|
Sunday, July 30,
2000 |
 |
Books |
 |
|
|
| |
Hitler’s
chosen man and critic
Off the
shelf
by V. N. Datta
ALBERT
Speer, the undisputed master of the German machine on which the
German victory during the World War II largely depended was the only
defendant in the Nuremberg trial who confessed his guilt and was
sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. He was released in 1966. During
his incarceration he wrote for the most part on lavatory paper which
was smuggled out and later published as his secret diary. His
sensitive and vivid account of the gloomy era which he witnessed is
now acknowledged as a first-class source material of primary
importance on Hitler and the Nazi Germany.
About his own role, he said
during his trial: "I assumed responsibility for all the orders from Hitler
which I carried out. I took the position that in every government orders must
remain orders for the subordinate organs of government but the leadership must
examine and weigh the orders it received. In political life there is
responsibility for a man’s own sector. For that he is fully responsible. But
beyond that there is collective responsibility when he has been one of the
leaders. This collective responsibility of the leaders must exist." This
bold and daring confession astounded the judges!
At his trial Speer admitted his
part of the responsibility for everything that the Nazis did with remorseless
impunity, including their policy of genocide but denied knowledge of the
specifics. Gitta Sereny’s full-scale and illuminating biography published in
1995, "Albert Speer: His battle with the truth", focused on the
predicament that had exasperated Speer, torn by a conflict between his loyalty
to Hitler and the moral values to which he was committed. Speer was convinced
that Hitler’s policy was calculated to bring disaster to Germany.
The present work under review
"Albert Speer" by David Edgar (Lyttelton Theatre, £ 25) deals with
the issues of Speer’s guilt and denial, which provoked much debate during his
trial.
The first part of Edgar’s
study is a straightforward chronological narrative of Speer’s early life.
Speer’s political career was extraordinary. He was not an active Nazi party
worker. Not prone to fawning on men in power, he kept a low profile and avoided
public gaze. Politics was irrelevant to him. He was an outstanding technocrat.
Hitler was greatly impressed by his sparkling intellect, administrative acumen
and dedication to work. At the age of 37 he was entrusted with the control of
armament production and the coordination, distribution and restructuring of the
industry. According to the author, Speer was easily the ablest and the least
corrupt member of Hitler’s court.
Like a number of his versatile
colleagues, Speer too came under the spell of Hitler. He was probably the only
person close to Hitler who was not reprimanded or rebuked by him. His judgement
on the whole entourage of that "dreadful monster" was not corrupted.
Speer had the courage to take an independent line of action on some of the
crucial issues facing the country. Edgar emphasises that Speer’s analysis of
Hitler and his policy is candid.
Speer’s secret diary is
indispensible to the understanding of Hitler’s mind and plans. The main
contribution of this comprehensive work lies in describing the gradual changes
which came over Hitler’s habits and character during the war and, in
particular, after the plot of July 20, 1944. According to Speer, Hitler was an
artist who by force of circumstances was compelled to jump into the whirlwind of
politics.
According to Edgar, Speer
failed to understand Hitler because he judged him by non-political standards and
waxed lyrical on his personal life and tastes. Speer’s account of Hitler’s
peacetime life is idyllic, and it seems as though he had a vested interest in
romanticising the past. Some of the character sketches that Speer has drawn are
brilliant. About Joseph Goebbels, he wrote; "I often had occasion to notice
that Goebbel’s style was Latin, not Germanic. His propaganda principles were
essentially Latin. For example, it would have been better if he had given the
same watch ward as Churchill gave his people, "blood, sweat and
tears". That was a hard and honest watchword and it would have suited the
German people well. But the tragedy was that Germany always raised false hopes
before the people which merely caused discrepancy between his propaganda and the
trends of popular opinion?
Edgar follows Speer through his
prison term and his writing spell. Here too he concentrates on Speer’s secret
diary. Speer’s reconstruction of the past is compelling moral philosophy. He
asserts that in early 1945 he was convinced that economically and militarily the
war was lost, and the only way to save Germany from further catastrophe was to
negotiate peace with the Allied powers. He warned that if the nation was not to
be lost, it was necessary that some material basis be preserved upon which the
life of the people, however primitive it might be, could continue.
Speer’s views were conveyed
to Hitler who sent for him and said, "If the war is to be lost, the nation
will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no need to consider the
basis even of a most primitive existence any longer. On the contrary, it is
better to destroy even that, and even to destroy ourselves. The nation has
proved itself weak and the future belongs solely to the stronger eastern nation.
Besides those who remain after the battle are of little value, for the good have
fallen." That day Hitler issued new orders for destruction, and eight
officers who failed to destroy bridges were shot.
Edgar describes Speer’s last
meeting in the bunker with Hitler which lasted eight hours, while the Allied
planes bombed the city. Hitler knew of Speer’s antipathy to his policy, yet he
did not fume or fret. Speer found Hitler absolutely cool and calm. Hitler
entertained a strong affection for Speer who came from the favourite
"artistic world". Hitler knew that all was over and Germany was soon
to surrender to its foes.
There is perhaps another
explanation for Hitler’s courteous behaviour towards Speer. Hitler was in a
state of unnatural calm, the calm after the storm. Hitler realised the fate that
awaited him. "Readiness is all," Shakespeare’s greatest line is
relevant at such critical moments in history. Perhaps Hitler viewed the world
philosophically, awaiting death as a release from the stormy life of
difficulties. Of course, Speer never knew that in his political testament Hitler
had dropped him from the new Nazi government.
According to Edgar, Speer was a
class by himself. Speer had the capacity to understand the force of politics and
the courage to resist Hitler which others could not. For 10 years he was at the
centre of politics and understood the mutations of Nazi government and its
sinister policy, but he proved to be a pathetic spectator, though at the
personal level he expressed his strong disapproval of Hitler’s policies.
Hitler dismissed Speer’s fears as "idle thoughts of a technocrat".
Speer, however, had no strong following to resist the menace of Hitler’s
authoritarianism imposed on the whole German nation.
Edgar renders Speer’s role of
an honest man assailed by a moral dilemma simplistically. "I could have
known, I did not know. If I had known, then I would have resisted it
positively." This is a reconstruction in retrospect. Edgar skirts Speer’s
role at Nuremberg probably because others have discussed it in detail. The
general view taken by western writers with the notable exception of Trevor Roper
is that Speer shrewdly used his Machiavellian skills for self-preservation
during his trial which charmed his inquisitors and saved himself from the
gallows. The question about his moral responsibility still remains unanswered.
Written with sharp imagery and precise
characterisation, that work is a savage morality tale of a brilliant man of
extraordinary genius caught in a dilemma in troubled times.
|
| |
A
journalist remembers and recounts
Punjabi
Literature
by Jaspal Singh
GULZAR
SINGH SANDHU is a well-known Punjabi short-story writer. He
was born in a small village Suni in the kandi area of
Hoshiarpur in a jagirdar family with marginal means of
subsistence. He did his graduation in the early fifties from
the famous Khalsa College, Mahilpur.
