On Suffering: a Dialogue with Rajendra Swaroop Bhatnagar ______

Journal of World Philosophies Remembrances/186 On Suffering: A Dialogue with Rajendra Swaroop Bhatnagar __________________________________________ DANIEL RAVEH Tel-Aviv University, Israel ([email protected]) This paper is a tribute to Rajendra Swaroop Bhatnagar (1933–2019). Bhatnagar Saab was a philosopher of the here and now, of the worldly, of the social, who did not hesitate to look into violence, poverty, pain, and suffering. He was an activist through his writings, and worked to establish social awareness. Metaphysics and the spiritual, considered by many as a central leitmotif of Indian philosophy, he saw as secondary or even marginal. The first part of the paper surveys and contextualizes Bhatnagar Saab’s work as a philosopher and translator of Plato into Hindi. The seCond part of the paper is a multilingual manifesto, which calls attention to philosophy in Hindi and other modern Indian languages and challenges the over-dominance of English. The third part of the paper is a jugalbandi, a philosophical duet. It includes one of Bhatnagar’s last essays, “No Suffering if Human Beings Were Not Sensitive” (2019), published here for the first time, interwoven with my “commentary,” in which I aim to amplify different points raised by him and to expand the boundaries of the discussion. The main theme to be addressed is suffering. What could be more relevant during the present COVID-19 days? Key words: Rajendra Swaroop Bhatnagar; contemporary Indian philosophy; philosophy in Hindi; suffering; violence; nonviolence; MuKund Lath 1 Bhatnagar Saab Rajendra Swaroop Bhatnagar (1933–2019), Known by everyone as Bhatnagar Saab, passed away in November 2019 in Jaipur. He received his PhD from Allahabad University in 1959. The title of his dissertation was “Hegel in the Light of Existentialism.” Bhatnagar taught philosophy at the CMP Degree College, Allahabad (1957–1965), Banasthali Vidyapeeth, Rajasthan (1965–1970), and finally at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur (1970–1992). He wrote mostly in Hindi, and his last published project was a Hindi translation of Plato’s Republic (or Politeia) under the title Nāgarikī (2014). The GreeK polis, the famous city-state, resonates in the title Bhatnagar Saab chose for his translation. As he was reaching the age of eighty, he decided to study ancient GreeK, an adventure that resulted in Nāgarikī. It was not just the educational tasK that he was taKing upon himself, Knowing all too well that not every Indian student is fluent enough in English to be able to read Plato in one of the English translations of his classical writings. It was also a matter of reading Plato closely. “Translation,” Gayatri Chakravorty SpivaK famously wrote, “is the most intimate act of reading” (SpivaK 1993: 180).1 Every translator would agree. However, it was not only Plato, ancient GreeK, and his commitment to Hindi and Hindi readers that drew Bhatnagar Saab to the Politeia. It was also the theme of the text. Unlike others of his generation, Bhatnagar Saab was not interested in the beyondness of Ātman, Brahman, and MoKṣa. He was interested in selfhood, collectivity, and freedom, but not in the metaphysical or spiritual sense. He was a philosopher of the here and now, of the worldly, of the social. In this respect, Plato’s text was a perfect fit. ———————— Journal of World Philosophies 6 (Summer2021): 186–199 Copyright © 2021 Daniel Raveh. e-ISSN: 2474-1795 • http://scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp • doi: 10.2979/jourworlphil.6.1.15 Journal of World Philosophies Remembrances/187 When I thinK of Bhatnagar Saab’s GreeK voyages (he also translated Theaetetus, The Symposium, and The Sophist, and I hope that someone will taKe up the challenge of publishing these manuscripts), I am reminded of the interfacing journey to the shores of GreeK philosophy by MuKund Lath, Bhatnagar Saab’s colleague at the University of Rajasthan. The word “levaKer” in Hebrew means both “to visit” and “to criticize.” This is exactly what Lath did: he “critically visited” the writings of Aristotle. The context was his attempt to refute the myth about the “rational west” versus “spiritual India,” which prevails even today, even in India. Rationality is supposed to be the feature that distinguishes the west from other cultures. It is rationality, Lath suggests, which grants the west, in western eyes of course, a sense of superiority over “the other,” which, in western eyes again, is seen as irrational or at least not as rational. In his paper “Aristotle and the Roots of Western Rationality,” Lath looKs into The Nicomachean Ethics and Politics to decipher the bacKground of Aristotle’s famous maxim “Man is a rational animal,” and to reveal the connection between the rational and the political in “the major guru of western rational thought,” as he puts it (Lath 1992).2 In Aristotle’s Politics, Lath