Caste or Class Systems versus India in Global Perspective – CHAPTER TWO

In a blazing and scathing opinion article, Soroor Ahmed chronicles his hate filled appetite in a highly casteist article – Fast and Furious; wherein he has grotesquely exercised his wit in selective sectarian bash following recent results of some Indian educational institutions. He hails from a caste ridden state of Indiawhere the first thing they want to know is your Caste – biraadari. His portrayal of the social bias could have been better projected constructively to emulate by his own Caste people than casting aspersions on others who are using their wits to rise above the normal social mores of an uneducated background and that too without any outside state support like grants, subsidies, reservations, quotas, preferences etc. I wish he could have exhorted his caste boys and girls to follow the suit of these brilliant youngsters. But Ahmed failed bitterly on this count, instead indulged in jealous venomous remarks which were unnecessary, grotesquely undesirable and superfluous in this shrinking but sensitive global scenario.

I am not quite sure, nor am I interested to know, but his writing indicates that he may belong to one of the subsects of Shia Muslim groups. Bihar is one of the eastern states inIndiawhich is typically beseeched with this caste monster. No doubt that Soroor Ahmed coming from such casteist milieu has used his literary intelligence in down grading his pious profession of responsible journalism derogatorily. This is highly unfortunate and unbecoming. Such literary work is neither paying for the individual nor does it help the society. It may project a profanely negative image. With such divisive and vested interests within the meritocratic elites, it is difficult to get rid of the caste stigma from Indian social life, be it Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists or any other subsects, as a matter of fact. Ahmed could have utilised this opportunity to emulate by his own caste for better to rid them of intolerance, hate, jihad, kafirism, and the infamy it has attracted globally. Perhaps Macaulayism is working at his best.

The educational backwardness is an issue that state should have cared for those societies who are backward on that count. Muslims are given too much assistance despite their failure to use the resources constructively. Globally Muslims own the World’s majority riches, if they could use it constructively instead of promoting jihadi ideas, intolerance and extremist groups world over. These meritorious students, whom Ahmed is envious about, are the beacons for others to walk their trail. To join ‘trade’ is certainly far better than joining a ‘dirty trade’ in Muridke orBahawalpur.

Quoting him, “But what is more important than Haryana is that these girls and boys come from different trading communities of the country. Surnames like Agrawal, Gupta, Jain, Mittal, Jindal and the like are often found to adorn the merit lists of various exams. These students are posing a big challenge to those from castes like the Brahmin or the Kayastha, who were, till recently, considered more educated than the others. If the Brahmins, Reddys and students from the other backward classes of south Indian states, especially Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, continue to perform well in various exams, uppercaste students, especially of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar andWest Bengal, are losing the race somewhat. And they are yielding ground to candidates coming from business communities, especially of Haryana,Chandigarh, Punjab andDelhi. However, inBiharand east UP, Bhumihars have, of late, been doing relatively better.

Unlike several other upper and backward castes, Marwaris, Jains and other trading communities have an all-India presence. In states like Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra,Delhi, evenChandigarh, they constitute a considerable part of the population. However, the trend of trading communities going for higher education is not confined to just one or two pockets in the country. It is almost an all-India phenomenon now.”

He continues further unabashedly posing his apology in favour of his perhaps own caste/religion, “Simplicity is not the hallmark of the trading communities of Hindus or Jains. But Bohra and Khoja (both are Muslim Shia castes – Author) traders and industrialists are known for such qualities. Azim Hashim Premji is an example.”

But simplicity is like beauty which lies in the eyes of the beholder. It does not have a set definition. Ahmed should have recapped himself that the Muslims have a global presence as well as a cause for global worry. He has trampled on a subject that is ab initio non causa pro causa. It would at best promote more hatred than fellowship. Even the word ‘Brotherhood’ has been tarnished in the global perspective due to its (mis)use by some groups who are known to have links to extremists.

