E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Beyond Malleswari’s bronze 
KARNAM Malleswari's bronze medal winning performance in the weightlifting event at the Sydney Olympic Games deserves praise, but minus the hyperbole and media generated hysteria. A bronze is a bronze and even high praise cannot turn it into a silver or a gold. 

Fall and fall of rupee 
CRUDE price is rising. Share prices are falling. The rupee is losing its value against the dollar. More bad news. Crude prices will stabilise only after about a month when OPEC begins to pumpout more from October 1 and it reaches the market. Even so the fall in prices will be marginal since other factors will begin to play an opposite role. 

Reviving Congress in UP
THE replacement of Mr Salman Khursheed by Mr Sri Prakash Jaiswal, an M P from Kanpur, as the UP Congress Committee chief by the party President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, appears to be aimed at sending two kinds of messages to those engaged in an unending squabbling within the organisation. 

OPINION

SINO-RUSSIAN MILITARY TIES
Does it augur well for India’s security?
by R. S. Bedi
IDEOLOGICAL obligations in the fifties and geo-strategic and politico-economic compulsions in the nineties led the former Soviet Union and then Russia to provide enormous techno-military support to China. Nearly half of the $ 4.8 billion proceeds from arms sales last year came from China. On an average, China receives one billion worth of arms from Russia every year. 

Why this bias against Army?
by Pritam Bhullar
“THE Home Ministry should be allowed to deploy Rashtriya Rifles (RR) battalions in Kashmir so that the Army can be relieved of its internal security duties”, said Mr Gautam Kaul, Director-General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), at Bhanu on August 31. How does this measure help in relieving the Army of its internal security duties? 

MIDDLE

No, not quite forgotten
by D. K. Mukerjee
THERE have been wars in plenty in the century that has gone by, involving our country in one way or the other. There have been several heroes in these wars — declared or undeclared — a few of whom have found recognition and fame, while the numberless rest have remained unknown and nameless. The memories of the unknown heroes are sometimes honoured as in the India Gate at New Delhi commemorating the brave and fallen in World War I. 

ANALYSIS

Society to forge better ties
From Shyam Bhatia in Bournemouth
THE Liberal-Democrats Friends of India Society was launched at the party’s annual political convention in the British seaside town of Bournemouth with a long line of lords, ladies and gentlemen in attendance.

OF LIFE SUBLIME

Living in Lord's Mandir
by M. V. Kamath
WHAT can one say about Life Sublime that has not been said by the wise over the past five thousand years? I am nearing 80, older than the three score and ten vouchsafed for man in the Bible. I have lived and loved, fallen, risen, erred, often paying for my follies, constantly asking myself how best to live in a world that I did not make.

 

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Beyond Malleswari’s bronze 

KARNAM Malleswari's bronze medal winning performance in the weightlifting event at the Sydney Olympic Games deserves praise, but minus the hyperbole and media generated hysteria. A bronze is a bronze and even high praise cannot turn it into a silver or a gold. The achievement is unique because it has given Malleswari the honour of becoming the first Indian woman to win an individual Olympic medal. In overall terms, she will have to take her place behind Kashba Jadhav (1952, Helsinki) and Leander Paes (1996, Atlanta) in the short list of Indian athletes who have managed to win at least bronze medals in Olympic events. Jhadav’s was without doubt the more outstanding achievement because he was able to lift his performance to medal winning Olympian heights five years after Independence when the country did not have the infrastructure for providing world class training and coaching to budding sports persons. However, if the country has failed to raise the necessary infrastructure for training athletes for reaching the ultimate height of international superiority in any discipline after 53 years of self-rule, someone owes an explanation to the countless sport lovers for the unpardonable lapse. What is the role of the Union Ministry of Sports, currently headed by two loud-mouthed ministers, in ensuring that the Indian flag flies high in most disciplines at international tournaments. Winning should become a habit and not an occasional occurrence which makes Minister of State for Sports Shahnawaz Hussain issue a ridiculous statement. It is indeed true that the Jhadavs, the Paeses, the Malleswaris, the P. T. Ushas and the Milkha Singhs have brought passing moments of joy to Indian sport lovers. But the athletes have done so on the strength of their own talent and grit. No system or institution can claim to have contributed substantially in honing their skills.

