NOT THE DUSTBIN OF HISTORY
When the idealistic, visionary but innocent souls who had successfully won the freedom of India, though at the bitter and horrifying cost of Partition, set about to fashion a new land they had little idea of how the world would change beyond the most fantastic imagination of science fiction writers and other more practical persons grounded on what they thought was practical reality. There was, of course, even then the early sprouting of the roots of renewed conflict and new forms of terror and aggression, and the assertion of hegemony in the name of idealism and ideology.
And so our founding brothers and sisters sought the most dynamic, and to a large extent a breath-taking, astonishing decision to create a democracy in which the voice of every adult person would be sought and accepted in governance and the formation of a civil society based on equality, equitability and justice.
Democracy, proudly a daring Indian democracy, came into being. And the first years were imbued with the highest exhilaration, dedication and optimism. But as we know, to our sorrow, here in India, as in history, when a high-water mark is being reached, an undertow starts to bring about a down-slide driving down from the peak of the shallows and below. And this is what we have been witnessing, especially those who have had the privilege and pathos to live through these exciting and saddening times beyond a half-century.
Democracy has suffered the world over the most punishing blows even in its so-called citadels. It has been mangled out of shape. Terrorism has evolved into hideous, horrifying, senseless shape beyond logical understanding. And technology instead of serving humanity has made it its slave, through human willingness itself. Has humanity come to the end of its limits?
Has Gujarat brought us Indians to the lowest depths? No! We have the strength, dedication, generosity of mind and heart and the broadest horizon to create a new world of our own. We must will ourselves with determination not to enter the dustbin of history.