Re-searching India

As the clamor for digital India gains ground and the Gen Next takes charge one issue and a vital one crops up. In rush to digitize and out pace the twenty first century are we not selectively forgetting the wonder that India was? The treasure trove, the repository of spiritual and cultural richness that was a source of global attraction in the ancient times. We proudly proclaim of the demographic dividend which the overwhelmingly large population of 35 something, seems to provide. We quote the contributions of the software industry that drives our services sector and boosts our GDP. We boast of our satellites that have given us reasons to stare in the eyes of the developed world without batting an eyelid. But we seem to forget our ancient status as a World Guru that was largely due to insightful knowledge acquired by the sages and seers of the yore through their tapa that gave them an observational power that could compare with the most modern research based findings. In this knowledge driven era we need to realize the importance of that tacit knowledge that was the source of our competitive advantage in the ancient times and if retrieved and packaged properly can give us the same advantage today. The sacred India, the hidden India and the spiritual India that was awe inspiring. That India which has been mentioned by scholars far and wide. That was a time when knowledge was our strength. As we struggle to find our universities in the top 100 or 200 rankings of the world, our centres of higher learning need to seriously search for that tacit knowledge that may be gathering dust in some dingy archives and being gradually eaten away by the paper happy termites.
In his foreword to a 1934 book ‘A Search in Secret India’ by Dr Paul Brunton, Sir Francis Younghusband, the then British political minister to the state of Kashmir and President of the Royal Geographic Society of England, had written – “The most scared part of India is the most secret. Now secret things require much searching for; but those who seek will find.” The Indian universities need to take up this job of re-searching India, that India which has been hidden from the prying eyes of all those who claim to have discovered India, the secret India. The land of Raman Maharishi, the land of Nizamuddin Aulia, the land of Kabir. The land to which bestselling international author, Robin Sharma sends his protagonist monk in search of peace. May be, we need to develop advanced centre of research to gaze in the past and dig the grandeur of the ancient land that is becoming alien country to its own countrymen who have been mischievously fed with the spurious information that it is only the west that is knowledgeable. Ironically the same west has taken our past seriously developing centres of research that tell us about our own heritage while we are too busy with our technical education to provide subsidized manpower to the western world. Our neglect of our rich heritage may impoverish us permanently. But there is a need to tread cautiously. Finding real spiritual treasure involves serious scholarly efforts. More so in our country where spurious spirituality does brisk business.