Beliefs and Believers

                                      *Saumitra Mohan

            It is generally becoming quite fashionable for human beings to denigrate and deprecate God and religion as people go through the rigmarole of day-to-day life. This trait is noticed more when people grow up and have got through the mundane battles of their lives to make both ends meet. It also depends on the kind of formal or informal education, surroundings and circumstances that the particular human being has been through otherwise an ordinary individual is usually quite God-fearing and remains seeped in religion and the cognate rituals which seemingly have no values.

            The increasingly mechanical life devoid of interpersonal relationships and human emotions in the overpowering presence of machines, tools, instruments, gadgets and technology is also pushing humans and their society to alienation where an individual often ends up attacking and inveighing against the God who is never in a mood to defend Himself, has never expressly desired to be worshipped or followed through an organised religion. But the fact remains that both God and religion are important and this is more so in a time when alienated human beings through their garbled understanding of the ‘Supreme Being’ are wreaking havoc all across the world.

            The same is reflected as variously as in the rise of the rightwing forces, retreat of the liberal state, rise of illiberal and authoritarian regimes, and rise of intolerant theocratic forces all around us. Examples include mindless acts of terror in the name of religion, extremist and militant violence, shooting and killing of individuals for their liberal values and thoughts as seen in India, Bangladesh and elsewhere and imposition of majoritarian, monolithic and homogeneous ‘one-size-fits-all’ standards on all members of the society, something which is against the very innate nature of a creative human society. All the developments that we see today have happened because of the allowances made to the contrary beliefs and thoughts.

            Against all these incursions on religion and God, there are certain things which need to be understood metaphysically, spiritually and philosophically otherwise we would see no meaning in the mindless pursuit and protection of repetitive but fleeting life activities. The first thing that we need to notice is the transient and ephemeral nature of things around us including a human life. After all, what is the immanent purpose of human existence on this earth if nothing here lasts forever? Why are we living, surviving and struggling when we all have to die or get destroyed at the end of the day?

            In fact, most of us die live as if we would never die. But most of us actually die as if we never lived. We keep chasing amorphous chimaeras of life without realising the import behind the same. Have we not done the same mundane things like ‘eating-defecating-procreating-dying’ day in and day out all across the world and through the ages which keep us bogged in diurnal ontological struggles without most of us even getting a whiff of the same?  If we don’t comprehend the nuances behind the same, we would continue hurtling through our life like zombies without grasping the meaningfulness of a human life.

            One feels that all the individuals have come to this earth for a definite purpose and until we find and understand that purpose, we shall continue feeling alienated and disaffected against the order of human life on this earth. After all, as they say, if the world was good the way it was when we were born, we should not have been born at all because our existence would be completely irrelevant and asynchronous with the extant realities. So, we must find that purpose that most of us have so far failed to discover and that purpose is to strive for our ultimate spiritual development.

            We are all born and struggle through our lives to aspire, achieve and hoard the different goodies for a comfortable human life, often way beyond the requirements, only to realise at the fag end as to how we have frittered away the precious time on this earth. All the wealth and fame that we chase through our life suddenly appear to have no meaning as they were never ours and are finally left behind. What is truly ours are the precious and happy moments spent learning different aspects of life’s nuances and our relationships. Enrichment of our mind and consciousness in this life is carried forward to the next life. Hence, the intellectual difference shown by different individuals since their birth despite being born to same circumstances.

            Unfortunately, stuck as we are in the quagmire of religion, caste, nationalism, regionalism, linguistic jingoism, competitive one-upmanship and hedonist pursuits, we have mostly missed the wood for the trees. So, instead of savouring the magnificence of divine creations and helping ourselves spiritually, we have ended up messing our lives. At the end of the day, this world remains a ‘Maya’ or a Divine Drama which we are supposed to play out towards our gradual spiritual evolution for ultimate union with the ‘Supreme Being’. We continue taking birth and rebirth on this earth till we attain the elusive ‘Moksha’ or become perfect to merge with the Divine. YouTube, Google and literature are replete with the rebirth stories to prove that the same human being keeps coming to this earth over and over again. Past life regression therapies, Tantric wisdom or increasingly popular ‘Yoga’ tell us the same thing.

            The popular Hindu belief of our rebirth being pegged to our ‘Karma’ is actually a spin-off of our consciousness at the time of our death. Spiritual studies suggest that instead of the Divine assigning a particular birth for us, it is the humans themselves who decide their birth given the kind of lessons they still have to learn and the same is predicated upon their own consciousness. Otherwise, how come two individuals born to same parents and same circumstances show diametrically opposite traits and talents? It has got to do with their differently evolved consciousness in their previous births. So, a seeker of wealth when he dies again looks for a womb or parents where s/he can pursue the Mammon while a dying saint would look for parents who would facilitate his better spiritual upliftment.

            Viewed thus, the earth is nothing but a school where we keep coming to learn our lessons till we have evolved to understand the real truth of life to merge with the Supreme. As we remember all our past lives in the astral world, our spiritual growth is very slow because of the mechanically self-controlled behaviour. That is why, the human life on earth is preferred by souls because of the possible faster spiritual growth than is possible in the astral world but more often than not, we end up messing the same. The irony is that the Hindus who believe in ‘rebirth’ the most and accept the possibility of them being born as a person of other religion, faith, creed  or a woman still spoil their Karmic consciousness by indulging in such nefarious activities as actually keep him or her from further spiritual evolution and deliverance.

            Dalai Lama says, ‘if you are really selfish, help the person who can’t help you’, thereby creating an altruistic debt. However, one feels that there is none created without the capacity to help another creature or fellow human being. So, we should never run down or hurt another creature if we really wish to attain ‘Moksha’ otherwise we would remain stuck in the ‘cycle of birth and rebirth’. The ethics and values of humanity are more supreme than the ephemerals of identity or possessions which continue changing with our each birth. Religion and theory of Karma says that if you hurt or cheat someone, the divine play shall ensure that you shall also be hurt or cheated in equal measure sooner or later. It is advisable that while we live, we create a larger ‘circle of goodness and goodwill’ by touching as many lives as possible by the dint of our altruistic or selfless Karmic actions. That shall be a real enlightened selfishness than the seemingly selfish acts of running after wealth or fame.

            Also, how and why should a truly religious person act contrary to the scriptural exhortations against lust, greed, theft, anger or hate? By not heeding these religious commandments, are we not disrespecting our own religions? So, what we see today in the name of religion is nothing but a travesty and an abomination of religion which must stop. All the religions, nations, wealth or fame are nothing but means to an end and the end being our eventual spiritual evolution through attainment of ‘Moksha’. But, we all keep chasing the meaningless without realising the same. After all, money, precious metals or high positions themselves have no value. It is we who have assigned values to them and have been running after them ever since.

            Now, a question one often encounters here is the relevance and purpose behind this ‘Drama’. Made as we are in the images of God, we are said to be an extension of the Divine who is realising Himself through this Divine Drama. After all, all these things that we see around ourselves including sundry emotions, passions, objects, creatures, organisms, technologies, scientific discoveries and a complex operation of this world would have all remained mere conceptions and nothing else had God not created this world to put the same in motion to glimpse their actual working, and thereby also realise the significance of His own power. So while the Divine Drama plays itself out, many of us have fallen by the wayside which may at some level appear as a failure of the divine design but if the world is still surviving, it simply means that the balance still hangs in favour of the positive and the Divine Drama is playing out as per the larger cosmic plan.

            It is against this background that humans created religion and God, not only because they could not explain many things but also because of their own incapabilities. As some humans become liberated from the mundane struggles of making ends meet, they become alienated and atheist/agnostic because of a garbled understanding of the Divine while many have crooked conception of the same. That is why, we have a multiple understandings of God and religion. The various religions as have evolved are nothing but spatio-temporal expressions of humans trying to come to terms with their initial realities when they were in the Hobbesian ‘State of Nature’.

            Religions, ethics, mores, customs and values in the absence of means of transportation and communications developed as the primary laws during the early days of human civilisation. Even though there is no need for existence of multiplicity of these religions now, they still continue to be relevant not only because they add variety and colour to our dull and drab life but also because of their functional role in securing regulation and integration of human society. Temples and churches in themselves may not be of any value, but they become important because they bring humans together to perform certain collective tasks in a spirit of solidarity, thereby increasing social bonding and integration.

            As all the persons who visit a temple are generally carrying righteous thoughts and uplifting emotions, the positive vibrations of these religious places become very powerful and as such become very strong centres of social integration. Our seemingly meaningless customs, rituals, ethics, mores and values often play the same role. However, those becoming dysfunctional and conflicting with human existence, slowly stop being part of religion and go out of currency e.g. ‘Sati’, prohibition on widow remarriage, child marriage, human or animal sacrifice et al.

            At another level, it is really deemed an expression of human arrogance or ignorance that we have conceived God in our image. After all, if there are millions of creatures and organisms, why should God look like humans and not like a dog, a buffalo or a bacterium? Does it mean that all the creatures have their own God? In fact, it is this understanding that Hindus, heathens or pagans have millions of God as they see divine in every creation of the Almighty. Being rational animal with a consciousness, human beings have conveniently cast God in their own images who may not be like us, but there should definitely be no doubt about His very existence.

            After all, such a complex and beautiful creation cannot emerge out of a chaos. There is a defined divine plan, rather a micro plan which says that nothing which happens in this world happens without a reason. Science may explain evolution of nature and civilisation, but why a sperm and an ovum combine to form a zygote and finally evolve as a fully-grown organism of a particular species as per a definite genetic map has still not been explained. Humans have still not mastered the capability to create a new living organism as not found in nature. Why different organisms come out of similar looking seeds or eggs has not been explained?

            And there are millions and billions of such intricate planning through the nature which has been done very methodically and all of this could not have evolved out of chaos. So, there is definitely a ‘Supreme Being’ which has created us all and has been quietly chaperoning this world. But as long as we don’t understand Him and His ways, as long as we don’t understand the real purpose behind the Divine Drama, we shall continue to witness and experience the chaos and pain in our own lives as are reflected across the world.

*The views expressed here are personal and don’t reflect those of the Government.

             

Quixotic Mistakes of Bimal Gurung

                                                                                    *Saumitra Mohan

            The winds of change are sweeping across the Darjeeling hills. History seems to have come a full circle for Mr. Bimal Gurung who seemed to be completely out of depth with the ground realities and popular mood in is bailiwick. The split in the GJMM (Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha) and the rising voices of dissent as reigning now are nothing but a damning indictment and reflection on his leadership style. The latter had been thoughtlessly hurting the interests of his own constituents and thereby his own by frequent resort to agitational politics.

            The Hill economy suffered badly as a result of his ‘antics and shenanigans’ to force Darjeeling people to live under the constant threat of an agitation. The confrontationist approach laced with almost daily dose of strikes, bandhs and agitations played ducks and drakes with the local economy. Such unthinking and hair-brained politics hugely hurt the principal pillars of Darjeeling’s economy including education, tea and tourism.

            Today, if people are up in arms against him and his ill-thought agitational politics, then only he is to blame for it. Today, Mr Gurung finds himself increasingly isolated and in wilderness. A society as educated and sophisticated as Darjeeling definitely does not deserve a leader like him who can’t feel the pulse of his own people and can’t marry the regional with the national interests. Gorkhaland is definitely an emotive issue for the people, but emotions should always be tempered and informed by realism to balance the local and larger interests. It is here that Mr. Gurung failed severely.

            Mr. Gurung ought to have focused on better development and governance in the immediate aftermath of a long-drawn movement which eventually resulted in the formation of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). It would have been very much advisable for Mr Gurung to consolidate on the gains made during the movement preceding the formation of GTA and for this a prolonged peace would have been in order. However, he never allowed the local economy to settle down.

            People had just come out of a long-drawn agitational politics and wanted a ‘prolonged peace’ to sustain and build on their life and livelihood. But Mr. Gurung never allowed a ‘movement-fatigued’ people the luxury of the same and kept the Damocles’ Sword of strikes and bandhs hanging over the people. But a garbled sense of politics and his own uninformed self led him into scuppering the very boat he was sailing in. Today, he is in splendid isolation and a declared offender for the inanities of repeated infraction of laws.

            Now, let's discuss some of the ideas Mr. Gurung chased to paint himself into the corner. The hill areas of Darjeeling (Gorkhaland movement is primarily confined to the three hill sub-divisions of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts of West Bengal district namely Darjeeling Sadar, Kurseong and Kalimpong) has a population of around 10 lakhs of which around seven lakhs people can roughly fall into the category of Gorkhas, the remaining being Lepchas, Bhutias, Marwaris, Biharis, Tibetans and other non-Gorkha communities. So, the proponents of this movement are actually seeking a separate state for these seven lakh people, the others perforce being part of the movement with no choice being available to them. In fact, the Lepchas have already been expressly complaining of being shortchanged by the Gorkhaland champions. The term 'Gorkhaland' itself is not a hold-all concept and ergo, does not do justice to the identities of the various other ethnic communities as residing in Darjeeling. 

            So, if a recognition were to be given to a statehood demand for a people of seven to nine lakh population, then how many constituent states or provinces should we be having in this country of over 130 crore people. If our mighty Gorkhas were to be given a separate state, then how many states are we actually bargaining for in a country where we have over 5000 ethnic communities and castes with around 850 languages. If this demand is recognized, then what justification shall we have to deny a state for the Yadavas, the Jats, the Rajputs, the  Santhals, the Meenas and what not, with most of them having a sizable population, in fact, many of them being much more numerous than the Gorkhas.

            In fact, there are already movements on for the formation of a Kamtapur (comprising areas of Assam and North Bengal) and Greater Cochbehar (comprising most of North Bengal) in West Bengal, Bodoland  and Karbi-Anglong in Assam,  Harit Pradesh, Bundelkhand and Purvanchal in Uttar Pradesh, Mithilanchal in Bihar, Vidarbha in Maharashtra and Saurashtra in Gujarat.

            Again, the demand for ceding the contiguous mouzas or areas with sizable Gorkha population attacks the very concept of pluralism which is the hallmark of our salad-bowl or Ganga-Jamuni co-existential culture. Mr. Gurung desires that all the nearby areas with substantial Nepali speaking population also be given to the proposed Gorkhaland state. Even if we ignore this most important factor of our societal pluralism being compromised as a result of such a parochial demand for a while, still such a demand is very difficult to be accepted for some practical considerations.

            First, this is plainly wrong to assume that all the Nepali speaking people are ipso facto Gorkhas or want Gorkhaland.  Secondly, most of the demanded areas have a predominant majority of the people other than the Nepali speaking population. Thirdly, even some of the areas where the Nepali speaking people are in majority are mostly enclaves within another district or other community dominated areas. Annexing these areas to the demanded Gorkhaland state is administratively not a feasible proposition as also observed by the Justice Shyamal Sen Commission which was constituted to explore the feasibility of such inclusions.

            Also, the Nepali speaking population in most of these mouzas is estimated to be not more than 20-30 per cent meaning thereby that by ceding such areas to the new entity, a great disservice shall be done to the desire of the other communities who are in majority in those mouzas. Besides, once we recognize such a demand, a Pandora's Box shall be opened. It not only jeopardizes the plural character of our society by artificially trying to make it monochromatic, but also opens the flood-gates for similar such demands from different parts of the country.

            After all, every state has some population of one or the other ethno-linguistic groups which can suitably be demanded by other states. By this logic, all the Bengali speaking areas of Assam should come to West Bengal or the Hindi speaking or tribal dominated areas of latter should go to Bihar or Jharkhand respectively. By the same logic, the entire Hindi heartland of North India should become a huge monolithic state. The resultant outcome of acceding to such a demand may indeed be very chaotic. It is a very archaic and regressive thinking which ought not to be given any further encouragement.

            Again, the alleged historical exploitation of Darjeeling by the state of West Bengal does not hold because Darjeeling has the best of social development indicators in the country and is definitely among the best in West Bengal. As per the West Bengal Human Development Report, 2004 prepared under the supervision of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Darjeeling was ranked 2^nd and 4^th in terms of the gender and human development indices respectively,  among all the districts of West Bengal.

            If underdevelopment and exploitation of Darjeeling can be cited as a justification for statehood, then Darjeeling ought to fall much behind in the queue for promotion to statehood as there are many more regions in the country which would have the first claim to statehood.  Be it the income, literacy rates, educational attainments, nutritional status, percentage of BPL (below poverty line) population, longevity, infant and maternal mortality, overall health status of people and infrastructures, Darjeeling fares much better compared to most parts of the country or the different districts of the state of West Bengal. Be it noted that Darjeeling has for the past more than three decades been under such autonomous local self-government bodies as Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) and GTA.

