TV presenter rebuked a protestor for questioning democracy, her answer will make you sit and think!

Yes, we question this democracy. We question this democracy because it fails to support popular sovereignty: the markets impose decisions for their own benefit and the parties in Parliament are not standing up to this global fact. Neither in our country nor in the European Parliament are they fighting to put an end to financial speculation, whether in currency or in sovereign debt. We question this democracy because the parties in power do not look out for the collective good, but for the good of the rich. Because they understand growth as the growth of businessmen’s profits, not the growth of social justice, redistribution, public services, access to housing and other necessities. Because the parties in power are concerned only for their own continuation in office, making deals to stay in power and leaving their electoral program unfulfilled. Because no politician has to live with what they legislate for their ‘subjects’: insecurity, mortgage debt and uncertainty. We question this democracy because it colludes in corruption, allowing politicians to hold a private post at the same time as public office, to profit from privileged information, to step into jobs as business advisers after leaving office, making it very profitable to be a politician.

We question this democracy because it consists in an absolute delegation of decision-making into the hands of politicians that are nominated in closed lists and to whom we have no access of any kind. Nor is there any proportionality between votes and seats. We question this democracy because it is absurd that the only way to ‘punish’ a party is to vote for another one with which one does not agree. We question this democracy because the parties in power do not even comply with the social provisions of the Constitution: justice is not applied equally, there are no decent jobs nor housing for all, foreign-born workers are not treated as citizens. Excuses are not good enough for us. We do not want to choose between really existing democracy and the dictatorships of the past. We want a different life. Real democracy now!

Response from an indignada in Puerta del Sol to a TV presenter who told protesters ‘do not question democracy’ and apologies for the 'click bait' title.

Delhi's Odd Even Plan - What did we achieve?

Last two winters, the political atmosphere in Delhi has been the focus of the country. This winter, for every right reason, the pollution in atmosphere (NOT metaphoric pollution, thankfully) has been the focus of attention. Delhi saw fifteen days of odd-even rule and it is time we should honestly assess its impact during this period. As mentioned in my previous blog-post, I had been tracking the air pollution levels using open data available at various monitoring stations in Delhi for more than a month. The objective was to understand how much reduction in Particulate Matter (PM) pollution would we see if almost half of Delhi's private-owned-four-wheel-vehicles are removed from the road. 

I appreciate the maturity and civic sense by which most of Delhi accepted this personal inconvenience, which had most definitely reduced traffic on road, resulting in substantial reduction of commuting time and improving response time of ambulances throughout the city. Beyond this, it is very unfortunate that I find no conclusive evidence that removing half of private-owned-four-wheel-vehicles will help control air pollution in this city at all. I had mentioned earlier that PM pollution rose during the first three days against all anticipation, but within few days there was a decrease and today PM2.5 levels are 19% lower than what it was on 3rd January while the PM10 levels have reduced by 40%. This can be seen from graphs of PM2.5 and PM10 levels plotted below.

Fig. 1: Comparison of PM2.5 AQI measured at various monitoring stations in Delhi with Wind Velocities and Relative Humidity

Fig. 2: Comparison of PM10 AQI measured at various monitoring stations in Delhi with Wind Velocities and Relative Humidity

Obviously, today air pollution is better than 3rd January, but the reason of my disappointment can be articulated by following two observations:

1. PM levels are still more than acceptable levels, keeping Delhi in the category of one of the worst polluted cities, if not worst. This means, the air in Delhi is still "hazardous" for anyone living in this city.
2. Overall reduction in air pollution seem to be due to weather and have no impact of reducing private-owned-four-wheel-vehicles.

I make the above conclusion based on observed AQI levels in Delhi. A definite trend is observed between PM concentration and wind velocities in the city. PM10 concentration across the city reduces by 60%-70% on days when wind velocities reach 8 Km/h to 11 Km/h. The effect of wind velocities on PM2.5 is not exactly same as the rate of reduction in PM2.5 concentration is less than half when compared with PM10, however I can conclude that a trend is also observed here. A careful analysis of relative humidity on non-windy days in Delhi presents a positive correlation of PM pollution in air with humidity in air. On days with high relative humidity, the air pollution observed is higher and vice versa.

