Less Indian More Human.

This is in response to a message I received, pointing out a major problem with India: criminals in politics:

I have long since moved beyond the concepts of "nation state" and "country" in my heart, mind and spirit.  To me, we are a species on this planet, and that's it.  Every equation we have with every other member of this species in my view, therefore, should not be tainted by our perceptions of identity based on invisible or visible lines drawn to separate us into various collectives.  Even more fundamentally, I tend to question the need for a sense of ownership, entitlement, and belonging.  And when did any of us agree to belong to any of these collectives?

I do take note however, that some of these collectives have flourished while others have failed, and I recognize that this collective called "India" is an idea just like the others. Some of us may have an exaggerated sense of belonging with this idea, and some of us may not.  I, personally, look upon it as an accident that I am "Indian", and hence, for reasons I have no interest in fighting against, I accept that fact.  It should suffice that I am a human with a name to boot, and apparently fingerprints and DNA that can identify me incredibly well, but for some reason, I am loaded with all these other definitions.  Whatever.

We have been conditioned to imagine that it is somehow important that we care for this country, or any country.  I simply ask "why"?  I mean, what in the essence of a human being makes us care for one country more than say, another one?  Why this divide amongst us?  Why this unquestioning signing up to belong to just ONE country?  Why do we need borders and divisions that no other species seems to need, and then argue for "open" borders that augment more co-operation between countries?  That sounds crazy to me.

In fact, by agreeing mutely to this bizarre alienation, and the ensuing sense of competition, we have all but forgotten everything about confluence and coexistence, and now, we have a direct interest in other countries being less well off than ours!  How much in tune can this possibly be with the journey of the human soul and our most natural existence as humans within humanity?  We are out of tune, and the enemy is patriotism which really is another word for separatism.  To hell with all the other 194 countries, I will wave ONLY my flag!

The result is that on many occasions, we have under the influence of an imagined need to belong to some country, and even worse, under the heady umbrella of patriotism, sworn to be proud of even what should be questioned, condemned, punished and put to shame for millions of reasons.  The problem with these fractionalized collectives is that our standards of performance, excellence and indeed development are limited by the best that we can do "within" this collective.  However, our perceptions need not be.

I don't think it is natural for us to care about an artificial concept.  "Country" is most definitely an artificial concept, brought upon by fear, the need to control, and the need to intimidate and deceive.  The time for all this may soon pass.  There are things we care about instinctively as human beings, and we genuinely care about the welfare of our species, so that we may survive within it and help proliferate it.  We can be in love with anyone, and would rush to help another human in distress regardless of what nationality that person is.  That is the essential nature of being a human.  This essential nature deserves a canvas much much bigger in scope than what a nation possibly can provide.

So, what does this "nation" provide?  If something threatens our survival, we will naturally defend ourselves.  But for the nation, we have the armed forces.  But within this artificially imposed border called India, we have no natural, instinctive, honest response to the decay of this collective from any other perspective.  We do not have to feel ashamed of this.  In the true sense, we are all the more human for not caring up until the point where our survival may be threatened.

This is where I see the biggest dichotomy.  Some human beings, namely, our ancestors, "chose" to define what is now called "India".  But many of us that are Indians today did not choose to be Indians.  So, why would we automatically want to belong to this club and work for its well being?  From a culture that has been around for thousands of years, somewhere, perhaps in our infinite wisdom, we choose not to take this artificial collective so seriously!  We have God to protect us from all the ills of the "world", which in many cases are the ills of just this very country!  But why is it suddenly God's job, when we proudly proclaim on the Vidhana Soudha, that "Government Work is God's Work!"?  So, it must be God doing a really bad job!

Jokes apart, our crisis within this collective is right now, is not one of having too few people to do good - we have millions of them, but one of having next to nobody to question and strongly fight all that is wrong.  Because when it comes to fighting wrong, our survival might be in jeopardy.  Evil has a way of hitting back in unpleasant ways when threatened!  We believe nonsense like "Satyameva Jayate" even when truth doesn't win!  But believing in it completely absolves us of the responsibility of having to fight against evil.

We are bombarded with lies, day in and day out.  But we accept some of these lies, purely because it takes too much effort to yell back, "Hey, that's a bunch of sh**!".  Evolution is essentially a search for truth, and all the truth that I have so far found is that we, as Indians, are all running from it all the time, sometimes just to stay sane!  The greatness of any society as I see it, is the ability of its members to live closest to the truths that guide them.  To this end, I dare say, we in India collectively live the most unspiritual, cowardly, selfish lives, and we have every justification for doing so, no doubt.  How else could we ruin so much in a mere 63 years?

