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Saturday, December
22, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Naqli poll funding Jogi splits BJP Wake up,
“sitting ducks”! |
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Sad plight of Haryana peasantry
Punishing innocent citizens
Chennai women make a beeline for new look
Sikh education for Britons A Sikh group in London has launched a new programme to educate the British about the community’s history and culture. The move has been launched by the Sikh Forum, which was created by the 1971 India-Pakistan War hero Lt.-Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora (retd). Aurora, who started the forum in India after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, also launched it in Britain.
1956, Physics: JOHN BARDEEN
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Naqli poll funding
IDEA-makers of the BJP-led alliance government need to put on their thinking cap. Their suggestion for a major electoral reform ignores harsh ground realities. They want to make donations to the election campaign of political parties income tax free. Fine, but this concession is limited to companies and excludes individuals, thereby exposing the hallowness of the BJP’s decision to collect Rs 1000 a year from all its life members. The Congress too is working on a Manmohan Singh committee report to build a reserve fund of Rs 500 crore by imposing a fee of Rs 500 on all its MPs and MLAs. But this is a non-election fund. The obvious flaw is two-fold. No big corporate will have so much white money to satisfy the hunger of all big parties. All top companies are in the non-tax paying bracket. Their skilled accountants hide the net profit under dozens of allowable rebates and thus manage the evenly balance income and expenditure. The new Bill stipulates that only 5 per cent of the average net profit of the previous three years can be set apart as donation to political parties. Major business players will not benefit from this new clause. Two other shortcomings are easy to notice. No corporate boss will like the world to know how much he had given to each political party. He goes by instinct and the advice of his private pollster. If he gives one party double of what he gives the opposition before an election and if his calculations go awry, he would face the wrath of the new ruling party. This is what will happen if hundred per cent transparency is forced on company donations to the election funds of political parties. Then there is the well-known fact but ignored by political parties whom they receive money from. They are the ones who need government protection and take out an insurance by bankrolling the poll campaign of the local politico. In due course they contest elections and enter the mainstream politics. Here lie the roots of the politician-criminal nexus. And a serious analysis of this will show that the excessive need for money to contest an election is the mother of the evil. It all started in 1971 when the Indira Congress was stripped of the organisation support and had to rely on massive pasting of multi-coloured posters, paid volunteers and newspaper advertisements to sell the party to the electorates. That was the point of deviation and any proposal should try to rectify it. |
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Jogi splits BJP CHHATISGARH is not exactly saffron territory. Therefore, the split in the Bharatiya Janata Legislature Party should be seen essentially as a triumph of the politics of manipulation over the values that the leaders periodically preach. Of course, the split has taken the BJP leadership by surprise. However, had it maintained a close watch on the political developments in Chhatisgarh, it would have realised that what the BJP had done in Uttar Pradesh for grabbing power was likely to be attempted by other political parties elsewhere for much the same reasons. The situation in Chhatisgarh though is marginally different. In UP the BJP could not have formed the government without engineering wholesale defection to its side from other parties. In Chhatisgarh the Congress technically enjoys a thin majority. So where was the need for it to cause a split in the BJP for survival? It must be remembered that Mr Ajit Jogi was made Chief Minister of the state carved out of Madhya Pradesh with the blessing of the Congress high command (read Ms Sonia Gandhi). This was done by ignoring the claim of the number one political family of the region represented by Mr Shyama Charan Shukla and Mr Vidya Charan Shukla. As of today, the Shukla brothers have the support of a sufficient number of Congress MLAs for making life difficult for Mr Jogi. Not anymore. Two days ago the Chief Minister was spending more time in Delhi for survival than in Chhatisgarh. The split in the BJLP has provided him breathing space. It is only a matter of time for the members of the breakaway faction of 12 out of 35 BJP MLAs to be included in Mr Jogi's over-sized council of ministers. The debate over the ethics of encouraging the politics of "aya Ram gaya Ram", immortalised by the conversion of the entire Janata Legislature Party into the Congress Legislature Party in Haryana by Mr Bhajan Lal in the late 70s, was never taken seriously by the political class. Why? Because if the eminently sensible suggestion to unseat members for changing post-election political loyalty is accepted electoral politics would cease to be an attractive business. In the political stock market hung legislatures make the sensex touch the sky. A thin majority for the ruling party too is a source of excitement for "business-minded" MLAs in the opposition. What has happened in Chhatisgarh is bad news for the Shukla brothers more than it is for the BJP whose legislative strength has been reduced from 35 to 23. The split has made their political calculations go awry for the time being. Given their track record it can be said that the Shukla brothers rather than accept defeat are likely to redraw their strategy for getting rid of the tenacious Mr
Jogi. |
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Wake up, “sitting ducks”! AT a time when the country is reeling under the shock of terrorist attacks on Parliament and the Red Fort, there is a need for the display of steely resolve and determination by powers that be. "Thus far and no further" is the mantra that can restore the confidence of the public in the government. At such a crucial juncture the pessimistic submission of the Delhi Chief Minister, Ms Sheila Dikshit, that "we are like sitting ducks and can be attacked any time by terrorists" is highly misplaced. "Anything can happen any time," she has opined and elaborated that the present security situation at the Players Building and the Old Secretariat complex is not at all satisfactory. Anyone can walk in any time and set off a violent incident. Delhi is sitting on a "time bomb", she told a stunned Assembly on Wednesday. Had these depressing words been uttered by an Opposition leader, these would not have caused so much disquiet. But imagine a Chief Minister saying this! Apparently, she has tried to tar the BJP-led government at the Centre. Her grouse is that she had been requesting for deployment of the police or the CISF at these two buildings and other vital installations, but her request had been turned down. She has managed to show the Central government in a poor light, but has scared the common citizen in the process. As a Chief Minister it is also her responsibility to provide protections to Delhi's citizens and she cannot just pass the buck. Her statement is a salvo fired in the context of the BJP-Congress skirmish no doubt, but there is considerable truth in what she says (and should not have). Delhi is indeed a sitting duck. The security system has been failing apart far too often, tall claims notwithstanding. Things are even worse in other cities. Her plainspeaking will be worthwhile if it galvanises everyone to action. The Jaish-e-Mohammad has threatened to carry out attacks in major Indian cities which, according to its spokesman, would be "shocking". India can no longer afford to take such threats lightly, particularly after what happened on December 13. While Mrs Dikshit takes potshots at the BJP, she should also set her own house in order. To begin with, she and her colleagues should crack down on the so-called VIPs who make a blatant misuse of their beacons and security guards. And let them all put aside their party labels for the time being and wear an Indian tag instead. History is witness to the fact that a nation cannot withstand the onslaught of an external enemy unless it is firmly united. |
Sad plight of Haryana peasantry HARYANA farmers played an important role in the resurgence of the peasant power in northern India under Charan Singh-Devi Lal leadership. Now the peasants in the predominantly agricultural state of Haryana constitute a totally demoralised and dispirited social force, forlorn and directionless, groping in the dark with no light at the end of a dark tunnel. They seem to have lost all faith in the ruling party, the Opposition and the farm scientists of the state. The green revolution has reached its plateau and the agriculture in the state is in the throes of a deep crisis. Some time back the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) decided to lodge its protest against the Opposition as well as the Haryana Agriculture University (HAU), Hisar. Normally, dissent is voiced against the ruling party. However, the Haryana peasantry seems to have written off the ruling dispensation. The Janata government led by Devi Lal in seventies set the healthy tradition of paying compensation to farmers when their crops were severely hit by the hailstorm. This year the cotton crop in Haryana has seen near-total destruction under the ferocious attack of the American ballworm. The farmers expected to be compensated by the Haryana government led by Devi Lal’s progeny. However, no help came to the farmers. Every item of the movable and immovable property can be insured in India, including the household goods. There has been talk of crop insurance for the last several years but nothing concrete has happened in the matter and the farming is totally dependent on the elements of nature. With no help from the government, peasants in a state of distress looked to the Opposition to mount pressure on the state government to extend some relief to them. However, they feel totally let down and cheated by the Opposition. The BKU adopted a novel method of protest by lighting a heap of dung cakes in front of the residence of three main Opposition leaders — the President of the Haryana Pradesh Congress Party, the leader of the Haryana Congress Legislature Party and the President of the Haryana Vikas Party — and at the HAU. It has already performed the ritual in case of one of the leaders and the HAU. The ritual has an arresting symbolism. A plenty of dung cakes are used along with the wood for cremating