Is there an Indian way of thinking?
Many people argue that there was an Indian way of thinking which has faded with time and Indian people have a very changed thought process but, old customs, traditions and pertaining ideologies are still a part of our thinking. To some extent we still think like the Vedas and believe in pundits and astrologers. People in India worship new equipment, house or vehicles before using them. The people of Mahto toli in Phaneeshwarnath Renu's Panchlight carry out a group-worship of the panchlight. In most of our daily experiences we tend to bow before or remember god before we start a new endeavor. So this idea of invoking a supreme power to help us has not gone away from our thinking process. It's still there with its positive as well as degrading manifestations.Looking at our birth, descent and family business as a symbol of our personal pride is still deep embedded in our thoughts as well as actions. In Vedic age, being born in a upper caste family was the best one could have. The main reasons behind Karna and Souvalya's inferiority complex and self-doubts (despite their tremendous potential and excellent skills) are their low-births. They go by the names sutaputra and dasiputra respectively which clearly relates to their birth. Mir and Mirza in Premchand's story The Chessplayers, who were so reluctant to fight a battle that really mattered, took each others lives on a seemingly little issue (specially to the rational thought) - only because the other said bad things about their ancestors. India had a good British influence by then, not just politically but also culturally. Kings and the royal families fancied British and also adopted many things from their dressing styles, motor-vehicles, architectures to bureaucracy, politics and economics. Still they could not adapt to the British structure of families and understanding of pride. We are not what we do, we are represented by what our ancestors used to do. We have surnames that mean to tell a lot about our family business. Today we have honor killings to preserve the “good” family pride. We have all sorts of useless expenditure to keep that pride.
Even as social disparities and inequalities are concerned, we have not changed much. Earlier we had divisions based on caste which was marked by birth. The focus, though, has shifted from caste to class today but using it as a mode of discrimination has not gone away. The feeling that the upper-class people are superior is internalized in us. The villagers of Mahto toli in Panchlight admire the upper-caste people and want to be like them. They spend the valuable money collected from villagers to purchase a panchlight which would supposedly make them equal to their counterparts. The upper-caste people don't see them even as contenders and make fun of their activities. Tagore, in his story The devotee, is also worried about what the people of his devotee's caste say about her eating from the plate of one who had eaten with the Europeans. He says she came from a “good family”.
While individually many of us might have very different thoughts about a specific matter, we seem to have a single attitude as a society. In India, the society's opinion is not formed by individual opinions. Personal opinions are a reflection of a supposed societal way of thinking. While Munri knew Godhan could light the panchlight, she could not speak it out. Individual opinion is suppressed by a stronger collective attitude. But we also don't see any friction from any of the villagers as all bans are lifted up from Godhan. Again, personal opinions are suppressed for the supposed collective goodwill. To do what society expects from you, to not stand out against it, is the Indian way of thinking.
In terms of gender equality, we are very different now as compared to the Vedic age. In the Vedic age women were treated with great respect. They had chores not just domestic but also social and co-participatory with their male counterparts. They received proper education and were proficient in a multitude of skills. Many of them were good at language and some are even the creators of vedic hymns. From Mahashweta Devi's Souvali, Premchand's begums to Renu's Munri, all seem powerless. They never get the chance to educate themselves and learn to stand for their views. They do not have any control over their own lives, let alone participating in social chores. They are dependent and hence have lost their ability to take their life in their own hands. Bhaskara Pattelar's Tessy, despite being a working woman in the states, has this weird internalization of male supremacy. Years and years of conditioning has put in her this belief that her husband, even after whatever he does, is still someone she should communicate with. She sends him money as a moral duty, despite him being on the wrong side. The evil of continued domestic violence in India is another example of this internalization. An unconventional woman like Tagore's devotee has to go through a sense of guilt for not meeting up to society's idea of a woman. She feels bad that her husband is happy in following her and not commanding her.
We have a way of thinking about the nature and drive out analogies with our life and culture. Most of the akam poems have a natural landscape that represents the mood and the character of people. “Catch the mangoes as they fall” from Kuruntokai 8 (Ramanujam's essay) is symbolic of men getting food without much labor. Even Vedic hymns express the then culture with metaphors like “a warrior” for the goddess of dawn, “frogs surrounding a pond” for Brahmins assembled for a ceremony, etc. In Prakrit poetry “insect-inside-the-neem-tree” is used as a metaphor to represent village headman's son. Surdas compares his state to that of degrading Yamuna river. Tagore's “dress of light”, “sun taking his seat”, “flowers in vase being like a row of naughty schoolboys” are similar examples. Vilas Sarang says that sometimes the rabbit would be lost for hours in some kind of Samadhi. Pattelar's Josey feels as if he is standing on a mountain in his village (Anamudi peak) when he looks down a skyscraper in New York.
The Indian thinking revolves around drawing out examples from the past (even distant past) and trying to fit them in the present context. At the same time we tend to set examples in a hope that they will be taken up and followed by our following generations. Our many of the day-to-day discussions involve what someone like Rama, Krishna or Yudishthira did. We advise our children to do something which the whole world must see. Give as much as you can, you will die rich and your name becomes immortal. This is the idea that made Karna give away his protective armor despite knowing that it will kill him.
God is omnipresent in our thoughts as well as literature. Almost all the poetry we went through in class from Vedic hymns, Surdas, Lal Ded to Amir Khusrau had some form of god. Tagore's Devotee shows a woman who after losing her son turns spiritual so much so that she sees god in people who are complete strangers to her. While the vedic hymns suggest that people then were god-loving, we today have turned to god-fearing. So the way we see our god has changed but we still tend to have a connection with god.
There are many ways in which we have changed since the vedic ages but that is true for any civilization of the world. Change is inevitable to a society which has gone through a series of foreign dominions. Still there are many ideas and values we have with ourselves that belong to the old ages and they affect our daily thinking and discussions. So there is an Indian way of thinking, not that it doesn't change, but it keeps reforming with time. To be okay with these changes is also an Indian way of thinking.
