 |
Thursday,
April 26, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
|
Pre-election defeat Ignoring the martyrs Pak court fells Musharraf |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Deliberations at Deoband Conference
Young at 100, and in polluted
Delhi
India, Pakistan should
sign no-war pact: Qasim
The objective-subjective
spectrum
|
|
IT is a delicious irony that AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha stands to garner thousands of extra votes in the May 10 election but cannot personally benefit from the windfall. Her party-led front is poised to win a comfortable majority but she stands stripped of the right to become Chief Minister. This then is the fallout of the rejection of her nomination papers from four Assembly constituencies. All the four returning officers, junior district-level officers, quoted the same law and 1997 instructions from the Election Commission (EC) in support of their decision. The directives seemed clear-cut at that time but a recent Madras High Court judgement has injected an element of confusion. The EC had then said that a candidate convicted in a criminal case for more than two years stood disqualified. The High Court has specifically said conviction is the finding of a court and sentence is for a period. Hence the more than two-year bar refers to the sentence and not conviction. And in Ms Jayalalitha’s case the sentence stands suspended to permit her to go on appeal. Election officials are making much of a remark by the judge that conviction and sentence are inseparable although he has also added that the trial process itself is continuing and will end only when the final revision petition runs its course. The EC should have reviewed its four-year-old instructions in the light of the High Court order. The rejection of her nomination papers has ejected her from the fight but not from electioneering. Given her maniacal energy, she will don the mantle of victimhood to drum up support. Politics in Tamil Nadu is leader-driven and of late caste-centred. The caste factors favour the front Ms Jayalalitha leads. For the DMK-led front to the woes of incumbency factor has been added the Tehelka tapes fallout. She will harp on the administration-inspired rejection of her papers to prove two things. One, the DMK is jittery and, two, Chief Minister Karunanidhi hates women. Her supporters are fiercely loyal and staged stray incidents of violence on Tuesday. In a sharply polarised state where emotion rather than reason sways the masses, she has acquired a powerful new weapon. She has already made it the central campaign issue. Both Mr Karunanidhi and she love to personally attack each other and the latest development will inject an ugly edge to it. In the state there is much verbal violence even if the polling itself is peaceful. It is bound to touch a new low next month. |
|
Those who join the security forces are mentally prepared to lay down their lives for the country. But the kind of death that has befallen 16 BSF men in Pyrdiwah at the hands of Bangladeshis goes beyond the realm of sacrifice. Their bodies bore telltale marks of horrible torture. Any uniformed force, be it the Bangladesh Rifles or the regular army of that country, ought to be ashamed of such inhumanity. Even when dealing with the personnel of an enemy nation — which India is not — uniformed people cannot stoop to committing such heinous crimes. After all, gentlemanliness is one of the first virtues taught to a soldier. And yet, that is what the soldiers of several countries do. Pakistanis brutalised Indian soldiers held captive during the Kargil incursion in a similar manner. And now, the Bangladeshis have given an equally horrendous account of themselves. The bodies handed back to the BSF were so badly mutilated that it was not possible to distinguish one man from the other. As a result, the bodies were not sent back to the families and the cremation was done at the border itself. How traumatic this had been for the families can be only imagined, considering that lighting the funeral pyre of the deceased is considered one of the most important last rites. In such circumstances, it was expected that the authorities would go out of their way to share the agony of next of kin, but nothing of that sort happened. Some families had not even been officially informed about the death six days after these took place. Imagine getting to know of the death of a family member through unconfirmed media reports. In fact, when some journalists went to the families of the slain soldiers in Punjab the other day, they found that the families were not aware of the tragedy which had befallen them. The media men came back shell-shocked. Even where the benumbing news has reached the families through dreaded telegrams, the apathy of the administration is too cruel for words. The family members lament that the leaders who shed copious tears over the heroic deeds of the martyrs have not found time to visit the families or to even send condolence messages. The Haryana Chief Minister has done well to announce an ex gratia of Rs 10 lakh for next of kin of the martyrs. Otherwise, there is a general feeling that partiality exists even in the matter of honours bestowed on martyrs, depending upon which force they belong to and where they laid down their lives. While the exploits of those who were killed in Kargil are mercifully recounted, there is hardly any mention of those who die at the hands of militants in Jammu and Kashmir every day. |
|
