Mountain of light

Hello Uncle Sam I was watching our Prime Minister address the US Congress joint session the other day and I was thinking to myself that if I was a neutral observer ( someone who doesn't know much about India) I would think on the basis of his speech that India is doing a damn good job or atleast better than most of its contemporaries on the road to development and progress. I was watching this sitting in my hotel room Jaipur and looking at news reports on how the two child population policy has led to people preferring to have two sons and killing the female foetus. So while the population growth of the state has been controlled, it has been at the expense of a fast declining sex ratio. I was staying at one of the 5 star properties in Jaipur, one of the old palaces that have been converted into hotels, and where they were hardly any Indians staying at it was mostly full of foreigners even though it was the off season and the rates were at their lowest for the year. The staff at the hotels seemed more helpful and courteous to the foreigners and they seemed to get more prompt service.

So I started analysing PM's speech to try and pick holes in his argument. Except I couldn't find any. All that he said about India being a democracy, reservation of women in Panchayat elections, about civil society, the roles of judiciary, army and the press. Yet I don't agree with the hype coming out in the press about India being an "economic superpower". I don't know why India is aspiring to be an economic superpower. Even Saudi Arabia to me is an economic superpower because today it sits on world's largest oil reserves and it has guided OPEC to increase the oil price to $50 a barrel and there has not been a whimper from the world. I don't know of a single industry yet where India calls the shots and the world follows. I personally think that all this talk of the economic superpower is the US trying to prop up India against China just as it had propped up China against Russia in the 70s. But I also don't agree with the Left view that we shouldn't have close co-operation in all fields with the Big Satan. US is the only superpower in this world and will be for some time to come and, notwithstanding its current foreign policy, there is a lot that India can learn from the US.

To me our strength lies in our population and we should aspire to be a people's superpower. We should empower our people, free them of the economic and societal shackles and enable them to do what they want inside our legal and civil society framework. It disturbs me that too much of our economic prosperity is limited to the big cities and the people, especially the younger generation, think that what holds good for them and their metro also holds good for the rest of the country. Surely if I have got a huge bonus everyone would have got one, right and so the world is one happy family! The majority of the English language press supports this view and very little information comes in from the small towns and districts. The very little news that does permeate in is then sensationalised and is mixed with all sorts of uniformed opinions. A case in point been the recent Imrana controversy where way too much importance was given to the Deoband ruling and no one tried to explain that the Deoband ruling had no legal standing and this was a criminal case and the criminal law is the same for every citizen of this country. Uselessly the talk turned towards uniform civil code and there was this spin given on how all Muslims in this country follow the Deoband ruling which had no bearing on this case whatsoever.

The PM ended his speech by saying that "India is today embarked on a journey inspired by many dreams". For me, if this journey has to be successful it has to take every Indian on board and make sure that we all have equal stake in the success of the journey.

Jai Hind.

Mcleodganj

Its funny when you hit a hill station after 10 years with memories of a quaint little hilly town which no one knows about, to see this hill station that has expanded beyond your wildest beliefs and everyone from all over the world is there. So you think to yourself this is another case study of a hill station bursting at its seams. The only saving grace is the hotel where we lived and its wonderful owner and its surrounding of majestic oak trees which caress the breeze as it makes way up the hills.

But then there is something about this hill station which brings you back again after 3 years and you think to yourself that you have seen how bad it can be and so it won’t be such a shock this time. Except it still is a shock and the saving grace is again the wonderful hotel! The place now seems to offer everything to everyone or atleast aspires to offer. The spiritual get their share of Buddhist teachings and if lucky get to attend a sermon delivered by the Dalai Lama himself. The trekkers get to trek up to the upper stretches to wonderful waterfalls and quaint little tea shops in the middle of no where. The shoppers have miles of unending of similar looking shops to go through which are full of trinkets, clothes, Buddhas with mantras stuffed in them for good measure. The party goers can choose between the various night clubs or if they listen hard enough they can hear the whispers of the next rave party. There also people like me who just park their bottoms on the nearest easy chair and just read and sleep.

In the middle of all this are majestic views of the Dhauladhar range, mounds of filth and stink, a 19th century church, voodoo on graves and a lot of Israelis. Quite a few hotel signs, internet café keyboards are in Hebrew and bookshops have Hebrew translations of some books. There are also the Tibetans and their government, which has been in exile for decades, and their campaign against the Chinese occupation of their land. But one can’t help but subscribe to the school of thought that theirs is a losing cause. I don’t see anyone in the world wanting to stand up to China for their cause.

The place is increasingly becoming a cosmopolitan village with a lot of expatriates staying there for longer durations. Sitting in a restaurant one hears all sorts of languages and talk float in the air and while the restaurants keep redoing their menus to keep in touch with the international palettes. One room movie halls have sprung up in places which offer a choice of movies in English and other languages. One of the days that I spring out of the hotel was to revisit a 19th century church which is a remnant of the Raj and among its many graves is one of the former Viceroys of India. The other graves are of soldiers and their families who died here.

The place also now has its share of its local tourists, most of them who come from Punjab and Delhi with their blaring horns, aggressiveness and loud music. You would think the hills and unhurried pace of the place would quieten them down. Well think again!