Operation Ganga – A Case for Lessons in Gratitude

At peril of being branded a ‘Bhakt’ there are some things that I feel the very strong need to express here.

The war between Ukraine and Russia have exposed more than the ugly politics being played by powers big and small.  It has exposed the national character or the sad lack of it very clearly.

The videos and tweets by returning students and those still stuck in the war zone are pretty divided in their opinions on the government’s handling of the situation.  I can understand the disenchantment of those still stuck there in fear of their lives.  But when those who have been air-lifted back to safety and security at the cost of the government and given a hero’s welcome on entering the country foul-mouth the government, it reeks of ingratitude. 

Why, you ask, should one be grateful?  It is the duty of the government, not a favour.  Maybe.  But are normal human beings not grateful to their own parents and all they did for us, although it was as much or even more so their ‘duty’?  Then why is it so difficult to be grateful to the government, no matter which government or who is at the helm?

Criticism No. 1:  Where were the advisories? 

The very first one was published on the 15^th of Feb 2022.  There were several more of them until the 24^th of the month when the war began.  What was the reaction?  Some students followed government advice and returned.  Others did not.  They had their own reasons – fulfilment of attendance requirements, inability to afford flight tickets ….  Completely understandable.  But there were those who made videos mocking the government’s advisory.  What of them?  If they were so smart to think those were just a lot of noise about nothing, why are they complaining now?

If on the other hand they were unable to come because they had to attend classes or could not afford the flight tickets, then they should be grateful for having been air lifted home at the cost of the government or indeed the tax payer’s money.

Criticism No. 2:  Why were they not air lifted before the war began?  Why were they not picked up from inside Ukraine? 

How could they leave the country before the war began, if they were obliged to be present for their classes?  So what purpose would it serve if the government had even tried?  What if the government had forced them to leave?  Could the government do that?  If it did, it would have been accused of high handedness and fascism.

Once the war began, how could any flight enter Ukraine without the risk of being shot down with or without evacuees?  In either case, what would have been achieved?

They did not need help after crossing the border. 

Really?  They should have come on their own.  Why did they not?  How many of them have offered to pay back at least their flight charges to the government?  How easily people forget the trauma and exhaustion they must have felt after the gut-wrenching time until they crossed the border.  Do they think they had the emotional or physical wherewithal to get back without help?  How many countries spent so many crores on flights, shelter and food for their citizens? 

Criticism No. 3:  One complaint is that they were asked to clean the toilets.  The carrot dangled for doing that was being bumped up on the evacuation list. 

We do not know how true this is, but even assuming it is, let us agree that it is not everyone’s cup of tea.  But fact remains that hygiene has to be maintained, especially in such crowded environments.  Who would clean the toilets?  We might have people to do that in India, but there is no such luxury in other countries.  Who would pay for them?  Such service would not come cheap, even if it were available.  So if you can’t do this, because you find it gross or it is below your dignity, is it unfair that someone who actually did it for your benefit gets the advantage of being brought back home earlier?  If on the other hand nobody cleaned the toilets and they were overflowing/stinking, these very people would have been the first to complain.

Criticism No. 4:  There was no vegan food available, no on-flight entertainment. 

Oh, really?  No, dear, we do not know ‘tum kaun ho’ or ‘tumhara baap kaun hai’.  Sorry for our complete ignorance.  Where we are concerned, you were a student who was being evacuated from a war zone and you should be happy to be back home. You were taken pretty good care of under the circumstances.

Criticism No. 5:  Speeches by ministers, flowers at entry point!  Seriously!  Who could object to being welcomed with flowers?  And for all the help you received, surely it was not too difficult to listen to a two-minute speech?  Just so much grace – is it too much to ask for?

On second thoughts, I have to admit, they did go rather over-board welcoming you and your behaviour towards a certain minister standing at the entrance to welcome you was indeed very ‘flattering’ of your up-bringing and attitude.  What a waste of tax payer’s money.

Criticism No. 6:  Not paid fare to get home from point of entry into country.  Oh my my!  Surely your family was there at the airport to pick you up and take you back home or did they grudge you the cost of taking you back home?

Criticism No. 7:  It was propaganda for the UP elections.  Why all the show?  It was not even an evacuation – JUST transport. 

So you believe the government should have waited till after the elections to evacuate … oh, sorry, to TRANSPORT you?  Even after everything that was done for you, you claim NOTHING was done.  This government is asked for proof of all their positive actions.  Their alleged negative ones are a forgone truth and need no further proof.  So it was in the interest of the government to keep proof ready and available.  This way everyone sees the truth – whether they acknowledge it, deny it or criticize it is another matter.