a dead body in rural Haryana. By taking recourse to the metaphor of burning dung cakes, the peasants of Haryana have declared the demise of the Opposition as well as the farm scientists in the state. By pronouncing the Opposition as well as the HAU as dead, the peasants of Haryana have expressed their deep sense of disgust and disillusionment against the Opposition parties as well as the farm scientists. Their sense of agony is not misplaced. The Opposition is in a state of total disarray in the state (Haryana Chief Minister is substantially right when he says that he has to play the role of the Opposition as well). The HAU played a pioneering role in ushering the green revolution in the state. Now it has lost its dynamism and has finally ended up as a white elephant. Hence, the mounting ire of the peasantry against the forces of Opposition and the farm scientists of the state. The recent tour of the cotton belt by this writer and his interaction with a cross section of peasants reveals a grim picture. A farmer lives from crop to crop and if one crop fails, his means of survival get totally exhausted and it is highly problematic to wait till the next crop. This time the cotton growers became desperate to save their crop and used pesticide spray indiscriminately. In spite of the heavy expenditure, crop could not be saved. Mortality has been from 80 to nearly 100 per cent. A survey in Fatehabad district — the hub of the cotton belt in the state — reveals that the cotton arrival in the market was only 76,563 quintals up till November 25, 2001 against 2,53,984 quintals till the same day last year. The situation is worse in other areas. Cotton growers have no cash to meet their day-to-day needs. Everyday they face humiliation at the hands of the village traders and the commission agents. They are subjected to taunts and calumny for asking for credit when they have not cleared the previous debt. No relief has come from the government and the paralysis has struck the Opposition. Farm scientists and extension staff were found wanting in time of pressing need. Thus, the wave of embitterment, indignation and helplessness sweeps the countryside now. The cotton growers blame the nexus between the official machinery and manufacturers of spurious pesticides for their woe. However, this writer’s interaction with the officials of the agriculture department posted in the field and the farm scientists of HAU has a different tale to tell. There are five agencies — farmer, pesticide manufacturer, trader, agriculture department and HAU — who are directly concerned with the health of the crops. Besides the role of the spurious pesticides that is not rated as crucial by the official machinery, the lack of proper coordination among the five agencies takes the major blame. HAU has Krishi Gyan Kendra in every district with experts in every field to guide the farmers. Then the staff of the agriculture department is regularly trained by the HAU for this purpose. There is an army of Agriculture Development Officers (ADOs) posted in the villages to help the farmers. The ADOs, complain the farmers, are rarely seen in the villages (in fact, hardly any government official posted in the countryside stays in a village — the nearby town is his abode and his foray in the countryside are as infrequent as possible). There is no mechanism to monitor the functioning of the vast extension machine being operated by the state government and the HAU. Everything is fine on paper but the output is dismal. The official machinery blames the early growth of the ballworm in the months of May and June instead of July and August this year on account of favourable weather conditions for the insects. Early growth of the ballworm and its terrific proliferation (a pair of five insects proliferates to 25 lakh insects in two months, if no corrective is applied) and the lack of proper coordination between the extension staff and the farmers coupled with the utter negligence of the government staff led to the disaster. As observed by a HAU farm scientist, 60 per cent of the loss could have been avoided if there had been timely intervention of the HAU and other government agencies. The indiscriminate use of numerous chemicals is causing a serious ecological imbalance. Different varieties of farmer-friendly birds that used to prey on crop insects have perished in the process. Soil is fast losing its fertility and there are no takers in the world market for substandard foodgrains being produced by the Indian farmers. Now farmers are advised to diversify the crops. This is not possible unless there is proper marketing with assured minimum support price (MSP). The MSP for bajra is Rs 465 per quintal but this time no government agency came forward to purchase it and the farmers were compelled to sell it at less than half the MSP. The same is true of other kharif crops like jawar, gawar, maize etc. To cut the story short, the peasantry finds itself in a blind alley. The wrath of peasantry against the Opposition parties is understandable. The Congress is the major Opposition party in the state. Though it is seen as the only alternative to the ruling party, a close look at it reveals that it is effete and lifeless. The contradiction among its major satraps is primary while the antagonism against the common political adversary is of secondary nature. In the last assembly elections they handed over the power to their adversary on a platter. The wrong selections of candidates and the pathological drive