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| Friday, November 3, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Cricket jurisprudence A top light ministry |
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Playing with national security
Food export: is it in India’s interest?
Kings and coronets
Is Iran going backward or forward?
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Cricket jurisprudence THE expression of helplessness in official quarters over prosecuting the criminals who played cricket for the country will not do. Union Sports Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa's no nonsense approach has resulted in the rumours about the dirty deals of some cricketers being found to be true by the CBI. He talked tough when officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India appeared reluctant to accept a thorough probe by the CBI into the allegations of match-fixing and betting in cricket. He must continue to crack the whip until all the former and current Indian cricketers and administrators named by the investigating agency are made to pay for their crimes. It is clear that he is not going to give up until a legally acceptable way is found for dealing with the crimes of the cricketers. He has sent copies of the report to the Union Home and Law Ministries and has summoned BCCI President A.C. Muthaiah for discussing possible action against tainted players. However, the CBI has said that players cannot be prosecuted for want of concrete evidence and only Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Sharma can be tried under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act because they fulfil the requirement of being public servants. Mr Dhindsa who has brought the war against corruption in cricket to this stage should take it to its logical end. He should insist on the current laws being amended or new ones introduced for dealing with sport-related crimes. Here is an imaginary scenario which should help him argue the case for stringent laws for dealing with crooked cricketers and corrupt sportspersons and administrators. Pack a stadium with lovers of the game of cricket. Remove all the obstructions between the playing area and enclosures for spectators — as they do in England between intervals for letting children play and prance around. Send in Azharuddin, Nayan Mongia, Ajay Jadeja, Ajay Sharma and Manoj Prabhakar to bat or field or whatever. Their presence in the field should make the spectators transform themselves into a mob. And a mob does not need concrete evidence for delivering instant justice. Cricket is to most Indians what the game of football is to the non-cricket-playing world. Fans who treat players as demi-gods can go to extreme in the event of being let down through behind-the-stage deals with bookies and match-fixers. At least one of the cricketers named by the CBI is or was an icon and another one too had the makings of a hero. They have been found to have had feet of clay and souls of straw. Yet the law cannot punish most of the players named in the report just because they do not fall in the category of being public servants. Instead of letting them get away with the fraud they have committed, the definition of public servant should be altered because what they have done is not a one-time betrayal of faith, but a continuing problem the sport administrators the world over will have to learn to deal with. After all, the matches which the named players are supposed to have "fixed" or tried to "fix" were not mohalla-level games, but matches in which they were expected to perform the "public duty" of playing to the best of their ability for the country. India set a unique example to the rest of the world by asking the country's top crime investigating agency to examine the allegations of involvement of Indian and foreign players in match-fixing and betting in cricket. It should now take the lead by evolving what can be called cricket jurisprudence. And why just cricket, since the role of money in promoting other sport cannot be denied? And where there is money, there is bound to be some degree of corruption involving both the administrators and the players. Therefore, it would be only fair and logical if the players who represent their district or state or country are treated as public servants for the duration of their association with the sport concerned. However, since the game of cricket is treated as a religion in India a beginning should be made by putting into place a comprehensive set of laws dealing exclusively with "cricket crimes". |
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A top light ministry EVEN
going by its own track record, the BJP-led alliance government did something astonishing late on Tuesday evening. It cleaned out the top bureaucrats at the Finance Ministry, shunting out three and retaining just one. It received a silent rebuke for its labour when Dr E.A.S. Sarma went home and resigned. He is an old hand and was in charge of the crucial macro economy and overall policy planning. The only experienced bureaucrat is Mr C.M.Vasudev but he has been in the Ministry only for 16 months. Somebody forgot to tell the PMO, which normally clears transfers at the secretary level, that the budget season has started and inducting brand new faces will do no good either for continuity or insight. The new Finance Secretary is Mr Ajit Kumar, a Punjab cadre officer, who invited the combined wrath of the three service chiefs while lording it over in the Defence Ministry. Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has been unhappy with Mr Ajit Kumar’s predecessor, Mr Piyush Mankad, a colourless officer. He could not provide dynamic leadership to the team and the economy was developing several problem areas. He wanted him out even before he went to join the Asian Development Bank and used the change of Cabinet Secretary to get rid of his top bureaucrat. Apologists offer disingenuous arguments. The fiscal position is in fine fettle and the Minister wants to present a tough budget and hence the new pack. But it is known for some time that Mr Sinha has been irritated that he has to take all the blame since he is the public face of the Ministry. He has sought relief and he has got it. The flip side is that he has no more scapegoats left and the new incumbent is not famous for his amiability as a team leader. If Mr Sinha presents another wishy-washy budget in February next, his plan will backfire twice over. The unexpected reshuffle once again brings out the wooly-headedness of the government’s economic policies or what passes off for them. The long-tested Chief Economic Adviser Shankar Acharya is to leave on sabbatical. His presumptive successor Prof Rakesh Mohan is too much of an academic to offer advice compatible with administrative compulsions. With the result, four of the five men responsible for charting the economic course are new. There is Mr
N.K. Singh, a former Revenue Secretary and a sort of political commissar in the PMO but he is likely to move to Washington as India’s Ambassador. There was a time when combative or committed scholars like Dr I. G. Patel, Dr Ashok Mitra and Dr Manmohan Singh worked as Chief Economic Advisers. The Prime
Minister was advised by veterans like Prof P. N. Dhar. This apart, the ruling party had a strong economic base. The result was impressive. Except for the inglorious devaluation of the rupee in 1965, the country was spared of any major economic crisis, even if the growth rate remained tepid. Today the BJP relies solely on Dr Jagdish Shettigar and he earned this scorching comment from Prof Jagdish Bhagwati :”If he is an economist, I am a bharatanatyam dancer.” the good professor is an internationally known economist. The need for sound economic thinking has never been as acute as now. Politics has taken a backseat and all battles are fought and won on the economic front. The government, instead, is curiously thinning its meagre leadership in this area. |
Playing with national security I have often talked about the serious gaps between promise and performance in the highly sensitive area of national security. The hope that the authorities have learnt the right lessons and put things in order after the Kargil experience over a year ago seems to have been belied. Lessons have to be learnt in full. Half-learning is as dangerous as non-learning, especially in the complex defence matters. The problem with the Indian establishment is that the persons at the helm—from ministers to bureaucrats and from advisers to non-advisers — work at cross-purposes, each throwing in his punditry without understanding or going into the root of the problems in a harmonious and coordinated manner. No wonder, the top brass thinks one way and the bureaucracy-dominated Ministry of Defence thinks and acts differently. Then, we have a Cabinet Committee on National Security (CCNS) which has certain Cabinet Ministers, including the Prime Minister and the National Security Council (NSC) chief. The NSC, for all practical purpose, exists on paper. It has not been helped to grow as envisaged. Missing also is the concept of think tanks as it exists in the USA. This is a sad commentary on the state of thinking on national security. Our contemporary politics needs to be jolted out of its business. It is in the nation's interest that we should know the truth, notwithstanding the fact that defence matters are invariably wrapped in secrecy. And, ironically enough, this is done in the name of national security! The problem with our rulers and bureaucrats is that they do not draw a line between "personal security" and national security! How can we ensure transparency and accountability in the circumstances? Mr K. Subrahmanyam, Chairman of the Kargil Review Committee, has raised a number of pertinent issues frankly and honestly while delivering the prestigious Field Marshal Cariappa lecture on the "Challenges to Indian Security" in New Delhi the other day. A top defence expert, Mr Subrahmanyam's critical observations on different facets of national security must be taken seriously. He is not a politician. Herein lies his importance as a thinking person who has definite views on the way we ought to be handling our security matters. Mr Subrahmanyam knows what he is talking about. Perhaps, he raised some sensitive matters at a public platform with a view to drawing the nation's attention to the way the post-Kargil challenges are being tackled. In the first place, he has decried the "casual approach" to the question of national security which is primarily the responsibility of the Prime Minister and his immediate advisers. In this context, it is no secret that he has openly advocated that the post of national security adviser should not be combined with that of Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. I agree with him. Second, he has expressed disgust at the working of the National Security Council. In the absence of the requisite seriousness on the part of the powers that be, it has not grown as an apex body for security policy formulations originally visualised. This is a pity. We have apparently not learnt any lessons from the USA which has a similar organisation and it plays a crucial role in the evolution of American security-related policies. Third, the defence expert has pointed out that more than nuclear capability, it is necessary for the country to develop strategic policies, targeting plans and command and control systems. He is absolutely right. Proper study of strategic options is a serious business. Unfortunately, as underlined by Mr Subrahmanyam, the country has no "tradition of strategic thinking" and in the absence of the requisite interest on the part of "our political class", we have