Markandey Katju: What is India?

Markandey Katju Dec 5, 2011, 06.53PM IST Tags:

Press Council of India| Justice Markandey Katju| Jawaharlal Nehru University

The following is the text of a speech delivered by Justice Markandey Katju, chairman of the Press Council of India, at Jawaharlal Nehru University on November 14, 2011. Friends, I am deeply honoured to be invited to speak before all of you. My time is limited, as I was told I should speak for 30 minutes and after that there will be a question answer session. As my main speech will be restricted to 30 minutes, I may come to the topic of discussion immediately, that is, What is India? I will present before you five thesis for your consideration.

(i) India is broadly a country of immigrants like North America. Over 92% people living in India are not the original inhabitants of India. Their ancestors came from outside, mainly from the North West. (ii) Because India is a country of immigrants like North America there is tremendous diversity in India - so many religions, castes, languages, ethnic groups etc. (iii) Despite the tremendous diversity in India, by the interaction and intermingling of these immigrants who came into India a common culture emerged in India which can broadly be called the Sanskrit-Urdu culture, which is broadly the culture of India. (iv) Because of the tremendous diversity in India the only policy which can work and hold our country together is secularism and giving equal respect to all communities, otherwise our country cannot survive for one day. (v) India is passing through a transitional period, transition from feudal agricultural society to modern Industrial society. This is a very painful and agonizing period in history. If you read the history of Europe from the 16th to 19th Centuries you will find that this was a horrible period in Europe. Only after going through that fire, in which there were wars, revolutions, turmoil, intellectual ferment, chaos, social churning, etc., modern society emerged in Europe. India is presently going through that fire. We are going through a very painful and agonizing period in our history which I think will last for around another 20 years. I may now briefly elaborate these theses.

(1) India is broadly a country of immigrants, like North America.The difference between North America and India is that North America is a country of new immigrants, where people came mainly from Europe over the last four to five hundred years, India is a country of old immigrants where people have been coming in for 10 thousand years or so. Why have people been coming into India? Very few people left India, except on two occasions namely (i) in the 19th century when under British rule Indian poor peasants were sent to Fiji, Mauritius, West Indies, etc. as plantation labourers and (ii) the Diaspora for the last 30-40 years or so of highly qualified engineers, scientists, doctors, etc. Apart from this, nobody left India, everybody came into India. Why? The reason is obvious. People migrate from uncomfortable areas to comfortable areas, obviously, because everybody wants comfort. Before the Industrial Revolution which started in Western Europe from the 18th century and then spread all over the world there were agricultural societies everywhere. Now what does agriculture require? It requires level land, fertile soil, plenty of water for irrigation, etc. All this was in abundance in the Indian sub continent. If you go from Rawalpindi to Bangladesh and to the deep South upto Kanyakumari, everywhere you will find level land, fertile soil, plenty of rivers, forests, etc. You scatter some seeds and there is a bumper harvest. Why will anybody migrate from India to, say, Afghanistan which is cold, rocky and uncomfortable. If you have seen Afghanistan on your television screen it looks like a desert covered with snow for four to five months in a year. I have never seen snow falling in my life. I0 don't know what a snowfall looks like. For agricultural society India was really paradise, hence everybody kept rolling into India, mainly from the North West and to a much lesser extent from the North East. Who were the original inhabitants of India? At one time it was believed that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants, but now that theory has been disproved. Now, it is believed that even the Dravidians came from outside. There are several proofs of that, one of which is that there is a Dravidian language called Brahui which is spoken in Western Pakistan even today by about three million people. The original inhabitants of India, as it is believed now, were the pre-Dravidians tribal, who are called adivasis or Scheduled Tribes in India e.g. the Bhils, the Santhals, the Gonds, the Todas, etc., that is, the speakers of the Austric, pre Dravidian languages e.g. Munda, Gondvi, etc. They are hardly seven or eight percent of the Indian population today. They were pushed into the forests by the immigrants and treated very badly. Except for them all of us are descendents of immigrants who came mainly from the North West of India. (See in this connection the article `Kalidas Ghalib Academy for Mutual Understanding' on the website kgfindia.com.) (2) Because India is a country of immigrants there is tremendous diversity in India so many religions, castes, languages, ethnic groups, etc. Somebody is tall, somebody is short, somebody is fair, somebody is dark, somebody is brown, with all kinds of shades in between, someone has got Mongoloid features, someone has got Caucasian features, someone has got Negroid features, there are differences in food habits, dress, traditional festivals, etc. We may compare India with China. Our population is about 1200 million while China has about 1300 million and they have perhaps 2 times our land area. However, there is broad (though not absolute) homogeneity in China. All Chineese have Mongoloid faces, they have one common written script called Mandarin Chinese (although spoken dialects are different), and 95% Chinese belong to one

ethnic group called the Han Chinese. So there is broad homogeneity in China. In India, on the other hand, there is tremendous diversity, because whichever group of immigrants came into India brought in their own culture, their religion, their language etc.

