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Protecting women Warning signals |
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Winning Kolkata Left’s sweet revenge on Trinamool THE Left Front’s victory over the Trinamool Congress in the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections, after a gap of five years, is a significant achievement of the Buddhadev Bhattacharjee’s government in West Bengal. It has also won the elections in Salt Lake city.
The Jinnah speech
Aunt Tahira
Dateline Washington Ensuring quality of seed Need to register
marriages
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Protecting women IF all was well with our society such a law would not have been needed. But, unfortunately, such is not the case. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Bill has been in the works for the past about eight years. After the National Commission for Women (NCW) forwarded its first draft to the government in 1997-98, it has been moving about like an abandoned wife, and even lapsed with the 13th Lok Sabha. One just hopes that in its new avatar, to which the Union Cabinet has given its approval, it will cross the parliamentary hurdle without losing its cutting edge and will become an effective tool against the assault and battery that is the lot of many Indian women behind the family doors. The well-meaning provisions are an improvement on the laws currently in the statute book. For one thing, it widens the definition of violence, to include not only abuse, but also threat of abuse – physical, sexual, verbal, emotional or economic. Secondly, besides the wife, it covers the women who are or have been in a live-in relationship with the abuser. Sisters, widows, mothers, single women or others living with the abuser in a joint family are also entitled to legal protection. It provides for appointment of protection officers and NGOs to provide assistance to the women in regard to medical examination, legal aid and safe shelter, etc. The Bill seeks to protect the rights of the woman to secure a house or live in her matrimonial home or shared accommodation, whether or not she holds any title or rights. So much for the rosy provisions! Now the reality check. Let it not be forgotten that there are several laws banning child marriages and dowry, but both evils go on regardless. The law on domestic violence should not be turned into a similar toothless measure. Women suffering in silence will have to be empowered to speak against the injustice in the first place, and the police and courts will have to be sensitised to extend a helping hand. Effective implementation is more important than the law itself. At the same time, it is imperative to ensure that there is no misuse of the new law either by corrupt police officers or by a handful of vengeful women out to teach their families a lesson. There have been numerous instances of misuse of the dowry laws in the recent past. Nevertheless, the proposed Bill must be supported by all political parties and sections of society. |
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Warning signals PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh, who cannot be faulted for his economics, was only being a little more realistic when he scaled down the growth target for the Tenth Plan from 8.1 per cent to 7-8 per cent, which still is on the high side given the inflationary pressures unleashed by the recent oil price increases. The Reserve Bank of India, the Planning Commission, the Finance Ministry and policy-makers in general may keep playing the game of predicting the possible GDP growth, the fact remains that the Indian economy is still monsoon-dependent. Years of planning and reforms have failed to insulate agriculture, as also the economy, from the havoc that an erratic monsoon can cause. If it is deficient or excessive rain, agriculture suffers the most and gets the least possible attention. Unlike the previous NDA regime which ignored agriculture, farming is a priority with the UPA government. The Prime Minister keeps visiting the subject, though action on the ground is yet to materialise. Addressing the National Development Council on Monday, he once again underscored the need to invest in the whole chain of agricultural activities like providing better inputs at affordable rates, making timely credit supply reachable to the needy, crop diversification to wean growers from paddy, improved production techniques and better post-harvest operations. What comes in the way of translating these ideas into reality is lack of money and political will. Then there are policy conflicts that spread confusion and hit growth. The Prime Minister says there should be no free electricity for farming, but the Chief Minister of his party in Punjab talks of giving free power to farmers. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montake Singh Ahluwalia advocates user charges for water and electricity, but the Haryana Chief Minister writes off farmers’ power bills. The Centre hikes the diesel and petrol prices, but the Leftist allies agitate for their rollback. Obviously, working at cross-purposes cannot accelerate the economy. More than achieving the 7 per cent or so growth rate, it is important to spread evenly the benefits of growth among the different strata of society. |
