Passing thought on the development during the day on Lokpal issue
Is there a possibility of filing a PIL in court for establishment of truth on "scientific enquiry into the possibility of Parliament and politicians acting correct to curb Corruption" ? Corruption has been studied as to have originated from "political" grass roots even by the United Nations. Then, another common study is that "election fundings are the door way to corruption". Understanding the implications of these two commonly held view points, what is the scientic possibility of the Parliament and the Politicians passing the right anti-corruption bill?
Philosophical enquiry into the concept of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha
Having pondered over the terms of Popular Choice and the Right Choice over here, I was trying to decipher the philosophical gap between the two houses that Indian Parliament consist of. The System is very much copied from the British Parliament, which houses the House of Commons (the wisdom of popular choice) and the House of Lords (wisdom of right choice).
The Lok Sabha is based on the lines of House of Commons, while the Rajya Sabha is based on House of Lords.
The election procedure of the members of the Lok Sabha, and the selection procedure for members of the Rajya Sabha speak of the difference and highlight at what the two houses are aimed at.
Thus, the collective wisdom of the nation is a combination of the Popular Choice and the Right Choice.
But since both of these, the Popular Choice and the Right Choice, are difficult to be found on any issue, Popular Choice is often deemed as the majoritist view, while the Right Choice is approximated away as the Popular Choice in the absence of a clear knowledge of what is right. Principaly, the Right Thing is always above the Popular thing, which is why Rajya Sabha is also called the Upper house, while populist choice is called Lok Sabha, or the Lower House. And since the populist choice often prevails over the Right Choice, the lower house is supposedly more powerful than the Rajya Sabha.
The unfortunate trend in India is that even the Rajya Sabha has been politicaly taken control of by the populist people. Sane voices have no place to live in this counry.
And then they say, "have faith in Parliament". Large number of people cannot be made to work in unison on the basis of faith, but truth alone. Because each of us have a different belief. "Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram" is the hierarchy of statement. Truth(satyam) is easier to be found in the matters of Logic than in the matters of faith(shivam).
The Lok Sabha is based on the lines of House of Commons, while the Rajya Sabha is based on House of Lords.
The election procedure of the members of the Lok Sabha, and the selection procedure for members of the Rajya Sabha speak of the difference and highlight at what the two houses are aimed at.
Thus, the collective wisdom of the nation is a combination of the Popular Choice and the Right Choice.
But since both of these, the Popular Choice and the Right Choice, are difficult to be found on any issue, Popular Choice is often deemed as the majoritist view, while the Right Choice is approximated away as the Popular Choice in the absence of a clear knowledge of what is right. Principaly, the Right Thing is always above the Popular thing, which is why Rajya Sabha is also called the Upper house, while populist choice is called Lok Sabha, or the Lower House. And since the populist choice often prevails over the Right Choice, the lower house is supposedly more powerful than the Rajya Sabha.
The unfortunate trend in India is that even the Rajya Sabha has been politicaly taken control of by the populist people. Sane voices have no place to live in this counry.
And then they say, "have faith in Parliament". Large number of people cannot be made to work in unison on the basis of faith, but truth alone. Because each of us have a different belief. "Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram" is the hierarchy of statement. Truth(satyam) is easier to be found in the matters of Logic than in the matters of faith(shivam).
Right Choice and Popular choice democracy
Popular choice and Right choice are two different things. Popularism (aka जनमत/बहुमत) may not be the right (धर्म-संगत) thing. When people of free-will meet, they each have different beliefs. For a community to happen with people of different beliefs, Right path has to be explored which they each voluntarily agree to abide. In non-violent and civil methods, this is done through शास्त्रार्थ/ or the .........Debates and Dialectics (thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis). That is how wisdom is propounded. That is the job of Parliament. Further, specialisation has to harped in to convert a personalo-logic thing to a natural-standard item to overcome the problem of varying beliefs of people. Like, a kilogram can no longer be defined as weigth equal to that of gold bar kept in London Museum. a kilogram, now is weight defined in terms of Carbon atoms. In the last resort, Right path is approxmated away as the Reason-ified path, where the final reason of choice is stated away with room left for adopting new reasons if and when found. Right choice can be approximated as the Polular choice when all the options at the disposal are right enough to be not dismissed out.
Above Lokpal, do you need a Dharampal, if the Lokpal falters??
My friend asked me this question in his stand to oppose Team Anna and their Lokpal issue. Here is the orignal conversation which broke out between me and my friend on Facebook.
Manish Singh:
The basic reasoning why the role of Civil Society Organizations for Erradication of corruption has been prompted by even the United Nations is that corruption globally is of 'Political' Base. it is obvious that most politicians will vehemently deny this and say 'all politicians are not corrupt', much the same way Pakistan responds the the charge of terrorism.
Do people believe Parliament is going to pass the right Lokpal Bill on it's own ? I see the Lokpal battle go the long way as the freedom struggle did.
Vineet Dubey:
why do we need lokpal in the first place? And if the Lokpal gets corrupt would you want to get Dharampal?
Manish Singh :
Vineet Dubey, Bro, I know you are still our History and Civics teacher's mistake, like I was until job-ex taught me that Corruption in India is SYSTEMIC..it was a nice and good word to study in one letter from CMD of SCI. Lokpal could also get corrupt, but to prevent that, a design correction can be applied at policy-framework itself. Transparency principles, and "Dharmapal" effect through means of 'constant conflict between two independent bodies can make Lokpal himself a "dharampal" body. You see, the system of Checks and Balances in a Democratic setup can work only through seeking the path of righteousness, the Dharam, other wise any Democratic Society will meet it's natural death valley. Dharma , or Righteousnes, is searched in the battlefield when two parties war with each other. And two parties get into a genuine war only when they are truely separate. In an eyewash system, the Ruling and Opposition are suppose to be doing this war. But what if at some issue both , the ruling and opposition, become joint. In such case, the system designers of Democracy thought of separating Judiciary, Executive and Legislator. In India, one technical blunder has happened in that Legislator has succeeded in taking control of everything, as the Rank of President is a titular head, appointed through a collegiate of the Legislators, "the politicians"; the Judiciary is recommended-appointed by the legislator,"the politicians"; and the executive heads of all the departments are the legislators"the politicans", in their avtars as the Ministers.In the original British design which we copy, the difference of Republicanism and Monarchy makes the difference. So either we switch to the Presidential Form Design.
Or, make the Gandhi family the monarchs of India, and separate them from Parliament and from contesting elections. and then raise the issue of political Corruption with the monarch-- I guess an Ombudsman will be installed. Monarchy has ensured that this systemic Independence is achieved thoroughly. In India, the constitution has provided for Independence of the Ranks of Election Commission, the CAG, and the body of UPSC--but to the extent of reporting to the head of the state-- the President of India, which is politican-controlled portfolio. CAG has declared a severe loss to exchequer at occasion, but no results have come. The scene is a political equivalent of Jessica Lal Murder, where the murderer is "no-one !!", while a dead body exist died due to shooting in the middle of a party.
and by the way, the Indepedence of these departments has been ensured by the Constitution of India, by directly regulating in the Constituion, thier functions, appoint procedures, salary methods, financing methods, post-retirement procedures, et al. Thus no law of the government can change that, except by a process of constitutional amendment which requires three-fourth majority. In this regard it is noticable that the parliament arranged to make the Election Commission a three-person body after T N Sheshan become the first Election Commsioner to personally enure fair polls. Election Commissioners before him never asserted their "independance characterstic" already given in the constitution. This is quite a knowledge I read when doing B Com from IGNOU, where I picked up Indian Administration as a subject for second year.
And that's what the fight is around, to give Lokpal a "constitutional status", by the ruling Government. believe you me, I am nearly a Congress guy these days, except here when the righteousness call from with is urging me to look for what is right. Since contitution-ising the Lokpal is going to be more challenging with the opposition not helping the each law while apparently support Team Anna "in principle", clearly the Government and the opposition (both in invisible collusion) is attempting yet again evade the task.
Also notice, Kapil Sibal could dare to talk of limiting the functions of CAG, Mr Vinod Rai, after he wrote an audit report on loss worth 1.76 coror to ex-chequer in the 2G/3G loss. This is not in good virtue for a politician, as it disturbs the prevailing checks-and-balance of the Constitution. Kapil could do so because the apperent knowledge of people of India on the Governance System in not up to the mark. Digvijay singh attempts to hogwash the people by rasing question that "DG Audit says loss is worth 2000coror, CAG says loss 1.76 coror--whom to believe? ". The methods of calculation for a speculative loss on a property may be different, but "is it not important that a very significant loss has happened" --someone ask Digvijay. Apparently , Digvijay is also fooling the already unaware citizens. And P Chidambaram is hiding, while A Raja has been booked by CBI which is until now under Supreme Court directions. Will supreme court rule for ever? and will the corruption be only when the thief is caught otherwise no case of theft will be accepted by the people? Can we not repair our governance system to work right way for itself while we each are busy in earning our bread and butter?
Vineet Dubey
Manish Singh, You are as far from logical congruence as i am from dating Deepika Padukone. Dharma is not a war of two parties, Dharma is what you seek within yourself. Raja & Kalmadi are in Jail not because of Lokpal but despite it. Gandhi family has won elections for whatever reasons but this win is not permanent. Nobody can have that guarantee in a democracy.
Vineet Dubey
One of the contentions of the governments is how will a PM defend himself if any frivolous Lokpal prosecute and investigate him. To this a wrong message is being that separation of prosecution and investigation is a Democracy- mandated requirement. But truely, right now too a murder case or a scam case is prosecuted and investigated one body only - the Government. But in truth, such problems can and will be overcome by the design of Lokpal institution which will require to work on transparency principles. The government will anyway have access to all institution to bring evidence in defense of prime minister. Transparency method include date and time logged sequence of events-the log books.
Answer is that
Vineet Dubey
By the nature of your very profession you are groomed to go on long cruise. When you get back to the topic at hand, maybe after 6 months, please do let me know.
Manish Singh
kar di be-izzati. :-)aur kuch nahin mila toh aise hi nipto-- "Aana is RSS man". :P
Manish Singh
Vineet Dubey, Bro, I just figured that u have suffered an IQ problem! In fact, the question for need for a Lokpal has never been cross-examined by anyone from parliament. U may be unique in that. Of the 543 MPs, maybe 500 will agree to need for Lokpal. And infact this need was felt way back in 1960's itself. your cross-question of "why do we need lokpal in the first place? And if the Lokpal gets corrupt would you want to get Dharampal?" , has no significance because this reasoning could anyway be applied to any law-enforcement that the Parliament would have began to ponder from 1960's itself. The cross-examination u pose has be outrightly rejected in order to take the first step towards Corruption prevention. This cross-examination can find relevance only when the design of the ombudsman office whichever is being imagined is not suited enough to achieve its aim.
Vineet Dubey
thats the usual tactics employed by people who lack arguments... circumvention and discredit the messenger. To reply in the language you understand...Manish Singh some of us went to college for graduation and then did post graduation as well. I understand you have not had the opportunity to go to college and your qualification is still 10+2 with some distance learning graduation thrown in... your work ex too kept you away from humanity in the seas for months at stretch.. for your understanding, the argument is not to be put for any law body, the argument is put cause we have enough law enforcement bodies. get back to basics....i put in two simple premises... Civil body to be supreme and segregation of power within the Indian constitution.. Just tell me how does Lokpal guarantee that and i will be with you.
Manish Singh
@Vineet Dubey :The two premise you hold are correct but I think they have less significance to challenge the subject because they are as it is not being infringed. Lokpal will be a civil body in that the highest authority will be 'selected' from a collegiate of people who will, in turn, either be 'elected' or 'selected' or 'publically acredited'. Lokpal will not be a military rank or controller of armed agency- military or police or paramilitary. Investigating power only imply forensic, not law and order control. Neither a secretive control as the design envisages transparency. Further, Lokpal will not be a private institution, but a civil one, as parliament will have power to control finance and removal, - if the Team Anna way , then by simple majority; if the congress way, then by three-fourth majority.
The segregation of power is incidental to any separation of department carried out. Separation may be for 'vastness and Specialisation' purpose, or, 'authoritative take over' of governance. In what way can the Lokpal institution take over government? The judiciary will be independent. Lokpal may sabotage the governance but if the larger section of public feels this, it can anyway be controlled through the parliament. Clean or Dirty MP's, Parliament will exist because elections are under the control of election commission.
the RTI Act has already caused flutter in bureaucrats as they now fear making any entry in any record for the fear of being scrutinized. This fear is being projected in public as 'loss of civil liberty'. But strong Democracys always had RTI equivalents. Are u a taking side of such a propagation?
The civic nature of Lokpal finds no apprehensions otherwise. The 'anshan'-blackmail means of Team Anna is being accused of being undemocratic. Is this situation confusing you to differ A from B.
@Vineet: Please note IQ problems are art type. Any person can suffer them, even if he otherwise have good IQ. My sentence was not aimed to discredit you, but to point to you one observation. Your cross-examination was requiring evaluation in different time and space frames.