With this in mind, when you look at the AQI levels during the first week of odd-even rule, a definite increase in air pollution is observed. On 8th January, the PM2.5 levels are second worst since 23rd December 2015 while PM10 levels reached its worst levels during the same period. These observations does not present any correlation with reduction in private-owned-four-wheel-vehicles with air pollution of PM. As mentioned before, I do acknowledge the achievement of odd-even rule in reducing traffic congestion but it will be wrong & ignorant to attribute the reduction in pollution that we observe on 15th-16th January to the odd-even rule.

Today we are at the same place where we were a month ago regarding the air pollution in Delhi. Apart from Odd-Even rule, I have not seen any initiative by state or central government to reduce the emission of PM in atmosphere that is still not on paper. It will not be wrong to say that odd-even rule has failed to serve its purpose but we do not have time to eulogize this failure. We must be proactive in finding solutions and the first thing we must honestly do is to acknowledge that this is not a easy problem to solve. Most countries are facing the threats of rising pollution. Cities in developed countries like London & Milan are facing similar concerns of rising pollution with more or less similar failures to control it.

Delhi and Beijing are world's most polluted mega cities and this is why we assume this to be a developing world problem but the scale of impact is global. It is therefore important for us to characterize and understand the cause of PM pollution to much greater detail. A lot of scientific studies are already available, including those in India, specifically addressing the air pollution in Indian metros. We must use these findings as guidelines to build comprehensive framework for hydrocarbon based fuel burning to address this issue of air pollution.

Most of these studies indicate that implementation of any one strategy like odd-even rule will not be able to achieve significant reduction. With regards to pollution in Delhi, the data indicate that we have already implemented measures like introduction of higher emission standards of almost all vehicles including 2 wheelers and 3 wheelers, introduction of CNG for 3 Wheelers, taxis and buses, regulating sulfur content in diesel, ban on more than 8 years old buses, etc. in Delhi during last 15 years. With more than 200 Kms long metro rail service, Delhi is also placed as a city with one of the most viable public transport in the country. So, it will not be honest to blame past Governments for today's situation.

With all this in mind, to get further incremental reductions, the efforts required
would be much more than banning half of privately owned vehicles for a fortnight.

Some old studies point that transportation is responsible for 26% PM2.5 emission in the city. Of all the transport on road, share of four wheelers is 10% and reducing half of these vehicles will only present reduction of 1.3% of total emission in Delhi, if I dare to apply linear extrapolation. This definitely is not adequate response for the kind of crisis this city is facing today!

Thanks to wind, today the pollution in Delhi is even lower than what it was on 15th January. I will be discussing further on my findings about control options and studies done on Particulate Pollution in India soon. Till then, breathe easy Delhi.

Delhi's Odd Even Plan - A Review of First Three Days

I started tracking the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi from the day odd-even plan was proposed by the Delhi Government. As usual, like everything else in India, this programme have become a show of political one-upmanship, where your wish for success of the plan is based on the political party that you support. This, I think is the second biggest tragedy of today but let me just focus on the first! How bad the situation in Delhi can be understood by noticing current AQI with respect to warning given by health agencies in India, which is illustrated in figure below:

Until today, I was hopeful that this may just be the solution but as I analyse the Particulate Matter (PM) concentration across Delhi my disappointment grows graver.  As I see it, if the trend continues this failure is not of the government or the odd-even plan but of the city of Delhi to gauge the seriousness of this situation and come up with much more comprehensive action plan.

All data has been taken from website managed by System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR). The website provides data for pollutants like PM2.5, PM10, CO, NO2 and Ozone on a given day. As CO, NO2 and Ozone are not the major concern in Delhi, the focus of this data collection has only been on PM2.5 & PM10. 

I couldn't find a comprehensive study on latest source of pollution. However, newspapers have been citing studies conducted by Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur but I doubt the applicability of this data on present situation which seem to have worsened in last three years. I couldn't even find a comprehensive data & categorization about number of automobiles running on roads of Delhi on a given day. Without understanding the source of particulate pollution, I have only tracked the PM2.5 and PM10 concentration at various monitoring stations spread across NCR for last 15 days. 

One factor that may have important role on the air pollution is wind velocities in the city. For this reason, I have also been tracking the wind velocities from monitoring station located at Safdarjung Airport. The wind velocities are not localized to pollution monitoring stations but they indicate whether the corresponding day can be termed windy or calm in Delhi. However, this is not an academic exercise but just an educational activity to gauge the impact of a Government plan at my personal capacity.

