Dharma of intellectual in the times of Adharama
The world would be a better place if all of us follow our dharma Honestly. Dharma is not in a sense of religion but a duty. In this article, dharma means a commitment to a path of life that has been chosen for himself. The world would be chaos if we do not follow our dharma properly. A doctor’s dharma is to treat all patients without any discrimination. A teacher’s dharma is to see all his students equally without any biases.
In this article I will try to get a sense of the dharma of an intellectual then will go on to analyze them in today’s context. To make things clear I am not saying that being intellectual a standalone job, a teacher and doctor could also be intellectual. In the beginning, I would say I don’t have a very clear idea about intellectual dharma, hoping to achieve some celerity as we progress in this article. Cambridge dictionary describes an intellectual “a very educated person whose interests are studying and other activities that involve careful thinking and mental effort”. By this definition, many so-called intellectuals will not be part of my discussion on intellectual’s dharma. Because some of them are not capable of careful thinking even though they regard as intellectuals in public discourse.
To figure out intellectual’s dharma I start with an assumption that like another profession intellectual also to serve human society. If we accept this assumption, we can ask the next question, in what ways intellectual can serve society? To understand Intellectual’s influence, recognize the view that they influence common people tremendously in terms of what to think and how to think. They provide raw material to people to think about various issues by giving views and opinions from politics to history from science to religion. They provide insight into various knowledge domains which most of us do not have access to. The role of intellectuals is so important that they can divide the nation and destroy civilization on the other hand they can bring great peace and prosperity. The point I want make is that the intellectuals concern about things or issues that common people do not have time, privileged, accesses, and sometimes mental faculties to engage with. After having a sense of worthiness of intellectual in society one can attribute some essential dharma (duties) to them.
Honesty- Honesty is a virtue that is everyone one should possess but it becomes more important in the case of an intellectual, to tell the truth. Deliberate lying and misleading can cause much harm to society. During the anti CAA protest, we have seen many such cases where so-called intellectuals, misinformed the public by saying that due to this law in Indian Muslims will lose their citizenship. We all know that was not the case. whether CAA is anti-constitutional or anti- Muslim can be debated but one should not mislead people by not providing correct information. They did not tell the nuances of the Act because that might have weakened their propaganda.
Objectivity – A intellectual must try to present things objectively without any prejudice. I understand the limitation of this assertion that complete objectivity difficult thing if not impossible. But I still insist objectivity because intellectual biases pollute the originality of the matter which is dishonesty you are not telling people how things are. You are view comes through your ideological prism. Opinion can be given but the fact should not be distorted.
Non- Partiality- Non- partiality of an intellectual determined his or her credential. A partial intellectual will not have any credibility. People understand what is your world view and can easily point out your hypocrisy. This the defect with our so-called liberal intellectuals that they always keep their one eye shut. If you are selective about your criticism no one is going to take you seriously. Create a gang of bhakt and chamchas is not the dharma of an intellectual you cannot simply appease one, oppose others.
Courage- Credibility comes when one remains non-partial in his approach and non- partiality requires courage. Selectivity is a manifestation of convenience. Let us understand it by an example of very popular discourse on women’s rights. how convenient it is to talk about Brahminical patriarchy. There are hundreds of articles you can find about it. Our universities discuss freely this issue on campus and rightly so. But on the other hand, only courageous people dare to about women in Islam because so-called intellectual understand that it is not good for their health. In my opinion, having courage is very important for an intellectual to follow his dharma.
Connecting with people – Westing decades in a little bubble some of the intellectuals are now realizing that they are not connected with people. Yogendra Yadav comes to an as first name who pointed out this defect of our intelligentsia. Their problem is that they start a conversation by saying “this government is fascist” secularism in being destroyed under this or that regime” and many rhetorics of these sorts. They are completely oblivious of the fact that most people don’t have any clue what fascist means. If our intelligence is not empathies with common people in term of them of their language and world view, they will remain irrelevant in society.
Conclusion- It put tremendous responsibility on our intellectual that most of the people do not see themselves as intellectual so they really on opinion maker. If you are biased and having vested interest it led you to do ‘Milawat’ in your opinion which means you are committing an immoral act. You are worse than those who do milawat in pulses and oil. They cause harm to society’s physical health you are damaging them mentally and morally. Intellectuals should stimulus our intellect that is the dharma of intellectuals.