ग़ुम हूँ मैं

हूँ मैं एक व्यस्त चौराहे पे

पूछता घर का पता जानकारों से,

ना जाने कहाँ ग़ुम हूँ मैं|

हर ओर एक राह, एक गंतव्य है

कुछ भी हालाँकि दूर नहीं,

लेकिन फिर भी कहीं ग़ुम हूँ मैं|

अँधेरा है, कहीं कुछ कृतृम रौशनी भी|

ये रौशनी भी मगर, अँधेरे से कम नहीं

राह दिखाना तो दूर, कुछ छुपाती है ये

इस रौशनी में भी, हाय! क्यों ग़ुम हूँ मैं|

खड़ा हूँ हाथ में मशाल लिए

भटकों को पथ दिखाता, बेफिक्र;

किन्तु कहीं ग़ुम हूँ मैं|

ग़ुम हूँ मैं उन राहों में

जो किसी नक़्शे में नहीं, और

जिस तरफ कोई आता-जाता नहीं

हाँ लेकिन ग़ुम हूँ मैं|

The seed is the same… Why not love each other!!

Many a times we come to hear/read about cruelty, corruption, crimes, and other form of actions that takes the whole humanity back in time (in terms of technological/mental/economical/conscience development). Most of us want such things to be eradicated. In fact, we want to remove all the evil from its very root. However, we are never able to find its roots.

And then, we come across many things that go antagonistically with these things. Revolution! We talk about revolution. We find hope in revolution. Yes! There is hope in revolution. There is always a ray of hope in the actions, which were never tried. And we have seen a number of revolutions all around the world.

Here I would like to present a small piece of information about one of the major revolutions ever that changed the world. I am talking about the Russian Revolution. On the basis of this revolution, World’s history can be divided into two parts (though there are many turning points). Russian Revolution for the first time presented a new socio-political system. The system existed before, but on papers only. Thanks to Karl Marx and his theory of communism. During the First World War, Vladimir Lenin took the eminence of converting Marx’s formulation of Communism into practical model. He led the Bolsheviks (majority faction of Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) to the government replacing the Tsardom of Russia, through a series of revolutions starting from February Revolution, to October Revolution followed by a Civil war. The series of revolution resulted in the formation of Soviet Union. Soviet Union was first of its kind’s state. It was an exemplary model of communism. Unfortunately, the Marxist revolutionary wave started by Lenin and accompanied by Leon Trotsky did not last long and was limited to the Russia only (Other similar revolutions in Germany and Hungary were unsuccessful).

After Lenin other communist leaders like Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev came into power in Soviet Union. Another major Communist leader I should not forget is China’s Mao Zedong.

However, there are many interesting facts about all these leaders.

1.       Stalin was Lenin’s ally in the Russian Revolution and played an important role in 1921’s Red Army Invasion of Georgia. It was since then he started introducing his own ideas into the revolution and going against his own leader, Lenin. Nevertheless, Lenin appointed Stalin as General Secretary of Communist Party of the Soviet Union next year. Later on, their relationship deteriorated and both criticized each other’s policies.

2.       Stalin ruled the Soviet Union until his death in 1953, during which, he earned the image of being very cruel (Stalinism or click here is the word used for his cult of personality). Soon after his death, Nikita Khrushchev replaced him as the Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As soon as he got the power, he started an act famously known as de-Stalinization. He is considered for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union. During his power reign, he also supported Mao Zedong to bring Revolution in China. Mao Zedong was the leader of China’s Revolution and architect of People’s Republic of China. He is also counted among the most influencing politicians (rather personalities) of the world of all time.

3.       With Nikita’s help, Mao engineered the People’s Republic of China, and laid the foundation stone of China’s economic development.   Between 1954 to 1959, Nikita transported about 7% of Soviet’s national income to China, which is considered as the greatest transfer of technology in the history of world. However, things never remained same, differences arose and that turned Mao to go against the Khrushchev. Their relation was spoiled to the extent that Soviets destroyed an atomic bomb with papers instead of providing it to China against their plan.

4.       Nikita Khrushchev Controlled the Soviet Union until 1964, before his own party members kicked him out of the power. Leonid Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev after a long planning with the party workers. About Zedong Mao, though he is viewed as a great intellectual, poet, philosopher and visionary, he remains a controversial figure until now.

5.       Today only China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea are the communist countries. And all of us know how much do we appreciate their policies.

6.       Here is the definition of today’s communist state: A state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of communist party and a professed allegiance to a communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state.

      I noticed a common thing in all the communist leaders mentioned here, which is their family background. I would suggest all the readers to go through the links. Except Marx (only a theoretician), who is known to hail from an enlightened background, everyone is from a poor background.

I am not saying that the poor can’t rule, or they are not able to handle the state. But, the reason of them to emerge as ruler should not be the ‘Power’; hunger for the ‘Power’. All of them had the urge to rule and transform the current situation according to their own ideologies (which was backed by an intellectual known as Karl Marx). As summarized by the Marx himself in the first chapter of “The Communist Manifesto” as “The history of all hitherto (so far) existing society is the history of class struggles”. As capitalism replaced feudalism, socialism would in turn replace capitalism. And XYZ system would replace socialism. And the vicious cycle will never end.

The cycle is never going to end, because the root cause of all the revolutions is same. And the reason is non-acceptance of the current system. When this non-acceptance turns into revolution, society changes, nobody knows for how long.

This will go on, until the seed is the same. We cannot evolve from a seed of non-acceptance. We cannot evolve from the seed of hatred. We can’t evolve from a seed of ‘hunger for power’. We cannot develop within from a seed that itself has come from the fruits of evil. An evil will always give rise to another evil. If we wish to uproot the evil, we need just need to discard the seed of evil and work on the seed that brings the good.

Why not use the seed of ‘Love’.Love brings no evil. Anything coming out of love will be lovable. So why not love each other and spread the seeds of ‘Love’ all around. Want to bring a revolution? Bring the revolution of 'LOVE'.

Today on the Valentine’s Day, I appeal everyone to sow the seeds of ‘LOVE’.