E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

What next in Fiji?
THE relief over the release of Mr Mahendra Chaudhary and his colleagues in Suva is palpable. The life of the Fijian Prime Minister held hostage since May 19 was in real danger, considering the uncertainty that enveloped the island nation after the George Speight-led coup. 

OPINION

“No first use” doctrine 
India’s strategic dilemma 
by Gurmeet Kanwal
FOR some time now a major debate has been raging in the “strategic enclave”, as George Perkovich calls it in his book “India’s Nuclear Bomb”, on the issue of India’s proclaimed doctrine of “no first use” of nuclear weapons. Many analysts have averred that India has gained nothing and has unnecessarily elected to bear the horrendous costs of a first strike from its nuclear-armed adversaries by choosing to adopt a purely retaliatory nuclear policy.

ON THE SPOT

Ban hate literature against Christians
by Tavleen Singh
THE pamphlets that Father Dominick Emanuel brought with him were so filled with hatred, so seeped in venom that they seemed to scald my hands as I held them. Father Dominick is unlike most priests I have met. Unlike them he makes no effort to speak in the modulated, refined tones that men of religion like to affect. As Director of Public Affairs of the Catholic Bishops Conference he was forthright in expressing his horror at the kind of propaganda that was being spread against Christianity.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

PoT is on the boil 

TOUGH laws, like drugs and cigarette, are habit-forming among administrators and policemen. They see in a draconian rule, in this case the proposed Prevention of Terrorism (PoT) Bill, 2000, a cure-all for law and order problems of all varieties and as the recent meeting of the state Chief Secretaries and DGPs showed, welcome it with enthusiasm. But liberal lawyers, jurists and a big section of journalists oppose it for the same reason. And that is what the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) did, saying the existing laws are adequate to tackle the ongoing terrorist acts. This has obviously upset the Home Ministry which is hoping to build a consensus on the draft and get it enacted in the monsoon session itself. The NCHR criticism is a damper and the original opponents of the measure will use it to canvas a consensus against it. At the end of a meeting of the full Commission, a press release mounted a multi-pronged attack on the draft and denounced it as “incompatible with our cultural traditions, legal history and treaty obligations”. Within 48 hours, the Home Ministry went on the defensive, pointing to the present efforts at consulting political parties and state governments as a necessary first step in evolving a national opinion on the need for a softer version of the defunct TADA. It justified the proposed Bill to rub out the terrorists with bases in foreign countries. Finally, the USA has stringest laws and so has Britain. So why not India? The last one is a porous argument and does not meet headlong the commission’s repeated reference to the misuse of TADA. If that law, which lapsed in May, 1995, for want of support, could cause large-scale human rights violations, PoT Bill too can. In most states policemen, who enforce the law, have the same mindset as then and the few cosmetic touches will not change this reality.

The mention of TADA by the Commission is a loaded one. It played the catalyst in the government allowing TADA to become just a memory, a painful memory. First it wrote to the Central government about the complaints of human rights violations flooding its office. When there was inadequate response, it wrote to individual MPs to campaign against the law. It is, therefore, a broad hint that this time too it may resort to a letter war. And that will be quite embarrassing for the government. Some of the partners of the ruling NDA are human rights champions. It is one thing to counter political objection but quite another to ignore fears of violation of human rights. True, the Supreme Court has upheld the provisions of TADA but that does not refute the gross abuse of it or, at present, rule out a repetition of sordid police actions. The Commission is right in demanding that the enforcement machinery needs strengthening and the criminal justice system can do with a thorough revamping. A law is only as effective as its enforcement. And given the proclivity of the policemen to cut corners and the inability of the overworked courts to handle cases speedily, a tough law is likely to add to the commonman’s woes than frighten hardened criminals or motivated militants into inaction.

Much is being made of the safeguards introduced in the draft. They are plain window-dressing. Any FIR under the PoT Act will have to be approved by the police chief of the state within 10 days and by a review committee within 30 days, the draft lays down. Failure to stick to the timeframe will automatically cancel the FIR. In practice, the vetting will be done much before the time and as a matter of routine. The present police structure has no way of conducting an independent review leading to the rejection of the initial police claim. Also, an officer in uniform is trained to stand by his men and this bonding will make a nonsense of the safeguard. The one about confession is equally so. What is the idea of warning the detenu in writing that his statement will be used against him or allowing his counsel to be present when confessions are extracted and not voluntarily made? The fact is that this government, particularly Home Minister Advani, is a firm believer in strong action. Almost from day one, Mr Advani has been expressing himself strongly in favour of reviving TADA and asked Andhra Pradesh to frame its own version to contain the tribal militants. After the Coimbatore blasts, Tamil Nadu followed his advice but had to withdraw in the face of severe protests. This line of thinking underplays the fact that terrorism is a many-layered phenomenon and TADA then and the draft PoT Bill now focuses on the last link, the activist. A more comprehensive review of the menace will reveal that the new law grapples with the shadow and not with the substance.

What next in Fiji?

THE relief over the release of Mr Mahendra Chaudhary and his colleagues in Suva is palpable. The life of the Fijian Prime Minister held hostage since May 19 was in real danger, considering the uncertainty that enveloped the island nation after the George Speight-led coup. As deposed Deputy Prime Minister Tupeni Baba has revealed, the hostage-takers had become irrational and edgy when they expected an attack by the Fijian army and an invasion by the Australian and New Zealand armed forces. As such, seeing a weak, bearded Mahendra Chaudhary walk to freedom was indeed a “bright spot”, in the words of New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff, but the rest of the picture continues to be exceptionally dismal. Fiji’s multiracial Constitution stands abolished; the ethnic Indian minority has been stripped of political power and there are little chances of restoration of democracy in the near future. Coup leader Speight has his supporter as President and the new government is also very much his puppet. More ominously, attacks on the properties of people of Indian origin continue. There could be two possible reasons for this lawlessness. One, Mr Speight wants to maintain pressure on the Great Council of Chiefs so that he can grab power to the maximum extent possible. Two, the unrest is spiralling out of control. One would like to believe that it is the first possibility which is in operation because if that is true, then the attacks might subdue soon enough. But if the latter is the case, Fiji is in for greater trouble. Either way, the seeds of discord that have been sown can cause a bitter harvest in the days to come. Now that the Indians have been pushed out of the political structure without much ado, a concerted attempt may be made to rob their financial assets as well. In the old capital city, every single Indian property has been destroyed. Things are only slightly better in the rest of the country. Unless genuine democracy is restored as demanded, there may be an attempt to drive the Indians out of the sugarcane fields and mills that they own. That will be suicidal because the Indians have played a major role in the prosperity of the idyllic country.

There is some hope of improvement only if international pressure intensifies. Mr Speight’s threats that Fiji would meet the same fate again if there was any attempt to restore the pre-May 19 status quo are mere posturing. The world cannot succumb to his brand of armtwisting. No doubt there have been prison riots; several police stations are in the hands of hooligans. At least three tourist resorts on remote islands have been taken over by the locals claiming to champion the cause of indigenous land rights. But any capitulation to such blackmailing will be unadvisable. As it is, there has been considerable capitulation before the failed businessman who took over Parliament with the help of a few gunmen. He and his core supporters have been granted amnesty under accord reached with the military. Amnesty International is right in remarking that this immunity has sown the seeds of the next coup. Australia and New Zealand have done some tough talking on the subject. “There is no point in mincing words — he (Mr Chaudhry) was kidnapped and detained unlawfully. It was a criminal act. He was democratically elected and what George Speight and his supporters are arguing for is a racially prejudiced Constitution,” Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said. New Zealand has been equally forthright. The role these two countries play will determine to a large extent the future course of Fiji. The problem is that imposing severe sanctions will further damage Fiji’s economy, thereby hurting many of the people the world is trying to help. As such, it has to be two-track diplomacy all the way. India has not played as active a role as expected. The expulsion of Fiji from the Commonwealth is hardly its achievement because this course is already outlined in detail under the Harare Declaration and the Millbrook Action Programme. The diplomatic initiative by New Delhi has not gone much beyond discussing the matter with the visiting Mr Howard. Its argument that India would not like to be seen to be applying pressure on the present dispensation in Suva lest it has an adverse impact on Fijian Indians does not sound very convincing. 