not been able to adopt "a culture of anticipatory planning for national security". To quote Mr Subrahmanyam: "Our intelligence agencies have not been equipped with and oriented towards long-term intelligence forecasting. Our foreign service is mostly geared to react to immediate events. Policy planning has never taken off in that ministry. The Joint Intelligence Committee and long-term intelligence assessments have never been given due importance because of the lack of interest in anticipatory security planning. The chiefs of staff, being operational commanders, do not have adequate time for long-term future-oriented security thinking. ...There is not sufficient awareness in the government that the country is not equipped to plan along-term national security policy. At best, it is equipped only to carry out short-term and current national security management. " The problem with our ministers is that they take public positions without properly understanding the country's strategic needs. What is not realised is that national affairs cannot be run through populist postures. Fourth, Mr Subrahmanyam regrets the prevailing lack of understanding among the leaders, the bureaucracy, business establishments and intellectuals about the nature of security problems the country is faced with. Fifth, he draws the nation's attention to the politicisation of the defence and armed forces. According to him, it reached its peak during the Kargil conflict and there has since been no improvement in the matter. This will obviously affect the country's security in times of crisis. Mr Subrahmanyam speaks the truth. Let there be no reservation on this count. As it is, the leadership has hardly cared to evolve a viable national security policy. Things were in a mess in 1962 when the Chinese struck. The limited successes achieved during the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan have several "untold stories" which do no credit to the persons who were then at the helm. In the 1971 operation, our success was mainly because of the guts and the quality of leadership of the late Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and some of the Generals actively involved in the operation. In fact, the success should help us to consolidate the gains and come up with futuristic strategies so that mistakes are not repeated. Whether the Indira Gandhi government adopted the right strategies to deal with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his government then is debatable. What is important is whether the right lessons were subsequently drawn or not. Looking back, we seem to specialise in repeating mistakes. We neither learn from history nor allow ourselves to be guided by common sense which finally decides between a success and a failure. The Kargil debacle was actually the result of a series of blunders of policy-makers and operational personnel for the past 52 years or so. There is apparently something seriously wrong with the way we have been thinking and conducting ourselves in critical areas of defence-related matters. What is wrong and where? How can we put national security on the right track? Why don't we behave like a responsible power? Of course, we talk big and wish to project India as a major power, and understandably so. Wishes, however, cannot deliver the goods unless they are backed by sound planning and concrete actions. The basic flaws in the system are manifold. There is no coordinated thinking. The left hand of the government generally does not know what its right hand is doing. Today's security matters cannot be treated in isolation. These have to be viewed in totality of geo-political realities, economic muscle, leadership quality, modern weaponry and timely strategic projection in tune with basic national interests. It is not enough to have a few smart Generals. Nor is it enough to have the Indira Gandhis and the Vajpayees to see things selectively. What is important is proper functioning of credible institutions in security and related areas which should help develop alternate strategic policies after critical studies and objective assessment of the ground realities. The effectiveness and morale of the armed forces, the soundness of the economy, the capacity of political processes to command loyalty of people, the credibility of political leadership and its advisers, the effectiveness of diplomacy to respond to changing circumstances, intellectual and moral strength are vital components in the making of security. Security matters cannot be left to the whims and fancies of the Brajesh Mishras. I am sorry to say that some of the defence advisers around the Prime Minister lack insight and expertise in crucial areas which have a direct bearing on the country's national security. What is unfortunate is that we have politicised our security concerns. That is the reason why the Defence Minister, the External Affairs Minister and other big and small fries often speak in different voices. This is not a reassuring setting. We ought to rise above personal and political considerations. Nationalism is not the monopoly of one single party. We ought to have a rational coordinated thinking and approach to security, foreign policy and economic issues with a view to evolving national consensus. It is time Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee gave serious thought to the points raised here and took corrective steps for the good of the nation. He has tremendous popular support. All that he is expected to do is to apply his mind, rearrange his priorities and assert himself to put things right in the challenging arena of national security. |
