The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Slashing aid to kisans

IN its supreme wisdom the Centre has slashed the annual aid to kisans in Punjab’s border districts by as high as 12 per cent — from Rs 8 crore to Rs 7 crore this year. This is against Chief Minister Badal’s demand for Rs 9 crore, Rs 3000 for every 30,000 acres in the three districts of Amritsar, Ferozepore and Gurdaspur. How New Delhi arrived at the amount is not clear, but it seems the Centre was attracted by the figure of Rs 1 crore, which the state government wanted as an increase. Rs 1 crore it shall be even if it is a reduction and not an addition! Also, this year more bridges — 25 in all — will come up across the drain and if the promised grants are forthcoming, schools, bridges and toilets as well. Of course, this generous mood will not cost much, about Rs 20 crore, but it sounds good and projects the government as kisan-friendly. There is also the promise to step up recruitment of youth from these villages to para-military forces and lay some roads for the smooth movement of BSF personnel. Both Defence Minister Fernandes and BSF DGP Rammohan were present at the meeting from where these decision emerged. That was a clear give-away: the Centre treats the problems of the kisans with land beyond the concertina wire fence as a security problem, pure and simple. Once this argument enters the thinking, flexibility of approach flies out of the window and decisions tumble out with military precision.

The fence is a monument to the darkest period in the state in recent years. It is also a monument to whimsical thinking and action of the uniformed forces. At the height of militancy the sole objective was to stop the flow of men and arms from across the border. Also to choke smuggling. So the fence came up dotted with border observation posts. The trouble is not along the border but has a life of its own. The land on the other side of the bench but on this side of the international border has thus become a security zone. There are openings in the fence for farm workers to cross and get to work. When they return home in the evening, all are frisked — frisked after work in their land in remote villages. This is to prevent smuggling through third party. All this can be done only during the day and hence there is no night duty! Flood in the drain adds much misery which will end once bridges come up. Schools and hospitals (actually primary health centres) are adds-on and part of the indifferently run poverty alleviation and rural development schemes. Any sense of satisfaction at these much- delayed relief measures will surely be reduced by the cut in cash assistance. But the bright side is that this handout has become an annual obligation. It is long due. Incidentally, what about a review of the very concept of a fence in view of the dramatically changed situation in Punjab? Also why not find a permanent answer to the questions the farmers raise every year?

Reprieve for Jaya

THE acquittal by a special court in Chennai on Tuesday in the colour TV scam must have come as a big relief to AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha. She was earlier sentenced to a year's prison term in the Pleasant Stay Hotel case on charges of granting exemption from rules to enable an entrepreneur to build a seven-storey hotel at Kodaikanal (the sentence was suspended by the High Court). A conviction in the TV scam case would have been a debilitating political setback. Since the state government is going in appeal against her acquittal, it will be premature for her to say that "truth has prevailed". But what is significant is that the prosecutors have proved that huge bribes were paid to public servants in the case. Among those against whom damning evidence of accepting bribes from television companies to the tune of Rs 10 crore has been found in the purchase of 45,302 colour TV sets by the Jayalalitha regime in 1995 are party MP T.M. Selvaganapathy and three IAS officers. In his 134-page judgement in Tamil, the Judge has held that a decision taken at a Cabinet meeting could not be characterised as a criminal conspiracy. Ms Jayalalitha is also facing trial in the Tansi land, coal import and the Rs 66.65-crore disproportionate assets case. The former Chief Minister is perhaps on the weakest wicket in the assets case. She has all along held that these cases are politically motivated. She may get some sympathy as a woman in trouble but has not really been able to wash off the stigma that corruption during her regime had reached its peak. The ostentatious display of wealth by her is part of folklore. The road to her political comeback is going to be long and bumpy.

In any case, judgements in the corruption cases involving politicians have stopped being a barometer of their innocence or otherwise. The popular belief is that they are just rich and powerful enough to hoodwink the legal system. What they are to be worried about is the larger moral, political and social fallout. At the same time, realisation must be dawning on at least some of the leaders that even if you can wriggle out of nine out of 10 cases, the 10th one can be their undoing. Even otherwise, the botheration of fending off all these cases can be quite a burden, wiping out a sizeable chunk of assets that one may have accumulated on the sly. The signals going out may be faint but are quite clear that it does not really pay to be corrupt. Thick-skinned politicians may not turn squeaky clean all of a sudden but at least they are pragmatic enough to realise that they have to be accountable at some stage. If gaping loopholes in the legal system are effectively plugged, much-needed probity in public life can some day become reality.