“No first use” doctrine 
India’s strategic dilemma 
by Gurmeet Kanwal

FOR some time now a major debate has been raging in the “strategic enclave”, as George Perkovich calls it in his book “India’s Nuclear Bomb”, on the issue of India’s proclaimed doctrine of “no first use” of nuclear weapons. Many analysts have averred that India has gained nothing and has unnecessarily elected to bear the horrendous costs of a first strike from its nuclear-armed adversaries by choosing to adopt a purely retaliatory nuclear policy. On the other hand, the proponents of the no first use doctrine highlight its immense moral and diplomatic value and affirm that its proclamation has considerably assuaged the anguish of the international community at India’s nuclear tests and its declaration of itself as a state with nuclear weapons. The issue poses a strategic dilemma and indeed presents a complex challenge to rationalise.

It is now universally accepted that nuclear weapons are political weapons and not weapons of “warfighting”. Nuclear weapons can have only one rationale justifying their possession and that is to deter adversarial use of nuclear weapons against a state. However, there is a close link between nuclear weapons and a nation’s conventional military capabilities. If a nation’s conventional capability is extremely low vis-a-vis a nuclear-armed adversary, it may rationalise the need to adopt a “first use” of nuclear weapons strategy to thwart a conventional military offensive that may threaten to undermine its territorial integrity and lead to its breakup.

This is the situation that Pakistan appears to find itself in at present. While India may have no intentions of launching a major conventional offensive into Pakistan, given India’s conventional superiority (no matter how slender the edge may actually be), Pakistan has based its national security strategy on the first use of nuclear weapons to prevent its comprehensive military defeat like in 1971 and, consequently, its disintegration as a nation.

It is for this reason that Pakistan appears to be in no position to accept India’s offer of a bilateral no first use treaty as a confidence building and nuclear risk reduction measure. And, it is for this reason that Pakistani analysts, military leaders and politicians repeatedly proclaim that Pakistan will not hesitate to use n-weapons if its territorial integrity is threatened. Whether the Pakistanis have thought through the consequences of escalating a conventional conflict to all-out war by resorting to the first use of nuclear weapons and risking total annihilation in view of India’s arguably superior nuclear and conventional capabilities, is a different matter altogether.

The Sino-Indian nuclear equation is weighed heavily in China’s favour. However, India does not at present face a situation of conventional military inferiority vis-a-vis China. Though overall China’s conventional military forces far outnumber India’s due to China’s problems in inducting, deploying and logistically sustaining large forces in Tibet, India enjoys a reasonable defensive capability at present and therefore does not need a “first-use nuclear strategy to deter a conventional Chinese offensive even though it may be backed by nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles deployed in Tibet.

However, India’s existing defensive capability on the Himalayan ridgelines bordering Tibet is being rapidly eroded as China is modernising its armed forces, raising rapid deployment divisions and improving the logistics infrastructure in Tibet while dragging its feet on resolving the outstanding territorial and boundary dispute with India. If India continues to neglect the upgradation of its conventional capability and military modernisation, including the upgradation of the infrastructure in the border areas, by investing the grossly inadequate sum of around 2.5 per cent of its GDP for defence, the nation may again have to suffer the ignominy of large-scale military reverses, should China choose to fight a border war after completing its military modernisation by 2005-2010.

