Fortune India December 2013Click To OpenFortune India December 2013 – article on Subramanian Swamy…
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Befriending Sri Lanka Should Be India’s ConcernClick To OpenWithout UNSC backing by way of a Resolution, an UNHRC Resolution is not even worth the paper on which it is written. Hence the British PM’s threat at CHOGM to enforce human rights justice by external intervention is laughable
The world witnessed a historic event in May 2009, when in a final Sri Lankan military assault, the treacherous and murderous terrorist outfit Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was decimated. Its chief V Prabhakaran and his main associates were killed on May 19, 2009.
The Sri Lankan President successfully led his nation to bring the 29-year-long sordid affair of terrorism in the island to a decisive end by military means. Much has improved in Sri Lanka since the historic May 19, 2009. Coming to terms with Prabhakaran’s death, the rump LTTE, surviving in the island, laid down their arms. Subsequently many of them have been rehabilitated in the mainstream.
Today, Tamil families living in Sri Lanka no more fear the forced recruitment of their children by the LTTE. The extortion of funds from civilians to finance terrorist operations has also ended. Normalcy has returned in daily life after three decades.
The Sri Lankan people gave the President a huge mandate in the subsequently held general elections. With the war victor halo and the public mandate, it is clear that President Mahinda Rajapaksa is crucially positioned to take necessary and effective steps to solve the remaining pending and pressing issue — a healthy Sinhala-Tamil reconciliation — by finding a mutually acceptable way to heal the residual Sinhala-Tamil divide, and bring about a meeting of minds.
Decades of brutal insurgency have polarised communities and undermined institutions that guarantee civilian rights.
The immediate task before President Rajapaksa is to accomplish the rehabilitation of the remaining victims of the insurgency, to provide solace to the bereaved families whose kin were killed in the crossfire, the displaced and the injured. However, the more fundamental long-term challenge for Sri Lanka is to provide succour to those who are scarred mentally and emotionally by the brutalities and are uncertain about their place in Sri Lanka’s future.
The Sri Lankan Tamils are facing the delicate situation. The war conducted by the Sri Lankan armed forces against a sinister terrorist organisation had — due to the extremist Dravidian Movement in Tamil Nadu and the violent authoritarianism of the LTTE demanding that it be recognised as the sole representative of the Tamils — more or less polarised into a conflict between the Sinhala and the Tamil communities. This was confounded by the political miscalculations of some short-sighted leaders on both sides of the Palk Straits over the last three decades.
The LTTE, in fact, had led that polarisation, and Tamil leadership fell into the quicksand created by it. They were egged on across the Palk Strait by selfish leaders in Tamil Nadu, many of whom were being financed by the LTTE.
Today in 2013, more than four years later, we are faced with two conflicting imperatives --
First, there is a need for the Sri Lankan government to treat and co-opt the Tamils in national endeavours as a linguist (not ethnic) minority within the framework of a quasi-unitary Constitution.
Second, to heal the wounds of the mind and body of the Sri Lankans, who are victims of both the LTTE terrorism and the collateral human rights damage implicit in an anti-insurgency and anti-terrorist military action. Such damage has happened in many countries and even in a traditional war such the Allies attack on Germany and the atomic bombing of Japan during World War II.
The first imperative requires forgetting the past injustices, human rights violations, and horrors of armed conflict in order to move forward, while the second imperative needs remembering the past and bringing the offenders of gross human rights violations to book to serve as a deterrent for the future.
The contradiction in the goals implicit in the two issues is difficult to resolve in Sri Lanka. It was easier in the aftermath of a traditional war, like that in 1945, when the Nuremberg Trials took place, while reconstruction of Europe commenced simultaneously. In 1945, the winners and losers were identifiable as national identities, and victor-imposed solutions had the moral sanction against a defeated opponent led by a depraved leadership.
In Sri Lanka, the two issues are almost impossibly entangled because the human rights violations have been committed in a morally just military campaign of the Sri Lankan Sinhala-dominated army of a democratically elected Government against the most brutal and well-organised terrorism of the Tamil Tigers, and whose outfit was financed by a narcotics and money laundering international network.
In such a milieu, there are no clear winners and losers. Hence, a UN sponsored and enforced solution or a Nuremburg Trial-type resolution of the second issue is so counter-productive that it could lay the foundation for the emergence of the same problem that existed pre-2009 but with the possibility of deepening and festering the wounds of the insurgency war.
Hence, in my view, the UNHRC session not be devoted to ensuring the passage of a censuring and blistering Resolution which cannot be enforced in Sri Lanka, in view of the clear division in the veto-holding members of the UN Security Council.
Without UNSC backing by way of a Resolution, an UNHRC Resolution is not even worth the paper on which it is written. Hence the British PM’s threat at CHOGM to enforce human rights justice by external intervention is laughable.
Instead, I suggest the mover of the Resolution at next March UNHCR session — the United States, India and China as members — should engage Sri Lanka and persuade the leadership to secure a commitment for internationally prevalent and accepted devolution of the Sri Lankan Constitution. And the devolution should be consistent with the cultural ethos of the Sri Lankan mainstream.
While the concept of rigid federal autonomy, in my view, is alien to the Hindu-Buddhist cultural ethos of the majority of the people of the South Asian nations, plurality is the foundation of the culture of the sub-continent. This is why the SAARC nations have been by and large democratic and held Constitutional mandated periodic elections and peaceful transfer of power.
Hence, a future government of India should take the initiative, and put forward a Resolution before the UN Human Rights Commission, to begin bilateral discussion with Sri Lanka, and support back-channel efforts to work out a mutually acceptable Resolution.
Proposal for reconciliation
There are many proposals on the desk of the Sri Lankan President, so I see little point in giving another fully structured proposal. Rather I shall concentrate here on certain fundamentals of any viable and mutually acceptable reconciliation between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority, the core of which is devolution of powers under the Constitution:
First, no proposal for reconciliation can be pushed for acceptance in Sri Lanka from abroad, whether from India, or United Nations or from any European busybody. The proposal must emerge indigenously in Sri Lanka after full democratic consultations with the stakeholders, none of whom shall have a veto, and adopted by the Sri Lanka Parliament by way of a resolution or, if necessary, by a Constitutional amendment.
Second, the final reconciliation proposal should be based on the draft prepared by the Joint Select Committee of the Sri Lankan Parliament; so far the Tamil National Alliance has been boycotting. Now that a former Supreme Court Judge has been elected by a huge mandate as the CM of Northern Province, it should be possible for TNA to enter the Parliamentary process.
Third, the Sri Lanka’s Constitution may provide for provinces but yet remains Unitary in character in the sense that the Parliament will have power under the Constitution to dismiss and take over the administration of a State for specified contingencies such as a state being unable to enforce the relevant provisions of the Constitution.
Fourth, Sri Lanka by a Constitutional Amendment become a Union of States, with exclusive and concurrent power delegated under the Constitution for the Union and the States to exercise and accordingly, a Union, Concurrent, and State Lists will be incorporated in the Constitution enumerating the subjects under the three categories.
Fifth, the Chief Minister as Head of the state government should have primary responsibility to maintain public order through a Central Reserve Police and a contingent of the Armed Forces stationed in a special conclave in the state to intervene for the maintenance of public order whenever the President determines with ex-post facto approval of the Parliament that a situation has arisen that requires such an intervention.
Sixth, the Parliament enact an amendment to the Constitution to empower the Union to appoint Special District Magistrates whenever necessary and whose power will supersede the orders issued in exercise of State Magistrates power to maintain public order.
Agenda For India’s YouthClick To OpenDr Subramanian Swamy
ACCORDING to me, India is at the crossroads of destiny today: Either we take the path to break out of shackles acquired from a millennium of occupation of the nation by foreign religion-driven invaders, and cemented by Nehru and his successor-clones as Prime Ministers, or we continue tread on the road to further assimilate these shackles in our mindset and ultimately again surrender to our foreign tormentors.
What are these shackles? These are four dimensional:
(i) A bogus foreign imposed concept of Indian identity that has made youngsters get divided on artificial distinctions such as varna, jati, region and language. Hence on our Agenda we must shape and wield our youth into a united Virat Hindutva—imbibed Hindustani.
(ii) A reluctance to retaliate against terrorists, hijackers, brutalisers of the women, and other aggressors for fear of disturbing their personal status quo, or risk of losing what we have left. As a consequence we have become passive and docile instead of having virat gunas, of courage, sacrifice, and tenacity.
(iii) India has a huge youth population which make us a strong candidate for a demographic dividend. But our rudderless youth imbibed in Nehruism is increasingly fixated on material progress even at the cost of sacrificing spiritual values, leading youth to become greedy for cash to throw around, and to accumulate wealth by hook or crook, thus become corrupt, and soon degenerate.
(iv) A lack of an Indian language for a national idiom of communication, the lack of which is forcing us to communicate in a foreign language with each other across the states. This makes for low grade titillation and night club brawls as the currency of modernisation, and by peer pressure compelling thereby our youth to become westernised and immoral.
How then to unshackle ourselves and India become Virat Hindutva—imbibed Hindustan?
(1) Indian Identity
In today’s India as a nation state, youth are confused if India is a British imperialist by-product, or is an ancient nation of continuing unbroken civilisation. In other words, is the word ‘India’ used the same way that we today use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Europe’ to denote a sub-continental region of separate nations and cultures, or was India always a nation of one culture of a people with a common history?
The battle to settle the answer to this question is on today between the nationalist Indian and the internationalist liberal or how to be a nationalist Indian and keep at bay the internationalist liberal of Nehru’s vintage.
We are one indigenous people according the recent DNA genetic studies. Every nation thus must have an identity to be regarded distinct. The youth of India have to be inculcated with that outlook and thus accept Hindutva as the foundation of India’s culture.
Following Samuel Huntington’s contribution to definition of an identity of the two components: Salience, which is the importance that the citizen attributes to national identity over the other many sub-identities. Second, Substance, which is what the citizens think they have in common, and which distinguishes them from others of other countries.
Salience in India is imbedded in the concept of Chakravartin, which Chanakya had spelt out with great clarity, while Substance is what Hindus have always searched for and found unity in all our diversities in, thanks to our spiritual and religious leaders, especially most recently Swami Vivekananda and Sri Paramacharya of Kanchi Mutt.
And that substance in Indian identity invariably is the Hindu-ness of our people, which we now call as Hindutva. Thus our Agenda for Change must include the youth accepting that an Indian is one who is a Hindu or one who acknowledges that his ancestors are Hindus. This concept would include willing Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews. Thus, religion of any Indian can charge, but not the Hindu-ness or Hindutva.
We should invite Muslims and Christian youth to join us Hindus on the basis of this common ancestry or even their voluntary return to our fold as Hindus, in this grand endeavour as Hindustanis, on the substance of our shared and common ancestry.
For this we have to jettison our adherence to birth-based varna and jati which blocks re-coverts to Hinduism from assimilation in Hindu society.
Hindutva has to be inculcated in our people from values and norms that emerge out of a Hindu renaissance, that is, a Hindu theology which is shorn of the accumulated but unacceptable baggage of the past, as also by co-opting new scientific discoveries, perceptions and by synergising with modernity.
Deendayal Upadhyaya outlined how to modernise the concept of Hindutva as follows:
“We have to discard the status quo mentality and usher in a new era. Indeed our efforts at reconstruction need not be clouded by prejudice or disregard for all that is inherited from our past. On the other hand, there is no need to cling to past institutions and traditions which have outlived their utility”. This is the essence of renaissance.
This is the only way that Hindustan can become a modern Hindu Rashtra.
(2) Virat Hindutva
Patriotic Hindu youth should understand the present structural limitation in the theology of Hinduism, that is individualism, is mistakenly taken as apathy, but it is now required of us to find ways to rectify it for the national good.
It is worthy of notice that, recognising this limitation, Hindu spiritual leaders in the past have from time to time come forward to rectify it, whenever the need arose e.g., as the Sringeri Shankaracharya did by founding the Vijayanagaram dynasty or Swami Ramdas did with Shivaji and the Mahratta campaign. Such involvement of sanyasis is required even more urgently today.
In fact, this is the real substance of India as Swami Vivekananda had aptly put it when he stated that: “National union of India must be a gathering up of its scattered spiritual forces. A Nation in India must be a union of those whose hearts beat to the same spiritual tune…. The common ground that we have is our sacred traditions, our religion. That is the only common ground… upon that we shall have to build.”
(3) Demographic Dividend
When a country starts having economic development, population growth begins to accelerate not because families start having more babies but because infant mortality sharply declines and expectation of life rises—people start living longer. This means that the death rate of a developing country quickly declines and faster than the birth rate declines. This leads to an acceleration of population growth, and since 1951 till 2000 was regarded as a “problem”.
Today we no more refer to population growth as a problem but as a ‘demographic dividend’. Why? Because modern economic growth is not more about more capital and more employment, but about more innovation—news ways of combining capital and labour through new technology. For example the difference between the postman and email via internet.
India has the possibility of a demographic dividend because in the next several decades the average age of the country will be relatively young while the ratio of younger people to retired persons will be favourable. Young people from universities are the vehicles of new innovation.
India therefore must take steps such as educating its youth, fixing infrastructure and lowering corruption levels to bring this demographic dividend to fruition.
India thus has the potential for a demographic dividend, if its Agenda for Change calls for investment to educate its large young population for acquiring skills, in infrastructure, and works to stop corruption so that competition and merit can triumph over cronyism..
But there and pitfalls ahead: India’s developing story based on reaping the demographic dividend is now marred by some unintended developments, principally illegal immigration mostly Muslims from Bangladesh and the higher population growth of Muslims within the country.
Muslim society, if not ready to confront the orthodoxy of clerics, wallows in retrograde practices which retard economic growth. It is not poverty that is the reason for Muslim backwardness. From Tunisia to Indonesia, oil revenues have vastly reduced poverty to levels prevailing in developed countries.
Yet these countries have not produced any innovation worthy of note, or a world class university despite no shortage of funds, since they are cleric dominated nations. Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan at one stage inspired the thought that these nations would be trend setters in modernity, liberal tolerant thought, and gender equality. But one by one they have capitulated archaic practices, intolerance, and crude gender discrimination.
This is infecting Muslim majority areas such as Kashmir and Northern Kerala, and even in districts and town Panchayats. Hence, the illegal immigration of Muslims from Bangladesh and a fast growing Muslim population without it being willingly co-opted into the enlightened questioning Hindu ethos of India, would be a drag on economic progress of the nation, and later, become the enemy within. India’s most precious Demographic Dividend then would turn sour and divisive like in Lebanon.
That is why amongst Muslim youths in India it should be our Agenda for them to adopt the Hindutva ethos of a questioning mind and to proudly accept the truth that they are descendents of Hindus.
For all of us, national identity should be first priority and all other sub-identities of low priority.
(4) Developing Sanskrit as a Link Language
Sanskrit and the Devanagari script, in addition to the mother tongue and its script, will one day in the future, be Hindustan’s link language. In the Agenda for Change, the youth must be afforded the opportunity to learn Sanskrit as an alternative to Hindi.
All the main Indian languages have already a large percentage of their vocabulary common with Sanskrit. Even Tamil, which is considered as ancient, has 40 per cent words in common with Sanskrit. The scripts of all Indian languages are derived or evolved from Brahmi script. Hence, in the Agenda there has to be a commitment to re-throne Sanskrit with Devanagari script as virat Hindustan’s link language, and which is to be achieved through Hindi in a compulsory 3-language formula of mother tongue, Hindi, and English in all schools with a steady Sanskritisation of Hindi’s vocabulary till Sanskritised Hindi becomes indistinguishable from Sanskrit and thus replaced by the latter.
(The writer is former Union Law Minister)
Please refer the web link for original post:
http://organiser.org/Encyc/2013/4/6/Agenda-for-India’s-youth.aspx?NB=&lang=4&m1=m8&m2=m8.24&p1=&p2=&p3=&p4=&PageType=N
The Italian Helicopter Sale ScamClick To OpenIn August 1999, just after the so-called Kargil military conflict, the Indian army made a strong plea for a high altitude flying helicopter, since the two combat areas where maximum Indian casualties took place was Tiger Hill at 18, 000 feet and Siachen at 17,500 feet. IAF Chetak and Cheetah could land at those heights but could carry only 4 combat troops per flight.
The IAF also pitched in for new generation helicopter to replace Mi-8 version for the VVIP ferrying, which was incapable of night flying and above 9000 feet.
With the parameters in mind, the IAF was authorized to issue a RFP, in March 2002. Four suppliers applied. After a preliminary analysis, three suppliers were selected for flight evaluation.
Agusta Westland’s A-101 failed to make the list after flight evaluation–because it could fly at 18, 000 feet and above. India’s swadeshi produced Dhruv helicopter could fly 20,000 feet, but was not certified at that time, and so it was never considered.
That left two—Russian Mi-172 and M/s Eurocopter EC-225. After Operational Requirements were considered, the Russian copter got disqualified. That left one choice—EC-225, which was therefore selected by the IAF. It was decided to order 8 helicopters.
Enter Brijesh Mishra. He, as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, called a meeting on November 19, 2003. He rebuked the IAF for not being cognizant of the needs of VVIP, who he observed rarely go flying above 14, 000 feet. He added that if even if they do, as Defence Minister George Fernandes used to, viz., fly to Siachen, then such VVIPs can used the Chetak.
Mishra made sure that IAF understood what he was saying by shooting off a letter dated December 22, 2003 to the IAF disapproving of the framing the Operational Requirements[ORs] without consulting him or SPG Chief on VVIP needs including the height of the helicopter entry door.
Exit NDA from union government and enter UPA. But Mishra’s letter was curiously honoured by the UPA government on the invisible informal direction, through the PMO, of Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
Therefore meetings were re-convened of the IAF, with PMO and SPG invited from March 2005, and the new ORs finalized in September 2006. The max heights were revised downwards to 4500 meters i.e., 14, 000 feet. It was also decided to order from 8 to 12 helicopters, with four specially decorated for VVIPs. A call for intent to buy was then issued. Six vendors responded.
Agusta Westland of Italy was back in the reckoning in the RFP along with five others. The formalities of testing and evaluation were gone through.
By February 2008, only two were left for choice: S-92 of M/s Sikorsky of US, and AW-101 of Agusta Westland of Italy[originally of UK, but which went bankrupt after selling helicopters to Pawan Hans in the 1980s. Italian government then bought it].
Field trials attended by the SPG as well disqualified the S-92 on the basis of a specially quality requirements [SQR]. Thereafter SPG Chief Wanchoo flew for two weeks visit to Italy in 2009 to give the Italians the good news—they had been selected thanks to the “rehanuma” Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
The deal worth over Euro 556 million was inked and sealed on February 8, 2010 after the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared a month earlier.
The nitty gritty of who gets what was worked out by Mr. Abhishek Verma, the son of the Hindi teacher of Ms. Sonia Gandhi. In gratitude for the Hindi taught, Ms. Sonia Gandhi agreed to become Patron of Verma Foundation AG, a benefactor of the deserving in the field of arms trade.
That bribes were paid in this deal is well established by the Italian government investigation. A 568 page Report prepared by Italian Special Police has been filed in the Milan Court which can be officially accessed by the CBI if they ask the Court with a Letter Rogatory[LR] and not by flying off for a jaunt as they have done lst week.
This Report accessed by me informally refers to a total bribe paid of Euro 51 million or about Rs 470 crores. Of this Rs 200 crores has been paid, reverentially referred to as “The Family”. The receivers are relatives of Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
The great facilitator in this deal, Mr Brijesh Mishra has a daughter, Jyotsna, married to an Italian belt manufacturer, who live in Italy. It needs to be found out she got anything. Brijesh Mishra in 2011 was decorated with Padma Vibhushan by our Rashtrapati.
What can we Indians do now? First, the CBI must be forced to take out a LR, and go to Milan to access the Italian documents. The government should set a SIT of CBI, ED, SFIO, RAW and IB under CBI chairmanship. Second, Abhishek Verma must be taken into custody for interrogation. Ex IAF Chief Tyagi must be also interrogated along with his relatives and intermediaries such as Aeromatrix. Third, Christian Michel must be traced through the Interpol and arrested for interrogation. Thereafter, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, and his two Italian aunties, Anushka and Nadia [on the duo’s next visit to India] should be questioned on whether they had met him before the deal was inked and sealed, in Dubai at Hyatt Hotel in the company of a Keralite liquor Dada. Fourth, one us Indian activists against corruption, such as Action Committee Against Corruption in India [ACACI] should go to the Supreme Court with a PIL and ask CBI to be monitored in its investigation. Fifth, the Defence Minister must invoke Article 23 of the Purchase Contract to suspend the purchases [only 4 of the 12 helicopters delivered so far] with a threat of cancellation if they don’t come clean on what happened. Finally, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh should tender a public apology for approving this corrupt deal in the CCS, knowing fully well what was happening.
Article also appeared in Organiser.
AGENDA On Flaws Of Juvenile Law In IndiaClick To OpenThe juvenile accused of the Delhi rape case is not a petty unlawful who could be reformed. Instead, he acted like a hardened criminal who knew what he was doing. Imagine if Ajmal Kasab was a minor: Would we have handled him with kid gloves?
Centuries ago, a great thinker called Plato had stated what has now become a real-life scenario in India, “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
On the unfortunate evening of December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old girl, a budding physiotherapy student, and her male friend were awaiting a bus at the Munirka bus stand around 9:30 pm. One bus conductor invited the two youngsters to board his private chartered bus on the pretext of dropping them to their destination. Once the girl and her friend boarded the bus, they realised that the conductor was a malicious person who, with four others, started making lewd advances. The male friend tried to intervene but was overpowered and beaten up with an iron rod. The girl kept fighting but was hit hard and fell down.
Thereafter, all heavens fell on the poor girl. On the floor of the speeding bus, the bus conductor and the five others, including the driver, took turns to rape her. But this was not enough for the bus conductor: He raped the victim twice, once while she was unconscious due to the trauma inflicted on her. Then, he inserted an iron rod into her private parts to wrench out her uterus as well as intestines. He explained to his associates that it was necessary for the destruction of evidence. After an hour of this inconceivable savagery, the victim and her male friend were stripped naked and thrown out of the bus into the freezing winter night.
After some delay the victim was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital where multiple surgeries were done to save her life. She fought bravely to live and in great pain conveyed her mother to “never let that conductor escape from law”. But the damage was so severe that even transplants of her organs were of no avail. On December 26, the victim, who displayed indomitable spirit to live against all odds and her determination to punish the guilty, was sent to a Singapore hospital in a comatose state to avail better treatment. But it was already too late by then as the girl breathed her last on December 29, leaving behind a nation whose conscience was totally shaken by the brutality of the incident. Everyone thought if this could happen in the most secured zone of the Capital at a time when Delhi was buzzing with people, then no one was safe in the country.
A WILY CRIMINAL
But the question remains: Why do we need to tell the account which happened one-and-a-half months ago? The story needs reiteration because it tells us that the bus conductor, who now claims to be a minor (below the age of 18 years), is not a petty unlawful who could be reformed; instead, he acted like a hardened criminal who knew what he was doing; he committed the act eagerly and tried to destroy the evidence of his heinous crime.
Also, the fact that the bus conductor acted swiftly to claim his ‘minor-hood’ shows his cold, demented mindset. He himself told the police that he was a juvenile and hence enjoyed special protection and waiver from criminal law. The police at the inspector level were stumped. A hidden hand moved swiftly to make the police “respect the law”, which is codified for delinquents under the age of 18 years in the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 and as amended in 2006 and 2010.
Had this 18-year cutoff not been there, the accused would have been prosecuted under Section 83 read with Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and received a minimum punishment of seven years of imprisonment. But the trouble with the laws these days is that criminals know their rights better than their wrongs.
The accused was a few months short of 18 years of age and if we all acquiesce, he would not be prosecuted under IPC but “reformed and rehabilitated” in a homely atmosphere under Sections 2(g), 15 and 16 of the Juvenile Justice Act (2000), under which after a maximum of three years he would be let free. Even Ajmal Kasab, involved in the dastardly 26/11 Mumbai attacks, would have been treated ‘humanely’ had he attacked India when he was a few years younger.
The inspiration for this Act came from the United Nations Convention on Rights of Child 1989, the United Nation Standard Minimum Rules for Administration of Juvenile Justice (Beijing Rules) 1985, and the United Nation Rules for Protection of Children Deprived of their Liberty 1990. India is a signatory of the above mentioned conventions and rules. The Preamble and the statement of objects and reasons of the Act state the same expressly and categorically.
This Act is a piece of “beneficial”, not criminal law, legislation and has been formulated to protect the innocence of our nation’s greatest asset — its children and youth. But in the current case, the extreme malice and depravity with which the accused has allegedly committed the crime shows that it is not the action of a juvenile delinquent who the law supposes to be of tender age and mind and not fully capable of being responsible for his actions, but rather these are actions of the most evil of men for whom this beneficial legislation clearly is not meant.
BETWEEN THE LINES
The question for the nation is: Should we allow the cold print of a law, the Juvenile Justice Act, framed for children committing crimes like pick-pocketing, bicycle theft, etc, be used unthinkingly to benefit, by exempting from prosecution under criminal law, those committing heinous crimes such as rape and murder, which cannot be committed unless the culprit knew what he was doing.
Also, the Act is not in complete consonance with these conventions and rules. The Beijing Rules 4(1) describes the concept of age of “Criminal Responsibility” as for which there are various factors which have to be considered in deciding when and at what age would a juvenile be held criminally responsible for his/her actions. These factors include but are not restricted to moral and psychological development, individual discernment and understanding, seriousness of the offence involved, record and previous history of the juvenile, etc. Furthermore, there is no blanket ban or prohibition in not holding the juvenile accused accountable for his offences.
Article 17.1(c) of the Beijing Rules state that even though endeavour is to be made to avoid incarceration in certain situations/offences, sentence of imprisonment has to be passed not only to punish the offender but also to protect public safety. The UNCRC 1989 and Beijing Rules 1985 recognised that neither there can be any hard-and-fast rule nor can there be a blanket protection solely on age criteria, and in appropriate cases criminal behaviour has to be punished with lengthy imprisonment.
In the United States, the Criminal Justice System recognises the concept of age of Criminal Responsibility and juveniles who are 14 years of age and above and guilty
of grievous crimes are held responsible for the same. They are tried under the Criminal Justice System like an adult. The law in England recognises the fact that knowledge and ability to reason are still developing, but the notion that a 10-year-old (the age of Criminal Responsibility) does not know right from wrong seems contrary to common sense in an age of compulsory education from the age of five, when children seem to develop faster both mentally and physically.
Thus, we need to read into the juvenile age limit of 18 years, the UN Convention ordained caveat, which India has already ratified in 1992 that this age limit is subject to the Beijing Rules 4(1) and ascertainment of the juvenile not being emotionally and intellectually mature to know what he or she was doing is necessary. This has already been incorporated in Rule 3 of the Juvenile Justice Act but surprisingly, because of the Law Ministry’s poor drafting, left out of the Act itself!
Hence, the UPA Government must issue an Ordinance to clarify that a juvenile accused as below 18 years is subject to satisfying Rule 4(1) of the Beijing Rules; otherwise, the juvenile accused will be tried under the IPC. The juvenile accused must be made an example of today to keep our faith in our legal system and to provide justice to the Delhi braveheart.
I conclude with the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “It would conduce to national progress and save a great deal of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of never supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting for them if we had not either the intention or the ability to carry them out.”
Parmacharya Sri Chandrashekhar Saraswati – God In Human FormClick To OpenParmacharya Sri Chandrashekhar Saraswati – God in human form
I have bowed before only one sanyasi in my life, and that is Sri Chandrasekhar Saraswathi, known to the world as the Parmacharya. It is not that I am arrogant or that I have no respect for sanyasis and sadhus. In fact I respect many sadhus in this country for their learning and social services. But my upbringing, first in an English convent school, and then ten years in USA had created a distance between me and traditional Hindu culture of bowing and prostrating before any elder, or anyone in saffron clothes. Therefore, I was the “modern” Indian, believer in science, and with little concern for spiritual diversions.
In fact till the age of 30, I had not even heard of a god like human being called Sri Chandrasekhar Saraswathi. It was a chance meeting with an Indian student at Harvard in his room in the university hostel, that I saw a picture of Parmacharya on top of this student’s TV set. I asked him: “Who is he? And why are you keeping his picture?” The student just avoided the question. I also forgot about it, except that Parmacharya shining smiling face in that photograph got etched in my memory. Six years later, as my Pan American Airways plane was about to land at Delhi airport during the Emergency, I saw that smiling Parmacharya’s face reappear before me for a brief second for no reason at that time. I was coming to Delhi surreptitiously to make my now famous appearance in Parliament and subsequent disappearance, while a MISA warrant was pending for my arrest in the Emergency. At that moment, as the plane landed, I resolved that whenever the Emergency gets over, I shall search for Parmacharya and meet him.
In 1977, after the Emergency was over, and the Janata Party in Power I went to Kanchipuram to see the Parmacharya. It was in sheer curiosity that I went. Some friends arranged for me to come before him. It was a hot June evening, and Parmacharya was sitting in a cottage, a few kilometers outside Kanchipuram. As soon as he saw me, he abruptly got up, and turned his back on me, and went inside the cottage. My friends who took me there were greatly embarrassed, and I was puzzled. Since no body including the other sadhus at that ashram had any idea what went wrong, I told my friends that we should leave, since Parmacharya was not interested in giving me “darshan”.
From the cottage, we walked a few hundred yards to where my car, by which I had come to the ashram, had been parked. Just as I was getting into the car, a priest came running to me. He said “Parmacharya wants to see you, so please come back”. Again puzzled, I walked back to the cottage.
Back at the cottage, a smiling Parmacharya was waiting for me. He first asked me in Tamil: “Do you understand Tamil?” I nodded. In those days, I hardly knew much Tamil, but I hoped the Parmacharya would speak in the simplest Tamil to make it easy to understand.
He then asked me another question: “Who gave you permission to leave my cottage?” The Tamil word he used for “permission” was of Sanskrit origin, which I immediately understood. So in my broken Tamil with a mixture of English words, I replied: “Since you turned your back on me and went inside the cottage, I thought you did not want to see me.” This reply greatly irritated the priest standing in attendance on the Parmacharya.
He said “You cannot talk like this to the Parmacharya”. But Parmacharya asked him to be silent, and then said that when he saw me, he was reminded of a press cutting he had been keeping in store inside the cottage and he had gone inside to fetch it.
“Here it is” he said. “Open it and read it. I opened the folded press cutting, and with some difficulty, I read the Tamil question answer piece printed in Dinamani Kadir, a magazine of Indian Express group. The press cutting had a photograph of me and below it the question asked by a reader: “Is the hero of the Emergency struggle, Dr.Subramanian Swamy a Tamilian?” And the answer given was, “Yes he is a native of Cholavandhan of Madurai District.”
Parmacharya asked me, “Is this your photograph, and is the answer given to the question correct?” I nodded. Then Parmacharya said: “Now you may go. But in the future when you come, you cannot leave till I give you permission to leave.” Everyone around me was naturally very impressed, that Parmacharya had given so much special attention especially since in those days, he often went on manuvvat (silence vow). As I left a sense of elation at the meeting with Parmacharya. I wanted to come back again. I could not understand why a “modern” person like me should want to see a sanyasi, but I felt the urge strongly.
A month later, the Tamilnadu Assembly elections were on, and I was passing Kanchipuram in the campaign rail. So I told the Janata Party workers to spare me some time to pay a visit to the Parmacharya.
When I again reached the same cottage, a priest was waiting for me. He said: “Parmacharya is expecting you.” I asked: “How is this possible, when I decided at that last minute to come, without appointment?” The priest replied. “That is a silly thing to ask. Parmacharya is divine. He knows every thing”.
Sure enough a radiant smiling Parmacharya received me. I thought that this time too, our meeting would last a few minutes, and after a few pleasantries, I can continue on my election campaign. But not so. Parmacharya spoke to me for 1-1 1/2 hours on all important subjects. He gave me guidelines on how to conduct myself in politics and what was necessary to protect the national interest of the country.
He told me that in politics, I should never bother about money or position, because both would follow me whenever an occasion demanded. But I should not be afraid to stand alone. He told me that all great persons of India were those who changed the thinking of the people from a particular set way of thought to a new way of thinking. “That is the permanent achievement for a politician, not merely becoming Minister or Prime Minister. Great persons, starting with Adi Shankara, to Mahatma Gandhi dared to stand alone and change the trend of people’s thought. But did either hold a government position?” he asked me. He said “If you dare to think out fresh solutions for current problems, without bothering about your popularity, and without caring for whether a government position comes to you or not, you will have my blessings.” When he said that I felt a strange sensation of happiness. I suddenly felt very strong.
During the period since my first meeting with the Parmacharya, I had thought a lot about him, heard his praise from so many people. From what I learnt and what I saw of him, I began to feel his divinity. There was no other human like him. If nothing else, he was one sadhu who did not bless Indira Gandhi during the Emergency when in the height of her power and at the height if the nation’s sycophancy, she came and prostrated before him. And yet when Indira Gandhi was down during the Janata rule, he received her and gave his blessings to her after she repented for the Emergency.
It is this thought, every time (that if I do something sincerely, and for what is for the good of the people) that Parmacharya’s blessings will be with me and see me through the interim period of public and media criticism and unpopularity, that has given me this courage that today even my enemies do not deny that I possess. In such endeavours, even though in the beginning when most thought that I was doomed, I came out it successful in the end because of his blessing.
In the next few instalments I shall, without drawing the Parmacharya’s name into the controversy, reveal many such initiatives that I took with his blessings. From 1977 to his day of Samadhi, I met the Parmacharya so many times and received his oral benediction and advice. But I never gave it publicity or got myself photographed. During his life time, I did not boast of my proximity to him either, although whenever I came to the Kanchi Mutt, always without appointment, he would see me. If he was asleep, he was awakened by his close helpers to whom he had obviously given instructions about me. There may not be another god in human form for another 100 years, but it was my honour to have known him and received his blessings. He may not be here today in human form, but because of what he had instructed me, I know and feel his is around.
Parmacharya – Part II
Subramanian Swamy
After wonderful discourse from Maha Periyawal Sri Chandrashekhara Saraswathi in 1977, I went to have Parmacharya’s darshan numerous times. Whenever I had a difficult question that I could not answer, I would go and ask him for guidance. He gave me audience also in abundance. I got to see him whenever I came to Kanchipuram, or at Belgam in Karnataka or at Satara in Maharashtra or wherever else he was. But I did not publicize these darshan sessions in the newspapers as some others were doing. This was greatly appreciated by the Mutt officials and pujaris.
When Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, defeating the Janata Party, I was upset, and wondered if Emergency would be declared again. So I went with a group of Janata workers to the Karnataka – Maharashtra border, where Sri Parmacharya was camping on his walking tour. When I reached him, he was sitting in a hut almost as if he was waiting for me. As soon as he saw me, he got up and started briskly walking to a nearby temple. I just stood there watching him. Soon he stopped walking and sent someone to ask me to come to him alone.
When I reached where he was standing, he said to me anticipating my question; “It is a good thing that Indira Gandhi has got an absolute majority. At this juncture, the country needs a stable government, and only Indira Gandhi is in a position to give that stability.” “But what if she declares another Emergency and tries to put us all in jail?” I asked.
To this question, Parmacharya only smiled and put his hand up in his known style of bestowing his blessings. I did not realize at that time, that Indira Gandhi had before elections, gone to Hubli in Karnataka where he was camping and prostrated before the Parmacharya. On her own, she had vowed to him and had said that if she came back to power, she will not repeat the mistakes of the past of declaring an Emergency. Then she asked for his blessings, which the Parmacharya had given by raising his hand and showing his palm.
As I was leaving, Parmacharya asked me if I could work to unite the opposition and include the communists in it. “Communists!” I asked in utter incredulity. I added: “The Soviet Union has just invaded Afghanistan (December 27, 1979), and are preparing to capture Pakistan, and then soon they will swallow India. How can we believe the Communists?”
“Not like that at all” said Parmacharya to me. He clearly gave me a hint that Communists will never be a danger to India. In fact he gave me a clear indication that in some years to come the Soviet Union will not be there at all. I just could not believe what I heard. But eleven years later, that is exactly what happened. The Soviet Union broke up in 1991 into 16 countries, a development no human being foresaw. Parmacharya was above human, a divine soul. He could see it. To this day I regret that I did not act on his advice because I spent nearly a decade (ten years 1980 -90) opposing Communism, little realizing that it was going to collapse of its own weight. I earned the Communists enmity for nothing. That is the only advice of Parmacharya I did not act on. On other occasions, I blindly followed whatever he told me. Of course, the golden rule with Parmacharya was that he would not on his own offer any advice, but when I asked him, he showed me the way. When my mind was made up on anything, I did not ask him what I should do. Of course if I did not have his blessings, I rarely succeeded.
In 1987 for example, I tried to land with some fisherman in the island of Katchathivu to assert the rights of fisherman under the Indo-Sri Lanka accord. MGR was Chief Minister then. He had me arrested in Madurai and put me up in Tamilnadu Hotel instead of Madurai jail. The then DGP, told me clearly that unless I give up the Katchathivu trip and agreed to return to Chennai, they would keep me under arrest. Those days I knew little criminal Law, so I agreed to return to Chennai not knowing my rights. After arriving in the city I drove to Kanchipuram and saw the Parmacharya. I told him of my humiliation and my inability to go to Katchathivu. Parmacharya smiled at me as if I was a child. He told me: “You go to Delhi and file a case in the Supreme Court against the arrest, and ask the court to direct the Tamilnadu government to make arrangements for you to go Katchathivu”.
So I flew that evening to Delhi. My wife is an advocate in the Supreme Court, so I asked her to draft my writ petition. She was shocked by my request, “The Supreme Court will laugh at you if you come directly on a question of arrest. You must first go before Magistrate in Madurai, then Sessions Court, the High Court, and then only to Supreme Court” she said.
I insisted that she draft the petition. So finally she said “As an advocate, I don’t want to look foolish in the Court. So I will draft your petition but the rest you do. I won’t associate with it.” But my blind faith in Parmacharya kept me going. With the petition filed, I appeared in the Court of the Chief Justice Venkataramiah. I arrived in the Court a few minutes before the Chief Justice took his seat. Many lawyers who recognized me met me to ask why I had come, they all laughed. All of them said: “Your Petition will not only be dismissed, but also the Chief Justice will pass remarks against your stupidity, and for wasting the time of the Supreme Court.”
When my Petition came up for hearing, a miracle happened. Chief Justice Venkataramaiah asked the Tamilnadu Counsel (then Kuldip Singh, who became a famous Judge himself later) why the Government had arrested me. Taken by surprise at the Petition not being dismissed, Kuldip Singh stammered. “Kuldip Singh went on to explain that a pro-LTTE mob was against me going to Katchathivu, and the LTTE had also issued a threat to finish me. Chief Justice Venkataramaiah then burst out at Kuldip Singh. He thundered “Are you fit to call yourself a democratic government? If mob wants to stop Dr.Swamy, you arrest the mob not Dr.Swamy.”
The Chief Justice then passed an order that the Government should make all the necessary arrangements for me to go to Katchathivu. No one in court could believe it. Some asked me: “Are you related to Venkataramaiah?” I am not only not related, but those days I did not even know him. But I had the blessings of Parmacharya, and I was doing as he asked me to.
That was the divine power of Parmacharya ; when he asked you to do anything, he also took measures to see that the right thing happened.
After the Supreme Court verdict, I met Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Parliament House. Kuldip Singh had already informed him of the court verdict. So he told me: “Why did you not speak to me first? I would have told MGR to allow you. In any case, when you plan to go to Katchathivu, the navy and air force will give you cover. But the fishing boat on which you travel has to be provided by you.”
On May 8, 1988, I landed on Katchathivu and planted the Janata Party’s saffron and green flag, and prayed at the St.Anthony Church there. As I approached the island, there were navel patrol boats on either side of my fishing vessel which I had taken on hire. Two air force planes were flying over me. I felt grand like a king. My salutations went to the Parmacharya. He made the impossible possible. From being arrested in Madurai to being royally escorted to Katchathivu, only Parmacharya could arrange.
Parmacharya- Part III
Subramanian Swamy
In 1981, I became successful in persuading the Chinese government in re-opening for Hindu pilgrims the route to Kailash and Manasarovar. After 3 years of persuading the Chinese, in April 1981 the Chinese strongman Deng Xiao Ping invited me to China to meet him. In that meeting, he told me that as a “special favour to me and my efforts and in recognition of my steady advocacy of improved Sino-Indian relations [ he used the term "lao peng yeou" 'meeting old friend' ] he was asking the officials to meet Indian counter parts to work out the arrangements for pilgrims to visit Kailash. Deng had in jest asked me “But you must go first”. He had said it jokingly, but I was keen to see Kailash and Manasarovar. So when I met Mrs. Gandhi in Delhi to tell her of my meeting with Deng, I told her that I will lead the first batch of pilgrims and that she should agree. She laughed and said “of course. I wish I could go too.”
The opening of Kailash and Manasarovar had been considered impossible by our Foreign Ministry officials. China is a communist country and Kailash and Manasarovar is in the most sensitive area of Tibet. Therefore how could China allow Indians, even if as Pilgrims, to walk into Tibet? But the impossible happened because throughout the three years of talks with the Chinese, Parmacharya not only gave his blessings to me for this venture but encouraged me. “We must be friends with China and Israel” he would keep telling me whenever I came to him for darshan and anugraha (blessings).
When the Kailash and Manasarovar re-opening was announced, the first batch consisting of 20 pilgrims was slated to go in the end of August. That meant in 30 days of walking from the end of August to late September. By the time, we return, it would be end of September. At those heights in the Himalayas, September meant snow and ice cold temperatures, and that we would have to walk! Foreign ministry officials told me that since the route had not been in use for nearly 25 years, it would be a rough walk. We would have to clear bushes on the way, and perhaps encounter animals and snakes!
To make matters worse, Inderjit Gupta, then a CPI Lok Sabha MP, and good friend of many years, asked my wife to prevent me from going on this trip since I would not return. “It requires mountaineers to trek this route, not people like us” he told her. Others told me that I should think of my family (of two daughters then age 11 and 8) and not venture on such foolishness. In fact one BJP MP, perhaps more out of jealousy than concern, told me that it is punya (blessing) to die on the route to Kailash. If that were so, I wondered, why not a single BJP or RSS leader has ever gone on a pilgrimage to Kailash? Perhaps because there are no Muslims there, nor a Masjid to demolish! BJP is anti-Muslim but not pro -Hindu, so Kailash means nothing of political value to them.
But the net result of all this was that a scare was created in my family and social circles. Many urged me to forget going to Kailash. I had done my duty, they said, in getting the route opened, but it is not necessary to go there. My daughters reminded me of my promise made the previous year that I would be with them on my birthday, which fell on September 15th. The previous year I had to be away to address a meeting in Bihar. If I went to Kailash I would again not be in Delhi on my birthday. This troubled me.
So anguished and confused by all this I flew to Bangalore, and drove down to where Parmacharya was camping. He was reading a book when I saw him. He put down his book and glasses, and asked me what brought me to him. “Kailash and Manasarovar route has been opened with your blessings. I have been asked by our Government to lead the first batch of pilgrims. But all my colleagues in Parliament are scaring me with stories of what can go wrong with me on this hazardous trip”. Parmacharya said in a comforting voice “Nothing will happen. You go and come. The opening of Kailash route is a great achievement for our country”
“I have only regret. That I will not be able to be with my daughters in Delhi on my birthday” I added. “When is your birthday?” He asked. “September 15th. But the journey back will not be completed before September 30th.” Parmacharya only smiled. He puts his palm in blessing and merely said: “you go and come”. I left on September 1st on my journey.
My journey to Manasarovar lake and then for a darshan of Kailash went very smoothly thanks to Parmacharya’s blessings. I returned to the Tibet-India border on September 13th, and camped that night at Kalapani, a military cantonment on the Indian side. That night, faraway from Delhi on the Himalayas, I could not help thinking of my daughters and my promise to them to be with them on my birthday. It would be another 15 days of walking before I could reach the plains and then Delhi.
Next morning at breakfast, the camp commandant came to me with a telex from Delhi. It said that on Prime Minister’s instruction, an air force helicopter would be coming that morning at 10 AM from Bareilly to pick me up and take me back to Bareilly, from where I will be taken by car to Delhi. I was thrilled. This meant that I would be in Delhi on September 14th evening, and be with my family on the next day for my birthday! What a miracle!
I was that time just an MP, and that too from the opposition. And yet this privilege was extended to me. The only reason for this was the blessing of Parmacharya. With this blessing, any miracle could happen. I was honoured to witness it. I prayed to Lord Shiva and Durga at the Kalapani temple at 18,000 feet above sea level, with snow all around. I said a special thanks to Parmacharya. When I returned to Delhi, and thereafter went to see Parmacharya, I explained all that happened. He merely smiled.
In 1986, I was passing Kanchipuram, so I made a detour and went to the Kanchi Mutt. Parmacharya was there giving Darshan to hundreds of people. I also stood in the crowd. But the pujaris saw me and whispered to the Parmacharya that I had come. So he asked me to come close and sit before him. After the crowds had left, he looked at me as if to ask me why I had come. The Babri Masjid issue then was hotting up, and so I said Parmacharya that I was planning to visit Ayodhya to study the situation. I asked the Mahaswami what stand should I take.
Parmacharya looked at me very sternly and said “you are a politician. Why do you have to take a stand on a religious issue? You stay out of it. You spend your energies on improving our economy or our relations with China and Israel.” I was taken aback by his stern remarks. But I persisted and said “At least the Government will have to take a stand”. He said: “Let the government make it possible for the religious leaders of both religions to come together and work out a compromise. But you stay out of it.
I then told Parmacharya that my friend, and leading Babri Masjid agitator Mr.Syed Shahabuddin wanted to see his holiness, and whether I could do bring him next time. The pujaris around the Parmacharya protested. They said that Shahabuddin was anti-Hindu, and he should not be allowed inside the Mutt.
The Parmacharya waved away their objections. He gave me permission to bring him to the Mutt. Then he said to the Pujaris. “Only Subramanian Swamy knows the art of befriending Americans, Chinese and Israelis at the same time. He can also be a friend of Shahabuddin.” Then turning to me, he said: “Keep this quality. Never be afraid of making friends with anyone.” I have followed this advice despite heavy criticism from the media. I have made friends with Morarji, Chandrasekhar and Indira Gandhi after terrific quarrels with them. Sometimes one needs to quarrel to come to an understanding of each other’s strength. Generally, I love to oppose those in authority because for a strong democracy, opposition is necessary. But Indian society being feudal, those in power underestimate who oppose them. And in my case, people in power have always underestimated me because they think I am alone. But they don’t realize I have friends everywhere, in all political parties and in all important countries. That is why I have won all my battles against Government. Because I have never betrayed anyone, these friendships remain for a long time. In 1990, I could have betrayed Chandrasekhar and fallen for temptation offered by Rajiv Gandhi to become PM. But when I discouraged this idea, Rajv Gandhi’s esteem of me and trust in me went sky high. Because of the trust I develop my friends from all over the world confide in me. People ask me often “How do you get so much accurate information”. This is the answer. I have secret friends and open enemies. Most other people have the opposite: secret enemies and open friends.
Thus Shahabuddin trusted me to bring him to the Mutt with honour. In early 1987, I brought Shahabuddin to see Parmacharya.
Parmacharya -Part IV
Subramanian Swamy
I brought the fierce Muslims-rights agitator Mr.Syed Shahabuddin to Kanchipuram to have a darshan of the Parmacharya. Shahabuddin had told me many a times that he had a urge to see the Parmacharya. He never explained why. Nor I asked him why since I assumed everyone would like to see a living God on earth.
Although Shahabuddin is a strict Muslim, he accepted two fundamental points defining a patriotic Indian Muslim. The first point, a patriot would accept that though he is a Muslim, his ancestors are Hindus since 99.9 percent of Muslims of India are descendents of converts. Muslims who think that their ancestors are Persians or Arabs or from Tajikistan, can never be patriotic Indians, because they live in a myth. They are psychologically uprooted from India. The second point is that although the present day Indian culture is composite, in which all communities and religions have contributed, the core of this culture is Hindu in character and substance. Hence even if one changes one religion, it need not lead to a change of culture. Religion is personal, culture belongs to the nation.
Shahabuddin had accepted the two points and that is why I defended him against the charge that he was communal. But the RSS [which is not pro-Hindu, but merely anti-Muslim], saw in Shahabuddin a convenient hate figure, and dubbed him a “second Jinnah”. Naturally bigots of the RSS protested when they came to know that I was bringing Shahabuddin to meet Parmacharya. When we arrived at the Kanchi Mutt, the Mutt-Pujaris told me that Parmacharya had wanted me to bring Shahabuddin right into the inner part of the Mutt where he was staying. We were made to sit before a shut door, and told Parmacharya would come soon.
The door was opened by Parmacharya himself. When Shahabuddin saw him, he started to weep, with tears rolling down his cheeks. He folded his hands in a ‘namaste’ and said “Oh my Lord Parmacharya, please save my community and save the nation”. I was taken aback [Much later when we were back on our way to Chennai, I asked Shahabuddin why he broke down , before the Parmacharya. He simply said that he could not control himself when he saw the radiant face of the Parmacharya.]
Parmacharya asked Shahabuddin what troubled him. He said “The Babri Masjid has been shut to Muslims by a Court Order and I pray to you to help us open it to us”. [At that time, 1988 there was no talk of its demolition by RSS]. Parmacharya told him that Hindus and Muslims should work out a compromise. He suggested a number of proposals, such as joint prayers, or Hindu Prayers on Monday-Wednesday-Friday and Muslims Namaz on other days with Sunday being denied to both. All these compromise proposals, Shahabuddin said, would be unacceptable to devout Muslims.
I added in my proposal. Koran prohibits Namaz in constructions built by demolishing other religions holy places : therefore if it can be proved that a temple was demolished by Babar’s men to build the mosque in Ayodhya, and then the Muslims themselves should agree to the Babri Masjid demolition.
Parmacharya looked at me with a benign smile. He had earlier warned me to stay away from this issue, instead asked me to concentrate on political and economic issues. But Shahabuddin quickly agreed that Koran prohibited reading namaz in such places, but contested that Babri Masjid was built on a temple site. He said he had construction blue prints to prove his point. Two hours of discussion had taken place, and therefore the Mutt pujaris were getting impatient. A big crowd was waiting for the Parmacharya’s darshan. So Parmacharya closed his discussion by asking Shahabuddin to bring his blue prints and come again. Surprisingly, again Shahabuddin prostrated before him, and then we both left.
Shahabuddin never came back again. But two years later, I became the Law Minister. I confronted the Muslim organizations with a proposal that the Government would appoint a Supreme Court Judge in a one man Commission of inquiry to determine whether or not there was a temple before the Babri Masjid was built. And if the conclusion was that there was a temple, then Muslims must agree to give up the Masjid. If not, then the Hindus would vacate the masjid.
Surprisingly, while all the Muslim organisations agreed to my proposal, the fanatic Hindu organizations refused to agree. Our government did not last long enough for me to go ahead with the Commission of Inquiry anyway disregarding the fanatics. Nor could I persuade the successor Narasimha Rao Government to follow my proposal. It would have amicably resolved the issue. But alas, Babri Masjid was finally demolished in bitterness.
Perhaps Parmacharya was telling me not to get involved from the beginning because he foresaw that it would be demolished as a part of destiny. If Babar’s violence was undone 450 years later, then RSS violence on December 6, 1992 could also be undone someday, but I hope, by understanding and love. Otherwise the cycle of violence will continue in the country, with the Hindus and Muslims not reconciled to each other.
In April 1990, I received an urgent summons from Parmacharya to come to Kanchipuram. So I rushed. When I saw him, he merely smiled, put up his palm in blessing and then waved me on to go away! I was puzzled. Why was I asked to rush to the Kanchi Mutt from Delhi, merely to be sent away? The Mutt pujaris told me that on Parmacharya’s instructions the Mutt had decided that I was to share the dais with Rajiv Gandhi on the occasion of Parmacharya’s 97th birthday in May that year, to be celebrated in Kanchipuram. It turned out that no other politician except Rajiv and myself were to share the platform. It was a great honour, not only that I would be with Rajiv, but more that it was on Parmacharya’s instructions. But why did he so honour me?
That May meeting turned out to be crucial for me, because it created a rapport with Rajiv which I did not have before. Rajiv too had great regard for the Parmacharya and therefore his selection of me to pair with Rajiv, meant for Rajiv that I could be trusted. From that date onwards, Rajiv trusted me blindly with no reservations.
Parmacharya thus not only altered my outlook, but he also ensured from time to time that I came on the right path. Once for example, in 1992, the two junior swamis, Jayendra Saraswati and Vijendra Saraswati had asked me to collect some funds for a Ghatikasthanam library that they wanted to build in honour of the Parmacharya. They even printed letter heads to make me the “Patron” of the project, but insisted on a donation.
With great difficulty, I collected Rs.15 lakhs and gave it to them as Janata Party’s gift. When Parmacharya came to know about it, he sent me a query: “Why should you donate to the Mutt when you are yourself begging for funds from the people to run your party? Please do not do it in the future”. Since then I have stopped giving donations to any cause. Beggars cannot donate.
Naturally, when Parmacharya attained samadhi in 1994, I felt like an orphan in public life. HE was always there when I had a dilemma to set things right. But I had the God’s grace to see him, a living divinity, for 17 years. Many of his opinions and directions I can never reveal, because he said them knowing fully well that I will keep it to myself. But by guided and listening to him, I have become so strong mentally as a person, that I feel that no one can cow me down or demoralize me no matter how bad a situation I am in.
Parmacharya taught me that the easiest way to finish an enemy is to make him a friend. He had urged me not to hate the sinner, but the sin. Of course, sometimes the easiest way is not available because of ego clash, and so the sinner has to fought to be made to realize the sin. But one has to keep in mind that there is a God’s scheme, redemption for the sinner what we call as prayaschitam. The ultimate revenge belongs to the divine. As human beings we have no right to revenge; only self-defence and righteous struggle. As Hindus, this is easy to understand because we believe in the law of Karma. People who see me fighting fiercely with Indira Gandhi, Chandrasekhar and Jayalalitha and then working with them get confused or even disgusted at what they perceive as my opportunism. I do not make up with those I quarrel with at height of their power, but when they cease to be in office. The reason for this flexibility in making friends out of enemies of yester year is the advice that Parmacharya once gave me in 1977: “India is plagued by divisions, and the egos of our rajas had played havoc with our national security, making it easy for foreigners to conquer us. Therefore, never hesitate to create unity, without of course compromising on the fundamental concepts of morality. India has never forgotten those who unite the nation.” I have defined three such fundamental moral principles.
These three fundamental concepts of morality are
I shall not speak lie, even if I withhold truth.
I shall practice what I shall preach.
What I do will be transparent for all to see. I consider myself therefore free to plan my political strategy as I see best, without regard to criticism from my political opponents, but within these three moral limits.
Our Enemy : TerrorismClick To OpenOur enemy is terrorism…
The Killer Instinct & My EnemiesClick To OpenI am quite embarrassed when perfect strangers accost me nowadays in air flights to ask me who is my “next target” for political annihilation; or when my friends meet me in the Central Hall of Parliament to inquire if I could set my “gun sights” on someone they do not like, as if I am some kind of Clint Eastwood who single-handedly can destroy someone, or at least his reputation.
I am embarrassed because I was brought up instead to be a soft intellectual, who having secured a Ph.D in Economics at Harvard, became a teacher in the same world famous university for ten years, and who went to do research jointly with two of the world’s most famous economists Nobel Laureates Paul A Samuelson and Simon Kuznets. I was so well-regarded that- when I was defeated in my third-term Lok Sabha bid from Bombay- Harvard University , despite my absence from academics for 15 years – promptly re-invited me to come back to teach (which I did for two years, 1985-86).
Now this intellectual attainment does not square up with the Hollywood Clint Eastwood image, nor am I happy to have that image. I am in politics for certain well defined ideology, which ideology happily has been internationalized today by all the major political parties. For the last 25 years I have advocated that the Indian Government adopt a market economy, rectify the pro-USSR tilt and balance out the foreign policy to befriend USA, Israel and China, and to motivate a cultural renaissance especially in the Hindu community.
But media appetite is not for such heavy ideological matters. Thus, for no fault of mine, my quarrels and political blood-spilling have received much more media attention. And ever since I campaigned and was successful in dethroning Jayalalitha, at the heels of demolishing Ramakrishna Hegde, these unwanted enquires about my “next target” have become legion.
I have as a philosophy never ‘targeted’ anyone. I have only defended myself against harassment, sidelining or attempted political elimination. But my defence has been vigorous, systematic, and effective to the point that the attacker has been either immobilized, or discredited, or politically disabled. In turn, this had tended to create the media impression that I am “making trouble”, when in fact as the prey I have not simply taken things lying down. But I have never made the first ‘strike’ against anyone.
As a further norm of my philosophy, I have never sought to demolish any honest critic; nor it is my duty to expose to destroy any and every corrupt person. It is the duty of the government and of the people to elect such a government, to prosecute all corrupt persons without fear or favour. As a public person, I can effectively fight corruption only with the state apparatus. Without government office, an individual can do only so much. Therefore one has to be selective. Obviously those corrupt persons who seek to harm me are the obvious candidates for selection.
It has been my lot throughout my life to be confronted and to confront the corrupt and powerful. As a student for my Masters degree in the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Calcutta, the then Chairman, P.C.Mahalanobis took a dislike to me because he and my father were rivals in the government statistical organisation. Mahalanobis was a corrupt leftist. I had come to the ISI as an innocent student with a brilliant first class B.A. Honours degree in mathematics. But Mahalanobis’ dislike of me filtered down to the professors. For no reason except to please him, they began failing me in every subject. A ruined career stared me in the face. So I decided to retaliate ( a foolish resolve on first thought, since I was then a 19 year old student facing the darling of the Left, USSR and Nehru: P.C.Mahalanobis). But I dropped everything, parked myself in the library, and read whatever Mahalanobis had written as a scholar. I found that his celebrated Second Five Year Plan model, the so-called Mahalanobis model, was actually stolen from M.A.Feldman, an obscure Soviet economist of the 1930s. This discovery I could not use against Mahalanobis however, because neither the USSR nor the then docile Indian press would take notice. But I discovered that Mahalanobis’s magnum opus something called ‘Fractile Analysis’, had recently been published in a scholarly international journal. That research was, I found worthless when scrutinized under the microscope of modern mathematics. It was, literally, well-known earlier research re-hashed. Mathematics laid bare the plagiarism. Mahalanobis was too big to be challenged by other Indian scholars. But I had nothing to lose.
Naturally when I wrote out my critique and set it to the journal, it was hot stuff. The journal published it, and asked Mahalanobis for a rejoinder. He had none. His reputation abroad was therefore in tatters. He never recovered from it. A 19 year old writing out complex mathematical equations was a novelty for Harvard’s Economics Department to whose notice the journal article came. They offered me a scholarship for a Ph.D Course. My ruined career prospects did a 180 turn! I never looked back thereafter. Had I not been cornered like a cat, I would never have ventured to demolish Mahalanobis.
The same problem I faced, years later, with Ramakrishna Hegde. Hegde belonged to that class of politicians who practice bogus humility to impress the middle class, who engage in sham intellectualism by having articles and books ghost written for a price to make society ladies going ‘ooh aah’ at the India International Centre, and behind it all are mediocre crooks.
From day 1 of the Janata Party formation in 1977, Hegde was consumed by jealousy. I was already a middle class hero then because of my anti-Emergency struggle, and was a former Harvard University Professor to boot, of genuine intellectual credentials. I did not have to be synthetic in anyway for all the things that Hegde had to be. From 1977 to 1984, he harassed me in Indian style par excellence: pin pricking. Finally he managed to put me against Chandrasekhar, who in a fit of rage as he was prone to, expelled me from the Janata Party. Hegde went on to become the Chief Minister of Karnataka on Chandrashekar’s political largesse, and then turned against him too. I returned to the Janata Party after patching up with Chandrasekhar. During the period of six years 1983-1988 as Chief Minister, Hegde had lost his head. His media con-tricks made him a middle class hero. But behind the stage, he was committing one corrupt act after another in the mistaken belief that if had Rs.1000 Crores in loot, he could buy his way to the Prime Ministership. By the time I returned to the Janata Party, I had studied and documented three of Hedge’s major cases of corruption or misuse of power which I made public: Telephone Tapping [later proved by a parliamentary probe], Bangalore Land Grab for his son-in-law (1000 acres) [later proved by Justice Kuldip Singh Commission], and Illegal Commission collecting in the sale of torpedoes in the HDW submarine [confirmed by Corp of Detectives (COD) Karnataka Government investigation]. Since 1990, when V.P.Singh asked him to quit his Planning Commission Deputy Chairmanship after the Kuldip Singh Commission Report was submitted, Hegde has remained a political leper. He cannot now get out that rut, because the synthetic moral halo that he contrived to wear has vanished.
The fight with Ms.Jayalalitha was the toughest of my life. It also took the longest (3 – 1/2 years) time. It was the toughest because unlike other ‘targets’ there was no counter veiling power to ensure some kind of ‘level-playing field’. In case of Mahalanobis, it was the international community of scholars, whom I could address. They did not depend on Mahalanobis for research grants. Indian scholars in economics were a castrated lot since they depended on the government for grants and positions. In Hegde’s case, Rajiv Gandhi’s central government was a buffer. If I came up with queries, they were ready to answer, as in the case of Telephone Tapping or in appointing Kuldip Singh Commission. In Ms.Jayalalitha’s case, all the political parties were politically wooing her, or eyeing her booty. That is why practically every party from BJP to CPM filed affidavits in the Supreme Court supporting her stand that a Governor has no locus stand to give sanction to prosecute a Chief Minister after Dr.Chenna Reddy had given me sanction to prosecute Ms.Jayalalitha. Now they are to rue their stand in the Laloo Yadav issue. The Central government headed by Narasimha Rao was most reluctant to be of help, because Mr.Rao’s son and confidants were all being effectively ‘serviced’ by her people. When Mr.Rao appointed me to head a GATT Commission in 1994, even Moopanar and Chidamabaram tried to organize a signature campaign in the Congress Parliamentary Party against my appointment because it would, in Chidambaram’s words send a wrong signal to Ms.Jayalalitha, with whom they were at that time as late as February 1996 on best behaviour. Such was the array of forces in favour of Ms.Jayalalitha. That is why it was so tough to fight her. During my struggle against her, Karunanidhi hid in Gopalapuram most of the time.
But the breakthrough in my campaign against Ms.Jayalalitha came by the inexorable law of fermentation: if you keep hammering away, and it is the truth, then the people will sooner or later revolt. Day in and day out, I brought out one fact out after another. My old school boy and teacher-student network fed me with document and data. Press conference and Court writ petitions did the rest, Ms.Jayalalitha’s attempt to foist false cases on me only re-affirmed the substance of my campaign against her. When the General Elections came, people spoke.
But Ms.Jayalalitha during her tenure as Chief Minister tried to get me to jail in a number of ridiculous cases. One was under TADA by faking a photograph, another was under the severe Protection of Civil Rights Act [PCRA] for abusing the scheduled castes– by calling the LTTE as an “international pariah!”, and yet another for attempting to murder her!! Each time the Supreme Court came to my rescue.
I had therefore no option but to go after my political predator, and immobilize her. But lacking a developed Party cadre, I could not cash the public popularity I thus got. The political zamindars (and in reality too), Karunanidhi and Moopanar came out of their hibernation, and harvested the wave I generated by my struggle, But they are no better than her. They are trying now to silence me by the same methods, only less skilfully. I am therefore again not without a target. Fortunately, each time my predators make the mistake of underestimating me. And I with each success, have acquired a more experienced killer instinct.
My Friend Turned Foe Turned Friend : ChandrashekharClick To OpenChandrashekhar – Part I Subramanian Swamy Former Prime Minister
Former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar and I had known each other on a personal basis since 1974. Three years earlier in 1971, he had won my admiration by writing an editorial in a magazine, he was bringing out called Young Indian, in which he praised my book then just published titled Indian Economic Planning -An Alternative Approach. Mrs. Gandhi had denounced the book in Parliament as a “dangerous thesis”. My thesis was that socialism would not work in India, and would breed governmental corruption. If we wanted to remove poverty and develop nuclear weapons then we should give up our dependence on the Soviet model of governmental controls and move to market economy. I did not advocate like Rajaji a “free market”, but a market economy in which the government will have a role to play as an “umpire” between consumers and producers. But both consumers and producers will be free to act within simple rules. Rajaji had advocated the “survival of the fittest” principle, and saw no role for the government to protect the weak against the strong using unfair means.
In my book, I had also advocated that for our exports we should develop relations with Israel and China. Naturally my book brought a torrent of abuse from the communists who denounced me as an “American agent” because they could not answer my arguments. Time has proved me right because today we are moving towards a market economy and have improved our relations with Israel and China.
Chandrashekhar in his editorial understood my distinction between free market capitalist economy advocated by Swatantra Party and my concept of market capitalist economy. The former was for “free competition” and the latter for “fair competition”. Today I am against opening the doors blindly to multinational corporations because that “free competition” will kill our local industry due multinational’s access to capital which our industry does not have. But “fair competition” will ensure that if multinational have some advantage, the government provides some support (such as cheap credit) to local industry to make the contest or competition equal. I also believe that if Americans ask us to open the market for their capital, we should demand that they open their country to our labour to freely go there. Why should capital have free entry but not labour?
To hide these attractive nationalistic ideas, Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress and the Communists not only denounced me as an American agent, but got me removed from my Professor’s post at the IIT, Delhi (which post was restored to me in 1991 after 20 years by the Delhi Court). In these circumstances, for Chandrashekhar, then a Congress working committee and a friend of Indira Gandhi, to come out publicly in my support took all by surprise, but won my admiration for his courage.
I first met Chandrashekhar in 1974 at the Lucknow coffee house located in the famous Hazratbal area. In those days, politicians used to meet intellectuals in coffee houses. Five star hotels had not come into fashion. Both Chandrashekhar and I had been made candidates for Rajya Sabha by our respective parties. He was surrounded by Congress party workers and me of Jan Sangh. I went up to him and introduced myself to him. Congress party workers snarled at me for my anti -Congress statements. But Chandrashekhar got up from his chair and silenced them. He then introduced me to them as an original thinker to whom Congress should listen to.
After that Chandrashekhar met me often in Parliament and the friendship grew. It reached a peak during the Emergency, when he wrote glowingly about my daring escape from Parliament.
Chandrashekhar was made President of the newly formed Janata party in 1977, but because I had become a friend of Morarji, a strain developed in our relations. Because I remained steadfast with Morarji, and Chandrashekhar’s close circle contained two of the most poisonous minds in Indian politics — Vajpayee and Ramakrishna Hegde– the relation between us fluctuated and reached a flash point in 1984 when with Morarji’s backing I contested for the post of Janata party President against Chandrashekhar in the party polls. I was Deputy Leader in Parliament then. It was a literal Mahabharata with every newspaper giving front page coverage. Although I lost the election, I got 25 percent of the vote under very imperfect conditions of polling. Morarji refused to accept the verdict saying it was rigged. But Chandrashekhar’s circle knew that if not now, two years later at the next party poll, I would certainly be elected President of the party.
The modern Mantharas (Kaikeyi’s adviser in Ramayana) began to work on Chandrashekhar. Chandrashekhar suddenly announcing my expulsion from the party for six years, a few weeks before the Lok Sabha polls. Both Chandrashekhar and I were defeated for the same reason — we opposed operation Bluestar in the Amristar Golden temple.
In the mean time, Ramakrishna Hegde got re-elected to become the CM of the Karnataka government. Like Moopanar has become a media-favourite today, Hegde became the media darling. This went to his head and soon he began plotting against Chandrashekhar, and to remove him from the President ship of the party. This not only hurt Chandrashekhar because it was he who against the part wishes in 1983, had foisted Hegde as the CM over the claim of Deve Gowda. He also realized that till the time I was in the party, Mr.Hegde used to run to Chandrashekhar for protection, to save him from all the corruption charges that I had been collecting against Hegde (these charges were all proved later by the Justice Kuldip Singh Commission).
Therefore, one day in 1986, Mr.Jayant Malhoutra (now Rajya Sabha MP) came to see me. He was a very good friend of Chandrashekhar. He said that he had talked to Chandrashekhar, and he felt that now he (Chandrashekhar) understood why Hegde was so keen to get rid of me from the party. Malhoutra asked me that since Chandrashekhar realizes this, could not I and Chandrashekhar become friends again.
At first I protested. “How can I when he has expelled me for six years, and made me suffer?” But after some persuasion, I agreed on the principle that when we meet, it will be “bygones will be bygones” and we will think only of the future. Malhoutra talked Chandrashekhar on the phone and got his agreement.
We met in Chandrashekhar’s Bhondsi Ashram in February 1987. When he saw me, he became emotional and embraced me. He and I said nothing for sometime, sipping tea in his cottage. Then we talked of the past memories of JP. And finally, he said “Swamy no one can beat you in intelligence or in gathering information. I need your help, so does the nation. Let us work together again”.
Friendship was re-established as if nothing had happened these last few years. It was so firmly re-established that it never went sour again despite political differences; for example during my struggle against Ms.Jayalalitha, Chandrashekhar felt that I was making it easy for DMK to return to power. While he was against all the violence let loose against me, he had a deep conviction that DMK should not be facilitated to power. But despite this, our friendship has been unaffected.
Chandrashekhar -Part II
Subramanian Swamy
Once the friendship with Chandrashekhar was re-established, we began working together in a true spirit of friendship. In late 1987, I suggested to him that he had a chance to be PM, but for that he should expand the Janata Party base. I told him that the Charan Singh’s base was intact with his son Ajit Singh, and that he (Ajit) should be invited to merge his Lok Dal into the Janata Party. At that time, the Janata Party had a majority government in Karnataka under Ramakrishna Hegde as CM. With another 12 MPs in Lok Sabha, it can become the largest opposition party. The BJP had just 2 MPs. So I suggested to Chandrashekhar, that he should offer the Janata Party Presidentship to Ajit Singh, and get his party to merge in Janata . At first, Chandrashekhar was shocked by the suggestion, but I convinced him that Hegde had used the resources of the Karnataka government to mount a massive whisper campaign against him. Many newspapers were writing editorials to condemn Chandrashekhar for sticking to the Janata Party President’s post. Newspapers like the Hindu and Indian Express began painting Hegde as some kind of Messiah, a Mr.Clean, just as they have done recently with regard to Moopanar. It was clear that a campaign was on to make Hegde the Janata Party President, and then position him for the 1989 Lok Sabha elections as the Janata Party’s PM candidate.
Of course, I was against the idea because I had known that Hegde was an immoral character and a crook. I certainly was not going to allow him to become Prime Minister if it was in my power to stop him. So I convinced Chandrashekhar that he was anyway going to lose his Presidentship due to Hegde’s high voltage campaign. I also told him that after the merger of the Lok Dal with Janata, Ajit and I would jointly work to make him Prime Minister with in the next two years.
A good quality about Chandrashekhar is that if he is convinced about something, he acts swiftly. He does not hesitate thereafter. He thus quickly moved and called a Janata Working Committee Meeting to bring about the Lok Dal merger with the Janata Party. Hegde was so shocked by the speed of our action that he could not block the move. After all Janata Party was going to expand we argued, getting Lok Dal MLAs in UP, Bihar and Rajasthan to join the party. Ajit Singh thus became President and I was made General Secretary of the Party. Considering that in 1984, I had been expelled from the Janata Party for six years by Chandrashekhar, the same Chandrashekhar now before even three years of the six over, brushed aside all objections, admitted me to the party and made me once again General Secretary of the party. Hegde and his friends in the news-media made much of the “opportunism” of Chandrashekhar. There was however no opportunism because after all both Chandrashekhar and I were out of power in those days. By becoming friends, what, compromise did we make? If political enemies become friends, why anyone should object. I have made a rule in politics: never start a fight; but if someone starts it, never stop the fight till either the opponent gives up or is finished. Chandrashekhar had offered the hand of friendship, so I made up with him.
Hegde remained un-reconciled to this merger because he understood what it meant. With Deve Gowda joining us to form a foursome group of Chandrashekhar, Ajit, Gowda and myself, I felt time had come to put Hegde in his place. I looked for an opportunity, which arrived when Indian Express published a transcript of a telephone conversation between Gowda and Ajit plotting against Hegde. The Janata party was shocked, more by the fact that this conversation was tapped and published, than by the content of Gowda. Ajit plot. The party therefore asked me to investigate and give a report to the Parliamentary board. I knew that Hegde and Indian Express were close to each other, so I was confident that Hegde must be the culprit. But how to establish it?
As luck would have it, when I took a flight to Bangalore in July 1988 to investigate this telephone tapping, on the plane sat next to me a top Intelligence Bureau Officer. He introduced himself and said that he was my admirer because his younger brother was my student when I taught him economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His younger brother had told him what a good Professor I had been. He said to me: “We IB people are sick of today’s politicians because they are corrupt. We see them naked. But I admire you because you are different”. I jumped at this God sent opportunity of meeting an IB officer, and asked him about telephone tapping. It was he who gave me the tip that later completely exposed Hegde. The IB officer told me to check with the Telephone Exchange whether any written requisition were made for tapping as required under Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act. He also warned me that in some states like Tamil Nadu, the Inspector General of Intelligence illegally tapped telephones by bribing the linesman or the operator at the exchange. In such cases, he said, there will be no records. I thanked him for his tip, and after my plane landed in Bangalore, I raced to a telephone and called my friend, the Communications Minister Mr.Vir Bahadur Singh in Delhi. I requested him to procure the file, if it existed of requisitions for telephone tapping made by Hegde. A few days later, in Delhi Vir Bahadur Singh confirmed the existence of such a file and that he had a copy. Through my friends in the bureaucracy later, I got a Photostat copy of the entire file. According to this file, Hegde ordered the tapping of 51 telephones belonging to Janata Party MLAs and MPs, and surprisingly even seven of his girl friends! Telephone tapping is permitted by law against anti-social elements, but Hegde was tapping the phones of his own party colleagues and girl friends rather than keeping a tab on anti-social elements.
My report to the parliamentary board on telephone tapping finished Hegde. He had to resign from the Chief Ministership, which he did after publicly shedding copious tears. Hegde’s resignation would have directly benefited Chandrashekhar in the long run, but for the rise of V.P.Singh who had been expelled by the Congress party. With the Bofors scandal filling the pages of the newspapers, V.P. Singh began to be projected as the next PM. People like Hegde, seeing themselves blocked in the Janata Party began advocating the formation of a new party under V.P.Singh’s leadership. I tried to stop this formation, but suffered a setback when Ajit Singh deserted us and joined with V.P.Singh. I could never understand how Ajit Singh could give up the Presidentship of a party to become a General Secretary in V.P.Singh’s Janata Dal but Ajit was immature and inexperienced. This betrayal ( betrayal because Ajit Singh had assured Chandrashekhar that he will remain with him and canvass for his Prime Ministership) disheartened Chandrashekhar. Soon he too joined the Janata Dal. Therefore except for Deve Gowda and myself, all others joined V.P.Singh. I became the President of the Janata Party and Deve Gowda agreed to organize the Karnataka unit of the party. Gowda remained with me till 1992, but he too joined the Janata Dal. I thus became the only member of the Janata Party of 1977 who still remains in the party. It was lonely, but I went to seek the advice of Paramacharya Sri Chandrashekhara Saraswati. He told me not to worry, and asked me to rebuild the Janata Party even if it takes years. It is because of Paramacharya’s blessings that I have dared to keep the Janata Party alive and rebuild it even if it takes time.
After the 1989 Lok Sabha elections, the Janata Dal under V.P.Singh came to power in a coalition arrangement. Chandrashekhar was kept out the entire power structure and sidelined. One day I found him sitting alone in the Central Hall of Parliament. I walked up to him and sat by his side. He looked quite sad because he felt that V.P.Singh would divide politics of the country by his advocacy of caste via the Mandal Commission Report. He said that while he fully supported the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report, he felt that V.P.Singh was using it to create caste warfare.
Then he sighed deeply, and said that a riot between castes has become inevitable. “I feel useless today” he said in an emotional tone. “But what about trying to become PM to stop this rot?” I asked.
“Be serious, he retorted. How can I?” “Well, I have a plan if you agree” I replied.
Thus began the Operation Topple of the V.P.Singh Government.
Chandrashekhar – Part III
Subramanian Swamy
The plan for putting Chandrashekhar into the PM’s chair was arithmetically simple: Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress plus allies such as AIADMK were 220 in number. The deficit thus for a Parliamentary majority was 52. If I could mobilize 52 MPs from the Janata Dal, then it would serve two legal purposes, one of providing a majority and two, of being more than one-third of the Janata Dal to legally split the Party.
Chandrashekhar’s supporters were only 7 MPs, so there was the problem of securing the remaining 45. Arithmetically simple, but in terms of human chemistry, it was a night mare.
I discussed the matter with Rajiv Gandhi for the first time; the Chandrashekhar government formation in March 1990, three months after V.P.Singh came to power. Rajiv was keen for this new formation because he felt that V.P.Singh was not loyal to the nation’s interests. I too never liked Mr.V.P.Singh because I found him a hypocrite. He talked about fighting corruption, but his political friends were the most corrupt in the country, such as Ramakrishna Hegde and Arun Nehru. So I was prepared to believe the worst about him. Toppling his government was pleasure for me.
But it took me a while to convince Rajiv that Chandrashekhar was “PM material”. Rajiv told me that he was uncomfortable with Chandrashekhar because most Congress leaders distrusted him. I told Rajiv that there is no other leader in the Janata Dal on whose name I can mobilize 52 MPs. I told him that I would guarantee that Chandrashekhar gave him due respect.
On that note, Rajiv agreed. We also decided that we would meet everyday at 1 A.M! So every day for six months of plotting to bring down the V.P.Singh government. I met Rajiv Gandhi at 10, Janpath from 1 AM to 3 AM. No one except George, his Secretary and occasionally Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, was seen in the premises in those unearthly hours.
Rajiv Gandhi would sit with his computer in which the names of all the MPs, their bio data, names of their friends, their allegiance to leaders, their weaknesses, etc. had been stored. So we drew up a list of 76 MPs who were unhappy with V.P.Singh for some political reason or the other, and could be recruited.
Thereafter we would everyday take up a list of 5-7 names and I would meet them during the day and report back to Rajiv and his computer. Again at 1 AM Rajiv and I would meet and discuss the prospects of which MP is likely to join and who might not.
Throughout this operation, Chandrashekhar did very little to help. The entire operation was a Rajiv-Swamy managed show. This continuous meeting between me and Rajiv developed a bond between us. Therefore, when the operation was near completion, in end of October of 1990, and as per plan, Chandrashekhar was slated to take oath in the first week of November, I got a call from Rajiv one day at 4 AM after I had gone to sleep. In his typically sweet and shy voice, he said “Swamy, are you free to come now to see me. I will give some excellent coffee and chocolates”.
When I entered Rajiv’s study room at 10, Janpath at 4.30 AM, he said in a soft voice, but fresh as ever: “Swamy, I want you as PM, not Chandrashekhar” shocked by this, I said “Why at this late stage?” My party people are comfortable with you, but they don’t like Chandrashekhar”. “Will the President (R.Venkataraman) agree to administer me the oath?” I asked, hoping to discourage Rajiv at this change of heart.
“I will send R.K.Dhawan to the President with the proposal. He dare not refuse him,” he said. “Why?” I asked. Rajiv only smiled but refused to elaborate. “But, Rajiv,” I went on ,”the 52 MPs have agreed to come out of Janata Dal to make Chandrashekhar PM, not me”. “Yes, but now that they have come out, they cannot go back. You take oath, and they will fall in line”.
Much as I would have loved to grab that chance to be PM, I knew it would not work. I would earn the wrath of the 52 MPs who may fall in line, but they would despise me for cheating them. My age was 50 years then, and suppose it became a fiasco? I would have to live in disgrace. I was at that time too young to retire from politics but also too old to restart my academic career in the University.
For sometime, I kept sipping coffee and eating chocolates. Then I told Rajiv, getting emotional at his trust in me: “Rajiv, I shall never forget his honour, the faith you have in me. But it is gone too far now to change Chandrashekhar.” Let him be, and after one year it will be time for the Presidential elections, at which time Chandrashekhar can become President and you may become PM then. I shall work for it.”
At 6 AM, a sleepy Rajiv relented. It will be difficult to work with Chandrashekhar. We will have to go to the polls, but let us go through with the plan as it is for now.” Thus most reluctantly, Rajiv went through with the plan. But he did not turn up for the oath ceremony of the Council of ministers. As usual, Chandrashekhar being the strong headed independent minded person, he took into the Council of Ministers, Mrs.Menaka Gandhi and Sanjay Singh, both disliked by Rajiv Gandhi. So Rajiv boycotted the oath ceremony in protest without any warning.
After taking oath as a senior Minister, holding the portfolios of Commerce and Law & Justice. I went to 10, Janpath to call on Rajiv and thank him. He received me warmly, and gave lot of sweets to eat and celebrate.
“Why did you not come for the oath ceremony” I asked? “What for?. You said that the Chandrashekhar government was a necessary transition from V.P.Singh’s government to the General Elections. I have done my duty as per my agreement with you. There is nothing to celebrate however” he said.
But it was clear that he was already angry with Chandrashekhar. Will the Government last even one week? I wondered. When I next met Chandrashekhar, I urged him to meet Rajiv and clear things up. Chandrashekhar was equally upset. “Do you think that for the PM’s post, I will prostrate before Rajiv?”
It was a miracle that Chandrashekhar lasted seven months because from day one, Rajiv and Chandrashekhar were at logger heads. I can claim that had I not been in the middle, Chandrashekhar government not only would not have come into being, but when it did, it would not have lasted more than one week.
But as Prime Minister, Chandrashekhar was very good and decisive. Our government set many things right.
Chandrasekhar – Part IV
Subramanian Swamy
After Chandrasekhar became Prime Minister, it became clear to me that it was only a question of time before Rajiv Gandhi brought the Government down. I was keen that our Government does not go out in disgrace without doing anything during the time it lasts – though it may be only few months.
The main plus about Chandrasekhar was his decisiveness. If he became convinced of something, he would not be afraid of annoying anybody to do it. There fore I was hopeful that the PM and I together would achieve something. In our system of Government, the Cabinet is Supreme. This is widely known. But what is not widely known is the existence of a “super Cabinet” called the cabinet committee on political affairs (CCPA), which consists of the PM, Home Minister, Defence Minister and Finance Minister and any other Minister the PM specially nominates. The intelligence services such as RAW, IB and Military Intelligence have to give clearance for a Minister to become a member of this super Cabinet, because it is the CCPA which reviews intelligence reports and not the full Cabinet.
Chandrasekhar’s CCPA had Devi Lal, the Deputy PM, Yashwant Sinha, Finance Minister and myself. I was nominated by Chandrasekhar. The PM was the Home Minister and defence Minister as well, so the CCPA consisted of us four. In actual practice, CCPA meant only Chandrasekhar and myself because Devi Lal showed not much interest in its proceedings since CCPA meetings were based on voluminous documents which were in English which language he did not understand. Yashwant Sinha was mostly interested in socialising which his unexpected Ministerial status gave a huge fillip, so he was generally missing or late. Therefore Chandrasekhar, I, along with RAW, IB, and MI Chiefs and senior civil servants usually met to discuss the issues confronting the nation in the CCPA meetings.
From the very first meeting, four issues were of concern to us: 1. Mandal agitation and how to cool it down.
2. RSS’s Babri Masjid campaign and how to counter it. 3.The alarming network of LTTE in Tamilnadu and other states such as Assam and 4. the economy and how to save it from collapse and bankruptcy.
It is to the credit of Chandrasekhar that he handled the Mandal agitation beautifully and cooled it down. Had general elections been held before the Mandal agitation had been brought under control, the elections would have been a violent one. For this alone, Chandrasekhar should be given a Bharat Ratna, because no one else could have saved the situation. He was acceptable to all the sections of the people.
On the Babri Masjid issue, Chandrasekhar skilfully used Chandraswami to split the sadhu community in Ayodhya. Chandraswami won over the Mahant (main priest) of the Ayodhya temple itself causing enormous division in the movement. This forced the RSS to call off the karseva scheduled for December 1990. I, as law minister, told the RSS representatives very firmly that we would use the draconian laws, TADA and NSA to arrest even Sadhus if they touched the Babri Masjid. This frightened the RSS so much that throughout the seven months we were in office, the RSS never raised their voice again on the Babri Masjid issue. In the meantime, we got a commitment from the Muslim organizations, that if it is proved by a commission headed by a supreme court judge that there had been a temple demolished by Babar to build the Babri Masjid over its foundations, they (the Muslims) would help Hindus to remove it, because they then would not regard the structure as a masjid. But before we could implement this compromise, our government fell. Even today, however that is the only solution to the Babri Masjid controversy.
The dismissal of the Karunanidhi government was another tough decision. Many people even today do the propaganda that the decision was taken under pressure from Rajiv Gandhi and Ms.Jayalalitha, on whose parliamentary support our government was existing. The truth is however far from it.
Although individual Congress leaders like Vazhapadi Ramamurthy were for dismissing the Karunanidhi government, Rajiv Gandhi took the stand that it was for Chandrasekhar to take a view, and whatever was decided by us, he would back us. There was therefore no pressure on us from Congress as a party. As for Ms.Jayalalitha, she made her position known to us that she was for dismissing the government. But by December end, she seemed to have lost hope that we would do anything about it since the Tamilnadu assembly was being convened soon after, and was to go on for two months. She and Sasikala soon left for Hyderabad and were there till nearly the date of dismissal arrived. Therefore, she too put no real pressure on us.
The pressure came on us instead from IB reports which were alarming. According these reports, the LTTE had built massive network in Tamilnadu. Warehouses in coastal areas of the state, a highly modern communication system in Tiruchi, a grenade factory in Coimbatore, a military uniform stitching factory in Erode and had financed STD booths and Photostat shops all over. They owned petrol pumps through benamis across the state. The LTTE had also linked up with PWG in Andhra and ULFA in Assam. Besides, the LTTE was liberally using cars bearing DMK flags so that the police had an excuse not to intercept them while in the travel within the state.
When I paid visit to the state as a Minister in the last week of December 1990, police officers met me in my hotel room in Madras to tell me that there were instructions “from above” that the LTTE were Karunanidhi’s mapillai (son -in-law) and hence not to be disturbed.
I have of course never liked the LTTE because of two reasons: They are Marxists and they are terrorists.
Therefore, the IB reports fuelled my determination to do something to save the situation. I had no faith in Karunanidhi controlling the LTTE because basically he is not a courageous person who can face them. Prior to 1987, Karunanidhi was a great supporter of the TELO leader Sabaratnam, who was a hate-figure for Prabhakaran. But when Prabhakaran had Sabaratnam killed, Karunanidhi’s opposition to Prabhakaran immediately melts in fright, and soon he began wooing the LTTE. In June 1986, Karunanidhi even offered the LTTE some money from his birthday fund, which the LTTE publicly rejected. But Karunanidhi still continued to cultivate the LTTE and the LTTE used its mappillai status to spread its influence. So we could not expect Karunanidhi to show guts to oppose a Marxist-Terrorist organization.
Chandrashekhar and I used to meet everyday when we were in Delhi for dinner at his modest 3, South Avenue Lane. Chandrashekhar used to use the PM’s Race Course Residence to meet visitors during the day, but at night we used to sit on the floor in his house allotted to him as a MP, for dinner. He and I discussed practically every issue at these dinner meetings.
It was Chandrashekhar who suddenly one night said to me: “Is this Karunanidhi anti-national?” Taken aback, I asked him why he wondered so. Chandrasekar said to me that when Karunanidhi had come to see him recently, he had given him some sensitive details about the LTTE operations, and also given certain confidential directions to him. “Only Karunanidhi and I were in the room, when this conversation transpired, and yet today the intelligence people brought me the transcript of the LTTE intercepted communications from Tamil Nadu to Prabhakaran at Jaffna. In the LTTE transmission, there is a complete description of my confidential conversation with Karunanidhi. How would they know unless Karunanidhi told them?”
Soon we held a CCPA meeting in which M.K.Narayan, the IB director was present. In that meeting, we got full details of the LTTE machinations. I was surprised how the LTTE had spread its net wide to include even G.K.Moopanar’s close confident, P.V.Rajendran who is a TMC MP today. LTTE cadres had made friends in the media, bureaucracy and even amongst retired Supreme Court judges and foreign Secretaries, who went on foreign trips to do the LTTE propaganda.
Today, that network in still intact despite Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. The way some affidavits have been filed before the Jain Commission and the way cross-examinations have taken place, has convinced some in the SIT of CBI that the proceedings of the Jain Commission have benefited the LTTE in delaying or contesting the Rajiv Gandhi murder trial. The Jain Commission Proceedings is helping the LTTE immensely by the wild accusations being made in that forum.
It is then we decided that the DMK government should be dismissed and the LTTE network destroyed, and in the CCPA adopted a decision to that effect. Many persons felt at that stage that this would create sympathy for DMK, that it may spur a separatist movement, or that like MGR’s dismissal in 1980, the DMK may sweep back to power in the midterm polls. But to the credit of Mr.Chandrashekhar, he did not waver, even after then Governor Surjit Singh Barnala took a partisan stand. Barnala had agreed with the seriousness of the intelligence reports, but he told us clearly that he was appointed by the V.P.Singh’s National front government, so he would remain loyal to them. We got over his objections since Article 356 of the Constitution does not require the Governor’s report. Barnala however promised us that he would not go back to Tamil Nadu and campaign against our decision. He however broke his word and criticised our decision. Here too Chandrashekhar did not hesitate. He got Barnala replaced by Bhisma Narain Singh.
But to our surprise, President Mr.R.Venkataraman developed cold feet. When the CCPA recommendation went to him for his signature, he hesitated . Chandrashekhar asked me to go and talk to the President, which I did. Venkataraman, despite his contrary media-cultivated image, was the most undeserving person to become the President of India. His political career was based on strategic betrayal of whoever came to trust him or repose faith in him e.g., Rajiv Gandhi. At that moment when the national security was at state, Mr.Venkataraman’s concern was what would DMK volunteers do to his four houses in Kotturpuram in Chennai, and not the safety of the Tamil people. But really, he had no alternative but to sign because it was a cabinet decision based on extensive documentation. But to satisfy Mr.Venkataraman, we asked the CRPF to keep an eye on his houses.
People at various levels had of course warned us that DMK volunteers would get violent, and one civil servant said “rivers of blood would flow”. Chandrashekhar asked me about this possibility. I told him that every Collector knows and every police station has a list of rowdies of the area. As soon as we take over, I said to the PM, ask the police or CRPF to ensure that they make pre-emptive arrests of these rowdies. Party volunteers never riot, only hired rowdies : Some of them can be party men, but in the eyes of the law, they are still rowdies.
On January 31st, 1991 that is exactly what happened. There was absolute peace in Tamil Nadu after the dismissal of the DMK government. The LTTE hardware network was smashed in the following two months, but the LTTE personnel just melted into the Tamil populace. But we had saved Tamil Nadu even if later we could not save Rajiv Gandhi from his assassination.
While we were planning our moves in Tamil Nadu, Chandrashekhar one day called me up in the secret RAX phone to say that unless we got $ 2 billion from abroad within a week, the economy may collapse. He said I must use my influence in the USA to arrange it. Then he put an impossible rider: if the money comes from IMF, we cannot accept any conditions.
Chandrasekhar – Part V
Subramanian Swamy
When we first met as a government in November 1991, Chandrasekhar told the cabinet that there was a great economic crisis particularly in petroleum and foreign exchange looming. After some discussion, it was decided by the PM that I should, for controlling the crisis, explore some informal steps to obtain crude oil on barter i.e., in exchange of sugar, or engineering goods, and also get $ 2 billion (Rs.6000 crores) IMF loans (and without conditions). That is, the PM wanted me to act as Finance Minister as well! Chandrasekhar had denied me the Finance Ministership when the Cabinet was formed because, he told me my free market philosophy would “embarrass” his “socialist” image. But the real reason was (in my opinion) I, as Finance Minister, would go after the Swiss bank accounts of politicians, and as a consequence, many political leaders would go to jail. (There is Rs.3,20,000 crores deposited illegally by Indians in Swiss banks). Therefore when the Cabinet was being formed, there was near hysteria at the prospect of my becoming Finance Minister. Chandrasekhar was bombarded by these frightened friends, saying “please bring the devil as Finance Minister, but not Swamy”.
This “fear” later was amply justified on May 3, 1991 when I insisted as Law Minister that the CBI be allowed to raid the residences and offices of the ‘hawala kings’, the Jain brothers, despite vociferous opposition from Finance Minister (now BJP) Mr.Yashwant Sinha and Minister of State Kamal Morarka. The PM sided with me after a heated discussion. But for the raid on that date, hawala probe would never have come about.
When the Cabinet meeting was over, Chandrasekhar asked me to come with him to the airport (he was going to Varanasi). In the car, sitting next to him I taunted him: “you denied me the Finance Minister, and now you want me to do the work of the Finance Minister as well?” “Arre Baba!” he exclaimed in Hindi, the economy is on verge of collapse and you can only think of your grievance”. “‘Why should I do this task?” I persisted. After all, Commerce and Law, was my portfolio, and therefore why should I have to work for another Minister? “Listen” said Chandrasekhar “No one else in the Cabinet has your contacts abroad, in USA, Israel, China etc., so use it for the nation’s sake”.
We sat quietly till the car reached the Special VVIP airport, and out to the tarmac where the IAF Boeing reserved for the PM was parked. As he climbed the stair case to alight the plane, I told him when he returned, I would have a proposal on how to tackle the financial crisis. “To hell with the Finance Ministership” I said to myself. “CCPA membership is more prestigious”.
The foreign exchange crisis had been caused by the large number of short term loans (3 -5 years repayment) taken from Europe by the Rajiv Gandhi government (1985-89) mostly to pay for defence equipment purchases abroad. These loans became due for repayment during V.P.Singh’s tenure as PM (who as finance Minister sanctioned it) but he slept over it. So when we came to power it coincided with non-payment, plotting to declare India as a defaulter or bankrupt. It was a Mexican type situation. We needed $ 2 billion to tide over this, and save our reputation. We could, like Mexico, straight away have applied to the IMF for a “crisis loan”, but then the IMF would have strapped us, like Mexico, with humiliating conditions. When I spoke to Rajiv Gandhi about this crisis, after returning from the airport, he said flatly that the Congress party would not support any Mexican type conditionality. So our government was in a fix: “No conditions, No loan from IMF; no loan, no economy!”
But I knew of one possible escape route. The IMF is dominated by the Americans, who control 87 percent of the voting power in the Executive Board of the IMF. Despite popular impressions to the contrary, Americans are very simple people if you have a deal with them on a give and take basis. If you want something from an American, offer him something in return which he needs. Then he will respond fully. Americans in the past were irritated with us because we took their aid, and yet voted against them in the UN. Americans are straight forward, contractual minded people, whereas we are highly moralistic people who do not like to reveal our mind. Americans are much like me in character: blunt and open in thought, but a typical Indian is more like Narasimha Rao: soft in words, but covert in action. So when Chandrasekhar returned to Delhi, I received him at the airport, and told him of Rajiv Gandhi’s refusal to support an IMF conditions-prone loan. I then told him: “There is one way out. Ask the Americans to help. They will help, if you offer them something in return”. “What can be possibly given them that they do not have already?” asked Chandrasekhar. I had no answer. I just kept quiet. Chandrasekhar said “We are running out of time. Think of something”.
Soon after sometime, the opportunity came. The US Ambassador came to my Commerce Ministry office to tell me that the US was planning to support a UN declaration of war on Iraq, and US will conduct the operations. He said that the Indian government should support the war effort of the US.
With IMF on my mind, I asked the Ambassador: “What will India get by doing so?” The Ambassador was taken back. He said it was a moral imperative for the world, since Kuwait had been crushed by Iraq’s invasion. I laughed at the US ambassador. I told him “Listen Excellency, ten years in the US as a student and as a professor has made me more American than you. You keep your moral imperative, but give me a deal”. I explained our problem to him. He was very sympathetic. As I expected, he immediately responded. Thereafter President Bush and Chandrasekhar were in touch with each other. The $ 2 billion arrived without any conditions! We, of course allowed the US to refuel their planes flying in from Philiphines to Saudi Arabia. Nowhere will it be recorded as a “deal”, but the truth is this. In the history of the IMF, such a large loan has never been given without conditions. Ours was the exception.
Of course once the loans came, the close associates of Chandrasekhar like Sinha and Morarka, who were jealous of his growing trust in me naturally wanted to claim credit or thought that it could have been done by them. In May-June 1991, when again the same crisis came, they saw to it that I was not allowed to interfere. They soon found out what “credibility” and “credentials” meant. Every government ignored our Finance Minister, and in the end, the President Mr.Venkataraman and the Finance Minister (now BJP) Mr.Yashwant Sinha together in one of the biggest undiscovered scandals of our history, mortgaged with European banks, our gold reserves without informing the Commerce Ministry. I publicly protested, and even threatened to register a criminal case for bypassing the Commerce Ministry. But by then, elections were at hand and therefore I could not do anything. Someday I will reopen this. But the resolution of the crisis in January 1991 generated tremendous confidence in Chandrasekhar’s mind about my abilities. Soon for practically every problem, he was on the phone consulting me.
In this atmosphere of confidence, I began pressing Chandrasekhar to abandon his traditional socialist bias. I urged him to consider economic reform and liberalization. His economic adviser was Dr.Manmohan Singh (later Finance Minister). I had known Manmohan Singh since the days we were Professors of Economics. In those days, he was a leftist and against my ideas. But the collapse of the Soviet Union made him come over to my views. So he gave me full support.
Montek Ahluwalia, now Finance Secretary, was my Commerce Secretary. I had known him since he was an economics student at Oxford. His wife was a student of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) situated next to Harvard. With the help of Ahluwalia and Manmohan Singh, I prepared a series of documents on economic liberalization. At that stage, Dr.Manmohan Singh asked me: “Do you think that any government will implement this?” Little did he realize that the next government of Narasimha Rao will have Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister and the government will take all the credit for our government’s economic liberalization programme. The Congress party government did a complete ideological somersault, and in broad daylight stole my economic liberalization blue print. Chandrasekhar government was not long enough in office to implement this economic package, but the nation has benefited by the Congress somersault and theft.
Chandrasekhar-Part VI
Subramanian Swamy
The granting by the Chandrasekhar government permission for US military planes to refuel in Indian airports during the Gulf War suddenly transformed Prime minister Chandrasekhar’s image in the eyes of the Americans as a “good friend”. This was the first time an Indian government had helped the US. Naturally the prestigious newspaper like Washington Post, New York Times began praising our government for its “decisiveness”. During this period, I had also in the GATT talks, bargained with the Americans for a formulation on agricultural subsidies that pleased them; at the same time they helped us to protect our interests in textile exports. This was another great help to the US vis-à-vis Europe. So the American press began portraying Chandrasekhar and myself as “able leaders”, who can be trusted to be good friends.
This publicity internationally, pleased Chandrasekhar a great deal, but I warned him that he would now have to be extra humble with Rajiv Gandhi, because the Nehru family was always very sensitive to foreign publicity. They do not like to be upstaged internationally. I told Chandrasekhar that some Congress leaders would now go to and tell Rajiv how if he continued in office as PM, he would swallow up Congress Party, and that Rajiv would become an orphan.
At the same time, I told him (Chandrasekhar) that some flatterers would come and tell him how popular he had become and that if he got rid of Rajiv’s “crutches” and stood alone now, he would, like Indira Gandhi in 1971, sweep the Lok Sabha polls. So these sycophants would urge him to go for elections immediately. I also told Chandrasekhar that he should control his two rootless Ministers whom I had nick-named as the “disco” group businessman, Mr.Kamal Morarka and ex-bureaucrat turned Finance minister, Mr.Yashant Sinha. These two were talking loosely, I said, to their girl friends in Delhi’s Taj Hotel discotheques about Rajiv Gandhi, boasting how they could control him by enforcement Directorate and Bofors Investigations. These girl friends, mostly unmarried journalists or Rajya Sabha MPS, would in turn boast it to people like P.Chidambaram (another disco fan), whose only job those days was to carry tales to Rajiv Gandhi. Such tales would irritate Rajiv Gandhi no end, and made him think of Chandrasekhar as an ungrateful person.
“Let us not forget” I said Chandrasekhar, “that it is 220 MPs of Rajiv Gandhi that is underwriting the government. We need at least a year in government before people fully accept us in our own right. Therefore today we cannot do without Rajiv Gandhi’s help.
But Chandrasekhar’s personality was not cut out for this role of humble partner. He could not bear to hear some of his close associates taunt or tease him that he is “crawling” before Rajiv Gandhi for the post. He told me one even in Feb, 1991: “Now that the Mandal fire is under control and the Babri Masjid issue has been contained, why not go for elections?” Obviously, his sycophants had succeeded in putting him on the offensive. The seed had been planted. I did not answer him then since he would start arguing with me, and become bitter about Rajiv Gandhi. Besides, I had to leave that night for Beijing, the capital of China, to sign the first ever Trade Pact with that country. There were many documents for me to read before catching the flight, so I told Chandrasekhar that I would answer that question after returning from China. I needed time to think, I told him and excused myself.
While I was in China, I learnt from telephone calls from friends in Delhi, that the disco group was playing havoc in my absence. Not being in grass root politics, they were carried away by the foreign newspapers in praise of Chandrasekhar, little realizing the ground realities. We had 54 MPs, Rajiv had 220; we had no party structure, while Rajiv had a massive party organisation for which he had plenty of finance. The four months in office had created a good impression about him in people’s mind, but it needed consolidation. Popularity is fleeting, and by itself cannot make win elections. Popularity, like Imran Khan found out much later, does not substitute for party organization.
When I returned from China ten days later, I was expecting a celebration for getting the first ever Trade Pact signed with that country, enabling us to export among other things, telephone exchanges and steel production processes. Instead I found the atmosphere so vitiated by suspicion, that the fall of the government was being discussed. Soured by the nasty propaganda of the disco group and influenced by the Mantharas in his party, Rajiv had decided to bring Chandrasekhar down. First, he made an issue of why we did not support Saddam Hussein in the Iraq war. Later he dropped the issue, because our Gulf policy had been made with his prior consultation and approval .Furthermore, Rajiv Gandhi had relied on Mr.Gorbachev of the Soviet Union to join him in an international campaign in favour of Saddam Hussien. But Gorbachev supported our stand, disappointing Rajiv. So he had to drop this issue as a non-starter. Next, he picked on the Haryana CID surveillance issue. Two constables had been posted by the Chauthala government to spy on who goes in and out of 10, Janpath, Rajiv said. Obviously, this was an excuse for fighting with Chandrasekhar. But one thing led to another, and soon enough there were angry words exchanged. Rajiv wanted Chandrasekhar to make amends. The character of Chandrasekhar came out clearly in this conflict. He was not a person to bend for a post to the point of humiliation, so he refused to make amends. This was his strong point as well as weak point. As a leader of the government with absolute majority, Chandrasekhar’s unbending character would have made him a hero of people. But as a leader of coalition, it made him a zero. Chandrasekhar was Janata Party President for 11 years (1977-88), but he presided over his gradual liquidation. In the end, he quit and joined the Janata Dal led by V.P.Singh. Why? Janata Party was founded as a coalition party, a merger of five parties. Chandrasekhar had no patience for the compromises necessary for a coalition. Had Janata Party been built like other parties, brick by brick, and over 50 years, Chandrasekhar as its leader would have flourished. Strong leaders cannot lead coalitions unless they know how either to blackmail the partners into submission like Jyoti Basu does, or be a sweet gentleman. But Chandrasekhar was a gentleman strong leader. That as Chanakya would have said is a self defeating combination. For a coalition, a leader should be either a gentleman or strong, but not both.
After the Haryana constable issue, the government fell. Elections came. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. Chandrasekhar felt truly sorry. So as a gentleman, he proposed in the cabinet that Rajiv Gandhi should be given Bharat Ratna for his sacrifice. This did not mollify Rajiv Gandhi’ supporters. They demanded that the Government allot a Rajghat area for Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial. Chandrasekhar immediately agreed, and proposed that in the vast area for Indira Gandhi’s memorial called Shakti Sthal an enclosure be carved out to create a place for Rajiv Gandhi. This infuriated Rajiv’s followers. Even Sonia Gandhi was upset. They wanted Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial on its own merit, not as Indira Gandhi’s son.
One day in late May 1991, a few days after the assassination, I got a call from Chandrasekhar at 6 AM in the morning. He asked me to come right away. When I saw him at his residence, he told me about the problems he was having with the Rajiv Gandhi memorial site. He told me that the Government had offered to prepare a site out of the Shakthi Sthal, but Sonia Gandhi had refused, because she had wanted Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial to have an independent identity. I told Chandrasekhar that Sonia was right. After all, Rajiv had been PM for five years in his own right.
But the problem Chandrasekhar told me was that Sonia was asking for a part of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s memorial area which was then a temporary CRPF camp. Not all of Shastri’s Memorial had been developed despite so many years. He said, “If you cannot carve out a memorial for Rajiv from Shakti Sthal, I am not going to agree to carve it out from poor Lal Bahadur Shahtri’s area” “So what’s the problem that I should come here so early in the morning?” I asked Chandrasekhar, sensing that something else was on his mind.
“IB tells me that Sonia is going to go to public today, or ask for Doordarshan time, to condemn our government for ‘dishonouring’ Rajiv memory. That should be prevented because so many world leaders are arriving for the cremation and no site is ready” Chandrasekhar said. “Why don’t you talk to her directly?” I asked despite knowing the answer. Sonia was already bitter with Chandrasekhar for forcing Rajiv to go to the polls, and so she was unlikely to come on the phone to talk to him. “She is unavailable, every time I telephone her house” he said. “What can I do now?” I asked.
“Amitabh Bachhan told me last night that if you talked to her, she might agree. She would talk to no one else. Since she is so upset and in mourning” Chandrasekhar told me. “She will agree to what, Chandrasekharji? What do I offer, and why should not we close down the CRPF camp and shift it elsewhere? If it can be even temporarily partitioned for the CRPF, it can be permanently set aside for Rajiv Gandhi” I retorted. “Except Lal Bahadur’s memorial you have the authority to take out any government land anywhere in India to offer it to Sonia for the memorial. But don’t try to force me on Lal Bahadur’s site. I too have sentiments. I will not agree”, Chandrasekhar added belligerently, obviously hurt by the way the Rajiv loyalists were behaving. I agreed to talk to Sonia, because I had no choice. If nothing else for Rajiv’s sake. Otherwise there would have been an International Scandal.
When I went home, I called Amitabh Bachhan. Bachhan was very friendly with me because as Law Minister I had ordered withdrawal of a FERA case against his brother Ajitabh, a case filed by V.P.Singh’s government. V.P.Singh had hatred for the Bachhans, so he had directed a FERA case to be filed, even though in law it had no basis. But in these politically motivated cases like Lakhubhai cheating and St.Kitts cases. The idea is to get one’s target or enemy, arrested for interrogation purposes (remand), and then after sometime release the person on bail. The newspaper would do rest of the job, making out that remand is actually conviction or punishment. One’s enemy then becomes guilty without a trial. The person may be acquitted after some years, but who is to remember that, or who is to compensate for the lost years? Take the ISRO so-called spy case. How many people have needlessly suffered?
As Law Minister, whenever any one made a petition to me charging that such frivolous case had been filed, I usually went into the case myself. Ajitabh Bachhan’s FERA case was one such. Chandrasekhar had forwarded Ajitabh’s petition made to him, and had asked me to deal with it.
The case was silly, because the charge was that Ajitabh had purchased a house in Switzerland with foreign exchange without RBI permission. So a FERA case was foisted on him. Ram Jethmalani had taken up this issue to please V.P.Singh so that he could come into V.P.Singh’s inner circle. But Jethmalani never does his home work. He tried to get his point by shouting all kinds of legal rubbish. The ordinary citizens get frightened by it since they do not know law. In Ajitabh’s case, he was already a NRI with Indian passport, so he was entitled in law to buy a house abroad, in foreign exchange. How he got the NRI status was another matter, but CBI did not question that. I was shocked by the silly nature of the case, which was untenable and waste of public funds in prosecution. For nearly a year, Ajitabh had been harassed by such a baseless FERA case.
I therefore called the law Secretary and asked him to instruct the CBI and Enforcement Directorate to withdraw the case. The Law Secretary told me: “Sir, you will get a bad name for this. Please consider”. “Am I wrong legally?” I asked the Law Secretary. “No Sir. But this is a political matter which newspapers will play up. It will spoil your good name” he said. “Politics is my area, not yours. Call a press conference and I will announce my decision to the world” I told him. “Why Sir?” asked an alarmed Law Secretary. Because if I don’t, the Indian Express will get a leak from the CBI, and then it will be big news. If I call a press conference, and explain the basis, people will understand” I replied.
That is exactly what happened. Ajitabh case was withdrawn and even though the Indian Express condemned it in an editorial, no one else agreed. Rajiv, Sonia and Amitabh were naturally pleased. Amitabh had then asked to see me. I told him he could see me in Attorney General G.Ramasamy’s house. At GR’s house, Amitabh told me that he would never forget my help. “Rajiv’s opinion that I had the courage of my conviction is amply proved”, he said.
So when I telephoned Amitabh on that morning, after meeting Chandrasekhar he warmly responded. He gave a special telephone number at which a mourning Sonia would be available. He said she was expecting my call. But he warned me that she was going to insist on the CRPF Shastri site.
I called Sonia and fixed a time to see her that afternoon. With the PM’s authority, I called up the Urban Development Minister Daulat Ram Saran and asked him to send the secretary of the ministry with the entire blueprint of the Rajghat area for my study. After studying map for empty spaces available, I selected one site, next to Shakthi Sthal, but not on it. It was a dumping ground for coal ash of the Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking (DESU) and was fenced by a wall from the Sakthi Sthal. It was filthy but it could be easily cleaned up.
While I drove to 10, Janpath to meet Sonia, I had only one question in my mind: how to protect Chandrasekhar’s sentiment or shall I say obduracy, on the CRPF site and at the same time make Sonia agree to a new site, in this highly emotional climate. It was a very delicate mission for me, with international consequences. But I had a trump card for success, which I did not tell Chandrasekhar about. When I was taken to Sonia’s room, there was besides her, Amitabh, Rahul and Priyanka. Sonia asked me to be seated.
I spread the map on the table and said:” Soniaji, you know how much I respected Rajiv. This site I have selected, please accept. We will use the government funds to clean it up and make it the best”. At this, Priyanka flared up and said in a demanding tone: “Are you, or are you not going to give the CRPF camp site for my father’s memorial. Otherwise we don’t want anything from Government”.
At this tone of voice, I was upset. I was a senior Cabinet minister and Priyanka was a college girl. She had no right to talk to me like that. I had come to see her mother, not her. Congressmen can be backbone less wonders, but not Subramanian Swamy even if he has to go into the wilderness for it. In a raised voice, I thundered “No! We will not give that site. I will pass such an order on the CRPF site that no future government can dare to overrule it”.
There was an eerie silence for nearly a minute. Amitabh was feeling very uncomfortable. No one spoke. Then Sonia said in a very soft voice: “why? Why not that site? With that question, I got a chance to play my trump card. I said, “Soniaji, the only reason is that I want to respect Rajiv’s sentiment. When in 1987 Charan Singh died and was to be cremated ,his son Ajit and I had asked Rajiv (as PM) for the same CRPF site for Chaudhary Saheb. He had declined. Rajiv had explained to me then that already Shastri’s memorial is much neglected, and if this site, temporarily with the CRPF is given away , there will be much misunderstanding and adverse publicity. He recorded this in the files of the Government. So to respect Rajiv’s view, we cannot give the site of your choice. But I have told the PM that this alternate site I have selected should be offered for Rajiv Gandhi memorial and immediately developed.
After a few moments, Sonia agreed. I took it as recognition by her that I would not deliberately try to give a bad site for Rajiv’s memorial. Because I had so much regard for Rajiv which she knew was mutually felt by Rajiv. I would she understood, select the best available site. Priyanka was still angry , but Sonia restrained her from speaking anymore. “We will accept because it has come form you” she said. The crisis was over. A site has been selected. When I informed the PM, he promptly announced it over Doordharsan, to set all the rumours afloat, at rest. Had I not intervened, God only knows what would have happened. But for Rajiv’s sake, who I consider was the most patriotic and dynamic leader produced to date by the Nehru family, and perhaps also the most underrated, it was God’s grace that we found a way out.
Jagjivan RamClick To OpenI first met Jagjivan Ram when I was 12 years old in 1952. He was a Minister then in Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet, and was living in a bungalow on the same road (Queen Victoria Road, renamed now Rajendra Prasad Road) as my father, who had been allotted his official residence as a senior civil servant. Our neighbour was a Bihar MP called Shyamnandan Sahay, who had taken a tremendous liking to me. On the other side of our house was Feroze Gandhi’s residence where I used to see a very unhappy Indira Gandhi come and go, after a fight with her husband.
Sahay, every evening, used to call me to have tea. He was old and very fat, so he was mostly seated on a big sofa in his house. During these tea times, I met many politicians who visited Sahay. I used to ask them questions freely. These VIPs tried to humour my curiosity because they were not used to a 12 year old asking so many questions on current topics.
Jagjivan Ram one day came for tea to Sahay’s house. He brought his son Suresh Ram, about the same age as me, with him. Suresh and I became good friends after that, and played Cricket for the same team for many years. Because of Suresh, I had a chance to go to Jagjivan Ram’s residence often, and have tea and snacks with his father. Despite being busy, Jagjivan Ram often talked to me on current topics. Knowing that I was from Brahmin family, he asked me once why I did not wear my thread (poonal). I told him that at the age of 7 when an upanayam (thread ceremony) was to be held for me, my questioning mind made me ask the pujari why I should put it on when my schoolmates did not have it. The pujari’s answer did not satisfy me, so I asked him more questions. This embarrassed everyone in the family. My father was a communist-minded person so although he himself put on the thread, he agreed to call off the ceremony. My mother was heart broken, but I was adamant that unless the Pujari answered my questions I would not go through the ceremony or put it on (My mother however told me that I would have to have the ceremony anyway when I get married. She was however disappointed because I married a Parsi girl in a registered marriage in the USA. However her spirit would be happy today because the great soul, the Paramacharya Sri Chandrashekhara Saraswathi convinced me to don the thread on special occasions. Paramacharya told me that whether I acknowledge or not, Tamil society has become so poisoned that I would anyway be regarded as a Brahmin. He also explained to me the scientific basis for the thread in ceremonies.
Jagjivan Ram was mighty impressed with this questioning mind, and thus opened his heart to me. He told me of the nature of Hindu Society and the atrocities heaped on scheduled castes. I as a city boy just could not believe these stories, so asked my mother who confirmed these as facts. She even told me that in my village in Mullipallam, Cholavandan, the shadow of a scheduled caste could not fall on the path of a Brahmin walking on the road. I was shocked, and resolved never to go to my village. And till the age of 30, I never visited Mullipallam. But since I entered Tamilnadu politics in 1992, I not only visited my village regularly but recovered my ancestral house which my grandfather has lost during the Great Depression of the 1930s, unable to pay his debts. My father was too busy with Congress politics with Satyamurthi to pay attention to this loss. Later he had moved to Delhi. Of course my village today is a different society. And because of leaders like Dr.Ambedkar and Mr.Jagjvan Ram today, the society in Mullipallam also is a better than when I was a little boy. The Brahmin society perhaps has also come to its senses, thanks to Periyar’s movement.
But because of what I learnt from Jagjivan Ram as a young boy, I have never hesitated to come to the support of scheduled castes. His descriptions of cruelty meted out to SC community are deeply etched in my mind, When the Kodiyankulam (near Tirunelveli) atrocity took place in 1995. I did not hesitate for a moment to rush there and fight for them in the High Court to get a CBI inquiry instituted. Leaders like Karunanidhi who day in day out talk about the poor oppressed classes failed to even visit Kodiyankulam may be for fear of alienating other castes who voted against the party in the elections. But because of Jagjivan Ram and my long association with Suresh Ram in my childhood, I did not care about the consequences, and had rushed to kodiyankulam.
In 1957, after I went to the University, I lost contact with Suresh Ram and his father. Thereafter I went to USA for studies in 1962 only to return 1970. When I returned to India, Congress had split and my sympathies were with Morarji and Kamaraj who were in Congress (O). Jagjivan Ram went with Indira Gandhi to Congress (I). Therefore, I had no occasion to meet him till I entered Parliament in 1974. But because I was in those days a virulent opponent of Mrs.Gandhi, Jagjivan Ram would smile at me, and treat me with courtesy but would not let me come near him.
In 1977, Jagjivan Ram jointed the Janata Party. I went to meet him after the elections, having been elected to Lok Sabha from Bombay. He had been promised by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Nana Goray of the Socialist Party support for the Prime Ministership, so he was hopeful of becoming PM. He spoke to me about the social transformation that would result by a scheduled caste becoming PM. Of course Jagjivan Ram was not just of scheduled caste, but one of the most efficient Ministers of Independent India. No letter was unanswered; no file was not read by him. His grasp was quick, and he took decision with dynamism. In my opinion, he would have been a superb Prime minister, but at the same time there was one thing against him in the Janata Party. He was the mover of the approval resolution on Emergency. Jagjivan Ram’s resignation from Congress in February 1977 completely demoralized Mrs.Gandhi, and she never recovered from the shock during the 1977 election campaign. Jagjivan Ram made up for the error in his supporting the Emergency resolutions in Parliament by his beautifully timed resignation. Had he not resigned the sea-change in political climate to ensure the Janatha victory would have not taken place?
But the problem was that Charan Singh was against Jagjivan Ram becoming PM. Charan Singh told me that we could not forgive him for supporting the Emergency resolution. Charan Singh also made an issue of non-filing of income tax returns for ten years by Jagjivan Ram (because he “forgot to”). But besides this I felt, because Charan Singh was a Jat, he did not like the idea of making a scheduled caste PM. The Jat community in UP, Haryana and Rajastan is a fierce agricultural community like some of the backward communities in Tamilnadu and Andhra. They are especially harsh the scheduled castes, who are in rural areas the landless labourers. Charan Singh gave special concessions to scheduled castes in his party, but for PM post it was something he could not agree although he would not admit that this was the real reason. In my political and social life I have found surprisingly a higher percentage of Brahmins than backward castes that are willing to bring up scheduled castes and other oppressed castes, although in the popular campaign the Brahmins are targets. History is replete with examples of the Brahmins wanting to challenge the orthodoxy to integrate the scheduled caste community. Chanakya picked up a young goat herd boy to make him Emperor Chandra Gupta. Ramanuja’s role in reading Vedas to scheduled castes is another example. Mahatma Phule is revered in Maharashtra by the Dalits. Dr.Bhimrao Ambedkar got his surname Ambedkar because his Brahmin teacher gave him his own for his college admission..
Today caste prejudice, disregarding merit is the bane of society. The nation lost a great opportunity in not making Jagjivan Ram Prime minister of India because though he was eminently qualified and an efficient Minister for decades he was denied because of prejudice. If he could not become PM in 1977 because of some leaders conspiracy, then he could have been in 1980 elections when the Janata Party projected him as the Party’s candidate for Prime Minister. But the Janata Party lost the elections then because caste-voting defeated Jagjivan Ram. The nation was the loser; Today Kanshi Ram is the other side of the coin of caste prejudice.
In 1977, Jagjivan Ram was confident of becoming the Prime minister because Vajpayee and Nana Goray promised him support. The Jan Sangh MPs were 102 in number, the Socialists were 35, and Jagjivan Ram’s Congress for Democracy was 27. That is, of the 318 MPs elected on Janata ticket, a very slender majority were pledged to Jagjivan Ram. Vajpayee’s only reason for preferring Jagjivan Ram to Morarji Desai was that Morarji was a strict prohibitionist while Vajpayee was regular consumer of alcoholic drinks (in secret). But when Charan Singh categorically threw his support for Morarji, Vajpayee became apprehensive because there was a small revolt in the Jan Sangh camp, especially amongst those who had suffered during the Emergency. He feared that they would switch sides and vote against party line. Morarji used to jokingly tell me that Vajpayee “roared like a lion but had a heart of a rabbit”. Vajpayee found that after Charan Singh’s decision, Morarji was assured the support of 154 MPs and needed just 11 MPs more to get majority. Thus Jan Singh’s MPs revolt would have ensured victory. Morarji also sternly told Vajpayee that if he (Morarji) becomes PM without his (Vajpayee’s) support, he would not make him a Minister. That was enough to scare him. He immediately somersaulted, without telling Jagjivan Ram. So on the day of the election of the parliamentary party leader, Vajpayee quietly went to JP and Acharya Kriplani and told them that he was switching sides. I was present there because JP had asked me to be at the Gandhi Peace Foundation with him. JP winked at me with a smile when Vajpayee came rushing in with his change of heart. JP knew what I thought of Vajpayee. Morarji now had majority.
But Jagjivan Ram did not know this. He was so sure of his majority that he had already ordered sweets and fire crackers to celebrate his becoming PM, little realizing Vajpayee’s betrayal.
When the news reached him of Morarji being chosen by JP, Jagjivan Ram was wild with grief. He threw chairs and tables in disgust. He refused to attend Morarji’s swearing in ceremony. Later in the evening I went to Jagjivan Ram’s residence to see him. He was still a broken man; now in full know of the betrayal. He looked at me and said “My friend, this is a great Brahmin conspiracy”. I did not want to contradict him because he was so upset. But it was Charan Singh’s open revolt that had changed the scene. Vajpayee is no Brahmin. He drinks alcohol and publicly claims that he is a bachelor but not a Bramachari. How can he be called a Brahmin with those ‘qualifications’? Besides JP and Acharya Kriplani were not Brahmins. But I had the confidence of Jagjivan Ram, so I could talk to him freely. I really felt sorry for the betrayal even though the man I respected, Morarji Desai, had become PM. Soon Jagjivan Ram got over his grief, and joined the Morarji Cabinet as Defence Minister. He then appointed me as the Party MP’s Defence Committee Chairman, and regularly took me into confidence on Defence matters over dinner at his residence. When Mrs.Gandhi attacked him for choosing the Jaguar fighter bombers over the French Mirage planes, Jagjivan Ram asked me to be the lead speaker in Lok Sabha to defend the government.
The years that I got to know him as a young boy helped me to get close to him. He often requested me to keep Morarji informed so that the Prime Minister does not listen or is influenced by his detractors. Morarji later made a gesture by making Jagjivan Ram as Deputy Prime Minister on par with Charan Singh.
Morarji resigned from the Prime Ministership in July 1979 bringing the government down. Charan Singh became Prime Minister. What surprised us all at that time was, those who used to swear by Mrs.Gandhi, and were at her beck and call (and even today parade themselves as supporters of Mrs.Gandhi) went rushing to Charan Singh to seek Ministership. Among them was C.Subramanian who in Lok Sabha bitterly criticized Mr.Charan Singh’s budget only months ago, but abandoned Mrs.Gandhi and joined Charan Singh’s cabinet as Minister of Defence. That is of course not surprising behaviour for CS. Later in the 80s he abandoned Rajiv Gandhi to accept V.P. Singh’s offer to be Governor of Maharashtra. How hurt Rajiv Gandhi was, only I and few others know. But today on TMC plat form he eulogizes Rajiv Gandhi.
But Charan Singh’s government was to fall because he refused Mrs. Gandhi’s demand to abolish the Special Courts trying cases against her and Sanjay. So she refused to extend him support in Parliament. By now Jagjivan Ram had replaced Morarji Desai as leader of the Janata Party in Parliament. The Janata Party was however 18 MPs short of majority, but AIADMK had 19 MPs. Earlier MGR had supported Charan Singh, but thanks to the efforts of some common friends, MGR was ready to extend support to the Janata Party. MGR informed Jagjivan Ram that if I came on behalf of the Janata Party to Chennai, he (MGR) would finalize with me the alliance. Now it looked as if finally Jagjivan Ram would become Prime Minister.
Jagjivan Ram called me to his residence one evening 36 hours before the deadline set by President Sanjiva Reddy, to prove his majority. He told me about MGR’s message, and said I should fly to Chennai with a letter from him to MGR requesting support. He said putting his affectionate hand on my shoulder “Swamy, phone me from there as soon as you get the letter from MGR pledging support. We must beat the deadline set by the President.” Then he said in an emotionally choked voice: “Hurry, because this is a chance I do not want to miss”. For me it was a pleasure. I knew if Jagjivan Ram because PM, he would make me a Minister. Morarji could not make me Minister because of Vajpayee’s jealousy. But Jagjivan Ram would not care for Vajpayee’s opinion since he would never forget the betrayal of 1977.
When I reached the airport next morning to catch the flight, Vajpayee was therefore to catch the same flight. I asked him what he was doing there. He sheepishly said “The parliamentary party has asked you to meet MGR, while the organizational wing has told me to go and meet MGR.” How petty! He probably did not want me to get all the credit, so he must have persuaded Chandrasekhar to send him. Anyway I had Jagjivan Ram’s letter, so it did not really matter, whether Vajpayee came or not.
From Chennai airport, we were driven straight to MGR’s Thottam house since there was no time to lose. There MGR had laid out a huge breakfast, and he personally insisted that we eat everything. MGR would not let me talk, but kept feeding us one dish after another.
After sometime, I pulled out Jagjivan Ram’s letter to give to MGR. Then MGR handed me his letter to Jagjivan Ram, with a demand that we accommodate two AIADMK MPs as Ministers. That was no problem. Then from there I telephoned Jagjivan Ram to tell him the good news, that now he had majority, and also about MGR’s demand for two nominees in the Cabinet. Jagjivan Ram was thrilled, and asked me to return immediately by the next flight. He said he would inform the President immediately. I was beaming with pleasure when I put the phone down. Then MGR softly asked me in Tamil “Do you think Sanjiva Reddy will ever allow Jagjivan Ram to become PM”. “What not?” I retorted. “If we have majority, he has to call him” I added. “My information is that Reddy will dissolve the House the moment he learns that Jagjivan Ram has majority” MGR said to me gently.
I had a press conference to attend before going to the airport and some sleep to catch before that so I took leave of MGR, who had a strange sarcastic smile as if to say how innocent I was of the facts of life. Two hours later, I went to address a press conference. By then Jagjivan Ram would have gone to the Rashtrapati Bhavan and informed the President of the Janata Party’s majority. As I reached the press conference, I wondered what portfolio Jagjivan Ram would give me as Minister.
Before I could declare to the press the Janata Party’s prospects, pressman jumped on me to ask my reaction to Sanjiva Reddy dissolving the Lok Sabha without giving Jagjivan Ram an opportunity! The news had just come on the PTI ticker. I was dump founded. MGR was right. Sitting in Madras he seemed to know more about Delhi than me! After giving the press my reactions, I left for the airport. What did MGR mean that Reddy would dissolve the House after learning about Jagjivan Ram’s majority?
I understood later. Reddy belonged to a zamindar’s family in Andhra. They have a proverbial lack of respect for scheduled castes. So Reddy did not want a scheduled caste PM, or alternatively he had some other personal hatred for Jagjivan Ram. In either case, he denied Jagjivan Ram his just chance. This time it was clearly not a “Brahmin conspiracy?
I felt sad when on the flight back to Delhi, not only that I lost my chance to be a Minister, but since a truly capable experienced and efficient person could not become the Prime Minister because of some silly petty prejudice. The nation lost twice in 2 1/2 years (1977 -79) in having the services of a great administrator.
Jagjivan Ram never recovered from this low. He became cynical and bitter about it. Although in the 1980 elections, Janata Party projected him as the party candidate for PM, his heart was not in the campaign. I was elected to the Lok Sabha again from Bombay. So I used to see him in Parliament, but Jagjivan Ram was mostly silent in Parliament. Then one day he left Janata Party and joined Congress. Mrs. Gandhi welcomed him but clearly did not forgive him for the 1977 shock. She gave him no importance in the party. One day in 1984, Jagjivan Ram died, broken hearted. With him died a dream of social revolution that is yet to be realized. It is difficult to visualise an able administrator of Jagjivan Ram’s calibre of any caste, coming up in the near future.
Jagjivan Ram had many personal faults. But that is not important if it does not affect his public life or does not compromise him to black mail. But as a person he was warm and despite all the prejudice, Mahatma Gandhi was right in picking him up from nowhere to make him a Minister. Even if he did not become PM, he was Minister from 1946 to 1980, holding at sometime all the important portfolios. He served mother India as a great son.
My Friend Deng Xiao PingClick To OpenNo Indian except me in his personal capacity has ever been received by the recently departed China’s great leader Deng Xiao Ping. Deng invited me in April 1981 to China for a discussion with him on Sino-Indian and other international issues. This meeting, which lasted 100 minutes was hailed by our newspapers as historic as it revived the normalization of our relations with China, which had begun earlier when Morarji Desai become the first Janata PM, but was briefly interrupted after Mrs.Gandhi returned to power. The Chinese had a deep distrust of Mrs. Gandhi because of her pro-Soviet Union tilt in policies, and had broken off the normalization abruptly after she returned to power in 1980. Mrs.Gandhi was however concerned that if the Chinese started to help the Assam students in agitation, India’s Northeast would go out of control of New Delhi. There were Intelligence reports with Mrs.Gandhi that the Assam extremists were planning to send a team to China across the Tibet border to seek arms from that country. This Mrs.Gandhi wanted to stop. And that is why she wanted to make up with China. But she could not talk to the Chinese at the senior level since their leader Deng Xiao Ping refused to meet the Indian Ambassador in China, Mr.Shankar Bajpai. Indian diplomats told Mrs.Gandhi that the only Indian who enjoyed the Chinese trust was me, and Deng Xiao Ping should be approached through me.
At that time, I was a staunch opponent of Mrs.Gandhi. Her action of denying me three professorships (Delhi, Nehru and IIT Universities) at the bidding of communists in 1971-73, which forced me to join politics ( the other alternative was to return to Harvard University in USA) and later the struggle against the Emergency, had made me a bitter opponent of Mrs.Gandhi.
But it is a tribute to Mrs.Gandhi’s patriotism that she did not allow political enmity to come in the way of national interest. At first she tried to convince me through Narasimha Rao to help her break the Chinese hostility. Then she appealed to me directly. So when Deng Xiao Ping invited me in 1981, I decided to help her for the nation’s sake. This mutual gesture completely dissolved the enmity between me and Mrs.Gandhi. We became good friends from that date, so much so that the Madurai MP Subbaraman once came to see me to plead with me that since Mrs.Gandhi had so much regard for me, I should join Congress Party. He even offered to resign his Lok Sabha seat to send me to Parliament. I was, at that time, a Lok Sabha MP from Bombay, so I politely put him off. But it is an irony today that the son of Subbaraman, Rambabu, not only deserted Mrs.Gandhi’s Congress Party, but actually defeated me by unfair means, in the 1996 elections for Madurai Lok Sabha seat. Mr.Subbaraman must be writhing in pain in heavan at this turn of events caused by his wayward son.
The question often asked of me is why a communist country like China gave me a known anti-communist- so much importance. The reasons for this are many. To begin with, communist countries ill-treat anticommunists only of their own country. But in dealing with those abroad, they look to see only if such persons are hostile to their own country. In my case, since for long I have advocated normal relations with China, when it was unpopular to do so, the Chinese leaders felt special warmth of feeling for me. My argument for supporting dialogue with China was that we should not have two enemies China and Pakistan, in the borders of our country. A Sino-Pakistan axis was dangerous for us, and it was making us depend on Russia too much. Therefore, I felt either China or Pakistan should be befriended. Pakistan could not be tackled because it was dominated by the USA, therefore not independent and could not be relied upon. China was an independent country, so we could talk with that country. China in turn had two enemies, Russia and USA and so it wanted to normalise relations with countries which could help either of its enemies. In our case, China’s normal relations with us meant that Russia could not use us to trouble China especially through Tibet. So both India and China would mutually gain from normal relations. This was my argument.
When I first raised the issue in 1967 of improving relations with China, K.R.Narayanan, our President today, was then a Joint Secretary in our External Affairs Ministry. He wrote me a letter once in 1967 saying it was unpatriotic to raise the issue since China had attacked India in 1962. Of course I did not agree. France and Germany attacked each other for centuries. Today they are good friends. Nations have permanents interests, not permanent friendships or permanent enmities. When interests coincide, friendships follow. When interests clash, enmity will be inevitable.
This exchange between me and Narayanan became public. Many people could not understand how I, a perceived pro-American, Harvard educated person be for friendship with China. Because I was anti-communist, people automatically thought that I was pro-American. This is wrong. I would be Pro-or-anti a country according what is in India’s interests. Everyone abroad understands this (but not my critics in India). That is why the Iraq’s leader Sadam Hussein, a bitter foe of USA & Israel, had personally invited me twice to Iraq. Last month, the leftist Prime Minister of Namibia (in Africa) invited me to lead a conference. In June, Vietnam had invited me to participate in an international get-together,
Chinese leaders therefore clearly understood that despite my anti-communism, it was my fierce concern for India’s interests which was motivating me for good relations with China, and that I had the courage to challenge the Russian lobbies in India, who were against China (despite being communists)! The Chinese admired me for this.
There was another reason why the Chinese found it easier to make friends with me. When I had just become a Professor at Harvard after getting my Ph.D. the world’s most famous and revered China Scholar at Harvard, John Fairbank called me up. This was in early 1964, just one and half years after the 1962 Chinese attack. Fairbank taunted me with the assertion: “Why are Indians so poor in learning Chinese? Six students from India were brought here by me on Scholarship at the request of Prime Minister Nehru for a three years course, to learn Chinese. All six have failed in the first semester.” My pride was hurt, so I retorted: “God knows where you got these six students. But if I wanted to, I can learn all the Chinese of a three year course in just six months.” Fairbank challenged me to prove it.
Later Fairbank told me that he had used this ploy to attract me to China studies. He succeeded. I went back to classes at Harvard to learn Chinese. I was a star student, and indeed in six months learn all the Chinese in a three year long course. But surprisingly the little Tamil I had learnt from my mother came useful. For example, Chinese and Tamil had some common words “Nii” means “You” in both languages. The exclamation “Aiyoyo” is the same in both the languages. Most American students could not pronounce the (‘zh’) sounds in Chinese. Since I had learnt to pronounce (‘pazham =fruit’) in Tamil from childhood, I had no difficulty. So I was a hit and favourite with my Chinese Teacher. She was convinced despite my denial, that I had spent my childhood in China. Otherwise how could I pronounce ‘zh’ so beautifully and so naturally, while American students floundered on it, struggling to say it as ‘zz’.
Because I could speak Chinese fluently, it was natural for the Chinese leaders to feel comfortable in my company. Chinese is a hard language to learn and so if some one learnt it, they assumed that the person had a love for China. Little did the Chinese realise that it had nothing to do with my love for China but more to disprove Fairbanks assertion.
After I learnt Chinese, I wrote many articles and books on Chinese Economy. Between 1970 and 1980 I published nearly 100 such writings. Most of it were critical of Chinese economic performance and Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s dictatorial policies. I was condemned by leftist intellectuals for these critical articles who thought Mao had revolutionized China. But the political changes in China during 1976 – 80, went in my favour. Mr.Deng Xiao Ping who took over the leadership in 1978 repudiated Mao, and said that he had ruined the Chinese Economy. World over among China Scholars, only I had written that in vain. Therefore the Chinese scholars immediately began quoting my articles to support Deng’s view.
At that time in 1980, China had applied to the World Bank for a soft loan (i.e., at low 1/2 % interest rate). This meant that China became a competitor with India for loans from the World Bank. To prevent China from getting the loans, the then Finance Minister Mr.R.Venkatraman foolishly argued with the World Bank that China did not qualify for the loans since according to some leftist economists, China’s per capita income was US$1000 compared India’s $250. To qualify for low interest loans from World Bank, the per capita income had to be less than $400. The World Bank President Mr.Robert McNamara made Mr.Venkatraman’s negative attitude look silly by quoting to him my study in which I had concluded that China’s per capita income was the same as India’s $250. So therefore, China qualified for the loan. Rather than correct himself, Mr.Venkatraman made his position more ridiculous by later suggesting to Mrs.Gandhi that on patriotic grounds I should be asked to revise my estimate of China’s per capita income upward to $1000! Mrs.Gandhi politely referred Mr.Venkatraman’s demand to me. I laughed at the request, but told her that she should call all the government experts to come to a conference with me, and prove my estimate wrong. Then I would revise it. Such a conference was arranged. About 40 government experts including the Reserve Bank Governor assembled in the then Foreign Secretary Mr.Ram Sathe’s office. For four hours I sat with them, but they could not find anything wrong with my estimate of China’s per capita income. Therefore, I did not revise my estimate. China got the soft loan from the World Bank despite Venkatraman’s protest because of my research paper on the Chinese economy. But our country’s name was spoiled by this negative attitude of our Finance Minister. The Chinese leaders came to know of this through the World Bank President Mr. McNamara. So they were emotionally moved. Therefore to thank me, the Chinese invited me to China to meet Mr.Deng Xiao Ping, considered as a great honor by one and all. Both India Today and Indian Express described my meeting with Deng as “historic” and covered it extensively.
When I reached Beijing in April 1981 I informed the Chinese Foreign Ministry that I would bring with me our Ambassador Mr.Shankar Bajpai to Mr.Deng’s meeting. The Chinese were upset, and said that this visit was for honouring me in my personal capacity as a scholar, and not as a representative of India. I insisted, saying that Our Ambassador must be present to take notes, and give me clarifications. Besides, I was an MP, hence automatically a representative of India. The Chinese were adamant. So finally I said that I will have to leave China without meeting Mr.Deng if the Ambassador cannot accompany me. This firmness on my part, that abroad I will not separate myself from our government, impressed the Chinese ultimately. They finally understood that I was for truth, but at the same time would stand by my own country.
When I finally met Mr.Deng, he grabbed my arm and said in Chinese: “Lao peng yeou”. This is the ultimate compliment in China to be called “an old friend” and that too by Mr.Deng, the Supreme leader of China. I raised the Assam agitators question with him right away, as I had promised Mrs.Gandhi. Deng asked me why I wanted to help Mrs.Gandhi who had tried to put me in jail during Emergency. I told him it was not a personal issue. If China gave arms to Assam agitators, then people of India will never forgive China, and it will ruin Sino-Indian relations. This would, of course, help Russia to create tensions between our two countries.
Deng appeared convinced. He said “Tell Mrs.Gandhi, if anyone crosses our border from India unauthorized, we will catch that person and hand him to your Border police”. This was the assurance Mrs.Gandhi was looking for.
Deng smiled at me, said “Anything else?” I immediately jumped at that, and said “You have closed Manasarovar for 25 years. This is our holy spot, so please open it for our pilgrims”. Deng did not know anything about Mount Kailash, but his officers explained in Chinese to him, about how difficult the place was to travel to etc. Deng turned to me said with a challenging smile: “If you promise to go there yourself, by walking to Mount Kailash, I will order it’s re-opening”. In September 1981 later that year, I became the first Indian to visit Kailash and Manasarovar after 25 years. Kailash has been open to Hindu pilgrims ever since. Every year about 200 – 300 pilgrims go there.
Deng then turned to his other favourite topics like Vietnam, Russia, economic reform etc., He took me and our Ambassador however by surprise by suddenly declaring to me: “Tell Mrs.Gandhi, I want to improve relations with India. So I am sending our Foreign Minister Huang Hua to India later this year”. Huang Hua came in June 1981, and after that Sino-Indian relations has been steadily improving without a break.
After about 100 minutes of meeting, I took leave of the then 71 years Mr.Deng. He said “you look so young (I was 41 years old then). In your long career ahead, there will be ups and down, but always be optimistic. We thank you for your help to us”.
I felt very pleased with that meeting because despite my not being a Minister then, my efforts laid the foundations for improvement in Sino-Indian relations. Ten years later in 1991 when I returned to Beijing as India’s Commerce Minister, India signed the first Trade Protocol with China in which exports and imports were given a boost. Within two days, I could complete the negotiations, because I was China’s and Deng’s “Lao peng yeou” (old friend). The Chinese were ready to please, because unlike us, are a grateful people. They never forget favours . President Nixon of USA had normalized American relations with China in 1972. After that Nixon landed into the Watergate scandal, and had to resign in 1974. But the Chinese never forgot him for normalizing Sino-US relations and treated him with honour as if nothing had happened. That is why China has so many friends in the world today and we have so few.
After my meeting with Deng Xiao Ping, I was widely recognised all over the world as one who could talk to China frankly. Many business people asked me if I would become their consultant for fat fees, for trade with China. I turned them all down, because the best relations are non-commercial. In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi was to go to China. He asked me to accompany him so that I could help him with Deng. I agreed but later Rajiv changed his mind. He laughingly told me: “My advisers say that if you come with me to China, the Chinese will treat you better and on a higher status than me”. He quoted M.J.Akbar, a newspaper editor in support of this view. Since Rajiv and I were good friends, I did not mind his frankness. At least he was truthful.
India and China should try to be friends. Only then we can manage Pakistan. Deng helped us to restore normal relations and we should never forget that.
Charan Singh – The Much Misunderstood GiantClick To OpenCharan Singh, popularly known in North India as “Choudhary Saheb”, was in my opinion one of the most honest politicians in India. He was also one of the most well read, and of scholarly bent of mind, contrary to popular impressions. Yet he was type-cased by the media as an opportunistic village rustic, someone who had no national vision.
I first met Charan Singh in Lucknow in 1974 when I was contesting the Rajya Sabha seat. We were not in the same party then; to get me defeated he had set up industrialist K.K.Birla as an independent candidate. Birla went about openly buying MLAs who were expected to vote for me. So the situation was precarious. But Charan Singh decided to cast the second preference votes of his party for me, thus ensuring my victory. I did not know Charan Singh much then since I barely been in politics for two years. I too had formed an impression that he was a village rustic, and not worth talking seriously. Little did I realise that in his last days twelve years later I would become one of his closest confidants and his admirer.
Charan Singh met me in the UP Vidhan Sabha premises when he came to cast his vote. He was an MLA then, and leader of 105 MLAs of the Bharatya Lok Dal (BLD). The BLD in 1977 merged with Janatha Party, and donated the farmer with plough symbol to the new party. This is the symbol of Janatha Party even today.
When Charan Singh saw me in the UP Vidhan Sabha, he spoke to me in fluent English. He said: “Young man, despite you abusing me in the UP Assembly election campaign (held in 1973), I have forgiven you and voted for you. I am impressed with your educational qualifications and intelligence, so I voted for you. When you are elected, come and see me”. I thanked Charan Singh for voting for me, but I was dazed by his simplicity and English diction. But after defeating K.K.Birla and becoming MP, I went straight to Delhi. I corresponded with Charan Singh, but since he mostly stayed in Lucknow, and I in Delhi, we could not meet till 1977.
In Feb 1977, after Elections to Lok Sabha had been declared, I returned from USA to contest elections. Both Charan Singh and I were in the same party the Janatha Party. So I went to see him. At that time, he was staying in a small flat in Vithal bhai Patel House. When I met him, he was in the midst of a huge crowd relaxing in sunshine on that cold February day. As soon as he saw me, joy came over his face. I had thought he might rebuke me for not seeing him earlier, but Charan Singh did not. He simply shouted to his followers to gather. Soon about 500 people, mostly farmers from Haryana and UP, gathered. “Choudhary Saheb” caught me by the hand, took me to the gathering and introduced me in a lavish way. He said: “This is Dr.Swamy, my friend. Do you know him?” The crowd had come to know of me during the Emergency by reading newspapers and listening to my BBC broadcasts. So they all nodded enthusiastically.
Charan Singh said: “We are a nation of cowards. Very few people have courage in our country. But we have survived because there are always some Indians with extra-ordinary courage. Rana Pratap and Subash Bose are examples. Now after the Emergency struggle, we have one more example — Dr.Subramanian Swamy.” The crowd cheered. I was very much touched. I said to myself that here is political leader whose follower I am not, and barely know him. And yet he praised me like this in public.
After all the greetings were exchanged, I took leave of Charan Singh, and promised to see him soon. I next saw Charan Singh after he had become Home Minister. I went to his residence in Akbar Road. But unlike many other politicians power had not affected him. He was as simple and warm as before. He got up to receive me, and put the palm of land on my forearm, and asked: “why did not Morarji make you a Minister?” I replied “He says that he cannot make me a Cabinet Minister because I am not old enough, and I will not accept a Minister of state”. Charan Singh smiled and said: “Bahadur aadmi (braveman). It is good to wait. Look at me, I am 77 years old, and first time Central Minister. You are 37, and already a two term MP. Nothing to worry.” he comforted me.
Then Charan Singh put his hand on my shoulder, and asked, “Will Morarji be grateful to me, that I made him Prime Minister?” Charan Singh was right that he helped make Morarji PM; because of his 112 MPs in the Janata tally of 320 MPs his support to Morarji over Jagjivan Ram decided the contest in favour of Morarji Desai. But Morarji had already told me that God had made him PM, that he had asked no one to support him. Hence if he is to be grateful to anyone on this earth, it is to the whole Janata Party and not to anyone particular leader. Otherwise, destiny made him.
I could sense trouble brewing here. Morarji was a evolved sadhu, and did not care who thought what about him. Charan Singh, for all his education, was essentially a simple patriarch, with a deep sense of expecting gratitude for favours done and return favours. Therefore, he wanted Morarji to show deference to him. This developing clash was a pity because ideologically Morarji and Charan Singh were on the same side, more in the Gandhiji-Sardar Patel line than in Nehru’s. Morarji and Charan Singh were for simple living, were honest, and strong believers in prohibition. If Morarji was the brain of the Janata, Charan Singh was the spinal cord of the party. We needed both Janatha to be strong.
Since both men were strict disciplinarians other less strict and more corrupt Janatha leaders saw personal advantage in dividing the two. Atal Behari Vajpayee was, for example, feeling insecure with Morarji for asking him to give up alcoholic drinks. On one occasion, when the Japanese Foreign Minister gave a dinner party in the Japanese Embassy in New Delhi, Vajpayee had became quite drunk in that party. I had been also invited to that dinner, and was horrified to see our Foreign Minister drunk. Morarji came to know of this through the Intelligence Bureau, so he asked me for confirmation, which I gladly gave. Morarji then called Vajpayee in my presence, and gave him big firing. Vajpayee had no answer except to giggle like a school girl caught stealing. But naturally he felt humiliated.
To keep Morarji in check, Vajpayee began poisoning Charan Singh’s mind. It was he who first put the idea of becoming PM in Charan Singh’s mind. Like a typical trouble maker, Vajpayee could carry tales to Morarji about Charan Singh, and vice versa. The ‘credit’ thus of laying the foundation for the break up of Janata Party and the fall of its government, really goes to Vajpayee and not to Charan Singh as is popularly thought. The split came in 1979, and Charan Singh became PM with Indira Gandhi’s help. I stayed in Janata with Morarji. Vajpayee ditched Charan Singh at the last minute, and decided to stay in the Janata Party. A year later, he ditched Morarji, and left the Janata to form the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and become its President.
Despite my remaining with Morarji in Janatha, I kept my good relations with Charan Singh, and met him often. Charan Singh also knowing fully well that I had cast my lot with Morarji never let that affect his warmth towards me. It was Charan Singh’s respect for my scholarship and education and not politics which drew him to me. In our meetings therefore during this period we rarely discussed politics, but books which are worth reading in economics and history.
In 1984, Morarji asked me to contest against Chandrasekhar for Janata Party President in the Party polls. This enraged Chandrasekhar and Hegde (who were later to full apart), and who saw it as a plot by Morarji to regain control of the party before the General Elections to the Lok Sabha in 1984 end.
Breaking all the rules of the party Constitution, Chandrasekhar got me expelled from the Janata Party. The first phone call I got after the expulsion, was from Charan Singh. He made critical remarks about Chandrasekhar (whom he had never liked), and then took me by surprise by inviting me to join his party. “I want someone like you to be with me with whom I can discuss.” he said. He had recently written a book on the Indian Economy, detailing how the farmers had been exploited. I had given him a note on how he could improve his thesis in the second edition of the book. He was delighted, but almost childlike asked me: ” Why cannot my books be recognized abroad. No one reads them here. And because of communist influence in our Universities, it will never be prescribed for students.” I promised to do something someday.
In the 1984 Elections, after Mrs.Gandhi’s assassination, except Charan Singh, all of us in the opposition including Chandrasekhar, Vajpayee and myself lost the elections. So, thinking that a young Rajiv Gandhi of 40 years old, with a huge majority will remain in power for 15 years at least like his mother and grandfather, I decided to take a holiday from politics. I was also only 44 then, young by Indian political standards, so I could wait.
Harvard University, upon learning that I had lost the elections, invited me to return to teach economics. When I resumed my teaching in June 1985 at Harvard, I remembered Charan Singh’s wish to have international recognition for his book. So I used my professor status to prescribe his book in the economic courses in the university. Harvard formally wrote to Charan Singh asking him to send 350 copies of the book for purchase.
When Charan Singh received the letter (his wife later told me) tears came down his eyes. In an emotional burst he said “I have only one true friend that is Swamy”. It occurred to me that Charan Singh, despite having become PM, essentially craved to be intellectually recognized. He hated the media hype casting him as a village Jat rustic, and ignoring his writing as a thinker. It also hurt him and made him sad.
I remember one day in 1982, he telephoned me to come and see him. I thought something important had happened. When I was with him, seated on the floor in Gandhian style, he asked me, his eyes moist: “Swamy, is there a ritual you know by which I can become a Brahmin?” “Why Choudhary Saheb?” I asked “What value is it to be a Brahmin today?” “See what this correspondent has written “he said showing a newspaper report which described Charan Singh as an “Illiterate”. Then Charan Singh said to me “Unless you are a Brahmin, your intellectual ability will never be allowed to be recognized. Jawaharlal Nehru’s books are of less scholarly value than mine, and yet he is called ‘Panditji’ and I am denounced as an illiterate. Why?” Unless I become a Brahmin, my writings will not be recognized”.
I agreed with him that while he wrote on difficult economics subjects, Nehru’s works dealt with easy essays in history. I also argued that the urban English media is not to be taken seriously. But throughout my association with Charan Singh, I felt that while politicians felt jealous of his solid electoral base he instead would have been happy if he was recognized as a scholar. And of course he should have been in my opinion, regarded as a top intellectual. But because he did not have any outward westernization and was dressed very simply, the city-based people never respected him. It had nothing to do with his not being a Brahmin. Vajpayee is a Brahmin, but he is not regarded as an intellectual.
After some months, one day while I was at Harvard, I received a telephone call from Mr. Ajit Singh, son of Charan Singh He said that his father had been admitted for treatment in Baltimore Hospital, and is barely conscious. He had suffered a stroke.
I took the next plane from Boston to Baltimore, and went straight to the hospital. I was joined by Mrs.Charan Singh and Ajit Singh. Despite being in semi-conscious state, when Charan Singh saw me, he recognized me and tears rolled down his cheeks. Mrs. Charan Singh told me that Charan Singh had never forgotten that I prescribed his books at Harvard. Today he does not recognize unless someone has touched his heart and memory in some big way. For others, his memory has failed him. That is why tears rolled down his cheeks on seeing.
Charan Singh spoke a few words to me, but they were all unconnected with anything relevant. For instance he kept asking me to be aware of another Emergency coming, and rigging of General Elections. Clearly, the stroke he had suffered had also affected his brain. USA could not cure him. Charan Singh was flown back to India. I returned from Harvard after nearly two years. Charan Singh was still alive, but in a semi-conscious state, I went to see him at his Tughlak Road residence. His wife Gayathri and Ajit warned me that he may not open his eyes or even recognize me after this long absence. But as soon as I entered the room, he opened his eyes, his body shook, and he cried. Ajit explained that this was his only way of saying “hello” and this emotion was reserved for a very few. Obviously, the simple joy of having his books prescribed at Harvard had made an indelible impression on him. I said goodbye to him; he died a few days later.
During the 1980′s, Charan Singh had spoken a lot about his son Ajit Singh, then an Engineer in USA. As a tribute to Charan Singh, I brought Ajit Singh from the wilderness of politics to make him the Janatha Party President. He did not stay long and soon left the party to join V.P.Singh.
Charan Singh was the most misunderstood political leader of India. Had he been given a full term as PM, he would have revolutionized Indian agriculture. He was a person a great courage. He opposed Jawaharlal Nehru in the famous Nagpur AICC when Nehru wanted to collectivize agriculture like in the communist countries. His grip over UP rural masses was so strong that once on an election campaign in Farrukabad, UP, he asked the people to vote against his own party candidate because he drank alcoholic drinks, and asked them to vote for an obscure Independent candidate! If Ajit Singh is winning his election today, it is entirely because of the love people of U.P. have for Charan Singh. Those who knew him loved him. Those who didn’t made fun of him for superficial considerations
The Kamaraj I KnewClick To OpenI first met Thiru.Kamaraj when I was just 9 years old in early 1949. Kamaraj had come to our residence in New Delhi for lunch. My father was in government service then, after a period as lecturer in mathematics in Annamalai University. When my father was a student and later lecturer, he was closely associated with Satyamurti, the popular Congress leader and member of the fore-runner of our Parliament — namely the Central Legislative Assembly. Because of this closeness with Satyamurti, my father came to know Thiru.Kamaraj .
When Kamaraj came to our house, naturally there was little to discuss between us since I was only 9 years old, and Kamaraj appeared not interested in anything else except politics and India’s freshly achieved freedom. But I sat with my father and Kamaraj, and heard their conversation, which was mostly about Rajaji, which I did not understand.
I next met Kamaraj in 1968 after he had lost the elections. I was then a Professor of Economics at Harvard University in USA and was on a short summer vacation trip to India to give lectures at the Delhi school of Economics in Delhi University. To fix an appointment, I simply telephoned Thiru.Kamaraj on the number in the Telephone Directory. When he came on the line, I explained who was I, in my broken Tamil (which I could barely speak in those days) and reminded him of his coming to our house in1949! Either out of sweetness or just genuine memory, he recalled that meeting, and immediately invited me to see him at his Jantarmantar residence.
When I met Kamaraj at his Delhi residence, he had hardly any visitors. He had been defeated at the polls, and Indira Gandhi whom he had made Prime Minister, was not listening to him. So he was glum and quite alone. He gave me a good filter coffee and asked me only one question in broken English – What do the Americans think of India and Indira Gandhi? Not much conversation could take place however since I tried to speak to him in my broken Tamil and he tried to make me understand in his broken English!
My next meeting took place in April 1974. By then, I had become an MP. Thiru.Kamaraj had invited me for lunch to his new residence at Ashoka road. We had first met that morning in Morarji Desai’s residence where we had all been asked to assemble to celebrate. Morarji had got his demand on holding Gujarat Assembly elections conceded following his fast unto death, which fast was broken on the fifty day. So we all went to celebrate. Kamaraj saw me there and asked me to come with him to his residence. I was pleased that he gave so much recognition and went with him to his place.
At the lunch table, Kamaraj said to me that since I enjoyed JP’s confidence, I should ensure that Morarji Desai is not made the combined opposition candidate for Prime Minister. I felt honoured that he trusted me with his confidence, but asked him why he was against Morarji. He replied in the simplest Tamil, with gestures to make sure that I understood that Morarji was too rigid to head a coalition of opposition parties. It needed someone more flexible in nature, he said. Kamaraj wanted me convince JP of this. Kamaraj-Morarji enmity originated from the time Nehru in 1963 used the “Kamaraj Plan” to dislodge Morarji from the Finance Ministry.
I asked Kamaraj why he did not think of himself to lead the coalition. He said that the North, which had majority of the Lok Sabha seats, will not tolerate for long anyone who did not know Hindi. He had not learnt Hindi, so when in 1964 Nehru died; he brought in Lal Bahadur Shastri. At that time, he himself could have become PM, but because of this reason he declined to do so. Then he added: “Unless you know how to reprimand Northerners in Hindi, they will not listen to you!”
He then congratulated me for getting elected to Parliament from UP. “It is a real credit for a Tamilian to come to Parliament from UP.” But he added a warning: “Today you are a youngster, so they may accept you , because you speak Hindi, and can abuse them in Hindi. But after some years, when you become a big leader, you will have to come to Tamilnadu and go from there. With a name like Subramanian Swamy you will always be considered a Tamilian in UP, even if you speak Hindi like them. So sooner or later, you will have to shift to Tamilnadu to be in Parliament. “. This advice of Kamaraj never left my mind and memory. After I became Commerce Minister in 1990, I knew time had come to implement Kamaraj’s advice.
I next met Kamaraj accidentally at Meenambakkam Airport in Madras on May 1, 1975. This was to be our last meeting since soon after, the Emergency was declared. On October 1, 1975, Kamaraj passed away. I was underground then evading a MISA arrest warrant, so I could not even come to pay my last respects to his body.
But this last meeting was the most rewarding experience. Kamaraj and I were together for three and half hours—one hour in the airport lounge and 2 1/2 hours on the flight seated together. My Tamil had improved to the point that Kamaraj felt comfortable to speak freely and continuously in Tamil with me. His Tamil was simple and not like the cinema dialogues of today.
When he saw me at the airport, the first thing he said was that henceforth when I come to Madras, I must first look him up. He also asked me to accompany him on tours so that my Tamil will improve and I could be sent to Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu. He was in a very good mood on that day because he had been drawing very large crowds in his meetings. Lok Sabha elections were near, due then in February 1976, only nine months away. So Kamaraj was feeling confident about the future, and planning for it.
On the flight, Kamaraj spent most of his time telling me on the evil deeds of Mrs.Gandhi, and why it was important to unseat her. When I half-jokingly suggested that it was he who made her PM, he replied that it was all the more his responsibility to unseat her. Then he asked me. “Do you know who killed [Commerce minister] L.N.Mishra?” “I know the gossip, but nothing concrete”. I replied. “In the Lok Sabha election, I will reveal everything” Kamaraj added.
In the flight, on the other side of aisle, was sitting Mr.C.Subramaniam, then minister of Finance. During the entire flight or at the airport, he never said even “hello” to Kamaraj. This was surprising since Subramaniam owed his political career to Kamaraj. But he was probably afraid that Indira Gandhi may misunderstand his courtesy to Kamaraj, and drop him from the Finance Ministership! Such is the Tamil political culture even today.
Kamaraj pointed to CS and whispered to me: “Do you know who he is?” I said “Of course, he is the Finance Minister”. Kamaraj then said: “He knows everything about L.N.Mishra”.
“How?” I asked. “In 1967 when Indira Gandhi dropped L.N.Mishra from Deputy Home Ministership, she sent this man to me to explain. Mishra had been brought to Rajya Sabha by me, so I had been unhappy”, Kamaraj said.
” CS explained to me that Indira Gandhi had been furious with Mishra for bringing to her notice little incidents in which Sanjay Gandhi had landed in trouble, such as rash driving in which a cyclist had been injured. CS said that Mishra had informed Mrs.Gandhi that he paid the cyclist and hushed up the matter. In those days Sanjay was always in trouble, but CS told me that Mrs.Gandhi was annoyed that Mishra was trying to blackmail her. So to teach him a lesson, she had removed him from the Ministership.”
Then Kamaraj looked straight at me and said “If that was the case in 1967, then how was it that in 1969 she not only brought him back, promoted him to a full Minister and gave him the money-spinning Commerce portfolio? How did he win back her confidence?” I was speechless. Kamaraj then added: I will speak about this also in the LokSabha election campaign”.
But then why did you team up with her in the [Feb.1974] Pondicherry Assembly elections? I asked.
“Big mistake. I did not want it, but my associates were pushing for it, and in a weak moment I yielded” Kamaraj replied. “But now after L.N.Mishra’s murder, I am determined not to have anything to do with Indira Gandhi or her party”, he firmly added.
Our flight reached Delhi. On parting with Kamaraj at the airport, I promised to meet him again and travel around the Tamilnadu countryside with him. I got the distinct feeling that Kamaraj wanted to project me for a role in Delhi, and therefore wanted to get to know me better. But it was never to be. Events overtook us.
Emergency was declared on June 26, 1975. I was told that Kamaraj wept, and held himself personally responsible for promoting Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister. But his grief in the loss of democracy was so great that he fell ill, and never recovered. He died on October 1, 1975.
Kamaraj can be counted as one of the greatest Tamil leaders of post Independence era. He was honest, simple and yet a visionary. He developed Tamilnadu to the point where it became the best administered state in the country till the cinema culture of the DMK ruined the state.
Knowing Kamaraj I can say that those who left his party in 1976 and joined Indira Gandhi in the midst of the Emergency by claiming that Kamaraj had wanted it are guilty of double treachery: First in insulting his memory by joining Indira Gandhi while the Emergency was still on, and many were in jail under MISA, and second, by claiming that Kamaraj’s last wish was this—to join Indira Gandhi!
I know Kamaraj’s real last wish. It was to build a strong opposition party to both Indira Gandhi and the DMK (who were allies in 1974) and bring back honest rule to the state. Those who claim otherwise are not true followers of Kamaraj.
Morarji Desai – My True FriendClick To OpenArticles
Morarji Desai – my true friend
I was first introduced to Morarji Desai in 1975 when senior leaders were finding it difficult to bring him and Jayaprakash Narayan on the same wave length of thinking and pushed me in the front to dare to talk to both. As I have already described in my earlier article, if it were not for my audacity in bringing JP and Morarji together, the June 25th 1975 historic Ramlila Ground meeting in Delhi (which Mrs. Gandhi used as an excuse to declare Emergency),would never have taken place. The Emergency was originally scheduled for June 22nd when JP was to address the rally, but his Patna-Delhi Indian Airlines flight got cancelled, and so Mrs.Gandhi postponed the decision. She wanted to use JP’s speech as an excuse. It is a wonder to me that had I not succeeded to bringing the two together on June 25th, and the meeting thus cancelled, would the declaration of Emergency been further postponed, or even Mrs.Gandhi changed her mind about the idea itself with a little more time to think about it?
My Next meeting with Morarji Desai was a stormy one. It was a meeting demanded by Morarji to give me a lecture. It was also meeting that became a turning point because after that Morarji and I became very close.
The General Elections to Lok Sabha were declared on January 18, 1977 when I was abroad, having escaped again after a dramatic appearance on the floor of Parliament despite an MISA arrest warrant and the highest reward on my head for my capture. This was my second escape abroad during the Emergency.
Morarji had been released from prison, and in his first press conference, a pro-Congress news reporter taunted him with the question about Mrs.Gandhi’s allegation that opposition leaders had run away abroad rather than go to jail. The news reporter mentioned my name in this connection.
Morarji angrily reacted to the question by remarking that it did not matter because I was not a “front rank” leader. I did not mind that remark because I was then only 37 years old, and only been four years in politics. But I had resented Morarji’s failure to rebut the idea that I had “run away”. Actually I was abroad on JP’s direction to awaken the world to the Emergency’s atrocities, and Morarji had known that. It would have been easy to stay in jail. Because I had evaded arrest under MISA, Mrs.Gandhi put 18 false cases against me, declared me a “proclaimed offender”, and confiscated my property, household goods and car. My two daughters Gitanjali aged 5 and Suhasini aged 2 had to suffer trauma of not knowing where their father was, not to mention the harassment suffered by my wife in going to court for my cases, and who was always against my leaving academics (that too Harvard) for politics.
When I returned to India on February 5th, 1977 to contest Lok Sabha, I was red hot with anger. My other political colleagues sensed that I would retaliate, so advised me restraint till elections were over. But in my first press conference after return, the same press reporter taunted me with Morarji’s remark. I found it difficult to contain myself, and yet the cause of winning the elections loomed in my mind. So, I replied: “Morarjibhai is right. I cannot be front rank leader because I am not 80 years old. This was front page box item news. Everybody found it humorous and had a good laugh. But not Morarji. He was even more angry. So he sent word to me to see him in the Jantar Mantar Party office. I refused saying I don’t recognize him as my leader.
Morarji then surprised me by asking me to come to his Bombay residence for tea. I relented, and went to see him. Morarji’s took me to meet him in the privacy of his bedroom. The conversation went like this:
Morarji : “Why have you called attention of the press to my age?”
Swamy : “Because you called attention to my age”
Morarji : “But you are not a front rank leader today”
Swamy : “I have publicly agreed with you on this. So what is your objection?”
Morarji : “Do you realize that your remark on my age is helping Mrs.Gandhi’s propaganda?”
Swamy : “Do you realize that your silence on Mrs.Gandhi allegation that I ran away abroad had hurt my reputation and the feelings of my family?”
Morarji : “Why did you not go to jail? I don’t believe in evading arrest”
Swamy : “Who cares about what you believe. JP asked me to go abroad and organize. Abroad I agitated against your detention. This was a mistake, I agree”
Morarji : “JP asked you? No one told me so”
Swamy : “As a leader you should have found out”
Morarji : “Yes, that was my mistake. But still you should not have remarked about my age”
: “I did not realize Mrs.Gandhi would exploit it. It is my mistake for which I am sorry”
Morarji was immediately moved by my saying sorry. “Young man”, he said “You are blunt and truthful. I admire your courage, even if I do not approve of this underground activity. Let us be friends”.
From that day on wards, even if Morarji did nothing much for me politically, he was always on my side helping me where he could and I remained his friend till his last breath. When his Cabinet was formed, it was widely thought that I would be made a Cabinet Minister for my role in the Emergency, but Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had played a disgraceful role of writing an apology letter to Mrs.Gandhi during the Emergency – to come out on parole out of jail, – controlled 91 Jan Sangh MPs. Vajpayee was given to tremendous jealousy, and it is the root cause of the mess BJP is in today. He found my “Emergency Hero” status unbearable especially since he wanted to hide his own surrender shame. He therefore prevailed upon Morarji to offer me only a Minister of State with independent charge. Morarji also thought that at the age of 37, a Cabinet Ministership was too early.
When I turned down the junior Ministership, Morarji was truly impressed. He called me to have dinner with him to express his appreciation. At the dinner, he expressed his approval of my simple habits (no drinking, no smoking), my courage, and my education. At one stage, he said to me “You should have come into contact with me years earlier”. From that day onwards till his death, I was one of the few who could see Morarji at any time or any place that I wanted especially at his lunch (10 AM) or dinner time (6.30 PM). Throughout his Prime Ministership, I was regularly the last visitor to see him (8.30 PM). Very often, Morarji would invite me to come with him on trips within the country on the special Air Force Plane. Morarji had clearly taken a liking for me and my boldness.
Morarji helped me to break the ice with China. Vajpayee as Foreign Minister blocked my visit for one year, but in 1978, Morarji saw that I went first to China. He accepted my view about China, and rejected Vajpayee’s, who was keen to keep the Soviet Union pleased. Even on Israel, Morarji accepted my view and invited Moshe Dayan to visit India.
Because of the factionalism in the Janata Party, during his tenure as PM, he could not make me a Cabinet Minister. Delhi was always abuzz with the rumour that he was about to induct me as Foreign Minister because he was fed up with Vajpayee’s drinking habits whenever he went abroad or his indiscretion with women. But the 91 MPs of the Jan Sangh group was Vajpayee’s strength, so Morarji kept postponing the date. Then there was the Raj Narain nuisance. However in June 1979, Raj Narain was expelled from the Janatha Party, and everything was under control– or so it seemed. It was then I was confidently told by insiders that Morarji would bring me into the Cabinet in the September 1979 re-shuffle. That re-shuffle never came because Morarji quit office in July 1979. But the greatness of Morarji was exhibited in those trying moments when he was betrayed by colleague after colleague, each trying to become Prime Minister. Some got a bad name for it such as Charan Singh, but the real culprits were Vajpayee and Ramakrishna Hegde who pushed Morarji into a confrontation with Charan Singh, and then let Morarji down.
Provoked by what he mistakenly took as Morarji induced insults, Charan Singh broke the party, and the Janatha Party lost majority. Then Vajpayee and Hegde produced a list of 279 MPs of which 23 MPs signatures were forged. The President Mr.Sanjiva Reddy was alerted to it by the IB, and he made it public. Morarji gallantly took the blame and quit public life. It should have been Vajpayee and Hegde who should have quit, but they left Morarji holding the bag and owning responsibility! Such was their character.
Later at his residence at night I asked Morarji why he took the blame when he was blameless and paid such a heavy price. He said simply: “After all, I am the leader. I must sink with the ship”. Such was his greatness.
Morarji never recovered from the 1979 debacle. But till his death, he tried to help me to the extent he could. He backed me for becoming the President of the Janatha Party to replace Chandrasekhar as early a 1981. He tried again in 1984, but Chandrasekhar and Hegde combined to get me expelled from the party rather than pose to challenge. Later Hegde got ambitious and tried to push Chandrasekhar. It was ironic that Chandrasekhar sought my help. Since of the two, Chandrasekhar was a better person, I launched a campaign against Hegde on telephone tapping and land scandals for which Hegde was responsible. He had to resign from the Karnataka Chief Ministership and has been marginalized in politics ever since.
For Morarji, the most hurtful part of his life was when cheap allegation was hurled on him by an American author, of being a CIA agent. There could not have been a greater patriot than Morarji, but he was slandered like Sita was in Ramayana. It was the only time I saw Morarji’s eyes moist. But he told me: “It is the law of Karma. I must have wronged somebody in my past life”.
I advised him to ignore the charge since every newspaper editorial in the country came to his defense. No politician however came explicitly to his defence. Some attacked him. In Lok Sabha, I stoutly defended him which pleased him immensely. But his other friends were not satisfied. They wanted him to sue the author in US courts. Morarji chose to ignore my advice, and he suffered even more going to US in cold winters to pursue the case and raise money for legal fees. It was a futile exercise, and a waste of time and money. Morarji was deeply hurt by outcome and regretted his decision to fight a defamation case in a US court. He seemed to lose all desire for public life.
But Morarji was getting old too. He was nearing 90. Soon he simply retired completely and never left Bombay. But he would keep inquiring about me. During my struggle against the Jayalalitha government, and the violence let loose against me, Morarji would chuckle and say, “Foolish woman. Does she not know your exploits in the Emergency?” But he kept telling me to be careful about my life and limb. I know he was concerned from his heart.
When Morarji died, he saved my life. Strange as it may seem, I was driving in last week of April 1995 to Pondicherry to address a public meeting. At Tindivanam, a huge crowd was waiting for me to with petrol bombs and acid filled eggs. They were planning to stop my car and set it on fire, thereby roasting me to death. The crowd was AIADMK sponsored, and they were particularly angry at my getting sanction to prosecute their leader, Ms.Jayalalitha. They wanted to prove their loyalty to her.
I had no idea that this mob was waiting for me, since as usual the Tamilnadu Police had disappeared from Tindivanam. As my car was speeding towards Tindivanam, in a small town about 10 Kms away, a few people blocked my car to give me the news that Morarji Desai had passed away.
I immediately told Chandralekha who was travelling with me, that I must return and catch a flight to Bombay. My party people accompanying me and Chandralekha thought that since a huge crowd would be waiting in Pondicherry to hear my speech, I should fulfil that commitment first. I could pass a condolence resolution in that meeting, they suggested. But my emotional attachment to Morarji was deep. Therefore I insisted on cancelling the programme and returning right away.
When I reached Chennai three hours later there was an urgent call from Dr.Chenna Reddy, from Pondicherry. There was real concern in his voice. I thought he was calling about Morarji, but he asked me: “Are you alright?” I said yes but asked him why. He replied “Thank God! There was an AIADMK mob ready to murder you, burn you alive. Thank God you did not go to Tindivanam”. Dr.Channa Reddy later wrote a letter to the Prime Minister Mr.Narasimha Rao about it.
But I said: “Thank God, and thank your Morarji bhai. Even in your last breath you thought of helping me”.
I flew to Ahmedabad via Bombay, and meditated by the side of Morarji’s body. I am rarely moved to tears. But on that day, tears rolled down my cheeks when I saw Morarji’s body I placed a wreath on his body and said “Good bye, my Friend. I shall never forget you”.
Morarji was a great inspiration for four reasons:
First, he came from an ordinary school teacher’s family, and while remaining completely honest, simple, fearless and truthful, he rose by sheer hard work to become the Prime Minister of India. Those who say that we have to be corrupt to rise in politics should learn from Morarji’s example.
Second, Morarji was a man of guts and conviction. Even JP came out of jail during the Emergency on parole (though justifiably), but Morarji despite 20 months of solitary confinement did not budge. He even refused to talk with Mrs.Gandhi’s emissaries about compromise.
Third, Morarji was noble and humane. After he became PM, Mrs.Gandhi went to see him and request an allotment of a government bungalow. Despite protest from many Janata Party leaders, he treated her with respect and allotted her a spacious bungalow. “After all, she was our Prime Minister for 11 years” he told me one day.
Fourth, Morarji had a complete philosophy of life. It was he (and course the divine grace of Parmacharya Sri Chandrasekhara Saraswathi) who educated me on how not to be disheartened by failure. He would say “Plans are good only for 10 percent of your success. Events control 90 percent of the failure. You can plan, but God only controls events”. Morarji’s commentary on Bhagwat Gita is still one of the best that I have read of any commentators.
Like Patel and Subash Bose, Morarji’s stature will grow with time.
Rajiv Gandhi – My FriendClick To OpenMy first contact with Rajiv Gandhi came when he entered Lok Sabha in 1982 in a by-election. I was too in Lok Sabha then re-elected from Bombay in 1980. However before this, Rajiv communicated with me regularly through a journalist since 1977. The first communication was a thanks -,as a gratitude for defending him in a Parliamentary Party Executive of the Janata Party presided over by Morarji Desai.
In one meeting, George Fernandez, the most characterless person in Indian Politics, had demanded that the PM take action against Rajiv Gandhi then an Indian Airlines pilot, for allegedly taking bribe in a 1973 purchase of Boeings by Indian Airlines. All that I said in the meeting was that Rajiv Gandhi should not be dragged in merely because he was the son of Indira Gandhi. There must be concrete proof. Morarji agreed with me, and asked Fernandez for evidence which of course he did not have. So the matter was dropped. In fact Fernandez’s socialist colleague Mr.Purushottam Kaushik was Civil Aviation Minister and he remained silent too.
Naturally the word spread, and a journalist who lives in London now, called me to convey the thanks and the proposal that Rajiv and I meet. In fact, this journalist printed posters and pasted it all over Delhi to proclaim that “Rajiv exonerated by Swamy”. I told this journalist that there was nothing to thank since I was doing what was humanly decent. Further I said to him that Rajiv was neither in politics nor did he participate in the Emergency. In fact he had disapproved of what his brother Sanjay did. I also felt that there was no need to meet for this purpose.
Rajiv never forgot this, and when he came to Lok Sabha, he came over to my seat and formally introduced himself although he did not need introduction. That was his simplicity that remained a hall mark till his end. He was a sweet person too, always speaking in soft tone. My friendship grew with time. Mrs.Indira Gandhi was delighted with this development because she felt that Rajiv needed friends of his age group (Rajiv was four years younger) who knew politics. But I had little time because I was mostly touring and mostly away from Delhi. In those days I travelled a lot abroad too on official invitations from China, Israel, U.K., Pakistan, Japan etc…
Still Rajiv and I met in Parliament sometimes and discussed various national topics which because of his non-political background. The only point on which we had disagreement was over Punjab, and that too because he came under influence of two rootless persons Arun Nehru and Arun Singh. Both ditched him later when the Bofors scandal unfolded.
By 1984, Rajiv and I had become friendly enough to joke with each other. But 1984 was a terrible year with the Golden Temple Bluestar fiasco, and then Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination. The terrible holocaust, of Sikh genocide of November 1984 had very much upset me. I had also become unpopular in North India because I was the only Hindu politician to oppose operation Bluestar, which had fanned Hindu fanaticism. Chandrasekhar also had me expelled from Janatha Party. This made me lose the 1984 Lok Sabha election, as did practically every opposition leader because of the sympathy wave due to the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi. I met Rajiv Gandhi briefly during his mother’s funeral. He simply said “Swamy, Join me”. Only later I came to know he had wanted me to join the Congress Party at that juncture.
After my defeat in the elections, I was invited by Harvard University to rejoin as Professor of Economics. So in early 1985 left for Harvard and stayed as Professor there for two years. All through 1985 I wrote critical articles of Rajiv Gandhi’s policies which in my style were hard-hitting. I was sure that because of these articles, and the sycophants around him, I would lose his friendship.
In August 1986, while on a short visit to India while my University was on vacation, I notified the External Affairs Ministry that my friend from 1978 and President of Pakistan Gen.Zia ul Haq had invited me as his personal guest to Pakistan, and wanted to know if the Government wanted me to get anything clarified with Zia. To my surprise, I got a call from the PMO fixing time in Rajiv’s Parliament office to meet him.
When I met Rajiv, he was all smiles. He said jokingly “I heard you have run away to Harvard. How have you been?” Obviously either he had not read my articles or he thought nothing of it. He then proceeded to tell me about the help Zia was giving to Sikh militants, and urged me to take it up with him. He also asked his Minister, Natwar Singh to give me a detailed background on Indo-Pakistan relations. While I was leaving him, he said “Promise you will stay in touch?” I did.
With my contact re-established with him, it became very easy to become an even closer friend after I re-entered Parliament in 1988. By then Rajiv was in deep trouble on the Bofors issue. I had that time exposed V.P. Singh’s closest ally and a harsh Rajiv baiter, Ramakrishna Hegde, on the telephone tapping scandal and the NRI land fraud. Hedge had to resign. I had also become critical of V.P.Singh of his double games. Naturally, Rajiv felt happy, and more so when I discovered that the first negotiation with Bofors was actually conducted by none other than V.P.Singh as Finance Minister on June 10, 1985. Rajiv had known about this naturally but failed to use it because his “advisers” told him not to annoy V.P.Singh anymore. May be that V.P.Singh as Finance Minister had dossiers on these “advisers”, and to save their own neck, they sacrificed Rajiv’s interests. Rajiv was so simple that he accepted their suggestion on not exposing V.P.Singh.
In fact the principal culprits for the Bofors fiasco are V.P.Singh, Arun Nehru and Shiv Shankar. Two bureaucrats were equally responsible for trapping Rajiv Gandhi. Since I know this, no one in Parliament would to raise the Bofors issue when I was Law Minister, fearing that I might expose those who were trying to expose Rajiv Gandhi.
By the end of 1989, Rajiv Gandhi and I became very close friends. After he ceased to be PM, and moved to 10, Janpath, he invariably called me at 1 AM in the night and ask George his secretary to pick me up to come to 10, Janpath for some chocolates (which he loved) and tea. By March 1990, we began foreseeing the downfall of the V.P.Singh government, and carried out exercises on who could form a new government. It was I who suggested that if his 220 MPs could combine with 60 MPs split from Janatha Dal by enticing Chandrasekhar, we could form a new government.
On this we began working from April 1990. Rajiv Gandhi was superb in storing and reviewing information on his personal computer. Practically every day we met from April till November 1990 when Chandrasekhar was made PM. And it was always between 1 AM and 4 AM.
By September it was clear that such a government could be formed. It is then Rajiv Gandhi made a surprising proposal. He said one night “Swamy, I am really not comfortable with Chandrasekhar. Why don’t you instead become the PM? I can work with you easily?” At first I was completely taken aback. I then said to him that all the 60 MPs of Janatha Dal had already been told that . Rajiv said since Congress was the largest party it could suggest anyone as PM to the President. I said I would think about it, and then forgot about it because of the fear that the whole proposal of the new government formation would collapse. But two weeks later, Rajiv repeated this to me in presence of T.N.Seshan. Seshan as usual began playing double games which I came to know later. He encouraged me to make a bid for it, at the same time he spoke to Rajiv against the idea, and then going to Chandrasekhar and telling him how he had sabotaged this idea of making me PM.
But by October middle, it became clear to me that it was too late in the day for a new proposal (to make me PM). Further, Advani’s Ratha Yathra was causing a crisis, and events were moving fast. So when I met Rajiv I told him it is too late now. He accepted my view, but correctly added, “But I don’t think I can work with Chandrasekhar for long”. He was prophetic because even I could not prevent the Chandrasekhar – Rajiv quarrel within one month of the government formation.
But for the few months that Chandrasekhar was PM, I kept meeting Rajiv to see that his wishes and suggestions were implemented. That is why when Chandrasekhar resigned; Rajiv Gandhi called me to suggest that I join the Congress Party. He even convened a lunch meeting at the residence of a Tamilnadu MP to announce my joining. But the sycophantic behaviour of some Congress men in that lunch put me off. I declined to join then, but I told Rajiv Gandhi at the Lunch that if after the elections he still wanted me to join, I would. But fate willed otherwise. He was assassinated in Sri Perumpudhur on May 21, 1991.
In my view, Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister did many great things. He first introduced the idea of economic reforms. He doubled our defence expenditure, and but for the Bofors scandal, he would have made us a mighty military power. He sent Indian troops for combat to Sri Lanka and Maladives and he showed Nepal its place. He promoted our culture by getting Doordarshan to show Ramayana serial. He also raised our national pride by coining the slogan “Mere Bharat Mahan” and illustrating that on TV through examples to inspire the youngsters.
But he was inexperienced and made many mistakes. His tenure in the opposition had however rounded his personality. Therefore, had he lived and become Prime Minister again he would have become the greatest Prime Minister of India of the 20th Century.
The assassins not only robbed the nation of a leader who could have made for the country a glorious entry into the 21st century, but also robbed me of a very good friend.
My Experience With JayaPrakash NarayanClick To OpenI met JP first in USA in 1968, when he came on a tour sponsored by an American organization – the Quakers. I was then a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and had already made a name in the field having collaborated in research with two of the most famous Nobel Prize Winners, Paul Samuelson of MIT and Simon Kuznets of Harvard. In fact both of these Nobel Laureates had said that I too would get some someday the Nobel Prize if I continued to work on my theory of Index numbers, for which I had already achieved fame. But it was that fateful meeting with JP that changed my life and my profession from teaching to politics. I have never regretted for a moment that decision because of the way JP convinced me to make the sacrifice, during his three days stay with me. I have been filled with a sense of mission since then which has focussed my attention in achieving my political goals. Because of this, I am never discouraged by defeat or delay, nor even much delighted by victory. And again because of this sense of mission acquired from JP, I never give up any fight nor been afraid of consequences. It is thanks to the combination of JP’s political advice, and spiritual blessings of the divine Parmacharya, that I am as tough today as I am never afraid to stand alone, and speak as I feel.
It was sometime in April 1968 that the Harvard University Marshal’s office, which deals with visitors to the campus, telephoned me at my office at the Economics Department. The lady on the phone in a typical American slang said: “There is a guy from India called Mr.J.P.Narayan who is here and wants to meet you as well as the University’s Faculty.” I had as a child in 1940s heard of a leader called ‘JP’ and wondered if this was the same person. I asked the lady to put him on. When he came on the line, I simply asked “Are you the freedom fighter JP?” JP’s voice choked with emotion and said “Oh I am so happy that the younger generation (I was 28 years old then) has heard of me!” I then asked JP to hand back the phone to the Marshal’s office lady. When she came on the line, I instructed her to put JP up at the University’s Faculty Club, and that I would right away go to see him.
Those days I was fired by nationalist ideas such as that could do without foreign aid, that we could afford to build the atom bomb, and that the Aryan – Dravidian theory is a British concoction to divide India. In the 1960s these ideas were considered radical and extreme. So because of this nationalistic fervour, I used to wear “close coat”, modern Indian dress, unlike other Indians who wore tie and shirt. The Americans to their credit never commented on my dress since I was a good economics professor and researcher. It was the Indian’s inferiority complex that made them wear western clothes.
But when I went to see JP at the Faculty Club, I was taken aback to see him a three-piece Western suit and tie. His wife Prabhavati was with him, dressed in a sari and she saw the incongruity. She then admonished JP for wearing western clothes and told me that I had put two Gandhiji’s followers to shame. But JP with his famous sweet smile said “It looks like I have found a new friend”, and simply went back to his room, changed into an Indian Sherwani and Pyjamas. After that, all through the 3 day’s stay, he was in Indian dress.
I acted as a driver for JP during this visit, since he did not have a car. I arranged for him to lecture at Harvard on the current situation in politics in India. Due to the fact, that my father was in the Congress party during the Freedom Struggle, and was associated with Satyamurthi and Kamaraj, I was aware of little facts which I overheard as a child in the drawing room of our house. One such fact which I knew impressed JP greatly. When at a lecture, he asked his audience, “What is the last wish of Mahatma Gandhi?” No one in the audience, consisting 300 Indian and American scholars could answer. Then JP looked at me, and I blurted out that (Gandhiji’s private secretary, Pyare Lal had recorded it as the “Last Will and Testament”), Gandhiji wanted the Congress Party to wound up. He complimented me for keeping such close touch with the history of Freedom struggle despite living abroad for so long.
After the meeting was over, JP asked me to see him at the Faculty Club for dinner. On that occasion, he began urging me to return to India, and join his Sarvodaya movement. He told me how he too, as well as Dr.Ambedkar, had received American education and degrees, but they had sacrificed for the country. He told me about Gandhiji, Nehru, Patel and Subash Bose who gave up their careers for public service. But he urged me not to enter politics, but instead join him in Sarvodaya.
A year later in 1969 I resigned my professorship at Harvard and came to India. After meeting JP in Delhi, I left for Batlagundu in Madurai district to join the Sarvodaya movement, or at least try it for few months. At that time, JP was almost a forgotten person by people of India. I remember going to receive him at the New Delhi Railway station after my return to India. JP was coming to Delhi from Patna by train. At the railway station, except for his Secretary, there was no one else to receive him except me. None recognized JP in the platform after he disembarked from the train.
I left for Batlagundu, Madurai in October 1969 after having lived in comfort in the USA for more than seven years. While life in Sarvodaya was hard, the Sarvodaya leaders in Batlagundu tried to make my life interesting. But what I found was while the people in the villages respected Sarvodaya leaders for their sacrifice, they did not take them seriously. Meantime during my stay, I read Gandhiji’s work in the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi Museum in Madurai city which I often visited to reduce the boredom of living in a village. Gandhiji had clearly advocated in his writing the combining of politics with constructive social work to enthuse the people. But Sarvodaya was purely social work with no politics. Indian society was purely social work with no politics. Indian society, it seemed to me, was not ready to de-politicize anything.
So I wrote to JP after a few months that I could not fit into Sarvodaya as I did not believe that social work without political clout had a future in India. And hence I left Batlagundu for Delhi in early 1970 to become a Professor of Economics at the IIT, Delhi.
JP was very upset with my letter. I little realized that JP had come to the opposite conclusion in 1953 after rejecting Jawaharlal Nehru’s offer of making him the Deputy Prime Minister. JP’s mission from 1953 was to liquidate politics. He had advocated party less democracy and panchayati raj based on non-political Sarvodaya. My letter was thus in effect saying that JP had wasted his life since 1953, and JP was satisfied in feeling hurt.
JP wrote me a stiff and cold letter in reply, saying that he was disappointed with me. He did not reply to any of my letters thereafter. But in July 1972, 2 1/2 years later I received a telegram from JP. He was recuperating from a heart attack at Tipponagondahalli near Bangalore. In the telegram, he invited me to join a small get together of his friends to discuss “an important matter”.
So I went to Tipponagondahalli to see JP. There about 15 top Sarvodaya leaders were camping. We all stayed together and discussed many issues. In one session, JP posed a question. He asked: If Indira Gandhi imposes military rule, what should be his role? Or what can he do to stop it?
While all Sarvodaya leaders advocated fasting or writing letters or something passive. I was the only one to suggest to every one’s shock, that JP had committed a mistake in giving up politics, and that he should correct for it by entering it now. Every Sarvodaya leader in the meeting condemned me for saying this, and exhibiting my immaturity. But to everyone’s surprise, JP in his concluding speech agreed with me that for stopping the
dictatorship of Indira Gandhi, he had to re-enter politics. He said emotionally; “Dr.Swamy is courageous. He is not afraid of speaking the hurtful truth. I agree with him. At the appropriate date. I have decided to enter the political arena”. Thus I can truly say that the germ of the idea to oppose the coming Emergency and create the Janata Party was planted in JP’s mind by me.
By 1974, JP was fully into the political movement to oppose Mrs.Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule which he was certain would come in the form of military rule. Throughout 1974-75, JP was never in Delhi without giving me a telephone call and asking me to meet him. He made me a member of the national coordination committee of political parties, even though I was a junior in politics. The first meeting of Kamaraj with JP was fixed by me. This was in November 1974 and all the papers had the photograph of the three of us.
On the morning of June 25, 1975 ( the day before Mrs. Gandhi declared ‘Emergency’) , I got an urgent call from a political leader who said that for the crucial evening rally for that day in Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds, JP and Morarji Desai were locked in a quarrel, and no one had the guts to talk to either. Morarji Desai was in high spirits because his fast for Gujarat Assembly polls had led to a formation of Janata Front Government in the elections. Morarji was a strong disciplinarian and disapproved of JP’s unpunctual schedules. This quarrel was because the public meeting had been announced for 5 PM that evening. It was a hot summer, so JP said he would arrive at the meeting at 8 PM. Morarji quarrelled on that, saying that if meeting was for 5 PM, JP and he must both turn up on time. “Why are we spoiling people’s habits that we don’t mean what to say?” So it was left to me to persuade JP to come on time, since all political leaders knew the soft corner JP had for me. This situation helped me to get properly introduced to Morarji. But becoming friends with Morarji was not easy, since he thought I was too young (I was 35 years old then) to mingle with “seniors”. He kept telling me “You are Americanized. You are too frank for Indian political culture”. This, coming from Morarji who had been criticized for being too blunt, surprised me!
But I finally made the two giants agree to a joint appearance at 6 PM at that historic Ramlila Grounds rally, which was later cited by Mrs.Indira Gandhi as the reason for proclaiming the Emergency (JP, it was alleged had, at that rally, incited the Army to rebel against Indira Gandhi. As an eyewitness I can say this was a lie). Morarji Desai was so impressed with my patience in handling the issue that he asked me to sit with him in the rally. In his autobiography (Volume III), Morarji has reproduced a photograph of the rally, with me sitting with JP and him.
That night I had a dinner with JP alone. He was very emotional. He said military rule was certain, and I must fight. “You have necessary guts and friends all over the world. So you must organize the fight abroad”. I really thought that JP was being unnecessarily alarmist. But he was right. Next morning a policeman, who shall remain anonymous, called me at 4.30 am. He said JP has been arrested and unless I left my residence, I too will be.
Remembering JP’s previous night advice, I went underground. All through the Emergency, despite being declared a “proclaimed offender”, and having the highest reward for my arrest, Indira Gandhi’s police could not catch me. That is another story I will write about later. But I opposed the Emergency tooth and nail as JP had wanted me to do.
When I next met JP, it was in 1977 after the Emergency. He has been transformed from zero of 1970 to national hero. He was very pleased to see me, but I could not get anytime to talk with him as before. The crowds were everywhere. Old socialists reclaimed him, and hailed him as theirs. Even RSS almost made him their leader. Till 1979, I met JP off and on. In our brief meetings, he sentimentally referred to our 1972 Tipponagondahalli meeting. He also complained about Morarji to me. I tried to patch up, but the forces pulling them apart were much stronger. JP had specially called me to the Gandhi Peace Foundation, when he and Acharya Kriplani selected Morarji Desai and not Jagjivan Ram. JP made me sit with him throughout as leader after leader came in to give their view. I got a real political training in witnessing this event. JP was very clear that Morarji Desai should be PM for the first 2 1/2 years. But everyone knew Morarji was too strong headed to accept any conditions. So ultimately JP relented, Morarji was made PM.
My last talk of great substance with JP was in 1979 in Patna when the Janata had broken up. He was literally in tears and in bad health. “My beautiful garden of flowers (Janata) has been made a desert”, he cried. He then put his hand on my arm, and said “But you must mobilize the younger generation to keep the Janata flag flying. “Promise me”. I have kept the promise. When the BJP was formed by further splitting the Janata, I did not desert the Janata. When in 1984, Chandrasekhar in a fit of rage for opposing him in a Presidential contest expelled me from the party, I waited for an opportunity to make friends with him, and return to Janata. In 1989, when everyone including Chandrasekhar deserted the party to join Janata Dal, I stayed out with Deve Gowda (later in 1992 Gowda too deserted the Janata for the Dal). I have stuck with Janata because of the promise I had made to JP, and tried to rebuild it. But JP had formed the Janata for an ideology of decentralization. Today JP’s victory is that his ideology is accepted by everybody.
Even though his baby, the Janata Party, has not regained the 1977 glory, the ideology has triumphed. His arch opponent, the Congress Party has lock, stock and barrel accepted JP’s ideology. That is his victory. For this we should thank Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao.
When I look at JP’s personality now, what strikes me in his simplicity and straight forwardness That is what made him great. If Gandhiji symbolizes Freedom, JP symbolizes that spirit of democracy. It was an honour to have known him so closely.
My Meetings With Great Personalities – Indira GandhiClick To OpenI entered politics in a formal way in 1974. In these 22 1/2 years of public life, I have personally been in close touch with many great names of contemporary history. Today’s younger generation know of these names, but have little idea or depth of knowledge of their contribution to our or world history. So I thought I will write a series of short articles about these personalities and about what made them great. The names that every household has heard of are such as Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, etc.. I shall write about each of these leaders by turn. Today I will write about Mrs.Indira Gandhi, who was Prime Minister of India for 16 years. I first met Mrs.Gandhi at Brandeis University in the USA in the year 1965, some months before the Indo – Pak war of 1965. She was then Information and Broadcasting Minister in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet, and was visiting the University to speak to an audience about Jawaharlal Nehru who had died the previous year. In 1962, I had arrived as a Ph.D (Economics) student at the world famous Harvard University, and within six months I had broken the record by qualifying in the Ph.D general examination in the shortest time. Soon I joined the Harvard University as a professor, and my scholastic record became famous. Brandeis University, to where Mrs.Indira Gandhi had come was only 32 kilometres away. So she asked my very good friend Ashok Kalelkar studying at nearby MIT, whom Mrs.Gandhi knew because he was the grandson of Kakasaheb Kalelkar, noted freedom fighter of Gujarat, to bring me to meet her at the Brandeis University guest house where she was staying. Our meeting lasted half hour. I had to leave for attending to my lectures; otherwise I would have stayed longer. Mrs.Gandhi liked the company of highly qualified persons who had distinguished themselves. At that time, I was already a 25 year old Harvard Professor, something to be proud of. The topics Mrs.Gandhi talked with me were only two. One was how to make Rajiv and Sanjay, both in Britain to study harder. She asked me how to motivate them. It was quite clear that she was disturbed by her two sons’ non-serious attitude to studies, and wanted tips from a Professor. The other topic Mrs.Gandhi talked to me was how people, whom Nehru had helped so much, had so quickly forgotten him. She said bitterly to me “you know, we Indians are by character ungrateful people. That is why no one wants to help anyone else”. This remark I never forgot. Much of Mrs. Gandhi’s actions later as Prime Minister, such as declaring Emergency came from this bitter thought of her’s. I next saw Mrs. Gandhi as Prime Minister in 1968, aboard an Air India flight to New York. In those days, Prime Ministers did not charter flights but travelled First Class as a passenger. I was still a Harvard Professor then, and when she saw me boarding the flight at Rome, she recognized me. We sat side by side till Frankfurt, which was about one hour. I talked to her about why India should make the atom bomb. She heard me patiently till I said to her “If you don’t prepare India’s defence against China, you will be repeating the mistakes of your father”. At that she flared up, and criticized me for disparaging Nehru without knowing the circumstances. She was particularly harsh on Morarji Desai, who she said as Nehru’s Finance Minister, refused to allot enough money for defence. Interestingly at that time, Desai was Mrs.Gandhi’s Finance Minister too! But I did not argue. However when she returned to India, I was happy that she began opposing the NPT nuclear treaty. In 1970, I resigned my Harvard Professorship and returned to India. Mrs. Gandhi by then had split the Congress and with the help of the communists had become ultra-socialist. I was against state control and monopoly. So I became her critic, soon entered Parliament to oppose her tooth and nail. During Emergency, I had escaped to America to campaign against the human rights violations. Today it may be surprising but it is worth recounting that when Mrs. Gandhi tried to force me to return by asking the US Government to cancel my visa, and failed, she had asked Sri.Chandraswami to go to USA and use his influence with President Jimmy Carter who he knew personally. Chandraswami did go, but my influence through my Harvard colleagues was stronger, so he too failed. He became my friend later in 1988, when he fell foul of Rajiv Gandhi on Bofors. After Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in 1980, she became friendly with me again. We used to meet often in her parliament office or corridors for a brief chat. She became especially warm towards me after I helped to get the Chinese government to deny Assam militants sanctuary in Tibet. I also got the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping whom I met in 1981 to agree to reopening the holy Kailash and Mansarovar area to Hindu pilgrims. She was very much impressed with these achievements and suggested to me to be friendly to Rajiv Gandhi, who was reluctant to enter politics. She had obviously also talked to Rajiv, because he and I became friends very quickly thereafter. My last meeting with Mrs.Gandhi was in August 1984. She and I had many verbal duels in LokSabha over her Punjab policy. In fact, Chandrasekhar and I were the only two MPs who had condemned Operation Bluestar. I had even met her in April 1984, and had warned her of the dangers of military action. When she saw me in August 1984, she gave me a motherly squeeze of my fore arm and said “Swamy, you were right. The Sikhs will never forgive me.” She also enquired me what my plans were for the Lok Sabha elections, because Chandrashekar as Janata Party President had expelled me from the party for challenging him for the post in the party elections. I understood her hint. I said to her: “I will come and discuss with you after the Parliament session is over”. I never saw her again. She was assassinated on October 31, 1984. My recollection of her today is that she was a very nationalistic person, but insecure about betrayal. She had a vision to make India great, but lacked the political associates to carry it out.
The LTTE Shadow Over India Published In The Hindu Dt 19.09.05Click To OpenThe LTTE shadow over India
Subramanian Swamy
THE ASSASSINATION of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has exposed the fault lines in India’s policy towards the internationally proclaimed terrorist organisation, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. On the one side, the Indian Government has banned the LTTE as a terrorist organisation. On the other side, despite the continuing assassinations, India does not oppose the “peace dialogue” of the Sri Lankan Government with the LTTE, talks that could end up legitimising the terrorist outfit and making the ban meaningless.
Although the LTTE has officially denied any involvement in the Kadirgamar assassination, such a denial cannot be taken seriously. The organisation has always denied its involvement in terrorist activity — murder, arson, extortion, drug trafficking, and so on. The LTTE denied any part in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. However, the Supreme Court of India, in its 400-page judgment delivered on May 12, 1999, laid bare what a huge lie that was.
`Stockholm Syndrome’
That security failed to secure the neighbourhood of the Foreign Minister’s residence despite his being high on the LTTE’s hit list is clear evidence that the Sri Lankan authorities are suffering from the `Stockholm Syndrome’ of capitulating to tormentors. They are wholly incompetent to deal with the murderous LTTE. The Sri Lankan President’s first reaction was that the island government, despite the assassination of the Foreign Minister at his residence in the capital, would not suspend the so-called peace talks with the killers — a further indication of the tragic syndrome at work. Sri Lanka seems to have lost its collective nerve to combat and confront terror.
India needs to consider what to do to remove the fault line in its policy towards the LTTE — and thus secure its geographical neighbourhood. The LTTE, which could be legitimised through the agency of an inane Norwegian facilitation, is a menace not only to Sri Lanka’s integrity, but also to India’s national security. The Tigers have links with India’s terrorists such as the Maoists and ULFA, and with the ISI of Pakistan and even Al Qaeda and with separatist Indian political parties. Even if the Congress shows scant interest in bringing Velupillai Prabakaran to justice, patriotic Indians cannot forget either Rajiv’s martyrdom or the LTTE’s unforgivable perfidy. India has to fix Prabakaran some day by bringing him to justice for his lack of respect for India’s sovereignty.
India has a national security imperative and an unavoidable moral obligation to get involved to help free the island nation of the LTTE’s treacherous terror. I thus see four specific reasons behind this obligation:
First, India trained the LTTE in the 1980s. The country has to atone for this by actions to disband and unravel the Frankenstein monster it helped create. Secondly, despite enjoying India’s hospitality for years, and after welcoming the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement in 1987, the Tigers betrayed India by killing more than 1000 personnel of the Indian Peace Keeping Force sent to the island to enforce the accord. The betrayal and loss of lives of our valiant jawans have to be avenged to keep up the morale of the Indian armed forces.
Thirdly, as the Home Ministry’s 2005 Annual Report to Parliament points out, the LTTE has been targeting pro-Indian Sri Lanka politicians and assassinating them. The latest is of course Kadirgamar. For India, the most heinous act is the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. A trial court has declared Accused No.1 Prabakaran a proclaimed offender, and the Interpol has issued a Red Corner Notice for apprehending him. India is thus obligated to search for Prabakaran — and to immobilise the LTTE and deter it from engaging in any murderous and terrorist activities against India and Indian interests.
Fourthly, the LTTE interferes in the internal affairs of India by financing certain Indian politicians, providing training to Indian militant and extremist organisations, and extending insurgency infrastructure to bandits such as Veerappan. It also launders black money from India through its illegal Eelam Bank in the Jaffna area. India cannot allow such erosion of law and order within its own borders.
To discharge these obligations, what must India do? Obviously, it cannot depend on Sri Lankan governments of today or the near future to bring the LTTE to book. Sri Lankan political parties are either capitulationist or chauvinist. The recent pact of Mahinda Rajapakse, Prime Minister and presidential candidate, with the JVP that if voted to power he will defend the present failed unitary constitution is a retrograde step. This shows the Tamils are squeezed between the devil and the deep sea.
India’s first move should be to initiate action to revive the hunt for those of the LTTE who need to be prosecuted under Indian law. This includes Prabakaran and his intelligence chief Pottu Amman — and whoever has tried to help them to escape the arm of India’s law enforcement.
In 1998, Parliament set up under the Central Bureau of Investigation a multidisciplinary monitoring agency (MDMA) to hunt for these wanted persons. But the National Democratic Alliance Government waffled and failed to pursue the matter. The present United Progressive Alliance Government has done even worse. When President Chandrika Kumaratunga came to India recently, India went along with the proposal to take on board the LTTE as a party in the tsunami relief work and have its share in the $ 3 billion international aid commitment.
The time has come to energise the MDMA, to get it moving to apprehend the wanted criminals, in unconventional ways if necessary. Further, India must assist and nurture the democratic elements in the Sri Lankan Tamil population.
These include those who have demonstrated the capacity to stand up to the LTTE (such as S.C. Chandrahasan, and the breakaway LTTE group that opposed Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, namely, the Karuna group), to form a non-violent and democratic alternative to work out with the Sinhala majority a federal constitution that would serve the purpose of power sharing. Thirdly, LTTE sleeper cells in Indian cities need to be identified and put out of action. At present, terrorists of various hues are active in several States and Union Territories.
One day, these terrorists and the LTTE sleeper cells may coordinate and cause a huge bloody incident. India must guard against such contingencies through pre-emptive action.
The time has come for India effectively to contribute to the war against terrorism and in the promotion of democracy by targeting the LTTE sincerely and effectively in the larger interest of security and national integrity.
(The writer is a former Union Law Minister.)
Brief Report Of Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha ConferenceClick To Open
FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY (Part-I)Click To OpenHINDU DHARMA ACHARYA SABHA
Second Meeting, October 16, 17, 18, 2005
in Mumbai, Maharashtra
Text of the Speech
By
Dr.SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY Ph.D(Harvard)
Chairman, Centre for National Renaissance, New Delhi
Fmr.Union Cabinet Minister for Commerce, Law & Justice
A-77 Nizamuddin East
New Delhi-110013
e-mail: [email protected]
web: www.indiaright.org
Tel: 91 98101 94279
Address of Dr.Subramanian Swamy, Chairman, Center for National Renaissance, New Delhi to Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha Second Meeting at Mumbai on October 18, 2005.
FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY
AND
THE CONCEPT OF HINDUSTAN
His Holiness Dayananda Saraswati, and Heads of Mutts and Mandaleshwars and revered Acharyas. I thank His Holiness for the opportunity to address you all today.
I
Hinduism, known as sanatana dharma is uniquely world’s unbroken, continuous and longest in time, and is a religion constituted by its theology, cultural ethos, and civilizational history. India’s Hindu society is founded on the content of these three constituents. Hindustan, as India is known abroad even today[e.g., Yindu guo in Chinese, Hind in Arabic], as a concept is defined as a nation of Hindus and those others in the nation who accept that their ancestors are Hindus and revere that legacy. Parsis, Jews, Syrian Christians come in a special category of Hindustanis, those who were welcomed by Hindus since they came to Hindustan seeking refuge from persecution in their own lands abroad, and who willingly accepted to abide by, and adopt certain cultural customs of Hindus. To the credit of Parsis, they have never demanded any special privileges as a minority. They had even rejected privileges and quotas offered to them by the British imperialists saying that they were comfortable with Hindus.
Over the last two millenniums, Hindu religion has been subjected to threats several times from other religious groups, but these threats have been met, the challenges faced and overcome.
Well before the birth of Christianity and Islam, Hindu religion had been intellectually dethroned by Hinayana Buddhism. But Adi Sankaracharya rethroned Hinduism through his famous shastrathas[religious debate] and caused a renaissance in Buddhism itself, which then came to be known as Mahayana Buddhism, conceptually in complete harmony with, if not indistinguishable from, Hindu theology. In south India, the azhwars and nayanmars also through shastrathas repositioned Hinduism after de-throning Jainism and Buddhism. Since then the Hindu dharmacharyas have always been looked up to when Hindu society faced a threat or crisis, for guidance to meet the challenge to the Hindu religion. Today, we again need the revered acharyas to show us the way. Hence this Sabha is of vital importance for the future of the nation.
II
Hindu ethos provided for sanctuary and home to those of other faiths fleeing from their countries due to religious persecution. As I stated earlier, Parsis, Jews and Syrian Christians are among those religious groups who had sought refuge in India, and survived because the Hindus looked after them. These three religious communities have had and have today a disproportionate share in power and wealth in Indian society, but Hindus have no resentment about it. These minorities had come to India in search of peace and found safe haven in the midst of Hindu society. Parsis migrated elsewhere in the world too, but disappeared as a community in those countries. Jews have openly acknowledged that India as the only country where they were not persecuted. Syrian Christians too are today completely integrated into India. Even early Arab Muslim travelers who came peacefully to settle in Kerala were taken into Hindu families, and hence called Mapillai[meaning son-inlaw-- Moplah in English]. That is the glorious Hindu tradition, the ethos of compassion and co-option that is unparalleled in world history.
However, militant Islam and later crusading Christianity came to India, and aggressively challenged Hinduism. They seized power in sequence and established their own state in India. But despite state patronage to the ensuing onslaught, plunder and victimisation, those of Hindu faith could not be decimated, and Hinduism remained the theology of the vast Indian majority.
Defiant Hindus suffered persecution and economic deprivation during Islamic and Christian reigns, such as through differential taxation [e.g., jezia and zamindari land revenue appropriation] and plain brutality, but Hindus by and large refused to capitulate and convert. Even after almost a thousand years of such targeting by Muslims and Christian rulers, undivided India in 1947 was more than 75% Hindu. This was partly because of the victorious Vijayanagaram, the Sikh reign, and Mahratta kingdoms, and later the Freedom Movement, each inspired by sanyasis such Sringeri Shankaracharya, Swami Ramdas, Guru Nanak, Swami Vivekanada and Sri Aurobindo, who by their preaching about the Hindu identity ensured that the flame of Hindu defiance never dimmed. It was also due to individual defiance of Hindus such as of Rana Pratap, Rani Jhansi, Rani Bennur, Kattaboman and Netaji Subhas Bose. These icons are admired not because they led us to victory[ in fact they were defeated or killed], or had found out a safe compromise [they did not], but because of their courage of conviction in the face of huge odds not to submit to tyranny. That courageous defiance is also is part of Hindus’ glorious legacy. But those who capitulated like Raja Man Singh or Jai Chand or Pudukottai Raja in order to live in pomp and grandeur are despised today by the people.
III
In 1947, temporal power was defacto restored to the Hindu majority. But the Indian state formally adopted secularism, which concept however was never properly defined or debated. For example, it left vague what an Indian’s connection was with the nation’s Hindu past and legacy. In the name of secularism, it was taboo for a public servant even to break a coconut or light a oil lamp to inaugurate an official function on the ground that religious symbols must not invade public life. Such orthodoxy was promoted by Jawarharlal Nehru and his Leftist advisers. But then government took over supervision of temples, legislated on Hindu personal laws, and regulated religious festivals, but kept aloof from the Muslim and Christian religious affairs. The secularism principle was foisted on the Hindu masses without making him understand why they had to abide by legislation but not Muslims and Christians.
As a result, the renaissance that had begun in the late nineteenth century to redefine the Hindu identity [in contemporary terms and norms valid in a pluralistic society], was aborted by the confusion thus created in Hindu minds by a vaguely understood concept of secularism.
Electoral politics further confounded the issues arising out of secularism, and hence the Indian society became gradually and increasingly fragmented in outlook and of confused perspective. Hindu society became divided by caste that became increasingly mutually antagonistic. Attempts were made through falsification in history texts adopted for curriculum in the education system to disconnect and disinherit the contemporary Indian from the past glory of Hindu India. The intrinsic Hindu unity was sought to be undone by legitimizing such bogus concepts as Aryan-Dravidian racial divide theory, or that India as a concept never existed till the British imperialists put it together, or that Indians have always been ruled by invaders from abroad. There is no such word as Aryan in Sanskrit literature [closest is ‘arya’ meaning honourable person, and ndot community] or Dravidian [Adi Sankara had in his shasthrath with Mandana Mishra at Varanasi, called himself as a ‘dravida shishu’ that is a child of where three oceans meet, i.e., south India]. The theory was deliberate distortion by British imperialists and propagated by their Indian witting and unwitting mental slaves. Incidentally, the Aryan-Dravidian myth has now been exploded by modern research on DNA of Indians and Europeans conducted by Professor C.Panse of Newton, Mass. USA and other scholars. In light of such new research, the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] service in it’s October 6, 2005 service completely debunked the Aryan—Dravidian race theory stating that: “Theory was not just wrong, it included unacceptably racist ideas” [www.bbc.co.uk, religion & ethics homepage, Thursday, 6/10/05].
Modern India has been sought to be portrayed by foreign interests through the educational curriculum as a discontinuity in history and as a new entity much as are today’s Greece, Egypt or Iraq. That curriculum is largely intact today. On the contrary efforts are afoot to bolster the disparagement of our past in the new dispensation today. A rudderless India, disconnected from her past has, as a consequence, become a fertile field for religious poachers and neo-imperialists from abroad who paint India as a mosaic of immigrants much like a crowd on a platform in a railway junction. That is, it is clandestinely propagated that India has belonged to those who forcibly occupied it. This is the theme around which the Islamic fundamentalists and fraud Christian crusaders are again at work, much as they were a thousand years ago, but of course in new dispensations, sophistication, and media forms. Thus the concept of intrinsic Hindu unity, and India’s Hindu foundation are dangerously under challenge by these forces. Tragically most Hindus today are not even cognizant of it.
The challenge today confronting Hindus is however much more difficult to meet than was earlier in history because the forces at work to erode and undermine Hindu faith, unlike before, are unseen, clandestine, pernicious, deceptive but most of all sophisticated and media-savvy. Tragically therefore, a much more educated and larger numbers of Hindus have been unwittingly co-opted in this sinister conspiracy directed by foreigners who have no love for India and who also see much as Lord Macauley saw in the nineteenth century, that the hoary Hindu foundation of India is a stumbling block for the furtherance of their nefarious perfidious game.
Adherence to Hinduism is also being sought to be diluted in the name of modernity and this dilution is made a norm of secularism. Religion, it is advocated, is personal. To be a good Hindu today is conceptually being reduced to just praying, piety, visiting temples, and celebrating religious festivals. The concept of a collective Hindu mindset is being ridiculed as chauvinist and retrograde, even fundamentalist.
IV
The concept of a corporate Hindu unity and identity however is that of a collective mindset that identifies us with a motherland from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean and it’s glorious past, and the concomitant resolve of it’s representative leadership defined as “chakravartin” earlier by Chanakya, to defend that vision. It is this concept and resolve that is being discarded or is just evaporating under the onslaught of the Nehruvian secularists.
However pious a Hindu becomes, however prosperous Hindu temples become from doting devotees’ offerings, when the nation is in danger it is this collective mindset of the people that matters, and not the piety of the individual in that collective.
Hindu society today lacking a cohesive corporate identity, is thus in the process of becoming fragmented, and hence increasingly in disarray. This fission process is on simultaneously with the reality of millions of Hindus who go to temples regularly or walk to Sabarimalai or participate in Kumbh Mela. This is not what I mean when I speak of Hindu unity to this august gathering today.
I am instead referring to the Hindu consciousness which encompasses the willingness and determination to collectively defend the faith from the erosion that is being induced by the disconnect with our glorious past. What Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chatterjee, Sri Aurobindo, and Subramania Bharati had achieved by raising Hindu consciousness to that end, has now been depleted and dissipated over the last six decades.
Even the patriotic and anguished writings of Dr.Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country have been vulgarized to advocate Hindu society’s disintegration. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar [and published in Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95] Dr. Ambedkar stated: “It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of it’s culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity—the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end”. Ambedkar wrote several such brilliant books, but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him that in the end bitterness drove him to Buddhism.
Thus, if this degeneration and disconnect are not rectified and repaired by a resolve to unite Hindustanis [Hindus and those others who proudly identify with India’s Hindu past], the Hindu civilization may go into a tail spin and ultimately fade away like other civilizations have for much the same reason.
Of course, this sorry state has come about as a cumulative effect of a thousand years past of Islamic invasions, occupation and Imperialist colonization. But we failed to rectify the damage after the Hindus overwhelmingly got defacto power in 1947. For this transfer of power, we sacrificed one quarter of Akhand Hindustan territory to settle those Muslims who could not bear to live or adjust with the Hindu majority.
That is, by a failure to usher a renaissance after 1947 India lost her opportunity to cleanse the accumulated dirt and unwanted baggage of the past. The nation missed a chance to demolish the birth-based caste theory as Ambedkar had wanted to do. The battering that the concept of Hindu unity and Indian identity has taken at the hands of Nehruvian secularists since 1947 has led to the present social malaise. Thus, even though Hindus are above 80 percent of the population in India, they have not been able to understand their roots in, and obligations to, the nation in a pluralistic Hindustani democracy.
Today the sacrilege of Hindu concepts and hoary institutions, is being carried out not with the crude brutality of a Ghazni or Ghori, but with the sophistication of the constitutional instruments of law. The desecration of Hindu icons, for example the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, is being made to look legal, thereby completely confusing the Hindu people, and thus making them unable to recognize the danger, or to realize that Hindus have to unite to defend against the threats to their legacy. We Hindus are under siege today, and we do not know it!! That is, what is truly alarming is that Hindu society could be dissembled today without much protest since we have been lulled or lost the capacity to think collectively as Hindus.
To resist this siege we first need Hindu unity. Numbers [of those claiming to be adherents to Hinduism] do not matter in today’s information society. It is the durability and clarity of the Hindu mindset of those who unite that matters in the forging of an instrument to fight this creeping danger.
For example, we had a near disaster in Ayodhya recently. Pakistan–trained foreign terrorists slipped into India and traveled to Ayodhya to blow up the Ram Mandir. Their attempt was foiled by courageous elements of the police. But did the representative government of 870 million Hindus of India react in a meaningful way, that is retaliate to deter future such attacks? Did anyone raise it in Parliament and demand deterrent retaliation? On the contrary, the Prime Minister assured Pakistan that the peace talks will not be affected by such acts. But what retaliation was there to be for the sponsors of those terrorists who dared to think about blowing Sri Ram’s birth place?
Hindus are thus being today systematically prepared for psychological enslavement and conceptual capture. Indians are being subtly brain-washed. Hindus are being lulled, while Muslims and Christians are being subject to relentless propaganda that they are different, and are citizens of India as would be a shareholder in a company run for profit.
We Hindus cannot fight this unless we first identify what we have to fight. We cannot effectively respond unless we understand the nature and complexity of the challenge. What makes the task of defending Hinduism much more difficult today is that the oppressors are not obvious maraudring entities as were Ghazni, Ghori, or Clive. The means of communication and the supply of funds in the hands of our enemies are multiples of that available in the past, for camouflaging their evil purposes.
…Contd II
FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY (Part-II)Click To Open
V
My contention here today is that Hindus are facing a four dimensional siege and this siege is pernicious, clandestine, deceptive and sophisticated. It requires an enlightened Hindu unity to combat the threats and get the siege lifted. We have to begin by first understanding the content and scope of the siege before we Hindus can unite to battle it. These four dimensions are:
[1] The clandestine defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions.
Making Hindus to lose their self esteem by disparaging their tradition, which also had been the strategy of British imperialists for the conquest of India. Speaking in British Parliament, Lord Macauley said on February 2, 1835 the following:
“Such wealth I have seen in this country [India], such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which [backbone] is her spiritual and cultural heritage. And therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation”.
That basic strategy of those who want to see a weak and pliant India remains. Only the tactics have changed. Now the target is the Hindu institutions and Hindu icons, and the route is not the creation of a comprador class to subdue the nation, but fostering a psychological milieu to denigrate the heritage and to delink the Hindu from his past legacy thereby causing a loss of self esteem and a pride in the nation’s past. There are already many examples of this happening.
A false murder case was foisted on the Acharyas of the 2500 year old Kanchi Mutt. Most Hindus have watched it as spectators, and with nagging doubts about the truth, and in fact about the Acharyas themselves. The Supreme Court has however held that the case has “no worthwhile prima facie evidence…” [Court records: (2005) 2 Supreme Court Cases 13, para 12, page 20] and that the alleged confessions of other accused persons implicating the Acharyas “have very little evidentiary value” [para 10]. The case thus is without basis and is bogus because since then the TN police has failed to uncover any further or new evidence to sustain the case. That the apex Court has found the foisted case as without prima facie merit should itself have galvanized the people against the offending authorities. It has not, because Hindus lack the mindset and guidance to retaliate against the willful and disguised defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions. Instead like parrots most Hindus mouth the phrase that “law must take it’s course”. Where is the law in this? Nor did a single Muslim or Christian organization or their leaders condemn this atrocity, exposing secularism as a one-way obligation of Hindus.
That the obvious perpetrator of this blasphemous atrocity on Hindu religion’s hoary institution is the head of the TN state government, one who also claims to be a good Hindu because she regularly visits temples, has only helped to further confound the already confused Hindu mind from responding.
That this atrocity could not have been heaped on the Mutt without the aid and abetment, or even the instigation of the power behind the throne in Delhi, a devout foreign-born Catholic, has not even evoked any anger amongst the Hindus.
Instead the majority of Hindus have been just passive or satisfied discussing gossip i.e., whether there was some land dispute of the Mutt with the government that triggered it or a money angle row with a politician in power to motivate the misuse of state machinery to frame a Shankaracharya on a murder charge! It is incredible that in a nation of 80 percent Hindus, the democratically elected state government dared to foist a bogus case on a Shankaracharya, and without a spontaneous uproar and mass protest by Hindus. That this atrocity could be the beginning of further assault on the foundation of the Hindu religion to defame and discredit it, should have jolted the Hindus into a fierce protest.
Otherwise, the current Hindu apathy will encourage further assault on Hindu institutions. It is already happening and there is no time to lose. Further assault is also in progress. In July 2005, an uncouth official of the TN Government’s HR&CE Ministry blocked the Kanchi Shankaracharyas from entering the holy Shiva temple in Rameshwaram because, the official said, the acharyas had criminal cases pending against them. Leave aside the fact that anyone is presumed to be innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or that Ms. Jayalalitha, the CM herself is clothed from head to foot in criminal cases, what is significant is the audacity of an official in a 80% Hindu populated country to block a Shankaracharya from performing his god ordained puja duties. His HR&CE counterpart In Andhra at Tirumala has pontificated recently that the Tirumala hills except a small portion do not belong to Lord Venkateswara, making a mockery of agama shastras.
The state government of Karnataka for example, soon after the Kanchi acharyas’ arrest, blatantly patronized the congregation of a Benny Hinn who is under US Internal Revenue Service investigation. US Christian organizations such as the Trinity Foundation have exposed him as a fake. Yet in the admiring presence of the Karnataka Chief Minister with his Ministers in tow, and Central Government Ministers, Benny Hinn was allowed to usurp the Bangalore Air force campus and hold a rally to denounce Hindu concepts and demonstrate his “cure” of the hopelessly and terminally ill or handicapped persons just by placing his hand, in the name of Jesus, on their heads. Bangalore police officers later told the media that the whole exercise was a fraud since the “ailing “ persons were trucked in from Erode in TN a week earlier and trained to fake the ailments and the cry of being cured on stage. Of course they were well paid for this deception. Such obscurantism was however extolled by the Congress Party leaders, while mouthing secularism. Benny Hinn in the end publicly boasted that a “friend of Sonia Gandhi” had helped to clear the way to make the Bangalore event possible.
The existence of nexus had thus tumbled out. Taking a cue other foreign Christian missionaries in trouble with the law such as Mr. Ron Watts, made a pilgrimage to Delhi and received relief from law enforcers on the same patronage.
These visiting fraud Christian missionaries have the intellectual endorsement for proselytizing activities from well established Christian leaders. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict of Vatican, which makes him an acknowledged leader of Catholics world over, had released a Vatican document in 1997 titled Dominus Jesus in which both Hinduism and it’s sister religion Buddhism have been denounced. While releasing the document, the Pope has been quoted as saying that Hinduism offers “false hope” and is “morally cruel” since it is based on the concept of reincarnation that resembles “a continuous circle of hell”. He denounced Buddhism as “auto erotic spirituality”. US based evangelist Pat Robertson has declared that to liberate Hindus from their bondage, “missionaries will seek to convert 100 million Hindus” over the next few years.
For achieving this goal, even tainted money is welcome for any missionary from abroad. Thus, Mother Theresa whose proselytizing activities was perhaps the most camouflaged of all foreign missionaries in India, once wrote to a US Court judge, Judge Ito of Los Angeles not to hold guilty one of her contributors by name Charles H. Keating Jr. who was on trial in his court for criminally defrauding nominees of 17,000 persons of $ 252 million [about Rs.1200 crores]. Mother Theresa’ plea to the judge was that since Mr. Keating had donated millions of dollars to her Missionaries of Charity he should be let off and not be found guilty or even be prosecuted!
The judge asked the Deputy District Attorney [equivalent of assistant public prosecutor in India] to reply to her letter. Mr.Paul Turley wrote back to her giving the details of the case [by then Mr.Keating was found guilty and convicted of fraud]. Mr.Turley in his letter advised Mother Theresa as follows: “Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly have returned the stolen property to the rightful owners. You should do the same. Do not keep the money”. Mother Theresa did not in fact hesitate at all. She kept the ill gotten money and ignored the advice!
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, in 2002-03 private bodies with FCRA permission had received Rs.5046 crores as contribution from abroad. In 2005-06 it is estimated by insiders these contributions at Rs.7500 crores, of which two-thirds was going to Christian missionary organizations. This hefty sum has been used essentially for conversion and to defame Hinduism. Without defamation of Hinduism, conversion is not easy for these missionaries.
Another route to defame Hinduism is the textbook portrayal of Hindu society. Already Swami Ramakrishna Parmahans has been described in disparaging terms in government prescribed text books. Traitor Raja Jai Chand has been described as a hero, and Prithviraj as a coward! Since English language provides a fast track channel to India from abroad for propagation of ideas, books rubbishing Hindu gods and goddesses, sanyasis, and other icons are being published abroad and imported for use in India’s public schools. Lord Ganesha has repeatedly been portrayed in most hurtful terms. Shiva linga has been ridiculed.
Hence this august Acharya Sabha assembled here in Mumbai should resolve to fight this and other such atrocities on Hindu symbols and institutions by aiding mass Hindu mobilization against it.
[2] Demographic restructuring of Indian society.
People of India who declare in the Census that they are adherents of religions born on Indian soil, that is Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains constituted 84.21% of the total Indian population in 2001. In 1941, the proportion adjusted for Partition was 84.44%. This figure hides the fact that Hindus resident in undivided Pakistan have migrated to post- Partition India which is why the share of Hindus and co-religionists have barely reduced since 1941. In the area now called Bangladesh, Hindus were 30% in 1941. In 2001 they are less than 8%. In Pakistan of today, Hindus were 20% in 1941, and less than 2% in 2001. Such ethnic cleansing has not been noticed by anybody. If the figures are adjusted for this migration, then in the five decades 1951-2001, Hindus have lost more 3 percent points in share of Indian population, while Muslims have increased their share by about 3%. What is even more significant is that Hindus have lost 12% points since 1881, and the loss in share has begun to accelerate since 1971 partly due to illegal migration from Bangladesh.
The lack of Hindu unity and the determined bloc voting in elections by Muslims and Christians has created a significantly large leverage for these two religious communities in economic, social and foreign policy making. Although uniform civil code is a directive principle of state policy in the Constitution, it is taboo to ask for it because of this leverage. Politicians fearing backlash anger of Christian and Muslim preachers are also unable to defend the need for continuation of a law to ban religions conversions that occur through inducements and coercion. In the case of Tamil Nadu, in 2004 the US Consul General in Chennai called on the Chief Minister to seek reversal of such a statute [www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35516.htm]. He had been empowered raise this issue by a 1998 Act of US Congress on religious freedom. Incidentally, the AIADMK was administered a blistering defeat in the 2004 Parliament elections by a total consolidation of Muslim and Christian votes against the party because it’s government had got passed such a law. After the elections, a humbled Chief Minister Ms.Jayalalitha capitulated and got the law annulled. I have now put the US administration to test by asking the Ambassador in New Delhi if the US would be even handed by asking the TN Chief Minister whether she will withdraw all the bogus cases foisted on the Kanchi acharyas.
The continued rise in the share of Muslims and Christians in the total population is a threat to the Hindu foundation of the nation. And we have to find ways and means to meet this threat. Kerala is a state where the Hindu population declined from 69% in 1901. In 100 years to 2001, the share has fallen to 56%. Muslims are now 25% and Christians 19%. But Hindus share in agricultural activities has fallen to 24%, while for Christians the share has risen to 40%. For Muslims it is 33%. In commerce and industry too the same proportions obtain, while in foreign employment, Hindus share is just 19%, Muslims 49.5% and Christians 31.5%.
In the land fertile districts of Western UP, from Rampur to Saharanpur, Muslims due to a much higher population growth rate are now 40% of the population. Six of the 14 districts of Assam in the northeast are already Muslim majority, and by 2031, all fourteen will be Muslim majority if present trends of differential population growth rate and illegal migration from Bangladesh continue.
In northeast India, minus Assam, 45.5% of the population is already Christian. Every one of the seven sisters states has a galloping Christian population. Arunachal which had zero Christian population in 1971, now has over 7%.
These two communities today fiercely safeguard their control of institutions spawned on public money besides receiving funds from abroad. Take for example the educational institutions. Jamia Millia Islamia University has been recognised as a central university with liberal government grants. But 88% of the faculty is Muslim. American College, Madurai’s faculty is 66% Christian. It’s junior faculty is 95% Christian. Union Christian College at Aluva, Kerala has 83% Christian faculty. There are no exceptions. All institutions run by Muslims and Christians have grossly disproportionate share of their religionists. It is only recently that Allahabad High Court struck down as unconstitutional the central university, the Aligarh Muslim University’s reserving more than 95 percent of the admissions and faculty positions for Muslims. The Hindu tax payers money was used all these decades to fund the AMU!
Thus, differential application of family planning, non-uniform civil code, illegal migration, and induced religious conversion have together created a serious looming crisis for the Hindu character of the nation. We see what Muslim majority will mean to Hindus when we look at the situation in Kashmir. We can learn from how Muslim majority will treat minorities or even women of Muslim faith when we look around the world and study Islamic nations. This is because Muslim believe the world is divided as Darul Islam where Muslims are in a majority and are rulers, and Darul Harab in which Muslims are in a minority and are entitled by the Koran and Shariat, by hook or crook to transform these countries to Muslim ruled and/or Muslim majority. At present India is viewed as Darul Harab, and unless the Hindu majority compels or persuades the Muslim minority to enter into a contract to live in peace, whence India becomes Darul Ahad, the Muslim population will always play host to fanatics bent upon creating upheaval in India. That is why I am emphasizing that Muslims in India must declare that their origin and ancestors are Hindus, and that Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi. Christians too have their view of the world as divided between heathens who have to be ‘saved’ by conversion and followers of Jesus Christ. Now with the publication of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and revelations about Opus Dei organization, Hindus have to go on high alert about Christian missionaries from abroad. Moreover, patriots concerned with the safeguarding of the Hindu foundation of the nation have to take note that conversion to Christian faith has been put on a war footing by entrepreneurs. In Dallas, Texas USA, the Global Pastors Network [GPN] held a conference and resolved that over the next fifteen years, the organization will support financially worldwide the construction of five million churches and conversion of one billion persons to Christianity. From India alone, the target is according the Evangelist Pat Robertson, 100 million persons. Hence, Hindus are facing a terrible pincer: Islamic fast population growth and illegal migration, in conjunction with Christian money– induced conversion activities.
Hence, Hindus have to hang together or ultimately be hanged separately. This is no inflamed psychosis. Not long ago, despite being the overwhelming majority, Hindus had to pay discriminatory taxes to the Muslim and Christian emperors who were ruling India. Lack of unity was the reason, and not poverty. In fact when the onslaught and enslavement took place, India was the richest country in the world. Within 150 years thereafter we were reduced to the poorest in the world. Now if the demographic restructuring described herein goes on unchecked, then the danger becomes several fold than before. This Acharya Sabha may therefore please address this issue and give a guideline to the Hindu society.
[3] The Rise of Terrorism Directed at Hindus
If one were to study the terrorism in Kashmir and Manipur, it is apparent that Hindus have been the special target. The driving away of the Hindu population from the Kashmir valley by targeted terrorism of Islamic jihadis is the single biggest human rights atrocity since Nazi Germany pogroms against the Jews. Yet it has hardly received noticed in international fora. Why? Hindu population in Bangladesh has declined from 30 percent to less than 8 percent of the total population by deliberate targeted ethnic cleansing by Islamic fanatics aided and abetted by their government[see Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India’s State of Jammu & Kashmir: A Survey of Human Rights, June 17,2005, www.hinduamericanfoundation.org] and yet there is no outcry. Why? This is because of the lack of Hindu mindset to retaliate against atrocities against Hindus. When in 1949, anti-Hindu riots took place in East Pakistan, Sardar Patel had declared that if the government there could not control it, then India was quite capable of putting it down for them. Soon after the riots stopped. Terrorist attacks against India and Hindus in particular thus is growing because we seem today incapable of retaliating in a manner that it deters future attacks.
According to the well known National Counter terrorism Center, a US government body, in it’s report titled A Chronology of International Terrorism for 2004 states that: “India suffered more significant acts of terrorism than any other country in 2004”, a damning comment. India is suffering on an average about 25 incidents of terrorism a month. India’s Home Ministry in it’s 2004-05 Annual report to Parliament acknowledges that 29 of the 35 states and union territories are affected by terrorism. Moreover, all India’s neighbours have become hot-beds for anti-Indian terrorists training.
Because of a lack of Hindu unity and a mindset for deterrent retaliation, terrorists have become encouraged. In 1989, the Indian government released five dreaded terrorists to get back the kidnapped daughter, Rubaiyya, of the then Home Minister. Kashmir terrorists got a huge boost by this capitulation. When the Indian Airlines plane with 339 passengers was hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan, the government again capitulated and released three of the most dangerous terrorists. Today three of the most murderous terrorist organizations in Kashmir are directed by these three freed terrorists. Then there is the case of the LTTE which murdered Rajiv Gandhi. We have made no effort to apprehend the leader of the LTTE who had ordered the assassination. On the contrary, those MPs [of PMK, MDMK, and DMK] who publicly praise that leader and hold the assassination as justified, have become Union Ministers in a coalition led by the widow of Rajiv Gandhi!
Terrorism cannot be fought by appeasement. But that precisely is what the government is doing. Tragically, innocent Hindus have invariably been the victims of this capitulation. To combat terrorism, there has to be a determination to never to negotiate a settlement with terrorists. Citizens of a country have to be educated that there will be hazards when faced with acts of terrorism, but that the goal of the government will always have to be to hunt down the terrorists and fix them. Only under such a zero tolerance policy towards terrorism, will the ultimate good emerge. For example in the Indian Airlines hijack case in order not to risk 339 passengers’ lives the government released Mohammed Azhar from jail. But Azhar went to Pakistan after his release and formed the Jaish-e-Mohammed which has since then killed nearly a thousand innocent Hindus and is still continuing to do so. How has the nation gained by the Kandahar capitulation then?
Hence I appeal to this Acharya Sabha to call upon the national political leadership to treat the fight against terrorism as a dharmayudh, as fight to the finish and a religious duty not to negotiate, compromise or capitulate to terrorists. The government must also safeguard the nation by adopting a policy of “hot pursuit” of terrorists by chasing them to their sanctuaries no matter in which country they are located.
[4] The Erosion of Moral Authority of Governance
The well known organization Transparency International has graded about 140 countries according to the corruption levels from least to the most. India appears near the bottom of the list as among the most corrupt. Recently The Mitrokhin Archives II has been published wherein KGB documents have been relied on to conclude that shamefully “India was on sale for KGB bribes”. If India is the one of the most corrupt countries today and purchasable, it is because the core Hindu values of simplicity, sacrifice and abstinence have been systematically downgraded over the years. Wealth obtained by any means has become the criteria for social status. There was a time in India when persons of learning and simplicity enjoyed the moral authority in society to make even kings bow before them. Not long ago, Mahatma Gandhi and later Jayaprakash Narayan without holding office were here exercising the same moral authority over political leaders. In a very short period, that Hindu value has evaporated. India is fast becoming a banana republic in which everything, person or policy is available to anyone for a price. The proposal, now implemented in some states, to have reservation in government employment for Muslims and “Dalit” Christians is one such sell-out. Reservation quotas are strictly for those whom the Hindu society due to degeneration had suppressed or had isolated from the mainstream. But those who were ruling classes in our nation, such as Muslims and Christians, and that too for a total of 1000 years, cannot claim this facility. But some political parties in reckless disregard for equity and history, have sold out for bloc votes the national interest by advocating for such a reservation proposal. In such a situation the nation’s independence and sovereignty slides into danger of being subverted and then rendered impotent. This has happened before in our history, not when the nation was poor but was the richest country in the world. India then was ahead in science, mathematics, art and architecture. And yet because the moral fibre weakened, all was lost. We had to struggle hard to recover our freedom. But by the time we did, we had lost all our wealth and dropped to the bottom of the list of countries in poverty.
In this time of creeping darkness in our society, there are still venerated souls who draw crowds of people who come on their own expense to hear such evolved souls and follow them. These are our dharmacharyas, many of whom are sitting here in this Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha. Just as Rshi Vishwamitra picked his archers and hunters to put an end to asuras and rakshasas, the same way I urge and implore this Sabha to pick a political instrument to cleanse the body politic of the nation. It cannot be done without Hindu unity in our democracy, and hence formulating a code of ethics and moral principles is essential for creating a meaningful and purposeful Hindu unity. The nation looks to you all on this today, for guidance in this hour of need.
VI
Therefore my call today is first and foremost for the undiluted unity of Hindus, a unity based on a mindset that is nurtured and fostered on the fundamentals of a renaissance [see my website www.indiaright.org for a detailed elaboration]. Only then Hindus can meet the challenge of Christian missionaries and Islamic fundamentalists. I can do no better here than quote Swami Dayananda Sarasvati:
“Faced with militant missionaries, Hinduism has to show that its plurality and all-encompassing acceptance are not signs of disparateness or disunity. For that, a collective voice is needed.”
Non-Hindus can join this Hindustani unity, but first they must agree to adhere to the minimum requirement: that they recognize and accept that their cultural legacy is Hindu, or that they revere their Hindu origins, that they are as equal before law as any other but no more, and that they will make sacrifices to defend their Hindu legacy just as any good Hindu would his own. In turn then the Hindu will defend such non-Hindus as they have the Parsis and Jews, and take them as the Hindustani parivar.
India can be only for those who swear that Bharatvarsh or Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi. Since the task to defeat the nefarious forces ranged today against Hindu society is not going to be easy, we cannot therefore trust those amongst in our midst whose commitment to the motherland is ambivalent or ad hoc or those who feel no kinship to the Hindu past of the nation. We partitioned a quarter of Hindustan to enable those Muslims who could not live with Hindus in a democratic framework of equality and fraternity. Hence only those are true children of Bharatmata who accept that India is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi.
As Swami Vivekananda said to Hindus: “Arise, Awake and Go Forth as Proud Hindus”. But what does being a proud Hindu entail? The core of what it entails can be found by gleaning the writings of our sages and interpreting it in the modern context. I have tried summarizing the distilled wisdom in the following axioms or fundamentals of Hindu unity:
First, a Hindu, and those others who are proud of their Hindu past and origins, must know the correct history of India. That history which records that Hindus have always been, and are one; that caste is not birth–based and nor immutable. India is a continuum, sanatana. That ancient Hindus and their descendents have always lived in this area from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, an area called Akhand Hindustan, and did not come from outside; and that there is no truth in the Aryan-Dravidian race theory. Instead Hindus went abroad to spread learning.
Second, Hindus believe that all religions equally lead to God, but not that all religions are equal in the richness of it’s theological content. Respecting all religions, Hindus must demand from others that respect is a two-way obligation. That is if Hindus are to defend the right of others to adhere to one’s own religion, then other religionists have to stand up for Hindus too. By this criterion, secular attitude, as defined till date has been a one-way obligation for Hindus. Hence Hindus must reject such a concept because of its implied appeasement. At the same time enlightened Hindus must defend and protect vigorously those non-Hindus who identify with the concept of Hindustan, as a nation of Hindus and of those who accept that their ancestors are Hindus. A vibrant Bharatvarsh cannot be home to bigotry and obscurantism since that has never been Hindu tradition or history. But Muslims and Christians shall be part of the Hindustani parivar or family only if they accept this truth and revere it.
Third, Hindus must prefer to lose everything they possess rather than submit to tyranny or to terrorism. Today those in India who submit to terrorists and hijackers must be vehemently despised as anti-Hindus. They cannot be good Hindus merely because they are pious or go regularly to the temple or good Hindustanis just because they are citizens of India.
Fourth, the Hindu must have a mindset to retaliate when attacked. The retaliation must be massive enough to deter future attacks. If terrorists come from training camps in Pakistan, Bangla Desh or Sri Lanka, Hindus must seek to carpet bomb those training camps, no matter the consequences. Today’s so-called self proclaimed “good” Hindus have failed to avenge or retaliate for the attack on Parliament, Akshaya Mandir, Ayodhya, and even a former Prime Minister’s [Rajiv Gandhi’s] assassination. On the other hand those who defend these assassins and praise the terrorist organization behind them are central government Ministers today.
Fifth, all Hindus to qualify as true Hindus must make effort to learn Sanskrit and the Devanagari script in addition to the mother tongue, and pledge that one day in the future, Sanskrit will be India’s link language since all the main Indian languages have large percentage of their vocabulary in common with Sanskrit already.
These five fundamentals constitute the concept of virat Hindu unity, a bonding that Hindus need in order to be in a position to confront the challenge that Hindu civilization is facing from Islamic terrorists and fraud Christian missionaries from abroad, who are also aided and abetted by confused Hindus who have not grasped these fundamentals. Without such a virat Hindu unity and the implied mindset, we will be unable to nullify and root out the subversion and erosion that undermine today the Hindu foundation of India. This foundation is what makes India distinctive in the world, and hence we must safeguard this legacy with all the might and moral fibre that we can muster. In this we can get great moral support from Hindus resident abroad because of their sheer commitment to the motherland. Free from economic constraints, aching for an identity, and well educated, I have seen them organize effectively to challenge the attempts to slander Hindu religious symbols and icon. Overseas Hindustanis have contributed during our Freedom Struggle, the Emergency and in enabling our acharyas to spread the message of the Hindu religion abroad. This has been done without demeaning other religions.
I urge and implore this Acharya Sabha, that since in a democracy the battle is in fighting elections, therefore to resolve to foster a Hindu consciousness that leads to a cohesive vigorous Hindu unity and mindset, so that the Hindustani voter will cast his ballot only for those candidates in an election who will be loyal to a Hindu Agenda drawn up by the Dharmacharyas.
Thank you, I seek your ashirvad and offer my pranams to all the Acharyas present here.
Dr.Swamy Will Be Writing A Column Regularly In Organiser.We Are Please To Republish The Same WebsiteClick To OpenThe Search for a Hindu Agenda
Subramanian Swamy
Organiser
I am happy to be invited by the editor of Organiser to return to writing a column for Organiser. In 1970s I had written with ” missionary” zeal in these columns about the Swadeshi Plan which was about self-reliance and not taking foreign aid, about achieving a 10 percent growth rate in the economy by giving up socialism, and the feasibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. These were radical ideas in those days that angered Mrs. Indira Gandhi and her KGB benefactors. She denounced me on the floor of Parliament and her Minister of Education ensured that not only I but my wife were both sacked from our professorships at the IIT, Delhi. Today, those radical ideas of the 1970s have become mainstream and I stand vindicated.
But the mission is incomplete, because India becoming a global economic power is not enough. To count internationally and get her due place in the world order, India must become thoroughly united with a virile mindset without self-doubt, and undergo a renaissance to cleanse the dirt and unwanted baggage acquired over the past thousand years. Otherwise foreign forces already alerted by India’s recent economic successes and it’s implications will leverage our internal weaknesses and self-doubt to derail the country. Look at the fate of Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Brazil, the shining hope of the 1960s. They are in one crisis after another today and in shambles. And East Asia, the much publicized “Tigers”, had a blowout in 1997, and still to recover. Soviet Union is in 16 separate pieces, a happy development but a warning nonetheless. What happened to Yugoslavia ? It is in four warring pieces. It had happened to us earlier in the eighteeth and nineteenth centuries when we were balkanised. It can therefore happen again. Hence we need a new agenda for change to weld the Indian into one corporate mind and entity. This I shall expound in these columns.
Our nation is, in fact, at a cross roads of history today. To find our destiny and direction all Hindustanis with a patriotic mindset have to come together to combat a common unseen but alien enemy, and not to traverse again the unfortunate and tragic chapter of our past history when we helped the foreigner to get a grip on the nation in order to settle our own petty squabbles.
The last time we set aside our political and personal differences and came together was to fight the Emergency during 1975-77. Had we not done that, in particular Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai had not teamed up with the RSS, despite all their past differences, dictatorship would have prevailed and been legitimized through the ballot box in 1977. We came together and triumphed, and restored democracy. Even if that unity did not last long, the main task of restoring democracy was achieved and the nation saved.
Today, the challenge is much more formidable than it was ever in our history. More important the threat to our national integrity embedded in this challenge is not obvious or crude as was when Mohammed Ghori attacked or Robert Clive plundered the nation. These earlier challenges were single dimensionalat the physical conquest level. Today the challenge is highly sophisticated, multi-dimensional and deceptive.
What is happening today is a very subtle fragmentation of our national consciousness and an induced acquiesance in our outlook to condone or be impervious to whatever wrong is going on. There is, for example, no national will to enforce accountability on the leaders who make patently wrong decisions, which harm the nation. Or bring to book their lifestyle that is inconsistent with the national spiritual ethos.
This state of affairs has come about steadily through one wrong decision after another over the years and a weak mindset of the intelligentsia to tolerate it or explain it away. The first of such decisions with disastrous long term consequences was in 1947, when Nehru decided to go to the UN Security Council on Kashmir which had become by then a part of India in legally iron clad way. The Instrument of Accession had been signed by the Maharaja acceding Kashmir to India. He was legally empowered to do so by the Indian Independence Act passed in June 1947 by the British Parliament, which Act carved out a new nation of Pakistan out of undivided India. That Act also empowered the Princely States to accede to India or Pakistanwithout requiring to ascertain the wishes of the people. There is no dispute about the legality of the Instrument of Accession, and yet Nehru without obtaining his Cabinet’s consent declared that the wishes of the Kashmiri people would be ascertained. By going to the UN, Nehru made Pakistan a party when it could never be legally so. Ironically, if Pakistan questions the validity of the Instrument of Accession then it questions it’s own legal existence since both draw their legitimacy from the same legislationthe Indian Independence Act of 1947. If Kashmir is of disputed status then so will be Pakistan itself. Either both or neither ! What Nehru did, for his personal image in the West, or perhaps to please Edwina Moutbatten, was to weaken the national resolve to cherish the hoary concept of Bharatvarsh, the geographical integrity of Hindustan from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Since then it has been easy to rationalize writing off bits of India, continuously to amputate Mother India, from Aksai Chin, to Northeast to even returning reclaimed Indian territory such as in Hajipir(1965) and Chicken Neck(1972) and now, as Prof. Nalapat writes, soon in Siachen and Sir Creek. Yet Nehru has not been held accountable by succeeding generations. Some even take pride in being known as Nehruvian even today, when he should be despised much as Neville Chamberlain is in Britain.
Then the nation was railroaded into adopting the Soviet economic model on the ground that, as Communists and their fellow travelers in India propagated, there was no inflation, no poverty, and no unemployment in the Soviet Union. The reality today is that there no Soviet Union ! The Soviet model weakened the Indian economy, set us back, and introduced corruption in India as a way of life. This has made us vulnerable again to the foreigner. How that happened I shall deal with in my next column.
Paul Samuelson: A GuruClick To OpenPaul Samuelson: A Guru Subramanian Swamy
If anyone can be called the father of modern analytical and scientific economics, it is Paul A. Samuelson now sadly deceased at 94. Anyone who has read economics, even if in the most fleeting way, cannot but recognise his most perceptive undergraduate economics text-book of all time, in its 19th edition now. When educated people think of analytical economics today, they think of Samuelson. Einstein in fact is the Samuelson of physics.
At his 92, I when last I saw him, he was driving his car in Belmont, Massachusetts, his home area —a small elite town on the suburb of Cambridge, the town of Harvard and MIT and as alert as ever. He stopped upon seeing me on the sidewalk, pulled over and chatted with me about how I was. Since 2000 I have been going back every summer to Harvard to teach two courses in economics and I had been meeting him over a one-to-one lunch at his favourite restaurant in the Charles Hotel complex at Harvard Square. That year I had not yet called him and he was disapproving.
Whenever I met him, I was just his student, which I had been in 1962-63 cross-registering at MIT which Harvard students could do. In every meeting with him I had to answer his rapid fire questions about a series of subjects, and even share delightful gossip. On that summer day on the Belmont sidewalk it was no different.
Later I became his colleague as co-author on the Theory of Index Numbers, published our research in the prestigious American Economic Review[1974] and the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal [1984], but I was still treated as his student to be cared for, and questioned.
Samuelson’s main contribution to modern economics was to use advanced calculus to show that that economics could be structured on clearly stated on observable behaviourial assumptions or axioms, objectives, and then by mathematical deduction deriving economic laws that could be tested on real life statistical data. He thus made economics a subject of scientific inquiry to be truly called a science in the sense that propositions in economics could be ‘proved’ with proofs just as theorems in mathematics were. Mathematical logic and rigour was all, and little else mattered. Gone thus were the days of “Shakespearean” economics of Keynes and Galbraith’s art of expression. Felicity in English no more mattered. Mathematical methods took its place and thereby Samuelson globalised economics by enabling the little English knowing scholars such as the Japanese to join in international discourse and collaboration in research and teaching. Economics thus exploded on the international scene and became fashionable.
Samuelson worked in two dimensions throughout his life. In one dimension, he spoke in homely English about the most complicated economic issues. He thus authored one of the most widely used college textbook in the history of American education. The book, titled Economics, first published in 1948, was the globe’s best-selling textbook for nearly 30 years. Translated into 20 languages, and updated periodically it is selling over 50,000 copies a year a half century after it first appeared. He also wrote a column for Newsweek on current economic topics.
