I am indeed delighted
to participate in the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of Indian Parliament
and to inaugurate the International Parliamentary Conference.
It is a great occasion in the history of Indian Democracy that
many parliamentarians from India and other countries have assembled
in this historic place to express their care and voice their concern
in providing better standard of living to their people. India
is a fairly young and the largest democracy. We have accomplished
a significant degree of national development, while facing many
trials and tribulations; some due to the fury of nature, some
due to wars, and many due to proxy-wars and cross–border terrorism.
In spite of these happenings we have been able to achieve self
sufficiency in meeting the food requirement of more than a billion
people through the green revolution and to considerably increase
the average life span, through better primary healthcare centers
in rural India. Our Industrial base has been broadened. Science
and Technology have been given a new thrust with considerable
success in the fields of Information and Communication, Space,
Atomic Energy and Defence Research. Today, India is emerging as
a knowledge based society. Even while doing so, we have maintained
our cultural diversity and living in beautiful traditions, which
are a few millennia old. I have personally witnessed and enjoyed
many of them in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, six states in the North
Eastern region and other states and in one Union Territory. Even
when being proud of our heritage and self-reliant actions, we
realize that no nation can exist alone. Global connectivity is
vital. While there are many accomplishments, India is equally
concerned about bringing global peace and development of the whole
humankind – the present 6 billion which will rise to about 8 billion
by 2020. The major challenges facing humanity are removal of poverty,
ensuring energy and drinking water availability, personal safety
and health-care and environmental protection. Many nations are
facing problems manifesting themselves in different forms like
insurgency and cross border terrorism. It is not restricted to
one country or a region but has emerged as a global threat to
peace and harmony of humankind. What are the possible solutions?
Dynamics of Warfare
For a decade
I was studying the dynamics of warfare on planet earth. It is
evident that man lives on wars. We distinctly see that warfare
has three parts: upto 1920, 1920-1990 and after 1990. The first
part was the human warfare period. Motivation for human warfare
was either territorial greed or ambitions to amass wealth or religious
domination which in combination later led to the First World War.
The second period – 1920 to1990, was a mechanised warfare period.
During this period the world graduated to the use of new mechanized
weapons and platforms – battle tanks, fighter aircraft, ships
and submarines. Lot of scientific and technological knowledge
and skills were diverted towards war preparation and war operations.
In turn they also generated new technologies and science. The
main motivation was ideological conflicts between two forms of
societies. The Second World War also witnessed the disaster on
account of the deployment of nuclear bombs on two cities of Japan.
During the third period from 1990 we see market warfare and globalisation.
The tool used is the supremacy of technology which led to technology
denials and control regimes separating the nations as "Developed",
"Developing" and "Under Developed". In 2003,
the world is facing a new kind of warfare, owing to a combination
of religious conflicts, ideological differences and market warfare.
We have seen that always war adds to wars, though there will be
a time gap. How do we combat these complex, integrated phenomenon
of conventional warfare threat, cross border terrorism, insurgency
and threat of nuclear attacks? Apart from threats to nations,
governments and economics of societies, what is most painful is
the suffering of many million ordinary innocent human beings who
suffer due to violence and threats of violence. In the next few
minutes I would like to share my thoughts and some possible solutions.
Reasons for Terrorism
Terrorism results
from various factors like difference in ideologies, religious
fanaticism, painful historical memories, discrimination, and enmity
between organizations and nations. Constant deprivation leads
to frustration – frustration on provocation leads to alienation.
Alienation can manifest itself in two forms – passivism and activism.
Activism can manifest itself in constructive or destructive modes.
Constructive mode leads to development; destructive mode leads
to terrorism, violence and aggression. We need to collectively
address these sources of disturbance for global peace.
Message from Tawang
I would like to recall
an incident that happened when I visited Tawang, in Arunachal
Pradesh, a North Eastern State of India, at 4,000 meters altitude.
It is a land of extreme scenic beauty, spreading the message of
peace within, peace all around and peace in the whole universe.
There is a 400 year old monastery in which I met 300 monks reciting
Buddhist hymns.