Pakistan ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf could not have expected such a drubbing as he has got at the hands of the country's Supreme Court. In two judgements in April alone the apex court has bluntly told the self-appointed Chief Executive that he is no messiah for the people of Pakistan, and the sooner he leaves the scene, the better. His much-publicised campaign against corruption in high places has been punctured. When he launched it with the introduction of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance within weeks of his coming to power through a military coup in October, 1999, he had promised to break the backbone of corruption, which could help infuse a new life into his country's ailing economy. But the weeks and months that followed provided proof that the provisions of the Ordinance were used to punish certain groups of people — inconvenient politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, etc — so that he could perpetuate his rule. The politicians not in his good books alleged that the NAB was being used to discredit them in the eyes of the public. Human rights activists criticised the Ordinance for its provisions depriving the people of their basic rights. The Pakistan apex court has upheld their viewpoint by describing parts of this draconian measure as "repugnant" and deserving to be struck down. General Musharraf should thank his stars that the Ordinance per se has been saved. But the Chief Justice has reminded the military ruler that the Supreme Court expected the Army to respect the country's constitution under all circumstances. A few days back Chief Justice Irshad Hassan Khan, in his foreword to the annual review of the judiciary, reminded the military regime to stick to the deadline it had set — October, 2002 — in May last for handing over the reins of power to elected representatives of the people. He did not stop at this. He also remarked that irrespective of the causes for the military action in October, 1999, the armed forces' prolonged involvement in running the government could not be "countenanced " by the court. The military regime's job is, in his opinion, limited to holding general elections within the timeframe fixed by the court. In the first week of April also the ruling General was humiliated by the apex court when it went against his quietly expressed desire and ordered retrial of PPP leader Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari on corruption charges. The court noted that the Lahore High Court Bench was biased against Ms Bhutto in disqualifying her from occupying any public office for 21 years, besides sentencing the former Prime Minister to five years imprisonment. General Musharraf, it seems, is devising a plan to remain part of the power structure when the democratic process is revived. It is widely believed that he has entered into a deal with Ms Bhutto, who is scared of her retrial despite her moral victory. She has offered him the country's presidentship in case her party captures power in the coming elections. Both have a common enemy in Mr Nawaz Sharif, now exiled in Saudi Arabia. Any arrangement can be acceptable to them to keep Mr Sharif away from the political arena. Indeed, power politics has strange rules. |
|
Deliberations at Deoband Conference An estimated half a million delegates recently attended the “International Deoband Conference” at Taro Jaba near Peshawar. While most of the delegates came from madrasas in Pakistan, there were also a number of them from Afghanistan and India. The conference was organised by the Jamiat Ulema-I-Islam (JUI) of Pakistan headed by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a cleric from North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Libya had sent a high-ranking envoy, Mr Abdullah Jibran, to the conference. He read out a special message from Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qadhafi. According to reports from Pakistan, a number of Deobandi leaders from India attended the conference, including the highly respected Maulana Asad Madani and the Vice-Chancellor of the Dar-ul-Uloom, Deoband (UP) Maulana Marghoob-ur-Rahman. The organiser of the conference, the JUI, has a continuing history of support for terrorist groups made up of fundamentalist, religious fanatics. They came into prominence during the CIA and ISI supported struggle against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. They were somewhat marginalised by General Zia-ul-Haq, who extended greater support to groups close to the Jamaat-e-Islami, then headed by a relative of General Zia, Mian Tufail Ahmed. But when the Benazir Bhutto government decided to arm and train a new force for the ISI’s Afghan jihad in 1996, it turned to its coalition partner, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, to provide the cadres and leadership of the Taliban from the madrasas the JUI controlled in the NWFP and Baluchistan. The Taliban emerged from these madrasas to take control of most of Afghanistan with the active support of the ISI that provided arms, training and even officers and men from the Pakistan army, to participate in its military operations. The JUI has not confined its activities to supporting the Taliban alone. When the ISI decided that secular groups like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front had to be sidelined in Jammu and Kashmir, it started supporting fanatical jihadi terrorist groups like the Harkat-ul-Ansar, now known as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. It is well known that the supporters of the Harkat are linked to the JUI and that they have camps in Pakistan and in the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan. The