Is it really necessary??

Of late there have been huge demands for creation of separate states by carving out from the existing ones. In the first phase, three biggest states of India had to part with a sizeable chunk of their self!!! And with this the demand from other areas have risen even more. At times, I feel this is only a gimmick by the politicians. They only play with the sentiments of people, especially during election time. And a large majority of our people are too innocent to be fooled by that!! And believe me I have seen it clicking and clicking really well during elections. People run around like fanatics, with bands around their heads, screaming at the top of their voices. One of the politicians in the recently concluded bye elections won by a margin greater than what he had the previous time around. And a major part of this success has to be attributed to the card that he played. One school of thoughts argues strictly against division of stated. The logic behind their argument is, Sardar Patel had spent many a sleepless nights only to ensure that all the 500 odd princely states come under one single union. And believe me it was a very difficult thing to do. Thanks to his willingness and guts, that we are all one today. Or else we would probably have had another Pakistan within India. Everything agreed. True that whatever had happened has already happened. He has got his due credit. But coming to the real question, I strongly feel that rearrangement of states is the need of the hour. Mainly because administration is becoming more and more difficult day by day. Population is growing at a rapid pace. 60 years back, it was an entirely different story. States like UP, MP and Bihar could have been managed. But today, its very very difficult. And moreover with corruption rising daily, it makes administration even more difficult. Middle level bureaucrats are making the most. Though we are in the line of becoming self sufficeint, the necessary help doesnt reach the one who actually deserves it. Once we have smaller regions to be governed, administration becomes that much simpler and easier, and over that if we get good leaders, it will be like an icing on the cake!!

India turns 60!!!!

India turned 60 today. Lot of hype is being created in the media. All news channels, or any other channel for that matter, playing patriotic songs and flashing photographs from the days of freedom struggle throughout the day. I always fail to understand one point!! Why so much of emotions and reactions only during Independence day or Republic Day alone?? Why cant we have the same steady feeling for the country throughout the year?? Why cannot we sing the national anthem or Vande Mataram everyday?? Why don't TV channels broadcast these at least once a day?? I will be happy even if we show 1% of the emotions we show during these days, throughout the year but on a consistent basis!! I am not claiming to be a great patriot or anything. But then, I do not involve myself in what I know as False Patriotism. As someone rightly said, "Patriotism is not short frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the steady and tranquil dedication of a lifetime." In my case, I don't belong to any of the two groups. Now that doesn't mean that I do not love my motherland. Of course I do love but I just don't express it!!

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Last night when I was walking near my house, I found a group of people making arrangements for the Independence Day celebrations!! They had made a makeshift flag post, they were neatly cleaning and decorating the areas near the flag post. They had decorated the flag post with the Indian colours. They were just installing it in the ground. A small distance away was a set of small children stapling small flags to a long rope, so that it can be hung on the wall, in front of their houses. We all do it during religious festivals, but seldom have I seen people spending their hard earned money for national festivals like that. Considering that they were not from a well to do family, impressed me even more. What do we, the so called great and educated people of India do on Independence Day or Republic Day? Frankly speaking, we just take it as another holiday. We wake up late in the morning and just go about doing everything else. We go for a picnic or an outing. At least on this day, we should remember our freedom fighters without whom we never know where we would have been today!! Now that doesn't mean only remember the freedom fighters of the pre independence era. We also need to remember the brave jawans who have sacrificed their lives for the security of the country. I am talking about those valiant soldiers who have laid down their lives during the wars against China, Pakistan and even internally against terror groups like LTTE, Naxals etc..

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Mahatma Gandhi was definitely great and deserves to be the Father of the Nation. But I strongly feel that India has gained freedom not because of his Ahimsa or non violence. He was great because he was able to have a huge number of people behind him. Of course this public support had been gained by virtue of Ahimsa, but then, if someone like Subhash Chandra Bose or Sardar Vallabbhai Patel had gathered even a tenth of that support, they would have driven the British away long before they left!! All these ideals of Ahimsa so not find any relevance in today's situation. Considering the fact that the basic values of life namely trust and faith are absent, Ahimsa is totally irrelevant. It may have been portrayed quite well in the movie Lagey Raho Munnabhai but at the end of the day, its only a movie!!

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Coming to the real question now. After 60 years of independence, where are we today and where are we headed?? In these 60 years, we have not been able to eradicate poverty. There are still millions of people below the poverty line. We have not been able to improve literacy levels. Unemployment is still a threat to the society. There was a time, couple of decades ago when people were so fed up with the politics and corruption that, they wished India had not gained independence. At least, the British were good in administration. Though after the reforms of 1991 and the era of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, things have started to change for the better. The liberalisation and opening up of the global economy is a ray of hope. Things were taken up further by the Vajpayee government and is in a right track under this government also. One good thing to be observed in the last two decades is that even though ruling parties have changed every 5 years, major strategies have remained the same. They have persisted with same strategies on major issues and this has set the wheel rolling in the right direction. So all going well, we should be able to realise the dream envisioned by our former president Kalam. God willing, there should not be any problem in India becoming a developing country by 2020!!

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Something interesting to ponder over

I found this somewhere and thought I should share it with you!! Someone who I don't even know has written these words, but I found them very very relevant!!!

The usual hullabaloo is about to begin this week and we will all be swamped by everything to do with celebrating our 60th year of Independence. But amidst all this government-sponsored excitement it is perhaps critical to reflect on what we've really achieved as a nation and some exciting milestones that we've managed to cross in these six decades. And question the kind of freedom we've enjoyed. There is enough good news to keep us busy all the time. But there have been some reality-checks that we have chosen to ignore.

For me these 60 years have meant the following:

* We finally got rid of the British not because of M.K. Gandhi, but only because Lord Mountbatten's wife Edwina and Jawaharlal Nehru (who I still rate as our finest Prime Minister) fell in love. Lutyens' Delhi then tasted a whiff of diplomacy blended with love.

* At one time we boasted of Presidents of a certain stature. Those fine men who entered Rashtrapati Bhavan were men of substance until a certain Mrs. Gandhi (not to be confused with the present Mrs. Gandhi) installed Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and the decline began. We thought it would end with the installation of a rocket scientist, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, but then again a certain Mrs. Gandhi (the present one) decided to gift Pratibha Patil to the nation, to mark our 60th anniversary and the rights of women. We now have a President that the people didn't want, that the people's representatives were forced to vote for; and all we've left poor Dr Karan Singh with is another presidency — that of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

* There was a time when we boasted of remarkable Union ministers and legendary chief ministers. Be it a T.T. Krishnamachari or a Dr B.C. Roy, they were people who brought a zeal to their offices, and what's more, were driven by causes. They helped inspire and instill a belief that this country was headed in the right direction. We had incorruptible people who were elected because of their honesty and not the lack of it. Today, some Cabinet ministers belong more to the prison and less to the Cabinet as it were. Some like Shibu Soren have scaled new heights by being incarcerated for murder, while others land choppers where even cars don't dare. From the sublime we have moved to the remarkably ridiculous.

* There was a time when we had editors who went to jail to fight for the freedom of the press. There were newspapers, which broke new ground, weekly magazines that opened our eyes to the Bhagalpurblinding. There were shows on Doordarshan, which you enjoyed with the remarkable Tabassum, but some of this has also changed, for the worse. We now have editors who are on television and television anchors who write edit pieces in newspapers; you have television interviews which make the Gulf War look small only because of the vitriol that flows, with the hapless viewer surfing channels like never before. There was a time when the youth of the country was seized with issues and value pyramids, where education was everything one aspired for, where it was more important to respect those who taught you and imbibe the learning from your elders. That too, somewhere down the line, has been forgotten. The Internet and family albums by Face book have replaced parents. The photographs we took of our families on holidays have been replaced by vulgarity spewed on You tube and we are all supposedly a progressive world. In my times, Coke was a drink. Today it is a powder.

* There was a time when we admired the art of giving. A time when we saluted those who gave back in full measure to society. When we actually contributed to causes and ensured there was enough societal follow-up. But sadly, all that has changed as well. The pink newspapers are busy telling us about who made it to the rich list and in the process perhaps trampled on how many innocent people. But a "Give List" has never been published to tell us who amongst these luminaries gave back to society.

* There was a time when we had actors and actresses who only did what they were supposed to do. Act in films or on television. Today some of them have become part-time activists, while others are pretending to run around trees at an old age. From the soulful music of Naushad we have descended to the music of someone who is best remembered for a complicated surname. The Dilip Kumars retired gracefully and were gentle human beings. Today, we have film actors doubling up as benaami landlords.

A lot has changed and a lot remains the same.

We have a tremendous future ahead and the fact that we have the world's youngest population (everywhere except in Parliament, not to mention the Union Cabinet, of course) should both delight and scare us. Age has many challenges and keeping the youth inspired is an entirely different ballgame.

This is what we need to reflect on as we approach the next life cycle in India's destiny.

Never have these words been more apt:

Eh mere watan ke logon,

zara aankh mein bhar lo paani…

Happy Independence Day!