 People like
Gurdip Singh Randhawa, Surjit Singh Bal (both retired as
Vice-Chancellor), Surjit Hans, Sujan Singh (retired registrar
of Panjab University), Justice Ajit Singh Bains, Prof Yashdip
Singh, Darshan Singh Canadian, Ajaib Kamal, Ajmer Coventry and
so on were associated with this college. Sandhu has to be
included in the galaxy of these illustrious people.
Soon after
his graduation he moved to Delhi to do his post-graduation in
English literature from Camp College in the evening shift.
During those days he joined as a sub-editor of two
not-so-popular Punjabi papers, Pritam and Fateh, brought out
by one Labh Singh Narang, a displaced person from Lahore.
Whenever
Sandhu was fed up with the subbing work and planned to seek
some other job his employer would cajole him and even inspire
him by naming some of the well-known literary figures like
Gopal Singh Dardi, Avtar Singh Azad, Justice Pritam Singh
Safeer, Banjara Bedi and others who had worked in the same
capacity in his papers. Sandhu would again change his mind and
slog for hours together without much pecuniary benefit.
But this
initial training stood him in good stead when he worked as
editor of Punjabi Tribune and later as founder editor of Desh
Sewak.
Now after
several retirements from government of India as director in
the Agriculture Department, editor of two well-known Punjabi
newspapers, secretary, Punjab Red Cross and Professor of
Journalism, Punjabi University, Patiala, Sandhu has become a
wholetime writer. Six of his collections of short-stories have
already appeared and three among them "Sone di Itt",
"Amar Katha" and "Rudan Billian da" have
been well noticed by literary critics.
He has now
collected his casual writings in newspaper columns entitled
"Mera Punjab te Meri Patarkari" (Navyug Publishers,
New Delhi). Navjit Johl has painstakingly edited the discrete
write-ups and the collection has appeared as a pleasant
surprise carrying among other things a few historical
interactions and interviews with some important political
personalities of Punjab.
Mention may
be made of Giani Zail Singh, Parkash Singh Badal, Buta Singh
and Surjit Singh Barnala.
The
collection has been divided into two main parts, "Mera
Punjab" and "Meri Pattarkari". The first part
consists of three sub-parts "Dekhia Sunia",
"Punjabi te Punjabiat" and "Mulahjedarian".
The second part "Meri Patarkari" consists of five
parts. "Yatrinama", "Vichargirian", "Muhabatname",
"Simritian" and "Mukkdi Gall".
The first
part begins with these words, "The soul of Punjab is
accustomed to take flight into the infinite - a kind of
inebriation and elation. The exultation generated by this
ebullience expands the soul of Punjab but at times shrinks it
also.
"To
erode, to disintegrate and to fall apart in shreds is part of
its tradition and praxis through ages. But phoenix like it
rises again from the ashes. It takes delight in being divided
into parts and also in going across the mighty seas in sheer
exuberance and abandon.
"It
creates out of nothing new Punjabs in alien lands and climes.
Wherever I find footprints of my Punjab, I try to capture them
with unbound passion."
Sandhu’s
journalism is also a product of his love for Punjab and its
language and culture. The write-up about the partition of the
country in 1947 is a very sensitive piece about the secular
perceptions of the elders of Sandhu’s village who killed
Sikh extremists to save the honour of Muslim girls of the
village.
Despite his
voluntary "exile" from Suni village for decades
together in search of livelihood, Sandhu has maintained an
intimate relation with it. Even now while living in retirement
at Chandigarh, his heart longs for those youthful days when he
was doing his graduation at Mahilpur.
In all his
writings, the author shows his special skill at interviews. A
major part of the present collection consists of them and they
are conducted sharply and meticulously. He has a knack of
digging up relevant information from evasive politicians.
His treatment
of writers and intellectuals is sympathetic though politicians
are pilloried and dragged on to an inconvenient terrain. From
the portraits of politicians, Partap Singh Kairon and Giani
Kartar Singh emerge as great sons of Punjab. The interview
with Surjit Singh Barnala is very perceptive and it clearly
brings out the difference of perception between him and Badal.
Sandhu asks
Barnala whether Badal helped him in the 1985 elections. He
replies:"Badal was mainly concerned with more tickets for
his lackeys and that the parliamentary board should have the
maximum member from his group."
Barnala
admits that Badal was a senior leader but he started
dissociating himself from Sant Harchand Singh Longowal.
Those were
the election days and a majority of Barnala supporters were
expected to win. As the election results were pouring in, the
late Balwant Singh told Barnala that he would be the Chief
Minister. He replied, "If I became the Chief Minister,
you would be my deputy. In the process Badal had completely
broken with me though I accommodated every one of his
people."This did not surprise Barnala since "Badal
did not like my popularity."
When Sandhu
asked him whether Badal or Balwant Singh was a good associate,
Barnala replied, "Balwant Singh is sharp and agile. We
need such people at this juncture. Everybody is trying to
cheat us. Balwant Singh takes care of it."
Barnala even
told Balwant Singh to sort out matters with Badal. He
retorted, "My fault is that I am not a Jat". Sandhu
said, "It means he is really smart.""Yet, he is
wise and knows how to handle a situation," was Barnala’s
response.
This 1986
interview with Barnala which was done for Punjabi Tribune is
very revealing and helps us in understanding the
contradictions in Akali politics.
The author
rues the day when Darshan Singh Canadian was done to death by
terrorists near Mahilpur. He asks a rhetorical
question:"What principles allowed them to commit this
heinous crime on the land imbued with the legacy of the Ghadri
Babas"?
Sometimes
Sandhu goes euphoric in praising somebody whose contribution
is just average at the global level. The write-up on Sobha
Singh is an example. He was mainly a portrait painter which is
considered the easiest thing to do. Producing replicas and
facsimiles does not make a creative artist. Great modern
painters are usually compared with people like Van Gogh,
Cezanne and Picasso, the trend-setters in painting, who with
the help of visual signs and symbols evoked an epoch in a
single painting.
M.S. Randhawa,
according to Sandhu, was tall like a mountain and deep like
the sea. Devinder Satiarthi’s "Giddha" was a
thunder-clap in the world of letters some six decades ago.
This book was translated into many Indian languages and also
English and it adorned many respectable bookshelves in the
country.
Most of the
pen-portraits in the collection are presented as "Muhabatname"
(epistles of love) by the author. Beginning with Bhai Jodh
Singh, a long list of well-known Punjabi writers, doctors,
journalists and commentators appears. Gurbax Singh Preetlari,
Gurmukh Singh Musafir, Diwan Singh Kalepani, M.S. Randhawa,
P.N. Chhuttani, Prem Bhatia, Khushwant Singh,Sadhu Singh
Hamdard, Kartar Singh Duggal, Tera Singh Chann, Surjit Hans,
Gurvel Pannu, Ilias Ghuman and Nirupama Datt make their
presence through Sandhu’s gliding prose.
When it comes
to historical dates, the author adopts a casual attitude. For
example, "Partap Singh Kairon was done to death on May 5,
1965" and "P.N. Chuttanni became the first Dean of
the PGI in 1969 and after that he remained its director for 16
years. In 1979 he became a member of The Tribune Trust and
then its chairman in 1988."
