Narad Jayanthi celebrations at Puducherry

Vishwa Samvad Kendra, Tamilnadu organized Narad Jayanthi celebrations at Puducherry on 23rd June, 2019. Distinguished writers and journalists were felicitated. Shri Pennukonda R Sridharan, eminent literary personality presided over the program. Columnist/Writer Smt Ilamathi Janakiraman, Smt Lakshmi Thathai and G Prakash (Digital Media) were felicitated with an award.   Around 70 persons participated in the program. 

Shri Ramakrishna Prasad, RSS State Joint Secretary (Uttar Tamilnadu) addressed the gathering. His speech as follows: 

Puducherry has the distinction of making Kavi Bharatiyar a Mahakavi Bharatiyar and Sri Aurobindo a Rishi Aurobindo. 

Vishwa Samvad Kendra is giving away Awards in the name of Rishi Narada because Narada is considered to be first journalist who collected information, edited the information and distributed the information to all, which is the duty of a journalist. 

Though he was cursed by Daksha that Narada should be always on the move, he should not stay in a place for a longer time and he should carry information from one place to another, he willing accepted the curse and carried out the same for the benefit of mankind. Hence Lord Krishna praises him. Krishna further has said in the Gita that among the Devarishis he is Narada. 

Once the magazine ‘Newsweek’ carried out a cover story under the caption ‘’Everyday Heroes’ The editor-in chief wrote that instead of devoting the cover to “wars, crime etc.,, they decided to do one on “some good news”. They began looking for ordinary people who did extraordinary acts and they found these kinds of people everywhere they went. They ‘discovered’ that when they look out for positive news, they will find the same. When one looks for negative news, they will find the same. 

For e.g: In 1975, during Kumbh Mela, Balbir Mathur, an Indian born and English educated, who married an English woman and settled in America, came to India to cover the Kumbh Mela. His intention was to cover the darker aspects of Kumbh Mela and report the same in America. He searched for it and he found such news. One day it was raining and hence he wanted to highlight how ordinary workers suffered due to it. So he first went to a cobbler and asked how much loss he suffered due to rain. The cobbler agreed that his earnings dipped. When he was asked whether he considered rain is bad, the answer made Balbir Mathur freeze. The cobbler replied saying rain is an act of God and who is he to comment on it? Balbir Mathur received similar answers from a hair-dresser and other daily wage earners. He realized that he has not tried to understand Hinduism in the right perspective. He went to America and resigned his job and came back to India and started understanding Hinduism. This led to his starting campaign called “Trees for life” and was instrumental for planting of lakhs of trees in North India. This is the lesson for the people in the media. We get what we look for. 

Now-a-days, we hear one oft repeated slogan – ‘Unity in Diversity’. There is a basic problem with the phrase. This slogan implies that diversity is primarily assumed to be the basic fact and we try to search for unity in that diversity. However, our forefathers actually said that ‘Oneness – Manifests in diversity’. There is only ‘one’ and ‘many’ are its manifestations. If we see diversity we will find only such examples. 

Most of us do not realize this aspect ‘Oneness – Manifests in diversity’ though it is understood and appreciated by people outside Bharat. When Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister she visited Soviet Russia. When she returned Kuldip Nayar, the then Ambassador met her and asked her about her trip. She said that Mr.Gorbachev looked a sad, depressed and disappointed man and had said that all the ethnic groups are not willing to stay together. It appears that USSR is breaking up and slipping away’. Nayyar asked Thatcher what her response was to that? She said, “I told Gorbachev – Why don’t you take counsel from your firm ally India – on this matter. There are so many ethnic groups, races, sects and sub-sects, languages, dialects and sub-dialects there. Yet the nation has remained integral since a very

long time in history.” 

Some people are bent on destroying this oneness and we find it more in Tamilnadu. It is well understood that every individual group or caste wants its continued existence, Secondly, they also want to preserve their identity. This is natural and is not a problem at all. But when ‘ego’ comes in, feelings of superiority and inferiority crop up.Feelings of my language is superior my caste is superior, yours is inferior etc., comes up. And then problems and conflicts arise. What is the solution to these problems? It is said that to ensure that ego does not crop up along with ‘Existence’ and ‘Identity’, in our system, every identity is linked to a super identity and is subservient to it. For this a model was set. Every person should have an identity but must consider his family identity above his personal identity. Family should have its Identity but that of the caste should be placed above the family Identity. Caste should consider the village or city identity above the caste identity, a city to hold the same towards the nation, and so on. In this way, the Identity is preserved and way out of conflicts can be found. 

All languages are national languages and we had no conflict of languages. Our people went on pilgrimage from one place to another place and there was absolutely no language problem. People spoke the language of the heart. The primary thought was that everyone has to be treated as a guest. Only when politics entered, the ugly conflict between languages started arising. Hence the role of media should be to educate the people rightly in this regard. 

Some years back, websites like The Better India delivered news that have lakhs of followers even though only a small team was doing the job. How? When positive news is given, there are lakhs of people to read. What are we going to give? Media should give a thought to it.  Some good happenings reported in Better India website - In Pune, there is a teacher who travels nearly 100 kilometers to reach a Government School in which only one student is enrolled. He daily goes to teach that only one student. Government decided to shut down the school but he was willing to teach so that one day the village will transform. When one reads such news, the impact created does wonders.

Sekar, a camera mechanic in Chennai, has been feeding thousands of parrots with his meagre income for the past 12 years. Parrots,numbering 2000 on an average, come to eat the food placed on the terrace. 40% of his salary goes to this. Why? This is the culture of our society. 

When we search news with this attitude, we discover that our nation is a great nation. 

Narad, in ‘Narada Bakthi Sutras’ in the first two slokas explains how bhakti and gyan are inter-related. Bhakti arises due to Gyan and Gyan arises due to Bhakti. Hence Desha Bhakthi arises when one has Gyan (knowledge) about the greatness of our nation. Two incidents in history prove that this is not being done. 

‘Battle of Saragarhi’ which finds place in Eight famous wars in world history is not known to even our teachers, leave alone our children. But every school student of France knows about this battle as the same finds place in their text book, which is provided to instil patriotism in children. That battle took place on 12th September 1897 in which 21 Indian soldiers heroically fought against 10000 pathans from

Afghanistan.

Similarly, whereas all the school children of Lebanon know that their famous temple (Balbek Temple) was built by Indians, our school children are not aware of it. 

Hence, here also the media has an important role in highlighting the greatness of our nation which in turn will go a long way in arising of patriotism amongst our children and others. 

With a vote of thanks the program concluded.