The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Black shadow on green cards

A NEW scheme launched by the German Government to grant green cards to foreign computer experts came into force on August 1. In fact, two Indian experts were among the first professionals to get the cards from the Leipzig employment office. But it has been an inauspicious start. On that very day an Indian was assaulted in a regional train in this industrial town in Saxony in eastern Germany. Germans aged between 17 and 21 attacked the 31-year-old and hurled abuses at him. What is causing concern is that this seems to be part of a spreading anti-foreigner wave. Asians, particularly Indians, are soft targets because they are easily identifiable. The youth detained for the attack was allegedly told: “Get out of here. You are taking away our jobs”. That shows that there is a lot of misgiving about Chancellor Schroeder’s ambitious green card initiative. The apprehensions are, of course, misplaced; there is no question of any job being usurped by foreigners. On the contrary, Germany is in need of these professionals to revive its economy. But that does not protect the foreigners who go there from ignorant mobs. There was a similar attack on an Indian researcher on a short-term visa two months ago, again in Leipzig. When he was coming out of a telephone booth he was badly beaten up and a dog was let loose on him. In fact, there have been 28 attacks on foreigners this year. Repeated beatings and firebomb attacks on religious places have led to at least four deaths. Ultra-rightist groups and neo-Nazis are believed to be behind these incidents. All this revives the bitter memories of 1992 when xenophobia was at its peak and foreigners were systematically targeted by skinheads. A resurgence can not only derail the green card initiative but also scare off potential investments. And if it is not quickly checked, the hatred wave may also reach the neighbouring countries. Countries like Italy have invited Indian computer professionals but if the attacks escalate, nobody would like to go there.

While lamenting this development in Germany, there is need for a bit of soul searching within our country as well. Anti-foreigner feelings are dangerously strong here as well. Leave alone foreigners, even those coming from other states suffer contempt. The sons of the soil theory has become so entrenched that each state reserves most of the jobs and seats in educational institutions for those born in the state. Slogans like “Maharashtra for Maharashtrians” have spawned much hatred. As a result, every state is becoming some kind of an island. The consequences of such a short-sighted policy can be well imagined. Unless we ourselves broaden our horizon, we will have no face to tell the Germany or any other country not to target our people who happen to go there.

Pak front for democracy

THE coming together of all the major political parties on a common platform for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan is a significant development. Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan of the Pakistan Awami Ittehad is being given credit for persuading the leaders of even the Pakistan Muslim League and the Pakistan People’s Party to join the pro-democracy movement. The sceptics have been forced to change their views about the success of the initiative following the formal show of political strength at the first all-party conference in Lahore on Sunday. The Nawabzada, who is leading the movement in the absence of Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif, (and also because he is respected for his integrity and commitment to the principles of democracy) set the agenda for the future by asking the army to go back to the barracks. If the All Parties Conference (APC) is able to mobilise public opinion in favour of early restoration of democracy in Pakistan, even General Musharraf may be forced to revise his agenda. As of today, his offer of “power devolution” has not found favour with the people or the political parties. In fact, the APC leaders showed rare courage when they warned him not to amend the constitution for implementing the “power devolution” scheme. Political solidarity against army rule, that too in Pakistan, does not always succeed in restoring democracy. But the primary reason why General Musharraf should take the APC challenge seriously has something to do with the promises he had made while overthrowing Mr Nawaz Sharif’s corrupt government in October last year. A section of the people had in fact welcomed army takeover. They were made to believe that General Musharraf was capable of weeding out corruption and helping the revival of the economy. Neither has he succeeded in ending corruption nor in banishing poverty by putting into place a well-rounded economic package.

