Spring/Basanta/2015

One of the greatest benefits of being Bengali, is having Rabindranath lay out the parameters or provide frameworks for all significant emotion, viewing and feeling. Most Bengalis are raised within a tradition of Rabindrasangeet. Therefore, although, as I look out onto my verandah, typing in my room at 11.15 a.m., on a Sunday morning, and want to talk about Basantakal, the words and music from Rabindranath’s song ‘Basantibhuvanamohini’ ring through my ears, and the words provide a frame for my feelings.

One way of charting whether one grows or not emotionally, psychologically and also spiritually, is through the index of love of Nature, of the capacity to thrill to natural beauty. Rabindranath too at one point had said, that there was no lovelier sound than that of the musical human voice. I don’t know. I thought so too. But oh, the persistent call of the Kokil in spring! It drives me crazy. I feel I want to stop all my work, that work, which professional life imposes on all of us, and listen to the bird cry. Ki korbo, ingrejisahityadwara o je sensibility informed—taibhulteparina, Romantic kobirapakhikekiasadharonpradhhanyeinadieyecchilen.

Kokilerdakbaccha der hanshir moto. Abadh. Niyomjanena.nijerkhushite deke chole. Ektu them e abar-abar-abar. Ananda je shimahiny hoi—bisheshkore je anandeatmatustirknonjthakena.Shelley  proshnorekhechilen skylark erkache—‘ogotumikikoreetoanandegangao? Amaiektushekhaona.taholeamiamarmortyyo jammer koshtobhule jai?”

Bangla words shiktehoccheyi. As I write the kokila has called three times already—sa re gama  padhani. Have you noticed that it is a certain incredible musical scale that it follows?

Nature is not always happy. At least I don’t think so. When May comes, I curse the fact that I live in Kolkata. Rabindranath may have seen beauty in the ‘prokhorotapan o tape,’ but I don’t.

So as I look out from my verandah, upstairs, at 424 G Block, at eight in the morning, the sight is breathtaking. The kanchon is still in full bloom. That is one thing about Basanta. It is very, very temporary.

And yes, the fullness that one finds in Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Basantibhuvanamohini’ has the structured fullness of Art. Inspired bySavitri’s (great South Indian singer, living at Shantiniketan at that time)Meenakshivandana, set to raagBibhas, the reference to the ‘shyamalaprantere’,  ‘bonobonantare’ ‘pikosangeet e’ has something ornamental and studied about it, and that always happens when one tries to fit untrammelled Nature into the careful proportions of an art object. And, like Keats’s Grecian Urn, this is classical art. ‘BasantiBhuvanamohini’ does not have the unplanned excess of the Kokila, calling out ever so frequently, ever so obstreperously, ever so wildly and abundantly. Art cannot match Nature, although it is only through Art that Nature, may be memorialized in certain ways. 

The symphony of color, pale purple pink of the kanchan, with a crow gently roosting its eggs, the radhachuda, coming out with its tender green small leaves, the yellow bougainvillea and the profusion of the Kokila’s song, I wonder how to contain all this beauty within myself.

I request my friend Madhubani Ghosh to please put the Romanized Bengali words into Bangla type if possible, and I remember both Aniruddha Deb and she, great nature lovers, and the latter, a passionate bird lover!

Without human beings, how does one ever get to know the magical impact of Nature? So the human being, remains the ultimate reference point. As Rabindranath tells Einstein during his meeting with the great scientist in the 30’s of the last century, ‘the cosmos is a human view of the cosmos,’ and Einstein says in rejoinder, ‘that is purely a human view of the cosmos,’ Rabindranath says in reply, ‘there is nothing outside the human view/mind’. My quotations are approximate—if one wishes one could read Rabindranath’s ‘Religion of Man.’

Have to add a note on Vivekananda in this context. Rabindranath came much later to the view in Religion of Man, that God/Ultimate Spirit resided in the lowest of the low, and the humblest of the humble; ‘tiniachenjekhanechashachashkore.’ Swamiji was by no means anywhere even near Rabindranath in poetic or artistic talent, but his heart and his capacity to feel for the downtrodden, the deprived and the excluded, MUCH, MUCH, greater.

Once during a lecture tour of America, a black porter had come up to Swamiji, shaken his hand profusely and said that he was very happy that one of them had risen so high. Swamiji happily and robustly shook his hand. When an American friend/host who was with him at the hotel elevator point, asked him why he had not pointed out that he was not black, Swamiji said, ‘Rise at the expense of another? Vivekananda was not born to do that?!!!

These are golden moments that one has to treasure within oneself if one knows them. If Rabindranath set one kind of an absolute standard of beauty and poetic thought, Vivekananda set another! Let us be happy that we know about both of them. 

Sister Nivedita. Translation continued of Rabindranath Tagore's Bhagini Nivedita

I write all this with frankness today because as on the one hand I feared an onslaught on my being by her, on the other hand, she has done me the kind of exceptional favors, that I don’t recollect anybody else doing for me. There are numerous instances of when after meeting her, I have drawn strength from her strength and used my veneration for her as fuel for propelling me forward.

I have never seen any other person who was as capable as she of giving herself wholeheartedly to a cause or a purpose. She gave without restraint or reservation. In these matters neither considerations of health, habit, the sentiments of her near and dear ones, the indifference of Indian society, or the loss of purpose in those she sacrificed herself for, could deter her.  Those who knew her saw the extent to which a human being could exemplify Truth and Consciousness. Her ability to shred through all artificial constraints and hypocritical values, and move towards her goal with boundless energy, remains a magnificent instance of the reaches of human power. Those of us who witnessed this are indeed blessed.

The best things in life we usually get free. Because we do not have to pay for them, we usually don’t give them their proper value. Sister Nivedita’s life was like that. It was a great life from the example of which, other people benefitted. She tirelessly gave what was best in her, every moment and every day of her life. She did not spare herself in the least in living by this strenuous idealism. She refused to have any sense of personal comfort or desire, corrupt this ideal. She decided to live beyond hunger and thirst, loss and gain, fame and infamy. She decided to submit herself to this high ideal of giving without any consideration of fear, hesitation, comfort or rest. 

ENGLISH AS POETIC AND NARRATIVE EROS INTHE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

When we read The God of Small Things we will see how far the English language in Indian writing of narrative in English, has come from an uneasy balance between language and context, sometimes creating an alienation in the reader from the narrated realities of the text,  to a point where language and context enact a magical coalescence. It is certainly narrative, in that it tells a story; furthermore it is also a novel, because it holds up an entire society, inflected as it is by specific socio economic modalities, for the reader’s extension of her/his `own world. As Morrison says in a famous quote, ‘But narrative remains the best way to learn anything, whether history or theology, so I continue with the narrative form’.¹ This  is specially so because it does it through pleasure, through the medium of the story, and through affect, and that affect is what often leads the auditor to cognition.