India is capable of producing not just one but many Malleswaris capable of winning a pocketful of gold medals like Ian Thorpe, the Australian swimmer, who has become the toast of the Games by winning three gold medals. In a certain context Malleswari has done the country a signal honour by ensuring that India's name too figures in the medals list on the fourth day of the Olympic Games. So what if the USA with seven gold medals and a tally of 18 on day four was heading the table or that small countries like Ukraine and Bulgaria had managed to pick up two gold medals each? Malleswari’s bronze is also a stupendous personal achievement by an athlete who had become the target of unfair criticism by a section of the media. She was criticised by a leading English weekly for being “overweight, drinking beer and eating too much of chicken and cheese”. The magazine dismissed her chances of doing well because she was getting old and not taking interest in training. These were the jibes which steeled the resolve of the girl from Andhra Pradesh to silence her critics. It is too early to say that her performance reflects the coming of age of Indian women athletes. P.T. Usha lit the torch in 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympics and Malleswari has managed to carry it at least to the the third place at Sydney. Looking at the complete picture, it may not be wrong to say that Paes’ achievement at Atlanta four years ago marked the renaissance of Indian sport. He broke the long dry spell, spanning a period of nearly 50 years, of individual Olympic medals and Malleswari has continued the tradition by winning a bronze at Sydney. The 2004 Olympic Games would reveal whether Atlanta and Sydney were just flashes in the pan or the beginning of India's journey to excellence in not just information technology but also sport, for which no credit should go to official agencies and shoddily run sport associations.

Fall and fall of rupee 

CRUDE price is rising. Share prices are falling. The rupee is losing its value against the dollar. More bad news. Crude prices will stabilise only after about a month when OPEC begins to pumpout more from October 1 and it reaches the market. Even so the fall in prices will be marginal since other factors will begin to play an opposite role. Persisting higher prices will slow down economic growth worldwide and increase the rates of inflation and interest. That is a heady mixture and the first impact will be on countries like India where foreign fund managers have invested in the stock market. Fearing a market-determined devaluation, they will pull out, accelerating and intensifying the fall in the rupee value. On Tuesday, the second successive day of value shrinkage, the rupee was trading at Rs 46.36 a dollar and economists predicted that by the end of next month, it will slip to Rs 47. That would mean nearly a 7 per cent devaluation since April last. A rather steep downward movement. This will favourably reflect in exports, expected to grow by slightly more than 18 per cent. Even so the trade deficit will widen since imports are likely to balloon by a quarter. The area of acute concern then is foreign exchange reserves, now at a reduced $ 35 billion. Crude import will need more than $ 22 billion and if foreign investors in shares continue to liquidate their holdings and repatriate the proceeds, there will be mounting pressure on the reserves. Actually, it is the fear of increasing trade deficit and a dollar shortage that has panicked the importers into buying up dollars and brought down the rupee.

The nearly 12 per cent slump in share prices is related to the inevitable hike in the prices of petroleum products. With prices unchanged since March and crude price shooting up, the government is directly subsidising the sale to the tune of about Rs 1000 crore a month. If things remain unchanged, the total bill on this account will come to Rs 17,000 crore which is what is called the oil pool account deficit. With very little chance of crude prices crashing, all oil importing countries have to be prepared to go through a wringer: lower economic growth, lower currency value, difficulties on the foreign exchange front and higher inflation and higher interest rates. All Asian countries experienced oil price rise-induced tremors on the first two days of the week and the consensus among analysts is that more of the same is in store. Even the mighty Dow Jones and Nasdaq did not escape the ill-effects of the oil shock of the new millennium. The general mood of pessimism and despondency is reflected in the plunge which the new economy stocks suffered. Most of them hit the 16 per cent lower circuit breaker, meaning the loss of value was higher than this percentage. Here again, the process has been compressed with a few trading sessions. On September 12, the 30-share sensex stood at over 4770 points and on September 19 it had crashed to 4264 points, a loss of over 500 points. With the rather gloomy prospects held out by the latest economic analysis, the sentiments can only get worse.

