You deserve what you get, you get what you deserve - that's Democracy

The west has given the world many ideologies – Capitalism, socialism, liberalism, fascism to name a few. Some of them proved to be malevolent for mankind but a few proved otherwise. The most profound idea that it ever gave was the idea of democracy - the idea that people could rule themselves through an elected representative. The fact that the democracy originated more than 2500 years ago, just indicates the level of sophistication the Greek thought and civilization had achieved. This is not to say democracy is the best level of governance, it is in fact not. But nevertheless, it is arguably the best form of governance among all available, conceivable options.

 

Cutting through all the lengthy explanations, what is the core of democracy? Abraham Lincoln simplified it for us “It’s a form of government – by the people, for the people and of the people”. To simplify further, it’s apt to say that it empowers people. In other forms of government, power rests with a very few people or a clique but in democracy it’s with everyone. Now, we know with power comes responsibility. We’ll come to that part a bit later. 

 

Now consider the situation in India. There is hardly anyone who doesn’t complaint about the politicians of India. Begin a political discussion anywhere; all you get to hear is unending lamenting on the contemporary political scenario and the mess the politicians have made out of India, which was once a great land. Some go to an extent of calling it a kakistocracy. But, is it really so? Let us see. I am not going to quote Cleisthenes or Karl Popper or someone of that sort to make a point. But instead, watch this video. 

 

 

This is the video from one of the world’s greatest stand-up comedians of all time: George Carlin. Now, if you did not watch the video, let me give you the transcript:

Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.  

Just substitute ‘India’ in the place of ‘America’, it perfectly fits in. I’ll add a few more adjectives to what Carlin has said: If you have docile, passive, corrupt, insensitive population all you get is exactly similar kind of politicians. So, I find it unfair to blame only politicians for all the mess that India is. People share equal blame, if not more.

 

The primary problem seems that the idea of democracy hasn’t seeped completely into the minds of the people and there were no momentous efforts from the concerned leadership after getting freedom. So, many people are still the same old feudalistic mindset and democracy has become a make-believe idea. Democracy won’t work like that. It works only through people’s active, responsible participation which severely lacks in India. Coming to responsibility, as I mentioned early with power comes responsibility. If there are inept leaders, perhaps the responsibility is not handled properly by the populace.

 

If you have corrupt, inept leaders, perhaps the large chunk of population comprises that kind of people. To give an analogy: all these politicians are like samples taken from the large data pool of entire population. They do represent the population at large. In democracy, we get what we deserve. Nothing is undeserved. So, all the politicians you loathe, hold them in contempt are perhaps deserved after all.

Chit of a girl and Peter's Principle

Howard was doing great as a manager of a team of young professionals. Looking at his performance, the management decided to promote him to the post of VP. Initially things looked great. After a while, things started crumbling down. He could not function as per the expectations of the higher management; he could not handle the responsibilities. In short, he was incompetent for the new position. The phenomenon which describes this is called as peter’s principle. This is usually paraphrased as "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence". This was formulated in the book “The peter principle” authored by Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull.

We have our own version of Howard, don’t we? Watch CNN-IBN every night from Monday to Thursday at 22:00. There comes the feminine version of Howard called Sagarika Ghose. The program is titled “Face the nation” after popular American news program by the same name (The name can be shortened as FTN, you can substitute the F with your favorite F-word. The program qualifies for that, I assure you.)

This lady Sagarika was happy with writing on semi-porn stuffs and advocating, urging men that it's their duty to provide orgasms to their women. But alas she came to serious journalism, just like our Howard got promoted as the VP. Journalism once had high standards and required thorough subject knowledge, analyzing skills. If you ever doubted whether the standards have fallen, you just have to look at the purported journos like Sagarika, all your doubts will be removed at once. It becomes amply clear that the standard that journos used to have, has taken a severe beating. It just takes some stammering in English and some amount of glamor to be called a journo these days.

As far as I remember, the first ever article I read of SG was on caste system and how Purusha Sukta supports it. If you’ve taken trouble of reading that article, you’d arrive at this -What is SG’s problem? - Caste system. What’s her solution? Re-write Purusha Sukta. Splendid, isn't it!?. By the by, who is her authority? - Some Dalit writers in general, Kancha Iliah in particular. This is the man who harbors visceral hatred all that is Hindu and is a racist par excellence. This is the man who is frequently invited as an ‘expert’ on Hinduism on her show. Inviting Kancha Iliah to speak about Hinduism as an authority is akin to inviting Hitler to talk about Judaism (In terms of intense hatred they harbor – If you have followed the man, his activities and his writings, I think you would concur with me). Coming to the article – The article is so vacuous, has logical and factual holes so huge that you can drive your car through it. So, the less said about the article, the better it is.

This is the story of just one of her articles that I happen to distinctly remember. She has many such articles and shows in her repertoire that would insult your intelligence and militate against facts and reasoning. This is what made Ram Jethmalani to call her a chit of a girl. The drubbing she got from Jethmalani is an epic and should be a warning for other journos who are ignorant of the facts at hand and thrive on sensationalism. The blunders, willful deceptions and inane utterances of her and her ilk are chronicled and well lampooned in this site (or you can follow her on twitter for your daily dose of comic relief).

SG has passed through the aforementioned stage of Peter’s principle. She has risen to the level of incompetence for a long time now. In any decently run news channels, she would have been sacked long back for her stupid utterances and blunders. But the irony is that she is the deputy editor of a ‘reputed’ channel where her hubby is the editor. Media which is supposed to be one of the watch-dogs of democracy has fallen victim to a thing which severely compromises the principles of democracy – nepotism. The irony just died a million times over.

 

About time we paid heed to the warning of Peter Hammond

Random browsing has sometimes yielded me some wonderful information. Sometimes in fact, I’ve hit the goldmine. In one of those random browsing sessions I came across this man and his book in which he's made a few very interesting and accurate phenomenon resulting from the growth of Islam in any country. In fact in one of my earlier posts, I had mentioned about the propositions he had made.

As we witnessed fresh Islamic violence in many parts of India (again!) last year, I wondered whether the same propositions could be applied to individual states. Interestingly the results matched the proposition. Though it can't be taken as an axiomatic truth, it's very close to it.

So, what happened last year? Last July there were series of riots between the Bodos (large ethnic tribe of Assam) and Muslims in Assam, Azad-Maidan riots in Mumbai (the motive was nothing to do any issues related to India) and tens of riots in Uttar Pradesh, a state ruled by ultra-secular party called Samajwadi Party.

If you followed the usual ‘secular’ media, chances are less you knew the details of them. The UP story was almost blacked out by the entire spectrum of mainstream media. The secular lambs in media choke while reporting anything where the ‘secular’ parties are involved and people from the ‘religion of peace’ are the perpetrators. If not for the social media, we would never have known many crimes and even riots that mainstream media faithfully routinely blacks out.

Mea Culpa! I missed out another ‘secular’ state. Didn’t I? No, I have missed two in fact. We’ll come to the other one a little later. Let me talk about the first one: West Bengal. This February, West Bengal (24 Paraganas) saw a slew of anti-Hindu violence for avenging the alleged murder of an imam of the local mosque. Many were injured, many houses were destroyed. As with all other riots, media turned blind eye on this incident too.

What do these states have in common? – An overwhelming majority of Muslim population. Take a look at these figures:

UP – 17.1%
Kerala – 24.7%
WB – 25.2%
Assam – 30.93%
J & K – 67%

Note:

1) These figures are from 2001 census.

2) Given the immense growth and fertility rate among the Muslims all across the world, there should be considerable increase in these figures as well. Our government was so pusillanimous that it couldn’t disclose the breakdown based on religion in the 2011 census.

3) The figure that is given for J & K is of entire state of J & K. If you consider the Muslim population of only Kashmir valley, it’s more than 98% and it’s close to being a Dar al-Islam.

Alright! Now the obvious question - Can one infer such a thing i.e correlation between communal violence, Jihadi terrorism with the increase of Muslim population by some isolated incidents of violence? May be not! But there is no denying the fact that whenever the Muslim population increases beyond a point i.e. when they become the majority, the rights of the then minority will be in jeopardy.(Also, anti-national activities will rise. Same could be said about Christian-dominated regions like Nagaland or Mizoram but it has many other factors to consider, has a different context and is beyond the scope of this post)

To cut the long story start: Infiltration of Bangladeshis has been a big problem from many decades. It has affected both the states of West Bengal and Assam. Although well-known, the secular parties outrightly denied at worst or tried to play it down at best because the illegal immigrants for them don’t appear as national threats but as potential votes. That’s the level our ‘secular’ politicians have plumbed. This is the primary reason for the Muslim-Bodo clashes that happened last year. That’s the short story of two states. Now coming to the other two states: Uttar Pradesh and Kerala. Current political scenario in both the states is completely dominated by Muslims or those whose hearts selectively bleed only for Muslims. Their hearts bleed to an extent where they get ready to jettison terrorism cases against Muslim youths, who according to them are 'mistaken' as terrorists; to an extent they give hero’s welcome to a convicted terrorist like Madani. All in all, there is a huge competition to prove who is more secular in the lot. This kind of political climate provides a fertile ground for the anti-national activities. As recent intelligence has proved, these have become safe havens and breeding ground for Jihadi forces.

If this rampant minoritysm morphing as secularism goes unchallenged and if the same political climate continues where every issue of national importance is reduced to mindless debate of secularism vs communalism, if hindus continue to be in deep slumber then, consider a strong foundation is being laid towards making India an Islamic Republic.