At the outset I join billion plus Indians and congratulate Mr. Narendra Modi for a spectacular victory! The credit is his entirely! After all ‘abki baar Modi Sarkar’! I am proud of the ‘thinking’ Indian voters who voted decisively and prevented the parliament from once again falling into the chaos of coalition politics and its inevitable adverse effects! Great job, India!
Soon the celebrations will cool down and so will the heat of
having ‘arrived’ for Mr. Modi. He is at 7 Race Course Road, trying to settle
down as the 15th prime minister of India. Sitting alone, provided he
gets to spend some time with himself in the midst of the conundrum of hectic
national politics and governance, I am sure he is going to look back at his
life and feel proud of his life’s journey from being absolutely ordinary to becoming
extraordinary. His transformation from an individual with a humble family
background to becoming an idealist RSS pracharak to being regarded as a crucial
cog in the BJP’s national politics to garnering his mentors’ – LK Advani and AB
Vajpayee – confidence and completing successive successful terms as the Chief
Minister of Gujarat and along the way getting national and global recognition
for his Modinomics and Gujarat Model of
Development despite the stubborn stains of post Godhra riots of 2002 and
finally arriving in a grand style in Delhi to fulfil his national top-job
responsibilities – is almost complete. Now the country and the world are waiting
with their fingers crossed to see if this new butterfly will retain its
beautiful colours and wings and for how long …
The world knows about the factors which led to the
unstoppable rise of Narendra Modi in the Indian national landscape otherwise littered
with political mediocrity all around, with a few bright spots nevertheless; and
how he emerged as the most credible alternative for the prime ministerial post
in a period when India was suffering a perpetually silent and subservient prime
minister to an arrogant grand old party stalwarts, rampant corruption and
unprecedented scales of scams being unearthed almost on a daily-basis and
reeling with policy paralysis being served unapologetically under the garb of
coalition compulsions. Therefore, in the 2014
General Elections the common agenda the voters of India followed was to get
rid of the Indian National Congress and its equally inefficient allies. And
whole-heartedly gave a thumping majority to the Bharatiya Janata Party under
the leadership of Namo: ‘Abki Baar Modi
Sarkar’ and ‘Achhe din Ayenge’ slogans caught the national imagination. So
we have the Modi Sarkar; now the wait is on for the assured achhe din …
We Indians expect Mr. Modi to steer India to a magnificent future
which he has promised to do so. How successful he will be the time will tell. So
far, he has shown a grand start with an unprecedented show at his swearing-in ceremony
with all SAARC nations heads’ presence, pulling a diplomatic coup smoothly. From
Day1 he has made his presence felt strongly all across the world. He has
articulated his intentions clear and loud both within the country and abroad,
especially in the neighbourhood. He is being received with open arms by the
global leaders. All of a sudden India has become a favourite destination for
the powerful presidents and prime ministers. So, everything seems to be in
place and progressing as per the plans and expectations. And knowing about Mr.
Modi’s personality and characteristics as a political leader, I am sure that he
will succeed and soon. His determination and aspirations will continue to drive
him – and India – on the right path.
However, today I want to touch upon another less talked
about aspect of his being elected which caught my attention in his Varanasi Victory acceptance speech. It was his pledge to take India back to its
glorious era of spiritual splendour, besides economic dominance. And as a
first step he prodded the people of the spiritual capital of India – now his
constituency – to keep the country’s
oldest city clean. He assured the Benarasi-babus and all fellow Indians
that he will undertake Ganga-cleansing
as one of his first few priorities as the prime minister of India. On that
evening his short speech threw a never before seen spiritual side of his
personality which if he is able to take forward he will re-catapult our country into the sphere of spiritual dominance
alongside a strong economic place on the global high table.
I really don’t know how the majority of the Indians would
have reacted to his promises of spiritual endeavours but I for sure was elated
because as a proud Indian I want to see
my great country once again shine in the world as the once-upon-a-time ancient
Bharat i.e. Sone-ki-Chidiya with a spiritual core!
India’s unmatched
spiritual legacy and treasures are known to the world but I feel those have
got lost with majority of Indians, the blessed
heirs of the heritage. As the land which gave humans their first life’s philosophy i.e. Vedic
Philosophy which went on to evolve as a religion as Hinduism, and based on
its spiritual teachings all the other religions of the world came into existence,
it was not so long ago that India had retained its place under the Sun before its
spiritual core started to get eroded with faulty religious interpretations and social
ill-practices.
