Nobel Laureate Professor Abdus Salam toured
several Indian cities in 1986, and in one of the
speeches he made (The Times of India, 16 January,
1986), he cited South Korea as an example of
extraordinarily rapid national development. He
said that about 15 years ago, the gross national
product per capita there was equal to that of India,
but that thanks to the efforts the Koreans had made,
it was now many times more. Giving the example of
the team who had come from South Korea to
Trieste, in Italy, where he resides, to find out from
him how Nobel Prizes were won, he said that a
similar spirit needed to be inculcated in the people
of the Third World. He felt that it was this questing
spirit which was the basis for all progress, be it of
an individual or of a nation, and that this was true
of progress both in this world and in the world
hereafter.
All too often a process of stagnation sets in in the
affairs of a nation. It would appear that an impasse
had been reached. Instead of effort, there is inertia.
When this stage is reached, a nation begins to
tumble in disarray down the ladder of progress
towards the lowermost rung and it is only the
seekers, the strivers, who can pull it upwards from
such an ignominious position and set it back on the
path of progress. It is only the questing spirit which
can put it right back up on the topmost rung of the
ladder of progress.
--Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
( Ref - The Moral Vision)
