Tryst with Destiny

Jawaharlal Nehru delivered on the night of 14th August, one of the greatest speeches of the 20th Century. I have heard parts of this many times, as they had been played on the old Doordharshan TV.

As i read it again today, i am touched by one of the architects of the Indian polity. And also saddened as we endeavour to squander it away. A nation that developed its constitution, by adopting from the many around the world, choosing the very best from each, and aptly suited to us, now seems to be  consumed in a downward spiral. Pitting relgion, caste, gender and everything possible to divide the people. And instead of aspiring for higher levels of individual freedom and a superior inclusive society, we are taking away rights, considered basic civil and or human rights.

Below is the text of the speech i was able to get from the www.

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

The appointed day has come—the day appointed by destiny—and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!

We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrow-stricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.

On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation, who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.

Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.

The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.

And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.

Wonder if we will be able to live upto the ideals expounded here. I know many are trying. We probably need to try harder.

I Love My Country ...

India is my country. 

All Indians are my brothers and sisters. 

I love my country, and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage. 

I shall always strive to be worthy of it. 

I shall give my parents, teachers and all elders respect and treat everyone with courtesy. 

To my country and all my people, I pledge my devotion. 

In their well being and prosperity alone lies my happiness.

These words still ring true in my ears. But when i see what is happening now in the country. I am saddened. Deeply saddened. I wonder if the government yesterday and today realizes what they are doing to the fabric of the nation.
I have hope that we will outcome all this.
One day. Soon!

Swachh Bharat - Amma in Jail, K Company to follow ?

Amma is in jail now. While all the crocodile tears are being shed by her sycophants, its clear that these creatures are probably the most happiest to see her in a confined space. As part of the Swachh Bharat, it would be nice if the cleanup continued and threw the K-Company crew also into jail soon.

Between the two, my sympathies and support are with Jaya. However, that is no excuse to diminish the punishment. If anything at all, it is far delayed, and far too small a deterrence for the people in high places.
I wish the law would know turn its wheels much faster and quickly wrap up the 2G, BSNL & Aircel-Maxis scams. All said and done, we are so quick to turn politicians into demi-gods (like Modi now), and then soon let them fry in boiling oil in hell, but the money-men and industrialists who fund and finance these are never touched and almost always get away scot-free. Why ? The 2G scam reeks from the foul smell of Reliance, Tata and Airtel, all now dissolved and mostly forgotten in the gray matter we call 'broadcast news'. The Nira Radia tapes also show a conspiracy to appoint a Communications Ministers of someone's liking. Nira is in and out of prison, but others who were talking to her; life goes on.
Praying and hoping for a Swachh Bharat !

"The Murthys and the Maoists" - Harish Khare

In a land (atleast on TV 24x7 News and print media), where people are so used to venerating Narayana Murthy for his ideals and accomplishments, it is difficult to find a dissenting or better yet a sane voice. So it was refreshing to read this piece in The Hindu, recently.
Anything i add to this, will take away its color and disposition. It is best read without my commentary or anyone else's. Form your own. Think tho ' !