            But still, if the statehood proponents believe that Darjeeling needs more development, then statehood is definitely no solution. We are all well conversant with the experiences of some of the already existing states whose development record is just pathetic, to say the least. Jharkhand became a state against the same background of alleged underdevelopment, but even after a lapse of more than a decade's time, it is still much far off from realization of the developmental goals it set out to achieve way back in the year 2000. Jharkhand today fares very badly among the newly created states. The fact remains that the ilks of Mr. Gurung should actually be talking of good governance and good administration than anything else. A statehood trapping sans the desideratum of good governance will achieve nothing but zilch.

            Then, given its size, both demographically and geographically, Darjeeling already receives a disproportionate per capita share of resources compared to many other parts of the country. And a substantial share of these resources come from the state of West Bengal meaning thereby that West Bengal has traditionally been providing disproportionate resources to Darjeeling, often at the expense of the more backward and deserving areas of the state. The extant Gorkhaland Territorial Administration's revenue from all sources is assumed to be not more than three crores annually. If we also include the revenue received by the state government from such sources as land, excise, transport, professional and sales tax, then at most the figure is likely to go up to  around 30 crore rupees. At the most and at its best, tapping all the obtaining and potential sources of revenue, it can barely go up to 100 crore rupees annually in the most ideal of situations. In the shorter run, however, a 50 crore rupee annual revenue appears a more practical figure.

            Moreover, GTA reportedly has a non-plan expenditure of around 600 crores at the moment which with plan and schematic expenses would come to around 1400 crores. If at all the three hill sub-divisions become the cherished Gorkhaland state, the combined plan and non-plan expenditure is likely to shoot up to, at least, 2000 crores factoring the expenses for general and police administration, not to speak of various attendant expenses which come with the formation of a new state. So, if a region which has the best of developmental indicators and which has the revenue generation potential of only around 50-100 crore rupees, why should they be getting a disproportionate 2000 crores at the expense of the more deserving parts of the countries, particularly those areas of Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and other states reeling under extremist or other menace.

            Mr. Gurung should have done his homework better to show that Darjeeling is in a position to bear all the non-plan and, at least, a portion of the plan expenses of the proposed Gorkhaland state before demanding the same. If such a new entity expects to be spoon-fed through the Central government's doles, would not there be similar justified demands from different parts of the country. And if we allow this for one particular region, can we deny the same to others. We ought to understand that an eponymous Gorkhaland state is not just about emotional wishes of our countrymen in Darjeeling, but has much far-reaching insidious implications for the rest of the country as the same would only spur more and more such demands.

            If Telangana has today become a state, it is because of its geographical compactness, a suitable demographic size, administrative viability and self-sufficient resources. But the same does not apply to many such demands elsewhere including Gorkhaland. If all of us keep demanding statehood on such grounds, then our state-building process shall never come to an end, not to speak of the nation-building process. Mr. Gurung should have actually aimed at making the GTA work successfully, which came into being through a tripartite agreement between the Central Government, the Government of West Bengal and the dominant hill party i.e. Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) on 18th July, 2011. GTA is an autonomous and empowered body which can be suitably harnessed to fulfill the developmental aspirations of the local people, if development is what they are looking for.

            In an article published on 4^th August, 2012 in The Statesman, this author had strongly recommended that the GTA “should avoid the ‘Big Schemes-Big Projects’ focus of the erstwhile DGHC and should, instead, target such schemes and programmes, as have wider outreach and directly impact the quality of life of the hoi polloi,” an advice not heeded by Mr Gurung to his own chagrin, thereby bringing his comeuppance. It would be more in the fitness of things that GTA be afforded an opportunity to become the bellwether of Darjeeling’s development to ensure a peaceful and progressive life for our brothers and sisters there.

            Of all the things Darjeeling needs now utmost is a visionary and enlightened leadership which understands the needs and pulse of the local people to synergize the energies and interests of the motley interest groups in the hills to bring in better governance and development which would be in sync with the larger national interests. One would expect the incoming helmsmen of GTA to focus more on correcting the basics including repairing the damages done to the hill economy owing to recent ill-timed uprisings at the behest of Mr. Gurung. Well-planned development and good governance are the budge-words for Darjeeling and its new administrators. Entire country is waiting to see the Queen of the Hill smile.

*The author is a former District Magistrate of Darjeeling and presently working as CEO, KMDA. The views expressed here are personal and don’t reflect those of the Government.

Suicide Hobbles Our Spiritual Growth

                                                            *Saumitra Mohan 

       There has been a worrisome rise in the number of people living with depression in recent times. The latest WHO estimates peg it at 18% between 2005 and 2015. According to WHO studies, a person commits suicide every 40 seconds somewhere in the world. While most countries with high suicide rates are poor, there are also a surprising few, highly developed and rich nations which rank very high in this sad statistics.

         People of all backgrounds and age groups, howsoever educated and successful, have found one or the other reason to commit suicide. The reasons range from social, psychological, economic, religious, political, professional, personal to familial. Psychologists and Psychiatrists have worked hard to explain this phenomenon which pushes an individual to end one’s life prematurely. However, away from the mundane reasons as justifications for suicides, the spiritualists, metaphysicists and existentialists have strongly warned against a resort to the mental aberration called ‘suicide’.

          Recently, Mukesh Pandey, a young IAS officer and District Magistrate of Buxar, committed suicide on railway tracks. Having known the reason proffered for his own suicide through a video released by him, one was definitely not very happy because of his garbled and convoluted understanding of life. Mukesh cited family feud between his wife and parents as the instant reason for the extreme step taken by him.

        Against all the reasons advanced as justifications for suicide, the truth is no reason could ever be the right reason for an act like suicide. It is true that all of us are always beset with sundry troubles and difficulties but that definitely does not mean that we should unnaturally end our lives. The truth remains that most of us have harboured or often harbour suicidal thoughts at one or other point of our life because of multiple factors, but have not embraced it the way some people do including Mukesh.