among its main leaders to defeat each other’s candidates dealt a deathblow to it. Most of its top leaders have turned megalomaniacs. “After me, the deluge” is their common refrain. “Either I or the political opponent in power”, is the guiding post. There is no loyalty to the party as such. “Everybody for himself” is the uppermost ideal that shapes their behaviour. They seem to have lost the will to come into power and are seized with a debilitating variety of death wish. There is no concept of mass struggle and no vision to educate and organise the masses in a state of distress. Strangely enough, the so-called party high command is oblivious of the ground reality. There is no attempt to strike a semblance of order in an utterly chaotic and anarchic state of affairs. However, the Congress is still the alternative unless new forces emerge. The HVP is another party, which is making a serious bid to come to power. Its leader, rightly given the credit for modernising the state during his stint of power just after Haryana came into being, floundered and failed when the electorate handed over the reins of power to him last time. There is too yawning a credibility gap to make his striving for power plausible this time. The BJP leads the government at the Centre but its branch in Haryana is in a most unenviable position. It is with the ruling party and not with it at the same time. The element of ambiguity and ambivalence in its political stance towards the ruling party in the state has made it a laughing stock. Even the BKU has rightly excluded it from its list of the dead organisms in the state that deserves the last rites. Its corpse is too decayed and stinking to be touched with a barge pole. The electorate is likely to perform its last rites in the next elections. The other small political parties are too insignificant to count so far as setting the political agenda in the state is concerned. Thus, the BKU has rightly picked up the two major Opposition parties and the farm scientists to pronounce them dead for all practical purposes. It has lost all hope in the ruling party to provide relief to peasants in a state of distress. Haryana peasantry has been known for its militancy. Now it finds itself in a slough of despondency and disillusionment. The utter desperation and embitterment with no ray of hope in the militant section of Haryana society does not augur well for its socio-political health. The portents are there for those who have eyes to see. |
Punishing innocent citizens IF you had read about my brother-in-law in the newspapers last week you would have thought he was a CIA agent or if not a spy then some other kind of very dangerous foreigner. Two national dailies reported from Bhubaneshwar that the Chief Minister of Orissa and his Energy Minister had associated with a dubious US citizen by the name of Herbert Oliver Fitzroy Musker and that Bijay Mohapatra, president of the Orissa Gana Parishad had ‘demanded a CBI probe to find out the nature and purpose of Musker’s visit, which is allegedly shrouded in mystery’. The truth is that this ‘allegedly’ mysterious foreigner is, to start with, not American but British. He married my sister nearly ten years ago and has lived mostly in India since. He has a PIO card that absolves him from filling in something called Form ‘C’ which apparently all foreigners visiting India are supposed to fill in upon arrival in our fair and wondrous land. He makes furniture, designs the interiors of people’s houses and dined with Naveen Patnaik and A.U. Singhdeo in Bhubaneshwar because he is an old friend of theirs. If the correspondents of the Hindustan Times and the Asian Age (the two dailies that reported the ‘mystery’ visit) were bored and story-less last week the story they could have filed from Mohapatra’s press conference should have been about the absurdity of a law that requires foreigners to register with the police. The Foreigners Act dates back to 1946 and the Foreigners’ (Report to Police) Order to 1971. Both laws should be obsolete now that India is desperately trying to woo foreign tourists particularly in states like Orissa where tourism could be a lifeline to drag the state out of its grinding, horrific poverty. But, no, they chose instead to report Mohapatra’s charges verbatim without even bothering to check whether the alleged foreigner had violated any law. Or, even if he were American or British. I tell you this tale to make the point that when it comes to dealing with innocent, law-abiding citizens the Indian state is not soft but evil. The police swings into action at a speed that leaves you reeling and, when there is a politician involved, they move even faster. They will, undoubtedly, soon discover that my brother-in-law is not a ‘mysterious’ foreigner but an ordinary businessman but can he sue them for besmirching his name? Yes, of course, he can but the case could take twenty years and who would even remember the story then? My brother-in-law is far from being the only victim of our supposedly soft state. Last week, Shankar Sharma and his wife Devina Mehra, whose company First Global invested in Tehelka.com, were arrested for alleged FERA violations. As far as I know, the law no longer exists and was replaced a long time ago by some less ferocious legislation. But, does the Enforcement Department care? No. On Delhi’s famed grapevine it is possible these days to hear many rumours of how the government is out to ‘finish’ the Sharmas. They have faced 25 income tax and other raids