While nuclear doctrine must undoubtedly be based on sound theoretical underpinnings, it has to be ultimately tested in the crucible of reality. The proponents of a first use strategy for India need to more deliberately ponder the threat scenarios that might justify the unthinkable. A number of questions need to be asked. Starting with low intensity conflict (LIC) and Pakistan’s ongoing proxy war with India, would the use of Stinger or Unza surface-to-air missile by Pakistan-sponsored mercenary Islamists to bring down an Indian Air lines aircraft over Kashmir Valley justify a nuclear strike? Would a battalion or even a brigade size attack by the Pakistan army across the Line of Control (LoC), or Kargil-type intrusions on the Indian side of the LoC, that result in major gains for Pakistan, justify the first use of nuclear weapons by India when their retaliatory use by Pakistan would be a certainty? Or, would a punitive conventional response across the LoC in another sector yield better dividends?

In another scenario, such exchanges across the LoC may escalate to a large conventional conflict and Pakistan may launch its Army Reserve North through the Shakargarh Bulge in the Sialkot sector and threaten to cut off NH-1A between Pathankot and Jammu. Such an offensive would pose a grave danger to the security of Jammu and Kashmir. Would the first use of nuclear weapons be a rational choice for India? Or, would it perhaps be more prudent to launch Indian Strike Corps counter-offensives across the International Boundary in Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat, as General Harbaksh Singh did in 1965 with Lal Bahadur Shastri as Prime Minister, to make the Pakistanis recoil from their offensive in the Jammu sector? In all these cases the resounding answer no. In none of the above scenarios India’s survival as a nation-state is seriously threatened. Various other still more pessimistic scenarios could be considered but the result would be the same.

It would, of course, be far better to mutually negotiate a no first use treaty with adversarial nuclear-armed states as that would be the best nuclear risk reduction measure. Russia and China have signed a mutual no first use treaty. However, it is difficult to see such a pact becoming an early reality in the Indian context as Pakistan now bases its national defence on the first use of nuclear weapons and China does not even recognise India’s status as a state with nuclear weapons. In the absence of such a binding pact, it is worthwhile considering some essential qualifications to India’s unilateral no first use doctrine. The first is to clearly spell out that a nuclear strike on Indian soldiers even within Pakistani territory would be deemed to be a nuclear strike on India and would invite massive punitive nuclear retaliation. The absence of this rider would negate India’s conventional edge over Pakistan as the army would be forced to plan on launching only shallow, limited objective offensives to avoid risking nuclear strikes on the mechanised spearheads leading India’s advance.

The second condition should be that even a conventional attack during war on India’s nuclear establishments and nuclear weapons storage sites, that might lead to casualties from a nuclear explosion or even radiation leaks, would invite a nuclear response. Without such a declared stance, India’s adversaries are bound to be tempted to destroy strategic nuclear installations and weapons storage sites through a pre-emptive strike. Finally, state-sponsored acts of terrorism or sabotage of India’s nuclear establishments and nuclear weapons storage sites should also result in nuclear retribution against the sponsoring country. Without these inescapable qualifications, with others to be added when necessary, it would be extremely difficult for India to implement a credible no first use doctrine and to ensure the survival of strategic nuclear installations and weapons storage sites.

The writer is associated with the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. 

Restructuring higher education
by Balram Dogra

WHEN there is so much talk about “downsizing the government”, cutting down “fiscal deficit, bringing down “subsidies on education ” and “privatistion ” of higher education, we need to have a fresh look on the functioning of our universities, colleges and the entire paraphernalia of higher education. This has become more important now because on the plea of poor financial health, the State Governments have already started the process of privatisation of vocational/professional/ technical education as if privatisation is panacea or all ills of higher education.

Primarily, motivated by the renewed emphasis on professional education and understanding the national/state’s needs on a long-term basis, some suggestions are being given here to restructure higher education so that it becomes need-based, socially relevant and it continues to be a tool for upward social and economic mobility for a large section of our population.