(3) Is India a nation at all, or is it just a group of hundreds of kinds of immigrants? Is there anything common in India? The answer is that the immigrants who came into India over the last 10 thousand years or so, by their interaction and intermingling created a common culture which can broadly be called the Sanskrit- Urdu culture. This is our culture. Now this has to be explained because some people asked me when I put forward this thesis how do you say this is the culture of India? How are Tamilians part of Sanskrit Urdu culture, what have the people of Nagaland got to do with Sanskrit and Urdu, etc. The answer is that you must first understand what is Sanskrit and what is Urdu? I will take a little time to explain this, but details can be seen in my articles on the website kgfindia.com under the titles `What is Urdu', `Great injustice to Urdu in India', `Sanskrit as a Language of Science', etc. Both of these languages have been misunderstood. People think that Sanskrit is a language of chanting mantras in temples or in religious ceremonies. However, that is only 5% of Sanskrit literature. 95% of Sanskrit literature has nothing to do with religion. It deals with a whole range of subjects like philosophy, law, science (including mathematics, medicine and astronomy) grammar, phonetics and literature. So you can not compare Bengali and Tamil with Sanskrit. Bengali and Tamil have only stories, novels and moral literature (like Thirukkural) but they do not have any discussion on mathematics, law, medicine, etc. Sanskrit was the language of people with an enquiring mind, who enquired about everything, and therefore there is a whole range of subjects which have been discussed in Sanskrit. In the paper on the website kgfindia.com `Sanskrit as a Language of Science' all this has been discussed in detail, therefore, I am not going into great detail here. I may, however, just mention two things: one is the contribution of Panini and the other is the contribution of the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy. Sanskrit is not just one language there are many Sanskrits. What we call Sanskrit today, and what is taught in schools and colleges is really Panini's Sanskrit, which is called classical Sanskrit or Laukik Sanskrit. But there were earlier Sanskrits. The earliest Sanskrit book is the Rigveda which was composed anytime between 2000 or 1500 B.C (it was subsequently passed on orally). Now language changes with the passage of time. For instance if we pick up a play of Shakespeare we will not be able to understand it without a good commentary because the English language has changed over these 4 centuries since the time of Shakespeare. Many of the words and expressions which were in vogue in Shakespeare's time in English are not in vogue today. Similarly, Sanskrit language kept changing for about 1500 years, from 2000 B.C. to the 5th century B.C., until Panini who, was the perhaps greatest grammarian the world has ever seen, in his book 'Ashtadhyayi' fixed the rules of Sanskrit in the 5th century B.C. Thereafter no further changes in Sanskrit were permitted, except some slight changes made by two other grammarians, one was a man called Katyayana who wrote his book "Vartika' written about 100200 years after Panini, and another was Patanjali who wrote his book 'Mahabhashya' about 200 years after Katyayana. Except for these slight changes, what is taught in schools and colleges is really Panini's Sanskrit.

