Ayn Rand, in her masterpiece “Atlas Shrugged”, made comments on India that most Indians find painful. I read “Atlas Shrugged” several times when I was young. She made such comments at three places in her 1074-page tome.
Curiously enough, Ayn Rand is more popular in India than in any other country in the world. She contends that the mysticism practiced in India is the root cause of its backwardness. I would like to know how our younger generation feels about these comments that appear in the chapter entitled “This is John Galt Speaking”. This speech runs into about 40 pages, and her fans treat this discourse as a kind of Bhagavad Gita for living on this earth.
Curiously enough, Ayn Rand is more popular in India than in any other country in the world. She contends that the mysticism practiced in India is the root cause of its backwardness. I would like to know how our younger generation feels about these comments that appear in the chapter entitled “This is John Galt Speaking”. This speech runs into about 40 pages, and her fans treat this discourse as a kind of Bhagavad Gita for living on this earth.
Should Indians need to introspect in the light of her views or to take objection to them? The following is the text under question:
"You, who dare to regard us as the moral inferiors of any mystic who claims supernatural visions—you, who scramble like vultures for plundered pennies, yet honor a fortune-teller above a fortune maker—you, who scorn a businessman as ignoble, but esteem any posturing artist as exalted—the root of your standards is that mystic miasma which comes from primordial swamps, that cult of death, which pronounces a businessman immoral by reason of the fact that he keeps you alive. You, who claim that you long to rise above the crude concerns of the body, above the drudgery of serving mere physical needs—who is enslaved by physical needs: the Hindu who labors from sunrise to sunset at the shafts of a hand-plow for a bowl of rice, or the American who is driving a tractor? Who is the conqueror of physical reality: the man who sleeps on a bed of nails or the man who sleeps on an inner-spring mattress? Which is the monument to the triumph of the human spirit over matter: the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of the Ganges or the Atlantic skyline of New York?
"Unless you learn the answers to these questions—and learn to stand at reverent attention when you face the achievements of man's mind—
“You will not stay much longer on this earth, which we love and will not permit you to damn. You will not sneak by with the rest of your lifespan. I have foreshortened the usual course of history and have let you discover the nature of the payment you had hoped to switch to the shoulders of others. It is the last of your own living power that will now be drained to provide the unearned for the worshippers and carriers of Death. Do not pretend that a malevolent reality defeated you—you were defeated by your own evasions. Do not pretend that you will perish for a noble ideal—you will perish as fodder for the haters of man.
"You, who dare to regard us as the moral inferiors of any mystic who claims supernatural visions—you, who scramble like vultures for plundered pennies, yet honor a fortune-teller above a fortune maker—you, who scorn a businessman as ignoble, but esteem any posturing artist as exalted—the root of your standards is that mystic miasma which comes from primordial swamps, that cult of death, which pronounces a businessman immoral by reason of the fact that he keeps you alive. You, who claim that you long to rise above the crude concerns of the body, above the drudgery of serving mere physical needs—who is enslaved by physical needs: the Hindu who labors from sunrise to sunset at the shafts of a hand-plow for a bowl of rice, or the American who is driving a tractor? Who is the conqueror of physical reality: the man who sleeps on a bed of nails or the man who sleeps on an inner-spring mattress? Which is the monument to the triumph of the human spirit over matter: the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of the Ganges or the Atlantic skyline of New York?
"Unless you learn the answers to these questions—and learn to stand at reverent attention when you face the achievements of man's mind—
“You will not stay much longer on this earth, which we love and will not permit you to damn. You will not sneak by with the rest of your lifespan. I have foreshortened the usual course of history and have let you discover the nature of the payment you had hoped to switch to the shoulders of others. It is the last of your own living power that will now be drained to provide the unearned for the worshippers and carriers of Death. Do not pretend that a malevolent reality defeated you—you were defeated by your own evasions. Do not pretend that you will perish for a noble ideal—you will perish as fodder for the haters of man.
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