Dr Karan Singh speech
“A good book 📚 is life-blood of civilization. Life will become insipid and colourless without books. Good, mignificent books 📚 spur us on to think positively and lead a meaningful life. And good quality books 📚 have always occupied a central place in Indian culture. The glorious cultural legacy of ours should be carried through books.”
This was Dr Karan Singh, former Union minister of education, speaking on the “Importance of Books 📚” at the Patna Book Fair this (Tuesday December 20, 1994) evening. A major exponent of Hindu culture and psyche, Dr Karan Singh quoted frequently from classical Sanskrit (संस्कृत) texts, Vedas and Upanishads, and exhorted the youth and students to inculcate wisdom and exquisite spirituality to be found in abundance in the Indian classics.
Known for vast condition and masterly command over several languages, Dr Singh dwelt at length on his early influence and cursorily confessed his passionate adolescent liking for the books 📚 of Arthur Connon Doyle and PG Wodehouse. In the next stage, Dr Singh said. Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘An Autobiography’, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s ‘An Ideal View of Life’ and books 📚 by Bertrand Russel and Arthur Huxley made great influences on his life. These writers coupled with Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato led me to the wonderful world 🌎 of books 📚 and thus began the life-long quest for knowledge, he said.
Terming ideas and ideology as the staple stuff of Indian books 📚, the charming orator quoted a well-known maxim of Gautam Buddha “an unanalysed life is not worth living” but attributed it to the Upanishad and suggested that apart from individual salvation we should also do something for the welfare of the society. ‘Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam’ (वासुदेव कुटुम्बकम) and ‘Bahujan Hitaya, Bahujan Sukhay’ (बहुजन हित, बहुजन सुख) [The whole world 🌎 is our family; and good of many happiness of many], have been the ultimate ideals of Indian culture, and in the present era of globalisation, this wisdom could be of profound significance, he opined.
Cautioning against the lurking tendency of insularity and intellectual myopia, the extraordinary savant was of the view that one should imbibe ideas and wisdom from all possible sources. Tolerance of plurality of ideas and respect for alien 👽 cultures were of prime importance in the strife-stricken world 🌎 of today, he emphasized. Quoting the famous ‘Rig Vedic’ maxim ‘Ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti(Truth is one: learned people express it in different ways), Dr Karan Singh highlighted some of the salient features of human civilization in support of universal humanity.
Speaking on the onslaught of television and diminishing reading habits, Dr Karan Singh said that a book 📚 culture should be incorporated in the audio-visual medium and it should not be allowed to function as a mere vehicle of shallow, cheap entertainment as was the case today. Television has become inevitable and an inelienable part of our life,and hence this powerful medium must be used for healthy upbringing and education of our children, he added.
Towards the end of his beautiful speech, delivered in chaste Hindi and liberally interspersed with Sanskrit ‘shlokas’ and ‘suktiyan’, the formerly the Prince of Kashmir also showered praise on the lovely climate and refreshing cold of Patna and saw a glimpse here of his native Kashmir. A beauteous tract of nature, Kashmir was rightly considered the paradise on earth, Dr Singh said in an emotionally chocked voice, but today it had dangered itself into a living inferno.
Earlier, in brief presidential address, Mr Shankar Dayal Singh, MP, in his characteristic panegyric style showered full-throated encomiums on Dr Karan Singh. Praising the former education minister to skies, Mr Shankar Dayal Singh said, “some people are to be seen (for stunning looks), some people are to be heard (for masterly oratory) and some people are to be delicately kept in heart 💓 and mind (for greatness of soul): Dr Karan Singh is the rare embodiment of all these.”
Dr Karan Singh also released, on the occasion, the Souvenir of the Patna Book 📚 Fair ’94 and a fiction ‘Izzat Ki Zindagi ‘, written by Mr Jiya Lal Arya, Home Secretary. Mr NK Jha, Member-Secretary of Patna Book Fair coducted the meeting.
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