The Great Indian Tamasha

Why Politics? At the outset, I want to state that I am writing this piece for myself, because I want to answer this question for myself and in a manner that is convincing to me. If I am myself not convinced then I would never be able to convince others. Many thoughts and ideas float through my head but I need to consolidate my ideas through my writing and that is the attempt in this article. Firstly it may sound very clichéd, but I do not know when or why I fell deeply, madly and irreversibly in love with my country. I remember when as a child I sat and watched “Kahan Gaye who Log” and later “Param Veer Chakra” and idolized Sharukh Khan in   “Fauji”. In my mind as a child I figured that the best way to serve my country was to become a soldier, which I did by joining the National Defense Academy right after class 12 th as an Air force cadet. As luck would have it, I suffered a service injury and had to leave the forces after 3 years and that left a huge void in me, ...

Organizational Background  The Indian National Congress (INC) also commonly called the Congress is one of the two major contemporary political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is one of the largest and oldest democratically-operating political parties in the world. Founded by freedom fighter activists in 1885, it dominated politics nationally for most of the period from 1947–89. There have been seven Congress Prime Ministers, the first being Jawaharlal Nehru, serving from 1947–64 and the most recent being Manmohan Singh, serving from 2004-14. The party's social liberal platform is largely considered to be on the Centre-left of the Indian political spectrum. In the last general elections in May 2014, the party suffered its worst defeat ever at the hands of the BJP. A major contributor to the defeat was the lackluster online campaign of the party as compared to a very energetic and robust online campaign run by the BJP, which...

End of Institutions @ India The PM’s extempore speech from the hallowed ramparts of the Red Fort was eloquent and emotional and drew just praise. Many were elated at the prospect of an end to the planning era which was reminiscent of Nehruvian times when the nation had to allocate scares resources among teeming millions. While on a personal level, I do support this particular attempt at re-imagining the Planning Commission, what perturbs me is the string of events in which the current announcement is another pearl, signifying the end of institutions in India. It all started with the spate of resignations from UPA appointed governors as soon as the new NDA government came to power. Some agreed, some forced and some resisted. The nation saw the fate of one of the governors who resisted i.e. Kamla Beniwal who was unceremoniously shunted out of office with barely 4 months left for her tenure, based on an imaginary loss of 1000+ crores due to delay in her signing off legislat...

How Peoples movements are deepening democracies the world over! As the guns fall silent and the sirens stop wailing, as the dust starts to settle and the slogans seem distant, I, a citizen, stand among the chaos and confusion of a people’s movement. Be it Tahrir Square in Egypt, the Ramlila Maidan in India or the Gezi Park in Turkey, the interplay between people’s movements and democracy have become the story of the world in the last couple of years. The general view on the issue has been very pessimistic where the public uprisings across the world have been seen as a descent into chaos. Ironically, I have been part of endless discussions where interestingly, these people’s movements are seen as a threat to both democracies as well as dictatorships. While dictators see the people as rebels, the democracies see them as anarchists; I see them agents of true democracy! Let us take a step back and examine what democracy means? The term originates from the Greek dēmokratía, m...

Much abused, much amused...I once met a lady who had a peculiar surname called "secular ". I asked her where she came from? She promptly replied "India". I was duly surprised and I asked her innocently, do people following '"secularism" still live in India? I thought that they had vanished decades ago. She gave a tired smile and a long worn look, and to my surprise...said "YES". Yes, secular people live in India and will always live till we have Gandhi in our hearts, Maulana Azad in our minds and Nehru in our souls. Till we have an Abdul Hamid defending us, till a Zahir plays in our team, till a Kalam becomes a president and till a Manmohan becomes a Prime minister, Yes, we will still have secular people in our country. The tired old lady started walking away but my confusion stopped her. I wanted to understand more what exactly does the surname "Secular" means to a person from India. She smiled, again a tired smil...

Why I love India? Ever since I remember, I have always been in love with India. I remember as a child seeing a serial on national television called “Kahan Gaye Who log” with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. I always knew that somehow I always loved India more than anything else in the world and it was more than just the fact that I was born here. The same love drove me join the National Defense Academy right after school. Even after I left the armed forces due to an injury; the question still remained, why I love India? I never quite got an answer, till now… In the last 5 years ever since I left my corporate career in the U.S. and returned to India to teach underprivileged children as a Teach for India fellow; my understanding of my love for my own country has grown tremendously. As a teacher, I got a chance to re-read texts reminding me of the history, geography, culture and the basic values on which this nation was formed, which I had somehow forgotten over t...

The case of Edward Snowden – Hero or Traitor I believe that Edward Snowden was justified in disclosing the activities of NSA. Further I would argue that when the state becomes all too powerful versus the individual to the point of being unaccountable then we need disrupters like Edward Snowden to restore the balance of power and instill accountability in the system. In this blog I will outline the reasons behind my position as well as examine the counter arguments that might be presented The reasons why I took the position above are as below: In every society there is a need for whistle blowers, in every system, and especially in the case of U.S., which has, capabilities much more advanced than any other contemporary nation and as the only superpower in the world, responsibilities that far exceed other nations. I believe the William E. Scheuerman article on the Snowden leaks is very insightful in this regard where Rahul Sagar in his book outlines certain criterion...