Congress Party - Boon or Bane ?

Indian National Congress is reportedly the largest and oldest democratic political party of the world with a very memorable history and leadership for more than a century.

In 63 years after independence, Congress party was/is in power for 55 years. So it implies without saying that whatever India is today, good or bad, the credit squarely goes to the grand old party. But what did they do to earn this power and what did they do with the power is altogether a different question. Looking back:

JL Nehru was more known for being an elite member and the most visible face among the political fraternity rather than his personal sacrifices for independence struggle. His affair with Edwina Mountbatten as a legendary folklore is more popular than his diplomatic achievements. His association with Gandhi, personal charisma and monetary status conferred him the prime minister-ship without any hurdle.

I won't mince a word before declaring my opinion that Nehru was the worst prime minister, India ever had. The kind of potential and fire in the newly independent country could have done wonders but bad decision making and mismanagement turned the tables for the whole country which inflicted a bad bruise on the face of Indian commoner.

Partition and subsequent riots that left a scar on both communities was very much avoidable if Nehru -Jinnah ego clash subsided. The scar developed into an unresolvable pit in the name of Kashmir conflict, thanks to his poor crisis management skills.

Current bitterness against China, present Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim border issues, unnecessary intervention in Chinese internal affairs by providing asylum to Dalai Lama, defeat in the Indo-China war are all certificates earned by Nehru.

Bad choice of getting closer to USSR and snubbing US (despite non-alignment policy), implementing socialism which brought in license raj resulting in todays corruption (read my previous article about India: History of corruption) remain the black spots in Indian history.

On the flip side, he established premier education system and presented a young India to the world, but damage done was much more.

LB Shastri had a very short but able stint but had to succumb to heart attack (or poisoning ???).

Indira who became the next PM had no other eligibility or qualification except being Nehru's daughter and having (Feroze) Gandhi's last name.

With the sobriquet Iron lady, she took issues like Kashmir and Khalistan by horns. India won war against Pakistan, shook Khalistani (separatist punjabi) movement, began nuclear program. Defense became stronger in her era.

But hers was a golden era for corruption. The whole system got infested with corrupt executives, bureaucrats, police. She openly encouraged nepotism by conferring unlawful powers to unqualified rowdies like Sanjay Gandhi.

The worst phase of democracy anybody ever saw in world history occurred in the form of "Emergency". When the whole country was against her and when she was about to loose her position and power, she called for emergency claiming that the country was in trouble ($%/?&?&%?*&). 2 years of dictatorship, tyranny and authoritarianism plunged India two decades back in terms of development and human rights.

Her decision of unnecessary involvement in Pakistan's internal affairs and creating Bangladesh gave a reason and motivation for Kashmiri militants and Pakistani intelligence to split Kashmir from India and the quagmire is getting deeper by day. Desecrating Golden temple gave a chance to expat punjabi families to scream ugly slogans about Indian democracy even to this day.

Rajiv Gandhi again had a unquestionable privilege to become the prime minister of the country just because he was a son of her ex-PM mommy. A guy who didn't know the demographic and political coordinates of India became the prime minister out of nowhere and the gang of sycophants crooned his glory since then and its going on even today by naming every airport, road, sports village, government scheme on his name.

Behind suave and handsome looks was an immature mind which created a new passive enemy called Sri Lanka. Again, like his mom and grandpa, he meddled with internal affairs of an alien land and thanks to his decision, both the Sri Lankan govt and the LTTE started looking India as their enemy and hence the provision for China and Pakistan to setup a naval and army base in Sri Lanka. His assassination by LTTE was another outcome of his regime.

Mr.Clean as he was initially referred to, smeared his face with Bofors scandal (mother of all political scandals), Bhopal gas tragedy and subsequent escape of its Firang boss.

Anti sikh riots that took place after Indira's assassination was passively supported by Rajiv but he gave a new meaning to "secularism" when he dismissed supreme court judgement about equal rights to muslim divorcée women just to corner muslim votes through appeasement. Uniform civil code (equal treatment of citizens of all religions) was never upheld just to make sure secularism is applicable only for non-minorities. Religious divide and hatred took a new turn

PV Narasimha Rao came as a breath of fresh air in the dynastic politics and nepotism infected congress party. He started abolishing the license raj, imposing new economic reforms, bolstering liberalization and globalization and earning the title of "Father of Indian Economic Reforms". He brought in an official like Manmohan Singh into limelight who in-turn implemented PVN's vision. India took steps towards being a nuclear nation under his era. Crisis management was PVN's forte despite running a minority government.

Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue and scandals like Lakkubhai Pathak case, St.Kitts' forgery case tarnished his image heavily (but as usual with every politician, he got acquitted from all corruption related cases).

But the sad part was after his death when his body was not allowed into AICC headquarters or teen murti bhavan and neither did the incumbent chief of congress, Sonia Gandhi pay minimal courtesy visit to his funeral. His legacy was demolished and sadly hijacked by wicked dynastic worshippers.

Sonia Gandhi, by far the luckiest woman the world history has ever seen, became the chief of congress after a brief stunt from manipulative Sitaram Kesri. Sonia, an italian by birth, a novice by political experience, an ineligible by knowledge about India skyrocketed to chair the most important position by becoming a non-ruling and unofficial PM by installing a puppet govt under Manmohan Singh. Sonia has apparently emerged as an unconstitutional power who takes undue credit of the development that happens, but never takes accountability or responsibility for any failures. Smart Move !

Manmohan Singh is the most educated, best informed, most humble and honest prime minister, India has seen as yet. He is more a working leader than a managing leader and has been doing exceptionally well under the given circumstances. Nuclear agreement with US, improving the economy, stabilizing volatile situations, breaking the shackles of corruption are few of his notable achievements. With a bit more authority over cabinet and bit more transparency, and bit more pro-activity, he can eventually become the best PM of India so far.

So the bottom line is that if India is backward in development, living standards, infrastructure, honesty, Congress is responsible for that and if India is a powerful, self sufficient nation, Congress is responsible for that too.

The Most Powerful Nation ?

US National Intelligence Council released the latest list of most powerful nations of the World. Quite expectedly USA topped the list followed by China, India as second and third most powerful nations well ahead of other UN security council permanent members like UK, Russia, France, Germany etc.

Any survey, any opinion, any debate, there can't be more powerful nation than US. US has attained this position with sheer hard-work, optimal utilization of resources, sustaining freedom and liberty, improving standard of living, augmenting defense might and of course a very intelligent image building mechanism.

Million Dollar Question: Then why US lost a war against minnows like Vietnam and now is on the verge of loosing another war against a non-entity like Al Qaeda ?

There are more odds than evens. Going deeper:

America is projected as an invincible, unbeatable superpower by (1) Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings (2) Foreign Relation Diplomacy (3) Economy (4) Media (5) Hollywood

World War -2 and subsequent atom bombing of Japanese cities as a retaliation to pearl harbor kamikaze attacks stamped US as a military giant. Before or after that, history didn't see any remarkable power display by US, except an illogical gulf war. Remember any ?

Thanks to its military giant image and cold war with then USSR, US was/is considered the most intervening nation of the world. Vietnam War was a blow on US' image of a super-power and world police. The setback against Vietnamese guerrillas was unexpected and unprepared for.

Two of the most bloody conflicts in the world history: Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan were fanned to its current gravity by American vested interests and military support to one or both the parties involved. US direct intervention in Korean crisis, Iraq-Kuwait conflict received much criticism as US didn't hold any direct interest in the areas in conflict.

United Nations (UNO), an organization supposedly established to maintain international peace was eventually dwarfed and silenced into an American accomplice. NATO and Commonwealth jokers like UK, Canada, France, Australia were dumb American puppets as ever.

Icing on the cake is the ongoing "War on Terror" where ironically the so called terror is the brainchild of US itself. Al Qaeda and Taliban were supported in their inception by US to counter USSR influence over South Asia and now waging a loosing war against the same forces. Its almost been a decade of search for Osama Bin Laden and the results are known to the whole world. A serious dent on "Most powerful Nation's" military, exchequer and brand image.

The frustration was vented on Iraq with a lamest possible excuse that Saddam Hussain has weapons of mass destruction (more destructive than nuclear warheads ?@#$) and after not finding any such weapons, captured and executed Saddam Hussain for abusing human rights (not in US but in his own Iraq). Nobody else could question US' rights of hanging a Country's president to death for mishandling his own subjects (though the white secret is to plunder Iraqi oil resources). Incidentally US supported Iraq's weapons program during Iran-Iraq war.

Waging a decade old battle on terror on one side and selling weapons to Pakistan, an aide of terror is a hallmark of American supreme foreign policy and diplomacy. Again nobody could question them. Reasons ?

