O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Threat from Al-Qaida
Leave nothing to chance
THE US warning that Al-Qaida operatives may strike in a big way in India anytime before August 15 is not surprising. India has been known to be among the targets of the global terrorist outfit ever since an audio message from Al-Qaida was telecast by Al-Jazeera on April 23 this year.

Degrading defence
Arrest corruption in the forces
THE cases are tumbling out one after another. Corruption is known to be prevalent in all echelons of the armed forces, but there was always the hope that the higher calling and traditions of the military, and a few good men, would ensure that it is somehow self-limiting.

Pleasure becomes pain
The lost joys of air travel
TIME was when it was better to journey hopefully than to arrive. Journeys by air were a pleasure, besides being glamorous, though in many ways it could never overcome the earthly joys of travelling by train.

• Thought for the day

Island of strife
India must avert war in Sri Lanka
by Shastri Ramachandaran
SRI LANKA’S four-year-old ceasefire is dead but it has not been declared dead. There is a war on but war has not been declared.

MIDDLE

Into the sunset
by Shelley Walia
AFTER taking my class every Friday I would drive to Delhi for the weekend at Teen Murti Library where my wife and I were pursuing research on a project. And we would return by Monday morning just in time for my afternoon class. This continued for about three months.

OPED

Human Rights Diary
Candle in the wind
The Wagah vigil must go on
by Kuldip Nayar
At last,” I remarked when I received, from Lahore, an invitation to bring with me five more persons to join the Pakistan independence day celebrations. This was not from any big organisation. Still it reflected a thaw of sorts. Never had such a gesture been made since Partition.

The West and Pakistan: will things change?
by Paul Richter
The trail of evidence in the British terrorism investigation is leading to an uncomfortable question for the US administration: Is Pakistan rather than Iraq, Afghanistan or some other country the central front in the war on terror?

Chatterati
Dosa for Sonia, problem for Lalu
by Devi Cherian
After all those pizza jokes, imagine what Sonia Gandhi wanted in the Central Hall of Parliament: to eat a dosa. But unfortunately, in spite of the DMK being a partner in the government, no dosa was readily available for Sonia.

From the pages of

 

REFLECTIONS

EDITORIALS

Threat from Al-Qaida
Leave nothing to chance

THE US warning that Al-Qaida operatives may strike in a big way in India anytime before August 15 is not surprising. India has been known to be among the targets of the global terrorist outfit ever since an audio message from Al-Qaida was telecast by Al-Jazeera on April 23 this year. That is why the Indian security establishment has reacted by saying that it has already been on high alert with the Independence Day and Janmashtami celebrations approaching fast. But Pakistan-based terrorist networks like the Lashkar-e-Toiyaba, which National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan believes is part of Al-Qaida, and the Jaish-e-Mohammed figure more prominently in India’s threat perception because of their past record and the covert support they had been getting from the ISI.

In any case, the truth remains that India has to maintain strict vigil at its sensitive installations besides airports, trains, hotels, major markets, etc. Nothing should be left to chance to prevent terrorists of any denomination from getting successful in implementing their destructive designs. India has been a victim of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism for a long time and it knows well that the forces of destruction sustain themselves by springing surprises. So, people, particularly those undertaking air travels, must cooperate with security personnel even if security checks sometimes amount to delays or lead to embarrassing situations. Air travel can no longer be like what it was before the unearthing of the plot to blow up passenger planes on trans-Atlantic flights from London.

Airlines will have to ensure that there are no terrorist operatives in their staff, particularly after the identification of such a person associated with one private air carrier. India’s problem is slightly more complicated than other countries in view of the fact that it has already been on the target list of most of the terrorist outfits operating from Pakistan. That some of these have been in league with Al-Qaida is a different matter. So, India has to be on guard from all of these elements. A major battle against Osama bin Laden’s network can be won if the world unites to put pressure on Islamabad to destroy all the Kashmir-centric networks in Pakistan. This is in the interest of the entire international community. More delay can lead to more disasters.

Degrading defence
Arrest corruption in the forces

THE cases are tumbling out one after another. Corruption is known to be prevalent in all echelons of the armed forces, but there was always the hope that the higher calling and traditions of the military, and a few good men, would ensure that it is somehow self-limiting. That hope is now being beguiled. Only recently did we comment in these columns on the cases of general officers being involved in scams concerning the procurement of pulses and other rations for the forces. That followed several other cases of information leakage, bribery, misappropriation, fraud and malpractice.

