Goods and Bads- Outlines of a Philosophy of Life

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The British ruled for 150 years. There were 565 princely states at the time. Most of the rulers were subservient to the British and took pride in being the most submissive. They were also too busy living lavishly at the cost of their people. There were very few exceptions - the kings who cared for their people and were involved in social welfare, loved arts, literature and culture. That was the era when a ruler was not expected to be educated or skilled at administration. His officials and experts in different fields took care of it all. The rulers, then, spent their lifetimes as puppet rulers who bowed down to the British Government. A king who was educated, cultured, loved arts and literature and was good at them, was a rarity.

It was against this backdrop that 12-year-old Gopal from the Kavlana village became the king of Baroda. He was not even literate. After his adoption and coronation, his education and training for administration began. His sincerity, determination and capacity to work hard to achieve success made it possible for his mentors and teachers at school to bring about a massive change in him. Diwan T Madhava Rao and adoptive mother Maharani Jamnabai guided him in the administration. His first teachers were Keshavarao Pandit and Bhau Master. Later, a Gujarati teacher came in to teach him Gujarati. Irish teacher F A H Elliot recognised the qualities of sincerity and hard work in his student. He was the director of education in what is today's Vidarbha region. He was an ICS official and, after studying the circumstances surrounding the young student as also gauging his qualities, he turned the young man into a ruler in six years.

The records of Sayajirao's academic progress reflect the young man's urge to better himself, and his continuous sense of curiosity and an intense desire for learning. At the age of 18, on December 8, 1881, he took over the reins of the state of Baroda.

T Madhava Rao was the Diwan when Sayajirao was adopted. He was a very able administrator who was once a professor in Madras University, a scholar-researcher, linguist, and had an experience as a Diwan of several other states. Shivaji Maharaj's stepbrother Vyankoji Raje Bhosle had expanded the Maratha rule in Tanjavur. At that time a couple of Maratha families had accompanied him to the south. T Madhava Rao's family was one of them. Madhava Rao set things right in the state of Baroda till Sayajirao was under training. He invited experts in administration and other fields to Baroda and encouraged their assistance to the state. At the age of 18 Sayajirao took over and soon started making his own decisions ably. Because the young man had started making his own decisions, Madhava Rao realised that both of them could not operate in the same space and it was logical for him to seek newer frontiers in his own personal and professional life. He resigned and Sayajirao bid him farewell after compensating him generously for his excellent services.

After Madhava Rao's departure, Maharaja Sayajirao got a Diwan of his own choice. He also picked up gems of experts from different fields, got them to Baroda, and started working towards social welfare. He never bothered about the caste, community, religion or state of anyone and hence managed to have around him exceptionally talented people like Aurobindo Ghosh, Riyasatkar G S Sardesai, Dr RC Dutt, Ramchandra Dhamanaskar, Raja Ravi Verma, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Khaserao Jadhav, Keshavrao Deshpande, Manik Rao, American librarian W A Borden, British economist CE Randle, Scottish engineer Anderson, the Commissioner of Excise, a Harvard Graduate, R. C. Whitneck, the Italian Cambridge scholar and academician, sculptor A Felicia, the art critic N. H. Spielman, Major R Wood who was a Scandinavian banker, and many more. The Maharaja treated all of them extremely well. The young, farsighted ruler also made the best use of their expertise for the good of the people of his state. Sayajirao himself was also very well read.

In presenting this small volume to a wider circle of readers, I feel it a privilege and a more than pleasant duty to thank Your Highness for the honour of inviting me to discuss with you some philosophical topics, for the patient way in which you have followed my efforts to explain, and for the encouragement which in our talks you have continually given me, not merely with regard to this publication, but all my work.

Almost from the outset it has been evident to me that Your Highness interests in philosophical matters in themselves are at least in degree probably unique amongst princes. But as we have proceeded, I have found that still greater than this are your desires to learn how in any practical manner improved conditions of life might be gained for the people you govern. In the following pages, consistent with the general view of life to which I have myself so far come, I have endeavoured to throw into relief what may prove practical and, I trust, instructive to the generally educated of the Baroda State and beyond. For the same reason and with the hope of appealing to a wide public, I have omitted much of the more difficult metaphysical portions of our discussions, due to penetrating questions raised by Your Highness. The purpose of the book as it now appears is to give a sketch of a general philosophy and indications of some definite attitudes towards some of the main problems of life. In the pursuit of this aim you have continually given me the great benefit of your far wider experience.

In conclusion I would thank Your Highness most of all for the manner in which our association in this task has been permitted to be carried on. This has been that of a personal friendship, a "good" which, with the ancient Greeks, I should assign to one of the very highest places in life's values.

1. To many of those persons who have never had the opportunity, or never taken the trouble to enquire into the use of the term, philosophy seems to suggest something in a high degree mysterious and incomprehensible. A large number of comparatively well-educated general readers concern themselves so little with it, because for one reason or another they have come to regard it as something to be left solely to the few individuals who have a definite taste and capacity for it. One reason for the neglect of its study amongst a wider circle has been an undoubtedly prevalent disinclination on the part of the average man to discipline himself to more careful and closer thought. Another reason has been the different ways in which the term philosophy has been and is used, and the difficulty of some of its problems when it is interpreted chiefly as metaphysics. To state the various conceptions of philosophy which have been held in the history of human thought, or to discuss the diverse views which divide leading thinkers of our own times does not come within the scope of this volume. It must suffice simply to indicate the fact that the nature of philosophy is itself a difficult philosophical problem which has long been and continues to be discussed amongst serious thinkers. ¹

The purpose of the following chapters being more definitely popular and practical, philosophy is here taken to mean a general view of experience on all its sides, with especial reference to experience as involving processes related to human ideals. It is an attempt to come to as comprehensive, clear and consistent an understanding as possible of the nature of life as it is actively lived, to bring order and harmony into the realm of ideas, feelings and activities. Though in regard to many of the problems of life thought may be compelled to admit ultimately that it is faced by mystery, philosophy as an effort of thought is in itself neither mysterious nor incomprehensible. And the results of this effort concern just those aspects of existence which have proved at least in part intelligible. If he only apply himself seriously to the task every intelligent man may arrive at a philosophy of life as above described, either more particularly through his own reflection or by the acceptance of views thought out by others with more capacity and more leisure for the task. As far as the space available allows all the chief attitudes towards the problems discussed will be considered, but in view of the untechnical character of the book references will not usually be made to other writings on these subjects.

2. In spite of not infrequent attempts to make it appear otherwise, it must be insisted that philosophy undoubtedly starts from what may be called the experience of common-sense. Even when a philosopher states a particular proposition as the starting point of his philosophy it will be found to have been reached by a process of reflection upon or an analysis of ordinary experience. It was thus, for example, with Descartes Cogito, ergo sum - I think, therefore I am, accepted by him as fundamental and as a touchstone of certainty.