How many Azim Hashim Premji has been produced to toe their exemplary line? Even he cannot escape the influence of proximity of the peace loving trading communities in Hindus. In contrast, the 57 nations in OIC have shown it by paradigm in utter lack of such luminaries like Azimji. Everything in the society is a trade when there is a transaction of money. Ahmed needs to update himself with the very basics of economics before misusing the words like ‘trading’. Take the money out of trade, politics, worship, administration, education and journalism, “What will be left”?  It is this corrupted mindset that is more to blame than the malice of caste itself in the Indian communities or globally de facto. I am sure he could better utilise his wit in promoting the caste and communal harmony, instead otherwise.

His full opinionated article for its worth, can be read here.

In fact in the name of reservations for various castes, it has created a backward affluent class who in themselves are the perpetrators of the same ailment of caste in the society for their vested interest. They know that as long as this witch hunt can be kept vibrant and alive, this is a milking cow for them in all aspects; votes, money and its all other antecedent benefits in kind e.g. lucrative jobs, perks and political lubrications etc. This amounts to a polluted and convoluted narrow social engineering by targeting a peace loving innocent and unaware class.

“Pictorial presentation of Gandhi visiting Chennai”

Gandhi visiting Chennai (erstwhileMadras) in 1933 on an India-wide tour for Harijan causes. His speeches during such tours discussed the discriminated castes ofIndiaand appealed for the eradication of untouchability. Peruse here.

Harijan was a term used by Gandhi for Dalits. Gandhi said it was wrong to call people ‘untouchable’, and called them Harijans, which means children of God. It is still in wide use especially in Gandhi’s home state ofGujarat.

The term can also be attributed to Dalits of Pakistan called the haris, who are a group of mud-hut builders.Pakistan is an “Islamic Republic of Pakistan” riddled with all its ills of variety of violent dogmatic societal feudal castes and sub-castes. Irony is that they feel no compunction or contrition about it.

Gandhi’s publications:

Harijans were also several weekly newspapers published by MahatmaGandhi. He created three publications, Harijan in English (from 1933 to 1948), Harijan Bandu in Gujarati, and Harijan Sevak in Hindi. These newspapers found the Mahatma concentrating on social and economic problems.

One has to appreciate that Vedic tradition aka Hinduism being the oldest known system of civilisation on the earth in human society, some instant noble wo/men must have thought of creating a system to bind the emerging human race together. This benevolent cause must have led them to penance to study to evolve the divine subtle knowledge to domesticate the then initial wild tribes with no civilisation to follow or adhere to. Thus the evolution of Vedic knowledge via Smrtis took place. There couldn’t have been any caste based discrimination in such a nascent society.

A Wikipedia source describes, “The Caste System in India is a system of social stratification, social restriction and a basis for affirmative action inIndia. Historically, the caste system inIndia defined communities into thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called J?tis.

The J?tis were grouped by the Braahminical texts under the four well known social categories, (the varnas): viz Braahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. Certain people were excluded altogether, ostracized by all other castes and treated as untouchables also called “Dalits” today.”

Caste is commonly thought of as an ancient fact of Hindu life, caste systems have been also observed among other religions in the Indian subcontinent as well as in other parts of the world. Various contemporary scholars have argued that the caste system was constructed by the British colonial regime. Caste is neither unique to Hindu religion nor to India; caste systems have been observed in other parts of the world, for example, in Muslim community of Yemen, Buddhist community of Japan and Christian colonies of Spain. The latter is similar to the caste system reported in the Igbo-Osu Christian community inAfrica.

“Since 1950, Indiahas enacted and implemented many laws and social initiatives to protect and improve the socio-economic conditions of its Dalit population. By 1995, of all jobs in India, 17.2 percent of the jobs were held by Dalits, greater than their proportion in Indian population. Of the highest paying, senior most jobs in government agencies and government controlled enterprises, over 10 percent of all highest paying jobs were held by members of the Dalit community, a tenfold increase in 40 years. In 1997, Indiademocratically elected K.R. Narayanan, a Dalit, as the nation’s President. In last 15 years, Indians born in historically discriminated minority castes have been elected to its highest judicial and political offices. The quality of life of Dalit population in India, in 2001, in terms of metrics such as access to health care, life expectancy, education attainability, access to drinking water, housing, etc. was statistically similar to overall population of modern India.” More here.

