India Freedom Quotes

Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis.

Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but the Muslim Ideology which has to be preserved, which has come to us as a precious gift and treasure and which, we hope other will share with us.

The aim of life is no more to control the mind, but to develop it harmoniously; not to achieve salvation here after, but to make the best use of it here below; and not to realise truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life; social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of democracy; universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity - of opportunity in the social, political and individual life.— from Bhagat Singh's prison diary, p. 124

Freedom is not a tea party, India. Freedom is a war.

If ideas and beliefs are to be denied validity outside the geographical and cultural bounds of their origin, Buddhism would be confined to north India, Christianity to a narrow tract in the Middle East and Islam to Arabia.

Independence means.. enjoying freedom and empowering others too to let them do so.

Als it is hard for America to fight wars in the name of freedom, if those people themselves choose for nonfreedom. Can America and England save India from communism, if they vote communist themselves.

All that we have invented, the symbols in the church, the rituals, they are all put there by thought. Thought has invented these things. Invented the savior. Invented the temples of India and the contents of the temples. Thought has invented all these things called sacred. You cannot deny that. So thought in itself is not sacred. And when thought invents God, God is not sacred. So what is sacred? That can only be understood or happen when there is complete freedom, from fear, from sorrow, and when there is this sense of love and compassion with it's own intelligence. Then when the mind is utterly still, that which is sacred can take place.

Two things form the bedrock of any open society — freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free country." [Don’t allow religious hooligans to dictate terms (The Times of India, January 16, 2008)]

A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it: he simply gives. And when a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it – no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone, they are together so much so that they are almost one. But their oneness does not destroy their individuality; in fact, it enhances it: they become more individual. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. How can you dominate the person you love? Just think over it. Domination is a sort of hatred, anger, enmity. How can you even think of dominating a person you love? You would love to see the person totally free, independent; you will give him more individuality. That’s why I call it the greatest paradox: they are together so much so that they are almost one, but still in that oneness they are individuals. Their individualities are not effaced; they have become more enhanced. The other has enriched them as far as their freedom is concerned. Immature people falling in love destroy each other’s freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness. Remember, freedom is a higher value than love. That’s why, in India, the ultimate we call moksha. Moksha means freedom. Freedom is a higher value than love. So if love is destroying freedom, it is not of worth. Love can be dropped, freedom has to be saved; freedom is a higher value. And without freedom you can never be happy, that is not possible. Freedom is the intrinsic desire of each man, each woman – utter freedom, absolute freedom. So anything that becomes destructive to freedom, one starts hating it. Don’t you hate the man you love? Don’t you hate the woman you love? You hate; it is a necessary evil, you have to tolerate it. Because you cannot be alone you have to manage to be with somebody, and you have to adjust to the other’s demands. You have to tolerate, you have to bear them. Love, to be really love, has to be being-love, gift-love. Being-love means a state of love. When you have arrived home, when you have known who you are, then a love arises in your being. Then the fragrance spreads and you can give it to others. How can you give something which you don’t have? To give it, the first basic requirement is to have it.

the sword of revolution is sharpened on the whetting stone of ideas-bhagat singh in court during his trial, india's struggle for freedom

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance

Do you know about Hanuman, sir? He was the faithful servant of the god Rama, and we worship him in our temples because he is a shining example of how to serve your masters with absolute fidelity, love, and devotion. These are the kinds of gods they have foisted on us Mr. Jiabao. Understand, now, how hard it is for a man to win his freedom in India.

I remember Mac retorting that hundreds of years ago there was a Hindi word for a craft that flew in the air, long before the airplane was invented, but that did not mean that airplanes existed in ancient India.

Cleanliness is a freedom movement for an aspiring Nation. Culture of cleanliness will influence the heygine, health, asthetics and natural setting of the nation, which is a new age currency of a country.

Fantasizing about an impossibly idealized kind of love they’d seen an actor perform on-screen. Yet, all their real-world efforts were extremely pragmatic, often sacrificing the love they fantasized about as a price for earning status, security, and financial freedom.

Development is, ultimately, the progress of human freedom and capability to lead the kind of lives that people have reason to value.

To prosper, a zoo needs parliamentary government, democratic elections, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, rule of law and everything else enshrined in India's Constitution. Impossible to enjoy the animals otherwise. Long-term, bad politics is bad for business.

Before I was married, I thought the sound of bangles jangling on my forearms would be delightful. I looked forward to being able to wear bells around my ankles and silver necklaces around my neck, but not any more, not since I had learned what they represented for the man who gave them. A necklace was no prettier than a piece of of rope that ties a goat to a tree, depriving it of freedom.

Democracy is about the dialogue; protest is about initiating the dialogue and freedom of speech is about respecting each other’s dialogue.

Pakistan is merely another manifestation of a cultural unit demanding freedom for the growth of its own distinctive culture.

Any Government which denied this elementary right of freedom of speech and freedom of action did not deserve allegiance from the people.

A country under foreign domination seeks escape from the present in dreams of a vanished age, and finds consolation in visions of past greatness. That is a foolish and dangerous pastime in which many of us indulge. An equally questionable practice for us in India is to imagine that we are still spiritually great though we have come down in the world in other respects. Spiritual or any other greatness cannot be founded on lack of freedom and opportunity, or on starvation and misery.

Live in the world without any idea of what is going to happen. Whether you are going to be a winner or a loser, it doesn’t matter. Death takes everything away. Whether you lose or win is immaterial. The only thing that matters, and it has always been so, is how you played the game. Did you enjoy it?—the game itself? Then each moment is a moment of joy. ALSO BY OSHO INSIGHTS FOR A NEW WAY OF LIVING SERIES Awareness: The Key to Living in Balance Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other Intuition: Knowing Beyond Logic Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself OTHER BOOKS Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic The Book of Secrets India My Love: A Spiritual Journey Love, Freedom, and Aloneness Meditation: The First and Last Freedom

The deceiver loses when there is correct response from the deceived...

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom,

The best thing about India is the freedom that one enjoys here, which is also the worst thing about it.

India all too easily forgets its own history under British rule, and the declaration of its freedom fighters that the oppressor does not have the privilege of judging when a people are 'deserving' of freedom.

We celebrate Republic and Independence Days in India to remind us, that our country and its freedom is the result of sweat, patience, persistence, and sacrifice of those with the courage to dream freedom and make it a reality for their future generations.

Social war has been raging between the strong and the weak far more violently in Europe than it has ever been in India. Yet, the weak in Europe has had in his freedom of military service his physical weapon, in suffering his political weapon and in education his moral weapon. These three weapons for emancipation were never withheld by the strong from the weak in Europe. All these weapons were, however, denied to the masses in India by Chaturvarnya. There cannot be a more degrading system of social organization than the Chaturvarnya.

Nehru, speaking of his country’s dreams, said: ‘Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.’ It

Whenever, wherever in the world there has been an upsurge of human freedom, women have won a share of it for themselves. Sex did not fight the French Revolution, free the slaves in America, overthrow the Russian Czar, drive the British out of India; but when the idea of human freedom moves the minds of men, it also moves the minds of women. The cadences of the Seneca Falls Declaration came straight from the Declaration of Independence: When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that they have hitherto occupied. . . . We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.

