Nature, Our Great Teacher

Nature gives us lessons in myriad ways that are easier to understand, absorb and experience than lessons we learn from the pages of text books. The only difference is there is no compulsion to read and learn from Nature as is the case with books. But our reluctance to read is much the same as our indifference to learn from Nature. Shirdi Sai Baba told his disciples that the Lord exhorts us to “take and take” from His bounty while we, humans always plead with him to “give and give”.  Nature asks us to take and take from her inexhaustible profusion to satisfy our sense of sight, sound, taste, smell and touch and to provide us lessons to last a lifetime. Unless we have the eyes to see and the ears to listen, Nature remains opaque and non-transpicuous.

Nature is an Institute of Design. Some of the trees that stand tall grow proportionately wide are so aesthetically designed that one wonders Nature’s way of developing and exercising  to create a perfect figure that will be the envy of our youth who exercise to get a  six pack abs. While we go for lovely looking pets, there are a number of uncared for stray dogs that carry a beautiful design in their physical architecture. I saw one with sunflower blonde body highlighted by white paws in symmetry as though a painter had measured and painted them. Its ears had a dash of white in the midst of the profuse blonde hair all around. The morning sun was balmy as it plunked itself on the ground totally unaware of its beauty.  Seeing Nature in her best design, I could not help muttering: “hey, here is God’s plenty.” Nature’s creativity is ingenious; we have plenty to learn from Nature. I am reminded of Harold Bloom’s words: “Talent does not originate; genius does”

Winter has set in. When I go for my morning walk to brace up for the day, I see Nature no longer in her resplendent, colourful finery as she stands  denuded of flowers. One of things I always enjoy in spring and summer seasons is sighting the hibiscus flowers. Every morning during these seasons, strolling through the parks, I would look for these lovely red flowers springing amidst green leaves. My heart would leap with excitement on seeing the crimson wonder. Though sounds silly and superstitious, I usually associate the sighting of the hibiscus with a bright and beautiful day ahead. When there is an abundance of these blossoms, there will be a spring in my walk. On the days when I would sight just one or none, I would foolishly feel a trifle cast down. But the moot point with me has been not to miss out on the joy Nature gives as it unfolds flowers of different hues.

But during the early period of winter, as hibiscus and other flowers take their bow, we see only the green foliage. Transposing human  emotions of pride and envy on Nature(since I have no knowledge of plant emotions), it is not far wrong  to assume that in the absence of large quantities of water and sunshine needed for blossoming, the flowers had faded leaving the leaves to suck whatever was left of both. This is the time for the leaves to preen themselves in their ‘green’ glory. It will be at least three months before the hibiscus can claim its rightful place among the leaves. Till then, the leaves feather their own nest pompously showing “how green my valley is”. But as winter advances, with no trace of moisture and sunshine, the leaves lose their green and are seen with a brownish coat of dust. They are no longer the high priest of green beauty but look wan and brittle, and appear jaded like a one day wonder (Ek din ka sultan).  Nature seems to quietly say no one can forever gloat while shining on left over tidbits.

The brown coating has to wait for a wash for the first drops of rain to come along with the sunshine to bring back the crimson red and restore the green armour to the leaves. Nature teaches the wonderful lesson to have humility while in power, to show grace unmixed with arrogance when one comes into good fortune even for a short period. Beauty does not last long, but beauty lends itself for revival at the right and opportune time. Power cannot be a matter of one’s right or a matter of usurpation of others’ legitimacy. Power is the transformation of the Lord’s grace to human efforts at the time deemed right. The flowers have to blossom, the leaves have to shed off their coat of dust while blessing their efforts is the grace of the Lord, evidenced in the precise cyclic movement of the seasons. Man has merely to follow Nature and do his work, leaving the Lord to bless him at the right moment.

Here is a lesson for our politicians and also for all those who have become power mad. Power like beauty cannot be had forever. When in power, be humble, gracious and modest. The design is His; the appropriate time is scheduled by Him and we are the recipients of His grace. But we are not to remain passive, for in our efforts lie the fruition of His will. Nature does her work with clock-like precision. She does not rest for she ceaselessly creates the beauty of spring, the majesty of summer, the after-glow of autumn and the quietude of winter.  Nature has her own language, her own idiom to teach us the great aphorism so often quoted from the Bhagavad GIta about Nishkama Karma:

                     Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshou kada chana,

                     Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani

You have the right to perform your actions,but you are not entitled to the fruits of the actions.