Reviving Congress in UP

THE replacement of Mr Salman Khursheed by Mr Sri Prakash Jaiswal, an M P from Kanpur, as the UP Congress Committee chief by the party President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, appears to be aimed at sending two kinds of messages to those engaged in an unending squabbling within the organisation. One, this is her way of telling the faction leaders like Mr Jitendra Prasada that they cannot be allowed to gain simply by playing spoilsport. Mr Prasada, though a senior Congress leader of UP, was not consulted, as admitted by him, in the finalisation of the plan to elevate Mr Jaiswal, a dark horse by any standards. The new state party chief is an old Congressman but has never been known as a Jitendra Prasada camp follower. He held a senior position in the Narain Dutt Tiwari-led Congress before his "home-coming". Whether he will be able to build the party as the main component of what political analysts call the "third force" is not a worrying question for Mrs Gandhi. She perhaps wants to demonstrate that if the Congress can grow as a major force in the politically most significant state, it will do so irrespective of who is handed over the reins of the party. This can be taken as the second message. She should know it well by now that if the Congress in UP has struck fresh roots by growing from zero to a party with 10 MPs, increasing its vote percentage from 6 to 10, it is not as much because of the efforts of her party managers, including Mr Salman Khursheed, as owing to the sharp decline in the popularity of the BJP. People are fed up with the saffron party's strategy of polarising the voters on communal lines. They are now wiser and want economic development, which has been ignored by the BJP-led government because of the endemic infighting within the organisation, once known for its inner party discipline. Developmental activities, if any, have remained confined to a few areas. The state treasury is nearly empty and the law and order situation, instead of showing any improvement, has been deteriorating fast. Kidnappings, murders, extortions, etc, have become the order of the day. In such a situation, the Congress should have gained considerably. But it did not, or could not, because of the lack of a leadership with a mass following and the missing spirit to project a new image of the Congress.

Mr Salman Khursheed is a dynamic leader, but he has not succeeded in creating a mass base for himself. In a state with caste and community-based politics, he has also been short of ideas "for producing the brick and mortar for rebuilding the party", to use his own expression. His departure from UP is, therefore, unlikely to affect the prospects of his party in next year's assembly elections. He is good at articulating his party's viewpoints on different issues, being a lawyer by profession. One should not be surprised if he is accommodated with a respectable position in the AICC by Mrs Sonia Gandhi. But his assignment in UP was a challenging one where he failed miserably. His exit was possible anytime as he was surviving in factional politics mainly because of support from 10 Janpath. But the high command could not ignore the party's interests in view of the coming poll. The scrapping of the Congress district returning officers' list by the party's Central Election Authority headed by Mr R. N. Mirdha on charges of blatant favouritism provided the right opportunity to the high command to withdraw him from UP.

SINO-RUSSIAN MILITARY TIES
Does it augur well for India’s security?
by R. S. Bedi

IDEOLOGICAL obligations in the fifties and geo-strategic and politico-economic compulsions in the nineties led the former Soviet Union and then Russia to provide enormous techno-military support to China. Nearly half of the $ 4.8 billion proceeds from arms sales last year came from China. On an average, China receives one billion worth of arms from Russia every year. During 1991-97, Russia sold $ 6 billion worth of arms to it. Another $ 20 billion worth of high technology Navy and Air Force equipment stands projected for 2000-2004. Cash-strapped Russia is looking for the means of obtaining hard currency, even if this means bruising the sentiments of other friends. Arming of China has a direct bearing on India’s security.

