EDITORIALS

Suicide by Punjab farmers

There was a time when the farmers of Punjab used to take legitimate pride in their contribution to the Green Revolution. Today they are being forced to commit suicide. The factors which are driving them to take the extreme step are known to the state government. But who cares? Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is so engrossed in gaining uncertain popularity through the sangat darshan exercise that he has no time to give a good hard look at the factors which have turned the fun-loving farmers of Punjab into individuals who have lost the will to live. A fact-finding exercise undertaken by the Movement Against State Repression has thrown up disturbing statistics. In 17 villages of just two blocks in the Sangrur district at least 27 “heavily indebted” persons have committed suicide in the past three months. It is not just the small and marginal farmers who are caught in the debt trap. A woman who had inherited 10 acres of her father’s agricultural land has yet to come out of the shock of her husband ending his life in May.

Ten acres of agricultural land holding was once considered good enough for leading a want-free life, if not one of luxury. Not any more because of the foodgrain glut in the market and the consequent fall in prices and demand for fresh stocks. The husband ended his life because he owed a whopping amount of Rs 7 lakh to commission agents. The story in the margin too needs to be read with care for getting a distortion-free picture. He had taken the hefty amount as loan for the marriage of his two daughters. And because of the glut the farm produce did not get him even the amount he had invested on raising the crop. MASR activists have literally collected a mountain of evidence by going from village to village in just one district. It is not that the political leadership is not aware of the alarming development in Punjab’s countryside. MASR activists have handed over to the Chief Minister the data they have collected from just two blocks of a district. However, going by the lukewarm response of the leadership, it is doubtful whether the mounting cases of suicide by farmers will make the administration tackle the problem on a war footing. 

Nailing the General’s lie

The outcome of the Agra summit may be debatable, depending on which side of the border you are, but there is near-unanimity that General Pervez Musharraf ran away with the media trophy. He exploited the opportunity to the hilt, while the Indian side struck a haughty, hands-off pose. Ever since, an attempt has been made to justify the self-goals. The openness and plain speaking that were nowhere to be seen during the summit are now being displayed by none other than Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee himself. At least by way of retort, he is not feeling shy of calling a spade a spade in public. The choice of words is sober, but he is demolishing the media aura usurped by the General bit by bit. The candidness that he displayed in his speech to the BJP's national executive last fortnight was again brought into play when the Prime Minister took part in the parliamentary debate on Tuesday. He presented the Indian viewpoint in a firm and cogent manner. The sum total was that while Pakistan harped endlessly on Kashmir, the core issue from the Indian viewpoint was, is and always would be crossborder terrorism. He also took pains to remove the mistaken perception that the invitation to the General was a result of the inability of the Indian armed forces to fight terrorism. This canard has been spread widely in Pakistan. He squarely laid the blame for the failure of the summit at the door of the General and went to the extent of questioning his diplomatic maturity.

Pakistan has, expectedly, reacted sharply to his statements, but the message has apparently gone out loud and clear to Islamabad that sabre-rattling that the General indulged in during the summit was counter-productive. Mr Vajpayee did not reveal the points on which he admitted there was "some agreement", but gave enough indications that the engagement would continue despite the Agra setback. Whenever they meet the next time, there will perhaps be less of grandstanding from the Pakistani side. However, Mr Vajpayee did not say much about the task of taking back the part of Kashmir which is still under Pakistani occupation. This type of defensive attitude is inexplicable and has encouraged Islamabad to twist facts and become a champion of the Kashmiri cause. In the mind of the ordinary Indian, the unfinished agenda is PoK. A parliamentary resolution to that effect already exists and the Prime Minister needs to plug the line vigorously. To twist the arm of India, terrorists have stepped up their nefarious attacks, be it in Doda or Jammu. But they have unwittingly nailed the lie of General Musharraf (he called them freedom fighters) by targeting innocent civilians belonging to a particular community. This is nothing but a barbaric attempt at ethnic cleansing. Since they are biting like rabid dogs, it is now for the Indian Government to eliminate them like one. Strong words used by the Prime Minister have to be matched by equally firm and exemplary action. 

