What is faith?

Source : Google photo of a leap of faith

Synopsis : Most people struggle with the word faith and can't seem to define it in one way or the other. Some use it to advance their own agenda be they political or religious and defend it even with violence. The blog looks at faith not as a religious duty or belief but as a belief or trust in something or someone who helps you to overcome all the challenges you face in your life by changing your mind a positive way.

I will start this blog with a story I heard a long time ago.
There was a young boy who stuttered and was ashamed of himself because of his disability but one day a magician who was passing by his village stopped there for a bit of rest . When the villagers knew that he was a magician , they brought the boy to him and asked him to do some magic so that he could stop stuttering.

The magician then gave some magic marbles to the boy and asked him to keep them in his mouth until the magic balls cured him of his disability. The boy believed in the magic balls , kept them in his mouth and slowly regained his normal speech to the amazement of all the villagers but the young boy realized that the balls were not magic balls at all.

One day many years later the magician happened to pass by the village again when the boy now fully cured of his stutter confronted him and said that the balls were not magic at all so the magician was a fraud. The magician smiled and said that it is true that the marbles were not magic marbles at all but it cured the boy of stuttering ,didn't it?

He said it was so because the boy had faith in those balls and kept them in his mouth until he stopped stuttering. It did not matter that the balls had no magical properties so faith is very necessary in life because it can help a person overcome many challenges in life . People were amazed at the wisdom of the magician and the boy apologised.

I too had a crisis in my youth when I questioned everything and did not like to follow others so I challenged many established traditions and sought answers to many riddles of life . Many young people go through the same stages in their early life when they think that being a rebel is cool so they start growing hair long and smoke pot and do other things to prove that they are rebels. Most overcome this stage and later lead a normal life because they realize that to achieve anything in life, one has to have faith in himself first.

So one day I was given a wallet size photo of Adya Ma and told that I should keep her with me all my life and have faith in her. She will help me overcome all my difficulties and bless me for the faith I put in her. Adya Ma means the Universal Mother. There is a beautiful temple in Adya Peeth in Kolkata where her image is worshipped and is a holy pilgrimage place for millions of her devotees. I have been there a few times and brought my wife and children there as well.

I have  kept that photo of Adya Ma in my wallet for the last fifty years no matter where I was in the world and felt that she has kept me and my family out of trouble all these years and continues to shower all of us with her blessings because I have kept faith in her and believed in her.

There were many many instances when my life was in danger like the time the mortars kept landing near my house in TayNinh , Vietnam during the war in 1968 but miraculously they missed my house where I was cowering in one corner of my kitchen with a Vietnamese friend and wondering if the next round of mortars would level my house and kill us all.

At another place while I was sleeping in a warehouse, several mortars landed on the camp of Sea Bees with deafening sound. I jumped out in panic and ran to the nearest shelter. The next morning I found my car that I had parked just 15 feet away with all the tires flat and the wind shield with holes. The sides of the car had several shrapnel holes as well but no shrapnel hit me although I was so near with only the thin tin wall between me , several trucks and mortar. I guess I was very lucky.

Then there was an attack on the US army camp in Tayninh one night where I went to watch a movie and left early because the movie was boring. A few minutes later the Vietcongs attacked that place with mortar and caused damage and deaths but I had left moments ago. Who was protecting me ?

At another time a grenade was thrown at the gate of the USAID office in Saigon where I was moments ago and had walked away when I heard the loud explosion and saw a woman on the ground gravely injured but it could have been me. Who was protecting me this time as well ?

Anther incident happened in the Hau Nghia province in Vietnam when I saw a culvert that exploded just near me. The Vietcongs had placed a pressure mine under it that destroyed a few vehicles in front of me but I was saved.

I can mention many such incidents that put my life in danger but I was not hurt at all and left Vietnam during the war and went on to live my life elsewhere in other parts of the world but I clearly recall after all these years that I came through all the dangers intact because I felt that I had faith in Adya Ma who kept a benevolent eye on me all the time.

