What would be the Gita’s stand in today’s political world wrt the Left and the Right in India or the liberals and the conservatives in America

Answer Podcast

What would be the Bhagavad-gita’s stand in today’s political world—with respect to the Left and Right in India, or the Liberals and Conservatives in America?

This is a complex question because both the Bhagavad-gita and politics are layered and nuanced. The Gita is not a political manifesto—it is a philosophical and spiritual text with multilayered teachings. Similarly, the labels we use in today’s politics—Left, Right, Liberal, Conservative—are themselves not monolithic. Each encompasses a spectrum of positions.

Let us explore this step by step.

1. The Gita: A World-Affirming Yet Transcendence-Oriented Text

While the Gita points to transcendence as life’s ultimate goal, it is also world-affirming. Krishna does not ask Arjuna to renounce the world but rather to act responsibly within it. He encourages righteous engagement in worldly duties, especially for those in positions of influence and leadership. So, from the Gita’s perspective, societal leaders should uphold order and dharma.

2. Varṇāśrama and Social Organization

The Gita recommends varṇāśrama—a structured social order—as a framework for material harmony and spiritual progress. However, its emphasis is not on rigid structures but on spiritualizing those structures. This vision could, at times, align with conservative values (e.g., the preservation of order, responsibility, and tradition), but also includes progressive elements such as promoting spiritual equality.

3. The Gita and Economic Systems

The Gita accepts a form of hierarchy (as in varṇāśrama), which may resonate with capitalist or meritocratic systems. However, unlike unchecked capitalism, the Gita emphasizes responsibility and compassion. Communism theoretically supports the underprivileged but has often led to new hierarchies and suppression.

India initially adopted a socialist model post-independence, but economic liberalization in the 1990s brought significant growth. The debate between state control (socialism) and market freedom (capitalism) remains active. From a Gita standpoint, both systems can serve dharma if implemented with integrity, but both can become destructive if driven by greed or exploitation.

4. Conservatives vs. Liberals: A Western Perspective

In the American context:

• Conservatives often emphasize tradition, hierarchy, and individual responsibility.

• Liberals emphasize inclusion, equity, and state support for the marginalized.

The Gita contains elements of both:

• It affirms hierarchy (e.g., roles in society), but not based on birth—rather on qualities and activities (guna-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ, 4.13).

• It strongly upholds spiritual inclusiveness. Krishna says that even those who are “low-born” can attain the highest destination through devotion (9.32).

So, materially, the Gita supports social organization based on capacity and responsibility. Spiritually, it is radically inclusive, offering liberation to all regardless of background.

5. Indian Left and Right: Cultural and Political Implications

In India, the terms Left and Right have different connotations:

• The Left often equates Hinduism with the caste system and opposes what it perceives as Brahmanical orthodoxy. Unfortunately, many in the Indian Left misrepresent the Gita as endorsing a rigid caste hierarchy, whereas the Gita explicitly defines caste by guna and karma, not by janma (birth).

• The Right, especially the Hindu right, emphasizes India’s Vedic heritage and sees Hinduism as integral to national identity. This aligns more with the Gita’s emphasis on preserving one’s svadharma and spiritual roots. However, extreme right-wing interpretations that promote violence or suppress diversity go beyond what the Gita teaches.

The Gita supports self-defense when necessary but never promotes indiscriminate violence. While it calls Arjuna to war, this is portrayed as a reluctant, dharma-based action—not a crusade.

6. Misuse of the Gita by Extremist Ideologies

Throughout Indian history, even when foreign aggression was rampant, prominent acharyas like Ramanuja or Madhva did not use the Gita to call for political war. They focused on spiritual elevation. Thus, appropriating the Gita’s call for battle to justify contemporary political or religious violence is a distortion.

The Gita’s message is not of violence or silence—it is of transcendence. Violence is permitted only in exceptional circumstances, and even then, only when aligned with dharma, not with political ambition or religious bigotry.

7. Conclusion: Neither Left Nor Right, But Dharmic

The Bhagavad-gita:

• Is not partisan—it doesn’t fit neatly into Left–Right or Liberal–Conservative categories.

• Encourages responsible leadership and righteous governance.

• Advocates social harmony while also empowering the marginalized.

• Supports tradition without being dogmatic, and progress without being chaotic.