Obviously
some of the dates and years are not correct.
Despite these minor lapses,
this collection makes delectable reading. The prose is soft
and soothing without any jerks, a product of a mellowed mind.
|
| |
Habits make a
new you
Review
by P.D. Shastri
The Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. Simon
Schuster. New York. Pages 358. $ 14.
THE
first words on the title cover are "international
bestseller". The claim to be an international bestseller
is a tall one.
A psychology
professor calls Stephen R. Covey an American Socrates. The
presidents of Saturn Corporation and General Motors says this
book played a major role in the development of their
companies. "Our commitment to quality and our customers
has roots in ‘Seven Habits’."
Some business
boses treat their employees as they would treat their best
customers and these employees are all courtesy and helpfulness
to customers, with the result that any buyer who comes to
their shop once would never go elsewhere.
The writer’s
principles are character, honesty, integrity, fairness and
human dignity. This is at variance with the paradigm that all
is fair in business if it can bring in a huge profit. But
Stephen Covey’s thesis is, "ethical basis works.
Honesty, truth and character are the basis of outstanding
success." Firms that have the reputation for truth and
honesty come on top. While clever guys with doubtful integrity
may have their brief day but are soon found out and are
downgraded to the level which they deserve.
Today many
businesses depend not on the intrinsic worth of their product,
but on high-voltage publicity through press, electronic media
and other channels of advertisement. But their fashions come
and go. One may deceive some people for some time, but never
all the people all the time. A business based on truth,
honesty and fair dealing goes a long way, says our author.
Nor are
top-notch businessmen earning millions of dollars the happiest
people in the world. One such says, "I have lost my wife
and children. Inside I am eating my heart out. My marriage is
on the rocks." Being desperately busy, he can’t find
any time for his family or close friends. That is why the
Indian way — that is the moral or religious way — based on
the book or the guru has brought peace of mind and happiness,
certitude and equipoise. Gandhi said that emperors envied his
peace of mind. Their life moves at a leisurely, harmonious and
joyous pace, based on goodness, charity and godliness.
But such
saintly men cannot run business empires of say Birlas or
Ambanis. They haven’t the expertise, nor the genius. It is
here that books like the present one are most valued. Our
world is becoming more and more technology based; it is a
world of computers (the latest one can solve a billion
questions a second), electronic media and a dozen other
novelties. Its gods are money and power and to run this
machine requires highly trained professionals, specialists and
experts.
Gone are the
good old days when the lalaji who had established a
middle-level business concern died and his son, an illiterate
raw youth, jumped into his shoes and the old concern and the
old profits continued with the old momentum, worked by old
employees, who had a different work culture and a different
sense of loyalty to the propreitor’s family.
Today
professionalism, with the leaven of truth, honesty and other
virtues is the key to success. The author read hundreds of
books, research projects and their findings for the material
for his book. Apart from the ethical or moral approach, the
work contains fruits of psychological research of many
specialists. The general reader will find the reading tough.
Even the "professional" reader who reverentially
comes to this book to enrich his professional knowledge and
achieve greater gains would feel it a penace.
In business,
fashions change; a product or a technique or a commercial
venture which is on top today may be reduced to zero value
after 10 years; people’s tastes and habits change. An idea
whose time has come stays at the top for some time; when its
time is over, its importance and fashion value are gone too. A
professional expert had forseen all this and had an
alternative blueprint ready to fill the gap. Professionalism
is the key to success in today’s world. And this book
teaches us that.
The author’s
thesis is to describe the "Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People", people who change the little world
around them.
Habit 1: be
proactive
What is
pro-active? He says dictionaries don’t carry this word.
(Later at Habit No 6, the heading is synergise. That word too
is not found in the dictionary —the dictionary mentions it
when explaining the meaning of some other word.)
New knowledge
and new ideas need new words to express them. Hence these
coinages.
What is
pro-active — as opposed to reactive? The latter is
influenced by good or bad weather. The pro-active people carry
their own weather with them. Character is the sum total of
habits and you can learn and unlearn habits. A pro-active
person makes his own independent choices while the reactive
one blames his lack of initiative on circumstances, enemies,
even his stars. If people treat him well, he feels well;
otherwise he feels ill.
"I am
what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,"
says the pro-active one. You are the creator, you can change
his course of life. There are differences between what a man
is and what he pretends to be. He has two maps in his mind —
the way things are and the way he wishes they should be. We
can’t break the laws, we can only break ourselves against
the law.
Reactive
people are moved by their reactions to outward stimuliei; the
pro-active seek to create their own situation. Others wait for
things to happen. They are creators, not slaves of
circumstances. It means to subordinate our impulses to values
by conscious choice.
Your growth
will be evolutionary, but the results will be revolutionary.
Human nature is conservative, it does not want to change. Each
person guards the gates of change, which is locked from
inside. We have to change our mindset.
As Einstein
says, "The significant problems can’t be solved at the
same level of thinking which created them." Turn an
optimist and you see a new world.
Habit 2:
begin with the end in mind
Write down
your personal mission statement in detail and read it every
day. It is your personal constitution. Heroes are those who
have great vision, wild dreams and rich imagination of their
future. Whether it is a building or business or party. You
need a mental picture, a blueprint, executing the project from
day to day. Each man has his centre — wealth, power, family.
The four factors are: security, guidance, wisdom and power.
Stick to your goal and work for victory. Private victory
implies victory over your self, not a dilly-dallying person.
Habit 3: put
first things first
Some matters
are urgent, attend to them at once. Some matters are important
and they could wait. Get your priorities right. Problems
arise: there is need for crisis management. There are not
problems but challenges and opportunities. The four human
endowments are — imagination, conscience, independent will
and self-awareness. Always look ahead with confidence.
This habit
means realising your dreams, actualisation of plans. You
maintain your vision to make a unique contribution. Make
deposits in the emotional bank — that is, attending to
little details and never breaking your commitment or promises,
making a deposit of unconditional love.
Habit 4:
think win/win:
Not we
win and you lose. As the Buddha said, ours is a fight (as for
public good) in which all win and no one loses. A
short-sighted executive made his managers fight; it was a
win-lose policy.
If it is
win-lose, the customers will go away, if it is lose-win, the
store will go away.
Habit 5:
first understand and then be understood:
Diagnose
first before you prescribe; satisfied needs do not motivate;
only the unsatisfied needs motivate.
Habit 6
synergize:
All
habits prepare us to create the miracle of synergy, you become
a trail-blazer or path-finder. Synergy is a principle-centred
leadership. It unleashes the greatest power (untapped) within
people. It means that the whole is greater than the sum total
of parts.
Habit 7:
sharpen the saw:
A wood-cutter
was trying to cut a tree with a blunt saw; his labour was
wasted. Keep your physical condition (with exercise and
nutrition), mental health (by reading great books),
social-emotional fitness and spiritual health (religious
programmes) in top gear for best results in life. It is the
age of inter-dependence, not complete personal independence,
though that seems more sweet.
|
| |
A voyage into
void
Review by Rumina Sethi
The Romantics
by Pankaj Mishra. India Ink, New Delhi. Pages 277. Rs 395.