Sinha gets a C minus card

Times are bad for Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. He barely escaped censure or even worse in Parliament over the UTI fiasco. Now comes a report card on his performance which says that under his leadership the ministry has scored less than passing marks. International rating agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) assessed the aspects of the Indian economy, found them in poor health and wrote out a debit card. The result is that this country’s local currency, the rupee, stands downgraded. From now onwards it is BBB- (minus), meaning the currency is no more stable but negative. The agency has offered a lengthy explanation for its decision. That reads like a veritable chargesheet. Public debt (that is, what the government owes banks and the people) is mounting and there is no sign of reversing it. It stands at 70 per cent of the GDP (gross domestic product) or four times the annual total revenue of the government. To put it bluntly, the government is neck deep in debt and it has to do lot to keep itself afloat and not sink. Fiscal deficit is spinning out of control; this year the combined deficit of both the Centre and the states is likely to soar to 10 per cent, perhaps the highest in all Third World countries. This gap between revenue and expenditure is being filled by borrowing and this will skew the situation further. This is a grim picture.

There is more criticism, equally harsh. The reform promises made in the budget remain just that — promises. There is policy inertia which has paralysed not only the ruling BJP-led alliance but also the entire political spectrum. There is unstated but deep resistance to radical reforms. This is most prominent in privatisation. The government owns more than 240 industrial and service units and despite high-pitch disinvestment claims, only two have been sold (Modern Foods and Balco). There has been no public investment in infrastructure like roads, harbour, power generation and civil aviation. Attempts to lure private funds have flopped for a variety of reasons. In the matter of electricity generation, underpricing and subsidised supply have dried up investible surplus. Growth rate has dipped from 7 per cent in the late nineties (before the NDA government took over) to about 5 per cent now. It may be good in comparison with other countries but not good enough to boost the economy. Officials and government apologists underplay the downgrading, saying that these factors are known for quite some time and hence the lending and investing agencies have already changed their policies and are not likely to be influenced by the latest report.

OPINION

Post-Agra message from Pakistan
The task in Kashmir is cut out for Delhi 
Inder Malhotra

IT is high time to put an end to what Mr G.Parthasarathy, former High Commissioner to Pakistan, calls the “Musharraf mania”. At no time before, during, or immediately after the Agra summit did the bulk of this country’s media distinguish itself for its sobriety and seriousness in covering an event of such great importance. Of late, it has carried its irresponsibility a trifle too far.

Ignoring the telling words of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, that General Pervez Musharraf left the city of the Taj “empty handed” and with a “long face”, several newspapers and TV channels seized on an apparently planted item in a Pakistani newspaper to make an outlandish, indeed absurd, forecast. Come August 11, they proclaimed gleefully, and Mr Vajpayee would telephone the Pakistani military ruler and self-appointed President to congratulate the latter on his birthday! Since the tabloid culture has swamped even the allegedly serious newspapers, the canard spread across front pages appeared under the heading “Greetings for the Birthday Boy” or words to that effect, sources close to the Prime Minister did take steps to contradict the nonsense. But by then enough damage had been done.

Surprisingly, none of the worthies who splashed the ludicrous report paused to ask themselves a pertinent question. Since Mr Vajpayee during the last three years — or any of his predecessors over the last five decades, for that matter — has never rung up foreign Heads of State or Government to greet them on their birthdays or wedding anniversaries, why must he make a beginning with General Musharraf?

What makes the media’s tomfoolery about the Prime Minister wishing the General many happy returns of the day on his birthday all the more galling is that it coincided with some of the worst and macabre acts of cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan-sponsored terrorists are responsible for all these unspeakable crimes which indeed constitute the Pakistani military regime’s post-Agra message to this country.

For the second time in a matter of days the merchants of murder, terror and hate have perpetrated in Doda district of the Jammu region an act of infamy. They have selectively kidnapped Hindu villagers in the remote hills and then slaughtered these innocents. These horrific episodes have come on top of a series of other outrages, including the attack on the Amarnath yatra, firing along the LoC, bomb and other attacks on the security forces as well as on the civilians and so on.