So faith does matter like in the case of that stuttering boy mentioned above. May be there is no miracle in that photo I still keep in my wallet for the last 50 years and may be it is just a photo but that faith in her had increased my resolve to overcome all of my difficulties in life. Believe me when I say that there were many difficulties that I overcame somehow. So what does it matter if it is no magic photo? What matters is that it has helped me in life in numerous ways and has increased my faith in myself.  If a simple black and white photo can do that then there must be something in it.

Another famous case comes to my mind about faith that is too good to pass up so I will write about here.

One day Guru Govind Singh who was the 10th and the last guru ( spiritual leader ) of the Sikh religion called his disciples and asked how many of them would volunteer to die for him right now. They trembled in fear and apprehesion but five men came forward and offered their life for the cause of their guru and their religion so Guru Govind Singh took one of them behind a curtain and returned without him. He had a sword in his hand that was dripping in blood.

Then he took the second disciple and again he returned with the sword in his hand dripping in blood. When all the five men were "sacrificed" , Guru Govind Singh parted the curtain to show that the five disciples were standing there hale and hearty and there were five dead sheep. He said that these five men had proved that they had faith in him and were the true stalwarts of the faith that they were now to propagate throughout the world. There are millions of Sikhs now spread all over the world . I will visit their most holy shrine in Amritsar Golden temple soon to show my respect.

The question to ask here is why faith is so important? There are people who in the name of their faith and erroneous beliefs commit crimes. They are called the terrorists whom the whole world condemns. I will not discuss their faith here. I will focus on the ordinary people who can't seem to overcome their challenges in their life. They lack resolve to do something because they lack faith in themselves or someone who can help them. They never accept their own weaknesses and blame everyone else for their miserable life.

But when all is said and done, each person is responisble for the decisions he takes or does not take in his life that can bring about changes that affect him positively or negatively. When a person is easily influenced by others in a negative way, his life starts to take the wrong turn. Those kids who think that smoking is cool and taking drugs is the thing to do because his so called friends are doing it soon finds himself in trouble. He becomes addicted to smoking or drugs and his life starts to take a dive.

One day he wakes up in jail where he has no friends. Even if he comes out of jail someday, his life is shattered because he did not have the faith in himself to begin with and was influenced by the wrong people in his life. The resolve to stiffen your spine and stand up to the adversities in life comes from faith. Some call it religion but it does  not have to be. It may be a simple marble or a faded black and white photo you keep in your wallet that may or may not be what you think it is so the faith in something or someone can stiffen your spine that helps you stand up and say I can do it.

When President Roosevelt was told that it is impossible to defeat the mighty Japanese who had attacked Pearl Harbor, he slowly stood up from his wheel chair in the Congress and refused any help from his aides who were very alarmed. He had polio and was wheel chair bound. His face turned red when he said that nothing is impossible if the country has resolve. That resolve came from the faith he had in his belief that good always wins over evil in the end. The history proved him right.

I have always believed that a good person who becomes your mentor is like a beacon who guides you through the darkest period in your life if you have faith in him and follow his advice. He cannot force you to do anything that you do not want to do but if you have faith in him and his teachings, you will surely benefit from it. I had many mentors who helped me in many ways but a simple black and white photo stiffened my spine in ways I cannot even explain today.

I am not a religious man in a true sense because religion itself has not played any significant role in my life but I can't shake off the feeling that if a simple photo I kept in my wallet for fifty years can help me the way it has then there must be something to it. That is the faith I am writing about.


Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography:

Mes blogs en français.
Mis blogs en espagnol
Blogs von Anil in Deutsch
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My blogs at Wix site
tumblr posts    
Blogger.com
Medium.com
Anil’s biography in English.
Biographie d'Anil en français
La biografía de anil en español.
Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch
Anil’s biography in Japanese
Биография Анила по-русскиu

Wonderful power points- Part three

Source : Google photo of Indian miniature art of the Moghul period


This is the part three of the Wonderful Power points series that highlight the famous Indian artists like Abanindra Nath Thakur, Rabindra Nath Thakur, Jamini Roy, Gaganendra Nath Thakur, Nand Lal Bose, Amrita Sher Gil, Raja Ravi Varma and Sudeshma Sen Gupta . Other power points are on birds  of India, Miniature Moghul paintings, Incredible India, Art and craft of Bengal , Khajuraho and wild life in India .