Manish Singh
Vineet Dubey: hit it bro! found it why Prosecution and Investigations need to be separated. In case of Grade C employees, say of Passport department, if the PP is not delivered in time, if Citizen 'A' is given to complain the matter to Lokpal, then Lokpal employee 'L' will investigate the PP department employee 'P' . case1: what if the cause of delay is genuine, and employee L is himself corrupt to delay report about P to be made transparent and available to public including citizen A? 'L' may coerce P to bribe him to trouble his future? Case 2: cause of delay not geniune and 'P' shares the bribe received from A with 'L', and in return send report of 'P' as "genuine cause". Who will 'A' go to now? Citizen charter bill has the connection at this point to resolve the tangle.
Manish Singh:
The basic reasoning why the role of Civil Society Organizations for Erradication of corruption has been prompted by even the United Nations is that corruption globally is of 'Political' Base. it is obvious that most politicians will vehemently deny this and say 'all politicians are not corrupt', much the same way Pakistan responds the the charge of terrorism.
Do people believe Parliament is going to pass the right Lokpal Bill on it's own ? I see the Lokpal battle go the long way as the freedom struggle did.
Vineet Dubey:
why do we need lokpal in the first place? And if the Lokpal gets corrupt would you want to get Dharampal?
Manish Singh :
Vineet Dubey, Bro, I know you are still our History and Civics teacher's mistake, like I was until job-ex taught me that Corruption in India is SYSTEMIC..it was a nice and good word to study in one letter from CMD of SCI. Lokpal could also get corrupt, but to prevent that, a design correction can be applied at policy-framework itself. Transparency principles, and "Dharmapal" effect through means of 'constant conflict between two independent bodies can make Lokpal himself a "dharampal" body. You see, the system of Checks and Balances in a Democratic setup can work only through seeking the path of righteousness, the Dharam, other wise any Democratic Society will meet it's natural death valley. Dharma , or Righteousnes, is searched in the battlefield when two parties war with each other. And two parties get into a genuine war only when they are truely separate. In an eyewash system, the Ruling and Opposition are suppose to be doing this war. But what if at some issue both , the ruling and opposition, become joint. In such case, the system designers of Democracy thought of separating Judiciary, Executive and Legislator. In India, one technical blunder has happened in that Legislator has succeeded in taking control of everything, as the Rank of President is a titular head, appointed through a collegiate of the Legislators, "the politicians"; the Judiciary is recommended-appointed by the legislator,"the politicians"; and the executive heads of all the departments are the legislators"the politicans", in their avtars as the Ministers.In the original British design which we copy, the difference of Republicanism and Monarchy makes the difference. So either we switch to the Presidential Form Design.
Or, make the Gandhi family the monarchs of India, and separate them from Parliament and from contesting elections. and then raise the issue of political Corruption with the monarch-- I guess an Ombudsman will be installed. Monarchy has ensured that this systemic Independence is achieved thoroughly. In India, the constitution has provided for Independence of the Ranks of Election Commission, the CAG, and the body of UPSC--but to the extent of reporting to the head of the state-- the President of India, which is politican-controlled portfolio. CAG has declared a severe loss to exchequer at occasion, but no results have come. The scene is a political equivalent of Jessica Lal Murder, where the murderer is "no-one !!", while a dead body exist died due to shooting in the middle of a party.
and by the way, the Indepedence of these departments has been ensured by the Constitution of India, by directly regulating in the Constituion, thier functions, appoint procedures, salary methods, financing methods, post-retirement procedures, et al. Thus no law of the government can change that, except by a process of constitutional amendment which requires three-fourth majority. In this regard it is noticable that the parliament arranged to make the Election Commission a three-person body after T N Sheshan become the first Election Commsioner to personally enure fair polls. Election Commissioners before him never asserted their "independance characterstic" already given in the constitution. This is quite a knowledge I read when doing B Com from IGNOU, where I picked up Indian Administration as a subject for second year.
And that's what the fight is around, to give Lokpal a "constitutional status", by the ruling Government. believe you me, I am nearly a Congress guy these days, except here when the righteousness call from with is urging me to look for what is right. Since contitution-ising the Lokpal is going to be more challenging with the opposition not helping the each law while apparently support Team Anna "in principle", clearly the Government and the opposition (both in invisible collusion) is attempting yet again evade the task.
Also notice, Kapil Sibal could dare to talk of limiting the functions of CAG, Mr Vinod Rai, after he wrote an audit report on loss worth 1.76 coror to ex-chequer in the 2G/3G loss. This is not in good virtue for a politician, as it disturbs the prevailing checks-and-balance of the Constitution. Kapil could do so because the apperent knowledge of people of India on the Governance System in not up to the mark. Digvijay singh attempts to hogwash the people by rasing question that "DG Audit says loss is worth 2000coror, CAG says loss 1.76 coror--whom to believe? ". The methods of calculation for a speculative loss on a property may be different, but "is it not important that a very significant loss has happened" --someone ask Digvijay. Apparently , Digvijay is also fooling the already unaware citizens. And P Chidambaram is hiding, while A Raja has been booked by CBI which is until now under Supreme Court directions. Will supreme court rule for ever? and will the corruption be only when the thief is caught otherwise no case of theft will be accepted by the people? Can we not repair our governance system to work right way for itself while we each are busy in earning our bread and butter?
Vineet Dubey
Manish Singh, You are as far from logical congruence as i am from dating Deepika Padukone. Dharma is not a war of two parties, Dharma is what you seek within yourself. Raja & Kalmadi are in Jail not because of Lokpal but despite it. Gandhi family has won elections for whatever reasons but this win is not permanent. Nobody can have that guarantee in a democracy.
Vineet Dubey
My premise is as simple as the formula of benzene ring; all constitutional bodies should have segregation of power. Any combination of the power to investigate, legislate and prosecute isnt desirable. Second, a civil body should be above al...l constitutional bodies. Anything else is dictatorship and taking away my liberties, which i will never like to happen. I know your kinds believe in divine intervention, a supernormal body to solve our problems but i cant allow a body like Lokpal, which incidentally is more draconian than AFSPA in Kashmir, to be put in place.
Manish Singh
Now there is the war on How is dharma sought. The circumstances of seeking dharma came when self-interest came in conflict with itself. The kingdom or the killing of Bishm Pitamah? In the parliamentary debates, the opposition is also essen...tially our own citizen group while both the parties fight for citizen welfare. That what is truely sought within is awakening-the enlightenment. This enlightenment aides in seeking dharma from within only but the situation for it arises from a conflict - inside or outside.
Important is that dharma-seekers of Public administration, the researchers, have universally agreed to separation of Judiciary, Executive and Legislature; but separation of Prosecution, and Investigation is not essential for democratic preservation purpose. Infact the Karnataka Lokayukta is already vested with the power to investigate and prosecute. The separation of powers to investigate and prosecute is reasoned, if at all adopted by any state, on the vastness and Specialisation required in each of the two fields. This separation is different from the Democracy mandated separation. Lokpal in itself will be another parallel 'executive' only, although a misleading message is being sent that it will be quasi-judiciary. Civilian body anyway is essential to be put above in all the Democracy institutions. I don't believe in devine intervention which is why I am willing to yet again 'heuristically' repair the system , instead of seeing it as a 'vyawastha' which tends to reject idea of change on call from a single person, no matter that single person is right or wrong.
Manish Singh
the above might also draw you to think about and understand what is conflict of interest. It is a good thing to happen truely except when a person has means to avoid the conflict by trying to achieve both of his interest through those means.... We call that corruption. The best idea in this case is to separate away the custodians of those two interests. Laws like to attain this state. Indian laws have made a mistake at this point.
One of the contentions of the governments is how will a PM defend himself if any frivolous Lokpal prosecute and investigate him. To this a wrong message is being that separation of prosecution and investigation is a Democracy- mandated requirement. But truely, right now too a murder case or a scam case is prosecuted and investigated one body only - the Government. But in truth, such problems can and will be overcome by the design of Lokpal institution which will require to work on transparency principles. The government will anyway have access to all institution to bring evidence in defense of prime minister. Transparency method include date and time logged sequence of events-the log books.
Answer is that
Vineet Dubey
By the nature of your very profession you are groomed to go on long cruise. When you get back to the topic at hand, maybe after 6 months, please do let me know.
Manish Singh
kar di be-izzati. :-)aur kuch nahin mila toh aise hi nipto-- "Aana is RSS man". :P
Manish Singh
Vineet Dubey, Bro, I just figured that u have suffered an IQ problem! In fact, the question for need for a Lokpal has never been cross-examined by anyone from parliament. U may be unique in that. Of the 543 MPs, maybe 500 will agree to need for Lokpal. And infact this need was felt way back in 1960's itself. your cross-question of "why do we need lokpal in the first place? And if the Lokpal gets corrupt would you want to get Dharampal?" , has no significance because this reasoning could anyway be applied to any law-enforcement that the Parliament would have began to ponder from 1960's itself. The cross-examination u pose has be outrightly rejected in order to take the first step towards Corruption prevention. This cross-examination can find relevance only when the design of the ombudsman office whichever is being imagined is not suited enough to achieve its aim.
Vineet Dubey
thats the usual tactics employed by people who lack arguments... circumvention and discredit the messenger. To reply in the language you understand...Manish Singh some of us went to college for graduation and then did post graduation as well. I understand you have not had the opportunity to go to college and your qualification is still 10+2 with some distance learning graduation thrown in... your work ex too kept you away from humanity in the seas for months at stretch.. for your understanding, the argument is not to be put for any law body, the argument is put cause we have enough law enforcement bodies. get back to basics....i put in two simple premises... Civil body to be supreme and segregation of power within the Indian constitution.. Just tell me how does Lokpal guarantee that and i will be with you.
Manish Singh
@Vineet Dubey :The two premise you hold are correct but I think they have less significance to challenge the subject because they are as it is not being infringed. Lokpal will be a civil body in that the highest authority will be 'selected' from a collegiate of people who will, in turn, either be 'elected' or 'selected' or 'publically acredited'. Lokpal will not be a military rank or controller of armed agency- military or police or paramilitary. Investigating power only imply forensic, not law and order control. Neither a secretive control as the design envisages transparency. Further, Lokpal will not be a private institution, but a civil one, as parliament will have power to control finance and removal, - if the Team Anna way , then by simple majority; if the congress way, then by three-fourth majority.
The segregation of power is incidental to any separation of department carried out. Separation may be for 'vastness and Specialisation' purpose, or, 'authoritative take over' of governance. In what way can the Lokpal institution take over government? The judiciary will be independent. Lokpal may sabotage the governance but if the larger section of public feels this, it can anyway be controlled through the parliament. Clean or Dirty MP's, Parliament will exist because elections are under the control of election commission.
the RTI Act has already caused flutter in bureaucrats as they now fear making any entry in any record for the fear of being scrutinized. This fear is being projected in public as 'loss of civil liberty'. But strong Democracys always had RTI equivalents. Are u a taking side of such a propagation?
The civic nature of Lokpal finds no apprehensions otherwise. The 'anshan'-blackmail means of Team Anna is being accused of being undemocratic. Is this situation confusing you to differ A from B.
@Vineet: Please note IQ problems are art type. Any person can suffer them, even if he otherwise have good IQ. My sentence was not aimed to discredit you, but to point to you one observation. Your cross-examination was requiring evaluation in different time and space frames.
Manish Singh
Vineet Dubey: hit it bro! found it why Prosecution and Investigations need to be separated. In case of Grade C employees, say of Passport department, if the PP is not delivered in time, if Citizen 'A' is given to complain the matter to Lokpal, then Lokpal employee 'L' will investigate the PP department employee 'P' . case1: what if the cause of delay is genuine, and employee L is himself corrupt to delay report about P to be made transparent and available to public including citizen A? 'L' may coerce P to bribe him to trouble his future? Case 2: cause of delay not geniune and 'P' shares the bribe received from A with 'L', and in return send report of 'P' as "genuine cause". Who will 'A' go to now? Citizen charter bill has the connection at this point to resolve the tangle.
Ships practise to muster at muster station either at lifeboat station first and then proceed to emergency Muster Point for fighting the emergency, or Muster at emergency station first and then proceed to lifeboat for abandoning. Here is the representation of two approaches.
Emergency Muster Station Dilemma -
Emergency Muster Station Dilemma -
Letter to the DPA in regard to style of Management on board ships
Dear Capt Leboffe:
I am writing this mail to express some thoughts I have in my mind after attending the seminar.
I was initially intending to talk to you about my promotion, as to what are the company plans on this. There was a collective meeting organized with all mates, masters, second engineer and chief engineers in a room, which I had also attended. Here is a summary of inferences I could draw up on this meeting and the seminar as a whole .
In the room, the most common question that people sought to know was about the promotion policy and its sincere implementation. Even when already in know of the standard answer of the company, which is ‘three recommendations from three different masters’, I think the more discreet question people wanted to seek was – what?, if the aspirants are finding it hard to obtain the three recommendations.
The appraisal report and system came under scrutiny at this juncture. Some people , particularly old masters, believed that closed appraisal system had more advantage because in the open appraisal system, if there is something critical to be mentioned, the person would plainly refuse to signature them, or in the extreme, may resort to sabotage activity or damaging the master personally, say by dropping his luggage into water when the master is leaving.
As a matter of fact, the aspiring mates like myself had a question to ask: obvious enough, what if the master is not fair in his work, and wants to settle score with the mate for resisting his polices, which the mate would perceive to be unjustified.