Our lives are encumbered with the dead wood of this past; all that is dead and has served its purpose has to go. But that does not mean a break with, or a forgetting of, the vital and life-giving in that past. We can never forget the ideals that have moved our race, the dreams of the Indian people through the ages, the wisdom of the ancients, the buoyant energy and love of life and nature of our forefathers, their spirit of curiosity and mental adventure, the daring of their thought, their splendid achievements in literature, art and culture, their love of truth and beauty and freedom, the basic values that they set up, their understanding of life's mysterious ways, their toleration of other ways than theirs, their capacity to absorb other peoples and their cultural accomplishments, to synthesize them and develop a varied and mixed culture; nor can we forget the myriad experiences which have built up our ancient race and lie embedded in our sub-conscious minds. We will never forget them or cease to take pride in that noble heritage of ours. If India forgets them she will no longer remain India and much that has made her our joy and pride will cease to be.

If overpopulation or lack of resources created poverty, then Hong Kong should be poor. Hong Kong has 20 times as many people per square mile as India, and no valuable natural resources. Yet Hong Kong is rich; the average income there is higher than in Great Britain or Canada. This is a recent development. In the 1920s, Hong Kong was as poor as India. But in a relatively short time it became rich because of one key ingredient: economic freedom.

India was and to some extent, still is, a nation where its citizens care more about their religious freedom than any other earthly possession. Give them food or not, it doesn’t matter to them, as long as they are allowed to practice their religion. But, take away their religion, they will fight till the last breath of their life.

I am writing this because on that night of the tenth of May in the 1,940th year of Our Lord, Churchill stood for more than England. Millions of people, especially across Europe, recognized him now as the champion of their hopes. (In faraway Bengal India there was at least one man, that admirably independent writer and thinker, Nirad Chaudhuri, who fastened Churchill's picture on the wall of his room the next day.) Churchill was _the_ opponent of Hitler, the incarnation of the reaction to Hitler, the incarnation of the resistance of an old world, of old freedoms, of old standards against a man incarnating a force that was frighteningly efficient, brutal, and new.

In India we're fighting to retain a wilderness that we have. Whereas in the west, it's gone. Every person that's walking down the street is a walking bar code. You can tell where their clothes are from, how much they cost, which designer made which shoe, which shop you bought each item from. Everything is civilized and tagged and valued and numbered and put in it's place. Whereas in India, the wilderness still exists-the unindoctrinated wilderness of the mind, full of untold secrets and wild imaginings.

A light brought into a dark room will necessarily illuminate every portion of it

India asks us, ‘Why do you throw stones?’ No one asks, ‘Who burned your house down?

She had talked of this at length with Kadambari—Mrs. Dutt: Why should it not be possible for these freedoms to be universally available for women everywhere? And Mrs. Dutt had said that of course, this was one of the great benefits of British rule in India; that it had given women rights and protections that they’d never had before. At this, Uma had felt herself, for the first time, falling utterly out of sympathy with her new friend. She had known instinctively that this was a false argument, unfounded and illogical. How was it possible to imagine that one could grant freedom by imposing subjugation? that one could open a cage by pushing it inside a bigger cage? How could any section of a people hope to achieve freedom where the entirety of a populace was held in subjection?

At the end of the market is a tall, whitewashed, conelike tower, with black intertwining snakes painted on all its sides—the temple. Inside, you will find an image of a saffron-colored creature, half man half monkey: this is Hanuman, everyone’s favorite god in the Darkness. Do you know about Hanuman, sir? He was the faithful servant of the god Rama, and we worship him in our temples because he is a shining example of how to serve your masters with absolute fidelity, love, and devotion. These are the kinds of gods they have foisted on us, Mr. Jiabao. Understand, now, how hard it is for a man to win his freedom in India.

Sarojini Naidu, India’s great poetess and a redoubtable freedom fighter, told. Once she signed an autograph for a young boy and when she asked him if he knew who she was, he said, ‘You are C. K. Nayudu’s wife!

Eppure realizzai per davvero quanto caotica e in prestito fosse la mia fortuna, la fortuna d’essere nato sulla guancia giusta del mondo, soltanto quando un vecchio, per strada, pianse e disse: "Sei bianco come Dio.

[The goal is] "liberation from the bondage of rebirth. According to the Vedantists the self, which they call the atman and we call the soul, is distinct from the body and its senses, distinct from the mind and its intelligence; it is not part of the Absolute, for the Absolute, being infinite, can have no parts but the Absolute itself. It is uncreated; it has existed form eternity and when at least it has cast off the seven veils of ignorance will return to the infinitude from which it came. It is like a drop of water that has arisen from the sea, and in a shower has fallen into a puddle, then drifts into a brook, finds its way into a stream, after that into a river, passing through mountain gorges and wide plains, winding this way and that, obstructed by rocks and fallen trees, till at least it reaches the boundless seas from which it rose." "But that poor little drop of water, when it has once more become one with the sea, has surely lost its individuality." Larry grinned. "You want to taste sugar, you don't want to become sugar. What is individuality but the expression of our egoism? Until the soul has shed the last trace of that it cannot become one with the Absolute." "You talk very familiarly of the Absolute, Larry, and it's an imposing word. What does it actually signify to you?" "Reality. You can't say what it is ; you can only say what it isn't. It's inexpressible. The Indians call it Brahman. It's not a person, it's not a thing, it's not a cause. It has no qualities. It transcends permanence and change; whole and part, finite and infinite. It is eternal because its completeness and perfection are unrelated to time. It is truth and freedom." "Golly," I said to myself, but to Larry: "But how can a purely intellectual conception be a solace to the suffering human race? Men have always wanted a personal God to whom they can turn in their distress for comfort and encouragement." "It may be that at some far distant day greater insight will show them that they must look for comfort and encouragement in their own souls. I myself think that the need to worship is no more than the survival of an old remembrance of cruel gods that had to be propitiated. I believe that God is within me or nowhere. If that's so, whom or what am I to worship—myself? Men are on different levels of spiritual development, and so the imagination of India has evolved the manifestations of the Absolute that are known as Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and by a hundred other names. The Absolute is in Isvara, the creator and ruler of the world, and it is in the humble fetish before which the peasant in his sun-baked field places the offering of a flower. The multitudinous gods of India are but expedients to lead to the realization that the self is one with the supreme self.

Independence was worked for by people more or less at the top; the freedom it brought has worked its way down. People everywhere have ideas now of who they are and what they owe themselves. The process quickened with the economic development that came after independence; what was hidden in 1962, or not easy to see, what perhaps was only in a state of becoming, has become clearer. The liberation of spirit that has come to India could not come as release alone. In India, with its layer below layer of distress and cruelty, it had to come as disturbance. It had to come as rage and revolt. India was now a country of a million little mutinies.