1. Art of India

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgXJfv_Ywqq3PatOJ?e=KQGNUu


2. Birds of India Part one

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhXQBdqifmgkq-8T7?e=DFKbzv


3. Birds of India Part two

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhXVfIoBlKA2uVsUc?e=5CrDpM

4. Birds of India Part three

  

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhXd0GXRIAdosPEEV?e=pm3jPn

5. Birds of India Part four 

Link :https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmoX9W4gHulzlj2jipBttPw6Heh3?e=9KLqBi



6. Art and craft of Bengal

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgh3msfDwseapA38l?e=KxdZCD


7. Miniature Moghul paintings  Part one

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhymwqzOESeSGswBx?e=OXzTDE

8. Miniature Moghul paintings Part two

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhyoKwzszX1I-iqni?e=YHxkY8


9. Miniature Moghul paintings Part three

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhwx3BtXSJSWquYLB?e=d7qdw1

10. Khajuraho

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgkTOs-1B3t3_2BNk?e=NSDRJA


11. Wild life of India 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzghLgqnSZy28SZFXe?e=x61qpG


12. Incredible India

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhXjLBbXM2bf6px8A?e=wp75J5



Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography:

Mes blogs en français.
Mis blogs en espagnol
Blogs von Anil in Deutsch
Blogs in Japanese
My blogs at Wix site
tumblr posts    
Blogger.com
Medium.com
Anil’s biography in English.
Biographie d'Anil en français
La biografía de anil en español.
Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch
Anil’s biography in Japanese
Биография Анила по-русскиu

Wonderful power points - Part two

This is the second part of the Wonderful Power points series that showcases the  eight Australian famous artists as follows . The last one is the Native Australian art by various artists who are well known.


1. Arthur Streeton

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhgcz2HE_ItDFfCL9?e=QHGEQb


2. Frederic McCubbin

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhgYhCgVxzz1fiYuA?e=2qsiMb

3.  John Sindelar 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhgXYeBDDicaLXIs7?e=z11cEO

4. Julian Ashton

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhgTQIH9b-ziBjX-u?e=3Rb9hI

5. Kevin Best 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhgNiDmrtW-rXHZFV?e=DKkvOE

6. Pro Hart 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhgLFpvJ0vOlWUmv5?e=dKfF0e

7. Russell Drysdale

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhgEbVlNDPNq_NtOf?e=6IzbaG

8. Tom Roberts 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhgC9e_KAVrb4HcW9?e=GAukjc

9. Native Australian art 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhX9AvcB68Wgd0Ppm?e=2Xinrp



Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography:

Mes blogs en français.
Mis blogs en espagnol
Blogs von Anil in Deutsch
Blogs in Japanese
My blogs at Wix site
tumblr posts    
Blogger.com
Medium.com
Anil’s biography in English.
Biographie d'Anil en français
La biografía de anil en español.
Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch
Anil’s biography in Japanese
Биография Анила по-русскиu

Wonderful power points - Part one

Source : My own power points to enrich your soul

Synopsis : I have made numerous power points to record art, crafts, history of civilizations, animal world, animal breeds, flora and fauna, native art and craft, glass work, jewelry  etc. among many others that I will bring to you in each successive blog. I hope you will appreciate them as much as I loved making them and share them with your friends and loved ones freely.

I used to post a lot of power points that I had made over the years to my Google plus site but unfortunately the Google shut down its site so everything I had posted there also vanished. So I will now post all of my power points on various subjects here for you to enjoy starting with the European master artists in this blog.

Those of you who enjoy art created by the European masters over the centuries will like these power points because short of visiting numerous art museums in the world, this is an alternative that you can share with your friends and relatives so I hope you like them and send me your comments. I chose only a few among many others due to space constraints which I am sure you will understand.