The God of Small Things(1997), hereafter referred to as TGST, is also that Indian novel in English which represents the arrival of the Indian novel in English, in a definitive and resounding manner on  the global scene of novel writing in English.  It is a consummate moment not only validated through the author’s winning of the Booker Prize (1997), but through the bridging of  possible gaps between language and context since the language is English and not and indigenous one, between language and experience, between affect and cognition, grammatical structure and the highest levels of poetry, a linguistic space where the plenitude of imagination and that of language meet and reach spectacular and dramatic heights.Of course, one needs to be an anglophile to a certain extent to feel this subliminal reach of  the language, which takes us back to the old debates over whether  English is at all a suitable medium for artistic expression, within Indian contexts. 

That it is also a woman who performs this feat, is important if we wish to clinch issues of gender and creativity. in the writing of novels in English in India, where all doubts as to whether English is an adequate medium for representing Indian realities, should be erased. The artistic continuum we are studying here—peculiar triumph of gender and genre. Ashapurna writes the definitive feminist novel in Bengali and Arundhati in English.  

Sister Nivedita, continued

In time I had many opportunities to interact with her. I intuited her immense strength and also realized that she and I were meant for different paths. Immensely talented, she also was a warrior by nature. She was mighty and did not hesitate to impose her will on other people. She was dominating and single minded and liked molding other people to her opinions. If people agreed with her, she could get along with them, otherwise not. From my own experience I can say that although there were many occasions during which I had the opportunity to get really close to her, I resisted such intimacy because I felt an inner resistance. It was not a resistance born out of the fear of ideological difference, but a fear born out of having my entire being besieged.  

I write all this with frankness today because as on the one hand I feared an onslaught on my being by her, on the other hand, she has done me the kind of exceptional favors, that I don’t recollect anybody else doing for me. There are numerous instances of when after meeting her, I have drawn strength from her strength and used my veneration for her as fuel for propelling me forward.

I have never seen any other person who was as capable as she of giving herself wholeheartedly to a cause or a purpose. She gave without restraint or reservation. In these matters neither considerations of health, habit, the sentiments of her near and dear ones, the indifference of Indian society, or the loss of purpose in those she sacrificed herself for, could deter her.  Those who knew her saw the extent to which a human being could exemplify Truth and Consciousness. Her ability to shred through all artificial constraints and hypocritical values, and move towards her goal with boundless energy, remains a magnificent instance of the reaches of human power. Those of us who witnessed this are indeed blessed. 

My translation of Rabindranath Tagore's Bhagini Nivedita which in English becomes 'Sister Nivedita' which is what she is called...
I will upload the entire translation over the next couple of days. This was published by Sutradhar in 2016.

Sister Nivedita

                                                                       Rabindranath Tagore

When I first met Sister Nivedita, she had only shortly arrived in India. I had thought that she would be like any other missionary lady who came to India, only in her case, her religion was different.

It was because I had this impression that I approached her with the proposal that she accept the responsibility of teaching my daughter. She asked me, what kind of education did I want for my daughter? I answered that she give my daughter the kind of education that is structured around English as a medium of instruction. She said, ‘Why do you want to impose a form of education on the child that is foreign? To bring out the combined power of integral national excellence and individual ability in a person, is what I consider the right kind of education to be.  I don’t like suffocating this intrinsic ability under the weight of a foreign structure’.

I agreed with this position in its fundamentals.  However, how the  distilled  excellence of a national culture and the unique ability of the child, could be simultaneously identified and awakened , so that this child established harmony yet distinction within a world order of culture, was not known to me. I felt that although a very gifted educationist might pull off this extraordinary task, it would well remain outside the reach of an ordinary one. Therefore, most of us remain dependent on structures that are generally available. As a result, we often miss the targets we wish to achieve and involve the child in various trials of learning. A human being, who has the special characteristic of having a developed consciousness, should not be used carelessly like a commodity, but that is the general practice in society.

Although I had my doubts about whether she could impart to my daughter the kind of education whose formula she outlined, I told her that she could have her way with my child, and that I would not impose any demands on her. Perhaps for a fleeting moment she became inclined towards the project, but declined almost immediately after, saying that this was a task that was not meant for her to do. She had chosen a particular lane of Baghbazar in which to carry out her idealistic endeavors, and her purpose was to not impart education to the girls there, but to awaken the spirit of education that already existed dormant in them.  Unlike the missionaries, she was not interested in the numbers that she pulled into her camp, nor was she interested in increasing personal power and privilege within the individual families of these girls.   

On seeing Rituparna Ghosh’s Chitrangada

(this was written at least two years ago after seeing the film)

The film was a revelation. I did not see it in 2012, when it was released. Somehow I had thought that it would be a replay of the Ar Ekti Premer Golpo themes.

But, no. The film is like a haunting lyric. Playing out the power of Rabindranath Tagore’s  lyric ‘amar praner pore chole gelo ke/ basanter batashtukur moto/ se je chunye gelo, nuye gelo re/phul phutiye gelo shoto shoto…’

A translation of these lines reads (and this song is not in the film):

Who is that who just passed over my being?/ like the breeze in Spring?/ that being touched me, overwhelmed me/ and made so many flowers spring in his/her wake…’ 

The film is like that. Echoes and reechoes. Not a word, not a gesture out  of place. Perfectly orchestrated; a lyric on the pain of otherness. So one of the songs that run through the film, which actually one has to slightly strain to hear, is Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘ bodo bedonar y moto bejechho tumi he’ or ‘Oh, you have sung through my being a sad song, always’.

Who is the one addressed? Is it God, or Nature, or who? Who has the answer to the secret of being? The film does not answer. But only poses the questions. And portrays the suffering of the one who is different. How he/she tries to belong. So Rudra Chatterjee, creative dancer and producer of Rabindranath Tagore’s Chitrangada (the masculine warrior princess who wished to become a beautiful woman), wishes to become a woman, because his body feels like one. He repeatedly goes through the pain of multiple surgeries, including breast implantations, to look attractive and desirable for his male lover. The story is Rituporno Ghosh’s own life. Self-reflexivity as Art; Art and Life inevitably inhere in each other.

Echoes of Philadelphia. Sexuality that is not accommodated by society. And certainly not middle class Bengali society. The pain and bewilderment of parents who find it hard to accept a child that society rejects, especially on the grounds of sexuality. Themes of the stranger abound in literature. Themes of transformation too.

Transformation is the stuff of fairy tales. Beauty and the Beast. The Frog Prince. The moral lesson that underscores the need for transformation and the uphill moral climb to re-transformation.

In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, little, black girl, Pecola Breedlove, yearns for a pair of ‘blue eyes’ that she thinks will take care of her socially outcast state. It will make the man in the candy store give her candy with more respect, instead of throwing it at her.

The film is a signature of how much Rituporno Ghosh suffered. Perhaps it was (it was) his last film. An unforgettable farewell gesture.

 Each actor, playing a major role or side one, is in tune with the whole. Superlative performances given by Rituporno himself, Jishu Sengupta, AND Anjan Dutta. I loved him the best. Restrained, disengaged initially, but more and more engaged as the sessions and story telling progresses, a model of the perfectly trained emotionally intelligent person. What a performance! Dipankar Dey, the actress who played the mother, were  all so very good. The subdued pain of the parents. However, the need to hold on in spite of everything.