A unique message
was echoing in the Monastery. What is that message? I was asking
myself. Who can enlighten and explain the message? I sought the
help of the chief of the monks at the Tawang Monastery. I asked,
‘Your Holiness, can you explain the message with your vast experience
of this Monastery, the most important part of learning – particularly
in the present environment of our country’. The respected Buddhist
Monk told me, "India is a nation of peace. India lives as
a spiritual and peaceful nation. The peace should engulf our nation."
Then he said: "this monastery spreads the message of love
and peace. When you remove ‘I’ and ‘ME’ from your mind, you will
eliminate ego; if you eliminate ego, hatred towards fellow human
beings will vanish; if hatred goes out of our mind, violence will
not spring from us and then peace and peace will blossom. I bless
my nation". This divine message was born in the Tawang Monastery.
I was thinking whom I could share such a beautiful message with.
It is apt for this occasion, for the reason that we all need peace
on our planet earth.
The reverberating
message of Tawang is that peace has to prevail if humanity has
to survive. But what do we see today? Man has gone astray and
veered away from God’s message. He has taken violence in his hand.
Can we remove violence with military might? Can we remove terrorism
by war? Nations have been destroyed by wars. Have we eliminated
enmity? Have we eliminated violence? Has the world eliminated
terrorism? No. Not at all. Is there any solution? The message
from Tawang to remove ego is one among the possible solutions.
There may be other possible solutions which need to be deliberated
upon by the Honorable Members. I visualize many of our problems
could be solved if planet earth has Enlightened Human Beings.
An Enlightened Human Being will be a synthesized personality
with a value system and spirituality.
Enlightened Human Being
The evolution
of human society has followed the path from agricultural to industrial,
to information and to the present day knowledge society. No doubt
earlier societies are not eliminated, they all co-exist. The later
ones dominate the methods of working. In the information and knowledge
society, intellectual capacity dominates. Intellectual domination
is represented by ideologies, principles and faiths. Whenever
they cross paths between individuals, societies and nations, human
rights are violated. Today we have greater responsibilities in
eliminating suffocation and loss of human rights by the present
generation of people due to the backwardness induced by economic
status or caste and class differentiation or frustration by denial
of timely justice.
When a child is empowered
by the parents at various phases of growth, the child gets transformed
into a responsible citizen. When a teacher is empowered with knowledge
and experience, good young human beings with value systems emerge.
When an individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation
to higher potential for achievement is assured. When a leader
of any institution empowers his or her people, leaders are born
who can change the nation in multiple areas. When women are empowered,
society with stability gets assured. When the political leaders
of a nation empower people through visionary policies, the prosperity
of a nation is certain. When religions are empowered and become
a spiritual force, peace and happiness will blossom in people’s
hearts. Such an empowered stage will lead to creation of enlightened
citizens with a value system. The road map for graduating into
an enlightened human being will have to include education
with a value system (for example, the Tawang experience),
religions graduating into spiritual forces and visionary
policies for global prosperity. I believe an enlightened
human being can be evolved when all these three elements are properly
combined as a long term dedicated solution for nations. It has
to be an international movement. It is essential to integrate
the learning process with a value system in the educational system
particularly up to the higher secondary school level.
Religion transforming into spiritual
force: Universal Mind
I would like to recall
an incident which happened four decades ago. Prof. Vikram Sarabhai,
the visionary of the Indian space programme and a well known cosmic
ray scientist was looking for a site to establish a space research
station in the equatorial region. Thumba, a village in Southern
India located on the magnetic equator was selected by the scientific
community for establishing the space research station as it was
ideally suited for ionospheric research in the upper atmosphere.
The village had a beautiful ancient St. Mary Magdalene Church
and a Bishop's House. Prof. Vikram Sarabhai requested Rev. Dr.
Peter Bernard Pereira to provide that space, with a church and
a house, for setting up the space research station. The Bishop
smiled and asked him to meet him the next day, that is Sunday.
Next day, in the
Morning Service, the Bishop told the congregation, "my children,
I have a famous scientist with me who wants our church and the
place I live in for the work of space science research. Dear children,
science seeks truth that enriches human life and brings material
prosperity. The higher level of religion is spiritualism. Religious
leaders seek the help of the Almighty to bring peace to humanity.
