The well-known Indian thinker, Mr. Jayaprakash Narayan (1902-1979) had turned down the proposal of his candidature for presidentship of India in 1967 because he did not consider it ‘a very honourable situation to read speeches prepared by somebody else.’

“Please keep me off this. I am not interested even in the highest office. Somebody else would prepare my speech and I would have to deliver it as my own or my government’s. I do not consider this a very honourable situation. So please excuse me,” he said to his socialist colleague, Mr. Surindernath Dwivedi. No doubt he could not bear to contemplate such limitations of his mental and moral freedom.

Mr. Surindernath Dwivedi has mentioned this interesting reaction of Mr. Jayaprakash Narayan in his recently published book “Quest for Socialism.”

Similar was the reaction of the former vice-president of India, Mr. Hedayatullah. After having resigned from vice-presidentship, he remarked:

“I am feeling as free as a bird.”

High positions of power have always been objects of envy for the people. However, these coveted seats lose their charm as soon as they come within our grasp. The price we pay for them is our freedom —mental, moral, emotional and physical—and surely renunciation of such freedoms are too great a price to pay for anything so purely material.     □

They were obsessed with
thoughts of the next world

Hasan Basri saw many of the Companions of the Prophet. This is how he described them in a lecture to his contemporaries: “I met seventy of those who fought at Badr. They usually wore wool. If you were to see them, you would think they were mad. If they were to see the best of you, they would think that these people have nothing to do with religion. If they were to see the worst of you, they would say that these people have no faith in the Day of Judgement. I have seen people to whom the world has less meaning than the dust beneath their feet.”