The implementation of these suggestions would not require any funds but only the political will and a paradigm shift in properly appreciating the role of education in our society. After all, such an important area of professional/ technical education, having bearing on the long-term welfare of general public and society, cannot entirely be left to the private sector.

Each state should establish a “council for higher education” under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister concerned so as to plan and monitor the vocationalisation of education and starting of job-oriented courses. The interests of universities, industry, management institutes, vocational colleges, technical institutes and engineering colleges should adequately be represented in this council. This council may act as an apex state -level organisation for spreading professional / technical education in the state and it may also liaison on behalf of the state concerned with the international / national level technical organisations and the ministries concerned of the Government of India.

Each university should establish a “university-industry-interaction centre”under the overall charge of a senior Professor. This centre should be responsible for (i)marketing university researches / expertise to the relevant industries, and (ii) procuring research / consultancy projects from the industry to the university departments/colleges. This way, the centre can raise funds from the industry and at the same time make university research / teaching more socially relevant and applied in nature.

The said centre may also handle the job of patent registration, solicit industry help in designing need-based courses and upgrading their syllabi and provide “training and placement” facilities to the students of various professional / technical courses like MBA, MIBM, MFC, MPM, MTA, MCA, DCA, BCA, BITM, PGDMM, PGDPM & LW, DBM, degree and diploma holders in different branches of engineering and I.T.I diploma holders in various trades.

In the present-day market economy, universities need to deliver their services efficiently and effectively. This has become all the more important now when we expect universities to raise their own financial resources and they are going to be accredited by the NAAC-UGC, this year itself. So, all the universities should be reoriented and their administration restructured in such a manner that the professional academician occupy administrative positions on a tenure basis so that the administrative costs in the universities are minimised and the structure is made need- based and result-oriented. Further, this structure need to be dynamic enough so that it is capable of timely and adequately responding to the social changes. The universities will have to come back to playing their original role of providing leadership to society. This calls for appointing eminent persons with a vision and without any ideological trappings, to the positions of Vice-Chancellors. There has to be complete autonomy and de-bureaucratisation of processes in the universities so that professionals can play their pivotal role in building them into“centres of excellence”. The membership of the various decision-making bodies like the academic council, executive council, university court, finance committee etc. would also have to be changed to reflect the emerging social realities.

In every major college of the region a “department of professional studies” should be established so that this department may start job-oriented courses like BBA, BCA, CCA, DCA, BITM, PGDMM, PGDPM & LW, DBM, DAT, diploma in tourism, tourist guides, PG diploma in information technology, PG diploma in e-commerce and internet etc on a self sustainable basis. In all these courses, 50% of the seats should be filled on a payment basis and the remaining 50% of the seats be filled as free seats and the fee structure be designed in such a manner that the total cost of the course is recovered from half of the students (only from those who are admitted against payment seats). This way, the society will be able to impart quality professional education to deserving poor students along with the students coming from well-to-do families.

Each college should establish a “guidance and counselling cell”, under the overall charge of a senior faculty member. This has become all the important now when new career options are becoming available and the students need the guidance of experienced professionals for making right choices. Also, this cell should take initiative in running a “coaching centre”on a self-finance basis. Such coaching centres can provide coaching facilities to our students so that they can perform better at all-India and state-level competitive examinations for admission to best professional courses or for various types of jobs in the Government of India, central public sector undertakings, banks, insurance companies, army, central paramilitary forces, private sector companies etc.

In order to ensure that our students are able to benefit from I.T revolution, each major college should establish, maintain and run a “computer centre” with internet facilities for students, staff and faculty on a self-finance basis. To start with, it may be started on“ build and operate” basis, i.e. on the basis of hiring these facilities at competitive rates. This computer centre can act as a “laboratory” for students of BCA, BITM, BBA, PG diploma in information technology, and PG diploma in e-commerce and internet etc. While simultaneously acting as a “ cyber cafe” for other students, staff , faculty and outside public. The centre can also run short-term computer courses if its timings are properly scheduled. Needless to say that this internet facility can enable faculty and students to communicate speedily with the outside world, besides enabling them to know latest developments in their respective fields by gaining access to reputed academic/ professional/trade journals and publications.