The History of cooperation between the former Soviet Union and the newly emerged People’s Republic of China goes back to the fifties when they signed a treaty of alliance. Moscow was singularly responsible for laying the foundation for China’s heavy industry as well as its defence industry. But the sudden withdrawal of Soviet technicians and experts in July, 1960, in protest against their indoctrination by China turned Sino-Soviet relations into intense antagonism and mistrust. No arms were sold to China for the next 20 years.

Instead Moscow turned to another potential Asian power. From the early sixties to the late eighties the Soviet Union became the single largest arms supplier to India. Nearly 60 to 70 per cent of Indian military equipment was, at one time, of Soviet origin. It wanted India to emerge as a powerful nation, capable of countering China and standing up to US pressures in those days of power blocks. The USA had a strong dislike for India’s policy of non-alignment. It went to the extent of calling it as immoral.

The Soviet Union’s liberal approach suited India immensely. Soviet equipment was cheap and readily available on barter terms. Besides, the Soviet Union stood by India politically all through the Cold War. The 1971 treaty of Indo-Soviet friendship was significant, particularly in the face of highly inimical US attitude. Even after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, cash-strapped Russia continued to meet India’s defence requirements, albeit, in hard currency. But it also opened its supply lines to China with a vengeance.

The year 1987 saw a sudden change in Sino-Soviet relations. Soviet leader Gorbachev realised that China had become very influential. Taking cognizance of China’s geo-political importance and apprehending its own declining influence, Russia decided to revive its relations with Beijing. China was suddenly perceived as a great neighbour with vast common borders with whom it could enter into mutually beneficial cooperation. In 1994, the two signed an agreement on “no first use” of nuclear weapons against each other and non-targeting of missiles on each other. Thus, Russia began to build China once again, even though some Russian analysts felt that “feeding the tiger” was not a wise policy. Needless to say, China saw in this arrangement a great opportunity. It was looking for updating its technology and infrastructure. China has a vast reserve of one million scientific researchers of which one-third are working on defence research. And nearly 50 per cent to its R&D expenditure is in the field of defence. Russia’s excessive indulgence in China with whom India has estranged relations cannot be to its liking.

But Russia has its own constraints. It finds it hard to adjust itself to the US-dominated unipolar world. The US policy in Central Europe and its attempts to assimilate former Warsaw Pact allies manifest Russia’s embarrassment. Wooing China politically had become imperative. Besides, the scarcity of funds was holding Russia’s economic scenario and social development. The West-dominated economic scenario and financial institutions were hard to manage. Russian military was in the dire need of funds. President Putin had to cut down spending on its nuclear forces, reduce the size of its army and downgrade a number of combat units to a lower state of readiness. The beleaguered armed forces are no more in fine fettle.

Russia has a huge industrial empire of yore, comprising 1600 defence enterprises with nearly two million workers. It has a first-rate defence industry which can serve its compulsive financial needs. A high volume of arms export can earn Russia the much-needed hard currency besides enhancing its clout. The Chinese top the list in this scheme. That is how China has been receiving the state-of-the-art arms and equipment with corresponding technology on most favourable terms.

Not long ago, the Chinese armed forces were at least two generations behind other advanced countries. The entire equipment was based on Soviet technology of the fifties. Its massive strength of 10,000 T-54/55 tanks and 5,000 MiG-19, MiG-21 and TU-4 design-based aircraft were nearly obsolete. Its helicopters fell in the same category and so did its ground-based air defence systems. The navy like the army and the air force was is no better shape. These weaknesses were exposed during the 1979 China-Vietnam war which it lost badly. The 1991 Gulf war finally led to a thorough revision of the PLA’s military doctrine. Manpower doctrine was abandoned in favour of high technology and human skills.

In order to optimise the gains, the Chinese have evolved a three-fold strategy. To procure the maximum high-tech military equipment, to insist on the transfer of technology and licence production and to expose the maximum of its defence personnel to Russian knowhow in their institutes and factories.

