Friday 29 September 2017

Misguided Pluralism.

Around the world, the momentum being developed is of “Right vs. Center”. In the US, the democrats and republicans are busy wrangling, in the UK the Labors and the Conservatives are busy underscoring the chasm and in India too, the so-called debate has sneaked into the limelight. The issue became even more flagrant with the election of Mr. Trump to the presidency of the US and since then there has been no end.
Some are averring that this is rightist’s epoch. With the Republicans taking up 33 out of 50 gubernatorial posts in the USA, Brexit in the UK, rightist politicians have certainly hit the bull’s eye. Though the statistics are easy to expound why this is rightist’s period, but still pasting them on the Indian subcontinent and furnishing exegesis based on the same would be nothing short of a tomfoolery because in India there is indeed no right, left or even center. Here we don’t understand the directions but we believe in time. If you are in power, head to whichever direction you want, but unfortunately if you are resting outside the parliament make your needle stick to the center and ensnarl the world through you pluralistic approach to ride back to power. This is not something novel. In fact, this is a synoptic version of our 70 years old political theory. Ideologies here are not paramount requisite to win but if you lose, your ideology will certain spring up to consciousness from its graveyard and you can beat the entire bush around this tractable phenomenon.
Elite cliques of erudite journalists and authors are busy terming the current scenario as that of “ Pluralism vs. Majoritarianism” but none is indeed ready to ponder on from where this concept came.
Pluralism means that we accept that many different identities can be extant together maintain perfect harmony and no infringements will be made to the rights of any identity in the nation. Through pluralism is a seemingly easy concept to apprehend but to find the real pluralist is an abstruse task. In India, self-proclaimed pluralists abound but only in the opposition parties. Notwithstanding having enjoyed so many years at the helm, these self-proclaimed political parties are now finding it difficult to even reserve a seat or two in the parliament and certainly, there has to be a reason. Either the Indian citizens are themselves disposed towards majoritarianism or the opposition pluralists are hoodwinkers. And our work is to scrutinize both the things in an outrightly disinterested manner.
India is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. Our demography gives a considerable speech to religions world is not even aware out. Our neighbors are filled with the multi-cultural entities and our famous judicial system has set precedents which are enough to corroborate the in the name of law, religion is “in-toto” eschewed. I won’t shy away from accepting that there are a few differences, but still the bonds that we all share together far outnumber the differences. The Muslim population in our country exceeds the combined Muslim population in various Islamic countries. Christians, Sikhs, Jews, Buddhists and many other religions exist under the shade of brethren. To an outsider, my words may seem are aggrandized and supercilious but to an Indian, I don’t need to expound further. Even the self-proclaimed pluralists term us as a multi-cultural society with tolerance towards every religion in the world and hence Indian public can be exonerated from this accusation.
Since our first accused has been exonerated, we must commence mulling over the next one: the opposition party’s pluralistic theme. This is going to stretch further since we need to exhume our past. 
If we glance through our past, it is not hard to see that everyone swings with time and pluralism is more about fear. Congress has always worked through this frame of pluralism. Today, it counts itself as the biggest sympathizer of Muslims but it fails to answer as to why 42.7% of the country’s 180 million Muslims (Census 2011) are still unlettered. Those who brand everything as Dalits vs upper castes fail to answer a simple question: Who gave the slogan- “Pandit shank bajaega, haathi chalta jaega.” None is ready to answer because everybody has always operated through fear.
The single instrument that can conquer the world is ‘fear’.  Here also fear is the key factor. In the previous 70 years, what the so-called pluralist parties have done is nothing but inducing fear in the minds of people. Muslims have been taught that BJP is against Islam but the preachers of this belief fail to answer the question as to why Muslims account for only 4.4% of all the students taking up higher education despite making up 14% of the population. This is the second time when BJP is in power. In our political history more than half of our period as an independent nation we have seen the governments of other parties, but still nobody has got anything. The same pluralistic flag bearing people who decry the current government of being pro-Hindu fail to answer the question as to why they didn’t do anything when they were themselves in power; the Left parties which are being vehemently censorious of the current government fail to answer as to what they did in regions like Bengal, when they were cherished with unquestionable power;   the self-proclaimed pro-Dalit forces fail to answer as to why social engineering is their forte and not the upliftment of Dalits and other backward classes. Our politics has always been a politics of fear. Muslims are being infused with a fear of Hindus, Dalits being imposed with the fear of upper castes and this list continues to strain further.
Until and unless this fear is there, many such factors would continue to operate and obfuscate us all. The founders of this nation had an entrenched belief that we all can coexist with peace; that our Gods can be different but our nation can be one. Fear is indeed the potent nemesis of this beautiful proposition. The educated Indian is becoming more and more aware of this fact and hence today the so-called pluralists have been trounced in every respect. The India of today doesn’t want dichotomies, it wants peace and progress. It is a shame that when the whole nation is looking forward to joining the elite international groups, some are still canvassing for themselves through these petty measures.
Pluralism is a great concept, but if misunderstood, its results can be devastating and surely India must be aware of this pluralistic approach.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT
JAI MA BHARTI



Sunday 24 September 2017

WHY CHINA WON'T LET NORTH KOREA OUT OF THE BAG?

The tremors of the soi-distant “Hydrogen Bomb” test conducted by North Korea were enough to heat up the political lobbies of the congresses around the world. The Trump administration has sprung into action with its threats of strangulating the belligerent nation through its military and trade policies, South Korea is in a quandary as President Moon Jae-in’s attempts to reinvigorate the “Sunshine Policy” to lure Pyongyang into disarmament through economic engagement have been futile per se, and People’s Republic of China (PRC) is too facing predicaments pertaining to the reprehensibly defiant attitude of the North Korean despot Kim Jon-un.
The Korean nuclear crisis go back to the events following the aftermath of “6-2-5- Upheaval” or the Korean War.  Much as the Pyongyang led by Kim Il-sung was able to repel the US forces with abetment received from the Chinese as well as the Soviet army, it become well conversant with the fact that its belligerent predilections would be a juxtaposition with the increasing USA’s influence and the hiking economic horizons of Seoul and ergo North Korea led to the commencement of its “all-fortressization policy” which rose to its summit in 2006 and struck open the contemporary Pandora’s box –North Korean Nuclear crisis.
Though, to most, North Korea seems to be an esoteric country led by an egotist and egoist tyrant, it seems much abstruse as to how the nation notwithstanding various sanctions continue to soar high in the development of ginormously detrimental weapons of mass destruction. If we dig deep down, it is not difficult to find out that one of the many reasons for the existence and the unfortunate success is the dragon’s tail.
The US President’s tweet including a warning that he’s gravely considering “stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea” was decried and termed as a diplomatic faux pas by many American policy analysts (they say that the first rule of democracy is never to make an inexecutable threat), but still it sufficed to convey how much hapless the US is at the Mandarin’s illegitimate support to the North Korea.
But, it is no covert fact that Chinese too have a huge stake in this business. In fact, taking up the 90% of the total investments of such an erratic nation would never be at the Chinese desk had North Korea not been a weapon against the American influence in the Korean peninsula regions. China doesn’t want US marines on its borders and is wary of the fact that the degeneration of the Kim Jon-un’s regime would ultimately lead to nothing less than US’s invasion of its border and it certainly wants no South Korea near its periphery.
This Chinese policy too started with the culmination of Mao’s China. PRC had been in existence for less than a year, but Mao knew that striking at the US would ultimately be a big leap for the newly erected communist regime. Sans any delay, Mao Zedong deputed as many as 3 million military personnel under the banner of People’s Volunteer Army. His policy worked in a paragon manner. Chinese belligerence on the pretext of its help to the North Korea remained largely successful in its various operations and Chinese, being proud of this achievement, still continues to meddle with the “rogue” North Korea in order to subvert the USA’s influence in the Eastern region.
North Korea is presently China’s 82nd biggest trade partner. China’s unqualified support to North Korea has led to escalation of trade turnover from $550 million in 1995 to $5.6 billion in 2011. Indubitably, China is North Korea’s trade lifeline. 57% of the latter’s import and 42% of its export is directly germane to China. According to Chinese government, Pyongyang’s export to China amounted for $3 billion and imports shot up to $3.6 billion. China, indeed, is the major reason behind the survival of North Korea. For more than half a century, the 20 miles long “The Friendship Pipeline” running beneath the Yalu River has been serving as the North’s lifeline. Exact figures of the Chinese export through “The Friendship Lifeline” are not reported. Chinese government stopped citing the figures related to the pipeline a few years back. Nautilus Institute, a think tank specializing in North Korean energy statistics, believes that with the spur of economic growth, Kim Jon-un may be importing 850,000 tons of crude oil this year. According to various statisticians, North Korea uses almost a third of the crude oil import to fuel its military equipments for routine, nor-wartime usages.
No matter how much China exhibits its affectations of stiff action towards the growing North Korean military prowess, it is wary of the fact that any kind of trade embargo imposed on the North through the Chinese side would only undermine its influence on Pyongyang. Steve K. Bannon, Trump’s ousted Chief strategist outrightly said, “This is 100 percent about China. You have got to sanction the Chinese company and Chinese financial institution.”
No matter how much the world talks about constricting the North Korean animosity, until and unless China is pressurized to restrict its trade with Pyongyang, we must expect no change. War is certainly not a viable solution, but diplomatic policies can ultimately lead to a triumph in this inexplicable harrowing impasse. The ball remains in the Chinese court and the question is still: To Do Or Not To Do.    

