India cannot become a Viswaguru through abuse, threats and constitutional defiance. Its rise must rest on duty, discipline and nation-building

Sonam Wangchuk is on his way to Ladakh, and by the time this column appears, he will be back in his familiar surroundings, recuperating and working on his future projects. One wishes him well. As far as his demands and concerns went, they have been taken cognisance of, and the assurances conveyed to him by senior ministers and leaders of PM Modi’s government have been fulfilled.

PM Modi’s approach has always been solution-driven, accountable and sensitive. With the passage of the anti-paper leak legislation, his government has done what no other government or party was willing to do over the last fifty years.

Wangchuk’s close associate, Gitanjali Wangchuk, is, we are told, a devotee of Sri Aurobindo. In her parting shot, she is said to have observed that it is Gen Z that has shown what it means for India to be a Viswaguru and that they have lived the Sanatana Dharma. Well, one needs to make a distinction between the actual Gen Z and the counterfeit Gen Z. That is a distinction most have not made or have refused to make. Let me also put on record here that Sri Aurobindo was always against any kind of fasting, whether for political or spiritual objectives. His writings, conversations and talks make that amply clear to anyone who has cared to read them seriously.

Those who abused Modi displayed cowardice and hate instead of courage without hate. They displayed weakness disguised by threats of violence instead of strength without violence. They demonstrated false patriotism without an iota of conscience and insisted on rights before even cultivating a sense of duty. Are they the real Gen Z? Any genuine reader or follower of Sri Aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda or Mahatma Gandhi would agree that any attempt to cultivate national greatness while standing only on the stilts of rights, devoid of a binding sense of duty—kartavya—is bound to collapse.

Can those who abuse Narendra Modi, hurling the most abominable expletives at him and his deceased mother, who herself embodied pure motherhood and radiated dignity and compassion, aspire to make India a Viswaguru? Is the path leading India to become a Viswaguru to be defined and paved by abuse, expletives and calls to anarchy? Is India to become a Viswaguru by following the “Grammar of Anarchy”, as Babasaheb Ambedkar termed it, or by resorting to what Sri Aurobindo called “Goonda-raj”?

As early as 1935, in answer to a disciple’s query on whether he definitely foresaw a free India, Sri Aurobindo replied that India’s freedom was settled and was a “question of working out only”. The larger question was: “What is India going to do with her independence? Bolshevism? Goonda-raj?”

It is only the proponents of “Goonda-raj” who hurl despicable abuses at a thrice-elected Prime Minister and his deceased mother, and call for his death. Can these types seriously educate us on how India can become a Viswaguru? Even those who supported them from various vantage points never condemned that string of horrible abuses. Far from living Sanatana Dharma, those who abused Narendra Modi and his deceased mother had not an iota of the essence or core values of Sanatana Dharma.

Leave aside living or understanding Sanatana Dharma; these chanters of “death to Modi” have a strong aversion to Sanatana Dharma. They wish to eradicate Sanatana Dharma. They see Sanatana Dharma as a hindrance to the India they want to create. How can negators of Sanatana Dharma be the harbingers of India as a Viswaguru?

Would they accept, for instance, Sri Aurobindo’s Uttarpara Speech, in which he speaks of his communion with Sri Krishna in the infamous Lalbazar lock-up in Kolkata after his arrest in 1908? Would the following description be acceptable to them: “He placed the Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the sadhan of the Gita. I was not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Sri Krishna demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who aspire to do His work… I realised what the Hindu religion meant”? Or would they say that Sri Aurobindo, then Aurobindo Ghose, was certainly under the influence of psychedelics?

Would they agree with Sri Aurobindo’s agenda and prognosis when he concludes: “When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the Sanatana Dharma that shall rise. When it is said that India shall be great, it is the Sanatana Dharma that shall be great. When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it is the Sanatana Dharma that shall expand and extend itself over the world. It is for the dharma and by the dharma that India exists”? Or would they agree with his programme for national regeneration when he says “that it is the Sanatana Dharma which for us is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born with the Sanatana Dharma, with it it moves and with it it grows. When the Sanatana Dharma declines, then the nation declines, and if the Sanatana Dharma were capable of perishing, with the Sanatana Dharma it would perish. Sanatana Dharma, that is nationalism”? This Sri Aurobindo certainly has no takers among the Modi abusers.

….to be continued tomorrow!

Source: https://www.millenniumpost.in/opinion/excellence-needs-dharmas-guidance-670960