Coupled with it came the cloak of secularism in a Hindu-dominated divided India, a large
chunk of which was annexed by the departing Britishers leaving behind a bloody
trail of mangled and lost lives among both Hindus & Muslims. To compound
the situation further, as the politics became competitive over a few decades
after Independence, political parties of all hues started to exploit secularism
and democracy for their narrow gains and an unfortunate pattern of minority
appeasement started which was nothing but fooling them into believing about
their betterment. The result was further alienation of the people belonging to
the smaller religious communities, Muslims relatively being in a worse state of
existence due to their cocooned mentality and unwillingness to mingle with the
rest of the country-folks. Their orthodox and closed religious approach and lack
of proper education made them survive on the fringes of the society. The
Hindu-Muslim mental divide was not easy to patch as the latter were strongly
regarded as the ones being responsible for severe anti-Hindu activities by the Muslim
invaders.
Secularism also perpetrated a strange public behaviour among
the so-called literate strata of the society which primarily comprised of England-educated
politicians, bureaucracy, academics and the media; they tried to keep
themselves away – in public - from anything having Indian-ness lest they got
branded as ‘anti-secular’ because almost all things ‘Indian’ had strong essence
of Hinduism. And why not because India has been a Hindu nation since its
origin; the other religions as and when they came into existence also came to
India and flourished due to the tolerant religious environment of the country,
a scenario not seen anywhere else in the world then, and even now. Strangely,
the same set of highly placed, educated class was deeply Indian in their
private lives. The Great Indian
Hypocrisy?
Therefore, the
biggest casualty of this post-Independence acquired characteristic of India was
its age-old treasure of Spirituality. As Spirituality was the foundation of
Hinduism and in a newly legally secular India, it became a sin to be seen or
display one’s religion, primarily among its influential people – the elites and
the powerful. Bizarre as it may sound
but the truth is bitter. The ancient Holy
Scriptures of India viz. Vedas, Puranas and Upanishads which were the foundational
stones of the Hinduism were forgotten completely and with them we lost the
immeasurable treasure of ancient wisdom and knowledge. The seemingly more
popular and easier to read ones viz. Ramayana,
Mahabharata and the greatest of them all The Gita were relegated into prayer rooms of homes, worshipped in
private but seldom read or discussed in public. The Gita found another purpose
in an Independent India; not yet convicted criminals were made to take oath of
truth by putting their hand on the holy book of Gita: ‘Main Gita pe hath rakh ke kasam khata hoon ki main sach kahunga aur
sach ke siva kuch nahin kahunga!’ … Ved-Vyasa
would have never ever imagined even in his wildest dreams that his divine composition
of the never-revealed-before universal wisdom by Lord Krishna to his blessed disciple Arjuna would be treated in this fashion in his own country!
In all countries of the world it is normal to teach and
learn about their official state religion in their schools but not in India! However,
in the same India, exceptions are the minority religion-based missionaries-run
schools which unapologetically teach their about their religion to students. But just talk about including Indian
Spirituality in the school curriculum and the entire country will come down
tumbling with the fear of having seen to be so-called hurting the so-called sentiments
of the so-called minorities! Why should any person feel hurt by having to
learn about Indian spirituality when every Indian belonging to whichever
religion is originally an Indian? Why should there be different standards of
judgement in India for various groups of Indians, just because they practice
different religions?
Mr. Modi has made the
start to his spiritual mission by creating a new ministry dedicated to the
mammoth and urgent task of cleaning the Ganga. But this is just one of the many
initiatives he needs to undertake to resurrect the spiritual India.
Whenever anybody
talks about India in a positive tone, he mentions about our country’s gift of spirituality;
and the foreigners talk also about Yoga which is a spiritual method of
attaining The Spirit. And besides the desire to see the beautiful Taj Mahal, majority of the tourists
visiting India are here to experience its spirituality and learn yoga. Their
favourite place is of course Varanasi,
now the Prime Minister’s constituency.
Therefore, Varanasi was the natural choice of place for Mr.
Modi to start his spiritual resurrection of India. Varanasi, or Benares as is its local name, is the oldest city of India,
and the most evolved one. Mark Twain
had once remarked reverentially that Benares is more ancient than anything
ancient and yet more modern than any place on the earth! The city has
been the center of spiritual evolution
of India and has shaped the contours of Hinduism and Bharat - India. All the
stalwart saints and philosophers of
India, whether from south or east or west or north, have gained spiritual knowledge
at Benares. Many of them made Benares their permanent abode as Gurus and many
others spread across the country and taught and took the Vedic Philosophy to the
core of every countryman. Still many seers chose the path of complete
renunciation and headed towards the Himalayas
to spend their life in search for the God through the path of meditation.
