Gyanodaya

Now that we have developed some basic understanding of the empiric-driven system, let us go deeper into the Indic civilisational understanding of social tolerance and social issues.

• The Indic Civilisational Understanding of Social Complexity

The Indic civilisation considers two broad kinds of human psychology, called daivi and asuric. While the daivi psychology was generally for the sustainable welfare of the world, the asuric psychology considers the gratification of one’s own ego as the most important issue. This Indic understanding may go with the scientific understanding,[i] which recognises diversity in human nature to the point of innate difference in orientation towards welfare of the world and the gratification of one’s own ego. In some cases, human nature acquired by the age of two, could lead to psychopathic tendencies; while in some other cases, human nature acquired by a young age, blossoms into self-abnegating benevolence. As human nature is not the same across people, it would—obviously—be a folly to prescribe some kind of universal policy for all situations and all types of people.

People sometimes opine that the Indic civilisation does not have enough social policies, which is an incomplete understanding of Indic civilisational values. It is true that the Indic civilisation, being an empiric-driven one, has no universal theories like western social theories. But India has developed a value system for facilitating plurality and dignified existence. In an empiric-driven system, people tend to develop sustainable values that can guide pluralism and diversity. The collective experience acquired over many generations helps them understand the potential issues of conflict between different cultures, and how to minimise them without surrendering their own culture or making others surrender to their culture. These collective understandings are coded in the value systems.

The above-mentioned values are called[ii] Daivi sampads—part of the Daivi psychology—listed as negation of insecurity (abhaya), pure-heartedness, absorption in knowledge, charity, self-control, sacrifice, study related to True Self, austerity, sincerity, negation of violence (ahimsa), negation of unreal notions (satya), freedom from anger, renunciation, serenity, aversion to finding faults in others, compassion for all creatures, absence of avarice, gentleness, steadiness, spirited opposition to oppressors, forgiveness, patience, cleanliness, freedom from envy, and modesty. It is quite common to find stories and examples of situations illustrating conflict between different daivi sampads, as civilisational understandings of harmonious and sustainable social policies. We have already noted why universalising and theorising are problematic for plurality and diversity. Metaphors and examples serve the purpose of lessons drawn from a context without unnecessarily universalising the lesson and creating problematic generalisations. The Jataka tales and the Panchatantra are excellent examples of these kind of social values taught in the background of different contexts.

It has also been recognised that not everybody will have these daivi values, but ones with the asuric nature will have different values. Some of the asuric values help people prosper in life, as noted in the Gita: inflicting injustice without caring about morality (dambha), self-satisfaction out of repeated persecution of the innocent (darpa), egoism (abhimana), anger and cruelty. However, these values are denounced for their overall detrimental impact on society in the long run. For an example of asuric sampads used by an LTSE, we have Hitler who expressed the human psychology of yielding to cruelty:

“Cruelty impresses, people want to be afraid of something. They want someone to whom they can submit with a shudder, the masses need that.”

We can observe that people often cater to the wishes of a short-tempered or angry person or an oppressive person to the extent they would not agree with a person without these traits. This power of the asuric sampads instilling fear in people and making them behave as per own wishes, is the fundamental reason that the asuric-natured people like Hitler succeed in life at the cost of society’s greater benefits.

Asuric sampads are based on egoism. We can notice the parallel from the LTSE in which the freezing of experience happens to make the experience of an individual or a group of people universal. This freezing of experience is also related to ego that tends to ignore the reality for one’s own glorification. As ego is looked down upon in Indic values, LTSE-driven thinking is negated too. The entire emphasis of the Indic civilisation is to create institutions to weaken the asuric human nature. The systematic weakening of the asuric nature is considered the only way for sustainable social harmony.

• Satya and Truth: A Comparison

The path to sustainable social harmony is called dharma, etymologically meaning something that sustains. The key elements of dharma concerning social policy—as found in the Mahabharata—are satya (reality) and ahimsa (aversion to gross and subtle forms of violence). Mahatma Gandhi always emphasised the formulation of a social policy based on Indic civilisational values. He sought all to follow their religion—connotative of dharma for Indians—to further social harmony. He described the essence of dharma with these words:

“My religion is based on Truth and Non-Violence. Truth is my God. Non-Violence is the means of realising him.”

Gandhi’s words are depictive of the general Indic idea that dharma negates asuric traits based on ego. The moot point to note here is that ‘truth’ was a rather incorrect translation of the Indic word satya, which Gandhi referred to, in spirit, in the above statement. Truth used to be a religious statement indicating a certain kind of unobservable understanding—a moral one—rather than a verifiable or scientific or pragmatic reality. Both the meanings have been in usage since the renaissance in Europe. Satya, on the other hand, has no moral connotation but only describes reality. In the time of Gandhi, people often translated satya to be truth, for having an incomplete understanding of the issue of non-translatability of the Indic words into English. Over time, as truth has come to denote reality (satya), shedding its religious meaning further, the theory-driven western culture has felt a vacuum—that of a term for moral understanding of the world. This vacuum was fulfilled by the introduction of the word post-truth by liberalism, that caters to this moral understanding. A post-truth does not agree with those of aspects of reality (satya) that do not pass the test of morality.