By Tarun Vijay 07 July 2013, 11:21 PM IST
Without an iota of doubt
Buddha is the best and most acceptable introduction to India. And if his temple
is attacked, every single Indian belonging to any caste, religion and province
must stand up, get angry and help
eliminate terror modules.
Mahabodhi can't be allowed to
turn into a Bamiyan. Every bit of Bodhgaya, every millimetre of Mahabodhi
defines us, introduces the best of India
and the greatest heights of our philosophy, faith and history ever achieved.
Those who can go to any extent to sell off their conscience to get a berth in
the cabinet or even a durban position in the corridors of power will certainly
try this time too to communalise the incident, blame it on those whom they
consider as political enemies and these very politicians, belonging to various
tribes and colours, reacting wildly to gain an inch in the media, will spoil
the joint mechanism to fight terror.
Fail them.
Expose them in the most
hard-hitting manner and try to stand up as a tall Indian forgetting whether it
is Ram, Vishnu, Shiva, or Buddha that
you recite daily in the morning, whether you are a namazi or a churchgoer, it's
time to chant only one mantra, that is, India, that is, Bharat.
And today that India means
Buddha.
Be a Buddha and create a
resolution that shows that we Indians are not the Indians of those times when
individual gains of power weighed more than national security, when we sided
with the enemies in pursuit of a few years of a kingdom, that would help us to
enjoy a few years in luxury.
There was a Nehru who didn’t
care for the Chinese opposition and gave shelter to the Dalai Lama and his
millions of followers from Tibet to keep the age-old tradition of India alive
and provide help to those who are persecuted and refused and are distressed.
India has had a late
awakening to Buddha, that too after we saw China is claiming the legacy and the
civilizational continuity of the Buddhist heritage. No, India said. Buddha
belongs to us.
But does Buddha belongs to us
only till he helps us count tourism-dollars and gain an ASEAN identity? Or
Buddha is genuinely us, genuinely our legacy and our ancestor and our father
figure and our messenger of peace that is revered all over this planet today?
What is our contribution to
stake a claim to that legacy, if we cannot stand up today with all the power
and strength that we can muster and challenge the attackers in no uncertain
terms?
No use citing Myanmar and Sri
Lanka conflicts and saying these bombs at Bodhgaya might be a spillover
reaction to all that. It will be a cowardly, self-defeating argument. First, we
can’t allow any other person, or group to react against our close friends and
spiritual brothers, if not blood brothers, from our soil. Secondly, these bombs
are just another expression of hate and intolerance that we have been facing
since last three decades.
If the time to forge a
national unity on this issue is not now, then when shall we ever emerge as a
nation?
The time to repay our debt to
Buddha.
No comments:
Post a Comment