DANGER AT DRAGON END

DANGER AT DRAGON END 

Indian children, learn the science of concentration through study, meditation and working to a focus. Upon your diligence today rests the fate of future India.

With a dangerous northern enemy in gargantuan China stretching her ambitions from Ladakh to Arunachal and with her troops well settled in Indian territory in places, we have a handful of problems that could in the not-so-distant future precipitate into our partial loss of independence where we are militarily vulnerable. A disciplined childhood, martial training of the body and the mind, and a thorough knowledge of the nation's military  and political history will help our children to grow up into purposeful patriots instead of debilitated, self-seeking individuals devoid of character and full of the weakening impulses of cinematic and commercial culture. India's sovereignty may be lost otherwise to China at some future date.

Long back Swamiji had prophesied that soon after independence India could lose her independence to China. The 1962 Sino-Indian War was in partial fulfilment of that prophecy. Had it not been for President Kennedy's decision to stall China, the whole of Eastern India right upto Kolkata could have capitulated. That much for Gandhian non-violence and Nehruvuan naivette !

The 1962 Chinese aggression could be tided over with US help but the Chinese aggression is still on. Every passing year they are bit by bit eating into Indian territory and our soldiers are defending our receding borders with exemplary valour while spilling their life's blood to save our sovereignty. The Government is unable to shed hangovers of the past and build up a robust China Policy as they remain engaged in fruitless side issues like Pakistan which today is basically a diversion set up by China and aided by them to keep India in perpetual turmoil as the Chinese prepare for their future larger offensive.

If we only rely on the Armed Forces and the Government -- who we anyhow fully support -- then it will be a job half done. The entire polity must rise up in patient, persevering patriotism and make the country strong in every possible way. There will be obstacles, often insurmountable ones, but collective effort in the long run is bound to pay off.

The media is letting us down. If is sold to the almighty dollar. The industrialists are weakening the moral fibre of the nation through paralysing media advertisements for their products. The film culture in our country is weakening and only good at inducing sensory gratification. Sold to the senses and to money every commercial venture is which is corroding national character and eroding national prospects. The entire polity has lost moral strength and a sense of ethical uprightness. Even monks have lost spiritual stature so much that there aren't too many left who the discerning devotee can look up to. But worst of all are the politicians today. They have become, to quote Swamiji, 'lifeless mockeries' of men, lowly, crass characters who are devoted only to portfolio, power and purse.

The Opposition in Parliament is destructive even as the Treasury Benches are distracted with diverse inconsequential issues, unrelated to national defence. The Armed Forces may valiantly defend our motherland but they work on orders and respond to territorial situations developed through political indiscretion, miscalculation, shortsightedness and sheer lack of credible foreign policy over which they have no control. And in a democracy it ought to be like this but the Defence Ministry must be more responsible and more responsive at least to legitimate defence demands, both in providing the Armed Forces with the latest equipment and weapons, as well as raising their morale by pursuing a foreign policy which is vibrant and does not allow the casual slaughtering of our soldiers by our perfidious enemies across the border.

The national situation is grim and needs short term and long term redressing. Children of India, here you have a part to play. Build yourselves up for national service in youth to lend strength to our motherland and save her sovereignty as a priceless, perennial possession, a gift unto us from the spilled blood of the patriots who had won us freedom and who have thereafter died to preserve it thus far. The future of the country depends on your present. Your daily exertion in education and excellence will make India unshakeably strong. No China will dare threaten us then, no Pakistan turn an evil eye on us.

Written by Sugata Bose