Revolutions V/s Evolution

In the world when the change happens, it happens through two ways,

 Revolution and Evolution 

Revolution is a abrupt or a sudden change in a stagnant system which has remained unchanged over a long period of time. 

Evolution is a process of evolving, things change over the period of time, its a long process and continuous process. 

When the process of evolving stops in a system or a society it starts making people long for a change. The long urge for a change leads people to take extreme step to change things in one go. Though the revolution is a short term process it has its own repercussions. Sudden and fast changes in a stagnant system may sound lucrative but when changes happen suddenly there is an issue of adaptability. Sudden changes always makes people unsettled. When there is a change there are always new idea in the system, just because people wanted change doesn't mean they will tolerate the new entrants in the system. So people's reaction to the sudden changes may not necessarily be positive. People take their own time to adapt to the new changes. Sometimes people's reaction may be against the new change. This negative reaction leads to the instability in the system. In a system where there is an unstable phase, there is always a section of people who want to make use of instability to serve their own interests. If we see the three major revolutions in the history, this has been the case, it may be French Revolution where France ended up being taken over by Napoleon or Russian Revolution where Lenin took over Russia or Industrial Revolution where the rich became richer while the poor had to pay the price. Revolution comes with a cost, to be specific an immediate cost. Even in the most recent revolution in Egypt, after the overthrowing  of Hosni Mubarak, the military rule was imposed now the people are agitating against one more tyrant in the form of military.Unless the people are ready to handle this instability the revolution is more of a bane than a boon. 

Evolution on the other hand is a very slow process over a long period of time. Here the changes may not happen suddenly but its a process of evolving, as the time passes the system evolves itself. Evolution happens across several generations. In the process of evolution no one is left behind as in the process of evolution people evolve with the system. So the chances of instability is very thin in the case of evolution. People are better prepared for the changes in evolution. If we see First war of Indian Independence in 1857 and The freedom movement in 1940s, we can notice the difference as in 1857 India was not ready for such a movement as there was no unity among the Indian states so it actually backfired but led to the evolution of a far more united India and a stronger freedom movement in 1940s. It took nearly 100 years for a stronger freedom movement to evolve but it was far more fruitful when compared to 1857. Just like the  Charles Darwin's theory of evolution of species where the human species has got its present state after evolution over a long period of time. For example if a monkey had lost its tail over night it might have found it hard to adapt to its environment as the tail had its own use, but now since the tail has disappeared overnight it will be in a conflict with environment. As the theory says the monkey has lost its tail to become human by a process of evolution over a long period of time. Evolution is a continual process and the stagnation in which leads to a revolution.  

Evolution may be kick started with a revolution, revolution takes place due to the stagnation in the process of evolution. 

It is up to the people how they want their society to be shaped up by, either by a revolution or by a process evolution.

People have to decide for themselves whether they are ready for total change. For a revolution of any sort  people have to be well prepared to a sea change. 

Montek Singh Ahluwalia's Response

Lately there has been a lot of noise about the poverty line and Montek Singh Ahluwalia has become the punching bag for everybody from our lecturers to my dentist, Lets have a look at his response in his interview.

A mould to achieve economic ends

When I say economic ends that doesn't mean only mediocre economic want, i am pointing out the superlative economic benefits.
The mould  or a pattern here mentioned is of the mass appeal, and this mass appeal is gained through various ways like politics, entertainment, religious preaching etc.