It must be appreciated that the word “Caste” has no semblance with the Indian society as understood today and it is not a correct translation for the prevailing social divisions in the Indian society. There is nothing equivalent to it in the contemporary Indian scriptures. J G Arora expresses it, “There is a misconception in some minds that Hindu scriptures sanction the caste system. But being based on Vedas, Hinduism does not permit any caste system, whatsoever.”

As Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has aptly suggested that this word caste may have been originally used by the Portuguese invaders as “Castas” in their tongue to denote the various classes in the instant indigenous culture, but it does not reflect the costumes of the Indian Hindu society and its civilisation. The reasons are obvious due to the very differing core values in the respective societies. HAF’s document on “Hinduism: Not Cast in Caste – Seeking an End to Caste-based Discrimination”; is worth perusing. Perhaps the word ‘Castas’ was later on Anglicised during the British occupation period into ‘Caste’! HAF has raised the pitch of its concern on Caste which the others in global societies have been misusing by creating social divisions to give the dog a bad name and then after kill it. More here.

Votebank Politics and Politicisation of Castes:

Indian politicians have tried to misuse the caste as trump card for their narrow sectarian votebank gimmicks right from the Nehruvian era. Some glaring examples of such a myopic short term political manoeuvrings are given hereby.

The Mandal Commission protests of 1990 were against giving government jobs to certain castes on basis of birth rather than merit of the candidate. These protests closed roads, highways, transportation services, government services, schools, and businesses ofIndia. Anti-reservationists protested. Student protests were planned publicly, and in advance. Protest events were photographed for many published articles of newspapers locally and nationally. Protests began during the year when the eleven-year-old Mandal Commission was opened to bring into effect new government employment opportunities, reservation for backwards classes.

Between the failure to effectively control the political cost of the protests escalating enough to close parts of the nation, and an eleven-year-old human rights improvement project, were causes that ultimately led to accepting the resignation of the Janata Dal party’s Prime Minister of India, V. P. Singh. Most likely, the protests were comparable to globally largest, unified national demonstrations of a labour union strike combined with a version of a race riot.

These protests were widespread and enjoyed support of common people. “There is reason to believe that the students’ protests in 1990 would not have been so ferocious if it were not for the covert support extended to them by certain political parties, such as the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.” More can be read here.

Jawaharlal Nehru lighting a cigarette for the then British high commissioner's wife

“One must beware of ministers who can do nothing without money, and those who want to do everything with money. “ - Indira Gandhi

Disclaimer notice: First and foremost, the author seeks your invaluable blessings. The views in this article are those of the author only. Any and all faults of understanding the topic at hand are the shortcomings of the author. A healthy debate is always encouraged and all criticism (both constructive and destructive) is welcomed. The author and the readers should never lose sight of the main goal: seeking TRUTH.

Introduction – As a follow up to one of my previous articles, Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, 2011, I’ve decided to focus my grievances with the unscrupulous subversion of India’s population as perpetrated by the Nehru-Gandhi clan and its minions. I am quite upset by watching India celebrate the failures of the Nehru-Gandhi clan and its continued erosion of the country’s social, religious, political and economic fabric. You know, we usually hear people say things like: “you don’t give this woman or this man enough credit for all the good things he/she has done”. My task in this modest essay is to shed light on what we don’t hear people say enough: “you don’t give this woman or this man enough credit for all the bad things he/she has done”. So be forewarned, I’ll be quite negative in the following paragraphs. If you are a diehard fan of the Nehru-Gandhi family (the clan), then be prepared to get the wakeup call of your life. I will briefly highlight the failures of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, and that imbecilic brat unofficially known as Rahul Gandhi. Following the failures of the Nehru-Gandhi clan will be a brief list of present day malaises of India which can be attributed to the clan. I shall conclude with a juxtaposition of Mahatma Gandhi’s insights with the failures to live by those insights by the Congress Party figures and their corporate allies as one final jolt of reality.