His second dimension was of mathematical rigour that began with his Harvard Ph.D. thesis turned book titled “The Foundations of Economic Analysis”. This is a goldmine for future research even today. When he defended his thesis before a committee of three Harvard Professors, which all Ph.D candidates have to do and pass, the story goes that the chairman of the committee Professor Schumpeter asked his two fellow members after the viva : “Gentlemen, have we passed ?”
Between these two books, Samuelson re-defined modern economics and made it a popular yet a science. For that he became the first American to win the then instituted Nobel Prize in 1970.
The textbook introduced generations of students to the ideas, in simple language of graphs, of John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who in the 1930s developed the theory that modern market economies could become trapped in depression, that a cut in wages would only mean a cut in demand and hence of profit, and thus the downward spiral would continue. And it would then need a strong push from government spending or tax cuts, in addition to lenient monetary policy, to restore the economy. Thus was born the concept of the “stimulus”. Laissez faire made way for modern competitive market economic system in which government had a role to play. In my view this neo-classical economics destroyed socialism as a theory forever. Never again to rest comfortably with the view that private markets could cure unemployment without need of government intervention in terms of stimulus, fiscal, and monetary policies. No need therefore for “commanding heights” of government ownership.
That lesson has been reinforced in 2008, when the international economy slipped into the steepest downturn since the Great Depression when Keynesian economics was born. When the Depression began, governments stood pat or made matters worse by trying to urge wage cuts, to balance fiscal budgets, and erecting trade barriers. But 80 years later, most industrialised countries took corrective action, raising government spending, cutting taxes, keeping exports and imports flowing and driving short-term interest rates to near zero. Samuelson made Keynes immortal and Depression containable.
Paul Antony Samuelson was born May 15, 1915 in Gary, Ind. the son of Frank Samuelson, a pharmacist, and the former Ella Lipton. His family, he said, was ‘made up of upwardly mobile Jewish immigrants from Poland’. His family later moved to Chicago. Young Paul attended Hyde Park High School in Chicago.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Chicago in 1935, he went to Harvard as a graduate student to do a Ph.D.
Among Samuelson’s fellow students at Harvard was Marion Crawford. They married in 1938. Samuelson earned his master’s degree from Harvard in 1936 and a Ph.D. formally in 1941. He wrote his thesis in 1937. In 1940, Harvard offered him an instructorship[ the Harvard equivalent of Assistant Professor which in turn equalled Associate Professor elsewhere], which he accepted, but a month later MIT invited him to become an assistant professor i.e., same rank as Harvard’s Instructor.
But jealousy and some suspect anti-Semitism of the late thirties made Harvard deny promotion to retain him even though he had by then developed an international following. Nobel Laureate Robert Solow, his former student and later colleague at MIT, jokingly said of the Harvard economics department of that time: “You could be disqualified for a job if you were either smart or Jewish or Keynesian. So what chance did this smart, Jewish, Keynesian have?”
Marion Samuelson died in 1978. Samuelson is survived by his second wife, Risha Clay Samuelson and six children from his first marriage.
Fresh from India, and armed with a B.A Honours in Mathematics and Master’s in Mathematical Statistics I first met Samuelson in his office in September 1962 wanting to be his student cross-registering in the most advanced mathematical economics course of MIT. I had arrived in Cambridge town on a Harvard scholarship for a Ph.D., thanks to the recommendation Dr. Tarlok Singh of the Planning Commission which Harvard honoured. Samuelson used to select every year only twenty students, out of about 200 that applied, expecting to groom them as scholars. I wondered then whether I would be chosen.
But by then I was already bit of a sensation in academia because as a M.A. student at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, I had published a research paper in the world’s then most prestigious journal called Econometrica, demolishing using Integral Calculus, P.C. Mahalanobis’ claim to fame called Fractile Graphical Analysis published earlier in the same journal. Mahalanobis who was invited by the editor to rebut my criticism, had no answer.
In Samuelson’s class as his student, once while he was lecturing on the theory of consumer behavior wrote on the blackboard a series of equations to derive a theorem. From my desk I raised my hand and said “You have one equation wrong, so you will not be able to prove the theorem”. There was stunned silence in class. Samuelson then walked to where I was seated and glowered “What did you say ?”. I held my ground and offered to rectify what was a small careless mistake which all geniuses commit on the blackboard in class. He made me go to the blackboard and write out the correct equation which I did. Then sternly he said: “See me after class”. My classmates all thought that was the end of me and one even said to me “have you got your return ticket to India?”
But it was instead the beginning of me and of a relationship. When I saw him after class he said to my utter joy :“I think you and I should write a joint paper some day”. This we did ten years later but he me helped in the interim on a number of my papers published in my own name, and also thanked me in footnotes of his published papers for correcting him or for giving him leads. He, and my thesis adviser Simon Kuznets at Harvard, thus launched my career. I became Teaching Fellow even as a student, then Instructor soon after, breezing through a Ph.D in the shortest possible time of 18 months, and Assistant Professor all at Harvard within three years of my arrival in Cambridge.
Amartya Sen invited me to join the Delhi School of Economics as a full Professor in early 1968 stating in a hand written letter that my “gaddi was being dusted”. I therefore spent three months in the summer of 1968 at the Delhi School of Economics as Visiting Professor, before returning back to Harvard with the intention of winding up and joining as Professor of Economics at the Delhi School. But I did not realize then that the Left triumvirate of Sen, K.N.Raj and S. Chakravarty had in the three months discovered that I was not only not ideologically neutral or soft like Bhagwati, but hard anti-Left and wanted to dismantle the Soviet planning system in India besides producing the atom bomb. So when I arrived in India in late 1969 this triumvirate scuttled my ascending the dusted gaddi. Sen was at his hypocritical best in explaining to me his volte face.
Samuelson was enraged when heard this and perhaps felt empathy because of his own experience in the late thirties at Harvard, and urged me to return. When I returned to Harvard to teach in the 1971 summer, Samuelson told me “Stay here and write a treatise on Index Numbers and you will be worthy of a prize”. But I was in a fighting mood and told him I would return.
Fortunately there was a Professorship open at IIT Delhi. Dr. Manmohan Singh was the Chairman of the Selection Committee. Samuelson with Kuznets[1971 Nobel Laureate] wrote the Committee strong letters of recommendation. Armed with it, Dr. Singh did not wilt under the huge pressure mounted by the triumvirate and I was appointed Professor of Economics in October 1971. But it did not last long. The triumvirate then persuaded Mrs. Gandhi that I was a closet RSS with chauvinist views, and a danger to her. With the KGB favourite Nurul Hasan as Education Minister, I was easily sacked in December 1972 [but re-instated by court in 1991].
I then joined politics since no academic avenues were now open. I continued to return to Harvard for the summer to teach, and got nothing but warmth and welcome from Samuelson each time. During the Emergency, Henry Rosovsky another famous Harvard economist, became Dean and he appointed me Visiting Professor for the year 1976-77. Mrs. Gandhi sent an emissary to him to cancel my appointment! But Henry was no pushover. He maintained that I was still an IIT Professor till the courts in India pronounced on it.
By now Samuelson was convinced that I had responded to a higher call by going into Indian politics. He then encouraged me to fight on. He wrote a powerful column in the Newsweek against the Emergency and even signed a petition of Nobel Laureates to the US President condemning the jailing without trial of 140,000 persons. It was most unusual for him, but it encouraged me to fight on.
Although I did collaborate with him again on Index Numbers in the early eighties, Samuelson remained sympathetic from then on to my choice of a political career over academics. I met him often in the Faculty Club for lunch after I went back to Harvard for a year and half in 1985-86 as Visiting Professor courtesy my friend and famous China scholar Roderick Macfarquhar.
In 1990s after we ushered in reforms, Samuelson wrote me a letter expressing happiness that “at last, India has discovered economic growth”.
Once at a get together I called him my guru and explained the gurukul system of our rishis. He said “Ah ! That is what the US needs”. But Samuelson was already a rishi in the way he treated his chosen students and saw them through difficulties. Thus, I shall remember always as that I was once Samuelson’s chosen student among the many he nurtured in his glorious life.
(PUBLISHED IN HINDU ON 23.12.2009)
Prof. Samuelson: guru extraordinaire
Subramanian Swamy
A chosen student among the many Prof. Paul Samuelson nurtured recalls the teacher’s contributions.
If anyone can be called the father of modern analytical and scientific economics, it is Paul A. Samuelson, who passed away on December 13 at 94. Anyone who has read economics, even in the most fleeting way, cannot but recognise his perceptive undergraduate economics textbook. Think of analytical economics, and you think of Samuelson.
When I saw him last when he was 92, he was driving his car near his home in Belmont, Massachusetts — a small elite town in the vicinity of Cambridge which is home to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — and as alert as ever. He stopped upon seeing me on the sidewalk, pulled over and chatted about how I was. Since 2000 I have been going back each summer to Harvard to teach two courses in economics, and I had been meeting him over a one-to-one lunch at his favourite restaurant at Harvard Square. That year I had not yet called him, and he was disapproving.
Whenever I met him I was just his student, which I had been in 1962-63. At every meeting with him I had to answer his rapid-fire questions about a series of subjects, and even share delightful gossip. On that summer’s day at Belmont it was no different.
Later I had become his co-author on the Theory of Index Numbers, published our research in the American Economic Review (1974) and the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal (1984), but I was still treated as his student, to be cared for, and questioned.
Samuelson’s main contribution to modern economics was the use of advanced calculus to show that economics could be structured on clearly stated or observable behavioural assumptions or axioms or objectives, and then by mathematical deduction deriving economic laws that could be tested on real-life statistical data. He thus made economics a subject of scientific inquiry to be truly called a science, in the sense that propositions in economics could be ‘proved’ with proof, just as theorems in mathematics could be. Mathematical logic and rigour was all; little else mattered. Gone, thus, were the days of John Maynard Keynes’ “Shakespearean” economics and John Kenneth Galbraith’s art of expression. Felicity in English no more mattered; mathematical methods took its place. Samuelson globalised economics by enabling scholars who knew little English to join in international discourse and collaboration in research and teaching. Economics thus exploded on to the international scene, and became fashionable.
Worked in two dimensions
Samuelson worked in two dimensions throughout his life. In one, he spoke in homely English about the most complicated economic issues. He thus authored one of the most widely used college textbooks in the history of American education. The book, titled Economics, first published in 1948, was the globe’s best-selling textbook for nearly 30 years. Translated into 20 languages and updated periodically, it is selling over 50,000 copies a year in its 19th edition half a century after it first appeared.
His second dimension was of mathematical rigour that began with his Harvard Ph.D. thesis-turned-book titled The Foundations of Economic Analysis. This is a gold mine for research even today. When he defended his thesis before a committee of three Harvard Professors, the story goes that the chairman, Professor Joseph A. Schumpeter, asked his two fellow-members after the viva voce: “Gentlemen, have we passed?”
Between the two books, Samuelson redefined modern economics and made it popular, yet a science. For that he became the first American to win the then newly instituted Nobel prize for economics.
Paul Antony Samuelson was born on May 15, 1915 in Gary, Indiana. After receiving his bachelor’s from Chicago in 1935, he went to Harvard. He earned his master’s from Harvard in 1936 and a Ph.D. formally in 1941. He wrote his thesis in 1937.
In 1940, Harvard offered him an instructorship (the Harvard equivalent of Assistant Professor, which in turn equalled the position of an Associate Professor elsewhere), which he accepted. But a month later the MIT invited him to become an Assistant Professor, that is, the same as Harvard’s Instructor. But jealousy and, some suspect, the anti-Semitism of the late-1930s made Harvard deny him a promotion, even though he had by then developed an international following.
Fresh from India with a B.A. Honours in Mathematics and a Master’s in Mathematical Statistics, I first met Samuelson in his office in September 1962 wanting to be his student, cross-registering in the most advanced mathematical economics course of the MIT. I had arrived in Cambridge on a Harvard scholarship for a Ph.D. Samuelson selected each year only 20 students, out of about 200 who applied, expecting to groom them as scholars. I wondered whether I would be chosen. I was.
Once while lecturing on the theory of consumer behaviour in class, Samuelson wrote on the blackboard a series of equations to derive a theorem. As a student I raised my hand from my desk and said: “You have one equation wrong, so you will not be able to prove the theorem.” There was stunned silence. Samuelson walked to my seat and glowered: “What did you say?” I held my ground and offered to rectify what was a small careless mistake which all geniuses commit on the blackboard in class. He made me go to the blackboard and write out the correct equation — which I did. Then, sternly he said: “See me after class.” My classmates thought that was the end of me. One asked: “Have you got your return ticket to India?”
But it was, instead, the beginning of me — and of a relationship. When I saw him after class, he said: “I think you and I should write a joint paper some day.” This we did 10 years later, but he me helped in the interim on a number of papers published in my own name, and thanked me in footnotes of his published papers for having corrected him or given him leads. He, and my thesis adviser Simon Kuznets at Harvard, launched my career. I became a Teaching Fellow as a student, an Instructor soon after, obtaining a Ph.D in the shortest possible time of 18 months, and an Assistant Professor, all at Harvard.
I eventually joined politics because my career was blocked in India. I continued to return to Harvard to teach, and got nothing but warmth and welcome from Samuelson each time. During the Emergency, Henry Rosovsky, the Harvard economist, became the Dean and appointed me Visiting Professor. Indira Gandhi sent an emissary to him to cancel my appointment. But Henry was no pushover. By now Samuelson was convinced that I had responded to a higher call. He encouraged me to fight on. He wrote in Newsweek against the Emergency and even signed a petition along with other Nobel laureates to the U.S. President condemning the jailing without trial of 140,000 persons.
Samuelson remained sympathetic from then on to my choice of a political career over academics. Once I called him my guru and explained the gurukul system of the Indian rishis. He said: “Ah! That’s what the U.S. needs.” Samuelson was already a rishi in the way he treated his chosen students. I shall remember always that I was once his chosen student among the many he nurtured.
(Dr. Subramanian Swamy is a former Union Minister who is the president of the Janata Party.)
How To Wipe Out Islamic Terror: The Moment Of Truth Has ArrivedClick To OpenHow to wipe out Islamic terror: The Moment of Truth Has Arrived
Subramanian Swamy
Indian Express First Published : 31 May 2010 12:33:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 31 May 2010 01:10:30 AM IST
From recent history, a lesson to be learnt in tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus, argues Subramanian Swamy
According to the latest Union home ministry Annual Report to Parliament, of the 35 states in India, 29 are affected by terrorist acts carried out by all kinds of forces. Terrorism, I define here as the illegal use of force to overawe the civilian population to make it do or not do an act against their will and well-being.
There are about 40 reported and unreported terrorist attacks per month in the country. That is why the recent US National Counter-Terrorism Centre publication A Chronology of International Terrorism states: ‘India suffered more terrorist acts than any other country’.
While the PM thinks that Maoists’ threat is most serious, I think Islamic terrorism is even more serious. If we did not have today the present Union home minister, PM, and UPA chairperson, then Maoists can be eliminated in a month, much as I did with the LTTE in Tamil Nadu, as a senior minister in 1991, or MGR did with the Naxalites in the early 1980s.
Why is Islamic terrorism our number one problem of national security? About this there will be no doubt after 2012. By that year, I expect a Taliban takeover in Pakistan and the Americans to flee Afghanistan. Then, Islam will confront Hinduism to ‘complete unfinished business’.
Let us remember that every Hindu-Muslim riot in India since 1947, has been ignited by Muslim fanatics — if one goes by all the commissions of inquiry set up after every riot. By today’s definition these riots are all terrorist acts. Muslims, though a minority in India, still have fanatics who dare to lead violent attacks against Hindus. Other Muslims of India just lump it, sulk or rejoice. That is the history from Babar’s time to Aurangzeb. There have been exceptions to this apathy of Muslims like Dara Shikoh, in the old days, or like M J Akbar and Salman Haidar today who are not afraid to speak out against Islamic terror, but still they remain exceptions.
Blame the Hindus
In one sense, I do not blame the Muslim fanatics for targeting Hindus. I blame us Hindus who have taken their individuality permitted in Sanatana Dharma to the extreme. Millions of Hindus can assemble without state patronage for Kumbh Mela completely self-organised, but they all leave for home oblivious of the targeting of Hindus in Kashmir, Mau, Melvisharam and Malappuram and do not lift their little finger to help organise Hindus. For example, if half the Hindus vote together rising above their caste and language, a genuine Hindu party will have a two-thirds majority in Parliament and Assemblies.
The secularists now tout instances of Hindu fanatics committing terrorist attacks against Muslims or other minorities. But these attacks are mostly state sponsored, often by the Congress itself, and not by Hindu ‘non-state actors’. Muslim-led attacks are however all by ‘non-state actors’ unless one includes the ISI and rogue elements in Pakistan’s army which are aiding them, as state sponsoring.
Fanatic Muslim attacks have been carried out to target and demoralise the Hindus, to make Hindus yield that which they should not, with the aim of undermining and ultimately to dismantle the Hindu foundation of India. This is the unfinished war of 1,000 years which Osama bin Laden talks about. In fact, the earliest terror tactics in India were deployed in Bengal 1946 by Suhrawady and Jinnah to terrorise Hindus to give in on the demand for Pakistan. The Congress party claiming to represent the Hindus capitulated, and handed 25 per cent of India on a platter to Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Now they want the remaining 75 per cent.
Forces against Hindus
This is not to say that other stooges have not targeted Hindus. During the last six decades since Independence, British imperialist-inspired Dravidian movement led by E V Ramaswamy Naicker, in the name of rationalism tried to debunk as irrational the Hindu religion, and terrorised the Hindu priestly class, ie, the Brahmins, for propagating the Hindu religion.
The movement’s organisational arm, the Dravida Kazhagam (DK), had venerated Ravana for 50 years to spite the Hindu adoration of Rama and vulgarise the abduction of Sita, till the DK belatedly learnt that Ravana was a Brahmin and a pious bhakta of Lord Shiva too. Abandoning this course of defaming Ramayana, the DK have now become stooges of the anti-Indian LTTE which has specialised in killing the Hindu Tamil leadership in Sri Lanka. Of course the DK has now been orphaned by the decimation of the LTTE.
Civil war situation
In the 1960s, the Christian missionaries had inspired the Nagas. The Nagas also wanted to further amputate Bharat Mata by seeking secession of Nagaland from the nation. In the 1980s, the Hindus
of Manipur were targeted by foreign-trained elements. Manipuris were told: give up Hinduism or be killed. In Kashmir, since the beginning of the 1990s, militants in league with the Pakistan-trained terrorists also targeted the Hindus by driving the Hindu Pandits out of the Valley, or killing them or dishonouring their women folk.
Recognising that targeting of Hindus is being widely perceived, and that Muslims of India are largely just passive spectators, the foreign patrons of Islamic terrorists are beginning to engage in terrorist acts that could pit Muslims against Hindus in nation-wide conflagration and possible civil war as in Serbia and Bosnia. Muslims cannot be divided into ‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’ because the former just capitulate when confronted. Recently, Pakistan civilian government capitulated on ‘kite flying’ and banned it because Taliban considers it as ‘Hindu’. Moderate governments of Malaysia and Kazhakstan are now demolishing Hindu temples.
Collective response
Hence, the first lesson to be learnt from recent history, for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus. It is to undermine the Hindu psyche and create fear of civil war that terror attacks are organised.
And hence since the Hindu is the target, Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated or worse, be complacent because he or she is not personally affected. If one Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat Hindu (for fuller discussion of the concept of virat Hindu, see my Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out Haranand, 2006).
Therefore we need today a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. In this response, Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do, I will not believe, unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors are Hindus.
It is not easy for them to acknowledge this ancestry because the Muslim mullah and Christian missionary would consider it as unacceptable since that realisation would dilute the religious fervour in their faith and also create an option for their possible re-conversion to Hinduism. Hence, these religious leaders preach hatred and violence against the kafir ie, the Hindu (for example read Chapter 8 verse 12 of the Quran) to keep the faith of their followers. The Islamic terrorist outfits, eg the SIMI, has already resolved that India is Darul Harab, and they are committed to make it Darul Islam. That makes them free of any moral compunction whatsoever in dealing with Hindus.
Brihad Hindu Samaj
But still, if any Muslim does so acknowledge his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj, which is Hindustan. India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors are Hindus. Even Parsis and Jews in India have Hindu ancestors. Others, who refuse to so acknowledge or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration can remain in India, but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).
Hence, to begin with, any policy to combat terrorism must begin with requiring each and every Hindu becoming a committed or virat Hindu. To be a virat Hindu one must have a Hindu mindset, a mindset that recognises that there is vyaktigat charitra (personal character) and a rashtriya charitra (national character).
It is not enough if one is pious, honest and educated. That is the personal character only. National character is a mindset actively and vigorously committed to the sanctity and integrity of the nation. For example, Manmohan Singh, our prime minister, has high personal character (vyaktigat charitra), but by being a rubber stamp of a semi-literate Sonia Gandhi, and waffling on all national issues, he has proved that he has no rashtriya charitra.
The second lesson for combating the terrorism we face today is: since demoralising the Hindu and undermining the Hindu foundation of India in order to destroy the Hindu civilisation, is the goal of all terrorists in India we must never capitulate and never concede any demand of the terrorists. The basic policy has to be: never yield to any demand of the terrorists. That necessary resolve has not been shown in our recent history. Instead ever since we conceded Pakistan in 1947 under duress, we have been mostly yielding time and again.
Bowing to terrorists
In 1989, to obtain the release of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter, Rubaiyya who had been kidnapped by terrorists, five terrorists in Indian jails were set free by the V P Singh’s government. This made these criminals in the eyes of Kashmiri separatists and fence sitters heroes, as those who had brought India’s Hindu establishment on its knees. To save Rubaiyya it was not necessary to surrender to terrorist demands.
The worst capitulation to terrorists in our modern history was in the Indian Airlines IC-814 hijack in December 1999 staged in Kandahar. The government released three terrorists even without getting court permission (required since they were in judicial custody). Moreover, they were escorted by a senior minister on the PM’s special Boeing all the way to Kandahar as royal guests instead of being shoved across the Indo-Pakistan border.
Worse still, all the three after being freed, went back to Pakistan and created three separate terrorist organisations to kill Hindus. Mohammed Azhar, whom the National Security Advisor Brijesh Mishra had then described as “a mere harmless cleric”, upon his release led the LeT to savage and repeated terrorist attacks on Hindus all over India from Bangalore to Srinagar. Since mid-2000, Azhar is responsible for the killing of over 2,000 Hindus and the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. Omar Sheikh who helped al-Qaeda is in jail in US custody for killing US journalist Daniel Pearl, while the third, Zargar is engaged today in random killings of Hindus in Doda and Jammu after founding Al-Mujahideen Jingaan.
This Kandahar episode proves that we should never negotiate with terrorists, never yield. If you do, then sooner or later you will end up losing more lives than you will ever save by a deal with terrorists.
Moment of truth
The third lesson to be learnt is that whatever and however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate—not by measured and ‘sober’ responses but by massive retaliation. Otherwise what is the alternative? Walk meekly to death expecting that our ‘sober’ responses will be rewarded by our neighbours and their patrons? We will be back to 1100 AD fooled into suicidal credulity. We should not be ghouls for punishment from terrorists and their patrons. We should retaliate.
For example, when Ayodhya temple was sought to be attacked, this was not a big terrorist incident but we should have massively retaliated by re-building the Ram temple at the site.
This is Kaliyug, and hence there is no room for sattvic responses to evil people. Hindu religion has a concept of apat dharma and we should invoke it. This is the moment of truth for us. Either we organise to survive as a civilisation or vanish as the Persian, Babylonian, and Egyptian civilisations did centuries ago before the brutal Islamic onslaught. For that our motto should be Saam, Dhaam, Bheda, Danda.
Poverty is no factor
What motivates the Islamic terrorists in India? Many are advising us Hindus to deal with the root ‘cause’ of terrorism rather than concentrate on eradicating terrorists by retaliation. And pray what is the root ‘cause’?
According to bleeding heart liberals, terrorists are born or bred because of illiteracy, poverty, oppression, and discrimination. They argue that instead of eliminating them, the root cause of these four disabilities in society should be removed. Only then terrorism will disappear. Before replying to this, let us understand that I have serious doubts about the integrity of these liberals, or more appropriately, these promiscuous intellectuals. They seek to deaden the emotive power of the individual and render him passive (inculcate ‘majboori’ in our psyche). A nation state cannot survive for long with such a capitulationist mentality.
It is rubbish to say that terrorists who mastermind the attacks are poor. Osama bin laden for example is a billionaire. Islamic terrorists are patronised by those states that have grown rich from oil revenues. In Britain, the terrorists arrested so far for the bombings are all well-to-do persons. Nor are terrorists uneducated. Most of terrorist leaders are doctors, chartered accountants, MBAs and teachers. For example, in the failed Times Square New York episode, the Islamic terrorist Shahzad studied and got an MBA from a reputed US university. He was from a highly placed family in Pakistan. He certainly faced no discrimination and oppression in his own country. The gang of nine persons who hijacked four planes on September 11, 2001 and flew them into the World Trade Towers in New York and other targets were certainly not discriminated or oppressed in the United States. Hence it is utter rubbish to say that terror is the outcome of the poverty terrorists face.
If we accept the Left-wing liberals argument, does it mean that in Islamic countries, the non-Islamic religious minority who are discriminated and oppressed can take to terrorism? In the Valley, where Muslims are in majority, not only Article 370 of the Constitution provides privileges to the majority but it is the minority Hindus who have been slaughtered, or raped, and dispossessed. They have become refugees in squalid conditions in their own country.
It is also a ridiculous idea that terrorists cannot be deterred because they are irrational, willing to die, and have no ‘return address’. Terrorist masterminds have political goals and a method in their madness. An effective strategy to deter terrorism is therefore to defeat those political goals and to rubbish them by counter-terrorist action. How is that strategy to be structured? In a brilliant research paper published by Robert Trager and Dessislava Zagorcheva this year (‘Deterring Terrorism’ International Security, vol 30, No 3, Winter 2005/06, pp 87-123) has provided the general principles to structure such a strategy.
Goal-strategy
Applying these principles, I advocate the following strategy to negate the political goals of Islamic terrorism in India, provided the Muslim community fail to condemn these goals and call them un-Islamic:
Goal 1: Overawe India on Kashmir.
Strategy: Remove Article 370, and re-settle ex-servicemen in the Valley. Create Panun Kashmir for Hindu Pandit community. Look or create opportunity to take over PoK. If Pakistan continues to back terrorists, assist the Baluchis and Sindhis to struggle for independence.
Goal 2: Blast our temples and kill Hindu devotees.
Strategy: Remove the masjid in Kashi Vishwanath temple complex, and 300 others in other sites as a tit-for-tat.
Goal 3: Make India into Darul Islam.
Strategy: Implement Uniform Civil Code, make Sanskrit learning compulsory and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India as Hindu Rashtra in which only those non-Hindus can vote if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors are Hindus. Re-name India as Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors are Hindus.
Goal 4: Change India’s demography by illegal immigration, conversion, and refusal to adopt family planning.
Strategy: Enact a national law prohibiting conversion from Hindu religion to any other religion. Re-conversion will not be banned. Declare caste is not birth-based but code of discipline based. Welcome non-Hindus to re-convert to the caste of their choice provided they adhere to the code of discipline. Annex land from Bangladesh in proportion to the illegal migrants from that country staying in India. At present, northern one-third from Sylhet to Khulna can be annexed to re-settle the illegal migrants.
Goal 5: Denigrate Hinduism through vulgar writings and preaching in mosques, madrassas, and churches to create loss of self-respect amongst Hindus and make them fit for capitulation.
Strategy: Propagate the development of a Hindu mindset (see my new book Hindutva and National Renaissance, Haranand, 2010).
India can solve its terrorist problem within five years by such a deterrent strategy, but for that we have to learn the four lessons outlined above, and have a Hindu mindset to take bold, risky, and hard decisions to defend the nation. If the Jews can be transformed from lambs walking meekly to the gas chambers to fiery lions in just 10 years, it is not difficult for Hindus in much better circumstances (after all we are 83 per cent of India), to do so in five years.
Guru Gobind Singh has shown us the way already, how just five fearless persons under spiritual guidance can transform a society. Even if half the Hindu voters are persuaded to collectively vote as Hindus, and for a party sincerely committed to a Hindu agenda, then we can forge an instrument for change. And that ultimately is the bottom line in the strategy to deter terrorism in a democratic Hindustan at this moment of truth.
About the author:
Subramanian Swamy is a former Union minister
HINDUTVA PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTClick To OpenHINDUTVA PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
By SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY
I. INTRODUCTION
I am not an advocate of the concept of “Hindu economics” because economic laws are universal, and humans respond to incentives and coercion more or less the same way everywhere and in every culture. But I do advocate here that there is a need for a Hindu School of Economics for developing an alternative and holistic theory of economic development based not only on material output and economic services, but also on ancient Hindu spiritual values. These values are codified as Sanatana Dharma [i.e., eternally valid enlightened norms] whereby dharma informs the acquisition of artha(wealth), the scope and limits of enjoyment of kama(sensual and other pleasures) and the ultimate pursuit of moksha(spiritual salvation).
These two goals of kama and moksha are dependent on attaining a critical level of artha, much as Swami Vivekananda had said in the late nineteenth century that we cannot preach spirituality to someone with an empty stomach.
The ‘Swadeshi’[indigenous] or Hindutva [the quality of being Hindu or Hinduness] theory of development postulates that the basis for pursuit of true or inner happiness is the spiritual advancement of one’s self with economic well-being treated as a means to that end. This contrasts with the single-minded pursuit of material and physical pleasure as an end in itself in capitalistic or socialistic theories of development in which the uni-dimensional approach of materialism has led to the present greed– dominated globalization.
The word Hindutva was first explicitly used by Veer Savarkar to define nationalism. The word itself is of mid-nineteenth century coinage meaning “Hinduness”. The Hindutva inspiration was the foundation for the first major nationalist struggle – the Swadeshi[Self-Reliance} Movement, in which Sri Aurobindo was a prime mover, and which movement followed the Partition of Bengal in 1905 but preceded Savarkar’s writings. But taken together, today Hindutva is a multi-facet concept of identity, social constitutional order, modernity, civilization history, economic philosophy and governance.
Sanatana Dharma is eternal because it is based not upon the teachings of a single preceptor or a chosen prophet but on the collective and accumulated wisdom and inspiration of great seers and sages from the dawn of civilization. Hindu theology and scriptures therefore is accumulated revealed knowledge and not revelations of any prophet that was taken down by scribes or followers.
Thus, Sanatana Dharma is an enlightened code of living which if we follow will keep us happy, stress free, and enable us to make progress in life without bitterness. The present life of materialism without regard to harmony with spiritual values is disastrous and cause of unhappiness.
Hindutva is a concept that reflects the broad spiritual ethos of India’s many great rishis, yogis and sanyasis, and their diverse teachings and spiritual vision. In this paper, we have essentially followed Sri Aurobindo’s formulation, which though having the same basis as Savarkar’s, is more broad-based.
My search for a more holistic theory of economic development rooted in Hindutva is about three decades old. In 1970, I had presented a “Swadeshi Plan”[2] at a gathering of economists assembled at the Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi. It was an instant national media event because of the yearning for an alternative theory relevant to India, but it attracted a huge flak from the Left-wing academics who dominated the universities those days.
So much so, that the then Left leaning Prime Minister, Mrs.Indira Gandhi, who also held the Finance Portfolio that time, on March 4, 1970 took the floor of the Lok Sabha [India’s Parliament] during the 1970-71 Budget debate, to denounce my Swadeshi Plan, and me by name, as ‘dangerous” because “much like a Santa Claus” I had promised presents to all.
She was particularly irked by my thesis that India could grow at 10% per year instead of 3.5% per year, achieve self-reliance, and produce nuclear weapons for its defence, only if India gave up Soviet model’s socialism, and followed competitive market economic system which is harmonized with values drawn from Sanatana Dharma, much as Mahatma Gandhi had preached prior to achieving Independence, by raising the slogan of Ram Rajya.
Those days in the 1970s, few dared to question Soviet socialism much less could advocate Hindutva. The entire Left wing captive intellectuals therefore had pounced on me and ostracized me from academia because I had debunked the Soviet economic model by describing it as a prescription for disaster for India. If as I argue here that a single minded material pursuit and maximization cannot produce happiness, then it is also true that a system that is not based on incentives but is on coercion as the Soviet model was, cannot work. This latter fact is now established by the history of the 1980s and 90s with the unraveling of the Soviet empire.
There is now a growing interest in the West especially the US on Hindu concepts. Although long years ago Ralph Waldo Emerson had spoken glowingly about the Bhagvata Gita, in recent years there have been published a spate of articles and books on the need to incorporate Hindu concepts in economic analysis. Bruce Rich(2010) book on Globalisation [1] is one such worthy of notice. Richard Goldberg’s American Veda (2011) [4] is another.
Lisa Miller’s “We Are All Hindus Now” Newsweek [August 24-31, 2009] has popularized Hindu concepts on life are rational and secular enough for Americans to accept. Thus, Hinduism’s scientific foundation and spirit of inquiry is beginning to find favour abroad. Lisa Miller, an editor of the Newsweek holds that modern American is “conceptually, at least, are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, ourselves, each other and eternity”. That is, she is saying that Hindutva is permeating USA by osmosis:
“America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continue to identify as Christian (still, that’s the lowest percentage in American his¬tory). Of course, we are not a Hindu—or Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan—nation, either. A million-plus Hindus live in the United States, a fraction of the billion who live on earth. But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity.”
“The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: “Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names.” A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur’an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conser¬vative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”
“Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life”—in¬cluding 37 percent of white evangeli¬cals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves “spiritual, not religious,” according to a 2009 NEWS-WEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for “the divine-deli-cafeteria religion” as “very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You’re not picking and choosing from different religions, because they’re all the same,” he says. “It isn’t about orthodoxy. It’s about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that’s great, too.”
“Then there’s the question of what hap¬pens when you die. Christians tradition¬ally believe that bodies and souls are sacred, that together they make up the “self,” and that at the end of time they will be reunited in the Resurrection. You need both, in other words, and you need them forever. Hindus believe no such thing. At death, the body burns on a pyre, while the spirit—where iden¬tity resides—escapes. In reincarna¬tion, central to Hinduism, selves come back to earth again and again in differ¬ent bodies. So here is another way in which Americans are becoming more Hindu: 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation, accord¬ing to a 2008 Harris poll. So agnostic are we about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we’re burning them—like Hindus—after death. More than a third of Americans now choose crema¬tion, according to the Cremation As¬sociation of North America, up from 6 percent in l975. Let us all say ‘Om’”.
The statement of Oscar winning Hollywood actress Julia Roberts made upon converting with her family to Hindu religion is revealing of the spreading popularity of Hindu concepts in the US. She said that despite becoming wealthy she could get mental peace and solace after imbibing Hindu concepts. The wide acceptability of yoga in US today is also a manifestation of that fact of the growing acceptability of Hindutva.
The main objective of the Sanatana Dharma thus is to unfold the tremendous multi-dimensional potentialities of human intelligence, step by step, from the outer physical body level to subtle inner mental to intellectual and ultimately to the highest spiritual level, leading to Enlightenment and Self Realization. The human being is constituted by soul, mind and body, parallel in functions to a company incorporated constituted by a proprietor, manager and workers. In the West the innovative mind is based on the development of cognitive intelligence only.
India today leads the world in the supply pool of youth, i.e., persons in the age group of 15 to 35 years, and this lead will last for another forty years. This generation is most fertile milieu for promoting knowledge, innovation, and research. It is the prime work force that saves for the future, the corpus for pension funding of the old. We should therefore not squander this “natural vital resource”.
Thus, India has now become, by unintended consequences, gifted with a young population. If we educate this youth to develop cognitive intelligence [CQ] to become original thinkers, imbibe emotional intelligence [EQ] to have team spirit and rational risk-taking attitude, inculcate moral intelligence [MQ] to blend personal ambition with national goals, cultivate social intelligence [SOI] to defend civic rights of the weak, gender equality, and the courage to fight injustice and nurture spiritual intelligence [SI] to innovate the transformative power of vision and intention to access the vast energy the pervades the cosmos to innovate and out of box research, then we can develop a superior species of human being, an Indian youth who can be relied on to contribute to make India a global power within two decades. Computers my have high CQ because they are programmed to understand the rules, and follow them without making mistakes. Many mammals have high EQ. Only humans know to ask why, and can work with re-shaping boundaries instead of just within boundaries. Human can innovate, not animals.
The nation must therefore structure a national policy for the youth of India so that in every young Indian the five dimensional concept of intelligence, viz., cognitive emotional, moral, social and spiritual manifests in his character. Only then, our demographic dividend will not be wasted. These five dimensions of intelligence constitute the ability of a person to live a productive life and for national good. Hence, a policy for India’s youth has to be structured within the implied parameters of these five dimensions.
True happiness is possible, according to Sanatana Dharma, only if material progress that is attained is moderated and harmonized by spiritual values. This is the Hindutva [Hinduness] principle of economic development and it is this core concept that is becoming widely acceptable faced with the consequences of greed and envy that is fueling the current globalization. Thus, the choice of objectives, priorities, strategy and financial architecture, the four pillars of the nation’s policy-making for economic development, have to be defined in accordance with the Hindu concepts. This Hinduisation leads to Hindutva or Hinduness. What that means we shall now discuss
Hinduness springs from Sanatana Dharma in Sri Aurobindo’s broader formulation as also in Savarkar’s narrower formulations. In the analysis in this paper, Hindutva conforms to Vedanta as propounded by Swami Vivekananda, and interpreted by Gandhi, Golwalkar and Upadhyaya.
THE CONCEPT OF HINDUTVA: CAN IT BE FUNDAMENTALIST?
This unique feature of focusing on the message and its truth rather than the authority of the messenger brings Sanatana Dharma proximate to a science, and spiritual its logic akin to the scientific inquiry. In science also, a principle or a theory must stand or fall on its own merit and not on the authority of anyone. If Newton and Einstein are considered great scientists, it is because of the validity of their scientific theories.
In that sense, science is also apaurusheya. Gravitation and Relativity are eternal laws of nature and existed long before Newton and Einstein. These are cosmic laws that happened to be discovered by scientific sages Newton and Einstein. Their greatness lies in the fact that they discovered and revealed great scientific truths. But no one invokes Newton or Einstein as authority to ‘prove’ the truth of laws of nature. They stand on their own merit.
This is the greatest difference between Sanatana Dharma and the two religions of Christianity and Islam. These two major religions simply do not tolerate pluralism. In a document titled “Declaration of Lord Jesus”, the Vatican proclaims non-Christians to be in a “gravely deficient situation” and that even non-Catholic churches have “defects” because they do not acknowledge the primacy of the Pope.
This of course means that the Vatican refuses to acknowledge the spiritual right of the Hindus to their beliefs and practices! Christianity consigns non-Christians to hell, and the only way they can save themselves is by becoming Christians, preferably Catholics, by submitting to the Pope.
A Hindu thus even if he lives a life of virtue, is still consigned to hell by Christianity because he refuses to acknowledge Jesus as the only savior and the Pope as his representative on earth. The same is true of Islam; one must submit to Prophet Muhammad as the last, in effect the only prophet, in order to be saved. Belief in God means nothing without belief in Christ as the savior or Muhammad as the Last Prophet. Even one who believes in God but does not accept Jesus or Muhammad as intermediary is considered a non-believer and therefore a sinner or a Kafir. This is what makes both Christianity and Islam exclusive, what makes Hinduism pluralistic and tolerant, and therefore Hindutva inclusive.
Hinduism recognizes no intermediary as the exclusive messenger of God. In fact the Rigveda itself says: ‘ekam sat, vipra bahuda vadanti,’ meaning “cosmic truth is one, but the wise express it in many ways.” The contrast between exclusivism and pluralism becomes clear when we compare what Krishna and Jesus Christ said:
Krishna in the Bhagavadgita says: “All creatures great and small – I am equal to all. I hate none nor have I any favorites……He that worships other gods with devotion, worships me.”
“He that is not with me is against me,” says Jesus. So a devotee cannot directly know God, but can only pray to God go through the intermediary—who jealously guards his exclusive access to God. Those who try otherwise, even if a priest, is ex-communicated as was done in the case of Rev.Don Mario Muzzoleni, as he himself records in his recent book.
Hinduism is the exact opposite of this. Anyone can know God and no jealous intermediary can block his way. And the Hindu tradition has methods like yoga and meditation through a guru to facilitate one to reach God. Further, this spiritual freedom extends even to atheism. One can be an atheist (nastik) and still claim to be a Hindu. In addition, there is nothing to stop a Hindu from revering Jesus as the Son of God or Muhammad as a Prophet. In contrast, a Christian or a Muslim revering Rama or Krishna would be condemned to death as a Kafir or burnt on the stakes as Joan of Arc was, as a pagan possessed by the devil, or the enemy.
The objective of human life is not merely the pursuit of happiness and pleasure but more to experience a deep sense of fulfillment. All else e.g., position, purse, power, prestige, prize, profession etc., are at best, simply the means to that goal by which fulfillment be achieved and only by acquiring and cultivating the ingredients of Dharma. Fulfillment is essential because the human, unlike the animal, can reason logically deductively and inductively to analyse, theorise, and predict. When the human gets it wrong then he unable comprehend why. For this a moral compass becomes necessary.
Hinduism and its scriptures on yoga have a moral code. Twenty ethical guidelines called yamas and niyamas, “restraints and observances.” These “dos” and “don’ts” are found in the ancient Vedas, in other holy texts expounding the path of yoga. This moral code informs the theory of economic development.
The yamas and niyamas are a common-sense code recorded in the section of the Vedas, called Upanishads, namely the Shandilya and the Varuha. They are also found in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Gorakhnatha, the Tirumantiram of Tirumular and in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The yamas and niyamas have been preserved through the centuries as the foundation, the first and second stage, of the eight staged practice of yoga.
Sage Patanjali said “these yamas are not limited by class, country, time (past, present or future) or situation. Hence they are called the universal great vows.” The science of yama and niyama are the means to control the vitarkas, the cruel thoughts, which when acted upon result in injury to others, untruthfulness, hoarding, discontent, indolence or selfishness. For each vitarka possessed, you can create its opposite through yama and niyama, and make your life successful.
Hindu value system is a balance between hard skills (such as learning arts & science) and soft skills (such as morals).
So the message it clear. India and Sanatana Dharma exist for each other. Sanatana Dharma is defines nationalism and nationalism is Sanatana Dharma. Hindutva is the practical and political manifestation of Sanatana Dharma. It exists to defend Sanatana Dharma, while threatening no one. This was the Hindustan that Sri Aurobindo and many other sages had dreamt about. It should also be our dream and goal today.
Vedic civilization endured for many centuries while providing prosperity and justice to all. This happened because it was based on a balance between power and dharma achieved through a collaboration between the rulers and the sages (or kings and rishis) of the land. The two of course can be separated but this understanding of the Rishi and King alliance in the Rigveda can serve as a guide and inspiration to the future for India and the polity.
I want to emphasize that we use the terms ‘Brahmana’ and ‘Kshatriya’ to mean those who perform those functions, and not castes based on birth, as is held today. Krishna in the Bhagavadgita says: ‘caturvarnyam maya srishtam guna-karma vibhagashah’. This means: “The four classification (varna) are made by me based on character (guna) and duties (karma).” In due course, this became perverted as caste based on birth – which we hold as a serious corruption of dharma. To give an example by Krishna’s Gita, Dr.Ambedkar was a Brahmin because of his intellectual leadership regardless of his birth. But yet we call him of Scheduled Caste.
The Hindu idea of the dharmic king is also very different from a theocracy, or a rule by the church. The purohit never represented a church, institution or dogma. He functioned as an advisor, not as a censor or ‘thought police’. One of the functions of the purohit was to make sure that the king was fit, not only politically but also spiritually. King Bharata disinherited his own sons as unfit to rule. Sagara disinherited his own son Asamanjas and made his grandson Anshuman his heir, who went on to become a great ruler. The Vedic idea of a dharmic king had a democratic side to it. The purohit – as puro hita – represented the people’s interest. The rishis, therefore, gave the kings their privileges and enjoyments, but balanced these with duties and respect for the swages and the Dharma.
There are only skeletal remains of our glorious civilization that was once the most scientifically most advanced, and educated and wealthy. The present generation of Hindus therefore has to reconstruct this civilization and rebuild the cultural edifice from these skeletal remains. This is what we call as national renaissance.
Therefore, structurally, there is no scope for a Hindu to be a fundamentalist. For, fundamentalism by definition, requires an unquestioning commitment to a book or scripture in its pristine original version. For Hindus, there is no one scripture to revert to for theological purity since there are many scriptures which raise a plethora of beliefs that sustain faith, debates, and profound speculations on basic questions [e.g., Upanishads], such as on advaita, dvaita, astika and nastika. Questioning, debating and synthesizing are an integral part of Hindu theology viz., shashtrathas. Nor does Hinduism have just one prophet to revere, or prohibits holding any other view of religious experience. But most of all, Hindus are committed to the search for truth [including knowing what is truth], for which incessant debate is permitted. Fundamentalists on the other hand unquestioningly are committed to ‘the Book’. This again is why Hindutva can never become fundamentalist, which Muslims and Christians can.
CASUALITIES OF HINDUTVA BASED THEORY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
As Bruce Rich [1] aptly summarized it [on page 6] quoting Kautilya, otherwise known as Chanakya, that subject to dharma, priority be given to artha, i.e., the society’s and individual’s material wealth and well-being, with the subsequent aim of experiencing kama but ultimately striving to attain moksha.
n the late Seventies, I came under the influence of Deendayal Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism, and by Dattopant Thengadi’s commentaries on it, and therefore enlarged the concept of Swadeshi, to explicitly include the necessacity of formally harmonizing the goal of economic development with India’s ancient Hindu spiritual values.
In 1977, at the invitation Dr.Mahesh Mehta, I presented a paper in New York titled “Economic Perspectives in Integral Humanism”. This was later published in a volume [edited by Mahesh Mehta] titled: Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism (Edison, NJ, 1978).
By then I had also been influenced by the writings of the venerated sage, accomplished scholar, and Freedom Fighter, Sri Aurobindo who had long foreseen the debilitating effects of an one-dimensional materialist outlook on human society, and long before the consumerism of globalization that we see today.
In his 1918 publication titled The Renaissance of India, he advocated the harmonization of material pursuits with spiritual and moral values to create an integral person. The economic policy thus designed, he said, must be consistent with the spiritual values embedded in Sanatana Dharma.
It is this seminal idea that Deendayal Upadhyaya, a profound political thinker and activist, developed into his thesis of Integral Humanism [3]. To quote Deendayalji himself [3]: “Both the systems, capitalist and communist, have failed to take account of the Integral Man, his true and complete personality, and his aspirations. One[system] considers him as mere selfish being, lingering after money, having only one law, the law of fierce competition, in essence the law of the jungle; whereas the other has viewed him as a feeble lifeless cog in the whole scheme of things regulated by rigid rules, and incapable of any good unless directed. The centralization of power, economic and political, is implied in both. Both therefore result in dehumanization of man”[p.76]. He thus advocated that “swadeshi [self-reliance] and vikendrikaran [decentralization] as the two pillars of the economic policy suitable for our times.
Upadhyaya also dismissed democratic or the neo ‘Gandhian’ version of Socialism as failing to establish the importance of the human being [op.cit., p.74-75]. He said: “The needs and preferences of individuals have as much importance in the socialist system as in a prison manual”
This is in keeping with the thesis of Sri Aurobindo that class struggle as a concept embedded in all varieties of socialism, is anti-human, and instead, class harmony and conflict resolution are the basic instincts of the human. The Communist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat was nothing but “the dictatorship of the dictator of a dictatorial party”. The task of making these ideas as mainstream in the English-speaking elite and economists was looking near impossible.
I was however proved right and vindicated later in 1991, when the Soviet Union had unraveled in a spectacle of ‘Balkanisation’ of 16 separate countries. Most of the prominent Left academics also mercifully left India and migrated to the US. The search for Hindutva Principles then began with gusto because of an ongoing Ram temple national agitation. As Commerce Minister then, I presented the first blue prints for economic reform that was subsequently adopted and implemented without much opposition by the successor Narasimha Rao government [in which also I held a Cabinet rank post].
Today I can with some satisfaction assert that by propounding the concept of an integral outlook—namely that economic behaviour must blend with spiritual values to produce a happy and contented society the Hindutva theory of economic development represents for the nation a new and alternative direction in economics discourse.
We in India have yet to incorporate this direction in our official economic policy, but time will soon be at hand for us to do so when the people’s mandate is given for a new system of governance.
Mahatma Gandhi had said that in this world there is enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed. Agreeing with this dictum, we need to define what is the need and how greed can be curbed. This would cause three major casualties in the current neoclassical economic theory.
First, the objective of maximum profit in production theory and maximum utility in consumer behavior theory will have to be replaced. On Hindutva principles, one good replacement would be minimum cost of production subject to a lower bound for production, and minimum expenditure subject to a lower bound for the level of utility that must be attained.
Second, that while individual choices are transitive, collective majority determined choice is not necessarily transitive. Hence collective choice would require conflict resolution and game theory to ensure transitivity. This is the Hindutva principle of harmonization.
Third, that innovation would not be cognitive intelligence driven but by a collective determination of six intelligences—cognitive, emotional, social, moral, spiritual and environmental.
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II. STRUCTURE OF HINDUTVA BASED ECONOMIC POLICY
Economic policy is usually structured in a four dimensional framework, and may be thus defined by (i) Objectives (2) Priorities (3) Strategy (4) The Financial and Institutional Architecture.
Let us take the first dimension, of objectives of economic policy of four main ideologies of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism and Integral Humanism. Theoretically, communism takes maximum production for the state as the goal, while capitalism considers that the jungle concept of laissez faire based on survival of the fittest will be guided by an Invisible Hand to achieve maximum profit for producers and maximum consumption of material goods for the worker. Socialism aims at maximum welfare measured by state guarantees against risks of disease, death and unemployment to the individual citizen. That is the concept of welfare under socialism.
However all these goals are purely materialistic and derails the innate human development by encouraging the rat-race. Hindutva theory of economic development requires the human being’s development being viewed integrally and holistically (hence Upadhyaya’s term ‘Integral Humanism’). That means the blending of materialistic goals with spiritual imperatives as the primary goal of economic policy.
M.S. Golwalkar, the organizational genius behind the RSS– a fervent Hindutva cadre-based but volunteer organisation of more than 1 million– in his Bunch of Thoughts (page 5), states: “All attempts and experiments made so far were based on ‘isms’ stemming from materialism. However, we Hindus have a solution to offer”. He propounded that “the problem boils down to one of achieving a synthesis of national aspirations and world welfare”. Golwalker advocates that in this synthesis, “swalambana (or self-reliance) forms the backbone of a free and prosperous nation…” (p.313), and that at the very minimum, “atma poorti” (or self-sufficiency) in food production is a must for our national defence…”(p.316).
The difference between swalambana and atma poorti is this: the former requires that we must depend on our own resources, i.e., if there is a shortage of some commodity, we should earn enough foreign exchange by exports to buy it from abroad. That is, we should depend on our own resources. The latter concept of atma poorti requires that we produce in sufficient quantities in our own country so that we do not suffer in any shortage in any required commodity. That is, we should depend only on our own indigenous production.
Today obviously that is not the situation in India. We find that the nation has moved from food self-sufficiency (atma poorti) in the mid-seventies to dependence on imports from abroad. Farmers are committing suicides, and land, due to the blind use of chemicals and foreign seeds, are becoming of low productivity or going barren.
Golwalker’s warning thus was timely. India must re-orient the objective of our economic policy to re-gain self-sufficiency in food production, and must do it as much as is possible, by environment- friendly means such as organic farming, wind energy, and cooperative endeavour.
Upadhyaya, drawing on the seminal ideas of Golwalkar, thus brought out how the objective of economic policy is different from the objective in foreign ideologies of Capitalism, Socialism and Communism. He propounded therefore the concept of ‘Integral Man’ as assimilating and harmonizing the chaturvidha purushartha [four energies] which he elaborated as a concept in his Integral Humanism.
He added the concept of Chiti, the soul of the nation, which each nation must discover to decide the correct formulation of economic policy. The concept of Chiti of a nation is an original contribution of Upadhyaya, but a more articulate version is the concept of identity elaborated by the late Harvard Professor, Samuel Huntington in his book Who Are We ? .
Thus the economic perspectives in Integral Humanism, which is the Hindutva theory of economic development, are funda¬mentally different from those contained in Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. To quote Upadhyaya himself: “Both these systems, capitalist as well as communist, have failed to take account of the Integral Man, his true and complete personality and his aspirations. One considers him as mere selfish being lingering after money, having only one law, the law of fierce competition, in essence the law of the jungle; whereas the other has viewed him as a feeble lifeless cog in the whole scheme of things, regulated by rigid rules, and incapable of any good unless directed. The centralization of power, economic and political, is implied in both. Both, therefore, result in dehumanization of man.” [ op.cit., p.76]
Arguing that the so-called democratic socialism is no better, he stated [p.74-75]: “Socialism arose as a reaction to capitalism. But even socialism failed to establish the importance of the human being. The needs and preferences of individuals have as much importance in the socialist system as in a prison manual.”
Therefore Upadhyaya stated for his Integral Humanism that: [Ibid., p.76-77]: “Man, the highest creation of God, is losing his own identity. We must re-establish him in his rightful position, bring him the realization of his greatness, re-awaken his abilities and encourage him to exert for attaining divine heights of his latent personality. This is possible only through a decentralized economy.”
He went on to indicate: “Swadeshi and Decentralization are the two words which can briefly summarize the economic policy suitable for the present circumstances.” [p.78]
Upadhyaya’s stress on the need to think in integrated terms is now fashionably called “systems analysis or holistic view” in the West. He also emphasized the need to liberate man by recognizing “complementarities” in life, which in a narrower economic context is ‘external economies’ or social cost-benefit analysis. That is, the human is not on his own, or alone. His plea for rejection of class struggle and the need to think in terms of conflict resolution and “class harmony” is now much in vogue today in the West – which is getting increasingly disillusioned with capitalism.
If we are not to suffer the societal unhappiness and tensions of the West, then we have to break away from the path that we have chosen presently, viz., the Nehruvian materialistic socialistic path that has yet to be completely abandoned since economic reforms initiated since 1991 has been largely aborted since 2004. Partially is not enough for national good.
The alternative to materialistic capitalism is obviously not communism with Chinese characteristics as the remnants of Left in India camouflaged as liberals still argue, because even in China, there is a problem of “alienation” and “exploitation” as revealed recently from reports that have been received.
Deendayal Upadhyaya was also aware as early as in 1965, of the Communist degeneration. Logically for him, any system in which man does not receive primacy is bound to ultimately degenerate. Interest¬ingly Deendayalji quotes M.Djilas the author of The New Class to prove that in Communist countries, “a new class of bureau¬cratic exploiter has come into existence.”
Thus, by presenting his Integral Humanism, which I have expanded here as the Hindutva theory of economic development, Upadhyaya had placed before the world a new original alternative ideological framework.
To appreciate the fundamentally different structure of economic policy imbedded in the Hindutva theory, I have annexed in tabular form for ready reference, the various alternative competing ideologies in terms of its structural parameters of objectives, priorities, development strategy, resource mobilization, and institutional framework.
From the table we may note that the economic perspective of this theory is fundamentally different from the other ideologies. Capitalism and communism have similarities in matters of objectives and institutional framework. If cost of production is stabilized, then maximum profit and maximum production are identical.
Again, class struggle and annihilation and survival of fittest, are different only to the extent that communism envisages the survival of the “fittest” class, whereas capitalism expects the “fittest” individual to engage in fierce competition and annihilate the other rivals. Similarly, socialism has only a difference of degree with communism — on the extent of coercion and control, and not fundamentally. That is why communism is often referred to as “scientific” socialism, although there is nothing scientific about it.
Since one socialism differs from another socialism only in degrees, therefore there are unlimited varieties of socialism varying from those of Hitler’s Nazism, Uganda’s Idi Amin’s, Indira Gandhi’s, to democratic socialism of Sweden. This has only caused confusion — and gives ample scope to hypocrisy. Thus we can see some people in India arguing on one hand for nationalization and austerity, and at the same time encouraging foreign collaboration while living in mansions. Such inconsistencies can be recon¬ciled in some variety of socialism, interpreted at will.
From this table it is also apparent that except in Integral Humanism, humanity as a whole is subservient to these systems either explicitly or implicitly. Under communism, man explicitly subserves the system. Coercion, termed as dictatorship of the proletariat, is legitimized “in the interest of the State.” Even in the choice of a career, location of work, and personal advancement are explicitly or implicitly directed by the State. The person in such countries has no room for choice or even any option to opt out of such a system because his freedom to travel out of the country is also completely curbed.
In capitalism, an individual may have technical freedom for his “pursuit of happiness”, but the system fails to accomodate the varying capabilities and endowments of man. Since the law of the jungle, which is at the core of the survival of the fittest as the norm of capitalism, therefore some achieve great progress and advancement while others get trampled and disabled in what is called the “rat race”.
Since maximum profit is possible only in a newer and latest technology, man has to socially and personally adjust to the terrifying demands of technology, rather than technology adjusting to the integral needs of man. So we witness today in an advanced capitalist country such as USA, broken homes, high divorce rates and ruined family life which have become common because technology has run riot there in making these cruel demands. So man has to adjust to it, drop out or perish. Such a development becomes inevitable in a system in which the “shortage of manpower (is) the guiding factor in the design of machines.”
The recent craze in the West for our “Sadhus” and Hindu religion arises largely due to this search for individuality, to escape the mental tensions which this kind of technology demands from the people, and because their own religious pre¬achers are ill-equipped to cope with it. Thus we find highly accomplished and wealthy persons in the West increasingly turning to Hindutva such as yoga, meditation, Ayurveda and even as we recently saw in the case of Hollywood actress and her family convert to Hindu religion. As to why this fascination has developed is discussed in the new book by Phillip Goldberg [4].
Thus in capitalism, in the extreme under laissez faire, although man has fundamental freedoms, but because the development strategy is to give primacy to technology, therefore implicitly man becomes subservient to the system. In such societies individuality is thus expressed in other outlets as crime, free sex, drunkenness, and rebel dropout movements.
Just as survival of the fittest is dehumanizing, so is class struggle which is the foundation of Marxism. Under communism, classes are sought to be eliminated by the intensification of class struggle. Obviously such intensification will lead to hate and tension, consequently dehumanization. We saw the extent of such dehumanization in communist countries, In the USSR, for example, most prominent intellec¬tuals such as Alexander Solzenitsyn, Andrie Sakharov had suffered severe punishment from the state because they had questioned this dehumanizating process.
Once a decision is taken on the path of development, Upadhayaya would advocate incentives, and realistic taxation to encourage saving, and to discourage conspicuous consumption as the only practical way to mobilize resources. This is contained in postu¬late 7. Most ideologies are weak when it comes to specifying resource mobilization, perhaps, because spelling it out means annoying one section or another. Therefore, the topic is either handled in a general way or indirectly.
In Hindutva, a person must be encouraged to save, live simply and acquire wealth, but then it must be made socially prestigious to give away his wealth or manage it as a “trustee” for society. In western societies, the size of a person’s wealth is the most important determinant of his social, cultural and national prestige. So he is encouraged to part with a portion of his wealth by urging him to spend more and on himself! This results in a fierce competition on who can spend more on himself “keeping up with the Joneses” leading to great waste. In this behaviourial factor alone, Hindutva is distinctly different from the culture of the West.
Thus in Integral Humanism’s scheme of things, which is based on Hindutva, social and cultural influences are integrated into a man’s psyche, so that parting with his wealth for society becomes his own desire. In such a framework, there is no weakening of a person’s resolve to have his income or pursue its immediate enlargement. Philanthropy is an essentially pillar of democracy, and hence as Mahatma Gandhi had said, the rich must treats themselves as trustees of the nation’s wealth.
As a trustee, every individual also cares for the physical environment and pollution. He also treats animals humanely and where such animals are multiple assets to human civilization, such an integrally human person will even regard the animal as divine to ensure it is nurtured and respected. The cow is one such animal.
Traditional Hindu belief, for example, in the efficacy of the milk and products of the Indian breeds of cows and its sacred status has been divided by our Westernized elite that had led to the neglect of cow because it is held that milk from all breeds of cows and buffaloes is equally good; and to improve the present low milk yield of the Indian breeds of cows, cross breeding with European high yielding cows was recommended.
But recent researches suggest that that only the milk of Bos Indicus i.e. Indian breed of cows has the desired health promoting properties due to presence of Beta Casein A2 protein. European breeds of Cows are classified as Bos Taurus. Their milk contains the protein Beta Casein Al, which produces beta-casomorphin7, which makes this milk diabetogenic relative to A2 milk. Medical researches have also linked Al milk with statistically higher incidence of Cardiac situations. In Australia, New Zealand, Korea Certified, A2 milk is already commanding the premium price of four times the price of non-certified A1A1-A1A2 milk.
Concomitantly cross breeding between the two breeds of the cow is being discontinued in these countries. Strategies are already being worked out to convert all the cows with the farmers to revert to Bos Indicus breeds for beta casein A2 protein in their milk.
Hence, a new fervour is developing to create a cow-renaissance in the nation. As Bahadur Shah and Maharaja Ranjit Singh did, India should amend the Indian Penal Code to make cow slaughter as a capital offence as well as a ground for arrest under the National Security Act, to give meaning and urgency to the total ban on cow slaughter.
India has 150 million cows today, giving an average of less than 200 litres of milk per year. If they could be fed and looked after, then these divine animals can give an average of 11,000 litres of milk as the Israeli cows do. That could provide milk for the whole world.
The cow was elevated to the status of divinity in the Rg.Veda iself. In Book VI the Hymn XXVIII attributed to Rishi Bhardwaja, extols the virtue of the cow. In Atharva Veda (Book X, Hymn 10), the cow is formally designated as Vishnu, and “all that the Sun surveys.” This divinely quality of the cow has been affirmed by Kautilya in his Arthsastra (Chapter XXIX).
The Indian society has addressed the cow with the appellation of ‘mother’. “Tilam na dhaanyam, pashuvah na Gaavah” (Sesame is not a cereal, cow is not an animal). The Churning of the Sea episode brings to light the story of the creation of the cow! Five divine Kamadhenus (wish cows), viz, Nanda, Subhadra, Surabhi, Sushila, Bahula emerged in the churning.
In 2003, the National Commission on Cattle presided over by Justice G.M. Lodha, submitted its recommendations to the NDA Government. The Report (in 4 volumes) called for stringent laws to protect the cow and its progeny in the interest of India’s rural economy. This is a Constitutional requirement under Directive Principles of State Policy. Article 48 of the Constitution says: “The State shall lendeavour or organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milchand draught cattle”. In 1958, a 5-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court {(1959) SCR 629} upheld Article 48 and the consequent total ban on cow slaughter as a reasonable restriction on Fundamental Rights.
When India fought the First War of Independence in 1857, and Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’ was installed as Emperor by the Hindus in Delhi for a brief period, his Hindu Prime Minister, on the Emperor’s Proclamation made the killing of cow a capital offence. Earlier in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s kingdom, the only crime that had capital punishment was cow slaughter. For a Hindu, the very appearance of a cow evokes a sense of piety. It is serene by temperament and herbivorous by diet. Apart from milk, cow dung known for its anti-septic value, is still used as fuel in its dried caked form in most Indian villages. It is also used in compost manure and in the production of electricity through eco-friendly gobar-gas. Thus, Mahatma Gandhi had declared: “Cow protection is more important than even Swaraj”.
Even today, 75 per cent of Indians in villages derive the great benefits from cows and bullocks. Despite the compulsions of modernism, tractors are not suitable for the small Indian land holdings. In US, the land available to each person is around 14 acre; in India is around 0.70 acre. A tractor consumes diesel, creates pollution, does not live on grass nor produces dung for manure. Thus Albert Einstein, in a letter to Sir CV Raman, wrote “Tell the people of India that if they want to survive and show the world path to survive, then they should forget about tractor and preserve their ancient tradition {bullock} ploughing”.
III. POSTULATES OF HINDUTVA THEORY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
I need not dwell any further on the demerits of other ideologies, but consider in, concrete positive terms, what economic perspectives Hindutva offers. I would organize thesefirst in terms of basic economic postulates using modern theoretical terminology and jargon:
Postulate: 1 The economy is a sub – system of the society and not the sole guiding factor of social growth. Hence no economic theorems can be formulated without first recognising that life is an integral system, and therefore whatever economic laws are deduced or codified, they must add or at least not reduce the integral growth of man. The centrality of Man’s divine spark and his evolution is on the four Chaturvidha Purusharthas of dharma, artha, kama, moksha.
Postulate: 2 There is plurality, and diversity in life. Man is subject to several internal contradictions. The solution is to be based on the harmonization of this plurality, diversity, and internal contradictions. Thus laws governing this harmony will have to be discovered and codified, which we shall call Dharma. An economy based on Dharma will be a. regulated one, within which man’s personality and freedom will be given maximum scope, and be enlightened in the social interest.
Postulate: 3 There is a negative correlation between the State’s coercive power and Dharma. In the latter, the acceptance of regulation by man is voluntary because it blends with his individual and collective aspirations, whereas in the former regulations often conflict with aspirations and hence man is coerced to accept the regulation or suffer.
Postulate: 4 A society of persons of common origin, history or culture has a chiti (soulforce). It is this chiti which integrates and establishes harmony. Each nation has to search out its chiti and recognise it cons¬ciously. Consequently, each country must follow its own development strategy based on its chiti. If it tries to duplicate or replicate other nations, it will come to grief.
Postulate: 5 Based on the perception of chiti and recognition of dharma, an economic order can be evolved which rationalizes the mutual inter-balances of the life system, by seeking out the complementarities embedded in various conflicting interests in soci¬ety. Such an order will reveal the system of social choices based on an aggregation of individual values.
Postulate: 6 Any economy based on Integral Humanism, will take as given, besides the normal
democratic fundamental rights, the Right to Food, the Right to Work, Right to Education, and the Right to Free Medical Care as basic rights.
Postulate: 7 The right to property is not fundamental, but economic regulation will be based on the comple¬mentarity that exists in the conflicting goals of social ownership of property and the necessity for providing incentive to save and to produce.
Postulate: 8 Development of the economic system for the Hinduva based Indian society is led by innovation [Shodh], guided by the principles of maximum reliance on indigenous resources [Swadeshi], by decentralization of power that emanates from four sources of knowledge, weapons, wealth, and land [Vikendrikaran], and by structuring a modern social hierarchy based on a mutually exclusive ownership of these four sources of power [Adhunik Varna]. . Thus, while rejecting any birth-based rights or discrimination as inconsistent with Vedanta philosophy, and requiring that co-option of any individual, irrespective of birth into any of the four Varnas thus created, is on the basis of the adherence to the discipline it requires.
Postulate: 9 That at the apex of this social hierarchy emanating from the Vikendrikaran of power, viz., the Shodhkartas who lead the innovation capability of a nation, i.e., the intellectuals, researchers, teachers etc., the co-option condition would be accomplishment in cognitive, emotional, social, moral, and spiritual intelligences, and the teaching of the same to all those in society who want to learn it.
These nine postulates represent the foundation of the Integral Humanism, which is the acronym for Hindutva Principles of Economic Development. Most of the established and popular slogans of Indian society emanate from one or more (in combi¬nation) of these postulates. For example, the electrifying call of the Freedom Movement for Swadeshi, or self – reliance is embed¬ded in Postulate 4. The popular demand for decentralization finds its source in Postulate 3. The modern internationally fashionable slogan of environmental care and pollution control, follows out of Postulate 5. The widespread scientific consensus that opti¬mum solutions can only be found in “systems analysis” is contained explicitly in Postulate 1. Mahatma Gandhi’s advocacy of Trusteeship is implied in Postulates 2 & 7 read together. In other words, these seven postulates can singly or jointly conceptualize and synthesize the various goals which have stirred the soul of India (or its chiti).
With these postulates, we now need to derive the practical guidelines for our economic development. To do that, for example take postulate 5..
First, we shall have to list out the various complementarities, second, work out a calculus of costs and benefits to integrate these various complementarities; and third, frame decision rules on how to make social choices based on divergent individual values. So a “calculus” of incentives and compensation for effecting the complementarity is needed. Such a calculus is known to economists, but which for shortage of space, I shall not elaborate here. To do that here would make this paper unduly technical and mathematical.
It is not enough to have a calculus to aggregate the complementarities but also to frame decision rules on how to make consistent social choices based on individual values. It is not enough to say that in a democracy, social choices should be based on majority decision rule. The format for eliciting this majority needs to be spelt out, otherwise anamolies will result.
For example, suppose we divide society into three groups – A: Agriculturists, M: Manufacturers, S: Workers and those in services. Let us assume that the society consisting of A, M, and S has to rank the projects of X; Fertilizer plant; Y: Steel mill; and Z: Hospital, in order of preference. Thus agriculturists (A) will rank X most important of all, Y second most important, and Z as least important.
Therefore a choice is offered to them between X and Y, they would choose X. If a choice is between Y and Z, then Y will be chosen. Obviously if X is preferred to Y, and Y is preferred to Z, then X will of course be preferred to Z for consistency. In notation, I shall write: ‘→ ’ for ‘preferred to’
Assume: A : X→ Y→ Z
M : Y→ Z→ X
S : Z→ X→ Y
If a vote is taken on each pairs of projects, then we shall have:
X→Y A+S=2 M=1 X→Y i.e., choose X over Y
Y→Z A+M=2 S=1 Y→Z i.e., choose Y over Z
X→Z A=1 M+S=2 Z→X i.e., choose Z over X
This, in a majority decision without any format, a society may prefer with 2/3 majority, X over Y, Y over Z, and yet prefer over X ! To avoid such social inconsistency, we must ensure that A, M, and S consult each other and seek to find out their complementarity in choices, and then vote.
This is why creation of a basic consensus or harmony is so essential. Such a process is lengthy, cumbersome, and complicated. But this is the only way to optimize the nation’s energies. But the process can be simplified by decentralization of political and economic authority. It cannot be achieved in a centralized society.
Again if we take Postulate 8, we find that Hindutva principles is in sync with the search for innovation as the driver of growth. Modern economic growth also is powered overwhelming (over 65% of GDP) by new innovation and techniques (e.g., internet). More capital and labour contributes less than 35% of growth in GDP. We must hence by proper policy for the young, realize and harvest the demographic potential.
China is the second largest world leader in young population today. But the youth population in that country will start shrinking from 2015, i.e., less than a decade from now because of lagged effect of their ill-thought one-child policy. Japanese and European total populations are fast aging, and will start declining in absolute numbers from next year. The US will however hold a steady trend thanks to a liberal policy of immigration, especially from Mexico and Phillipines. But even then the US will have in a decade hence a demographic shortage in skilled personnel. All currently developed countries thus experience a demographic deficit. India will not. Our past alleged liability, by a fortuitous turn of fate, has (now become to be globally regarded as our potential asset.
THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF HINDUTVA
There remains a question whether this Hindutva-powered theory of economic development would be ultra vires within India of the current Constitution, since according to a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court, the Indian Constitution cannot be amended to alter the “Basic Structure” of democratic and secular principles. It is my considered view, that the Articles of the Constitution in its present shape, i.e., without amendment, are sufficient to incorporate the Hindutva tenets of economic development.
In fact, the basic structure of our Constitution is consistent with the tradition of Hindutva. Ancient Bharat or Hindustan was of janapadas and monarchs. But it was unitary in the sense that the concept of chakravartin [propounded by Chanakya], i.e., of a sarvocch pramukh or chakravarti prevailed in emergencies and war, while in normal times the regional kings always deferred to a national class of sages and sanyasis for making laws and policies, and acted according to their advice. This is equivalent to Art.356 of the Constitution.
In that fundamental sense, while Hindu India may have been a union of kingdoms, it was fundamentally not a monarchy but a Republic. In a monarchy, the King made the laws and rendered justice, as also made policy but in Hindu tradition the king acted much as the President does in today’s Indian Republic. The monarch acted always according the wishes and decisions of the court-based advisers, mostly prominent sages or Brahmins. Thus Hindu India was always a Republic, and except for the reign of Ashoka, never a monarchy. Nations thus make Constitutions but Constitutions do not constitute nations.
Because India’s Constitution today is unitary with subsidiary federal principles for regional aspirations, and the judiciary and courts are national, therefore the Rajendra Prasad-monitored and Ambedkar-steered Constitution—making, was a continuation of the Hindu tradition. This is the second pillar ofl constitutionality for us—the Hindutva essence ! These aspects were known to us as our Smritis. Therefore, it is appropriate here to explore ways by which Hindutva can be blend into the present Constitution more explicitly.
The framers of the Constitution of India also seemed to be aware of the Hindu heritage of India. A perusal of the final copy of the Constitution, which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, is most instructive in this regard. The Constitution includes twenty-two illustrations within its main body. These illustrations are listed at the beginning of the Constitution. The illustrations are apparently chosen to represent various periods and eras of Indian history. And have been selected to represent the ethos and values of India, which the Constitution seeks to achieve through its written words. The framers of the Constitution appear to have had no doubt in their minds that the Hindu heritage of this country is the ballast on which the spirit of the Constitution sails.
In a Supreme Court judgment [(1995) SCC 576], headed by Justice J.S.Verma held: “It is a fallacy and an error of law to proceed on the presumption that any reference to Hindutva or Hinduism in a speech makes it automatically a speech based on Hindu religion as opposed to other religions or that the use of the word Hindutva or Hinduism per se depicts an attitude hostile to all persons practicing any religion other than the Hindu religion… and it may well be that these words are used in a speech to emphasise the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian cultural ethos… There is no such presumption permissible in law contrary to the several Constitution Bench decisions”.
This approach is now the law of the land. A Supreme Court constitutional Bench headed by Justice P.D.Gajendragadkar, delivered a judgement [(1966) 3 SCR 242] wherein the Bench commented, “Unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one God; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion on creed”
Hindus instead have always believed in shashtrarthas [debate] to convert others to their point of view. Hence, even when Buddha challenged the ritualistic practices of Hindus or Mahavira and Nanak gave fresh perspectives on Hindu concepts there was never any persecution or denunciation of these great seers. Indeed these visionary seers are considered as having benefited Hinduism.
Thus, the single most important theme of Hinduism is the freedom of the spirit to question, assimilated, synthesis and then re-question is the process of inquiry in Hindu theology search and Just as science insists on freedom in exploring the physical world, Sanatana Dharma embodies freedom in the exploration of the spiritual realm. Hindutva thus has a spiritual scientific quality.
This Hindu-ness or Hindutva has also been our identifying characteristic, by which we have been recognized world-wide. The territory in which Hindus lived was known as Hindustan, i.e., a specific area of a collective of persons who are bonded together by this Hindu-ness. The Salience thus was given religious and spiritual significance by tirth yatra, kumbh mela, common festivals, and in the celebration of events in the Ithihasa, viz., Ramayana and Mahabharata. The religious minorities of Muslims and Christians also, according to recent DNA studies on Indians show, are descendants of Hindus i.e., through conversion and not of hordes from abroad as propagated by British historians and their tutees in India.
Hindu Rashtra thus defined, is our nation that is a modern Republic today, whose roots are also in the long unbroken Hindu civilisational history. Throughout this history we were a Hindu Republic and not a monarchy [a possible but weak exception being Asoka's reign]. In this ancient Republican concept, the king did not make policy or proclaim the law.
The intellectually accomplished (but not birth-based or determined) elite in the society, known as Brahmans, framed the laws and state policy and the King (known as Kshatriya) implemented it. Thus it was ordained.
“I deem that country as the most virtuous land which promotes the healthy and friendly combination of Brahma and Kshattra powers for an integrated upliftment of the society along with the divine powers of the Gods of mundane power of the material resources” -Yajurveda XX-25.
Hindutva hence, is our innate nature, while Hindustan is our territorial body, but Hindu Rashtra is our republican soul. Hindu panth [religion] is however a theology of faith. Even if an Indian has a different faith from a Hindu, he or she can still be possessed of Hindutva. Since India was 100 percent Hindu a millennium ago, the only way any significant group could have a different faith in today’s India is if they were converted from Hindu faith, or are of those whose ancestors were Hindus. Conversion of faith does not have to imply conversion to another culture or nature. Therefore, Hindutva can remain to be interred in a non-Hindu in India.
Hence, we can say that Hindustan is a country of Hindus and those others whose ancestors were Hindus. Acceptance with pride this reality by non-Hindus is to accept Hindutva. Hindu Rashtra is therefore a republican nation of Hindus and of those of other faiths who have Hindutva in them. This formulation settles the question of identity of the Hindustani or Indian.
Hindutva however has to be inculcated in our people from values and norms that emerge out of Hindu renaissance, that is, a Hindu theology which is shorn of the accumulated but unacceptable baggage of the past as also by co-opting new scientific discoveries, perceptions and by synergizing with modernity.
This is the only way that Hindustan can become a modern Hindu Rashtra, thus achieving independence after having recovered our freedom [in 1947]—as Parmacharya the Kanchi Pontiff had wanted.
Hindu-ness of outlook on life had been called Hindutva by Swami Vivekananda also and Hindutva’s political perspective was subsequently developed by Veer Savarkar. Deendayal Upadhaya briefly dealt with the concept of Hindutva when he wrote about chiti in his seminal work: Integral Humanism. The focus of all three profound thinkers is the multi-dimensional development of the Hindus as an individuals harmonizing material needs with spiritual advancement and which needs then have to be aggregated and synchronized to foster a united community on the collective concept of Hindutva.
Deendayal Upadhyaya outlined how to modernize the concepts of Hindutva as follows:
“We have to discard the status quo mentality and usher in a new era. Indeed our efforts at reconstruction need not be clouded by prejudice or disregard for all that is inherited from our past. On the other hand, there is no need to cling to past institutions and traditions which have outlived their utility”.
Thus, we should invite Muslims and Christians to join us Hindus on the basis of common ancestry or even seek their return to our fold as Hindus, in this grand endeavour as Hindustanis, on the substance of our shared and common ancestry. This is the essence of renaissance.
Hence, the essentiality of Hinduism, or alternatively the core quality of being a Hindu, which we may call as our Hindu-ness [i.e., Hindutva], is that theologically there is no danger of Hindutva, or the advocacy of the same, of ever degenerating into fundamentalism. In fact, so liberal, sophisticated, and focused on inward evolution is Hindu theology, that in a series of Supreme Court judgments, various Constitutional Benches found it hard even to define Hinduism and Hindutva as anything but a way of life, as we discover from an useful review of these judgments by Bal Apte MP [6].
The identity of Indian is thus Hindustani; a Hindu Rashtra i.e., a republican nation of Hindus and those others [non-Hindus] who proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. It is this acknowledgement that remains pending today. We can accept Muslims and Christians as part of our Hindustani family when they proudly acknowledge this fact of common ancestry and accept furthermore that change religion does not require change of culture.
Thus the cultural identity of India is undeniably, immutably, and obviously its Hindu-ness, that is Hindutva. A de-falsified Indian history would leave no one in doubt about it. In the current History textbooks, presently prescribed in our educational institutions however it is being clandestinely propagated that India has belonged culturally to those who forcibly occupied it.
Aptly summarized in the writings of Dr.Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar[7] then a mere graduate student studying for a Ph.D. in economics, had stated:
“It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of it’s culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity—the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end”.
Ambedkar wrote in this vein several such brilliant books, but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him and electorally humiliated him that in the end bitterness drove him to his sad end. We must honour him now as a great Rajrishi and co-opt his writings as part of the Hindutva literature.
That is, by a failure to usher a renaissance after 1947 India has lost her opportunity to cleanse the accumulated dirt and unwanted baggage of the past. The nation missed a chance to demolish the birth-based caste theory as Ambedkar had wanted to do. The battering that the concept of Hindu unity and Indian identity has taken at the hands of Nehruvian secularists since 1947 has led to the present social malaise. Thus, even though Hindus are above 80 percent of the population in India, they have not been able to understand their roots in, and obligations to, the Hindu society in a pluralistic democracy.
CONCLUSION
The main theme in this paper is that we need a new ideological framework for the theory of economic development that can unite the Indian nation. I believe that if every individual be motivated by equipping him with fundamental concepts of Hindutva, that requires adherence to principles enumerated in nine Postulates, empowered by adequate modern education and inculcation of scientific spirit of inquiry, then it is possible to bring about a national renaissance, and make the Indian people happily strive for global economic power.
Is there a contradiction between Hindutva and modernity? Modernization is the process of modernity. Modernity may be defined as a state of mind or mindset that entails a receptive attitude to change, transparency and accountability. The process of reaching that mindset is modernization.
Hindutva is the quality of being a Hindu, namely the Hinduness of a person. We have already identified beliefs which include the quality of being receptive to change as immutable law of change, imbedded in the concept of dharmachakra pravartana.
Hindu theology also extols transparency and accountability in the concepts of satyam, shivam and sundaram, and in the concept of karma which is nothing but the concept of accountability. The concept of yama and niyama define the code for Hindus which is an ingredient of Hindutva.
Hence, there is no conflict or contradiction between Hindutva and Modernization. What needs to be discussed is how to inculcate Hindutva so that we can be acquire a modern mindset and how the modernization process can be structured so that Hindutva can be imbibed in our nature through our educational and family system.
Modernization is embedded in mind development that takes place because of growing stock of knowledge. This knowledge has to be pursued with character that seeks to use knowledge to liberate and empower the human and not to enslave him. Thus religious faith has helped to develop the character necessary for imbibing knowledge.
In a nutshell then, the Hindutva Principles for Economic Development is founded on the following clear concepts: First is the necessacity to harmonise the Hindutva values as enshrined in Sanatana Dharma, with efficient pursuit of material progress. Second, is the ancient non-birth based decentralization of power embodied in the Varna system. Third, innovation–driven economic growth that is nurtured by all five dimensions of Intelligence. Fourth, an overriding national identity that is rooted in the ancient continuing civilizational history. Fifth, the Gandhian concept of trusteeship and philanthropy.
REFERENCES
[1] Bruce Rich: To Uphold the World: A Call for a New Global Ethic from Ancient India [Beacon Press, Boston, MA, USA, 2010]
[2] Subramanian Swamy: Indian Economic Planning—An Alternative Approach, Vikas, New Delhi, 1971
[3] Upadhyaya,Deendayal:Integral Humanism,Navchetan Press, Delhi, 1965
[4] Goldberg,Phillip: The American Veda, Routledge, New York, 2010
[5] Girija O.V:”A Critical study of Modern Indian Education” Ph.D Thesis University of Madras(2008)
[6] Apte, Bal: Supreme Court on Hindutva, India First Foundation, 2005.
[7] Ambedkar, B.R.:Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95]
Fortune India December 2013Click To OpenFortune India December 2013 – article on Subramanian Swamy…
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Befriending Sri Lanka Should Be India’s ConcernClick To OpenWithout UNSC backing by way of a Resolution, an UNHRC Resolution is not even worth the paper on which it is written. Hence the British PM’s threat at CHOGM to enforce human rights justice by external intervention is laughable
The world witnessed a historic event in May 2009, when in a final Sri Lankan military assault, the treacherous and murderous terrorist outfit Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was decimated. Its chief V Prabhakaran and his main associates were killed on May 19, 2009.
The Sri Lankan President successfully led his nation to bring the 29-year-long sordid affair of terrorism in the island to a decisive end by military means. Much has improved in Sri Lanka since the historic May 19, 2009. Coming to terms with Prabhakaran’s death, the rump LTTE, surviving in the island, laid down their arms. Subsequently many of them have been rehabilitated in the mainstream.
Today, Tamil families living in Sri Lanka no more fear the forced recruitment of their children by the LTTE. The extortion of funds from civilians to finance terrorist operations has also ended. Normalcy has returned in daily life after three decades.
The Sri Lankan people gave the President a huge mandate in the subsequently held general elections. With the war victor halo and the public mandate, it is clear that President Mahinda Rajapaksa is crucially positioned to take necessary and effective steps to solve the remaining pending and pressing issue — a healthy Sinhala-Tamil reconciliation — by finding a mutually acceptable way to heal the residual Sinhala-Tamil divide, and bring about a meeting of minds.
Decades of brutal insurgency have polarised communities and undermined institutions that guarantee civilian rights.
The immediate task before President Rajapaksa is to accomplish the rehabilitation of the remaining victims of the insurgency, to provide solace to the bereaved families whose kin were killed in the crossfire, the displaced and the injured. However, the more fundamental long-term challenge for Sri Lanka is to provide succour to those who are scarred mentally and emotionally by the brutalities and are uncertain about their place in Sri Lanka’s future.
The Sri Lankan Tamils are facing the delicate situation. The war conducted by the Sri Lankan armed forces against a sinister terrorist organisation had — due to the extremist Dravidian Movement in Tamil Nadu and the violent authoritarianism of the LTTE demanding that it be recognised as the sole representative of the Tamils — more or less polarised into a conflict between the Sinhala and the Tamil communities. This was confounded by the political miscalculations of some short-sighted leaders on both sides of the Palk Straits over the last three decades.
The LTTE, in fact, had led that polarisation, and Tamil leadership fell into the quicksand created by it. They were egged on across the Palk Strait by selfish leaders in Tamil Nadu, many of whom were being financed by the LTTE.
Today in 2013, more than four years later, we are faced with two conflicting imperatives --
First, there is a need for the Sri Lankan government to treat and co-opt the Tamils in national endeavours as a linguist (not ethnic) minority within the framework of a quasi-unitary Constitution.
Second, to heal the wounds of the mind and body of the Sri Lankans, who are victims of both the LTTE terrorism and the collateral human rights damage implicit in an anti-insurgency and anti-terrorist military action. Such damage has happened in many countries and even in a traditional war such the Allies attack on Germany and the atomic bombing of Japan during World War II.
The first imperative requires forgetting the past injustices, human rights violations, and horrors of armed conflict in order to move forward, while the second imperative needs remembering the past and bringing the offenders of gross human rights violations to book to serve as a deterrent for the future.
The contradiction in the goals implicit in the two issues is difficult to resolve in Sri Lanka. It was easier in the aftermath of a traditional war, like that in 1945, when the Nuremberg Trials took place, while reconstruction of Europe commenced simultaneously. In 1945, the winners and losers were identifiable as national identities, and victor-imposed solutions had the moral sanction against a defeated opponent led by a depraved leadership.
In Sri Lanka, the two issues are almost impossibly entangled because the human rights violations have been committed in a morally just military campaign of the Sri Lankan Sinhala-dominated army of a democratically elected Government against the most brutal and well-organised terrorism of the Tamil Tigers, and whose outfit was financed by a narcotics and money laundering international network.
In such a milieu, there are no clear winners and losers. Hence, a UN sponsored and enforced solution or a Nuremburg Trial-type resolution of the second issue is so counter-productive that it could lay the foundation for the emergence of the same problem that existed pre-2009 but with the possibility of deepening and festering the wounds of the insurgency war.
Hence, in my view, the UNHRC session not be devoted to ensuring the passage of a censuring and blistering Resolution which cannot be enforced in Sri Lanka, in view of the clear division in the veto-holding members of the UN Security Council.
Without UNSC backing by way of a Resolution, an UNHRC Resolution is not even worth the paper on which it is written. Hence the British PM’s threat at CHOGM to enforce human rights justice by external intervention is laughable.
Instead, I suggest the mover of the Resolution at next March UNHCR session — the United States, India and China as members — should engage Sri Lanka and persuade the leadership to secure a commitment for internationally prevalent and accepted devolution of the Sri Lankan Constitution. And the devolution should be consistent with the cultural ethos of the Sri Lankan mainstream.
While the concept of rigid federal autonomy, in my view, is alien to the Hindu-Buddhist cultural ethos of the majority of the people of the South Asian nations, plurality is the foundation of the culture of the sub-continent. This is why the SAARC nations have been by and large democratic and held Constitutional mandated periodic elections and peaceful transfer of power.
Hence, a future government of India should take the initiative, and put forward a Resolution before the UN Human Rights Commission, to begin bilateral discussion with Sri Lanka, and support back-channel efforts to work out a mutually acceptable Resolution.
Proposal for reconciliation
There are many proposals on the desk of the Sri Lankan President, so I see little point in giving another fully structured proposal. Rather I shall concentrate here on certain fundamentals of any viable and mutually acceptable reconciliation between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority, the core of which is devolution of powers under the Constitution:
First, no proposal for reconciliation can be pushed for acceptance in Sri Lanka from abroad, whether from India, or United Nations or from any European busybody. The proposal must emerge indigenously in Sri Lanka after full democratic consultations with the stakeholders, none of whom shall have a veto, and adopted by the Sri Lanka Parliament by way of a resolution or, if necessary, by a Constitutional amendment.
Second, the final reconciliation proposal should be based on the draft prepared by the Joint Select Committee of the Sri Lankan Parliament; so far the Tamil National Alliance has been boycotting. Now that a former Supreme Court Judge has been elected by a huge mandate as the CM of Northern Province, it should be possible for TNA to enter the Parliamentary process.
Third, the Sri Lanka’s Constitution may provide for provinces but yet remains Unitary in character in the sense that the Parliament will have power under the Constitution to dismiss and take over the administration of a State for specified contingencies such as a state being unable to enforce the relevant provisions of the Constitution.
Fourth, Sri Lanka by a Constitutional Amendment become a Union of States, with exclusive and concurrent power delegated under the Constitution for the Union and the States to exercise and accordingly, a Union, Concurrent, and State Lists will be incorporated in the Constitution enumerating the subjects under the three categories.
Fifth, the Chief Minister as Head of the state government should have primary responsibility to maintain public order through a Central Reserve Police and a contingent of the Armed Forces stationed in a special conclave in the state to intervene for the maintenance of public order whenever the President determines with ex-post facto approval of the Parliament that a situation has arisen that requires such an intervention.
Sixth, the Parliament enact an amendment to the Constitution to empower the Union to appoint Special District Magistrates whenever necessary and whose power will supersede the orders issued in exercise of State Magistrates power to maintain public order.
Agenda For India’s YouthClick To OpenDr Subramanian Swamy
ACCORDING to me, India is at the crossroads of destiny today: Either we take the path to break out of shackles acquired from a millennium of occupation of the nation by foreign religion-driven invaders, and cemented by Nehru and his successor-clones as Prime Ministers, or we continue tread on the road to further assimilate these shackles in our mindset and ultimately again surrender to our foreign tormentors.
What are these shackles? These are four dimensional:
(i) A bogus foreign imposed concept of Indian identity that has made youngsters get divided on artificial distinctions such as varna, jati, region and language. Hence on our Agenda we must shape and wield our youth into a united Virat Hindutva—imbibed Hindustani.
(ii) A reluctance to retaliate against terrorists, hijackers, brutalisers of the women, and other aggressors for fear of disturbing their personal status quo, or risk of losing what we have left. As a consequence we have become passive and docile instead of having virat gunas, of courage, sacrifice, and tenacity.
(iii) India has a huge youth population which make us a strong candidate for a demographic dividend. But our rudderless youth imbibed in Nehruism is increasingly fixated on material progress even at the cost of sacrificing spiritual values, leading youth to become greedy for cash to throw around, and to accumulate wealth by hook or crook, thus become corrupt, and soon degenerate.
(iv) A lack of an Indian language for a national idiom of communication, the lack of which is forcing us to communicate in a foreign language with each other across the states. This makes for low grade titillation and night club brawls as the currency of modernisation, and by peer pressure compelling thereby our youth to become westernised and immoral.
How then to unshackle ourselves and India become Virat Hindutva—imbibed Hindustan?
(1) Indian Identity
In today’s India as a nation state, youth are confused if India is a British imperialist by-product, or is an ancient nation of continuing unbroken civilisation. In other words, is the word ‘India’ used the same way that we today use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Europe’ to denote a sub-continental region of separate nations and cultures, or was India always a nation of one culture of a people with a common history?
The battle to settle the answer to this question is on today between the nationalist Indian and the internationalist liberal or how to be a nationalist Indian and keep at bay the internationalist liberal of Nehru’s vintage.
We are one indigenous people according the recent DNA genetic studies. Every nation thus must have an identity to be regarded distinct. The youth of India have to be inculcated with that outlook and thus accept Hindutva as the foundation of India’s culture.
Following Samuel Huntington’s contribution to definition of an identity of the two components: Salience, which is the importance that the citizen attributes to national identity over the other many sub-identities. Second, Substance, which is what the citizens think they have in common, and which distinguishes them from others of other countries.
Salience in India is imbedded in the concept of Chakravartin, which Chanakya had spelt out with great clarity, while Substance is what Hindus have always searched for and found unity in all our diversities in, thanks to our spiritual and religious leaders, especially most recently Swami Vivekananda and Sri Paramacharya of Kanchi Mutt.
And that substance in Indian identity invariably is the Hindu-ness of our people, which we now call as Hindutva. Thus our Agenda for Change must include the youth accepting that an Indian is one who is a Hindu or one who acknowledges that his ancestors are Hindus. This concept would include willing Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews. Thus, religion of any Indian can charge, but not the Hindu-ness or Hindutva.
We should invite Muslims and Christian youth to join us Hindus on the basis of this common ancestry or even their voluntary return to our fold as Hindus, in this grand endeavour as Hindustanis, on the substance of our shared and common ancestry.
For this we have to jettison our adherence to birth-based varna and jati which blocks re-coverts to Hinduism from assimilation in Hindu society.
Hindutva has to be inculcated in our people from values and norms that emerge out of a Hindu renaissance, that is, a Hindu theology which is shorn of the accumulated but unacceptable baggage of the past, as also by co-opting new scientific discoveries, perceptions and by synergising with modernity.
Deendayal Upadhyaya outlined how to modernise the concept of Hindutva as follows:
“We have to discard the status quo mentality and usher in a new era. Indeed our efforts at reconstruction need not be clouded by prejudice or disregard for all that is inherited from our past. On the other hand, there is no need to cling to past institutions and traditions which have outlived their utility”. This is the essence of renaissance.
This is the only way that Hindustan can become a modern Hindu Rashtra.
(2) Virat Hindutva
Patriotic Hindu youth should understand the present structural limitation in the theology of Hinduism, that is individualism, is mistakenly taken as apathy, but it is now required of us to find ways to rectify it for the national good.
It is worthy of notice that, recognising this limitation, Hindu spiritual leaders in the past have from time to time come forward to rectify it, whenever the need arose e.g., as the Sringeri Shankaracharya did by founding the Vijayanagaram dynasty or Swami Ramdas did with Shivaji and the Mahratta campaign. Such involvement of sanyasis is required even more urgently today.
In fact, this is the real substance of India as Swami Vivekananda had aptly put it when he stated that: “National union of India must be a gathering up of its scattered spiritual forces. A Nation in India must be a union of those whose hearts beat to the same spiritual tune…. The common ground that we have is our sacred traditions, our religion. That is the only common ground… upon that we shall have to build.”
(3) Demographic Dividend
When a country starts having economic development, population growth begins to accelerate not because families start having more babies but because infant mortality sharply declines and expectation of life rises—people start living longer. This means that the death rate of a developing country quickly declines and faster than the birth rate declines. This leads to an acceleration of population growth, and since 1951 till 2000 was regarded as a “problem”.
Today we no more refer to population growth as a problem but as a ‘demographic dividend’. Why? Because modern economic growth is not more about more capital and more employment, but about more innovation—news ways of combining capital and labour through new technology. For example the difference between the postman and email via internet.
India has the possibility of a demographic dividend because in the next several decades the average age of the country will be relatively young while the ratio of younger people to retired persons will be favourable. Young people from universities are the vehicles of new innovation.
India therefore must take steps such as educating its youth, fixing infrastructure and lowering corruption levels to bring this demographic dividend to fruition.
India thus has the potential for a demographic dividend, if its Agenda for Change calls for investment to educate its large young population for acquiring skills, in infrastructure, and works to stop corruption so that competition and merit can triumph over cronyism..
But there and pitfalls ahead: India’s developing story based on reaping the demographic dividend is now marred by some unintended developments, principally illegal immigration mostly Muslims from Bangladesh and the higher population growth of Muslims within the country.
Muslim society, if not ready to confront the orthodoxy of clerics, wallows in retrograde practices which retard economic growth. It is not poverty that is the reason for Muslim backwardness. From Tunisia to Indonesia, oil revenues have vastly reduced poverty to levels prevailing in developed countries.
Yet these countries have not produced any innovation worthy of note, or a world class university despite no shortage of funds, since they are cleric dominated nations. Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan at one stage inspired the thought that these nations would be trend setters in modernity, liberal tolerant thought, and gender equality. But one by one they have capitulated archaic practices, intolerance, and crude gender discrimination.
This is infecting Muslim majority areas such as Kashmir and Northern Kerala, and even in districts and town Panchayats. Hence, the illegal immigration of Muslims from Bangladesh and a fast growing Muslim population without it being willingly co-opted into the enlightened questioning Hindu ethos of India, would be a drag on economic progress of the nation, and later, become the enemy within. India’s most precious Demographic Dividend then would turn sour and divisive like in Lebanon.
That is why amongst Muslim youths in India it should be our Agenda for them to adopt the Hindutva ethos of a questioning mind and to proudly accept the truth that they are descendents of Hindus.
For all of us, national identity should be first priority and all other sub-identities of low priority.
(4) Developing Sanskrit as a Link Language
Sanskrit and the Devanagari script, in addition to the mother tongue and its script, will one day in the future, be Hindustan’s link language. In the Agenda for Change, the youth must be afforded the opportunity to learn Sanskrit as an alternative to Hindi.
All the main Indian languages have already a large percentage of their vocabulary common with Sanskrit. Even Tamil, which is considered as ancient, has 40 per cent words in common with Sanskrit. The scripts of all Indian languages are derived or evolved from Brahmi script. Hence, in the Agenda there has to be a commitment to re-throne Sanskrit with Devanagari script as virat Hindustan’s link language, and which is to be achieved through Hindi in a compulsory 3-language formula of mother tongue, Hindi, and English in all schools with a steady Sanskritisation of Hindi’s vocabulary till Sanskritised Hindi becomes indistinguishable from Sanskrit and thus replaced by the latter.
(The writer is former Union Law Minister)
Please refer the web link for original post:
http://organiser.org/Encyc/2013/4/6/Agenda-for-India’s-youth.aspx?NB=&lang=4&m1=m8&m2=m8.24&p1=&p2=&p3=&p4=&Page
The Italian Helicopter Sale ScamClick To OpenIn August 1999, just after the so-called Kargil military conflict, the Indian army made a strong plea for a high altitude flying helicopter, since the two combat areas where maximum Indian casualties took place was Tiger Hill at 18, 000 feet and Siachen at 17,500 feet. IAF Chetak and Cheetah could land at those heights but could carry only 4 combat troops per flight.
The IAF also pitched in for new generation helicopter to replace Mi-8 version for the VVIP ferrying, which was incapable of night flying and above 9000 feet.
With the parameters in mind, the IAF was authorized to issue a RFP, in March 2002. Four suppliers applied. After a preliminary analysis, three suppliers were selected for flight evaluation.
Agusta Westland’s A-101 failed to make the list after flight evaluation–because it could fly at 18, 000 feet and above. India’s swadeshi produced Dhruv helicopter could fly 20,000 feet, but was not certified at that time, and so it was never considered.
That left two—Russian Mi-172 and M/s Eurocopter EC-225. After Operational Requirements were considered, the Russian copter got disqualified. That left one choice—EC-225, which was therefore selected by the IAF. It was decided to order 8 helicopters.
Enter Brijesh Mishra. He, as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, called a meeting on November 19, 2003. He rebuked the IAF for not being cognizant of the needs of VVIP, who he observed rarely go flying above 14, 000 feet. He added that if even if they do, as Defence Minister George Fernandes used to, viz., fly to Siachen, then such VVIPs can used the Chetak.
Mishra made sure that IAF understood what he was saying by shooting off a letter dated December 22, 2003 to the IAF disapproving of the framing the Operational Requirements[ORs] without consulting him or SPG Chief on VVIP needs including the height of the helicopter entry door.
Exit NDA from union government and enter UPA. But Mishra’s letter was curiously honoured by the UPA government on the invisible informal direction, through the PMO, of Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
Therefore meetings were re-convened of the IAF, with PMO and SPG invited from March 2005, and the new ORs finalized in September 2006. The max heights were revised downwards to 4500 meters i.e., 14, 000 feet. It was also decided to order from 8 to 12 helicopters, with four specially decorated for VVIPs. A call for intent to buy was then issued. Six vendors responded.
Agusta Westland of Italy was back in the reckoning in the RFP along with five others. The formalities of testing and evaluation were gone through.
By February 2008, only two were left for choice: S-92 of M/s Sikorsky of US, and AW-101 of Agusta Westland of Italy[originally of UK, but which went bankrupt after selling helicopters to Pawan Hans in the 1980s. Italian government then bought it].
Field trials attended by the SPG as well disqualified the S-92 on the basis of a specially quality requirements [SQR]. Thereafter SPG Chief Wanchoo flew for two weeks visit to Italy in 2009 to give the Italians the good news—they had been selected thanks to the “rehanuma” Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
The deal worth over Euro 556 million was inked and sealed on February 8, 2010 after the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared a month earlier.
The nitty gritty of who gets what was worked out by Mr. Abhishek Verma, the son of the Hindi teacher of Ms. Sonia Gandhi. In gratitude for the Hindi taught, Ms. Sonia Gandhi agreed to become Patron of Verma Foundation AG, a benefactor of the deserving in the field of arms trade.
That bribes were paid in this deal is well established by the Italian government investigation. A 568 page Report prepared by Italian Special Police has been filed in the Milan Court which can be officially accessed by the CBI if they ask the Court with a Letter Rogatory[LR] and not by flying off for a jaunt as they have done lst week.
This Report accessed by me informally refers to a total bribe paid of Euro 51 million or about Rs 470 crores. Of this Rs 200 crores has been paid, reverentially referred to as “The Family”. The receivers are relatives of Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
The great facilitator in this deal, Mr Brijesh Mishra has a daughter, Jyotsna, married to an Italian belt manufacturer, who live in Italy. It needs to be found out she got anything. Brijesh Mishra in 2011 was decorated with Padma Vibhushan by our Rashtrapati.
What can we Indians do now? First, the CBI must be forced to take out a LR, and go to Milan to access the Italian documents. The government should set a SIT of CBI, ED, SFIO, RAW and IB under CBI chairmanship. Second, Abhishek Verma must be taken into custody for interrogation. Ex IAF Chief Tyagi must be also interrogated along with his relatives and intermediaries such as Aeromatrix. Third, Christian Michel must be traced through the Interpol and arrested for interrogation. Thereafter, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, and his two Italian aunties, Anushka and Nadia [on the duo’s next visit to India] should be questioned on whether they had met him before the deal was inked and sealed, in Dubai at Hyatt Hotel in the company of a Keralite liquor Dada. Fourth, one us Indian activists against corruption, such as Action Committee Against Corruption in India [ACACI] should go to the Supreme Court with a PIL and ask CBI to be monitored in its investigation. Fifth, the Defence Minister must invoke Article 23 of the Purchase Contract to suspend the purchases [only 4 of the 12 helicopters delivered so far] with a threat of cancellation if they don’t come clean on what happened. Finally, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh should tender a public apology for approving this corrupt deal in the CCS, knowing fully well what was happening.
Article also appeared in Organiser.
AGENDA On Flaws Of Juvenile Law In IndiaClick To OpenThe juvenile accused of the Delhi rape case is not a petty unlawful who could be reformed. Instead, he acted like a hardened criminal who knew what he was doing. Imagine if Ajmal Kasab was a minor: Would we have handled him with kid gloves?
Centuries ago, a great thinker called Plato had stated what has now become a real-life scenario in India, “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
On the unfortunate evening of December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old girl, a budding physiotherapy student, and her male friend were awaiting a bus at the Munirka bus stand around 9:30 pm. One bus conductor invited the two youngsters to board his private chartered bus on the pretext of dropping them to their destination. Once the girl and her friend boarded the bus, they realised that the conductor was a malicious person who, with four others, started making lewd advances. The male friend tried to intervene but was overpowered and beaten up with an iron rod. The girl kept fighting but was hit hard and fell down.
Thereafter, all heavens fell on the poor girl. On the floor of the speeding bus, the bus conductor and the five others, including the driver, took turns to rape her. But this was not enough for the bus conductor: He raped the victim twice, once while she was unconscious due to the trauma inflicted on her. Then, he inserted an iron rod into her private parts to wrench out her uterus as well as intestines. He explained to his associates that it was necessary for the destruction of evidence. After an hour of this inconceivable savagery, the victim and her male friend were stripped naked and thrown out of the bus into the freezing winter night.
After some delay the victim was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital where multiple surgeries were done to save her life. She fought bravely to live and in great pain conveyed her mother to “never let that conductor escape from law”. But the damage was so severe that even transplants of her organs were of no avail. On December 26, the victim, who displayed indomitable spirit to live against all odds and her determination to punish the guilty, was sent to a Singapore hospital in a comatose state to avail better treatment. But it was already too late by then as the girl breathed her last on December 29, leaving behind a nation whose conscience was totally shaken by the brutality of the incident. Everyone thought if this could happen in the most secured zone of the Capital at a time when Delhi was buzzing with people, then no one was safe in the country.
A WILY CRIMINAL
But the question remains: Why do we need to tell the account which happened one-and-a-half months ago? The story needs reiteration because it tells us that the bus conductor, who now claims to be a minor (below the age of 18 years), is not a petty unlawful who could be reformed; instead, he acted like a hardened criminal who knew what he was doing; he committed the act eagerly and tried to destroy the evidence of his heinous crime.
Also, the fact that the bus conductor acted swiftly to claim his ‘minor-hood’ shows his cold, demented mindset. He himself told the police that he was a juvenile and hence enjoyed special protection and waiver from criminal law. The police at the inspector level were stumped. A hidden hand moved swiftly to make the police “respect the law”, which is codified for delinquents under the age of 18 years in the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 and as amended in 2006 and 2010.
Had this 18-year cutoff not been there, the accused would have been prosecuted under Section 83 read with Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and received a minimum punishment of seven years of imprisonment. But the trouble with the laws these days is that criminals know their rights better than their wrongs.
The accused was a few months short of 18 years of age and if we all acquiesce, he would not be prosecuted under IPC but “reformed and rehabilitated” in a homely atmosphere under Sections 2(g), 15 and 16 of the Juvenile Justice Act (2000), under which after a maximum of three years he would be let free. Even Ajmal Kasab, involved in the dastardly 26/11 Mumbai attacks, would have been treated ‘humanely’ had he attacked India when he was a few years younger.
The inspiration for this Act came from the United Nations Convention on Rights of Child 1989, the United Nation Standard Minimum Rules for Administration of Juvenile Justice (Beijing Rules) 1985, and the United Nation Rules for Protection of Children Deprived of their Liberty 1990. India is a signatory of the above mentioned conventions and rules. The Preamble and the statement of objects and reasons of the Act state the same expressly and categorically.
This Act is a piece of “beneficial”, not criminal law, legislation and has been formulated to protect the innocence of our nation’s greatest asset — its children and youth. But in the current case, the extreme malice and depravity with which the accused has allegedly committed the crime shows that it is not the action of a juvenile delinquent who the law supposes to be of tender age and mind and not fully capable of being responsible for his actions, but rather these are actions of the most evil of men for whom this beneficial legislation clearly is not meant.
BETWEEN THE LINES
The question for the nation is: Should we allow the cold print of a law, the Juvenile Justice Act, framed for children committing crimes like pick-pocketing, bicycle theft, etc, be used unthinkingly to benefit, by exempting from prosecution under criminal law, those committing heinous crimes such as rape and murder, which cannot be committed unless the culprit knew what he was doing.
Also, the Act is not in complete consonance with these conventions and rules. The Beijing Rules 4(1) describes the concept of age of “Criminal Responsibility” as for which there are various factors which have to be considered in deciding when and at what age would a juvenile be held criminally responsible for his/her actions. These factors include but are not restricted to moral and psychological development, individual discernment and understanding, seriousness of the offence involved, record and previous history of the juvenile, etc. Furthermore, there is no blanket ban or prohibition in not holding the juvenile accused accountable for his offences.
Article 17.1(c) of the Beijing Rules state that even though endeavour is to be made to avoid incarceration in certain situations/offences, sentence of imprisonment has to be passed not only to punish the offender but also to protect public safety. The UNCRC 1989 and Beijing Rules 1985 recognised that neither there can be any hard-and-fast rule nor can there be a blanket protection solely on age criteria, and in appropriate cases criminal behaviour has to be punished with lengthy imprisonment.
In the United States, the Criminal Justice System recognises the concept of age of Criminal Responsibility and juveniles who are 14 years of age and above and guilty
of grievous crimes are held responsible for the same. They are tried under the Criminal Justice System like an adult. The law in England recognises the fact that knowledge and ability to reason are still developing, but the notion that a 10-year-old (the age of Criminal Responsibility) does not know right from wrong seems contrary to common sense in an age of compulsory education from the age of five, when children seem to develop faster both mentally and physically.
Thus, we need to read into the juvenile age limit of 18 years, the UN Convention ordained caveat, which India has already ratified in 1992 that this age limit is subject to the Beijing Rules 4(1) and ascertainment of the juvenile not being emotionally and intellectually mature to know what he or she was doing is necessary. This has already been incorporated in Rule 3 of the Juvenile Justice Act but surprisingly, because of the Law Ministry’s poor drafting, left out of the Act itself!
Hence, the UPA Government must issue an Ordinance to clarify that a juvenile accused as below 18 years is subject to satisfying Rule 4(1) of the Beijing Rules; otherwise, the juvenile accused will be tried under the IPC. The juvenile accused must be made an example of today to keep our faith in our legal system and to provide justice to the Delhi braveheart.
I conclude with the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “It would conduce to national progress and save a great deal of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of never supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting for them if we had not either the intention or the ability to carry them out.”
Parmacharya Sri Chandrashekhar Saraswati – God In Human FormClick To OpenParmacharya Sri Chandrashekhar Saraswati – God in human form
I have bowed before only one sanyasi in my life, and that is Sri Chandrasekhar Saraswathi, known to the world as the Parmacharya. It is not that I am arrogant or that I have no respect for sanyasis and sadhus. In fact I respect many sadhus in this country for their learning and social services. But my upbringing, first in an English convent school, and then ten years in USA had created a distance between me and traditional Hindu culture of bowing and prostrating before any elder, or anyone in saffron clothes. Therefore, I was the “modern” Indian, believer in science, and with little concern for spiritual diversions.
In fact till the age of 30, I had not even heard of a god like human being called Sri Chandrasekhar Saraswathi. It was a chance meeting with an Indian student at Harvard in his room in the university hostel, that I saw a picture of Parmacharya on top of this student’s TV set. I asked him: “Who is he? And why are you keeping his picture?” The student just avoided the question. I also forgot about it, except that Parmacharya shining smiling face in that photograph got etched in my memory. Six years later, as my Pan American Airways plane was about to land at Delhi airport during the Emergency, I saw that smiling Parmacharya’s face reappear before me for a brief second for no reason at that time. I was coming to Delhi surreptitiously to make my now famous appearance in Parliament and subsequent disappearance, while a MISA warrant was pending for my arrest in the Emergency. At that moment, as the plane landed, I resolved that whenever the Emergency gets over, I shall search for Parmacharya and meet him.
In 1977, after the Emergency was over, and the Janata Party in Power I went to Kanchipuram to see the Parmacharya. It was in sheer curiosity that I went. Some friends arranged for me to come before him. It was a hot June evening, and Parmacharya was sitting in a cottage, a few kilometers outside Kanchipuram. As soon as he saw me, he abruptly got up, and turned his back on me, and went inside the cottage. My friends who took me there were greatly embarrassed, and I was puzzled. Since no body including the other sadhus at that ashram had any idea what went wrong, I told my friends that we should leave, since Parmacharya was not interested in giving me “darshan”.
From the cottage, we walked a few hundred yards to where my car, by which I had come to the ashram, had been parked. Just as I was getting into the car, a priest came running to me. He said “Parmacharya wants to see you, so please come back”. Again puzzled, I walked back to the cottage.
Back at the cottage, a smiling Parmacharya was waiting for me. He first asked me in Tamil: “Do you understand Tamil?” I nodded. In those days, I hardly knew much Tamil, but I hoped the Parmacharya would speak in the simplest Tamil to make it easy to understand.
He then asked me another question: “Who gave you permission to leave my cottage?” The Tamil word he used for “permission” was of Sanskrit origin, which I immediately understood. So in my broken Tamil with a mixture of English words, I replied: “Since you turned your back on me and went inside the cottage, I thought you did not want to see me.” This reply greatly irritated the priest standing in attendance on the Parmacharya.
He said “You cannot talk like this to the Parmacharya”. But Parmacharya asked him to be silent, and then said that when he saw me, he was reminded of a press cutting he had been keeping in store inside the cottage and he had gone inside to fetch it.
“Here it is” he said. “Open it and read it. I opened the folded press cutting, and with some difficulty, I read the Tamil question answer piece printed in Dinamani Kadir, a magazine of Indian Express group. The press cutting had a photograph of me and below it the question asked by a reader: “Is the hero of the Emergency struggle, Dr.Subramanian Swamy a Tamilian?” And the answer given was, “Yes he is a native of Cholavandhan of Madurai District.”
Parmacharya asked me, “Is this your photograph, and is the answer given to the question correct?” I nodded. Then Parmacharya said: “Now you may go. But in the future when you come, you cannot leave till I give you permission to leave.” Everyone around me was naturally very impressed, that Parmacharya had given so much special attention especially since in those days, he often went on manuvvat (silence vow). As I left a sense of elation at the meeting with Parmacharya. I wanted to come back again. I could not understand why a “modern” person like me should want to see a sanyasi, but I felt the urge strongly.
A month later, the Tamilnadu Assembly elections were on, and I was passing Kanchipuram in the campaign rail. So I told the Janata Party workers to spare me some time to pay a visit to the Parmacharya.
When I again reached the same cottage, a priest was waiting for me. He said: “Parmacharya is expecting you.” I asked: “How is this possible, when I decided at that last minute to come, without appointment?” The priest replied. “That is a silly thing to ask. Parmacharya is divine. He knows every thing”.
Sure enough a radiant smiling Parmacharya received me. I thought that this time too, our meeting would last a few minutes, and after a few pleasantries, I can continue on my election campaign. But not so. Parmacharya spoke to me for 1-1 1/2 hours on all important subjects. He gave me guidelines on how to conduct myself in politics and what was necessary to protect the national interest of the country.
He told me that in politics, I should never bother about money or position, because both would follow me whenever an occasion demanded. But I should not be afraid to stand alone. He told me that all great persons of India were those who changed the thinking of the people from a particular set way of thought to a new way of thinking. “That is the permanent achievement for a politician, not merely becoming Minister or Prime Minister. Great persons, starting with Adi Shankara, to Mahatma Gandhi dared to stand alone and change the trend of people’s thought. But did either hold a government position?” he asked me. He said “If you dare to think out fresh solutions for current problems, without bothering about your popularity, and without caring for whether a government position comes to you or not, you will have my blessings.” When he said that I felt a strange sensation of happiness. I suddenly felt very strong.
During the period since my first meeting with the Parmacharya, I had thought a lot about him, heard his praise from so many people. From what I learnt and what I saw of him, I began to feel his divinity. There was no other human like him. If nothing else, he was one sadhu who did not bless Indira Gandhi during the Emergency when in the height of her power and at the height if the nation’s sycophancy, she came and prostrated before him. And yet when Indira Gandhi was down during the Janata rule, he received her and gave his blessings to her after she repented for the Emergency.
It is this thought, every time (that if I do something sincerely, and for what is for the good of the people) that Parmacharya’s blessings will be with me and see me through the interim period of public and media criticism and unpopularity, that has given me this courage that today even my enemies do not deny that I possess. In such endeavours, even though in the beginning when most thought that I was doomed, I came out it successful in the end because of his blessing.
In the next few instalments I shall, without drawing the Parmacharya’s name into the controversy, reveal many such initiatives that I took with his blessings. From 1977 to his day of Samadhi, I met the Parmacharya so many times and received his oral benediction and advice. But I never gave it publicity or got myself photographed. During his life time, I did not boast of my proximity to him either, although whenever I came to the Kanchi Mutt, always without appointment, he would see me. If he was asleep, he was awakened by his close helpers to whom he had obviously given instructions about me. There may not be another god in human form for another 100 years, but it was my honour to have known him and received his blessings. He may not be here today in human form, but because of what he had instructed me, I know and feel his is around.
Parmacharya – Part II
Subramanian Swamy
After wonderful discourse from Maha Periyawal Sri Chandrashekhara Saraswathi in 1977, I went to have Parmacharya’s darshan numerous times. Whenever I had a difficult question that I could not answer, I would go and ask him for guidance. He gave me audience also in abundance. I got to see him whenever I came to Kanchipuram, or at Belgam in Karnataka or at Satara in Maharashtra or wherever else he was. But I did not publicize these darshan sessions in the newspapers as some others were doing. This was greatly appreciated by the Mutt officials and pujaris.
When Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, defeating the Janata Party, I was upset, and wondered if Emergency would be declared again. So I went with a group of Janata workers to the Karnataka – Maharashtra border, where Sri Parmacharya was camping on his walking tour. When I reached him, he was sitting in a hut almost as if he was waiting for me. As soon as he saw me, he got up and started briskly walking to a nearby temple. I just stood there watching him. Soon he stopped walking and sent someone to ask me to come to him alone.
When I reached where he was standing, he said to me anticipating my question; “It is a good thing that Indira Gandhi has got an absolute majority. At this juncture, the country needs a stable government, and only Indira Gandhi is in a position to give that stability.” “But what if she declares another Emergency and tries to put us all in jail?” I asked.
To this question, Parmacharya only smiled and put his hand up in his known style of bestowing his blessings. I did not realize at that time, that Indira Gandhi had before elections, gone to Hubli in Karnataka where he was camping and prostrated before the Parmacharya. On her own, she had vowed to him and had said that if she came back to power, she will not repeat the mistakes of the past of declaring an Emergency. Then she asked for his blessings, which the Parmacharya had given by raising his hand and showing his palm.
As I was leaving, Parmacharya asked me if I could work to unite the opposition and include the communists in it. “Communists!” I asked in utter incredulity. I added: “The Soviet Union has just invaded Afghanistan (December 27, 1979), and are preparing to capture Pakistan, and then soon they will swallow India. How can we believe the Communists?”
“Not like that at all” said Parmacharya to me. He clearly gave me a hint that Communists will never be a danger to India. In fact he gave me a clear indication that in some years to come the Soviet Union will not be there at all. I just could not believe what I heard. But eleven years later, that is exactly what happened. The Soviet Union broke up in 1991 into 16 countries, a development no human being foresaw. Parmacharya was above human, a divine soul. He could see it. To this day I regret that I did not act on his advice because I spent nearly a decade (ten years 1980 -90) opposing Communism, little realizing that it was going to collapse of its own weight. I earned the Communists enmity for nothing. That is the only advice of Parmacharya I did not act on. On other occasions, I blindly followed whatever he told me. Of course, the golden rule with Parmacharya was that he would not on his own offer any advice, but when I asked him, he showed me the way. When my mind was made up on anything, I did not ask him what I should do. Of course if I did not have his blessings, I rarely succeeded.
In 1987 for example, I tried to land with some fisherman in the island of Katchathivu to assert the rights of fisherman under the Indo-Sri Lanka accord. MGR was Chief Minister then. He had me arrested in Madurai and put me up in Tamilnadu Hotel instead of Madurai jail. The then DGP, told me clearly that unless I give up the Katchathivu trip and agreed to return to Chennai, they would keep me under arrest. Those days I knew little criminal Law, so I agreed to return to Chennai not knowing my rights. After arriving in the city I drove to Kanchipuram and saw the Parmacharya. I told him of my humiliation and my inability to go to Katchathivu. Parmacharya smiled at me as if I was a child. He told me: “You go to Delhi and file a case in the Supreme Court against the arrest, and ask the court to direct the Tamilnadu government to make arrangements for you to go Katchathivu”.
So I flew that evening to Delhi. My wife is an advocate in the Supreme Court, so I asked her to draft my writ petition. She was shocked by my request, “The Supreme Court will laugh at you if you come directly on a question of arrest. You must first go before Magistrate in Madurai, then Sessions Court, the High Court, and then only to Supreme Court” she said.
I insisted that she draft the petition. So finally she said “As an advocate, I don’t want to look foolish in the Court. So I will draft your petition but the rest you do. I won’t associate with it.” But my blind faith in Parmacharya kept me going. With the petition filed, I appeared in the Court of the Chief Justice Venkataramiah. I arrived in the Court a few minutes before the Chief Justice took his seat. Many lawyers who recognized me met me to ask why I had come, they all laughed. All of them said: “Your Petition will not only be dismissed, but also the Chief Justice will pass remarks against your stupidity, and for wasting the time of the Supreme Court.”
When my Petition came up for hearing, a miracle happened. Chief Justice Venkataramaiah asked the Tamilnadu Counsel (then Kuldip Singh, who became a famous Judge himself later) why the Government had arrested me. Taken by surprise at the Petition not being dismissed, Kuldip Singh stammered. “Kuldip Singh went on to explain that a pro-LTTE mob was against me going to Katchathivu, and the LTTE had also issued a threat to finish me. Chief Justice Venkataramaiah then burst out at Kuldip Singh. He thundered “Are you fit to call yourself a democratic government? If mob wants to stop Dr.Swamy, you arrest the mob not Dr.Swamy.”
The Chief Justice then passed an order that the Government should make all the necessary arrangements for me to go to Katchathivu. No one in court could believe it. Some asked me: “Are you related to Venkataramaiah?” I am not only not related, but those days I did not even know him. But I had the blessings of Parmacharya, and I was doing as he asked me to.
That was the divine power of Parmacharya ; when he asked you to do anything, he also took measures to see that the right thing happened.
After the Supreme Court verdict, I met Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Parliament House. Kuldip Singh had already informed him of the court verdict. So he told me: “Why did you not speak to me first? I would have told MGR to allow you. In any case, when you plan to go to Katchathivu, the navy and air force will give you cover. But the fishing boat on which you travel has to be provided by you.”
On May 8, 1988, I landed on Katchathivu and planted the Janata Party’s saffron and green flag, and prayed at the St.Anthony Church there. As I approached the island, there were navel patrol boats on either side of my fishing vessel which I had taken on hire. Two air force planes were flying over me. I felt grand like a king. My salutations went to the Parmacharya. He made the impossible possible. From being arrested in Madurai to being royally escorted to Katchathivu, only Parmacharya could arrange.
Parmacharya- Part III
Subramanian Swamy
In 1981, I became successful in persuading the Chinese government in re-opening for Hindu pilgrims the route to Kailash and Manasarovar. After 3 years of persuading the Chinese, in April 1981 the Chinese strongman Deng Xiao Ping invited me to China to meet him. In that meeting, he told me that as a “special favour to me and my efforts and in recognition of my steady advocacy of improved Sino-Indian relations [ he used the term "lao peng yeou" 'meeting old friend' ] he was asking the officials to meet Indian counter parts to work out the arrangements for pilgrims to visit Kailash. Deng had in jest asked me “But you must go first”. He had said it jokingly, but I was keen to see Kailash and Manasarovar. So when I met Mrs. Gandhi in Delhi to tell her of my meeting with Deng, I told her that I will lead the first batch of pilgrims and that she should agree. She laughed and said “of course. I wish I could go too.”
The opening of Kailash and Manasarovar had been considered impossible by our Foreign Ministry officials. China is a communist country and Kailash and Manasarovar is in the most sensitive area of Tibet. Therefore how could China allow Indians, even if as Pilgrims, to walk into Tibet? But the impossible happened because throughout the three years of talks with the Chinese, Parmacharya not only gave his blessings to me for this venture but encouraged me. “We must be friends with China and Israel” he would keep telling me whenever I came to him for darshan and anugraha (blessings).
When the Kailash and Manasarovar re-opening was announced, the first batch consisting of 20 pilgrims was slated to go in the end of August. That meant in 30 days of walking from the end of August to late September. By the time, we return, it would be end of September. At those heights in the Himalayas, September meant snow and ice cold temperatures, and that we would have to walk! Foreign ministry officials told me that since the route had not been in use for nearly 25 years, it would be a rough walk. We would have to clear bushes on the way, and perhaps encounter animals and snakes!
To make matters worse, Inderjit Gupta, then a CPI Lok Sabha MP, and good friend of many years, asked my wife to prevent me from going on this trip since I would not return. “It requires mountaineers to trek this route, not people like us” he told her. Others told me that I should think of my family (of two daughters then age 11 and 8) and not venture on such foolishness. In fact one BJP MP, perhaps more out of jealousy than concern, told me that it is punya (blessing) to die on the route to Kailash. If that were so, I wondered, why not a single BJP or RSS leader has ever gone on a pilgrimage to Kailash? Perhaps because there are no Muslims there, nor a Masjid to demolish! BJP is anti-Muslim but not pro -Hindu, so Kailash means nothing of political value to them.
But the net result of all this was that a scare was created in my family and social circles. Many urged me to forget going to Kailash. I had done my duty, they said, in getting the route opened, but it is not necessary to go there. My daughters reminded me of my promise made the previous year that I would be with them on my birthday, which fell on September 15th. The previous year I had to be away to address a meeting in Bihar. If I went to Kailash I would again not be in Delhi on my birthday. This troubled me.
So anguished and confused by all this I flew to Bangalore, and drove down to where Parmacharya was camping. He was reading a book when I saw him. He put down his book and glasses, and asked me what brought me to him. “Kailash and Manasarovar route has been opened with your blessings. I have been asked by our Government to lead the first batch of pilgrims. But all my colleagues in Parliament are scaring me with stories of what can go wrong with me on this hazardous trip”. Parmacharya said in a comforting voice “Nothing will happen. You go and come. The opening of Kailash route is a great achievement for our country”
“I have only regret. That I will not be able to be with my daughters in Delhi on my birthday” I added. “When is your birthday?” He asked. “September 15th. But the journey back will not be completed before September 30th.” Parmacharya only smiled. He puts his palm in blessing and merely said: “you go and come”. I left on September 1st on my journey.
My journey to Manasarovar lake and then for a darshan of Kailash went very smoothly thanks to Parmacharya’s blessings. I returned to the Tibet-India border on September 13th, and camped that night at Kalapani, a military cantonment on the Indian side. That night, faraway from Delhi on the Himalayas, I could not help thinking of my daughters and my promise to them to be with them on my birthday. It would be another 15 days of walking before I could reach the plains and then Delhi.
Next morning at breakfast, the camp commandant came to me with a telex from Delhi. It said that on Prime Minister’s instruction, an air force helicopter would be coming that morning at 10 AM from Bareilly to pick me up and take me back to Bareilly, from where I will be taken by car to Delhi. I was thrilled. This meant that I would be in Delhi on September 14th evening, and be with my family on the next day for my birthday! What a miracle!
I was that time just an MP, and that too from the opposition. And yet this privilege was extended to me. The only reason for this was the blessing of Parmacharya. With this blessing, any miracle could happen. I was honoured to witness it. I prayed to Lord Shiva and Durga at the Kalapani temple at 18,000 feet above sea level, with snow all around. I said a special thanks to Parmacharya. When I returned to Delhi, and thereafter went to see Parmacharya, I explained all that happened. He merely smiled.
In 1986, I was passing Kanchipuram, so I made a detour and went to the Kanchi Mutt. Parmacharya was there giving Darshan to hundreds of people. I also stood in the crowd. But the pujaris saw me and whispered to the Parmacharya that I had come. So he asked me to come close and sit before him. After the crowds had left, he looked at me as if to ask me why I had come. The Babri Masjid issue then was hotting up, and so I said Parmacharya that I was planning to visit Ayodhya to study the situation. I asked the Mahaswami what stand should I take.
Parmacharya looked at me very sternly and said “you are a politician. Why do you have to take a stand on a religious issue? You stay out of it. You spend your energies on improving our economy or our relations with China and Israel.” I was taken aback by his stern remarks. But I persisted and said “At least the Government will have to take a stand”. He said: “Let the government make it possible for the religious leaders of both religions to come together and work out a compromise. But you stay out of it.
I then told Parmacharya that my friend, and leading Babri Masjid agitator Mr.Syed Shahabuddin wanted to see his holiness, and whether I could do bring him next time. The pujaris around the Parmacharya protested. They said that Shahabuddin was anti-Hindu, and he should not be allowed inside the Mutt.
The Parmacharya waved away their objections. He gave me permission to bring him to the Mutt. Then he said to the Pujaris. “Only Subramanian Swamy knows the art of befriending Americans, Chinese and Israelis at the same time. He can also be a friend of Shahabuddin.” Then turning to me, he said: “Keep this quality. Never be afraid of making friends with anyone.” I have followed this advice despite heavy criticism from the media. I have made friends with Morarji, Chandrasekhar and Indira Gandhi after terrific quarrels with them. Sometimes one needs to quarrel to come to an understanding of each other’s strength. Generally, I love to oppose those in authority because for a strong democracy, opposition is necessary. But Indian society being feudal, those in power underestimate who oppose them. And in my case, people in power have always underestimated me because they think I am alone. But they don’t realize I have friends everywhere, in all political parties and in all important countries. That is why I have won all my battles against Government. Because I have never betrayed anyone, these friendships remain for a long time. In 1990, I could have betrayed Chandrasekhar and fallen for temptation offered by Rajiv Gandhi to become PM. But when I discouraged this idea, Rajv Gandhi’s esteem of me and trust in me went sky high. Because of the trust I develop my friends from all over the world confide in me. People ask me often “How do you get so much accurate information”. This is the answer. I have secret friends and open enemies. Most other people have the opposite: secret enemies and open friends.
Thus Shahabuddin trusted me to bring him to the Mutt with honour. In early 1987, I brought Shahabuddin to see Parmacharya.
Parmacharya -Part IV
Subramanian Swamy
I brought the fierce Muslims-rights agitator Mr.Syed Shahabuddin to Kanchipuram to have a darshan of the Parmacharya. Shahabuddin had told me many a times that he had a urge to see the Parmacharya. He never explained why. Nor I asked him why since I assumed everyone would like to see a living God on earth.
Although Shahabuddin is a strict Muslim, he accepted two fundamental points defining a patriotic Indian Muslim. The first point, a patriot would accept that though he is a Muslim, his ancestors are Hindus since 99.9 percent of Muslims of India are descendents of converts. Muslims who think that their ancestors are Persians or Arabs or from Tajikistan, can never be patriotic Indians, because they live in a myth. They are psychologically uprooted from India. The second point is that although the present day Indian culture is composite, in which all communities and religions have contributed, the core of this culture is Hindu in character and substance. Hence even if one changes one religion, it need not lead to a change of culture. Religion is personal, culture belongs to the nation.
Shahabuddin had accepted the two points and that is why I defended him against the charge that he was communal. But the RSS [which is not pro-Hindu, but merely anti-Muslim], saw in Shahabuddin a convenient hate figure, and dubbed him a “second Jinnah”. Naturally bigots of the RSS protested when they came to know that I was bringing Shahabuddin to meet Parmacharya. When we arrived at the Kanchi Mutt, the Mutt-Pujaris told me that Parmacharya had wanted me to bring Shahabuddin right into the inner part of the Mutt where he was staying. We were made to sit before a shut door, and told Parmacharya would come soon.
The door was opened by Parmacharya himself. When Shahabuddin saw him, he started to weep, with tears rolling down his cheeks. He folded his hands in a ‘namaste’ and said “Oh my Lord Parmacharya, please save my community and save the nation”. I was taken aback [Much later when we were back on our way to Chennai, I asked Shahabuddin why he broke down , before the Parmacharya. He simply said that he could not control himself when he saw the radiant face of the Parmacharya.]
Parmacharya asked Shahabuddin what troubled him. He said “The Babri Masjid has been shut to Muslims by a Court Order and I pray to you to help us open it to us”. [At that time, 1988 there was no talk of its demolition by RSS]. Parmacharya told him that Hindus and Muslims should work out a compromise. He suggested a number of proposals, such as joint prayers, or Hindu Prayers on Monday-Wednesday-Friday and Muslims Namaz on other days with Sunday being denied to both. All these compromise proposals, Shahabuddin said, would be unacceptable to devout Muslims.
I added in my proposal. Koran prohibits Namaz in constructions built by demolishing other religions holy places : therefore if it can be proved that a temple was demolished by Babar’s men to build the mosque in Ayodhya, and then the Muslims themselves should agree to the Babri Masjid demolition.
Parmacharya looked at me with a benign smile. He had earlier warned me to stay away from this issue, instead asked me to concentrate on political and economic issues. But Shahabuddin quickly agreed that Koran prohibited reading namaz in such places, but contested that Babri Masjid was built on a temple site. He said he had construction blue prints to prove his point. Two hours of discussion had taken place, and therefore the Mutt pujaris were getting impatient. A big crowd was waiting for the Parmacharya’s darshan. So Parmacharya closed his discussion by asking Shahabuddin to bring his blue prints and come again. Surprisingly, again Shahabuddin prostrated before him, and then we both left.
Shahabuddin never came back again. But two years later, I became the Law Minister. I confronted the Muslim organizations with a proposal that the Government would appoint a Supreme Court Judge in a one man Commission of inquiry to determine whether or not there was a temple before the Babri Masjid was built. And if the conclusion was that there was a temple, then Muslims must agree to give up the Masjid. If not, then the Hindus would vacate the masjid.
Surprisingly, while all the Muslim organisations agreed to my proposal, the fanatic Hindu organizations refused to agree. Our government did not last long enough for me to go ahead with the Commission of Inquiry anyway disregarding the fanatics. Nor could I persuade the successor Narasimha Rao Government to follow my proposal. It would have amicably resolved the issue. But alas, Babri Masjid was finally demolished in bitterness.
Perhaps Parmacharya was telling me not to get involved from the beginning because he foresaw that it would be demolished as a part of destiny. If Babar’s violence was undone 450 years later, then RSS violence on December 6, 1992 could also be undone someday, but I hope, by understanding and love. Otherwise the cycle of violence will continue in the country, with the Hindus and Muslims not reconciled to each other.
In April 1990, I received an urgent summons from Parmacharya to come to Kanchipuram. So I rushed. When I saw him, he merely smiled, put up his palm in blessing and then waved me on to go away! I was puzzled. Why was I asked to rush to the Kanchi Mutt from Delhi, merely to be sent away? The Mutt pujaris told me that on Parmacharya’s instructions the Mutt had decided that I was to share the dais with Rajiv Gandhi on the occasion of Parmacharya’s 97th birthday in May that year, to be celebrated in Kanchipuram. It turned out that no other politician except Rajiv and myself were to share the platform. It was a great honour, not only that I would be with Rajiv, but more that it was on Parmacharya’s instructions. But why did he so honour me?
That May meeting turned out to be crucial for me, because it created a rapport with Rajiv which I did not have before. Rajiv too had great regard for the Parmacharya and therefore his selection of me to pair with Rajiv, meant for Rajiv that I could be trusted. From that date onwards, Rajiv trusted me blindly with no reservations.
Parmacharya thus not only altered my outlook, but he also ensured from time to time that I came on the right path. Once for example, in 1992, the two junior swamis, Jayendra Saraswati and Vijendra Saraswati had asked me to collect some funds for a Ghatikasthanam library that they wanted to build in honour of the Parmacharya. They even printed letter heads to make me the “Patron” of the project, but insisted on a donation.
With great difficulty, I collected Rs.15 lakhs and gave it to them as Janata Party’s gift. When Parmacharya came to know about it, he sent me a query: “Why should you donate to the Mutt when you are yourself begging for funds from the people to run your party? Please do not do it in the future”. Since then I have stopped giving donations to any cause. Beggars cannot donate.
Naturally, when Parmacharya attained samadhi in 1994, I felt like an orphan in public life. HE was always there when I had a dilemma to set things right. But I had the God’s grace to see him, a living divinity, for 17 years. Many of his opinions and directions I can never reveal, because he said them knowing fully well that I will keep it to myself. But by guided and listening to him, I have become so strong mentally as a person, that I feel that no one can cow me down or demoralize me no matter how bad a situation I am in.
Parmacharya taught me that the easiest way to finish an enemy is to make him a friend. He had urged me not to hate the sinner, but the sin. Of course, sometimes the easiest way is not available because of ego clash, and so the sinner has to fought to be made to realize the sin. But one has to keep in mind that there is a God’s scheme, redemption for the sinner what we call as prayaschitam. The ultimate revenge belongs to the divine. As human beings we have no right to revenge; only self-defence and righteous struggle. As Hindus, this is easy to understand because we believe in the law of Karma. People who see me fighting fiercely with Indira Gandhi, Chandrasekhar and Jayalalitha and then working with them get confused or even disgusted at what they perceive as my opportunism. I do not make up with those I quarrel with at height of their power, but when they cease to be in office. The reason for this flexibility in making friends out of enemies of yester year is the advice that Parmacharya once gave me in 1977: “India is plagued by divisions, and the egos of our rajas had played havoc with our national security, making it easy for foreigners to conquer us. Therefore, never hesitate to create unity, without of course compromising on the fundamental concepts of morality. India has never forgotten those who unite the nation.” I have defined three such fundamental moral principles.
These three fundamental concepts of morality are
I shall not speak lie, even if I withhold truth.
I shall practice what I shall preach.
What I do will be transparent for all to see. I consider myself therefore free to plan my political strategy as I see best, without regard to criticism from my political opponents, but within these three moral limits.
Our Enemy : TerrorismClick To OpenOur enemy is terrorism…
The Killer Instinct & My EnemiesClick To OpenI am quite embarrassed when perfect strangers accost me nowadays in air flights to ask me who is my “next target” for political annihilation; or when my friends meet me in the Central Hall of Parliament to inquire if I could set my “gun sights” on someone they do not like, as if I am some kind of Clint Eastwood who single-handedly can destroy someone, or at least his reputation.
I am embarrassed because I was brought up instead to be a soft intellectual, who having secured a Ph.D in Economics at Harvard, became a teacher in the same world famous university for ten years, and who went to do research jointly with two of the world’s most famous economists Nobel Laureates Paul A Samuelson and Simon Kuznets. I was so well-regarded that- when I was defeated in my third-term Lok Sabha bid from Bombay- Harvard University , despite my absence from academics for 15 years – promptly re-invited me to come back to teach (which I did for two years, 1985-86).
Now this intellectual attainment does not square up with the Hollywood Clint Eastwood image, nor am I happy to have that image. I am in politics for certain well defined ideology, which ideology happily has been internationalized today by all the major political parties. For the last 25 years I have advocated that the Indian Government adopt a market economy, rectify the pro-USSR tilt and balance out the foreign policy to befriend USA, Israel and China, and to motivate a cultural renaissance especially in the Hindu community.
But media appetite is not for such heavy ideological matters. Thus, for no fault of mine, my quarrels and political blood-spilling have received much more media attention. And ever since I campaigned and was successful in dethroning Jayalalitha, at the heels of demolishing Ramakrishna Hegde, these unwanted enquires about my “next target” have become legion.
I have as a philosophy never ‘targeted’ anyone. I have only defended myself against harassment, sidelining or attempted political elimination. But my defence has been vigorous, systematic, and effective to the point that the attacker has been either immobilized, or discredited, or politically disabled. In turn, this had tended to create the media impression that I am “making trouble”, when in fact as the prey I have not simply taken things lying down. But I have never made the first ‘strike’ against anyone.
As a further norm of my philosophy, I have never sought to demolish any honest critic; nor it is my duty to expose to destroy any and every corrupt person. It is the duty of the government and of the people to elect such a government, to prosecute all corrupt persons without fear or favour. As a public person, I can effectively fight corruption only with the state apparatus. Without government office, an individual can do only so much. Therefore one has to be selective. Obviously those corrupt persons who seek to harm me are the obvious candidates for selection.
It has been my lot throughout my life to be confronted and to confront the corrupt and powerful. As a student for my Masters degree in the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Calcutta, the then Chairman, P.C.Mahalanobis took a dislike to me because he and my father were rivals in the government statistical organisation. Mahalanobis was a corrupt leftist. I had come to the ISI as an innocent student with a brilliant first class B.A. Honours degree in mathematics. But Mahalanobis’ dislike of me filtered down to the professors. For no reason except to please him, they began failing me in every subject. A ruined career stared me in the face. So I decided to retaliate ( a foolish resolve on first thought, since I was then a 19 year old student facing the darling of the Left, USSR and Nehru: P.C.Mahalanobis). But I dropped everything, parked myself in the library, and read whatever Mahalanobis had written as a scholar. I found that his celebrated Second Five Year Plan model, the so-called Mahalanobis model, was actually stolen from M.A.Feldman, an obscure Soviet economist of the 1930s. This discovery I could not use against Mahalanobis however, because neither the USSR nor the then docile Indian press would take notice. But I discovered that Mahalanobis’s magnum opus something called ‘Fractile Analysis’, had recently been published in a scholarly international journal. That research was, I found worthless when scrutinized under the microscope of modern mathematics. It was, literally, well-known earlier research re-hashed. Mathematics laid bare the plagiarism. Mahalanobis was too big to be challenged by other Indian scholars. But I had nothing to lose.
Naturally when I wrote out my critique and set it to the journal, it was hot stuff. The journal published it, and asked Mahalanobis for a rejoinder. He had none. His reputation abroad was therefore in tatters. He never recovered from it. A 19 year old writing out complex mathematical equations was a novelty for Harvard’s Economics Department to whose notice the journal article came. They offered me a scholarship for a Ph.D Course. My ruined career prospects did a 180 turn! I never looked back thereafter. Had I not been cornered like a cat, I would never have ventured to demolish Mahalanobis.
The same problem I faced, years later, with Ramakrishna Hegde. Hegde belonged to that class of politicians who practice bogus humility to impress the middle class, who engage in sham intellectualism by having articles and books ghost written for a price to make society ladies going ‘ooh aah’ at the India International Centre, and behind it all are mediocre crooks.
From day 1 of the Janata Party formation in 1977, Hegde was consumed by jealousy. I was already a middle class hero then because of my anti-Emergency struggle, and was a former Harvard University Professor to boot, of genuine intellectual credentials. I did not have to be synthetic in anyway for all the things that Hegde had to be. From 1977 to 1984, he harassed me in Indian style par excellence: pin pricking. Finally he managed to put me against Chandrasekhar, who in a fit of rage as he was prone to, expelled me from the Janata Party. Hegde went on to become the Chief Minister of Karnataka on Chandrashekar’s political largesse, and then turned against him too. I returned to the Janata Party after patching up with Chandrasekhar. During the period of six years 1983-1988 as Chief Minister, Hegde had lost his head. His media con-tricks made him a middle class hero. But behind the stage, he was committing one corrupt act after another in the mistaken belief that if had Rs.1000 Crores in loot, he could buy his way to the Prime Ministership. By the time I returned to the Janata Party, I had studied and documented three of Hedge’s major cases of corruption or misuse of power which I made public: Telephone Tapping [later proved by a parliamentary probe], Bangalore Land Grab for his son-in-law (1000 acres) [later proved by Justice Kuldip Singh Commission], and Illegal Commission collecting in the sale of torpedoes in the HDW submarine [confirmed by Corp of Detectives (COD) Karnataka Government investigation]. Since 1990, when V.P.Singh asked him to quit his Planning Commission Deputy Chairmanship after the Kuldip Singh Commission Report was submitted, Hegde has remained a political leper. He cannot now get out that rut, because the synthetic moral halo that he contrived to wear has vanished.
The fight with Ms.Jayalalitha was the toughest of my life. It also took the longest (3 – 1/2 years) time. It was the toughest because unlike other ‘targets’ there was no counter veiling power to ensure some kind of ‘level-playing field’. In case of Mahalanobis, it was the international community of scholars, whom I could address. They did not depend on Mahalanobis for research grants. Indian scholars in economics were a castrated lot since they depended on the government for grants and positions. In Hegde’s case, Rajiv Gandhi’s central government was a buffer. If I came up with queries, they were ready to answer, as in the case of Telephone Tapping or in appointing Kuldip Singh Commission. In Ms.Jayalalitha’s case, all the political parties were politically wooing her, or eyeing her booty. That is why practically every party from BJP to CPM filed affidavits in the Supreme Court supporting her stand that a Governor has no locus stand to give sanction to prosecute a Chief Minister after Dr.Chenna Reddy had given me sanction to prosecute Ms.Jayalalitha. Now they are to rue their stand in the Laloo Yadav issue. The Central government headed by Narasimha Rao was most reluctant to be of help, because Mr.Rao’s son and confidants were all being effectively ‘serviced’ by her people. When Mr.Rao appointed me to head a GATT Commission in 1994, even Moopanar and Chidamabaram tried to organize a signature campaign in the Congress Parliamentary Party against my appointment because it would, in Chidambaram’s words send a wrong signal to Ms.Jayalalitha, with whom they were at that time as late as February 1996 on best behaviour. Such was the array of forces in favour of Ms.Jayalalitha. That is why it was so tough to fight her. During my struggle against her, Karunanidhi hid in Gopalapuram most of the time.
But the breakthrough in my campaign against Ms.Jayalalitha came by the inexorable law of fermentation: if you keep hammering away, and it is the truth, then the people will sooner or later revolt. Day in and day out, I brought out one fact out after another. My old school boy and teacher-student network fed me with document and data. Press conference and Court writ petitions did the rest, Ms.Jayalalitha’s attempt to foist false cases on me only re-affirmed the substance of my campaign against her. When the General Elections came, people spoke.
But Ms.Jayalalitha during her tenure as Chief Minister tried to get me to jail in a number of ridiculous cases. One was under TADA by faking a photograph, another was under the severe Protection of Civil Rights Act [PCRA] for abusing the scheduled castes– by calling the LTTE as an “international pariah!”, and yet another for attempting to murder her!! Each time the Supreme Court came to my rescue.
I had therefore no option but to go after my political predator, and immobilize her. But lacking a developed Party cadre, I could not cash the public popularity I thus got. The political zamindars (and in reality too), Karunanidhi and Moopanar came out of their hibernation, and harvested the wave I generated by my struggle, But they are no better than her. They are trying now to silence me by the same methods, only less skilfully. I am therefore again not without a target. Fortunately, each time my predators make the mistake of underestimating me. And I with each success, have acquired a more experienced killer instinct.
My Friend Turned Foe Turned Friend : ChandrashekharClick To OpenChandrashekhar – Part I Subramanian Swamy Former Prime Minister
Former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar and I had known each other on a personal basis since 1974. Three years earlier in 1971, he had won my admiration by writing an editorial in a magazine, he was bringing out called Young Indian, in which he praised my book then just published titled Indian Economic Planning -An Alternative Approach. Mrs. Gandhi had denounced the book in Parliament as a “dangerous thesis”. My thesis was that socialism would not work in India, and would breed governmental corruption. If we wanted to remove poverty and develop nuclear weapons then we should give up our dependence on the Soviet model of governmental controls and move to market economy. I did not advocate like Rajaji a “free market”, but a market economy in which the government will have a role to play as an “umpire” between consumers and producers. But both consumers and producers will be free to act within simple rules. Rajaji had advocated the “survival of the fittest” principle, and saw no role for the government to protect the weak against the strong using unfair means.
In my book, I had also advocated that for our exports we should develop relations with Israel and China. Naturally my book brought a torrent of abuse from the communists who denounced me as an “American agent” because they could not answer my arguments. Time has proved me right because today we are moving towards a market economy and have improved our relations with Israel and China.
Chandrashekhar in his editorial understood my distinction between free market capitalist economy advocated by Swatantra Party and my concept of market capitalist economy. The former was for “free competition” and the latter for “fair competition”. Today I am against opening the doors blindly to multinational corporations because that “free competition” will kill our local industry due multinational’s access to capital which our industry does not have. But “fair competition” will ensure that if multinational have some advantage, the government provides some support (such as cheap credit) to local industry to make the contest or competition equal. I also believe that if Americans ask us to open the market for their capital, we should demand that they open their country to our labour to freely go there. Why should capital have free entry but not labour?
To hide these attractive nationalistic ideas, Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress and the Communists not only denounced me as an American agent, but got me removed from my Professor’s post at the IIT, Delhi (which post was restored to me in 1991 after 20 years by the Delhi Court). In these circumstances, for Chandrashekhar, then a Congress working committee and a friend of Indira Gandhi, to come out publicly in my support took all by surprise, but won my admiration for his courage.
I first met Chandrashekhar in 1974 at the Lucknow coffee house located in the famous Hazratbal area. In those days, politicians used to meet intellectuals in coffee houses. Five star hotels had not come into fashion. Both Chandrashekhar and I had been made candidates for Rajya Sabha by our respective parties. He was surrounded by Congress party workers and me of Jan Sangh. I went up to him and introduced myself to him. Congress party workers snarled at me for my anti -Congress statements. But Chandrashekhar got up from his chair and silenced them. He then introduced me to them as an original thinker to whom Congress should listen to.
After that Chandrashekhar met me often in Parliament and the friendship grew. It reached a peak during the Emergency, when he wrote glowingly about my daring escape from Parliament.
Chandrashekhar was made President of the newly formed Janata party in 1977, but because I had become a friend of Morarji, a strain developed in our relations. Because I remained steadfast with Morarji, and Chandrashekhar’s close circle contained two of the most poisonous minds in Indian politics — Vajpayee and Ramakrishna Hegde– the relation between us fluctuated and reached a flash point in 1984 when with Morarji’s backing I contested for the post of Janata party President against Chandrashekhar in the party polls. I was Deputy Leader in Parliament then. It was a literal Mahabharata with every newspaper giving front page coverage. Although I lost the election, I got 25 percent of the vote under very imperfect conditions of polling. Morarji refused to accept the verdict saying it was rigged. But Chandrashekhar’s circle knew that if not now, two years later at the next party poll, I would certainly be elected President of the party.
The modern Mantharas (Kaikeyi’s adviser in Ramayana) began to work on Chandrashekhar. Chandrashekhar suddenly announcing my expulsion from the party for six years, a few weeks before the Lok Sabha polls. Both Chandrashekhar and I were defeated for the same reason — we opposed operation Bluestar in the Amristar Golden temple.
In the mean time, Ramakrishna Hegde got re-elected to become the CM of the Karnataka government. Like Moopanar has become a media-favourite today, Hegde became the media darling. This went to his head and soon he began plotting against Chandrashekhar, and to remove him from the President ship of the party. This not only hurt Chandrashekhar because it was he who against the part wishes in 1983, had foisted Hegde as the CM over the claim of Deve Gowda. He also realized that till the time I was in the party, Mr.Hegde used to run to Chandrashekhar for protection, to save him from all the corruption charges that I had been collecting against Hegde (these charges were all proved later by the Justice Kuldip Singh Commission).
Therefore, one day in 1986, Mr.Jayant Malhoutra (now Rajya Sabha MP) came to see me. He was a very good friend of Chandrashekhar. He said that he had talked to Chandrashekhar, and he felt that now he (Chandrashekhar) understood why Hegde was so keen to get rid of me from the party. Malhoutra asked me that since Chandrashekhar realizes this, could not I and Chandrashekhar become friends again.
At first I protested. “How can I when he has expelled me for six years, and made me suffer?” But after some persuasion, I agreed on the principle that when we meet, it will be “bygones will be bygones” and we will think only of the future. Malhoutra talked Chandrashekhar on the phone and got his agreement.
We met in Chandrashekhar’s Bhondsi Ashram in February 1987. When he saw me, he became emotional and embraced me. He and I said nothing for sometime, sipping tea in his cottage. Then we talked of the past memories of JP. And finally, he said “Swamy no one can beat you in intelligence or in gathering information. I need your help, so does the nation. Let us work together again”.
Friendship was re-established as if nothing had happened these last few years. It was so firmly re-established that it never went sour again despite political differences; for example during my struggle against Ms.Jayalalitha, Chandrashekhar felt that I was making it easy for DMK to return to power. While he was against all the violence let loose against me, he had a deep conviction that DMK should not be facilitated to power. But despite this, our friendship has been unaffected.
Chandrashekhar -Part II
Subramanian Swamy
Once the friendship with Chandrashekhar was re-established, we began working together in a true spirit of friendship. In late 1987, I suggested to him that he had a chance to be PM, but for that he should expand the Janata Party base. I told him that the Charan Singh’s base was intact with his son Ajit Singh, and that he (Ajit) should be invited to merge his Lok Dal into the Janata Party. At that time, the Janata Party had a majority government in Karnataka under Ramakrishna Hegde as CM. With another 12 MPs in Lok Sabha, it can become the largest opposition party. The BJP had just 2 MPs. So I suggested to Chandrashekhar, that he should offer the Janata Party Presidentship to Ajit Singh, and get his party to merge in Janata . At first, Chandrashekhar was shocked by the suggestion, but I convinced him that Hegde had used the resources of the Karnataka government to mount a massive whisper campaign against him. Many newspapers were writing editorials to condemn Chandrashekhar for sticking to the Janata Party President’s post. Newspapers like the Hindu and Indian Express began painting Hegde as some kind of Messiah, a Mr.Clean, just as they have done recently with regard to Moopanar. It was clear that a campaign was on to make Hegde the Janata Party President, and then position him for the 1989 Lok Sabha elections as the Janata Party’s PM candidate.
Of course, I was against the idea because I had known that Hegde was an immoral character and a crook. I certainly was not going to allow him to become Prime Minister if it was in my power to stop him. So I convinced Chandrashekhar that he was anyway going to lose his Presidentship due to Hegde’s high voltage campaign. I also told him that after the merger of the Lok Dal with Janata, Ajit and I would jointly work to make him Prime Minister with in the next two years.
A good quality about Chandrashekhar is that if he is convinced about something, he acts swiftly. He does not hesitate thereafter. He thus quickly moved and called a Janata Working Committee Meeting to bring about the Lok Dal merger with the Janata Party. Hegde was so shocked by the speed of our action that he could not block the move. After all Janata Party was going to expand we argued, getting Lok Dal MLAs in UP, Bihar and Rajasthan to join the party. Ajit Singh thus became President and I was made General Secretary of the Party. Considering that in 1984, I had been expelled from the Janata Party for six years by Chandrashekhar, the same Chandrashekhar now before even three years of the six over, brushed aside all objections, admitted me to the party and made me once again General Secretary of the party. Hegde and his friends in the news-media made much of the “opportunism” of Chandrashekhar. There was however no opportunism because after all both Chandrashekhar and I were out of power in those days. By becoming friends, what, compromise did we make? If political enemies become friends, why anyone should object. I have made a rule in politics: never start a fight; but if someone starts it, never stop the fight till either the opponent gives up or is finished. Chandrashekhar had offered the hand of friendship, so I made up with him.
Hegde remained un-reconciled to this merger because he understood what it meant. With Deve Gowda joining us to form a foursome group of Chandrashekhar, Ajit, Gowda and myself, I felt time had come to put Hegde in his place. I looked for an opportunity, which arrived when Indian Express published a transcript of a telephone conversation between Gowda and Ajit plotting against Hegde. The Janata party was shocked, more by the fact that this conversation was tapped and published, than by the content of Gowda. Ajit plot. The party therefore asked me to investigate and give a report to the Parliamentary board. I knew that Hegde and Indian Express were close to each other, so I was confident that Hegde must be the culprit. But how to establish it?
As luck would have it, when I took a flight to Bangalore in July 1988 to investigate this telephone tapping, on the plane sat next to me a top Intelligence Bureau Officer. He introduced himself and said that he was my admirer because his younger brother was my student when I taught him economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His younger brother had told him what a good Professor I had been. He said to me: “We IB people are sick of today’s politicians because they are corrupt. We see them naked. But I admire you because you are different”. I jumped at this God sent opportunity of meeting an IB officer, and asked him about telephone tapping. It was he who gave me the tip that later completely exposed Hegde. The IB officer told me to check with the Telephone Exchange whether any written requisition were made for tapping as required under Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act. He also warned me that in some states like Tamil Nadu, the Inspector General of Intelligence illegally tapped telephones by bribing the linesman or the operator at the exchange. In such cases, he said, there will be no records. I thanked him for his tip, and after my plane landed in Bangalore, I raced to a telephone and called my friend, the Communications Minister Mr.Vir Bahadur Singh in Delhi. I requested him to procure the file, if it existed of requisitions for telephone tapping made by Hegde. A few days later, in Delhi Vir Bahadur Singh confirmed the existence of such a file and that he had a copy. Through my friends in the bureaucracy later, I got a Photostat copy of the entire file. According to this file, Hegde ordered the tapping of 51 telephones belonging to Janata Party MLAs and MPs, and surprisingly even seven of his girl friends! Telephone tapping is permitted by law against anti-social elements, but Hegde was tapping the phones of his own party colleagues and girl friends rather than keeping a tab on anti-social elements.
My report to the parliamentary board on telephone tapping finished Hegde. He had to resign from the Chief Ministership, which he did after publicly shedding copious tears. Hegde’s resignation would have directly benefited Chandrashekhar in the long run, but for the rise of V.P.Singh who had been expelled by the Congress party. With the Bofors scandal filling the pages of the newspapers, V.P. Singh began to be projected as the next PM. People like Hegde, seeing themselves blocked in the Janata Party began advocating the formation of a new party under V.P.Singh’s leadership. I tried to stop this formation, but suffered a setback when Ajit Singh deserted us and joined with V.P.Singh. I could never understand how Ajit Singh could give up the Presidentship of a party to become a General Secretary in V.P.Singh’s Janata Dal but Ajit was immature and inexperienced. This betrayal ( betrayal because Ajit Singh had assured Chandrashekhar that he will remain with him and canvass for his Prime Ministership) disheartened Chandrashekhar. Soon he too joined the Janata Dal. Therefore except for Deve Gowda and myself, all others joined V.P.Singh. I became the President of the Janata Party and Deve Gowda agreed to organize the Karnataka unit of the party. Gowda remained with me till 1992, but he too joined the Janata Dal. I thus became the only member of the Janata Party of 1977 who still remains in the party. It was lonely, but I went to seek the advice of Paramacharya Sri Chandrashekhara Saraswati. He told me not to worry, and asked me to rebuild the Janata Party even if it takes years. It is because of Paramacharya’s blessings that I have dared to keep the Janata Party alive and rebuild it even if it takes time.
After the 1989 Lok Sabha elections, the Janata Dal under V.P.Singh came to power in a coalition arrangement. Chandrashekhar was kept out the entire power structure and sidelined. One day I found him sitting alone in the Central Hall of Parliament. I walked up to him and sat by his side. He looked quite sad because he felt that V.P.Singh would divide politics of the country by his advocacy of caste via the Mandal Commission Report. He said that while he fully supported the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report, he felt that V.P.Singh was using it to create caste warfare.
Then he sighed deeply, and said that a riot between castes has become inevitable. “I feel useless today” he said in an emotional tone. “But what about trying to become PM to stop this rot?” I asked.
“Be serious, he retorted. How can I?” “Well, I have a plan if you agree” I replied.
Thus began the Operation Topple of the V.P.Singh Government.
Chandrashekhar – Part III
Subramanian Swamy
The plan for putting Chandrashekhar into the PM’s chair was arithmetically simple: Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress plus allies such as AIADMK were 220 in number. The deficit thus for a Parliamentary majority was 52. If I could mobilize 52 MPs from the Janata Dal, then it would serve two legal purposes, one of providing a majority and two, of being more than one-third of the Janata Dal to legally split the Party.
Chandrashekhar’s supporters were only 7 MPs, so there was the problem of securing the remaining 45. Arithmetically simple, but in terms of human chemistry, it was a night mare.
I discussed the matter with Rajiv Gandhi for the first time; the Chandrashekhar government formation in March 1990, three months after V.P.Singh came to power. Rajiv was keen for this new formation because he felt that V.P.Singh was not loyal to the nation’s interests. I too never liked Mr.V.P.Singh because I found him a hypocrite. He talked about fighting corruption, but his political friends were the most corrupt in the country, such as Ramakrishna Hegde and Arun Nehru. So I was prepared to believe the worst about him. Toppling his government was pleasure for me.
But it took me a while to convince Rajiv that Chandrashekhar was “PM material”. Rajiv told me that he was uncomfortable with Chandrashekhar because most Congress leaders distrusted him. I told Rajiv that there is no other leader in the Janata Dal on whose name I can mobilize 52 MPs. I told him that I would guarantee that Chandrashekhar gave him due respect.
On that note, Rajiv agreed. We also decided that we would meet everyday at 1 A.M! So every day for six months of plotting to bring down the V.P.Singh government. I met Rajiv Gandhi at 10, Janpath from 1 AM to 3 AM. No one except George, his Secretary and occasionally Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, was seen in the premises in those unearthly hours.
Rajiv Gandhi would sit with his computer in which the names of all the MPs, their bio data, names of their friends, their allegiance to leaders, their weaknesses, etc. had been stored. So we drew up a list of 76 MPs who were unhappy with V.P.Singh for some political reason or the other, and could be recruited.
Thereafter we would everyday take up a list of 5-7 names and I would meet them during the day and report back to Rajiv and his computer. Again at 1 AM Rajiv and I would meet and discuss the prospects of which MP is likely to join and who might not.
Throughout this operation, Chandrashekhar did very little to help. The entire operation was a Rajiv-Swamy managed show. This continuous meeting between me and Rajiv developed a bond between us. Therefore, when the operation was near completion, in end of October of 1990, and as per plan, Chandrashekhar was slated to take oath in the first week of November, I got a call from Rajiv one day at 4 AM after I had gone to sleep. In his typically sweet and shy voice, he said “Swamy, are you free to come now to see me. I will give some excellent coffee and chocolates”.
When I entered Rajiv’s study room at 10, Janpath at 4.30 AM, he said in a soft voice, but fresh as ever: “Swamy, I want you as PM, not Chandrashekhar” shocked by this, I said “Why at this late stage?” My party people are comfortable with you, but they don’t like Chandrashekhar”. “Will the President (R.Venkataraman) agree to administer me the oath?” I asked, hoping to discourage Rajiv at this change of heart.
“I will send R.K.Dhawan to the President with the proposal. He dare not refuse him,” he said. “Why?” I asked. Rajiv only smiled but refused to elaborate. “But, Rajiv,” I went on ,”the 52 MPs have agreed to come out of Janata Dal to make Chandrashekhar PM, not me”. “Yes, but now that they have come out, they cannot go back. You take oath, and they will fall in line”.
Much as I would have loved to grab that chance to be PM, I knew it would not work. I would earn the wrath of the 52 MPs who may fall in line, but they would despise me for cheating them. My age was 50 years then, and suppose it became a fiasco? I would have to live in disgrace. I was at that time too young to retire from politics but also too old to restart my academic career in the University.
For sometime, I kept sipping coffee and eating chocolates. Then I told Rajiv, getting emotional at his trust in me: “Rajiv, I shall never forget his honour, the faith you have in me. But it is gone too far now to change Chandrashekhar.” Let him be, and after one year it will be time for the Presidential elections, at which time Chandrashekhar can become President and you may become PM then. I shall work for it.”
At 6 AM, a sleepy Rajiv relented. It will be difficult to work with Chandrashekhar. We will have to go to the polls, but let us go through with the plan as it is for now.” Thus most reluctantly, Rajiv went through with the plan. But he did not turn up for the oath ceremony of the Council of ministers. As usual, Chandrashekhar being the strong headed independent minded person, he took into the Council of Ministers, Mrs.Menaka Gandhi and Sanjay Singh, both disliked by Rajiv Gandhi. So Rajiv boycotted the oath ceremony in protest without any warning.
After taking oath as a senior Minister, holding the portfolios of Commerce and Law & Justice. I went to 10, Janpath to call on Rajiv and thank him. He received me warmly, and gave lot of sweets to eat and celebrate.
“Why did you not come for the oath ceremony” I asked? “What for?. You said that the Chandrashekhar government was a necessary transition from V.P.Singh’s government to the General Elections. I have done my duty as per my agreement with you. There is nothing to celebrate however” he said.
But it was clear that he was already angry with Chandrashekhar. Will the Government last even one week? I wondered. When I next met Chandrashekhar, I urged him to meet Rajiv and clear things up. Chandrashekhar was equally upset. “Do you think that for the PM’s post, I will prostrate before Rajiv?”
It was a miracle that Chandrashekhar lasted seven months because from day one, Rajiv and Chandrashekhar were at logger heads. I can claim that had I not been in the middle, Chandrashekhar government not only would not have come into being, but when it did, it would not have lasted more than one week.
But as Prime Minister, Chandrashekhar was very good and decisive. Our government set many things right.
Chandrasekhar – Part IV
Subramanian Swamy
After Chandrasekhar became Prime Minister, it became clear to me that it was only a question of time before Rajiv Gandhi brought the Government down. I was keen that our Government does not go out in disgrace without doing anything during the time it lasts – though it may be only few months.
The main plus about Chandrasekhar was his decisiveness. If he became convinced of something, he would not be afraid of annoying anybody to do it. There fore I was hopeful that the PM and I together would achieve something. In our system of Government, the Cabinet is Supreme. This is widely known. But what is not widely known is the existence of a “super Cabinet” called the cabinet committee on political affairs (CCPA), which consists of the PM, Home Minister, Defence Minister and Finance Minister and any other Minister the PM specially nominates. The intelligence services such as RAW, IB and Military Intelligence have to give clearance for a Minister to become a member of this super Cabinet, because it is the CCPA which reviews intelligence reports and not the full Cabinet.
Chandrasekhar’s CCPA had Devi Lal, the Deputy PM, Yashwant Sinha, Finance Minister and myself. I was nominated by Chandrasekhar. The PM was the Home Minister and defence Minister as well, so the CCPA consisted of us four. In actual practice, CCPA meant only Chandrasekhar and myself because Devi Lal showed not much interest in its proceedings since CCPA meetings were based on voluminous documents which were in English which language he did not understand. Yashwant Sinha was mostly interested in socialising which his unexpected Ministerial status gave a huge fillip, so he was generally missing or late. Therefore Chandrasekhar, I, along with RAW, IB, and MI Chiefs and senior civil servants usually met to discuss the issues confronting the nation in the CCPA meetings.
From the very first meeting, four issues were of concern to us: 1. Mandal agitation and how to cool it down.
2. RSS’s Babri Masjid campaign and how to counter it. 3.The alarming network of LTTE in Tamilnadu and other states such as Assam and 4. the economy and how to save it from collapse and bankruptcy.
It is to the credit of Chandrasekhar that he handled the Mandal agitation beautifully and cooled it down. Had general elections been held before the Mandal agitation had been brought under control, the elections would have been a violent one. For this alone, Chandrasekhar should be given a Bharat Ratna, because no one else could have saved the situation. He was acceptable to all the sections of the people.
On the Babri Masjid issue, Chandrasekhar skilfully used Chandraswami to split the sadhu community in Ayodhya. Chandraswami won over the Mahant (main priest) of the Ayodhya temple itself causing enormous division in the movement. This forced the RSS to call off the karseva scheduled for December 1990. I, as law minister, told the RSS representatives very firmly that we would use the draconian laws, TADA and NSA to arrest even Sadhus if they touched the Babri Masjid. This frightened the RSS so much that throughout the seven months we were in office, the RSS never raised their voice again on the Babri Masjid issue. In the meantime, we got a commitment from the Muslim organizations, that if it is proved by a commission headed by a supreme court judge that there had been a temple demolished by Babar to build the Babri Masjid over its foundations, they (the Muslims) would help Hindus to remove it, because they then would not regard the structure as a masjid. But before we could implement this compromise, our government fell. Even today, however that is the only solution to the Babri Masjid controversy.
The dismissal of the Karunanidhi government was another tough decision. Many people even today do the propaganda that the decision was taken under pressure from Rajiv Gandhi and Ms.Jayalalitha, on whose parliamentary support our government was existing. The truth is however far from it.
Although individual Congress leaders like Vazhapadi Ramamurthy were for dismissing the Karunanidhi government, Rajiv Gandhi took the stand that it was for Chandrasekhar to take a view, and whatever was decided by us, he would back us. There was therefore no pressure on us from Congress as a party. As for Ms.Jayalalitha, she made her position known to us that she was for dismissing the government. But by December end, she seemed to have lost hope that we would do anything about it since the Tamilnadu assembly was being convened soon after, and was to go on for two months. She and Sasikala soon left for Hyderabad and were there till nearly the date of dismissal arrived. Therefore, she too put no real pressure on us.
The pressure came on us instead from IB reports which were alarming. According these reports, the LTTE had built massive network in Tamilnadu. Warehouses in coastal areas of the state, a highly modern communication system in Tiruchi, a grenade factory in Coimbatore, a military uniform stitching factory in Erode and had financed STD booths and Photostat shops all over. They owned petrol pumps through benamis across the state. The LTTE had also linked up with PWG in Andhra and ULFA in Assam. Besides, the LTTE was liberally using cars bearing DMK flags so that the police had an excuse not to intercept them while in the travel within the state.
When I paid visit to the state as a Minister in the last week of December 1990, police officers met me in my hotel room in Madras to tell me that there were instructions “from above” that the LTTE were Karunanidhi’s mapillai (son -in-law) and hence not to be disturbed.
I have of course never liked the LTTE because of two reasons: They are Marxists and they are terrorists.
Therefore, the IB reports fuelled my determination to do something to save the situation. I had no faith in Karunanidhi controlling the LTTE because basically he is not a courageous person who can face them. Prior to 1987, Karunanidhi was a great supporter of the TELO leader Sabaratnam, who was a hate-figure for Prabhakaran. But when Prabhakaran had Sabaratnam killed, Karunanidhi’s opposition to Prabhakaran immediately melts in fright, and soon he began wooing the LTTE. In June 1986, Karunanidhi even offered the LTTE some money from his birthday fund, which the LTTE publicly rejected. But Karunanidhi still continued to cultivate the LTTE and the LTTE used its mappillai status to spread its influence. So we could not expect Karunanidhi to show guts to oppose a Marxist-Terrorist organization.
Chandrashekhar and I used to meet everyday when we were in Delhi for dinner at his modest 3, South Avenue Lane. Chandrashekhar used to use the PM’s Race Course Residence to meet visitors during the day, but at night we used to sit on the floor in his house allotted to him as a MP, for dinner. He and I discussed practically every issue at these dinner meetings.
It was Chandrashekhar who suddenly one night said to me: “Is this Karunanidhi anti-national?” Taken aback, I asked him why he wondered so. Chandrasekar said to me that when Karunanidhi had come to see him recently, he had given him some sensitive details about the LTTE operations, and also given certain confidential directions to him. “Only Karunanidhi and I were in the room, when this conversation transpired, and yet today the intelligence people brought me the transcript of the LTTE intercepted communications from Tamil Nadu to Prabhakaran at Jaffna. In the LTTE transmission, there is a complete description of my confidential conversation with Karunanidhi. How would they know unless Karunanidhi told them?”
Soon we held a CCPA meeting in which M.K.Narayan, the IB director was present. In that meeting, we got full details of the LTTE machinations. I was surprised how the LTTE had spread its net wide to include even G.K.Moopanar’s close confident, P.V.Rajendran who is a TMC MP today. LTTE cadres had made friends in the media, bureaucracy and even amongst retired Supreme Court judges and foreign Secretaries, who went on foreign trips to do the LTTE propaganda.
Today, that network in still intact despite Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. The way some affidavits have been filed before the Jain Commission and the way cross-examinations have taken place, has convinced some in the SIT of CBI that the proceedings of the Jain Commission have benefited the LTTE in delaying or contesting the Rajiv Gandhi murder trial. The Jain Commission Proceedings is helping the LTTE immensely by the wild accusations being made in that forum.
It is then we decided that the DMK government should be dismissed and the LTTE network destroyed, and in the CCPA adopted a decision to that effect. Many persons felt at that stage that this would create sympathy for DMK, that it may spur a separatist movement, or that like MGR’s dismissal in 1980, the DMK may sweep back to power in the midterm polls. But to the credit of Mr.Chandrashekhar, he did not waver, even after then Governor Surjit Singh Barnala took a partisan stand. Barnala had agreed with the seriousness of the intelligence reports, but he told us clearly that he was appointed by the V.P.Singh’s National front government, so he would remain loyal to them. We got over his objections since Article 356 of the Constitution does not require the Governor’s report. Barnala however promised us that he would not go back to Tamil Nadu and campaign against our decision. He however broke his word and criticised our decision. Here too Chandrashekhar did not hesitate. He got Barnala replaced by Bhisma Narain Singh.
But to our surprise, President Mr.R.Venkataraman developed cold feet. When the CCPA recommendation went to him for his signature, he hesitated . Chandrashekhar asked me to go and talk to the President, which I did. Venkataraman, despite his contrary media-cultivated image, was the most undeserving person to become the President of India. His political career was based on strategic betrayal of whoever came to trust him or repose faith in him e.g., Rajiv Gandhi. At that moment when the national security was at state, Mr.Venkataraman’s concern was what would DMK volunteers do to his four houses in Kotturpuram in Chennai, and not the safety of the Tamil people. But really, he had no alternative but to sign because it was a cabinet decision based on extensive documentation. But to satisfy Mr.Venkataraman, we asked the CRPF to keep an eye on his houses.
People at various levels had of course warned us that DMK volunteers would get violent, and one civil servant said “rivers of blood would flow”. Chandrashekhar asked me about this possibility. I told him that every Collector knows and every police station has a list of rowdies of the area. As soon as we take over, I said to the PM, ask the police or CRPF to ensure that they make pre-emptive arrests of these rowdies. Party volunteers never riot, only hired rowdies : Some of them can be party men, but in the eyes of the law, they are still rowdies.
On January 31st, 1991 that is exactly what happened. There was absolute peace in Tamil Nadu after the dismissal of the DMK government. The LTTE hardware network was smashed in the following two months, but the LTTE personnel just melted into the Tamil populace. But we had saved Tamil Nadu even if later we could not save Rajiv Gandhi from his assassination.
While we were planning our moves in Tamil Nadu, Chandrashekhar one day called me up in the secret RAX phone to say that unless we got $ 2 billion from abroad within a week, the economy may collapse. He said I must use my influence in the USA to arrange it. Then he put an impossible rider: if the money comes from IMF, we cannot accept any conditions.
Chandrasekhar – Part V
Subramanian Swamy
When we first met as a government in November 1991, Chandrasekhar told the cabinet that there was a great economic crisis particularly in petroleum and foreign exchange looming. After some discussion, it was decided by the PM that I should, for controlling the crisis, explore some informal steps to obtain crude oil on barter i.e., in exchange of sugar, or engineering goods, and also get $ 2 billion (Rs.6000 crores) IMF loans (and without conditions). That is, the PM wanted me to act as Finance Minister as well! Chandrasekhar had denied me the Finance Ministership when the Cabinet was formed because, he told me my free market philosophy would “embarrass” his “socialist” image. But the real reason was (in my opinion) I, as Finance Minister, would go after the Swiss bank accounts of politicians, and as a consequence, many political leaders would go to jail. (There is Rs.3,20,000 crores deposited illegally by Indians in Swiss banks). Therefore when the Cabinet was being formed, there was near hysteria at the prospect of my becoming Finance Minister. Chandrasekhar was bombarded by these frightened friends, saying “please bring the devil as Finance Minister, but not Swamy”.
This “fear” later was amply justified on May 3, 1991 when I insisted as Law Minister that the CBI be allowed to raid the residences and offices of the ‘hawala kings’, the Jain brothers, despite vociferous opposition from Finance Minister (now BJP) Mr.Yashwant Sinha and Minister of State Kamal Morarka. The PM sided with me after a heated discussion. But for the raid on that date, hawala probe would never have come about.
When the Cabinet meeting was over, Chandrasekhar asked me to come with him to the airport (he was going to Varanasi). In the car, sitting next to him I taunted him: “you denied me the Finance Minister, and now you want me to do the work of the Finance Minister as well?” “Arre Baba!” he exclaimed in Hindi, the economy is on verge of collapse and you can only think of your grievance”. “‘Why should I do this task?” I persisted. After all, Commerce and Law, was my portfolio, and therefore why should I have to work for another Minister? “Listen” said Chandrasekhar “No one else in the Cabinet has your contacts abroad, in USA, Israel, China etc., so use it for the nation’s sake”.
We sat quietly till the car reached the Special VVIP airport, and out to the tarmac where the IAF Boeing reserved for the PM was parked. As he climbed the stair case to alight the plane, I told him when he returned, I would have a proposal on how to tackle the financial crisis. “To hell with the Finance Ministership” I said to myself. “CCPA membership is more prestigious”.
The foreign exchange crisis had been caused by the large number of short term loans (3 -5 years repayment) taken from Europe by the Rajiv Gandhi government (1985-89) mostly to pay for defence equipment purchases abroad. These loans became due for repayment during V.P.Singh’s tenure as PM (who as finance Minister sanctioned it) but he slept over it. So when we came to power it coincided with non-payment, plotting to declare India as a defaulter or bankrupt. It was a Mexican type situation. We needed $ 2 billion to tide over this, and save our reputation. We could, like Mexico, straight away have applied to the IMF for a “crisis loan”, but then the IMF would have strapped us, like Mexico, with humiliating conditions. When I spoke to Rajiv Gandhi about this crisis, after returning from the airport, he said flatly that the Congress party would not support any Mexican type conditionality. So our government was in a fix: “No conditions, No loan from IMF; no loan, no economy!”
But I knew of one possible escape route. The IMF is dominated by the Americans, who control 87 percent of the voting power in the Executive Board of the IMF. Despite popular impressions to the contrary, Americans are very simple people if you have a deal with them on a give and take basis. If you want something from an American, offer him something in return which he needs. Then he will respond fully. Americans in the past were irritated with us because we took their aid, and yet voted against them in the UN. Americans are straight forward, contractual minded people, whereas we are highly moralistic people who do not like to reveal our mind. Americans are much like me in character: blunt and open in thought, but a typical Indian is more like Narasimha Rao: soft in words, but covert in action. So when Chandrasekhar returned to Delhi, I received him at the airport, and told him of Rajiv Gandhi’s refusal to support an IMF conditions-prone loan. I then told him: “There is one way out. Ask the Americans to help. They will help, if you offer them something in return”. “What can be possibly given them that they do not have already?” asked Chandrasekhar. I had no answer. I just kept quiet. Chandrasekhar said “We are running out of time. Think of something”.
Soon after sometime, the opportunity came. The US Ambassador came to my Commerce Ministry office to tell me that the US was planning to support a UN declaration of war on Iraq, and US will conduct the operations. He said that the Indian government should support the war effort of the US.
With IMF on my mind, I asked the Ambassador: “What will India get by doing so?” The Ambassador was taken back. He said it was a moral imperative for the world, since Kuwait had been crushed by Iraq’s invasion. I laughed at the US ambassador. I told him “Listen Excellency, ten years in the US as a student and as a professor has made me more American than you. You keep your moral imperative, but give me a deal”. I explained our problem to him. He was very sympathetic. As I expected, he immediately responded. Thereafter President Bush and Chandrasekhar were in touch with each other. The $ 2 billion arrived without any conditions! We, of course allowed the US to refuel their planes flying in from Philiphines to Saudi Arabia. Nowhere will it be recorded as a “deal”, but the truth is this. In the history of the IMF, such a large loan has never been given without conditions. Ours was the exception.
Of course once the loans came, the close associates of Chandrasekhar like Sinha and Morarka, who were jealous of his growing trust in me naturally wanted to claim credit or thought that it could have been done by them. In May-June 1991, when again the same crisis came, they saw to it that I was not allowed to interfere. They soon found out what “credibility” and “credentials” meant. Every government ignored our Finance Minister, and in the end, the President Mr.Venkataraman and the Finance Minister (now BJP) Mr.Yashwant Sinha together in one of the biggest undiscovered scandals of our history, mortgaged with European banks, our gold reserves without informing the Commerce Ministry. I publicly protested, and even threatened to register a criminal case for bypassing the Commerce Ministry. But by then, elections were at hand and therefore I could not do anything. Someday I will reopen this. But the resolution of the crisis in January 1991 generated tremendous confidence in Chandrasekhar’s mind about my abilities. Soon for practically every problem, he was on the phone consulting me.
In this atmosphere of confidence, I began pressing Chandrasekhar to abandon his traditional socialist bias. I urged him to consider economic reform and liberalization. His economic adviser was Dr.Manmohan Singh (later Finance Minister). I had known Manmohan Singh since the days we were Professors of Economics. In those days, he was a leftist and against my ideas. But the collapse of the Soviet Union made him come over to my views. So he gave me full support.
Montek Ahluwalia, now Finance Secretary, was my Commerce Secretary. I had known him since he was an economics student at Oxford. His wife was a student of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) situated next to Harvard. With the help of Ahluwalia and Manmohan Singh, I prepared a series of documents on economic liberalization. At that stage, Dr.Manmohan Singh asked me: “Do you think that any government will implement this?” Little did he realize that the next government of Narasimha Rao will have Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister and the government will take all the credit for our government’s economic liberalization programme. The Congress party government did a complete ideological somersault, and in broad daylight stole my economic liberalization blue print. Chandrasekhar government was not long enough in office to implement this economic package, but the nation has benefited by the Congress somersault and theft.
Chandrasekhar-Part VI
Subramanian Swamy
The granting by the Chandrasekhar government permission for US military planes to refuel in Indian airports during the Gulf War suddenly transformed Prime minister Chandrasekhar’s image in the eyes of the Americans as a “good friend”. This was the first time an Indian government had helped the US. Naturally the prestigious newspaper like Washington Post, New York Times began praising our government for its “decisiveness”. During this period, I had also in the GATT talks, bargained with the Americans for a formulation on agricultural subsidies that pleased them; at the same time they helped us to protect our interests in textile exports. This was another great help to the US vis-à-vis Europe. So the American press began portraying Chandrasekhar and myself as “able leaders”, who can be trusted to be good friends.
This publicity internationally, pleased Chandrasekhar a great deal, but I warned him that he would now have to be extra humble with Rajiv Gandhi, because the Nehru family was always very sensitive to foreign publicity. They do not like to be upstaged internationally. I told Chandrasekhar that some Congress leaders would now go to and tell Rajiv how if he continued in office as PM, he would swallow up Congress Party, and that Rajiv would become an orphan.
At the same time, I told him (Chandrasekhar) that some flatterers would come and tell him how popular he had become and that if he got rid of Rajiv’s “crutches” and stood alone now, he would, like Indira Gandhi in 1971, sweep the Lok Sabha polls. So these sycophants would urge him to go for elections immediately. I also told Chandrasekhar that he should control his two rootless Ministers whom I had nick-named as the “disco” group businessman, Mr.Kamal Morarka and ex-bureaucrat turned Finance minister, Mr.Yashant Sinha. These two were talking loosely, I said, to their girl friends in Delhi’s Taj Hotel discotheques about Rajiv Gandhi, boasting how they could control him by enforcement Directorate and Bofors Investigations. These girl friends, mostly unmarried journalists or Rajya Sabha MPS, would in turn boast it to people like P.Chidambaram (another disco fan), whose only job those days was to carry tales to Rajiv Gandhi. Such tales would irritate Rajiv Gandhi no end, and made him think of Chandrasekhar as an ungrateful person.
“Let us not forget” I said Chandrasekhar, “that it is 220 MPs of Rajiv Gandhi that is underwriting the government. We need at least a year in government before people fully accept us in our own right. Therefore today we cannot do without Rajiv Gandhi’s help.
But Chandrasekhar’s personality was not cut out for this role of humble partner. He could not bear to hear some of his close associates taunt or tease him that he is “crawling” before Rajiv Gandhi for the post. He told me one even in Feb, 1991: “Now that the Mandal fire is under control and the Babri Masjid issue has been contained, why not go for elections?” Obviously, his sycophants had succeeded in putting him on the offensive. The seed had been planted. I did not answer him then since he would start arguing with me, and become bitter about Rajiv Gandhi. Besides, I had to leave that night for Beijing, the capital of China, to sign the first ever Trade Pact with that country. There were many documents for me to read before catching the flight, so I told Chandrasekhar that I would answer that question after returning from China. I needed time to think, I told him and excused myself.
While I was in China, I learnt from telephone calls from friends in Delhi, that the disco group was playing havoc in my absence. Not being in grass root politics, they were carried away by the foreign newspapers in praise of Chandrasekhar, little realizing the ground realities. We had 54 MPs, Rajiv had 220; we had no party structure, while Rajiv had a massive party organisation for which he had plenty of finance. The four months in office had created a good impression about him in people’s mind, but it needed consolidation. Popularity is fleeting, and by itself cannot make win elections. Popularity, like Imran Khan found out much later, does not substitute for party organization.
When I returned from China ten days later, I was expecting a celebration for getting the first ever Trade Pact signed with that country, enabling us to export among other things, telephone exchanges and steel production processes. Instead I found the atmosphere so vitiated by suspicion, that the fall of the government was being discussed. Soured by the nasty propaganda of the disco group and influenced by the Mantharas in his party, Rajiv had decided to bring Chandrasekhar down. First, he made an issue of why we did not support Saddam Hussein in the Iraq war. Later he dropped the issue, because our Gulf policy had been made with his prior consultation and approval .Furthermore, Rajiv Gandhi had relied on Mr.Gorbachev of the Soviet Union to join him in an international campaign in favour of Saddam Hussien. But Gorbachev supported our stand, disappointing Rajiv. So he had to drop this issue as a non-starter. Next, he picked on the Haryana CID surveillance issue. Two constables had been posted by the Chauthala government to spy on who goes in and out of 10, Janpath, Rajiv said. Obviously, this was an excuse for fighting with Chandrasekhar. But one thing led to another, and soon enough there were angry words exchanged. Rajiv wanted Chandrasekhar to make amends. The character of Chandrasekhar came out clearly in this conflict. He was not a person to bend for a post to the point of humiliation, so he refused to make amends. This was his strong point as well as weak point. As a leader of the government with absolute majority, Chandrasekhar’s unbending character would have made him a hero of people. But as a leader of coalition, it made him a zero. Chandrasekhar was Janata Party President for 11 years (1977-88), but he presided over his gradual liquidation. In the end, he quit and joined the Janata Dal led by V.P.Singh. Why? Janata Party was founded as a coalition party, a merger of five parties. Chandrasekhar had no patience for the compromises necessary for a coalition. Had Janata Party been built like other parties, brick by brick, and over 50 years, Chandrasekhar as its leader would have flourished. Strong leaders cannot lead coalitions unless they know how either to blackmail the partners into submission like Jyoti Basu does, or be a sweet gentleman. But Chandrasekhar was a gentleman strong leader. That as Chanakya would have said is a self defeating combination. For a coalition, a leader should be either a gentleman or strong, but not both.
After the Haryana constable issue, the government fell. Elections came. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. Chandrasekhar felt truly sorry. So as a gentleman, he proposed in the cabinet that Rajiv Gandhi should be given Bharat Ratna for his sacrifice. This did not mollify Rajiv Gandhi’ supporters. They demanded that the Government allot a Rajghat area for Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial. Chandrasekhar immediately agreed, and proposed that in the vast area for Indira Gandhi’s memorial called Shakti Sthal an enclosure be carved out to create a place for Rajiv Gandhi. This infuriated Rajiv’s followers. Even Sonia Gandhi was upset. They wanted Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial on its own merit, not as Indira Gandhi’s son.
One day in late May 1991, a few days after the assassination, I got a call from Chandrasekhar at 6 AM in the morning. He asked me to come right away. When I saw him at his residence, he told me about the problems he was having with the Rajiv Gandhi memorial site. He told me that the Government had offered to prepare a site out of the Shakthi Sthal, but Sonia Gandhi had refused, because she had wanted Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial to have an independent identity. I told Chandrasekhar that Sonia was right. After all, Rajiv had been PM for five years in his own right.
But the problem Chandrasekhar told me was that Sonia was asking for a part of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s memorial area which was then a temporary CRPF camp. Not all of Shastri’s Memorial had been developed despite so many years. He said, “If you cannot carve out a memorial for Rajiv from Shakti Sthal, I am not going to agree to carve it out from poor Lal Bahadur Shahtri’s area” “So what’s the problem that I should come here so early in the morning?” I asked Chandrasekhar, sensing that something else was on his mind.
“IB tells me that Sonia is going to go to public today, or ask for Doordarshan time, to condemn our government for ‘dishonouring’ Rajiv memory. That should be prevented because so many world leaders are arriving for the cremation and no site is ready” Chandrasekhar said. “Why don’t you talk to her directly?” I asked despite knowing the answer. Sonia was already bitter with Chandrasekhar for forcing Rajiv to go to the polls, and so she was unlikely to come on the phone to talk to him. “She is unavailable, every time I telephone her house” he said. “What can I do now?” I asked.
“Amitabh Bachhan told me last night that if you talked to her, she might agree. She would talk to no one else. Since she is so upset and in mourning” Chandrasekhar told me. “She will agree to what, Chandrasekharji? What do I offer, and why should not we close down the CRPF camp and shift it elsewhere? If it can be even temporarily partitioned for the CRPF, it can be permanently set aside for Rajiv Gandhi” I retorted. “Except Lal Bahadur’s memorial you have the authority to take out any government land anywhere in India to offer it to Sonia for the memorial. But don’t try to force me on Lal Bahadur’s site. I too have sentiments. I will not agree”, Chandrasekhar added belligerently, obviously hurt by the way the Rajiv loyalists were behaving. I agreed to talk to Sonia, because I had no choice. If nothing else for Rajiv’s sake. Otherwise there would have been an International Scandal.
When I went home, I called Amitabh Bachhan. Bachhan was very friendly with me because as Law Minister I had ordered withdrawal of a FERA case against his brother Ajitabh, a case filed by V.P.Singh’s government. V.P.Singh had hatred for the Bachhans, so he had directed a FERA case to be filed, even though in law it had no basis. But in these politically motivated cases like Lakhubhai cheating and St.Kitts cases. The idea is to get one’s target or enemy, arrested for interrogation purposes (remand), and then after sometime release the person on bail. The newspaper would do rest of the job, making out that remand is actually conviction or punishment. One’s enemy then becomes guilty without a trial. The person may be acquitted after some years, but who is to remember that, or who is to compensate for the lost years? Take the ISRO so-called spy case. How many people have needlessly suffered?
As Law Minister, whenever any one made a petition to me charging that such frivolous case had been filed, I usually went into the case myself. Ajitabh Bachhan’s FERA case was one such. Chandrasekhar had forwarded Ajitabh’s petition made to him, and had asked me to deal with it.
The case was silly, because the charge was that Ajitabh had purchased a house in Switzerland with foreign exchange without RBI permission. So a FERA case was foisted on him. Ram Jethmalani had taken up this issue to please V.P.Singh so that he could come into V.P.Singh’s inner circle. But Jethmalani never does his home work. He tried to get his point by shouting all kinds of legal rubbish. The ordinary citizens get frightened by it since they do not know law. In Ajitabh’s case, he was already a NRI with Indian passport, so he was entitled in law to buy a house abroad, in foreign exchange. How he got the NRI status was another matter, but CBI did not question that. I was shocked by the silly nature of the case, which was untenable and waste of public funds in prosecution. For nearly a year, Ajitabh had been harassed by such a baseless FERA case.
I therefore called the law Secretary and asked him to instruct the CBI and Enforcement Directorate to withdraw the case. The Law Secretary told me: “Sir, you will get a bad name for this. Please consider”. “Am I wrong legally?” I asked the Law Secretary. “No Sir. But this is a political matter which newspapers will play up. It will spoil your good name” he said. “Politics is my area, not yours. Call a press conference and I will announce my decision to the world” I told him. “Why Sir?” asked an alarmed Law Secretary. Because if I don’t, the Indian Express will get a leak from the CBI, and then it will be big news. If I call a press conference, and explain the basis, people will understand” I replied.
That is exactly what happened. Ajitabh case was withdrawn and even though the Indian Express condemned it in an editorial, no one else agreed. Rajiv, Sonia and Amitabh were naturally pleased. Amitabh had then asked to see me. I told him he could see me in Attorney General G.Ramasamy’s house. At GR’s house, Amitabh told me that he would never forget my help. “Rajiv’s opinion that I had the courage of my conviction is amply proved”, he said.
So when I telephoned Amitabh on that morning, after meeting Chandrasekhar he warmly responded. He gave a special telephone number at which a mourning Sonia would be available. He said she was expecting my call. But he warned me that she was going to insist on the CRPF Shastri site.
I called Sonia and fixed a time to see her that afternoon. With the PM’s authority, I called up the Urban Development Minister Daulat Ram Saran and asked him to send the secretary of the ministry with the entire blueprint of the Rajghat area for my study. After studying map for empty spaces available, I selected one site, next to Shakthi Sthal, but not on it. It was a dumping ground for coal ash of the Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking (DESU) and was fenced by a wall from the Sakthi Sthal. It was filthy but it could be easily cleaned up.
While I drove to 10, Janpath to meet Sonia, I had only one question in my mind: how to protect Chandrasekhar’s sentiment or shall I say obduracy, on the CRPF site and at the same time make Sonia agree to a new site, in this highly emotional climate. It was a very delicate mission for me, with international consequences. But I had a trump card for success, which I did not tell Chandrasekhar about. When I was taken to Sonia’s room, there was besides her, Amitabh, Rahul and Priyanka. Sonia asked me to be seated.
I spread the map on the table and said:” Soniaji, you know how much I respected Rajiv. This site I have selected, please accept. We will use the government funds to clean it up and make it the best”. At this, Priyanka flared up and said in a demanding tone: “Are you, or are you not going to give the CRPF camp site for my father’s memorial. Otherwise we don’t want anything from Government”.
At this tone of voice, I was upset. I was a senior Cabinet minister and Priyanka was a college girl. She had no right to talk to me like that. I had come to see her mother, not her. Congressmen can be backbone less wonders, but not Subramanian Swamy even if he has to go into the wilderness for it. In a raised voice, I thundered “No! We will not give that site. I will pass such an order on the CRPF site that no future government can dare to overrule it”.
There was an eerie silence for nearly a minute. Amitabh was feeling very uncomfortable. No one spoke. Then Sonia said in a very soft voice: “why? Why not that site? With that question, I got a chance to play my trump card. I said, “Soniaji, the only reason is that I want to respect Rajiv’s sentiment. When in 1987 Charan Singh died and was to be cremated ,his son Ajit and I had asked Rajiv (as PM) for the same CRPF site for Chaudhary Saheb. He had declined. Rajiv had explained to me then that already Shastri’s memorial is much neglected, and if this site, temporarily with the CRPF is given away , there will be much misunderstanding and adverse publicity. He recorded this in the files of the Government. So to respect Rajiv’s view, we cannot give the site of your choice. But I have told the PM that this alternate site I have selected should be offered for Rajiv Gandhi memorial and immediately developed.
After a few moments, Sonia agreed. I took it as recognition by her that I would not deliberately try to give a bad site for Rajiv’s memorial. Because I had so much regard for Rajiv which she knew was mutually felt by Rajiv. I would she understood, select the best available site. Priyanka was still angry , but Sonia restrained her from speaking anymore. “We will accept because it has come form you” she said. The crisis was over. A site has been selected. When I informed the PM, he promptly announced it over Doordharsan, to set all the rumours afloat, at rest. Had I not intervened, God only knows what would have happened. But for Rajiv’s sake, who I consider was the most patriotic and dynamic leader produced to date by the Nehru family, and perhaps also the most underrated, it was God’s grace that we found a way out.
Jagjivan RamClick To OpenI first met Jagjivan Ram when I was 12 years old in 1952. He was a Minister then in Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet, and was living in a bungalow on the same road (Queen Victoria Road, renamed now Rajendra Prasad Road) as my father, who had been allotted his official residence as a senior civil servant. Our neighbour was a Bihar MP called Shyamnandan Sahay, who had taken a tremendous liking to me. On the other side of our house was Feroze Gandhi’s residence where I used to see a very unhappy Indira Gandhi come and go, after a fight with her husband.
Sahay, every evening, used to call me to have tea. He was old and very fat, so he was mostly seated on a big sofa in his house. During these tea times, I met many politicians who visited Sahay. I used to ask them questions freely. These VIPs tried to humour my curiosity because they were not used to a 12 year old asking so many questions on current topics.
Jagjivan Ram one day came for tea to Sahay’s house. He brought his son Suresh Ram, about the same age as me, with him. Suresh and I became good friends after that, and played Cricket for the same team for many years. Because of Suresh, I had a chance to go to Jagjivan Ram’s residence often, and have tea and snacks with his father. Despite being busy, Jagjivan Ram often talked to me on current topics. Knowing that I was from Brahmin family, he asked me once why I did not wear my thread (poonal). I told him that at the age of 7 when an upanayam (thread ceremony) was to be held for me, my questioning mind made me ask the pujari why I should put it on when my schoolmates did not have it. The pujari’s answer did not satisfy me, so I asked him more questions. This embarrassed everyone in the family. My father was a communist-minded person so although he himself put on the thread, he agreed to call off the ceremony. My mother was heart broken, but I was adamant that unless the Pujari answered my questions I would not go through the ceremony or put it on (My mother however told me that I would have to have the ceremony anyway when I get married. She was however disappointed because I married a Parsi girl in a registered marriage in the USA. However her spirit would be happy today because the great soul, the Paramacharya Sri Chandrashekhara Saraswathi convinced me to don the thread on special occasions. Paramacharya told me that whether I acknowledge or not, Tamil society has become so poisoned that I would anyway be regarded as a Brahmin. He also explained to me the scientific basis for the thread in ceremonies.
Jagjivan Ram was mighty impressed with this questioning mind, and thus opened his heart to me. He told me of the nature of Hindu Society and the atrocities heaped on scheduled castes. I as a city boy just could not believe these stories, so asked my mother who confirmed these as facts. She even told me that in my village in Mullipallam, Cholavandan, the shadow of a scheduled caste could not fall on the path of a Brahmin walking on the road. I was shocked, and resolved never to go to my village. And till the age of 30, I never visited Mullipallam. But since I entered Tamilnadu politics in 1992, I not only visited my village regularly but recovered my ancestral house which my grandfather has lost during the Great Depression of the 1930s, unable to pay his debts. My father was too busy with Congress politics with Satyamurthi to pay attention to this loss. Later he had moved to Delhi. Of course my village today is a different society. And because of leaders like Dr.Ambedkar and Mr.Jagjvan Ram today, the society in Mullipallam also is a better than when I was a little boy. The Brahmin society perhaps has also come to its senses, thanks to Periyar’s movement.
But because of what I learnt from Jagjivan Ram as a young boy, I have never hesitated to come to the support of scheduled castes. His descriptions of cruelty meted out to SC community are deeply etched in my mind, When the Kodiyankulam (near Tirunelveli) atrocity took place in 1995. I did not hesitate for a moment to rush there and fight for them in the High Court to get a CBI inquiry instituted. Leaders like Karunanidhi who day in day out talk about the poor oppressed classes failed to even visit Kodiyankulam may be for fear of alienating other castes who voted against the party in the elections. But because of Jagjivan Ram and my long association with Suresh Ram in my childhood, I did not care about the consequences, and had rushed to kodiyankulam.
In 1957, after I went to the University, I lost contact with Suresh Ram and his father. Thereafter I went to USA for studies in 1962 only to return 1970. When I returned to India, Congress had split and my sympathies were with Morarji and Kamaraj who were in Congress (O). Jagjivan Ram went with Indira Gandhi to Congress (I). Therefore, I had no occasion to meet him till I entered Parliament in 1974. But because I was in those days a virulent opponent of Mrs.Gandhi, Jagjivan Ram would smile at me, and treat me with courtesy but would not let me come near him.
In 1977, Jagjivan Ram jointed the Janata Party. I went to meet him after the elections, having been elected to Lok Sabha from Bombay. He had been promised by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Nana Goray of the Socialist Party support for the Prime Ministership, so he was hopeful of becoming PM. He spoke to me about the social transformation that would result by a scheduled caste becoming PM. Of course Jagjivan Ram was not just of scheduled caste, but one of the most efficient Ministers of Independent India. No letter was unanswered; no file was not read by him. His grasp was quick, and he took decision with dynamism. In my opinion, he would have been a superb Prime minister, but at the same time there was one thing against him in the Janata Party. He was the mover of the approval resolution on Emergency. Jagjivan Ram’s resignation from Congress in February 1977 completely demoralized Mrs.Gandhi, and she never recovered from the shock during the 1977 election campaign. Jagjivan Ram made up for the error in his supporting the Emergency resolutions in Parliament by his beautifully timed resignation. Had he not resigned the sea-change in political climate to ensure the Janatha victory would have not taken place?
But the problem was that Charan Singh was against Jagjivan Ram becoming PM. Charan Singh told me that we could not forgive him for supporting the Emergency resolution. Charan Singh also made an issue of non-filing of income tax returns for ten years by Jagjivan Ram (because he “forgot to”). But besides this I felt, because Charan Singh was a Jat, he did not like the idea of making a scheduled caste PM. The Jat community in UP, Haryana and Rajastan is a fierce agricultural community like some of the backward communities in Tamilnadu and Andhra. They are especially harsh the scheduled castes, who are in rural areas the landless labourers. Charan Singh gave special concessions to scheduled castes in his party, but for PM post it was something he could not agree although he would not admit that this was the real reason. In my political and social life I have found surprisingly a higher percentage of Brahmins than backward castes that are willing to bring up scheduled castes and other oppressed castes, although in the popular campaign the Brahmins are targets. History is replete with examples of the Brahmins wanting to challenge the orthodoxy to integrate the scheduled caste community. Chanakya picked up a young goat herd boy to make him Emperor Chandra Gupta. Ramanuja’s role in reading Vedas to scheduled castes is another example. Mahatma Phule is revered in Maharashtra by the Dalits. Dr.Bhimrao Ambedkar got his surname Ambedkar because his Brahmin teacher gave him his own for his college admission..
Today caste prejudice, disregarding merit is the bane of society. The nation lost a great opportunity in not making Jagjivan Ram Prime minister of India because though he was eminently qualified and an efficient Minister for decades he was denied because of prejudice. If he could not become PM in 1977 because of some leaders conspiracy, then he could have been in 1980 elections when the Janata Party projected him as the Party’s candidate for Prime Minister. But the Janata Party lost the elections then because caste-voting defeated Jagjivan Ram. The nation was the loser; Today Kanshi Ram is the other side of the coin of caste prejudice.
In 1977, Jagjivan Ram was confident of becoming the Prime minister because Vajpayee and Nana Goray promised him support. The Jan Sangh MPs were 102 in number, the Socialists were 35, and Jagjivan Ram’s Congress for Democracy was 27. That is, of the 318 MPs elected on Janata ticket, a very slender majority were pledged to Jagjivan Ram. Vajpayee’s only reason for preferring Jagjivan Ram to Morarji Desai was that Morarji was a strict prohibitionist while Vajpayee was regular consumer of alcoholic drinks (in secret). But when Charan Singh categorically threw his support for Morarji, Vajpayee became apprehensive because there was a small revolt in the Jan Sangh camp, especially amongst those who had suffered during the Emergency. He feared that they would switch sides and vote against party line. Morarji used to jokingly tell me that Vajpayee “roared like a lion but had a heart of a rabbit”. Vajpayee found that after Charan Singh’s decision, Morarji was assured the support of 154 MPs and needed just 11 MPs more to get majority. Thus Jan Singh’s MPs revolt would have ensured victory. Morarji also sternly told Vajpayee that if he (Morarji) becomes PM without his (Vajpayee’s) support, he would not make him a Minister. That was enough to scare him. He immediately somersaulted, without telling Jagjivan Ram. So on the day of the election of the parliamentary party leader, Vajpayee quietly went to JP and Acharya Kriplani and told them that he was switching sides. I was present there because JP had asked me to be at the Gandhi Peace Foundation with him. JP winked at me with a smile when Vajpayee came rushing in with his change of heart. JP knew what I thought of Vajpayee. Morarji now had majority.
But Jagjivan Ram did not know this. He was so sure of his majority that he had already ordered sweets and fire crackers to celebrate his becoming PM, little realizing Vajpayee’s betrayal.
When the news reached him of Morarji being chosen by JP, Jagjivan Ram was wild with grief. He threw chairs and tables in disgust. He refused to attend Morarji’s swearing in ceremony. Later in the evening I went to Jagjivan Ram’s residence to see him. He was still a broken man; now in full know of the betrayal. He looked at me and said “My friend, this is a great Brahmin conspiracy”. I did not want to contradict him because he was so upset. But it was Charan Singh’s open revolt that had changed the scene. Vajpayee is no Brahmin. He drinks alcohol and publicly claims that he is a bachelor but not a Bramachari. How can he be called a Brahmin with those ‘qualifications’? Besides JP and Acharya Kriplani were not Brahmins. But I had the confidence of Jagjivan Ram, so I could talk to him freely. I really felt sorry for the betrayal even though the man I respected, Morarji Desai, had become PM. Soon Jagjivan Ram got over his grief, and joined the Morarji Cabinet as Defence Minister. He then appointed me as the Party MP’s Defence Committee Chairman, and regularly took me into confidence on Defence matters over dinner at his residence. When Mrs.Gandhi attacked him for choosing the Jaguar fighter bombers over the French Mirage planes, Jagjivan Ram asked me to be the lead speaker in Lok Sabha to defend the government.
The years that I got to know him as a young boy helped me to get close to him. He often requested me to keep Morarji informed so that the Prime Minister does not listen or is influenced by his detractors. Morarji later made a gesture by making Jagjivan Ram as Deputy Prime Minister on par with Charan Singh.
Morarji resigned from the Prime Ministership in July 1979 bringing the government down. Charan Singh became Prime Minister. What surprised us all at that time was, those who used to swear by Mrs.Gandhi, and were at her beck and call (and even today parade themselves as supporters of Mrs.Gandhi) went rushing to Charan Singh to seek Ministership. Among them was C.Subramanian who in Lok Sabha bitterly criticized Mr.Charan Singh’s budget only months ago, but abandoned Mrs.Gandhi and joined Charan Singh’s cabinet as Minister of Defence. That is of course not surprising behaviour for CS. Later in the 80s he abandoned Rajiv Gandhi to accept V.P. Singh’s offer to be Governor of Maharashtra. How hurt Rajiv Gandhi was, only I and few others know. But today on TMC plat form he eulogizes Rajiv Gandhi.
But Charan Singh’s government was to fall because he refused Mrs. Gandhi’s demand to abolish the Special Courts trying cases against her and Sanjay. So she refused to extend him support in Parliament. By now Jagjivan Ram had replaced Morarji Desai as leader of the Janata Party in Parliament. The Janata Party was however 18 MPs short of majority, but AIADMK had 19 MPs. Earlier MGR had supported Charan Singh, but thanks to the efforts of some common friends, MGR was ready to extend support to the Janata Party. MGR informed Jagjivan Ram that if I came on behalf of the Janata Party to Chennai, he (MGR) would finalize with me the alliance. Now it looked as if finally Jagjivan Ram would become Prime Minister.
Jagjivan Ram called me to his residence one evening 36 hours before the deadline set by President Sanjiva Reddy, to prove his majority. He told me about MGR’s message, and said I should fly to Chennai with a letter from him to MGR requesting support. He said putting his affectionate hand on my shoulder “Swamy, phone me from there as soon as you get the letter from MGR pledging support. We must beat the deadline set by the President.” Then he said in an emotionally choked voice: “Hurry, because this is a chance I do not want to miss”. For me it was a pleasure. I knew if Jagjivan Ram because PM, he would make me a Minister. Morarji could not make me Minister because of Vajpayee’s jealousy. But Jagjivan Ram would not care for Vajpayee’s opinion since he would never forget the betrayal of 1977.
When I reached the airport next morning to catch the flight, Vajpayee was therefore to catch the same flight. I asked him what he was doing there. He sheepishly said “The parliamentary party has asked you to meet MGR, while the organizational wing has told me to go and meet MGR.” How petty! He probably did not want me to get all the credit, so he must have persuaded Chandrasekhar to send him. Anyway I had Jagjivan Ram’s letter, so it did not really matter, whether Vajpayee came or not.
From Chennai airport, we were driven straight to MGR’s Thottam house since there was no time to lose. There MGR had laid out a huge breakfast, and he personally insisted that we eat everything. MGR would not let me talk, but kept feeding us one dish after another.
After sometime, I pulled out Jagjivan Ram’s letter to give to MGR. Then MGR handed me his letter to Jagjivan Ram, with a demand that we accommodate two AIADMK MPs as Ministers. That was no problem. Then from there I telephoned Jagjivan Ram to tell him the good news, that now he had majority, and also about MGR’s demand for two nominees in the Cabinet. Jagjivan Ram was thrilled, and asked me to return immediately by the next flight. He said he would inform the President immediately. I was beaming with pleasure when I put the phone down. Then MGR softly asked me in Tamil “Do you think Sanjiva Reddy will ever allow Jagjivan Ram to become PM”. “What not?” I retorted. “If we have majority, he has to call him” I added. “My information is that Reddy will dissolve the House the moment he learns that Jagjivan Ram has majority” MGR said to me gently.
I had a press conference to attend before going to the airport and some sleep to catch before that so I took leave of MGR, who had a strange sarcastic smile as if to say how innocent I was of the facts of life. Two hours later, I went to address a press conference. By then Jagjivan Ram would have gone to the Rashtrapati Bhavan and informed the President of the Janata Party’s majority. As I reached the press conference, I wondered what portfolio Jagjivan Ram would give me as Minister.
Before I could declare to the press the Janata Party’s prospects, pressman jumped on me to ask my reaction to Sanjiva Reddy dissolving the Lok Sabha without giving Jagjivan Ram an opportunity! The news had just come on the PTI ticker. I was dump founded. MGR was right. Sitting in Madras he seemed to know more about Delhi than me! After giving the press my reactions, I left for the airport. What did MGR mean that Reddy would dissolve the House after learning about Jagjivan Ram’s majority?
I understood later. Reddy belonged to a zamindar’s family in Andhra. They have a proverbial lack of respect for scheduled castes. So Reddy did not want a scheduled caste PM, or alternatively he had some other personal hatred for Jagjivan Ram. In either case, he denied Jagjivan Ram his just chance. This time it was clearly not a “Brahmin conspiracy?
I felt sad when on the flight back to Delhi, not only that I lost my chance to be a Minister, but since a truly capable experienced and efficient person could not become the Prime Minister because of some silly petty prejudice. The nation lost twice in 2 1/2 years (1977 -79) in having the services of a great administrator.
Jagjivan Ram never recovered from this low. He became cynical and bitter about it. Although in the 1980 elections, Janata Party projected him as the party candidate for PM, his heart was not in the campaign. I was elected to the Lok Sabha again from Bombay. So I used to see him in Parliament, but Jagjivan Ram was mostly silent in Parliament. Then one day he left Janata Party and joined Congress. Mrs. Gandhi welcomed him but clearly did not forgive him for the 1977 shock. She gave him no importance in the party. One day in 1984, Jagjivan Ram died, broken hearted. With him died a dream of social revolution that is yet to be realized. It is difficult to visualise an able administrator of Jagjivan Ram’s calibre of any caste, coming up in the near future.
Jagjivan Ram had many personal faults. But that is not important if it does not affect his public life or does not compromise him to black mail. But as a person he was warm and despite all the prejudice, Mahatma Gandhi was right in picking him up from nowhere to make him a Minister. Even if he did not become PM, he was Minister from 1946 to 1980, holding at sometime all the important portfolios. He served mother India as a great son.
My Friend Deng Xiao PingClick To OpenNo Indian except me in his personal capacity has ever been received by the recently departed China’s great leader Deng Xiao Ping. Deng invited me in April 1981 to China for a discussion with him on Sino-Indian and other international issues. This meeting, which lasted 100 minutes was hailed by our newspapers as historic as it revived the normalization of our relations with China, which had begun earlier when Morarji Desai become the first Janata PM, but was briefly interrupted after Mrs.Gandhi returned to power. The Chinese had a deep distrust of Mrs. Gandhi because of her pro-Soviet Union tilt in policies, and had broken off the normalization abruptly after she returned to power in 1980. Mrs.Gandhi was however concerned that if the Chinese started to help the Assam students in agitation, India’s Northeast would go out of control of New Delhi. There were Intelligence reports with Mrs.Gandhi that the Assam extremists were planning to send a team to China across the Tibet border to seek arms from that country. This Mrs.Gandhi wanted to stop. And that is why she wanted to make up with China. But she could not talk to the Chinese at the senior level since their leader Deng Xiao Ping refused to meet the Indian Ambassador in China, Mr.Shankar Bajpai. Indian diplomats told Mrs.Gandhi that the only Indian who enjoyed the Chinese trust was me, and Deng Xiao Ping should be approached through me.
At that time, I was a staunch opponent of Mrs.Gandhi. Her action of denying me three professorships (Delhi, Nehru and IIT Universities) at the bidding of communists in 1971-73, which forced me to join politics ( the other alternative was to return to Harvard University in USA) and later the struggle against the Emergency, had made me a bitter opponent of Mrs.Gandhi.
But it is a tribute to Mrs.Gandhi’s patriotism that she did not allow political enmity to come in the way of national interest. At first she tried to convince me through Narasimha Rao to help her break the Chinese hostility. Then she appealed to me directly. So when Deng Xiao Ping invited me in 1981, I decided to help her for the nation’s sake. This mutual gesture completely dissolved the enmity between me and Mrs.Gandhi. We became good friends from that date, so much so that the Madurai MP Subbaraman once came to see me to plead with me that since Mrs.Gandhi had so much regard for me, I should join Congress Party. He even offered to resign his Lok Sabha seat to send me to Parliament. I was, at that time, a Lok Sabha MP from Bombay, so I politely put him off. But it is an irony today that the son of Subbaraman, Rambabu, not only deserted Mrs.Gandhi’s Congress Party, but actually defeated me by unfair means, in the 1996 elections for Madurai Lok Sabha seat. Mr.Subbaraman must be writhing in pain in heavan at this turn of events caused by his wayward son.
The question often asked of me is why a communist country like China gave me a known anti-communist- so much importance. The reasons for this are many. To begin with, communist countries ill-treat anticommunists only of their own country. But in dealing with those abroad, they look to see only if such persons are hostile to their own country. In my case, since for long I have advocated normal relations with China, when it was unpopular to do so, the Chinese leaders felt special warmth of feeling for me. My argument for supporting dialogue with China was that we should not have two enemies China and Pakistan, in the borders of our country. A Sino-Pakistan axis was dangerous for us, and it was making us depend on Russia too much. Therefore, I felt either China or Pakistan should be befriended. Pakistan could not be tackled because it was dominated by the USA, therefore not independent and could not be relied upon. China was an independent country, so we could talk with that country. China in turn had two enemies, Russia and USA and so it wanted to normalise relations with countries which could help either of its enemies. In our case, China’s normal relations with us meant that Russia could not use us to trouble China especially through Tibet. So both India and China would mutually gain from normal relations. This was my argument.
When I first raised the issue in 1967 of improving relations with China, K.R.Narayanan, our President today, was then a Joint Secretary in our External Affairs Ministry. He wrote me a letter once in 1967 saying it was unpatriotic to raise the issue since China had attacked India in 1962. Of course I did not agree. France and Germany attacked each other for centuries. Today they are good friends. Nations have permanents interests, not permanent friendships or permanent enmities. When interests coincide, friendships follow. When interests clash, enmity will be inevitable.
This exchange between me and Narayanan became public. Many people could not understand how I, a perceived pro-American, Harvard educated person be for friendship with China. Because I was anti-communist, people automatically thought that I was pro-American. This is wrong. I would be Pro-or-anti a country according what is in India’s interests. Everyone abroad understands this (but not my critics in India). That is why the Iraq’s leader Sadam Hussein, a bitter foe of USA & Israel, had personally invited me twice to Iraq. Last month, the leftist Prime Minister of Namibia (in Africa) invited me to lead a conference. In June, Vietnam had invited me to participate in an international get-together,
Chinese leaders therefore clearly understood that despite my anti-communism, it was my fierce concern for India’s interests which was motivating me for good relations with China, and that I had the courage to challenge the Russian lobbies in India, who were against China (despite being communists)! The Chinese admired me for this.
There was another reason why the Chinese found it easier to make friends with me. When I had just become a Professor at Harvard after getting my Ph.D. the world’s most famous and revered China Scholar at Harvard, John Fairbank called me up. This was in early 1964, just one and half years after the 1962 Chinese attack. Fairbank taunted me with the assertion: “Why are Indians so poor in learning Chinese? Six students from India were brought here by me on Scholarship at the request of Prime Minister Nehru for a three years course, to learn Chinese. All six have failed in the first semester.” My pride was hurt, so I retorted: “God knows where you got these six students. But if I wanted to, I can learn all the Chinese of a three year course in just six months.” Fairbank challenged me to prove it.
Later Fairbank told me that he had used this ploy to attract me to China studies. He succeeded. I went back to classes at Harvard to learn Chinese. I was a star student, and indeed in six months learn all the Chinese in a three year long course. But surprisingly the little Tamil I had learnt from my mother came useful. For example, Chinese and Tamil had some common words “Nii” means “You” in both languages. The exclamation “Aiyoyo” is the same in both the languages. Most American students could not pronounce the (‘zh’) sounds in Chinese. Since I had learnt to pronounce (‘pazham =fruit’) in Tamil from childhood, I had no difficulty. So I was a hit and favourite with my Chinese Teacher. She was convinced despite my denial, that I had spent my childhood in China. Otherwise how could I pronounce ‘zh’ so beautifully and so naturally, while American students floundered on it, struggling to say it as ‘zz’.
Because I could speak Chinese fluently, it was natural for the Chinese leaders to feel comfortable in my company. Chinese is a hard language to learn and so if some one learnt it, they assumed that the person had a love for China. Little did the Chinese realise that it had nothing to do with my love for China but more to disprove Fairbanks assertion.
After I learnt Chinese, I wrote many articles and books on Chinese Economy. Between 1970 and 1980 I published nearly 100 such writings. Most of it were critical of Chinese economic performance and Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s dictatorial policies. I was condemned by leftist intellectuals for these critical articles who thought Mao had revolutionized China. But the political changes in China during 1976 – 80, went in my favour. Mr.Deng Xiao Ping who took over the leadership in 1978 repudiated Mao, and said that he had ruined the Chinese Economy. World over among China Scholars, only I had written that in vain. Therefore the Chinese scholars immediately began quoting my articles to support Deng’s view.
At that time in 1980, China had applied to the World Bank for a soft loan (i.e., at low 1/2 % interest rate). This meant that China became a competitor with India for loans from the World Bank. To prevent China from getting the loans, the then Finance Minister Mr.R.Venkatraman foolishly argued with the World Bank that China did not qualify for the loans since according to some leftist economists, China’s per capita income was US$1000 compared India’s $250. To qualify for low interest loans from World Bank, the per capita income had to be less than $400. The World Bank President Mr.Robert McNamara made Mr.Venkatraman’s negative attitude look silly by quoting to him my study in which I had concluded that China’s per capita income was the same as India’s $250. So therefore, China qualified for the loan. Rather than correct himself, Mr.Venkatraman made his position more ridiculous by later suggesting to Mrs.Gandhi that on patriotic grounds I should be asked to revise my estimate of China’s per capita income upward to $1000! Mrs.Gandhi politely referred Mr.Venkatraman’s demand to me. I laughed at the request, but told her that she should call all the government experts to come to a conference with me, and prove my estimate wrong. Then I would revise it. Such a conference was arranged. About 40 government experts including the Reserve Bank Governor assembled in the then Foreign Secretary Mr.Ram Sathe’s office. For four hours I sat with them, but they could not find anything wrong with my estimate of China’s per capita income. Therefore, I did not revise my estimate. China got the soft loan from the World Bank despite Venkatraman’s protest because of my research paper on the Chinese economy. But our country’s name was spoiled by this negative attitude of our Finance Minister. The Chinese leaders came to know of this through the World Bank President Mr. McNamara. So they were emotionally moved. Therefore to thank me, the Chinese invited me to China to meet Mr.Deng Xiao Ping, considered as a great honor by one and all. Both India Today and Indian Express described my meeting with Deng as “historic” and covered it extensively.
When I reached Beijing in April 1981 I informed the Chinese Foreign Ministry that I would bring with me our Ambassador Mr.Shankar Bajpai to Mr.Deng’s meeting. The Chinese were upset, and said that this visit was for honouring me in my personal capacity as a scholar, and not as a representative of India. I insisted, saying that Our Ambassador must be present to take notes, and give me clarifications. Besides, I was an MP, hence automatically a representative of India. The Chinese were adamant. So finally I said that I will have to leave China without meeting Mr.Deng if the Ambassador cannot accompany me. This firmness on my part, that abroad I will not separate myself from our government, impressed the Chinese ultimately. They finally understood that I was for truth, but at the same time would stand by my own country.
When I finally met Mr.Deng, he grabbed my arm and said in Chinese: “Lao peng yeou”. This is the ultimate compliment in China to be called “an old friend” and that too by Mr.Deng, the Supreme leader of China. I raised the Assam agitators question with him right away, as I had promised Mrs.Gandhi. Deng asked me why I wanted to help Mrs.Gandhi who had tried to put me in jail during Emergency. I told him it was not a personal issue. If China gave arms to Assam agitators, then people of India will never forgive China, and it will ruin Sino-Indian relations. This would, of course, help Russia to create tensions between our two countries.
Deng appeared convinced. He said “Tell Mrs.Gandhi, if anyone crosses our border from India unauthorized, we will catch that person and hand him to your Border police”. This was the assurance Mrs.Gandhi was looking for.
Deng smiled at me, said “Anything else?” I immediately jumped at that, and said “You have closed Manasarovar for 25 years. This is our holy spot, so please open it for our pilgrims”. Deng did not know anything about Mount Kailash, but his officers explained in Chinese to him, about how difficult the place was to travel to etc. Deng turned to me said with a challenging smile: “If you promise to go there yourself, by walking to Mount Kailash, I will order it’s re-opening”. In September 1981 later that year, I became the first Indian to visit Kailash and Manasarovar after 25 years. Kailash has been open to Hindu pilgrims ever since. Every year about 200 – 300 pilgrims go there.
Deng then turned to his other favourite topics like Vietnam, Russia, economic reform etc., He took me and our Ambassador however by surprise by suddenly declaring to me: “Tell Mrs.Gandhi, I want to improve relations with India. So I am sending our Foreign Minister Huang Hua to India later this year”. Huang Hua came in June 1981, and after that Sino-Indian relations has been steadily improving without a break.
After about 100 minutes of meeting, I took leave of the then 71 years Mr.Deng. He said “you look so young (I was 41 years old then). In your long career ahead, there will be ups and down, but always be optimistic. We thank you for your help to us”.
I felt very pleased with that meeting because despite my not being a Minister then, my efforts laid the foundations for improvement in Sino-Indian relations. Ten years later in 1991 when I returned to Beijing as India’s Commerce Minister, India signed the first Trade Protocol with China in which exports and imports were given a boost. Within two days, I could complete the negotiations, because I was China’s and Deng’s “Lao peng yeou” (old friend). The Chinese were ready to please, because unlike us, are a grateful people. They never forget favours . President Nixon of USA had normalized American relations with China in 1972. After that Nixon landed into the Watergate scandal, and had to resign in 1974. But the Chinese never forgot him for normalizing Sino-US relations and treated him with honour as if nothing had happened. That is why China has so many friends in the world today and we have so few.
After my meeting with Deng Xiao Ping, I was widely recognised all over the world as one who could talk to China frankly. Many business people asked me if I would become their consultant for fat fees, for trade with China. I turned them all down, because the best relations are non-commercial. In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi was to go to China. He asked me to accompany him so that I could help him with Deng. I agreed but later Rajiv changed his mind. He laughingly told me: “My advisers say that if you come with me to China, the Chinese will treat you better and on a higher status than me”. He quoted M.J.Akbar, a newspaper editor in support of this view. Since Rajiv and I were good friends, I did not mind his frankness. At least he was truthful.
India and China should try to be friends. Only then we can manage Pakistan. Deng helped us to restore normal relations and we should never forget that.
Charan Singh – The Much Misunderstood GiantClick To OpenCharan Singh, popularly known in North India as “Choudhary Saheb”, was in my opinion one of the most honest politicians in India. He was also one of the most well read, and of scholarly bent of mind, contrary to popular impressions. Yet he was type-cased by the media as an opportunistic village rustic, someone who had no national vision.
I first met Charan Singh in Lucknow in 1974 when I was contesting the Rajya Sabha seat. We were not in the same party then; to get me defeated he had set up industrialist K.K.Birla as an independent candidate. Birla went about openly buying MLAs who were expected to vote for me. So the situation was precarious. But Charan Singh decided to cast the second preference votes of his party for me, thus ensuring my victory. I did not know Charan Singh much then since I barely been in politics for two years. I too had formed an impression that he was a village rustic, and not worth talking seriously. Little did I realise that in his last days twelve years later I would become one of his closest confidants and his admirer.
Charan Singh met me in the UP Vidhan Sabha premises when he came to cast his vote. He was an MLA then, and leader of 105 MLAs of the Bharatya Lok Dal (BLD). The BLD in 1977 merged with Janatha Party, and donated the farmer with plough symbol to the new party. This is the symbol of Janatha Party even today.
When Charan Singh saw me in the UP Vidhan Sabha, he spoke to me in fluent English. He said: “Young man, despite you abusing me in the UP Assembly election campaign (held in 1973), I have forgiven you and voted for you. I am impressed with your educational qualifications and intelligence, so I voted for you. When you are elected, come and see me”. I thanked Charan Singh for voting for me, but I was dazed by his simplicity and English diction. But after defeating K.K.Birla and becoming MP, I went straight to Delhi. I corresponded with Charan Singh, but since he mostly stayed in Lucknow, and I in Delhi, we could not meet till 1977.
In Feb 1977, after Elections to Lok Sabha had been declared, I returned from USA to contest elections. Both Charan Singh and I were in the same party the Janatha Party. So I went to see him. At that time, he was staying in a small flat in Vithal bhai Patel House. When I met him, he was in the midst of a huge crowd relaxing in sunshine on that cold February day. As soon as he saw me, joy came over his face. I had thought he might rebuke me for not seeing him earlier, but Charan Singh did not. He simply shouted to his followers to gather. Soon about 500 people, mostly farmers from Haryana and UP, gathered. “Choudhary Saheb” caught me by the hand, took me to the gathering and introduced me in a lavish way. He said: “This is Dr.Swamy, my friend. Do you know him?” The crowd had come to know of me during the Emergency by reading newspapers and listening to my BBC broadcasts. So they all nodded enthusiastically.
Charan Singh said: “We are a nation of cowards. Very few people have courage in our country. But we have survived because there are always some Indians with extra-ordinary courage. Rana Pratap and Subash Bose are examples. Now after the Emergency struggle, we have one more example — Dr.Subramanian Swamy.” The crowd cheered. I was very much touched. I said to myself that here is political leader whose follower I am not, and barely know him. And yet he praised me like this in public.
After all the greetings were exchanged, I took leave of Charan Singh, and promised to see him soon. I next saw Charan Singh after he had become Home Minister. I went to his residence in Akbar Road. But unlike many other politicians power had not affected him. He was as simple and warm as before. He got up to receive me, and put the palm of land on my forearm, and asked: “why did not Morarji make you a Minister?” I replied “He says that he cannot make me a Cabinet Minister because I am not old enough, and I will not accept a Minister of state”. Charan Singh smiled and said: “Bahadur aadmi (braveman). It is good to wait. Look at me, I am 77 years old, and first time Central Minister. You are 37, and already a two term MP. Nothing to worry.” he comforted me.
Then Charan Singh put his hand on my shoulder, and asked, “Will Morarji be grateful to me, that I made him Prime Minister?” Charan Singh was right that he helped make Morarji PM; because of his 112 MPs in the Janata tally of 320 MPs his support to Morarji over Jagjivan Ram decided the contest in favour of Morarji Desai. But Morarji had already told me that God had made him PM, that he had asked no one to support him. Hence if he is to be grateful to anyone on this earth, it is to the whole Janata Party and not to anyone particular leader. Otherwise, destiny made him.
I could sense trouble brewing here. Morarji was a evolved sadhu, and did not care who thought what about him. Charan Singh, for all his education, was essentially a simple patriarch, with a deep sense of expecting gratitude for favours done and return favours. Therefore, he wanted Morarji to show deference to him. This developing clash was a pity because ideologically Morarji and Charan Singh were on the same side, more in the Gandhiji-Sardar Patel line than in Nehru’s. Morarji and Charan Singh were for simple living, were honest, and strong believers in prohibition. If Morarji was the brain of the Janata, Charan Singh was the spinal cord of the party. We needed both Janatha to be strong.
Since both men were strict disciplinarians other less strict and more corrupt Janatha leaders saw personal advantage in dividing the two. Atal Behari Vajpayee was, for example, feeling insecure with Morarji for asking him to give up alcoholic drinks. On one occasion, when the Japanese Foreign Minister gave a dinner party in the Japanese Embassy in New Delhi, Vajpayee had became quite drunk in that party. I had been also invited to that dinner, and was horrified to see our Foreign Minister drunk. Morarji came to know of this through the Intelligence Bureau, so he asked me for confirmation, which I gladly gave. Morarji then called Vajpayee in my presence, and gave him big firing. Vajpayee had no answer except to giggle like a school girl caught stealing. But naturally he felt humiliated.
To keep Morarji in check, Vajpayee began poisoning Charan Singh’s mind. It was he who first put the idea of becoming PM in Charan Singh’s mind. Like a typical trouble maker, Vajpayee could carry tales to Morarji about Charan Singh, and vice versa. The ‘credit’ thus of laying the foundation for the break up of Janata Party and the fall of its government, really goes to Vajpayee and not to Charan Singh as is popularly thought. The split came in 1979, and Charan Singh became PM with Indira Gandhi’s help. I stayed in Janata with Morarji. Vajpayee ditched Charan Singh at the last minute, and decided to stay in the Janata Party. A year later, he ditched Morarji, and left the Janata to form the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and become its President.
Despite my remaining with Morarji in Janatha, I kept my good relations with Charan Singh, and met him often. Charan Singh also knowing fully well that I had cast my lot with Morarji never let that affect his warmth towards me. It was Charan Singh’s respect for my scholarship and education and not politics which drew him to me. In our meetings therefore during this period we rarely discussed politics, but books which are worth reading in economics and history.
In 1984, Morarji asked me to contest against Chandrasekhar for Janata Party President in the Party polls. This enraged Chandrasekhar and Hegde (who were later to full apart), and who saw it as a plot by Morarji to regain control of the party before the General Elections to the Lok Sabha in 1984 end.
Breaking all the rules of the party Constitution, Chandrasekhar got me expelled from the Janata Party. The first phone call I got after the expulsion, was from Charan Singh. He made critical remarks about Chandrasekhar (whom he had never liked), and then took me by surprise by inviting me to join his party. “I want someone like you to be with me with whom I can discuss.” he said. He had recently written a book on the Indian Economy, detailing how the farmers had been exploited. I had given him a note on how he could improve his thesis in the second edition of the book. He was delighted, but almost childlike asked me: ” Why cannot my books be recognized abroad. No one reads them here. And because of communist influence in our Universities, it will never be prescribed for students.” I promised to do something someday.
In the 1984 Elections, after Mrs.Gandhi’s assassination, except Charan Singh, all of us in the opposition including Chandrasekhar, Vajpayee and myself lost the elections. So, thinking that a young Rajiv Gandhi of 40 years old, with a huge majority will remain in power for 15 years at least like his mother and grandfather, I decided to take a holiday from politics. I was also only 44 then, young by Indian political standards, so I could wait.
Harvard University, upon learning that I had lost the elections, invited me to return to teach economics. When I resumed my teaching in June 1985 at Harvard, I remembered Charan Singh’s wish to have international recognition for his book. So I used my professor status to prescribe his book in the economic courses in the university. Harvard formally wrote to Charan Singh asking him to send 350 copies of the book for purchase.
When Charan Singh received the letter (his wife later told me) tears came down his eyes. In an emotional burst he said “I have only one true friend that is Swamy”. It occurred to me that Charan Singh, despite having become PM, essentially craved to be intellectually recognized. He hated the media hype casting him as a village Jat rustic, and ignoring his writing as a thinker. It also hurt him and made him sad.
I remember one day in 1982, he telephoned me to come and see him. I thought something important had happened. When I was with him, seated on the floor in Gandhian style, he asked me, his eyes moist: “Swamy, is there a ritual you know by which I can become a Brahmin?” “Why Choudhary Saheb?” I asked “What value is it to be a Brahmin today?” “See what this correspondent has written “he said showing a newspaper report which described Charan Singh as an “Illiterate”. Then Charan Singh said to me “Unless you are a Brahmin, your intellectual ability will never be allowed to be recognized. Jawaharlal Nehru’s books are of less scholarly value than mine, and yet he is called ‘Panditji’ and I am denounced as an illiterate. Why?” Unless I become a Brahmin, my writings will not be recognized”.
I agreed with him that while he wrote on difficult economics subjects, Nehru’s works dealt with easy essays in history. I also argued that the urban English media is not to be taken seriously. But throughout my association with Charan Singh, I felt that while politicians felt jealous of his solid electoral base he instead would have been happy if he was recognized as a scholar. And of course he should have been in my opinion, regarded as a top intellectual. But because he did not have any outward westernization and was dressed very simply, the city-based people never respected him. It had nothing to do with his not being a Brahmin. Vajpayee is a Brahmin, but he is not regarded as an intellectual.
After some months, one day while I was at Harvard, I received a telephone call from Mr. Ajit Singh, son of Charan Singh He said that his father had been admitted for treatment in Baltimore Hospital, and is barely conscious. He had suffered a stroke.
I took the next plane from Boston to Baltimore, and went straight to the hospital. I was joined by Mrs.Charan Singh and Ajit Singh. Despite being in semi-conscious state, when Charan Singh saw me, he recognized me and tears rolled down his cheeks. Mrs. Charan Singh told me that Charan Singh had never forgotten that I prescribed his books at Harvard. Today he does not recognize unless someone has touched his heart and memory in some big way. For others, his memory has failed him. That is why tears rolled down his cheeks on seeing.
Charan Singh spoke a few words to me, but they were all unconnected with anything relevant. For instance he kept asking me to be aware of another Emergency coming, and rigging of General Elections. Clearly, the stroke he had suffered had also affected his brain. USA could not cure him. Charan Singh was flown back to India. I returned from Harvard after nearly two years. Charan Singh was still alive, but in a semi-conscious state, I went to see him at his Tughlak Road residence. His wife Gayathri and Ajit warned me that he may not open his eyes or even recognize me after this long absence. But as soon as I entered the room, he opened his eyes, his body shook, and he cried. Ajit explained that this was his only way of saying “hello” and this emotion was reserved for a very few. Obviously, the simple joy of having his books prescribed at Harvard had made an indelible impression on him. I said goodbye to him; he died a few days later.
During the 1980′s, Charan Singh had spoken a lot about his son Ajit Singh, then an Engineer in USA. As a tribute to Charan Singh, I brought Ajit Singh from the wilderness of politics to make him the Janatha Party President. He did not stay long and soon left the party to join V.P.Singh.
Charan Singh was the most misunderstood political leader of India. Had he been given a full term as PM, he would have revolutionized Indian agriculture. He was a person a great courage. He opposed Jawaharlal Nehru in the famous Nagpur AICC when Nehru wanted to collectivize agriculture like in the communist countries. His grip over UP rural masses was so strong that once on an election campaign in Farrukabad, UP, he asked the people to vote against his own party candidate because he drank alcoholic drinks, and asked them to vote for an obscure Independent candidate! If Ajit Singh is winning his election today, it is entirely because of the love people of U.P. have for Charan Singh. Those who knew him loved him. Those who didn’t made fun of him for superficial considerations
The Kamaraj I KnewClick To OpenI first met Thiru.Kamaraj when I was just 9 years old in early 1949. Kamaraj had come to our residence in New Delhi for lunch. My father was in government service then, after a period as lecturer in mathematics in Annamalai University. When my father was a student and later lecturer, he was closely associated with Satyamurti, the popular Congress leader and member of the fore-runner of our Parliament — namely the Central Legislative Assembly. Because of this closeness with Satyamurti, my father came to know Thiru.Kamaraj .
When Kamaraj came to our house, naturally there was little to discuss between us since I was only 9 years old, and Kamaraj appeared not interested in anything else except politics and India’s freshly achieved freedom. But I sat with my father and Kamaraj, and heard their conversation, which was mostly about Rajaji, which I did not understand.
I next met Kamaraj in 1968 after he had lost the elections. I was then a Professor of Economics at Harvard University in USA and was on a short summer vacation trip to India to give lectures at the Delhi school of Economics in Delhi University. To fix an appointment, I simply telephoned Thiru.Kamaraj on the number in the Telephone Directory. When he came on the line, I explained who was I, in my broken Tamil (which I could barely speak in those days) and reminded him of his coming to our house in1949! Either out of sweetness or just genuine memory, he recalled that meeting, and immediately invited me to see him at his Jantarmantar residence.
When I met Kamaraj at his Delhi residence, he had hardly any visitors. He had been defeated at the polls, and Indira Gandhi whom he had made Prime Minister, was not listening to him. So he was glum and quite alone. He gave me a good filter coffee and asked me only one question in broken English – What do the Americans think of India and Indira Gandhi? Not much conversation could take place however since I tried to speak to him in my broken Tamil and he tried to make me understand in his broken English!
My next meeting took place in April 1974. By then, I had become an MP. Thiru.Kamaraj had invited me for lunch to his new residence at Ashoka road. We had first met that morning in Morarji Desai’s residence where we had all been asked to assemble to celebrate. Morarji had got his demand on holding Gujarat Assembly elections conceded following his fast unto death, which fast was broken on the fifty day. So we all went to celebrate. Kamaraj saw me there and asked me to come with him to his residence. I was pleased that he gave so much recognition and went with him to his place.
At the lunch table, Kamaraj said to me that since I enjoyed JP’s confidence, I should ensure that Morarji Desai is not made the combined opposition candidate for Prime Minister. I felt honoured that he trusted me with his confidence, but asked him why he was against Morarji. He replied in the simplest Tamil, with gestures to make sure that I understood that Morarji was too rigid to head a coalition of opposition parties. It needed someone more flexible in nature, he said. Kamaraj wanted me convince JP of this. Kamaraj-Morarji enmity originated from the time Nehru in 1963 used the “Kamaraj Plan” to dislodge Morarji from the Finance Ministry.
I asked Kamaraj why he did not think of himself to lead the coalition. He said that the North, which had majority of the Lok Sabha seats, will not tolerate for long anyone who did not know Hindi. He had not learnt Hindi, so when in 1964 Nehru died; he brought in Lal Bahadur Shastri. At that time, he himself could have become PM, but because of this reason he declined to do so. Then he added: “Unless you know how to reprimand Northerners in Hindi, they will not listen to you!”
He then congratulated me for getting elected to Parliament from UP. “It is a real credit for a Tamilian to come to Parliament from UP.” But he added a warning: “Today you are a youngster, so they may accept you , because you speak Hindi, and can abuse them in Hindi. But after some years, when you become a big leader, you will have to come to Tamilnadu and go from there. With a name like Subramanian Swamy you will always be considered a Tamilian in UP, even if you speak Hindi like them. So sooner or later, you will have to shift to Tamilnadu to be in Parliament. “. This advice of Kamaraj never left my mind and memory. After I became Commerce Minister in 1990, I knew time had come to implement Kamaraj’s advice.
I next met Kamaraj accidentally at Meenambakkam Airport in Madras on May 1, 1975. This was to be our last meeting since soon after, the Emergency was declared. On October 1, 1975, Kamaraj passed away. I was underground then evading a MISA arrest warrant, so I could not even come to pay my last respects to his body.
But this last meeting was the most rewarding experience. Kamaraj and I were together for three and half hours—one hour in the airport lounge and 2 1/2 hours on the flight seated together. My Tamil had improved to the point that Kamaraj felt comfortable to speak freely and continuously in Tamil with me. His Tamil was simple and not like the cinema dialogues of today.
When he saw me at the airport, the first thing he said was that henceforth when I come to Madras, I must first look him up. He also asked me to accompany him on tours so that my Tamil will improve and I could be sent to Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu. He was in a very good mood on that day because he had been drawing very large crowds in his meetings. Lok Sabha elections were near, due then in February 1976, only nine months away. So Kamaraj was feeling confident about the future, and planning for it.
On the flight, Kamaraj spent most of his time telling me on the evil deeds of Mrs.Gandhi, and why it was important to unseat her. When I half-jokingly suggested that it was he who made her PM, he replied that it was all the more his responsibility to unseat her. Then he asked me. “Do you know who killed [Commerce minister] L.N.Mishra?” “I know the gossip, but nothing concrete”. I replied. “In the Lok Sabha election, I will reveal everything” Kamaraj added.
In the flight, on the other side of aisle, was sitting Mr.C.Subramaniam, then minister of Finance. During the entire flight or at the airport, he never said even “hello” to Kamaraj. This was surprising since Subramaniam owed his political career to Kamaraj. But he was probably afraid that Indira Gandhi may misunderstand his courtesy to Kamaraj, and drop him from the Finance Ministership! Such is the Tamil political culture even today.
Kamaraj pointed to CS and whispered to me: “Do you know who he is?” I said “Of course, he is the Finance Minister”. Kamaraj then said: “He knows everything about L.N.Mishra”.
“How?” I asked. “In 1967 when Indira Gandhi dropped L.N.Mishra from Deputy Home Ministership, she sent this man to me to explain. Mishra had been brought to Rajya Sabha by me, so I had been unhappy”, Kamaraj said.
” CS explained to me that Indira Gandhi had been furious with Mishra for bringing to her notice little incidents in which Sanjay Gandhi had landed in trouble, such as rash driving in which a cyclist had been injured. CS said that Mishra had informed Mrs.Gandhi that he paid the cyclist and hushed up the matter. In those days Sanjay was always in trouble, but CS told me that Mrs.Gandhi was annoyed that Mishra was trying to blackmail her. So to teach him a lesson, she had removed him from the Ministership.”
Then Kamaraj looked straight at me and said “If that was the case in 1967, then how was it that in 1969 she not only brought him back, promoted him to a full Minister and gave him the money-spinning Commerce portfolio? How did he win back her confidence?” I was speechless. Kamaraj then added: I will speak about this also in the LokSabha election campaign”.
But then why did you team up with her in the [Feb.1974] Pondicherry Assembly elections? I asked.
“Big mistake. I did not want it, but my associates were pushing for it, and in a weak moment I yielded” Kamaraj replied. “But now after L.N.Mishra’s murder, I am determined not to have anything to do with Indira Gandhi or her party”, he firmly added.
Our flight reached Delhi. On parting with Kamaraj at the airport, I promised to meet him again and travel around the Tamilnadu countryside with him. I got the distinct feeling that Kamaraj wanted to project me for a role in Delhi, and therefore wanted to get to know me better. But it was never to be. Events overtook us.
Emergency was declared on June 26, 1975. I was told that Kamaraj wept, and held himself personally responsible for promoting Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister. But his grief in the loss of democracy was so great that he fell ill, and never recovered. He died on October 1, 1975.
Kamaraj can be counted as one of the greatest Tamil leaders of post Independence era. He was honest, simple and yet a visionary. He developed Tamilnadu to the point where it became the best administered state in the country till the cinema culture of the DMK ruined the state.
Knowing Kamaraj I can say that those who left his party in 1976 and joined Indira Gandhi in the midst of the Emergency by claiming that Kamaraj had wanted it are guilty of double treachery: First in insulting his memory by joining Indira Gandhi while the Emergency was still on, and many were in jail under MISA, and second, by claiming that Kamaraj’s last wish was this—to join Indira Gandhi!
I know Kamaraj’s real last wish. It was to build a strong opposition party to both Indira Gandhi and the DMK (who were allies in 1974) and bring back honest rule to the state. Those who claim otherwise are not true followers of Kamaraj.
Morarji Desai – My True FriendClick To OpenArticles
Morarji Desai – my true friend
I was first introduced to Morarji Desai in 1975 when senior leaders were finding it difficult to bring him and Jayaprakash Narayan on the same wave length of thinking and pushed me in the front to dare to talk to both. As I have already described in my earlier article, if it were not for my audacity in bringing JP and Morarji together, the June 25th 1975 historic Ramlila Ground meeting in Delhi (which Mrs. Gandhi used as an excuse to declare Emergency),would never have taken place. The Emergency was originally scheduled for June 22nd when JP was to address the rally, but his Patna-Delhi Indian Airlines flight got cancelled, and so Mrs.Gandhi postponed the decision. She wanted to use JP’s speech as an excuse. It is a wonder to me that had I not succeeded to bringing the two together on June 25th, and the meeting thus cancelled, would the declaration of Emergency been further postponed, or even Mrs.Gandhi changed her mind about the idea itself with a little more time to think about it?
My Next meeting with Morarji Desai was a stormy one. It was a meeting demanded by Morarji to give me a lecture. It was also meeting that became a turning point because after that Morarji and I became very close.
The General Elections to Lok Sabha were declared on January 18, 1977 when I was abroad, having escaped again after a dramatic appearance on the floor of Parliament despite an MISA arrest warrant and the highest reward on my head for my capture. This was my second escape abroad during the Emergency.
Morarji had been released from prison, and in his first press conference, a pro-Congress news reporter taunted him with the question about Mrs.Gandhi’s allegation that opposition leaders had run away abroad rather than go to jail. The news reporter mentioned my name in this connection.
Morarji angrily reacted to the question by remarking that it did not matter because I was not a “front rank” leader. I did not mind that remark because I was then only 37 years old, and only been four years in politics. But I had resented Morarji’s failure to rebut the idea that I had “run away”. Actually I was abroad on JP’s direction to awaken the world to the Emergency’s atrocities, and Morarji had known that. It would have been easy to stay in jail. Because I had evaded arrest under MISA, Mrs.Gandhi put 18 false cases against me, declared me a “proclaimed offender”, and confiscated my property, household goods and car. My two daughters Gitanjali aged 5 and Suhasini aged 2 had to suffer trauma of not knowing where their father was, not to mention the harassment suffered by my wife in going to court for my cases, and who was always against my leaving academics (that too Harvard) for politics.
When I returned to India on February 5th, 1977 to contest Lok Sabha, I was red hot with anger. My other political colleagues sensed that I would retaliate, so advised me restraint till elections were over. But in my first press conference after return, the same press reporter taunted me with Morarji’s remark. I found it difficult to contain myself, and yet the cause of winning the elections loomed in my mind. So, I replied: “Morarjibhai is right. I cannot be front rank leader because I am not 80 years old. This was front page box item news. Everybody found it humorous and had a good laugh. But not Morarji. He was even more angry. So he sent word to me to see him in the Jantar Mantar Party office. I refused saying I don’t recognize him as my leader.
Morarji then surprised me by asking me to come to his Bombay residence for tea. I relented, and went to see him. Morarji’s took me to meet him in the privacy of his bedroom. The conversation went like this:
Morarji : “Why have you called attention of the press to my age?”
Swamy : “Because you called attention to my age”
Morarji : “But you are not a front rank leader today”
Swamy : “I have publicly agreed with you on this. So what is your objection?”
Morarji : “Do you realize that your remark on my age is helping Mrs.Gandhi’s propaganda?”
Swamy : “Do you realize that your silence on Mrs.Gandhi allegation that I ran away abroad had hurt my reputation and the feelings of my family?”
Morarji : “Why did you not go to jail? I don’t believe in evading arrest”
Swamy : “Who cares about what you believe. JP asked me to go abroad and organize. Abroad I agitated against your detention. This was a mistake, I agree”
Morarji : “JP asked you? No one told me so”
Swamy : “As a leader you should have found out”
Morarji : “Yes, that was my mistake. But still you should not have remarked about my age”
: “I did not realize Mrs.Gandhi would exploit it. It is my mistake for which I am sorry”
Morarji was immediately moved by my saying sorry. “Young man”, he said “You are blunt and truthful. I admire your courage, even if I do not approve of this underground activity. Let us be friends”.
From that day on wards, even if Morarji did nothing much for me politically, he was always on my side helping me where he could and I remained his friend till his last breath. When his Cabinet was formed, it was widely thought that I would be made a Cabinet Minister for my role in the Emergency, but Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had played a disgraceful role of writing an apology letter to Mrs.Gandhi during the Emergency – to come out on parole out of jail, – controlled 91 Jan Sangh MPs. Vajpayee was given to tremendous jealousy, and it is the root cause of the mess BJP is in today. He found my “Emergency Hero” status unbearable especially since he wanted to hide his own surrender shame. He therefore prevailed upon Morarji to offer me only a Minister of State with independent charge. Morarji also thought that at the age of 37, a Cabinet Ministership was too early.
When I turned down the junior Ministership, Morarji was truly impressed. He called me to have dinner with him to express his appreciation. At the dinner, he expressed his approval of my simple habits (no drinking, no smoking), my courage, and my education. At one stage, he said to me “You should have come into contact with me years earlier”. From that day onwards till his death, I was one of the few who could see Morarji at any time or any place that I wanted especially at his lunch (10 AM) or dinner time (6.30 PM). Throughout his Prime Ministership, I was regularly the last visitor to see him (8.30 PM). Very often, Morarji would invite me to come with him on trips within the country on the special Air Force Plane. Morarji had clearly taken a liking for me and my boldness.
Morarji helped me to break the ice with China. Vajpayee as Foreign Minister blocked my visit for one year, but in 1978, Morarji saw that I went first to China. He accepted my view about China, and rejected Vajpayee’s, who was keen to keep the Soviet Union pleased. Even on Israel, Morarji accepted my view and invited Moshe Dayan to visit India.
Because of the factionalism in the Janata Party, during his tenure as PM, he could not make me a Cabinet Minister. Delhi was always abuzz with the rumour that he was about to induct me as Foreign Minister because he was fed up with Vajpayee’s drinking habits whenever he went abroad or his indiscretion with women. But the 91 MPs of the Jan Sangh group was Vajpayee’s strength, so Morarji kept postponing the date. Then there was the Raj Narain nuisance. However in June 1979, Raj Narain was expelled from the Janatha Party, and everything was under control– or so it seemed. It was then I was confidently told by insiders that Morarji would bring me into the Cabinet in the September 1979 re-shuffle. That re-shuffle never came because Morarji quit office in July 1979. But the greatness of Morarji was exhibited in those trying moments when he was betrayed by colleague after colleague, each trying to become Prime Minister. Some got a bad name for it such as Charan Singh, but the real culprits were Vajpayee and Ramakrishna Hegde who pushed Morarji into a confrontation with Charan Singh, and then let Morarji down.
Provoked by what he mistakenly took as Morarji induced insults, Charan Singh broke the party, and the Janatha Party lost majority. Then Vajpayee and Hegde produced a list of 279 MPs of which 23 MPs signatures were forged. The President Mr.Sanjiva Reddy was alerted to it by the IB, and he made it public. Morarji gallantly took the blame and quit public life. It should have been Vajpayee and Hegde who should have quit, but they left Morarji holding the bag and owning responsibility! Such was their character.
Later at his residence at night I asked Morarji why he took the blame when he was blameless and paid such a heavy price. He said simply: “After all, I am the leader. I must sink with the ship”. Such was his greatness.
Morarji never recovered from the 1979 debacle. But till his death, he tried to help me to the extent he could. He backed me for becoming the President of the Janatha Party to replace Chandrasekhar as early a 1981. He tried again in 1984, but Chandrasekhar and Hegde combined to get me expelled from the party rather than pose to challenge. Later Hegde got ambitious and tried to push Chandrasekhar. It was ironic that Chandrasekhar sought my help. Since of the two, Chandrasekhar was a better person, I launched a campaign against Hegde on telephone tapping and land scandals for which Hegde was responsible. He had to resign from the Karnataka Chief Ministership and has been marginalized in politics ever since.
For Morarji, the most hurtful part of his life was when cheap allegation was hurled on him by an American author, of being a CIA agent. There could not have been a greater patriot than Morarji, but he was slandered like Sita was in Ramayana. It was the only time I saw Morarji’s eyes moist. But he told me: “It is the law of Karma. I must have wronged somebody in my past life”.
I advised him to ignore the charge since every newspaper editorial in the country came to his defense. No politician however came explicitly to his defence. Some attacked him. In Lok Sabha, I stoutly defended him which pleased him immensely. But his other friends were not satisfied. They wanted him to sue the author in US courts. Morarji chose to ignore my advice, and he suffered even more going to US in cold winters to pursue the case and raise money for legal fees. It was a futile exercise, and a waste of time and money. Morarji was deeply hurt by outcome and regretted his decision to fight a defamation case in a US court. He seemed to lose all desire for public life.
But Morarji was getting old too. He was nearing 90. Soon he simply retired completely and never left Bombay. But he would keep inquiring about me. During my struggle against the Jayalalitha government, and the violence let loose against me, Morarji would chuckle and say, “Foolish woman. Does she not know your exploits in the Emergency?” But he kept telling me to be careful about my life and limb. I know he was concerned from his heart.
When Morarji died, he saved my life. Strange as it may seem, I was driving in last week of April 1995 to Pondicherry to address a public meeting. At Tindivanam, a huge crowd was waiting for me to with petrol bombs and acid filled eggs. They were planning to stop my car and set it on fire, thereby roasting me to death. The crowd was AIADMK sponsored, and they were particularly angry at my getting sanction to prosecute their leader, Ms.Jayalalitha. They wanted to prove their loyalty to her.
I had no idea that this mob was waiting for me, since as usual the Tamilnadu Police had disappeared from Tindivanam. As my car was speeding towards Tindivanam, in a small town about 10 Kms away, a few people blocked my car to give me the news that Morarji Desai had passed away.
I immediately told Chandralekha who was travelling with me, that I must return and catch a flight to Bombay. My party people accompanying me and Chandralekha thought that since a huge crowd would be waiting in Pondicherry to hear my speech, I should fulfil that commitment first. I could pass a condolence resolution in that meeting, they suggested. But my emotional attachment to Morarji was deep. Therefore I insisted on cancelling the programme and returning right away.
When I reached Chennai three hours later there was an urgent call from Dr.Chenna Reddy, from Pondicherry. There was real concern in his voice. I thought he was calling about Morarji, but he asked me: “Are you alright?” I said yes but asked him why. He replied “Thank God! There was an AIADMK mob ready to murder you, burn you alive. Thank God you did not go to Tindivanam”. Dr.Channa Reddy later wrote a letter to the Prime Minister Mr.Narasimha Rao about it.
But I said: “Thank God, and thank your Morarji bhai. Even in your last breath you thought of helping me”.
I flew to Ahmedabad via Bombay, and meditated by the side of Morarji’s body. I am rarely moved to tears. But on that day, tears rolled down my cheeks when I saw Morarji’s body I placed a wreath on his body and said “Good bye, my Friend. I shall never forget you”.
Morarji was a great inspiration for four reasons:
First, he came from an ordinary school teacher’s family, and while remaining completely honest, simple, fearless and truthful, he rose by sheer hard work to become the Prime Minister of India. Those who say that we have to be corrupt to rise in politics should learn from Morarji’s example.
Second, Morarji was a man of guts and conviction. Even JP came out of jail during the Emergency on parole (though justifiably), but Morarji despite 20 months of solitary confinement did not budge. He even refused to talk with Mrs.Gandhi’s emissaries about compromise.
Third, Morarji was noble and humane. After he became PM, Mrs.Gandhi went to see him and request an allotment of a government bungalow. Despite protest from many Janata Party leaders, he treated her with respect and allotted her a spacious bungalow. “After all, she was our Prime Minister for 11 years” he told me one day.
Fourth, Morarji had a complete philosophy of life. It was he (and course the divine grace of Parmacharya Sri Chandrasekhara Saraswathi) who educated me on how not to be disheartened by failure. He would say “Plans are good only for 10 percent of your success. Events control 90 percent of the failure. You can plan, but God only controls events”. Morarji’s commentary on Bhagwat Gita is still one of the best that I have read of any commentators.
Like Patel and Subash Bose, Morarji’s stature will grow with time.
Rajiv Gandhi – My FriendClick To OpenMy first contact with Rajiv Gandhi came when he entered Lok Sabha in 1982 in a by-election. I was too in Lok Sabha then re-elected from Bombay in 1980. However before this, Rajiv communicated with me regularly through a journalist since 1977. The first communication was a thanks -,as a gratitude for defending him in a Parliamentary Party Executive of the Janata Party presided over by Morarji Desai.
In one meeting, George Fernandez, the most characterless person in Indian Politics, had demanded that the PM take action against Rajiv Gandhi then an Indian Airlines pilot, for allegedly taking bribe in a 1973 purchase of Boeings by Indian Airlines. All that I said in the meeting was that Rajiv Gandhi should not be dragged in merely because he was the son of Indira Gandhi. There must be concrete proof. Morarji agreed with me, and asked Fernandez for evidence which of course he did not have. So the matter was dropped. In fact Fernandez’s socialist colleague Mr.Purushottam Kaushik was Civil Aviation Minister and he remained silent too.
Naturally the word spread, and a journalist who lives in London now, called me to convey the thanks and the proposal that Rajiv and I meet. In fact, this journalist printed posters and pasted it all over Delhi to proclaim that “Rajiv exonerated by Swamy”. I told this journalist that there was nothing to thank since I was doing what was humanly decent. Further I said to him that Rajiv was neither in politics nor did he participate in the Emergency. In fact he had disapproved of what his brother Sanjay did. I also felt that there was no need to meet for this purpose.
Rajiv never forgot this, and when he came to Lok Sabha, he came over to my seat and formally introduced himself although he did not need introduction. That was his simplicity that remained a hall mark till his end. He was a sweet person too, always speaking in soft tone. My friendship grew with time. Mrs.Indira Gandhi was delighted with this development because she felt that Rajiv needed friends of his age group (Rajiv was four years younger) who knew politics. But I had little time because I was mostly touring and mostly away from Delhi. In those days I travelled a lot abroad too on official invitations from China, Israel, U.K., Pakistan, Japan etc…
Still Rajiv and I met in Parliament sometimes and discussed various national topics which because of his non-political background. The only point on which we had disagreement was over Punjab, and that too because he came under influence of two rootless persons Arun Nehru and Arun Singh. Both ditched him later when the Bofors scandal unfolded.
By 1984, Rajiv and I had become friendly enough to joke with each other. But 1984 was a terrible year with the Golden Temple Bluestar fiasco, and then Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination. The terrible holocaust, of Sikh genocide of November 1984 had very much upset me. I had also become unpopular in North India because I was the only Hindu politician to oppose operation Bluestar, which had fanned Hindu fanaticism. Chandrasekhar also had me expelled from Janatha Party. This made me lose the 1984 Lok Sabha election, as did practically every opposition leader because of the sympathy wave due to the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi. I met Rajiv Gandhi briefly during his mother’s funeral. He simply said “Swamy, Join me”. Only later I came to know he had wanted me to join the Congress Party at that juncture.
After my defeat in the elections, I was invited by Harvard University to rejoin as Professor of Economics. So in early 1985 left for Harvard and stayed as Professor there for two years. All through 1985 I wrote critical articles of Rajiv Gandhi’s policies which in my style were hard-hitting. I was sure that because of these articles, and the sycophants around him, I would lose his friendship.
In August 1986, while on a short visit to India while my University was on vacation, I notified the External Affairs Ministry that my friend from 1978 and President of Pakistan Gen.Zia ul Haq had invited me as his personal guest to Pakistan, and wanted to know if the Government wanted me to get anything clarified with Zia. To my surprise, I got a call from the PMO fixing time in Rajiv’s Parliament office to meet him.
When I met Rajiv, he was all smiles. He said jokingly “I heard you have run away to Harvard. How have you been?” Obviously either he had not read my articles or he thought nothing of it. He then proceeded to tell me about the help Zia was giving to Sikh militants, and urged me to take it up with him. He also asked his Minister, Natwar Singh to give me a detailed background on Indo-Pakistan relations. While I was leaving him, he said “Promise you will stay in touch?” I did.
With my contact re-established with him, it became very easy to become an even closer friend after I re-entered Parliament in 1988. By then Rajiv was in deep trouble on the Bofors issue. I had that time exposed V.P. Singh’s closest ally and a harsh Rajiv baiter, Ramakrishna Hegde, on the telephone tapping scandal and the NRI land fraud. Hedge had to resign. I had also become critical of V.P.Singh of his double games. Naturally, Rajiv felt happy, and more so when I discovered that the first negotiation with Bofors was actually conducted by none other than V.P.Singh as Finance Minister on June 10, 1985. Rajiv had known about this naturally but failed to use it because his “advisers” told him not to annoy V.P.Singh anymore. May be that V.P.Singh as Finance Minister had dossiers on these “advisers”, and to save their own neck, they sacrificed Rajiv’s interests. Rajiv was so simple that he accepted their suggestion on not exposing V.P.Singh.
In fact the principal culprits for the Bofors fiasco are V.P.Singh, Arun Nehru and Shiv Shankar. Two bureaucrats were equally responsible for trapping Rajiv Gandhi. Since I know this, no one in Parliament would to raise the Bofors issue when I was Law Minister, fearing that I might expose those who were trying to expose Rajiv Gandhi.
By the end of 1989, Rajiv Gandhi and I became very close friends. After he ceased to be PM, and moved to 10, Janpath, he invariably called me at 1 AM in the night and ask George his secretary to pick me up to come to 10, Janpath for some chocolates (which he loved) and tea. By March 1990, we began foreseeing the downfall of the V.P.Singh government, and carried out exercises on who could form a new government. It was I who suggested that if his 220 MPs could combine with 60 MPs split from Janatha Dal by enticing Chandrasekhar, we could form a new government.
On this we began working from April 1990. Rajiv Gandhi was superb in storing and reviewing information on his personal computer. Practically every day we met from April till November 1990 when Chandrasekhar was made PM. And it was always between 1 AM and 4 AM.
By September it was clear that such a government could be formed. It is then Rajiv Gandhi made a surprising proposal. He said one night “Swamy, I am really not comfortable with Chandrasekhar. Why don’t you instead become the PM? I can work with you easily?” At first I was completely taken aback. I then said to him that all the 60 MPs of Janatha Dal had already been told that . Rajiv said since Congress was the largest party it could suggest anyone as PM to the President. I said I would think about it, and then forgot about it because of the fear that the whole proposal of the new government formation would collapse. But two weeks later, Rajiv repeated this to me in presence of T.N.Seshan. Seshan as usual began playing double games which I came to know later. He encouraged me to make a bid for it, at the same time he spoke to Rajiv against the idea, and then going to Chandrasekhar and telling him how he had sabotaged this idea of making me PM.
But by October middle, it became clear to me that it was too late in the day for a new proposal (to make me PM). Further, Advani’s Ratha Yathra was causing a crisis, and events were moving fast. So when I met Rajiv I told him it is too late now. He accepted my view, but correctly added, “But I don’t think I can work with Chandrasekhar for long”. He was prophetic because even I could not prevent the Chandrasekhar – Rajiv quarrel within one month of the government formation.
But for the few months that Chandrasekhar was PM, I kept meeting Rajiv to see that his wishes and suggestions were implemented. That is why when Chandrasekhar resigned; Rajiv Gandhi called me to suggest that I join the Congress Party. He even convened a lunch meeting at the residence of a Tamilnadu MP to announce my joining. But the sycophantic behaviour of some Congress men in that lunch put me off. I declined to join then, but I told Rajiv Gandhi at the Lunch that if after the elections he still wanted me to join, I would. But fate willed otherwise. He was assassinated in Sri Perumpudhur on May 21, 1991.
In my view, Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister did many great things. He first introduced the idea of economic reforms. He doubled our defence expenditure, and but for the Bofors scandal, he would have made us a mighty military power. He sent Indian troops for combat to Sri Lanka and Maladives and he showed Nepal its place. He promoted our culture by getting Doordarshan to show Ramayana serial. He also raised our national pride by coining the slogan “Mere Bharat Mahan” and illustrating that on TV through examples to inspire the youngsters.
But he was inexperienced and made many mistakes. His tenure in the opposition had however rounded his personality. Therefore, had he lived and become Prime Minister again he would have become the greatest Prime Minister of India of the 20th Century.
The assassins not only robbed the nation of a leader who could have made for the country a glorious entry into the 21st century, but also robbed me of a very good friend.
My Experience With JayaPrakash NarayanClick To OpenI met JP first in USA in 1968, when he came on a tour sponsored by an American organization – the Quakers. I was then a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and had already made a name in the field having collaborated in research with two of the most famous Nobel Prize Winners, Paul Samuelson of MIT and Simon Kuznets of Harvard. In fact both of these Nobel Laureates had said that I too would get some someday the Nobel Prize if I continued to work on my theory of Index numbers, for which I had already achieved fame. But it was that fateful meeting with JP that changed my life and my profession from teaching to politics. I have never regretted for a moment that decision because of the way JP convinced me to make the sacrifice, during his three days stay with me. I have been filled with a sense of mission since then which has focussed my attention in achieving my political goals. Because of this, I am never discouraged by defeat or delay, nor even much delighted by victory. And again because of this sense of mission acquired from JP, I never give up any fight nor been afraid of consequences. It is thanks to the combination of JP’s political advice, and spiritual blessings of the divine Parmacharya, that I am as tough today as I am never afraid to stand alone, and speak as I feel.
It was sometime in April 1968 that the Harvard University Marshal’s office, which deals with visitors to the campus, telephoned me at my office at the Economics Department. The lady on the phone in a typical American slang said: “There is a guy from India called Mr.J.P.Narayan who is here and wants to meet you as well as the University’s Faculty.” I had as a child in 1940s heard of a leader called ‘JP’ and wondered if this was the same person. I asked the lady to put him on. When he came on the line, I simply asked “Are you the freedom fighter JP?” JP’s voice choked with emotion and said “Oh I am so happy that the younger generation (I was 28 years old then) has heard of me!” I then asked JP to hand back the phone to the Marshal’s office lady. When she came on the line, I instructed her to put JP up at the University’s Faculty Club, and that I would right away go to see him.
Those days I was fired by nationalist ideas such as that could do without foreign aid, that we could afford to build the atom bomb, and that the Aryan – Dravidian theory is a British concoction to divide India. In the 1960s these ideas were considered radical and extreme. So because of this nationalistic fervour, I used to wear “close coat”, modern Indian dress, unlike other Indians who wore tie and shirt. The Americans to their credit never commented on my dress since I was a good economics professor and researcher. It was the Indian’s inferiority complex that made them wear western clothes.
But when I went to see JP at the Faculty Club, I was taken aback to see him a three-piece Western suit and tie. His wife Prabhavati was with him, dressed in a sari and she saw the incongruity. She then admonished JP for wearing western clothes and told me that I had put two Gandhiji’s followers to shame. But JP with his famous sweet smile said “It looks like I have found a new friend”, and simply went back to his room, changed into an Indian Sherwani and Pyjamas. After that, all through the 3 day’s stay, he was in Indian dress.
I acted as a driver for JP during this visit, since he did not have a car. I arranged for him to lecture at Harvard on the current situation in politics in India. Due to the fact, that my father was in the Congress party during the Freedom Struggle, and was associated with Satyamurthi and Kamaraj, I was aware of little facts which I overheard as a child in the drawing room of our house. One such fact which I knew impressed JP greatly. When at a lecture, he asked his audience, “What is the last wish of Mahatma Gandhi?” No one in the audience, consisting 300 Indian and American scholars could answer. Then JP looked at me, and I blurted out that (Gandhiji’s private secretary, Pyare Lal had recorded it as the “Last Will and Testament”), Gandhiji wanted the Congress Party to wound up. He complimented me for keeping such close touch with the history of Freedom struggle despite living abroad for so long.
After the meeting was over, JP asked me to see him at the Faculty Club for dinner. On that occasion, he began urging me to return to India, and join his Sarvodaya movement. He told me how he too, as well as Dr.Ambedkar, had received American education and degrees, but they had sacrificed for the country. He told me about Gandhiji, Nehru, Patel and Subash Bose who gave up their careers for public service. But he urged me not to enter politics, but instead join him in Sarvodaya.
A year later in 1969 I resigned my professorship at Harvard and came to India. After meeting JP in Delhi, I left for Batlagundu in Madurai district to join the Sarvodaya movement, or at least try it for few months. At that time, JP was almost a forgotten person by people of India. I remember going to receive him at the New Delhi Railway station after my return to India. JP was coming to Delhi from Patna by train. At the railway station, except for his Secretary, there was no one else to receive him except me. None recognized JP in the platform after he disembarked from the train.
I left for Batlagundu, Madurai in October 1969 after having lived in comfort in the USA for more than seven years. While life in Sarvodaya was hard, the Sarvodaya leaders in Batlagundu tried to make my life interesting. But what I found was while the people in the villages respected Sarvodaya leaders for their sacrifice, they did not take them seriously. Meantime during my stay, I read Gandhiji’s work in the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi Museum in Madurai city which I often visited to reduce the boredom of living in a village. Gandhiji had clearly advocated in his writing the combining of politics with constructive social work to enthuse the people. But Sarvodaya was purely social work with no politics. Indian society was purely social work with no politics. Indian society, it seemed to me, was not ready to de-politicize anything.
So I wrote to JP after a few months that I could not fit into Sarvodaya as I did not believe that social work without political clout had a future in India. And hence I left Batlagundu for Delhi in early 1970 to become a Professor of Economics at the IIT, Delhi.
JP was very upset with my letter. I little realized that JP had come to the opposite conclusion in 1953 after rejecting Jawaharlal Nehru’s offer of making him the Deputy Prime Minister. JP’s mission from 1953 was to liquidate politics. He had advocated party less democracy and panchayati raj based on non-political Sarvodaya. My letter was thus in effect saying that JP had wasted his life since 1953, and JP was satisfied in feeling hurt.
JP wrote me a stiff and cold letter in reply, saying that he was disappointed with me. He did not reply to any of my letters thereafter. But in July 1972, 2 1/2 years later I received a telegram from JP. He was recuperating from a heart attack at Tipponagondahalli near Bangalore. In the telegram, he invited me to join a small get together of his friends to discuss “an important matter”.
So I went to Tipponagondahalli to see JP. There about 15 top Sarvodaya leaders were camping. We all stayed together and discussed many issues. In one session, JP posed a question. He asked: If Indira Gandhi imposes military rule, what should be his role? Or what can he do to stop it?
While all Sarvodaya leaders advocated fasting or writing letters or something passive. I was the only one to suggest to every one’s shock, that JP had committed a mistake in giving up politics, and that he should correct for it by entering it now. Every Sarvodaya leader in the meeting condemned me for saying this, and exhibiting my immaturity. But to everyone’s surprise, JP in his concluding speech agreed with me that for stopping the
dictatorship of Indira Gandhi, he had to re-enter politics. He said emotionally; “Dr.Swamy is courageous. He is not afraid of speaking the hurtful truth. I agree with him. At the appropriate date. I have decided to enter the political arena”. Thus I can truly say that the germ of the idea to oppose the coming Emergency and create the Janata Party was planted in JP’s mind by me.
By 1974, JP was fully into the political movement to oppose Mrs.Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule which he was certain would come in the form of military rule. Throughout 1974-75, JP was never in Delhi without giving me a telephone call and asking me to meet him. He made me a member of the national coordination committee of political parties, even though I was a junior in politics. The first meeting of Kamaraj with JP was fixed by me. This was in November 1974 and all the papers had the photograph of the three of us.
On the morning of June 25, 1975 ( the day before Mrs. Gandhi declared ‘Emergency’) , I got an urgent call from a political leader who said that for the crucial evening rally for that day in Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds, JP and Morarji Desai were locked in a quarrel, and no one had the guts to talk to either. Morarji Desai was in high spirits because his fast for Gujarat Assembly polls had led to a formation of Janata Front Government in the elections. Morarji was a strong disciplinarian and disapproved of JP’s unpunctual schedules. This quarrel was because the public meeting had been announced for 5 PM that evening. It was a hot summer, so JP said he would arrive at the meeting at 8 PM. Morarji quarrelled on that, saying that if meeting was for 5 PM, JP and he must both turn up on time. “Why are we spoiling people’s habits that we don’t mean what to say?” So it was left to me to persuade JP to come on time, since all political leaders knew the soft corner JP had for me. This situation helped me to get properly introduced to Morarji. But becoming friends with Morarji was not easy, since he thought I was too young (I was 35 years old then) to mingle with “seniors”. He kept telling me “You are Americanized. You are too frank for Indian political culture”. This, coming from Morarji who had been criticized for being too blunt, surprised me!
But I finally made the two giants agree to a joint appearance at 6 PM at that historic Ramlila Grounds rally, which was later cited by Mrs.Indira Gandhi as the reason for proclaiming the Emergency (JP, it was alleged had, at that rally, incited the Army to rebel against Indira Gandhi. As an eyewitness I can say this was a lie). Morarji Desai was so impressed with my patience in handling the issue that he asked me to sit with him in the rally. In his autobiography (Volume III), Morarji has reproduced a photograph of the rally, with me sitting with JP and him.
That night I had a dinner with JP alone. He was very emotional. He said military rule was certain, and I must fight. “You have necessary guts and friends all over the world. So you must organize the fight abroad”. I really thought that JP was being unnecessarily alarmist. But he was right. Next morning a policeman, who shall remain anonymous, called me at 4.30 am. He said JP has been arrested and unless I left my residence, I too will be.
Remembering JP’s previous night advice, I went underground. All through the Emergency, despite being declared a “proclaimed offender”, and having the highest reward for my arrest, Indira Gandhi’s police could not catch me. That is another story I will write about later. But I opposed the Emergency tooth and nail as JP had wanted me to do.
When I next met JP, it was in 1977 after the Emergency. He has been transformed from zero of 1970 to national hero. He was very pleased to see me, but I could not get anytime to talk with him as before. The crowds were everywhere. Old socialists reclaimed him, and hailed him as theirs. Even RSS almost made him their leader. Till 1979, I met JP off and on. In our brief meetings, he sentimentally referred to our 1972 Tipponagondahalli meeting. He also complained about Morarji to me. I tried to patch up, but the forces pulling them apart were much stronger. JP had specially called me to the Gandhi Peace Foundation, when he and Acharya Kriplani selected Morarji Desai and not Jagjivan Ram. JP made me sit with him throughout as leader after leader came in to give their view. I got a real political training in witnessing this event. JP was very clear that Morarji Desai should be PM for the first 2 1/2 years. But everyone knew Morarji was too strong headed to accept any conditions. So ultimately JP relented, Morarji was made PM.
My last talk of great substance with JP was in 1979 in Patna when the Janata had broken up. He was literally in tears and in bad health. “My beautiful garden of flowers (Janata) has been made a desert”, he cried. He then put his hand on my arm, and said “But you must mobilize the younger generation to keep the Janata flag flying. “Promise me”. I have kept the promise. When the BJP was formed by further splitting the Janata, I did not desert the Janata. When in 1984, Chandrasekhar in a fit of rage for opposing him in a Presidential contest expelled me from the party, I waited for an opportunity to make friends with him, and return to Janata. In 1989, when everyone including Chandrasekhar deserted the party to join Janata Dal, I stayed out with Deve Gowda (later in 1992 Gowda too deserted the Janata for the Dal). I have stuck with Janata because of the promise I had made to JP, and tried to rebuild it. But JP had formed the Janata for an ideology of decentralization. Today JP’s victory is that his ideology is accepted by everybody.
Even though his baby, the Janata Party, has not regained the 1977 glory, the ideology has triumphed. His arch opponent, the Congress Party has lock, stock and barrel accepted JP’s ideology. That is his victory. For this we should thank Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao.
When I look at JP’s personality now, what strikes me in his simplicity and straight forwardness That is what made him great. If Gandhiji symbolizes Freedom, JP symbolizes that spirit of democracy. It was an honour to have known him so closely.
My Meetings With Great Personalities – Indira GandhiClick To OpenI entered politics in a formal way in 1974. In these 22 1/2 years of public life, I have personally been in close touch with many great names of contemporary history. Today’s younger generation know of these names, but have little idea or depth of knowledge of their contribution to our or world history. So I thought I will write a series of short articles about these personalities and about what made them great. The names that every household has heard of are such as Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, etc.. I shall write about each of these leaders by turn. Today I will write about Mrs.Indira Gandhi, who was Prime Minister of India for 16 years. I first met Mrs.Gandhi at Brandeis University in the USA in the year 1965, some months before the Indo – Pak war of 1965. She was then Information and Broadcasting Minister in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet, and was visiting the University to speak to an audience about Jawaharlal Nehru who had died the previous year. In 1962, I had arrived as a Ph.D (Economics) student at the world famous Harvard University, and within six months I had broken the record by qualifying in the Ph.D general examination in the shortest time. Soon I joined the Harvard University as a professor, and my scholastic record became famous. Brandeis University, to where Mrs.Indira Gandhi had come was only 32 kilometres away. So she asked my very good friend Ashok Kalelkar studying at nearby MIT, whom Mrs.Gandhi knew because he was the grandson of Kakasaheb Kalelkar, noted freedom fighter of Gujarat, to bring me to meet her at the Brandeis University guest house where she was staying. Our meeting lasted half hour. I had to leave for attending to my lectures; otherwise I would have stayed longer. Mrs.Gandhi liked the company of highly qualified persons who had distinguished themselves. At that time, I was already a 25 year old Harvard Professor, something to be proud of. The topics Mrs.Gandhi talked with me were only two. One was how to make Rajiv and Sanjay, both in Britain to study harder. She asked me how to motivate them. It was quite clear that she was disturbed by her two sons’ non-serious attitude to studies, and wanted tips from a Professor. The other topic Mrs.Gandhi talked to me was how people, whom Nehru had helped so much, had so quickly forgotten him. She said bitterly to me “you know, we Indians are by character ungrateful people. That is why no one wants to help anyone else”. This remark I never forgot. Much of Mrs. Gandhi’s actions later as Prime Minister, such as declaring Emergency came from this bitter thought of her’s. I next saw Mrs. Gandhi as Prime Minister in 1968, aboard an Air India flight to New York. In those days, Prime Ministers did not charter flights but travelled First Class as a passenger. I was still a Harvard Professor then, and when she saw me boarding the flight at Rome, she recognized me. We sat side by side till Frankfurt, which was about one hour. I talked to her about why India should make the atom bomb. She heard me patiently till I said to her “If you don’t prepare India’s defence against China, you will be repeating the mistakes of your father”. At that she flared up, and criticized me for disparaging Nehru without knowing the circumstances. She was particularly harsh on Morarji Desai, who she said as Nehru’s Finance Minister, refused to allot enough money for defence. Interestingly at that time, Desai was Mrs.Gandhi’s Finance Minister too! But I did not argue. However when she returned to India, I was happy that she began opposing the NPT nuclear treaty. In 1970, I resigned my Harvard Professorship and returned to India. Mrs. Gandhi by then had split the Congress and with the help of the communists had become ultra-socialist. I was against state control and monopoly. So I became her critic, soon entered Parliament to oppose her tooth and nail. During Emergency, I had escaped to America to campaign against the human rights violations. Today it may be surprising but it is worth recounting that when Mrs. Gandhi tried to force me to return by asking the US Government to cancel my visa, and failed, she had asked Sri.Chandraswami to go to USA and use his influence with President Jimmy Carter who he knew personally. Chandraswami did go, but my influence through my Harvard colleagues was stronger, so he too failed. He became my friend later in 1988, when he fell foul of Rajiv Gandhi on Bofors. After Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in 1980, she became friendly with me again. We used to meet often in her parliament office or corridors for a brief chat. She became especially warm towards me after I helped to get the Chinese government to deny Assam militants sanctuary in Tibet. I also got the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping whom I met in 1981 to agree to reopening the holy Kailash and Mansarovar area to Hindu pilgrims. She was very much impressed with these achievements and suggested to me to be friendly to Rajiv Gandhi, who was reluctant to enter politics. She had obviously also talked to Rajiv, because he and I became friends very quickly thereafter. My last meeting with Mrs.Gandhi was in August 1984. She and I had many verbal duels in LokSabha over her Punjab policy. In fact, Chandrasekhar and I were the only two MPs who had condemned Operation Bluestar. I had even met her in April 1984, and had warned her of the dangers of military action. When she saw me in August 1984, she gave me a motherly squeeze of my fore arm and said “Swamy, you were right. The Sikhs will never forgive me.” She also enquired me what my plans were for the Lok Sabha elections, because Chandrashekar as Janata Party President had expelled me from the party for challenging him for the post in the party elections. I understood her hint. I said to her: “I will come and discuss with you after the Parliament session is over”. I never saw her again. She was assassinated on October 31, 1984. My recollection of her today is that she was a very nationalistic person, but insecure about betrayal. She had a vision to make India great, but lacked the political associates to carry it out.
The LTTE Shadow Over India Published In The Hindu Dt 19.09.05Click To OpenThe LTTE shadow over India
Subramanian Swamy
THE ASSASSINATION of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has exposed the fault lines in India’s policy towards the internationally proclaimed terrorist organisation, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. On the one side, the Indian Government has banned the LTTE as a terrorist organisation. On the other side, despite the continuing assassinations, India does not oppose the “peace dialogue” of the Sri Lankan Government with the LTTE, talks that could end up legitimising the terrorist outfit and making the ban meaningless.
Although the LTTE has officially denied any involvement in the Kadirgamar assassination, such a denial cannot be taken seriously. The organisation has always denied its involvement in terrorist activity — murder, arson, extortion, drug trafficking, and so on. The LTTE denied any part in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. However, the Supreme Court of India, in its 400-page judgment delivered on May 12, 1999, laid bare what a huge lie that was.
`Stockholm Syndrome’
That security failed to secure the neighbourhood of the Foreign Minister’s residence despite his being high on the LTTE’s hit list is clear evidence that the Sri Lankan authorities are suffering from the `Stockholm Syndrome’ of capitulating to tormentors. They are wholly incompetent to deal with the murderous LTTE. The Sri Lankan President’s first reaction was that the island government, despite the assassination of the Foreign Minister at his residence in the capital, would not suspend the so-called peace talks with the killers — a further indication of the tragic syndrome at work. Sri Lanka seems to have lost its collective nerve to combat and confront terror.
India needs to consider what to do to remove the fault line in its policy towards the LTTE — and thus secure its geographical neighbourhood. The LTTE, which could be legitimised through the agency of an inane Norwegian facilitation, is a menace not only to Sri Lanka’s integrity, but also to India’s national security. The Tigers have links with India’s terrorists such as the Maoists and ULFA, and with the ISI of Pakistan and even Al Qaeda and with separatist Indian political parties. Even if the Congress shows scant interest in bringing Velupillai Prabakaran to justice, patriotic Indians cannot forget either Rajiv’s martyrdom or the LTTE’s unforgivable perfidy. India has to fix Prabakaran some day by bringing him to justice for his lack of respect for India’s sovereignty.
India has a national security imperative and an unavoidable moral obligation to get involved to help free the island nation of the LTTE’s treacherous terror. I thus see four specific reasons behind this obligation:
First, India trained the LTTE in the 1980s. The country has to atone for this by actions to disband and unravel the Frankenstein monster it helped create. Secondly, despite enjoying India’s hospitality for years, and after welcoming the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement in 1987, the Tigers betrayed India by killing more than 1000 personnel of the Indian Peace Keeping Force sent to the island to enforce the accord. The betrayal and loss of lives of our valiant jawans have to be avenged to keep up the morale of the Indian armed forces.
Thirdly, as the Home Ministry’s 2005 Annual Report to Parliament points out, the LTTE has been targeting pro-Indian Sri Lanka politicians and assassinating them. The latest is of course Kadirgamar. For India, the most heinous act is the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. A trial court has declared Accused No.1 Prabakaran a proclaimed offender, and the Interpol has issued a Red Corner Notice for apprehending him. India is thus obligated to search for Prabakaran — and to immobilise the LTTE and deter it from engaging in any murderous and terrorist activities against India and Indian interests.
Fourthly, the LTTE interferes in the internal affairs of India by financing certain Indian politicians, providing training to Indian militant and extremist organisations, and extending insurgency infrastructure to bandits such as Veerappan. It also launders black money from India through its illegal Eelam Bank in the Jaffna area. India cannot allow such erosion of law and order within its own borders.
To discharge these obligations, what must India do? Obviously, it cannot depend on Sri Lankan governments of today or the near future to bring the LTTE to book. Sri Lankan political parties are either capitulationist or chauvinist. The recent pact of Mahinda Rajapakse, Prime Minister and presidential candidate, with the JVP that if voted to power he will defend the present failed unitary constitution is a retrograde step. This shows the Tamils are squeezed between the devil and the deep sea.
India’s first move should be to initiate action to revive the hunt for those of the LTTE who need to be prosecuted under Indian law. This includes Prabakaran and his intelligence chief Pottu Amman — and whoever has tried to help them to escape the arm of India’s law enforcement.
In 1998, Parliament set up under the Central Bureau of Investigation a multidisciplinary monitoring agency (MDMA) to hunt for these wanted persons. But the National Democratic Alliance Government waffled and failed to pursue the matter. The present United Progressive Alliance Government has done even worse. When President Chandrika Kumaratunga came to India recently, India went along with the proposal to take on board the LTTE as a party in the tsunami relief work and have its share in the $ 3 billion international aid commitment.
The time has come to energise the MDMA, to get it moving to apprehend the wanted criminals, in unconventional ways if necessary. Further, India must assist and nurture the democratic elements in the Sri Lankan Tamil population.
These include those who have demonstrated the capacity to stand up to the LTTE (such as S.C. Chandrahasan, and the breakaway LTTE group that opposed Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, namely, the Karuna group), to form a non-violent and democratic alternative to work out with the Sinhala majority a federal constitution that would serve the purpose of power sharing. Thirdly, LTTE sleeper cells in Indian cities need to be identified and put out of action. At present, terrorists of various hues are active in several States and Union Territories.
One day, these terrorists and the LTTE sleeper cells may coordinate and cause a huge bloody incident. India must guard against such contingencies through pre-emptive action.
The time has come for India effectively to contribute to the war against terrorism and in the promotion of democracy by targeting the LTTE sincerely and effectively in the larger interest of security and national integrity.
(The writer is a former Union Law Minister.)
Brief Report Of Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha ConferenceClick To Open
FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY (Part-I)Click To OpenHINDU DHARMA ACHARYA SABHA
Second Meeting, October 16, 17, 18, 2005
in Mumbai, Maharashtra
Text of the Speech
By
Dr.SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY Ph.D(Harvard)
Chairman, Centre for National Renaissance, New Delhi
Fmr.Union Cabinet Minister for Commerce, Law & Justice
A-77 Nizamuddin East
New Delhi-110013
e-mail: [email protected]
web: www.indiaright.org
Tel: 91 98101 94279
Address of Dr.Subramanian Swamy, Chairman, Center for National Renaissance, New Delhi to Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha Second Meeting at Mumbai on October 18, 2005.
FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY
AND
THE CONCEPT OF HINDUSTAN
His Holiness Dayananda Saraswati, and Heads of Mutts and Mandaleshwars and revered Acharyas. I thank His Holiness for the opportunity to address you all today.
I
Hinduism, known as sanatana dharma is uniquely world’s unbroken, continuous and longest in time, and is a religion constituted by its theology, cultural ethos, and civilizational history. India’s Hindu society is founded on the content of these three constituents. Hindustan, as India is known abroad even today[e.g., Yindu guo in Chinese, Hind in Arabic], as a concept is defined as a nation of Hindus and those others in the nation who accept that their ancestors are Hindus and revere that legacy. Parsis, Jews, Syrian Christians come in a special category of Hindustanis, those who were welcomed by Hindus since they came to Hindustan seeking refuge from persecution in their own lands abroad, and who willingly accepted to abide by, and adopt certain cultural customs of Hindus. To the credit of Parsis, they have never demanded any special privileges as a minority. They had even rejected privileges and quotas offered to them by the British imperialists saying that they were comfortable with Hindus.
Over the last two millenniums, Hindu religion has been subjected to threats several times from other religious groups, but these threats have been met, the challenges faced and overcome.
Well before the birth of Christianity and Islam, Hindu religion had been intellectually dethroned by Hinayana Buddhism. But Adi Sankaracharya rethroned Hinduism through his famous shastrathas[religious debate] and caused a renaissance in Buddhism itself, which then came to be known as Mahayana Buddhism, conceptually in complete harmony with, if not indistinguishable from, Hindu theology. In south India, the azhwars and nayanmars also through shastrathas repositioned Hinduism after de-throning Jainism and Buddhism. Since then the Hindu dharmacharyas have always been looked up to when Hindu society faced a threat or crisis, for guidance to meet the challenge to the Hindu religion. Today, we again need the revered acharyas to show us the way. Hence this Sabha is of vital importance for the future of the nation.
II
Hindu ethos provided for sanctuary and home to those of other faiths fleeing from their countries due to religious persecution. As I stated earlier, Parsis, Jews and Syrian Christians are among those religious groups who had sought refuge in India, and survived because the Hindus looked after them. These three religious communities have had and have today a disproportionate share in power and wealth in Indian society, but Hindus have no resentment about it. These minorities had come to India in search of peace and found safe haven in the midst of Hindu society. Parsis migrated elsewhere in the world too, but disappeared as a community in those countries. Jews have openly acknowledged that India as the only country where they were not persecuted. Syrian Christians too are today completely integrated into India. Even early Arab Muslim travelers who came peacefully to settle in Kerala were taken into Hindu families, and hence called Mapillai[meaning son-inlaw-- Moplah in English]. That is the glorious Hindu tradition, the ethos of compassion and co-option that is unparalleled in world history.
However, militant Islam and later crusading Christianity came to India, and aggressively challenged Hinduism. They seized power in sequence and established their own state in India. But despite state patronage to the ensuing onslaught, plunder and victimisation, those of Hindu faith could not be decimated, and Hinduism remained the theology of the vast Indian majority.
Defiant Hindus suffered persecution and economic deprivation during Islamic and Christian reigns, such as through differential taxation [e.g., jezia and zamindari land revenue appropriation] and plain brutality, but Hindus by and large refused to capitulate and convert. Even after almost a thousand years of such targeting by Muslims and Christian rulers, undivided India in 1947 was more than 75% Hindu. This was partly because of the victorious Vijayanagaram, the Sikh reign, and Mahratta kingdoms, and later the Freedom Movement, each inspired by sanyasis such Sringeri Shankaracharya, Swami Ramdas, Guru Nanak, Swami Vivekanada and Sri Aurobindo, who by their preaching about the Hindu identity ensured that the flame of Hindu defiance never dimmed. It was also due to individual defiance of Hindus such as of Rana Pratap, Rani Jhansi, Rani Bennur, Kattaboman and Netaji Subhas Bose. These icons are admired not because they led us to victory[ in fact they were defeated or killed], or had found out a safe compromise [they did not], but because of their courage of conviction in the face of huge odds not to submit to tyranny. That courageous defiance is also is part of Hindus’ glorious legacy. But those who capitulated like Raja Man Singh or Jai Chand or Pudukottai Raja in order to live in pomp and grandeur are despised today by the people.
III
In 1947, temporal power was defacto restored to the Hindu majority. But the Indian state formally adopted secularism, which concept however was never properly defined or debated. For example, it left vague what an Indian’s connection was with the nation’s Hindu past and legacy. In the name of secularism, it was taboo for a public servant even to break a coconut or light a oil lamp to inaugurate an official function on the ground that religious symbols must not invade public life. Such orthodoxy was promoted by Jawarharlal Nehru and his Leftist advisers. But then government took over supervision of temples, legislated on Hindu personal laws, and regulated religious festivals, but kept aloof from the Muslim and Christian religious affairs. The secularism principle was foisted on the Hindu masses without making him understand why they had to abide by legislation but not Muslims and Christians.
As a result, the renaissance that had begun in the late nineteenth century to redefine the Hindu identity [in contemporary terms and norms valid in a pluralistic society], was aborted by the confusion thus created in Hindu minds by a vaguely understood concept of secularism.
Electoral politics further confounded the issues arising out of secularism, and hence the Indian society became gradually and increasingly fragmented in outlook and of confused perspective. Hindu society became divided by caste that became increasingly mutually antagonistic. Attempts were made through falsification in history texts adopted for curriculum in the education system to disconnect and disinherit the contemporary Indian from the past glory of Hindu India. The intrinsic Hindu unity was sought to be undone by legitimizing such bogus concepts as Aryan-Dravidian racial divide theory, or that India as a concept never existed till the British imperialists put it together, or that Indians have always been ruled by invaders from abroad. There is no such word as Aryan in Sanskrit literature [closest is ‘arya’ meaning honourable person, and ndot community] or Dravidian [Adi Sankara had in his shasthrath with Mandana Mishra at Varanasi, called himself as a ‘dravida shishu’ that is a child of where three oceans meet, i.e., south India]. The theory was deliberate distortion by British imperialists and propagated by their Indian witting and unwitting mental slaves. Incidentally, the Aryan-Dravidian myth has now been exploded by modern research on DNA of Indians and Europeans conducted by Professor C.Panse of Newton, Mass. USA and other scholars. In light of such new research, the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] service in it’s October 6, 2005 service completely debunked the Aryan—Dravidian race theory stating that: “Theory was not just wrong, it included unacceptably racist ideas” [www.bbc.co.uk, religion & ethics homepage, Thursday, 6/10/05].
Modern India has been sought to be portrayed by foreign interests through the educational curriculum as a discontinuity in history and as a new entity much as are today’s Greece, Egypt or Iraq. That curriculum is largely intact today. On the contrary efforts are afoot to bolster the disparagement of our past in the new dispensation today. A rudderless India, disconnected from her past has, as a consequence, become a fertile field for religious poachers and neo-imperialists from abroad who paint India as a mosaic of immigrants much like a crowd on a platform in a railway junction. That is, it is clandestinely propagated that India has belonged to those who forcibly occupied it. This is the theme around which the Islamic fundamentalists and fraud Christian crusaders are again at work, much as they were a thousand years ago, but of course in new dispensations, sophistication, and media forms. Thus the concept of intrinsic Hindu unity, and India’s Hindu foundation are dangerously under challenge by these forces. Tragically most Hindus today are not even cognizant of it.
The challenge today confronting Hindus is however much more difficult to meet than was earlier in history because the forces at work to erode and undermine Hindu faith, unlike before, are unseen, clandestine, pernicious, deceptive but most of all sophisticated and media-savvy. Tragically therefore, a much more educated and larger numbers of Hindus have been unwittingly co-opted in this sinister conspiracy directed by foreigners who have no love for India and who also see much as Lord Macauley saw in the nineteenth century, that the hoary Hindu foundation of India is a stumbling block for the furtherance of their nefarious perfidious game.
Adherence to Hinduism is also being sought to be diluted in the name of modernity and this dilution is made a norm of secularism. Religion, it is advocated, is personal. To be a good Hindu today is conceptually being reduced to just praying, piety, visiting temples, and celebrating religious festivals. The concept of a collective Hindu mindset is being ridiculed as chauvinist and retrograde, even fundamentalist.
IV
The concept of a corporate Hindu unity and identity however is that of a collective mindset that identifies us with a motherland from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean and it’s glorious past, and the concomitant resolve of it’s representative leadership defined as “chakravartin” earlier by Chanakya, to defend that vision. It is this concept and resolve that is being discarded or is just evaporating under the onslaught of the Nehruvian secularists.
However pious a Hindu becomes, however prosperous Hindu temples become from doting devotees’ offerings, when the nation is in danger it is this collective mindset of the people that matters, and not the piety of the individual in that collective.
Hindu society today lacking a cohesive corporate identity, is thus in the process of becoming fragmented, and hence increasingly in disarray. This fission process is on simultaneously with the reality of millions of Hindus who go to temples regularly or walk to Sabarimalai or participate in Kumbh Mela. This is not what I mean when I speak of Hindu unity to this august gathering today.
I am instead referring to the Hindu consciousness which encompasses the willingness and determination to collectively defend the faith from the erosion that is being induced by the disconnect with our glorious past. What Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chatterjee, Sri Aurobindo, and Subramania Bharati had achieved by raising Hindu consciousness to that end, has now been depleted and dissipated over the last six decades.
Even the patriotic and anguished writings of Dr.Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country have been vulgarized to advocate Hindu society’s disintegration. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar [and published in Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95] Dr. Ambedkar stated: “It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of it’s culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity—the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end”. Ambedkar wrote several such brilliant books, but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him that in the end bitterness drove him to Buddhism.
Thus, if this degeneration and disconnect are not rectified and repaired by a resolve to unite Hindustanis [Hindus and those others who proudly identify with India’s Hindu past], the Hindu civilization may go into a tail spin and ultimately fade away like other civilizations have for much the same reason.
Of course, this sorry state has come about as a cumulative effect of a thousand years past of Islamic invasions, occupation and Imperialist colonization. But we failed to rectify the damage after the Hindus overwhelmingly got defacto power in 1947. For this transfer of power, we sacrificed one quarter of Akhand Hindustan territory to settle those Muslims who could not bear to live or adjust with the Hindu majority.
That is, by a failure to usher a renaissance after 1947 India lost her opportunity to cleanse the accumulated dirt and unwanted baggage of the past. The nation missed a chance to demolish the birth-based caste theory as Ambedkar had wanted to do. The battering that the concept of Hindu unity and Indian identity has taken at the hands of Nehruvian secularists since 1947 has led to the present social malaise. Thus, even though Hindus are above 80 percent of the population in India, they have not been able to understand their roots in, and obligations to, the nation in a pluralistic Hindustani democracy.
Today the sacrilege of Hindu concepts and hoary institutions, is being carried out not with the crude brutality of a Ghazni or Ghori, but with the sophistication of the constitutional instruments of law. The desecration of Hindu icons, for example the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, is being made to look legal, thereby completely confusing the Hindu people, and thus making them unable to recognize the danger, or to realize that Hindus have to unite to defend against the threats to their legacy. We Hindus are under siege today, and we do not know it!! That is, what is truly alarming is that Hindu society could be dissembled today without much protest since we have been lulled or lost the capacity to think collectively as Hindus.
To resist this siege we first need Hindu unity. Numbers [of those claiming to be adherents to Hinduism] do not matter in today’s information society. It is the durability and clarity of the Hindu mindset of those who unite that matters in the forging of an instrument to fight this creeping danger.
For example, we had a near disaster in Ayodhya recently. Pakistan–trained foreign terrorists slipped into India and traveled to Ayodhya to blow up the Ram Mandir. Their attempt was foiled by courageous elements of the police. But did the representative government of 870 million Hindus of India react in a meaningful way, that is retaliate to deter future such attacks? Did anyone raise it in Parliament and demand deterrent retaliation? On the contrary, the Prime Minister assured Pakistan that the peace talks will not be affected by such acts. But what retaliation was there to be for the sponsors of those terrorists who dared to think about blowing Sri Ram’s birth place?
Hindus are thus being today systematically prepared for psychological enslavement and conceptual capture. Indians are being subtly brain-washed. Hindus are being lulled, while Muslims and Christians are being subject to relentless propaganda that they are different, and are citizens of India as would be a shareholder in a company run for profit.
We Hindus cannot fight this unless we first identify what we have to fight. We cannot effectively respond unless we understand the nature and complexity of the challenge. What makes the task of defending Hinduism much more difficult today is that the oppressors are not obvious maraudring entities as were Ghazni, Ghori, or Clive. The means of communication and the supply of funds in the hands of our enemies are multiples of that available in the past, for camouflaging their evil purposes.
…Contd II
FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY (Part-II)Click To Open
V
My contention here today is that Hindus are facing a four dimensional siege and this siege is pernicious, clandestine, deceptive and sophisticated. It requires an enlightened Hindu unity to combat the threats and get the siege lifted. We have to begin by first understanding the content and scope of the siege before we Hindus can unite to battle it. These four dimensions are:
[1] The clandestine defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions.
Making Hindus to lose their self esteem by disparaging their tradition, which also had been the strategy of British imperialists for the conquest of India. Speaking in British Parliament, Lord Macauley said on February 2, 1835 the following:
“Such wealth I have seen in this country [India], such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which [backbone] is her spiritual and cultural heritage. And therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation”.
That basic strategy of those who want to see a weak and pliant India remains. Only the tactics have changed. Now the target is the Hindu institutions and Hindu icons, and the route is not the creation of a comprador class to subdue the nation, but fostering a psychological milieu to denigrate the heritage and to delink the Hindu from his past legacy thereby causing a loss of self esteem and a pride in the nation’s past. There are already many examples of this happening.
A false murder case was foisted on the Acharyas of the 2500 year old Kanchi Mutt. Most Hindus have watched it as spectators, and with nagging doubts about the truth, and in fact about the Acharyas themselves. The Supreme Court has however held that the case has “no worthwhile prima facie evidence…” [Court records: (2005) 2 Supreme Court Cases 13, para 12, page 20] and that the alleged confessions of other accused persons implicating the Acharyas “have very little evidentiary value” [para 10]. The case thus is without basis and is bogus because since then the TN police has failed to uncover any further or new evidence to sustain the case. That the apex Court has found the foisted case as without prima facie merit should itself have galvanized the people against the offending authorities. It has not, because Hindus lack the mindset and guidance to retaliate against the willful and disguised defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions. Instead like parrots most Hindus mouth the phrase that “law must take it’s course”. Where is the law in this? Nor did a single Muslim or Christian organization or their leaders condemn this atrocity, exposing secularism as a one-way obligation of Hindus.
That the obvious perpetrator of this blasphemous atrocity on Hindu religion’s hoary institution is the head of the TN state government, one who also claims to be a good Hindu because she regularly visits temples, has only helped to further confound the already confused Hindu mind from responding.
That this atrocity could not have been heaped on the Mutt without the aid and abetment, or even the instigation of the power behind the throne in Delhi, a devout foreign-born Catholic, has not even evoked any anger amongst the Hindus.
Instead the majority of Hindus have been just passive or satisfied discussing gossip i.e., whether there was some land dispute of the Mutt with the government that triggered it or a money angle row with a politician in power to motivate the misuse of state machinery to frame a Shankaracharya on a murder charge! It is incredible that in a nation of 80 percent Hindus, the democratically elected state government dared to foist a bogus case on a Shankaracharya, and without a spontaneous uproar and mass protest by Hindus. That this atrocity could be the beginning of further assault on the foundation of the Hindu religion to defame and discredit it, should have jolted the Hindus into a fierce protest.
Otherwise, the current Hindu apathy will encourage further assault on Hindu institutions. It is already happening and there is no time to lose. Further assault is also in progress. In July 2005, an uncouth official of the TN Government’s HR&CE Ministry blocked the Kanchi Shankaracharyas from entering the holy Shiva temple in Rameshwaram because, the official said, the acharyas had criminal cases pending against them. Leave aside the fact that anyone is presumed to be innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or that Ms. Jayalalitha, the CM herself is clothed from head to foot in criminal cases, what is significant is the audacity of an official in a 80% Hindu populated country to block a Shankaracharya from performing his god ordained puja duties. His HR&CE counterpart In Andhra at Tirumala has pontificated recently that the Tirumala hills except a small portion do not belong to Lord Venkateswara, making a mockery of agama shastras.
The state government of Karnataka for example, soon after the Kanchi acharyas’ arrest, blatantly patronized the congregation of a Benny Hinn who is under US Internal Revenue Service investigation. US Christian organizations such as the Trinity Foundation have exposed him as a fake. Yet in the admiring presence of the Karnataka Chief Minister with his Ministers in tow, and Central Government Ministers, Benny Hinn was allowed to usurp the Bangalore Air force campus and hold a rally to denounce Hindu concepts and demonstrate his “cure” of the hopelessly and terminally ill or handicapped persons just by placing his hand, in the name of Jesus, on their heads. Bangalore police officers later told the media that the whole exercise was a fraud since the “ailing “ persons were trucked in from Erode in TN a week earlier and trained to fake the ailments and the cry of being cured on stage. Of course they were well paid for this deception. Such obscurantism was however extolled by the Congress Party leaders, while mouthing secularism. Benny Hinn in the end publicly boasted that a “friend of Sonia Gandhi” had helped to clear the way to make the Bangalore event possible.
The existence of nexus had thus tumbled out. Taking a cue other foreign Christian missionaries in trouble with the law such as Mr. Ron Watts, made a pilgrimage to Delhi and received relief from law enforcers on the same patronage.
These visiting fraud Christian missionaries have the intellectual endorsement for proselytizing activities from well established Christian leaders. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict of Vatican, which makes him an acknowledged leader of Catholics world over, had released a Vatican document in 1997 titled Dominus Jesus in which both Hinduism and it’s sister religion Buddhism have been denounced. While releasing the document, the Pope has been quoted as saying that Hinduism offers “false hope” and is “morally cruel” since it is based on the concept of reincarnation that resembles “a continuous circle of hell”. He denounced Buddhism as “auto erotic spirituality”. US based evangelist Pat Robertson has declared that to liberate Hindus from their bondage, “missionaries will seek to convert 100 million Hindus” over the next few years.
For achieving this goal, even tainted money is welcome for any missionary from abroad. Thus, Mother Theresa whose proselytizing activities was perhaps the most camouflaged of all foreign missionaries in India, once wrote to a US Court judge, Judge Ito of Los Angeles not to hold guilty one of her contributors by name Charles H. Keating Jr. who was on trial in his court for criminally defrauding nominees of 17,000 persons of $ 252 million [about Rs.1200 crores]. Mother Theresa’ plea to the judge was that since Mr. Keating had donated millions of dollars to her Missionaries of Charity he should be let off and not be found guilty or even be prosecuted!
The judge asked the Deputy District Attorney [equivalent of assistant public prosecutor in India] to reply to her letter. Mr.Paul Turley wrote back to her giving the details of the case [by then Mr.Keating was found guilty and convicted of fraud]. Mr.Turley in his letter advised Mother Theresa as follows: “Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly have returned the stolen property to the rightful owners. You should do the same. Do not keep the money”. Mother Theresa did not in fact hesitate at all. She kept the ill gotten money and ignored the advice!
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, in 2002-03 private bodies with FCRA permission had received Rs.5046 crores as contribution from abroad. In 2005-06 it is estimated by insiders these contributions at Rs.7500 crores, of which two-thirds was going to Christian missionary organizations. This hefty sum has been used essentially for conversion and to defame Hinduism. Without defamation of Hinduism, conversion is not easy for these missionaries.
Another route to defame Hinduism is the textbook portrayal of Hindu society. Already Swami Ramakrishna Parmahans has been described in disparaging terms in government prescribed text books. Traitor Raja Jai Chand has been described as a hero, and Prithviraj as a coward! Since English language provides a fast track channel to India from abroad for propagation of ideas, books rubbishing Hindu gods and goddesses, sanyasis, and other icons are being published abroad and imported for use in India’s public schools. Lord Ganesha has repeatedly been portrayed in most hurtful terms. Shiva linga has been ridiculed.
Hence this august Acharya Sabha assembled here in Mumbai should resolve to fight this and other such atrocities on Hindu symbols and institutions by aiding mass Hindu mobilization against it.
[2] Demographic restructuring of Indian society.
People of India who declare in the Census that they are adherents of religions born on Indian soil, that is Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains constituted 84.21% of the total Indian population in 2001. In 1941, the proportion adjusted for Partition was 84.44%. This figure hides the fact that Hindus resident in undivided Pakistan have migrated to post- Partition India which is why the share of Hindus and co-religionists have barely reduced since 1941. In the area now called Bangladesh, Hindus were 30% in 1941. In 2001 they are less than 8%. In Pakistan of today, Hindus were 20% in 1941, and less than 2% in 2001. Such ethnic cleansing has not been noticed by anybody. If the figures are adjusted for this migration, then in the five decades 1951-2001, Hindus have lost more 3 percent points in share of Indian population, while Muslims have increased their share by about 3%. What is even more significant is that Hindus have lost 12% points since 1881, and the loss in share has begun to accelerate since 1971 partly due to illegal migration from Bangladesh.
The lack of Hindu unity and the determined bloc voting in elections by Muslims and Christians has created a significantly large leverage for these two religious communities in economic, social and foreign policy making. Although uniform civil code is a directive principle of state policy in the Constitution, it is taboo to ask for it because of this leverage. Politicians fearing backlash anger of Christian and Muslim preachers are also unable to defend the need for continuation of a law to ban religions conversions that occur through inducements and coercion. In the case of Tamil Nadu, in 2004 the US Consul General in Chennai called on the Chief Minister to seek reversal of such a statute [www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35516.htm]. He had been empowered raise this issue by a 1998 Act of US Congress on religious freedom. Incidentally, the AIADMK was administered a blistering defeat in the 2004 Parliament elections by a total consolidation of Muslim and Christian votes against the party because it’s government had got passed such a law. After the elections, a humbled Chief Minister Ms.Jayalalitha capitulated and got the law annulled. I have now put the US administration to test by asking the Ambassador in New Delhi if the US would be even handed by asking the TN Chief Minister whether she will withdraw all the bogus cases foisted on the Kanchi acharyas.
The continued rise in the share of Muslims and Christians in the total population is a threat to the Hindu foundation of the nation. And we have to find ways and means to meet this threat. Kerala is a state where the Hindu population declined from 69% in 1901. In 100 years to 2001, the share has fallen to 56%. Muslims are now 25% and Christians 19%. But Hindus share in agricultural activities has fallen to 24%, while for Christians the share has risen to 40%. For Muslims it is 33%. In commerce and industry too the same proportions obtain, while in foreign employment, Hindus share is just 19%, Muslims 49.5% and Christians 31.5%.
In the land fertile districts of Western UP, from Rampur to Saharanpur, Muslims due to a much higher population growth rate are now 40% of the population. Six of the 14 districts of Assam in the northeast are already Muslim majority, and by 2031, all fourteen will be Muslim majority if present trends of differential population growth rate and illegal migration from Bangladesh continue.
In northeast India, minus Assam, 45.5% of the population is already Christian. Every one of the seven sisters states has a galloping Christian population. Arunachal which had zero Christian population in 1971, now has over 7%.
These two communities today fiercely safeguard their control of institutions spawned on public money besides receiving funds from abroad. Take for example the educational institutions. Jamia Millia Islamia University has been recognised as a central university with liberal government grants. But 88% of the faculty is Muslim. American College, Madurai’s faculty is 66% Christian. It’s junior faculty is 95% Christian. Union Christian College at Aluva, Kerala has 83% Christian faculty. There are no exceptions. All institutions run by Muslims and Christians have grossly disproportionate share of their religionists. It is only recently that Allahabad High Court struck down as unconstitutional the central university, the Aligarh Muslim University’s reserving more than 95 percent of the admissions and faculty positions for Muslims. The Hindu tax payers money was used all these decades to fund the AMU!
Thus, differential application of family planning, non-uniform civil code, illegal migration, and induced religious conversion have together created a serious looming crisis for the Hindu character of the nation. We see what Muslim majority will mean to Hindus when we look at the situation in Kashmir. We can learn from how Muslim majority will treat minorities or even women of Muslim faith when we look around the world and study Islamic nations. This is because Muslim believe the world is divided as Darul Islam where Muslims are in a majority and are rulers, and Darul Harab in which Muslims are in a minority and are entitled by the Koran and Shariat, by hook or crook to transform these countries to Muslim ruled and/or Muslim majority. At present India is viewed as Darul Harab, and unless the Hindu majority compels or persuades the Muslim minority to enter into a contract to live in peace, whence India becomes Darul Ahad, the Muslim population will always play host to fanatics bent upon creating upheaval in India. That is why I am emphasizing that Muslims in India must declare that their origin and ancestors are Hindus, and that Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi. Christians too have their view of the world as divided between heathens who have to be ‘saved’ by conversion and followers of Jesus Christ. Now with the publication of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and revelations about Opus Dei organization, Hindus have to go on high alert about Christian missionaries from abroad. Moreover, patriots concerned with the safeguarding of the Hindu foundation of the nation have to take note that conversion to Christian faith has been put on a war footing by entrepreneurs. In Dallas, Texas USA, the Global Pastors Network [GPN] held a conference and resolved that over the next fifteen years, the organization will support financially worldwide the construction of five million churches and conversion of one billion persons to Christianity. From India alone, the target is according the Evangelist Pat Robertson, 100 million persons. Hence, Hindus are facing a terrible pincer: Islamic fast population growth and illegal migration, in conjunction with Christian money– induced conversion activities.
Hence, Hindus have to hang together or ultimately be hanged separately. This is no inflamed psychosis. Not long ago, despite being the overwhelming majority, Hindus had to pay discriminatory taxes to the Muslim and Christian emperors who were ruling India. Lack of unity was the reason, and not poverty. In fact when the onslaught and enslavement took place, India was the richest country in the world. Within 150 years thereafter we were reduced to the poorest in the world. Now if the demographic restructuring described herein goes on unchecked, then the danger becomes several fold than before. This Acharya Sabha may therefore please address this issue and give a guideline to the Hindu society.
[3] The Rise of Terrorism Directed at Hindus
If one were to study the terrorism in Kashmir and Manipur, it is apparent that Hindus have been the special target. The driving away of the Hindu population from the Kashmir valley by targeted terrorism of Islamic jihadis is the single biggest human rights atrocity since Nazi Germany pogroms against the Jews. Yet it has hardly received noticed in international fora. Why? Hindu population in Bangladesh has declined from 30 percent to less than 8 percent of the total population by deliberate targeted ethnic cleansing by Islamic fanatics aided and abetted by their government[see Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India’s State of Jammu & Kashmir: A Survey of Human Rights, June 17,2005, www.hinduamericanfoundation.org] and yet there is no outcry. Why? This is because of the lack of Hindu mindset to retaliate against atrocities against Hindus. When in 1949, anti-Hindu riots took place in East Pakistan, Sardar Patel had declared that if the government there could not control it, then India was quite capable of putting it down for them. Soon after the riots stopped. Terrorist attacks against India and Hindus in particular thus is growing because we seem today incapable of retaliating in a manner that it deters future attacks.
According to the well known National Counter terrorism Center, a US government body, in it’s report titled A Chronology of International Terrorism for 2004 states that: “India suffered more significant acts of terrorism than any other country in 2004”, a damning comment. India is suffering on an average about 25 incidents of terrorism a month. India’s Home Ministry in it’s 2004-05 Annual report to Parliament acknowledges that 29 of the 35 states and union territories are affected by terrorism. Moreover, all India’s neighbours have become hot-beds for anti-Indian terrorists training.
Because of a lack of Hindu unity and a mindset for deterrent retaliation, terrorists have become encouraged. In 1989, the Indian government released five dreaded terrorists to get back the kidnapped daughter, Rubaiyya, of the then Home Minister. Kashmir terrorists got a huge boost by this capitulation. When the Indian Airlines plane with 339 passengers was hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan, the government again capitulated and released three of the most dangerous terrorists. Today three of the most murderous terrorist organizations in Kashmir are directed by these three freed terrorists. Then there is the case of the LTTE which murdered Rajiv Gandhi. We have made no effort to apprehend the leader of the LTTE who had ordered the assassination. On the contrary, those MPs [of PMK, MDMK, and DMK] who publicly praise that leader and hold the assassination as justified, have become Union Ministers in a coalition led by the widow of Rajiv Gandhi!
Terrorism cannot be fought by appeasement. But that precisely is what the government is doing. Tragically, innocent Hindus have invariably been the victims of this capitulation. To combat terrorism, there has to be a determination to never to negotiate a settlement with terrorists. Citizens of a country have to be educated that there will be hazards when faced with acts of terrorism, but that the goal of the government will always have to be to hunt down the terrorists and fix them. Only under such a zero tolerance policy towards terrorism, will the ultimate good emerge. For example in the Indian Airlines hijack case in order not to risk 339 passengers’ lives the government released Mohammed Azhar from jail. But Azhar went to Pakistan after his release and formed the Jaish-e-Mohammed which has since then killed nearly a thousand innocent Hindus and is still continuing to do so. How has the nation gained by the Kandahar capitulation then?
Hence I appeal to this Acharya Sabha to call upon the national political leadership to treat the fight against terrorism as a dharmayudh, as fight to the finish and a religious duty not to negotiate, compromise or capitulate to terrorists. The government must also safeguard the nation by adopting a policy of “hot pursuit” of terrorists by chasing them to their sanctuaries no matter in which country they are located.
[4] The Erosion of Moral Authority of Governance
The well known organization Transparency International has graded about 140 countries according to the corruption levels from least to the most. India appears near the bottom of the list as among the most corrupt. Recently The Mitrokhin Archives II has been published wherein KGB documents have been relied on to conclude that shamefully “India was on sale for KGB bribes”. If India is the one of the most corrupt countries today and purchasable, it is because the core Hindu values of simplicity, sacrifice and abstinence have been systematically downgraded over the years. Wealth obtained by any means has become the criteria for social status. There was a time in India when persons of learning and simplicity enjoyed the moral authority in society to make even kings bow before them. Not long ago, Mahatma Gandhi and later Jayaprakash Narayan without holding office were here exercising the same moral authority over political leaders. In a very short period, that Hindu value has evaporated. India is fast becoming a banana republic in which everything, person or policy is available to anyone for a price. The proposal, now implemented in some states, to have reservation in government employment for Muslims and “Dalit” Christians is one such sell-out. Reservation quotas are strictly for those whom the Hindu society due to degeneration had suppressed or had isolated from the mainstream. But those who were ruling classes in our nation, such as Muslims and Christians, and that too for a total of 1000 years, cannot claim this facility. But some political parties in reckless disregard for equity and history, have sold out for bloc votes the national interest by advocating for such a reservation proposal. In such a situation the nation’s independence and sovereignty slides into danger of being subverted and then rendered impotent. This has happened before in our history, not when the nation was poor but was the richest country in the world. India then was ahead in science, mathematics, art and architecture. And yet because the moral fibre weakened, all was lost. We had to struggle hard to recover our freedom. But by the time we did, we had lost all our wealth and dropped to the bottom of the list of countries in poverty.
In this time of creeping darkness in our society, there are still venerated souls who draw crowds of people who come on their own expense to hear such evolved souls and follow them. These are our dharmacharyas, many of whom are sitting here in this Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha. Just as Rshi Vishwamitra picked his archers and hunters to put an end to asuras and rakshasas, the same way I urge and implore this Sabha to pick a political instrument to cleanse the body politic of the nation. It cannot be done without Hindu unity in our democracy, and hence formulating a code of ethics and moral principles is essential for creating a meaningful and purposeful Hindu unity. The nation looks to you all on this today, for guidance in this hour of need.
VI
Therefore my call today is first and foremost for the undiluted unity of Hindus, a unity based on a mindset that is nurtured and fostered on the fundamentals of a renaissance [see my website www.indiaright.org for a detailed elaboration]. Only then Hindus can meet the challenge of Christian missionaries and Islamic fundamentalists. I can do no better here than quote Swami Dayananda Sarasvati:
“Faced with militant missionaries, Hinduism has to show that its plurality and all-encompassing acceptance are not signs of disparateness or disunity. For that, a collective voice is needed.”
Non-Hindus can join this Hindustani unity, but first they must agree to adhere to the minimum requirement: that they recognize and accept that their cultural legacy is Hindu, or that they revere their Hindu origins, that they are as equal before law as any other but no more, and that they will make sacrifices to defend their Hindu legacy just as any good Hindu would his own. In turn then the Hindu will defend such non-Hindus as they have the Parsis and Jews, and take them as the Hindustani parivar.
India can be only for those who swear that Bharatvarsh or Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi. Since the task to defeat the nefarious forces ranged today against Hindu society is not going to be easy, we cannot therefore trust those amongst in our midst whose commitment to the motherland is ambivalent or ad hoc or those who feel no kinship to the Hindu past of the nation. We partitioned a quarter of Hindustan to enable those Muslims who could not live with Hindus in a democratic framework of equality and fraternity. Hence only those are true children of Bharatmata who accept that India is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi.
As Swami Vivekananda said to Hindus: “Arise, Awake and Go Forth as Proud Hindus”. But what does being a proud Hindu entail? The core of what it entails can be found by gleaning the writings of our sages and interpreting it in the modern context. I have tried summarizing the distilled wisdom in the following axioms or fundamentals of Hindu unity:
First, a Hindu, and those others who are proud of their Hindu past and origins, must know the correct history of India. That history which records that Hindus have always been, and are one; that caste is not birth–based and nor immutable. India is a continuum, sanatana. That ancient Hindus and their descendents have always lived in this area from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, an area called Akhand Hindustan, and did not come from outside; and that there is no truth in the Aryan-Dravidian race theory. Instead Hindus went abroad to spread learning.
Second, Hindus believe that all religions equally lead to God, but not that all religions are equal in the richness of it’s theological content. Respecting all religions, Hindus must demand from others that respect is a two-way obligation. That is if Hindus are to defend the right of others to adhere to one’s own religion, then other religionists have to stand up for Hindus too. By this criterion, secular attitude, as defined till date has been a one-way obligation for Hindus. Hence Hindus must reject such a concept because of its implied appeasement. At the same time enlightened Hindus must defend and protect vigorously those non-Hindus who identify with the concept of Hindustan, as a nation of Hindus and of those who accept that their ancestors are Hindus. A vibrant Bharatvarsh cannot be home to bigotry and obscurantism since that has never been Hindu tradition or history. But Muslims and Christians shall be part of the Hindustani parivar or family only if they accept this truth and revere it.
Third, Hindus must prefer to lose everything they possess rather than submit to tyranny or to terrorism. Today those in India who submit to terrorists and hijackers must be vehemently despised as anti-Hindus. They cannot be good Hindus merely because they are pious or go regularly to the temple or good Hindustanis just because they are citizens of India.
Fourth, the Hindu must have a mindset to retaliate when attacked. The retaliation must be massive enough to deter future attacks. If terrorists come from training camps in Pakistan, Bangla Desh or Sri Lanka, Hindus must seek to carpet bomb those training camps, no matter the consequences. Today’s so-called self proclaimed “good” Hindus have failed to avenge or retaliate for the attack on Parliament, Akshaya Mandir, Ayodhya, and even a former Prime Minister’s [Rajiv Gandhi’s] assassination. On the other hand those who defend these assassins and praise the terrorist organization behind them are central government Ministers today.
Fifth, all Hindus to qualify as true Hindus must make effort to learn Sanskrit and the Devanagari script in addition to the mother tongue, and pledge that one day in the future, Sanskrit will be India’s link language since all the main Indian languages have large percentage of their vocabulary in common with Sanskrit already.
These five fundamentals constitute the concept of virat Hindu unity, a bonding that Hindus need in order to be in a position to confront the challenge that Hindu civilization is facing from Islamic terrorists and fraud Christian missionaries from abroad, who are also aided and abetted by confused Hindus who have not grasped these fundamentals. Without such a virat Hindu unity and the implied mindset, we will be unable to nullify and root out the subversion and erosion that undermine today the Hindu foundation of India. This foundation is what makes India distinctive in the world, and hence we must safeguard this legacy with all the might and moral fibre that we can muster. In this we can get great moral support from Hindus resident abroad because of their sheer commitment to the motherland. Free from economic constraints, aching for an identity, and well educated, I have seen them organize effectively to challenge the attempts to slander Hindu religious symbols and icon. Overseas Hindustanis have contributed during our Freedom Struggle, the Emergency and in enabling our acharyas to spread the message of the Hindu religion abroad. This has been done without demeaning other religions.
I urge and implore this Acharya Sabha, that since in a democracy the battle is in fighting elections, therefore to resolve to foster a Hindu consciousness that leads to a cohesive vigorous Hindu unity and mindset, so that the Hindustani voter will cast his ballot only for those candidates in an election who will be loyal to a Hindu Agenda drawn up by the Dharmacharyas.
Thank you, I seek your ashirvad and offer my pranams to all the Acharyas present here.
Dr.Swamy Will Be Writing A Column Regularly In Organiser.We Are Please To Republish The Same WebsiteClick To OpenThe Search for a Hindu Agenda
Subramanian Swamy
Organiser
I am happy to be invited by the editor of Organiser to return to writing a column for Organiser. In 1970s I had written with ” missionary” zeal in these columns about the Swadeshi Plan which was about self-reliance and not taking foreign aid, about achieving a 10 percent growth rate in the economy by giving up socialism, and the feasibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. These were radical ideas in those days that angered Mrs. Indira Gandhi and her KGB benefactors. She denounced me on the floor of Parliament and her Minister of Education ensured that not only I but my wife were both sacked from our professorships at the IIT, Delhi. Today, those radical ideas of the 1970s have become mainstream and I stand vindicated.
But the mission is incomplete, because India becoming a global economic power is not enough. To count internationally and get her due place in the world order, India must become thoroughly united with a virile mindset without self-doubt, and undergo a renaissance to cleanse the dirt and unwanted baggage acquired over the past thousand years. Otherwise foreign forces already alerted by India’s recent economic successes and it’s implications will leverage our internal weaknesses and self-doubt to derail the country. Look at the fate of Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Brazil, the shining hope of the 1960s. They are in one crisis after another today and in shambles. And East Asia, the much publicized “Tigers”, had a blowout in 1997, and still to recover. Soviet Union is in 16 separate pieces, a happy development but a warning nonetheless. What happened to Yugoslavia ? It is in four warring pieces. It had happened to us earlier in the eighteeth and nineteenth centuries when we were balkanised. It can therefore happen again. Hence we need a new agenda for change to weld the Indian into one corporate mind and entity. This I shall expound in these columns.
Our nation is, in fact, at a cross roads of history today. To find our destiny and direction all Hindustanis with a patriotic mindset have to come together to combat a common unseen but alien enemy, and not to traverse again the unfortunate and tragic chapter of our past history when we helped the foreigner to get a grip on the nation in order to settle our own petty squabbles.
The last time we set aside our political and personal differences and came together was to fight the Emergency during 1975-77. Had we not done that, in particular Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai had not teamed up with the RSS, despite all their past differences, dictatorship would have prevailed and been legitimized through the ballot box in 1977. We came together and triumphed, and restored democracy. Even if that unity did not last long, the main task of restoring democracy was achieved and the nation saved.
Today, the challenge is much more formidable than it was ever in our history. More important the threat to our national integrity embedded in this challenge is not obvious or crude as was when Mohammed Ghori attacked or Robert Clive plundered the nation. These earlier challenges were single dimensionalat the physical conquest level. Today the challenge is highly sophisticated, multi-dimensional and deceptive.
What is happening today is a very subtle fragmentation of our national consciousness and an induced acquiesance in our outlook to condone or be impervious to whatever wrong is going on. There is, for example, no national will to enforce accountability on the leaders who make patently wrong decisions, which harm the nation. Or bring to book their lifestyle that is inconsistent with the national spiritual ethos.
This state of affairs has come about steadily through one wrong decision after another over the years and a weak mindset of the intelligentsia to tolerate it or explain it away. The first of such decisions with disastrous long term consequences was in 1947, when Nehru decided to go to the UN Security Council on Kashmir which had become by then a part of India in legally iron clad way. The Instrument of Accession had been signed by the Maharaja acceding Kashmir to India. He was legally empowered to do so by the Indian Independence Act passed in June 1947 by the British Parliament, which Act carved out a new nation of Pakistan out of undivided India. That Act also empowered the Princely States to accede to India or Pakistanwithout requiring to ascertain the wishes of the people. There is no dispute about the legality of the Instrument of Accession, and yet Nehru without obtaining his Cabinet’s consent declared that the wishes of the Kashmiri people would be ascertained. By going to the UN, Nehru made Pakistan a party when it could never be legally so. Ironically, if Pakistan questions the validity of the Instrument of Accession then it questions it’s own legal existence since both draw their legitimacy from the same legislationthe Indian Independence Act of 1947. If Kashmir is of disputed status then so will be Pakistan itself. Either both or neither ! What Nehru did, for his personal image in the West, or perhaps to please Edwina Moutbatten, was to weaken the national resolve to cherish the hoary concept of Bharatvarsh, the geographical integrity of Hindustan from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Since then it has been easy to rationalize writing off bits of India, continuously to amputate Mother India, from Aksai Chin, to Northeast to even returning reclaimed Indian territory such as in Hajipir(1965) and Chicken Neck(1972) and now, as Prof. Nalapat writes, soon in Siachen and Sir Creek. Yet Nehru has not been held accountable by succeeding generations. Some even take pride in being known as Nehruvian even today, when he should be despised much as Neville Chamberlain is in Britain.
Then the nation was railroaded into adopting the Soviet economic model on the ground that, as Communists and their fellow travelers in India propagated, there was no inflation, no poverty, and no unemployment in the Soviet Union. The reality today is that there no Soviet Union ! The Soviet model weakened the Indian economy, set us back, and introduced corruption in India as a way of life. This has made us vulnerable again to the foreigner. How that happened I shall deal with in my next column.
Paul Samuelson: A GuruClick To OpenPaul Samuelson: A Guru Subramanian Swamy
If anyone can be called the father of modern analytical and scientific economics, it is Paul A. Samuelson now sadly deceased at 94. Anyone who has read economics, even if in the most fleeting way, cannot but recognise his most perceptive undergraduate economics text-book of all time, in its 19th edition now. When educated people think of analytical economics today, they think of Samuelson. Einstein in fact is the Samuelson of physics.
At his 92, I when last I saw him, he was driving his car in Belmont, Massachusetts, his home area —a small elite town on the suburb of Cambridge, the town of Harvard and MIT and as alert as ever. He stopped upon seeing me on the sidewalk, pulled over and chatted with me about how I was. Since 2000 I have been going back every summer to Harvard to teach two courses in economics and I had been meeting him over a one-to-one lunch at his favourite restaurant in the Charles Hotel complex at Harvard Square. That year I had not yet called him and he was disapproving.
Whenever I met him, I was just his student, which I had been in 1962-63 cross-registering at MIT which Harvard students could do. In every meeting with him I had to answer his rapid fire questions about a series of subjects, and even share delightful gossip. On that summer day on the Belmont sidewalk it was no different.
Later I became his colleague as co-author on the Theory of Index Numbers, published our research in the prestigious American Economic Review[1974] and the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal [1984], but I was still treated as his student to be cared for, and questioned.
Samuelson’s main contribution to modern economics was to use advanced calculus to show that that economics could be structured on clearly stated on observable behaviourial assumptions or axioms, objectives, and then by mathematical deduction deriving economic laws that could be tested on real life statistical data. He thus made economics a subject of scientific inquiry to be truly called a science in the sense that propositions in economics could be ‘proved’ with proofs just as theorems in mathematics were. Mathematical logic and rigour was all, and little else mattered. Gone thus were the days of “Shakespearean” economics of Keynes and Galbraith’s art of expression. Felicity in English no more mattered. Mathematical methods took its place and thereby Samuelson globalised economics by enabling the little English knowing scholars such as the Japanese to join in international discourse and collaboration in research and teaching. Economics thus exploded on the international scene and became fashionable.
Samuelson worked in two dimensions throughout his life. In one dimension, he spoke in homely English about the most complicated economic issues. He thus authored one of the most widely used college textbook in the history of American education. The book, titled Economics, first published in 1948, was the globe’s best-selling textbook for nearly 30 years. Translated into 20 languages, and updated periodically it is selling over 50,000 copies a year a half century after it first appeared. He also wrote a column for Newsweek on current economic topics.
His second dimension was of mathematical rigour that began with his Harvard Ph.D. thesis turned book titled “The Foundations of Economic Analysis”. This is a goldmine for future research even today. When he defended his thesis before a committee of three Harvard Professors, which all Ph.D candidates have to do and pass, the story goes that the chairman of the committee Professor Schumpeter asked his two fellow members after the viva : “Gentlemen, have we passed ?”
Between these two books, Samuelson re-defined modern economics and made it a popular yet a science. For that he became the first American to win the then instituted Nobel Prize in 1970.
The textbook introduced generations of students to the ideas, in simple language of graphs, of John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who in the 1930s developed the theory that modern market economies could become trapped in depression, that a cut in wages would only mean a cut in demand and hence of profit, and thus the downward spiral would continue. And it would then need a strong push from government spending or tax cuts, in addition to lenient monetary policy, to restore the economy. Thus was born the concept of the “stimulus”. Laissez faire made way for modern competitive market economic system in which government had a role to play. In my view this neo-classical economics destroyed socialism as a theory forever. Never again to rest comfortably with the view that private markets could cure unemployment without need of government intervention in terms of stimulus, fiscal, and monetary policies. No need therefore for “commanding heights” of government ownership.
That lesson has been reinforced in 2008, when the international economy slipped into the steepest downturn since the Great Depression when Keynesian economics was born. When the Depression began, governments stood pat or made matters worse by trying to urge wage cuts, to balance fiscal budgets, and erecting trade barriers. But 80 years later, most industrialised countries took corrective action, raising government spending, cutting taxes, keeping exports and imports flowing and driving short-term interest rates to near zero. Samuelson made Keynes immortal and Depression containable.
Paul Antony Samuelson was born May 15, 1915 in Gary, Ind. the son of Frank Samuelson, a pharmacist, and the former Ella Lipton. His family, he said, was ‘made up of upwardly mobile Jewish immigrants from Poland’. His family later moved to Chicago. Young Paul attended Hyde Park High School in Chicago.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Chicago in 1935, he went to Harvard as a graduate student to do a Ph.D.
Among Samuelson’s fellow students at Harvard was Marion Crawford. They married in 1938. Samuelson earned his master’s degree from Harvard in 1936 and a Ph.D. formally in 1941. He wrote his thesis in 1937. In 1940, Harvard offered him an instructorship[ the Harvard equivalent of Assistant Professor which in turn equalled Associate Professor elsewhere], which he accepted, but a month later MIT invited him to become an assistant professor i.e., same rank as Harvard’s Instructor.
But jealousy and some suspect anti-Semitism of the late thirties made Harvard deny promotion to retain him even though he had by then developed an international following. Nobel Laureate Robert Solow, his former student and later colleague at MIT, jokingly said of the Harvard economics department of that time: “You could be disqualified for a job if you were either smart or Jewish or Keynesian. So what chance did this smart, Jewish, Keynesian have?”
Marion Samuelson died in 1978. Samuelson is survived by his second wife, Risha Clay Samuelson and six children from his first marriage.
Fresh from India, and armed with a B.A Honours in Mathematics and Master’s in Mathematical Statistics I first met Samuelson in his office in September 1962 wanting to be his student cross-registering in the most advanced mathematical economics course of MIT. I had arrived in Cambridge town on a Harvard scholarship for a Ph.D., thanks to the recommendation Dr. Tarlok Singh of the Planning Commission which Harvard honoured. Samuelson used to select every year only twenty students, out of about 200 that applied, expecting to groom them as scholars. I wondered then whether I would be chosen.
But by then I was already bit of a sensation in academia because as a M.A. student at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, I had published a research paper in the world’s then most prestigious journal called Econometrica, demolishing using Integral Calculus, P.C. Mahalanobis’ claim to fame called Fractile Graphical Analysis published earlier in the same journal. Mahalanobis who was invited by the editor to rebut my criticism, had no answer.
In Samuelson’s class as his student, once while he was lecturing on the theory of consumer behavior wrote on the blackboard a series of equations to derive a theorem. From my desk I raised my hand and said “You have one equation wrong, so you will not be able to prove the theorem”. There was stunned silence in class. Samuelson then walked to where I was seated and glowered “What did you say ?”. I held my ground and offered to rectify what was a small careless mistake which all geniuses commit on the blackboard in class. He made me go to the blackboard and write out the correct equation which I did. Then sternly he said: “See me after class”. My classmates all thought that was the end of me and one even said to me “have you got your return ticket to India?”
But it was instead the beginning of me and of a relationship. When I saw him after class he said to my utter joy :“I think you and I should write a joint paper some day”. This we did ten years later but he me helped in the interim on a number of my papers published in my own name, and also thanked me in footnotes of his published papers for correcting him or for giving him leads. He, and my thesis adviser Simon Kuznets at Harvard, thus launched my career. I became Teaching Fellow even as a student, then Instructor soon after, breezing through a Ph.D in the shortest possible time of 18 months, and Assistant Professor all at Harvard within three years of my arrival in Cambridge.
Amartya Sen invited me to join the Delhi School of Economics as a full Professor in early 1968 stating in a hand written letter that my “gaddi was being dusted”. I therefore spent three months in the summer of 1968 at the Delhi School of Economics as Visiting Professor, before returning back to Harvard with the intention of winding up and joining as Professor of Economics at the Delhi School. But I did not realize then that the Left triumvirate of Sen, K.N.Raj and S. Chakravarty had in the three months discovered that I was not only not ideologically neutral or soft like Bhagwati, but hard anti-Left and wanted to dismantle the Soviet planning system in India besides producing the atom bomb. So when I arrived in India in late 1969 this triumvirate scuttled my ascending the dusted gaddi. Sen was at his hypocritical best in explaining to me his volte face.
Samuelson was enraged when heard this and perhaps felt empathy because of his own experience in the late thirties at Harvard, and urged me to return. When I returned to Harvard to teach in the 1971 summer, Samuelson told me “Stay here and write a treatise on Index Numbers and you will be worthy of a prize”. But I was in a fighting mood and told him I would return.
Fortunately there was a Professorship open at IIT Delhi. Dr. Manmohan Singh was the Chairman of the Selection Committee. Samuelson with Kuznets[1971 Nobel Laureate] wrote the Committee strong letters of recommendation. Armed with it, Dr. Singh did not wilt under the huge pressure mounted by the triumvirate and I was appointed Professor of Economics in October 1971. But it did not last long. The triumvirate then persuaded Mrs. Gandhi that I was a closet RSS with chauvinist views, and a danger to her. With the KGB favourite Nurul Hasan as Education Minister, I was easily sacked in December 1972 [but re-instated by court in 1991].
I then joined politics since no academic avenues were now open. I continued to return to Harvard for the summer to teach, and got nothing but warmth and welcome from Samuelson each time. During the Emergency, Henry Rosovsky another famous Harvard economist, became Dean and he appointed me Visiting Professor for the year 1976-77. Mrs. Gandhi sent an emissary to him to cancel my appointment! But Henry was no pushover. He maintained that I was still an IIT Professor till the courts in India pronounced on it.
By now Samuelson was convinced that I had responded to a higher call by going into Indian politics. He then encouraged me to fight on. He wrote a powerful column in the Newsweek against the Emergency and even signed a petition of Nobel Laureates to the US President condemning the jailing without trial of 140,000 persons. It was most unusual for him, but it encouraged me to fight on.
Although I did collaborate with him again on Index Numbers in the early eighties, Samuelson remained sympathetic from then on to my choice of a political career over academics. I met him often in the Faculty Club for lunch after I went back to Harvard for a year and half in 1985-86 as Visiting Professor courtesy my friend and famous China scholar Roderick Macfarquhar.
In 1990s after we ushered in reforms, Samuelson wrote me a letter expressing happiness that “at last, India has discovered economic growth”.
Once at a get together I called him my guru and explained the gurukul system of our rishis. He said “Ah ! That is what the US needs”. But Samuelson was already a rishi in the way he treated his chosen students and saw them through difficulties. Thus, I shall remember always as that I was once Samuelson’s chosen student among the many he nurtured in his glorious life.
(PUBLISHED IN HINDU ON 23.12.2009)
Prof. Samuelson: guru extraordinaire
Subramanian Swamy
A chosen student among the many Prof. Paul Samuelson nurtured recalls the teacher’s contributions.
If anyone can be called the father of modern analytical and scientific economics, it is Paul A. Samuelson, who passed away on December 13 at 94. Anyone who has read economics, even in the most fleeting way, cannot but recognise his perceptive undergraduate economics textbook. Think of analytical economics, and you think of Samuelson.
When I saw him last when he was 92, he was driving his car near his home in Belmont, Massachusetts — a small elite town in the vicinity of Cambridge which is home to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — and as alert as ever. He stopped upon seeing me on the sidewalk, pulled over and chatted about how I was. Since 2000 I have been going back each summer to Harvard to teach two courses in economics, and I had been meeting him over a one-to-one lunch at his favourite restaurant at Harvard Square. That year I had not yet called him, and he was disapproving.
Whenever I met him I was just his student, which I had been in 1962-63. At every meeting with him I had to answer his rapid-fire questions about a series of subjects, and even share delightful gossip. On that summer’s day at Belmont it was no different.
Later I had become his co-author on the Theory of Index Numbers, published our research in the American Economic Review (1974) and the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal (1984), but I was still treated as his student, to be cared for, and questioned.
Samuelson’s main contribution to modern economics was the use of advanced calculus to show that economics could be structured on clearly stated or observable behavioural assumptions or axioms or objectives, and then by mathematical deduction deriving economic laws that could be tested on real-life statistical data. He thus made economics a subject of scientific inquiry to be truly called a science, in the sense that propositions in economics could be ‘proved’ with proof, just as theorems in mathematics could be. Mathematical logic and rigour was all; little else mattered. Gone, thus, were the days of John Maynard Keynes’ “Shakespearean” economics and John Kenneth Galbraith’s art of expression. Felicity in English no more mattered; mathematical methods took its place. Samuelson globalised economics by enabling scholars who knew little English to join in international discourse and collaboration in research and teaching. Economics thus exploded on to the international scene, and became fashionable.
Worked in two dimensions
Samuelson worked in two dimensions throughout his life. In one, he spoke in homely English about the most complicated economic issues. He thus authored one of the most widely used college textbooks in the history of American education. The book, titled Economics, first published in 1948, was the globe’s best-selling textbook for nearly 30 years. Translated into 20 languages and updated periodically, it is selling over 50,000 copies a year in its 19th edition half a century after it first appeared.
His second dimension was of mathematical rigour that began with his Harvard Ph.D. thesis-turned-book titled The Foundations of Economic Analysis. This is a gold mine for research even today. When he defended his thesis before a committee of three Harvard Professors, the story goes that the chairman, Professor Joseph A. Schumpeter, asked his two fellow-members after the viva voce: “Gentlemen, have we passed?”
Between the two books, Samuelson redefined modern economics and made it popular, yet a science. For that he became the first American to win the then newly instituted Nobel prize for economics.
Paul Antony Samuelson was born on May 15, 1915 in Gary, Indiana. After receiving his bachelor’s from Chicago in 1935, he went to Harvard. He earned his master’s from Harvard in 1936 and a Ph.D. formally in 1941. He wrote his thesis in 1937.
In 1940, Harvard offered him an instructorship (the Harvard equivalent of Assistant Professor, which in turn equalled the position of an Associate Professor elsewhere), which he accepted. But a month later the MIT invited him to become an Assistant Professor, that is, the same as Harvard’s Instructor. But jealousy and, some suspect, the anti-Semitism of the late-1930s made Harvard deny him a promotion, even though he had by then developed an international following.
Fresh from India with a B.A. Honours in Mathematics and a Master’s in Mathematical Statistics, I first met Samuelson in his office in September 1962 wanting to be his student, cross-registering in the most advanced mathematical economics course of the MIT. I had arrived in Cambridge on a Harvard scholarship for a Ph.D. Samuelson selected each year only 20 students, out of about 200 who applied, expecting to groom them as scholars. I wondered whether I would be chosen. I was.
Once while lecturing on the theory of consumer behaviour in class, Samuelson wrote on the blackboard a series of equations to derive a theorem. As a student I raised my hand from my desk and said: “You have one equation wrong, so you will not be able to prove the theorem.” There was stunned silence. Samuelson walked to my seat and glowered: “What did you say?” I held my ground and offered to rectify what was a small careless mistake which all geniuses commit on the blackboard in class. He made me go to the blackboard and write out the correct equation — which I did. Then, sternly he said: “See me after class.” My classmates thought that was the end of me. One asked: “Have you got your return ticket to India?”
But it was, instead, the beginning of me — and of a relationship. When I saw him after class, he said: “I think you and I should write a joint paper some day.” This we did 10 years later, but he me helped in the interim on a number of papers published in my own name, and thanked me in footnotes of his published papers for having corrected him or given him leads. He, and my thesis adviser Simon Kuznets at Harvard, launched my career. I became a Teaching Fellow as a student, an Instructor soon after, obtaining a Ph.D in the shortest possible time of 18 months, and an Assistant Professor, all at Harvard.
I eventually joined politics because my career was blocked in India. I continued to return to Harvard to teach, and got nothing but warmth and welcome from Samuelson each time. During the Emergency, Henry Rosovsky, the Harvard economist, became the Dean and appointed me Visiting Professor. Indira Gandhi sent an emissary to him to cancel my appointment. But Henry was no pushover. By now Samuelson was convinced that I had responded to a higher call. He encouraged me to fight on. He wrote in Newsweek against the Emergency and even signed a petition along with other Nobel laureates to the U.S. President condemning the jailing without trial of 140,000 persons.
Samuelson remained sympathetic from then on to my choice of a political career over academics. Once I called him my guru and explained the gurukul system of the Indian rishis. He said: “Ah! That’s what the U.S. needs.” Samuelson was already a rishi in the way he treated his chosen students. I shall remember always that I was once his chosen student among the many he nurtured.
(Dr. Subramanian Swamy is a former Union Minister who is the president of the Janata Party.)
How To Wipe Out Islamic Terror: The Moment Of Truth Has ArrivedClick To OpenHow to wipe out Islamic terror: The Moment of Truth Has Arrived
Subramanian Swamy
Indian Express First Published : 31 May 2010 12:33:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 31 May 2010 01:10:30 AM IST
From recent history, a lesson to be learnt in tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus, argues Subramanian Swamy
According to the latest Union home ministry Annual Report to Parliament, of the 35 states in India, 29 are affected by terrorist acts carried out by all kinds of forces. Terrorism, I define here as the illegal use of force to overawe the civilian population to make it do or not do an act against their will and well-being.
There are about 40 reported and unreported terrorist attacks per month in the country. That is why the recent US National Counter-Terrorism Centre publication A Chronology of International Terrorism states: ‘India suffered more terrorist acts than any other country’.
While the PM thinks that Maoists’ threat is most serious, I think Islamic terrorism is even more serious. If we did not have today the present Union home minister, PM, and UPA chairperson, then Maoists can be eliminated in a month, much as I did with the LTTE in Tamil Nadu, as a senior minister in 1991, or MGR did with the Naxalites in the early 1980s.
Why is Islamic terrorism our number one problem of national security? About this there will be no doubt after 2012. By that year, I expect a Taliban takeover in Pakistan and the Americans to flee Afghanistan. Then, Islam will confront Hinduism to ‘complete unfinished business’.
Let us remember that every Hindu-Muslim riot in India since 1947, has been ignited by Muslim fanatics — if one goes by all the commissions of inquiry set up after every riot. By today’s definition these riots are all terrorist acts. Muslims, though a minority in India, still have fanatics who dare to lead violent attacks against Hindus. Other Muslims of India just lump it, sulk or rejoice. That is the history from Babar’s time to Aurangzeb. There have been exceptions to this apathy of Muslims like Dara Shikoh, in the old days, or like M J Akbar and Salman Haidar today who are not afraid to speak out against Islamic terror, but still they remain exceptions.
Blame the Hindus
In one sense, I do not blame the Muslim fanatics for targeting Hindus. I blame us Hindus who have taken their individuality permitted in Sanatana Dharma to the extreme. Millions of Hindus can assemble without state patronage for Kumbh Mela completely self-organised, but they all leave for home oblivious of the targeting of Hindus in Kashmir, Mau, Melvisharam and Malappuram and do not lift their little finger to help organise Hindus. For example, if half the Hindus vote together rising above their caste and language, a genuine Hindu party will have a two-thirds majority in Parliament and Assemblies.
The secularists now tout instances of Hindu fanatics committing terrorist attacks against Muslims or other minorities. But these attacks are mostly state sponsored, often by the Congress itself, and not by Hindu ‘non-state actors’. Muslim-led attacks are however all by ‘non-state actors’ unless one includes the ISI and rogue elements in Pakistan’s army which are aiding them, as state sponsoring.
Fanatic Muslim attacks have been carried out to target and demoralise the Hindus, to make Hindus yield that which they should not, with the aim of undermining and ultimately to dismantle the Hindu foundation of India. This is the unfinished war of 1,000 years which Osama bin Laden talks about. In fact, the earliest terror tactics in India were deployed in Bengal 1946 by Suhrawady and Jinnah to terrorise Hindus to give in on the demand for Pakistan. The Congress party claiming to represent the Hindus capitulated, and handed 25 per cent of India on a platter to Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Now they want the remaining 75 per cent.
Forces against Hindus
This is not to say that other stooges have not targeted Hindus. During the last six decades since Independence, British imperialist-inspired Dravidian movement led by E V Ramaswamy Naicker, in the name of rationalism tried to debunk as irrational the Hindu religion, and terrorised the Hindu priestly class, ie, the Brahmins, for propagating the Hindu religion.
The movement’s organisational arm, the Dravida Kazhagam (DK), had venerated Ravana for 50 years to spite the Hindu adoration of Rama and vulgarise the abduction of Sita, till the DK belatedly learnt that Ravana was a Brahmin and a pious bhakta of Lord Shiva too. Abandoning this course of defaming Ramayana, the DK have now become stooges of the anti-Indian LTTE which has specialised in killing the Hindu Tamil leadership in Sri Lanka. Of course the DK has now been orphaned by the decimation of the LTTE.
Civil war situation
In the 1960s, the Christian missionaries had inspired the Nagas. The Nagas also wanted to further amputate Bharat Mata by seeking secession of Nagaland from the nation. In the 1980s, the Hindus
of Manipur were targeted by foreign-trained elements. Manipuris were told: give up Hinduism or be killed. In Kashmir, since the beginning of the 1990s, militants in league with the Pakistan-trained terrorists also targeted the Hindus by driving the Hindu Pandits out of the Valley, or killing them or dishonouring their women folk.
Recognising that targeting of Hindus is being widely perceived, and that Muslims of India are largely just passive spectators, the foreign patrons of Islamic terrorists are beginning to engage in terrorist acts that could pit Muslims against Hindus in nation-wide conflagration and possible civil war as in Serbia and Bosnia. Muslims cannot be divided into ‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’ because the former just capitulate when confronted. Recently, Pakistan civilian government capitulated on ‘kite flying’ and banned it because Taliban considers it as ‘Hindu’. Moderate governments of Malaysia and Kazhakstan are now demolishing Hindu temples.
Collective response
Hence, the first lesson to be learnt from recent history, for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus. It is to undermine the Hindu psyche and create fear of civil war that terror attacks are organised.
And hence since the Hindu is the target, Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated or worse, be complacent because he or she is not personally affected. If one Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat Hindu (for fuller discussion of the concept of virat Hindu, see my Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out Haranand, 2006).
Therefore we need today a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. In this response, Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do, I will not believe, unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors are Hindus.
It is not easy for them to acknowledge this ancestry because the Muslim mullah and Christian missionary would consider it as unacceptable since that realisation would dilute the religious fervour in their faith and also create an option for their possible re-conversion to Hinduism. Hence, these religious leaders preach hatred and violence against the kafir ie, the Hindu (for example read Chapter 8 verse 12 of the Quran) to keep the faith of their followers. The Islamic terrorist outfits, eg the SIMI, has already resolved that India is Darul Harab, and they are committed to make it Darul Islam. That makes them free of any moral compunction whatsoever in dealing with Hindus.
Brihad Hindu Samaj
But still, if any Muslim does so acknowledge his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj, which is Hindustan. India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors are Hindus. Even Parsis and Jews in India have Hindu ancestors. Others, who refuse to so acknowledge or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration can remain in India, but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).
Hence, to begin with, any policy to combat terrorism must begin with requiring each and every Hindu becoming a committed or virat Hindu. To be a virat Hindu one must have a Hindu mindset, a mindset that recognises that there is vyaktigat charitra (personal character) and a rashtriya charitra (national character).
It is not enough if one is pious, honest and educated. That is the personal character only. National character is a mindset actively and vigorously committed to the sanctity and integrity of the nation. For example, Manmohan Singh, our prime minister, has high personal character (vyaktigat charitra), but by being a rubber stamp of a semi-literate Sonia Gandhi, and waffling on all national issues, he has proved that he has no rashtriya charitra.
The second lesson for combating the terrorism we face today is: since demoralising the Hindu and undermining the Hindu foundation of India in order to destroy the Hindu civilisation, is the goal of all terrorists in India we must never capitulate and never concede any demand of the terrorists. The basic policy has to be: never yield to any demand of the terrorists. That necessary resolve has not been shown in our recent history. Instead ever since we conceded Pakistan in 1947 under duress, we have been mostly yielding time and again.
Bowing to terrorists
In 1989, to obtain the release of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter, Rubaiyya who had been kidnapped by terrorists, five terrorists in Indian jails were set free by the V P Singh’s government. This made these criminals in the eyes of Kashmiri separatists and fence sitters heroes, as those who had brought India’s Hindu establishment on its knees. To save Rubaiyya it was not necessary to surrender to terrorist demands.
The worst capitulation to terrorists in our modern history was in the Indian Airlines IC-814 hijack in December 1999 staged in Kandahar. The government released three terrorists even without getting court permission (required since they were in judicial custody). Moreover, they were escorted by a senior minister on the PM’s special Boeing all the way to Kandahar as royal guests instead of being shoved across the Indo-Pakistan border.
Worse still, all the three after being freed, went back to Pakistan and created three separate terrorist organisations to kill Hindus. Mohammed Azhar, whom the National Security Advisor Brijesh Mishra had then described as “a mere harmless cleric”, upon his release led the LeT to savage and repeated terrorist attacks on Hindus all over India from Bangalore to Srinagar. Since mid-2000, Azhar is responsible for the killing of over 2,000 Hindus and the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. Omar Sheikh who helped al-Qaeda is in jail in US custody for killing US journalist Daniel Pearl, while the third, Zargar is engaged today in random killings of Hindus in Doda and Jammu after founding Al-Mujahideen Jingaan.
This Kandahar episode proves that we should never negotiate with terrorists, never yield. If you do, then sooner or later you will end up losing more lives than you will ever save by a deal with terrorists.
Moment of truth
The third lesson to be learnt is that whatever and however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate—not by measured and ‘sober’ responses but by massive retaliation. Otherwise what is the alternative? Walk meekly to death expecting that our ‘sober’ responses will be rewarded by our neighbours and their patrons? We will be back to 1100 AD fooled into suicidal credulity. We should not be ghouls for punishment from terrorists and their patrons. We should retaliate.
For example, when Ayodhya temple was sought to be attacked, this was not a big terrorist incident but we should have massively retaliated by re-building the Ram temple at the site.
This is Kaliyug, and hence there is no room for sattvic responses to evil people. Hindu religion has a concept of apat dharma and we should invoke it. This is the moment of truth for us. Either we organise to survive as a civilisation or vanish as the Persian, Babylonian, and Egyptian civilisations did centuries ago before the brutal Islamic onslaught. For that our motto should be Saam, Dhaam, Bheda, Danda.
Poverty is no factor
What motivates the Islamic terrorists in India? Many are advising us Hindus to deal with the root ‘cause’ of terrorism rather than concentrate on eradicating terrorists by retaliation. And pray what is the root ‘cause’?
According to bleeding heart liberals, terrorists are born or bred because of illiteracy, poverty, oppression, and discrimination. They argue that instead of eliminating them, the root cause of these four disabilities in society should be removed. Only then terrorism will disappear. Before replying to this, let us understand that I have serious doubts about the integrity of these liberals, or more appropriately, these promiscuous intellectuals. They seek to deaden the emotive power of the individual and render him passive (inculcate ‘majboori’ in our psyche). A nation state cannot survive for long with such a capitulationist mentality.
It is rubbish to say that terrorists who mastermind the attacks are poor. Osama bin laden for example is a billionaire. Islamic terrorists are patronised by those states that have grown rich from oil revenues. In Britain, the terrorists arrested so far for the bombings are all well-to-do persons. Nor are terrorists uneducated. Most of terrorist leaders are doctors, chartered accountants, MBAs and teachers. For example, in the failed Times Square New York episode, the Islamic terrorist Shahzad studied and got an MBA from a reputed US university. He was from a highly placed family in Pakistan. He certainly faced no discrimination and oppression in his own country. The gang of nine persons who hijacked four planes on September 11, 2001 and flew them into the World Trade Towers in New York and other targets were certainly not discriminated or oppressed in the United States. Hence it is utter rubbish to say that terror is the outcome of the poverty terrorists face.
If we accept the Left-wing liberals argument, does it mean that in Islamic countries, the non-Islamic religious minority who are discriminated and oppressed can take to terrorism? In the Valley, where Muslims are in majority, not only Article 370 of the Constitution provides privileges to the majority but it is the minority Hindus who have been slaughtered, or raped, and dispossessed. They have become refugees in squalid conditions in their own country.
It is also a ridiculous idea that terrorists cannot be deterred because they are irrational, willing to die, and have no ‘return address’. Terrorist masterminds have political goals and a method in their madness. An effective strategy to deter terrorism is therefore to defeat those political goals and to rubbish them by counter-terrorist action. How is that strategy to be structured? In a brilliant research paper published by Robert Trager and Dessislava Zagorcheva this year (‘Deterring Terrorism’ International Security, vol 30, No 3, Winter 2005/06, pp 87-123) has provided the general principles to structure such a strategy.
Goal-strategy
Applying these principles, I advocate the following strategy to negate the political goals of Islamic terrorism in India, provided the Muslim community fail to condemn these goals and call them un-Islamic:
Goal 1: Overawe India on Kashmir.
Strategy: Remove Article 370, and re-settle ex-servicemen in the Valley. Create Panun Kashmir for Hindu Pandit community. Look or create opportunity to take over PoK. If Pakistan continues to back terrorists, assist the Baluchis and Sindhis to struggle for independence.
Goal 2: Blast our temples and kill Hindu devotees.
Strategy: Remove the masjid in Kashi Vishwanath temple complex, and 300 others in other sites as a tit-for-tat.
Goal 3: Make India into Darul Islam.
Strategy: Implement Uniform Civil Code, make Sanskrit learning compulsory and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India as Hindu Rashtra in which only those non-Hindus can vote if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors are Hindus. Re-name India as Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors are Hindus.
Goal 4: Change India’s demography by illegal immigration, conversion, and refusal to adopt family planning.
Strategy: Enact a national law prohibiting conversion from Hindu religion to any other religion. Re-conversion will not be banned. Declare caste is not birth-based but code of discipline based. Welcome non-Hindus to re-convert to the caste of their choice provided they adhere to the code of discipline. Annex land from Bangladesh in proportion to the illegal migrants from that country staying in India. At present, northern one-third from Sylhet to Khulna can be annexed to re-settle the illegal migrants.
Goal 5: Denigrate Hinduism through vulgar writings and preaching in mosques, madrassas, and churches to create loss of self-respect amongst Hindus and make them fit for capitulation.
Strategy: Propagate the development of a Hindu mindset (see my new book Hindutva and National Renaissance, Haranand, 2010).
India can solve its terrorist problem within five years by such a deterrent strategy, but for that we have to learn the four lessons outlined above, and have a Hindu mindset to take bold, risky, and hard decisions to defend the nation. If the Jews can be transformed from lambs walking meekly to the gas chambers to fiery lions in just 10 years, it is not difficult for Hindus in much better circumstances (after all we are 83 per cent of India), to do so in five years.
Guru Gobind Singh has shown us the way already, how just five fearless persons under spiritual guidance can transform a society. Even if half the Hindu voters are persuaded to collectively vote as Hindus, and for a party sincerely committed to a Hindu agenda, then we can forge an instrument for change. And that ultimately is the bottom line in the strategy to deter terrorism in a democratic Hindustan at this moment of truth.
About the author:
Subramanian Swamy is a former Union minister
HINDUTVA PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTClick To OpenHINDUTVA PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
By SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY
I. INTRODUCTION
I am not an advocate of the concept of “Hindu economics” because economic laws are universal, and humans respond to incentives and coercion more or less the same way everywhere and in every culture. But I do advocate here that there is a need for a Hindu School of Economics for developing an alternative and holistic theory of economic development based not only on material output and economic services, but also on ancient Hindu spiritual values. These values are codified as Sanatana Dharma [i.e., eternally valid enlightened norms] whereby dharma informs the acquisition of artha(wealth), the scope and limits of enjoyment of kama(sensual and other pleasures) and the ultimate pursuit of moksha(spiritual salvation).
These two goals of kama and moksha are dependent on attaining a critical level of artha, much as Swami Vivekananda had said in the late nineteenth century that we cannot preach spirituality to someone with an empty stomach.
The ‘Swadeshi’[indigenous] or Hindutva [the quality of being Hindu or Hinduness] theory of development postulates that the basis for pursuit of true or inner happiness is the spiritual advancement of one’s self with economic well-being treated as a means to that end. This contrasts with the single-minded pursuit of material and physical pleasure as an end in itself in capitalistic or socialistic theories of development in which the uni-dimensional approach of materialism has led to the present greed– dominated globalization.
The word Hindutva was first explicitly used by Veer Savarkar to define nationalism. The word itself is of mid-nineteenth century coinage meaning “Hinduness”. The Hindutva inspiration was the foundation for the first major nationalist struggle – the Swadeshi[Self-Reliance} Movement, in which Sri Aurobindo was a prime mover, and which movement followed the Partition of Bengal in 1905 but preceded Savarkar’s writings. But taken together, today Hindutva is a multi-facet concept of identity, social constitutional order, modernity, civilization history, economic philosophy and governance.
Sanatana Dharma is eternal because it is based not upon the teachings of a single preceptor or a chosen prophet but on the collective and accumulated wisdom and inspiration of great seers and sages from the dawn of civilization. Hindu theology and scriptures therefore is accumulated revealed knowledge and not revelations of any prophet that was taken down by scribes or followers.
Thus, Sanatana Dharma is an enlightened code of living which if we follow will keep us happy, stress free, and enable us to make progress in life without bitterness. The present life of materialism without regard to harmony with spiritual values is disastrous and cause of unhappiness.
Hindutva is a concept that reflects the broad spiritual ethos of India’s many great rishis, yogis and sanyasis, and their diverse teachings and spiritual vision. In this paper, we have essentially followed Sri Aurobindo’s formulation, which though having the same basis as Savarkar’s, is more broad-based.
My search for a more holistic theory of economic development rooted in Hindutva is about three decades old. In 1970, I had presented a “Swadeshi Plan”[2] at a gathering of economists assembled at the Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi. It was an instant national media event because of the yearning for an alternative theory relevant to India, but it attracted a huge flak from the Left-wing academics who dominated the universities those days.
So much so, that the then Left leaning Prime Minister, Mrs.Indira Gandhi, who also held the Finance Portfolio that time, on March 4, 1970 took the floor of the Lok Sabha [India’s Parliament] during the 1970-71 Budget debate, to denounce my Swadeshi Plan, and me by name, as ‘dangerous” because “much like a Santa Claus” I had promised presents to all.
She was particularly irked by my thesis that India could grow at 10% per year instead of 3.5% per year, achieve self-reliance, and produce nuclear weapons for its defence, only if India gave up Soviet model’s socialism, and followed competitive market economic system which is harmonized with values drawn from Sanatana Dharma, much as Mahatma Gandhi had preached prior to achieving Independence, by raising the slogan of Ram Rajya.
Those days in the 1970s, few dared to question Soviet socialism much less could advocate Hindutva. The entire Left wing captive intellectuals therefore had pounced on me and ostracized me from academia because I had debunked the Soviet economic model by describing it as a prescription for disaster for India. If as I argue here that a single minded material pursuit and maximization cannot produce happiness, then it is also true that a system that is not based on incentives but is on coercion as the Soviet model was, cannot work. This latter fact is now established by the history of the 1980s and 90s with the unraveling of the Soviet empire.
There is now a growing interest in the West especially the US on Hindu concepts. Although long years ago Ralph Waldo Emerson had spoken glowingly about the Bhagvata Gita, in recent years there have been published a spate of articles and books on the need to incorporate Hindu concepts in economic analysis. Bruce Rich(2010) book on Globalisation [1] is one such worthy of notice. Richard Goldberg’s American Veda (2011) [4] is another.
Lisa Miller’s “We Are All Hindus Now” Newsweek [August 24-31, 2009] has popularized Hindu concepts on life are rational and secular enough for Americans to accept. Thus, Hinduism’s scientific foundation and spirit of inquiry is beginning to find favour abroad. Lisa Miller, an editor of the Newsweek holds that modern American is “conceptually, at least, are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, ourselves, each other and eternity”. That is, she is saying that Hindutva is permeating USA by osmosis:
“America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continue to identify as Christian (still, that’s the lowest percentage in American his¬tory). Of course, we are not a Hindu—or Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan—nation, either. A million-plus Hindus live in the United States, a fraction of the billion who live on earth. But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity.”
“The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: “Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names.” A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur’an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conser¬vative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”
“Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life”—in¬cluding 37 percent of white evangeli¬cals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves “spiritual, not religious,” according to a 2009 NEWS-WEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for “the divine-deli-cafeteria religion” as “very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You’re not picking and choosing from different religions, because they’re all the same,” he says. “It isn’t about orthodoxy. It’s about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that’s great, too.”
“Then there’s the question of what hap¬pens when you die. Christians tradition¬ally believe that bodies and souls are sacred, that together they make up the “self,” and that at the end of time they will be reunited in the Resurrection. You need both, in other words, and you need them forever. Hindus believe no such thing. At death, the body burns on a pyre, while the spirit—where iden¬tity resides—escapes. In reincarna¬tion, central to Hinduism, selves come back to earth again and again in differ¬ent bodies. So here is another way in which Americans are becoming more Hindu: 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation, accord¬ing to a 2008 Harris poll. So agnostic are we about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we’re burning them—like Hindus—after death. More than a third of Americans now choose crema¬tion, according to the Cremation As¬sociation of North America, up from 6 percent in l975. Let us all say ‘Om’”.
The statement of Oscar winning Hollywood actress Julia Roberts made upon converting with her family to Hindu religion is revealing of the spreading popularity of Hindu concepts in the US. She said that despite becoming wealthy she could get mental peace and solace after imbibing Hindu concepts. The wide acceptability of yoga in US today is also a manifestation of that fact of the growing acceptability of Hindutva.
The main objective of the Sanatana Dharma thus is to unfold the tremendous multi-dimensional potentialities of human intelligence, step by step, from the outer physical body level to subtle inner mental to intellectual and ultimately to the highest spiritual level, leading to Enlightenment and Self Realization. The human being is constituted by soul, mind and body, parallel in functions to a company incorporated constituted by a proprietor, manager and workers. In the West the innovative mind is based on the development of cognitive intelligence only.
India today leads the world in the supply pool of youth, i.e., persons in the age group of 15 to 35 years, and this lead will last for another forty years. This generation is most fertile milieu for promoting knowledge, innovation, and research. It is the prime work force that saves for the future, the corpus for pension funding of the old. We should therefore not squander this “natural vital resource”.
Thus, India has now become, by unintended consequences, gifted with a young population. If we educate this youth to develop cognitive intelligence [CQ] to become original thinkers, imbibe emotional intelligence [EQ] to have team spirit and rational risk-taking attitude, inculcate moral intelligence [MQ] to blend personal ambition with national goals, cultivate social intelligence [SOI] to defend civic rights of the weak, gender equality, and the courage to fight injustice and nurture spiritual intelligence [SI] to innovate the transformative power of vision and intention to access the vast energy the pervades the cosmos to innovate and out of box research, then we can develop a superior species of human being, an Indian youth who can be relied on to contribute to make India a global power within two decades. Computers my have high CQ because they are programmed to understand the rules, and follow them without making mistakes. Many mammals have high EQ. Only humans know to ask why, and can work with re-shaping boundaries instead of just within boundaries. Human can innovate, not animals.
The nation must therefore structure a national policy for the youth of India so that in every young Indian the five dimensional concept of intelligence, viz., cognitive emotional, moral, social and spiritual manifests in his character. Only then, our demographic dividend will not be wasted. These five dimensions of intelligence constitute the ability of a person to live a productive life and for national good. Hence, a policy for India’s youth has to be structured within the implied parameters of these five dimensions.
True happiness is possible, according to Sanatana Dharma, only if material progress that is attained is moderated and harmonized by spiritual values. This is the Hindutva [Hinduness] principle of economic development and it is this core concept that is becoming widely acceptable faced with the consequences of greed and envy that is fueling the current globalization. Thus, the choice of objectives, priorities, strategy and financial architecture, the four pillars of the nation’s policy-making for economic development, have to be defined in accordance with the Hindu concepts. This Hinduisation leads to Hindutva or Hinduness. What that means we shall now discuss
Hinduness springs from Sanatana Dharma in Sri Aurobindo’s broader formulation as also in Savarkar’s narrower formulations. In the analysis in this paper, Hindutva conforms to Vedanta as propounded by Swami Vivekananda, and interpreted by Gandhi, Golwalkar and Upadhyaya.
THE CONCEPT OF HINDUTVA: CAN IT BE FUNDAMENTALIST?
This unique feature of focusing on the message and its truth rather than the authority of the messenger brings Sanatana Dharma proximate to a science, and spiritual its logic akin to the scientific inquiry. In science also, a principle or a theory must stand or fall on its own merit and not on the authority of anyone. If Newton and Einstein are considered great scientists, it is because of the validity of their scientific theories.
In that sense, science is also apaurusheya. Gravitation and Relativity are eternal laws of nature and existed long before Newton and Einstein. These are cosmic laws that happened to be discovered by scientific sages Newton and Einstein. Their greatness lies in the fact that they discovered and revealed great scientific truths. But no one invokes Newton or Einstein as authority to ‘prove’ the truth of laws of nature. They stand on their own merit.
This is the greatest difference between Sanatana Dharma and the two religions of Christianity and Islam. These two major religions simply do not tolerate pluralism. In a document titled “Declaration of Lord Jesus”, the Vatican proclaims non-Christians to be in a “gravely deficient situation” and that even non-Catholic churches have “defects” because they do not acknowledge the primacy of the Pope.
This of course means that the Vatican refuses to acknowledge the spiritual right of the Hindus to their beliefs and practices! Christianity consigns non-Christians to hell, and the only way they can save themselves is by becoming Christians, preferably Catholics, by submitting to the Pope.
A Hindu thus even if he lives a life of virtue, is still consigned to hell by Christianity because he refuses to acknowledge Jesus as the only savior and the Pope as his representative on earth. The same is true of Islam; one must submit to Prophet Muhammad as the last, in effect the only prophet, in order to be saved. Belief in God means nothing without belief in Christ as the savior or Muhammad as the Last Prophet. Even one who believes in God but does not accept Jesus or Muhammad as intermediary is considered a non-believer and therefore a sinner or a Kafir. This is what makes both Christianity and Islam exclusive, what makes Hinduism pluralistic and tolerant, and therefore Hindutva inclusive.
Hinduism recognizes no intermediary as the exclusive messenger of God. In fact the Rigveda itself says: ‘ekam sat, vipra bahuda vadanti,’ meaning “cosmic truth is one, but the wise express it in many ways.” The contrast between exclusivism and pluralism becomes clear when we compare what Krishna and Jesus Christ said:
Krishna in the Bhagavadgita says: “All creatures great and small – I am equal to all. I hate none nor have I any favorites……He that worships other gods with devotion, worships me.”
“He that is not with me is against me,” says Jesus. So a devotee cannot directly know God, but can only pray to God go through the intermediary—who jealously guards his exclusive access to God. Those who try otherwise, even if a priest, is ex-communicated as was done in the case of Rev.Don Mario Muzzoleni, as he himself records in his recent book.
Hinduism is the exact opposite of this. Anyone can know God and no jealous intermediary can block his way. And the Hindu tradition has methods like yoga and meditation through a guru to facilitate one to reach God. Further, this spiritual freedom extends even to atheism. One can be an atheist (nastik) and still claim to be a Hindu. In addition, there is nothing to stop a Hindu from revering Jesus as the Son of God or Muhammad as a Prophet. In contrast, a Christian or a Muslim revering Rama or Krishna would be condemned to death as a Kafir or burnt on the stakes as Joan of Arc was, as a pagan possessed by the devil, or the enemy.
The objective of human life is not merely the pursuit of happiness and pleasure but more to experience a deep sense of fulfillment. All else e.g., position, purse, power, prestige, prize, profession etc., are at best, simply the means to that goal by which fulfillment be achieved and only by acquiring and cultivating the ingredients of Dharma. Fulfillment is essential because the human, unlike the animal, can reason logically deductively and inductively to analyse, theorise, and predict. When the human gets it wrong then he unable comprehend why. For this a moral compass becomes necessary.
Hinduism and its scriptures on yoga have a moral code. Twenty ethical guidelines called yamas and niyamas, “restraints and observances.” These “dos” and “don’ts” are found in the ancient Vedas, in other holy texts expounding the path of yoga. This moral code informs the theory of economic development.
The yamas and niyamas are a common-sense code recorded in the section of the Vedas, called Upanishads, namely the Shandilya and the Varuha. They are also found in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Gorakhnatha, the Tirumantiram of Tirumular and in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The yamas and niyamas have been preserved through the centuries as the foundation, the first and second stage, of the eight staged practice of yoga.
Sage Patanjali said “these yamas are not limited by class, country, time (past, present or future) or situation. Hence they are called the universal great vows.” The science of yama and niyama are the means to control the vitarkas, the cruel thoughts, which when acted upon result in injury to others, untruthfulness, hoarding, discontent, indolence or selfishness. For each vitarka possessed, you can create its opposite through yama and niyama, and make your life successful.
Hindu value system is a balance between hard skills (such as learning arts & science) and soft skills (such as morals).
So the message it clear. India and Sanatana Dharma exist for each other. Sanatana Dharma is defines nationalism and nationalism is Sanatana Dharma. Hindutva is the practical and political manifestation of Sanatana Dharma. It exists to defend Sanatana Dharma, while threatening no one. This was the Hindustan that Sri Aurobindo and many other sages had dreamt about. It should also be our dream and goal today.
Vedic civilization endured for many centuries while providing prosperity and justice to all. This happened because it was based on a balance between power and dharma achieved through a collaboration between the rulers and the sages (or kings and rishis) of the land. The two of course can be separated but this understanding of the Rishi and King alliance in the Rigveda can serve as a guide and inspiration to the future for India and the polity.
I want to emphasize that we use the terms ‘Brahmana’ and ‘Kshatriya’ to mean those who perform those functions, and not castes based on birth, as is held today. Krishna in the Bhagavadgita says: ‘caturvarnyam maya srishtam guna-karma vibhagashah’. This means: “The four classification (varna) are made by me based on character (guna) and duties (karma).” In due course, this became perverted as caste based on birth – which we hold as a serious corruption of dharma. To give an example by Krishna’s Gita, Dr.Ambedkar was a Brahmin because of his intellectual leadership regardless of his birth. But yet we call him of Scheduled Caste.
The Hindu idea of the dharmic king is also very different from a theocracy, or a rule by the church. The purohit never represented a church, institution or dogma. He functioned as an advisor, not as a censor or ‘thought police’. One of the functions of the purohit was to make sure that the king was fit, not only politically but also spiritually. King Bharata disinherited his own sons as unfit to rule. Sagara disinherited his own son Asamanjas and made his grandson Anshuman his heir, who went on to become a great ruler. The Vedic idea of a dharmic king had a democratic side to it. The purohit – as puro hita – represented the people’s interest. The rishis, therefore, gave the kings their privileges and enjoyments, but balanced these with duties and respect for the swages and the Dharma.
There are only skeletal remains of our glorious civilization that was once the most scientifically most advanced, and educated and wealthy. The present generation of Hindus therefore has to reconstruct this civilization and rebuild the cultural edifice from these skeletal remains. This is what we call as national renaissance.
Therefore, structurally, there is no scope for a Hindu to be a fundamentalist. For, fundamentalism by definition, requires an unquestioning commitment to a book or scripture in its pristine original version. For Hindus, there is no one scripture to revert to for theological purity since there are many scriptures which raise a plethora of beliefs that sustain faith, debates, and profound speculations on basic questions [e.g., Upanishads], such as on advaita, dvaita, astika and nastika. Questioning, debating and synthesizing are an integral part of Hindu theology viz., shashtrathas. Nor does Hinduism have just one prophet to revere, or prohibits holding any other view of religious experience. But most of all, Hindus are committed to the search for truth [including knowing what is truth], for which incessant debate is permitted. Fundamentalists on the other hand unquestioningly are committed to ‘the Book’. This again is why Hindutva can never become fundamentalist, which Muslims and Christians can.
CASUALITIES OF HINDUTVA BASED THEORY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
As Bruce Rich [1] aptly summarized it [on page 6] quoting Kautilya, otherwise known as Chanakya, that subject to dharma, priority be given to artha, i.e., the society’s and individual’s material wealth and well-being, with the subsequent aim of experiencing kama but ultimately striving to attain moksha.
n the late Seventies, I came under the influence of Deendayal Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism, and by Dattopant Thengadi’s commentaries on it, and therefore enlarged the concept of Swadeshi, to explicitly include the necessacity of formally harmonizing the goal of economic development with India’s ancient Hindu spiritual values.
In 1977, at the invitation Dr.Mahesh Mehta, I presented a paper in New York titled “Economic Perspectives in Integral Humanism”. This was later published in a volume [edited by Mahesh Mehta] titled: Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism (Edison, NJ, 1978).
By then I had also been influenced by the writings of the venerated sage, accomplished scholar, and Freedom Fighter, Sri Aurobindo who had long foreseen the debilitating effects of an one-dimensional materialist outlook on human society, and long before the consumerism of globalization that we see today.
In his 1918 publication titled The Renaissance of India, he advocated the harmonization of material pursuits with spiritual and moral values to create an integral person. The economic policy thus designed, he said, must be consistent with the spiritual values embedded in Sanatana Dharma.
It is this seminal idea that Deendayal Upadhyaya, a profound political thinker and activist, developed into his thesis of Integral Humanism [3]. To quote Deendayalji himself [3]: “Both the systems, capitalist and communist, have failed to take account of the Integral Man, his true and complete personality, and his aspirations. One[system] considers him as mere selfish being, lingering after money, having only one law, the law of fierce competition, in essence the law of the jungle; whereas the other has viewed him as a feeble lifeless cog in the whole scheme of things regulated by rigid rules, and incapable of any good unless directed. The centralization of power, economic and political, is implied in both. Both therefore result in dehumanization of man”[p.76]. He thus advocated that “swadeshi [self-reliance] and vikendrikaran [decentralization] as the two pillars of the economic policy suitable for our times.
Upadhyaya also dismissed democratic or the neo ‘Gandhian’ version of Socialism as failing to establish the importance of the human being [op.cit., p.74-75]. He said: “The needs and preferences of individuals have as much importance in the socialist system as in a prison manual”
This is in keeping with the thesis of Sri Aurobindo that class struggle as a concept embedded in all varieties of socialism, is anti-human, and instead, class harmony and conflict resolution are the basic instincts of the human. The Communist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat was nothing but “the dictatorship of the dictator of a dictatorial party”. The task of making these ideas as mainstream in the English-speaking elite and economists was looking near impossible.
I was however proved right and vindicated later in 1991, when the Soviet Union had unraveled in a spectacle of ‘Balkanisation’ of 16 separate countries. Most of the prominent Left academics also mercifully left India and migrated to the US. The search for Hindutva Principles then began with gusto because of an ongoing Ram temple national agitation. As Commerce Minister then, I presented the first blue prints for economic reform that was subsequently adopted and implemented without much opposition by the successor Narasimha Rao government [in which also I held a Cabinet rank post].
Today I can with some satisfaction assert that by propounding the concept of an integral outlook—namely that economic behaviour must blend with spiritual values to produce a happy and contented society the Hindutva theory of economic development represents for the nation a new and alternative direction in economics discourse.
We in India have yet to incorporate this direction in our official economic policy, but time will soon be at hand for us to do so when the people’s mandate is given for a new system of governance.
Mahatma Gandhi had said that in this world there is enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed. Agreeing with this dictum, we need to define what is the need and how greed can be curbed. This would cause three major casualties in the current neoclassical economic theory.
First, the objective of maximum profit in production theory and maximum utility in consumer behavior theory will have to be replaced. On Hindutva principles, one good replacement would be minimum cost of production subject to a lower bound for production, and minimum expenditure subject to a lower bound for the level of utility that must be attained.
Second, that while individual choices are transitive, collective majority determined choice is not necessarily transitive. Hence collective choice would require conflict resolution and game theory to ensure transitivity. This is the Hindutva principle of harmonization.
Third, that innovation would not be cognitive intelligence driven but by a collective determination of six intelligences—cognitive, emotional, social, moral, spiritual and environmental.
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II. STRUCTURE OF HINDUTVA BASED ECONOMIC POLICY
Economic policy is usually structured in a four dimensional framework, and may be thus defined by (i) Objectives (2) Priorities (3) Strategy (4) The Financial and Institutional Architecture.
Let us take the first dimension, of objectives of economic policy of four main ideologies of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism and Integral Humanism. Theoretically, communism takes maximum production for the state as the goal, while capitalism considers that the jungle concept of laissez faire based on survival of the fittest will be guided by an Invisible Hand to achieve maximum profit for producers and maximum consumption of material goods for the worker. Socialism aims at maximum welfare measured by state guarantees against risks of disease, death and unemployment to the individual citizen. That is the concept of welfare under socialism.
However all these goals are purely materialistic and derails the innate human development by encouraging the rat-race. Hindutva theory of economic development requires the human being’s development being viewed integrally and holistically (hence Upadhyaya’s term ‘Integral Humanism’). That means the blending of materialistic goals with spiritual imperatives as the primary goal of economic policy.
M.S. Golwalkar, the organizational genius behind the RSS– a fervent Hindutva cadre-based but volunteer organisation of more than 1 million– in his Bunch of Thoughts (page 5), states: “All attempts and experiments made so far were based on ‘isms’ stemming from materialism. However, we Hindus have a solution to offer”. He propounded that “the problem boils down to one of achieving a synthesis of national aspirations and world welfare”. Golwalker advocates that in this synthesis, “swalambana (or self-reliance) forms the backbone of a free and prosperous nation…” (p.313), and that at the very minimum, “atma poorti” (or self-sufficiency) in food production is a must for our national defence…”(p.316).
The difference between swalambana and atma poorti is this: the former requires that we must depend on our own resources, i.e., if there is a shortage of some commodity, we should earn enough foreign exchange by exports to buy it from abroad. That is, we should depend on our own resources. The latter concept of atma poorti requires that we produce in sufficient quantities in our own country so that we do not suffer in any shortage in any required commodity. That is, we should depend only on our own indigenous production.
Today obviously that is not the situation in India. We find that the nation has moved from food self-sufficiency (atma poorti) in the mid-seventies to dependence on imports from abroad. Farmers are committing suicides, and land, due to the blind use of chemicals and foreign seeds, are becoming of low productivity or going barren.
Golwalker’s warning thus was timely. India must re-orient the objective of our economic policy to re-gain self-sufficiency in food production, and must do it as much as is possible, by environment- friendly means such as organic farming, wind energy, and cooperative endeavour.
Upadhyaya, drawing on the seminal ideas of Golwalkar, thus brought out how the objective of economic policy is different from the objective in foreign ideologies of Capitalism, Socialism and Communism. He propounded therefore the concept of ‘Integral Man’ as assimilating and harmonizing the chaturvidha purushartha [four energies] which he elaborated as a concept in his Integral Humanism.
He added the concept of Chiti, the soul of the nation, which each nation must discover to decide the correct formulation of economic policy. The concept of Chiti of a nation is an original contribution of Upadhyaya, but a more articulate version is the concept of identity elaborated by the late Harvard Professor, Samuel Huntington in his book Who Are We ? .
Thus the economic perspectives in Integral Humanism, which is the Hindutva theory of economic development, are funda¬mentally different from those contained in Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. To quote Upadhyaya himself: “Both these systems, capitalist as well as communist, have failed to take account of the Integral Man, his true and complete personality and his aspirations. One considers him as mere selfish being lingering after money, having only one law, the law of fierce competition, in essence the law of the jungle; whereas the other has viewed him as a feeble lifeless cog in the whole scheme of things, regulated by rigid rules, and incapable of any good unless directed. The centralization of power, economic and political, is implied in both. Both, therefore, result in dehumanization of man.” [ op.cit., p.76]
Arguing that the so-called democratic socialism is no better, he stated [p.74-75]: “Socialism arose as a reaction to capitalism. But even socialism failed to establish the importance of the human being. The needs and preferences of individuals have as much importance in the socialist system as in a prison manual.”
Therefore Upadhyaya stated for his Integral Humanism that: [Ibid., p.76-77]: “Man, the highest creation of God, is losing his own identity. We must re-establish him in his rightful position, bring him the realization of his greatness, re-awaken his abilities and encourage him to exert for attaining divine heights of his latent personality. This is possible only through a decentralized economy.”
He went on to indicate: “Swadeshi and Decentralization are the two words which can briefly summarize the economic policy suitable for the present circumstances.” [p.78]
Upadhyaya’s stress on the need to think in integrated terms is now fashionably called “systems analysis or holistic view” in the West. He also emphasized the need to liberate man by recognizing “complementarities” in life, which in a narrower economic context is ‘external economies’ or social cost-benefit analysis. That is, the human is not on his own, or alone. His plea for rejection of class struggle and the need to think in terms of conflict resolution and “class harmony” is now much in vogue today in the West – which is getting increasingly disillusioned with capitalism.
If we are not to suffer the societal unhappiness and tensions of the West, then we have to break away from the path that we have chosen presently, viz., the Nehruvian materialistic socialistic path that has yet to be completely abandoned since economic reforms initiated since 1991 has been largely aborted since 2004. Partially is not enough for national good.
The alternative to materialistic capitalism is obviously not communism with Chinese characteristics as the remnants of Left in India camouflaged as liberals still argue, because even in China, there is a problem of “alienation” and “exploitation” as revealed recently from reports that have been received.
Deendayal Upadhyaya was also aware as early as in 1965, of the Communist degeneration. Logically for him, any system in which man does not receive primacy is bound to ultimately degenerate. Interest¬ingly Deendayalji quotes M.Djilas the author of The New Class to prove that in Communist countries, “a new class of bureau¬cratic exploiter has come into existence.”
Thus, by presenting his Integral Humanism, which I have expanded here as the Hindutva theory of economic development, Upadhyaya had placed before the world a new original alternative ideological framework.
To appreciate the fundamentally different structure of economic policy imbedded in the Hindutva theory, I have annexed in tabular form for ready reference, the various alternative competing ideologies in terms of its structural parameters of objectives, priorities, development strategy, resource mobilization, and institutional framework.
From the table we may note that the economic perspective of this theory is fundamentally different from the other ideologies. Capitalism and communism have similarities in matters of objectives and institutional framework. If cost of production is stabilized, then maximum profit and maximum production are identical.
Again, class struggle and annihilation and survival of fittest, are different only to the extent that communism envisages the survival of the “fittest” class, whereas capitalism expects the “fittest” individual to engage in fierce competition and annihilate the other rivals. Similarly, socialism has only a difference of degree with communism — on the extent of coercion and control, and not fundamentally. That is why communism is often referred to as “scientific” socialism, although there is nothing scientific about it.
Since one socialism differs from another socialism only in degrees, therefore there are unlimited varieties of socialism varying from those of Hitler’s Nazism, Uganda’s Idi Amin’s, Indira Gandhi’s, to democratic socialism of Sweden. This has only caused confusion — and gives ample scope to hypocrisy. Thus we can see some people in India arguing on one hand for nationalization and austerity, and at the same time encouraging foreign collaboration while living in mansions. Such inconsistencies can be recon¬ciled in some variety of socialism, interpreted at will.
From this table it is also apparent that except in Integral Humanism, humanity as a whole is subservient to these systems either explicitly or implicitly. Under communism, man explicitly subserves the system. Coercion, termed as dictatorship of the proletariat, is legitimized “in the interest of the State.” Even in the choice of a career, location of work, and personal advancement are explicitly or implicitly directed by the State. The person in such countries has no room for choice or even any option to opt out of such a system because his freedom to travel out of the country is also completely curbed.
In capitalism, an individual may have technical freedom for his “pursuit of happiness”, but the system fails to accomodate the varying capabilities and endowments of man. Since the law of the jungle, which is at the core of the survival of the fittest as the norm of capitalism, therefore some achieve great progress and advancement while others get trampled and disabled in what is called the “rat race”.
Since maximum profit is possible only in a newer and latest technology, man has to socially and personally adjust to the terrifying demands of technology, rather than technology adjusting to the integral needs of man. So we witness today in an advanced capitalist country such as USA, broken homes, high divorce rates and ruined family life which have become common because technology has run riot there in making these cruel demands. So man has to adjust to it, drop out or perish. Such a development becomes inevitable in a system in which the “shortage of manpower (is) the guiding factor in the design of machines.”
The recent craze in the West for our “Sadhus” and Hindu religion arises largely due to this search for individuality, to escape the mental tensions which this kind of technology demands from the people, and because their own religious pre¬achers are ill-equipped to cope with it. Thus we find highly accomplished and wealthy persons in the West increasingly turning to Hindutva such as yoga, meditation, Ayurveda and even as we recently saw in the case of Hollywood actress and her family convert to Hindu religion. As to why this fascination has developed is discussed in the new book by Phillip Goldberg [4].
Thus in capitalism, in the extreme under laissez faire, although man has fundamental freedoms, but because the development strategy is to give primacy to technology, therefore implicitly man becomes subservient to the system. In such societies individuality is thus expressed in other outlets as crime, free sex, drunkenness, and rebel dropout movements.
Just as survival of the fittest is dehumanizing, so is class struggle which is the foundation of Marxism. Under communism, classes are sought to be eliminated by the intensification of class struggle. Obviously such intensification will lead to hate and tension, consequently dehumanization. We saw the extent of such dehumanization in communist countries, In the USSR, for example, most prominent intellec¬tuals such as Alexander Solzenitsyn, Andrie Sakharov had suffered severe punishment from the state because they had questioned this dehumanizating process.
Once a decision is taken on the path of development, Upadhayaya would advocate incentives, and realistic taxation to encourage saving, and to discourage conspicuous consumption as the only practical way to mobilize resources. This is contained in postu¬late 7. Most ideologies are weak when it comes to specifying resource mobilization, perhaps, because spelling it out means annoying one section or another. Therefore, the topic is either handled in a general way or indirectly.
In Hindutva, a person must be encouraged to save, live simply and acquire wealth, but then it must be made socially prestigious to give away his wealth or manage it as a “trustee” for society. In western societies, the size of a person’s wealth is the most important determinant of his social, cultural and national prestige. So he is encouraged to part with a portion of his wealth by urging him to spend more and on himself! This results in a fierce competition on who can spend more on himself “keeping up with the Joneses” leading to great waste. In this behaviourial factor alone, Hindutva is distinctly different from the culture of the West.
Thus in Integral Humanism’s scheme of things, which is based on Hindutva, social and cultural influences are integrated into a man’s psyche, so that parting with his wealth for society becomes his own desire. In such a framework, there is no weakening of a person’s resolve to have his income or pursue its immediate enlargement. Philanthropy is an essentially pillar of democracy, and hence as Mahatma Gandhi had said, the rich must treats themselves as trustees of the nation’s wealth.
As a trustee, every individual also cares for the physical environment and pollution. He also treats animals humanely and where such animals are multiple assets to human civilization, such an integrally human person will even regard the animal as divine to ensure it is nurtured and respected. The cow is one such animal.
Traditional Hindu belief, for example, in the efficacy of the milk and products of the Indian breeds of cows and its sacred status has been divided by our Westernized elite that had led to the neglect of cow because it is held that milk from all breeds of cows and buffaloes is equally good; and to improve the present low milk yield of the Indian breeds of cows, cross breeding with European high yielding cows was recommended.
But recent researches suggest that that only the milk of Bos Indicus i.e. Indian breed of cows has the desired health promoting properties due to presence of Beta Casein A2 protein. European breeds of Cows are classified as Bos Taurus. Their milk contains the protein Beta Casein Al, which produces beta-casomorphin7, which makes this milk diabetogenic relative to A2 milk. Medical researches have also linked Al milk with statistically higher incidence of Cardiac situations. In Australia, New Zealand, Korea Certified, A2 milk is already commanding the premium price of four times the price of non-certified A1A1-A1A2 milk.
Concomitantly cross breeding between the two breeds of the cow is being discontinued in these countries. Strategies are already being worked out to convert all the cows with the farmers to revert to Bos Indicus breeds for beta casein A2 protein in their milk.
Hence, a new fervour is developing to create a cow-renaissance in the nation. As Bahadur Shah and Maharaja Ranjit Singh did, India should amend the Indian Penal Code to make cow slaughter as a capital offence as well as a ground for arrest under the National Security Act, to give meaning and urgency to the total ban on cow slaughter.
India has 150 million cows today, giving an average of less than 200 litres of milk per year. If they could be fed and looked after, then these divine animals can give an average of 11,000 litres of milk as the Israeli cows do. That could provide milk for the whole world.
The cow was elevated to the status of divinity in the Rg.Veda iself. In Book VI the Hymn XXVIII attributed to Rishi Bhardwaja, extols the virtue of the cow. In Atharva Veda (Book X, Hymn 10), the cow is formally designated as Vishnu, and “all that the Sun surveys.” This divinely quality of the cow has been affirmed by Kautilya in his Arthsastra (Chapter XXIX).
The Indian society has addressed the cow with the appellation of ‘mother’. “Tilam na dhaanyam, pashuvah na Gaavah” (Sesame is not a cereal, cow is not an animal). The Churning of the Sea episode brings to light the story of the creation of the cow! Five divine Kamadhenus (wish cows), viz, Nanda, Subhadra, Surabhi, Sushila, Bahula emerged in the churning.
In 2003, the National Commission on Cattle presided over by Justice G.M. Lodha, submitted its recommendations to the NDA Government. The Report (in 4 volumes) called for stringent laws to protect the cow and its progeny in the interest of India’s rural economy. This is a Constitutional requirement under Directive Principles of State Policy. Article 48 of the Constitution says: “The State shall lendeavour or organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milchand draught cattle”. In 1958, a 5-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court {(1959) SCR 629} upheld Article 48 and the consequent total ban on cow slaughter as a reasonable restriction on Fundamental Rights.
When India fought the First War of Independence in 1857, and Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’ was installed as Emperor by the Hindus in Delhi for a brief period, his Hindu Prime Minister, on the Emperor’s Proclamation made the killing of cow a capital offence. Earlier in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s kingdom, the only crime that had capital punishment was cow slaughter. For a Hindu, the very appearance of a cow evokes a sense of piety. It is serene by temperament and herbivorous by diet. Apart from milk, cow dung known for its anti-septic value, is still used as fuel in its dried caked form in most Indian villages. It is also used in compost manure and in the production of electricity through eco-friendly gobar-gas. Thus, Mahatma Gandhi had declared: “Cow protection is more important than even Swaraj”.
Even today, 75 per cent of Indians in villages derive the great benefits from cows and bullocks. Despite the compulsions of modernism, tractors are not suitable for the small Indian land holdings. In US, the land available to each person is around 14 acre; in India is around 0.70 acre. A tractor consumes diesel, creates pollution, does not live on grass nor produces dung for manure. Thus Albert Einstein, in a letter to Sir CV Raman, wrote “Tell the people of India that if they want to survive and show the world path to survive, then they should forget about tractor and preserve their ancient tradition {bullock} ploughing”.
III. POSTULATES OF HINDUTVA THEORY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
I need not dwell any further on the demerits of other ideologies, but consider in, concrete positive terms, what economic perspectives Hindutva offers. I would organize thesefirst in terms of basic economic postulates using modern theoretical terminology and jargon:
Postulate: 1 The economy is a sub – system of the society and not the sole guiding factor of social growth. Hence no economic theorems can be formulated without first recognising that life is an integral system, and therefore whatever economic laws are deduced or codified, they must add or at least not reduce the integral growth of man. The centrality of Man’s divine spark and his evolution is on the four Chaturvidha Purusharthas of dharma, artha, kama, moksha.
Postulate: 2 There is plurality, and diversity in life. Man is subject to several internal contradictions. The solution is to be based on the harmonization of this plurality, diversity, and internal contradictions. Thus laws governing this harmony will have to be discovered and codified, which we shall call Dharma. An economy based on Dharma will be a. regulated one, within which man’s personality and freedom will be given maximum scope, and be enlightened in the social interest.
Postulate: 3 There is a negative correlation between the State’s coercive power and Dharma. In the latter, the acceptance of regulation by man is voluntary because it blends with his individual and collective aspirations, whereas in the former regulations often conflict with aspirations and hence man is coerced to accept the regulation or suffer.
Postulate: 4 A society of persons of common origin, history or culture has a chiti (soulforce). It is this chiti which integrates and establishes harmony. Each nation has to search out its chiti and recognise it cons¬ciously. Consequently, each country must follow its own development strategy based on its chiti. If it tries to duplicate or replicate other nations, it will come to grief.
Postulate: 5 Based on the perception of chiti and recognition of dharma, an economic order can be evolved which rationalizes the mutual inter-balances of the life system, by seeking out the complementarities embedded in various conflicting interests in soci¬ety. Such an order will reveal the system of social choices based on an aggregation of individual values.
Postulate: 6 Any economy based on Integral Humanism, will take as given, besides the normal
democratic fundamental rights, the Right to Food, the Right to Work, Right to Education, and the Right to Free Medical Care as basic rights.
Postulate: 7 The right to property is not fundamental, but economic regulation will be based on the comple¬mentarity that exists in the conflicting goals of social ownership of property and the necessity for providing incentive to save and to produce.
Postulate: 8 Development of the economic system for the Hinduva based Indian society is led by innovation [Shodh], guided by the principles of maximum reliance on indigenous resources [Swadeshi], by decentralization of power that emanates from four sources of knowledge, weapons, wealth, and land [Vikendrikaran], and by structuring a modern social hierarchy based on a mutually exclusive ownership of these four sources of power [Adhunik Varna]. . Thus, while rejecting any birth-based rights or discrimination as inconsistent with Vedanta philosophy, and requiring that co-option of any individual, irrespective of birth into any of the four Varnas thus created, is on the basis of the adherence to the discipline it requires.
Postulate: 9 That at the apex of this social hierarchy emanating from the Vikendrikaran of power, viz., the Shodhkartas who lead the innovation capability of a nation, i.e., the intellectuals, researchers, teachers etc., the co-option condition would be accomplishment in cognitive, emotional, social, moral, and spiritual intelligences, and the teaching of the same to all those in society who want to learn it.
These nine postulates represent the foundation of the Integral Humanism, which is the acronym for Hindutva Principles of Economic Development. Most of the established and popular slogans of Indian society emanate from one or more (in combi¬nation) of these postulates. For example, the electrifying call of the Freedom Movement for Swadeshi, or self – reliance is embed¬ded in Postulate 4. The popular demand for decentralization finds its source in Postulate 3. The modern internationally fashionable slogan of environmental care and pollution control, follows out of Postulate 5. The widespread scientific consensus that opti¬mum solutions can only be found in “systems analysis” is contained explicitly in Postulate 1. Mahatma Gandhi’s advocacy of Trusteeship is implied in Postulates 2 & 7 read together. In other words, these seven postulates can singly or jointly conceptualize and synthesize the various goals which have stirred the soul of India (or its chiti).
With these postulates, we now need to derive the practical guidelines for our economic development. To do that, for example take postulate 5..
First, we shall have to list out the various complementarities, second, work out a calculus of costs and benefits to integrate these various complementarities; and third, frame decision rules on how to make social choices based on divergent individual values. So a “calculus” of incentives and compensation for effecting the complementarity is needed. Such a calculus is known to economists, but which for shortage of space, I shall not elaborate here. To do that here would make this paper unduly technical and mathematical.
It is not enough to have a calculus to aggregate the complementarities but also to frame decision rules on how to make consistent social choices based on individual values. It is not enough to say that in a democracy, social choices should be based on majority decision rule. The format for eliciting this majority needs to be spelt out, otherwise anamolies will result.
For example, suppose we divide society into three groups – A: Agriculturists, M: Manufacturers, S: Workers and those in services. Let us assume that the society consisting of A, M, and S has to rank the projects of X; Fertilizer plant; Y: Steel mill; and Z: Hospital, in order of preference. Thus agriculturists (A) will rank X most important of all, Y second most important, and Z as least important.
Therefore a choice is offered to them between X and Y, they would choose X. If a choice is between Y and Z, then Y will be chosen. Obviously if X is preferred to Y, and Y is preferred to Z, then X will of course be preferred to Z for consistency. In notation, I shall write: ‘→ ’ for ‘preferred to’
Assume: A : X→ Y→ Z
M : Y→ Z→ X
S : Z→ X→ Y
If a vote is taken on each pairs of projects, then we shall have:
X→Y A+S=2 M=1 X→Y i.e., choose X over Y
Y→Z A+M=2 S=1 Y→Z i.e., choose Y over Z
X→Z A=1 M+S=2 Z→X i.e., choose Z over X
This, in a majority decision without any format, a society may prefer with 2/3 majority, X over Y, Y over Z, and yet prefer over X ! To avoid such social inconsistency, we must ensure that A, M, and S consult each other and seek to find out their complementarity in choices, and then vote.
This is why creation of a basic consensus or harmony is so essential. Such a process is lengthy, cumbersome, and complicated. But this is the only way to optimize the nation’s energies. But the process can be simplified by decentralization of political and economic authority. It cannot be achieved in a centralized society.
Again if we take Postulate 8, we find that Hindutva principles is in sync with the search for innovation as the driver of growth. Modern economic growth also is powered overwhelming (over 65% of GDP) by new innovation and techniques (e.g., internet). More capital and labour contributes less than 35% of growth in GDP. We must hence by proper policy for the young, realize and harvest the demographic potential.
China is the second largest world leader in young population today. But the youth population in that country will start shrinking from 2015, i.e., less than a decade from now because of lagged effect of their ill-thought one-child policy. Japanese and European total populations are fast aging, and will start declining in absolute numbers from next year. The US will however hold a steady trend thanks to a liberal policy of immigration, especially from Mexico and Phillipines. But even then the US will have in a decade hence a demographic shortage in skilled personnel. All currently developed countries thus experience a demographic deficit. India will not. Our past alleged liability, by a fortuitous turn of fate, has (now become to be globally regarded as our potential asset.
THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF HINDUTVA
There remains a question whether this Hindutva-powered theory of economic development would be ultra vires within India of the current Constitution, since according to a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court, the Indian Constitution cannot be amended to alter the “Basic Structure” of democratic and secular principles. It is my considered view, that the Articles of the Constitution in its present shape, i.e., without amendment, are sufficient to incorporate the Hindutva tenets of economic development.
In fact, the basic structure of our Constitution is consistent with the tradition of Hindutva. Ancient Bharat or Hindustan was of janapadas and monarchs. But it was unitary in the sense that the concept of chakravartin [propounded by Chanakya], i.e., of a sarvocch pramukh or chakravarti prevailed in emergencies and war, while in normal times the regional kings always deferred to a national class of sages and sanyasis for making laws and policies, and acted according to their advice. This is equivalent to Art.356 of the Constitution.
In that fundamental sense, while Hindu India may have been a union of kingdoms, it was fundamentally not a monarchy but a Republic. In a monarchy, the King made the laws and rendered justice, as also made policy but in Hindu tradition the king acted much as the President does in today’s Indian Republic. The monarch acted always according the wishes and decisions of the court-based advisers, mostly prominent sages or Brahmins. Thus Hindu India was always a Republic, and except for the reign of Ashoka, never a monarchy. Nations thus make Constitutions but Constitutions do not constitute nations.
Because India’s Constitution today is unitary with subsidiary federal principles for regional aspirations, and the judiciary and courts are national, therefore the Rajendra Prasad-monitored and Ambedkar-steered Constitution—making, was a continuation of the Hindu tradition. This is the second pillar ofl constitutionality for us—the Hindutva essence ! These aspects were known to us as our Smritis. Therefore, it is appropriate here to explore ways by which Hindutva can be blend into the present Constitution more explicitly.
The framers of the Constitution of India also seemed to be aware of the Hindu heritage of India. A perusal of the final copy of the Constitution, which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, is most instructive in this regard. The Constitution includes twenty-two illustrations within its main body. These illustrations are listed at the beginning of the Constitution. The illustrations are apparently chosen to represent various periods and eras of Indian history. And have been selected to represent the ethos and values of India, which the Constitution seeks to achieve through its written words. The framers of the Constitution appear to have had no doubt in their minds that the Hindu heritage of this country is the ballast on which the spirit of the Constitution sails.
In a Supreme Court judgment [(1995) SCC 576], headed by Justice J.S.Verma held: “It is a fallacy and an error of law to proceed on the presumption that any reference to Hindutva or Hinduism in a speech makes it automatically a speech based on Hindu religion as opposed to other religions or that the use of the word Hindutva or Hinduism per se depicts an attitude hostile to all persons practicing any religion other than the Hindu religion… and it may well be that these words are used in a speech to emphasise the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian cultural ethos… There is no such presumption permissible in law contrary to the several Constitution Bench decisions”.
This approach is now the law of the land. A Supreme Court constitutional Bench headed by Justice P.D.Gajendragadkar, delivered a judgement [(1966) 3 SCR 242] wherein the Bench commented, “Unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one God; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion on creed”
Hindus instead have always believed in shashtrarthas [debate] to convert others to their point of view. Hence, even when Buddha challenged the ritualistic practices of Hindus or Mahavira and Nanak gave fresh perspectives on Hindu concepts there was never any persecution or denunciation of these great seers. Indeed these visionary seers are considered as having benefited Hinduism.
Thus, the single most important theme of Hinduism is the freedom of the spirit to question, assimilated, synthesis and then re-question is the process of inquiry in Hindu theology search and Just as science insists on freedom in exploring the physical world, Sanatana Dharma embodies freedom in the exploration of the spiritual realm. Hindutva thus has a spiritual scientific quality.
This Hindu-ness or Hindutva has also been our identifying characteristic, by which we have been recognized world-wide. The territory in which Hindus lived was known as Hindustan, i.e., a specific area of a collective of persons who are bonded together by this Hindu-ness. The Salience thus was given religious and spiritual significance by tirth yatra, kumbh mela, common festivals, and in the celebration of events in the Ithihasa, viz., Ramayana and Mahabharata. The religious minorities of Muslims and Christians also, according to recent DNA studies on Indians show, are descendants of Hindus i.e., through conversion and not of hordes from abroad as propagated by British historians and their tutees in India.
Hindu Rashtra thus defined, is our nation that is a modern Republic today, whose roots are also in the long unbroken Hindu civilisational history. Throughout this history we were a Hindu Republic and not a monarchy [a possible but weak exception being Asoka's reign]. In this ancient Republican concept, the king did not make policy or proclaim the law.
The intellectually accomplished (but not birth-based or determined) elite in the society, known as Brahmans, framed the laws and state policy and the King (known as Kshatriya) implemented it. Thus it was ordained.
“I deem that country as the most virtuous land which promotes the healthy and friendly combination of Brahma and Kshattra powers for an integrated upliftment of the society along with the divine powers of the Gods of mundane power of the material resources” -Yajurveda XX-25.
Hindutva hence, is our innate nature, while Hindustan is our territorial body, but Hindu Rashtra is our republican soul. Hindu panth [religion] is however a theology of faith. Even if an Indian has a different faith from a Hindu, he or she can still be possessed of Hindutva. Since India was 100 percent Hindu a millennium ago, the only way any significant group could have a different faith in today’s India is if they were converted from Hindu faith, or are of those whose ancestors were Hindus. Conversion of faith does not have to imply conversion to another culture or nature. Therefore, Hindutva can remain to be interred in a non-Hindu in India.
Hence, we can say that Hindustan is a country of Hindus and those others whose ancestors were Hindus. Acceptance with pride this reality by non-Hindus is to accept Hindutva. Hindu Rashtra is therefore a republican nation of Hindus and of those of other faiths who have Hindutva in them. This formulation settles the question of identity of the Hindustani or Indian.
Hindutva however has to be inculcated in our people from values and norms that emerge out of Hindu renaissance, that is, a Hindu theology which is shorn of the accumulated but unacceptable baggage of the past as also by co-opting new scientific discoveries, perceptions and by synergizing with modernity.
This is the only way that Hindustan can become a modern Hindu Rashtra, thus achieving independence after having recovered our freedom [in 1947]—as Parmacharya the Kanchi Pontiff had wanted.
Hindu-ness of outlook on life had been called Hindutva by Swami Vivekananda also and Hindutva’s political perspective was subsequently developed by Veer Savarkar. Deendayal Upadhaya briefly dealt with the concept of Hindutva when he wrote about chiti in his seminal work: Integral Humanism. The focus of all three profound thinkers is the multi-dimensional development of the Hindus as an individuals harmonizing material needs with spiritual advancement and which needs then have to be aggregated and synchronized to foster a united community on the collective concept of Hindutva.
Deendayal Upadhyaya outlined how to modernize the concepts of Hindutva as follows:
“We have to discard the status quo mentality and usher in a new era. Indeed our efforts at reconstruction need not be clouded by prejudice or disregard for all that is inherited from our past. On the other hand, there is no need to cling to past institutions and traditions which have outlived their utility”.
Thus, we should invite Muslims and Christians to join us Hindus on the basis of common ancestry or even seek their return to our fold as Hindus, in this grand endeavour as Hindustanis, on the substance of our shared and common ancestry. This is the essence of renaissance.
Hence, the essentiality of Hinduism, or alternatively the core quality of being a Hindu, which we may call as our Hindu-ness [i.e., Hindutva], is that theologically there is no danger of Hindutva, or the advocacy of the same, of ever degenerating into fundamentalism. In fact, so liberal, sophisticated, and focused on inward evolution is Hindu theology, that in a series of Supreme Court judgments, various Constitutional Benches found it hard even to define Hinduism and Hindutva as anything but a way of life, as we discover from an useful review of these judgments by Bal Apte MP [6].
The identity of Indian is thus Hindustani; a Hindu Rashtra i.e., a republican nation of Hindus and those others [non-Hindus] who proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. It is this acknowledgement that remains pending today. We can accept Muslims and Christians as part of our Hindustani family when they proudly acknowledge this fact of common ancestry and accept furthermore that change religion does not require change of culture.
Thus the cultural identity of India is undeniably, immutably, and obviously its Hindu-ness, that is Hindutva. A de-falsified Indian history would leave no one in doubt about it. In the current History textbooks, presently prescribed in our educational institutions however it is being clandestinely propagated that India has belonged culturally to those who forcibly occupied it.
Aptly summarized in the writings of Dr.Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar[7] then a mere graduate student studying for a Ph.D. in economics, had stated:
“It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of it’s culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity—the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end”.
Ambedkar wrote in this vein several such brilliant books, but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him and electorally humiliated him that in the end bitterness drove him to his sad end. We must honour him now as a great Rajrishi and co-opt his writings as part of the Hindutva literature.
That is, by a failure to usher a renaissance after 1947 India has lost her opportunity to cleanse the accumulated dirt and unwanted baggage of the past. The nation missed a chance to demolish the birth-based caste theory as Ambedkar had wanted to do. The battering that the concept of Hindu unity and Indian identity has taken at the hands of Nehruvian secularists since 1947 has led to the present social malaise. Thus, even though Hindus are above 80 percent of the population in India, they have not been able to understand their roots in, and obligations to, the Hindu society in a pluralistic democracy.
CONCLUSION
The main theme in this paper is that we need a new ideological framework for the theory of economic development that can unite the Indian nation. I believe that if every individual be motivated by equipping him with fundamental concepts of Hindutva, that requires adherence to principles enumerated in nine Postulates, empowered by adequate modern education and inculcation of scientific spirit of inquiry, then it is possible to bring about a national renaissance, and make the Indian people happily strive for global economic power.
Is there a contradiction between Hindutva and modernity? Modernization is the process of modernity. Modernity may be defined as a state of mind or mindset that entails a receptive attitude to change, transparency and accountability. The process of reaching that mindset is modernization.
Hindutva is the quality of being a Hindu, namely the Hinduness of a person. We have already identified beliefs which include the quality of being receptive to change as immutable law of change, imbedded in the concept of dharmachakra pravartana.
Hindu theology also extols transparency and accountability in the concepts of satyam, shivam and sundaram, and in the concept of karma which is nothing but the concept of accountability. The concept of yama and niyama define the code for Hindus which is an ingredient of Hindutva.
Hence, there is no conflict or contradiction between Hindutva and Modernization. What needs to be discussed is how to inculcate Hindutva so that we can be acquire a modern mindset and how the modernization process can be structured so that Hindutva can be imbibed in our nature through our educational and family system.
Modernization is embedded in mind development that takes place because of growing stock of knowledge. This knowledge has to be pursued with character that seeks to use knowledge to liberate and empower the human and not to enslave him. Thus religious faith has helped to develop the character necessary for imbibing knowledge.
In a nutshell then, the Hindutva Principles for Economic Development is founded on the following clear concepts: First is the necessacity to harmonise the Hindutva values as enshrined in Sanatana Dharma, with efficient pursuit of material progress. Second, is the ancient non-birth based decentralization of power embodied in the Varna system. Third, innovation–driven economic growth that is nurtured by all five dimensions of Intelligence. Fourth, an overriding national identity that is rooted in the ancient continuing civilizational history. Fifth, the Gandhian concept of trusteeship and philanthropy.
REFERENCES
[1] Bruce Rich: To Uphold the World: A Call for a New Global Ethic from Ancient India [Beacon Press, Boston, MA, USA, 2010]
[2] Subramanian Swamy: Indian Economic Planning—An Alternative Approach, Vikas, New Delhi, 1971
[3] Upadhyaya,Deendayal:Integral Humanism,Navchetan Press, Delhi, 1965
[4] Goldberg,Phillip: The American Veda, Routledge, New York, 2010
[5] Girija O.V:”A Critical study of Modern Indian Education” Ph.D Thesis University of Madras(2008)
[6] Apte, Bal: Supreme Court on Hindutva, India First Foundation, 2005.
[7] Ambedkar, B.R.:Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95]
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Befriending Sri Lanka Should Be India’s ConcernClick To OpenWithout UNSC backing by way of a Resolution, an UNHRC Resolution is not even worth the paper on which it is written. Hence the British PM’s threat at CHOGM to enforce human rights justice by external intervention is laughable
The world witnessed a historic event in May 2009, when in a final Sri Lankan military assault, the treacherous and murderous terrorist outfit Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was decimated. Its chief V Prabhakaran and his main associates were killed on May 19, 2009.
The Sri Lankan President successfully led his nation to bring the 29-year-long sordid affair of terrorism in the island to a decisive end by military means. Much has improved in Sri Lanka since the historic May 19, 2009. Coming to terms with Prabhakaran’s death, the rump LTTE, surviving in the island, laid down their arms. Subsequently many of them have been rehabilitated in the mainstream.
Today, Tamil families living in Sri Lanka no more fear the forced recruitment of their children by the LTTE. The extortion of funds from civilians to finance terrorist operations has also ended. Normalcy has returned in daily life after three decades.
The Sri Lankan people gave the President a huge mandate in the subsequently held general elections. With the war victor halo and the public mandate, it is clear that President Mahinda Rajapaksa is crucially positioned to take necessary and effective steps to solve the remaining pending and pressing issue — a healthy Sinhala-Tamil reconciliation — by finding a mutually acceptable way to heal the residual Sinhala-Tamil divide, and bring about a meeting of minds.
Decades of brutal insurgency have polarised communities and undermined institutions that guarantee civilian rights.
The immediate task before President Rajapaksa is to accomplish the rehabilitation of the remaining victims of the insurgency, to provide solace to the bereaved families whose kin were killed in the crossfire, the displaced and the injured. However, the more fundamental long-term challenge for Sri Lanka is to provide succour to those who are scarred mentally and emotionally by the brutalities and are uncertain about their place in Sri Lanka’s future.
The Sri Lankan Tamils are facing the delicate situation. The war conducted by the Sri Lankan armed forces against a sinister terrorist organisation had — due to the extremist Dravidian Movement in Tamil Nadu and the violent authoritarianism of the LTTE demanding that it be recognised as the sole representative of the Tamils — more or less polarised into a conflict between the Sinhala and the Tamil communities. This was confounded by the political miscalculations of some short-sighted leaders on both sides of the Palk Straits over the last three decades.
The LTTE, in fact, had led that polarisation, and Tamil leadership fell into the quicksand created by it. They were egged on across the Palk Strait by selfish leaders in Tamil Nadu, many of whom were being financed by the LTTE.
Today in 2013, more than four years later, we are faced with two conflicting imperatives --
First, there is a need for the Sri Lankan government to treat and co-opt the Tamils in national endeavours as a linguist (not ethnic) minority within the framework of a quasi-unitary Constitution.
Second, to heal the wounds of the mind and body of the Sri Lankans, who are victims of both the LTTE terrorism and the collateral human rights damage implicit in an anti-insurgency and anti-terrorist military action. Such damage has happened in many countries and even in a traditional war such the Allies attack on Germany and the atomic bombing of Japan during World War II.
The first imperative requires forgetting the past injustices, human rights violations, and horrors of armed conflict in order to move forward, while the second imperative needs remembering the past and bringing the offenders of gross human rights violations to book to serve as a deterrent for the future.
The contradiction in the goals implicit in the two issues is difficult to resolve in Sri Lanka. It was easier in the aftermath of a traditional war, like that in 1945, when the Nuremberg Trials took place, while reconstruction of Europe commenced simultaneously. In 1945, the winners and losers were identifiable as national identities, and victor-imposed solutions had the moral sanction against a defeated opponent led by a depraved leadership.
In Sri Lanka, the two issues are almost impossibly entangled because the human rights violations have been committed in a morally just military campaign of the Sri Lankan Sinhala-dominated army of a democratically elected Government against the most brutal and well-organised terrorism of the Tamil Tigers, and whose outfit was financed by a narcotics and money laundering international network.
In such a milieu, there are no clear winners and losers. Hence, a UN sponsored and enforced solution or a Nuremburg Trial-type resolution of the second issue is so counter-productive that it could lay the foundation for the emergence of the same problem that existed pre-2009 but with the possibility of deepening and festering the wounds of the insurgency war.
Hence, in my view, the UNHRC session not be devoted to ensuring the passage of a censuring and blistering Resolution which cannot be enforced in Sri Lanka, in view of the clear division in the veto-holding members of the UN Security Council.
Without UNSC backing by way of a Resolution, an UNHRC Resolution is not even worth the paper on which it is written. Hence the British PM’s threat at CHOGM to enforce human rights justice by external intervention is laughable.
Instead, I suggest the mover of the Resolution at next March UNHCR session — the United States, India and China as members — should engage Sri Lanka and persuade the leadership to secure a commitment for internationally prevalent and accepted devolution of the Sri Lankan Constitution. And the devolution should be consistent with the cultural ethos of the Sri Lankan mainstream.
While the concept of rigid federal autonomy, in my view, is alien to the Hindu-Buddhist cultural ethos of the majority of the people of the South Asian nations, plurality is the foundation of the culture of the sub-continent. This is why the SAARC nations have been by and large democratic and held Constitutional mandated periodic elections and peaceful transfer of power.
Hence, a future government of India should take the initiative, and put forward a Resolution before the UN Human Rights Commission, to begin bilateral discussion with Sri Lanka, and support back-channel efforts to work out a mutually acceptable Resolution.
Proposal for reconciliation
There are many proposals on the desk of the Sri Lankan President, so I see little point in giving another fully structured proposal. Rather I shall concentrate here on certain fundamentals of any viable and mutually acceptable reconciliation between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority, the core of which is devolution of powers under the Constitution:
First, no proposal for reconciliation can be pushed for acceptance in Sri Lanka from abroad, whether from India, or United Nations or from any European busybody. The proposal must emerge indigenously in Sri Lanka after full democratic consultations with the stakeholders, none of whom shall have a veto, and adopted by the Sri Lanka Parliament by way of a resolution or, if necessary, by a Constitutional amendment.
Second, the final reconciliation proposal should be based on the draft prepared by the Joint Select Committee of the Sri Lankan Parliament; so far the Tamil National Alliance has been boycotting. Now that a former Supreme Court Judge has been elected by a huge mandate as the CM of Northern Province, it should be possible for TNA to enter the Parliamentary process.
Third, the Sri Lanka’s Constitution may provide for provinces but yet remains Unitary in character in the sense that the Parliament will have power under the Constitution to dismiss and take over the administration of a State for specified contingencies such as a state being unable to enforce the relevant provisions of the Constitution.
Fourth, Sri Lanka by a Constitutional Amendment become a Union of States, with exclusive and concurrent power delegated under the Constitution for the Union and the States to exercise and accordingly, a Union, Concurrent, and State Lists will be incorporated in the Constitution enumerating the subjects under the three categories.
Fifth, the Chief Minister as Head of the state government should have primary responsibility to maintain public order through a Central Reserve Police and a contingent of the Armed Forces stationed in a special conclave in the state to intervene for the maintenance of public order whenever the President determines with ex-post facto approval of the Parliament that a situation has arisen that requires such an intervention.
Sixth, the Parliament enact an amendment to the Constitution to empower the Union to appoint Special District Magistrates whenever necessary and whose power will supersede the orders issued in exercise of State Magistrates power to maintain public order.
Agenda For India’s YouthClick To OpenDr Subramanian Swamy
ACCORDING to me, India is at the crossroads of destiny today: Either we take the path to break out of shackles acquired from a millennium of occupation of the nation by foreign religion-driven invaders, and cemented by Nehru and his successor-clones as Prime Ministers, or we continue tread on the road to further assimilate these shackles in our mindset and ultimately again surrender to our foreign tormentors.
What are these shackles? These are four dimensional:
(i) A bogus foreign imposed concept of Indian identity that has made youngsters get divided on artificial distinctions such as varna, jati, region and language. Hence on our Agenda we must shape and wield our youth into a united Virat Hindutva—imbibed Hindustani.
(ii) A reluctance to retaliate against terrorists, hijackers, brutalisers of the women, and other aggressors for fear of disturbing their personal status quo, or risk of losing what we have left. As a consequence we have become passive and docile instead of having virat gunas, of courage, sacrifice, and tenacity.
(iii) India has a huge youth population which make us a strong candidate for a demographic dividend. But our rudderless youth imbibed in Nehruism is increasingly fixated on material progress even at the cost of sacrificing spiritual values, leading youth to become greedy for cash to throw around, and to accumulate wealth by hook or crook, thus become corrupt, and soon degenerate.
(iv) A lack of an Indian language for a national idiom of communication, the lack of which is forcing us to communicate in a foreign language with each other across the states. This makes for low grade titillation and night club brawls as the currency of modernisation, and by peer pressure compelling thereby our youth to become westernised and immoral.
How then to unshackle ourselves and India become Virat Hindutva—imbibed Hindustan?
(1) Indian Identity
In today’s India as a nation state, youth are confused if India is a British imperialist by-product, or is an ancient nation of continuing unbroken civilisation. In other words, is the word ‘India’ used the same way that we today use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Europe’ to denote a sub-continental region of separate nations and cultures, or was India always a nation of one culture of a people with a common history?
The battle to settle the answer to this question is on today between the nationalist Indian and the internationalist liberal or how to be a nationalist Indian and keep at bay the internationalist liberal of Nehru’s vintage.
We are one indigenous people according the recent DNA genetic studies. Every nation thus must have an identity to be regarded distinct. The youth of India have to be inculcated with that outlook and thus accept Hindutva as the foundation of India’s culture.
Following Samuel Huntington’s contribution to definition of an identity of the two components: Salience, which is the importance that the citizen attributes to national identity over the other many sub-identities. Second, Substance, which is what the citizens think they have in common, and which distinguishes them from others of other countries.
Salience in India is imbedded in the concept of Chakravartin, which Chanakya had spelt out with great clarity, while Substance is what Hindus have always searched for and found unity in all our diversities in, thanks to our spiritual and religious leaders, especially most recently Swami Vivekananda and Sri Paramacharya of Kanchi Mutt.
And that substance in Indian identity invariably is the Hindu-ness of our people, which we now call as Hindutva. Thus our Agenda for Change must include the youth accepting that an Indian is one who is a Hindu or one who acknowledges that his ancestors are Hindus. This concept would include willing Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews. Thus, religion of any Indian can charge, but not the Hindu-ness or Hindutva.
We should invite Muslims and Christian youth to join us Hindus on the basis of this common ancestry or even their voluntary return to our fold as Hindus, in this grand endeavour as Hindustanis, on the substance of our shared and common ancestry.
For this we have to jettison our adherence to birth-based varna and jati which blocks re-coverts to Hinduism from assimilation in Hindu society.
Hindutva has to be inculcated in our people from values and norms that emerge out of a Hindu renaissance, that is, a Hindu theology which is shorn of the accumulated but unacceptable baggage of the past, as also by co-opting new scientific discoveries, perceptions and by synergising with modernity.
Deendayal Upadhyaya outlined how to modernise the concept of Hindutva as follows:
“We have to discard the status quo mentality and usher in a new era. Indeed our efforts at reconstruction need not be clouded by prejudice or disregard for all that is inherited from our past. On the other hand, there is no need to cling to past institutions and traditions which have outlived their utility”. This is the essence of renaissance.
This is the only way that Hindustan can become a modern Hindu Rashtra.
(2) Virat Hindutva
Patriotic Hindu youth should understand the present structural limitation in the theology of Hinduism, that is individualism, is mistakenly taken as apathy, but it is now required of us to find ways to rectify it for the national good.
It is worthy of notice that, recognising this limitation, Hindu spiritual leaders in the past have from time to time come forward to rectify it, whenever the need arose e.g., as the Sringeri Shankaracharya did by founding the Vijayanagaram dynasty or Swami Ramdas did with Shivaji and the Mahratta campaign. Such involvement of sanyasis is required even more urgently today.
In fact, this is the real substance of India as Swami Vivekananda had aptly put it when he stated that: “National union of India must be a gathering up of its scattered spiritual forces. A Nation in India must be a union of those whose hearts beat to the same spiritual tune…. The common ground that we have is our sacred traditions, our religion. That is the only common ground… upon that we shall have to build.”
(3) Demographic Dividend
When a country starts having economic development, population growth begins to accelerate not because families start having more babies but because infant mortality sharply declines and expectation of life rises—people start living longer. This means that the death rate of a developing country quickly declines and faster than the birth rate declines. This leads to an acceleration of population growth, and since 1951 till 2000 was regarded as a “problem”.
Today we no more refer to population growth as a problem but as a ‘demographic dividend’. Why? Because modern economic growth is not more about more capital and more employment, but about more innovation—news ways of combining capital and labour through new technology. For example the difference between the postman and email via internet.
India has the possibility of a demographic dividend because in the next several decades the average age of the country will be relatively young while the ratio of younger people to retired persons will be favourable. Young people from universities are the vehicles of new innovation.
India therefore must take steps such as educating its youth, fixing infrastructure and lowering corruption levels to bring this demographic dividend to fruition.
India thus has the potential for a demographic dividend, if its Agenda for Change calls for investment to educate its large young population for acquiring skills, in infrastructure, and works to stop corruption so that competition and merit can triumph over cronyism..
But there and pitfalls ahead: India’s developing story based on reaping the demographic dividend is now marred by some unintended developments, principally illegal immigration mostly Muslims from Bangladesh and the higher population growth of Muslims within the country.
Muslim society, if not ready to confront the orthodoxy of clerics, wallows in retrograde practices which retard economic growth. It is not poverty that is the reason for Muslim backwardness. From Tunisia to Indonesia, oil revenues have vastly reduced poverty to levels prevailing in developed countries.
Yet these countries have not produced any innovation worthy of note, or a world class university despite no shortage of funds, since they are cleric dominated nations. Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan at one stage inspired the thought that these nations would be trend setters in modernity, liberal tolerant thought, and gender equality. But one by one they have capitulated archaic practices, intolerance, and crude gender discrimination.
This is infecting Muslim majority areas such as Kashmir and Northern Kerala, and even in districts and town Panchayats. Hence, the illegal immigration of Muslims from Bangladesh and a fast growing Muslim population without it being willingly co-opted into the enlightened questioning Hindu ethos of India, would be a drag on economic progress of the nation, and later, become the enemy within. India’s most precious Demographic Dividend then would turn sour and divisive like in Lebanon.
That is why amongst Muslim youths in India it should be our Agenda for them to adopt the Hindutva ethos of a questioning mind and to proudly accept the truth that they are descendents of Hindus.
For all of us, national identity should be first priority and all other sub-identities of low priority.
(4) Developing Sanskrit as a Link Language
Sanskrit and the Devanagari script, in addition to the mother tongue and its script, will one day in the future, be Hindustan’s link language. In the Agenda for Change, the youth must be afforded the opportunity to learn Sanskrit as an alternative to Hindi.
All the main Indian languages have already a large percentage of their vocabulary common with Sanskrit. Even Tamil, which is considered as ancient, has 40 per cent words in common with Sanskrit. The scripts of all Indian languages are derived or evolved from Brahmi script. Hence, in the Agenda there has to be a commitment to re-throne Sanskrit with Devanagari script as virat Hindustan’s link language, and which is to be achieved through Hindi in a compulsory 3-language formula of mother tongue, Hindi, and English in all schools with a steady Sanskritisation of Hindi’s vocabulary till Sanskritised Hindi becomes indistinguishable from Sanskrit and thus replaced by the latter.
(The writer is former Union Law Minister)
Please refer the web link for original post:
http://organiser.org/Encyc/2013/4/6/Agenda-for-India’s-youth.aspx?NB=&lang=4&m1=m8&m2=m8.24&p1=&p2=&p3=&p4=&Page
The Italian Helicopter Sale ScamClick To OpenIn August 1999, just after the so-called Kargil military conflict, the Indian army made a strong plea for a high altitude flying helicopter, since the two combat areas where maximum Indian casualties took place was Tiger Hill at 18, 000 feet and Siachen at 17,500 feet. IAF Chetak and Cheetah could land at those heights but could carry only 4 combat troops per flight.
The IAF also pitched in for new generation helicopter to replace Mi-8 version for the VVIP ferrying, which was incapable of night flying and above 9000 feet.
With the parameters in mind, the IAF was authorized to issue a RFP, in March 2002. Four suppliers applied. After a preliminary analysis, three suppliers were selected for flight evaluation.
Agusta Westland’s A-101 failed to make the list after flight evaluation–because it could fly at 18, 000 feet and above. India’s swadeshi produced Dhruv helicopter could fly 20,000 feet, but was not certified at that time, and so it was never considered.
That left two—Russian Mi-172 and M/s Eurocopter EC-225. After Operational Requirements were considered, the Russian copter got disqualified. That left one choice—EC-225, which was therefore selected by the IAF. It was decided to order 8 helicopters.
Enter Brijesh Mishra. He, as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, called a meeting on November 19, 2003. He rebuked the IAF for not being cognizant of the needs of VVIP, who he observed rarely go flying above 14, 000 feet. He added that if even if they do, as Defence Minister George Fernandes used to, viz., fly to Siachen, then such VVIPs can used the Chetak.
Mishra made sure that IAF understood what he was saying by shooting off a letter dated December 22, 2003 to the IAF disapproving of the framing the Operational Requirements[ORs] without consulting him or SPG Chief on VVIP needs including the height of the helicopter entry door.
Exit NDA from union government and enter UPA. But Mishra’s letter was curiously honoured by the UPA government on the invisible informal direction, through the PMO, of Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
Therefore meetings were re-convened of the IAF, with PMO and SPG invited from March 2005, and the new ORs finalized in September 2006. The max heights were revised downwards to 4500 meters i.e., 14, 000 feet. It was also decided to order from 8 to 12 helicopters, with four specially decorated for VVIPs. A call for intent to buy was then issued. Six vendors responded.
Agusta Westland of Italy was back in the reckoning in the RFP along with five others. The formalities of testing and evaluation were gone through.
By February 2008, only two were left for choice: S-92 of M/s Sikorsky of US, and AW-101 of Agusta Westland of Italy[originally of UK, but which went bankrupt after selling helicopters to Pawan Hans in the 1980s. Italian government then bought it].
Field trials attended by the SPG as well disqualified the S-92 on the basis of a specially quality requirements [SQR]. Thereafter SPG Chief Wanchoo flew for two weeks visit to Italy in 2009 to give the Italians the good news—they had been selected thanks to the “rehanuma” Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
The deal worth over Euro 556 million was inked and sealed on February 8, 2010 after the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared a month earlier.
The nitty gritty of who gets what was worked out by Mr. Abhishek Verma, the son of the Hindi teacher of Ms. Sonia Gandhi. In gratitude for the Hindi taught, Ms. Sonia Gandhi agreed to become Patron of Verma Foundation AG, a benefactor of the deserving in the field of arms trade.
That bribes were paid in this deal is well established by the Italian government investigation. A 568 page Report prepared by Italian Special Police has been filed in the Milan Court which can be officially accessed by the CBI if they ask the Court with a Letter Rogatory[LR] and not by flying off for a jaunt as they have done lst week.
This Report accessed by me informally refers to a total bribe paid of Euro 51 million or about Rs 470 crores. Of this Rs 200 crores has been paid, reverentially referred to as “The Family”. The receivers are relatives of Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
The great facilitator in this deal, Mr Brijesh Mishra has a daughter, Jyotsna, married to an Italian belt manufacturer, who live in Italy. It needs to be found out she got anything. Brijesh Mishra in 2011 was decorated with Padma Vibhushan by our Rashtrapati.
What can we Indians do now? First, the CBI must be forced to take out a LR, and go to Milan to access the Italian documents. The government should set a SIT of CBI, ED, SFIO, RAW and IB under CBI chairmanship. Second, Abhishek Verma must be taken into custody for interrogation. Ex IAF Chief Tyagi must be also interrogated along with his relatives and intermediaries such as Aeromatrix. Third, Christian Michel must be traced through the Interpol and arrested for interrogation. Thereafter, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, and his two Italian aunties, Anushka and Nadia [on the duo’s next visit to India] should be questioned on whether they had met him before the deal was inked and sealed, in Dubai at Hyatt Hotel in the company of a Keralite liquor Dada. Fourth, one us Indian activists against corruption, such as Action Committee Against Corruption in India [ACACI] should go to the Supreme Court with a PIL and ask CBI to be monitored in its investigation. Fifth, the Defence Minister must invoke Article 23 of the Purchase Contract to suspend the purchases [only 4 of the 12 helicopters delivered so far] with a threat of cancellation if they don’t come clean on what happened. Finally, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh should tender a public apology for approving this corrupt deal in the CCS, knowing fully well what was happening.
Article also appeared in Organiser.
AGENDA On Flaws Of Juvenile Law In IndiaClick To OpenThe juvenile accused of the Delhi rape case is not a petty unlawful who could be reformed. Instead, he acted like a hardened criminal who knew what he was doing. Imagine if Ajmal Kasab was a minor: Would we have handled him with kid gloves?
Centuries ago, a great thinker called Plato had stated what has now become a real-life scenario in India, “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
On the unfortunate evening of December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old girl, a budding physiotherapy student, and her male friend were awaiting a bus at the Munirka bus stand around 9:30 pm. One bus conductor invited the two youngsters to board his private chartered bus on the pretext of dropping them to their destination. Once the girl and her friend boarded the bus, they realised that the conductor was a malicious person who, with four others, started making lewd advances. The male friend tried to intervene but was overpowered and beaten up with an iron rod. The girl kept fighting but was hit hard and fell down.
Thereafter, all heavens fell on the poor girl. On the floor of the speeding bus, the bus conductor and the five others, including the driver, took turns to rape her. But this was not enough for the bus conductor: He raped the victim twice, once while she was unconscious due to the trauma inflicted on her. Then, he inserted an iron rod into her private parts to wrench out her uterus as well as intestines. He explained to his associates that it was necessary for the destruction of evidence. After an hour of this inconceivable savagery, the victim and her male friend were stripped naked and thrown out of the bus into the freezing winter night.
After some delay the victim was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital where multiple surgeries were done to save her life. She fought bravely to live and in great pain conveyed her mother to “never let that conductor escape from law”. But the damage was so severe that even transplants of her organs were of no avail. On December 26, the victim, who displayed indomitable spirit to live against all odds and her determination to punish the guilty, was sent to a Singapore hospital in a comatose state to avail better treatment. But it was already too late by then as the girl breathed her last on December 29, leaving behind a nation whose conscience was totally shaken by the brutality of the incident. Everyone thought if this could happen in the most secured zone of the Capital at a time when Delhi was buzzing with people, then no one was safe in the country.
A WILY CRIMINAL
But the question remains: Why do we need to tell the account which happened one-and-a-half months ago? The story needs reiteration because it tells us that the bus conductor, who now claims to be a minor (below the age of 18 years), is not a petty unlawful who could be reformed; instead, he acted like a hardened criminal who knew what he was doing; he committed the act eagerly and tried to destroy the evidence of his heinous crime.
Also, the fact that the bus conductor acted swiftly to claim his ‘minor-hood’ shows his cold, demented mindset. He himself told the police that he was a juvenile and hence enjoyed special protection and waiver from criminal law. The police at the inspector level were stumped. A hidden hand moved swiftly to make the police “respect the law”, which is codified for delinquents under the age of 18 years in the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 and as amended in 2006 and 2010.
Had this 18-year cutoff not been there, the accused would have been prosecuted under Section 83 read with Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and received a minimum punishment of seven years of imprisonment. But the trouble with the laws these days is that criminals know their rights better than their wrongs.
The accused was a few months short of 18 years of age and if we all acquiesce, he would not be prosecuted under IPC but “reformed and rehabilitated” in a homely atmosphere under Sections 2(g), 15 and 16 of the Juvenile Justice Act (2000), under which after a maximum of three years he would be let free. Even Ajmal Kasab, involved in the dastardly 26/11 Mumbai attacks, would have been treated ‘humanely’ had he attacked India when he was a few years younger.
The inspiration for this Act came from the United Nations Convention on Rights of Child 1989, the United Nation Standard Minimum Rules for Administration of Juvenile Justice (Beijing Rules) 1985, and the United Nation Rules for Protection of Children Deprived of their Liberty 1990. India is a signatory of the above mentioned conventions and rules. The Preamble and the statement of objects and reasons of the Act state the same expressly and categorically.
This Act is a piece of “beneficial”, not criminal law, legislation and has been formulated to protect the innocence of our nation’s greatest asset — its children and youth. But in the current case, the extreme malice and depravity with which the accused has allegedly committed the crime shows that it is not the action of a juvenile delinquent who the law supposes to be of tender age and mind and not fully capable of being responsible for his actions, but rather these are actions of the most evil of men for whom this beneficial legislation clearly is not meant.
BETWEEN THE LINES
The question for the nation is: Should we allow the cold print of a law, the Juvenile Justice Act, framed for children committing crimes like pick-pocketing, bicycle theft, etc, be used unthinkingly to benefit, by exempting from prosecution under criminal law, those committing heinous crimes such as rape and murder, which cannot be committed unless the culprit knew what he was doing.
Also, the Act is not in complete consonance with these conventions and rules. The Beijing Rules 4(1) describes the concept of age of “Criminal Responsibility” as for which there are various factors which have to be considered in deciding when and at what age would a juvenile be held criminally responsible for his/her actions. These factors include but are not restricted to moral and psychological development, individual discernment and understanding, seriousness of the offence involved, record and previous history of the juvenile, etc. Furthermore, there is no blanket ban or prohibition in not holding the juvenile accused accountable for his offences.
Article 17.1(c) of the Beijing Rules state that even though endeavour is to be made to avoid incarceration in certain situations/offences, sentence of imprisonment has to be passed not only to punish the offender but also to protect public safety. The UNCRC 1989 and Beijing Rules 1985 recognised that neither there can be any hard-and-fast rule nor can there be a blanket protection solely on age criteria, and in appropriate cases criminal behaviour has to be punished with lengthy imprisonment.
In the United States, the Criminal Justice System recognises the concept of age of Criminal Responsibility and juveniles who are 14 years of age and above and guilty
of grievous crimes are held responsible for the same. They are tried under the Criminal Justice System like an adult. The law in England recognises the fact that knowledge and ability to reason are still developing, but the notion that a 10-year-old (the age of Criminal Responsibility) does not know right from wrong seems contrary to common sense in an age of compulsory education from the age of five, when children seem to develop faster both mentally and physically.
Thus, we need to read into the juvenile age limit of 18 years, the UN Convention ordained caveat, which India has already ratified in 1992 that this age limit is subject to the Beijing Rules 4(1) and ascertainment of the juvenile not being emotionally and intellectually mature to know what he or she was doing is necessary. This has already been incorporated in Rule 3 of the Juvenile Justice Act but surprisingly, because of the Law Ministry’s poor drafting, left out of the Act itself!
Hence, the UPA Government must issue an Ordinance to clarify that a juvenile accused as below 18 years is subject to satisfying Rule 4(1) of the Beijing Rules; otherwise, the juvenile accused will be tried under the IPC. The juvenile accused must be made an example of today to keep our faith in our legal system and to provide justice to the Delhi braveheart.
I conclude with the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “It would conduce to national progress and save a great deal of time and trouble if we cultivated the habit of never supporting the resolutions either by speaking or voting for them if we had not either the intention or the ability to carry them out.”
Parmacharya Sri Chandrashekhar Saraswati – God In Human FormClick To OpenParmacharya Sri Chandrashekhar Saraswati – God in human form
I have bowed before only one sanyasi in my life, and that is Sri Chandrasekhar Saraswathi, known to the world as the Parmacharya. It is not that I am arrogant or that I have no respect for sanyasis and sadhus. In fact I respect many sadhus in this country for their learning and social services. But my upbringing, first in an English convent school, and then ten years in USA had created a distance between me and traditional Hindu culture of bowing and prostrating before any elder, or anyone in saffron clothes. Therefore, I was the “modern” Indian, believer in science, and with little concern for spiritual diversions.
In fact till the age of 30, I had not even heard of a god like human being called Sri Chandrasekhar Saraswathi. It was a chance meeting with an Indian student at Harvard in his room in the university hostel, that I saw a picture of Parmacharya on top of this student’s TV set. I asked him: “Who is he? And why are you keeping his picture?” The student just avoided the question. I also forgot about it, except that Parmacharya shining smiling face in that photograph got etched in my memory. Six years later, as my Pan American Airways plane was about to land at Delhi airport during the Emergency, I saw that smiling Parmacharya’s face reappear before me for a brief second for no reason at that time. I was coming to Delhi surreptitiously to make my now famous appearance in Parliament and subsequent disappearance, while a MISA warrant was pending for my arrest in the Emergency. At that moment, as the plane landed, I resolved that whenever the Emergency gets over, I shall search for Parmacharya and meet him.
In 1977, after the Emergency was over, and the Janata Party in Power I went to Kanchipuram to see the Parmacharya. It was in sheer curiosity that I went. Some friends arranged for me to come before him. It was a hot June evening, and Parmacharya was sitting in a cottage, a few kilometers outside Kanchipuram. As soon as he saw me, he abruptly got up, and turned his back on me, and went inside the cottage. My friends who took me there were greatly embarrassed, and I was puzzled. Since no body including the other sadhus at that ashram had any idea what went wrong, I told my friends that we should leave, since Parmacharya was not interested in giving me “darshan”.
From the cottage, we walked a few hundred yards to where my car, by which I had come to the ashram, had been parked. Just as I was getting into the car, a priest came running to me. He said “Parmacharya wants to see you, so please come back”. Again puzzled, I walked back to the cottage.
Back at the cottage, a smiling Parmacharya was waiting for me. He first asked me in Tamil: “Do you understand Tamil?” I nodded. In those days, I hardly knew much Tamil, but I hoped the Parmacharya would speak in the simplest Tamil to make it easy to understand.
He then asked me another question: “Who gave you permission to leave my cottage?” The Tamil word he used for “permission” was of Sanskrit origin, which I immediately understood. So in my broken Tamil with a mixture of English words, I replied: “Since you turned your back on me and went inside the cottage, I thought you did not want to see me.” This reply greatly irritated the priest standing in attendance on the Parmacharya.
He said “You cannot talk like this to the Parmacharya”. But Parmacharya asked him to be silent, and then said that when he saw me, he was reminded of a press cutting he had been keeping in store inside the cottage and he had gone inside to fetch it.
“Here it is” he said. “Open it and read it. I opened the folded press cutting, and with some difficulty, I read the Tamil question answer piece printed in Dinamani Kadir, a magazine of Indian Express group. The press cutting had a photograph of me and below it the question asked by a reader: “Is the hero of the Emergency struggle, Dr.Subramanian Swamy a Tamilian?” And the answer given was, “Yes he is a native of Cholavandhan of Madurai District.”
Parmacharya asked me, “Is this your photograph, and is the answer given to the question correct?” I nodded. Then Parmacharya said: “Now you may go. But in the future when you come, you cannot leave till I give you permission to leave.” Everyone around me was naturally very impressed, that Parmacharya had given so much special attention especially since in those days, he often went on manuvvat (silence vow). As I left a sense of elation at the meeting with Parmacharya. I wanted to come back again. I could not understand why a “modern” person like me should want to see a sanyasi, but I felt the urge strongly.
A month later, the Tamilnadu Assembly elections were on, and I was passing Kanchipuram in the campaign rail. So I told the Janata Party workers to spare me some time to pay a visit to the Parmacharya.
When I again reached the same cottage, a priest was waiting for me. He said: “Parmacharya is expecting you.” I asked: “How is this possible, when I decided at that last minute to come, without appointment?” The priest replied. “That is a silly thing to ask. Parmacharya is divine. He knows every thing”.
Sure enough a radiant smiling Parmacharya received me. I thought that this time too, our meeting would last a few minutes, and after a few pleasantries, I can continue on my election campaign. But not so. Parmacharya spoke to me for 1-1 1/2 hours on all important subjects. He gave me guidelines on how to conduct myself in politics and what was necessary to protect the national interest of the country.
He told me that in politics, I should never bother about money or position, because both would follow me whenever an occasion demanded. But I should not be afraid to stand alone. He told me that all great persons of India were those who changed the thinking of the people from a particular set way of thought to a new way of thinking. “That is the permanent achievement for a politician, not merely becoming Minister or Prime Minister. Great persons, starting with Adi Shankara, to Mahatma Gandhi dared to stand alone and change the trend of people’s thought. But did either hold a government position?” he asked me. He said “If you dare to think out fresh solutions for current problems, without bothering about your popularity, and without caring for whether a government position comes to you or not, you will have my blessings.” When he said that I felt a strange sensation of happiness. I suddenly felt very strong.
During the period since my first meeting with the Parmacharya, I had thought a lot about him, heard his praise from so many people. From what I learnt and what I saw of him, I began to feel his divinity. There was no other human like him. If nothing else, he was one sadhu who did not bless Indira Gandhi during the Emergency when in the height of her power and at the height if the nation’s sycophancy, she came and prostrated before him. And yet when Indira Gandhi was down during the Janata rule, he received her and gave his blessings to her after she repented for the Emergency.
It is this thought, every time (that if I do something sincerely, and for what is for the good of the people) that Parmacharya’s blessings will be with me and see me through the interim period of public and media criticism and unpopularity, that has given me this courage that today even my enemies do not deny that I possess. In such endeavours, even though in the beginning when most thought that I was doomed, I came out it successful in the end because of his blessing.
In the next few instalments I shall, without drawing the Parmacharya’s name into the controversy, reveal many such initiatives that I took with his blessings. From 1977 to his day of Samadhi, I met the Parmacharya so many times and received his oral benediction and advice. But I never gave it publicity or got myself photographed. During his life time, I did not boast of my proximity to him either, although whenever I came to the Kanchi Mutt, always without appointment, he would see me. If he was asleep, he was awakened by his close helpers to whom he had obviously given instructions about me. There may not be another god in human form for another 100 years, but it was my honour to have known him and received his blessings. He may not be here today in human form, but because of what he had instructed me, I know and feel his is around.
Parmacharya – Part II
Subramanian Swamy
After wonderful discourse from Maha Periyawal Sri Chandrashekhara Saraswathi in 1977, I went to have Parmacharya’s darshan numerous times. Whenever I had a difficult question that I could not answer, I would go and ask him for guidance. He gave me audience also in abundance. I got to see him whenever I came to Kanchipuram, or at Belgam in Karnataka or at Satara in Maharashtra or wherever else he was. But I did not publicize these darshan sessions in the newspapers as some others were doing. This was greatly appreciated by the Mutt officials and pujaris.
When Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, defeating the Janata Party, I was upset, and wondered if Emergency would be declared again. So I went with a group of Janata workers to the Karnataka – Maharashtra border, where Sri Parmacharya was camping on his walking tour. When I reached him, he was sitting in a hut almost as if he was waiting for me. As soon as he saw me, he got up and started briskly walking to a nearby temple. I just stood there watching him. Soon he stopped walking and sent someone to ask me to come to him alone.
When I reached where he was standing, he said to me anticipating my question; “It is a good thing that Indira Gandhi has got an absolute majority. At this juncture, the country needs a stable government, and only Indira Gandhi is in a position to give that stability.” “But what if she declares another Emergency and tries to put us all in jail?” I asked.
To this question, Parmacharya only smiled and put his hand up in his known style of bestowing his blessings. I did not realize at that time, that Indira Gandhi had before elections, gone to Hubli in Karnataka where he was camping and prostrated before the Parmacharya. On her own, she had vowed to him and had said that if she came back to power, she will not repeat the mistakes of the past of declaring an Emergency. Then she asked for his blessings, which the Parmacharya had given by raising his hand and showing his palm.
As I was leaving, Parmacharya asked me if I could work to unite the opposition and include the communists in it. “Communists!” I asked in utter incredulity. I added: “The Soviet Union has just invaded Afghanistan (December 27, 1979), and are preparing to capture Pakistan, and then soon they will swallow India. How can we believe the Communists?”
“Not like that at all” said Parmacharya to me. He clearly gave me a hint that Communists will never be a danger to India. In fact he gave me a clear indication that in some years to come the Soviet Union will not be there at all. I just could not believe what I heard. But eleven years later, that is exactly what happened. The Soviet Union broke up in 1991 into 16 countries, a development no human being foresaw. Parmacharya was above human, a divine soul. He could see it. To this day I regret that I did not act on his advice because I spent nearly a decade (ten years 1980 -90) opposing Communism, little realizing that it was going to collapse of its own weight. I earned the Communists enmity for nothing. That is the only advice of Parmacharya I did not act on. On other occasions, I blindly followed whatever he told me. Of course, the golden rule with Parmacharya was that he would not on his own offer any advice, but when I asked him, he showed me the way. When my mind was made up on anything, I did not ask him what I should do. Of course if I did not have his blessings, I rarely succeeded.
In 1987 for example, I tried to land with some fisherman in the island of Katchathivu to assert the rights of fisherman under the Indo-Sri Lanka accord. MGR was Chief Minister then. He had me arrested in Madurai and put me up in Tamilnadu Hotel instead of Madurai jail. The then DGP, told me clearly that unless I give up the Katchathivu trip and agreed to return to Chennai, they would keep me under arrest. Those days I knew little criminal Law, so I agreed to return to Chennai not knowing my rights. After arriving in the city I drove to Kanchipuram and saw the Parmacharya. I told him of my humiliation and my inability to go to Katchathivu. Parmacharya smiled at me as if I was a child. He told me: “You go to Delhi and file a case in the Supreme Court against the arrest, and ask the court to direct the Tamilnadu government to make arrangements for you to go Katchathivu”.
So I flew that evening to Delhi. My wife is an advocate in the Supreme Court, so I asked her to draft my writ petition. She was shocked by my request, “The Supreme Court will laugh at you if you come directly on a question of arrest. You must first go before Magistrate in Madurai, then Sessions Court, the High Court, and then only to Supreme Court” she said.
I insisted that she draft the petition. So finally she said “As an advocate, I don’t want to look foolish in the Court. So I will draft your petition but the rest you do. I won’t associate with it.” But my blind faith in Parmacharya kept me going. With the petition filed, I appeared in the Court of the Chief Justice Venkataramiah. I arrived in the Court a few minutes before the Chief Justice took his seat. Many lawyers who recognized me met me to ask why I had come, they all laughed. All of them said: “Your Petition will not only be dismissed, but also the Chief Justice will pass remarks against your stupidity, and for wasting the time of the Supreme Court.”
When my Petition came up for hearing, a miracle happened. Chief Justice Venkataramaiah asked the Tamilnadu Counsel (then Kuldip Singh, who became a famous Judge himself later) why the Government had arrested me. Taken by surprise at the Petition not being dismissed, Kuldip Singh stammered. “Kuldip Singh went on to explain that a pro-LTTE mob was against me going to Katchathivu, and the LTTE had also issued a threat to finish me. Chief Justice Venkataramaiah then burst out at Kuldip Singh. He thundered “Are you fit to call yourself a democratic government? If mob wants to stop Dr.Swamy, you arrest the mob not Dr.Swamy.”
The Chief Justice then passed an order that the Government should make all the necessary arrangements for me to go to Katchathivu. No one in court could believe it. Some asked me: “Are you related to Venkataramaiah?” I am not only not related, but those days I did not even know him. But I had the blessings of Parmacharya, and I was doing as he asked me to.
That was the divine power of Parmacharya ; when he asked you to do anything, he also took measures to see that the right thing happened.
After the Supreme Court verdict, I met Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Parliament House. Kuldip Singh had already informed him of the court verdict. So he told me: “Why did you not speak to me first? I would have told MGR to allow you. In any case, when you plan to go to Katchathivu, the navy and air force will give you cover. But the fishing boat on which you travel has to be provided by you.”
On May 8, 1988, I landed on Katchathivu and planted the Janata Party’s saffron and green flag, and prayed at the St.Anthony Church there. As I approached the island, there were navel patrol boats on either side of my fishing vessel which I had taken on hire. Two air force planes were flying over me. I felt grand like a king. My salutations went to the Parmacharya. He made the impossible possible. From being arrested in Madurai to being royally escorted to Katchathivu, only Parmacharya could arrange.
Parmacharya- Part III
Subramanian Swamy
In 1981, I became successful in persuading the Chinese government in re-opening for Hindu pilgrims the route to Kailash and Manasarovar. After 3 years of persuading the Chinese, in April 1981 the Chinese strongman Deng Xiao Ping invited me to China to meet him. In that meeting, he told me that as a “special favour to me and my efforts and in recognition of my steady advocacy of improved Sino-Indian relations [ he used the term "lao peng yeou" 'meeting old friend' ] he was asking the officials to meet Indian counter parts to work out the arrangements for pilgrims to visit Kailash. Deng had in jest asked me “But you must go first”. He had said it jokingly, but I was keen to see Kailash and Manasarovar. So when I met Mrs. Gandhi in Delhi to tell her of my meeting with Deng, I told her that I will lead the first batch of pilgrims and that she should agree. She laughed and said “of course. I wish I could go too.”
The opening of Kailash and Manasarovar had been considered impossible by our Foreign Ministry officials. China is a communist country and Kailash and Manasarovar is in the most sensitive area of Tibet. Therefore how could China allow Indians, even if as Pilgrims, to walk into Tibet? But the impossible happened because throughout the three years of talks with the Chinese, Parmacharya not only gave his blessings to me for this venture but encouraged me. “We must be friends with China and Israel” he would keep telling me whenever I came to him for darshan and anugraha (blessings).
When the Kailash and Manasarovar re-opening was announced, the first batch consisting of 20 pilgrims was slated to go in the end of August. That meant in 30 days of walking from the end of August to late September. By the time, we return, it would be end of September. At those heights in the Himalayas, September meant snow and ice cold temperatures, and that we would have to walk! Foreign ministry officials told me that since the route had not been in use for nearly 25 years, it would be a rough walk. We would have to clear bushes on the way, and perhaps encounter animals and snakes!
To make matters worse, Inderjit Gupta, then a CPI Lok Sabha MP, and good friend of many years, asked my wife to prevent me from going on this trip since I would not return. “It requires mountaineers to trek this route, not people like us” he told her. Others told me that I should think of my family (of two daughters then age 11 and 8) and not venture on such foolishness. In fact one BJP MP, perhaps more out of jealousy than concern, told me that it is punya (blessing) to die on the route to Kailash. If that were so, I wondered, why not a single BJP or RSS leader has ever gone on a pilgrimage to Kailash? Perhaps because there are no Muslims there, nor a Masjid to demolish! BJP is anti-Muslim but not pro -Hindu, so Kailash means nothing of political value to them.
But the net result of all this was that a scare was created in my family and social circles. Many urged me to forget going to Kailash. I had done my duty, they said, in getting the route opened, but it is not necessary to go there. My daughters reminded me of my promise made the previous year that I would be with them on my birthday, which fell on September 15th. The previous year I had to be away to address a meeting in Bihar. If I went to Kailash I would again not be in Delhi on my birthday. This troubled me.
So anguished and confused by all this I flew to Bangalore, and drove down to where Parmacharya was camping. He was reading a book when I saw him. He put down his book and glasses, and asked me what brought me to him. “Kailash and Manasarovar route has been opened with your blessings. I have been asked by our Government to lead the first batch of pilgrims. But all my colleagues in Parliament are scaring me with stories of what can go wrong with me on this hazardous trip”. Parmacharya said in a comforting voice “Nothing will happen. You go and come. The opening of Kailash route is a great achievement for our country”
“I have only regret. That I will not be able to be with my daughters in Delhi on my birthday” I added. “When is your birthday?” He asked. “September 15th. But the journey back will not be completed before September 30th.” Parmacharya only smiled. He puts his palm in blessing and merely said: “you go and come”. I left on September 1st on my journey.
My journey to Manasarovar lake and then for a darshan of Kailash went very smoothly thanks to Parmacharya’s blessings. I returned to the Tibet-India border on September 13th, and camped that night at Kalapani, a military cantonment on the Indian side. That night, faraway from Delhi on the Himalayas, I could not help thinking of my daughters and my promise to them to be with them on my birthday. It would be another 15 days of walking before I could reach the plains and then Delhi.
Next morning at breakfast, the camp commandant came to me with a telex from Delhi. It said that on Prime Minister’s instruction, an air force helicopter would be coming that morning at 10 AM from Bareilly to pick me up and take me back to Bareilly, from where I will be taken by car to Delhi. I was thrilled. This meant that I would be in Delhi on September 14th evening, and be with my family on the next day for my birthday! What a miracle!
I was that time just an MP, and that too from the opposition. And yet this privilege was extended to me. The only reason for this was the blessing of Parmacharya. With this blessing, any miracle could happen. I was honoured to witness it. I prayed to Lord Shiva and Durga at the Kalapani temple at 18,000 feet above sea level, with snow all around. I said a special thanks to Parmacharya. When I returned to Delhi, and thereafter went to see Parmacharya, I explained all that happened. He merely smiled.
In 1986, I was passing Kanchipuram, so I made a detour and went to the Kanchi Mutt. Parmacharya was there giving Darshan to hundreds of people. I also stood in the crowd. But the pujaris saw me and whispered to the Parmacharya that I had come. So he asked me to come close and sit before him. After the crowds had left, he looked at me as if to ask me why I had come. The Babri Masjid issue then was hotting up, and so I said Parmacharya that I was planning to visit Ayodhya to study the situation. I asked the Mahaswami what stand should I take.
Parmacharya looked at me very sternly and said “you are a politician. Why do you have to take a stand on a religious issue? You stay out of it. You spend your energies on improving our economy or our relations with China and Israel.” I was taken aback by his stern remarks. But I persisted and said “At least the Government will have to take a stand”. He said: “Let the government make it possible for the religious leaders of both religions to come together and work out a compromise. But you stay out of it.
I then told Parmacharya that my friend, and leading Babri Masjid agitator Mr.Syed Shahabuddin wanted to see his holiness, and whether I could do bring him next time. The pujaris around the Parmacharya protested. They said that Shahabuddin was anti-Hindu, and he should not be allowed inside the Mutt.
The Parmacharya waved away their objections. He gave me permission to bring him to the Mutt. Then he said to the Pujaris. “Only Subramanian Swamy knows the art of befriending Americans, Chinese and Israelis at the same time. He can also be a friend of Shahabuddin.” Then turning to me, he said: “Keep this quality. Never be afraid of making friends with anyone.” I have followed this advice despite heavy criticism from the media. I have made friends with Morarji, Chandrasekhar and Indira Gandhi after terrific quarrels with them. Sometimes one needs to quarrel to come to an understanding of each other’s strength. Generally, I love to oppose those in authority because for a strong democracy, opposition is necessary. But Indian society being feudal, those in power underestimate who oppose them. And in my case, people in power have always underestimated me because they think I am alone. But they don’t realize I have friends everywhere, in all political parties and in all important countries. That is why I have won all my battles against Government. Because I have never betrayed anyone, these friendships remain for a long time. In 1990, I could have betrayed Chandrasekhar and fallen for temptation offered by Rajiv Gandhi to become PM. But when I discouraged this idea, Rajv Gandhi’s esteem of me and trust in me went sky high. Because of the trust I develop my friends from all over the world confide in me. People ask me often “How do you get so much accurate information”. This is the answer. I have secret friends and open enemies. Most other people have the opposite: secret enemies and open friends.
Thus Shahabuddin trusted me to bring him to the Mutt with honour. In early 1987, I brought Shahabuddin to see Parmacharya.
Parmacharya -Part IV
Subramanian Swamy
I brought the fierce Muslims-rights agitator Mr.Syed Shahabuddin to Kanchipuram to have a darshan of the Parmacharya. Shahabuddin had told me many a times that he had a urge to see the Parmacharya. He never explained why. Nor I asked him why since I assumed everyone would like to see a living God on earth.
Although Shahabuddin is a strict Muslim, he accepted two fundamental points defining a patriotic Indian Muslim. The first point, a patriot would accept that though he is a Muslim, his ancestors are Hindus since 99.9 percent of Muslims of India are descendents of converts. Muslims who think that their ancestors are Persians or Arabs or from Tajikistan, can never be patriotic Indians, because they live in a myth. They are psychologically uprooted from India. The second point is that although the present day Indian culture is composite, in which all communities and religions have contributed, the core of this culture is Hindu in character and substance. Hence even if one changes one religion, it need not lead to a change of culture. Religion is personal, culture belongs to the nation.
Shahabuddin had accepted the two points and that is why I defended him against the charge that he was communal. But the RSS [which is not pro-Hindu, but merely anti-Muslim], saw in Shahabuddin a convenient hate figure, and dubbed him a “second Jinnah”. Naturally bigots of the RSS protested when they came to know that I was bringing Shahabuddin to meet Parmacharya. When we arrived at the Kanchi Mutt, the Mutt-Pujaris told me that Parmacharya had wanted me to bring Shahabuddin right into the inner part of the Mutt where he was staying. We were made to sit before a shut door, and told Parmacharya would come soon.
The door was opened by Parmacharya himself. When Shahabuddin saw him, he started to weep, with tears rolling down his cheeks. He folded his hands in a ‘namaste’ and said “Oh my Lord Parmacharya, please save my community and save the nation”. I was taken aback [Much later when we were back on our way to Chennai, I asked Shahabuddin why he broke down , before the Parmacharya. He simply said that he could not control himself when he saw the radiant face of the Parmacharya.]
Parmacharya asked Shahabuddin what troubled him. He said “The Babri Masjid has been shut to Muslims by a Court Order and I pray to you to help us open it to us”. [At that time, 1988 there was no talk of its demolition by RSS]. Parmacharya told him that Hindus and Muslims should work out a compromise. He suggested a number of proposals, such as joint prayers, or Hindu Prayers on Monday-Wednesday-Friday and Muslims Namaz on other days with Sunday being denied to both. All these compromise proposals, Shahabuddin said, would be unacceptable to devout Muslims.
I added in my proposal. Koran prohibits Namaz in constructions built by demolishing other religions holy places : therefore if it can be proved that a temple was demolished by Babar’s men to build the mosque in Ayodhya, and then the Muslims themselves should agree to the Babri Masjid demolition.
Parmacharya looked at me with a benign smile. He had earlier warned me to stay away from this issue, instead asked me to concentrate on political and economic issues. But Shahabuddin quickly agreed that Koran prohibited reading namaz in such places, but contested that Babri Masjid was built on a temple site. He said he had construction blue prints to prove his point. Two hours of discussion had taken place, and therefore the Mutt pujaris were getting impatient. A big crowd was waiting for the Parmacharya’s darshan. So Parmacharya closed his discussion by asking Shahabuddin to bring his blue prints and come again. Surprisingly, again Shahabuddin prostrated before him, and then we both left.
Shahabuddin never came back again. But two years later, I became the Law Minister. I confronted the Muslim organizations with a proposal that the Government would appoint a Supreme Court Judge in a one man Commission of inquiry to determine whether or not there was a temple before the Babri Masjid was built. And if the conclusion was that there was a temple, then Muslims must agree to give up the Masjid. If not, then the Hindus would vacate the masjid.
Surprisingly, while all the Muslim organisations agreed to my proposal, the fanatic Hindu organizations refused to agree. Our government did not last long enough for me to go ahead with the Commission of Inquiry anyway disregarding the fanatics. Nor could I persuade the successor Narasimha Rao Government to follow my proposal. It would have amicably resolved the issue. But alas, Babri Masjid was finally demolished in bitterness.
Perhaps Parmacharya was telling me not to get involved from the beginning because he foresaw that it would be demolished as a part of destiny. If Babar’s violence was undone 450 years later, then RSS violence on December 6, 1992 could also be undone someday, but I hope, by understanding and love. Otherwise the cycle of violence will continue in the country, with the Hindus and Muslims not reconciled to each other.
In April 1990, I received an urgent summons from Parmacharya to come to Kanchipuram. So I rushed. When I saw him, he merely smiled, put up his palm in blessing and then waved me on to go away! I was puzzled. Why was I asked to rush to the Kanchi Mutt from Delhi, merely to be sent away? The Mutt pujaris told me that on Parmacharya’s instructions the Mutt had decided that I was to share the dais with Rajiv Gandhi on the occasion of Parmacharya’s 97th birthday in May that year, to be celebrated in Kanchipuram. It turned out that no other politician except Rajiv and myself were to share the platform. It was a great honour, not only that I would be with Rajiv, but more that it was on Parmacharya’s instructions. But why did he so honour me?
That May meeting turned out to be crucial for me, because it created a rapport with Rajiv which I did not have before. Rajiv too had great regard for the Parmacharya and therefore his selection of me to pair with Rajiv, meant for Rajiv that I could be trusted. From that date onwards, Rajiv trusted me blindly with no reservations.
Parmacharya thus not only altered my outlook, but he also ensured from time to time that I came on the right path. Once for example, in 1992, the two junior swamis, Jayendra Saraswati and Vijendra Saraswati had asked me to collect some funds for a Ghatikasthanam library that they wanted to build in honour of the Parmacharya. They even printed letter heads to make me the “Patron” of the project, but insisted on a donation.
With great difficulty, I collected Rs.15 lakhs and gave it to them as Janata Party’s gift. When Parmacharya came to know about it, he sent me a query: “Why should you donate to the Mutt when you are yourself begging for funds from the people to run your party? Please do not do it in the future”. Since then I have stopped giving donations to any cause. Beggars cannot donate.
Naturally, when Parmacharya attained samadhi in 1994, I felt like an orphan in public life. HE was always there when I had a dilemma to set things right. But I had the God’s grace to see him, a living divinity, for 17 years. Many of his opinions and directions I can never reveal, because he said them knowing fully well that I will keep it to myself. But by guided and listening to him, I have become so strong mentally as a person, that I feel that no one can cow me down or demoralize me no matter how bad a situation I am in.
Parmacharya taught me that the easiest way to finish an enemy is to make him a friend. He had urged me not to hate the sinner, but the sin. Of course, sometimes the easiest way is not available because of ego clash, and so the sinner has to fought to be made to realize the sin. But one has to keep in mind that there is a God’s scheme, redemption for the sinner what we call as prayaschitam. The ultimate revenge belongs to the divine. As human beings we have no right to revenge; only self-defence and righteous struggle. As Hindus, this is easy to understand because we believe in the law of Karma. People who see me fighting fiercely with Indira Gandhi, Chandrasekhar and Jayalalitha and then working with them get confused or even disgusted at what they perceive as my opportunism. I do not make up with those I quarrel with at height of their power, but when they cease to be in office. The reason for this flexibility in making friends out of enemies of yester year is the advice that Parmacharya once gave me in 1977: “India is plagued by divisions, and the egos of our rajas had played havoc with our national security, making it easy for foreigners to conquer us. Therefore, never hesitate to create unity, without of course compromising on the fundamental concepts of morality. India has never forgotten those who unite the nation.” I have defined three such fundamental moral principles.
These three fundamental concepts of morality are
I shall not speak lie, even if I withhold truth.
I shall practice what I shall preach.
What I do will be transparent for all to see. I consider myself therefore free to plan my political strategy as I see best, without regard to criticism from my political opponents, but within these three moral limits.
Our Enemy : TerrorismClick To OpenOur enemy is terrorism…
The Killer Instinct & My EnemiesClick To OpenI am quite embarrassed when perfect strangers accost me nowadays in air flights to ask me who is my “next target” for political annihilation; or when my friends meet me in the Central Hall of Parliament to inquire if I could set my “gun sights” on someone they do not like, as if I am some kind of Clint Eastwood who single-handedly can destroy someone, or at least his reputation.
I am embarrassed because I was brought up instead to be a soft intellectual, who having secured a Ph.D in Economics at Harvard, became a teacher in the same world famous university for ten years, and who went to do research jointly with two of the world’s most famous economists Nobel Laureates Paul A Samuelson and Simon Kuznets. I was so well-regarded that- when I was defeated in my third-term Lok Sabha bid from Bombay- Harvard University , despite my absence from academics for 15 years – promptly re-invited me to come back to teach (which I did for two years, 1985-86).
Now this intellectual attainment does not square up with the Hollywood Clint Eastwood image, nor am I happy to have that image. I am in politics for certain well defined ideology, which ideology happily has been internationalized today by all the major political parties. For the last 25 years I have advocated that the Indian Government adopt a market economy, rectify the pro-USSR tilt and balance out the foreign policy to befriend USA, Israel and China, and to motivate a cultural renaissance especially in the Hindu community.
But media appetite is not for such heavy ideological matters. Thus, for no fault of mine, my quarrels and political blood-spilling have received much more media attention. And ever since I campaigned and was successful in dethroning Jayalalitha, at the heels of demolishing Ramakrishna Hegde, these unwanted enquires about my “next target” have become legion.
I have as a philosophy never ‘targeted’ anyone. I have only defended myself against harassment, sidelining or attempted political elimination. But my defence has been vigorous, systematic, and effective to the point that the attacker has been either immobilized, or discredited, or politically disabled. In turn, this had tended to create the media impression that I am “making trouble”, when in fact as the prey I have not simply taken things lying down. But I have never made the first ‘strike’ against anyone.
As a further norm of my philosophy, I have never sought to demolish any honest critic; nor it is my duty to expose to destroy any and every corrupt person. It is the duty of the government and of the people to elect such a government, to prosecute all corrupt persons without fear or favour. As a public person, I can effectively fight corruption only with the state apparatus. Without government office, an individual can do only so much. Therefore one has to be selective. Obviously those corrupt persons who seek to harm me are the obvious candidates for selection.
It has been my lot throughout my life to be confronted and to confront the corrupt and powerful. As a student for my Masters degree in the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Calcutta, the then Chairman, P.C.Mahalanobis took a dislike to me because he and my father were rivals in the government statistical organisation. Mahalanobis was a corrupt leftist. I had come to the ISI as an innocent student with a brilliant first class B.A. Honours degree in mathematics. But Mahalanobis’ dislike of me filtered down to the professors. For no reason except to please him, they began failing me in every subject. A ruined career stared me in the face. So I decided to retaliate ( a foolish resolve on first thought, since I was then a 19 year old student facing the darling of the Left, USSR and Nehru: P.C.Mahalanobis). But I dropped everything, parked myself in the library, and read whatever Mahalanobis had written as a scholar. I found that his celebrated Second Five Year Plan model, the so-called Mahalanobis model, was actually stolen from M.A.Feldman, an obscure Soviet economist of the 1930s. This discovery I could not use against Mahalanobis however, because neither the USSR nor the then docile Indian press would take notice. But I discovered that Mahalanobis’s magnum opus something called ‘Fractile Analysis’, had recently been published in a scholarly international journal. That research was, I found worthless when scrutinized under the microscope of modern mathematics. It was, literally, well-known earlier research re-hashed. Mathematics laid bare the plagiarism. Mahalanobis was too big to be challenged by other Indian scholars. But I had nothing to lose.
Naturally when I wrote out my critique and set it to the journal, it was hot stuff. The journal published it, and asked Mahalanobis for a rejoinder. He had none. His reputation abroad was therefore in tatters. He never recovered from it. A 19 year old writing out complex mathematical equations was a novelty for Harvard’s Economics Department to whose notice the journal article came. They offered me a scholarship for a Ph.D Course. My ruined career prospects did a 180 turn! I never looked back thereafter. Had I not been cornered like a cat, I would never have ventured to demolish Mahalanobis.
The same problem I faced, years later, with Ramakrishna Hegde. Hegde belonged to that class of politicians who practice bogus humility to impress the middle class, who engage in sham intellectualism by having articles and books ghost written for a price to make society ladies going ‘ooh aah’ at the India International Centre, and behind it all are mediocre crooks.
From day 1 of the Janata Party formation in 1977, Hegde was consumed by jealousy. I was already a middle class hero then because of my anti-Emergency struggle, and was a former Harvard University Professor to boot, of genuine intellectual credentials. I did not have to be synthetic in anyway for all the things that Hegde had to be. From 1977 to 1984, he harassed me in Indian style par excellence: pin pricking. Finally he managed to put me against Chandrasekhar, who in a fit of rage as he was prone to, expelled me from the Janata Party. Hegde went on to become the Chief Minister of Karnataka on Chandrashekar’s political largesse, and then turned against him too. I returned to the Janata Party after patching up with Chandrasekhar. During the period of six years 1983-1988 as Chief Minister, Hegde had lost his head. His media con-tricks made him a middle class hero. But behind the stage, he was committing one corrupt act after another in the mistaken belief that if had Rs.1000 Crores in loot, he could buy his way to the Prime Ministership. By the time I returned to the Janata Party, I had studied and documented three of Hedge’s major cases of corruption or misuse of power which I made public: Telephone Tapping [later proved by a parliamentary probe], Bangalore Land Grab for his son-in-law (1000 acres) [later proved by Justice Kuldip Singh Commission], and Illegal Commission collecting in the sale of torpedoes in the HDW submarine [confirmed by Corp of Detectives (COD) Karnataka Government investigation]. Since 1990, when V.P.Singh asked him to quit his Planning Commission Deputy Chairmanship after the Kuldip Singh Commission Report was submitted, Hegde has remained a political leper. He cannot now get out that rut, because the synthetic moral halo that he contrived to wear has vanished.
The fight with Ms.Jayalalitha was the toughest of my life. It also took the longest (3 – 1/2 years) time. It was the toughest because unlike other ‘targets’ there was no counter veiling power to ensure some kind of ‘level-playing field’. In case of Mahalanobis, it was the international community of scholars, whom I could address. They did not depend on Mahalanobis for research grants. Indian scholars in economics were a castrated lot since they depended on the government for grants and positions. In Hegde’s case, Rajiv Gandhi’s central government was a buffer. If I came up with queries, they were ready to answer, as in the case of Telephone Tapping or in appointing Kuldip Singh Commission. In Ms.Jayalalitha’s case, all the political parties were politically wooing her, or eyeing her booty. That is why practically every party from BJP to CPM filed affidavits in the Supreme Court supporting her stand that a Governor has no locus stand to give sanction to prosecute a Chief Minister after Dr.Chenna Reddy had given me sanction to prosecute Ms.Jayalalitha. Now they are to rue their stand in the Laloo Yadav issue. The Central government headed by Narasimha Rao was most reluctant to be of help, because Mr.Rao’s son and confidants were all being effectively ‘serviced’ by her people. When Mr.Rao appointed me to head a GATT Commission in 1994, even Moopanar and Chidamabaram tried to organize a signature campaign in the Congress Parliamentary Party against my appointment because it would, in Chidambaram’s words send a wrong signal to Ms.Jayalalitha, with whom they were at that time as late as February 1996 on best behaviour. Such was the array of forces in favour of Ms.Jayalalitha. That is why it was so tough to fight her. During my struggle against her, Karunanidhi hid in Gopalapuram most of the time.
But the breakthrough in my campaign against Ms.Jayalalitha came by the inexorable law of fermentation: if you keep hammering away, and it is the truth, then the people will sooner or later revolt. Day in and day out, I brought out one fact out after another. My old school boy and teacher-student network fed me with document and data. Press conference and Court writ petitions did the rest, Ms.Jayalalitha’s attempt to foist false cases on me only re-affirmed the substance of my campaign against her. When the General Elections came, people spoke.
But Ms.Jayalalitha during her tenure as Chief Minister tried to get me to jail in a number of ridiculous cases. One was under TADA by faking a photograph, another was under the severe Protection of Civil Rights Act [PCRA] for abusing the scheduled castes– by calling the LTTE as an “international pariah!”, and yet another for attempting to murder her!! Each time the Supreme Court came to my rescue.
I had therefore no option but to go after my political predator, and immobilize her. But lacking a developed Party cadre, I could not cash the public popularity I thus got. The political zamindars (and in reality too), Karunanidhi and Moopanar came out of their hibernation, and harvested the wave I generated by my struggle, But they are no better than her. They are trying now to silence me by the same methods, only less skilfully. I am therefore again not without a target. Fortunately, each time my predators make the mistake of underestimating me. And I with each success, have acquired a more experienced killer instinct.
My Friend Turned Foe Turned Friend : ChandrashekharClick To OpenChandrashekhar – Part I Subramanian Swamy Former Prime Minister
Former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar and I had known each other on a personal basis since 1974. Three years earlier in 1971, he had won my admiration by writing an editorial in a magazine, he was bringing out called Young Indian, in which he praised my book then just published titled Indian Economic Planning -An Alternative Approach. Mrs. Gandhi had denounced the book in Parliament as a “dangerous thesis”. My thesis was that socialism would not work in India, and would breed governmental corruption. If we wanted to remove poverty and develop nuclear weapons then we should give up our dependence on the Soviet model of governmental controls and move to market economy. I did not advocate like Rajaji a “free market”, but a market economy in which the government will have a role to play as an “umpire” between consumers and producers. But both consumers and producers will be free to act within simple rules. Rajaji had advocated the “survival of the fittest” principle, and saw no role for the government to protect the weak against the strong using unfair means.
In my book, I had also advocated that for our exports we should develop relations with Israel and China. Naturally my book brought a torrent of abuse from the communists who denounced me as an “American agent” because they could not answer my arguments. Time has proved me right because today we are moving towards a market economy and have improved our relations with Israel and China.
Chandrashekhar in his editorial understood my distinction between free market capitalist economy advocated by Swatantra Party and my concept of market capitalist economy. The former was for “free competition” and the latter for “fair competition”. Today I am against opening the doors blindly to multinational corporations because that “free competition” will kill our local industry due multinational’s access to capital which our industry does not have. But “fair competition” will ensure that if multinational have some advantage, the government provides some support (such as cheap credit) to local industry to make the contest or competition equal. I also believe that if Americans ask us to open the market for their capital, we should demand that they open their country to our labour to freely go there. Why should capital have free entry but not labour?
To hide these attractive nationalistic ideas, Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress and the Communists not only denounced me as an American agent, but got me removed from my Professor’s post at the IIT, Delhi (which post was restored to me in 1991 after 20 years by the Delhi Court). In these circumstances, for Chandrashekhar, then a Congress working committee and a friend of Indira Gandhi, to come out publicly in my support took all by surprise, but won my admiration for his courage.
I first met Chandrashekhar in 1974 at the Lucknow coffee house located in the famous Hazratbal area. In those days, politicians used to meet intellectuals in coffee houses. Five star hotels had not come into fashion. Both Chandrashekhar and I had been made candidates for Rajya Sabha by our respective parties. He was surrounded by Congress party workers and me of Jan Sangh. I went up to him and introduced myself to him. Congress party workers snarled at me for my anti -Congress statements. But Chandrashekhar got up from his chair and silenced them. He then introduced me to them as an original thinker to whom Congress should listen to.
After that Chandrashekhar met me often in Parliament and the friendship grew. It reached a peak during the Emergency, when he wrote glowingly about my daring escape from Parliament.
Chandrashekhar was made President of the newly formed Janata party in 1977, but because I had become a friend of Morarji, a strain developed in our relations. Because I remained steadfast with Morarji, and Chandrashekhar’s close circle contained two of the most poisonous minds in Indian politics — Vajpayee and Ramakrishna Hegde– the relation between us fluctuated and reached a flash point in 1984 when with Morarji’s backing I contested for the post of Janata party President against Chandrashekhar in the party polls. I was Deputy Leader in Parliament then. It was a literal Mahabharata with every newspaper giving front page coverage. Although I lost the election, I got 25 percent of the vote under very imperfect conditions of polling. Morarji refused to accept the verdict saying it was rigged. But Chandrashekhar’s circle knew that if not now, two years later at the next party poll, I would certainly be elected President of the party.
The modern Mantharas (Kaikeyi’s adviser in Ramayana) began to work on Chandrashekhar. Chandrashekhar suddenly announcing my expulsion from the party for six years, a few weeks before the Lok Sabha polls. Both Chandrashekhar and I were defeated for the same reason — we opposed operation Bluestar in the Amristar Golden temple.
In the mean time, Ramakrishna Hegde got re-elected to become the CM of the Karnataka government. Like Moopanar has become a media-favourite today, Hegde became the media darling. This went to his head and soon he began plotting against Chandrashekhar, and to remove him from the President ship of the party. This not only hurt Chandrashekhar because it was he who against the part wishes in 1983, had foisted Hegde as the CM over the claim of Deve Gowda. He also realized that till the time I was in the party, Mr.Hegde used to run to Chandrashekhar for protection, to save him from all the corruption charges that I had been collecting against Hegde (these charges were all proved later by the Justice Kuldip Singh Commission).
Therefore, one day in 1986, Mr.Jayant Malhoutra (now Rajya Sabha MP) came to see me. He was a very good friend of Chandrashekhar. He said that he had talked to Chandrashekhar, and he felt that now he (Chandrashekhar) understood why Hegde was so keen to get rid of me from the party. Malhoutra asked me that since Chandrashekhar realizes this, could not I and Chandrashekhar become friends again.
At first I protested. “How can I when he has expelled me for six years, and made me suffer?” But after some persuasion, I agreed on the principle that when we meet, it will be “bygones will be bygones” and we will think only of the future. Malhoutra talked Chandrashekhar on the phone and got his agreement.
We met in Chandrashekhar’s Bhondsi Ashram in February 1987. When he saw me, he became emotional and embraced me. He and I said nothing for sometime, sipping tea in his cottage. Then we talked of the past memories of JP. And finally, he said “Swamy no one can beat you in intelligence or in gathering information. I need your help, so does the nation. Let us work together again”.
Friendship was re-established as if nothing had happened these last few years. It was so firmly re-established that it never went sour again despite political differences; for example during my struggle against Ms.Jayalalitha, Chandrashekhar felt that I was making it easy for DMK to return to power. While he was against all the violence let loose against me, he had a deep conviction that DMK should not be facilitated to power. But despite this, our friendship has been unaffected.
Chandrashekhar -Part II
Subramanian Swamy
Once the friendship with Chandrashekhar was re-established, we began working together in a true spirit of friendship. In late 1987, I suggested to him that he had a chance to be PM, but for that he should expand the Janata Party base. I told him that the Charan Singh’s base was intact with his son Ajit Singh, and that he (Ajit) should be invited to merge his Lok Dal into the Janata Party. At that time, the Janata Party had a majority government in Karnataka under Ramakrishna Hegde as CM. With another 12 MPs in Lok Sabha, it can become the largest opposition party. The BJP had just 2 MPs. So I suggested to Chandrashekhar, that he should offer the Janata Party Presidentship to Ajit Singh, and get his party to merge in Janata . At first, Chandrashekhar was shocked by the suggestion, but I convinced him that Hegde had used the resources of the Karnataka government to mount a massive whisper campaign against him. Many newspapers were writing editorials to condemn Chandrashekhar for sticking to the Janata Party President’s post. Newspapers like the Hindu and Indian Express began painting Hegde as some kind of Messiah, a Mr.Clean, just as they have done recently with regard to Moopanar. It was clear that a campaign was on to make Hegde the Janata Party President, and then position him for the 1989 Lok Sabha elections as the Janata Party’s PM candidate.
Of course, I was against the idea because I had known that Hegde was an immoral character and a crook. I certainly was not going to allow him to become Prime Minister if it was in my power to stop him. So I convinced Chandrashekhar that he was anyway going to lose his Presidentship due to Hegde’s high voltage campaign. I also told him that after the merger of the Lok Dal with Janata, Ajit and I would jointly work to make him Prime Minister with in the next two years.
A good quality about Chandrashekhar is that if he is convinced about something, he acts swiftly. He does not hesitate thereafter. He thus quickly moved and called a Janata Working Committee Meeting to bring about the Lok Dal merger with the Janata Party. Hegde was so shocked by the speed of our action that he could not block the move. After all Janata Party was going to expand we argued, getting Lok Dal MLAs in UP, Bihar and Rajasthan to join the party. Ajit Singh thus became President and I was made General Secretary of the Party. Considering that in 1984, I had been expelled from the Janata Party for six years by Chandrashekhar, the same Chandrashekhar now before even three years of the six over, brushed aside all objections, admitted me to the party and made me once again General Secretary of the party. Hegde and his friends in the news-media made much of the “opportunism” of Chandrashekhar. There was however no opportunism because after all both Chandrashekhar and I were out of power in those days. By becoming friends, what, compromise did we make? If political enemies become friends, why anyone should object. I have made a rule in politics: never start a fight; but if someone starts it, never stop the fight till either the opponent gives up or is finished. Chandrashekhar had offered the hand of friendship, so I made up with him.
Hegde remained un-reconciled to this merger because he understood what it meant. With Deve Gowda joining us to form a foursome group of Chandrashekhar, Ajit, Gowda and myself, I felt time had come to put Hegde in his place. I looked for an opportunity, which arrived when Indian Express published a transcript of a telephone conversation between Gowda and Ajit plotting against Hegde. The Janata party was shocked, more by the fact that this conversation was tapped and published, than by the content of Gowda. Ajit plot. The party therefore asked me to investigate and give a report to the Parliamentary board. I knew that Hegde and Indian Express were close to each other, so I was confident that Hegde must be the culprit. But how to establish it?
As luck would have it, when I took a flight to Bangalore in July 1988 to investigate this telephone tapping, on the plane sat next to me a top Intelligence Bureau Officer. He introduced himself and said that he was my admirer because his younger brother was my student when I taught him economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His younger brother had told him what a good Professor I had been. He said to me: “We IB people are sick of today’s politicians because they are corrupt. We see them naked. But I admire you because you are different”. I jumped at this God sent opportunity of meeting an IB officer, and asked him about telephone tapping. It was he who gave me the tip that later completely exposed Hegde. The IB officer told me to check with the Telephone Exchange whether any written requisition were made for tapping as required under Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act. He also warned me that in some states like Tamil Nadu, the Inspector General of Intelligence illegally tapped telephones by bribing the linesman or the operator at the exchange. In such cases, he said, there will be no records. I thanked him for his tip, and after my plane landed in Bangalore, I raced to a telephone and called my friend, the Communications Minister Mr.Vir Bahadur Singh in Delhi. I requested him to procure the file, if it existed of requisitions for telephone tapping made by Hegde. A few days later, in Delhi Vir Bahadur Singh confirmed the existence of such a file and that he had a copy. Through my friends in the bureaucracy later, I got a Photostat copy of the entire file. According to this file, Hegde ordered the tapping of 51 telephones belonging to Janata Party MLAs and MPs, and surprisingly even seven of his girl friends! Telephone tapping is permitted by law against anti-social elements, but Hegde was tapping the phones of his own party colleagues and girl friends rather than keeping a tab on anti-social elements.
My report to the parliamentary board on telephone tapping finished Hegde. He had to resign from the Chief Ministership, which he did after publicly shedding copious tears. Hegde’s resignation would have directly benefited Chandrashekhar in the long run, but for the rise of V.P.Singh who had been expelled by the Congress party. With the Bofors scandal filling the pages of the newspapers, V.P. Singh began to be projected as the next PM. People like Hegde, seeing themselves blocked in the Janata Party began advocating the formation of a new party under V.P.Singh’s leadership. I tried to stop this formation, but suffered a setback when Ajit Singh deserted us and joined with V.P.Singh. I could never understand how Ajit Singh could give up the Presidentship of a party to become a General Secretary in V.P.Singh’s Janata Dal but Ajit was immature and inexperienced. This betrayal ( betrayal because Ajit Singh had assured Chandrashekhar that he will remain with him and canvass for his Prime Ministership) disheartened Chandrashekhar. Soon he too joined the Janata Dal. Therefore except for Deve Gowda and myself, all others joined V.P.Singh. I became the President of the Janata Party and Deve Gowda agreed to organize the Karnataka unit of the party. Gowda remained with me till 1992, but he too joined the Janata Dal. I thus became the only member of the Janata Party of 1977 who still remains in the party. It was lonely, but I went to seek the advice of Paramacharya Sri Chandrashekhara Saraswati. He told me not to worry, and asked me to rebuild the Janata Party even if it takes years. It is because of Paramacharya’s blessings that I have dared to keep the Janata Party alive and rebuild it even if it takes time.
After the 1989 Lok Sabha elections, the Janata Dal under V.P.Singh came to power in a coalition arrangement. Chandrashekhar was kept out the entire power structure and sidelined. One day I found him sitting alone in the Central Hall of Parliament. I walked up to him and sat by his side. He looked quite sad because he felt that V.P.Singh would divide politics of the country by his advocacy of caste via the Mandal Commission Report. He said that while he fully supported the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report, he felt that V.P.Singh was using it to create caste warfare.
Then he sighed deeply, and said that a riot between castes has become inevitable. “I feel useless today” he said in an emotional tone. “But what about trying to become PM to stop this rot?” I asked.
“Be serious, he retorted. How can I?” “Well, I have a plan if you agree” I replied.
Thus began the Operation Topple of the V.P.Singh Government.
Chandrashekhar – Part III
Subramanian Swamy
The plan for putting Chandrashekhar into the PM’s chair was arithmetically simple: Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress plus allies such as AIADMK were 220 in number. The deficit thus for a Parliamentary majority was 52. If I could mobilize 52 MPs from the Janata Dal, then it would serve two legal purposes, one of providing a majority and two, of being more than one-third of the Janata Dal to legally split the Party.
Chandrashekhar’s supporters were only 7 MPs, so there was the problem of securing the remaining 45. Arithmetically simple, but in terms of human chemistry, it was a night mare.
I discussed the matter with Rajiv Gandhi for the first time; the Chandrashekhar government formation in March 1990, three months after V.P.Singh came to power. Rajiv was keen for this new formation because he felt that V.P.Singh was not loyal to the nation’s interests. I too never liked Mr.V.P.Singh because I found him a hypocrite. He talked about fighting corruption, but his political friends were the most corrupt in the country, such as Ramakrishna Hegde and Arun Nehru. So I was prepared to believe the worst about him. Toppling his government was pleasure for me.
But it took me a while to convince Rajiv that Chandrashekhar was “PM material”. Rajiv told me that he was uncomfortable with Chandrashekhar because most Congress leaders distrusted him. I told Rajiv that there is no other leader in the Janata Dal on whose name I can mobilize 52 MPs. I told him that I would guarantee that Chandrashekhar gave him due respect.
On that note, Rajiv agreed. We also decided that we would meet everyday at 1 A.M! So every day for six months of plotting to bring down the V.P.Singh government. I met Rajiv Gandhi at 10, Janpath from 1 AM to 3 AM. No one except George, his Secretary and occasionally Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, was seen in the premises in those unearthly hours.
Rajiv Gandhi would sit with his computer in which the names of all the MPs, their bio data, names of their friends, their allegiance to leaders, their weaknesses, etc. had been stored. So we drew up a list of 76 MPs who were unhappy with V.P.Singh for some political reason or the other, and could be recruited.
Thereafter we would everyday take up a list of 5-7 names and I would meet them during the day and report back to Rajiv and his computer. Again at 1 AM Rajiv and I would meet and discuss the prospects of which MP is likely to join and who might not.
Throughout this operation, Chandrashekhar did very little to help. The entire operation was a Rajiv-Swamy managed show. This continuous meeting between me and Rajiv developed a bond between us. Therefore, when the operation was near completion, in end of October of 1990, and as per plan, Chandrashekhar was slated to take oath in the first week of November, I got a call from Rajiv one day at 4 AM after I had gone to sleep. In his typically sweet and shy voice, he said “Swamy, are you free to come now to see me. I will give some excellent coffee and chocolates”.
When I entered Rajiv’s study room at 10, Janpath at 4.30 AM, he said in a soft voice, but fresh as ever: “Swamy, I want you as PM, not Chandrashekhar” shocked by this, I said “Why at this late stage?” My party people are comfortable with you, but they don’t like Chandrashekhar”. “Will the President (R.Venkataraman) agree to administer me the oath?” I asked, hoping to discourage Rajiv at this change of heart.
“I will send R.K.Dhawan to the President with the proposal. He dare not refuse him,” he said. “Why?” I asked. Rajiv only smiled but refused to elaborate. “But, Rajiv,” I went on ,”the 52 MPs have agreed to come out of Janata Dal to make Chandrashekhar PM, not me”. “Yes, but now that they have come out, they cannot go back. You take oath, and they will fall in line”.
Much as I would have loved to grab that chance to be PM, I knew it would not work. I would earn the wrath of the 52 MPs who may fall in line, but they would despise me for cheating them. My age was 50 years then, and suppose it became a fiasco? I would have to live in disgrace. I was at that time too young to retire from politics but also too old to restart my academic career in the University.
For sometime, I kept sipping coffee and eating chocolates. Then I told Rajiv, getting emotional at his trust in me: “Rajiv, I shall never forget his honour, the faith you have in me. But it is gone too far now to change Chandrashekhar.” Let him be, and after one year it will be time for the Presidential elections, at which time Chandrashekhar can become President and you may become PM then. I shall work for it.”
At 6 AM, a sleepy Rajiv relented. It will be difficult to work with Chandrashekhar. We will have to go to the polls, but let us go through with the plan as it is for now.” Thus most reluctantly, Rajiv went through with the plan. But he did not turn up for the oath ceremony of the Council of ministers. As usual, Chandrashekhar being the strong headed independent minded person, he took into the Council of Ministers, Mrs.Menaka Gandhi and Sanjay Singh, both disliked by Rajiv Gandhi. So Rajiv boycotted the oath ceremony in protest without any warning.
After taking oath as a senior Minister, holding the portfolios of Commerce and Law & Justice. I went to 10, Janpath to call on Rajiv and thank him. He received me warmly, and gave lot of sweets to eat and celebrate.
“Why did you not come for the oath ceremony” I asked? “What for?. You said that the Chandrashekhar government was a necessary transition from V.P.Singh’s government to the General Elections. I have done my duty as per my agreement with you. There is nothing to celebrate however” he said.
But it was clear that he was already angry with Chandrashekhar. Will the Government last even one week? I wondered. When I next met Chandrashekhar, I urged him to meet Rajiv and clear things up. Chandrashekhar was equally upset. “Do you think that for the PM’s post, I will prostrate before Rajiv?”
It was a miracle that Chandrashekhar lasted seven months because from day one, Rajiv and Chandrashekhar were at logger heads. I can claim that had I not been in the middle, Chandrashekhar government not only would not have come into being, but when it did, it would not have lasted more than one week.
But as Prime Minister, Chandrashekhar was very good and decisive. Our government set many things right.
Chandrasekhar – Part IV
Subramanian Swamy
After Chandrasekhar became Prime Minister, it became clear to me that it was only a question of time before Rajiv Gandhi brought the Government down. I was keen that our Government does not go out in disgrace without doing anything during the time it lasts – though it may be only few months.
The main plus about Chandrasekhar was his decisiveness. If he became convinced of something, he would not be afraid of annoying anybody to do it. There fore I was hopeful that the PM and I together would achieve something. In our system of Government, the Cabinet is Supreme. This is widely known. But what is not widely known is the existence of a “super Cabinet” called the cabinet committee on political affairs (CCPA), which consists of the PM, Home Minister, Defence Minister and Finance Minister and any other Minister the PM specially nominates. The intelligence services such as RAW, IB and Military Intelligence have to give clearance for a Minister to become a member of this super Cabinet, because it is the CCPA which reviews intelligence reports and not the full Cabinet.