It is surely possible that the terrorist outfits have been acting in desperation because the security forces, in the course of their counter-insurgency operations, have been achieving much greater success than ever before. A very large number of militants, including foreigners, who infiltrated from Pakistan, have been killed. But there are other implications of the fiendish activity in Doda that cannot be ignored. Time and again, the mentors and manipulators of the militants in Kashmir (as in Punjab during the eighties) have been trying hard to create a communal backlash in not only the Jammu area but also in the rest of the country. Hence the selective massacres.

The sinister planners of the ISI must also have taken note of the disturbing developments in places like Moradabad and Muzaffarnagar in Western Uttar Pradesh. The arrests of several alleged ISI agents from different parts of the country underscore the dimensions of the internal security challenges being posed to this country. The bitter truth is that maintenance of internal security and normal policing of this vast country have now got inextricably intermixed.

There is yet another possibility. The monsters masquerading as jihadis probably want to drive out the Hindu minority from the Muslim-majority district of Doda, just as the Pandits were hounded out of the Kashmir valley. Behind this nefarious design lies perhaps the expectation that some day the “trifurcation” of Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of religion — an idea being fostered by some at home and abroad — might become a reality.

No wonder, both the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister have condemned the dastardly deeds in Doda, Mr Advani speaking far more sharply than Mr Vajpayee has. The Prime Minister took the opportunity, however, to stress that the search for a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue would not be abandoned which evidently means that his plan to meet General Musharraf on the fringes of the UN General Assembly summit next month stands.

Mr Advani, on the other hand, has declared that what has gone on in Doda can no longer be tolerated and that, in the course of the week, he would produce some response to “crush” the kind of terrorism Pakistan was perpetrating currently. The problem, however, is the Home Minister, with all his reputation for toughness a la Sardar Patel, has been promising a “proactive” policy to curb cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. The anger of the traumatised people of Doda against the government in general and Mr Advani in particular is unmistakable. That the authorities have been forced to clamp a curfew on the two main towns of Kishtwar and Bhadrawa speaks for itself.

All this has to be viewed, however, in two pertinent contexts, first, against the backdrop of General Musharraf’s blunt and brazen message to New Delhi. He has always believed that Mr Vajpayee invited him to Agra only because of “American pressure and that of the jihadis”. He has also had the temerity to assert that there is no cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, only a “freedom struggle”. It follows, therefore, that the greater the havoc the so-called jihadis can cause the easier it would be for him to achieve what he failed to do at Agra.

Evidently, this cannot be allowed to pass. The Vajpayee government has to realise that its fundamental task is to control the ground situation in Kashmir — Doda included — while diplomatic moves in New York or elsewhere can go on as something of a sideshow. Until and unless the jihadis are meted out their just desserts, the international community would go on lamenting the situation and calling upon India and Pakistan to resolve it, lest it should escalate to a “nuclear flash point”.

And that is where the second context comes in, and it cannot be evaded by any means. The average Kashmiri is undoubtedly sick and tired of ceaseless violence. At the same time, however, the merchants of violence and terror continue to enjoy a measure of public support. It is odd that crowds should come out to protest against the killing of a Hizbul Mujahideen commander and that a child should get killed in the firing on the protesters. The allegation that the commander was killed not in an encounter but in custody has yet to be disproved decisively.

Too much time has been wasted in the past on first investing the Hurriyat with the importance it did not deserve and then in trying to discredit it, especially after it advertised itself, during General Musharraf’s visit, as Pakistan’s wiling handmaiden. Such fractious and irrelevant outfits should now be bypassed. Political activity in Kashmir should be aimed at building bridges of understanding with the Kashmiri people directly.

This may be easier said than done, but done it must be. It would help, of course, if the Farooq Abdullah ministry in Srinagar that has very little to show for it bestirs itself, abandons its petty pursuits and gives the long-suffering Kashmiri people a semblance of good governance.

Ironically, even though Dr Abdullah’s party, the National Conference, is a member of the ruling alliance in New Delhi and his son, Mr Omar Farooq, is Mr Vajpayee’s Minister of State for External Affairs, the Central and the state governments continue to work at cross-purposes rather than in concert. The two sides have allowed the issue of greater autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir to degenerate into a shouting match between Dr Abdullah and Mr Advani though the matter needs to be discussed by the two sides calmly and amicably.

