Of Sieze Mentality and Misguiding Liberals

This blog is about my thoughts on a growing seize mentality I feel has afflicted most societies. Let us try to understand how this affliction with historical blunders affects our current societies.

• Robert Mugabe of Zimbabve has again managed to get a country into a situation where people have been convinced that a particular group (whites) in this case are responsible for the hiostorical wrongs and the current generation of this group needs to be punished for the wrong doing of their forfathers. This is a typical example where a society is held sieze to a despisible or condemnable act and starts believeing that this and only this factor is responsible for all its ills. Colonialism and Slavery are to be despised and conemned in strongest of terms. But to say that all ills of zimbabwe are a result of white population, to take away thier land, posessions and money, to make them poor an deny them human rights wont make the life of the blacks in zimbabwe any better.But as we shall see in the next few paragraphs, Robert Mugabe aint the only person who follows this sieze mentality and lives in a world which is preoccupied with certain distortions and falacies of human socities. Unfortunately most socities tend to believe that "Two wrongs would make one Right" and "An eye for an eye would make sure no one sees light" :):)
• I would say Mugabe and Zimbabweans need to take a leaf out of South Africa, which was once the worst abuser of Human Rights in the form of Apartheid. But now is a multiracial society and is vibrant. Of course there are the minor issues that keep coming but we should probably see the positive side of it. The question that most often strikes to my mind and also surprises me is
  a. How do socities by lagre tolerate such "Eye for an Eye"Theories?
  b. Why do even the free thinkers and liberals allow for such contrued and obstruse execution of justice?
• Indian Society also has examples of such behavior. If you look at most of the Dalit Movements, and parties like the Black Panthers etc, they have always indulged in violence to put forth thier point and also seem to take immense pleasure in putting the group which had historically inflicted some scars to the same pain. In simple terms its "Revenge" and belief that the wrong doings of the forfathers of Bhramins or the so called "upper castes"need to be paid for by their current crop. That the leftists and other liberals also support this is sad. For example, if the pathers group goes on a spree of vandalism so as to be included in a scheduled list ,its called Social Justice, and if I call someone a Scheduled Caste which is actually a term coined by the state of India for a group, I could be charged and put to jail. This is not to say that i support caste system, but the point I am trying to make is "Justice" should be neutral to historical wrongs and should be judged in the current context of the case at hand.
• USA is different? I would doubt so, a few years ago i watched an oscar winning movie "CRASH". In that movie there is a scene where a white cop stops a car and tries to molest the "Black Woman" in the car, and her husband who is also black is helpless and can/does nothing to stop the "White" Cop. The question I would like to ask is "Would the sitiation have been different if it was a Black Cop with a Gun and a white couple in the car? The fear of a gun totting cop is common irrespective of race. I would have felt helpless in India also in middle of all brown people. A brown cop with a gun molesting some brown mans wife would leave him helpless in the same way unless he has right connections or money to buy out. What i mean to say is , the power that a cop holds is what makes him corrupt, not the skin color. Justice should take its course and punish the offender irrespective of Skin color or percieved past historical injustices.
  
• In india, most muslim groups seems to belive that they are attacked always for terror acts, i do agree and also believe firmly that all muslims are not terrorists, Its utterly stupid to say so. But one can not deny that its not true that always some muslim scape goat is arrested and punished by the security officals and even if this kind of lapse has happened in the past, we can not allow a community to get into a sieze mentality and belive that they are always made scape goats without actually getting into the reality of the situation at hand and neither can we go to go slow against a criminal beause of his/her religion. Let the law be neutral as always and justic judge a person by his "deed" and not by some historical evidence of a group being always responsible or some biased reasoning which is based on revenge.
• It seems the same analogy can be applied to the Jews and Palestenians. The Arab world thinks that all its ills can be cured if Israel is wiped out of the map and the Israelis seem to think that for all the pain they have been subjected to historially, they could get satisfaction by putting the Palestenians hostage to humanitarian crisis in the Gaza or Ramallah. :(

We need to understand that History should teach us what not to do, it should not hold us hostage to time, and make us repeat its fallacies by interchanging the roles of the victim and the opressor.

Lets see if the world wakes up and understands that "Two Wrongs indeed make no right" and "An eye for an Eye would truly leave the whole world blind."

Gandhism - Where would it work?

