{"id":350377,"date":"2024-10-01T01:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T06:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=350377"},"modified":"2024-10-02T08:04:41","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T13:34:41","slug":"political-leaders-sleepwalk-amidst-surrounding-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/political-leaders-sleepwalk-amidst-surrounding-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Political leaders sleepwalk amidst surrounding chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One wonders what sleeping potions and concoctions are given to the political rulers, so that they can sleep well and not sit all too perturbed seeing the human killings! Can they be called leaders? by Humra  Quraishi<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m  curious and also  keen to  know from the so-called \u2018sleep  experts\u2019,  what sleeping potions and lotions and pills and concoctions and medicines are given to the  political rulers, so that they can sleep well and not sit all too perturbed seeing the  human  killings! Nah, I wouldn\u2019t call these men \u2018leaders\u2019 as they are not leading us to anywhere near survival! They are all too blatantly political, hopping from one summit to the next, in their best attires, with those frills all too intact. The in-between gaps fitted with speeches and more of those fairy tale promises! Far, far away from any of the realities as they do not take the trouble of visiting any of the troubled war torn zones or countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If one were to focus on the Israeli forces targeting Lebanon, it gets far too obvious that killings and violence are only worsening, going beyond the Palestine borders. Last fortnight, many were  killed and many more were wounded as explosions went off in Beirut and in several other parts of Lebanon in an apparent second wave of detonations of electronic devices, walkie-talkies and even solar equipment were  targeted a day after hundreds of pagers blew up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As this new form of warfare gets  unleashed  by the  Israeli forces, the political web and military might seemingly gaining ground, unsettling hundreds of  innocents not just  in the West Bank and Middle East but far beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bound to carry huge tragedies. And bigger offshoots. There is, of course, the refugee crisis which has been spilling over to Europe. This crisis is an extended offshoot of the internal strife and civil war instigated by the vested interests of the bigger nations!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sit all too subdued and meek and mute, wondering: Who is masterminding these killings? Who is behind these organized bombardments? Who are the behind-the-scenes destroyers? Why are the governments and world leaders not speaking out? We don\u2019t even scream or shriek in horror to end this mess, even when news reports come in, day after day, of human disasters!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are worried about the consequences of speaking out!  Even as the civilian population sits terrorized, we sit all too shut. State-fed inputs to terrorism continue to hold sway. No, we are not even inclined to go beyond, and question and query.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few talk openly and responsibly; even bypass its seriousness by overlooking the political complexities to it, as political powers and fascist forces expand their domain on sheer barbaric tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of those exceptions to this is Professor V.K. Tripathi, who till his retirement was teaching Physics at IIT Delhi. He has been doing his utmost to unmask those layers, by holding meetings with students and researchers. Several  years back,  one  late evening  as  I reached  the  stretch  near  the Aravali hostel of  IIT  New Delhi, I was  taken   aback  to see that  on that   cold  December  evening Tripathi, sitting on a  faded piece  of cloth, discussing with his  students  and  research  scholars, the political polarization and terrorism in today\u2019s world! Mind you, not   talking about terrorism in one of  those  hyped  political  or  biased  terms, but as  he\u2019d   put  across, \u201c For resisting terror, it is vital that we understand terror  in all its forms  and  take  up  responsible roles.\u201d And in continuation with that, he went on to explain that Imperialism is the deadliest form of terrorism. He also gave the backgrounders to the  start  of people\u2019s discontent,  build-ups leading to terrorist  activity in our country,  in Punjab and also in North East and Kashmir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 *****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if Mahatma Gandhi was still in our midst. He would have definitely travelled to the Palestinian State and also to Lebanon  and  met the survivors. He would  have spent days  or weeks there, amidst the  affected. Don\u2019t you recall the  fact that whenever  communal violence  and rioting hit the  various  regions of our country,  Mahatma  Gandhi  would  undertake padyatras and  camp at the riot-hit place and see to it that some semblance of  peace prevails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kahlil Gibran  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started to re-read Kahlil Gibran, with news reports of Lebanon getting targeted by Israeli forces\u2026 Do not overlook the fact that he was from Lebanon. Though he had shifted to America, when his   mother and half-brother and two sisters were moving base, his heart was back home, in Lebanon. And  though  he   lived   most  of   the  years  in New York   but  couldn’t really  ever forget  his Lebanese roots. So much so he  willed  royalties  from  his  books  for the  people  of  his  hometown, Bsharreh\u2026He was born   in  1883,  in  Lebanon’s  mountain   town  of  Bsharreh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Leaving you with these quotes from   Kahlil Gibran\u2019s book ‘The   Prophet\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 On  love:  \u201cWhen  love  beckons you, follow  him \/Though  his ways are  hard and steep  \/And when his wings enfold you  yield to him \/Though the  sword  hidden among  the pinions may wound   you \/And when  he speaks to you, believe  in  him \/ Though his voice may shatter  your dreams as  the  north  wind lays  waste  the garden\u2026”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On children: \u201cYour children  are not  your children  \/They  are the  sons   and  daughters of  Life’s  longing for itself \/They come  through  you  but  not from you  \/And though  they are with you  yet they   belong not  to you \u2026”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On  joy and sorrow: “Your  joy  is  your   sorrow unmasked\/Together they come, and when one sits alone with \/you at your  board, remember the other  is  asleep\/upon your  bed \u2026”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On  crime  and   punishment: “You   cannot   separate the  just from the  unjust  and the good from the wicked \/For they stand  together   before the face of the   sun \/even as the black thread and the   white  are woven together \/And when the  black  threads  breaks, the  weaver  shall   look  into  the   whole  cloth and  he  shall  examine the  loom also \u2026”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along the    same strain  of   crime  and  punishment  Gibran  brings  into   focus   much  more: “If  any   of you  would  bring   to  judgement  the \/unfaithful wife \/let  him also   weigh  the  heart  of   her  husband in \/ scales and  measure  his soul with  measurements\/And  let  him  who would  lash  the  offender look  unto\/the spirit  of the  offended \/And  if  any  of you   would  punish  in the  name  of  \/righteousness and  lay  the  axe  unto the   evil tree  let \/him  see  to  its roots.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On religion:  “Is not religion all deeds and all reflection \/And that  which  is  neither deed  not reflection, but a \/wonder and  a  surprise  ever  springing   in the soul \/even  while the hands  hew the stone  or  tend the  loom …Your daily  life  is  your temple and your  religion \/whenever you enter  into  it take  with you  your all \/Take the   plough  and the  forge and the  mallet and the   lute\/ the  things you  have   fashioned  in  necessity  or for  delight \u2026\u201cAnd   if you would   know  God ,be  not therefore  a  \/solver  of riddles \/Rather  look  about you and you   shall  see   Him \/playing with your  children \/And  look into space ;and you   shall  see Him walking  in \/ the cloud , stretching  His  arms  in the  lightening  \/and  descending  in rain \/You shall see  Him smiling    in flowers ,then   rising \/and waving His  hands  in trees.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One wonders what sleeping potions and concoctions are given to the political rulers, so that they can sleep well and not sit all too perturbed seeing the human killings! Can they be called leaders? by Humra  Quraishi I\u2019m  curious and also  keen to  know from the so-called \u2018sleep  experts\u2019,  what sleeping potions and lotions and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1801],"tags":[17127,18667],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350382,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350377\/revisions\/350382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/350378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}