Chacha Nehru my foot! Chacha Blunder is more befitting

I get really upset with some arrogant and stubborn historians who attempt to shove the belief that there is no “if” clause in history down my throat. This, to me, is the highest form of subversion! All disciplines should be analysed and reassessed based on the tweaking (up or down) or insertion/omission of certain variables (characters/events – for historical studies) in a model which explains a certain phenomena or occurrence. With your kind permission (dear readers), I shall use the “if” clause to better explain my grievances with the Nehru-Gandhi clan. So let us begin with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (affectionately known as Chacha Nehru). My own take on the fellow is that he was a power hungry cry baby. Nehru exhibited questionable morality – as his affairs with Lady Mountbatten and others are well documented. He was more at ease with experimenting with unproven foreign policy alternatives such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) which went on to weaken Sino-Indian, Indo-American, Indo-Pak relations while it strengthened Indo-Soviet relations.

And now, let us insert my ‘if’ clause and look at Nehru’s tenure as Prime Minister (PM) of India. If Nehru was not such a cry baby, then he would have conceded his defeat to Sardar Patel in the Congress leadership vote. If Sardar Patel was the PM of India, then we could bet with a high degree of confidence that the map of India would be quite different (I’m alluding to Kashmir and other territorial disputes). If Patel was PM, then India would not be governed by the idiotic and experimental foreign policy dictates of Nehru’s “Pancha Sheel – Five Pillars” framework within the Non-Aligned Movement. Nehru’s idiocy is perfectly exemplified by his turning down of the American offer of a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council in 1955. Instead, our beloved Chacha Nehru chose to be the ‘chamcha’ of our shrewd and realistic neighbours, the Chinese. Nehru vouched for China to have a permanent seat on the council. Nehru’s arrogance in avoiding border discussions and over-confidence in his experimental ‘chamchagiri’ caused India to pay a heavy price on the battlefield in 1962. Nehru never recovered from this blunder and neither did India’s foreign policy. In addition, we should not forget that Nehru (at the insistence of Lord Mountbatten) even put the offer of a plebiscite on the table at the UN in order to resolve the Kashmir dispute. This stupid move is still costing India a high price! Thank you, Chacha Nehru! Next, we analyse Nehru’s daughter.

“Garibi Hatao” – Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi

Indira Gandhi

Where to start with Indira Gandhi? We give lots of credit to Mrs Gandhi for having chopped Pakistan in two pieces. She gave the green light for “Smiling Buddha” to make India a nuclear state. And she brought over to India the Green Revolution (a new age of agricultural best practices and research) which was to alleviate India’s food shortages.  That is where the positive vibes end. Mrs Gandhi was elected as PM for three consecutive terms from 1966-1977 (the third of which was rendered invalid by the courts) and came back to power from 1980-1984 until her assassination by a bodyguard.

Indira Gandhi holds two distinctions: 1) She was the only Indian Prime Minister to have declared a state of emergency so that she could ‘rule by decree’ and 2) She was the only Indian Prime Minister to have been incarcerated after holding the office (Mrs Gandhi committed election fraud in 1971 during her ‘Garibi Hatao’ campaign and was found guilty in 1975). The only ‘Garibi’ that Mrs Gandhi was concerned with was her own. Mrs Gandhi’s ‘rule by decree’ during the state of emergency was simply for two reasons: 1) to eliminate dissidents, and 2) to maintain her stranglehold on the country.

Mrs Gandhi’s son, Sanjay, was instrumental in implementing draconian measures in order to eliminate Congress and anti-Indira dissidents as well as to ravage slum dwellers and poor people during the state of emergency. The infamous ‘family planning’ campaign spearheaded by Sanjay is still fresh in the minds of many Indians. Sanjay’s mass vasectomy campaigns were not conducted under proper sanitary conditions and one can only imagine the pain of infection and death that some of the lured patients felt.  Also, to win the blessings of the Gandhis, many public officers and doctors performed more-than-necessary amounts of vasectomies in order to meet the quota prescribed by Sanjay. Mrs Gandhi failed the Indian people by ruling like a tyrant. She took away the rights and freedoms of Indians while projecting a persona of “Mother” of the nation. For what did she do this? For power!

Indira Gandhi’s failures also hit the Punjab. She let Bhindranwale and his followers get to the point where they could assassinate anyone that they deemed heretics (Nirankaris etc.) as they pleased. At the same time, Bhindranwale’s friends received training from the ISI and they all jointly devised a plan to create Khalistan by taking over the Golden Temple. Indira Gandhi was left with no choice but to show Bhindranwale who was boss. Operation Bluestar and the subsequent actions of India’s supercop, KPS Gill, virtually eradicated the Khalistan movement from India. However, there were some very negative consequences. Sikhs were alienated and violated as their holiest shrine was ravaged. We also had the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. As well, I would like to share that this conflict also took the lives of over 329 passengers of Air India flight 182 in 1985. The passengers of that flight were brutally killed by a time bomb placed in the aircraft planted by Canada-based Khalistanis. 291 innocent Indo-Canadians lost their lives due to Indira Gandhi and the Khalistanis!

As a final criticism, many foreign policy experts suggest that Mrs Gandhi did not push hard enough on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to make the LoC a permanent border between India and Pakistan (with respect to Kashmir). But that is a dwarfed issue as her victory in carving Pakistan in to two pieces overshadowed this criticism.

Indira Gandhi’s legacy is nothing short of tyranny. However, her assassination gained her sympathy and it seems that many people have forgotten all of the bad that she had committed. We now move on to her elder son, Rajiv.

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi was a mixed bag. He came in to politics after the assassination of his mother. She had initially planned to push Sanjay (her younger son) in to the top seat of Prime Minister, but he died in an airplane accident. However, Sanjay did rule the country under his mother’s name. Oh, and what a horrific job he did. Rajiv Gandhi came in to politics by accident but left his mark on India’s history. He started off by promising to modernize India, to press for global nuclear disarmament, to decentralise power, to clean up the Holy Ganges and many other promises. However, he was only partially successful in keeping some of his promises. Rajiv Gandhi helped to pave the way for India’s modern economy and peace with China, but that is where the glory stops. He was voted out of office due to his role in the Bofors scandal.

Rajiv Gandhi’s glories of institutionalising peace with China and modernizing India’s economy were overshadowed by his failures. I’ll list some of TK Arun’s thoughts on Rajiv Gandhi’s failures verbatim:

• “The foremost failure is the contempt he showed for the Indian people….The strategy of serially appeasing first Muslim fundamentalists and then Hindu fundamentalists reflected cynical contempt for the people and their intelligence.”
• “A related failure was his tendency to see people as objects of development, rather than as its subjects, the driving force. This led Rajiv Gandhi to trust technology missions to deliver clearly defined development goals.”

Rajiv never got the opportunity to rectify his mistakes and was brutally assassinated by LTTE terrorists in a suicide bomb blast. Rajiv Gandhi had just started to show some political wisdom while in the opposition but never got the chance to prove himself. I suppose the torch needed to be passed on and his time on earth had come to an end.

Sonia and Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi (real name - Antonia Edvige Albina Maino Gandhi)

Take a moment to bow your heads in reverence to Dr Subramanian Swamy. If it wasn’t for his swift actions, then Sonia Gandhi would be the Prime Minister of India (instead of Manmohan Singh). This one man has singlehandedly taken down political powerhouses. Many of the corruption scandals that we hear of and which were perpetrated by the Nehru-Gandhi clan were exposed and brought to the Supreme Court by Dr Swamy’s petitions. I don’t have anything positive to say for Sonia Gandhi and her silly son, Rahul. They both have slapped the small positive legacy of Rajiv Gandhi in the face with the record-breaking levels of corruption and sheer incompetence. Sonia doesn’t speak English or Hindi well. She can only do one thing well, and that is corruption. It must have been something she learned from the infamous Mafia of Italy, her motherland. Sonia is going to be brought to justice eventually. Her role in the numerous scams of the day is being exposed. Her son-in-law, Robert Vadra, became a billionaire out of thin air due to the connections that she had. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

One should understand very carefully that Sonia runs and operates India and her Congress party much the same way as a Grand Patriarch in a Mafia of Italy would do. Sonia is the Grand Matriarch of the Congress party and not a single decision is made without her stamp of approval and cut in the share of profits. Politicians and business people know damn well that they must pay respects and hefty tributes to the Grand Matriarch, Sonia in order to rape and pillage the country. I’ll share an example of how desperate some lowly politicians are to get in to Sonia’s inner circle. A few years back, Amar Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar were attending a function in Delhi. Both gentlemen enjoyed their drinks but Aiyar had one too many. In a drunken stupor, he provoked Singh in to a mini-brawl. What was the reason? Aiyar was jealous that Singh and his leader (at the time) Mulayam Singh was gaining much clout with Sonia while Aiyar was struggling to get a berth in the Congress Working Committee. Enough about Sonia let us briefly discuss the brat, Rahul.

Sonia’s dear son Rahul does speak Hindi but he is a walking buffoon who has shown absolutely no political maturity. Rahul’s idea of being a man of the people is to roll up his sleeves and sit down at a villager’s home (near his constituency of Amethi) and eat puri-sabzi while NDTV and CNN-IBN report his every move as “Breaking News”. His staged humility is a sham!

Both Sonia and Rahul have dubious education records. However, Rahul takes the prize for the worst Gandhi as he is also an alleged rapist. If India elects Rahul Gandhi as its next PM, then nothing can save the country from pure and utter disaster. Also, what message will India be sending to the world if it elects an uneducated and alleged rapist to the posting of PM?

To sum up, the culture of failing the Indian people has been well preserved by Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul. One doesn’t even feel like wasting one’s time by discussing the endless list of failures that are attributed to these people. Let us now focus on the social, economic and political malaises that India suffers due to the aggregated efforts of the Nehru-Gandhi clan.

Thank you, Congress! You created the vote bank Beast!

Reservations

It is without doubt that reservation has helped the scheduled castes and tribes (SCST) ameliorate their social status – albeit at a snail’s pace. But there are some real positives that we should focus on: India has had an SCST President, Chief Justice, and female Chief Minister in Uttar Pradesh (the most populous state). So to an extent, India’s affirmative action project has been working. However, the sticky point is where there are other groups which desire reservations including: Brahmins (the poor ones), poor Hindus of other castes, Muslims, and Christians. These groups have also had the desire to derive some utility from the reservation system so that they could also land public jobs and send their children to IIMs and IITs to be competitive in the Indian market. However, countless governments on both ends of the political spectrum have been able to accomplish nothing for these unfortunate groups. There has been campaign promise rhetoric here and there by tyrants like Mayawati, but that holds no value unless some changes are made.

What the Hajj?

‘The Law of Double Standards’ is my term for the Congress Party’s special treatment given to our fellow Indian sisters and brothers of the Islamic faith. By special treatment, I mean that our Muslim sisters and brothers have huge, government sponsored subsidies which support and encourage them to go on their Hajj pilgrimages (to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina). Conversely, there are no such luxuries for Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Hindus of India. India bends over backwards to protect only one group’s religious identity. I am sure that all jurists who are truly secular would not let any such luxury be enjoyed by any religious community. Also, these same jurists should also believe that there is no room for Sharia law in India’s legal system. All Indians should have to go through the same processes in order to file for divorce etc. I hold all political parties which have ever governed India responsible for this. It does not matter if we are talking of Congress or the BJP. The entire political spectrum is guilty of this double standard.

Biased Indian Media

Media Bias

If there is the Congress Party in the political realm, then its propaganda wing consists of most of the media outlets in the country. All leading news agencies are guilty of pro-Congress rhetoric. I will lash out on one specific individual who stands out the most. I must admit my endless disdain for the likes of Barkha Dutt and her Congress-biased colleagues in print and TV media. Barkha Dutt’s crocodile tears at the suffering of Hindu groups are not only wretched but quite comical. Ms Dutt will openly cry genuine tears of sorrow for the pain and suffering of our Muslim sisters and brothers in India and across India’s borders. Ms Dutt is also more pro-Kashmiri independence than the Hurriyat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Sajjad Lone, Sheikh+Farooq+Omar Abdullah, and Syed Geelani combined! If I was Ms. Dutt’s career advisor, then I’d advise her to join hands with fellow sell-out Arundhati Roy to completely liquidate India’s borders!

