The Making of an Indian
Late P. N. Haksar
[Address at Kashmir University. Reproduced from 'Kasmiri
Pandits : A Cultural Heritage-Edited by Prof. S. Bhatt]
In the citation which the Vice-Chancellor, has
just read out, some flattering things have been said about me. I was rather
pleased hearing it all. At the same time doubts began assailing me.
I asked myself : What led the University of Kashmir to honour me? Was it
because by accident of birth I am classified as a Kashmiri Pandit? But
there are many such Pandits. And there are quite a few who are, if
anything, more distinguished than I am. So, being a Kashmiri Pandit could
not be the real reason. Nor indeed could I fall back on my achievements
which are merely byproducts of trying to earn an honest living. Not being
satisfied, I have been searching for an answer.
My mind began wandering through the corridors of time reviewing the time
lived and the time spent. I thought of the year 1947. In that year,
I got involved, by sheer accident, with Kashmir. The involvement deepened.
I was included in our delegation to the Security Council. And so I arrived
in New York in January 1948. It was bitterly cold. The only
memorable thing which happened to me in the long wintry months spent at Lake
Success was the meeting with the Sher-i-Kashmir-my very first.
The word secularism was an abstraction. It was something in the realm
of the desirable. Partition had made me spiritually sick and had eroded my
faith in secularism. And when January 30 came in New York, dreams so
tenderly kept alive turned into a nightmare. But for the voices of
Jawaharlal Nehru and of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah one would have never had the
vision restored. Thus at Lake Success, Kashmir became a symbol of hope and
faith instead of being a Question inscribed on the agenda of the Security
Council. All this is old history. I could not persuade myself to
believe that the University had dug it all up and decided to honour me for
whatever part I might have played. It was, in any case, a minor part.
I was a junior functionary.
I would have gone on ruminating but an idea crossed my mind that the
authorities of the University, probably, have affection for the prodigal sons of
this Valley. And I am certainly one. But then I must truthfully say
that this prodigal son of Kashmir has changed in the course of his
wanderings through life. He has become, as Iqbal would have said, a Hindi.
And with Iqbal he often sings - Hindi Hain Ham Watan hain Hindustan Hamara.
This might be regarded as an act of treachery on my part, made more heinous
coming as it does so soon after being honoured with the Doctorate of laws
Honoris Causa. But I owe it to my new Alma Mater to speak the truth.
As I stand here speaking to you, moved by a deep sense of gratitude. I do
so as a Hindi or, if you like, as an Indian. And I do not feel any
conflict within myself. Should I explain? Perhaps I should.
Some time in the early part of the nineteenth century, the ancestor of mine
of whom I am the direct descendant, bade farewell to the Valley. Why he
left, I do not know. But he left. It is laconically recorded in
Mattan that Sita Ram - that was the name of my ancestor, "Hindustan Gaya."
Since that fateful day, he, his children, and grandchildren, and great
grandchildren and those bom thereafter have been wandering over Hindustan in
search of an honourable living. They had no assets except those which
their genes gave them.
After leaving the fair Valley, Sita Ram's first home was Delhi. And
from there my ancestors wandered to Indore; some went to Gwalior and some to the
old Central Provinces. And from my mother's side, they settled in Punjab.
One of them-Raja Dinanath, earned fame and fortune as Maharaja Ranjit Singh's
Finance Minister. All this would explain why I was bom in Gujranwala and
brought up in Central Provinces. However, it was in U.P. that I was mostly
educated.
In the course of their search for a living in the wide expanses of the plains
of India, Sita Ram and his descendants had to adapt themselves to their new
envirom-nent. Instinctively, they followed Darwin's law of evolution.
They adopted new languages, new clothes, new food habits, new codes of conduct
and new ethics of work. They became Kashmiris of the plains, forgetting
even their language but acquiring new ones with meticulous care. It was
Urdu and Persian and then English. And yet they clung to their identity as
emigres do. There was nothing larger to identify oneself with.
However, things began changing and by the time I became conscious of the world
around me, the First World War had just ended.
I grew up in the midst of a vast turbulence. Gandhi had appeared on our
horizon. And he grew larger every day, until he covered the entire sky.
Simultaneously, Jawaharlal Nehru appeared as a luminous star. Our minds
opened up. And our hearts too. Our vision got enlarged. India
began taking shape I came out of the cocoon, took wings and fluttered in the
fresh winds which were blowing about me. I began wandering over the
surface of Hindustan.
I stood at our land's end; I saw waves upon waves of the Indian Ocean eagerly
rushing to meet the Arabian Sea. I canoed over the transparent back waters
of Kerala between Kottayam and Alleppey and smelt the fragrance of cardamom and
pepper; I saw the graceful arecanut and coconut palms swaying in the gales; I
saw the lush green coffee, tea and rubber plantations. And then wandering
from Thekaddy to Coimbatore, then to Mysore and Mercara, contemplating the
beauty of the Nilgiris I became possessive about the southern part of our
country as I was of its Northern, Eastern, Western and Central. India thus
became a reality and not an abstraction.
