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By Shri.Bal Patil
Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this
world have the spirit and power of philosophy and political
greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures
who pursue either to the exclusion of the other, are compelled
to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils-
no, nor the human race, as I believe,- and then only will this
our state have a possibility of life and behold the light of
day.
Plato’s Republic
Thus did Plato in the noblest flight of his philosophical
speculation formulate and utopian vision of an ideally
administered State which the kings and emperors in the endless
annals of history have striven in vain to attain. It is moot
question of history why they fell short of this noble quest.
Was it because their enlightenment did not keep pace with the
beatific vision?
Plato himself has provided a clue to the solution of this
apparently insoluble conundrum by means of the brilliant
allegory of the ignorant and unenlightened humanity tethered
and imprisoned in a dark underground den or tunnel with a
mouth open towards sight which the unfortunate inmates cannot
see because their legs and necks are so chained that they are
prevented from turning round their necks.
As further visualized by Plato the prisoners who have been
there from their childhood, have above and behind them a
blazing fire at a distance; and between the fire and the
prisoners there is a raised way with a low wall built along
the way, like the screen which marionette players have in
front of them, over which they show puppets.
Men are seen passing along the wall carrying all sorts of
vessels, statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone
and various materials which appear over the wall. And these
strange prisoners can see only their own shadows or the
shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite
wall of the den because they could not see anything but the
shadows as they were never allowed to move their heads.
Reality or truth for such prisoners would be nothing but a
shadow play. But supposing one of the prisoners is released
and is able to turn his neck round and look towards the light
he would be bewildered by the glare at first, sees the reality
in a new perspective and yet persist in his illusion of
shadows until he comes to the mouth of the tunnel and out and
sees the sun and the world of substance and shadows, and thus
is able to disabuse his mind of the weird error of shadows.
That is the dawn of human enlightenment. The prison-house is
the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun and the
journey upwards in the den or tunnel is the progress of
pilgrim’s soul into intellectual and enlightened
consciousness. Thus Plato brings home the acme of his
metaphysical insight that the philosopher- kings who will make
possible the establishment of the ideal State are to be not
only seasoned men of action in the world of Government, but
also saints who have achieved a religious vision of the
supreme good.
I have taken the liberty of delineating the Platonic image of
the cave because I think, its allegory of the mankind as
groping its way from the darkness of ignorance to the light of
knowledge, has a compelling relevance to the social and
educational renaissance set in motion in Maharashtra and
eventually in India by such stalwarts of social, religious and
administrative reform, as Mahatma Phule, V.R. Shinde, Shahu
Chhatrapati, Dr. Ambedkar and Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil.
Shahu was an ideal ruler in the Platonic category of
philosopher kings. He was not a professional philosopher, but
nevertheless he had an weltan-shauung – a worldview- in the
real sense of the term, because by conviction he treated the
lowliest and the despised on equal terms and gave them a place
in the sun by deliberate social, educational, religious and
administrative measurers.
This Platonic quest of enlightment has no doubt its
counterpart in the Upanishadic pursuit of tamaso ma
jyotirgamaya, but unfortunately this noble quest of knowledge
In India was confined by rigid requirements of priestcraft to
the superior caste of Brahmins. While the Brahmins could
pursue enlightenment to their heart’s content, a section of
the society which was relegated to the most despised quarters
was forever condemened to ignorance, degradation and utter
deprivation in the social scale of values.
... Continued
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