"India - a land of myths and dreams"

How ironical it can get that world’s 2^nd most populous and oldest civilization is a rare combination of myths and dreams. India, being famously known as the land of snake charmers for centuries, has never been able to completely annul its that image despite tremendous growth and development that we have witnessed in the last 3 decades. What adds further to the locus of this is how majority of the people in India still believe in themes of centuries old myths, fallacies, absurdity, black magic, witchcraft, etc. It’s worrying to see how eager people seem in this country to impress their deities for a little showering of divine grace and blessings. In one of the many such shocking cases, a khap panchayat in India issued an order of not allowing girls to get birth in their village as they thought that letting girls born would draw the wrath of rain god and they might have to face drought because of it. These cases make me question the very basic existence of our human intellect, if there is any. Were we born to be that much unreasonable and illogical that we would become the slaughters of the worst kind for nothing but piece of worthless myths. 

More than 65% of our population is below 35 years of age and despite that the number of people indulging in such kind of senseless, illogical stunts is no less than cyclopean. What’s more alarming and staggering is that most of the people indulging in such kind of gimmicks and irrationality are educated literates. This definitely raises questions on the quality of the education that is being imparted in this country or have these myths become so much ingrained and imbibed in us through generations that we have started treating them as a part of our social and religious values. Something somewhere has surely gone wrong. 

Despite having an educational system in place for most part of the last century, I see two completely diverse, opposite India. Both are educated but they seem poles apart. The first part of the India that I see is the one with aspirations and desires. They are surely moving ahead adopting art of deduction, inferences, and rationality as a means of living their lives. They seem to be adapting well with the changing times, and hence slowly but steadily they are drifting away from the fallacies that have strangled them for long, thereby helping society to become an organized tranquil place to live. And, the other India that I see despite being educated looks stuck behind in the fissure of gloominess, completely deprived of sense, struggling to keep terms with changing demands and times, thus trying to make its presence felt by indulging in activities which are nothing short of anarchistic in nature. The first India has dreams, and other one has myths. It’s the rare addendum of these two which makes for an intriguing sense of distress in me. On one hand, we have great scientists, philosophers, intellectuals and on the other side, we have those who follow the themes of irrationality just to show their kookiness and ludicrousness. 

This is evident that what we need now is not just education but a system, a society, a way of thinking where rationality is given more importance than those meaningless myths, where people are given freedom to make their choices and not just choked and suffocated in the adamancy of following those farce fallacies. Maybe the time has come for us all to show solidarity in creating such a system. We have lived long in those disillusioned world of ignorance where we have let irrationality overshadow rationality, impracticality overpower practicality. Time for change is here and it’s up to us to grab it. 

Blaming Hindu Nationalism for the rise of Mr. Modi in India is despicable

Over the last 2 months, most of the west dailies have targeted Hindu Nationalism for the sudden ascent of Mr. Modi in India. They have outrageously portrayed all Hindus as rabble militants, murderers, slayers who go about killing people of different religion on a daily basis. I know there are certain parts of our history which are reprehensible and sinful. There can be no possible justification for what happened in 1984 in Delhi or 2002 in Gujarat. I was not even born when 1984 happened and was only 10 when 2002 transpired but still when I look back at our country’s history today, I stand apologetic and guilty for what eventuated or played out in those yesteryears in our so called world’s largest democracy. This all marks in me a yearning desire of rewriting the history if I could ever. 

But, keeping that emotion aside, blaming and targeting Hindus and their nationalism for the rise of the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Mr. Modi, is atrocious and egregious. If majority of the Hindus are backing Mr. Modi, it’s not because he is a Hindu nationalist or personifier of Hindu nationalism. It’s because of the lack of better alternatives at the centre for the corrupt, rotten, debauched incumbent congress government. 

Congress has transcended all barriers when it comes to mis-governance. Indian economy under congress govt. has been in complete doldrums with growth numbers plummeting to the rock bottom without any hope of when and how would it revive. Unemployment and inflation numbers have been at all time high during congress regime along with the ever increasing fiscal and current account deficit. The condition has been so poor at the economic front that many rating agencies around the world have turned India’s outlook negative. The shinning growth story has been turned into a farce and mockery. Another five years to them, and we would find our-self next to Africa.

In these gloomy times, Mr. Modi has come out and presented himself as a harbinger of hope and revival. Setting aside the 2002 riots, he has done fairly well in almost all departments, atleast better than congress. No riots have taken place in Gujarat since 2002 which should be considered as a success of Mr. Modi’s tenure as Gujarat had quite a history of riots. Moreover, the lack of national level political alternatives in the country has tilted the battle in favour of Mr. Modi. So, blaming Hindus for Mr. Modi’s sudden upsurge is absolutely wrong. If Hindu nationalism had been so much active in the country, no Muslim, Sikh, Christian would have ever become the President, Prime Minister in the country. But, that’s not the case. We have learned to set aside our religion divergence to live like equals, i.e Indians. In the last 66 years, we Indians have tried hard to outstrip the barriers created by religion, caste. Let’s not fall back into it. Blaming Hindus is not a solution. Let the voters in this country decide the Next PM. 

From a british colony to world’s largest democracy : the journey is still unfinished

When India became independent in 1947 from the realms of the traumatizing British rule, it became officially one of the most diverse nations on the planet considering the number of people that came together at that time belonging from different religions, castes and regions to form an incredible nation called “India”. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians came together to form what turned out to be the world’s largest democracy. That amalgamation of people from different religions gave India a “tag on the paper” of being the most democratic and culturally diverse country where people are not differentiated on the basis of religion. Today, India is seen as the world’s largest democracy where people from different communities live together amicably.


However, the reality on the ground is completely opposite. India, in the last 6 decades since its independence, has seen countless number of communal riots. India’s glorious history has been marred by bloodshed with innocent people being butchered, women brutally raped, and children lacerated to soothe the communal ego of a few morons. Hundreds and thousands of people have died in these communal riots for no reason. Regionality has also created communal differences among people and recent telengana issue bears absolute testimony to it. People have suffered and emotionally burnt themselves in these communal violences whereas our appalling political system has enjoyed this in their unjustified lust for power. Politicians have long used these communal differences to cumulate their vote-bank. Instead of diverting their attention on the development of the nation as a whole, they were busy in playing secular vs communal card to widen their vote base and earn some cheap political mileage. This has happened over and over again during each and every election over the last 60 years and it still continues to happen. This all has led to a vicious type of governance, which is largely motivated with creating divide in the society on the basis of religion, instead of concentrating on providing a pro-development governance. All of this has further worsened the situation for India on the democratic front and adversely effected the economic development of the country as the focus of our politicians have been more on instigating the feelings of the people rather than helping India and its people to prosper in economic terms.


 Why is it that even after 66 years of our independence, we haven’t been able to inculcate a feeling of oneness and togetherness in 1.25 billion people that live in a country known as “India”. Why is that we still fight over religion issues and are always ready to cut throats of people over minor theological differences. Why the great democracy of India which we so much clamour about has failed in achieving its objective of bringing people together. The questions are many but answers are none. But, one thing is for sure, till the time political parties in India continue to use this communal card, we won’t be able to come out of this mess. Let’s hope that things change in the upcoming general elections.

India's demographic advantage

In the last 6 to 8 years of India’s growth story since 2004, we have heard many economists and market analyzers around the world saying “India enjoys a demographic advantage which has not only boosted India’s growth but helped India achieve high levels of growth despite weak and ineffective governance”.

Indecisiveness and lack of urgency to take decisions at the right time has been one of the trademarks of Indian governance. This not only has discouraged investments in different sectors in the country but also has sent a negative impression about India as an investment destination. And we all know how much role impression plays in today’s world. Hurdles are many to make India the least developing nation in the world. Huge levels of corruption in governance and local administration, and sky rocketing inflation. Each of these factors is sufficiently capable enough to push India’s growth rate way below around 3 to 4%. Despite all these factors taking their toll on the growth, India has managed an impressive growth rate of 6 to 8% in the past decade. A part of this credit goes to demographic advantage that India is having sitting silently on the back seat. So what actually demographic advantage is? How it really works? Has it helped India in achieving desired levels of growth?

Demographic advantage is the advantage that any country enjoys on the basis of the size of its population and the average age of its citizens. India being the second most populous country in the world with its average age of citizens being 21. India's demographic profile is now in flux and it is changing in a way that is quite favorable to economic growth. The iron law of demography tells us that baby boomers reach working age within a period of 15 to 25 years; and when that happens, the productive capacity of the economy expands on a per capita basis and a demographic dividend is in prospect. All we need now is the right set of policies that can generate enough job opportunities for the upcoming work force. This will magnify the demographic dividends and therefore will push the growth on right track. This is our time and I hope India writes its own history and creates its own space in this fast changing world. Hope this happens.