Was the government’s handling of the crisis perfect? 

May not be.  I am left wondering why students on the Eastern border of Ukraine were not asked to cross over to Russia right at the beginning, instead of being asked to go all the way across to the Western borders.  That might have spared the students some time and agony.  So no, it may not have been perfect, BUT that does not detract from the fact that they did a phenomenal job. 

Does this make me a Bhakt?  You are free to your own opinions.  I believe in freedom of speech and thought.

Accusations thrown at the students:

1. Why did they have to go abroad to study?

That is really none of anyone’s business. It was between them and their families and they spent their own money.

2. Why did they not heed the advisories and evacuate the place earlier?

Assuming they had to fulfil their attendance requirements and they really did not sense any danger, it should not be difficult to understand that, provided they don’t end up blaming others for the difficulties they had to endure.

3. They have no values, they go out not to study, but to have fun ……

Am as disgusted by such generalizations as I am by the ungrateful behaviour of many of them. My question to those who make such statements: How can you make such sweeping statements? Do you know each one of them individually? Have you any statistical data for how many respect values or don’t, how many respect their parents or don’t …. It is absurd to try and judge people by your own values. Yours might be excellent and very noble, but that does not make others who are different despicable. Nobody has the right to foulmouth an entire population going by the atrocious behaviour of a handful of them.

The Great Election Circus

Elections are very fascinating – normally.  This summer has seen soaring temperatures – climatically as well as the election heat.  I am sure no one has felt the heat more than the Supreme Court and the Election Commission this time around.  This election process started on the 11th of April and the 7th and last phase of election is expected to take place on the 19th of May.  That in itself should qualify for some kind of record.

The following have been the hallmarks of the 2019 elections:

1.   An election which took a month and a half to conduct.  I don’t know which other country has such a long drawn out election.
2.   A 7 phase election
3.   A lot of violence and rioting in a certain state
4.   Massive rallies and road shows
5.   A slew of abuses, name-calling, wild allegations, counter allegations between all parties and candidates.  Sadly enough it did not stop there.  The personal lives of individuals have been bandied about in public.
6.   Endless appeals against contestants to the Election Commission
7.   A highly polarized nation
8.   Fairly large voter turnouts
9.   A large presence of first-time voters
10.   Emergence of smaller news channels on social media

Of all the above points, the most striking and distressing features have been the new lows public and political discourse has fallen to.  Can it fall lower?  That remains to be seen but I am sure no one really wants to know, given all that we have already been treated to.  The word ‘democracy’ has been misused to mean one can say whatever comes to their heads and nobody can stop them.  It has also been misunderstood as an opportunity to stop other political parties from holding rallies or roadshows, prevent entry to parts of the country, to pelt stones, prevent people from voting and such like.  The kind of name-calling and verbal abuses spewed are a shame to any democracy which purports to be civilized.

The role of the mainstream media has not been very praise-worthy either.  Each channel with their partisan reporting has played no small role in bringing about an extreme polarisation of opinions.  SHAME ON THEM.  However, it has been heartening to see more neutral channels emerge, albeit smaller ones limited to the social media, which have taken the trouble to go out and talk to the common person on the street to get a feel of the mood of the voters.  The kind of increase in awareness and the hard core common sense is an encouraging indicator of the fact that the politicians can’t take voters for granted anymore.  They better pull up their socks.  Let them always be conscious of the fact that the people are watching.  They are neither blind, deaf or dumb (literally or figuratively).

If whichever party or coalition coming to power truly has the interests of the nation in mind, here are a few electoral reforms I’d suggest:

1.  Make it possible to vote online.  This should help end electoral violence on the day of polls, booth rigging as well as to limit the polling to one day or 3-5 days at the most.
2.  No more public shows.  Whichever candidate wants to talk to their electorate can go on their own and meet them privately USING THEIR OWN PERSONAL FUNDS.  The public does not need a spectacle of the charade of concern of the public which rears its head once every 5 years.  We’d rather see evidence of all the progress that has taken place.  It is ridiculous how much money gets wasted in all these ostentatious spectacles going under the name of roadshows and rallies.  One more way to prevent unnecessary violence and destruction of private and public property.
3.   MOST IMPORTANTLY, we the people need to know what the POLITICAL AGENDA VIS A VIS DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMY is.  WE DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU THINK OF THE OTHER PARTY OR CANDIDATE.  Put an end to this shameful name-calling, abuse and slew of extremely personal attacks on individual candidates.  WE DO NOT CARE WHAT SOMEONE EATS, OR DOES IN THEIR PERSONAL LIVES.
4.  If you have the gumption, dare to end all this case based, religion based politics and concentrate solely on growth and progress of the nation and ALL citizens.  STOP THIS POLITICS OF APPEASEMENT.
5.  Talk of your achievements – party’s as well as individual – during the past five years and what you plan to do during the coming 5 years if elected to power.
6. As for the media, I hope they search their collective conscience deep and long and restrict themselves to doing their jobs i.e. reporting facts OBJECTIVELY without allowing their personal opinions to colour any of the reportage.

I do hope we Indians do not have to see such phenomenal waste of money and such lack of civility in the name of elections ever again.

Proud to be Indian. Are we really patriotic?

Proud to beIndian. This was the sentiment echoed in the comments that followed this clip on FB.  We are proud of our educational system. No reason why we should not be.  But just think, how many times do we keep saying this, nay shouting it from the roof tops? We are a patriotic lot. Are we? Are we really all that patriotic in the truest sense of the word? How much do we do for our country?

We never stop harping on all the glories of our past, we don’t stop talking of our golden heritage, all the Aryabhats and Ramanujams we produced. We had the world’s first aircrafts ……  But what are we doing NOW? Almost everything the world knows now, we claim we knew centuries ago. So where is all that knowledge today? Why are we not world leaders? Why are we content with being followers?

We are proud of the number of IITians and IIM graduates we churn out and the number of them who make it big in the outside world – read the U S of A. Do we ever stop to ask ourselves “why are so many of them – generations of these graduates – opting to go off to distant shores? What is it that drives them to go away from the country that gave them this education in the first place? Greed? Lack of opportunities”?

Easy to point a finger at them and say they are greedy and want to run after money, they don’t have any gratitude for the motherland which made them what they are. But what about our other four fingers which are pointing back at us? As tax payers we fuel in money into the governmental kitty to fund these institutions. As parents we sweat day and night to support our off spring while they work hard and to ensure that they make the grade to get into these world class institutions. We goad them on to go off to foreign shores – for two reasons:

• The desire to see them realize their fullest potential in their careers
• Personal gratification and the opportunity to boast about our kids to society

Let us leave out the second reason and its ramifications for another post, another day. Let us just concentrate on the first reason. Why should they have to seek better opportunities abroad? Why don’t they have the best opportunities here in our country? Is there a lack of money? I doubt it. If we think of the amount of money that gets diverted into the personal kitties and overseas bank accounts of politicians and other financial scams, if we think of the fact that we have enough money to launch spacecrafts, do we not have sufficient money to do something here at ground level to ensure that our youngsters stay in our country and contribute to our growth? Yes, the ones who are abroad eventually might invest some money in our country, but what about the rest? What we are reaping is just a fraction of what we sow. Does this make sense?

So why is this the way it is? Lack of political will? Corruption in high places? Lack of far-sighted policies? Policies that throttle the opportunities of capable men and women from getting well-deserved posts in governmental jobs – policies such as reservation of posts based on considerations such as caste and gender? Family contacts, political contacts, bureaucracy, caste considerations, gender considerations being the primary considerations in allotment of jobs?

And then we shout out from the roof tops that we are proud to be Indian. That is not true patriotism. “Do not ask what your country does for you, ask what you can do for your country”. True, provided there were not so many goons out there parading as politicians who controlled my ability to do a lot more for my country than I presently can.

As of now I can say, yes, I am proud to belong to a country and a race which has so much of brain power. I am proud to belong to a race that has individuals like a Narayan Murthy, a Kiran Mazumdar Shah, an Azim Premji among many others. I am proud to belong to a race that produces individuals from the most ordinary backgrounds who beat all odds to rise above their circumstances and limitations to make it big. But NO, I am not proud to belong to a country that ranks high in a list of the most corrupt countries of the world, sends up satellites but does not have decent sanitation in many places, does not have sufficient health care for its poor, does not provide sufficient job opportunities to cater to that section of its population who are highly skilled and highly educated and whose literacy rates are still phenomenally low. ‘

Yes, we have a lot going for us, but it is of no use if we don’t learn to harness all the skills that our country produces more productively and if we don’t do more for our people and provide a better quality of life for everyone. It does not suffice to just say we are proud to be Indian. We have to prove it through our deeds.