Satyagrah and terrorism!

Bombay has been shaken, so has been the foundations of Indian democracy. In the last 6 months we have had more than 8 chain blasts in this nation. What are the implications and causes? With these there are other stray violence related to militants, (a)cross-border fire-exchange, naxal movements, mafia-war etc etc. Its as if we are in the midst of a civil war. And no one seems to be thinking about the root cause and how to eradicate this feeling of insecurity. Most of us want an eye for an eye (sometimes both the eyes for an eye). This will leave the whole world blind! So what is the solution?

Lets communicate. Lets talk, lets chat across all borders of caste, religion and region. Let the other not feel insecure.

Lets help out. Swayam-seva eba swaseva! i.e volunteering is basically serving ones own self!

And lastly, lets pray and repent for the fault of our keens (yes you are right, the terrorists!).

And let us spread this news that we stand together against all terror and terroism; terrorists ye be warned!! We will not finish you, we will finish the terror in you and will convert you!

We have had enough of blame game. As Captain Jack Sparrow would say, "there comes a time my friend when you should take the responsibility of your own deeds!" We have been callous and this is the result. Lets act sensible, lets have compassion...

Satyagrah II

There were some nice discussions on my last blog, discussions which were more lucid than the seed-blog. Hence am putting them in this blog:

deepanshu said...

I am sorry to say but I found the blog a bit absurd. (now I might be naive but if you can elaborate, it will be clearer) "To first understand truth, you have to first love all the things and beings" why??
I understand that a rotten thing stinks and I keep away from it. same with people. how can you love someone/somethings when they are not pleasing to your senses be it intellectual or moral. moreover how can i love/like something, it always comes from within. Simulating emotions might be a lie(not satyagrah).

Secondly, loving or granting your sanction to everything is equal to giving someone something what he actually doesn't deserve. And just like currency, if you give it to everyone, it finally has no value. And thus the person who really deserves your love/appreciation gets that hollow coin which everyone already has.Thus injustice.
Personally I believe by doing justice, by giving your sanction to deserving and scorn/criticism to undeserving, keeps the value of your moral currency. Now doing justice is another form of satyagrah, isn't it?

lastly, the basic assumption underlying in the love story is that boy also loves gal and thus he cannot see her suffer. was it really true with Gandhi and British? doesn't self-sacrifice dwell on other's mercy, his wish to care or not. Isn't this weakness.

2:19 AM

Mister Mangu said...

You are right deepanshu. But most of these arguments are given by looking at what the other deserves or not; if the other loves you or not. These depend on without, whereas emotions are from within. Certainly you cant fake an emotion, nor should you. That will be fundamentally against satyagrah. A flower emits fragrance. Its its characteristics. It does not matter if its in a forest, or in a temple or in a whore-house. Similarly once we get that stage, we cant but love. This will not depend on what the other deserves .

What is truth? I don't know. But its something I wish to know. Truth about me, about you and about this creation. Its like any profession. Unless I like circuits, I cant understand them properly. Unless I like maths, I can never be truly able to understand it. Similarly when it comes to truth about the creation, I have to first love it all...nay, love should come to my heart of its own accord for all... for the whole creation.

What I presumed about Gandhi and Brits, is just my assumption. It may not necessarily be true. But it may be true as well. When I love, its because I enjoy loving. If I suffer because I cant see my beloved ones doing mistake, then that cleanses my spirit. Its all me. There is no dependence on others.

About weakness... you may have heard Gandhi saying "ahimsa is only for the strongest"! It needs real strength to stick to your principles, even when the whole world is against you, even when your wife may die if she does not take beef-soup, even when you son may die if he does not take brandy... Thats why Vardhamana Jaina is called Mahavir (when all he preached was extreme nonviolence!).
PS: Most of what I just have written is bookish. But may be an iota is there which came from my heart.

satyagrah!

Some people hate Gandhi, some treat him as a saint. I have been trying to understand what exactly he used to say. Luckily I got a rusty old book from Howrdah station this Puja, named "Vinoba on Gandhi". Reading the book was enlightening. Of course this is one of my first books on Gandhian philosophy. And I am lucky to get Vinoba in my first book.

This is how he explains satyagrahi and the method of non-violence.

One who likes truth is satyagrahi. For that you have to first understand truth. And for that you have to first love all the things and beings. Love and hate are two blinders for us. Both have to be get rid of, to see truth. Getting rid of both being difficult, lets first get rid of hate. One who loves all cant harm anyone. This is ahimsha! Lets say, there is a love duo. Of them the guy smokes. The gal will try to explain things to him first. If that does not work, then she may try to take extreme steps. She may shout at him (but for his own good). And if she really loves him, she may not be able to shout at him. That case she may turtore herself to make him understand. This is nonviolence. It comes from love. Because you love the other person, you can not tolerate that he is doing something wrong. You try to explain things to him and worst case turtore your own self to make a point.

Mark that, nonviolent opposition is a misleading phrase. It can wither be opposition or nonviolent. Cant be both at a time.

So according to this Gandhi had to do fasting etc to make a point to the Brits. Its because of his love and compassion towards Brits. More on this in my next blog...!

Education for all!

At home shared auto is one of my favorite modes of commutation. Not only is it cheap, it also gives you the golden opportunity to have fleeting interaction with the hoipoloi of the city.

One of these times I had a small lad of 11 or 12 as my co-passenger. He boarded the auto with a big empty bucket. He was there in the auto with me for some 10-15 minutes. All the while I was observing him. There was a unique brilliance in his face. A typical satisfaction which is atypical of the school-going lads of his age. On interacting with him I came to know that he was going to some place for some wall-penting. So he was a child labour devoid of education. But then he was happy.

This made me think about the contemporary education and if we should make this type of education as compulsory. The education that the Indian government can make compulsory and free, is simply good for nothing! You have to be extra brilliant in numbers to get any benefit from that education. If you are mediocre or less then you simply waste 10-12 prime years of your life. Do we have the right to shatter the lives of so many kids of the nation in the name of "right to education"? May be we should look around for a better education system before making it compulsory and a right. This might sound harse, but then lets stop living in a fool's paradise; lets stop speculating sitting in our cosy rooms, lets come out and look at the problem with proper empathy...

Tale of two blogs!

Blog 1: Village Republic

Went home for Durga Puja. On my way I had a looonngggggggg halt in Howrdah station. Howrdah station can be a mine of lost treasures for book-hunters. I fished a book called "Vinoba on Gandhi"! Somehow I have got tremendous appreciation for these freedom fighters, esp. Gandhi, Vinoba and Gokhle. We know so little about these guys. These people I consider as real polymaths. Anyway, in that book, I discovered a new term: village republic! What a wonderful idea! I often think that USA is better off a part because of the fact that it has a looser federation than India. Independence at local level solves many problem in one go. It makes smaller independnet entitites, encourages healthy compition and lastly it also gives a community identity which lacks so badly in India. This idea of village republic seemed to solve all the problems.

1. This will make independent village economy. With proper planning this can be done. E.g. there are many villages in coastal OdishA called Sasana-villages, set by medival kings. In such villages there are few families of almost all clans, some smiths, some farmers, some priests, some weavers etc etc. Hence, this is no new idea.
2. This will also make democracy more realistic. Today one legislator represents huge number of people. Hence, Indian democracy has become a mockery. At a very local level things will be more trackable. Even for independent decisions all villagors can be drawn to the assembly hall.
3. This will create a bond. Given sufficient independnece this village identity may come over other differences like cast and religion.

Hats off to the great thinkers!!

Guru-and-sisya
The sort of relation that we have between teacher and student, is something unique to orient. I am not going to tell you about how great is this or if this is all bullshit! I will just write about a sloka I read this time in home. In my home, I find many old books from no where !! This time I found a book by Pandit Gopabandhu. He was one of the major figures in British OdishA. He was also a passionate educator and along with some others has started the first Gandhian school in OdishA, named Satyavadi-banabidyalaya. In the book I got hold of, he was talking about education. There he quoted a sloka which reads:
"sarvatra jayamanwichhet,
sishyat icchet parajayam!"
I.e. aspire for victory in all fronts; from your student aspire a defeat! I was really touched by the idea. How great the mind might have been which conceived of such a piece of thought...

Why are we in a mess??

The other day I was thinking why are we in a mess in India? May be the beginning was not so good? May be the starting point was not well conceived? Of course I am not saying that the great personalities of that time did any blunder. I am sure given those conditions, they have done the best thing. Still these are my personal views, dreams rather...

• First of all, constitution of the republic was almost the same as that of the colonial India. Hence, we never had a new start.
• Those officers and police who were serving the Britishers till independence retained their job. So, those who were killing and oppressing the freedom fighters and who were philosophically against the idea of independent India, were suddenly given the right to rule independent India. They should in fact have been treated as prisoners of war and properly tried. And under no circumstances they should have been allowed to retain the power. So basically we drove the foreigners but kept the instruments of foreign rule.
• Next, we forced the complete British India into a single republic. It was made a federation, but the states had little power. Neither was there any proper common thread for unity nor was there sufficient independence for diversity.
• Hence, it was neither like Europe not like America. People may oppose this view of mine. But, we we see it objectively without prejudice, I don't see any reason for including unwilling princely states forcibly. Gandhi's idea of local governance was completely sabotaged!

