Sunday, December 29, 2013

Decoding Kejriwal and Implications of His Brand of Politics

I never thought I would spend anytime trying to describe the personality of Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, as I was never impressed by him and the Jan Lokpal (People's Ombudsman) movement that gave birth to his brand of politics. However, he has clearly won the hearts of many Indians including my close friends and family members and now I am concerned enough about the implications of his rising popularity on upcoming national elections that I feel compelled to articulate my fears arising from his Naxalite attitude, socialist ideas, and dubious under cover Congress and left leaning media backing.

I will briefly explain why I was not so impressed by the Jan Lokpal movement. First and foremost people across the country were led to believe that a people's ombudsman bill will be the panacea for curing the cancer of corruption, which is apparently not true. Without a strong leader of high moral character the bill will end up being a verbiage not worth the paper it would be printed on. Despite a Right To Information act  (RTI) that came out of another agitation that Kejriwal participated in, even 68 years later the government of India refuses to release the facts from investigations into mysterious disappearance of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on grounds of national security. They even deny access to the death certificate of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru the first Prime Minister of India. Secondly, despite the impeccable character of Sri Anna Hazare and Ms Kiran Bedi the movement was hijacked by Naxalites and dubious characters like Swami Agnivesh, Manish Sisodia, Prashant Bhushan, Gopal Rai etc. I am not implying that an independent ombudsman is a bad idea we must have it, in fact we now have the bill passed by parliament but that is not going to solve anything unless we have decisive, visionary, and morally upright leaders. This last statement of mine provides justification to the idea of forming a political party to fight corruption, which is precisely what Mr. Kejriwal did so let's examine his vision, morality, and decisiveness and implications of his success on upcoming 2014 general elections.

The Kejrivision

There is precious little uttered or written by Sri Arvind Kejriwal that can qualify as a vision, we all know what all he is against but know close to nothing of what he stands for in terms of governance other than the fact that he will not make any decisions himself, will let people make the decisions. Therefore, I will have to use his Delhi election manifesto to make conjectures about his vision. Refer here 
https://m.app.box.com/view_shared/k6zzgdgv0tepbzkfo3bd

AAP's two main poll planks of cheap electricity and free water to Delhites smack of Nehruvian socialist ideas that have failed world over and brought Bharat to the brink of bankruptcy in 1990 that forced the country to mortgage it's gold abroad. Delhi does not produce power on its own, it buys it from NTPC, and Delhi govt does not even have the authority to set electricity rates so how can they bring the prices down? It's the "S" word! Subsidies!!! In fact they use the "S" word in the manifesto for setting up solar power plants in households. While he wants to supply cheap power in Delhi, he went on to protest against the operations of nuclear power plant all the way in Kudankulam in Tamilnadu on grounds of public safety, which was eventually cleared by the Supreme Court against the petition of his partner in crime Mr Prashant Bhushan. Anyway, how does Delhi Govt raise money for subsidies? Taxes! Government can raise taxes and here you have a socialistic miracle, egalitarian distribution of resources. Same methodology can be applied for free water.

Mr. Kejriwal per his manifesto wants to get the control of Delhi Police in the hands of state government but is absolutely not willing to come out with a position on dealing with terror suspects or terrorists, in fact he shies away from those questions on the grounds that Delhi Police does not report into the Delhi state government. Why on earth does he then want to control Delhi police when he does not even consider talking about terrorist attacks in scope for Delhi elections? Watch this hilarious YouTube clipping where Mr Kejriwal leaves the interview midway: http://youtu.be/Rbam0bT7Jas . Surprisingly in their manifesto they promise to free Muslim youth from "false" police cases, how can they do that when they do not control the police or have no vision on fighting terrorism?


The Kejriorality

The biggest question of morality that I am sure must rend Mr Kejriwal's soul to pieces (if he has one) is, Did he back stab Anna Hazare in en cashing the popularity he earned by standing behind him in the form of chief ministership of Delhi? Kejriwal was one of the many unknown activists funded by Ford Foundation until the unsuspecting  Gandhian Kisan Baburao "Anna" Hazare reposed his faith in him. Beyond this I would leave this as a personal matter between Anna Ji and Mr Kejriwal, and focus on the lies Mr. Kejriwal has been peddling in broad "media" light.

1. We will pass "Anna's" Lokpal bill on Dec 29th in Ram Lila grounds if we come to power: This is a constitutional impossibility because Anna Ji was fighting for an ombudsman with national jurisdiction and Delhi state government does not have jurisdiction outside Delhi. When Anna Hazare himself slapped him with this reality, he said he meant it to be the Lokayukta that various states can have independent of the central Lokpal. Then after election he was told that Delhi government cannot even introduce a Lokayukta Bill without central government's permission. Kejriwal in his characteristic style calls this reality "unfortunate", admits ignorance, feigns honesty, and moves on. Today is Dec 29th 2013 and as of my writing this blog there is not even a plan on how he will introduce and pass this bill.