Chandrasekhar’s CCPA had Devi Lal, the Deputy PM, Yashwant Sinha, Finance Minister and myself. I was nominated by Chandrasekhar. The PM was the Home Minister and defence Minister as well, so the CCPA consisted of us four. In actual practice, CCPA meant only Chandrasekhar and myself because Devi Lal showed not much interest in its proceedings since CCPA meetings were based on voluminous documents which were in English which language he did not understand. Yashwant Sinha was mostly interested in socialising which his unexpected Ministerial status gave a huge fillip, so he was generally missing or late. Therefore Chandrasekhar, I, along with RAW, IB, and MI Chiefs and senior civil servants usually met to discuss the issues confronting the nation in the CCPA meetings.
From the very first meeting, four issues were of concern to us: 1. Mandal agitation and how to cool it down.
2. RSS’s Babri Masjid campaign and how to counter it. 3.The alarming network of LTTE in Tamilnadu and other states such as Assam and 4. the economy and how to save it from collapse and bankruptcy.
It is to the credit of Chandrasekhar that he handled the Mandal agitation beautifully and cooled it down. Had general elections been held before the Mandal agitation had been brought under control, the elections would have been a violent one. For this alone, Chandrasekhar should be given a Bharat Ratna, because no one else could have saved the situation. He was acceptable to all the sections of the people.
On the Babri Masjid issue, Chandrasekhar skilfully used Chandraswami to split the sadhu community in Ayodhya. Chandraswami won over the Mahant (main priest) of the Ayodhya temple itself causing enormous division in the movement. This forced the RSS to call off the karseva scheduled for December 1990. I, as law minister, told the RSS representatives very firmly that we would use the draconian laws, TADA and NSA to arrest even Sadhus if they touched the Babri Masjid. This frightened the RSS so much that throughout the seven months we were in office, the RSS never raised their voice again on the Babri Masjid issue. In the meantime, we got a commitment from the Muslim organizations, that if it is proved by a commission headed by a supreme court judge that there had been a temple demolished by Babar to build the Babri Masjid over its foundations, they (the Muslims) would help Hindus to remove it, because they then would not regard the structure as a masjid. But before we could implement this compromise, our government fell. Even today, however that is the only solution to the Babri Masjid controversy.
The dismissal of the Karunanidhi government was another tough decision. Many people even today do the propaganda that the decision was taken under pressure from Rajiv Gandhi and Ms.Jayalalitha, on whose parliamentary support our government was existing. The truth is however far from it.
Although individual Congress leaders like Vazhapadi Ramamurthy were for dismissing the Karunanidhi government, Rajiv Gandhi took the stand that it was for Chandrasekhar to take a view, and whatever was decided by us, he would back us. There was therefore no pressure on us from Congress as a party. As for Ms.Jayalalitha, she made her position known to us that she was for dismissing the government. But by December end, she seemed to have lost hope that we would do anything about it since the Tamilnadu assembly was being convened soon after, and was to go on for two months. She and Sasikala soon left for Hyderabad and were there till nearly the date of dismissal arrived. Therefore, she too put no real pressure on us.
The pressure came on us instead from IB reports which were alarming. According these reports, the LTTE had built massive network in Tamilnadu. Warehouses in coastal areas of the state, a highly modern communication system in Tiruchi, a grenade factory in Coimbatore, a military uniform stitching factory in Erode and had financed STD booths and Photostat shops all over. They owned petrol pumps through benamis across the state. The LTTE had also linked up with PWG in Andhra and ULFA in Assam. Besides, the LTTE was liberally using cars bearing DMK flags so that the police had an excuse not to intercept them while in the travel within the state.
When I paid visit to the state as a Minister in the last week of December 1990, police officers met me in my hotel room in Madras to tell me that there were instructions “from above” that the LTTE were Karunanidhi’s mapillai (son -in-law) and hence not to be disturbed.
I have of course never liked the LTTE because of two reasons: They are Marxists and they are terrorists.
Therefore, the IB reports fuelled my determination to do something to save the situation. I had no faith in Karunanidhi controlling the LTTE because basically he is not a courageous person who can face them. Prior to 1987, Karunanidhi was a great supporter of the TELO leader Sabaratnam, who was a hate-figure for Prabhakaran. But when Prabhakaran had Sabaratnam killed, Karunanidhi’s opposition to Prabhakaran immediately melts in fright, and soon he began wooing the LTTE. In June 1986, Karunanidhi even offered the LTTE some money from his birthday fund, which the LTTE publicly rejected. But Karunanidhi still continued to cultivate the LTTE and the LTTE used its mappillai status to spread its influence. So we could not expect Karunanidhi to show guts to oppose a Marxist-Terrorist organization.
Chandrashekhar and I used to meet everyday when we were in Delhi for dinner at his modest 3, South Avenue Lane. Chandrashekhar used to use the PM’s Race Course Residence to meet visitors during the day, but at night we used to sit on the floor in his house allotted to him as a MP, for dinner. He and I discussed practically every issue at these dinner meetings.
It was Chandrashekhar who suddenly one night said to me: “Is this Karunanidhi anti-national?” Taken aback, I asked him why he wondered so. Chandrasekar said to me that when Karunanidhi had come to see him recently, he had given him some sensitive details about the LTTE operations, and also given certain confidential directions to him. “Only Karunanidhi and I were in the room, when this conversation transpired, and yet today the intelligence people brought me the transcript of the LTTE intercepted communications from Tamil Nadu to Prabhakaran at Jaffna. In the LTTE transmission, there is a complete description of my confidential conversation with Karunanidhi. How would they know unless Karunanidhi told them?”
Soon we held a CCPA meeting in which M.K.Narayan, the IB director was present. In that meeting, we got full details of the LTTE machinations. I was surprised how the LTTE had spread its net wide to include even G.K.Moopanar’s close confident, P.V.Rajendran who is a TMC MP today. LTTE cadres had made friends in the media, bureaucracy and even amongst retired Supreme Court judges and foreign Secretaries, who went on foreign trips to do the LTTE propaganda.
Today, that network in still intact despite Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. The way some affidavits have been filed before the Jain Commission and the way cross-examinations have taken place, has convinced some in the SIT of CBI that the proceedings of the Jain Commission have benefited the LTTE in delaying or contesting the Rajiv Gandhi murder trial. The Jain Commission Proceedings is helping the LTTE immensely by the wild accusations being made in that forum.
It is then we decided that the DMK government should be dismissed and the LTTE network destroyed, and in the CCPA adopted a decision to that effect. Many persons felt at that stage that this would create sympathy for DMK, that it may spur a separatist movement, or that like MGR’s dismissal in 1980, the DMK may sweep back to power in the midterm polls. But to the credit of Mr.Chandrashekhar, he did not waver, even after then Governor Surjit Singh Barnala took a partisan stand. Barnala had agreed with the seriousness of the intelligence reports, but he told us clearly that he was appointed by the V.P.Singh’s National front government, so he would remain loyal to them. We got over his objections since Article 356 of the Constitution does not require the Governor’s report. Barnala however promised us that he would not go back to Tamil Nadu and campaign against our decision. He however broke his word and criticised our decision. Here too Chandrashekhar did not hesitate. He got Barnala replaced by Bhisma Narain Singh.
But to our surprise, President Mr.R.Venkataraman developed cold feet. When the CCPA recommendation went to him for his signature, he hesitated . Chandrashekhar asked me to go and talk to the President, which I did. Venkataraman, despite his contrary media-cultivated image, was the most undeserving person to become the President of India. His political career was based on strategic betrayal of whoever came to trust him or repose faith in him e.g., Rajiv Gandhi. At that moment when the national security was at state, Mr.Venkataraman’s concern was what would DMK volunteers do to his four houses in Kotturpuram in Chennai, and not the safety of the Tamil people. But really, he had no alternative but to sign because it was a cabinet decision based on extensive documentation. But to satisfy Mr.Venkataraman, we asked the CRPF to keep an eye on his houses.
People at various levels had of course warned us that DMK volunteers would get violent, and one civil servant said “rivers of blood would flow”. Chandrashekhar asked me about this possibility. I told him that every Collector knows and every police station has a list of rowdies of the area. As soon as we take over, I said to the PM, ask the police or CRPF to ensure that they make pre-emptive arrests of these rowdies. Party volunteers never riot, only hired rowdies : Some of them can be party men, but in the eyes of the law, they are still rowdies.
On January 31st, 1991 that is exactly what happened. There was absolute peace in Tamil Nadu after the dismissal of the DMK government. The LTTE hardware network was smashed in the following two months, but the LTTE personnel just melted into the Tamil populace. But we had saved Tamil Nadu even if later we could not save Rajiv Gandhi from his assassination.
While we were planning our moves in Tamil Nadu, Chandrashekhar one day called me up in the secret RAX phone to say that unless we got $ 2 billion from abroad within a week, the economy may collapse. He said I must use my influence in the USA to arrange it. Then he put an impossible rider: if the money comes from IMF, we cannot accept any conditions.
Chandrasekhar – Part V
Subramanian Swamy
When we first met as a government in November 1991, Chandrasekhar told the cabinet that there was a great economic crisis particularly in petroleum and foreign exchange looming. After some discussion, it was decided by the PM that I should, for controlling the crisis, explore some informal steps to obtain crude oil on barter i.e., in exchange of sugar, or engineering goods, and also get $ 2 billion (Rs.6000 crores) IMF loans (and without conditions). That is, the PM wanted me to act as Finance Minister as well! Chandrasekhar had denied me the Finance Ministership when the Cabinet was formed because, he told me my free market philosophy would “embarrass” his “socialist” image. But the real reason was (in my opinion) I, as Finance Minister, would go after the Swiss bank accounts of politicians, and as a consequence, many political leaders would go to jail. (There is Rs.3,20,000 crores deposited illegally by Indians in Swiss banks). Therefore when the Cabinet was being formed, there was near hysteria at the prospect of my becoming Finance Minister. Chandrasekhar was bombarded by these frightened friends, saying “please bring the devil as Finance Minister, but not Swamy”.
This “fear” later was amply justified on May 3, 1991 when I insisted as Law Minister that the CBI be allowed to raid the residences and offices of the ‘hawala kings’, the Jain brothers, despite vociferous opposition from Finance Minister (now BJP) Mr.Yashwant Sinha and Minister of State Kamal Morarka. The PM sided with me after a heated discussion. But for the raid on that date, hawala probe would never have come about.
When the Cabinet meeting was over, Chandrasekhar asked me to come with him to the airport (he was going to Varanasi). In the car, sitting next to him I taunted him: “you denied me the Finance Minister, and now you want me to do the work of the Finance Minister as well?” “Arre Baba!” he exclaimed in Hindi, the economy is on verge of collapse and you can only think of your grievance”. “‘Why should I do this task?” I persisted. After all, Commerce and Law, was my portfolio, and therefore why should I have to work for another Minister? “Listen” said Chandrasekhar “No one else in the Cabinet has your contacts abroad, in USA, Israel, China etc., so use it for the nation’s sake”.
We sat quietly till the car reached the Special VVIP airport, and out to the tarmac where the IAF Boeing reserved for the PM was parked. As he climbed the stair case to alight the plane, I told him when he returned, I would have a proposal on how to tackle the financial crisis. “To hell with the Finance Ministership” I said to myself. “CCPA membership is more prestigious”.
The foreign exchange crisis had been caused by the large number of short term loans (3 -5 years repayment) taken from Europe by the Rajiv Gandhi government (1985-89) mostly to pay for defence equipment purchases abroad. These loans became due for repayment during V.P.Singh’s tenure as PM (who as finance Minister sanctioned it) but he slept over it. So when we came to power it coincided with non-payment, plotting to declare India as a defaulter or bankrupt. It was a Mexican type situation. We needed $ 2 billion to tide over this, and save our reputation. We could, like Mexico, straight away have applied to the IMF for a “crisis loan”, but then the IMF would have strapped us, like Mexico, with humiliating conditions. When I spoke to Rajiv Gandhi about this crisis, after returning from the airport, he said flatly that the Congress party would not support any Mexican type conditionality. So our government was in a fix: “No conditions, No loan from IMF; no loan, no economy!”
But I knew of one possible escape route. The IMF is dominated by the Americans, who control 87 percent of the voting power in the Executive Board of the IMF. Despite popular impressions to the contrary, Americans are very simple people if you have a deal with them on a give and take basis. If you want something from an American, offer him something in return which he needs. Then he will respond fully. Americans in the past were irritated with us because we took their aid, and yet voted against them in the UN. Americans are straight forward, contractual minded people, whereas we are highly moralistic people who do not like to reveal our mind. Americans are much like me in character: blunt and open in thought, but a typical Indian is more like Narasimha Rao: soft in words, but covert in action. So when Chandrasekhar returned to Delhi, I received him at the airport, and told him of Rajiv Gandhi’s refusal to support an IMF conditions-prone loan. I then told him: “There is one way out. Ask the Americans to help. They will help, if you offer them something in return”. “What can be possibly given them that they do not have already?” asked Chandrasekhar. I had no answer. I just kept quiet. Chandrasekhar said “We are running out of time. Think of something”.
Soon after sometime, the opportunity came. The US Ambassador came to my Commerce Ministry office to tell me that the US was planning to support a UN declaration of war on Iraq, and US will conduct the operations. He said that the Indian government should support the war effort of the US.
With IMF on my mind, I asked the Ambassador: “What will India get by doing so?” The Ambassador was taken back. He said it was a moral imperative for the world, since Kuwait had been crushed by Iraq’s invasion. I laughed at the US ambassador. I told him “Listen Excellency, ten years in the US as a student and as a professor has made me more American than you. You keep your moral imperative, but give me a deal”. I explained our problem to him. He was very sympathetic. As I expected, he immediately responded. Thereafter President Bush and Chandrasekhar were in touch with each other. The $ 2 billion arrived without any conditions! We, of course allowed the US to refuel their planes flying in from Philiphines to Saudi Arabia. Nowhere will it be recorded as a “deal”, but the truth is this. In the history of the IMF, such a large loan has never been given without conditions. Ours was the exception.
Of course once the loans came, the close associates of Chandrasekhar like Sinha and Morarka, who were jealous of his growing trust in me naturally wanted to claim credit or thought that it could have been done by them. In May-June 1991, when again the same crisis came, they saw to it that I was not allowed to interfere. They soon found out what “credibility” and “credentials” meant. Every government ignored our Finance Minister, and in the end, the President Mr.Venkataraman and the Finance Minister (now BJP) Mr.Yashwant Sinha together in one of the biggest undiscovered scandals of our history, mortgaged with European banks, our gold reserves without informing the Commerce Ministry. I publicly protested, and even threatened to register a criminal case for bypassing the Commerce Ministry. But by then, elections were at hand and therefore I could not do anything. Someday I will reopen this. But the resolution of the crisis in January 1991 generated tremendous confidence in Chandrasekhar’s mind about my abilities. Soon for practically every problem, he was on the phone consulting me.
In this atmosphere of confidence, I began pressing Chandrasekhar to abandon his traditional socialist bias. I urged him to consider economic reform and liberalization. His economic adviser was Dr.Manmohan Singh (later Finance Minister). I had known Manmohan Singh since the days we were Professors of Economics. In those days, he was a leftist and against my ideas. But the collapse of the Soviet Union made him come over to my views. So he gave me full support.
Montek Ahluwalia, now Finance Secretary, was my Commerce Secretary. I had known him since he was an economics student at Oxford. His wife was a student of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) situated next to Harvard. With the help of Ahluwalia and Manmohan Singh, I prepared a series of documents on economic liberalization. At that stage, Dr.Manmohan Singh asked me: “Do you think that any government will implement this?” Little did he realize that the next government of Narasimha Rao will have Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister and the government will take all the credit for our government’s economic liberalization programme. The Congress party government did a complete ideological somersault, and in broad daylight stole my economic liberalization blue print. Chandrasekhar government was not long enough in office to implement this economic package, but the nation has benefited by the Congress somersault and theft.
Chandrasekhar-Part VI
Subramanian Swamy
The granting by the Chandrasekhar government permission for US military planes to refuel in Indian airports during the Gulf War suddenly transformed Prime minister Chandrasekhar’s image in the eyes of the Americans as a “good friend”. This was the first time an Indian government had helped the US. Naturally the prestigious newspaper like Washington Post, New York Times began praising our government for its “decisiveness”. During this period, I had also in the GATT talks, bargained with the Americans for a formulation on agricultural subsidies that pleased them; at the same time they helped us to protect our interests in textile exports. This was another great help to the US vis-à-vis Europe. So the American press began portraying Chandrasekhar and myself as “able leaders”, who can be trusted to be good friends.
This publicity internationally, pleased Chandrasekhar a great deal, but I warned him that he would now have to be extra humble with Rajiv Gandhi, because the Nehru family was always very sensitive to foreign publicity. They do not like to be upstaged internationally. I told Chandrasekhar that some Congress leaders would now go to and tell Rajiv how if he continued in office as PM, he would swallow up Congress Party, and that Rajiv would become an orphan.
At the same time, I told him (Chandrasekhar) that some flatterers would come and tell him how popular he had become and that if he got rid of Rajiv’s “crutches” and stood alone now, he would, like Indira Gandhi in 1971, sweep the Lok Sabha polls. So these sycophants would urge him to go for elections immediately. I also told Chandrasekhar that he should control his two rootless Ministers whom I had nick-named as the “disco” group businessman, Mr.Kamal Morarka and ex-bureaucrat turned Finance minister, Mr.Yashant Sinha. These two were talking loosely, I said, to their girl friends in Delhi’s Taj Hotel discotheques about Rajiv Gandhi, boasting how they could control him by enforcement Directorate and Bofors Investigations. These girl friends, mostly unmarried journalists or Rajya Sabha MPS, would in turn boast it to people like P.Chidambaram (another disco fan), whose only job those days was to carry tales to Rajiv Gandhi. Such tales would irritate Rajiv Gandhi no end, and made him think of Chandrasekhar as an ungrateful person.
“Let us not forget” I said Chandrasekhar, “that it is 220 MPs of Rajiv Gandhi that is underwriting the government. We need at least a year in government before people fully accept us in our own right. Therefore today we cannot do without Rajiv Gandhi’s help.
But Chandrasekhar’s personality was not cut out for this role of humble partner. He could not bear to hear some of his close associates taunt or tease him that he is “crawling” before Rajiv Gandhi for the post. He told me one even in Feb, 1991: “Now that the Mandal fire is under control and the Babri Masjid issue has been contained, why not go for elections?” Obviously, his sycophants had succeeded in putting him on the offensive. The seed had been planted. I did not answer him then since he would start arguing with me, and become bitter about Rajiv Gandhi. Besides, I had to leave that night for Beijing, the capital of China, to sign the first ever Trade Pact with that country. There were many documents for me to read before catching the flight, so I told Chandrasekhar that I would answer that question after returning from China. I needed time to think, I told him and excused myself.
While I was in China, I learnt from telephone calls from friends in Delhi, that the disco group was playing havoc in my absence. Not being in grass root politics, they were carried away by the foreign newspapers in praise of Chandrasekhar, little realizing the ground realities. We had 54 MPs, Rajiv had 220; we had no party structure, while Rajiv had a massive party organisation for which he had plenty of finance. The four months in office had created a good impression about him in people’s mind, but it needed consolidation. Popularity is fleeting, and by itself cannot make win elections. Popularity, like Imran Khan found out much later, does not substitute for party organization.
When I returned from China ten days later, I was expecting a celebration for getting the first ever Trade Pact signed with that country, enabling us to export among other things, telephone exchanges and steel production processes. Instead I found the atmosphere so vitiated by suspicion, that the fall of the government was being discussed. Soured by the nasty propaganda of the disco group and influenced by the Mantharas in his party, Rajiv had decided to bring Chandrasekhar down. First, he made an issue of why we did not support Saddam Hussein in the Iraq war. Later he dropped the issue, because our Gulf policy had been made with his prior consultation and approval .Furthermore, Rajiv Gandhi had relied on Mr.Gorbachev of the Soviet Union to join him in an international campaign in favour of Saddam Hussien. But Gorbachev supported our stand, disappointing Rajiv. So he had to drop this issue as a non-starter. Next, he picked on the Haryana CID surveillance issue. Two constables had been posted by the Chauthala government to spy on who goes in and out of 10, Janpath, Rajiv said. Obviously, this was an excuse for fighting with Chandrasekhar. But one thing led to another, and soon enough there were angry words exchanged. Rajiv wanted Chandrasekhar to make amends. The character of Chandrasekhar came out clearly in this conflict. He was not a person to bend for a post to the point of humiliation, so he refused to make amends. This was his strong point as well as weak point. As a leader of the government with absolute majority, Chandrasekhar’s unbending character would have made him a hero of people. But as a leader of coalition, it made him a zero. Chandrasekhar was Janata Party President for 11 years (1977-88), but he presided over his gradual liquidation. In the end, he quit and joined the Janata Dal led by V.P.Singh. Why? Janata Party was founded as a coalition party, a merger of five parties. Chandrasekhar had no patience for the compromises necessary for a coalition. Had Janata Party been built like other parties, brick by brick, and over 50 years, Chandrasekhar as its leader would have flourished. Strong leaders cannot lead coalitions unless they know how either to blackmail the partners into submission like Jyoti Basu does, or be a sweet gentleman. But Chandrasekhar was a gentleman strong leader. That as Chanakya would have said is a self defeating combination. For a coalition, a leader should be either a gentleman or strong, but not both.
After the Haryana constable issue, the government fell. Elections came. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. Chandrasekhar felt truly sorry. So as a gentleman, he proposed in the cabinet that Rajiv Gandhi should be given Bharat Ratna for his sacrifice. This did not mollify Rajiv Gandhi’ supporters. They demanded that the Government allot a Rajghat area for Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial. Chandrasekhar immediately agreed, and proposed that in the vast area for Indira Gandhi’s memorial called Shakti Sthal an enclosure be carved out to create a place for Rajiv Gandhi. This infuriated Rajiv’s followers. Even Sonia Gandhi was upset. They wanted Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial on its own merit, not as Indira Gandhi’s son.
One day in late May 1991, a few days after the assassination, I got a call from Chandrasekhar at 6 AM in the morning. He asked me to come right away. When I saw him at his residence, he told me about the problems he was having with the Rajiv Gandhi memorial site. He told me that the Government had offered to prepare a site out of the Shakthi Sthal, but Sonia Gandhi had refused, because she had wanted Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial to have an independent identity. I told Chandrasekhar that Sonia was right. After all, Rajiv had been PM for five years in his own right.
But the problem Chandrasekhar told me was that Sonia was asking for a part of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s memorial area which was then a temporary CRPF camp. Not all of Shastri’s Memorial had been developed despite so many years. He said, “If you cannot carve out a memorial for Rajiv from Shakti Sthal, I am not going to agree to carve it out from poor Lal Bahadur Shahtri’s area” “So what’s the problem that I should come here so early in the morning?” I asked Chandrasekhar, sensing that something else was on his mind.
“IB tells me that Sonia is going to go to public today, or ask for Doordarshan time, to condemn our government for ‘dishonouring’ Rajiv memory. That should be prevented because so many world leaders are arriving for the cremation and no site is ready” Chandrasekhar said. “Why don’t you talk to her directly?” I asked despite knowing the answer. Sonia was already bitter with Chandrasekhar for forcing Rajiv to go to the polls, and so she was unlikely to come on the phone to talk to him. “She is unavailable, every time I telephone her house” he said. “What can I do now?” I asked.
“Amitabh Bachhan told me last night that if you talked to her, she might agree. She would talk to no one else. Since she is so upset and in mourning” Chandrasekhar told me. “She will agree to what, Chandrasekharji? What do I offer, and why should not we close down the CRPF camp and shift it elsewhere? If it can be even temporarily partitioned for the CRPF, it can be permanently set aside for Rajiv Gandhi” I retorted. “Except Lal Bahadur’s memorial you have the authority to take out any government land anywhere in India to offer it to Sonia for the memorial. But don’t try to force me on Lal Bahadur’s site. I too have sentiments. I will not agree”, Chandrasekhar added belligerently, obviously hurt by the way the Rajiv loyalists were behaving. I agreed to talk to Sonia, because I had no choice. If nothing else for Rajiv’s sake. Otherwise there would have been an International Scandal.
When I went home, I called Amitabh Bachhan. Bachhan was very friendly with me because as Law Minister I had ordered withdrawal of a FERA case against his brother Ajitabh, a case filed by V.P.Singh’s government. V.P.Singh had hatred for the Bachhans, so he had directed a FERA case to be filed, even though in law it had no basis. But in these politically motivated cases like Lakhubhai cheating and St.Kitts cases. The idea is to get one’s target or enemy, arrested for interrogation purposes (remand), and then after sometime release the person on bail. The newspaper would do rest of the job, making out that remand is actually conviction or punishment. One’s enemy then becomes guilty without a trial. The person may be acquitted after some years, but who is to remember that, or who is to compensate for the lost years? Take the ISRO so-called spy case. How many people have needlessly suffered?
As Law Minister, whenever any one made a petition to me charging that such frivolous case had been filed, I usually went into the case myself. Ajitabh Bachhan’s FERA case was one such. Chandrasekhar had forwarded Ajitabh’s petition made to him, and had asked me to deal with it.
The case was silly, because the charge was that Ajitabh had purchased a house in Switzerland with foreign exchange without RBI permission. So a FERA case was foisted on him. Ram Jethmalani had taken up this issue to please V.P.Singh so that he could come into V.P.Singh’s inner circle. But Jethmalani never does his home work. He tried to get his point by shouting all kinds of legal rubbish. The ordinary citizens get frightened by it since they do not know law. In Ajitabh’s case, he was already a NRI with Indian passport, so he was entitled in law to buy a house abroad, in foreign exchange. How he got the NRI status was another matter, but CBI did not question that. I was shocked by the silly nature of the case, which was untenable and waste of public funds in prosecution. For nearly a year, Ajitabh had been harassed by such a baseless FERA case.
I therefore called the law Secretary and asked him to instruct the CBI and Enforcement Directorate to withdraw the case. The Law Secretary told me: “Sir, you will get a bad name for this. Please consider”. “Am I wrong legally?” I asked the Law Secretary. “No Sir. But this is a political matter which newspapers will play up. It will spoil your good name” he said. “Politics is my area, not yours. Call a press conference and I will announce my decision to the world” I told him. “Why Sir?” asked an alarmed Law Secretary. Because if I don’t, the Indian Express will get a leak from the CBI, and then it will be big news. If I call a press conference, and explain the basis, people will understand” I replied.
That is exactly what happened. Ajitabh case was withdrawn and even though the Indian Express condemned it in an editorial, no one else agreed. Rajiv, Sonia and Amitabh were naturally pleased. Amitabh had then asked to see me. I told him he could see me in Attorney General G.Ramasamy’s house. At GR’s house, Amitabh told me that he would never forget my help. “Rajiv’s opinion that I had the courage of my conviction is amply proved”, he said.
So when I telephoned Amitabh on that morning, after meeting Chandrasekhar he warmly responded. He gave a special telephone number at which a mourning Sonia would be available. He said she was expecting my call. But he warned me that she was going to insist on the CRPF Shastri site.
I called Sonia and fixed a time to see her that afternoon. With the PM’s authority, I called up the Urban Development Minister Daulat Ram Saran and asked him to send the secretary of the ministry with the entire blueprint of the Rajghat area for my study. After studying map for empty spaces available, I selected one site, next to Shakthi Sthal, but not on it. It was a dumping ground for coal ash of the Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking (DESU) and was fenced by a wall from the Sakthi Sthal. It was filthy but it could be easily cleaned up.
While I drove to 10, Janpath to meet Sonia, I had only one question in my mind: how to protect Chandrasekhar’s sentiment or shall I say obduracy, on the CRPF site and at the same time make Sonia agree to a new site, in this highly emotional climate. It was a very delicate mission for me, with international consequences. But I had a trump card for success, which I did not tell Chandrasekhar about. When I was taken to Sonia’s room, there was besides her, Amitabh, Rahul and Priyanka. Sonia asked me to be seated.
I spread the map on the table and said:” Soniaji, you know how much I respected Rajiv. This site I have selected, please accept. We will use the government funds to clean it up and make it the best”. At this, Priyanka flared up and said in a demanding tone: “Are you, or are you not going to give the CRPF camp site for my father’s memorial. Otherwise we don’t want anything from Government”.
At this tone of voice, I was upset. I was a senior Cabinet minister and Priyanka was a college girl. She had no right to talk to me like that. I had come to see her mother, not her. Congressmen can be backbone less wonders, but not Subramanian Swamy even if he has to go into the wilderness for it. In a raised voice, I thundered “No! We will not give that site. I will pass such an order on the CRPF site that no future government can dare to overrule it”.
There was an eerie silence for nearly a minute. Amitabh was feeling very uncomfortable. No one spoke. Then Sonia said in a very soft voice: “why? Why not that site? With that question, I got a chance to play my trump card. I said, “Soniaji, the only reason is that I want to respect Rajiv’s sentiment. When in 1987 Charan Singh died and was to be cremated ,his son Ajit and I had asked Rajiv (as PM) for the same CRPF site for Chaudhary Saheb. He had declined. Rajiv had explained to me then that already Shastri’s memorial is much neglected, and if this site, temporarily with the CRPF is given away , there will be much misunderstanding and adverse publicity. He recorded this in the files of the Government. So to respect Rajiv’s view, we cannot give the site of your choice. But I have told the PM that this alternate site I have selected should be offered for Rajiv Gandhi memorial and immediately developed.
After a few moments, Sonia agreed. I took it as recognition by her that I would not deliberately try to give a bad site for Rajiv’s memorial. Because I had so much regard for Rajiv which she knew was mutually felt by Rajiv. I would she understood, select the best available site. Priyanka was still angry , but Sonia restrained her from speaking anymore. “We will accept because it has come form you” she said. The crisis was over. A site has been selected. When I informed the PM, he promptly announced it over Doordharsan, to set all the rumours afloat, at rest. Had I not intervened, God only knows what would have happened. But for Rajiv’s sake, who I consider was the most patriotic and dynamic leader produced to date by the Nehru family, and perhaps also the most underrated, it was God’s grace that we found a way out.
Jagjivan RamClick To OpenI first met Jagjivan Ram when I was 12 years old in 1952. He was a Minister then in Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet, and was living in a bungalow on the same road (Queen Victoria Road, renamed now Rajendra Prasad Road) as my father, who had been allotted his official residence as a senior civil servant. Our neighbour was a Bihar MP called Shyamnandan Sahay, who had taken a tremendous liking to me. On the other side of our house was Feroze Gandhi’s residence where I used to see a very unhappy Indira Gandhi come and go, after a fight with her husband.
Sahay, every evening, used to call me to have tea. He was old and very fat, so he was mostly seated on a big sofa in his house. During these tea times, I met many politicians who visited Sahay. I used to ask them questions freely. These VIPs tried to humour my curiosity because they were not used to a 12 year old asking so many questions on current topics.
Jagjivan Ram one day came for tea to Sahay’s house. He brought his son Suresh Ram, about the same age as me, with him. Suresh and I became good friends after that, and played Cricket for the same team for many years. Because of Suresh, I had a chance to go to Jagjivan Ram’s residence often, and have tea and snacks with his father. Despite being busy, Jagjivan Ram often talked to me on current topics. Knowing that I was from Brahmin family, he asked me once why I did not wear my thread (poonal). I told him that at the age of 7 when an upanayam (thread ceremony) was to be held for me, my questioning mind made me ask the pujari why I should put it on when my schoolmates did not have it. The pujari’s answer did not satisfy me, so I asked him more questions. This embarrassed everyone in the family. My father was a communist-minded person so although he himself put on the thread, he agreed to call off the ceremony. My mother was heart broken, but I was adamant that unless the Pujari answered my questions I would not go through the ceremony or put it on (My mother however told me that I would have to have the ceremony anyway when I get married. She was however disappointed because I married a Parsi girl in a registered marriage in the USA. However her spirit would be happy today because the great soul, the Paramacharya Sri Chandrashekhara Saraswathi convinced me to don the thread on special occasions. Paramacharya told me that whether I acknowledge or not, Tamil society has become so poisoned that I would anyway be regarded as a Brahmin. He also explained to me the scientific basis for the thread in ceremonies.
Jagjivan Ram was mighty impressed with this questioning mind, and thus opened his heart to me. He told me of the nature of Hindu Society and the atrocities heaped on scheduled castes. I as a city boy just could not believe these stories, so asked my mother who confirmed these as facts. She even told me that in my village in Mullipallam, Cholavandan, the shadow of a scheduled caste could not fall on the path of a Brahmin walking on the road. I was shocked, and resolved never to go to my village. And till the age of 30, I never visited Mullipallam. But since I entered Tamilnadu politics in 1992, I not only visited my village regularly but recovered my ancestral house which my grandfather has lost during the Great Depression of the 1930s, unable to pay his debts. My father was too busy with Congress politics with Satyamurthi to pay attention to this loss. Later he had moved to Delhi. Of course my village today is a different society. And because of leaders like Dr.Ambedkar and Mr.Jagjvan Ram today, the society in Mullipallam also is a better than when I was a little boy. The Brahmin society perhaps has also come to its senses, thanks to Periyar’s movement.
But because of what I learnt from Jagjivan Ram as a young boy, I have never hesitated to come to the support of scheduled castes. His descriptions of cruelty meted out to SC community are deeply etched in my mind, When the Kodiyankulam (near Tirunelveli) atrocity took place in 1995. I did not hesitate for a moment to rush there and fight for them in the High Court to get a CBI inquiry instituted. Leaders like Karunanidhi who day in day out talk about the poor oppressed classes failed to even visit Kodiyankulam may be for fear of alienating other castes who voted against the party in the elections. But because of Jagjivan Ram and my long association with Suresh Ram in my childhood, I did not care about the consequences, and had rushed to kodiyankulam.
In 1957, after I went to the University, I lost contact with Suresh Ram and his father. Thereafter I went to USA for studies in 1962 only to return 1970. When I returned to India, Congress had split and my sympathies were with Morarji and Kamaraj who were in Congress (O). Jagjivan Ram went with Indira Gandhi to Congress (I). Therefore, I had no occasion to meet him till I entered Parliament in 1974. But because I was in those days a virulent opponent of Mrs.Gandhi, Jagjivan Ram would smile at me, and treat me with courtesy but would not let me come near him.
In 1977, Jagjivan Ram jointed the Janata Party. I went to meet him after the elections, having been elected to Lok Sabha from Bombay. He had been promised by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Nana Goray of the Socialist Party support for the Prime Ministership, so he was hopeful of becoming PM. He spoke to me about the social transformation that would result by a scheduled caste becoming PM. Of course Jagjivan Ram was not just of scheduled caste, but one of the most efficient Ministers of Independent India. No letter was unanswered; no file was not read by him. His grasp was quick, and he took decision with dynamism. In my opinion, he would have been a superb Prime minister, but at the same time there was one thing against him in the Janata Party. He was the mover of the approval resolution on Emergency. Jagjivan Ram’s resignation from Congress in February 1977 completely demoralized Mrs.Gandhi, and she never recovered from the shock during the 1977 election campaign. Jagjivan Ram made up for the error in his supporting the Emergency resolutions in Parliament by his beautifully timed resignation. Had he not resigned the sea-change in political climate to ensure the Janatha victory would have not taken place?
But the problem was that Charan Singh was against Jagjivan Ram becoming PM. Charan Singh told me that we could not forgive him for supporting the Emergency resolution. Charan Singh also made an issue of non-filing of income tax returns for ten years by Jagjivan Ram (because he “forgot to”). But besides this I felt, because Charan Singh was a Jat, he did not like the idea of making a scheduled caste PM. The Jat community in UP, Haryana and Rajastan is a fierce agricultural community like some of the backward communities in Tamilnadu and Andhra. They are especially harsh the scheduled castes, who are in rural areas the landless labourers. Charan Singh gave special concessions to scheduled castes in his party, but for PM post it was something he could not agree although he would not admit that this was the real reason. In my political and social life I have found surprisingly a higher percentage of Brahmins than backward castes that are willing to bring up scheduled castes and other oppressed castes, although in the popular campaign the Brahmins are targets. History is replete with examples of the Brahmins wanting to challenge the orthodoxy to integrate the scheduled caste community. Chanakya picked up a young goat herd boy to make him Emperor Chandra Gupta. Ramanuja’s role in reading Vedas to scheduled castes is another example. Mahatma Phule is revered in Maharashtra by the Dalits. Dr.Bhimrao Ambedkar got his surname Ambedkar because his Brahmin teacher gave him his own for his college admission..
Today caste prejudice, disregarding merit is the bane of society. The nation lost a great opportunity in not making Jagjivan Ram Prime minister of India because though he was eminently qualified and an efficient Minister for decades he was denied because of prejudice. If he could not become PM in 1977 because of some leaders conspiracy, then he could have been in 1980 elections when the Janata Party projected him as the Party’s candidate for Prime Minister. But the Janata Party lost the elections then because caste-voting defeated Jagjivan Ram. The nation was the loser; Today Kanshi Ram is the other side of the coin of caste prejudice.
In 1977, Jagjivan Ram was confident of becoming the Prime minister because Vajpayee and Nana Goray promised him support. The Jan Sangh MPs were 102 in number, the Socialists were 35, and Jagjivan Ram’s Congress for Democracy was 27. That is, of the 318 MPs elected on Janata ticket, a very slender majority were pledged to Jagjivan Ram. Vajpayee’s only reason for preferring Jagjivan Ram to Morarji Desai was that Morarji was a strict prohibitionist while Vajpayee was regular consumer of alcoholic drinks (in secret). But when Charan Singh categorically threw his support for Morarji, Vajpayee became apprehensive because there was a small revolt in the Jan Sangh camp, especially amongst those who had suffered during the Emergency. He feared that they would switch sides and vote against party line. Morarji used to jokingly tell me that Vajpayee “roared like a lion but had a heart of a rabbit”. Vajpayee found that after Charan Singh’s decision, Morarji was assured the support of 154 MPs and needed just 11 MPs more to get majority. Thus Jan Singh’s MPs revolt would have ensured victory. Morarji also sternly told Vajpayee that if he (Morarji) becomes PM without his (Vajpayee’s) support, he would not make him a Minister. That was enough to scare him. He immediately somersaulted, without telling Jagjivan Ram. So on the day of the election of the parliamentary party leader, Vajpayee quietly went to JP and Acharya Kriplani and told them that he was switching sides. I was present there because JP had asked me to be at the Gandhi Peace Foundation with him. JP winked at me with a smile when Vajpayee came rushing in with his change of heart. JP knew what I thought of Vajpayee. Morarji now had majority.
But Jagjivan Ram did not know this. He was so sure of his majority that he had already ordered sweets and fire crackers to celebrate his becoming PM, little realizing Vajpayee’s betrayal.
When the news reached him of Morarji being chosen by JP, Jagjivan Ram was wild with grief. He threw chairs and tables in disgust. He refused to attend Morarji’s swearing in ceremony. Later in the evening I went to Jagjivan Ram’s residence to see him. He was still a broken man; now in full know of the betrayal. He looked at me and said “My friend, this is a great Brahmin conspiracy”. I did not want to contradict him because he was so upset. But it was Charan Singh’s open revolt that had changed the scene. Vajpayee is no Brahmin. He drinks alcohol and publicly claims that he is a bachelor but not a Bramachari. How can he be called a Brahmin with those ‘qualifications’? Besides JP and Acharya Kriplani were not Brahmins. But I had the confidence of Jagjivan Ram, so I could talk to him freely. I really felt sorry for the betrayal even though the man I respected, Morarji Desai, had become PM. Soon Jagjivan Ram got over his grief, and joined the Morarji Cabinet as Defence Minister. He then appointed me as the Party MP’s Defence Committee Chairman, and regularly took me into confidence on Defence matters over dinner at his residence. When Mrs.Gandhi attacked him for choosing the Jaguar fighter bombers over the French Mirage planes, Jagjivan Ram asked me to be the lead speaker in Lok Sabha to defend the government.
The years that I got to know him as a young boy helped me to get close to him. He often requested me to keep Morarji informed so that the Prime Minister does not listen or is influenced by his detractors. Morarji later made a gesture by making Jagjivan Ram as Deputy Prime Minister on par with Charan Singh.
Morarji resigned from the Prime Ministership in July 1979 bringing the government down. Charan Singh became Prime Minister. What surprised us all at that time was, those who used to swear by Mrs.Gandhi, and were at her beck and call (and even today parade themselves as supporters of Mrs.Gandhi) went rushing to Charan Singh to seek Ministership. Among them was C.Subramanian who in Lok Sabha bitterly criticized Mr.Charan Singh’s budget only months ago, but abandoned Mrs.Gandhi and joined Charan Singh’s cabinet as Minister of Defence. That is of course not surprising behaviour for CS. Later in the 80s he abandoned Rajiv Gandhi to accept V.P. Singh’s offer to be Governor of Maharashtra. How hurt Rajiv Gandhi was, only I and few others know. But today on TMC plat form he eulogizes Rajiv Gandhi.
But Charan Singh’s government was to fall because he refused Mrs. Gandhi’s demand to abolish the Special Courts trying cases against her and Sanjay. So she refused to extend him support in Parliament. By now Jagjivan Ram had replaced Morarji Desai as leader of the Janata Party in Parliament. The Janata Party was however 18 MPs short of majority, but AIADMK had 19 MPs. Earlier MGR had supported Charan Singh, but thanks to the efforts of some common friends, MGR was ready to extend support to the Janata Party. MGR informed Jagjivan Ram that if I came on behalf of the Janata Party to Chennai, he (MGR) would finalize with me the alliance. Now it looked as if finally Jagjivan Ram would become Prime Minister.
Jagjivan Ram called me to his residence one evening 36 hours before the deadline set by President Sanjiva Reddy, to prove his majority. He told me about MGR’s message, and said I should fly to Chennai with a letter from him to MGR requesting support. He said putting his affectionate hand on my shoulder “Swamy, phone me from there as soon as you get the letter from MGR pledging support. We must beat the deadline set by the President.” Then he said in an emotionally choked voice: “Hurry, because this is a chance I do not want to miss”. For me it was a pleasure. I knew if Jagjivan Ram because PM, he would make me a Minister. Morarji could not make me Minister because of Vajpayee’s jealousy. But Jagjivan Ram would not care for Vajpayee’s opinion since he would never forget the betrayal of 1977.
When I reached the airport next morning to catch the flight, Vajpayee was therefore to catch the same flight. I asked him what he was doing there. He sheepishly said “The parliamentary party has asked you to meet MGR, while the organizational wing has told me to go and meet MGR.” How petty! He probably did not want me to get all the credit, so he must have persuaded Chandrasekhar to send him. Anyway I had Jagjivan Ram’s letter, so it did not really matter, whether Vajpayee came or not.
From Chennai airport, we were driven straight to MGR’s Thottam house since there was no time to lose. There MGR had laid out a huge breakfast, and he personally insisted that we eat everything. MGR would not let me talk, but kept feeding us one dish after another.
After sometime, I pulled out Jagjivan Ram’s letter to give to MGR. Then MGR handed me his letter to Jagjivan Ram, with a demand that we accommodate two AIADMK MPs as Ministers. That was no problem. Then from there I telephoned Jagjivan Ram to tell him the good news, that now he had majority, and also about MGR’s demand for two nominees in the Cabinet. Jagjivan Ram was thrilled, and asked me to return immediately by the next flight. He said he would inform the President immediately. I was beaming with pleasure when I put the phone down. Then MGR softly asked me in Tamil “Do you think Sanjiva Reddy will ever allow Jagjivan Ram to become PM”. “What not?” I retorted. “If we have majority, he has to call him” I added. “My information is that Reddy will dissolve the House the moment he learns that Jagjivan Ram has majority” MGR said to me gently.
I had a press conference to attend before going to the airport and some sleep to catch before that so I took leave of MGR, who had a strange sarcastic smile as if to say how innocent I was of the facts of life. Two hours later, I went to address a press conference. By then Jagjivan Ram would have gone to the Rashtrapati Bhavan and informed the President of the Janata Party’s majority. As I reached the press conference, I wondered what portfolio Jagjivan Ram would give me as Minister.
Before I could declare to the press the Janata Party’s prospects, pressman jumped on me to ask my reaction to Sanjiva Reddy dissolving the Lok Sabha without giving Jagjivan Ram an opportunity! The news had just come on the PTI ticker. I was dump founded. MGR was right. Sitting in Madras he seemed to know more about Delhi than me! After giving the press my reactions, I left for the airport. What did MGR mean that Reddy would dissolve the House after learning about Jagjivan Ram’s majority?
I understood later. Reddy belonged to a zamindar’s family in Andhra. They have a proverbial lack of respect for scheduled castes. So Reddy did not want a scheduled caste PM, or alternatively he had some other personal hatred for Jagjivan Ram. In either case, he denied Jagjivan Ram his just chance. This time it was clearly not a “Brahmin conspiracy?
I felt sad when on the flight back to Delhi, not only that I lost my chance to be a Minister, but since a truly capable experienced and efficient person could not become the Prime Minister because of some silly petty prejudice. The nation lost twice in 2 1/2 years (1977 -79) in having the services of a great administrator.
Jagjivan Ram never recovered from this low. He became cynical and bitter about it. Although in the 1980 elections, Janata Party projected him as the party candidate for PM, his heart was not in the campaign. I was elected to the Lok Sabha again from Bombay. So I used to see him in Parliament, but Jagjivan Ram was mostly silent in Parliament. Then one day he left Janata Party and joined Congress. Mrs. Gandhi welcomed him but clearly did not forgive him for the 1977 shock. She gave him no importance in the party. One day in 1984, Jagjivan Ram died, broken hearted. With him died a dream of social revolution that is yet to be realized. It is difficult to visualise an able administrator of Jagjivan Ram’s calibre of any caste, coming up in the near future.
Jagjivan Ram had many personal faults. But that is not important if it does not affect his public life or does not compromise him to black mail. But as a person he was warm and despite all the prejudice, Mahatma Gandhi was right in picking him up from nowhere to make him a Minister. Even if he did not become PM, he was Minister from 1946 to 1980, holding at sometime all the important portfolios. He served mother India as a great son.
My Friend Deng Xiao PingClick To OpenNo Indian except me in his personal capacity has ever been received by the recently departed China’s great leader Deng Xiao Ping. Deng invited me in April 1981 to China for a discussion with him on Sino-Indian and other international issues. This meeting, which lasted 100 minutes was hailed by our newspapers as historic as it revived the normalization of our relations with China, which had begun earlier when Morarji Desai become the first Janata PM, but was briefly interrupted after Mrs.Gandhi returned to power. The Chinese had a deep distrust of Mrs. Gandhi because of her pro-Soviet Union tilt in policies, and had broken off the normalization abruptly after she returned to power in 1980. Mrs.Gandhi was however concerned that if the Chinese started to help the Assam students in agitation, India’s Northeast would go out of control of New Delhi. There were Intelligence reports with Mrs.Gandhi that the Assam extremists were planning to send a team to China across the Tibet border to seek arms from that country. This Mrs.Gandhi wanted to stop. And that is why she wanted to make up with China. But she could not talk to the Chinese at the senior level since their leader Deng Xiao Ping refused to meet the Indian Ambassador in China, Mr.Shankar Bajpai. Indian diplomats told Mrs.Gandhi that the only Indian who enjoyed the Chinese trust was me, and Deng Xiao Ping should be approached through me.
At that time, I was a staunch opponent of Mrs.Gandhi. Her action of denying me three professorships (Delhi, Nehru and IIT Universities) at the bidding of communists in 1971-73, which forced me to join politics ( the other alternative was to return to Harvard University in USA) and later the struggle against the Emergency, had made me a bitter opponent of Mrs.Gandhi.
But it is a tribute to Mrs.Gandhi’s patriotism that she did not allow political enmity to come in the way of national interest. At first she tried to convince me through Narasimha Rao to help her break the Chinese hostility. Then she appealed to me directly. So when Deng Xiao Ping invited me in 1981, I decided to help her for the nation’s sake. This mutual gesture completely dissolved the enmity between me and Mrs.Gandhi. We became good friends from that date, so much so that the Madurai MP Subbaraman once came to see me to plead with me that since Mrs.Gandhi had so much regard for me, I should join Congress Party. He even offered to resign his Lok Sabha seat to send me to Parliament. I was, at that time, a Lok Sabha MP from Bombay, so I politely put him off. But it is an irony today that the son of Subbaraman, Rambabu, not only deserted Mrs.Gandhi’s Congress Party, but actually defeated me by unfair means, in the 1996 elections for Madurai Lok Sabha seat. Mr.Subbaraman must be writhing in pain in heavan at this turn of events caused by his wayward son.
The question often asked of me is why a communist country like China gave me a known anti-communist- so much importance. The reasons for this are many. To begin with, communist countries ill-treat anticommunists only of their own country. But in dealing with those abroad, they look to see only if such persons are hostile to their own country. In my case, since for long I have advocated normal relations with China, when it was unpopular to do so, the Chinese leaders felt special warmth of feeling for me. My argument for supporting dialogue with China was that we should not have two enemies China and Pakistan, in the borders of our country. A Sino-Pakistan axis was dangerous for us, and it was making us depend on Russia too much. Therefore, I felt either China or Pakistan should be befriended. Pakistan could not be tackled because it was dominated by the USA, therefore not independent and could not be relied upon. China was an independent country, so we could talk with that country. China in turn had two enemies, Russia and USA and so it wanted to normalise relations with countries which could help either of its enemies. In our case, China’s normal relations with us meant that Russia could not use us to trouble China especially through Tibet. So both India and China would mutually gain from normal relations. This was my argument.
When I first raised the issue in 1967 of improving relations with China, K.R.Narayanan, our President today, was then a Joint Secretary in our External Affairs Ministry. He wrote me a letter once in 1967 saying it was unpatriotic to raise the issue since China had attacked India in 1962. Of course I did not agree. France and Germany attacked each other for centuries. Today they are good friends. Nations have permanents interests, not permanent friendships or permanent enmities. When interests coincide, friendships follow. When interests clash, enmity will be inevitable.
This exchange between me and Narayanan became public. Many people could not understand how I, a perceived pro-American, Harvard educated person be for friendship with China. Because I was anti-communist, people automatically thought that I was pro-American. This is wrong. I would be Pro-or-anti a country according what is in India’s interests. Everyone abroad understands this (but not my critics in India). That is why the Iraq’s leader Sadam Hussein, a bitter foe of USA & Israel, had personally invited me twice to Iraq. Last month, the leftist Prime Minister of Namibia (in Africa) invited me to lead a conference. In June, Vietnam had invited me to participate in an international get-together,
Chinese leaders therefore clearly understood that despite my anti-communism, it was my fierce concern for India’s interests which was motivating me for good relations with China, and that I had the courage to challenge the Russian lobbies in India, who were against China (despite being communists)! The Chinese admired me for this.
There was another reason why the Chinese found it easier to make friends with me. When I had just become a Professor at Harvard after getting my Ph.D. the world’s most famous and revered China Scholar at Harvard, John Fairbank called me up. This was in early 1964, just one and half years after the 1962 Chinese attack. Fairbank taunted me with the assertion: “Why are Indians so poor in learning Chinese? Six students from India were brought here by me on Scholarship at the request of Prime Minister Nehru for a three years course, to learn Chinese. All six have failed in the first semester.” My pride was hurt, so I retorted: “God knows where you got these six students. But if I wanted to, I can learn all the Chinese of a three year course in just six months.” Fairbank challenged me to prove it.
Later Fairbank told me that he had used this ploy to attract me to China studies. He succeeded. I went back to classes at Harvard to learn Chinese. I was a star student, and indeed in six months learn all the Chinese in a three year long course. But surprisingly the little Tamil I had learnt from my mother came useful. For example, Chinese and Tamil had some common words “Nii” means “You” in both languages. The exclamation “Aiyoyo” is the same in both the languages. Most American students could not pronounce the (‘zh’) sounds in Chinese. Since I had learnt to pronounce (‘pazham =fruit’) in Tamil from childhood, I had no difficulty. So I was a hit and favourite with my Chinese Teacher. She was convinced despite my denial, that I had spent my childhood in China. Otherwise how could I pronounce ‘zh’ so beautifully and so naturally, while American students floundered on it, struggling to say it as ‘zz’.
Because I could speak Chinese fluently, it was natural for the Chinese leaders to feel comfortable in my company. Chinese is a hard language to learn and so if some one learnt it, they assumed that the person had a love for China. Little did the Chinese realise that it had nothing to do with my love for China but more to disprove Fairbanks assertion.
After I learnt Chinese, I wrote many articles and books on Chinese Economy. Between 1970 and 1980 I published nearly 100 such writings. Most of it were critical of Chinese economic performance and Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s dictatorial policies. I was condemned by leftist intellectuals for these critical articles who thought Mao had revolutionized China. But the political changes in China during 1976 – 80, went in my favour. Mr.Deng Xiao Ping who took over the leadership in 1978 repudiated Mao, and said that he had ruined the Chinese Economy. World over among China Scholars, only I had written that in vain. Therefore the Chinese scholars immediately began quoting my articles to support Deng’s view.
At that time in 1980, China had applied to the World Bank for a soft loan (i.e., at low 1/2 % interest rate). This meant that China became a competitor with India for loans from the World Bank. To prevent China from getting the loans, the then Finance Minister Mr.R.Venkatraman foolishly argued with the World Bank that China did not qualify for the loans since according to some leftist economists, China’s per capita income was US$1000 compared India’s $250. To qualify for low interest loans from World Bank, the per capita income had to be less than $400. The World Bank President Mr.Robert McNamara made Mr.Venkatraman’s negative attitude look silly by quoting to him my study in which I had concluded that China’s per capita income was the same as India’s $250. So therefore, China qualified for the loan. Rather than correct himself, Mr.Venkatraman made his position more ridiculous by later suggesting to Mrs.Gandhi that on patriotic grounds I should be asked to revise my estimate of China’s per capita income upward to $1000! Mrs.Gandhi politely referred Mr.Venkatraman’s demand to me. I laughed at the request, but told her that she should call all the government experts to come to a conference with me, and prove my estimate wrong. Then I would revise it. Such a conference was arranged. About 40 government experts including the Reserve Bank Governor assembled in the then Foreign Secretary Mr.Ram Sathe’s office. For four hours I sat with them, but they could not find anything wrong with my estimate of China’s per capita income. Therefore, I did not revise my estimate. China got the soft loan from the World Bank despite Venkatraman’s protest because of my research paper on the Chinese economy. But our country’s name was spoiled by this negative attitude of our Finance Minister. The Chinese leaders came to know of this through the World Bank President Mr. McNamara. So they were emotionally moved. Therefore to thank me, the Chinese invited me to China to meet Mr.Deng Xiao Ping, considered as a great honor by one and all. Both India Today and Indian Express described my meeting with Deng as “historic” and covered it extensively.
When I reached Beijing in April 1981 I informed the Chinese Foreign Ministry that I would bring with me our Ambassador Mr.Shankar Bajpai to Mr.Deng’s meeting. The Chinese were upset, and said that this visit was for honouring me in my personal capacity as a scholar, and not as a representative of India. I insisted, saying that Our Ambassador must be present to take notes, and give me clarifications. Besides, I was an MP, hence automatically a representative of India. The Chinese were adamant. So finally I said that I will have to leave China without meeting Mr.Deng if the Ambassador cannot accompany me. This firmness on my part, that abroad I will not separate myself from our government, impressed the Chinese ultimately. They finally understood that I was for truth, but at the same time would stand by my own country.
When I finally met Mr.Deng, he grabbed my arm and said in Chinese: “Lao peng yeou”. This is the ultimate compliment in China to be called “an old friend” and that too by Mr.Deng, the Supreme leader of China. I raised the Assam agitators question with him right away, as I had promised Mrs.Gandhi. Deng asked me why I wanted to help Mrs.Gandhi who had tried to put me in jail during Emergency. I told him it was not a personal issue. If China gave arms to Assam agitators, then people of India will never forgive China, and it will ruin Sino-Indian relations. This would, of course, help Russia to create tensions between our two countries.
Deng appeared convinced. He said “Tell Mrs.Gandhi, if anyone crosses our border from India unauthorized, we will catch that person and hand him to your Border police”. This was the assurance Mrs.Gandhi was looking for.
Deng smiled at me, said “Anything else?” I immediately jumped at that, and said “You have closed Manasarovar for 25 years. This is our holy spot, so please open it for our pilgrims”. Deng did not know anything about Mount Kailash, but his officers explained in Chinese to him, about how difficult the place was to travel to etc. Deng turned to me said with a challenging smile: “If you promise to go there yourself, by walking to Mount Kailash, I will order it’s re-opening”. In September 1981 later that year, I became the first Indian to visit Kailash and Manasarovar after 25 years. Kailash has been open to Hindu pilgrims ever since. Every year about 200 – 300 pilgrims go there.
Deng then turned to his other favourite topics like Vietnam, Russia, economic reform etc., He took me and our Ambassador however by surprise by suddenly declaring to me: “Tell Mrs.Gandhi, I want to improve relations with India. So I am sending our Foreign Minister Huang Hua to India later this year”. Huang Hua came in June 1981, and after that Sino-Indian relations has been steadily improving without a break.
After about 100 minutes of meeting, I took leave of the then 71 years Mr.Deng. He said “you look so young (I was 41 years old then). In your long career ahead, there will be ups and down, but always be optimistic. We thank you for your help to us”.
I felt very pleased with that meeting because despite my not being a Minister then, my efforts laid the foundations for improvement in Sino-Indian relations. Ten years later in 1991 when I returned to Beijing as India’s Commerce Minister, India signed the first Trade Protocol with China in which exports and imports were given a boost. Within two days, I could complete the negotiations, because I was China’s and Deng’s “Lao peng yeou” (old friend). The Chinese were ready to please, because unlike us, are a grateful people. They never forget favours . President Nixon of USA had normalized American relations with China in 1972. After that Nixon landed into the Watergate scandal, and had to resign in 1974. But the Chinese never forgot him for normalizing Sino-US relations and treated him with honour as if nothing had happened. That is why China has so many friends in the world today and we have so few.
After my meeting with Deng Xiao Ping, I was widely recognised all over the world as one who could talk to China frankly. Many business people asked me if I would become their consultant for fat fees, for trade with China. I turned them all down, because the best relations are non-commercial. In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi was to go to China. He asked me to accompany him so that I could help him with Deng. I agreed but later Rajiv changed his mind. He laughingly told me: “My advisers say that if you come with me to China, the Chinese will treat you better and on a higher status than me”. He quoted M.J.Akbar, a newspaper editor in support of this view. Since Rajiv and I were good friends, I did not mind his frankness. At least he was truthful.
India and China should try to be friends. Only then we can manage Pakistan. Deng helped us to restore normal relations and we should never forget that.
Charan Singh – The Much Misunderstood GiantClick To OpenCharan Singh, popularly known in North India as “Choudhary Saheb”, was in my opinion one of the most honest politicians in India. He was also one of the most well read, and of scholarly bent of mind, contrary to popular impressions. Yet he was type-cased by the media as an opportunistic village rustic, someone who had no national vision.
I first met Charan Singh in Lucknow in 1974 when I was contesting the Rajya Sabha seat. We were not in the same party then; to get me defeated he had set up industrialist K.K.Birla as an independent candidate. Birla went about openly buying MLAs who were expected to vote for me. So the situation was precarious. But Charan Singh decided to cast the second preference votes of his party for me, thus ensuring my victory. I did not know Charan Singh much then since I barely been in politics for two years. I too had formed an impression that he was a village rustic, and not worth talking seriously. Little did I realise that in his last days twelve years later I would become one of his closest confidants and his admirer.
Charan Singh met me in the UP Vidhan Sabha premises when he came to cast his vote. He was an MLA then, and leader of 105 MLAs of the Bharatya Lok Dal (BLD). The BLD in 1977 merged with Janatha Party, and donated the farmer with plough symbol to the new party. This is the symbol of Janatha Party even today.
When Charan Singh saw me in the UP Vidhan Sabha, he spoke to me in fluent English. He said: “Young man, despite you abusing me in the UP Assembly election campaign (held in 1973), I have forgiven you and voted for you. I am impressed with your educational qualifications and intelligence, so I voted for you. When you are elected, come and see me”. I thanked Charan Singh for voting for me, but I was dazed by his simplicity and English diction. But after defeating K.K.Birla and becoming MP, I went straight to Delhi. I corresponded with Charan Singh, but since he mostly stayed in Lucknow, and I in Delhi, we could not meet till 1977.
In Feb 1977, after Elections to Lok Sabha had been declared, I returned from USA to contest elections. Both Charan Singh and I were in the same party the Janatha Party. So I went to see him. At that time, he was staying in a small flat in Vithal bhai Patel House. When I met him, he was in the midst of a huge crowd relaxing in sunshine on that cold February day. As soon as he saw me, joy came over his face. I had thought he might rebuke me for not seeing him earlier, but Charan Singh did not. He simply shouted to his followers to gather. Soon about 500 people, mostly farmers from Haryana and UP, gathered. “Choudhary Saheb” caught me by the hand, took me to the gathering and introduced me in a lavish way. He said: “This is Dr.Swamy, my friend. Do you know him?” The crowd had come to know of me during the Emergency by reading newspapers and listening to my BBC broadcasts. So they all nodded enthusiastically.
Charan Singh said: “We are a nation of cowards. Very few people have courage in our country. But we have survived because there are always some Indians with extra-ordinary courage. Rana Pratap and Subash Bose are examples. Now after the Emergency struggle, we have one more example — Dr.Subramanian Swamy.” The crowd cheered. I was very much touched. I said to myself that here is political leader whose follower I am not, and barely know him. And yet he praised me like this in public.
After all the greetings were exchanged, I took leave of Charan Singh, and promised to see him soon. I next saw Charan Singh after he had become Home Minister. I went to his residence in Akbar Road. But unlike many other politicians power had not affected him. He was as simple and warm as before. He got up to receive me, and put the palm of land on my forearm, and asked: “why did not Morarji make you a Minister?” I replied “He says that he cannot make me a Cabinet Minister because I am not old enough, and I will not accept a Minister of state”. Charan Singh smiled and said: “Bahadur aadmi (braveman). It is good to wait. Look at me, I am 77 years old, and first time Central Minister. You are 37, and already a two term MP. Nothing to worry.” he comforted me.
Then Charan Singh put his hand on my shoulder, and asked, “Will Morarji be grateful to me, that I made him Prime Minister?” Charan Singh was right that he helped make Morarji PM; because of his 112 MPs in the Janata tally of 320 MPs his support to Morarji over Jagjivan Ram decided the contest in favour of Morarji Desai. But Morarji had already told me that God had made him PM, that he had asked no one to support him. Hence if he is to be grateful to anyone on this earth, it is to the whole Janata Party and not to anyone particular leader. Otherwise, destiny made him.
I could sense trouble brewing here. Morarji was a evolved sadhu, and did not care who thought what about him. Charan Singh, for all his education, was essentially a simple patriarch, with a deep sense of expecting gratitude for favours done and return favours. Therefore, he wanted Morarji to show deference to him. This developing clash was a pity because ideologically Morarji and Charan Singh were on the same side, more in the Gandhiji-Sardar Patel line than in Nehru’s. Morarji and Charan Singh were for simple living, were honest, and strong believers in prohibition. If Morarji was the brain of the Janata, Charan Singh was the spinal cord of the party. We needed both Janatha to be strong.
Since both men were strict disciplinarians other less strict and more corrupt Janatha leaders saw personal advantage in dividing the two. Atal Behari Vajpayee was, for example, feeling insecure with Morarji for asking him to give up alcoholic drinks. On one occasion, when the Japanese Foreign Minister gave a dinner party in the Japanese Embassy in New Delhi, Vajpayee had became quite drunk in that party. I had been also invited to that dinner, and was horrified to see our Foreign Minister drunk. Morarji came to know of this through the Intelligence Bureau, so he asked me for confirmation, which I gladly gave. Morarji then called Vajpayee in my presence, and gave him big firing. Vajpayee had no answer except to giggle like a school girl caught stealing. But naturally he felt humiliated.
To keep Morarji in check, Vajpayee began poisoning Charan Singh’s mind. It was he who first put the idea of becoming PM in Charan Singh’s mind. Like a typical trouble maker, Vajpayee could carry tales to Morarji about Charan Singh, and vice versa. The ‘credit’ thus of laying the foundation for the break up of Janata Party and the fall of its government, really goes to Vajpayee and not to Charan Singh as is popularly thought. The split came in 1979, and Charan Singh became PM with Indira Gandhi’s help. I stayed in Janata with Morarji. Vajpayee ditched Charan Singh at the last minute, and decided to stay in the Janata Party. A year later, he ditched Morarji, and left the Janata to form the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and become its President.
Despite my remaining with Morarji in Janatha, I kept my good relations with Charan Singh, and met him often. Charan Singh also knowing fully well that I had cast my lot with Morarji never let that affect his warmth towards me. It was Charan Singh’s respect for my scholarship and education and not politics which drew him to me. In our meetings therefore during this period we rarely discussed politics, but books which are worth reading in economics and history.
In 1984, Morarji asked me to contest against Chandrasekhar for Janata Party President in the Party polls. This enraged Chandrasekhar and Hegde (who were later to full apart), and who saw it as a plot by Morarji to regain control of the party before the General Elections to the Lok Sabha in 1984 end.
Breaking all the rules of the party Constitution, Chandrasekhar got me expelled from the Janata Party. The first phone call I got after the expulsion, was from Charan Singh. He made critical remarks about Chandrasekhar (whom he had never liked), and then took me by surprise by inviting me to join his party. “I want someone like you to be with me with whom I can discuss.” he said. He had recently written a book on the Indian Economy, detailing how the farmers had been exploited. I had given him a note on how he could improve his thesis in the second edition of the book. He was delighted, but almost childlike asked me: ” Why cannot my books be recognized abroad. No one reads them here. And because of communist influence in our Universities, it will never be prescribed for students.” I promised to do something someday.
In the 1984 Elections, after Mrs.Gandhi’s assassination, except Charan Singh, all of us in the opposition including Chandrasekhar, Vajpayee and myself lost the elections. So, thinking that a young Rajiv Gandhi of 40 years old, with a huge majority will remain in power for 15 years at least like his mother and grandfather, I decided to take a holiday from politics. I was also only 44 then, young by Indian political standards, so I could wait.
Harvard University, upon learning that I had lost the elections, invited me to return to teach economics. When I resumed my teaching in June 1985 at Harvard, I remembered Charan Singh’s wish to have international recognition for his book. So I used my professor status to prescribe his book in the economic courses in the university. Harvard formally wrote to Charan Singh asking him to send 350 copies of the book for purchase.
When Charan Singh received the letter (his wife later told me) tears came down his eyes. In an emotional burst he said “I have only one true friend that is Swamy”. It occurred to me that Charan Singh, despite having become PM, essentially craved to be intellectually recognized. He hated the media hype casting him as a village Jat rustic, and ignoring his writing as a thinker. It also hurt him and made him sad.
I remember one day in 1982, he telephoned me to come and see him. I thought something important had happened. When I was with him, seated on the floor in Gandhian style, he asked me, his eyes moist: “Swamy, is there a ritual you know by which I can become a Brahmin?” “Why Choudhary Saheb?” I asked “What value is it to be a Brahmin today?” “See what this correspondent has written “he said showing a newspaper report which described Charan Singh as an “Illiterate”. Then Charan Singh said to me “Unless you are a Brahmin, your intellectual ability will never be allowed to be recognized. Jawaharlal Nehru’s books are of less scholarly value than mine, and yet he is called ‘Panditji’ and I am denounced as an illiterate. Why?” Unless I become a Brahmin, my writings will not be recognized”.
I agreed with him that while he wrote on difficult economics subjects, Nehru’s works dealt with easy essays in history. I also argued that the urban English media is not to be taken seriously. But throughout my association with Charan Singh, I felt that while politicians felt jealous of his solid electoral base he instead would have been happy if he was recognized as a scholar. And of course he should have been in my opinion, regarded as a top intellectual. But because he did not have any outward westernization and was dressed very simply, the city-based people never respected him. It had nothing to do with his not being a Brahmin. Vajpayee is a Brahmin, but he is not regarded as an intellectual.
After some months, one day while I was at Harvard, I received a telephone call from Mr. Ajit Singh, son of Charan Singh He said that his father had been admitted for treatment in Baltimore Hospital, and is barely conscious. He had suffered a stroke.
I took the next plane from Boston to Baltimore, and went straight to the hospital. I was joined by Mrs.Charan Singh and Ajit Singh. Despite being in semi-conscious state, when Charan Singh saw me, he recognized me and tears rolled down his cheeks. Mrs. Charan Singh told me that Charan Singh had never forgotten that I prescribed his books at Harvard. Today he does not recognize unless someone has touched his heart and memory in some big way. For others, his memory has failed him. That is why tears rolled down his cheeks on seeing.
Charan Singh spoke a few words to me, but they were all unconnected with anything relevant. For instance he kept asking me to be aware of another Emergency coming, and rigging of General Elections. Clearly, the stroke he had suffered had also affected his brain. USA could not cure him. Charan Singh was flown back to India. I returned from Harvard after nearly two years. Charan Singh was still alive, but in a semi-conscious state, I went to see him at his Tughlak Road residence. His wife Gayathri and Ajit warned me that he may not open his eyes or even recognize me after this long absence. But as soon as I entered the room, he opened his eyes, his body shook, and he cried. Ajit explained that this was his only way of saying “hello” and this emotion was reserved for a very few. Obviously, the simple joy of having his books prescribed at Harvard had made an indelible impression on him. I said goodbye to him; he died a few days later.
During the 1980′s, Charan Singh had spoken a lot about his son Ajit Singh, then an Engineer in USA. As a tribute to Charan Singh, I brought Ajit Singh from the wilderness of politics to make him the Janatha Party President. He did not stay long and soon left the party to join V.P.Singh.
Charan Singh was the most misunderstood political leader of India. Had he been given a full term as PM, he would have revolutionized Indian agriculture. He was a person a great courage. He opposed Jawaharlal Nehru in the famous Nagpur AICC when Nehru wanted to collectivize agriculture like in the communist countries. His grip over UP rural masses was so strong that once on an election campaign in Farrukabad, UP, he asked the people to vote against his own party candidate because he drank alcoholic drinks, and asked them to vote for an obscure Independent candidate! If Ajit Singh is winning his election today, it is entirely because of the love people of U.P. have for Charan Singh. Those who knew him loved him. Those who didn’t made fun of him for superficial considerations
The Kamaraj I KnewClick To OpenI first met Thiru.Kamaraj when I was just 9 years old in early 1949. Kamaraj had come to our residence in New Delhi for lunch. My father was in government service then, after a period as lecturer in mathematics in Annamalai University. When my father was a student and later lecturer, he was closely associated with Satyamurti, the popular Congress leader and member of the fore-runner of our Parliament — namely the Central Legislative Assembly. Because of this closeness with Satyamurti, my father came to know Thiru.Kamaraj .
When Kamaraj came to our house, naturally there was little to discuss between us since I was only 9 years old, and Kamaraj appeared not interested in anything else except politics and India’s freshly achieved freedom. But I sat with my father and Kamaraj, and heard their conversation, which was mostly about Rajaji, which I did not understand.
I next met Kamaraj in 1968 after he had lost the elections. I was then a Professor of Economics at Harvard University in USA and was on a short summer vacation trip to India to give lectures at the Delhi school of Economics in Delhi University. To fix an appointment, I simply telephoned Thiru.Kamaraj on the number in the Telephone Directory. When he came on the line, I explained who was I, in my broken Tamil (which I could barely speak in those days) and reminded him of his coming to our house in1949! Either out of sweetness or just genuine memory, he recalled that meeting, and immediately invited me to see him at his Jantarmantar residence.
When I met Kamaraj at his Delhi residence, he had hardly any visitors. He had been defeated at the polls, and Indira Gandhi whom he had made Prime Minister, was not listening to him. So he was glum and quite alone. He gave me a good filter coffee and asked me only one question in broken English – What do the Americans think of India and Indira Gandhi? Not much conversation could take place however since I tried to speak to him in my broken Tamil and he tried to make me understand in his broken English!
My next meeting took place in April 1974. By then, I had become an MP. Thiru.Kamaraj had invited me for lunch to his new residence at Ashoka road. We had first met that morning in Morarji Desai’s residence where we had all been asked to assemble to celebrate. Morarji had got his demand on holding Gujarat Assembly elections conceded following his fast unto death, which fast was broken on the fifty day. So we all went to celebrate. Kamaraj saw me there and asked me to come with him to his residence. I was pleased that he gave so much recognition and went with him to his place.
At the lunch table, Kamaraj said to me that since I enjoyed JP’s confidence, I should ensure that Morarji Desai is not made the combined opposition candidate for Prime Minister. I felt honoured that he trusted me with his confidence, but asked him why he was against Morarji. He replied in the simplest Tamil, with gestures to make sure that I understood that Morarji was too rigid to head a coalition of opposition parties. It needed someone more flexible in nature, he said. Kamaraj wanted me convince JP of this. Kamaraj-Morarji enmity originated from the time Nehru in 1963 used the “Kamaraj Plan” to dislodge Morarji from the Finance Ministry.
I asked Kamaraj why he did not think of himself to lead the coalition. He said that the North, which had majority of the Lok Sabha seats, will not tolerate for long anyone who did not know Hindi. He had not learnt Hindi, so when in 1964 Nehru died; he brought in Lal Bahadur Shastri. At that time, he himself could have become PM, but because of this reason he declined to do so. Then he added: “Unless you know how to reprimand Northerners in Hindi, they will not listen to you!”
He then congratulated me for getting elected to Parliament from UP. “It is a real credit for a Tamilian to come to Parliament from UP.” But he added a warning: “Today you are a youngster, so they may accept you , because you speak Hindi, and can abuse them in Hindi. But after some years, when you become a big leader, you will have to come to Tamilnadu and go from there. With a name like Subramanian Swamy you will always be considered a Tamilian in UP, even if you speak Hindi like them. So sooner or later, you will have to shift to Tamilnadu to be in Parliament. “. This advice of Kamaraj never left my mind and memory. After I became Commerce Minister in 1990, I knew time had come to implement Kamaraj’s advice.
I next met Kamaraj accidentally at Meenambakkam Airport in Madras on May 1, 1975. This was to be our last meeting since soon after, the Emergency was declared. On October 1, 1975, Kamaraj passed away. I was underground then evading a MISA arrest warrant, so I could not even come to pay my last respects to his body.
But this last meeting was the most rewarding experience. Kamaraj and I were together for three and half hours—one hour in the airport lounge and 2 1/2 hours on the flight seated together. My Tamil had improved to the point that Kamaraj felt comfortable to speak freely and continuously in Tamil with me. His Tamil was simple and not like the cinema dialogues of today.
When he saw me at the airport, the first thing he said was that henceforth when I come to Madras, I must first look him up. He also asked me to accompany him on tours so that my Tamil will improve and I could be sent to Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu. He was in a very good mood on that day because he had been drawing very large crowds in his meetings. Lok Sabha elections were near, due then in February 1976, only nine months away. So Kamaraj was feeling confident about the future, and planning for it.
On the flight, Kamaraj spent most of his time telling me on the evil deeds of Mrs.Gandhi, and why it was important to unseat her. When I half-jokingly suggested that it was he who made her PM, he replied that it was all the more his responsibility to unseat her. Then he asked me. “Do you know who killed [Commerce minister] L.N.Mishra?” “I know the gossip, but nothing concrete”. I replied. “In the Lok Sabha election, I will reveal everything” Kamaraj added.
In the flight, on the other side of aisle, was sitting Mr.C.Subramaniam, then minister of Finance. During the entire flight or at the airport, he never said even “hello” to Kamaraj. This was surprising since Subramaniam owed his political career to Kamaraj. But he was probably afraid that Indira Gandhi may misunderstand his courtesy to Kamaraj, and drop him from the Finance Ministership! Such is the Tamil political culture even today.
Kamaraj pointed to CS and whispered to me: “Do you know who he is?” I said “Of course, he is the Finance Minister”. Kamaraj then said: “He knows everything about L.N.Mishra”.
“How?” I asked. “In 1967 when Indira Gandhi dropped L.N.Mishra from Deputy Home Ministership, she sent this man to me to explain. Mishra had been brought to Rajya Sabha by me, so I had been unhappy”, Kamaraj said.
” CS explained to me that Indira Gandhi had been furious with Mishra for bringing to her notice little incidents in which Sanjay Gandhi had landed in trouble, such as rash driving in which a cyclist had been injured. CS said that Mishra had informed Mrs.Gandhi that he paid the cyclist and hushed up the matter. In those days Sanjay was always in trouble, but CS told me that Mrs.Gandhi was annoyed that Mishra was trying to blackmail her. So to teach him a lesson, she had removed him from the Ministership.”
Then Kamaraj looked straight at me and said “If that was the case in 1967, then how was it that in 1969 she not only brought him back, promoted him to a full Minister and gave him the money-spinning Commerce portfolio? How did he win back her confidence?” I was speechless. Kamaraj then added: I will speak about this also in the LokSabha election campaign”.
But then why did you team up with her in the [Feb.1974] Pondicherry Assembly elections? I asked.
“Big mistake. I did not want it, but my associates were pushing for it, and in a weak moment I yielded” Kamaraj replied. “But now after L.N.Mishra’s murder, I am determined not to have anything to do with Indira Gandhi or her party”, he firmly added.
Our flight reached Delhi. On parting with Kamaraj at the airport, I promised to meet him again and travel around the Tamilnadu countryside with him. I got the distinct feeling that Kamaraj wanted to project me for a role in Delhi, and therefore wanted to get to know me better. But it was never to be. Events overtook us.
Emergency was declared on June 26, 1975. I was told that Kamaraj wept, and held himself personally responsible for promoting Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister. But his grief in the loss of democracy was so great that he fell ill, and never recovered. He died on October 1, 1975.
Kamaraj can be counted as one of the greatest Tamil leaders of post Independence era. He was honest, simple and yet a visionary. He developed Tamilnadu to the point where it became the best administered state in the country till the cinema culture of the DMK ruined the state.
Knowing Kamaraj I can say that those who left his party in 1976 and joined Indira Gandhi in the midst of the Emergency by claiming that Kamaraj had wanted it are guilty of double treachery: First in insulting his memory by joining Indira Gandhi while the Emergency was still on, and many were in jail under MISA, and second, by claiming that Kamaraj’s last wish was this—to join Indira Gandhi!
I know Kamaraj’s real last wish. It was to build a strong opposition party to both Indira Gandhi and the DMK (who were allies in 1974) and bring back honest rule to the state. Those who claim otherwise are not true followers of Kamaraj.
Morarji Desai – My True FriendClick To OpenArticles
Morarji Desai – my true friend
I was first introduced to Morarji Desai in 1975 when senior leaders were finding it difficult to bring him and Jayaprakash Narayan on the same wave length of thinking and pushed me in the front to dare to talk to both. As I have already described in my earlier article, if it were not for my audacity in bringing JP and Morarji together, the June 25th 1975 historic Ramlila Ground meeting in Delhi (which Mrs. Gandhi used as an excuse to declare Emergency),would never have taken place. The Emergency was originally scheduled for June 22nd when JP was to address the rally, but his Patna-Delhi Indian Airlines flight got cancelled, and so Mrs.Gandhi postponed the decision. She wanted to use JP’s speech as an excuse. It is a wonder to me that had I not succeeded to bringing the two together on June 25th, and the meeting thus cancelled, would the declaration of Emergency been further postponed, or even Mrs.Gandhi changed her mind about the idea itself with a little more time to think about it?
My Next meeting with Morarji Desai was a stormy one. It was a meeting demanded by Morarji to give me a lecture. It was also meeting that became a turning point because after that Morarji and I became very close.
The General Elections to Lok Sabha were declared on January 18, 1977 when I was abroad, having escaped again after a dramatic appearance on the floor of Parliament despite an MISA arrest warrant and the highest reward on my head for my capture. This was my second escape abroad during the Emergency.
Morarji had been released from prison, and in his first press conference, a pro-Congress news reporter taunted him with the question about Mrs.Gandhi’s allegation that opposition leaders had run away abroad rather than go to jail. The news reporter mentioned my name in this connection.
Morarji angrily reacted to the question by remarking that it did not matter because I was not a “front rank” leader. I did not mind that remark because I was then only 37 years old, and only been four years in politics. But I had resented Morarji’s failure to rebut the idea that I had “run away”. Actually I was abroad on JP’s direction to awaken the world to the Emergency’s atrocities, and Morarji had known that. It would have been easy to stay in jail. Because I had evaded arrest under MISA, Mrs.Gandhi put 18 false cases against me, declared me a “proclaimed offender”, and confiscated my property, household goods and car. My two daughters Gitanjali aged 5 and Suhasini aged 2 had to suffer trauma of not knowing where their father was, not to mention the harassment suffered by my wife in going to court for my cases, and who was always against my leaving academics (that too Harvard) for politics.
When I returned to India on February 5th, 1977 to contest Lok Sabha, I was red hot with anger. My other political colleagues sensed that I would retaliate, so advised me restraint till elections were over. But in my first press conference after return, the same press reporter taunted me with Morarji’s remark. I found it difficult to contain myself, and yet the cause of winning the elections loomed in my mind. So, I replied: “Morarjibhai is right. I cannot be front rank leader because I am not 80 years old. This was front page box item news. Everybody found it humorous and had a good laugh. But not Morarji. He was even more angry. So he sent word to me to see him in the Jantar Mantar Party office. I refused saying I don’t recognize him as my leader.
Morarji then surprised me by asking me to come to his Bombay residence for tea. I relented, and went to see him. Morarji’s took me to meet him in the privacy of his bedroom. The conversation went like this:
Morarji : “Why have you called attention of the press to my age?”
Swamy : “Because you called attention to my age”
Morarji : “But you are not a front rank leader today”
Swamy : “I have publicly agreed with you on this. So what is your objection?”
Morarji : “Do you realize that your remark on my age is helping Mrs.Gandhi’s propaganda?”
Swamy : “Do you realize that your silence on Mrs.Gandhi allegation that I ran away abroad had hurt my reputation and the feelings of my family?”
Morarji : “Why did you not go to jail? I don’t believe in evading arrest”
Swamy : “Who cares about what you believe. JP asked me to go abroad and organize. Abroad I agitated against your detention. This was a mistake, I agree”
Morarji : “JP asked you? No one told me so”
Swamy : “As a leader you should have found out”
Morarji : “Yes, that was my mistake. But still you should not have remarked about my age”
: “I did not realize Mrs.Gandhi would exploit it. It is my mistake for which I am sorry”
Morarji was immediately moved by my saying sorry. “Young man”, he said “You are blunt and truthful. I admire your courage, even if I do not approve of this underground activity. Let us be friends”.
From that day on wards, even if Morarji did nothing much for me politically, he was always on my side helping me where he could and I remained his friend till his last breath. When his Cabinet was formed, it was widely thought that I would be made a Cabinet Minister for my role in the Emergency, but Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had played a disgraceful role of writing an apology letter to Mrs.Gandhi during the Emergency – to come out on parole out of jail, – controlled 91 Jan Sangh MPs. Vajpayee was given to tremendous jealousy, and it is the root cause of the mess BJP is in today. He found my “Emergency Hero” status unbearable especially since he wanted to hide his own surrender shame. He therefore prevailed upon Morarji to offer me only a Minister of State with independent charge. Morarji also thought that at the age of 37, a Cabinet Ministership was too early.
When I turned down the junior Ministership, Morarji was truly impressed. He called me to have dinner with him to express his appreciation. At the dinner, he expressed his approval of my simple habits (no drinking, no smoking), my courage, and my education. At one stage, he said to me “You should have come into contact with me years earlier”. From that day onwards till his death, I was one of the few who could see Morarji at any time or any place that I wanted especially at his lunch (10 AM) or dinner time (6.30 PM). Throughout his Prime Ministership, I was regularly the last visitor to see him (8.30 PM). Very often, Morarji would invite me to come with him on trips within the country on the special Air Force Plane. Morarji had clearly taken a liking for me and my boldness.
Morarji helped me to break the ice with China. Vajpayee as Foreign Minister blocked my visit for one year, but in 1978, Morarji saw that I went first to China. He accepted my view about China, and rejected Vajpayee’s, who was keen to keep the Soviet Union pleased. Even on Israel, Morarji accepted my view and invited Moshe Dayan to visit India.
Because of the factionalism in the Janata Party, during his tenure as PM, he could not make me a Cabinet Minister. Delhi was always abuzz with the rumour that he was about to induct me as Foreign Minister because he was fed up with Vajpayee’s drinking habits whenever he went abroad or his indiscretion with women. But the 91 MPs of the Jan Sangh group was Vajpayee’s strength, so Morarji kept postponing the date. Then there was the Raj Narain nuisance. However in June 1979, Raj Narain was expelled from the Janatha Party, and everything was under control– or so it seemed. It was then I was confidently told by insiders that Morarji would bring me into the Cabinet in the September 1979 re-shuffle. That re-shuffle never came because Morarji quit office in July 1979. But the greatness of Morarji was exhibited in those trying moments when he was betrayed by colleague after colleague, each trying to become Prime Minister. Some got a bad name for it such as Charan Singh, but the real culprits were Vajpayee and Ramakrishna Hegde who pushed Morarji into a confrontation with Charan Singh, and then let Morarji down.
Provoked by what he mistakenly took as Morarji induced insults, Charan Singh broke the party, and the Janatha Party lost majority. Then Vajpayee and Hegde produced a list of 279 MPs of which 23 MPs signatures were forged. The President Mr.Sanjiva Reddy was alerted to it by the IB, and he made it public. Morarji gallantly took the blame and quit public life. It should have been Vajpayee and Hegde who should have quit, but they left Morarji holding the bag and owning responsibility! Such was their character.
Later at his residence at night I asked Morarji why he took the blame when he was blameless and paid such a heavy price. He said simply: “After all, I am the leader. I must sink with the ship”. Such was his greatness.
Morarji never recovered from the 1979 debacle. But till his death, he tried to help me to the extent he could. He backed me for becoming the President of the Janatha Party to replace Chandrasekhar as early a 1981. He tried again in 1984, but Chandrasekhar and Hegde combined to get me expelled from the party rather than pose to challenge. Later Hegde got ambitious and tried to push Chandrasekhar. It was ironic that Chandrasekhar sought my help. Since of the two, Chandrasekhar was a better person, I launched a campaign against Hegde on telephone tapping and land scandals for which Hegde was responsible. He had to resign from the Karnataka Chief Ministership and has been marginalized in politics ever since.
For Morarji, the most hurtful part of his life was when cheap allegation was hurled on him by an American author, of being a CIA agent. There could not have been a greater patriot than Morarji, but he was slandered like Sita was in Ramayana. It was the only time I saw Morarji’s eyes moist. But he told me: “It is the law of Karma. I must have wronged somebody in my past life”.
I advised him to ignore the charge since every newspaper editorial in the country came to his defense. No politician however came explicitly to his defence. Some attacked him. In Lok Sabha, I stoutly defended him which pleased him immensely. But his other friends were not satisfied. They wanted him to sue the author in US courts. Morarji chose to ignore my advice, and he suffered even more going to US in cold winters to pursue the case and raise money for legal fees. It was a futile exercise, and a waste of time and money. Morarji was deeply hurt by outcome and regretted his decision to fight a defamation case in a US court. He seemed to lose all desire for public life.
But Morarji was getting old too. He was nearing 90. Soon he simply retired completely and never left Bombay. But he would keep inquiring about me. During my struggle against the Jayalalitha government, and the violence let loose against me, Morarji would chuckle and say, “Foolish woman. Does she not know your exploits in the Emergency?” But he kept telling me to be careful about my life and limb. I know he was concerned from his heart.
When Morarji died, he saved my life. Strange as it may seem, I was driving in last week of April 1995 to Pondicherry to address a public meeting. At Tindivanam, a huge crowd was waiting for me to with petrol bombs and acid filled eggs. They were planning to stop my car and set it on fire, thereby roasting me to death. The crowd was AIADMK sponsored, and they were particularly angry at my getting sanction to prosecute their leader, Ms.Jayalalitha. They wanted to prove their loyalty to her.
I had no idea that this mob was waiting for me, since as usual the Tamilnadu Police had disappeared from Tindivanam. As my car was speeding towards Tindivanam, in a small town about 10 Kms away, a few people blocked my car to give me the news that Morarji Desai had passed away.
I immediately told Chandralekha who was travelling with me, that I must return and catch a flight to Bombay. My party people accompanying me and Chandralekha thought that since a huge crowd would be waiting in Pondicherry to hear my speech, I should fulfil that commitment first. I could pass a condolence resolution in that meeting, they suggested. But my emotional attachment to Morarji was deep. Therefore I insisted on cancelling the programme and returning right away.
When I reached Chennai three hours later there was an urgent call from Dr.Chenna Reddy, from Pondicherry. There was real concern in his voice. I thought he was calling about Morarji, but he asked me: “Are you alright?” I said yes but asked him why. He replied “Thank God! There was an AIADMK mob ready to murder you, burn you alive. Thank God you did not go to Tindivanam”. Dr.Channa Reddy later wrote a letter to the Prime Minister Mr.Narasimha Rao about it.
But I said: “Thank God, and thank your Morarji bhai. Even in your last breath you thought of helping me”.
I flew to Ahmedabad via Bombay, and meditated by the side of Morarji’s body. I am rarely moved to tears. But on that day, tears rolled down my cheeks when I saw Morarji’s body I placed a wreath on his body and said “Good bye, my Friend. I shall never forget you”.
Morarji was a great inspiration for four reasons:
First, he came from an ordinary school teacher’s family, and while remaining completely honest, simple, fearless and truthful, he rose by sheer hard work to become the Prime Minister of India. Those who say that we have to be corrupt to rise in politics should learn from Morarji’s example.
Second, Morarji was a man of guts and conviction. Even JP came out of jail during the Emergency on parole (though justifiably), but Morarji despite 20 months of solitary confinement did not budge. He even refused to talk with Mrs.Gandhi’s emissaries about compromise.
Third, Morarji was noble and humane. After he became PM, Mrs.Gandhi went to see him and request an allotment of a government bungalow. Despite protest from many Janata Party leaders, he treated her with respect and allotted her a spacious bungalow. “After all, she was our Prime Minister for 11 years” he told me one day.
Fourth, Morarji had a complete philosophy of life. It was he (and course the divine grace of Parmacharya Sri Chandrasekhara Saraswathi) who educated me on how not to be disheartened by failure. He would say “Plans are good only for 10 percent of your success. Events control 90 percent of the failure. You can plan, but God only controls events”. Morarji’s commentary on Bhagwat Gita is still one of the best that I have read of any commentators.
Like Patel and Subash Bose, Morarji’s stature will grow with time.
Rajiv Gandhi – My FriendClick To OpenMy first contact with Rajiv Gandhi came when he entered Lok Sabha in 1982 in a by-election. I was too in Lok Sabha then re-elected from Bombay in 1980. However before this, Rajiv communicated with me regularly through a journalist since 1977. The first communication was a thanks -,as a gratitude for defending him in a Parliamentary Party Executive of the Janata Party presided over by Morarji Desai.
In one meeting, George Fernandez, the most characterless person in Indian Politics, had demanded that the PM take action against Rajiv Gandhi then an Indian Airlines pilot, for allegedly taking bribe in a 1973 purchase of Boeings by Indian Airlines. All that I said in the meeting was that Rajiv Gandhi should not be dragged in merely because he was the son of Indira Gandhi. There must be concrete proof. Morarji agreed with me, and asked Fernandez for evidence which of course he did not have. So the matter was dropped. In fact Fernandez’s socialist colleague Mr.Purushottam Kaushik was Civil Aviation Minister and he remained silent too.
Naturally the word spread, and a journalist who lives in London now, called me to convey the thanks and the proposal that Rajiv and I meet. In fact, this journalist printed posters and pasted it all over Delhi to proclaim that “Rajiv exonerated by Swamy”. I told this journalist that there was nothing to thank since I was doing what was humanly decent. Further I said to him that Rajiv was neither in politics nor did he participate in the Emergency. In fact he had disapproved of what his brother Sanjay did. I also felt that there was no need to meet for this purpose.
Rajiv never forgot this, and when he came to Lok Sabha, he came over to my seat and formally introduced himself although he did not need introduction. That was his simplicity that remained a hall mark till his end. He was a sweet person too, always speaking in soft tone. My friendship grew with time. Mrs.Indira Gandhi was delighted with this development because she felt that Rajiv needed friends of his age group (Rajiv was four years younger) who knew politics. But I had little time because I was mostly touring and mostly away from Delhi. In those days I travelled a lot abroad too on official invitations from China, Israel, U.K., Pakistan, Japan etc…
Still Rajiv and I met in Parliament sometimes and discussed various national topics which because of his non-political background. The only point on which we had disagreement was over Punjab, and that too because he came under influence of two rootless persons Arun Nehru and Arun Singh. Both ditched him later when the Bofors scandal unfolded.
By 1984, Rajiv and I had become friendly enough to joke with each other. But 1984 was a terrible year with the Golden Temple Bluestar fiasco, and then Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination. The terrible holocaust, of Sikh genocide of November 1984 had very much upset me. I had also become unpopular in North India because I was the only Hindu politician to oppose operation Bluestar, which had fanned Hindu fanaticism. Chandrasekhar also had me expelled from Janatha Party. This made me lose the 1984 Lok Sabha election, as did practically every opposition leader because of the sympathy wave due to the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi. I met Rajiv Gandhi briefly during his mother’s funeral. He simply said “Swamy, Join me”. Only later I came to know he had wanted me to join the Congress Party at that juncture.
After my defeat in the elections, I was invited by Harvard University to rejoin as Professor of Economics. So in early 1985 left for Harvard and stayed as Professor there for two years. All through 1985 I wrote critical articles of Rajiv Gandhi’s policies which in my style were hard-hitting. I was sure that because of these articles, and the sycophants around him, I would lose his friendship.
In August 1986, while on a short visit to India while my University was on vacation, I notified the External Affairs Ministry that my friend from 1978 and President of Pakistan Gen.Zia ul Haq had invited me as his personal guest to Pakistan, and wanted to know if the Government wanted me to get anything clarified with Zia. To my surprise, I got a call from the PMO fixing time in Rajiv’s Parliament office to meet him.
When I met Rajiv, he was all smiles. He said jokingly “I heard you have run away to Harvard. How have you been?” Obviously either he had not read my articles or he thought nothing of it. He then proceeded to tell me about the help Zia was giving to Sikh militants, and urged me to take it up with him. He also asked his Minister, Natwar Singh to give me a detailed background on Indo-Pakistan relations. While I was leaving him, he said “Promise you will stay in touch?” I did.
With my contact re-established with him, it became very easy to become an even closer friend after I re-entered Parliament in 1988. By then Rajiv was in deep trouble on the Bofors issue. I had that time exposed V.P. Singh’s closest ally and a harsh Rajiv baiter, Ramakrishna Hegde, on the telephone tapping scandal and the NRI land fraud. Hedge had to resign. I had also become critical of V.P.Singh of his double games. Naturally, Rajiv felt happy, and more so when I discovered that the first negotiation with Bofors was actually conducted by none other than V.P.Singh as Finance Minister on June 10, 1985. Rajiv had known about this naturally but failed to use it because his “advisers” told him not to annoy V.P.Singh anymore. May be that V.P.Singh as Finance Minister had dossiers on these “advisers”, and to save their own neck, they sacrificed Rajiv’s interests. Rajiv was so simple that he accepted their suggestion on not exposing V.P.Singh.
In fact the principal culprits for the Bofors fiasco are V.P.Singh, Arun Nehru and Shiv Shankar. Two bureaucrats were equally responsible for trapping Rajiv Gandhi. Since I know this, no one in Parliament would to raise the Bofors issue when I was Law Minister, fearing that I might expose those who were trying to expose Rajiv Gandhi.
By the end of 1989, Rajiv Gandhi and I became very close friends. After he ceased to be PM, and moved to 10, Janpath, he invariably called me at 1 AM in the night and ask George his secretary to pick me up to come to 10, Janpath for some chocolates (which he loved) and tea. By March 1990, we began foreseeing the downfall of the V.P.Singh government, and carried out exercises on who could form a new government. It was I who suggested that if his 220 MPs could combine with 60 MPs split from Janatha Dal by enticing Chandrasekhar, we could form a new government.
On this we began working from April 1990. Rajiv Gandhi was superb in storing and reviewing information on his personal computer. Practically every day we met from April till November 1990 when Chandrasekhar was made PM. And it was always between 1 AM and 4 AM.
By September it was clear that such a government could be formed. It is then Rajiv Gandhi made a surprising proposal. He said one night “Swamy, I am really not comfortable with Chandrasekhar. Why don’t you instead become the PM? I can work with you easily?” At first I was completely taken aback. I then said to him that all the 60 MPs of Janatha Dal had already been told that . Rajiv said since Congress was the largest party it could suggest anyone as PM to the President. I said I would think about it, and then forgot about it because of the fear that the whole proposal of the new government formation would collapse. But two weeks later, Rajiv repeated this to me in presence of T.N.Seshan. Seshan as usual began playing double games which I came to know later. He encouraged me to make a bid for it, at the same time he spoke to Rajiv against the idea, and then going to Chandrasekhar and telling him how he had sabotaged this idea of making me PM.
But by October middle, it became clear to me that it was too late in the day for a new proposal (to make me PM). Further, Advani’s Ratha Yathra was causing a crisis, and events were moving fast. So when I met Rajiv I told him it is too late now. He accepted my view, but correctly added, “But I don’t think I can work with Chandrasekhar for long”. He was prophetic because even I could not prevent the Chandrasekhar – Rajiv quarrel within one month of the government formation.
But for the few months that Chandrasekhar was PM, I kept meeting Rajiv to see that his wishes and suggestions were implemented. That is why when Chandrasekhar resigned; Rajiv Gandhi called me to suggest that I join the Congress Party. He even convened a lunch meeting at the residence of a Tamilnadu MP to announce my joining. But the sycophantic behaviour of some Congress men in that lunch put me off. I declined to join then, but I told Rajiv Gandhi at the Lunch that if after the elections he still wanted me to join, I would. But fate willed otherwise. He was assassinated in Sri Perumpudhur on May 21, 1991.
In my view, Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister did many great things. He first introduced the idea of economic reforms. He doubled our defence expenditure, and but for the Bofors scandal, he would have made us a mighty military power. He sent Indian troops for combat to Sri Lanka and Maladives and he showed Nepal its place. He promoted our culture by getting Doordarshan to show Ramayana serial. He also raised our national pride by coining the slogan “Mere Bharat Mahan” and illustrating that on TV through examples to inspire the youngsters.
But he was inexperienced and made many mistakes. His tenure in the opposition had however rounded his personality. Therefore, had he lived and become Prime Minister again he would have become the greatest Prime Minister of India of the 20th Century.
The assassins not only robbed the nation of a leader who could have made for the country a glorious entry into the 21st century, but also robbed me of a very good friend.
My Experience With JayaPrakash NarayanClick To OpenI met JP first in USA in 1968, when he came on a tour sponsored by an American organization – the Quakers. I was then a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and had already made a name in the field having collaborated in research with two of the most famous Nobel Prize Winners, Paul Samuelson of MIT and Simon Kuznets of Harvard. In fact both of these Nobel Laureates had said that I too would get some someday the Nobel Prize if I continued to work on my theory of Index numbers, for which I had already achieved fame. But it was that fateful meeting with JP that changed my life and my profession from teaching to politics. I have never regretted for a moment that decision because of the way JP convinced me to make the sacrifice, during his three days stay with me. I have been filled with a sense of mission since then which has focussed my attention in achieving my political goals. Because of this, I am never discouraged by defeat or delay, nor even much delighted by victory. And again because of this sense of mission acquired from JP, I never give up any fight nor been afraid of consequences. It is thanks to the combination of JP’s political advice, and spiritual blessings of the divine Parmacharya, that I am as tough today as I am never afraid to stand alone, and speak as I feel.
It was sometime in April 1968 that the Harvard University Marshal’s office, which deals with visitors to the campus, telephoned me at my office at the Economics Department. The lady on the phone in a typical American slang said: “There is a guy from India called Mr.J.P.Narayan who is here and wants to meet you as well as the University’s Faculty.” I had as a child in 1940s heard of a leader called ‘JP’ and wondered if this was the same person. I asked the lady to put him on. When he came on the line, I simply asked “Are you the freedom fighter JP?” JP’s voice choked with emotion and said “Oh I am so happy that the younger generation (I was 28 years old then) has heard of me!” I then asked JP to hand back the phone to the Marshal’s office lady. When she came on the line, I instructed her to put JP up at the University’s Faculty Club, and that I would right away go to see him.
Those days I was fired by nationalist ideas such as that could do without foreign aid, that we could afford to build the atom bomb, and that the Aryan – Dravidian theory is a British concoction to divide India. In the 1960s these ideas were considered radical and extreme. So because of this nationalistic fervour, I used to wear “close coat”, modern Indian dress, unlike other Indians who wore tie and shirt. The Americans to their credit never commented on my dress since I was a good economics professor and researcher. It was the Indian’s inferiority complex that made them wear western clothes.
But when I went to see JP at the Faculty Club, I was taken aback to see him a three-piece Western suit and tie. His wife Prabhavati was with him, dressed in a sari and she saw the incongruity. She then admonished JP for wearing western clothes and told me that I had put two Gandhiji’s followers to shame. But JP with his famous sweet smile said “It looks like I have found a new friend”, and simply went back to his room, changed into an Indian Sherwani and Pyjamas. After that, all through the 3 day’s stay, he was in Indian dress.
I acted as a driver for JP during this visit, since he did not have a car. I arranged for him to lecture at Harvard on the current situation in politics in India. Due to the fact, that my father was in the Congress party during the Freedom Struggle, and was associated with Satyamurthi and Kamaraj, I was aware of little facts which I overheard as a child in the drawing room of our house. One such fact which I knew impressed JP greatly. When at a lecture, he asked his audience, “What is the last wish of Mahatma Gandhi?” No one in the audience, consisting 300 Indian and American scholars could answer. Then JP looked at me, and I blurted out that (Gandhiji’s private secretary, Pyare Lal had recorded it as the “Last Will and Testament”), Gandhiji wanted the Congress Party to wound up. He complimented me for keeping such close touch with the history of Freedom struggle despite living abroad for so long.
After the meeting was over, JP asked me to see him at the Faculty Club for dinner. On that occasion, he began urging me to return to India, and join his Sarvodaya movement. He told me how he too, as well as Dr.Ambedkar, had received American education and degrees, but they had sacrificed for the country. He told me about Gandhiji, Nehru, Patel and Subash Bose who gave up their careers for public service. But he urged me not to enter politics, but instead join him in Sarvodaya.
A year later in 1969 I resigned my professorship at Harvard and came to India. After meeting JP in Delhi, I left for Batlagundu in Madurai district to join the Sarvodaya movement, or at least try it for few months. At that time, JP was almost a forgotten person by people of India. I remember going to receive him at the New Delhi Railway station after my return to India. JP was coming to Delhi from Patna by train. At the railway station, except for his Secretary, there was no one else to receive him except me. None recognized JP in the platform after he disembarked from the train.
I left for Batlagundu, Madurai in October 1969 after having lived in comfort in the USA for more than seven years. While life in Sarvodaya was hard, the Sarvodaya leaders in Batlagundu tried to make my life interesting. But what I found was while the people in the villages respected Sarvodaya leaders for their sacrifice, they did not take them seriously. Meantime during my stay, I read Gandhiji’s work in the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi Museum in Madurai city which I often visited to reduce the boredom of living in a village. Gandhiji had clearly advocated in his writing the combining of politics with constructive social work to enthuse the people. But Sarvodaya was purely social work with no politics. Indian society was purely social work with no politics. Indian society, it seemed to me, was not ready to de-politicize anything.
So I wrote to JP after a few months that I could not fit into Sarvodaya as I did not believe that social work without political clout had a future in India. And hence I left Batlagundu for Delhi in early 1970 to become a Professor of Economics at the IIT, Delhi.
JP was very upset with my letter. I little realized that JP had come to the opposite conclusion in 1953 after rejecting Jawaharlal Nehru’s offer of making him the Deputy Prime Minister. JP’s mission from 1953 was to liquidate politics. He had advocated party less democracy and panchayati raj based on non-political Sarvodaya. My letter was thus in effect saying that JP had wasted his life since 1953, and JP was satisfied in feeling hurt.
JP wrote me a stiff and cold letter in reply, saying that he was disappointed with me. He did not reply to any of my letters thereafter. But in July 1972, 2 1/2 years later I received a telegram from JP. He was recuperating from a heart attack at Tipponagondahalli near Bangalore. In the telegram, he invited me to join a small get together of his friends to discuss “an important matter”.
So I went to Tipponagondahalli to see JP. There about 15 top Sarvodaya leaders were camping. We all stayed together and discussed many issues. In one session, JP posed a question. He asked: If Indira Gandhi imposes military rule, what should be his role? Or what can he do to stop it?
While all Sarvodaya leaders advocated fasting or writing letters or something passive. I was the only one to suggest to every one’s shock, that JP had committed a mistake in giving up politics, and that he should correct for it by entering it now. Every Sarvodaya leader in the meeting condemned me for saying this, and exhibiting my immaturity. But to everyone’s surprise, JP in his concluding speech agreed with me that for stopping the
dictatorship of Indira Gandhi, he had to re-enter politics. He said emotionally; “Dr.Swamy is courageous. He is not afraid of speaking the hurtful truth. I agree with him. At the appropriate date. I have decided to enter the political arena”. Thus I can truly say that the germ of the idea to oppose the coming Emergency and create the Janata Party was planted in JP’s mind by me.
By 1974, JP was fully into the political movement to oppose Mrs.Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule which he was certain would come in the form of military rule. Throughout 1974-75, JP was never in Delhi without giving me a telephone call and asking me to meet him. He made me a member of the national coordination committee of political parties, even though I was a junior in politics. The first meeting of Kamaraj with JP was fixed by me. This was in November 1974 and all the papers had the photograph of the three of us.
On the morning of June 25, 1975 ( the day before Mrs. Gandhi declared ‘Emergency’) , I got an urgent call from a political leader who said that for the crucial evening rally for that day in Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds, JP and Morarji Desai were locked in a quarrel, and no one had the guts to talk to either. Morarji Desai was in high spirits because his fast for Gujarat Assembly polls had led to a formation of Janata Front Government in the elections. Morarji was a strong disciplinarian and disapproved of JP’s unpunctual schedules. This quarrel was because the public meeting had been announced for 5 PM that evening. It was a hot summer, so JP said he would arrive at the meeting at 8 PM. Morarji quarrelled on that, saying that if meeting was for 5 PM, JP and he must both turn up on time. “Why are we spoiling people’s habits that we don’t mean what to say?” So it was left to me to persuade JP to come on time, since all political leaders knew the soft corner JP had for me. This situation helped me to get properly introduced to Morarji. But becoming friends with Morarji was not easy, since he thought I was too young (I was 35 years old then) to mingle with “seniors”. He kept telling me “You are Americanized. You are too frank for Indian political culture”. This, coming from Morarji who had been criticized for being too blunt, surprised me!
But I finally made the two giants agree to a joint appearance at 6 PM at that historic Ramlila Grounds rally, which was later cited by Mrs.Indira Gandhi as the reason for proclaiming the Emergency (JP, it was alleged had, at that rally, incited the Army to rebel against Indira Gandhi. As an eyewitness I can say this was a lie). Morarji Desai was so impressed with my patience in handling the issue that he asked me to sit with him in the rally. In his autobiography (Volume III), Morarji has reproduced a photograph of the rally, with me sitting with JP and him.
That night I had a dinner with JP alone. He was very emotional. He said military rule was certain, and I must fight. “You have necessary guts and friends all over the world. So you must organize the fight abroad”. I really thought that JP was being unnecessarily alarmist. But he was right. Next morning a policeman, who shall remain anonymous, called me at 4.30 am. He said JP has been arrested and unless I left my residence, I too will be.
Remembering JP’s previous night advice, I went underground. All through the Emergency, despite being declared a “proclaimed offender”, and having the highest reward for my arrest, Indira Gandhi’s police could not catch me. That is another story I will write about later. But I opposed the Emergency tooth and nail as JP had wanted me to do.
When I next met JP, it was in 1977 after the Emergency. He has been transformed from zero of 1970 to national hero. He was very pleased to see me, but I could not get anytime to talk with him as before. The crowds were everywhere. Old socialists reclaimed him, and hailed him as theirs. Even RSS almost made him their leader. Till 1979, I met JP off and on. In our brief meetings, he sentimentally referred to our 1972 Tipponagondahalli meeting. He also complained about Morarji to me. I tried to patch up, but the forces pulling them apart were much stronger. JP had specially called me to the Gandhi Peace Foundation, when he and Acharya Kriplani selected Morarji Desai and not Jagjivan Ram. JP made me sit with him throughout as leader after leader came in to give their view. I got a real political training in witnessing this event. JP was very clear that Morarji Desai should be PM for the first 2 1/2 years. But everyone knew Morarji was too strong headed to accept any conditions. So ultimately JP relented, Morarji was made PM.
My last talk of great substance with JP was in 1979 in Patna when the Janata had broken up. He was literally in tears and in bad health. “My beautiful garden of flowers (Janata) has been made a desert”, he cried. He then put his hand on my arm, and said “But you must mobilize the younger generation to keep the Janata flag flying. “Promise me”. I have kept the promise. When the BJP was formed by further splitting the Janata, I did not desert the Janata. When in 1984, Chandrasekhar in a fit of rage for opposing him in a Presidential contest expelled me from the party, I waited for an opportunity to make friends with him, and return to Janata. In 1989, when everyone including Chandrasekhar deserted the party to join Janata Dal, I stayed out with Deve Gowda (later in 1992 Gowda too deserted the Janata for the Dal). I have stuck with Janata because of the promise I had made to JP, and tried to rebuild it. But JP had formed the Janata for an ideology of decentralization. Today JP’s victory is that his ideology is accepted by everybody.
Even though his baby, the Janata Party, has not regained the 1977 glory, the ideology has triumphed. His arch opponent, the Congress Party has lock, stock and barrel accepted JP’s ideology. That is his victory. For this we should thank Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao.
When I look at JP’s personality now, what strikes me in his simplicity and straight forwardness That is what made him great. If Gandhiji symbolizes Freedom, JP symbolizes that spirit of democracy. It was an honour to have known him so closely.
My Meetings With Great Personalities – Indira GandhiClick To OpenI entered politics in a formal way in 1974. In these 22 1/2 years of public life, I have personally been in close touch with many great names of contemporary history. Today’s younger generation know of these names, but have little idea or depth of knowledge of their contribution to our or world history. So I thought I will write a series of short articles about these personalities and about what made them great. The names that every household has heard of are such as Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, etc.. I shall write about each of these leaders by turn. Today I will write about Mrs.Indira Gandhi, who was Prime Minister of India for 16 years. I first met Mrs.Gandhi at Brandeis University in the USA in the year 1965, some months before the Indo – Pak war of 1965. She was then Information and Broadcasting Minister in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet, and was visiting the University to speak to an audience about Jawaharlal Nehru who had died the previous year. In 1962, I had arrived as a Ph.D (Economics) student at the world famous Harvard University, and within six months I had broken the record by qualifying in the Ph.D general examination in the shortest time. Soon I joined the Harvard University as a professor, and my scholastic record became famous. Brandeis University, to where Mrs.Indira Gandhi had come was only 32 kilometres away. So she asked my very good friend Ashok Kalelkar studying at nearby MIT, whom Mrs.Gandhi knew because he was the grandson of Kakasaheb Kalelkar, noted freedom fighter of Gujarat, to bring me to meet her at the Brandeis University guest house where she was staying. Our meeting lasted half hour. I had to leave for attending to my lectures; otherwise I would have stayed longer. Mrs.Gandhi liked the company of highly qualified persons who had distinguished themselves. At that time, I was already a 25 year old Harvard Professor, something to be proud of. The topics Mrs.Gandhi talked with me were only two. One was how to make Rajiv and Sanjay, both in Britain to study harder. She asked me how to motivate them. It was quite clear that she was disturbed by her two sons’ non-serious attitude to studies, and wanted tips from a Professor. The other topic Mrs.Gandhi talked to me was how people, whom Nehru had helped so much, had so quickly forgotten him. She said bitterly to me “you know, we Indians are by character ungrateful people. That is why no one wants to help anyone else”. This remark I never forgot. Much of Mrs. Gandhi’s actions later as Prime Minister, such as declaring Emergency came from this bitter thought of her’s. I next saw Mrs. Gandhi as Prime Minister in 1968, aboard an Air India flight to New York. In those days, Prime Ministers did not charter flights but travelled First Class as a passenger. I was still a Harvard Professor then, and when she saw me boarding the flight at Rome, she recognized me. We sat side by side till Frankfurt, which was about one hour. I talked to her about why India should make the atom bomb. She heard me patiently till I said to her “If you don’t prepare India’s defence against China, you will be repeating the mistakes of your father”. At that she flared up, and criticized me for disparaging Nehru without knowing the circumstances. She was particularly harsh on Morarji Desai, who she said as Nehru’s Finance Minister, refused to allot enough money for defence. Interestingly at that time, Desai was Mrs.Gandhi’s Finance Minister too! But I did not argue. However when she returned to India, I was happy that she began opposing the NPT nuclear treaty. In 1970, I resigned my Harvard Professorship and returned to India. Mrs. Gandhi by then had split the Congress and with the help of the communists had become ultra-socialist. I was against state control and monopoly. So I became her critic, soon entered Parliament to oppose her tooth and nail. During Emergency, I had escaped to America to campaign against the human rights violations. Today it may be surprising but it is worth recounting that when Mrs. Gandhi tried to force me to return by asking the US Government to cancel my visa, and failed, she had asked Sri.Chandraswami to go to USA and use his influence with President Jimmy Carter who he knew personally. Chandraswami did go, but my influence through my Harvard colleagues was stronger, so he too failed. He became my friend later in 1988, when he fell foul of Rajiv Gandhi on Bofors. After Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in 1980, she became friendly with me again. We used to meet often in her parliament office or corridors for a brief chat. She became especially warm towards me after I helped to get the Chinese government to deny Assam militants sanctuary in Tibet. I also got the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping whom I met in 1981 to agree to reopening the holy Kailash and Mansarovar area to Hindu pilgrims. She was very much impressed with these achievements and suggested to me to be friendly to Rajiv Gandhi, who was reluctant to enter politics. She had obviously also talked to Rajiv, because he and I became friends very quickly thereafter. My last meeting with Mrs.Gandhi was in August 1984. She and I had many verbal duels in LokSabha over her Punjab policy. In fact, Chandrasekhar and I were the only two MPs who had condemned Operation Bluestar. I had even met her in April 1984, and had warned her of the dangers of military action. When she saw me in August 1984, she gave me a motherly squeeze of my fore arm and said “Swamy, you were right. The Sikhs will never forgive me.” She also enquired me what my plans were for the Lok Sabha elections, because Chandrashekar as Janata Party President had expelled me from the party for challenging him for the post in the party elections. I understood her hint. I said to her: “I will come and discuss with you after the Parliament session is over”. I never saw her again. She was assassinated on October 31, 1984. My recollection of her today is that she was a very nationalistic person, but insecure about betrayal. She had a vision to make India great, but lacked the political associates to carry it out.
The LTTE Shadow Over India Published In The Hindu Dt 19.09.05Click To OpenThe LTTE shadow over India
Subramanian Swamy
THE ASSASSINATION of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has exposed the fault lines in India’s policy towards the internationally proclaimed terrorist organisation, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. On the one side, the Indian Government has banned the LTTE as a terrorist organisation. On the other side, despite the continuing assassinations, India does not oppose the “peace dialogue” of the Sri Lankan Government with the LTTE, talks that could end up legitimising the terrorist outfit and making the ban meaningless.
Although the LTTE has officially denied any involvement in the Kadirgamar assassination, such a denial cannot be taken seriously. The organisation has always denied its involvement in terrorist activity — murder, arson, extortion, drug trafficking, and so on. The LTTE denied any part in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. However, the Supreme Court of India, in its 400-page judgment delivered on May 12, 1999, laid bare what a huge lie that was.
`Stockholm Syndrome’
That security failed to secure the neighbourhood of the Foreign Minister’s residence despite his being high on the LTTE’s hit list is clear evidence that the Sri Lankan authorities are suffering from the `Stockholm Syndrome’ of capitulating to tormentors. They are wholly incompetent to deal with the murderous LTTE. The Sri Lankan President’s first reaction was that the island government, despite the assassination of the Foreign Minister at his residence in the capital, would not suspend the so-called peace talks with the killers — a further indication of the tragic syndrome at work. Sri Lanka seems to have lost its collective nerve to combat and confront terror.
India needs to consider what to do to remove the fault line in its policy towards the LTTE — and thus secure its geographical neighbourhood. The LTTE, which could be legitimised through the agency of an inane Norwegian facilitation, is a menace not only to Sri Lanka’s integrity, but also to India’s national security. The Tigers have links with India’s terrorists such as the Maoists and ULFA, and with the ISI of Pakistan and even Al Qaeda and with separatist Indian political parties. Even if the Congress shows scant interest in bringing Velupillai Prabakaran to justice, patriotic Indians cannot forget either Rajiv’s martyrdom or the LTTE’s unforgivable perfidy. India has to fix Prabakaran some day by bringing him to justice for his lack of respect for India’s sovereignty.
India has a national security imperative and an unavoidable moral obligation to get involved to help free the island nation of the LTTE’s treacherous terror. I thus see four specific reasons behind this obligation:
First, India trained the LTTE in the 1980s. The country has to atone for this by actions to disband and unravel the Frankenstein monster it helped create. Secondly, despite enjoying India’s hospitality for years, and after welcoming the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement in 1987, the Tigers betrayed India by killing more than 1000 personnel of the Indian Peace Keeping Force sent to the island to enforce the accord. The betrayal and loss of lives of our valiant jawans have to be avenged to keep up the morale of the Indian armed forces.
Thirdly, as the Home Ministry’s 2005 Annual Report to Parliament points out, the LTTE has been targeting pro-Indian Sri Lanka politicians and assassinating them. The latest is of course Kadirgamar. For India, the most heinous act is the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. A trial court has declared Accused No.1 Prabakaran a proclaimed offender, and the Interpol has issued a Red Corner Notice for apprehending him. India is thus obligated to search for Prabakaran — and to immobilise the LTTE and deter it from engaging in any murderous and terrorist activities against India and Indian interests.
Fourthly, the LTTE interferes in the internal affairs of India by financing certain Indian politicians, providing training to Indian militant and extremist organisations, and extending insurgency infrastructure to bandits such as Veerappan. It also launders black money from India through its illegal Eelam Bank in the Jaffna area. India cannot allow such erosion of law and order within its own borders.
To discharge these obligations, what must India do? Obviously, it cannot depend on Sri Lankan governments of today or the near future to bring the LTTE to book. Sri Lankan political parties are either capitulationist or chauvinist. The recent pact of Mahinda Rajapakse, Prime Minister and presidential candidate, with the JVP that if voted to power he will defend the present failed unitary constitution is a retrograde step. This shows the Tamils are squeezed between the devil and the deep sea.
India’s first move should be to initiate action to revive the hunt for those of the LTTE who need to be prosecuted under Indian law. This includes Prabakaran and his intelligence chief Pottu Amman — and whoever has tried to help them to escape the arm of India’s law enforcement.
In 1998, Parliament set up under the Central Bureau of Investigation a multidisciplinary monitoring agency (MDMA) to hunt for these wanted persons. But the National Democratic Alliance Government waffled and failed to pursue the matter. The present United Progressive Alliance Government has done even worse. When President Chandrika Kumaratunga came to India recently, India went along with the proposal to take on board the LTTE as a party in the tsunami relief work and have its share in the $ 3 billion international aid commitment.
The time has come to energise the MDMA, to get it moving to apprehend the wanted criminals, in unconventional ways if necessary. Further, India must assist and nurture the democratic elements in the Sri Lankan Tamil population.
These include those who have demonstrated the capacity to stand up to the LTTE (such as S.C. Chandrahasan, and the breakaway LTTE group that opposed Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, namely, the Karuna group), to form a non-violent and democratic alternative to work out with the Sinhala majority a federal constitution that would serve the purpose of power sharing. Thirdly, LTTE sleeper cells in Indian cities need to be identified and put out of action. At present, terrorists of various hues are active in several States and Union Territories.
One day, these terrorists and the LTTE sleeper cells may coordinate and cause a huge bloody incident. India must guard against such contingencies through pre-emptive action.
The time has come for India effectively to contribute to the war against terrorism and in the promotion of democracy by targeting the LTTE sincerely and effectively in the larger interest of security and national integrity.
(The writer is a former Union Law Minister.)
Brief Report Of Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha ConferenceClick To Open
FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY (Part-I)Click To OpenHINDU DHARMA ACHARYA SABHA
Second Meeting, October 16, 17, 18, 2005
in Mumbai, Maharashtra
Text of the Speech
By
Dr.SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY Ph.D(Harvard)
Chairman, Centre for National Renaissance, New Delhi
Fmr.Union Cabinet Minister for Commerce, Law & Justice
A-77 Nizamuddin East
New Delhi-110013
e-mail: [email protected]
web: www.indiaright.org
Tel: 91 98101 94279
Address of Dr.Subramanian Swamy, Chairman, Center for National Renaissance, New Delhi to Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha Second Meeting at Mumbai on October 18, 2005.
FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY
AND
THE CONCEPT OF HINDUSTAN
His Holiness Dayananda Saraswati, and Heads of Mutts and Mandaleshwars and revered Acharyas. I thank His Holiness for the opportunity to address you all today.
I
Hinduism, known as sanatana dharma is uniquely world’s unbroken, continuous and longest in time, and is a religion constituted by its theology, cultural ethos, and civilizational history. India’s Hindu society is founded on the content of these three constituents. Hindustan, as India is known abroad even today[e.g., Yindu guo in Chinese, Hind in Arabic], as a concept is defined as a nation of Hindus and those others in the nation who accept that their ancestors are Hindus and revere that legacy. Parsis, Jews, Syrian Christians come in a special category of Hindustanis, those who were welcomed by Hindus since they came to Hindustan seeking refuge from persecution in their own lands abroad, and who willingly accepted to abide by, and adopt certain cultural customs of Hindus. To the credit of Parsis, they have never demanded any special privileges as a minority. They had even rejected privileges and quotas offered to them by the British imperialists saying that they were comfortable with Hindus.
Over the last two millenniums, Hindu religion has been subjected to threats several times from other religious groups, but these threats have been met, the challenges faced and overcome.
Well before the birth of Christianity and Islam, Hindu religion had been intellectually dethroned by Hinayana Buddhism. But Adi Sankaracharya rethroned Hinduism through his famous shastrathas[religious debate] and caused a renaissance in Buddhism itself, which then came to be known as Mahayana Buddhism, conceptually in complete harmony with, if not indistinguishable from, Hindu theology. In south India, the azhwars and nayanmars also through shastrathas repositioned Hinduism after de-throning Jainism and Buddhism. Since then the Hindu dharmacharyas have always been looked up to when Hindu society faced a threat or crisis, for guidance to meet the challenge to the Hindu religion. Today, we again need the revered acharyas to show us the way. Hence this Sabha is of vital importance for the future of the nation.
II
Hindu ethos provided for sanctuary and home to those of other faiths fleeing from their countries due to religious persecution. As I stated earlier, Parsis, Jews and Syrian Christians are among those religious groups who had sought refuge in India, and survived because the Hindus looked after them. These three religious communities have had and have today a disproportionate share in power and wealth in Indian society, but Hindus have no resentment about it. These minorities had come to India in search of peace and found safe haven in the midst of Hindu society. Parsis migrated elsewhere in the world too, but disappeared as a community in those countries. Jews have openly acknowledged that India as the only country where they were not persecuted. Syrian Christians too are today completely integrated into India. Even early Arab Muslim travelers who came peacefully to settle in Kerala were taken into Hindu families, and hence called Mapillai[meaning son-inlaw-- Moplah in English]. That is the glorious Hindu tradition, the ethos of compassion and co-option that is unparalleled in world history.
