Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Whither India? Part-3 ( Dr. Y.V Rao)



                                                        Whither India? Part-3
                                                                                                  Dr. Yerneni Venkateswara Rao 
                                                                                                          Retired Principal
                                                                                                     Akkineni Nageswara Rao College
                                                                                                         Gudivada-A.P


However in so doing, these two institutions, especially the judiciary, are sometimes perceived to be transgressing into the legislative and the executive domains by overstepping the limits of its jurisdiction leading thereby to a kind of paralysis of these two branches by some well meaning intelligentsia –some legislators and others have even gone to the extent of decrying the recent phase of judicial self assertion as ‘judicial hegemony’, ‘ government by judiciary’ or ‘dictatorship of the judges and that of the EC’ in equally vitriolic terms but such incursions, where true, are purely supplemental rather than of substitutional nature and hence need not cause undue alarm particularly when one bears in mind that the present situation is an abnormal one demanding abnormal responses and once normality returns, the even-keel balance among the three branches of the constitution too returns without much difficulty. Further, the judiciary controlled as it is by none other than its conscience, anyday, can be relied upon to check its own excesses as effectively as those of others through its self regulatory mechanism and prevent erosion of public confidence in its functioning. For, of the three wings, none knows better than the judiciary that ‘no democratic institution, including the judiciary, can be above the rule of accountability  without developing the disease of absolutism as averred by former justice  Krishna Iyer, himself an ardent believer in the necessity of judicial independence. That a natural healthy and wholesome equilibrium among these three constitutional wings is a sine qua non for a vibrant, resilient and forward-looking democracy needs hardly be emphasized.
Almost contemporaneously with these, a couple of other equally commendable developments that helped clear the dense fog of despondency further have taken place .
Thanks largely to the vigilant press, which is as bold and fearless as its counterpart anywhere in the world, performing its watchdog role effectively and the electronic media with its vast reach and enormous influence, people are not only becoming well informed about the omissions and commissions of the government but also about all matters on which they have to take decisions as responsible citizens in a democracy.
Finally, to be fair, it must be admitted that atleast some of the leaders of today- a few having at last dared to free themselves from the prison of the system because of their basic integrity and innate decency and a few others having perhaps learnt their lessons from the recent murky goings-on in high places and the revulsion and the repugnance they have engendered in the country at large- seem to be veering round to the view that the value based politics and statesman like vision are th need of the hour and have even been trying to attend to the unfinished task of ushering in an egalitarian social order by giving a new orientation to the country’s growth and developmental strategies and taking such other steps-to preserve, strengthen, revive and rehabilitate the democratic institutions of the country-as would dispel the gloom and despair in the country and put in back on the rails. As a natural corollary to this refreshing change in their attitude they have started viewing public office as a valuable opportunity to serve the people and contribute to the enlargement of national wealth and widespread wellbeing and not as a means to exercise power and promote personal aggrandisement by indulging in populist grandstanding in utter disregard of/for fiscal prudence and the country’s future.
In the same vein, it could be said without fear of being contradicted that they were times not too long ago when honest and incorruptible bureaucrats used to be the rule rather than an exception as now but their numbers unfortunately have been steadily dwindling under the onslaught of the depredations of the political bosses and in step with society’ slide from its initial state of shock through stupor to total reconciliation with the horrors of corruption and extortion. Institutional safeguards together with statutory provisions for independence in decision-making and action within the administrative framework with commitment to transparency and propriety and accountability to the people reinforced by public approbation for the honest and opprobrium for the corrupt will certainly help swell their ranks and provide the much needed relief to the society. And this is well within the realm of possibility, nay, realization.
Emboldened, on the one hand, by the assertiveness of the judiciary and independence of the Election Commission and encouraged, on the other, by the hopeful signs of the new class of conscientious political leaders and their inchoate attempts at good house-keeping by tempering policies in the crucible of administrative analysis and economic logic/rationality and the newly sprouting awakening on the part of the people at large, concerned  citizens everywhere are fervently hoping and ardently yearning for an open, responsive, sensitive, transparent and accountable government and a peace-loving and harmonious polity based on Buddhistic ideals and Gandhian values and Nehruvian humanism.
