Spiritual underpinnings of an Indian

Photo by Vipin Labroo

That India is the land of spirituality is an age-old and well-worn cliche. There is a global multi-billion dollar industry that sells our country as the land of millions of gods, myriad festivals, yoga, Nirvana and all that.

But what are the real spiritual underpinnings of the average Indian? What is his worldview and his view of his place in it? Is he or she really the deeply spiritually inclined person who is oblivious to the trappings of the material world or are they totally enamoured of the pleasures of the world as demonstrated by our recent exuberant celebration of India overtaking Britain to become the fifth largest economy in the world.

Perhaps, there is a bit of both- a deep reverence for all manner of life on Earth and indeed nature itself in all its glorious manifestations as well an unabashed appreciation and celebration of everything material. The former is evident from the kindness shown to animals across the land by ordinary people leaving food and water for stray animals, and the fact that millions upon millions of Indians are vegetarian simply because of their belief in the sanctity of life- which is not visible in any other part of the world.

On the other hand, the avarice and hankering after the good life are evident in the manner people put their own good above that of society, as evidenced by the rampant corruption, almost non-existent social decorum and civic sense in so many and the senselessly grandiose weddings that sometimes even bankrupt families.

So, who are we as a people? From the earliest times, our country has been a land of striking contrasts- enormous wealth and privilege enjoyed by a few alongside an austere life for the many. Even in the much-heralded pre-colonial era, when India's economy was the largest in the world, it was the kings, maharajas and merchants who were wealthy, while most people lived a frugal life. That is exactly how it is today, with a few wealthy individuals cornering a major portion of the nation's wealth leaving the rest of us to somehow get by in life. No doubt we have a growing middle class, some of whom have decent purchasing power, but no one can claim that there is an equitable distribution of wealth

Doesn't the fact that India has existed without major upheavals (like the frequent seismic revolutions in the Western world) for millennia say something about our worldview? We let things happen because they will and wait for the inevitable turning of the wheel. Gandhi knew this about us and, therefore, chose non-violence and passive resistance as the way to show the British that the wheel had turned and their time in India was up.

Gandhi knew the pulse and heartbeat of India like no one else. He felt that India's strength was its simplicity and the simple way of life. It gave the ordinary Indian a hard, but still content life, which was all that ultimately mattered according to Gandhi.

He didn't want the Industrial Revolution with all its so-called ideas of progress to contaminate the Indian way of life. He would have been likely horrified by the technology revolution that has so impacted India. He wouldn't have thought much of all the highways being constructed to the holiest religious shrines in ecologically sensitive zones, high in the Himalayas. The man who went on the celebrated Dandi march to protest the levying of a tax on the making of salt would much rather have people walk to pilgrimage centres than drive on all-weather roads in an SUV.

Our spiritual moorings are driven by a belief in karma, or rather the dispassionate performing of it, without being unduly perturbed by the consequences or lack of them. Life is an ever-turning cycle of good and bad resulting from how we conduct our lives. This helps us weather crisis after crisis with relative equanimity, keeping us sane and safe while the world around us goes mad.

The world today is rife with war, pandemics and economic and demographic slowdowns that could lead to even the demise of nations. Above all, there are all the indications of a collapsing world order leading to a long era of chaos and destabilisation. The world may fear its coming, but we in India know that it is a mere turn of the wheel.