Abuse of Baba Ramdev in London

It transpired that a coded notation, visible to scanners used in airports, had been imprinted in Baba Ramdev’s passport by the authorities at New Delhi immigration control, as he was departing for the UK. Such a notation is reserved for terror suspects and drugs warlords and prompted an instant red alert when Baba Ramdev arrived at Heathrow. 

(Now read on)http://indiafacts.co.in/post7/

Abuse of Baba Ramdev in London

Dr. Gautam Sen

September 25, 2013  


Baba Ramdev, India’s prominent Yoga guru and campaigner against corruption, was unexpectedly detained when he arrived at London’s Heathrow airport on Friday, the 20th September. He had visited the UK regularly in recent years and was the guest of honour at the celebrations for Swami Vivekananda’s 150th birth anniversary. The young Asian woman immigration officer informed him he would have to wait. When he enquired after a half hour why he was being held up, she curtly told him to remain in the detention centre, failing to recognise her famed guest. His hosts waiting outside were growing anxious and Baba Ramdev phoned to inform them he was not being allowed to enter the country. After three hours he exercised the right, he was told he had, to demand the reason. None was forthcoming.

Persistent representations from his hosts failed to elicit any explanation from the immigration authorities. Legal representatives who arrived to offer counsel and inquire had no luck either. The Indian High Commission in London was contacted, but claimed it could not fathom why Baba Ramdev was being denied entry. It cannot be said they evinced undue interest over the issue, perhaps conscious of the Congress party’s abhorrence for Baba Ramdev and all his works. Eventually, after being detained for eight hours, Baba Ramdev was granted temporary entry to the UK, but required to return for a further interview the following day. His passport, the leaflets he was carrying and his personal diary were seized while Hindi and Sanskrit translators were sought to scrutinize them. The timing of the immigration interview he was required to attend coincided exactly with the commencement of the Vivekananda birth anniversary celebrations. It was evident they did not wish him to participate.

One of Baba’s devotees telephoned the Rt. Honourable Keith Vaz, MP for Leicester and Chair of the Home Affairs Parliamentary Select Committee, a position of authority pertaining to official police and immigration policy. He swung into action immediately, inviting Baba Ramdev to his home to discuss the situation. It is unprecedented to be invited to the home of a MP to confer about an issue raised by a member of the public. Keith Vaz, whose wife happens to be a leading expert on immigration issues, spent several hours on the phone to the authorities involved at Heathrow, the Home Secretary as well as 10 Downing, Street, the prime minister’s official residence. He berated the immigration authorities roundly and then unexpectedly accompanied Baba Ramdev to Heathrow airport. The immigration authorities suddenly became receptive and acceded to Keith Vaz’s demand that Baba Ramdev’s passport and the seized documents be restored to him immediately. All this only took five minutes and he was granted a two-year multiple entry visa on by the immigration authorities on their own initiative. Keith Vaz earned the profound gratitude of Baba Ramdev’s followers and British Hindus for his huge efforts and extraordinary courtesy towards their revered saint.

It transpired that a coded notation, visible to scanners used in airports, had been imprinted in Baba Ramdev’s passport by the authorities at New Delhi immigration control, as he was departing for the UK. Such a notation is reserved for terror suspects and drugs warlords and prompted an instant red alert when Baba Ramdev arrived at Heathrow. 

It would seem that the highest political authorities in New Delhi sought to disrupt Baba Ramdev’s travel abroad, to the UK and US, where he was participating in various events connected to Swami Vivekananda’s 150th birth anniversary. 

It can only be inferred that they have become so fearful of his campaign against corruption and support for political change in India that they were prepared to sink to the lowest depth imaginable. No doubt Baba Ramdev’s support for Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial candidature compounded their rage, prompting disregard for all legal and moral norms. 

They were prepared to instigate the humiliation and possible arrest of a Hindu saint to perpetuate their corrupt hold on power and persist in their increasing disregard for the Indian Constitution.The prime minister himself and his patron, who has usurped political and constitutional authority in India, must both be personally held to account for this outrage against Hindus.

In the event, Vivekananda 150th birth anniversary celebrations in London’s Hounslow Borough were a huge success. The audience was amply rewarded for their patience, having waited many hours for Baba Ramdev’s presence. He delivered a pithy and thoughtful speech when he arrived at the closing minutes of the first day’s session. 

The Rt. Honourable Shri Venkiah Naidu also spoke at length about India and its future in the context of Swami Vivekananda’s aspirations for Hindu civilisation. On the following day, many speakers, from doctors to educationists and women’s rights activists, delivered inspiring talks about the future for India they volunteered to help promote. 

Baba Ramdev spoke at length about the parlous situation in India, suggesting some extraordinarily useful economic solutions that any out-of-the-box policy maker should take seriously. He counselled more modest aspirations for material advancement in India since European and American standards of living would be unrealistic for Indians to expect. Interestingly, he criticised the waste of resources, citing the huge land holdings of the Indian railways that could be used for economic development. Such imaginative ideas for a yoga guru were a surprise! 