hijacking of IC 814 to Kandahar was organised by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The detained Harkat leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, who was released and taken to Kandahar in the wake of the hijacking of IC 814, was and is a close friend and associate of Maulana Fazlur Rahman. The hijackers including the brother of Maulana Masood Azhar were all supporters and members of the Harkat. Azhar has now set up a new terrorist outfit called the Jaish-e-Mohammad. The UP police recently gunned down three terrorists of the Jaish near Lucknow. Maulana Rahman also has made no secret of his sympathy and support for Chechen separatists and their “jihad” against Russia. Thus, the conference near Peshawar was organised by the people who are internationally known as being religious extremists, given to supporting “jihadi” causes and terrorism across the world. The highlight of the three-day conference near Peshawar, from April 8 to April 11, was the prominence given to the messages of Colonel Qadhafi, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and international terrorist Osama bin Laden. In his message read out by the Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister, Mullah Ahsan Akhund, Mullah Omar slammed the United Nations as a Western tool and claimed that Muslims were being oppressed in Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya. He asserted that Muslim countries were being subjected to all forms of aggression by non-Muslim powers, with the United Nations doing nothing to help Muslims and Muslim countries. Osama bin Laden described Mullah Omar as a “champion leader” because of his actions like the destruction of the statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan and for resisting armed attacks from “anti-Muslim elements”. The delegates from India quite obviously did not want to be drawn into the controversies that were bound to arise because of the rhetoric of Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden and Maulana Fazlur Rahman. Maulana Asad Madani, who was the chief guest at the concluding session, confined himself to praying for Allah’s religion to be observed by Muslims. Maulana Marghoobur Rahman made a scholarly speech referring to the educational, literary and political achievements of Dar-ul-Uloom in Deoband, UP. He urged Muslims to refrain from aggression so that they were not labelled as terrorists or fundamentalists. In marked contrast, their host, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, strongly criticised the United Nations for its alleged hostility to the Muslim world. He poured venom on the USA and voiced support for the “oppressed Muslims” in Kashmir, Palestine, Bosnia and Chechnya. The resolutions adopted by the International Deoband Conference have far reaching implications. One resolution expressed concern over the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia and called on the Saudi government to expel the soldiers of the USA and its allies from the Muslim holy land. This is a demand that has been consistently voiced by Osama bin Laden. The conference thus became a tool of extremists who would not hesitate to criticise the governments of the Gulf Arab States. Another resolution called for the formation of a united Muslim block outside the United Nations to “liberate” Palestine and Jerusalem. Given the close association of the JUI with virulently anti-Shia groups like the Sipah-e-Sahaba in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan, even Iran is not going to welcome the causes espoused by the conference, despite its strongly anti-American overtones. More importantly, such a conference could never have been held in Pakistan that is ruled by a military dictatorship without the support and encouragement of the military government itself. Gen Pervez Musharraf’s government has after all banned political gatherings and even prevented foreign travel by political leaders whenever it has found it necessary to do so. The permission accorded to the JUI to host the conference clearly indicates that General Musharraf has signalled to the people in Pakistan that he understands and supports the causes espoused by the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Despite the rhetoric of Mullah Omar and Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the resolution on Kashmir adopted by the conference is balanced. This resolution merely calls on the political leadership of India and Pakistan to find a peaceful and just solution to the Kashmir problem to save the subcontinent and Asia from a nuclear confrontation. The resolution must have been something of a disappointment to the organisers, the fundamentalist Jihadi groups in Pakistan and to General Musharraf and his government. It is quite obvious that neither Maulana Madani nor Maulana Marghoob-ur-Rahman would have countenanced the sentiments voiced by their hosts and Mullah Omar about Kashmir being reflected in the conference resolution. It is to their credit that this was made abundantly clear to their hosts. The Dar-ul-Uloom and the Deoband leadership are held in high esteem not only in India but also throughout the world, primarily because they have sought to emphasise the egalitarian and spiritual values of Islam. Their role during India’s struggle for Independence, when they rejected the proposals for partition of the country, gives them a place of honour and respect. But the leaders in Deoband would have to ask themselves honestly whether it is not a fact that religious bigots like Maulana Fazlur Rahman, Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden have tarnished the name of Deoband and the tenets of Islam by their practices and policies. Was not the name of Deoband hijacked by such people to organise a conference that extolled bigotry and violence and seriously sought to undermine the policies of the governments in friendly Arab countries like Saudi Arabia? It is time for those who cherish the values that Deoband has consistently stood for and espoused to openly dissociate themselves from the resolutions passed and the extremist and bigoted views expressed at the conference they attended. The writer is a former High Commissioner of India to Pakistan. |