A man opposite me shifted his feet, accidentally brushing his foot against mine. It was a gentle touch, barely noticeable, but the man immediately reached out to touch my knee and then his own chest with the fingertips of his right hand, in the Indian gesture of apology for an unintended offence. In the carriage and the corridor beyond, the other passengers were similarly respectful, sharing, and solicitous with one another. At first, on that first journey out of the city into India, I found such sudden politeness infuriating after the violent scramble to board the train. It seemed hypocritical for them to show such deferential concern over a nudge with a foot when, minutes before, they'd all but pushed one another out of the windows. Now, long years and many journeys after that first ride on a crowded rural train, I know that the scrambled fighting and courteous deference were both expressions of the one philosophy: the doctrine of necessity. The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example, was no less and no more than the amount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards. What is necessary! That was the unspoken but implied and unavoidable question everywhere in India. When I understood that, a great many of the characteristically perplexing aspects of public life became comprehensible: from the acceptance of sprawling slums by city authorities, to the freedom that cows had to roam at random in the midst of traffic; from the toleration of beggars on the streets, to the concatenate complexity of the bureaucracies; and from the gorgeous, unashamed escapism of Bollywood movies, to the accommodation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Tibet, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, and Bangladesh, in a country that was already too crowded with sorrows and needs of its own. The real hypocrisy, I came to realise, was in the eyes and minds and criticisms of those who came from lands of plenty, where none had to fight for a seat on a train. Even on that first train ride, I knew in my heart that Didier had been right when he'd compared India and its billion souls to France. I had an intuition, echoing his thought, that if there were a billion Frenchmen or Australians or Americans living in such a small space, the fighting to board the train would be much more, and the courtesy afterwards much less. And in truth, the politeness and consideration shown by the peasant farmers, travelling salesmen, itinerant workers, and returning sons and fathers and husbands did make for an agreeable journey, despite the cramped conditions and relentlessly increasing heat. Every available centimetre of seating space was occupied, even to the sturdy metal luggage racks over our heads. The men in the corridor took turns to sit or squat on a section of floor that had been set aside and cleaned for the purpose. Every man felt the press of at least two other bodies against his own. Yet there wasn't a single display of grouchiness or bad temper

I declare it well befits me to thank our God for simpler pleasures than these, than teak or gold or India cloth. Daily, in my youth, should not I have fallen upon my knees and thanked Him who died for us upon the Cross for the warmth of kindled fires, for the freedom to swing my hands in the air? Should I not have praised Him for the liberty to open doors and pass through them, for the escape from drudgery, and most, my mother’s hand to hold?

A pleasure moved through me with the sounds of our collective hums. Having traveled thousands of miles to feel my body again -- the vibration of our chants, the touch of her hand, the knowing that our pleasure is our power -- I finally leaned into this wild love.

This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life. The bitter lesson that may be drawn from this tragedy is that eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry.

Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.

By patriotism I mean the welfare of the whole people, and if I could secure it at the hands of the English, I should bow down my head to them. If any Englishman dedicated his life to securing the freedom of India, resisting tyranny and serving the land, I should welcome that Englishman as an Indian.

Once again I draw your attention to the difficulties India has had to encounter and her struggle to overcome them. Her problem was the problem of the world in miniature. India is too vast in its area and too diverse in its races. It is many countries packed in one geographical receptacle. It is just the opposite of what Europe truly is, namely, one country made into many. Thus Europe in its culture and growth has had the advantage of the strength of the many as well as the strength of the one. India, on the contrary, being naturally many, yet adventitiously one, has all along suffered from the looseness of its diversity and the feebleness of its unity. A true unity is like a round globe, it rolls on, carrying its burden easily; but diversity is a many-cornered thing which has to be dragged and pushed with all force. Be it said to the credit of India that this diversity was not her own creation; she has had to accept it as a fact from the beginning of her history. In America and Australia, Europe has simplified her problem by almost exterminating the original population. Even in the present age this spirit of extermination is making itself manifest, in the inhospitable shutting out of aliens, by those who themselves were aliens in the lands they now occupy. But India tolerated difference of races from the first, and that spirit of toleration has acted all through her history. Her caste system is the outcome of this spirit of toleration. For India has all along been trying experiments in evolving a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, while fully enjoying the freedom of maintaining their own differences. The tie has been as loose as possible, yet as close as the circumstances permitted. This has produced something like a United States of a social federation, whose common name is Hinduism. India

Kashmir is India’s greatest moral and political failure. It is here that even the most civilised amongst us begin to make excuses for repression, brutality and violence. It is here that we subsume all that we otherwise celebrate under the demands of freedom, progress, liberalism, liberty and secular ideals. Since 1947, the Indian state has responded to the political aspirations and the social and the legal demands in Kashmir through militarisation, repression, and indiscriminate violence, including, at various times, the denial of democratic rights, the manipulation of elections, and the murder and imprisonment of its political leaders.

The Battle of Good and Evil Polytheism gave birth not merely to monotheist religions, but also to dualistic ones. Dualistic religions espouse the existence of two opposing powers: good and evil. Unlike monotheism, dualism believes that evil is an independent power, neither created by the good God, nor subordinate to it. Dualism explains that the entire universe is a battleground between these two forces, and that everything that happens in the world is part of the struggle. Dualism is a very attractive world view because it has a short and simple answer to the famous Problem of Evil, one of the fundamental concerns of human thought. ‘Why is there evil in the world? Why is there suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people?’ Monotheists have to practise intellectual gymnastics to explain how an all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good God allows so much suffering in the world. One well-known explanation is that this is God’s way of allowing for human free will. Were there no evil, humans could not choose between good and evil, and hence there would be no free will. This, however, is a non-intuitive answer that immediately raises a host of new questions. Freedom of will allows humans to choose evil. Many indeed choose evil and, according to the standard monotheist account, this choice must bring divine punishment in its wake. If God knew in advance that a particular person would use her free will to choose evil, and that as a result she would be punished for this by eternal tortures in hell, why did God create her? Theologians have written countless books to answer such questions. Some find the answers convincing. Some don’t. What’s undeniable is that monotheists have a hard time dealing with the Problem of Evil. For dualists, it’s easy to explain evil. Bad things happen even to good people because the world is not governed single-handedly by a good God. There is an independent evil power loose in the world. The evil power does bad things. Dualism has its own drawbacks. While solving the Problem of Evil, it is unnerved by the Problem of Order. If the world was created by a single God, it’s clear why it is such an orderly place, where everything obeys the same laws. But if Good and Evil battle for control of the world, who enforces the laws governing this cosmic war? Two rival states can fight one another because both obey the same laws of physics. A missile launched from Pakistan can hit targets in India because gravity works the same way in both countries. When Good and Evil fight, what common laws do they obey, and who decreed these laws? So, monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe – and He’s evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief. Dualistic

