ILLUMINATING THE HUMAN SPIRIT: DR JERNAIL SINGH ANAND’S LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ODYSSEY
THE MORAL ARCHITECT: DR JERNAIL SINGH ANAND’S IMPACT ON GLOBAL LITERATURE AND ETHICS.
Dr. Jernail Singh Anand is an Indian poet and philosopher who holds the distinction of being the only poet who was conferred the Honorary Membership of the prestigious Serbian Writers Association. The award of Charter of Morava and carving his name on the Poets’ Rock in the heart of Serbia were honours which no poet from India holds. These days he was in international news because he was invited by Dr Dragan Stanic, Director of Matica Srpska [Queen Bee], a 200 years old organization dedicated to literary and scientific research, in Novi Sad. The topic of his speech was ‘The Dialectic of Spirituality and the Ethical Imperative’ in which he observed that spirituality is an activist creed, and has nothing to do with religiosity. Thereafter, Dr Anand was invited for Poetry Reading by the Serbian Writers Association, which was a great success.
The programme was held under the chairmanship of Dr. Vidak, Vice President and Dr. Maja Herman Sekulic, the literary icon of Serbia, introduced Dr. Anand’s phenomenal work [170 books] and qualitative excellence of his work. The visit of Dr Anand was widely covered by the national TV and media networks.
Dr Anand was conferred the Seneca Award ‘Laudis Charta’ during his visit to Italy by Academy of Philosophical Arts and Sciences, Bari, on Oct. 19, 2024, and the Giants of Global Culture Award at Rome, by Federation Global and Unaccc on 11 Nov 2024, along with doctoral degree Honoris Causa at the Pontifical University Auditorium, Rome. Dr. Anand already holds a doctorate degree from Panjab Univesity, Chandigarh, and a doctoral degree honoris causa from University of Engg. and Management, Jaipur.
After his first book ‘The Monster Within’ [1985], Dr. Anand has come a long way to publish more than 170 books which make him the greatest living author, not only for the sheer number of his opus, but also for its qualitative transcendence. Dr.Maja Herman Sekulic, a Serbian-US scholar has described Dr. Anand as the greatest poet among philosophers and greatest philosopher among poets. While commenting on his capabilities as an author, and reacting to his Mahakaal Trilogy, which features his greatest work of the modern century, ‘Lustus: The Prince of Darkness’, she considers him the greatest moralist and the greatest satirist of our times.
Dr. Anand has written poetry, fiction, non-fiction, philosophy and spirituality, and his reputation rests on his work in critical theory as well, where he has developed the theory of biotext. Five of his books were translated into Persian, and the English Dept. of University of Neyshabur, Iran, carried out a research project under Dr. Roghayeh Farsi, his literary biographer, comparing his poetry with two noted Iranian poets.
Dr Anand is perhaps the only author who has written nine epics, ‘Geet: The Unsung Song of Eternity’, ‘The Satanic Empire’, ‘The Mahabharata’ ‘The Metaphor is Dead’, ‘The Master,’ ‘The Ganterbury Tales’, ‘Lustus: The Prince of Darkness’, ‘The Netherworld’ and ‘The Ultronic Age’. The tenth epic, ‘The Sinned Against’ is under publication. A specific quality of Dr. Anand’s work is that he is capable of twisting the established myths and create neo-mythological characters which equally impress and entertain.
Dr. Anand considers writing only lip service if it remains restricted to the paper, and does not become alive and move among the people, understanding and sharing their pleasures and pain. He established the International Academy of Ethics in 2022, in order to make efforts to restore the disturbed moral balance of the society. He has come up with an Ethical Alphabet and published books like A Handbook of Contemporary Ethics. The Academy has now undertaken Balkavi movement involving school children across the globe in thirty countries, to feature a few of them every day, during the next year, in morning assemblies with their poems.
India is a land of philosophy and spirituality. In modern times if any Indian thinker has moved the literary world, it is Dr. Anand, who is an original philosopher who rests his faith in cosmic humanism. Anand believes that knowledge, which was Satan’s preferred domain, has finally tempted mankind in such a way that it has brought human civilization to a moral disaster. The more we know, the more dangerous it is for us. And, our AI is a signal of the worst that is going to happen to mankind. Anand wants man to start respecting the natural phenomenon, and recognize his own limits.
We cannot enjoy absolute freedom in a world which has been determined by external agencies, like gods or the Supreme Being. Our most important anxiety should be to restore the moral balance of the society, and lead a life of dignity and duty-consciousness towards the society and the cosmos around us. Rather than knowledge, we should concentrate on human wisdom, which can lead us further to light. It is better if, as writers, we leave lip service, and take up the cause of humanity and nature, and turn to spiritual activism.