Do not let the fruit be the purpose of your actions, and therefore you won’t be attached to not doing your duty.

The Coming of the Apocalypse

                                                The Coming of the Apocalypse

The ominous signs of World War III are present as “darkness visible” to use the Miltonic oxymoron. These signs have been flickering since the twin towers in New York were razed to the ground at the turn of the century. The aggravation, worsened by the US military intervention first in Afghanistan and later in Iraq ostensibly to topple Saddam Husssein have  galvanized terrorist groups such as  Al Queda, Taliban ,Boko Haram and presently the ISIS to strike terror at will. These groups have ingeniously turned the table on US and the West by playing the Muslim victim card citing nearly 45,000 Muslims killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their targets are mainly US and Western Europe-France in particular- though the extended lethal effect has been borne by Nigeria, Syria and Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. We in India have had our share though intermittently with Pakistan’s non-State actors making a common cause with the terrorist groups under the banner of Islam, covertly and violently unleashing their hatred for the nation.

The latest press release by the French government warning of a possible chemical and poisonous attack has sent everyone into an alarming tizzy. Belgium has been put on alert, shutting down its metros and postponing football matches. Europe has woken up; so have Russia and US to the escalation of the murderous and destructive threat by ISIS. The West has come together, mobilizing its forces to counter this menace. The two erstwhile superpowers –America and Russia are working out ways to contain ISIS. These two arch egoists have joined hands, sinking their major differences about Syria through a unified Syrian-owned political transition plan to end the civil war in Syria. So far so good, as the ISIS has the deadly arms power, money and willing suicide bombers to wreak havoc on many innocents both in the Arab world who are non IS sympathizers and in Western Europe besides US and its Allies. ISIS that stood for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has shed off the last two letters and now remains as IS with its single objective to establish an Islamic  Caliphate, a state governed in accordance with Islamic law by God’s deputy on Earth,  the Caliph. It seeks a direct confrontation with the US-led coalition, viewing it as a War between Muslims and their enemies described in Islamic apocalyptic prophecies.

The 21^st century has all the signs of a bloody war of the proportion of the two world wars of the previous century. Humanity has not learnt the lessons either from World War I (1914-18) that had caused the death of 17million people nor that of World War II that accounted for the death of six million Jews and millions of people across Europe and Japan. WWI happened due to increased militarism, aggressive imperialism and nationalism among European countries, in particular among Germany, Great Britain and Russia, while WW II witnessed the megalomania and anti Semitism of Hitler  that brought all other European nations together to fight him with the assistance of US. But our present generation has forgotten history- as recent as of the last one hundred years. Mankind has not learnt anything from those two devastating wars and is currently on the path to break into yet another catastrophic war. This is not the time to justify atrocities as vendetta wars, apportioning blame either to the ruthless, fanatic Muslims, or to the stupid war that George Bush had started first to strike at AL Queda in Afghanistan and later at Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

What is the one major lesson of the two World Wars that we ought to have learnt and which we have not? Two wrongs don’t make a right. The genesis of all wars has so far been ego bruise -real or imagined. Prima facie, this conflict seems a religious conflict between Muslims and Christians, between Sunnis and Shi-ites, between Muslims and non-Muslims , but looking at it closer, it is a clash between Western imperialism and the Ottoman imperialism that seeks to establish its hegemony from Portugal to China with a ruthlessness that is unimaginable to any civilized mind. Riding on the banner of Islam, perceiving the dominance and conquest of the imperial West as a threat to its identity and destruction, propagating the victimhood theory of being bombed and looted by the rapacity of the West and justifying the  right to vengeful retribution, the IS has intrusively worked upon the minds of the socially and economically deprived Muslims in the West and allured them to join the fight against Christian and non Muslim nations. It was a clever strategy “to present a binary view of the world as good and evil and show that all that is good is with Islam and all that is evil is with the West”(Adam Deen trying to figure a counter narrative to militant Islam). The sense of victimhood and the call for revenge for a just cause has had a tremendous appeal not only to the socially and economically  deprived sections of the Muslim youth, but also to  the educated groups whose understanding and grasp of the nobility of Quran is poor, if not non-existent. Thus the greed of the Western nations for the oil rich resources of the Arab world combined with the extremist version of Islam which is deviant from its original helped IS to grow thick and fast. Germany among the rest of Europe has understood the devastation of cruelty and hatred perpetrated by Hitler and his Nazi army and has moved away from vendetta politics to develop into a more humane and civilized society.

