Semitic Faiths ‘n Sanatan Dharma: 

A Simple Study of Contrasts

While Christianity and Islam are hostile to the Jews but not to Judaism per se, their followers are antagonistic towards Hinduism, the Sanatana dharma of the Hindus, and for a good reason. Judaism being the father of the Abrahamic  faiths, denouncing it amounts to theological self-deprecation but as Hinduism is outside their monotheistic Semitic fold, running it down runs no such risk. Besides, weakening its polytheistic hold on a billion souls would soften the path of harvesting them for their bottomless religious granaries.

Even taking their proselytising urge in good faith – the Christian belief that without faith in Jesus, people stand condemned and the Islamic relief of a final truth to guide humanity - are their religious credos any better than the Sanatana dharma that postulates ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti (what is right is One only, describe it wise variedly) is the question that needs to be addressed for any rational study of contrasts among these diverse dispensations. Whatever, if Hinduism is a ‘Way of Life’, as ruled by India’s apex court, then it can be said that Christianity and Islam are the by-lanes of Moses’ Semitic Path, and  to comprehend the former, one has to go through the latter. However, it’s not much known that the oft-quoted "seeing is believing’ is the rational part of clergyman Thomas Fuller’s full quote, “seeing is believing, but feeling is the truth," that underscores this simple study of their contrasts.

To begin with, when the Ten Commandments were first proclaimed, Jehovah spoke audibly to Moses from Mount Sinai amid smoke, fire, thunder, and lightning, so that the assembled Israelites heard His voice. When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” Then Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” Though this Biblical account is not up to Fuller’s seeing is believing, the Jewish belief about its happening makes them hold Jehovah’s diktats in dread. Whatever, in their God’s scheme of rewards and punishments there was no provision for recompense from sins through repentance.

But even when it comes to hearing,  it’s one thing for Jesus himself to claim to be the Son of God, that he never did, and yet another for his apostles to proclaim so, what with the innovative immaculate conception, added much later after his demise. So also, Jesus’ teachings, including the Sermon on the Mount as well as his “Go specifically to the lost sheep of Israel; don't enter Gentile, Samaritan towns” during his ministry and “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them” that was after his resurrection (what did change in the meantime for his change of mind!), as cited in Mathew 10 and 28 respectively, have no evidentiary value whatsoever. It's thus, the entire Biblical legend of Jesus that is the fulcrum of the Christian faith is totally based on hearsay or improvement, as the case may be, but yet, the belief of the Christians in this regard is the gospel truth.

When it comes to the Islamic narrative, Gabriel, in incognito, met Muhammad in a cave of Mount Hira and made him say after him: “Recite in the name of thy Lord who created! He createth man from a clot of blood etc.” But as he fled from the cave in panic and was half-way down the hill, he heard a voice from above, “O Muhammad, thou art the Messenger of God, and I am Gabriel.” So, for his followers,  Muhammad’s word became the basis of their devotion for him and eventually the truth of Islam. Not only that, the guidance he said he received from Allah, the Arabic  avatar of Jehovah, became the ayats of the Quran to forever rule the minds of the Musalmans, for good or bad.

Just the same, it is this Semitic dogma that became its dictum; ‘the God’ revealed to their prophet the right ‘path of life’ for them to unquestioningly follow so as to stand the believers in good stead on the Day of Judgment. Besides, but for Judaism, in its religious offshoots of Christianity and Islam, the messiah is believed to be endowed with the power of intercession on behalf of the faithful on that Fateful Day. It’s thus, intended or otherwise, the prophet became the fulcrum of the faith as well as the icon of the Christian and the Islamic religious credos, relegating the otherwise haughty God to the fringes, never mind the pretence to the contrary.

It's another matter though that the Christians became antagonistic to Jews on the grouse that they were collectively responsible for Jesus’ death resulting in their persecution over the ages, culminating in the holocaust. That apart, so as to keep his flock together in the face of the Jewish mocking at his prophethood, Muhammad incited them against his detractors, the God’s chosen people. Not only that, so as to insulate his followers as well from the Christians, the acolytes of His son, he ordained them to keep away from the latter on the pretext that he (Jesus)  sought to partner with  Him along with Mary, his mother. Whatever, it is ironical that while the Unitary God had divided his flock into three mutually antagonistic factions, the Hindu gods and goddesses amalgamated the amorphous Sanatana  societies in their dharmic fold!

So, what of the peerless Hindu phenomenon, which the monotheists dismiss as idolatrous polytheism, that too even as the crosses with Jesus and his baby self in Mary’s arms abound in the Churches, and the Hajis fall over each other to kiss Hajar al-Aswad (Black Stone) at the Kabbah! If only the uninitiated realise, what they mistake as Hindu idol worship in essence is an obeisance to the deities in their distinctive vigrahas, in which their gods and goddesses get manifested (pranaprathista) through Vedic rituals, formulated in enchanting Sanskrit mantras.

Set aside their credos, what if we measure these four on the scale of gender justice that today’s man’s world pretends to hold dear. Whereas the Semitic dispensations are dictated by the Lord God (as already seen, Christianity had added Mary and Jesus in its pantheon to the chagrin of Islam), the Sanatana dharma is governed by spouse gods galore. Not only that, while the Semitic God is stern and aloof, Vishnu, the sustainer, (the creator Brahma and the destroyer  Shiva  being the others in the Trinity) in his avatars on earth, mingled with the Hindu folks. Won’t that fulfil Fuller’s twin criteria of seeing is believing, and feeling is the truth. What’s more, in respect of cultural aspects, while the solemn, even sombre, Semitic events, centred around the God and his prophets, for the most part that is, can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand, the numerous Hindu festivities, with mirth and music, associated with the gods and goddesses, nearly need a calculator to account for. And for those who experience it, that’s life, the blessed one at that.

All the same, for the discerning minds, the vital difference between the Sanatana dharma and the Semitic faiths lies in the concurrent philosophical stream of the former and the abject absence of the same in the latter that the Roberto Baggio episode amply underscores. Inconsolable at letting down Italy in that FIFA world cup final with his over-the-crossbar kick in the penalty shootout against Brazil, that too as its captain, and not finding any solace in ‘Jesus shedding his blood to save sinners’, he turned to Buddhism, a spiritual offshoot of Hinduism, for good effect.