The celebrated European masters ( 14 )

1. Paul Cezanne

Link  https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgS0bSZnhS2y3Z29_?e=SxiAqu


2.   John Constable

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgSzUcQBUAXAIqMSo?e=gNMfm7


3.   Leonardo da Vinci

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgS6Lq3Hieg0Y_ReV?e=760VEP


4.  Edouard Manet

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgUMNuFHsFxVYZux1?e=kaIhNs

5.  Edvard Munch

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgUWuguVhT_fDiwCS?e=F6aZMo

6.  Paul Gauguin

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgS9xdzypniVi801A?e=c4BNcp


7.  Francisco Goya

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgTA778uMuHxC_w0e?e=mVNR3A

8.  Joseph M.W. Turner 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgUK-PpkiTOghmAV-?e=x8H6Yn

9.  Henri Matisse

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgTFOQX1FU9ZTmWLF?e=ZV0kVb


10.  Claude Monet

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgUHX1Omhtm5g4Xy-?e=IFb92h


11. Picasso 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgUBGwyxmSZS8eBvI?e=or73Tr
]


12.  Raphael 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgUfq1Xb_jXQaGCTs?e=o9Y0ji

13. Rembrandt

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzhX7cPEsANHfpjzgL?e=uQifsa

14. Vincent Van Gogh 

Link : https://1drv.ms/p/s!AmoX9W4gHulzgSepcRqcLbXbP29-?e=s86spn

Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography:

Mes blogs en français.
Mis blogs en espagnol
Blogs von Anil in Deutsch
Blogs in Japanese
My blogs at Wix site
tumblr posts    
Blogger.com
Medium.com
Anil’s biography in English.
Biographie d'Anil en français
La biografía de anil en español.
Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch
Anil’s biography in Japanese
Биография Анила по-русскиu

A criminal waste

Source : Google photo of a starving child in Somalia and the vulture waiting

Synopsis : While millions of people starve in so many countries due to famine or man made disasters like war , there are countries that produce an abundance of food that they fail to store properly leading to wastage. I give the example of India here but food wastage in many countries are shocking that many videos posted here will show. What the world needs is to share the food with the poor who are hungry and not waste it on purpose or through negligence and corruption. Believe me when I say that there is enough food in the world for every body and then some. The problem lies in how to get the food to the needy.


This photo is so heart wrenching that perhaps the whole world has seen it. It shows so starkly a starving child in Somalia who is about to die and a vulture waiting nearby for its meal. I wonder if the photographer who took this terrible photo  saved the child or if he just took the photo and left the child to die and let the vulture tear his tiny body apart. Often such people just take the photos to make a scoop and move on because they do not feel any responsibility for the famine and the deaths or because they become immune to any feelings of sympathy when they see such scenes daily.

But I still feel a shock when I see this photo. I know a famous star who saved a starving child in Ethiopia famine and raised her as her own with love and care. Now that child has grown up into a beautiful woman but she is the lucky one. Millions who perished in Ethiopia and Somalia were not so lucky where the vultures and wild animals got fat gorging on the remains of such unlucky people.

Often such tragedies happen due to war or due to intentional neglect of the government like what happened in the infamous famine of Bengal in 1943 under the British Raj in India when some 3 million people  starved to death . Because the grains were hoarded by the unscrupulous traders creating an artificial shortage of food and when the British government in London diverted the ship loads of food that had arrived in Kolkata port from Australia to England by the order of Winston Churchill. He did not care how many Indians died there because he did not feel anything for them.


Source : Google photo of the victims of the Bengal famine of 1943

It is a tragic photo that was taken just one year before I was born but my Ma told me about the famine later because she had seen it herself. She was lucky that our family did not suffer because my father worked for the British as an accountant so he received food rations. My great grand father at that time brought home a starving child he had picked up somewhere so my great grandmother raised him as her own so that child was very lucky indeed. My father used to call him uncle because he was no less to anyone.

India had suffered periodic food shortages after independence due to many reasons. Often the poor rainfall caused crop failures so people suffered. There was no system of storing massive quantities of food grain and set up a distribution system nationwide to bring the food to the people everywhere so the government bought food from other countries like the United States that sold poor quality grains or shipped under the PL 480  that was not even fit for animals.