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Food export: is it in India’s interest? INDIA is faced with a piquant situation on the food front which is going to test the ingenuity and efficiency of the NDA government. On the one hand, government godowns are bursting with foodgrains, and on the other, millions and millions of Indians do not get two square meals a day. The recipe for tackling such a situation is contained in a little-known booklet by a South American economist, Ragnar Nurkse, called “Theory of Capital Formation in Over-Populated Under-Developmed Economies”. According to Nurkse, there should be, to meet the problem of lack of purchasing power, a countrywide food-for-work programme for building rural assets with labour-intensive techniques. Wages would be paid to labour in the form of foodgrains and not money. Thus there would be capital formation in the rural sector, employment would be generated and food would reach the hungry mouths. The government is contemplating exporting a part of the surplus of foodgrains. This would be the height of folly. The number of families below the poverty line is much greater than the official figure of 6.52 crore. Because of the corruption and cussedness of the public distribution system authorities, a large number of poor people do not have ration cards. India has no business to export even a single grain of foodgrain if even one mouth in the country is left hungry. Incidentally, the World Food Day, which fell on October 16, was a stark reminder that man had as yet not been able to solve the basic problem of banishing hunger from the face of the globe. Approximately, 850 million in the world are undernourished. Starvation threatens at least another 50 million victims of man-made and natural disasters. The sixth World Food Survey, released recently following the World Food Summit in Rome in November, 1998, points out that one-fifth of the developing world’s population faces food inadequacy. Nearly 45 per cent of the population in South-Saharan Africa is undernourished. South Asia accounts for 50 per cent of the world’s underweight children. The Rome Declaration says: “We express our deep concern over the persistence of hunger which, on such scale, constitutes a threat both to national societies and to the stability of the international community itself.” The Plan of Action envisages reduction in the number of undernourished people to half the present level no later than 2015, and a mid-term review to ascertain whether it is possible to achieve the target by 2010. A perusal of the Rome Declaration is a depressing experience, for the 43-page inane document is an exercise in high-sounding verbosity, unrelieved by the mention of even a single concrete step to ameliorate the condition of the hungry millions. Here is a platitudinous gem: “We will ensure an enabling political, social and economic environment designed to create the best conditions for the eradication of poverty and achieving sustainable food security.” And here is the piece de resistance: “Poverty eradication is essential to improve access to food.” Evidently, political commitment to banish hunger is conspicuous by its absence. World food security has no doubt improved. The six billion people in the world today have, on an average, 15 per cent more food per person than the global population of four billion had 20 years ago. But it is not just a question of increasing food production. An equally important aspect is rectifying the existing maldistribution. An average person in the developed world consumes 33 per cent more calories than an average person in the developing world. While touring the European Union a few years ago, I had an eye-opening exchange with a young agronomist in Rome: Q: Why did you recently bury a large crop of tomatoes? A: There was over-production and the prices were falling, hurting our farmers. Q: Why did you not send a planeload of tomatoes to hungry India? A: You see, digging a pit is cheaper than transporting food! Similar stories about destruction and wastage of food were heard by me in France, Germany, Holland and Denmark. In the USA also millions of kilograms of food is wasted every year. This is the ugly face of capitalism. Improvement of world food security requires that national initiatives in the food-deficit countries to increase production must receive strong support from the rich nations in the form of generous bilateral and multilateral assistance. Secondly, the global distribution imbalance needs to be redressed by setting up a world food buffer stock to effect the transfer of food from the surplus to the deficit areas like Bosnia and North Korea. The World Food Programme of the UN, which claims to have provided food aid to 45 million in 1998, is not enough. Thirdly, the five most notorious gun-running nations who, ironically, are also permanent members of the Security Council — the USA, Russia, Britain, France and China — should desist from pushing their arms sales to the misguided poor nations, so that they could deploy their scarce resources for food production. The Human Development Report of the UNDP has castigated these five countries for cynically promoting militarisation in the Third World in order to ensure business for their armament factories. India, which harbours the world’s largest semi-starved population, also has the dubious distinction of being the largest importer of arms! Fourthly, it is the duty of the food-deficit countries to put in place effective government-run public distribution systems to enable those with insufficient purchasing power to have access to free or subsidised foodgrains. The poorest of the poor cannot be left to the mercies of laissez faire. Fifthly, the food deficient countries should stop exporting food. India is in the vanguard of the countries which pursue this policy. In 1997-98 India exported food worth $2.3 billion. |
