Source : Google photo of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh unity Synopsis :We often dream of what seems impossible at times but dreams can become a reality if based on some valid reasons for such dreams. This blog looks at those dreams of a wishful thinker that I have become and suggests that they are not impossible dreams. John Lennon also had dreams that he sang about in Imagine and is wishing me luck from his grave.
Source : U tube video of John Lennon singing Imagine I start this blog with the beautiful song by John Lennon when he sings about what is possible by imagination. I just saw a great historic event in India that will have a profound effect on the future of a nation that aspires to be one of the top three economic and military powers in the world and is well on its way to get there. The return to power of Narendra Modi with a landslide victory that gives his party BJP the three fourth majority in the 547 seat parliament means that he will have the full backing of his program for the rapid development of the country that he had started five years ago and has made significant progress in all sectors of the society.
Source : U tube video where Modi says Muslims are patriots and have died for India This video is in Hindi but it shows Modi’s determination to make an inclusive society and not a divided India. His popularity with Muslim women rose when he declared that the hated Triple talaq rule will be abolished by the Indian Parliament , a promise he kept.
Source : U tube video that shows Modi’s support for Muslim women by repealing Triple talaq law through the Parliamentary resolution.
But what made me sit up and take notice was a video that I post here where Muslims are seen rejoicing the victory of Modi shouting his praise and dancing in the streets of India. In a Hindu majority country like India, the Hindus celebrating the BJP victory can be understood but to see the large numbers of Muslim rejoicing as well made me think and an idea started to grow in my mind that is like the first ray of the sun that starts to wash away the darkness before the dawn when birds are still asleep and the whole world is in deep slumber.
Source : U Tube video showing Muslims celebrating Modi’s win This idea is so thought provoking that I started to put down in words immediately. I want you all to read it and ponder on the probability that the Muslims dancing in the streets of India rejoicing the victory of a Hindu nationalist like Modi could be a harbinger of something far bigger and greater that anyone can imagine at this point. It could be an earth shaking event that may lead to something far bigger and of profound political importance to every citizen of India that may someday alter the political landscape in South Asia in a way no one is thinking of the way I am about to write about and explain in the following paragraphs. So I turned on the Pakistan TV channels and got a mixed reaction there to the victory of Modi who is not exactly a popular figure there. Pakistanis are still smarting from the surgical strike by the Indian air force in Balakot that killed a very large number of terrorists there fast asleep at 3 am one night. The whole strike was over in less than 20 minutes in three locations in Pakistan that took them by surprise because they never saw it coming so were totally unprepared.
The 12 Mirages carrying smart bombs guided by satellite technology, accurate coordinates fed to the bombs and guided by “eye in the air” AWAC plane at great altitude and the Mirages protected on their flanks with other fighter jets appeared on their targets all of a sudden, destroyed them and went back to their bases in India before anyone in Pakistan could understand what had just happened. The terrorist training camp in Balakot was well funded, well organized and run by the man who has now been declared by the UN the number one terrorist in the world with sanctions, house arrest, freeze of all the assets and other restrictions that Pakistan is obliged to implement giving the terror outfit a great blow that they may not come out of intact. Naturally the credit for this attack on the terrorists in Pakistan was given to Modi that boosted his chances of a great win in the election because he had made a promise that he will avenge the attack in Pulwama where 40 Indian soldiers were killed by a suicidal terrorist who rammed the army truck with his explosive laden vehicle and died in the process. Pakistan has not denied that there are terrorists who operate from there to cause havoc in India from time to time like the attack in Mumbai a few years ago and many such attacks that caused great loss of lives but has not taken concrete actions against them until now. The terrorism is not just limited to India but it has taken a great number of innocent lives inside Pakistan as well. Just ask Malala Yousafzai and she will tell you about the terror in the Swat valley where the Talibans have killed even children going to schools and tried to kill Malala. They have blown up schools and attacked innocent people in Lahore and many other cities just because the people of Pakistan did not share the strict ideology of the terrorists who want to turn the whole country into a graveyard mimicking the American general who declared in the war of Vietnam that he had to destroy the entire village in order to win it. The fact is that no one in Pakistan and India wants war. No one anywhere in the world wants war but the wars continue in many countries due to the geo political power games some people play from their safe havens in other countries actively supporting proxy wars in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Syria, Iraq, Colombia etc. so ordinary people who only want peace and freedom suffer. The sufferings of common people in India and Pakistan due to this incessant proxy war and direct wars have been great. I should say horrendous because there is nothing great about any war or the consequences due to it. The geographical perspective: India is a huge country flanked on three sides by ocean and in the north by the mighty Himalayas. At one time in the distant past, it was a much larger country that included all of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ladakh. Most of this vast landmass was ruled by the Mughals who had invaded India centuries ago when Baber came with his hordes through the Khyber Pass to conquer India. The Khyber pass is located between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the mountainous region of Pakistan that the invaders used to bring in their armies to conquer and loot India so Afghanistan became their base of operation. That country has never seen peace since the fundamentalist Muslims started operating from there and have ground the once peaceful and beautiful country to dust in their fervor to make it a strict Islamic country. They came from Ghazni, Kabul and Mazar e Sharif to loot India, spread death and destruction and eventually conquered the whole country to establish the Mughal Empire. Later came the British in the guise of doing business and trade but stayed as colonial master for over 200 years and left India under tremendous military pressure of the Indian National Army of Bose in 1947. Gandhi’s impact on the independence movement was minimal according to the British themselves. However, they plotted in London to divide India into three parts in 1947 so that India could never prosper but would remain subservient to England and protect the interest of the British companies still operating there after independence. The nationalist leader Sardar Patel opposed this British plan so he was pushed aside by the Gandhi and Nehru clique under pressure of the British who insisted that only Nehru could safeguard their interests in free India. Nehru was not called a brown Englishman for nothing. The politicians saw great advantage in dividing the Indian population into Hindus and Muslims and Jinnah insisted on a Muslim Pakistan in the east and west of the country so an arbitrary division was made on the map of India by a