Sunday, November 16, 2008

Chandrayaan Indian shining again?

Chandrayaan, the indian mission to moon, was a success. I am proud that our scientists could achieve this, but I wonder how this will get translated as Roti, Kapda, Makan to the Indian poor.

The money is spent to make the middle class, scientific community and NRIs proud. But is this expenditure justified to satisfy this small minority?

I would have been proud if India did something different. Not re-inventing a wheel Soviet Union and America did so many years before.

I think India should really shift focus towards the poor and Indian middle class should understand that India can grow only by creating a strong village economy.

Confused Indian middle class and indian image

I always encounter Indians trying to portray an image of a rich (money) India to foreigners. They hate when photos of snake charmers and village people are shown to represent India. They want modern IT parks and 8 lane roads, Taj Mahal to be shown to represent India. This is hypocrisy.

Middle class wants to forget their roots and forget the poor in India and think that they represent India. Snake charming and the poor people represent culture in India, not the middle class.

This you can also see in the Incredible India advertisement. If you see the advertisement you can only see richness(again money), but it is the simple living and innocence of the Indian villages that is beautiful.

These pseudo patriots/nationalists are ashamed of Indian poor, but they should be proud of their roots, heritage and culture. Eating with spoons and wearing pants are not part of Indian culture. Indian culture is rich in family values and is non violent. I am proud about Indian villages and I think the poor are more happy in villages of India. I always tell my friends to visit Indian villages to see the beauty of India and never touch cities where the middle class live.

Hindu Tolerance

I always get to hear about the great Hindu tolerance. I would like to break it up and understand what this is about.

First to get definition clear, who is a Hindu. This term is so unclear that Supreme court of India had to define who is a Hindu. Different Hindu fanatic groups have their their own definition to suit their needs. Indian tribes had their own religion, Dravidians in the south had their own religion. Aryan Vedic religion was conveniently adopted(forced?) by most and it is now evolving as a religion.

If the definition of Hindu is limited to the Brahmins, the upper caste Hindus, they are guilty of designing the worst inhuman racism known called as untouchability to native Indians or non Aryans. They called non Aryans as Asuras (roughly translated as devils) and monkeys. They never let them near them and never let them drink from the same well and atrocities never heard of in any part of the world. Does that sound like tolerance?

Islam came to India through Mughal emperors and rulers. Hinduism never had the opportunity to show tolerance towards them. If there was tolerance, it might have been shown by Muslim rulers. Hindus never got the opportunity to show it during the British rule.

If tolerance is about letting westerners colonialize India, I don't think that is tolerance. It was because the local kings collaborated with westerners for their convenience.

Evidence of Hindu tolerance can be seen in Gujarat massacre where thousands of unarmed human beings were raped and burnt by the 'tolerant community'. Evidence from Orissa where an unarmed, aged foreign missionary and his young sons were burnt to death. Evidence from violence against Christians in orissa and other parts of India.

Now they have the guts to justify the Hindu terrorists saying they were tolerant till now and now they are angry. Let me remind them that they were never tolerant.

Let me also remember the sensible people of India who were tolerant and was modern in outlook and it was all because of how they were brought up and nothing to do with religion.

I do not understand why I need to be tolerated in my own land. The land belongs to me and just because I belong to another religion does not mean that someone has to tolerate me. I am tolerating them in return.

Classical Language status for Kannada and Telugu

Congratulations Kannada and Telugu for getting classical language status. Earlier classical language status was given only to Tamil. I think this is a good divide and rule strategy to make the south indian states/languages fight between each other.

Now Malayalam wants a classical language status. I find that ridiculous. A language which is 500 years old and which is an offshoot of Tamil is asking to be named classical language.

In my view classical language is Tamil as it is old and is a language representing all Dravidian languages and was the official language of Tamizhakam.

To make it clear, I am not from Tamizh nadu and do not speak Tamizh.