Ananth Venkatesh

I was in a condition of emotionless disquiet on hearing the news of Roebuck’s suicide. When I became acquainted with the events triggering his suicide, my thought immediately revolved around the Hindu/Indian notion of ‘Kali Yuga.’

Eminent cricket writer Peter Roebuck’s suicide in a South African hotel in the paradisiacal city of Cape Town has been a source of copious astonishment for the cricketing society in general, which includes present and historical cricketers as well as writers of the game. Roebuck, whose wordsmithery about cricket was polished, thought-provoking, informative, and learnedwas present in South Africa recently in order to provide coverage for the Australian media of the ongoing exhilarating Test series of cricket between South Africa and Australia.

Suicide of such a prominent observer and communicator of cricket is, in itself, a development that rattles the mental steadiness of cricket followers. But what makes the suicide by Roebuck additionally sordid, unpalatable and tasteless is the circumstance allied to his suicide. Roebuck had been the recipient of an inquisition by the South African police over his supposed participation in an act of coercive carnal strike against the unwillingness of another male, whom Roebuck had supposedly befriended on Facebook. That Roebuck was, apparently, endeavoring to perpetrate homosexuality is not relevant here as that is a matter of personal preference. But what embitters the situation is the accusation of the South African police that Roebuck tried to implement carnal assault on the abovementioned Zimbabwean man despite the refusal of that man. This, of course, is tantamount to legal illegality, which is the source of his inquest by the South African detectives.

Roebuck seemingly couldn’t countenance the inquisitional sessions with the South African police force over his supposed forcible sexual strike on the abovementioned male. He probably deemed that the ramifications of the divulgement of his investigation would be acutely catastrophic for him and his career, which would be equal to an unwholesome public skinning of his personality. Hence, unable to countenance this possibility, he chose the path of suicide.

I was in a condition of emotionless disquiet on hearing the news of Roebuck’s suicide. When I became acquainted with the events triggering his suicide, my thought immediately revolved around the Hindu/Indian notion of ‘Kali Yuga.’ Roebuck’s demise and the bawdy determinant of his demise made my mind an even stronger proponent of ‘Kali Yuga.’ ‘Kali Yuga’ i.e. the epoch of behavioral impiousness, dissoluteness and contamination, is what exists today. Simply eye the case of Roebuck’s decease. ‘Kali Yuga’ also symbolises the capitulation of the civility in human persona to the malicious seductresses linked to behavioral pollution. Roebuck’s case epitomises this too from the looks of it.

The murders of the blameless individuals by their ungodly kith and kin over frivolous issues, promiscuous terrorism mutilating innocents as manifested by the poisons of terrorist outfits, unmitigated carnal crimes (in certain corners of India) committed mostly by persons known to the victims, carnal maltreatment and battering of bodily impaired children, traitorousness, etc. that exist in the world today are reflective of the liquid of malevolence that has seeped into human behavior. These behavioral corruptions in humans have existed ever since the era of the fascinatingly complex ‘Mahabharata’, a vital event in the Hindu/Indian history. ‘Kali Yuga’ has definitely existed since the time of the ‘Mahabharata’ and, perhaps, even before that. As per the accounts of several evaluators of Hindu scriptures, we are living in the ‘Kali Yuga.’

‘CWG Scam’, ‘2G Scam’, ‘Cash-For-Votes Scam’, demonisation of Hinduism that is labeled as ‘intellectual modernity’, sympathising with foxily hideous terror in the name of human rights, persistent vilification of the national armed forces that safeguard our national borders from the toxic fangs of national neighbors, etc. are all embodiments of the ‘Kali Yuga’ in India. This depravity in India today, which can be seen in newspapers and news channels, is in addition to the outright degeneracy that exists in certain quarters of the entertainment community. This degenerateness is provided to the audience here as entertainment, which can only serve as the contaminator and corruptor of the popular psyche here.

Globally also, the genocidal behavior in history commanded by national autocrats such as the Holocaust, the Stalinist genocide in the USSR, the Ottoman extermination of millions of Armenians in the 20th century, etc. suggest the operational efficiency of the ‘Kali Yuga.’ WW 1, WW 2, countless other barbaric international wars, invidious ethnic depopulation, etc. that were features of the 20th century also indicate the potency of the ‘Kali Yuga.’ The wicked ethnic depopulation affected badly the Kashmiri Hindus due to the barbarousness of Islamist terror while ethnic cleansing also bloodied the Bosnian Muslims because of the poisonous zealousness of Christian Serbia. 9/11, the savageness of Islamist terrorism, the gory tribal warfare, horrendous atomization of Japan in August 1945, the nuclearization of certain nations, etc are examples of the hardship and devastation that the belligerence of ‘Kali Yuga’ has caused.

Roebuck was an able English cricketer, who represented the Somerset cricket squad in English county cricket in the 1980s. He had residence subsequently in Australia. His slimy personal past may or may not be revealed in the coming days. But, already, a radio jockey named Gus Worland, who was a younger teammate of Roebuck in the 1980s in the Somerset squad, has stated that Roebuck’s behavior with him was highly unbecoming and unpleasing on one occasion. It is still difficult to accept that Roebuck has been accused of carnal assault. But the assertions of the South African police seem to be based on credibleness. Roebuck seemingly became a prisoner of the perilous deficiency of uncontrollable lustfulness.

So, the belief in ‘Kali Yuga’ continues to grow for me.

Ananth Venkatesh

It is good that Colombo was victorious in 2009 in its fight against the poison of the LTTE and that LTTE’s terror has ended. 
Ananth Venkatesh gives us a brief account of Tamil-Sinhalese conflict that has plagued Sri Lanka.

The inability of the Indian state to execute the convicted assassinators of Rajiv Gandhi, despite the repeated judicial green signals, is a perilous and worrisome indicator of the political irresoluteness that exists in the national government.

Rajiv was an ex-PM at night on May 21, 1991, when he was pulped by the ferocious explosives triggered by the LTTE’s hardened female suicide bomber, Dhanu. Rajiv, of the Indian National Congress Party (INC), had arrived in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu that month to participate in the national electoral campaigns, during which it was broadly predicted by political observers that he would reoccupy the Prime Ministerial position after the electoral results were announced. The national coalition governments, after the electoral ouster in 1989 of INC’s Rajiv from the national political arena, were headed by the impactful VP Singh, and, then, by the rustic pragmatist, Chandra Shekhar.

Rajiv’s handling, as PM, of some significant subjects such as the national religious situation related to Ayodhya and the administrative corruption personified by Bofors was dangerously mediocre. The overturning of the secular Supreme Court (SC) verdict on the Shah Bano case by his administration in 1986 riled several segments of even the moderate Hindu population, apart from giving teeth to the campaign of the ultraconservative Hindu outfits. Rajiv’s subsequent surrender to the unrighteous demands of Islamic fundamentalists by additionally constitutionalising Islamic personal laws only partitioned the public opinion in India further on communal lines

The monumental Bofors scandal, which had created questions over the integrity of the Gandhi family, had generated a political wave against the INC, which led to its defeat in the 1989 general elections.