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Winning Kolkata THE Left Front’s victory over the Trinamool Congress in the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections, after a gap of five years, is a significant achievement of the Buddhadev Bhattacharjee’s government in West Bengal. It has also won the elections in Salt Lake city. The results vindicate the fact that the Left Front has steadily improved its presence in the urban areas and that its popularity is no longer restricted to the countryside. In Kolkata, the Left Front annexed 75 wards — four more than the required majority — out of 141. It had won in 61 wards in the 2000 elections. Ms Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress trailed with 42 seats. Its ally, the BJP, had to contend with three. The two parties will share the Opposition bench with the Congress, which won in 15 wards, and the outgoing Mayor, Mr Subrata Mukherjee’s Unnayan Congress Manch, which won in six seats. Clearly, one cannot attribute the Left’s success to the Opposition’s fragmentation alone. The state government’s initiatives in industrialisation, its general approach towards civic issues and special thrust on Kolkata’s development were factors that helped the Left emerge victorious at the hustings. No wonder, the victory is rightly being interpreted by the ruling coalition as the dress rehearsal for the State Assembly elections next year. While there is every reason for the Left Front to be happy, the scene in the Opposition camp is one of gloom and despair. The Congress leads the UPA government at the Centre, but its state unit is in disarray. The Trinamool Congress has been steadily losing ground because of its supremo’s tantrums. It is a moot point whether Ms Mamata Bannerjee would be able to launch a Mahajot (grand alliance) of “real anti-CPM forces”. Having lost chhoto lalbari (as the Kolkata Corporation headquarters is called), it is anybody’s guess whether she can capture boro lalbari (Writer’s Building) in the Assembly elections. |
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The test of good manners is being able to put up pleasantly with bad ones. — American proverb
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The Jinnah speech THIS is not a comment on the controversy over whether Jinnah was or was not secular which continued in India even after the crisis in the BJP over the subject was seemingly resolved. It is the title of an article by Dr S. M. Rehman carried in the latest issue of the quarterly journal of the Foundation of National Development and Security. It was presented to me along with the other publications of the foundation by its chairman, Gen Mirza Aslam Beg, former chief of the Pakistan Army, and Dr Rehman, also chief editor of the journal, when I visited their office in Rawalpindi. During my visit to Pakistan, which had coincided with that of Mr L. K. Advani, I realised that Jinnah’s celebrated speech and his personality have a crucial impact on the political discourse in that country. It is, therefore, important to take note of this fact in the current debate on the subject, which is being carried on more or less in the idiom of the pre-Partition political rhetoric. Intriguingly, most of the arguments in the article of Dr Rehman are in the same idiom. He ridicules “the tendency to project the father of the nation as a thoroughbred secularist.” Dr Rehman quotes the speech of Jinnah in the Indian Legislative Assembly on March 29, 1939, in which he warned the British and Hindu Congress groups that “you alone or both combined will never succeed in destroying our souls, and the Islamic culture which we have inherited.” He told Gandhi, in his letter dated January 21, 1940, “You cannot divide social, economic, political and purely religious work into water-tight compartments.” Thus Dr Rehman wants us to treat the August 11 speech of Jinnah in the context of his past role as a champion of Muslims without attempting to reinterpret any word of it. However, he concedes that though Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be a Muslim state, he did not want it to be a theocratic state. Thus, Jinnah was at least non-theocratic, if not non-communal. It should be possible to understand the real meaning of Jinnah’s August 11 speech — which is so unambiguous — without referring to his past role. But could the concept of a nation based on religion, and of the state as a homeland of the Muslim nation become secular when separate nationhood and statehood are formed? A number of secular and liberal Pakistani intellectuals, who draw their strength from the image of a secular-liberal Jinnah, have tried to answer this question by exonerating him from the act of Partition. They agree with Ayasha Jalal that Partition was avoidable. “It happened”, she says, in the absence of a power-sharing arrangement which could have accommodated the demands of the Muslim majority provinces as articulated by Jinnah and the Muslim League. The fact is that Jinnah and the Muslim League demanded Pakistan as the homeland of the entire Muslim “nation” of the subcontinent. In this context, poet Iqbal’s concept of Pakistan was more logical. In his last letter to Jinnah, he had proposed to limit the demand for Pakistan to the north western part of the subcontinent and to leave Muslims of the Hindu-majority states out of the newly proposed country. Anyhow, Mubarak Ali, a renowned historian whom I met, had a point when he argued that Jinnah used Pakistan only as a card to get political rights for Muslims and he never wanted separation. He and others of his school of thought hold Nehru responsible for