The Scams

I won’t even elaborate on the exact details of the following scams. The list is actually much larger, but please have a quick peek at the table to get an idea of some of the high profile scams perpetrated by the Nehru-Gandhi clan and its minions.

• Jeep 1947
• ISRO spectrum Scam, Coal Scam and 3G scam
• Bofors
• Adarsh
• CWG
• IPL
• 2G
• Various Land Scams
• Rajiv Gandhi Trust

Disaster

India’s economy is growing at a fast rate and the demographics of the country are promising. However, corruption, lousy infrastructure, and poor governance are all great reasons for concern! Failure to plug these holes may pose the risk of devastating the country. You can thank the Nehru-Gandhi Clan + Congress for the majority of this mess. However, there is a way out.

A homeless young boy waves the Indian flag

Solutions

The first step to improving from the status quo is awareness. I’m not so sure if all Indians are aware of what is truly going on in the country. Media subversion (funded by Congress and its industrialist friends) has played a very negative role in misinforming the public. Alternative media must be further nurtured by the civil society to fight this subversion! It is fast, cheap, democratic, and self-policing. It will be the game changer!

Solutions to India’s problems will only be formulated and executed when the entire population of India knows about the current state of affairs and feels that enough is enough. A collective effort is needed to bring about positive and sustainable change in the Motherland. I would like to offer some food for thought and action:

Mahatma Gandhi gave his grandson, Arun Gandhi, a list of the Seven Blunders of the World that lead to violence. Arun Gandhi added his own idea to the list. Steven W. Gilbert has added four more blunders to the list which focus on teaching, learning, and technology. I’ve added some names beside each blunder (in the Indian context). You be the judge and decide whether my opinions carry any merit or not.

1. Wealth without work [Mahatma Gandhi]  –> Robert Vadra became a billionaire due to Sonia Gandhi’s connections (there are more cases but let us stick to one for now).
2. Pleasure without conscience [Mahatma Gandhi] –> Jawaharlal Nehru (womanizer), Rahul Gandhi (alleged rapist).
3. Knowledge without character [Mahatma Gandhi] –> Manmohan Singh (what use is your education when you have no spine to make decisions?).
4. Commerce without morality [Mahatma Gandhi] –> 2G and CWG Scandals (in recent times). Let us not forget Natwar Singh’s payoffs in the Iraq oil-for-food program!
5. Science without humanity [Mahatma Gandhi] –> Montek Singh Ahluwalia who is lobbying for Monsanto and European/American Pharmaceutical firms to destroy India’s food supply and affordable access to medication!
6. Worship without sacrifice [Mahatma Gandhi] –> All the vote bank seeking politicians who simply pay lip service to communities but are not true to their word.
7. Politics without principle [Mahatma Gandhi] –> P.Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Amar Singh, Salman Khurshid, Digvijay Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi (let’s stick to contemporary politicians only – or else the list will never end).
8. Rights without responsibilities [Arun Gandhi] –> The Apathetic voters who don’t stand up to corruption and tyranny but who complain that their lives are destroyed.
9. Technology without direction [Steven W. Gilbert] –> Nandan Nilekani’s UIDAI government venture has ballooned from Rs 3,023 crore to Rs 17,863 as Nilekani wants to increase his biometric capture mandate. Hmmm, this sounds like a typical consulting engagement which was agreed at one rate and then finalized at a rate which is grossly over budget. It builds dependence of the client on to the consultancy. Typical business model!
10. Connection without community [Steven W. Gilbert] –> Political or business leaders may have Social Media followers or may meet the common man or woman at a face-to-face public event, but that does not translate into true community building. Need I offer examples? I think not.
11. Teaching without joy [Steven W. Gilbert] –> Education is no longer a noble profession in India and elsewhere. It is simply a business! Not to discount the noble educators in the country.
12. Learning without hope [Steven W. Gilbert] –> All of those young students who are working so hard but feel that they have no future due to reservations, corruption, slow job creation, nepotism, and a lack of meritocracy in India!

With that, I sign off wishing you all peace, health, righteousness, self-awareness, and endless resolve to clean up the homeland and the world!

Your humble servant,

Abhaya Shanker Dube