Once the Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri  refused such shipment and told all Indians to eat two meals less a week and eat other food grains like corn and millets. The Indians responded out of their patriotic zeal and overcame the difficulties. Since then the government started investing massively in agriculture to make the country self sufficient in food and oil crops , making irrigation available to millions of farmers, built thousands of kilometers of irrigation canals  and started to buy excess food to store it in strategic locations all over India. The Indian Railway made it its priority to expand the railway network rapidly to reach every district of every state in the country so that food grains could be shipped to the distribution centers all over the country.

Here is the video that shows the evolution of the Food Corporation of India ( FCI ) that was created to buy, store and distribute food grains to everybody at a subsidized price so every Indian who has a ration card gets to buy the food, dal, sugar and other essentials from a store nearby every month. I used to buy it myself for our family every month.

                                                 
                                               https://youtu.be/fdu_QommSzw

Source : U tube video on how FCI stores and distributes food in India ( in English )

The video shows how the FCI collects food from the farmers, stores it in massive quantities in huge warehouses that have been built all over the country from where the food is shipped by trucks, rails and other means to thousands of distribution centers and from there to the ration shops in every community in the entire country.

But this is not the whole story. It is true that India feeds its people and has become a net exporter of food to other countries earning billions of dollars in revenue. Famines are a thing of the past because the farmers are given all the help they need to grow food and the green revolution in India is a success story that has helped increase the food production dramatically. My mentor Dr. Surajit Kumar De Datta who was a pioneer scientist in the spread of the green revolution in rice in many countries in Asia was partially responsible for it just like Dr. Norman Borlaug who spread the HYVs of wheat in India. Other scientists helped in the improvement of millet and oil seed production in India so the country now enjoys a surplus of food and exports what it does not need.
Please read my blog called the Unsung hero of the green revolution -Dr.DeDatta here.

                                                  https://youtu.be/TLudb0HQqIU

Source : U tube video of food grain waste in India

Now you will see in this video how precious food grains are carelessly stored out in the open near the railway stations and waiting to be picked up to be stored in safe and secure warehouses somewhere. You also see the wet ground meaning the rains are falling on the sacs spoiling thousands of tons of grains. Even when the grains are stored in warehouses, millions of rats there cause massive damage to the sacs and spoil the grains. The grains are poorly handled and stored in many places due to neglect and corruption of the people involved.

In the following video you will see how a fellow is sprinkling water on the stored sacs of grains in a warehouse to spoil the grains intentionally so that he can then sell the spoiled grains at low cost  to the breweries that make use of such grains. The corrupt man then fills his pocket with the loot. This happens in a country where there are still many people who are poor and do not get enough food.

There are millions of fake ration cards in the name of non existent or fake people who buy the subsidized food and sell it in the open market to make huge profit so finally the government is cracking down and has issued new tamper proof ration cards that are linked electronically to their national identification card . It has eliminated the fake cards and saves the government millions of dollars.

                                                  https://youtu.be/V3buBTnnHU4

Source : U tube video on the spoilage of food grains in India due to corruption ( in Hindi)

It is true that Indian warehouses of the FCI are bulging with food grains and all sorts of other essentials so they desperately need to build more warehouses to increase their storage capacity but in the mean time the food grains keep arriving daily by rail or trucks so they dump them out in the open until they are transported to safe storage places . All it takes is a five minute shower to completely wet the sacs that start rotting overnight. I have seen the same neglect in Sudan where they keeps thousands of sacs of peanuts and millet out in the open without even a tarpaulin cover so even a brief rain spoils everything.

Wasting food when so many people are hungry in the world is outright criminal. I have seen how Americans waste food everyday by throwing out perfectly good food that fills the land fills. Students in our college were throwing eggs for fun at a fellow during the carnival so I could see a river of egg yolk going into the gutter that literally made me feel sick. The food is cheap there so they do not feel anything about wasting it yet there are very poor people there who search for food in the garbage bins near the fast food places because they throw away tons of uneaten or partially eaten food everyday.