He ended by giving a ringing endorsement of Shri Narendra Modi, much to the universal delight of the audience!

It only remains to reiterate the sense of outrage that pervaded the event in London at the treatment meted out to Baba Ramdev at the instigation of the Indian government and its supreme authorities. It seems that they will stop at nothing to retain political power. However, their egregious misconduct against opponents suggests anxiety that they are poised for consignment to the political wilderness indefinitely since comprehensive demolition of the Congress party appears to be in prospect. 

They and their countless venal retainers, not least in the media, have every cause to feel anxious that the good life, through prodigious illegalities, is destined to come to an unhappy end, with some facing prosecution for legion violations of the law. 

The Congress party itself has been seized by foreign interests, seeking to cause massive harm to India. One by one, national institutions are being compromised, first parliament through outright purchase of votes, followed by the courts and then India’s intelligence services. These traitors are now engaged in subverting India’s armed forces to gain temporary electoral advantage, by revealing the innermost secrets of the Indian State. One may legitimately infer that when the anointed heir apparent identified Hindus as the principal terror threat in India, against all the evidence, he was speaking in deadly earnest to his possible patrons. This is why Hindus are being routinely fitted up for terror crimes known to be committed by Pakistani agencies. The assault against Baba Ramdev is only the latest in their many calumnies.

(Dr. Gautam Sen taught international political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science for more than twenty years. He is currently President of the World Association of Hindu Academicians and Member of the Steering Committee of the World Hindu Economic Forum)

Cong-DMK route canal

Cong-DMK route canal

SAM RAJAPPA

28 Sep 2013

[The  effort  of  the  Congress  to  revive such   an  uneconomic  and  ecologically disastrous  project  affecting  the security, safety and livelihood of the coastal people near the fragile Gulf of Mannar is  not  going  to  improve  the  party’s  electoral  prospects  with  or without an alliance with the DMK, for the people have seen through the game]
The Congress is desperate to revive its electoral alliance with the DMK in Tamil Nadu before the 2014 Lok Sabha election lest it face its 1996 fate when all its candidates in the State lost their security deposits. 

The affidavit the UPA government filed in the Supreme Court on 16 September saying it wanted to implement theSethusamundaram Ship Channel Project, cutting across Ram Sethu, also known as Adam’s Bridge, which neither the shipping industry nor the AIADMK government of Jayalalitha want, is a case in point. It was a pet project of the DMK president, M Karunanidhi, on which the UPA government had reportedly spent Rs. 766.82 crore with nothing tangible to show for it. The estimated cost of the project has shot up to Rs 25,000 crore.

The Supreme Court had stayed execution of the project and the government appointed an expert committee headed by Dr. RK Pachauri which, after a two-year study, came to the conclusion that the project was not in public interest as it was not ecologically feasible and economically viable. The government chose to reject the recommendations of the expert committee saying, “Though the data did not support blocking of the project, and the evidence showed benefits from the project, the committee arbitrarily has concluded that the project is not viable. The recommendation of the committee is not tenable and is not supported by scientific data and by environmental studies commissioned by the committee itself.”

As far as shipping canal projects are concerned, the Suez Canal in Egypt and the Panama Canal in Panama are well known examples.These water routes have given tangible and intangible, real and pecuniary, and direct and indirect benefits of various kinds to these countries in particular and the world at large. The same cannot be said of the SSCP to link the Gulf of Mannar with the Palk Strait by dredging the shallow sea to enable ships from the Arabian Sea on the west coast of the Indian peninsula to reach the Bay of Bengal on the east coast and vice-versa without having to circumnavigate Sri Lanka. India does not have a contiguous navigable sea route around the peninsula within its own territorial waters due to the partially submerged Ram Sethu near Rameswaram between the south-eastern coast of India and Talaimannar in Sri Lanka.

The average depth of the sea in this area is only three meters which compels ships to go around Sri Lanka, increasing the sailing time of ships from one coast to the other by about 25 hours. Practically speaking, there will not be any saving of sailing time as a ship will take 16 to 20 hours to navigate the channel, besides paying a toll of Rs. 5 to 6 lakh for using it.

The quest for a direct sea link between the two coasts was first examined by Commander AD Taylor of the Indian Marines in 1860. But the scheme was not considered seriously by the colonial British government. Since then seven more proposals were made, the last one being that of Sir Robert Bristo, harbour engineer to the Government of India, in 1922. All these proposals were rejected because of their questionable economic viability. None of these proposals involved cutting the Ram Sethu, considered sacred by the Hindus.

