On an early morning in 1964, a tall and handsome twenty-three-year-old American, Robert (Bob) Thurman hurriedly walked past groups of pilgrims, prayer flags, bicycles, ramshackle homes, and barking dogs. It was a haphazard path framed by the snow-capped Himalayas and unevenly lit by the sun. That day he had an important appointment in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan exile community. He was scheduled to meet with His Holiness The Dalai Lama.

Three years earlier, in late spring of 1961, Thurman was changing a flat tyre of his racing car. All of a sudden the jack snapped striking his face and he lost his left eye. It was to be the turning point in his life and since then he had an unblinking glass eye. After the accident, he had an intense desire to go on a pilgrimage ‘from me to meaning’. The young westerner was born in New York City and raised on the Upper East Side. His mother Elizabeth Dean Farrar acted in the theatre and his father Beverly Reid Thurman, Jr. worked as an editor at the Associated Press. Even as a schoolboy at Exeter the elite New Hampshire boarding school he had displayed a clear-cut philosophical bent. Now he abandoned the exhausted culture of the west and made a plan to head east. He dropped out of Harvard, divorced his rich wife Christophe de Menil, the heiress to the Schlumberger fortune and wandered through Turkey, Iran, and finally reached India in November 1962. This was a time when India was filled with western romantics in search of otherworldliness. Barely able to take care of himself, wearing baggy Afghani trousers, leather sandals, and draped in a white shawl he was hired to teach English to young reincarnated Tibetan lamas in Dalhousie. At this stage, after having consumed Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger at Harvard he became a student of a sixty-one-year-old Mongolian monk, Geshe Ngawang Wangyal. For the American yearning to escape a noisy and conflicted world of guns, tanks, aircraft carriers, and nuclear weapons it was an intuitive experience. Thurman later explained, “It was like meeting a superior civilization, a civilisation that did not believe that human nature was inherently violent”. In the next ten weeks, Thurman mastered the Tibetan language and could translate classic Buddhist texts. Provoked by his teacher’s silent intensity he decided to live the life of a monk for the rest of his time on Earth. Geshe Wangyal was not convinced yet he grudgingly offered to introduce his student to His Holiness The Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. Soon after amid the prayer Om mani padme hum (Hail, the jewel in the lotus) and the sound of the revolving prayer wheels in nearby homes, Thurman got an audience with His Holiness. Thurman was just twenty-three and the Dalai Lama was twenty-nine.

Over two and a half decades before this meeting the Dalai Lama was a small boy who was born in a cowshed in a tiny farming community in northeast Tibet. A group of wise monks sent from Lhasa following the clues left by the previous Dalai Lama had arrived in his village. The search party sought the reincarnation of the Dalai (oceanwide) Lama (priest of Tibetan Buddhism). Following a prophecy they searched for a boy with tiger-striped legs, big, shell-like ears, and the imprint of a conch shell on the palm of his hand. They located Lhamo Dhondup, a two-year-old farmer’s son at his mud-and-stone house and subjected him to various mystical tests. He was asked to pick objects belonging to the thirteenth Dalai Lama, and he chose them correctly. That recognition brought a new title and way of life. Swiftly he was flung into a world he didn’t quite understand as he lived in the spectacular thousand room Potala Palace in Lhasa with its vast libraries. Compelled to suppress his mischievous personality he endured an exhausting education for nearly twenty years in Tibetan Buddhism. He eventually secured a Geshe degree (roughly equivalent to a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy). Renamed Tenzin Gyatso, he blessed visitors to the secretive kingdom by offering white khata scarves. Suddenly one day that magical lifestyle came to an end. On 31 March 1959, the Dalai Lama dressed in a drab soldier’s uniform, a type of clothing he had never worn, his shaved head covered with a woolen cap and carrying a German Luger stood meters from India’s border post at Chuthangmu. He looked back fondly at his homeland bearing no ill will to his oppressors and knew India was his only hope. He then took a step that altered the direction of his life. Subsequently, on 3 April 1959, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru gently rose in the Indian Parliament to confirm that the Dalai Lama had crossed into the Indian territory and had been granted political asylum by the Government of India. Members of Parliament welcomed the PM’s announcement with thunderous applause. The governments of the United Kingdom and America expressed pleasure in hearing the Indian PM’s statement. In the following years, the Dalai Lama was permitted to set up a government-in-exile in Dharamsala in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Five years later in 1964, His Holiness sat in his chapel across from the eager student of Buddhism, Robert Thurman. Dressed in a simple russet gown the Dalai Lama wore a saintly smile and his eyes were bright and warm behind his large glasses. In broken English, the sophisticated thinker, consummate scholar armed with wisdom beyond his age, invited the westerner to study Tibetan medicine, astronomy, and Buddhism. Years later His Holiness remembered, “Thurman first came to Dharamsala in 1964… He was dressed as a monk and had only one eye like Nagarjuna’s disciple Aryadeva…”. Thurman in a talk confessed,  “I wasn’t that into Tibet per se. I was really into India. But the thing is that the Indian Buddhist great revolution in the world, great manifestation in the world, is preserved in Tibet very powerfully and lost in India. So that was, I think, why I was so captivated by the Tibetans, not to mention the Dalai Lama’s personality…” In those grueling months of learning, Thurman regularly woke up every day at three in the morning to meditate and study scriptures. Raring to absorb as much as he could he spent time with the Dalai Lama who in turn interrogated him about Plato, Jefferson, Freud, the American Constitution, World War Two and widened his grasp of western civilization. The following year, Thurman was ordained by His Holiness himself, taking 252 vows that focused on a philosophy of nonviolence, compassion, and selflessness, making him the first Tibetan Buddhist monk born in the West. This was also the first time an American had been so honored. Thus began the remarkable friendship between a simple Buddhist monk and his American disciple that prospers till today. His Holiness in an interview remarked, “I feel that Americans are interested (in Buddhism) because they are open-minded. They have an education system that teaches them to find out for themselves why things are the way they are. Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things–he didn’t just command them to believe. Also, your education tends to develop the brain while it neglects the heart, so you have a longing for teachings that develop and strengthen the good heart.”

Thurman dressed in a maroon robe and with a shaved head returned to New York in 1966 when America was at the height of the cultural revolution. He found himself ill-equipped for the monastic life and after one and half years dramatically renounced his vows though he did not quit the rigorous Buddhist practices. Instead, he returned to the American equivalent of the monastery: the university and went back to Harvard to complete his unfinished degree. At a party at the Hitchcock Estate in New York, he met the former famous model Nena von Schlebrugge. Soon the stunning ex-model and the striking ex-monk were married. In 1971 Thurman was awarded a Ph.D. in philosophy, based on his dissertation on the esoteric Buddhist doctrine of ‘Sunyata’ (voidness). Thereafter he embarked upon academic life at the Amherst College. Later he was appointed the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. He was acclaimed as a riveting lecturer who covered the sweep of history, the subtleties of the inner science of the psyche as well as the wonders of the life of the heart. In time he gained respect as the rock star professor of religious studies. Students called his classes “life changing”. Thurman in a media interview expounded, “There’s a stereotype that Buddhism is quietistic: leave the world, drop out…. drop dead basically…”. He reasoned that meditation can also release enormous amounts of energy.

Captivated by the middle path of the Buddha, Thurman created the field of Buddhology and as one of America’s most famous Buddhists heightened the awareness of mind science all over the country. After writing substantial scholarly works, he authored best sellers and lectured in the public intellectual tradition. His belief in the Three Precious Jewels of Tibetan Buddhism: the Buddha, the Doctrine, and the Community and with remarkable insight into eastern spirituality, attracted a global audience. With his swatch of thick hair perched above his glasses in his booming voice, the brilliant populariser of the Buddha’s teachings declared,  “I invite you to embrace a new reality. I invite you to awaken to the infinite life you already have, no matter what your worldview. I invite you to take up responsibility for your own destiny. I invite you to take advantage of your priceless humanness to make a definitive turn towards ultimate security, complete freedom, and unbounded happiness. Thanks to the Tibetan people, especially their living saviour, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his various emanations, I have found basic sanity in my lifelong quest.” The Dalai Lama appreciated his disciple’s lasting allegiance to Buddhism stating, “He became a professor and has dedicated his academic career to elucidating Je Tsongkhapa’s teachings and aspects of the Gelugpa tradition… Je Tsongkhapa wrote about the great Indian texts and Thurman has taken special interest in that body of work. I’d like to acknowledge that here and thank him.”  As part of Thurman’s long-term commitment to the renaissance of Tibetan civilization at the request of his teacher, he co-founded Tibet House in 1987 initially with Tenzin Tethong, Richard Gere, and Philip Glass. Since then Thurman’s daughter Uma, a film star has served on the Board. Feted by Washington, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the academic elite, Time chose Thurman as one of its twenty-five most influential Americans in 1997, describing him as a “larger than life scholar-activist destined to convey the Dharma, the precious teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, from Asia to America.” The New York Times wrote Thurman “is considered the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism.” And in 2020, the Government of India bestowed a Padma Shri to Thurman.

Earlier in 1995, Thurman did the fifty-two kilometres circumambulation of Mount Kailash, the pilgrimage site in western Tibet considered the sacred axis mundi of Central Asian cosmology. Out of the blue, Thurman became aware of the presence of two other people inside his head. They seemed like great scholars – one from the twentieth century and the other, a Mongolian, from another time. It was his realization of his earlier lives on Earth. Thurman later claimed, “After forty years of involvement with Buddhism I consider reincarnation the most scientifically and empirically validate-able, relational description of the life process and how life and death work… I refute the materialist idea that the mind is the epiphenomenon of the brain. And it’s become a matter of conviction…” Addressing death, Thurman insists that he is “unintimidated by death. It’s liberation, transformation. The awareness of death is the door for us to be alive.”

Now at seventy-nine, Thurman living the life of the mind refuses to slow down. Active on social media he is tireless in his efforts to awaken others to the teachings of the Buddha. Along with his wife Nena, he has founded the Menla Mountain Retreat, a Tibet-inspired spa and wellness facility in the Catskill Mountains of New York that has been blessed by the Dalai Lama. Here using his powerful lectures, the charismatic teacher invites the audience to turn toward the East and to contemplate with all the capabilities of the Western mind the attractions of the Eastern spirit as represented in Buddhism. Thurman, the proponent of an inner revolution within each one of us believes, “To finish building the free society dreamed of by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, we must draw upon the resources of the enlightened imagination, which can be systematically developed by the spiritual sciences of India and Tibet. We have not yet tamed our own demons of racism, nationalism, sexism and materialism… none of us can be really free until all of us are”.

That for Bob Thurman is a path for a peaceful future for all humankind and our planet.

Bhuvan Lall is the author of ‘The Man India Missed The Most: Subhas Chandra Bose’ and The Great Indian Genius: Har Dayal’. He is currently writing ‘The Path of Gautam Buddha’. The views expressed are personal.

Bangladesh witnessed reprehensible violence during and post Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to that country to mark the 50th anniversary of the creation of Bangladesh and the birth centenary of its founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Islamists of various hues made the visit a pretext to unleash the worst kind of violence on the minority community there, namely the Hindus, reminding us once again that just beneath the surface of the syncretic Bengali culture that Bangladesh prides itself in, there is a very volatile force of fundamentalism. Let’s not forget that this is the same country which has witnessed the worst kind of extremist violence in the past, particularly in the period of 2013 to 2016, during which those opposed to the fundamentalists including atheist bloggers were attacked and in some cases even hacked to death. During this period, Dhaka also witnessed one of the worst terrorist attacks, when in July 2016, well-to-do but radicalised youngsters laid siege to a café with weapons, resulting in the death of 29 people, including 20 hostages. Hindus and other minority communities have been under threat in that country for a long time, with the Hindu population coming down from around 30% in 1947 to around 9% at present. According to Dr Abul Barkat of Dhaka University, if this exodus of Hindus continues, in three decades, Bangladesh may not have a single Hindu left.

The problem is, radical extremism seems to be rearing its head in Bangladesh once again. In fact, Sheikh Hasina, herself a figure of moderation and inclusion, is being accused by her critics of practising appeasement policies towards hardline groups. There is no denying that the Bangladesh Prime Minister has been acting against extremist groups, particularly those owing allegiance to Al Qaeda and ISIS that have been trying to find roots in this Islamic country. And now her government has revived over 80 terror cases against the extremist group Hefazat-e-Islam, which in the past, under the leadership of the extremely influential Shah Ahmed Shafi, had issued a 13-point charter seeking things like the enactment of a blasphemy law with provision for death penalty, a ban on the mixing of men and women in public places, exemplary punishment for atheists, ban on erecting sculptures and statues and declaring the Ahamadiyyas as non Muslims.

The problem is, in spite of all this, and in spite of the fact that HIM had unleashed mayhem in Dhaka in the past demanding the enactment of the blasphemy law, Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government was seen to be soft towards it, apparently because it acted as a counter to the pro-Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. Many of Jamaat’s leaders were convicted of war crimes committed during Bangladesh’s liberation war, while the Jamaat itself was derecognized by the Supreme Court. Analysts say that HIM is filling up that vacuum. The HIM is a coalition of organizations that have bases in over 25,000 madrasas spread across Bangladesh. In fact, some of the groups that are a part of HIM were responsible for driving out Taslima Nasreen from Bangladesh in 1994. As recently as 2017, the Hasina government gave in to pressure from HIM and removed a Goddess of Justice statue from the Supreme Court premises and even recognized a madrasa degree as equivalent to a postgraduate degree. It doesn’t help matters that these Islamist groups can cause street havoc and bring life to a standstill even in Dhaka if they want to, or that they wield enormous influence in the rural areas.

Reports suggest that HIM, under its new leader, Junaid Babunagari, was behind the protests against PM Modi’s visit. It’s a different matter that the visit was an excuse to unleash mayhem on Hindus, because as HIM’s track record shows, it is part of the problem that Hindus face in Bangladesh. India has been worried about the rise of this group. But now with the reopening of the terror cases against HIM, the Awami League government has woken up to the threat that HIM poses to Bangladesh. According to Bangladeshi media reports, Awami League leaders have admitted the mistake they made by not taking on HIM in 2013 when it was wreaking havoc in Dhaka.

In other words, the situation is precarious and Bangladesh, which is doing very well in several indices, faces the risk of going the Pakistan way if the regressive forces have their say. There is reason to believe that Pakistan, backed by China, is very much involved in radicalising several sections, since the target is to create trouble for India along its border with Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina is the best option for Bangladesh to stay stable, forward looking and increasingly prosperous. That she is pro India is of immense importance to India. That Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself went for Bangladesh’s golden jubilee celebrations shows the kind of value that India gives to the India-Bangladesh relationship. To have a stable neighbourhood, India needs to help Sheikh Hasina counter the radical elements in her country, for which some progress is being made in the area of anti terror cooperation. It’s in India’s interest that Bangladesh remains stable and prosperous.

We are delighted to greet our readers around the world on the forthcoming Qingming Festival (Sweeping of the Tomb, as the barbarians call it). This year it will be on 5 April 2021, one of the many birthdays in the divine family of our glorious leader Xi PingPong.

5 April 2021 is the 145th birthday of the second cousin of the fourth parent of the third sister of our magnificent leader’s personal driver Ka No Dent who has served him faithfully for 113 years (don’t worry about brute concepts like human longevity, etc).

The Qingming festival has been celebrated in the great Chinese nation for over 2,500 years, and was carried by Chinese explorers far and wide to all corners of the world.

The people of Peru recall with tears in their eyes how Xi PingPong’s ancestor Eye Lie brought civilisation and development to the indigenous people. They plan to construct a 5,000 high foot statue of Eye Lie on top of the mountain.

The Exploit Bank of China has agreed to fund the construction at a soft rate of interest of 240% per week. It will be built by the Fanta See Corporation of China, chaired by our celestial leader Xi PingPong.

Today, 1 April 2021, is a good time to take stock of the earth-shaking achievements of the great Chinese nation in the past year.

Readers will remember a small upstart nation called the United States of America, founded by the Chinese General Wash In Tun. That nation tried to create a virus and send it to our heavenly motherland. But our leader in this life and the next fought the virus single-handedly and defeated it.

The American virus managed to escape to over 200 countries, which have yet to develop Chinese characteristics.

So, our great nation has sent them 7 billion copies of our Supreme Leader’s thoughts, as reading the book can defeat any calamity. Every loyal Chinese is also making vaccines in his toilet to send overseas, with a Made in a Developed Country label.

To set an example, our wonderful chief donated his underwear to make face masks for our colony to the west. In sheer gratitude, the colony has gifted Gua Dar city to China.

The leaders of these virus-affected nations, cured by our leader’s heavenly thoughts and his underwear, caused a minor flood in the Yellow River when they came personally to thank Xi PingPong and shed copious tears.

Our godly leader assured them that China will continue to build a magnificent future with Chinese characteristics for humankind by creating a new species of bats that generate loyalty to the Middle Kingdom.

The genetic engineering is being done by our magnificent leader’s two-year-old nephews, the world’s greatest chromosomal scientists, Hu Du Chit and Hu Du Pis. So, the people of the world can have many bat feasts with Chinese characteristics and world hunger will be eliminated.

As the world’s leaders fell at his feet, Xi PingPong promised to save the climate since Du Nol Tar Ump had abandoned the Paris Agreement with Chinese characteristics drafted by Chinese experts.

In the first phase, all the rivers of the world will be diverted to the great Chinese nation so that more bats can be produced. Chinese scientists at the National Institute, named after the great Chinese scientist Da Win, will produce genomic miracles so that the people of the world quickly acquire Chinese characteristics and are able to live without water.

Humankind will be modified and saved.

The Goebbels Times has been receiving many reports from reliable sources that brain cancer is rising around our planet. Doctors without Chinese characteristics are baffled by this.

Our wonderful leader has agreed to send millions of Chinese surgeons from the Communist Party to vanquish this affliction forever on the basis of proven Chinese treatment. The surgeons will replicate the Chinese treatment of removing or eradicating the people’s brains so that they are unable to think aberrant thoughts or decide for themselves.

Only brains that think thoughts with Chinese characteristics will remain and no disease will ever bother them again.

See the wonderful success we have achieved in de-braining the Uighurs. The Tibetans are more stubborn but secretly adore our infallible President/Prime Minister/Admiral/General/Air Marshal/Crook/Chief/King/Emperor Xi PingPong.

Our righteous leader has also decided to ensure that all nations around the world are able to manage their internal and external security.

Two Chinese super-soldiers will be sent to each country and, since they cannot be destroyed, they will single-handedly (or two-handedly) fight all the enemies who do not have Chinese characteristics.

And for those who doubt the valour of our undefeatable People’s Suppression Army, let them know that the four fighters killed in the clash in our beloved Gal Wan area did not have sufficient Chinese characteristics.

The other 40 soldiers were revived after reading the thoughts of Xi PingPong and are now relaxing in a Chinese heavenly resort with so many female companions provided by our colony called Pok Is Tan led by our faithful acolyte Im Ran Can.

If some deviants think we do not have enough military personnel, Chinese ladies will make one baby every week, as our doctors from V Tok Bumf Institute have shortened the pregnancy period.

Dear Readers, soon we will celebrate 100 years of the greatest event in human history, the founding of the Chinese Communist Party by Xi PingPong (then using another name Meow DingDong).

People from around the world are planning to come to China to celebrate the event that transformed their lives by demonstrating the ideal existence with Chinese characteristics.

We urge all our colonies to sing and dance on the occasion. School children should write essays honouring the world’s greatest leader and explaining his unthinkable thoughts with Chinese characteristics.

The winners (that will be all those who write an essay – in keeping with our socialist spirit) will participate in a lottery for a Red Card that allows them to visit the China paradise at least once in their lifetimes. Who wants a stupid Green Card that has no Chinese characteristics?

With approval from the outstanding leader, we suggest some topics:

1) Deeper meaning of Xi’s declaration that we should all be happy

2) Why China with Xi’s characteristics is so important

3) Why everyone wants a Chinese passport with Xi’s picture

The eminent panel of judges will include clones of Idi Amin, Jean Bedel Bokassa and Adolf Hitler.

In recent weeks, the international media (without Chinese approval) has been writing about a new entity called the Quad. The participants claim adherence to some unknown concept they call Dem Oh Kr Azy. Our experts are trying to find out what this is.

We would like to explain to our global readers that “Quad” is a newly created Mandarin word (by Xi) that means “loyalty to Xi”. The members will shortly pledge allegiance and request our leader to take over their nations since they are floundering. The Party Central Committee (consisting of Xi, Xi and Xi) will decide soon.

On 1 July 2021, we will also welcome back our space scientists who have now fully developed the Red Planet Mars into a beautiful world with Chinese characteristics. During his recent visit there, our beloved goo-roo (also a Mandarin term), showed the scientists how to create virus-free oxygen on Mars by reading aloud his thoughts.

Dear readers, we honour the evolution of the human species to a new and supreme level with Chinese characteristics.

This is the Year of the Ox, so we must generate more and more of what the bull produces.

And now a final word about our master.

Xi Jinping is the Red Queen of All Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, written by the demented Chinese scholar Lu Iss Karol.

According to the author, the Red leader is egotistic, a megalomaniac, narcissistic, with a deep need for excessive adulation, making his ideas the core philosophy of the nation as divine knowledge, and giving frequent commands of “off with his head”.

“I do not know what you mean by your way,” the Queen rebukes someone, “all the ways about here belong to me”.

He is a Gemini, whose negative traits are unreliability, tendency to backstab, bad decision-making skills, and a willingness to lie.

Dear readers, we deny that our leader is like this. He exceeds these human characteristics.

We thank our loyal contributors, On Li Suk, No Am Tru and Eye Lak Bren for their great service to the Chinese nation.

On this special day of 1 April, the enlightenment day of our great and wonderful leader, let us celebrate!

Written by Hu No Lai

The recent meeting between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar has created ripples within the Opposition. More so since Shah is also the BJPs ace strategist and the party’s man on the ground when it comes to wooing new allies. Of course, given the recent turmoil in Maharashtra, it has set the focus firmly on the state government; for don’t forget, Pawar was flirting with the saffron camp in the run up to the formation of the state government in 2019. There was that meeting with PM Narendra Modi right on the eve of government formation that had everyone speculating that Sharad Pawar would form an NCP-BJP government in the state in return for a trade-off for a cabinet post at the Centre. It was also speculated that the post would be for his daughter Supriya Sule and not for himself. However, that did not happen and Ajit Pawar, who joined the BJP government at the state during a midnight swearing in, had to later backtrack. But one always wondered if Ajit Pawar took that step on his own, or was it at the prompting of his uncle who is known to play both camps.

Which brings us back to the present. What is interesting about the recent meeting between Sharad Pawar and Shah is that at first the NCP camp denied such a meeting had taken place and later had to backtrack after the BJP—and indeed Shah himself—confirmed that it had happened. What was the NCP trying to hide? If it indeed was a meeting between political colleagues from different camps, why hide it?

There is also a larger concern at play for until now Sharad Pawar was the man tipped to bring the Opposition together. There was also talk—indeed the Shiv Sena was promoting his candidature—as the UPA convenor to replace an ailing Sonia Gandhi. That Pawar had a cordial relationship with Mamata Banerjee (easily one of the tallest leaders in the Opposition) added to his heft. He would be acceptable to all except perhaps Arvind Kejriwal who had gone after him in his earlier days as an anti-corruption crusader. But then the AAP leader is also known to balance idealism with pragmatism, so it is unlikely that Kejriwal would have objected too much to Pawar bringing all Opposition leaders on to one platform. However, all this was before that fateful meeting in Ahmedabad a few days ago. Now once again, Opposition leaders are asking themselves if they can trust the wily Maratha. Would Pawar sell them out to carve a sweetheart deal for himself? 

While the Opposition tries to answer that one, it has another and much more difficult question on its hands: If not Pawar then whom? Who is that one leader who can bring all the Opposition leaders on to one platform to counter the Prime Minister’s mass appeal? If Mamata wins West Bengal then she can be the face but does the mercurial leader have the requisite gravitas to take egos of all shapes and sizes along with her?

And if not Mamata, then whom? The ball falls back into the Congress court with Sonia Gandhi emerging as the best candidate. But for how long can she continue? It’s an interesting chain of thought that is sparked off by one dinner meeting in Ahmedabad.

The massive failure of the Bharat Bandh on 26 March should be a wake-up call for the agitating farmers and lobbies who called for it. They have failed miserably to cut any ice with the common man and the spate of violence that happened in some places during and after the bandh reflects their frustration at not getting any popular support.

They should understand that the silence of the state is not a weakness but a way to allow democratic dissent. The silence should not embolden them to think that they can do whatever they like. People are seeing the goondaism of the agitators and are peeved that decisive actions are not being taken by Congress governments, whether in Punjab or Rajasthan.