What Panini did was that he studied the crude Sanskrit prevailing in his time and he rationalized it and meticulously systemized it, so as to make it a powerful vehicle of expressing profound and abstract ideas with great precision. Science requires precision. Panini made Sanskrit a powerful vehicle in which scientific ideas could be expressed with great precision and with great clarity and it was made uniform all over India, so that thinkers in one part of the sub-continent could interact with thinkers of another part easily. That was his great contribution. I will give you one small illustration, since a lecture on Astadhyayi will take too much time. Take for example the alphabets in the English language, from A to Z. Now they have all been arranged in a haphazard manner. Why is B followed by C, why is D followed by E. There is no reason why F comes after E, why P is followed by Q or Q is followed by R. There is nor reason at all in this arrangement of the alphabets, which are jumbled up haphazardly. In Sanskrit, on the other hand what Panini did was that he arranged the alphabets in a very scientific manner. For example, take the consonants. There is a sequence ka, kha, ga, gha, nga (called the `ka varga') which you must have heard of. Now all these sounds come from the throat. Also the second and the fourth consonants in this sequence are what are known as aspirants. An aspirants means a consonant in which 'ha' is added. For instance, 'ka' + 'ha' is 'kha' 'ga' + 'ha' is 'gha', etc. Similarly, the second and fourth consonants in every sequence (of 5 consonants) is an aspirant. The sounds in the second sequence of 5 consonants (the `cha varga') ch, cha, ja, jha, yan all come from the middle of the tongue. The sounds in the `ta varga' Ta, tha, da, dha, nda come from the roof of the mouth, the sounds in the sequence ta, tha, da, dha, na come from the tip of the tongue, the sounds in the sequence pa, pha, ba, bha, ma come from the lips. We can see how scientifically these consonants are arranged. Thus even in such a simple thing as the arrangement of alphabets a careful and scientific study was done. Panini made Sanskrit a powerful vehicle of expressing profound ideas in a very concise and exact manner, as is required in science. The second contribution of Sanskrit to the development of rational and scientific thinking was the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy. I do not know how many of you are students of Indian philosophy, but I may tell you very briefly that there are six classical systems of Indian philosophy, Nyaya, Vaisheshik, Sankya, Yoga, Purva Mimansa and Uttar Mimansa, and three non-classical systems, Buddhism, Jainism and Charvak. Out of these nine systems eight of them are atheistic as there is no place for God in them. Only the ninth one, that is Uttar Mimansa, which is also called Vedanta, has a place for God in it. One of the classical systems is called the Nyaya system. The Nyaya system says that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience, which is precisely the scientific approach. Vaisheshik was part the physics of ancient times (the atomic or parmanu theory). Physics is part of science, and hence at one time Vaisheshik was part of Nyaya philosophy. However, since physics is the most fundamental of all sciences subsequently Vaisheshik was separated from Nyaya and made into a separate philosophy altogether.

It was the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy which provided the scientific background and gave great encouragement to our scientists to propound their scientific theories. People in our country were not persecuted for being scientists, unlike in Europe where scientists were burnt on the stake like Bruno for propounding their his scientific theories. Galileo was almost burnt on the stake, and he narrowly escaped by recanting his views. As recent as in 1925 in America a teacher John Scopes was criminally prosecuted in the famous (or infamous) monkey trial for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution because it was against the Bible. This never happened in our country because behind science was a scientific philosophy, that is the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy, which says that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience.

I want to tell you about the scientific achievements of our ancestors. But before doing so let me tell you that a lot of people talk non-sense that in ancient India there were atom bombs, guided missiles, etc. This is all non-sense, and you make a laughing stock of yourselves by talking like this. Some people say that we had aeroplanes in ancient India, because in the Ramayana it is mentioned that Lord Ram brought Sita back from Lanka on a Pushpak Viman. They conclude from this that there were aeroplanes in ancient India. Everyone, including children, know that the first aeroplane was invented by the Wright brothers in America in 1903. so it is total nonsense to say that we had aeroplanes in ancient India. Now it is true that in the Ramayana there is mention of PushpakViman. But what is the Ramayana? It is an epic poem. A poet has what is called poetic licence. That means that he has a right to exaggerate. So we should not take words in a poem literally. If there were aeroplanes in ancient India then that means there were engines. Then why did the ancient warriors fight on chariots, horses and elephants, they should have fought in tanks. This kind of talk is all nonsense, and we make a laughing stock of ourselves by talking like this. The real great achievements of our ancestors most people are totally unaware of, and instead they talk such nonsense. At one time we were leading the whole world in science and technology. I may give you a few illustrations. The ancient Romans who built a very great civilization, the civilization of Ceasar and Augustus, and were the cultural ancestors of the Europeans, felt very uncomfortable with numbers above one thousand. This is because they expressed their numbers in alphabets. One was I, five was V, ten was X, fifty was L, hundred was 100, five hundred was D and 1000 was M. 'M' stands for millennium or one thousand. There was nothing above 'M'. So if the ancient Romans wanted to write 2000 they had to write MM, if they wanted to write 3000 they wrote MMM, etc. To write one million they would have to write M one thousand times, as that was the only way they could express one million. On the other hand, our ancestors had invented the concept of zero. You see these numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 do not really exists, what exists is one table, two chairs, three men, etc. These have existence in the objective universe. One, two, three, four has no existence in the objective universe, they are pure abstractions. And the concept of zero required a further flight of imagination which Europeans could never achieve. The Arabs borrowed it from

