Save Me From Charismatic Leaders!

Ref dost_mittar #25

[The Maruti car, including the name, was actually Sanjay Gandhi's project although he died before its complettion.]

Actually, the Maruti car project was an utter failure.

Bansi Lal, the thug of a chief minister of Haryana, appropriated 200+ acres of prime farmland for the factory. Having curried favor with Indira Gandhi by supporting her son, he ran a ruthless administration in his state with no opposition from the Centre.

The factory was a mess. Sanjay Gandhi's sole qualification was that he was apprenticed to an automobile manufacturer in England (when he flunked academic studies... not anything unusual: his mom flunked college too!). The car he produced was more like a golf cart and would not have met any roadworthiness standards. In any other country, Sanjay Gandhi would have been jailed for securities fraud: he collected millions of rupees from dealers hoping to sell his car and could not pay them back. He was bailed out by bringing in Suzuki as the foreign collaborator and a TamBrahm as the MD of the enterprise. With that combination, the first Suzuki cars were assembled in India and the nameplate "Maruti" was tacked on to the car to prove it was an indigenous car.

We have a saying in Tamil: "trying to make an idol of Ganesh and ending up with a monkey". Sanjay's car factory is an example of what happens when you attempt to start making a monkey (Maruti)!

Ref dost_mittar #50

[He (Nehru) was swayed by the Fabian Socialist philosophy which was quite fashionable in the intellectual circles in England during the time he was a student there; if he had gone to Chicago during the 60s, he would have been a Friedman free-market man.]

No matter where and when he lived, he would have been a faggot.

Ref satya100 #56

[If mahatma had lived 10 years longer and if we had emocratized science and technology by Hindiazing, Marathiazing .. smart IITians and their professors working with rural ccoperative sugar and cotton mills we would not see todays extremes of Ambanies, Tatas and suicides of farmers.]

Give me a break!

Some 10 years back, an American visited factories in China and India to see where he can source products for the US market.

His observation wa that China had factories but India had organized cottage industries trying to make industrial products!

With Gandhi alive, we would have been spinning charkhas (wheels spinnming cotton into yarn, a technology that went out in the 17th century) cometing against mills in Lancashire that were producing a mile of yarn every 40 seconds in the 18th century... God only knows what the current speed of those machines might be.

Gandhi would have ensured that we all lived in villages, made our own clothes, raised our own crops, washed our own clothes and died a miserable death without the use of modern medicines after a short brutish life.

Of course, Nehru and Indira Gandhi ensured that that remains the fate of 85% of India's population, thus fulfilling Bapuji's vision.

[He should have banned Crompton Greaves, greaves Cottons, Hindustan Motors and even Tatas unless they indianize and innovate using local resources and talents. Those guys were mere traders.]

Tatas built India's first steel plant in Jamshedpur. Gandhi wasn't forcing them to Indianize anything at that time. In fact, Tatas had to fight the cheap British steel imports to establish their factory.

[Imagine what would have happened if we had Marathiazed Resnick Halidays, Tomo Shinkoes and even Xenu. Our village kids in vernacular media could have acquired B. Tech level understanding at age 18.]

The grand experiment in taking technology education to the village masses is being attempted in Tamil Nadu. All entrance exams to engineering institutions have been abolished and close to 50% of engineering admissions in Tamil Nadu have been from rural folks educated in the Tamil medium through their high schools years. The fact that they are flunking out is a totally different story!

[If one looks at Hungarian, Rusian and now Chinese math circles in preparation for Math Olympiad we see this in working.]

You have no clue about the Math Olympiad or any other educational Olympiad for that matter. Though Indian kids are taught in English, they have managed to acquit themselves respectably in the Math Olympiads, winning medals. (My sister-in-law is one among the teachers who coach the Indian Olympiad team so I can claim to know a bit more than you do). They have also done well this year in the Informatics/Computer Science Olympiad.

A boring article by a 'chrismatc' writer.

You did not say any thing about Mahatma Gandhi who pushed Nehru into leadership perhaps to prevent Subhash Bose, another chrishmatic (a super-one perhaps)leader, to become the president of the Indian National Congress.

quin #70: I agree that emotions have their place as does reason. its just that there is a time for both.

I am reminded of a joke here (and please excuse since it is a bit off-color): Man says that the perfect wife would be one who is an economist in the kitchen, an aristocrat in the living room, and a whore in the bedroom. His friend replies, but suppose she turns out to be an aristocrat in the kitchen, a whore in the living room, and an economist in the bedroom.

Ii see a similar mixup when you form opinions about the US based on fears and emotions that are the remnants of colonial rule, rather than based on an objective look at today's facts and realities. Lets leave emotions aside, and look at the cold, hard political realities of today - the tremendous opportunities as well as dangers facing mankind as a whole today. If anything, one needs to use one's reasoning abilities even more - not less - than when designing a plane.

