Honour

             'Honour' is a word widely used by military people. Most of the time i hear this word is in some Hollywood War movies. I am talking about 'hearing' it and not 'feeling it'. My personal opinion is that 'Honour' is mostly felt or seen rather than 'heard'. Now associating a word like this with killing your own blood, that will be tough for any one to understand. And this happening in  our 'National Capital of Shame' at a time when we are celebrating Delhi Metro reaching Gurgaon and opening of a world-class Airport Terminal ? This anarchy sounds anachronistic. As they say- Facts reveal more information - Haryana is the state with 2nd highest Per-Capita income in India. It is also the state with one of the lowest female ratio and highest female foeticide. It is also fast turning into a new India where old traditions are being challenged.
             Politicians like Hooda and Jindal toeing the line of Khap panchayats for vote bank politics is deplorable. The courts should try these politicians also under 'abetting the murder'. Now see the governments reaction and steps taken - Instead of arresting the people quickly and set an example, they are going to come up with an ordinance where Section 300 of IPC - i.e definition of 'murder' will be changed. How stupid? In whatever new circumstances or for new reasons if a person is killed in an illegal way - its still a murder. Also the same tone and action for 'Bhopal' - Amend laws and come with more serious legislation. Enough of these laws, we have plenty, they need to implemented. Practice is the need of the hour and not 'principle'. It seems Edward Luce is very apt in quoting that - Indian state has internalised the message of Bhagvad Gita - "Intentions matter and not Consequences". Thus our noble laws and moral stands take high precedence without bothering about consequences. Its high time to have 'consequential' judgements and results and for that tough and swift decisions and punishments are needed. But our 'plural' society doesnt allow us to take swift, collective and decisive decisions. How to get out of this vicious cycle? And can we??

Congress Sycophancy

          In my blog post Halo-ed past i wrote about how Indian leaders want to have only good things about them in history books. This is not just restricted to leaders, but with most celebrities too. But this behaviour is conspicuous in the sycophantic Congress Party. The sycophants doesn't want even a single negative thing about the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. They can go to any lengths and find poor scapegoats or whipping boys. Just see the alacrity with which different Congressmen are trying to shift the blame of Warren Anderson's escapade on Arjun Singh and P.V. Narasimha Rao. Poor P.V. Narasimha Rao was blamed for Rajiv Gandhi's mistake of opening Ayodhya locks and also lost the honour of having Hyderabad International Airport named after him. The Sycophants named the airport after Rajiv and PV has to settle just for a fly-over. Same zeal was shown by Marathi Congress Sycophants in naming Bandra-Worli Sea link after Rajiv. You will roll on the floors laughing to know their justified reason - Rajiv Gandhi was born in Bombay. No wonder Edward Luce dedicated a chapter for 'Long Live Sycophants' in his book 'In Spite of Gods'.

Tax Extradition

        Swiss Parliament ratifying the tax treaty with US, so that the details of tax-evading UBS clients can be revealed is in fact a good news for India. Our government should also pursue the same with Swiss authorities. India should raise more of this issue at international forums like UN or G-20 and work with organizations like 'Transparency International'. As per unofficial figures around $1.5 trillion Indian money is stashed in Swiss banks. Many millions of Indians can be extricated from the clutches of poverty and poor health with this kind of money. In the context of India, a treaty like this can have far-reaching effects like reduction of corruption and addressing the weaknesses in our governance. A noose around final recipients will permeate the change to the lowest level. It's strange that parties like BJP raise this issue only during elections. At least our media should raise this now relentlessly. The earnestness that different stakeholders of our Country will show in this issue is a true gauge of our intentions and resolve for an 'inclusive' society.

Bhopal Tragedy

                  I think i read around 25 editorials of different news papers in the last 10 days or so. After going through the list of atrocities (still being committed) against the victims of Bhopal , i became 'numb'. So all the people who are part of the system says 'Systemic Failure'. So what the use of this god-damn system that has been failing for the last 25 years? As Arundathi Roy says in the case of Maoists, if the system or the so-called Democratic government is against you, to whom you should approach for help? What option you have other than fighting the 'state'?  Honestly i think the correct, but very insensitive and numb explanation for this whole failure can be given in terms of 'Economics'.
                 Its the case of demand and supply. We have more supply of people in India and that too poor people. Therefore there's no demand for their life. So much for our vaunted 'Demographic Dividend'.

"Halo"ed Past

                     A.L. Basham in his famous 'Wonder That Was India' says - "It is perhaps unjust to maintain that India had no sense of history whatever, but what interest she had in her own past was generally concentrated on the fabulous kings of a legendary golden age, rather than the great empires which had risen and fallen in historical times." This is in the context of lack of proper resources to study our history (both Ancient & in the Medeival).
                   Now come to present - Even after 60 years Indian government being coy in de-classifying important classified documents, Indian army rewriting the history of Kargil war and the  missing records of 1971 Indo-Pak war which were possibly burnt. So it seems that this is one more in the list of things that we may call 'our culture' or the way we do things here. Our leaders always want to be in good books and want to have an 'eternal halo' around them. So thanks to lack of history, we commit the same mistakes again and again and re-learn the same lessons. That's why possibly our old Kings never learned the lessons of 'unity', always fought each other and lost to foreign invasions.

Patterns In History

                    History has a strange way of producing coincidences. I couldn't agree more when i see the below things in toto.
World environment day (June 5th) was celebrated a few days back.
Yesterday's judgement of Bhopal Gas Tragedy.
U.S is facing the crisis of BP oil spill.
India is going to take up 'Nuclear liability bill' in the coming monsoon session of Parliament.
                   Are these things in a 'pattern' suggesting us something? Telling us to learn from our mistakes and don't repeat them? Approximately from 6000 B.C man started getting 'aggressive with environment' and now is it reaching the 'climax' where we will go back to those times? But its a tough choice to balance these perspectives - development, sustainability & safety. India is in serious shortage of power. Nuclear power seems to be a 'better' option in comparison with fossil fuels which are serious contributors to global warming. But the way in which Indian government is trying to bend laws in the form of 'Nuclear Liability Bill' needs serious introspection. US governments tried to circumvent many laws for oil companies in their mad rush for oil and now they are facing BP oil spill. Serious lessons to be learnt.
                  What can anyone say about the Bhopal Gas Tragedy judgement that came yesterday? The law, courts and the system have made fools of themselves. People and their future generations lost everything and all they got is an average of Rs.12,000/. Moreover the  money, its sheer failure of the system - 25 years for a judgement with no serious convictions, taking years to rehabilitate people and still not cleaning up the area near Union Carbide site. A scientific team found traces of 'Mercury' in mother's milk from these areas. State clearly letting down its citizens.
                  Government should seriously introspect and plug all the loopholes of Nuclear liability bill so that the law will not be 'open to interpretation'. And its high time for judicial, educational and health reforms before bragging about financial, energy and power reforms.

India's Sweet National Anthem

            The genesis of this post is one of those stupid chain-mails glorifying 'India as a heaven on Earth'. Also a few days back i saw a friend's Facebook status that claims - 'Indian National anthem was voted as the sweetest by U.N' and she is proud of it. Only words i could think of when i come across this kind of stuff is  - false pride, battered egos and hyprocrisy. Or is it we are less fastidious and dont want to go into details. No one cares about the dismal performance of India on different UN indicators like:
1. Infant Mortality rate -We are 143rd  in the world on this parameter. Out of every 1000 infants that are born, 55 die in India before reaching their 1st birthday.
2. Human Development Index  - We are 134th in the world on this parameter.
3. Literacy - We are 147th in the world on this. Even with a very loose definition of being a 'literate' we achieved only 60% literacy.
            Forget these indicators just look out of the window of your car or your house. See the reality. India may be shining, but 'Bharat' is still hungry and malnourished with about 300 million Indians still not sure how and where they are going to get their 2 square-meals. When these numbers cringe you with pain and haunt, how can we forget these when we come across a few 'ethereal' observations glorifying India? Can a 'sweet national anthem' satiate the poor's hunger? Driving home somewhat a similar point with respect to religion, Swami Vivekananda said that its an insult to a starving man to teach him metaphysics. Empty stomachs don't need religion and similarly they also don't need sweet national anthems.
            Moreover this 300 million is a conservative estimate calculated on the basis of a dubious 'calorie intake' mechanism. Recent studies are suggesting that growth of these 300 million is severly getting stunted due to absence of intake of pulses and vegetables, owing to high inflation. Their earnings depend only on their heatlh due to the physical nature of work and a problem like this pushes them into a vicious
cycle. Seriously it seems the middle class of today doesnt want to even take notice or acknowledge these problems.  I felt the same when people were rebuking 'Slum Dog Millionaire' and calling it 'poverty porn'.
People are just happy being indifferent to all this. Its time these people look through their windows before they are shattered by a revolution.