Partition, who rejected the Cabinet Mission plan which Jinnah had accepted. But if you make a demand, you should be prepared for its acceptance and the consequences thereof. Again, it does not speak high of the sense of anticipation and capacity to understand the mass mind on the part of Jinnah when Jalal says that Jinnah did not expect and did not want what happened after his call for direct action on August 16, 1946. The riot wave that followed all over the subcontinent made Partition inevitable, whatever the intention of Jinnah was. But what were the real intentions of Jinnah? Can one sketch the real and authentic image of Jinnah out of the many faces during the many phases of his life? As is well known, his relations with the Congress were very cordial till 1919. His efforts to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity have received oft-quoted accolades from Moti Lal Nehru and Sarojini Naidu. He parted company with the Congress after Gandhiji took it over. They represented two approaches to resolving the communal tangle. Gandhi and Azad attempted to deal with the communal tangle by emphasising the essential unity of all religions (Ishwar Allah Tero Nam or the Ram Rahim approach). Jinnah rejected the religious approach and insisted on constitutional and institutional arrangements for safeguarding the interests of religious communities. Gandhi and Azad had succeeded in mobilising the support of scholars of Islam and the ulema of Deoband organised under the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind. The climax of Hindu-Muslim emotional unity was reached in the form of the Khilafat movement. Jinnah and Iqbal, the founding fathers of the Pakistan idea, disapproved of the concept of an international Muslim identity on the basis of religion. In frustration, Jinnah left for London in self-exile. The movement in India for the restoration of the institution of Khilafat collapsed after Kamal Ataturk disowned the Khalifa in Turkey, and Arab nations revolted against his rule. With that, the grand edifice of Hindu-Muslim unity built on it collapsed. Limits of religious approach to national unity were thus exposed. By the time Jinnah returned from his self-exlite, frustrated and demoralised, the Muslim community was prepared to accept him as its leader. As the Congress refused to implement its agreement to from a coalition with the Muslim League after the elections of 1937, the last attempt of the League to enter mainstream politics was foiled. Thereafter the contribution of many factors, including the personality of Jinnah, who had become desperate and impatient and had a very high degree of self-esteem, led to the adoption of the resolution of Pakistan by the Muslim League in 1940. The events, thereafter, moved too fast and the gulf between the two communities had so widened that it was difficult for their leaders to work out any patch-up, including any agreement on the Cabinet Mission plan. While Pakistan has become a reality, which every sane Indian should accept and respect, the lesson of the way the situation drifted within half a decade before Partition needs to be discussed more dispassionately and objectively. The religious approach of Gandhi to promote harmony among the various communities is almost given up in India. For there is no religious leader of the calibre of Gandhi or Azad to carry on a dialogue between different faiths at a mass level. India has, however, recognised the existence of the diversity of communities-based on religion, region, language, culture and caste. Appropriate constitutional provisions, institutions and conventions as also coalition politics have tried to accommodate and reconcile the diverse interests and urges. In short, a democratic, plural and federal set-up has ensured national unity in India. Pakistan, too, is learning its lesson, though in a harder way. But its chances of success largely depend on how far the legacy of its founder of the constitutional and non- religious approach to politics and secular message of the August 11 speech remains relevant. While religion-based identities cannot be dismissed, multiplicity of identities alone can satisfy the urges of modern human beings and check exclusivity and negative features of any single identity. In this sense, Mr Advani’s positive reference to Jinnah has been widely welcomed in Pakistan and strengthened the position of the secular followers of
Jinnah. |
Aunt Tahira
DO you want to see what is going out there? said my kid brother as he drew aside the curtains in one swift gesture. From behind this protective camouflage Aunt Tahira was amusing herself observing the proceedings in the baithak. Suddenly exposed she scurried for cover leaving a roomful of laughing people. My first-hand experience of the bondage of the purdah system was observing Aunt Tahira. Mother was once a purdah-nashin herself. As she had cast aside the veil after she could decide for herself, from her I could only hear tales of the tyrannical restrictions imposed by purdah. The visits to Patna as a child where women from mother’s family still observed the purdah were for me a subject of study. But no one could match the standards that Aunt Tahira had set for herself. For her observing purdah was an obsession. A widowed cousin of mother, she had been an only child and had been brought up in the lap of luxury. She had lived alone teaching children for many years before moving in as “extended family” into the grand joint family that was my maternal grandfather’s household. In her mind she had a baffling code of observing purdah. She did not appear before the son-in-laws or even the young grandson-in-laws of the family. If Aunt Tahira had her way she would have chosen to become invisible. Her tiptoeing ways to eavesdrop and peep from behind doors and windows then seemed very secretive and wicked. Now I can appreciate that it was her way of being honest to her oppressive code. For her life was not to be lived fully but only to be seen and heard from a distance. Whenever guests came to the household her code compelled her to take only indirect pleasure by observing the proceedings from behind curtains. It was one such session that my kid brother had violently disrupted. I remember once Mother had suggested that for a change she should come and live with us in Delhi for sometime. She had assured her purdah-observing cousin that Father would keep out of her way. “But he will get to know everything, even when and how many times I pull the chain in the toilet”, she had replied while turning down the offer. A few years ago a son-in-law who lived abroad suddenly came visiting for a day. The whole household got busy taking care of the special visitor who had come for such a short trip. Many hours later someone wondered where Aunt Tahira was. She was found unconscious in the bathroom. Caught off guard she had waited hours for the guest to depart before she fainted in the damp airless bathroom. As the guest, old enough to be her son, was sitting in the verandah she could not have gone to her room without being seen. A phone call came yesterday informing that Aunt Tahira was no more. The first thought that struck me was to wonder what possible reward she could have been promised in return for depriving herself so completely during life on earth. |
Dateline Washington Boost to ties likely by Ashish Kumar Sen AS Prime Minister Manmohan Singh prepares for his meeting with President George W. Bush at the White House next month, expectations are high that the summit will spawn an array of agreements on defence, civilian space and nuclear cooperation. Mr. Singh will be in Washington from July 18 to 20 at Mr. Bush’s invitation. Foreign policy analysts and Bush administration officials are unanimous in their opinion that the Bush-Singh meeting will be a “watershed moment” in relations between the United States and India. This optimism stems from recent developments. Picking up from where the administration of President Bill Clinton left, the Bush administration has pursued its relationship with India at multiple levels. In addition to the initiatives in bilateral diplomatic collaboration, military-to-military ties, counter-terrorism cooperation, joint science and technology projects and public diplomacy, the Bush White House has accelerated the “Next Steps in Strategic Partnership” agreement reached in January 2004 and, more recently, permitted Lockheed Martin to sell F-16s and F-18s to India. New Delhi has still to make a decision on the multi-role fighter jets. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee arrived in Washington over the weekend and is scheduled to meet Vice-President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, among others. According to sources, the purpose of Mr. Mukherjee’s visit is, in part, to set the stage for Mr. Singh’s meeting with Mr. Bush. In March the Bush administration declared its intention “to help India become a major world power in the 21st century.” Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, recently told the House International Relations Committee’s subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific that “the general consensus in the scholarly and intelligence communities is that India is likely at some point or another in the coming decades to obtain great-power capabilities that eluded it throughout the Cold War.” A close bilateral relationship that is based on the strong congruence of interests, values and inter-societal ties is, in fact, possible for the first time in the history of the United States and India, he added. A handful of members of the congressional caucus on India and Indian Americans and the U.S. India Political Action Committee have been pushing for Mr. Singh to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on July 19. Last week, the USINPAC announced that this effort had met with success. The honour of addressing a joint session of Congress is one reserved for close U.S. allies. Over the past year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko have addressed joint sessions of Congress. Former Indian Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and P.V. Narasimha Rao were bestowed similar privileges during their visits to Washington on September 14, 2000 and May 18, 1994, respectively. Analysts expect the Bush-Singh dialogue to involve some give and take on both sides. New Delhi’s determination, fuelled by pressing energy needs, to go ahead with a gas pipeline project with Iran and its bid to win a permanent seat on the UN Security Council are likely to be discussed during the meeting. Mr Bush is expected to reiterate Washington’s concerns about India doing business with Iran and his administration’s commitment to U.N. reform. Dr. Tellis suggested the Bush administration should invite India to participate in the Generation IV, ITER, and Radkowsky Thorium Fuel (RTF) international research programmes pertaining to the development of safe, proliferation-resistant, advanced nuclear reactor technologies. The Bush administration must declare that “pending a permanent solution to the problem, the United States would permit India to purchase the requisite quantities of safeguarded low-enriched uranium required for its next fuelling of the Tarapur 1 and 2 nuclear reactors.” The White House, in return, should seek a commitment from India to participate in the Proliferation Security Initiative; political and financial support for Mr. Bush’s idea of a “democracy fund” to be lodged within the United Nations; and obtain an Indian pledge to support U.S. stabilisation efforts in Iraq through non-military contributions, including but not restricted to, police training, development of civil services and administrative institutions, public works programmes, and training NGOs, suggested Dr. Tellis, who was a special adviser to former U.S. Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill. Sumit Ganguly, Rabindranath Tagore Professor of Indian cultures and civilizations at Indiana University, said U.S. declarations of making India a super power would be “meaningless” if the Bush administration didn’t put its policy where its mouth is. He was hopeful the “U.S. will come through on questions of the transfer of weapons technology for either F-16s or F-18s, and that there will be some breakthrough on civilian nuclear technology.” “Broadly speaking, defence partnership and economic partnership with be the central issues of the summit,” said Anupam Srivastava, Director of the Asia programme at the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia. He didn’t expect either side to push contentious issues like the gas pipeline as it may “spoil the atmospherics” of the meeting. The challenge facing the Bush administration is to craft a set of policies that satisfy India’s desire for more liberal access to a variety of high-technologies in the areas of civilian nuclear energy, civilian space cooperation, advanced industrial equipment and military capability technologies, said Dr. Tellis. |
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Ensuring quality of seed INSTITUTIONAL mechanism to ensure quality seed is lacking in states. Spurious seed vendors go scot-free, while a high-powered committee has recommended the death sentence for spurious drug peddlers. The policy instrument is available in the Seed Act 1986. It is time to now examine the draft Seed Bill 2004. The first step is to involve stakeholders in the process. Cynics and seed companies maintain that wide consultations are futile and, therefore, a ritual of consultations in select state headquarters would suffice. Seed costs constitute 10-35 per cent of the total cost of production depending on the crop and the region. Besides, the debt burden of farmers, has only increased in recent times. Contract farming has aggravated this burden. A recent National Sample Survey Organisation study says that Punjab has the third highest farm indebtedness in the country. Besides, the average outstanding loan per farmer household is the highest in Punjab, Haryana being in the third place. Three issues are pertinent. The first is the mechanism of consultation process. The second is transparency. The third is institutionalising a credible system for liability options. The quality of the seed is determined on the basis of scientific principles like distinct, uniform and stable. Public institutions are expected to certify the quality before making seed available to vending agencies. The Seed Bill put a heavy emphasis on the foundation and breeder seed segments. This is clearly an anti-farmer move. Primacy off the breeders’ right is the core issue of the Seed Bill. India has been in the vanguard to proclaim a legislative innovation under the sui generis option of TRIPS to introduce protection of farmers’ right. The Seed Bill is a clear abdication of this stand and commitment in the international fora. The gains of the Indian plant varieties protection and farmers’ rights have been lost in the Bill. Besides, the unholy nexus of officials, seed scientists and private operators may thwart any move to safeguard the farmers’ interests. In the Seed Bill this nexus has incorporated a mechanism to gain easy and cheap access to genetic resources available with public institutions. The third damaging issue is of giving short shrift to liability options. For example, let us assume that a seed company sells a bad seed. The bill stipulates farmers to seek resolution from the consumer’s court. Here the state is certainly seen to abdicate its responsibilities. Why should a sub-standard seed consignment be certified for commercial sale? Can we expect farmers to undergo the punishment of the legal system? Multi-location trials (as stipulated in the Bill) have to be carried out by the Agriculture Department with farmers as the final allies. There is a provision in the PRI Act to have production committees/sub-committees. What stops the government in delegating this consultation process to such committees and thereby institutionalising the whole process? |
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Need to register
