BREAK FREE FROM EVIL MOULDS
To begin the New Year with forebodings may sound like a pessimist’s pastime. But there are few stout hearts today that can face it with buoyant self-confidence. Deep-rooted fatalism, dumb acceptance of misery, a raging sea of poverty and a few islands of vulgar luxury, inhabited by a few who behave as if nothing has happened. This is India today. And this should disturb every sensitive Indian in the New Year. The time is past when one could pacify one’s conscience by angry outbursts or exposure of a few misdeeds. The situation is far more serious, the prospect grimmer.
In spite of six decades of effort, our society is still disfigured by gross unfairness which, without constant correction, feeds strongly upon itself. It has helped create a meaner, more selfish and more dangerously tense society – the crushing poverty and misery.
Gross and stubborn inequality is incompatible with justice and fairness and we cannot hope to bring about changes until we launch a major attack on the unjustified disparities that still divide us from one another. We cannot be content with anything less than the elimination of poverty as a social problem. It is a formidable task, but not an insurmountable objective.
We have to break the mould of customs, selfishness and apathy which condemns so many of our fellow-countrymen to avoidable indignity and deprivation. To do that we have to recast the mould of politics. In place of envy, we must put the politics of compassion. In place of politics of cupidity, the politics of justice. And, in place of the politics of opportunism, the politics of principles. Only so can we hope to succeed. Only so will success be worth having.
P.N.BENJAMIN
Christmas Season 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment