Prayers for the people consumed by the latest in the dance of destruction of the asuras tormeting the soul of India. Prayers also to the family members who must recover and continue with life.
It was a feeling of hurt that hung on in the depths yesterday. Malik Hyderabadi feels for Hyderabad..Until people with hearts assume the role of the country's intelligentsia, prayers also that the conscience of the present breed of corrupt intellectuals be awakened atleast a bit by all this suffering..is that too much to ask?
Monday, August 27, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
The arc of democracy
Excerpt from B Raman's latest on the 'quid-pro-quo' for the N-deal
17. Since the visit of Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, to the US in July, 2005, there has been concern not only in China, but also in military circles in Myanmar that as a quid pro quo for the USA's civilian nuclear co-operation with India, the latter has agreed to help the US in its Pax Democratica initiative in Asia. These concerns were strengthened by the following observations of President Bush in his address at a restricted public meeting at Purana Qila in Delhi on March 3, 2006: "The world has benefited from the example of India's democracy, and now the world needs India's leadership in freedom's cause. As a global power, India has an historic duty to support democracy around the world......India is also showing its leadership in the cause of democracy by co-founding the Global Democracy Initiative. Prime Minister Singh and I were proud to be the first two contributors to this initiative to promote democracy and development across the world. Now India can build on this commitment by working directly with nations where democracy is just beginning to emerge. As the world's young democracies take shape, India offers a compelling example of how to preserve a country's unique culture and history while guaranteeing the universal freedoms that are the foundation of genuine democracies. India's leadership is needed in a world that is hungry for freedom. Men and women from North Korea to Burma to Syria to Zimbabwe to Cuba yearn for their liberty. In Iran, a proud people is held hostage by a small clerical elite that denies basic liberties, sponsors terrorism, and pursues nuclear weapons. Our nations must not pretend that the people of these countries prefer their own enslavement. We must stand with reformers and dissidents and civil society organizations, and hasten the day when the people of these nations can determine their own future and choose their own leaders. These people may not gain their liberty overnight, but history is on their side."
hmmm...isnt that a honourable vision to work for? why is the Manmohan Singh Govt so silent about these explosive and revolutionary consequences of the 'quid-pro-quo' for India's role around the world? afterall isnt this vision much more truer to India's founding values than morbid transnational pan-communism which in fact exchanges a native nationalism with that of a big brother say Russia's or China's? instead of cowering down before the skewed revolutionary vision of leftists, why doesnt the Congress go to the young people of India with this alternative vision of a democratically empowered world?
What are the Chinese crying foul about? as long as they were exporting their ideologies to India and encircling India, encouraging insurgencies in India, it was fine. As soon as Indians realize the power of their own ideology- that of a democratic free society which honours many cultures as part of one national strand- they see red and have egged their Indian stooges on. huh?
17. Since the visit of Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, to the US in July, 2005, there has been concern not only in China, but also in military circles in Myanmar that as a quid pro quo for the USA's civilian nuclear co-operation with India, the latter has agreed to help the US in its Pax Democratica initiative in Asia. These concerns were strengthened by the following observations of President Bush in his address at a restricted public meeting at Purana Qila in Delhi on March 3, 2006: "The world has benefited from the example of India's democracy, and now the world needs India's leadership in freedom's cause. As a global power, India has an historic duty to support democracy around the world......India is also showing its leadership in the cause of democracy by co-founding the Global Democracy Initiative. Prime Minister Singh and I were proud to be the first two contributors to this initiative to promote democracy and development across the world. Now India can build on this commitment by working directly with nations where democracy is just beginning to emerge. As the world's young democracies take shape, India offers a compelling example of how to preserve a country's unique culture and history while guaranteeing the universal freedoms that are the foundation of genuine democracies. India's leadership is needed in a world that is hungry for freedom. Men and women from North Korea to Burma to Syria to Zimbabwe to Cuba yearn for their liberty. In Iran, a proud people is held hostage by a small clerical elite that denies basic liberties, sponsors terrorism, and pursues nuclear weapons. Our nations must not pretend that the people of these countries prefer their own enslavement. We must stand with reformers and dissidents and civil society organizations, and hasten the day when the people of these nations can determine their own future and choose their own leaders. These people may not gain their liberty overnight, but history is on their side."
hmmm...isnt that a honourable vision to work for? why is the Manmohan Singh Govt so silent about these explosive and revolutionary consequences of the 'quid-pro-quo' for India's role around the world? afterall isnt this vision much more truer to India's founding values than morbid transnational pan-communism which in fact exchanges a native nationalism with that of a big brother say Russia's or China's? instead of cowering down before the skewed revolutionary vision of leftists, why doesnt the Congress go to the young people of India with this alternative vision of a democratically empowered world?
What are the Chinese crying foul about? as long as they were exporting their ideologies to India and encircling India, encouraging insurgencies in India, it was fine. As soon as Indians realize the power of their own ideology- that of a democratic free society which honours many cultures as part of one national strand- they see red and have egged their Indian stooges on. huh?
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Vande Mataram!
First post after exactly 3 months! What a happy coincidence that I get to record my thoughts on India's 60th Independence Day.
I have been a mute witness to this years independence celebrations, sitting in far away UK. Lost in my work, trying to finish up, I have been catching murmurs of happenings back home through TV channels telecated on the internet and from the buzz in the UK media. India is everywhere these days- our democracy, our industry, our culture, our spirituality are the headlines. It feels nice, to experience this new tilt of the world's attention towards our worldview. What in the 90's, appeared so clear to us, almost commonsense, was not accepted by the world- our perspectives were scorn-worthy by default, be it on nation, society, religion or culture. We were just another poor and destitute people trying assert our views almost only to balance our immense inferiority complex. All that has changed today. It also feels proud that we are finally attempting to live up to the dream we held up in '47, finally walking on our 'tryst with destiny'. We always knew India is special- it has been since ages- but with all her potential slumbering, and the great flames of the fire that She was reduced to mere embers smothering faint behind ashes, it was hard to accept and convince others, even more so. But today its different: a vibrant, rejuvenated India is there for all to see. The glory is already foreshadowed.
So this morning I settled for a minds-eye flaghoisting with the anthem playing in the bakground on my laptop. That was it for this 60th year eve for me. But 10 years ago in 1997, I was a direct participant to the 50th year celebrations, which were widespread and left a profound impression on me. Waves of joy erupted recounting what the freedom fighters had done to achieve Swaraj (a word much richer in meaning than 'self-rule'). At that time, I had little acquaintance with the spiritual side of the struggle, the men who heraled that movement and what inspired them. And at that time, the under-achieving, under-performing and often neglected giant of a nation was hardly the denouement that the founders of the nation would have dreamed to happen 50 years on.
Since then, as India marched on breaking Her shackles one by one, I too have made a personal journey to the source of the national river and back. Today, with the thirst of the soul satisfied by those refreshing waters, life moves on, towards that goal which inspired this nation from millennia and which I sighted at that source. Now I can see a bit more clearly, what Swami Vivekananda spoke in the 1890's about 'the ancient mother rejuvenated and seated on Her trhone'. Now I can see that the heralding of the free India falling on the birth day of the spiritual savant Sri Aurbindo was perhaps no coincidence. This is the task and the goal for the next 60 years- undoing the legacy of colonialism and defeat on the Indian mind, so that the knowldege this nation held so dearly in Her bosom over millennia, even if only in Her chest when She cowered in an outwardly abject half-sleep during Her slavery, might spread forth once again and help mankind on its onward march.
I have been a mute witness to this years independence celebrations, sitting in far away UK. Lost in my work, trying to finish up, I have been catching murmurs of happenings back home through TV channels telecated on the internet and from the buzz in the UK media. India is everywhere these days- our democracy, our industry, our culture, our spirituality are the headlines. It feels nice, to experience this new tilt of the world's attention towards our worldview. What in the 90's, appeared so clear to us, almost commonsense, was not accepted by the world- our perspectives were scorn-worthy by default, be it on nation, society, religion or culture. We were just another poor and destitute people trying assert our views almost only to balance our immense inferiority complex. All that has changed today. It also feels proud that we are finally attempting to live up to the dream we held up in '47, finally walking on our 'tryst with destiny'. We always knew India is special- it has been since ages- but with all her potential slumbering, and the great flames of the fire that She was reduced to mere embers smothering faint behind ashes, it was hard to accept and convince others, even more so. But today its different: a vibrant, rejuvenated India is there for all to see. The glory is already foreshadowed.
So this morning I settled for a minds-eye flaghoisting with the anthem playing in the bakground on my laptop. That was it for this 60th year eve for me. But 10 years ago in 1997, I was a direct participant to the 50th year celebrations, which were widespread and left a profound impression on me. Waves of joy erupted recounting what the freedom fighters had done to achieve Swaraj (a word much richer in meaning than 'self-rule'). At that time, I had little acquaintance with the spiritual side of the struggle, the men who heraled that movement and what inspired them. And at that time, the under-achieving, under-performing and often neglected giant of a nation was hardly the denouement that the founders of the nation would have dreamed to happen 50 years on.
Since then, as India marched on breaking Her shackles one by one, I too have made a personal journey to the source of the national river and back. Today, with the thirst of the soul satisfied by those refreshing waters, life moves on, towards that goal which inspired this nation from millennia and which I sighted at that source. Now I can see a bit more clearly, what Swami Vivekananda spoke in the 1890's about 'the ancient mother rejuvenated and seated on Her trhone'. Now I can see that the heralding of the free India falling on the birth day of the spiritual savant Sri Aurbindo was perhaps no coincidence. This is the task and the goal for the next 60 years- undoing the legacy of colonialism and defeat on the Indian mind, so that the knowldege this nation held so dearly in Her bosom over millennia, even if only in Her chest when She cowered in an outwardly abject half-sleep during Her slavery, might spread forth once again and help mankind on its onward march.
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