We have also been fed this nonsense that we are a great country, but if only we stopped to understand that a great country doesn't automatically translate to a great nation, we would not have all these murderers and rapists and crooks and other shenanigans in Parliament!  Above them all still stands a meticulously maintained engraving screaming "Satyameva Jayate" isn't there?  What could be a bigger insult to our collective?  And for those of us who care - what are we going to do about it?  Can we atleast now, in all honesty, agree to change that to "Jhootameva Jayate" or whatever stands for "Untruth alone triumphs"?

I don't fall for any of the jingoistic feel good nonsense that people spew out on a daily basis either.  Like - "We stand in solidarity with the victims of this terrorist attack!".  What exactly does that mean?  The next time, we will jump in the line of fire and take the bullets?  Why're we so afraid to really say what goes on in our minds, like "Thank God that wasn't me!"?  This "feel good" nonsense is actually up to "no good".  This is not grace under pressure, it is lying under pressure to say something good, even if it is not true.  Our patriotism and the need to belong to this imagined collective force us to ugly places like this.

By subscribing to this incomplete and flawed idea of Country, we may also have voluntarily surrendered to this escapist notion that we in India live in a "beautiful chaos" that miraculously survives as a country, ably aided by the power of God.  This is the romantic notion that is pushed upon us, and many of us, including the dubious "Bollywood" film industry help promote it.  We're actually proud of this.

And then, despite having a government working under the Indian flag, consisting mostly of crooks with nothing but looting and pillaging on their minds, look at the number of flag waving ads. shamelessly promoting something as stupid as motorcycle sales!  Dhak Dhak Go!  India Go!  Go where?  To #143 on the Human Development Index?  That's where we are, and there aren't 10,000 countries on that list either.

I do not have hope in this idea called India.  I have some optimism for some elements of what constitutes India, but that is miniscule.  The search for reasons, and the blame game only serves to exacerbate the pain of existing on this land mass defined by the boundaries we have in our mind for this "nation" and "notion" called India.

Each time we invest ourselves in this idea called India or just about any other "nation", we limit ourselves and we limit the power of our potential.

However, I think some of us can apply ourselves to the uplifting of humanity as a whole, and hopefully, no nation will be left out.

I personally simply don't have to be less human to be more Indian.

BSK

The Good Vs. the Fit

Why is it that there is no movie with a smarter villain, capable of outdoing the hero at every turn? What if the story of the hero ends in despair, while the villain lives to conquer more? Isn't that closer to the truth of what transpires, particularly in India? Isn't it true that most crimes go unpunished, including corruption and rape?

So, why do we keep faith in the "forces" of "good" that might one day, possibly turn things around for us? The simple answer is that we do that instead of accepting that we don't have the strength in ourselves to fight all that is wrong. Our weakness finds solace in the feeling that we are on the "good" side. This way, we don't have to feel ashamed of who we are, even while we should. We have every reason to be appalled and enraged by the decay of moral standards, but we are perfectly all right expecting God to do the work we should be doing.

The morality cloud, with its labyrinth of philosphical perspectives, hides many layers of grey, and provides a nebulous sanctuary to avoid having to face the clearest of questions - are we willing to fight against evil even if it means having to kill? If answering to the dark side in us is the only way to sustain a victory of good over evil, are we ready to go there? Are we really on the good side, when we don't take pains to fight the smallest of crimes?

Good guys can win, but only when they are fit to win. Being good has absolutely nothing to do with winning, except that it might serve to give the individual an assumed sense of righteousness, strength and positive energy. Being perceived as "good" can in India, save you from the perhaps more honest perception of being "unfit". It is just the way we have twisted ourselves to believe that good and fit for us to trust are the same thing.

On a treacherous road to a religious destination, it is more important for a driver to have skill rather than belief in God, but our pilgrims winding through those roads will be happier if the car gets a timely pooja over a timely oil change. This is just who we are - fiendishly superstitious, and outrageously stuck to the idea of the good and the godly over the fit and the practical!

