Social and Political Revolutionary Potential of Buddhism

Author – Dr Amritpal Kaur

What we call a religion today is the remains of what once was a complete civilization. Buddhism emerged as a non-religious philosophy, as a hope for a better way of life by reorganizing society. As the time passed the basic structure of events that created the original plan got diluted with local mystical ideologies and degenerated from a philosophy to religion i.e a system of spiritual beliefs in relation to a supernatural entity. Emily Durkheim (a French sociologist who formally established the academic discipline of sociology and along with Karl Marx and Max Weber is considered as the principal architect of modern social science) ran into difficulty in his attempt to confine Buddhism in the established definition of religion and finally accepted that early Buddhism cannot be covered by any established definition of religion.

Buddha was not a religious reformer or innovator but was an opponent or critic of religion who had no intention of finding yet another example of what he criticized. He was not the type of recluse who only concerned himself with his personal emancipation but the one who actively involved himself in the social and political world of his time. He advocated detachment from many useless worldly things in order to enrich life in the wider arena of social and political awareness rather than escaping it. When an ideology for the restructuring of human nature and society becomes a religious cult, it not only loses its spirit of rationality and political relevance but its professional representatives also degenerate into a mere religious organization. It then becomes impossible for such a psycho-social philosophy to maintain its effectiveness.

Born of a revolution in Indian thought, Buddhism is a great social and cultural tradition. To say that Buddha founded a religion would be detrimental to our understanding of his far-reaching influences. Confining Buddhism to religion as has been done in the West, is to address merely one department of human activity i.e man’s private realm. We need to save Buddhism from the western version of religion i.e a system of beliefs for personal salvation or more precisely philosophy of escapism. Materialism and commercialization of human existence in West have produced dissatisfaction of mind to such a large extent that they have created their own institutionalized version of Buddhism as a religion for obtaining peace and emancipation which completely obliterates it’s the social and political aspect.

Buddha never preached a sermon as it would suggest a completely passive role for the hearers. In fact, it was more like a session of teaching during which the Buddha tried to suit his words to the occasion taking advantages of the incidents happening at the time and adapting himself to the mood or condition of the hearers, thus allowing them a good deal of initiative. The hearers frequently raised questions or supplied answers to the questions addressed to them by the Buddha. The Buddha’s insight is represented as being not that of a dogmatist who asserts that such and such is the case and demands acceptance of his assertion in faith but rather that of an analyst (in Babasaheb’s words that he was a margadata and not a mokshdata). The analysis he offers is both logical and psychological having a solid appeal in self-authenticating quality.

The two complementary aspects of Buddha’s teaching are reordering of human consciousness and the reordering of human society. The first one has received greater emphasis and has a greater amount of teachings and practices devoted to it because it was the primary concern of the Sangha whereas the second component has been much neglected despite of the fact that Babasaheb was more impressed by the second component of Buddhism i.e the enlightened political ruler acting in accordance with the general principles of the Buddha’s teachings in collaboration with the Sangha as an advisory body, in order to build a democratic society. These two concerns constituted the Buddhist prescription for curing of human sufferings that are not separate from his social conditioning….

It’s also important to evaluate the differences between Brahmanical concepts of kinship from that of the Buddhist’s concept which can help to differentiate between a Brahmanical state from a Buddhist state. In the Brahmanical kinship, the king was working out his own personal salvation or moksha by the correct performances demanded by his personal dharma whereas in the Buddhist conception of democratic government the king was the necessary instrument through which universal dharma or righteousness found expression. The violent conquests to expand his territories was not encouraged of a king in the Buddhist conception of monarchy, rather the cultivation of peace both with his neighbours and within his own kingdom was a preferred strategy. Only an awakened king or leader has the right ability to enlarge socio-religious aspect of Buddhism into a full-fledged socio-political governing body that ultimately established an equal society by providing equal social opportunities to all sections of society.

This socio-political aspect of Buddhism impressed Babasaheb and he wanted our people to fight for socio-political emancipation through Buddha’s teachings and not remain confined to its socio-religious aspect for their personal salvation. This can further be understood by looking at the differences between the Buddhist state and the Brahmanic state. In Buddhist state, even an ordinary man from any level of society is able to enter the Sangha and thus become a member of a body which has a recognized status and the power to play a real advisory to the political ruler. Every man is a potential member of the society in Buddhist state whereas in Brahmanical state such options are not open to a majority of ordinary men, only to a small elite of Brahmins, who act as both ministers and advisers. No one has the option of becoming a Brahmin who is born to such a state.

Buddhist Sangha was not a mere religious wing of Buddhism but a socio-political democratic system of government formed by the bhikkhus, for the bhikkhus and of the bhikkhus. Buddha had firmly rejected any authoritarian rule in his Sangha. There is no monarchial head or authoritarian chain of command as a procedure existed for the whole community to follow corporately. Buddha recognized social stability as a necessary requirement for the success of social and moral reconstruction and his Sangha provided the environment in which a new dimension of consciousness can become possible as a result of the rejection of the idea of permanent individuality, both in theory and practice.

Buddhism realized its full potential in the Ashoka period where the co-operation between the Sangha the potential ruler and the community was secured and the Buddhist state came into existence in principle. The Sangha as the keeper of Buddhist values was supported by the ruler/king not only economically but he also ensured that the Buddhist values permeated into the society and the country’s way of life. The community formed by the rest of the society not living within Sangha supported and welcomed the permeation of these values. This does not mean that all the people had accepted or understood Buddhist doctrines of man, the world and human emancipation and were acting upon them, but the conditions were established in which gradual and steady realization to these values became possible for the community. Buddhist values were given recognition in the structure and the laws of the state. Pre-Ashokan Buddhism laid emphasis on Buddha Sasana which is the Buddhist discipline of mind training, for the restructuring of human consciousness and ultimately human society.

Sangha, as a bearer par excellence of Buddhist values, can deal with resistive thoughts and actions as long as it is allowed to retain its status in Buddhist system as a respected expression of wisdom and epitome of morality. Where its status is declined the effective permeation of popular culture by Buddhist values also ceases to continue. This is what happened to Buddhism in the post-Ashokan period. Theravada school (one of the survivors of 18 schools of non-Mahayana, which were collectively called Hinayana) was more effective in retaining the original outlook of Buddha’s philosophy of human existence having clear involvement in government and administration. But it couldn’t survive the anti-Buddhist propaganda of Brahmins in form of social boycotts and royal edicts against Buddhists, along with forceful confiscation of Buddhist structural holdings by the Brahmanical kings. The self-weakening effect which was produced within Buddhism by Mahayana school succeeded in transforming Buddhism into mystical philosophy (which today is one of the other varieties of Indian Gnosticism) having no socio-political emphasis.

Buddhism must be studied from two aspects: one is literary and another is historical. The literary approach allows us to analyze Buddha’s teachings in relation to teachings of other prominent figures in the history of ideas whereas historical approach allows us to understand the historical situations in which Buddhism emerged as a philosophy and flourished as a socio-political practice. Babasaheb did not stop at the first approach where his followers have to seem to be stuck today but wanted them to use Buddhism as an effective socio-political tool to end their social problems. It is the duty of Ambedkariite Buddhists to highlight Buddha’s statesmanship qualities to the world (which is far more insightful than mere personal affair ) just the way Babasaheb brought back Sakyamuni’s teachings from the shackles of historical injustices which kept the real Buddhism under the pile of superstitions for centuries. The socio-political aspect of Buddhism deserves greater exposure at international platforms as the possibility of a casteless society (annihilation of caste) can only be found in a well-established and maintained Buddhist state. Dr. Ambedkar’s dream of establishing utopian Prabuddha Bharat- the city of worldly justice, Ravidas’s Be-gham-pura, the city without sorrow and segregation, Tukaram’s Pandharpur city where everybody was equal, where the headman had to work as hard as everyone else, and Kabir’s Premnagar- the city of love, can only be realized in a Buddhist state..

References –