Gratulerer, India!
15. august 1947 vant India sin selvstendighet. Staten som ble etablert skulle være sekulær og fremme sameksistens mellom indere med ulik etnisk bakgrunn. Desto viktigere: India valgte å etablere et demokratisk styresett i en del av verden som mange hevdet var ute av stand til modernisering og folkestyre. Seksti år senere er fortsatt India et pluralistisk demokrati. Staten er fortsatt sekulær. India har gjort fordommene til skamme.
Selv om 80% av indere er hinduer, har flere av regjeringsmedlemmene annen bakgrunn – blant ministrene finner man kristne, sikher, tamiler og muslimer. Her scorer India høyt, sammenliknet med den norske regjeringen. (Dårligere er det med kjønnsfordelingen…) Siden 2004 har den indiske økonomien vokst med 8% årlig. Dette har India oppnådd uten noen form for vestlig styrt ”nasjonsbygging.” Dette er Indias egen bragd.
En fordel ved å ikke ha reist dit ennå, er at jeg fortsatt kan drømme om India.
Elie Faure om India:
“Man is no longer at the center of life. He is no longer that flower of the whole world, which has slowly set itself to form and mature him. He is mingled with all things, he is on the same plane with all things, he is a particle of the infinite, neither more nor less important than the other particles of the infinite. The earth passes into the trees, the trees into the fruits, the fruits into man or the animal, man and the animal into the earth; the circulation of life sweeps along and propagates a confused universe wherein forms arise for a second, only to be engulfed and then to reappear, overlapping one another, palpitating, penetrating one another as they surge like the waves. Man does not know whether yesterday he was not the very tool with which he himself will force matter to release the form that he may have tomorrow. Everything is merely an appearance, and under the diversity of appearances, Brahma, the spirit of the world, is a unity … Lost as he is in the ocean of mingled forms and energies, does he know whether he is still a form or a spirit? Is that thing before us a thinking being, a living being even, a planet, or a being cut in stone? Germination and putrefaction are engendered unceasingly. Everything has its heavy moment, expanded matter beats like a heart. Does not wisdom consist in submerging oneself in it, in order to taste the intoxication of the unconscious as one gains possession of the force that stirs in matter?”
Drømme om India kunne også Henry Miller:
”Yes, I loved this immense, staggering world of the Indian which, who knows, I might one day see with my own eyes. I loved it not because it was alien and remote, for it was really closer to me than the art of the West; I loved the love from which it was born, a love which was shared by the multitude, a love which could never have come to expression bad it not been of, by and for the multitude. I loved the anonymous aspect of their staggering creations. How comforting and sustaining to be a humble, unknown worker—an artisan and not a genius!—one among thousands, sharing in the creation of that which belonged to all. To have been nothing more than a water carrier—that had more meaning for me than to become a Picasso, a Rodin, a Michelangelo or a da Vinci.”
Sitatene er fra Nexus. Les også Shikha Dalmias intervju med Salman Rushdie, hvor noen av Indias skyggesider diskuteres.
