Every year, different state Governments and Central Government departments and undertakings come up with tableaus on different topics at the Republic Day parade.
Here are some original and contemporary ideas as suggestions:
A Telengana tableaux with a fasting KCR and Osmania University students setting ablaze buses and cars and PC trying to pour water on it.
An IT tableaux with a relaxed Shashi Tharoor tweeting
A UP tableaux with Kum Mayawati as a statue
A Samajwadi Party tableaux with Amar Singh as pied piper walking out with Sanju baba, Jayaprada and Jaya Bachchan.
A BJP tableaux with Nitin Gadkari as Hanuman lifting the mountainous party.
A railway tableaux with Mamta Banerjee in the driver’s seat and Lalu Prasad running after the train.
And of course, an IPL tableaux with Pakistani players beating their chests in mourning as Shilpa, Preity and Nita Ambani engage in a jig.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
A Resolution for Peace
Like every year, this year too I have made my New Year resolutions, such as getting up early, going to bed early, taking food on time, exercising regularly, maintaining diet, spending more time with family, reading more books, meeting more friends, not getting angry, doing Yoga and meditation, not eating junk food etc etc, resolutions that have been made umpteen times in the past only to be broken within an hour, day, week or a month at the most.
Yet, when we look all around us, the agitation for Telengana, the Maoist violence along the Red Corridor, the insurgency in North East, the militancy in Kashmir, terrorists acts in different parts of the country and the world, only one desire comes to the fore – Peace.
But can peace be achieved merely by preaching? All religions have preached peace since time immemorial. Lord Buddha’s sermon was all about Ahimsa or non-violence yet in the past year, there couldn’t have been anything more violent and brutal than what the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese Sri Lankan Army perpetrated on the innocent Tamilian population in the island nation during the war against LTTE. Latest television footages of Lankan soldiers blindfolding the victims and shooting them at point blank range has only confirmed the open secret.
Most terror activities in India, USA, Israel, Pakistan and Afghanistan are being carried out by fundamentalist elements under the garb of Islam which itself means ‘Peace’. Certainly, such acts including against Mosques and Muslims themselves were never endorsed by the Prophet.
Jesus of Nazareth too taught the world to show the other cheek when slapped on one. Yet, neither the activities of pre-dominantly Christian insurgent groups in North-East India or the racist attack on Indian students in Australia conform to the peace and non-violence enunciated and espoused in the Holy Bible.
The irony of the times is that US President Barack Obama in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech justified both war and violence, of course, to establish peace.
Since time immemorial, there have been efforts to establish peace and harmony. From the World Parliament of Religions, where Swami Vivekananda made history, to the creation of League of Nations and the United Nations, history has been witnesses to umpteen such sincere and honest efforts to resolve conflicts. Yet, disharmony rules the roost, violence continues unabated.
With the conflict resolution models failing to succeed, the time has come to evolve conflict avoidance models. Resolution comes after the conflict take place whereas conflict avoidance is a preventive as against a curative step.
The need of the hour is paradigm shift in thinking from the now prevailing notion of tolerance of other faiths as the ideal to the ideal of acceptance of all faiths as valid and sacred to achieve peace and harmony based on mutual accommodation.
In fact, a silent revolution has been taking place. Religious leaders from the world over signed the historic inter-faith document, ‘The Faith Human Rights Statement’, on December 10, 2008. While emphasizing the importance of the freedom of expression, the leaders resolved to deplore the portrayals of objects of religious veneration which fail to be properly respectful to the sensibilities of believers (supporters of the Danish cartoonist and M F Hussein, please note). They also agreed the freedom to have, to retain and to adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice, without coercion or inducement to be an undeniable right. This declaration addressed a principal apprehension of faiths like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism (in the Indian context) and Confucianism about the Abrahamic faiths. Interestingly, conversion has been a major bone of contention between Hindu and Christian groups in the country and both leaders of Abrahamic religions and Head of the Hindu Acharya Sabha Swami Dayananda Saraswathi were signatories to this agreement at Amsterdam.