As the King of the INC, one of India’s oldest political entities, Rajiv made no substantial effort to stem the unpalatable sycophancy that had penetrated the members of the INC during the headship of Indira Gandhi.

However, in my view, one of his few achievements as PM was his assertive and hard-nosed foreign policy, which was evident in his authorization of a military intercession by India to undo the coup in Maldives in 1988 against the Maldivian President, Abdul Gayoom. The coup was backed by the Sri Lankan Tamil insurgent organization, PLOTE. Rajiv always believed that South Asia was a zone, in which no foreign power can be allowed to wield disproportionate influence. It was his opinion that India, being the largest country in South Asia, must take the initiative in resolving political disputes in this region instead of allowing the foreign armies to enter South Asia to end the standoffs here. As per Rajiv, an inept and lethargic India, uninterested in its immediate neighbourhood, would only lead to foreign nations acquiring a strategic toehold in this region, which could then, at a later date, have put India under discomfort.

His foreign policy as regards the ethnic disorderliness in the gorgeous Sri Lankan island was a balanced one. The civil strife between the minority Tamils and the majority Sinhalese had grilled Sri Lanka ever since Ceylonese liberation from British colonialism [Photo: Tamil population in blue]. The secessionist Tamil outfits (PLOTE, LTTE, EROS, TELO, etc.) were recognized for their efficient barbarousness in their pursuit of their primary objective: the secession of northern and eastern Sri Lanka and the formation of a sovereign Tamil nation, Tamil Eelam, there. The north and east were sectors of Sri Lanka that were inhabited by Tamils conventionally.

The response of the ‘Sinhalese Sri Lankan state’ to the Tamil secessionism was largely domineering, which produced ghoulish repercussions. For the Sinhalese, the oneness of Sri Lanka had to be maintained at any cost as surrender to Tamil terrorism would inevitably have meant the breakup of Sri Lanka. The possibility of Sri Lankan division infuriated the ordinary Sinhalese nationalists, who were endorsed by the two prominent Sinhalese opposition parties, the SLFP and the UNP. As terrorism become deadlier gradually in the 1970s and 1980s with clandestine international branches opening up for acquisition of weapons, Sinhalese Sri Lanka responded even more domineeringly.

The roots of this burning ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka had begun during the era of British administration of Sri Lanka. The unilateralism of Britain in colonial Ceylon, absence of meaningful British consultation with the locals and shortage of adequate British understanding of the potential inflammability of the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka made Britain adopt some measures, which were deeply disliked by several Sinhalese. One such measure was the transfer of millions of Indian Tamils to Sri Lanka by Britain to work in the Sri Lankan coffee and tea plantations. This measure increased the Tamil presence in Sri Lanka and strengthened their clout. For the average Sinhalese, however, the Indian Tamil was nothing but an alien colonizer of Sri Lankan land. However, the economic, administrative, political and educational welfare of numerous Indian Tamils, due to their realistic cooperation with British colonialism in Ceylon, were looked at unfavourably and unkindly by the Sinhalese.

Also, the native Sri Lankan Tamils were able to stitch up a favourable relationship with the colonial British that led to the Tamils filling up several seats in the Ceylonese civil service and in other departments of the Ceylonese state.
In addition, the wars between Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms had been occurring for ages in Sri Lanka, with each side claiming righteousness was on their side.

Yes, after Ceylonese independence in 1948, the Sinhalese were able to organize and unite themselves effectively to espouse the Sinhalese cause. There was cohesiveness between the Sinhalese politicians on issues central to the Sinhalese identity and its preservation in a self-governing Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese had no Tamil kingdoms, with which they had to deal. The Sinhalese could utilize their numerical dominance to push through legislations to institutionalize Sinhalese domination of the state. That is what happened. The SLFP and the UNP, during their control of Sri Lanka respectively, after being mandated by the Sri Lankan electorate, ratified several legislations that alienated sections of the Tamils. Sinhalese was made the solitary official language of Sri Lanka, with Buddhism being pronounced as the official religion. The Sri Lankan Tamils, of course, were predominantly Hindus.

Tamil Settlement in Central Sri Lanka

Considerable Indian Tamils were disenfranchised politically by contentious legislations that had the unspoken support of some native Sri Lankan Tamils besides the vocal backing of Sinhalese political parties. Reservations in higher academic institutions designed to favour Sinhalese students agitated the Tamils, who interpreted these reservations as a malicious Sinhalese tactic to undercut the Tamil dominance in the Sri Lankan public sector. Even the native Sri Lankan Tamils slowly began to view the electoral disempowerment of the Indian Tamils as a signal from Sinhalese Sri Lanka that the Sinhalese would always receive an extraordinary place in a free Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese attitude was that the Tamils would simply have to adjust to the new ground realities.

The Sri Lankan Tamil parties were alarmed by these legislatorial moves, which weakened the Tamil position in the island. The moderate Tamil parties requested the federalization of Sri Lanka with reasonable linguistic, cultural, administrative and religious autonomy for the Tamils. But in sovereign Sri Lanka, some Sinhalese parliamentarians were severely distrustful of Sri Lankan Tamil intentions in general and considered even Tamil demands for reasonable autonomy as a step in the direction of Sri Lankan partition in the future. The geographical proximity of Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka placed fear and suspicion in Sinhalese minds that India, through the province of Tamil Nadu, could provide shelter to Tamil autonomists and agitators and exert influence upon Sri Lanka.  Sizable Sinhalese politicians were opposed to the ceding of any ground to even flexible Tamil parties.

As legislatorial means were not achieving the aim of even Tamil autonomy, Tamil terrorism was born. Outfits such as LTTE denounced the Sri Lankan democracy and labelled the Sinhalese parliamentarians as bigots, who would never give dignity to the Tamils. Bellicosity against Colombo was the only method to attain Tamil Eelam. Terrorism commenced, which led to the murders of moderate Tamil politicians as well as of the nationalist Sinhalese administrators. The Tamil terrorist outfits were responsible for these murders as well as for attacks on Sri Lankan security personnel. The rejoinder from Colombo to contain Tamil secessionism was stormy. Unfortunately, the Sinhalese rage was such that thousands of innocent Tamils were pulped in this state rage. The detestation among the Sinhalese parliamentarians for the Tamil terrorism became so strong that even requests from moderate Tamil parties for autonomy within one Sri Lanka became anathema to Sri Lanka.

Rajiv Gandhi’s active intercession to resolve this crisis in India’s neighbour demonstrated to the world that India was, at last, embracing assertiveness in its foreign policy. India intervened militarily in June 1987 to terminate the humanitarian disaster in Jaffna when it was under Colombo’s military blockade during Colombo’s struggle against Tamil separatism. However, the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord of July 1987, formalized by the then Sri Lankan President, Jayewardene, and the Indian PM, Rajiv Gandhi, was an apt example of proactive diplomacy aimed at tranquilizing a searing Sri Lanka, conserving Indian strategic interests there, preventing a foreign power from emerging in Sri Lanka to get a foothold there.

Of course, the Accord also laid down the conditions explicitly for the reinstatement of ethnic tranquillity in Sri Lanka. The Accord had provisions that expressly granted considerable autonomy, federalism and democracy to the Tamil areas in Sri Lanka. It was an accord that had the ingredients of peace and success provided there was political will on both sides. The Accord also assured Sri Lanka that its territorial integrity would not be diluted in any way and that its oneness would be intact. The principal Sinhalese demand that there be no disintegration of Sri Lankan unity was also assured by the Accord. It was a fairly model Accord for sowing the seeds of sereneness in a violent region.  Also, the Accord was legislated by the Indian Parliament and was given the go-ahead by Jayewardene.  The Accord also permitted a large number of Indian soldiers to travel to Sri Lanka to carry out military operations to curb the Tamil militancy, to disarm the terrorists and to create conditions agreeable for the democratization of the mainly Tamil northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The merger of northern and eastern Sri Lanka into one administrative unit was also enshrined in the Accord. The Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) was in Sri Lanka with the presidential consent of Sri Lanka to kill the menace of Tamil terror and to bring about tranquil contact between the Tamil secessionists and the largely Sinhalese Sri Lankan Parliament to create a peaceful solution of the ethnic war.

The writer supports the IPKF and its military activities in Sri Lanka. The IPKF was, on several occasions, trapped by the bloody slyness and disingenuousness of Tamil terrorists and, on other occasions, by the inharmonious ultra nationalism of sections of the Sinhalese population. The ultranationalist Sinhalese, on occasions, cooperated surreptitiously with the LTTE cadres to bring about the downfall of the IPKF. These ultranationalists wanted the ouster of the Indian military from Sri Lankan soil. Sinhalese ultra nationalism was convinced that Tamil terrorists and autonomists have to be defeated heartlessly by the Sri Lankan military alone devoid of foreign intervention. The IPKF, therefore, inadvertently, maimed certain innocent Sri Lankans, who were callously utilized by the LTTE, at times, as shields in their battle against the IPKF.

The IPKF wasn’t a unilateral military venture by a domineering India. It happened with the unambiguous approval of the Sri Lankan executive, headed by Jayewardene.  But the IPKF performed certain commendable tasks such as the enhancement of the damaged infrastructure in the embattled zones of Sri Lanka, the provision of assistance to Tamil victims of the civil war, democratization of the Tamil areas and the induction of reasonable serenity in the erstwhile gory areas of Sri Lanka’s north and east.

The LTTE targetted Sri Lanka’s main international airport and the adjoining military base in July 2001, destroying 13 aircrafts. Photo Sena Vidanagama / AFP / Getty Images

That Rajiv didn’t back the cause of Tamil Eelam was right. The writer believes that independence for Sri Lankan Tamils and the breakup of Sri Lanka on account of Indian military conduct would have only emboldened the LTTE. The LTTE was a dictatorial organization, which had systematically annihilated all the opposition to it. Moderate as well as fundamentalist Tamils, who disagreed even slightly with the LTTE, were bumped off by the LTTE. Through this mercilessness, the LTTE had emerged as the ‘champion’ of the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka. There is a serious possibility that the LTTE would have institutionalized its autocracy in a sovereign Tamil Eelam. An independent Tamil Sri Lanka would have forged strong bonds with Tamil Nadu, which could have increased the numerical strength of the admittedly tiny Tamil secessionism in India. The dormant Tamil secessionism in India could have been inspired by the LTTE’s attainment of a sovereign Tamil state and may have advocated aggressively the merger of Tamil Nadu with Tamil Eelam or independence for Tamil Nadu. The LTTE, in all probability, would have been the autocrat of Tamil Eelam and could have extended nefariously its support for Tamil secessionism in India. India would then have had to deal with a potentially serious linguistic problem. Also, in the 1980s, the Indian forces were bravely battling against the venomousness of Khalistani secessionism in Punjab, which had clandestine Pakistani endorsement. So, India couldn’t afford another secessionist disturbance, small or large.

The writer deems that an independent Tamil Eelam in the north and east of Sri Lanka would have been a calamity for Indian strategic interests. If the Indian military had broken up Sri Lanka, ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ would never have forgiven India for partitioning Sri Lanka. India would have lost all its influence in the ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ then and would have no strategic toehold there today. China would have inundated Sinhalese Sri Lanka militarily, strategically, economically, etc. ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ would be taking advice from Chinese diplomats on how to deal with the ‘Indian enemy.’ Pakistani espionage agents and Islamabad would have seduced ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ that would have been seething with victorious Indian military aid for Sri Lankan Tamil secessionism. A battered, bruised, furious and humiliated ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ would have thrown itself in the arms of India’s foes, China and Pakistan. China and Pakistan, with their invidiousness, would have been at our doorstep as ‘Sinhalese Sri Lanka’ in Sri Lanka’s west and south is closer to the Indian mainland geographically.

It is good that Colombo was victorious in 2009 in its fight against the poison of the LTTE and that LTTE’s terror has ended.  The LTTE was culpable for scores of political assassinations in Sri Lanka, killing of blameless Sinhalese and destruction of Sinhalese Buddhist sites. LTTE was a frighteningly barbarous organization. Peace has come back to Sri Lanka. It would be prudent if the moderate Tamil parties arrive at an agreement with Colombo on the devolution of administrative powers to the Tamil areas in the Sri Lankan north and east. Again, this provision is enshrined in the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord.

The assassins of Rajiv deserve zero mercy from the Indian executive. Our judiciary has gifted them the death penalty. The verdict must be honoured. Anti national and base politicking over this issue, as has been observed, is a sorrowful reminder of the parochialism that can emerge in India’s polity. India lost its PM because of a gruesome assassination. The LTTE plotted and carried out it. It had the depravity to assassinate our PM. Monstrous behaviour merits no clemency.
 

Kartikey Sehgal

Foreigners are silly. They are not very smart. I don’t deny this assertion by certain Indians used to traveling the world villages. Instead, I accept that foreigners are silly.

And therein lies their charm and power. It takes a certain silliness to live life merrily. And to know life.

This ‘foreign silliness’, which comes across to Indians as ‘lack of intelligence’, is simply a case of delayed mental boredom.

They don’t know as much maths and science at a certain age as we do -  I hear. This is true to an extent and I consider this a positive civilizational trait.

An average Indian student may know more mathematics than the average foreigner of the same age, but the average foreigner need not know more than the Indian. It doesn’t matter.

