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Friday,
July 27, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Blood-splattered
life, & death! A partial
strike |
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How not
to handle a summit
The Agra
summit factsheet
Sleep to
lose weight
America
and the new world order
It’s
hard for a single female
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Blood-splattered life, & death! THE daylight murder of Phoolan Devi on Wednesday is as shocking as the Behmai massacre of 20 persons that she perpetrated in 1981. Things had undergone a sea change for her in these two decades. She was no longer a dreaded bandit but an honourable Member of Parliament. The sense of shock over her killing is all the more understandable considering that it happened in a high-security zone of Delhi which is within walking distance of Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House, the Parliament Street police station and the New Delhi DCP's office. Still, the assassins got away as coolly as Phoolan herself used to do in the Chambal ravines. Since this can happen even when a VVIP is involved, the extreme sense of defencelessness that an ordinary citizen nurtures cannot be called paranoid. The red alert that the police has now sounded evokes a laugh, because as it is, there was a red alert in Delhi after two armed desperados hijacked a cash van carrying Rs 2.3 crore of ICICI Bank on Monday. The way the killers left their weapons behind shows that they were not very highly trained. One shudders to think what a committed group of enemies of the nation can do if this is the state of preparedness of the security agencies in the nation's capital. The list of the residents of Ashok Road where the murder took place reads like a who's who and it must be giving them sleepless nights that they are as vulnerable as the ordinary citizens of the country. In fact, the police agencies have been seen in the role of a spectator whenever such incidents have taken place, be it the Red Fort intrusion or sundry bomb blasts in the so-called high-security areas of Lutyen's Delhi. The big question remains. Who did it? The police only goes to the extent of saying that it was the handiwork of hired assassins. Given the violent past of Phoolan Devi, it is apparently vendetta killing. But when it comes to politicians, they see everything through the vote-bank prism. So, quite a few of them have already passed their verdict that it is a political murder. Elections in Uttar Pradesh are round the corner and there is a naked attempt to cash in on her killing. That is as dirty and petty as opportunism can get. But that sort of exploitation has been a part and parcel of Phoolan Devi's life. When she was alive, her crimes were swept under the carpet only to garner some backward caste votes. Now that she is no more, she is bound to be eulogised by the leaders who never do anything for the victims of the system who suffer in silence instead of picking up a gun and going on a killing spree. |
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A partial strike GOVERNMENT
employees both at the Centre and in the states have grown somewhat out of their traditional exuberant enthusiasm for militant direct action and strikes. This explains the mixed response to the one-day strike call on Wednesday. The weakening of the hold of the Left on the trade union movement is another reason. The urban based English educated middle class is not so much interested in reshaping society as in improving its own living standards. IT education has ousted ideology or even idealism from its thinking. All this may sound cynical but is not bereft of truth. The strike was to protest against several government decisions which affect the life of not only public servants but also common people. Yet the nationwide protest passed off almost unnoticed. Even the private television channels, always ready to play things up, dismissed the event in a few clips. Phoolan Devi’s murder in the afternoon shifted the focus dramatically away from the strike. But that is only a contributing factor. The real reason is the liberal opinion that shaped the response of the middle class has very much weakened and is also fragmented. The three most contentious issues have a basic relevance to the ongoing economic reforms. The trade unions want to pressurise the government to include these in the list of stalled steps. They are the proposal by the Expenditure Commission headed by former Revenue Secretary Geethakrishnan to slim down the administrative strength by 2 per cent every year. This will mean a loss of 65,000 jobs this year alone. Modernisation of industry and the forced closure of thousands of small units will exacerbate this condition. The West Bengal Assembly was told that last year nearly 25,000 private sector employees were thrown out without much hope of relief. The Bengal experience and fear dominate trade union thinking and it shows in the call for the one-day strike. The second fear of the trade unions is the move to radically restructure the labour laws to deny workers security of service by introducing the contract system. Right now this will cover only private sector units but if it were to be extended to government service, there will be mass retrenchment. It is just a fear but fears have a way of turning real. The third one is the intended privatisation of the service sector like telephones, civil aviation, banking, insurance and the railway support system. The protest is clothed in orthodox ideological terms but the underlining apprehension is that the new owners will wield the axe on a good part of employment. |