The list goes on. We never had a real independence. We never got that confident outlook that an independent sovereign state should have. And at the same time the short-cuts we took actually has put us in long-cuts... I dont see any solution though!!!

The Triology!!

Have not blogged for weeks! Thought of making a hatrick trilogy!!

• Space research: We in IITG had our technical festival few days back. In one of the events, we have organized a student model competition (for school kids). It had a preliminary round and only the selected few had come from all over the country. I was a judge. Many models were on outer space exploration. I remember, in my teenage I also was fascinated by space. So I asked them about ISRO. But to my surprise, none of them knew about any achievements of ISRO. Few even did not know what is ISRO. They all knew what is NASA!! I know its not proper to blow ones own trumpet. But when the world is getting increasingly deaf, we have to blow trumpets. Why is it that media never talks about success of ISRO or the failures of NASA? This makes people think that ISRO has no success and NASA has no failure!

• Kishore Kumar: Its been a habit for me to go to a rickety tea-shop beside the institute campus, almost every evening, for tea and samosa. One day I was alone and there came a guy. From his talks to the shop-keeper I thought he is some gunda! Then I realised its his style! Then he sat beside me and ate something. There was a glass/tubler beside my plate and it was empty. There was also a jug full of water in the table. In India many people like to drink directly from the water jug (it has a different feeling when you are really thirsty!). But mind that they pour the water from a hight so as not to touch the jug with their mouth. Anyway, our friend must have been damn thristy. He took the jug, saw my empty tubler and filled it up and gobbled up the water. This he did as if its the natural way to drink water for human beings, i.e. first feel up the glass of others and then drink yourselves! And I was also not supposed to say any thanks or such after this action. The main show came after that. He was there for almost 15 minutes. In those time he joked and talked with almost everyone in the shop! It reminded me of Kishore-Kumar's movies. May be these are the characters who inspired those filmy characters!

• Natural selection: I was revising some texts on genetic algorithm (GA) few days back. One thing struck me! I have always had this doubt about evolution theory. If its simple "servivial of the fittest" philosophy, then all we should have been left with is a single specis. What then is the cause of diversity in nature? Then I realised that the cost-function in nature (or the fitness curve) is not a smooth one. Rather it has loads of local maximas. And thats why species can settle down at these local maximas and stay for ever in the same state of affairs! These local maximas correspond to niches in natural habitat. So far so good. But then if this is so, then GA should not work. But to my little knowledge GA guides itself by almost all the rules of evolution. Hence, may be the rules of evolution need some finetuning! Bad for GA (that then it wont be able to converge at the global maxima); but we will get a better evolution strategy... more close to nature!
  

India, trend, movies and allies

Just had the chance to view a hilarious song (http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=ja3XCe4e2gc&feature=related). This made me look for other songs from the movie "boot-polish". I came across another touching song (http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=IrSEQpUmq30&NR=1). And this song left me to ponder on many things.

Why do not we see movies like 'boot-polish' now a days? That was an era championed by Raj-Kapoor and his generation. That was an era of the erstwhile USSR and an era of India's tilt towards communist countries. Nehrujee might have preached the philosophy of NATO. But we all know that the USSR was a supporter of India (for whatever reason). May be thats why almost all middle-class family had some books on Communism. Almost all middle class youth had that bleeding heart for the poor. That was an era when seeaigenti (CIE agent) was a foul name to call anyone! That was an era when Bollywood movies professed the moral-strength of the poor, showed half-naked slum dwellers and demonstrated the superiority of the proletarians over the rich.

Has the poverty of the country vanished in these few decades? Have the slums and their dwellers disappeared from the face of earth? Does India now consist of only NRIs and industrialist? Why then I don't see any poor man in any movie from Bollywood? Why all box-office hits in small screen show women with kilograms of golden jewelry on them? Why there is no single movie like "boot-polish" or a TV serial like ham-log? Suddenly it seems everyone has become rich!

I do not know about the reasons. I also don't want to brood on them. But this is what I think its propagating. This is professing market-economy. This is professing all the wealth that you need in a small life. This is professing dis-morality. Lastly if anyone has marked, Indian cinema was based on the poor and suddenly its based on the life of rich. It missed the bridge, i.e. middle class. So this is propagating a race for easy-money!!