167 It’s one of those days when the monotony of everything oppresses me like being thrown into jail. The monotony of everything is merely the monotony of myself, however. Each face, even if seen just yesterday, is different today, because today isn’t yesterday. Each day is the day it is, and there was never another one like it in the world. Only our soul makes the identification – a genuinely felt but erroneous identification – by which everything becomes similar and simplified. The world is a set of distinct things with varied edges, but if we’re near-sighted, it’s a continual and indecipherable fog. I feel like fleeing. Like fleeing from what I know, fleeing from what’s mine, fleeing from what I love. I want to depart, not for impossible Indias or for the great islands south of everything, but for any place at all – village or wilderness – that isn’t this place. I want to stop seeing these unchanging faces, this routine, these days. I want to rest, far removed, from my inveterate feigning. I want to feel sleep come to me as life, not as rest. A cabin on the seashore or even a cave in a rocky mountainside could give me this, but my will, unfortunately, cannot. Slavery is the law of life, and it is the only law, for it must be observed: there is no revolt possible, no way to escape it. Some are born slaves, others become slaves, and still others are forced to accept slavery. Our faint-hearted love of freedom – which, if we had it, we would all reject, unable to get used to it – is proof of how ingrained our slavery is. I myself, having just said that I’d like a cabin or a cave where I could be free from the monotony of everything, which is the monotony of me – would I dare set out for this cabin or cave, knowing from experience that the monotony, since it stems from me, will always be with me? I myself, suffocating from where I am and because I am – where would I breathe easier, if the sickness is in my lungs rather than in the things that surround me? I myself, who long for pure sunlight and open country, for the ocean in plain view and the unbroken horizon – could I get used to my new bed, the food, not having to descend eight flights of stairs to the street, not entering the tobacco shop on the corner, not saying good-morning to the barber standing outside his shop? Everything that surrounds us becomes part of us, infiltrating our physical sensations and our feeling of life, and like spittle of the great Spider it subtly binds us to whatever is close, tucking us into a soft bed of slow death which is rocked by the wind. Everything is us, and we are everything, but what good is this, if everything is nothing? A ray of sunlight, a cloud whose shadow tells us it is passing, a breeze that rises, the silence that follows when it ceases, one or another face, a few voices, the incidental laughter of the girls who are talking, and then night with the meaningless, fractured hieroglyphs of the stars.

The most beautiful feeling is to breathe in the open air. The Most Important thing in life is that we live in a peaceful atmosphere. The great satisfaction is that our generation grows up without fear. The Biggest relaxation is that we are totally free to enjoy freedom. and today we have all these, So be happy and Enjoy independence day

You had now lived outside India longer than you lived in it. Your relationship with your motherland was complex, so much so that I think you struggled to talk about it. It must have been so bittersweet and even painful for you to visit, catching a glimpse of a parallel universe that held both your past and your alternate present in one view; a place that, like you, had changed so much that neither of you could fully recognize the other anymore; yet simultaneously a place that saw and loved you in a way that your other, permanent home never could. Your grief, like all grief, forced you to hold contradictory emotions at once: longing and repulsion, relief and agitation, freedom and entrapment.

Cutting off the nose is a metaphor for shame. The notion of locating honor in the women of the household has led to women in India being objectified and denied their freedom and choices. Whether Sita is physically abused or not, Ram's honor has been stained. Modern notions of justice mock these deep-rooted traditional notions of shame that have been used to justify the violent oppression of women.

Our government doesn’t necessarily agree with Wilson’s Fourteen Points.” Maud nodded. “I suppose we’re against point five, about colonial peoples having a say in their own government.” “Exactly. What about Rhodesia, and Barbados, and India? We can’t be expected to ask the natives’ permission before we civilize them. Americans are far too liberal. And we’re dead against point two, freedom of the seas in war and peace.

The first Baptist missionary (and the first missionary from the United States) was the African-American George Liele, the Baptist pastor of the first African Church of Savannah, who was able to purchase his own freedom and then went to Kingston, Jamaica, in 1783 as a missionary to African slaves. By the time Carey left for India, Liele already had planted the African Baptist Church of Kingston with more than five hundred

Held a ‘prisoner perforce inactive when a fierce activity consumes the world’, Nehru found the present had acquired the ‘immobility and unchangeableness’ of the past. Still, sequestered from the world, he felt ‘the domination of the present’— or to use a more current phrase, the urgency of now pressed in on him. Denied the freedom to act in this present, he turned to the past and made it his instrument for acting on the future.

The Black American freedom struggle was inspired in part by the South African freedom struggle. In fact, I can remember growing up in the most segregated city in the country, Birmingham, Alabama, and learning about South Africa because Birmingham was known as the Johannesburg of the South. Dr. Martin Luther King was inspired by Gandhi to engage in nonviolent campaigns against racism. And in India, the Dalits, formerly known as untouchables and other people who’ve been struggling against the caste system have been inspired by the struggles of Black Americans. More recently, young Palestinians have organized Freedom Rides, recapitulating the Freedom Rides of the 1960s by boarding segregated buses in the occupied territory of Palestine and being arrested as the Black and white Freedom Riders were in the sixties. They announced their project to be the Palestinian Freedom Riders.

I never liked North America, even first trip. It is not most crowded part of Terra, has a mere billion people. In Bombay they sprawl on pavements; in Great New York they pack them vertically--not sure anyone sleeps. Was glad to be in invalid's chair. Is mixed-up place another way; they care about skin color--by making point of how they don't care. First trip I was always too light or too dark, and somehow blamed either way, or was always being expected to take stand on things I have no opinions on. Bog knows I don't know what genes I have. One grandmother came from a part of Asia where invaders passed as regularly as locusts, raping as they went--why not ask her? Learned to handle it by my second makee-learnee but it left a sour taste. Think I prefer a place as openly racist as India, where if you aren't Hindu, you're nobody--except that Parsees look down on Hindus and vice versa. However I never really had to cope with North America's reverse-racism when being "Colonel O' Kelly Davis, Hero of Lunar Freedom.

Aruna's husband Asaf Ali was seemingly a freedom fighter but unbeknownst to his comrades, he was in fact a British agent inside the Congress Working Committee, which was collectively imprisoned on the first day the agitation started. When the British left, they forgot a few files by mistake, and one of them revealed Ali's espionage. Ali, already sent to Washington as India's first ambassador there, was recalled and sidelines as Governor of Orissa, though M.K. Gandhi intervened to spare him an overt fall from grace.

History has seen many who claim to be deliverer and saviour of the people. They might come with force and violence and parade their might and splendour as conquerors. The pharaohs of Egypt, Sennacherib king of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Darius of Persia, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Napoleon, Clive of India, Bismarck, the Kaiser, Hitler, Stalin. The story and scene is always the same. They claim to deliver the people from bondage and to establish justice, freedom and peace. They come in might, riding in splendour, dragging prisoners.

A human, caught under the oppression of a foreign nation in his/her own country, can be willingly to risk his/her life in order to achieve freedom. To call this act a self-sacrifice, one would have to presume that the person didn’t mind living as a slave of the British. The selfishness of a person who is willing to die, if necessary, fighting for his/her freedom, lies in the fact that he/she is unwilling to go on living in a world where he/she is no longer able to act on his/her own rules and regulations, that is, a world where rudimentary human conditions of existence are no longer possible.

Your whole mind is a fog which the Toltec called a mitote (pronounced MIH-TOE´-TAY). Your mind is a dream where a thousand people talk at the same time, and nobody understands each other. This is the condition of the human mind — a big mitote, and with that big mitote you cannot see what you really are. In India they call the mitote maya, which means illusion. It is the personality’s notion of “I am.” Everything you believe about yourself and the world, all the concepts and programming you have in your mind, are all the mitote. We cannot see who we truly are; we cannot see that we are not free.

India had survived through the centuries by combining cultural imperviousness with extraordinary psychological skill in dealing with occupiers. Mohandas Gandhi’s passive resistance to British rule was made possible in the first instance by the spiritual uplift of the Mahatma, but it also proved to be the most effective way to fight the imperial power because of its appeal to the core values of freedom of liberal British society. Like Americans two centuries earlier, Indians vindicated their independence by invoking against their colonial rulers concepts of liberty they had studied in British schools.

