TO BE OR NOT TO BE

We need a national narrative rising above communal and caste politics which will unite the nation. Netaji is the way.

The military must be strengthened and a strong centralised governmental machinery must operate for a length of time to discipline the nation into an effective polity that will not be self-destructive but will be responsible to itself and work for its true welfare. Stringent legal measures must be adopted against all those who upset the smooth functioning of the legislature and such activity must be deemed seditious and tried accordingly.

Education must be the prime priority and a sizeable section of the budget must be set aside for research and developmental work. Education must be strengthened at both ends, the primary level and the university level so that a proper product of quantitative and qualitative brains trust of the nation is developed.

The Constitution must be amended and India declared a 'Sovereign Democratic Republic' as she was in the original framework and the Uniform Civil Code must forthwith be effective. Special status of Kashmir must be abrogated and despite severest opposition these changes must be with iron will executed.

Conversion to Islam and Christianity must be made illegal for these are the seeds of international conspiracy against the culture of the people of India. Religion must remain a private affair and must not be permitted to enter the public space that concerns the electorate.

All these require a strong national will working for the welfare of the people, a national narrative embedded in the history, the philosophy and the culture of the terrain that will inspire the citizens to make sacrifices for the building up of the edifice of the country, and continuous support from the people, empowering the government with heavy mandate for long, despite its inevitable dangers of corruption corroding its ranks, and, thus, a strong public opinion must be generated overtime and the national necessity stressed in the light of the dangers of the country breaking up in the teeth of secessionist and fissiparous forces working against the impending solidarity of the nation.

Eventually, it will be the people of this great nation who will decide their own fate. India has been partitioned in 1947, its territory in Kashmir seized by Pakistan in 1948 and a vast terrain annexed in Arunachal Pradesh by the Chinese in 1962. Four wars with Pakistan, one with China, countless proxy wars waged by Pakistan against India and cross-border terrorism by the same deceitful neighbour have repeatedly destroyed the life and peace of our people. Today, we are faced with massive homegrown terror to complement cross-border terror, the virus of Islamisation with its pernicious radical philosophy and covert Christian missionary activity to subvert the State aided by the erstwhile colonial-imperial powers in their modern masquerade.

It is time to wake up to the threat internal and the threat external and to set the national narrative straight. But how may we attempt this arduous exercise of national reconstruction? Where shall we get the directive for course-correction? Why man, Netaji is the way, is he not? He did all in the 1930s and the 1940s that we as a people struggling for freedom ought to have emulated and kept on pursuing once we were free. We did not and we paid the price. But history has taught us the lessons and it is time we rectify our foolish earlier stance of non-violent weakness and its debilitating paraphernalia. Netaji has shown the way. Let us follow.