Manmohan Singh is a sure bet? Or, other names?

In the Opposition ranks loom L.K.Advani and in the  third front Mayawati, Mulayam Singh or even Chandrababu Naidu?

There is one difference this time, that is, on the eve of the next general elections. That is the most mysterious silence on the part of  everyone in the Congress on the next Prime Ministerial candidate!

Will Manmohan Singh be the obvious choice? Very unlikely.
Given the current groupings within the Congress, those who  seem to be close to Sonia Gandhi or others who might not be so close but they will also play a role. Men like Arjun Singh and persons like him are known party intriguers.

There are circles within circles within the party.
Every other Sonia Loyalist is a known sychopant, so everyone would push for the name of Rahul Gandhi, in the hope of positioning  themselves firmly within the power structure.
And yet, the outcome of the election results is anybody’s guess.
For one thing, the current incumbent of the South Block is extremely shrewd and he wont let go his opportunities.

So, he might upstage all his potential rivals in singing the praise of Rahul Gandhi or the virtues of the Madam with the fervent hope that such gesticulations would pay dividends.

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A whole nation wakes up to realise its new status!
Let us reform our education belief system, so that we can create millions of aspiring young minds!

Yes, the 24-year young man’s win is India’s great moment of triumph!
The Beijing Olympic Games  was held for the first time outside Europe, the West. So, the whole of the world, including the West, UK, in particular saw the Beijing Olympic as a test for the East vs. the West.

In a way, the entire world  press too saw the Games  from nationalist points of view only. The UK tested the Chinese capacity to stage the greatest show on the earth. How the Chinese organised 15,000 strong people to conduct the opening ceremony  in a military drill fashion.
The Indian people, if not the press, didn’t fail to notice that we couldn’t even organise our 57-strong contingent in time, it was said. Even the costumes for the marchers  were found to be not in style. Our contingent, led by Rathore, the Athens Silver medalist, a bit tiresome and everyone was commenting why the DD only dewed Sonia Gandhi cheering the Indian rallists. Why didn’t the Indian government send our own stars like P.T.Usha and others at least for the sake of giving aboost to our rally?

So, from day one India looked despondent and utterly crushed for lack of past track record.
So, when Bindra, the young man won the gold here was India emerging from the shadow of a non-entity to a nation to be watched from now onwards.

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What an irony of an Independence Day speech!
Chairs empty! L.K.Advani, the Prime Ministerial candidate and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha was seen yawning!

The Red Fort speech of the incumbent Prime Minister is always an occasion for celebration and also a momentous time to reflect and seriously ponder over the state of our nation. It is stock taking time, in a more dignified sense.

The speech of that day is always made by the individual who makes it.

Of course, every one of us can’t aspire to be Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru!  Nor aspire to infuse that supreme quiet confidence exuded by a Lal Bahadur Shastri.

One doesn’t know whether Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh was ever either inspired by Nehru or by Shastri. He never told us.

Nor do we know the workings of the mind of Dr.Singh. He also doesn’t let anyone of us, the ordinary citizen mortals ever know!

What we know for sure seems to be the typical Dr.Singh. Low key, low demeanour, of course very utterly emotionless routine man, the archetypal bureaucratic- minded person who he is.
This is not a disadvantage. But surely for a country of the size and stature of India, a country that is poised to move forward and to be compared and contrasted with China, this is a positive disadvantage!

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We will show leadership to the world?
Is only India talking the nuclear truth? Other nations, less than perfect?

Can the Indian people trust only Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukerjee?
What are the Prime Minister’s true beliefs on the nuclear deal?

Yes, India seems to be pretending a lot. We seem to be innocent and at the same time very smart! That is what both the PM and his long-time colleague in the Cabinet, the foreign minister, both together seem to give the impression to the country.

What is the credibility of these two gentlemen?
Someone should ask them like this!
If  the 23PM  doesn’t help to clear the many doubts or helps to instill confidence in his moves on nuclear deal, then, his  regime might prove to be less than truthful in  the running of the government.

Democratic governments win on public trust. More than the trust votes. More so in the case of the Manmohan Singh government.

This government is not centered on any one’s clear leadership. More so, when it comes to the deal like the highly technical and also highly controversial (even within the international community) deal.

And when it comes to Dr.Singh’s leadership, it is less than a typical democratic leadership. He doesn’t enjoy the confidence of the country at large, he might be a good man, a humble self and yet he derives his authority not from the people but because of Sonia Gandhi’s peculiar predicaments!

So, more than ever, the Prime Minister has a bounden duty to educate and explain to the people and must win the trust of the country at large.
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What use the study of Indian history?
Dr.Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Dr.Romila Thapar
Prof.Irfan Habib
Prof.M.G.S.Narayanan
Prof.Suvira Jaiswal

I have just noted down some of the names of the eminent historians now writing in India. This I do for the simple reason that many of the readers of this magazine might not have heard of their names. I have read and still continue to read them whenever I want to seek some clarification of some details on some aspect or some points in Indian history.

Here I like to limit myself to certain few points on which an average Indian reader might seek some clarification or some overview of India’s history.