in the nine months since Tehelka, their properties have been attached, they are banned from travelling abroad and now they are in jail. No tax violations have so far been detected, no charges filed. And, in the ten years that the couple spent building First Global into one of our leading financial companies not a single government agency accused them of any kind of violation or fraud. But then came Tehelka’s damning images of Bangaru Laxman and Jaya Jaitley negotiating with fake armed dealers to collect money (for the party, naturally) and the government decided that the Sharmas were the villains of the piece. In the immediate wake of the Tehelka I talked to senior ministers in Delhi who outlined for me all manner of extraordinary conspiracy. The most interesting theory of all was that Sonia Gandhi visited Hong Kong in the middle of the Tehelka expose to meet her old pal, Ottavio Quattrochi, and that the Sharmas were in cahoots with him to bring the government down. If charges of this kind had come from Delhi’s drawingrooms it would be one thing. When they come from senior ministers it is another thing altogether. The Sharmas have had their life taken away from them without charges being framed without any evidence of financial misdemeanours. My brother-in-law will probably face harassment until someone in authority realises that they have the wrong mystery man. Hundreds of thousands of middle class Indians face similar problems from the Finance Ministry goons, corrupt policemen or government goons of some other genre. But, when it comes to terrorists these same goons wear gloves of the softest velvet. So, in our jails for five years sat evil men like Azhar Masood and Omar Sharif. Sharif, as I mentioned in an earlier column, wrote a diary detailing his terrorist activities. He talked of how he came to India from England to join the Kashmir jehad, how he helped kidnap foreign tourists, who his controllers were, everything. Despite the diary being in police possession Masood and Sharif never faced trial and were escorted to Kandahar by our Foreign Minister in exchange for the passengers of IC 814. Masood, it now turns out, was behind the attack on Parliament. The point I am making is that with the whole country baying for terrorist blood, since the December 13 attack on Parliament, we need to be very, very careful in allowing the government the sort of powers it is seeking. Since December 13 the number of minister pleading for POTO has trebled. Ordinary BJP MPs also appear on television on a daily basis to tell us that POTO is essential in these times of terror. The irony clearly escapes them because POTO was, in fact, law on December 13. It remains law until Parliament rejects it. It is true that we need special laws to deal with terrorism but we do not need a law that can attach your property and mine simply on the suspicion that we are terrorists. Anyone the government dislikes as much as it currently dislikes Shankar Sharma is a prospective victim of a law like POTO. If influential, educated middle class people can be victims you need only imagine what can happen to poor villagers. Remember the story of that poor, Maharashtrian Muslim family who were arrested and harassed for months because the police mistook the spindles they found in their house for rockets? Instead of seeking more powers what the government needs to do is conduct a serious examination of how terrorists always manage to remain undetected until they perpetrate some awful deed. It also needs to examine seriously why innocent citizens end up in the clutches of the police while crooks roam free. |
Chennai women make a beeline for new look The women of Chennai are busy learning the trendy hair cuts and designs these days. A three-day seminar-cum-workshop on the latest trends in haircuts and designs was recently organised by Southern India Beauty Specialists and Hairdressers Association (SIBHA) in collaboration with Pantene in Chennai. The latest haircuts and designs were presented by Raman Bhardwaj, the most sought after hairdresser from Kolkata, who is also the present hairdresser of Miss India, Celina Jaitley. Raman taught and presented to the audience the latest six new looks of hair dressing, namely natural inversion, square layers, classic layers, layered bob, transient graduation and short round layers. It took about two hours for Raman to finish one design on a woman. Lily Madhok, vice-president of SIBHA, said, “Chennai is considered to be a conservative city. We do not have good hairdressers and beauticians”. “To have a good haircut our women have to travel to Mumbai, Kolkata or Bangalore. We want to change this and bring up the standards and this three-day event I hope will achieve that”, she added. “These new hair designs would immediately get popular among Chennai women because nowadays they want a corporate image and this type of workshop would help them achieve that”, Lily Madhok claimed. Giving information about the various new hairdressing techniques, Raman said, “Basically these new designs can be worked only on women who have long hair and not on women who have curly hair”. He said the hairdressers too feel the new designs are easy to maintain as there is no need for any extra care to be taken since only scissors and combs are used for designing. Though the hair dressing business is considered to be a rich woman’s affair, it is beyond anybody’s doubt that slowly but steadily it percolates to the domain of even middle class and lower middle class women.
