Report on First Lakshmanrao Bhide Memorial Lecture
11th January 2007 - Mumbai
The programme started with a 10-minute film on Shri Lakshmanrao Bhide. The film was an emotional experience to many as it gave glimpses of Shri Bhideji's visits to many corners of the world and rightly portrayed his personality.
Dr Satish Modh, President of Vishwa Adhyayan Kendra, Mumbai welcomed the gathering and the distinguished personalities viz, Shri Sudarshanji, Dr Ajit Phadke, eminent Urologist and Shri Shankarrao Tatwawadi - Sanyojak of Vishwa Vibhag of RSS. Dr Modh elaborated upon the aims and objectives of VAK and its efforts to stimulate India-centric thinking about the world events through organising conferences and seminars.
Dr Tatwawadi delved into the work of Late Lakshmanrao Bhide and applauded his pioneering effort of organising People of Indian Origin across the world since 1958 beginning from Kenya and spreading into other parts of the world.
A Hindi version of Mouna Tapasvi, a compilation of articles and anecdotes on the life of Bhideji was released on the occasion. The compilation of the articles and anecdotes have been done by Shri Yadavrao Deshmukh who had worked with Bhideji for several years.
RSS Sarsanghchalak Man. Sudarshanji, while delivering the lecture exhorted all Hindus to prepare for future challenges in the era of conflicts created by actions of people motivated by individualistic aspirations.
Shri Sudarshanji compared the Hindu philosophy with Christian, Islamic, Marxist and Capitalistic way of thinking. He traced the origin of Christianity and Islam and the reasons for the clash of civilisation as it is happening today.
He said that the theory of capitalism suggests that the only way to run an economy efficiently is to let everyone pursue mainly, if not exclusively, his/her own advantage. The theory of communism is that the economy works best when everybody acts according to 'plans' for the common public good. In capitalistic system there is a tendency to accumulate the profits produced out of the collective efforts of millions of workers. This, ultimately, creates sad maladjustment in all the spheres of human activity. We have seen, national and even international peace being threatened, as evident in revolutions in Russia or current events in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Capitalism and communism have not succeeded in reducing the grave inequalities. They have created more confrontations in the society. In both the types of societies, differences in the lifestyles of people at the top and the bottom have widened in spite of attempts to narrow them down. One of the reasons for this is that no two men are equal and there is a conflict between people belonging to different strata of the same community. Furthermore, the intellectual, cultural, and physical differences play their part and fuel greed.
In the materialist West, it was believed that matter is basic and the mind is only a superstructure on it. Materialism increases the feeling that increased consumption increases his or her satisfaction with life. Not all-material desires are bad; acquisition is natural and a healthy part of one's life. Only, too much emphasis on acquisition-related happiness creates some imbalance in an individual's mental health.