Gentlemen,

With an agitated mind and tearful eyes I heartily welcome you all to this SAVE THE NATION CONVENTION. The overall situation prevailing at present in our country is causing grave concern to every consciencious and patriotic citizen. As a poet says:

Ek hook si dil mein uthti hai

Ek dard jigar mein hota hai

Our ancestors who toiled hard and even shed their blood to for the sake of the freedom of our country from the yoke of colonial rule had dreamt of a peaceful and prosperous country wherein every one will have enough to cover his body, will have a roof over his head and starvation will not stare in any face; wherein there will be no distinction of high and low and untouchability will be a thing of the past; wherein there will be no discrimination against any one on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex, language and place of birth; wherein Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians will, with mutual love and understanding, contribute their mite for the progress and welfare of the country; wherein the Dalits and other backward and oppressed people will secure their due place of respect and dignity in the society; wherein  women will not be looked down upon and will be able to walk on the path of development shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts; wherein there will be no place for oppression and all exploitation will be dealt with severely; justice will be easy for every one to secure; education will be made available to all and every new-born will open eyes in an environ of enlightenment; wherein free education will be provided to every child up to the age of fourteen, wherein the leaders will be the servant of the people and service alone will be their creed.

These and many other such dreams had been seen by our valiant freedom fighters of the yester-years. But, even though it is over half a century since we secured independence from the British rule, the question that haunts every one of us is: have we succeeded in transforming our country into the land of our dreams? Unfortunately the answer is only a big NO. However, a still more ominous and disturbing question is staring us in our face: whether our country besieged by such nerve-racking problems will be able to retain this hard-earned freedom, as we see the bizarre spectacle that those on whose shoulder rests the responsibility of ensuring the security and integrity of the country and welfare of their countrymen are acting just the opposite. Every passing day furnishes fresh proof that our political leaders are just obsessed with the ambition of clinging to power to enable themselves to swell their coffers with the public money and to facilitate themselves in this nefarious task they have zealously adopted the old British policy of ‘divide and rule’. These leaders are shamelessly playing the cards of religion, casteism, regionalism and language to keep the people divided and constantly at loggerhead. These leaders feel no compunction even in engineering bloody communal and sectarian violence to suit their political ends. However, howsoever depressing be the encircling gloom we have not totally lost heart. We still pin hopes on our Lord, the Beneficent Sustainer of the universe Whom we still find being Forgiving and Benevolent to us. We still have faith in the teeming millions of our countrymen who are as restless and concerned at the conditions as these respectable persons on the dais here and like you all present here. You all gentlemen, representing millions of similarly concerned people all over the country give the glimmer of hope as constituting the light at the end of the turnel. We are, today, through this convention, giving a call to these consciencious people to come forward and sound the bugle for a fresh war of independence. This war will be against these corrupt and inefficient leaders holding the reins and stalking the corridors of power and to build a new Bharat of our dreams. We are endowed with determination and courage and we feel the urge to sing the same couplet which had, during the days of our freedom-struggle enthused and spurred us.

Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamarey dil mein hai

Dekhna   hai  zor kitna bazoo-e-qatil  mein hai

Right diagnosis should precede the treatment. We have to spot the marks of injury at the charming body of our country to apply the ointment. Let us take stock of the various fronts at which we have to fight. The most prominent dream envisioned by our elders was that of “self-sufficient and prosperous Bharat” free of starving deaths, of half-naked people, free of the un-employed and the indigent. True, Bharat has taken giant strides in the fields of science, technology, agriculture and industry. It is a major exporter of railway bogies and components of aeroplanes. It has outdone others in exporting computer hardware and software. After space and missile technology Bharat has become a nuclear power also. It can boast of a large network of large and small industries. But the question is who are those who are being benefited with this dazzling progress. The nexus between politicians and capitalists has resulted in the concentration of wealth in the hands of a handful while a large part of country’s population stands deprived of all the flowing benefits; the gulf between the rich and the poor has widened still more, the rich have become richer and the poor, poorer. Side by side with five-star hotels and lofty buildings there are slums inhabited by people who do not have even basic amenities of life. On the one side costly liquor flows like water and on the other there is a very large section of the people who are forced to drink unhygienic polluted water. There are large tables laden with rich and sumptuous ford on the one side and on the other naked and semi-naked children search for a tiny loaf of bread thrown away in garbage bins making a mockery of the hard-earned freedom of our elders. More than half of this Bharat’s population is still living below the poverty line. Path is being cleared for the inflow of multinational companies under pressure from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the name of globalization and liberalization resulting in the slow but sure death of indigenous industries. In other words a new colonial order headed by U.S.A. is being imposed. And all this is being done by none other than those who, till the other day, vociferously advocated swadeshi; who had publicly vowed to make the country’s economy stand on its own feet; to promote cottage industry, to strengthen the public sector and to infuse new blood into the sick private sector units and to make swift strides on the path of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. But all these promises were forgotten when political power came in their hands. In place of strengthening Swadeshi, what is being promoted is the ever-expanding interest of foreign companies so much so that foreign investment is now being allowed in such a sensitive sector as defence. And the funnier part of it all is that the offshoots of the Sangh Parivar like Swadeshi Jagran Munch and Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh continue to raise mock-slogans against the so-called economic reforms by the government. Obviously the Sangh Parivar wants to eat the cake and have it too. The result is that according to latest report released just a couple of days ago our credit rating has been considerably lowered.

The report recently made public by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) about the indigenous production presents an extremely gloomy picture which shows a marked decline in varying degree because of dismal performance by the industrial, and services sector. The rupee is constantly loosing its value in the exchange market. From rupees 7 and 90 paise to a U.S. dollar in 1980-81 it has slumped to nearly Rs. 47 to an American dollar. Ours is, perhaps, the first country in which a good number of farmers have been forced to commit suicide because of unbearable burden of debt resulting from the heavy loss suffered due to supply of sub-standard seeds and fertilizers by the government consequent upon the GATT and DUNKLEagreements.

While formerly the show-piece slogan was ‘gharibi hatao’ (eliminate poverty) it appears the now ruling party has changed it to ‘gharib ko hatao’ (eliminate the poor).

Yet another field in which our country has made tremendous progress is the sphere of corruption at all levels. While illegal gratification was formerly accepted with a sense of guilt and shame and from below the table, it is quite brazen and open now involving the very high functionaries. During the brief tenure of Sri Chandar Shekhar as Prime Minister the popular refrain was that if you have enough money in your pocket you can get anything done. Narasimha Rao has the dubious distinction of being the first Prime Minister of being charged with accepting a bribe of one crore rupees. And it now is such a commonplace phenomenon that almost every other day the print and electronic media splash the news of one major scam or the other. The very recent UTI-64 scam and the Tehalka dot com scam just prior to it are reported to be directly linked with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). What more is to be said in this regard than that Bharat stands at number 73 in the list of the 99 most corrupt countries in the world.

The role of money-power in politics has made it the nursery for criminals. The earlier successful nexus between the criminals and politicians has encouraged the criminals to directly jump into the arena of politics. A good number of history-sheeters and those against whom a number of cases of heinous crimes like decoity, rape and murder have been registered are now seen as members of legislative bodies including parliament and even enjoying ministerial berths. There is hardly a political party which feels ashamed even for appearance’s sake at open nexus with notorious criminals. When the now famous telecom scam surfaced during P.V. Narasimha Rao’s regime, the BJP, then leading the opposition in Parliament stalled its proceedings for full one week. Later with this every same Sukh Ram, who, as then heading the telecom ministry was the chief target of the BJP entered into electoral alliance in Himachal Pradesh and later became a coalition partner with him in the government. The BJP and the Congress both have allied with Jay Lalita whose popular image is that of one of the most corrupt politicians in India. The limit is reached when we find that such a sensitive sector as defence is also no more immune from the virus of corruption. During Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure it was the scam of purchase of the Bofors guns and now the Tehalka exposure has umasked many faces with the makhota of desh-bhakti to show the real face of desh-drohis.