After independence, the government appointed a committee headed by Sir A Ramaswamy Mudaliar to examine the feasibility and desirability of the SSCP in 1956, the CV Venkateswaran Committee in 1967, and the Lakshminarayanan Committee in 1983. All their reports were shelved in government archives. In 1994, the AIADMK government of Jayalalitha, who has now taken a firm stand against the project, directed the State’s Pallavan Transport Consultancy Service to reappraise the Lakshminarayanan report. In all these proposals, economic viability remained the stumbling block. Eventually, the DMK, by joining the BJP-led NDA government, succeeded in persuading Prime Minister Vajpayee to take up the SSCP in principle. In 2004, the DMK jumped sides and forced the UPA government take up this unviable project which the shipping industry had voted against.

The Gulf of Mannar is considered to be one of world’s richest marine biological resources. It had been chosen as a biosphere reserve because of its biological and ecological uniqueness. The region has a distinctive socio-economic and cultural profile shaped by its geography. It has an ancient maritime history and was famous for the production of pearls. Pearl was an important item of trade with Rome from the first century AD. Rameswaram, with its links in the Ramayana legend, has been an important pilgrim centre.

The Gulf of Mannar biosphere reserve has 3,600 species of plants and mammals and 17 different mangrove species. It constitutes a live scientific laboratory of national and international importance. The Gulf is 160 km long and 130 to 275 km wide. Geologists have reported the region is a fragile marine reserve subject to volcanic and tectonic activity. In the waterlogged land, eight series of strand lines, besides sea cliffs and caves can be observed.

Ram Sethu is a chain of shoal and parallel ledges of conglomerate sand dunes accumulated by the influence of current at the change of the monsoons. Globally famous tsunami expert TAD Murthy had cautioned that cutting of Ram Sethu would cause devastation of the coastline from Nagapattinam on the Bay of Bengal to Kollam on the Arabian Sea in the event of tsumani. According to a geological survey, Miocene era limestone beds are under Ram Sethu which connects Rameswaram and Jaffna peninsula. Legends as well as archaeological studies reveal that the first stages of human inhabitants in Sri Lanka date back 1,750,000 years and the bridge’s age is almost same.

In this biologically rich and rated among the highly productive seas of the world, dredging will have to be carried out to a depth of 12.8 meters and width of 300 meters for two-way traffic in the ship channel. The sea is known for heavy wind currents alternating between dock-wise and anti-dock-wise. If you keep on dredging the seabed, shifting sands will keep filling up the dredged areas.

If a fully laden ship gets grounded in a sandbank, the entire geography will change. Apart from regular maintenance of depth, continuous dredging of the channel will be required. Handysize ships with deadweight of 15,000 to 35,000 tonnes only can navigate the Sethusamudram ship channel. There are not more than 2,000 ships of this category in active service in the world. Closer home, the LTTE had the largest fleet of Handysize ships transporting arms, fuel and victuals to Sri Lanka, and would have been the main user of the channel. With the eclipse of the LTTE, the channel would be hard put to find the expected traffic to justify its construction and would have turned into a white elephant from the start.

The UPA government has already sunk Rs. 766.82 crore of the tax-payer’s money in the ocean on this venture which, in the words of Capt. H.(R) Balakrishnan, who commanded the frigate Trishul of the Indian Navy, “does not make nautical sense.” The SSCP was clearly crafted to line the pockets of politicians and foreign dredging companies. The effort of the Congress to revive such an uneconomic and ecologically disastrous project affecting the security, safety and livelihood of the coastal people near the fragile Gulf of Mannar is not going to improve the party’s electoral prospects with or without an alliance with the DMK, for the people have seen through the game. 
The writer is a veteran journalist  and former Director of The Statesman Print Journalism School

General VK Singh Statement – 26 September 2013

A 'WIDELY POSTED & DISCUSSED' ITEM ON A NUMBER OF VETERANS' GROUPS, PLEASE :
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General VK Singh Statement – 26 September 2013

On 20th September ‘The Indian Express’ published a front page banner headlines story titled, “Unit set up by VK Singh used secret funds to try and topple J&K government, block Bikram Singh: Army probe”claiming to be a leak of a ‘Top Secret’ Army ‘Board of Officers inquiry’ report on the working of Technical Services Division (TSD), a secret intelligence unit set up during my tenure as Chief of the Army Staff.

At the outset I would like to state that all the allegations are false and motivated.

First and foremost, TSD was not set up by me as my secret army, but was set up by the Army at the behest of the National Security Advisor after the dastardly attack on Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists who were subsequently labeled by the media as ‘non-state actors’. TSD was created as a capability mentioned in the operational directive of the Raksha Mantri and set up following the due process of procedures existing in the Army as part of intelligence units under the DGMI. Hence, though its existence by the very nature of its work was secret, its existence as a secret unit is not true. That this unit was disbanded shortly after I retired was a decision taken by the powers that be for reasons best known to them.

As far as the general public is concerned, by its very nature, TSD operations were ‘top secret’.  In that event, even the existence of TSD should never have been publicised. 

Further, if there is exposure of the actual working of the top secret unit, leaking information about it was seditious, regardless of whether information is true or false. Even knowledge of the existence of TSD can help the nation's enemies. Being treasonous, the consequences for the ‘leakers’ and their collaborators could be very serious. 