However, militant Islam and later crusading Christianity came to India, and aggressively challenged Hinduism. They seized power in sequence and established their own state in India. But despite state patronage to the ensuing onslaught, plunder and victimisation, those of Hindu faith could not be decimated, and Hinduism remained the theology of the vast Indian majority.
Defiant Hindus suffered persecution and economic deprivation during Islamic and Christian reigns, such as through differential taxation [e.g., jezia and zamindari land revenue appropriation] and plain brutality, but Hindus by and large refused to capitulate and convert. Even after almost a thousand years of such targeting by Muslims and Christian rulers, undivided India in 1947 was more than 75% Hindu. This was partly because of the victorious Vijayanagaram, the Sikh reign, and Mahratta kingdoms, and later the Freedom Movement, each inspired by sanyasis such Sringeri Shankaracharya, Swami Ramdas, Guru Nanak, Swami Vivekanada and Sri Aurobindo, who by their preaching about the Hindu identity ensured that the flame of Hindu defiance never dimmed. It was also due to individual defiance of Hindus such as of Rana Pratap, Rani Jhansi, Rani Bennur, Kattaboman and Netaji Subhas Bose. These icons are admired not because they led us to victory[ in fact they were defeated or killed], or had found out a safe compromise [they did not], but because of their courage of conviction in the face of huge odds not to submit to tyranny. That courageous defiance is also is part of Hindus’ glorious legacy. But those who capitulated like Raja Man Singh or Jai Chand or Pudukottai Raja in order to live in pomp and grandeur are despised today by the people.
III
In 1947, temporal power was defacto restored to the Hindu majority. But the Indian state formally adopted secularism, which concept however was never properly defined or debated. For example, it left vague what an Indian’s connection was with the nation’s Hindu past and legacy. In the name of secularism, it was taboo for a public servant even to break a coconut or light a oil lamp to inaugurate an official function on the ground that religious symbols must not invade public life. Such orthodoxy was promoted by Jawarharlal Nehru and his Leftist advisers. But then government took over supervision of temples, legislated on Hindu personal laws, and regulated religious festivals, but kept aloof from the Muslim and Christian religious affairs. The secularism principle was foisted on the Hindu masses without making him understand why they had to abide by legislation but not Muslims and Christians.
As a result, the renaissance that had begun in the late nineteenth century to redefine the Hindu identity [in contemporary terms and norms valid in a pluralistic society], was aborted by the confusion thus created in Hindu minds by a vaguely understood concept of secularism.
Electoral politics further confounded the issues arising out of secularism, and hence the Indian society became gradually and increasingly fragmented in outlook and of confused perspective. Hindu society became divided by caste that became increasingly mutually antagonistic. Attempts were made through falsification in history texts adopted for curriculum in the education system to disconnect and disinherit the contemporary Indian from the past glory of Hindu India. The intrinsic Hindu unity was sought to be undone by legitimizing such bogus concepts as Aryan-Dravidian racial divide theory, or that India as a concept never existed till the British imperialists put it together, or that Indians have always been ruled by invaders from abroad. There is no such word as Aryan in Sanskrit literature [closest is ‘arya’ meaning honourable person, and ndot community] or Dravidian [Adi Sankara had in his shasthrath with Mandana Mishra at Varanasi, called himself as a ‘dravida shishu’ that is a child of where three oceans meet, i.e., south India]. The theory was deliberate distortion by British imperialists and propagated by their Indian witting and unwitting mental slaves. Incidentally, the Aryan-Dravidian myth has now been exploded by modern research on DNA of Indians and Europeans conducted by Professor C.Panse of Newton, Mass. USA and other scholars. In light of such new research, the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] service in it’s October 6, 2005 service completely debunked the Aryan—Dravidian race theory stating that: “Theory was not just wrong, it included unacceptably racist ideas” [www.bbc.co.uk, religion & ethics homepage, Thursday, 6/10/05].
Modern India has been sought to be portrayed by foreign interests through the educational curriculum as a discontinuity in history and as a new entity much as are today’s Greece, Egypt or Iraq. That curriculum is largely intact today. On the contrary efforts are afoot to bolster the disparagement of our past in the new dispensation today. A rudderless India, disconnected from her past has, as a consequence, become a fertile field for religious poachers and neo-imperialists from abroad who paint India as a mosaic of immigrants much like a crowd on a platform in a railway junction. That is, it is clandestinely propagated that India has belonged to those who forcibly occupied it. This is the theme around which the Islamic fundamentalists and fraud Christian crusaders are again at work, much as they were a thousand years ago, but of course in new dispensations, sophistication, and media forms. Thus the concept of intrinsic Hindu unity, and India’s Hindu foundation are dangerously under challenge by these forces. Tragically most Hindus today are not even cognizant of it.
The challenge today confronting Hindus is however much more difficult to meet than was earlier in history because the forces at work to erode and undermine Hindu faith, unlike before, are unseen, clandestine, pernicious, deceptive but most of all sophisticated and media-savvy. Tragically therefore, a much more educated and larger numbers of Hindus have been unwittingly co-opted in this sinister conspiracy directed by foreigners who have no love for India and who also see much as Lord Macauley saw in the nineteenth century, that the hoary Hindu foundation of India is a stumbling block for the furtherance of their nefarious perfidious game.
Adherence to Hinduism is also being sought to be diluted in the name of modernity and this dilution is made a norm of secularism. Religion, it is advocated, is personal. To be a good Hindu today is conceptually being reduced to just praying, piety, visiting temples, and celebrating religious festivals. The concept of a collective Hindu mindset is being ridiculed as chauvinist and retrograde, even fundamentalist.
IV
The concept of a corporate Hindu unity and identity however is that of a collective mindset that identifies us with a motherland from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean and it’s glorious past, and the concomitant resolve of it’s representative leadership defined as “chakravartin” earlier by Chanakya, to defend that vision. It is this concept and resolve that is being discarded or is just evaporating under the onslaught of the Nehruvian secularists.
However pious a Hindu becomes, however prosperous Hindu temples become from doting devotees’ offerings, when the nation is in danger it is this collective mindset of the people that matters, and not the piety of the individual in that collective.
Hindu society today lacking a cohesive corporate identity, is thus in the process of becoming fragmented, and hence increasingly in disarray. This fission process is on simultaneously with the reality of millions of Hindus who go to temples regularly or walk to Sabarimalai or participate in Kumbh Mela. This is not what I mean when I speak of Hindu unity to this august gathering today.
I am instead referring to the Hindu consciousness which encompasses the willingness and determination to collectively defend the faith from the erosion that is being induced by the disconnect with our glorious past. What Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chatterjee, Sri Aurobindo, and Subramania Bharati had achieved by raising Hindu consciousness to that end, has now been depleted and dissipated over the last six decades.
Even the patriotic and anguished writings of Dr.Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country have been vulgarized to advocate Hindu society’s disintegration. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar [and published in Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95] Dr. Ambedkar stated: “It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of it’s culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity—the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end”. Ambedkar wrote several such brilliant books, but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him that in the end bitterness drove him to Buddhism.
Thus, if this degeneration and disconnect are not rectified and repaired by a resolve to unite Hindustanis [Hindus and those others who proudly identify with India’s Hindu past], the Hindu civilization may go into a tail spin and ultimately fade away like other civilizations have for much the same reason.
Of course, this sorry state has come about as a cumulative effect of a thousand years past of Islamic invasions, occupation and Imperialist colonization. But we failed to rectify the damage after the Hindus overwhelmingly got defacto power in 1947. For this transfer of power, we sacrificed one quarter of Akhand Hindustan territory to settle those Muslims who could not bear to live or adjust with the Hindu majority.
That is, by a failure to usher a renaissance after 1947 India lost her opportunity to cleanse the accumulated dirt and unwanted baggage of the past. The nation missed a chance to demolish the birth-based caste theory as Ambedkar had wanted to do. The battering that the concept of Hindu unity and Indian identity has taken at the hands of Nehruvian secularists since 1947 has led to the present social malaise. Thus, even though Hindus are above 80 percent of the population in India, they have not been able to understand their roots in, and obligations to, the nation in a pluralistic Hindustani democracy.
Today the sacrilege of Hindu concepts and hoary institutions, is being carried out not with the crude brutality of a Ghazni or Ghori, but with the sophistication of the constitutional instruments of law. The desecration of Hindu icons, for example the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, is being made to look legal, thereby completely confusing the Hindu people, and thus making them unable to recognize the danger, or to realize that Hindus have to unite to defend against the threats to their legacy. We Hindus are under siege today, and we do not know it!! That is, what is truly alarming is that Hindu society could be dissembled today without much protest since we have been lulled or lost the capacity to think collectively as Hindus.
To resist this siege we first need Hindu unity. Numbers [of those claiming to be adherents to Hinduism] do not matter in today’s information society. It is the durability and clarity of the Hindu mindset of those who unite that matters in the forging of an instrument to fight this creeping danger.
For example, we had a near disaster in Ayodhya recently. Pakistan–trained foreign terrorists slipped into India and traveled to Ayodhya to blow up the Ram Mandir. Their attempt was foiled by courageous elements of the police. But did the representative government of 870 million Hindus of India react in a meaningful way, that is retaliate to deter future such attacks? Did anyone raise it in Parliament and demand deterrent retaliation? On the contrary, the Prime Minister assured Pakistan that the peace talks will not be affected by such acts. But what retaliation was there to be for the sponsors of those terrorists who dared to think about blowing Sri Ram’s birth place?
Hindus are thus being today systematically prepared for psychological enslavement and conceptual capture. Indians are being subtly brain-washed. Hindus are being lulled, while Muslims and Christians are being subject to relentless propaganda that they are different, and are citizens of India as would be a shareholder in a company run for profit.
We Hindus cannot fight this unless we first identify what we have to fight. We cannot effectively respond unless we understand the nature and complexity of the challenge. What makes the task of defending Hinduism much more difficult today is that the oppressors are not obvious maraudring entities as were Ghazni, Ghori, or Clive. The means of communication and the supply of funds in the hands of our enemies are multiples of that available in the past, for camouflaging their evil purposes.
…Contd II
FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY (Part-II)Click To Open
V
My contention here today is that Hindus are facing a four dimensional siege and this siege is pernicious, clandestine, deceptive and sophisticated. It requires an enlightened Hindu unity to combat the threats and get the siege lifted. We have to begin by first understanding the content and scope of the siege before we Hindus can unite to battle it. These four dimensions are:
[1] The clandestine defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions.
Making Hindus to lose their self esteem by disparaging their tradition, which also had been the strategy of British imperialists for the conquest of India. Speaking in British Parliament, Lord Macauley said on February 2, 1835 the following:
“Such wealth I have seen in this country [India], such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which [backbone] is her spiritual and cultural heritage. And therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation”.
That basic strategy of those who want to see a weak and pliant India remains. Only the tactics have changed. Now the target is the Hindu institutions and Hindu icons, and the route is not the creation of a comprador class to subdue the nation, but fostering a psychological milieu to denigrate the heritage and to delink the Hindu from his past legacy thereby causing a loss of self esteem and a pride in the nation’s past. There are already many examples of this happening.
A false murder case was foisted on the Acharyas of the 2500 year old Kanchi Mutt. Most Hindus have watched it as spectators, and with nagging doubts about the truth, and in fact about the Acharyas themselves. The Supreme Court has however held that the case has “no worthwhile prima facie evidence…” [Court records: (2005) 2 Supreme Court Cases 13, para 12, page 20] and that the alleged confessions of other accused persons implicating the Acharyas “have very little evidentiary value” [para 10]. The case thus is without basis and is bogus because since then the TN police has failed to uncover any further or new evidence to sustain the case. That the apex Court has found the foisted case as without prima facie merit should itself have galvanized the people against the offending authorities. It has not, because Hindus lack the mindset and guidance to retaliate against the willful and disguised defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions. Instead like parrots most Hindus mouth the phrase that “law must take it’s course”. Where is the law in this? Nor did a single Muslim or Christian organization or their leaders condemn this atrocity, exposing secularism as a one-way obligation of Hindus.
That the obvious perpetrator of this blasphemous atrocity on Hindu religion’s hoary institution is the head of the TN state government, one who also claims to be a good Hindu because she regularly visits temples, has only helped to further confound the already confused Hindu mind from responding.
That this atrocity could not have been heaped on the Mutt without the aid and abetment, or even the instigation of the power behind the throne in Delhi, a devout foreign-born Catholic, has not even evoked any anger amongst the Hindus.
Instead the majority of Hindus have been just passive or satisfied discussing gossip i.e., whether there was some land dispute of the Mutt with the government that triggered it or a money angle row with a politician in power to motivate the misuse of state machinery to frame a Shankaracharya on a murder charge! It is incredible that in a nation of 80 percent Hindus, the democratically elected state government dared to foist a bogus case on a Shankaracharya, and without a spontaneous uproar and mass protest by Hindus. That this atrocity could be the beginning of further assault on the foundation of the Hindu religion to defame and discredit it, should have jolted the Hindus into a fierce protest.
Otherwise, the current Hindu apathy will encourage further assault on Hindu institutions. It is already happening and there is no time to lose. Further assault is also in progress. In July 2005, an uncouth official of the TN Government’s HR&CE Ministry blocked the Kanchi Shankaracharyas from entering the holy Shiva temple in Rameshwaram because, the official said, the acharyas had criminal cases pending against them. Leave aside the fact that anyone is presumed to be innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or that Ms. Jayalalitha, the CM herself is clothed from head to foot in criminal cases, what is significant is the audacity of an official in a 80% Hindu populated country to block a Shankaracharya from performing his god ordained puja duties. His HR&CE counterpart In Andhra at Tirumala has pontificated recently that the Tirumala hills except a small portion do not belong to Lord Venkateswara, making a mockery of agama shastras.
The state government of Karnataka for example, soon after the Kanchi acharyas’ arrest, blatantly patronized the congregation of a Benny Hinn who is under US Internal Revenue Service investigation. US Christian organizations such as the Trinity Foundation have exposed him as a fake. Yet in the admiring presence of the Karnataka Chief Minister with his Ministers in tow, and Central Government Ministers, Benny Hinn was allowed to usurp the Bangalore Air force campus and hold a rally to denounce Hindu concepts and demonstrate his “cure” of the hopelessly and terminally ill or handicapped persons just by placing his hand, in the name of Jesus, on their heads. Bangalore police officers later told the media that the whole exercise was a fraud since the “ailing “ persons were trucked in from Erode in TN a week earlier and trained to fake the ailments and the cry of being cured on stage. Of course they were well paid for this deception. Such obscurantism was however extolled by the Congress Party leaders, while mouthing secularism. Benny Hinn in the end publicly boasted that a “friend of Sonia Gandhi” had helped to clear the way to make the Bangalore event possible.
The existence of nexus had thus tumbled out. Taking a cue other foreign Christian missionaries in trouble with the law such as Mr. Ron Watts, made a pilgrimage to Delhi and received relief from law enforcers on the same patronage.
These visiting fraud Christian missionaries have the intellectual endorsement for proselytizing activities from well established Christian leaders. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict of Vatican, which makes him an acknowledged leader of Catholics world over, had released a Vatican document in 1997 titled Dominus Jesus in which both Hinduism and it’s sister religion Buddhism have been denounced. While releasing the document, the Pope has been quoted as saying that Hinduism offers “false hope” and is “morally cruel” since it is based on the concept of reincarnation that resembles “a continuous circle of hell”. He denounced Buddhism as “auto erotic spirituality”. US based evangelist Pat Robertson has declared that to liberate Hindus from their bondage, “missionaries will seek to convert 100 million Hindus” over the next few years.
For achieving this goal, even tainted money is welcome for any missionary from abroad. Thus, Mother Theresa whose proselytizing activities was perhaps the most camouflaged of all foreign missionaries in India, once wrote to a US Court judge, Judge Ito of Los Angeles not to hold guilty one of her contributors by name Charles H. Keating Jr. who was on trial in his court for criminally defrauding nominees of 17,000 persons of $ 252 million [about Rs.1200 crores]. Mother Theresa’ plea to the judge was that since Mr. Keating had donated millions of dollars to her Missionaries of Charity he should be let off and not be found guilty or even be prosecuted!
The judge asked the Deputy District Attorney [equivalent of assistant public prosecutor in India] to reply to her letter. Mr.Paul Turley wrote back to her giving the details of the case [by then Mr.Keating was found guilty and convicted of fraud]. Mr.Turley in his letter advised Mother Theresa as follows: “Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly have returned the stolen property to the rightful owners. You should do the same. Do not keep the money”. Mother Theresa did not in fact hesitate at all. She kept the ill gotten money and ignored the advice!
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, in 2002-03 private bodies with FCRA permission had received Rs.5046 crores as contribution from abroad. In 2005-06 it is estimated by insiders these contributions at Rs.7500 crores, of which two-thirds was going to Christian missionary organizations. This hefty sum has been used essentially for conversion and to defame Hinduism. Without defamation of Hinduism, conversion is not easy for these missionaries.
Another route to defame Hinduism is the textbook portrayal of Hindu society. Already Swami Ramakrishna Parmahans has been described in disparaging terms in government prescribed text books. Traitor Raja Jai Chand has been described as a hero, and Prithviraj as a coward! Since English language provides a fast track channel to India from abroad for propagation of ideas, books rubbishing Hindu gods and goddesses, sanyasis, and other icons are being published abroad and imported for use in India’s public schools. Lord Ganesha has repeatedly been portrayed in most hurtful terms. Shiva linga has been ridiculed.
Hence this august Acharya Sabha assembled here in Mumbai should resolve to fight this and other such atrocities on Hindu symbols and institutions by aiding mass Hindu mobilization against it.
[2] Demographic restructuring of Indian society.
People of India who declare in the Census that they are adherents of religions born on Indian soil, that is Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains constituted 84.21% of the total Indian population in 2001. In 1941, the proportion adjusted for Partition was 84.44%. This figure hides the fact that Hindus resident in undivided Pakistan have migrated to post- Partition India which is why the share of Hindus and co-religionists have barely reduced since 1941. In the area now called Bangladesh, Hindus were 30% in 1941. In 2001 they are less than 8%. In Pakistan of today, Hindus were 20% in 1941, and less than 2% in 2001. Such ethnic cleansing has not been noticed by anybody. If the figures are adjusted for this migration, then in the five decades 1951-2001, Hindus have lost more 3 percent points in share of Indian population, while Muslims have increased their share by about 3%. What is even more significant is that Hindus have lost 12% points since 1881, and the loss in share has begun to accelerate since 1971 partly due to illegal migration from Bangladesh.
The lack of Hindu unity and the determined bloc voting in elections by Muslims and Christians has created a significantly large leverage for these two religious communities in economic, social and foreign policy making. Although uniform civil code is a directive principle of state policy in the Constitution, it is taboo to ask for it because of this leverage. Politicians fearing backlash anger of Christian and Muslim preachers are also unable to defend the need for continuation of a law to ban religions conversions that occur through inducements and coercion. In the case of Tamil Nadu, in 2004 the US Consul General in Chennai called on the Chief Minister to seek reversal of such a statute [www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35516.htm]. He had been empowered raise this issue by a 1998 Act of US Congress on religious freedom. Incidentally, the AIADMK was administered a blistering defeat in the 2004 Parliament elections by a total consolidation of Muslim and Christian votes against the party because it’s government had got passed such a law. After the elections, a humbled Chief Minister Ms.Jayalalitha capitulated and got the law annulled. I have now put the US administration to test by asking the Ambassador in New Delhi if the US would be even handed by asking the TN Chief Minister whether she will withdraw all the bogus cases foisted on the Kanchi acharyas.
The continued rise in the share of Muslims and Christians in the total population is a threat to the Hindu foundation of the nation. And we have to find ways and means to meet this threat. Kerala is a state where the Hindu population declined from 69% in 1901. In 100 years to 2001, the share has fallen to 56%. Muslims are now 25% and Christians 19%. But Hindus share in agricultural activities has fallen to 24%, while for Christians the share has risen to 40%. For Muslims it is 33%. In commerce and industry too the same proportions obtain, while in foreign employment, Hindus share is just 19%, Muslims 49.5% and Christians 31.5%.
In the land fertile districts of Western UP, from Rampur to Saharanpur, Muslims due to a much higher population growth rate are now 40% of the population. Six of the 14 districts of Assam in the northeast are already Muslim majority, and by 2031, all fourteen will be Muslim majority if present trends of differential population growth rate and illegal migration from Bangladesh continue.
In northeast India, minus Assam, 45.5% of the population is already Christian. Every one of the seven sisters states has a galloping Christian population. Arunachal which had zero Christian population in 1971, now has over 7%.
These two communities today fiercely safeguard their control of institutions spawned on public money besides receiving funds from abroad. Take for example the educational institutions. Jamia Millia Islamia University has been recognised as a central university with liberal government grants. But 88% of the faculty is Muslim. American College, Madurai’s faculty is 66% Christian. It’s junior faculty is 95% Christian. Union Christian College at Aluva, Kerala has 83% Christian faculty. There are no exceptions. All institutions run by Muslims and Christians have grossly disproportionate share of their religionists. It is only recently that Allahabad High Court struck down as unconstitutional the central university, the Aligarh Muslim University’s reserving more than 95 percent of the admissions and faculty positions for Muslims. The Hindu tax payers money was used all these decades to fund the AMU!
Thus, differential application of family planning, non-uniform civil code, illegal migration, and induced religious conversion have together created a serious looming crisis for the Hindu character of the nation. We see what Muslim majority will mean to Hindus when we look at the situation in Kashmir. We can learn from how Muslim majority will treat minorities or even women of Muslim faith when we look around the world and study Islamic nations. This is because Muslim believe the world is divided as Darul Islam where Muslims are in a majority and are rulers, and Darul Harab in which Muslims are in a minority and are entitled by the Koran and Shariat, by hook or crook to transform these countries to Muslim ruled and/or Muslim majority. At present India is viewed as Darul Harab, and unless the Hindu majority compels or persuades the Muslim minority to enter into a contract to live in peace, whence India becomes Darul Ahad, the Muslim population will always play host to fanatics bent upon creating upheaval in India. That is why I am emphasizing that Muslims in India must declare that their origin and ancestors are Hindus, and that Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi. Christians too have their view of the world as divided between heathens who have to be ‘saved’ by conversion and followers of Jesus Christ. Now with the publication of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and revelations about Opus Dei organization, Hindus have to go on high alert about Christian missionaries from abroad. Moreover, patriots concerned with the safeguarding of the Hindu foundation of the nation have to take note that conversion to Christian faith has been put on a war footing by entrepreneurs. In Dallas, Texas USA, the Global Pastors Network [GPN] held a conference and resolved that over the next fifteen years, the organization will support financially worldwide the construction of five million churches and conversion of one billion persons to Christianity. From India alone, the target is according the Evangelist Pat Robertson, 100 million persons. Hence, Hindus are facing a terrible pincer: Islamic fast population growth and illegal migration, in conjunction with Christian money– induced conversion activities.
Hence, Hindus have to hang together or ultimately be hanged separately. This is no inflamed psychosis. Not long ago, despite being the overwhelming majority, Hindus had to pay discriminatory taxes to the Muslim and Christian emperors who were ruling India. Lack of unity was the reason, and not poverty. In fact when the onslaught and enslavement took place, India was the richest country in the world. Within 150 years thereafter we were reduced to the poorest in the world. Now if the demographic restructuring described herein goes on unchecked, then the danger becomes several fold than before. This Acharya Sabha may therefore please address this issue and give a guideline to the Hindu society.
[3] The Rise of Terrorism Directed at Hindus
If one were to study the terrorism in Kashmir and Manipur, it is apparent that Hindus have been the special target. The driving away of the Hindu population from the Kashmir valley by targeted terrorism of Islamic jihadis is the single biggest human rights atrocity since Nazi Germany pogroms against the Jews. Yet it has hardly received noticed in international fora. Why? Hindu population in Bangladesh has declined from 30 percent to less than 8 percent of the total population by deliberate targeted ethnic cleansing by Islamic fanatics aided and abetted by their government[see Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India’s State of Jammu & Kashmir: A Survey of Human Rights, June 17,2005, www.hinduamericanfoundation.org] and yet there is no outcry. Why? This is because of the lack of Hindu mindset to retaliate against atrocities against Hindus. When in 1949, anti-Hindu riots took place in East Pakistan, Sardar Patel had declared that if the government there could not control it, then India was quite capable of putting it down for them. Soon after the riots stopped. Terrorist attacks against India and Hindus in particular thus is growing because we seem today incapable of retaliating in a manner that it deters future attacks.
According to the well known National Counter terrorism Center, a US government body, in it’s report titled A Chronology of International Terrorism for 2004 states that: “India suffered more significant acts of terrorism than any other country in 2004”, a damning comment. India is suffering on an average about 25 incidents of terrorism a month. India’s Home Ministry in it’s 2004-05 Annual report to Parliament acknowledges that 29 of the 35 states and union territories are affected by terrorism. Moreover, all India’s neighbours have become hot-beds for anti-Indian terrorists training.
Because of a lack of Hindu unity and a mindset for deterrent retaliation, terrorists have become encouraged. In 1989, the Indian government released five dreaded terrorists to get back the kidnapped daughter, Rubaiyya, of the then Home Minister. Kashmir terrorists got a huge boost by this capitulation. When the Indian Airlines plane with 339 passengers was hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan, the government again capitulated and released three of the most dangerous terrorists. Today three of the most murderous terrorist organizations in Kashmir are directed by these three freed terrorists. Then there is the case of the LTTE which murdered Rajiv Gandhi. We have made no effort to apprehend the leader of the LTTE who had ordered the assassination. On the contrary, those MPs [of PMK, MDMK, and DMK] who publicly praise that leader and hold the assassination as justified, have become Union Ministers in a coalition led by the widow of Rajiv Gandhi!
Terrorism cannot be fought by appeasement. But that precisely is what the government is doing. Tragically, innocent Hindus have invariably been the victims of this capitulation. To combat terrorism, there has to be a determination to never to negotiate a settlement with terrorists. Citizens of a country have to be educated that there will be hazards when faced with acts of terrorism, but that the goal of the government will always have to be to hunt down the terrorists and fix them. Only under such a zero tolerance policy towards terrorism, will the ultimate good emerge. For example in the Indian Airlines hijack case in order not to risk 339 passengers’ lives the government released Mohammed Azhar from jail. But Azhar went to Pakistan after his release and formed the Jaish-e-Mohammed which has since then killed nearly a thousand innocent Hindus and is still continuing to do so. How has the nation gained by the Kandahar capitulation then?
Hence I appeal to this Acharya Sabha to call upon the national political leadership to treat the fight against terrorism as a dharmayudh, as fight to the finish and a religious duty not to negotiate, compromise or capitulate to terrorists. The government must also safeguard the nation by adopting a policy of “hot pursuit” of terrorists by chasing them to their sanctuaries no matter in which country they are located.
[4] The Erosion of Moral Authority of Governance
The well known organization Transparency International has graded about 140 countries according to the corruption levels from least to the most. India appears near the bottom of the list as among the most corrupt. Recently The Mitrokhin Archives II has been published wherein KGB documents have been relied on to conclude that shamefully “India was on sale for KGB bribes”. If India is the one of the most corrupt countries today and purchasable, it is because the core Hindu values of simplicity, sacrifice and abstinence have been systematically downgraded over the years. Wealth obtained by any means has become the criteria for social status. There was a time in India when persons of learning and simplicity enjoyed the moral authority in society to make even kings bow before them. Not long ago, Mahatma Gandhi and later Jayaprakash Narayan without holding office were here exercising the same moral authority over political leaders. In a very short period, that Hindu value has evaporated. India is fast becoming a banana republic in which everything, person or policy is available to anyone for a price. The proposal, now implemented in some states, to have reservation in government employment for Muslims and “Dalit” Christians is one such sell-out. Reservation quotas are strictly for those whom the Hindu society due to degeneration had suppressed or had isolated from the mainstream. But those who were ruling classes in our nation, such as Muslims and Christians, and that too for a total of 1000 years, cannot claim this facility. But some political parties in reckless disregard for equity and history, have sold out for bloc votes the national interest by advocating for such a reservation proposal. In such a situation the nation’s independence and sovereignty slides into danger of being subverted and then rendered impotent. This has happened before in our history, not when the nation was poor but was the richest country in the world. India then was ahead in science, mathematics, art and architecture. And yet because the moral fibre weakened, all was lost. We had to struggle hard to recover our freedom. But by the time we did, we had lost all our wealth and dropped to the bottom of the list of countries in poverty.
In this time of creeping darkness in our society, there are still venerated souls who draw crowds of people who come on their own expense to hear such evolved souls and follow them. These are our dharmacharyas, many of whom are sitting here in this Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha. Just as Rshi Vishwamitra picked his archers and hunters to put an end to asuras and rakshasas, the same way I urge and implore this Sabha to pick a political instrument to cleanse the body politic of the nation. It cannot be done without Hindu unity in our democracy, and hence formulating a code of ethics and moral principles is essential for creating a meaningful and purposeful Hindu unity. The nation looks to you all on this today, for guidance in this hour of need.
VI
Therefore my call today is first and foremost for the undiluted unity of Hindus, a unity based on a mindset that is nurtured and fostered on the fundamentals of a renaissance [see my website www.indiaright.org for a detailed elaboration]. Only then Hindus can meet the challenge of Christian missionaries and Islamic fundamentalists. I can do no better here than quote Swami Dayananda Sarasvati:
“Faced with militant missionaries, Hinduism has to show that its plurality and all-encompassing acceptance are not signs of disparateness or disunity. For that, a collective voice is needed.”
Non-Hindus can join this Hindustani unity, but first they must agree to adhere to the minimum requirement: that they recognize and accept that their cultural legacy is Hindu, or that they revere their Hindu origins, that they are as equal before law as any other but no more, and that they will make sacrifices to defend their Hindu legacy just as any good Hindu would his own. In turn then the Hindu will defend such non-Hindus as they have the Parsis and Jews, and take them as the Hindustani parivar.
India can be only for those who swear that Bharatvarsh or Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi. Since the task to defeat the nefarious forces ranged today against Hindu society is not going to be easy, we cannot therefore trust those amongst in our midst whose commitment to the motherland is ambivalent or ad hoc or those who feel no kinship to the Hindu past of the nation. We partitioned a quarter of Hindustan to enable those Muslims who could not live with Hindus in a democratic framework of equality and fraternity. Hence only those are true children of Bharatmata who accept that India is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi.
As Swami Vivekananda said to Hindus: “Arise, Awake and Go Forth as Proud Hindus”. But what does being a proud Hindu entail? The core of what it entails can be found by gleaning the writings of our sages and interpreting it in the modern context. I have tried summarizing the distilled wisdom in the following axioms or fundamentals of Hindu unity:
First, a Hindu, and those others who are proud of their Hindu past and origins, must know the correct history of India. That history which records that Hindus have always been, and are one; that caste is not birth–based and nor immutable. India is a continuum, sanatana. That ancient Hindus and their descendents have always lived in this area from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, an area called Akhand Hindustan, and did not come from outside; and that there is no truth in the Aryan-Dravidian race theory. Instead Hindus went abroad to spread learning.
Second, Hindus believe that all religions equally lead to God, but not that all religions are equal in the richness of it’s theological content. Respecting all religions, Hindus must demand from others that respect is a two-way obligation. That is if Hindus are to defend the right of others to adhere to one’s own religion, then other religionists have to stand up for Hindus too. By this criterion, secular attitude, as defined till date has been a one-way obligation for Hindus. Hence Hindus must reject such a concept because of its implied appeasement. At the same time enlightened Hindus must defend and protect vigorously those non-Hindus who identify with the concept of Hindustan, as a nation of Hindus and of those who accept that their ancestors are Hindus. A vibrant Bharatvarsh cannot be home to bigotry and obscurantism since that has never been Hindu tradition or history. But Muslims and Christians shall be part of the Hindustani parivar or family only if they accept this truth and revere it.
Third, Hindus must prefer to lose everything they possess rather than submit to tyranny or to terrorism. Today those in India who submit to terrorists and hijackers must be vehemently despised as anti-Hindus. They cannot be good Hindus merely because they are pious or go regularly to the temple or good Hindustanis just because they are citizens of India.
Fourth, the Hindu must have a mindset to retaliate when attacked. The retaliation must be massive enough to deter future attacks. If terrorists come from training camps in Pakistan, Bangla Desh or Sri Lanka, Hindus must seek to carpet bomb those training camps, no matter the consequences. Today’s so-called self proclaimed “good” Hindus have failed to avenge or retaliate for the attack on Parliament, Akshaya Mandir, Ayodhya, and even a former Prime Minister’s [Rajiv Gandhi’s] assassination. On the other hand those who defend these assassins and praise the terrorist organization behind them are central government Ministers today.
Fifth, all Hindus to qualify as true Hindus must make effort to learn Sanskrit and the Devanagari script in addition to the mother tongue, and pledge that one day in the future, Sanskrit will be India’s link language since all the main Indian languages have large percentage of their vocabulary in common with Sanskrit already.
These five fundamentals constitute the concept of virat Hindu unity, a bonding that Hindus need in order to be in a position to confront the challenge that Hindu civilization is facing from Islamic terrorists and fraud Christian missionaries from abroad, who are also aided and abetted by confused Hindus who have not grasped these fundamentals. Without such a virat Hindu unity and the implied mindset, we will be unable to nullify and root out the subversion and erosion that undermine today the Hindu foundation of India. This foundation is what makes India distinctive in the world, and hence we must safeguard this legacy with all the might and moral fibre that we can muster. In this we can get great moral support from Hindus resident abroad because of their sheer commitment to the motherland. Free from economic constraints, aching for an identity, and well educated, I have seen them organize effectively to challenge the attempts to slander Hindu religious symbols and icon. Overseas Hindustanis have contributed during our Freedom Struggle, the Emergency and in enabling our acharyas to spread the message of the Hindu religion abroad. This has been done without demeaning other religions.
I urge and implore this Acharya Sabha, that since in a democracy the battle is in fighting elections, therefore to resolve to foster a Hindu consciousness that leads to a cohesive vigorous Hindu unity and mindset, so that the Hindustani voter will cast his ballot only for those candidates in an election who will be loyal to a Hindu Agenda drawn up by the Dharmacharyas.
Thank you, I seek your ashirvad and offer my pranams to all the Acharyas present here.
Dr.Swamy Will Be Writing A Column Regularly In Organiser.We Are Please To Republish The Same WebsiteClick To OpenThe Search for a Hindu Agenda
Subramanian Swamy
Organiser
I am happy to be invited by the editor of Organiser to return to writing a column for Organiser. In 1970s I had written with ” missionary” zeal in these columns about the Swadeshi Plan which was about self-reliance and not taking foreign aid, about achieving a 10 percent growth rate in the economy by giving up socialism, and the feasibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. These were radical ideas in those days that angered Mrs. Indira Gandhi and her KGB benefactors. She denounced me on the floor of Parliament and her Minister of Education ensured that not only I but my wife were both sacked from our professorships at the IIT, Delhi. Today, those radical ideas of the 1970s have become mainstream and I stand vindicated.
But the mission is incomplete, because India becoming a global economic power is not enough. To count internationally and get her due place in the world order, India must become thoroughly united with a virile mindset without self-doubt, and undergo a renaissance to cleanse the dirt and unwanted baggage acquired over the past thousand years. Otherwise foreign forces already alerted by India’s recent economic successes and it’s implications will leverage our internal weaknesses and self-doubt to derail the country. Look at the fate of Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Brazil, the shining hope of the 1960s. They are in one crisis after another today and in shambles. And East Asia, the much publicized “Tigers”, had a blowout in 1997, and still to recover. Soviet Union is in 16 separate pieces, a happy development but a warning nonetheless. What happened to Yugoslavia ? It is in four warring pieces. It had happened to us earlier in the eighteeth and nineteenth centuries when we were balkanised. It can therefore happen again. Hence we need a new agenda for change to weld the Indian into one corporate mind and entity. This I shall expound in these columns.
Our nation is, in fact, at a cross roads of history today. To find our destiny and direction all Hindustanis with a patriotic mindset have to come together to combat a common unseen but alien enemy, and not to traverse again the unfortunate and tragic chapter of our past history when we helped the foreigner to get a grip on the nation in order to settle our own petty squabbles.
The last time we set aside our political and personal differences and came together was to fight the Emergency during 1975-77. Had we not done that, in particular Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai had not teamed up with the RSS, despite all their past differences, dictatorship would have prevailed and been legitimized through the ballot box in 1977. We came together and triumphed, and restored democracy. Even if that unity did not last long, the main task of restoring democracy was achieved and the nation saved.
Today, the challenge is much more formidable than it was ever in our history. More important the threat to our national integrity embedded in this challenge is not obvious or crude as was when Mohammed Ghori attacked or Robert Clive plundered the nation. These earlier challenges were single dimensionalat the physical conquest level. Today the challenge is highly sophisticated, multi-dimensional and deceptive.
What is happening today is a very subtle fragmentation of our national consciousness and an induced acquiesance in our outlook to condone or be impervious to whatever wrong is going on. There is, for example, no national will to enforce accountability on the leaders who make patently wrong decisions, which harm the nation. Or bring to book their lifestyle that is inconsistent with the national spiritual ethos.
This state of affairs has come about steadily through one wrong decision after another over the years and a weak mindset of the intelligentsia to tolerate it or explain it away. The first of such decisions with disastrous long term consequences was in 1947, when Nehru decided to go to the UN Security Council on Kashmir which had become by then a part of India in legally iron clad way. The Instrument of Accession had been signed by the Maharaja acceding Kashmir to India. He was legally empowered to do so by the Indian Independence Act passed in June 1947 by the British Parliament, which Act carved out a new nation of Pakistan out of undivided India. That Act also empowered the Princely States to accede to India or Pakistanwithout requiring to ascertain the wishes of the people. There is no dispute about the legality of the Instrument of Accession, and yet Nehru without obtaining his Cabinet’s consent declared that the wishes of the Kashmiri people would be ascertained. By going to the UN, Nehru made Pakistan a party when it could never be legally so. Ironically, if Pakistan questions the validity of the Instrument of Accession then it questions it’s own legal existence since both draw their legitimacy from the same legislationthe Indian Independence Act of 1947. If Kashmir is of disputed status then so will be Pakistan itself. Either both or neither ! What Nehru did, for his personal image in the West, or perhaps to please Edwina Moutbatten, was to weaken the national resolve to cherish the hoary concept of Bharatvarsh, the geographical integrity of Hindustan from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Since then it has been easy to rationalize writing off bits of India, continuously to amputate Mother India, from Aksai Chin, to Northeast to even returning reclaimed Indian territory such as in Hajipir(1965) and Chicken Neck(1972) and now, as Prof. Nalapat writes, soon in Siachen and Sir Creek. Yet Nehru has not been held accountable by succeeding generations. Some even take pride in being known as Nehruvian even today, when he should be despised much as Neville Chamberlain is in Britain.
Then the nation was railroaded into adopting the Soviet economic model on the ground that, as Communists and their fellow travelers in India propagated, there was no inflation, no poverty, and no unemployment in the Soviet Union. The reality today is that there no Soviet Union ! The Soviet model weakened the Indian economy, set us back, and introduced corruption in India as a way of life. This has made us vulnerable again to the foreigner. How that happened I shall deal with in my next column.
Paul Samuelson: A GuruClick To OpenPaul Samuelson: A Guru Subramanian Swamy
If anyone can be called the father of modern analytical and scientific economics, it is Paul A. Samuelson now sadly deceased at 94. Anyone who has read economics, even if in the most fleeting way, cannot but recognise his most perceptive undergraduate economics text-book of all time, in its 19th edition now. When educated people think of analytical economics today, they think of Samuelson. Einstein in fact is the Samuelson of physics.
At his 92, I when last I saw him, he was driving his car in Belmont, Massachusetts, his home area —a small elite town on the suburb of Cambridge, the town of Harvard and MIT and as alert as ever. He stopped upon seeing me on the sidewalk, pulled over and chatted with me about how I was. Since 2000 I have been going back every summer to Harvard to teach two courses in economics and I had been meeting him over a one-to-one lunch at his favourite restaurant in the Charles Hotel complex at Harvard Square. That year I had not yet called him and he was disapproving.
Whenever I met him, I was just his student, which I had been in 1962-63 cross-registering at MIT which Harvard students could do. In every meeting with him I had to answer his rapid fire questions about a series of subjects, and even share delightful gossip. On that summer day on the Belmont sidewalk it was no different.
Later I became his colleague as co-author on the Theory of Index Numbers, published our research in the prestigious American Economic Review[1974] and the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal [1984], but I was still treated as his student to be cared for, and questioned.
Samuelson’s main contribution to modern economics was to use advanced calculus to show that that economics could be structured on clearly stated on observable behaviourial assumptions or axioms, objectives, and then by mathematical deduction deriving economic laws that could be tested on real life statistical data. He thus made economics a subject of scientific inquiry to be truly called a science in the sense that propositions in economics could be ‘proved’ with proofs just as theorems in mathematics were. Mathematical logic and rigour was all, and little else mattered. Gone thus were the days of “Shakespearean” economics of Keynes and Galbraith’s art of expression. Felicity in English no more mattered. Mathematical methods took its place and thereby Samuelson globalised economics by enabling the little English knowing scholars such as the Japanese to join in international discourse and collaboration in research and teaching. Economics thus exploded on the international scene and became fashionable.
Samuelson worked in two dimensions throughout his life. In one dimension, he spoke in homely English about the most complicated economic issues. He thus authored one of the most widely used college textbook in the history of American education. The book, titled Economics, first published in 1948, was the globe’s best-selling textbook for nearly 30 years. Translated into 20 languages, and updated periodically it is selling over 50,000 copies a year a half century after it first appeared. He also wrote a column for Newsweek on current economic topics.
His second dimension was of mathematical rigour that began with his Harvard Ph.D. thesis turned book titled “The Foundations of Economic Analysis”. This is a goldmine for future research even today. When he defended his thesis before a committee of three Harvard Professors, which all Ph.D candidates have to do and pass, the story goes that the chairman of the committee Professor Schumpeter asked his two fellow members after the viva : “Gentlemen, have we passed ?”
Between these two books, Samuelson re-defined modern economics and made it a popular yet a science. For that he became the first American to win the then instituted Nobel Prize in 1970.
The textbook introduced generations of students to the ideas, in simple language of graphs, of John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who in the 1930s developed the theory that modern market economies could become trapped in depression, that a cut in wages would only mean a cut in demand and hence of profit, and thus the downward spiral would continue. And it would then need a strong push from government spending or tax cuts, in addition to lenient monetary policy, to restore the economy. Thus was born the concept of the “stimulus”. Laissez faire made way for modern competitive market economic system in which government had a role to play. In my view this neo-classical economics destroyed socialism as a theory forever. Never again to rest comfortably with the view that private markets could cure unemployment without need of government intervention in terms of stimulus, fiscal, and monetary policies. No need therefore for “commanding heights” of government ownership.
That lesson has been reinforced in 2008, when the international economy slipped into the steepest downturn since the Great Depression when Keynesian economics was born. When the Depression began, governments stood pat or made matters worse by trying to urge wage cuts, to balance fiscal budgets, and erecting trade barriers. But 80 years later, most industrialised countries took corrective action, raising government spending, cutting taxes, keeping exports and imports flowing and driving short-term interest rates to near zero. Samuelson made Keynes immortal and Depression containable.
Paul Antony Samuelson was born May 15, 1915 in Gary, Ind. the son of Frank Samuelson, a pharmacist, and the former Ella Lipton. His family, he said, was ‘made up of upwardly mobile Jewish immigrants from Poland’. His family later moved to Chicago. Young Paul attended Hyde Park High School in Chicago.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Chicago in 1935, he went to Harvard as a graduate student to do a Ph.D.
Among Samuelson’s fellow students at Harvard was Marion Crawford. They married in 1938. Samuelson earned his master’s degree from Harvard in 1936 and a Ph.D. formally in 1941. He wrote his thesis in 1937. In 1940, Harvard offered him an instructorship[ the Harvard equivalent of Assistant Professor which in turn equalled Associate Professor elsewhere], which he accepted, but a month later MIT invited him to become an assistant professor i.e., same rank as Harvard’s Instructor.
But jealousy and some suspect anti-Semitism of the late thirties made Harvard deny promotion to retain him even though he had by then developed an international following. Nobel Laureate Robert Solow, his former student and later colleague at MIT, jokingly said of the Harvard economics department of that time: “You could be disqualified for a job if you were either smart or Jewish or Keynesian. So what chance did this smart, Jewish, Keynesian have?”
Marion Samuelson died in 1978. Samuelson is survived by his second wife, Risha Clay Samuelson and six children from his first marriage.
Fresh from India, and armed with a B.A Honours in Mathematics and Master’s in Mathematical Statistics I first met Samuelson in his office in September 1962 wanting to be his student cross-registering in the most advanced mathematical economics course of MIT. I had arrived in Cambridge town on a Harvard scholarship for a Ph.D., thanks to the recommendation Dr. Tarlok Singh of the Planning Commission which Harvard honoured. Samuelson used to select every year only twenty students, out of about 200 that applied, expecting to groom them as scholars. I wondered then whether I would be chosen.
But by then I was already bit of a sensation in academia because as a M.A. student at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, I had published a research paper in the world’s then most prestigious journal called Econometrica, demolishing using Integral Calculus, P.C. Mahalanobis’ claim to fame called Fractile Graphical Analysis published earlier in the same journal. Mahalanobis who was invited by the editor to rebut my criticism, had no answer.
In Samuelson’s class as his student, once while he was lecturing on the theory of consumer behavior wrote on the blackboard a series of equations to derive a theorem. From my desk I raised my hand and said “You have one equation wrong, so you will not be able to prove the theorem”. There was stunned silence in class. Samuelson then walked to where I was seated and glowered “What did you say ?”. I held my ground and offered to rectify what was a small careless mistake which all geniuses commit on the blackboard in class. He made me go to the blackboard and write out the correct equation which I did. Then sternly he said: “See me after class”. My classmates all thought that was the end of me and one even said to me “have you got your return ticket to India?”
But it was instead the beginning of me and of a relationship. When I saw him after class he said to my utter joy :“I think you and I should write a joint paper some day”. This we did ten years later but he me helped in the interim on a number of my papers published in my own name, and also thanked me in footnotes of his published papers for correcting him or for giving him leads. He, and my thesis adviser Simon Kuznets at Harvard, thus launched my career. I became Teaching Fellow even as a student, then Instructor soon after, breezing through a Ph.D in the shortest possible time of 18 months, and Assistant Professor all at Harvard within three years of my arrival in Cambridge.
Amartya Sen invited me to join the Delhi School of Economics as a full Professor in early 1968 stating in a hand written letter that my “gaddi was being dusted”. I therefore spent three months in the summer of 1968 at the Delhi School of Economics as Visiting Professor, before returning back to Harvard with the intention of winding up and joining as Professor of Economics at the Delhi School. But I did not realize then that the Left triumvirate of Sen, K.N.Raj and S. Chakravarty had in the three months discovered that I was not only not ideologically neutral or soft like Bhagwati, but hard anti-Left and wanted to dismantle the Soviet planning system in India besides producing the atom bomb. So when I arrived in India in late 1969 this triumvirate scuttled my ascending the dusted gaddi. Sen was at his hypocritical best in explaining to me his volte face.
Samuelson was enraged when heard this and perhaps felt empathy because of his own experience in the late thirties at Harvard, and urged me to return. When I returned to Harvard to teach in the 1971 summer, Samuelson told me “Stay here and write a treatise on Index Numbers and you will be worthy of a prize”. But I was in a fighting mood and told him I would return.
Fortunately there was a Professorship open at IIT Delhi. Dr. Manmohan Singh was the Chairman of the Selection Committee. Samuelson with Kuznets[1971 Nobel Laureate] wrote the Committee strong letters of recommendation. Armed with it, Dr. Singh did not wilt under the huge pressure mounted by the triumvirate and I was appointed Professor of Economics in October 1971. But it did not last long. The triumvirate then persuaded Mrs. Gandhi that I was a closet RSS with chauvinist views, and a danger to her. With the KGB favourite Nurul Hasan as Education Minister, I was easily sacked in December 1972 [but re-instated by court in 1991].
I then joined politics since no academic avenues were now open. I continued to return to Harvard for the summer to teach, and got nothing but warmth and welcome from Samuelson each time. During the Emergency, Henry Rosovsky another famous Harvard economist, became Dean and he appointed me Visiting Professor for the year 1976-77. Mrs. Gandhi sent an emissary to him to cancel my appointment! But Henry was no pushover. He maintained that I was still an IIT Professor till the courts in India pronounced on it.
By now Samuelson was convinced that I had responded to a higher call by going into Indian politics. He then encouraged me to fight on. He wrote a powerful column in the Newsweek against the Emergency and even signed a petition of Nobel Laureates to the US President condemning the jailing without trial of 140,000 persons. It was most unusual for him, but it encouraged me to fight on.
Although I did collaborate with him again on Index Numbers in the early eighties, Samuelson remained sympathetic from then on to my choice of a political career over academics. I met him often in the Faculty Club for lunch after I went back to Harvard for a year and half in 1985-86 as Visiting Professor courtesy my friend and famous China scholar Roderick Macfarquhar.
In 1990s after we ushered in reforms, Samuelson wrote me a letter expressing happiness that “at last, India has discovered economic growth”.
Once at a get together I called him my guru and explained the gurukul system of our rishis. He said “Ah ! That is what the US needs”. But Samuelson was already a rishi in the way he treated his chosen students and saw them through difficulties. Thus, I shall remember always as that I was once Samuelson’s chosen student among the many he nurtured in his glorious life.
(PUBLISHED IN HINDU ON 23.12.2009)
Prof. Samuelson: guru extraordinaire
Subramanian Swamy
A chosen student among the many Prof. Paul Samuelson nurtured recalls the teacher’s contributions.
If anyone can be called the father of modern analytical and scientific economics, it is Paul A. Samuelson, who passed away on December 13 at 94. Anyone who has read economics, even in the most fleeting way, cannot but recognise his perceptive undergraduate economics textbook. Think of analytical economics, and you think of Samuelson.
When I saw him last when he was 92, he was driving his car near his home in Belmont, Massachusetts — a small elite town in the vicinity of Cambridge which is home to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — and as alert as ever. He stopped upon seeing me on the sidewalk, pulled over and chatted about how I was. Since 2000 I have been going back each summer to Harvard to teach two courses in economics, and I had been meeting him over a one-to-one lunch at his favourite restaurant at Harvard Square. That year I had not yet called him, and he was disapproving.
Whenever I met him I was just his student, which I had been in 1962-63. At every meeting with him I had to answer his rapid-fire questions about a series of subjects, and even share delightful gossip. On that summer’s day at Belmont it was no different.
Later I had become his co-author on the Theory of Index Numbers, published our research in the American Economic Review (1974) and the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal (1984), but I was still treated as his student, to be cared for, and questioned.
Samuelson’s main contribution to modern economics was the use of advanced calculus to show that economics could be structured on clearly stated or observable behavioural assumptions or axioms or objectives, and then by mathematical deduction deriving economic laws that could be tested on real-life statistical data. He thus made economics a subject of scientific inquiry to be truly called a science, in the sense that propositions in economics could be ‘proved’ with proof, just as theorems in mathematics could be. Mathematical logic and rigour was all; little else mattered. Gone, thus, were the days of John Maynard Keynes’ “Shakespearean” economics and John Kenneth Galbraith’s art of expression. Felicity in English no more mattered; mathematical methods took its place. Samuelson globalised economics by enabling scholars who knew little English to join in international discourse and collaboration in research and teaching. Economics thus exploded on to the international scene, and became fashionable.
Worked in two dimensions
Samuelson worked in two dimensions throughout his life. In one, he spoke in homely English about the most complicated economic issues. He thus authored one of the most widely used college textbooks in the history of American education. The book, titled Economics, first published in 1948, was the globe’s best-selling textbook for nearly 30 years. Translated into 20 languages and updated periodically, it is selling over 50,000 copies a year in its 19th edition half a century after it first appeared.
His second dimension was of mathematical rigour that began with his Harvard Ph.D. thesis-turned-book titled The Foundations of Economic Analysis. This is a gold mine for research even today. When he defended his thesis before a committee of three Harvard Professors, the story goes that the chairman, Professor Joseph A. Schumpeter, asked his two fellow-members after the viva voce: “Gentlemen, have we passed?”
Between the two books, Samuelson redefined modern economics and made it popular, yet a science. For that he became the first American to win the then newly instituted Nobel prize for economics.
Paul Antony Samuelson was born on May 15, 1915 in Gary, Indiana. After receiving his bachelor’s from Chicago in 1935, he went to Harvard. He earned his master’s from Harvard in 1936 and a Ph.D. formally in 1941. He wrote his thesis in 1937.
In 1940, Harvard offered him an instructorship (the Harvard equivalent of Assistant Professor, which in turn equalled the position of an Associate Professor elsewhere), which he accepted. But a month later the MIT invited him to become an Assistant Professor, that is, the same as Harvard’s Instructor. But jealousy and, some suspect, the anti-Semitism of the late-1930s made Harvard deny him a promotion, even though he had by then developed an international following.
Fresh from India with a B.A. Honours in Mathematics and a Master’s in Mathematical Statistics, I first met Samuelson in his office in September 1962 wanting to be his student, cross-registering in the most advanced mathematical economics course of the MIT. I had arrived in Cambridge on a Harvard scholarship for a Ph.D. Samuelson selected each year only 20 students, out of about 200 who applied, expecting to groom them as scholars. I wondered whether I would be chosen. I was.
Once while lecturing on the theory of consumer behaviour in class, Samuelson wrote on the blackboard a series of equations to derive a theorem. As a student I raised my hand from my desk and said: “You have one equation wrong, so you will not be able to prove the theorem.” There was stunned silence. Samuelson walked to my seat and glowered: “What did you say?” I held my ground and offered to rectify what was a small careless mistake which all geniuses commit on the blackboard in class. He made me go to the blackboard and write out the correct equation — which I did. Then, sternly he said: “See me after class.” My classmates thought that was the end of me. One asked: “Have you got your return ticket to India?”
But it was, instead, the beginning of me — and of a relationship. When I saw him after class, he said: “I think you and I should write a joint paper some day.” This we did 10 years later, but he me helped in the interim on a number of papers published in my own name, and thanked me in footnotes of his published papers for having corrected him or given him leads. He, and my thesis adviser Simon Kuznets at Harvard, launched my career. I became a Teaching Fellow as a student, an Instructor soon after, obtaining a Ph.D in the shortest possible time of 18 months, and an Assistant Professor, all at Harvard.
I eventually joined politics because my career was blocked in India. I continued to return to Harvard to teach, and got nothing but warmth and welcome from Samuelson each time. During the Emergency, Henry Rosovsky, the Harvard economist, became the Dean and appointed me Visiting Professor. Indira Gandhi sent an emissary to him to cancel my appointment. But Henry was no pushover. By now Samuelson was convinced that I had responded to a higher call. He encouraged me to fight on. He wrote in Newsweek against the Emergency and even signed a petition along with other Nobel laureates to the U.S. President condemning the jailing without trial of 140,000 persons.
Samuelson remained sympathetic from then on to my choice of a political career over academics. Once I called him my guru and explained the gurukul system of the Indian rishis. He said: “Ah! That’s what the U.S. needs.” Samuelson was already a rishi in the way he treated his chosen students. I shall remember always that I was once his chosen student among the many he nurtured.
(Dr. Subramanian Swamy is a former Union Minister who is the president of the Janata Party.)
How To Wipe Out Islamic Terror: The Moment Of Truth Has ArrivedClick To OpenHow to wipe out Islamic terror: The Moment of Truth Has Arrived
Subramanian Swamy
Indian Express First Published : 31 May 2010 12:33:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 31 May 2010 01:10:30 AM IST
From recent history, a lesson to be learnt in tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus, argues Subramanian Swamy
According to the latest Union home ministry Annual Report to Parliament, of the 35 states in India, 29 are affected by terrorist acts carried out by all kinds of forces. Terrorism, I define here as the illegal use of force to overawe the civilian population to make it do or not do an act against their will and well-being.
There are about 40 reported and unreported terrorist attacks per month in the country. That is why the recent US National Counter-Terrorism Centre publication A Chronology of International Terrorism states: ‘India suffered more terrorist acts than any other country’.
While the PM thinks that Maoists’ threat is most serious, I think Islamic terrorism is even more serious. If we did not have today the present Union home minister, PM, and UPA chairperson, then Maoists can be eliminated in a month, much as I did with the LTTE in Tamil Nadu, as a senior minister in 1991, or MGR did with the Naxalites in the early 1980s.
Why is Islamic terrorism our number one problem of national security? About this there will be no doubt after 2012. By that year, I expect a Taliban takeover in Pakistan and the Americans to flee Afghanistan. Then, Islam will confront Hinduism to ‘complete unfinished business’.
Let us remember that every Hindu-Muslim riot in India since 1947, has been ignited by Muslim fanatics — if one goes by all the commissions of inquiry set up after every riot. By today’s definition these riots are all terrorist acts. Muslims, though a minority in India, still have fanatics who dare to lead violent attacks against Hindus. Other Muslims of India just lump it, sulk or rejoice. That is the history from Babar’s time to Aurangzeb. There have been exceptions to this apathy of Muslims like Dara Shikoh, in the old days, or like M J Akbar and Salman Haidar today who are not afraid to speak out against Islamic terror, but still they remain exceptions.
Blame the Hindus
In one sense, I do not blame the Muslim fanatics for targeting Hindus. I blame us Hindus who have taken their individuality permitted in Sanatana Dharma to the extreme. Millions of Hindus can assemble without state patronage for Kumbh Mela completely self-organised, but they all leave for home oblivious of the targeting of Hindus in Kashmir, Mau, Melvisharam and Malappuram and do not lift their little finger to help organise Hindus. For example, if half the Hindus vote together rising above their caste and language, a genuine Hindu party will have a two-thirds majority in Parliament and Assemblies.
The secularists now tout instances of Hindu fanatics committing terrorist attacks against Muslims or other minorities. But these attacks are mostly state sponsored, often by the Congress itself, and not by Hindu ‘non-state actors’. Muslim-led attacks are however all by ‘non-state actors’ unless one includes the ISI and rogue elements in Pakistan’s army which are aiding them, as state sponsoring.
Fanatic Muslim attacks have been carried out to target and demoralise the Hindus, to make Hindus yield that which they should not, with the aim of undermining and ultimately to dismantle the Hindu foundation of India. This is the unfinished war of 1,000 years which Osama bin Laden talks about. In fact, the earliest terror tactics in India were deployed in Bengal 1946 by Suhrawady and Jinnah to terrorise Hindus to give in on the demand for Pakistan. The Congress party claiming to represent the Hindus capitulated, and handed 25 per cent of India on a platter to Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Now they want the remaining 75 per cent.
Forces against Hindus
This is not to say that other stooges have not targeted Hindus. During the last six decades since Independence, British imperialist-inspired Dravidian movement led by E V Ramaswamy Naicker, in the name of rationalism tried to debunk as irrational the Hindu religion, and terrorised the Hindu priestly class, ie, the Brahmins, for propagating the Hindu religion.
The movement’s organisational arm, the Dravida Kazhagam (DK), had venerated Ravana for 50 years to spite the Hindu adoration of Rama and vulgarise the abduction of Sita, till the DK belatedly learnt that Ravana was a Brahmin and a pious bhakta of Lord Shiva too. Abandoning this course of defaming Ramayana, the DK have now become stooges of the anti-Indian LTTE which has specialised in killing the Hindu Tamil leadership in Sri Lanka. Of course the DK has now been orphaned by the decimation of the LTTE.
Civil war situation
In the 1960s, the Christian missionaries had inspired the Nagas. The Nagas also wanted to further amputate Bharat Mata by seeking secession of Nagaland from the nation. In the 1980s, the Hindus
of Manipur were targeted by foreign-trained elements. Manipuris were told: give up Hinduism or be killed. In Kashmir, since the beginning of the 1990s, militants in league with the Pakistan-trained terrorists also targeted the Hindus by driving the Hindu Pandits out of the Valley, or killing them or dishonouring their women folk.
Recognising that targeting of Hindus is being widely perceived, and that Muslims of India are largely just passive spectators, the foreign patrons of Islamic terrorists are beginning to engage in terrorist acts that could pit Muslims against Hindus in nation-wide conflagration and possible civil war as in Serbia and Bosnia. Muslims cannot be divided into ‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’ because the former just capitulate when confronted. Recently, Pakistan civilian government capitulated on ‘kite flying’ and banned it because Taliban considers it as ‘Hindu’. Moderate governments of Malaysia and Kazhakstan are now demolishing Hindu temples.
Collective response
Hence, the first lesson to be learnt from recent history, for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus. It is to undermine the Hindu psyche and create fear of civil war that terror attacks are organised.
And hence since the Hindu is the target, Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated or worse, be complacent because he or she is not personally affected. If one Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat Hindu (for fuller discussion of the concept of virat Hindu, see my Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out Haranand, 2006).
Therefore we need today a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. In this response, Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do, I will not believe, unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors are Hindus.
It is not easy for them to acknowledge this ancestry because the Muslim mullah and Christian missionary would consider it as unacceptable since that realisation would dilute the religious fervour in their faith and also create an option for their possible re-conversion to Hinduism. Hence, these religious leaders preach hatred and violence against the kafir ie, the Hindu (for example read Chapter 8 verse 12 of the Quran) to keep the faith of their followers. The Islamic terrorist outfits, eg the SIMI, has already resolved that India is Darul Harab, and they are committed to make it Darul Islam. That makes them free of any moral compunction whatsoever in dealing with Hindus.
Brihad Hindu Samaj
But still, if any Muslim does so acknowledge his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj, which is Hindustan. India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors are Hindus. Even Parsis and Jews in India have Hindu ancestors. Others, who refuse to so acknowledge or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration can remain in India, but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).
Hence, to begin with, any policy to combat terrorism must begin with requiring each and every Hindu becoming a committed or virat Hindu. To be a virat Hindu one must have a Hindu mindset, a mindset that recognises that there is vyaktigat charitra (personal character) and a rashtriya charitra (national character).
It is not enough if one is pious, honest and educated. That is the personal character only. National character is a mindset actively and vigorously committed to the sanctity and integrity of the nation. For example, Manmohan Singh, our prime minister, has high personal character (vyaktigat charitra), but by being a rubber stamp of a semi-literate Sonia Gandhi, and waffling on all national issues, he has proved that he has no rashtriya charitra.
The second lesson for combating the terrorism we face today is: since demoralising the Hindu and undermining the Hindu foundation of India in order to destroy the Hindu civilisation, is the goal of all terrorists in India we must never capitulate and never concede any demand of the terrorists. The basic policy has to be: never yield to any demand of the terrorists. That necessary resolve has not been shown in our recent history. Instead ever since we conceded Pakistan in 1947 under duress, we have been mostly yielding time and again.
Bowing to terrorists
In 1989, to obtain the release of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter, Rubaiyya who had been kidnapped by terrorists, five terrorists in Indian jails were set free by the V P Singh’s government. This made these criminals in the eyes of Kashmiri separatists and fence sitters heroes, as those who had brought India’s Hindu establishment on its knees. To save Rubaiyya it was not necessary to surrender to terrorist demands.
The worst capitulation to terrorists in our modern history was in the Indian Airlines IC-814 hijack in December 1999 staged in Kandahar. The government released three terrorists even without getting court permission (required since they were in judicial custody). Moreover, they were escorted by a senior minister on the PM’s special Boeing all the way to Kandahar as royal guests instead of being shoved across the Indo-Pakistan border.
Worse still, all the three after being freed, went back to Pakistan and created three separate terrorist organisations to kill Hindus. Mohammed Azhar, whom the National Security Advisor Brijesh Mishra had then described as “a mere harmless cleric”, upon his release led the LeT to savage and repeated terrorist attacks on Hindus all over India from Bangalore to Srinagar. Since mid-2000, Azhar is responsible for the killing of over 2,000 Hindus and the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. Omar Sheikh who helped al-Qaeda is in jail in US custody for killing US journalist Daniel Pearl, while the third, Zargar is engaged today in random killings of Hindus in Doda and Jammu after founding Al-Mujahideen Jingaan.
This Kandahar episode proves that we should never negotiate with terrorists, never yield. If you do, then sooner or later you will end up losing more lives than you will ever save by a deal with terrorists.
Moment of truth
The third lesson to be learnt is that whatever and however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate—not by measured and ‘sober’ responses but by massive retaliation. Otherwise what is the alternative? Walk meekly to death expecting that our ‘sober’ responses will be rewarded by our neighbours and their patrons? We will be back to 1100 AD fooled into suicidal credulity. We should not be ghouls for punishment from terrorists and their patrons. We should retaliate.
For example, when Ayodhya temple was sought to be attacked, this was not a big terrorist incident but we should have massively retaliated by re-building the Ram temple at the site.
This is Kaliyug, and hence there is no room for sattvic responses to evil people. Hindu religion has a concept of apat dharma and we should invoke it. This is the moment of truth for us. Either we organise to survive as a civilisation or vanish as the Persian, Babylonian, and Egyptian civilisations did centuries ago before the brutal Islamic onslaught. For that our motto should be Saam, Dhaam, Bheda, Danda.
Poverty is no factor
What motivates the Islamic terrorists in India? Many are advising us Hindus to deal with the root ‘cause’ of terrorism rather than concentrate on eradicating terrorists by retaliation. And pray what is the root ‘cause’?
According to bleeding heart liberals, terrorists are born or bred because of illiteracy, poverty, oppression, and discrimination. They argue that instead of eliminating them, the root cause of these four disabilities in society should be removed. Only then terrorism will disappear. Before replying to this, let us understand that I have serious doubts about the integrity of these liberals, or more appropriately, these promiscuous intellectuals. They seek to deaden the emotive power of the individual and render him passive (inculcate ‘majboori’ in our psyche). A nation state cannot survive for long with such a capitulationist mentality.
It is rubbish to say that terrorists who mastermind the attacks are poor. Osama bin laden for example is a billionaire. Islamic terrorists are patronised by those states that have grown rich from oil revenues. In Britain, the terrorists arrested so far for the bombings are all well-to-do persons. Nor are terrorists uneducated. Most of terrorist leaders are doctors, chartered accountants, MBAs and teachers. For example, in the failed Times Square New York episode, the Islamic terrorist Shahzad studied and got an MBA from a reputed US university. He was from a highly placed family in Pakistan. He certainly faced no discrimination and oppression in his own country. The gang of nine persons who hijacked four planes on September 11, 2001 and flew them into the World Trade Towers in New York and other targets were certainly not discriminated or oppressed in the United States. Hence it is utter rubbish to say that terror is the outcome of the poverty terrorists face.
If we accept the Left-wing liberals argument, does it mean that in Islamic countries, the non-Islamic religious minority who are discriminated and oppressed can take to terrorism? In the Valley, where Muslims are in majority, not only Article 370 of the Constitution provides privileges to the majority but it is the minority Hindus who have been slaughtered, or raped, and dispossessed. They have become refugees in squalid conditions in their own country.
It is also a ridiculous idea that terrorists cannot be deterred because they are irrational, willing to die, and have no ‘return address’. Terrorist masterminds have political goals and a method in their madness. An effective strategy to deter terrorism is therefore to defeat those political goals and to rubbish them by counter-terrorist action. How is that strategy to be structured? In a brilliant research paper published by Robert Trager and Dessislava Zagorcheva this year (‘Deterring Terrorism’ International Security, vol 30, No 3, Winter 2005/06, pp 87-123) has provided the general principles to structure such a strategy.
Goal-strategy
Applying these principles, I advocate the following strategy to negate the political goals of Islamic terrorism in India, provided the Muslim community fail to condemn these goals and call them un-Islamic:
Goal 1: Overawe India on Kashmir.
Strategy: Remove Article 370, and re-settle ex-servicemen in the Valley. Create Panun Kashmir for Hindu Pandit community. Look or create opportunity to take over PoK. If Pakistan continues to back terrorists, assist the Baluchis and Sindhis to struggle for independence.
Goal 2: Blast our temples and kill Hindu devotees.
Strategy: Remove the masjid in Kashi Vishwanath temple complex, and 300 others in other sites as a tit-for-tat.
Goal 3: Make India into Darul Islam.
Strategy: Implement Uniform Civil Code, make Sanskrit learning compulsory and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India as Hindu Rashtra in which only those non-Hindus can vote if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors are Hindus. Re-name India as Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors are Hindus.
Goal 4: Change India’s demography by illegal immigration, conversion, and refusal to adopt family planning.
Strategy: Enact a national law prohibiting conversion from Hindu religion to any other religion. Re-conversion will not be banned. Declare caste is not birth-based but code of discipline based. Welcome non-Hindus to re-convert to the caste of their choice provided they adhere to the code of discipline. Annex land from Bangladesh in proportion to the illegal migrants from that country staying in India. At present, northern one-third from Sylhet to Khulna can be annexed to re-settle the illegal migrants.
Goal 5: Denigrate Hinduism through vulgar writings and preaching in mosques, madrassas, and churches to create loss of self-respect amongst Hindus and make them fit for capitulation.
Strategy: Propagate the development of a Hindu mindset (see my new book Hindutva and National Renaissance, Haranand, 2010).
India can solve its terrorist problem within five years by such a deterrent strategy, but for that we have to learn the four lessons outlined above, and have a Hindu mindset to take bold, risky, and hard decisions to defend the nation. If the Jews can be transformed from lambs walking meekly to the gas chambers to fiery lions in just 10 years, it is not difficult for Hindus in much better circumstances (after all we are 83 per cent of India), to do so in five years.
Guru Gobind Singh has shown us the way already, how just five fearless persons under spiritual guidance can transform a society. Even if half the Hindu voters are persuaded to collectively vote as Hindus, and for a party sincerely committed to a Hindu agenda, then we can forge an instrument for change. And that ultimately is the bottom line in the strategy to deter terrorism in a democratic Hindustan at this moment of truth.
About the author:
Subramanian Swamy is a former Union minister
HINDUTVA PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTClick To OpenHINDUTVA PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
By SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY
I. INTRODUCTION
I am not an advocate of the concept of “Hindu economics” because economic laws are universal, and humans respond to incentives and coercion more or less the same way everywhere and in every culture. But I do advocate here that there is a need for a Hindu School of Economics for developing an alternative and holistic theory of economic development based not only on material output and economic services, but also on ancient Hindu spiritual values. These values are codified as Sanatana Dharma [i.e., eternally valid enlightened norms] whereby dharma informs the acquisition of artha(wealth), the scope and limits of enjoyment of kama(sensual and other pleasures) and the ultimate pursuit of moksha(spiritual salvation).
These two goals of kama and moksha are dependent on attaining a critical level of artha, much as Swami Vivekananda had said in the late nineteenth century that we cannot preach spirituality to someone with an empty stomach.
The ‘Swadeshi’[indigenous] or Hindutva [the quality of being Hindu or Hinduness] theory of development postulates that the basis for pursuit of true or inner happiness is the spiritual advancement of one’s self with economic well-being treated as a means to that end. This contrasts with the single-minded pursuit of material and physical pleasure as an end in itself in capitalistic or socialistic theories of development in which the uni-dimensional approach of materialism has led to the present greed– dominated globalization.
The word Hindutva was first explicitly used by Veer Savarkar to define nationalism. The word itself is of mid-nineteenth century coinage meaning “Hinduness”. The Hindutva inspiration was the foundation for the first major nationalist struggle – the Swadeshi[Self-Reliance} Movement, in which Sri Aurobindo was a prime mover, and which movement followed the Partition of Bengal in 1905 but preceded Savarkar’s writings. But taken together, today Hindutva is a multi-facet concept of identity, social constitutional order, modernity, civilization history, economic philosophy and governance.
Sanatana Dharma is eternal because it is based not upon the teachings of a single preceptor or a chosen prophet but on the collective and accumulated wisdom and inspiration of great seers and sages from the dawn of civilization. Hindu theology and scriptures therefore is accumulated revealed knowledge and not revelations of any prophet that was taken down by scribes or followers.
Thus, Sanatana Dharma is an enlightened code of living which if we follow will keep us happy, stress free, and enable us to make progress in life without bitterness. The present life of materialism without regard to harmony with spiritual values is disastrous and cause of unhappiness.
Hindutva is a concept that reflects the broad spiritual ethos of India’s many great rishis, yogis and sanyasis, and their diverse teachings and spiritual vision. In this paper, we have essentially followed Sri Aurobindo’s formulation, which though having the same basis as Savarkar’s, is more broad-based.
My search for a more holistic theory of economic development rooted in Hindutva is about three decades old. In 1970, I had presented a “Swadeshi Plan”[2] at a gathering of economists assembled at the Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi. It was an instant national media event because of the yearning for an alternative theory relevant to India, but it attracted a huge flak from the Left-wing academics who dominated the universities those days.
So much so, that the then Left leaning Prime Minister, Mrs.Indira Gandhi, who also held the Finance Portfolio that time, on March 4, 1970 took the floor of the Lok Sabha [India’s Parliament] during the 1970-71 Budget debate, to denounce my Swadeshi Plan, and me by name, as ‘dangerous” because “much like a Santa Claus” I had promised presents to all.
She was particularly irked by my thesis that India could grow at 10% per year instead of 3.5% per year, achieve self-reliance, and produce nuclear weapons for its defence, only if India gave up Soviet model’s socialism, and followed competitive market economic system which is harmonized with values drawn from Sanatana Dharma, much as Mahatma Gandhi had preached prior to achieving Independence, by raising the slogan of Ram Rajya.
Those days in the 1970s, few dared to question Soviet socialism much less could advocate Hindutva. The entire Left wing captive intellectuals therefore had pounced on me and ostracized me from academia because I had debunked the Soviet economic model by describing it as a prescription for disaster for India. If as I argue here that a single minded material pursuit and maximization cannot produce happiness, then it is also true that a system that is not based on incentives but is on coercion as the Soviet model was, cannot work. This latter fact is now established by the history of the 1980s and 90s with the unraveling of the Soviet empire.
There is now a growing interest in the West especially the US on Hindu concepts. Although long years ago Ralph Waldo Emerson had spoken glowingly about the Bhagvata Gita, in recent years there have been published a spate of articles and books on the need to incorporate Hindu concepts in economic analysis. Bruce Rich(2010) book on Globalisation [1] is one such worthy of notice. Richard Goldberg’s American Veda (2011) [4] is another.
Lisa Miller’s “We Are All Hindus Now” Newsweek [August 24-31, 2009] has popularized Hindu concepts on life are rational and secular enough for Americans to accept. Thus, Hinduism’s scientific foundation and spirit of inquiry is beginning to find favour abroad. Lisa Miller, an editor of the Newsweek holds that modern American is “conceptually, at least, are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, ourselves, each other and eternity”. That is, she is saying that Hindutva is permeating USA by osmosis:
“America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continue to identify as Christian (still, that’s the lowest percentage in American his¬tory). Of course, we are not a Hindu—or Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan—nation, either. A million-plus Hindus live in the United States, a fraction of the billion who live on earth. But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity.”
“The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: “Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names.” A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur’an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conser¬vative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”
“Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life”—in¬cluding 37 percent of white evangeli¬cals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves “spiritual, not religious,” according to a 2009 NEWS-WEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for “the divine-deli-cafeteria religion” as “very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You’re not picking and choosing from different religions, because they’re all the same,” he says. “It isn’t about orthodoxy. It’s about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that’s great, too.”
“Then there’s the question of what hap¬pens when you die. Christians tradition¬ally believe that bodies and souls are sacred, that together they make up the “self,” and that at the end of time they will be reunited in the Resurrection. You need both, in other words, and you need them forever. Hindus believe no such thing. At death, the body burns on a pyre, while the spirit—where iden¬tity resides—escapes. In reincarna¬tion, central to Hinduism, selves come back to earth again and again in differ¬ent bodies. So here is another way in which Americans are becoming more Hindu: 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation, accord¬ing to a 2008 Harris poll. So agnostic are we about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we’re burning them—like Hindus—after death. More than a third of Americans now choose crema¬tion, according to the Cremation As¬sociation of North America, up from 6 percent in l975. Let us all say ‘Om’”.
The statement of Oscar winning Hollywood actress Julia Roberts made upon converting with her family to Hindu religion is revealing of the spreading popularity of Hindu concepts in the US. She said that despite becoming wealthy she could get mental peace and solace after imbibing Hindu concepts. The wide acceptability of yoga in US today is also a manifestation of that fact of the growing acceptability of Hindutva.
The main objective of the Sanatana Dharma thus is to unfold the tremendous multi-dimensional potentialities of human intelligence, step by step, from the outer physical body level to subtle inner mental to intellectual and ultimately to the highest spiritual level, leading to Enlightenment and Self Realization. The human being is constituted by soul, mind and body, parallel in functions to a company incorporated constituted by a proprietor, manager and workers. In the West the innovative mind is based on the development of cognitive intelligence only.
India today leads the world in the supply pool of youth, i.e., persons in the age group of 15 to 35 years, and this lead will last for another forty years. This generation is most fertile milieu for promoting knowledge, innovation, and research. It is the prime work force that saves for the future, the corpus for pension funding of the old. We should therefore not squander this “natural vital resource”.
Thus, India has now become, by unintended consequences, gifted with a young population. If we educate this youth to develop cognitive intelligence [CQ] to become original thinkers, imbibe emotional intelligence [EQ] to have team spirit and rational risk-taking attitude, inculcate moral intelligence [MQ] to blend personal ambition with national goals, cultivate social intelligence [SOI] to defend civic rights of the weak, gender equality, and the courage to fight injustice and nurture spiritual intelligence [SI] to innovate the transformative power of vision and intention to access the vast energy the pervades the cosmos to innovate and out of box research, then we can develop a superior species of human being, an Indian youth who can be relied on to contribute to make India a global power within two decades. Computers my have high CQ because they are programmed to understand the rules, and follow them without making mistakes. Many mammals have high EQ. Only humans know to ask why, and can work with re-shaping boundaries instead of just within boundaries. Human can innovate, not animals.
The nation must therefore structure a national policy for the youth of India so that in every young Indian the five dimensional concept of intelligence, viz., cognitive emotional, moral, social and spiritual manifests in his character. Only then, our demographic dividend will not be wasted. These five dimensions of intelligence constitute the ability of a person to live a productive life and for national good. Hence, a policy for India’s youth has to be structured within the implied parameters of these five dimensions.
True happiness is possible, according to Sanatana Dharma, only if material progress that is attained is moderated and harmonized by spiritual values. This is the Hindutva [Hinduness] principle of economic development and it is this core concept that is becoming widely acceptable faced with the consequences of greed and envy that is fueling the current globalization. Thus, the choice of objectives, priorities, strategy and financial architecture, the four pillars of the nation’s policy-making for economic development, have to be defined in accordance with the Hindu concepts. This Hinduisation leads to Hindutva or Hinduness. What that means we shall now discuss
Hinduness springs from Sanatana Dharma in Sri Aurobindo’s broader formulation as also in Savarkar’s narrower formulations. In the analysis in this paper, Hindutva conforms to Vedanta as propounded by Swami Vivekananda, and interpreted by Gandhi, Golwalkar and Upadhyaya.
THE CONCEPT OF HINDUTVA: CAN IT BE FUNDAMENTALIST?
This unique feature of focusing on the message and its truth rather than the authority of the messenger brings Sanatana Dharma proximate to a science, and spiritual its logic akin to the scientific inquiry. In science also, a principle or a theory must stand or fall on its own merit and not on the authority of anyone. If Newton and Einstein are considered great scientists, it is because of the validity of their scientific theories.
In that sense, science is also apaurusheya. Gravitation and Relativity are eternal laws of nature and existed long before Newton and Einstein. These are cosmic laws that happened to be discovered by scientific sages Newton and Einstein. Their greatness lies in the fact that they discovered and revealed great scientific truths. But no one invokes Newton or Einstein as authority to ‘prove’ the truth of laws of nature. They stand on their own merit.
This is the greatest difference between Sanatana Dharma and the two religions of Christianity and Islam. These two major religions simply do not tolerate pluralism. In a document titled “Declaration of Lord Jesus”, the Vatican proclaims non-Christians to be in a “gravely deficient situation” and that even non-Catholic churches have “defects” because they do not acknowledge the primacy of the Pope.
This of course means that the Vatican refuses to acknowledge the spiritual right of the Hindus to their beliefs and practices! Christianity consigns non-Christians to hell, and the only way they can save themselves is by becoming Christians, preferably Catholics, by submitting to the Pope.
A Hindu thus even if he lives a life of virtue, is still consigned to hell by Christianity because he refuses to acknowledge Jesus as the only savior and the Pope as his representative on earth. The same is true of Islam; one must submit to Prophet Muhammad as the last, in effect the only prophet, in order to be saved. Belief in God means nothing without belief in Christ as the savior or Muhammad as the Last Prophet. Even one who believes in God but does not accept Jesus or Muhammad as intermediary is considered a non-believer and therefore a sinner or a Kafir. This is what makes both Christianity and Islam exclusive, what makes Hinduism pluralistic and tolerant, and therefore Hindutva inclusive.
Hinduism recognizes no intermediary as the exclusive messenger of God. In fact the Rigveda itself says: ‘ekam sat, vipra bahuda vadanti,’ meaning “cosmic truth is one, but the wise express it in many ways.” The contrast between exclusivism and pluralism becomes clear when we compare what Krishna and Jesus Christ said:
Krishna in the Bhagavadgita says: “All creatures great and small – I am equal to all. I hate none nor have I any favorites……He that worships other gods with devotion, worships me.”
“He that is not with me is against me,” says Jesus. So a devotee cannot directly know God, but can only pray to God go through the intermediary—who jealously guards his exclusive access to God. Those who try otherwise, even if a priest, is ex-communicated as was done in the case of Rev.Don Mario Muzzoleni, as he himself records in his recent book.
Hinduism is the exact opposite of this. Anyone can know God and no jealous intermediary can block his way. And the Hindu tradition has methods like yoga and meditation through a guru to facilitate one to reach God. Further, this spiritual freedom extends even to atheism. One can be an atheist (nastik) and still claim to be a Hindu. In addition, there is nothing to stop a Hindu from revering Jesus as the Son of God or Muhammad as a Prophet. In contrast, a Christian or a Muslim revering Rama or Krishna would be condemned to death as a Kafir or burnt on the stakes as Joan of Arc was, as a pagan possessed by the devil, or the enemy.
The objective of human life is not merely the pursuit of happiness and pleasure but more to experience a deep sense of fulfillment. All else e.g., position, purse, power, prestige, prize, profession etc., are at best, simply the means to that goal by which fulfillment be achieved and only by acquiring and cultivating the ingredients of Dharma. Fulfillment is essential because the human, unlike the animal, can reason logically deductively and inductively to analyse, theorise, and predict. When the human gets it wrong then he unable comprehend why. For this a moral compass becomes necessary.
Hinduism and its scriptures on yoga have a moral code. Twenty ethical guidelines called yamas and niyamas, “restraints and observances.” These “dos” and “don’ts” are found in the ancient Vedas, in other holy texts expounding the path of yoga. This moral code informs the theory of economic development.
The yamas and niyamas are a common-sense code recorded in the section of the Vedas, called Upanishads, namely the Shandilya and the Varuha. They are also found in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Gorakhnatha, the Tirumantiram of Tirumular and in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The yamas and niyamas have been preserved through the centuries as the foundation, the first and second stage, of the eight staged practice of yoga.
Sage Patanjali said “these yamas are not limited by class, country, time (past, present or future) or situation. Hence they are called the universal great vows.” The science of yama and niyama are the means to control the vitarkas, the cruel thoughts, which when acted upon result in injury to others, untruthfulness, hoarding, discontent, indolence or selfishness. For each vitarka possessed, you can create its opposite through yama and niyama, and make your life successful.
Hindu value system is a balance between hard skills (such as learning arts & science) and soft skills (such as morals).
So the message it clear. India and Sanatana Dharma exist for each other. Sanatana Dharma is defines nationalism and nationalism is Sanatana Dharma. Hindutva is the practical and political manifestation of Sanatana Dharma. It exists to defend Sanatana Dharma, while threatening no one. This was the Hindustan that Sri Aurobindo and many other sages had dreamt about. It should also be our dream and goal today.
Vedic civilization endured for many centuries while providing prosperity and justice to all. This happened because it was based on a balance between power and dharma achieved through a collaboration between the rulers and the sages (or kings and rishis) of the land. The two of course can be separated but this understanding of the Rishi and King alliance in the Rigveda can serve as a guide and inspiration to the future for India and the polity.
I want to emphasize that we use the terms ‘Brahmana’ and ‘Kshatriya’ to mean those who perform those functions, and not castes based on birth, as is held today. Krishna in the Bhagavadgita says: ‘caturvarnyam maya srishtam guna-karma vibhagashah’. This means: “The four classification (varna) are made by me based on character (guna) and duties (karma).” In due course, this became perverted as caste based on birth – which we hold as a serious corruption of dharma. To give an example by Krishna’s Gita, Dr.Ambedkar was a Brahmin because of his intellectual leadership regardless of his birth. But yet we call him of Scheduled Caste.
The Hindu idea of the dharmic king is also very different from a theocracy, or a rule by the church. The purohit never represented a church, institution or dogma. He functioned as an advisor, not as a censor or ‘thought police’. One of the functions of the purohit was to make sure that the king was fit, not only politically but also spiritually. King Bharata disinherited his own sons as unfit to rule. Sagara disinherited his own son Asamanjas and made his grandson Anshuman his heir, who went on to become a great ruler. The Vedic idea of a dharmic king had a democratic side to it. The purohit – as puro hita – represented the people’s interest. The rishis, therefore, gave the kings their privileges and enjoyments, but balanced these with duties and respect for the swages and the Dharma.
There are only skeletal remains of our glorious civilization that was once the most scientifically most advanced, and educated and wealthy. The present generation of Hindus therefore has to reconstruct this civilization and rebuild the cultural edifice from these skeletal remains. This is what we call as national renaissance.
Therefore, structurally, there is no scope for a Hindu to be a fundamentalist. For, fundamentalism by definition, requires an unquestioning commitment to a book or scripture in its pristine original version. For Hindus, there is no one scripture to revert to for theological purity since there are many scriptures which raise a plethora of beliefs that sustain faith, debates, and profound speculations on basic questions [e.g., Upanishads], such as on advaita, dvaita, astika and nastika. Questioning, debating and synthesizing are an integral part of Hindu theology viz., shashtrathas. Nor does Hinduism have just one prophet to revere, or prohibits holding any other view of religious experience. But most of all, Hindus are committed to the search for truth [including knowing what is truth], for which incessant debate is permitted. Fundamentalists on the other hand unquestioningly are committed to ‘the Book’. This again is why Hindutva can never become fundamentalist, which Muslims and Christians can.
CASUALITIES OF HINDUTVA BASED THEORY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
As Bruce Rich [1] aptly summarized it [on page 6] quoting Kautilya, otherwise known as Chanakya, that subject to dharma, priority be given to artha, i.e., the society’s and individual’s material wealth and well-being, with the subsequent aim of experiencing kama but ultimately striving to attain moksha.
n the late Seventies, I came under the influence of Deendayal Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism, and by Dattopant Thengadi’s commentaries on it, and therefore enlarged the concept of Swadeshi, to explicitly include the necessacity of formally harmonizing the goal of economic development with India’s ancient Hindu spiritual values.
In 1977, at the invitation Dr.Mahesh Mehta, I presented a paper in New York titled “Economic Perspectives in Integral Humanism”. This was later published in a volume [edited by Mahesh Mehta] titled: Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism (Edison, NJ, 1978).
By then I had also been influenced by the writings of the venerated sage, accomplished scholar, and Freedom Fighter, Sri Aurobindo who had long foreseen the debilitating effects of an one-dimensional materialist outlook on human society, and long before the consumerism of globalization that we see today.
In his 1918 publication titled The Renaissance of India, he advocated the harmonization of material pursuits with spiritual and moral values to create an integral person. The economic policy thus designed, he said, must be consistent with the spiritual values embedded in Sanatana Dharma.
It is this seminal idea that Deendayal Upadhyaya, a profound political thinker and activist, developed into his thesis of Integral Humanism [3]. To quote Deendayalji himself [3]: “Both the systems, capitalist and communist, have failed to take account of the Integral Man, his true and complete personality, and his aspirations. One[system] considers him as mere selfish being, lingering after money, having only one law, the law of fierce competition, in essence the law of the jungle; whereas the other has viewed him as a feeble lifeless cog in the whole scheme of things regulated by rigid rules, and incapable of any good unless directed. The centralization of power, economic and political, is implied in both. Both therefore result in dehumanization of man”[p.76]. He thus advocated that “swadeshi [self-reliance] and vikendrikaran [decentralization] as the two pillars of the economic policy suitable for our times.
Upadhyaya also dismissed democratic or the neo ‘Gandhian’ version of Socialism as failing to establish the importance of the human being [op.cit., p.74-75]. He said: “The needs and preferences of individuals have as much importance in the socialist system as in a prison manual”
This is in keeping with the thesis of Sri Aurobindo that class struggle as a concept embedded in all varieties of socialism, is anti-human, and instead, class harmony and conflict resolution are the basic instincts of the human. The Communist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat was nothing but “the dictatorship of the dictator of a dictatorial party”. The task of making these ideas as mainstream in the English-speaking elite and economists was looking near impossible.
I was however proved right and vindicated later in 1991, when the Soviet Union had unraveled in a spectacle of ‘Balkanisation’ of 16 separate countries. Most of the prominent Left academics also mercifully left India and migrated to the US. The search for Hindutva Principles then began with gusto because of an ongoing Ram temple national agitation. As Commerce Minister then, I presented the first blue prints for economic reform that was subsequently adopted and implemented without much opposition by the successor Narasimha Rao government [in which also I held a Cabinet rank post].
Today I can with some satisfaction assert that by propounding the concept of an integral outlook—namely that economic behaviour must blend with spiritual values to produce a happy and contented society the Hindutva theory of economic development represents for the nation a new and alternative direction in economics discourse.
We in India have yet to incorporate this direction in our official economic policy, but time will soon be at hand for us to do so when the people’s mandate is given for a new system of governance.
Mahatma Gandhi had said that in this world there is enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed. Agreeing with this dictum, we need to define what is the need and how greed can be curbed. This would cause three major casualties in the current neoclassical economic theory.
First, the objective of maximum profit in production theory and maximum utility in consumer behavior theory will have to be replaced. On Hindutva principles, one good replacement would be minimum cost of production subject to a lower bound for production, and minimum expenditure subject to a lower bound for the level of utility that must be attained.
Second, that while individual choices are transitive, collective majority determined choice is not necessarily transitive. Hence collective choice would require conflict resolution and game theory to ensure transitivity. This is the Hindutva principle of harmonization.
Third, that innovation would not be cognitive intelligence driven but by a collective determination of six intelligences—cognitive, emotional, social, moral, spiritual and environmental.
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II. STRUCTURE OF HINDUTVA BASED ECONOMIC POLICY
Economic policy is usually structured in a four dimensional framework, and may be thus defined by (i) Objectives (2) Priorities (3) Strategy (4) The Financial and Institutional Architecture.
Let us take the first dimension, of objectives of economic policy of four main ideologies of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism and Integral Humanism. Theoretically, communism takes maximum production for the state as the goal, while capitalism considers that the jungle concept of laissez faire based on survival of the fittest will be guided by an Invisible Hand to achieve maximum profit for producers and maximum consumption of material goods for the worker. Socialism aims at maximum welfare measured by state guarantees against risks of disease, death and unemployment to the individual citizen. That is the concept of welfare under socialism.
However all these goals are purely materialistic and derails the innate human development by encouraging the rat-race. Hindutva theory of economic development requires the human being’s development being viewed integrally and holistically (hence Upadhyaya’s term ‘Integral Humanism’). That means the blending of materialistic goals with spiritual imperatives as the primary goal of economic policy.
M.S. Golwalkar, the organizational genius behind the RSS– a fervent Hindutva cadre-based but volunteer organisation of more than 1 million– in his Bunch of Thoughts (page 5), states: “All attempts and experiments made so far were based on ‘isms’ stemming from materialism. However, we Hindus have a solution to offer”. He propounded that “the problem boils down to one of achieving a synthesis of national aspirations and world welfare”. Golwalker advocates that in this synthesis, “swalambana (or self-reliance) forms the backbone of a free and prosperous nation…” (p.313), and that at the very minimum, “atma poorti” (or self-sufficiency) in food production is a must for our national defence…”(p.316).
The difference between swalambana and atma poorti is this: the former requires that we must depend on our own resources, i.e., if there is a shortage of some commodity, we should earn enough foreign exchange by exports to buy it from abroad. That is, we should depend on our own resources. The latter concept of atma poorti requires that we produce in sufficient quantities in our own country so that we do not suffer in any shortage in any required commodity. That is, we should depend only on our own indigenous production.
Today obviously that is not the situation in India. We find that the nation has moved from food self-sufficiency (atma poorti) in the mid-seventies to dependence on imports from abroad. Farmers are committing suicides, and land, due to the blind use of chemicals and foreign seeds, are becoming of low productivity or going barren.
Golwalker’s warning thus was timely. India must re-orient the objective of our economic policy to re-gain self-sufficiency in food production, and must do it as much as is possible, by environment- friendly means such as organic farming, wind energy, and cooperative endeavour.
Upadhyaya, drawing on the seminal ideas of Golwalkar, thus brought out how the objective of economic policy is different from the objective in foreign ideologies of Capitalism, Socialism and Communism. He propounded therefore the concept of ‘Integral Man’ as assimilating and harmonizing the chaturvidha purushartha [four energies] which he elaborated as a concept in his Integral Humanism.
He added the concept of Chiti, the soul of the nation, which each nation must discover to decide the correct formulation of economic policy. The concept of Chiti of a nation is an original contribution of Upadhyaya, but a more articulate version is the concept of identity elaborated by the late Harvard Professor, Samuel Huntington in his book Who Are We ? .
Thus the economic perspectives in Integral Humanism, which is the Hindutva theory of economic development, are funda¬mentally different from those contained in Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. To quote Upadhyaya himself: “Both these systems, capitalist as well as communist, have failed to take account of the Integral Man, his true and complete personality and his aspirations. One considers him as mere selfish being lingering after money, having only one law, the law of fierce competition, in essence the law of the jungle; whereas the other has viewed him as a feeble lifeless cog in the whole scheme of things, regulated by rigid rules, and incapable of any good unless directed. The centralization of power, economic and political, is implied in both. Both, therefore, result in dehumanization of man.” [ op.cit., p.76]
Arguing that the so-called democratic socialism is no better, he stated [p.74-75]: “Socialism arose as a reaction to capitalism. But even socialism failed to establish the importance of the human being. The needs and preferences of individuals have as much importance in the socialist system as in a prison manual.”
Therefore Upadhyaya stated for his Integral Humanism that: [Ibid., p.76-77]: “Man, the highest creation of God, is losing his own identity. We must re-establish him in his rightful position, bring him the realization of his greatness, re-awaken his abilities and encourage him to exert for attaining divine heights of his latent personality. This is possible only through a decentralized economy.”
He went on to indicate: “Swadeshi and Decentralization are the two words which can briefly summarize the economic policy suitable for the present circumstances.” [p.78]
Upadhyaya’s stress on the need to think in integrated terms is now fashionably called “systems analysis or holistic view” in the West. He also emphasized the need to liberate man by recognizing “complementarities” in life, which in a narrower economic context is ‘external economies’ or social cost-benefit analysis. That is, the human is not on his own, or alone. His plea for rejection of class struggle and the need to think in terms of conflict resolution and “class harmony” is now much in vogue today in the West – which is getting increasingly disillusioned with capitalism.
If we are not to suffer the societal unhappiness and tensions of the West, then we have to break away from the path that we have chosen presently, viz., the Nehruvian materialistic socialistic path that has yet to be completely abandoned since economic reforms initiated since 1991 has been largely aborted since 2004. Partially is not enough for national good.
The alternative to materialistic capitalism is obviously not communism with Chinese characteristics as the remnants of Left in India camouflaged as liberals still argue, because even in China, there is a problem of “alienation” and “exploitation” as revealed recently from reports that have been received.
Deendayal Upadhyaya was also aware as early as in 1965, of the Communist degeneration. Logically for him, any system in which man does not receive primacy is bound to ultimately degenerate. Interest¬ingly Deendayalji quotes M.Djilas the author of The New Class to prove that in Communist countries, “a new class of bureau¬cratic exploiter has come into existence.”
Thus, by presenting his Integral Humanism, which I have expanded here as the Hindutva theory of economic development, Upadhyaya had placed before the world a new original alternative ideological framework.
To appreciate the fundamentally different structure of economic policy imbedded in the Hindutva theory, I have annexed in tabular form for ready reference, the various alternative competing ideologies in terms of its structural parameters of objectives, priorities, development strategy, resource mobilization, and institutional framework.
From the table we may note that the economic perspective of this theory is fundamentally different from the other ideologies. Capitalism and communism have similarities in matters of objectives and institutional framework. If cost of production is stabilized, then maximum profit and maximum production are identical.
Again, class struggle and annihilation and survival of fittest, are different only to the extent that communism envisages the survival of the “fittest” class, whereas capitalism expects the “fittest” individual to engage in fierce competition and annihilate the other rivals. Similarly, socialism has only a difference of degree with communism — on the extent of coercion and control, and not fundamentally. That is why communism is often referred to as “scientific” socialism, although there is nothing scientific about it.
Since one socialism differs from another socialism only in degrees, therefore there are unlimited varieties of socialism varying from those of Hitler’s Nazism, Uganda’s Idi Amin’s, Indira Gandhi’s, to democratic socialism of Sweden. This has only caused confusion — and gives ample scope to hypocrisy. Thus we can see some people in India arguing on one hand for nationalization and austerity, and at the same time encouraging foreign collaboration while living in mansions. Such inconsistencies can be recon¬ciled in some variety of socialism, interpreted at will.
From this table it is also apparent that except in Integral Humanism, humanity as a whole is subservient to these systems either explicitly or implicitly. Under communism, man explicitly subserves the system. Coercion, termed as dictatorship of the proletariat, is legitimized “in the interest of the State.” Even in the choice of a career, location of work, and personal advancement are explicitly or implicitly directed by the State. The person in such countries has no room for choice or even any option to opt out of such a system because his freedom to travel out of the country is also completely curbed.
In capitalism, an individual may have technical freedom for his “pursuit of happiness”, but the system fails to accomodate the varying capabilities and endowments of man. Since the law of the jungle, which is at the core of the survival of the fittest as the norm of capitalism, therefore some achieve great progress and advancement while others get trampled and disabled in what is called the “rat race”.
Since maximum profit is possible only in a newer and latest technology, man has to socially and personally adjust to the terrifying demands of technology, rather than technology adjusting to the integral needs of man. So we witness today in an advanced capitalist country such as USA, broken homes, high divorce rates and ruined family life which have become common because technology has run riot there in making these cruel demands. So man has to adjust to it, drop out or perish. Such a development becomes inevitable in a system in which the “shortage of manpower (is) the guiding factor in the design of machines.”
The recent craze in the West for our “Sadhus” and Hindu religion arises largely due to this search for individuality, to escape the mental tensions which this kind of technology demands from the people, and because their own religious pre¬achers are ill-equipped to cope with it. Thus we find highly accomplished and wealthy persons in the West increasingly turning to Hindutva such as yoga, meditation, Ayurveda and even as we recently saw in the case of Hollywood actress and her family convert to Hindu religion. As to why this fascination has developed is discussed in the new book by Phillip Goldberg [4].
Thus in capitalism, in the extreme under laissez faire, although man has fundamental freedoms, but because the development strategy is to give primacy to technology, therefore implicitly man becomes subservient to the system. In such societies individuality is thus expressed in other outlets as crime, free sex, drunkenness, and rebel dropout movements.
Just as survival of the fittest is dehumanizing, so is class struggle which is the foundation of Marxism. Under communism, classes are sought to be eliminated by the intensification of class struggle. Obviously such intensification will lead to hate and tension, consequently dehumanization. We saw the extent of such dehumanization in communist countries, In the USSR, for example, most prominent intellec¬tuals such as Alexander Solzenitsyn, Andrie Sakharov had suffered severe punishment from the state because they had questioned this dehumanizating process.
Once a decision is taken on the path of development, Upadhayaya would advocate incentives, and realistic taxation to encourage saving, and to discourage conspicuous consumption as the only practical way to mobilize resources. This is contained in postu¬late 7. Most ideologies are weak when it comes to specifying resource mobilization, perhaps, because spelling it out means annoying one section or another. Therefore, the topic is either handled in a general way or indirectly.
In Hindutva, a person must be encouraged to save, live simply and acquire wealth, but then it must be made socially prestigious to give away his wealth or manage it as a “trustee” for society. In western societies, the size of a person’s wealth is the most important determinant of his social, cultural and national prestige. So he is encouraged to part with a portion of his wealth by urging him to spend more and on himself! This results in a fierce competition on who can spend more on himself “keeping up with the Joneses” leading to great waste. In this behaviourial factor alone, Hindutva is distinctly different from the culture of the West.
Thus in Integral Humanism’s scheme of things, which is based on Hindutva, social and cultural influences are integrated into a man’s psyche, so that parting with his wealth for society becomes his own desire. In such a framework, there is no weakening of a person’s resolve to have his income or pursue its immediate enlargement. Philanthropy is an essentially pillar of democracy, and hence as Mahatma Gandhi had said, the rich must treats themselves as trustees of the nation’s wealth.
As a trustee, every individual also cares for the physical environment and pollution. He also treats animals humanely and where such animals are multiple assets to human civilization, such an integrally human person will even regard the animal as divine to ensure it is nurtured and respected. The cow is one such animal.
Traditional Hindu belief, for example, in the efficacy of the milk and products of the Indian breeds of cows and its sacred status has been divided by our Westernized elite that had led to the neglect of cow because it is held that milk from all breeds of cows and buffaloes is equally good; and to improve the present low milk yield of the Indian breeds of cows, cross breeding with European high yielding cows was recommended.
But recent researches suggest that that only the milk of Bos Indicus i.e. Indian breed of cows has the desired health promoting properties due to presence of Beta Casein A2 protein. European breeds of Cows are classified as Bos Taurus. Their milk contains the protein Beta Casein Al, which produces beta-casomorphin7, which makes this milk diabetogenic relative to A2 milk. Medical researches have also linked Al milk with statistically higher incidence of Cardiac situations. In Australia, New Zealand, Korea Certified, A2 milk is already commanding the premium price of four times the price of non-certified A1A1-A1A2 milk.
Concomitantly cross breeding between the two breeds of the cow is being discontinued in these countries. Strategies are already being worked out to convert all the cows with the farmers to revert to Bos Indicus breeds for beta casein A2 protein in their milk.
Hence, a new fervour is developing to create a cow-renaissance in the nation. As Bahadur Shah and Maharaja Ranjit Singh did, India should amend the Indian Penal Code to make cow slaughter as a capital offence as well as a ground for arrest under the National Security Act, to give meaning and urgency to the total ban on cow slaughter.
India has 150 million cows today, giving an average of less than 200 litres of milk per year. If they could be fed and looked after, then these divine animals can give an average of 11,000 litres of milk as the Israeli cows do. That could provide milk for the whole world.
The cow was elevated to the status of divinity in the Rg.Veda iself. In Book VI the Hymn XXVIII attributed to Rishi Bhardwaja, extols the virtue of the cow. In Atharva Veda (Book X, Hymn 10), the cow is formally designated as Vishnu, and “all that the Sun surveys.” This divinely quality of the cow has been affirmed by Kautilya in his Arthsastra (Chapter XXIX).
The Indian society has addressed the cow with the appellation of ‘mother’. “Tilam na dhaanyam, pashuvah na Gaavah” (Sesame is not a cereal, cow is not an animal). The Churning of the Sea episode brings to light the story of the creation of the cow! Five divine Kamadhenus (wish cows), viz, Nanda, Subhadra, Surabhi, Sushila, Bahula emerged in the churning.
In 2003, the National Commission on Cattle presided over by Justice G.M. Lodha, submitted its recommendations to the NDA Government. The Report (in 4 volumes) called for stringent laws to protect the cow and its progeny in the interest of India’s rural economy. This is a Constitutional requirement under Directive Principles of State Policy. Article 48 of the Constitution says: “The State shall lendeavour or organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milchand draught cattle”. In 1958, a 5-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court {(1959) SCR 629} upheld Article 48 and the consequent total ban on cow slaughter as a reasonable restriction on Fundamental Rights.
When India fought the First War of Independence in 1857, and Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’ was installed as Emperor by the Hindus in Delhi for a brief period, his Hindu Prime Minister, on the Emperor’s Proclamation made the killing of cow a capital offence. Earlier in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s kingdom, the only crime that had capital punishment was cow slaughter. For a Hindu, the very appearance of a cow evokes a sense of piety. It is serene by temperament and herbivorous by diet. Apart from milk, cow dung known for its anti-septic value, is still used as fuel in its dried caked form in most Indian villages. It is also used in compost manure and in the production of electricity through eco-friendly gobar-gas. Thus, Mahatma Gandhi had declared: “Cow protection is more important than even Swaraj”.
Even today, 75 per cent of Indians in villages derive the great benefits from cows and bullocks. Despite the compulsions of modernism, tractors are not suitable for the small Indian land holdings. In US, the land available to each person is around 14 acre; in India is around 0.70 acre. A tractor consumes diesel, creates pollution, does not live on grass nor produces dung for manure. Thus Albert Einstein, in a letter to Sir CV Raman, wrote “Tell the people of India that if they want to survive and show the world path to survive, then they should forget about tractor and preserve their ancient tradition {bullock} ploughing”.
III. POSTULATES OF HINDUTVA THEORY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
I need not dwell any further on the demerits of other ideologies, but consider in, concrete positive terms, what economic perspectives Hindutva offers. I would organize thesefirst in terms of basic economic postulates using modern theoretical terminology and jargon:
Postulate: 1 The economy is a sub – system of the society and not the sole guiding factor of social growth. Hence no economic theorems can be formulated without first recognising that life is an integral system, and therefore whatever economic laws are deduced or codified, they must add or at least not reduce the integral growth of man. The centrality of Man’s divine spark and his evolution is on the four Chaturvidha Purusharthas of dharma, artha, kama, moksha.
Postulate: 2 There is plurality, and diversity in life. Man is subject to several internal contradictions. The solution is to be based on the harmonization of this plurality, diversity, and internal contradictions. Thus laws governing this harmony will have to be discovered and codified, which we shall call Dharma. An economy based on Dharma will be a. regulated one, within which man’s personality and freedom will be given maximum scope, and be enlightened in the social interest.
Postulate: 3 There is a negative correlation between the State’s coercive power and Dharma. In the latter, the acceptance of regulation by man is voluntary because it blends with his individual and collective aspirations, whereas in the former regulations often conflict with aspirations and hence man is coerced to accept the regulation or suffer.
Postulate: 4 A society of persons of common origin, history or culture has a chiti (soulforce). It is this chiti which integrates and establishes harmony. Each nation has to search out its chiti and recognise it cons¬ciously. Consequently, each country must follow its own development strategy based on its chiti. If it tries to duplicate or replicate other nations, it will come to grief.
Postulate: 5 Based on the perception of chiti and recognition of dharma, an economic order can be evolved which rationalizes the mutual inter-balances of the life system, by seeking out the complementarities embedded in various conflicting interests in soci¬ety. Such an order will reveal the system of social choices based on an aggregation of individual values.
Postulate: 6 Any economy based on Integral Humanism, will take as given, besides the normal
democratic fundamental rights, the Right to Food, the Right to Work, Right to Education, and the Right to Free Medical Care as basic rights.
Postulate: 7 The right to property is not fundamental, but economic regulation will be based on the comple¬mentarity that exists in the conflicting goals of social ownership of property and the necessity for providing incentive to save and to produce.
Postulate: 8 Development of the economic system for the Hinduva based Indian society is led by innovation [Shodh], guided by the principles of maximum reliance on indigenous resources [Swadeshi], by decentralization of power that emanates from four sources of knowledge, weapons, wealth, and land [Vikendrikaran], and by structuring a modern social hierarchy based on a mutually exclusive ownership of these four sources of power [Adhunik Varna]. . Thus, while rejecting any birth-based rights or discrimination as inconsistent with Vedanta philosophy, and requiring that co-option of any individual, irrespective of birth into any of the four Varnas thus created, is on the basis of the adherence to the discipline it requires.
Postulate: 9 That at the apex of this social hierarchy emanating from the Vikendrikaran of power, viz., the Shodhkartas who lead the innovation capability of a nation, i.e., the intellectuals, researchers, teachers etc., the co-option condition would be accomplishment in cognitive, emotional, social, moral, and spiritual intelligences, and the teaching of the same to all those in society who want to learn it.
These nine postulates represent the foundation of the Integral Humanism, which is the acronym for Hindutva Principles of Economic Development. Most of the established and popular slogans of Indian society emanate from one or more (in combi¬nation) of these postulates. For example, the electrifying call of the Freedom Movement for Swadeshi, or self – reliance is embed¬ded in Postulate 4. The popular demand for decentralization finds its source in Postulate 3. The modern internationally fashionable slogan of environmental care and pollution control, follows out of Postulate 5. The widespread scientific consensus that opti¬mum solutions can only be found in “systems analysis” is contained explicitly in Postulate 1. Mahatma Gandhi’s advocacy of Trusteeship is implied in Postulates 2 & 7 read together. In other words, these seven postulates can singly or jointly conceptualize and synthesize the various goals which have stirred the soul of India (or its chiti).
With these postulates, we now need to derive the practical guidelines for our economic development. To do that, for example take postulate 5..
First, we shall have to list out the various complementarities, second, work out a calculus of costs and benefits to integrate these various complementarities; and third, frame decision rules on how to make social choices based on divergent individual values. So a “calculus” of incentives and compensation for effecting the complementarity is needed. Such a calculus is known to economists, but which for shortage of space, I shall not elaborate here. To do that here would make this paper unduly technical and mathematical.
It is not enough to have a calculus to aggregate the complementarities but also to frame decision rules on how to make consistent social choices based on individual values. It is not enough to say that in a democracy, social choices should be based on majority decision rule. The format for eliciting this majority needs to be spelt out, otherwise anamolies will result.
For example, suppose we divide society into three groups – A: Agriculturists, M: Manufacturers, S: Workers and those in services. Let us assume that the society consisting of A, M, and S has to rank the projects of X; Fertilizer plant; Y: Steel mill; and Z: Hospital, in order of preference. Thus agriculturists (A) will rank X most important of all, Y second most important, and Z as least important.
Therefore a choice is offered to them between X and Y, they would choose X. If a choice is between Y and Z, then Y will be chosen. Obviously if X is preferred to Y, and Y is preferred to Z, then X will of course be preferred to Z for consistency. In notation, I shall write: ‘→ ’ for ‘preferred to’
Assume: A : X→ Y→ Z
M : Y→ Z→ X
S : Z→ X→ Y
If a vote is taken on each pairs of projects, then we shall have:
X→Y A+S=2 M=1 X→Y i.e., choose X over Y
Y→Z A+M=2 S=1 Y→Z i.e., choose Y over Z
X→Z A=1 M+S=2 Z→X i.e., choose Z over X
This, in a majority decision without any format, a society may prefer with 2/3 majority, X over Y, Y over Z, and yet prefer over X ! To avoid such social inconsistency, we must ensure that A, M, and S consult each other and seek to find out their complementarity in choices, and then vote.
This is why creation of a basic consensus or harmony is so essential. Such a process is lengthy, cumbersome, and complicated. But this is the only way to optimize the nation’s energies. But the process can be simplified by decentralization of political and economic authority. It cannot be achieved in a centralized society.
Again if we take Postulate 8, we find that Hindutva principles is in sync with the search for innovation as the driver of growth. Modern economic growth also is powered overwhelming (over 65% of GDP) by new innovation and techniques (e.g., internet). More capital and labour contributes less than 35% of growth in GDP. We must hence by proper policy for the young, realize and harvest the demographic potential.
China is the second largest world leader in young population today. But the youth population in that country will start shrinking from 2015, i.e., less than a decade from now because of lagged effect of their ill-thought one-child policy. Japanese and European total populations are fast aging, and will start declining in absolute numbers from next year. The US will however hold a steady trend thanks to a liberal policy of immigration, especially from Mexico and Phillipines. But even then the US will have in a decade hence a demographic shortage in skilled personnel. All currently developed countries thus experience a demographic deficit. India will not. Our past alleged liability, by a fortuitous turn of fate, has (now become to be globally regarded as our potential asset.
THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF HINDUTVA
There remains a question whether this Hindutva-powered theory of economic development would be ultra vires within India of the current Constitution, since according to a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court, the Indian Constitution cannot be amended to alter the “Basic Structure” of democratic and secular principles. It is my considered view, that the Articles of the Constitution in its present shape, i.e., without amendment, are sufficient to incorporate the Hindutva tenets of economic development.
In fact, the basic structure of our Constitution is consistent with the tradition of Hindutva. Ancient Bharat or Hindustan was of janapadas and monarchs. But it was unitary in the sense that the concept of chakravartin [propounded by Chanakya], i.e., of a sarvocch pramukh or chakravarti prevailed in emergencies and war, while in normal times the regional kings always deferred to a national class of sages and sanyasis for making laws and policies, and acted according to their advice. This is equivalent to Art.356 of the Constitution.
In that fundamental sense, while Hindu India may have been a union of kingdoms, it was fundamentally not a monarchy but a Republic. In a monarchy, the King made the laws and rendered justice, as also made policy but in Hindu tradition the king acted much as the President does in today’s Indian Republic. The monarch acted always according the wishes and decisions of the court-based advisers, mostly prominent sages or Brahmins. Thus Hindu India was always a Republic, and except for the reign of Ashoka, never a monarchy. Nations thus make Constitutions but Constitutions do not constitute nations.
Because India’s Constitution today is unitary with subsidiary federal principles for regional aspirations, and the judiciary and courts are national, therefore the Rajendra Prasad-monitored and Ambedkar-steered Constitution—making, was a continuation of the Hindu tradition. This is the second pillar ofl constitutionality for us—the Hindutva essence ! These aspects were known to us as our Smritis. Therefore, it is appropriate here to explore ways by which Hindutva can be blend into the present Constitution more explicitly.
The framers of the Constitution of India also seemed to be aware of the Hindu heritage of India. A perusal of the final copy of the Constitution, which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, is most instructive in this regard. The Constitution includes twenty-two illustrations within its main body. These illustrations are listed at the beginning of the Constitution. The illustrations are apparently chosen to represent various periods and eras of Indian history. And have been selected to represent the ethos and values of India, which the Constitution seeks to achieve through its written words. The framers of the Constitution appear to have had no doubt in their minds that the Hindu heritage of this country is the ballast on which the spirit of the Constitution sails.
In a Supreme Court judgment [(1995) SCC 576], headed by Justice J.S.Verma held: “It is a fallacy and an error of law to proceed on the presumption that any reference to Hindutva or Hinduism in a speech makes it automatically a speech based on Hindu religion as opposed to other religions or that the use of the word Hindutva or Hinduism per se depicts an attitude hostile to all persons practicing any religion other than the Hindu religion… and it may well be that these words are used in a speech to emphasise the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian cultural ethos… There is no such presumption permissible in law contrary to the several Constitution Bench decisions”.
This approach is now the law of the land. A Supreme Court constitutional Bench headed by Justice P.D.Gajendragadkar, delivered a judgement [(1966) 3 SCR 242] wherein the Bench commented, “Unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one God; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion on creed”
Hindus instead have always believed in shashtrarthas [debate] to convert others to their point of view. Hence, even when Buddha challenged the ritualistic practices of Hindus or Mahavira and Nanak gave fresh perspectives on Hindu concepts there was never any persecution or denunciation of these great seers. Indeed these visionary seers are considered as having benefited Hinduism.
Thus, the single most important theme of Hinduism is the freedom of the spirit to question, assimilated, synthesis and then re-question is the process of inquiry in Hindu theology search and Just as science insists on freedom in exploring the physical world, Sanatana Dharma embodies freedom in the exploration of the spiritual realm. Hindutva thus has a spiritual scientific quality.
This Hindu-ness or Hindutva has also been our identifying characteristic, by which we have been recognized world-wide. The territory in which Hindus lived was known as Hindustan, i.e., a specific area of a collective of persons who are bonded together by this Hindu-ness. The Salience thus was given religious and spiritual significance by tirth yatra, kumbh mela, common festivals, and in the celebration of events in the Ithihasa, viz., Ramayana and Mahabharata. The religious minorities of Muslims and Christians also, according to recent DNA studies on Indians show, are descendants of Hindus i.e., through conversion and not of hordes from abroad as propagated by British historians and their tutees in India.
Hindu Rashtra thus defined, is our nation that is a modern Republic today, whose roots are also in the long unbroken Hindu civilisational history. Throughout this history we were a Hindu Republic and not a monarchy [a possible but weak exception being Asoka's reign]. In this ancient Republican concept, the king did not make policy or proclaim the law.
The intellectually accomplished (but not birth-based or determined) elite in the society, known as Brahmans, framed the laws and state policy and the King (known as Kshatriya) implemented it. Thus it was ordained.
“I deem that country as the most virtuous land which promotes the healthy and friendly combination of Brahma and Kshattra powers for an integrated upliftment of the society along with the divine powers of the Gods of mundane power of the material resources” -Yajurveda XX-25.
Hindutva hence, is our innate nature, while Hindustan is our territorial body, but Hindu Rashtra is our republican soul. Hindu panth [religion] is however a theology of faith. Even if an Indian has a different faith from a Hindu, he or she can still be possessed of Hindutva. Since India was 100 percent Hindu a millennium ago, the only way any significant group could have a different faith in today’s India is if they were converted from Hindu faith, or are of those whose ancestors were Hindus. Conversion of faith does not have to imply conversion to another culture or nature. Therefore, Hindutva can remain to be interred in a non-Hindu in India.
Hence, we can say that Hindustan is a country of Hindus and those others whose ancestors were Hindus. Acceptance with pride this reality by non-Hindus is to accept Hindutva. Hindu Rashtra is therefore a republican nation of Hindus and of those of other faiths who have Hindutva in them. This formulation settles the question of identity of the Hindustani or Indian.
Hindutva however has to be inculcated in our people from values and norms that emerge out of Hindu renaissance, that is, a Hindu theology which is shorn of the accumulated but unacceptable baggage of the past as also by co-opting new scientific discoveries, perceptions and by synergizing with modernity.
This is the only way that Hindustan can become a modern Hindu Rashtra, thus achieving independence after having recovered our freedom [in 1947]—as Parmacharya the Kanchi Pontiff had wanted.
Hindu-ness of outlook on life had been called Hindutva by Swami Vivekananda also and Hindutva’s political perspective was subsequently developed by Veer Savarkar. Deendayal Upadhaya briefly dealt with the concept of Hindutva when he wrote about chiti in his seminal work: Integral Humanism. The focus of all three profound thinkers is the multi-dimensional development of the Hindus as an individuals harmonizing material needs with spiritual advancement and which needs then have to be aggregated and synchronized to foster a united community on the collective concept of Hindutva.
Deendayal Upadhyaya outlined how to modernize the concepts of Hindutva as follows:
“We have to discard the status quo mentality and usher in a new era. Indeed our efforts at reconstruction need not be clouded by prejudice or disregard for all that is inherited from our past. On the other hand, there is no need to cling to past institutions and traditions which have outlived their utility”.
Thus, we should invite Muslims and Christians to join us Hindus on the basis of common ancestry or even seek their return to our fold as Hindus, in this grand endeavour as Hindustanis, on the substance of our shared and common ancestry. This is the essence of renaissance.
Hence, the essentiality of Hinduism, or alternatively the core quality of being a Hindu, which we may call as our Hindu-ness [i.e., Hindutva], is that theologically there is no danger of Hindutva, or the advocacy of the same, of ever degenerating into fundamentalism. In fact, so liberal, sophisticated, and focused on inward evolution is Hindu theology, that in a series of Supreme Court judgments, various Constitutional Benches found it hard even to define Hinduism and Hindutva as anything but a way of life, as we discover from an useful review of these judgments by Bal Apte MP [6].
The identity of Indian is thus Hindustani; a Hindu Rashtra i.e., a republican nation of Hindus and those others [non-Hindus] who proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. It is this acknowledgement that remains pending today. We can accept Muslims and Christians as part of our Hindustani family when they proudly acknowledge this fact of common ancestry and accept furthermore that change religion does not require change of culture.
Thus the cultural identity of India is undeniably, immutably, and obviously its Hindu-ness, that is Hindutva. A de-falsified Indian history would leave no one in doubt about it. In the current History textbooks, presently prescribed in our educational institutions however it is being clandestinely propagated that India has belonged culturally to those who forcibly occupied it.
Aptly summarized in the writings of Dr.Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar[7] then a mere graduate student studying for a Ph.D. in economics, had stated:
“It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of it’s culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity—the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end”.
Ambedkar wrote in this vein several such brilliant books, but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him and electorally humiliated him that in the end bitterness drove him to his sad end. We must honour him now as a great Rajrishi and co-opt his writings as part of the Hindutva literature.
That is, by a failure to usher a renaissance after 1947 India has lost her opportunity to cleanse the accumulated dirt and unwanted baggage of the past. The nation missed a chance to demolish the birth-based caste theory as Ambedkar had wanted to do. The battering that the concept of Hindu unity and Indian identity has taken at the hands of Nehruvian secularists since 1947 has led to the present social malaise. Thus, even though Hindus are above 80 percent of the population in India, they have not been able to understand their roots in, and obligations to, the Hindu society in a pluralistic democracy.
CONCLUSION
The main theme in this paper is that we need a new ideological framework for the theory of economic development that can unite the Indian nation. I believe that if every individual be motivated by equipping him with fundamental concepts of Hindutva, that requires adherence to principles enumerated in nine Postulates, empowered by adequate modern education and inculcation of scientific spirit of inquiry, then it is possible to bring about a national renaissance, and make the Indian people happily strive for global economic power.
Is there a contradiction between Hindutva and modernity? Modernization is the process of modernity. Modernity may be defined as a state of mind or mindset that entails a receptive attitude to change, transparency and accountability. The process of reaching that mindset is modernization.
Hindutva is the quality of being a Hindu, namely the Hinduness of a person. We have already identified beliefs which include the quality of being receptive to change as immutable law of change, imbedded in the concept of dharmachakra pravartana.
Hindu theology also extols transparency and accountability in the concepts of satyam, shivam and sundaram, and in the concept of karma which is nothing but the concept of accountability. The concept of yama and niyama define the code for Hindus which is an ingredient of Hindutva.
Hence, there is no conflict or contradiction between Hindutva and Modernization. What needs to be discussed is how to inculcate Hindutva so that we can be acquire a modern mindset and how the modernization process can be structured so that Hindutva can be imbibed in our nature through our educational and family system.
Modernization is embedded in mind development that takes place because of growing stock of knowledge. This knowledge has to be pursued with character that seeks to use knowledge to liberate and empower the human and not to enslave him. Thus religious faith has helped to develop the character necessary for imbibing knowledge.
In a nutshell then, the Hindutva Principles for Economic Development is founded on the following clear concepts: First is the necessacity to harmonise the Hindutva values as enshrined in Sanatana Dharma, with efficient pursuit of material progress. Second, is the ancient non-birth based decentralization of power embodied in the Varna system. Third, innovation–driven economic growth that is nurtured by all five dimensions of Intelligence. Fourth, an overriding national identity that is rooted in the ancient continuing civilizational history. Fifth, the Gandhian concept of trusteeship and philanthropy.
REFERENCES
[1] Bruce Rich: To Uphold the World: A Call for a New Global Ethic from Ancient India [Beacon Press, Boston, MA, USA, 2010]
[2] Subramanian Swamy: Indian Economic Planning—An Alternative Approach, Vikas, New Delhi, 1971
[3] Upadhyaya,Deendayal:Integral Humanism,Navchetan Press, Delhi, 1965
[4] Goldberg,Phillip: The American Veda, Routledge, New York, 2010
[5] Girija O.V:”A Critical study of Modern Indian Education” Ph.D Thesis University of Madras(2008)
[6] Apte, Bal: Supreme Court on Hindutva, India First Foundation, 2005.
[7] Ambedkar, B.R.:Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95]