Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me immense pleasure and I consider it a great honour to be in the midst of such a distinguished gathering. This conference on the theme of cooperation between India and China in the field of higher education has special meaning to me. I personally feel that India and China are two great ancient civilizations of East and both had inbuilt faith in quality education based on human values. Both have built and successfully run centers of excellence in higher education before Europe and America could have dreamt of it. I am thankful to the University of Peking for inviting me and making my maiden trip to this beautiful city of Beijing possible.
My university i.e. Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha or Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University, Wardha is a non conventional university solely dedicated to the cause of Hindi language and literature. It is located at Wardha in the state of Maharashtra which was the experiment ground of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of Indian nation, who tested programs like non- violence and elementary education, which were very dear to his heart , here during last 12 years of his life which he spent in Sevagram, Wardha .Great Chinese thinker Prof. Tan Yunshan, who established Cheena- Bhavan(Department of Chinese) at Shanti Niketan , Vishwa Bharti University in along with Gurudev Robindra Nath Tagore in 1937 had visited Wardha several times to meet and discuss issues of world importance with Mahatma Gandhi .Several other great personalities from China like Madam Chang Kashek and Hengchih Tao also visited Wardha to meet Mahatma Gandhi.
Our University is an effort to fulfill another favourite program of Mahatma Gandhi. He always dreamt of making Hindi a world language and the endeavour to achieve this goal by Indian leadership was an important factor behind the creation of this institution. It was established with a mandate to provide Hindi; tools necessary to enable it become a world language in the global and functional sense of the term. During less than one and half decades of its existence it has become a referral center for all Hindi teaching and research institutions within India and now it is trying to coordinate Hindi activities outside. The faculty of the University is rendering its services to Indian and foreign universities in the field of syllabus development, content creation and making of audio-visual aids.
We have tried to establish special relationship with the Chinese people and their language. Not only that we run very popular programs of teaching Chinese language at various levels , we periodically organize shows of Chinese films and symposia on various aspects of Chinese literature and life depicted in it. Chinese students are also visiting us to learn Hindi. If I am permitted to recollect only from recent past I would like to mention that four Chinese students participated in one year advanced diploma program in Hindi language in the year 2006-07.In the academic session 2009 two more Chinese students joined the University . I am proud to find many of our ex-students present in this meeting. Our School of Language, which runs courses for Spanish, French and Japanese languages in addition to Chinese, has found that Chinese is the most popular foreign language among the students. Recently School of Language has organised Photographic Exhibition on China which also included screening of Chinese Films.
Friends, we should look forward for future tie ups and Hindi certainly will be one such area which needs to be given special attention as it has lot of potentials and has not been exploited fully so far .It will not be out of place to mention that India is one of the fastest growing economies of the world and the trade between China and India has increased many fold during the last few years. Many Chinese multi nationals have opened their offices in India and large number of Chinese officials and workers are operating from Indian soil. Similarly Indian businessmen are also trying to take advantage of the new possibilities which have come to their way after opening of the avenues in the recent past. Besides business, tourism is another area where lot of happening is being witnessed. One can see large number of Indians and Chinese crossing borders and visiting each other. In both these areas knowing Hindi could be a great help to the Chinese citizens.
You all know that India consists of more than half a million villages. Last few decades witnessed these villages changing fast. From an almost static and very slow change situation these villages have become tools of rapid growth of Indian economy. Better connectivity, increased health facilities and quality education has integrated them to the market and as a group they may be termed as one of the biggest consumer block in the world. Indian cities, small and big, have witnessed unprecedented economic activities recently but now they are saturated forcing business to find new areas for expansion. The rural India is the only answer for them. This gives Hindi a unique historical opportunity. It is a known fact that Hindi through its various forms and dialects is spoken in large part of the country and even where it is not so it is understood by the majority. Anybody who wants to reach vast land spread in the rural India will have to use Hindi in one way or the other.
I personally feel that Chinese people who are considered to be the great entrepreneurs will not fail to understand the importance of learning Hindi. In fact they have always shown deep interest in Indian languages like Sanskrit, Pali and Hindi. Peking University is teaching these languages for many decades. I understand that seven universities in China are running Hindi programs at various levels. To strengthen these efforts my University is always willing to render services and enter into such understanding which may be considered mutually beneficial. Our physical infrastructure and faculty may be of immense help to the Chinese students who are interested in pursuing their knowledge of Hindi to a higher level. May I take this opportunity to offer the services of my university to the students of China in this field. I sincerely feel that it will not only help us achieve the goal of our institution but will cement further the historical ties of friendship between two great civilizations. With newly built hostel for International students and state of the art infrastructure, I am sure we will not be a disappointment for Chinese students. Wardha, in any case is the best place to learn Hindi as there are very few distractions compared to bigger cities of India.
I again offer my sincere thanks to the University of Peking for inviting me here and look forward for more co-operations in future.
Vibhuti Narain Rai addressing a gathering in the library established by him in his village
Vibhuti Narain Rai in SRSP
Dark Facts Behind The Men In Khaki- August 24, 1998
A recently released study by a senior cop unmasks the bias that infects the police during communal riots
By : Saibal Chattergy:
During the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Taran Gujral, a Punjabi writer and principal of a Kanpur college, discovered the bitter truth quite by accident. She realized , perhaps for the first time in her life, how misplaced her faith in the police force was. Her locality was surrounded by a frenzied mob and an armed attack was imminent. She telephoned the police control room for help. The response was derisive laughter and a curt" Hum bhi Hindu hain (after all, we too are Hindus)".
