs reflecting the course of the relations between the countries. Therefore, this civilizational initiative has to be a people’s initiative. No matter what policies the embassy has, the government has, people must have their own channels of interaction. Number two, I think we have to be objective and independent in our approach in carrying out our dialogues. We don’t have to support Prime Minister Modi’s policies here and President Xi Jinping’s policies there at this moment. We should be prepared to face consequences of taking independent stand on issues and policies as scholars or peace activists. Speak truth to history and power and history and people in future will judge. And that is Tagore’s message. He had a big debate with Gandhi, but he also gave the term Mahatma to Gandhi. People to people relations, and scholars can start that, we should start with all channels and society must pressure the government to create that understanding and remain independent of governments and their policies. Only then can we carry forward the Bandung perspective of decolonization and oppose hegemony and superpower politics and create that equitable, just world that is the future world envisioned by Tagore and Tan Yun Shan. We reprint here the English translation of Rabindranath Tagore's poem Bharat Tirtha, or The Indian Pilgrimage. This poem was recited from memory in Bengali by Chameli Ramachandran upon receiving the Mahatma Gandhi Shanti Doot Award in honor of her and her family's work for peace in Asia. The translation is by by Smt. Indira Devi Chaudhurani. The Indian Pilgrimage/A hymn to India Rabindranath Tagore Awake my mind, gently awake in this holy place of pilgrimage on the shore of this vast sea of humanity that is India. Here I stand with arms outstretched to hail man, man divine in his own image, and sing to his glory in notes glad and free. These mountains rapt in meditation, these plains with rivers winding like rosaries, behold this earth that is ever holy-- on the shore of this vast sea of humanity that is India. No one knows whence and at whose call came pouring endless inundations of men rushing madly along—to lose themselves in the sea: Aryans and non-Aryans, Dravidians and Chinese, Scythians, Huns, Pathans and Moghuls-- all are mixed, merged and lost in one body. Now the door has opened to the West and gifts in hand they beckon and come-- they will give and take, meet and bring together, none shall be turned away from the shore of this vast sea of humanity that is India. These battling hordes who crashed into our midst with frenzied war-cries, cutting their way through deserts and over mountains, they are all, one and all, become a pulse of my being, none is far away, in my blood throbs the echo of their diverse music. O celestial music, fierce and terrible, let thy notes sound louder and louder, the walls that divide shall crumble and they who stand aloof in the arrogance of isolation they too shall come and crowd together-- on the shore of this vast sea of humanity that is India. In this land did once resound a hymn unceasing to the one, the primal source and wonder of creation, the music of many hearts mingling in that one harmony, and minds, disciplined and dedicated, had poured their diverse offerings into one sacrificial flame, and to their chant had awakened a Mind magnificent, all embracing, all absorbing. Break open the door to the vision of the sacred flame, of the spirit's unceasing endeavour-- for we must gather again with bowed heads on the shore of this vast sea of humanity that is India. Behold the sacred fire with its blood-red flame of sorrow ours is the sorrow and in its flame we must burn within-- so has Fate decreed. Welcome pain, welcome anguish that makes us one again, freed of fear, freed of the load of shame! This agony unbearable shall end in the spirit's rebirth, vast and boundless, the night has run its course and the Mother awakes in her spacious abode on the shore of this vast sea of humanity that is India Come ye Aryan, come non-Aryan, Hindu, Muslim, come, come ye English, come ye Christians, welcome every one, come Brahmin, cleanse your mind and clasp the hand of all, come ye outcaste, come ye lowly, fling away the load of shame! Come, one and all, to the Mother's crowning, the sacred jar is yet to fill, and all must join that the water be consecrate on the shore of this vast sea of humanity that is India. |
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September 2024
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