Political cover-up?

THOSE who thought that Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray would be punished for his role in the post-Babri Masjid riots in Mumbai have a reason to feel disappointed. The Maharashtra government has confirmed the disappearance of crucial files related to the case. Big fish do not eat big fish; and if they happen to breathe politics through their gills, they make it a point not to betray their class. The Indian political class has evolved an effective one point strategy for collective survival. It consists of politicians attacking their "business" rivals in public, and promising them protection in private for their acts of transgressions. If the one point survival strategy looks like a straight lift from the crooks code of conduct, the similarity is incidental. The victims of the communal carnage which visited Mumbai in 1993 were promised justice. Congress leaders were more vociferous than members of other "secular" parties in condemning the "diabolical game" of the Shiv Sainiks and members of the Sangh Parivar for spreading communal hatred in the country. The Nationalist Congress Party had not been born and Mr Sharad Pawar took the lead in promising a relentless crusade against the forces of communalism as a "dedicated soldier" of the Congress. Political compulsions have now forced the Congress and the NCP to enter into an uneasy alliance for sharing power in Maharashtra. Both Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Deputy Chief Minister Chagan Bhujbal had promised legal action against Mr Thackeray and his supporters, accused of having instigated the worst-ever communal riot in Mumbai.

Of course, it is possible that the crucial files may have been made to disappear by the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party combine when it was in power. The Shiv Sena-BJP's opposition to the setting up of the Srikrishna Commission for investigating the riots and subsequent institution of cases against the culprits is well documented. They had disbanded the commission before a combination of political and public pressure forced them to revive it. The findings of the commission were made public after much dithering. But Justice Srikrishna's recommendations for action against whom, including Mr Thackeray, there was sufficient evidence of direct or indirect complicity in organising the carnage were predictably ignored. The Congress-NCP coalition had promised to undo the mischief and bring the guilty to book. That is why Mr Deshmukh and Mr Bhujbal would have to come clean about the circumstances in which the crucial files went missing from the safe custody of the state's home department. The case, registered at Dadar Police Station, was the only one which the Shiv Sena-BJP had failed to kill before demitting office. But what good is an "alive" case if the files containing clinching evidence are made to disappear? Necessary "orders" have been issued for "reconstructing" the files. By the time the "reconstruction" job is completed it may be time for fresh assembly elections. In any case, it is not for the first time that politically inconvenient files have gone missing. At some point of time the book on Indian political tricks may begin to describe "missing, "disappeared" and "destroyed" as polite expressions for describing what in common parlance is called "cover-up".

Agriculture in India-II
Punjab faces post-Green Revolution problems
by G. S. Kalkat

LAND and water are the critical resources for agricultural production. Although the high productivity levels of rice and wheat in Punjab undergirdle the national food security system, these have been achieved at the cost of over-exploitation of underground water resources, excessive mining of soils and increased cases of weeds, diseases and insects. As agricultural demands on the resource base intensify, greater attention needs to be given to sustainability and the containment of the potentially adverse environmental impact of the present technologies.

Continuous cultivation of rice and wheat on the same soil has resulted in the depletion of nutrients from soils. This is a natural phenomenon because the removal has not been replenished by additions. Our soils are inherently low in organic matter which has been further depleted by intensive cultivation and the practice of burning combine harvested rice and wheat straw. During the sixties high yields could be obtained with the application of nitrogen alone, but now deficiencies of phosphorus, zinc, iron, manganese and sulphur are widespread.

To ameliorate multinutrient deficiencies and imbalances, Punjab farmers are now using about 1.38 million tonnes of NPK fertilisers in addition to 25,000 tonnes of zinc sulphate every year. Depletion of certain minerals in the soil-plant system has resulted in the emergence of specific mineral deficiencies in farm animals. Molybdenum-induced copper deficiency as well as phosphorus, iodine and manganese deficiencies have been widely identified in dairy animals from different parts of the state. In the case of copper alone, more than nine copper-responsive disorders have been recorded in dairy animals and sheep which are adversely affecting production and reproductive efficiency, resulting in economic losses to the livestock farmers. Fluorosis and selenosis are endemic in some parts of the state. It is, therefore, of paramount importance to restore health and resilience of Punjab soils by strengthening soil testing laboratories and educating the farmers about improving soil quality by using integrated methods of nutrient management, and by training them in the identification and amelioration of nutrient deficiencies in the field. This may ultimately enable us to achieve higher cropping intensity and increase livestock productivity on a sustainable basis.

Because of labour shortage, we use weedicides. Their use has become so intense that Punjab with 1.5 per cent of the geographical area of the country uses about 60 per cent of the weedicides used in India. As a result of the emergence of rice-wheat rotation as the predominant cropping pattern, and the high use of weedicides, several new weeds have emerged and some have developed resistance to weedicides. The increased weedicide load in the soil is also harmful for its health. We have to develop innovative practices or shift to other crops which smother the weeds. We may have to adopt mechanical control of weeds by developing appropriate tractor-drawn implements.

One of the major problems confronting Punjab agriculture is the declining water-table. In order to provide food security to the nation, all-out efforts were made by Punjab to maximise the production of wheat and rice. Since 1970 this small state has supplied 155 million tonnes of wheat and 100 million tonnes of rice to the central pool of foodgrains. A critical input in this endeavour was the timely availability of irrigation water to the farmer as and when it was needed. This played a pivotal role not only in popularising the cultivation of high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat but also gave confidence to the farmer for heavy investments in terms of use of fertilisers, weedicides, etc. Since the canal water was available for only 40 per cent of the area, we harnessed ground water for irrigation. At present there are 0.93 million tubewells in Punjab, out of which 0.75 million are electric tubewells and 0.18 million are diesel-operated. For high yields, water supply at the critical stage of growth is essential. Farmers keep standby diesel engines also because of the unreliability of power supply.

As a result of better economics of rice cultivation, the area under this crop has increased from 0.23 million HA in 1960 to 2.60 million HA in 1999. Although PAU recommends that for higher yields, rice should be transplanted during the first three weeks of June, many farmers have been going for early transplanting of rice, even during the months of April-May. Because of a very high evaporative demand, early transplanting of rice puts a big drain on the underground water which has been declining at the rate of 23 cm/year in the Central Plain zone. We are also facing the problem of the rising water-table in south-western districts which has adversely affected cotton production. Researches carried out at PAU have clearly shown that after the establishment of rice seedlings the irrigation to the rice crop should be given two days after the soaking of water. This results in considerable saving in irrigation water but farmers are not following this practice. For maintaining water balance in the state, about 30 per cent area needs to be shifted from rice to other crops, but at present we do not have any viable alternative because the yields and prices of alternative crops like soyabean, groundnut or maize do not compete with rice.

If we do not take immediate steps to check the receding water-table, we will be seriously jeopardising the future of agriculture in Punjab. If the present trends continue, about two lakh shallow tubewells will need to be replaced with submersible pumps during the next 15 years at a tremendous cost which many small farmers cannot afford. The lowering of the water-table will also drastically increase the demand for electricity which is already scarce in the state. Furthermore, the quality and quantity of water at lower depths is unknown. In order to fully harness the technological opportunities for conservation and exploitation of land and water resources, it may be imperative to have regulatory policies. No policy should be adopted which tends to induce tendencies for inefficient and wasteful use of irrigation water.