While giving these suggestions, the financial as well as social aspects of education have been kept in mind; hence, the state governments concerned have to appreciate their role properly and design a system which promotes“ excellence” as well as “equity”. The administrators, academicians, professionals and policy planners of the present generation need to keep it in mind that all of them could come up the social and economic ladder because the system was relatively “open” for all. But, the system of “privatisation” which is being created will be “closed”for larger percentage of population and hence, increasingly exploitative and unstable. This will have disastrous consequences for social harmony, law and order, change and development. 

Ban hate literature against Christians
by Tavleen Singh

THE pamphlets that Father Dominick Emanuel brought with him were so filled with hatred, so seeped in venom that they seemed to scald my hands as I held them. Father Dominick is unlike most priests I have met. Unlike them he makes no effort to speak in the modulated, refined tones that men of religion like to affect. As Director of Public Affairs of the Catholic Bishops Conference he was forthright in expressing his horror at the kind of propaganda that was being spread against Christianity.

“I haven’t been able to bring you all the literature that has come into my hands” he said “for instance I would have liked to bring you the pamphlet that extols the virtues of Dara Singh (alleged murderer of Graham Staines) but I couldn’t find it. Take a look though at this circular that someone sent me from Raipur”.

It was called Circular 411/RO 3003 and at the very top it said, “After communicating the contents please destroy this circular”. After this followed a list of 33 instructions each of which was a call to violence or hatred. Speed up collecting explosives was at No 1 and the message to others was to arouse hatred against Adivasis, Muslims, Dalits and Christians. To give you two samples that came at No 12 and 13 in the circular. “Continue hiding idols close to places of worship of non-Hindus. Contact our headquarters to prove that churches and mosques and their pillars are part of Hindu temples. 13, Gang-rape Muslim and depressed class women during riots. Don’t show consideration for friends or acquaintances. Follow the Surat model”.

Among the other pamphlets that Father Dominick brought with him, in Hindi and English, there were several that attacked Christians specifically, charging the church with a “conspiracy” to convert under the guise of service. Unlike circular 411 these were stamped clearly with the names of one of the Sangh Parivar’s various propaganda organs.

Father Dominick said the pamphlets were important not just for the venom they sought to spread but because they usually appeared in an area just before an attack on Christians or their properties. As happened in Bangalore when a church was bombed last week. The bombing was preceded by the sudden arrival of anti-Christian pamphlets. “We discern a pattern”, said Father Dominick, “first there will be anti-Church propaganda spread through literature of this kind and then will come the physical attack”.

This pattern had been discernible, he said, since the attacks first began just over two years ago in Gujarat. There were those, I said, who linked the attacks on Christians to Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government coming to power in Delhi. Did he see the connection? He said, almost sadly, that he did see a link and it worried him because there was the Prime Minister constantly and publicly reassuring Christians that they were secure in India and yet he seemed unable to do anything about the attacks on churches, priests and Christians.

I asked Father Dominick to list for me the acts of violence that had occurred in the past two years and my question annoyed him. “Why is everyone measuring this by counting dead bodies,” he said, “is that the only form of violence?

“Are these pamphlets not violent? Whenever I give an interview I am asked to count the dead, the number of incidents, but the numbers become irrelevant when you consider the kind of hatred that is being spread”.

I explained that I was only asking for figures in order to disprove the Sangh Parivar’s current favourite lie that the acts of violence have been hugely exaggerated. Had the incident that started the violence, two years ago, in Gujarat’s Dangs district not been wrongly reported as a Christian-Hindu fight when in fact it was an inter-tribal dispute over some festival? Father Dominick was emphatic that there had been no exaggeration and that churches and prayer halls had, in fact, been targeted as had been Christians.