The first and most significant contract that China signed in 1991 pertained to the supply of SU-27s. China contracted $ 1.8 billion worth of SU-27s, IL-76s and a variety of air defence equipment. Later, they went in for licence production of 300 SU-27s. The PLA was the first export customer to receive the S-300 missile system in 1992. In 1993, China went in for long-range TU-22 Backfire bombers. By 1996, it replaced its obsolete tank force by acquiring over 200 T-80U tanks. Further, it has gone in for Ka-31 AEW helicopters this year. Yet, in another significant deal, the Chinese managed to receive from Russia/Ukrain the technology for DF/41 ICBMs. Realising the importance of mutually beneficial arms trade, Russia and China signed a memorandum of military and technology cooperation in December, 1992.

As if this was not enough, China is now to receive 60 SU-30 multi-purpose aircraft between 2000 and 2005. It is noteworthy that India had ordered the SU-30s first way back in 1996 and got them upgraded to Indian specification of SU-30 MKI. India financed the upgradation cost of R&D from SU-30 to SU-30MKI, with a clear assurance that Russia would not sell SU-30MK to China or any other country in India’s neighbourhood. And yet, ignoring India’s security concerns, the Russians have gone ahead with the sale of these aircraft to the Chinese. They are also likely to transfer the technology for licenced production of 200 SU-30MKK in China. The Chinese have reaped the benefits without spending a penny for it. In contrast, China does not permit Russia to pass on to India any military technology or equipment developed jointly by them. This only shows where India stands when it comes to Sino-Soviet relations. Obviously, the Russians feel that they can afford to overlook India’s sensitivities with impunity. Russia’s impetus to Chinese arms build-up is inimical to India’s security interests, to say the least. Besides, there is a danger of China transferring this technology and equipment to Pakistan any time.

India’s armed forces have always perceived a long-term threat from China. The threat is as potent today as ever before. But what matters is how the mandarins in the MEA and the PMO see the developments. In the fifties Nehru spurned the Army Chief when he highlighted the Chinese threat. Learning from our past mistakes is not India’s strong point. Heavy rearmament by China, its policy of boosting Pakistan’s military and nuclear prowess, continued succour to Myanmar and its incursions into the Bay of Bengal are not without purpose. China’s declared policy of peace and tranquillity along its international borders is only an interim measure till it can arrive on the scene as a global power. Once it is there, its perspective will undergo a change. It will be too late for India then.

The writer, a retired Air Marshal, is a former Director-General, Defence Planning Staff, Ministry of Defence, New Delhi.

Why this bias against Army?
by Pritam Bhullar

“THE Home Ministry should be allowed to deploy Rashtriya Rifles (RR) battalions in Kashmir so that the Army can be relieved of its internal security duties”, said Mr Gautam Kaul, Director-General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), at Bhanu on August 31. How does this measure help in relieving the Army of its internal security duties? The root of this thinking lies somewhere else. And this should take one back to the interview of the Army Chief, Gen V.P. Malik, published in The Tribune on August 22.

In this interview General Malik said: “The Rashtriya Rifles was formed for low intensity conflicts, to deal with the proxy war. Now people are talking in terms of putting it under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). My God ! This way you are going to finish off the Army. They work under a unified command. They take orders from the formation commanders. They (the RR) are 100 per cent Army. If they are placed under the state armed police or other agencies like the CRPF and the BSF, there will be problems.”

General Malik expressed similar feelings in another interview: “We send our boys to the RR for two years and then they come back. If they are placed under the command of the police, their operational efficiency and Army ethos will be adversely affected”.

Why is the idea of placing the RR under the MHA taking birth in the minds of bureaucrats and politicians? To find an answer to this question, one has to first go into the origin and history of the RR.

The necessity of raising a force like the RR was felt in the early nineties when militancy in Punjab was at its peak and Army men in large numbers, about nine divisions, were deployed to quell insurgency in the state. This commitment adversely affected the Army’s operational commitments, training and relief programmes. With a view to releasing the pressure on the Army from counter-insurgency duties, it was decided that 18 battalions of the RR would be raised.