The country’s financial situation has made the people lose faith in the General and his promises. That is the reason why the man on the street has responded positively to the APC initiative for the early restoration of democracy in Pakistan. The Nawabzada’s biggest challenge would be to keep the parties with disparate political objectives (few parties now believe in ideology) together on the pro-democracy platform before involving the people in the movement. He should learn from the experience of other countries where similar movements failed to take off because of poor homework by the organisers. Just about every ingredient is available in Pakistan for making General Musharraf take the challenge to his authority seriously. The 15-party movement can succeed in attaining the objective of sending the army to the barracks provided it remains alert to the danger of the “sabotage from within”. Many a cause has been betrayed by self-seeking individuals for a few pieces of silver. The goodwill which General Musharraf had generated last year has vanished. It is clear as daylight that he intends to cling on to power for as a long as the people of Pakistan do not rise in revolt against him. In the long run he may prove more crafty than General Zia-ul-Haq and equally ruthless in putting down political dissent. But the strength of the pro-democracy movement lies in the number of parties which have thrown their weight behind it. He would try to isolate them before destroying their movement. If the APC is able to sustain the momentum and mobilise public opinion in favour of early return to democratic rule, the possibility of the international community extending a helping hand to the movement cannot be ruled out. India should, in fact, take the lead in backing such an initiative. However, for the time being the better option would be to monitor the democracy -related developments in Pakistan.

A Constitution on paper

SRI LANKA’s proposed Constitution has been shelved even before the second reading. And the postponement of the final voting brings out in sharp focus the many irreconcilable contradictions entrenched in that country’s polity. The majority Sinhalas, led by their Buddhist monks, are convinced that the carving out of a Tamil-dominated region in the north and the east will be the first step for it to break away from their country. The Tamils who are the intended beneficiaries find the proposed devolution of power far short of their expectations. The centrists, essentially liberals without a mass base, want wholesale changes in the draft Constitution Bill, which will dilute the reforms spirit. This is reflected in the alignment of MPs. The ruling People’s Alliance’s solidarity is weakening with a Minister threatening to vote with the opposition and an MP resigning his seat in a loud protest against the Bill. The fear of popular anger is proving to be infectitous with at least eight of the 26 Tamil MPs joining the critics to avoid an LTTE reprisal. The defection which President Chandrika Kumaratunga hoped for, and unleashed her managers to organise it by whatever means, did not materialise and that made the rejection of the Bill a certainty. It would have forever killed the chances of solving the ethnic crisis; so she opted for a slightly safer way by withdrawing the Bill and redoubling her efforts to cobble together the necessary support for reviving it later. But time is running out. Parliament’s term ends on August 24. Inaction in the next two weeks will despatch the document to the archives. There is a glimmer of hope, just a glimmer. The opposition has promised support if she sticks to the bipartisan agreement and does not enlarge the area of concessions. That is totally unpalatable to her and born-again reformers. It is a big mess.

The trauma of Sri Lanka is inherent in any country which takes the route of concessions to end social division and violence. The affected section wants everything and the detractors want to yield nothing. There are votes to be had in this division and leaders tend to become chauvinistic to reap an electoral harvest. Their irrational antagonism is set in stone and they are trapped. Outside the political system religious or sectional leaders emerge first as chorus singers but later as conductors of the entrenched hate policy band. The polity is permanently split not between angry ethnic communities but between thinking groups and unthinking, emotion-driven masses and the so-called mass leaders. For them the trick is to be on the right side of the schism and for the minority of liberals the struggle is to remain sane. If the power-wielder comes from the latter group, the urge to script a new set of basic rules flounders against the ugly political and social reality. Ms Kumaratunga’s inability to impart new impulses to politics stems from this. She realised the challenge a long while ago and has devoted her time and energy since February to softening decades old mutual hostility. She conducted regular and wide-ranging talks with all political sections and sought to build a consensus. She failed not for want of efforts, but the obstacles have grown and become unmovable. She made a desperate last minute attempt by flying to Kandy on Sunday to enlist the support of the leaders of the two Buddhist orders, but the chief monks refused to see her. That sealed her peace campaign. Hers is the story of how easy it is to whip up a negative mass upsurge and how difficult it is to reverse the process.

SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
Role of governments & federations
by Amrik Singh

FOR the last couple of months the biggest story in the media has been the match-fixing scandal in cricket. Corruption is not news. What is news is the fact that our cricketers are involved in corruption and cricket, let it be acknowledged, is a passion with millions of people.

What was criminal about this act of corruption was not the betting part. Betting is, generally speaking, not illegal. In most developed countries of the world, there is widespread betting in respect of soccer. What was criminal was the act of match-fixing. When a match is played, the general assumption is that the better team would win. It is alleged in this case that it was sometimes settled in advance that a certain match would be won or lost, regardless of how the teams would play. That this was done for a certain consideration makes it a criminal act.

As everyone knows, it was a sheer coincidence that the Delhi Police stumbled upon the truth about the underworld of cricket when it was looking for something else. Not only Indians but players of other countries too were involved. As if to clinch the issue, the confession of Hansie Cronje confirmed everything!

In South Africa, an enquiry has been on for quite some time. In Pakistan, too, after a preliminary enquiry, a judge of the High Court is going into the whole thing. In our country, not uncharacteristically, the ball is in the lap of the government. In a sense, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has washed its hands off the allegation of match-fixing which will now be investigated by the CBI.

Whether the CBI will be able to prove anything conclusively or not remains to be seen. The country-wide raids carried out recently look exciting. But as everyone knows, to secure a conviction in a court of law is not so easy. To debar some players from participation would be relatively easier. And this leads to the question of what has been the role of the BCCI so far and what one can legitimately expect it to do.

Were the sports administrators unaware of what was happening? According to what is being said by different people, the opposite was true. They knew what was happening but they chose to do nothing. In contrast, the Cricket Control Board of Pakistan was much more assertive even though there was resistance from some of the players. Even now its attitude is not passive as is that of the BCCI. It is clear almost beyond doubt that the board bosses were of what was happening. Only they chose to turn a blind eye to the various questionable goings on.

While the players cannot be absolved of blame, the board administrators are no less to blame therefore. It was for them to see that appropriate measures were devised to stop this kind of thing happening. If nothing else, the board could have dropped certain players if they were not cooperative. But for the chance discovery by the Delhi Police, these things would have continued undetected, as they had over the years.

What is to be done in this situation? In my opinion, without absolving the players of their being guilty of match-fixing, the real job to be done is at the level of the sports administrators. This is easier said than done. Most of them control the structure of management so effectively that to dislodge anyone of them would be a Herculean task. But do we have a choice in the matter?

The following incident which occurred almost two decades back should make the meaning of this statement clear. Those were the days of feverish preparations for the Asiad which was due to be held in 1982. I happened to be a member of the Steering Committee by virtue of being the Chairman of the National Institute of Sports, Patiala. Till 1982, that was the premier professional body maintained by the Union government. Indeed, the Sports Authority of India was yet to be born. At one of the meetings, it was decided to buy substantial sports material from a foreign firm. Some days later there was a letter from the Asiad office asking for the measurements of everyone because a safari suit and a pair of shoes were to be presented to each member of the Steering Committee. I objected to the proposal and insisted upon the matter being put up for discussion at the next meeting of the committee.

Raja Bhalindra Singh (then President of the Indian Olympic Association) and I were two of the first people to arrive for that meeting. In his characteristically gentle tone, he asked me, “Why must you upset the apple-cart always?” My answer to him was somewhat like this: Honouring and rewarding sportsmen for their achievements was perfectly in order. An achievement in sports is the purest form of achievement, so to speak, and they deserved whatever the country could afford to do for them. But if sports administrators who had no achievement to their credit other than of managing the show were to be rewarded in any way, this would bring in the wrong kind of people into sports administration. Before this discussion could be concluded, others had arrived and the meeting began.