The Swami also traveled to Israel and held a comprehensive dialogue with top Jewish leaders which helped remove theological misunderstanding that existed between the two faiths over the centuries, rather millennia. In a joint declaration after the dialogue, the Jewish leaders were convinced that the different idols and Gods in Hinduism were merely the form, but in substance, the Hindus accepted only one reality. This was a path breaking and illustrative endeavour to remove a basic and fundamental misconception about Hinduism in the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths.
This opens the gates for similar consensus with the other Abrahamic faiths, Islam and Christianity, which is particularly crucial, nay critical, in the Indian context.
In this regard, the Global Foundation for Civilizational Harmony (India), which was founded exactly two years back in the presence of a galaxy of spiritual leaders from all faiths in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, has been doing a pioneering work. Deviating from the popular and conventional models of seeking harmony among faiths and civilizations, the organization is engaged in the difficult path of persuading different faiths and civilizations to undergo an endogenous transformation and thereby bring about changes in the longstanding perceptions about them within and outside as an essential part of the process to bring about lasting harmony among faiths and civilizations.
In fact, GFCH India supported and worked with the Darul Uloom Deoband to hold rallies of Muslims against terrorism in different parts of India with a view to dispel the perception identifying terror with Islam. The Foundation felt that unless some visible initiative was taken from within the community and by a reputed and respected Islamic theological school to dispel this perception, it was bound to persist and even deepen.
Of late, GFCH organized a Hindu Spiritual and Service Fair in Chennai, in which about 100 Hindu spiritual organizations such as Ramakrishna Mission, Art of Living foundation, Patanjali Yogapeeth, Kanchi and Sringeri Mutts, Mata Amritanandamayi Math participated, with the objective of dispelling a long held perception that Hindu spiritual organizations were not socially conscious and they do not have a deep impulse for public service. Apart from the younger generation within the community, this perception had also greatly prejudiced the respect for Hindu faith in the minds of the followers of other faiths, as a socially insensitive faith. Needless to metion here that the fair, inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Governor S S Barnala, was a grand success with over 1.25 lakh visitors.
Next on the cards for the Foundation is an ‘Islam in the Service of Mother India’ fair, probably in Delhi, with the twin objectives of showcasing the service aspect of Islam as also the community’s unquestionable commitment to the motherland, unmindful over the controversy over Vande Mataram etc.
I am sure, there are other organizations doing equally good work. Let us strengthen such efforts, for at stake is global peace and harmony, which is crucial for progress and prosperity. Let our resolution this year be for creating a peaceful and harmonious universe. Amen, Inshallah, Tathastu!
Yet, when we look all around us, the agitation for Telengana, the Maoist violence along the Red Corridor, the insurgency in North East, the militancy in Kashmir, terrorists acts in different parts of the country and the world, only one desire comes to the fore – Peace.
But can peace be achieved merely by preaching? All religions have preached peace since time immemorial. Lord Buddha’s sermon was all about Ahimsa or non-violence yet in the past year, there couldn’t have been anything more violent and brutal than what the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese Sri Lankan Army perpetrated on the innocent Tamilian population in the island nation during the war against LTTE. Latest television footages of Lankan soldiers blindfolding the victims and shooting them at point blank range has only confirmed the open secret.
Most terror activities in India, USA, Israel, Pakistan and Afghanistan are being carried out by fundamentalist elements under the garb of Islam which itself means ‘Peace’. Certainly, such acts including against Mosques and Muslims themselves were never endorsed by the Prophet.
Jesus of Nazareth too taught the world to show the other cheek when slapped on one. Yet, neither the activities of pre-dominantly Christian insurgent groups in North-East India or the racist attack on Indian students in Australia conform to the peace and non-violence enunciated and espoused in the Holy Bible.
The irony of the times is that US President Barack Obama in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech justified both war and violence, of course, to establish peace.