marriages IT seems appalling that even after 58 years of Independence, we still do not have any compulsory legislation for the registration of marriages. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, and the Special Marriage Act, 1954, do provide that the state governments may make rules for registration of marriages as also appoint marriage officers. How many states have enacted rules for compulsory registration of marriages in any jurisdiction is not a difficult question to answer. The use of the word “may” instead of “shall” in the legislation clearly exhibits lack of political will in the enforcement of such enactments. Parliament has enacted the Family Courts Acts, 1984 and left it to the state governments to establish family courts for securing a speedy settlement of family disputes. As a fast-growing economy attracting substantial foreign direct investment, ushering in of special economics zones, setting up of new information technology parks and international airports within India, our country is fast becoming a reliable destination for overseas investors and philanthropist non-resident Indians. No doubt, Ms. Denise Holt, Migration Director, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, chaired a discussion dinner hosted by the British High Commissioner, New Delhi, and attended by different foreign representatives where the policy of migration and globalisation was discussed to monitor future trends in this regard. Why then are we archaic in a simple matter of recording of elementary events. Non-residents Indian population is reported to have swelled to about 25 million. The non-registration of marriages further elevates and multiplies into complicated family law problems affecting spouses, children, extended members of family and encroaches into the arena of property and land issues. What then is the picture we paint for the non-resident Indian? A homeland which offers no solutions to basic issues which otherwise must give solace or peace to the family. There is an influx of judgement of foreign courts making inroads in the Indian jurisdiction at the behest of non-resident Indians and foreigners with Indian spouses. The cause perhaps being that the current Indian legislation does not provide practical, compatible, expeditious and easy solutions to family and allied problems. Indian courts, however, render a yeoman’s service in interpreting laws to provide relief to the aggrieved party. But then, how much can the courts do? Why is the legislature lacking? Times have changed and people have progressed. However, such laws are not keeping pace with social changes which have enveloped us. The Indian legislature needs to review existing family laws to make them compatible with the changing times. Changes in Indian laws pertaining to marriage, divorce, maintenance, child custody, adoption, spousal support and settlement of matrimonial property must be made as per the current societal practices. The views of the Indian Apex Court in asking the government to enact suitable legislation for the registration of marriages is a very salutary start. Perhaps more enlightenment would need to follow in other areas of family laws. |
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From the pages of Gag on the Press
A patriotic gentleman of Delhi, burning with the patriotism which consumes Raja Siva Prasad, Sir Syed Ahmed and a few others, recently made a proposal that a statue of the late Lord Lytton should be erected at Delhi, where the deceased nobleman performed the grand function of 1877. It has not yet transpired with what success this proposal has met. The originator of the proposal has been long incubating it, but it seems to have taken shape only after the death of Lord Lytton. The honour of a statue is sometimes paid to a man in his lifetime; it has been paid to some Viceroys of India during their lifetime. In Lord Lytton’s case perhaps the statue is proposed as an apotheosis. We shall remember him best by the gag which he imposed upon a section of Indian press, and which was soon afterwards torn away by wiser hands. The sponge has completely effaced the blot that this Bohemian statesman and gipsy diplomatist left upon the statutebook. It would be unnecessary to rake up the past, or to hark back to things which are now forgotten. |
What matters is whether he has the grace of the Lord. Without it all his accomplishments will be of no account. He will be considered the lowest among all and will meet the fate of criminals and sinners. —Guru Nanak There will be many obstacles in the path of teachers. There will be ridicule, saracasm, physical obstructions. One who will remain unswerving in face of these will be the teacher. —The Buddha The wise King prays thus to his elders “Be unto us a father, loving, not inspired by wrath. Be unto us a teacher. Show up the righteous path. If we wander astrays, please set your strong arm lead us straight”. —The Mahabharata A man as physical being is always turned towards the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, however he finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him. —Book of quotations on Happiness The wise men of all civilization have honoured time as the greatest power. But have we remembered to hour God who use time as an instrument of His will? —Book of quotations of Hinduism And when it is said to them, “Believe as the people believe”, they say, “Shall we believe as imbeciles believe? No, it is they, they who are the imbeciles, though they do not know. —Book of quotations on Islam And when they encounter those who believe, they say, “We believe.” But when they are alone with their obsessions, they say, “We are in fact with you; we were only joking.” —Book of quotations
on Islam  |
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