I felt for once that the argument had returned to that basic of human nature, where , as a god’s bountiful gift, each human is awarded his own judgment, his own perception. I thought about the evolution of the system of democracy in management over so long years of mankind’s existence, a system most embraced, both in Governance and in Style of leadership, which requires views of all kinds to be accounted in. Was not the closed appraisal system suppression of the views of the Mate, I thought? Was it a still a newer event in the history of sailing, even with case of the famous mutiny on Bounty, to allow master an upper hand before the management? Then why such questions were still not resolved by those old masters, who themselves have been ex-mates? It was resonating in my ears that the ‘seafarer’s worst enemy is an ex-seafarer”.
Incidentally, the master who talked about the closed system of appraisal, (that is, the Confidential Report system) was the same who next day in the seminar inquired about why has Defect Reporting form of the VMCM report put as part of the ISM filing system. His intention to ask the question was clearly that the visiting Surveyors, Vetting Inspectors, could easily find defect with the system using the report which the vessel has itself prepared, and so the defect reporting should be made a confidential form as well.
I wondered at the prevailing ethics and ideologies of the masters on board, quite many of them coming from a less-democratic culture, forget the flawed democracy culture which the general population of people come from. Will it not be natural to have ideological difference with such masters, and they preparing the secret Appraisal Report to play with the promotion possibility of their mate?
Your speech workshop was perhaps also intending to send the same above message, although it ran into vagueness. In the room also you were emphasizing on the people that for a good decision-making, master should take input from everyone, but think for himself before giving his decision.
Last time, during my cross-appraisal by the company, You had given me a piece of advice,—“if you have any issues with the master, do not keep it pending”. Will it be possible to close a pending matter with a master with whom there exist an ideological difference and who would use a confidential report to settle the score, instead of letting the matter of difference be known to mate through an appraisal or a show-cause.
The other concerning talk was about the inaction of the company against the errant crew even when warning letters had been issued. Sir, my belief is that the democratic system which we all humans have arrived at with all consensus, seen in the form of Labour union agreements and so many other Statutory Laws, these all talk of the ‘Show-cause’ and not the ‘Warning Letter’, because the warning letter does not aim to give other an opportunity to present his side of the story.
In short, I feel the Masters and Mate examination courseware had not fully succeeded in achieving its aim of educating harmony to its disciples by practice of the Styles of Leadership, Observance of Ethics, and the laws as a product of natural ethics- the Common Law.
Indeed, the kind of questioning further raised during the course of seminar kept telling of the understanding of Common Law, people and senior masters had.
The use of cadet on board was another very broad example of misunderstanding prevailing among crew due to varied understanding of the common law. On the matter, I would like to point at the company’s circular as well, which un-intentionally, ends up sending a message of what “cannot” be asked of cadet to do. At this point, it reminds me of the critics, who ask of the purposefulness of the legal vocabulary, commonly called the verbose, in making a law. Perhaps, the verbose finds it’s origin in the arguments and misunderstanding we saw in the seminar. The circular , even when very pious in its approach, sends a message that cadet not to used ever for any critical work, which include stations. Maybe the use of ‘verbose’ could have saved the misunderstanding which became the root cause of all the arguments noticeable in the seminar. The STCW Amendment Speaker, Capt Yadav, often talked about the clarifications on various issues to be coming from the IMO, all with the aim of having a unified interpretation. May be, a similar clarification is required for the contentious circular about use of cadets.
Dear sir, in the entire duration, it was noticeable to see people talking of all the good and virtuous things such as Integrity, Honesty, and Transparency. Is it not essential to have staff who personally practiced such a conduct? The test of virtues comes when the harder times arrive. The measure is truly taken in such an hour.
One on-board experience is worth a mention here. Just before a vetting survey, it was found that some engine room checklist were not filled. A retro-dated checklist was prepared and signature by chief mate and chief engineer.
Later, in another event when chief mate refused to prepare a forged paper, the master pressured him by accusing him of having double-standards, and being hypocrite, as he had acceded to the engine room checklist.
The mate however acknowledged that the Engine room checklist was signatured only as a observer to the event, not as an executer. ‘Mate’s concern is mainly with his own department’, thought that mate, and therefore any erroneous act cannot become reason for doing more of other such acts.
The master succumbed to mate’s demand, but secretly bore a grudge. Towards the sign off of mate, he did not prepare the open appraisal, and perhaps sent one secret appraisal after the mate has left. Such is the purpose of secret appraisals.
Sir, until the time a new generation of well-informed cadets comes up to the stage of becoming master, please prevent undoing of the well-found principles of management by ignorance of old style masters; principles which are even though not perfect but still the best to work the most agreeable solution.
Perhaps, this is one good reason why STCW 2010, the Manila Amendments, talks of special and enhanced training in Leadership and management for management level ranks.
I am writing this mail to express some thoughts I have in my mind after attending the seminar.
I was initially intending to talk to you about my promotion, as to what are the company plans on this. There was a collective meeting organized with all mates, masters, second engineer and chief engineers in a room, which I had also attended. Here is a summary of inferences I could draw up on this meeting and the seminar as a whole .
In the room, the most common question that people sought to know was about the promotion policy and its sincere implementation. Even when already in know of the standard answer of the company, which is ‘three recommendations from three different masters’, I think the more discreet question people wanted to seek was – what?, if the aspirants are finding it hard to obtain the three recommendations.
The appraisal report and system came under scrutiny at this juncture. Some people , particularly old masters, believed that closed appraisal system had more advantage because in the open appraisal system, if there is something critical to be mentioned, the person would plainly refuse to signature them, or in the extreme, may resort to sabotage activity or damaging the master personally, say by dropping his luggage into water when the master is leaving.
As a matter of fact, the aspiring mates like myself had a question to ask: obvious enough, what if the master is not fair in his work, and wants to settle score with the mate for resisting his polices, which the mate would perceive to be unjustified.
I felt for once that the argument had returned to that basic of human nature, where , as a god’s bountiful gift, each human is awarded his own judgment, his own perception. I thought about the evolution of the system of democracy in management over so long years of mankind’s existence, a system most embraced, both in Governance and in Style of leadership, which requires views of all kinds to be accounted in. Was not the closed appraisal system suppression of the views of the Mate, I thought? Was it a still a newer event in the history of sailing, even with case of the famous mutiny on Bounty, to allow master an upper hand before the management? Then why such questions were still not resolved by those old masters, who themselves have been ex-mates? It was resonating in my ears that the ‘seafarer’s worst enemy is an ex-seafarer”.
Incidentally, the master who talked about the closed system of appraisal, (that is, the Confidential Report system) was the same who next day in the seminar inquired about why has Defect Reporting form of the VMCM report put as part of the ISM filing system. His intention to ask the question was clearly that the visiting Surveyors, Vetting Inspectors, could easily find defect with the system using the report which the vessel has itself prepared, and so the defect reporting should be made a confidential form as well.
I wondered at the prevailing ethics and ideologies of the masters on board, quite many of them coming from a less-democratic culture, forget the flawed democracy culture which the general population of people come from. Will it not be natural to have ideological difference with such masters, and they preparing the secret Appraisal Report to play with the promotion possibility of their mate?
Your speech workshop was perhaps also intending to send the same above message, although it ran into vagueness. In the room also you were emphasizing on the people that for a good decision-making, master should take input from everyone, but think for himself before giving his decision.
Last time, during my cross-appraisal by the company, You had given me a piece of advice,—“if you have any issues with the master, do not keep it pending”. Will it be possible to close a pending matter with a master with whom there exist an ideological difference and who would use a confidential report to settle the score, instead of letting the matter of difference be known to mate through an appraisal or a show-cause.
The other concerning talk was about the inaction of the company against the errant crew even when warning letters had been issued. Sir, my belief is that the democratic system which we all humans have arrived at with all consensus, seen in the form of Labour union agreements and so many other Statutory Laws, these all talk of the ‘Show-cause’ and not the ‘Warning Letter’, because the warning letter does not aim to give other an opportunity to present his side of the story.
In short, I feel the Masters and Mate examination courseware had not fully succeeded in achieving its aim of educating harmony to its disciples by practice of the Styles of Leadership, Observance of Ethics, and the laws as a product of natural ethics- the Common Law.
Indeed, the kind of questioning further raised during the course of seminar kept telling of the understanding of Common Law, people and senior masters had.
The use of cadet on board was another very broad example of misunderstanding prevailing among crew due to varied understanding of the common law. On the matter, I would like to point at the company’s circular as well, which un-intentionally, ends up sending a message of what “cannot” be asked of cadet to do. At this point, it reminds me of the critics, who ask of the purposefulness of the legal vocabulary, commonly called the verbose, in making a law. Perhaps, the verbose finds it’s origin in the arguments and misunderstanding we saw in the seminar. The circular , even when very pious in its approach, sends a message that cadet not to used ever for any critical work, which include stations. Maybe the use of ‘verbose’ could have saved the misunderstanding which became the root cause of all the arguments noticeable in the seminar. The STCW Amendment Speaker, Capt Yadav, often talked about the clarifications on various issues to be coming from the IMO, all with the aim of having a unified interpretation. May be, a similar clarification is required for the contentious circular about use of cadets.
Dear sir, in the entire duration, it was noticeable to see people talking of all the good and virtuous things such as Integrity, Honesty, and Transparency. Is it not essential to have staff who personally practiced such a conduct? The test of virtues comes when the harder times arrive. The measure is truly taken in such an hour.
One on-board experience is worth a mention here. Just before a vetting survey, it was found that some engine room checklist were not filled. A retro-dated checklist was prepared and signature by chief mate and chief engineer.
Later, in another event when chief mate refused to prepare a forged paper, the master pressured him by accusing him of having double-standards, and being hypocrite, as he had acceded to the engine room checklist.
The mate however acknowledged that the Engine room checklist was signatured only as a observer to the event, not as an executer. ‘Mate’s concern is mainly with his own department’, thought that mate, and therefore any erroneous act cannot become reason for doing more of other such acts.
The master succumbed to mate’s demand, but secretly bore a grudge. Towards the sign off of mate, he did not prepare the open appraisal, and perhaps sent one secret appraisal after the mate has left. Such is the purpose of secret appraisals.
Sir, until the time a new generation of well-informed cadets comes up to the stage of becoming master, please prevent undoing of the well-found principles of management by ignorance of old style masters; principles which are even though not perfect but still the best to work the most agreeable solution.
Perhaps, this is one good reason why STCW 2010, the Manila Amendments, talks of special and enhanced training in Leadership and management for management level ranks.
passing thoughts
The cost saving sense of a new arrived manager:
Seeing the huge amout of losses to the company due to poor maintenance of machinery, the management decided to adopt the Planned maintenance system (PMS) whereof to change the part before it suffered fatigue failure. The new talented manager arrived to improve company's profit through cost-cutting and wastage-control by asking everyone to run the part until it broke down.
Moral of the story: Know the background, take interest in history, otherwise you will undo what has itself been done as a best solution to certain problem. _______________________________________________________________________________ Your system can be abused against yourself by shrewd people , if you become too generous to allow counter-balancing views.
Why is it hard to speak that the division of a country happened on the lines of religion- Islam, so many times. Curzon did it of bengal; then Pakistan happened, and last, the Bangladesh. The cause of distrust arises from the division of the land, although the mainland, called India, continued with the traditional Hindu practise of Polytheism, translated as Secularism in Political terms. Time filled the distrust gap for mainland, but the border fence is stalled with the Religion - Islam. The basic ideological difference between these nations as on today, is that Islam, and that tells of the economic gap and across the border.
Moral of the story: Don't expect the bull not to attack you, just because you are a vegetarian. Your system of kindness and generosity can be used against yourself, those who are unkind and mean, and simply by putting your kindness and generosity at test, while they keep doing their unkind and mean acts. ____________________________________________________________________________ Democracy in itself was the answer which came through long evolution, to the problem of immense diverse views that mankind holds.
The were lots and conflicting views on every issue ever since mankind came on earth. Unanimity was hard to achieve. Over many ages, everyone managed to build consensus that the best decision should involve everyone's viewpoint, although not necessarily satisfying everyone. They called it the democratic system which was not perfect as it still not satisfied everyone but found immense popularity. Many more ages later, the new decision-makers would take solo decisions and preferred closed appraisal reports because they said - People never reach consensus.
Democracy has eventually turned into an item of demand from the government, but not to be practised on itself by the organisations. ____________________________________________________________________________
Who will be the new age Brahmin
There was never so great a need of the encompassing principles as it is going to be now, in the new information age.
I was wondering what will be the ethos of the generation of these young children I see around at the airport. There is so much of information up in the air. What will this abundance of information, of all sorts- right, wrong, inferred, intelligence'd, half, full, and dichotomous, do to the basic sense of right and wrong in the growing up child? Indians today have a much greater need of a Brahmin than perhaps ever. There is utmost need of someone's able guidance to the budding young children to tell right from wrong. Someone who understands 'brahma' the big cosmos of information humans have woven around themselves where the link between A and B, B and D, A and D , and so on is so complicated a theory that an average human mind, busy in his daily chores of struggle of survival , just misses out to understand and remember. it is a space of super-confusion, and morality can easily go for a toss. Ethics need to be built , dismantled and built again, brick by brick, as each new information is produced. Encompassing principles would be something that would say how to broadly categories a new information. for example, a new information could be a kind of criticism to some older one. At the same time it may be a piece of art put up against a logic. Or in sciences, history -derived from a combination of mythology and archaeology. 'Can or cannot happen', 'may happen but has not happened'- these will be the sort of questions to rage fire in our brains. Either fanaticism will douse this fire or the Brahmin, the keeper of eternal knowledge. But the good news is that the new age brahmin need not be Veda educated. Infact he need not be a human being necessarily because a website like Wikipedia, or Britannica or Encarta would serve to be a brahmin.