The single most acceptable reason for this American hegemony is "US Economy". the richest economy, the most traded currency and the richest treasury. Money power which results in muscle power is the reason and this is remarkably similar to the unquestioned and feared power of villains / gangsters in movies or real life.

With economy came the power to buy or control anything, everything in the world. US was shrewd enough to invest the rampant money in development in various areas and it worked out spectacularly well. This resulted in ubiquitous "number one" image of US.

Media played a beautiful role in projecting Numero Uno status. News articles, documentaries, projection of life standards mostly in English language which is most followed and accepted language of the world, made US a dreamland of opportunities for millions. None of these American crazy masses know the kind of development in France, Germany, Russia or China due to the language barrier. So it worked out rather well for USA.

Hollywood catalyzed a heroic image of US. Movies precipitated patriotism among American masses and movies of various genres like war, action have put US in a superior league. NYPD, LAPD, SWAT are always depicted as supernatural heroes (without delving in the facts that five crime families of NYC control the mafia and crime that affects half of the planet). The whole world along with Americans themselves patronizes these movies and idolizes American heroism.

Having said all these, I acknowledge that US is successful in creating, managing the image which is enviable and almost impossible for any other nation of this world.

Be an Entrepreneur !

There is an unwritten notion among the masses in general that starting a business or being an entrepreneur is a risky job and that there are more failures than successes and that it consumes a LOT to start a venture. 95% of youth strive, aim to land in a dream job in Infosys, Reliance or a well-known company, earn a handsome salary and "settle" in life.

The apprehensions are due to the discouragement from elder generations and seniors in the family, possibility of loosing money and time, lack of expertise, lure of safe jobs and early settlement, prevalent education system and many more.

But it has to be understood that the world we live in now is totally different from what it was a couple of decades ago. The very idea of venturing into a business is different in current times. The scope of doing something with nominal monies is remarkable. The government policies towards business have changed, economy has changed, obstacles have disappeared, venture capitalists and project financiers came into the scene. FDI is gushing in. You just need to identify the area of your passion and expertise and just add a bit of commitment to that. BINGO

Business ideas are born out of either necessity or opportunity and most of the times you don't need to invest a fortune and hence there is no stigma attached either.

There are highly charged guys who developed an online grocery software and distributed it to grocery stores which help its customers to buy anything from home. Developing the product didn't need anything more than software programming knowledge. To tap the market, they started distributing the product free of cost, initially, to build relationships. The business later evolved into a big software company.

There are youngsters who could write well who wrote freelance articles and started tapping the vernacular newspaper publications and then graduated to become a PR agency; pack of youngsters who started a staffing agency recruited employees for big corporations for free to get into their good books; people who created online learning software and started webinars; hordes of examples who have made their mark with no money, no office setup, no infrastructure involved.

Somebody's such initiative gave us Facebook and Twitter today and see how they changed the world with no big investments. Its pure commitment and clarity of thought!

The magic lies in understanding what you are good at and what your interest lies in. It need not necessarily be technology, anything would do. Planet Earth has population enough to generate demand for anything you are good at. Try to sharpen your knowledge in your area of concentration and give it a punching shot. If money is not involved in the trial, what else are you going to loose? Nothing ! Its worth trying.

There are people who have the entrepreneurial spirit but lack direction and right expertise. But this is not a blockade either. You don't need an MBA from a Harvard or an IIM. You have internet at your disposal. Stanford, Harvard, Wharton and all business forums publish innumerable articles in internet in addition to their Youtube channels. Google and Wikipedia are the best teachers. You can self-learn technology, management, business through research on internet and interact with captains of industry and subject matter experts too. Again, no cost involved.

So the age old myths about loosing something doesn't arise as long as you don't loose spirit and faith in whatever you believe in and faith in yourself. Strong mind, ability to overcome discouragement, adapting to changes, thwarting fears of failures will make a lot of difference.

The only thing needed is a passion to start something, be your own boss, create wealth for yourself and the society, create employment and stand out in the crowd. I repeat "The magic lies in understanding what you are good at and what your interest lies in. Try to sharpen your knowledge in the area and give a shot."

Yes, you can be a businessperson and an entrepreneur !

Invincible Heroes

Few days back, I've posted a comment on my Facebook wondering why do I see circulated jokes only about Balakrishna (one of the tollywood actors) and why not about others though everybody does the same kind of insane acts.

I didn't get a lot of response there but there were scores of people who told me offline that they got offended as I "dared" to compare Balayya with their Gods. Though I care a shit if they took me in wrong sense, I tried to understand what made them feel so strong about a person whom they have seen just on-screen.