What is amusing is that Christians and Muslims, whose God is not clear about the creation of man (see the tailpiece) seek to emancipate the Hindus whose progenitors had propositioned that it’s man who created the god, in theories many, as expostulated in the Brihadāranyaka Upanishad, composed around 700 B.C.E. Here’s is an excerpt from Valerie J. Roebuck’s The Upanisads, just to cite one such.

“He knew: “I am creation, for I created all this.” So he became creation. Whoever knows this, come to be in this, his creation.”

“When they say, “Sacrifice to that one!”, “Sacrifice to that one!”- some god or other, that is his varied creation, and he himself is all the gods.

Then he created from seed whatever is moist, and that is Soma. All this is just food and the eater of food. Soma is food, and Agni is the eater of food.

This is the higher creation of Brahma, since he created gods who are better than he: and also because, being mortal, he created immortals, it is his higher creation. Whoever knows this, comes to be in this, his higher creation.”

That’s not all; the Hindus have the Bhagavad-Gita, which according to the Prussian philosopher, William von Humboldt, “is the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue.” The author’s translation in verses, Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help, is in the public domain that can be perused as free ebook, the essence of which is –   

“The Supreme Spirit through Nature causes the birth of all beings. Thus, the indwelling spirit in the beings is a divisible part of the same Indivisible Supreme Spirit. The spirit lying within beings is subject in degrees to virtue, passion and delusion, the three attributes of Nature. It should remain the human endeavor to free the indwelling spirit from these nature-induced influences. This, however, is not possible for any in a single birth, and indeed, it would take the sustained effort of lot many births for that. Thus, in the end, the soul could be tended towards that state of purity, which matches with that of the Supreme Spirit. As and when this happens, the indwelling spirit merges with the Supreme Spirit which is nothing but moksha.”

It's thus, the god is truly within man (aham brahmasmi) so also the so-called Satan, the salvation is not as simple as being or becoming a Christian or a Musalman, and the entry into heaven or the hereafter, as the case may be, is not based on the intercession of the messiah on the Day of Judgement. So, one may wake up and smell the coffee.  

The Tailpiece  

Clueless Creation,

A Satirical poem by the author.  

Told God man In Genesis One

Him He created in form of His

Not when asked as how He did

Thought He fit in Genesis Two

To tell He used the dust for that

But to change tack after that,

So in time Muhammad told

Made Jibrail recite him

In the name of One who makes

Man on earth from clot of blood,

Failed as he then to enquire

Wherefrom He gets all that blood

And since God hath sealed His mouth

Knows not man the true roots of his.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 SC ‘n ST (Prevention Of Atrocities) Act,

Or A Political Ploy of the Cynical Minds

Though for a long while, the dalits and the janjatis, aka SCs and STs, were wont to get the rough end of the social discriminatory stick, yet it was only forty years after independence that Rajiv Gandhi occasioned the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989, but not for any holistic reasons. It was but a cynical idea to stem the growing political mobilization of the dalits outside his congress umbrella that ensued the weakening of their traditional support to it from the early eighties. That was precisely because, by then, their social awakening, political empowerment and educational advancement, coupled with the country’s growing urbanization, made them assertive as a class and aggressive in their manners.

 

If anything, the ill-motivated SC and ST (Prevention Of Atrocities) Act that ironically came into force a year later on January 30, Gandhi’s death anniversary, in a way, gave the unscrupulous among the SC-STs the license to kill, not literally that is, just not in self-defense. It’s thus, the cynical law has squarely put the boot is the other leg, so to say, with statistical backing.

 

The official data pertaining to the complaints under the lopsided law and the convictions thereunder reads as under:

 

In 2022, while  57,569 cases were preferred by SCs, the ST count was 10,064 (put together 67,633); and the convictions during the year (including the ongoing trials from  previous years) was 34.1% and 28.1% respectively that is 31.1% in all. So, some 70% of the SC-ST complaints fell by the wayside, being unproven!

 

Likewise, in 2023, whereas 57,766 cases pertained to SCs, the ST proportion stood at 12,959 (70,725 combined) and so also the convictions during the year (reckoning the pending cases of previous years) added up to 32.4% and 24.6%  respectively, put together at 28.5%. So, again, 71.5% of the SC-ST accusations remained unsubstantiated!

 

Similarly, the case count for 2024 was, 55,685 of SCs and 9,961 of STs, together adding up to 65,646, a drop of 5,079. However, the conviction rates during the year(accounting for the previous years’ cases) came to 33.9% for SCs and 33.2% for STs, averaging 33.6% for both the categories. Thus, about 66.4% of the SC-ST cases did not result in conviction, although this represented an improvement in the conviction rate over the previous year.

 

However, as the average conviction rate in the three recent years came to 31%, it can be said without any contradiction that nearly 7 out of 10 SC-ST allegations failed to find traction in the country’s courts. What’s worse, while many of the innocent seven rotted in gaols for varied periods, for no fault of theirs, their accusers smiled all the way to their banks to collect the Sarkari ransom for their atrocities against the innocents!

 

All that is in the public domain but as they say, the devil is in the small print, and this is no exception.

 

As per the last census (2011), the SCs formed 20.14 crore and the STs, 10.42 crore of the country's total population of 121 crores, which means, they respectively made up 16.6%, and 8.6% of the populace, and together a quarter of it. So, by extrapolation, for the lack of an intervening census, in the 2022-24 period, they together would have made up some 60 crores out of the 140-crore envisaged population.

 

Just the same, the social dynamics are different in that out of 60 crore SC-STs, on an average, only 68,001 of them complained in each of the said three years that is a miniscule 0.113% of their ilk! What is more, given that only 31% of the SC-ST complaints led to convictions, the alleged atrocities against them would have been no more than 0.003% of their folks!! If it’s not making a caste mountain out of a social molehill, what else is this SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act? But therein lies the catch-22 of the Indian electoral politics.