How not to handle a summit NOTWITHSTANDING the statement by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Parliament on Tuesday, a number of questions continue to agitate the public on the management of the Agra summit and the large contingent of newsmen from the print media and electronic channels. Did not the Indian authorities expect such a big presence of journalists from all over the world in the city of the Taj? Didn't they anticipate likely Pakistani tricks or foul play on such an occasion? Was it a matter of miscalculation or overconfidence or sheer indifference? Who was up to what and for what purposes? Did New Delhi work out a strategy to counter possible Pakistani mischief because of its one-point obsession with Kashmir? Was the information flow adequate from the Indian side? These questions are raised as part of an objective post-mortem so as to learn from failings, if any. The queries are also relevant in the light of criticism of the role of some of our own media personalities. I would prefer to leave the question of media performance for the future. Coming back to the summit, it must be readily acknowledged that the Agra meeting between Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf was meant to be "a retreat" which, in diplomatic terms, has its own norms and parameters. It is to facilitate discussions between the two leaders in a congenial atmosphere and is free from media pressures for premature leakage on sensitive matters. The Indian delegation for the Agra deliberations strictly adhered to the retreat norms whereas, unfortunately, the small Pakistani team had no use for such diplomatic niceties. The result was for everyone to see: the overactive Pakistani officials planted misinformation and disinformation and gave their slanted version on the progress at the talks. They even talked of an "invisible hand" at work in Agra. One could notice some traits of a Hitlerite regime controlled by the military man with fixed targets and objectives! I wonder whether the Pakistani delegates were told about the do's and don'ts. In any case, going by their track record, such suggestions would have hardly restrained the Pakistanis. They had come not for serious negotiations at Agra but for deriving the maximum advantage from the presence of the world media. The projection of the Army Chief-turned-Chief Executive-turned-President who was the main objective. The soft and liberal approach of the Indian electronic media and the new breed of quickie experts on Pakistan helped General Musharraf to propagate his viewpoint on Indian soil and live on TV channels. No wonder, highly placed Pakistani officials and even General Musharraf often boasted of the "increasing support" for Pakistan's stand on Kashmir among the Indian "intelligentsia" and media personalities. I am all for closer India-Pakistan ties. But it is necessary for this purpose to conduct talks purposefully covering Kashmir and related matters for mutual benefit. Also, a wider and liberal way of looking at the subcontinent's problems need not be taken as a sign of weakness. This is part of India's lively democracy. The Pakistani establishment took full advantage of the Indian leaders' restraint at Agra. Ironically, I understand that General Musharraf thinks democracy to be India's main weakness! What a shame! One has to deal with a person who has killed "democracy" in his country and now talks of restoring "democracy" so that American dollars begin to flow into the crisis-ridden Pakistani economy! The other glimpse of his "democratic face" was provided by his government's order to demote the chief reporter of Nawa-i-Waqt, Mr Masood Malik, for asking an inconvenient question at the Islamabad press conference. Mercifully, our Indian editors did not ask him embarrassing questions and played safe at his breakfast show. How should India deal with such a man? I have no ready answers. I can only explore some points and concepts as part of an exercise to learn from our successes and failures. First, never take Pakistani leaders at their face value. They invariably have a hidden agenda or design in whatever "they" propose or suggest. Second, being born in an inauspicious atmosphere of Partition and fed on a hate-India diet, Pakistanis should not be expected to become radically different from what they are. Socially and at the one-to-one level they are hospitable and understanding. In public they strike different postures that are at variance with what they might like to say or suggest privately. Theirs is regimented thinking nurtured during the past five decades as part of what they think is the emerging identity of Pakistan as a nation. This is a totally misplaced emphasis. I consider this to be a major psychological problem of our neighbour. The only redeeming feature in this otherwise depressing setting is the growing number of liberals in Pakistan who genuinely wish to bury the past and make a new beginning as some European countries have done in recent years. Three, instead of adopting a goody-goody approach, the External Affairs Ministry needs to be more communicative and go on the offensive on key issues bedeviling the relationship between the two countries. There is nothing to feel apologetic about Kashmir, cross-border terrorism and other related issues. We ought to talk straight and in a forthright manner while adhering to our civilised norms. India's case suffered at Agra in the absence of a plan and adequate information flow. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) needs to do some soul-searching and reorient its thinking and approach, especially when it comes to dealing with Pakistan. While keeping our mind open, positive and forward-looking, a soft approach to bilateral problems will not only be counter-productive but also disastrous. India must not continue to be a soft state domestically as well as internationally. A lot depends on the leadership and the quality of response. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee shows all signs of a seasoned statesman. He is a reasonable person and genuinely wishes to solve all outstanding problems between India and Pakistan. He wants to go down in history as a man of peace. It, however, takes two to tango. Mr Vajpayee's problem is the attitude of the General at the other end. Indeed, the tragedy of Pakistan is that the army and its terrorism-export outfit— the ISI—call the shots. In fact, an Indo-Pak peace deal can be easier to strike with a General at the helm provided he genuinely means business. The trouble with President Musharraf is that he has to face the forces of Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism and Bin Ladenism unleashed by him and his predecessors within Pakistan and Afghanistan. They would not like him to strike any deal with India. Indeed, at stake is the General's own survival, especially when the vested interests are ever ready to pounce on him. This is a pity. But one day Islamabad has to come out of this vicious grip of irrationality and look at India as a partner for progress. India will be ready to meet Pakistan half way if the latter stops playing games. After all, three wars and the proxy war have inflicted only miseries on the people. Why not give peace a chance and see the difference? |
The Agra summit factsheet o The Indian draft was primarily an amalgam of the points of agreement hammered out at Shimla in 1972 and Lahore in February, 2001. It was only at Lahore for the first time that terrorism in all its manifestation found a mentions in any document signed by India and Pakistan. o Pakistan wanted uppermost Indian concern of cross-border terrorism to be rephrased as universal concern of narco terrorism. o On July 15, day one of the summit when Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf met formally, Pakistan did not favour delegation-level talks. o India insisted on a delegation-level meeting so that New Delhi's concerns could be expressed in unambiguous terms. o During the July 15 Vajpayee-Musharraf one-to-one talks, the Pakistani President said he would be happy in raising to the political level the issue of Kashmir, terrorism and peace and security, including reducing the nuclear threat. Other contentious issues could be left to be dealt with at the official level. o After the one-to-one talks, Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf moved to the delegation level talks. In his opening remarks, Mr Vajpayee read a four-page statement. General Musharraf spoke extempore harping on Kashmir being the core issue and the need for flexibility. Both leaders desired that the two sides should begin the exercise of drafting their respective proposals. o After working on their respective drafts the two delegations met at 7.30 pm on July 15 and adjourned an hour later. The brief to the two foreign ministers was to amalgamate the Indian and Pakistani drafts and arrive at an agreeable formulation. o The Governor's dinner in honour of General Musharraf over, the two delegations got down to business of reconciling their differing perceptions. They were later joined by their Foreign Ministers briefly and the Foreign Secretaries. This meeting dragged on till 4.30 am in the early hours of July 16. o The main hitch was centralising Kashmir on India's part and stopping cross-border terrorism as far as Pakistan was concerned. o Pakistan unwaveringly pushed for according primacy to Kashmir. It set fresh preconditions which were unacceptable to India. This became the most knotty matter. o There was also some argument between Mr Jaswant Singh and Mr Abdul Sattar. Mr Sattar suggested instead of cross-border terrorism, India's concern should read as "across the LoC terrorism." Pakistan wanted reference to cross-border terrorism in general terms which was totally unacceptable to India. o Nevertheless, both sides agreed that considerably ground had been covered. The jugglery of words continued. The Indian and Pakistani sides exchanged their draft statements between 4.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. of July 16 and returned to their respective hotels. o There was no communication between the two sides for the next three hours — from 6.30 p.m. and 9.30 p.m. Pakistan, however, continued with its machination of campaigning through the media. In between, the protocol department of the MEA was asked by the Pakistanis to put chairs for the leaders as though signing ceremony was on the cards. India remained silent without indulging in the media hype or adopting any pressure tactics. The Pakistanis tried all their tricks but it had no impact on India. It remained firm that cross-border terrorism aided and abetted by Islamabad must end. o Earlier in the day there was another one-to-one meeting between Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf after the Pakistani President finished his breakfast engagement with certain Indian editors. That confirmed New Delhi's worst fears of General Musharraf playing his own game of gaining mileage through a media blitzkrieg. It sowed seeds of suspicion about his real intentions. India concluded that the General's talk of flexibility was nothing but a charade. o It was at this one-to-one that General Musharraf told Mr Vajpayee that he was willing to accede to India's objection to Kashmir being the core issue or treating it as a dispute. He expressed his willingness to go along that Kashmir is an "issue." He maintained that he did not find anything wrong in dealing with Kashmir, cross-border terrorism and peace and security. General Musharraf felt that all those were small matters and that these could be raised to the political level. In the same breath, he insisted that it was only with progress on Kashmir the ongoing jehad would stop. He was also insistent that something had to be signed between the two countries. o After lull and silence for three hours on July 16, the Pakistani side telephoned at 9.30 p.m. to say that General Musharraf would like to make a farewell call. The Pakistan side also wanted