IN RESPONSE TO ARNAB KUMAR DE'S COMMENT ON 'PLIGHT OF THE PUNDITS ... 4'

Brilliant Arnab Kumar De! This is the type of reporting that keeps up awareness among our countrymen about the terrible trends afflicting our society today. Your citing of instances of this social malaise makes for compelling reading and is portentous indeed of dangerous days ahead. Time for responsible citizens to wake up and awaken others to the exigencies of the times. Kashmir is the extreme instance of this religious radicalisation in India whose more general manifestations are evident elsewhere as well and threatens the harmony of the social fabric. The only hope seems to be education of the children of India in the principles of the Vedanta as expounded in the modern age by Swami Vivekananda so that in a generation or two a new wave of spiritual thinking rooted in the national tradition may sweep away these despicable dastardly ways of political appeasement masquerading as democracy, and their divisive degeneracy thereof. Till then, my friend, it is patriots like you who must keep upholding the national cause for the security and solidarity of the nation. Another duty of ours is to propagate the ideas and ideals of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in whom our benighted nation has historically found political unity and social cohesion. Moreover, he is the one political leader the masses still adore in a country that has been preyed upon by perfidious political predators for decades since its truncated independence. This is another area conscientious citizens like you must look in to and do the needful so that our self-oblivious countrymen awake from their age-old stupor and take a vigorous stance towards nation-building. Minority mischief is an engineered entity engendered by vote-banking politicians who have reduced the noble ideals of democracy to the debilitated level of decadent feudalism. Now it is demagoguery indeed that dresses itself as democracy. Shame on this debased version of humanity that pervades the corridors of power today in a land that has cradled world civilisation! Shame on those who are mute and abject spectators to this horrendous abuse of our nation by elements whose only habitat ought to be the confines of homes for rectification, to put it euphemistically. And the worst shame on those who turn the other way and settle for a selfish mode of sensory living to avoid the unseemly happenings all around for, after all, such unsavoury perpetration is not their handiwork nor does it directly intersect with their immediate living. It is this apathy of millions to the plight of the nation at large that is killing the nation and it is here, my friend Arnab, that I wish to thank you for at least highlighting the issue of malefic play by murderous elements in our society in collusion with the powers that be. In so far as the Kashmiri Pundits are concerned, our countrymen have well-nigh forgotten that they exist any more like beasts in cages which we call refugee camps, free men in bondage, deprived of home and hearth, while we savour the delicacies of life which as fellow countrymen they are denied. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof and time indeed to act now. Wake up citizens and take affirmative action to redress this unpardonable injustice which no civil society ought to forbear. If we love our motherland, which surely we do, for our sacrifices in times of national crises are as considerable as our apathy towards the well-being of our nation thereafter, then it is of absolute moment that we recognise the rigours of the times and stand united in the resurrection of the freedom we won from the British, then lost to the politicians who betrayed us. Awake, my countrymen, no hour to sleep! Freedom has to re-won in the 70th year of independence. Let this year be dedicated to the cause of the resettlement of the Kashmiri Pundits in their homeland in the Kashmir Valley from where they were traitorously evicted by fanatical Muslims in 1990. And let us not stop at that. Let the clarion call sounded by Swami Vivekananda from Colombo to Almora on his triumphant return from the West in 1897 inspire us ever to live and die for our beloved motherland, a veneration that has erstwhile been the domain solely of the martyrs to the motherland, they who died to free us from the bondage of the British and they who keep dying thereafter so that the sunshine of freedom may forever shine on our motherland, our soldiers in Siachen, our jawans in Kargil, our forces at the frontiers. We must all keep vigil so that the freedom we take for granted today is not lost again to foreign aggressors or to traitorous elements within. And for this, we have to free our countrymen everywhere from the bondage of injustice, iniquity and intrigue. The national narrative must be of strength and not passive piety, concern for fellowmen and not apathy, a rational culture steeped in Vedantic values and not self-debasement to archaic absolutism, and above all, an abiding love for our motherland and her spiritual civilisation for which she must render account to the rest of humanity. May Sri Ramakrishna bless all of you my sisters and brothers as I send forth a personal appeal to you to take cognisance of the dangers through which we are passing as a race and urge you further to sink in your ploughshare of your labour of love for the sake of national regeneration! Jai Hind!