A Dream for India

As a naïve Hegelian, I believe that there exists a dialectical relationship between dreams and the objects we dream about. Therefore, although I have always had dreams for India, I have been acutely conscious of the fact that my dreams themselves are rooted in material conditions and shaped by a social imagination (narrative?) that pre-exists them.

Hence, the only thing I know for sure is that living humans do see dreams, regardless of the content of those dreams. A vibrant, breathing society, then, is one that allows and encourages(!) its inhabitants to dream as they like, in realms ranging from science and art, to politics and religion. So, the India of my dreams is one that has space for dreams and dreamers like myself. After all, it was in dreams that profound truths of mathematics are said to have been revealed to Srinivasa Ramanujan.

The New India of today seems to have somewhere sacrificed that proverbial dreamer at the altar of a monochromatic dream, giving way to the looming threat of lapsing into prolonged stasis, be it economic or social. However, acquiescence is no solution. “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

In my opinion, over the next fifty years, Indian public culture should imbibe the art of fostering divergent thinking, and thus domesticate manageable discontent. In today’s India, any original thinker is largely viewed with suspicion, as a militant challenger to the nation's organic integrity. And the media, to a great extent, is responsible for promoting this view through phrases and metaphors like “one of the most dangerous thinkers alive”, “the pen is mightier than the sword” etc. What we have failed to realize is that every work of human creativity is, by nature, beautiful and liberating, incompatible with anything “dangerous” or "warlike".

Blaming Einstein for Nagasaki could only be a cover for absolving the policy-makers of their responsibility. Absence of windows to ventilate the creative outbursts of a young nation could lead to suffocation and over time, snowball into discontent of uncontrollable proportions.

So, if I had the wherewithal to shape India’s journey, I would ensure a greater role of intellectuals, scientists and artists in the nation-building project, and would build institutions akin to the Royal Society of London or the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. These institutions would be open to luminaries from across disciplines regardless of ideology, just as Tagore and Raman were knighted despite their anti-colonial positions.

The English—and later, the Americans—have historically perfected the art of developing such techniques of domestication of discontent. No wonder why even the most ardent critics of the British state, whenever conferred a fellowship at Cambridge, have taken pride in walking over the exclusive fellows’ lawns and regaling in British paraphernalia. The success of this time-tested technique is attested to by the fact that even today, 100 years after Irish independence, the “Royal” Dublin Society continues to retain the Royal charter despite the snapping of all royal ties.