finds a discussion of what he refers to as “two basic pairs among humans in which the one is incapable of existing without the other,” namely man-woman and master-slave. To what extent did Aristotle’s master-slave narrative (the former endowed with intelligence, the latter characterized by physical strength, Lath discovers) contribute, justify, and give a tailwind to colonialism from Alexander of Macedonia, Aristotle’s alleged student, until today? Besides the roots of rationality, and of colonialism, it is interesting to see that Lath—a SansKritist and (in his own way) a pandit—does not hesitate to travel (intellectually) all the way to Greece and to read Aristotle’s writings firsthand (even if in English translation). It is of course an invitation for anyone rooted in western philosophy to maKe the parallel visit to classical Indian texts. BacK to Bhatnagar Saab: I would like to suggest that in his Plato translations, he is both a guest and a host. On one hand he is a guest in GreeK philosophy and GreeK language, and a host of Plato in Hindi and in the context of Indian philosophy at large. But there is also the political—or ethical- political—dimension, revealed by MuKund Lath. Despite a history of colonialism and fully aware of its consequences even today, Bhatnagar Saab believed in dialogue, in the power of dialogue. On the little coffee table that he used as his desK in the final years, at his Mansarovar residence in Jaipur, there was always an open volume of the Rāmāyaṇa in SansKrit, or the Mahābhārata, or the Upaniṣads, or Kant, or Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, or Daniel Dennett, pages from Plato in GreeK, one or two dictionaries, one on the top of the other, inside the other, all interwoven with one another. Metaphorically, this is the way he thought and worKed: searching for a common denominator despite obvious differences. He believed that philosophy, or more broadly, thinKing, can disentangle a Knotty reality full of conflict, violence, and suffering, and contribute in the direction of social and political justice and equality. Violence was a central theme in Bhatnagar Saab’s later writings. He taught us that there is no use in talking about (and there is so much talk about) nonviolence if one does not begin with what is—that is, violence. In one of our last meetings, in the fall of 2019, shortly before he passed away, Bhatnagar Saab said: When we try to explain something—what would this explanation amount to? When should we say that the explanation is alright? I thoroughly understand what you are saying, I understand the explanation, it seems to be a reasonable explanation. But then, does the explanation allow some gap in what I am trying to explain? Freedom requires that there must be a gap. If everything is explained, where is freedom? If everything is explained, kya mani hai? What does it mean? ———————— Journal of World Philosophies 6 (Summer2021): 186–199 Copyright © 2021 Daniel Raveh. e-ISSN: 2474-1795 • http://scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp • doi: 10.2979/jourworlphil.6.1.15 Journal of World Philosophies Remembrances/188 This is not to say that a good explanation is a complete explanation without gaps, but just the opposite. It is the gap, namely that which is not covered by the explanation, which allows and invites further thinKing. Philosophically speaKing, then, a good explanation is not hermetic. In his worK The Nature of Philosophy, Daya Krishna—Bhatnagar Saab’s colleague and friend—writes that “philosophy lives in the clarification of its own confusions, a clarification that is its own death” (Daya Krishna 1955: 230).3 It is Bhatnagar Saab’s gap which Keeps philosophy alive. A good explanation is not the end of thinKing about a philosophical problem. It is a stage of thinKing, thinKing as an ongoing process. I had the privilege to spend many hours with Bhatnagar Saab. Whenever I asKed a question, or presented a philosophical move, he would taKe a minute to thinK before answering or responding. Again, the gap. That moment of silence allowed not just him, but also his interlocutor, to thinK further. 2 Broadening the Scope You might be asKing yourself if Bhatnagar Saab (who very few of the journal’s readers, if any, have heard about) is “important enough” to deserve this farewell essay. His list of publications will indicate that he published mostly with local publishers in Jaipur and Delhi. No Oxford here, or Cambridge. In what sense does he deserve our attention, assuming that it is not just a matter of personal relationship and the ṛṇa, “debt,” to one’s teacher? My answer is this: Contemporary Indian philosophy (an intriguing genre of philosophy corresponding simultaneously with classical Indian sources and with western materials, classical and modern) is not written solely, or even mostly, in English, despite the impression that some may have.

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