Editor,
Through the local media and also through social media we have seen the recent spate of checking of so-called illegal activities by the KSU of people from the mainland of our country. Today’s trend is that the various local pressure groups (not like before in the 1970s, 80s,90s) comprise highly educated people as their presidents, secretaries, advisors etc. The question that arises is how these learned people fail to understand that they cannot take the law into their hands. Why are they misleading the people by downplaying the law and creating chaos and fear psychosis amongst the non tribals who happen to come here to earn their livelihoods which is their right as per our Constitution guidelines, of course subject to their availing relevant papers as per the State Govt. orders. It seems to me that these people are trying to make a name for themselves, to be “U Khlur Ka Ri,” and be so famous that one day they will join politics, become very rich working as suppliers, contractors etc. thereby making themselves and their families self-sufficient.
These leaders know very well that they cannot run a parallel government here or in any part of India because in a democracy we have elected our leaders to represent us for any thing under the law. The least that the pressure groups can do if they find any discrepancy in the working of the State Government is to put pressure on the Government and work in tandem with it so that the governance gaps are addressed through lawful and democratic methods. There is no need to instigate people to assault and commit violence. We as a society cannot live in isolation. We need other people and are inter dependent on one another.
Moreover, we in Meghalaya are dependent on the Centre for almost everything. Even to cover our modesty we depend on them. Added to this, there are thousands of our people who either study or work outside the State in the mainland. What will happen and how would we feel if the same treatment is meted out to our people?
All that is happening now and what has happened since the inception of our State is because of the spineless attitude of all consecutive government that came to power and governed this state. They handle these so called self styled protectors of the jaitbynriew in such a way that it seems as if there is a hidden deal between those at the helm of powers with the so called pressure groups which is beyond the understanding of us the common people. At times, it seems that the Government is dancing to the tune of the pressure groups. In retrospect, we have seen how leaders of various pressure groups used their associations as a springboard to enter politics. In their journey they may have trampled the common man or even killed people yet that did not matter. Even if our own people who blindly follow them have been beaten or arrested by the police it never seemed to matter to them as their goal is to attain their own self- sustenance. Period!
Yours etc.,
Helen Dkhar,
Via email
Infinity and the big bang
Editor,
It is impossible to imagine infinity. But we have to accept that the universe is infinite. We cannot escape by saying that it is finite, simply because, if it is so, then the question will arise – “What is there after the finite boundary?” Now, as it is not finite, there must not be any starting point or finishing line. In other words, it cannot have any origin or deathbed.
But according to the big-bang model, the universe has a finite past. Professor Rudy Rucker said, “In the light of the big-bang model of the origin of the universe, cosmologists generally believe that the universe has a finitely long past; whether it might have an endless future is an open question.”
This is the hurdle, the big-bang – the most widely accepted hypothesis for the origin of the universe – is likely to face. In order to theorize the origin of the universe, it propagates willy-nilly to a starting point – the bang – a starting point of space and time! But does not this theory thus limit the infinite?
It is better to view the journey of the universe with no starting point and never-ending. A line is an example of having no bounds. The number line has the symbol of infinity at both of its ends. It has no starting point and no ending. To put the symbol of infinity in just one of its ends means no infinity at all.
Infinity is the beauty – a joy forever! Sri Aurobindo said, “Freedom comes by a unity without limits; for that is our real being. We may gain the essence of this unity in ourselves; we may realise the play of it in oneness with all others.”
Our ignorance, greed, and ego are creating walls among ourselves that stop realising our oneness and our infinite single entity. Everything is one in infinity. And no one can deny infinity! Therefore, we all are one and infinite. We actually hate ourselves when we hate others.
The time, space, and numbers cannot be finite. They are infinite. And the infinite means the One – no duality. There is indeed no place for “our god is better than your god” sort of thing. It is like a fight on whether an elephant is like a trunk or a snake or a rope or a fan after mistaking a part as a whole.
Infinite is always one. It can never be two parts. Then how can there be duality in this infinite universe?
We believe that light exists because of darkness, goodness exists because of evil, and happiness exists because of sadness. But how can birth and death or light and darkness or good and evil both exist simultaneously in infinity?
This belief challenges infinity, the One. We need to ponder on what Einstein had said to get out of this wrong notion.
A teacher told Albert Einstein that the existence of evil nullified the existence of God. Einstein refuted him by comparing evil with darkness. The logic is clear and simple. Darkness is nothing but an absence of light. It does not exist on its own. Similarly, evil is merely an absence of god.
Sri Aurobindo made it crystal clear when he wrote in, “The Life Divine,” (page – 622), “Therefore the relation of truth to falsehood, of good to evil is not a mutual dependence, but is in the nature of a contradiction as of light and shadow; a shadow depends on light for its existence, but light does not depend for its existence on the shadow.”
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Kolkata