INDIA RELIGIOUS, BUT ALSO HAVE LOTS OF CORRUPTION : DALAI LAMA

The Dalai Lama has said that despite being a “religious country,” there is a “lot of corruption” in modern India and some of those corrupt are “highly educated” citizens.

Addressing the convocation of the Martin Luther Christian University (MLCU) in which 500 odd students received their degrees, the Dalai Lama said: “India is a religious country, but there is a lot of corruption here.”

He said that some of these corrupt individuals were highly educated in the “modern” system of education. He added that many pray and offer “flowers and incense sticks” to their Gods so that their “corrupt lives” could be made successful.  

The audience burst into a spontaneous applause and laughter to the Dalai Lama’s observation, which however, put the Meghalaya Governor KK Paul, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma and many others on the dais and in the gathering to shuffle uneasily in their chairs.

The Dalai Lama’s observation on corruption relates to the number of scams that have surfaced in the country over the years and also the global corruption perception index (Transparency International), which has continuously put India at the bottom of its list, as one of the most corrupt nations of the world.

Emphasizing on honesty, tolerance, non-violence, trust and secularism, the Dalai Lama said these virtues would help in the long run and these have been the hallmark of India’s ancient tradition and opened new vistas for the modern world.     

“India is the greatest contributor of human knowledge to the world,” he said. Calling himself a “student of the Nalanda tradition” of learning, the Dalai Lama said the vast ancient knowledge from Universities such as Nalanda, Taxila and others must be merged with the modern system of education.

“The concept of quantum physics was taught 2000 years back in Universities such as Nalanda, moreover, the ancient Indian psychology was also highly developed” he told the gathering.  

Meanwhile, the Nobel Laureate, who is here on his maiden visit to Meghalaya, was conferred an honorary doctorate degree on Philosophy by the MLCU.