Nice chatting with you.

Re: # 67 tahmed32, I appreciate for your thoughtful response.

I don't think there is any fundamental contradiction which need to be reconciled between my two posts . It is true that one could be said to be from right brain and the other from left. But don't we need both parts of our brain to really understand things in their totality. I know first we need to analyze, but then we do need to synthesize. And that is where both brains are needed. David Thoreau said, knowledge comes in flashes (meaning not just in details).

Anyway, the point is that the feelings I expressed about Obama's presidency are personal. Having said that, I do think that we make decisions by a mix of logic and emotion. This fact can't be denied. Examples are everywhere. True, planes and such engineering and scientific work cannot be done by emotions only, but even in those emotions (passion) and imagination have been driving the logic and inquiry in many cases. Einstein’s ideas about light came from his ridiculous feelings of his traveling over the beam of light.

What I was trying to say that the two ideas one being objective about political matters, and the other being subjective about Obama's presidency, do not contradict, because I am not presenting my subjectivity as an argument. That subjectivity is expressed in spite of the argument. Politics is not a feat of engineering. Politics does involve both parts of our brains no matter how much we want to be objective. And that subjectivity is part of the bigger objective truth.

Therefore I can analyze to see where I will cast my vote in the best interest (not in US of course - I don't live there) of civil society, but I may still have personal reasons for wishing that my candidate does not win. It must be called paradoxical-irony. The world is full of paradoxes and ironies and sometime they combine like hydrogen and oxygen to make something new.

And talking about terminologies, I did not use empiro-imperialists for neo-cons. Empire building will not stop no matter who is at helm of affairs until the helm is a helm of an empire. This is an "American Century", words from neo-cons lexicon. The words may change in a democratic government but this still will remain an American Century for foreseeable future – definitely not going to change in next 4 to 8 years – no matter how much slogan of CHANGE is drummed up. Probably Bill Clinton was right when he said, Obama's is the biggest fantasy. Still I would like that Obama wins, but I dread for the regrets which many will have later.

Re #61 Posted by dost_mittar on,

So you mean to say that we shouldn't hurt political Islam necessarily or unnecessarily? or in other words politics of Islam?? In that case all countries should be amde into Islamic countries (because that is what you will need to do eventually, if you don't want to hurt Islam, doesn't mater whether they use bomb or sword or politics or whatever).

You are right, there were no bombs exploding before babri masjid, but all problems related to Islam (all over the world) were same. Earlier, you used to have hindu-muslim riots, right?? Now we have graduated to bombs and AK-47s?

The Babri masjid demolition is something good in one way, first it gave an idea that Hindus can do large scale violence. Secondly people in India got to know of at least one problem properly. The fight was on something stupid and in all probability whatever Hindus say about Babri Masjid is true and muslims know it. But this symbolic fight made both the communities aware of the actual situation with respect to their religious biases and how it can lead to confrontation.

There was no time when political Islam was not doing what it is doing today, even if means were different. We didn't have RDX and AK-47s not so long ago, but we did have conflicts because of political Islam. Babri masjid and 9/11 exposed the basis, extent and potential of political Islam. Pakistan created Taliban much before 9/11 and Saudi Arabia has been spreading Wahabi Islam (with petro dollars) since ever and whatever Taliban finds in Kuran was not written recently nor was their interpretation new. Even the middle east problem was there for long.

So the difference is that eventually fundamentalist Islam graduated into new era war-fare, the RDX and AK-47. Do you know of any country where muslims are not in majority and they don't have animosity towards majority in that country??

Majumdar#62:

In general, it is true that political parties would favour the country of the majority community, but you should remember that the majority political party in Kashmir was headed by Sheikh Abdullah, a friend of Nehru and no friend of Jinnah.

quin #60 The broad-guaged perspective you provide in this post is indeed what we need to keep in mind in discussing large issues like the role of the US or the west. In other words, you are rightly pointing out that "progress", driven in recent centuries basically by the west, is a double edged sword - while on the one hand it provides undoubted benefits, on the other hand it can have unintended affects (environmental impact e.g.).

How do you reconcile the above with what you say in post #59 that you wrote just before the above, where you say " I don't want to see Obama winning - though personal feelings aside - it may be good for history - as it will expose further true face of empiro-imperialists."?

By "empiro-imperialists" i think you are merely coining a dramatic term for what are commonly known as neo-cons, and who are now on retreat after Bush's disastrous term comes to an end. This clearly implies that you have this belief, as so many Pakistanis (even otherwise intelligent and successful Pakistanis, and even those with sons and daughters in the US) do, that the US is some kind of an omnipotent being ruled by an "inner circle" that has god-like powers with satanic intentions.