After raising six battalions in 1991, the government called a halt to further raisings because of the pressure from certain quarters that instead of these battalions, more CRPF battalions should be raised. In the meantime, the RR units deployed in Punjab in the thick of militancy gave a shining account of themselves. This turned the opinion in favour of having more RR units.

On taking over as Chief of the Army Staff in 1993, the late Gen B.C. Joshi convinced the government to enlarge this force to 36 battalions. Not only have the RR battalions and their sector headquarters, having the entire manpower and officers from the Army, proved their mettle in tackling insurgency in J and K but they have also helped in supplementing the Army strength and easing the situation to a large extent.

Had the militancy in Punjab in the early nineties and then in J and K not posed such a serious challenge to our security, the government would have never agreed to raise the RR in the first instance and then enlarge it to a sizeable force under the Army. The reason for not accepting any such proposal is that there is an inherent phobia in the minds of bureaucrats and politicians that a strong Army does not augur well for the Indian democracy.

No wonder then that every time the Army puts up a case for raising of more units for such duties, the bureaucrats backed by the politicians shoot down the proposal. And this has been happening ever since we got Independence. To take only one example, in the quantum of our forces reflected in the Karachi Agreement, 14 J and K Militia battalions were shown in J and K. But on ground, we had only seven. To complete their number, whenever the Army top brass took up a case with the government, pat came the reply on the file that instead we should raise the same number of paramilitary forces battalions. This tussle continued until 1969 when the Army gave in on this case.

What has been irking our bureaucratic set-up for the past several years is that the Army has increased its strength substantially in the name of RR battalions. Efforts, therefore, continue to be made by adopting different stances to either get them out of the way or at least delink them from the Army by turning them to the paramilitary forces’ fold. Understandably, as it is, with the Army manpower, they cannot be placed under the MHA. This will automatically necessitate changing their manpower with the paramilitary forces’ manpower.

To fill the bill in getting the RR battalions out of the way, the Fifth Pay Commission has made a laughable recommendation that the Rashtriya Rifles should be disbanded. The Pay Commission has also said that since internal security is the responsibility of the MHA, it should be given to the CRPF. The Army, the Pay Commission says, should be used for internal security duties “very rarely”. Don’t we know that “very rarely” in this context means “always” and at the drop of a hat. What is the use of making such funny recommendations that fly in the face of truthful implementation?

If the RR is to be placed under the MHA because this force (with Army manpower) has acquitted itself credibly in quelling insurgency, then rather than do this, we should implement the recommendation of the Kargil Review Committee which has been gathering dust for the last many months.

This report says that over the years the quality of paramilitary and Central police forces has not been upgraded effectively to deal with the challenge of the times, and this has led to an increased dependence on the Army to fight insurgency. The net result of this, the report further says, has been a reduction in the role of the Indian Army to the level of paramilitary forces and that of the paramilitary forces, in turn, to the level of an ordinary police. The report recommends that to enable the paramilitary forces to accomplish their task effectively, the Army’s manpower should be released after seven years of colour service (as it used to happen in the seventies) and after their release from the Army, they should be transferred to these forces. Anyone who understands our political fraternity’s psyche well, would not have even an iota of doubt about this recommendation being thrown out of the window.

Sadly, even after the Army having proved its unstinted loyalty to the political leadership and all the governments since Independence, it is not trusted. The bias of our politicians against the Army — easily noticeable during the days of Pandit Nehru — continues to permeate their thinking, resulting in the national interest of the country taking a backseat. Unless this mindset undergoes a drastic change for the better, the Army will continue to make avoidable sacrifices in Kargils of the enemy’s making.