On a funny thought, the new age Brahmin would not have surnames like Vedi, Dwivedi, Trivedi or Chaturvedi; but Encyclopedi, Wikipedi, or Encarta. The new brahmin is the one who can collate all the information about a topic, the composition and all the criticism , counter-criticism, to draw the big picture- coherent and Most agreeable for all people.
Seeing the huge amout of losses to the company due to poor maintenance of machinery, the management decided to adopt the Planned maintenance system (PMS) whereof to change the part before it suffered fatigue failure. The new talented manager arrived to improve company's profit through cost-cutting and wastage-control by asking everyone to run the part until it broke down.
Moral of the story: Know the background, take interest in history, otherwise you will undo what has itself been done as a best solution to certain problem. _______________________________________________________________________________ Your system can be abused against yourself by shrewd people , if you become too generous to allow counter-balancing views.
Why is it hard to speak that the division of a country happened on the lines of religion- Islam, so many times. Curzon did it of bengal; then Pakistan happened, and last, the Bangladesh. The cause of distrust arises from the division of the land, although the mainland, called India, continued with the traditional Hindu practise of Polytheism, translated as Secularism in Political terms. Time filled the distrust gap for mainland, but the border fence is stalled with the Religion - Islam. The basic ideological difference between these nations as on today, is that Islam, and that tells of the economic gap and across the border.
Moral of the story: Don't expect the bull not to attack you, just because you are a vegetarian. Your system of kindness and generosity can be used against yourself, those who are unkind and mean, and simply by putting your kindness and generosity at test, while they keep doing their unkind and mean acts. ____________________________________________________________________________ Democracy in itself was the answer which came through long evolution, to the problem of immense diverse views that mankind holds.
The were lots and conflicting views on every issue ever since mankind came on earth. Unanimity was hard to achieve. Over many ages, everyone managed to build consensus that the best decision should involve everyone's viewpoint, although not necessarily satisfying everyone. They called it the democratic system which was not perfect as it still not satisfied everyone but found immense popularity. Many more ages later, the new decision-makers would take solo decisions and preferred closed appraisal reports because they said - People never reach consensus.
Democracy has eventually turned into an item of demand from the government, but not to be practised on itself by the organisations. ____________________________________________________________________________
Who will be the new age Brahmin
There was never so great a need of the encompassing principles as it is going to be now, in the new information age.
I was wondering what will be the ethos of the generation of these young children I see around at the airport. There is so much of information up in the air. What will this abundance of information, of all sorts- right, wrong, inferred, intelligence'd, half, full, and dichotomous, do to the basic sense of right and wrong in the growing up child? Indians today have a much greater need of a Brahmin than perhaps ever. There is utmost need of someone's able guidance to the budding young children to tell right from wrong. Someone who understands 'brahma' the big cosmos of information humans have woven around themselves where the link between A and B, B and D, A and D , and so on is so complicated a theory that an average human mind, busy in his daily chores of struggle of survival , just misses out to understand and remember. it is a space of super-confusion, and morality can easily go for a toss. Ethics need to be built , dismantled and built again, brick by brick, as each new information is produced. Encompassing principles would be something that would say how to broadly categories a new information. for example, a new information could be a kind of criticism to some older one. At the same time it may be a piece of art put up against a logic. Or in sciences, history -derived from a combination of mythology and archaeology. 'Can or cannot happen', 'may happen but has not happened'- these will be the sort of questions to rage fire in our brains. Either fanaticism will douse this fire or the Brahmin, the keeper of eternal knowledge. But the good news is that the new age brahmin need not be Veda educated. Infact he need not be a human being necessarily because a website like Wikipedia, or Britannica or Encarta would serve to be a brahmin.
On a funny thought, the new age Brahmin would not have surnames like Vedi, Dwivedi, Trivedi or Chaturvedi; but Encyclopedi, Wikipedi, or Encarta. The new brahmin is the one who can collate all the information about a topic, the composition and all the criticism , counter-criticism, to draw the big picture- coherent and Most agreeable for all people.
Signs of a low-intelligence group
Signs of a low-intelligence group:
- Extra emphasis on an issue, which is other wise is very insignificant, trivial.
- Repeat presentation of some matter at every place. Lack of creativity in scrutinizing the issue.
- Incoherent connection of Incidence A with Observation B.
- They generally keep better in the company of other low intelligence people. Every individual in the group shows the characteristics listed over here.
- Words of any person are perceived as a stand being taken on some issue and talks tend to proceed into a fight.
- Extra desire to be seen as humorous and funny, - witty , in short, to establish one's superior intelligence.
- A smaller and obvious cross-question on a matter is presented as though a great wisdom has been chanced upon and which was unthinkable by others.
- The sense of humor : mostly comes from making fun of something, or somebody; has excessive scatological talks, and obscenities.
- The tendency to take the cover of belief; Facts-based inference are negated by putting the contentious item behind the shields of personal belief. Most of the low IQ people often tend to be great believers in god and religious faiths.
Where is your convenience ?
There are two interpretions of the word 'Convenience' in the seafaring
and the Management vocabulary. Interpretion (1) is that if u see
something wrong then somehow make-do during your tenure and leave
quietly without disturbing the peace of others most of whom are on top
of you.
Interpretation (2) is to report and inform when something is faulty
-the concerned people thereby protecting your convenience.
If u r type (1) person, u are the more liked of the other people, and
because, with you, the ships appear to keep running smoothly without
apparent hiccups, until its doomsday day arrive, if at all it does,
when tricks to making-do run dry. And after that, poor legislation,
weak governance and corruption lighten up the path for you during
doomsday day.
Interpretation (2) people save their convenience , with the belief of
getting the fault repaired and corrected. But are charged of 'covering
their @@@@ (CYA)', and disliked for 'giving work' to their seniors.
They mostly do not succeed in career and thus create a personalised
doomsday.
Statutes typically favour, in their spirit, the followance of
interpretion (2), whereas in practice, the world is filled with
category (1) guys. If a big damage happens everyone looks to hire a
category (2) guy to show to the world their 'sincere' workforce, until
the incident fever wears out from the public.
The general expectation of a senior office staff who has come from
Interpretation (1) group for a ship staff who's caught in a trouble
which is a consequence of category (1) is to show his smartness by
re-applying the category (1) definition. such situations, as a matter
of fact,are the episode of evaluation for an Appraisal report. The
circumscribing feature of Category (1) people is to have enough smartness to be able to
switch to category (2) as and when needed.
Clearly, there is more discomfort at personal level in the
Interpretion(1) of the word 'convenience'. But the hidden discomfort,
as would it be attempted to be justified by its practitioners, would
be that it is the cost for rising career which is nothing undue and
unnatural.
Interpretation (2) practitioners are mostly the senior level and high
age seafarers whose children have brighter and Independant future, and
the seafarer has no liabilities. They see the purpose of coming to sea
in such age and condition as pleasure trip of making money to do
another family holiday when returned from sea. However hedonistic this
may sound, but such people have stronger adherence to the core
philosophy of shipping - safety. They avoid to risk of getting
involved with the government authorities as well, which may come even
for the faults of a junior ship staff. ' I don't want to see myself in
prison after having earned so much, for a fault of yours', is their
explanation. However 'what inconvenience behind their salaries' is
answered through the natural discomforts of seafaring- bad weather and
vagaries of sea life. Their age help justify their reasoning and rule
out the applicability of the common criticisms of Interpretion (2).
In a more diagnostic view, in truth, always the senior staff
switch over to Interpretion(2) after having practised Interpretion
(1) in their young years. This is a normal practise in all societies
- the older people have best conveniences in less amout of work, while
bulk of work is passed to the younger generation.
Thus, Interpretion (1) and Interpretion (2) are essentially the
Generation Wars- between the youngs and the olds.
Regulations which are basically written for the holy purpose of safety
of life, become the weapons of political battles between the young and
the old.
and the Management vocabulary. Interpretion (1) is that if u see
something wrong then somehow make-do during your tenure and leave
quietly without disturbing the peace of others most of whom are on top
of you.
Interpretation (2) is to report and inform when something is faulty
-the concerned people thereby protecting your convenience.
If u r type (1) person, u are the more liked of the other people, and
because, with you, the ships appear to keep running smoothly without
apparent hiccups, until its doomsday day arrive, if at all it does,
when tricks to making-do run dry. And after that, poor legislation,
weak governance and corruption lighten up the path for you during
doomsday day.
Interpretation (2) people save their convenience , with the belief of
getting the fault repaired and corrected. But are charged of 'covering
their @@@@ (CYA)', and disliked for 'giving work' to their seniors.
They mostly do not succeed in career and thus create a personalised
doomsday.
Statutes typically favour, in their spirit, the followance of
interpretion (2), whereas in practice, the world is filled with
category (1) guys. If a big damage happens everyone looks to hire a
category (2) guy to show to the world their 'sincere' workforce, until
the incident fever wears out from the public.
The general expectation of a senior office staff who has come from
Interpretation (1) group for a ship staff who's caught in a trouble
which is a consequence of category (1) is to show his smartness by
re-applying the category (1) definition. such situations, as a matter
of fact,are the episode of evaluation for an Appraisal report. The
circumscribing feature of Category (1) people is to have enough smartness to be able to
switch to category (2) as and when needed.
Clearly, there is more discomfort at personal level in the
Interpretion(1) of the word 'convenience'. But the hidden discomfort,
as would it be attempted to be justified by its practitioners, would
be that it is the cost for rising career which is nothing undue and
unnatural.
Interpretation (2) practitioners are mostly the senior level and high
age seafarers whose children have brighter and Independant future, and
the seafarer has no liabilities. They see the purpose of coming to sea
in such age and condition as pleasure trip of making money to do
another family holiday when returned from sea. However hedonistic this
may sound, but such people have stronger adherence to the core
philosophy of shipping - safety. They avoid to risk of getting
involved with the government authorities as well, which may come even
for the faults of a junior ship staff. ' I don't want to see myself in
prison after having earned so much, for a fault of yours', is their
explanation. However 'what inconvenience behind their salaries' is
answered through the natural discomforts of seafaring- bad weather and
vagaries of sea life. Their age help justify their reasoning and rule
out the applicability of the common criticisms of Interpretion (2).
In a more diagnostic view, in truth, always the senior staff
switch over to Interpretion(2) after having practised Interpretion
(1) in their young years. This is a normal practise in all societies
- the older people have best conveniences in less amout of work, while
bulk of work is passed to the younger generation.
Thus, Interpretion (1) and Interpretion (2) are essentially the
Generation Wars- between the youngs and the olds.
Regulations which are basically written for the holy purpose of safety
of life, become the weapons of political battles between the young and
the old.
About Feudalism and nature of Democracy
Feudalism in Indian Society comes in many guise which we are so habitual to see that it skips our notice.Justice Markande Katju's remark on media and it's explanation addressed the problem of feudalistic attitudes in our people. Here I
attempt to identify some of the forms in which feudalism masquerades around on ships and in our management and governance.
Disciplinarian is a very frequent cloak of feudal act.
Provisionally,discipline procedures under various acts ensure that any occurrence of indiscipline is only when some one is adversely affected by some other's non-following of good practises.
On ships, Not wearing the uniform is not indiscipline if no other person wears uniform. The procedures and protocols for the uniform, if not firmly registered with the authorities, may not cause indiscipline act. Trademark and Design registration act of national government is the place to do this job. How often do we know that?? Other common sighting is the assumption by a senior that subordinate staff is not entitled to raise voice during arguments, ask questions and for reasonings, and, do debate.
Regarding Debates and Arguments from a subordinate as a pretext for not doing a job, it is here that we test the presence of Democratic Style of the senior. The truly democratic solutions entail either (1) specialization on the debate subject matter which may bring a clear cut and objective answer to the debate, or, (2) in the absence of resource for specialization, use of Democratic legal channels to enjoin upon the subordinate to conform and comply. It is these kind of tricky situations which bring the answer to us that in democracy , Motivation channel is the best means to control people, because in authoritative channels the law can roll to either side leading to sever damages. Justice is the delivery mechanism of democracy.
The tendency of a Democratic Style of Management to propel towards Specialisation can also be sensed in the discussion above. In summary, In Democracy, getting a work done can best be through Motivation. And for motivation, Specialisation is the key, which is enhancement in knowledge and information in a large variety of fields to be able to answer to the queries of a subordinate.
Case other than this become Authoritative acts or Feudalism.
In the more recent trends of rising information source all round and of all nature, some of which can confuse out the whole theme of motivation, or manage to put the Knowledge of superior into dumps thus preventing the Superior's progress, solutions could be adopting legal procedures, or leading by physical self to prove his point. Thus, one can also notice the importance of possessing knowledge of law, the Common Law as a least, in a democratic style of governance. The ups and downs suffered by both the superior and the subordinates during their mutual conflict become rationale for why one should become humane in approach towards another person. Human virtues such as those of Mercy, Patience , Tolerance are thus another essential requisite of a Democratic Style of Management. Thus, there is a better rationale available for why a man should be virtuous in his deeds if the democratic Style of Management has to seriously prevail. There is, in prudence terms, an incentive for being humane. This may also be the cause why of all governance styles, the Democratic Style found the largest popularity, even though it is still not free of all shortcomings.
