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Captain’s hat
trick Governor’s
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Military
fairplay
The culture of
coalitions
When Shimla was
Simla
Election
analysis Delhi
Durbar
North
Korean official defends country’s actions
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Captain’s hat trick WITH only a year and a half left for the next Assembly elections in Punjab, the Congress victory in Ajnala sets a new trend in state politics. The huge margin with which its candidate, Mr Harpratap Singh, defeated the Shiromani Akali Dal nominee, Mr Amarpal Singh, gives the lie to the Akali claim that the ruling party managed the victory through questionable means. It is true that the constituency witnessed large-scale violence on the polling day forcing the Election Commission to order re-polling in 14 booths. It must be said to the credit of the commission that the re-polling was flawless. Unless the Akali Dal is realistic, it will not be able to fathom the recent turnaround in the fortunes of the Congress. The party should find out why the Ajnala seat, which belonged to the Akali Dal for the last 12 years, slipped out of its hands? Less than a year ago, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was on shaky grounds with the Congress dissidents baying for his blood. People had begun to laugh at his determination to end corruption and ferret out all the hidden wealth of his predecessor. He lost several Lok Sabha seats in the state to the Akalis and he considered himself lucky when his wife could retain the Patiala seat. The Akali Dal appeared all set to return to power. Then the unexpected happened – Dr Manmohan Singh was sworn in as Prime Minister. This marked a watershed in Punjab politics with a section of the traditional voters of the Akali Dal gravitating towards the Congress. Nothing else could have explained the sudden Congress victory in the by-elections in Kapurthala and Garhshankar. The party High Command’s success to patch up the differences between him and the dissidents helped. However cynical the Captain’s masterstroke on the Satluj-Yamuna Link canal issue might have been, it also endeared him to a section of the Akali Dal. And to worsen the situation for the Akali Dal, there has been disconnect between its leadership and the cadres who have every reason to believe that faith in blood ties mattered more to the former. Instead of appreciating these facts and taking remedial action, the party has been searching for alibis to explain away its failures. The fate of the elections due in 2007 will not be any different if the Akalis do not set their house in order and widen their base by taking up issues that concern the people of the state. |
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Governor’s fraud The
manner in which Jharkhand Governor Syed Sibtey Razi sworn in Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Shibu Soren as the Chief Minister on Wednesday is a flagrant violation of his powers under Article 164 (i) of the Constitution. A Governor’s “pleasure” to appoint a Chief Minister under this Article is never final and absolute unless backed by reason, wisdom and jurisprudence. Mr Razi’s action amounts to committing a fraud on the Constitution and is a mockery of well-established norms and conventions. If elections throw up a hung Assembly as in Jharkhand, the Governor is expected to invite the leader of the single largest party or pre-poll alliance to explore the possibility of forming a government and prove his majority in the Assembly in the shortest possible time. This is a time-tested principle recommended by the Sarkaria Commission, the Governors’ Conference and the Supreme Court in the S.R. Bommai case. Surprisingly, Mr Razi did not follow this norm when Mr Arjun Munda of the BJP met him on Tuesday along with 40 other elected members (including five Independents) in the 81-member House. His was the single largest group, that too, a pre-poll alliance with the Janata Dal (United) and thus enjoying greater credibility. Instead, Mr Razi appointed Mr Soren in a hurry without even verifying his claim of 42 supporters and gave him a full 20 days’ time to prove his majority! He has thus invited the criticism of helping out Mr Soren to cobble together a majority by engineering defections. The Opposition continues to disrupt the Parliament session in protest against the Governors’ role in Goa and Jharkhand. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has summoned Mr Razi for consultations on Friday. Unfortunately, Governors care two hoots about the constitutional values as their sole aim is to help the Centre by hook or by crook. Consequently, there is a need to clearly define their
role. The powers to dismiss and appoint Chief Ministers (even in the event of a fractured mandate) need explicit definition. The time limit for a Chief Minister to prove his majority in the Assembly should not be left to the Governor’s
whims. While this may take some time, the Centre should immediately step in to undo the Governor’s mischief and thereby uphold the democratic traditions. |