When this item came up for discussion I was shocked to discover that there was hardly anyone to support my point of view. The only one who saw merit in what I was saying was Arun Singh who represented Rajiv Gandhi on the Asiad Committee but did not have a vote. In any case, there was no question of voting. On finding me isolated, the chairman ruled that let the issue be decided by each member for himself. I felt so disgusted that I never even bothered to enquire as to what eventually happened. In any case, my term came to an end very soon, exactly as Raja Bhalindra Singh had predicted in the course of that argument.

The point that is sought to be made is: it is the character and integrity of sports administrators which makes all the difference. Even if there are a few black sheep, as is generally unavoidable, they can be taken care of provided the decision-makers are of the kind who stand no nonsense. During the four years that I was associated with the BCCI as one of its Vice-Presidents, there were several such people. Gradually their number has been coming down, and by now, the fixers have taken over. (This is in line with developments in every other walk of life). Unless they are reined in, not only in cricket but also in every other game things will not improve.

The job is as difficult to accomplish as squaring a circle. However, in this connection, two points need to be made. The first one is that while cricket is a non-Olympic game, almost all other games are recognised by the International Olympic Association (IOA). One of the conditions for the recognition of a national controlling body is that the government should have nothing to do with the management of the game. Let us not forget that the Charter of the IOA was drawn up at the end of the 19th century when amateurism and not professionalism was the ruling philosophy in sports. Things have changed a great deal since then but this is not the occasion to deal with that issue. The question to ask is: can anything be done as far as this situation is concerned?

Despite the adverse view of any kind of role for the government, nothing gets done in our country without governmental support. At the same time, to leave things to the government alone can worsen the situation rather than improve it. Something in-between has to be thought of. It is, therefore, suggested that there should be a standing committee of the Department of Sports which should once a year evaluate and categorise the functioning of the different sports federations in terms of their professional competence, integrity, administrative and financial rectitude and several other criteria which can be debated and agreed upon. Among the members included should be outstanding ex-sportsmen and women, some sports administrators who had distinguished themselves by their commitment to the game and integrity of conduct and a few individuals drawn from public life whose conduct cannot be questioned. A couple of them could even be ex-members of the judiciary.

This committee’s role should be first to lay down the criteria and, secondly, apply them in such a specific and transparent way that nobody, ordinarily speaking, can question their decision. If necessary, some kind of a Committee of Appeal against such a decision can also be thought of. All these details are subject to discussion. The important thing to ensure is that the decision is left to a group of people who are both knowledgeable and upright and not officials who can sometimes be high-handed or much too rule-bound. The credit rating given by them should hold good for that year and determine the kind of support and quantum which the Department of Sports should extend to the various games.

While some of the support has to be extended by both the Centre and the states as and when required, there is one particular issue which is extremely pertinent to a game like cricket; and this brings us to the second point. No cricket match can be organised without very substantial help from the police, the transport authorities and several other agencies of the government. Today this help is extended for the asking. Should not the sports federations — the BCCI is an obvious case — be charged for this kind of help?

It would be too much to assume that other federations are similarly situated. But cricket is a special case as argued above. This being so, there would be nothing legally wrong or ethically improper about charging the BCCI (and some other federations who can afford to pay) for the services extended. The amount so realised should not be treated as revenue earned by the government. Rather it should go into a fund which would be used for the promotion of sports in a variety of ways. Indeed, there would be nothing wrong with even having a provision for fining certain federations for not complying with the requirements laid down, or any instance of serious transgression as in this case.

This proposal will be resented by the BCCI and even others but in, today’s situation, it should be possible to push through such a proposal. And have the federations not asked for it? Apart from the sports federations who are bound to oppose such a proposal, several others also would have reservations in the matter. In their view, nothing positive can be done to improve sports in this benighted country of ours. This would be a negative approach. The right question to ask should be: is this a viable alternative? If so, let this move in this direction. If not, let us think of a better alternative.

It is time to recognise that nothing will come out of this long-drawn-out wrangle about match-fixing. Almost everyone has covered his tracks so effectively that not much concrete evidence may be found and there would be hardly any public outcry to punish anybody. In any case, our judicial system is so slow that it would be years before any real progress is made. It is, therefore, all the more important that the whole issue of the kind and quality of relationship between the government and the sports federations is considered be novo.

