I must confess that it was not an easy task to read through to the end of the piece because of the writer’s abstruse style of writing. However, I set upon the task with a stoical application of the mind which helped me somewhat to sensitise my jaded sensibilities and go through it not only once but twice. Unfortunately, my mind remained as vacuous at the end of the second reading as the first.

My friend deals in some depth only with the modern and post-modern Western civilisation but says nothing at all about the great Eastern philosophy. He refers to Kant, Hegel, Marx, Jean Francois Lyotard and W. Heisenberg. He is dismissive of most of the foundational postulates of Kant, Hegel and Marx who were great philosophers and political thinkers of their times. They have made quite valid observations and propounded theories in the context of available data.

He quotes Jean Francois Lyotard and W. Heisenberg to support his analysis of the post-modern scenario. I must admit that I am hearing the names of the last two for the first time. My ignorance, however, does not detract me from trying to understand what Dr Ahluwalia is attempting to theories. He dispenses with the “Triumph of the Spirit” quite casually in one paragraph, confining the essence, namely “the wondrous Divine spectacle”, in two sentences. I would like to quote, “Twinkling of a star, refreshing rays of the rising sun; the first cry of a new-born babe; fragrance of a flower; the amorous touch of virgin love; the frenzied glow on the face of a revolutionary going to the gallows; the wondrous Divine spectacle; these are instances — instantiations —of the spirit. The spirit is an outflowing current, an outpouring of energy, a gushing stream which does not traverse a pre-chartered course within pre-determined bounds.” Surprisingly enough, this promising premise is followed by an unconvincing and simplistic viewpoint.

In a language that reads like science-fiction, the visionary writer prognosticates, “the spirit realises itself not in ‘things’ but in processes and patterns, in relations and linkages, making up organism-like wholes within wholes, systems within systems, constituting, as such, a network of interconnections from the terrestrial to the transcendental.” Quite simple, everything falls into place like an unwinding Japanese clock. Sorry, sir, this airy dialectic dissertation passes your readers’ comprehension as to how the Divine spectacle, as described by the writer, constitutes the notion of spirit which would be the foundational principle of a global civilisation of the third millennium.

GURDEV SINGH GILL, IAS (retd)
Chandigarh

Legislators’ loot

If the sailor’s slogan is, “Join the navy and see the world”, our Indian legislator’s maxim is, “Get elected and you are made for life”. No country in the world, including the richest like the USA, gives its legislators even one-tenth of the kind of emoluments and perquisites which poor country like ours does. Only a sample of this is mentioned below.

Apart from the salary, he gets constituency, office and travelling allowances, including free rail and air travel for himself and his spouse. He gets a house, medical facilities, a foreign exchange quota and diplomatic passport. He is allowed three telephones with 50,000 free calls per year from each.

The final straw is that any legislator who has been a member of any House for a year is entitled to pension for life which increases every year, with rail passes on a life-time basis. We have 545 MPs of the Lok Sabha, 250 of the Rajya Sabha and 4500 MLAs who enjoy this wealth.

In sharp contrast to the situation in the USA except for the President, no other legislator is allotted government accommodation. They are not given any office staff and have to pay from their pocket for their telephones, stationery and even their PAs. They don’t get free air or rail passes at all, except when on official duty. The day they quit office, there is no pension or any other benefit after that.

We should not grudge our honest and hardworking legislators their present emoluments and perks, as a “rich” country like ours can easily afford this. It is only a “poor” country like the USA which cannot.