Learn Your Lesson Shri Subramanian Swamy

There is an old saying, those who live by sword, die of sword; we could paraphrase it to "Those who live by pride, die of shame". In the present context It would translate into "Subramanian Swamy has been, for so long, proud of being on the faculty of Harvard, however now he must be shamed of it!"

On December 6, the anniversary of demolition of the structure rightfully belonging to the Hindus, the Harvard University showed Dr. Swamy the door!

Indians, and Hindus have been suffering from deep rooted inferiority complex for a long time. We value only those who have been valued by our hallowed erstwhile masters! People think Manmohan Singh is good because he was at London School of Economics. People thought highly of Rabindranath Tagore because he won the Nobel Prize. Even the noted director Satyajit Ray felt he got his true recognition in India only after he got an Oscar.

We never recognized our own Ram Swarup, Sitaram Goel, even Swami Vivekananda!

We think being Professor at an IIT is easier than and inferior to being a Professor at a phoren (foreign) university. We think winning an Oscar is a greater achievement than winning a filmfare, the list goes on and on. So we believe that we are inferior (existentially inferior) to the West. The joker Lalu was immediately thought to be a genius the moment Harvard invited him to give a talk.

Unless we learn to be self confident, unless we learn to recognize the talents that our own people have, and unless we learn to scout, nurture, and reward local talent; we will perpetually face the likeness of the present predicament. If Subramanian Swamy has been great because he was a faculty at Harvard University then he must have done something terribly wrong if he is being shunned by the Harvard faculty! If Subramanian Swamy wants us to believe that it is Harvard which is wrong and stupid then he needs to feel ashamed of the pride that he has indulged so far in having been a faculty at Harvard.

We, Hindus may be good or bad, superior or inferior, but we need to begin with faith in ourselves. This is what Swami Vivekananda reminded us more than a hundred years ago. But we still revel in our old habit of worshipping phoren recognition. The other part is that we are yet to learn to truly recognize and value our own people.

If we want to be worthy successors of our ancient Rishis, we need to begin with Faith in Ourselves, Faith in our Past, Faith in our Ishwara, and so on. We must learn to recognize and appreciate talent in our own neighbors, and for this we need Faith in Our own judging abilities, and therefore faith in our own abilities. This is what we must begin with and inculcate in ourselves.

Don't be proud of being recognized by phoren; be proud of who and what you are. Be proud, as Swami Vivekananda exhorted us long ago, that we are children of ancient Rishis, and we will reach equally great or even greater heights. Let us pray to our Ishwara and obtain our Tathastu.