Good books are rare, and to have a really good library, a few shelves are all we need. When I was still on my campus in India, I was convinced, like many professors, that if the Lord was to be found anywhere, it was in the lower stacks of the library. But now - just as when I go into a big department store, I can say, "How many things I don't need! How many expensive suits I don't want!" - when I enter a big library I say, "What tomes I don't have to read again! What folios I will never open!" This feeling of freedom will come to all of us when we realise, in the depths of our meditation, that all wisdom lies within.

Garibaldi; the England that is the enemy of tyranny, the foe of autocracy, the lover of freedom, that is the England I would fain here represent to you to-day. To-day, when India stands erect, no suppliant people, but a Nation, self-conscious, self-respecting, determined to be free; when she stretches out her hand to Britain and offers friendship not subservience; co-operation not obedience; to-day let me: western-born but in spirit eastern, cradled in England but Indian by choice and adoption: let me stand as the symbol of union between Great Britain and India: a union of hearts and free choice, not of compulsion: and

Today, the witch theory of causality has fallen into disuse, with the exception of a few isolated pockets in Papua New Guinea, India, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Tanzania, Kenya, or Sierra Leone, where “witches” are still burned to death. A 2002 World Health Organization study, for example, reported that every year more than 500 elderly women in Tanzania alone are killed for being “witches.” In Nigeria, children by the thousands are being rounded up and torched as “witches,” and in response the Nigerian government arrested a self-styled bishop named Okon Williams, who it accused of killing 110 such children.

Similarly, women collectively are coerced into marriage although any woman is free to remain single. William Thompson compared women’s freedom to decline to marry with that of the freedom of peasants to refuse to buy food from the East India monopoly which had already cornered all the supplies; ‘so by male-created laws, depriving women of knowledge and skill, excluding them from the benefit of all judgment and mind-creating offices and trusts, cutting them off almost entirely from the participation, by succession or otherwise, of property, and from its uses and exchanges – are women kindly told, “they are free to marry or not”.

Do you really believe that freedom of choice exists? India still has a caste system. Most of the Middle East treats women as inferiors and those who practice other religions as enemies. China regulates how many children couples can have, genocide abounds in South America and Africa, Malaysia has a booming underage sex trade, and the list goes on and on. All around the world the people in power abuse it and human rights are ignored. But what if we were incapable of hurting our fellow man? What if our core impulse was to help each other rather than control each other? The human race is destructive. This research could fix it. Purify it.

The all-or-nothing quality of Poonja-ji’s teaching obliged him to acknowledge the full enlightenment of any person who was grandiose or manic enough to claim it. Thus, I repeatedly witnessed fellow students declare their complete and undying freedom, all the while appearing quite ordinary—or worse. In certain cases, these people had clearly had some sort of breakthrough, but Poonja-ji’s insistence upon the finality of every legitimate insight led many of them to delude themselves about their spiritual attainments. Some left India and became gurus. From what I could tell, Poonja-ji gave everyone his blessing to spread his teachings in this way.

Malthus’s poor laws were wrong; British attitudes to famine in India and Ireland were wrong; eugenics was wrong; the Holocaust was wrong; India’s sterilisation programme was wrong; China’s one-child policy was wrong. These were sins of commission, not omission. Malthusian misanthropy – the notion that you should harden your heart, approve of famine and disease, feel ashamed of pity and compassion, for the good of the race – was wrong pragmatically as well as morally. The right thing to do about poor, hungry and fecund people always was, and still is, to give them hope, opportunity, freedom, education, food and medicine, including of course contraception, for not only will that make them happier, it will enable them to have smaller families.

More notable perhaps were the names of those who were not from the Congress. These included two representatives of the world of commerce and one representative of the Sikhs. Three others were lifelong adversaries of the Congress. These were R. K. Shanmukham Chetty, a Madras businessman who possessed one of the best financial minds in India; B. R. Ambedkar, a brilliant legal scholar and an ‘Untouchable’ by caste; and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, a leading Bengal politician who belonged (at this time) to the Hindu Mahasabha. All three had collaborated with the rulers while the Congress men served time in British jails. But now Nehru and his colleagues wisely put aside these differences. Gandhi had reminded them that ‘freedom comes to India, not to the Congress’, urging the formation of a Cabinet that included the ablest men regardless of party affiliation.6

Then the Second World War was over and India’s freedom was imminent. ‘Indians will build their own India,’ declared Gandhiji. The whole country was filled with an unprecedented optimism. I asked my father’s permission to leave Rameswaram and study at the district headquarters in Ramanathapuram. He told me as if thinking aloud, ‘Abul! I know you have to go away to grow. Does the seagull not fly across the Sun, alone and without a nest? You must forego your longing for the land of your memories to move into the dwelling place of your greater desires; our love will not bind you nor will our needs hold you.’ He quoted Khalil Gibran to my hesitant mother, ‘Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts.

India’s success in building a modern state that defied predictions of its demise derived from its thorough insistence on institutionalizing what was Mahatma Gandhi’s greatest bequest to the freedom movement: the construction of a new Indian nation, not by suppressing its many particularities but by incorporating them into a new composite identity that preserved in “marble-cake” fashion all its constituent diversities across ethnic, religious, and racial lines. These diversities, far from being obliterated, acquired salience depending on context but, being enmeshed and free-flowing, they erased the boundaries between the insular and national identities, congealing the latter even as they preserved the former. The modern Indian polity, therefore, emerged not as a nation-state since, given its myriad diversities, it could not be so—but rather as a nations-state. Under the rubric of “unity in diversity,” its different ethnic, religious, and racial groups combined to create a novel, multilayered political identity. However confusing that reality may be to the outside world, it is authentically and indisputably Indian.

It seems that in the kingdom of Heaven, the cosmic lottery works in reverse; in the kingdom of Heaven, all of our notions of the lucky and the unlucky, the blessed and the cursed, the haves and the have-nots, are turned upside down. In the kingdom of Heaven, the last will be first and the first will be last. In India, I realised that while the poor and oppressed certainly deserve my compassion and help, they do not need my pity. Widows and orphans and lepers and untouchables enjoy special access to the Gospel that I do not have. They benefit immediately from the Good News that freedom is found not in retribution but in forgiveness, that real power belongs not to the strong but to the merciful, that joy comes not from wealth but from generosity. The rest of us have to get used to the idea that we cannot purchase love or fight for peace or find happiness in high positions. Those of us who have never suffered are at a disadvantage because Jesus invites His followers to fellowship in His suffering. In fact, the first thing Jesus did in His sermon on the mount was to mess with our assumptions about the cosmic lottery. In Luke’s account, Jesus says, "Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.” (Luke 6:20-21; 24-25) It seems that the kingdom of God is made up of the least of these. To be present among them is to encounter what the Celtic saints called “thin spaces”, places or moments in time in which the veil separating heaven and earth, the spiritual and the material, becomes almost transparent. I’d like to think that I’m a part of this kingdom, even though my stuff and my comforts sometimes thicken the veil. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – these are God things, and they are available to all, regardless of status or standing. Everything else is just extra, and extra can be a distraction. Extra lulls us into the complacency and tricks us into believing that we need more than we need. Extra makes it harder to distinguish between God things and just things.