That these are compromising the security of the nation goes without saying. In the latest case, there is a colonel facing charges pertaining to information leakage and misconduct with jawans. Apparently, the officer made unauthorised copies of sensitive documents, allowed the installation of a fax machine in a clerk’s room as against the mandatory officer’s room, and failed to forward an intelligence report in time. The copies were later leaked out by a Lance Naik. The officer has denied the charges but incompetence, negligence and laxity are fairly serious charges for the military and the consequences can be as drastic as malicious espionage or deliberate acts of sabotage. Now, even the Director-General of Military Intelligence himself is going on forced leave for alleged misuse of defence equipment and personnel!

That the security situation is hostile is clear. It is also a fact that the armed forces are a large organisation and its administration can sometimes get unwieldy. But that cannot be an excuse, given the regularity with which breaches of security are coming to the fore. That they are being detected and prosecuted is a silver lining. But the nation cannot wait till critical mass is reached. We have called for an overhaul of systems and procedures and a determined effort to weed out malpractice before. We are yet to see the required will to act in both the military and civil bureaucracies.

Pleasure becomes pain
The lost joys of air travel

TIME was when it was better to journey hopefully than to arrive. Journeys by air were a pleasure, besides being glamorous, though in many ways it could never overcome the earthly joys of travelling by train. The very thought of taking a flight caused a thrill and being seen off at departure and received on arrival were events which were no less looked forward to. Now, in a terror-stricken world, a chill has replaced the thrill of air travel and getting on to a plane, surviving the flight and landing in good shape is a prospect that promises more pain than pleasure.

Even before terror struck and embedded the 9/11 and 7/11 syndromes in our psyche, air travel had begun losing its charm. The lengthy queues for check-in, the longer hours needed to negotiate through security, immigration, baggage checks et, al, left one exhausted and the passenger was weary even before the flight took off. He simply flopped in his seat and hoped he would not be disturbed until he landed at his destination. Gone were the little kicks of looking forward to a drink and, in the years past, a smoke so high up in the sky. After the latest plot uncovered in London, transparency has literally been stretched to its limits. Every item carried in hand, and not checked in, must be in checkable condition and carried in see-through plastic bags.

Such security is too opaque for comprehension, clarifying only the tension in store for a flyer. Travel only if you must is the new mantra. You are better off on the ground and at home. One recalls the legend of Alexander (the Great) pleading with the wise Diogenes to accompany him on his world-conquering mission. Diogenes scorns the idea, saying he doesn’t need to set out to see and conquer the world, whereas Alexander even if he were to succeed will neither enjoy the fruits of it nor return home. Prophetic, but also instructive that the past makes more sense than the unfolding future, at least of air travel.

Thought for the day

There is no infidelity when there has been no love. — Honore de Balzac

ARTICLE

Island of strife
India must avert war in Sri Lanka
by Shastri Ramachandaran

SRI LANKA’S four-year-old ceasefire is dead but it has not been declared dead. There is a war on but war has not been declared. The undeclared war amidst a declared ceasefire had to happen. The “no-war, no-peace” situation — and the negotiations that skirted the political issues at the root of the Tamil-Sinhala conflict — had gone on for long enough. No longer was such a (peace) process unsustainable.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) knows that talks will never deliver a separate state. It wearied of being a de facto state; of not gaining any sort of formal recognition of its supremacy over the northeast. A militarist outfit thrives on confrontation. Protracted negotiations requiring the LTTE to keep its powder dry can be sapping. There’s no urgency to raise resources — for fighting; there is no enemy for keeping the people and troops in a state of alert; their own people tend to slip out of control; cadres begin to take it easy; disaffection spreads in the restive ranks; and, as it happened with the Karuna-led revolt, the flux throws up internal politico-military challenges. War is necessary to stay in control.

For the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), regardless of its political complexion, the situation was no less frustrating. How long can it allow a de facto state — a state within a state gaining acceptance if not legitimacy — ruled by a terrorist outfit, to continue? The ceasefire implies that Sri Lanka had ceded sovereignty over a part of its territory and the LTTE was, increasingly, being equated with the GoSL. No state can accept this indefinitely.

