What is my identity? Do I need an identity? How can I get an identity if I am just a common man? Is identity just a social term or the society is identity based? Am I born with an identity or I will get my identity?
What is religion? Do we need one? Does being atheist can also be a form of religion? What is the purpose of having the religion? Can't I decide my own code of living after all I am a human being? Does religion protect us? But how? Or we protect the religion? But why?
As per the definition, Identity is considered as qualities that make people different than others; there may be many people in that category but not all. So except having one nose, one mouth, two ears, two eyes blah blah whatever you have gives you an identity. Religion is just the identity given to men by few other men to discriminate them from others. Identity is in fact a lucrative concept and so its protection becomes vital, this becomes even more important and sacred if one links the concept of god with religion. People can give up any thing just to protect their identity, the identity which does not come naturally, the identity which was given to make us insecure, the identity which was given to discriminate us, the identity which was given to rule over us.
I can hardly find any reason for anyone to support any organization for the protection of their religion. I don’t know how Muslims think that voting against non-BJP candidate will help them, we know that any agenda these traditional political parties have can be oversimplified as vote-politics. I don’t know from whom Hindus and Indian Muslims want protection? Do Hindus want protection from Muslims; who actually gave them identity of Hindu? Do The Muslims want protection from Hindus, who got their identity of Hindu from Muslims? The religion Hinduism, the so called oldest religion or way of living, got its name only when Islamic rulers came to India and to discriminate their men from the people of this side of river Sindhu (mispronounced as Hindu by Persians and Arabs) they gave us identity of Hindu. But for them the term Hindu just meant non-Islamic.
Why do we need the concept of God, people only need the concept of God but not the God, judge of our deeds and misdeeds? Can’t we act ethically and behave morally without any fear of some superpower watching us? Why do we need some Godly protection or believe that someone is looking after us? It’s better to face the harsh reality than the comfort of lie. Why we always manage to give some name to God and refuse to believe that it or he or she does not exist. Why we want to disgrace our self by believing that some superpower controls us by some mysterious means?
These are the questions which come to our mind consciously or sub-consciously. Most of the time we ignore them but they are strong enough to haunt us. The words here are very weak to mock the situation of our minds haunted with these questions. We do sin only when we ignore ourselves and the questions of our mind are the part of us.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Inspired by kala bandar
Once again Rakyesh omprakash mehra managed to expose the society but this time in more ubiquitous sense. Besides the emotional and masala touch in the movie he added the problems of India from the perspective of small region of Chandni Chowk; and amazingly it makes sense.
If you will follow the movie from the eyes of protagonist, you may think how stupid and idiot these Chowk guys are. You may not find yourself as a part of that society. But in the back of our mind we know where do we stand.
The few people actively creating problem by arbitrary connections with religion, of course our society has religion only to divide the people so once again it served its purpose, while the politicians, just to make their vote-banks strong, are supporting the wrong instead of suppressing the communal tensions. But there are even few people against the situation and obviously it makes them weak in the democracy.
But the majority of people are silent, so we are. They are like us, they can think and they know thats all is pathetic. But to whom is the ignorance of this larger section of society is helping. In the fight between a mouse and a cat mouse will not appreciate you being neutral. The silence or ignorance of the society is just like supporting the wrong doers and giving them indication that we don't want to take our responsiblities, so you please carry on we do not have any issues and you are free to treat us like we don't have any opinion and may be we are not humans.
That makes me remember the following lines by Sydney J. Harris :
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem,
but the perpetual human predicament is that the answer soon
poses its own problems."
The irony is that we all know that the problem is our ignorance and we all are still ignoring that, we are not yet free we do not have yet break the shackles of fear and prejudice. We are still in the hands of those mindless idiots just because of our ignorance from ourselves.
Kala bandar hoax reminds me of other beliefs existing in our society and it gives me a kind of explanation for the existence of those beliefs without any base. But they are not the part of this post.
If you will follow the movie from the eyes of protagonist, you may think how stupid and idiot these Chowk guys are. You may not find yourself as a part of that society. But in the back of our mind we know where do we stand.
