This debate starts from the present scene in Turkey - what is better : A democratically elected non-secular president or a non-democratic intervention by its Army to maintain secularism.
Usually we tend to believe that both Democracy and Secularism go together. However, they are two totally different concepts. You can have a non-secular democracy like Pakistan (well, not now under Musharraf ofcourse) or a strictly secular non-democratic nation (Iran under Shah before the revolution). Democracy is, by definition, the rule of the majority. So it doesnt guarantee minority protection unless there are strong supporting institutions. Recent history is replete with examples where a democratically elected leader wreaked havoc on certain sections of population (Hitler on Jews, Modi on Muslims). And it still occurs to this day, even among mature democracies. On the other hand, we in India had an example of a monarch maintaining strict secular principles (Akbar - removed Jajia tax on hindus, respected talented Navratnas like Birbal, Tansen regardless of their religion).
But naturally, the best condition is to have a democratic secular republic. However, if I have to choose just one of these attributes, my vote goes for secularism. Let religion be totally separated from state and politics, no matter what.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Shame on you Mr. Sitaram Yechury
With the limited English television access I have where I am, I was continuously searching for news on the cowardly Hyderabad blasts and the responses from Indian government and politicians. The Indian government has, as is usual, deplored the attacks, the BJP has called for stricter anti-terror laws (read POTA) but it was the response of Mr. Yechury from CPM that left me bewildered. Mr. Yechury has blamed the attack on the private security personnel incharge of guarding the Lumbini park. His comments went something like this "the attacks were a clear failure of intelligence and of the private securtiy agency, in charge of guarding the Lumbini park. As we have always been saying, we should not privatize security..."
Well said. So if I understand correctly, these ghastly attacks, where more than 40 people lost their lives, are nothing but an opportunity for CPM to underscore brownie points (with whom?). The attack is a happy coincidence for CPM to further its attacks against Manmohan Singh on issues of privatization though it happily does the same in its own states. But if Mr. Yechury really believes that privatizing the security is the main cause of intelligence failure then what about countless terrorism attacks in our country like on Parliament, in Bangalore, in Varanasi etc etc. After all, these places were not guarded by the inefficient private security agencies but efficient government security!
This is not to say that the private ones are better than the government ones. The point is CPM must stop furthering its own political agenda at times when terrorists are leaving no stone unturned to weaken India (India features the worst terrorist hit country after Iraq). Please Mr. Yechury, have some empathy for your own countrymen.
Well said. So if I understand correctly, these ghastly attacks, where more than 40 people lost their lives, are nothing but an opportunity for CPM to underscore brownie points (with whom?). The attack is a happy coincidence for CPM to further its attacks against Manmohan Singh on issues of privatization though it happily does the same in its own states. But if Mr. Yechury really believes that privatizing the security is the main cause of intelligence failure then what about countless terrorism attacks in our country like on Parliament, in Bangalore, in Varanasi etc etc. After all, these places were not guarded by the inefficient private security agencies but efficient government security!
This is not to say that the private ones are better than the government ones. The point is CPM must stop furthering its own political agenda at times when terrorists are leaving no stone unturned to weaken India (India features the worst terrorist hit country after Iraq). Please Mr. Yechury, have some empathy for your own countrymen.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Increasing Gap between Rich and Poor
There is more and more debate these days about how Capitalism and open markets is increasing the gap between rich and poor. How the big bad greedy capitalists are just nothing more than parasites, sucking the blood of the poor people and becoming richer and richer. Examples quoted are the farmer suicides in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, people living in Mumbai slums, pathetic condition of migrants (mostly from Bihar and UP) in Delhi and so and so. And regularly the reason for the unfortunate plight of these people is put on buzz words like globalization, capitalists etc . During the last few days of ourIndependence celebrations, this theme was repeated so many times and on so many programmes. The last straw for my patience came when I saw a persistent Stephen Sackur grilling Sunil Mittal on BBC Hardtalk on how Sunil Mittal made his billions while millions in India continue to live below the poverty line. As if it was all his fault to make money while a whole lot of others couldnt buy their bread. Phew!
Now, before I go on the schizophrenic histeria about India's developments, let me recount the facts. Today, around 25% Indians live on less than a dollar a day, we have huge child labour problems, girls are still unwelcome in our families. Yes, accepted and I also know about the persistent caste system, the all pervading loathing of the minority, the rising naxal problems, the endemic corruption and so on. If in 60 years of independence, we have not been able to do something to such gross problems, there must be something wrong in the way India is progressing right now. There must be something lacking, there must be some lesson on humanitarian development which we must learn from the west. Right. Wrong!