arrangements to be made for the General to address a press conference before leaving for Agra airport. The Indian side pointed out that a press conference was not possible at such a late hour due to reasons of security. Besides, a lead time of 90 minutes was required for this purpose. o General Musharraf's farewell call dragged on for 50 minutes. He was keen that something should be signed. He virtually pleaded with Mr Vajpayee. It was in the afternoon the same day, about four hours after General Musharraf's interface with select Indian editors was telecast, that Mr Vajpayee's statement at the plenary of July 15 was released to put matters in perspective. Despite all the provocation, India decided not to respond to Pakistan's media war or attempts to vitiate the atmosphere. o After General Musharraf went to meet Mr Vajpayee for the farewell call, Begum Musharraf remained seated in the limousine for the drive to the airport. With the General's farewell call showing no signs of ending, Begum Musharraf was taken to the first floor hall of Jaypee Hotel. Later, General Musharraf came down and inquired about Begum Sehba. On being told that she was waiting in a room, General Musharraf quickly rushed into the lift to meet her and remained there for another 25 minutes. o Meanwhile, Mr Vajpayee was waiting in the foyer to see off the Pakistani President. After waiting patiently, the protocol division of the MEA asked the Pakistan side how long Mr Vajpayee should wait to bid adieu to General Musharraf. o The message from the Indian side left no room for doubt that the Agra summit had failed. Even at this stage, Pakistani officials tried to bide time by saying within Indian earshot that the weather in Islamabad was bad and expressed doubts if the special PIA aircraft would be able to land there. Someone suggested that the special plane can be diverted to Karachi. o India had seen through Pakistan's game. o Left with no option and lacking a formal request to extend their stay by another night in India, the General accompanied by the Begum and other members of his entourage departed for home from Agra airport well past midnight on July 16, ringing down the curtain on the high drama enacted by the Pakistanis. It is widely perceived that General Musharraf returned to Islamabad sad (dukhi) that he was unable to swing matters his way. |
Sleep to lose weight RESEARCHERS say people who want to lose weight would be better off lying in bed than trying the latest crash diet. A study from the University of Chicago has found lots of sleep speeds up metabolism and leads to weight loss. Deep sleep increases production of a growth hormone which speeds the metabolic rate and burns off calories. The scientists suggest tablets can be taken to speed up metabolism if busy people have no time for extra sleep. Dr Paul Raith of the sleep laboratory at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Deep sleep does cause cell repair and a growth in hormones which can speed up the metabolism. A good sleep can never do you any harm, as it gives the body a chance to recover from the stressful lifestyle that most people seem to lead”. According to the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Services, an independent sleep clinic, 60 per cent of people in the UK don’t spend enough time snoozing. Prof John Speakman from the Aberdeen Centre for Energy Regulation and Obesity said: “If an individual has a high metabolic rate, they can eat what they fancy and burn off the calories, despite doing little exercise. About 60 per cent of calories are burnt off each day by doing nothing”. Reuters
Harsher penalties for incest urged Malaysian women are demanding that the government pass harsher penalties to curb incidents of incest, which is currently punishable by a maximum 20 years in jail. Shahrizat Abdul
Jalil, who is the country’s Women and Family Development Minister, said she is pushing the government to amend the penal code to include specific provisions on penalties for incest. Under the Malaysian laws, incest is now listed as a form of rape which carries penalties ranging from jail terms of between five and 20 years, and whipping. However, Shahrizat said that rampant cases of incest in the country in recent months demanded tougher punishment of more than 20 years in jail. “The sentence must reflect the gross breach of trust. If you cannot trust your father, who can you trust?” she was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times daily. Reported cases of incest in Malaysia appeared to have reduced from 205 cases in 1998 to 136 last year, but Shahrizat said the figures were deceiving because most victims refused to lodge police complaints out of shame and
fear. DPA
No time to have a child More and more healthy couples in Guangzhou, the capital of south China’s booming Guangdong province, want to store their embryos for future use. Many couples say they are at present very busy with their work and have no time to have a child. So they hope that their sperm and egg cells can be kept in storage for now and they will be able to take them out when they want to have a baby in the future. Among those who want to freeze their embryos are couples who already have a child, but are worried that their child may have an unexpected accident, Xinhua news agency reported. It is not a dream for couples to freeze their embryos for future use, said Dr Fang Cong. The technique to freeze embryos has been put into clinical use since the 1980s, Dr Fang added. The reproduction centre of the hospital has been successful in freezing embryos for one to five years and then “waking them up” to grow test tube babies. At present, only 70 per cent of the frozen embryos can survive and only just over 20 per cent of the people involved are able to become pregnant. Moreover, it costs a couple at least 15,000 yuan (above 1,800 U.S. dollars) to freeze each embryo, she said.
PTI |
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America and the new world order INDIA is moving closer and closer to America. This is now much in evidence. Are we destined to be a satellite of America? Or, can we have a meaningful relation? It was said of Jawaharlal Nehru that he alone knew anything of the world outside India in the Congress party. That was largely true. So India’s foreign policy, for good or bad, was made by one man. Mostly to our detriment. Today, another party — the BJP — is in power. It reflects the interests of two groups — the traders and industrialists and the nationalists. But they know even less of the world outside India. The traders and industrialists are eager to embrace America. They have their new friends — the successful NRIs. Together, they constitute a formidable group to influence the government of India. The nationalists have little say in the matter. If at all, it is easily brushed aside. And yet the man who has shaped our policy towards America of late Mr Jaswant Singh speaks the language of nationalism. A deception? Perhaps. He is a strong critic of India’s traditional foreign policy. He complains that India was never an assertive state, that its sense of nationhood was episodic and incidental, that it knew nothing but military reverses and servitude, that it lacked national identity, that Gandhian pacifism had befuddled the people, that the moral tone of nonalignment had made strategic thinking irrelevant, that there was no commitment to the defence of one’s territory, that Indians had cultivated a habitual disinterest in the broader issues relating to national security and so on. Indeed, a powerful indictment. No one can say that the man is not well informed or that he is not stirred by a sense of outrage. But all that he could think of was to align with America! For what purpose? To serve American interests? Or to serve the interests of the traders and industrialists who support his party? I cannot see any larger national interest in his policy. Mr Jaswant Singh makes a case for an assertive state. But how can we assert our interests and yet be aligned to America, a hegemonic state, which is not ready to accept any challenge to its authority? Only an independent India can assert its rights. True, America may be willing to throw some crumbs at us. But is that all that we desire? Or, do we want to play a greater role in the world? Can we trust America to promote it? And to what extent? Alignment with America is not bad per se. What is important is: what do we get out of it? And are we strong enough to demand it and get it? America is a ruthless power. It is not even willing to share power with its traditional European allies. And it is not inspired by any idealism. Look at its history! It destroyed the UN, the hope of the world, when it no more served American interests. The UN was moving along the right lines, but this was not what America expected of it. The UN was becoming a planning and management organisation for trade, finance, currency, transfer of technology, information, etc. This was anathema to America. It was this realisation that led the West to create a major financial crisis in the world. At the end of that tectonic convulsion, the West stood supreme. And the poorer nations were all in fetters — in deep debt. From then on, America has been engaged in destabilising the UN and its organs and in taking the North-South dialogue outside the UN. Today it is the IMF, World Bank and WTO all outside the UN — which are playing the key role in the world. It is they who are promoting globalisation. And they are all controlled by the West. The tragedy of the Third World was its disunity. On this, Prof Galbraith had said: “If the Third World leadership was strong, efficient and well-regarded, it would not tolerate foreign exploitation or domination.” But the Third World leadership was never well-regarded by the people and they needed the support of Washington to be in power. After having opted for market economy and globalisation, we have no ground to complain against “foreign” exploitation. Didn’t we know this in advance? The rich are rich not because of better management and technology, but because they were able to create favourable global conditions for themselves. Will we eve learn this strategy? Even western economists have warned us not to imitate the West and to challenge the belief that what is right for advanced industrial countries is right for all. Those who make the decisions today to cast India’s lot with the West bear a great responsibility to the future generations, for they may fetter their hands and feet. These are people not competent to make such decisions. We know what terrible legacy Nehru has left for us. And he was taller than any of the living Indians. The Cancun meeting in Mexico was perhaps the last attempt at persuading the rich to see reason, but it failed. Globalisation was the West’s answer to the continuing challenge of the poorer nations. It was aimed at reducing the power of their numbers and their sovereignty. Today there is a sense of paralysis among the poorer nations. They are totally at the mercy of the rich and powerful. What is more, having established its political and economic superiority, the USA is now engaged in exporting the American way of life. There is little opposition to it from the rich and powerful, for they are ready to play the Caliban to the western prospero. The nationalists are in retreat. America continues to speak of a “new world order”. But this is to beguile the world for there is little profit in “order” and much to gain from chaos. America has a stake in chaos. Should we fall for America’s viles? Certainly not. But let us be pragmatic. America calls us “natural allies.” Let us examine what it has got for us. |
