Tibet and us

In a world which has come to judge religious interventions in politics and civil society as something inherently undesirable, Burma and Tibet provide us with a different opportunity. Both these movements are led by monks and monasteries. The haunting images of monks in their saffron robes, walking out of their age-old monasteries, marching in prayerful silence in defiance of the military dictators of Burma are still fresh in our minds. These monks were performing not only a political duty, they were fulfilling a religious duty. They were asserting that a life of religion is not that of ascetic contemplation and withdrawal only. The ascetic duty demands that they fight for truth, not only in abstract theological debates, but in life, in the streets and by-lanes of cities. The assertion of truth requires them to make sacrifice.

The monks who marched out in Burma knew that it was their religious duty to lead a society and show a way out of crisis. The struggles in Burma and Tibet, though led by monks, seek establishment of modern, liberal, tolerant, open democracies. Neither of the groups seeks a theocratic state or a closed society. They are modern in their political aspirations.

These struggles are important for us. They are important not just because they represent the rights of peoples for self-determination. Or that they represent an aspiration that is just and legitimate. Far more significantly, they provide us with radically different possibilities of politics imbued with deep religiosity. They show that religion can be both transformative and liberating.

For this reason alone, the response that was expected from India and the world community was not purely political, but ethical and moral. But the Indian state and the political parties failed to recognise this aspect of the struggle. We failed. We failed to support and sustain the movements even as legitimate political movements. India, which is plagued by divisive and intolerant religious politics, by violence that seeks justification in and through religion, has a lot to learn from these struggles. The struggles are an object lesson in the kind of spiritual politics that Gandhi struggled with.

What could be the reasons for the failure of the Indian political establishment? The weakening and withering of the Indian state is quite evident. It is clear that we have no clear notion of national interest. It has been increasingly apparent that we as a state have given up the hope and faith that a Tagore, a Gandhi and even a Nehru had — that we would be a moral force in world politics and that independent India was necessary so that we could fulfil this historic responsibility. Trade relations, flows of foreign capital and our new-found friendship with China and the control of the commissars on the foreign policy have guided some of our responses.

But there is perhaps a deeper reason for this failure. It does not stem from our assessment of realities of world politics. It, in fact, stems from India’s deep and historic unease with Buddhism. As in the past, so in the present, we are suspicious of the transformative potential of Buddhism, as a religion and as a philosophy of society. We would like to banish it once again. Our social and political reality does not allow us to banish the neo-Buddhism of Babasaheb. But our silence over Burma and apathy towards the Dalai Lama and his struggle indicates the desire to once again banish the religiosity that they represent from our consciousness.

The writer is a social scientist based in Ahmedabad