M
E S S A G E
India
with its ancient civilization and sublime spiritual culture is still a backward
country materially, with crores of poor people belonging to the acutely
have-not sector of humanity. If the
right to life is a guarantee of Swaraj, dignity and welfare are necessary
conditions of life as Vivekananda put it:
Feel, my children, feel for the poor, the ignorant, the
downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you
will go mad.
We talk foolishly against material civilization. The grapes are sour… Material civilization,
nay even luxury, is necessary to create work for the poor. Bread; I do not believe in a God, who cannot
give me bread here, giving me eternal bliss in heaven. Pooh; India is to be raised, the poor are to
be fed, education is to be spread, and the evil of priestcraft is to be
removed…more bread, more opportunity for everybody….
The
resources of the Indian nation have been robbed by imperialist Britain and other
foreign nations the deprived millions suffer from a capitalist system exploited
by the wealthy rajas and maharajas. To
act to these misfortunes are the gender injustices, lunatic casteism, communal discrimination
and the pariah wretchedness which are the lot of the illiterate, under-developed
subject classes. The only way of
securing dignity of life, decency of existence, basic social justice for the
vast masses is by making swaraj ensure minimum conditions by making available
basic needs of life. Such a
transformation is possible only by making Bharat a socialist society free from
theological chaos, rituals and superstitions and illiterate frustrations of
life. A socialist society abolishing
backward material conditions and exploitation is a must if humanism is the rule
of life and the die-hard deep poverty, misery and sufferings are to disappear. True equity and equality, gender justice and
the right to health can be possible for the people only through socialism where
the resources of the country are distributed fairly where employment and fare
wages, child care and oldage concern are a fundamental feature of society. It is these obligatory mandates not prisons
and harsh sentences that make India and
its people’s life just. If the present injustice continues a violent radicalism
will overthrow society. Therefore, the
guarantee of socialism and secularism are mandatory in our Republic. Horror and terror are the alternatives. There is no option for Bharat but to become
socialist. The present corruption is a
pan-Indianwise. Our Constitution using eloquent
rhetoric cannot diminish the despair to which people are driven. A socialist society, political and economic
sans which Indian culture will be sold to barbarity and primitivism and chronic
backward condition will come to stay. By socialism I mean more than mere
economics. It implies spiritual mutation
of the structure of society and makes eligible.
Socialism in its profound value is integral to the sacred tryst which
humanity has made with its sublime destiny.
I
wish the Socialist Party of India rapid radical advance all over the country
take place and justice, social, economic and political become a fundamental
duty of the State. As Vivekananda put it
: ‘I am a Socialist because half a loaf is better than none.’ The youth of this country must be inspired by
the socialist exhortation of our vedic seers and Swami Vivekananda who in an
address to the Brahmins of Madras accusing him of teaching Vedas to the
heathens of America retorted:
‘Aye, Brahmins’, if the Brahmin has
more aptitude for learning on the ground of heredity than the Pariah, spend no
more money on the Brahmin's education, but spend all on the Pariah. Give to the
weak, for there all the gift is needed .... Our poor people, these downtrodden
masses of India, Therefore, require to
hear and to know what they really are. Aye, let every man and woman and child,
without respect of caste of birth, weakness and strength, hear and learn that
behind the strong and the weak, behind the high and the low, behind everyone,
there is that Infinite Soul, assuring
that infinite possibility and the infinite capacity of all to become great and
good. Let us proclaim to every soul: 'Arise, awake and stop not till the goal
is reached.' Arise, awake!”
May 13, 2013 V.R. KRISHNA IYER
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