From the above, one can easily draw the list of responsibilities of people, the superior or the subordinate, to help democracy governance sustain in their society. The tool of Motivation as the best available control switch, the tendency for rising Knowledge and thus the Specialisation and the universal knowledge of law, called the Common Law, are must for citizens to acquire, for Democracy to survive. Justice remains the encompassing frame within which everyone has to live for society to be called Democratic.
Provisionally,discipline procedures under various acts ensure that any occurrence of indiscipline is only when some one is adversely affected by some other's non-following of good practises.
On ships, Not wearing the uniform is not indiscipline if no other person wears uniform. The procedures and protocols for the uniform, if not firmly registered with the authorities, may not cause indiscipline act. Trademark and Design registration act of national government is the place to do this job. How often do we know that?? Other common sighting is the assumption by a senior that subordinate staff is not entitled to raise voice during arguments, ask questions and for reasonings, and, do debate.
Regarding Debates and Arguments from a subordinate as a pretext for not doing a job, it is here that we test the presence of Democratic Style of the senior. The truly democratic solutions entail either (1) specialization on the debate subject matter which may bring a clear cut and objective answer to the debate, or, (2) in the absence of resource for specialization, use of Democratic legal channels to enjoin upon the subordinate to conform and comply. It is these kind of tricky situations which bring the answer to us that in democracy , Motivation channel is the best means to control people, because in authoritative channels the law can roll to either side leading to sever damages. Justice is the delivery mechanism of democracy.
The tendency of a Democratic Style of Management to propel towards Specialisation can also be sensed in the discussion above. In summary, In Democracy, getting a work done can best be through Motivation. And for motivation, Specialisation is the key, which is enhancement in knowledge and information in a large variety of fields to be able to answer to the queries of a subordinate.
Case other than this become Authoritative acts or Feudalism.
In the more recent trends of rising information source all round and of all nature, some of which can confuse out the whole theme of motivation, or manage to put the Knowledge of superior into dumps thus preventing the Superior's progress, solutions could be adopting legal procedures, or leading by physical self to prove his point. Thus, one can also notice the importance of possessing knowledge of law, the Common Law as a least, in a democratic style of governance. The ups and downs suffered by both the superior and the subordinates during their mutual conflict become rationale for why one should become humane in approach towards another person. Human virtues such as those of Mercy, Patience , Tolerance are thus another essential requisite of a Democratic Style of Management. Thus, there is a better rationale available for why a man should be virtuous in his deeds if the democratic Style of Management has to seriously prevail. There is, in prudence terms, an incentive for being humane. This may also be the cause why of all governance styles, the Democratic Style found the largest popularity, even though it is still not free of all shortcomings.
From the above, one can easily draw the list of responsibilities of people, the superior or the subordinate, to help democracy governance sustain in their society. The tool of Motivation as the best available control switch, the tendency for rising Knowledge and thus the Specialisation and the universal knowledge of law, called the Common Law, are must for citizens to acquire, for Democracy to survive. Justice remains the encompassing frame within which everyone has to live for society to be called Democratic.
Social Injustice..the culprit of public mental health
(1) Dichotomy of morals as obtained from religious preachings , and,
(2) anarchy in social order created due to bad governance , systemic
corruption, or even the changing morals with the change of governance
-- these are the two most potent causes of deteriorating public mental
health. These both create a sense of injustice in the mind of common
man. Neurologically , perhaps, there is a centre for ethics and
justice in every normal human mind. The primary source for origin of
morality and ethics in human species is the rationale '' do not do
unto other what u don't want unto yourselves''. it is from here that
sense of justice evolves in humans. It is noticeable that this sense prevails exclusively in human species of all the living beings on earth. Sense of injustice created by
mutually opposing religious morals, and, anarchy from corruption cause pain to
this centre of brain. Some people spend lot of time trying to settle
with the 'new justice' which they feel otherwise as 'injustice'. many
people, the bigger section of population, give up on diagnosing the
'new justice' even as they feel it to be in conflict with their previously
held beliefs.
Senior citizens who are more concerned with the public order, as they
have passed the age of adolescence romance and the earning struggles of middle
years, are more susceptible to mental health issues. However people of
all age groups, those who have suffered social injustice - say due to caste
discrimination, religious discrimination, public policy discrimination
such as Reservation- are likely to show some kind of mental
health disorder.
Utsav, in the case of SPS Rathore attack case, was a vitim due to social injustice caused out of SPS Rathore big muscles as the DGP. In case of IPS, Mr DD Mishra, the cause is old age where social injustice from the bad governance has been the cause of poor mental health conditions. In case of the flight passenger biting the air staff, the social discrimination was the cause. These cases are distinctively identifiable from a regular mental health patients as most of the cases are a one-off , passing events in the life of such people. And apparently, the causes they hold fast to are clear public issues on which public opinion is often otherwise in favour of the side represented by these mental health patients.
There are a lot of cinema portrayal of such cases. In Partighat, Rohini Hatangdi has played one such patient. In one Jackie Shroff- Dimple Kapadia starred, actor Dimple has played such a role. Rakhi in Karan-Arjun, ..there are a lots of them.
Diagnostically looking into such cases of real life, I believe there much more such persons around. In fact, the corrupt are also often a kind of mental health patients ,which is why even when they know what is wrong deed, they do not feel about it and thus continue to act in the manner apparently 'wrong'.
the world is full of sociopaths.
Power corrupts-- and not just the power wielder, but also the sufferers. Unsung, unspoken story of the corruption is that it is the Psychiatry which is corrupted in realty. While most of us have been trained , culturally, to look for corruption in terms of economic gains or social and administrative advantage, the place where the whole society stands a victim is the field of psychiatry.
Looking back at the construction of these exorbitant Mayawati Parks in Uttar Pradesh, i wonder what will be the rationale diagnosed by the thinkers of future generations about their constructions, centuries hence ?
Much as these acts of Mayawati can be traced back to the social disorder created by caste discrimination in past , a poor reasonabl-ilty of people of those times, how will the generation of future look at the acts done by generations of today?
Will the entire governance not be seen as a case of psychiatric troublers? The architecture speaks of the people who constructed them. The case of a thousand marble elephant statues in the times when real elephants are losing their survival habitats and soon becoming an endangered species, the case of climate change , where several acres of land has been occupied to lay stone slabs on them- and not a sapling of a tree, the case of erecting own statues with public funds when electricity is scarce and farmers are in poor conditions even as the food shortage has started to strike the world, will it all not leave a big tell-tale for the archaeologists of future ?
Looking at this grin picture, who do you think is actually psychiatrically ill?? or atleast, who is responsible for the people who are being put for the treatment in the asylums?
(2) anarchy in social order created due to bad governance , systemic
corruption, or even the changing morals with the change of governance
-- these are the two most potent causes of deteriorating public mental
health. These both create a sense of injustice in the mind of common
man. Neurologically , perhaps, there is a centre for ethics and
justice in every normal human mind. The primary source for origin of
morality and ethics in human species is the rationale '' do not do
unto other what u don't want unto yourselves''. it is from here that
sense of justice evolves in humans. It is noticeable that this sense prevails exclusively in human species of all the living beings on earth. Sense of injustice created by
mutually opposing religious morals, and, anarchy from corruption cause pain to
this centre of brain. Some people spend lot of time trying to settle
with the 'new justice' which they feel otherwise as 'injustice'. many
people, the bigger section of population, give up on diagnosing the
'new justice' even as they feel it to be in conflict with their previously
held beliefs.
Senior citizens who are more concerned with the public order, as they
have passed the age of adolescence romance and the earning struggles of middle
years, are more susceptible to mental health issues. However people of
all age groups, those who have suffered social injustice - say due to caste
discrimination, religious discrimination, public policy discrimination
such as Reservation- are likely to show some kind of mental
health disorder.
Utsav, in the case of SPS Rathore attack case, was a vitim due to social injustice caused out of SPS Rathore big muscles as the DGP. In case of IPS, Mr DD Mishra, the cause is old age where social injustice from the bad governance has been the cause of poor mental health conditions. In case of the flight passenger biting the air staff, the social discrimination was the cause. These cases are distinctively identifiable from a regular mental health patients as most of the cases are a one-off , passing events in the life of such people. And apparently, the causes they hold fast to are clear public issues on which public opinion is often otherwise in favour of the side represented by these mental health patients.
There are a lot of cinema portrayal of such cases. In Partighat, Rohini Hatangdi has played one such patient. In one Jackie Shroff- Dimple Kapadia starred, actor Dimple has played such a role. Rakhi in Karan-Arjun, ..there are a lots of them.
Diagnostically looking into such cases of real life, I believe there much more such persons around. In fact, the corrupt are also often a kind of mental health patients ,which is why even when they know what is wrong deed, they do not feel about it and thus continue to act in the manner apparently 'wrong'.
the world is full of sociopaths.
Power corrupts-- and not just the power wielder, but also the sufferers. Unsung, unspoken story of the corruption is that it is the Psychiatry which is corrupted in realty. While most of us have been trained , culturally, to look for corruption in terms of economic gains or social and administrative advantage, the place where the whole society stands a victim is the field of psychiatry.
Looking back at the construction of these exorbitant Mayawati Parks in Uttar Pradesh, i wonder what will be the rationale diagnosed by the thinkers of future generations about their constructions, centuries hence ?
Much as these acts of Mayawati can be traced back to the social disorder created by caste discrimination in past , a poor reasonabl-ilty of people of those times, how will the generation of future look at the acts done by generations of today?
Will the entire governance not be seen as a case of psychiatric troublers? The architecture speaks of the people who constructed them. The case of a thousand marble elephant statues in the times when real elephants are losing their survival habitats and soon becoming an endangered species, the case of climate change , where several acres of land has been occupied to lay stone slabs on them- and not a sapling of a tree, the case of erecting own statues with public funds when electricity is scarce and farmers are in poor conditions even as the food shortage has started to strike the world, will it all not leave a big tell-tale for the archaeologists of future ?
Looking at this grin picture, who do you think is actually psychiatrically ill?? or atleast, who is responsible for the people who are being put for the treatment in the asylums?
the State of Mental Health in India...a comment
The world has just observed the World Mental Health Day, on 10th October .
Read a few of the stories and try ascertaining the community mental health in India.
Depressed, suicidal flyer bites airhostess & causes panic midair
UP cop calls Mayawati govt corrupt, dumped in mental asylum
Rathore attacked by knife-wielding youth, Utsav Sharma
Approach to community mental health can be made on the basis of following
The mental health of a community is directly linked to its social development. There are five core adaptive systems that explain the effects of social adversity on mental health outcomes (Silove model). These are ‘safety’, ‘attachment’, ‘justice’, ‘identity-role’, and ‘existential-meaning’.
----from the Dawn, Pakistan.
Read a few of the stories and try ascertaining the community mental health in India.
Depressed, suicidal flyer bites airhostess & causes panic midair
UP cop calls Mayawati govt corrupt, dumped in mental asylum
Rathore attacked by knife-wielding youth, Utsav Sharma
Approach to community mental health can be made on the basis of following
The mental health of a community is directly linked to its social development. There are five core adaptive systems that explain the effects of social adversity on mental health outcomes (Silove model). These are ‘safety’, ‘attachment’, ‘justice’, ‘identity-role’, and ‘existential-meaning’.
----from the Dawn, Pakistan.
Building a consensus
What would you call a broad national consensus? To keep their immoral
acts protected under wraps, it is on this day, the 20th of august, did
the government through the PM spoke of such a term. I wonder it is
righteousness call or another attempt to save some disaster from
themselves. I never heard them speak that when they made so many other
legislation.
Nevermind. Question hangs out-- what would it be anyway-- the broad
national consensus ??
In a democracy , consensus are hardest to achieve. We know it.!
Plainly, then, this attempt to achieve consensus is their way of
saving some big disaster from happening. But in itself it proves one
thing for sure, that the government keeps it own standards of 'strong'
which are different from what the intellectual people think 'strong'
should truely be.
Nevertheless, consensus are usually build-able on objective statements
alone. for example, sun rises everyday within latitudes 70 deg N and
S. There needs a lot of qualifying terms for making an accurate
objective statement for achieving a consensus.
The task, then, is to gather lots of observations on the matter to
form the 'Statement of Facts'. It could be like: people want to
erradicate corruption; corruption has deprived some sections of
society; corruption has benefited some sections. Whether the benefited
lot is larger in count or the deprived lot. Whether the benefited lot
also demands erradication of corruption; whether the benefited lot
consisted of politicians , businessmen and bureaucrats? The employee
section and the unemployed have always suffered? Whether corruption
is damaging for our collective social interest as a nation? Whether
anti corruption law has potential to affect other social objectives
such a Reservation laws, minority protection? and if yes, how and how
much? How much of desire we have for a drugs, terrorism and organised
crime free state, and how much it is adversely impacted by subsiding
the anti corruption laws? How much will the people be willing to lay
their lives for when fully in knowledge of the fact that their
sacrifices will still never be able to free the country of such
menace? how much of a free developed and leader nation we are willing
to become at world level with repeated episodes of public corruption
inside our home?
broad national consensus is hard to achieve and a call for it at this
hour is nothing but attempt to defend some vested interest. Shamefully
enough, the world is watching our government doing that. They who made
things such as UNCAC , know what such acts of any government imply.
