--

Supplementary








Dharm enables one to duly appreciate the privileges he derives from
all those around him, living as well non-living -- including nature--
and motivates him to pay back, with gratitude, therefor.



nhi ls nhi tys] djs tx esa mft;kjk
Lamp kindles lamp and the world is illuminated
YEAR : 2006
TOWARDS A BETTER WORLD

PART I : DHARM IN INDIAN & GLOBAL PANORAMA

SUPPLEMENTARY
QUEST FOR PEACE -- A REALISIC APPROACH

ER. RAJ KUMAR , B.E. (Civil) (IIT, Roorkee) ; P.G. Dip. & M.E. (P.H. & Env. Engg.) (IIT, Roorkee) ; D.H.E. (Water Resources)
(Hons.) (UNESCOs Water Engg. Instt., DELFT, Netherlands) ; F.I.E. (1nd.) ; F.IWWA ; F.IAEM.
_________________________________________________________________

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT & APPEAL

The writer conveys his grateful appreciations to all those of his friends and well-wishers who,
for the purpose of ushering in a better world, have set themselves to utilize a fraction of their valuable
time towards the on-going mission of familiarizing the others individuals as well as groups thereof
with the contents of this article by the way of transmitting its photocopies and / or otherwise. He also
extends his appeal further to the other parties, interested to carry on with this vital global-dimensional
social cause, to join the fraternity and for which they have to pay nothing at their earliest
opportunity.
__________________________________________________________________

A REVIEW

The various ingredients of Dharm -- the Indian philosophy of life and way of living --
lie abundantly fragmented and haphazardly scattered in human conscience and the writer has
endeavoured to bring about a systematic consolidation thereof. The shape of the skeleton of
Dharm, that has thus emerged, enables one to assess fairly how far he stands away from its
(the Dharms) various fronts. This assessment, by and large, reveals upon him that the task of
bringing himself near to these fronts is not as difficult as he hitherto considered and, as such,
his in-born instinct to be as near to Dharm as possible, gets awakened. As a result,
conspicuous changes take place in his way of thinking and interacting with others thereby
adding substantially to his present as well as future quality of life and thus moulding him into
a far better person. This bounty, simultaneously, also makes his services to others, exceeding-
ly superb.
Awareness in respect of Dharm conveyed by the article will, therefore, steadily increase
the number of men of quality on this earth. and this will bring much more of peace and
tranquility all around. The international border-tensions / hostilities and internal turmoils,
alongwith the consequent sufferings of the living beings, will get drastically reduced and so
will be the, otherwise, more or less routinely being carried out rehabilitational activities.
Moreover, the quality of the environment, will also be almost duly preserved..
The ensuing wholesome financial gains, and savings of other resources, will
tremendously boost up nations economy and this will profitably supplement the above
favourable factors to add, bountifully, to the welfare of all concerned; and, thus, this earth of
ours will, truly, become a far better and much more worth-living place.

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DHARM IN INDIAN & GLOBAL PANORAMA


Out of the four ancient civilizations of the world, viz., the Egyptian civilization of Nile valley, the
Mesopotamian civilization of Euphrates-Tigris valley, the Indian civilization of Indo-Gangetic valley and
the Chinese civilization of Huang and Yang-tse valleys, the Indian civilization is considered as the oldest
one. One most outstanding contribution of this Indian civilization is that our sacred soil gave birth to
what is called Dharm. The word Dharm comprises a set of cardinal principles, rather conventions,
codified by our wise ancestors Rishis and Munis as a result of their extensive studies in respect of
life and long-term experimentations therewith, to suitably channelize our attitudes and behaviour,
and day-to-day activities, to make our lives healthy, happy, contented, peaceful and purposeful.
These principles / conventions, if followed with utmost honesty and sincerity, are also said to exalt our
manhood to the highest level of divinity. All our visits to temples, reciting prayers and hymns, and
observance of various rituals; and the traditions we are instructed to follow, are meant, exclusively, to
motivate us and to lead us to live our lives in conformity with the principles / conventions laid down
by Dharm.

