The Indian Union
When would India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; possibly, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Mynamar too, will combine together to form one Nation, The Indian Union, with its distinct components, sprinkled over on a larger convass.
With the current trend of dissentions, and the dissolutions and divisions of countries and territories, on the principle of ‘divide and rule’, like England and Ireland, North and South Koreas, Kosovo and Bosnia, and others, this concept of The Indian Union may seem Utopian. The Indian Union should not seem far fetched, in the light of the existence of The Indian Subcontinent, and the recent examples of the reunion of
North and South Vietnams and of East and West Germanys into one Vietnam and one Germany. The ample expectation of this merger should help create a region comparable to the previous USSR, and the current USA and EU.
The western political concept of a nation is kind of alien to Indian Culture. The ancient India, known as Bharatvars or Aryavart, was already a vast Cultural Union and a contiguous Nation, extending from Afghanistan through Mynamar, including Sri Lakna, Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal. The entire territory extending for thousands of miles, from east to west and from north to south, made one homogenous and uniform cultural and national union, where hundreds of small kingdoms, languages, food habits, dress patterns,
religious practices existed together in wonderful harmony from time immemorial. Goods, people and their belongings moved freely from one corner of this Indian Universe to the other, without any passport and visa rules, merely on the trust and goodwill of human spirit. All kinds of trades were conducted without any of the modern WTO, IMF, and World Bank through open era capitalism, and the political and social disputes were resolved amicably without the intricacies of present day UNO. People flocked from all over the world to India, which encouraged every culture and religion of the world to find a place and flourish better than elsewhere. Talent and virtue, oppressor and the oppressed
all found an abode in ancient India, as no where else, even more refined than the present US melting pot. Numerous historical accounts are available to describe these periods that
sustained itself for the longest time in the history of the mankind, in the Indian region.
In Vedic times, Yajnvalkya, after his graduation from a school near Taksila ( the Budhist University of past), then Panjab of undivided India, now western Panjab of Pakistan moved to Mithila, now north Bihar and the southern terai of Nepal to be with philosopher king Janak, where the sage created the finest Vrihdarnyak Upanishad. Risi Visvamitra frequently roamed between Varanasi (in UP) to Baksar (in Bihar), where the demon lady, Tarka was killed during the education of Prince Ram and Laksman of Ayodhya (in UP), and the wedding of Sita in Janakpur (in Nepal).
Things did not change much, even after the onslaught of Muslims from Turkey and Iran.
When Akbar was the king in Delhi, my oriya forefathers migrated from Puri (in Orissa)
To Darbhanga (in north Bihar) and converted into maithils. During the same period, Mira Bai in Gujarat being torn between her lover for Lord Krishna, and the duties to her husband, the king, wrote to Tulsidas in Varanasi for guidance, and was told that association with God is preferable to worldly lusts. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu left Nadia (in Bangladesh) and moved to Puri (in Orissa) to associate with Lord Jagannath.
In 1857, the first war of independence, was fought against the British under the leadership of Bahadur Shah Zafar. In the earlier part of 20th century, there was plenty of struggle by all concerned to stop, Bang-Bhang, the division of Bangal for Hindus and Muslims, which the British finally succeeded, by creating east Pakistan in 1947, that finally became Bangladesh in 1971. England succeeded in creating rift between Hindus and Muslims, and vivisected the country into India and Pakistan. The West has managed to keep the region, especially Kashmir, as a hot spot, and has pitted Pakistan against India time and again for the sale of arms to warring factions. This has been repeated in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and several other places in Africa and in South American hemisphere. Sikhs, who helped Hindus from the tyranny of Muslims, we re finally manipulated to kill Hindus, for the creation of their independent Khalistan, which did not materialize Numerous lost tribes of Jews have found safety in the forests of Assam,
and are now trying to return to Israel. Muslims now fight Christians the world over.
Hence to stop terrorism, alleviate hatred between religions of the world, and establish a better world order, it is imperative, for the ‘The Indian Union’, outlined above, to be formed. Sooner the better, as a saner world can be created, faster and easier, using the ancient Indian concept of harmony and justice to all, by eliminating the exploitation of the masses under the garb of capitalism, by following the principle of ‘to each according to his/her needs, and from each according to his/her capacity’, and propagating the ideal of, ‘the whole world as one family’, than what the UNO and the Super Power(s) can achieve.
Friday, March 14, 2008
The Post doc
‘ He is Greg’s new post doc’ said Amy, professor Greg’s wife, in a party, after being asked about me, when I arrived in a sleepy city in the southern United States from a remote place in India, to conduct research on generating fuels and chemicals from coal.
It sounded to me like, ‘that’s Greg’s dog’, without a leash.
Then came another revelation, as I was told, that in some top ranking northern universities, it was a common saying, ‘ how can you win a Nobel prize, if you did not have ten or more Indian post docs working for you for years’, the secret of being Nobel laureate in sciences.
So much of slavery and exploitation at centers of learning was really disgusting. And the story of the top west coast universities, where the senior post docs, expecting to get a letter of recommendation from their professors’ in near future to eventually land a faculty position in a second or third rate school, after years of hard work and sacrifice
(really academic slavery), are asked to come to the school on Saturdays and Sundays
to check on the new post docs if they are working in the weekends or not, of course without pay. The illegal Mexican guy is paid for mowing our lawn, be it weekdays or weekends, but not the post docs working late nights and weekends.
Another shock comes to a bright self-respecting person when he/she hears, ‘ if you are so smart, how come you make so little money ?’ Being smart, intelligent and hard working has to translate in dollars, is foreign and astonishing to people coming from a different culture.
American dream is not materialism, not home and cars, can be hardly explained to an average American. Smart and noble people arrive here from other countries to achieve more with United States of America’s freedom, abundant resources, quality of life, and the facilities, to work, achieve and accomplish more based on their talent, and what they could not do in their native lands.
But the staunch materialistic set up of the society, the cruel capitalism and the rat race to accumulate wealth, toys and gadgets in USA make the foreigners to abandon their dreams and opt for ‘making money’. No wonder many intellectuals leave the universities
and end up setting grocery stores, ethnic restaurants, hotels, gas stations and other outlets to sell stuff to make money. They also divert into white collar jobs selling insurance, real estate, investments and achieve financial success, and get their children to
do more of the same.
Entrepreneurship and being financially savvy ( actually cunning and selfish)
is prized so much, while scholarship, knowledge and virtue all acquire a back seat.
The few who stay in academia or get into large corporations in the lure of stock options,
end up buying apartment complexes and rent them, purchase businesses as silent partners, or play stock market from the comfort of their office computers to make it big.
There are exceptions, but the trend and norm is towards setting up businesses, be it computer programming, manufacturing on an assembly line, doing landscaping etc, and using cheap/slave labor to make more money, use others’ money and generate enormous cash flow.
If this be not accepted as genuine social practice, why would we have over fifteen million of illegal immigrants, from the poor post docs on J1, to the temporary workers on H1, to the visitors on B2, and illegal aliens on a maze of various visa kinds, slaving and waiting for years to get a green card, and achieve ‘ the American dream.’
It sounded to me like, ‘that’s Greg’s dog’, without a leash.
Then came another revelation, as I was told, that in some top ranking northern universities, it was a common saying, ‘ how can you win a Nobel prize, if you did not have ten or more Indian post docs working for you for years’, the secret of being Nobel laureate in sciences.
So much of slavery and exploitation at centers of learning was really disgusting. And the story of the top west coast universities, where the senior post docs, expecting to get a letter of recommendation from their professors’ in near future to eventually land a faculty position in a second or third rate school, after years of hard work and sacrifice
(really academic slavery), are asked to come to the school on Saturdays and Sundays
to check on the new post docs if they are working in the weekends or not, of course without pay. The illegal Mexican guy is paid for mowing our lawn, be it weekdays or weekends, but not the post docs working late nights and weekends.
Another shock comes to a bright self-respecting person when he/she hears, ‘ if you are so smart, how come you make so little money ?’ Being smart, intelligent and hard working has to translate in dollars, is foreign and astonishing to people coming from a different culture.
American dream is not materialism, not home and cars, can be hardly explained to an average American. Smart and noble people arrive here from other countries to achieve more with United States of America’s freedom, abundant resources, quality of life, and the facilities, to work, achieve and accomplish more based on their talent, and what they could not do in their native lands.
But the staunch materialistic set up of the society, the cruel capitalism and the rat race to accumulate wealth, toys and gadgets in USA make the foreigners to abandon their dreams and opt for ‘making money’. No wonder many intellectuals leave the universities
and end up setting grocery stores, ethnic restaurants, hotels, gas stations and other outlets to sell stuff to make money. They also divert into white collar jobs selling insurance, real estate, investments and achieve financial success, and get their children to
do more of the same.
Entrepreneurship and being financially savvy ( actually cunning and selfish)
is prized so much, while scholarship, knowledge and virtue all acquire a back seat.
The few who stay in academia or get into large corporations in the lure of stock options,
end up buying apartment complexes and rent them, purchase businesses as silent partners, or play stock market from the comfort of their office computers to make it big.
There are exceptions, but the trend and norm is towards setting up businesses, be it computer programming, manufacturing on an assembly line, doing landscaping etc, and using cheap/slave labor to make more money, use others’ money and generate enormous cash flow.
If this be not accepted as genuine social practice, why would we have over fifteen million of illegal immigrants, from the poor post docs on J1, to the temporary workers on H1, to the visitors on B2, and illegal aliens on a maze of various visa kinds, slaving and waiting for years to get a green card, and achieve ‘ the American dream.’
Saturday, February 16, 2008
The First
| Feb 16, 2008 Atlanta, USA Friends and Associates have been asking me to start blogging for years, which i had not done. This is the first one. Most of my articles and comments, even letters to editors do not get published. Too radical, too liberal, offending to many -- could be the reasons. Also, i always find a cynical view to things and incidents. Editor/publisher of several papers have advised to start a blog, as they could not accommodate my comments in their publications. No one is going to give me ten million dollars to write about Monica Lewisnky, as they did to Bill Clinton, nor will they give me even eight million to write misinformation on economics and stock markets, as they did to Alan Greenspan. The mortgage lending crisis that Paulson and Greenspan are expected to fix, have themselves made seven/eight billions each for creating this crisis. Just like Indiara Gandhi allowed over three million people to be killed by Pakistan in East Bengal, before any substantial help was offered to the suffering people, leading into the creation of Bagladesh in 1971, and the award of Bharat Ratna to Ms. Gandhi, soon thereafter. Poor Atal Bajpeyi comes to mind now. How would we solve a crisis, unless/until we create one ? Darfur is not drawing our attention. More sufferings need to happen, I think. Except for Steven Spielberg, who refused to be art director for Beijing Olympic Games, 2008, on the ground that China does not do enough for Darfur. Isn't it time we we appoint Mr. Spielberg to supervise the construction of wall/fences around Israel by Jews, to shut off Palestininans. May the wall will then have plenty of artistic appeal to it. Hope I do not end stutting my blog, like Arun Gandhi had to do a few days ago. I did my first one though. Arun Misra Atlanta, USA 2/16/2008 |
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