 The loyal household person. When all abandoned Lear, his Fool came along with him on the heath. And the socially outcast son still has meals with his parents. That says something. Having meals together is commonality and community. That is the first thing that Macbeth loses—he cannot eat with his peers after the murder.

Coming back to Subho, or the counselor.  The reality of the counselor itself becomes problematic at the end. It seems there was no counselor. Just a voice? The Atman speaking and counseling? Reaching out to the rent apart, ‘unaccommodated’ (King Lear) self? The Self healing the Self?

Who knows? There are no answers. Except the reality of transits at all points.

Pain insufferable. But caught within artistic design and story telling.

The dirty, mleccha outsider that a sanitized, obsessively clean and hetero normative society, wishes to expunge? The film wrings one’s heart at so many levels. 

Some Kathamrita translations done four years back...

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Ramakrishna Kathamrita. Vol. II. Narendrapur edition. 644. March 1884.

I provide cultural analyses from time to time vis a vis things/statements that are made in the text, either by Thakur or the devotees. That makes it interesting for me to translate, and I feel that perhaps such analyses would be helpful and interesting to those who are outsiders to Bengali culture.

Also, whenever words are in italics they stand for my interpolations, for other possibilities of translations, more literary translations, than the ones I have otherwise provided)

Narendra o nastic mot. Ishwarer karya o Bhisma Dev. March, 1884.

Narendra and Atheism. The Way of God and Bhisma Dev (Dev meaning great soul, like Chaitanya Dev or Ramakrishna Dev. In popular Bengali parlance, “Dev” is assigned to all great souls and “Devi” to women, who are considered extraordinary. In literature for example, a woman of outstanding literary merit or achievement would be called “Mahasweta Devi” or “Ashapurna Devi.”)

Why God is still not having compassion (or showering his grace) on Narendra, is something that is perturbing Thakur. Thakur is looking at Narendra affectionately.

Narendra: I am studying the way of Atheism.

Sri Ramakrishna or Thakur: There are two ways; that of Faith and that of Disbelief. Why don’t you take the way of Faith?

Surendra: God is just, therefore, it is expected that he should look after his devotees.

Sri Ramakrishna: Shastra has it that those who practice generosity ( money spent on philanthropic activities), get wealth in their next life. But you know what, this world is His Maya, and there is a lot that is wrong or disturbing in the world of Maya. One cannot understand/comprehend everything. (Or, one can never be sure that one has understood perfectly or correctly). (Maya stalls comprehension).

One cannot understand the ways of God. Bhisma Dev is lying on his bed of arrows (sharasajya).The Pandavas come to see him. Krishna comes along with them. The Pandavas soon see that Bhisma is crying. The Pandavas say to Krishna, “How odd! Grandfather is one of the Eight Vasus. It would be hard to find someone as wise as he is. Governed by the principle of Maya, he too is crying at the hour of Death! Krishna says, “He is not crying for that reason. Why don’t you ask him?” On being asked, Bhisma says, “Krishna I have not understood the ways of God, at all. I am crying because I see that God Himself (Ishwar) accompanies the Pandavas everywhere, yet their lives are full of trouble! When I see this, I think that it is impossible to understand His ways.

Suddha Atman ekmatro atal—Sumerubat

The ultimate Soul is very tall  and utterly still

He (Tini) has shown me Paramatman, who is called Suddha Atman in the Vedas, only He is Immovable, like the Sumeru Peak, Dispassionate, and beyond Sorrow and Happiness. There is a lot that is wrong in his world of Maya. One can never say that a certain action will definitely lead to a certain consequence. One cannot say anything.

Surendra (with laughter): So one should donate, so that one will have wealth in one’s next life.

Sri Ramakrisha: Those who have money, should donate. Addressing Trailokya he says, Joygopal Sen has money, he should give.  It is not to his credit that he does not. Some people have money, but they are miserly. Who knows who is going to enjoy their money?

That day Joygopal came. He comes in a carriage. The carriage had a broken lantern. A decrepit horse. A hired attendant. And for this place ( for us here ) he brought two wasted pomegranates. Everybody laughs

Surendra: Joygopal Babu belongs to the Brahmo Samaj. Nowadays, from what I can make out, there aren’t that many people in the Brahmo Samaj that Keshav Chandra Sen created. Vijaykrishna Goswami, Shivnath Shastri, had all joined the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj.

Sri Ramakrishna (laughing): Govinda Adhikary, never kept good (competent) people in his jatra troupe. For fear that he would have to share the credit with them (is this a criticism of Keshav? It probably is, judging from Thakur’s comments that follow) Everybody laughs.

I saw one of Keshav’s disciples the other day. There was a theatre going on in Keshav’s house. I saw that he was dancing with his son in his arms. I also heard that he lectures. Who I wonder educates (gives lectures to) the person himself?

Trailokya is singing, --“Chidananda Sindhu Neere Premananda Lahari” (On the banks of the sea of Chidananda, there are waves of Premananda)

 After the song ends, Thakur says to Trailokya: Please sing “Amai de Ma pagol Kore” (Mother please make me mad).

 In those days, enactment of plays in aristocratic/well to do families, was common. The aristocracy always support the Arts. In all cultures. That’s how the Arts survive. Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, both had patrons. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is full of anxieties on the part of the menials who act a play, that they should not offend the aristocracy/the King. Because the price would be beheading. Theatres and dance dramas were very popular in the Tagore household. All Rabindranath’s brothers wrote songs, translated from other Indian languages, adapted classical tunes from bandishes; and in fact, this is where Rabindranath really got to practice and perfect his craft. This is how context shapes an artist and class helps to heighten and develop his talents. Because if Rabindranath had not been an upper class individual, he would not have ever had the resources with which plays could be staged; nor could he have pursued music and language as single-mindedly. Money provides leisure (Time; in feminist terms or in Virginia Woolf’s terms “a room of one’s own.”). And without leisure there can be no Art.     

At Dakshineshwar with Manilal and other devotees ( trans. 6.10.2014—8.10.2014)

Today is Sunday, the 9^th of March, 1884 (27^th Phalgun, Shukla Trayadashi). Sri Ramakrishna is at Dakshineshwar,  seated among several devotees; Manilal Mallik, Mahendra kaviraj of Sinthi, Balaram, Master, Bhavanath, Rakhal, Latu, Harish, Kishori (Gupta) and Shivchandra. Girish, Kali (later Swami Abhedananda) have not yet arrived (but it probably means that they have not yet become part of the inner circle, or have not met Thakur yet. The following statement seems to corroborate that). Sarat and Shashi have only seen Him only a few times. Purna, Chhoto (younger) Naren have also not seen Him yet.

There is a cast on Sri Ramakrishna’s hand. While walking on the side of the rail line, and in a state of bhava, he fell down and broke his hand. He is in quite a bit of pain (He is in a state of constant pain).

