Ramana's Musings

Here is a story that has been authenticated from impeccable sources. I thank my friend Anil for sending me this very inspiring piece of our history.

After getting freedom, a meeting was organized to select the first General of the Indian Army. Jawahar Lal Nehru was heading that meeting. Leaders and Army officers were discussing to whom this responsibility should be given.

 In between the discussion Nehru said, “I think we should appoint a British officer as a General of Indian Army as we don’t have enough experience to lead the same.”

 Everybody supported Nehru because if the PM was suggesting something, how could they not agree?

But one of the army officers abruptly said, “I have a point, sir.”

 Nehru said, “Yes, gentleman. You are free to speak.”

 He said ,”You see, sir, we don’t have enough experience to lead a nation too, so shouldn’t we appoint a British person as first PM of India?”

The meeting hall  suddenly  went  quiet.

Then, Nehru said, “Are you ready to be the first General of the Indian Army ?” 

 He got a golden chance to accept  the  offer  but he refused  the same  and said, “Sir, we have a very talented army officer, my senior, Lt. Gen. Cariappa, who is the most deserving among us.”

The army officer who raised his voice against the PM was Lt. General Nathu Singh Rathore, the 1st  Lt. General of the Indian Army.

Since the ibid mail was circulated, numerous veterans have pointed out to me that it was NOT Gen Nathu BUT Gen Rajendra Sinhji, who turned down the offer to be the first chief, ahead of Gen Cariappa. Well, it now turns out that it was BOTH.

What a tradition that the Indian armed forces can be genuinely proud of!

Tags: Gen. Cariappa, Indian Armed forces, Jawaharlal Nehru

When this post gets published, I should be on a train traveling from Tamil Nadu in the South of India to Pune on the Upper Western part of India. The journey will take me 26 hours and I look forward to it.

I will be traveling on India’s 64th Independence day, which, much to the chagrin of our notorious bureaucracy, falls on a Sunday this year.

I was four years old when India won its independence and can be called that part of a spill-over-from-colonialism generation. India chose to be a Socialistic Democratic Republic in 1950 and that socialism as practiced in India drove a rich country to its knees. In 1990, our gold reserves had to mortgaged to save us from defaulting.

Since then a lot of water has flown down India’s many rivers and for the first time ever, the number of high- income households, 46.7million, has exceeded 41 million low-income ones. For an Indian who has grown up in the Independent India, this is very satisfying.

This has happened because of some effective liberalisation measures taken after the crisis of 1990.

There is a lot that still needs to be done, but I can see that we are on the path and from now on India can only go one way and that is up. That this is happening despite India’s notorious corrupt establishment is indicative of the spirit of Indian entrepreneurship and resilience. I hope that before I go to meet my maker, I will see poverty removed and India working efficiently as it is capable of doing.

Tags: Indian Independence day

This article in the Guardian, is a balanced as well as nuanced one, and for me the key paragraphs in it are these two, almost at the bottom.

“However, beyond the Bangalore IT hubs, the manicured lawns of the ministerial bungalows in South Delhi and the Mumbai stock exchange is another India, featuring neither in the ministers’ breathless itinerary nor in their equally breathless praise for India’s accomplishments. A new UN poverty index shows there are more poor people in eight states of India than in the 26 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Child mortality rates remain among the highest in the world and two-thirds of the country do not have access to a toilet. In many places, there is simply no rule of law.

“There is a lot to counter the gung-ho optimism,” said Arvind Sivaramakrishnan, senior deputy editor of the Hindu newspaper. “The institutions of the state increasingly serve the very powerful and wealthy. In many states it is getting worse and that is frightening.”

Strangely enough, last week, I have been having an email debate on what needs to be done, arising out of a book that I had just finished reading, a review of which can be had here.

The key paragraph in that review which is the core around which our debate was built is this one:

“Easterly, therefore, argues that good institutions are the basis for economic growth by creating the right market-based and market-guided incentives. And these institutions are: rule of law, competitive markets, low taxation, noninflationary monetary policies, and free trade. These institutions then foster other cultural patterns of conduct, hard work, savings and industriousness, honesty and trustworthiness, creativity, and self-responsibility. These are the bases of the wealth of nations.”

My friend (MF) asked this pertinent question – “Could you clarify what’s referred to by the term ‘wealth’ used below? If it means material affluence, then I have considerable reservations. I’ll need time to articulate these.”

My response was – “I would include ‘human’ to ‘material’ in the term wealth.”

MF responded with – ” Human material wealth meaning HR resources for corporate consumption? Or character, wit, and stuff like that which thrives best outside organisations?”

My reply which will continue to generate more thoughts is as follows:

“Expand the horizon. Go macro and with Indian Human Resources treated as such, rather than as liabilities, healthy and wealthy, can take on the world Karl. To do that, we need to enable them. The brief paragraph gives a route map to achieve that.