Democracy and Consensus
The cause of democracy is to allow people to have different opinion, but system must confirm to the laws of nature for it to sustain. In the Brittannica's Encyclopedia, topic: History of Philosophy, this is why it has been suggested that all democratic systems will eventually have to progress towards adoption of natural laws, which means free from influence of Cultures and Religion, and therefore necessarily 'Secular' and 'non-Communist', 'non-Socialist'. Consensus and Righteousness will itself prevail. Only the issues of Arts can be matter of opinion. Issues of Science and logic work by consensus. As people will learn to translate issues of Arts into issues of Science and Logic, disharmony due to difference in opinions will weed away. Democratic Systems will also necessarily tend to be more of Evolutionist work, and less of God-Believers.."Secularism" as a necessary condition for consensus-building, and conformation to natural laws will promote this tendency further.
acts protected under wraps, it is on this day, the 20th of august, did
the government through the PM spoke of such a term. I wonder it is
righteousness call or another attempt to save some disaster from
themselves. I never heard them speak that when they made so many other
legislation.
Nevermind. Question hangs out-- what would it be anyway-- the broad
national consensus ??
In a democracy , consensus are hardest to achieve. We know it.!
Plainly, then, this attempt to achieve consensus is their way of
saving some big disaster from happening. But in itself it proves one
thing for sure, that the government keeps it own standards of 'strong'
which are different from what the intellectual people think 'strong'
should truely be.
Nevertheless, consensus are usually build-able on objective statements
alone. for example, sun rises everyday within latitudes 70 deg N and
S. There needs a lot of qualifying terms for making an accurate
objective statement for achieving a consensus.
The task, then, is to gather lots of observations on the matter to
form the 'Statement of Facts'. It could be like: people want to
erradicate corruption; corruption has deprived some sections of
society; corruption has benefited some sections. Whether the benefited
lot is larger in count or the deprived lot. Whether the benefited lot
also demands erradication of corruption; whether the benefited lot
consisted of politicians , businessmen and bureaucrats? The employee
section and the unemployed have always suffered? Whether corruption
is damaging for our collective social interest as a nation? Whether
anti corruption law has potential to affect other social objectives
such a Reservation laws, minority protection? and if yes, how and how
much? How much of desire we have for a drugs, terrorism and organised
crime free state, and how much it is adversely impacted by subsiding
the anti corruption laws? How much will the people be willing to lay
their lives for when fully in knowledge of the fact that their
sacrifices will still never be able to free the country of such
menace? how much of a free developed and leader nation we are willing
to become at world level with repeated episodes of public corruption
inside our home?
broad national consensus is hard to achieve and a call for it at this
hour is nothing but attempt to defend some vested interest. Shamefully
enough, the world is watching our government doing that. They who made
things such as UNCAC , know what such acts of any government imply.
Democracy and Consensus
The cause of democracy is to allow people to have different opinion, but system must confirm to the laws of nature for it to sustain. In the Brittannica's Encyclopedia, topic: History of Philosophy, this is why it has been suggested that all democratic systems will eventually have to progress towards adoption of natural laws, which means free from influence of Cultures and Religion, and therefore necessarily 'Secular' and 'non-Communist', 'non-Socialist'. Consensus and Righteousness will itself prevail. Only the issues of Arts can be matter of opinion. Issues of Science and logic work by consensus. As people will learn to translate issues of Arts into issues of Science and Logic, disharmony due to difference in opinions will weed away. Democratic Systems will also necessarily tend to be more of Evolutionist work, and less of God-Believers.."Secularism" as a necessary condition for consensus-building, and conformation to natural laws will promote this tendency further.
शास्त्रार्थ = Dialectic reasoning, not Debate
शास्त्रार्थ = Dialectic reasoning, not Debate
The above as interpreted by self from a reading in Wikipedia. on Dialectics.
India is the founding place for this art whereby people attempt to discover truth of a subject matter.
The following taken from Wikipedia on topic :
Dialectic
Perhaps, now I have hint to understand why i tend to be so argumentative or why so many arguments to establish the Dharma in every matter come up in my mind. It is perhaps cultural
The above as interpreted by self from a reading in Wikipedia. on Dialectics.
India is the founding place for this art whereby people attempt to discover truth of a subject matter.
The following taken from Wikipedia on topic :
Dialectic
Indian continental debate: an intra- and inter-Dharmic dialectic
Anacker (2005: p. 20), in the introduction to his translation of seven works by Vasubandhu (fl. 4th c.), a famed dialectician of the Gupta Empire, contextualizes the prestige of dialectic and cut-throat debate in classical India and makes references to the possibly apocryphal story of the banishment of Moheyan post-debate with Kamalaśīla (fl. 713-763):Philosophical debating was in classical India often a spectator-sport, much as contests of poetry-improvisation were in Germany in its High Middle Ages, and as they still are in the Telegu country today. The king himself was often the judge at these debates, and loss to an opponent could have serious consequences. To take an atrociously extreme example, when the Tamil Śaivite Ñānasambandar Nāyanār defeated the Jain ācāryas in Madurai before the Pāṇḍya King Māravarman Avaniśūlāmani (620-645) this debate is said to have resulted in the impalement of 8000 Jains, an event still celebrated in the Mīnāksi Temple of Madurai today. Usually, the results were not so drastic; they could mean formal recognition by the defeated side of the superiority of the winning party, forced conversions, or, as in the case of the Council of Lhasa, which was conducted by Indians, banishment of the losers.[45]
[edit] Brahmin/Vedic/Hindu dialectic
See also: Hindu philosophy
While western philosophy traces dialectics to ancient greek thought of Socrates and Plato, the idea of tension between two opposing forces leading to synthesis is much older and present in Hindu Philosophy.[46] Indian philosophy, for the most part subsumed within the Indian religions, has an ancient tradition of dialectic polemics. The two complements, "purusha" (the active cause) and the "prakriti" (the passive nature) brings everything into existence. They follow the "rta", the Dharma (Universal Law of Nature). Perhaps, now I have hint to understand why i tend to be so argumentative or why so many arguments to establish the Dharma in every matter come up in my mind. It is perhaps cultural
Is this just about the news !!
Read the news extracts below and judge for yourself if this is just a news ?
The commentator talks of black money distribution in India, according to its caste-wise distribution !
Heading of the news is "Terror alert for metro cities". It is entertaining to see what people (of India) like to discuss in this kind of news article.
In the above article, are the commentators a normal civilian? The heading of the article is "Fighter jet crashes in China Air show". Read the comments and judge for yourself if they are some defense experts, or the military intelligence people, who are almost making a war-- a media-military-ideology war. the amount of knowledge they possess beholds me !
Why I am averse to the city of Varanasi
Why I am averse to the city of Varanasi
Recently I sailed with a person who was from Jaunpur,Bhojpuri by his language,a Brahmin by caste but a complete sailor by his behavior. No, it was not him who made me averse to the cultural attitude of the city of Varanasi, rather he helped me discover why we both had our aversions for the city and its culture, “Apne taraf aise hota toh…” (“If this had happened in our countryside, then... “)
I shared a lot of common observations about ‘Apni taraf’ (‘In our region..’), our common cultural attitude. He was not so high educated , but in my thinking , had enough sensible mind to observe an event impartially, to make an unbiased comparison. He had managed to liberate himself from the grip of common beliefs by asking ‘Why’. Yet, in all these ‘why’ he has not lost the balance of his mind, but kept himself working to search the answer by himself alone.
In some previous blogs I have discussed about the low IQ rating accorded to the Indians. Some people may treat it typical of me to accept anything that subsidies the Indians, but then my practices of Objective bahviour tempt me to make a personal observation into the matter to help me choose my stand.
And when it comes to the city of Varanasi, I see it as the nerve centre of the religion and culture of India, Hinduism. It’s history is what shapes the culture which is practiced by most of us people. Therefore It is from here that I make my personal inquiry.
For quite some time now, I have held that the cause for the backwardness of any community is often sowed in the religious beliefs it holds. Richard Dawkins awards Religion to the root cause of all evils prevailing in the modern world. I am not so much against Religion, although I show no mercy to it.
One grand reason for the poor outlook held by people of the Cow Belt of Uttar Pradesh is the history of Linguistic jumps. Bhojpuri is the original language of the region which in the modern cities is perceived as the language of uneducated. Bhojpuri is something similar to Hindi, although not technically belonging to the Hindi Family of Languages ( I read that on Internet somewhere). There is a big article provided on Wikipedia on this language. In summary, this language evolved as the language of masses while the higher tasks of writing of religious literature, poetry, Kabir’s doha which all happened in the city of Varanasi, – happened in other languages. Clearly, superior knowledge was preserved in a different language which the inferior men spoke a different tone.
As the language of the elite made jump to Urdu, things became more difficult for the common Bhojpuri speaker. Many words and the concept described by those words decanted away leaving a distasteful tonic behind, to be gulped down the throat and preserved as Shurti—a vocabular knowledge. People hardly understand the concept contained in them; they use the words merely as a proper noun. An example of it could be simple to observe on, say, a railway station where a rural woman might just ask you ‘kaa ho, ee passenjar gaaddi ba?’ (sir, is this a passenger train??), pointing to a train where humans are already transacting. (!). Perhaps the nation held by the rural woman is that a ‘passenjar gaaddi’ (a passenger train) is the one which goes to the destination which she is headed for.
The issue is just not about illiteracy alone, the issue is also about the cultural wisdom held with the speakers of the language. Since the word ‘paasenjar’(passenger) is not a Bhojpuri word, it is difficult for the speaker to know the common noun meaning of the word. They all tend to treat it as a proper noun, to be memorized with some efforts. And it is not so just with the English word alone, it is so with Urdu dialect too, whereby a ‘Tahseel’, ‘Kachehri’, or ’Zila’, ‘Gavarmant’ (the government), and “Sarkar” -- all are preserved as a proper noun, the conceptual description already drained away.
It is such linguistic predicaments which further sow the seeds for other range of religious and political dysfunctions. Like, most of the administrative system started by the Moughals was in Urdu language. The position of Bhojpuri speaker eventually became that of a tribal person who was hardly aware of the concept , meanings and purpose. He simply learnt to grow up fearing those bulky terminology.
The jump from Urdu to English made the situation even worse for even the speakers of standard Hindi language. Now, not just the administrative work, even the common medical , natural science, business and commerce, and many other logics was held in much more alien language. It all left no choice but to push the native speaker into more of idiocy, making him an even bigger fool than before. The terrified , befuddled speakers passed their half knowledge into their children in the half that they can, and many generations later only a residual knowledge is left over in these people.
Administrative field is not the only field affected. Knowledge of medicine, infant care, care of sick, disease and treatment of sick,- all are affected. I often hear the rural people describing their medical problems in very confusing and incomprehensible terms. The eating habits are rather more mystical—milk cannot be consumed after oranges, dry fruits are ‘hot’, curd is ‘cold’, banana is ‘stomaching clearing’; cow milk is the best meal- most nutritious, cold-hot cause fever; cold drinks are not to be consumed in winter season; ‘cold’ (the influenza) is always attributable to the last known cold item consumed (Influenza is otherwise known to be or Viral nature); so on and so forth.
Every culture has its own unique beliefs, but sometimes it surprises me when the doctors also diagnose a trouble in terms of common understanding. Most of the people carry their own personal medicine box, self-medication is very common, and some even like to prescribe their kind of medicine to others who have same type of symptoms.
Scholastism is a missing attitude. Infact the thin count of research scholars, even when the under-graduates are in thousands (India has one of the largest population of college graduates) explains our outlook towards gaining a cultural knowledge.
In my personal case, my own scholastic attitude is often looked with contempt, “… har cheej mein reaserch karne lagta hai”, (‘…has the habit of digging deep into issues’).
The problem of city of Varanasi and its cultural woes begins with another string as well. This one comes out from the religious codes which this city is a birthplace of. Tulsidas’s version of Ramayan was composed in this city. The renowned ‘Geeta Press’, which is earliest known publishers of Religious Books in India are branched from this city. Varanasi was the place where regular discourses on religious theme happened, Shastrartth (was debate on topics from Vedas) was a common event. (Wikipedia source states that the Maithli Brahmins are suppose to the most intelligent group among Brahmins because they have won the Shastrarth held in the court of Maharaja Benaras maximum number of times). The famous Nayay Sutra, the principle of evidencing a claim, is supposedly constituted in this city. Philosophy, as proper academics, is better available in the Benaras Hindu University (the BHU) than most othet big brand colleges. Dr S Radhakrishnan, the first Vice-President of India, was the vice-chancellor of the BHU just before his appoint as the vice-president of the country.
Argumentativeness, thus, is a part of city’s culture. To win the day-today arguments is to prepare for the bigger victory in the formally organized Shastrarth event later. Problem comes to fore that most, or maybe all, the arguments proposed by any Varanasi dweller is likely to be of theological nature. The debate of Science versus religion will almost always be won by the religion –side. Simple, it is, to understand that the scientific outlook of the people is very low while the religious quotient is very high.