However, even in this state in he is often in Samadhi and speaks to his devotees of the most profound and searching spiritual matters.

One day, while crying out in a state of pain, he passed into Samadhi. After coming out of Samadhi, he tells devotees like Mahimacharan, “Babu, if you don’t know Satchitananda, you don’t know anything. You need great yearning (vyakulata) for that. I used to call upon him and say, “ Dear Lord, I am without great spiritual sadhana (bhajan-sadhan heen), but you have to come to me.”

That night, Mahimacharan, Adhar and Master gather again.

Sri Ramakrishna to Mahimacharan: There is a thing called Ahetuki Bhakti (loving completely beyond the self, loving for the sake of the beloved without any thought of self). See if you can follow that.

Again, he tells Adhar: Will you please stroke my hand to give it some comfort? (hard to get an absolutely precise translation of ektu hāt buliye debe).

Today is March 9, 1884. Manilal Mallik and Bhavanath are speaking of the exhibition that took place near the Asiatic Society. They speak of how many kings had sent costly items as exhibits, like gold beds. They are worth seeing.

Sri Ramakrishna and Wealth, Riches (Aisharya)

Sri Ramakrishna to his devotees, smiling in response to the discussion above:

Yes, if one goes one does gain something. When one looks at those things that Kings own, like the gold beds, other things do wither in comparison. When I used to go to Kolkata, Hriday would show me the Governor General’s house. He would say, “Uncle look at the massive pillars”! Mother showed me that they were nothing but bricks piled upon bricks.

God and his Riches. The Riches are only for a few days. God is forever (only God is true--bhagaban-y satya). The magician and his magic. People are spellbound by the magic. But it is all false (it is all illusory); only the magician is true. The Babu (the owner) and his garden. After seeing the garden, one should enquire after the owner (seek the owner).

Mani Mallik says to Sri Ramakrishna: And they (meaning the exhibition organizers) had installed huge electric lights. Then we think he who has created the electric light must be so great!

Sri Ramakrishna to Mani Mallik: Another school of philosophy ( ek mot) asserts that He has become everything. The one who is saying  all this (meaning the philosophy maker  or the one who speaks ) is also Him (tini). Ishwar is Maya, Jiva, and the world (jagat).

Discussion on the museum starts.

Sri Ramakrishna and Sadhusanga (the company of sadhus): A Yogi’s Picture

Sri Ramakrishna to the devotees: I had once gone to the museum. I was shown that brick becomes stone. Animals become stones. See, this is the significance of the company one keeps. If one stays with sadhus, one becomes like sadhus.

Mani Mallik smiling: If you had gone there once you would have found matter to lecture us for ten to fifteen years.

Sri Ramakrishna(smiling) : Why for examples (analogies)?

Balaram: No, you cannot go here and there. Your arm will not mend.

Sri Ramakrishna: I wish I could find (get) two pictures. One would be of a yogi who has lighted a fire (dhuni), and the other of a yogi who has lighted a pipe with opium (ganja) in it, and it lights up suddenly.

One gets excited (uddipan) seeing such pictures.

However, Yoga is interrupted (stalled, prevented) by Kamini and Kanchana (Woman and Gold). If the mind becomes pure, then there is Yoga. The mind is in the forehead. However, its gaze is directed towards the linga, gujhya and nabhi, or towards Kamini Kanchana. But with sadhana, the mind’s gaze can be directed upwards (how acutely psychological! The mind has its own gaze, which may not be the “gaze” of the eyes).

What is the sadhana that is required to bring “urdhadhrishti” (upward gaze) to the mind? Sadhusanga (being in the company of saints).

The Rishis either stayed alone or lived in the company of sadhus. That is why they could give up Kamini and Kanchana so easily and establish yogic contact (union) with God. There was no scope for either blame or fear.

If one has to renounce, one must ask God for strength of will (Purushokar, determination). One should then be able to renounce whatever one deems is false.

The Rishis had this Purushokar (intense determination). It is with Purushokar that they conquered the senses (Indriya).

If the tortoise once withdraws its hands and feet into its shell, even if you cut it into four parts, the hands and legs will not come out.

Worldly people practice deception. They are not simple (sorol). They verbally declare that the love God, but they are intensely drawn to material interests, to Kamini—Kanchana, a fraction of which attraction they do not invest in God. Yet, they profess to love God.

Towards Mani Mallik: Get rid of your worldliness (“Kapatata”—“get rid of your lack of transparency, your desire to conceal your actions,  your desire to conceal your attraction for worldly satisfaction.” My note: “Kapatata” means that inability for complete truthfulness, or lacking the drive to not hide the self from the world. “Akapat” or “sorol”( the word used by Thakur to mean the opposite of “Kapatata”),  is the kind of person who cannot hide his/her inner being from the gaze of the world, who exists in a state of complete transparency, where the bridge between inner and outer is clearly seen, or rather there is no bridge, at all.  Inner and outer share a simultaneity of state, which is a complex of spiritual, psychological or psychological proclivity. Sri Sri Thakur himself existed in that state of complete and absolute honesty or transparency. To the extent, that he could tell the Pagli (mad woman), “Ore amar je matri yoni” or “Oh, my girl, my genitals are those of a woman –Kathamrita, Udbodhan edition, 1041—1042. Dates: 16^th April, 1886.).    

Nobel Laureate Jean Tirole speaks at Presidency University, last year..

Jean Tirole spoke on the pervasiveness of the market place; of the invincibility and inevitability of market forces and declared quite unequivocally that for him the market place/market forces had a finality that no philosophical speculation could override or overlook.  His position was that the question of ethics, justice, social and private morality revolved around this central fulcrum of civil society. Tirole posited that it was difficult to speak in terms of Kantian absolutes, like Truth and Justice without speaking of ‘incentives’. He posited that without ‘incentives’ people would not invest in goodness.  It was obvious that he was a staunch materialist; hence his quarrel or rather, discomfort , with Kant. Prof. Amartya Sen in fact, pointed out towards the end, that Tirole had tended to oversimplify and reduce Kant.

Tirole, who came across as a  highly composed and self-assured speaker, said that he was disappointed with the current Pope’s position that the world would become a better place if people sacrificed more. Somewhat wryly Tirole noted, that people did not become ‘good’ or ‘better’ without  ‘incentives’.  ‘Incentives are key,’ he said. There is no denying that  most human beings are selfish and we like ‘goodness’ and  ‘truth’ when they are to our benefit.

The central conflict that his talk tried to address was that between morality or ethics and the market place. It was his position that morality and ethics are not absolute categories; given how the world is constituted today, there can be no realistic, contingent practice of morality without factoring in the profit loss dynamic of the global/local market place. Not only that, it was also a question of ‘whose morality? One often encountered the conflict of ‘my values’, with ‘your values’.  One has to be aware of a number of ‘caveats’ when one speaks  of Truth and Morality.

Tirole referred to Burke who in the 18^th century had said,’ the age of chivalry is dead.  The age of Sophists, economists and calculators has succeeded’.

In rebuttal of M.Sandel’s position that there are ultimate values that lie beyond money (‘what money can’t buy’), Tirole speaks of the benefits that economists bring society:

·         By revealing the power of market energies, they reflect ourselves to ourselves. Expose to us the truth about ourselves. Our selfishness, our deepest values and investments (moral, social, psychological, material, racial). That is why ‘economists brought bad news’.

·         Economists helped to break taboos by exposing how poverty often lay behind the condemned practice of prostitution or the selling of one’s organs for money

·         It brought attention to the ‘invisible victims’ of the market place.

·         It brought us face to face with questions like does one kill one person in order to save five? Or does one go for a ‘driverless car’ where one person loses a job, but five pedestrians benefit from it?

·         Economics brings us face to face with our deepest attachments and fears. It has a strong psychological component.

Tirole was emphatic about CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility and said that business institutions would not take ‘social responsibility’ without ‘incentives’.

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I did this review of Vivekananda as Turning Point (published by Advaita Ashrama) for the Golpark Bulletin in June 2013. Swaraj da, the co-editor of this Bulletin had asked me to.  Swami Prabhanandaji Maharaj had liked it very much. So I thought I would publish it in my blog.

 Vivekananda as The Turning Point: The Rise of a New Spiritual Wave

Advaita Ashrama published (January 2013), and Swami Suddhidananda edited, Vivekananda as The Turning Point, is comprehensive and interesting,  with a wide range of essays that look at different aspects of Swami Vivekananda’s many splendoured personality, his impact during his times,  his continued relevance and the scope of his ideas for the future. Although most of the essays were competent, some especially stood out for this particular reviewer.  They are those by Swamis Prabhananda, Bhajanananda, Chetanananda, Atmajnananda,  Pravrajiksa Brahmaprana and Vrajaprana, Asim Chaudhuri, Jayasree Mukherjee, Vikramjit Banerjee, Sukalyan Sengupta and Makarand Paranjappe,  Arun Kr. Biswas,   Kiran Prasad,  Rajiv Malhotra, Gopal Stavig and Arpita Mitra.  Some essays though well meaning in content, would have benefited from a tighter organization and more critical focus and analysis. Some essays were needlessly repetitive, offering little divergence from each other and while explicating Swamiji’s ideas in detail, remained diffusive in structure and failed to point out how such ideas may be made relevant or effective within contemporary contexts in practical, realistic and effective terms.

The first group of essays under the section “Looking Into the Past” are all consistently well argued and cohesively structured. Swami Prabhananda’s  focus on the Parliament of Religions of 1893, as a turning point of the East-West encounter, where the West came up short against in C.E.M Joad’s terms the “counter attack from the East,” is interesting because it was this same Parliament that  transformed Vivekananda  from an unknown Indian to a world personality, and began his “world mission.” Pravrajika Vrajaprana although tentative about how recognized and remembered Swami Vivekananda is in America today, nonetheless pointed out that Hindu ideas of reincarnation and redemption through Karmic evolution are now providing frameworks for mega hit films like Cloud Atlas, and that a leading article in Newsweek in recent times read, “ We are all Hindus now.” These signs she argues, may be read as assimilation of Vivekananda’s ideas over time in America, although Americans in general remain unaware of the source. She simultaneously points out that Swamiji himself would not be interested in recognition as long as his ideas were effective. Jayasree Mukherjee’s cogently argued essay brings to light certain interesting historical facts like Swamiji’s meeting with Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bagha Jatin, Aswini Kumar Dutta, “a noted extremist leader of Barisal” Hemchandra Ghosh (noted revolutionary of Bengal), Desukar, and also Sir Hiram Maxim, a noted gunmaker. Mukherjee also quotes Bhupendranath Dutta’s statement that Swamiji had once said that what Bengal needs is “a bomb and bomb alone.”  Again, Mukherjee is right on target in saying that Ramachandra Guha’s omission of Vivekananda from his recent Makers of Modern India is a serious and critical academic flaw.

 In Vikramjit Banerjee’s excellent essay, noteworthy for its chiseled argumentation and lack of diffusiveness, the writer disagreeing with those who call Vivekananda a socialist, says that he was a “radical traditionalist” who was “apolitical” by choice, although his heart beat passionately for the millions of downtrodden and oppressed people in India, and who urgently called out for the abolition of the culture of “don’t—touchism.” Banerjee is right in pointing out that although not strictly a socialist, what Swamiji was against was a culture of “privilege.” In citing how Swamiji is still relevant in terms of the ruling of the Supreme Court in recent times, he refers to Akhil Bharatiya Shoshit Karmachari Sangh (Railway) v. Union of India, in reference to which Justice Krishna Iyer said, “Swami Vivekananda Shudra Raj and refuted the incapabilities of the groaning untouchables.” Banerjee also cites other cases like State of Karnataka v. Appa Balu Ingale, Shastri Yagna Purushdasji v. Muldas Bhundardas Vaishya, where too Swami Vivkenanda has been quoted. Banerjee points out how Swamiji had a profound influence on the thinking of Rishi Aurobindo, Rajagopalacharya, Netaji, Bhupendranath Dutta, Indira Gandhi and Golwalkar.       

Within the section “Looking Into the Present and Future,” the repetition and recurrence of ideas  and the diffusiveness of essays, is obvious. Some essays however, are excellently argued. Swami Bhajanananda’s concise essay, “Swami Vivekananda and the Awakening of India in the 21^st Century” puts forward the idea that the 21^st century is characterized by certain mega trends. It is a Knowledge Society which is reaping the benefits in increased communication between different segments of society through outstanding progress in information and electronic technology, it is a society characterized by “Neo Humanism” which pays attention to marginalized groups, it is an age that is witnessing the rise of “secular spirituality” through spiritual gurus like Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle and Wyne Dyer. Swami Bhajanananda locates the rise of “secular spirituality” to Sri Ramakrishna and Swami who establishes Vivekananda.  Another forceful and meaningful essay in this group is that by  Kiran Prasad who quoting  current statistics establishes how the existence of “250 million people living under the poverty line,” and “6000 children who die every day from malnourishment” point to the fact that Swamiji’s message that the poor and the afflicted be served keeping in mind the inherent divinity of all human beings, has not been realized either at the level of concerted national policy or at the level of individual altruism. Deoki Nandan Gautam, T.N Chaturvedi and Satish Kapoor although exploring in detail facets of Vivekananda’s thoughts pertaining to state, socio-economics and  education,  fail to point out how India’s inability to achieve the humane directions of Swamiji’s thoughts may be given practical remedies within modern or contemporary contexts.