The most obnoxious of these all is the so called religious preaching, Karl Marx once remarked Religion is the opium of the masses. It has been proved right time and again. 
People are ready to do anything to gain favor from the so called god and this makes it a cake walk to those who want manipulate people and meet their economic ends. 
Religion or a faith works as a opium on people, just like a drug which gives relief when there is a pain. so when people are distressed and confused mentally they turn to faith. The so called god men exploit this situation which is perfect for them. When people are distressed they are very vulnerable and are ready to accept anything superficial. 
It also acts as an instrument to unite people against a common detractor. Whenever there is a threat from outside people try to use it as uniting instruments, as gregariousness is a nature of man. They try to use religion as a common factor among them. This is when the so called preachers com into picture. They try to exploit this aggression against the detractor and bring people together. But their motives are always beyond unity, even after the people are successful in getting rid of the detractor they continue to hold a great deal of influence on people. To fight this external threat people need something to unit and something to push them together thats when the preachers take advantage of it. 
This has been proved time and again, every time there is a conflict involving a muslim dominated country suddenly it becomes the so called jihad, they all turn to religion, just like in Afghanistan, when the soviet's pushed down south to Afghanistan, suddenly everything  became religious and the fight against the soviets was called a jihad, but it was no more than an assertive action taken by the soviets as part of the cold war suspecting that Afghanistan is being taken over by the US as then it was a buffer state between the two blocs. They just wanted to use Afghanistan as a base to spread their influence in the Persian gulf for oil . But it was made into a religious war by making soviets into the enemies of the Islam which is questionable as they were against the very concept of religion. This gave a platform for taliban to come up, the people are divided, they are distressed by war, they are poor and they are thirsty for a common faith. So taliban used these factor to gain ground and exploited the vulnerable people to control the vast natural resource and most importantly the opium and the trade routes, apparently this was their chief motive.
It happened again in South africa as well, when the black Africans were becoming aware of their rights, the white predominantly dutch ruling community made apartheid a part of bible, they started preaching apartheid as part of Christianity. Again when the people saw a threat they turned to preachers.   

This happened in USA also, after the defeat in the civil war, various groups like KKK( kuk klux klan) came into existence, only to protect the interests of the white community using the same old tried and tested method of religious preaching. It became so popular that even the celebrated president Woodrow Wilson was alleged to be a member of theses groups. 


Its the same in India also, in fact our constitution itself has given such freedom in its article 27. At the time of freedom we have seen people like Jinnah, Iqbal, Sawarkar, Madan Mohan Malaviya  capitalizing on religious sentiment to unite people but at the end it can proved that their motives were beyond unity or independence. If we go back a little bit, Shivaji also used the same sentiment to strengthen his influence on the people but at the same time what he wanted was the political autonomy to reach the rich Deccan. He had pledged not to make a pact with any muslim kingdom but he had to shake hands with the nizam when the emperor at Delhi lost his cool. That shows the religion means nothing but an instrument to their other motives.   

This is true in present day also, if we see the present political situation in Karnataka, the mutts are like the driving force behind the political parties, they serve as the vote banks for the political parties because of the kind of influence they have on the people. Since this is the mechanical era, when the people get tired of their mechanical lives they turn to these so called spiritual ways of dealing with their stress. This vulnerability is exploited by the so called spiritual gurus, indirectly controlling the people minds and their pockets. 
One question to these mutts is that what is their business in politics, as they play a very big role as they have a very deep influence on people either in the name of caste or religion. People should be aware of the hidden agendas before they get carried away by the so called swamis. 
The classic example in the present day is the young and dashing Nityananda, clearly his motives were beyond preaching spirituality or yoga,the possession of huge property itself says it all, he exploited the vulnerability of the people. People who went to him were those who were distressed but had a fat pockets.  




People shouldn't go weak on their knees just because of the spiritual, they have to keep their conscience alive. 

Article 27 of Indian Constitution

Article 27 of Indian constitution states 

Freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion No person shall be compelled to pay any taxes, the proceeds of which are specifically appropriated in payment of expenses for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion or religions denomination.


Article 27 has its root in the article 26 but what it actually mean in reality is 
The so called spiritual and religious institutions do have to pay taxes for the donation they get.
They dont have to declare their wealth annually.
They dont have to pay taxes for the business they do. 
They dont have to have an audit and they dont have to disclose the results of the audit they have internally. 
They dont come under the authority of CAG.
Since they dont disclose their balance sheet no body know what they do with all the money. 