Just use your imagination. Supposing all Indian farmers, irrespective of how big their land owning is, are allowed proper records of their titles, are free to use that assets as they see fit, including easy access to mortgage for working capital, or to expand, within an environment that offers them legal protection, the might of the law, with easy access to markets to source their inputs and to market their output, with labour available in plenty to hire and fire, what Indian agriculture/rural sector can achieve.

Similarly, the millions of Indian small businessmen, the road side vendors, the small tea shops, bicycle/motorcycle/other automobile repair shops, the retailers, the push cart vendors and so on, can achieve if they are provided with the same.

I can go on and on.

Indian entrepreneurship is what has been keeping us afloat. Not some great governmental interventions. The last has happened only in the last twenty years, prior to that the ordinary Indian is the guy kept us from becoming another Mayanmar. If that Indian can be given the benefit of all that the paragraph suggests, we can be world beaters. We have done that despite the claustrophobic atmosphere of the politico/bureaucratic set up.

All that is lacking is political will, added to the apathy of the Indian middle class which is busy feathering its own nest. If this class decides en bloc to bring about change in the body politic and the bureaucratic environment, it can. I wonder if it will.

The most used abbreviation for the Indian Rupee has been Rs. or for international purposes, INR. India has not had a symbol for its currency like $ for dollar, and this has now been corrected.

Like most Indians I am very happy that this has happened. I am trying to get the symbol incorporated in my keyboard so that I can start using it in my communications.

India is also blessed with some remarkable cartoonists who portray India at its best. One of them is Morparia.
He has come up with his own version of the symbol and I doff my topi to him for this brilliant cartoon.

Tags: Hemant Morparia, Indian Rupee

Jean in her blog ‘Cheerful Monk’ quoted a very true statement – “Foreign aid: When the poor people of one country give money to the rich people of another country.”

Here is final realisation in Britain that aid to India ends up in the wrong pockets.

David Cameron, I take my topi off to you. There are a lot of people like me in India who will too.

Our erstwhile Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, before he lost his innocence, and full of idealism, wanted to tackle corruption in India and said that only about 15% of any money slated for a social welfare projects actually got spent on it; the rest got siphoned off in various directions. The figure of 15% was later revised downwards by commentators to 5%. Despite much water having flowed down our rivers, the situation has not changed much since then. There are however signs that in some parts of the country, it is changing and one hopes that the rate of change will get speeded up by the various initiatives announced recently.

Many right thinking Indians have been stating that India is not a poor country but is a rich country with many poor people who get exploited by an unwieldy bureaucratic system which is allowed to flourish in collusion with grass root level politicians. There is exercise of power without taking responsibility for the alleviation of poverty to the most deserving.

“Worthy of the respect of the people are those content with a calm and frugal life.” – Lao Tsu.

Our political and bureaucratic establishment flaunts power and wealth in a most vulgar way. Frugality is what is most lacking in the Indian political dynasties and bureaucratic colluders, that divide up power and tax payers money. India’s new class of the super-rich politico-bureaucratic establishment exploits millions of poor Indians. These poor people are deprived of basic amenities, schools and basic medical care, as well as of human dignity. Not because the funds for improving their lot is not available. They are. The allocated funds just disappear in the pipeline before they reach the poor.

It is an insult to India to offer it “Aid”. Some Indians may swallow such an insult for personal benefit, but I for one, am not among those. I hope that all the other countries, which continue to offer “Aid to India”, also follow David Cameron’s example.

Tags: David Cameron, Foriegn aid to India, Rajiv Gandhi

The East India Company from London came to India in the year 1600. It was the forerunner of British Colonial rule over the entire Indian subcontinent, currently called South Asia.

All Indians of my generation and before learnt all about the EIC and how they were replaced by direct Crown rule as part of our history lessons. Such history has tended to get diluted subsequently and perhaps many modern students may not be even aware of the role played by the East India Company.

Earlier this year, we came to know that an Indian has bought out the East India Company and was in the process of turning it into a departmental stores.

Today, it is a vibrant organization with a clear vision of where it wants to go.

There will not be many Indians who will feel as deeply about this development as I do. I am sure that those who do, will join me in saluting Sanjiv Mehta.

Conrad, another hero that I wish had been me!

Tags: British colonial India, East India Company, Sanjiv Mehta

As an Indian, there are many things that I would like to say about my country, but find few who will listen to me. Shashi Tharoor, our latest political star who arrived on the scene via a career as a diplomat and a UN bureaucrat, is not like any of our run of the mill politicians. You will see why when you listen to him.

In case you are unable to view the video, please copy paste this link on your browser to view the original: http://www.ted.com/talks/shashi_tharoor.html

I wish that we could fill our parliament and our cabinet of ministers with Shashi clones.

Since writing the above post and before it could be published, Mr. Tharoor has got himself involved in a controversy with a powerful Sports persoanality of India and fun and games are being reported by all the media. Sad.

To his credit, Mr. Tharoor has handled the scandal with panache and you can see that in this blog post.

