How do we define Politics? A political science student might argue that it concerns itself with the affairs of the State. But State is but one manifestation of a greater narrative. That narrative is Organizing the collective lives of people. Politics truly refers to the Study of how people organize their collective lives. State is just one organization of how people decided at some point in history to organize themselves. Family is another political institution. Isn't family political? I do not think anyone would like to make that statement. Any institution that concerns with man today has to decide about collective lives of people comes under the ambit of politics. So, by default, the social is political, personal is political and economic too is political.
But this classification assumes one serious assumption hidden. That is, the division between of two categories, viz. The individual and the people. When is a person, used here in a normal connotation, just an individual and when it becomes part of people. It might be a very complicated question, but one sure thing can be said that once any matter is concerned where the issue is about more than the person, say his children or his wife or his parents or may the person and a stranger, the person becomes part of the people, and we cannot talk with the frame of individual anymore.
What I mean by this is that matters of people come under the field of Politics and matters of Individual comes under the category what People of my land call "Aadhyatma". One serious question here might be, is there anything, anything at all which we can call today "Not political" or "Apolitical"? So, if not, is the field of Adhyatm just an empty set with some fascinating made up categories?
Why really, I took up this question is that in my quest to really understand the spiritualistic legacy of my country, I needed to formulate this question. This question, I claim, can be the basis of establishing where spirituality stands in the framework of human understanding. What is the question again?
The question is, if we divide the whole discourse of human beings as affairs of a single human being and affairs of more than one human being, that is precisely a collective, even if it concerns with only two people, Is the former set empty? Or can there be some issues which just a man is concerned with. If those issues exist, how do these issues of a single individual connect with the masses and the collective? How do they shape the affairs of the collectives? How the whole world of issues emerges out of the issues of a single person's issues? Or is there even a connection between issues of a collective, namely Raajneeti, in absence of a better word, and issues of a single individual, say Aadhyatma.
How will it help us in reshaping the politics of our times? Can the dilemmas of our times be resolved by this treatise? I intend to try this and develop it in this.
In Ramcharitmanas, written by Tulsidas, a medieval Indian poet, we find the following Chaupaai, or verse
दैहिक दैविक भौतिक तापा। राम राज नहिं काहुहि ब्यापा॥
सब नर करहिं परस्पर प्रीती। चलहिं स्वधर्म निरत श्रुति नीती
or in the state or kingdom of Lord Rama, there is no sorrows, neither bodily problem, nor godly problem, nor physical problem.
Here, the nature of issues has been categorized into three categories, viz.
1. Daihik problems: Problems concerned with physical or mental health.
2. Daivik problems: are caused by gods, or if not, say by nature. Storms, droughts, floods etc.
3. Bhautik problems: are caused by other human beings, or insects. These are material tangible pains.
What is interesting to note here is that the categorization is somewhat hazy. Problems caused by nature can also be tangible material problems. But we will not go nitpicking this.
The importance is this verse worth mentioning here is that the approach the poet takes describing the characteristics of an ideal state. It is focused not with the robustness or maintenance of structure of state, which fundamentally is what western state is concerned with. It is concerned with people. People and the kinds of issues they face, an ideal state, however non-robust, has to address that. An essential feature of western State is that it is concerned with how anarchy is avoided. The interior limit of Western state is that it wants to exist. No political scientist or State political philosopher will reconcile with the fact that State and its continual existence is not an essential characteristic of the Western state. The problem, even with a welfare state is that it is more state and less welfare.
The second point of concern is the problem of mental health as it is addressed by Western state politics. Where do we put mental health problems in the paradigm of western State? We learnt from Foucault in Madness and Civilization, how coming of enlightenment treated the irrational, the unexplainable? Madhouses, Jails and confinements with their Panopticon-like structure concerned with isolating the irrational limb from the common society is how west treats one of the major issues of modern society. It is a matter of disgust how the existence of Madhouses and jails remind us about the way the enlightenment philosophers thought about mental health.
Why mental health deserves a special notice here is that till date, I believe, any state on earth, be it the most democratic, to most dictatorial, has not been able to devise any way how they should treat the collective lives of people when some of them are nuts, or say, mentally not sound. Mentally challenged, mentally not fit, what do these categories mean? Are they concerned with the matters of state or Politics? I claim they do but in the current definitions and scope of Politics, they are left out and hence even in theory, The state lives under no obligation to deal with these issues.
I claim, mental health is not an issue to be dealt with. It is the issue to be dealt with. Not only, but the scope of Politics also has to be widened to accommodate mental health, the future definitions of Politics have to revolve around the mental health of people. Collective lives of people are connected with the lives that they live inside their head, their mental lives.
Aadhyatma here, is a case where we deal only with the issues of a single individual, what goes in the heads of a man? The issues a man faces, the way life treats him, all issues of collective lives, leave an imprint on the man, and how man responds and more often than not, reacts.
Is not every issue at the end, ends up with a mental health issue? How you react on it is decided by your present mental health. So, collective lives, however large it be, ends up in the head of a person. This person, how do we know is not sick?
Sickness, in Aadhyatm, is not only depression. It is the precursors to them, they meta diseases, as I call them. They are greed, lust, anger, ego, Mann or mind itself. Isn't a man surrounded with all this all the time? Who to call mentally ill, and who to call mentally sound? Everyone either is mentally ill or on his way to be mentally ill. It is just a matter of time that an egoistic person will lose his games and get depressed. What modern psychology will tell him to reconstruct his ego and start winning. The world is a series of wins and losses and an endless cycle which ends up in depression or a mansion where again depression awaits.
The fundamental flaw of present day or any time's politics has been to cure the causes of pain so that the pain goes away. If a section of society has been exploited, uplift it by economic incentives, what we call affirmative action. But, the way, the continued exploitation affected them is mental. They are angry, they are on their way to be sick. If their self-esteems got low generationally, they are in a mentally low place, again a place to be sick. All miseries have an angle of mental health which goes unnoticed. Should a state take care of health of every member now? any skeptic should ask this. To which I will respond, yes, Since the problems all around the world are connected with the fact that man is continually striving for something or the another and in the process, he hurts continuously oneself or the other.
This is the insides of the man, that the causes of the problems are. Why one man steals the other? Why men rape? Why men kill? Why mass genocides happen? All these problems lie in the heads of the man, his mental health.
The oppressor oppresses because he is ill. The oppressed is made ill by the oppressor. In the next generation, the oppressed will oppress the oppressor. This will go on. How to cure the fundamental cycle of human suffering? I claim, Aadhyatm has the answer. Raajneeti has to align itself with the issues of Aadhyatm. The institution of state has to be aligned with the issues of Aadhyatm. Raajneeti has to become Aadhyatma-neeti, Politics has to incorporate issues of a single individual.
