The Hindu Business Line : <I>No unhappy returns! </I>

I hope you had a merry Christmas — there, I have said it! For, the C word has become in our bizarre times a sign of politically incorrect greeting in the West where, for two millennia, it had been the traditional form during the season of peace and goodwill towards all. Yet in this year, in particular, I find it difficult to be breezy and casual about wishing for peace, etc. You could not have imagined, if you had tried, a more horrific way to usher in the new year than the chain of events that culminated in the execution of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the day before yesterday. We may have thought that stories of invasion by an uninvited foreign power overthrowing a tyrant and establishing another form of anarchy and chaos in the name of peace, belonged to the history books and the Dark Ages. Or at least that they were no more possible in this enlightened era of the computer and space travel and the glories of a politically mature and advanced human society.

Criteria for action

And just in case we go all holier-than-thou and saintly against the rest of the world, the news from a house on the outskirts of Delhi where several skeletons of children were discovered, points to an equally grim reality that is life for us nearer home. Politics too ends the year on a sombre note with the publication of a report on the state of the population that professes one particular religion who have been found to have serious handicaps in growth and development over the years. The government that professes a peculiar form of secularism promises to redress these imbalances in society by taking up one after another various ways of slicing at the structure of a highly heterogeneous country, by invoking bases of classification that are only certain to drive further wedges of division and conflict. It looks as though having failed with the quota-licence regime on the economic front, by yielding to the worldwide trend towards opening up markets, the criteria for targeted action are no longer economic but shifted to anything else that comes to hand — caste, community, region and religion.

Merely wishing well, not enough

One must hope and pray, therefore, that whatever happens in 2007 will take the country further away from the path of such divisive politics. The surest and time-tested route of course is the well-known one of widening the base of education and equal opportunity. Yet, doing this in an even-handed way without reference to hatred or excluding any one social or cultural niche within society is, perhaps, not politically rewarding. And that is the sadness of the country which will not go away by merely wishing each other peace, joy and prosperity in the New Year. Nonetheless, I should like to close with the reference to a fascinating Gaelic tradition of soul love, or Anam Cara — anam means soul and cara means friend.

Understanding love

In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of acquaintance fall away. You can be as you really are. Love allows precious understanding to dawn, and where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you feel really understood, you feel free to release your self into the trust and shelter of the other person's soul, captured in the beautiful line from Pablo Neruda: "You are like nobody since I love you".

S. Ramachander