         As they say, if life is pulling you back, it simply means that it is going to launch you into bigger things. All the good things in life have come through pains, sorrows, trials and tribulations. After all, there can be no oil if olives are not squeezed, no wine if grapes are not pressed and no perfume if flowers are not crushed. All our pains and pressures are nothing but God’s way of bringing out the best in us. But instead of appreciating the same, ending one’s life is an egregiously wrong way to approach it.

        Every difficult person, situation or pain that we experience in life is nothing but God’s way of testing and preparing us for bigger and better things in life. It’s all up to us whether we wish to pass or fail Almighty’s tests. Ergo, “If it’s not happening our way, it’s happening God’s way and He always knows better than us”. If we have felt any pain in life today, we should be sure of better things to come without allowing despondency and negativity to get within us to goad us to suicide. All the waters can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside it.

         Many of us unwittingly give or take humongous stress in life and this happens when we are too much attached to the outcomes than the process. Anything and everything that we see around ourselves is nothing but ‘Maya’, a big lie because of its transient and ephemeral nature. It is we who have created diverse assets, valorised them, and have since been running after them throughout our lives, without realising the idiocy of the same. Rousseau identified the ‘destructive influence of civilisation on human beings’ in his ‘Discourses on the Arts and Sciences’. But instead of seeing through God’s plan, we take our circumstances, our lives or ourselves too seriously and end up messing our and others’ lives without fathoming the true purpose for which we come to this world.

           Suicide is nothing but an ‘escapist’ approach to life’s problems as Mukesh himself identified. Religiously speaking, life’s problems are nothing, but part of a larger divine plan to help our spiritual progression. We often forget that we live in a mortal, imperfect world and we are all here because we, too, are imperfect. If we want to live amongst perfect, infallible people, we should go the other world. However, there is no guarantee of the same because there is no authentic proof to corroborate the existence of the ‘Other World’. Even if it is true, we may face worse souls there because not necessarily we would end up in chaemirical ‘Heaven’.

          Suicide motivated by dark passions, evil intentions, ignorance and emotional delusions is misuse of the autonomy and opportunity bestowed by God on human beings to perform their duties and work towards their liberation. Therefore, it is an evil act and a very bad ‘Karma’. The human birth entails certain duties and obligations towards oneself, others and Gods. When a person commits suicide, such duties remain unattended. This is a gross negligence of obligatory duties, which, in several religions, is considered bad ‘Karma’ having consequences not only for the individuals responsible, but also for those who may be impacted by such actions.

          According to some religions, if a person commits suicide, he neither goes to the hell nor the heaven, but remains trapped in the earth consciousness as a ‘bad spirit’ and wanders aimlessly until s/he completes her/his expected span of life upon earth. Thereafter, s/he goes to hell and suffers more severely. In the end, s/he returns to the earth again to complete her/his previous karma and start from there once again. Suicide puts an individuals’ spiritual clock in reverse.

         Most of the time, it’s not the problem but our approach, attitude and reaction which make us different and stronger souls than others. As per Spiritual Science Research Foundation, we are cursed to keep visiting this temporal world until we learn our lessons and become perfect to finally unite with the ‘Supreme Being’. So, by ending life through suicide or by dying with unresolved emotions and unfulfilled worldly tasks and desires, we only spoil our ‘Karma’ and multiply our ‘Give and Take’ account thereby further complicating and delaying our final deliverance or ‘Nirvana’ from the ‘Cycle of Birth and Death’.

         Accordingly, life’s struggles are nothing but celestial ordeals/tests we are supposed to face and pass to move to higher level tests to finally break away from the ‘Cycle of Birth and Death’ otherwise we shall have to keep coming back to pass the test we have tried to escape through suicide or other escapist measures like renunciation. So, Mukesh shall have to reincarnate to undergo his unresolved emotions, unfulfilled responsibilities and unexperienced relations with the same set of people he has tried to escape. His tests and trials may be tougher this time.

          How we face and approach life’s troubles and difficulties depend on the level of the evolution of our souls. Most of the people, who conduct erroneously or hurt others to get around life, do so because of their attenuated spiritual evolution and poor comprehension of divine design. As these difficult people and situations are God’s ways to test our spiritual strength, we should tackle them calmly with an eye to pass our tests to move to a higher spiritual plane.

          So, we should not only try to pass the multiple tests (depending on our level of spiritual evolution and past Karma) successfully, we should also help our fellow human beings to pass them with us, as that further uplifts our souls and helps in our eventual ‘Nirvana’. There shall always be unreciprocated ‘goodwill’ and ‘good deeds’, but those are due to variations of spiritual attainments. By conducting wrongly with wrong people, we only stoop to their level. However, a delicate balancing is warranted to do justice to the assigned duties of one’s station without compromising ethical and spiritual requisites.

         

Suicide Hobbles Our Spiritual Evolution

                                                                   *Saumitra Mohan 

       There has been a worrisome rise in the number of people living with depression in recent times. The latest WHO estimates peg it at 18% between 2005 and 2015. According to WHO studies, a person commits suicide every 40 seconds somewhere in the world. While most countries with high suicide rates are poor, there are also a surprising few, highly developed and rich nations which rank very high in this sad statistics.

         People of all backgrounds and age groups, howsoever educated and successful, have found one or the other reason to commit suicide. The reasons range from social, psychological, economic, religious, political, professional, personal to familial. Psychologists and Psychiatrists have worked hard to explain this phenomenon which pushes an individual to end one’s life prematurely. However, away from the mundane reasons as justifications for suicides, the spiritualists, metaphysicists and existentialists have strongly warned against a resort to the mental aberration called ‘suicide’.

          Recently, Mukesh Pandey, a young IAS officer and District Magistrate of Buxar, committed suicide on railway tracks. Having known the reason proffered for his own suicide through a video released by him, one was definitely not very happy because of his garbled and convoluted understanding of life. Mukesh cited family feud between his wife and parents as the instant reason for the extreme step taken by him.

        Against all the reasons advanced as justifications for suicide, the truth is no reason could ever be the right reason for an act like suicide. It is true that all of us are always beset with sundry troubles and difficulties but that definitely does not mean that we should unnaturally end our lives. The truth remains that most of us have harboured or often harbour suicidal thoughts at one or other point of our life because of multiple factors, but have not embraced it the way some people do including Mukesh.

         As they say, if life is pulling you back, it simply means that it is going to launch you into bigger things. All the good things in life have come through pains, sorrows, trials and tribulations. After all, there can be no oil if olives are not squeezed, no wine if grapes are not pressed and no perfume if flowers are not crushed. All our pains and pressures are nothing but God’s way of bringing out the best in us. But instead of appreciating the same, ending one’s life is an egregiously wrong way to approach it.

        Every difficult person, situation or pain that we experience in life is nothing but God’s way of testing and preparing us for bigger and better things in life. It’s all up to us whether we wish to pass or fail Almighty’s tests. Ergo, “If it’s not happening our way, it’s happening God’s way and He always knows better than us”. If we have felt any pain in life today, we should be sure of better things to come without allowing despondency and negativity to get within us to goad us to suicide. All the waters can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside it.

         Many of us unwittingly give or take humongous stress in life and this happens when we are too much attached to the outcomes than the process. Anything and everything that we see around ourselves is nothing but ‘Maya’, a big lie because of its transient and ephemeral nature. It is we who have created diverse assets, valorised them, and have since been running after them throughout our lives, without realising the idiocy of the same. Rousseau identified the ‘destructive influence of civilisation on human beings’ in his ‘Discourses on the Arts and Sciences’. But instead of seeing through God’s plan, we take our circumstances, our lives or ourselves too seriously and end up messing our and others’ lives without fathoming the true purpose for which we come to this world.

           Suicide is nothing but an ‘escapist’ approach to life’s problems as Mukesh himself identified. Religiously speaking, life’s problems are nothing, but part of a larger divine plan to help our spiritual progression. We often forget that we live in a mortal, imperfect world and we are all here because we, too, are imperfect. If we want to live amongst perfect, infallible people, we should go the other world. However, there is no guarantee of the same because there is no authentic proof to corroborate the existence of the ‘Other World’. Even if it is true, we may face worse souls there because not necessarily we would end up in chaemirical ‘Heaven’.

          Suicide motivated by dark passions, evil intentions, ignorance and emotional delusions is misuse of the autonomy and opportunity bestowed by God on human beings to perform their duties and work towards their liberation. Therefore, it is an evil act and a very bad ‘Karma’. The human birth entails certain duties and obligations towards oneself, others and Gods. When a person commits suicide, such duties remain unattended. This is a gross negligence of obligatory duties, which, in several religions, is considered bad ‘Karma’ having consequences not only for the individuals responsible, but also for those who may be impacted by such actions.

          According to some religions, if a person commits suicide, he neither goes to the hell nor the heaven, but remains trapped in the earth consciousness as a ‘bad spirit’ and wanders aimlessly until s/he completes her/his expected span of life upon earth. Thereafter, s/he goes to hell and suffers more severely. In the end, s/he returns to the earth again to complete her/his previous karma and start from there once again. Suicide puts an individuals’ spiritual clock in reverse.

         Most of the time, it’s not the problem but our approach, attitude and reaction which make us different and stronger souls than others. As per Spiritual Science Research Foundation, we are cursed to keep visiting this temporal world until we learn our lessons and become perfect to finally unite with the ‘Supreme Being’. So, by ending life through suicide or by dying with unresolved emotions and unfulfilled worldly tasks and desires, we only spoil our ‘Karma’ and multiply our ‘Give and Take’ account thereby further complicating and delaying our final deliverance or ‘Nirvana’ from the ‘Cycle of Birth and Death’.

         Accordingly, life’s struggles are nothing but celestial ordeals/tests we are supposed to face and pass to move to higher level tests to finally break away from the ‘Cycle of Birth and Death’ otherwise we shall have to keep coming back to pass the test we have tried to escape through suicide or other escapist measures like renunciation. So, Mukesh shall have to reincarnate to undergo his unresolved emotions, unfulfilled responsibilities and unexperienced relations with the same set of people he has tried to escape. His tests and trials may be tougher this time.

          How we face and approach life’s troubles and difficulties depend on the level of the evolution of our souls. Most of the people, who conduct erroneously or hurt others to get around life, do so because of their attenuated spiritual evolution and poor comprehension of divine design. As these difficult people and situations are God’s ways to test our spiritual strength, we should tackle them calmly with an eye to pass our tests to move to a higher spiritual plane.

          So, we should not only try to pass the multiple tests (depending on our level of spiritual evolution and past Karma) successfully, we should also help our fellow human beings to pass them with us, as that further uplifts our souls and helps in our eventual ‘Nirvana’. There shall always be unreciprocated ‘goodwill’ and ‘good deeds’, but those are due to variations of spiritual attainments. By conducting wrongly with wrong people, we only stoop to their level. However, a delicate balancing is warranted to do justice to the assigned duties of one’s station without compromising ethical and spiritual requisites.

         

The Retreat of Liberal Democracy

                                                          *Saumitra Mohan

The world seems to be moving increasingly backward with the march of time much to the chagrin of all Panglossian expectations of the humanitarian values bringing about an eclectic, cosmopolitan and catholic human society. The incursions of regressive and retrograde forces on liberal-democratic ethos of our times are more stark and insidious today than ever before.