  In this same section, Anil Baran Ray and Sukanya Ray posit Swamiji’s ideal of complete human development and see the establishment of the United Nations Development Programme, the work of Paul Steeten, Mahbubul Haq and Amartya Sen as realizations of this vision.  Arun Kumar Biswas, who claims  that Swamiji as a Vedantic Socialist, posits how the socio-economic aspects of Vedanta which Vivekananda preached, may  also be found in  the Buddhist text Chakkavatti-Sihanada-Suttantii. Biswas advocates a John Needham style syncretic education that would pay attention to “science” “spirituality” and “socialism,” as the only way for a complete upliftment of society in general”. Sivaramakrishna points out that what the youth of today are asking vis a vis Swamiji’s contribution to moulding youth culture is “We would like to know and act on what is knowable and actable.” Anjana Gangopadhyay’s article bears the imprint of her thorough reading of Swamiji’s views on women, but lacks critical reflection on how Swamiji’s pronouncement that Sita like patience and suffering were the hallmarks of the Indian woman’s positionality, and that Indian women would work out their own salvation, needed to be contextualized within contemporary Indian contexts, keeping in mind factors such as class, urban or rural location, and the coordinates that they generated. It is not enough to simply cite the establishment and development of the Sri Sarada Math as a culmination of Swamiji’s vision for women.  

Sukalyan Sengupta and Makarand Paranjappe’s essay, “ Swami Vivekananda and the Integration of Science and Spirituality in the Future,” raises the interesting question whether Swami Vivekananda may be viewed as a scientist or not. They cite the example of Stephen Jay Gould who speaks of the different “magisteria” of Science and Spirituality and advocates mutual respect between these two fields that cannot overlap. But scientist Richard Dawkins considers Gould’s position as “politicial ploy” and posits that such an ideas is “empty” and that religion is based on “fixed false belief.” They also point out that although Swamiji passed away before Einstein’s Theory of Relativity became the new way to talk about the cosmos, he did interchange a letter with Nicolas Tesla and in all likelihood Tesla attended Swamiji’s lectures in  January-- February of 1896, at Hardman Hall or Madison Square Garden, New York. Later when Tesla speaks about the cosmos, he uses the terms “Akasha” and “Prana” which Swami Vivekananda had used to explain the “infinite omnipresent material,” and the “infinite omnipresent manifesting power.” Sengupta and Paranjappe point out that although it may not be possible to accommodate Swamiji within the domain of strictly scientific methodology and principle, it is possible that within Indian contexts, he  perhaps contributed  in unacknowledged ways to the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science, and the promotion of scientific research in India.  In a letter Jamsetji Tata wrote to him in 1898 in this regard,  five years after having met him on the steamship Empress of India, while both were going to the U.S., the former says, “ I know not who would make a more fitting general of such a campaign than Vivekananda.”   

  One of the best essays in this section is that by Asim Chaudhuri, where the writer includes a heart-warming and moving example of Swami Vivekananda’s outstanding egalitarianism and disdain of  privilege, when he cites the incident of how Swamiji cordially shook the hands of a black porter who had come forward to congratulate Swamiji  thinking him to be a fellow black, and when a Western disciple later asked Swamiji why he had kept quiet about his race, Swamiji had replied, “ Rise at the expense of another. I did not come to earth for that.”   

The essays in the section “Vivekananda’s Personality,” are all good, but those  that seemed most outstanding were Pravrajika Brahamaprana’s moving exploration of Swamiji’s Buddha like personality and his carrying out of the Boddhisattva ideal, and the ones by Swami Chetanananda, and Swami Atmajnanananda.  In “With Swamiji in India: J.J. Goodwin’s Letters from India about Vivekananda,” we commend Swami Chetanananda’s archival work in revealing hitherto unknown letters of J. J. Goodwin to Josephine Mcleod and Sarah Bull. These letters move us deeply in providing insights as they do into the personality of Swami Vivekanada and Goodwin’s perception of him as Divine and his joy that the Swami had accepted him as a Brahmachari.  In the other entitled, “Thus Have I Heard” also bears the mark of genuine historical research in uncovering and making known of what he had heard about Swami Vivekananda, from various sadhus and lay people, an instance being Mohanlal Shah’s reminiscences in 1970, when the latter described how while working for the Prabuddha Bharata, he had composed Swamiji’s articles “Aryans and Tamilians” and “Stray Remarks on Theosophy” and had taken the proofs to Swamiji. Swami Atmajnanananda speaks because it describes how he a young traveler from the West,  to India at age twenty-four, was arrested by the force of Swami Vivekananda’s “personality” compounded as it was of his great intellect and  enormous compassion, combining in him what Swamiji himself considered the ideal, “the intellect of Shankara with the heart of the Buddha.” Swamis Sunirmalananda, Brahmeshananda speak respectively about how Vivekananda like Sri Ramakrishna (the image maker) did not turn away from even the most depraved and fallen, Swami  Brahmeshananda speaks about how Swamiji was a perfect yogi with remarkable powers of concentration, prodigious memory and  detachment. At this juncture the reviewer would like to add that given modern discursive expectations, essays with a historical focus acquire greater readability and  therefore score over those which are more generalized.

 The section “Vivekananda’s Teachings,” although, carrying sincere articles by both Swami Tathagathananda and M. Lakshmi Kumari, simply becomes repetitive and both articles may have been accommodated in another section of the book, by cutting down the length of other articles, which too directly or indirectly, bring in the question of Swamiji’s teachings. 

 Coming now to the final section of the book which is entitled, “Vivekananda’s Ideas,” all three essays are good, but Rajiv Malhotra’s is outstanding. In this richly informative, tightly woven and argumentatively pinpointed essay Rajiv Malhotra speaks of how Swami Vivekananda had spoken about “involution” preceding “evolution,” which is a concept borrowed from Samkhya philosophy and which posits that matter, even in its most gross form is conscious. Hence the fact that matter evolves into higher and higher states of consciousness (evolution) is not surprising. Malhotra offers another very interesting fact for all those who are interested in the history of Ideas. That is, William James, the Harvard philosopher and author of the much celebrated Varieties of Religious Experience was deeply influenced by Swami Vivekananda’s reading of the mind (via Patanjali and others), and expressly acknowledged the Swami’s influence in moulding his psychological theories. Yet, when in 2002 the centenary edition of this book was launched, not a single reference to Vivekananda was made. What is so surprising in this the reviewer asks well acquainted as we are, with the appropriative nature of many western enterprises. Gopal Stavig and Arpita Mitra both offer well argued essays on “Vivekananda’s Groundbreaking Ideas for India and the World,” and “Vivekananda and the Revival of the Universal Religion.”

Finally, some words for the editing of this book. From all points of view the editing of a huge compilation like Vivekananda as the Turning Point, required prodigious attention to detail, planning, and a spirit of dedication to work that Swamiji himself constantly emphasized. It also remains a testimony to the editor’s devotion to the great Swami himself. However, in the opinion of this reviewer, many of the essays needed to be cut down in size, saved from needless repetition and   meandering structure and diffuseness of argumentation. One must keep in mind that any publication should be able to withstand  critical scrutiny which demands methodological rigour and the objective assessment of essays for a significant publication such as this one, brought out on the 150^th birth anniversary of “Turning Point” Vivekananda. 

Short anecdote/story of how I was helped by two young students to find an UBER. I had been in a rather hapless state. Letter written to my daughter...