 

Be that as it may, It is seldom appreciated that the atrocious media coverage of these odd complaints to the saturation levels has the inimical effect of othering these communities besides infusing a sense of victimhood in them. So, willy-nilly, it is as if to set up the conversion stage on the SC-ST ground for the proselytizers to poach the disgruntled into the alien faiths to nurture them in India’s Sanatan bosom.

 

And making it a double jeopardy for the Hindu society, as most of these complaints turn out to be false and fabricated, it’s but natural that the affected sections get further alienated from SC-STs as communities. If anything, that these politically pampered sections are being allowed to make money by dubious means completes the social schism, which is not in the national interest. But, sadly for our country, the moral cynicism has become the electoral compulsion of our political parties – they collectively alienate them from the rest even as they severally court them for political favours, for they form a quarter of the franchise.

 

If anything, the recent SC fiasco in IIT-Bombay has brought the devious Act’s dubious character to the fore like never before. Now, it is very much in the public domain that the morally corrupt as well as the legally savvy among SC-STs have been milking the State exchequer with profitable FIRs. Well, the notoriety the SC-ST ‘business model’ gained may ensure a plethora of new startups to the chagrin of the rest of the society. As for the political parties, it’s a case of ‘he who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount’. Maybe, VS Naipaul would have as well summed it up thus - India: A Million Miseries Now. So, it is imperative that India should apply its collective mind to nurse its ‘affected quarter’ to normal health, in the short term as well as in its long course.

 

So, the need of the hour is a multi-member high-power committee of eminences from the representative sections with the nationalist mindset and a pragmatic outlook, majority of them belonging to SC-ST communities, to come up with an equitable SC - ST Progression Act that is after taking the altered ground realities in the rural and the urban India into account. This is the short run, but to cover the long course, this author’s essay in the internet, Dali as Deva, à la Black is Beautiful can come in handy. Here under is an excerpt from it.

 

“Though the dalit tag affords political clout to its desperate classes as a whole, it had failed to buttress the self-worth of its disparate caste groups for in the Indian cultural calculus, caste is intrinsic to the social-worth of its members. Thus, it is imperative to cast a sense of caste-worth in the dalit fold in the ‘Black is Beautiful’ mould for the collective moral upliftment of its member castes.  But self-belief being the by-product of the zeal to strive and not a corollary of plucking low-hanging fruits, the system of reservations has effectually given a go-by to the zeal to excel, a vital ingredient of personality development. It is thus, the doles of the state inadvertently, but effectually, came to harm the dalit cause in the long run, and what’s worse, even the genuine dalit achievements entail a diminished stature for they come under the shadows set by low performance bars, thereby precluding their due social recognition at large. The way out, while yet retaining their quotas is for the dalits to volunteer to get their reservation bar raised to touch the prevailing positions.

 

 “What's in a name? That which we call a rose 

By any other name would smell as sweet,” 

said Shakespeare  but what he left unsaid  was 

‘And alike it makes any other name as rosy.’ 

Likewise, had the lexicologists named the Lord in the skies as Sod and an annoying guy on planet earth as God, the former name would’ve acquired divine connotations and the latter, a taboo word. Thus, it may be appreciated that a name is ‘worth neutral’ in its essence but becomes exalted or gets diminished depending on the object it’s associated with, which, in turn, is the subject of our subjective attributions. And the same applies to the caste names that came to represent the ascending steps of the Hindu social ladder for the demeaned Mala indeed sounds better than the exulted Brahmin, the denigrated Madiga is easy on the ear than the extolled Maratha, the dismissed Chamar is more sonorous than the domineering Choudhary et al. Hence, for an Indian variant of Black is Beautiful movement, it is essential for the members of the depressed castes to begin taking pride in their respective castes and suffix their caste name to their social name with the same sense of pride as Yadavs, Reddys etc. resort to. Indeed, as Manda Krishna Madiga of Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi , so to say, has given the lead in this direction, the other castes in the dalit fold should follow suit wearing their caste worth on their sleeves.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Makings of a Writer 

(Author interview - newbooks.space) 

https://newbooks.space/author-interviews/01a0cebb-5fbe-7132-b71e-14aa8f8aed87

1) What inspired you to start writing?

In a way, while my letter writing was a companion of my voracious reading, my creative writing was an extension of the same, inspired by an examined life of over forty years. But the spark was a story idea and Benign Flame got lit as Saga of Love. 

2) Can you tell us a little about your latest book?

In the creative sense, Of No Avail – Web of Wedlock, completed my cycle of fiction broken in between by non-fiction and translations.

Here’s its Blurb: 

Lured by the pitch - All marriages are made in heaven but some are delayed on earth: We endeavor to hasten them all - Priya goes to Renuka Marriage Bureau.

Scanning the prospects, when she spotted Venu, whom she slighted long ago, she rushes to him to bring about a dramatic encounter.

What brought about Priya’s change of heart to seek her former suitor and how Venu responds to his old flame’s fresh overtures lend suspense to their romance in this eclectic novella. 

3) How do you create your characters?

While some of my characters sprang up from the characteristics of people I happened to know or heard about, the others were the products of my imagination conditioned by my grasp on human psychology, and either way, it’s succinctly put by Raja Rao in Benign Flame, my maiden marvel thus:

“Characters of fiction are authors’ children and critics’ neighbours, even if we perceive them as inadequate, nevertheless, we should appreciate the fact that they are the products of someone’s imagination, however limited that might be. It’s not often that you come across a book from which you could quote much”  

4) What does your typical writing day look like?

From start to finish, books of mine mostly took nine months each for completion, and it had been a non-stop writing for over fourteen hours a day, save fatigue breaks, day after day,. Well, it was made possible by my having been an independent professional, not needing to toil 9 to 5 at an office.  

5) What has been the most rewarding part of being an indie author?

No denying that not finding a mainstream publisher was frustrating to start with but in the hindsight it’s as well that I remained an indie author that too in the ebook times of ours, for,

1_ Not being subject to editorial control or compromise, my writing has been the source of mine own self-expression as well as assertion.

