For thousands of years people were exploited and humiliated around the earth, and the politicians have exploited them. For thousands of years they are giving them hope that soon there is going to be a utopia, a world where there will be nobody poor, nobody hungry, nobody humiliated. Every being will have its own individuality, integrity; and for thousands of years they have been talking about it, and nobody has asked that when it is going to happen? It has not happened all these years. Human beings appear to be happy just so long as they have a future to which they can look forward—whether it be a “good time” tomorrow or an everlasting life beyond the grave.
Modi came to power in India promising a golden future based on the model of vibrant Gujarat. For man seems to be unable to live without myth, without the belief that the routine and drudgery, the pain and fear of this life have some meaning and goal in the future. At once new myths come into being – political and economic myths with extravagant promises of the best of futures in the present world. These myths give the individual a certain sense of meaning by making him part of a vast social effort, in which he loses something of his own emptiness and loneliness. Yet these political religions betrays the anxiety beneath them – as A.Watts said “ for they are but men huddling together and shouting to give themselves courage in the dark.”
All the great leaders whom the world have ever seen, be it Churchill, Roosevelt, Indira Gandhi, Hitler or myriads of other men and women who have become famous, one common thread runs amongst their ranks, that they all have been made great through waging wars or they have thrust war upon mankind. People at such times rallied behind them idolizing as saviours making great icons. A Third world war it is going to be not between Russia and America, but between America and the whole world.
Does Modi want to emulate their feat? Is he quietly preparing for another great war? A question only coming years will answer. He may not be going to war with Pakistan, for he is shrewd enough not to rake up sentiments of Kashmir throughout the Islamic world which will end up in a nuclear holocaust. But surely he might be preparing for a short war with China on the issues of border allocation. The rise of military might along the Sino-Indian border on both sides is writing on the wall. Also, recent increase in the aggressiveness of Indian army on China borders was widely reported. The war with China will bestow upon Modi the title as an able leader, and may not end in any devastating conclusion except for more economic support from West.
Most of the Indian population are starving, soon it will become another somalia, only far bigger. If you cannot manage Somalia, it is impossible to manage India. And the same is going to happen to other third world countries. If people are happy, no one can drag them into war. The population explosion is the problem – All the religions are teaching: “Serve the poor,” but not a single religion is ready to say: “Accept birth control so that the population is reduced.” So as far as India is concerned, there are some rays of hope, but they have to be made a reality. And the press, the media, can play a significant role in teaching the country, in teaching the politicians, in teaching the bureaucracy. The Indian press and media are not doing that. They have not even considered that they are the greatest educational system today.
As a great poet said before “no university is as great as the media, because it reaches to millions of people who will never go to the university.” The media, in other words, is a university reaching to people’s homes rather than bringing people to the university. And it has a great responsibility in such moments of change. To quote an example of how media can make or mar a country’s destination is media’s reporting of Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination – know how many Sikhs have been killed just for one woman? If one had not widely and purposefully with a criminal intent reported that, thousands of Sikhs would not have been killed.
My feeling is that India should make a historical decision, that we cease all war efforts and put our energies in destroying poverty. We will destroy poverty, not human beings. People don’t need nuclear weapons; nobody is hungry for nuclear weapons. They need houses, they need clothes, they need food, and they need work. But all the money of the nation goes into the service of death and war. The politician can see that if all that power, money, intelligence, can be diverted to the real needs of life, this very earth can become a paradise.