As a nation we may be 60 years independent. However, dont mistake political freedom with economic freedom. What happened in 1947, as far as economics is concerned, is just that the political power was transferred from the Gora Sahebs to the Brown Sahebs. Common Indians still had to fear the government and the bueaucracy. A license was needed for everything, from opening a business to obtaining sugar and kerosene for domestic consumption. Everything was as controlled, if not more, as during the British days. The result of such policies left a nation with around 800 million people totally bankrupt by 1991 and our finance minister was compelled to go begging to IMF for around 2.5 billion USD to avert a balance of payments crisis. And I thank my 330 million Gods for that crisis. Because with that crisis came an opportunity, of a magnitude unparalleled in modern world economic history- an opportunity to start lifting a fifth of the world population out of poverty slowly, steadily and "without saying bye to our cherished democracy" (quote added if you thought of China). Much reviled the IMF may be, it was to their dictats that we had to unshackle our economy and the fact that we had a highly educated finance minister(Manmohan Singh), backed by a highly learned prime minister (Narsimha Rao) helped enormously.
So really our India is just 16 years economically free. And look what has it achieved in the last 16 years. Around 300 million strong middle class population, which aspires to challenge and win over the world. In short, we have a whole USA within our borders demographically and more and more people are coming in the middle class bracket every single day. As the princess Raina of Jordan put it in one of her speeches in India Conclave, the difference between a child born in the west and a child born in sub-saharan africa is the Hope Gap (which basically means whether there is a possibility that a child will have a hope to leave the clutches of poverty during his/her life time). And I think that in the last 16 years, India deserves an A+ to fill the hope gap for so many families. It may take us another 60 years to fill the hope gap for the rest of India but I am certain we will do that nevertheless.
I am always worried that these debates on the increasing gap between rich and poor may lead India astray from the path of filling that hope gap. The socialistic policies we followed till 1991 resulted in a situation where a vast majority of Indians were equally poor and where the only hope of escaping poverty was to join a government job. Today, the situation is at least a lot better with the private sector becoming a leading provider of respectable jobs. What we must do is to unshackle our economy further from the clutches of government. Government's job is to regulate, to collect taxes and provide necessary assistance to the marginalized. Business is best left to the businessmen and economics to economists. And if that means that the gap between a Sunil Mittal and a migrant labour increases, we should not be questioning him as if it is all his fault. Neither should we start thinking about policies which would again make everybody equally poor!
Now, before I go on the schizophrenic histeria about India's developments, let me recount the facts. Today, around 25% Indians live on less than a dollar a day, we have huge child labour problems, girls are still unwelcome in our families. Yes, accepted and I also know about the persistent caste system, the all pervading loathing of the minority, the rising naxal problems, the endemic corruption and so on. If in 60 years of independence, we have not been able to do something to such gross problems, there must be something wrong in the way India is progressing right now. There must be something lacking, there must be some lesson on humanitarian development which we must learn from the west. Right. Wrong!
As a nation we may be 60 years independent. However, dont mistake political freedom with economic freedom. What happened in 1947, as far as economics is concerned, is just that the political power was transferred from the Gora Sahebs to the Brown Sahebs. Common Indians still had to fear the government and the bueaucracy. A license was needed for everything, from opening a business to obtaining sugar and kerosene for domestic consumption. Everything was as controlled, if not more, as during the British days. The result of such policies left a nation with around 800 million people totally bankrupt by 1991 and our finance minister was compelled to go begging to IMF for around 2.5 billion USD to avert a balance of payments crisis. And I thank my 330 million Gods for that crisis. Because with that crisis came an opportunity, of a magnitude unparalleled in modern world economic history- an opportunity to start lifting a fifth of the world population out of poverty slowly, steadily and "without saying bye to our cherished democracy" (quote added if you thought of China). Much reviled the IMF may be, it was to their dictats that we had to unshackle our economy and the fact that we had a highly educated finance minister(Manmohan Singh), backed by a highly learned prime minister (Narsimha Rao) helped enormously.
So really our India is just 16 years economically free. And look what has it achieved in the last 16 years. Around 300 million strong middle class population, which aspires to challenge and win over the world. In short, we have a whole USA within our borders demographically and more and more people are coming in the middle class bracket every single day. As the princess Raina of Jordan put it in one of her speeches in India Conclave, the difference between a child born in the west and a child born in sub-saharan africa is the Hope Gap (which basically means whether there is a possibility that a child will have a hope to leave the clutches of poverty during his/her life time). And I think that in the last 16 years, India deserves an A+ to fill the hope gap for so many families. It may take us another 60 years to fill the hope gap for the rest of India but I am certain we will do that nevertheless.
I am always worried that these debates on the increasing gap between rich and poor may lead India astray from the path of filling that hope gap. The socialistic policies we followed till 1991 resulted in a situation where a vast majority of Indians were equally poor and where the only hope of escaping poverty was to join a government job. Today, the situation is at least a lot better with the private sector becoming a leading provider of respectable jobs. What we must do is to unshackle our economy further from the clutches of government. Government's job is to regulate, to collect taxes and provide necessary assistance to the marginalized. Business is best left to the businessmen and economics to economists. And if that means that the gap between a Sunil Mittal and a migrant labour increases, we should not be questioning him as if it is all his fault. Neither should we start thinking about policies which would again make everybody equally poor!
Friday, August 03, 2007
War in Iraq - Not everything was lost!
Yesterday somebody asked me if I was against the war in Iraq and though it is always politically correct to say "yes, I am against", I really couldnt bring myself to say it. Immediately, I was accused of being a Bush supporter, a hypocrite and what not. And I have been brooding since then : Can everybody who thinks differently on the Iraq and Afghanistan war be classified as a Bush supporter?
Lets see the Iraq war in hindsight. There is no denying the fact the reasons for which USA and UK attacked Iraq were proved to be fictitious, no more than a figment of CIA's imagination. So the reasons for going on war with Iraq were bad, no questions about them. US and UK should have never declared war on Iraq based on such lies.Period!
So lets reflect for a moment what the situations would have been without the war. Saddam would have continued with its dictatorial regime. Kurds, the unfortunate minority would have been continued to get slaughtered, Chemical Ali (the main chemical war expert with Saddam) would have continued with his experiments on Kurds. And the world would have kept a closed eye towards all that because of course, these are all internal affairs of a nation. Right! If you think so, you may as well remember that this is exactly what the world leaders did (leave German Jews on their own conditions while Hitler was obliterating them on mass-scale). And the entire world paid a heavy price a few years later in the form of a terrible war.
Similarly, this is again what world leaders did while hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were being killed by Hutu rebels in Rwanda. Just considered it as an internal affair of a country. This is exactly what countries have been doing in Darfur till the other day, just looking the other way when millions are dying, homeless, in need of food.
So here is what I have to say to the people who strongly believe that no nation should interfere in another country's affairs come what may - think about the minorities like Kurds, Tutsis and Darfurians before you say no to war of any kind. Because sometimes wars fought on pathetic grounds (like naked lies of Mr. Bush and Blair) are the only good news and hope for such people. I rest my case.
Lets see the Iraq war in hindsight. There is no denying the fact the reasons for which USA and UK attacked Iraq were proved to be fictitious, no more than a figment of CIA's imagination. So the reasons for going on war with Iraq were bad, no questions about them. US and UK should have never declared war on Iraq based on such lies.Period!
So lets reflect for a moment what the situations would have been without the war. Saddam would have continued with its dictatorial regime. Kurds, the unfortunate minority would have been continued to get slaughtered, Chemical Ali (the main chemical war expert with Saddam) would have continued with his experiments on Kurds. And the world would have kept a closed eye towards all that because of course, these are all internal affairs of a nation. Right! If you think so, you may as well remember that this is exactly what the world leaders did (leave German Jews on their own conditions while Hitler was obliterating them on mass-scale). And the entire world paid a heavy price a few years later in the form of a terrible war.
Similarly, this is again what world leaders did while hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were being killed by Hutu rebels in Rwanda. Just considered it as an internal affair of a country. This is exactly what countries have been doing in Darfur till the other day, just looking the other way when millions are dying, homeless, in need of food.
So here is what I have to say to the people who strongly believe that no nation should interfere in another country's affairs come what may - think about the minorities like Kurds, Tutsis and Darfurians before you say no to war of any kind. Because sometimes wars fought on pathetic grounds (like naked lies of Mr. Bush and Blair) are the only good news and hope for such people. I rest my case.
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