"THE
Romantics" is a quest narrative. A slow and winding story
of the young, peripatetic hero, Samar, the novel starts in
Varanasi and ends again in Varanasi, but not before it has
travelled to Pondicherry and Dharamsala.
 This
geographical diversity provides the matrix for cross-cultural
exchange both at the mundane and sublime levels. On the one hand
are Debbie and Mark, the bored American woman who wants to
convert to Buddhism and the Indophile man dabbling in Indianness
which he hopes to find in Dharamsala if not in Varanasi. On the
other are Catherine and Anand, the confused French woman and the
aspiring sitar maestro whose relationship is doomed like that of
the other couple. Poised rather precariously and almost forming
architectural arches over these characters are two questers,
Miss West and our narrator-protagonist, who are also on their
own journey.
Here nativism
is played against Orientalism with the realisation that they are
the obverse and reverse sides of the same coin. Mishra’s
narrative particularises the notions of class, gender, race and
geographical locale without forgetting to contextualise these
issues within the unavoidable areas of imperialist history.
Samar, like
Joyce’s autodidact, has severe companions: Edmund Wilson,
Schopenhauer, Flaubert, Turgenev. A graduate from Allahabad
University, he happens to be in Varanasi to read and do little
else besides. In the gloom of the city where funeral pyres were
like "glow-worms in the gathering dusk", Samar
soldiers on with his reading of the great European masters:
"I would look up and let my eyes wander over the thick
multi-coloured spines and grow impatient at the slow progress I
was making, at the long interval that separated me from those
other books."
There is
something of this dull, gloomy slowness of the hero which not
just keeps him from the other books but also contributes to his
insularity from the Europeans who thickly pervade Varanasi.
Understanding little of "The World as Will and Idea"
there are, however, moments of bonhomie as he abandons
Schopenhauer for Turgenev’s "Torrents of Spring".
The inaction correspondingly moves to Miss West’s quaint
terrace party where Samar meets the Europeans and the Americans
who are to be his companions for the rest of the narrative.
A number of
literary precedents find an echo here, not least among them
being "A Passage to India". In the first part, the
novel delights in polyphonic multicultural diversity of its
subject. But as we read on, for the most part, the events
provide little more than alternative forms for the hero’s
self-absorption.
At this point
begin Samar’s recollections, confessions and peregrinations.
We find him struggling to find a foothold in a spirit of
schizoid detachment from the world, but unable to do so in
either of the two worlds he inhabits. He is helped, of course,
by the ever-friendly westerners and their desire to be more
Indian than the Indians. We first meet Miss West, a mysterious
and melancholy woman, who "gazed at the river for long
hours". She has been living in Varanasi for five years.
It is Miss West
who introduces Samar to the female protagonist, Catherine, who
overpowers the naive hero physically and intellectually.
Catherine comes to Varanasi to be away from her
"oppressively bourgeois" French parents. She falls in
love with the long-haired Anand and plans to take him back with
her to Paris, believing that he would create quite a sensation
in France, enough to make a living out of his performances at
any rate.
Anand and
Catherine, oddly, complement another pair of characters in the
novel, Panditji and his arthritic wife, Mrs Pandey. We cannot
help feeling that had Catherine married Anand (whom she does
take to Paris where it becomes clear that Anand is no Ravi
Shankar), they would have ended up very much like Panditji, the
pennyless musician, and Mrs Pandey who speaks nostalgically of
the splendour of her father, a celebrated guest of the Maharaja
of Varanasi. We also meet Rajesh, a rather enigmatic student
leader who reads Iqbal and Faiz and yet keeps a bag of long-barrelled
metallic pistols. It is in his friendship with Rajesh that Samar
comes across as the boy-next-door who hangs about the university
preparing for the "Mains" — the main civil service
examination.
Samar frequents
the house of Anand and Catherine. The inevitability of his very
predictable love affair with her provides the main narrative
tension of the novel. The first two sections of the book develop
this relationship where Catherine is the Adela Quested to a
much-less-articulate Aziz, Samar. Of course, in a typical
European fashion, Catherine breaks off leaving Samar on the
train to Pondicherry.
Once in
Pondicherry, he is far more in control of his life, the
Euro-American influence now on its way out. He still waits for
Catherine’s promised letters but in the meanwhile finds
company in Priya. The earlier pattern repeats itself as Priya
falls in love with Samar. The last part of the novel has Samar
travelling (or is he running away?) to Dharamsala on an
assignment to teach primary students — the end of his travels,
as he says.
This turn in
the novel endeavours to persuade the reader into believing that
western cultural imperialism does tend to make the nativist
uncomfortable, that cultural hybridity appears to not complement
the social fabric of the colonised nations. Although Mishra’s
novel professes to be cross-cultural, or so one tought in the
beginning, it remains trapped within a type of discourse that is
geographically deterministic and hence culturally essentialist.
Mishra easily
loses sight of imperialism as a transnational phenomenon which
cannot be so naively dismissed as philosophically subordinated
to a native tradition. One wonders: is this novel a social and
political satire? Or is it simply telling the story of a man who
seems to be stunted in his emotional and intellectual growth in
his endeavour to find the remote possibility of love?
It is in
Dharamsala that Samar achieves a little of the composure he had
found when he had visited Rajesh’s mother’s house in the
village: "The image with its perfect configuration of
solitude, contentment and beauty was a kind of balm in those
days of exhausting travel; it revived me by throwing me into
daydreams of a simplified life and world — the kind of world
where children herded cows all morning and returned home late in
the afternoon to meals cooked on dung-cake fires.
"It was
pure fantasy, and I now recognise it as such. But we live by
fantasies, and this one did then what in retrospect was a
necessary thing: it created new hopes in order to offset the
destruction of old ones. It diminished, however briefly, the
feeling I had known after Pondicherry that I had been
contaminated in some profound way. It made bearable my random
travels, and made it possible for me to think that I had another
chance."
The novel, as I
said in the beginning, appears to be a quest novel although
there is little certainty whether Samar truly finds contentment.
What we are fairly certain about, however, are the emotional
limitations of the hero’s symbolic poignancy. In many ways, he
is the exemplar of the solitary man whose self-effacement (which
is a kind of narcissism) both motivates and is fatal to Mishra’s
art.
Samar’s
picaresque wanderings work inevitably to Mishra’s
disadvantage. For much of the novel, he pits stylistic
inventiveness against the limitations of his protagonist and
plot. His style is as alive as the hero is emotionally dead. The
liveliness of style of this bildungsroman does not alter the
book’s oppressive stagnation.
Highly sensitive though
Mishra is, his accounts of human conflict have a pasteboard,
almost cartoonish, quality which make "The
Romantics" an adolescent novel. It is possible that the
emptiness of the novel might turn out to be a turning-up for a
future work of greater ambition and more lasting significance.
|
| |
Community of
constant conflicts
Review by G.V.Gupta
The Myth of
Community — Gender Issues in Participatory Development edited.
by Irene Guijt and Meera Kaul Shah. Sage Publications, New
Delhi. Pages 288. Rs 295.