We are engaged in a world war of stories—a war between incompatible versions of reality—and we need to learn how to fight it. A tyrant has arisen in Russia and brutality engulfs Ukraine, whose people, led by a satirist turned hero, offer heroic resistance, and are already creating a legend of freedom. The tyrant creates false narratives to justify his assault—the Ukrainians are Nazis, and Russia is menaced by Western conspiracies. He seeks to brainwash his own citizens with such lying stories. Meanwhile, America is sliding back towards the Middle Ages, as white supremacy exerts itself not only over Black bodies, but over women’s bodies too. False narratives rooted in antiquated religiosity and bigoted ideas from hundreds of years ago are used to justify this, and find willing audiences and believers. In India, religious sectarianism and political authoritarianism go hand in hand, and violence grows as democracy dies. Once again, false narratives of Indian history are in play, narratives that privilege the majority and oppress minorities; and these narratives, let it be said, are popular, just as the Russian tyrant’s lies are believed. This, now, is the ugly dailiness of the world. How should we respond? It has been said, I have said it myself, that the powerful may own the present, but writers own the future, for it is through our work, or the best of it at least, the work which endures into that future, that the present misdeeds of the powerful will be judged. But how can we think of the future when the present screams for our attention, and what, if we turn away from posterity and pay attention to this dreadful moment, can we usefully or effectively do? A poem will not stop a bullet. A novel cannot defuse a bomb. Not all our satirists are heroes. But we are not helpless. Even after Orpheus was torn to pieces, his severed head, floating down the river Hebrus, went on singing, reminding us that the song is stronger than death. We can sing the truth and name the liars, we can join in solidarity with our fellows on the front lines and magnify their voices by adding our own to them. Above all, we must understand that stories are at the heart of what’s happening, and the dishonest narratives of oppressors have proved attractive to many. So we must work to overturn the false narratives of tyrants, populists, and fools by telling better stories than they do, stories within which people want to live. The battleground is not only on the battlefield. The stories we live in are contested territories too. Perhaps we can seek to emulate Joyce’s Dedalus, who sought to forge, in the smithy of his soul, the uncreated conscience of his race. We can emulate Orpheus and sing on in the face of horror, and not stop singing until the tide turns, and a better day begins.

It has been the strange fate of Tibet, once one of the most isolated places on earth, to function as a laboratory for the most ambitious and ruthless human experiments of the modern era: the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and now a state-imposed capitalism. After having suffered totalitarian communism, Tibetans now confront a dissolute capitalism, one that seeks arrogantly, and often violently, to turn all of the world's diverse humanity into middle-class consumers. But it seems wrong to think of Tibetans, as many outsiders do, as helpless victims of large, impersonal forces. It is no accident that the Tibetans seem to have survived the large-scale Communist attempt at social engineering rather better than most people in China itself. This is at least partly due to their Buddhist belief in the primacy of empathy and compassion. And faced with an aggressively secular materialism, they may still prove, almost alone in the world, how religion, usually dismissed, and not just by Mao, as "poison," can be a source of cultural identity and moral values; how it can become a means of political protest without blinding the devout with hatred and prejudice; how it can help not only heal the shocks and pain of history- the pain that has led people elsewhere in the world into nihilistic rage- but also create a rational and ethical national culture, what may make a freer Tibet, whenever it comes about, better prepared for its state of freedom than most societies.

We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and lovers of wisdom without unmanliness. Wealth to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome.... Let us draw strength, not merely from twice-told arguments—how fair and noble a thing it is to show courage in battle—but from the busy spectacle of our great city's life as we have it before us day by day, falling in love with her as we see her, and remembering that all this greatness she owes to men with the fighter's daring, the wise man's understanding of his duty, and the good man's self-discipline in its performance—to men who, if they failed in any ordeal, disdained to deprive the city of their services, but sacrificed their lives as the best offerings on her behalf. So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received, each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all sepulchres, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is a sepulchre of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives. For you now it remains to rival what they have done and, knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy's onset.

In spring that year (1930), by a symbolic act whose significance I myself did not grasp, a march through the stifling heat to the sea with a little band of followers to make illegal salt, Gandhi had aroused the Indian people from the lethargy into which they had long sunk after nearly three centuries of British rule, if you counted the incredible period when they were governed for two hundred years not by a foreign country but by a bizarre band of traders greedy for profit, the honourable members and agents of the East India Company. These hustlers had first came out from England early in the seventeenth century, found the pickings beyond their fondest dreams, and by hook and by crook and by armed might, had stolen the country from the Indians. It was the only instance in history, I believe, of a private commercial enterprise taking over a vast, heavily populated subcontinent, ruling it with an iron hand and exploiting it for private profit. Probably only the British, with their odd assortment of talents, their great entrepreneurial drive, their ingrained feeling of racial superiority, of which Rudyard Kipling would sing so shrilly, their guile in dividing the natives and turning them against one another, and their ruthlessness in putting down all who threatened their rule and their profits, could have done it, and got away with it so long. Perhaps only the Indians, divided as they were after the decay of the Mughal Empire into dozens of quarrelling, warring states, great and small, could have succumbed so easily and so quickly to the aggression of a handful determined merchants, backed by a small handful of British troops in the service of the Company, and remained so long in abject subjection. As Radhakrishnan, the great Hindu philosopher, put it in our own time: "The day India lost her freedom, a great curse fell on her and she became petrified.

ONE of the evil results of the political subjection of one people by another is that it tends to make the subject nation unnecessarily and excessively conscious of its past. Its achievements in the old great days of freedom are remembered, counted over and exaggerated by a generation of slaves, anxious to convince the world and themselves that they are as good as their masters. Slaves cannot talk of their present greatness, because it does not exist; and prophetic visions of the future are necessarily vague and unsatisfying. There remains the past. Out of the scattered and isolated facts of history it is possible to build up Utopias and Cloud Cuckoo Lands as variously fantastic as the New Jerusalems of prophecy. It is to the past — the gorgeous imaginary past of those whose present is inglorious, sordid, and humiliating — it is to the delightful founded-on-fact romances of history that subject peoples invariably turn. Thus, the savage and hairy chieftains of Ireland became in due course “the Great Kings of Leinster,” “the mighty Emperors of Meath.” Through centuries of slavery the Serbs remembered and idealised the heroes of Kossovo. And for the oppressed Poles, the mediaeval Polish empire was much more powerful, splendid, and polite than the Roman. The English have never been an oppressed nationality; they are in consequence most healthily unaware of their history. They live wholly in the much more interesting worlds of the present — in the worlds of politics and science, of business and industry. So fully, indeed, do they live in the present, that they have compelled the Indians, like the Irish at the other end of the world, to turn to the past. In the course of the last thirty or forty years a huge pseudo-historical literature has sprung up in India, the melancholy product of a subject people’s inferiority complex. Industrious and intelligent men have wasted their time and their abilities in trying to prove that the ancient Hindus were superior to every other people in every activity of life. Thus, each time the West has announced a new scientific discovery, misguided scholars have ransacked Sanskrit literature to find a phrase that might be interpreted as a Hindu anticipation of it. A sentence of a dozen words, obscure even to the most accomplished Sanskrit scholars, is triumphantly quoted to prove that the ancient Hindus were familiar with the chemical constitution of water. Another, no less brief, is held up as the proof that they anticipated Pasteur in the discovery of the microbic origin of disease. A passage from the mythological poem of the Mahabharata proves that they had invented the Zeppelin. Remarkable people, these old Hindus. They knew everything that we know or, indeed, are likely to discover, at any rate until India is a free country; but they were unfortunately too modest to state the fact baldly and in so many words. A little more clarity on their part, a little less reticence, and India would now be centuries ahead of her Western rivals. But they preferred to be oracular and telegraphically brief. It is only after the upstart West has repeated their discoveries that the modern Indian commentator upon their works can interpret their dark sayings as anticipations. On contemporary Indian scholars the pastime of discovering and creating these anticipations never seems to pall. Such are the melancholy and futile occupations of intelligent men who have the misfortune to belong to a subject race. Free men would never dream of wasting their time and wit upon such vanities. From those who have not shall be taken away even that which they have.