What we overlook is that at any given time, there are certain foreigners who know as much – if not more – than the finest Indian students. While the other average foreigners don’t care about math and science. Why should they? They will spend their time elsewhere.

Indians seemed obsessed with the term ‘average’. How does it matter that the average foreigner, whose field of interest is not mathematics, knows lesser than the average Indian who may invariably force himself to a job out of a social compulsion of status?

The average foreigner, with lesser mathematic skills, will employ himself in other fields of his liking, for which his society will praise him and his government will provide him with opportunities. If at all his job is not to the society’s liking, then the law will protect him.

This perceived silliness is a mixture of courage and wisdom – interdependent qualities.

Symbolically, imagine the European countryside with its young children frolicking among green forests and lakes and ponds. That’s the image that is often presented to me; ‘they are just not smart like Indian kids’.

If silliness were a failure, then Europe wouldn’t have green fields and ponds and rivers and electricity. They seem to have done well despite their history of conquest and plunder.

If they were a failure, then immigrants wouldn’t have settled there in vast numbers and used their measures of social welfare to their advantage.

This silliness is an attribute you would want to see in children and your self, if you were not blinded by fear and aversion to creation. Fear of failure and an imagined life of penury. Fear of social shame.

Silliness demands multiple perceptions of life. Whereas fear makes you stick to the books and journals and other socially approved artefacts.

Consider the silly foreigners – babbling about and talking inanities – as freer and braver (and not stupid). They have more opportunities than Indians in discovering and pursuing the streams of their choice. They can take failure better as they can perceive it in myriad ways. Hence, their art and cinema has myriad expressions whereas Indian architecture has diminished.

Kartikey Sehgal

How the people of Mumbai (and India) are stagnant

When we are attacked and killed, we look for ways to humiliate ourselves. This Indian habit is seen through the media, particularly the newspapers. Hindustan Times carried out a series on potholes in Mumbai roads. They did not investigate the habit of terrorism in Indians. That is a difficult and a controversial topic. DNA invited arm-chair columnists to make up for their lack of investigation. They printed an article by Subramanian Swamy and then spent all their energy on criticising him. Their job was done, all well and good.

Take Hindustan Times (HT) and their fondness for Mumbai roads. It is a topic that angers the citizens; almost everybody is affected by the bad roads. Taking advantage of this ‘natural Mumbai phenomenon’, HT carried out a series of stories on the condition of roads. I say they chose the topic to deflect attention from terrorism. They made the people busy in voicing their anger over Mumbai roads.

They bothered little about the roads before the onset of the rains. Despite the knowledge that the roads will turn bad during the rains. And this shows the stagnancy of Mumbai.

• Roads go bad every monsoon – every year
• politicians do nothing about the roads – every year
• media criticises the politicians – every year
• people get angry over the roads – every year

Nobody does anything about this condition. As long as people are busy, everybody is happy.

• The people are happy that they are angry and can voice their opinion. It gives them a feeling of being useful.
• Politicians are happy that the people are idiots. They can be controlled if given a chance to voice their anger.
• Newspapers are happy that the people are stupid and that the politicians do nothing about it. It gives them the opportunity to reprint the same story every year. It prevents for the need to indulge in hard-core journalism.

Why do we indulge in this cycle?

Because we are meek. We are scared. Every act of violence has an impact on the nation. But we have been conditioned to look away from the violence. Ignore it. We operate in the illusion that if we look away we will be happy.

Kartikey Sehgal

Indians have a lot to learn from the Norway blasts and murders. Indians – that’s you, the middle-class to urban category; the rest of the Indians don’t have to think so much – they have to look for food and survive.

Norwegian police arrested 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who rocked Norway in twin attacks Saturday. Breivik is responsible for Friday’s bombing and youth camp massacre in Oslo, Norway. source

Such attacks will happen when society is closed for discussion. When political correctness and the elitist idea of status quo takes over the society and shuts it to reality. India is one such society.

Everything gets covered in India under the blanket of secularism. Society likes to feel comfortable. When it pours, they hide under the umbrella of certain words; secularism, peace, Gandhi – without understanding any of them.

India is closed. And attacks such as the ones seen in Norway may happen anytime in India. Already, we are reading about the trials of Swami Aseemananda and Sadhvi Pragya for their alleged involvement in acts of terror. It was expected that these incidents would be a chance to understand the psyche of the Indian people, a part of which is being seen through movements by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev. But. No.

The media is content to give it the name of ‘Hindu Terrorism’ and most of the ensuing discussion is an argument over the term. That’s all what the discussion is really about. Both sides keep fighting over the term and nobody checks out the anger.

What is this anger. What is the story? It is this:

There is a growing number of Sikhs, Hindus, Parsis, Buddhists and even Muslims who are tired and angry and willing to take action over terrorism. They do not trust the government and the police. They do not want to be slaughtered pigs. They hate it when a politician tells them that nothing much can be done about terrorism. They hate it that after every attack, the media and the politicians begin their ‘oh but there’s also saffron terrorism’ trite. They hate the media.

They realise that the only way to be heard is to do exactly what the terrorists do. Blow people up. Blow the Muslims up. And if non-Muslims get killed, then consider it collateral damage; exactly like how the terrorists consider the death of Muslims as collateral damage.

And how does it really matter what name you give this phenomenon; terrorism or reaction or revenge. It’s happening and it might kill you. You might end up as collateral damage. That’s all your life would be worth. You should take the media and society to task. And that happens when you critique (as I mentioned in my previous story about the newspaper DNA) and when you distance yourself from the romance of peace and secularism. The media is happy to use these terms because they are either mentally inept or lazy.

Remember, Netherlands has Geert Wilders who prevents the occurrence of Norway like attacks by speaking for the people who are tired of crimes perpetuated by the immigrants. America has a-rate intelligence services.

India has neither. It is a closed society, and attempts at opening up are brushed under the carpet of secularism by a toothless media.

Kartikey Sehgal

[The proposed series on Male Ego and Feminism has been postponed. Read on India’s first ‘slutwalk’, here]

DNA (Daily News and Analysis, a newspaper) has successfully deflected the entire blame of the Mumbai blasts onto one person. They have successfully indulged in the Indian habit of deflecting from issues and indulging in needless drama and theatrics.

No, the person who planted the bombs at bus-stops and bazaars may have been an Indian local (an Indian Mujahedeen Muslim), but what DNA’s self-flagellating subs think is that “Dr Subramanian Swamy has inflamed passions through blatant falsehoods”.

DNA’s entire operation of ‘news and analysis’ consists of this: print an article by Swamy knowing very well that he does not favour present-day secularism and does not mince words in condemning Islam; then spend the next 3-4 days condemning Swamy for his views. This makes up for the need of serious efforts to analyse the situation and unearth actual reasons for repeated attacks on Mumbai. (links to all articles at the end of story)

This is self-flagellation. Masochism. When you are given pain, you blame your self for the blame. You say that you deserve the pain. It’s pointedly telling the parents who lose their child that they deserve it. And since this sounds a tad insensitive, and doesn’t sell copies, you use other means to say the same thing. You pick an individual (Swamy) or a philosophy (‘Hindutva’), neither of whom go around killing people (including Muslims), and tell those parents that these are the reasons why your child deserved to die.

And since we are dealing with Indian parents, they won’t ask you the ‘hows and the whys’. They will ignore you; wait for the next bomb blast in the case they have more children to offer. Or they will get angry. Not real angry but “Indian angry’ that culminates with is desh ka kuch nahin ho sakta (Nothing good can happen to this country/this country will always stay the same).

Indian parents will suffer, get angry and bothered, but they will do nothing about it. Until they get angry after the next bomb blasts – and do nothing about it. DNA and others can thereby continue with their game-plan.

And the plan is masochistic. Reeking of the Stockholm Syndrome. Whatever be their problems with Swamy or his ‘brand’ of Hinduism, this surely cannot be the sum-total of the analysis of the bomb blasts.
”Dr Subramanian Swamy has inflamed passions through blatant falsehoods”

If any amateur student of psychiatry wants to prepare a hundred per cent successful dissertation on the Stockholm Syndrome, it is this. Read the DNA coverage following the blasts. Meek and lazy journalism.

We will decode later why the newspaper didn’t come up with something substantial. First, let’s see the topics they didn’t think worthy of exploring after terrorists chopped off body parts and blew the brains out of ‘middle-class Mumbai at the bus stop’.

• The recruiting standards of RAW wrt standards of other such agencies internationally and lack of intelligence co-ordination at the national level (suggested by Siddharth Kurien).
• Extreme shortage of police officials and their disoriented and unorganised plan of action (dependence on politicians)
• Poor morale among police constables wrt inhumanely long working hours and delegation of silly ‘cattle-like’ jobs (‘class’ barriers)
• The education of hatred and racial superiority provided to young Muslims going unchecked (story may coincide with point 3)

DNA writers ignored such topics to indulge in torrential word-lashings against Subramanian Swamy, who, even if you know nothing of him, has not killed any Muslim in his entire 70-something years in India and Harvard. Neither has he advocated the killing of Muslims.

He is not good with tiffin-box bombs and not adept at planting bombs at bus-stops, or he would have missed the attention of DNA columnists, just like the hate-spewing killers have.

He is also not a part of SIMI, and therefore not worthy of featuring in DNA’s ‘pity books’. If the ex-SIMI members are being questioned by the police over any possible complicity in the case, then it’s condemnable according to DNA. How dare the police suspect former members of an organisation that aims to Islamise India and maim the non-Muslims and the constitution, just the kind of people Swamy talks about in his story? Instead, let’s aim for the Swamy guy. That’s simpler!

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen of meek India, if you have lost a family member in the blasts, then do not (‘do not’ imagined in caps) think of questioning the ex-SIMI members. It pains them. How dare you give them pain. Instead, join the jargon. Contribute to the one-page blabber-age on a guy called Subramanian Swamy. That will give you relief. No? At least it will relieve DNA staffers from their responsibility.

Why do they do this?

Or, why have they disbanded their editorial page. Why do they indulge in arm-chair column writing? Wait!
They do go out in the sun and make hay while the bank shines, don’t they? But here’s the caveat (full of meat); anybody can do that.

What marks journalists as different from the others is vision. It’s like singing. Not everybody is a singer. You have that musical box tuned inside and you can indulge in an alaap. The others can’t.

And so the journalists need vision. A strong imagination and a strong gut to not let imaginations rule over facts.

Just like it is not enough to simply walk into a college to be educated, it is not enough to travel and talk to be a journalist.

Otherwise we’ll have the phenomenon of arm-chair journalists; they sit back, get a ‘controversial’ figure, and simply react to him. And the reactions are illogical and non-factual. (makes for another story)
And so, once again, why do they do this?

1. Indians are dramatic; they need their dose of ‘emotional output’. They don’t need solutions. They need to cry and complain and then get back to whatever they were doing. What respect can a newspaper have for a population that travels in degrading conditions and hails the traveling as an identity of their culture. The Mumbai local trains, which kill 6-7 people daily, are over-packed, filthy and frighteningly humid.

What respect would any body have for a population that travels on potholed roads, every monsoon, every year, for decades, with the brilliantly faulty sewage pipelines decorating the roads with their recipe of human faeces and animal waste, that runs on to the potholes, filling them to the brim, so that the walkers soak their feet in this water, go to their homes and announce that they lived through another Mumbai adventure?

What respect would any foreign civilization have for a population that makes adventure out of depravity.

And so the newspapers don’t give you insights and solutions. The arm-chair columnists know your nature and won’t work out their gluteal muscles for you. Their muscles would eventually sag, and so would your intellect.

All they need to do is write emotional stuff about the constitution, Bhagavad Gita, Gandhi and secularism. That’s enough to tingle the Indians.

2. Vision
You have vision when you have self-respect, esteem and other such ‘human stuff’. The way you live – in filth and dirt – you don’t have these qualities. You don’t have a vision. What you possess instead is an escapist attitude. ‘Let me be free of hassles’. Or even funnier; ‘We should not let the external disturb our inner peace’ -  this is read as the definition of wisdom and spirituality. And it is garnished with the sure-shot label of Hinduism.

That is so easy. Just use peace, love and Hinduism in the same sentence. Or add in a few Sanskrit shlokas to appear like a refined writer.

Vision requires the courage to see. And if you depend only on poor definitions of your own dharma, at the cost of common sense and factuality, then you have no vision. Men without vision look for familiar constructs in life; familiar sentences in newspapers; familiar words; familiar expressions. They don’t like being challenged. They are happy with a story that tells them that Bhagavad Gita means peace and Hinduism means blind adherence to non-violence. It does not matter if it does or it does not. They are happy to read what they have forever been reading and assimilating without enquiry.

And that’s what newspapers sell them. Familiar tales of secularism. Familiar sentences, words, idioms. Which is one reason why Swamy’s article has been disliked by the columnists and some of the readers. Because it is not the familiar. Not one columnist has been able to argue with Swamy on his points. They simply bring in the constitution and familiar concepts of ‘love all’ into the picture.

They just don’t have the vision. The DNA columnists offer no solutions or alternatives to Swamy’s declarations. Except the f-a-m-i-l-i-a-r.

Newspaper-wallas come from the population. From the same set of people who have done nothing about their local trains and filthy roads.

3. No-critique culture
A naval officer told me: "After a terrorist attack you go after Muslims. You don’t go after Hindus, Jains and others. It’s hardly probable that they would do it. That’s how it is"

He was reacting to DNA’s report titled: "Mumbai serial blasts: Witch-hunt for usual suspects"
He dismissed this front-page report as inconsequential. Which it is. It complains of how the police is questioning ex-SIMI members.

He is educated – this naval officer. Knows his job. Knows his country. Knows "how it is". Doesn’t mince words. All signs of a leader. Signs lacking in economically middle-class fathers aiming to make their children ‘English’.

These fathers have recently risen from years of poverty – from their lower middle class days – spent in cramped rooms in Nashik, Sangli and even Mumbai. They have recently seen some prosperity through inter-state job transfers or they have inherited a dead relative’s home. In any case they are now here – in Mumbai. The land of ‘hosh-posh’ liberalism. Where 55 per cent of the population lives in slums and the remaining boasts of cultural synthesis. These fathers are now among the ‘upper lot’ of the city. They have to aim higher. And higher equals ‘English’ – not the language necessarily, but the attitude – surely. Look up to the English news anchors and writers as role models. Switch on BBC, learn their pronunciations. See how elegantly they dress. Spoon and knives. So why can’t they pick and choose, these fathers and their children? Say, pick the best from either cultures?

How can they, when there’s only one culture on the table? References to indigenous culture have been wiped out from the school curriculum. Except the token few kept in the loop as symbolic references. You don’t know about Indian music, architecture or dance. You know about Laxmi Bai, Gandhi, Shivaji and a few more and you think that makes up for your culture. And you bring in only these as your arguments. You make them the part of your familiar and look for their references in newspapers.

So you don’t know about your roots, about your self.
You can’t critique when you don’t know.

In such an uninformed environment, you are presented with the views and news of the arm-chair columnists and ‘vision-less’ reporters. Since you are human and don’t live in a vacuum, you will take these views as culture and build your idea of India around them. When these role-models criticise the ancient kingdom of Vijaynagar, you will follow suit. When they call for emancipation for women, you will make human-chains and do slut-walks. They own you.

And slaves don’t critique. They have little options as such.

But there’s an India – a group of fathers – not affected by the prevailing newspaper culture, not very prominent in the metros but present in the rest of India, who see this slavery and detest it. Lest you think I am talking about hope, let me tell you what this group does. It takes up alternative ideologies; it doesn’t think for itself.

Freedom is a habit. And this group suffers in confusion while trying to attain freedom. The people in this group can’t point out what’s wrong with the country. To discover the same, they pick up, say, Marxism, that claims to know what’s wrong. They do exactly what their counterparts in Mumbai do. They repeat what the ideology tells them. They do Marxist versions of slut-walks. But they think they are better-off; they imagine that they are free.

The remaining poor ‘food-less’ fathers become something like, say, the Maoists. They don’t have the luxury of ideology – no food in their mouth. They do exactly what their masters tell them to do – no questions asked. But they think that they are free and that they are fighting for freedom.

So a day comes when everybody is fighting for their version of freedom. And in actuality they are fighting one another.

That’s a reason why, despite so many ideologies in India, we have poor hospitals, poor schools, poor colleges, poor roads; what is the use of these ideologies? How come despite so many brains we have nothing worthwhile to show to the generations to follow? Is it because, as the newspapers chant the f-a-m-l-i-a-r, we are plural and secular and all and that it takes time?

Real reason: Slaves don’t critique. And you have to be able to critique to progress. And Indians cry and complain. They just follow. They look for the familiar, feel comfortable, and then follow. 

They don’t really demand and build hospitals and schools and credible institutions. They complain. C-o-m-p-l-a-i-n. They dramatise and cry and complain. But they don’t build. And creators build. They are not creators. Indians are losing touch with creation.

Creation follows critique. And Indians simply follow.
So it’s simple for DNA and others to publish something that is worth crying over and criticising. That’s good enough for you.

The Americans create. The Europeans create. The Indians in these countries create. How come the Hindus are so successful abroad. Is it because they turn creators. Is it because a first-class society provides them with amenities?

To create, and to be a critique, you have to come out of the ‘familiar’ that has been fed to you since your school days. The familiar that the newspapers use to sell their copies. The familiar that the politicians use to make you emotional and get votes from you.

And to break away from the familiar, you have to question honestly and without sentimental concerns: Your parents and their life-long mention of ‘sacrifices’ and other subtly bullying notions. Your college’s claims of being a world-class institution. Hinduism as a religion of pure non-violence. Islam as a religion of peace. Missionaries as messengers of God. And then you may be able to question the DNA columnists, the politicians and everybody else.
Freedom is a habit. You have to build it.

I am not touching upon the content in the DNA columns. But here’s an example of what to make of it. When you read this:

"“Undivided India in 1947 was 75% Hindu even after 800 years of brutal Islamic rule,” says Dr Swamy’s article. Mughal rulers like Akbar and Shahjahan were well known for their respect and tolerance of Hinduism. This statement highlights the fact that for over 800 years, India has remained largely secular and non-communal."

There will be, broadly, two sets of readers; the first set will get affected, needlessly, by feelings of patriotism and ‘my-great-culture’ and move onto the next paragraph. They will be reading and assimilating constructs that are f-a-m-i-l-i-a-r to them.

The second set would find something amiss, but won’t know what is amiss. They don’t have a background; no roots. They will be angry, slam the newspaper, or post an angry comment on a blog.

We need the third set. That third set is of first-rate men. Who build and create. And critique. They don’t let media dictate their sentiments and lives. That will make them angry. They are their own dictators.

And the trait common to members of this third set would be a quest for honesty. A trait that defines men.

The DNA stories. [Click on photos to enlarge]

Analysis: How to wipe out Islamic terror (Subramanian Swamy)– Link

Subramanian Swamy’s article irresponsible & Islamophobic – Link

Dr Swamy, the Prophet taught us to kill evil with good – Link

‘Dr Subramanian Swamy, I strongly disagree with you’ – Link

Dr Subramanian Swamy has inflamed passions through blatant falsehoods – Link

Mumbai serial blasts: Witch-hunt for usual suspects – Link

Disinformation campaigns to divide Indians will fail – Link

Ananth Venkatesh

Any nationalistic Indian outlook will not desire the dilution of Indian connection to AP and Sikkim as Indian troops have sacrificed their lives and shed their blood to keep these two provinces with India.

China is a godless nation, with which India shares a colossal frontier. Ideally, China should never have been permitted to border India. The attachment of the Chinese border to the Indian border took place in the 1950s as a consequence of the grisly and lawless conquest of Tibet then by a hatchling Communist China.

India has copious reasons to worry about a militarily and financially burgeoning China as China, on being confident of military success, could, in the future, attack Arunachal Pradesh (AP) and Sikkim to annex them.

Military infrastructure is being bolstered far more quickly by China in the disputed bordering zones than by India. China is attempting to asphyxiate India by expanding its military and civilian presence in South Asia in Nepal, Burma, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Pakistani slavishness towards China is well-known. China occupies Aksai Chin (AC), which is claimed by India as a part of Kashmir. AC cannot be bartered by India as part of a compromise as long as China asserts its dominion over AP and Sikkim.

China is working relentlessly to undercut the Indian standing in Africa. China has also irked India immensely by releasing stapled visas to Indian Kashmiris desirous of visiting China. It has also remarked that the folks of AP do not require visas to enter China as AP is a component of China.

There is a credible feeling in the Indian security establishment that the ‘far left’ Maoist terrorists in India are being backed by Chinese espionage entities clandestinely as state-of-the art weaponry has been recovered from the arrested Maoists in India. One can only hope that the Indian diplomatic world is prepared to offset this Chinese maliciousness in every way and is able to convince the world of the hegemony of Chinese intentions.

Let it be clear that China has not yet acknowledged unequivocally the territorial inseparableness with India of Arunachal Pradesh (AP) and Sikkim. China has not even vaguely accepted Indian democracy over these territories, with China continuing to illustrate these two Indian provinces as parts of China.

The Chinese media has never attempted to conceal that China will never cede ground on these two territories. What does that mean? China yearns to position its hands on these two regions in one way or the other such as via combined rule over these two areas with India or through their outright annexation into Chinese territory. The Indian government has voiced its desire for tranquillity with China. But is India willing to dilute the degree of its association with AP and Sikkim to create peace with China?

Any nationalistic Indian outlook will not desire the dilution of Indian connection to AP and Sikkim as Indian troops have sacrificed their lives and shed their blood to keep these two provinces with India. It is obvious that a preponderance of the populace of these two provinces yearns to be with India completely as they respect and are grateful to Indian democracy and her religious tolerance. The Buddhist APs and Sikkimites have seen the persecution, victimization and enfeeblement of the Buddhists in the neighbouring Tibet that has been overrun by the sadism of atheistic China.

The World’s Reaction to the China Problem

Developed countries such as America and those of Western Europe are committing errors by attempting to placate the China of today for economic reasons. The hegemonic actions of China regionally and overseas are being overlooked. China is, after all, an authoritarian nation:

• It has repeatedly elucidated its policy of bombarding Taiwan even if a democratic Taiwanese government votes to ‘secede’ from Beijing.
• China is the financial and military backer of the tyrannical Communistic North Korean regime.
• The regime has been characterized by its illegal nuclear activities, its association with the dishonourable Pakistani atomic scientist, AQ Khan and by its unabashed military aggression against its democratic neighbour, South Korea.

There is apprehension in Southern Korea and Japan over the increasing powerfulness of China economically and militarily. There is mounting corroboration in the world of espionage about Chinese cyber-subversiveness to weaken the countries China detests.

This story follows “The Chinese Menace and India’s Faults”

Ananth Venkatesh

The author traces China’s fall to the state of intellectual and administrative disintegration that has now led to its confrontations with India.

• The commonplace Chinese citizens were enmeshed in a civil war for four years subsequent to the culmination of WW 2 in August 1945 after the Japanese surrender.
• Then, the civil strife in China had, as its participants, Communist militias pitted against the anti Communist (Nationalist) militias. Also, millions of the Chinese civilians, who were the members of either the Nationalist or Communist camp, participated in this civil war, which spawned additional disorderliness in China.
• However, ever since the 19^th century, China had been experiencing humiliation and subjugation by the Western European powers, which had been penetrating China monetarily by seizing the management of Chinese wealth and its natural resources.
• The country was, in effect, a transnational colony, the financial path of which was being propelled by the arrogance of Britain, France, Germany, each of which, along with an increasingly imperialistic America and Japan, had carved ‘zones of influence’ for itself in Chinese territory.
• The U.S., Japan and the West Europeans directed the economic affairs of their zones respectively, which consisted of enforcing guidelines on trade and levies on overseas goods. These guidelines were fashioned by the imperialists disproportionately in a way that boosted the imperial treasure and ensured the stagnation of the Chinese financial system, which had, prior to becoming a casualty of the spiteful Western imperialism, been extremely potent.
• China underwent economic mortification of this sort, which was worsened by the supplementary political, military and spiritual concessions bequeathed to the West by a debilitating Chinese monarchy. Also, subornment had infiltrated the politics of China during this period of Western monetary exploitation. This subornment was in service as a result of the dissoluteness of numerous provincial Chinese warlords.
• Also, the attempt to Christianize China by the malignant Christian missionaries there kindled the enragement of the non-Christian Chinese. It appeared as if China, which once was a majestic civilization in the ancient and medieval epoch, had come to the point of intellectual and administrative disintegration.
• The military conflicts waged by the Chinese monarchy against Japan and the West in the 19^th century over economic and territorial issues had severely paralyzed China as it was trounced in those wars and was compelled to fork out oceanic war reparations to the victors. China relinquished Korea and Taiwan to the Japanese.

Post-WW2 China, Mao, Nehru, Patel And India:

• Coming to 1949, in this landscape of monetary inefficiency and shortfall, the Communists, directed by Mao Zedong, ultimately battered the Nationalists and conquered all of mainland China. The Communists inherited a fragile Chinese economy and a complete dearth of efficient governance.
• The Nationalists, headed by Chiang Kai-Shek, escaped to the neighbouring island of Taiwan, in which the Nationalists entrenched their government under the autocratic headship of Chiang. Thus, the military of Communist China, in 1949, was not as steely, well-oiled and sophisticated as it became later.
• Also, the Indian military, as opposed to the Chinese, was more effectively organized then, with the Indian military being more regimented and in possession of formidable weaponry. The military lethality of India then was one of the few genuinely constructive bequests of British lordship over India.

Nehru’s Errors

• Therefore, a more street-smart Foreign Minister of independent India would have been able to handle the Tibetan subjugation by China more shrewdly. Nehru, the primary Foreign Minister of decolonized India, was, at the end of the day, predominantly unsuccessful as Foreign Minister. The two-facedness of his professed non-aligned overseas policy was exposed when he refused to condemn unmistakably the Soviet military belligerence in Hungary in 1956 to quell the anti Communist uprising there.
• However, the same Nehru had vocally vocalized contempt for the Anglo-French and Israeli assault on the Egyptian Suez Canal in 1956 subsequent to the Canal’s nationalization by the Egyptian autocrat, Gamal Nasser.
• Nehru’s supposed repudiation, in the 1950s, of the U.S. tender of an eternal seat for India on the UNSC continues to wound India even today as China, whose inclusion in the UNSC was favored by Nehru then, is the primary blocker of Indian penetration into the august UNSC presently.
• Nehru’s internationalization of the Kashmir question in 1949 by taking it to the UN was an oceanic blunder when a continuation of the war against Pakistan for the liberation of Kashmir would have sizably increased the prospects of complete Kashmiri accession to India. This internationalization was despite the righteousness of India’s claim and conflict over Kashmir against the invading Pakistanis.

Sardar Patel Ignored

• There was pragmatic advice from the commendable Indian Home Minister, Sardar Patel, to Nehru that urged Indian military assistance for the relief of the beleaguered Tibetans under the onslaught of the Communist Chinese marauders.
• Patel was a leading advocate against the connection of the Chinese border to the Indian one. Patel had espoused the maintenance of the self-governance of Tibet and the deactivation, by the Indian military, of the devastating Chinese military takeover of Tibet.
• Nehru had attempted to mollycoddle and appease the atheistic Chinese on several issues, including the bordering issue, which procreated the appalling Chinese attack on Indian territorial integrity in 1962.

Failure of the Non-Aligned Movement

• The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which Nehru had fathered, was a voiceless and characterless character as it refused to explicitly excoriate the Chinese bellicosity against India. It was American intervention, pioneered by the then U.S. President, JF Kennedy, and the Presidential warning to Mao that assisted India and ensured the Chinese military disengagement from sizable Indian territory in the Northeast.

In the Next Part, the author writes about China’s Border troubles with India

Kartikey Sehgal

“kaam chal raha hai, main sapne nahin bata raha hoon”

Narendra Modi, the man with a 12.8 percent agricultural growth in the ‘non-agricultural’ state of Gujarat, who is also the Chief Minister of the state, in a well-delivered speech, has implied the importance to solving teachers’ woes in India and ensuring maximum respect and salary for them in the coming years. (The Speech)

His is an inspiring and a visionary move that aims to being back to the nation Her glory in the field of education.

You, the readers, must know that teachers are paid a pittance in this country. Teachers in the finest of schools and colleges in Mumbai, a metropolitan city, fight and crib about respect and income. Narendra has ideas and he has already put them in place.

• Good education–not on the basis of good infrastructure, but a good teacher.

Infrastructure and technology are the results of human thought and endeavour. No infrastructure in this world can make up for the importance of a good teacher. Students in Bihar qualify for the Indian Administrative Examinations and the Armed Forces Entrance Examinations—often without electricity and regular clean drinking water. In Mumbai, at the several expensive, laptop-a-day schools, oh… and many of them ‘International’, you will meet lousy students backed by lousy teachers.

• Knowledge, not just skill.

“Skill gets the job but knowledge makes the job.” Henceforth, when I am required to explain to my acquaintances the importance of the oft-ridiculed Gujarati-Marwari-Jain penchance for business, I shall use this line.

Knowledge employs skill. For instance, to have the knowledge of the various styles of music, resulting in a synthesis, calls for skills of people trained in a genre and a style (gharana).

Subsequently, skill must develop knowledge. And knowledge is not the bookish knowledge currently supported by the Indian education system. Hence the importance of the speech. It is interlinked. Good teachers would impart good knowledge, practical knowledge, that would call for skill, thereby guaranteeing employment.

The speech further mentioned that China has 50000 skill development courses. India’s Prime Minister had announced 500 such courses for India. Gujarat alone has started 2000 such courses. We should work towards skill development; “a boy working on Petroleum pipeline must have the requisite skill and knowledge to do so.”

• Teacher Training and Education

The speech mentioned briefly that there will be a familial crisis in India; families are breaking down and hence there is a need for ‘children’s university’, that will empower children. I don’t know exactly how, but it must have to do with care for neglected and abandoned children, something USA needs, and very urgently.

The Chief Minister said that the common wish of all wealthy and poor people is education for their child. ‘My child must have the best education.’ Hence, we must make it a mission to produce good teachers in India. Gujarat, as I learned, has started ‘The Indian Institute of Teacher Education’ that should be as good as the renowned Indian Institute of Management (IIM).

The Chief Minister started his speech with the need to recognise that India will have 65 percent young people in the next ten years. Of course, this generation can be useful for the country and the world if there are teachers to guide them. Good teachers.

An issue so often considered and then neglected has now gained national importance for India. And there is one state already on the path towards securing India’s future.

Reema Prasanna

Hindi Cinema and Indian Politics are successful businesses that are, very wrongly, labelled as democratic. They are a mechanism for controlling the ‘majority’.

The majority of India are very simple people, characterised by a basic level of education and understood as having a basic understanding of life. Long term ‘intelligent’ choices are not inclusive to their everyday life.

This majority is presumably—at least legally—poor. Daily rations at throw-away prices; Rs. 2 per kilo. The majority buys this rice and comes back home with a colour television, which has been gifted to them by the victorious political party. As they had promised. Election manifesto.

The television makes an impact on the majority’s mind and leads them to trust the political party. Electricity is stolen from the pole just around the corner; they possibly haven’t seen an electrical bill. Food-entertainment is taken care of by the party.

Then there is cheap spurious liquor easily available, and if not that, then there is the government approved tobacco to chew and cigarettes and beedis to smoke so that the evening passes quickly – of course there is a statutory warning but ‘those things’ are read and ignored, or possibly not read at all. You must consider that a possibility with a literacy rate of 68% as of 2007.

The government mints money, regardless of what’s happening inside the majority’s body. And why? Because the majority (alternatively called the common man) will keep voting and ensure that the legacy of the majority endures after it has embraced death.

Enter Hindi cinema. Standard storyline; and repeating the cliché; boy meets girl, boy cannot marry girl because of evil forces who often manifest as family members; such stories. No brainers. There are variations of course. Boy is a wastrel. Boy is a corrupt police officer who reforms eventually. Girl lives in compromised conditions. But the formula is standard. These movies are labelled as ‘timepass’ for the common man, who sees them either in a cinema hall with very cheap tickets or on the colour television he has been given by the political party.

The movie is a hit. Wins best film award at the ‘Filmfare’, an award ceremony compromised to the point that it can only be compared to the Oscars, both of which affect only the minority (the antithesis of the majority, the few), who waste several hours glued to the television woefully regretting the fact that the Hindi film industry is confirmed for doom.

Good films fare badly at the box office and the bad films keep the majority engaged and busy and entertained and enthralled.

Then, the same, or another political party is victorious and buys more television sets for the poor majority and the stone rolls, gathers no moss.

And the minority?

We figure other ways out to keep ourselves entertained and download foreign language films illegally from the internet, which is free beyond our wildest dreams, in this nation particularly, despite constitutional laws that govern what content Indians can be safely exposed to.

Meanwhile, the actor who played the big hero in the best film at the award function decides to leap into politics because the majority truly believes that he will solve their problems in a jiffy, just like he did in the films. They vote, he wins, he comes to power and you, dear minority, are left wishing that he had left heroism in the film. Disappointed, you decide to ignore him by not watching his film in the theatre.

May the minority prosper.

Reema is a journalist and an entrepreneur. She writes at The Indian Melting Point and Sumthinz Cooking.