The Trojan Horse

The Trojan Horse is the universally accepted symbol of treachery and deceit. Nowadays it has been replaced by money or Direct Foreign Investment. In the name of globalization, the developed nations of the world are establishing their hegemony over the third world countries, Economic Imperialism, as it can be explained in the simpler terms. The world level organizations, which were once formed to support the poor nations have simply become puppets in the hands of the Capitalist nations. These nations are behaving like vultures relishing the dead animals. With their military powers they force the weaker countries to open their markets and then flood them with money. Foreign money is like drug-addiction, once a person gets into the habit, and then it is very difficult to get rid of it. Best example if this type of Imperialism is that of India. With the force of power, India was forced to open up its markets, then intoxicating money was pumped into the veins of the Indian economy and was paralyzed. John Sullivan, who was the President of Board of Revenue, Madras had once rightly said, “Our (British) system acts very much like a sponge, drawing up all the good things from the banks of the Ganges and squeezing them down on the banks of the Thames.”
The world has witnessed three form of imperialism. The first was the merchant imperialism, then came the Free Trade imperialism and the latest is the finance imperialism.
The only way to check this is simply to develop a feeling of nationalism among the masses. They should not be carried away by the pomp and show. All that glitters is not gold. We should not be foolish like the Trojans. We must remember one thing – there are no free lunches in this world. Everything comes with a price tag, and if it is imposed, it will not only carry its price tag but also the blood stain of the indigenous craftsmen.

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (April 14, 1891 — December 6, 1956) was an Indian jurist, scholar, Bahujan political leader and a Buddhist revivalist, who is the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, also known as Babasaheb. Born into a poor Untouchable community, Ambedkar spent his life fighting against the system of Chaturvarna and the Indian caste system. He is also credited for having sparked the Dalit Buddhist movement. Ambedkar has been honoured with the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, given for the highest degree of national service. Overcoming numerous social and financial obstacles, Ambedkar became one of the first "untouchables" to obtain a college education in India. He went on to pursue higher studies in Columbia University, New York, United States and England, where he earned law degrees and multiple doctorates for his study and research in law, economics and political science. Returning home a famous scholar, Ambedkar practiced law for a few years before he began publishing journals advocating political rights and social freedom for India's untouchables.

Conflict Diamonds (Part 2)

The word ‘Blood Diamonds’ is used for those diamonds which are illegally mined, sold and the money earned from it is used to purchase arms. Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, The Democratic Republic of Congo, The Republic Of Congo were the places where illegal diamond mining was done. To check such activities Angola was put under U.N. sanctions in 1998 forbidding other countries buying diamonds from it. In Sierra Leone following the U.N. mediation led to the signing of the agreement between the government and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) known as Lome Peace Agreement. Liberia also faced U.N. sanctions in 2001, same happened in the other areas. Now there is peace in these areas.

Conflict Diamonds (Part 1)

Panning for diamonds in Sierra Leone.

The word ‘Diamond’ has been derived from a greek word “adamas” , which means unconquerable. Diamonds are made of pure carbon and are so far the hardest natural substance known to man.
Diamonds are since long symbols of social status. Every famous diamond of the world has a sorrow tale to tell as many people have died to own it and many have died to steal it. These gems can be transparent, truculent white, yellow, green, blue, or brown. Diamonds have played a great role in many battles and have given birth to human tragedies.
Diamond was first discovered in India and Borneo in the river beds and later on in the eighteenth century in Brazil. In Africa they were discovered between December 1866 and February 1867 on the south bank of the Orange River. After the discovery, within 15 years the African mines produced more than what India had produced for the last 2000 years. This increase meant that the prices of diamond would not fall as there was a sharp decline in the production of Brazil.
Diamonds are found 150 Km. below the earth’s surface. The diamonds make their way up the surface captured within liquid hot rock or magma. Once they reach the surface diamonds can be found in volcanic pipes called kimberlite pipes or in loose mineral deposits called alluvial deposits.
Alluvial deposits are created by diamond pipe erosion and are easily excavated. They require very little financial capital to be invested in the removal. This is due to the fact that they are often found in riverbeds and along the coast and they do not require highly advanced mining techniques nor due they require a large amount of human capital. The simplest method of mining alluvial deposits is with a shovel and a pan. With this method diamonds and soil are shoveled into a hand held pan where they are separated by agitation and shorted by eye. More advanced methods of mining use large machinery that moves the alluvial in to large shorting pans that send different densities to smaller picking tables followed by a grease table. Since diamonds are mostly water repellent, they are sorted in alluvial deposits by using grease. While other minerals develop a water coding and slide of the grease, the water resistant diamonds stick to the grease and are collected. Mining kimberllite pipe requires a more advanced degree of mining technology and is more expensive. The first step in mining a kimberlite pipe is to dig the pit. In “open-pit” or “open-cast” mining, the layers of rock are dug up and eventually tunnels and pipe are build so the hard ore material can be removed with large hydraulic shovels and trucks. The hard rock is broken into pieces with shovels and other methods until the rock is small enough to be remove from the mine by truck. When the kimberlite ore is deep underground it must be removed by mining a series of underground shafts in the pipe that allow the ore to be carved off and make its way down the tunnel to a draw point. At these points the crushed ore is brought up to the surface for processing. Only about 20% of the world’s diamonds are taken from pipe mines, and the remaining 80% of diamonds are alluvial.
In 1866, the first diamonds in Africa were found. Before the discovery of diamonds in South Africa diamonds were very scarce and they were highly valued. Following the discovery of diamonds in Africa the production of diamonds increased tenfold in the next tens years.