Is God truly on the side of all that is good? Oooh, big question! Honestly, I don't think God cares one way or the other, and a lot of weak rascals who are scared to talk about the need to be strong simply claimed God on their side in the name of being "good". So, how does all powerful God put up with villainy, deceit, untruth, and millions of other vices? Maybe God is on the other side, enjoying the joke? Personally, I'd leave God out of this equation, and do what we need to do.

It is hard to be good, no doubt. It is hard to be kind hearted, righteous, soft spoken, honest and caring. But it would be a lot harder if everyone was angry, cruel, loud, demanding, dishonest and uncaring towards us! So, we come up with this construct called civil society that all but ignores the natural "survival of the fittest" instincts we are born with. We have put in place every system where the sharpest of us can be kept down through the dullest in the collective, through a devious mechanism of rules and regulations. The dullest have subscribed to the idea of goodness and Godliness, so there is no way we will give leadership to the sharpest because they don't care much to look like God! See, we don't want leadership that challenges us. We want leaders that we can trash fairly quickly, which means they can't be that much ahead of us.

Thankfully, we do have the beginnings of a meritocracy when it comes to education and employment, however much of a farce both of these turn out to be for the average Indian. But when it comes to our cricket players, nothing but the best will do. If everyone in the country performs as well as our cricket team, we'd be a phenomenally advanced country. We ignore this fact, and give birth to icons, who must be "good" guys beyond all else. Abhinav Bhindra can never be as much of a "good" guy as Sachin Tendulkar, because SRT is an iconic influence who keeps it simple for the masses, but the gold medalist Bhindra is a more complex kettle of fish, capable of a sophisticated thought process, and some of his most insightful comments have been brought under the anti-national microscope! There aren't that many Indians who truly see Bhindra as being bigger than Tendulkar, even though his achievement clearly suggests unquestionable mastery. Bhindra will never be the icon the "little master" is, simply because he doesn't care so much about the patriotic tag while Tendulkar lives by it, much like Kapil Dev.

No matter what brings out our best and worst reactions, our politicians see through it all! That is how they maintain themselves above all law - after all, what kind of weakling would challenge a politician and his muscle power? If we really cared that much, we'd become a mob, raid the homes of our corrupt politicians, beat the crap out of them, and lynch a few. The security cordons that our leaders maintain have very little to do with any real danger from terrorists, but everything to do with the people they should and are scared of - us!

If we could shed our notions of being good, and simply took it upon us to become unabashedly strong in our support of what is right, we would be able to weed out the useless chaff fairly quickly, and make this country unpretentious and strong, clear in its ideologies as in its direction. That's an India all our Gods would be proud of.

Old is hardly gold.

Every time I hear of the Babri Masjid demolition, I cringe. It remains one of the most retarded deeds in post Independence India and it brings out the worst in me. It is something I am ashamed of and I hate being human at times like those. This has nothing to do with my opinions of religion or freedom of expression or rights of minorities or constitutional guarantees or the expectations I have of my country or anything of that sort. It is the misplaced notion of something from the past deserving so much respect that upsets me.

It is the respect people showed for the 'belief' that the mosque was once a temple long ago in a glorious past, and that it somehow needed resurrection that always gets my goat! I always cringe at historic references to today's realities. If people let go of their ancient notions and thought progressively, we would be able to solve all of today's problems and embrace tomorrow without fear or anxiety. Wrongs need to be corrected, no doubt, but not when the corrections serve no practical purpose. Religion and dogma do not serve any practical purpose, especially in tandem.

But the real culprit is our blind reverence for all things historical. If we were so glorious in our past, why don't we demolish our cities and go infest caves again? Look at what history we have left behind - It wasn't that long ago that slavery was legal, a lot of people were lynched for their knowledge, including those that had perfectly valid theories about gravity and other laws of physics, and people with fevers that made them behave strangely were killed for being in the clutch of "witchcraft". If we had developed our transportation systems based on the theory that the earth was flat, we'd be nowhere today. If we'd believed that leaving the shores our country was somehow inauspicious, we'd hardly be the people we are today. Old is gold? No thanks, I'm happy in my polluted, buzzing, irritating, restless modern world.

I am definitely happy and blessed to be able to carry a piece of plastic with me and be able to travel anywhere in the world, eat what I want, do what I want, connect with everyone I know from wherever I am, not have to worry about my personal safety and not have to carry a weapon with me all the time. More than anything else, I am very thrilled to be in a jetliner, cruising at well over thirty thousand feet, drinking juice and relaxing on my ten hour flight that took Columbus months to cover. I love the speed of modern life, and the blessings that come with it. I love the fact that automated systems are in place to ensure very little error, and allow very little scope for human intervention and inefficiency.

Not long ago, I happened to be in Jomsom, Nepal, and I had plenty of admiration for the natural beauty of the place and the extreme weather conditions there, the howling wind, the ultra clean but hostile landscape, clear blue skies and the sheer expanse of land, mountain and sky around. Yet it was not nice to be locked in for three days because no plane would land or take off, the water would freeze in the pipes, and the heating in one of the most modern lodges there was absolutely inadequate. It was to say the least, ridiculous. This kind of misery has my full condemnation.

The escape was finally provided by a jeep willing to brave the hammering on a rocky path designed to break backbones, and a day long journey through spectacular landscapes consisting of walking, riding on the back of motorcycles, and finally, an old car that brought me and my companions to civilization. I am all for warm climates, low altitude, motorized transport, reliable water supply, and above all, hygiene, even if it comes at a price.

Extremes apart, there is no justification in my humble opinion, to keep anybody poor and impoverished, ill informed and in perennial physical hardship, to be part of a landscape that richer tourists from relatively well off places can come and 'explore'. Nothing could be more condescending than keeping one part of the world backward for the others to enjoy in their own selfish way. I am all for development that brings basic safety, health and hygiene, education, communication and transportation to each and every person on this planet, so that we may indeed live in a connected world. When I see people struggling for survival in a place that is infested by tourists from all over the world, it makes me angry, for we have reduced those people to caged animals in a zoo that serve no purpose but our vicarious pleasure in going to places that are still "caught in a time warp".

I always get the patronizing argument - "But people are happy there!". Another blatant lie. What we see in people in places with a lot of physical hardship is resignation. They are happy to have guests like us, and they are happy to be nice to us, but their life of hardship is hardly one they would celebrate. Taking the example of Nepal alone, there are more Nepalese people in India than in the whole of their own country, and you can safely assume none of them came to India as tourists and fell in love with the allure of ancient India!

Offered a chance to make one's life better, most human beings, no matter where we live, would choose to take the opportunity. It is the way we are made. It is the reason we develop, it is the reason we span the cosmos in our thinking today - because we want all the time to be better off. To assume that another human being is absolutely content in his backwardness reeks of a lack of understanding of human nature. I am all for innocence, but not when it is due to ignorance. Look at villages in India today that are full of televisions and cellphones. Is anybody complaining that they have too much communication? Hardly! So, let's give them more development, and see what magic works its way to every person in the world.

Every development brings progress. There may be mistakes along the way, but that is just the price to pay for a pioneering nature that is inherent to human beings. That price is hardly the reason to retard ideas of progress. Take this blog for example. Without the internet, my thoughts wouldn't reach you so quickly, so elegantly and definitely not so cheaply. Can you imagine me mailing clay tablets to millions of people? I don't want to be the guy who has to walk twenty miles for water every day. That is not a beautiful life, unless you are one of those heartless people who watch humans on Discovery with the same mentality as watching other species.

I am especially appalled at the way white people travel to remote places, mix with natives who don't have any of the modern tools they are accustomed to, and paint romantic notions and wax eloquent about the peace and the beauty and the wonderful things that life offers in a place like Sub Saharan Africa. Quite honestly, it disgusts me that they would come up with descriptions like this for if it were half true, guess how many people would want to live there. The fact is, it is damn hard to make a living out of those hostile environments, and the room to negotiate is severely limited by the conditions. There is no way you can find yourself a bargain even for the simplest tasks. I definitely do not want to fight with animals for my right to survive and I definitely don't intend to piss off any wild animal with a bite force of over four hundred pounds per square inch.

To me, coming from a fairly developed world, while visiting backward places on the face of this earth, although coccooned by 'unspoilt' environs, it is just plain hypocrisy to see people suffering physically when technology should have provided basic creature comforts a long time ago. Go for a trek in one of Nepal's famous trekking routes and your breath will be taken away by the natural beauty of the Himalayan land. At the same time, there is really no beauty in the backbreaking work performed by individuals carrying barrels of water to a lodge just so that its customers can wash. That is what makes Nepal a backward country. I didn't see any Sherpas delirious to be working like donkeys, and though they had a sense of humour, I didn't see them delighted to be there. It is impossible to have physical and mental energy for a good time when you are not having a good time, it is as simple as that.

I expressed the notion that they ought to do something about so many tourists coming there and spending money and how they could perhaps think of a way to build a pumping system of some sort so they could have running water. The full extent of the explanation I got was that pipes would freeze. Now that is what I call a numbskull answer - to be defeated by the question even before considering the possibility. That mentality is also a symptom of backwardness. We need to get people out of this mentality on top priority, or it will retard the progress of all of mankind. When you pay over $100 a night, you should bloody well be able to get running water anywhere in the world, especially when there are thousands of fools willing to show up and shell out this kind of money. It is just the "cannot do" attitude that gets me mad. By the way, there is enough running water even in the most miserably cold places in all the developed countries, so it is not as if there are any genuine challenges beyond the lack of will.

We have cut down millions of trees, denuded millions of acres of rainforests, and raped the earth for minerals. I would rather do all this and expect to live 75 years rather than have to live in the midst of and fight nature on a daily basis and expect to croak at 32! I'm all for saving the environment, but I'm not about to forget the gifts that being modern and science have brought us. Many diseases we had no clue about, we completely avoid these days. We fix our broken bodies, heal tortured minds with therapy, kill pain with medicines, and can pass on knowledge to others in a matter of seconds.

Indeed, we run the world with concepts of money and the promise of wealth based on ideas, and we have amassed weapons of unbelievable destructive power at the cost of ignoring millions of us who have rather pressing needs, and we as a race have destroyed a great deal of our own planet, but we know of this destruction only because of our modern science. We have learnt about the environment and ecology and delicate balances of natural equations only because we have studied the cosmos with the aid of many modern tools. It is not for nothing that we are the most advanced species on this planet, and look forward to connecting with intelligent life forms from extra terrestrial origins.

Very romantic indeed the notion that old is gold! Old is rubbish, the new is always to be welcomed. It is the way of the world, and has been the way of the universe for ever. The human race has pioneered a great deal of change, and the only way forward is to accelerate progress, not retard it. Yes, but at what cost? - ask the detractors, and many misled environmentalists. At any cost, would be my consistent reply, for without trusting our ability to develop with responsibility, we wouldn't be able to trust one another at all. The empires of old were built on this inherent mistrust of "other" human beings. The wasted investments in offensive capability were all built on mistrust. There is no place for this mistrust in ourselves. Today's internet generation has less room for animosity because they are able to connect with one another much more easily, and get to know the world and their place in it - much more than any classroom can ever teach.

Why is it that backward thinkers are always worried about countries losing their cultures, and people losing their moral compasses? I am all for today's culture that doesn't allow public executions, looks down upon open drains, and lays down laws to make people physically safer from other humans. Sure, child pornography would not be a multibillion dollar industry without the internet, but that is not the fault of the internet. The perverted mind is the problem when it chooses to use the internet for pornography instead of something better! The emperors of old had harems of women and a multitude of children to be forever tarnished as the king's descendants, but without any royal rights. Talk about ancient glory if you were one of those! We burnt widows along with their dead husbands in those days. I'm not sure how many of those women would have politely refused a chance at a longer life in order to maintain their tradition.

The human race will expand its presence to other planets. It is inevitable and it is the best ambition to have. We have no business thinking we should be confined to the limitations of our own beloved Mother Earth. Not just for giving our race a chance of surviving beyond the spectre of being hit by a meteor that could wipe out life on earth as we know it, but for the chance of finding out what might lie elsewhere. Genetic engineering and stem cell technology will give us a new wave of knowledge to put away some really challenging diseases and medical problems, some of them permanently. But we have even today, some people as significant as the leaders of advanced countries, standing in the way with typically idiotic and dogmatic resistance to these developments. We have not been gifted the intelligence and the resources to finally allow dogma to hold ourselves back from being all we can be as entrepreneurs and pioneers.

There is nothing in the human make up to suggest we should be satisfied with what we have. There is no place for misplaced guilt and other assumed emotional reservations in our quest for newer horizons. We deserve it, and the universe that gave us our capabilities deserves it. The way forward is to shed all exaggerated reverence for all things that don't serve us properly. Ancient knowledge doesn't become wisdom just because it is ancient. It needs to undergo as much if not greater scrutiny by our modern minds.