These principles / conventions are to live with: (1). Truth; (2). Non-violence (Ahimsa); (3).
Tolerance; (4). Rationality; (5). Uprightness; (6). Service to mankind as well as to animals, including
lower animals; and, (7) Austerity.
Tolerance amply prompts us to forgive others for their defaults / misbehavior towards
ourselves, and to forget the same. Non-violence also includes not to harm others nor to cause injury to
their feelings; and, alongwith tolerance, it overwhelmingly stresses upon us for not to be an aggressor
or a revenge-seeker. Rationality means us to have our approach based on sound logic, and our
attitudes and behaviour conforming to the principle of dispensation of natural justice to those whom
we deal with. Over and above, it also restrains us and aptly so from encroaching upon any type of
others rights. Austerity includes also the conservation of ones physical as well as intellectual energies
to be gainfully utilized by him for noble pursuits. It also includes not overspending nor wasting our
resources so that the others, for whom these are scarce, could also share therewith. Austerity also
urges us never to overutilize / exploit our natural resources and to take all preventive steps to keep
our environment in its best unpolluted state. Service to the living beings and for which the
renderers personal as well as professional integrity is indispensible -- inter alia, comprises: (1)
Providing the needy with money, food and other life-necessities, (2) Rendering all help to the
handicapped / physically disabled, thereby enhancing their life-quality to their advantage, (3) Nursing
the sick, the injured and the wounded and taking of their adequate care, (4) educating the
uneducated, to bring the several-fold privileges, that knowledge offers, to them, and, (5) Bringing
them near to Dharm / Spiritualism for their exaltation. Further, uprightness includes (1) Sobriety, (2)
Discipline, (3) Kindness / compassion / altruism, (4) Simplicity, (5) Honesty, (6) Integrity, (7) Humility,
(8) Magnanimity, (9) Trustworthiness, (10) Urge for taking responsibilities (essentially, inclusive of
responsibilities for ones own-self), (11) Upkeep of promise, (12) No double-speaking, (13) No jealousy
for others gains, (14) No ill-will towards others, (15) No avarice, (16) No anger, (17) Faith in
vasudheva kutambkam (the entire world is my family), (18) Acceptance of ones mistakes with all
grace and frankness, (19) Painstaking spirit, (20) Helping attitude, and, (21) Patience and
perseverance. In fact the remaining six components of Dharm, to a fair extent, are also included in the
sense of uprightness and hence an upright person is invariably accepted as an embodiment of Dharm.
The Dharm being very old, was called Sanatan Dharm (Sanatan means extraordinarily old). It
has been dealt with at length in our ancient scriptures, e.g., Vedas, Upanishads and Purans, and, as
such, it was also called Vedic Dharm. Further, because of historical reasons we were called
Hindus, hence Dharm was also called Hindu Dharm, or, more briefly, Hindutva or Hinduism.



