Vocal Revolutionaries and Reformists

What about those who do not rule but exploit indirectly? They purchase the rulers with their wealth.

What is the result?

The ruling classes do their utmost to please those by whom they were bought, win elections with their money, and outwardly speak against the social, economic and political exploitations.

But in fact they support these things. I have branded these people as “vocal revolutionaries”. They deliver long lectures against exploitation, but they do the opposite in practice.

The reformists are somewhat better than those vocal revolutionaries.

The reformists say, “Let us go slowly on the path of reform.”

But actually they intend that the process of exploitation should continue without interruption.

There were many reformists in the world, but in reality they did not want the welfare of the society; they only wanted to perpetuate the process of exploitation by bringing about some patchwork improvements.

You may have observed many people in the world who delivered long lectures against caste discrimination and untouchability, saying, “No, all are equal. I will take food touched by any caste.

If you give me filtered water in a clean glass I will not hesitate to swallow it – just watch me drink!”

The audience applauded, “Very good! Very good!” These people are called reformists; but their inner intention was to maintain the caste system.

Had they really wanted to remove caste discrimination, they would have declared, “The cause of this untouchability is the caste system. Because of the caste system, discriminations have emerged between high and low, touchable and untouchable, one caste and another.

So let us first of all break the bondage of caste!”(2) If they had had the courage to proclaim this directly, they would have become revolutionaries. But they lacked such boldness, and thus they did enormous harm to humanity by delaying revolution.

The reformists of any age are not the real well-wishers of society.

Rather they seek to preserve the defects of society by any means. They are motivated either by a fear complex or by a despicable cunning. And when awareness finally dawns on those who were so long exploited in the politico-economic field, the reformists lose their prestige, and also their popular support.

Those who have been exploiting directly on the politico-economic or the psycho-economic levels, and indirectly supporting other exploiters, are bound to ultimately lose their popular support, because when the people’s eyes are opened, no tricks or stratagems can succeed.

At that time, the exploiters cannot move even one step forward without the help of their bureaucracy, and, goaded by this bureaucracy, they continue their activities.

They can no longer face the awakened masses; they cannot act independently. Thus in this process, the bureaucracy is gradually transformed into a kind of oligarchy, and this abominable oligarchy oppresses society like a heavy load. This is indeed a ruinous and unendurable position for society.

To liberate society from this unbearable situation, consciousness will have to be aroused among the people; their eyes will have to be opened by knowledge. Let them understand the what’s, the why’s and the where’s. Thus study is essential, very essential.

Religious Exploitation

Besides this, there is the domineering influence of religion on the human mind. You know that religions are based on dogmas.

The propagators of religion never cared to preach Bhágavata dharma – the universally applicable human dharma free from all narrowness – rather they always feared and avoided it.

What have they preached instead? They have always declared, “I am not speaking with my own voice, I am speaking with the voice of heaven. I am the messenger of God. Don’t take these words to be mine – they are the message of God, and so you will have to accept them.

You must not question whether they are right or wrong; to question is a sin. If you question, your tongue will fall off!”

They have tightened the noose of dogma around the people, so that they fear to take a single step over the line, thinking, “How terrible! If I do so I will be burnt in hellfire for eternity!”

Thus those who sought to confine different groups within the bondage of dogma in the aforesaid ways are the so-called religious leaders or gurus; they have done enormous harm to the human society.

The various religious groups have fought many bloody battles, because their dogmas were totally contradictory; if one group turned to pray towards the north, the other turned towards the south.

Their leaders, meanwhile, fulfilled their own petty, selfish interests, saying, “These are God’s commands.”

In this way, one group has tried to capture another group to be its arena of exploitation.

As in the socio-economico-political field, so in the religious field.

They have tried to create satellite groups. For instance, an affluent group tries to utilize a less-developed group as its satellite group. That is, they want to obtain their raw materials and force them to buy the finished products, which they produce in their own factories.

It occurs just this way in the religious field also. And, being supported by the money of those who want to create satellites, the propagators of religious faiths idle away their days.

Most of these propagators of religion are not even aware of the fact that they are helping the exploiters create satellite groups; but some are doing it consciously.

You must awaken those religious people who are not aware of what they are doing, and make them aware.

Let the ideals of Neohumanism reach their ears and be implanted in the core of their hearts. With their liberated intellects they will throw all their illusions into the dustbin.

But those who are deliberately propagating dogmas as the agents of injustice, will become furious and violent when they hear the propagation of truth.

Let them so become – let them fill their cup of sins to the brim. Their destruction is inevitable – their annihilation is the inexorable decree of fate.

So in the sphere of religion also, if you look carefully, you will see that behind those who have been knowingly or unknowingly operating the machinery of exploitation, there are certain wealthy parties.

Those parties want to create their satellites. In every sphere of life you will find such wealthy people in the background.

Cultural Exploitation through Pseudo-Culture

There is another aspect: culture. As you know, the subtler and sweeter expressions of human life are generally termed “culture.”

Suppose someone offers you food: you may eat without washing your hands and feet, or you may eat after washing thoroughly.

The refined manner of eating in a hygienic way is called the “culture of eating”, while those activities expressing the subtler and sweeter aspects of life are called “culture” in a general sense.

Human culture is one, though there are some local variations in its expression.

But a particular group which is motivated by socio-sentiment to exploit others, tries to destroy the local cultural expressions of other groups.

It forcibly imposes its language, dress and ideas on other groups, and thus paves the way for exploitation by paralysing those people psychologically. This is how people guided by socio-sentiment perpetuate exploitation in cultural life.

This is occurring throughout the world.

It is your noble duty to save these simple and persecuted people from exploitation.

Human beings must be saved. Why should innocent people be forced to live like sacrificial lambs? This must not be tolerated.

Suppose a particular group has a high standard of arts (theatre, cinema, etc.), but the number of rich people in that group is comparatively few.

The culture of another group, on the other hand, is very undeveloped, but among them there is a greater number of wealthy people.

The latter group wants to maintain its exploitation over the group that has a more developed cultural heritage, because one way that psycho-economic exploitation can paralyse people in the psychic sphere is cultural exploitation – to impose vulgar cinemas and dramas upon those good people.

The mind has a natural tendency to degrade itself.

• It flows more easily downwards than upwards.

So if some people, by virtue of their wealth, impose vulgar cinemas and dramas on others, this will break the latters’ spines and they will become paralysed.

Those paralysed, spineless people will thenceforth never be able to stand unitedly against cultural or any other kind of exploitation.

They will never be able to do so, because mentally they will be completely dead – their capacity to raise their heads in protest will have been crushed forever. How can they raise their heads again?

This exploitation in the cultural sphere is accomplished by the propagation of pseudo-culture.

Every honest, virtuous, rational person must fight against this pseudo-culture, and inspire others to do the same.

If this is not done, the future of humanity will be sealed. It is proper for human beings to struggle for political freedom, for social emancipation.

But if their cultural backbone is broken, then all their struggles will end in nothing – like offering ghee into a fire that has died out.

If one’s spine is shattered, it is impossible to hold one’s head erect.

Can those whose necks and backs are crushed under the weight of pseudo-culture, be expected to hold their heads high in any sphere of life?

Hence it is the bounden duty of every rational person to save innocent people from pseudo-culture.

21 March 1982, Calcutta

Footnotes

(1) “Community” and “communal” as used throughout this book generally refer to religious communities. –Trans.

(2) It is the very concept of caste that is defective. Any talk of abolishing inter-caste injustices will remain hollow until that defective concept is eliminated. See also pp. 83-84. –Trans.