Individual liberty overrides group identity

 

Group identity vs. individual Liberty has played an outsized role in human progress and by inference societies. After the early Greek flourish, there was a rise of religions. First Christianity and then Islam became dominant religions. Human beings everywhere started having the wherewithal to rule over larger territories and impose control. Order in society became of paramount importance. Kings and religious leaders held sway. Tradition, precedence and discipline ruled. The progress in human thinking slowed down drastically. Till the age of enlightenment in Europe.

Newton, Copernicus, and Galileo in science; Locke, Descartes, Voltaire, Kant and many others ushered in the age of reason. This naturally led to the triumph of the individual over the group. Human rights started getting important. liberty, equality, freedom, opportunity, and tolerance became cardinal virtues in many parts of the world.

How has it helped in human advancement? Societies high on individual liberty (mostly Western countries) have come up with exceptional thinkers who have created new paradigms for progress. This has made these societies prosperous, and forward-looking thus fuelling a virtuous cycle. Many other societies which have been relatively prosperous have fallen into stasis after brief spurts.

The crucibles of these ideas are the schools and universities. The space that Governments and socities allow help them to seed the minds of these free thinkers who can wrestle with ideas with unecumbered minds.

The Guru of Statecraft

 Chanakya was a minister and strategist in ancient India. He was the chief advisor to Chandragupta who is recognised as the founder of the Maurya dynasty in Pataliputra.

Chanakya was born in Taxila(now in Pakistan) in 375 BC and he moved to Patalipitra in the East, a very large distance then. He helped Chandragupta expand his kingdom to be amongst the pre-eminent ones in the world. But he is more famous for writing 'Arthashastra', an ancient treatise on economics, politics and war. This text was lost in the 12th century but subsequently, a Sanskrit copy on palm leaves was discovered in 1905. 

The Arthashastra is a hugely influential book on statecraft in India. Many scholars now also refer to it for war strategy. It is one of the books from Asia along with Sun Tzu's The Art of War from that age that reflects the way people thought about war.

The book suggests conquest of the enemy as the final aim and the king can resort to any means to achieve his goal. This could include assassinations, bribery, creating rifts or using force. Chanakya was steeped in what is referred to as the school of realism for statecraft. The means did not matter to him.

On the contrary, India after independence was highly influenced by Gandhi for whom means were as important as ends.

It is difficult to hazard a guess whether Chanakya's ideas were successful. The Maurya dynasty floundered after three or four generations after Chanakya's death. There is possibly no reliable record of anyone using his tactics and being successful later.

Gandhi's way keeps getting questioned for his high idealism. The enduring appeal of Machiavelli and Chanakya suggests Gandhi is not fully successful either and the debate continues. 

The Riddle of Palestine and Israel

 

The world has been overwhelmed with the violence in Israel and Palestine. It was sudden, brutal and shocking. There are no words to describe the tragedy. It is on both sides now.

Human beings are strange in many ways. They are rational. But they can destroy everything irrationally too. They kill each other for religion, land and wealth. Kings did it nonstop for so many centuries. The democracies and new forms of Government, presumably with more considered decision-making have not stopped it.

The attempts for peace in Palestine have yielded hope, if at all, for brief periods. The first one for this went to the American academic and diplomat Ralph Bunche in 1948. The President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat and  Menachem Begin, the PM of Israel, got the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts at a permanent resolution of the issue in 1978. After 16 years, in  1994 the Peace Prize went to Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Izhtak Rabin and Shimon Peres, both Prime Ministers of Israel. Over a period of time, American Presidents like Carter, and Obama have also the prize for their efforts for global peace, surely most of it in this region of conflict.

This may be the nature of peace for humans. Always short-lived and mostly with very limited impact. Look at the list of the Nobel winners in Peace - Frederick Passy (1901), William Cremer (1903), Hijalmar Branting(1921), Carl Ossietzky(1935) and Jose Ramos Horta(1996) - all very much unknown names today. Contrast this with the winners in literature or economics - their names are very much in the spotlight today.

Only constant striving for peace will one day make the world free of war. That is why Gandhi is so important, as a symbol.