THIS collection
of 22 papers by 30 highly educated and academically articulate
persons who are connected with the formulation, execution,
monitoring and training in various aspects of participatory
development in different parts of the developing world, together
their experience so as to create a theory of management of
programmes to integrate the issue of gender justice. It is
virtually a manual for trainers and programme formulators. As
pointed out in the foreword, the critical concepts are
"participation" and "gender justice". In
management and execution of the community developmental
programmes one has to be aware of the complexity, diversity and
dynamism of thr local context avoiding many a bias. One has to
be conscious of the issues of ethics and accept the
inevitability of conflict. It is claimed, "the myth of
community takes us, developmental professional, a long step
forward. After this, "gender" and
"participation" can never be quite the same again.
It is also
somewhat of a tall claim.
The volume has
been divided into three parts. The first deals with theoretical
reflections on participation and gender followed by a section
dealing with practical experience gained in different parts of
the world. The last section lists examples of successful
integration of gender sensitive issues in the participatory
programmes. Since the book addresses itself to workers the world
over, the experiences and examples are generalised in an effort
to create a general theory. For specific country requirements
these need to be supplemented by in-depth country experience and
for a country like India, by regional studies.
Post-war
optimism called for state-led development with equity.
Development was an open -ended theme. Equity was thought to be
best achieved by state-led growth. By the seventies
disillusionment had set in. Inequality increased. Growth was
painfully slow. People’s alienation widened with increased
bureaucratic controls. Alternatives were sought.
The new slogan
was sustainable growth with people’s participation. It was
development of the community with its involvement in formulation
and execution of programmes. Sustainable growth was thought to
be possible only by increased use of local resources which could
be regenerated locally with the least cost. International
development agencies’ emphasis shifted to NGO’s and local
panchayat and other village institutions. Liberal funding
brought articulate intellectuals into the fold.
But then what
is community? It could be any group having a particular
communality. However, the historical and anthropological
tradition of our intellectuals convinced them that it meant
essentially a the village community. Thus participatory
development came to mean essentially rural development with
village as the unit. Hence the acronym PRA or participatory
rural appraisals, as the base of experiences and that is and
that is what has a created this volume.
The funding
agencies soon learnt that this "community" is a myth.
It contains within itself serious conflicts of interests and can
be a highly oppressive unit. "Communities never existed the
way people romanticise them today….due to the focus on
majority rule in the community processes, minority groups may
lose out…..normative use of community feed political
conservatism by conveniently ignoring the darker side of
traditional communities…a community focus may be culturally
oppressive.
Massive
disillusion has led to the title of the book. But the mission
"to do good" continues. Only the focus has to be
shifted. Programmes have to be specifically designed to work for
justice, particularly gender justice. Mere development is not
enough, even if it is materially beneficial to women.
sensitisation is must. One cannot run away from conflict. Women
have to be saved from their husbands, their own parents,
brothers and sons as much as they have to be saved from those
who exploit their menfolk. For this the approach has to be
appropriately redesigned.
Illustratively
we come to Chapter 7. This deals with participatory
investigation of the issue of female infanticide in a village in
Bihar. A group of village dais (midwives) is collected. They are
encouraged to list the advantages and disadvantages of being
born a women and were asked whether they would like to be born
again as women.
Thereafter the
influence of caste and social status on infanticide was
discussed and it came out that the incidence was the highest
among high caste people, lower among the backward and almost
nonexistent amongst dalits and the Muslims. This got related to
female work value and property relations. Women were most
oppressed in high caste homes but there was no religious
compulsion even though religious preachers always emphasised
patriarchal values.
Various
suggestions to stop this practice were made. These included
making infanticide publicly visible, controlling it by setting
up watch dog committees, promoting anti-poverty programmes and
welfare programmes directed at girl child. From these
discussions arise lessons for participatory approaches to
examining gender relations. These include the selection of right
participants, obtaining help from block level workers,
encouraging participants to come out with information even if it
related to crimes in which they were themselves active agents,
trying to locate the reasons for infanticide, and then come to
ways of combating it which are thought to be effective locally.
All this obviously for the benefit of uninitiated foreigners or
purely urban degree-holders. Thus is created a bible for
"us the development professionals".
Here is a
community, or part of it, that kills its girl child. It is known
because much poorer and deprived families do not have so many
deaths of girls at birth. It does not cause any ethical
revulsion. Bur what is the conflict and what is the historical
development of it? This is kept beyond the scope of the work.
Sociologically
speaking, female infanticide comes out to be a problem of
modernisation; of more recent origin, of property relations. In
some communities it is a problem of patriarchal status. It cuts
across communities. It is there in rural as well as urban areas.
Education probably makes a marginal difference. But probably
more important is the fear of a division of property.
A
socio-historical analysis has to married to field data to work
out an effective programme. More and more women have to assert
their property rights and make it a common event and mechanism
has to be found to provide space to those who rebel. However, it
is more likely to evaporate with the rise in professionalism
among women and land ceasing to be the coveted property with
growth of other assets.
Proof of the
pudding lies in eating. There is no success story highlighted in
the vplume. Such surveys and programmes based on them are not
known to have achieved much. These are more the problems of
social change. And we should have looked at some of the
successful examples.
Probably it
would have been more beneficial to study the success stories
like the SEWA movement started in the slums of Ahmedabad and now
taking root all over the country providing identity and security
to the most oppressed without giving rise to any ethical or
social conflict. A habit of self -help, some savings under their
own control, a rudimentary knowledge of marketing and banking,
and marginal development of skills were its essential
ingredients. And all this was imparted without detaching them
from their jobs or families. Here was also complete community
identification based on socio-economic identity. But it was not
the job of a "professional" who is paid a salary in
international scaleand is essentially concerned with saving his
own job by using language skill. It was done by a person who had
spent a lifetime with them without earning a paisa from this
"profession’"and earning the trust of her clients.
It was more in the nature of a movement than a programme.
Why not go back
to Gandhi and think of the Transvaal march? This was the most
emancipatory event in the life of an oppressed people, both male
and female. Emancipation need not be essentially gender
oriented. An oppressed woman in not so much in danger from her
husband as she is from him who oppresses her husband. Reducing
the conflict to only the family has the danger of depriving the
female of her present security and space. Gender problem of a
modernising society is different from the gender problem of a
modern society. This volume does not even warn the workers of
this.
We have a large
stock of success stories of conservation of local resources and
consequential local development encompassing all aspects of
life. Suketri is close to Chandigarh. But again it was not a the
work of a professional trained by these manuals and paid
international salary. He was a pensioner committed to evolving a
model of development of a community having a community of
interest defined as a way of agrarian life. It was successful
introduction of a technology of self-sustaining growth based on
community interests.
A manual like
this is, however, valuable for academic debates. Gender
justice is also a fashion these days. Universities are vying
with each other in having a dedicated department for this.
International funds are coming easy. It seems to be part of
the white man’s burden. The tragedy is that even these
debates are dominated subconsciously by patriarchal values.
|
| |
No cure for
this sick policy
Review by Jagdish Chander
Drug
Supply and Use:Towards a Rational Policy in India by Anant
Phadke. Sage Publications, New Delhi. Pages 183. Rs 295.