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Kings and coronets I have just laid aside, with regret, a fascinating book called “The Dukes” by Brian Masters who, as far as I know, is no relation of the late John Masters of “Bhawani Junction” fame. I had no idea until now that apart from the less than half-a-dozen royal dukes there still exist 26 dukedoms in Britain. The first duke was ennobled in England 650 years ago. The title is not British in origin. The prefix “dux” in the Roman Empire referred to a leader or a general whence the French “duc” came to England with the Norman conquest. The title of Duke is the highest honour the British monarch can bestow on a person not of royal descent. The fact remains, however, that the ancestors of nearly half-a-dozen of the present dukes were the illegitimate offsprings of royal mistresses. I read that Jane, Duchess of Gordon, married one of her four daughters to the heir of Lord Cornwallis with some difficulty. The Marquess, who had commanded the British forces which had surrendered to the Americans at Yorktown in 1781, thus ending the American War of Independence, was not at all keen on the alliance because the Gordon family were alleged to be tainted with insanity. However, the Duchess reassured Lord Cornwallis by saying: “I understand that you object to my daughter marrying your son on account of madness in the Gordon family. Now I can solemnly assure you that there is not a single drop of Gordon blood in her veins.” Until the reforms of the 19th century the dukes of Britain enjoyed rare privileges. They were above the law. They could not be convicted of any crime, including murder. They could run into debt without any risk of punishment. They controlled Parliament because many seats in the House of Commons were within the gift of about a dozen of them. They were the government of the land, in fact, they were England. Even today some dukes are bigger landowners than the Queen in her personal capacity. One is tempted to draw a parallel with our maharajahs and nawabs of old. They too, were very much of a law unto themselves, but only so long as they kept on the right side of the British Resident or Political Agent and, of course, could arrange fabulous shikars for the Viceroy! But the British, like many other free peoples in the world, now live in an egalitarian society. Crippling taxes and enormous death duties have impoverished many a proud possessor of a title and coat of arms going back a thousand years or more. Several stately homes in England are now no more than showpieces from which the owners earn a steady income provided by tourists and sightseers. Nearly all of them are millionaires, but only on paper, and some of them have had to sell their ancestral homes to the government who maintains them as part of the national heritage. Dukes are entitled to wear a coronet, on which there are eight gold strawberry leaves, and a cape edged with stoat skin. Sad, but true, there are several dukes today who do not possess this regalia and have to hire it for ceremonial occasions such as the opening of Parliament, coronations, state weddings and funerals. Perhaps, Winston Churchill did the right thing in turning down the offer of a dukedom, after World War II, in favour of a knighthood. “Keeping up” with one’s peers was considerably cheaper in the days of his illustrious ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough! |
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Is Iran going backward or forward? IRAN is again at a crossroads of its history. The clerics are arraigned on one side. The reformers on the other. It is a fight to the finish, for no compromise is possible. But, then, it is the people of Iran who will have the final say. That is, if the clerics do not subvert the Iranian democracy. Iran and Egypt are illustrious members of the Islamic world. Both had great civilisations compared to the nomadic Arabs, who conquered them. And both were seats of very great empires. To be proud of such past is natural to both Egyptians and Iranians. But, no, says Islamic orthodoxy. A Muslim cannot be proud of his pre-Islamic past. This is the orthodox position. Firdausi defied it by writing the Shah-nama, the history of the great kings of Iran before the advent of Islam. He was condemned and denied a Muslim burial. But the Shah Pahlavi, the last one, made amends for this slight by building a mausoleum for him. What was more, he marked the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian empire. I recall these because the Iranians are caught in a historical dilemma — they can neither forget their past nor can they embrace it. This has caused them great angst. Educated Iranians are not happy over the Arab conquest. But they are now part of the Muslim umma, although they belong to the Shia sect. Shiaism has given Iran a feeling of being unique for it has been largely developed in Iran. Today, the Shias all over the world look to Iran for leadership. But it has failed to provide any so far. In fact, Iran does not appear to know what role it is to play in the commity of nations or in human history. But this is true of all shias everywhere, now that they are a persecuted lot in most of the Muslim countries. All these are reflected in the travails of Iranian history of the last over two decades. The Iranian revolution took place in 1979. Perhaps Iranians were united in their hatred of the Shah regime. But there was little unity on anything else. They were least ready for the rigours of a theocratic state. Millions fled the country. So, within three years of the revolution, there was opposition to the clerical regime. Only repression helped the clerics to hang on to power. But the Iran-Iraq war came as a blessing in disguise. All opposition was suppressed with an iron hand. People continued to leave the country. Before the end of the seventies, a million more are said to have fled. It is interesting that the present President Mohammed Khatami was the Culture Minister in the government of Mir Hussain Musavi from the early eighties. He was forced out by 1992 for being too liberal. But