Something had to give. The peace trip did. All it needed for war was a theatre and a trigger.

The LTTE provided the trigger with its blockade of water supply, which set eastern Trincomalee as the stage for the GoSL’s military attacks and the LTTE’s massacres. The intense fighting between the Sri Lankan security forces (SFSF) and the LTTE has all the ingredients for rapidly escalating to full-scale hostilities over a much larger area, unless there is international intervention.

The water dispute is a mere drop in a tide that is inexorably pushing Sri Lanka towards civil war. With both parties locked in a passive peace frame, the tide began gathering long before Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar’s assassination in August 2005, or President Mahinda Rajapakse’s election in November 2005. Some sighted the drift as early as 2003 when the LTTE walked away from the Norway-brokered peace talks. Over two years ago, Norway found the peace process “melting at the edges”.

However, the absence of war and the prospect of political changes between then and the end of 2005, made everyone involved in the make-believe that the process was only stalled, and not wrecked beyond recovery. As a result, “incidents” were ignored and assassinations of Kadirgamar and, more recently, of army brass and others treated as inevitable “collateral losses” that should not be allowed to destroy the peace process. Then came the spate of bombings and killings with war-like noises reaching a dangerous pitch and the LTTE ultimatum to European Union members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to quit for their own “safety”.

Through all this President Rajapakse showed extraordinary restraint, if only to disabuse the impression of his being a “hard-liner” veering away from the peace process. But the war over water, which his government launched on “humanitarian grounds”, is the bloodiest confrontation since the ceasefire agreement of 2002, and marks the end of Mr Rajapakse’s restraint. If the fighting revives military confrontation, then the fourth war for Eelam, unlike the first three, would have been started by the GoSL, and not the LTTE.

The water war offers the excuse that the LTTE — and Sinhala nationalist forces such as the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urimaya (JHU) — have been waiting for to plunge Sri Lanka into a civil war. Mr Rajapakse ought not to provide that opening and should pull Sri Lanka back from the brink. True, the LTTE has violated the truce, exploited it to wage a not-so-visible war, extended its influence and mobilised men and materials for a military showdown. These facts do not reduce the accountability of the state, which must, as a representative of all ethnic groups in the island, occupy the moral and political high ground even in the face of the gravest provocation.

Although domestic developments would decide Sri Lanka’s advance on or retreat from the present perilous course, the crisis calls for immediate international action; and, here, “international” means India.

In view of the IPKF fiasco, the question “What can India do?” smacks of despair. What India cannot do is known: India cannot mediate, supply combat equipment or directly engage the LTTE. That provides clarity on the many options open to India, some of which were set out by India’s High Commissioner, Mrs Nirupama Rao, when she met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi a few months ago.

India can prevail upon the GoSL to call off its ground and aerial attacks immediately, and deprive the LTTE of a chance to launch the fourth Eelam war. New Delhi should invite Norway and the other co-chairs of the peace process and get them to publicly declare that the (dead) process is actually dead. The GoSL must be persuaded to proceed with a plan for devolution of power to the northeast, though a lasting solution is a long way off.

The Sinhalese parties must be tied, under international pressure, to a bipartisan consensus for a new peace process, guided by an altogether different vision, strategy and approach. The new process should be entirely home grown, aided and facilitated by external agents. President Rajapakse’s initiatives, such as the All-Party Conference, could be the starting point and the committees working on a devolution package and power-sharing mechanisms should deliver without delay. The package could be the basis to start negotiations afresh.

Since the LTTE is banned in India, as it is in the US and the European Union, Norway can be retained as the facilitator. The Norwegians are tenacious, (unlike their Nordic cousins in the SLMM who pack up and flee at the first sign of trouble). Despite Norway’s propensity to finesse a point here and there to humour the LTTE, by and large, it has given a good account of itself. Norway secured the political and financial support of important countries for the peace process, and scrupulously kept New Delhi in the loop.

The EU ban has hurt the LTTE and the latter’s “regret” over Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination is an acknowledgement of India’s influence to tilt the strategic balance in the conflict. Hence, New Delhi can take on the LTTE, too, by orchestrating a global campaign for its isolation until it convincingly commits itself to negotiations.

The proposition is fraught with risks, but unlike the EU monitors who cite “national interest” as an alibi for quitting the scene, New Delhi cannot ignore the dangers in its neighbourhood.

MIDDLE

Into the sunset
by Shelley Walia

AFTER taking my class every Friday I would drive to Delhi for the weekend at Teen Murti Library where my wife and I were pursuing research on a project. And we would return by Monday morning just in time for my afternoon class. This continued for about three months. The drives were pleasant as it was around November. Warm sunny days along with a lunch thrown in on the Karnal lake made every weekend an occasion to look forward to.

On one such drive, as we were approaching Samalkha, I spotted four camels being led by a stout Rajasthani sporting a ferocious looking walrus-like moustache and brandishing a long, wooden staff. The sun was setting slowly and the four camels plodding homewards made a picture perfect scene. I asked my wife to stop so that I could capture the scene on my camera.

I walked a few metres from the car and took the shot, when, lo and behold, the man strode towards me with his moustache twitching and eyes blood-shot. As he approached me, he belligerently demanded payment for the picture which he said I couldn’t take for free. His provocative, violent gesture at once made me take the decision of not parting with a penny.

Sensing trouble, I asked him to follow me to the car where I would make the payment. As I got into the car, I shouted at my wife to press on the gas pedal. But as we zoomed off, I saw his huge, lethal hand whizzing past my face and lunging for the camera. Luckily, only the strap came into his grip. When I recovered from the onslaught, I felt glad that I had held on to the camera, even though the strap was gone.

I smoldered inside. My wife was equally enraged, but we drove on. As luck would have it, the very next week we spotted him again during the sunset hour at the same place. Although my frenzied mind had been imagining this day the entire past week, planning my vengeance when I would terrorise him by driving right onto him, I decided against it at the last minute. I told myself that I did not want to frighten the innocent camels after their long tedious day, though my act would scatter them and set them free from a life of burden and captivity. That would have been an incisive lesson for their master.

I have always regretted why I did not.

OPED

Human Rights Diary
Candle in the wind
The Wagah vigil must go on
by Kuldip Nayar

At last,” I remarked when I received, from Lahore, an invitation to bring with me five more persons to join the Pakistan independence day celebrations. This was not from any big organisation. Still it reflected a thaw of sorts. Never had such a gesture been made since Partition.

But my happiness did not last long. The organisers sent a message that the Ministry of Interior at Islamabad was not happy over the participation of Indians. I knew that this was Islamabad’s reaction which had never been happy over people-to-people contact, whatever its pious statements. The hosts were, no doubt, embarrassed. They dared not protest, at least publicly, lest they should face some trouble. We came to their rescue and cancelled the visit.

The other side felt relieved. In contrast, our successive governments at Delhi, I must say to their credit, relax the curfew at night in the area to enable us to light candles right at the Wagah border, the iron gate, where the Indian territory ends. The response of the public is tremendous. We began with only 15 people, lighting candles on the 14-15th August midnight to mark the birth of the two countries. In 11 years’ time, the number has crossed the figure of five lakh.

In the midst of unending singing and dancing near the border from 8 p.m.— the best of Punjabi artistes consider it a privilege to sing there — there are only a few pauses to raise the slogan: ‘Hindu-Pak Dosti (friendship) Zindabad’ or to pass a resolution for visa relaxation.

The participants come on their own, on foot, cycle, truck, tractor, bus, car or whichever transport they can find. They stay till the early hours and linger even later. Villages all around have an open house that night and offer meals which their women folk cook the whole day long. Some also send truckloads of chappati and dal to the site. The night vigil is something special for all of them.

Yet, they ask me year after year, the same question: whether there are people on the Pakistan side and whether they too light candles. I tell them ‘Not yet’, because I have confidence that they will do so one day. So far, people in the Indian side are disappointed, not only because they want to see the Pakistanis reciprocating but also because they are keen on meeting them. Nonetheless, they are overjoyed to see in their midst Pakistan Parliament members for the last three years.

Visitors from the other side are a big draw. But they come only up to the visiting gallery on their side when the soldiers of the two countries haul down their respective national flag at the sunset. All of them — their number has swelled to thousands— go back after the ceremony. The security forces make sure of this. None from the public is present on the other side when our programme begins.

I believe a few years ago a group of Pakistanis wanted to come up to the border to express their solidarity with our cause: people-to-people contact. But the threat by the Jammat-e-Islamia stopped them from going beyond the suburbs of Lahore. The military was behind the Jammat in this task.