The question before the world is can aggression end aggression? Can violence end violence? Can brutal war be an answer to the bloody war unleashed by IS?  How to create a counter narrative to the perverted narrative of Islam as spread by the IS? Modern concepts of nationhood, civil rights, liberty, brotherhood and equality that have been the cornerstone of European and Western democracy have to be strengthened to stop the spread of IS caliphate founded upon the megalomania of the self styled Islamic Caliphate whose visceral hatred of non Muslims is similar to the toxic dislike of the Jews by Hitler and the Nazis.

The world has to come together to demonstrate the power of humanity, rationality, liberality and freedom against the inhuman forces that thrive on irrational, illogical and imperious diktats of the IS leaders who betray their ignorance of the peaceful religion Islam by saying killing apostates is Islamic. Many leaders have spoken about drying the funds of IS, bombing the IS holds in Syria and Iraq, but if minds cannot be cleansed and purified, if hearts are not rid of hatred and fanaticism, if attitudes are not changed  to put the past behind and to forge forward, stealthy drones and carpet bombing will only aggravate the hurt and vengeful belief in victimhood. The world should seek the voices of the moderate Muslims like those of the the 1071 Indian Imams and Muftis who had decreed a fatwa against IS for its un-Islamic and inhuman acts. Gandhi said “An eye for an eye makes the world go blind”. How prophetic these words are! Two wrongs don’t make a right. No amount of sabre rattling speeches can match the guns of violence. The voice of sanity alone has the power to drown the voices of hell.  Aakar Patel’s advice to the Hindutva votaries rings true for the entire world. He writes: “…it’s easy to rouse an Indian mob to hatred. To desist, to resist bigotry, even when it is popular is leadership.” The World has to unite to speak their  “mann ki baat”(the Voice of their Conscience) to drown the voices of hatred and inhumanity. The conversation between a father and his son that has gone viral is the answer to the boom-boom of the guns:

The Son said:  “They have guns, they can shoot us because they’re really, really mean, daddy,”. “It’s okay, they might have guns but we have flowers,” his father said.

At the end of the conversation, his young son said he felt reassured by what he’d heard. “The flowers and the candles are here to protect us,” he said.

Why bother to study History?

                                                 Why bother to study History?

Tipu Jayanthi is the last straw on the communal camel’s back.  A totally unnecessary celebration has been organized by the ruling Congress party that has ensured that Congress will not have a presence south of Vindhyas in the next couple of years. Whether Tipu was a good king or a tyrant is basically a debate among historians and scholars who are today polarized on ideological grounds. What the left historians had maintained all these years has become untenable to the new right-wing group of historians, and the latter has promised to come out with a new narrative. Time will tell how well the new narrative will stand the test of authenticity and research. The clash of historians is to be seen as a clash initiated by new scholarship that looks at the past from the prism of its partisan understanding of historical facts and seeks to straightjacket history within the framework of its ideology. Unless propped up by facts, history will end up as his/her story(that of the new narrator), a creative falsehood, fanciful than real. A historian has to have both historical sight and insight to render the past objectively and as an authentic narrative.

Why do we need history? The present day student who finds it difficult even to remember the mobile numbers of his close friends wonders why he should attempt remembering historical dates. Many others in different professional fields argue why dwell on the past when that time can be spent on working out solutions to the many problems that beset them in the present? In this age of Science and Technology, when everyday is an advance on the previous day, when obsolescence is more of  a welcome than a pejorative term, what is the use of history and more so, that of the  quarrel between a historian of the left and a historian of the right? Apart from unseemly wrangling about factual truth and fictional falsehood between the two contending groups of historians, the conflict has touched abysmal depths with a bright and scholarly rightwing zealot denouncing the past historians of repute as “the pall bearers of Indic civilization”.  The fanatic attempts to adopt history to one’s persuasions make one suspect the authenticity of historical writings. The difference in the writing of History is also to be viewed as the difference between a historian and a historicist.  A historian tries to reconstruct the past but he is aware of his limitation to reconstruct the past in its wholeness or completeness.  But a historicist constructs theories out of the past and believes that historical awareness is crucial for adequate understanding in general or in a particular field.

History is the essence of human evolution and civilization. History is not a ‘dead’ subject for it provides the link between the past and the present, whether it relates to culture, tradition, religion or technology for nothing is created in the present out of a vacuum. Penelope Corfield writes that “All people and peoples are living histories.” History connects us to our roots. A lack of a sense of our roots-that of being rootless- brings in its wake a sense of un-belonging and disturbing questions “who am I and who are we”-questions that do not ever lend for a  wholesome, logical and satisfying answer. If there is no awareness of inherited legacy, there will be no sense of belonging to a society or a community or a group and this gives license to individuals to shape their lives with no commitment to fellow beings. History is absolutely basic for understanding the condition of being human. Penelope concludes “All living people live in the here-and-now but it took a long unfolding history to get everything to NOW. And that history is located in time-space, which holds this cosmos together, and which frames both the past and the present.” The ideas of the past and its linkages with the present help us to make the necessary modification to life in present times. If we fail to understand Hitler, how can we abhor the path of tyrannical dictatorship and arrogance of assumed racial superiority?  If we know nothing about the two World Wars of the last century, we may not be able to avert the occurrence of yet another World War in the 21^st century. If we do not learn from the tragedy of the 1947partition, we will be re-igniting religious and communal fires to inflame religious and sectarian passions. If the World forgets the coming together of the Allies to defeat Hitler and his Nazi forces, it will not be able to collectively stop the ISIS cruelty unleashed today.  Failing to understand history is at Man’s own peril.

It is true that when a historian writes, he does so with the awareness that the past is fundamentally different from the present and he looks at the past for its own sake and not to use his knowledge of the past to illuminate the problems of the day. A historian is not a compiler of facts, but he is a historicist, one who contextualizes the available information and interprets it and thereby rejects universal and immutable interpretations that lie outside the context. Hegel, one of the first to define Historicism was of the view that society and human activities are defined by their history as everything is built up on what had been done in the past or through rejection of that which is viewed as undesirable or as an impediment to human progress. “To understand why a person is the way he is, you must put that person in a society; and to understand that society, you must understand its history and the forces that shaped it.” Even in the study of literature the concept of new Historicism is being applied where the literary text is placed parallel to non-literary texts and when the texts are read together, they constantly inform or interrogate each other. New Historicism is defined as “ a combined interest in the textuality of history, the historicity of texts.”(Louis Montrose) It is not a question of just putting down details as stated in the archival documents- words, phrases and references -but going beyond the available facts to place them alongside the context, culture and background of that period.

The clash today is about Tipu Sultan’s legacy- whether he was a benign ruler who funded and preserved the temples in Karnataka (including the famous Ranganathaswamy temple in Srirangapatna) and who was a secular king and fought the British or whether he was a tyrant who massacred 700 brahmins in Melcote and killed many innocents in the adjacent territories of Kerala and Tamilnadu. The historical prespective demands that this unseemly controversy triggered by the Congress government in Karnataka is to be seen  not by sticking  to details but by decoding those facts and placing them in the context of the 18^th century when territorial annexure was a legitimate action of a King.  The Hindu editorial says: “History shows rulers governed by the order that prevailed in their times, one that involved the persecution of enemies and the plunder of conquered territories. Kings can be judged either by the quality of their administration and the reforms, if any, they brought in, or by their conduct and conquests. Just as such kings will have descendants vouching for their good governance and personalities, there will be descendants of their victims testifying to their ruthlessness and intolerance. It is unacceptable for this divided legacy to be used to divide people.” What should be a debate among historians has now become a handy political weapon for the two contending parties in Karnataka. It will be a matter of time before  this political wrangle assumes national proportion and creates communal clashes.