The super rich swamis or mutts are nothing but the reflections of this article which gives them the freedom of not answering to any authority when it comes to financial matters. 
How justifies is it to give the so called religious institutions such superlative freedom. Here i am not questioning their integrity if some people get offended just by a few simple questions, but i am just pointing out the need for accountability. I am just asking why should there be no transparency. Once anybody gets this kind of freedom, they tend to loose their focus. not to mention money has that power to make men dance to its tunes. 
I am not saying they are misusing their wealth, they may be doing a lot of social work in the form of school, hospitals  old age homes etc butt here my point is they have to show their balance sheet after doing all the sacred work. I mean, if the get 100 rupees as a donation and they do some good work like building a temple out of, they have to give a total balance sheet of what percent f this 100 rupees did they spend and from  where exactly did they get this 100 rupees and if they spend all of it how are they maintaining their administrative machinery. Not only do they get hefty donations they do fussiness worth crores but neither do they pay any tax nor do they give a quarterly financial report like all other companies who publish the quarterly financial report and send hem to their share holders. In the same way isnt it a moral obligation of these institutions to give the balance sheets to at least the donors, which includes every other person who put a coin into the box kept in front of every other temple, on other words every other person who visits a temple!!! the only difference between the donor and the share holder is that the donors dont  expect year bonuses  like the shareholders. 
When it comes to donors, it is very important to know the source from where they get such kind of money to just give it away. these institutions have became like home grown tax havens like Switzerland. When the question comes from where these institutions get such mammoth amount of wealth they will just say donations  but from where do these donors get such money when our country is not exactly filled with billionaires. Since these institutions are free from taxes they have become like the bank pvt banks who keep money for the rich 'donor' who want to just evade tax in the name of charity. And they dont mind give a piece of this wealth to the watch dog in the from of so called sacred religious institutions who have saved a major amount of their wealth from the tax dogs. 
Since these institutions are tax free and are already billionaires why the govts are funding them. I am not saying they dont do any humanitarian work, if they are doing good work what is their problem in publicly declaring their assets and producing a quarterly financial report like all other companies do. 
How fair is it to leave these billionaire institutions to go tax free while half of the country starves and when the whole country is full scams these so called religious and sacred institutions who are perceived to serving the people go with out a open audit. 


Isn't there a need amend this article??

Did we really ‘achieve’ Independence?

Did we really ‘achieve’ Independence?

We have been taught that India 'achieved ' independence in 1947 from a very peaceful and nonviolent struggle led by Gandhi himself. Can this be questioned? Were there other major factors which influenced the British Empire to grant the independence? Let us go through a series of events which in my view led to the independence of India.

The State of the British empire--

On the 22nd of January 1901, with the death of Queen Victoria came to an end an era of British expansionism and which was called 'Victorian Era'. It was in this era the British Empire was called an empire where the sun never set. Their control extended from Canada to Australia. Victoria was the icon of this majestic empire and with her death the empire started losing its sheen. She has been credited to have influenced the govt policies in a positive manner though officially the power of the British monarch are limited. In fact she was the longest reigning British monarch. The British Empire was at its height when the highly revered and iconic Queen died, even her anniversaries were celebrated as if they were the national festivals. With her death the empire sort of lost a driving force. The name Victoria itself was synonymous to supremacy. But the British Empire no longer had such a driving force.

                                                                  King  Edward VII

                                                                 King George V

After the death of the Queen Victoria, the British throne was succeeded by her son Edward VII. He was said to be an able diplomat and an administrator. It was in his time the erstwhile colonies of Australia and Canada got their dominion status. Though he could have been an able king, he dint live long, his reign came to an end by 1910 due to his ill health he died on 6th of May 1910.King Edward had a vision of a united Europe and had formed very strong relationship with France and other major European power though his relation with his own cousin, Kaiser William II of Germany was not a cordial one. At the turn of the century when the queen died the world was getting ready for a dozen new things starting with ideas like communism and socialism to the modernization of the military. King Edward even from the days when he used to be the Prince of Wales and used to be representative of the queen had very good relations with the American nations of Canada and USA though Canada was its own colony it had rose in importance. 

After the death of the King Edward his son King George V succeeded to the throne of British Empire. After the end of his father’s short lived reign he looked to expand his kingdom rigorously. His period saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Indian independence movement and most importantly the First World War took place in his period. The bitter relation with the German king Kaiser William II continued in his reign .  George had inherited the throne in very turbulent times.  As he inherited an empire which spanned from India to Canada he to had get a grip of this mammoth empire very fast as the world was changing with every second. But he was said to be suffering from ill health and his last days were not very peaceful.