With all these limitation in data collection, three obvious observations can be made about air pollution in Delhi from data gathered so far:

1. The Odd Even Plan have had absolutely no impact on air pollution in Delhi  (The vertical blue line in the graphs shows the day from when Odd Even Plan is implemented across the city).
2. The windy days (Notice the AQI levels around Christmas Day) are better and results in lower pollution in City.
3. PM2.5 and PM10 have exactly similar trend with respect to wind velocities in the city.

 Figure 1: PM2.5 Concentration at Various Monitoring Stations across NCR

 Figure 1: PM2.5 Concentration at Various Monitoring Stations across NCR

It will be premature to make any conclusion about the odd-even plan but we must be honest about impact of these plans and increase the intensity & applicability of such measures till we know that we can control the issue by reducing vehicles on the road only. I will continue to monitor AQI for atleast 15-20 days from today with a hope that things might improve in coming days with either own conscious efforts or winds from north-west.

Reports in newspaper show that vehicles on road on first two days of this year has been significantly lower. However, these data show that the concentration of particulate matter has increased on average by 9-11% in New Delhi, South Delhi, Noida & Gurgaon while it has reduced in Northern Delhi by almost the same amount with significant reduction of almost 15% observed in Pusa & Pitampura areas. Still, it will be wrong to conclude that odd-even policy will be sufficient to address the air pollution in Delhi.

From Vaimanik Shashtra to Ramzaada to Hawaizaada, We as a Nation Don't Fly up but Fall Down!

Exactly forty years ago, scholars from Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering Department of Indian Institute of Science (I.I.Sc), critically studied the texts "rediscovered" by Pandit Subbaraya Shastry called "Vaimanik Shashtra" and refuted its claims. It is claimed that the text has Vedic origin, dating as far as mythical sage Bharadwaj. Even after refutation of these ideas by credible Indian scholars, today we are still discussing merit of this nonsense. 

The way medieval Hindutva jingoists are gaining more and more space in public, academic and institutional discourse, I fear that the future is not far, as envisioned in the movie Interstellar... no no... Not that wormhole and travel to blackhole mumbo jumbo but the scene where the future American educational curriculum teaches that the Apollo missions were faked in order to bankrupt the Soviet Union and this information is being taught as "truth." Should we teach children to grow up with superstitions even when strong contrary evidence exist? Isn't there an objective limit to common arguments like, "everything is relative" & "everything is possible"?

I will point at three significant events which has brought back the unnecessary debate to public life and now even in institutions.

1. The Usual Jokers - Ramdev Baba & Co.

In India, there is a group of people who would believe and defend anything that comes from a Baba who claim monopoly over Hinduism. They don't need scientific evidence but they intentionally and regularly try and enforce the idea that ancient Vedic Indians had better knowledge of nature and universe than science of today. They also intend to systematically convert people into apes by giving up scientific temper and zeal to honestly and sincerely investigate the universe.

Outspoken Ramdev Baba is glowing example to the case in point. I first came across his claim when a friend of mine, who also happens to be an engineer, retweeted the following tweet

The tweet claims that airplane was first invented by an Indian named "Shivkar Bapuji Talpade" and not Wright Brothers. It also claims that the schools have been teaching wrong information to the kids. The validation of the claim is based on the statement that this invention is based on a Vedic treatise written by the mythical sage Bharadwaja. A mature 32 year old male re-tweeted this claim, another person that I know and many more like him, liked it on Facebook. Such tweets were also tweeted & re-tweeted by many other Virat Hindutva organizations and their followers. But why should I be bothered as long as it is on social network? After all who takes social network seriously?

2. Ill-informed Bollywood

Recently, an upcoming Bollywood movie called "Hawaizaada" has been making waves on social network sites. It might not be ethical for me to review a movie just based on trailer but who better than Bollywood can appreciate futility of ethics? Here is the promo of the movie: 

The movie is inspired by true events and claims that eight years before Wright Brothers flew their aircraft over the beach in Kitty Hawk, an [with HUGE emphasis] INDIAN man named "Shivkar Bapuji Talpade" had already achieved this feat. In the start of the promo, the protagonist in the movie is assisted by an older looking fellow played by Mithun Chakrabarthy, who I presume is playing the role of Pandit Subbaraya Shastry. Also, you can see the protagonist scrolling through a booklet which has designs very similar the one presented in the paper above. But in the very next scene you see a biplane which does not look anything like designs in the booklet or Wright Flyer but seems to be based on the advanced designs of biplanes used in World War I. 