The Murthys and the Maoists Harish Khare Between the relentless demands of corporate leaders and the capacity of the underclass to match the state’s violence, India needs a vision for itself that is morally defensible In the first week of 2011, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh allowed himself to be persuaded to accept N.R. Narayana Murthy’s invitation to travel to Mumbai to preside over a function to give away the Infosys Social Science Prizes. The Prime Minister even agreed to attend a dinner that Mr. Murthy wanted to host in his honour after the function at the Taj Mahal Hotel. So far so good. A few days before the event, there was a massive behind-the-scenes dust up between the Prime Minister’s staff and Mr. Murthy. The rub was that Mr. Murthy thought that since he was paying for the dinner, he had a right to dictate not only the guest list but even the seating arrangement. However, there is something called protocol and the dignity of constitutional offices. If the Governor and the Chief Minister of Maharashtra were to be at the dinner, they had to necessarily be seated on either side of the Prime Minister, whereas the host thought he ought to be sitting next to Dr. Singh. Mr. Murthy, however, was not one to be so easily rebuffed. As soon as the first course was served, he sought to convert the evening into a grand intellectual conversation and proceeded to invite his son to open the bowling. And the young son wanted to know from the Prime Minister what the government proposed to do so that young men like him could come back to India. All this is recalled because the young man is now back in India, as executive assistant to his father, who in turn has allowed himself to be persuaded to take charge of Infosys again. Nepotism, did you say? No; no sir. A private company is free to hire anyone. Fair enough, but not exactly. Mr. Murthy is not just a private businessman, minding his own business. He has often sought to inject himself into the public domain, telling a thing or two to the political class about how to behave. He has been serenaded as an “iconic” entrepreneur. During the heyday of civil society triumphalism two years ago, there was even a suggestion that Mr. Murthy be made President of India. That was the time when India’s corporate leaders thought they had the ethical credentials to write open letters to the Prime Minister and preach virtues of good governance. Like other corporate leaders, the Murthys, father and son, represent an unrepentant ideological approach to the Indian state, its morals, manners and policies and purpose, but they are not the only ones to do so. The Maoists — who once again made their presence felt last month when they massacred the Congress top political leadership in Chhattisgarh — too have a list of ideological claims of their own on the Indian state. Both groups are relentless; both are unforgiving. The May 25 attack was the boldest ideological challenge that the Maoists have posed to the country’s political leadership. Violence makes a demand on all stakeholders. It was no surprise, then, that as soon as news trickled in of the attack on the Congress convoy in Bastar, the party’s vice-president, Rahul Gandhi, should have taken off for Raipur. It was a commendable journey of political solidarity. It would be interesting to find out if the bloody massacre in Sukma has helped Mr. Gandhi re-set his ideological compass. Let it be recalled that this is the same Mr. Gandhi who had allowed himself to be persuaded in August 2010 to travel to the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa, where he told the adivasis that he was their “sipahi,” or soldier in Delhi. Only two days before that visit, the Central government had pointedly withdrawn environmental permission to the Vedanta Group to mine the area for bauxite. For good measure, the young Gandhi had proclaimed that development meant that “every voice, including that of the poor and adivasis, should be heard.” It would be nice to know if Mr. Gandhi has resolved his ideological equivocations in the aftermath of the Chhattisgarh violence. For two decades the Indian political class has gone about believing that “development” and “growth” are innocuous and painless. The prevailing orthodoxy insists that the Indian state has one and only one business: to get out of the businessman’s way. There is an unwillingness to acknowledge the basic nature of power: irrespective of its political arrangement, every society plays host to a ceaseless struggle over who gains what at whose expense. Growth and development invariably produce dislocation and dispossession. Good politics in a democratic idiom can go a long way in ameliorating the alienation and anger. Pro-poor initiatives The UPA’s approach has been to let the corporate marauders run amok while salving its democratic conscience with a slew of pro-poor, aam aadmi-centric initiatives. In the process, for the past nine years, the country has periodically been treated to a mock controversy over whether Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council was usurping the government’s space and prerogatives, or, when this or that NAC member walks out in a huff, whether the government is not being sufficiently pro-poor. The UPA’s approach neither mollifies the corporate buccaneers nor satisfies the poor and the disadvantaged. The corporates, however, have sized up the divided political leadership across the spectrum. They have finessed their tactics. If a government is slow to give them the policy breaks that they demand, the democratic space and its anarchic habits will be creatively used to unleash civil unrest on this or that pretext. There is always the age old anger against “corruption” to be tapped. And, as it were, one can always rely on an auditor or a judge to step in to divert attention away from corporate misdemeanours of the most serious kind. Pincer movement No wonder, then, that the Indian state is caught in a pincer movement. From one side, the ideologues and practitioners of “growth” are unrelenting in their insistence that the country’s natural resources and citizens’ savings be made available to them for exploitation; and, from the other direction, the state is confronted by a vast underclass that is unwilling to see any reason to sacrifice its land and forests so that some others can enjoy the benefit of “progress.” Just as the corporates have served sufficient notice that they have no qualms in taking the state on and causing misery to its political functionaries, the underclass, too, is willing to match the state’s capacity for violence, bullet for bullet. Both the Murthys and the Maoists are forcing the Indian state to take a stand. For too long, the Indian political leadership has refused to confront the Grand Conundrum: for whom does the state exist, whom does the state seek to reward and whom does it strive to protect against whom. The UPA leadership has neither the appetite for a brutal repression of the angry tribal, nor is it likely to be able to lure the Naxalites into a democratic engagement without a demonstrable capacity to stand up to corporate greed. A kind of alternative arrangement is already on the drawing board: the Gujarat model of no dissent, no trade unions, no civil society, no Medha Patkar, no tribal resistance, no protests. The great sociologist, Edward Shils, once observed that every society needs grandiose visions and austere standards; the political and intellectual leadership is obliged to prod society to its own historical ideals — “elements which must be recurrently realized without even being definitively realizable, once and for all.” Perhaps we should be thankful that both the Murthys and the Maoists are inviting us to find a vision for India that is morally defensible. (Harish Khare is a senior journalist and a former media adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh)