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Military fairplay The military has moved firmly and fairly in the Tehelka controversy. After the court-martial of Col Anil Sahgal comes the court-martial of Major-Gen PSK Choudhary, who has been cashiered and also handed one-year rigorous imprisonment. He thus becomes the seniormost officer to be thus punished for accepting illegal gratification from fictitious arms dealers represented by undercover journalists of tehelka.com, a news portal. The court-martial of a Brigadier is being held in Patiala. What they did was a blot on the fair name of the Army. By proceeding swiftly, that too against such senior officers, the Army has reestablished that there may be black sheep in its ranks, but the herd is not black as such. Besides weeding out undesirable elements, the military justice will ensure that anybody else with inferior morals will think twice before selling his soul for monetary gains. In Army tradition, the worse that can happen to an officer is the stripping of all badges of rank and regimental insignia. This ultimate humiliation can be deterrent enough for most if not all. The Army action stands in sharp contrast to what is happening in the civil domain. None of the politicians has been served his right desserts despite the evidence against them being as strong. In fact, they happened to be key players who should have been the first to be punished for this shameful crime of accepting cash for favours on camera. But that has not happened. Justice has already been delayed in their case; it should not be denied. In a travesty of justice, it is the investigative journalists who have been in the dock for their “misdeeds”. They have been hounded badly ever since the controversy broke out. Hundreds of cases have been slapped on them. The only way they can be vindicated is by bringing the guilty to book. If the military can do it, so can the civilian government. That will be no witch-hunt, only criminal-hunt. |
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The nature of bad news infects the
teller. — William Shakespeare |
The culture of coalitions
The
Congress has done it again — shot itself in the foot for no rhyme or reason. All the painstaking efforts that it made in piecing together an alliance to fight the last general election have been squandered, and the party will have to start once again virtually from scratch if it wants to rebuilt trust among its allies and ensure a longish stint at the Centre. But any such endeavour will not camouflage the prevailing suspicion about its approach to coalition politics, which is that it doesn’t really believe in working in concert with others in a spirit of give and take. Two years after it lost power in 1996, the Congress ignored the writing on the wall and asserted in Pachmarhi that only it was capable of providing single-party governance. Apparently to demonstrate its prowess to destabilise whoever was in power, whether a friend or a foe, it recklessly pulled down the
H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral governments on flimsy pretexts, including the charge against its current ally, the DMK, that it was responsible for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. With each strike against these “secular” governments, which it supported from outside, it paved the BJP’s road to power. It was only a further five years in the wilderness which made the Congress realise that its days of glory were over and that it needed allies to attain power. So, the Shimla conclave of 2003 overruled the Pachmarhi decision. But the conversion to coalition “dharma” was apparently not wholehearted, as the latest events have shown. It was merely a temporary ploy, which was to be dispensed with as soon as the party could convince itself that it could stand on its own feet. This disdain for alliances dates back to 1937. What is worse, the hubris that the Congress displayed then is widely believed to have led to the country’s partition 10 years later. If only the Congress had not treated the Muslim League with condescension after its overwhelming election victory and accommodated it in the Uttar Pradesh ministry, the history of the country might have been different. To quote from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s “India Wins Freedom”, “if the U.P. League’s offer of cooperation had been accepted, the Muslim League party would for all practical purposes merged in the Congress. Jawaharlal’s action gave the Muslim League in U.P. a new lease of life. All students of Indian politics know that it was from U.P. that the League was reorganised. Mr Jinnah took full advantage of the situation and started an offensive which ultimately led to Pakistan.” But that was the Congress at the beginning of its rise in India’s electoral politics. So its hauteur is understandable, if not excusable. After Independence, it even found it unacceptable to allow other parties to come to power in the states and wasted little time in dislodging them, beginning with the communist government of Kerala in 1959. The party also found the post of governors useful in toppling non-Congress governments with the indiscriminate use of Article 356, calling for the imposition of President’s rule. But what the Congress could do at the height of its powers is hardly advisable in its years of decline. It would do well to remember that if it has somehow managed to survive as India’s oldest political formation, it is because of several fortuitous reasons. One is the absence of a credible opposition party at the national level unlike in the states where the scene is different. The other is the Congress’s ability to produce a popular leader from the Nehru-Gandhi family at critical times — Rajiv Gandhi in 1984, Sonia Gandhi now — to preserve the party’s overall appeal. Presumably because of these lucky breaks, the Congress has been unable to understand that it is basically on shaky ground and so the pursuit of adventurous politics can endanger its political well-being. To negotiate the uncertain political currents of the present, made all the more turbulent by the growth of an extreme right-wing party like the BJP with overtly communal allies in the Sangh Parivar, the Congress will need partners in the foreseeable future to ensure that the power, which it