How do we refer to independence day in our Matru Bhasa? - स्वतंत्रता दिवस
(Swatantrata Diwas). Have we stopped to reflect on the word Swatantra? What does it mean? How do we embody Swatantrata in our lives? Let’s explore this profound word through this blog!
Sva refers to self and tantra stands for system/technique. Hence Svatantra denotes one’s own system/technique. Celebrating Svatantrata must be the remembrance and revive our own systems.
The methods we have adopted today in various walks of life such as Education, Health, Clothing, Architecture and much more, are they our own? Now one might argue this statement seems biased in the sense that anything foreign is irrelevant and so needs to be rejected vehemently.
It is not the adoption of foreign methods/systems that is problematic but the disregard to doing it on our own terms. The Indian ways of thinking and being are branded superstitious, dogmatic, unscientific and repressive. This is obnoxious as we look at our ways from the lens of an outsider.
We look at our own History from a Western perspective. We learn about British civilizing India and a picture painted as if a nation never existed before the reign of the British. Indians always believed in a strong sense of community and were ready to sacrifice their individual urges for the larger good of the community.
The West views an individual’s right as supreme and so from such a standpoint, the Indian perspective of community over self is tagged as low, primitive and barbaric.
The West invests itself in studying the world objectively through repeated experiments and observation. The focus is on the material, while Indians for eons have studied the nature of Reality through a process of profound inquiry, contemplation and inner work. Hence, the focus is on the metaphysical.
In terms of Culture, the West has given unbridled emphasis to an individual’s rights and this is the focus of our modern democracy as well. While, In India the centrality of duties has been passed on from generation to generation through the Pancha Maha Yajnas (5 Great offerings to pay one’s debt to various stakeholders of the society).
In the words of K.C.Bhattacharya, How far have assimilated our western education? How far has it become an obsession? Perhaps there is some assimilation. But has this assimilation happened after a full and open-eyed struggle between it and our indigenous culture? It appears not. For we generally receive the alien culture first and then peer at our own as a matter of curiosity.
When we begin to do things on our own terms, grounded in our own ways of thinking and being is when our mind opens up. A light dawns in one’s existence that leads us closer to our deeper essence. This is when we truly experience Freedom - Swantantrata.
Let us take efforts in knowing and embodying the systems/techniques from our glorious past. This offers the rooting which gives birth to a deep reverence. May this reverence guide us in our lives to break the barriers that stop us from truly achieving Swatantra.
Swatantrata Diwas Abhinandan
Jai Hind