Benares is the holy
city which saw emergence of the spiritual greats of our country: Babaji – Guru
Nagaraj, Shankaracharya, Patanjali, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar Giri, Paramahansa
Nikhileshwar Giri, … There are hundreds of exalted spiritual gurus whose names I
do not know or remember now, for which I offer my sincere apologies.
So, as we know, Benares
is the spiritual headquarters of India. Every part and path and corner and
monument and Ganga ghat and temple and ashram reflects spirituality. But Benares is not religious; it is hard core
spiritual. And this is the prime reason that we see the city retain its
spiritual structure in spite of repeated attempts by Muslim invaders to destroy
it. In fact, the influence of Benares was so strong that the Islam also got integrated
into the city’s spiritual way of life. The
foundation of a Secular India was laid at Benares by its spiritual gurus and
the legacy carried forwarded by their followers.
So, simultaneously to cleaning the Ganga and restoring the
city of Varanasi to its ancient glory, Mr.
Modi has to take Benares – Varanasi – to the world, and to the rest of India. I
suggest he creates a special ministry for this noble mission – Ministry of Spirituality under his
direct supervision. He should set up spiritual
centers all across the globe. He should also integrate the already established spiritual centers in India and
abroad. He could make the start by taking the help of the immensely popular Yogoda Satsang Society founded by Paramahansa
Yogananda, with its headquarters in Ranchi in India and in California, US. The association of Mr. Modi’s spiritual
mission with Yoganandaji’s YSS-SRF would give it the best start and acceptance
globally.
Paramahansa Yogananda
is one of the two Indians revered and
followed by the world population; the
second figure, of course, is Mahatma Gandhi. Yoganandaji took the
ancient form of scientific meditation, Kriya
Yoga, taught by Lord Krishna to Arjuna but got lost over centuries, to the
West under the spiritual guidance and blessings of the greatest of all Indian
Gurus – Babaji and his line of disciples Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar
Giri. Babaji was born a couple of centuries in BC and has retained his human
form and lives in the Himalayas.
Mr. Modi has to boost
spiritual tourism back home.
- He has to ensure that all spiritually aligned cities are neat and clean with good infrastructure and connectivity, coupled with the assurance of security and safety of visitors.
- Dedicated websites with complete information about the Vedic Philosophy in various global languages have to be created.
- The Holy Scriptures – Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads, Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata - and thus the vast wealth of spiritual knowledge need to be translated and made accessible to the global seekers, both as static information and through regular distant learning courses.
- The social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, Blogs - have to be utilized to their full potential.
- Spiritual international bestsellers like Autobiography of a Yogi and The Gita should be used as a tool to initiate the beginners. Movies, television programs, newspaper columns, advertisements, plays, music and books should be used as mediums to spread Indian spirituality.
- Yoga and meditation being integral parts of spirituality, these should be taught at all spiritual centers.
- Credible ‘living’ gurus should be made spiritual ambassadors and spiritual speakers for lecture tours and road shows abroad.
- Spiritual literary festivals should be organized globally.
- In fact, every Indian embassy and high commission should have a spiritual consulate in-charge of the spiritual mission.
- International Spiritual Congregations and Conferences should be held and participated in, with celebrations of special spiritual occasions.
- Spiritual theme parks, spiritual museums with wax statues of ancient founding spiritual gurus, spiritual theme cafes should be set up all across the world.
- Spiritual souvenirs – mugs, fridge magnets, albums, post cards, t-shirts, bags, pens, paintings, photographs, figurines, handbooks, calendars, diaries, DVDs, CDs, wrist bands, pendants, shawls, wall hangings, ties, notebooks, writing pads, mobile phone covers, umbrellas, stickers, tattoos, etc. – should be merchandised in these centers and also online.
- Simultaneously, all these spiritual efforts should be replicated back home. Because, if anyone needs a strong dose of spirituality to infuse ‘life’ in living, it is an average Indian, who is today bereft of the benefits of his ancient heritage!
Well, if the prime minister Mr. Narendra Modi ever gets to
read my spiritual suggestions, I am sure he would find something good and implementable
from the list of probable initiatives and adopt them to resurrect the spiritual
India … I wish you, Mr. Modi, all the Divine Blessings in your – our, every
Indian’s – spiritual mission … Aum … :)
