India’s security & unity.

Rashtriya Ekta Diwas

India’s security and unity are strongly related. We all know that India is the largest functioning democracy in this world and, a home to nearly all the religions of the world. India has achieved this status not in a day but years of unity have helped us to reach this state. When our country got independence in 1947, it was the heroic task of the great Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel ji, the real “Iron Man” who worked relentlessly hard to unite India. His strength of character, the sharpness of his mind, his organizing skills, and all his energy were offered up for achieving the freedom of India under Gandhi's leadership, and after independence for India's consolidation. He knew that strength lies in unity and if we want to live securely in this hostile world, we need to be united. And he did his work of India’s unification without failure. Let us go back to the ancient India, where Alexander and his forces were on conquest of the world. At that time, Chanakya also knew that a disintegrated India will never be able to fight Alexander and will become its slave. Then, he made the great Chandragupta Maurya out of a small child and the rest is history. All these heroic stories can be inferred to the fact that we will always be safe and secure if we are united.

Today also India faces various threats, both internal as well as external. But for securing our country, we must first find who the enemy actually is? Without knowing the enemy we can't defeat him. If we are finding a chair in a room, and we don’t know what to find, then even if the chair is in front of our eyes, we won’t be able to find it! Once we define our enemy, then we need to make out a strategy to defeat the enemy. India faces the threat of terrorism, and communalism in this context. Today the enemy is outside the borders but also functions from within the civil society. If we want to eliminate the enemy from our civil society, we need to make it very strong. We need to promote peace among people of all the religions, so that no outside element can take it as an advantage for usage against India. This cannot be done effectively without strong support of religious leaders and intellectuals of all religions. These are the people to whom everyone listens to. If they take up this cause, everyone will follow them and this task can be successfully accomplished. The Indian Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, and Buddhists are very well aware of the fact that seeds of hatred against each other are sown by only those, who don’t want to see India prosper. If we are successful in achieving peace among the people of India, we can assure of our safety and security. In fact most of the Indians, irrespective of their religion consider them Indians first and then, Muslims, Hindus or whichever religion they belong to. There are cases of tensions among different communities but they will be a thing of past if intellectuals, politicians, and religious leaders play their crucial role in building the civil society. For each one of us, the national interest should be of top priority.

The other threat India faces is that of terrorism. In order to tackle terrorism, we need to actually tackle the terrorist. People often say that crime is our enemy, criminal is not. This doesn’t at all hold here. The ground reality is that in order to stop terrorism, we need to eliminate the terrorist organisation as well as the terrorists. As our country must be doing, not just stopping terrorists from acting but also cutting out their funds, building a counter ideology and using techniques of counter terrorism. But India can only succeed against any of its enemy when India stands united.  “United we stand, divided we fall.” If we are divided, then the enemy will use that against us and will defeat us. If we want to prosper, we must stand united.

Nation observes 31st October as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas to commemorate the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel ji who unified the country. Every citizen of India must take this Rashtriya Ekta Diwas pledge,

“I solemnly pledge that I dedicate myself to preserve the unity, integrity and security of the nation and also strive hard to spread this message among my fellow countrymen. I take this pledge in the spirit of unification of my country which was made possible by the vision and action of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. I also solemnly resolve to make my own contribution to ensure internal security of my country.”

   

Think before you give!

These days, it has become quite common in my college that unknown people come to our classes and ask for money because they or their relative need help. People are also generous enough to donate money to such “needy” people. Even I’ve also donated a lot of times. All of us like people who love people and help others, right? But now when I ponder upon these incidents, I am forced to ask myself that whatever I am doing, is that right? Firstly, none of us who donate money don’t know whether the person whom we are donating money is genuine or not. Is the money which we are donating, used for the purposes which we’re told about? We need to accept that we have no idea about how that amount of money or resources we donate will be used. If someone needs immediate help, then we MUST help them or anyone who needs that. Its good to be a philanthropist, but blind donating is bad. If there is an organization, which is working for a cause at large and we too believe in that, then we may donate. If we know, the person who needs help is genuine, or the money will be used for the purpose which we’re told about, then, we may donate. But what is the use of donating money without any confirmation?

When we go out on roads, we see a lot of beggars asking us for money. But most of us don’t pay any heed to their voices. Why!? Because we think, they all are a part of some group or nexus. We think that if we give them money, they’ll get a habit of begging. But, when someone comes to us stating that they’re from some organisation, or they need our help, we donate without even asking? We live in India which now must be having more than 1500 million people. Most of us also think that, we can’t help everyone so why not a small section of people. No one is stopping you to donate. But if you are donating blindly, then you are wasting your resources.There are some questions, on which all of us must ponder upon. Has philanthropy permanently wiped away a social ill anywhere? NO! Can private wealth, however well used, substitute for good public policy? NO! Is there a better anti-poverty and pro-development programme than economic growth? NO! Will giving away private wealth do any substantive good over the short term or medium term country like India? NO!Since, all our acts of philanthropy act outside complex public policy matrix, there’s no guarantee that the cause we choose to spend on is the optimal solution.The most important point is that, “We serve the society best by doing what we do best”!

Steve Jobs, who did little by the way of charity is the most famous example who satisfies this theory. He created knowledge, jobs and encouraged entrepreneurship. That helps far more than some people trying to spend on a thousand problems, philanthropists like us have a little idea about. This can be extended, you should not give away billions, but invest. Find out and invest in ventures that actually build schools, universities, hospitals, medical research, and roads. There is a public framework for all of these too, and hence your efforts won’t be out of that matrix. Or even by getting into the system, shaping good public policies will help the people of our country more than anything else.