The lack of response from the other side at night is disappointing. But then the two societies are different. India has been following the democratic system since independence. People have been tempered by free environment. On the other hand, Pakistan has been a military-controlled state for more than 45 years. Even otherwise, feudal in outlook, people in Pakistan have developed an attitude which responds to control and discipline.

The difference between the two societies is clear from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s reaction to the police misbehaviour towards the leading human rights activist Asma Jehangir from Pakistan. She was in Delhi last week to attend the Bureau meeting of South Asian Human Rights(SAHR). The police searched her room and the luggage. The Prime Minister caught her at the airport half an hour before her departure to Lahore to express his apology. He told her that he was “ashamed” over what had happened.

Asma was overwhelmed and she took the opportunity to tell the Prime Minister that the peace process should not stop. He assured her that he was all for it. People on both sides should pick up the thread from where it has been left off.

All know that whatever India’s limitations, it has sustained a free, open and democratic society. In a letter to an Indian newspaper, some prominent human rights activists from Pakistan have themselves conceded this: ‘The people of India have a right to take pride in the deeply rooted democratic dispensation in their country and the manner in which it has been promoted in its true spirit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’.

Let us learn to study regional problems in the larger perspective of the world and let us not permit the minor questions of the day to overwhelm us. I have faith in Southeast Asia and its destiny. We have a long way to go and much leeway to make up before we can take our proper station with others. We should therefore seek friendship and comradeship wherever we can find it and cooperate with one another in common tasks.

My generation has been a troubled one. We may carry on for a little while longer but our day will be over and we shall give place to others. They will live their lives and carry their burdens to the next stage of the journey — the burden of normalising relations not only between India and Pakistan but also among all Southeast Asian countries.

How we have played our part, I do not know. Others of a later age will judge. In spite of all frustrations and rebuffs we have lighted a candle to dispel the darkness of enmity and hatred. It should keep burning in the face of efforts by fanatics and fundamentalists to snuff it out. We have no other option.

The West and Pakistan: will things change?
by Paul Richter

The trail of evidence in the British terrorism investigation is leading to an uncomfortable question for the US administration: Is Pakistan rather than Iraq, Afghanistan or some other country the central front in the war on terror?

The conspiracy described by British and American authorities serves as a reminder that one of the administration’s leading allies in the region is also host to some of its worst enemies. It also is igniting a debate on whether the Bush administration’s effort to support Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has done enough to stem Islamic radicalism in a country whose citizens are among the most strongly anti-American of any in the world.

“This shows the need for more attention and more cooperation,” said Hassan Abbas, a terrorism expert who is a former Pakistani security official. “But it also says that some of the skepticism about Musharraf and his intelligence (agencies) and law enforcement is well founded.”

Pakistan announced last week that it had detained several suspects this week, including a British national considered an important figure in the alleged British plot. U.S. and British investigators say that some of the 24 arrested in Britain, most of them British citizens of Pakistani descent, may have had ties to radical fundamentalist groups in Pakistan. Similarly, militants who attacked the London transport system last year had ties to Pakistani groups.

While Musharraf has helped the Bush administration fight some terrorist organizations in his country, he has done little to halt others, or bring to justice the government officials who support them.

Most damaging, while Musharraf has gone after terrorist groups he believes may threaten his government, he has resisted efforts to crack down on other organizations that he believes serve Pakistan’s interests against rival India, or have substantial domestic support in the country. He has not been seen as energetic in helping U.S. forces find Taliban fighters in border regions, and has refused to go after groups that support the insurgency in the disputed, Indian-controlled territory of Kashmir.

While some of these groups may appear distinct from al-Qaida, many share a web of contacts and are part of a broader terrorist infrastructure in the country, Abbas said.

Musharraf “tries to differentiate between the two kinds of groups, but you can’t,” he said. “Some of these members of organizations that focus on Kashmir were at some stage part of al-Qaida,” he said. “These people are still at large, and they’re getting support from sympathetic government officials. And there lies the problem.”

When Musharraf sends his army to the Waziristan region to fight elements of al-Qaida, the gains they make against terrorism are undermined by his support for terror groups in Pakistan that will, in time, help replenish the network, analysts say.

“Pakistan is the major breeding ground for all those psycho fanatics who want to blow up themselves and all of us,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y. “And while we’re grateful for the limited cooperation we get, there should be more and more demands.”

Stephen P. Cohen, a Brookings Institution expert on South Asia, said that the administration is hindered by the fact that it needs Pakistani help in so many ways. “The Pakistanis, frankly, control the agenda,” he said.
By arrangement with LA-Times–Washington Post

Chatterati
Dosa for Sonia, problem for Lalu
by Devi Cherian

After all those pizza jokes, imagine what Sonia Gandhi wanted in the Central Hall of Parliament: to eat a dosa. But unfortunately, in spite of the DMK being a partner in the government, no dosa was readily available for Sonia. Congress MPs got upset with the Railway Minister as it is the Railways which caters to the stomachs of MPs in Central Hall. Congress parliamentarians rushed to complain to the redoubtable Lalu about the lack of a dosa and asked why one was not there to appease their leader’s palate.

But the comedy didn’t end there. Sonia had decided to spend at least two hours in Central Hall every session, to interact with MPs. Seeing her hungry, Girija Vyas, chairperson of the National Women’s Commission, hoped that a glass of water would temporarily appease Sonia before her dosa arrived. But the water fell on Sonia’s sari by mistake, when the glass fell from the fingers of a nervous Vyas. Irritated, Sonia got up and left without her dosa.

She must have been missing the old days when she would drive to her favourite South Indian restaurant, Royal Dakshin on Mehrauli Road, and order appams and dosas. Lalu Yadav has ordered that dosa be served on demand to MPs from Friday onwards.

Second innings

A senior politician commented wryly the other day, that the UPA government only cares for retired officers. A variety of retired guys are today manning key posts. The Cabinet Secretary, the top babu, is himself retired twice over. Director, Intelligence Bureau; Secretary, RAW; Home Secretary; Defence Secretary are all retired and serving on the two-year special dispensation. The NSA and Secretary to PM are of course similarly retired folk. The ambassadors to Russia, England and America are also retired diplomats. So why should not the Foreign Secretary keep his job also after retirement? In any case all top babus after retirement join some commission or the other. Long live babudom is clearly a UPA slogan!

Danda cricket

Who’s afraid of twenty-twenty? The BCCI has finally given in to a still further shortened version of the game? Yes, cricket is going bananas to attract still more people. Dhonis would rejoice, belting out those huge sixes in the sky. Wearing disco style clothes is perhaps next, with the latest sound and effects to have the entire stadium swaying to the music of the bat.

Of course Nari Contractor and Prasanna would be watching from some distance at this new game of cricket cum baseball, something akin to a sophisticated version of “goolli- danda”.

Murder in the womb

It is a shame that widespread abortion rackets continue to flourish in Punjab. One associates literacy with economic development and in a prosperous state like Punjab, the bias against the girl child is really reprehensible. The female-male ratio dangerously unfavourable already, due to age-old, fossilised notions.

The other day, at a seminar in Patiala, the Indian Medical Association’s chief of the Sangrur wing called for strict action against corruption by the civil surgeons, in order to stop female foeticide.We have heard enough of consciousness-raising camps and activities by the government and NGOs. The greed of some doctors however overrides all other considerations. If in spite of tough laws the practice is continuing then it is the enforcement that is at fault. 

From the pages of

April 18, 1975

Death of Radhakrishnan

Bertrand Russell remarked on Dr Radhakrishnan’s elevation as President of the Indian Republic that it was a tribute to Plato and an honour to philosophy. It is in the Platonic tradition of philosopher-king that India and the world have come to look on Dr Radhakrishnan. A personal union between political power and philosophy is admirable, but is unworkable. “Philosopher-king” is a beautiful phrase, and it will never, never die in the heads or hearts of men who are in search of the perfect state.

He might have been closest to Plato’s ideal of the philosopher-king, but he was not the Platonic founder of revolutionary thinking. He said in his last Republic Day message, more in sorrow than in anger: “The feeling should not be encouraged that no change can be brought about except by violent disorders.”

REFLECTIONS

It is said by the wise men of yore that fortune brings no good to mortals who win by wicked wile. And equally, sorrow and deprivation bring no shame to those who are free from sin and guile.

—The Mahabharata

This is the abode of love not the house of an aunt. Only the one who has relinquished all pride can enter here.

— Kabir