To enjoy the fruits of freedom a nation has to be always
vigilant about its strengths and weakness. This is a compilation of the threats
that we face today. Sadly our refusal to learn from the past still
threaten us.
Geological Frontiers:
Bharat’s frontiers have shrunk over the past one and half millennia. We
extended from Afghanistan to Myanmar and Tibet to Lanka as a cultural entity.
Afghanistan was a frontier province till 1000 CE, until all the Hindu kingdoms
were smashed by Islamic invaders. The first Islamic attack happened in Sindh in
712 CE by Bin Qasim but for almost 300 years, Afghanistan held its fort. In
fact the Delhi Sultanate, which is so glorified in our history, took 500 years of
struggle to establish itself. It is extremely
shameful that we are not taught about
the heroic resistance that spanned for a duration of 500 years. It was a long
struggle but nobody thought about these frontiers as Chanakya did 1000 years
before that. If our frontiers collapse our home cannot be safe.
We did not learn anything from the mistakes of the yore and
just 70 years ago we became a mute spectator to occupation of Tibet by China. In
doing so we brought an adversary at our doorsteps who is now nibbling our
borders. Today we are again repeating history when our shrunk frontiers in
Kashmir, Assam, Bengal, North East and Kerala are under threat. What we can do
as a society ? The least we can do is travel as a tourist to these frontiers,
they are not only beautiful but these travels can create an awareness.
Centripetal
Tendencies: In one of the interviews, General GD Bakshi made a very
interesting point that all large empires or nations had a downfall due to centripetal tendencies
rather than external aggression, recent example being USSR. We have had a long
history of such forces right from Ambhi of Takshshila who supported Alexander
to Communists who supported Chinese in 1962 war. Today they seem to be coalescing
as Breaking India forces and are active in different garbs like Maoism,
Jihadis, Evangelism, Dravidianism, barriers of Caste, Language and even Human
Rights.
The clinical precision with which our society is being
divided along caste lines for reservation is a recent example of it. Be it
Marathas in Maharashtra, Gujjars in Rajasthan, Patels in Gujarat or Jats in
Haryana. As an example in point, a guy called Purushottam Khedekar has started
a movement called Shiv Dharma, in the name of Shivaji Maharaj. He claims to
overthrow Hinduism with this, although Shivaji Maharaj clealy declared his
kingdom as Hindavi Swarajya. A lot of Dalit activism also has sadly fallen into
this trap of anti-nationalism although under the name of Dr Ambedkar who was a
die-hard patriot and never compromised on his nationalistic credentials. As an
aware and responsible citizen we should oppose these efforts and expose them
wherever possible to avoid people falling in their traps.
Intellectual Warfare:
The toughest challenge we are facing is the intellectual invasion which we
are facing not only from external parties but media, academia and political
class which is completely westernized. It started with invaders destroying our
universities, knowledge base and reaching a crescendo during British rule when
everything Bhartiya was just a bunch of rubbish. Although we gained
independence in 1947, but intellectual freedom still remains distant. Several millennia
old civilization is not clear what does it stand for ? If you observe closely
it shows in all fields, be it education, arts, literature, economics, research,
policy, politics and sports.
We lack an overarching vision which will invigorate our
public life and make us reach our potential and not just GDP growth. That
vision has to be based on our Vedic heritage which is the Atma of this nation.
Our Rishis have defined it, be it Swami Vivekananda, Rishi Aurobindo, Ramtirth
or Swami Dayanand, they always exhorted us to follow our ancient path which was
discovery of divinity in every human being and that should be the central theme
of all our endeavors. As a believer of this vision, we should understand our
culture deeply to realize it in future.
VANDE MATARAM !!!
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