• Promotes spiritual equality while recognizing functional differences.

In today’s polarized political landscape, the Gita serves as a transcendental guide, calling for the spiritualization of consciousness over the politicization of ideology. It encourages inner transformation as the basis for outer reformation.

So, rather than taking a side, the Gita offers a higher vantage point—one that can help sincere individuals on any side of the political spectrum act with greater integrity, vision, and compassion.

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
What would be the Bhagavad Gita stand in today’s political world be it in India with respect to the left and the right or in America with respect to the conservatives and the liberals answer this would be difficult to give as one stand because the Bhagavad Gita itself is a complicated book with multiple levels of analysis and spiritual guidelines given and politics itself is also complicated and what we call as labels what we use as functional handles left or right or conservatives and liberals they themselves are nuanced and multiple positions but essentially let’s look at some points firstly the Bhagavad Gita is a world affirming book although it does talk about transcending the world and attaining a spiritual reality as the ultimate goal of life it very much wants social leaders to take responsibility for establishing order in society as it is seen through its instruction to Arjuna so having got that clear we can move forward and see what is the specific instruction that would apply now at one level the Gita recommends the varnashram system for social organization at the same time its point is not just to mandate varnashram but to spiritualize varnashram that it is a social organization which will help people to function in a way that is materially harmonious and spiritually progressive so how that could be achieved that will have to be carefully thought out at one level the Bhagavad Gita does recommend hierarchies varnashram itself is a hierarchy and capitalism if we consider in the west is hierarchical where there are the owners of the means of production and there are the laborers communism at least claimed to disrupt hierarchies although it created its own hierarchies but communism is at least theoretically the concern is for the disenfranchised for the disempowered in society and now we have a milder version of communism that is socialism which is gaining popularity whereas in the 1980s calling somebody a commie, commie would be a short form for communist would be the ultimate insult which would make a person be condemned and in social and political circles now presidential candidates claim to be socialists and they gain immense popularity so socialism is a milder version of communism. India historically after independence adopted a socialist model and we progressed but not at a very progress at least in terms of material development but at a snail space and then after the liberalization of the economy there is significant economic growth that happened so more or less now we are trying to have a decrease of the government and increasing outreach of the government increasing things in the control of the government is the basic idea of communism or even socialism because they feel that if we just allow the market to rule then those who are underprivileged, those who are deprived they will be exploited and their interest will not be protected so excessive government overreach leads to people feeling throttled in their creativity in their industry because if the government mandates that everybody has to be paid this much amount and everybody has to be given this many labour benefits, everybody has to follow these procedures before they can be fired from the company then companies feel that they won’t make much profit and people hesitate to take risks if they feel there are not going to be many rewards so too much government overreach can choke industrial growth and the industriousness of those who would pioneer that growth now India was traditionally an agriculture based economy and even now it is so the centralization of agriculture led to the disaster in Soviet Russia and China and India to some extent tried that and there have been issues with it if the farmers are told to sell at a particular place only at a particular rate which the government stipulates and the farmers may not be able to make more money but sometimes they get at least some basic amount of money so to take this thought forward the point is that in general the left or the liberals they are concerned with protecting the underprivileged and taxing the privileged whereas the right or the capitalists in the west they are focused on rewarding those who are enterprising and not fettering their enthusiasm by having too many regulations now in India the word right has a slightly different connotation also we talk about the religious right primarily not the economic or the political right although that is also talked about here it refers to Hinduism which wants to as interpreted by different people either preserve the heritage of the Vedic roots of India or as is seen by its critics they want to stamp out diversity and make everybody into Hindu although nobody has no Hindus have actually proposed that even the leaders of the right but that’s how it has been portrayed so with this background if we consider now let’s look at the western conception of liberals and conservatives the Gita does at one level conserve power there are Brahmanas and Kshatriyas who are the strongholds of power and they need to be empowered so that’s what is being done Krishna uses the Brahmanas and Kshatriyas who are in power but he purifies them that means he ensures that those who are unrighteous those who are vicious they do not get power and they are removed and they are trained spiritualized leaders are who are who will be able to move forward and administer society responsibly but at the same time the Gita also says that even those who are low born can become elevated by the practice of bhakti and the spiritual process spiritual elevation is the primary purpose of yoga of the Gita it talks about material administration but material administration for spiritual elevation so in the path of spiritual elevation especially in the path of bhakti the Gita asserts that even the disenfranchised the low born can also be elevated so there is active concern for them also within the Gita so the Gita is neither left wholly right nor wholly left nor wholly conservative nor wholly liberal if you consider in terms of liberals want to be inclusive the Gita is remarkably inclusive book because it envisions that the scope of religion is not to be limited only to religious activities it doesn’t say that everybody has to renounce the world and perform certain rituals or some practices it encompasses the whole world can be an arena of sacrifice so in that sense it is inclusive so that would be something on the liberal side that even an area as anti-spiritual as as politics could be spiritualized that’s the Gita’s vision at the same time the Gita asserts that the message that was given in the past and that was applied by the people in the past is being repeated now so that means the Gita is saying that it is conservative it is not giving a message that is a departure from the past the form might be a departure but the intent of the substance is reconvergence the reorientation toward the same purpose that was served by the past the Gita is not recommending also that it is not idealizing the past from its perspective and saying that Arjuna has to roll back time and take things back to the way they were in the past but rather it encourages him to engage in the world as he is experiencing in terms of the Indian left and Indian right, unfortunately the left in India equates Hinduism with the caste system and much of the other glory, the architecture the literary glory the sheer resilience of the civilization that is all overlooked and it is not that the Gita is against the left but the left would be militantly against the Gita in many ways they often reduce the Gita to a book of Brahmanical orthodoxy which is enforcing the caste system but the Gita is not that kind of book even the caste system which is associated with Hinduism is, the way it is in present is not the way recommended in the Gita Gita categorically says it is by birth not by, it is not by birth it is by qualities and activities so it is a social division of labour based, social assignment of labour based on psychophysical compatibility so yes with respect to the left, there are because the left is made a caricature of the Gita and made position itself as anti-left so it would be as, so the Gita is in principle, Gita empowers the disenfranchised but the left as it exists today we will not find much common ground between the Gita and the left as it exists in fact the left is in fact not even liberal now, the left has become very very illiberal in terms of not allowing viewpoints that are contrary to it to even surface in the mainstream media, everything that is supportive of the west, of the left is, sorry of the left not the west of the left is portrayed and everything that is, that runs counter to the left’s narrative is suppressed or sidelined and as far as the right is concerned in India, the right is right in many ways in terms of asserting that India is the only country which will be acting as a homeland for the followers of the Vedic tradition of Sanatana Dharma India has been formed by that and for India in the name of secularism to reject its own traditions would be a serious mistake and therefore it’s important that India preserve its roots and the Bhagavad Gita definitely is about strongly assertive about preserving one’s spiritual roots and ensuring that the purpose of spiritualization of human consciousness is strongly maintained while going through the world, while dealing with the world’s upheavals but unfortunately in some ways the right has an extreme that is not only the right but the extremist right which sometimes draws rationalization from the Gita for its violence now the violence done by the Hindu right is negligible as compared to say Islamic extremism but somehow in the public eye the two have been made equivalent and that is tragic but without getting into the specifics of that what we could categorically say is that the Gita doesn’t support violence indiscriminately and much of the violence that is talked about in today’s world is not its highly politicalized and if at all the Gita talks although the Gita talks about Arjuna fighting a war but none of the prominent commentators of the Gita throughout history even when they say Islamic extremism was creating far more devastation in India they did not use their commentaries to galvanize followers that it is that the war, the political wars that were going on at that time the Ramanujan or Madhavan or any of the commentators used those to galvanize people to fight against the aggressor saying that this is a war of dharma so for some leaders to appropriate or misappropriate the Gita’s call for warfare in its own context to a call for violence in today’s context would be wrong and the Gita is not a book of violence, not a book of silence, it is a book of transcendence and it exhibits exceptional situations when the path to transcendence required certain violence against those who were violently opposed to transcendence the path to transcendence required violence against those who were violently opposed to transcendence the Gita’s message is not of transcendence, it is of violence, it is of transcendence per se so that kind of misappropriation of extremism in the cause of what is perceived as Hindu dharma that is something which the Gita would not endorse but a broad spiritualization of the culture would definitely be endorsed by the Bhagavad Gita so these are some areas of intersection and future dialogue between the Gita and conservative liberal or their left-right polarizations in today’s political world