2. We have exposed BJP and Congress corruption: In his shoot and scoot drive that surprisingly received such a huge mainstream media coverage day in and day out, Mr. Kejriwal merely read out facts previously provided by other anti corruption crusaders or media agencies, in fact the only one not heard of before was the so called expose of Mr Nitin Gadkari of BJP. Let's take the top 3 exposes that he did prior to launching his political party in the order he did those.

a. Robert Vadra DLF nexus: This came out in a news paper a year before Kejriwal was even known to people but no mainstream media picked it up. In fact Dr Subramanian Swamy has been calling the whole family out in all his speeches easily found on YouTube. Why then such a coverage for Kejriwal? Moreover Mr. Kejriwal was quick to point out in this expose that he has no evidence of corruption against Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. The whole world knows of her close relations with Ottavio Quattrochi the notorious Italian arms dealer of Boforce fame, her false affidavit about her education, her illegal insurance agency running from Prime Minister's residence during Indira Gandhi's tenure etc. but not even one case could be caught by the scrupulous investigation of Mr Kejriwal. Why? Our mainstream media geniuses like Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghosh, Rajdeep Sardesai, Arnab Goswami never even bothered to pose that question.

b. Salman Khurshid's NGO scam of Rs 75 Crore: This was again a read out of investigation carried out and reported by AajTak TV news channel. Just because Mr. Kejriwal said the same thing in a press conference all the spin doctors in mainstream Indian media went all guns blazing after it.

c. Nitin Gadkari Farmers' Land grab: This was never heard before but the very same day turned out to be a complete lie. The land in question as opposed to being owned by Mr Gadkari (as alleged by Mr Kejriwal), was leased by Purti group from the Maharashtra govt for 11 years to grow saplings for farmers to plant in their own farms. The saplings were sold at a lower than market rate to farmers. Mr Kejriwal alleged that Mr. Gadkari was in collusion with Congress govt in the state of Maharashtra and grabbed a farming land for his personal gain. Interestingly the lady Anjali Damania who carried out this investigation for Mr. Kejriwal had grabbed a farming land pretending to be a farmer and her deal was cancelled by the government when she started constructing commercial housing on that land. Mr. Gadkari had refused to help her get out of this and another similar mess with the state government. (Read details here http://www.dnaindia.com/pune/report-activist-anjali-damania-a-land-shark-too-1746829 )  When confronted with this reality Mr. Kejriwal like he always does feigned ignorance in front of Kejri smitten media and promised an "internal Lokpal" enquiry against Ms Damania. I am still waiting to hear the outcome while the mainstream media has completely forgotten about it.

3. We have nothing to do with Congress (or BJP): 
Leaving the decision to take outside Cong support to form government in Delhi aside, let's examine Mr. Kejriwal and his close associates' affiliations.

a. Arvind Kejriwal:  A very morally corrupt leader from the Congress party Mr Digvijay Singh asked Mr. Kejriwal nine questions when the latter was part of Anna Hazare's anti corruption movement. Although, I never take Digvijay singh's questions seriously this time the answers opened up very serious doubts about Mr. Kejriwal's moral probity. India Against Corruption released the answers and in answers to questions 6,7, and 8 they said Ms. Sonia Gandhi as chairperson of the extra constitutional body National Advisory Council wrote recommendation letters for Mr Kejriwal to not transfer him out of Delhi and to let him proceed on a long leave normally not granted to servicemen. Read the full text here:
http://www.moneylife.in/article/kejriwal-wife-never-transferred-out-of-delhi-but-points-finger-at-pulok-chatterjee/29199.html
I would not have cared much for not being transferred out of Delhi but a letter from the virtual ruling queen of India for a small time officer in the revenue services does not seem like normal course of business.

b. Aruna Roy:  She is Kejriwal's political mentor as admitted by Kejriwal himself. She is a known leftist and is a member of the National advisory council. Though Mr. Kejriwal and Ms Aruna Roy had differences over the Lokpal bill, she is the one who initiated him into political/social activism and hence I have reason to believe Mr. Kejriwal subscribes to leftist socialist ideology, more than that his political mentor is Ms. Sonia Gandhi's stooge as she served on both NAC I and NAC II formed by two consecutive UPA governments at the center.

c. Yogendra Yadav: He was the advisor to Congress Vice President Mr. Rahul Gandhi in 2009 general election and is now a close aide of Mr. Kejriwal. Post elections he was awarded a spot in the national advisory council in 2010 for implementation of right to education act. NAC members are not elected, they are hand picked by Ms Sonia Gandhi.