            When the Berlin War came down in September, 1990 or when the former USSR disintegrated, people like Francis Fukuyama had vainly proclaimed ‘end of history’ with the battle of ideology having putatively been won by the liberal-democratic forces. But it was around the same time that there were prophets of doom like Samuel Huntington who warned of an impending ‘clash of civilisations’ looming large on the horizon because of potential clashes along the cultural fault lines. However, the latter was excoriated as the gusts of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG) were sweeping the world off its feet. Who thought that the tide would turn soon to make Huntington sound prophetic today?

            If we look around ourselves, something appears to be really putrid about the time we live in. The negativities in thinking and action coupled with sinister developments all around us quite often repulse and disgust us. While we should have constructively occupied ourselves with resolution of our multifarious developmental problems, the societal discourse seems to have got stuck in a vicious time-warp. The insular and reactionary forces are running amok prescribing gastronomical and cultural norms, both nationally and internationally. The ascendancy and appeal of chauvinistic forces at the expense of liberalism, as reflected in their swagger on the world ramp, are staggering and somehow reveal the cerebral atrophy of this era.

            There have been multiple developments in recent time which prove that we, as a society, still have not resolved our existential dilemmas. This often compromises and impinges on the normative narratives which have all along defined and delineated the hoary Indian civilisation. The same holds true for many nation states across the world. The seemingly ‘innocuous’ cultural and intellectual excesses of fellow human beings often cross the boundaries to start interfering with the fundamental niceties of corporate living.

Here, an attempt to build a monolithic straitjacketed social order is made by conversion of the ‘salad bowl’ into a ‘melting pot’ in the garb of ‘Swadeshi’ and ‘Nationalism’. And when this happens, Goebbelian lies and cultural McCarthism become rampant. A cultural conformism is sought to be imposed through intimidation and violence. Real issues facing the society go to backburner and sensationalist emotional subjects overpower the hoi polloi with a dash of jingoist fervour and deemed cultural nationalism. Instead of endeavouring to build a strong, well-knit futuristic society, we have started chasing an anachronistic chimera and creating Frankenstein which may eventually devour this civilisational entity.

So, the self-proclaimed cultural custodians, by their diktats and fiats, not only deprive millions of their livelihood but also take off the menu millions’ preferred food by proscribing and tabooing beef. This they do without realising the economics of the move and by alienating a significant section of our citizenry. In fact, by throwing millions into unemployment, a huge section of the populace gets disaffected and is a sitting duck to the preying revisionist forces. What one fails to fathom is the limit of such inanity. If beef is banned because the same is taboo in Hinduism or for various benefits it brings to the society, what about sundry other non-vegetarian diets which are still not banned and consumption whereof may hurt the sensibilities of million others. When this country is failing and flailing in macro-managing its larger interests, we are trying to micromanage things which are better left to the citizens.

            It is notable that India not only loses billions of dollars because of the measure, but also creates further liabilities of maintaining the unproductive cattle which have to be cared for and for which we have no adequate resources or fodder available. The culture vultures, encouraged by a section of powers that be, have found ready excuses to take law in their hands because they suspect someone of dealing in or consuming the prohibited victuals, thereby compromising the fundamental right to life and liberty of common citizens as enshrined in our Constitution.

            The ‘Love Jihad’ and ‘Ghar Wapasi’ are other inanities which are masquerading in the name of cultural vigilantism. You are no longer allowed to go out or seen with the love of your life in certain parts of this country. It is really ironical that people have serious objections to people displaying their affection in public, but look the other way if people indulge in affray, rioting or battery of fellow citizens. Be it banning books, films, liquor, Pakistani artistes and players, we love the ‘B’ word without realising the irrationality of the same in this world of free information and communication signified by World Wide Web.

It is these nefarious attitudes and thoughts that are reflected globally in the rise of Donald Trump, rise of entities like Taliban, Al Qaida and ISIS, terror attacks in London, Paris, and elsewhere, killing of liberal writers and scribes, revisionist and irredentist Chinese incursions on neighbouring countries, Grexit, Brexit or ban on Muslims or Visa cuts for emigrant workers by countries like the US and Australia. If we revel in ‘Swadeshi’ and would like to ‘Make in India’, others would do a reactive tit for our ‘nationalist’ tat. The ‘Quit India’ calls for Sonu Nigam, Sharukh Khan, Kanhaiya Kumar, Aamir Khan or Khusbu are reflections of intolerance swaying this country these days. People are sought to be crucified for being vocal and expressing their opinion. Media is sought to toe the dominant line.

As Voltaire rightly said, “I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. The opinions expressed may be wrong, but expressions of the same make the truth appear brighter. Beheading threats for Kerala and West Bengal CMs, banning late night parties in Goa, attempts to ban dance bars, face-blackening or throwing shoes at people ‘we don’t like’ are some other instances of growing intolerance in the country. What is surprising is that while we have time for attending to such non-issues to reclaim our cultural pride, we find ourselves at our wits end when our soldiers are cursed, abused or manhandled in Kashmir or when they are lacerated by enemies?

            Balkanisation of countries has happened in the past because people have tried to impose one culture or way of life over other. Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo, Indonesia and many other countries divided simply because they could not value the plural sub-nationalities existing in these countries. If India has so far succeeded in pulling along in once piece, it is simply because our forefathers essayed to build Indian nationhood in a spirit of consociationalism. Consociationalism is a form of democracy which seeks to regulate the sharing of power in a state that comprises diverse societies by allocating these groups collective rights.

