When I was in Nairobi in July last I heard a tape-recorded speech of Dr. Radhakrishnan which he had delivered in that city while inaugurating an educational institution a few days before I stopped there. I Delhi I have listened to him on three occasions: once, when he presided over a lecture on What is Buddhism? by U Nu of Burma and twice at special convocations at Delhi University. These added only a little to the picture of the great philosopher I had conjured up for myself on seeing his pictures or while going through his books. But on Monday last I had the pleasure of coming face to face with India's socratic philosopher-statesman and during the half an hour I spent with him I was indeed overwhelmed by his charm and bonhomie about which I had read and heard so much.
Dr. Radhakrishnan is now well advanced in age, he is over 68. Though he looks a bit tired yet his way of talking which reflects a happy choice of words pronounced impeccably, flowing out in quick succession and as if charged with a kind of driving power which immediately convinces and simultaneously appeals directly to the heart of the listener, betrays a youthful vitality. His fascinating smile which illuminates his face -- a face capped with a bald head with a few lashes of grey hair, a face radiating wisdom and learning -- and his gentle and friendly way of addressing people puts, at the very outset, his interlocutor at ease. When his secretary showed me in, he was reading and on seeing me he came forward and greeted me.There I was beholding in front of me the Vice-President of the world's largest democratic republic, Asia's leading philosopher and one of the most commanding personalities of the world wearing a simple white dhoti and with a large shawl wrapped round his shoulders! Could there be a more vivid example of plain living and high thinking? Was it not in some way a paradox that such a high dignitary should have donned so simple an attire? Perhaps, but not from the Indian point of view because Radhakrishnan represents par excellence the great Indian traditions which since millenia have been advocating the primacy of the spiritual over the material.
Dr. Radhakrishnan inquired about life in Mauritius and said that he used to receive letters from Mauritius. When he spoke about his recent visit to East Africa where he received a thunderous welcome, I expressed how sorry we felt when we learnt that he could not extend his visit to our Island. Concerning our problems, especially when I referred to the canard of extreme nationalism raised in connection with the Indo-Mauritian community which was supposed to seek annexation of Mauritius to India, he commented: "Oh, no. We do not want such things. Gone are those days. No country is permanent, no civilisation is eternal. These things come and go. What we must do is to contribute to human welfare, to alleviate human suffering. Only the other day I told a gathering -- Christ died on the cross, it was physical death but spiritual survival. But you are struggling for physical survival and spiritual death". Continuing he said: "Gone are the days of domination or narrow nationalism or separatism. I feel at home everywhere. Whether it is England or America or East Africa or Indonesia or Japan -- it's the same to me. Now is the age of broad, world nationalism". He spoke about the great problem confronting India and how they were trying to bring about changes striking at the root of social inequalities like the caste system, provincialism and other social ills.
Radhakrishnan is indeed a unique personality. In the West, whose philosophy he has thoroughly mastered, expounded and interpreted, he is regarded as a link, a bridge-builder between the East and the West and a philosophical bilinguist; in the East he is regarded as the very embodiment of the renaissance of Hinduism which to use his own words, "is not a definite dogmatic creed, but a vast, complex, but subtly unified mass of spiritual thought and realisation. Its tradition of the godward endeavour of the human spirit has been continuously enlarging through the ages". Radhakrishnan represents the latest "enlargement" of Hinduism.
In a world which has shrunk so much that one can "breakfast in Bombay, lunch in London and dine in New York," in a world in which man is no more cut off from his fellow beings by mountains and oceans but by ideological barriers of his own making, Radhakrishnan's broad philosophical perspective and universal outlook hold out a unifying link, a bridge. It does not matter who made the bridge or what it is made of; what really matters is whether it is going to be used. Undoubtedly in tiny Mauritius, where we, people of different races and cultures, have been cast together and where we seem to believe in supremacy, where we tend to accentuate our differences instead of exploring what we have in common, Radhakrishnan's philosophy is not without significance.
Mauritius Times, Friday 22nd March, 1957.
Copyright Succession Keharsingh Jagatsingh
Dr. Radhakrishnan is now well advanced in age, he is over 68. Though he looks a bit tired yet his way of talking which reflects a happy choice of words pronounced impeccably, flowing out in quick succession and as if charged with a kind of driving power which immediately convinces and simultaneously appeals directly to the heart of the listener, betrays a youthful vitality. His fascinating smile which illuminates his face -- a face capped with a bald head with a few lashes of grey hair, a face radiating wisdom and learning -- and his gentle and friendly way of addressing people puts, at the very outset, his interlocutor at ease. When his secretary showed me in, he was reading and on seeing me he came forward and greeted me.There I was beholding in front of me the Vice-President of the world's largest democratic republic, Asia's leading philosopher and one of the most commanding personalities of the world wearing a simple white dhoti and with a large shawl wrapped round his shoulders! Could there be a more vivid example of plain living and high thinking? Was it not in some way a paradox that such a high dignitary should have donned so simple an attire? Perhaps, but not from the Indian point of view because Radhakrishnan represents par excellence the great Indian traditions which since millenia have been advocating the primacy of the spiritual over the material.
Dr. Radhakrishnan inquired about life in Mauritius and said that he used to receive letters from Mauritius. When he spoke about his recent visit to East Africa where he received a thunderous welcome, I expressed how sorry we felt when we learnt that he could not extend his visit to our Island. Concerning our problems, especially when I referred to the canard of extreme nationalism raised in connection with the Indo-Mauritian community which was supposed to seek annexation of Mauritius to India, he commented: "Oh, no. We do not want such things. Gone are those days. No country is permanent, no civilisation is eternal. These things come and go. What we must do is to contribute to human welfare, to alleviate human suffering. Only the other day I told a gathering -- Christ died on the cross, it was physical death but spiritual survival. But you are struggling for physical survival and spiritual death". Continuing he said: "Gone are the days of domination or narrow nationalism or separatism. I feel at home everywhere. Whether it is England or America or East Africa or Indonesia or Japan -- it's the same to me. Now is the age of broad, world nationalism". He spoke about the great problem confronting India and how they were trying to bring about changes striking at the root of social inequalities like the caste system, provincialism and other social ills.
Radhakrishnan is indeed a unique personality. In the West, whose philosophy he has thoroughly mastered, expounded and interpreted, he is regarded as a link, a bridge-builder between the East and the West and a philosophical bilinguist; in the East he is regarded as the very embodiment of the renaissance of Hinduism which to use his own words, "is not a definite dogmatic creed, but a vast, complex, but subtly unified mass of spiritual thought and realisation. Its tradition of the godward endeavour of the human spirit has been continuously enlarging through the ages". Radhakrishnan represents the latest "enlargement" of Hinduism.
In a world which has shrunk so much that one can "breakfast in Bombay, lunch in London and dine in New York," in a world in which man is no more cut off from his fellow beings by mountains and oceans but by ideological barriers of his own making, Radhakrishnan's broad philosophical perspective and universal outlook hold out a unifying link, a bridge. It does not matter who made the bridge or what it is made of; what really matters is whether it is going to be used. Undoubtedly in tiny Mauritius, where we, people of different races and cultures, have been cast together and where we seem to believe in supremacy, where we tend to accentuate our differences instead of exploring what we have in common, Radhakrishnan's philosophy is not without significance.
Mauritius Times, Friday 22nd March, 1957.
Copyright Succession Keharsingh Jagatsingh