In short what Vikram is doing and what I am doing are the same
- both science and spirituality seek the Almighty’s blessings
for human prosperity and peace. My children, can we give the God's
abode for a scientific mission?" There was a chorus of 'Amen'
from the congregation and the whole church reverberated. Subsequently,
the big event took place in 1962. Rev. Dr. Peter Bernard Pereira,
the Bishop of Trivandrum, took the noble decision to dedicate
the church appreciating the significance of the nation’s need
for the establishment of the Space Research Center at Thumba.
When I think of this event, I can see how enlightened spiritual
and scientific leaders, all converge towards giving due reverence
to human life. That event laid the foundation for a new era in
space research in our nation, yielding benefits to society. For
example, reaching villages with communication and for assessing
natural resources for better management.
What a beautiful
message for all generations of this globe, on integration of minds.
Above all we see a great scientist and a religious leader transforming
the society into a spiritual force and spreading the message to
the young: Good human beings are there everywhere. We need to
look for them and nurture them. I would like the Parliamentarians
to reflect on the significance of this event in the present day
religious and ideological conflicts.
Visionary Policies for Global
Prosperity
The world over,
poverty, illiteracy and unemployment are driving forward the forces
of anger, frustration and violence. These forces link themselves
to historical enmity, tyranny and injustice, ethnic issues and
religious fundamentalism and transform themselves into an outburst
of terrorism worldwide. Those who claim to love the Creator but
hate His creation are indeed living in self deception. But, society
which includes you and me has to address itself to the root causes
of such phenomena like poverty, illiteracy and unemployment.
Stability of
any society is a vital factor that decides peace. Stability of
a society revolves around providing the basic needs of society
such us food, clothing and shelter and safety and security of
the people. People, who are economically or socially in the lower
strata, are vulnerable to human rights exploitation by those who
are in the higher strata. One way to reduce this exploitation
is to narrow this divide. Policies with vision should emerge at
the global level to eradicate poverty and to ensure that the basic
needs of every human being are met thereby reducing the gap between
the haves and have-nots. How are we going to achieve this? Global
sharing of resources under a consortium approach will be one way
to address these issues for peaceful co-existence and co- development.
Globally there will
be a crisis in the coming decades for energy, drinking water,
and environmental protection. Many nations have to come together
to evolve visions to solve these global issues so that future
generations can live peacefully. When there is a vision for a
nation with focused missions, problems like terrorism and violence
will get eliminated.
Global Outlook for Universal Harmony
Every human being
in this planet has a right to live with dignity, has a right to
aspire for distinction. Availability of a large number of opportunities
to resort to just and fair means in order to attain that dignity
and distinction is what democracy is all about. That is what our
Constitution is all about. And that is what makes life wholesome
and worth living in a true and vibrant democracy. At this point,
I would like to remind all of us that at social levels it is necessary
to work for Unity of Minds. The increasing intolerance for views
of others and increasing contempt about ways of lives of others
or their religions or the expressions of these differences through
lawless violence against people cannot be justified in any context.
All of us have to work hard and do everything possible to make
our behaviour civilised to protect the rights of every individual.
That is the very foundation of democratic values. The right type
of global judiciary and safeguarding of human rights are the guardians
of civilised life. Empowered mechanism of human right protection
through creation of Enlightened Human Beings would ensure survival
of a prosperous democracy globally.
Conclusion
I would like to recall
the words of a great scientist of the last millennium - Albert
Einstein. I quote "The further the spiritual evolution
of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the
path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life,
and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after
rational knowledge."
The mission for parliamentarians
should be the evolution of a vision for their nation. Every country
has its own dreams arising from its history and also from the
type of global environment of that country. Every Parliament has
to give a prosperous, peaceful and secure future for its people.
Unfortunately some nations are being bombarded with poverty and
terrorism. How do we find solution? Here I have attempted to suggest
one solution by evolution of Enlightened Human Beings with a combination
of education with a value system, religion graduating into spiritualism
and visionary policies for prosperity. May I request Members of
Parliament to graduate their Parliaments to discuss higher goals
of evolving visions for their national prosperity that will finally
bring peace to planet earth. I am sure that this conference will
address the above issues in order to bring about universal harmony.
My best wishes and
greetings to you.