If these and other such organs of our Constitution as well as the fourth estate and the principled politicians and upright civil servants are strengthened by public support in general and that of the intellectuals and academics of progressive persuasions in particular, will they not be able to persevere in their laudable efforts at cleaning up the accumulated muck more vigorously, and succeed in hastening the dawn of that new era when our nation’s tryst with destiny will be redeemed? Yes, they will, most certainly, provided also we all realize that an independent nation is a  nation peopled not by mere spectators, subjects or supplicants but by free citizens who enjoy their rights and privileges with as much fervour and zeal as the dedication and commitment with which they discharge their duties and responsibilities and, most of all, people who think for themselves, conscious of their innate freedom and independence to think and act want to be left alone by the government to the greatest extent possible.
                                                                                                                                                               April 1997.

B1-57
Violence stalked the corridors of history, naked and unashamed, like a colossus leaving a trail of murder, mayhem and bloodshed as also destruction, devastation and desolation in its wake. Yet, strangely, man oblivious of it all continues to speak the language of hatred and conflict and routinely and unthinkingly resorts to/descends into unbridled orgies of gratuitous and mindless blood-letting time and again in an endless series of follies, pushing the ceiling of violence ever/even higher.
How long will this cycle of violence go on when will man realise the utter futility of violence and when will the curtain be rung down on this danse macabre. Once and for all?, bemoans the bewildered sanity. Why history prefers to paint itself with blood and gore instead of weaving its web with innocent hands and cover itself with glory is a mystifying riddle that will remain one, perhaps for a long long time to come unless man learns appropriate lessons from experience and become wiser sooner. If only history’s lessons are remembered and retaught- a relatively easy task- what a world of difference will it make to the future course of human progress and evolution on this planet and how refreshingly different will human history/destiny be?
May that day when violence bows before peace and harmony and makes its exit once for all from the stage of life dawn soon/early.
B1-58
Paradoxically,  the only thing worse than abject poverty is abundance of riches. If the former has the potential for stifling and strangling life through denial of opportunities to grow and attain one’s full stature as a human being as nature has intended, the latter tends to drain life of its sap and savour by throwing open countless avenues of decadence and dejection through overindulgence in self destructive activities and atrophy of initiative and innate abilities, both thus ending up in effectively eliminating any scope for meaning and significance in life thereby rendering life less than worth living. However, in exceptional cases in which individuals transcend circumstances by drawing upon their inner resources by delving deep into the hidden recesses of their very being, either of these conditions will lose its sting/grip and become powerless in the face of a relentless pursuit of some noble enterprise such towering individuals are called upon to undertake and are engaged in for the greater glory of humanity. Alas, as a rule, the devastation  and degradation and the resultant depravity in society that these can bring about is truly awesome; the living corpses-the living dead - with hope writ large on their faces and the lifeless (wo)men-the dead living- endlessly chasing mirages, we see around us daily vouch for the tyrannical powers of these two extreme but ubiquitous conditions/situations.
B1-59
Violence, like fire, feeds on itself as well as anyone falling prey to it in the mistaken belief that he is using it. History is replete with instances showing that one who lives by violence dies by violence-an inviolable law of life. Not surprisingly, practically every religion ranks non-violence as one of the highest, if not the highest values as for instance, declared unanimously by Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism in the words ahimsa paramo dharmaha.
B1-60(B-5,I4)
Violence knows no masters; however deftly used it devours its perpetrators with the same relish with which it does its victims/targets and everything in between. The face of history is scarred badly and each scar is an eloquent testimony to its devastating capabilities and ruthless efficiency.
B1-61(B3-41)
Violence bears a deceptively close resemblance to fire. Handled correctly, fire is a friend whereas violence, handled anyway, is an implacable enemy; it devours both its inflictor and victim with the same gusto. So eschew/abjure violence like poison just as the great Rig veda ordained us in these words at the dawn of civilization: maa higmseeh sarva bhutani.
B1-62
Sex is nature’s instrument to renew, sustain and perpetuate itself and is given to us gift wrapped in order to entice us as pawns in the service of its purposes. So powerful is its spell and so strong/total its hold on youth that few can resist it. However, regulated, it is the source of heavenly joy, otherwise the gateway to the very hell on earth. Contemplate the conjugal bliss and contrast it with the humiliation of debauchery and worse, the trauma of rape and you know what I mean.
B1-63
Sex with religious sanction and social approval nourishes and sustains a well-balanced relationship of bliss between man and woman by broadening its base for greater stability and deepening its reach for firmer foundation, but without them, it withers and shrivels the relationship.
As often misunderstood and misconstrued, sex is not what two young bodies with an upsurge in heart beats and with rampant hormones rushing through the blood streams do on the spur of the moment. It is what two loving hearts beating in unison do- a sublime act and an enriching and elevating experience. Sharing bodies only debases and demeans sex, it being no more than a physically titillating sexual encounter. Hence, the shame and remorse that follow each such indulgence for having turned what is essentially beautiful and uplifting into something ugly and sordid.