Very sad incidents happened in the course of the bandh. An ambulance carrying a pregnant lady was not allowed easy way by agitators in Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan, despite the fact that the call for the bandh had mentioned that essential services would be allowed. This was the only district that witnessed the bandh due to the predominant Sikh community there. A day after, Abohar MLA Arun Narang of the BJP was stripped naked and thrashed by agitators who had come to know about a press conference he was going to address at Malout in the Muktsar district, Punjab. He was saved with great difficulty by the police. There were many other reports of mediapersons being intimated and roughed up.

There is desperation among the organisers. The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), comprising more than 40 farmer unions and morchas, are apparently trying to flex more muscle than they have. This is bound to produce a rupture. The SKM has said that it would carry out a satyagraha the way Mahatma Gandhi had done. But saying that you will carry on an agitation till your demands are met is easy – to keep protesting peacefully is tough.

They should learn from the Mahatma who had called off the Non-Cooperation Movement after the Chauri Chaura incident in 1922 since he concluded that the movement had become violent. At Chauri Chaura, the police had fired at the mob that killed three people, and the mob set fire to the police station in retaliation, killing 23 policemen as a result. Gandhiji knew that such violence would not take anyone anywhere.

Here, even after what happened on 26 January this year in the name of the protest and the subsequent violent incidents, the agitators have been unable to see reason. Meanwhile, the government has put the three farm legislations on hold, the Supreme Court committee is looking into various aspects of the issues involved, and the people of this country are befuddled, asking what the fuss is all about.

Eminent philosopher Immanuel Kant advocated rationality since it is a tool to establish morality in society. And where emotions rule, rationality becomes the biggest casualty. Sadly, in the ongoing farm agitation, rationality is the biggest victim. Nobody wants to talk of the core issues; everyone supporting the agitators seems to be guided by primordial emotions.

At the core of the agitation are the illegal benefits which middlemen get from dealing in farm produce. These arhatiyas exploit gullible farmers, take the payment for the produce procured according to the MSP and then pay the farmers, and control their land and its use. Why else would they oppose the Union Government’s push to hand over money directly to the accounts of the farmers?

Also, one needs to understand who the farmers are. Are they ones who own the lands? Or those who control the lands? Or those who till these lands? The MSP is given on produce which should be according to land ownership rights. In many cases, NRIs staying in Canada or other parts of the world buy land in Punjab with the money they make abroad. No wonder then that land prices are very high in the state. This provides some context to the agitation’s Canada link.

The arhatiyas control the land and decide who will cultivate what. In most cases, the price of procured paddy goes into the accounts of these NRIs. Technically, either they or those with the lease of the land are the farmers. Hence, the decision to transfer money into the account of farmers has added fuel to the fire because this would minimize the role of these middlemen. The farmers would not depend on the arhatiyas and the system would be reversed.

Questions have also been raised on how these middlemen have been trying to make money by illegally transporting grains from other parts of the country and selling them in the lucrative MSP mandis of Punjab and Haryana. A look at some facts can be eye-opening here. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has been procuring more paddy in Punjab as per the MSP than the state produces. Since all crops brought to the mandis are purchased, the figures show what is happening in this system made by middlemen. Government agencies in Punjab bought 163.82 lakh tonnes (LT) of paddy in 2019-20, 170.46 LT in 2018-19, and 179.56 LT in 2017-18. Going by government records for paddy cultivation and the average yield the land produces, the total production should be close to 152 LT (15.2 million tonnes) in 2019-20, 169.44 LTs (16.9 million tonnes) in 2018-19 and 164.14 LTs (16.4 million tonnes) in 2017-18.

Even if we consider that famers might keep some of that paddy for their consumption, the procurement is very high. So, where is the produce coming from and who is bringing it? Definitely, not the farmers. The entire racket of the illegal transport of paddy from other states to the mandis of Punjab and Haryana is taking place through middlemen. Thus, everyone is benefiting from the present system except the farmers: the arhatiyas who make money through commission and by selling produce bought cheaply in other states, the politicians who get their election funding from these arhatiyas in return for not disturbing this arrangement, and the corrupt officials who do not promote buying from farmers.

