A crisis every thirty years. Jobless growth, disparate
global order, unequally developed world, brain drain and brains in the drain.
This definitely was not the dream of Renaissance. The reawakening that started
in the middle ages in Europe and luminously
spread its light globally was more then just a European phenomenon. It was a
new dawn for the Earth as a whole.
The world without borders(thanks to globalization) that we see
today, the democratic, secular, egalitarian Nation States(most if not all) were
positive developments in the roller coaster joyride of humanity. It was meant
to be a well developed, egalitarian, scientifically advanced and open society.
Rabindranath Tagore in the Noble prize-winning Gitanjali
wrote,
‘Where the mind is
without fear,
And the head is held
high.
Into that heaven of
freedom my father,
Let my country awake’.
Coming from a Nation called India(in the modern parlance),
Bharat(in a traditional context) and Hindustan(in the medieval era), where
earth is seen not as a huge tract of land inhabited pre-dominantely by and for
the two-legged creations, but as a mother that nourishes us, nurtures us and is
a place to attain salvation, Rabindra Da dreamt of this beautiful world not
just for India, but for all of mankind.
The divine and spiritual Vedic thought of ‘Vasudhev Kutumbkum’ that is all this
world is one large and undivided family, is the driving faith for each and
every Indian. For this is how you are taught to be and this is how you are
meant to be.
Seeing the present day world, from this untainted lens of
unity, the world today definitely looks less brighter and more gloomier. The
polarization, globalo-phobia(the fear of further globalization), geometric
population growth and disproportionately hungry stomachs confronted with
concentrated wealth in the hands of few filthy rich run a chill down my spine. Ironically
enough, the phenomenon is most palpably resonant in India, where Kabira once dreamt,
‘Sai itna dijiye jamme kutmb samaye; mein bhi bhooka na rahon; sadhu na bhukha
jaye.’ (Litteral translation: Oh my Divine, give me just that much in which my
family can peacefully co-exist; neither I or any of my family member stays
hungry nor does any benevolent soul that comes to my home, goes empty stomach.)
In this melancholic milieu, silhouetted against the possibly
fragmented, recessionary and polarized world, wonders my mendicant mind, is
there a future for the seven billion humans on this earth and if the thoughts
of Kabira will have the resilience to awaken our sluggish spirits enamored by
the modern day comforts.
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