When we ordered some food in Florida for us and our two kids, they brought so much food that we could not eat all of it so had to leave it. We did not know how large their portions were so we wasted our  money and the food making me feel sick.
The only country I know where people are very conscious of food waste is France. They try not to waste even a single grain of food and clean their plates completely but in many countries they waste food. In India it is wasted in storage facilities like I showed above.

Here is a video of food waste in America that is an eye opener.

                                               https://youtu.be/OJzGLKeD1DU

Source : U tube video of food waste in America ( in English )

Here is another video that shows how much food the super markets throw away.

                                                https://youtu.be/QLqkV8cP4xs

Source : U tube video shows the food the supermarkets throw away everyday.( English)

In Spain and Italy they throw tons of tomatoes at each other for fun and farmers pour thousands of liters of pure milk on the road because the price is low or throw away truckloads of butter as well because of low prices.

The purpose of this blog is to highlight the food waste in India due to negligence and corruption and in other countries the foods are thrown away just because they are not suitable for marketing purposes. It is cheaper for the stores to throw it away than to give it to the poor. That is their capitalistic way of saving money . Who cares about the poor?

So when you waste food this way, just look at the child starving in Somalia and decide if you still want to waste food. India's food waste in storage facilities is a big issue that the country needs to tackle because it can feed all the poor people who need it badly. It is a criminal waste when so many people are hungry even in so called rich countries.



Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography:

Mes blogs en français.
Mis blogs en espagnol
Blogs von Anil in Deutsch
Blogs in Japanese
My blogs at Wix site
tumblr posts    
Blogger.com
Medium.com
Anil’s biography in English.
Biographie d'Anil en français
La biografía de anil en español.
Anil's Biografie auf Deutsch
Anil’s biography in Japanese
Биография Анила по-русскиu

What is patriotism?

Source : Google photo of the show of patriotism in India
Synopsis : This blog on patriotism sheds some light on the word and how in some countries it is being understood , used or abused. Anyone can be patriotic irrespective of his caste, religion or creed.

I recall a time during my  childhood days when everyday before our school started , all the students were required to fall in line in the football field and stand in strict formation according to their class and wait for the national flag to be raised when we sang the patriotic songs that we had all memorized by heart. One teacher sang the song playing his harmonium that the orderly had placed on a rickety table and we all followed. Then the head master made some announcements if there were any to make and talked of other sundry items that could include new rules for the playground equipment etc. Then we were dismissed so each class went to its classroom keeping the formation intact which was a part of the discipline we all had to follow.

Those kids who were late at the assembly were not allowed to join their ranks and were kept waiting for some admonishment from the headmaster who insisted on punctuality. This was all a part of the routine we all had to observe everyday without fail.
The assembly every day served the purpose of making us proud of our nation, its flag and sing the praise of our motherland to make us feel a sense of patriotism. We did not have a pledge of allegiance that American children are required to say everyday and we did not have to sing our national anthem to start the school day. 

The anthem was sung only on special occasions like the independence day or the Republic day when we had to sing it in exactly 56 seconds but no one really cared much for the 56 seconds to sing it so the kids sang it in their own fashion and in their own way using many notes of the do re mi and made a cacophony of it which was fun.

In India the word patriotism is limited to singing the anthem once in a while and singing patriotic songs early in the morning assembly before the school starts in grade school and high school. Later in college, there were no such requirements although I recall in my first year of college, there was an assembly everyday before the start of the classes when the class teacher took our attendance, handed out some mails to kids and made some sundry announcements. The system of taking note of our attendance was unique when we were all required to stand on the steps of the stadium where each student was required to stand in the square assigned to him. The teacher  noted only the missing squares so the attendance was noted quickly without calling out the names of each student. It was an ingenious system.

Later when I transferred to another college, there was only a weekly assembly where the  Principal made a prayer because he was a protestant who took such prayers seriously but we were not required to do so being no Christians so stood there to hear the announcements that were made. There was no anthem, no singing of patriotic songs  and never any pledge of allegiance.