Yet another major problem which is eating up the moral fabric of our new generation like white-ant is the growing sexual immorality among our youth which is the direct result of blindly aping the western civilization.

Obscene films and periodicals had already caused enough harm and now the internet and satellite channels are leading the youth towards their certain moral destruction.

Even the abominable lesbian and gay culture has started taking roots and the number of unmarried mothers is on the increase.  Unfettered sexual indulgence is causing the spread of AIDS and our country is among those most hit by this killer disease.  Our indigenous social set-up has been topsy tervied by the import of western culture and values and the institution of family is in a shambles.

The new generation of any country is its future.  A glimpse of our future can be had by looking at our upcoming generation.  Today the new generation is a victim of despondency and despair.  Unemployment is mounting correspondingly with the increase in the number of degree-holders.  Those who had promised to provide ten million job opportunities  if brought to power, have in fact created one million fresh unemployed during just one year of their rule.  These frustrated young men give themselves up to either drugs or to a life of crime and political parties are exploiting these youth.  Is it possible to dream of a better and promising future with the help of such demoralised, licentious and inefficient youth?

Yet another dream at the advent of freedom was that of a society wherein justice for the oppressed will be quick and easy to get and the oppressor will be adequately dealt with.  But what we see today is a very huge backlog of long pending cases, running into several lakhs, right from the lowest to the highest court – the Supreme Court.  The old adage justice delayed is justice denied has come very true in India.  Any one knocking at the door of a law court to seek justice in the prime of his youth, is little likely to see the end of it in his life-time.  Any number of people have breathed their last awaiting justice.  And to cap it all the sacred institution of judiciary itself is not now free from charges of corruption and partisanship.

The function of the police is to accord protection to the weak and generally to maintain law and order but this force in khaki today carries the label of doing just the opposite.  Police stations have turned into dens of corruption and torture cells.  Any number of innocents are killed in fake encounters, women are raped and gang-raped by policemen and the number of custodial deaths is constantly on the rise. The law presumes every one to be innocent unless proved guilty, but with our police it is just the reverse.  To them every one whom they lay their hands on is guilty and criminal and through subjecting him to inhuman torture force him to confess to a crime which he has not committed.  A poet has succinctly drawn the picture in the following words.

Dadd dijiye hum jee rahen hain wahan
Hein   muhafiz  jahan  qatilon ki  tarah

The Dalits, even today, constitute the most oppressed class of our society. Our Constitution makers have made special provisions for the amelioration and en-bettering of their lot.  Reservations were provided for them in educational institutions and in the job market, besides other attending concessions just so that they may get a social status at par with other fellow beings.  But all this has not achieved the desired result.  The Dalits continue to be the victims of tyranny and brutality of the so-called upper caste people.  Dalit women are paraded naked in the streets in broad daylight and their modesty is outraged without the least compunction.    The BJP ruled state of Uttar Pradesh is at the top in this respect.  Is this the land which Ghandhiji and Dr. Bhimrao  Ambedkar had dreamt?  Even after over half century of independence there is no end in sight to the repugnant concept of untouchability and of the high and low based on the incident of birth.  The Sangh Parivar is out to provide justification for it in the name of Hindutva.