As far as I am concerned, the important point in Indian history writing or for that matter how reading or writing of Indian history might help us, as individuals or as citizens or as a country as a whole is what is the approach to write or study history.

Even the latest book by Upinder Singh(A History Ancient  and Early Medieval, From Stone Age to the 12th Century), historian and daughter of  the Prime Minister all, as far as I know, don’t ask any of the questions people like me, the very generalists as against the specialists might be asking.

My questions are: what use writing history unless you really don’t have anything new to say on how the present Indian would be impacted by your new specialist knowledge in history?

So, I have come to a stage in life when I like to share what agitates my mind. I was recently in Delhi and had taken some time off to go around and see the old Mughal monuments, Qutb Minar complex, Fatehpur Sikri, of course, Agra and Taj Mahal and the Delhi monuments, from Red Fort to Humayun’s Tomb etc.

As I was moving through the monuments where in their complex lie hundreds of tombs and they all evoked a sense of the past and the lives that had gone by.
Will India ever remain a one country?

There have been repeated attacks and wars and I just now read through the pages of Sir Jadunath Sarkar’s ‘Military History of India”. The 21 chapters made me saddened me greatly and I fell silent at many places when I read through the pages.

Then, I recalled the observations made by Prof.Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s lecture at the Bombay University Kosambi Birth Centenary Address.

Will India remain a Civilization? Was it always a one Civilization? Was it always one country? One nation?

Such questions were not raised by the learned  professor, except he recalls Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj writing where he, the Mahatma asks: Indian civilization for Gandhi was something he saw as based not on material civilization as in the West and in India it was, as according to Gandhi, based on something like  a spiritual basis. Though it is not made clear in the professor’s lecture.

I am, to say the obvious at the very beginning, a bit tired of this uncritical way of using some expressions and some words.

First, the very word, the very expression and the conception of civilization.
Yes, Arnold Toynbee has asked this question and he himself had given some explanations. The rise and fall of civilizations as cycles of rice and fall.

This view was of course contested by professional historians and they did this kind of thing when I was a student Oxford. The galaxy of historians in my time, A.J.P.Taylor and Hugh Trevor Roper and many others were doing this. Even I suspect Sir Isaiah Berlin and E.H.Carr were subscribing to this scpeticism. They had their own reasons.

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A rare moment of triumph for India’s democracy!
A rare assertion of Indian patriotism!
A vote for India’s unity of spirit and resolve!

A demonstration of the collective consciousness of the people
Cutting across regions and religions and over-coming the many divisions and small-mindedness of small-time politicians and the conspirators!

Who gains and who loses?
What gains and what losses?

The USA, the world’ most powerful democracy, is moving closer to the world’s largest democracy, India. The world is sure to sit up and take note of India’s many strengths and its potential for a more stable world.

The July 22 trust vote saw the standing of the Prime Minister soar high. He became, as many tend to say, a man of his own and a man in his own right. The trust vote certainly gave Dr.Singh an aura of some new stature which he was lacking before the vote. The PM was, as he himself admitted, a bonded labour at least in the hands of the Left allies and after the vote he had not only become stronger, he also became a far more a man of his own at least he can be expected to express more clearly what his own thinking is on many of the crucial political and economic issues are for the party and the government in the days ahead.

So, there are very clear gains for Dr.Singh and for the Congress party and also in a sense for the many players who in the months before the next general elections might expect to firm up their own political goals and targets..

The real winner and the real gainer in this new situation are ,one can see. Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh. They have become not only a bi freer, the cases against Mulayam Singh would go now and also they would get their electoral alliance in  UP  with the Congress firmed up. What remains to be seen is the hard bargaining the Samajwadi Party might make against the Congress hopes for a better deal.

This is unlikely to come ,given the UP political arithmetic is firmly staked against the Congress getting an upper hand  in the foreseeable future.

So, who would control the maximum number of MPs from the politically crucial state? More likely, it is Mayawati and then followed by Samajwadi party. The BJP already weak and  the Congress weakened further by the new alliance.
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Unprincipled opportunists, all?
Opportunistic Communists to prop up Mayawati as the next Prime Ministerial candidate!

Yes, it looks like an open season for the unprincipled politicians of India. Even the veterans, the former Prime Minister and the CPI veterans are forgetting that history won’t forgive and forget!

They are expected to show the right path, the right means, and their own articulations of what is their stand on the Indo-nuclear deal. They haven’t cared for doing their duties. All they care for is jobs for their sons and if possible for themselves as ministers or at best as power-brokers.

So, the Indian people would get the opportunity how the prospects of power change men and their colours.

Where is L.K.Advani, the BJP’s own candidate for the next Prime Ministership? He is intriguely silent. So too the other talking heroes and heroines of the BJP!
One thought that Mr.Jaswant Singh, the sauve face of BJP would articulate the Indo-US nuclear deal, the original author of the Indo-US dialogue. He is also surprisingly speechless!

What sorts of political parties and their leaders!
What Prakash Karat has and Deve Gowda doesn’t!
What Sibhu Soren wants and Ajit Singh doesn’t?