Tipu controversy has not credited the Congress government with foresight,  with ability to predict the damage of the after consequences of raising a toast to Tipu and with the sense of timing to celebrate an event that had been dormant for more than two centuries. Whatever can be said in defence has been said by Girish Karnad who has written a play on the controversial 18^th C king, but that does not explain the sudden veneration of Tipu especially when there is a sweeping intolerance spread across the nation. For the BJP, backed by RSS and Sangh parivar, this is a god-sent opportunity to claim their patriotism by painting Tipu in the vilest possible manner. Both the Congress and the BJP lack a sense of history to evaluate Tipu as a secular and just king, a freedom fighter or as an expansionist, a despot who converted people to Islam. This is a debate for historians, researchers and scholars  to argue by placing the facts in the context of the 18^th century political context.

WE see the lack of historical sense on the global level. The brutal ISIS acts of horror and terrorism show that it has neither read history nor learnt from it.  ISIS ,Boko Haram and Al-Queda have been barbaric in their actions, killing thousands of innocents very much like the brutality unleashed by Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, by Hitler inspiring fellow Germans  with his Aryan myth against the Jews, by Napoleon Bonaparte with his appeal to Nationalism, to name a few terrible events from the 20^th Century global history. Studies in history of the 20^th century alone will enable  us understand that these were the cruel and barbaric acts of a few fanatic tyrants  whose passionate appeal to emotional issues tugged at the heartstrings  of people and made them blind to reason and humanity . Seen in the backdrop of history, we realize that the present ISIS war is not a war where the Muslims of the world have united against Westerners, Christians, Jews and non-Islamists, but a war by a few ruthless leaders who have worked upon the human psychology that applauds aggression using the toxic ideology of religious passion. To polarize the world into Muslims versus the rest is to be bankrupt of historical sense.

We need history to remain sane. We need history to learn and unlearn the positives and negatives it teaches us. We need history to understand the evolution of Man and his civilization. We need history to bind us as humanity cutting across all geographical boundaries and man- made shadow lines. We need history to build upon the foundation of the past and where necessary to modify and change and adapt to be in sync with human progress and development.. We need history to honour and remember all those whose significant contribution to this world is the legacy that we have inherited. We need history to leave behind for the future generation our own history as a reference or a model to them. Summing it all up, we need history because - in Sharon Presley’s words - “we live in a context of time and culture, not just of the here and now. We can gain, both personally and as a society, from contemplating lessons from the past.”

 Hope our two national parties are  listening.

Are we ready for Intellectual Aristocracy?

                                            Are we ready for Intellectual Aristocracy?

A year and a half back, soon after the 2014 elections, I wrote a blog on The Still Sad Song of Congress, the Modern Prufrock. Eighteen long months have gone and the Prufrockian dilemma continues for the Indian National Congress as to how to work out a strategy to counter Moditva! Literally wiped out of the political space it had enjoyed for more than six decades, both while ruling and while sitting in opposition, the Congress party has yet to find its feet that are currently employed only to march to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to complain (like a little child complaining to its father against its little sibling)t hat the PM and his men (and women)are seeking to eliminate the Congress from  Bharat- the tolerant and secular country that it had left behind. The march to the President’s house is merely to demonstrate to the world that the Congress is still alive, though mewing. This is all the more needed after it failed to open its account in the last Delhi Assembly elections early this year and its subsequent abysmal showing in the state elections held thereafter. The recent results of the Panchayati polls show that the Congress has once again suffered a rout even in the two Lok Sabha constituencies of Rae Bareli and Amethi represented by its party president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi. Bihar results are awaited as no one can predict who will burst the crackers- Modi or Nitish.. As for the Congress it has been an “also ran” party tugging at the kurtas of Lalu and Nitish. If Lalu-Nitish emerge winners, Congress will get a modicum of satisfaction of being an insignificant member of the “Mahaghatbandan” (Grand alliance of JD (U)-RJD-Congress).