No, not quite forgotten
by D. K. Mukerjee

THERE have been wars in plenty in the century that has gone by, involving our country in one way or the other. There have been several heroes in these wars — declared or undeclared — a few of whom have found recognition and fame, while the numberless rest have remained unknown and nameless. The memories of the unknown heroes are sometimes honoured as in the India Gate at New Delhi commemorating the brave and fallen in World War I. The “graves of the unknown soldiers” are symbolic of all forgotten heroes.

So, it was a matter of immense joy to me when someone who had gone sightseeing to Delhi came to me and said with delighted surprise: “Do you know what I saw when I visited the Air Force museum near the Qutab at Delhi? Among the portraits of war heroes of World War II was that of your brother who had won the Distinguished Flying Cross while serving in the Royal Indian Air Force and fighting the Japanese invaders in the Arakans and the jungles of Burma.” It was a surprise for me because I had not expected anyone to remember the gallantry award won nearly six decades ago in a war that was fought for the allies.

There have been other wars since then — the successful fight against invaders in Kashmir at the time of our winning Independence, the unsuccessful fight against the Chinese invasion in 1962, the Pakistani aggression in 1965 beaten back by our heroic soldiers, the Bangladesh war of 1971 when Pakistan suffered an ignominious rout, the IPKF misadventure in Sri Lanka, the successful UN missions abroad, the Kargil betrayal, and the relentless proxy war launched by Pakistan in the name of jehad. The blood of our heroes has flowed from snowclad mountain tops to dense forests, plains and moving waters, marking them as parts of India “forever” in the way the poet Rupert Brooke spoke about the English soldier fallen to his death in a foreign land: “There is some corner of a foreign field which is forever England”.

My mind flew back to the time when World War II was declared and my brother immediately enlisted in the Air Force. There was only one squadron of the newly formed RIAF with another Mukerjee as its squadron leader who later became India’s Air Chief Marshal. My brother flew his “Spitfire” with fire in his guts and courage in his veins. He used to tell us whenever he came home that he felt safer flying in the aircraft than while driving a car on the road. He used to remit us some money every month. Once there was no remittance for some months. I wrote to him a reminder care of his base headquarters. I got a reply on “toilet paper” in which my brother explained that the place where he happened to be at that time could not provide him with any other writing material. He said he would use proper paper and send us the money as soon as he got back to civilisation!!

When the war ended we were so happy that the danger was over. Peace has its tragedies no less than war. It was during a demonstration flight at Juhu beach that his favourite “Spitfire” went crashing down. With a last valiant effort he manoeuvred and saved the crowd of spectators on the ground and landed in the nearby sea. He opened the cockpit door and waved to the people ashore but a strong sea wave pulled the “Spitfire” away dragging it to the bottom.

To me and my family he was a hero. We cherish his memory and when, once in a while, we find someone spotting him as a war hero of long ago, it gladdens our heart. That solitary single squadron of the Royal Indian Air Force has grown into the indomitable Indian Air Force of today which is our pride and our protection. 

Society to forge better ties
From Shyam Bhatia in Bournemouth

THE Liberal-Democrats Friends of India Society was launched at the party’s annual political convention in the British seaside town of Bournemouth with a long line of lords, ladies and gentlemen in attendance.

— India Abroad News Service

Living in Lord's Mandir
by M. V. Kamath

WHAT can one say about Life Sublime that has not been said by the wise over the past five thousand years? I am nearing 80, older than the three score and ten vouchsafed for man in the Bible. I have lived and loved, fallen, risen, erred, often paying for my follies, constantly asking myself how best to live in a world that I did not make.

I have drunk deeply at the fountains of other peoples' wisdom only to realise that in the end life is the best teacher and learning never ceases, that knowledge is gathered fast but wisdom lingers. Painfully I have come to acquire — even if in my weakness I have sometimes forgotten — faith in those eternal values such as tolerance, mutual understanding, compassion, generosity, awareness, self-sacrifice and moral elevation.

