Gaining strength

2014 was a historic mandate,a mandate against corruption, mandate for change. Narendra Modi captured the nations imagination with a call for development - sab ka saath sab ka vikas. After decades of disappointment, hearing the same old cliched slogans from the Congress people saw someone authentic in his call for developing India.

3 years later this man still remains sincere and purposeful to the cause of development, people are still voting in droves for him and his party. Setbacks in Delhi and Bihar apart he has led the party to success in other state elections and grown its base. BJP has effectively replaced Congress as the only party with Pan India presence,

While the opposition is stuck in its narrative of communal, secular, anti modi agenda, Modi and BJP have taken the nations agenda to a more purposeful direction. People are willing to accept the direction and risks being taken by the PM. Demonetization was supposed to be a death knell for the BJP, it turns out the opposite. People were willing to give chance to a man who is sincere is his efforts to clean up the society of blackmoney. They are willing to listen to "Man ki baat" on various aspects he is tackling to get the nation back to shape. Opposition parties should tune into "Man ki baat" the PM lays out his vision so articulately on the show.

Opposition led by Congress is deaf to the new India and its aspirations. Their leadership is tired and bereft of new ideas. How long can your agenda be anti-modi. While you were busy being that the BJP has caught the attention of the poor who now vouch for it as their vehicle for redemption from poverty. The PM has crossed the barrier of caste, religion and other divisions to be the pan India leader perhaps last seen at the time of Pandit Nehru.

Opposition for now seems to be happy with the students noise in DU, JNU etc trying to score brownie points talking about freedom of speech, they forget India is huge and beyond universities. Until they change their narrative they are condemned to be what they are - small

On Modis' Agenda and Clueless oppositon

The debate on demonetization is fascinating almost every Indian has a view, in general there seems to be an agreement that black money or economy has to end.

The questions is Narendra Modi winning the battle of perceptions on his attack. Opposition crying hoarse on an issue on which most Indians feel strongly will put them to risk if Modi comes out Successfully. Bad news for the opposition is 2 weeks into the process the lines are reducing. Things seems to be settling in. He has asked for 50 days.

By choosing corruption as an issue he has put himself above all the other pretenders to the throne. Public memory is terribly short, all hardships will be forgotten once things settle. And knowing Modi he will leave no stone unturned to bring down his opponents as insincere on corruption ( he is already on it). They are asking him to explain his actions in the parliament, better not since we have seen him take them to cleaners on a couple of occasions in parliament on Jan dhan and MNREGA.

Opposition is clueless on Modi's agenda and keeps responding to his grand plans. Swach Bharat, Jandhan, Surgical strikes, they are not able to blow holes in his agenda. They should try hard. Folks like Kejriwal instead of saying this is not enough fell to the hate Modi whatever he does campaign and lost the plot. He is no more the champion of anti-corruption.

Rahul, Mamata and Kejri shouting foul on Modi's mother of all initiatives is not helping, the aam admi is not responding to their calls for agitation (needless to say Government has to be swift in taking measures to ease the pain on the street). All said India has been waiting for some one to take this action for long ( justifiably common man believes the obstacle for his personal progress is corruption which is closely associated with black money).

Sure there are difficulties since India is a cash economy people cannot do a lot of things without cash.This will push little more of India to digital payments and transactions. The farmers will suffer, so the kirana wala, the auto driver etc but this well intentioned move will ultimately benefit the poor of the country ( good quality revenue and more tax collections). We have ignored the poor of this country for long, promising them a lot and delivering nothing, this act of the PM should cleanse the stables for building a cleaner India and hopefully a more equitable society.

The Battle for Sanskrit – Rajiv Malhotra - in a 1000 words

Rajiv Malhotra ji is a famous indologist who is working tirelessly to defend Santana dharma and its traditions. He is leading from the front in providing a well researched fight back to western indologists on various topics concerning Hindu dharma. His latest work “The Battle for Sanskrit” talks about the sinister motives of the western institutions and scholars to disparage Sanskrit as a language and its influence on Bhratiya sanskriti. The beauty of Rajiv Malhotra’s writings is that he calls for discussions and debates on all areas of disagreements and not confrontation.

My attempt is to summarize the contents of the well researched book in about a 1000 words, you should be able to read this in 10 mins. It is important for all us (Indians) and those of Indian heritage to understand our selves better and become owners of our heritage –

• Indians have given away control of our language (in this case Sanskrit studies), culture and heritage to western institutions and individuals. No serious attempt by India, Indians or its institutions to establish seats of learning and research to protect and build our heritage. Through our neglect they became insiders ( experts on our subjects) and we outsiders (trying to catch up to defend)
• Western scholars allege that Sanskrit was used a tool for political domination and suppression of masses, for many decades they spread such views in Indian universities and other channels to gain credibility. Indian traditionalists did not care to debate this point of view for a long time, did not create a platform to fight back the western interpretations of Sanskrit. We ignored them to our peril
• Western scholars with their limited understanding have brain washed a generation of Indians that our Vedic and other systems of knowledge are myths and non sensical
• Our scholars and teachers did not engage in Uttara paksha (debate) with these scholars and institutions to challenge their deductions. We ignored them for too long while they wrote tomes of analysis about our Sanskrit literature and hijacked our heritage. We are now ill equipped to fight back
• They incorrectly claim Sanskrit was used as political tool used for social abuse. This is due to their poor understanding of our heritage, but we never engaged them in a debate to correct their point of view
• We did not make them understand that Sanskrit was and is an integrated component of a Hindus life - Prayer, mantras, culture, built into our vernaculars and in many other areas of life. Though it is delayed it is our sacred duty now to protect and bring it back to life
• Western indologists with a sinister motive deride Sanskrit propagating that it was used as a tool for social oppression, that it perpetuates elitism and that mantras and yagnas as meaningless. For us since ages it is an integrating factor
• Traditionalists argue there is no truth that Sanskrit was used as a tool for oppression and see it as a tool for liberation for all human beings. Traditionalists too are critical of any kind of social oppression and they do not see Sanskrit as the vehicle for the same
• Western scholars base their study and analysis on written texts, they believe oral traditions as unreliable, they also mischievously propagate that writing started in India after Buddhism came while the data shows a different truth
• Western scholars view Sanskrit as a foreign language brought to India by so called Aryans. They claim Sanskrit spread across Asia by kings for political purposes to wield control over public, for traditionalists it is an indigenous language which has played a major role in development of vernaculars and there was enrichment of both Sanskrit and vernaculars due to this
• Western scholars degrade shastras since they are derived from Vedas and hence they assume they carry the limitations of the source ( lack creativity ), they believe kavyas have some originality since they have some creative freedom, traditionalists dismiss such distinction and claim both shastras and kavyas have the same source but their expression only differs ( kavyas are poetic, shastras are texts)
• Outsiders allege that European indologists took the ideas of social oppression from Sanskrit texts and used the same against their population ( Nazis against jews), such interpretation is rejected by traditionalists saying infact Europeans came with such a conditioning and misinterpreted out sacred texts
• Misinterpretation of our scared text Ramayana and Mahabharata, for instance Sheldon Pollock says that Ramayana encourages “othering” Us vs Them ( rama vs ravana) which encourages bigotary, obvioulsy he takes a myopic view of the ramayana and Mahabharata
• Western thought tries to highlight differences in the hindu society due to caste, and between Vedic and Buddhist thought, traditionalists argue such differences if any are part of a broader continuum in the evolutionary process and no western intervention is required to correct the same
• We should map Sanskrit to ancient languages like mandarin, Arabic and Persian and work and must revive Sanskrit ourselves and not allow western scholars dictate us the same ( western scholars try to map Sanskrit to Latin and other dead languages )
• Establish higher learning institutions of Sanskrit in India such that our bright youth stay back and contribute towards integrating their studies with the larger society.
• Deploy Purva-paksha & Uttara-paksha methodologies vigorously to defend our point of view instead of meek surrender
• Rajiv gives the way forward –
• Revive Sanskrit ecosystem in a holistic way - battle for Sanskrit, Sanskrit and dharma are interrelated. ( organizations like sanskrita bharati are trying to revive use of Sanskrit)
• Non- translatable Sanskrit terms must enter main stream – sanskritize english
• Shastras must be seen as a platform for innovation
• New itihas and smritis must be written - for example traumatic events over the last 1000 years in India ( invasions etc)
• Sacred philology must compete against political liberation philology – that Sanskrit cannot be divorced from vedas and other sacred texts
• Revive purva paksha tradition
• Encounter with chistianity, islam – hindu understanding of Islam and christainity to engage in debates through purva-paksha, uttara-paksha process
• Encounter with western secularism – do a purva-paksha of the west ( question and debate their models, ideas etc)
• Develop institutions to conduct trainings and research on our heritage
• Contest the use of Buddhism as a wedge against Hinduism & mischievously changing chronology of hindu texts – disprove this through research
• Allegation of Sanskrit’s death – debate this with data and the attempts being made to revive the same

And many other steps to provide fitting response to the well organized western scholars and institutions.

Credits and Gratitude – all content from Rajiv Malhotra’s (The battle for Sanskrit)

Reservations - time to rethink

Every one wants reservations in India. Seems no one wants to be in the so called 'OC - open' category. Most caste leaders are comfortable for their's to be called Backward caste. If there was no Supreme court order on a slab of 50% for all reservations we would have already been at say 90% of the country reserved. History is a burden for India and it is upon the state to correct the historic wrongs in all possible ways - are we choosing the right way?

No one questions that weaker sections/backward castes require support to climb the societal ladder, the larger question is whether the current model is efficient and is it impacting the breadth and depth of the society so that larger numbers can come up at a faster rate.

Current reservation system may entail some things - 1) Seats in education institutions/hostels 2) Some government goodies - ration cards etc 3) promotions if you are in government i guess. May be or may not be much in the scheme of things.

In most cases demand for including some caste in a reserved category is a political demand to consolidate a particular vote bank to kick of a political career. Hence even if successful these movements fail to make a whole sale impact on a particular caste in terms of relevant metrics of human development.

I was in college during mandal agitation and saw the raw emotions attached to reservations firsthand, i am not aware of any of my friends benefiting form this since most of them are into private sector and doing very well.

It is time to re-assess reservations in the current form and look at alternative models. One often touted is economic basis, this may be good since there are equally poor and needy citizens in the so called 'OC' category. This is complex too since determination of economic backwardness will be a big challenge and political.

Some of the Western nations ( US) has affirmative action in place for about 60 years. There are noises for and against but that is a debate they are having in their country too.

There should be a inclusive and full debate on this in the parliament - backed by data to help our leaders to define backwardness and help the truly helpless.

Menace of Private education

It is an open secret but no one wants to speak up. The strangle hold Private tutorials/colleges have on students and parents across the country. That these institutions exist only for profit and not for preparing students of tomorrow is well known. Government's have abdicated the responsibility in this critical area of national development.

The monopoly these institutions have is most visible in AP. The most visible monopoly is the collaboration between Chaitanya college and Naryana college. Basically their promise is to get your ward ( boy/girl) to clear an entrance examination which will lead to a seat in an engineering or medical college. An industrialized approach which takes a raw material ( boy/girl) and hammer out an output in terms of results. What is the promise - education or advertisement ?

Their incomes runs in hundreds of crores and their infrastructure at best mediocre. It is one monopoly competition commission of India has to look at. The question that goes a begging is do they pay all taxes and whose palms are they greasing to ensure they survive and have a vice like hold on the higher education system in the state.

The most deplorable is their shouting on the roof top TV advertisements post the entrance examination results where these colleges boast their achievements and display gullible students and parents as their votaries.

Government's have conveniently closed their eyes and let public colleges die their own death. Will the new states get their act right ? Will each and every student get an equal platform to learn and compete ? How to get out of the your are with me or you loose psyche ? Not sure since one of them is a minister.

Indian farmer and truth no one want to speak

I just returned my village and was wondering what is the future for Indian villages. Villagers and farmers in India are interchangeable since folks who stay in villages are generally farmers or doing something related to agriculture. With the elections over this major component of the Indian electorate will be forgotten. Without exception all political parties speak for the farmer and claim to represent their interests. Farm loan waivers, subsidies, free electricity, irrigation projects are some of the popular promises farmers get.

Despite years of support from various governments, despite setting favorable MSP ( Minimum support price) and other support systems the Indian farmer struggles to eke out a living. What the political parties do not tell the farmer (read poor farmer) as a profession it is not profitable due to the economics involved in farming. Typical Indian farmer has marginal to small land holdings (<1 hectare to 2 hectares). Most of them also do share cropping to improve the economics but get into debt trap. With 65% of the population stuck in villages the country is loosing lot of productivity from this workforce who are involved in work which is not remunerative. Most worrisome is uneducated and partly literate youth wasting prime of their youth in villages.

The solution is to improve agriculture productivity, automate, build ware houses, eliminate middle men, encourage co-operative farming, grow high value products and encourage exports. Of course government should invest in infrastructure to make this happen. At the same time government should invest heavily in education of the rural children and help them move out of the morass they are caught in.

Indian villages are divided by caste, religion and are depressing with out any real infrastructure. If India wants to move faster we need to rethink our developmental model for our villages. Panchayat raj and other institutional frameworks did help in establishing democracy at the lowest levels but are not helping in improving quality of life in villages.

I hope Mr. Modi will speak the facts and give a new direction to Indian Agriculture and save the Indian farmer.

Crying wolf

UR Ananthamurthy, Gopal Gandhi and other left intellectuals are crying wolf about India being an unsafe place for the minorities since Modi is taking charge. They are being unkind to the democratic process and questioning the choice made by a large majority of the population. They may have every right to speak up but right now they are using their fertile imagination to create questions in the minds of people.

Mr.Modi and his government should do everything in their might to protect the minorities and the vulnerable sections of the country while Mr. Gandhi should reflect on the Nandi gram killings while he was the governor of Bengal. He has criticized the then government but the carnage did happen.

A whole lot of left intellectuals, Nitish Kumar, Lalu, Mulayam and others are desperately trying to create uncertainty and raise questions about minority protection. They all should instead delve on their governance model and why people( incl minorities) have rejected them and their policies resoundingly.