us and the Europeans borrowed it from the Arabs. So we could express numbers in astronomical terms. For example, one thousand requires 1 with three zeros, add two more zeros it becomes one Lakh, add two more zeros it becomes 1 Crore, two more zeros one Arab, two more zeros one Kharab, two more zeros one Padma, two more zeros one Neel, two more zeros one Shankh, two more zeros one Mahasankh, etc. Each one of these large numbers have names. On the other hand, the ancient Romans felt very uncomfortable after one thousand, as already stated. They had difficulty in expressing large numbers. At one time the numbers in the decimal system were called Arabic numerals. The Europeans called them Arabic numerals, but the Arabs called them Hindu numerals. The question is whether they were Arab numerals or Hindu numerals? Now these languages Arabic, Persian and Urdu are written from right to left, but if you ask any writer of these languages to write any number randomly say 253 or 1045 he will write it from left to right. What does it indicate? It indicates that these numbers were taken from a language which was written from left to right, and now it is accepted that the decimal system was invented by Indians who could conceive very high numbers unlike the Romans. For example, it is believed that Kaliyug in which we are living, has 4,32,000 years according to the Vishnu Puran. The yug (age) before Kaliyug was Dwapar yug, in which Lord Krishna lived. That is twice as long as Kaliyug, therefore it is of 8,64,000 years. Before that there was Treta yug in which Lord Ram lived. It was thrice as long as Kaliyug. And before that there was Satyug which is four times as long as Kaliyug. One Kaliyug + one Dawapar Yug + one Treta Yug + on Satyug is known as one Chaturyugi, and one Chaturyugi is hence ten times long as one Kaliyug (1+2+3+4=10). That means one Chaturygi is 43,20,000 years long. 72 Chaturyugi make one Manwantra. Fourteen Manwantras make one Kalp, and 12 Kalps make one day of Brahma. Brahma is said to have lived for trillions of years.

When our traditional Hindus do their sankalp everyday they have to mention the particular day, the yug, the chaturyugi, the Manvantara and the kalp, and the date changes daily. For instance, it is believed that we are living in the Vaivasusat Manwantar. It is believed that out of the 72 Chaturyugis in this Manvantara 28 have passed and we are in the 29th Chaturyugi of Vaivasusat Manvantar.

You may not believe all this but look at the flight of imagination of our ancestors, how high they could go. Similarly in various fields of science e.g. in Medicine Sushruta invented plastic surgery 2000 years ago. In plastic we do not use plastic, we take one part of the body and put it in another part. For instance, in a by-pass heart operation, we take a vein from the man's leg and put it into his heart, because the immune system will not reject. This was invented 2000 years ago by Sushruta. Westerners invented it only 200 years back. If you go to the London Science Museum you will find one whole gallery displaying about 40-50 surgical instruments used by Sushrut. Thus, Indians were far ahead of Westerners in medicine. In astronomy, the calculations which were made 2000 years ago are still the basis of predicting with great accuracy the day and time

of a Surya Grahan (Solar Eclipse) or Chandra Grahan (lunar eclipse) by reading a 'patra'. These calculations were made 2000 years ago by our ancestors who did not have telescopes and modern instruments but by sheer observation by the naked eye and the power of intellect they predicted what is going to happen 2000 years in the future. This was the scientific level which we had reached in the past, we were far in advance of Westerners in science and technology at that time.

Today we are far behind them, so what happened? Why did we not have an Industrial Revolution? Why did we lag behind? This is known as Needham's question or Needham's Grand Question, first posed by Prof. Joseph Needham. He was a brilliant Professor in micro-biology in Cambridge University who born in 1900 and became a Professor in 1925. Prof. Needham posed this question why did India and China who were ahead of whole world in Science and Technology at one time later fell behind and did not have an Industrial Revolution. This question has been sought to be answered in various ways, but that discussion will have to be held some other day.

As I was saying, Sanskrit was the language of people with enquiring minds, of people who enquired into every aspect of life. Therefore it is the language of not only Hindus or North India but it is in that sense the language of everybody who has a rational approach, because the emphasis in Sanskrit is on reason. There is emotion also in it, but the emphasis is on reason.