It has taken me a long time to accept the fact that I am only too human, that I have not always been faithful to the values that I hold dear and the hardest part of my struggle has been to accept myself as I am, good, bad and base. There have been moments when in the privacy of my heart I have asked myself: How could I have been so base, so cheap, so vulgar, so thoughtless, so hurtful, so ununderstanding and so unforgiving? Those are not the moments that one wants to remember. But remember we must for in seeking one finds, in asking one receives and in knocking, the doors of wisdom are opened.

As Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel lay dying, the was heard softly to utter the words:

mangal mandir kholo dayamaya, mangal mandir kholo

These are words that we the living may well ask the Merciful. Open the doors of Thy Mandir, O Lord, open the doors of Thy Mandir. These words are relevant not only for the dying, but for the living for we don't have to die in order to live in the Lord's Mandir. We can live in it every day provided we have learnt the gentle art of living.

And what is this art? To do one's duty as best as one can; to observe one's dharma without wishing for the fruits thereof. To be detached, if that is at all possible. To strive and seek, every accepting what is, even while attempting to rise above one's station. For as Robert Browning has said: 'A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?' But above all never to be disheartened. Success does not come easily, though one might ask: what's success? In the end, striving is all. Keep up the struggle; Say not, as Arthur Huge Clough so loftily reminds us, that the struggle not availeth or that the labour and the wounds are vain. No labour is in vain for labour, when one comes to think of it, is its own award. And remember:

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

For back through creeks add inlets making

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

There are some things I have learnt, distressingly, to accept: that I have only questions but no satisfactory answers. Actually there are answers, Lord, so many of them, but none to my own satisfaction. Shouldn't then one ask questions? There is no escape from them, for as long as one functions, one thinks and as long as one thinks, one asks.

In the end, if one wants peace, one must have faith. As the Bible puts it, what finally abideth are: Faith, Hope and Charity, these three, the greatest of these three being Charity, not in the sense of giving, but in loving. And the Gita says it all, when Krishna tells Arjuna:

Tam eva sharanam gachcha

Sarvabhavena Bharata

Tat prasaadaat paraam shantim

Sthaanam praapsyasi shashvatam.

(Seek refuge in Him alone, O Bharata, in every way; through His Grace you will attain supreme devotion and the eternal place.)

I will be indeed a happy man if these words bring some peace to some heart. Me, I am an ignorant man, ever a seeker.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The devout Christian or pious Musalman when offering prayers holds his hands aloft, unconsciously pointing out that it is the Above, the Beyond, the Incomprehensible, which he is striving to approach. The Hindu immersed in Bhakti or lost in Samadhi, gets his eyes naturally shut, which clearly indicates that it is the Within, the Invisible, the Beyond, in which his mind or intellect his being merged.

Not a “religion” but “the religion” which is the soul of Islam, Hinduism or Christianity is, strictly speaking, that indescribable realisation of the Unknowable, where all distinctions of caste, colour, and creed, all dogmas and theories, the body and mind, time, space and causality, together with all that is contained therein, this world and all other imaginable worlds are washed clean off into what no words can reach.

—Swami Ramatirtha, In Woods of God Realisation Vol V, Lecture I.

***

We must know others as we know ourselves. For the true essence of man is spirit. That which makes us different from other people is but the temporary body. Beneath the bodily veil all men are the same. Thus the ones who know this reality must show love, kindness, mercy and tolerance to all people and help them to realise the truth. The social classes into which people have divided themselves are false and imaginary. For behind the human body, whatever its language, religion, sex, race or economic condition, there are spiritual beings which are, in essence, equal. Every man is a spirit that has descended into this world to evolve. For this reason, with the trials and examinations that we will all pass through we are students of the same school and passengers on the same ship, and as such, we must help each others.

—Truths That Will Unite Humanity (a booklet of Metapsychic Investigations and Scientific Research Society, Istanbul)

***

To be a true Hindu, a true Muslim, a true Sikh or for that matter, true follower of any religion is, in fact, to be a true man, man who believes in the dignity and respect of every individual on earth, man to whom all life is sacred and a boon of the Almighty.

—D.R. Vij, National Integration through Religion and Education.