I told him that I was playing the devil’s advocate but did need to point out that the Western press seemed to blow up every incident of anti-Christian violence into something much bigger.

He said it surprised him that anyone should believe that the Christians were so powerful that they could influence the Western press when the truth was that Christians were a small, frightened minority. A minority that had lived peacefully in India for nearly 2,000 years and now suddenly found itself under attack.

In my role as devil’s advocate I asked him about the controversy over conversions and he said that if it were true that there was a massive campaign to convert Hindus to Christianity what explanation was there for the fact that the number of Christians in India had actually decreased. After the interview I spent some time reading through the pamphlets Father Dominick brought me and also some others including the one that glorifies Dara Singh as a Hindu hero. It was a dismal exercise. What kind of Hindutva did the Sangh Parivar hope to spread if a man who killed a missionary and his two small sons in cold blood could be treated as a Hindu hero?

So far the Vajpayee’s Government’s only defence has been that the attacks on Christians are the work of Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and frankly, it is an indefensible defence. If the ISI is so powerful that it can organise a concerted campaign against Christianity then we need to ask the Home Minister what he has been doing? Why is there no evidence? And, if there is no evidence then it is stupid to go on blaming the ISI while at the same time allowing the Sangh Parivar to continue publishing its venomous literature. Under Indian law it is a crime to publish anything that spreads religious divisions or communal hatred so will the Home Ministry explain how this kind of hate literature is being published and disseminated?

The truth is that the Vajpayee Government has been singularly unable to either protect the Christians or assure them that it is doing its best to stop the hate campaign against them.

The truth also is that the RSS has been in the vanguard of this ugly campaign. If proof were needed it came at the recent meeting of its national executive in Ahmedabad where a resolution was passed attacked the Vajpayee Government for being apologetic about the attacks.

If the Prime Minister wants to stop the campaign he can and, if he cannot stop it, he needs to explain why. The Home Minister has, more than once, announced that there is no reason to ban the Bajrang Dal and organisations of similar ilk. Fine. But, he does need to explain why pamphlets that spread hatred against Muslims and Christians cannot be banned when there are laws that forbid this kind of thing. If the Vajpayee Government does not act soon it will have to share the blame for what is going on. This is dangerous for both the government and the country.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The force of association makes out of this unreal world a reality; and the longer the company, the more real seems the shadow. But the day comes when the unreal goes to the unreal, and ah, how sad to bear.

Yet that which is real, the soul is ever with us, omnipresent. Blessed is the person who has seen the real in this world of vanishing shadows.

— Swami Vivekananda to Mme Emma Calve, May 15, 1902. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. IX

***

What will you gain by merely quoting or hearing the scriptures? One must assimilate them. The almanac makes a forecast of the rainfall for the year, but you won’t get a drop by squeezing its pages.

— The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, chapter 27

***

Our soul and mind are knotted together....Unless the soul gets released from the mind, it is never pure; it can never merge back into the Lord. To unknot this knotted together soul and mind means self-realisation.

— Maharaj Charan Singh in an interview at Minneapolis, USA, May 28, 1964

***

The Diving Essence is all purity, completely free from the accidents of form, colour, magnitude, dimension, similitude, union, separation, association, descent, issue, decline, growth, change, alteration and transaction. It is absolutely one; there is no plurality in its oneness. His existence is, therefore, described by unity and known by singularity.

— Awarif-uf-Ma’rif

***

Such is Allah, your Lord. There is no God save Him, the creator of all things, so worship Him. And He taketh care of all things.

Vision comprehendeth Him not, but He comprehendeth (all) vision. He is the Subtle, the Aware.

— The Quran, Surah VI, 102-103.

***

It is He who fashions the universe.

He possesses multifaceted knowledge

He pervades all effulgent bodies,

He supports and sustains everything, being the Creator.

He sees all and is exalted above all,

He is called “The One without a second” ....

— Yajur Veda, 17.26