Close scrutiny of Vaimanik Shashtra will not provide you with a design which resembles anything like modern aircraft let alone Wright Flyer. Though some of these designs seems to be poor copy of Zeppelin which existed before 1895, whose working principle has little similarity with aircraft. There are certain scenes where the protagonist flies with wings attached to his body but I am not criticizing it yet, because it could be a dream sequence and no matter how insane Bollywood can get, it cannot assume its audience to be this foolish!

Finally, the movie which is scheduled to be released on republic day, seems to indicate that the reason why Indians are unaware of the this historic achievement is because the British were jealous and out of their jealousy suppressed the news where an Indian flew a machine before anyone else. These days you can link any imagination with cries of Vandemataram and prove its authenticity and the movie doesn't hesitate to use the same formula. 

Bollywood apologists will laugh at this diatribe and mock me for taking a Bollywood movie, which claims to be inspired from actual events, seriously. But I wish to raise few ethical issues! As Indians of enlightened world, is it alright for us to falsely take away credit from people who had achieved one of the greatest and grandest milestones of our modern civilization and give it to someone just because they happen to be Indian? Is Indian heritage so fragile that we have to prove myths as reality to save it? Is it ethical for a movie to attribute its inspiration to true event when every evidence says, "Dr. Talpade (of Bombay) tried to make models under the guidance of Shastriji, but he was not successful in making any of them fly." [Ref the IISc paper above] 

Well, if you don't see the point of ethics in a Bollywood movie then enjoy the video where Wright Brothers fly! 

3. Unusual Suspect - Indian Science Congress

Recently, I heard about a scientific paper presented in Indian Science Congress which showed that India was a pioneer in aviation and used the Vaimanik Shashtra as its reference. 

I do not understand how this paper got space in Indian Science Congress but I wonder if this is the beginning where urban myths are going to find space in scientific conferences just because it nourishes the widespread prejudice that Vedic Indians had already discovered and invented everything that could ever be known. If you know something that no one knows, then instead or making claims why don't you take up the designs presented in Vaimanik Shashtra and build similar aircraft and make it fly using the same principles presented? 

Talking about making the Vedic aircraft fly, do have a look at the pictorial representation of these Vimanas.

The scientific opinion by the I.I.Sc scholars, which considers the basic laws of motion and aerodynamics to evaluate these designs makes following comments in their document. 

• It must be pointed out here that the essential idea of flying like a bird has been tried by many people (abroad) over several centuries right from the time of Leonardo da Vinci, but without any success whatever. Hence the feasibility of a craft of the above type is a near impossibility. Furthermore, the author - whoever he be – shows a complete lack of understanding of the dynamics of the flight of heavier ‐ than ‐ air craft.

• Any reader by now would have concluded the obvious – that the planes described above are the best poor concoctions, rather than expressions of something real.

• None of the planes has properties or capabilities of being flown; the geometries are unimaginably horrendous from the point of view of flying; and the principles of propulsion make them resist rather than assist flying.

• ...the text retains a structure in language and content from which its 'recent nature' cannot be asserted. We must hasten to point out that this does not imply an oriental nature of the text at all.

• All that may be said is that thematically the drawings ought to be ruled out of discussion. And the text, as it stands, is incomplete and ambiguous by itself and incorrect at many places.

• Looking into drawings and the text leads one to conclude that air is sucked from the bottom, and hot gases are allowed to exhaust through pipes toward the top. And this is expected to produce force to life the plane up a statement which is a gross violation of Newton’s laws. It may be mentioned that there are verses which imply such violations clearly: [Translation]  “..........The fast movement of the plane takes place in the same direction in which the jet gets out of shundala..”

I hope it is evident from the comments that there is a limit to which you can justify everything as possible. You can believe whatever you want as you have this right to it, but just because you believe in something it does not necessarily become truth! Citing Bertrand Russell, if I claim that a teapot revolves around the sun in a fixed orbit just like Earth, then the burden of proof lies on me to prove my claim and unless I prove this claim there is nothing "TRUE" about my utterances. 

As Indians, it is one of our fundamental duties to develop scientific temper.  And the way we develop scientific temper in our society is by not giving credence to myths which has no reproducible and logical basis! 