2_ Being an indie author, I could place them in umpteen internet sites as free ebooks enhancing their outreach to reach out to readers all over the world. If I were a published author, I had to be a rare one in thousands to make a living out of writing, and if not, it would have been a case of neither here nor there.

3_ What kept me writing regardless is my conviction that for fiction to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, and my fiction, of eight books, is just that. What is more, as all my works are purely original in concept and content, penning them afforded me immense creative satisfaction, never mind the mundane deprivations they caused.

    

A Word To Milords

 

Seldom, if at all, do the proponents as well as the opponents of the vexed collegium system delve much into the antecedents of its coming into being.

So, here we go; first, in pursuance of a committed judiciary, it was Justice AN Ray’s elevation, by the supersession of three senor most Supreme Court judges in 1973, followed by the side-lining of Justice HR Khanna in 1977 for having been the sole defender of the citizen’s right to life and liberty during India’s infamous internal emergency. Then, adding insult to injury was the 1980 direct induction of Justice Baharul Islam, the jurist-politician, on the vaunted bench, all orchestrated by the dictatorial daughter of the autocratic Nehru. Yet, when Indira was alive, the successive justices conceded her executive right to appoint the judges, though in consultation with the Chief Justice (First Judges case, 1981). It was only a decade after her death that the judiciary made bold to wrest the initiative from the executive with the Second Judges case (1993). But with the disarray of successive central sarkars thereafter, in 1998, the emboldened Milords through the Third Judges Case became the Lords unto themselves in their Collegium Rings. That is fencing themselves from the executive arm, once and for all.

Now that they had long avenged their slights and had the last laugh too a decade back in negating the NJAC Act, it’s time for Milords to take stock of the untenable situation in which our judiciary has come to lay, and this word is meant just to be an aid. And what is their argument against the unanimous NJAC – the mere presence of the Union Law Minister in the selection committee of five would impinge upon judicial independence! LOL. So, by the same logic, the selected judges should be toeing the judicial line drawn by the collegium Milords, right. Oh, how specious, but they are gray-haired enough to know that independence of mind and living by the principles are the characteristics of spirited men and women, but that is just an excuse to hold on to their usurped power to further their nepotistic causes. 

With around one lakh cases lying on their own benches and sixty-five lakhs in high courts under their watch and ward, not to speak of over five crores in the so-called lower courts, if it’s not the time for the collegium lords to self-introspect, then it has only to be at the calamity. It’s but natural that their judicial time leaves not much time for attending to the herculean task of finding the right judges to adorn the higher benches, made difficult by the prevailing state of our compromised polity. So, lacking the wherewithal to venture into the discovery channel besides being hard-pressed to dispense justice in time, is like falling between two stools. Surely, Milords cannot be unaware of the fact that they have bitten off the judicial cake more than they could chew. Why, they are even incapable of filling around thirty percent of their high court benches, not to speak of speeding up PMLA proceedings! Whatever, they could not be insensitive to the abysmal state of the judicial affairs, taken as a whole, hamstrung with mundane ailments one too many.   

So, the question that naturally  arises is why won’t they untangle themselves from the tangled collegium web for personal relief as well as for the public good. Well, judges are human too, and power intoxicates them no less, made worse by our extra selfish times. If, by chance, Milords have read thus far to develop second thoughts, then they may go through further for a welcome denouement.     

 "Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand"- Hamlet to Polonius.

That was then, and if Shakespeare were to revise it now, Hamlet would’ve said ‘out of hundred thousand’.

So to say, the clue to the honesty drop of our times was provided by Andy Hargreaves, “There is no morality without temptation; otherwise it is just lack of opportunity”.

However, be it in the world of yore with limited opportunities or in the modern times with unlimited avenues, the honest are few and far between but the Bard of Avon wouldn’t have meant that the rest of the multitudes were patently dishonest. The master’s intent would’ve been that rarely are men innately honest but the vast majority of them lack the conviction to be upright, regardless. In other words, the bulk of the people by nature are character-neutral and by disposition are fence-sitters. It’s thus, the ethos of an organization comes to be shaped by the upright or deviant, as the case may be, and that counts.

It is in this context that the exceptional thinking of the much-maligned Joseph Goebbels, expressed in his ‘Addendum to Adolf Hitler's Testament’ that brings forth another Shakespearean dictum , ”Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, / And vice sometime by action dignified", becomes eminently relevant.

“The Führer has ordered me, in the event of the collapse of the defense, to leave the Reich capital Berlin and to participate as a leading member in a government appointed by him.

For the first time in my life I must categorically refuse to obey an order of the Führer. My wife and my children join me in this refusal. Otherwise—quite apart from the fact that for human reasons and reasons of personal loyalty we could never bring ourselves to leave the Führer alone in his most difficult hour—I would regard myself for the rest of my life as a dishonorable renegade and a contemptible scoundrel, who, together with his self-respect, would also lose the respect of his people, which would have to be the prerequisite for any further service by me in shaping the future of the German nation and the German Reich.

Amid the delirium of betrayal that surrounds the Führer in these critical days of the war, there must at least be some who stand by him unconditionally and unto death, even if this contradicts a formal order, however well-founded, that he expresses in his political testament.

I believe that by doing this I am rendering the best service to the German people for its future, because in the difficult times that lie ahead, examples are more important than men. There will always be men who show the nation the way to freedom. But a reconstruction of our national life would be impossible if it did not develop on the foundation of clear examples comprehensible to everyone.

For this reason, together with my wife and in the name of my children, who are too young to express themselves but who, if they were of the necessary age, would unreservedly join in this decision, I declare my irrevocable determination not to leave the Reich capital even if it falls, and rather to end a life at the Führer's side that has no personal value for me if I cannot devote it in the service of the Führer and at his side.

Given in Berlin, 29 April 1945, 5:30 a.m.

Dr. Goebbels” [Emphasis supplied]

What examples the collegium benches had set for the judges it inducts into the judicial system – Not one but two Chief Justices went judicial overboard to protect a notorious woman of judicial pedigree from being prosecuted for her wrongdoings though their brother judge said that she should be hauled up as a fraudster. While some bails have become the instruments of favour, the ideological biases emanating from some of the benches even foul the country’s atmosphere. So to say, in all such cases, miscarriage of justice is not only done but is seen to be done, without any remorse or shame, not even later-day regret. But on the contrary, the fear to face the truth grips the ultimate bench in that save the honourable Justic Gogoi exception of the Ram Janma Bhoomi litigation, it is dead scared of dispensing justice in case of Kashi, Mathura etc. That successive CJIs should lack the courage to resolve the country’s cultural vexations speaks for the lack of character and the absence of conviction in the collegium benches.

Given that our society has become grossly corrupt, by and large that is, it is a matter of segregating the honest grain from the dishonest chaff that is bound to be beyond the narrow collegium vision as that is possible only through a broad NJAC search. If anything, the scandal of the burning bundles underscores this well and true – how come Justice Verma was so unabashedly unashamed is the question. Why not; he could only be cursing his bad luck that burnt all his ill gains (is it so); how fair it is to expect him to forego whatever might be in his retirement store, especially as much of his biradari continues to make merry, without let or hindrance that is.

However, I for one believe that Justice Surya Kant is better than most of the collegium-era Chiefs and as I dedicate this word to him as it’s a product of his address in the recent Ram Jethmalani Memorial Lecture, I urge him to grasp the Goebbels moment of his destiny to change our country’s judicial course. That’s by bringing the curtains down on the ugly collegium drama that is being staged for far too long. Maybe, he can give a thought to it as it comes from the maternal grandson  of  the upright C. Kameswara Rao, author of ‘The Law of Damages and Compensation’ among others, who was wont to advocate only the just causes that tended the Judges of the District Court in Kakinada, where he had practiced, to pre-judge their merit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hindus ‘n Hebrews – Contrasting Parallels

(A Case for Hindu Rashtra)

 

Desa-mante matti-kaadoi, desa-mante manushu-loi (nation is not (its) soil, nation is but (its) people), wrote Gurajada Appa Rao, a noted Telugu playwright and poet, and Hindus and Hebrews, aka Jews, validate him, though differently.  

 

True, all peoples and nations have their unique attributes but few, if any, had such travails and tribulations as Hindus and Hebrews as peoples, and India and Isreal as nations, remarkably with peculiar parallels and compelling contrasts.

 

So to say, more than any, it is the aftermath of India’s independence and Isreal’s formation that highlights the lack of Hindu hindsight and the expansive Jewish foresight. The Hindus made their part of the sundered land, a no-man’s land, in effect a dar al-harb (abode of war) for the unobligated Musalmans that stayed back in their millions. The Hebrews, on the other hand, turned the reacquired part of their promised land into a Jewish State, despite its considerable Arab Muslim habitation. While an exhaustive study of the contrasting parallels of the Hindus and the Hebrews, indeed, India and Israel, is a tome in the waiting (maybe a joint venture), this piece is but a prelude to set its tone. 

 

Much before Moses led the Jews to their promised land of Israel, the Devas enabled Hindus to make Bharat, their karma Bhoomi. Maybe by divine design to make them proportional to their populations, the former was shaped a tiny enclave, and the latter a subcontinent (Bharata Khanda). In Bharat, while its rishis and munis evolved the Sanatana dharma, aka Hinduism, the acharyas and gurukuls made it the seat of learning, visited by the seekers from all nations. Likewise, the chosen ‘Jewish’ people, nursed their promised land to shape its heritage, that’s narrated in the Torah, needing no repetition.

However, as if to prove that good things do not last forever, both these ancient people, in historical course, fell on bad times, first the chosen ones, and later, the blessed ones.

 

Being among the oldest non-proselytizing entities, they had to survive the proselytizing onslaught, from within and without: Hinduism from Buddha’s revolt, reform if you please, tumultuous Islamic assaults and the insidious Christian intrusions. Likewise, Judaism from Jesus’ rebellion, clothed in the Sermon, Muhammad’s personal animosity, crystalized as Islamic  hatred, not to speak of the despicable anti-Semitism of the Christian world.  

 

In case of Jews, first, it was the Assyrians that drove some of the them out of their land, and then the Babylonians, not only destroyed their First Temple in Jerusalem but also exiled many of them. Even their subsequent resettlement that Cyrus the Great facilitated came to naught as the Romans destroyed the Second Temple they rebuilt, and what’s worse, accentuated their diaspora, resulting in their dispersal all over. Well, that’s the price the Jews had to pay for the lack of geographic depth that still puts them on their toes in their regained State of Isreal.

 

As regards the Hindus, their first brush with the Islamic invasions was in the outlier Sindh that Muhammad ibn al-Qasim subdued at the dawn of the eighth century, and his brief foray thereafter into Gujarat to loot its famed Somnath shrine. However, it was three hundred years later that they had their first dish of Islmic savagery, served by ‘marauder’ Mahmud Ghazni in the sacking of the refurbished Somnath. Call it the Hindu misfortune or its cultural resilience, the cycle of Islamic destructions and Sanatana reconstructions continued, over centuries, at Somnath  (five each); the in situ marvel is built, post-independence.

 

Whatever, had Hindus developed shatrubodh (enemy awareness) after Ghazni’s buthshikhani (idol breaking) in Somnath, maybe there would never have been even an Islamic chapter in the Indian history.  Though badly mauled by Prithviraj Chauhan in the First Battle of Tarain, as Muhammad Ghori returned for the second one, a year later, had the fellow Hindu rulers joined hands with the former, the latter could not have established the Delhi Sultanate, the harbinger of India’s Islamic rule. Needless to say, it was a horrendous five-hundred-year medieval period for the Hindus thereafter that only ended after Aurangzeb’s vicious reign came to an end, and that hastened the decline and the downfall of the Mughal Empire.  

 

However, whereas the Jewish physical toll the anti-Semitism took in the Christian world by way of pogroms, exacerbated by the holocaust of six million of them, is  rightly remembered by the perpetrators, as a means of atonement of their sin; the Muslim slaughter of medieval Hindus was pushed under the carpet of collective consciousness of the world. That is even after American historian Will Durant in his book The Story of Civilization affirmed that the medieval Muslim conquest of India was "probably the bloodiest story in history", with varying genocidal estimates between eighty to hundred million dead, not to speak of the unspeakable atrocities against women. It’s as if the Hindu lives do not matter, even to the ‘civilized’ minds.