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It’s hard for a single female BEING
a single female in 2001 is like being a billionairess who wrongly suspects she has leprosy - you’ve got everything going for you, but none of it matters, because you’ve got it into your head that no one will ever want to touch you. If this isn’t true then why is singledom, especially female singledom, still being treated like something one needs to scrub away like the plague? Still, today we have a culture geared so crassly to “How To Nab Your Man” that it would bring an embarrassed blush to the cheeks of a Victorian gentleman trying to marry off a gaggle of ninny-headed daughters. The only difference is that these days the hard sell is wrapped in earnest diatribes about how single women are calling the shots where romance is concerned, and (`Hurrah’) need not settle for Mr Second Best. Somehow `settling’ has become as big a no-no in modern dating parlance as `being easy’ was 20 years ago. `Being too difficult’ is all the rage now. Single women worth their salt are supposed to have an impossibly ambitious tick list: GSOH (good sense of humour), wealth, glamour, fidelity and, the new must-have, `edge’ (which was known as `being a bit of a bastard’ in my day). But woe betide any man who has his own list because ‘That’s sexist!’. Even when our single heroine meets somebody she likes, she is encouraged to devour books which might as well be entitled How to Marry Someone Who Only Wants to Sleep with You. Indeed, women are trying so stupidly hard these days, both to get into relationships and to stay in them, that one doesn’t really need some horse-fixer of a survey to tell you what lies behind nine out of 10 bust-ups. It’s usually a simple matter of: `Fatally, she relaxed.’ We could blame women’s magazines, or we could accept, like these same magazines are forced to, that there’s a genuine demand for what one of my colleagues once termed `relationship poo’. As any editor could tell you, `relationship poo’ is where it’s at and it’s not only women who are stepping in it. Single Girls is priceless television, but not for the ersatz sociological reasons Sky is trying to push. The girls spend their days `texting’ smut to dates, humourlessly informing said dates how `strong’ they are, and sipping champagne self-consciously on roof terraces. As is the modern way, the girls are also very into `being too difficult’. They complain all the time - the men are grotty, the dates are grottier, one girl walked out in a huff because the other girls had thinner thighs. However, none of the Single Girls have made the most obvious complaint of all - that they feel like whores, pimped out in a TV brothel. Back in more innocent times, some people were shocked that Blind Date contestants were prepared to flirt with each other, sight unseen, just to get a free holiday. With Single Girls heaven knows how far the contestants are supposed to go to get their holiday. Finding love is difficult enough without having a camera crew lurking around to film those moments when, fatally, you relaxed.
The Observer, London |
Protest meeting at Ludhiana On the 14th July at 9 p.m. in the Town Hall a public meeting presided over by Moulvi Walliullah Mufti resolved unanimously:— We the citizens of all religions, express greatest anxiety against the rumour of the president and four additional persons' nomination by Government in the Ludhiana Committee and feel indignant and consider such nominations entirely against our preliminary municipal rights; and any such action of Government will be considered getting back from the self-government policy. |
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The wall of water and the pillar of air, And the plaster of blood and sperm. Thus is made the cage (body) of bones, flesh and veins, And therein dwelleth the poor bird, the soul. O man, what is mine or thine here? Like a bird perched in a tree for a night, the soul dwelleth in the body for a while. Thou layest foundations and buildest high walls, But three and a half cubits shall be thy measure at last. Thou stylest thy hair and weariest a slanted turban on thy head, But this body shall be reduced to a heap of dust. Lofty is thy palace and beautiful is thy wife, But without God's Name, lost is the game of thy life. — Bhagat Ravidas. Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 659 ***** There should be no compulsion in religion for the right way is clearly distinguishable from the wrong way. ***** Of some people we have already given the account, and of some, we have not given thee any account. ***** O people of the Book! Do not be intemperate in matters of religion and of God speak nothing but truth. ***** To every people we have given a law and a ritual. ***** And to every people have we assuredly sent an apostle enjoining: Serve ye God alone and keep away from Taught (the misleading or the devil). ***** Invite people to the way of Thy Lord in a suitable manner, and with tender exhortation, and discuss things with them in an agreeable style. Thy Lord knoweth best who hath strayed from His path and knoweth best who is guided aright. — The Quran, 2:256; 4:164; 4:164; 5:49; 16:36; 16:125 |
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