On this mother earth of India, our ancestors had laboured and created a
fabric of civilisation weaving together its various threads. The monuments
alone which they built and carved, and chiselled kept me enthralled. The
temple at Martand, the mosques, the forts, the city at Fatehpur Sikri, the caves
and frescoes at Ajanta, the Temples in Konarak, Khajuraho and Madurai, the Taj
at Agra, the ruins of Hampi-all showed the creativity of our forefathers.
And I feel possessive about them as I feel about the entire land so laden with
gifts of Nature.
I respond to the songs and dances, the music and the folk rhythms of our
country. I am moved by Tagore as by Iqbal; I am moved reading Kural and
Vaflathol, even in their translation. The chanting of Vedic hymns and of
Zend Avesta stirs my soul as does the haunting call of a muezzin's azan at the
dawn.
Thus the descendant of Sita Ram returned to the land of his forefathers
transformed. I first set eyes on this Valley in 1968. And I came
here to attend a meeting of the National Integration Council. And though I
could, even with my closed eyes, see Kanyakumari from Dachigam and feel the
restlessness of the waves of the Indian Ocean pining to meet the waves of the
Arabian Sea, the mountains of the Valley blocked the view for many. And I
said to myself : Oh! So much remains to be done. And it remains to
be done all over this land of ours. So many still see reality distorted by
caste and creed, region and language.
By custom, convocation addresses in our country must groan under the weight
of good advice. But I do not know what advice to give. I am not even
certain if good advice helps. We all have to learn from life. And I
do not know, if your University and your teachers have equipped you mentally and
morally to cope with life and its problems. You might ask : Why I should
entertain any doubts on this score? I should not, really. It is a
fine University. Your teachers have apparently a sense of calling.
You have an experienced Vice Chancellor and a distinguished Chancellor.
But then I cannot help observing, as I look at you, that as you came up to
receive your degrees and as you are now seated, your backs are turned towards
the majestic ranges of the mountains which I see from where I stand.
Shouldn't you be facing them? Perhaps, the idea was that you would start
facing them as your go out after you graduation. That of course you will
do. But the question is: How?
Would you have the curiosity to explore not only the foothills of the
mountains but also its peaks? Would you be satisfied only by exploring the
ranges, or would you be led to explore what lies beyond? Would you be
looking at life with unending curiosity or would you be happy being a caged
bird-secure and fed by others? Would you be striving for something beyond
your immediate reach or would your major obsession be with yourseff? I
have asked so many questions. Life too will pose these questions. On
the answers you give would depend whether you prefer the life of a bird in a
cage or fly and flutter in open skies and face its hazards.
Man's humanity, his courage, his knowledge, his wisdom and his yearning to
reach out for something larger than himself are abiding sources of mankind's
strength and of hope. I said, larger than oneself. The continuing
strength of religions is that each postulates a God. And God is larger
than oneself. Religion goads man on to attain something larger than
himself, surrender to it or to merge with it. But supposing one's God is
called Bharat or India or Hind or Hindustan. Then what happens? A
new religion will be bom-a secular religion devoted to service of fellow men.
That religion and God would not contradict each other. That religion will
not make one lay an assassin's hand on a fellow human being but to have love and
compassion and a striving to create society permeated by humanity. Only a
society so structured and motivated will overcome the baser instincts of human
beings brutality, greed and selfishness.
How do we reach the new society? Obviously, we must understand the
reality we wish to change. We should know our country. And we should
know the world around us. Knowledge is a powerful instrument of change.
And Knowledge comes from unceasing questioning. It does not come by
accepting the conventional wisdom of our forefathers. At one time, the
conventional wisdom told us that the earth was flat, that the sun went round the
earth, that earthquakes, sorrows and sufferings were caused by God's wrath, that
mankind was created, and so on. We know now that all these beliefs were
wrong. However, the beliefs which persist about our society are more
difficult to cope with. For, in the realm of social sciences proof is
difficult; so is experimentation. And yet social evolution is as much a
fact as evolution of Nature. Both have a history.
Our country too has been evolving. We do not have dynasties any more
though images of the dynastic era persist. We have democracy. This
is ensured by the consciousness of our people, of' their rights. But as
lqbal said
Jam-hooriyat hai Ek Tarze Hukoomut
jis Men Bundon Ko Gina Karte Hain
Tola Nahin Karte
(democracy is a kind of polity in which men are counted but not weighed)
Now, counting is necessary. For all men are equal. And so far we
have certainly leamt to count. The day, however, we learn collectively to
weigh, we shall have made a qualitative advance. But weigh against what?
Against what values? That is a difficult question.
We must learn to weigh every person as a fellow human being whether he lives
in Kashmir or Kerala, in Nagaland or in Gujarat. When we have achieved
that we shall come into our own. But to generate that consciousness we
must create a social economic and political order inspired by equality and
motivated by cooperation. Cooperate or Perish - that is the message of our
contemporary times both for India and the world.
It is now late in the evening. Soon night will fall on this beautiful
and majestic valley. But there will be the dawn. And you will wake
up with parchments in your land. And I too will carry the additional
responsibility of being Doctor of Laws. Shall we then together begin a new
life? And begin it by singing together Iqbal's immortal song:
Mazhab Nahin Sikhata
Apas Men Beyr Karna
Hindi Hain Ham Watan Hain
Hindustan Hamara
Thus fortified we shall face the challenge of our times which is much harder
than overcoming the mountain ranges and the peaks with which we are surrounded.
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