The writer is a former Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala.

Why is India surprised in every war?
by Pritam Bhullar

HAVING commemorated Kargil Victory Day on July 26, what the country essentially needs to remember is that no tribute to the fallen martyrs will be complete without absorbing the political and military lessons of the Kargil war which were learnt at a heavy cost.

Our most unpardonable mistake, nay blunder, in Kargil was that we were caught napping there and what should become a matter of national concern is that this was not the first time that we were faced with such a situation. This raises a very pertinent question on which the whole nation needs to reflect : Why is India surprised in every war ? To assess the potency of this question, we have to briefly go over all the wars that we have fought since Independence.

Immediately after the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India in October, 1947, bands of raiders backed by Pakistani troops infiltrated into the valley and reached as far as Srinagar airfield on October 26. On October 27, one infantry battalion (1 Sikh) was flown from Gurgaon to Srinagar to save the airfield. The situation was saved with great difficulty and at a heavy cost of casualties which included the Commanding Officer of the battalion. We can argue that it was due to the late accession that we were caught by surprise. One would not like to pick nits in the reasons for the delay in signing the Instrument of Accession nor in our ignoring the intelligence reports about the tribal concentration on the border a few weeks before the aggression while accepting the argument. But the fact remains that this was not the first time that we were surprised by our adversary.

In 1962, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and the then Defence Minister Krishna Menon, were absolutely sure that China would not attack India. The assurance was given to them by our intelligence agencies. This revelation had encouraged us to adopt what was called a “forward policy” towards China by establishing small posts of five to six men each as advised by the then intelligence chief.

All this happened despite the fact that in April, 1961, Army Headquarters had sent a note to the Ministry of Defence stating, among other things, that if China tried a strong incursion, the Indian Army would not be able to hold. That we were disgracefully surprised by the Chinese in October, 1962, is too well known and needs no further explanation.

In 1965, our intelligence agencies knew nothing about Pakistan having let loose its “Gibraltar Force” of trained guerrillas into the valley until the Gujjars gave some information about their presence this side of Banihal one day. However, once it was known, the Army got on to the job and cleared the valley of them in August, 1965.

This prompted Pakistan to launch “Operation Grand Slam” (armoured thrust into the Chhamb sector to isolate a part of Jammu and Kashmir) on September 1, which was aimed at capturing Akhnoor. This resulted in our losing Chhamb to the enemy. To save Akhnoor, we hurriedly launched operations in the Lahore and Sialkot sectors to draw Pakistani forces away from Chhamb.

In 1971, we were again surprised by Pakistan in the Chhamb sector when we not only lost Chhamb and withdrew to the east of Manawar Tawi but also the enemy seemed to be determined to dislodge us from the east of the Tawi. This forced our divisional commander to make plans for further withdrawal to Akhnoor. Mercifully, the corps commander flew into the sector and took charge of the operation. Thereafter, more reinforcements were ordered into the sector and the situation was restored after a determined counter-attack.

This was the second time that we were caught in a cleft stick in the Chhamb sector which resulted in our suffering very heavy casualties in men and material. What put us completely off-balance was the faux pas of our intelligence agencies which had estimated that only one Pakistani brigade was earmarked for this sector. But during the operations, five brigades were found to be engaged against us in the sector.

Having been surprised by the enemy in all the four wars that we fought after Independence, we again fell into its trap in Kargil. This was because we refuse to learn from our costly mistakes which we continue to repeat over and over again.

It is a matter of great shame that we were not only surprised in Kargil, as always before, but due to our poor equipment we also suffered abnormal casualties — 527 soldiers killed and over 1000 wounded, though it was called only a “war-like situation”. Now think of the large-scale Gulf war in which almost all the allied nations took part. Yet the total number of casualties was only about 100.