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT
JAI MA BHARTI


THE NORTH KOREAN PHILOSOPHY

It was the gory summer of 1989. After the rapid developments in the post-Mao China, country’s inscrutability on its human rights stance had infused fears in many bourgeois Chinese denizens, students, and NGOs. Nobody wanted an opaque system concealed enormously from the ones who indeed coalesce to give rise to China: the Chinese people, and hence various student’s organizations and NGOs had gone for hunger-strike in order to galvanize support for their worthy cause. But, unfortunately Chinese government had something else in mind. Deng Xiaoping, the then paramount leader of PRC’s (People Republic of China) deemed these benign protestors as an exigently impending political threat. What ensued further was nothing less than a macabre slaughter. Mobilization of more than 3,00,000 Chinese troops in Beijing led ultimately to deaths of thousands of students at the infamous Tiananmen Square, as the military used heavy grade weapons and tanks on the unarmed protestors.

28 years have passed away, but still Chinese stand on the human rights activists remains as much abhorrent as before. Though Xi’s China is much more developed than Deng’s China, the unscrupulous behavior regarding those wanting a transparent system in their nation continues to be a daymare for the Chinese people.
A recent report published by an international watchdog organization, Human Rights Watch, exclusively covers the severe crackdown by the Chinese officials on the human rights activists. The disturbing report lucidly blames the UN for its complicity in the illegitimate Chinese acts of oppression against those demanding basic rights that must be guaranteed to the citizens of a nation.  

The report starts with a scathing remark about how the United Nations is far away from living up to its tenets. When Mr. Xi Jinping, President of the PRC, stood on the podium to give his keynote address, a queer situation engulfed him. Unlike other addresses on the rostrum of UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council), Mr. Xi’s address was particularly different. Various officials and human right activists were made to leave the council, NGOs was barred from entering the complexes and facilities like parking lots etc. were complete cordoned off. This was particularly not the first incident on the board of the United Nations. In April 2017, security officials in the UN headquarters, New York City, forcibly sent out the ethnic Uyghur rights activist, Dolkun Isa. Mr. Isa was participating as an NGO member when he was confronted by security officials who ordered him to move out of the premises. No credible reasons were quoted by the organization and the UN remained utterly evasive of any questions on the issue.     
      
United Nations’ silent and unqualified support for a country that has not allowed a single visit by the UNHRC’s human right commissioner seems to be a vehement digression of its core principles. The HRW (Human Rights Watch) report points out that Beijing has been intentionally dilatory regarding the visits by rapporteurs working on political rights issues. “… although the Chinese government accepted visits by the special procedures for food, debt, discrimination against women, and extreme poverty over the last 15 years, it has rejected 12 other visits, especially visits by rapporteurs charged with protecting various civil and political rights, and for over a decade has been unwilling to accept a visit by the UN high commissioner for human rights,” the report adds.

Besides this, the ingenious report also talks about how China is making up a clique of like-minded countries on the UN’s forum in order to snub off any discussion regarding its exploitation of human rights. China’s entente with countries like Egypt, Algeria, and Cuba too helps it obviate any questions and scrutiny regarding the human rights issue.

For a country housing 1.379 billion people, such egregious floundering of basic human rights is in-toto reprehensible. Even though China is taking major roles at the international center-stage, but if its own people are deprived of the basic rights then that progress would be extremely hollow. There are numerous Cao Shunli and Dolkun Isa in China who are currently being reprimanded for speaking up for the rights of common people and unfortunately, this flagrant act continues to happen in front of the eyes of the world’s biggest organization, the UN. The most barbaric sins are truly committed transparently.

“…the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” – John F. Kennedy


JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT
JAI MA BHARTI

Sunday 3 September 2017

The Godman

Human beings are always stranded by predicaments. We all are surrounded by unanswered questions and abstruse answers which aggrandize our curiosity to reach out to solutions which are indeed immaterial in changing anything in our life, and in this quest, we start fanatically holding on to those who promise to bless us with inexplicable panaceas.

In this world, the concept of God is the most debated and simultaneously most un-debated topic in the world. Between this profound abyssal the wandering benign human mind goes astray and is inflicted with incurable injuries sending him in an interminable fugue.