                                                           Kaiser Wilhelm II 

First World War

First World War started in 1914, due to the murder of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria on the streets of Skopje. To take revenge Austria declared was against Serbia, since Serbia was supported by Turkey, Turkey got involved in the war and this triggered a chain of declaration of war by major powers of Europe against their respective emeries to help their respective friends. The same way British Empire got involved by declaring war against Germany which had declared war on France.  This is how the British Empire got embroiled in the First World War.  

The war ended in 1918; of course the British Empire was one of the victors as they were one of the allied powers. If you see the events of the war in detail it’s the US forces which saved the day for British as the British army had lost its steam in Europe. In the later part of the war the Germans did a suicidal act by attacking the US merchant ships which compelled Woodrow Wilson to declare war on Germany and enter the war on the side of triple alliance.  The triple alliance was strengthened further with the support of the powerful USA.

The war of course ended with the victory of Triple alliance but it had taken a heavy toll on all the countries in the war including the victors. Britain’s army was wiped out and it was rescued by the Americans.  The war had a devastating effect on the economies of the all the countries. It took several years for them to recover from the slum.

The war also saw the collapse of 4 of the most prominent imperialist monarchy of Europe, the German empire was broken up and distributed piece by piece among the victors, the Austro-Hungarian empire which was very powerful and influential in the beginning of the war was broken up into two states- Austria and Hungary, Russian monarchy lost out to the communists before the end of the war in 1917 and they withdrew from the war, Turkey did no better and it transformed into a republic. So after war the most powerful monarchies of Europe seized to exist and became republics. So England was the lone powerful imperialistic monarchy in Europe.  This added pressure had its impact on diminishing popularity of the British monarch.

During the time of war the empire was desperate for recruits and it left no stone unturned to get them, seeing this the Indian nationalists thought of taking advantage of this desperate situation. They thought by supporting the empire they are going to the some concession from the British parliament as a reward for the wartime help.  The British parliament vowed a lot to Indian princes for their contribution in fact  a major part of the British army was from the Indian subcontinent.  On the other hand the Indian nationalist wanted to capitalize on the situation and put more pressure on the British parliament.  The British parliament was very quick to notice a storm brewing so to ease the tension in the subcontinent they passed government of India act. This act was valid for only 10 years until 1929. It expanded the participation of Indians in the working of the government.  That means a diarchy system of government where Indians were allowed to control some aspect of the state; they called this as the transferred list as the power to control these was transferred to Indians at the provincial level. But still most of the provinces where they had a direct rule were under the viceroy. This was a major dent to the imperialism of the British Empire as it was giving away half of the rule to the Indian hands. This clearly showed that the British dint wants direct face off after the dreadful war so they were ready to compromise and rebuild their economy which was swept of its feet by the war.

The great depression

The great depression in the early 1930s saw the economic downturn of the western economies.  In this period UK suffered a lot, it brought the people to the streets due to the job loss. The government was dumbfounded. It took nearly a decade to recover from the downturn. UK definitely couldn’t afford to face one a large scale revolt so the British parliament passes the Government of India act of 1935. Under this act the parliament abolished the diarchy system and. It gave British India a large amount of autonomy and formed federation of India but uniting the princely states and the other provinces. This showed clearly that the British parliament reduce the administrative burden of India due to the economic conditions back home. It slowly started handing over the administration to the native hands and remains involved only for the taxes which could help its economic situation. On the other hand the wanted to cool the Indian nationalists by giving them something to snack on.