PS: And of course in the world portrayed by today's film and media, there is certainly no place for the poor! They are just forgotten, and at the same time all the audience (from inland and abroad) are made to forget them. To think India is shinning!!

First war of Independence!

August 15th is coming. So I thought of blogging again! Over the years I saw dwindling enthusiasm of people in celebrating the day. We used to get so much excited when this day would come. First of all this brings a holiday and with that a toffee distributed by the school-principal! When TV came to our household, with these two things came the added benefit of watching some nice movie. Once I left my home-town the importance of this day has decreased, so has the importance of a free toffee. Today I find that a free toffee is almost of no value for the current generation of kids. The excitement for watching a patriotic movie has also almost vanished. As a matter of fact I dont think many can link to that past. Take for example Sepoy Mutiny, which some historians call the first war of independence.

Once I was thinking about this war. I think it was after the release of the movie "Mangal Pandey". Why should we call this the first war of independence? Who among the leaders understood the meaning of indepedence? When an action is taken, we have to look at the cause and the desired effect. What was the cause for which all those leaders jumped into war? To me it was the simple motive of regaining their kingdoms or zamindaris. Amongst all the leaders were from royal families and have joined the force because of the "Doctrine of Lapse". They had no direct son and hence East-India Company took over their zamindari. So they did not come for independence. Now look at the Sepoys. They were all Indians. They were mainly pissed off my the Enfield Rifle. And when they saw their own Rajahs leading a war their loyalty made them join force. So these to me are the causes of the war. Now lets look at the desired goal. If we observe the happenings in the war, it tells us a lot. People went till Delhi, captured it and declared the poor Nawab as the Nawab of Hind! This shows the lack of any immediate future plans. With all these pitfalls, I don't see why should we call it the first war of Independence? There were wars fought before this, there were sacrifices made before this. So why this one? Just because there were more Nawabs and Rajas involved here? Or just because Delhi came into picture here? I don't know. ..

Hero-worshipping!!

Whenever I watch any good American movie, I cant but appreciate an almost ever-existing under-current in all those movies. There got to be something towards the end of the movie, which shows the manifestation of human will and determination. Certain deed or heroic act by someone whose circumstances may not have possibly permitted him/her to perform the same. I wondered why it has to be like this in all the American movies? Is it that the movie industry there, is extremely benevolent and is single mindedly producing inspirational movies which give Americans the so called American-spirit? I came to realize that industries are same everywhere! For them, their interest and profit is beyond anything and everything.

Then I was listening to a Bollywood song one day. The very tune told me a lot. Most of the Bollywood songs tell you the tone of the hoi-poloi of Indian populace. Most movies target that. Then I remembered how in American theatres, irrespective of how many weeks a movie has run, everyone claps manically when the hero performs that last heroic act. This is the mass-psychology that the industries target. Americans are idol or hero worshippers. They recognize heroes, appreciate them to the point of worshipping. We in India are extremely poor in this aspect. We almost never appreciate all the small heroes living and breathing around us. Its not that such people are in any less number among us; its just that we somehow have developed this odd habit of ignoring our own achievements and achievers. We have stretched humility a bit too far... I think we need to change slightly; we need to be more appreciative; more impressible... more of a hero-worshipper!!

Education

Somedays back, while going through a book in the Discworld series, I came across this statement: "Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on." Very true for the education prevalent in most parts of the country. To this there was this budding desire among some of the students, to do something for the society. This left me thinking of the following:

Many times we think that child labor should be banned. Children should get education as a right. Bit what shall we achieve out of that? Lets say rag pickers or mess boys or hotel boys; we can not give them formal education; evenif we give them a formal education, current educational degrees do not give you life-skills. So can we design a small but effective capsule of lifeskills? Then same course can be given in many platforms, starting from orphanages to our security guards. If it clicks, then it can be listed in a webpage and made into a mass-volunterism activity. Please help us in giving your idea of what should be included into such a course. Some things which i thnk can be included are:

1- spoken english (detailed strcutre needed; may be we can discuss with the eduction dept of any nearby university)

2- useful mathematics!! eg mensuration, interest on money, multiplication tables, time-date-years etc. (again detaield structure to be decided)

3- some moral issues (for this may be panchatantra/fables stories told in english will be fine)

4- life skills and motivation: for this I thnk if we can have a bundle of good movies it will be best; amreican movies mostly say ki u can do it; aau movie dekhu dekhu thy will see western life style and why thy r successful.

Please share your idea, and more importantly some formal and firm structre/idea!!