The account of a hapless lady's experience in the face of a grave threat to her life and property is only one of the many shocking stories about partisan policemen that Vibhuti Narain Rai, inspector-general , BSF, unearthed during a path-breaking research project that confirmed his worst fears. His conclusion :the police force does indeed suffer from a pronounced communal bias during riots.
The man khaki is the most visible, if not always the most potent, symbol of State power. Under the rule of law, it is his job to protect every citizen, no matter which religion he or she professes. But when he is put to his severest test in a communal riot situation, does he stay true to his uniform ? Does he forget that he is a policemen first , a Hindu or Muslim later? According to Rai's dissertation, commissioned by the National Police Academy, Hyderabad, he doesn't . Because of the irrational prejudices that policemen often demonstrate during Hindu-Muslim riots, the minorities have lost faith in the ability, perhaps even the inclination, of the force to deliver justice.
Rai, who was the superintendent of police, Ghaziabad, when the Meerut riots of 1987 happened, bases his candid conclusion on interviews with riot victims-200 Hindus and an equal number of Muslims-as well as 50-odd serving and retired police officers. "I identified 10 riots which were major in terms of the physical and psychological damage they wrought, and where the conduct of the law-enforcing agencies came in for sharp criticism," says the 47-year-old police officer who has another significant identity. That of a Hindi litterateur with five novels to his credit. Rai also edits a literary magazine.
Backed by figures drawn from the files of the Home Ministry and the Police Bureau of Research and Development as well as a thorough analysis of the Data yielded by his survey, Rai's dissertation also belong to the minority community. "This defies logic," says Rai. "If 80 percent of the victims are Muslims, it must follow that Hindus would constitute at least 60 to 70 percent of those arrested. But that never happens."
Is it any wonder, then , that 97 percent of 200 Muslim respondents told Rai that they regarded the civil police as their enemy, while over 71 percent of the Hindus interviewed by the senior police officer said they considered the force to be a friend ? "There is a grave danger inherent in this situation," warns Rai. "When the minorities lose faith in the police force, it means that they have lost faith in the State. They become easy prey to Organisations like the ISI. That is when Mumbai and Coimbatore happen."
Forty-eight percent of the police officer interviewed responded in the affirmative to the query : "Have you ever noticed a communal bias in the behaviour of police men during a communal riot?" And 52 percent said no. Significantly , officers from southern India were almost unanimous that the virus of communalism has not affected the force. Officers from the north, or from the states where communal riots have become a regular occurrence , admitted to policemen behaving in a less than fair manner,
The Srikrishna commission report has vindicated Rai's stand. But it is difficult to get the police leadership to accept the findings of his gutsy study. The National Police Academy, which had granted Rai a fellowship to pursue the project, found the findings unpalatable and quickly disowned them. It was left to the National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, to publish the dissertation. In his foreword to the book, Padam Rosha, who retired as a director-general of police 17 years ago, writes : "I strongly suggest that this study should be made compulsory reading for all officers of the administration and the police."
Sys Rai, "The initial impulse is to deny the accusation of communal bias. And when they are confronted with facts that can not be challenged, the police leadership comes up with other usual alibis : Limited manpower, lack of vehicles, shortage of weapons ….." But unless the problem is acknowledged , the Police force and the political establishment cannot even begin to eliminate the virus that seems to have infected the khaki-clad lawman.
"Knowledge and skills are easy to impart to policemen, but it is difficult to inculcate the right attitudes," says Rosha, who was also former director of the National Police Academy. This is the crux of the problem, he suggests. "Whenever the police have failed to act impartially in a crisis, it has mostly been due to poor leadership rather than any bias ingrained in the rank and file. It is the function of a good leader to inspire the force with the correct attitudes."
Training is the must. " A professional police force can only be built upon correct and intensive training," says Rosha, "The role of police leadership crucial in every communal crisis and training should initially focus on senior levels." But unlike Rai, who speaks of the need to rectify the imbalance in the composition of the police, Rosha, whose last posting was in Jammu and Kashmir as director general (security), warns that , "any attempts to have reservations for various communities will only be counter-productive". Nobody who joins the police, he argues, "can be allowed to have the feeling that he represents any particular section or is there to protect any sectarian interest". As the Gore Commission on police training had observed ; "All the modern equipment and training available to the police can achieve nothing if their minds are not prejudices of caste, religion and parochialism."
Rai's study, of course, reveals that the representation of the minorities in the police is disproportionately less than their percentage of population in the country. In some of the communally sensitive states, it is less than 5 percent. In Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra it is 4.2 percent and in Uttar Pradesh 4.9 percent. "It is not just Muslims . " says Y.P.Chibbar, general secretary, Peoples Union of Civil Liberties, "but upper caste Hindus, Christians and other groups who should have greater representation in the police for it become a truly secular outfit."
For Rosha, the administration's failure to put down communal riots is more a failure of governance than an evidence of the prejudices that policemen nurture. "Impartial and determined officers, when they are backed by political will, have shown time and again that communal disturbances can be effectively quelled within hours, if not prevented altogether," he says.
The question is : where is the political will ? As Rosha points out, the communal mob can sense when the administration is dithering and extends its depredations when it comes to believe that persons in authority have sympathy for the 'cause'. In such a situation, it is not difficult for policemen to go astray. Communal bias in the police force is a reality, as Rai has so authoritatively proved, but given a well=intentioned political establishment which is serious about clamping down on troublemakers, it can be keot in check, if not weeded out completely.
Reading Hall of Sri Ramanand Saraswati Pustkalaya