Coming now to Urdu, in my opinion the best poetry is in Urdu. I have read the poetry of many countries, England, America, France, Germany, Russia etc., apart from reading some of the poetry of Indian language e.g. Tulsidas, Surdas, Kabir, etc. Tamil poetry, Bengali poetry etc. but there is no match to Urdu because the voice of the heart which is expressed in Urdu poetry, is, in my opinion, not expressed in any language of the world. About Urdu there is a misconception that it is the language of Muslims and of foreigners, which is a totally false propaganda made against Urdu after 1947 that is after Partition.

Before 1947, all educated people in large parts of India were studying Urdu. It was not the language of Muslims alone. It was the language of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs everybody. For instance, in Punjab the Sikhs used to write in Urdu script, it is only after 1947 that they switched over to Gurumukhi script. Before 1947 all they were writing in Urdu even now they know it. So it was the language of all of us. But after Partition a deliberate propaganda was made by certain vested interests that Hindi is the language of Hindus and Urdu is a language of Muslims. This was done to make Hindus and Muslims fight each other (part of the divide and

rule policy). A lot of effort was made to crush Urdu in India. But a language which expresses the voice of the heart cannot be crushed as long as people have hearts. Unlike Arabic and Persian which are foreign language, Urdu is an indigenous language, and is loved by the people of India even today. If you go to a bookstall on a railway platform in India you will find a lot of poetry books of Mir, Ghalib, Firaq, etc. of course, nowadays in Devanagiri script. You will not find any book there of Mahadevi Verma or Sumitra Nandan Pant, the Hindi poets. Very few people read Hindi poetry, everybody reads Urdu poetry. Urdu has a dual nature, it is a combination of two languages i.e. Hindustani and Persian, that is why it was at one time called Rekhta, which means hybrid. Since it is a combination of two languages, Hindustani and Persian, the question arises: is it a special kind of Persian or a special kind of Hindustani? The answer is that it is a special kind of Hindustani, not a special kind of Persian. Why? Because the verbs in Urdu are all in Hindustani. The language to which a sentence belongs is determined by the verbs used in it. Supposing I say: Mr. Ram you and your wife 'aaiye' to my house tomorrow night for dinner at 8 pm. This sentence has 16 words of which 15 are in English. But it is a Hindustani sentence, not an English sentence, because the verb the 'aaiye' is in Hindustani. In Urdu all the verbs are in simple Hindi (which is called Hindustani or Khadi Boli). For example Ghalib says; -

"dekho mujhe jo deeda-e-ibrat_nigaah ho meree suno jo gosh-e-naseehat_niyosh hai" The verbs 'dekho', 'suno',' hai' are all simple Hindi, though the nouns or adjectives may be Persian or Arabian. It is the verb which determines the language to which a sentence belongs, and the verbs in Urdu are all in simple Hindi. It has to be so, otherwise, it is not Urdu, and this shows that Urdu is an indigenous language, unlike Arbian and Persian which are foreign languages. Urdu has a dual nature, because it is a combination of Hindustani and Persian. Hindustani is the language of the common man, while Persian is the language of aristocrats. Where did Persian come from? Persian is the language of Persia, how did it land up in India? To explain this it has to be noted that it often happens that the elite or upper class of a society speaks a foreign language. For instance, in India and Pakistan the elite speaks English. In Europe upto the end of the 19th century the Russian aristocrats spoke to each other in French, though a Russian aristocrat would talk to his servant in Russian. Similarly, a German aristocrat would talk to another German aristocrat in French, but he would talk to his servant in German. French was the language of the elite in large parts of Europe for many centuries. The elite wants to distinguish itself from the common people. In India Persian was the language of the Court and of the elite for centuries. Although Persian originated in Persia it later spread to much of South Asia. This was because Persian writers like Hafiz, Firdausi, Sadi, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, etc. developed Persian as a language of sophistication, culture, etiquette and dignity and that was adopted by large parts of South Asia including India. It was the Court language of