I agree that movie is a great medium of entertainment and we like the piece of art if it moves us in any way and we definitely appreciate the person who performed to make us feel happy, sad or experience a kinda adrenalin rush or whatever. But how can an intelligent person drag the same image off-screen and start adulating him/her. Or am I too naive or an idiot to understand the underlying Gyaan behind the phenomena.

How many heroes who kick 20 goons at a time swirling in the air in movies are fit enough to face one average built 20 year old guy off-screen ? More entertaining than these stupid stunts are the interviews with those stars who claim that no graphics or body-doubles have been used in their stunts :)

Thanks to these kind of blind hero-worship, the actors started taking themselves rather too seriously and began their new innings in politics and few also enjoyed power. MGR, NTR (and family), Jayalalitha, Chiranjeevi, Vijaykanth, Jaya Bachchan, Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Sanjay Dutt, Govinda are the jokers of the same pack. Its not limited to India. Americans are equally crazy (read Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood). What did these guys do to earn the power or votes is still a mystery to me ?

During my engineering days in Kurnool, I saw two guys who fought bitterly on roads and came to blows because they couldn't agree on who is better among Chiranjeevi or Balakrishna. I heard about such fan wars which turned into ugly caste wars in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Heights of insanity and idiosyncrasy !

In the day to day parlance, the word "Hero" lost its meaning and is synonymously used for actors and fans can go really crazy about their favorite stars and can also wage a war against anybody who reportedly "belittles" their demigods. Yeah baby, "Heroes" are invincible, both on-screen and off-screen.

India: History of Corruption

[Preface: This article is for mature and thinking readers. All those who seek entertainment or fun can skip this.]

I was going through Corruption Percentage Index (CPI) published by Transparency International and as ever found all the five Nordic countries in the top 10 countries with least corruption. But where is India? My pursuit of finding India's rank in honesty again faced a setback when India ended up at 84th place. The only solace is that it is out of 182 countries :-)

The wise APJ Abdul Kalam's famous speech suggests that India is corrupt because general public don't do anything about it. 100% right. But what can an average Indian do ?

When a goon troubles a common man, he will go to police for protection. But most of the times cops abet goons. If the cop is honest, he will get pressure from a local politician who patronizes the goon. And as everybody knows politicians are invincible. If the person lodges a case on the goon or the cop or the politician, he has to deal with the judiciary which is equally corrupt. No outlaw will be behind the bars for more than few hours. So there ends the matter. Hence its so easy to get rid of one goon by going to a more powerful law breaker than following the books.

When a person wants to officially get things done by a Govt officer, he is expected to pay bribe in cash or kind. If he doesn't, he faces world of hurdles and positively never gets his job done. If he escalates to higher authority, he learns that officers in the whole hierarchy are partners in crime. What else can he do ? If he goes to media, he finds himself in a state of shock as he learns that media-house owner is a accomplice in the trap he finds himself in.

When a person wants to honestly start a business, he is never given licenses by Govt. If anybody wants to be an entrepreneur, he has to be a relative or partner of the licensing authority who in-turn is affiliated to some political party which is funded by some corporate house. So everything is already fixed.

Criminals have support of police who have support of officers who have support of politicians who have support of judiciary, media and/or powerful businessmen. It is a powerful criminal network or a mafia with a long 50 years of history.

If a cop is honest, politician transfers him. If a politician is honest, criminals murder him, judiciary victimizes him with a fabricated case or self indulgent media maligns him with propaganda. If the political party is honest, businessmen don't fund them. If the media reporter is honest, the chief editor stops him.

To avoid all these issues, an average and common India condescends to bribing. Hence I would be the last person to agree that a country gets corrupt because of the general public who resort to bribing. If the authorities and the system is impregnated with corruption, the public is left with no alternative.

Flashback: Lets make a quick analysis as how did the corruption take its birth in India.

After independence, the great Pandit Nehru, in a bid to emulate Soviet Russia formulated a socialist policy which supported License Raj. It means no ordinary citizen can do business without Government's license and Govt is the only capitalist and the general public faces communism. Indira Gandhi revolutionized this with nationalization of financial institutions.

But sadly Govt failed to increase the economic growth, per capita income and mean standard of living with all the infallible plans on paper. Figures speak that economic growth was 1.5% from 1950 to 1990. A phenomenal shame and failure.Poverty began to rise its hood and so did desperation which is a natural mother of crime. The famous gap between haves and have-nots developed into an abysmal gorge.

