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38 AJAI R. SINGH
AND SHAKUNTALA A. SINGH
The Justification of Rebellion
Can rebellion be justified? As we saw, the issue
is not so much of justification. Justification
for change and for rebellion can be sought at almost any stage of man's development. In fact its perceived need is the basis of all change in every field of human endeavour. The issue
should be more concerned with its timing, its
direction and its likely fate. Rebellion, therefore, needs to be timed when it destabilizes in the least, when its direction is reconstructive and its likely fate is a change for the better. This is easier said than done because
most rebels believe in destabilization as their
major weapon; and reconstruction and change
for the better can easily become slogans that camouflage a heightened desire for personal fulfilment and self-aggrandizement. In all these, again, value judgements are involved. But it is possible with some difficulty for most like minded to evolve something in the nature of a
broad consensus.
When does rebellion
anarchize and at what stage can this be subverted? How
can it be assimilated?
These questions
are the crux of the issue that has dominated human thought
from time immemorial and for which no wholly satisfying answer has ever been worked out. But the directions are there. They exist in most historically significant thought streams, whether the theological, the political, the socio-economic
or the philosophical. In general, it may be said that rebellion anarchizes when limits are not set. It is not here a lack of will or spirit that is the issue. That, if anything, is in more than adequate a measure, although most revolution makers would want us to believe otherwise.
It is a lack of the will to, or a calculated unwillingness
to, lay down realistic limits, to one's aspirations. If anarchy is to be subverted, therefore, at least partially this should be possible by a realistic appraisal of one's strength
and, more so, of one's shortcomings.
The question of assimilation
of rebellion is the most difficult to resolve. But
some thought toward this end has occupied the minds of thinkers with the greater profundity, although that does not mean the
solutions they have been able to offer are in any
measure as practicable as they are profound. The theologists
outstrip other thinkers in this regard, perhaps.
As regards the last question of changing the
lessons of History for the present and the future,
and also whether the cycle of historical lapses need be repeated, let us be clear on one aspect. Man's histority projects
him head-long into activity which must only reiterate
the importance of its own perpetuation. And yet
to this determinism must face up man's ingenuity to strike clear of this cycle. The fight is thus between his instincts and his higher consciousness, between his id and his super-ego, between his impulsivity and his rationality. The fight is between demands of the individual and society,
the body and mind, between matter and spirit,
between belief and reason, faith and inquiry, dogmatism and scepticism; between the basic shizm of religious subservience
and scientific disbelief.
This fight is essentially irresolvable, because neither side can win and
A PEEP INTO MAN'S H1STORITY 39
neither can be wholly vanquished. In the final
analysis, History must repeat itself. All that
man can probably do, and that hopefully is not wishing for much, is to blunt its offensive, to make its rapier bearably sharp. To hurt, but not to dismember. To dislodge, but not to disrupt. To chastise, but not to decapitate. All the lessons of human development and expertise
at problem solving can be considered effectively
directed if it is able to lead itself at least some
distance in this direction.
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