So I was very surprised when I went to the United States where I saw how seriously the Americans took the patriotism everyday in their life. This started with the pledge of allegiance in the classroom for the children but did not stop there. The 4th of July is celebrated in every town and city when people wave their flags and war veterans come out to parade in their uniform wearing all the medals they had received. Almost every house  was decorated with their flag and women even wore bikinis made of their flag that I had never seen in any country.

If you visit India, you will never see the national flag displayed in any home let alone in bikinis because it is unlawful to wear the national flag the way the Americans do. Indian women do not parade in their streets wearing the costumes made of the national flag . The common people who celebrate our Republic day in Delhi just watch the parade from the side of the main boulevard or watch it on their TV at home. The school children who join the parade do so in their dazzling uniform just like the soldiers and airmen. The Republic day parade in Delhi on January 26 is a dazzling display of numerous floats, military hardware and aerial displays of fighter  jets, helicopters showering flower petals on the parade that is telecast live worldwide so I can see it here in the Philippines.

In a diverse country such as India, people are generally considered patriotic and you can sense a feeling of great pride in them for their country in spite of all the complaints you hear on every subject. This sense of patriotism and pride is heightened during the time of crisis like war with Pakistan but normally speaking, people do not make patriotism a subject of discussion in their everyday life like what I have seen in America.

So I come back to the topic of what is patriotism and what it means to people. When I was a kid, I used to hear our father sing the patriotic songs. In those days before the independence, there was a great revolution going on in the country because everybody was affected by the fever of struggle for independence. People burned piles of western clothes in every street cross section to protest the British and took great pride in wearing native clothes . They encouraged the local cottage industry to make home spun cotton clothes that people wore with great pride. They wore Congress caps to show their support for the non violent movement spearheaded by Mohandas Gandhi and the Congress workers.

People waved the national flag and marched in the streets in very large numbers all over the country to protest the British occupation of India and often got beaten back by the British police. They joined the protest to stop the salt works run by the British and got beaten by the sentries at the gate who fractured their skulls but still they continued.
The independence brought a change to the country. Now people were free to go about their routine life without fearing the British anymore so the national fervor of patriotism slowly diminished as there was no more need for such protests and displays at the cost of jails, beatings or even death.

The significance of the struggle for freedom as experienced by the older generation is diminished in the younger generation that came after the independence because they had only read about it and were not participants in the freedom struggle so they did not suffer like their parents and grandparents.

What ignites the patriotism?

If you ask the Germans and French or just about any European, they may tell you the sufferings due to the last World War that brought so much misery to them . They clearly recall the hardship, the death and destruction of their towns and villages and the disruption of their normal life under the Nazi occupation. They will tell you of someone they knew who had died or was tortured by the Gestapo and they still recall the airlift of food and even coal to Berlin when the Russians had blockaded a part of the city. They still recall after all those years the food shortage and shortage of almost everything.

Source : Hitler making speech in Nuremberg to rally support

But to stoke the latent flame of patriotism in every German, it took a person like Adolf Hitler  who through his oratorical skills could rouse up millions of people in Germany to his cause. He could make them do anything in the name of their country even if it meant the mass slaughter of the Jews and the minorities. Their support of Hitler and his party only brought them disaster, deaths, destruction of their cities, towns and villages by the allies, shortage of food and deprivation on a national scale that took them a long time to come out of.

Similarly the patriotism of the Japanese during the last war also brought them death and destruction on a massive scale that the Japanese still remember with great sadness today. So during the time of crisis, the leaders of their country demand a show of patriotism and support in order to overcome the challenges so a whole nation pulls together and stands united to  support their government and often suffers the consequences.

Today the word patriotism does not carry as much weight as it did back then because the world has changed, it has brought some prosperity to some people and generally speaking people now have more education than the previous generation and more job opportunities than before. There are still some countries suffering from proxy wars like in Iraq, Syrian, Afghanistan etc. that has led to the increase in the acts of terrorism in all parts of the world but big countries like India and China are at peace where people go about living their normal day to day life.

So I do support a sense of belonging and a pride in the country that has educated me and helped me in many ways when I needed it. I do feel a sense of duty toward my home country so I pay my taxes and do many things that are considered patriotic although I think that it will be hard to drive people today into a patriotic frenzy the way Adolf Hitler did in Germany back then. It is because people now are educated enough to examine the motive of such leaders before they give their unconditional support to them.

