 those of you who read what the commissioner of Pune police said yesterday and day before, but how an 80-year-old Telugu poet was apparently conspiring to import rocket launchers from Russia and China via Nepal to assassinate a beloved prime minister. And I thought that the Pune police commissioner should be really writing a series of crime fantasy novels and I tweeted yesterday linking the leading publishers in India saying please start a bidding war so that the commissioner can get a comfortable retirement and save at least a due process of law from his fiction. Now I am not a creative writer and I have no hesitation in saying that mere historians are craftspeople, they are artisans, they are not great artists, you know compared to filmmakers and poets and playwrights and novelists, we are an inferior species. I have no hesitation in saying so, but sometimes we deal with great people. We have the privilege of soaking ourselves in the words, the ideas, the actions of people immeasurably greater than us and I am going to reflect on two remarks made by people I regard as the greatest modern Indians Mohandas Gandhi and Babasai Bhanpreetkar. And please note I placed them together, not separately and I am glad that opposite the Vice Chancellor's office, both of them are together because the Vice Chancellor of Jaffa was sitting here and I was taught by our common friend D. R. Dagraj not to see Gandhi and Ambedkar as rivals but as collaborators and co-workers in the making of a democratic and rural India. So we need, we needed Gandhi and Ambedkar in the 30s and the 40s and we need them still today and I could remind you of as I said one remark each of them made, first Gandhi. Now there are 90 volumes of Gandhi's collected works and I have spent the last decade reading and re-reading them and from those 90 volumes one image strikes me as profoundly relevant to our country today and indeed fairly relevant to our deliberations this morning. In 1920 at the time of the non-co-operation movement when for the first time Indians all across India regardless of caste and gender and language and religion came onto the streets fighting non-violently for freedom from British rule and for the first time there was a consciousness among ordinary Indians that one day we would be free. At this stage in 1920 Gandhi wrote a three-paragraph article defining Swaraj, what would Swaraj be and he said the Swaraj of my conception is a bed with four sturdy posts and these four posts are non-violence, Hindu-Muslim harmony, abolition of untouchability and economic self-reliance. Non-violence, Hindu-Muslim harmony, abolition of untouchability and economic self-reliance and that image of 1920 a hundred years later is still with us if we want to nurture a democratic, plural, tolerant, sustainable India. I would add to that image when Gandhi says non-violence I would say non-violence not only in deep but also in world. One of the most poisonous aspects of public discourse today is the violence done to the language and the use of abuse, indimendo, vituperation to damn your enemies. I mean Gandhi was profoundly courteous in his dealing with everyone even those with whom he deeply disagreed. So non-violence in word and action, Hindu-Muslim harmony Gandhi lived and died for, Hindus and Muslims were of course the two major religious communities but I would expand that to say tolerance for all forms of difference regards to religion or language. I was glad that Satyu mentioned he has no religious beliefs. One of Gandhi's most interesting disciples was a man called Gora who was an atheist and I would urge you to read Gora's book and Atheist with Gandhi. So non-violence in word indeed respect for religious and linguistic and intellectual diversity to abolition of untouchability which is what Gandhi said in 1920 I would add abolition of caste and gender distinction because Gandhi I think was profoundly aware of the inequities of the caste system somewhat less aware of the inequities of patriarchy as witnesses treatment of his own wife for example. So a hundred years later we must go beyond Gandhi and work for an India which is free of caste and gender distinctions. At the last point about economic self-reliance and the kind of work that Prasanna and his organization are doing is crucial here. Economic self-reliance but also with a view to environmental sustainability not just providing employed dignified employment and income to everyone but without prejudicing the rights of future generations. So this image of Gandhi that Swaraj to be robust and secure and sustaining must have four sturdy posts. Non-violence, religious and linguistic diversity, abolition of caste and gender distinction and economic self-reliance and environmental sustainability is the first image I wanted to share with you. The second image comes from Ambedkar which is much later. It's from his last speech to the Constance Assembly made in November 1949. It's a wonderful speech. It's online. I urge each one of you to read it if you have not read it. If you have read it read it in a press. The two aspects of that speech that are compellingly relevant today. What is where he says it's the last speech to the Constance Assembly. He has drafted, redrafted, finalized the Constitution. It's going to come in effect in a month's time. And he says on 26 January 1950 when the Constitution comes into effect we will become a democracy. We will enter an era of one person, one vote. But when will we enter an era of one person, one value? When will each voter be treated alike? Political democracy does not mean social and cultural democracy. You have to work hard to assure it. And 70 years later or almost 75 years later that gap still continues. And the last aspect of that speech which is in many ways absolutely prophetic and speaks to the India we live in today aspects of which Satyu Alidu too goes like this. This is Ambedkar in 1949. Bhakti in religion is a root to the salvation of the soul. Bhakti in religion Prasanna mentioned the Bhakti movement in our state. Bhakti in religion is a root to the salvation of the soul. Bhakti in politics is a root to dictatorship. No person however great is greater than the country. And Ambedkar says and he has people like Nehru and Patel and Gandhi in mind. He says however much anyone has contributed to the country you must not lay down your liberties at the feet of a single man because Bhakti in religion is a root to the salvation of the soul. Bhakti in politics is a root to dictatorship.