For how long are we going to get our soldiers killed because of our stubbornness and refusal to convert our wrongs into rights ? We have lighted candles on July 26, without thinking even once that there are many widows of the martyrs who have not yet got their due. There are some who have been given cheques only to be dishonoured later. Despite their moving from pillar to post, no one has helped them so far. Some of the widows have got only a part of what has been sanctioned by the government. The disabled soldiers have their own tale of woe to tell, for in their case the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations have not been implemented as yet because the Ministry of Defence is not agreeing to dispense with the review medical board by the CDA (Pensions), Allahabad.

Finally, hard lessons from Kargil call for introspection and correction. India has no institutional structure to respond to a war when it is thrust on us all of a sudden.

Besides, we do not have an integrated set-up of all the three Services to fight a modern war. Shying away from remedial measures after every war has become our wont. The political leadership of the country should bear full responsibility for our failures and correct the malaise in the system so that we do not have to face another Kargil.

Of Life Sublime

Matter as bride of the spirit
by Darshan Singh Maini

MY opening piece in this series ended on the idea of the confluence of "the sacred and the profane". And it's this theme in the larger context of our daily social and moral concerns which forms the core of the brief discourse today. The well-known thought in the West has often been both exciting and perplexing, and I've tried in my poems and other essays to find those invisible commonalties that bind the world divine and the world of the senses. If we were to use the expression "secular" in place of "profane", perhaps we would be, in some ways, closer to the meaning I'm seeking to convey. For, unfortunately, the concept of "the profane" always suggests a certain disregard of, even a certain kind of contempt for things "holy" or "sacred". It comes to mean a counter point, a second pole, as it were. But that's not really the dialectic it seems to suggest. And it's to clear up that fog that I have attempted to bring in the concept of “the secular” which is now a widely-accepted, inclusive thought in our commerce of words and values, though hugely misunderstood and misused in the world of politics, as a whole.

One could, of course, go back to ancient Indian treatises, recondite commentaries and philosophical variations on the subject in question, and quote things that strongly suggested the ineluctability of the two worlds existing and exulting in their mutualities at some point in man's quest for happiness, peace and serenity. But in the kind of space available here, I would rather take up, after my fashion, a literary text, for there's no discourse extant which can carry the weight of the lived, felt, experienced reality, with all its rich ambiguities and complexities, as work of art (a novel, a play, a great poem).

I know, sermons of our wise old saints and sages would not today be a tender of thought in the moral economy of the youth who chase pleasures on skates, and consider the moment of gratification a sufficient reason for being. Nor can, I think, stories or sagas of the great men or women of action and moral lyricism achieved in the midst of suffering and sacrifice touch their imagination. Hence the attempt to draw them into the thick of a tale that would possibly echo some of the paths they are so heedlessly treading — paths that describe symbolically their own dreams of instant love and "money-mysticism", and the desolation and alienation in the end. In a way, life is an expanding metaphor which reveals its meaning only with the passage of time.

So, I return to the text I regard as exemplum, as a brief extension of our discourse. And one most illuminating little volume, Siddharatha, (1922) by the German Nobel Laureate, Herman Hesse (which I happen to be reading again after 20 years or so) may serve my purpose. This classic novella, a part of Hesse's insightful oeuvre which includes his most artfully articulated big novel, among other similar books, The Glass Bead Game, has in a compact, lucent style, all the ingredients that his Orientalism had absorbed in his quest for the self through the fields of flesh and gold. Since the poetic, slender tale carries a part of its meaning or moral in the title itself, the Indian youth may find the story of a Brahmin boy of the Buddha's own period, closer to his pulse. Of course, the archetypel tale, we find repeated in each generation, in each country and clime. Its universality, then, is its distinctive mark, its true tender.