Aside from these lies some of the things that he did to attract muslim voters as part of his election campaign make me really concerned about his rising popularity. He symbolically added "I am a common man" text to his party hat in Arabic script and now realizing that this could tick off Hindu voters he has clandestinely taken it out but by this stunt he very smartly signaled the continuation of Muslim appeasement under his rule just as in Congress rule. Then he went on to talk to Muslims about how his friend Mr Prashant Bhushan is fighting to prove the Batla house terrorist encounter in the heart of Delhi fake. This was the encounter where Delhi Police sub inspector Mr. Mohan Chand Sharma laid his life fighting terrorists and the courts found all the terrorists arrested guilty of charges filed against them. Watch this very revealing video of Mr Kejriwal addressing a Muslim crowd http://youtu.be/FciNxghv_l0 . He then enlisted support of Maulana Taufeeq Raza Khan, known Congress supporter, accused of inciting communal riots in Bareily, and issued a Fatwa against the popular liberal Bangladeshi writer Ms Tasleema Nasreen. Later when confronted by this reality in a question from audience in a show on ABP Hindi news channel he once again feigned ignorance in his typical style about Taufeeq Raza Khan's communal record and moved on , watch here http://youtu.be/GrtppD3hPtU  forward to 7:20 minute if you do not have the time to watch the 13 minute clip.

There are three big reasons for India's troubles since independence minority appeasement, socialist economic policies, and corruption. Though it remains to be seen how AAP government conducts itself but for now even if we trust they will be clean like they claim, they are clearly going to uphold the other two pillars of India's social, and economic decline.

The Kejricision

In terms of governance decisions Mr Kejriwal has absolutely no track record. His party and supporters claim that he has worked in the government as a revenue service officer and he knows how to run a government. The claim that he has worked in the government is true but how long is never effectively answered or even questioned. He joined service in 1995 and went for paid leave in 2000 until returning back in 2003, then worked for 18 months and took another 18 months of unpaid leave. Finally resigned in Feb 2006. Even if we assume he worked and governed wholeheartedly during the time he showed up at work his government work experience adds up to less than 7 years. If you take out first year for on the job training and 18 months of effective part time work due to his NGO involvement when he came back from the 2+ year long vacation his experience in government only adds up to less than 5 years. When it comes to making decisions Mr Kejriwal (at least publicly) says he will let people decide on key matters what they want and that's real swaraj (self rule). I see that as an attempt to evade responsibility. Imagine you visit a doctor and he/she says you have serious illness and you could take drug A or drug B, please decide which one you want and I will write that on the prescription. I am sure you will start looking for a new doctor. In fact his friend Mr Prashant Bhushan advocates a plebiscite to end Kashmir dispute which goes well with the definition of swaraj offered by Mr. Kejriwal.

A typical response to the arguments I made above would be what kind of experience did Rajiv Gandhi have when he became the prime minister. Well if the comparison Mr. Kejriwal seeks to make is as low as Rahul Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi then he definitely wins but the people of Bharat should have learned by now that they deserved better leadership then and should demand much more from their leaders today.

Why Should we care about AAP & Mr Kejriwal Beyond Delhi?

I was discussing AAP with a close friend of mine and this argument came up during the discussion that AAP deserves a chance since Congress and even BJP when it was in power in the state of Delhi has disappointed people, and Delhi state effectively being a glorified municipal corporation is the safest place to give this party a chance to prove itself and they can be no worse than Congress and BJP even if they fail while the damage will be limited to the city of Delhi. I wholeheartedly agree with this argument and could care less about Kejriwal's lack of vision, decision making ability, and immorality but for the fact that 2014 Lok Sabha elections are on the horizon and I can see Mr Kejriwal's ambitions for playing a king or king maker role in the new national government. I am not surprised that even before publicly announcing the decision to form government in Delhi they were courting candidates to fight parliamentary elections in states outside Delhi. It is for this reason we ought to be wary of Mr. Kejriwal and his brand of politics, Bharat today has been brought to a precarious state and I fear a serious economic collapse, internal security collapse and/or a serious external attack on the country in the event of a weak government taking power in 2014. Ten years of UPA rule has undone everything good that started in PV Narsimharao's time and culminated in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's time, 2014 is a do (vote for good governance) or die situation for the country and we need to see through the nefarious designs of Ms Sonia Gandhi and her coterie.

Delhi state win is significant in signaling the winability of AAP to many key stakeholders in the political arena that use it as a basis for aligning with a political party. First and foremost the young undecided educated voter that relates with Mr Kejriwal due to his excellent academic credentials and impressive oratory skills (though lacking sound basis for many claims) now can risk casting their vote for AAP as they know that there is some chance of their vote not getting wasted. Secondly, opportunistic disgruntled leaders in other political parties and budding local leaders nurturing political ambitions now see a potential political career in joining AAP and that gives AAP a fighting chance in some key constituencies outside Delhi. Thirdly, Muslim voter that is known to vote as a block and to vote for a "secular" winnable party now will see AAP as an alternative to Congress which will preserve their special status while offering better governance for the country. Last but most importantly Congress which is struggling to control the damage done by their own scion Mr. Rahul Gandhi's dumbness (popularly known as Pappu), has found an undeclared prime ministerial candidate that can at least not be a laughing stock when pitted against Mr Narendra Modi and can cut into the young educated voter base of BJP. Congress already knows it's going to lose in 2014 so their goal is not to win but to stop Modi because Mr Modi unlike Mr. Vajpayee genuinely hates congress and will not spare their corrupt leaders. Therefore they will lend all the support possible behind the scenes to make Mr Kejriwal look good in Delhi government and portray him as a victim by conducting never ending probes into his funding and anything else that meets media eyes, and make public allegations against him. The left leaning English medium mainstream media will now go one step further in drumming up Mr. Kejriwal's slightest of achievements taking a cue from Congress government at the center. This is already evident from the inordinate amount of air time being given for swearing in ceremony coverage of Mr Kejriwal while the three other chief ministers sworn in did not get as much air time put together.