There is no getting away from the fact that Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister had told the Kashmiris that if they gave up their separatist demands, the “sky” would be the limit to the autonomy available to them. On the other hand, a major complaint of the Kashmiris is that elections in the past have been rigged, and the huge funds flowing into the state capital have been pocketed by the rulers in Srinagar who have also plundered the state. Under these circumstances, it needs to be explained to the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh that their cause would not be served by abolishing the jurisdiction on the state of the Supreme Court, the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Election Commission. There are other effective ways of conferring operation autonomy on the state and a further devolution of powers to the state’s three distinct regions. These are what need to be explored.

IN THE NEWS

Difficult job for Pramod Mahajan

Never has Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan’s job been more difficult than it is today. Apart from coordinating with all the political parties to get through government business, he has to literally herd the MPs of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance so that the proceedings of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha do not collapse. At times Mr Mahajan is also seen goading the opposition MPs with folded hands to be present in the hallowed chambers rather than be outside.

Let us not forget the amount of valuable time and tax-payer’s money wasted by the worthy opposition MPs in trying to put the Atal Behari Vajpayee government on the mat, be it the latest Unit Trust of India controversy, the Tehelka expose on alleged kickbacks in defence deals, the stocks scam or what have you. What is indeed tragic is that the law-makers of the country are hardly around in the later part of the afternoon. The situation in this regard is abysmal on Thursdays and Fridays, close to the weekend.

As evidenced so often in the recent past, gathering enough members to ensure the quorum of the two Houses has been a serious problem in itself. With Mr Mahajan constantly on the prowl menacingly asking MPs to take their seats in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, he has variously been described as “headmaster” though some women MPs call him “Hitler”, of course out of hearing range of the minister.

New head of NPC

A. K. Goswami, a bureaucrat of the Himachal Pradesh cadre, has been appointed Director-General of the National Productivity Council (NPC). A brainchild of the country’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the NPC’s brief was to maintain high production standards in public sector companies as they were meant to achieve the commanding heights of the economy. The late Panditji’s ideals have taken a severe beating over the years. Nevertheless, Mr Goswami, a 1966 batch IAS officer, comes to the National Productivity Council after ensuring some path-breaking achievements in the power sector in Himachal Pradesh.

As Chief Secretary of Himachal Pradesh, Mr Goswami ensured a capital outlay of Rs 35,000 crore for power projects in the state. He had also initiated measures for giving a boost to the information technology sector leading to a software technology park being opened in Shimla recently. Significant steps were also taken in the tourism sector. Mr Goswami, a mechanical engineer, has served at the Centre in the Commerce Ministry and in HP in various capacities.

NEWS ANALYSIS

How to deal with massacres in J&K
P.C. Dogra

IN the last few days, jihadis from across the border have carried out massacres of innocent Hindus in the remote villages of Doda. The police and security forces came to know of these incidents 24 hours after the occurrence as these places are reported to be at a distance of 30-40 km from the nearest motorable road. The unfortunate victims had gone to the meadows to graze cattle when they met with this fate.

There were no security forces around the upper reaches of Kishtwar, where a large number of families had shifted for grazing their cattle and collecting firewood for use in winter. They were from both communities of Pahari Hindus and Gujjar Bakarwals. But only Hindus were targeted and killed. As per the media reports, the Army authorities say: “It is not possible to deploy troops and other forces in every village and every mountain route. More than 25 per cent of the total area of the affected district is hilly and forest belts. Over the past 35 years, people have built huts and dhokes 30 to 70 km from the main roads.”

Should we then let these people be killed by mercenaries? Since 1996, Jihadis have killed over 200 Hindus in Doda. They were forced to migrate from Kishtwar in 1998 after the Champnari massacre in which the mercenaries killed two bridegrooms among 29 Hindus. Today about 1,000 such displaced families are staying at a Belicharan camp near Jammu. However, Army officers feel that these tiny hamlets be grouped in to bigger settlements of 50-100 families so that adequate security could be provided and development needs attended to. It is a very valid point and deserves serious consideration of the government.

