Question

a essay on ‘Independence can be meaningful only if it becomes instrument for expression of our culture" pandit deendayal upadhyay

Answer 1

Here I am explaining what Pandit DeenDayal U said by the above quote.

     Before independence of India, all nationalist political parties and freedom fighters had only one aim, to get independence and to drive the British away.  But once, India gets independence, then what?  Thus what independence means and how we are going to develop our country and people, are important issues.  In this light, during a series of speeches, Deendayal U. made this famous quote.

     First we look at Deendayal's opinion on culture.  Culture is the set of practices in a social system.  We have a culture for normal life style, economical culture, political culture and business culture.  Bhaarat, our country, has a special culture called Bharatiya culture.  Its main feature is that it looks upon life as an integrated whole, as against the Western, where life is treated as many parts which are patched together.  It means that all phases of life are well thought of with a good transition.  So Indian culture is the one suitable for us.  

     He firmly advocated that "one culture policy" is the policy that can preserve the unity and integrity of India and solve all our problems.  Two culture policy, advocated by some others, is not suitable.  So as a nationalist we choose our culture to follow and also because our culture is in our very nature and blood.  Our culture is implicitly there with us.

      Independence is intimately related to one's own culture.  What one means by independence is dependent on one's traditions, religion, life style, behaviour, history, principles etc.  Independence is being able to do what one wishes by the means one likes.  People should not be forced by the government or by other agencies to follow one culture.  Thus political parties asking for political independence must take this into account.  If they don't do so, the independence movement is nothing but a fight for take-over of the ruling power by a few power-greedy persons.  So independence  must give a freedom for each person to express his/her culture.  It should not be curtailed.  Only then, indpendence of India will contribute to our progress in future.

       India is one country because all Indians follow Bharatiya culture and not because we live there geographically.  Our Bharatiya culture can teach "cultural tolerance" and "a life dedicated to duty" (karma) to the world.  Our culture is an evolution.  Western cultures are results of revolutions in human thoughts and social conflicts.  If we can reconcile the ideals of western political systems, with the help of our Bharatiya culture than it can benefit us.

       Bharatiya culture has diversity and plurality.  Indians have time and again tried discovering scientifically the unity that puts them together.  Chemists found that there are different chemical elements in the world.   Physicists proved that all elements only consist of energy.  So entire Universe consists of forms of energy.  Similarly, India consists of only Bharatiya culture underneath all diversity and plurality.

        A nation creates for itself some social systems (associated cultures).  How we live socially is our social culture.  Some of these social systems later become a hindrance to prosperity of the country.  Then we must give up those systems.  As time progresses, those systems may again be useful for us in our future.  Certain cultural practices may not be useful in later phases of a country.  Forcing to stick to the old culture and not being adaptive is a loss of cultural independence.  Independence can be summarized as the combination of all elements that create what we are at a particular point in time.  Then we change continuously as the time progresses.  Our culture also changes accordingly.  Not being able to adapt ourselves like this is a loss of cultural independence.  (In Pakistan there is no cultural independence.)

  So along with political independence, people of India must have cultural independence too.  Otherwise, its as bad as not getting independence from British.