Wandering Satlan Redux
As it’s a year since I set off for India, I thought I’d draw interested readers attention to my wanderingsatlan blog.
“The future beckons us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic, and progressive nation; and to create social, economic, and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.” Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, August 15, 1947
India may yet lead the world. In 1917 Rabindranath Tagore wrote the following:
“In finding the solution to our problem, we shall have helped to solve the world problem as well…if India can offer to the world her solution, it will be a contribution to humanity.”
The problem: a territory ravaged by ethnic, caste and religious division, a land mired in poverty and under colonial rule. The assumed solution: national liberation and independence. With national groups around the world preparing to state their case for self-determination at the Paris peace conference, Tagore tried to put forward an alternative, one based on that most slippery of concepts, ‘culture’. For him, nationalism (in its western garb) was an alien concept, far removed from the romantic and spiritual complexities of life in the subcontinent. Read more
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