I am writing this article on the basis of my personal experience of dealing with militants and later jihadis in the valley. In 1993 terrorists hailing from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan and Libya had started infiltrating into the valley in a big way and entrenched themselves in the upper reaches of the Peer Panjal ranges. Off and on, they would come down from these heights, kill a few Hindus, go back to their hideouts in the higher reaches but would never take on the security forces head-on. My observation was that these mercenaries would lie low, build up their strength and armament to the optimum level and that in due course of time, would take on the security forces all along the Jammu-Srinagar highway, especially from Udhampur onwards to the Kashmir valley. Meanwhile they would keep on attacking Hindu hamlets in remote areas to engineer migration of the members of this community, a process of ethnic cleansing like the one the jihadis had undertaken in Srinagar in forcing lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits to abruptly leave their homes and run to Jammu for security and the honour of their women folk.

In 1993 security forces had no presence on the Peer Panjal ranges, and I do not think that this mountain range is being dominated even now. The heights being not less than 10,000 ft, logistically and climate-wise, it is a very difficult proposition of course. The jihadis had the advantage of height and terrain with them. Imagine our troops going up the slopes and terrorists sitting at the top with their weapons strategically sighted. In one such operation, the BSF lost about 20 of its brave men when they were ambushed by jihadis near village Desa at a height of 1000 ft. In winter, the mercenaries infiltrate into Chamba district and kill innocent civilians. Himachal Pardesh had to tighten security on its border with Doda. The BSF had located some posts but they were too inadequate in the vast expanse of forests and meadows. What is required is the continuous search and destroy missions and that too without any respite to these mercenaries.

The Kashmir valley has already been cleansed of the Pandits. Only a few thousand Sikh families are there. Doda district has a Muslim majority, but there is considerable Hindu presence in Doda, Kishtwar and Bhadarwah. Similarly in Rajouri and Poonch, the majority is of Muslims but they are Pahari Muslims who have nothing in common with the Kashmiris. They speak Pahari Punjabi language and are ethnically closer to the Jammu region than Kashmir. They have been traditionally Pro-India. Bakarwals living along the Line of Control have been working for the Indian Army as porters. In the recent past, there have been major killings of Bakarwals. It is to browbeat all those Muslims in this belt who have not yet fallen in line with the concept and the strategy of the jihadis. The ISI is working assiduously to consolidate the Muslims of the Kashmir valley, Doda, Rajouri and Poonch districts of Jammu division and Kargil and work up their emotions for seceding from India and merge with Pakistan.

It is getting the Dixon formula implemented through the jihadis. Way back in 1950, Sir Owen Dixon, the representative of the Security Council had suggested the following formula for a solution of the J&K problem:

o The region about which there was no doubt that it wished to accede to India should stay as part of India.

o The region which undoubtedly wished a union with Pakistan could merge with Pakistan.

o The region in respect of which there could be a doubt about its wishes, a plebiscite could be held.

In the nutshell, it postulated a division of J&K on communal lines with the Chenab river as the dividing line. Another solution doing the circles is also on the same lines. A study group report titled “Kashmir: a Way Forward” sponsored by Farooq Kathwari, an American businessman of Kashmiri origin, suggests the creation of a hypothetical Kashmir state, sovereign but without an international personality which includes not only Kashmir but also the district of Doda, ul Gul Gulabgarh abgarh tehsil of Udhampur as well as Poonch, Rajouri and even Kargil. Farooq Kathwari is reported to be working in tendem with the US Administration for working out possible solutions of Kashmir. Pakistanis somehow feel that ultimately they will be able to annex the Muslim dominated areas of J&K with their country. It has been the refrain of the Pak media before and during the Indo-Pak summit regarding the possible solutions to the Kashmir imbroglio. That is why, the Jihadis are going about in an organised manner for the killing of the members of the minority community and force their migration from the Muslim-dominated areas of J&K.