The few people actively creating problem by arbitrary connections with religion, of course our society has religion only to divide the people so once again it served its purpose, while the politicians, just to make their vote-banks strong, are supporting the wrong instead of suppressing the communal tensions. But there are even few people against the situation and obviously it makes them weak in the democracy.
But the majority of people are silent, so we are. They are like us, they can think and they know thats all is pathetic. But to whom is the ignorance of this larger section of society is helping. In the fight between a mouse and a cat mouse will not appreciate you being neutral. The silence or ignorance of the society is just like supporting the wrong doers and giving them indication that we don't want to take our responsiblities, so you please carry on we do not have any issues and you are free to treat us like we don't have any opinion and may be we are not humans.
That makes me remember the following lines by Sydney J. Harris :
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem,
but the perpetual human predicament is that the answer soon
poses its own problems."
The irony is that we all know that the problem is our ignorance and we all are still ignoring that, we are not yet free we do not have yet break the shackles of fear and prejudice. We are still in the hands of those mindless idiots just because of our ignorance from ourselves.
Kala bandar hoax reminds me of other beliefs existing in our society and it gives me a kind of explanation for the existence of those beliefs without any base. But they are not the part of this post.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, democracy, republic blah blah...
I am here not to write about which economic or political system is better or which is good for the country. The purpose is to expose the hypocrites among us and it is only possible if we open our eyes to see the world around us.
The most renowned communist, of course Karl Marx, has suggested that socialism will be the transition between capitalism and communism.
Has he said transition, yaa I am sure. If we will follow the great man carefully we can find that the evolution of economic structure is not very different from evolution of human from ape. There are no sharp lines and by no means the society can be turn from one economic system to another suddenly.
It's not very difficult to understand, we have seen the transitions in history and it will be only better if we can understand that transitions are necessary and not the sudden change.
Capitalism has replaced Feudalism and mixed economy is successfully replacing the capitalism; can't we see that. Recession is a good time to see the shortcomings of capitalism.
But that is not the whole point, not even a pinch of what always worries me. Our political parties, terrorist groups like Naxals, communist parties in the left, socialist parties or any other organization; do they have any ideology or any kind of vision.
Communist say they want equality and they want all the people have all the powers, socialist say they want equality and every property should be public or in the hands of government, all the government policies or plans or whatever packages they give are exclusively for the poor of the country or for the middle class. All the organizations or capitalists are paying us well and are upto the standards set by our government.
Sounds wonderful and it seems that everything is going in right direction and ultimately we, common people, are getting all the benefits. Even though we cannot see them very clearly but we just think that this all is really happening in some part of the country we are not living in or for the class of people we don't belong to. But the whole soFa King reality is very different and conciously or unconciously we all know about it but we have turned ourselves so helpless and mindless that we don't even want to take our responsibilities. Still to keep our conscience clear we have our virtual and delicious reality "Everything is allright".
Democracy is powerful only if its people know how to use their powers otherwise it becomes monarchy or even worse sometimes. Do we know our powers, our rights but first do we know what is the political structure of our country and what does that mean. Our we living in a democracy or republic?? may sound stupid to many but the very less people even know the difference between democracy and republic and those who know the difference know that we are living in a republican democracy and we should be happy to know that republican democracy is the best known political structure any nation has ever achieved till date.
But to give democracy its real powers, we the part of the democracy should rise to take our powers. I cannot believe that the thousands of naxals fighting for the better of our society, I mean all thousands of them, do even know that what they are fighting for. If they are intelligent enough to understand then they don't even need to fight. I cannot trust those big bellies sitting in the centre with their chappals in hand don't want to exploit the sleeping and ignorrant nation, I would also love to do that given I am in their position.
There cannot be any transition possible, no improvement in the existing system is possible, no benefit can reach the common man till he himself wants to take it. We should get up to take our responsibilities, we need to come out of our virtual reality and we should understand that we are the humans and they don't have any right to exploit us. They cannot grow their bellies on our money, they cannot grow by just under-paying us, they cannot take our right to education, they cannot play as monarchies.
They are just the cunning and smart ones amongst us and we are equally powerful to respond them. The time is not to blame them but to take the blame of our share and to get up.
The most renowned communist, of course Karl Marx, has suggested that socialism will be the transition between capitalism and communism.
Has he said transition, yaa I am sure. If we will follow the great man carefully we can find that the evolution of economic structure is not very different from evolution of human from ape. There are no sharp lines and by no means the society can be turn from one economic system to another suddenly.
It's not very difficult to understand, we have seen the transitions in history and it will be only better if we can understand that transitions are necessary and not the sudden change.
Capitalism has replaced Feudalism and mixed economy is successfully replacing the capitalism; can't we see that. Recession is a good time to see the shortcomings of capitalism.
But that is not the whole point, not even a pinch of what always worries me. Our political parties, terrorist groups like Naxals, communist parties in the left, socialist parties or any other organization; do they have any ideology or any kind of vision.
Communist say they want equality and they want all the people have all the powers, socialist say they want equality and every property should be public or in the hands of government, all the government policies or plans or whatever packages they give are exclusively for the poor of the country or for the middle class. All the organizations or capitalists are paying us well and are upto the standards set by our government.
Sounds wonderful and it seems that everything is going in right direction and ultimately we, common people, are getting all the benefits. Even though we cannot see them very clearly but we just think that this all is really happening in some part of the country we are not living in or for the class of people we don't belong to. But the whole soFa King reality is very different and conciously or unconciously we all know about it but we have turned ourselves so helpless and mindless that we don't even want to take our responsibilities. Still to keep our conscience clear we have our virtual and delicious reality "Everything is allright".
Democracy is powerful only if its people know how to use their powers otherwise it becomes monarchy or even worse sometimes. Do we know our powers, our rights but first do we know what is the political structure of our country and what does that mean. Our we living in a democracy or republic?? may sound stupid to many but the very less people even know the difference between democracy and republic and those who know the difference know that we are living in a republican democracy and we should be happy to know that republican democracy is the best known political structure any nation has ever achieved till date.
But to give democracy its real powers, we the part of the democracy should rise to take our powers. I cannot believe that the thousands of naxals fighting for the better of our society, I mean all thousands of them, do even know that what they are fighting for. If they are intelligent enough to understand then they don't even need to fight. I cannot trust those big bellies sitting in the centre with their chappals in hand don't want to exploit the sleeping and ignorrant nation, I would also love to do that given I am in their position.
There cannot be any transition possible, no improvement in the existing system is possible, no benefit can reach the common man till he himself wants to take it. We should get up to take our responsibilities, we need to come out of our virtual reality and we should understand that we are the humans and they don't have any right to exploit us. They cannot grow their bellies on our money, they cannot grow by just under-paying us, they cannot take our right to education, they cannot play as monarchies.
They are just the cunning and smart ones amongst us and we are equally powerful to respond them. The time is not to blame them but to take the blame of our share and to get up.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
India's economy will be 3rd by 2025
I read the article in one of the most popular daily of the country and the sources were seemingly reliable.
I googled a little about it and I got thousands of sites stating that India's economy will surpass Japan to become 3rd in the world by 2025 and US will be sandwiched between China and India.
I was stunned for a moment. I just tried to feel the growth of my own country. I just wanted to go out of my place to see if really something happened last night, may be some miracle.My conscious simply refused to believe whatever statistics and trends that were being shown by the great economists and the big promises that were written by editors. But even then I was feeling happy thinking that may be there is an India somewhere that is growing.
I didn't know how we, the people of India (the biggest democracy), are growing at this pace without even realizing any changes. I wondered how our country is rising without its people rising. Do we really have that money, are we really that rich, is this the meaning of "INDIA SHINING".
Every time I wanted to convince myself that we are about to become rich in just 16 years from now, my stomach felt butterflies in it. But the only thoughts came to my mind were the empty vessels of the citizens, their half filled or fully empty stomachs. I am not talking about a minor part of my country's population - they constitute 30 percent of this country. I thought about the nearly 50% of the population which is still illiterate. And among the literates too there are many who are no better than the illiterates; the only thing that they can do is count and attest their signature.
