Unbinding India

Welcome back Ms.Varsey. As brilliant as ever.

rgds,
NfP

A well written essay but most likely I will not read the book. Unfortunately India has no attraction for me even as an enemy state. I find myself absolutely indifferent to what happens there except the obvious ``mishaps`` that occur there but that would shake any human being`s soul inside out.

``It is perhaps an irony that Gurcharan Das has probably become more aware than his readers are likely to ever be, not because his work is flawed, but because society is far too cynical. ``

How true. Brilliant essay and a fitting tribute to a deserving Indian.

~~As an observer, he keeps a constant vigil on politicians. And though he gives many points to Manmohan Singh and P.V.Narasimha Rao, his greatest accolades are reserved for Lal Bahadur Shastri. “He understood that the reforms would take place way back then and a License Raj would come in. So he liberated agriculture and was instrumental in bringing about the Green Revolution. Indira Gandhi, the real villain, reversed it. The 70s were the darkest period where all competition was destroyed.”~~

Thank you, Mr Das.

As long as India produces men like him there is light

#2 by Urstruly on March 16, 2004 11:39am PT
//..Unfortunately India has no attraction for me even as an enemy state...//

And that`s very good ... for us hindoos. That`s all we are asking for. You mullahs and jihadis just keep away. Keep your gaze inward and do whatever medieval thing fancies you.

#2, Urstruly:
If you believe in soul, you should know that there is no in or out of the soul.

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And the Hindu-Muslim dushman dushman cycle continues. Keep it up dudes. You have become masters at polluting the fields of Chowk. I give daad where daad is due.

And daad is definitely due to Gurcharan Das, and to Farzana Versey for elucidating so well.

Welcome back, FV,
Well written as always, especially the beginning!:)
Only you could have written it so!
Regards.

Farzana

As usual, an article with food for thought. Some simple guys like me do strain to understand the gist.

(“The BJP is not capable of learning from history. They need good historians. Hindutva is such an impoverished image of our past. Spirituality is only one strand. There is medicine, astronomy, mathematics.” And culture? “That grows out of history.” )

As I understand, Das Sahib wants that Hindutva be adopted as a complete package. Zabta-a-hayat - complete code of life - based on the Indian historical processes & its social milieu.

Do not all the religions, including Hinduism, inherently claim & desire to be adopted in this fashion from day one?

Religion is religion & Mathematics is mathematics. Apples & Oranges.

This eventuality leads to quite a chaos - religion trying to prove mathematics. And Mathematics trying to prove the religion.

Leave the super natural to super natural. And deal the rest with logic.

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#10 by nazarhayatkhan
The BJP is not capable of learning from history. They need good historians. Hindutva is such an impoverished image of our past. Spirituality is only one strand. There is medicine, astronomy, mathematics.” And culture? “That grows out of history.” )

As I understand, Das Sahib wants that Hindutva be adopted as a complete package. Zabta-a-hayat - complete code of life - based on the Indian historical processes & its social milieu.
++++++++++++++++++
I think he is saying the opposite - what he is saying is that Hindutva is only one part of Indian history; there is also medicine, astronomy and mathematics.

sunlight # 12

(what he is saying is that Hindutva is only one part of Indian history; there is also medicine, astronomy and mathematics)

I stand corrected. Thanks.

What does Hindutva really imply - what it means?

Maybe Gujjubania & Farzana can also throw some light on it.

Or as Gajjubania`s post # 11 suggests, it only means Capitalism & creation of wealth!

A good won, Farzana. Somehow, I didn`t expect this from you.
I have not read Gurcharan Das`s books but I have read and admired his articles, and I have been ``allaaping`` the same raag myself since India`s second five year plan. I have a minor disagreement with the description of the 70s as the worst decade. I believe that the worst event was the industrial resolution of 1956 which laid the foundation of state monopolies and the license-quota-raaj system. One just has to revisit some of Rajgopal Acharya`s speeches of that period to see that our `karnadhaar` ignored all kind of sane advice to turn India into a guinea pig for the Fabian Socialists of the London School of Economics. Indira Gandhi was merely pursuing the policies with an added twist of populist slogans like garibi hatao.
BTW, could you elaborate on what Gurcharan Das meant by India becoming a future white elephant.

Hindu and Hindutva has to do with looking at India from a civilizational perspective.
It encompasses acknowledgement and respect for ones own culture and capabilities
and place in the world.

What Nehru and his ilk, did was to say that somehow India was poor because of
Hindus !! The Marxists, in their class struggle ideology also trashed everything
about Hindus and their history while glorifying everything non-Hindu.

BTW, Savarkar - the originator of Hindutva was an atheist and even said that
Hindus should start eating beef, so that Hindus can start defending themselves
against Muslims.

If anything in India, both the Nehruvians and the Hindutvawallahs are all for Science
and glory of India. The difference is that Nehruvians tend to trash the Hindu past
and start by aping the West, wheras the Hindutvavallahs claim that we were once
great and we can become great once again because we have the intellectual tradition.

Check out www.indianscience.org - to understand the scientific tradtion of India.

For the most part, what was discovered by the Europeans in Arabia were all
translations of Sanskrit and Greek texts. Even the arabs refer to maths as
being from the Hindus.
Indian mathematics was superior to Europe until the 17th century.
Of course, the Europeans learnt from it and have dominated over the past 300 years.

A Nehruvian prefers India to become a cheap copy of a European, wheras a Hindutva
fellow prefers India to be a great nation based on its own.

here is something else to think about - only 10 million children to go through school. it is a majot achievement in India. Think about it people - soon another lanmark will be achieved in our life time - 100% literacy in India.


from http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=43085



Education Shining
The amazing saga of how 30 million kids were put into school in 12 months
BIBEK DEBROY


It is pity that the India Shining advertisements have disappeared. Because one of India’s most impressive achievements has also disappeared from public view. I don’t have in mind the Sensex, plus 8 per cent GDP growth or forex reserves. I am talking about enrolling children in schools.

Did you notice the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s advertisements in newspapers some time ago and did you read the fine print? After the series of advertisements from the same ministry proclaiming that free and compulsory education has now become a fundamental right. This second cycle of ads told us that only 10 million children are not in school now. This is so spectacular that it surpasses what Cuba achieved many years ago. And such a record is unsurpassed in the history of the world.

To place things in perspective, let me quote from the Approach Paper to the Tenth Plan (2002-07): “Our performance in the field of education is one of the most disappointing aspects of our developmental strategy. Out of approximately 200 million children in the age group 6-14 years, only 120 million are in schools and net attendance in the primary level is only 66 per cent of enrolment. This is completely unacceptable and the Tenth Plan should aim at a radical transformation in this situation. Education for all must be one of the primary objectives of the Tenth Plan. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which has been launched to achieve this objective, indicates a strong reiteration of the country’s resolve to give the highest priority to achieve this goal during the Plan period.” Remember the Approach Paper to the Tenth Plan was published in September 2001. Surely, the Planning Commission wasn’t lying. So, in the 6-14 age group, 80 million were out of school in 2001.

Cut to the Tenth Plan document proper, circa 2002: “Out of the approximately 207.76 million children in the 6-14 age group in 2000, the number of children not attending the schools is 40 million. Those outside the school system are mostly girls, SCs/STs children, working children, urban deprived children, disabled children and children in difficult circumstances. Providing access and motivation to these to be taken up during the Tenth Plan...”

Notice how 80 million has dramatically dropped to 40 million. Perhaps the Approach Paper had dated data. Perhaps the right figure was indeed 40 million in 2002. From 40 million in 2002 to 10 million very early in 2004 is a remarkable drop. True, there were official targets that all children should be in school by 2003, all children should complete five years of schooling by 2007 and all children should complete eight years of schooling by 2010. But these are official targets. In every country, including India, citizens don’t believe official targets. They are not meant to be achieved. This is one of the rare instances where an official target has actually been achieved. Of course, 10 million are still out of school. But at the rate at which we are going, by the time the Indian cricket team is back from Pakistan, these 10 million children will also be in school. And considering we have difficult states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa to consider, I think this performance is nothing short of spectacular. Far superior to 42 per cent export growth in December 2003 or 8 per cent GDP growth in 2003-04.

After all, these two performances are rates of growth and therefore benefit from low bases. Here, we are talking about absolute numbers. To place things in perspective again, we are hardly two months into 2004. Therefore, 30 million children have been brought into school in 12 months. More than 80,000 have been brought into school every day. Yes, there are quality problems, especially in the parallel education stream through education guarantee and other schemes. Yes, there are questions about what those children do in school, whether schools have any physical infrastructure and whether teachers at all teach. Whether teachers in the parallel education system have any training whatsoever. Yes, there are drop-out problems, especially among girls. But the fact that disadvantaged sections, SCs/STs, girls and difficult-to-reach groups are all in school now is a slap in the face of those who unnecessarily whine.

Once children are in school, these other aspects can be improved and the parallel system eventually mainstreamed. This whining lot also complains about the government abdicating its responsibility in elementary education and it is true that private expenditure on education has increased, while public expenditure on education has tended to decline. However, as long as children are in school, how does it matter whether the source of financing is public or private? And we know that the poor aren’t being deprived, courtesy the parallel education system, now formally sanctified in Section 27 of the Free and Compulsory Education for Children Bill, 2004. Had it not been for the parallel system, it would have been impossible to get all these children into school. That’s the true innovation, appropriately acknowledged in the Human Resource Ministry’s web-site.

Strictly speaking, in the NIC setup, the ministry doesn’t have a web-site. The Department of Education does. And if you attempt to look up elementary education, you won’t be asked to click on an icon that remotely looks like what you would expect a school to look like. Instead, you have a rishi teaching his disciples under a tree. That’s the parallel system, like barefoot doctors. If we are going to become a developed economy in 2020, as is now imminent, we must begin by at least attaining the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. After all, these are for developing countries. Not for the likes of us. If you have been followed the India Shining ads, you know we have already eliminated poverty and hunger. That leaves education and health. Elementary and secondary education problems have been licked. The human resource development ministry can therefore concentrate on a Free and Compulsory Management and IT Education Bill If nothing else, that will give the Americans something else to rant about.