Village defence committees in the sensitive areas have been formed but they have been given outdated weapons like. ‘303 bolt action rifles. How can they stand up to the jihadis who are armed to the teeth with sophisticated weapons supplied by Pakistan? Some time back, I had suggested to the Home Ministry to equip in with modern weapons, link them with the nearest post of the Army/BSF through wireless and that they should be placed under the operational and administrative control of the Army/BSF battalion operating in the area. However, it appears that these villagers are still operating in an isolated manner and not in tendem with the security forces.

The youth of all those families displaced from Doda are eager and enthusiastic to take the jihadis head on in the thick forests on the Peer Panjal range where logistically it is difficult to put up security pickets. They only demand modern weapons, training and the required infrastructure. Let us take it as a lifetime opportunity. Let us restrategise our operational plans, recruit local youth as commandos, integrate them in the grid of the local security forces and then confront the jihadis. Form a separate Peer Panjal Command under the Army with the BSF, the local police and these young volunteers. Gujjars/Bakarwals living on the LOC can be taken in the defence committees, similarly armed and placed under the operational and administrative control of the Army/BSF operating in the area.

It is high time that out security forces dominate the Peer Panjal, seek and destroy the jihadis from their entrenched positions otherwise the Jammu-Srinagar highway, especially from Udhampur to the Kashmir valley, and the Northern Command Headquarters at Udhampur will be effectively threatened by these mercenaries in not too distant a future. India as a nation is suffering from a seige mentality. The Punjab and Rajasthan borders with Pakistan have been fenced. The Indo-Bangladesh border is being fenced. Any trouble on the border, fence it and feel secured. We are doing the greatest damage to the nation, killing its do or die instinct.

The author is a former Inspector General of the BSF.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Doctor sues matchmaker

A doctor who offered top dollars to anyone who would find him a bride now wants a matchmaker to return the $ 50,000 he paid her. Paul Dantzig (53) of Scarsdale, is suing Janis Spindel and her Serious Matchmaking Inc, claiming she “preyed on his overwhelming desire for companionship and marriage.”

The lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan claims Spindel and her company broke the law by charging him $ 50,000 and breached his contract by sending him women who were not interested in him or in marriage.

Spindel said Dantzig turned up his nose at 11 women who met all his prerequisites: “Well-educated, upscale, professional Jewish women from good families with very high integrity and good values. “I can bring the horse to water, but I can’t make him drink,” Spindel said. “I don’t guarantee anything except that I’ll do my best.”

The dermatologist went public with his search for a mate last year when he took out an extralarge personal ad in New York magazine offering $ 200,000 to whoever fixed him up with a woman he eventually marries.

Dantzig’s attorney, Daniel Steinberg, would not comment on the lawsuit and would not say whether the doctor was having any recent luck finding a wife.

“The last time I spoke with him he was dating someone from south of the border that he met on the Internet,” Spindel said. AP

Cyber porn: every parent’s nightmare

The Internet may be the single largest educational reference resource available today, but the murkier side of this technology is also making its presence felt.

While there is a debate going on about possible censorship of the Internet to prevent children from gaining access to pornographic sites, instances of paedophiles using chat rooms to find out information about children with the intention of abusing them sexually in real life are coming to light.

A recent public interest litigation (PIL) has sought regulation of cyber cafes and prevention of teenagers from access to pornographic sites. WFS

A beacon of education

Kashmira Jamali’s school “Beacon High” in Mumbai is one of a kind. It integrates differently abled children with “normal” ones and follows an informal style of education where teachers share lunch with the students.

Jamali also believes that children these days are confiding more in their teachers than in their parents, making it essential to provide counselling as well as individual attention to each child.

“We called a parent today because her child had been depressed for over a week. We found out that the child’s aunt had got married and gone to America making her lonely”, Jamali said. WFS

OF LIFE SUBLIME

In pursuit of happiness
Manmohan Moudgil

What is life and what is happiness? This twin question has occupied human mind in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Another related question is about death. Although life seems to be continuous and never ending, yet death is a certainty. Death remains outside the ambit of human strength and endeavour.