has barely grasped at the Centre, doesn’t slip away. But even with only 145 seats in the Lok Sabha — just seven more than the BJP’s — it evidently finds it difficult to shed its arrogant habits. There was no reason for it to break its alliance with Mr Laloo Yadav in Bihar during the Assembly elections, especially since he has been one of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s most consistent supporters. The effort which the Congress is now making to repair the breach between Mr Laloo Yadav and Mr Ramvilas Paswan should have preceded the elections, and not followed it. Surely, the Congress didn’t expect to sweep the polls in the state in Mr Paswan’s company. But by teaming up with the latter, and yet not breaking completely with Mr Laloo Yadav, the Congress has only succeeded in creating a mess from which it is now trying to extricate itself. The lessons, therefore, which it should learn from the present fiasco is that, first, it should keep reminding itself that the glory days are gone and that it should concentrate on building coalitions instead of disrupting them. The second is that in choosing its allies, the Congress should distinguish between those who have been steadfast in their opposition to the BJP and those who have flirted with the saffron camp. The Left belongs to the first category and so does Mr Laloo Yadav, but, unfortunately, not Mr Paswan despite the latter’s description of the period with the BJP as a time when he swallowed poison. If the Congress has kept Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav at a distance (despite a formal alliance with him in Uttar Pradesh) because of his suspected dalliance with the BJP, apart from the need to woo Ms Mayawati, then its embracement of Mr Paswan seems all the more strange. If the Congress wanted to test whether it was possible for the party to recover its lost influence in Bihar, then it should have waited for some more time and allowed its clout to grow at the Centre. Only then would it have been in a position to check out whether the upper castes would desert the BJP and return to it and whether the dissatisfaction of the backward castes and the Muslims with the lack of development and of law and order in Bihar would be enough for them to turn to the Congress. But it showed its hand too early and now it has lost out on a number of counts — it has exposed its weakness in Bihar, weakened its position at the Centre, created mistrust about its intentions among all the allies and helped the BJP to regain its lost confidence. Perhaps the best tactical move for the Congress is to focus on improving its position only in those states where its opponents are not its allies at the Centre, as it was in Haryana. But antagonising its allies may prove to be fatal for the Congress. |
When Shimla was Simla THERE are moments when we are drawn to reminiscing about our yesterdays and all they have meant and we feel a sense of wonderful nostalgia for time that’s been so well and richly spent. My summer vacations of school and college days spent at Simla — nay Shimla — during forties is one such period. A walk through the corridors of time reminds me of many thrills, pleasures and witness to historical event. The road from Kalka to Shimla was only one way. All uphill traffic would start in the morning hours when no vehicle could leave Shimla. Similarly, the downhill move from Shimla would start in the afternoon. The journeys had to be completed at fixed durations to avoid accidents. There were checkposts manned by policemen at Kalka and Tara Devi for compliance of this restriction. While the journey in the morning from Kalka was known as “Charahi”, the journey from Shimla was “Uttrai”. This exactly used to be the case for the journey by train. The train from Kalka would stop at Summer Hill station. Railway employees in white uniforms with register in their hands would enter the compartment and start enquiring from each passenger their names, addresses and destinations. Since it was their regular routine, the words “aap ka naam, baap ka naam, kahan se, kahan ko” would mechanically come out. I feel that this exercise was introduced for security purposes as some of the central government offices at Delhi would move to Shimla during summer days and function from here. The names of the buildings and houses such as Oakover, Rookwood, Wild Flower Hall and many others combine myth and reality. At Mashobra a few kilometres from Shimla I had spotted an imposing bungalow which was unused. I was told by the people living nearby that this was built by one Englishman called Mr Dane who had predicted that Shimla would come up on this side of the hill. However, his prediction proved wrong and he named the house as “Danes Folly”. I have lived through those anxious years when India was struggling to keep its tryst with destiny and for complete freedom. Shimla gave me an opportunity to catch glimpses of most of the stalwart freedom fighters like Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad, Mahatma Gandhi and many others. They had all been invited to the “Hill Station” for talks by the then Viceroy and Governor General of India. Standing outside the sprawling Viceregal Lodge Complex (now Indian Institute of Advance Study) the small crowd would cheer these leaders with shouts of “zindabad”. Sometimes they would stop to address briefly the adoring crowds. That afternoon Mahatma Gandhi was expected to arrive. A few of us had reached Tara Devi checkpost. I had carried a hand spun khadi garland. As luck would have it, the car of Mahatma Gandhi slowed down. I rushed and was fortunate to garland him through the open window. He had smiled and I realised that I was face to face with the
Mahatma!!
