The message of our own mythology, the
Mahabharata, is on how we really conquer evil, and how religion emerged to give us some solutions. However, if religion is confined within the temples, gurudwaras and churches, or in the mumbo-jumbo of priests, mullahs and pundits, we have to look for ways to get away from the problems it creates. With political ideology, human beings learned that we can be liberated, that if a particular system is implemented it would give us bread and make everyone equal. However, we also learned that certain ideologies may change people, make man into a machine, compel him to fit in, bring in totalitarianism. The individual could not agree to such an ideology, and looked for another. Mahatma Gandhi gave us the maxim that wrong means will not result in right ends; if means are vitiated, ends are bound to be vitiated. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the truth before the world today. Four or eight nations can get together and discuss, Look here, all right, these eight persons, eight nations, have the Bomb and we must find solutions. But if violence is the method for a solution, big violence will lead to war. We have seen that already. It is not really an ethical proposition any more, it is a basic scientific proposition, because big violence today means the destruction of the world. Small violence will also take us nowhere, In India, for instance, we have small violence, so many fissiparous tendencies, but Gandhi said, Prepare the methods that will not allow violence to be used. Let’s get back to some non violent way of solving our problems. The approach of human beings will have to be different — and that approach is to develop the sensitivity, understanding, to understand that violence is not the way out. Yes, I agree that nuclear bombs, all these armaments and things like that, should some day be given up, but there will have to be a change in the approach. That approach we need is to ask ourselves: What do we believe in? Do we believe in methods which will have no violence, no dishonesty? Do we believe that human beings must endeavour for peace because violence is not the way?
India, it isn’t a member.
When I left my home in Pakistan, Sialkot city and travelled all the way on foot to cross the border and come to India, I saw a lot of blood. They say at least one billion people were butchered, people were filled the hatred. When I crossed the border as a young man, I thought, Now we are going to build an India where there will be no violence, where nobody will be killed just because he happens to belong to another religion — because all these killings were in the name of religion. But today, in the evening of my life, I admit we haven’t really done that well. We have failed.
I remember, while I was in London briefly as High Commissioner, Mrs Thatcher was the Prime Minister. The Soviet Union was crumbling at that time, and after her visit to Moscow I met her somewhere and I said, “Madam Prime Minister, you were recently in Moscow. How is Mr Gorbachev?” She said, “Gorbachev says, the country is slipping from my hands. What do I do to keep it together? I told him, go to India, your friends. See how through the centuries, despite different religions, different standards of living, different languages and different regions they have kept the country together.” And she asked me, “Mr High Commissioner, what do you attribute this to?” I started thinking and I said, “Yes, Madam Prime Minister, in India we cannot think there is only either black or white, we think there is a lot of grey area and we go on expanding it. Secularism is a tool.” You have just seen in the film [shown a little earlier] how great is the diversity in India. Ladies and gentlemen, you should travel round this country of yours and see the diversity; see how despite all difficulties we have been able to keep the country together. This is our belief: we may belong to a particular religion but we do not allow the state to be mixed up with religion. When I was reading through a book written by Dr Ikeda, I felt strange that he did not mention Gandhi at all, not even once, in his book. While we are thinking of peace proposals, Gandhi is the most relevant person today. Gandhiism means that wrong methods will not lead to good results or right results. I remember, when Mr Toynbee was in India, there was a memorial lecture on Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, one of our valiant freedom-fighters. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was the speaker and Mr Toynbee was in the chair. There were two lectures, and I still remember Panditji during his lecture — ‘India: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ — that if the India of tomorrow, in the process of constructing high buildings, big farms and laboratories, gave up its rich culture, then that was not the India he was looking for. Ladies and gentlemen, that “Today” he spoke about is before us now. And in this “Today” in this country of ours, as Prof Swaminathan very rightly said, most people go hungry at night, and yet see how they cling to this heritage of ours. We who are sitting in this hall, ladies and gentlemen, we are really on an island. This island is surrounded by the waters of poverty, hunger, disease, want. If we want to really do something to expand this island, then we must enable more people to join us on this island. That can’t be done by all of us thinking, “Let’s buy another flat for our son. Let’s buy another car for our granddaughter.” That’s all about acquisitions, possessions, greed, myself.
In India, I think these are the kind of values that are there, have been there. I remember, when I came to Delhi, the first thing I did was to visit Birla House to see Gandhiji, not only because he has given us independence but also because he has given us dignity. When I was in school, I was in a procession, during the national movement, when a White man beat me with a cane, and when I went to Britain as India’s High Commissioner, I felt strongly it was Gandhi who had helped me have dignity, independence. Ladies and gentlemen, if this world is going to be divided into a poor world and rich world, the developed world and the developing world, I don’t think we can say that peace will come. Some of the nations that are developed, that are in control and are part of the UN, they have to think about the members are from the developing part of the world. If democracy is to mean anything, then all people, every individual counts. As I said, in any system, in any process, if an individual is to be scarified, then that system is not for people. What are these: democracy, socialism, capitalism? Whatever the ism, all these isms are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. And if these are the means, then we have to ensure that the individual is raised, that the individual gets something that makes him not only economically rich but culturally rich too. Dr Ikeda submits his peace proposals to the UN, and I appreciate that very much, but the UN does not mean only the people of those five nations there. The UN will have to be reorganised. I am not saying India should be a member of the Security Council. No, that is not the point. The UN will have to be democratised, and in that democratic set-up I do not think it should be dominated by a powerful few. I just want to recite before you what Martin Luther said: The day you see the truth and cease to speak is the day you begin to die. How many of us are ready to stand up? How many of us are willing to say, No, you are wrong. Because that is what is going to count tomorrow, how strongly you can stand up, how long you can really speak out, how you can speak out.
I end with a couplet:
Jis dhar se koi maktal ko gaya, woh shyam salamat rahti hai.
Is jaan ka, yaaron, kya kahana... Yeh jaan to aati-jaati hai.
[The way you go to the scaffold [where the animals are butchered],
The dignity with which you go to the scaffold -- that is what will stay with you, that dignity]
What is life? Tell me. It can be extinguished today or tomorrow. Let’s remember that, ladies and gentlemen.
I end with an incident again connected with Gandhiji. He had this prayer meeting every evening. We Punjabis who had come from what became part of Pakistan were very angry because we were uprooted. Every evening Gandhiji used to have the Quran, Bible and Gita read, all three. One Punjabi gentleman said, “Babu, we will not listen to the Quran, we have had enough of it.” So Gandhiji said, “There will be no prayer meeting today, no prayer meeting.” Some people said to the Punjabi gentleman, “Please sit down.” But Gandhiji said no, the man himself must realise that his objection was wrong. That man was so stubborn that that day there was no meeting. The following day again there was a prayer meeting, and this man stood up and said, “Gandhiji, I thought over it, and I have no objection. I withdraw my objection.” Gandhiji quietly took off his glasses and said, “You must remember that Hindus and Muslims are my two eyes.”
Ladies and gentlemen, do you believe in that kind of philosophy? Do you believe in that kind of society? Do you believe that whatever may be the religion, whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian or whatever, we are all human beings of the same kind? We have to fight this kind of prejudice. We have to fight this kind of destruction. We have to fight the division into poor and rich. If we can contribute to that, then we should – we Hindus who believe in the next life -- at least have a better next life. Agla janam achcha
hoga.
Thank you very much. |