By making claims like these and letting it stay in public and academic discourse, we are doing great disservice to the idea of this country and not otherwise. Finally, for the supporters of these regressive ideas, I would like to quote Samuel Rowbotham who 200 years after Galileo believed that Earth is flat.

Quixotism is a folly when the energy which might have achieved conquests over misery and wrong, if rightly applied, is wasted in fighting windmills

If he can have scientific outlook irrespective of his belief, then you have no excuse! 

"Mandodari was an American Princess" - I Can Make Better Bullsh*t than Subramanian Swamy

Yesterday, Dr. Subramanian Swamy was in news for several wrong (or right?) reasons, and one of them included his statement that "Ravana was a dalit from Ghaziabad." He went on to say,  as quoted in ToI:

...demon king Ravana and his wife Mandodari were dalits from UP. He (Dr. Swamy) said that Ravana was born at Basrakh near Ghaziabad while Mandodari was from Meerut region. After being blessed by Lord Shiva, Ravana dethroned Kuber to capture power in Lanka.

I am quite surprised at the shortsightedness of Dr. Swamy. He failed to capitalize on the opportunity to point out the conspiracy by "pseudo-secular" Marxist & imperialist historians of undermining great Hindu heritage by refusing to acknowledge that Virat Hindu religion extended beyond the borders of present day Indian Subcontinent and even beyond the continent of Asia. If someone, who is Brahmin enough, did research on Ramayana, they can easily come to conclusion that Mandodari came from Americas and not Meerut.

Mandodari was the daughter of Maya Daanav,  Maya Daanav was the king of Maya Nagari and where is Maya Nagari located? It is located in "Paatal lok" which is the underworld. The western historians will tell you that Vedic Hindus believed Paatal lok lies below Earth. But these western historians, with their negligible understanding of Hinduism, Sanskrit and recent i.e. post-Galilean understanding of spherical shape of Earth, couldn't guess that Vedic Hindus already knew that Earth was round. So when they talked about Paatal lok, they referred to the habitable land below present day India keeping in mind the spherical shape of Earth.

To make it easy for my readers, I would encourage them to perform the following thought experiment: take an Earth excavating machine and start digging anywhere on the mainland India. Go on digging till you reach other side of the planet. Which continent will you reach? .... EXACTLY!

Long before Columbus discovered America and Spain colonized America, there existed a mesoamerican civilization which built temples that had very similar trapezoidal shape that we find in architecture of Indian temple construction. They used very similar numerical and astronomical systems that of ancient Hindus (Useless Marxist historians attribute the similarity to simplistic explanation that Vedic Hindus and ancient Americans saw the same stars.) Further when you examine the temples of mesoamerican civilization, you will find very similar lotus motifs that exist in Vedic Hindu temples. The ancient festival called "Volador" celebrated in Mexico even today has similarities with the Indian festival "Pongal" and both these festivals are celebrated with similar purposes, i.e. "The people take part in this ceremony asking the gods for fertility and bountiful crops". The gods that these people of ancient American civilization worshiped also had many similarities with Gods that we worship in India. For example, one of their most revered Gods was called Quetzalcoatl who has many etymological, charismatic and characteristic similarities with Lord Krshna. One of them being the pronunciation of names of both these Gods start with Sanskrit alphabet "क" pronounced as /,ka:/. Last but definitely not the least, do you know what we call this civilization?

MAYA CIVILIZATION

 

Q.E.D!

Bhagat Singh's Opinions Against RSS Ideology & How Secularism is the Only Solution.

Bhagat Singh is arguably the most admired and talked about 'revolutionary nationalist' of our freedom struggle. In recent times, you may have seen banners of RSS and other 'Sanghi' parties carrying his pictures and name to give nationalist flavor to their Hinduism based ideology. It is ironical when you realize, just by scraping the surface of Indian history, that by being socialist and secular; Bhagat Singh was as far removed from RSS based ideologies as music from Yo Yo Honey Singh or science from astrology.

People who know me, may point out that I do not particularly agree with methods of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. But my respect for them is no less than other freedom fighters whose methods I readily agree. Here I feel the need to point out that I respect people for their sincerity to a cause and not how perfect they were as leaders. But I'll leave this debate for another day.