Reproduced faithfully from The Hindu, Opinion pages, dated Jun 6th, 2013.

Karnataka State Elections May 2013

Whew!! Now that the elections are over, we can rest in peace. We (the voters) have done our duty. Over 70% came out to cast their votes. Like we do regularly we have shown that we still believe in an outdated system, and repeatedly cast our ballot in the name of hope.

Devil and the Deep Sea
Our choices are limited. The one that served its tenure is usually a devil, and the incoming regime, is as unfathomable as the deep sea. We only seem clear that we want someone out of the system, and unsure who we want in.
I guess, given the options we have in front of us, we really dont have the luxury of choice. Not completely true, given that the ballot paper is usually long in every single constituency. Inspite of all this we still end up choosing the same options, we have tried and tired off from before.

Middle Finger. No just Almost !

Hiding it, wanted this badly !

We need to break out from this mold. The answer to this question is on everyone's mind. Many of us educated who are still willing to brave the election day, and cast our vote, do so, only to keep our conscious clean.
So many action forums, fasts, morcha, candle lighting sessions, and capturing the mind of the TV goers, but unable to convert these into a winning combination. And people like us are unwilling to take the risk and waste our votes. And each vote, we try to save, we end up offering to the devil or leap into the deep sea.

Looking forward to the elections in Delhi and the showing of Aam Aadmi Party. Wishing them luck, but more importantly wishing me and wishing us luck.

iZed Security for Mukesh Bhai

Abh kya hai ! After all, democracy mane, "for the people, off the people, by the people". All this if for us only, the Aam Aadmi, or is now popularly known "Mango People".
Interestingly quite a bit of media (specially business publications, here's one) see this as nothing but normal. Just, when the Supreme Court is going to pull the laal-bathi (red light) from a bunch of unwanted cars, now we will have a bunch of Kaala Billis (Black Cats) running around town. What a colourful world we live in?

Source: Manjultoons

Aam Aadmi, will remain an Aam Aadmi, as long he or she thinks that way. Wake up people, tell your government, you are not a mango.

Aside: By the way, will this create a new Top 100 list !! The Top 100 wanted on the Indian Mujahideen hit list.

Non Standard Disclaimer: Everything stated here is a verbatim transcription of what was provided to me by SHIV. I do not claim credit or responsibility. Shiv is a friend i have known for long, and almost always has an opinion on anything and everything. Sorry Mukesh Bhai, if you feel dinged, please dont take it out on me. Please take it out on Shiv.

India rape, protest

Scouring the internet, can result in a few gems, like this. It was by chance that i landed on this opinion page at CNN. The tag line, itself, was an interesting composition. And so, i let my imagination run wild, with a comma at a place i thought appropriate, and used that for my blog title.

What struck me first was a bunch of interesting photographs. Indian news media, clearly need to learn a thing or two from its western counterparts - "a picture is truly worth a thousand words". Or let me paraphrase - "an interesting picture is worth more than a thousand words, written or unwritten".

Some of these images are telling of our current central government. A lot of introspection is required. Instead of letting people vent their anger (peacefully), the UPA government, besieged by protests through out 2012, decided that it will pull-off a "who is the boss?" attitude. A heavy price to pay. Politics is not about winning all the time.

This government in Delhi seems have miscalculated so much during this one year. It has managed to put its wrong foot out, all the time. A price to pay, for having a technocrat as a Prime Minister, who is always kept on tight leash. He cant perform - do what he knows best, do what he thinks best, or play politics which would have been the best.

Latest MMS Scandal

Our MMS is caught in the middle of one of biggest scandals in the history of our country, and his reaction has only been a little more than an average speech impaired person. I guess that is doing gross injustice to the speech impaired. The cartoon below does a fantastic imitation of his responses to the various scandals rocking the nation.

And now apparently they want The Washington Post to apologize for their article on MMS and his mystical silence. And they had a perfect picture on their website, to illustrate his poise and silence. This is like one of those 'MasterCard Priceless' moments.

Satyagraha - then and now

I have been thinking about this for a few days now. And this article 'The government against satyagrahas, then and now' only reinforced this thought. Clearly the current government is following the steps of their erstwhile predecessor (the British), the difference is that we elected this government using our 'powerful' votes.

I'm in effect reliving my history books, i am getting to know more about 'divide and rule', 'disregard for public emotion and rights', 'deflection', 'involve in committees, only to disregard', 'arrogance' and the view that 'might is greater than right'.

Parliamentary Democracy

Here is how things really work in a Parliamentary Democracy. On second thoughts, in virtually any democracy. The concept of democracy is so overrated, that i have come to the view that the best form of government is a 'benevolent dictatorship'. No elections, no fooling the public, possibly no corruption also.

This cartoons depicts the recent mood of the Govt of India, about the Lokpal bill, an initiative grabbed by ordinary citizens, lead by Anna Hazare. The Govt and the Congress party, seems to believe that no one other than the parliament can make rules. So the ordinary citizens, even in a democracy, apparently, will have to sit back, relax and simply wait for their handouts.

How apt?

A sad state for man who otherwise claims background of brilliance and other qualifications, is now resembling more like the blind father of the Mahabharata.

New Fortune List of Non-Poor

Thanks to brilliance of the likes of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the below poverty line has been drawn at Rs. 20/day (in urban areas and Rs. 15/day in villages). It means you are rich and and dont deserve the fullest government assistance if you earn more than Rs. 20 a day.

While the country has been showing tremendous economic prowess, the divide between the India and Bharat has been increasing to levels never seen before. The poor simply have to fend for themselves.

A Collage by Tehelka, of a sampling of the neo-rich in India

(This was made possible by the Planning Commission of India)

When will we realize that the definition of world and economy, as being taught to us by the IMF and World Bank is wrong and flawed. Capitalism has failed, just as Communism (or Socialism), to maintain and provide an equitable and a sustainable living platform for all citizens in the country and world. 

MMS Scandals

MMS or Manmohan Singh in scandal land ! An economist and otherwise brilliant scholar joins the politics bandwagon, and becomes corrupted by a system that refuses to change.

Do you blame the system? Or do you blame yourself? Or are the people, really the reason for all this?

India, that is not Bharat

My version of the original cartoon, that appeared in The Hindu a few days back.

The original here, was a take on a statement that only Congress is capable of meeting/addressing these needs by Rahul Gandhi. Nothing more than a tall claim.