What if many listeners hold a profoundly different understanding of the concepts of God, truth, right and wrong, freedom, virtue, and sin? What if their approaches to reality, human nature and destiny, and human community are wholly different from our own? For decades, this has been the situation facing Christian churches in many areas around the world — places such as India, Iran, and Japan. Evangelism in these environments involves a lengthy process in which nonbelievers have to be invited into a Christian community that bridges the gap between Christian truth and the culture around it. Every part of a church’s life — its worship, community, public discourse, preaching, and education — has to assume the presence of nonbelievers from the surrounding culture. The aesthetics of its worship have to reflect the sensibilities of the culture and yet show how Christian belief shapes and is expressed through them. Its preaching and teaching have to show how the hopes of this culture’s people can find fulfillment only in Christ. Most of all, such a congregation’s believers have to reflect the demographic makeup of the surrounding community, thereby giving non-Christian neighbors attractive and challenging glimpses of what they would look like as Christians.

Do you really believe that freedom of choice exists? India still has a caste system. Most of the Middle East treats women as inferiors and those who practice other religions as enemies. China regulates how many children couples can have, genocide abounds in South America and Africa, Malaysia has a booming underage sex trade, and the list goes on and on. All around the world the people in power abuse it and human rights are ignored. But what if we were incapable of hurting our fellow man? What if our core impulse was to help each other rather than control each other?

The sub-sector needed a person, preferably an officer, civilian or military, to handle logistics. We had information that a certain Lieutenant Enamul Haque, a native of Chapai Nawabganj had crossed over to India and was now living with relatives in Malda. Jahangir contacted him and invited him to the Sub-sector HQ through some of his relatives who were in our Sub-sector. After much persuasion, he agreed to come. Jahangir scheduled the meeting when the Sector Commander would be present. A couple of days later, Enam came to Mohidipur. Jahangir and I were also present in the meeting. Enam was a tall individual with a good physique but he seemed nervous. Colonel Zaman opened the conversation with the usual inquiries: when did he cross the border, where was he staying in Malda, what was he doing, et cetera. Enam was not doing anything; he was simply hiding in Malda. Colonel Zaman told him that to the Pakistan Army he was a deserter and a rebel, irrespective of whether he joined the Mukti Bahini or not. He implored him to join; we needed all the help we could get. Enam responded that he was from the EME; he was not a fighter. Colonel Zaman assured him he would not be given any combat assignments; he would have an administrative job. He was going to BDF HQ soon and could have Enam assigned to Mohidipur Sub-sector as logistics officer and Enam could even stay with relatives in Malda if he liked. No amount of persuasion could convince Enam. It surprised me a great deal that a Bengali military officer, who deserted the Pakistan Army and crossed over to India, was unwilling to make any contribution to the liberation war, even in a non-combat capacity[33]. This was true of many young and able university and college students especially from middle class families. I had met some of them in Calcutta. On one occasion. Sultana Zaman, Colonel Zaman’s wife, had asked a female MPA why her two university going sons had not joined the Mukti Bahini? The MPA replied that her boys were intellectual types not suited for fighting, implying that combat was the task for lesser beings. [33] In 1973, I met Enamul Haque in the Bangabhaban where he was ADC to the President. He was claiming to be a freedom fighter! He retired as a brigadier. After retirement, he became a state minister in Sheikh Hasina's government in 2009.

With the decline of the United States as the world’s leader, I find it important to look around our globe for intelligent people who have the depth of understanding that could perhaps chart a way to the future. One such person is Bernard-Henri Lévy a French philosopher who was born in Béni Saf, French Algeria on November 5, 1948. . The Boston Globe has said that he is "perhaps the most prominent intellectual in France today." Although his published work and political activism has fueled controversies, he invokes thought provoking insight into today’s controversial world and national views. As a young man and Zionist he was a war correspondent for “Combat” newspaper for the French Underground. Following the war Bernard attended Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris and in 1968; he graduated with a degree in philosophy from the famous École Normale Supérieure. This was followed by him traveling to India where he joined the International Brigade to aid Bangladeshi freedom fighters. Returning to Paris, Bernard founded the ‘New Philosophers School.’ At that time he wrote books bringing to light the dark side of French history. Although some of his books were criticized for their journalistic character and unbalanced approach to French history, but most respected French academics took a serious look at his position that Marxism was inherently corrupt. Some of his musings include the predicament of the Kurds and the Shame of Aleppo, referring to the plight of the children in Aleppo during the bloody Syrian civil war. Not everyone agrees with Bernard, as pointed out by an article “Why Does Everyone Hate Bernard-Henri Lévy?” However he is credited with nearly single handedly toppling Muammar Gaddafi. His reward was that in 2008 he was targeted for assassination by a Belgium-based Islamist militant group. Looking like a rock star and ladies man, with his signature dark suits and unbuttoned white shirt, he said that “democracies are not run by the truth,” and notes that the American president is not the author of the anti-intellectual movement it, but rather its product. He added that the anti-intellectualism movement that has swept the United States and Europe in the last 12 months has been a long time coming. The responsibility to support verified information and not publicize fake news as equal has been ignored. He said that the president may be the heart of the anti-intellectual movement, but social media is the mechanism! Not everyone agrees with Bernard; however his views require our attention. If we are to preserve our democracy we have to look at the big picture and let go of some of our partisan thinking. We can still save our democracy, but only if we become patriots instead of partisans!

Rabindranath Tagore’s Vision of a Free India: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; … Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; … Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Quoted in "Passage from India to America: Billionaire Engineers, Extremist Politics & Advantage to Canada & China." By Ignatius Chithelen

Rabindranath Tagore’s Vision of a Free India: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; … Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; … Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Quoted in Passage from India to America: Billionaire Engineers, Extremist Politics & Advantage to Canada & China.By Ignatius Chithelen

Rabindranath Tagore’s Vision of a Free India: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; … Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; … Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Quoted in: Passage from India to America: Billionaire Engineers, Extremist Politics & Advantage to Canada & China. By Ignatius Chithelen

Independence was worked for by people more or less at the top; freedom it brought has worked its way down. People everywhere have ideas now of who they are and what they owe themselves. The process quickened with the economic development that came after independence; what was hidden in 1962, or not easy to see, what perhaps was only in a state of becoming, has become clearer. The liberation of spirit that has come to India could not come as release alone. In India, with its ;ayer below layer of distress and cruelty, it had to come as disturbance. It had to come as rage and revolt. India was now a country of a million little mutinies.

