Freedom in Politics

‘The First Freedom Struggle of India was a political struggle in which lawyers, including Mahatma Gandhi, played the key role’, the Baba continued:

‘The Second Freedom Struggle of India will have to be an Integral Revolution for spiritualization of economics and politics. This will be essentially an educational mission in which teachers in India, especially the spiritually-oriented and value-conscious teachers in India, will have to play the key role. They will have to serve as enlightened leaders of the Second Freedom Struggle, of the Integral Revolution’. …The Baba concluded….

Atma Prakash was absorbed in the words of his guruji.

There was a fire of a new kind of revolution burning in his heart……. The fire of an ‘Integral Revolution’. From being a violent naxalite revolutionary leader, he is now being transformed into an enlightened leader and a prophet of an Integral Revolution… Enlightened National Politics.

‘What is this new concept? I have not heard about such a politics before. Can you explain it to me?’ Atma Prakash asked. 

The Baba looked at his disciple with great love, and said: 

‘Let me begin with a quotation from Mahatma Gandhi. As you know, I love Gandhi a great deal.. He is a role model for me in many things… though I have my serious differences with him in a number of issues…. He had said, I quote: “Today the system of Government is so devised as to affect every department of our life. It threatens our very existence. If therefore we want to conserve the welfare of the nation, we must religiously interest ourselves in the doings of the governors and exert moral influence on them by insisting on their obeying the laws of morality.”….

‘The Government is there to serve the citizens of India to govern themselves effectively based on the Constitutional values of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. But if it starts controlling all aspects of our lives, as it tends to do today, it will threaten our very existence. Hence, in order to conserve the welfare of the nation, we must sincerely and seriously take interest in the decisions and activities of the Government and exert moral influence on the decision-makers, especially on our MPs and MLAs, and ensure that they obey the laws of morality. Enlightened national politics, my son, is an effort to fulfill this our national responsibility as responsible citizens’ the Baba said and looked at this disciple.

Atma Prakash waited eagerly.

The Baba continued: ‘Politics can be defined as the art and science of nation-building through participatory decision-making and effective governance. Seen from this perspective, ‘democracy’ is the most advanced form of politics developed by humankind so far. How will you define ‘democracy’, my son?’ the Baba asked.

‘The concept of ‘democracy’ was defined by Abraham Lincoln as ‘the government of the people, by the people and for the people’. This is a definition well accepted all over the world today. ‘We the people of India’ have also accepted and adopted this definition of democracy, guruji’ answered Atma Prakash.

‘Quite right, my son’, the Baba said, and he continued: 

Excerpts from Integral Revolution