We don’t need a religion

Ahhh… this is going to be controversial topic. To start with, I m not all against any religion. Religions have been existed since civilizations came into existence, and probably religion/faith was the root and foundation of these civilizations. That was then… thousands of years ago Before Christ (BC), when religion actually played a role in building the society & civilizations. But for the last 2000 years, religion is the cause of more bloodshed than any other reason.  If that is the case then how can religion be good?

People have long forgotten the original principles of their religion. Most of them may not even know the origin of their religion. Islam may probably be the most misunderstood religion of the world. In the name of religion, it is the politics that is the cause of all evil. The fact is that the roots of politics are too deep in the religion, and this is not just the current trend but is there since a long-long time. Religious leaders have been modifying or preaching their religion for their own benefit. That is why I say that we don’t need religion in its current form.

Take an example of Hinduism. How many of you know that the word ‘Hindu’ is not there in Sanskrit or any other language or dialect spoken in India. The origin of the word Hindu is the result of mispronunciation of the word Sindhu. Ancient Persians could not pronounce ‘S’ correctly, and thus it was replaced by ‘H’, which resulted in ‘Sindhu’ becoming ‘Hindu’. So Hindu was not referred to a follower of a religion, but rather someone living in the geographic area around Sindhu (Indus) river. If you still go by this logic, then half of the population in Pakistan will be Hindus, as major part of the Indus not flows thru Pakistan.

I will leave this point here, but will iterate again that we don’t need religion in their current forms. We need to understand the origin and true meaning of our respective religions and then follow them.

PS. Thanks Vishal for bringing up this point during our drinks, I got something to write. :-)

The missing national pride!

If I ask you a question “What are you proud of in India?” then probably you will have many answers, probably I have some answers like rich heritage, glorious past, national monuments, and many such things, richest cricket board, largest rail network, highest battle field, the list will be too long. But if I ask what is your contribution in keeping the pride and passing it to next generation than probably there isn’t much.

From time and again in many of my previous posts, I keep coming back to the sorry conditions of driving on roads. So is it related to our national pride? Probably ‘yes’, probably ‘no’. Couple of year’s back I had gone on vacation to Sri Lanka. It is a poor country, not a single highway, under terror for couple of decades, but as soon as I step in the Colombo airport and spoke to custom officer, I felt a difference. Airport was far better than any other airport at that time in India, though now India has much bigger and better airports.  When I stepped out of it, army was everywhere. The guide and our driver gave a brief update of DO’s and DONT’s. That included not to litter anywhere in public and keep all the trash in the car. Roads were not as wide as we have in India and there were no dividers, but still people managed to follow lane driving. In fact, in morning, during office hours the incoming traffic in the city is more than the outgoing, so the incoming traffic gets the 2/3 (two-third) of the road width and the outgoing gets the remaining 1/3 (one-third), and it is followed without any dividers or a traffic cop. Another example was autos. They were the same ‘humara’ Bajaj, but of course driver was different, because you will not expect an Indian auto driver to tell you that he will not carry more than three passengers. How you behave on the road goes a long way in defining your country, for which you can later be proud of.

On similar lines, let me take another example. India is hosting the 19th Common Wealth Games in October’2010. It is only the first time it has been hosted by India and second time in Asia. Now compare it with Olympics hosted by China in Beijing. CWG should be same to India as Olympics for China. It should be a matter of huge pride for not just New Delhi but for whole India. China has spent approximately 40 Billion dollars to host the Olympics. China built 12 new venues of total 37 for hosting the game in Beijing. They transformed the city, and probably whoever visited there for the first time (or even the return visitors) were spell-bound with the glittering city. For making this kind of event a huge success it is not just the government’s but also individual responsibility. I was told that on the day of the opening ceremony all industries in and around Beijing were shutdown to bring down the pollution. The opening ceremony was the best ever experienced in any of the previous events.

Coming back to Capital, Do you have traffic congestion around airport, the first entry point in the country? YES, during peak hours it may take minimum 30 minutes to reach the main road out of airport premise. Are people aware of such a huge event being hosted in Delhi? Not many. Ask an auto driver, he does not know. The progress of work is slow, and you still don’t see the transformation. Probably the only good thing that has happened as a result of CWG is the metro, which is no doubt the world-class. In September 2009, Commonwealth Games federation Chief Mike Fennell reported that the games were at risk of falling behind schedule and that it was “reasonable to conclude that the current situation poses a serious risk to the Commonwealth Games in 2010″.

In 2008 a new 4.43 km runway, the longest operational runway in Asia became operational at IGI Airport, Delhi. It is fitted with the highly sophisticated Instruments Landing System (ILS) on both sides, and is built to the highest Code F standards. Even with the state of art technology, there were 200+ flights delayed 2 days back.

What will happen to our national pride if we have politicians like Raj Thackeray and Police Chiefs like SPS Rathore who signifies the national shame? Or consider the root of Naxalism which goes back to 1967 started from the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, as of 2009 40 percent of India’s geographical area is under Naxalite threat. So what is the root cause, in simple word it is the over exploitation of humans by other humans. I will let Vishal talk more about it. But the fact is that there is no pride in the fact that 40% of India is under direct influence of Naxalism and people like us may be the cause.

To make a contribution, it is not important that everyone has to give dedicated time, rather it is the way of life. Not everyone can become a socialist or run an NGO, but what I do in my day-to-day life is a big part in showing what we actually are. Even though India is an emerging superpower, we still see and hear lot of things and incidents happening which are the matters of national shame. As an individual we can play our small but significant role so that we can say “I am proud to be an Indian”.