In a functioning democracy , there are checks and balances to stop anyone to become an autocrat like Hitler but in countries where the dictators rule, people still live in fear and worry about what will happen if their dictator drags their country into a war that can mean death and destruction on a national scale.

But I would shy away from wearing my patriotism on my sleeve like they do in some countries where women wear their flag in their bikinis. The love and respect for your flag should only extend so far as not to make a mockery of it. Healthy respect for the flag that represents your country should be cultivated but a mockery is clearly not the way to do it. The flag should be revered like you revere Jesus or Buddha but should you wear a panty with the picture of Jesus covering your crotch and proclaim your love this way?

The abuse of patriotism :

People blame Hitler for the World War II when he roused the German people into a frenzy to do his bidding that led to the near destruction of Germany and the loss of lives in millions but people forget that Adolf Hitler tried to make peace at least seven times with the allied powers before he chose the war. Decorated military officers like Stauffenberg and many others who were patriotic Germans saw how Germany was being destroyed so tried to assassinate Hitler but failed and were shot. The Deputy Fuhrer Hess who loved Germany also tried to make the offer of peace by flying into England one day but he was arrested and sent to a prison where he later committed suicide.

So patriotism can mean different things to different people but one thing is certain. It is the love for your country , its values and its legitimate government elected by the popular mandate , its culture, its way of life and religions are all a part of patriotism. When you defy a dictatorial government and abusive police force, unjust laws and political harassment of the minorities, people of ethnic origins, blacks and others at the cost of going to prison, you are no less patriotic than others.

                                                  https://youtu.be/UFRuKs7ZfEk
                           Source : U tube video of mob lynching of Muslims in India

Now in India we see the rise of Hindu nationalism that equates itself with being patriotic. Mob lynching of Moslems who refuse to say Bharat Mata ki Jai ( Victory to Mother  India) or Jai Shri Ram ( Victory to Ram) is being reported in many parts.

They use the ban of cow slaughter in some parts to attack Muslims who eat beef so they are labeled as unpatriotic and beaten up or even killed. Any politician who supports the Muslims is attacked or ridiculed so the majority now decides who is patriotic and who is not. It is very dangerous in India for any Muslim to shout Long live Pakistan and wave the Pakistan flag anywhere because the crowd of Hindus will attack such a person. Policemen may watch but will not interfere. (The Buddhists in Myanmar also used the slaughter of cows by Muslim Rohingyas as an issue so they chased them out of the country because they say that cow slaughter was anti Buddhist and unpatriotic.)

It is useless to tell them that the Muslims are also Indians who have contributed to the struggle for its independence. Thousands have sacrificed their lives when they fought against the British in the Indian National Army of Bose . Muslims serve in the national and regional governments and have received high awards for their services and their patriotism during the wars with Pakistan.

But the rise of Hindu nationalism tends to negate the contributions Muslims have made and still do and has started to redefine who is patriotic and who is not. It reminds me of an American president  who said " if you are not with us, you are against us" during his rallies to get support for his war in Iraq that many countries including Germany and India did not support .

In any democracy, the opposition plays a crucial role of checks and balance so that a government does not become autocratic and impose its will on the country against their wishes. Remember how people all over the United States rose against the war in Vietnam and protested on the streets ? They were no less patriotic than those rightly or wrongly supported the war and had every right to protest. Such democratic protests have yielded positive results and ended the war in Vietnam. The protests in France led to the independence of Algeria.

But to use the word patriotism to start war and mayhem somewhere and label those who do not support it as unpatriotic is an abuse of the word and its meaning and that is now happening also in India where the Hindu nationalism is on the rise that starts labeling people who do not support them as unpatriotic people be they Muslims or others.

This is how a democracy can be destroyed in the long run so I hope that you who are my readers understand that protesting unjust government , unjust laws and rules does not make you unpatriotic . Learn from the example of Claus von Stauffenberg and Rudolf Hess who loved their country and died for it.


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