THE
past decade has seen a wave of "privatisation" and
"globalisation" in the developing world. The drug
sector is not an exception and is also witnessing
proliferation. Actually the change started in the fifties.
Policies on drugs adopted by the Union Government from time to
time led to the gradual privatisation of the industry. Every
policy statement protected the interest of big houses and
ignored that of the common man. In addition to the burden of
high prices of drugs, irrational drug usage jeopardised the
health care delivery system of the country.
With the
overall thrust being mixed economy, in the drug sector too the
growth of the private sector was closely intertwined with the
public sector. Now there is a major shift towards the private
sector and the Drug Price Control Orders (DPCO) of 1977, 1987
and 1995 are being drastically modified. The democratic
process of routing the policy changes through Parliament has
been given a go-by to bestow benefits on the private sector.
That is the reason behind the collapse of the public sector
manufacturing units which have become sick or have cut down
their production or have been closed down or sold to
multinational companies. This has forced the country to depend
more on the private sector rather than the public sector.
In socialist
countries like Cuba, the state is the sole provider of medical
care, including drugs, and their use is on a rational basis.
But most of the developed and developing capitalist countries
have a mixed system of public and private health services.
The basic
flaw in drug production in India is in allowing the drug
industry a higher and unlimited mark-up (profit on the cost of
production). The other flaw is the production of about 50,000
drugs mostly unnecessary combinations. For example,
antipyretic drug paracetamol is available under dozens of
brand names. In addition to their higher price, the most
dangerous outcome of this combination of drugs is the
emergence of several drug-resistant diseases like
tuberculosis.
The book
under review is divided into two parts dealing broadly with
the theme of rational use of drugs. The first part, "The
Indian drug tragedy" tackles the current agonising
scenario. It offers suggestions to improve this situation.
The second
part, "Drug supply and use in Satara district", is a
summary of the findings of a study carried out over three
years to investigate the supply and use of drugs in this
district in Maharastra. The investigation was carried out
under the guidance of the Foundation for Research in Community
Health (FRCH), Mumbai. This book is basically a product of the
collective efforts of the Medico-Friend Circle(MFC), the
All-India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) and allied voluntary
medical organisations.
The first
part brings out some of the basic weaknesses in the
production, regulation and use of drugs in India. Dr Anant
Phadke has clearly outlined the causes of the present-day
situation. Broadly the following afflict the Indian drug
scene: (1) Production of non-essential instead of essential
drugs;(2) production of irrational combinations of drugs and
no control over such production and the absence of an
aggressive approach to remove such combinations from the
market;(3) irrational prescription by doctors either due to
ignorance or because of pressure from pharmaceutical
companies;and (4) ayurvedic drugs being misused because of
very weak regulatory authority.
For instance,
the Hathi Committee laid down in 1975 clear guidelines on the
identification of essential drugs, shifting to generic names,
etc. The production objectives of this Committee have been
achieved, including self-sufficiency in drugs, but the health
objectives have been ignored. Most of what the author lists as
his recommendations quoting the measures suggested by the
All-India Drug Action Network such as listing essential drugs,
use of generic names, regulation of promotional literature,etc.
were suggested by the Hathi Committee.
It is
ironical that countries like Iran have implemented nearly all
Hathi committee recommendations while India even while
beginning to develop rational drug programmes in the states,
continues to ignore these measures. The programmes will be
more successful when developed and implemented in the states
and not thrust by the Centre. The author also mentions that at
long last the Union Government has prepared a list of
essential drugs. But the impact of the list is negligible as
the states make their own lists and use them for procurement
and the central list becomes more or less redundant.
The Part I of
the book is further divided into six different chapters. The
first chapter, "Drugs and health in India", is an
overall view of the current status of drugs, while comparing
it with that in the western world under developed capitalist
economy. It has been shown that drug production and use in
India is irrational, irrespective of whether drugs are
produced by Indian firms or multinational corporations. This
can be changed only with a change in the overall orientation
of drug companies, in the nature of the medical profession and
in the relations between the drug industry, doctors and the
lay people. Sadly, the opening of more government medical
colleges has not been helped end the shortage of qualified
allopathic doctors in rural areas.
The second
chapter deals with the health status of the people and what
role the profit motive plays. When priority is given to
profit, the goal of health care to all is defeated. The
situation has been analysed in the light of profits versus
health and the various Acts regulating the drug industry. It
has also been shown how drug manufacturing companies are
indulging in marketing gimmicks to boost their profits.
The
irrationalities in production, distribution and usage in India
are no different from what prevails in other developing
countries. From the point of view of medical science and the
people’s need, the production pattern of drugs in India is
wrong in two ways. One, it does not cater to the needs of the
majority of the population and, two, it violates medical
ethics by producing obsolete or hazardous drugs and their
combinations. All these points are discussed in Chapter 3.
The fourth
chapter analyses the problem of the use of fancy drugs.
Allopathic drugs are prescribed by unqualified persons and it
is the major factor behind drug companies marketing irrational
drugs to such a large extent. It is possible to curb this
misuse of drugs but the government has done nothing about it.
The fifth chapter deals with the lobbying for a rational drug
policy. In India, drug production has increased quite rapidly
and dependence on foreign companies was significantly reduced,
especially after the introduction of the Indian Patent Act,
1970. The Hathi Committee had also pointed out that the
government should take prompt measures to eliminate irrational
drug combinations. But the official response was not prompt.
Even today, about 80 per cent of irrational drugs continue to
flood the market.
Other
developing countries, which have adopted rational drug
policies, have banned most of the irrational drugs. Sri Lanka
eliminated 1,900 such drugs in the 1960s; Bangladesh weeded
out 1,700 drugs in 1978; Mozambique banned more than 12,500
brands within five years of its revolution in 1975. In India,
however, the Drugs Controller has taken a piecemeal approach
to deciding about every category of drugs separately, instead
of making broad policy decisions as has been done in other
countries.
The model
list of essential drugs prepared by the WHO is now available
for more than two decades. All that is needed is to make
certain changes to suit the Indian conditions.
The sixth
chapter explores the future perspective of drug usage. The
author has also tackled various issues related to a rational
drug policy that would take care of all these points. These
measures cannot be separated from steps to protect and promote
India’s own drug industry from the impact of the new patent
regimen and the World Trade Organisation.
The author
has analysed the effectiveness of some of the leading
over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, cough syrups and remedies for
cold, tonics and food supplements. It was found that all the
OTC drugs studied were irrational and the claims made in
advertisements were exaggerated and misleading. Like Vicks
Vaporab, an allopathic OTC drug, was renamed as ayurvedic and
thus became eligible for exemption from excise duty. Some
unscrupulous manufacturers secretly add steroids to their
ayurvedic preparations used for chronic diseases like
bronchial asthma or rheumatoid arthritis. A very popular
medicine "Select" was another product marketed as an
Ayurvedic drug which claimed to change the sex of the growing
foetus.
