The Debt that all humans pay..
(From past writings..)
First of all, a very Happy Diwali to all!!!!
Where do I begin, I feel a lot of burden in telling this story.
Just yesterday on the flight to my hometown I was trying to grasp the pace with which Ramchandra Guha has written 'India after Gandhi'. I kept on reading continuously for almost the entire flight.
I was on the chapters about emergency, the resurgence of Indira Gandhi and her, you know what, let me talk about the emergency first. India put under the scanner.. civil liberties suspended.. opposition filled in the jails and guest houses.. media independence taken out. On the other side no more strikes.. business flows smoothly.. lot of good developmental work done.. ethos of discipline and hard work expanded into the minds of ordinary Indian.
The moments that led to emergency were that of opposition from the JP movement which included violence and chaos. As Indira Gandhi put it there was a deep conspiracy to remove her and put the country into paralysis. Emergency was the necessary dose of medicine she said. In some sense this was true, JP movement disapproved of the elected governments in a democracy and targeted against Indira Gandhi. On the other hand, emergency itself undermined the democratic functioning.
Then there is the sycophancy of the congress workers and the notorious works of Sanjay Gandhi. All in all very few resistance from the public, they were sick and tired of the sluggish pace of the matters I believe.
Then next after the Morarji Desai government proved that they weren't going to respect their own fundamentals and dive into corruption and lavishness, and the carelessness towards the lower sections of the society. Indira Gandhi resurfaced and fought against the silly whims of the then government to put her into jail, in other words, make her pay for what she had done during the emergency.
She swept the polls!
Afterwards, there were problems of the Sikh rebellion in Punjab and other rebel activities in the north-east bent on destroying the fabric of the country. This mindlessness could not be tamed easily and led to operation bluestar, which in my view was a necessity.
Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards. Interestingly enough, the intelligence gave her the signal to change the Sikh guards to which she replied "aren't we secular". She walked into to the hands of fate.
I respect her for what she did. She was assassinated for her handling of the Sikh insurgency. For safeguarding a section of the country from getting lost and this was people's reply.
Even more sad was the cruelty against the Sikhs afterwards.
The final hope was on Rajiv Gandhi to take the country forward. He had the majority from the polls. And then he did what was needed, with his statesmanship he made peace on the eastern and the western front.
I haven't gone further than this, but I am aware of the coming disappointment, another assassination!
All this makes me wonder that this whole things that have happened before us throughout history, the ones that have significant amount of impact on how we are today is the debt that all humans pay eventually. The conditions they are in today are the direct result of the things that have happened before.
And this debt, the immense weight of history is what everyone should understand first and then figure out the best way to go forward. Not just for himself but for his loved ones and his community, state and country. For everybody's betterment.
Where do I begin, I feel a lot of burden in telling this story.
Just yesterday on the flight to my hometown I was trying to grasp the pace with which Ramchandra Guha has written 'India after Gandhi'. I kept on reading continuously for almost the entire flight.
I was on the chapters about emergency, the resurgence of Indira Gandhi and her, you know what, let me talk about the emergency first. India put under the scanner.. civil liberties suspended.. opposition filled in the jails and guest houses.. media independence taken out. On the other side no more strikes.. business flows smoothly.. lot of good developmental work done.. ethos of discipline and hard work expanded into the minds of ordinary Indian.
The moments that led to emergency were that of opposition from the JP movement which included violence and chaos. As Indira Gandhi put it there was a deep conspiracy to remove her and put the country into paralysis. Emergency was the necessary dose of medicine she said. In some sense this was true, JP movement disapproved of the elected governments in a democracy and targeted against Indira Gandhi. On the other hand, emergency itself undermined the democratic functioning.
Then there is the sycophancy of the congress workers and the notorious works of Sanjay Gandhi. All in all very few resistance from the public, they were sick and tired of the sluggish pace of the matters I believe.
Then next after the Morarji Desai government proved that they weren't going to respect their own fundamentals and dive into corruption and lavishness, and the carelessness towards the lower sections of the society. Indira Gandhi resurfaced and fought against the silly whims of the then government to put her into jail, in other words, make her pay for what she had done during the emergency.
She swept the polls!
Afterwards, there were problems of the Sikh rebellion in Punjab and other rebel activities in the north-east bent on destroying the fabric of the country. This mindlessness could not be tamed easily and led to operation bluestar, which in my view was a necessity.
Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards. Interestingly enough, the intelligence gave her the signal to change the Sikh guards to which she replied "aren't we secular". She walked into to the hands of fate.
I respect her for what she did. She was assassinated for her handling of the Sikh insurgency. For safeguarding a section of the country from getting lost and this was people's reply.
Even more sad was the cruelty against the Sikhs afterwards.
The final hope was on Rajiv Gandhi to take the country forward. He had the majority from the polls. And then he did what was needed, with his statesmanship he made peace on the eastern and the western front.
I haven't gone further than this, but I am aware of the coming disappointment, another assassination!
All this makes me wonder that this whole things that have happened before us throughout history, the ones that have significant amount of impact on how we are today is the debt that all humans pay eventually. The conditions they are in today are the direct result of the things that have happened before.
And this debt, the immense weight of history is what everyone should understand first and then figure out the best way to go forward. Not just for himself but for his loved ones and his community, state and country. For everybody's betterment.
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