Happy Birthday, India! And it's time for my annual round-up of many things that is India.
Usually, the perennial optimist in me would always find the silver lining in the clouds hovering all around. But, with every passing year, it is getting a tad harder to do so. Maybe the times are troubled or simply because I am growing more and more cynic.
There is a sub-clause, in the Constitution, under the section of Fundamental Duties: "To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. But that was before the era of Whatsapp and Facebook. Judging by the amount of blind faith in Whatsapp forwards, there is a large deficiency of "scientific temper" and the "spirit of inquiry" in us Indians. Why do people have a tendency to share and be willing bearers of sensationalism without a basic fact check? Something which has now been exploited to the hilt by the creators of "manufactured" news and and those rewriting history to propagate their own devious agenda. Even more worrying is the speed at which the "anti-national" tag is being thrown at people who do not conform with the "official thinking".
Coming to the most recent and shocking "news" - over 70 children die in a hospital in Gorakhpur because the oxygen supply was shut-off. A simple mechanical act leading to a tragedy. Somebody did not ensure payments even after multiple reminders leading to a "massacre". As if the tragedy wasn't bad enough, we now have to witness the vultures (politicians and media) swooping in to feed on the frenzy. Some downplaying, some outraging, some just intent on blaming others and finding a convenient scapegoat. The entire system needs a brutal shake-up.
The current state of India is such that there are more people ready to take cudgels on behalf of the members of "Bos taurus" species than for fellow Homo Sapiens. Somehow the bigger crime is "consuming and transporting beef" than the public lynching of the alleged "criminal".
Last year, we witnessed the grand exercise of "Demonetization". Almost one year down the line, we have still no clue why it was carried out (there are theories) and whether any of the promised "benefits" (and there were lots of them) actually were brought forth. And there were poeple who believed about the tracking chip in the currency notes!
Every few months, we hear of Chinese sneaking into Indian territory. A clarion call to boycott Chinese made goods is raised, ironically often via phones made in China. And then it dies down, to be raised again following the next Chinese "incursion".
The Indian soldier was also in the news throughout the year. Sometimes for dealing with skirmishes at the border, sometimes for having stones pelted at them at home, sometimes for raising the occasional complaint about their conditions. But they were kept in the news mostly by the jingoistic jokers who would bring about images of soldiers at the border even for mundane day to day activities like withdrawing money from a bank account.
Enough ranting for now. We are still better off than many parts of the world, but much worse than others. After all, I still have the freedom to post this.
भारत माता की जय !
P.S. 2016 Edition
Usually, the perennial optimist in me would always find the silver lining in the clouds hovering all around. But, with every passing year, it is getting a tad harder to do so. Maybe the times are troubled or simply because I am growing more and more cynic.
There is a sub-clause, in the Constitution, under the section of Fundamental Duties: "To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. But that was before the era of Whatsapp and Facebook. Judging by the amount of blind faith in Whatsapp forwards, there is a large deficiency of "scientific temper" and the "spirit of inquiry" in us Indians. Why do people have a tendency to share and be willing bearers of sensationalism without a basic fact check? Something which has now been exploited to the hilt by the creators of "manufactured" news and and those rewriting history to propagate their own devious agenda. Even more worrying is the speed at which the "anti-national" tag is being thrown at people who do not conform with the "official thinking".
The current state of India is such that there are more people ready to take cudgels on behalf of the members of "Bos taurus" species than for fellow Homo Sapiens. Somehow the bigger crime is "consuming and transporting beef" than the public lynching of the alleged "criminal".
Last year, we witnessed the grand exercise of "Demonetization". Almost one year down the line, we have still no clue why it was carried out (there are theories) and whether any of the promised "benefits" (and there were lots of them) actually were brought forth. And there were poeple who believed about the tracking chip in the currency notes!
Every few months, we hear of Chinese sneaking into Indian territory. A clarion call to boycott Chinese made goods is raised, ironically often via phones made in China. And then it dies down, to be raised again following the next Chinese "incursion".
The Indian soldier was also in the news throughout the year. Sometimes for dealing with skirmishes at the border, sometimes for having stones pelted at them at home, sometimes for raising the occasional complaint about their conditions. But they were kept in the news mostly by the jingoistic jokers who would bring about images of soldiers at the border even for mundane day to day activities like withdrawing money from a bank account.
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| A cartoon to sum it all up |
भारत माता की जय !
P.S. 2016 Edition
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