The total washout post-2014 debacle is evidenced in Congress not gaining even a toehold in the nation’s political arena. After the return of the Prince from his self imposed exile for purposes of meditation, a lot of filibustering, finger-pointing and Modi(BJP) bashing started. New phrase like “ suit-boot ki sarkar”- that caught the people’s imagination for a while was short lived when the crown prince repeated it  ad nauseam and made it sound like a joke. Every TV debate between Congress and BJP has become a saas-bahu war with the old Congress saas accusing the younger BJP bahu of spreading disaffection and hatred in the family while the bahu looks at the saas as the progenitor of all ills that impede it from running the family. Great fun to watch the TV fights(with ears plugged) with the alliance partners on either side throwing in their teeny-weeny punches.  The worst is reserved for the Congress as the anchors join the fun to lambast it for its failure to get even 10% of the 543 seats in the Lok sabha while the ruling party gleefully keeps citing the scandalous scammy events that happened over the last few decades to justify why the imbroglio persists  even after it has come to power. “Anything and everything, blame it on the Congress” is the strategy of the ruling party while “anything and everything, blame  Modi(BJP)” is the slogan of the Congress. Ultimately both through their internecine wordy duel show themselves to be the two sides of the same coin. Your riot vs our riot, your intolerance vs our intolerance, your icon vs our icon, your meaningless silence vs our meaningful silence, … “ tutu, mein mein” goes on endlessly bringing down the quality, language, tenor of the debates. Outside the micro space of the TV studios, in the macro space of election campaigning, political language degenerates further to lowly depths, full of  personal vituperative attacks without substantial discussion on any issue related to the welfare of the people. At best, there may be a few poll promises like bringing the moon to people’s doorsteps –promises that are no more than those written on water. Attack, attack, attack –the party pugilists belonging to different political parties have been trained to do even if they emerge out of the TV studios with bruised and battered minds and hearts. Some feeble voices by creative writers, artists and scientists protesting against the gradual spread of intolerance in the nation are promptly attacked as manufactured, disgruntled and envious voices who speak English and sip tea from China cups and who are genetically opposed to Modi and his party whom they look down upon as non-English speakers.

The reason is not far to search for this rapid descent to verbal anarchy and unbecoming behaviour all around us. Yata raja, tata praja. If the rulers can indulge in crass behaviour, so do the people. For all the PM’s talk and slogans (no one speaks today except the PM on  ‘weighty’ matters that are futuristic but not on the present atrocities)   the new broom stopped sweeping soon after the proclamation of “Swatchch Bharat”. The prices have defied the scientific laws on gravitational pull and continue sky rocketing without ever coming down. The Black money that was promised to be brought and distributed @ Rs.15000/- per each Indian household continues to be in a black hole and cannot be squeezed out. As for our neighbours, Pakistan cannot give up sabre rattling.  Despite India’s efforts to be pally, Nepal true to its name says to its big brother,“Ne(y) –pal” while Srilanka continues its love for  Indian fishermen. China looked diabetically sweet when the Chinese President sat on the swing with our PMlast year, but now one detects  ‘cheeni kum’ in our direction and ‘cheeni jyada’ towards Pakistan. Congress is adding its two penny worth to this chaos by attempting a repetition of policy paralysis for the new government  as its revenge for getting ousted last year on that score. Even corruption issues have not been obliterated as corruption of a different order is taking place. One does not hear about big financial corruption in high places ( except that which involved the trio, LaMo-Sushma-Vasundra or the Vyapam scam of Madhya Pradesh), but the aam admi continues to experience it at his level. The corruption of the mind and heart is evidenced in words and actions, in the loose cannons booming from different corners and in the heinous acts of rapists and trigger happy murderers.