The second
part of the book contains a detailed description of drugs used
in Satara district. A study in one district provides an
overall picture of the trends in other districts and even in
other states. And it is thus possible to draw broad
conclusions about the objective conditions in India. This part
scrutinises the prescriptions issued by doctors.
It was found
that the overall quality of prescriptions was low, that
doctors in both private and public hospitals in rural and
urban areas invariably used drugs irrationally. The use of
undesirable drugs was unusually high. It is interesting to
note that though senior consultants have the highest
proportion of rational prescriptions, they tended to over-drug
most of the patients. This section contains much interesting
material, including an estimate of how much money is being
wasted due to over-use of drugs. Investigators, health
planners and policy-makers should closely read this study.
This book
deserves to be widely read and debated but the author has not
mentioned any of the positive developments. For instance, in
Tamil Nadu and Delhi, where the system of procurement of drugs
was changed a few years back, a major part of the budget is
now spent on essential drugs. Moreover, pooled procurement has
enabled states like Punjab to save a significant amount.
Dr Anant Phadke has concluded
that in a country where a big section of the population lives
below the poverty line, the additional burden of paying for
costly drugs will result in further pauperisation of the
masses. Focussing on the rationality of drug production at the
national level, and based on an in-depth and comprehensive
study, this book provides critical insights which should
generate a debate on an appropriate national health policy.
|
| |
1000 years of
history
Review by Kuldip Kalia
The Indian
Millennium: AD 1000-2000 by Gopa Sabharwal. Penguin Books, New
Delhi. Pages x+716. Rs 495.
DO
you know who carried out the first and accurate survey of land
rights? When did the work on Khajuraho temples begin? Where do
we find the first recorded reference to Haryana? What was the
name of the mathematician who devised the ‘‘tantra
sangraha’’, an equation that provided the approximate
value of ‘‘pi’’? How did the first printing press come
to India in 1556? Who brought a hair of Prophet Muhammed to
Kashmir and consecrated it at the Hazratbal Mosque?
These and
many other events and personal details that went to shape
India are covered in the book under review. It is a
comprehensive and well-documented reference volume, covering a
wide range of topics such as politics, foreign relations,
armed forces, religion, infrastructure, films, disasters,
media, finance, agriculture, archaeology and many others.
These are arranged in a chronological order but making it more
useful by providing a detailed and exhaustive index.
Calcutta is
known for many ‘‘firsts’’. India’s first lift was
installed at the Governor’s residence in Calcutta in 1863;
‘‘The Star’’ was the first public theatre hall
inaugurated in 1883. Similarly, the first boxing bout was held
in the city. Moreover, it became the first city to have
electricity in India.
For quiz
masters and knowledge-seekers, it adds that independent India’s
first budget was presented by Finance Minister R.K.
Shanmu-kham Chetty on November 26, 1947.
Perhaps, the
most horrifying event was recorded by Badaun in 1556. During a
terrible famine in Agra, the conditions were so disturbing
that men are reported to have eaten other men.
Similarly in
1947, when the Bahmani kingdom and Maharashtra were hit by a
famine, about two-thirds of the local population was said to
have perished.
Sports lovers
will not be disappointed. There is a lot of information of
their interest. Farookh Engineer became the first Indian to
win a man of the match award in World Cup cricket in 1975.
However, Anil Kumble is the second bowler in Test cricket to
capture all 10 wickets in an innings. He did that against
Pakistan in the second Test in Delhi.
Perhaps
astonishing but interesting to note is that a naphtha missile
was used in naval action near Multan between Mohmud Ghazni and
the Jats of the Jud Hills in 1018. However, the first Indian
nuclear device was exploded at Pokhran, Rajasthan, in 1974.
The country’s first geostationery experimental communication
satellite Apple was put in orbit in 1981.
Though
unrelated yet a matter of interest to many that GA Sippy’s
‘‘Sholay’’ completed its six year run at a Bombay
theatre in the same year (1981). It was the longest-ever run
for an Indian film.
Again, one
may call it a coincidence, 50 years of Indian talkies was
celebrated in 1981. The first-lung transplant was carried out
at the Madras Medical Mission hospital on April 25, 1997.
It was for
the first time in the history of Indian law and justice that a
Bangalore Judge accepted DNA fingerprint as evidence in 1988.
Moreover, a visitor to Kashmir must keep in mind that the
Shalimar Garden was completed in 1641. However, the Rock
Garden in Chandigarh was created by Nek Chand in 1976. The
foundation of the City Beautiful (Chandigarh) was laid in
1952. It was the creation of French architect Le Corbusier.
An
unfortunate but again undeniable part of history is that the
‘‘Satanic Verses’’ by Salman Rushdie was banned in
India in 1988. As early as in 1000 AD, the prose romance
‘‘Udayasundari Katha’’ of Soddhala was written under
the patronage of Mummurriraja of Thane.
Undoubtedly,
this volume can be a pride possession of anyone and the author
deserves appreciation for making the record of the events of
over past 1000 years accessible in a single book. But the
distressing part is the index. Acharya Rajneesh is entered
under ‘‘Osho’’. The stampede at Kumbh fair has not
been covered under either ‘‘Stampede’’ or ‘‘Disaster’’.
It is mentioned under ‘‘Kumbh mela’’ only, thus making
it difficult to locate it.
Similarly,
there are references under ‘‘famine’’ or ‘‘earthquakes’’
but do not find anything as ‘‘cyclone’’ or ‘‘air
crash’’. Moreover, against Sriperumbudur page number 163
is mentioned, but the actual event is printed on the page 634.
‘‘Cricket’’has
no place in the index. The volume does mention ‘‘Operation
Vijay’’ against Pakistan with events column, but it should
have been better placed under ‘‘Kargil conflict’’.
Similarly, the news of Madan Lal Khurana quitting the Union
Cabinet has failed to get a place in the 1999 events. One
wonders why the news of Girish Karnad getting an award gets a
place in the 1998 events when actually he wa selected for the
award in January, 1999?
Moreover, the
events of deaths of prominent personalities should have been
covered under ‘‘Obituary’’.
Despite these shortcomings,
the value of this volume cannot be minimised.
|
| |
Book
extract
Gun or black
door? Fear blocks freedom
This is an
edited chapter from a book of Osho’s select speeches on
human freedom.
THE
nature of human consciousness is absolute freedom. When I say
absolute freedom, I mean you are free at any moment to be
whatsoever you decide. Nothing holds itself against you. You
may have been a saint up to now. You may have lived in
celibacy up to now. This very moment you can change: you can
shed celibacy and you can fall in love with a woman or a man.
Because you have been a celibate in the past does not, cannot,
become a bondage. You remain free. If you want to be a
celibate in this moment also, you can be. But remember that it
is not because of the past, it is again a fresh decision. You
have to go on making your decision again and again and again,
reviving it again and again and again. At any moment you can
drop it.
Existentialists
are right. They say that "existence precedes
essence". It is a very pregnant sentence... .
A man is
born; he is pure freedom. He has no essence, only existence.