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Election analysis
Even as the National Democratic Alliance succeeded in reining in the Congress-JMM combine in the first elections to the Jharkhand assembly, it failed to reach the crucial half-way mark. The smaller parties and independents hold the balance in the 81-member House. The BJP-JD(U) strength at 36 is four less than the alliance strength in the 2000 polls when Jharkhand was part of undivided Bihar. Of the 36 seats won by the NDA, the BJP got 30 seats and the JD(U) six. The BJP’s vote share at 23.59 per cent in this election is marginally lower than in 2000 when it had secured 25.13 per cent votes and won 32 seats. The BJP had contested 63 seats in this election while it had put up 72 candidates in 2000. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which is the only party to have improved its numbers in this election, added five seats to its previous tally of 12. The Congress, which had 11 members in the outgoing assembly, could win nine seats this time. The JMM benefited from the emotional campaign of its chief Shibu Soren, who focused in rural and tribal areas. Mr Soren made impassioned pleas to reward him “for his 40-year struggle for the creation of Jharkhand.” The JMM also gained from perception among certain sections about the party being a regional outfit which articulates interests of Jharkhand. By playing down the rebellion of his associate Stephen Marandi, the JMM chief succeeded in limiting the damage to a few seats in Santhal Parganas. The Congress-JMM combine suffered from certain internal weaknesses as also from divisions in the United Progressive Alliance. If the Congress and the JMM were locked in “friendly contests” on eight seats, other UPA allies including the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party had no pretensions of friendliness. Mr Laloo Prasad’s RJD contested 51 seats and emerged victorious on seven seats. The RJD performed well in the seats adjoining Bihar with a strong Yadav population. Three former ministers of the NDA government contested as RJD nominees. The Congress
strategists apparently underestimated the strength of the RJD when they reached an agreement with the JMM for seat sharing in Jharkhand. The RJD had nine MLAs in the outgoing assembly. The agreement left only nine seats to the RJD against 35 for the JMM and 33 for the
Congress. Mr Laloo Prasad took no time in rejecting the unilateral agreement. Adding to confusion in the UPA was the presence of JMM and Congress rebels on several seats. The errors made by the Congress in choosing its seats and repeatedly changing nominees in some constituencies also complicated matters for the party. The campaign saw JMM chief Shibu Soren and Mr Laloo Prasad, both UPA allies, taking potshots at each other. While the BJP learnt its lessons from the 2004 Lok Sabha elections when it could win only one of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state by contesting alone, the UPA failed to demonstrate the unity of the Lok Sabha elections when the Congress, the JMM and the RJD had fought together. The vote share of the Congress declined by nearly 8 per cent in these elections but it was also due to the party contesting only half the number of seats it had contested in the 2000 elections. Interestingly, the
BJP-JD (U) vote share in this assembly election at 27.59 per cent is only slightly better than 26.34 per cent of the JMM-Congress. The RJD secured 8.47 per cent votes. The BJP sealed a neat and clear alliance with the
JD (U) and denied the ticket to family members of its top state leaders. The BJP tried to scratch wounds of Congress and JMM workers by repeatedly pointing to “preference for sons and daughters” in the two opposition parties. The Congress gave the ticket to sons of four of its MPs while the JMM chief gave the ticket to his two sons and a brother. As it happened, all the “sons” lost in the elections. The NDA government of the new state may not have created records in development but it apparently did enough in the last four years to prevent a backlash in the assembly elections. Caste equations, the candidate’s image and local factors mattered in every constituency with the people also taking into account development work done by the MLA. With Bihar as the reference point to make comparisons for Jharkhand, the BJP government succeeded to a large in staving off anti-incumbency. People sensed a change in terms of improved roads and more power supply though many of their expectations from the government of a new state remained unfulfilled. Development work seemed to have slowed down in the past two years due to internal rumblings of the BJP-led coalition government. The Congress, which started its campaign for the assembly elections with a distinct advantage following UPA’s sweeping victory in the last Lok Sabha elections in Jharkhand and eight months of rule by a party-led government at the Centre, allowed the BJP to catch on. Though the Congress wooed minorities aggressively, it seemingly failed to get their unstinted support. A consolation for the Congress-JMM combine was the “inevtability” of the RJD and the Left parties joining hands with it after the poll to keep away the NDA from forming a government. Congress leaders exuded confidence from the start about their finding the numbers eventually. Given the sizeable population of minorities in Jharkhand, the BJP refrained from making conversions a major poll plank in the elections. The tactical move by the BJP government to recommend the inclusion of Kurmis in the Scheduled Tribe category apparently paid dividends. Promising faster development in the next five years, the BJP repeatedly reminded the people about Jharkhand getting statehood during NDA rule at the Centre. The BJP also gained from the apprehension among the electorate in urban areas about the return of Mr Laloo Prasad to the state politics in the form of his support to a UPA government. People in most urban areas of the state felt that the RJD, which ruled over Jharkhand for 11 years when it was part of undivided Bihar, could not deliver in terms of development. The BJP cadres did their bit to strengthen the impression about the RJD government “discriminating” against Jharkhand and exploiting its rich mineral resources. Smaller parties, including the All Jharkhand Students Union, the United Goans Democratic Party, the Jharkhand Party and the Nationalist Congress Party cut into the traditional support base of the JMM and the Congress. Interestingly, All India Forward Block made its debut in the assembly with two seats. The
CPI (M-L) retained its lone seat in the assembly. While the AJSU and the UGDP won two seats each, Jharkhand Party and the NCP won one each. The independents, including a BJP rebel, were successful on three seats. Surrounded by five states with different political dispensations and linguistic traditions, Jharkhand has a multi-polar polity. Its first elected assembly has different ideological shades. |
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Hillary Clinton meets young MPs US Senator Hillary Clinton has left a lasting impression on members of the Forum of Young Parliamentarians during an interface the other day. “Amazing, stunning, rather blunt at times and a smart dodger” were some of the comments of those at the “short but sweet” interaction. Steel magnate Naveen Jindal found Hillary exciting. When Jitin Prasada asked about her prospects of becoming the first American woman President, she side stepped it with alacrity. She, however, spoke of the special bonding with India since her visit to this country with her daughter Chelsea in 1995. When former minister Ravi Shankar Prasad sought her views on why there is a continuing U S “tilt” towards Pakistan, Hillary observed Washington also wanted Islamabad to play a crucial role in fighting terrorism like India.
Singla’s dinner
for observers Punjab Finance Minister Surrinder Singla did his bit for the AICC observers for Haryana — P M Sayeed and Ashok Gehlot — who had descended on Chandigarh to ascertain the views of the party legislators on who should be the Chief Minister. After the HPCC legislature party meeting, Sayeed and Gehlot had a dinner with Singla. After the HPCC meeting, the MLAs left for Delhi. Midway, they realised that the observers had stayed back in Chandigarh. The cars carrying the MLAs immediately did a U-turn and returned making a beeline to Singla’s residence. However, Bhajan Lal got a wind of where Sayeed and Gehlot had gone and is believed to have made his presence felt, though Singla denies it.
Ambika Soni corners scribes Congress leader Ambika Soni virtually turned the tables on scribes at a luncheon hosted by Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy. Before the scribes could fire their queries, she cornered a group from Kerala and asked them about the repercussions of a Muslim League minister resigning in the state following a sex scandal. Usually at the receiving end of a barrage of questions, Soni decided to go on the offensive. She employed the same ploy while talking to journalists from Bihar. By the time the journos could fathom Soni’s changed strategy, the party was over.