 Since our very inception into the world, we have been taught that this whole creation has been erected by an esoteric personality whom we would almost never behold. The concept of questioning the existence of that elusive creature is termed as ‘taboo’ and though most of us are suspicious of his/her very basis when we are young, but as we grow we start liking him for it is so easy to blame him for our faults, problems, failures, and inactivity. When things just don’t work the way they should, we blame this naïve creature – the God- for almost all the unintelligible reasons and since we won’t have a rendezvous with him anywhere he won’t defend himself thus making the thought of having God at our disposal seem so much enticing and relaxing. This customary practice has been in existence for years and we have now become so much inured to it that life seems incomplete sans our scapegoat- THE GOD. After playing with this easy-to-execute for long, we try to learn more of this incredible figure and here start the actual conflicts of life.

Much as the concept of God is a fact regarding universalism, but human beings have a natural fancy for individuality which fails to conform to the teachings of standard religion and the old religious scriptures. The teachings of Bhagavad Gita, Bible, Quran and other books take a considerable beating to be unraveled and hence a ‘normal’- not so religiously enlightened person- is ultimately left in a whirlpool of dilemmas. He cannot dare to forsake his pre-conceived notions about God nor can he understand the meaning of the great religious books demanding exceptional scholarly visions. If he does the former, his own cranial conflicts will strangulate his soul and also the fear to be contradicted on every turn by those who have an entrenched- though unconfirmed- belief in religion would no less than be a daymare and if he tries to brainstorm into the aphorisms of religion, he won’t have time to earn his livelihood and take care of his family. Haplessly in both the cases, he is destined to be doomed. In the actual world, we are always trying to stick somewhere in between the two extremes.

Synoptically, everyone has prepared a false reality around himself. Though this falsehood is easy to be abolished, still to sneak out of our previous dilemmas we don’t toy with it. We let it survive the way it is and continue to survive with it. This reality may seem robust from outside but from inside it is a vulnerable vacuum. In this aura of ourselves, we deem that God is extant and form in our head different anthropomorphic images of God. Some might think of him as being the unceasingly handsome Krishna while some may think of him as a benign Christ sacrificing himself for the benediction of the world. These images of divinity may prove fascinating at first but after some time, the veracious vacuum in that spurious reality again starts devouring peace and serenity out of us. No matter how much great our fantasies are, still they are ill-adept at answering to our woes. Even though we have been incessantly ascribing Krishna, Christ or Allah for our worries and jinxes, but our problems are finding no end at all. Our big visions of spirituality are again eschewing us and albeit we have left no stone unturned in arrogating our actions to them (only bad ones), they are still nowhere to be found to extract explanation or replies. Our efforts have again been contravened by that harrowing vacuum and again we need some more false realities to make things work out.

Our new realities will be based on those who present themselves as the ‘executives’ of God who have been sent to vanguard the human race to ‘moksha’ or ‘salvation’. In actuality, these “God-men” are none but some sly individuals who have learned to exploit the eerie milieu around the God. Taking complete advantage of our tomfoolery about God, these people spread apocryphal stories about their humongous powers and magic and here we all commit to some beautiful lines of Ghalib,

ham ko ma.alūm hai jannat  kī haqīqat lekin
dil ke  ḳhush rakhne  ko 'ġhālib' ye khayal achchhā hai”
(We know the reality of paradise, but to console our heart, it is indeed a worthy perception.)

  For long, we were devoid of any mentally perceivable concept of God and now somebody has suddenly emerged out of somewhere and says pleasing things about our God and promises to be a ‘messenger’ of the guy we have been looking for years. Our emotions just blow out and in this deluge, we have flown away to one more false reality- this time even more perilous than before. Soon we forget the God and head on to revere this individual whose identity is unknown to us, who ‘so-called’ powers have never been observed by our eyes and whose vision of God is as much hypocritical as ours. The only digression between that “Godman” and us is that he is more cunning than us. He has learned to use the arcane lines of religion to his own benefit and on the other hand, we have resolved to be hoodwinked on the pretext of our false realities.
The actual fault in this game is not of that “Godman” but of ours. Our ostentatious understanding and proximity with our intrepid- but untested- beliefs in our God have allowed him to creep insidiously into our minds. Our vacuum has given space to the genesis of these people. Though there exist people who claim themselves to be purely ‘human’ and try to guide us all through perfect empirical thinking, but our reality restrains us from hearkening to them. We want nothing less than “Godly things” to enter our vacuum and ultimately there is nothing left than doubt, suspicion, buffoonery, and debilitation. These unlettered “God men”- the executives of God- continue to preach through their cockeyed minds which have nothing more than craps with respect to God and finally there is a trail of superstitions, orthodoxy and sometimes even bloodshed.


In spite of blaming these people for their acts of crime, why not inculpate ourselves for our ignorance. For a moment let us become conscious of our own acts of sin and embark on the journey to self. The only way to find God is to reach out to yourself and explore the matters deep in your heart because the one who knows himself has actually seen the true form of God.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI