From Sports to nowhere or may be even ZERO

When I refrained from building castles in the air and cautioned people from making unfettered joy about a lucky 2nd spot in the common wealth games, many I know just kept on bullshitting about how India was progressing towards International superiority based on the grand opening ceremony. I think now that we have CWG scam exposed and complacent Indian athletes failing everyone's unnecessary expectations at the Asian Games, people should learn to be patient and careful with a much more far sighted perspective in place.

It is these callous media hypes and such false sense of superiority that we are obsessed with, which ultimately prevents us from indulging into constructive criticism of ourselves and robs us of our ability to introspect.

To those of you who love India a lot, please be more patient. Don't indulge in irresponsible pleasure that takes a nation no where. It bars a nation from realising its true potential.

A nation has to be patient of all and then have an inclination towards holistic development. Firstly sports alone cannot achieve India sustainable glory. If that was the case then Dhyan Chand's motherland would have never had to worry about Hockey!! And even if we try to evaluate merit let us not confuse ourselves with superficial achievements such as the Common Wealth Opening ceremony being better than the opening ceremony at Beijing. That does not get us sporting glory .

When we praise such nonsensical issues and help them be blown out of proportion all we end up with are corrupt pricks like Kalmadi going unnoticed. Three of the people's representatives to the Lower House of India have been belaboured with corruption and nepotism charges in the recent past. And we the ignorant yet the largest democracy of the world prides ourselves of Aryabhatta and his zero without realising that our entire future would be synonymous to this great invention that has been overused for narcissistic and nationalist pleasure.

Infact our enitire democracy seems to have been built on thin air to serve the pick and chose tendencies of the short sighted nationalists.

An interesting turn of events in the recent past is that of President Obama visiting India and being honoured with a joint hearing of both the houses of our nation. This was a true picture of the democracy that we boast of. The honorary speaker was the one who have failed his own countrymen and is facing split congress in his own country.In fact he failed a few more people beyond his own country as well. Some not so politically polished people dreamt of sovereignty in their countries after "Fush was Bucked", and a few educated pseudo intellectuals had also conferred the Nobel prize on this hope. However what transpired later is today an open secret (known yet unspoken off). The audience in this hearing was no less important. There amongst the "honourable" lot was also sitting likes of Mr Kalmadi, Mr Raja recently shown the door for another set of open secrets. Miss Banerjee, Honourable Railway Minister of the Union could not resist being a part of this gathering as well. After all, it is her duty to attend to important parliamentary sessions. And what could be more important than Mr Obama speaking.

What happened that day was a joke, a joke in the name of democracy. People don’t bother to go and vote anymore. The ones who do, do not consider political consciousness. What we get is leaders like A Raja, Suresh Kalmadi, Mamata Banerjee, Barrack Obama, Shashi Tharoor and many more no better than the ones already named. Finally they create farse over such joint hearings of Parliamentary hearings Rabindranath Tagore and Aryabhatta (poor fellow) are named to arouse public sentiments and excuse oneself of the real duty in hand. We buy this and indulge in “opening ceremony glory”. “We the people of India” have forgotten their responsibilities. And the so called representatives of “We the people of India” are pleasing themselves at such an opportune moment.

Let us claim back what is ours and forget what we don’t need. We need peace, bread, shelter, education.  We don’t need opening ceremony superiority. We don’t need to say we are the best when we are not. We need good governance which is possible only through real democracy-where people along with their representatives contribute to governance, good governance.

Reclaim Democracy!!!

The ruthless legislature

India has been far from being a welfare state since 1947 even though, that was the actual promise. However post independence India has commited certain inhumaine faults that has plunged the nations history in depths of guilt to which the present Indian administration seems rather ignorant.

One such incident was when we disregarded all International Laws and forcibly annexed the State of Manipur to our Union. Manipur got its independence at the same time along with India and Pakistan. The nation swore to a new Constitution and had their first general elections in 1948 which was four years ahead of India. The Previous ruler Bodhachandra was sworn in as the new Constitutional Head and his own brother was democratically elected the Prime Minister by the voice of the mandate. India had previously promised to safe gaurd Manipur's interest in the fields of defence, but this promise seemed to last for a short while with V.B. Patel realising the startegic importance of Manipur as a border region between India and China. And with this realisation the dirty game began. On one hand India posed as Manipur's best friend and on the other it was initiating plans to wreck the democratic harmony of Manipur from within. Finally when Bodhachandra planned to meet the Governor of Assam in 1949, to settle all disputes his advisors had strongly reccomended against it, but he preferred to deal with faith in his Inidan counterparts which never got its due reciprocation. He was put under house-arrest and later coerced to sign the annexation treaty.

This is how we disgraced the same principles, based on which we fought for two hundred years advocating the right to self determination and sovereignity. It was ironical to see us forget, what we so strongly subscribed to for two hundred years in just two years of achieving independence.

But this was just a start of the tyrany that would soon sweep the life of our fellow Manipuri brothers and sisters. The next thing that the Indian authorities did was passed a legislation known as A.F.S.P.A better known as Armed Forces (Special Power) Act. This Act sought to equip the Army with special powers facilitating the process to crush the insurgency. But how? was the golden question that was never asked. It gave members of the army, power to shoot any suspect without any fear of being prosecuted. It also sought to immune the military from any prosecution even if they break into any housesold at any time of the day and indulge into random searches. Cant talk about the success rate of the Act in crushing the movement but it has surely succeeded in gaurding pervert officials of the state machinery when they rape the women over there.

A few years ago a group of women posed nude on the streets, in front of the Assam Rifles building holding posters that said "Indian Army rape us". A Lady has been on fast for ten years protesting against this gruesome piece of legislation and demanding the repealment of the Act. But that does not seem to be neccessary for the Indian Authorities as long as they can put Sharmila Irom on arrest and forcibly feed her through a pipe up her nostrils.

It is hightime that the Indian Authorities wake up to moral uprightness and repeal this Act which has terrorised the common Manipuri for the last forty years. Their hearts could have easily been won by taking interest in their development and not only their land. It was a wrong move that demands immediate correction otherwise we end up leaving our own constitution futile. This Act violates the principles of right to life guaranteed under Article 21 in inumerable ways.

Today it is a dual between the existence of this Act and the sustenance of the spirit of our Constitution.