|
Young at 100, and in polluted Delhi He looks so full of life. He manages to climb up and down his first floor studio many times a day. Unbelieveable for a man who has turned a centurion. But that is the reality. This smart person is not an unknown entity. He is B. C. Sanyal, the grand old man of Indian creative art. Even at this stage in life he is busy with his work. That may be one reason why he has been blessed with 100 years and in reasonably good health despite his busy schedule and the polluted air of the national Capital. Born in Dibrugarh, Assam, Professor Sanyal became what he is today after he got an opportunity to shift to Lahore at the age of 27. The Congress had announced to hold its Lahore session and it needed the services of Sanyal for a plaster statue of Lala Lajpat Rai. At the call of the nationalist organisation he shifted to the thriving cultural centre of the country north of Delhi and made it his home. In a few years he became Vice-President of the prestigious Mayo School of Art. Circumstances forced him to resign his job, but this benefited Lahore. In 1936 he set up an equally respected institution named the Lahore School of Fine Arts in the basement of Dyal Singh Building. On the premises of this institution he met a girl 18 years younger and soon the two decided to become man and wife. Snehlata, his wife, was a theater artist and represented the Indian People's Theatre Association. He had nurtured the Lahore School of Fine Arts for over a decade with the sweat of his brow when the news came that he would have to say goodbye to the city. The news related to partition. He shifted to Delhi, which was obviously proud of the arrival of the great artist. He was given land to build a house-cum-studio in Nizamuddin East. But Sanyal, a visionary-painter, sculptor and pedagogue, gave to Delhi more than he got from it. After establishing the Delhi Shilpi Chakra with the help of other artists he joined the Delhi Polytechnic as Professor in 1952. Later he was offered the post of Secretary and fellowship by the Lalit Kala Akademi and he served it with distinction. Several awards, including Padma Bhushan, have been bestowed on him, but Sanyal gives the feeling as if he is like any other artist. That is the greatness of the man, admired by artists and art lovers in India and abroad. Despite all this, he has found time to devote to Project Andretta in Himachal Pradesh. One wishes him many more years so that he can ensure the realisation of his Andretta dream. Balkanisation, ahoy This time it is balkanisation of the Balkans. It is not a metaphor for disintegrating nation-states but a description of the material reality. Politicians and academics used the term balkanisation to the process of big powers splitting a multi-religious, multi-lingual state into small bits and then with equal ease stitching them together. This often happened in the hapless region of the Balkans and it gave political lexicon an alarming word to understand a phenomenon unleashed by medieval passions and modernist theories. Montenegro threatens to break away from what remains of the federation with Serbia, the moral inheritor of the erstwhile Yugoslavia. The momentum is unstoppable, not because the people want to be their own masters but because they do not want to have anything to do with the domineering Serbia (the Slobodan Milosovic land). If Montenegro detaches itself from the federation, it will be time for the Albanians in Kosovo to demand freedom. That will make Serbia a state and not the name of a federation. That will be the time to bury an impossible dream of Josip Broz Tito who created modern Yugoslavia and held it together by the sheer power of his personality. There are more worrying developments in other former states of Yugoslavia, although they do not command media attention. Take the federation of Croatia and Bosnia. This was created in the middle of last decade to end the mass killing in a civil war. Today Croatian extremists want a separate and independent country of their own and are funding “nationalist” (read extremist) activities. One faction even tried to set up an independent administration backed by an army. That has been defeated for the present, only for the present. Half of the original Bosnia is occupied by Christian Serbs. This is the key element of the Dayton agreement brokered by the USA. The Bosnians are Muslims and the other religionists treat them as invaders even today. (History repeats itself in many countries, right?) Right now the simmering kitsch called Bosnia is waiting to explode. Bosnia, to start with, has to become a purely Muslim country. If the Muslim Albanians of Kosova read the signals right, there will be another Islamic outpost in southern Europe. And so close to the kingdom of Roman Catholic Christianity in Rome! This is great unravelling of the dream of regions coming together to gain the strength of size and number and prosper. The new dogma is to break up and seek salvation in solitude.