In conclusion Mr Kejriwal while in no way can muster significant numbers in the Lok Sabha, can be a real spoiler for the BJP and will be a force to reckon with. He can help install a fickle pseudo secular non-congress government at the center and repeat the same failed policies of Pt Jawaharlal Nehru. Early voter awareness of his flawed policies and malicious intent is the only way out. We ought to know that while communist governments in West Bengal and Kerala were not the most corrupt, their leftist ideology has ruined the social and economic fabric of these states. Incorruptible execution of a bad idea is just as bad as corrupt execution of a good idea if not worse. I sincerely hope that Bharat gets a government in 2014 that offers good and decisive governance.

Vande Mataram.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Letter to Congressman Bill Foster on HR 417

US congressman Joe Pitts a republican from Pennsylvania district 16 along with 13 other bi partisan sponsors introduced a resolution number 417 in the house on Nov 18th. This resolution besides many other inane gibberish about minority protection in India applauds the US departments anti Modi visa policy. This resolution rightfully did not find any coverage in the US media but the Modi bashing left leaning paid media in India went abuzz with the news. Therefore I went through the text of this resolution and it's current status at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hres417#overview . The govtrack website shows the likelihood of this resolution making past the committee as 2%. However, as a Hindu I thought it was my duty to register my protest with the congressman of my district. I sent him this letter tonight and I am posting it here so that all responsible Americans particularly Hindu Americans can register their protest with their respective congressmen/women. It is very simple to lodge your concern via your congressman/woman's website. Just google your congressional district using your zip code and then find the name of the congressman/woman for the district on Google itself. Go to his/her website, click on contact, the site will ask you for your zip code and then take you to a form that you can fill out. Alternatively you can call their office, the number will be available on their website. Feel free to use any and all of the below arguments in your communication.

Here is what I wrote:
---------------------------------
Dear Mr Foster,

I had the pleasure of meeting you on the occasion of the Hindu festival of universal brotherhood "Rakshabandhan", as part of the HSS delegation in the month of August this year. We chatted about the contribution of ancient Hindu civilization in the areas of physics, Maths and astronomy. I am reaching out to you with regards to the House Resolution 417 sponsored by congressman Joe Pitts (republican from Pennsylvania district 16). I strongly oppose this anti Hindu, anti India and anti democracy resolution and request your support in opposing this bill. If passed this resolution will not only go against the desires of 1 billion+ Hindus (including those living in IL district 11) but will also be against the long term economic and strategic interests of United States in the South Asian region. I urge you to oppose this resolution on following three grounds that I have elaborated below: (i) It lacks sound logic (ii) It mocks democratic institutions and constitution of world's largest democracy (iii) it will hurt US economic and strategic interests in the region

(I) Lacks Sound Logic
This  resolution squarely places the blame of unfortunate riots that happened in the Indian state of Gujarat in the year 2002 on the government of Gujarat and implicates  democratically elected (3 times) chief minister of Gujarat Mr Narendra Modi for being complicit in the communal violence that erupted in the state following the burning alive of 59 Hindu pilgrims including women and children by a Muslim fanatic mob. The resolution while applauding the role of Indian Supreme Court in bringing the guilty to justice, completely ignores the findings of the Special Investigation Team appointed by the same Supreme Court that found Mr Modi not guilty of any of the alleged crimes.
(II) Mocks Democratic Institutions of India
This resolution calls for repealing of the laws that ban forced and fraudulent religious conversion in the states of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh etc. Such a demand from US congress to repeal the laws that are passed by democratically elected legislatures in accordance with tenets of Indian constitution that offers complete religious freedom to all sections of the society would amount to a travesty of democracy. These laws ban religious conversions by fraudulent and forcible means but do not place any restrictions on professing, practicing, and propagating any religion. Despite this these laws have been challenged in high courts and even Supreme Court of India multiple times and they have all been upheld on the ground that Indian constitution article 25 guarantees the right to "propagate" ones religion but that does not amount to the right to "convert" by any means that a community chooses to employ.
(III) Hurts US economic and strategic interests in the region
This resolution applauds the state department for maintaining the policy of denying US visa to honorable chief minister of Gujarat Mr Narendra Modi. While Mr Modi has never expressed a desire to travel to the US, taking such a position at this juncture against Mr Modi who is the prime ministerial candidate of the largest opposition party in India and is extremely popular among the Indian masses would put the USA in an awkward diplomatic position with India in the event of him being elected to the office of prime minister in June 2014, which is highly likely going by the latest opinion polls. Mr Modi unlike the communist leaning Congress party, holds a very business friendly approach to governance and actively seeks to open Indian markets for foreign investments in the areas of infrastructure, technology etc. Even in his capacity as chief minister of Gujarat he has attracted millions of dollars in Foreign Direct Investment into the state and maintains strong economic ties with US allies such as Japan, Israel, and South Korea. Thus avoiding any mention of this flawed visa policy would be in the best diplomatic interest of United States.

I sincerely hope that you would support mine and my fellow Hindu American's views on this resolution and help defeat it in the house. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Yours Sincerely,
Ajay Jain 
-------------------------

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Hindutva: An identity that unites entire India and South Asia

I am a devout Jain and grew up as such. As a child the society had me believe I am a Jain, not a Hindu while my other non-muslim/non-christian/non-sikh friends were Hindus. I celebrated the same festivals as my Hindu friends did such as Diwali, Dashehra, Rakhi, Holi on the same day and time of the year in much the same way as my Hindu friends did. All of the festivals I mentioned have a strong basis rooted in Jain Puranas and scriptures so I was not celebrating them just because my friends celebrated them, there was a proper Jain religious basis for them which in many cases largely matched what I heard from my Hindu friends. We broke a coconut before starting anything auspicious, so did my Hindu friends, we drew the letter Om and a Swastik (sathiya, please do not confuse this with the Nazi symbol) on every religious ceremony so did my Hindu friends. Moreover, whenever a discussion or debate occurred on issues of contention between Hindus and Muslims, I found elder Jain folks siding with the Hindu viewpoint. A particular case being Ayodhya dispute over the Babri mosque structure that I remember being a national poll issue when I was in high school. In fact Ayodhya is considered a holy city by Jains as many Jain tirthankars (Gods) were born there. Despite all these and many other broad commonalities in customs and traditions I was not a Hindu but my friends were. I somehow convinced myself that may be the basic difference between Hindus and Jains was that Hindus did not believe in the concept of moksha (emancipation of soul from the cycle of re-births), alas I was proved wrong one day when I met a priest at local Shiva temple in my hometown and he explained to me how Hindus believed in the soul being immortal and the concept of "aham brahmasmi" (I am God i.e. I can attain the state of being a God freeing my soul from the cycle of birth and death). By the time I graduated from high school I convinced myself that I am a Jain and I am a Hindu too. However, whenever someone said this country belongs to Hindus, I rebelled against that idea because it excluded my Muslim and Christian friends who I believed belonged here as much as I did. During college days I met some Hindu leaders that helped clarify my thought process around why Hindu identity is important but I still had doubts in my mind about how to include Muslim and Christian friends in the concept of Hindu identity. Finally I met Dr. Subramanian Swamy in Chicago until recently the president of Janata Party and now a leader in BJP and his lectures cleared the last iota of doubt in my mind about the all inclusive nature of Hindu identity for Indians. I have since been meaning to write on this subject, more for the sake of organizing my own thoughts than anything else. So here I go:

Hindutva is an identity most misunderstood or not even understood by the world. The most unfortunate and shocking part is that it is not even well understood by Hindus themselves. Hindus have forgotten their identity in much the same way as Lord Hanuman in Ramayana had forgotten his ability to fly long distances until reminded by his friend Jamvantha while looking to cross the ocean and reach Lanka in pursuit of mother Sita. Once reminded Lord Hanuman flew across the ocean to reach Lanka fighting many obstructions along the way. I am not claiming or trying to play Jamvantha to the Hindu community as many have tried and been branded "communal", "fascist" etc. by the so called "secular" Hindus themselves. Therefore, I am simply giving an exit to my thoughts and clearing up early childhood confusion around mine and my countrymen's identity.

Lets start by understanding the origin of the word "Hindu". The word Hindu is not found in any vedic literature, or any religious Sanskrit text for that matter. I took Sanskrit as part of my syllabus from sixth grade to high school and do not recall reading any rendition of the word "Hindu" in any shloka or vyakaran (grammar) that I read. Stephen Knapp does a very good job of capturing the history of the word in 19 th chapter of his book "Crimes Against India: And The Need To Protect Its Ancient Vedic Tradition.”, so I put a brief summary of that chapter here to quickly bring this into context. Alexander in 325 BC removed the letter "S" from the river "Sindu" and started calling it "Indu" and greeks conveniently made it "Indus", hence the region developed around it or east of it became India for them. Indians by the way have traditionally called their country Aryavart or Bharat. Muslim invaders however pronounced the Sanskrit sound "S" as "H" so Sindu became Hindu and people living in this region were called Hindus and the region itself was called Hindustan. To subjugate the people of this region and be-rate their civilization they added derogatory meanings to this word Hindu in Persian dictionaries such as persian dictionary Lughet-e-Kishwari, published in Lucknow in 1964, gives the meaning of the word Hindu as “chore [thief], dakoo [dacoit], raahzan [waylayer], and ghulam [slave]. Any of my Indian muslim friends that read this please note this term was by definition applied to your ancestors as well as mine by the foreign invaders. Everything that the people of India had developed and mastered over centuries became part of the "Hindu" culture going way beyond religious practices such as the medical science of Ayurveda, great advancements in the field of astronomy, algebra, trigonometry, economics, social sciences etc. of course the invaders mocked all of these practices including the religious and spiritual practices followed in Bharat (India) which they called Hindustan, and they brutally destroyed not only the temples but the centers of education including world renowned universities of Takshila (Taxila), and Nalanda. 

The origin and definition of the word "Hindu" as I have (actually Stephen Knapp) summarized above once understood and agreed to should leave no doubt in anybody's minds that every person whose ancestors lived in the region of the world that is to the east of Sindhu river and practiced the (highly sophisticated) customs and traditions developed indigenously in this part of the world is Hindu.

While the Muslim invaders tried to malign the entire civilization by giving derogatory meaning to the word Hindu, and coerced a large section to convert to Islam under the fear of death and persecution, the British imperialists that arrived on the scene first in 17th century narrowed the scope of the word Hindu to mean practitioners of a religion, which British started calling "Hinduism". The tenets of this so called religion Hinduism were not defined as it was impossible to do so, so many Gods, so many languages, such diverse customs and habits, makes it impossible to ascribe finite religious practices to this religion that it was not worth the effort for what they wanted to accomplish. They however, used this narrow definition of Hinduism to pull out sections of the Indian society and assigned them a religious identity that could now stand parallel to Hinduism. According to their definition of Hinduism, you could not be a Hindu if you practice Sikhism, or Jainism, or Budhdhism. These became separate and parallel religious identities like a Hindu "religious" identity. This not only proved to be a very effective tactic to execute a divide and rule strategy on the sub-continent but later it also gave legitimacy to the idea of an all encompassing "secular", Indian identity separate from a Hindu identity which Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs, Budhdhists, Parsis, and Hindus all could claim. On the surface nothing seems wrong with this all unifying Indian identity that is religion agnostic, but to understand the real implications of separating the Indian identity from Hindu identity we need to understand an egregious falsehood started by the British historian Macaulay. He very astutely propounded the myth of an Aryan invasion that destroyed the Indus valley civilization and brought the Hindu religion "Hinduism" to India, forcing the natives of the Indus valley to move to southern India (this further divides Hindus of South India from Hindus of North India). I will save arguments that dispel this myth of Aryan invasion for another blog but for now it is important to understand that if you accept this myth of Aryan invasion along with the narrowed scope of the word Hindu to mean practitioners of a religion, invasion and subjugation by foreign cultures becomes the basis of the existence of Indian civilization leaving no identity that the people of the region can claim to have developed on their own in this part of the world. All of a sudden Hindus cannot even claim that Muslims invaded their country, as they themselves did the same 2000 years earlier. Therefore, now this new Indian identity separated from the Hindu identity derives its basis from Indian independence act of 1937 that British parliament enacted. As a consequence India becomes a country that is merely 66 years old and I have no common ancestry with my Indian Muslim friends other than the Passport issued by Government of India. I am supposed to accept Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus, Budhdhists etc. as my brothers and sisters just because the British government told me to.

While, it made logical sense for the foreign invaders or imperialists to do what they did in order to achieve their objectives of plundering a land they won, it makes no logical sense for the the people of free and independent India to keep subscribing to the narrow definition of the word "Hindu". The very liberal nature of the Hindu society has been exploited by parochial selfish interests of the politicians that were handed the reigns of the country after independence to perpetuate this dangerous myth about Hindu identity. The term "Hindutva" was first coined by the great freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar popularly known as Vir (brave) Savarkar for such an identity. This identity unites every Indian on the basis of thousands of years of shared culture and glorious history. The most wonderful thing about this identity is that it even unites Christians, and Muslims of India (two most widely practiced foreign religions in the country) with rest of the Indians on the basis of same shared ancestry. Dr. Subramanian Swamy actually proved this in a very scientific manner by conducting a DNA match between a Muslim auto rickshaw driver and a Hindu leader, and found that DNA to match pointing towards a common ancestry. Almost all the present day Muslims of India converted to Islam from what is today called Hinduism, and if they are taught the correct history, they should have no problem in proudly admitting their Hindu past, which should become the basis of brotherhood between all people of Indian origin.

Lets take the Hindutva identity to other countries neighboring India. Starting with the obvious ones to relate to, Nepal till today is the country with largest proportion of Hindus with shared culture and history with India. Many Nepalese princess were married in royal families of India and vice versa. If Indian government had been prudent and intervened on the basis of Hindutva to prevent the bloodshed by Maoists in the country and prevented the fall of the monarchy, the country would have continued to be a constitutionally Hindu country even now and not been such an easy entry point for terrorists into India or potentially become an ally to China. Bhutan is the last friendly country left for India and their again the shared basis is Hindutva, Bhutan being officially Buddhist derives its cultural and religious identity from what developed in India. Srilanka to the south of India finds a mention in the Hindu epic Ramayana as the place developed by Ravana and later conquered by Lord Rama. Ravana was born in Northern India and found an abode down south in Lanka. Even today the country is "Hindu" per the definition I explained earlier; the Sinhalese majority practices buddhism as King Asoka of India propagated Buddhism there. Many sinhalese inhabitants there migrated from from the north east region of India (the state of Odisha/Bihar), while Tamils have migrated from South India. India had the opportunity to use these shared cultural and ethnic (Hindu) roots to have friendly relationship with the country, on the contrary the Indian government turned a blind eye to national interests and chose to covertly support the Tamil terrorist organization LTTE in the 1980s for the sake of winning some Tamil extremist support in the Indian state of Tamilnadu and later back tracked into publicly opposing LTTE. Now China is finding in roads into the Indian ocean via Sri Lanka on the name of building infrastructure. While there are genuine human rights problems that Tamil minority faced in Sri Lanka, if Indian government had recognized the national interests and taken into account the Hindu identity of Sri Lanka which includes the Sinhalese as well as Tamils the diplomatic policy would not have been so lax.

