भारत और हम

Here I am sitting in Geneva, writing about India and us. Ironic? Not the way I see it. I ask myself why I love my country because I'm not nationalist nor a patriot. In fact, the very concept of nationality is alien to me. That's what leads me to saying I simply love everything the world has to offer. I love India no more than I love many other countries in the world. I view humans as humans... individuals in control of their own circumstances. Nationalities are political boundaries drawn as territorial demarcations... mere instruments of governance emerging from the concentration of resources, cultural affinities etc. This makes us all humans... not Indians, Pakistanis, Germans, Mexicans, Russians, Albanians, Iranians, Israelis, Kenyans or Ethiopians. Going by this fairly lucid logic, we discover that people around the world are essentially the consequence of the same elements... Choices and circumstances. Hence, their personalities are a melange of situations resulting from the same fundamental drivers like pursuit of happiness, fear, courage and so on. Embarking on a detailed discussion of the redundancy of nationality and the innate irrationality of the concept of patriotism and nationalism is unnecessary since those who haven't already understood the essence of my point will not understand anything beyond it either.

So what do I imply by हम (us)? I speak about every single Indian from every single part of the nation and every single global citizen from every single corner of the world. However, owing to the political identity of being a sovereign nation, an identity to which the world's second largest population has agreed to, the responsibility for action is not the rest of the world's. Most of us already realize this ofcourse. However, for those who still think it is justified for a nation to live on the philanthropy of other nations... think again. Do these nations really deserve to exist? Shouldn't they be merged with another so as to justify their claim of sovereignty which is a claim emerging from the assumption that the nation has what it takes to keep its citizens happy and free.

What do I mean when I say free? That's a critical question. Amartya Sen made a critical observation when he drew a clear distinction between "freedom from" and "freedom to". Though portrayed as conflicting ideologies, I don't see where the conflict arises from. Freedom is essentially being free in every sense of the word, including being free to be free from! Actions resulting from exercise of this freedom are subject to, like all other actions, are subject to consequences. Understanding and embracing these consequences along with the actions and the root drivers leading to the action and every element of circumstance that provided the groundwork for this reality is total freedom.

Now consider those who claim, "I'm free to be free from starvation." If they say this as a statement of fact, it is completely valid, however if they state this as a demand from the rest of society, of which they are a part as well, they are infiltrating on another person's freedom. If the latter man were me, I would feel absolutely nothing for this person has chosen not to strive to beat his or her circumstances but chooses, instead, to place a demand on another's freedom. I'm free to refuse.

To put the concept of freedom further into perspective, I wrestled with the rationality of communism and came to one simple conclusion. It makes perfect sense subject to it being confined to those who want to be confined within it. I wouldn't call the ideology evil. It is built for a society of parasites and slaves giving them the upper hand over the "bourgeois" value creators.

I have yet to see a successful/pure communist nation or even a pure democratic nation. I choose to speak about India at the moment for no reason other than my intimate familiarity with its people, land, languages and culture. Patriotism as a sentiment is alien to me. That said, I'd like to enumerate certain fundamental flaws in our political, social, civil and religious/cultural fabric that will require to be amended if we are to be the land of the free. These, by no means, forms an exhaustive rendition. It is only some of the issues that are critical. I do not care about the burgeoning populations as much as I care about my own freedom in any society. It would be a fallacy to assume that all humans want to be free, so I do not indulge in that misconception. Instead, I am only interested that nobody steps on my toes...

Geo-political hypocrisy - Kashmir! Give them a referendum or quit calling India a democracy. For a detailed discussion on this, refer to my article on the "Kashmir Conundrum"

Socio-cultural fabric - It doesn't matter where you are from, the fundamentals of a human are the same. Caste-based discrimination within the country has taken a whole new dimension. Now it isn't the lower caste only that is suffering. All the ordinary citizens of the nation who don't come under the SC/ST/OBC category has to fight like dogs for everything from quality education to Government jobs while those who have the privilege of belonging to oppressed class grow by leaps and bounds with relative ease. This is an argument against affirmative action as a whole. Many would argue compassion. Forget compassion! Think about reason. What do these oppressed people need? Customized education and the tools to build competencies to compete in the modern world if they so wish to. In that case, it is rural development (Education and Entrpreneural development) that should be taking the upper pedestal in government policy. If any of you have traveled into a reasonable number of the villages of India you will witness the rubbish being taught at these schools and the inappropriate and ineffective development practices rampant across most of the sub-continent. Part of the reason of this problem is that these uneducated people don't realize the importance of a rational long-term approach. They can be easily made happy with affirmative action which fills the politician's vote banks and gives them greater control over larger parts of the country

Economic policy - "Protectionism," a term that most would associate with post-independence India where the Indian Industry suffered greatly under the shadow of the STC and Nehru's socialist approach to development. He was, not surprisingly, a great admirer of Stalin. Signs of this remained as a stick in the wheel if economic progress until P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh began opening up our economy in 1991. One of the sole bastions of regressive protectionism is the Retail Sector. Again, the fear for loss of voter support leads politicians to place huge barriers for entry of larger, more efficient retailers into India. Most cry out about claims for compassion in the face of dying local retail businesses. Do they deserve to die because they are not as efficient? Should they starve in the name of progress? I'll say only one thing to them. They deserve to live using their own creative and intellectual capabilities not by inhibiting those they consider superior in intelligence. That's a long story cut short ofcourse. The rabbit hole goes deeper than this and my conclusion at the end of it is right here.

Religion - My response to religious movements in India is mixed. I, by no means admire or respect religion in any form. However, I don't have any problems as long as the religious folk keep their religion to themselves. This has been the case in India for quite a while now. Unfortunately, the practice of religion has become quite a nuisance. What will you think of when I say fundamentalism? Terrorism? Al-Qaeda? I think of Evangelists, born-again Christians and the related lot. I see the growth of these little groups mainly as a response to contemporary Hindu and Muslim fundamentalism. The Christians must have been thinking... "Hey, it's been a while since the crusades, and now other religions seem to be getting ahead of us... Time to bring in the mind control and life control into Christianity!" The dangerous bit is that anything can be now justified using one of the hundreds of interpretations of the Bible or Quran or whatever ancient piece of vague, myopic, narrow-minded, regressive rubbish that most live by. Stay out of my way and I'll let you be. Cross my path and I declare war. It's simple. In India, this is a slowly growing phenomenon. Though the emphasis on blood-lines is still deeply entrenched, conversions are yet to take front seat in religious agenda. However, I do see this changing and it isn't for a brighter and more amiable future.