Dear Priya, 

This is what happened on the streets of Kolkata about three days back. I've sacked my driver of three months, because another driver at the university informed me that mine was apparently stealing gallons of petrol from my car. True enough, when I reached home and asked to see the contents of the bag strapped to his scooter, there were four bottles of petrol in them. I asked him where these bottles had come from. He urbanely replied that his brother had given them to him. 

In such cases, I always have the feeling that I am wrong and the wrong doer right. Or in any case, I never really want to argue the point with them. Very unlike how I am with you and your brother:)

Anyway, I have been without a car and a driver since August 26.I feel very helpless on the roads of Kolkata, as you well know. 

I travelled to Presidency College during my undergraduate years, which were from 1979 to 1982. I used to take the train, along the Budge Budge line, along with many others. We would get off at Sealdah station and walk down Harrison road to the college, and the walk was usually a twenty minute one. I never felt the need to be in any car during those 24+ months that I studied in that college. 

But now that I teach at Presidency University, and am used to riding my own car everyday, the lack of it, makes me uneasy and anxious. 

I am not good at booking the air-conditioned Ola or Uber taxis that are often available nowadays. My phone inevitably hangs. Lumia phones are truly a disgrace--I mean, they embarrass you to the world. 

On two separate occasions I sat next to the security desk at the university because Babu from Hyderabad, was having trouble booking me an Ola cab. The security hugely commiserated my beleaguered state. They offered to find me a driver. I declined. I am done with them for the time being. 

Three days back when my phone 'hung' on me again, I stood witless at the University gates. The Ola cab that had anssered my second attempt at booking, had apparently arrived and was waiting for me at College Square. I haplessly asked the security where College Square was. As if I did not know. 

I plunged into the milling crowd on the pavements of College Street, tentatively and timidly asking college and university students, to give me some place to pass through them. I felt lost and bewildered and utterly anxious.  

After that the most idiotic thing of all. I went up to a parked Uber taxi and asked the driver (who reluctantly rolled his window down) if his cab could be hired. He made a dismissive gesture. 

Suddenly, I turn back. A charming young girl's face looks up at me with a shy smile, and says, 'Ma'am can we help you to book a cab'? A young man stood behind her. Equally young.  I asked her,'Are you students of Presidency?'. 'No, Ma'am. We are from Jadavpur. We came to invite the Presidency students to a Fest'.

They were Akif and Rushali. Akif studies Mechanical Engineering at Jadavpur. He is in the Second Year. Rushali studies International Relations, is also in the Second Year, and hopes to become a diplomat. 

'I was hesitant, Ma'am. But he insisted that we come after you and help you'. 

'How did you know that I needed a cab or needed help?'

'We heard the guards talk, Ma'am,' Akif replied, 'And we followed you'.

'I'll book you a cab, Ma'am. It's easier from an Android phone'. 

The cab that he booked parked a long way off from where we were standing on College Street. 'Ma'am if he has to come here, he will have to make several detours. Shall we just walk down to where he is parked?'

'Will you walk with me?'

'Of course, Ma'am'. 

'Here's my phone number. If you face any difficulty on the way, just give me a call, ' Akif, said. 

They walked me to the cab.

I blessed them and told them that their parents had done a wonderful job in raising them. 'Any time, Ma'am, ' they said.  

This review was published almost 8 years back in the RMIC Bulletin...

Review of Swami Jatiswarananda’s book How To Seek God

                                                                                                         Sreemati Mukherjee

            Swami Yatiswarananda book How To Seek God, though sometimes written in the form of notes or sketches or lectures,  nonetheless is a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom and has curative and cathartic value. The matter ranges from a description of the four types of devotees who are arta, artharthi, jijnasu and jnani to Sankaracharya’s Drig Drishya Viveka and the Yoga sutras. The reflections on each spiritual  subject that the swami takes up, reveals a passionate commitment to the life of the spirit and and an enduring  love for it. The various chapters Mind and Its Control, Values for Spiritual Life, Continence , Karma Yoga, Preparing for Divine Company, How to Sublimate Our Tendencies, Mediation Parts I &II, How to Live in the World, are often the same matter, simply with a different emphasis. This leads to some repetition in the text, yet, it also gives it a unity that leads to a kind of reinforcement for the reader. In the chapter Spiritual Progress on Experience he speaks about how meditation should be ‘niravacchinna tailadhara’ and how in spiritual life one has to progress form the world of form to the formless. He quotes Swami Brahmananda as saying to him “As you go on with your spiritual practice, you will discover what the heart is, how to go deeper, what to discover.”(152) Jatiswarananda posits that the height of spiritual awakening is  that state when  Thakur perceived the same divine ground to permeate everything including the  “shrine, the Puja vessels, everything..”(152) This is referred to in the happenings of December 14^th, 1883, when M quotes Thakur as saying, that everything seemed suffused with the same rasa, including a false person in front of the Kali temple and  the cat, which led him to feed Kali’s bhog to the cat! (Sri Sri Ramkrishna Kathamrita, Second Part, Ramkrishna Mission Ashram, Narendrapur, 545). Yatiswarananda concludes that this samesightedness is the end of spiritual life  and brings with it great humility(152).

            This review ends by quoting Swami Brahmananda who was the writer’s teacher and is hailed by him as one of the greatest teachers.  Sawmi Brahmananda’s saying, “Find joy in the struggle,” is perhaps one of those truths to cling to as one makes one’s journey through the difficult journey that is this life!

Higher Education in India: Envisioning a complete overhaul

Professor Pranab Bardhan, Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley 

Professor Bardhan began by a categorical statement which posited the ‘abysmal’ state of Higher Education in India. He further stated that ‘Our Higher Education is generally a fundamentally broken system. It is afflicted by a deep malaise’. He quoted from the National Knowledge Commission’s Report, ‘There is a quiet crisis in Higher Education in India which runs deep’. Of the three widely held criteria through which the viability of any educational system, ‘Access’, ‘Equity’ and ‘Quality’, India had failed its young people. India had no university within the top 200 in the world, while China already had 10. He stated that there had been a growth in the quantity of Higher Education institutions in India, but not much in quality. He felt that higher education in India was ‘riddled with inequity’.

Professor Bardhan stated that had served in the ‘most high powered academic body’  at Berkeley for three years,  and this apex body oversaw all the appointments at the university, all salary increases and all the most significant academic and administrative issues pertaining to the university. He declared that this experience had enabled him to gain a wonderful opportunity to assess how a public university as opposed to a private one, functioned in the U.S.A., and maintained its edge of excellence. Harvard, a private university and unquestionably excellent, was also extremely rich on the basis of its private endowments and hence its striving for even greater excellence was made easier by being unhindered from lack of funds. Professor Bardhan had been keen to know how Berkeley, a state university, in the State University of California chain, survived in the stiff competition amongst American universities, and still came out on top.

Professor Bardhan stated that his experience at Berkley got him to think about issues and problems which riddled the Indian system and how they may be negotiated and solved. He started by pointing out what led to a high rate of secondary school drop outs especially in rural areas, where social compulsions to get girls married off early existed, where there was lack of remedial teaching, where there was often a lack of proper educational tools and methods, which led to many students not have any access to higher education at all.  He quoted certain statistics, positing that only that according to reliable statistics and figures only about 20% of engineering graduates in India were employable. Post graduate research was not at a commensurate international level with few papers have high ‘impact factor’ and ‘citation indexes’.  He stated that he had come up with a scheme for an ‘overhaul’ of the system, which might seem utopian, but was still worth thinking about. He said that he could not imagine how difficult the ‘transition’ from the current state of Higher Education to the state of affairs he was proposing, would be, but it was still worth thinking about.  

Professor Bardhan referred to Adult Vocational Schools in America, where poor people were given courses in auto mechanics, auto repairing, typing, fire fighting, nursing at night, and these schools which were practically free. Of the Higher Education scheme that he was outlining vocational training would be one of the earliest seams. He advocated starting out with two alternative models A and B, after students left High School (Plus Two):

·         Stream A: universal access with ‘o’ tuition to local vocational institutes to learn plumbing, welding, auto mechanics, fire fighting, etc. Funding for this educational system would be shared by the State and local business houses which might even provide internships, and eventually employ the graduates. After two years there would be a Pass Out Test and a diploma earned. This was modelled on the current German system.

·         Stream B: Admission to a local college in General Sciences or Humanities. This course would train students to be school teachers, Laboratory assistants, Library Assistants, clerks, basic programmers and similar professions. This was the California Community College model, which provided for free education and was highly socialistic. At the end of two years students would earn a degree and enough class credits.

Students who qualified in the top 10% of streams A and B would have to take a test and if they qualified then they could go on to Options D or E.

·         Stream D: Professional schools like Law, Business and Engineering. There would be the availability of a large number of student loans payable within first five years of the student’s getting a job.

·         Stream E: Public universities with specialized learning in the Sciences and the Humanities where the fees would be high. Specialized branches of the Sciences and Humanities would be taught.

In India, Professor Bardhan stated there were 700 universities over which the resources of the country were spread thin. Therefore he advocated having only 50 universities, with two per state. He then proposed the final tier of this new education system. Of the top 1% of streams D and E would be able to reach:

·         Stream F: 2 top level research universities in the entire country where tuition would entirely free. Here research would be collaborative and multidisciplinary as it was in the best academic traditions worldwide.

He then went on to state that within this academic system involving streams A B D E F, there should be no political or bureaucratic control. At Berkeley notwithstanding the fact that it is a State University, which means funding for the University comes from the public budget,  there will be no tolerance of any  kind of political interference in terms of faculty hiring, faculty salary determination or faculty promotion. In the case of any such eventuality, the entire faculty body will rise in protest. This is how the success of the Public University system is maintained. Professor Bardhan thus emphasized autonomy which defined the profile of all American universities. 

In India he said, we need an every 3 year/ 5 year evaluation by a body of  Peers from other universities, which would evaluate the overall profile of each department. This external body would have a financial constituency which would then determine on the basis of the Report, how much funding should be given to a particular university, and how many faculty positions to sanction. Professor Bardhan emphasized that promotion should be on the basis of productivity and not seniority in age. He called this the Merit Review System.  For some reason he seemed to think that senior teachers in India were not productive and were promoted simply on the basis of age. Nor did he mention that seniority also ensued from the number of years in service.  Once again, emphasizing the case of Berkeley he said that Berkeley went through this evaluation every  5 years, and  the Report was handed in to the top most academic and administrative body of the university, and the future of faculty promotions and salaries depended on this Report and Berkeley’s own academic and administrative body evaluating this report. He also said that an Incentive Merit System needed to be introduced where faculty were given incentives to produce and do quality research.

Addressing the question of autonomy about which he was very emphatic in that it needed to be introduced in all Indian universities he said that the downside of autonomy is that it could lead to a ‘culture of mediocrity’ where ‘mediocre people get other mediocre people around them and thrive in a cocoon that is comfortable’. He referred to the term, ‘collusive mediocrity’ that an Italian academic had felt about the system of university autonomy in Italy. In America this was circumvented by the stiff competition between universities that vied with each other in recruiting the best faculty. Universities took care to see that their best faculty did not move out of their university to go to another one, because with the moving of this faculty person, the faculty person’s grants, affiliated students and advanced laboratories would also move. This kind of keen competition secures U.S. universities from the ‘culture of mediocrity’ that autonomy may generate.

Another evil that autonomy could spawn was the granting of fake degrees or degrees of inferior quality. He felt that politicians in India, pointing to a recent case in M.P., were invested in such degree giving. He had already pointed out in the early part of his lecture where he spoke of the fast growing rate of higher education institutions in India, that Maharashtra and South India had seen the birth of many private universities, which charged exorbitant fees that students from lower income groups could not afford and loans from banks were doctored by politicians. This is how politicians had become increasingly involved with higher education. He further stated that Market Testing Credentials would put students on the track of which degrees were valuable when they would find out what quality of degree were valued by hiring agencies.

Professor Bardhan said that funding from external research agencies was a big source of university income. For instance, he had once got a National Science Foundation Grant while at Berkeley and the university had taken away 50% of the money as per university protocol. He said that in India, I.C.S.R, U.G.C. D.S.T. I.C.H.R. were too regulated by bureaucratic control and needed to come out of it for university and other faculty to draw the maximum benefit from them.

He said that in matters of education he was definitely ‘elitist’. He posited that Reservation while constitutionally mandated was not that effective unless it produced students or graduates who were truly competent, because sometimes the phenomenon of being first generation learners impeded their expected performance level. He also stated however, that when students from reservation categories came to the university, they were to be provided an atmosphere in which they could thrive and prosper. He reminded the audience of Rohit Vemula’s letter and posited that universities should ensure that ‘equity’ and ‘quality’ did  not work at cross purposes. He hoped that India would progress to a state of Higher Education where the young people in the country could benefit from.

In the question answer session Ritoban Chatterjee of Physics asked whether  the fact that ‘lack of honesty’ within the Indian system of Higher Education had anything to do with the fact that India was a democracy that was only 70 years old, whereas Europe and America had much longer tested democracies. Professor Bardhan replied that he was an ‘economist’ and therefore believed that something could be done right now instead of waiting for a future when everyone would become ‘honest’. He said that ‘systemic’ changes could be introduced now and they would help.

Professor Anruadha Lohia spoke next and told Professor Bardhan quite categorically that ‘2’ universities would never work for a population of 125 million. She said that she strongly objected to his frequent premise that ‘politics’ and ‘politicians’ had completely riddled the Indian system of Higher Education. She said that many administrators fought against too much controlling from the top. She also said that for students whose parents had them groomed from childhood, would never accept their child only learning a ‘skill’ like automobile engineering or nursing, even if their child was not that brilliant or capable. She posited that ‘aspirations’ could not be monitored in this manner. She also added that we all needed to work together to take India to a better and better state of Higher Education.