SPEECH
BY SHRI K.R. NARAYANAN, PRESIDENT OF INDIA, WHILE INAUGURATING THE
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "THE EVALUATION AND INTERACTION OF TECHNOLOGY,
ECONOMY, POLITY AND SOCIETY" UNDER THE AUSPICES OF INDIRA GANDHI
MEMORIAL TRUST
NEW DELHI, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1999
Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Distinguished
delegates of the Conference, I
am indeed very happy to participate in this Conference, intended to pay
a tribute to the memory of Smt. Indira Gandhi. A conference of intellectuals
like this is the kind of tribute she would have enjoyed. As just pointed
out by Smt. Sonia Gandhi, she was a person of great intellectual curiosity
and loved meeting intellectuals and reading books. I recollect that when
she came to the United States in 1982 on an official visit, I organised
meetings of intellectuals and artists with her and how tremendously she
enjoyed the experience of this interaction with them. I also saw how she
visited book shops after book shops looking for new books and acquired
them.
The theme of the conference is a fascinating one and something which Smt.
Indira Gandhi would have liked to participate. It is about the Next
Century – Whose Century? Well, is any century anybody’s, we will have
to first of all ask? If a century is that of anyone, it would be that
of the people, of the common people of the world. It has been some times
said that the 17th Century in Europe was the age of reason;
the 18th Century was the age of enlightenment; the 19th Century was the age of progress and the 20th century the age
of anxiety and of extremes. It seems that as time rolled on, there has
been a deterioration in the quality of a century. What would be the next
century? With the present one, has been one of anxiety and extremes, what
kind of century would be the next one. I think most probably this would
be a century of uncertainties. One cannot detect now any enduring trend
that would govern thinking in the next century.
Science and technology
are galloping in their discoveries and inventions and if there is anything
unpredictable in science, it is that we do not know what it is going to
discover next. The quality of a period is largely determined by science
and technology on the one hand and on the other by the thinking of the
people, by the minds of the people and their ideas. The interaction between
these two would produce the next century for us. Arnold
Toynbee has characterised the present century as the one in which the
most remarkable things have not been political conflicts or technical
inventions but the idea that the welfare of the people as a whole is going
to be the pre-dominant feature of our times. "The fact that people
dare to think about the welfare of the people in this way was a major
event", he said. In another occasion, he said that "the awakening
in the minds and hearts of people everywhere, especially in the three
quarters of the world, where the poorer people live could be the most
outstanding event of this century and probably the next one also".
But
can we visualise the next century being radically different from this?
I do not think we will all wake up on the first of January, 2000 AD as
different people. We will probably be the same people, with the same ideas
waking up and unless something very powerful happens to fashion our minds,
human beings are not going to be different in the 21st century.
If they are not different, the century will not be entirely different
also.Somebody
asked in the United States early this year to select 100 major events
of the century. This question was asked of scholars, journalists and artists.
The reply which came was amazing. They did not say that the invention
of the atom bomb or the discovery of the DNA or even the founding of the
United Nations were the major events of the century. On the other hand,
the unanimity of the opinion was that the voting rights given to women
was the major event of the century. It is amazing that such an answer
should emerge from the United States.I
recall that in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi had sent a letter to a Conference
of Women in China. In that letter, he said "if the women of the world
will get together, they will have a power to kick away the atom bomb like
a mere ball because they have in them that god-given power to do so".
Therefore, women’s power will certainly emerge as one major force which
will be shaping the next century and women’s power would be the crux of
the power of the common people that will be expressed in the next century.
Of course, this is a constructive way of looking at it. But there are
negative forces also at play.
We
know that the 20th century has been one of the bloodiest centuries
in human history. Wars have been fought and immense destruction has been
caused and therefore will be the aspirations of the common people assert
themselves in the next century against the forces of domination and inequality
working in the whole world. This is a major question we have to pose.