ANI Bishops to fight proposed liquor policy An influential Christian committee has resolved to launch a campaign against the Kerala government’s plan to hand over toddy stores to licensed contractors. The All Kerala Christian Bishops Council (AKCBC) has threatened a “liberation-liquor struggle” if the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) goes ahead with its proposal. The Kerala Congress, which heads the UDF, has suggested handing over the stores to licensed contractors. The UDF initially said prohibition would be introduced in a phased manner and the toddy business in the hands of worker cooperatives launched by the previous government would be disbanded. Seven months have passed since the declaration, but there seem to be noreforms in the liquor policy. The church and its top leaders are irked that before the 1996 elections, present Chief Minister A.K. Antony had announced a ban on locally brewed liquor, arrack. But after coming to power, he decided to open 55 more Indian made foreign liquor outlets. The AKCBC has representations from almost all the major churches. The Christian top brass fear that if the toddy business is permitted through the licensing method, it could lead to resurfacing of the illicit mafia. Explaining their grievances against the proposed policy, the AKCBC said the church considers alcoholism a social and humanitarian issue and the attempt by certain quarters to communalise it is quite
unfortunate. IANS |
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Sikh education for Britons A Sikh group in London has launched a new programme to educate the British about the community’s history and culture. The move has been launched by the Sikh Forum, which was created by the 1971 India-Pakistan War hero Lt.-Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora (retd). Aurora, who started the forum in India after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, also launched it in Britain. The work begun by the forum has taken on new urgency after the attacks on Sikhs in Britain following the September 11 terror attacks on the USA. But Sikh Forum president Ranjit Singh says the moves go back earlier than then. “We have been planning this since last year”. London’s Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, was invited to a recent dinner by the Sikh Forum where he was given a taste of Sikh traditions. Singh and the group’s secretary, Gurbachan Singh, spoke of the teachings of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak. No alcohol was served at the vegetarian meal. Leaders from various other faiths were invited to the meeting. These included Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders, Ranjit Singh said. He said the Sikh Forum is planning several events in the new year to raise awareness about the Sikh faith. The forum will work to promote greater contact with the British government, the Indian government and with the police in Britain, he said. “This will be a lobbying group for Sikhs”. The forum has already launched a drive to expand its membership in London, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Leicester where the bulk of the estimated half a million Sikhs in Britain
live. IANS |
Baroda Press Act
We learn from an Associated Press message that the Baroda government have accepted a resolution moved by a non-official member of the State Legislative Council, urging the repeal of the Press Act, which was promulgated some time ago in the state. When the new Act was enacted it was urged that in a progressive state like Baroda, the passing of such a measure, which interfered unduly with the freedom of the press, was not only an anomaly but also a positively retrograde step. It is gratifying that the state government have after all seen their way to listen to public opinion in this matter. |
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The elephant fills his stomach with contentment, The dog for a crumb, wanders from place to place. The seeker should imbibe the manner of the python, Who remains content with what comes his way. The lion gets its quarry and eats with ease. The jackal goes abegging from door to door. The seeker, says Paltu, needs to do nothing Save cultivate contentment, the base of devotion. —Sant
Paltu,
*** There are two kinds of contentment. One is a negative kind of contentment: in a helplessness, one somehow consoles oneself that everything is good, just to cover up one’s frustration, just to hide one’s failure in life. But that is a very sad contentment and impotent too. It has no life in it. It is the silence of the grave not the silence of a God. The real contentment is not out of helplessness; it is not to cover up your despair. It is the shadow of your bliss. Bliss has to be attained, then contentment comes following it of its own accord. —Osho,
*** The Lord is abiding within you and manifests through the service of the Guru and meditation of the True Name. But this is realised by the Gurmukh only who merges with the Lord through the Guru’s guidance and grace by meditating on the True Name. Due to dualmindedness, our minds become filthy, O Nanak. We should try to attain self-realisation through the Guru’s guidance perceiving the Lord within us. Thus we get honoured in this world through meditation of the True Name. —Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Rag Majh M 3, page 116. *** I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. —The Bible, Philippines, 4:11 *** Nothing will content him who is not content with a little. —A Greek proverb *** He who does not feel content is poor. —A Japanese Proverb *** All fortune belongs to those who have a contented mind. —The Panchatantra |
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