Brand sellers A business paper has reported that the golf sensation Tiger Woods earned more than $ 70 million last year and only a tenth of it came from prize money or the cash award for winning a championship. The rest of the income has come from commercial endorsement, an elegant way of saying that he is promoting the sale of a variety of goods and services not necessarily associated with his sport of golf. Michael Schumacher, the racing legend, earns more than $ 65 million a year by being the mobile hoarding of a variety of products and processes associated with motoring. His prize money is a small component of his take-home salary. Earlier this week it was reported that a Dutch footballer has signed a contract with an English club for an astronomical amount of nearly $ 30 million. His fame is expected to boost the television revenue of the club and also fill the stands and generate bigger income in terms of ticket sales. It is all understandable in the West where there is a direct equation between the projection of a manufactured item and its sale and hence its profitability. For instance, if Tiger Woods associates himself with American Express travel cheques, more people, all his admirers, are likely to switch over to the company. It is not sure if the name sells but it is the present craze, and non-believers are derided and hence the success of the idea. In India Sachin Tendulkar, the cricket star, is the most sought after. His earlier contract for commercial endorsement has ended and he is looking forward to a long-term arrangement at about Rs 100 crore! Yes, Rs 100 crore!. Mr Amitabh Bachchan is the “brand ambassador” of ICICI worth several crores of rupees, to go by media gossip. Do not forget Hrithik Roshan, said to be the latest heartthrob, who demands and gets Rs 7 crore to promote a soft drink for three years. The funny thing is that in a few years all these stars will be plugging the rival line. Money has no morality and that is modern mantra. |
|
India, Pakistan should sign no-war pact: Qasim Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Syed Mir Qasim, who played a key role during the 1975 Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah accord, is now lending his voice to the efforts by the Vajpayee government to bring peace to the strife-torn Jammu and Kashmir. Mr Qasim was the first person with whom the Centre’s negotiator K.C. Pant held talks as part of the government’s initiative to talk to various Kashmiri groups for finding a solution to the vexed Kashmir problem. A member of the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly from 1951 to 1957, Mr Qasim, 80, was a minister in the cabinets of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed and G M Sadiq before he himself became Chief Minister in 1971 and stepped down in favour of Sheikh Abdullah in February, 1975. As the first president of the J and K Congress committee in 1965, Mr Qasim withdrew from active politics in the mid-eighties but has been conferring with the leaders at the Centre on the political situation in the state. The last Congress Chief Minister of the state, Mr Qasim talks to PRASHANT SOOD about his approach to the ticklish Kashmir issue. Excerpts from the interview: Q. What do you think of the current peace process in Jammu and Kashmir? A. I was very happy when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee began the peace process, but it got derailed because of the Kargil War. Mr Vajpayee has the necessary resilience and the approach of Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar is also constructive. Hence steps to bridge the gap between India and Pakistan should be taken. Except for a few hawks who are in a minority, people of India and Pakistan do not want war. People of Kashmir want peace with honour which can be negotiated on the table and not through the gun. Leaders of India and Pakistan have been trying for so many years to find a solution to the ticklish problem. I had discussed my approach with former Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao, Chandra Shekhar and I. K. Gujral and by and large all of them agreed to the process of building bridges to solve this problem. But many quick changes delayed the process. I had an informal meeting with Mr Sattar who was at that time High Commissioner of Pakistan in Delhi and is now the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. He also agreed that war was no solution to the problem. Q. You were the first person to be invited for talks by Mr Pant. How did this happen? A. There is nothing extraordinary in this. I had made an approach. Last year I told them that there has been a lot of destruction and let us make some positive move. I tried to contact responsible people of Pakistan. Mr Vajpayee declared abjurement of violence by declaring a ceasefire. There should have been equally strong response from Pakistan. There were some weak signals from Pakistan, but one should