Linking civilisation, culture and religion

We need to make sense of these terms in less exclusive ways

The words civilisation and culture are bandied about a lot these days. We are defensive about the first and protective of the other to a point where insulation becomes exclusion. Add religion to the two and we have a venomous plait that is near impossible to undo. Collectively we need to step back and look at these terms in perspective, if only to make sense of them in less exclusive ways and appreciate the common thread that runs through them. This is more important now as majoritarian points of view are being mistaken for, or are being passed off as, voluntary consensus.

Let’s take religion first. Is mine better than yours? This is a question that has no answers, no sensible ones in any case. However much we may argue, there is much to commend in each faith and a lot to condemn in every one of them. The great philosopher, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, observed: “To admit the various descriptions of God is not to lapse into polytheism. When Yajnavalkya was called upon to state the number of gods, he started with the popular number 3306, and ended by reducing them all to one Brahman. ‘This indestructible enduring reality is to be looked upon as one only.’” So where is the big difference between the many faiths in India? I, for one, am proud of the juxtaposition of a temple, a mosque and a church at Palayam in my home town Thiruvananthapuram, and hail the Holkar queen of the Maratha Malwa kingdom, Ahilyabai Holkar, for preserving the Gyanvapi Mosque even as she rebuilt the Kashi Viswanath Temple. There is a lot to learn from our past.

Culture is more problematic than religion. It is an omnibus term that hints at something good. But in the way it is deployed, it is a loaded and sinister term seeking to establish the superiority of one way of life and the inferiority of another. In his thoughtful book,

The Seduction of Culture in German History , the sociologist Wolf Lepenies suggests a direct relationship between the German understanding of culture, which “has remained the catchword by which the Germans tried to distinguish themselves from the rest of the civilized world”, and the rise of Hitler. Totalitarianism has deep roots in the collective minds of people. To be aware of it and keep it in check is a task cut out for civilisation.

As a term, civilisation is somewhat ambiguous but it strongly suggests harmony, unity, tolerance, enlightenment and confidence. But civilisation can be easily destroyed, as the renowned art historian Kenneth Clark cautions, “by cynicism and disillusion just as effectively as by bombs”. That happens when, quoting Yeats in his book

Civilization , he exclaims, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst /Are full of passionate intensity.” How true.

The writer teaches at IISc, Bengaluru