            It is by respective our pluralism and multi-culturalism that we have pulled off the impossibility of building a successful model of a mind-bogglingly diverse society as India. Slowly but steadily, we have been progressing from being a state-nation, a geographical congregation of a motley princely states, in 1947 to a nation-state with strong liberal democratic traditions and foundations. If we don’t soon resolve these contradictions, we shall only be self-destructing ourselves as the mythical ‘Bhasmasur’ did to himself. Whether we shall survive in one piece as a country would greatly depend on how effectively and swiftly we resolve these existential dilemmas and contradictions.

*The views expressed here are personal and don’t reflect those of the Government.

           

           

             

Regulating Our Food Habits

*Saumitra Mohan

          Amidst all the negativity, gloom and doom centring around multiple incursions on libertarian values of a painstakingly built plural democratic society in this country, there is something very positive one came across the other day. This relates to a purported move by the Union Ministry for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution to regulate the amount of food to be served by different restaurants and hotels to their individual customers to prevent potential wastage of food.

          The Hon’ble Minister also supposedly questioned the large portions of food served to each person which often results in unwarranted wastage. A section of critics has questioned the proposition as an infringement of personal liberties of citizens as it is not practically possible for anyone to fix up a uniform regime for all classes of citizens as dietary needs vary from individual to individual. Critics have argued against the government’s quantitative food prescription for every individual.

          While there is definitely some merit in this criticism about imposition of dietary uniformity across the country in our eateries and restaurants, the spirit behind the move is definitely admirable. The move requires further debates and discussion for converting the same into implementable law backed by supportive rules. One really finds it outrageous when one glimpses piles of leftover food on used plates in various restaurants, eateries and hotels. The people often order more than they can consume and end up wasting food unwittingly. Huge food has also been noticed to have been wasted in various marriage ceremonies, festivals, parties and other occasions in our country.

          Such food wastage borders on criminal wastage of national resources in a country where millions still have difficulty getting two squares of meals or in a world where millions go hungry every day. The money we waste may be ours, but the resources belong to the whole humanity and we certainly have no right to waste food, howsoever, moneyed we may be.

          It is notable here that there are many countries across the world which have actually put in place strong mechanism against such intentional or incidental food wastage. Such progressive countries inter alia include France, Germany and Switzerland. It is notable that in Germany, the customers in restaurants and hotels are fined one to two Euro if they don’t polish off the food on their plates as part of its ‘eat up or pay up’ policy.

The system was put in place after the customers were found to overload their plates during the buffet meals which come against a fixed price. Customers were found to be conducting themselves irresponsibly after they had paid up the buffet charges by piling their plates with us much food as possible, often beyond their eating capacity. The idea of ‘penalty’ was put in place to make people order or take only as much food as they could consume.

          In another example, people can eat to their heart by paying up a fixed price in Switzerland. However, none is allowed there to waste food by leaving large leftovers on their plates. If anyone is noticed doing that, they are to be charged additional five Francs as a fine. Accordingly, the eateries in Switzerland add five extra Francs to the customer’s bill if he/she does not finish everything on the plate. The symbolic penalty is levied to discourage people from wasting food. It is notable that two million tons of ‘good food’ is wasted every year in Switzerland.

In a yet another positive development in this direction, France recently passed a new law that requires large grocery stores to donate all unused but still edible food to various charitable organisations operational in that country. All the large market chains, malls and stores are required to do an advance planning to this effect by signing formal agreements with various charities with regards to deemed donation and use of unused, but ‘safe-to-eat’ food.

As per this new French legislation, any food that was packed wrong, damaged or is past the expiration date but is still safe to consume must be donated. The law has prescribed specific penalties for stores that fail to follow the government directions and deliberately spoil unsold food thereby pre-empting their consumption by the needy.

          It is noted with concern that there are many rich countries across the world where huge amount of ‘fit-to-be-consumed’ food is wasted every year. As per a 2014 report, 133 billion pounds of food i.e. 10 per cent of its total consumption are thrown away each year in the US. According to a recent report, India loses 21 million tonnes of wheat every year owing to lack of suitable infrastructure and food storage facilities including refrigerated transport, poor roads, inclement weather and corrupt practices. According to another estimate, food grains worth 60,000 crores are lost every year in this country.

India has the world’s largest public distribution system operational with an estimated food subsidy bill around Rs. 1.35 lakh crores and we procure about 62 million tonnes of food-grain every year to meet our national food security requirements. It is against this background that the idea to penalise food wastage is worth commendation and needs to be pursued in right earnest. Our food Security Bill may not have any provision to penalise wastage of food or it may not cast any obligation on the government in power to ensure that the people in charge should be held accountable for their failure to protect food-grain, but we should definitely start thinking about the same seriously.

In a country like India we can ill afford to allow criminal wastage of food by people howsoever resourceful they may be. Having resources at our disposal does not allow us to criminally waste food at the expense of millions who don’t have access to the same. Food security for all will not come only by improving access by providing subsidized food to everyone, but will also be ensured by checking irresponsible behaviour on the part of our citizens who need to inculcate some ‘table manner’ including habit of valuing our precious food.

While we already have a well laid-out protocol against any food wastage in the various FCI go-downs, however the same needs to be implemented suitably to ward against any food wastage including construction and creation of the requisite food storage space across the country as has been done in West Bengal recently. However, instead of quantitative prescription of food for individuals, one feels, a la Germany and Switzerland, we should also have provisions in the proposed law to proscribe any food wastage in this country in any form, be it in a restaurant, eatery or a hotel. This is an idea whose time definitely has come.

It has been suggested that if everyone on the planet consumed as much as the average US citizen, four Earths would be needed to sustain them. While we definitely need not try to keep up with the Joneses, the arrogance of mammon has to be reined in if we really wish to have a sustainable development and save this planet for our posterity. This small initiative to be implemented in due consultation with all relevant stakeholders, as rightly mooted, shall definitely go a long way in reinforcing our food security effort.

*The views expressed here are personal and don’t reflect those of the Government.