bureaucrat brought in from London who made an arbitrary pencil mark creating the borders but in reality divided India into three parts. The resultant partition in 1947 led to massive numbers of people who became refugees overnight and lost everything they had so most of the Hindus in Pakistan took shelter in India and many Muslims went to Pakistan from India. This led to massacres of Hindus and Muslims in unprecedented numbers for which no one took any responsibility least of all the British who had caused the vivisection in the first place. Some of it can be seen in the movie Gandhi that was a purely propaganda movie to eulogize Gandhi funded by the Congress party of India but it showed the partition and the massacre at the Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar by Gen. Dyer as well. Since 1947, Pakistan took an adversarial role and fought 4 wars with India over a part of India called Kashmir that they claimed but lost all four wars. The 1971 war in East Pakistan was the most devastating for Pakistan because not only they lost it, they surrendered over 200000 soldiers to India and lost half their country to be renamed Bangladesh. Smarting from this great loss they then resorted to proxy wars with India over Kashmir that is still going on today. The present situation: Both India and Pakistan spend huge sums of money to beef up their defensive and offensive capabilities due to the military tensions that prevail and the cross border attacks in India and the terrorists operating from Pakistan. The amount of money India spends on national defense is huge that could be spent elsewhere to develop the country if Pakistan did not pose any threat to India. Likewise Pakistan spends a huge amount of money on arms and nuclear missiles that they could spend on developing the country if they could only accept that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and will always remain so. So both countries place their air force on alert, place large number of tanks, missile launchers and other assets near the border and place armed border patrols 24/ 7 that guard the border. The situation is so tense that it is like a bone dry forest that can catch fire with a thunder strike and burn it all to the ground. People on both sides of the border live in perpetual anxiety and fear of attack which has a strong psychological effect on them. Now look at India: India has never stopped growing economically but the speed has accelerated in the last decade or so. There are big projects of massive infrastructure development all over the country, new dedicated freight railway lines , new container ports on the east coast as well as the west, hundreds of new airports to better connect people, massive expansion of new highways, new housing schemes for the poor, toilets for all villages, rural electrification, universal health care etc. New schools, universities, technical institutions, engineering colleges all over the country to increase the level of education, massive aid to poor farmers with electricity, irrigation water, farm loans and guaranteed farm prices etc. are numerous projects the government is working on and has made significant progress to develop India. So the Muslims who felt alienated in the past now feel that they are getting the benefits of the development in the country like everyone else so they rejoiced when Modi won the election. They feel that for the first time there is a government that does not discriminate in any way the minorities like the Muslims so they have started to feel that they too are Indians and can participate in the nation building. This does not mean that all Muslims agree or support the new government so some of them remain opposed and behave the way they have always done. At their back are the firebrand Mullahs who stoke the fire of hatred against the majority Hindus and encourage sedition. So what if ??? So I started to think what if one day Pakistan and India became one country just like the East and West Germany that reunited after so many years? No one thought that they could reunite but they did and became one. Now Germany is strong and is a model of economic growth in Europe that others are trying to emulate.
Source : U tube video of Pakistanis in Lahore chanting Long live India What if the two adversaries like India and Pakistan could bury their hatchets and become one huge country that could bring economic growth to all, where every citizen lived in complete freedom to practice his faith, where everyone could enjoy a better quality of life, where they could spend money on building new schools for girls like Malala everywhere, where tremendous opportunities for tourism could open up generating millions of jobs, where the neighbors like Iran and Afghanistan could live in perpetual peace with India, where people of all religions and faith could live in peace and harmony just like they do in India? These are a lot of what ifs but just think about the benefits. What has Pakistan gained with its years of stagnation and animosity toward India? All the money it now spends on missiles and arms could be spent for the poor to give them a better life. All the lives that could be saved if all hostilities could stop once and for all is surely worth considering! The separated families could be reunited, people could travel anywhere without visas and restrictions once again, they could settle anywhere and buy properties or start their own business. The society will no longer be divided based on the religion where everyone will have the right to practice it. The threat of nuclear war between the two countries will be eliminated forever making the world a safer place. If the Muslims in India are rejoicing because a nationalist Hindu has won the election, is it not a good sign that the future of all Muslims there is safeguarded? There will be no more communal tensions that used to lead up to riots and mayhem in the past. Do you know that there are Muslim Mullahs who read and give lectures on Geeta in India, Saudi Arabia and Quatar? They sing the hymns of Geeta, Ramayana and read Vedas and openly declare that the Hindu scriptures have a lot to offer the world. The Sufi Muslims have always appreciated the Hindu philosophy and practice most of them. Pakistani children are taught hate and animosity toward all Hindus in their Madarsas that are Koranic schools where they train the future suicide bombers but they can be taught about love for others. I have always maintained that the Pakistani people as such do not hate Indians and often praise India for its economic might and the nationwide progress the country is making. They love Indian movies, Indian music, Indian food and many women want to marry Indians. Pakistan has many internal problems like Baluchistan and Gilgit where people want to be free and join India so this problem would be resolved if the two countries join and become one. The best outcome:
Source : U tube video showing Pakistanis flying Indian flag and declare Kashmir a part of India forever. The best outcome would be the end of conflict in Kashmir where once again people will live in peace and prosperity and the people of Gilgit will enjoy the same rights as anyone in the united India and prosper . Kashmir is probably the most beautiful state in India that has a curse. When this curse of war is lifted, it will shine once again as the paradise that it really is. The purest mountain air fragrant with poplar and pine scent, the cleanest water and the most beautiful Dahl lake, the snow capped mountains will attract the world tourists once again creating millions of jobs for the beautiful but poor Kashmiris and Gilgit residents. Read my blog called the Curse in Kashmir here The Indian part of Kashmir is fast developing with rail links to the rest of the country , new roads and with new air connectivity but just go across the Line of Control (LOC) and you will see poverty and despair among the residents. When there is no more border , they will also enjoy the same benefits as the rest of Indians and will not live in fear of shelling and bombs.
In new united India, all the madarsas ( Koranic schools) teaching hate will be shut down and the kids will grow up just like anyone else going to normal schools. The fundamentalists like the Taliban terrorists need oxygen to breathe that they get from these hate schools so they will wither when such schools are shut down. The Pakistani Muslims have the same aspirations and hope as the Indian Muslims so they too want to live in peace and prosperity. Hate is a loser anywhere but love conquers all. The 21st century belongs to India that will emerge as the most powerful country economically and militarily but not as an aggressive country but a country that will be the world leader promoting peace and harmony among all. I hope that someday people on both side of a hateful artificial border that divides people will come to realize that it is in their interest to unite and become one strong and prosperous country where Hindus may dance on the street of a united India for the victory of a Muslim Prime Minister or vice versa. That is the dream of Malala and that is also my dream. Who knows? May be some day she will be the Prime Minister of a new undivided India where all girls and boys will go to school without fear. She is still young. The future belongs to the young who are daring, educated and are willing to accept the challenges that they face and overcome them. It does not belong to hate mongers who thrive on dividing people. People are the same everywhere who want to live in peace. I may not be alive to see that day when people of all faith will live in a great United Republic of India but I hope someday it will become a reality not through war but through an awakening that there is wisdom in the saying United we stand, divided we fall.
Note : I could not find any video from Pakistan in English to include here in this blog so posted what I could find in Hindi. If you are reading my blogs in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nepal then I hope you will share them with your friends freely. Thanks.
Source : Google photo of unity in diversity in India Synopsis :A great change is coming to India where a great leader is changing the country fundamentally by making " progress for everybody together " his mantra and is making all Indians proud for the first time in their life. He is bringing unity among the diverse population of the country by saying that we are all Indians first and we are all brothers and sisters who have the same aspirations as others to grow in prosperity and live in peace and harmony. I must admit that I have not always believed in unity in diversity in India because as a child I was led to believe that the Muslims were the root of all the problems in India. They failed to assimilate with others no matter where they lived and created their own communities where they felt safer and where they could be a Muslim according to the tenets of their faith. This feeling of separateness was very evident everywhere including the schools where our Muslim classmates remained aloof and separate from the rest of the class although at a very young age, we did not understand this separateness in them or the reasons for it. They never became our friends and we never invited each other to our homes or public festivals or religious events so this feeling of separateness never left us and had a great impact on the way we looked at each other as we were growing up. There seemed to be a great divide between the Muslims and the rest meaning the 70% of the Indian population where the Hindus were the majority but there are the Christians, Sikhs, Jains, the Buddhists and many other fringe groups like the Bahais, the Parsis, the Jews and others but this divide became more pronounced after the partition of India into large Muslim dominated Pakistan and Hindu dominated India known as Hindustan. I was too young to understand the full impact of the vivisection of India because in 1947, I was only 3 years old but my father knew. He had worked under the British in the pre independence India in areas that are now part of Pakistan where some of our siblings were born. He was awarded a prestigious medal by the British for his services in Wajiristan that is a tribal area of Pakistan in the west and worked closely with the Muslim tribals in that area. He lived in Quetta in the Sindh province where one of my sisters was born so my parents were quite familiar with the Muslims wherever they lived. Then came the politicians who started to see great benefits for themselves in dividing the Indians based on their religions thus creating the barrier and animosity that still prevails 70 years after the independence and has led to 4 wars with Pakistan alone. I will not repeat the history here and dwell on the reasons because there is no room for such a topic here that can become a very big subject that can't be discussed in just a few words here so I will stick to the subject of diversity and unity here among all people living in India no matter what their religions and beliefs. So I will go back to my grade school days and try to understand this great divide that existed then and still persists today. One day our teacher while taking the attendance noticed that one Muslim kid was absent so he asked a few of us Hindu kids to go to his house and find out why he had failed to attend school. We had never been to any Muslim house before but we found his house and entered when no one answered the door. Inside we found our schoolmate in tears but what was most shocking to us was that he was chained like a dog to the wall by probably his parents but we did not know why. We did not know what we could do so we returned to our school and reported the matter to our teacher who kept quiet. We did not see that kid again in school and moved on to the next grade. He was soon forgotten and I can't recall his name or his face now but I do feel the shock even today seeing him chained up like a dog and treated so badly. In other countries such matters would be reported to the Police who will then take some actions to free the kid and ask his parents about it but I do not know to this day if they did and what happened to that kid. Then one day I saw him in the market selling joss sticks while his father stood nearby keeping an eye on him. He had a cruel look on his face and perhaps it was he who had chained his son like a dog in his house but why? We were also shocked at the abject poverty in which the kid lived so perhaps his parents could not afford to send him to school so made him sell a few things in the market at his tender age. This is the story of millions of Muslims who have remained poor and without education because they had other priorities like survival. One classmate who one day came with a shirt that his mother had hand stitched entirely for him made us gasp because we had never seen such a beautifully hand stitched shirt before but it also signified poverty among the Muslims. The politicians have always treated the Muslims as their vote bank by telling them that only they can look after their needs but failed to do so because it was a political gimmick to get their votes so the Muslims now feel that they have been deceived by the people who they voted for. But it was not always this way. Netaji Bose was the first national leader who made no distinction between people based on their religion and welcomed all to join his Indian National Army ( INA) to fight the British and make India free so thousands of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians joined INA and fought together to oust the British and some 26000 died doing so. The survivors who are now over 90 years old ,feeble and poor shed tears remembering how great a leader was Bose who gave them self-respect and dignity and called them all to fight for a cause so people from all religions , caste and creed responded. But the seed of division was sown by some extremely greedy politicians who wanted power in the post independent India so chose to divide people on the basis of religion and separated India into three parts in 1947 that led to Hindus fleeing East Pakistan and West Pakistan in large numbers that got them massacred in the hands of rabble Muslims. They were encouraged by their political leaders and Mullahs to get rid of all Hindus from Pakistan. Hindus in India then took revenge on the Muslims thus creating the barrier and mistrust that we as children saw and I write about today. Indian lives lost in the struggle for freedom and the consequent massacres in large scale proves that Gandhi's non violent struggle was a blatant lie that the world still believes in. When I left India at the age of 22, I saw for the first time how Muslims lived in other countries and how they were in no way any different from others. They treated me so well in Algeria where they invited me to their homes and fed me sumptuous meals during the Id festival. I have already written about how they invited me in seeing that I was getting wet in the rain on the road to Mascara near Mostaganem. Nobody had poisoned their heart against the Hindus the way the crooked politicians had done in India and use them as their vote bank for selfish gains. It was a group of Palestinian boys who found me a trattoria in Sienna, Italy one day and a Pakistani gentleman in Sudan had given me shelter in his home one night so I began to realize that all people no matter what religion they follow are simply people with same aspirations as anyone else and dream of a peaceful and prosperous life no matter where they live. I have shared meals with them and their hospitality in many countries outside India but in my home country people still live separate lives. Now for the first time in India a new leader has emerged who has said that all Indians deserve the education, jobs and prosperity irrespective of caste, creed, color, race and religion so that the country as a whole can move forward and make progress. Muslims were so surprised by this declaration that they at first thought that it was too good to be true but soon realized that in New India there was room for everybody where anyone can make progress and come out of poverty. For the first time they were told that the Hindus are not their enemies but are their brothers and sisters who do not look down on them. They saw for the first time that the government is helping the poor people everywhere by bringing electricity to all villages and building farm to market roads, by building millions of toilets in the villages, by giving poor farmers debt relief, by providing subsidized cooking gas to the poor people, by making universal health care a reality, by giving everyone free medical insurance worth Rs. 500000, by giving low interest loans to people to open their own business, by guaranteeing a good market price for the farm-produce and reserving 10% of all jobs for the minorities like the Muslims. Muslim women for the first time were called sisters by the Prime Minister of the country who promised them to repeal their hateful practice of Triple Talaq rule that any Muslim man can use to divorce his wife and throw her out as a destitute. They were in tears of disbelief when this law was passed in the parliament because no one had ever thought of helping the poor divorced Muslim women this way. There was a Hindu lady social worker in Lucknow who freed the Muslim women embroiders from virtual slavery and abject poverty and from the clutches of the exploitative agents who were making these poor women blind from the hard work of embroidery , paying them pittance and making huge profit from their exquisite work. Please read my blog : The pride and strife of embroiders of Lucknow. ( power point ) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ayh8T7B6NYEXFNSgDAgwl-9w3zAUYgQ4/view?usp=sharing Note : Just highlight the link and right click to go to the powerpoint This had never happened before so slowly the Muslims have begun to understand that now there is a government that is not dividing them just because they are Muslims but actually helping them come out of their poverty through numerous schemes that are providing them education, jobs and business opportunities. Slowly they are beginning to support the new government in increasingly larger numbers although the hate mongering is still fashionable among many who have not supported the new Government and continue to support the old politicians who still use them as their vote bank and continue to make fake promises to them. So I see now a change in the offing that is slowly starting to transform India into a more progressive and prosperous country where more and more people from all sections of the society are coming to join the ever growing middle class because the government is determined to help everyone and treating people of all religions equally creating an inclusive society for all. The Ram mandir issue : When Baber destroyed a Hindu temple to build a mosque in Ayodhya some 600 years ago, he laid the foundation of hatred between the Hindus and Muslims that his successors to his throne kept alive by their large scale destruction of thousands of Hindu temples. They converted Hindus to Islam by force and killed wholesale those who resisted thus creating the large Muslim population that it has become now. Then one day, thousands of Hindus went to Ayodhya and partially demolished the Mosque so that they could build the temple of Ram there but hundreds died in the process when the police opened fire on them. Ram is a Hindu God who was born in Ayodhya and is venerated by hundreds of millions of Indians. But many Muslims opposed it that led to the intervention of the Supreme Court where the matter stagnates. Now many Muslims say that it was wrong for the Mughals to destroy the Hindu temples so they will help the Hindus re build the temple at the same spot and help correct a historic wrong. The future as I see it: There has been a drastic change in the attitude of many Muslims and countries like Saudi Arabia and Quatar among others are helping build Hindu temples there which was unthinkable a few years ago. When Geeta was translated into Arabic, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Saudi Arabia in a short time showing that the Muslims there have the thirst to know Hindu scriptures like Geeta. This is a bitter pill for the fanatic mullahs to swallow but times are changing that brings better understanding between the Hindus and Muslims. But dividing people on religious grounds and their political affinity has been in fashion in many countries where the politicians try to gain their advantage by labeling people by their race, color, religion, ethnicity etc. Hitler declared that only the white Germans were blue blooded and of pure Aryan descent while the rest were impure people not worth being called Germans. This group included the Jews, many minorities and Gypsies who were brought to the concentration camps to be gassed. Many political parties in many countries thrive on the notion of white supremacy so they look down on their citizens who are not white or of a