I have mentioned in my earlier Addresses that Indian Reunification is possible only through a mighty anti-feudal people’s struggle and revolution led by patriotic modern minded persons.
Historical experience shows that every political and social upheaval is preceded by a churning and struggle in the field of ideas, i.e. an intellectual revolution.
Thus the British Civil War and Revolution of the 17th century was preceded by the writings of Desiderius Erasmus, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes etc and the Reformation in Europe by Luther, Calvin etc. which upset the dominant Catholic ideology and faith in many European countries, including England and began ‘The Age of Reason’ (see online). The French Revolution of 1789 was preceded by the theories and writings of Voltaire, Rousseau (see my article ‘Voltaire and Rousseau’–Times of India) and the thinkers of the French Enlightenment (Diderot, Holbach, Helvetius etc.). The America Revolution (1775-1781) was preceded by the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and others. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was preceded by the writings of Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Plekhanov, Gorki and Lenin.
So also the struggle for Indian Reunification will require a revolution in the field of ideas, a struggle in the fields of art and literature, and a new media which genuinely serves the people.
Why does an actual revolution require a prior intellectual revolution? The reason for this is that before a person fights for a cause he must know what he is fighting for, and must become convinced he is fighting for a noble cause. For that he must be educated and inspired by patriotic intellectuals, who explain to him the object of the struggle. Without this knowledge and conviction he will not fight, or fight only half heartedly.
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The purpose of Addresses to the Indian Nation
The object of my Addresses to the Indian Nation is to create that intellectual revolution which will lay the groundwork of a subsequent actual revolution and the reunification of India. The purpose is to destroy the false ideas and notions (e.g. the bogus two nation theory) which were drilled into the heads of the Indian people by certain vested interests, and to attack feudal, backward ideas e.g. casteism and communalism.
In Europe this intellectual revolution which preceded the actual revolutions was the work done by scores of very great thinkers e.g. Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. On the other hand in India it is the IRA that has to do this, because unfortunately our so-called ‘intellectuals’ are no real intellectuals at all but pseudointellectuals (see my articles ‘Indian liberals and their illiberal ignorance’ in DailyO.in, ‘To the patriotic Indian intellectuals’ in saddahaq.com, ‘How intellectual are our intellectuals’ on my facebook page, and ‘Intellectuals like Ram Chandra Guha have no right to criticise Modi’ in DailyO.in).
Many of our university professors flaunt foreign degrees, but their heads are full of bookish, sterile and useless knowledge, which I call ‘gobar’ (cow dung). They have no deep understanding of the country’s problems, but have only superficial understanding and half baked ideas.
For instance, there are many professors of economics in Delhi School of Economics, JNU, Delhi University etc. flaunting Ph.D. degrees from Harvard, Yale or the London School of Economics, but not one can tell how to solve the problem of massive unemployment in India (which I have attempted to do in my Address ‘A Glimpse of Reunified India (see indianreunificationassociation.weebly.com).
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The role of art and literature
As explained by me in my article ‘The True Role of Art and Literature’ (see in indicanews.com), there are broadly two theories of art and literature : (1) art for art’s sake, and (2) art for social purpose.
According to the first theory art is meant only to create a piece of beauty to appeal to our aesthetic sense or to entertain us. If if serves a social purpose it ceases to be art, and becomes propaganda.
According to the second theory, art is meant for serving society, by highlighting the evils in society, and inspiring people to fight against social evils and against injustice.
I have explained this in great detail in my article referred to above, so I am not repeating what I have said there. Suffice it to say that in a poor country like India with its huge problems of unemployment, farmers’ distress, child malnourishment etc. only the second theory is acceptable in our sub continent, but where is the great art and literature of today? Where is the Dickens of today, where is the Sarat Chandra and Nazrul of today? Where are the Subramania Bharathi, Faiz, Munshi Premchand and Manto of today? There seems to be a total vacuum of great art and literature today.
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The role of the Indian media
I had written about the role of the Indian media in a detailed article published in The Hindu titled ‘Justice Markandey Katju on the Role of the media in India’ (see online) and in another detailed article titled ‘The role of art, literature and the media’ on my blog Satyam Bruyat.
I pointed out there that far from helping the Indian people in their struggle for a better life most of our media are in fact playing an anti-people role. They divert attention from the real issues facing the nation like massive poverty, record and rising unemployment, appalling child malnourishment, widespread farmers distress, almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses etc. to non issues like lives of film stars, cricket, astrology, babas, petty politics etc. They behave like the Roman Emperors who said “If you cannot give the people bread give them circuses” or like Queen Marie Antoinette who said “If the people do not have bread let them eat cake”.
After the recent Pulwama attack most of our media, particularly the electronic media, almost went berserk, whipping up jingoism, sabre rattling and war mongering. This shows that most of our media are utterly shameless and irresponsible. All they care for is getting higher TRP rating to get profits and please politicians. One TV anchor actually sat on his show in military uniform, as if he was going to the front to fight.
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The role of IRA in the intellectual revolution
Intellectuals are the eyes of society, and without intellectuals society is blind. Due to their study of various subjects and deep understanding of historical and social forces, intellectuals alone are capable of guiding and leading the people. All revolutions were led by intellectuals, e.g. the leaders of the American Revolution like Thomas Jefferson, leaders of the French Revolution like Robespierre, and leaders of the Russian Revolution like Lenin.
But what happens if in a society the so called ‘intellectuals’ are only pseudo intellectuals , not genuine intellectuals . Then it will be like a blind man leading the blind.
The truth is that there are hardly any genuine intellectuals in India today. Most of the history professors in our Universities only teach the distorted history which the British dished out to us to create hatred between Hindus and Muslims, hardly any Economics professor has an inkling about how to solve India’s massive economics problems, etc. Like parrots most of them repeat to their students the nonsense which their own teachers taught them. They do not know what is India, they do not know that Gandhi and Jinnah, the so called ‘Fathers’ of India and Pakistan, were objectively British agents, they do not know the real purposes of the Britishers in partitioning India, etc.
So it is the IRA which will have to do the job which these professors should be doing, viz, giving intellectual guidance to the nation.
And that is what we in the IRA have been doing. Above all, we are exposing the truth of that historical British swindle called Partition, and showing that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are really one nation, and must be reunited if we are to progress.