Die Vergangenheit - eine Selbstbesinnung

Abstract Past decisions determine the present situation of life. An analysis of India's crisis is thus an analysis of the past, of tradition. It is subjective and seeks the roots of the nation's identity. Tradition is alive in us: it is not a thing of the past. Indian culture is totally different from European culture. In Europe, the developed clarity of the individual regarding himself was the basis for a culture which has led to the separation of the individual from nature, the universe and his fellow-men. In Indian culture, on the other hand, there is no separation between the religious insight and secular experience of human being. India had no history in a specifically European sense: in spite of superficial changes, no fundamental change has taken place in the main current of Indian life. Thus, Indians were able to keep their identity alive until the colonial power of England conquered India and brought with it a totally different system of values. The resulting conflict was thus between two ways of life and not between modernisation and restoration. Yet the attempts to achieve harmony, which Indian intellectuals of the 19th century undertook, were erroneous and brought about the current situation. Blind belief in the inescapability of history led them to see in the copying of the western form of society the only way to the liberation and development of India. The intellectuals had made the formula "History = Europe = Development" their credo and thus professed for their country a future which was nothing more than self-deception. The contemporary Indian elite, too, still follows this line of thinking: on the one hand, it praises Indian tradition; on the other hand, however, it copies the West in its whole way of life. Behind this lurks a colonial mentality, which derives from a strong feeling of inferiority and distrust of one's own identity. The main significance of the future makes illusion of the present and postpones genuine reality until the future. Only Gandhi questioned this blind belief in the future. The core of India's deep crisis, which is characterized by the jostling of multi-story five-Star hotels and sprawling slums as well as the loss of national identity, lies in the option for a western future-oriented path of development.