he was already leading a cultural revival. This is perhaps why Ayatollah Khomenei, the new supreme leader, opposed the candidature of Khatami for presidentship in 1997. But he won all the same, which shows that the legitimacy of Khomenei as the supreme leader was no more universally accepted. It also showed that the clerics being in politics. Khatami accepts the supremacy of Khomenei, but says he (Khomenei) is under the constitution and the laws. What led to the massive victory of Khatami was the large-scale turnout of the youth and women at voting. Even today they form the solid support of the reformers. Khatami is opposed to the theocratic society and wants a civil society — a pluralist one — under laws, and a conciliatory foreign policy. By rejecting clerical absolutism, Khatami struck at the power of both Khomenei and the conservatives. But the conservatives struck back. Through their control of the judiciary, they were able to oust the best friend and righthand man of Khatami — Abdullah Nuri — from the government. And they banned all the papers which supported Khatami and the reformers. However, there were victories. At the Majlis election last February, Khatami and his allies had an overwhelming victory (80 per cent voted for them). This broke the clerical control of the Majlis. It was a clear vote against the clerics. But in April, the outgoing Majlis, ratified a series of laws to muzzle the Press. And Khomenei and the conservatives still control the security forces, the judiciary, the official media and the panels which review legislation. It is in the area of foreign policy that Khatami made some decisive moves. He was conciliatory. He wanted a dialogue with the West. One of his first acts after his 1997 victory was to say: “I, first of all, pay my respects to the great people and nation of America.” This was a bold initiative, when the conservatives still consider America the “Great Satan”. How did the Americans respond? America is divided over the Iran policy. The US business, especially the oil lobby, is in favour of making up with Iran. But the US State Department is not ready yet. So, an Iranian academic delegation which visited America was insulted. This gave a handle to the conservatives to berate Khatami. But the European Union has moved closer to the Iranian regime. However, Washington has admitted the wrongs of US policy towards Iran. By supporting the Shah of Iran, the USA made the 1979 revolution inevitable. And then it set Iraq against Iran which led to a long war. And when the USA fell out with Saddam Hussein, it tried to set Iran against Iraq. All these moves, based on crass economic interests, have kept the Middle East in a state of crisis all these years. The policy of “double containment” of both Iran and Iraq, initiated by President Clinton, was thus bound to fail. The fact is: the USA wants to make up with Iran, but on its terms. America has its eyes on the central Asian oil and gas. If it can gain control of it, it can remain the supreme power for a long time to come. Iran’s friendship can be vital. But the clerics are not yet reconciled. Nor is Washington sure that Khatami can stay his course. Iran is strategically placed. It commands the entire coastline of the Gulf, through which the oil flows. And Iran is the natural outlet of central Asia and Afghanistan. And it borders on the Caspian and the Caucuses. Iran has been making moves to normalise relations with both Saudi Arabia and Iraq. This is because there is no other way by which the region can be rid of the American presence. Already America is trying to dig in with its 5th Fleet. Iran and Iraq see it as a new threat. But as long as the Arabs see Iran or Iraq as a threat, the American presence will continue. If America cannot play one country against another, as it has been doing all these years, it will have to revise its policy. And in the new game, Pakistan is less likely to be important as a regional actor. Iran is highly important to India’s geo-political calculations. But there has never been a clear move from either side. Iran flirted with Turkey. But Turkey has gone ahead and concluded a defence pact with Israel. And Iran had hopes of linking up with Pakistan. But not a day passes in Pakistan without the murder of a
Shia. |
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Spiritual Nuggets The Word The Word alone is the essence The Word alone is the abode of joy The Word that thunders high on the mountain top. But the Qazi, Mullah and the Pandit do not know it The glory that shines within their own mortal frame. Only he who is exclusively guru-oriented knows it he who treads the path reverse shall hear the Word The Word that is one with Brahman, The Absolute. He loses himself unto himself and sees that Others see not. *** The undying flame has appeared in my mortal body. He who sees it will have his longings appeased for ever. The Word vibrates in my body telling a tale that cannot be told. The mind of the man who sees the Truth Eternal shall verily become stable; Thus says Mangat. —Mangat Ram Ji Maharaj *** Hu (the resonant sound, Kalma) is within, Hu is without Hu always reverberates in my heart. The wound in my heart aches constantly with the unabating pain of Hu's love. The darkness of ignorance departs from the heart lit by Hu. I sacrificed myself to the one, O Bahu, who has realised the significance of Hu —Abyaat-e-Baahoo, 8 *** A little spark of doubt may burn the whole stock of knowledge. —Raj Yogi B.K. Jagdish Chander, Human Values, Moral Values and Spiritual Values. *** Neither the lunar nor the solar spheres, Nor the dry land nor the waters over the earth Nor the air nor the moving winds in the limitless spaces Shall endure ever; Thou alone art! Thou alone art! —Guru Nanak Dev, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 144 |
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