The lack of scientific outlook just does not end at the misery of shortfall of knowledge of natural sciences. The bigger result is its effect on rational thinking. Since many of the rationale are sourced from religion, the public’s disposition towards an event as being ‘Good’ or ‘bad’ itself becomes a basis for judging the arguments to be rational or not. Example could be that- since Freedom implies , among other things, freedom to have liquor or adult entertainment, both of which (the liquor consumption or adult entertainment) are perceived as bad by the larger public, it is generally accepted that unrestricted Freedom is bad. ( This above proposition explains why many of the Asian countries are averse to full liberty in their political theory on democracy.)
The more recent event example can be--, since Anna Hazare’s team is likely to see a split, or if Mr Bhushan or any of the Team Anna’s member are under investigations on wealth amassment, their full anti-corruption campaign and demand can be rejected as political gameplan. The common man’s rational to derive the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ of a thing, basis certain other thing shows their lack of knowledge of how to rationally co-relate event A with event B. (Just because Anna’s team member might have huge wealth does not amount to mean that the Anti-corruption campaign is lost away because the leaders are themselves not clean. So long as the demand is clean and logical, the campaigners personal actions should be exempted in the endemic problem as corruption).
Another example of it is -- It is imperative on a believer in non-violence to be labeled a Gandhian, and further it is necessary for a Gandhian to be averse to alcohols.
Returning back, the religion based public outlook further results into the shaping of their outlook towards some deeds , which they deem as highly sinful. Drinking, smoking, gambling and adult entertainment are not just amoral, they maybe sinful ! Las Vegas maybe the hell on earth for them, never know, because all these amoralities is what the Vegas is known for.
My shipmate expressed his biggest aversion to the culture of Varanasi for its disposition to alcohol consumption.
The inter-personal relationship is another thing which is tendered by religious thought. The father-son relationship, the teacher-student relationship, --all carry the undertones of ideal set by Ram in Ramayana. Therefore, the ‘bad’ is automatically assigned to the one who is first to violate the standard practices, or in the event where this first defaulter is untraceable, to the junior rank between the two parties involved.
Such errors in people’s behavior are likely a result of generation of sublime acceptance of what is good and what is bad. People have forgotten or refused to re cross-examine what should be good and what should not be. The changing environment, increased knowledge source-- these have not affected as greatly the people as a whole. Individuals may show acceptances, people may show acceptance individually, but larger conduct of the group is unaffected over the years. Like, the case of alcohol consumption- one Varanasi-ite may be a consumer, some among a group of varansi-ites may show positive acceptance of alcohol consumption, but neither may still be able to affect the conduct of the group towards Alcohol-consumption.
In short, a strong attachment to the goods and bad as decided generations ago, and refusal to keep reevaluating it ever onwards makes Varanasi-dwellers the outdated thinkers.
The argumentative man and the doctor
The argumentative man and the doctor
I was reading through one doctor’s advisory to people who are 'habituated to arguing'. His was quite a medical prescriptive for people who, he thinks, are suffering from some kind of psychiatric troubles which are manifested in the form of an argumentative conduct. The meaningfulness advisory is something which I would like to talk .
The doctor begins by stating “ Arguing is almost like a disease”.
The start of the article itself left me much repulsed to it. Long ago, I have written my article on what does the arguing conduct bring to human relations and their society as a whole. Arguing is the hot process of evolution of right decisions. ‘Right’ is , as we all know, a very subjective matter to decide, but then an unavoidable one for human relations to continue and democracy to prevail (Democracy, over here, means respecting everyone's view point when living in a multicultral society.). There are methods known by almost all of us on how the ‘Right’ is arrived at in many of the issue we come across. For example, a simple issue as to why a movie “A” is a hit and “B” is not, has it methods commonly understood as the box office collections of each movie. Important, at this point, is to bear in mind that although this methods of comparisons of box-office collections, is nowhere dictated to be the supreme means of determining the right answer to the question of which movie is a hit, but them that is how it the answer is commonly agreed upon. The aberrations to the choice of method happen when he compare the total collection of some sensible movie 'that of classes', with a popular cinema that of masses.
Similarly, the choice of critics award for a movie is chosen by a panel consisting of people renowned in the field of film making.
Eventually, the bigger conclusion that any person with a standard degree of common sense should infer is that the method of resolution of a conflicting situation is what should be sought in a conflict.
In the society which the present generation belongs to, Democracy has become the new choice for a peaceful co-existence. This is what is the most preferred style in public governance- by the governments on its citizens , and also the most preferred style of leadership in corporates, as taught to business management students and people occupying the managerial ranks.
Issue turns out, in my observation, is that our society, particularly the Indian society, is basically a feudal society. The whole course of evolution of democracy is belonging to the western sphere of earth where the revolutions of nationalism resulted into formation of the basic tenets which yielded democracy as the most chosen governance style. The American revolution resulted in the ‘Bill of Rights of a man and a citizen’, the British internal wars with the monarch resulted into the six basic fundamental freedoms , and the French revolution resulted into the motto of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
So, that is what was demanded out from the governments by its citizens. Understandably, people in that region slowly became habitual to enjoying their fundamental freedom and even grew mature on how to resolve conflicts between themselves in the absence of the monarchial decree on various issue. The system of justice followed the course of these freedom giving it a shape which evolved from their new methods of conflict management. The style of leadership of Democracy grew, not just in public governance , but also in the corporate.
The problem of the east side of planet earth begins with the dual views it generally maintains on the issue of democracy. Democracy was witnessed in the west abut it was liked even by those in the east. The easterners also wanted this new style in their places—the democracy. The problem is, culturally, they are habituated to resolving the conflict by means of a royal decree. So, they easterners ended up adopting a very confused kind of system which they called it by different name.-- the Socialism.
Our own country , India, is itself one shinning example of what this new and funny mixture of governance style is—the Socialist Democracy—a style in which the people will only be choosing their leaders and then the leaders will decree upon the citizens which all ‘rights’ to be granted to the citizen, outside which everything is under the control of the government. Our leaders in the past, as a matter of fact, chose the mixed styles on the reasoning of taking the best of all possible worlds.
Going by the Microsoft™ Encarta Kids ™ lessons on democracy and how it is introduced to small children who read it, the article says that when ‘your’(referring to the small children who are reading the Encarta) play group chooses the methods of sitting together and voting to decide what should be the rules of the game, it is the presidential form of democracy. When your group decides to elect some of your friends those who would decide what is ‘right’, it is the parliamentary form of democracy. Communism, it defines, as a system whereby the government becomes the owner of all properties, and it is attempting to keep no rich and no poor citizen. It further mentions that Communism seems to be losing its appeal.
Comparably, it is clear that a socialist democracy- an offshoot of communist style, is more about control than about freedom. Plainly, if an individual’s choice doesn’t conform to the decision of his socialist group, he is expected to keep shut. In full democracies, technically termed the Liberal Democracy, the individual has a right to prosecute the leading group as well, and it even happens at times that he wins it over the leading group. Apparently, some arguments happen in this style of Liberal Democracy, which eventually result into some different method- a universal standard- to deciding the right.
Looking closely, I observe that almost all the Liberal Democratic nations lie on the western sphere of earth, while all such- the mixed styles of governance- lie on the eastern side. Moreover, all these liberal democracies are the Common Law countries. In the other –mixture styles—the statutes hold supreme. The arguments, in my opinion, in a liberal democracy therefore shift to the court cases and the verdicts of the court settle among the people in the form of Common Law—a law which all common people should be aware of. Parliament or President, all are expected to conform to the common law, unless some special law is made.
In the eastern style, the law remains what the leading style finally decides upon.- the special laws. so much that the common man may not even be aware of them.
That elaborates more convincingly how the style of leadership of the Easterners, example of which contains the Indians, the Chinese, and the Japanese -- differs from that of the westerners who are from Liberal Democratic societies.
This difference should further give clue to why do arguments happen and what should be the better method of resolving the conflict.
The prescription of the doctor, which I was reading, itself raised some arguments inside my mind- Like, when two or more people are arguing—logically because one person should not argue with his own self—how do we decide who is arguing with whom , so that we may prescribe the doctor’s advisory to that person.!!?
Would it be that we prescribe the advisory to both the parties who are involved in the arguments; or the one whom we arbitrarily pick up for our treatment; or the one who is senior to the other.
The court law based system, in effect, decide upon the ethics of the matter in conflict. In other words, Arguments are the Battleground of Mahabaharat in the modern, non-violence, civilized world, where the Dharma, the ethics, churn out. The prescription of doctor may be advised to the party ones we have some Ethics method to decide who to nominate for the treatment of the doctor.
But the problem is , even for that selection, we require to have a ‘methods to decide’--- isn’t this which we call the Ethics.
The irony of a conflicts between two person is that it happens not just when a person or persons are psychiatrically unhealthy, or when somebody has set one person against the other (the proverbial ‘divide and rule’ trick), but also when the goals of two people about an issue, collide.
Such collisions are not resolvable by making a neutrality approach— when both of them are hushed away-, or by taking sides with the one who has closer allegiance to another-, there are the same wars of Ethics which call upon an Objective Approach, path of Nirmoh(disenchanted analysis), to analyze the problem and find the good ethics,- or finding the solutions.
Solution-finding is the best means of resolution of such conflicts; the problem that comes up further is the method of making objective analysis. Immense knowledge is required by the parties involved, or the third party which is tasked with conflict resolution. Expertise and knowledge become essential, evidencing becomes more crucial, public accreditions begins to matter, -- these are what are required for conflict resolutions by way of an agreeable solutions. It is for properly achieving these methods that we are often taught to have an open-minded approach, to stay objective, and to listen to both, or all, the parties involved. The purpose , eventually, is to reach to the ethics of the matter.
It is a different knowledge that sometime Ethical path is not the middle path which is acceptable to both or all parties involved. An Ethical solution may lie closer to any one of the parties, or completely away from all the parties in the conflict. Ethical solutions sometime may not necessarily be the amicable solutions.
The doctor’s prescription is meant for those cases which can be publically agreed to be belonging to a category of psychiatric disorders. It will be worth mentioning that, infact, most of the psychiatric disorders have no definitive parameter in themselves to decide whether a person has the disorder or not. They are merely decided by a public opinion on them, which obviously, can be subject to much debates and arguments, like any other issue of conflict between two persons. To find a peaceful resolution to the problem , the American Psychologist Association (the APA), itself resorts to the Diagnostic and Statistical Method (DSM) whereby to decide that a given case belongs to the illness category or not.
Did our doctor miss out this point??? There are debates and arguments behind that too, which he is prescribing.!
The issue of arguments, in my thinking, is a case of management issue—and the more such arguments are reported, the more is the possibility of poor style of management being exercised, unless , ofcourse, there is some psychiatric trouble somewhere.
It is another observation story to narrate how the cultural disposition, too, is capable of producing a person which by standards of another culture may be called psychiatrically unwell. It becomes a cultural war then.
I was reading through one doctor’s advisory to people who are 'habituated to arguing'. His was quite a medical prescriptive for people who, he thinks, are suffering from some kind of psychiatric troubles which are manifested in the form of an argumentative conduct. The meaningfulness advisory is something which I would like to talk .
The doctor begins by stating “ Arguing is almost like a disease”.
The start of the article itself left me much repulsed to it. Long ago, I have written my article on what does the arguing conduct bring to human relations and their society as a whole. Arguing is the hot process of evolution of right decisions. ‘Right’ is , as we all know, a very subjective matter to decide, but then an unavoidable one for human relations to continue and democracy to prevail (Democracy, over here, means respecting everyone's view point when living in a multicultral society.). There are methods known by almost all of us on how the ‘Right’ is arrived at in many of the issue we come across. For example, a simple issue as to why a movie “A” is a hit and “B” is not, has it methods commonly understood as the box office collections of each movie. Important, at this point, is to bear in mind that although this methods of comparisons of box-office collections, is nowhere dictated to be the supreme means of determining the right answer to the question of which movie is a hit, but them that is how it the answer is commonly agreed upon. The aberrations to the choice of method happen when he compare the total collection of some sensible movie 'that of classes', with a popular cinema that of masses.
Similarly, the choice of critics award for a movie is chosen by a panel consisting of people renowned in the field of film making.
Eventually, the bigger conclusion that any person with a standard degree of common sense should infer is that the method of resolution of a conflicting situation is what should be sought in a conflict.
In the society which the present generation belongs to, Democracy has become the new choice for a peaceful co-existence. This is what is the most preferred style in public governance- by the governments on its citizens , and also the most preferred style of leadership in corporates, as taught to business management students and people occupying the managerial ranks.
Issue turns out, in my observation, is that our society, particularly the Indian society, is basically a feudal society. The whole course of evolution of democracy is belonging to the western sphere of earth where the revolutions of nationalism resulted into formation of the basic tenets which yielded democracy as the most chosen governance style. The American revolution resulted in the ‘Bill of Rights of a man and a citizen’, the British internal wars with the monarch resulted into the six basic fundamental freedoms , and the French revolution resulted into the motto of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
So, that is what was demanded out from the governments by its citizens. Understandably, people in that region slowly became habitual to enjoying their fundamental freedom and even grew mature on how to resolve conflicts between themselves in the absence of the monarchial decree on various issue. The system of justice followed the course of these freedom giving it a shape which evolved from their new methods of conflict management. The style of leadership of Democracy grew, not just in public governance , but also in the corporate.