proceed ahead. Some roadblocks were removed. We must have the will power to remove the roadblocks and go along the road to peace. Q. What should have Pakistan done to match India’s response? A. I cannot advise Pakistan and I do not know their compulsions. But in spite of their compulsions, there is a government. They should take steps to control those who only want to talk through the gun. Q. India has said that Pakistan should stop aiding militants operating from its soil. A. When they said that we will have maximum restraint along the LOC, one started hoping that it will include that (stopping support to militants). But it has not materialised on the ground and they have not taken all steps that they could take. I cannot say they can take complete steps because there are forces now which have entered the scene which are even beyond the control of civil and military government. Like those who say it is jehad. Jehad means it is a holy war and there can be no negotiation with those whom they are opposing. But, actually it is an economic war, a geographical war, political war and needs political resolution. Q. What are your suggestions to the parties concerned? A. The first and most important step is for the Indian and Pakistan governments to resolve that they will not go to war on any issue, including that of Kashmir. Any war now has the threat of turning nuclear. This will firmly commit them to talks. Conditions should be created that these talks are credible and serious. I have been saying that the gun is no solution and dialogue is the only way out. Steps should be taken to address the genuine aspirations of the people of the state. This will necessitate talks with people of all shades and opinions, specially those on the agitational path like the Hurriyat Conference. The Hurriyat has today become spokesman of all the resentment against the Centre. Militant outfits willing to contribute to this process should also be talked to. This will require violence to be shunned by all the parties. Q. You have said that Hurriyat Conference delegation should be allowed to go to Pakistan. A. I say these are technicalities. The Hurriyat Conference says that it wants to go to Pakistan to further the peace process initiated by Mr Vajpayee. If they go with this agenda, then there is no harm. Moreover, the government is not giving them a certificate of a delegation. They are going on their own and their only demand is for passports. They may be convinced that they have failed in their attempt to persuade the militants and the Government of Pakistan. There should not be any pre-conditions either. There should not be a bureaucratic approach. In politics the ground realities take the final shape. The ground reality in Kashmir is that people have suffered. The silent majority in the Valley wants peace, but peace with honour. This means do not thrust anything on them but negotiate with them and arrive at an agreement. Q. But with your experience of 1975 accord, an agreement now would lead to a lasting solution? A. About the 1975 accord I feel that Mrs Indira Gandhi missed the opportunity. I negotiated the accord with this view in mind that Kashmiris will get peace with honour. Sheikh Abdullah became the Chief Minister but the Congress withdrew support. He agreed with me it is not possible to have plebiscite. Then he fought the elections against the Congress and then Janata Party and won by two-thirds majority despite giving up the demand for plebicite. I got Mr Abdullah to write a letter to Mrs Indira Gandhi that accord has been approved by the people of Kashmir. Nehru had sent Sheikh Abdullah to Ayub Khan in 1965 when he had not fought elections. But an opportunity was missed after the 1975 accord. He was going towards the road to peace. Today we have no leader of Sheikh Abdullah’s stature but still the peace process must be pursued. Q. What are your hopes from the peace process? A. I am optimistic on the basis of actual realities. There are hawks on both sides. The reality is that both powers have become nuclear and the only course for India and Pakistan is to talk. The gun cannot solve problem of the Kashmiris. The only course open to them is to use the opportunity of achieving peace. It is a very long road and I do not know how many roadblocks will come. I have a solution but that I will disclose that only if the parties concerned ask for it. I am not a active player anymore. Q. How do you rate the performance of the Farooq Abdullah government. A. He came on the scene at a very challenging time. The coming of the NC government in power also revived political activity to a large extent. If you do the reasonable, there is some ground for bringing peace. As far as permanent peace in Kashmir is concerned, this cannot happen unless you also make Pakistan cooperate. Remove the roadblocks and proceed. Intention of living like good neighbours between India and Pakistan would percolate down to exchange of visitors. No conditions. Talk with all shades of opinion, most importantly Hurriyat, because they are struggling, they are fighting. But it is important not to ignore other shades of opinion. Hurriyat’s objective is also to find an everlasting solution as is ours. |
Plague in Hissar Bubonic plague of a very virulent type has been raging in Hissar city for the last two months so much so that the Governor in Council was pleased to order the closure of the Courts and Offices as requested by the local authorities, and the local Municipality did their best to cope with the occasion. L. Jai Dev, Rais, a well-intentioned philanthropic gentleman, well known in Samaj circles, came to the help of the people in evacuating the city at the time of their dire necessity. L. Jai Dev owns a Ginning Factory with its spacious buildings, bungalows and out-houses. Near this Ginning Factory is a market having about 80 shops all round. All these houses and shops were made available to the general public free of any charge. He spent a round sum to extenuate the miseries of the people. |
|
The objective-subjective
spectrum There is schizophrenia at macro level in the world that leaves no choice for the individual to avoid it. This disturbance of the psyche has led to wars, intolerance, religious fanaticism and hate. The cause of the schizophrenia is the lack of comprehensive of a simple truth, and the remedy is for society as a whole, or for a majority of the people, to grasp it. Once this fundamental contour of reality is understood, various implications (and complications) can be sorted out either briefly and simply or explained in voluminous treatises. I shall state this fundamental structure of reality and leave aside the myriad questions that call for detailed answers, but the master key for unlocking the riddle of the universe will be in our hands and, along with it, a bunch of small keys for unlocking the smaller rooms and cupboards. The building blocks of the universe consist of two basic interwoven elements - the objective and the subjective. Various names are given to the objective such as the material or the physical, and to the subjective such as the spiritual or the mental. These other names, or equivalents, have been talked of so much that they carry various overtones and connotations. So it is best to use the words "objective" and "subjective", the former standing for the physical and material reality and the latter for the interweaving sub-structure and the enveloping cover of this physical reality which can be perceived as the psychological and the non-material. That the subjective is as true as the objective can be judged by taking two simple examples from the borderline between the physical and the non-physical. One example is the "mind" from which flows the stream of consciousness and makes us perceive the material as also the very act of perception. That the perceiver is something distinct from the perceived, though both form part of each other, needs no explanation. The subjective and objective are fused together, but the subjective is more vast than the objective. In fact it is not only co-extensive with the universe but also transcends it in the form of infinity and eternity. The second example from the borderline of spatial reality is the component of "time" in it. Space has not only length and breadth and height but also the most important dimension of time. Without time, there can be no unfolding of the width and length and depth of space. All dimensions of space are stretched on the fundamental framework of time. And yet time can be perceived by itself but only by its association with space. The seasons, the days and nights, the clock, only record the passage of time but are not themselves time. Time, like mind, belongs to the interconnecting link between the subjective and the objective. In fact it would be closer to the truth to look at the objective and the subjective not as two distinct elements fused together, but as differing wavelengths of a single spectrum. The basic urge - the core fact of the universe built on the frame of time and space - is for the objective to seek transformation into the subjective. The evolution of the universe is reflected in this "red shift" recorded on the
spectro-meter of time. Once this inherent tendency of the objective to move towards the subjective is understood, the whole mystery of creation, the unconscious teleological direction of the inanimate and the animate, can be grasped by our mind which itself is on the edge between the objective and the subjective. The need for religion, for spiritual ecstasy, for nirvana or salvation or