We talk about globalisation. But can there be globalisation when there
are such vast inequalities in the world? It will be globalisation imposed
by some dominant group against the rest of humanity. Therefore, this Conference,
I hope will think about what would be the main human characteristics which
would govern the next century. From
our Indian experience, I would like to project that if we will have to
survive as a one world, without conflicts and without vast destruction,
it would be necessary for the quality of tolerance to emerge in the world.
World is going to be willy nilly a pluralistic world, a very diverse world;
different thinkings, different religions, different languages will persist
in the 21st century and therefore if we are to live together
harmoniously in this planet, we have to learn the art of tolerating each
other and living together.
This living together in harmony and mutual
tolerance requires great empathy into the feelings and aspirations of
other people. There has been tendencies in the world, one cannot say what
it is but there are tendencies one has noticed, that whether the quality
and tolerance towards this is a movement of human society or imposing
the will of one section of mankind or the interest of one section
of mankind on the rest. One
point I have noticed is that even though there is great upheaval among
people against the existence of nuclear weapons and the demand for de-nuclearisation
of the world for the human race to live in happiness and harmony, there
are people who believe that these are – nuclear weapons – essential for
the world. For example, sometime ago, I think, there was a case in the
International Court of Justice at the Hague in which a private party wanted
the Court to declare whether the use or the threat of use of nuclear weapons
is illegal in international law. It is interesting to notice that several
nuclear powers, people who have nuclear weapons, their lawyers argued
before the Court that in all circumstances the use of nuclear weapons
cannot be declared to be illegal. That means they visualised that there
are circumstances in which these weapons can be used legally under international
law. And also connected with this they wanted the Court to declare that
genocide is illegal. But then the lawyers of the great developing countries
and powerful countries argued and introduced a definition of what is ‘genocide’.
They had the dictionary definition of this term saying that genocide is
"destroying a religious group or ethnic group or a part of a race".
But if by dropping the atom bomb, the whole race can be destroyed, that
does not constitute genocide.It
is a marvellous definition of what genocide is. The whole human race can
be destroyed legally under international law, but it is illegal to destroy
any particular section of it. These kinds of arguments says there is a
tendency, thinking, in the minds of many people that we are not going
towards the abolition of inequalities but the maintenance of certain basic
inequalities in the world.In
the midst of this interplay of the different views, one cannot say what
kind of century would be emerging. You have to think of these in terms
of the philosophy of clash of civilisation which is being projected. Must
civilisations clash? Somebody has remarked that it is barbarism that clashes,
not civilisation. If civilisation is a conflicting element, I do not know,
if human race should seek the incivilised. It should be a harmonising
element, it should be what will make it possible for people to live together
peacefully, work together for common good.The
present tendency of globalisation is something which argues against certain
basic identities, the identities of groups and now even of nations is
considered to be illogical and outdated in a globalised world.
I do not
think this is a constructive development. Much of human culture is associated
with group experiences embodied often in the national experience of peoples.
If globalisation is considered as overleaping nationalism, then much of
the valuable experiences of mankind and its culture would be superceded
by this phenomenon called globalisation. Therefore it is essential, while
the world is moving towards a one world and we are certainly globalising,
the rich cultural characteristics and intellectual contributions made
by particular communities, nations and groups should be preserved rather
than destroyed by the phenomenon of globalisation.Well,
there are enough issues for this Conference to think about. I think it
is a challenging subject and Smt. Indira Gandhi would have loved to listen
to the discussions in this conference. I think Indira Gandhi’s father,
Prime Minister Nehru, was described by Einstein once that "He is
the Prime Minister of tomorrow". He meant that Nehru was a Prime
Minister who had a vision of the future. Another, it was Maurice Strong,
I think had characterised Indira Gandhi as the ‘First Planetary Citizen’,
because she talked not only in terms of small groups, but she talked in
terms of the whole planet, of the earth, of the environment and how to
protect and save it. These are the challenging issues before this Conference,
and issues which would have delighted the heart of Indira Gandhi. I hope
you will have most satisfying and exciting time at this Conference and
I wish every success to this Conference.
|