Women are another weaker and much oppressed and exploited section of our society.  The Constitution places them at par with men and there are special privileges for them in the sphere of education.  But they are today the most vulnerable in India.  Their chastity is at a premium.  Even minor girls are not spared by the male wolfs to satisfy their lust.  One burning matchstick and another women is added to the list of dowry deaths.  She is still treated as a curse and through sex determination test by ultra sound the foetus of here mother becomes here grave.  The widows and the divorcees live in unbearable misery and ignominy.   According to a recent survey conducted by the National Commission for Women there is one incident of rape in ever 54th minute, of eve-teasing in every 26th minute, of kidnapping in every four minutes and dowry-killings after every ten minutes.   According to IFSHA, an NGO, there are thousands of cases every day which are not reported to the police either with the fear of entailing humiliation or because of social pressure.  A big noise is currently being made for providing 33 per cent reservation for women in legislative assemblies and Parliament but any sincere and sustained effort by any political party to give them equal social status and to accord protection to their modesty and dignity is conspicuous by absence.  The poor Bharat Nari still desperately awaits a saviour.

A separate volume is required to record in detail the miseries and sufferings faced by the minorities and particularly by Muslims during the past 50 years.

This class of citizens whose contribution in terms of life and properly to the freedom struggle has been second to none has become almost an alien in his own country.  Its patriotism is constantly put under cloud at times by accusing it of working as an agent of the ISI and at times with sticking the label of terrorist on it. It appears that life, property and dignity of Muslims have lost all value in India.  The chain of major to minor anti-Muslim carnage (so-called communal riots) still continue unabated. The village Berswagod in Moradabad district is the latest in the series where 16 Muslims including women and children were massacred, the property of Muslims was looted and destroyed and women folk molested.  The role of police has been as reprehensible as always.  Not a single person has beenarrested so far.

The doors of education and progress have been virtually closed for Muslims. The religious educational institutions run by them are being branded as breeding ground of terrorists and agents of the ISI.  These were the seminaries which had issued the edicts against the British rule and encouraged the Muslims to fight against them.  It were these madrasas which produced the enthusiastic youth who, along with Gandhiji made life difficult for the British colonialists.  Today these very institutions are being charged with being the nursery for terrorism and other anti-India activities.  What an irony!

It is revolting that the report on national security prepared by a group of four Ministers, including the Home Minister, has branded not the madrasas only as security risk but also the Muslim community as a whole.  There is a sustained propaganda against some Muslim organisations of working for the ISI as a prelude to ban them.  The Muslim youth in substantial number are being arrested on cooked up charges in different parts of India more so in Maharashtra and U.P.  The only object is to terrorise them into passivity and to demoralise them.

Haiy yeh gardish-e dowran mujhe lai hai kahan
Hai fizaon mein dhuan saans bhi lena hai giran

The nefarious chain of desecrating and destroying the Muslim shrines and mosques started in the wake of our independence culminated in the pulling down of Babri Masjid and now the offshoots of the Sangh Parivar are preparing to construct a Ram temple at that place through coercion and muscle power defying the Constitution and making a mockery of the judiciary.  The memories of the stone age are being revived by foisting ‘Astha’ against recorded history, archaeological evidence and legal documents.

There are hundreds of other mosques on the hit list of the Sangh Parivar, demolishing which under the pretext of these being standing evidence of Hindu slavery period and to construct temples in their place is their avowed goal.  It is the direct consequence of this poisoned  atmosphere that the five-hundred-year-old functioning Qulandi mosque in village Asna of Bhilwada district in Rajasthan was heavily damaged as recently as on 25 July and idols were installed at the site.  The idols have, however, been removed now although the administration has yet to give permission for the reconstruction of the mosque itself.  The BJP led government of U.P. has not so far withdrawn the nefarious religious places Bill under which it intends to exercise great control over the construction of religious buildings.

The Sangh Parivar has succeeded in putting up the wall of bad blood and animosity through sustained propaganda between the Hindus and Muslims who have lived together for hundreds of years.

The draconian TADA has not been given a new lease of life but it has been kept alive for those already booked under the said black Act and hundreds of such are still in different jails since several years because their trial by the special courts moving at snail’s pace has not yet concluded. Even though the percentage of conviction under TADA has been extremely meager the BJP government at the Centre is planning to replace the TADA with a still more draconian and oppressive law.  Keeping in view the fact that the TADA was more capriciously used against the Muslims, it is rightly feared that under the new Act again Muslims will be the prime target.