Sometimes even coalition governments need the no-confidence motions!
Only on such occasions, we or the people do find out the sorts of political parties we have and the types of leaders and their mentalities in the working of our political system. Why blame democracy or the Constitution?
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Subject the ICAR to social adutdit!
By farmers bodies!
Even high ceremonial speeches must shed cliches
and get to the more earthy and ground level realities!

There was this ceremony to lay the foundation stone for the ICAR auditorium in the name of C.Subramaniam. And another to commemorate Annasheb P.Shinde, the two who presided over the Krisih Bhavan and did much good work that saw the Green Revolution to change Indian’s agriculture. All this is well-said, many times before.
The point we want to highlight here is the sort of speeches we have come to hear on such occasions. More so, when it comes to agriculture, we see still a sort of tendency and even plain ignorance and even sheer callousness towards the reality and even speaking the truth.

We live no more in times where people would take our public speeches and more so, our public postures especially when it comes from high Constitutional office holders any more seriously.

This is very critical a time when people are taken for rides by ruthless operators whose another name is politicians!

We see the high Constitutional office holders are no more inspiring the people and we see the holders of such high offices also don’t live up to the expectations of the people.
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Amjad Ali Khan says
Every state capital in India should have a cultural complex
Like London’s South bank Centre or Carnegie Hall, New York

One can’t say it any better! One can’t excel also the Western countries when it comes to culture and what it means culture promotion. Amjad Ali Khan is a great Indian musician, a great sword player with an illustrious leneage. Perhaps, he is only next to the great Ravi Sankar and the other great Kahan, son of the legendary Alaudin Khan of the Maihar gharna.

Only those who have listened in a sustained manner to the strings of the Sitar and Sarod could appreciate the greatness of these two streams, of course the vocal music of the Hindustani is another unbeatable genre.

India is home to these great traditions, both the Hindustan and Carnatic music streams have evolved in their own two distinct manner.

I would divide the history and evolution of the Indian music as that what we had before independence and what we have after independence. Even here, it is very useful to take note of the recent developments, just after we have been witnessing the globalisation spin-offs in the culture field, in the music in particular.

There is so much music traffic from the West and so too in a way from the East, from India to the West. Now, we hear too many times the music celebrations in Celeaveland, USA, than from Indian cities! So too the music masters, from rock to what have you, the classical musicians and instrumentalists are travelling from the West to perform in India.

Bangalore for instance is witnessing a new trend in presenting these many streams in an increasing manner.
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Mr.Arjun Singh, the HRD minister, in his position for the second time. A two-term HRD minister must be seen as a man with a vision and a mission.

The minister doesn’t display both these assets.

All we can hope to remember about the minister is his penchant for playing his card as a pro-Marxist minister. That is why we heard for some time his obsession with the “detoxification” of the BJP-written Hindutva distortations in the school textbooks. Unfortunately for Mr.Arjun Singh, he is now presented with a new distortion of history as demonstrated by the Kerala government’s newly distorted history text books. The  Kerala social science textbook is a great shame for Kerala’s otherwise highly skilled writers! The textbook in Malayalam itself came for severe criticism by educators. Ksert’s English version, it is said, to have altered Nehru’s own will in butler English! The English version, as presented by Kerala education minister, M.A.Baby is full of “howlers, worse than the original, Pidgin English, malapropisms and would have shamed Sheridan, the great writer whose masterpieces are quoted for these original jokes. Even A.K.Gopalan, the spiritual ancestor of these new-fangled rich Communists! His own autobiography is badly written in English. Etc, etc.

Now, Arjun Singh finds himself totally clueless when it comes to the emerging trends in higher education.

Gross commercialisation of higher education. Most private sector engineering, medical and other para-technical and medical training schools are plain cash cows! No standards, no infrastructure and the persons engaged in this trade are highly unqualified.

Now, Mr.Arjun Singh had come to Bangalore and had participated at a “private university”s function. Her he had spoken about the indispensability of such institutions.

Very soon, foreign private universities are going to set shops here. So too private sector in the country too investing in new university-like institutions. Already the so-called deemed to be universities are mushrooming. The deemed status is not for upgrading faculty or infrastructure for world class institutions. For the simple common-sense reason of milking dry the helpless parents and students for a ride! Yes, it is as simple as that!

The HRD minister has some powers to regulate the universities. But from seeing what he has done in the last four and a half years, he has only given to the pressure from the bureaucracy. The HRD bureaucrats neatly carved out a domain for themselves in the name of another university for education research. If the NCERT also turns itself into a university, no one should be surprised. The UGC has no clear role in the current environment. It has not enough funds, so the UGC doesn’t do any of its mandated jobs. Neither enough funds for all the universities nor any power to control and regulate the university standards.
In some of the reputed universities, we have visited, Visva Bharat in the North and Gandhigram rural university in the South, you cant have any more a badly run and badly motivated universities in the country!
One is headed as the chancellor by the Prime Minister. The other is headed by the Vice-President!
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