08-15-2007, 01:15 AM
âIf Om Namah Shivay is why I didnât become president, then itâs certainly a great blessingâ</b> <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->But why didnât I become President? I want to revisit that. Bardhan (CPI general-secretary A.B. Bardhan), a very senior man for whom I have high regard, said the first objection the Left had was that I am the son of a maharaja, and second, that I am the founder of the Virat Hindu Sammelan.
Iâm not comparing myself, but Ashoka, too, was the son of a maharaja, Buddha was, Ram was. Second, from the age of 18, Iâve thrown my lot with democratic politics, spearheading the transition from feudalism to democracy. When the issue of (the abolition of) privy purses came up, I stood by the government in which I was a minister. Iâm the son of a maharaja as a result of whose signature J&K is a part of India.
(As to the second objection) I have said Iâm interested in Hinduism, I have a PhD on Sri Aurobindo, and Iâve been lecturing on Vivekananda and Aurobindo across the world. The Viraat Hindu Sammelan was set up during the time of the mass conversions in Meenakshipuram, in South India. So it was a sort of social reform movement to see why the unfinished social revolution in Hinduism has got stuck. The national movement itself flowed from Hindu social reform. Social reform is important, and it was simply a platform for me. I have also been working on the interfaith movement and I needed some organisation for that.
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Iâve never been apologetic about this. If Om Namah Shivay is the reason I didnât become president, then certainly itâs a great blessing, because I wonât exchange my Om Namah Shivay, as Arjun says in the Bhagwad Gita, âeven for the sovereignty of the three worlds, what then for this land.â
None of them would qualify. I donât know if there is an atheist among them. Even Dr Manmohan Singh is a devout Sikh. And I think all the others have their own religious beliefs. In India 99 per cent of the people are religious. <b>By census figures, people who write âno religionâ or âagnosticâ are less than one per cent</b>. This time it was the question of numbers, which Congress did not have. So the support of the Left was needed. So it laid down the parameters and called the shots. But I donât think that the âanti-religiousâ definition of secularism of the Left is sustainable.
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Iâm not comparing myself, but Ashoka, too, was the son of a maharaja, Buddha was, Ram was. Second, from the age of 18, Iâve thrown my lot with democratic politics, spearheading the transition from feudalism to democracy. When the issue of (the abolition of) privy purses came up, I stood by the government in which I was a minister. Iâm the son of a maharaja as a result of whose signature J&K is a part of India.
(As to the second objection) I have said Iâm interested in Hinduism, I have a PhD on Sri Aurobindo, and Iâve been lecturing on Vivekananda and Aurobindo across the world. The Viraat Hindu Sammelan was set up during the time of the mass conversions in Meenakshipuram, in South India. So it was a sort of social reform movement to see why the unfinished social revolution in Hinduism has got stuck. The national movement itself flowed from Hindu social reform. Social reform is important, and it was simply a platform for me. I have also been working on the interfaith movement and I needed some organisation for that.
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Iâve never been apologetic about this. If Om Namah Shivay is the reason I didnât become president, then certainly itâs a great blessing, because I wonât exchange my Om Namah Shivay, as Arjun says in the Bhagwad Gita, âeven for the sovereignty of the three worlds, what then for this land.â
None of them would qualify. I donât know if there is an atheist among them. Even Dr Manmohan Singh is a devout Sikh. And I think all the others have their own religious beliefs. In India 99 per cent of the people are religious. <b>By census figures, people who write âno religionâ or âagnosticâ are less than one per cent</b>. This time it was the question of numbers, which Congress did not have. So the support of the Left was needed. So it laid down the parameters and called the shots. But I donât think that the âanti-religiousâ definition of secularism of the Left is sustainable.
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