My speech as President of the India League (www.theindialeague.org) on the birth anniversary of the Mahatma. Delivered at Tavistock Square, Gandhiji statue.
From man’s great journey from the swamp to the stars, and dare I say, the moon - we convene today at a crossroads of human destiny, where the paths before us are fraught with both peril and promise. We stand on the precipice of monumental change, yet are tugged at our coattails by the looming spectres of extremism and separatism. These twin monstrosities are not mere ripples in the fabric of society; they are tremors, seismic events that promise to splinter the very bedrock upon which our civilization is built. We face the problems the Mahatma himself faced.
Ah, extremism! That insidious force that exalts myopia over vision, and intolerance over understanding. It seduces the disenchanted with the siren song of false absolutes, luring them into a labyrinth of hatred from which there is seldom return. It is the fortress of the closed mind, a citadel of darkness where reason is imprisoned and compassion exiled.
And then, there's separatism, that crafty merchant peddling wares of division, sewing patches of discord onto the quilt of humanity. It is the looking glass that distorts, magnifying differences while shrinking commonalities into microscopic irrelevance. It champions the cult of the individual to the detriment of the collective, eroding the mortar of society until the edifice crumbles into a heap of disjointed rubble.
Let us be unequivocal: These twin dragons, extremism and separatism, are not just threats; they are existential crises. They gnaw at the sinews of human harmony like termites in a wooden palace, weakening our global residence until it is vulnerable to even the faintest gusts of conflict.
But beware the temptation of simplistic solutions, for extremism and separatism are chameleons, ever-changing in hue to blend into the current landscape of public sentiment. The sword of legislation and the shield of enforcement, vital as they are, can only parry and deflect; they cannot vanquish these shapeshifting foes.
The real battleground lies in the hearts and minds of men and women. It is a theatre of war where the stakes are not lands or resources, but the very essence of humanity itself. To triumph, we must arm ourselves not just with laws and sanctions, but with education and dialogue. We must build bridges of compassion over rivers of mistrust, and erect lighthouses of reason on shores of ignorance.
So let us marshal our forces, not for a battle to be won, but for a future to be secured. For every life diverted from the path of extremism is a chapter in the tome of human unity; every voice that rises against the clamour of separatism is a note in the symphony of human harmony.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are the composers of this grand opus. Let us pen a masterpiece for the ages, so that future generations may sing, in one unified voice, the glorious anthem of human potential; worthy of the Mahatma. Worthy of our great civilisation.
Bharat Mata Ki Jai.