After the you know what has hit the fan, I received this story from a friend who knows well my allergy for politicians and bureaucrats. It is worth a read to remember that the more things appear to change, the more they remain the same.

There’s an old sea story in the Navy about a ship’s Captain who inspected his sailors, and afterward told the Chief Boatswain that his men smelled bad.

The Captain suggested perhaps it would help if the sailors would change underwear occasionally.

The Chief responded, “Aye, aye sir, I’ll see to it immediately!”

The Chief went straight to the sailors berth deck and announced,

“The Captain thinks you guys smell bad and wants you to change your underwear.”

He continued, ”Pittman, you change with Jones, McCarthy, you change with Witkowski, and Brown, you change with Schultz.

Now ”GET TO IT!”

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS:

Someone may come along and promise “Change”, but don’t count on things smelling any better.

Tags: India, IPL, Shashi Tharoor, TED

India became a Republic on January 26, 1950. Yes, the Republic is Sixty Years old today.

India became an Independent country, shrugging off British rule in 1947. It took us about two years and some months to draw up our constitution which replaced the Government of India Act of 1935. The day January 26, was chosen as it was on that date in 1930, that Indians declared their intention to become independent from British rule.

It is a mature nation if you consider sixty years of existence as being equivalent to a human being. Like all sixty year olds, our nation too has many plus points and as many minus points about it.

I can wax eloquent about both the pluses and minuses, but shall leave my readers with two links to indedpendent views. I liked both of them despite their rather unflattering references in some instances.

One is by Anne Applebaum who writes in the Washington Post and the other is by Harmeet Shah Singh, who writes for the CNN.

I will be very happy to answer any questions that my readers may have after reading both articles.

Tags: British Rule, Independence, India, Republic Day

Last year, after the Mumbai terrorism, I had written many posts and responded to comments and my regular readers will recollect the mention I had made of my friends and their son Kaizad. Kaizad was a budding chef in the Taj Hotel, and he was deliberately shot and killed by the scum. I reproduce the article interviewing Nawaz and Noshir that appeared in our local newspaper by a scanned copy as the article is not appearing in the eversion of the newspaper. By clicking on the image, you can enlarge the image to read better and you will also see the photograph of Kaizad the gentle giant.

My young friend Sandeep has written a poignant post in his blog about Mumbai and you can see my comments on it here.

The Times of India has published another very interesting article which is worth reading as is the article in the Independent.

Pakistan has indicted seven people in Pakistan for the roles played by them in the massacre but the key players still enjoy official protection and patronage. Pakistan is imploding everyday and I envisage major problems for Pakistanis, refugees from there who would like to come over to India and Indian Muslims who would like to help them, in the days to come. I hope that the Pakistani establishment would get a grip on its country, its economy, its development and its people to avoid becoming like Somalia.

Tags: 26/11, India, Kaizad, Mumbai, Muslims, Pakistan, Refugees, Terrorism

A totally unnecessary and bound-to-create-problems, controversy has been created by the Muslim Religious Leadership of India.

I take my readers to my post on India’s National Anthem. I had clearly stated my preference for the original National Anthem called Vande Mataram, though I have whole heartedly accepted the de facto current one.

Out of the blue, the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind (Organization of Muslim Scholars Of India) passed a resolution asking members of the Indian Muslim community not to recite ‘Vande Mataram’ on the grounds that some verses of the national song are against the tenets of Islam. What is objectionable to the Ulema is that parts of the National Song, worships Mother India. This is not really worshipping as in a religious sense, but giving it very high honour by treating it on par with one’s mother. An emotional poet’s way of expressing his love for his country. Islam forbids worship of anything other than Allah. Ergo, Vandemataram is anti Islamic.

The Hindu right ever looking for opportunities to raise the anti Muslim temperature in India has got exactly what they wanted. Could not the Ulema have seen this outcome. Why make an issue at all of it?

While not quite the same as the original, our own Oscar winning Music Director, Rehman, a Muslim composed and sang Vande Mataram, which can be seen here. Sorry I am unable to embed it here as it has been disabled. I can never hear enough of this song and everytime I see the video, and hear the song, I get goose pimples. Silly me?

The Original which is the version sung by most of us is this one.

Many noted Indian Muslims have taken objection to this totally unnecessary development, but the damage has been done. Two such statements will show the seriousness of the issue. One from a Union Minister and the other from one of India’s best known poets, filmdom’s lyricist and script writer.

The India that I am proud of to live in produces some amazing contrasts. Let me not do a job much better done by professionals. Please read this amazing story.

Sometimes I wonder whether the Muslim Ulema know what they are doing by their obscurantism! I wonder what Gaelikaa will have to say about this. She lives in one of India’s most famous cities, Lucknow,the old capital of Awadh, a Mughal Realm with a sizeable Muslim population. She is objective enough for being Irish on the one hand and married to a Hindu Indian on the other and living in such a city.

Tags: Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind, National Anthem, Ulema, Vande Mataram