India for several hundred years. Akbar's foreign minister Todarmal passed an order that all Court records throughout the Mughal Empire will be maintained in Persian. Urdu is the combination of Hindustani and Persian, and that is why it has a dual nature. It is the common man's language, 'awaam ki zubaan', and also the aristocrats' language because one part of it is Persian. The content of Urdu is that of the common man. The feelings, emotions etc. in it are of the common man. But the form, the style, the andaaz-e-bayaan is that of an aristocrat.That is what gives Urdu such great power. I often used to go to functions where I would say that Hindi does not have the power or 'dum' which Urdu has, and they would get very angry, but I believe I spoke the truth. Urdu places more reliance on emotion and Sanskrit more on reason, We require both for our country's progress. In Europe they had two very great thinkers, Voltaire and Rousseau. Voltaire emphasizing reason and Rousseau emphasizing emotion. These two thinkers played a major role in the creation of modern Europe. Similarly Urdu and Sanskrit they complement each other, and in fact, Sanskrit is the grandmother of Urdu because 70% of the words in Urdu are from Sanskrit. Since there is so much diversity in India the only policy which will work is the policy of secularism and giving equal respect to all communities. Otherwise India will break up into a hundred pieces since there is so much diversity. Two people can be said to be the creators of modern India. One is the Emperor Akbar, and the other is Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. There was no ruler in the world like Emperor Akbar. Now the first part, that the Muslim invaders broke temples, has been mentioned in our history books, but the second part, which is of ten times longer duration, that the descendents of these invaders, who were local rulers used to foster communal harmony they used to give land grants for building Hindu temples, they celebrated and organized Hindu festivals, has been deliberately suppressed by the British from our history books, the whole game being divide and rule. Hindus and Muslims must be made to fight each other. If you go on line and read the speech called 'History in the Service of Imperialism' a speech by Professor B. N. Pandey, Professor of History in Allahabad University, who later became Governor of Orissa, given in 1977 in the Rajya Sabha, the upper House of Parliament. Prof. Pandey has mentioned in great detail how the British policy was to make Hindus and Muslims inimical to each other. For instance he has mentioned that in 1928 when he was a Professor of History in Allahabad University some students came to him with a book written by one Professor Harprasad Shastri, Professor of Sanskrit of Calcutta University in which it was mentioned that Tipu Sultan told 3000 Brahmins to convert to Islam otherwise they will be killed, and those 3000 Brahmins committed suicide rather than becoming Muslims. On reading this Professor B. N. Pandey wrote to Professor Harprasad Shastri asking him on what basis have you written this? What is the source of your information? Prof. Harprasad Shastri wrote back that the source of information is the Mysore Gazetteer. Then Prof. Pandey wrote to Prof. Shrikantia, Professor of History in Mysore University asking him whether it is correct that in Mysore Gazetteer it is mentioned that Tipu Sultan told 3000 Brahmins to convert to Islam. Prof. Shrikantia wrote back that this is totally false, he had worked in this field and there is no such mention in the Mysore Gazetteer, rather the

correct version was just the reverse, namely, that Tipu Sultan used to give annual grants to 156 Hindu Temples, he used to send grants to the Shankaracharya of Shringheri, etc.

Now, just imagine what mischief has been done. Deliberately our history books have been falsified so that the mind of a child at an impressionable age is poisoned so that he should start hating Muslims in India and in Pakistan he should start hating Hindus. The poison put in the mind of an impressionable age is very difficult to remove at a later age. All our history books have been falsified in this manner.

It is time we re-write our History books and show that in fact upto 1857 there was no communal problem at all in India. A composite culture in India had been developing. Hindus used to participate Eid and Muharram, and Muslims used to participate in Holi, Diwali etc.. There were some differences no doubt but they were becoming narrower. In 1857 the great Mutiny took place. Hindus and Muslims jointly fought against the British. After suppressing that Mutiny it was decided by the British rulers that the only way to control this country to divide and rule. In other words, Hindus and Muslims must be made to fight each other. All communal riots start after 1857. The English Collector would secretly call the Hindu Pandit and give him money to speak against Muslims, and similarly he would secretly call the Maulvi and give him some money to speak against Hindus. A very beautiful racket was started in this way, and this resulted ultimately in the partition of 1947.

I am just telling you this to show that now the time has come when we must see through this game. I mean how long are you going to be taken for a ride. Are we fools that anybody can come and make fools out of us and make us fight each other.

About two months back I read in the newspapers that there was some violence in Aligarh Muslim University, and the University had to be closed for some days. I thought that it was a Hindu Muslim issue but some friends of mine from Aligharh came to Delhi and said it was not a Hindu- Muslim issue but it was Azamgarhi versus Biharis. I said what! What nonsense! We should be united, and brothers of each other. We should be one country, instead we are fighting on such silly matters.

