The terror rocked India once again. We were feeling damn lucky to have a peaceful Diwali (though fire crackers deafened my ears and more so created a great amount of discomfort for Ananya who's less than a month old). But the cordial atmosphere didn't last long. Yesterday morning the news broke out from the already turbulent North-Eastern parts of the country (Capital of Asaam province of India) telling about a very nasty blow by terrorists masterminding 11 serial blasts of high intensity killing 70 people (official figures) and injuring hundreds of them.
The thunder of the blasts may have been 100 times more deafening than the fire crackers on Diwali, a few days ago. It would have been a halt of life for those who lost their kins. It would have been a disaster of sorts for whom who lost the bread earners of their families. All these innocent souls were on roads not to die. These people die for no reason.
In my last blog, I wrote about the State of the Nation but that was about another sad aspect of the society, which rejects the right to the people who beg on streets. This aspect also reject the right to live but it has a completely different connotation. This is about those handful of people who take the system in their stride and keep the law under their feet. What a sham it is! These incidents of terror and violence make me believe that we don't deserve to be democratic. And if it is a democracy managed by such weak and selfish politicians, it better be replaced with an alternative, which protects the proletariat from being victimized without any reason. I don't want to sound an autocrat but I am forced to believe that a tighter control over the system is a must to cover all the loopholes of this spongy democracy. It's very frustrating to see the innocent people dying. Some of us foolish citizens (just as a gossip) even say "this is the way to curb population control" or "how does it matter if a few hundred die of such attacks, we are a billion odd people." But the phenomenon of death is natural and shall remain so. Such unscrupulous warrants of death should not be the prerogative of people whom we even refuse to accept the part of our society. Aren't we growing completely agnostic towards emotions and human well being? Yes we are! I say this with full conviction and include myself in the growing population of those agnostic and emotionless humans who, despite being made of conscience and emotions, remain grossly ignorant and believe that "What is destined, can't be undone." I shall ask the people of this country, what is destined? What is so bad about us that we can't stay united and step up the movement to curb and eliminate such nasty elements from the society.
It must be sounding very idealistic and you may stump me with sarcasm that its only good as a pep-talk and very difficult to go out and make it possible. Yes! indeed the feeling is not wrong. It's easy to preach than do. But then its also a fact that intelligentsia is not the brigade with its feet on the ground. They are the people who provide the way...Our cruel, senseless politicians have to take the next step to make this happen.
Another most important observation that I have made (Most of you might have made the same observation)is that in India such attacks are only being carried out by the mercenaries who some way or the other are associated with a SEPARATIST MOVEMENT. What is this damn separatist movement. In a nut-shell, the definition shall read: "Those organization or people, who have taken up the cause of separation of that province/area, and do not want to be a part of the federal republic. They want to disassociate themselves from the country, reject to adhere to the sovereignty of this country and want a separate state for themselves. Now, when India was declared independent in 1947, these was a concerted effort under the leadership of Nehru and Sardar Patel to reorganize India and assimilate/force to accept the sovereignty of one nation and leave the notion of any princely state. During that period a lot of actions were taken to crush the uprisings and then after a great deal of effort, the dust started settling. But in case of those independent states also, there were a few who wanted to affiliate themselves with some other nation than India. Like in J&K, the Muslims of the valley (read only valley) affiliate themselves more with Pakistan than India ( Though its my opinion and can't be generalized but its slowly getting established as a truth). Same is true for some of our other provinces including that of the North East. And these are the two most turbulent parts of the nation facing threats of the nature of cross border interferences. There is a great depth in this comment and it should not be taken lightly. This argument, for the heck of it, can be countered by another argument that this is true for J&K, where the influence comes from the across the border but what is the case with the separatists in North East. Not as a learned scholar on North-Eastern affairs but as a very ground-zero person, my observation is that these people affiliate themselves more with the surrounding nations than India. There may be a few aberrations here and there but in bulk they are more inclined to closer territories than India. Thankfully, in favor of India, the rest of the parts like Goa, Andaman, Pudducherry are not raising their eyebrows for a separatist demand.
According to my perception, which may be grossly wrong, there has not been enough effort to make these people feel an integral part of India. Rather, they were discarded to an extent and only when there is a territorial threat to India that our system realizes its diplomatic significance and tries to bind these communities together so that we look as a united nation.
Time is running short I will complete this in the next sitting.
Friday, 31 October 2008
Monday, 27 October 2008
State of the Nation
Today is Diwali. A festival, which everyone in India wants to celebrate. Although the origin of Diwali stems from our grand old mythological tradition yet it continues to be one of India's universally celebrated festivals. I said [one of the] because India and its natives celebrate a ton of festivals and Diwali is one of them. There are many connotations of this festival but the most agreed upon and widely accepted one is that this comes after some 14 days of Dussera [yet another widely acclaimed festival] celebrated by burning the effigy of Ravan [Once King of Lanka]. Why do they burn the effigy of Ravan? What's the context. I will just explain it in as less words as possible and will then get on to my real message in this blog. Ravan was the ruler of Lanka [probably today's Sri Lanka] and he was a devil. He abducted Lord Ram's [one of millions of gods in India] wife Devi Sita while the latter was in exile for 14 years. Now that's all to explain Ram and Ravan. When Ram killed the evil spirited Ravan, Indians celebrate that day as Dussera. And after nearly 14 days of it, comes Diwali, which denotes the home coming of Ram after killing Ravan and finishing his exile.
That was Diwali of pre-historic age. Cut short this story to today: It's still considered to be a festival of victory of good over bad. But the meaning, rationale, the way how it is celebrated and its whole design has undergone a serious change. It is now a festival, which still every Indian, tries to celebrate only at one condition: If his pocket allows him to. The level of commercialism it has been assigned to is beyond explanation. Welcome to the state of the nation on this day.
For past over a fortnight, I have been thinking to write on this grave issue 'State of the Nation' and I want to remain focused only on a particular aspect of this otherwise very vast and open subject. The thing that disturbs me the most and which shakes my entire conscience is the poverty and unequal distribution of wealth. I see this everyday on the streets of Delhi. On route to office from home, I cover a distance of nearly 35 kilometers and in this patch I confront with almost 12-15 traffic signals, where I get to know the real sense of what India is all about. People who seemingly have not taken a bath for more than 10 days, with a real maze in their hair, torn clothes (sometimes very less of them), very dirty and stinking people rush to the swanky cars when they come to a halt on a stop signal. A lot of them do different acts including raw begging. One message that I want to give upfront though this particular blog is that when they approach towards us, there eyes say just one statement: "I want a share of your wealth." "I need a small portion of money to live today." "I am hungry give me money to feed myself and my entire grand family." Along with every adult (and sometimes even with the infants) there is a small kid who may be as young as a month to as old as 1-2 years. Children above that age are helping hands - they themselves start earning small portions to help their family live.
There are a tons of such people whom I see everyday. I see certain anger in their eyes when people don't react to their requests. Without much hesitation they have now started knocking the doors of the cars to register their presence. They lean on the front window to make us feel so very vulnerable. This is the state of my nation.
Now look at the flip side. A minor crash in the Stock Exchange of India, the place where the wealthy people multiply their money and the middle class try imitating the act of their wealthy and rich cousins, creates havoc. The impact of this havoc is so evident that even the Finance Minister and Prime Minister of the country come running to the rescue of these wealthy few. We have been hearing this every day that the top 5 or 10 or 20 wealthiest corporate and their proprietors lost trillions of rupees. Every day one of these wealthy peoples creates furor in the media to ask for a probe as to who is responsible for this treason and coercion of their wealth. These wealthy few are so highly unsecured that they can't even resist one big blow their wealth. Not even for a second these wealthy few think of the plight of the poor and those who sleep without eating even one meal of the day. This is the state of our nation.
Once while having lunch in our office, one of my colleagues very casually made a passing remark: "The poor deserves to be poor because they don't want to progress. Everyone is responsible for his/her own destiny and we should not blame the government for everything." Although I interrupted him immediately and refused to accept what he said but that made a really deep rooted impact on my mind. If an average middle class Indian thinks like this, what do we expect from the wealthy few. This is the state of my nation.
The very fact that we (the economy of the world) are on the brink of an economic collapse once again after some 75 years, reminds us to be such vulnerable and poor. This all comes alongside the detachment of ideology from politics. We the nation don't have a people-centric and pro-poor ideology. Our political leadership overlooks these masses on the streets who sleep hungry every night. The layers of dirt on their think skin, their innocent hungry eyes and even their bare bodies shivering in cold do not invoke any reaction in the minds of our system which is bothered to know why this Diwali markets have no buyers. This is the state of my nation where the system is shaken to the call of these rich businessmen but the same system turns its back on the call of people ridiculed in the abject poverty.
The state of the nation is so sad that the headlines of the newspapers don't report the death of common man due to unavailability of food and bare minimum resources to live but they do report the closure of the banks in America and its ripple effect on the economy of the nation. The state of the nation is so very weak that it doesn't bother about the unavailability of health and educational resources to the masses but yes it is bothered about the fight between the two wealthiest brothers who control a major part of business for this country.
Next time when you come across these glaring eyes of the beggars on crossings, look at them from my perspective and realize that this is the state of nation, in which the system gets panicked if the Growth Rate shows sins of decline but remains totally ignorant and unmoved if these unnamed natives of India die on the road.
Is this what this nation is made of?
That was Diwali of pre-historic age. Cut short this story to today: It's still considered to be a festival of victory of good over bad. But the meaning, rationale, the way how it is celebrated and its whole design has undergone a serious change. It is now a festival, which still every Indian, tries to celebrate only at one condition: If his pocket allows him to. The level of commercialism it has been assigned to is beyond explanation. Welcome to the state of the nation on this day.
For past over a fortnight, I have been thinking to write on this grave issue 'State of the Nation' and I want to remain focused only on a particular aspect of this otherwise very vast and open subject. The thing that disturbs me the most and which shakes my entire conscience is the poverty and unequal distribution of wealth. I see this everyday on the streets of Delhi. On route to office from home, I cover a distance of nearly 35 kilometers and in this patch I confront with almost 12-15 traffic signals, where I get to know the real sense of what India is all about. People who seemingly have not taken a bath for more than 10 days, with a real maze in their hair, torn clothes (sometimes very less of them), very dirty and stinking people rush to the swanky cars when they come to a halt on a stop signal. A lot of them do different acts including raw begging. One message that I want to give upfront though this particular blog is that when they approach towards us, there eyes say just one statement: "I want a share of your wealth." "I need a small portion of money to live today." "I am hungry give me money to feed myself and my entire grand family." Along with every adult (and sometimes even with the infants) there is a small kid who may be as young as a month to as old as 1-2 years. Children above that age are helping hands - they themselves start earning small portions to help their family live.
There are a tons of such people whom I see everyday. I see certain anger in their eyes when people don't react to their requests. Without much hesitation they have now started knocking the doors of the cars to register their presence. They lean on the front window to make us feel so very vulnerable. This is the state of my nation.
Now look at the flip side. A minor crash in the Stock Exchange of India, the place where the wealthy people multiply their money and the middle class try imitating the act of their wealthy and rich cousins, creates havoc. The impact of this havoc is so evident that even the Finance Minister and Prime Minister of the country come running to the rescue of these wealthy few. We have been hearing this every day that the top 5 or 10 or 20 wealthiest corporate and their proprietors lost trillions of rupees. Every day one of these wealthy peoples creates furor in the media to ask for a probe as to who is responsible for this treason and coercion of their wealth. These wealthy few are so highly unsecured that they can't even resist one big blow their wealth. Not even for a second these wealthy few think of the plight of the poor and those who sleep without eating even one meal of the day. This is the state of our nation.
Once while having lunch in our office, one of my colleagues very casually made a passing remark: "The poor deserves to be poor because they don't want to progress. Everyone is responsible for his/her own destiny and we should not blame the government for everything." Although I interrupted him immediately and refused to accept what he said but that made a really deep rooted impact on my mind. If an average middle class Indian thinks like this, what do we expect from the wealthy few. This is the state of my nation.
The very fact that we (the economy of the world) are on the brink of an economic collapse once again after some 75 years, reminds us to be such vulnerable and poor. This all comes alongside the detachment of ideology from politics. We the nation don't have a people-centric and pro-poor ideology. Our political leadership overlooks these masses on the streets who sleep hungry every night. The layers of dirt on their think skin, their innocent hungry eyes and even their bare bodies shivering in cold do not invoke any reaction in the minds of our system which is bothered to know why this Diwali markets have no buyers. This is the state of my nation where the system is shaken to the call of these rich businessmen but the same system turns its back on the call of people ridiculed in the abject poverty.
The state of the nation is so sad that the headlines of the newspapers don't report the death of common man due to unavailability of food and bare minimum resources to live but they do report the closure of the banks in America and its ripple effect on the economy of the nation. The state of the nation is so very weak that it doesn't bother about the unavailability of health and educational resources to the masses but yes it is bothered about the fight between the two wealthiest brothers who control a major part of business for this country.
Next time when you come across these glaring eyes of the beggars on crossings, look at them from my perspective and realize that this is the state of nation, in which the system gets panicked if the Growth Rate shows sins of decline but remains totally ignorant and unmoved if these unnamed natives of India die on the road.
Is this what this nation is made of?
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Continued from Last
I will continue from where I left last time. As I told, mornings have become colder. It takes a while to warm up in the morning. In few days it will start creating trouble and then it will gradually become a challenge to get myself out of bed in the early hours and go for walks. Anyway, that something usual. We were discussing about the unusual stuff that is grappling the whole world - the infamous economic slowdown. In my last post I was very keen to compare this slowdown with the one that destroyed the capitalist world in 1930. It is still considered a misnomer in the countries which were worst affected that time.
But the capitalists of today are dreaded to accept the fact that this economic crisis is going to be similar as the one in 1930. In a recently published article in Monthly Review magazine (a leftist publication from the USA) it has been very categorically compared with the great depression of 1930. William Tabb(Professor, queens College, City University of New York), in his article (which is actually a Lecture given in the University of Vermont, has told it very clearly how this crisis is going to be worse than even the 1930. In his Lecture, he has mentioned great examples how things went wrong in the US, which finally culminated into this economic massacre. This lecture also mentions about how charmed Nicholas Sarkosy is with the US model of capitalism and says that the capitalism is a system that has enabled the extraordinary development of western civilization. And Sarkosy goes on to say that Anti-capitalism is no solution to counter this crisis. I was today discussing this factor with my father, who himself is a great follower of Marxism and the result was that this needs to be tackled in a completely different way. George Bush (Junior) the outgoing president of the USA has, in a way, succumbed to the fact that the dirty and ugly face of capitalism and free markets is not going to help even the Americans. This was very evident in few of his recent actions and gestures which he'd shown in his outcry. Even in low town, Bush has started talking about the concept of nationalization of banks and financial institution. No wonder, he is shitting bricks in this event of crisis. No big deal that Americans become the most conservative souls in this world and change their outlook towards life. Until now, Americans don't have the habit to save monies. Now probably they will.
In the same lecture Professor Tabb has also sighted two very relevant examples of how two very developed nations (one Asian and another European) dealt with the internal economic recessions and came out of it. The Asian nation was Japan, which took resort to the Paulson Approach (The much coveted US$ 700 billion bailout plan), which received severe criticism within the USA. In 1990s, Japan, like USA, didn't realize the size of the crisis and started bailing out the financial institution financially. Today, Japan may not be into a state of crisis but it’s also true that it is not the same Japan which ruled the world of manufacturing and technology. It banking system is still not in the best of health. Tabb's second example, the European country was Sweden. In case of Sweden, it took over and reorganized the banks under state ownership. In 1985, Sweden deregulated its credit markets, leading to the same situation as the US is in today. As a result, the bubble burst leaving 90 percent of the banking sector with massive losses, including the countries largest banks. In the way to restructuring, Swedish authorities decided to intervene and then the growth came back on track. If this is any learning, America should be following this model. I think it already, in somewhat way, is coming on the track to this way. George Bush says that the Paulson Approach is only there for some institutions and not all. In fact the buying out of AIG (America's largest insurance player) is the first step. But it is futile to expect too much from this nation, which is sold to capitalism. The people of this Model nation (for the rest of the world) don't think the way I or Professor Tabb is asking them to think. Soon after the crisis shows the signs of decline, this nation will again start boasting of its capitalist regime and ethos. It will really not remember the miseries which it is reeling under today.
A few days ago, I was talking to an American lady (online), who happens to be a Life Sciences teacher in the state of California. She was almost in tears and said the government has kept its people in dark in terms of expenditure and engagements in wars around the world. But she was not really known to the real reasons why America has fallen prey to this economic recession. Americans won't even agree to become communists, is a cast in stone. But at the same time it will not be able to stand above the rest of the world. If you've noticed that there is a very uncomfortable silence on the issues such as Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. American intervention in Afghanistan is also in a cold bag. Probably Americans want to just leave Iraq on its own at this stage and just get the hell out of that region. Probably Americans won't be interested into anything else but to save itself from the crisis as of now.
This is probably the best time to mobilize a new world order. As American goes into deep depression and feels vulnerable to spend even a single penny without reasoning and as the oil prices keep falling due to drastic shortfall in the demand (specially from the Americans), its the best time to create a new world order. The oil and gas reserves (apart from the traditional gulf nations where the resources are diminishing) are now concentrated in countries where America can't dare command. The Venezuelan oil reserves and Russia's gas resources can be exploited in order to create this new world order. I wish America crumbles and this new world order emerges wherein India is forced to change its political and economic affiliation with the USA.
Today, Manmohan Singh is calling the US capitalism the "Casino Capitalism", the meaning of which is very clear and straight. America gambled and lost the entire bet. Now when it recoups to gain force, its time to shift the epicenter of world's political and military power to forces which are friendly to the human beings and not anti humans like the America.
But the capitalists of today are dreaded to accept the fact that this economic crisis is going to be similar as the one in 1930. In a recently published article in Monthly Review magazine (a leftist publication from the USA) it has been very categorically compared with the great depression of 1930. William Tabb(Professor, queens College, City University of New York), in his article (which is actually a Lecture given in the University of Vermont, has told it very clearly how this crisis is going to be worse than even the 1930. In his Lecture, he has mentioned great examples how things went wrong in the US, which finally culminated into this economic massacre. This lecture also mentions about how charmed Nicholas Sarkosy is with the US model of capitalism and says that the capitalism is a system that has enabled the extraordinary development of western civilization. And Sarkosy goes on to say that Anti-capitalism is no solution to counter this crisis. I was today discussing this factor with my father, who himself is a great follower of Marxism and the result was that this needs to be tackled in a completely different way. George Bush (Junior) the outgoing president of the USA has, in a way, succumbed to the fact that the dirty and ugly face of capitalism and free markets is not going to help even the Americans. This was very evident in few of his recent actions and gestures which he'd shown in his outcry. Even in low town, Bush has started talking about the concept of nationalization of banks and financial institution. No wonder, he is shitting bricks in this event of crisis. No big deal that Americans become the most conservative souls in this world and change their outlook towards life. Until now, Americans don't have the habit to save monies. Now probably they will.
In the same lecture Professor Tabb has also sighted two very relevant examples of how two very developed nations (one Asian and another European) dealt with the internal economic recessions and came out of it. The Asian nation was Japan, which took resort to the Paulson Approach (The much coveted US$ 700 billion bailout plan), which received severe criticism within the USA. In 1990s, Japan, like USA, didn't realize the size of the crisis and started bailing out the financial institution financially. Today, Japan may not be into a state of crisis but it’s also true that it is not the same Japan which ruled the world of manufacturing and technology. It banking system is still not in the best of health. Tabb's second example, the European country was Sweden. In case of Sweden, it took over and reorganized the banks under state ownership. In 1985, Sweden deregulated its credit markets, leading to the same situation as the US is in today. As a result, the bubble burst leaving 90 percent of the banking sector with massive losses, including the countries largest banks. In the way to restructuring, Swedish authorities decided to intervene and then the growth came back on track. If this is any learning, America should be following this model. I think it already, in somewhat way, is coming on the track to this way. George Bush says that the Paulson Approach is only there for some institutions and not all. In fact the buying out of AIG (America's largest insurance player) is the first step. But it is futile to expect too much from this nation, which is sold to capitalism. The people of this Model nation (for the rest of the world) don't think the way I or Professor Tabb is asking them to think. Soon after the crisis shows the signs of decline, this nation will again start boasting of its capitalist regime and ethos. It will really not remember the miseries which it is reeling under today.
A few days ago, I was talking to an American lady (online), who happens to be a Life Sciences teacher in the state of California. She was almost in tears and said the government has kept its people in dark in terms of expenditure and engagements in wars around the world. But she was not really known to the real reasons why America has fallen prey to this economic recession. Americans won't even agree to become communists, is a cast in stone. But at the same time it will not be able to stand above the rest of the world. If you've noticed that there is a very uncomfortable silence on the issues such as Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. American intervention in Afghanistan is also in a cold bag. Probably Americans want to just leave Iraq on its own at this stage and just get the hell out of that region. Probably Americans won't be interested into anything else but to save itself from the crisis as of now.
This is probably the best time to mobilize a new world order. As American goes into deep depression and feels vulnerable to spend even a single penny without reasoning and as the oil prices keep falling due to drastic shortfall in the demand (specially from the Americans), its the best time to create a new world order. The oil and gas reserves (apart from the traditional gulf nations where the resources are diminishing) are now concentrated in countries where America can't dare command. The Venezuelan oil reserves and Russia's gas resources can be exploited in order to create this new world order. I wish America crumbles and this new world order emerges wherein India is forced to change its political and economic affiliation with the USA.
Today, Manmohan Singh is calling the US capitalism the "Casino Capitalism", the meaning of which is very clear and straight. America gambled and lost the entire bet. Now when it recoups to gain force, its time to shift the epicenter of world's political and military power to forces which are friendly to the human beings and not anti humans like the America.
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