 

So be it, but when the Jews were forced out of their hearth and home, as some of them came to them, the Hindus welcomed them with open arms, making them feel at home ever after. Not Just that, during the World War I,  fighting on the Israeli soil to liberate its Haifa from the Ottomans, scores of Hindu soldiers laid down their lives. (It goes to the credit of the Jewish people that they have not forgotten these Hindu gestures). So to say, it’s but a demonstration of their innate fighting spirit that never waned, for some of their kings were unceasing in causing military headaches to the Islamic invaders. Even in the British Raj, though the enervated princelings acquiesced to the throne, free-spirited from all sections, more so the tribals, tended to indulge in insurgencies against the colonial masters, throughout India’s length and breadth that is, for years on.

   

Nevertheless, whereas the Islamic invaders upset the Indian social order of yore, the British colonizers undermined the Hindu minds to their eternal detriment,

 

It was Lord Macaulay that established a cult of deracinated Hindus as “a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect” that rules the roost even eight decades after British had left the Indian shores for good, that was after looting whatever they could. (I too was a decedent member for long). Surely, his legacy can lay claim to prophethood. So be it, but as if to leave an inviolable mark of their colonial rule, the British partitioned India to carve out Pakistan, as a homeland for the intransigent Musalmans. It’s another matter though that having insisted that they cannot live with the Hindus, the raison d'être of partition, yet 80% of them stayed put in the 80% land allotted to the Hindus that is Bharat. But in stark contrast, the very British allotted 55% of the contested land to 33% Jews, leaving the Muslim majority with their minority share. However, owing to their religious-hate-driven military misadventure, the Muslims lost more of their meagre land as spoils of wars to Isreal. Why, the Jews know their enemy well, and it shows.

 

It's thus, they came to define their new State of Isreal as ‘Jewish and Democratic’,  though governed by secular laws, but without a written constitution. It’s another matter that even if Moses’ Laws were enforced, the Abrahamic Arabs would have more than welcomed them but unlike Musalmans, the Jews had long since moved away from their untenable mores of yore. What is more, as if to keep their nascent nation in a wait and watch mode, they had evolved the concept of Basic Law. And for their part, the Arab Israelis, privy to the Jewish resolve to not to let anyone mess up with their promised land, not only fell in line but also fall at the front along with their Jewish mates. Whatever, the Jews, who are privy to the Islamic credos more than any, understand the consequences of a constitution that enables the Muslims to perceive Isreal as a dar-al-harb for what it is, the abode of war for the Musalmans. Hence, "the realization of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish People” formed the Basic Law, adopted by the Knesset in 2018, true, 2018.     

 

Juxtaposing it, the Hindus gave themselves a hotchpotch constitution that declared India as a sovereign democratic republic, however, governed by communal laws in civil matters, mostly Sharia-compliant at that! That’s not all, it granted freedom of religious propagation (read Christian and Muslim proselytization) that too in the immediate wake of the country’s partition on religious lines. What a memory! So, in other words, it’s nothing but an instrument of Hindu hara-kiri; yet that they think no end of it speaks for their intellectual bankruptcy. Think that their progenitors wore Upanishadic wisdom on their sleeves and Kautilya gave them Artha Sastra  that, anyway, has been collecting dust for long!

 

So, by design or by default, the Indian constitution was designed for the unfettered growth of the Semitic faiths of Christianity and Islam in India and their adherents too have not been found wanting in making the best of its provisions that serve as their proselyting tools. Well, at this rate, given their secular foolhardy, the Hindus, over time, by way of curing the Muslim headache they themselves bought for Bharat, could be conceding Islamic States in Assam, Bengal and Keralam, and part with part of their land in other parts of it as Sharia-compliant Autonomous Muslim Areas, a could be Islamic innovation. But would the Christians lag behind in demanding their share of the Hindu spoils. Why should they, as they already have most of the Seven Sisters in the Northeast under their Christian belt.

 

If that were not to be Bharat’s scary future, how the common Hindu-Hebrew fate came to be forked into differing India, Israeli destinies thus, is the subject that should engage the former for timely redressal.

 

While the unquestioning faith in Jehovah keeps the Jews united in the Judaic fold, the unshakeable belief in their promised destiny makes them persevere no end, and that at once affords them the feeling of oneness and a sense of purpose. It’s thus, in spite of the unceasing pogroms against them all over Europe, they kept intact their hope of returning to their promised land. Thus, it was this resolve to make it a reality that gave rise to Zionism, a political and nationalist movement with the goal of establishing and supporting a Jewish  national homeland in Palestine. Indeed, Israel came into being, nine months after India became independent, and  the rest is history - of the Jewish resolve to live for and die for every inch of their hard-fought land, and of the Hindu ineffectiveness in not retaining even India’s unfair share, resulting in the further loss of over 50k sqkm land to its enemies, not counting Gilgit-Baltistan. 

 

However, for the Hindus, the Sanatana ethos of ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti (what is right is One only, describe it wise variedly) is no sticking glue to hang on regardless. If anything, the pristine varnashrama dharma that in the later-days degenerated into the caste conundrum, has come to irrevocably divide the Hindu socially, and became detrimental to it in every which way. Besides, Bharat’s varied regionality with distinctive languages and sub-cultures, in spite of its Hindu homogeneity, deprives it of an emotional coherence, rendering it into a sort of nation of nations. Thus, unlike the Hebrews, the Hindus have no like passion for their karma Bhoomi; maybe, its subcontinental vastness also makes it psychologically unwieldy for physical possessiveness.

 

Be that as it may, if the fate of a nation is the state of its politics, the mettle of its leaders is the spirit of its people. So, it was no coincidence that Ben-Gurion came to lead the Zionist insurgency against the British in Mandatory Palestine and Gandhi became the fountainhead of the Hindu passivity, at home with peaceful protests, dubbed satyagraha (just anger). That was despite Netaji Bose revealing the revolutionary path to oust the British. Not just that; Ben-Gurion, for over thirteen years, helped the nascent Israel acquire the character of the Jewish State, but the self-serving Gandhi thrust Nehru, his weakness, upon India, brushing aside Patel the capable, to govern its destiny. And what Nehru did for nearly seventeen years, speaks as much about him as the Hindus, for they rooted for him with their votes, in poll after poll. Just to illustrate: having shunned Israel’s hand, running after Islamic grooms, he suffered no qualms in making India its mistress, when in Chinese distress. It’s a shame that his legacy became India’s foreign policy until Modi and Bibi accorded it legitimacy.

 

So, what now for Hindus, and India?

 

Before all else, they should learn to ignore the western validations of them and their desi endeavours.

  

“No country but India and no religion but Hinduism could have given birth to a Gandhi,” so proclaimed London Times, the day after his death. Then, “Oh, India, dare to be worthy of your Gandhi,” pontified Pearl S. Buck, adding that he said, “Resist to the very end, but without violence. Of violence the world is sick.” Really! It’s rich, given her own country’s domestic history, not to speak of its  warmongering foreign policy. Obviously, her advice was not meant for fellow Americans. So, it’s about time Hindus realized that the western praises of Gandhi are but ruses to keep the Hindu minds in pacifist mode even as they clamour for Dismantling Global Hindutva!

Likewise, the left-libs that romanticise Che Guevara, confine Netaji Bose on the margins of revolution, and with a purpose that our Macaulay-putra fail to grasp. Why, it’s not hard to see that Satyajit Ray is celebrated in the racist west as much for his cinematic worth as for his popularization of Hindu poverty. Oh, the Booker books tell their own story. So also, the Pulitzer Prizes, Magsaysay Awards and such.

The one thing Hindus should learn from Jews is to do what is right for their nation regardless of what others think of them, which is their real strength.

But in the Hindu majority ‘secular’ India, supposedly Bharat, the shoe is on the Muslim foot, notwithstanding the left-Islamist contra propaganda that anyway the living Hindu experience belies. If anything, Hindus prove that the peculiar strength of Islam is the indifference of those it seeks to destroy. Just the same, as the purpose of this piece is not about debunking the falsities of the detractors but to alert the indifferent Hindus, there is no detailing the same that is anyway evident to the discerning.

 

However, it is seldom appreciated by the Hindus (for the lack of shatrubodh) that the Muslim religious conditioning lies in nursing the twin aspirations of ‘all religion is for Allah’ and all the world is for Islam (dar al-Islam). Besides, it’s an article of faith for them in that wherever they are in minority,  dae al-harb, they should strive to make it dar al-Islam, Ghazwa-e-Hind in India’s case. Given that the Indian constitution has enough and more to nurse their Islamic hope and provides ample scope besides, for fulfilling their dar al-Islam aspirations, they have no reason not to be religiously aggressive in pursuit of the same. So, the remedy for India’s Muslim problem lies in removing that Islamic hope from its midst, like Israel did in its State, by turning Bharat into a Hindu Rashtra.  

 

Anyway, for the doubters, by way of an analogy, what Art 370 was doing in Jammu & Kashmir was effectively nursing the Muslim hopes of separation from India. But once it was revoked, it dawned on the Kashmiris that with it gone was the scope for their azadi, for all times to come. And that altered the Muslim behavioural pattern, if not forged an emotional bond with Bharat, that, anyway,  Islam would never allow to happen. But what really matters from the national perspective is that they have started behaving themselves, more or less that is. Thus, wiser by the Kashmiri experience, if Bharat were to declare itself as a Hindu Rashtra, ruled by raja dharma, then that would usher in Rama Rajya, a synonym for fairness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had Nehru been a Nationalist, 

Or If Modi were the First One 

Mistaking it as some sort of an accolade by one of Modi’s so-called ‘andh bhakts’, the skeptics shouldn’t skip this for his mere presence in the subtitle.  Whatever, as a matter of fact, the historical facts vindicate his choice for this hypothetical venture, rather than that of Netaji Bose or Sardar Patel. It’s true, contrary to propaganda, Netaji caused the British-exist from India, confirmed by none other than Clement Atlee, the one who led them out. But given the turbulence of that time, he was not destined to become Azad Hind’s first prime minister. As for Patel, the people’s choice for the premier position, instead of shouldering the nation at its most critical juncture, he catered to maverick Gandhi’s wicked whim, to put its fate in the ill-equipped hands of the fallible Nehru. So, that makes Modi, who proved himself as a nationalist to the core, in thoughts, words and deeds, as the right choice to man this piece, more so, as he just overtook Nehru’s uninterrupted stint as the country’s elected prime minister.

It is pertinent to note that in his 15 Aug 1947 midnight ‘Tryst with Destiny’ address to India’s constituent assembly, Nehru had stated at the very outset - “Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny; and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially”. Well, for all intents and purposes, if it’s not an exhibition of his utter lack of ambition to lead India to its once-held preeminent position in the world, what else. Just contrast his limited thinking with Modi’s audacious vision of Vikasit Bharat and his energetic approach to realise that. So, hereunder is India’s hypothetical tryst with destiny, had Nehru been a nationalist, or if Modi were in his position as the first prime minister.  [Emphasis supplied] 

“Dear Bharatiya:

No denying that on this august occasion, though it is tempting to indulge in grandiose posturing, I would rather resort to plain speaking to outline my thoughtful vision for the eternal good of our new Bharat in the making.

I, for one, believe that there is no cause for celebrating our long-denied freedom for which we paid the price of partition, of our precious land. Besides, I dare say that we cannot remain oblivious to the fact that the spirit of our people, the soul of our karma bhoomi, came to be stymied under the alien regimens that lasted for a thousand years. Thus, at this historic juncture, as our resolve should be to lead our once-redoubtable country to the new frontiers of excellence, in the not-so-distant-future that is, so we must reckon this as a substantive moment, not a symbolic event.