In Maharashtra some people have proclaimed a bhumiputra theory (son of the soil theory). They say that only Maharashtrians should be allowed to live in Mahrashtra. South Indian UPites, and Biharis should get out of Maharashtra. Such people do not realize that in that case they will also have to leave Mahrashta because they also are not bhumi putras. Bhumi putra are hardly 7 or 8 %

of the people living in Maharashtra e.g. the Bheels and other adivasis (tribals). This is a country of immigrants. India is passing through transitional period, transition from feudal agricultural society to modern industrial society. We are presently neither totally feudal nor totally modern. We are somewhere in between. The transition period is a very painful and agonizing period in history. If you read the history of Europe from the 16th to 19th centuries you will find it a very horrible period which Europe went through. It was only after going this fire that modern society emerged in Europe. India is presently going through this fire. We are going through a very painful period in our history which I think will last another 10 to 20 years. In my opinion the duty of all patriotic people is to help in shortening this transitional period, in reducing this pain, although we cannot totally eliminate it because there is going to be turmoil in this period since the vested interests in the old feudal order will not give up their vested interests without a fierce struggle. So there is going to be pain but we must try to explain to our people about the transition period, and try to reduce the pain and shorten the transitional period.

Here is where the role of the Judiciary becomes very important. We were talking about the Judiciary and some people said that I should speak about the Judiciary also. Well, I will give you one example. In Northern India in some States e.g. western U.P, Haryana, Rajasthan etc. (also in Pakistan) there is the phenomenon called 'honour killing'. If your daughter falls in love with a boy of another caste or religion, or within the same village or in the same Gotra, both are killed, and often brutally murdered. This has been happening in a very large scale in some areas, and sometime it is organized by caste panchayats. The problem is that the Chief Ministers are often unwilling to interfere because these caste Panchayats supply the vote banks to the politicians. In India politics often runs on caste on religious basis. So the Chief Minister usually relies on the vote banks supplied by the caste panchayats. Therefore, he does not want to annoy them, he will not interfere, and the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police even though they know that this honour killing is going to take place (through their intelligence agencies) will not interfere out of fear that if does so the Chief Minister will get angry with him. But I am not dependent on your votes, I am not an elected authority, and that makes me very strong, in fact, it makes me more democratic than the so called democratic bodies because I am not bothered about your votes. I therefore passed the order that those who do honour killing will be given mandatory death sentence and the District Magistrate and Superintendent of that area must be immediately placed under suspension. This was a very strong judgment after which 'honour killing' has considerably declined. This could not have been done by the politicians because they are dependent on the votes of these people. So, here is where the Judiciary becomes very important, by the very fact that we are undemocratic. In fact we are more democratic then the so called democratic bodies because we can take responsible decisions to help the country get modernized. Many of you were mentioning about corruption in India. It is true that in India there is rampant corruption. You rightly said that it is a matter of shame, and it is true absolutely true. It is

disgraceful what is happening. Here is where the Judiciary is playing a little role. Recently we passed strong orders in the 2G scam case. The result was that one cabinet Minister was dismissed, and he is in jail, one member of Parliament, daughter of a Chief Minister, is in jail and we are taking such other steps to the extent we can. In environmental matters Delhi had become like a gas chamber. 10 years back there was so much pollution because of the pollution from vehicles and factories. Hence the Supreme Court passed strong orders. Today Delhi is relatively is much better. Thus, the judiciary can play a very important role in this transitional age which we are passing through. We are trying to do something but we cannot do everything. After all we are not Gods, who can solve all problems. I will conclude by one couplet of Faiz Ahmed Faiz whose centenary we are celebrating this year. He is in my opinion the greatest Urdu poet of the 20th century. The greatest Urdu poet was of course Ghalib. Ghalib is far above everybody else. But I will talk some other day about Ghalib. In the 20th century the greatest poet in my opinion was Faiz and I would like to quote from his famous poem;"Gulon mein rang bhare baad-e-naubahaar chale Chale bhi aao ke gulshan ka kaarobaar chale" What does this mean? Urdu poetry often has an outer superficial meaning and an inner real meaning. The outer, superficial and literal meaning of the above couplet is: "In the flowers the colourful breeze of the new spring is blowing Come forward, so that the garden can function" However the inner real meaning of the couplet is that the objective situation in the country is ripe which invites the patriotic people now to come forward to serve the country. The word 'gulshan' literally means 'garden' but here it means the country. You have not to take it literally. So it is a call to the people of the country including the people of the Diaspora like you to come forward since our country is in difficulties and you are required now to help it.