The land contract law proposed by the farm legislations would not allow anyone to get the land rights of the farmers. How then would these middlemen arm-twist farmers to sell their produce cheaply or pay the middlemen high interest on money they may have borrowed in times of need? Thus, allowing the mandis to reach farmers would ensure that farmers would not be exposed to exploitation.

Common farmers know that PM Modi’s schemes are for their benefit, but they also know that these arhatiyas are very powerful and may bounce back to torture them. So, even when they seem to be with the agitators, they do not support the agitation.

In the meantime, the agitators have been realising that it is extremely difficult to continue the protest. Rakesh Tikait went to West Bengal to campaign against the BJP but did not get the traction he had expected. Their leaders have reached a dead end. Their failure to negotiate with the government has led to desperation, which has the potential to degenerate further into chaos. They cannot absolve themselves now from the violence that has become the hallmark of the agitation.

The writer is convener of the Media Relations Department of the BJP and represents the party as a spokesperson on TV debates. He has authored the book ‘Narendra Modi: The Game Changer’. The views expressed are personal.

At the core of the agitation are the illegal benefits which middlemen get from dealing in farm produce. These arhatiyas exploit gullible farmers, take the payment for the produce procured according to the MSP and then pay the farmers, and control their land and its use. Why else would they oppose the Union government’s push to hand over money directly to the accounts of the farmers?

Bhagat Singh has undoubtedly been the most iconic figure of the Indian freedom movement and like many others such as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, has never got the kind of recognition which he deserved. It was exactly 90 years on last Tuesday when he and his two associates, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru, attained martyrdom after being sentenced to death on flimsy grounds in what has come to be known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case. The matter is regarded as the biggest miscarriage of justice by the British and their conviction was secured on the testimony provided by some of their comrades, notably, Hans Raj Vohra, Jai Gopal, Phonindra Nath Ghosh and Manmohan Banerjee who were among 457 prosecution witnesses. All the four were amply rewarded with Jai Gopal getting Rs 20,000 for his statement and Ghosh and Banerjee getting 50 acres of land each in Champaran district.

Vohra never sought monetary benefits, but on his request the British facilitated his entry into the London School of Economics; the expenditure borne by the Punjab government. After that he completed his degree in Political Science from London University and pursued a career in journalism, first with a newspaper in Lahore and subsequently with the Times of India. He served as the Washington correspondent of the daily and stayed back in the United States till his death in 1995. It is evident that he suffered from tremendous guilt for his betrayal and towards the end of his life, wrote a letter to Sukhdev’s brother explaining the reasons why he had testified.

Eminent journalist, the late Kuldeep Nayyar in his book on Bhagat Singh, published by Har Anand, tried to play down his role and suggested a larger scrutiny of Sukhdev’s role. However, the book could not take away the spotlight from the backstabbing by Vohra and others in the case. Other than the facts mentioned above, not much is known about Vohra and his extended family and whether any of them also became beneficiaries of the foreign rulers at some stage of their life. Therefore, in this context, research scholars interested in the Bhagat Singh case, must with due diligence carry out meticulous probing to unearth many unknown facts of the case particularly pertaining to the traitors. While Bhagat Singh became the face of the revolutionaries, some more information needs to be shared regarding Sukhdev, Rajguru and others besides those who let them down to accrue benefits. The role of Vohra, Jai Gopal, Ghosh and Banerjee was most disgraceful and amounted to both treachery and betrayal. History can never forgive them.

Bhagat Singh was only in his twenties when he happily chose the gallows in pursuit of our country’s freedom. Several historians are of the view that had Mahatma Gandhi wished, he could have saved the three martyrs but this opinion also needs to be thoroughly verified. Another school of thought tries to equate the trio with terrorists which is totally inaccurate. Bhagat Singh was a revolutionary, and his objective was to attain freedom for the country and not to terrorise the common people. He never had any nefarious designs; he could have escaped if he wanted to after hurling the Bomb along with Batukeshwar Dutt in the Central Legislative Assembly on 6 April 1929.

The saga of this brave son of India has been recreated on the celluloid many times over, most notably by Manoj Kumar in Shaheed. In fact, before the filming commenced, Manoj had met Bhagat Singh’s mother, who after seeing him, stated that he looked just like her son. The Central government must acknowledge the contribution of these martyrs and declare 23 March, the day of their martyrdom as a National Holiday. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru shall always be remembered by a grateful nation.