                                                        Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini 

                                                         The blitz - World War II, London 

                                               The fall of Singapore to the Japanese-1942

The Second World War

The Second World War started with Hitler declaring war on Poland and invading it. It dint take the other countries to declare war on each other. The same way they had dome in the First World War.  In the beginning of the war the axis power had all the advantage and they seem to be winning the war. On 7^th Sept. 1940 Germany started the strategic bombing of Brittan. This went on nearly for a year. In these raids London the power center of the empire upon which sun never set, was now burning, the entire population of London went underground and took shelter in the underground train station and tunnels. Though the raids didn’t achieve their purpose and was a failure on part of the Germans, it showed that the Empire had lost its sheen.  This showed that the so called British Empire was no longer supreme or undefeatable. Later the Germans bought brought on their own downfall by invading Russia that too in the winter. At the same time the empire was losing its grip over its eastern strongholds too. It lost Singapore and Hong Kong to the Japan. The fall of Singapore showed that it was the dusk of the British supremacy in the east.  Japan committed one more blunder by bombing pearl harbor which brought in USA on the side of the allied power, which went on to prove suicidal as the axis power had almost won the war until the USA joined the allied forces. Of course the allied powers won the war but it was USA which saved the day for them and in fact it’s the USA which retook the Europe for the allies powers, the army of the British empire was  reduces to less than half. In this situation it clearly showed that the empire was not capable of managing the far off colonies so after the Second World War one by one most the overseas colonies declared independence. India was one of the colonies.

                                           Gandhi's arrest led to Quit India movement in 1942

The British Empire owed a lot to India and the Indian princely states for their support in the desperate times of war. The British Empire was reduced to ashes. The empire was no longer supreme. After the war the world order changing and the colonization was being antagonized. They had set up a world governing body called United Nations with the objective of the securing the rights of downtrodden countries. Meanwhile in India the quit India movement had shook the viceroy, they knew they couldn’t take any more of the pressure from the Nationalist that too when the empire itself was burning. So they had no choice but to grant the Independence.  

Now how fair is it to say that we as Indians achieved the independence from the British Empire which was on its knees, its economy was in turmoil, its capital burning and had to be rescued by one of its former colonies? 

Operation Blue Star

In 1984, Indra Gandhi ordered the military to flush out the Khalisthan terrorists from the golden temple at Amritsar. This operation was followed by a long debate on whether the operation was inevitable or was there a chance for negotiation with the terrorists as the operation left a large number of civilians dead.
There is a difference of opinion about the operation but let us listen to the commander who led operation, General Kuldip Singh Brar.

                                                                     Part 1

                                                                         Part 2

How practical was Panchasheel policy

Panchsheel was the name of the foreign policy adopted by India soon after the independence.  It was actually a brain child of the First Prime Minister of India Pandith Jawaharlal Nehru. Later It was the  base of  Sino Indian treaty of 1954 and also became the core ideology behind the Non alignment  movement.

Panchasheel is a foreign policy formed by 5 main ideals. Its main aim was to abstain from the then ongoing cold war between the two blocs and to be maintain a friendly neighboorhood. But as it turned out the policy was a bit idealistic. The following are the five ideals

• Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty,

• Mutual non-aggression,

• Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs,

• Equality and mutual benefit, and

• Peaceful co-existence.

If we examine all the of the points carefully, we will find that they are not exactly realistic 

When it says respect for each other's territorial integrity its hard to imagine such a situation as it takes generations to resolve disputes between nations. If these disputes take generation to resolve then it will take equally long time to establish a truat without which the respect cant be imagined.  

 If there is a dispute there is obviously a aggression. There is no way that there is a dispute and there wont be an aggression. The nations will try every thing to settle dispute in their own favor, then why will they not be aggressive. 

When two nations have a dispute or a rivalry, they will do anything to serve their purpose. They can go to any extent to see their rival disintegrate as it will be in their interest. So to meet these goals they will never abstain from fueling each other's internal problems. 

The best term which can be closely associated with idealism is equality, in the real world two nations can never be equal as their resources are not equally distributed which is natural. So almost all countries bargain hard for their own benefit why will the nation pitch  for mutual benefit when they have their own interests.  

The peaceful co existence is nothing but a dream as there can never be peace between countries when there are disputes, and every nation tries to use what means they could to get a maximum out of the dispute. So in this case how can nations function peacefully. 

When it comes to serving their interests nations cant stick to a laid plan, they have to act according as the  situations demands. IF a nation tries to stick to a policy and not act according to the change in situation then it  will end up nowhere.  

Credit crisis

Check out this very well presented video on Credit Crisis

Part 1

Part 2