The problem of the east side of planet earth begins with the dual views it generally maintains on the issue of democracy. Democracy was witnessed in the west abut it was liked even by those in the east. The easterners also wanted this new style in their places—the democracy. The problem is, culturally, they are habituated to resolving the conflict by means of a royal decree. So, they easterners ended up adopting a very confused kind of system which they called it by different name.-- the Socialism.
Our own country , India, is itself one shinning example of what this new and funny mixture of governance style is—the Socialist Democracy—a style in which the people will only be choosing their leaders and then the leaders will decree upon the citizens which all ‘rights’ to be granted to the citizen, outside which everything is under the control of the government. Our leaders in the past, as a matter of fact, chose the mixed styles on the reasoning of taking the best of all possible worlds.
Going by the Microsoft™ Encarta Kids ™ lessons on democracy and how it is introduced to small children who read it, the article says that when ‘your’(referring to the small children who are reading the Encarta) play group chooses the methods of sitting together and voting to decide what should be the rules of the game, it is the presidential form of democracy. When your group decides to elect some of your friends those who would decide what is ‘right’, it is the parliamentary form of democracy. Communism, it defines, as a system whereby the government becomes the owner of all properties, and it is attempting to keep no rich and no poor citizen. It further mentions that Communism seems to be losing its appeal.
Comparably, it is clear that a socialist democracy- an offshoot of communist style, is more about control than about freedom. Plainly, if an individual’s choice doesn’t conform to the decision of his socialist group, he is expected to keep shut. In full democracies, technically termed the Liberal Democracy, the individual has a right to prosecute the leading group as well, and it even happens at times that he wins it over the leading group. Apparently, some arguments happen in this style of Liberal Democracy, which eventually result into some different method- a universal standard- to deciding the right.
Looking closely, I observe that almost all the Liberal Democratic nations lie on the western sphere of earth, while all such- the mixed styles of governance- lie on the eastern side. Moreover, all these liberal democracies are the Common Law countries. In the other –mixture styles—the statutes hold supreme. The arguments, in my opinion, in a liberal democracy therefore shift to the court cases and the verdicts of the court settle among the people in the form of Common Law—a law which all common people should be aware of. Parliament or President, all are expected to conform to the common law, unless some special law is made.
In the eastern style, the law remains what the leading style finally decides upon.- the special laws. so much that the common man may not even be aware of them.
That elaborates more convincingly how the style of leadership of the Easterners, example of which contains the Indians, the Chinese, and the Japanese -- differs from that of the westerners who are from Liberal Democratic societies.
This difference should further give clue to why do arguments happen and what should be the better method of resolving the conflict.
The prescription of the doctor, which I was reading, itself raised some arguments inside my mind- Like, when two or more people are arguing—logically because one person should not argue with his own self—how do we decide who is arguing with whom , so that we may prescribe the doctor’s advisory to that person.!!?
Would it be that we prescribe the advisory to both the parties who are involved in the arguments; or the one whom we arbitrarily pick up for our treatment; or the one who is senior to the other.
The court law based system, in effect, decide upon the ethics of the matter in conflict. In other words, Arguments are the Battleground of Mahabaharat in the modern, non-violence, civilized world, where the Dharma, the ethics, churn out. The prescription of doctor may be advised to the party ones we have some Ethics method to decide who to nominate for the treatment of the doctor.
But the problem is , even for that selection, we require to have a ‘methods to decide’--- isn’t this which we call the Ethics.
The irony of a conflicts between two person is that it happens not just when a person or persons are psychiatrically unhealthy, or when somebody has set one person against the other (the proverbial ‘divide and rule’ trick), but also when the goals of two people about an issue, collide.
Such collisions are not resolvable by making a neutrality approach— when both of them are hushed away-, or by taking sides with the one who has closer allegiance to another-, there are the same wars of Ethics which call upon an Objective Approach, path of Nirmoh(disenchanted analysis), to analyze the problem and find the good ethics,- or finding the solutions.
Solution-finding is the best means of resolution of such conflicts; the problem that comes up further is the method of making objective analysis. Immense knowledge is required by the parties involved, or the third party which is tasked with conflict resolution. Expertise and knowledge become essential, evidencing becomes more crucial, public accreditions begins to matter, -- these are what are required for conflict resolutions by way of an agreeable solutions. It is for properly achieving these methods that we are often taught to have an open-minded approach, to stay objective, and to listen to both, or all, the parties involved. The purpose , eventually, is to reach to the ethics of the matter.
It is a different knowledge that sometime Ethical path is not the middle path which is acceptable to both or all parties involved. An Ethical solution may lie closer to any one of the parties, or completely away from all the parties in the conflict. Ethical solutions sometime may not necessarily be the amicable solutions.
The doctor’s prescription is meant for those cases which can be publically agreed to be belonging to a category of psychiatric disorders. It will be worth mentioning that, infact, most of the psychiatric disorders have no definitive parameter in themselves to decide whether a person has the disorder or not. They are merely decided by a public opinion on them, which obviously, can be subject to much debates and arguments, like any other issue of conflict between two persons. To find a peaceful resolution to the problem , the American Psychologist Association (the APA), itself resorts to the Diagnostic and Statistical Method (DSM) whereby to decide that a given case belongs to the illness category or not.
Did our doctor miss out this point??? There are debates and arguments behind that too, which he is prescribing.!
The issue of arguments, in my thinking, is a case of management issue—and the more such arguments are reported, the more is the possibility of poor style of management being exercised, unless , ofcourse, there is some psychiatric trouble somewhere.
It is another observation story to narrate how the cultural disposition, too, is capable of producing a person which by standards of another culture may be called psychiatrically unwell. It becomes a cultural war then.
For once, this nation owes it to the Russians, owes it to the Gandhi's
For once, this nation owes it to the Russians, owes it to the Gandhi's.
I am not sure, but even as I try to unsolve the issue of how the Jan Lokapal Bill can become a threat to national security , who may be having the maximum of black money stashed away abroad, and where did the Gandhi family get all their money from, I chanced upon certain bigger facts of our history, about the days of the Cold War , about the international relations which existed in those days between India and the USSR, between Pakistan and America, and ofcourse, the India-West&East Pakistan.
It was only recently I stumbled upon another hard fact of diplomacy world-- Indians had not resisted the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the UN, back in 1979. From today’s relations it appears really appaling as to why us, who had once been subjugated by the British and many other people, did not oppose suppression of some other country by another. It is mysterious in some ways until we explore the history and the diplomacy game behind such abberations.
Back in 1962, during the Chinese incursion of Tibet, India was not so much self-dependant to be able to contest with China. Some recently released confidential letter reveal of how Nehru had desparetly attempted to seek help from the Americans who refused the help to us, perhaps because they are already engaged with the Pakistanis. Nehru had asked for fighter planes, asked for weaponry, but in vain.
It was from this experience perhaps that even after being so called Non-Aligned, we maintained quite a heavy inclination towards the Russians because it was them who came to our help later. During the Pakistani invasion in 1973 from both the frontiers, East and West, Indians could manage to have the East Pakistan liberated, maybe because of an indirect support of the Russians. US President, Richard Nixon, had already ordered their aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, to enter the Bay of Bengal to help Pakistan, but it was never used by the Americans due to fear of retaliation from the Russians. India won the war and liberated a new nation, Bangladesh.
Another news of around (y.) 2007 told that the KGB chief has admitted to having paid some USD 200,000 every year to the family of Gandhis for getting India to help protect Russian interest far and at the UN.
These broken tales of the intel may perhaps reveal how the Gandhis became so rich, today with their black money stashed abroad and why political authorities are citing national security as the reason for not bringing the Prime Minister within the ambit of Jan Lokpal.
History,I believe, is read but not with the purpose of doing the judgment and pronouncing who was right and who was wrong. The ‘was’ contains certain sensibilities of its times which can perhaps never be properly understood the present day reviewer. History lessons are meant to give lessons of what happened, and what needs to be done to prevent its recurrance.
The 9/11 event brought a massive change in the global order. Diplomacy table turned over completely, and the old sensibilities have had to be forgotten to make the new ones. Anna Hazare and the Jan Lokpal are the post 9/11 events.
Will it be ethical and intelligent of us to attempt to punish or undo what the leaders of the Cold Wars did which was required of them to do in the interest of this country?
I surely don’t aim to dilute the agenda of Jan Lokpal(JLP), and still continue to demand that all governement offices be brought under the JLP, including the PM, but at the same time I don’t want to stand unethical and cruel and inhuman to do something which is self-humiliating. To punish the very mongoose who killed the snake which saved the child.
The JLP should contain provisions to address the corruptions of such nature, but it should not attempt to undo which was achieved by means of corruption in the interest of some larger group. I do not mean that such acts not be investigated and not be prosecuted, but the penalities must encompass waivers for what all was achieved by way of corruption. Corruption was (and is) our way of life, good or bad, truth or lie, whatever. And the new law must not attempt to judge the history by its own lenses.
At the same time, the JLP should also have safeguard to ensure that should the situation demand, then again the leading authorities be given freehand , without fear of trial away in future, to do what is best for the country.
We know what that implies.
Until the time I assembled these jigsaw pieces of history and diplomacy, I would think that everytime a political leader opposed JLP on the grounds of national security, perhaps what the ‘bloody politician’ was declaring was that the country had already been sold out and it was too late of us to demand an awakening, by means of the JLP bill.
But as the jigwas unsolved before me, if it really be as how I am solving the puzzle, I now have a heart change. Maybe it is true that they saved us by means of corrupt means somewhere sometime.
‘Us’ contains our full nation, and ‘they’ are the Gandhi family.
I am not sure, but even as I try to unsolve the issue of how the Jan Lokapal Bill can become a threat to national security , who may be having the maximum of black money stashed away abroad, and where did the Gandhi family get all their money from, I chanced upon certain bigger facts of our history, about the days of the Cold War , about the international relations which existed in those days between India and the USSR, between Pakistan and America, and ofcourse, the India-West&East Pakistan.
It was only recently I stumbled upon another hard fact of diplomacy world-- Indians had not resisted the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the UN, back in 1979. From today’s relations it appears really appaling as to why us, who had once been subjugated by the British and many other people, did not oppose suppression of some other country by another. It is mysterious in some ways until we explore the history and the diplomacy game behind such abberations.
Back in 1962, during the Chinese incursion of Tibet, India was not so much self-dependant to be able to contest with China. Some recently released confidential letter reveal of how Nehru had desparetly attempted to seek help from the Americans who refused the help to us, perhaps because they are already engaged with the Pakistanis. Nehru had asked for fighter planes, asked for weaponry, but in vain.
It was from this experience perhaps that even after being so called Non-Aligned, we maintained quite a heavy inclination towards the Russians because it was them who came to our help later. During the Pakistani invasion in 1973 from both the frontiers, East and West, Indians could manage to have the East Pakistan liberated, maybe because of an indirect support of the Russians. US President, Richard Nixon, had already ordered their aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, to enter the Bay of Bengal to help Pakistan, but it was never used by the Americans due to fear of retaliation from the Russians. India won the war and liberated a new nation, Bangladesh.
Another news of around (y.) 2007 told that the KGB chief has admitted to having paid some USD 200,000 every year to the family of Gandhis for getting India to help protect Russian interest far and at the UN.
These broken tales of the intel may perhaps reveal how the Gandhis became so rich, today with their black money stashed abroad and why political authorities are citing national security as the reason for not bringing the Prime Minister within the ambit of Jan Lokpal.
History,I believe, is read but not with the purpose of doing the judgment and pronouncing who was right and who was wrong. The ‘was’ contains certain sensibilities of its times which can perhaps never be properly understood the present day reviewer. History lessons are meant to give lessons of what happened, and what needs to be done to prevent its recurrance.
The 9/11 event brought a massive change in the global order. Diplomacy table turned over completely, and the old sensibilities have had to be forgotten to make the new ones. Anna Hazare and the Jan Lokpal are the post 9/11 events.
Will it be ethical and intelligent of us to attempt to punish or undo what the leaders of the Cold Wars did which was required of them to do in the interest of this country?
I surely don’t aim to dilute the agenda of Jan Lokpal(JLP), and still continue to demand that all governement offices be brought under the JLP, including the PM, but at the same time I don’t want to stand unethical and cruel and inhuman to do something which is self-humiliating. To punish the very mongoose who killed the snake which saved the child.
The JLP should contain provisions to address the corruptions of such nature, but it should not attempt to undo which was achieved by means of corruption in the interest of some larger group. I do not mean that such acts not be investigated and not be prosecuted, but the penalities must encompass waivers for what all was achieved by way of corruption. Corruption was (and is) our way of life, good or bad, truth or lie, whatever. And the new law must not attempt to judge the history by its own lenses.
At the same time, the JLP should also have safeguard to ensure that should the situation demand, then again the leading authorities be given freehand , without fear of trial away in future, to do what is best for the country.
We know what that implies.
Until the time I assembled these jigsaw pieces of history and diplomacy, I would think that everytime a political leader opposed JLP on the grounds of national security, perhaps what the ‘bloody politician’ was declaring was that the country had already been sold out and it was too late of us to demand an awakening, by means of the JLP bill.
But as the jigwas unsolved before me, if it really be as how I am solving the puzzle, I now have a heart change. Maybe it is true that they saved us by means of corrupt means somewhere sometime.
‘Us’ contains our full nation, and ‘they’ are the Gandhi family.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)