I wondered how my nation was about to become rich in the near future and from where this hype is being generated. How does our government actually plan to give food, water, sanitary facilities and education to the poor. How do they plan to construct roads, better railways and a good structural society for the middle class. How do they plan to fight terror and even the self-formed moral police. Are these plans ready, are are they in effect; if yes then why can't I see them.
Our people are getting killed daily by bureaucrats, politicians or by the rich of the country, our lives are described as the life in a rooster-coup and people not only appreciate it but they say that this is the real India. Then which is the India that is going to be rich, is it virtual?
No, my friend it is the India of the rich, it is the India of those politicians with their big bellies. Now I realized, India's "economy" will overtake Japan's "economy". That does not mean that we will be a developed country or that we will be rich. It simply means that the rich will get ever richer. Is this the glorious India our politicians talk about? But we can not blame them. In a democracy we can only stand against the system. And yes we have the right to stand.
The rich people are only rich because of the poor India, they are rich because of the cheap labor in our nation. They never want Bihar to get educated, they don't want UP to flourish; they do not want the people of this country to get the right to education. All they want is a source of cheap labor to make "INDIA SHINE". How do you think Tata steel overtook the giant "Corus", bigger than its own size. It was not only good management but also the cheap labor of our nation.
These are the views shared by most of the educated youth of this society but even then we are sleeping. We find ourselves helpless, we don't find leaders who can stand against the existing system, we lack the courage, we lack the respect for ourselves and we lack the dignity of being Indians.
But I am hopeful that society will rise and our nation will be developed in the sense it should be. The development which the people of this country can feel.
I googled a little about it and I got thousands of sites stating that India's economy will surpass Japan to become 3rd in the world by 2025 and US will be sandwiched between China and India.
I was stunned for a moment. I just tried to feel the growth of my own country. I just wanted to go out of my place to see if really something happened last night, may be some miracle.My conscious simply refused to believe whatever statistics and trends that were being shown by the great economists and the big promises that were written by editors. But even then I was feeling happy thinking that may be there is an India somewhere that is growing.
I didn't know how we, the people of India (the biggest democracy), are growing at this pace without even realizing any changes. I wondered how our country is rising without its people rising. Do we really have that money, are we really that rich, is this the meaning of "INDIA SHINING".
Every time I wanted to convince myself that we are about to become rich in just 16 years from now, my stomach felt butterflies in it. But the only thoughts came to my mind were the empty vessels of the citizens, their half filled or fully empty stomachs. I am not talking about a minor part of my country's population - they constitute 30 percent of this country. I thought about the nearly 50% of the population which is still illiterate. And among the literates too there are many who are no better than the illiterates; the only thing that they can do is count and attest their signature.
I wondered how my nation was about to become rich in the near future and from where this hype is being generated. How does our government actually plan to give food, water, sanitary facilities and education to the poor. How do they plan to construct roads, better railways and a good structural society for the middle class. How do they plan to fight terror and even the self-formed moral police. Are these plans ready, are are they in effect; if yes then why can't I see them.
Our people are getting killed daily by bureaucrats, politicians or by the rich of the country, our lives are described as the life in a rooster-coup and people not only appreciate it but they say that this is the real India. Then which is the India that is going to be rich, is it virtual?
No, my friend it is the India of the rich, it is the India of those politicians with their big bellies. Now I realized, India's "economy" will overtake Japan's "economy". That does not mean that we will be a developed country or that we will be rich. It simply means that the rich will get ever richer. Is this the glorious India our politicians talk about? But we can not blame them. In a democracy we can only stand against the system. And yes we have the right to stand.
The rich people are only rich because of the poor India, they are rich because of the cheap labor in our nation. They never want Bihar to get educated, they don't want UP to flourish; they do not want the people of this country to get the right to education. All they want is a source of cheap labor to make "INDIA SHINE". How do you think Tata steel overtook the giant "Corus", bigger than its own size. It was not only good management but also the cheap labor of our nation.
These are the views shared by most of the educated youth of this society but even then we are sleeping. We find ourselves helpless, we don't find leaders who can stand against the existing system, we lack the courage, we lack the respect for ourselves and we lack the dignity of being Indians.
But I am hopeful that society will rise and our nation will be developed in the sense it should be. The development which the people of this country can feel.
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