India’s stand on Iraq correct

The latest acts of violence in Iraq continue to highlight to the world that the peace is much more difficult to win than the war for the great United States of America. Insurgents fired at least seven rockets on the US coalition headquarters in Baghdad Sunday night, hitting a hotel used by US occupation officials and wounding one American, the military said. It was the biggest attack on the Green Zone in weeks. This marks the continuation of the anti-American sentiment in post Saddam Iraq. Clearly this only serves to highlight the inability of the US to fully understand what is the correct course of action to prosecute in Iraq.

India has offered to the international community a possible solution to the Iraq crisis which is yet to be listened to. This however is not surprising as India is a “flawed” democracy with allegations of corruption influencing court decisions and violence during elections, the US State Department says in its annual human rights report (26/2/04). This US State Department position has been directly contradicted by the Indologist Koenraad Elst who said India will be the greatest contributor to the universal world culture that is likely to develop in the years to come (18/1/04).

Delivering a special lecture on `India’s image in the West’ at the Avinashilingam University, Dr Elst said, “In future, we are going to have one universal civilisation in which the most valuable elements of every culture will have a place. Most of these will be traceable to India.” Given this divergence of views on Hindu it is interesting to note the views of a Hindu leader on the crisis in Iraq. About the American attack on Iraq, the RSS Sarsanghchalak, Shri K S Sudarshan said America is caught in a web in Iraq and it wants to drag India also into it (Organiser 23/2/04). He appreciated the Government of India’s stand on the issue by not getting involved in it. India has rightly told America that it would start any reconstruction work in Iraq only under the supervision of UNO and not under the American supervision, he said.

“At the time of growing conflict among civilisations especially between Islam and Christianity world over, only the Hindu way of life, which ensures peace and brotherhood through its centuries-old concept of unity in diversity, can restore peace,” he added. There are strong possibilities of using sophisticated weapons of mass destruction in the conflict as has been witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan recently. If it happens the whole world will be destroyed within a matter of seconds. Need of the hour is to bring forth the Hindu concept of unity in diversity before the world to save it from destruction.

Shri K S Sudarshan was delivering the first Chamanlal memorial lecture on “Inter-relation among civilisations in the perspective of 21st century,” organised in New Delhi by the International Centre for Cultural Studies on the first death anniversary of the former Sangh Pracharak.
Union Human Resources Development Minister, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi presided. The Centre also announced two research scholarships named after Shrikrishan Bhide and Chamanlalji. Referring to the predictions of western scholars that the 21st century would witness conflicts among civilisations, the Sarsanghchalak rejected it and said that it could be the century of peace, unity and brotherhood if the world accepts the Indian concept of unity in diversity. Quoting great Hindu thinkers like Vivekananda, Maharishi Aurbindo and others, he said that Hindu India’s role to lead the world would begin from 2011. Therefore all Indians need to be fully prepared to bear the gigantic responsibility so that the whole world could be tied in the tag of unity and fraternity, he said.

The Sarsanghchalak urged the leaders of Islam and Christianity not to insist on their so-called “religious exclusiveness” and accept the Hindu Indian view of unity in diversity. He pointed out that the process of thinking in this regard has already begun in some of the Islamic and Christian countries. They have now started realising that both the religions need to be moderate and reforms oriented. Referring to the sale of nuclear know-how by Pakistani scientist Kadir Khan to some of the Islamic countries, the Sarsanghchalak cautioned that people like Kadir Khan can leak such sensitive technology of mass destruction to anyone including terrorists, which could bring about destruction to the whole world. Union HRD Minister, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi said it was wrong to call this century the 21st century. He said Hindu civilisation is not just 2000 years old but it is more than 7000 years old that has been established by evidences. Therefore it should be called the 70th century, he emphasised.

“Today while discussing the inter-relation among civilisations we also need to think how to decide how old one civilisation is. Posing the question whether there was no science, ulture, literature nor civilisation in India 2000 years ago he said that fact is just the Indian astronomy is more than 6500 years old. The issue whether this century be called the 21st century or something else needs a serious debate,” he said. Dr Joshi emphasised that only a holistic approach can resolve the problems of the world. The world must recall that it was Hindu homeland that bore many fruits enjoyed by all humanity. Many of the worthwhile elements that the Hindu civilisation had produced over long periods of time would be useful for everyone in the world. Some of these universal precepts such as vegetarianism and yoga were now being practiced abroad even by people who had never visited India.