Punjab has traditionally been the land of small farmers. Due to the subdivision of land-holdings more than 50 per cent farmers in the state cultivate less than two hectare land, and about 80 per cent farmers are below the average per capita income of the state. In the foreseeable future Punjab will remain wedded to intensive small holder agriculture. For providing livelihood security to our people in this scenario, it is necessary to develop backward and forward linkages, to integrate agricultural development with non-agriculture and non-farm sectors, and to develop innovative institutional arrangements for sustained income growth. A growth strategy along this pathway requires very clear policy thrust on industries in the rural areas. In the long run, an exclusive focus on agriculture will not bridge the gap between rural and urban incomes regardless of the level of production achieved. Obviously, there is need to diversify from high-yielding to high-value crops and livestock such as fruits, vegetables, fishery, dairying, forest farming, bee-keeping and mushroom production. Value-addition to agricultural and livestock produce should be promoted in a big way. These diversification options are technically feasible and economically viable. However, the available infrastructure and institutional mechanisms are grossly inadequate to meet the requirements of these diversification options. Investments in the modernisation of rural techno-infrastructure, post-harvest handling and processing, market intelligence and the use of modern tools of information technology must be promoted in a big way to meet the emerging challenges.

India's Partition in 1947 resulted in a large-scale migration of population, disruption of economic activities and food shortages in Punjab. Immediately after Independence steps were taken for the rehabilitation of refugees, consolidation of land-holdings and improvement of irrigation facilities. Development and dissemination of agrotechnologies and simultaneous development of support services by the government during the sixties and the seventies resulted in a quantum jump in food production, popularly known as the Green Revolution.

As we have entered the new millennium, Punjab agriculture is again at the crossroads, and we are facing second-generation Green Revolution problems. There is need for making concerted efforts for effectively and expeditiously addressing the challenges faced by the agricultural sector. These include reducing pressure on land; improving the quality of education and making it more vocationalised; developing technologies which increase productivity, reduce the cost of cultivation and make our produce nationally and internationally competitive; and conserving soil and water — the only natural resources the state has. The next 10 years are crucial for implementing need-based programmes, strengthening institutional mechanisms and undertaking policy initiatives for maintaining the number one position of Punjab in agriculture. If Punjab is unable to do this it will lose its leadership role.

If Punjab does not develop the human capital capable of using the latest technologies. (e.g. gene technology) to develop new farming practices, diagnosing field problems and adopting ameliorative measures, and if it continues over-exploitation of soil and water, it will not only lose the race (for which the milestones of success are economic competition and quality) but also face serious inequalities and grave problems of relative poverty with accompanying evils.

(Concluded)

The writer is Vice-Chancellor, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.

IT education: the challenges ahead
by Praveen K. Singh

INITIATING a career in a satellite town used to have many handicaps even in the era when the number of jobs available in the government sector was significantly high. The modern era characterised by information technology, or what we refer as the ‘IT’ revolution, has not delivered any tangible benefits to the residents of these areas. Of course, there are far too many so-called computer institutes in each of such towns. But there is lack of appropriate regulatory authority for controlling the quality of what is being taught in these institutes. No doubt, there is the Department of Information Technology in many states and also at the level of the Central Government, but it is not very effective so far. It is also clear that such mandatory regulatory authority having control over the quality of provisions by all computer shops (nee institutes) seems to be a matter of time.

The reasons for the ineffectiveness of IT education in these towns have more to do with the lack of suitably qualified trainers. The demand for quality IT professionals is tremendous in Indian metropolitan cities like Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore as also in most developed countries. In that case, either the quality trainers are lured to Indian metros or eventually migrate to greener pastures in the West. On the other hand, the students in most of the computer institutes in satellite towns are left high and dry.

At the end of getting a diploma from an IT institute located in any satellite town, that too with considerable spending, the students often find that what they did learn was insufficient on many counts. One, they did not do their projects in prestigious companies and, therefore, developed no idea of the applicability of their learning. Two, the courses were not updated and sometimes even the emphasis in the courses at institute was not on what was expected by the industry. Three, the level of motivation of other participants in the course could be lower than what could be found in Delhi. The institution never went at length to cultivate such skills as confidence-building, assertiveness, working in teams, problem solving, and the presentation of written and oral material or what we call as effective communication. The necessity of business skills such as marketing, finance, enterprise development and medical and legal transcription was never stated to be important.

Such a picture of pessimism would become far too gloomier if the level of benefits, which IT training has offered to our villagers, is quantified. The direct benefits to the individual villager are few. No doubt, the reach of the government to the villagers has improved at a pace which was unimaginable only a year ago. Riding the story of success of IT in rural development are the states of Andhra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Possibly Punjab and Haryana are likely to join the group sooner than later. This does not mean that the people in the towns and villages are becoming IT-literate at a faster pace. IT-literacy may be a rather far-fetched dream as many of the villagers are not literate in the crudest sense.

Democratisation of literacy, then education and along with it IT education are social obligations which the government must provide so that the quality of life of most of its citizens gets better. The difficulties could be many but we must overcome them. The core areas of human development are right to information, education and health. Realising that a large number of IT professionals will be required to be retained in small towns and villages for IT training, it is high time for the government, planners and the private sector to prioritise the provision of a sufficient number of quality trainers.

The only way that seems possible is training the trainers or what we can call IT teachers. While the trainers at a university and college with a Ph.D. degree, most of the times, have been found competent to teach, the situation in the schools, in particular, is alarming. Teacher-training academies that can train a variety of teachers for schools seems to be the answer. Courses can be offered at the levels of Junior Basic Teacher (JBT), Bachelor of Education and Master of Education in Information Technology. The problem can be best tackled by opening an institute of this nature in each state at the initial stage. This institute not only should train the teachers in IT but also in the areas where IT can have its practical use. Such areas may be business management, enterprise development, environmental management, agricultural management and health management. With such a mandate, the institute can bring IT to the centre of activity in most areas. This strategy will fit into a vision where Haryana can reap the maximum benefits as the dominant partner of the National Capital Region (NCR). It is time to get on the job!

The writer, a senior civil servant employed with the Indian Railways, is a keen observer of the information technology scene.

The parrots
by S. P. Singh

WHEN, one day I spotted a parrot sitting on my ber tree its beauty enchanted me. I found its shining green colour, red beak, and the red lining around its neck, very attractive. Perched gracefully on a twig it was assessing the opportunities for enjoying tasty ber fruits. It watched the surroundings for a while and flew away. I wished it had stayed a little longer.

After an hour or so, a group of parrots descended on my tree. The parrot that I saw earlier must have invited them! They screeched in tandem, announcing their arrival and started devouring the fruits. My wife also came out as I watched the scene. She observed the loss of fruits. She clapped to scare the birds. They flew away openly expressing their displeasure through loud collective screeches. I did not quite like my wife’s action. I told her: “This tree was not grown by your father-in-law. We have come to acquire the tree just by chance. It happens to be on the compound of the house that has been allotted to me by the university. These birds too have a right to consume the fruits.”

As the fruits ripened, the frequency and number of parrot visitors increased. We realised that they would finish the fruits and nothing would be left for us. There was, now, a conflict between the objectives of enjoying the aesthetic beauty of the graceful birds and our eating tasty bers. When there is a conflict between mundane and sublime interests, often men go in for the mundane. The same happened in this situation also. We decided to protect the fruits from the rampaging birds. We used all the methods thought effective by us and also others advised by our friends to stop the parrots. But, all our efforts were in vain. The parrots left practically nothing for us. They come and destroy the yield every year. They do the same to our guavas.

I would not mind the parrot sharing the fruits with us in some equitable manner. But, I did not like the way they wasted the fruits. They would cut the fruits into pieces, take the seeds, crush them and eat the giris inside the seeds. A heap of wasted fruits, the parts that humans eat, would be littered on the ground everyday. I wonder if the parrots have learnt this profligacy from humans, as they have lived in their close company as pets for long!

The parrots imitate their masters. One has to try hard to teach the parrots to recite God’s name: “Mitthoo, Ram Kaho”. But they pick up abuses quickly, almost spontaneously. Perhaps, that is how and why the parrots adopt wasteful methods of consumption! Man destroys invaluable forests. He depletes limited natural wealth. He pollutes his environment for an unmindful pursuit of conspicuous consumption goals. May be, the parrots have quickly learnt the undesirable human behaviour!

Arjuna's anguish at Kurukshetra
A fusion of Bhakti & Shakti
by V. N. Dutta

Spiritual Nuggets

IT is the harmonious combination of philosophic poise and fervent action that fulfils the purpose of life; a fusion of Bhakti and Shakti. What could be a greater lesson for a nation? But unfortunately throughout history we have forgotten it, much to our peril, at most crucial times.

