Of a political idea...

There is a reason I rarely write about politics, even though I'm hyper- aware of a lot of things that happen in that field- there are too many people on my link list who write so much better about it, and know so much more than me.

I also don't know too much about Sri Lankan politics, but this is a very powerful article written by one of those people I have mentioned above, and an even more powerful stream of thought... PseudoRandom mentioned in the comments section of said blog post about spoiling the vote. That's a new and interesting concept to me, since in India we're just trying to get people to go and vote... the new concept for the state legislative body election was to go to the election booth, and opt not to vote, in which case we could take a form and give our reasons as to why we were refraining from voting- exercise our power to not vote... it's always been there, but most people did not know about it.

The general elections are coming up in India, and this is a crucial time for our country- food is getting more and more expensive, terrorists are making a regular living off us, and the economy is sliding out of control... not to mention the ever present Pakistan, and now the even greater threat of the Taliban in our backyard. The Americans are sleeping, and why should it bother them anyway? It's the regular Indian that's getting battered, after all. We need a strong, decisive government that can steer us out of this mess, counter the threat of Taliban, and that of internal insurgency, and put the bread and milk back on our tables.

What the campaign suggests, however, is a horrible nightmare- a fractured polity, where alliances are being made based more on the petty rules of give- and- take, rather than national unity and integrity.

This article began as a comment to the article I have linked to above, but the thought presented there excited me enough to write a post on it. Spoiling a vote... what I take it to mean is that as voters we make sure there is no absolute majority, keeping store by the adage that tells us that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Such an experiment is not possible in India at the moment, where there are no guarantees about who will win, since unlike the current Sri Lankan government, ours has really not achieved anything that has put the entire nation in a mood of joyous celebration. Of course, uptil now, what I understood about spoiling the vote was to just put an ugly slash across the ballot sheet, but this will also not be possible in India anymore since we now use electronic voting machines.

In Sri Lanka, however, this interesting concept can be put to good effect, if enough people participate. This is how it goes- everyone there is quite enamoured by the Mahinda Rajapakse- lead government, due to their success in the prolonged civil war, and will most probably go ahead and vote for them, so my friend here has asked his fellow Sri Lankans to either not vote at all, or vote for an opposition party, so that a democratic system of checks and balances is maintained, and the current ruling party does not get an overwhelming majority, which he says has lead to much abuse of power in the past.

It’s a situation that has occurred previously in India- in 1971, Mrs. Indira Gandhi won the elections with a tremendous mandate, and became the Prime Minister. Four years later, the Allahabad High Court declared her election to the Lok Sabha void on grounds of electoral malpractice. The Lok Sabha is the lower house of the Indian Parliament, and a prime minister must be either a member of this, or the upper house to continue to remain in office. Since it banned her from competing in elections for six years, this decision effectively removed her from office. However, Mrs. Gandhi had then refused to vacate her office, leading to mass protests all over the country, and a state of civil disobedience. In 1975, to hang on to power, she declared a state of emergency due to internal disorder, and within a few months the entire country was under direct central control.

Well, you can imagine what followed- Mrs. Gandhi used the emergency provisions to grant herself extraordinary powers, and even replaced chief ministers from her party who had an independent power base with those who were personally loyal to her, most of the opposition was jailed, crippled the system at so many levels that she was able to rule by decree, and even initiated the clearing of slums around Delhi's Jama Masjid area, which allegedly left thousands of people homeless and hundreds killed, and led to communal embitterment in those parts of the nation's capital; Oh, yeah- the family planning program which forcibly imposed vasectomy on thousands of fathers and was often poorly administered. Of course, the press was also heavily censored. My parents tell me that the all the major national dailies had started printing newspapers with the editorial section left blank as a mark of protest, but the government couldn’t stomach this either, so the press was heavily bashed up as well.

After twice extending the emergency, she went back to the people, hoping for vindication, however, the public chose democracy over dictatorship.

Well, her story continued, and she came back once again to rule the country, but there, Dear All, is an example of how completely power can corrupt. I wonder what it would have been like if this whole spoiling- the- vote thing had been practised when she was originally elected...

There is also this other point about the on going general election in my country that I find quite amusing... well, the situation itself is not amusing, it’s just that elections time can truly change a politician’s nature... the Sri Lankan civil war has always been a touchy topic in the land of Tamil Nadu, but now that the band of terrorists are facing an ouster from the Island Nation it is even more emotive. People who were earlier clearly calling Mr. Prabhakaran a terrorist, are now a little more careful with what they say, and the focus has, of course, shifted to the Tamil origin civilians caught in the war.

Another interesting aspect to this is that the current central government is run by the Indian National Congress, whose boy wonder Rajiv Gandhi (very competent prime minister) was assassinated by the LTTE for openly supporting the Sri Lankan government over the so called ‘Indian brothers’. His son, and current poster boy Rahul Gandhi has clearly stated that he has no sympathies with the LTTE, and that he will never forgive them. The government has asked for Mr. Prabhakaran to be tried in India if he’s found alive. God forbid- I can just imagine the drama.

In fact, I hope the bastard is found with a bullet lodged in his brain. Life will be so much simpler.
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In other news, I wrote a Financial Management exam yesterday, and I don’t believe I’ve ever written a worse paper. Thankfully, the look of shock was visible on every face after leaving the examination hall. There were even some tears shed.

Please, God, please- I must pass.

Dear Reader, I ask you, please pray for me.

May this be a new year

Firstly, I want to wish you all the happiest of times in the coming year. May you be blessed with good health, contentment, success, peace, acceptance, and love. I hope you don't just have a wonderful year ahead, but make it so for others as well.

A new year... I was always thrown off by the change in the dates... now we're in 2009, not eight, it'll probably take me until February to remember to write it correctly.

This new year, however, I'm surprised at myself. I'm actually waiting- waiting for so many events and occasions- almost all of them a continuation of the previous year, of course.

The US will get a new president, one whom the entire world seems to be pinning their hopes on, poor guy. It's ironic that almost the entire world was hoping this guy would win- including himself, I'm sure, and now that he has, he has to stop the same world from annihilating itself, which is also something it seems hell bent on doing. I wonder if he can make some sense out of all that's happening though, because if not, we'll be in it for the very long haul. He doesn't have a magic wand, though, and we'll all have to pull our own weight if we want to hear any good news before the end of this year.

The one question is, whether or not we'll be able to prevent a full scale world war... or is that a matter of perspective, I wonder, since there are various degrees of war already happening in different parts of Africa, the middle east, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh?

There's also the economic slowdown. Well, it's a slowdown here, in the west it's more like recession, really

I wonder if Roger Federer will win back his No. 1 position on the ATP rankings, or if Rafael Nadal will manage to hold him off again. I personally want Roger to win all the four slams this year- not that I don't like Rafa, because truth be told I can never decide who I'm supporting when they're having it off against each other- it's actually pretty torturous, being forced to watch as a neutral party just because I cannot decide who I like more. I just think that Rafa won Wimbledon last year, so Roger should win at Roland Garros in 2009. He (rafa) just lost his quarter final match to Gaël Monfils of France at the Qatar Open, by the way.

Then there's cricket! I'm pretty sure Australia will not continue to be the world champs this year as well. I'm not feeling particularly vindictive about it, though- what do you expect if all the best players on this planet, who just happened to be on that team, suddenly retire en masse? It's bound to happen, but I'm glad to see that there is more than one team willing to slug it out for the top spot- and in all three forms of the game, no less. Yay for good cricket! :P Yayay for good cricket played by India! :D

The most important thing this year though, as opposed to all the previous ones, is that now we, the people, will have to stand up and be counted. We must now speak out, because as our carefully built worlds crumble around us, we have a choice to make. A choice that few have had to make before us, and one that will determine the course of our many races on this planet and in history. There are many questions that will be asked of us by those who inherit time from us. Who are we? Are we the people who stood by and watched as women were raped and children orphaned? Did we step up and protest while the poor and helpless became even poorer and more helpless as the wealthy became wealthier? Were we there to stop needless destruction of man, animal and planet? Did we put a stop to it? What did we do? It is time now to make our voices heard, for there will come a time not so far in the future when we will have to ask ourselves these questions.

There is something called the 'Responsibility to Protect', the intervention by external actors (preferably the international community through the UN) in a state that is unwilling or unable to prevent or stop genocide, massive killings and other massive human rights violations. The responsibility of a state to protect the citizens of another country, in case their own government cannot, or will not, do so. I believe that each of us has just such a responsibility towards every one else- If someone does not have food to eat, no matter where the live, then it is us that have failed our duty of care. It is us. We are responsible, for the simple reason that we can think and feel, and because we have knowledge of exactly what is happening in different parts of the world, now.

For years and years, humanity has been a silent sentinel to it's own destruction, whether it lie in religion, race or gender- whether it be in concentration camps, colonial fantasies or the lack of universal suffrage. Those who came before us have let it happen, and we have judged them harshly. It is time for us to right the wrongs- so today, and every day after today, ask yourself how did you help. Choose to be the person we need- choose to be courage, choose to be hope, choose to be truth, choose to be faith, choose to be charity, choose to be love, choose to be perseverance, choose to be tenacity, choose to be knowledge, choose to be thought. Choose to be the one who takes the next step forward into tomorrow. Choose to be action.

Be that change. Be that light.

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - myth is more potent than history - dreams are more powerful than facts - hope always triumphs over experience - laughter is the cure for grief - love is stronger than death.”

- Robert Fulghum

Notes from nowhere

Hi :)

I'm in the middle of exams. Again. In fact, I just wrote a paper today, and since the muse is not happy, I think I'll just tell you all how my month has been...

Lets see, today's exam- it was interesting... yes, that's the word... a numerical problem we had to do got cancelled because it had no data available to solve it. Ten marks. We couldn't stop smiling.

:)

See what I mean?
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My cousin's wedding is coming up sometime mid December, and I'm desperately trying to lose weight. It makes me laugh that after all the times I've wondered in that holier- than- thou way about why people do things just to fit in, I'm trying to do the exact same thing. Later, I'll probably be banging on about thin models again, but for now, a quick tip or two to look a little bit like them won't go amiss.

So what's with the hypocrisy, you wonder? As do I, actually, not because I don't know what the problem is, but because I know exactly what it is. You see, it would be nice to not be ignored at this particular function. I've noticed that with some of my family, the attitude changes with how socially- acceptable you are, including amongst other factors, your dress size. Last time there was a get together with this part of my family, I was actually acknowledged- can you believe it- and the singular comment from most people who wouldn't otherwise have bothered was something along the lines of how fit I was looking... So, yes, I'd quite like to be acceptable again, thank you.
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The weather in Delhi's become even more annoying than usual these days. Earlier, we just got baked for eight months and frozen for two. Now we're served toasted in the day time, and chilled through the late evenings and nights. It's probably the reason for the bizarre cases of flu in the city, anyway- it happens to be a strain that just won't get cured. Or maybe we just keep relapsing without first getting fixed.
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I registered as a voter a while back, but have still not received my electoral card... wonder when it'll finally turn up, if at all.

Oh, and on the mention of politics, I saw a poster on the college notice board today put up by the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) asking the teachers to join in a demonstration to protest against the 'undemocratic' attempt of the vice chancellor to introduce the semester system into under graduation programs. Undemocratic my ass. They're just resentful that they'll now have to actually do some work and be held accountable, the deceitful, double dealing old frauds.
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My Marketing Research teacher told me today that she'd like to get our project published.

:) :) :)
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This has got to be the most disjointed piece I've ever written.
Oh, yes,
Thank you for putting up with me.

Congratulations Abhinav!

No matter what the title may read, this is not a congratulatory post... Don't be mistaken, I'm ecstatic that Abhinav Bindra won his Gold, but I've already congratulated, and thanked him personally on his blog. I suggest you do the same.

When I first planned this post, it was a congratulatory one, but somewhere along the line, the truth sunk in- the medal wasn't really an Indian achievement, since India didn't really have too much to do with it. Thankfully. See, Abhinav spent personal and sponsor money, Rs. 10 Crore's worth of it from the talk one gets to hear, but the Nation State of India didn't spend anything on him, as such...

Excellence in this country happens in the absence of the State. You insert the State into any equation, and you'll find that it just doesn't balance any more. Abhinav doesn't owe any of his present or past successes to bodies like the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), who will now of course come forward to take credit. Did you hear of how they gave this athlete a size 7 pair of shoes, when he actually wears a size 9? It's this kind of apathy, and frankly, a lack of any willingness, or even interest to do their jobs on the part of government bodies that earn this country the tag of being sluggish. Of course, there's also internal politics... heard of Monica Devi recently? Our weightlifter who was denied a chance to play the Games due to 'doping', when all her later samples were clear? There you go...

But it's not just that. Of course we know that our government and it's agencies are made up of a bunch of incompetent fools, nothing new there... but I also don't think that we deserve this medal as a country, as a people.

In India we want the medal, but we don't care about the sport. We are not prepared to work for ten, fifteen, twenty years for it. Sportsmen are looked down upon, in general, here, and if a few happen to do well, we assume it's luck- not toil. We are not prepared to see them as equals. The general mentality is that they are doing this because they either could not do anything else, like get marks for example, or that their parents have an undue amount of money, so they don't have to work. Did we remember wrestler Khashaba DEadasaheb Jhadav? He gave India her first ever individual Olympic medal in the 1952 Helsinki Games. Bronze. How many of us had heard of him before Abhinav's Gold? Oh, by the way... he died in abject poverty, forgotten by his countrymen, and struggling to survive. Tragic, yes? We're such hypocrites.

So therefore I feel that any awards won by sportsmen or athletes of Indian nationality belong to them, their support staff, and their sponsors, but certainly not to their country of birth.

My first reaction to this particular medal was of ecstasy... of elation. My next was celebration. Then came this slightly demented phase when I was smiling as if I'd just won it. Next was gratitude. Gratitude to Abhinav for giving me that moment. Gratitude for the fact that he'd even want to acknowledge our country. Finally, it's now a mixture of all these, and something else- something that's alarmingly like resignation.

We might win some more medals at the Beijing Games. We may win a few more in the games yet to happen, but one thing is for sure- this country has done nothing to deserve those accolades.

The view from outside

Yesterday, while travelling in the Delhi Metro from North Campus to I. S. B. T., I found myself in a compartment full of pro- Tibetan demonstrators. They were all Buddhist monks, and carrying Tibetan flags. Some of the younger lot had 'Free Tibet' and such like painted on them in black.


I debated with myself on whether to ask them some questions or not...
Do it!


No.. it'll just look strange...


Just do it! ! !


NO! Everyone's looking!


Look, just stuff it up your-



"Excuse me, may I please ask you some questions about your movement? If it's not a problem... "

Oh, right...

The guy I had spoken to seemed surprised, but agreed anyway.



Yeah, right, like the poor bloke had a choice, with you doing your Rita skeeter act... Skeeter never said ‘excuse me’. Oh, just shut up, and concentrate...


Well, yes, I did kind of ASSAULT him with questions, actually.

Q1. So, do you want independence or autonomy?

Ans. Independence..


Q2. But, the Dalai Lama says he'd like autonomy...

Ans. Yes, but we want independence...

Q3. So.. do you think the furore about the Olympic torch around the world will help?

Ans. Yes, I believe so...

Q4. And what about world leaders debating about whether or not to attend the Games? The German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, do you think it'll work in your favour, or do you think it'll make China more brutal?

Ans. Yes, I think it's good...


Well, I could barely wait for the guy to get his answers out, and I was already asking my next. Honestly, I didn't even know I was that interested in the subject... Meanwhile, he was getting more and more flustered, which I finally realised, and said thank you before moving away slightly.



Then I realised, I hadn't asked him a rather important question, and went on to do so belatedly:



Q5. Excuse me, I'm sorry, but could you please tell me if you're a citizen of India or Tibet?

Ans. I'm Bhutanese.

I later realised I should have asked him if they were all from Bhutan.

Maybe five hours after this I told a group of friends about my encounter, and though initially interested, one of them told me, "You know, you should not speak to these people, these chink- eyed people, they're mostly prostitutes and drug addicts. You should be careful."

When I reminded her that they were monks, she shook her head and said "No, I live in North Campus, I know all about this. They're all mostly Pro's and druggists"


I didn't point out the contradiction in her sentence, and in any case, I didn't really know what to say to that, so I kept quiet, and let them change the topic of the conversation.

Later, I wished I'd said something, anything- to defend these 'chink- eyed' people.

The tale of the morning after

There are these two advertisements on TV these days. Both focus on married couples and both talk about the same product- a brand of morning after pills.

The first ad I saw shows this family sitting for breakfast with the mother\ wife serving. Only her husband notices her discomfiture.

The second ad, which was only aired recently, shows this good-looking guy sitting, waiting for something. The something happens- his bride wakes up, and then notices his nervous unease.

And what are these two characters uncomfortable about? Well, an unplanned pregnancy, what else?

Now, why am I writing about these ads? The answer is, because I think this ad talks very loudly about a lot of issues.

Firstly, The morning after pill, which sparked a raging, fundamentalist debate in the west, is being accepted and freely advertised in a so- labeled ‘backward’ country called India.

Secondly, I think it’s interesting that in one clip it’s the wife who’s concerned about an unplanned pregnancy, and in the other, it’s the husband. Earlier, in general, neither would have bothered. It would just have been like- Oh, well; this is God’s will. It would in most cases even have been celebrated.

Thirdly, It’s portrayed as a mutual decision. This is important because till even a decade ago, even in the educated, upper income groups of urban India, it would be a decision of the man and his family. It’s a paradigm shift and asserts the right of control a woman deserves over her own body- even as it emphasizes the right of both partners over the fate of an unborn child.

Fourthly, in a strange way, it’s propagating family planning. In the first ad the couple already has two kids, and in the second, the newlyweds have non. The common thread is that neither couple wants a child at that point- it’s about how a couple has to be mentally prepared for having children.

Lastly, the timing of this ad is almost other- worldly, given that it’s being telecast at a time when our politicians are debating the existence of the Lord Ram, urban India is being recognized as the lady- killer in quite the wrong way, and village panchayats are terrorizing couples through gotra- politics… Really, this can truly happen only in India.

I guess these ads tell us that marriage is not just a license to get birth certificates printed anymore. It’s actually a celebration of living everyday with the person you love, and who may one day, by mutual consent, plan to be the parent of your child.

Sethusamudram

Sethusamudram is the bridge joining India to Sri Lanka. Wikipedia says: “ It encompasses the Gulf of Mannar, the Palk Strait, and a shoal of islands and bays that separate them called Adam's Bridge (or Rama Bridge).”

It’s called ‘Ram’s bridge’ or Ram Setu because of it’s association with the Hindu Epic Ramayana, which is the story of the prince Ram of Ayodhya. The tale tells of how Ram is actually an incarnation of the Lord Vishnu, and encompasses his birth, tutelage under the Sage Vishwamitra, battles with demons, his marriage to the princess Sita, banishment from his kingdom, an idyllic romance with Sita, her capture by the Lord Ravan of Lanka (now Sri Lanka), and Ram’s war on Ravan to rescue his beautiful wife.

The bridge comes into the story because Ram needs a way to get to Lanka, and since there’s a sea separating the isle from the main continent, Ram prays to the sea to allow him and his troops a way to get there . The Sea God tells Ram to built a bridge or a setu to Sri Lanka. He says that as long as every bit of building matter like rock or whatever else they used had Ram’s name on it, it would stay afloat in the water. Ram finally walked across this setu to Lanka and rescued Sita after a long war which concluded in a confrontation between Ram and Ravan.

Now I’m not particularly religious, and I don’t think very highly of Ram for what he did to Sita once they reached Ayodhya, but I’ve been in love with the epic ever since my grand mother 1st read it out to me when I was a very small child, and I actually believe this story to be true. That being as it is, I don’t take very kindly to being told that Ram didn’t exist by members of the ruling coalition government recently.

This happened because of the Sethusamudram Canal Project they want to undertake, so that the Indian Navy doesn't have to circumnavigate around Sri Lanka in order to patrol our coasts...

When the opposition protested, they had the guts to file an affidavit in the apex court saying "There's no proof that Ram ever existed!"


Well, since then 2 middle level ASI employees have been fired, and calls have been coming for minister Ambika Soni's resignation, but what I want to ask is this: had it been a phenomenon associated with any other community, would these high and mighty politicians have the nerve to suggest such a thing?

To me, it's not sacrilegious, but I do find it insulting to be told by some beyond- cure dishonest politicians that someone not just I, but also a long line of ancestors has been looking up to as God does not, and did never, exist- because really, these people would know all about devotion and Godliness, wouldn't they?


And, then there's the environmental aspect... the Ram Setu is at a strategic point in our planet. Environmentalists have been screaming themselves hoarse over the fact that the place supports a fragile eco system which will be forever destroyed if the dredging goes through, but I guess the government is not interested...


Now, though, they may be forced into looking up both these issues, and since they're already red in the face, both my objections may actually get some attention from the concerned authorities.