Sunday, August 26, 2007

This way that way

A number of incidences have happened after I started this blog. Some interesting, others more disturbing. While there has been a healthy debate in and outside the Indian parliament on the 1-2-3 nuclear agreement with US, there has been concerns raised about early exit the government, And funnily there were reports that indicated that the government wanted to discuss the issue of Sarchar committee report before it discusses N-Deal, apparently to make sure of some minority votes in case of early elections!!

On the backdrop of this interesting debate came the heartening news of twin bomb blasts in the city of Hyderabad in what was quite a fine weekend. Just makes me wonder how vulnerable are we to negative forces around us. Are our foundations not so strong enough to bring positive influence to these negative minds?

Or we rely too much on our past and do not think that we need to improve? We think that all is "good enough" with us. As they say in the OS market, Windows XP is "good enough", why we need Vista? Out of topic exemplar, but I think it brings out the point more clearly here.

Another issue that has been around for some time has been the issue of cast based reservation in India. Even after 60 years of independence, and declaring our country as a sovereign, democratic republic, if we have failed to eradicate caste based tactics (which sadly I hold nearly equivalent to Apartheid, though technically not as there is no place for slavery in a caste order), I have only one recommendation: All politicians must resign!

With all this compelling and confusing issues one begins to think as to where are well all headed? Are we loosing out identity? Loosing out identity can be good and bad. But not at the same time. It can be bad if some one is overtaking you and wipes out the very idea you exist. Wipes out the ideas, relations and the goodness you cherish for. Suppress you and you soul. Exactly in the way cast based hypocrisy or apartheid works. It spoils the humanness in Humans. It makes you closer to a devil than god.

On the other hand, loosing identity can be good too. If it brings out the oneness in each of us. Makes us all think that we all are relatives. Makes us share our fruits with others. And when others respond and change their attitude towards life and towards you. If nation states are bound to loose their boundary walls because people simply have lost their "identity", the ego.

I would love to see this "good" identify loss. Will the people around the world stand up and unite for this new world order?
Only time will tell.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

With a view towards Nations without boundaries

"Long ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes very rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the spirit of a nation long suppressed finds utterance ..."

So were the words of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru that dawned a new era in this world. The time when about one-third of human race of the world were liberated from the clutches of two centuries of "foreign" rule. Sixty years later, this very sub-continent and particularly India is a major economic power in the world largely fueled by the heavy demand for its "soft" skills. Thomas L. Friedman perfectly and boldly brings up the current scenario of the world in his much cavorted book "The World is Flat". Things have so dramatically changed in the past sixty years that today most of the part of the world is accessible to a "digitally enabled" common person via the ever expanding power and reach of communication and information technology. Of course technology and science progresses hand in hand and no one can be credited more than the other, we simply can not leave one and work with other.
Leaving aside the talks on science and technology to a later day, what eventually led me to start this blog is a inner feeling that some how some thing is missing... we are not one, even if we are humans, Homo sapiens.

My resolution through this blog is to cherish the idea of oneness among us. The oneness that is epitomized in "Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam", that the whole world is my family. To cherish the idea of sharing, helping and moving along. To cherish the idea that if I do good We to do good. To accept if I have done a fault rather than look at others and find their faults and wonder why no one takes action against them? To think about a new world that is not only flat but is free of any boundaries and borders. Can we start an new revolution that leads to this new world? A lovely world with tranquility and peace every where. A world where there is free movement of people and thought. A world without suppression and oppression. A world that is rich, rich in thoughts, rich in materials and rich in spirituality. A world that shares and cares for. One world.

With over sixty percent of Indian population being young and possibly enlightened I surely see a hope in a revolution culminating in a world of people and not nations.