Regardless of the above, false stories about the TSD have been appearing in the media for almost a year and half. The Government of India, most amazingly, has chosen to remain completely silent in this regard and have done nothing whatsoever to either trace the source of the leaks or make any categorical statement putting an end to this malicious and dangerous campaign.

Following the dictum that a lie oft repeated soon becomes the truth, TSD has been the target of malicious propaganda that has now assumed extremely serious proportions,  as can be seen from the following narration. Despite repeated requests to the PMO to institute an inquiry to trace the source of the leaks, this has been ignored and left to simmer endlessly. 

Since the beginning of 2012, through ‘leaked stories’ I have been subjected to all kinds of canards and innuendos questioning my nationalism, patriotism and integrity. Starting with allegations of bugging the Raksha Mantri’s office (TSD was a Human Int organization and at no stage had any Off-Air Interceptors on their inventory), charges have been leveled of moving troops secretly to stage a coup, leaking my own letter to the PM that drew attention to the tremendous shortage of ammunition and other war stores (that would severely affect our fighting capability) and now finally that I had used TSD to topple the Government of Kashmir.

That this entire campaign is not only motivated and highly dangerous, the following events tell their own story:

Picking up from the Indian Express leak, on 24 September 2013 ‘The Hindu’ published a news story titled “V.K. Singh counters charges, admits ‘pro-India NGOs’ were funded” written by their Chandigarh correspondent. The opening sentence, that it was my “first proper interview to a newspaper since details of an internal inquiry into his conduct as Army chief were published in The Indian Express last week” itself is false. The fact is that I was waylaid by her at a friend’s place and at her insistence answered a few questions.

As a corollary several falsehoods, half-truths and distortions were deliberately inserted in the news story published by the Newspaper. The most prominent one is that I had claimed that “the panchayat elections of 2011 and the sudden end to the stone-throwing agitation in Kashmir in 2010” were the two major achievements of the TSD.

The writer of the news story has actually done some clever ‘cut and paste’ based on information that seems to have been fed to her along with my comments on television. The correspondent has also claimed that senior army officers in 15 Corps have told her (the correspondent is the wife of a serving re-employed officer) that the TSD provided the Corps with Off-the air interceptors which later proved to be faulty. Both these are blatant lies that have been cleverly inserted.

Almost immediately, elements and vested interests-political and official-are deliberately twisting and distorting this report and are whipping up frenzy with the purpose of alienating J&K and spreading disharmony among the armed forces.

‘The Hindu’ itself has gone into a frenzy by publishing a concocted story on its front page on 25 September under the title ‘Our lives in danger, say sarpanches in J&K”. 

This news report says that because of my reckless statements, I have caused “an extremely serious apprehension of militant attacks on more than 33,000 panches and sarpanches as I have completely discredited and maligned the panchayat elections of 2011.” 
Nothing can be farther from the fact. This statement was inserted by the newspaper into the false interview and cleverly manipulated to sound as if I had made this claim. This is nothing but a fabricated lie.

What is worse, the Newspaper Editor himself has added fuel to fire by publishing the top front page news item in ‘The Hindu’ (26 September) titled “V.K. Singh’s claims damaged India’s interests, officials say”. Quoting ‘senior officials’ of the government this story accuses me of causing “enormous damage” to the country through some of my recent statements on Jammu and Kashmir, and that the government was investigating my claim that military officers had made illegal payments to politicians, and would decide on what action to take once the facts were established.

This news report has been written by Sidharth Varadarajan, Editor and the Newspaper from ‘On Board the PM’s Flight’ in which he was travelling to Washington DC as part of Prime Minister’s entourage to meet US President and address the UN.

Members of this entourage are former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and presently his advisor; former Foreign Secretary and presently National Security Advisor; former Defence Secretary and presently Comptroller & Auditor General of India; Media Advisor to PM;Editors of ‘Indian Express’ and ‘The Hindu’.
[ COMMENT : Not-to-forget, Barkha Dutt. So, Shekar Gupta, 'foreigner' Siddarth Varadarajan & Barkha Dutt. All 'CHAMCHAS' OF THE SARKAR !!! So much for an 'INDEPENDENT INDIAN FOURTH ESTATE' - SIC ]

The former Defence Secretary (now CAG) initiated the ‘Board of Officers report ’ through the Army and received the report in March 2013; National Security Advisor has been dealing with and examining the report, a former Joint Secretary in the Defence Ministry, who worked very closely with this Defence Secretary  leaked the report, Editor ‘Indian Express’ published it and Editor ‘The Hindu’ has taken it to a frenzy suggesting in its front page that lives of 33,000 panches and sarpanches in the valley are in peril because of me.

This is probably the same team  that leaked my top secret letter to PM on Defence unpreparedness, promoted the obnoxious ‘line of succession’ in the Army burying merit in the process, accused me of plotting a coup against the Government of India, patronized the TATRA truck purchase and indulged in many other defence purchase scams and worst of all wanted to sell out the Siachen Glacier to China-Pakistan through a dubious Track II initiative headed by the now discredited Air Chief Marshall Tyagi in which ‘The Hindu’ Editor was a key member.

