TOWARD A CONFIDENT FUTURE
There is no time like the present to make a balance sheet of our gains and losses, our victories and defeats, of our dreams and their fulfillment, and our vision of the times ahead. And since the present is always with us this exercise of evaluation is a never-ending one. The result is that the present always seems critical, the future foreboding, the past either utopian or just hellish. Few take a sane view that all times are good or bad and only thinking makes them so.
But practical as we must be if we are to survive we have to mix optimism with reality and take a course that steers clear of unfathomable depths or treacherous quicksands or perilous formidable rocks.
This long and somewhat obvious introduction seems necessary because we tend to take either a rosy view or one seen through a glass darkly. Today we seem to be caught in a web of confused thinking and actions with contradictory pulls in a bewildering set of directions. But, frankly, this need not be so. I think in the past six decades with our earlier long time heritage of some very clear-headed, noble ideas of society, living, ethics and morality (no doubt contaminated and distorted through time and usage but capable of going back to basics) we should be able to achieve a just-society and honorable governance, co-existing peacefully with the rest of the world.
Some people see in our recent economic success (confined to a small vulgarly affluent class) a vision of great power status ignoring the millions mowed down by poverty. Others see ourselves hemmed in by neighbours and other inimical forces which are foreboding, conspiring, incomprehensible and indistinct. No. We must see ourselves with confidence that we can hold our own with dignity, purpose and unity above all. I do believe, and I would ask my fellow Indians that we need not fear the USA, Russia, China, Japan, all the continents and peoples put together as enemies. They can all be friends or be made friends if we move around with honour and strength, head held high. Only at their own cost and folly will our detractors learn that they cannot humble and degrade us. Let us therefore go forward toward a confident future.