Education for sales

We the people of India, have become great businessmen today. We have grown sufficiently to put up education for sales. Feel like looking at an advertisement, please click here. (Source: Times of India dated 4th June 2009).

We have come to a position to sell medical and engineering seats. Merit has died. True talents are given no place to develop.

Please be Indians...

We the people of India, owe our country a lot. We must take pride in saying that we are Indians

"No communty, caste, creed or religion is a minority in the Indian soil. Only true Indians are the minorities." In our country, when we are asked who we are or where we are from, many of us say that we are Tamils, Malayalees, Telugu or Hindu, Muslim, Christian or sometimes we recognize ourselves with their communities. But how many of us say that we are Indians!!!

We ought to have a feel that we are Indians. We ought to keep up the pride of India. But will we?Why do I ask this? Because, about six to seven decades back, we had great Indian patriots. When foreigners said that India would break up because of the vast variety of people there. Foreigners even predicted civil wars in India because of the cultural and linguistic differences in India. However Sardar Vallabhai Patel united India and we, the people of India, kept our heads high saying that we are united. We stayed united with love and harmony. We had that maturity. But now? We see people making hate speeches saying that if someone of the other religion raises a finger against a person of his religion, he will slaughter that hand. How cruel! This is better when we see people threatening about blood baths and saying that INDIA WOULD NOT REMAIN ONE COUNTRY, if their purposes are not met (Ref. The Hindu dated Apr 09, 2009. Click here to read). Where will all these non-patriotic, inhuman, selfish, atrocious, uncivilized, barbaric words and deeds lead to? A divided India??? God forbid.

We all might have learnt in our history that Britishers followed a policy of Divide and rule in our country. I think, the present day politicians are not very different. They use our religious, lingual and other sentiments and divide us. However don't blame them completely. If they mislead us, don't we have brains? If somebody agitates us, why should we be agitated. Don't we have the sixth sense to know what is right and what is wrong? Then why do we become victims of such anti-patriotic elements of the societies.

It is just because, we think only of ourselves. We lack a sense of justice for everybody. We lack maturity. We lack selflessness. We lack empathy. In short, we are plain selfish. Aren't we? We say that our rights are gone? At that time, do we think of the rights of others? We kill other's rights.

Think deeply about this problem in our country. What is happening here. Someone does some wrong or a crime against a someone. So he lodges a case. A proper punishment is not given to the accused. So the victim(group) gets enranged and acts with a motive of revenge, not wanting to forgive or forget. Even if the direct victim is inclined to forgive, the 'dividing and ruling' politicians provoke and incites hatred in them and make them to take revenge. Now the first sect driven by ego, not wanting to apologise, fights back. Finally, the fight becomes a civil war. And the world starts to debate who is right and who is wrong. Isn't this the case in India in almost every single problem we have?

So what is the solution? The solution lies in developing a feeling of common brotherhood in children. Adults are too mature to understand. It is the young community, who have to be taught morals and virtues. Greatness of truth, tolerance, forgiving sense, patriotism, loyalty, a sense of what is good and what is not, courage to fight alone, courage to apolgise etc. have to be taught to the children. They must be taught to move along with children of all cultures, religions and languages and thus make them understand the truth that all cultures, religions and languages have their own speciality like theirs. Gandhiji says, religious tolerance is not very easy without an active understanding of the principle of various religions. Children must be encouraged to know the greatness of various cultures, languages, religions and ethnic groups. Celebrating festivals together is also a great way to develop cultural tolerance.

If and only if, we are able to have this tolerance, we are worthy of saying that we are human beings. Otherwise we are brutal beasts. I finish with the words of Rabindranath Tagore,

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

--Rabindranath Tagore

Yes. Let India not be broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.

IMPROVE INDIA, IMPROVE WORLD

Religious fanaticism

We, the people of India, talk about the ill effects of terrorism. We as individual musts think of means to find a solution for this long lasting problem. We have a moral responsibility to eradicate terrorism. What can we do?

