Is India, the Land of Contradictions, Falling Apart In Its Own Flip Flops?

No, this isn't about the contradictions Rudyard Kipling found in pre colonial India which made his stories so vivid and won him a Nobel prize. Neither is this about the gargantuan gap between the Ambanis and the poor Dalit family Rahul Gandhi spent a night with.

It isn't even about the dismaying array of differences curious foreigners visiting India find difficult to comprehend and the nasty feeling of unease in their guts they go home with.

I am talking about the double standard a billion Indians practice day in and day out, which makes nothing an Indian says can be taken seriously by the rest of the world. Not even what its defence minister reads out in the parliament about the death of five Indian soldiers and then change to please millions of war mongers.

Were they terrorist in soldier's uniform or soldiers in terrorist garb who killed the Indians? Who cares?

In the rest of the world when people say yes, or yes I do, they mean exactly the same. In India you are never sure what they mean.

When the Government says they need foreign investment they don't really mean it, because for some reason, Mauritius becomes not a foreign country for India.

When the government says we won't tax foreign investment, it doesn't mean they can't go back several years and claim taxes on ambiguous corporate deals like the one Vodafoneengaged in.

When Government says Indian companies are free enterprise and they can trade their shares and capital in world market like other countries allow, they don't mean its CAG can deem such transactions as corruption like in the 2G saga.

No doubt, the Indian administration has acquired this art of contradiction and flip flop from its neighbour who can only lie whether it is about the presence of Osama Bin Laden or Davood Ibrahim or about anything else for that matter, a nation which the word has acknowledged with a motto 'We Will, We Will Only Lie'.

For India, a nation which declares 'Truth Will Prevail' on its currency, such a trait smacking of national dishonesty is indeed matter of shame.

In fact somehow there is always a disturbing disconnect between what any Indian says and what he or she means, which can be anything according to the circumstances.

This is not same as accusing all Indians of blatant lying but not owning up to a genetic makeup of a race which they should ward off with conviction and commitment to honour one's word. The least they can do is to think before they open their mouths before they put their feet in them.

Not a day, not a headline pass without a contradiction, retraction or denial. So much so that news is reported more like the first serve in tennis which is bound to be a 'let' than a 'fault' and the server gets a second chance to take a position depending on the reaction.

Day in and day out so called, leaders, celebrities, spokespersons and anyone the media will insanely pursue and compete to get a word out of for filling the above fold of their publications and news channels will blurt out something or other which is an affront to common man's intelligence.

So you can ignore headline news and wait for the denial like the media who are now a days even providing empty space or time slots to accommodate such lat minute pearls of wisdom from those who control the destiny of the nation.

If for any reason, the statement is not exciting enough, there is always the 'misquotes' which are also so conveniently denied by a later statement.

Another word which should be banished from the Indian English dictionary is the much bandied 'slam' which lets everyone blow up and complicate non issues and stuff one should ignore in to massive waste of time and resources.

The truth is that, lack of intelligence, ability to grasp the subject and do a contextual analysis and necessary historical checks, all fundamental requirement of journalistic profession, on the part of the reporters and editorial staff are conveniently ignored, even condoned for the sake of circulation and eye balls.

The result is creation of dangerous mass hysteria like the recent one which forced a change in well thought out government stance, taken in national interest, making India look ridiculous before the world.
Spoken words can't be taken back. When blurting out irresponsibly and irresponsible relaying and amplification of statements without context, like in the recent speeches of Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi can play with the emotions of a billion innocent Indians, the media is indeed toying with dangerous stuff more powerful than, at least a part of India's arsenal.

The question is who in India will own up to this shameful trend and do something to change it? Is it going to be the so called educated young or the media which tend to lay claim to parity with world media in quality and standards?


Sunday, August 11, 2013
Posted by Unknown

Is it Time The Congress Party Brought British Raj Back to India?


India was 'one' nation for two hundred years when it remained under the British Raj.

Today the cry for the bifurcation of yet another state of India, Andhra Pradesh, the capital of which was once the richest Kingdom in the world, is threatening its very integrity. Many more bigger and smaller states are waiting to pounce on the opportunity to demand creation of their own little kingdoms.

Futile squabbling and vacillation have ended up in wasting of so much of national resources and administrative time, hampering development and creating unsolvable political dilemmas, dividing people. Parochial interests and selfishness is driving India back to the middle ages making it easy for its vile neighbours to exercise their ambitions of hegemony in the near future without efforts.

Isn't it time educated and responsible Indians who profess love for India and its integrity investigate why and how the British Raj kept India united and prospering?

Unfortunately the very mention of the Raj will make many Indians virtually explode in indignation and bloated national pride even in the 21st century, despite passage of a couple of generations since independence along the time line.

Even the fact that India is projected to become the number one economy in a couple of decades also can't alleviate the pain of the Raj for its so called techie generation. Such is the strength of the inferiority complex on the Indian psyche imposed by the strangle hold of the Raj. In many ways, Indians need to feel liberated, despite nearly a century of independence.

However In myriad of ways, it was indeed the Raj which made the fight for Independence and its successful culmination a reality.

On the one hand, Whigs and Liberals expounded sentiments most iconically expressed by TB Macaulay in 1833: 'that... by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government, that, having become instructed in European knowledge, they may, in some future age, demand European institutions. Whether such a day will ever come I know not. ... Whenever it comes, it will be the proudest day in English history.' 
From Empire to Independence: The British Raj in India 1858-1947 Dr Chandrika Kaul

In reality India under the Raj was not a fully united nation. Two-fifths of the sub-continent continued to be independently governed by over 560 large and small principalities, with whom the Raj entered into treaties of mutual cooperation. Read Maya, Mulayam, Mamta, Jaya, Nmo et al in the 21st century.

The real success of the Raj was the administrative wisdom of dividing the rest of India in to governable blocks without any regard to language and cultural identities of Indians like for example, the Presidency of Madras which encompassed parts of four southern states.

In such administrative divisions, very similar to the modern Union Territories of India, no one complained or agitated about water, land, forest, language or education. Like the Union territories, these provinces have only prospered and progressed in time, though the benefits were mostly repatriated by the ruling British.

No doubt this experiment of governance of a large landmass like India with a diverse population and culture, though co-operation with local chieftains and non linguistic and impassionate administration of rest of the land did work smoothly, bringing all around prosperity, which remain quite relevant even in the context of modern India.

Among the benefits bequeathed by the British connection were the large scale capital investments in infrastructure, in railways, canals and irrigation works, shipping and mining; the commercialisation of agriculture with the development of a cash nexus; the establishment of an education system in English and of law and order creating suitable conditions for the growth of industry and enterprise; and the integration of India into the world economy.

In reality, the Raj even succeeded in uniting Indians, albeit in common hatred for the aggressor, at least for some decades before the independence.

That, that hard won unity did not transform in to a permanent unity of a billion Indians in a sense of fraternity is the tragedy of modern India. Today India is virtually as divided as when the British found it centuries ago thanks to the religious division left behind by the British and linguistic division enforced by their successors.

Imagine if Karamchand Gandhi were to try to incite and unite the disparate and hopelessly fractured India, which 1.3 billion Indians now call their country in 2013, even against a Martian invasion ? Even the Martian's would have given up at the rueful prospect of ruling modern India!

Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejeriwal are walking examples of the fallacy of expecting the impossible; to unite India again by raising the bogey of corruption. Corrupt and jailed Jagan Mohan Reddy has won more assembly seats! Corrupt accused leaders have been elected back to power elsewhere.

Narendra Modi and his coterie with the Gujrath model development is another example of someone with their heads in cloud nine, with the idea of a united India lapping up the rhetoric. They simply don't get how divided are the states of India in comparison to the United States of Barack Obama.

By contrast, Kiren Reddy, the CM of congress ruling Andhra Pradesh is a realist who see the danger to his own political future and party, if not for the integrity of the nation, in the destructive trend.

In reality, Sonia Gandhi, the President of the Congress party has proved to be much more of a pragmatic leader who has recognised the inevitable divisiveness of India.

Not surprisingly, though inadvertently, her pragmatism in agreeing to the local aspirations of the people of Andhra Pradesh while declaring and keeping Hyderabad as a Union territory smacks of the pragmatism of the Raj.

Why just Hyderabad, every project area like the contentious Kudamkulam Nuclear Thermal Power station or Integrated Steel Projects and every Metro in the country country, where massive central government investment has been pumped in must be declared a Union territory, to clean them from the evils of parochialism and foist, unhindered growth and prosperity.

Should Sycophancy On Facebook, Twitter and Comment Boxes Merit Dante's Tenth Circle of Hell?

  Courtsy:Inferno by Dan Brown

If Dante would be alive today and visited India, he would have added a tenth circle of inferno (hell) in his famous poem, Divine Comedy, and assigned it to Sycophancy on the Social Web. He wouldn't have to resort to allegory, it is all over Facebook, Twitter and comment boxes on blogs, for everyone to see. It is even orchestrated, promoted and practised using black hat SEO methods by a dedicated brigade.

If Dante would have been in any doubt, it would only be about its relative place among others he has seen in the Inferno.
· First Circle (Limbo)· Second Circle (Lust)· Third Circle (Gluttony)· Fourth Circle (Greed)· Fifth Circle (Anger)· Sixth Circle (Heresy)· Seventh Circle (Violence)· Eighth Circle (Fraud)· Ninth Circle (Treachery)


Unashamed flattery of the type seen in recent political pseudo appointments might not have surprised him as he has already seen worse things and assigned a pit (bolgia) for such sinners in the eighth circle.

Bolgia 2: Flatterers also exploited other people, this time using language. They are steeped in human excrement, which represents the words they produced. Alessio Interminei of Lucca and Thaïs are seen here.
Sycophancy is defined as the overly fawning behaviour of a suck-up. A sycophant is a person who attempts to win favour at the cost of his own pride, principles, and peer respect.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Posted by Unknown

If It Is Time India Really Had A Lower Caste Prime Minister Why Maya Is Much More of an Obama Than Namo


Mayavathi, four terms Chief Minister of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, is its most famous Dalit (lower caste) leader who aspire to be its Prime Minister one day.

Much like Barack Obama is for Blacks, Hispanics and a host of other groups of the American political divide, Mayavathi is an Icon and hope for millions of lower caste Hindus of India, who aspire for better opportunities still denied to them despite 60 years of Independence.

If Mayavathi had once sent an aircraft to fetch her a pair of footwear, or showed off a diamond necklace in a mass rally, she had strong reasons which you and I didn't need to know but meant a lot to her followers, not just the whims of a vain woman.

Mayavathi is no body's fool. She certainly wasn't showing off the 'Taylor-Burton diamond' of a love affair or was out to stun the world enhancing her beauty like Imelda Marcos.

Since her public actions and pronouncements time to time reveal chinks of mettle and strength of character worthy of a Prime Minister of India, which most of her critics have failed to notice, she had perhaps valid reason for her famous caprices too.

What if Mayavathi had simply wanted to show millions of her Dalit compatriots what they have a right to, like wearing expensive jewellery like the rich of India, thereby awakening their sense of their rightful place in society?

Many of her recent political manures and supportive actions for the ruling UPA in parliament on critical legislation similarly smack of mature political thinking. Her concern for the nation above parochial indulgence is evident from her recent dig on Narendra Modi, three times Chief Minister of neighbouring state of Gujrath, who she declared is not fit to be a leader of India.

That Mayavathi managed to muster the necessary majority support to rule the state four times as chief minister with the support of other parties and also render decisive outside support to the coalition governments at the centre is proof that this trained teacher has the knack of keeping her class together till the bells ring.

Much has already been written how her social engineering skills have taken the wind out of the sails of the Congress party, which has ruled India for the bulk of the decades after its independence.

Unlike the Congress which traditionally had the support of the upper class of Indian society and thrived on an inclusive plank to carry the lower classes by championing their cause, Mayavathi has shown, time and again, that the majority lower caste offering a real partnership for the upper caste is a better vote winning formula.

Mayavathi has shown that she will base her election strategy on this tried and trusted formula, which can also work beyond the boundaries of her own state, as eventually it can give the same level of satisfaction to the masses as what the congress party, popular in many states, promise.

In several ways, the inclusive approach of Mayavathi, a leader of the under privileged lower classes of India, which has a sizable majority, good enough to claim the chair of the Prime Minister of the country, resemble that of the US Democrats who found an acceptable and capable leader in Barack Obama.

In contrast, the approach of Narendra Modi, whose supporters claim he could be India's answer to President Obama, despite projecting a Gujrath Model development and supported by the Hindu fundamentalists is seen as divisive character.

Wait a minute, I hear you cry, what about the Taj corridor scam, the swindle of magnificent elephants and the disproportionate asset case against Mayavathi?

Actually, the Indian apex court has examined the allegations and all but rejected them as without sufficient base to prosecute Mayavathi.

If you view at the apparently extravagant government spending on the statues of Dalit leaders and her favourite elephants, from the point of view of millions of Dalits who remain underprivileged in the 21st century India, "They also serve who only stand and wait."

If you think the garlands spun from Rs thousand bank notes which are presented to Mayavathi during her rallies and meetings are obnoxious, you haven't dined in one of those fund raising dinners of the Republican party or made an on line donation to Barack Obama's election fund. In reality there is little difference and really nothing to complain about an indigenous way of party fund raising.

Don't you think it is a century or two early to talk about a corruption free government In a nation in the thick of development, in to which money is flowing in to from around the world?

Especially when it is almost a democratic right in India to be enticed with soaps to part with your vote, the most fundamental guarantor of fairness in society.

In a state where an Australian educated Engineer with a post graduate degree finds it imperative to promise and distribute laptops to win votes, after all talking about corruption, at least for now is pointless.

Akhilesh Yadav wouldn't have wanted of any of his mates or faculty from the Sydney Universty where he studied, to be around when he had to go through the bare necessities of Indian democratic system.

With the Congress party and the UPA really deserving a third term and a bigger parliamentary majority to deliver the progress they promised, much like President Obama deserved a second term, Mayavathi and India may have to wait a few more years for their Obama moment in national leadership. Reach Author Shred Pillai On Google
Friday, July 12, 2013
Posted by Unknown

Did Mahatma Gandhi's Vedic Horoscope Point to Deep Emotional Frustration And Urge for Unconventional Sexual Experimentation In His Life?


More than just a curiosity and a degree of conviction based on the life of others or the urge of an inquisitive researcher to find out the veracity of Vedic astrology, it was a piece of news which brought me to this post.

The finance minister of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, ruled by the BJP, which stands for Hindu values and tradition, has resigned over charges of sodomising a male servant.

For a country like India where any discussion of such realities of modern society and life is taboo even in the 21st century, the news must be shocking for many and hardly mentioned even by political opponents except reports by some channels which try to drag out India to the modern world
.
It is stated that his party, the BJP, had a year ago suppressed similar allegations about this veteran politician who has been elected several times to represent his constituents and had been a long serving finance minister.

Nevertheless, it wouldn't have been very surprising for anyone who would have been observing the buzz and chatter over the social web.

At least on the social networks, the sub continent is not far behind the rest of the world in matters relating to sexual orientation of people and the acceptance of deviations in society. The social web seems also more open to discuss and accept such details of the lives of great leaders and celebrities, which would have been unspoken before and still taboo in mainstream media.

Is the Presidential Mania of India's Narendra Modi Driving a Square Peg in Its Round Democratic System?

"It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be moulded until they clothe ideas and disguise." ― Joseph Goebbels

There is at least one Indian politician who is the Chief Minister of the state of Gujrath,Narendra Modi, who seem to firmly believe in the Nazi theory of propaganda even now.

Modi thinks that by insanely pushing his "Gujrath Model" of governance for development, he can make 1.3 billion Indians believe that he can govern them like a POTUS and deliver prosperity.
Modi thinks that by insanely pushing his "Gujrath Model"
of governance for development, he can make 1.3 billion
Indians believe that he can govern them like a POTUS 

At least that is what his Indo-US backers and millions of urban youth in India who try to emulate this expatriate Indian group of "business genius", want him and his party the BJP, which is desperate to regain power after two lost elections, to believe.

In reality, for American business, who count on these guys to steer key functions in billion dollar corporations and their lobby to win business in India through political connections, it is time for a reality check.

Judging from their comprehension of Indian history and recent political development and grasp of reality on the ground, those businesses which engage or trust them to deliver, don't seem to be standing on any solid ground.

What language Will the POTUS-I speak?


Anyone who speak of a POTUS style governance for India forgets that there is only ONE language the POTUS and the citizens of the US speak. In a country deeply divided by nearly 400 languages and dialects, steeped in as many different culture and traditions, what language the POTIS-I is going to speak to deliver governance.

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