Briefly, Siddharatha (also Gautama's other name) is a "twice-born" Samana recluse and ascetic during his years of initiation, but he remains curiously unhappy even after a face-to-face meeting with "the Enlightened One". And then when the urgencies of the flesh become unbearable, he walks out of the web of Brahminical thought and edicts to plunge deeply and fully into an erotic affair with Kamala, a courtesan on whom he, unknowingly, fathers a son, and goes on to become a rich town merchant. But the quest for the true, undivided self still lurks in his consciousness, and finally, full of disgust and nausea over his ways, in an epiphanic moment when he's about to commit suicide, he hears one word — "Om" and his whole being is flooded with ineffable happiness. "... the sound of Om reached Siddharatha's ear, his slumbering soul suddenly awakened.... "Om", he pronounced inwardly, and he was Brahama, of the indestructibleness of life...." A wholly disenchanted man, now grey-haired and full of anxieties, has come "home", to the Creator of this enchanting world. However, it's necessary to understand the underlying message of his transformation. A journey through the pleasures of the body beautiful, and through the lure of fabulous riches, wines and victuals, is, in Hesse's view, an ineluctable stage that prepares the ground for the discovery of the marg that brings the distraught self into a state of serenity. It's thus, and thus alone, that "the still centre" is found. That, indeed, is the meaning of this rich and fruitful paradox.

And this in a different key is also sung by the Sikh gurus and divines. The holiness of the spirit is affirmed in the holiness of the body, "God's own temple". Indeed, no moksha is possible without such a medium. Later, one of the greatest bards in Punjabi poetry, the Whitmanian Puran Singh, celebrates this idea in the modern context. The inebriation of the American poet becomes the God-intoxicated poet's breakthrough when he discovers strong, affinities and echoes in the Sikh scriptures. The sublime, thus, is a state of mind when matter cannot overwhelm consciousness, and instead becomes "a willing bride", of the spirit, to paraphrase Aurobindo Ghose's words.

This too is the lesson which Siddartha learns from the wise ferryman, Vasudea, when his own 11-year-old son turns up to torment him, a father for whom the call of the blood once again becomes a trap. But eventually, he lets the boy go his own way, the unavoidable, primrose path of pleasures and find his own self and salvation. As Vasudeva, a symbolic character says: "Water will go to water, youth to youth."

In one of his cultural-critical essays, Lionel Trilling, one of America's tallest critics (with whom I had the pleasure of many an exchange during my Harvard assignment in 1970) argues that the initial veneration of money by the pilgrim Protestant settlers implied that money-making was a God-ordained pursuit, though money becomes dead matter when there's no spirit behind to make the good life a reality. Early, blind capitalism (the period through which the developing countries are now passing) became a ruthless, galloping and grasping force when the dollar became "king", and matter killed the human spirit.

Are the Indian youth and their new "gurus" listening?

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The oneness of consciousness and the world becomes evident through the practice of meditation. In the laboratory of Oneness the scientist watches his or her own consciousness or awareness, and gradually becomes free of the notion that he or she is separate from the world. The barrier between "in here" and "out there" dissolves, and the all-pervasive, infinite nature of consciousness is revealed.

If the infinite consciousness or Knower is referred to as "That", then the ultimate findings in the laboratory of Oneness can be summarised by means of three statements:

That is me.

That is you.

That is all there is.

— Glen Peter Kezwer, Meditation, Oneness and Physics : A Journey through the Laboratories of Physics and Meditation

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He who corrects the way between himself and God, God shall correct his relationship with others, and whoever corrects the ultimate goal for man God shall correct the world for him.

— Amir-al-Moemenian Ali, Nahjol-Balagheh

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To practice self-control you must conquer circumstances. Calmness is through conquest.

— Sadhu T.L. Vasvani, Gita: Meditations: "The Science of Conquest"

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When in the silence of the soul and in every phase of life you turn within and say, "Father, I have not forgotten you" — when that kind of devotion wells up from the depths of your heart — God comes to drink from the fountain of your love .

— Paramahansa Yogananda, Man's Eternal Quest

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When a man turns his face to God he finds sunshine everywhere.

— 'Abdu'l-Baha', Paris Talks, October 16th and 17th 1912