mukti, can be understood because it is the objective form of our being which is seeking to attain the subjectivity status. It forms a fundamental need. The problem of good and evil can be understood because whatever at a given time or occasion blunts this urge and hinders the movement of the objective towards the subjective, is evil, and whatever promotes the transmutation, is good. The problem of pain and happiness can be grasped because whatever hinders is a source of pain and whatever helps is a cause of happiness. Pain is an indication of not being in harmony with the fundamental order of the universe. It is a guide who says "do not take this path but take another one which will free you from sorrow." While pain is a sort of "negative" guide, happiness is a "positive" guide. It shows that one is on the right path and in harmony with the order of the universe. Pursue it and the objective in you will be transmuted into the subjective. I started by stating how schizophrenia on a macro level has been affecting our individual psyches. Religions - organised religions in particular - were formulated to help movement of individual minds towards the sublime of divine, which are other names for pure subjectivity. In actual effect religions have caused more schizophrenia by promoting tendencies headed in the other direction of the material and the gross. The intensity with which the mind concentrates on any symbol, or focal point of the sublime, is bound to bring responses and give happiness. It is immaterial what each person chooses as the symbol for concentration. It can range from stones and trees to superior human beings or mythical figures, and from forces of nature to man-made monuments like temples and mosques, shrines and churches, altars and arches, the cross and the crescent, the holy book and the holy man. The important thing is the act of concentration and its intensity and not the object of the concentration. Thus all forms of worship are justified provided they led towards the subjective - their degree of validity depends upon the extent of transmutation they bring about. Infliction of pain of any type in the act of worship is a negative act and takes the worshipper away from the goal. The over dependence on external physical rituals also becomes a negation of worship. The ritual should just be a vehicle, a language, and a sort of musical instrument whose soft melody intensifies the act of concentration. The schizophrenia we suffer from arises out of the negative factors built into religions. The more organised a religion, the greater the build-up of negatives. The cure for the schizophrenia of the individual exists in the mental realisation of the structure of the universe and its inherent tendency to move towards subjectivity. Anything that promotes it is good and anything that inhibits is evil. The whole course of evolution of the universe, the galaxies and solar systems, the earth and the biological evolution, the purpose of pain and death, can be understood when we realise how creation seeks to move from the dross to the spirit. Inanimate rocks break up into loose earth and acquire topsoil and humus, which in turn evolve animate forms whose perishing keeps on adding to the humus and the growth of higher and higher life forms of increasing mental prowess. Evolution is a process of the awakening of the inanimate into the animate and of the animate into the conscious perceiving mind that marks the border between the objective and the subjective. The whole universe is engaged in this process on a cosmic scale. That is the master key to the mystery of creation, and the antidote we need for our mass schizophrenia. |
|
When I became a lover, I thought I would secure the pearl that was my aim. I did not know how immense the waves of the ocean were. —Khwaja Hafiz, Mystic of Shiraz *** By drinking a cup of love all things are forgotten. *** What use are fasts and prayers to them who have drunk deep from the font of love. *** Within us abides our Murshid - I learnt this when I fell in love. My logic, my grammar, my polemics - all my knowledge proved futile. —From
J. R. Puri and T. R. Shangari (eds) Sain Bulleh Shah *** Foolish people have changed love into a marketable commodity and have started a trade in it. But love turned from this bazaar to that bazaar and beheld thousands of bazaars. Lovers with broken hearts always revel in ecstasy within, but intellectual people have a gloomy life and suffer from constant worry in their minds. —Maulana Rum, Diwaan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz *** Peace is the absence of the alterations of sorrow and pleasure and the absence of boredom. It is a very desirable state. After a tumultuous ride on the crests of pain and pleasure, with frequent dips into the troughs of boredom, you enjoy floating on the calm sea of peace. But greater than peace is bliss-bliss of the soul. It is an ever-new joy that never disappears, but remains with your soul through eternity - That joy can be attained only by perceiving God. —Paramahansa Yogananda. Lecture delivered at Self Realisation Fellowship Temple, Hollywood, California, June 5, 1949 |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 121 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