So, while your post #60 seems to represent the "left side of the brain", i.e. reason and understanding, post #59 represents the "right side", i.e. atavistic emotions and fears. You design planes using facts and reason, not emotions and fears. Shouldnt one form political views on the same basis?

The reason I seem "passionate" in referring to the contributions of the west is because I think it is this blind, emotional anti-westernism that has caused muslim societies to lag behind the rest of the world. To become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, to the challenges that face all humanity. Not because of the "white man's worship" as Masadi keeps parroting every day.

Re: # 65
Majumder...
S N Bose may not be successful, but he felt the need for translating science and technology books in local language to make it popular...

Large number students were deprived of quality content due to language barrier. Fortunately, now a days, people are getteing better quality local books.

Nkg moshai,

He tried to make science and technology books avilable in Bengali.

Can you name one Bengali scientist who made it big after reading one of SNB's S&T book in the Bangla language?

Regards

Re: # 61
DM...
Exactly, these are the excuses the terrorists are making everywhere- be it in London, Madrid, Thailand, India, Philipines etc....
What about bombing in Bangalore, Coimbatore, Hubli?

Muslims know, in this era of fractured mandate, how 15% vote matters. Let the BJP gets 2/3 majority in next election. All these will go away....

Re: # 50
DM...
Yes, whatever I have said is correct, but you put in decent way. Nehru's intention was clear. To make name from the 3000 year old civilisation. With his personal ability, he could, at most, have been legal advisor to a landlord; nothing more. What organisation he has created himself? How much of India he travelled and known? Where he showed his success in showing organisational skill?
Nowhere. Apart from being part of dirty mobsters like Nasser, Tito etc..., he has no good friends in international arena.
He had inherited monopoly of Congress and exploited that in full extent....

Satya, I fully agree with you. Even, noted scientist, like S N Bose (Boson particle named after him), were votary of that. He tried to make science and technology books avilable in Bengali.


China and Russia is good example of how to develop science by translating the books into local language. Even Iran is trying that....

Your comment about Nehru and Indira was correct....
Anyhow, India is changing. The new regional leaders should take initiative and make their own state prosperous. That will contribute more to India. Congress has to be cornered to maximum extent. Fortunately, so far, BJP is doing quite well.

DM sahib,

Re: 51

I think we have read more or less the same version. INC's position was that state political parties were to be consulted, which was ethically correct and meant de facto TNT because parties in Muslim dominated states were likely to vote for Pak, In Hindoo states to vote for India. In that sense you have to say that INC had a more consistent state.

MAJ (pbuh) and ML OTOH took a different stand and the whole subcontinent paid a price for it. If I remember correct it was GM who encouraged MAJ (pbuh) to intrigue with Nizam.

Regards

pinku#57:

If you think that those things will resolve Kashmir issues for you, go ahead and try; but don't start complaining if the blowback makes things worse; remember, there were no bombs exploding in India before the Babri masjid demolition and Ahmedabad killings.

Re: # 49 tahmed32,
My assertion might have been simplistic as the topic is so big that many books can be written on this. I add here just a few more remarks.

I know West has made important contribution, in all fields of life, from science to art, from culture to politics. Its contribution has been part of its material progress. And the material progress has been through empire buildings. Empire building is a curse that humanity has not learned to avoid. With progress or rather hand in hand with progress comes this curse.

I do admire your passion for defending the good aspects of the West. In a way, it does express a part of my convictions. But at the same time we cannot discount the fact that with material progress comes this curse of desire to control and exploit the resources from all over the world. That is why in every phase of the history there have been empires who brutally tried to control the rest of the worlds. Ours is an American Century. That is all.

I have no hostility towards any empire. Being hostile to an empire is as being hostile to let us say a tornado or to an ice-age. It is a phenomenon beyond our control. All we can hope to do is to better understand mechanism of this phenomenon and come up with some practical solutions to channel the energies towards the benefit of all humanity.
Truth always lies somewhere between the two extremes, beyond the paradox, beyond black and white.

Regarding half-baked ideologies which you have disdained, I agree the one you have cited are extremely misguided attempts which have been fundamentally attempts in each of those particular geo-political entities to solve their issues. The Islamic one is the worst as it has drained all good energies of meaningful progress in those areas. However, there have been better attempts to solve their issues through still half baked ideologies, for example former USSR and in China. The question fundamentally is that is it better to make an attempt to change things or accept the status quo.

Regarding basket case analogy - to me in the final analysis the whole world is a basket case because of our extreme immaturity. This world is run by "boys in suits" as one of my colleague used to say.