It is time for all political parties-in particular the two national parties- to reinvent themselves and rein in the slide towards crassness, insensitiveness, coarseness, vulgarity, intolerance and inhumanness if the country has to regain respectability in the world. The ruling party cannot defend their acts of omission and commission by taking umbrage in what the Congress had done eons ago. To equate today’s unrest with the three decade old Sikh riots of 1984 makes no sense. Two wrongs don’t make a right. To blame the previous government for all the ills that plague the nation is no answer as the new government has been elected only on their promise to cleanse the Aegean stables.  There has to be grace in acknowledging the killings committed in Dadri and Kashmir on matters that are beefy and in tendering apology for the innumerable acts of the mindless fringe fanatics that are tinder to communal fires. The ruling party has to rein in those divisive forces whose actions and words are a threat to the unity of the country. When there are full five years for the ruling party to carry out whatever reforms its ideology necessitates, why is it in a unseemly hurry to denounce all distinguished scholars and historians of the past as pseudo intellectuals driven by their leanings to the Congress and the Left? Let the new ideologically different historians attempt new writings that are well researched and authenticated by scholarly evidence to present a different narrative. The advancement of knowledge is to have parallel writings juxtaposed rather than replacing one by another. Truth cannot be forever hidden in a bushel; it emerges through the juxtaposition and parallel reading of two opposing contentions.

Congress is in dire straits. It has still to learn from its defeat rather than seeking pinpricks to puncture the present elected government. There has to be grace both in defeat and in victory.  The only thing Congress has done in the last 18 months since its banishment from the political corridors is to see ghosts where there are none and to scream and shout when they sight one. Congress cannot just go on criticizing because it gives the impression of sour grapes. Till todate, it has not a single plan in place except to remain a nagging and mocking opposition. If all its plans in the past had backfired and if it has nothing new to offer by way of a radical change, its dream of getting out of political wilderness will remain only a dream. Why only attack and not evolve a new strategy that is a plausible alternative to what it opposes today? Let Congress go in for an image make-over by ruthlessly casting aside any and everyone who is even remotely connected to one scam or the other till such time his/her name is cleared. Let it give up holding to the apron strings of Sonia Gandhi or to the kurta tail of Rahul Gandhi. A major problem with Congress is its problem of plenty as the party has  a good number of well educated, well read intellectuals  but what they lack is a strong figure like Modi who can integrate them as a team to deliver what each one is capable of. It is indeed an irony that the huge capability potential of the Congress failed to get inter-linked as each one of the ministers had a solid, but stand- alone idea, which did not gel with that of the other. The policy paralysis of Manmohan Singh government was the clash of intellectuals in the party. Rahul has not displayed any leadership qualities to harness the potential dormant in the Congress leaders. There has to be a real search for a Congress Modi (not a command –cum- delete Modi, but a command-cum- reboot Modi) and till such a time it finds one, it cannot even think of an increase in their present abysmal vote share.

Congress like the British Parliament should learn to function as a shadow government. It cannot keep harping on the trite and worn-out mantra of ‘roti, kapda ,makan’ without spelling out the means of how to augment these basic essentials. The new slogan should be education, electricity and environment. There has to be a clear plan to provide education up to class XII to everyone and the curriculum should be anchored on knowledge and skill. Mere skill development without basic knowledge will leave the country as it is-illiterate, inefficient and incorrigible. Knowledge without skill development will leave the country with unemployment and unemployable hordes of young men and women who will hasten the slide to anarchy much faster. One of the criticisms against Pt. Nehru has been that while he was the architect of modern temples of education, he did not bestow sufficient attention on school education. This has been the cause of decline in higher education as the feeder from the schools had been poor tending continuously to further decline. The subsequent clamour for opening higher education to all and sundry irrespective of their ability and inclination to pursue higher education has led to the crisis in higher education today. Streamlining school education after the X^th by introducing three types of courses like the vocational, professional and academic with emphasis on language skills, simple mathematics and computer knowledge will promote employability among the youth while it will raise the quality of  higher education and research with much less number entering universities for academic pursuit. After education, power is essential not only for development of industry and manufacture, but it is basic for rural development. Instead of smart cities, the effort should be directed at developing smart villages with good educational and health facilities so that the inflow to urban areas can be minimized. Environment is the only means of preserving our world for the future generation while enhancing our present well being and this has to be the third priority. The three together will translate PM Modi’s call for swachch Bharat, for ushering in concepts of hygiene and health and for enabling the rural folks to transform themselves  to live in a modern, clean, healthy environment. When education is given with emphasis on values, culture and cultivation of humanity, the golden era of a distant future will come alive. Whether it is the BJP or the Congress(the two national parties) , it is for them to chalk out programmes that are executable and follow the Benthamite philosophy of bringing the maximum good for the maximum number of people.