The Bhagavadgita is acknowledge as world's great scripture. T.S. Eliot wrote that the Gita was the next greatest philosophical poem to Dante's Divine Comedy. Both the Gita and the Divine Comedy unfold the mysteries of human life, reach a higher degree of exaltation, and are the explorations of spiritual awareness.

Mahatma Gandhi expressed his profound gratitude to the Gita when he wrote in 1925: "When disappointment stares me in my face and all alone I see not one ray of light, I go back to the Bhagavadgita, and I find a verse here and a verse there, and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming tragedies — and my life has been full of external tragedies, and if they have left no visible, no indelible scar on me, I owe it all to the teachings of the Bhagavadgita."

The Gita remained with the Mahatma his life-long companion like Homer's Illiad was with Alexander the Great.

The Gita is not a revealed scripture. In its foundation it is a Vedantic work and is ranked almost as a 13th Upanishad. It is mainly philosophical and intellectual in its method. There is in it a free play of dialectics on the serious problems of human existence. A spate of scholarly literature has appeared on the Gita in the West and India giving different interpretations of its meaning and method. Naturally, a work of philosophy and religion like the Gita provides ample scope for a variety of views.

What part of the Gita fascinates most depends on one's preference and choice. Aurobindo Ghosh thought that the glory of the Gita lies in the manifestation of world spirit (Visvarupa) when Arjuna is face to face with Divine Power in the 11th chapter. To Tilak, Karmayoga was the essence of the Gita; and some of our firebrand revolutionaries derived inspiration from the Gita in their fight against the British during our freedom struggle.

Speaking generally, the first chapter of the Gita is ignored. The opening chapter allows us a glimpse of the fearful struggle that goes on in Arjuna's mind. It shows the insight into the heart of man. Here is Prince Arjuna, a renowned warrior, highly intelligent, sophisticated, passionately curious about the how and why of things. He is perpetually restless, dynamic, striving and Faustian. He is unlike his uncouth and rough brother Bhima appearing on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.

Arjuna asks his friend and divine charioteer in the battlecar to place him between the armies of the Pandavas and the Kurus so that he might see those when he was to fight.

The magnitude of the crisis before Arjuna and the very survival of his family mandated that he should take the law in his own hand to vanquish his foes. He was not squeamish or hesitant about resorting to a drastic bloodbath. His conscience was clear; he knew what he was after; he knew his teachers, friends and foes. It was not a personal vendetta he sought. He had come determined to fight. Instinctively, he abhorred violence, but this time he could claim divine support and authority, and therefore could justifiably own entire responsibility for the outcome. He felt that he had no choice but to resort to violence in order to prevent his own and his family's annihilation.

Seeing the battle-scene it flashed on Arjuna that he was going to be an instrument of great slaughter of his friends and the kindred, including his own revered teachers. Such a spectacle horrified him. What should he do in such a predicament which exasperated him, he asked. His mind was bubbling with ideas. What would he gain if he won the battle but lost the soul? It was a Hamlet-like state of mind, 'To be, or not to be, that is the question'. He was torn with anguish. 'Better, the life of a mendicant living upon alms than the Dharma of the Kshatrya', he ruminated.

It was a critical moment for him. It seems as though he suffered a serious nervous breakdown, a pathological case of study fit for a brilliant neurologist. At the battlefield of Kurukshetra, Arjuna fumbled and faltered, and the bow in his hand fell down, and then the 'tiger of men', who had conquered sleep, and fought with his left hand, flopped down in his chariot saying: ‘If the sons of Dhritarashtra, weapons in hand, should slay me, unresisting, unarmed in the battle, that would for me be better. I will not fight’.

Krishna deplored Arjuna's cowardly inaction. He rebuked Arjuna from whom he expected firm a decision, and prompt action. Krishna regarded Arjuna's scepticism of a most superficial kind. The scepticism was mere film over his heart which throbbed with the tenderest affection.

It is Arjuna's weakness which inspires our sympathies. He is no hero cast in semi-divine mould. His imperfections no less than his tender feelings are intensely human. His eyes were brimming with tears at the sight of those who were likely to be killed at his hand.