I am trying to analyze if Gandhism works everywhere? Its become a fad to quote Gandhian ways these days....from Munna Bhai to Muslim Issues..liberals quote the non violence and pacifism that Gandhi idolized so much. I somehow believe it doesnt work in every situation and here is my analysis:

• Non Violence as an instrument of bargain doesnt work well between similarly equipped adversaries. FOr example, we can talk all the peace we want, talk of trade and comerce, but non violence is neither a possible or plausible tool to solve the Kashmir issue, simplay because India and Pakistan are almost equally powerful. The fact that India and Pakistan have fought four wars, there are human rights violations on both sides, so much blood lost but still we mainitain around a quarter million army on the border always ready to confront should be used a evidence.
• Non Violence theory i believe works when one of the adversaries is weak, so it would work effectively in case of Palestenians against Israel or even the Iraqis against USA. The reason is that, non violence in order to be effective needs to draw heavily on getting the people to sympathize with the less powerful adversary. The point am trying to make is, as long as Americans see the coffins of their soldiers blown up or Israelis have their homes blown up the people of USA or Israel wont sympathize with the adversary. It ll happen only in case, say the Iraqis give up arms and the American public view how the strongest nation in teh world is keeping a lowly weak Iraq hostage. Thats when the public emotion turns to Iraqis and they start sympathizing. The large support and empathy with the "Palestinian Intifada" proves my point as coffins of innocent 6 Yr Olds makes the eyes of even the hawks a bit wet :)
  
• Why did it work in case of INDIA against the British? Because of the above theory. The indians were weak, the british strong, and the revolutionaries helped but the simple large numbers of non violent indians overhelmed the british empire. HUmans by large can not kill unless there is an urge of revenge. :)

Lets see if Gandhi would come out of books, screens and seminars and make this world a more peaceful place....hmmm..a really optimistic start to a sat noon :):)

Primary Education - Free and compulsory and How?

This is one of the subjects I have been quite passionate about - India's Primary Education Sector and the ills ailing it. I believe this is the root issue which needs immediate attention to make the growth "Inclusive". What most politicians and society should understand is we need to make people skilled enough to run with the pace of reforms and well any amount of reservations in higher education, dilution in quality and encouragement of quantity and even the often liked mob culture of different communities to lay hands on the cake wont help. These factors mentioned can only derail growth. The Problem and the solution is as below :

• Compulsory and Free Primary Education- I still fail to understand why no Indian party, caste or state ever fought or did a "Bandh" to demand free and compulsory education to its children? Education in my view should be a fundamental right and the state should not be allowed to abdicate its basic responsibility. India should make it a law that every kid should go to school as a matter of law.
• Government shouldn't teach, but i agree that the large number of substandard GOVT schools already in place can not be dumped, so why not give people a choice, you send your kid to GOVT school of course with a caveat that these GOVT schools be improved to compete with private education providers and also be made more accountable. In case a parent doesn't want to go to the public school, the GOVT should reimburse the difference in the school fees subject to an upper limit. JUST GIVE VOUCHERS to the parents which can be redeemed at the private school.
  
• The GOVT should only facilitate and act as an arbitrator to the curicullum of the schools,we can not in any case allow political considerations to dictate or dilute the coursework.
• In india 55% children never go to school, and most are drop outs inspite of the fact that schools offer mid day meals. How will simple caste based reservation in higher education help when you dont even have a steady supply of eligible students form these castes in the stystem? The best way to go forward would probably be that we insure universal education, maintain high quality and make sure the feeding system to the higher education is devoid of any caste or economic bias and then see that these reservations we already have in place would bear fruit. Then may be some one our people wont compete to be labelled "backward".

Lets see if we can include education to the list of air, water, earth, fire and space. Make education the sixth element!!! Its Elemetary aint it!

Do the Deal....Now and for ever!!

I thought I should pen down my views on India' NUKE deal with USA . Not that it would matter to the rotten politicians in India, but for the sake of my own understanding of the situation, may in future some day I would revisit this blog and validate my knowledge of India and the world :)

This Government in India has once in a lifetime opportunity as :

• It is already in doldrums, nothing to lose, at least it could get India some much needed Nuclear Fuel and the next generations would remember Manmohan Singh for some thing more than half baked economic reforms. If we got to die anyways, why not make the death a sacrifice ;)
• We need the fuel, weather the commies like it or not, the Truth is most of our reactors are running at 50% efficiency, and i think this is criminal considering that we are buying oil at $130 a barell and subsidising Saudi Arabia and Iran rather than out own poor. Yes you heard it right , we are not subsidizing the poor in India..we are helping the middle east get richer.
• Why care about the stupid Hyde Act, coz, for one its applicable to USA not India. Second, who wants Uranium for ever, We need fuel, so out scientists can concentrate on the Fast Breeder Reactor, which uses Thorium instead of Uranium. India has the largest reserves of thorium and if I am correct, thorium is retrieved from sand. ;)
• If FBR succeeds, we would sell the technology to the world and anyways, the world can not in any case isolate the second most populous country and also the worlds largest democracy over some stupid nuke tests, it never works that way, we need to damn break the shackles and well no one knows when we need Pokhran 3, do we even need it??
• Go get the deal, its now or never, and we have nothing to lose, as already the oil price rise has put the GOVT on the block.

Lets see, if we see some martyr or a lame duck victim in the next two months in the form of an Indian Govt ;)

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