It is a known fact that terrorism is mostly religion backed. I do not say religion is bad. I only say that if religion is something that cause hatred in people's minds, if religion is something that will divide people instead of uniting them, if religion does not grow tolerance in people's minds, it is just not worth its place.

So is becoming atheists the way to remove terrorism? No. Most definitely not. As Mahatma Gandhiji said, all religious views including the atheistic view have their own goods as well as bad. The maturity of a human being lies in selecting the good from each view and ignore the rest. Gandhiji also said, "All that is Indian need not be good. All that is old need not be gold either. Evils like sati, untouchability are both old and Indian, but are they good? So any rule or principle, that does not hold with the morality of the present day, must find its position in a waste basket only".

So when, we get the awareness that our religious books are not the complete things and there are things in that which need to be censored, we will change. At this time, I would like to point the 26/11 attacks on the Taj hotel, Mumbai. The assault was done by youngsters not more than 25 yrs old. Not only in India, but anywhere round the globe, it is a shame to know that there are also people like this. But think, are these terrorists born? Terrorists grow because, they were made to grow so. When they were young, and when their minds were mouldable, hatred was instilled into their mind and they were brainwashed.

Much worse some become terrorists just for the money their family is promised. The only surviving terrorist of the 26/11 attacks, Kasab has said that if the government would give him food and money, he will do the same thing against the terrorists what he has done now against the people.(Source: Wikipedia). Think of the level of morality the mankind has. I use this platform to say, that I won't be surprised if more Kasabs are born if we do not act.

But what can we do. We may not have enough strength to change the existing terrorists. However, atleast we must be alert that no new Kasab is created. To do that let us follow the same way that they follow. Their targets are young minds. We also can, should target young minds. Let us instil moral values in young minds. Where do we go for these young minds? Let us talk to our young friends, our young relatives and teach them morals. More important, let us be clear in our mind that we should not be dominated by immoral feelings.

And what should be our attitude towards the religious fanatics? How should we treat the people making hate speeches? Give them long speeches or advice saying that their ideology is wrong? No that will not work. It is because, their mind will not be receptible for our words. So what should we do? JUST AVOID THEM. Yes, we shall avoid them for few days. If we avoid them singly, it might not affect them. But avoid them as a group, they cannot bear that for long. A human mind cannot live in isolation. They will contact you soon. If not, let us contact them. At that time, they will be ready to listen to us. Then, say the harms that religion has caused. If you need to get points, it is not difficult, if you search the web.

And, dear friends, please don't think that it is not necessary to give such advices to your friends or relatives. Do not think that there is no possibility for them to become a terrorist so the advice is not necessary. It is just necessary. Though it may not affect them directly, they may say that to someone else and it may be useful.

Here I also mention how some politicians create religious fanatics. For example, I would like to take points from the editorial of "The Hindu" dated 15th April 2009, with the title 'Poisoning the minds of children'.

"Wherever they went, they had a sword in their hand. Their army went like a storm in all the four directions. Any country that came their way was destroyed. Houses of prayers and Universities were destroyed. Mothers and sisters were humiliated. Mercy and justice were unknown to them." This is what lakhs of children going to RSS-run schools will learn about Islam at the tender age of nine. The same book also teaches, "Delhi's Qutub Minar is even today famous in his(Qutubuddin Aibak's) name. This had not been built by him. He could not have been able to build it. It was actually built by the emperor Samudragupta. Its real name was Vishnu Sthamba.... This Sultan actually got some parts of it demolished and its name was changed".

These are the words of 'Gaurav Gatha' text book for class four by Shishu Mandir Prakashan, an RSS run publishing house. Now think of the message passed on to the children. Muslims are portrayed as non-human beings and the killer of Hindus. Will a feeling of common brotherhood ever grow in the young minds then? This is less. Read the next paragraph on the internal achievements of Nazism.

"Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government within a short time by establishing a strong administrative setup. He created a vast state of Greater Germany. He adopted the policy of opposition towards the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of Germany... He instilled a spirit of adventure in the common people...".

This is Hitler according to the Gujarat tenth standard social studies textbook. These books show contents like these only because of the intervention of the politicians. All that they need is a religious vote bank and they ensure it by creating religious fanaticisms in young spirits. This is also terrorism. Let us avoid such textbook publishers. This time not over a period of time but forever. Let us raise voice against injustice.

I would like to quote a story of Shiv Khera here. A person said, when injustice was done against the people language 'A', I did not oppose as I did not speak that language. The people of that language perished. When crime was done against religion 'B', I did not act as I did not belong to that religion. Finally injustice happened against my own race. I cried for help. No one was there to listen. They have already perished.

If we do not raise voice against crime, it means we are supporting it. So let us not support terrorism and religious fanaticism. Let us raise voice against them.

IMPROVE INDIA, IMPROVE WORLD

What is wrong with our country?

भारत हमारा


We, the people of India, have the pride of saying that we are Indians. We say 'हमारा भारत महान', 'सारे जहाँ से अच्छा हिंदुस्तान हमारा' and other similar words of pride. Are we really "prideworthy"? Or is it plain vanity? Do we really mean what we say? Or are these words come just from our tongue meaning nothing?

I put forward these questions only to make sure, are we really happy because we are Indians? If we are truly happy, what have we done for the development of our fellowmen? Nothing. We, having got great leaders like Gandhiji and other patriots, have become corrupt today. More sensibly, we have become selfish.

Why do I say this? What is the basic problem in our motherland? I would like to begin with the problems caused by the terrorists. Terrorism, according to sources, is mostly backed with religion. When I say terrorists I not only refer to the men with a gun in their hand and kill innocents in the border or the ones who cause bomb blasts or their master minds. By the word terrorists, I also refer to people disguised with great feeling for mankind but have vengeance in heart. Yes, I refer to people who give hate speeches and sway people's emotions of religion, language, caste, creed or race and thus cause chaos.

As the next problem i would like to mention the problems that are being caused by the government servants. The so called 'public servants' are no longer public servants but they make the public, their servants. Bribery is seen in government offices in its massive huge form. Though there are some truly honourable people, the rest make the place unholy. Our leaders are promising new welfare schemes during every election campaign out of which only 50% are brought into effect. Leave the fifty person that has gone with the wind. Is the other 50% worthy? I would prefer to go with the nay. Statistics state that only 8 paise in every one rupee the government spends reaches the true target. The rest... eaten in the intermediate stages!!!

But inspite of these alarming statistics produced by the media, why don't anybody take the necessary action? It is because, the society is dominated by two types of people. First, people who don't know that they are being cheated and second, the people of our kind. I mean people who know that their fellow men are cheated and don't bother as that injustice doesn't affect them. Let us not be like this anymore. Let us form a third set of people who are action likers. It was rightly said that, 'The inaction of good people has caused greater damage than the action of the otherwise'. So, we, the people of India, being men of action, should put a full stop to these activities.

Our other national problems will also include stunning rates of pollution, ever increasing deforestation etc. all of which are direct consequences of man's greed. Inspite of the economic growth and highly sophisticated figures with which we boast, we have evils like female infanticide, bride burning etc. taking place in our country even today. When these are termed as the crimes of the illiterate, we also have highly learned cyber crime makers.

Our country is also a place for other social evils like illiteracy, unemployment, poverty etc which have to be eradicated. We have got into a 'viscious circle' of poverty. Our educational systems are not perfect either. This is because, we mass produce unemployable graduates. Then what is the use? Let us discuss it in our following blogs

And, when I post like this, please do not think that I am putting down India in the global scenario. This is only a blog for constructive criticism. My humble openion is that these criticisms will help in improving our nation. In short let us take the project of cleaning India and hence the world. Cleaning, not the physical dust, not very the harmful, but the dust in human minds, quite harmful is our goal.

Please don't forget to post your suggestions. Also don't forget to follow this post to read the forthcoming posts and improve India. You can also tell your friends about this blog and make them participate in this project. However, one kind request is that please don't consider this blog for just taking essays or quotes. Its purpose is served only if we act.

IMPROVE INDIA, IMPROVE WORLD