These are the facts that cannot be endlessly disguised by this powerful group of people who seem to care little for our National Interest, as scam after scam has left the ruling party morally bankrupt. 

However, to them all, let me just remind them of the National motto: ‘Satyameva Jayate’ – “Truth alone shall Triumph”.

http://www.niticentral.com/2013/09/27/jammu-attack-what-was-the-real-target-138225.html

Jammu attack: What was the real target?

Sandhya Jain
September 27, 2013

The high security Kathua District Jail and Sub Jail Hira Nagar, where several high profile Pakistani and foreign prisoners are lodged, was the intended target of the terrorist attack and the incident at Samba could have been a coordinated distraction to engage the Army while the fidayeen extracted their comrades, according to sources from Jammu. 

Security arrangements at the prison were reviewed by Director General Prisons K Rajendra Kumar as recently as May 2013; the Hira Nagar police station is part of the same compound, with a different entrance. A total of 12 persons have reportedly been killed in the twin attacks, as also two of the fidayeen, and at least two civilians, though the complete details are still unclear.

Kathua district is close to the India-Pakistan border. In a glaring security lapse, terrorists dressed in Indian Army fatigues entered the city and commandeered a tempo ferrying vegetables to take them to Hira Nagar prison. Their intention was to release some of their comrades. Not being very conversant with the place, the driver took them to the Kathua-Hira Nagar Jail complex, but stopped his vehicle outside the gate of the police station. It was 6.45 am and the policemen on duty were not fully alert. Seeing the policemen inside, the terrorists mistook the entrance for the jail precincts, walked in and began firing indiscriminately, killing as many as four policemen in 40 minutes of firing. They also lobbed hand grenades. Four policemen died in the attack, according to the reports.

At some stage, the terrorists realised the error, and failing to rescue the Pakistani prisoners, drove away in a truck parked in front of the police station, which was found abandoned on the national highway. Other sources said the terrorists went back to the National Highway (it is not clear how, because the vehicle that brought them to the prison would have long fled the scene, unless they killed the driver and took his vehicle) and boarded a truck at gun point, killing the cleaner. 

On reaching 16 Cavalry on the Samba highway, they shot the driver dead and entered the camp. Previously, in 2002, terrorists had attacked Kaluchak Army camp in Samba district and killed 31 people, including three Army jawans, 18 family members of Army men and 10 civilians.

The attack on the Samba Army camp resulted in the death of a serving Lt Colonel and two soldiers. Some civilians are said to have died in the crossfire. General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Northern Command Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra and GOC of the Nagrota-based 16 Corps and IGP Jammu Rajesh Kumar and DIG Jammu-Kathua range Shakeel Beg have rushed to Samba. 

Professor Bhim Singh, president of the Panthers Party, feels these were separate attacks to distract attention from the attack on the jail. It seems unlikely that the same group wearing Army uniforms could have moved from Kathua after the alert was sounded about the attack, and reached Samba without being detected or checked en route. It is a massive failure of the Central, Army, and State intelligence agencies that such an easy penetration of the border could take place.

The attack is an indictment of the National Conference–Congress coalition. On September 25, the Chief Minister cast aspersions on the accession to India by last Maharaja Hari Singh and repeated his asinine claim that the J&K had not ‘merged’ with India. It is time to call this anti-national bluff; if there is no merger, Omar Abdullah should not be Chief Minister of a State which is an integral part of India under Article 1 of the Constitution; nor should his father, Farooq Abdullah, be a member of the Union Cabinet. A beginning must be made by making this family surrender its Indian passports.

There is an urgent case for Governor’s rule to restore some semblance of security to this sensitive border State, given the instability promoted by Omar Abdullah’s frequent immature statements, and the growing terrorist incidents on account of his failure to govern properly. 

In January this year, a jawan was beheaded on the LoC and another murdered; in March, there was a fidayeen attack on a paramilitary camp at Bemina in Srinagar in which five CRPF men were killed, along with three terrorists; in June, eight army men were killed in a fidayeen attack at Hyderpora.

India must also revisit the disruptive Article 370 and move towards its outright abolition. This is a cat that needs to be belled with utmost urgency.Omar Abdullah’s greatest anxiety in the wake of the attacks was that somehow the talks between the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers should not be scuttled. He refused to hold the Pakistan Government responsible for the assault, and it may well be that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was in the dark about it, but Islamabad’s accountability is in no way diminished by this.

Sadly, Dr Manmohan Singh is committed to this unproductive diplomacy with the same tenacity with which he was committed to the India-US Nuclear Deal, the logic and benefit of which still eludes the nation. 