Since time immemorial, there have been efforts to establish peace and harmony. From the World Parliament of Religions, where Swami Vivekananda made history, to the creation of League of Nations and the United Nations, history has been witnesses to umpteen such sincere and honest efforts to resolve conflicts. Yet, disharmony rules the roost, violence continues unabated.
With the conflict resolution models failing to succeed, the time has come to evolve conflict avoidance models. Resolution comes after the conflict take place whereas conflict avoidance is a preventive as against a curative step.
The need of the hour is paradigm shift in thinking from the now prevailing notion of tolerance of other faiths as the ideal to the ideal of acceptance of all faiths as valid and sacred to achieve peace and harmony based on mutual accommodation.
In fact, a silent revolution has been taking place. Religious leaders from the world over signed the historic inter-faith document, ‘The Faith Human Rights Statement’, on December 10, 2008. While emphasizing the importance of the freedom of expression, the leaders resolved to deplore the portrayals of objects of religious veneration which fail to be properly respectful to the sensibilities of believers (supporters of the Danish cartoonist and M F Hussein, please note). They also agreed the freedom to have, to retain and to adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice, without coercion or inducement to be an undeniable right. This declaration addressed a principal apprehension of faiths like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism (in the Indian context) and Confucianism about the Abrahamic faiths. Interestingly, conversion has been a major bone of contention between Hindu and Christian groups in the country and both leaders of Abrahamic religions and Head of the Hindu Acharya Sabha Swami Dayananda Saraswathi were signatories to this agreement at Amsterdam.
The Swami also traveled to Israel and held a comprehensive dialogue with top Jewish leaders which helped remove theological misunderstanding that existed between the two faiths over the centuries, rather millennia. In a joint declaration after the dialogue, the Jewish leaders were convinced that the different idols and Gods in Hinduism were merely the form, but in substance, the Hindus accepted only one reality. This was a path breaking and illustrative endeavour to remove a basic and fundamental misconception about Hinduism in the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths.
This opens the gates for similar consensus with the other Abrahamic faiths, Islam and Christianity, which is particularly crucial, nay critical, in the Indian context.
In this regard, the Global Foundation for Civilizational Harmony (India), which was founded exactly two years back in the presence of a galaxy of spiritual leaders from all faiths in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, has been doing a pioneering work. Deviating from the popular and conventional models of seeking harmony among faiths and civilizations, the organization is engaged in the difficult path of persuading different faiths and civilizations to undergo an endogenous transformation and thereby bring about changes in the longstanding perceptions about them within and outside as an essential part of the process to bring about lasting harmony among faiths and civilizations.
In fact, GFCH India supported and worked with the Darul Uloom Deoband to hold rallies of Muslims against terrorism in different parts of India with a view to dispel the perception identifying terror with Islam. The Foundation felt that unless some visible initiative was taken from within the community and by a reputed and respected Islamic theological school to dispel this perception, it was bound to persist and even deepen.
Of late, GFCH organized a Hindu Spiritual and Service Fair in Chennai, in which about 100 Hindu spiritual organizations such as Ramakrishna Mission, Art of Living foundation, Patanjali Yogapeeth, Kanchi and Sringeri Mutts, Mata Amritanandamayi Math participated, with the objective of dispelling a long held perception that Hindu spiritual organizations were not socially conscious and they do not have a deep impulse for public service. Apart from the younger generation within the community, this perception had also greatly prejudiced the respect for Hindu faith in the minds of the followers of other faiths, as a socially insensitive faith. Needless to metion here that the fair, inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Governor S S Barnala, was a grand success with over 1.25 lakh visitors.
Next on the cards for the Foundation is an ‘Islam in the Service of Mother India’ fair, probably in Delhi, with the twin objectives of showcasing the service aspect of Islam as also the community’s unquestionable commitment to the motherland, unmindful over the controversy over Vande Mataram etc.
I am sure, there are other organizations doing equally good work. Let us strengthen such efforts, for at stake is global peace and harmony, which is crucial for progress and prosperity. Let our resolution this year be for creating a peaceful and harmonious universe. Amen, Inshallah, Tathastu!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
After Telengana, Why Not Mayur Vihar?
Mayur Vihar in East Delhi is a peaceful middle class locality. It has a mixed population, with a sizeable chunk coming from South India. But that peace is going to be shattered soon, for a section of the populace has taken a decision to seek a separate state. While apparently this may sound unreasonable, ridiculous and even outrageous, the proponents of the ‘Greater Mayur Vihar’ state have their own logic. One, being part of East Delhi, they are a neglected lot compared to their upmarket cousins in say, Greater Kailash, Golf Links, Vasant Vihar etc in South Delhi, not to talk of the denizens of Lutyen’s New Delhi. That’s a discrimination at par with the one faced by the Gorkhas in Darjeeling and Siliguri and worse than the citizens of Telengana. At least, they have a Hyderabad to boast of. Secondly, under a ‘deep-rooted’ conspiracy, Mayur Vihar has been split into three phases, I, II and III, each leagues away from each other. Now, if the Nagas can ask for parts of Manipur and other North-Eastern states for a Greater Nagaland, why not a Greater Mayur Vihar?
Thus, we are underdeveloped vis-à-vis the rest of the city, we have been ‘discriminated’ against and we have been split into three and therefore, the demand for Mayur Vihar as an independent state is fully justified. We will have the comparatively developed Phase-II as the capital city, since it is encircled by the Sanjay lake, possessed with wildlife in the form of monkeys, peacocks and snakes, equipped with its own telephone exchange, a couple of hospitals and banks and of course a bar-cum-restaurant, the symbol of any vibrant city with an active night life. And the protests are also going to be a smooth affair. Since, the sleek modern low-floor buses introduced in the national capital ahead of the Commonwealth Games 2010 are catching fire on their own, we don’t even need to set them ablaze. And since many people in the peripheral areas of Mayur Vihar, such as Kalyanpuri, Trilokpuri et al, find it difficult to get two square meals a day, sitting on fast too is not going to be a great problem. They need not escape from the hospital to have a binge and resume their ‘fast unto death’.
And of course, the Union Home Minister being a highly obliging and ‘sensitive’ person, within a day or two of the protest, we are expecting a midnight declaration to the effect that the process for the creation of Greater Mayur Vihar or Mayuranchal with Mayurabad as the capital as the 30th state of the Union of India, after the establishment of Telengana as the 29th state of the Union, if and when that happens, would soon get underway.
Figment of imagination or flight of fancy or an element of lunacy? But it’s for real. Look at the demands gathering momentum. Television shots of a Sikh gentleman and his supporters blocking railway traffic in support of Vidarbha, demands for Maru Pradesh, Vidarbha, Kodagu, Saurashtra, Poorvanchal, Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh, the list seems endless.
Is statehood the panacea for underdevelopment or regional imbalance? If today the argument is that large states are unmanageable and hence need to be broken up, tomorrow the same yardstick would apply to large countries too, including India.
So, are we heading for Balkanization, implementing ourselves what a Chinese think tank had contemplated few months back? Are we going back to the days of the principalities and provinces, for whose merger with the Indian Union, the Iron Man of India so assiduously worked. It’s an irony that the modern ‘Lauh Purush’, who claims to be an ardent devotee of the Sardar and even got his bosom pal Jaswant Singh expelled from the party for criticisng the icon, advocates the creation of small states.
Jharkhand and Uttarakhand are examples of how bad an idea small states could be. The recent fractured verdict in Jharkhand and the influential role of small but dubious political parties indicate how fragile and vulnerable their polity is. Except tourism, does small states like Goa and Kerala have anything else to boast of, except for Kerala, the highest liquor consumption, divorce rate etc. Look at the condition of women in small states such as Haryana and Punjab where male-female ratio is among the lowest in the country. Uttarakhand is totally dependent on central funds for its very survival and what is the guarantee that tomorrow the people of Kumaon and Garhwal, the two distinct regions of the state, do not feel discriminated against and demand separate statehood?