BJP – Vinash kale vipreet buddhi!!

As all of you know I’m nonpolitical but I had a slight inclination toward BJP’s original policies, which most of them got diluted in last 10 years. I do not approve of their religion based politics, but they are more progressive than Congress. Off late BJP is in self destruction mode. By expelling its senior leaders like Jaswant Singh & Yashwant Sinha, it is not really setting a good example for others in the party. But I’m not concerned about their example setting. What is more worrying is that a strong opposition is must for a healthy democracy. In absence of BJP in parliament, Congress will be free to do what it likes.

I was especially surprised about Jaswant Singh’s expulsion, and it was probably not required. First he has only published a book and only expressed his own views, which may be different from BJP’s. What was more surprising was that they do not see they own benefit these days. The book criticizes Congress for creating a separate country and not Jinha for it was Nehru who refused to share power. This is not something new, and we have heard and seem this multiple times. For instance 8 Oscar winner movie Gandhi shows the same. So why make so much fuss about the book and expel a senior leader like Jaswant Singh!

Anyway, there is an old proverb in Hindi – “Vinash Kale Vipreet buddhi”, which means when your days are near your brain stops working!!!

My favorite mythical character – an Honest Politician

Well the label says it all – myths cannot be real and politicians cannot be honest. Time and again many of our respected politicians keep proving how shallow they are, without any principles & ethics. The recent example was shown by Kalyan Singh, ex-Chief Minister of UP when he left BJP to join SP. The man who was responsible for what happened in Ayodhya cannot now just wash off his hands by just saying sorry. If he has believed in something in 1991 then he should have stood by it today, but that is not the case. Our politicians are so hungry for power and money that they can change their principles and morals to satisfy their hunger.

There’s an old saying in hindi ‘be pendi ka lota’… Kalyan Singh has hopped from one plate to another (BJP to BSP, then back to BJP, and now to SP) without sticking to his principles and he should be abandoned!

Kashmir – A crown of thorns?

I did not liked it when Arundhati Roy said that “Kashmir needs freedom from India and India need freedom from Kashmir”, but the fact is that Kashmir has been a cause of problem for us since Independence. There are two ways of looking at the problem:

First, in medical terms amputation is a common phenomenon. It has been practiced since ages.  If a body part cannot be cured, then it has to be removed so that it does not poison other parts of the body. We say that Kashmir is an Integral part of India. It is deceased and the government of India is trying to find a cure since 1947. 61 years have been passed and yet there is no sign of finding any cure in near future. The fact is that there may be no cure at all, mainly because of unwillingness to find the cure from both the sides. Religion and caste play a more important role in Indian politics than the welfare of people, state & country.

Second, remember movie Majboor in which Amitabh Bachchan suffers from a terminal brain tumor and doctor tell him that there is very less likelihood of operation to be successful, and he may die if the tumor is removed. The same is the case with us – and I am reiterating it – Kashmir is an Integral part of India. Separating it from the country is not the part of the solution. More importantly, if it is separated, than it may set a trend for others to follow – Today Kashmir, tomorrow North East, than some other state. And we will again find us in same situation as pre-Independence.

So what is the solution? Remove our neighbor from the map?

Participating in our electoral system

Friends …. it is high time that we should start participating in building our country. The very first step to it is selecting the right candidates for the parliament. After watching the ‘no confidence’ motion on TV last month, I cursed all politicians but when I gave a thought I felt myself equally responsible for the situation. For many of us, election day is a national holiday. A large percentage of us are not even registered as Voters. On any election day we plan to take a vacation, go out and relax. We have to change this attitude and have to understand our responsibilities as a citizen. Also, at the same time these politicians should not take us for granted, there politic majorly rely only on religion, regional and caste.

The more we actively participate in the electoral system, the more we will rise above all these issues.  Every state has it’s office of ‘The Chief Electoral Officer’, also for each state there is separate website from where you can get more detailed information and forms to get your voter i-card. If you google “The Chief Electoral Officer of <state name>” you will find that states website. Below is the list of forms that you need to fill in order to get your name registered in voter’s list and for voter’s i-card.

Form 6 Application for inclusion of name in electoral roll after draft publication of draft roll (if your name is not included in the draft roll).
Form ID ECI-EPIC-001B Submission of photograph (Optional) for preparation of Elector Photo Identity Card & Photo Electoral Roll.

The above forms are links to Electoral Office of AP, but the forms are same across India, so you can download from anywhere.

Also read: Parliament or Fish Market

Parliament or fish market?

Day before yesterday whole India was watching the no confidence motion against the government. One news Chanel ‘Headlines’ said that Parliament is the temple of democracy and all MP are the priests, & PM is the Head Priest. This would have been a correct corollary for someone who has not seen the proceedings of Parliament earlier. But in today’s information age someone is always watching.

The very temple of democracy was the place where democracy itself was sacrificed by the saviours of democracy. It was like a fish market.

The problem is mainly because most of the MPs are either criminals or illiterate. They don’t have any civic sense and manners. Parliament to them instead of temple of democracy is a way to become rich at the expense of the country and it’s citizens. Everyone knew earlier about the horse trading, but earlier that used to be behind closed doors. This time it has happened openly, MPs even brought the money inside the parliament.

This all shows that our country’s parliamentary system is going down the drains. It is time now for the young and educated to come forward and participate actively in building our country a great country. Minimum we can do is exercise our voting rights. That will be the starting point. That will, to some extent, stop these politicians to take us for granted.

Let us participate in building our country!