The Kathua – Samba twin incidents vindicate former Army chief Gen VK Singh’s contention that the growing incidents along the Pakistan and China borders are a fallout of the disbandment of the Technical Support Division (TSD), a counter intelligence unit of the Indian Army which became fully operational during his tenure.

The recent calumny unleashed against the veteran soldier is a scandal in itself. But far more scandalous is the silence of Gen Bikram Singh, who is fully aware that the TSD functioned under the Military Intelligence Directorate and was not a private intelligence unit created by Gen VK Singh to spy on the Ministry or fellow officers. To redeem in own honour in the public, Gen Bikram Singh needs to make this aspect of the TSD known to the nation, and ensure that the witch hunt against his predecessor is stopped without further ado.

A Graduation Speech you MUST read!

Service doesn't start when you have something to give; it blossoms naturally when you have nothing left to take. --Nipun Mehta

Miserable & Magical: A Graduation Speech for Paradoxical Times

--by Nipun Mehta, May 27, 2013

 

[When the student body of an elite private school in Silicon Valley was given the chance to vote on who would give their graduation address this year, they chose a man named Nipun Mehta. An unexpected choice for these teenagers, who belong to what Time magazine called the "Me Me Me Generation". Nipun's journey is the antithesis of self-serving. More than a decade ago, he walked away from a lucrative career in high-tech, to explore the connection between inner change and external impact. ServiceSpace, the nonprofit he founded, has now drawn over 450,000 members across the globe. In this electrifying address that garnered a standing ovation, he calls out the paradoxical crisis of disconnection in our hyper-connected world -- and offers up three powerful keys that hold the antidote.]

 

Thank you Jennifer Gargano, Chris Nikoloff and the entire faculty at Harker.  To you, the class of 2013, congratulations!  I’m delighted to be with you on your special day, and it is a particular honor since I know you chose your speaker.

 

So, graduation day is here and this once-in-a-lifetime milestone moment has arrived.  In the words of Taylor Swift, I can tell how you’re feeling: “happy, free, confused, and lonely, miserable and magical at the same time.”  Who would’ve thought we’d be quoting words of wisdom from Taylor Swift at your commencement. :)

 

Today, I’m here with some good news and bad news.  I’ll give you the good first.

 

You might be surprised to hear this, but you are about to step out into a world that’s in good shape -- in fact the best shape that that it’s ever been in. The average person has never been better fed than today.  Infant mortality has never been lower; on average we’re leading longer, healthier lives. Child labor, illiteracy and unsafe water have ceased to be global norms. Democracy is in, as slavery is disappearing.  People don’t have to work as hard to just survive. A bicycle in 1895 used to cost 260 working hours, today we’ve gotten that number down to 7.2.

 

So, things are progressing.  But I’m afraid that’s not the full story.   You’ll want to brace yourselves, because this is the bad news part.

 

 

This week, Time Magazine’s cover story labeled you guys as the “Me, Me, Me” generation; the week before, NY Times reported that the suicide rate for Gen X went up by 30% in the last decade, and 50% for the boomer generation.  We’ve just learned that atmospheric carbon levels surpassed 400 PPM for the first time in human history.  Our honeybee colonies are collapsing, thereby threatening the future of our food supply.  And all this is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

What we’re handing over to you is a world full of inspiring realities coupled with incredibly daunting ones. In other words: miserable and magical isn't just a pop-song lyric -- it's the paradox that you are inheriting from us.

 

So, what do you do with that? I’m going to be honest -- I don’t really know. :) I do know this, though:  

 

At the core of all of today's most pressing challenges is one fundamental issue: we have become profoundly disconnected.

 

Rather ironic, considering that we live in an era where Facebook has spawned 150 billion “connections”, as we collectively shell out 4.5 billion likes on status updates, every single day. Yet, a growing body of science is showing what we already feel deep in our gut: we’re more isolated than ever before.  The average American adult reports having just one real friend that they can count on.  Just one.  And for the first time in 30 years, mental health disabilities such as ADHD outrank physical ones among American children.  

 

Somehow we’ve allowed our relationship to gadgets and things to overtake our real-world ties.

 

We’ve forgotten how to rescue each other.  

 

Yet, deep inside we all still have that capacity.   We know we have it because we saw it at Sandy Hook, in the brave teachers who gave up their lives to save their students. We saw it during the Boston Marathon when runners completed the race and kept running to the nearest blood bank.  We saw it just this week in Oklahoma when a waiter at a fast food chain decided to donate all his tips to the tornado relief efforts and triggered a chain of generosity.

 

So we know that we can tap into our inner goodness when crisis strikes. But can we do it on a run-of-the-mill Monday?

 

That’s the question in front of you.  Will  you, class of 2013 step up to rebuild a culture of trust, empathy and compassion?  Our crisis of disconnection needs a renaissance of authentic friendship.  We need you to upgrade us from Me-Me-Me to We-We-We.

 

Reflecting on my own journey, there have been three keys that helped me return to a place of connection.  I’d like to share those with you today, in the hope that perhaps it might support your journey.

The First Key Is To Give 

 

In the movie Wall Street -- which originally came out well before you guys were born -- there’s a character named Gordon Gekko whose credo in life reads: Greed is good.  When I was about your age, Silicon Valley was in the seductive grip of the dot-com boom. It was a time when it was easy to believe that Greed was Good. But a small group of us had a different hypothesis:

 

*Maybe* greed is good, but Generosity is better.

 

We tested that hypothesis. When I startedServiceSpace, our first project was to build websites for nonprofits at no charge. We ended up building and gifting away thousands of sites, but that wasn’t our main goal. Our real purpose was to practice generosity.

 

In the early days, the media was pretty sure we had a hidden agenda. "We're doing this just to practice giving with no strings attached," we said. The few who actually believed us didn’t think we could sustain it. The thing is -- we did. A decade later, when our work started attracting millions of viewers, entrepreneurs told us that we'd be crazy to not slap on ads or try to monetize our services.  The thing is -- we didn't.  We probably *were* a bit crazy. And when we started Karma Kitchen, people really thought "No way!"  It was a restaurant where your check always read zero, with this note: "Your meal is paid for by someone before you, and now it’s your chance to pay it forward."  The thing is -- 25 thousand meals later, the chain continues in several cities around the globe.  

 

People consistently underestimate generosity, but human beings are simply wired to give.

 

In one study at Harvard, scientists surprised a couple hundred volunteers with an unexpected monetary reward and gave them the choice of keeping it or giving it away. The only catch was that they had to  make the decision spontaneously.  Lo and behold, the majority chose --- to give away the money! Greed, it turns out, is a calculated after thought.  Our natural instinct is, and always has been -- to give.

 

When you take Econ 101 in college, you will learn that all of economics is rooted in the assumption that people aim to maximize self-interest.  I hope you don’t just take that for granted.  I hope you challenge it.  Consider the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa who have rocked the history of our planet with the exact opposite assumption, with the belief in the goodness of our human nature.

 

Or consider Ruby Bridges.

 

Six-year-old Ruby was the first African American girl to go to an all-white school on Nov 14, 1960.  All the teachers refused to teach her, except for one Mrs. Henry.  Ruby received constant death threats and on the way to class every day, people would line up to shout and throw things.  Mrs. Henry instructed Ruby to not speak to anyone, as she crossed the jeering crowds every day.  But one day, she saw Ruby saying something, so she said, “Ruby, I told you not to speak to anyone.”  “No, Mrs. Henry, I didn’t say anything to them.”  “Ruby, I saw you talking.  I saw your lips moving.”  “Oh, I was just praying.  I was praying for them,” Ruby responded.  Then she recited her  prayer, and I quote “Please, God, try to forgive these people.  Because even if they say those bad things, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

 

A six year old!  Wishing well for those who were wishing her harm. How generous is that? And what does it say about the power of the human heart?

 

Our capacity to love is a currency that never runs out.  

 

May each of you tap into that generous ocean and discover every day, what it means to give.

The Second Key Is To Receive

 

When we give, we think we are helping others.  That's true, but we are also helping ourselves.  With any act of unconditional service, no matter how small, our bio-chemistry changes, our mind quiets, and we feel a sense of gratefulness.  This inner transformation fundamentally shifts the direction of our lives.

 

A couple summers ago, we had two 14-year-olds, Neil and Dillan, interning at ServiceSpace.  One of their projects was a 30 day kindness challenge -- they had to come up with and do a different act of kindness every day for a month. In the beginning they had to plan "kindness activities", but slowly they learned how to spontaneously turn their daily life into a canvas for giving.  Doing the dishes for mom without her asking, stopping to help a stranger with a flat tire, standing up for a bullied kid, gifting all their winnings at the arcade to a child.

 

Very quickly, kindness shifted from being an activity -- to a way of life.  

 

It wasn't just about who they were helping, it was about who they themselves were becoming through the process. Last weekend, I happened to see Neil after a while, the day after Senior Prom and he had a story to share, "Last night I noticed that the dance floor was too small and a few of the special needs students just couldn't get on.  So I grabbed a bunch of my friends, and we started dancing in a little circle around them.  Everyone had a great time."  Then, he paused for a reflective moment, and asked me, "But I felt so good about doing that.  Do you think I was being selfish?"

 

What a profound question.  What Neil experienced was the fact that when we give, we receive many times over.

 

Or as the Dalai Lama once put it, "Be Selfish, Be Generous.”  It is in giving that we receive.

 

When we think of generosity, we typically think of it as a zero sum game.  If I give you a dollar, that’s one less dollar for me. The inner world, though, operates with an entirely different set of rules.  The boundaries aren’t so easy to decipher.  Your state of being inherently affects my state of being. This isn’t feel-good talk. It’s actual science. Research shows that, in close proximity, when people feel connected, their individual heart-beats actually start to synchronize -- even with zero physical contact.  In neuroscience, the discovery of mirror neurons has shown us that we literally do feel each other’s pain -- and joy.  

 

And joy is *definitely* not a zero-sum game.  The law of abundance says that if I give you a smile, that's not one less smile for me.  

 

The more I smile, the more I *do* smile.  The more I love, the more love I have to give. So, when you give externally, you receive internally.  How do the two compare?  That's a question only you can answer for yourself, and that answer will keep changing as your awareness deepens.

 

Yet this much is clear: if you only focus on the externals, you’ll live your life in the deadening pursuit of power and products. But if you stay in touch with your inner truth, you will come alive with joy, purpose, and gratitude. You will tap into the law of abundance.

 

May you discover that to be truly selfish, you must be generous.  In giving, may you fully experience what it means to receive.

The Third Key Is To Dance

 

Our biggest problem with giving and receiving is that we try and track it.  And when we do that, we lose the beat. 

 

The best dancers are never singularly focused on the mechanics of their movements.  They know how to let go, tune into the rhythm and synchronize with their partners.

 

It’s like that with giving too.  It's a futile exercise to track who is getting what.  We just have to dance.

 

Take one of my friends for example, a very successful entrepreneur. 

 

Along his journey, he realized that it’s not just enough, as the cliché goes, to find your gifts.  Gifts are actually meant to be *given*.

 

In his daily life, he started cultivating some beautiful practices of generosity.  For instance, every time he walked into a fancy restaurant, he told the waiter to find a couple that is most madly in love.  "Put their tab on my bill, and tell them a stranger paid for their meal, with the hope that they pay it forward somewhere somehow," he would say. Being a fan of Batman, he took his anonymity seriously: "If anyone finds out it was me, the deal is off."

 

Many restaurants, and waiters, knew him for this.  And as a food connoisseur, some of his favorite places were also quite pricey -- upwards of a couple hundred bucks per person.

 

On one such day, he walks into a nice restaurant and does his usual drill.  The person serving him obliges.  However, this time, the waiter comes back with a counter request.  "Sir, I know you like to be anonymous, but when I told that couple about the tab being covered, the woman just started sobbing.  In fact, it’s been ten minutes and she's still tearing up.  I think it would make her feel better if you were to just introduce yourself, just this once."

 

Seeing this, he agree to break his own cardinal rule and walks over to introduce himself. "M'aam, I was only trying to make your day. If it has brought up something, I'm so sorry."  The woman excitedly says, "Oh no, not at all.  You’ve just made my year, maybe my life.  My husband and I, well, we work at a small nonprofit with physically challenged kids, and we have been saving up all year to have this meal here.  It is our one year marriage anniversary today.”  After a pause, she continues, “We always serve others in small ways, but to receive a kind act like this on our special day, well, it’s just an overwhelming testimonial that what goes around comes around.  It renews our faith in humanity.  Thank you.  Thank you *SO* much." 

 

All of them were in tears.  They kept in touch, he joined their board and they are friends to this day.

 

Now, in that scenario, who was the giver?  Who was the receiver?  And more importantly, does it even matter? Dancing, tells us to stop keeping track.  

Sometimes you're giving and sometimes you're receiving, but it doesn't really matter because the real reward of that give and take doesn’t lie in the value of what’s being exchanged.  The real reward lies in what flows between us – our connection.

Conclusion

 

So, my dear friends, there you have it.  The bad news is that we're in the middle of a crisis of disconnection, and the good news is that each and every one of you has the capacity to repair the web -- to give, to receive and to dance.

 

Sometime last year, I spontaneously treated a homeless woman to something she really wanted -- ice-cream.  We walked into a nearby 7-11, she got her ice-cream and I paid for it.  Along the way, though, we had a great 3-minute chat about generosity and as we’re leaving the store, she said something remarkable: "I'd like to buy you something.  Can I buy you something?" She empties her pockets and holds up a nickel. The cashier looks on, as we all  share a beautiful,  awkward, empathy-filled moment of silence.  Then, I heard my voice responding, “That’s so kind of you. I would be delighted to receive your offering.  What if we pay-it-forward by tipping this kind cashier who has just helped us?”  Her face breaks into a huge smile. “Good idea,” she says while dropping the nickel into the tip-jar.

No matter what you have, or don’t have, we can all give.  The good news is that generosity is not a luxury sport.

 

 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best, when he said, "Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve."  He didn't say, "You have to be smart to serve." Or "You have to be famous to serve." Or "You have to be rich to serve." No, he said, "*Everybody* can be great, because *everybody* can serve.  You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don't need to know the second law of thermodynamics to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

 

Harker Class of 2013, may you ALL find greatness in service to life.  May you all give, receive -- and never, *ever* stop dancing. 

This is a transcript of a commencement address Nipun Mehta delivered at The Harker School, May 2013. He is the founder of ServiceSpace.org, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of gift-economy, technology and volunteerism.

 

Nipun Mehtadelivered a lecture at the United Nations on Feb 15, 2012. CLICK HEREto read it.