The British hand in Dividing India

“For decades after 1885 communalism served as a second line
of defence of both imperialism and the reactionary forces.
But with the passage of time it became their chief
political and ideological instrument.”

(Bipan Chandra – one of the foremost historians of modern India)

British can be held responsible to a large extent for the partition of Indian subcontinent in 1947.It were they, who if did not fan the fire of communalism, did not even try to control it. Imperialists never acknowledged the responsibility and even some of the Indian historians don’t believe in it. According to them this theme was only used by the nationalists to rouse the people against the British.
To a certain extent they are right. British could not have been successful in sowing the seed of communal hatred if there would not have been something within the Indian society to provide the fertile soil. But it is also a fact that if there would have been a nationalist government in power than they would certainly had checked its growth. It did not happen so because British were in power and they wanted that Indians should continue to fight among themselves.
It was in the 19th century that the country witnessed a rise in the nationalist movement and also a nation in the making. Britishers were afraid because it produced a serious threat to their rule. Back home in Britain the number of people who questioned the British rule over India were increasing. In the beginning Britishers used to justify by using the terms such as --- White man’s burden, civilizing mission etc. With the passage of time these things lost their shine and the Britishers began looking for some other reason so as to justify their rule. So they fanned communal hatred and declared that they must continue to rule for the protection of the minorities.(If this was the reason why they did nothing to provide a safe passage to nearly 14.5 million people who had to migrate to the other side of the border during partition, out of which nearly 1 million died )

 If Hindus and Muslims would have been united then it would have been difficult for the british to continue their rule over India
 If they supported Muslim communalists this doesn’t mean that they were anti-Hindu. They only wanted to divide the Indians.
 After creating a wedge between Hindus and Muslims then they tried to bring regional communalism. Punjabis vs Bengali vs Bihari etc.
 They did not support Hindu communalism not because they had sympathy with the Muslims because support to the hindu communalism meant uniting nearly 80% of the population. This would have certainly strengthened the Indian National Congress(I.N.C.)
 The Britishers created following divisions :

• Hindus , Muslims and Sikhs
• Agricultural and non-agricultural classes
• Martial and non martial races
• Punjabi, Bengalis, Biharis etc.
• To divide Hindus they invented the term The Depressed classes
• Created divisions between the rural and urban population

When the things went out of control they decided to divide and quit, leaving all the mess to be cleared by the Indians themselves.


I would like to end with a couplet from a poem written on the plight of women during the partition days.

Ik royee si dhee Punjab di, tu likh maaray wein
Aj lakhaan Dhiyan rondiyan, Waris Shah noon Kehn…….

[When one daughter of Punjab cried, you cried a river over her
(by writing Heer)-Today thousands of them are crying – in vain –for your attention]

Amrita Pritam (One of the best known Punjabi Poetess)

Freedom and Partition of India

The red Boundry shows the pre-partitioned India

The partition of India led to the creation of Dominion of Pakistan(later Islamic Republic of Pakistan) on 14 August, 1947 and Union of India (later Republic of India) on 15 August, 1947.   
The partition came along with Freedom from the British rule. Thousands of people who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of their country could no have even imagined that one day their beloved country would be divided with so much bloodshed. 

In the next post I will be discussing the role of the British in dividing India.

"The Great Arsenal of Democracy"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The Great Arsenal of Democracy is one of the most famous of 30 speechse given by Roosevelt, then the President of America. The term Arsenal of Democracy was used by Roosevelt for Detroit (Michigan) where the auto industry had started to produce war goods for being supplied to Britain.The speech was given on December 29, 1940, the time when Nazi Germany had ran over almost all of the Europe with Britain only standing in way. Nazis had joined hands with Italy and Japan (Axis Powers). They were also collaborating with Soviet Russia.The speech was given to arouse the American people in suport of the war effort. America polity at that time was divided into Interventionists and Isolationasits. While the former supported the intervention into the war the later were against it. However the speech certainly helped to turn the wave in favour of the Interventionists.

The term 'Arsenal of Democracy' was not originally coined by Roosevelt but by Jean Monnet, who was working as the supply coordinator and economic liaison to the United States for the French government in exile. During a meeting withe Rossevelt he had coined the phrase but was asked to use the phrase again. Since then Roosevelt has got all the adulation for the phrase. He had used this celebrated phrase in the following lines:

"We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is

an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves

to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency,

the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war."

Note: for full text of the speech 'The Great Arsenal of Democracy' visit the following link :

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrarsenalofdemocracy.html

Female Education in India

“Education commences at the mother’s knee,
and every word spoken within the hearsay of little
children tends towards the formation of character.”

                                                                               (HoseaBallou)                                                                                                                

Female education in India is not a gift of modern civilization; we have brilliant tradition of it in our country. At least 20 women composed Rigvedic hymns. Gargi and Matreyi were the leading philosophers of the time. Women in the Vedic era so excelled in the sphere of education that even the deity of learning was conceived of as a female popularly known as ‘Saraswati’. Girls were allowed to enter in to Gurukuls along with boys. There are also instances of female ‘rishis’ such as Ghosa, Indrani, Urvashi etc. However, the status of women gradually declined during the post Vedic period. Child wives without education became the order of the day. The situation continued to decline till the coming of the British and the general national democratic awakening, which took place in India during the second half of the nineteenth century. The social reform movements which arose as a result of the interaction with the western civilization stressed on educating the women. The pioneering work of women’s education was done by such socio-religious reform bodies as Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna mission and also Danish, American, German and British missionary societies.

Jawahar Lal Nehru had once rightly said,

“Educate a man and you educate one person.
Educate a woman and you educate the whole family.”

Education, in reality, is the most valuable gift that parents can give to their daughter. If a girl is educated then she can also opt for a job if the need arises. So she would not be considered as a burden on the family. This would check the social evil of female foeticide. As an educated wife she would be interested in family planning as well. Studies have shown that illiterate women have high fertility and mortality rate. Many women prefer to have more children so that they could look after her in old age. But being educated she would certainly understand the advantages of a small family. Also being educated she would be able to participate in the day to day proceedings of the family. This would only add up one more voice and an opinion.
An educated mother would be more conscious about the health and hygiene of the family than her illiterate counterpart. Studies have proved that lack of education affects the general health of the family. Also infant mortality is inversely related to the educational level of the mother. For example, in Kerela female literacy ratio is highest (86%) and has lowest infant mortality rate with highest life expectancy. On the other hand in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where female literacy ratio is lowest, life expectancy is also lowest. Besides general health inculcating good moral values in her children would be one of the top priorities of any educated mother. In the long run, well brought up children are an asset which any society would love to possess. This is how the civilization moves.

List of Presidents of India

01  Dr. Rajendra Prasad                   January 30, 1950-May 13, 1962
02  Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan         May 13, 1962- May 13, 1967
03  Dr. Zakir Hussain                       May 13, 1967- May 3, 1969
*     Varahagiri Venkata Giri            May 3, 1969-July 20, 1969
*     Muhammad Hidayatullah         July 20, 1969- August 24, 1969

04  Varahagiri Venkata Giri            August 24, 1969-August 24, 1974

05  Dr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed       August 24, 1974-February 11, 1977
*     Basappa Danappa Jatti             February 11, 1977-July 25, 1977
06  Neelam Sanjiva Reddy              July 25, 1977-July 25, 1982
07  Giani Zail Singh                      July 25, 1982-July 25, 1987
08  Ramaswamy Venkataraman     July 25, 1987-July 25, 1992
09  Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma       July 25, 1992-July 25, 1997
10  Kocheril Raman Narayanan      July 25, 1997-July 25, 2002
11  Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam            July 25, 2002-Present

* Acting Presidents

'President' KALAM

According to me the most deserving candidate at this time India has for the post of president is surely Mr.Kalam. He deserves a second term.