The leitmotive of the Bhagavadgita is the close friendship that existed between Krishna and Arjuna. There was one being, and only one in the world whom Arjuna felt that he could trust, and it was Krishna, and in him his trust remained unshaken to the end.

There is one God.
He is the Supreme Truth.
He, the Creator,
He is without fear and without hate.
He, the Omnipresent,
Pervades the universe.
He is not born,
Nor does He die to be born again.
By His grace shalt thou worship Him.
Before time itself
There was Truth.
When time began to run its course
He was the Truth.
Even now, He is the Truth
And Evermore shall Truth prevail.

— Sri Guru Nanak Devji's Japuji Sahib. Mool Mantra

* * *

Oh Lord God, Creator of the universe (and source of all great powers), of Holiest nature, be gracious, we beseech Thee, to dispel all our miseries (vices and evil propensities), and to bestow upon us what is good.

O God, Thou art splendour, give me splendour; Thou art valour, give me valour; Thou art power, give me power; Thou art vitality, implant vitality in me; Thou art righteous indignation, implant righteous indignation in me; Thou art endurance, give me endurance.

— Vedic prayers, Yajur Veda, 30.3; 19.9.

* * *

Our Father who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done
in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts as we
forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;
For thine is the kingdom, and the power
and the glory, for ever. Amen.

— Christian prayer; The Gospel according to St. Mathew. 6: 9-13.

* * *

Homage to the Blessed One, the Venerable One,
the All-Enlightened One.
I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dhamma.
I take refuge in the Sangha.
— A common Buddhist prayer

* * *

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
Praise to be Allah.
the Lord of the Worlds.
The compassionate, the Merciful,
Lord of the Day of Judgement.
Thee do we serve and Thee do we beseech for help.
Guide us on the right path.
The path of those upon whom
Thou hast bestowed favours.
Not those upon whom
wrath is brought down,
Nor those who go astray.

—The Holy Quran, Al-Fatiha (opening Surah)

When Arjuna first appears on the scene one cannot fail to be struck by the painful moral isolation of his position. No one around him seems to share in the least the great sorrow that weighed him down. He poured forth all the anguish of his soul to his confidant Krishna. He felt overwhelmed by the burden of the solemn duty of revenge enjoined on him by his friend and guide.

Krishna thought that Arjuna was bound, hand and foot, by the trammels of conventionality, and the exigencies of the time required the destruction of the old structure and the building of the new one. Evil and injustice must be fought at all cost. But Krishna found Arjuna mistaking the shadow for substance.

Seeing Arjuna’s eyes full and distressed with tears, Krishna smiled. What a smile it was! It is a thousand pities indeed that no great painter or poet has cared to capture the enigmatic or perhaps inscrutable smile in his creative work. Perhaps it requires the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare to produce such a work of creative excellence. Vinci's Mona Lisa smile is our priceless cultural treasure.

Up to the 10th chapter Arjuna keeps asking Krishna quite a number of questions which agitate his mind about duty, action and the meaning of life. The problem is how to live and what to do with one's life. Arjuna's questions are precise, significant and still relevant. There is a timeless quality about them. Questions and answers are co-relative and form a lively and meaningful dialogue between a versatile shisya and a philosophic and sagacious guru.

Arjuna is a dialectician, and Krishna by grasping the nettle of Arjuna's doubts, explains his point of view through illustrations, historical precedents, and by his philosophical discourse on divine knowledge. It is in the 11th chapter that Arjuna completely surrenders to Krishna, the Godhead visitant, but this he does not after seeing the manifestation of his Divine Power with the help of Divine eyes given to him for the purpose to understand the Ultimate.

The Gita has many surprises to give to its readers, and every time we read it we find it telling us things unexpected and startlingly new. The central point of the Gita is brilliantly presented by Sanjay in the last but one verse of the Gita when he says: 'Wherever there is Krishna, Yoga's Lord, wherever is Partha, the archer, assured are there prosperity, victory and happiness. So I think'.

It is the harmonious combination of philosophic poise and fervent action that fulfils the purpose of life; a fusion of Bhakti and Shakti. What could be a greater lesson for a nation? But unfortunately throughout history we have forgotten it, much to our peril, at most crucial times.

The writer is an eminent historian