Editorial
Holy Ashura
An ennobling message put across
Tenth of Muharram today, a great day of transcending radiance in Islamic calendar. It marks the culmination of mourning over the tragedy enacted on the burning sands of Karbala by the tyrannical hands of Yazid's army. But in truth, it went down in history as the triumph of Karbala. This is because of principles emerging victorious through an undaunted sacrifice over the forces of tyranny and debasement represented by Yazid. Furthermore, the sheer grief that the cruelty of the evil incarnate engendered emboldened the faithful into a stony resolve to stand their ground. The saga of the Prophet's (pbuh) grandson Hazrat Imam Hossain (RA) embracing martyrdom with members of his immediate family and an indefatigable followers has left indelible imprints on the subsequent course of Islamic history. It is the much fabled sacrifice for the sake of principles steeped in real-time history that confers on it a dignity far beyond legends. In terms of immediate power struggle, Yazid could boast he pulled off a success, but evidently it was a triumphalism full of deceit.In everyday life, we have to make all kinds of choices -- between good and evil, between benign and pernicious and between right and wrong. What makes winnowing the chafe from the grain difficult in today's complex world is that things are no longer separable as black and white. There are variegated tinges to them. That's why we need to be uncompromising with time-honoured norms and principles with a flair for modernist rationality characterising our pursuit of truth, fairness and justice. Given the far-reaching significance of Ashura, let's not turn it into a ceremony of mourning but draw from it a robust inspiration to live by principles.
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