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| Saturday, February 19, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
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Dalai Lama urges youth to
continue fight DHARAMSALA, Feb 18 — Reminding the Tibetan people of his advancing age, the Dalai Lama today exhorted the younger generation to take on the responsibility of carrying forward the Tibetan freedom struggle. Speaking on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his enthronement, the Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, said that he prayed to God that he might live for a few more years and lead the country to freedom. But at the same time the Tibetan youth must be prepared to take on the responsibility. "I do not profess that I possess some great power. But I will try to live up to your expectations" he said while addressing thousands of Tibetans who had come here from all over the country. The 60th year is regarded as very auspicious and a grand function was held at the main temple outside the Dalai Lama's palace to mark the occasion. The heads of all the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism had come from various parts of India to take part. "Today is an auspicious day to renew your pledge and sense of dedication towards the Tibetan cause," the Dalai Lama said. To meet the challenge of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for his or her own self, family or nation, but for the benefit of all mankind. Universal responsibility is the real key to human survival," he observed. In a special reference to the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorjee, he said that he was happy that the young boy had been able to escape safely. He thanked the Karmapa for joining him in exile at Dharamsala. "We Tibetans, as refugees, will always feel grateful to the people of India, not only for giving help and shelter to this generation, but for many generations we Tibetans have received light and wisdom from this country. So we will always feel indebted," he stated. Appreciating the hard work and sincerity of the officials of the Tibetan government-in-exile, he said we all have faults and as such there is always scope for improvement. Greeting new arrivals from Tibet, he urged them to return to Tibet, despite the political and religious repression and carry on the struggle for freedom with compassion and nonviolence. The Dalai Lama expressed happiness that today, people everywhere were aware of the Tibetan issue. Himachal Pradesh Governor, Mr Vishnu Kant Shastri, said today there was violence and injustice all over the world and it was only by following the path shown by the Dalai Lama that we can have harmony and world peace. The 17th Karmapa, Ogyen
Trinley Dorjee, was the centre of attraction at today's
function, his first public appearance in McLeodganj. |
VC for ban on "Towards
Freedom" SHIMLA, Feb 18 — Dr S.K. Gupta, eminent historian and Vice-Chancellor, Himachal Pradesh University, has supported the move of the Indian Council of Historical Research to suspend the publication of the two volumes of its series "Towards Freedom" and asserted that a review of the project was in order, particularly when glaring distortions had been noticed. Joining issue with the Leftist historians, he said whenever fallacies were pointed in the works of Marxist scholars, they "cry foul" and lose no time in raising unnecessary controversies in the media. He said "we historians had been eagerly awaiting for the volumes to be produced under the project on which over Rs 4 crore had been spent during the last 26 years. However, when the volume covering the years 1943-44 edited by Partha sarthi Gupta was published in 1997, I was horrified to see that its three parts containing 3500 pages and 2000 documents did not carry a comprehensive index which was very essential in any compilation of this nature. Secondly, he discovered that the documents instead of being arranged strictly, in chronological order on the model of "transfer of power" series, were distributed into several thematic chapters. Obviously, any such chapterisation pre-supposed an approach and framework and so that poor reader was left at the mercy of the subjective classification of the editor. The years 1943-44 were important in the history of freedom struggle because of the Quit India Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi and the treacherous role played by the Communist Party of India against the freedom movement. Surprisingly, the chapterisation in this volume reduced Mahatma Gandhi to a footnote and ignored the patriotic role played by the Congress Socialist Party led by Jaya Prakash Narain and Ram Manohar Lohia as well as the Forward Block founded by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. In fact, these two organisations were spearheading the underground movement and facing the worst repression let lose by the British Government with the help of the CPI. This volume failed to highlight this aspect of freedom struggle, instead some documents of the CPI denigrating these two organisations as "fifth column" had been given importance. Some important documents throwing light on the treacherous role of the CPI had been deliberately left out. Objectivity, the hallmark of historian's craft which strictly advocated against "suppressing the truth and suggesting false", had willy-nilly become the main casualty in Parthasarthi Gupta's volume. Ideological and political predilection had impaired the process of editing. If one minutely examined the chapter five of this volume "Role of the Communist Party of India", which comprised 150 documents, it would be revealed that well accepted norms of editing had been largely disregarded. To be precise, in the document No. 56 in which the CPI wanted to portray the Congress Socialist Party, Forward Block and the RSP as the "fifth column", there was no numbering of the paragraphs. It gave an impression to the reader that the section captioned "Relations with the Fifth Column" was the first paragraph of the document whereas it was actually the second. Out of a total of 14 paragraphs, only four had been included. The exclusion of other 10 paragraphs of the documents raised questions having a bearing on the integrity, and of the document for a researcher. The paragraphs edited out probably did not go well with "purpose" of the editor. The volume was unusually bulky resulting in high cost of production and unaffordable price. About 50 per cent of the documents included were either insignificant or irrelevant to the freedom struggle as such. The slogan appeared to be "bulk is merit". Even the historical research methodology had not been properly followed, resulting in wrong and unscientific citation of documents. Similarly, it also did not contain a list of contents in each volume, an inexplicable and awful lapse. With this experience, if the ICHR did not take corrective measure, it would be failing in its duties miserably, Dr Gupta observed. He said during the term
of Prof Irfan Habib as Chairman, the first volume of this
project, edited by P.N. Chopra was reviewed after its
publication and the copies of the book were withdrawn
from the market and these were now collecting dust in the
ICHR store. |
Water freezes in pipes SHIMLA, Feb 18 — Water in pipes in the upper areas of the town froze this morning as the mercury plunged steeply following last night's snowfall. Most residents of the Jakhoo and Richmond localities went without water. This is the first time during the current winter that water has frozen in taps. Roads also became slippery due to a thin layer of snow turning to ice in the acute cold. The temperature dropped to minus 1.3 degrees celsius from minus 0.4 degrees recorded yesterday. Icy-cold winds blew across the town with the sun playing hide and seek during the day, affording little warmth.
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Clean shrine complex: Swami KANGRA, Feb 18 — Swami Virendrananda Giri, state president of the Sanatan Dharam Math and Mandir Suraksha Samiti, yesterday called for the maintenance of the sanctity of the ancient famous Virbhadra Temple in this town. The temple, was being desecrated with heaps of filth collected from all over the town being dumped just outside it, he added. The Swami asked the local municipality to clean the entire area out of regard for the sentiments of the pilgrims who visit the Virbhadra Temple. The management of the temple should maintain the temple building properly as it was in a pitiable condition. He demanded that the four natural water sources ('bowris') within the temple complex, which have been left unattended by the temple management, should be cleaned and the water made for use by the pilgrims. He also demanded that the land attached to the temple should be converted into a recreation park.
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