WHY
WE SHOULD LOVE INDIA?
C.
RAJAGOPALACHARI
When
one sees a great evil, one must fight it. Otherwise, there is no purpose in
life … I have seen landslides of moral standards like mountainsides toppling
down during an earthquake. I have seen callousness and greed replace all
traditional sensibility and restraint, all ideas of Swadharma. My great age and varied experience have enabled me to see changes
and contrasts, and the consequent distress is great.
This
is an attempt to explain why I have broken away from valuable friendships and
time-honoured camaraderie, which to many is still a
mystery and is cause for distress and adverse comment. The sacrifice of
comradeship and affection that I have made now, giving up that precious
possession, and earning displeasure and dislike in the highest quarters – these
are no less a sacrifice than what I made when I was forty, and full of
potential for worldly advancement, gave up my practice at the bar grieved my
aged father, withdrew my children from school and college, and went into the
wilderness in 1920.
I
have often thought of those days when a spirit of adventure and a passionate
abhorrence of foreign rule helped one to undergo any sacrifice ...
But
should we not defend freedom, should we not defend democracy, should we not
defend Dharma? We must not allow
India to be debased, mistaking mass selfishness for patriotism. We must love
India and learn why we should love India. We must fight Statism,
we must fight one-party rule, and we must stem the tide of greed and
corruption. We must bring again into being a cadre of sternly honest officials
to administer our affairs as was done till recently. It is a sacred duty, if
there be any purpose in life and if we are not just spinning tops...When the
morality of the nation and its elite is being undermined and threatened with
destruction, there is no question of any alternative or surrender to superior
force. We mu8t fight and protect the soul of the nation from being overwhelmed
and destroyed. It is the duty of each citizen to resist it to the utmost
without waiting for others or counting the cost. For if the nation’s morality
is lost, there will be nothing thereafter to save.
–Swarajya, August 5, 1961