Hence, it is incumbent upon us to apply our minds to nation-building, for which, first of all, we must, above all else, imbibe that spirit and induce it in the minds of our people, which Alberuni in 1030 CE characterised thus: "The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs." Thus, it is the onerous duty of all of us that happen to hold the positions of influence and power at this critical time, to reinvigorate that sense of pride in our people, with a resplendent past, distant though. So, let us all strive to create the Bharat Varsha of Swami Vivekananda’s dreams in which his Sanatani, garv se kaho hum hindu hai (proudly proclaim that we’re Hindus), refrain is on every lip.

No mistaking that for this ancient land has historically been the Hindustan, and if anything, with the creation of Pakistan for the Muslims, the India today is unequivocally Hindu, by its composition, culture, custom and character. Thus, for some delusionary applause from within and without, I see no point in singing paeans to the mythical ganga-jamni tehjeeb, which, anyway, the partition on the Hindu-Muslim fissures made fallacious. So, in the national interest, what is needed is a hard talk to deal with the ugly reality of the faith-driven Muslim disaffection of the Hindus, conceitedly called kafirs. Strangely though, having whole-heartedly subscribed to the Muslim League’s two nation theory, based on the premise of “Hindus and Muslims were two distinct nations with separate religions, cultures, and values”, over a third of the enthusiastic believers of the same, chose to remain in the Hindu India! Is it mere hypocrisy?    

Whatever, it should not be lost on them that Hindus, having been forced to cede one-fourth of their land for a Muslim homeland, did not insist upon their repatriation to it but instead, hosted them in their midst. If anything, that Hindu gesture alone, in the normal human course, is cause enough for these Muslims to rescind their separatist mindset to become the emotional ingredient of our national character. But the hitch, as pinpointed by my erudite brother, Dr. BR Ambedkar, is that “Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin”, and I’m certain that he would love to be proved wrong on both counts. More so, as the onus is on the Muslims to become worthy of the Hindu magnanimity, it pays them to realize that the prejudices of their alien faith render them into square pegs in the round holes of Bharat that is India. And for that, it’s essential for them to understand that the inimical content of their faith, shaped by the alien tribal mores of the dark ages, has become redundant in these altered times, more so in the multi-religious societies like ours.

However, lest the Muslims should feel singled out on the dogmatic front, we must caution the mistaken Christians that their urge to convert the vulnerable Hindus, ostensibly for their supposed salvation, is grossly injurious to Indian social harmony, national unity and demographic health. So, they would be well-advised to desist from their ill-founded evangelism for unlike the prophet-centric prejudices of their, and the other Semitic faiths, the philosophy of Sanatana dharma has evolved through the ages, by the sages. Whatever, it is a travesty of enlightenment in that these dogmatic Semitic orders, sans philosophy, sworn to outrageous diktats of their intolerant gods, should have at all gained their cultish grounds in our land of the Upanishads. Oh, how they visualized that it’s man, who created gods, not the other way round! It’s another matter though, sadly over time, the Sanatani wisdom gave way to the Hindu superstitions, resulting in India’s intellectual decline.

Be that as it may, we must admit that Hindus have to blame only themselves for the Semitic mess in their midst for they disregarded the Sanatana ethos of Vasudhaiva kutumbakam (holds world all in one household) to denigrate part of their ilk as lesser souls, and, what’ worse, branded some others as untouchables. Sadly, though understandably, that make them all the easy prey of the evangelist poachers, equipped with false religious assertations and fake social postulations. However, wonder why it doesn’t ever dawn on the proselytizers of either dispensation that the manner in which they go about luring the others into their lot, in essence, is a dubious way of spreading, what they propagate as a noble religion, or the God’s straight path, or whatever! However, it goes without saying that before demanding the adherents of the alien faiths to imbibe Bharatiyata, the Hindus themselves must bring their sidelined ilk into the Sanatana fold, in both letter and spirit.

Last but not the least is our onerous task to reweave our tattered moral fabric, which, once, as noted by ancient Chinese pilgrims, was ethically pure in an economically prosperous setting. Why, for that matter, even at the end of the rapacious Islamic regimes, the forerunners to the exploitative British colonial rule, our GDP was over one-fourth of the global one, which sadly stands at a meagre three percent of it now. Just the same, without delving too deep into the myriad causes of our moral decay and the economic decline, suffice it say that as corruption is the source of our social scourge that plagues our country in every which way, it can be affirmed without any contradiction that it is treason by another name. It’s thus, unravelling the well-entrenched graft from independent Bharat can only be our vande mataram in its true sense.

Just the same, the problem with a problem is that until one admits that it exists, one cannot address it, and unless it is addressed, it persists. So, let’s honestly confess the problems our country faces, and sincerely strive to evolve feasible solutions to effectively address the same, collectively that is. Given the impeccable pedigree and innate genius of Bharat, I’m quite certain that our people and their progeny, sooner than later, would scale it to the formidable heights, at which our progenitors once positioned it. So, it is with that conviction, I commend this occasion as the beginning of the end of a millennial eclipse for our nation to regain and retain its resplendence for all times to come. Let’s trust our people for that.

Vande mataram.”

Now, from the hypothetical nationalism, back to the ‘Tryst with Destiny’ of the “Englishman by education, Muslim by culture, and Hindu by birth” Nehru, propped up by Gandhi, lo, for being “the most English among us all”, for the comparative record. It’s no wonder then that in its editorial, ‘India: another tryst with destiny’, The Guardian of England, opined that “Today, 18 May 2014, may well go down in history as the day when Britain finally left India”, and that was the day when its 15th Lok Sabha was dissolved to make way for Narendra Damodardas Modi to be sworn in as its 14^th Prime Minister later, on 26 May 2014.

And for record, the following is the rest of Nehru’s ‘tryst’:

“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new -- when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India, and her people, and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history, India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her successes and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike, she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.

The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. That responsibility rests upon this assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom, we have endured all the pains of labor, and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over, and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we might fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.

The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe "every tear from every eye." That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labor and to work, and work hard, to -- to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart.

Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom; so is prosperity now; and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.”

Now, the rest is for your contemplation