different political persuasion creating many difficulties for them. The rise of hate crime against the nonwhites and recent immigrants is a result of homophobia that their political leaders promote. The discrimination based on one’s religion, race and skin color is an old practice in many parts of the world even today but people are waking up and are demanding equal rights for themselves that does not sit well with some politicians. Could anyone believe that a black man with a name like Barack Hussein Obama will become the President of the United States? But he did that shows that people are changing and voted for him based on merit only. This is also happening now in India where Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians alike are voting for a Hindu who wants to change fundamentally the country so that all people can live there in peace and harmony and all can participate in the growth of the country. He has not seen people as Hindus and Muslims but Indians first just like the great national leader Netaji Bose long ago and is working hard to unite the people under one nation, one flag, one rule of law for all and equal opportunities for all so that everyone can improve his life. The fanatic mullahs will not be pleased because it will dilute their prominence in dividing people when Muslims ignore hate and embrace love for all but I see the change taking place right now in India and am very optimistic that it will one day emerge as the great nation where people irrespective of their caste or religion will live in peace and greater prosperity than they had ever imagined possible. I can see the unity in diversity in India and hope that other nations will emulate this trend and work on it to make racism, intolerance and prejudice a thing of the past like slavery and fanaticism. The diversity is akin to different flowers in the same garden, each beautiful in its own way and should be appreciated. May be India will show the way.
Source : Google photo of Machiavelli Synopsis :We now see so much acrimony in politics that holds no bar in defaming the opposition in crude and unsubstantiated allegations that makes me think of Machiavelli. The fight for power has always been like war where no rules apply so the politicians throw away all that is decent and resort to dirty politics. I would like to think that Machiavellian politics should be condemned and relegated to the dustbin of history so that people can fight for election within rules and decency.
Niccolò Machiavelli, (born May 3, 1469, Florence, Italy—died June 21, 1527, Florence), Italian Renaissance political philosopher and statesman, secretary of the Florentine republic, whose most famous work, The Prince (Il Principe), brought him a reputation as an atheist and an immoral person. Machiavelli wrote a long time ago what it took to win in politics that today many politicians have taken to heart and take his advice as the road map to success. What the common people ignore is the fact that the politics of winning has no moral base or guidelines so yesterday’s opponent becomes an ally and today’s ally may become tomorrow’s nemesis. We hear of the great Indian election underway now that will decide who will be the leader to lead a nation of over 1.3 billion souls and whether or not he or she will become a great leader to make the development a priority or a bad leader who will fill his pockets to get very rich quickly and let the country down. We see again and again how the bad people get to the top by making fake promises they have no intention to keep just to get the votes and then becoming extremely arrogant once they are elected. Then they are surrounded by security goons with dark glasses and automatic weapons who keep people away as far as possible. So the people who voted the politician into power feel let down because now the same politician makes threats and intimidates the people who have not voted for him and insults them with deprecating words just because they voted of their own free will. I always see the baby kissing politicians with fake smile shaking hands with the would be voters to impress them but in reality the same person hides his dark secrets from them to project only the fake side of him to win their votes and support. It reminds me of the woman who married Duvalier in Haiti and was a person of low moral character but said that she will get even with her detractors after her marriage which she did by ruining them when she got married to an equally bad person. Many politicians do the same and become vengeful once they get elected toward those who did not support them. Machiavelli said that in politics people make strange bed fellows to serve their interest and will go to any length to gain power and stay there because power is very addictive and gives such a person the opportunity to abuse it with impunity. No one can bring a dictator to the International court of Justice for killing thousands of innocent people who never meant any harm to anyone because he is not answerable to anyone for what he does. Idi Amin, Mobutu and Mugabe are some names that come to my mind. In the days of kings and queens, it was routine to see the bloody struggle to gain or retain power. Aurangjeb killed his half-brothers and jailed his father Shah Jehan, the emperor so that he could ascend the throne but such tactics were common since the ancient times.Genghis Khan killed his fierce opponent to become the sole ruler and Cleopatra had her half-brother killed to gain power and favor in the eyes of Julius Caesar. Shaka Zulu had all his opponents executed so that he could become the most powerful of Zulu rulers but in the end he too was killed by his own trusted generals who disagreed with him. Jalal Uddin Mohamed aka Akber challenged his fierce opponent to a one to one duel with the winner take all deal to avoid mass killings by two armies. His opponent was defeated and sent to exile showing magnanimity in Akber. But he was also known for his cruelty toward his opponents. So the power game has always been brutal where the most cunning and ruthless person prevailed by eliminating all opposition one way or the other. Machiavelli simply put into words and action on how the modern struggle for power can be played through cunning, careful planning and often outright deceit because he said that there is no morality in the game of power struggle so the means should justify the end result. We are now in the age of democracy where the common people are empowered to vote and elect the government they want through their voting rights. It is fair to say that the voting rights were hard earned through bloodshed and revolutions in many countries while in others they are still fighting for such rights. In some countries, people demonstrated in the streets in very large numbers to chase out the dictators like in Iran and Tunisia only to find the next government just as corrupt and brutal as the ones they chased out so a revolution fatigue sets in that encourages the bad people to rule once again. So the people powered revolutions need a charismatic leader who has the power to move the masses against the status quo so such leaders emerge during a period of crisis in a country like what has just happened in Sudan where women took the lead to force out a longtime dictator. But it takes great courage to stand up against a ruthless dictator because such courageous people end up beaten or dead. In other countries the power vacuum is quickly filled by the hard core fundamentalists who then become the dictators. There