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Since Dharm carries alongwith it an all-prevailing sense of universality, it stands to be quite different
from the words like religion or mazhab that have sectarian connotations and, therefore, needs
finding an entirely different place in the dictionaries of foreign languages. Also, because Dharm
originated in our country, people residing outside, by and large, do not have clear conception of
Dharm and, perhaps, inspite of having the requisite curiosity, they found it convenient to dovetail it
with the words like religion or mazhab. In English dictionaries, however, these two words occupy
entirely different places.
In the B.C. era and also during the first millennium A.D., favourable conditions existed for our
scholars to move out to other lands to serve people there by the way of educating them in respect of
Dharm, and also otherwise, but our history of the long period, right after the downfall of Samrat
Prithvi Raj Chauhan, in the year 1192, upto the date of our countrys independence, did not offer such
types of opportunities. Further, in the post-independence era, history being favourable
notwithstanding, other factors cropped up and the correct sense for which the Dharm stands, could
not be adequately conveyed to the people and they continue to misinterpret it.
Dharm, beside ever being absolute, is also most unfettered by the time and the space in the
sense that it has relevance, right from the time of its birth, to continue ad infinitum; and, also at each
and every point of the universe on loftiest mountain peaks, in deepest oceans, on vast sandy deserts
and desolated ice-lands, in volcanoes and on and inside of all stars, planets and satellites and in all the
vast empty spaces. Consequently, and also as indicated above, the word Dharm always carries the
concepts of Absolutism, Eternity, and Universality about it and it is, therefore, also known as
The Absolute / Eternal / Universal Dharm..
Ordinarily Dharm is extremely tolerant and allows one to commit acts in contravention thereof,
if done out of sheer ignorance. It also remains unconcerned even if such excesses are done
deliberately provided the person concerned makes solemn determination not to repeat the same. In
cases of severe defaults, however, he has the option to undergo the requisite penance; but failing
this he is sure to face the wrath of the Almighty the Omnipotent, the Omnipresent and the
Omniscient because Dharm stands firmly by the proverb as you sow, so you must reap, and this is
adequately established by our day-to-day life-experiences.
Dharm is an integral and hence inseparable part of our body, not in physical form but in an
invisible state. Within us, its realization steadily grows alongwith the growth of our body, and,
because of having abundance of spirituality, it adequately enables us to appreciate the privileges that
we derive from all those around us, living as well as non-living -- including nature -- and motivates us
to pay back, with gratitude, therefor. In absence of this sensitivity, however, life goes
meaningless and hence Dharm has been aptly described as the Basic Fundamentals of Life and the
corresponding Way of Living. Indeed this way of living provides us with due guidance and guards
us against making all abusive wastage of our body and intellect, thereby bringing all solace, comfort
and peace upon us. This is, de facto, the divine bliss that sensible people invariably aspire for.

It is, indeed, very unfortunate that our bountiful heritage, Dharm, that we inherited from our
learned fore-fathers, has been given a derogatory meaning by our present-day political leaders, most
obviously, to suit their selfish interests. They have conveyed, in abundance, and continue to convey
day in and day out, in most unambiguous language, that Dharm stands only for Communalism, and
in case, it is made to guide them in their public dealings, it is bound to bring annihilating consequences
upon the country. They have coined the word Secular to misleadingly stand for Anti-communalism
and have made this word the key of their public administration.

The old dictionary meanings of the word secular* are : profane; unsacred; something devoid
of spirituality; something not ordained by the church. The term secular, unfortunately, has
conveyed very incorrect, totally absurd and truly disastrous signals thereby causing greatest dis-
___________________________________________________________________________________
*Ref. : The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary 1962 Ed.



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service to the nation. The result is that our present-day youth, who takes abundant pride in declaring
himself secular, has conveniently shaken off all his responsibilities -- otherwise meant for the cause
of the society as well as that of the country. No discipline remains binding upon him and he feels
himself absolutely free to indulges in all sorts of anti-national, inhumane, most selfish and utterly
mean activities with the sole aim to provide himself with plentiful of easy money and all luxuries of
life. There prevails an all-round crisis of Dharm and crisis of character and the entire nation finds itself
fully engulfed in a whirlpool of total destruction.

The present-day pitiable scenario of our country makes us to remember our noble kings of the
olden past who, though monarchs, administered their public affairs with the yard-stick of Dharm for
all the well-being, safety, security and satisfaction of their people. Satyavadi Raja Harish Chandra,
Maryada Purushottam Lord Ram, Yogeshwar Lord Krishna and Dharmraj Yudhister all Paragons of
Dhram may be said to be legendary figures and, as such, their existence may be denied; but our
subsequent history of the period before the onset of Christian era and a millennium thereafter, is full
of praises of the exalted kings like Chandragupta Maurya (322-298 B.C.), Ashoka the Great (273-232
B.C.), Chandragupta Vikramaditya (A.D. 375-413 / 15), Harsh Vardhan (A.D. 606-647) and the like.
These kings were truly great, most successful and were greatly loved and respected by their people
and this is because they always used the touch-stone of Dharm to weigh the propriety of their
personal as well as administrative decisions and actions.

We have been copying the west to give shape to the administrative system of our countrys
governance but we have miserably failed in our efforts. The reason is that this is being done ad
nauseam, without appreciating the fact that the virtues of competence, honesty, integrity and
supremely good character, to be possessed by our political leaders, are sine-qua-non for carrying on
with our democracy to the true satisfaction of our people. Revival of Dharm, only and exclusively, will
surely do the entire needful.

Our to-days world is in a firm grip of a series of miseries brought about by abject poverty,
wars, and wanton acts of global terrorism. We had the League of Nations (Hd. Qrs. Geneva,
Switzerland) after World War I (duration 1914-19) and now we have the U.N.O. (Hd. Qrs. New York)
after Word War II (duration 1939-45) for the peaceful solutions of national-level hostilities. The UNO
has also undertaken several other beneficial global-level activities, e.g., eradication of poverty, health-
care, literacy, environmental protection and the like; but whereas the League of Nations failed in toto,
the contribution so far made by the UNO has also left much to be desired. Our utterly selfish attitudes,
coupled with our mad materialistic approaches, being the raison detre for this sordid state of affairs,
has thus made our peaceful existence a utopia. Hopefully a day will come when our escalating
frustrations will bring us to senses to take recourse to Dharm for all-round everlasting peace and
prosperity.




SUPPLEMENTARY

QUEST FOR PEACE -- A REALISTIC APPROACH

Peace, being the main ingredient for high-quality life of an individual as well as that of a nation,
has ever been sought after right from the dawn of civilization. The large-scale devastations related to
the last two centuries warfares, caused by the use of sophisticated weapons especially the nuclear
ones have added considerably to the mans concerns to bring about sustained peace all around.
Inclusion of the Nobel Peace Prize by Alfred B. Nobels Nobel Prize Trust (Hd. Qrs. Stockholm,
Sweden), to be awarded annually alongwith the other Nobel Prizes willed in 1895 has, perhaps,
been the first such effort made a century plus back (actually in 1898) at the international level. Later
on, the League of Nations after World War I and, more subsequently, the UNO after World War II, also



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emerged at this level, mainly to bring about peace amongst the warring nations.

After gaining independence in the year 1947, our Government framed its Constitution with
the inclusion of the Article 51, wherein, inter alia, it has undertaken to endeavour to promote
international peace and security and to maintain just and honourable relations between nations.
During the second half of the last century several peace forums; peace missions; peace trusts;
peace brigades and peace committees have sprung up at various international, national and regional
Levels all over the world and these are actively engaged to evolve mechanisms to create peace-
conducive environments. Further, the concepts of the phrases like world government; world
federation; world citizenship; international currency; all-religion meets etc., also developed as
a sequel thereof.
To our dismay, however, the results of all such vigorous and time, money and man-power
consuming efforts have invariably been far from being favourable and the paradox "the more the
peace efforts the more the drifting away of peace", needs to be carefully looked into.
The objective assessment of the situation abundantly reveals that the said peace efforts have
been made and are being made by keeping them in isolation from Dharm the most perfectly
rational and the most exalted and elegant way of living. Unfortunately, Dharm is the most vaguely
understood and most variantly interpreted word in todays world. Moreover, the derogatories
attributed by our present-day politicians to this sacredly spiritual word Dharm has made it to
be interpreted quite oppositely. This has resulted individuals, corporates, sects and nations to
become indifferent to their responsibilities towards others and a state of extreme mistrust, cheating,
collecting of plentifuls of easy money by all possible dishonest, fraudulent, abysmally foul and corrupt
means, and wasteful and lavishly vulgar spendings thereof, has emerged thereby exposing our
lives to all sorts of rude behaviour, loots, plunders, violence and devastating lethal attacks.
Officially, as it stands today, seven nations of the world have, collectively, stockpiles of about
36,000 nuclear war-heads and each of these missiles is a giant in comparison to the atom bombs
of the World War II that proved so destructive that only two such bombs, when dropped, in
succession, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Japanese cities in the year 1945, brought, then and
there, the unbelievably humiliating defeat to one of the warring factions alongwith most abrupt
ending of the war. As such, even less than 1% of these presently stocked missiles is sufficient to cause
total global destruction. Further, the cost of diffusion of any such missile, being several times that of
its production, is not only prohibitive but we do not also have the requisite technology for safe
disposal of its wastes, and, in absence thereof, these types of wastes continue to inject several vital
components of our environment, e.g., air, water, soil, and the flora and fauna both terrestrial as well
as aquatic with lethal doses of toxic nuclear fall-outs, for long spells of time, thereby rendering the
entire earth most unfit to sustain life. Very many nations have also developed and are in possession of
deadly chemical and biological W.M.D.s (weapons of mass destruction) and it is noteworthy that the
accidental fall-outs from any type of the above war material as well as their theft and consequent
misuse(s), can never be ruled out. Besides, the debris and the dead bodies, produced plentifully by
the so caused war havocs / environmental disasters, also always exert their own sizeable pollutional
load upon the environment.
The saddest part of the situation is that the UNO, so far, has not been sufficiently empowered
to take legal action against erring nations, and, as a result, its role stands sufficiently diluted, mostly as
suggestive and / or advisory. The modus operandi regarding manufacture of war-heads / war
machineries increasingly devastating and other such equipment, by a particular country, their
possession, and their sale / supply to other parties / countries, thus, also continue to grossly suffer
from not being properly regulated, and, such situations can always be exploited to flare up hostilities
at regional / national levels. Likewise, financial grant(s) / loan(s) availed by an unscrupulous country
may also be manoeuvred and misutilized and the financers connivance(s) may also be there to