Police ads against Naxalite plea In the just-concluded assembly poll in Jharkhand, the state police did not limit itself to fighting Naxalites on the ground, but also made appeals to the people to ignore their call for boycott and vote in large numbers. The police issued full-page advertisements in newspapers for days together in every phase of the three-stage election. The Congress was not amused, but the party leaders could do little in getting a ban on the advertisements from the government department. The Congress leaders saw the advertisements as patronage by the NDA government in the state to ensure good coverage during the campaign.
Paswan’s
MLAs oppose Laloo While Lok Janshakati Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan holds the key to forming a government in Bihar, a highly significant aspect is that 19 of his MLAs belonging to the Rajput and Bhumihar communities are opposed to RJD supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav and his party. These MLAs had forewarned Paswan against succumbing to any pressure from Congress President Sonia Gandhi to patch up with Laloo Prasad when he left Patna for New Delhi to meet her. Grapevine has it that the Rajput and Bhumihar MLAs of his party had told Paswan in clear terms that if he makes any compromise and agrees to support Laloo Prasad’s RJD, he should forget about returning to Patna. The pressure from these MLAs is considered to be the main reason for Paswan taking such a tough posture and not conceding from his declared stand that he would neither support the NDA nor the RJD. Contributed by Gaurav Choudhury, P N Andley, Prashant Sood and S S Negi |
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North Korean official defends country’s actions He
arrived at the entrance to a North Korean government-owned restaurant and karaoke club in the Chinese capital with a handshake and a request. “Call me Mr. Anonymous,” he said in English. This North Korean, an affable man in his late 50s who spent much of his career as a diplomat in Europe, is now charged with helping his Communist country attract foreign investment. With the United States and other countries complaining about everything from North Korea's nuclear weapons to its human rights record, it's a difficult task, he admitted. Since North Koreans seldom talk to the U.S. media, his comments give rare insight into how things look from the other side of the geopolitical divide. He said better relations with the United States were key to turning around his nation's economy, which has nearly ground to a halt over the last decade amid famine, the collapse of industry and severe electricity shortages. “For basic life, we can live without America, but we can live better with” it, he said. Yet he voiced strong enthusiasm for North Korea's recent announcement that it had developed nuclear weapons. The declaration, which jarred U.S. officials, was not intended as a threat, he said, but merely as a way to advance negotiations. “Now that we are members of the nuclear club, we can start talking on an equal footing. In the past, the U.S. tried to whip us, as though they were saying, `Little Boy, don't play with dangerous things.”’ A colleague, a 55-year-old also visiting from North Korea, nodded. “This was the right thing to do to declare ourselves a nuclear power. The U.S. had been talking not only about economic sanctions, but regime change,” the businessman said. “We can't just sit there waiting for them to do something. We have the right to protect ourselves.” The North Koreans said they were keenly attentive to the language used by Bush administration officials with regard to their country. They were relieved that in this year's State of the Union address the president didn't again characterize North Korea as part of an “axis of evil,” as he did in 2002. But they were offended that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called North Korea an “outpost of tyranny” in her confirmation hearings. He also said that U.S. criticism of North Korea's record on human rights was unfair and hypocritical. The State Department on Monday in its annual human rights report characterized North Korea's record as “extremely poor.”
It said 150,000 to 200,000 people are being held in detention camps for political reasons and that there continued to be reports of extrajudicial killings and disappearances. “Is there any country where there is a 100 percent guarantee of human rights? Certainly not the United States,” he said. “There is a question of what is a political prisoner. Maybe these people are not political prisoners, but social agitators.” While Westerners tend to stress the rights of the individual, he said: “We have chosen collective human rights as a nation. . . . We should have food, shelter, security, rather than chaos and vandalism. The question of our survival as a nation is dangling.” The North Korean admitted that “it is no secret that we have economic problems,” and he said North Koreans were themselves in large part to blame because they let their industry become too dependent on the socialist bloc countries.
— LA Times - Washington Post |
Let the son be loyal to the father and of one mind with the mother. — The Vedas Courage in danger is half the battle. — Plautus A person who speaks the truth become trustworthy like a mother, venerable like a preceptor and dear to everyone like a kinsman. — Lord Mahavir As a lamp does not burn without oil, a man cannot live without God. — Sri Ramakrishna  |
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