In Uttarakhand, every second MLA was given the status of a Minister with a beacon light and hooter in tow. Are not marginalized political leaders such as Chandrasekhar Rao and Ajit Singh behind such demands? Aren’t certain influential castes going to dominate the polity of these states at the cost of others? With her vote bank equally distributed across the state, Mayawati obviously wants her influence to span across three states, to realize her Prime Ministerial ambitions, since her attempts to expand the party beyond Uttar Pradesh has failed to take off so far.
Secondly, is statehood the only solution to under development and regional imbalance? No. There are other constitutional mechanisms such as creation of Autonomous Development Councils and Regions within different states. But the counter argument is that such council have failed, whether it be in Karbi Anglog in Assam or Ladakh or Darjeeling. But that’s not because the mechanism is wrong, but the mechanics. Both the Centre and the respective states gave these regions and districts only autonomy on paper. Rest was tokenism. No real financial or administrative powers. And the result naturally is continued under development and neglect.
So, what’s the solution? To begin with, the very concept of linguistic states was wrong. Had language been a unifying factor, there was no reason why the Telugu speaking people of Telengana should seek separation from their brethren in Rayalseema and Coastal Andhra. There is very little in common between the Tamils in Tamil Nadu and the ones in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa. Even the language they speak have a distinct flavour. The same holds true for Bengalis. The ‘Bhadralok’ from Kolkata used to dismiss the residents of Chittaranjan Park in South Delhi as ‘EDPD’ (East Pakistan Displaced Persons) and till sometime back, even marriage among them was taboo. The people in North Kerala hold the people in south in contempt and vice-versa.
The solution lies in decentralization and devolution of powers from the Centre to the states and the states to the regions, districts and right upto the Panchayats. The solution lies in strengthening and empowering Panchayati Raj institutions. The late Rajiv Gandhi had famously stated once that out of the every rupee sent from the Centre, only 15 paise reaches the target. And the reason for this is rampant corruption, absence of transparency, lack of powers of the local bodies, insincere monitoring and implementation and above all absence of sincere intentions.
Instead of spending crores and crores of rupees in setting up another huge administrative machinery for a state Government, the money could be effectively utilized to educate and employ lakhs of people, provide them a roof over their head and two square meals a day.
As for the growing demands for separate states, instead of rushing in where fools fear to tread, the Union Government should announce creation of another state reorganization committee, which like other commissions of its kind such as the Liberhan Commission, should take at least two decades to finalise its report, to be followed by a leak to a leading newspaper ahead of a parliament session to ensure an uproar and a quick burial, to be subsequently followed by another Commission to study the demands afresh to be followed by….
Thus, we are underdeveloped vis-à-vis the rest of the city, we have been ‘discriminated’ against and we have been split into three and therefore, the demand for Mayur Vihar as an independent state is fully justified. We will have the comparatively developed Phase-II as the capital city, since it is encircled by the Sanjay lake, possessed with wildlife in the form of monkeys, peacocks and snakes, equipped with its own telephone exchange, a couple of hospitals and banks and of course a bar-cum-restaurant, the symbol of any vibrant city with an active night life. And the protests are also going to be a smooth affair. Since, the sleek modern low-floor buses introduced in the national capital ahead of the Commonwealth Games 2010 are catching fire on their own, we don’t even need to set them ablaze. And since many people in the peripheral areas of Mayur Vihar, such as Kalyanpuri, Trilokpuri et al, find it difficult to get two square meals a day, sitting on fast too is not going to be a great problem. They need not escape from the hospital to have a binge and resume their ‘fast unto death’.
And of course, the Union Home Minister being a highly obliging and ‘sensitive’ person, within a day or two of the protest, we are expecting a midnight declaration to the effect that the process for the creation of Greater Mayur Vihar or Mayuranchal with Mayurabad as the capital as the 30th state of the Union of India, after the establishment of Telengana as the 29th state of the Union, if and when that happens, would soon get underway.
Figment of imagination or flight of fancy or an element of lunacy? But it’s for real. Look at the demands gathering momentum. Television shots of a Sikh gentleman and his supporters blocking railway traffic in support of Vidarbha, demands for Maru Pradesh, Vidarbha, Kodagu, Saurashtra, Poorvanchal, Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh, the list seems endless.
