In modern democracies, the notion of rule of law is paramount. Even when many governments may not fully adhere to its precepts, our rulers often simply pay lip service to its ideals and to the defence of republican values. Two influential comments on the notion of rule of law are the following:
1. Thomas Paine (Common Sense, 1776):
But where, say some, is the king of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth, placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.
2. John Adams (1735-1826: framer of the Massachusetts Constitution. Quote below from The First Part, Art. XXX (1780))
In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.
Another gem from Paine (Common Sense, 1776):
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Bulleh Shah, Carvaka and Sufi Poetry
I have been struck by the beauty, wit, cadence and deep rooted philosophical questions within some poetry composed by Sufi poets. It is a salutary lesson that the Sufi school - celebrating the syncretic and assimilative traditions of Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism - was attacked, vilified and ultimately replaced by the more strict Wahabi school, which has contributed to ideas such as the so-called ‘clash of civilisations’ and much more irrationality, bias and intolerance. Sufi music has, of course, been popularised by the likes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Junoon and Rabbi Shergill. I was struck by the profound philosophical undertones within Rabbi’s ‘Bulla ki Jana’which has become a very well known song.
It is a great tragedy that Pakistan has officially accorded national language status to Urdu, English and Arabic - none of which are native to Pakistan, while Punjabi in Pakistani Punjab is merely a spoken language now. In India, matters are no better. Punjabi is highly vernacularised and looked down upon by the elites who prefer highly Sanskritised Hindi (and English) and regard Punjabi mainly as a rough, unadorned language, thus ignoring its contributions to India’s literature and culture, and in maintaining India’s tradition of oral renditions of literary works. Interestingly, admirers of Sufi poetry in Pakistan are pinning their hopes for the defence and preservation of the Punjabi language on the efforts of the Sikh minority within Pakistan.
What is undeniable is the influence of Urdu and Persian syncretic influences on the Punjabi of this period (late 17th - early 18th century).
This period was also the age of Enlightenment and the renaissance in Europe, which brought to the fore the ideas of Kant, Rousseau and Voltaire. In my view, in terms of the intriguing, perplexing, existentialist questions posed by other philosophers, Bulleh Shah’s poetry holds its own. The Sufi poetry of Sultan Bahu, Waris Shah and Shah Hussain is well known - it is only recently that Bulleh Shah has been rediscovered. Bulleh Shah’s poetry brings out another interesting aspect - the influence of the Hindu Carvaka (pronounced Charvaka) or the Lokayata school of belief dating c. 600 BC (qhich mainly questioned the existence and onmipotence of god). Like the Carvaka school and its attack on Brahmanical excesses and superstition, Bulleh Shah’s poetry includes direct attacks on anyone claiming control over religion, including comparing religious clerics to barking dogs and crowing roosters. India's Nobel laureate in economics, Amartya Sen, was engaged in discussion with his grandfather. Amartya Sen declared that since he was Marxist (and consequently atheist) and did not follow any particular school of Hindu faith, he was not Hindu at all. His grandfather’s reply: ‘Yes, you are a Hindu - of the Carvaka school.’ This school was redicovered through a study of Madhavacharya’s Sarva-Darsana-Sangraha [c. 1400 AD]. The following gives a flavour of Lokayata beliefs. The Hindu sage Brihaspati, regarded by some as the founder of the Carvaka school,
argues as follows:
Roughly translated, this Sanskrit quotation goes as follows: As long as you live, live happily; take a loan and drink ghee. After a body is reduced to ashes, where will it come back from?
It is a great tragedy that Pakistan has officially accorded national language status to Urdu, English and Arabic - none of which are native to Pakistan, while Punjabi in Pakistani Punjab is merely a spoken language now. In India, matters are no better. Punjabi is highly vernacularised and looked down upon by the elites who prefer highly Sanskritised Hindi (and English) and regard Punjabi mainly as a rough, unadorned language, thus ignoring its contributions to India’s literature and culture, and in maintaining India’s tradition of oral renditions of literary works. Interestingly, admirers of Sufi poetry in Pakistan are pinning their hopes for the defence and preservation of the Punjabi language on the efforts of the Sikh minority within Pakistan.
What is undeniable is the influence of Urdu and Persian syncretic influences on the Punjabi of this period (late 17th - early 18th century).
This period was also the age of Enlightenment and the renaissance in Europe, which brought to the fore the ideas of Kant, Rousseau and Voltaire. In my view, in terms of the intriguing, perplexing, existentialist questions posed by other philosophers, Bulleh Shah’s poetry holds its own. The Sufi poetry of Sultan Bahu, Waris Shah and Shah Hussain is well known - it is only recently that Bulleh Shah has been rediscovered. Bulleh Shah’s poetry brings out another interesting aspect - the influence of the Hindu Carvaka (pronounced Charvaka) or the Lokayata school of belief dating c. 600 BC (qhich mainly questioned the existence and onmipotence of god). Like the Carvaka school and its attack on Brahmanical excesses and superstition, Bulleh Shah’s poetry includes direct attacks on anyone claiming control over religion, including comparing religious clerics to barking dogs and crowing roosters. India's Nobel laureate in economics, Amartya Sen, was engaged in discussion with his grandfather. Amartya Sen declared that since he was Marxist (and consequently atheist) and did not follow any particular school of Hindu faith, he was not Hindu at all. His grandfather’s reply: ‘Yes, you are a Hindu - of the Carvaka school.’ This school was redicovered through a study of Madhavacharya’s Sarva-Darsana-Sangraha [c. 1400 AD]. The following gives a flavour of Lokayata beliefs. The Hindu sage Brihaspati, regarded by some as the founder of the Carvaka school,
argues as follows:
Roughly translated, this Sanskrit quotation goes as follows: As long as you live, live happily; take a loan and drink ghee. After a body is reduced to ashes, where will it come back from?
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