While we acknowledge the militant or 'revolutionary nationalism' of Bhagat Singh, we often tend to overlook his intellectual legacy. Maybe this is why we have let RSS and the far right to use Bhagat Singh's nationalism to give legitimacy to their ideology filled with communal hatred, bigotry and medieval thinking. People who assume that "Hindu nationalism" can also be a symbol of patriotism must realize that RSS never played any role during freedom struggle and for them, to be a patriot you just need to be born as a Hindu.

When I see portrayal of Bhagat Singh in movies like "Rang De Basanti", I get pained to see that he is ONLY projected as an emotional youth who is ready to not only die for the freedom of his country but even kill another man. This particular idea, which I find dangerous, is consciously propagated to hypnotize the youth of this country to make him participate in rage and dialogue which are often blatantly communal.

People must realize that Bhagat Singh was just not fighting for a free India from Britain, but he dreamt of an India which will be free from communal violence. He dreamt of an egalitarian society which is secular and this society will have the courage to rise against traditional ethos and religious bigotry. His scathing attack on newspaper shows the outreach of his vision for India and showed his disenchantment of conservative ideologies, which was spread through these newspapers and accused them of spreading chauvinism, sectarianism and communalising people’s minds leading to the destruction of our composite culture and shared heritage.

Below is the translation of Bhagat Singh's essay written in 1928, "साम्प्रदायिक दंगे और उनका इलाज" which, I believe, should be read by everyone who admires the man and his vision for India.

Communal Riots and their Solutions

The condition of India has now become pathetic. The followers of one religion have become bitter enemies of the followers of the other religion. The enmity between the people of religious groups have increased so much so, that to belong to one particular religion is reason enough for becoming enemy of the other religion. If someone has any doubts about the seriousness of the situation, they should look at the recent riots of Lahore. How Muslims killed innocent Hindus and Sikhs and how Sikhs have been unsparing in their killings. These mutual killings have not been resorted by the killers to award punishment to someone found guilty of some crime, but for the simple reason that someone was either Hindu, Sikh or Muslim. For Muslims, it has been enough to kill if someone was either Hindu or Sikh and likewise to be a Muslim was sufficient argument for him to be killed. In this situation, God alone knows what will happen to India.

Today India's future seem extremely bleak. These religions have screwed India and one does not know when India will be freed from these communal riots. These riots have shamed India at the world stage and we have seen that in the deluge of superstitions, everyone gets swept away. During these riots, hardly do you see examples of a Hindu, Muslim or a Sikh who keeps his head cool while the rest picks up rods, sticks, swords and knives to maintain their dominance and eventually kill each other in this pursuit of dominance. Then there are some who get hanged and others who are thrown in prison. After all this bloodshed, the English Government shines its rod on these "defenders of religion" which seem to cure their mental illness.

During these times, the role of communal leaders and newspapers have also been observed in instigating these riots. In these times of communal hatred, the leaders of India have decided to remain quiet. These are the same leaders who claim to pioneer the great responsibility of liberating the country and these are the very same leaders who had been talking about "common nationality" and had been vociferously demanding "Swaraj" (self-rule), and these are the same leaders who have decided to remain mum with their heads bowed down in shame. Some of them are even getting swayed by the rage of religious bigotry. There are many leaders who are hiding their faces during these times, but you can find numerous other leaders who have openly become communal. There are very few leaders who sincerely worry and think about everyone. Even these sincere leaders are unable to stop the strong influx of communality. It appears that Indian leadership have become completely bankrupt!

The other instrument of fomenting and inciting communal violence are the people writing for the newspapers. The profession of journalism was once considered to be respectable but today it is in a dirty mess. These people write against another community with big bold headlines which provoke the constant feeling of hatred and enmity among communities. It is not a stray accusation, one can look at numerous examples where communal riots have taken place as provocations from writings in these newspapers. There were very few reporters who could boast of a balanced poise in their minds and hearts during these turbulent times.

The real duty of the newspapers was to educate, to cleanse the minds of people, take them out of the rut of narrow sectarian grooves of thought and perception, and to wash and scrap out communal feelings in order to invest them with feelings of amity and communal harmony, to bridge the gap and build mutual trust, bring about real rapprochement for advancing the cause of "common nationalism" but they have been doing exactly opposite, leading to the division in the objective of "common nationalism". This is the very reason that makes me cry tears of blood when I think of present India and wonder "What will happen to India?"

During the time of Non-cooperation movement, the people who were known and respected for their zealousness have become pitiable. Where are those days when we glimpsed of independence right in-front of our eyes? And look at the times today where independence have again become a distant dream! This is the third and final benefit that these riots have given to its perpetrators! During the Non-cooperation days, the bureaucracy whose existence was under threat have now deepened its roots which has become unshakable in the present circumstances.

The root cause of communal violence is probably economic. During the time of non-cooperation movement, leaders and reporters made huge sacrifices for the cause of the movement. As a result of these sacrifices, their economic conditions deteriorated considerably. When non-cooperation movement lost its steam, people lost trust on its leaders, as many of the present "communal leaders" had become economically bankrupt. Whatever happens in the world, money can easily be traced as the reason for that event. This is one of the three key principles of Marxian theories. The rise of "Tablighi" and "Shudhi" organization can be attributed to this principle of Marx and this also happens to be the main reason why we have become so indescribably pathetic.

So, if there is any solution to communal riots, it can only be achieved through improvement of economic condition in India. Actually, the economic condition of a common man in India is so bad that anyone can give quarter of a rupee to other person and offend a third person. Struggling through hunger and suffering and given an option between do or die, people often keep their principles aside and why wouldn't they? But in present circumstances, changes in economic condition is extremely difficult because the government is foreign who is least interested in the betterment of economic conditions of people. This is the very reason why people should target and protest against the foreign government until this government changes.

To prevent people from fighting each other, "class consciousness" is the need of the day. The poor labourers and the farmers must be clearly taught that their real enemies are the capitalists. So, you should be careful of their tricks and should not follow them blindly. The poor of the world, regardless of race, colour, religion or nation have the same rights. Your well-being is in erasing the discrimination based on colour, creed, race, religion, regionalism and unite together to try and take the power of government into your hands. By trying so, you are not going to lose anything but one day your shackles will break freeing you from economic despondency.

Those who know about the history of Russia, will tell you that during the time of Tsar the situation there was quite similar with communities spreading lies against each other. But the day Bolsheviks came into power in Russia, their whole situation changed. Since then there have been no reports of riots from Russia. Now, every person is considered as human and they are not limited by their religion identities. During the time of Tsar, the economic situation of people was miserable which gave rise to riots and communal violence but today the economic conditions of the Russians have improved considerably with increased awareness about economic classes. Since this change, there has been no reports of communal violence and riots from Russia.

Usually, riots bring about extremely depressing news, but during one of these riots in Calcutta there was an extremely pleasing report. The workers of trade union didn't play any part in those riots and neither did they participate in the communal skirmishes but the Hindus and Muslims would work in factories showing remarkable amity and they also participated in diffusing the situation. This happened because the workers were class-conscious and they understood their interests as a group. This beautiful example of class consciousness is a way with which we can stop communal violence.

We have heard this joyous news that the youth of India are now fleeing away from those religions which teaches hatred and communal violence. They have become so open in their outlook that they don't look at people as Hindus, Muslims or Sikh but first as a human being and then as Indians. With the rise of these thoughts in the youth of India, I see hope for the future of India. Indians should not get upset at the news of these riots, but they should seek to not built a communal environment which results in riots.

The martyrs of 1914-15 had separated religion from politics. They understood that religion is the personal matter of an individual which needed no interference from other. But they all agreed that religion should not enter politics because it does not allow people to work together for a common cause. This was the reason why during the revolution called by 'Gadar Party', people remained united. Here Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims were put on gallows for the cause of revolution.

Today there are new politicians who have entered the fight for freedom, who wants to separate religion from politics. This is a beautiful way to cure the malaise of communal violence.

Even though we have different religious beliefs, if we separate religion from politics we all can stand together in the matter of politics and national cause.

We hope that the true sympathizers of India will think over our solutions and will save India from following the path of self-destruction.

Nehru didn't betray India but betrayed Sangh Parivar's idea of India!

There are many reasons to criticize Nehru, but one must look at the merit of those criticisms. One of the things that bothers me is criticism for partition. While Vallabhbhai Patel who was equally guilty for partition, if not more, by the same standards is exonerated by the Sangh. If you read the political history of partition, Patel was the first congress leader to publicly accept partition as the reality, even before Nehru. 

Also, in later part of the history, after the constitution was framed, one of the most contentious issues was the Hindu Code Bill. While Ambedkar was quite adamant on the need for social reforms which critically attacked and tried to reform the Hindu society by politically upstaging the rights of Hindu women & Dalits, not everyone in Congress accepted the bill. Notably, the President and the Home Minister of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad & Vallabhbhai Patel respectively, publicly opposed the bill. The bill couldn't have been passed without the political weight of Nehru who supported the reforms in the bill. Obviously, in this context, contribution and support of women like Amrit Kaur, Hansa Mehta etc are generally overlooked.

Obviously, the RSS and Sangh were opposed to the bill to the extent that they burned effigies of Ambedkar and Nehru.

It is also interesting to note that Hindu Mahasabha and RSS favoured partition, just like Muslim League and they had been pushing forward the idea that India should be partitioned based on religion as a Hindu and a Muslim nation. So, what credibility do they have to accuse Nehru (selectively not Patel) for partition when they were themselves in favour of the idea from the beginning?

And here is my theory. Nehru blocked the Hindu nation dreams of Sangh by accepting the Hindu Code Bill into our legislation, while Patel opposed the bill, just like the Sangh. This very act of Nehru makes him a greater evil in the eyes of Sangh. Patel, who had lost all respect for RSS after assassination of Gandhi, was at least much closer to the vision of India that RSS dreamt.

As I see it, Nehru ensured that the Hindu society doesn't fall into despotism by supporting an outsider like Ambedkar and made enemies within Congress and outside (Sangh). If Nehru should be condemned, he should be condemned by Muslim women for not giving the political tool to get their rights in Indian society and not by the Hindus.

I wasn't even born then, but to think of society that we lived in, between 1947-1964, it is remarkable that Nehru maintained the popularity even among the "betrayed Hindus". But then, the Sangh didn't had the tool of social media, back in those days.

How do you clean India?

Good-morning! Have a blessed final day of Navratri and do give a thought to all those 48% Indians who went out in open to defecate this morning, dumping sh*t all over the marvelous efforts by the Prime Minister to clean India yesterday.

These privileged people, privileged only if they earn less than Rs 32 a day, with anti-corporation, anti-capitalism, anti-survival-of-fittest, anti-free-market, anti-whatever-is-good-for-economy "Food Security Bill" are dumping sh*t from the free food they get from the anti-stock-market, anti-patriotic, pro-Italy policies implemented by the previous government. 

Due to relentless efforts of our urban myth busters, (some unenlightened people call them Modi Bhakts.) it is only matter of days when the bill will be removed and this will substantially reduce the amount of sh*t that we have to deal with to realize our dream of clean India.

Unfortunately, the nature of human colon is against us! Without food security the amount of sh*t reduces, but 48% of 1.25 billion people can still create huge amount of filthy nuisance. Some commie scholars like Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen suggest we should take lessons from Bangladesh & construct affordable toilets which is funny because the commies don't realize that a good number of these 48% are Bangladeshis! Seriously, do we want to spend hard earned tax payers money to construct toilets for these freeloaders? Isn't it similar to the policy adopted by anti-stock-market, anti-patriotic, pro-Italy policies implemented by previous government? Sorry, we didn't bring the new government to make policy errors like previous government!

After listening to all these immaculate reasoning you might be able to see the genius of the plan?... If not, let me break it for you. People of this country must realize that cleanliness is most important problem facing the country. And people must be made to believe that we can make India clean, in isolation from every other problem facing this country like poverty or lack of toilets or lack of dustbins or municipal infrastructure etc.

But, how do you make people believe this?

Have you known people going for movies week after week, paying between Rs 500 - Rs 1000 per person to see something that makes watching a man defecating in open more artistic? Ever wondered how they get people to spend money on such movies?... Never mind, I will be digressing if I delve in "How", but here is the answer to the question!

You can make people believe anything if you throw in some Bollywood chumps who agree with your cause!

So, when you have made people believe that India can be made clean & untidiness is most important social problem facing the country, you can literally do anything  to keep the 48% in line so that our roads, our railway tracks, our mohallas, our societies are clean from the filth.

You will wonder why such a complicated plan for powerless people? But remember, this is not the age where you can make public opinion in your favor by pushing people out of their filth creating slums. You will have to engineer opinion! Can you imagine the view from the top of Antilla of these slums? Wouldn't you prefer that the filthy people lying on roads, railways stations, public parks, traffic circles etc ... just disappear?

And this is why the campaign is important. Through your efforts we should be able to create a moral and ethical framework which will make us immune to ghettofication and displacement of people who create filth.

Now, let us also not forget to pray for the clean and healthy India.