is a basic premise that all people no matter where they live want freedom from oppression and fear, freedom to choose the government they want, freedom of expression and an independent judiciary that becomes an institution and pillar of democracy. They want an army and police force that is apolitical and serves under the democratically elected civilian government but these are high goals to achieve even in a modern democratic country like India although it must be said the Indians do enjoy their right to vote and choose their government, a free press, an independent judiciary and the armed forces that are subservient to the civilian elected government. I write about India because they are in the process of electing their new government through massive voting, the results of which will be announced shortly. The election process although largely fair and peaceful has seen some poll related violence where people have been killed or injured due to political differences between parties that are fighting for their share of electoral votes and will stop at nothing to get them. Source : Google photo of Josef Goebbels , the Nazi propaganda minister One method used by the Nazis was to appoint a propaganda minister called Josef Goebbels whose sole job was to create propaganda films, publish articles in the media to favor their party and through mass meetings where only the Nazi party was allowed to sing their own praise. Today many politicians do the same by making fake promises to gain voters, publish news articles in the media to show them in a good light and by paying corrupt newspaper editors and TV journalists to sing their praise. We are now in the era of smart phone technology in the hands of common people so spreading fake news and misleading information is easier than one can imagine. Gullible people who are predisposed to believe fake news especially if they favor one candidate over others then help spread the fake news by using the share button creating a tsunami of fake news that stars to exert its influence in the minds of people. Imagine what Goebbels could do if he had such technology in 1933? What is interesting is the fact that the politics in any country attracts those people who are morally, psychologically ,intellectually and in many other ways unfit to run for higher office. Some are outright felons with many cases pending against them for bribery, dishonesty, criminal activities and such but they promote themselves as the most viable candidates giving credence to the notion that in any society the scum always floats to the top. It is more so in the politics where the voice of honest people who may become the leaders if the voting is fair and impartial is drowned out in the fierce debates where the corrupt and incompetent people shout most insults at their opponents and encourage their supporters at their political rallies to beat or harass people who do not support them. We see this sort of behavior in many countries now. The Nazis did the same but the ascent of Nazis to power was due to the vacuum created after the First World War and the unjust Versailles treaty that imposed heavy penalty on the German people thus creating great resentment and a desire in them to change their government so they opted for a strong leader like Hitler. Hitler explained it in his book Mein Kampf quite well. This is no longer the case now. The politicians are now fighting with each other to win the election by any means even if the incumbent government is doing an excellent job of governing the country. The analogy with a tradesman is quite apt here. If you call a carpenter or a mason or plumber or just about anyone to repair something in your house, he will always find something to criticize the previous tradesman. It is the same in the realm of politics where an aspiring candidate will always find something to criticize an elected official even if he is doing a great job. One reason why some people feel jealousy is because they think that they are better than others and can do a better job. Students get jealous of their smart classmates, women get jealous of someone who is selected as the beauty queen, people get jealous of their office mates who are promoted ahead of them and the politicians get jealous of others who are doing a good job as the leaders of their nations. Machiavelli used this dark nature in people to get to where he wanted to be and succeeded because he was totally amoral, an atheist and without any scruples so his writings still inspire immoral and dishonest people who say that any means to justify the end is fair because fighting for power is like a war where all is fair and permissible. But in a true democracy, people are expected to adhere to the rule of law and practice what is fair and legal but how many do? You have heard of the Watergate scandal but in many so called democracies there are the “gates” that one side or the other has used to discredit their opponents. A good propagandist says that if a candidate is clean and honest, invent some dirt on him and repeat the lies until some people start to believe in them. This is very Machiavellian in concept. I believe that the good and honest people must come forward in a democracy where they can be recognized on their own merit and not through propaganda. They must be supported to win their fight to be elected so that they can govern their country in a just and equitable way where all people irrespective of their caste, color, race, religion and ethnicity are treated equally, where the development is for everybody and where no one is discriminated using any parameter. There should be no tolerance for corrupt, incompetent , dishonest , immoral people without conscience in the politics anywhere no matter what Machiavelli said because it is only when the good people take charge of their country, they can move forward and make development for all a priority. But this can only happen when the voters are educated and wise in choosing their leaders. This can happen in many ways. One is not to support fake news and delete them from all social media and newspapers or TV channels. Support your candidate based on merit and not anything else. Judge him by what he has accomplished and not by his fake promises that he has never fulfilled. Expose corrupt people and do not vote for them. Remember that bad people thrive in politics because they get some support in terms of votes so do not give them the chance to win so that they won't steal your money and enrich themselves. There is some truth in saying that you get the government you deserve but no one deserves a bad government. It happens because the good people are defeated by the bad people through propaganda and Machiavellian tactics so wake up and elect people based on honesty and their merit. If a country wants to make progress, it has to start at the ballot. A wrong choice can set you back by decades. The power struggle does not have to be Machiavellian to succeed. It needs to be fair, balanced and honest so that people can choose the right person to lead them.
Source : Google photo of unemployed people Synopsis :The ever growing population in any country seeks employment because it is necessary to earn a living. When they depend on the government to employ them, they find it nearly impossible because no government can provide job to each and every citizen. The alternative is to get the type of education and training the private sector needs to employ them. This blog looks at many other possibilities for the jobless people.
Today we hear of unemployment in many countries where it becomes a political issue when people start blaming their government for not creating jobs for them. In some countries where the working population is approaching their retirement years, it creates the opportunity for the younger generation to fill those vacancies but it does not create necessarily new jobs. As the educated population increases in a country because of increase in the number of better educational institutions ,they all seek employment after their graduation but the number of new applicants far exceed the available jobs so there is fierce competition. So how can the new graduates get employed? Is it possible for any government to create millions of jobs for the people? Why is it that everybody seeks government jobs ? As any country develops and grows economically , it happens because the government makes it possible for the private industries to develop and grow due to the development of the infrastructure all over the country. It means new roads, new power stations, new connectivity through new road and rail network, water connection, new connections to freight terminals, air terminals , new internet and wifi connections, new rules and regulations that make it easier for the business in the private sector to grow and create employment for their industries. This is how a country creates jobs for the young aspirants where the government plays a major role in making it possible for the private industries to establish and grow there. India is an example of such growth in many sectors namely the IT industry, telecom industry, generic drugs industry, agro industries based on food processing, transport industries by land , sea or air, service industries, e commerce , entertainment industry just to name a few. No private industry in any country can build thousands of kilometers of roads, bridges or rail network because it requires massive investment that only a government can make using the tax money and other sources of revenue . When the government gives the contract to build the infrastructure to the private companies, they employ millions of people to do so. Once the infrastructure is developed, the private sector rapidly expands thus creating employment for the new graduates. New factories come up, new schools, hospitals and shopping malls come up where many find jobs. If you look at the so called developed countries, you will find lower unemployment rate there because their industries need new employees to replace the ones retiring or where new jobs are being created in new industries. The government makes rules and regulations to restrict the import of raw materials or manufactured goods from other countries to give the local industries the advantage they need due to higher import tariffs. The protection of local industries and subsidies to farming sector are some of the tools the governments use create or maintain employment levels in many countries. But the growth of the industries for job creation in the competitive world today faces many challenges . No country can unilaterally impose such tariffs on other countries where the labor and manufacturing costs may be lower giving them an advantage over the high labor and manufacturing costs in other countries so they may retaliate by imposing their own import tariffs. If you take the example of China, you will find that their government has made a sustained effort over the years to make it possible for the private sector to grow there rapidly creating millions of jobs. The government there makes it possible by creating special economic zones in many parts where it provides land, electricity , water, road and rail connection , tax exemption for a period , special subsidies for the raw materials and many such facilities so that the private industries can establish there and grow. Such help from the government has made it possible for their industries to grow at a phenomenal rate. The government also helps find markets for their export in many countries by making special arrangements through bilateral treaties and agreements where it buys their raw materials at a favorable rate and sends back the manufactured goods there. Long ago the British did the same in India where they bought the high quality cotton at a cheap rate from the farmers and sent it to England to make clothes they sold in India thus discouraging the development of the local industries. This was done during the colonial period to develop England at the expense of their colonies but this method today does not work . Now countries like India and China are rapidly growing industrially and make almost everything they need so they import only those products that are essential for their growth in agriculture and other sectors. Most of the trade deals made between countries are now regulated by the WTO that serves as the arbiter in case of disputes between the member countries. The role of Internet In the last decade or two the internet has spread throughout the world even in poor countries and has made a huge impact in the growth of many industries that are based on the internet technology and IT. It has created jobs for millions of IT graduates who run their own business using the Internet or work in numerous call centers providing a service to their clients through the Internet. Bengaluru in South India and Hyderabad in Central India have become the IT hubs where many new IT based companies have established themselves and employ massive numbers of graduates. The internet has helped the growth of e commerce in a spectacular way. Now anyone with a smart phone can download an application and order practically anything from the vendors who will delivered it to your doorstep in a very reasonable time. There are many options open to you for the payment like credit card, cash upon delivery or other applications like paypal. Internet and e commerce has made Alibaba and Amazon a household name but there are many such e commerce companies that have flourished because of Internet. Now more than 40% of the world population has access to Internet that has created millions of new jobs. This will grow more in the future. Alibaba alone employs thousands of people in China and elsewhere to deliver to your door what you order on line from them so they use people on bicycles and motorbikes to reach even the remotest villages in China. The convenience of buying anything from the comfort of your home is very appealing because you do not have to travel a long distance to the store and fight the traffic and the huge crowd. In India the food is being delivered to your door when you apply on line . This sort of service employs thousands of people all over the country making life easier for people. One company in Mumbai has turned every household that wants to join it into a mini factory where housewives make papad which is like a tortilla made of mungbean dough and make money based on the quantity of papad they make. It employs thousands of housewives this way and pays them only for making the product but women earn a good income working from their homes. Another company delivers food to thousands of employees in their offices by hiring people on bicycles to pick up food from their homes and delivers it to the employees for a small fee So there are many new ways companies are creating jobs for others. There was a time when people only aspired for the government jobs because it meant a lifetime of job security, pension and other benefits but no government can employ all the job seekers in any country so now the private sector steps in and offers opportunities for them. It is estimated that every person with a steady job supports at least ten people who are called the service providers. They are your neighborhood grocers, vegetable sellers, meat sellers, washerwomen , tailors, repair men , people in transport service, shops that supply everything you need, entertainment service, sport facilities, fashion industry and numerous others . So just one million employees end up supporting over 10 million people in the service sector. They in turn support their families and 10 times more others. This is called the ripple effect that creates jobs for others in the private sector. The employment and unemployment figures published by the government do not paint the whole picture of a country. Every employed person not only feeds his family , he creates the market for his demands or needs so new factories come up everywhere to fill those demands. It may be a bicycle or a scooter or motorbike that he needs or even a car if he can afford it or new readymade clothes or smart phones or electronics that he wants to buy. The new factories thus employ millions of people to manufacture the things the consumer wants creating intense competition among them to manufacture products of higher quality at a cheaper price. This competition between the rivals helps make better and cheaper products in the market worldwide giving huge advantage to countries that make them for the benefit of the consumers everywhere. China is a good example that has become the manufacturing center of the world but other countries are also trying hard to catch up to make quality products where they have an advantage of low labor costs. Source : Google photo of women in clothing factory in Bangladesh You can now observe how Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam are fast becoming the manufacturers of ready to wear clothes, sport equipment , motorized vehicles, electronics including smart phones and computers creating many employment opportunities for their citizens. They make toys, shoes, leather goods, cheap watches, utensils and many such products for the export market that earns them huge revenues and employs lots of people. Thus the middle class earns it's nick name as the motor that drives the development of a country. When the poor people improve their earnings and join the middle class, it swells their numbers dramatically like in China and to some extent in India. But the growth of the middle class comes at the expense of the farm population that keeps declining in many countries. The point is that one should not always blame a government in any country for the unemployment there because the government can only employ a small fraction of the unemployed. The answer lies in the private sector where most of the jobs are created often with the government support as I explained earlier in the blog. Most people are self employed because the consumers create the demand that they try to meet . There was an old Sikh couple in my home town who made delicious street food they sold at a street corner every evening at a very reasonable price. It was so popular that he sold out all he made in a few hours everyday and appeared with fresh food the next day. It made him earn a decent living. There are millions of such people who make a decent living by being self employed. The aspirations of graduates: Now I come to discuss the aspirations of educated people who want a white collar job and are frustrated when they find it hard to be employed. When I was a student in California, I often asked my dorm mates what they wanted to do after graduation. Their common answer was that they did not know what they wanted. Only a few said that they wanted to be an architect or an electrical or mechanical engineer or an artist. So there is a mismatch between what the market demands and what the colleges and universities train their students to be. Those students who take courses in IT or related sciences, those who take business management or courses related to healthcare or medical technologies, those who take computer science and learn programming or software development courses, those who learn the computer animation , those who learn to make programs for video games etc. find themselves in high demand even before they graduate because the private companies desperately want them and offer very good salaries and perks to them. Source : Google photo of women assembling smart phones in China As the new technologies are developed in practically every field, there is a need for the technicians to run these industries that use such technologies. In China a simple girl with practically no education assembles complex smart phones or other such products in an assembly line in huge factories because they are trained to do so. In Bangladesh a village woman gets a job in a cloth manufacturing plant where she sews parts of a garment that others assemble in huge factories. She is not a tailor but learns to operate machines that make clothes for export. So not all the factories need highly educated people to run them because most of the jobs are routine that require a short training course given freely by the company.The highly technical jobs are reserved for highly educated people with proper background and training so they becomes managers or supervisors or become trainers for others. The agricultural sector : This is the sector that employs millions of poor people who have no skills whatsoever and no education but can cultivate land, pick the harvest and do other chores required in the farming. The farming also includes dairy farms, chicken farms and factories that process agricultural products like fruits ,vegetables or subsidiary products. Most people find it hard to work in the farming sector where the pay is low and work very hard so a huge number of immigrants from other countries take up such jobs. The immigrants work hard and get paid low wages but they work because they have no other choice. They also have no social security , health benefits or pensions so they are treated as casual laborers who have no job security at all. Often the plantation owners employ such people at starvation wages and make them buy their groceries at the company operated stores at higher prices that leads to abuse of such workers who remain poor and almost destitute. Remember Cesar Chavez who tried to organize the farm laborers in California and was badly treated by the rich farmers who asked the help of the police or goons to beat up the protesters who were only asking for decent wages and some job security? He was able to organize the farm workers and made a union to protect their rights. He died in 1993 but was awarded the Presidential medal of freedom posthumously for his lifelong work to help the farm workers get better pay and benefits. People who work in farms and factories are often treated this way and abused because they do not have the education or skills to find other jobs. This is the great divide between the educated and non educated people. People with right education and training can demand a good salary and benefits and get it while the poor people are happy just to get any job no matter how low is the salary. The future : I willl conclude this blog by saying that the future belongs to those who are prepared for it. We now live in the world of fast changing and developing technologies that open up new possiblities for employment all the time for those who get the kind of education and training the new companies need. These jobs will require special education and training that may cost a lot so it is not for everyone. It is very hard to get into any business school anywhere these days. The medical colleges also are very selective in taking in new students and medical technology colleges are very difficult to get admitted to. So the new graduates will have to seek employment wherever they can so many will emmigrate to other countries where they may have a chance. But for the vast majority of people seeking jobs will have to face the hard reality that higher paying jobs that require special education and training are reserved for those who have it so they have to accept lower paying jobs somewhere if they are lucky. One way to make a decent living anywhere is to get vocational training that does not require college education but trains people in carpentry, electrical repairs, masonry, welding, car mechanics or refrigerator or airconditioner repair, electronics repair, appliance like washing machines or other household gadgets and appliance repair, plumbing and numerous other trades that pay very well. My mechanic who fixes and maintains my car makes more than a college professor and lives in his nice home where he also has his garage. No job should be beneath anyone although we should all aspire to be employed somewhere with decent wages. So the young people should make up their mind when they start their college education and decide what they want to be and exert all their effort in that direction. Such people always get to where they want to go if they are so determined. All they need is the right sort of education and training that meets the demands of the market.
