Random Thoughts

India has always been a country of contradictions. Although we have the most fertile plain in the world (Gangetic plains) yet the states which it runs through, happen to be the poorest. We have a massive educated middle class which speaks about changing the world (mostly through blogs) but still when it comes to voting, only the poor come out.

In the light of these and various other contradictions, I wish to point out a new contradiction which has recently come to news. In any other civilized country, if a person or a mob breaks law and order by illegally blocking traffic or pelting stones or setting buses and shops on fire, they are dealt with severely. And even if they are not dealt with severely, at leat they are not promised jobs by the Government.

The incidents I am referring to are the ones in which young boys in Kashmir have indulged in stone throwing with impunity and in one instance, murdered a 11 day old baby whose parents were taking him to hospital. The Honourable Home Minister P Chidambram has come out with a unique way to punish these rioters. He has said that they are “misguided youth” and will be given jobs in order to ensure “social justice”.

There are many things which are surprising about this announcement, and then, some not-so-surprising as well. That a Minister of the stature / intelligence of PC should make such a statement is surprising, not to say the least. However, the fact that the Congress has , in its true tradition, again shown the appeasement carrot to the poor Kashmiri is not so surprising. History bears witness to the fact that whenever India sat on the negotiating table, be it after 1962 or 1971, the Congress has always sought the path of Appeasement.

This policy has now been ingrained in the congress party’s blood,so much so that it now appeases anyone who dares to break the law and order anywhere in the country. For instance, the Gujjars in 2008 or the likes of MNS in Mumbai.

Therefore, it came as no surprise to many people when a man of the stature of PC said that the central government will give jobs to stone peltors. If only this would have been a law. I remember burning the midnight oil to prepare for various competitive exams during my class 12^th. I would have set fire to some public buses instead!

Every indivisual and community has frustrations at some points of time. The Tamilian Brahmins were and are marginalized in TN by the Dravidian movement, all for the sins of their forefathers. The Kashmiri Pandits have been driven out by the champions of kashmiriyat. If everyone starts ganging up against the administration then this nation will be gone in sixty seconds..

That the stone pelting is an organized racket is no secret. The right place for these young boys is in the cooler.I sincerely hope that our netizens wake up to this menace and start of the email chains/ email campaigns in order to catch the attention of some net savvy politician( Shashi Tharoor maybe!). Not that any good might come out of it, but it could start something!!

Today the honorable Delhi HC passed a judgment directing the Armed Forces to give Permanent Commission to Lady officers.

Just for the record, till now the Ladies were given short service till a period of 14 years. This was done at the behest of certain section of society on the ground that women are equal to men in all respects.

This policy has spelled doom for the Armed Forces and any Officer will tell you that it will lead to command problems.

There are various reasons for this, and none have anything to do with physical strength or machismo.

Firstly, women in the Army have to serve in Field areas along with the male counterparts. Although there is no harm in that, however there are numerous administrative hassles that crop up due to this. Consider this, in any Battalion, there are a number of bachelor Young Officer’s who live in the Officer’s mess. Due to shortage of accommodation, many times two bachelors may have to share their rooms(or tents, for that matter). But the moment a Lady is present in the Unit, a separate room has to be earmarked for her. Now to a civilian this may seem as a mundane sort of a problem, but ask a fauji who has served in the icy heights of Kargil or the jungles of Manipur and he will tell you that at the end of a fifteen days LRP (long range patrol), the least one expects is a bed and some hot water to take bath with. The lady officer will not be sent on a patrol for obvious reasons, and she also will take up unwanted space. This will undoubtedly create an unhealthy atmosphere in the Unit.

Secondly, the issue of postings and transfers. The postings of the Army Officers are decided on a random basis so that the Officer gets an equal time to spend with his family. So if he is posted in Kashmir for 3 years, the army Head Quarter will try to give him a family station like Chandigarh so that he has some 2 years with his wife and kids. Now, a Lady will more often than not be posted in peace stations due to reason number 1. Due to this she will be cutting some male officer’s chance of getting a peace station which he deserves.

Third reason is something which might not go down very well with the feminist brigade. A woman will get married while she is in the Army and will have kids. No problem. She will also take the full six months of maternity leave along with two months of Annual Leave as well. So effectively she is out on leave for 8 months. The point I want to make is that the Army is not a welfare organization. If an Officer stays away for eight months, who will be doing her work? Now some people will say that male officer also have kids, then why this question. The point is, male officers hardly get one month of leave in a year, kid or no kid. Period. There are numerous instances of Lady Officers refusing to do even desk jobs in their fifth month citing ‘problems’.

So it’s not that the Lady Officers are some desh bhakt who have joined the Army to serve the nation, they can be a serious problem at times as well.

The decision of whether they should be given Permanent commission should be left best to the Army as they have to face the situations mentioned above, later on. This is the policy followed in most of the Western Countries but in our anarchic democracy, unfortunately the Army is treated like a foot mat with no say in anything.

‘Man driving on Eastern Expressway in Mumbai mows down 10 year old boy’.

‘Intoxicated NRI woman kills biker in marine Drive’.

‘A family of four killed in road accident’.

These are some of the few headlines which we get to see every morning when we go through the net/ newspaper. One is reminded of this very famous one liner in the book ‘ Catch 22’ by Uri Heller which goes as ‘death is something which happens to other people’. Probably that must be how people react when they see such news otherwise how do you explain so many accidents occurring each day?

The attitude which we Indians display when it comes to road discipline and driving is nothing short of abysmal. That is the reason why accidents claim more lives in India than the four Indo-Pak war and all terror attacks combined. Yet surprisingly, not much print is devoted to this topic. Neither do politicians take any initiative to curb accidents.

The reason why accidents happen is because of a variety of reasons, one of them being the one liner quoted above and others ranging from a lackadaisical attitude to plain disregard for human safety.

Let us take the first reason i.e. the attitude toward safety. Being a resident of Pune, which can claim to have by far the worst traffic in any of the Metros/Cosmopolitan cities, I see a large number of school kids who wiz past me in their bikes without caring for traffic lights or other vehicles. They don’t wear helmets and are always in a hurry. None of them are above eighteen so the question of holding a driver’s license does not arise. However, if you ask any parent as to why do they allow their wards to drive two wheelers, pat comes the reply, ‘nothing happens since they just use it to go to their tuitions or friend’s home ‘. But the fact of the matter is that this is an illegal practice and must be curbed.

Next reason has something in common with lot of offences i.e. drinking liquor and driving. Our country consists of a lot of macho men (and some women, too) who boast to their friends about their driving skills after having emptied a bottle of rum. Even though most of the whiskey ads have a cautionary advise but caution is thrown to the winds by these reckless young men. That is why we have both film stars and commoners mowing down pavement dwellers with a regular frequency.

The third reason for the accidents is the incorrect planning of roads in our cities and highways. Take Pune for instance. If one is driving at night, he/she will find a road divider appearing out of nowhere on the road. In case you are in a car, you might still survive, but a motorcyclist will certainly not. Moreover, our cities have expanded but the widths of the roads remain the same due to which traffic becomes so heavy that the frequency of accidents increases due to the probability theory!

So what is the way out? The traffic police need to step up vigil, although they do work hard no doubt, but more needs to be done. The traffic laws must be stricter and drunken driving must carry an exemplary penalty. Other then that, the next time your friends talks about drinking and driving, give them a smack on the nose!

Today is International Women’s day. A historic day indeed. Historic because the Ruling Party of the Republic Of India decided to pass a bill in the Rajya Sabha to reserve one third of the seats in parliament for women.

The nation saw our ‘honourable’ MPs snatching the text from the speaker’s hand and other scenes of ‘gentlemanly’ behaviour.

I could not help searching for blogs on this topic since I wanted to know what the educated, net savvy women were thinking. I went to a lot of blogs and I must say that I was shocked at most of their opinions.

Most of the women on the net feel that this bill must be passed as it will empower women. These are the same women who say cry about equality for all. They rave and rant when Ram sene thrashed women in Pubs in Karnataka. These are the same women who want to parcel their pink panties to a handsome stud called ‘Muthalik’.

Equality for women? Ladies, forget it. Not as long as there are demented indivisuals in this country. That includes a lot of ‘liberal’ ladies as well.

Now why do I say that? Don’t I want women to be on the same platform as men? Of course I do. That is why I oppose this damned bill tooth and nail.

Let us look at the history of our country. There wasn’t any system of women going to school till the British Raj. Who fought against this tradition and started schools for women? Who started widow remarriage? Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.

Who crusaded against the practice of Sati? Who fought for equal inheritance for women? Raja Rammohan Roy. I am sure that most of these liberal women don’t even know these facts of history.

We had one lady who was the Prime Minister of our country for a fairly long time, at least, longer than most of her male counterparts. We had and have some Women Chief Ministers in some of our states. I am talking of politicians here and not the IAS officers who are our policy makers. So what good came of the fact that these Women ruled the country or state for a large portion of time?

Is the position of women in UP, Bihar or Tamil Nadu any shade better than the rest of the country? Absolutely not. And why is that? The answer is very simple. The very concept of reservation goes against fair play and the segment of society which benefits from this are those who require no benefits. That’s why after sixty years, dalits are still paraded naked in villages and women still get killed before they are born.

The only way to empower women is to empower the whole community, not 180 women who are daughters/sisters/ wives of politicians.

Unfortunately, the enlightened ‘modern’ woman has also been swept away by all the rhetoric. Now all we can do is to watch the tamasha and the subsequent Ambedkar parks which these Women politicians will continue building…..

This week had a lot of news in it…a plane crashed into a building during an air show by the Navy, a young Captain of the Indian Army was martyred in Kashmir, Tendulkar made 200 runs in an ODI, Karnataka’s Shimoga dist burned over some issue about an article written by Taslima Nasreen and MF Hussain got a new citizenship.

It is really wonderful as to how we treat the most insignificant news with the maximum significance….

No one is bothered about the sad state of defence equipment, so much so that the media calls the Mig 21 flying coffins without caring a bit about the psychological impact it would have on the minds of the pilots and their families.

Neither was the media there when Capt Devinder’s body came home to his grieving parents. The ruckus created in Karnataka caught the eyes of the channels for some time, but there was no debate as to why a mob vandalises government and private property to express its dissatisfaction.

No sir. The hot debate of the week is that of Mr MF Hussain and his new found love for Qatar. It seems that Hussainji has decided now to cast his vote in the gulf kingdom instead of India. Although, I really don’t know whether Qatar has a democratic set up or not, since most of the Middle Eastern countries have different fundas regarding governance than the others.

Notwithstanding that, MF Hussain is now a full fledged Qatari. Good for him. But that’s not the end of the story. The Indian Media, which fishes out information faster than the Mossad and the FSB, has now come to the conclusion that Hussainji was hounded out of India by Hindu right wing activists. They also allege that since poor Hussain has so many court cases pending against him, he will have to spend most of his lifetime( whatever time he has left on the planet) running from one city to another to attend the court hearings.

Now why would the people of the country file PILs against MF Hussain? Simple. To express their dissatisfaction over some paintings made by the artist. But the correct way to express dissatisfaction in India is not by going to court, it is by breaking property and stopping trains. That is why poor Hussain has left India. Our media always fishes out the truth!

The question which comes in everyone’s mind is ‘what is the limit of artistic freedom’? This is a touchy topic indeed as people have said that MF Hussain could not dare to vilify other religious personalities. That is true. In India, whenever the question of art comes in, there is only one religion I.e. Hinduism which is in the centre of the storm.

I feel that the best solution to this problem is by limiting the artist from putting up the paintings in any public exhibition. Period. If you want to see MF Hussain’s painting, go to his house and see it.

There is no arguing the fact that Parwati, lakshmi and Saraswati are considered as a Mother to millions of us. We would not like our mother to be disrobed in public. Our sensibilities don’t allow that. MF Hussain is an old man, but is he wise enough to understand this sentiment? Had he been a intelligent person, he would not have undertaken this misadventure.

Unfortunately, the media doesn’t look at it in this angle. For them it’s just another show in the circus….

Today is the time of the year when people greet friends and foes alike, by smearing each other with gulal and saying ‘happy holi’. Since the time we were kids, we were told by out teachers in school that holi is the time to forget rivalries and start new friendships.

Well, all that might be very fine, but the fact remains that Holi is one of the most useless festivals around. It brings no feeling of goodwill, rather it is seen that half the time fights and scuffles break out due to this festival.

We Indians are experts in spoiling things and vandalizing property in a special way. Be it the death of a Film Icon or a Politician, the mourners will mourn less and vandalize more. Such kind of behavior stems from a natural urge in us Indians to break law and order.

Earlier, religious festivals were still bearable, but in the recent past, they have become unbearable. Holi and Diwali are the two most uncouth festivals doing the rounds today, with each vying for the worst festival award.

Holi is meant to be played in good humor. But that is not the case. People use adulterated colors and sometimes mud which spoils the skin and eyes of the victims. There is a tendency to consume bhang which results in a lot of unpleasant situations. There a re numerous instances of Guys teasing and molesting girls who are unwilling to play with them. This leads to altercations and creates bad vibes in the neighborhood.

Diwali is one time of the year when peace loving people as well as animals get the fright of their lives. Endless bursting of crackers not only adds to the pollution but also makes the lives of senior citizens, infants and pets unbearable. Even if there is a hospital in the vicinity, people have no mercy and burn as many crackers as possible. Not only do they do it on Diwali night, this monstrosity starts well in advance (a week perhaps) and then goes on for the next two or three days. Diwali is meant to be a festival lights and not of sound, but then again, who the hell cares?

I know of an incident involving a 26 year old man who ate pakoras laced with bhang and while driving back to his house, met with an accident which crippled him for life. Other than this, the damage we do to the environment is humongous. Lots of trees are axed for holika dahan with each mohalla competing with the other. Half of the people don’t even know the significance of these rituals but they will still add to the madness.

In the good old’ days of satyug, there was no global warming and depletion of rain forests, but today these problems are there so why don’t we do away with these festivals? The government should make a law banning bursting of crackers during diwali and use of colors during holi. Every year the Municipality takes out appeals, but who cares? People still do what they please and cause a nuisance for the public. Banning of these festivals seems to be the only answer.

The recent incident of Maoists massacring jawans of the EFR leaves one horrified. The brutal manners in which the killings were carried out is disturbing, to say the least.

Maoists have had a long association with the Indian subcontinent since the time Charu Mazumdar and K Mallick started the movement in a place now known as Naxalbari in W Bengal. Today, the red corridor has divided the country through the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, MP,Chhattisgarh, Odisha, W Bengal, Maharashtra and AP.

Maoists have been an irritant for the country for a long time. Predictably, the Congress Government slept over the issue till the time the problem became unmanageable. Now, the Home Minister is making all sorts of noises on the problem; and by that I don’t mean ‘right’ sort of noises. The fact that P Chidambaram has publicly asked the maoist leader ‘Kishenji’ to talk to the Government does not seem very agreeable to a student of Indian Military History. These kind of gestures i.e. asking the aggrieved party to come to talk, may be ok when both sides are following democratic and civilized conventions. The Maoists, by their brutal beheading of francis Induwar and various other incidents, are certainly not worth calling civilized by any standards.

I know that Human Right activists will say that the Maoists are backward, poor etc etc, but then so are millions of others in different parts of the country. These pseudo activists don’t realise that by talking like this they are doing a great disservice to the country in general and democracy in particular.

In the end, it will be the same old story. The Indian Army will be called for taking on the Maoists. And when the battle reaches the resistance stage, there will emerge Human Right Activists like Arundhati roy and party, who will cry foul every time a Maoist dies. Never mind the 24 Jawans massacred at the EFR camp and countless such incidents. After all, the Security forces have been paid to die, isn’t it?

The first thing which needs to be done is to train the Paramilitary Forces so that they are not found wanting in this aspect at least. The Army can take on the task of training them. Or better still, the soldiers from these forces can be posted to the RR Battalions of the Army in Kashmir, albeit in small numbers, to get a taste of the real McCoy.

Secondly, the state needs to equip the Forces with sophisticated weapons and communication system without which they will be cannon fodder for the Maoists. There are several good radio sets available off the shelf in the South eastern Asian countries. These will give a big boost to the Security forces and will help the commanders get real time information of the operation in progress.

Thirdly, there is a need to revamp the recruitment process as well. It is a well known fact that the recruitment at the state level is highly flawed with caste based politics and favoritism ruling the roost.

However, no positive result can be expected until our political leadership wakes up to the crisis in time. Well, we’ve waited since 1947 for that to happen and we are still waiting……

Of late, there is a lot of attention been showered on Messrs Shahruk Khan and Co. By company, I chiefly mean his namby pamby friend who likes to be called KJo ala JLo and is definitely more feminine then her!

The reason for all this hullaballoo is the release of the movie titled ‘My Name is Khan’. Though I have not seen the movie but the hype surrounding it is so empowering that one can’t really miss it.

Well, the plot in the movie revolves around a much repeated problem, that of Muslims being seen as terrorists by the majority of Non Muslims. Well, I for one, know many Muslims also being wary of giving their homes to Muslim tenants without doing a police verification…but that’s another story.

There is this wonderful thing about SRK in that he always manages to show the victim as the oppressor, and gets away with it. It happened some months back in an American airport where he felt victimized as he was singled out for questioning and our media made him the victim then and there. Never mind the thousands who died in the 9/11 attack, they are the reason why SRK became a victim in New York. Had they not died, no one would have looked at poor SRK with suspicion!

Now he makes a movie where the poor muslim is trying to tell the US Prez that although he is a muslim but he should not be frisked at any airport lest he feels ‘hurt’ and ‘singled out’. Well that’s what you call sound logic. And I am not joking here, just go through any of the newspaper reports or even the scores of blogs, there’s a large section of society who say that banning the burqa in France is wrong. So what if it’s been done by lawfully passing a bill through a democratically elected parliament, according to them it’s still wrong. By the look of it, it seems that banning religious symbols (of other religions like Christianity, Judaism etc) or enforcing them is only the right of Countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran where the sole authority lies with a Cleric or a tyrannical King.

Please don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with Shahrukh Khan the actor, I remember him in the serials ‘Fauji’ and ‘Circus’. He was good then and he is better now. He was also one of the very few Hindi Film actors who didn’t come from a filmy family yet he rose to the top slot by sheer dint of hard work. But the problem with Indians is that we elevate such people to a Demi-God status and no matter what they do, we just can’t bear to hear any criticism regarding our idols. SRK may be a good actor but is he a responsible citizen? If he is, then why does he endorse a ‘fairness cream’ for men? Doesn’t he realise that his actions will be emulated by millions of teenagers all across the Country? Why does he have to be seen smoking in front of the media so often?

It is this irresponsible behavior which is upsetting. The latest is his charade of being victimized in an American airport. Why did he have to go to USA? It was to promote his new film. In that case why doesn’t he accept their rules? After all, they don’t believe in the VIP culture like we do and SRK is certainly not a VIP by any standards anywhere outside India.

There has been a lot of upheaval in the security process in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks especially in the West. We have to accept it and follow their rules. And for those rabble rousers who claim that they are being victimized, I can say only one thing. Please go and visit the home of just one family who has lost a father, brother or son in a terror attack. You will know what a victim actually means.

This is with reference to the incident involving the alleged shooting of a teenager by the BSF in Srinagar on 5^th Feb.The incident is not an isolated case and there have been many such cases of allegations against the Indian Army, Paramilitary forces and the state Police. This has prompted HR activists to call upon the Government to revoke the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

There are two fundamental issues associated with the whole issue which must be examined outside the domain of communal politics.

Firstly, why was the Army called in Kashmir in the first place? Or had the Generals on their own accord decide to send the troops to camp there? The answer is that the Army is called in as the last resort when all civilian machinery and administration fails and law and order ceases to exist. There is an old saying which goes as ‘when shit hits the fan, some people run and some people stand’. The Army has stood up whenever the situation demanded whereas the Civil Administration and Politicians have scampered for their lives. So when the water goes above the head, don’t start questioning the means but look at the end, which is removal of militancy from the valley.

The Army, too, has not found the going very easy in the Kashmir valley. Since the last two decades, a number of fine young Officers and Jawans have fallen to the Islamic militant’s bullets and bombs. Scores of young wives have been widowed and children orphaned.

Where were the HR activists then? Where are the Kashmiri Muslims gone when Maj Suresh Suri died or when Maj R Sharma died last year? Why didn’t the Kashmiri muslim take out rallies in their names? The answer is evident, just because these lionhearts were from a different community then theirs.

Second issue is that our Government has identified that we Indians have a short memory. That is why Mr Chidambaram said that Kashmiri militants who are willing to give up arms are welcome to come back to India and into the mainstream. They are misguided youth and deserve a second chance, even if they murdered and dismembered our soldiers in cold blood. They know that by appeasing the ungrateful Kashmiri Muslims, they can cling on to power for the next sixty years as well.

This situation can only be set right if Indians from all walks of life and all communities start asking questions and make themselves aware of the plight of our soldiers in Kashmir and the LC. The Armed Forces Special Power Act is meant to be a buffer for the soldier who is serving in a hostile area away from his family and must not be scrapped.

If Human Rights violation applies to the armed forces, then so does it apply to these terrorists and no mercy should be shown to them.

Recently, the W Bengal Government has announced a 10 per cent reservation in all Government jobs for Muslims. At the same time, the Andhra HC has struck down a proposal by the Andhra Government for Muslims on the basis of religion. This dichotomy leaves the common man both perplexed and dismayed which has been the case since the last sixty years.

Although it is true that many sections of society have been deprived of the spoils of independence, but surely doling out reservation is not the correct way to address his problem. The only way a person or a community can be lifted is by educating the child right from the primary class. But that is not what our politicians and babus want. Today, though India has an excellent education system (handed over to us by the British) but the quality of education is extremely poor.

There are many reasons for the abysmal quality of education, chief among them being the unattractive pay which it offers to the teachers. As a result, we don’t have bright people volunteering for taking up teaching as a profession. But who cares? It’s the end which matters and certainly not the means. West Bengal has a huge share of Bangladeshis as well, who are wiling to vote for the Leftists till the cows come home, as long as they get their ration cards and jobs.

Now that the great CPI(M) has decided to dole out alms to the Muslims, what’s going to happen? The biggest problem which will crop up in the near future is the employment of those Muslims in the government jobs, who have had rudimentary education in their government schools or even worse, their madrassas. It is a well known fact that madrasas are in no way at par with the conventional system of education and the students coming out of these dreary institutions can not be employed anywhere except in menial tasks.

In the interest of their own community, Muslim leaders must oppose this reservation bait tooth and nail and expose the hollow claims of the Left as the champion of Minorities.