Then he will choose his essence, who he is going to be — and
it will be his choice. He can be a saint, he can be a sinner;
he can be a criminal, he can be a murderer, or he can be a
martyr. He brings pure existence into the world — a blank
sheet, a pure canvas. What colours he is going to use, and
what sort of painting he is going to make of his life, is
totally up to him. He does not bring a character. He simply
brings a potentiality, pure potentiality. And this pure
potentiality always remains pure; you cannot corrupt it.
You become a
saint: that means you decide that to be a saint is going to be
your essence. But this is your decision, and if you want to
keep it up to the very end of your life; every morning, in
fact, every minute of your existence, you will have to decide
again and again and vote for it. Any moment you stop deciding,
any moment you say, "Enough is enough, now I want to
change", nobody is barring the path. You can cancel your
whole past in a single moment, because that past was your
decision, nobody else’s. It is not like a destiny forced
from above, from outside. It is your own inner decision. You
can change it.
You can
become a sinner, but tomorrow you may again change. You can
again take the vow of a Catholic priest and become a priest
again, become a celibate. Try to understand this... . This has
tremendous implications for your life.
Don’t throw
the responsibility on anybody else. Nobody else is a deciding
factor, neither your mother nor your father. Whatsoever the
psychoanalysts say is really irrelevant to your being. It is
for you to decide. Even the people who are mad are mad because
of their own decision. Somehow they found it to be convenient.
Somehow they decided; they voted for it. Nobody has forced
them. Nobody can force anybody because the innermost quality
of being is freedom. It is not something accidental; it is
your very nature.
You have been
smoking up to now. For 30 years you may have been a
chain-smoker and you come to me and you ask, "What to do?
How to stop?"
You are
asking a wrong question. In fact, you don’t want to stop. Go
deep into your own mind: you don’t want to stop; you are
playing a game. You don’t want to stop; you want to show
people that you want to stop. Or, this very idea that you want
to stop gives you a good image about yourself. Then you go on
saying, "What can I do? It has become such a long habit;
I cannot stop, though I want to stop?"
This is
simple, sheer foolishness and stupidity. You are not deceiving
anybody except yourself. If you really want to stop, there is
no need to do anything about it. The very decision that you
want to stop is enough: the half-smoked cigarette in your hand
will drop of its own accord. But you remain free. That does
not mean that again tomorrow you cannot take it up. You remain
free; nobody can bind you. Again tomorrow you can take it up.
Then please, don’t start saying that it is because of old
habit: "I tried my best, and I had stopped, and for
twenty-four hours I didn’t smoke. But because of a
30-year-old habit, I am again taking it up. The urge is too
much."
Do not try to
fool anybody. There is nothing like that; you are again
deciding. If you are deciding, then it is okay. You can find a
thousand and one ways to decide again. But remember always, it
is your decision, yours and nobody else’s; and you remain
free.
Mulla
Nasruddin had once decided that he would never touch any
alcoholic thing again in his life, any intoxicant. And he was
a drunkard. So just to test his own will power, he walked on
the path where the pub was. Just in front of the pub, he
looked at the pub in a very proud way and said to himself,
"I have decided that nothing can attract me and nothing
can force me to go astray" — and he walked 100 ft away.
Then he patted his own back and he said, "Nasruddin, you
are great. Now I will treat you, come to the pub."
Don’t play
games with yourself. It is your freedom, but freedom is very
dangerous because it does not leave any corner for you to hide
in. You cannot throw responsibility on anybody else. Simply
and absolutely, you are responsible. Just watch and see the
fact of it, and truth liberates.
If you can
see this, then whether you decide to smoke or drink does not
matter. Whether you decide to drop it does not matter. The
only thing that matters is to be always mindful of your
freedom.
Try what I am
saying, just watch what I am saying. Smoking... take a
decision that you are not going to smoke. Let the cigarette
drop from your fingers, and then watch. Just go on observing.
Whenever you again want to smoke, don’t say that it is
because of old habit. It is again a fresh decision, not an old
habit. You go on throwing the responsibility on the old habit
to save your own face.
Please don’t
do that. Say, "Now I have decided to smoke again".
Nobody is barring you; it is your decision. You can cancel, or
you can vote for it again. But always insist that it is a
fresh decision, and you will never be in the grip of so-called
habits, so-called mechanical habits. You will feel a free man.
Smoking or not smoking is immaterial; to feel a free man is
very significant. Nothing is more significant than that.
I am here to
make you aware of your freedom. If you go to the so-called
saints, they will make you aware of your mechanicalness: that
is the difference. They will make you aware of your
mechanicalness, and they will create a new mechanicalness in
you. They will say, "You have been smoking for 30 years?
Now take a vow that you will never smoke again." Old
habit is there; now they are telling you to create a greater
habit in order to destroy the old habit. Then non-smoking will
become a habit, but the freedom is nowhere there. Whether you
smoke or don’t smoke, you remain a victim.
My whole
emphasis is that you should become aware of your freedom. Let
your life flow out of your freedom. Whatsoever you decide is
up to you. Who am I to tell you to smoke or not to smoke, to
drink or not to drink? I am not worried about such
foolishnesses; this is for you to decide. You are your own
master. These are trivia; they are not significant. All that
matters is that you remain alert, remain centred in your
freedom. Never do anything that goes against your freedom. Do
— everything is allowed if it is done out of freedom. To act
out of freedom is to be virtuous, to act out of bondage is to
sin.
***
I will tell
you a very ancient story, and one of the most beautiful I have
ever come across.
There was a
very wise king. His own Prime Minister committed a betrayal:
he delivered some secrets to the neighbouring country, to the
enemy. The Prime Minister was caught red-handed. There was
only one punishment for it, and that was death. But the old
king had always loved this man. He was sentenced to death, but
the old man gave him an opportunity.
The last day,
he called his whole court. On one side there was a gun ready
to kill the man, on the other side there was a black door. And
the king said, "You can choose, either to die — you
have to die — or you can choose this black door. It is up to
you." The Prime Minister asked, "What is behind that
black door?" The king said, "That is not allowed.
Nobody knows, because nobody has chosen it before. In the
times of my father, in the times of my grandfather, many times
the opportunity had been given, but nobody has chosen and
nobody knows. And nobody is allowed; even I don’t know. I
have the key, but when my father died he said to me, ‘I will
open the door and you can go in and I will close it. Don’t
look into it.’ But you can see — because you can choose.
You can discover what is there. It is up to you."
The Prime
Minister brooded, and then he chose the gun. He said,
"Kill me with the gun. I don’t want to go behind that
black door." The Prime Minister was killed. The queen was
very curious. She persuaded the king somehow to see what was
behind it. The king laughed. He said, "I know — there
is nothing behind it. It’s simple freedom; there is not even
a room. This door opens to the wide world. There is nothing,
but nobody has chosen it yet."
People even, choose death
before choosing the unknown. People even choose to be
miserable before choosing the unknown. The unknown seems to be
more dangerous than death itself. And freedom is the door
unknown. Freedom means moving into the unknown, not knowing
where one is going, not knowing what is going to happen the
next moment. It is a black door. Rarely, sometimes a Jesus or
a Buddha will choose the door; all else choose the gun.
|
|