Is statehood the panacea for underdevelopment or regional imbalance? If today the argument is that large states are unmanageable and hence need to be broken up, tomorrow the same yardstick would apply to large countries too, including India.
So, are we heading for Balkanization, implementing ourselves what a Chinese think tank had contemplated few months back? Are we going back to the days of the principalities and provinces, for whose merger with the Indian Union, the Iron Man of India so assiduously worked. It’s an irony that the modern ‘Lauh Purush’, who claims to be an ardent devotee of the Sardar and even got his bosom pal Jaswant Singh expelled from the party for criticisng the icon, advocates the creation of small states.
Jharkhand and Uttarakhand are examples of how bad an idea small states could be. The recent fractured verdict in Jharkhand and the influential role of small but dubious political parties indicate how fragile and vulnerable their polity is. Except tourism, does small states like Goa and Kerala have anything else to boast of, except for Kerala, the highest liquor consumption, divorce rate etc. Look at the condition of women in small states such as Haryana and Punjab where male-female ratio is among the lowest in the country. Uttarakhand is totally dependent on central funds for its very survival and what is the guarantee that tomorrow the people of Kumaon and Garhwal, the two distinct regions of the state, do not feel discriminated against and demand separate statehood?
In Uttarakhand, every second MLA was given the status of a Minister with a beacon light and hooter in tow. Are not marginalized political leaders such as Chandrasekhar Rao and Ajit Singh behind such demands? Aren’t certain influential castes going to dominate the polity of these states at the cost of others? With her vote bank equally distributed across the state, Mayawati obviously wants her influence to span across three states, to realize her Prime Ministerial ambitions, since her attempts to expand the party beyond Uttar Pradesh has failed to take off so far.
Secondly, is statehood the only solution to under development and regional imbalance? No. There are other constitutional mechanisms such as creation of Autonomous Development Councils and Regions within different states. But the counter argument is that such council have failed, whether it be in Karbi Anglog in Assam or Ladakh or Darjeeling. But that’s not because the mechanism is wrong, but the mechanics. Both the Centre and the respective states gave these regions and districts only autonomy on paper. Rest was tokenism. No real financial or administrative powers. And the result naturally is continued under development and neglect.
So, what’s the solution? To begin with, the very concept of linguistic states was wrong. Had language been a unifying factor, there was no reason why the Telugu speaking people of Telengana should seek separation from their brethren in Rayalseema and Coastal Andhra. There is very little in common between the Tamils in Tamil Nadu and the ones in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa. Even the language they speak have a distinct flavour. The same holds true for Bengalis. The ‘Bhadralok’ from Kolkata used to dismiss the residents of Chittaranjan Park in South Delhi as ‘EDPD’ (East Pakistan Displaced Persons) and till sometime back, even marriage among them was taboo. The people in North Kerala hold the people in south in contempt and vice-versa.
The solution lies in decentralization and devolution of powers from the Centre to the states and the states to the regions, districts and right upto the Panchayats. The solution lies in strengthening and empowering Panchayati Raj institutions. The late Rajiv Gandhi had famously stated once that out of the every rupee sent from the Centre, only 15 paise reaches the target. And the reason for this is rampant corruption, absence of transparency, lack of powers of the local bodies, insincere monitoring and implementation and above all absence of sincere intentions.
Instead of spending crores and crores of rupees in setting up another huge administrative machinery for a state Government, the money could be effectively utilized to educate and employ lakhs of people, provide them a roof over their head and two square meals a day.
As for the growing demands for separate states, instead of rushing in where fools fear to tread, the Union Government should announce creation of another state reorganization committee, which like other commissions of its kind such as the Liberhan Commission, should take at least two decades to finalise its report, to be followed by a leak to a leading newspaper ahead of a parliament session to ensure an uproar and a quick burial, to be subsequently followed by another Commission to study the demands afresh to be followed by….
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