The step-motherly treatment meted out to Urdu language, which is not only among the sweetest languages of the world but is also a common heritage of the people of India having taken birth here and nursed by all to become rich in vocabulary and a great store-house of knowledge and learning, is shocking and unprecedented.  All efforts are being made to reduce it to a dead language.  It is a tragedy that in Uttar Pradesh which has the privilege of having nourished and helping the growth and flourishing of this language, in that U.P. the number of those able to write and read among the new generation is fast dwindling.  This is only because of the communally hostile attitude of successive governments.

Our country consists of people following different religions, speaking different languages and nursing different cultures.  Our Constitution provides for not only the conservation but also for the flourishing of the cultural, linguistic and religious identity of all communities.  But the cultural chauvinists of the day are bent upon eliminating this beautiful unity in diversity and to impose by force one culture on all and Muslims are their first and prime target.  The first step in this direction was to impose Saraswati Vandana and Vande Mataram on the school children of tender and impressionable age and now preparations are afoot for the safronization of the whole curricula at all levels.

To cap it all the volunteers of the militant wings of the RSS in the shape of Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and te Rashtriya Sevaka Samiti are not the only receiving military training  but are also being openly provided with arms.   Every one knows well this training is for what purpose and to be employed against whom.  So far their target were the Muslims only but now Christian have also been included and the worst example of barbaric onslaught against the Christians is the roasting alive, in the recent past, of the Christian  Missionary Graham Stephens and his two minor children in Orissa by an allegedly Bajrang Dal activist.  Attacks on Christian Churches, priests and nuns are occurring with increased frequency.

Yet another nefarious conspiracy against the Muslims is to bring the nationality of a large numbers of them under cloud and to ultimately dereconginse them as Indian nationals.  In furtherance of this the bogey of Banngladeshi migrants was first raised in Assam, Bengal and Bihar and under that pretext the names of several lakh genuine Muslim citizens were removed from the voters list and later the ploy was extended to Delhi and other places.

Another important issue which deserves serious attention is the move by the BJP led government at the Centre to have a second look at and review the Constitution.   A Commission set up for this purpose headed by retired justice Venkat Chalayya is busy in formulating its recommendations.  The whole exercise is unconstitutional and the credentials of the political party (The BJP) which has initiated the move are suspect.   Its sole purpose is to strengthen and stabilize its tottering and shaky rule.   In addition it appears that the party feels uneasy and is unhappy with some of the rights and privileges granted to minorities in the Constitution.

Respected gentlemen!  By recounting this brief tale of woe my intention is not to throw you into a state of despondency and despair.  But, as said earlier, before taking up treatment, correct diagnosis of the disease is essential which can assure the treatment being right and effective. I firmly believe that a large majority of our population is broad –minded, accommodative and peace-loving and is earnestly anxious to see that our country comes out of the quagmire of all these and other problems besetting it and they feel genuinely concerned at the prevailing disturbing conditions.   What is needed is to bring them all together and make them more active and vocal to launch a campaign against all the ills and evil forces.

Aik ho jaen to bun sakte hian khursheed-e mubeen

I apologize to you for taking much of your time. However, I have placed before you only a few of the problems facing all of us which in my estimation are outstanding.  I am confident that this representative gathering of the intellectuals and the learned attending this convention will make a correct diagnosis and will not only suggest efficacious remedy but will also gird up their loins and embark on a sustained and ceaseless campaign to rid our country of all ills and evils.  I invite you all to launch a new andolan to translate into reality all our dreams.  Much time has already been lost and the situation brooks of no further delay.  So please join hands and stand together for the joint campaign with courage and determination, with eyes glowing with the vision of a bright future.

I am sure of a bright dawn emerging out of the encircling gloom.   In fact I am having the vision of the silver lining beyond the dark clouds.     What I look forward to is your helping hand extended with sincerity, courage and determination and all hearts beating in unison.