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subvert peace of a global region.

The spendings of money and other resources, that are being made by nations on the acts of
war / hostilities, and, for defence purposes, are woefully enormous. Added to these are the not
unsubstantial expenditures, incurred for the maintenance of internal security against turmoils,
caused by acts of terrorism both external as well as internal, various types of disturbances and all
shades of crimes; alongwith all that is needed, consequentially, for (a). restoration of damaged /
destroyed public buildings and other structures, and, the infrastructure; (b). relief and rehabilitation
of the aggrieved victims; and, (c) for the upkeep of the environment. Simultaneously, to our dismay,
the more than a century old institution of the Nobel Prize Trust internationally accredited for its
marvellous achievements in diverse fields has been found not to have delivered adequately on its
Peace-front, and, that the six-decades old UNO, because of vested interests, is also not going to be
sufficiently and suitably empowered. Thus, eventually, in absence of Dharm, the above type of
exasperating situation has grossly resulted in perpetuating upon all concerned a state of extreme
deprivation thereby exposing them, plentifully and painfully, to the onslaughts of varied forms of
never-ending miseries.
Dharm that has been elucidated in the main article is, de facto, the prerequisite or
forerunner of peace; or, more pertinently, Dharm may be taken as the sole originator and carrier of
the latter. Thus, in a sense, Dharm is like a railway engine that always has the peace-wagon attached
to its rear and, therefore, the former carries this wagon everywhere it goes, but will leave this wagon
behind whenever it is made to get detached therefrom. As such, Peace is most natural and hence,
conclusively, most undisputed corollary of Dharm, but its pursuit, in absence of Dharm, becomes
nothing but an ever-frustrating albeit everlasting passion, not different from the chasing of ones
own shadow.

One cannot conceive of light in absence of the sun, rains in absence of oceans, plants in
absence of soil, and soil in absence of rocks / the earths crust; likewise, Peace, in absence of Dharma,
becomes a totally misconceived / irrelevant phenomenon. Thus, with Dharma and Peace having
Cause and Effect relationship, it would, perhaps, be quite logical to accept that posterity, if not the
present generation, would like to have the following dictum as a proverb for its peaceful living.

WITH DHARM EVER PEACE, WITHOUT DHARM NEVER PEACE
and the word peace means every kind and all forms of peace.
And this is the writer s message to the entire humanity, and, in particular, to the Nobel Prize
Trust, the UNO and the Govt. of India.



CONTACT ADDRESS

ER. RAJ KUMAR, C-2/8, River Bank Colony, LUCKNOW 226 018; (U.P.); INDIA.
Tel. : +91 522 2628468; Mob. : +91 98394 29297 & +91 96548 92918.
E-mail : rajkumar.iitr1950@gmail.com;
Blog-site : http://betterworld-dharmpeaceguidelines.blogspot.com