Partition wouldn’t have happened if Jinnah had become PM: Dalai Lama
Panaji, Aug 08: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama on Wednesday said Jawaharlal Nehru had a “self-centred attitude” to become India’s first prime minister even though Mahatma Gandhi was in favour of Muhammad Ali Jinnah taking the top post at that time.
He also claimed India’s partition would not have happened if Mahatma Gandhi’s wish of Jinnah becoming the prime minister had materialised.
The 83-year-old monk was addressing an event at the Goa Institute of Management in Goa’s Sankhalim town, located about 40 km from Panaji.
Responding to a student’s question on taking right decisions, he said, “I feel democratic systems are very good than the feudal system, which gives power of making decisions in the hands of a few people, which is more dangerous.”
“Now look at India. I think Mahatma Gandhiji was very much willing to give the prime ministership to Jinnah. But Pandit Nehru refused,” he said.
“I think it was a little bit self-centred attitude of Pandit Nehru that he should be the prime minister... Mahatma Gandhiji’s thinking, if it had materialised, then India, Pakistan would have been united,” he said.
“So Pandit Nehru, I know very well, (was) very experienced person, very wise but sometimes mistake also happens,” he said.
To a question on the biggest fear that he encountered in life, the spiritual leader recalled the day he had to escape from Tibet along with his supporters.
“On the night of March 17, 1959, after 10th March crisis which was result of the problem that started in 1956, we had to escape,” he said.
Recalling how the problem in Tibet with China had started becoming worse, he said the attitude of Chinese officers kept on being more and more aggressive.
“So then on 17th night, in spite of all my efforts to cool down the situation, that very day, I decided that I cannot remain here and I escaped,” he said.
“(In the) meantime, the feeling whether I will see tomorrow or not topped my mind,” he added.
The monk said the route from where they escaped was quite near the Chinese military base. While passing along a river they could see the military personnel, he said narrating his journey from the neighbouring country into India.
“So we were completely quiet. But we cannot control the noise of horses’ feet. We really felt scared,” he said.
He said next day at the dawn, they were passing through a mountain and there was “every danger” of Chinese soldiers coming from two different places to stop them. “That was a fearful journey.”
“At the age of 16, I lost my freedom. At the age of 24, I lost my country. For 17 years, there was lot of suffering and lot of destruction in the country, but we kept our determination,” the Dalai Lama said.
He said the China’s power is its military force. “We can say from the barrel of gun.”
“Our strength is truth. Temporarily, the power of gun is more decisive but in the long run, the power of truth is much more stronger than the power of gun,” he said.
The monk said Tibetans never consider Chinese people as their enemy.
“We respect them. We always look at them as our human brothers and sisters,” he added.
Courtesy: www.deccanchronicle.com
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Bihar's 'Munnabhais': CBI registers fresh case in NEET-UG irregularities; 8 booked
New Delhi, Jan 15: The CBI has registered a fresh case in connection with alleged impersonation by four NEET-UG, 2024 candidates in Bihar's Purnea, officials said on Wednesday.
The central probe agency took over the case from Bihar Police on a request from the state government.
The principal of SRDAV public school, one of the centres for the prestigious medical entrance examination held on May 5 last year, has alleged that the candidates' biometrics showed four impersonators were taking the exam rather than genuine candidates, according to an FIR registered in the matter.
According to the FIR, one Nitish Kumar of Bhojpur appeared for Ashish Kumar of Mujaffarpur, Kamlesh Kumar of Jalore (Rajasthan) appeared for Dheeraj Prakash of Siwan, Saurabh Kumar of Begusarai appeared for Tathaghat Kumar of Sitamarhi and Mayank Chaudhary of Sitamarhi appeared for Deepak Kumar Singh of Muzaffarpur.
The CBI has booked all eight for alleged impersonation, cheating and forgery among others.
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other medical courses in government and private institutions.
The exam was conducted on May 5, 2024 at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 abroad. More than 23 lakh candidates appeared for the test.
The Bihar Police launched a crackdown after getting inputs of an alleged leak of the paper and it soon snowballed into a major political issue.
The Union education ministry handed over the probe to the CBI, which had registered several FIRs in the case, taking over probes from different states including Bihar.
The agency had registered first FIR into the case on June 23 last year.