The Saracens had no use for these measurements, no reason to sail around the earth to India. They were in India. Cathay and the Spice Islands were on their doorstep. But Europeans needed a route to India, and the Crusades taught them that they did. The riches of the world were in the East, and the Saracens had them. Europeans were the Have Not nations, and they knew it.

This wider history notwithstanding, I believe India still constitutes a special case. Its distinctiveness is threefold. First, the tradition of the thinker-activist persisted far longer in India than elsewhere. While the men who founded the United States in the late eighteenth century had fascinating ideas about democracy and nationhood, thereafter American politicians have merely governed and ruled, or sometimes misgoverned and misruled.1 Their ideas, such as these are, have come from professional ideologues or intellectuals. On the other hand, from the first decades of the nineteenth century until the last decades of the twentieth century, the most influential political thinkers in India were, as often as not, its most influential political actors. Long before India was conceived of as a nation, in the extended run-up to Indian independence, and in the first few decades of freedom, the most interesting reflections on society and politics were offered by men (and women) who were in the thick of political action. Second, the relevance of individual thinkers too has lasted longer in India. For instance, Lenin’s ideas were influential for about seventy years, that is to say, from the time the Soviet state was founded to the time it disappeared. Mao’s heyday was even shorter—roughly three decades, from the victory of the Chinese Revolution in 1949 to the repudiation by Deng Xiaoping of his mentor’s ideas in the late 1970s. Turning to politicians in Western Europe, Churchill’s impassioned defence of the British Empire would find no takers after the 1950s. De Gaulle was famous for his invocation of the ‘grandeur de la France’, but those sentiments have now been (fortunately?) diluted and domesticated by the consolidation of the European Union. On the other hand, as this book will demonstrate, Indian thinkers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries still speak in many ways to the concerns of the present. A third difference has to do with the greater diversity of thinkers within the Indian political tradition. Even Gandhi and Nehru never held the kind of canonical status within their country as Mao or Lenin did in theirs. At any given moment, there were as many Indians who were opposed to their ideas as were guided by them. Moreover, the range of issues debated and acted upon by politicians and social reformers appears to have been far greater in India than in other countries. This depth and diversity of thought was, as I argue below, in good part a product of the depth and diversity of the society itself.

India needs a progressive leader to represent her locally as well as internationally.She needs a dignified ,vociferous statesman , to represent her, talk for her, talk about her, talk to her and bring out the best out of her. I support a progressive, hate-free government for the future of my country. Every human deserves due respect and honour for being all that he or she is, however it cannot be denied an ounce of learning (with all humility) certainly aids in building a strong nation in every aspect. For eons India is known for her ideals, her diversity , and that she cherishes freedom and equality. Now any one who she calls her leader cannot be allowed to puncture the constitutional fabric and infringe on the privileges she has enjoyed for years ,especially after independence. Fellow citizens need to rise from sleep, that apathetic stupor, to realisation of the danger that she was plunged into in the recent past ,and the imminent danger posed to the constitutional fabric, the economy of India, and the image of India. India needs to rise above the constant bickering within her walls, as the wise saying goes, a house divided within herself cannot stand. The torch of peace that we light within our walls will help us glow and light the world. Awaiting results.

India needs a progressive leader to represent her locally as well as internationally.She needs a dignified ,vociferous statesman , to represent her, talk for her, talk about her, talk to her and bring out the best out of her. I support a progressive, hate-free government for the future of my country. Every human deserves due respect and honour for being all that he or she is, however it cannot be denied an ounce of learning (with all humility) certainly aids in building a strong nation in every aspect. For eons India is known for her ideals, her diversity , and that she cherishes freedom and equality. Now any one who she calls her leader cannot be allowed to puncture the constitutional fabric and infringe on the privileges she has enjoyed for years ,especially after independence. Fellow citizens need to rise from sleep, that apathetic stupor, to realisation of the danger that she was plunged into in the recent past ,and the imminent danger posed to the constitutional fabric, the economy of India, and the image of India. India needs to rise above the constant bickering within her walls, as the wise saying goes, a house divided within herself cannot stand. The torch of peace that we light within our walls will help us glow and light the world.

Religion may have brought hope and comfort to some, but it has a terribly negative balance sheet. It is no exaggeration that all the ships of all the navies in the world can float comfortably in the ocean of innocent blood that has been shed in its name. I respect religious freedom, but only subject to public order, health and morality. My religion is to make as many people happy as I can. The secular Constitution of India mandates a life guided by reason and inspired by love.

The Supreme Court also held that the right to know is a facet of the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression of a voter under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. The Supreme

Anything Freed with Guns will Go Back Eventually.

WISDOM KEEPER: My Extraordinary Journey to Unlock the Sacred Within “Chloe’s heartfelt journey is the real deal here to inspire us all. She takes the reader on a journey of darkness to light, struggle to freedom, fear to love. Thank you, Chloe, for this incredible ride. A must read for all who want true transformation.”— Dr. Shannon South, Award-Winning Therapist, Best-Selling Author, and Founder of the Ignite Your Life and business programs “There is a healing purpose in every experience written by Chloe in this spiritual memoir. She shares processes for healing in the physical, emotional and spiritual realms, showing us our ability to use all levels of energy to achieve deep and lasting healing. Chloe reveals to us the importance of connection—with the spiritual and physical world, and our past lives to the present. She reminds us we are essential in the Universe; when we heal, our loved ones, people around us, and the Earth also heals. Chloe inspires us to do the same thing. Well done. I appreciate it very much. This book is truly for everyone. — Eduardo Morales, Shamanic Curandero, Tepoztlán, Mexico “WISDOM KEEPER is filled with wonderful personal experiences on the power of healing, visualizations, dreams, and listening to our inner voices. Chloe Kemp describes encounters with others on a multitude of levels, including sacred beings, shamans, and other deep-souled humans. This book inspires the reader to go deep within themselves and invite their own personal self-healer to emerge. Chloe helps us to understand that anything is possible.”—River Guerguerian, Sound Immersion Healer, Musician, Composer, and Educator  “Having met and worked with Chloe personally, I know she is a genuine woman with a mission and clear determination to fulfill her purpose in this life. She has followed the call from Spirit to share stories from her life and wisdom she has gained, weaving energies and expressing a frequency of consciousness that has a way of bringing readers to a deeper state of awareness and potency upon their own unique journey. Chloe's book shines a light on our ability to reconnect with the origin of what makes us each a special part of the Divine plan, and she does it in a very humble and approachable way."—Michael Brasunas, Holistic Energy Healer and Bodyworker “Your inspiring memoir is engaging and thought-provoking throughout. It brings together the highest spiritual insights and practical frameworks that everyone can understand and apply.”—Louise, Australia  “A fascinating read!”—Caleb, USA  “The narrative is immensely raw and deeply personal. It engaged all of my emotions completely.”—Abantika, India   “A remarkable story.”—Michael, USA “The writing style is amazing.Your life experiences are so unique.”—Taibaya, Pakistan  “You have a gift for spiritual healing and telling a story. You created a hopeful, sincere, compelling, interesting, and important story.”—Jessica, USA “You tell events, dreams, and moments in your life in a very engaging and thought-provoking way.”—Josh, USA  “Very entertaining, awakening, and engaging; as well as informative, practical, motivating and inspiring.”—Susan, USA