Save India

Crap and bilge. Please explain: If things are really as bad as you seem to think they are: why save India at all? Let it disintegerate and let the people go free. Surely that would be best for all of us.

Your trust in the army is reassuring, but your distrust of the Indian people is revolting. Truly, they must be real idiots to go on living peacefully in such a strange situation. in fact they must be be even dumber to vote and thereby perpetuate a system which so completely deprives them of life, liberty and dignity.

Of course the fools cannot have any idea of what is good for them! That is surely obvious. That is why I am glad that a true intellectual like you (who speaks english and is on the internet) realizes the pain of those idiots, and is moved enough to wish to do them good and guide them. You just cannot trust those plebians to do anything by themselves.

Jai Jawan! Jai Kisan! Lal Jhanda ucha rahe hamara!

-narain

Vereesh : What makes you think India is worth saving? Best option for India really is for Punjab to become Khalistan, Assam and Bengal to go free, the South (Tamils etc) to form the successor state to the fmr country of India in the South, Hyderabad to be returned to its formerly princely status, lets just track down the Nizam`s remaining family and bring them back. Kashmir to be free ofcourse. Indians are simply not capable of being a nation, infact they aren`t a nation at all divided by caste, race, religion. How can they rise above themselves and their station in life, given Brahminic doctrine! The vast majority are destined to be the Serfs of the Republic. Its not necessary for them to have potable drinking water, if the choice is potable drinking water for millions and occupying Kargil, and fighting on in Kashmir, well India and you have already made that choice, better off buying SU-30s and Bofors guns than ensuring potable drinking water. Really that simple. And those who die of hepatitis and T.B unnecessarily will also vote for this choice. Too much of a pop problem anyway, if these miserable humans die there won`t be a shortage of soldiers to recruit to fight Pakis or Chinks! Do yourself a favor, stop dreaming foolish dreams, just make sure your get more than your fair share (cause that is the game pal, get with the program), live comfortably and don`t rock the boat. If you like creative writing find better topics to satisy your idealist side, but keep that Mercedes Benz man! Its what matters!

Its you or the plebs! Get that straight.

cheers

Omar

`member what happened to Ceaser in the courier of the senate? Member what happened to a man called Zia who came to office for 90 days promising fresh

elections after cleaning out the corruption and rot? He stayed for 9 years, and looked ready for another 9, until his stay was TERMINATED.

``institutionalised by its predominantly decadent Hindu upper caste political rulers``

Mr. Kumar (if that is your real name), you are writing in a public forum, could you please clarify what do you really mean by the above words. Do you mean:

1. Corruption/decandency by Hindu lower caste or Muslims or Christians or Buddhist would be OK?

2. Corruption/decandency is exclusive preserve of so called upper caste Hindus or they are the experts at it?

3. What do you expect in a Hindu majority country? Or perhaps you mean the UPPER CASTES are minority - if so could you please clarify what is your definition of UPPER CASTES. And when you are at it - could you declare your caste?

4. Which corrupt country you know in present times or in history where corruption is/was not ``Institutionalalised``.

I wonder if you know modern history of the authoritarian regimes.

Thanks in advance.

India is a prison of nations.

Omar

Indians are not fit to rule themselves. What good has come of India in the last 50 years is a legacy of the Brits. Be grateful to the British. What India requires is the return of either the British or Mughals to bring order to its chaotic society.

Omar

In short, now that the failures of `native rule` over the past 50 years have been gauged correctly by veresh it is time to ask the Brits and Mughals to return to rule.

Omar

P.S No Indians or dogs allowed.

In response to Veer Kuman`s Save India:

An interesting collection of ideas with an naive solution of the current plight of India. Instead of ``Save India,`` I would have loved to learn about a well thought out answer of: ``How to Save India? `` This focus would have helped us too as a lot of our problems has some commonalities.

Every country has a negative and a positive side. Veer Kumar has offered a powerful description of India`s negative side. This essay is markedly different from Pritish Nandy`s ``Demolish the Myth`` where the author paints a positive picture of India in relation to a negative picture of Pakistan (with a rather cynical passion). In fact, both India and Pakistan need to focus on the difficulties that they are currently facing or they bound to face within the next few decades due to their extremely and fast growing populations. In this regard, I see a very gloomy future of India (and to some extent of Pakistan as well).

Veer Kumar writes: ``. . . what a nation of befuddled fools.`` I must add: ``on either side of the Indian-Pakistani border.``

In my opinion, the worst part of Veer Kumar`s article is one where he calls for ``a martial law administration for an internal clean-up operation.`` This call will surely encourage a lot of Pakistani people to do the same. But, wait a second, Mr. Kumar. Did the Pakistani experience tell you (and us) anything significant? What if, instead of ``Saving India,`` the army rule may trigger the process of Indian national disintegration? Should history show its ugly face again and again?

-- Bilal Ahmad

While I`m not for having the successor of the British Army of Occupation taking complete and unaccountable control of the country (like it did in Pakistan), I think that Veer Kumar has raised a very important point by pointing out the glaring discrepancy between the National Motto: ``Satyam Eva Jayate`` (Truth verily triumphs) and the reality on the ground.

I suggest that a more pragmatic approach would be to make this motto the de-facto law of the land. The people of India and Pakistan both must take a zero-tolerance approach towards lies and falsehood, no matter which side of the border they are coming from. Some truths are unpleasant, certainly. Some facts may seem ``detrimental to national security.`` But falsehood is a cancer that destroys everything as it redirects more and more national resources to propagating itself.

There is a simple movement that I believe is based in Rajasthan with a simple motto: ``Humaara Paisa, Humaara Hisaab`` (``Our money, our accounts`` in Hindi/Urdu). This simple step would go a long way for both countries. Elections are meaningless if the people (and their chosen representatives) are denied access to this kind of information.

Right now, so called ``national security`` is used as a blanket tool for denying the people access to the workings of their own government. Want to know how much money from the GOI goes towards funding Madrasas? Sorry, that information is ``sensitive`` since it might spawn ``communal violence.`` Huh? The vacuum of facts is filled with rumors and innuendo.

The same goes for thousands of other points. The GOI denies that radiation from Pokhran or Nuclear Power Plants hurts anyone. But it is illegal to walk around with a geiger counter because of ``national security``! People get worn down and they start putting up with this nonsense.

I`m sure the situation is similar in Pakistan. By God, the Pakistani government still denies that it is arming cross-border infiltrators based on Pakistani soil! Or that many Pakistani youth proudly take part in such operations. And the funny thing is that they are lying about stuff that many people consider a point of pride! An Indian Muslim friend of mine told me that the Koran said ``seek the truth even if be as far away as China.`` I`m sure that the Pakistani Muslim reads the same Koran.

So, rather than calling for martial law and other drastic measures, why not start with simple steps and involve the people? Lets make the truth the standard. If either Government lies, they should be put on the spot and asked to produce evidence. If they claim ``national security,`` the people should offer up a representative who will take whatever oath in defence of the country that they want and then look at the evidence.

As long as we tolerate lies, nothing else is going to help.

This article presents a recurring theme for the indians, the infantile desire to go back to the past, the desire nurtured by the religion, the idea of Rama Rajya. Once up on a time there was a king, Rama, the gutters contained honey and milk. In the modern context the Rama Rajya could be delivered by a military dictator. Very good idea, there are a lot of takers for this in India.

I know many old people in india who fondly think of the old british days. They are not smart enough to think of the effect of population growth, changed economic and political climate, they were unwaware of the plight of others, they were the beneficiaries and they want the old back. It is heartenenig to know that the young also have imbibed the values from the old, time remains stationary in india, a land where yesterday and tomorrow has the same word, `kal`, ahere time is cyclic, every thing returns to the origin, let us welcome neo-colonialism, hopefully to be followed by real colonialism.

Veer Kumar symbolises the failure of india, it is not the poverty, it is not decease, it is not education, it is Veer Kumar.

Re: Veer Kumar

An extermely interesting article on the post-Kargil India with the problems clearly highlighted. After reading it the first time, the message analysis of your article came across as a cry of the heart and after the second reading as tale of a sad state of affairs and still, after a third reading, the impression is one of fright and concern at what you seem to suggest.

As to the Indian intelligence failure in Kargil, the root cause of it lay in the inability of the Indian Army brass to draw the right conclusions from the situational reality along along the LoC and on their mis-preceptions of Pakistani intentions and even though it was failure of the government, to pay heed to intelligence, it should not be seen as endemic decay in the Indian
government itself.

Veer, it is an old cliché, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and you, my friend, need to think carefully about what you are suggesting. The army may seem as a balm for Indian problems, but it will not work. The most obvivious reason is that corruption and political petty interests have their root in the intent of the individual and not necessarily in the affairs of the state. Applying martial law and using the Indian armed forces will not solve the problems you have so astutely identified and wish to amend, but India has to re-create its own sense of a civic obligation in its polity and that, starts with the individual`s sense of resonsibility towards the state and can not be applied from the top down in some sort of trickle down scheme.

If that were the case, the military coup d`etats of Pakistan should have solved our problems of corrurption, but they did not. Take it from our past experinces, and learn the right lessons from Pakistan`s history, that this approach will not work.

Every ills described by Veer are present in Pakistan too,so there is uneasy akwardness among most of Paki to say much against a country which in size & neumerical military strength sits as a formidable advisary in the psyche of most of Paki!Believing,many cosmopolitan cities compared to only one Karachi & maybe Lahore,India is always daunting as a competiter for an average Paki.When ever an article criticizing India like Rohans``Lack of imagination in India``& this one appear people like OMAR74 go bannana with multiple posts of flight of ideas.He suggests ruling India by British or Mughal?British will be happy to oblige where is he going to bring the Mughal.The last descendent, the other day appeared to endorse Bajpai Govt,condeming Pakistan!

This being predominantly PAKI Chowk there is askwed selection of articles to make the Paki feel good .I feel eerie about repeated articles about India bashing(not that they are not true)when an average Pakistani cant even feel comfortable reading it leave alone criticize it whole heartedly for in the back of the mind he is thinking of worse crime in his own backyard!

Hey, Omar1974 and nameless, this stuff wasn`t written by me, so will you please write in directly to ``veer kumar``?

My views are strictly anarchist.

However, a benevolent dictatorship in India would not be a bad idea because we DO have a very vibrant and outspoken media which would keep them in check, so any similarities between Brits (they didn`t like the weather), or Mughals (they couldn`t stand the workload) or Zia (come on, who else would carry mangoes in an airplane?) are irrelevant.

Cheers

Veeresh Malik

not Veer Kumar

(Will the real Veer Kumar stand up please?)

My reply to you will consist of picking up bits and pieces of your `prose` and retaliating to them. First:``The Kargil occupation only confirmed that people could even go to the extent of selling their mothers.`` A tall claim indeed my friend. But tall is all it is. Unsubstantiated and unproved. Sounds more like a line from a popular hindi movie, something that Dharmendra would say in his haydays.

Second: ``The armed forces in India are the only one therefore capable of doing what needs to be

done.`` Can you give an example of anywhere in the world where this has worked? And even if it were to somehow miraculously work, how would you assure that some Nazi military general wouldn`t do say what his contemporaries have done in Africa, or closer still, in Pakistan in recent years. Did army control really do these countries, or, in fact, any country any good ever? And just to clarify, this is almost impossible to do in a country like India in which the military has been consciously given a very small role, if any, in the governance of a country. Do you rather that we scrapped the entire consitution?

You suggest that ``At an appropriate juncture, with the system reform in place, the armed forces can retreat from its direct engagement in civilian matters.`` A brilliant plan my friend, but who is going to impose it? In the history of the world who has ever given up power? The few who have, are considered saints or atleast enlightened like Buddha, Mahavira, Ashoka. But the examples are few and far between. Can we trust the fate of a billion countrymen, then, on hoping against hope that the military will give up its power and subserve under a weak democracy again?

But even i agree with you when you say all war has to be stopped and all efforts have to go into reinvigorating our nation.

The only thing I don`t comprehend is your urge to ask the army to save us. Shouldn`t we, the people of India, be given the task to save our land? Or are we so pathetic that we cannot do so? History shows that change can only come from the masses. Thus if we want India to change, we have to educate the masses about the futility of war. No man, or military-no matter how powerful, can ever achieve what the conscious effort of a nation`s people can. So stop asking help from the military and see what you can do for your country. If the whole country remembers the fabeled saying `` Kar khudh ko bulund itna...`` and works hard and steadfastly towards a better, corruption-free future, our problems will be solved. Otherwise, people like you and I can write back and forth about the futility of our nation to eternity with no avail.

Hey Veeresh:

Are you the same guy who is fighting to get the VVIPs to stop disrupting traffic in Delhi? If yes, for once, you are doing something useful. (Try to see if you can introduce white-bashing in the process.) Good luck.

I only saw the article posted, together with several responses already, on Thursday night. I shall be back soon to reply.

Thanks

Veer Kumar