Lets get to the slightly harder ones. China though today comes across as an adversary and the loss in the war of 1962 against China looms large on the psyche of all Indians, has a 2500+ years of shared history with India and not a single instance of military conflict comes up until 1962. China got the gift of Buddhism from India, and the form of Buddhism practiced more predominantly in China (Mahayana Buddhism) is closer to what the seculars call "Hinduism". Many Chinese travellers came to India in early centuries and wrote very highly about Indian society and culture including Fexien in 399 AD and Xuanzang in 630 AD. The Kung Fu marshall arts that the world attributes to China was invented by an Indian Buddhist monk who was the third son of a Pallava King, later named as Bodhidharma. Even today the students at Shaolin temple which is the best school of Marshall arts in China worship Bodhidharma as God. Even after the 1962 war after which China has been occupying the Aksaichin region of India, when the first non Congress government came to power in 1977, China opened the route to Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage on the grounds of Hindu beliefs associated with the holy land. China today faces the threat of Islamic terror in it's Xinjiang province and despite visible cooperation with Pakistan looks at them with suspicion. Shared Hindu past and current cultural ties gives a solid ground for friendly relations with China without compromising our position on the border dispute with China, which by the way I do believe is a genuine dispute and needs to be sorted out by talks between two former and likely super powers of the world. I am not advocating minimizing guard on the border, to the contrary I think we need to demonstrate our military might to China and then reach out with a friendly hand on the basis of common history and culture.

Lets apply this concept to what is today called Pakistan. The founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah was grandson of Punjabhai Thakkar, a Hindu. His father Jenabhai was youngest of the three sons of Poonjabhai, other two being Valjibhai, and Nathubhai. Jinnah's mother was Mithibai. These are all Hindu names. While Jinnah's grandfather was born Hindu, his father was a Muslim yet lived among Hindus and retained a Hindu name like his uncles. Jinnah himself had the last name Jenabhai until he went to London and discovered for himself a new "modern" identity and chose to change the last name to "Jinnah". I dwell upon the family tree of the founder only to indicate that most Pakistani muslims are converted from what is called "Hinduism" to islam and even till today retain the same language, eating habits, and music tastes as Hindus. Of course the Talibanisation is occurring in the country but Taliban has a lot of work to do to kill the Hindu culture among Pakistanis such as change the spoken language to Arabic from Urdu /Punjabi (Urdu is nothing but Hindi with an arabic script and arabic words mixed in). The Pakistanis need an identity beyond jingoism against India. In their efforts to find an identity, they are misled to believe their ancestors were Muslim invaders such as Ghori and Ghazni, while the fact is these barbarian plundered their ancestors, raped, and murdered them, forced them to choose Islam under the threat of death. The shared Hindutva identity should be the basis of engaging the common people of Pakistan and war should be the way to silence their Talibanized military, the government of Pakistan today really does not matter, talking to them has no value other then headlines in media. In the interest of not making this blog any longer than it already is, I am skipping Bangladesh which is nothing but a carve out from what was removed from India as Pakistan in 1947 and I am skipping Burma (Brahmdesh in Sanskrit) but both of these countries have strong Hindu roots.

It does not take a genius to figure out why Hindutva should be the basis of uniting the people of India and building lasting relationships with the neighbors. One question remains, why should we use a term that was coined by Muslim invaders to insult and malign our civilization? While that is true, this term has stuck since then and is the only popular term despite incessant efforts of the "secular" government of India to narrow down it's scope, that gives a simple noun to describe the identity and continuity of Indian civilization from time immemorial. One of the names that Lord Krishna is worshipped by is "Ranchod" which essentially means someone who runs away from a war and has a connotation of cowardice. He got this name because he chose to leave his capital city of Mathura and created his capital in a new city called Dwarika which was surrounded by the ocean to avoid military conflict with King Jarasandh. When his courtiers warned him that he will earn the title of coward for such an action, he gladly accepted it in the larger interest of his people. Today the negative connotation of "Ranchod" is forgotten and people worship him by that name, not only that people proudly name their kids "Ranchod" in India. So it goes for the term "Hindu", if Hindus rise up together with pride in their centuries old heritage, the world will treat Hindus, Hindutva, and Hindustan with the respect they deserve.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

My frustration at Russ Shields anti India remark

There have been many occasions in my life when I bit my tongue and later felt good that I exercised my option to remain silent in a situation that otherwise could have resulted in a big mess. However, there are a handful where I regretted such a decision. Today is one of those.

