Address to the International Seminar on 'emerging World Order: Implications for the Security Calculus of the Extended South Asian Region', Usi Auditorium, New Delhi
New Delhi : 22-02-2007
Security Dynamics
"Peace has its victories,
but it takes brave men and women
to win them"
I am delighted to participate in the inauguration of this International Seminar ?Emerging World Order: Implications for the Security Calculus of the Extended South Asian Region? convened by the Indian Army. This Conference will address issues of concern to the people of India, other countries in Asia, and indeed to the whole world. This conference has given us an opportunity to meet and interact with many specialists, from different parts of the world. My greetings to all of you.
Prevention of Conflicts
There is a paradigm shift in the future perspectives of security in this present world driven by technology as well as transformations in political, economic, societal and individual lives. The concept of security that has evolved is one of ?integrated human security?. The key to understanding security in the twenty first century is to research and understand clearly why conflicts and wars occur, which no longer is solely connected to external threats. The national security system is and should be well equipped technologically to face any security threat perceptions in the modern context. I personally believe that development of human mind, nations and world society can to a large extent prevent conflicts. So we should do all that possible to educate, uplift, remove disparities among people and societies, thereby eliminating one of the major causes for conflict. Along with that, if we work on value system of individuals and society and elevation of religions into spirituality, that will have a sustaining long term effect.
Writing promotes understanding
I am sure your views, concepts and recommendations will, for long, echo in the minds of leaders, policy makers? and analyst?s world over, for as it is said, ?the pen of the scholar is mightier than the sword of the warrior?. I met recently, a 93 year old scholar, who introduces himself as a ?pen pusher?. The scholarship itself has given him the mighty strength physically and intellectually. He told me that his mission is writing and by writing he gives happiness. This I am telling, because I don?t see anyone here in that age group, except that I will be heading towards that in another 17 years time. The personality I am taking about is the author of ?History of Sikhs?, ?Train to Pakistan? and many. His weekly column ?With malice towards one and all? is very famous. Of course in one of the weeks, he caught me in this column.
Why I am telling this audience about this incident is that in the matter of Defence, we need great writers who can promote peace based on research on evolution of wars. I shall, therefore, look forward to your timely recommendations, implementable by all peace loving nations, in a manner that strengthens global security. No region, nation or individual can be secure and prosperous unless all regions of the world, its nations and its individuals are secure and prosperous. Whenever I had to think through complex matters, I found it useful to start near to go far. Let me therefore start with India first, and then extend the light of our thoughts, ancient and modern, on security and prosperity, in widening circles embracing our neighbourhood, geographical regions and across the continents of our beautiful blue planet.
A Nation's History is Intimately Tied to its Geography
We need to view the present as past memories flowing into the present moment; and the choices we make here and now will create our future. Memories of our planetary past is our history. Only when we understand very well the flow of history into the present moment, we can view the present circumstances wholly and dispassionately and we shall be able to create a future of our choice. Let our choice then be to make our world, as a whole, peaceful and prosperous and choose to break out of the past cycles of disorder, violence and war to achieve human purposes on planet earth and its environment, including space. Let me now discuss with you about the origin of life leading to human evolution towards conflict free society.
Origin of Life
Ancient human history has been revealed beautifully by Paleo-anthro-pology. Life originated in this globe 600 million years ago and continental drift occurred 200 million years ago making our one land into five continents. Mammals evolved 140 million years ago, Homi-nid (human type) evolved 26 million years ago but the modern man only some 200,000 years ago. That too he emigrated and colonized the rest of the world only since 50,000 years. Spoken language was some 10,000 years old while written only a few thousand years old. All the phenomenal progress of Man was thus only within this short span of 400 -200 generations (i.e., 10,000 -5,000 years). So far human society, from origin until now has always been at war within and between groups and has led to two World Wars. Presently, terrorism and low intensity warfare are affecting many parts of the world. Every nation and region represented here in this Seminar has a different and at times overlapping history, and so each one will view the present moment differently. Let me recall the aspects of India?s history relevant to a Seminar on the world order and security calculus from India?s perspective.
India' s Historical Perspective: After the first pre-historic human settlements, complex and sophisticated cultures were established in India for 2500 years. Thereafter, for the next 2300 years, our country was repeatedly invaded and occupied in three waves for about 1325 years across its land borders from Europe, West Asia and Central Asia. The fourth wave of invasion and conquest arrived in 1718 from across the seas with the British and other European powers. This lasted 229 years and ended quite recently, just 60 years back, in 1947. The first freedom movement led by Chandragupta Maurya lasted 246 years; the second freedom movement led by Chandragupta II lasted 681 years. What is important for us to note is that, we are now witnessing the important outcome of the flow of India?s third wave of freedom from alien invasions.
Peace for the world? So it is only rational that India?s basic security perspective is to take note of the past cycles of order and disorder, and resolve to work in the immediate present moment for its future with great unity, singular determination, and a vision to make our nation not only rich and prosperous, but above all, a safe nation, invulnerable forever to invasion across its borders: on land, sea, air and from space. However, having said that, it is also clear that for one nation to be secure and prosperous, other nations particularly the neighbours have to be secure and prosperous.
Global and National Security is Synonymous: India?s security and economic perspective, like that of all other nations, has to be global in nature. Thinking universally and globally and looking at all humanity, as one family, is not new, it has been India?s cultural heritage for thousands of years. This nation has for centuries been a leader in research into the phenomenon of human consciousness, and these ancient studies have been validated by modern science. I suggest that these findings might have great value in the present times of global conflict and turmoil.
The Seven Pillars of Security: Freedom from insecurity is not a distant ideal, but a consequence of constant human self-awareness. Constant self-awareness, at individual and collective levels provides human beings access to the fountainhead of life and the deepest levels of creation. This very Seminar, for example, is a step in that direction. The findings of such research into human consciousness suggest that global and national security lie in collective actions in seven domains, or seven pillars that simultaneously support global and national security:
1. Freedom of the people, for creative, balanced and democratic socio-economic growth processes.
2. Eternal Vigilance, local and global, by real time environmental and situational awareness systems and technologies, shared information and shared intelligence.
3. Self-sufficiency in food, energy and critical technologies, with surplus capacities to nurture other nations in need of the same.
4. Indestructibility of human society and its critical institutions through creativity and self-sustaining growth, generation after generation.
5. Coherence of collective consciousness that enables collective agility and stability, and capabilities to resist internal disorder.
6. Dynamism and strength through unified missions based on strong internal bonds, alliances and transferable skills and capabilities.
7. Continuous expansion of the boundaries of security concerns and national interests in synergy with other nations, through expanding external alliances and missions in social, economic, technological domains
Evolution of enlightened citizens
Dear friends, I know you are all concerned how do we bring peace to the world, can terrorism be eliminated? Is it possible to aim at a peaceful, prosperous, happy and safe planet? I would like to put forth to this intellectual gathering, an action oriented solution for evolving a happy, prosperous and peaceful society in our planet, which I call as ?Enlightened Society?. How do we create such an enlightened society, which has three components (a) Education with value system (b) Religion transforming into spirituality and (c) Economic development for societal transformation? Let us discuss.
(a) Education with value system: The best part for a person is his or her childhood and the learning period in school. The prime learning environment is five to seventeen years' of age. Of course, at home, love and affection are imparted. But again most of the time in a day is spent in preparing school's homework and study, eat, play and sleep. Hence the school hours for children are the best time for learning and need the best of environment and mission oriented learning with value system. During this stage, they need value based education in school and at home for them to become good citizens. This reminds me the echo from a great teacher's saying, "give me a child for seven years. Afterwards, let the God or devil take the child. They cannot change the child." This indicates the power of the great teachers. For parents and teachers, school campus and home have to have an integrated mission that is education with value system. They must inculcate moral leadership amongst children which involves two aspects. First it requires the ability to have compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment, a state of things in which human beings could be better off in the future than they are now. Secondly, moral leadership requires a disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do the right thing. If the child misses the value based education in the school, no government or society can establish a transparent society or a society with integrity. During this period, it is essential to elevate the young minds through a moral science class at least for one hour each week, delivered by great teachers. That will elevate the young minds to love the country, to love other human beings and elevate the young to higher planes. Throughout the world in every school till the age of 17, it is essential that moral science is taught. Such enlightened individuals will definitely promote peace and harmony in the planet. Now, I would like to share an experience that I have witnessed regarding religion transforming into a dynamic spiritual force.
(b) Religion Transforming into Spirituality: Universal Mind I would like to recall an incident which happened four decades ago. Prof Vikram Sarabhai is the visionary of space programme in India. He is well known for his cosmic ray research area that led to evolving the space research programme for the nation. Prof Vikram Sarabhai was looking for a site to establish space research station in the equatorial region. He visited a number of places. Thumba in Kerala was selected by the scientific community for space research as it was near the equatorial region and was ideally suited for ionospheric research in upper atmosphere apart from study of atmospheric structure. When Prof Vikram Sarabhai visited Thumba, the locality had series of villages and thousands of fishermen folk were living in that area. It also had a beautiful ancient church, St Mary Magdalene Church, Pallithura and a Bishop's House. Prof Vikram Sarabhai met many politicians and bureaucrats to get the place for the work of space science research. It did not move further because the nature of the place. He was asked to see the Bishop of Trivandrum, at that time in 1962, Rev Father Dr Peter Bernard Pereira. It was a Saturday when Prof Vikram Sarabhai met the Bishop. The Bishop smiled and asked him to meet him the next day, ie Sunday. In the morning after the Church Service, the Bishop told the congregation, "my children, I have a famous scientist with me who wants our church and the place I live for the work of space science research. Dear children, science seeks truth by reasoning. In one way, science and spiritualism seek the same divine blessings for doing good for the people. My children, can we give the God's abode for a scientific mission?" There was a chorus of 'Amen' from the congregation and the whole church reverberated. Subsequently, the big event took place in 1962. Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira, the Bishop of Trivandrum, took the noble decision to dedicate the church in recognition of the national goal for the establishment of the Indian Space Research Organisation at Pallithura, Thumba. That was the church where we had our design centre, started rocket assembly, design of filament winding machine for FRP product and the Bishop's house was our scientists' place. Later, the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) led to the establishment of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and multiple space centres throughout the country.
When I think of this event, I can see how enlightened spiritual and scientific leaders, all converge towards giving reverence to the human life. New church and new schools were established in record time. Of course the birth of TERLS and then VSSC gave the country the capability of design, development and produce world class huge rocket system and subsequently, India has the capability of launching geo-synchronous, sun-synchronous and meteorology spacecraft, communication satellite, remote sensing satellite thereby provided fast communication, weather forecasting and also locate water resources for the country. Today, among us, Prof Vikram Sarabhai is not there, Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira is not there, but those who are responsible for creation and make the flower blossom will themselves be a different kind of a flower as described in the Bhagwat Gita: "See the flower, how generously it distributes perfume and honey. It gives to all, gives freely of its love. When its work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower, unassuming despite all its qualities". What a beautiful message for all generation of this nation, on integration of minds and universal mind. No where in the world a church has been given for scientific research, it has happened in India. It is a great message to be spread. The message is, the best component of the religion can be transformed into a spiritual force that will shape the society. Let me now discuss with you the third component of the enlightened society for transforming the developing nation into a developed nation through achieving economic prosperity, so that large societal imbalances can be removed. In this connection, let me take an example of India, which has one sixth of the global population.
(c) Transforming our nations into a economically developed nation
We have a population of over one billion people of which 220 million are still living below the poverty line. They need education, they need habitat, they need health care, and creation of employment potential. To meet their needs we have the second vision of transforming India into a developed nation by the year 2020. We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action: (1) Agriculture and food processing (2) Education and Healthcare (3) Information and Communication Technology (4) Infrastructure development such as power, transportation, communication and including Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) network and (5) Self reliance in critical technologies. These five areas are closely inter-related and if implemented in a coordinated way, will lead to food, and economic security, and national security. A strong partnership among the R&D, academy, industry and the community as a whole with the Government departments will be essential to accomplish the vision for a developed India. Indian GDP is growing at an average rate of 8% p.a. whereas the economists suggest that to remove the poverty of 220 million people we have to grow at the rate of 10% p.a. consistently for over a decade. One of the components through which the rural-urban divide will be bridged and prosperity will be brought to the seven hundred million people living in six hundred thousand villages is Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) in seven thousand clusters. Through a national vision, using the core-competence of individual nations and partnership of friendly countries, it will definitely possible, to transform a developing country into a developed country as planned.
Conclusion
We discussed Human evolution and also the accompanied conflicts and problems. I have presented a dynamic model which calls for transformation of world community into prosperous, peaceful and happy society through three major components: creation of enlightened citizens through education with value system, religion transforming into spiritual force and nations achieving higher National Prosperity Index. The participants of this seminar may focus on the mission of transforming the planet into a peaceful, prosperous and happy place to live. Development of a conflict free society will be a major turning point in human evolution.
With these worlds I inaugurate this International Seminar organized by the Indian Army on ?Emerging World Order: Implications for the Security Calculus of the Extended South Asian Region?. My best wishes to all of you for productive discussions and evolution of strategies.
May God bless you.