Talented businessmen started lobbying with Govt for "licenses" and favors. Those who are close to bureaucrats and politicians started getting licenses, contracts for businesses and hence established firms. Now the omnipresent Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis enjoyed a "very good" relationship with all politicians across political parties and more remarkably the great Nehru-Gandhi family who were in power for 95% of the time during license raj.

This politician-businessmen nexus raised the curtain for bending the rules, corporates started competing among themselves with their money power which gave birth to muscle power, nepotism, corruption among all levels of supreme powers of the country namely legislature, executive and judiciary. Corporate world's currency, bureaucrats' greed, politicians' privileges, have-not's desperation proved to be an flammable combo. Struggle for the fittest was the mantra of the day and everybody raped the system to be the fittest and nobody was made accountable. This is the system which turned into quagmire and a breeding ground for corruption.

Things started improving, thanks to economic liberalization and breakthrough reforms upheld by PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. Corporate-politician nexus eased a bit and rate of corruption decreased significantly. India became the 3rd largest economy in the world after US and Japan. With better economy came better standard of living, awareness, consciousness. But thats not sufficient.

The Roadmap:

The common man should be made aware of the "right to information act" to arrest the corruption. Ombudsmen, whistleblowers are working hard to improve the situation further but should be accessible to the common man. Anti-corruption bureaus should be unadulterated, public servants should be made accountable and answerable to public through transparent media. Putting this to implementation is not impractical but results don't appear overnight. Awareness and knowledge among the masses is the key.

May be in years to come, we see India cruising up in the index by Transparency International. Country has come a long way but has to go a longer way to heal the bruise inflicted by 50 years of mismanagement and bad direction.

Gandhi vs Gandhigiri

Albert Einstein famously quoted about Gandhi that "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth". Back home in India, Gandhi is revered as a demigod if not God. Nobody needs an introduction to the person himself or the kind of value and respect he has been commanding for a century. Gandhian principles (or the more massy Gandhigiri, thanks to Lage Raho Munnabhai) have created a kind of sect with people devoted to those values.

But there is no dearth of people who fume at the very name of MK Gandhi and they have their own reasons. It can't be denied that Gandhi's contribution to Indian independence struggle was overrated and over marketed by vested historians and post independent regimes to push their own envelopes and surnames further. There were countless martyrs who forsook their personal lives for the cause and who suffered or sacrificed much more than him like Bhagat Singh or SC Bose who were systematically pushed into oblivion.

Like every mortal, Gandhi too was vulnerable to some follies and eccentricities. His passiveness in saving martyrs like Bhagat Singh received widespread flak. His political decisions were confusing to his own disciples and his minority appeasement, in a way, catalyzed a fundamentalism in Hindus, which gave a way to "Godsegiri" and muslims always treated him as anti-muslim congressman. Nathuram Godse and Md Jinnah are considered more patriotic by most Gandhi haters. Gandhi was not clearly the shrewdest politician.

Bypassing the political discussions about Gandhi, there is much more. But the younger generation quickly takes their stance without analyzing the difference between Gandhi the politician and Gandhi the inspiration / philosophy.

Agree or not, Gandhi is the best leader the world has ever produced till now and more likely forever. No other man born on this planet could shake the whole nation as much as he did. In the era of limited media and communications, the entire country swayed to the words of the single frail man. He created ripples in the empire where its said that sun never sets. The demigod status or mass hysteria he created among masses is unparalleled and I'm not sure if that kind of aura can be enjoyed by anybody in the future too.

While his leadership and winning the unconditional love and confidence of his subjects is one aspect, another being the philosophy and way of life he introduced; that philosophy surrounding extremities of truth, courage, simplicity and non-violence.

It takes a lion heart to face the anger and aggression of the mighty with non-cooperation and non-violence. It takes a hero to stand by determination and not get bogged over by threat, might, power, hunger and still not retaliate. It takes a legend to influence the nation to follow his ideals and it takes an icon to be remembered for his lifestyle and philosophy for centuries to come.

Simply put Gandhi is an embodiment of simplicity, self-restraint, humility, truth, determination, selflessness, will-power that only a sage of his wisdom can attain. Gandhism was/is a way of life that can never go wrong.

We can never become Gandhi, but we can definitely show some respect to the person who spent the whole life pleading the world, not to hate. Gandhi the politician may or may not be perfect, but Gandhigiri is !