I was at my first ever entrepreneurial round table event organized by fellow Booth alumni and current students in Naperville area regularly. This time the guest speaker was Mr. Russ Shields, a Booth alumna from 1960s. Not many people may know him but his biggest accomplishment till date is getting Nokia to buy Navteq (the mapping company) for $8bn+ in an all cash deal. That is also the reason why I chose to show up at this roundtable event today after work. Having worked at Navteq myself as a consultant, I was curious to meet the man, little did I know that this meeting will keep me up till 2 am in the night.

After making his not so impressive speech on his biography as an entrepreneur, Mr Shields opened up for questions. Unimpressed as I was with his talk that he delivered mostly staring down at his empty right palm, I clearly did not have any questions for him. However, I had chosen to sit on the front table and call it my Indian habit to show deference to elderly people or my lack of fortitude, I decided to stay through the Q&A.

Mr. Shields rambled on various answers that I kept listening to in the hopes of finding any one thing that I could take back for my $15 and precious time investment in this conference. It finally came when a gentleman sitting on my table asked Shields why he chose China for software development and not Latin America or Europe. This gentleman even went on to add the risk to intellectual property arising out of operating in China. In response to this Shields said China is historically very advanced in technology that not many people know of... Nothing wrong so far .. then he goes (I think) glancing at me .."India can produce accounting and billing software but nothing technically advanced ever came out of India historically". This fumed me, though he quickly moved on to pontificate on his knowledge of Chinese history etc. I kept thinking if I should immediately walk away from there or give him a befitting reply. I was thinking whether to mention Aryabhatta, Charak, Bhaskara, the Rama Setu from Ramayana and what not to slap him with the historical proof of immense contributions of the great Indian civilization in the fields of science, maths, and technology. While I was going through these thoughts the moderator announced this is the last question for the Round table and in the fit of the moment I got my a$$ off the chair and briskly walked out of there cursing Shields and myself for not saying anything.

I had to have an outlet though so I logged in to Booth portal after a year or so may be, after two failed attempts at login with wrong password I finally got in. Searched for Russ Shields on community directory and found his work email. I just sent him the below email.
******
Mr. Shields,

I am a Booth alumn from 2010 and was present at the round table today. Having worked at Navteq during 2003-05, I came to listen to you with high expectation of learning from your rich entrepreneurial experience. However, I am deeply hurt and disappointed by your anti-India remark in response to the question about your decision to invest in China. The person who posed the question did not even solicit your opinion on India's historical contribution to technology, he rather wanted to know why you did not choose South America or European regions to outsource SEI software development work. You chose to go on a tangent and made a blatantly incorrect statement "Nothing technologically advanced ever came out of India. India can produce accounting and billing software..". As a proud Indian I am deeply hurt by this historically incorrect statement. India along with China is the oldest continuing civilization on Earth today. I am shocked that you take pride in your academic background in history but have scant knowledge of the great Indian civilization.

India has pioneered advances in scientific, mathematical, and technological fields that the world is using till today. For example Aryabhatta 476 to 533 AD used the concept of heliocentricism to calculate the speed of planets, provided advanced astronomy, algebra and trigonometry concepts. Mind you Aryabhatta did not even come up with heliocentricism, he used the concept which means Hindus have believed in Heliocentricism for much longer than Aryabhatta's time. Hindu scripture Ramayana talks about a bridge on the ocean built by Lord Rama, that bridge till today stands between India and SriLanka overr the Indian ocean exactly as described in Ramayana, such act of fine engineering more than 3000 years ago dwarfs many modern day engineering projects. Similarly Acharya Charak born 300 BC is the first physician to have undstood the process of digestion, and metabolism, and he first explained the concept of immunity. I could go on forever as there is no end to the contributions of Indian civilization to modern day sciences. To say the least I myself worked at your company Navteq before it went public and after as a consultant through a leading offshoring firm Infosys from India, the software we delivered and tested was critical to the launch of technology enhancements at Navteq under the project codes "Bison" and "PS3" at that time. Navteq did not hire just one Indian consulting firm, they engaged three of them during 2003-05; Infosys, Patni Computer Systems, and Applabs. You must have sound business reasons to go to China but that does not give you the moral authority to make blanket disrespectful statements against the Indian community. 

I urge you to take back your incorrect and impetuous remark that demeans India and communicate your apologies to the audience present at the round table today. Such remarks do not augur well for the roundtable and is not in keeping with the culture of mutual trust and respect that The Booth School of Business promotes and fosters.

Regards,
Ajay

Booth 2010 graduate
*******
Even after sending this I am not happy because I am not sure if he will ever read it. Therefore I decided to write my first ever blog. The two things I took away from today's experience 1) Never go and listen to Russ Shields ever again 2) Never keep quiet when some one says anything factually incorrect against India.

Good night.