B1-64
Aggression and violence, close cousins of anger, spring from fear which is rooted in the primordial incomprehension of the essential unity of life; those that rise above the primeval ignorance free themselves from the prison of fear a as also the fetters of anger, aggression and violence and usher themselves into the kingdom of peace, harmony and happiness in which there is no room for the vicious display of violence and aggression.
B1-65
Vice, no doubt, has its fair share of victories, which it celebrates with great glee making a spectacle of itself in the process in a vain bid for respectability while being watched all the while by virtue with a glimmer of amusement and a trace of concern in its eyes.
B1-66(B4-14,18)
It may be permissible for one to dye one’s hair or tint one’s grey streaks when one doesn’t know how to grow old gracefully and gratefully and grow up wisely. But what is not permissible is to colour one’s attitude to life for that distorts and stifles one’s life itself and render any meaningful growth impossible. In as much as grey temples not only glow with wisdom but also enhance one’s persuasiveness besides bringing greater respectability, it would be folly to die one’s hair to cover up greying temples.
Aging, after all, is a marker of life’s progress along the highway of growth and maturity and certainly not anything to be afraid or ashamed of. It actually enhances one’s stature and commands regard and respect from all sensible souls. So one need not empty buckets of tears or even one or two over a little or lot of silver on one’s head.
But the faint-hearted and the frivolous think otherwise and do things that land them in a lot of avoidable trouble at times. Among several such vainglorious characters late Dr Chennareddy , the most mischievous and mercurial politicker of Telangana used to famously dye his hair without attracting any adverse comment.  But not so lucky is the German chancellor, Gerhard Schrodder, who finds himself these days in the eye of a national storm over the question/issue , whether he tints his greying temples or not. He has, of course, pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a ruling by a Hamburg judge which may make or break his credibility and with it, his career as a politician. “A man who colours his hair is certainly capable of trimming statistics”, point out German cynics/his critics, for statistics about unemployment, inflation, economic growth and GDP figures are highly regarded by Germans who decide the fate of governments.(The Hindu April 16, 2002)
Image consciousness, up to a point, is good and desirable but it should never be allowed to become an obsession. There is no reason why one should not take care to look one’s best but any excesses indulged in by people to achieve that objective will only result in their becoming objects/butt ends  of ridicule or centres of controversies or both, defeating the very purpose of their endeavours.
B1-67
The irony in the pot calling the kettle black is obvious even to the meanest intelligence. But what is surprisingly not so obvious is the absurdity of a religious zealot chiding a nationalist for not being broadminded or universal enough to be a world citizen while he himself is being branded as a narrow communalist by a caste protagonist, who in turn is dubbed as a crass casteist by a patriarch (patre familias) entangled so inextricably in the familial bonds that he is totally oblivious to anything existing outside his constricted family circle, including even the self-centred egoist who derisively points his finger of objection at him for being so narrow minded.
Looks like there is a catch in this but the question is where? Perhaps in our inability to simultaneously focus our attention on the critic and his target and view their respective stand points and judge their relative merits and demerits as clearly as we visualise the contrasting conditions of the pot and the kettle. This inability stems from/owes its origin to the natural human tendency to concentrate so totally on the point being presented at the moment as to become engrossed in seeing what is being shown presently to the exclusion of everything else whereas visualization of things familiar, like the pot and the kettle suffers from no such infirmity/impairment for it merely involves recalling to mind what is already there in the memory.
Couldn’t this catch be the secret behind the dubious success of almost all demagoguery, the sure weapon in the hands of advocates of non-issues and protagonists and propagators of utopian theories and bizarrisms and ideologies as also the root cause of much misunderstanding and consequent conflict and misery in the society? There is no wonder that specious arguments appear to be not only convincing but also attractive enticing people to tread wrong paths and making them pay through their noses for their folly.
B1-68
Whoever keeps the child in him alive and is ever aware of its presence in him stands a greater chance of coming out of life’s rigours unscathed and with his humanity intact. It may at times be at a price, a stiff price indeed. But compared to the value addition to one’s life, in the form of ‘immaculate peace beyond the rough handling of destiny, an immortal wealth’, it pales into insignificance.
Recalling one’s childhood at will may be genius as averred by Boris Pasternak but won’t it be closer to truth to say that it is nothing less than a divine feat possible only to the gifted few?
B1-69

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