Mere empty slogans cannot and do not change the face of our nation. Such slogans have already shown how the nation has gone bankrupt in geniality, cordiality, politeness, courtesy and grace. New strategies have to be worked out with the help of intellectuals irrespective of their political affinity. We need governance shaped by intellectuals who are receptive to new ideas and who do not bank upon fossilized ideas that cannot serve us in the 21^st century. The world has moved far away from the time it elected popular leaders from among the celluloid, synthetic heroes like MGR or NTR or Ronald Reagan in US. People all over the world are becoming politically more aware and more conscious of their rightstoday than they were a decade ago. They want leaders who have both sight and vision- sight to see the slow emergence of chaos in today’s world and vision to shape that chaos into a new social and political order to sustain a large number of people. Though the chaos theory is the field of mathematics, it is seen as "a revolution not of technology, like the laser revolution or the computer revolution, but a revolution of ideas.” (James Gleick, author of Chaos : Making a New Science ) We need intellectual leaders who understand the theory of chaos whereby all ideas - no matter how complex they may be - rely upon an underlying order, and that very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events-what is known as the butterfly effect. They are the ones who can see the interconnectedness between our eco systems, social systems and economic systems. We urgently need a new breed of visionaries with an objective and rational temperament to recognize the complexity of governance, the unpredictability and randomness of events, and to work out dynamic measures to bring the transition between disorder and order. A majority of our intellectuals unfortunately sit in ivory towers –more often far away in US and Europe and have no desire or inclination to be connected to their roots. Our Universities should be the bedrock of creating dynamic intellectuals who can feel the pulse of the nation and strategize ways to steer the nation from chaos and anarchy. In this era of inter-disciplinary studies, we should promote and confer responsibility on men and women who can infuse into politics the objectivity, clarity and rationality of science along with the sensitivity, aestheticism and humane values that characterize the study of Humanities. What we need is cooperative, collective leadership and not arrogant, narcissistic, egoistic, individual authoritarianism masquerading as strong and bold leadership.

Is this a utopian dream? Are we ready for intellectual aristocracy? I would affirm that we are ripe for such a leadership. From those halcyon days soon after independence when we were invigorated by philosopher-statesmen like leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Rajaji, and inspired by works of Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo, Bharatiyar-to name a few, we have gradually slid down,  unable to rise up to the demands made by a rising, aspiring India. According to the theory of four cycles, we have reached the age of chaos from the age of the divine through the age of aristocracy and the age of democracy. Once we have reached the nadir, from here we can only rise and that can be facilitated if we have Wisdom leaders to govern us, guide us and shape us out of chaos. This change can come if the nation accepts governance by intellectual aristocracy. The rule by aristocracy should not be misinterpreted as the rule by oligarchy. Aristocracy is a refined version of oligarchy. Governance by aristocracy is according to Plato the best form of governance- as governance is in the hands of able and competent people while oligarchy is the rule of a few in the generic way and always ends up as the rule of powerful and corrupt people. In a democratic set up like ours, we should elect eminent citizens for their qualities of mind and heart. In India,   cutting across all political streams  we are fortunate to have a large number of highly qualified people from all walks of life who have the unique ability to think with the heart and feel with the mind. The nation can boast of  Ratan Tata, Narayanmurthy,Kiran Mazumdar Shaw,Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanian, Sreedharan, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, outstanding scientists and technologists, writers and intellectuals besides young IITians and IIM graduates,who  recognize this  moment of transit “where space and time cross to produce complex figures of difference and identity, past and present, inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion.” (Homi Bhaha).We have reached the boundary of decline, but as Martin Heidegger defines,”a  boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing.” It is time to harness the services of intellectuals whose intellectualism has been in evidence in their willingness to accept, discuss and see other points of view. They have the rare quality to work for a consensus  to bring a new educated, cultured, civilized India . Are we ready for Intellectual Aristocracy? Time is ripe for India to rise up and say in one voice “Yes, We are.”