Happiness and the fear of death have always remained central to every human being. Men have always made efforts to live happily and this desire acts as the driving force behind all progress of mankind. An ordinary man is occupied in the pursuit of material happiness. He desires comforts and joys for himself and for his near and dear ones. All his efforts consciously or unconsciously, are aimed at fulfilling this desire.

On the contrary, men blessed with wisdom and enterprise engage themselves in the task of achieving something bigger and more productive for mankind. They excel in art, science and philosophy and their pursuit results in discoveries and inventions which add to human welfare.

The question is whether the pursuits of an ordinary man and those of the extraordinary man have given happiness to mankind. Is material happiness real? Is happiness a sort of paradox?

If we examine material happiness, we find that it is both illusory and paradoxical. Even after acquiring wealth and comforts, we experience a strange hollowness in ourselves, a disturbing unrest. It is the by-product of our illusions. The paradoxical aspect of material happiness can be sensed from the fact that sometimes an object which appears pleasant and soothing, turns out to be unpleasant, undesirable and troublesome.

The needs of man were very few in the beginning of civilisation. His main concern was food, clothes and security. As civilisation advanced, human needs also increased. Man began to look for comforts and he started collecting wealth. Accumulation of wealth gave birth to money power. The rich assumed dominance on the poor. They gave themselves the notion that they had the right to rule. Slowly, this resulted in the exploitation of the poor and the weak by the rich and the powerful. This led to social unrest. The splendour and shine of wealth became a source of trouble.

Social thinkers and reformers felt the need for another power which could contain the power of wealth. It was concluded that power should be decentralised in a group of persons so that no single individual could attain undesirable importance and dominance. Hence the concept of 'state power, came into being. The goal of 'state power' was to provide quality, equal opportunity, justice and dignity to everyone.

On the creation of state power, society presumed that the ills of money power or individual power would vanish and a healthy social order would emerge. But the euphoria generated by state power was also short-lived and society began to experience the drawbacks of state power. Unconsciously or due to the machinations of the corrupt and the greedy, power came into the hands of undesirable persons and the exploitation of the common man continued more or less on the same scale. The goal of equality, equal opportunity, justice and dignity to every individual remained as elusive as ever.

Thus happiness, as visualised by man, is both illusory and paradoxical. It does not come from material attainment. It comes from within and from contentment. Paul Newell Elbin says in his book, 'The Paradox of Happiness' "Happiness is an unconscious, unplanned byproduct of faith in the ultimate purposes of life and in God and of sensitivity to the positive values of truth, beauty and goodness."

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

God would walk with any one if only one would walk alone.

*****

Suicide cannot solve the problem of life. Can the school boy make progress in Arithmetic by wiping from his slate the sum he could not work?

*****

The most gigantic tasks to a self-poised man, are as the lifting of a flower's fragrance by the summer breeze.

*****

Conscience: The gathered experience of ages inherited by man warning him against the path of danger.

*****

"To your own self, be true."

Yes, but is not the self of others (their feelings) your own self?

*****

Afraid of what?

Of God? Nonsense

Of Man? Cowardice

Of the elements? Dare them

Of yourself? Know thyself.

Say- I am fearless.

*****

Fate is the fast friend of him who defies fate:

Luck is pluck.

— Swami Ramatirtha, In Woods of God Realisation 

*****

When you enter into the world of Absolute Reality you will come across a golden veil, very beautiful, so beautiful that many have become enchanted and stopped there....

All darkness disappears and there is such a golden light, so psychedelic.... you have never experienced anything like it. You think you have come home. Wait, beware! This is just the light that surrounds the Reality. You have to penetrate this light to reach the very centre of reality.

— Osho, I am That

*****

Where do these colours come from? All things in the mind are sound and colour. Look around you and observe each vibratory rate of every physical object as having a sound as well as a colour. Everything is sound, everything is colour. Everything is shape. Therefore, in the refined areas of the mind, all things are colour and all things are sound, recognisable through the sixth sense of the all-seeing eye. This faculty is always awake. You only have to learn how to be aware of and use it, in a similar way an artist must learn to distinguish with his physical eyes between one shade of colour and another and between the dimensions in a painting.

— Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswamy