Farewell 2020, Welcome 2021!!

2020!!

Like every other years that passed by, 2020 also arrived to our expectations, dreams, aspirations and desires. A year in which one more step towards these would be taken; a year in which some more sense of fulfilment would be added.

And then Corona happened. Man made disasters are not new to mankind. We have had quite a handful before. The earlier human catastrophes engineered innovation in medical response. Corona engineered geopolitics!! Even as the world gathered its best medical brains and scientists to evolve a medical response, Corona pushed America and its allies close to a war - in trade, in diplomacy, in military alliances and in diplomatic maneuvers.

Even countries like India, who had generally been cautious in upping the ante went out to revitalize QUAD; Japan shed its defence policy to re-shape its Self Defence Forces (SDF) for offensive roles, and down South in Australia vociferous calls were made for international investigation. China went into hyper drive and sent its forces into Ladakh against India, pushed its fences across the borders with Nepal and Bhutan; the dormant CPEC showed renewed vigour to the extent that the Baluch went up in arms!!

Europe, Africa and South America became cautious about Chinese imports; America expelled scientists with Chinese funding even from Harvard and WHO was rattled with allegations of colluding with China. Hong Kong and BREXIT were relegated to the 'other news'; Think Tanks all over the world took up China as the single point object of analysis and economies around the world scrambled down in fear and panic.

All just because one more pandemic infested mankind? No, because Corona is different. Virus or no virus, Corona engineered geopolitics.

As we roll into 2021, the world is yet to come to terms with Corona. Yes, vaccines have been announced, countries for a change are stockpiling medicines and we will overcome this too. But the geopolitical aftermath that Corona set rolling will take a long time to overcome. Our options to do so will not be new, but they will be hard.

We will need sanity across the spectrum of political leadership; we will need a lot less war mongering by the media and arms lobby; we will need to respect international law regime and believe that in abiding by it our guarantee for a safer world depends.

Countries that propel their self interest by any means at their disposal and countries that delight in being or aspire to be dominant powers in world or regional stage need for once to stop and think. Countries that voice solidarity for a free world but sell weapons and technology to friends and foes alike must desist. Countries that have the economic means should step forward to provide for countries that do not have the economic muscle to acquire vaccinations.

Children who have lost their schooling due to Corona must be technologically assisted to continue education; farmers, small business and daily wagers whose sustenance is threatened must be provided for. Millions stranded away from near and dear ones due to pandemic conditions must be facilitated to feel safe and wanted, if not re-united, with their loved ones.

At no other time of earlier pandemics we needed these more - peace and humanity.

If Corona has proved to be different, then it is for us to prove that humans are different too. 

Let's hope that our inherent belief in our own goodness prevails!! So grant us God.           

Learning from Rwanda....

Twenty years ago, it started n Rwanda and the mayhem that played out over 100 days continues to shock the conscience of humanity. BBC recently showcased a program that highlighted the pain that Rwanda lived through and how the country has managed to heal the wounds and set its course on re-building its life. See: www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506‎

In the twenty years that have gone by, Africa has shed much blood - Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and now Nigeria. There is plenty of debate that vested interests abroad would like to keep Africa this way because, if Africa lives in peace, the potential of its people would surpass any other region in the world. So, helping Africa to remain divided in the name of tribes, religion and region helps to keep it down. It also makes good business sense because the fighting will help other countries sell huge amount of weapons to Africa. Impoverished nations will spend whatever little they have on arms, letting their people rot in poverty and in the process remain oppressed and divided. I do not know whether I should be writing like this in RG. But as we watch the horrors unleashed by Boko Haram in Nigeria by bombing bus stations and kidnapping school children, it is difficult to maintain an academic nonchalance.

Centuries of brutal colonial exploitation perhaps has given a wrong lesson in sovereignty to many countries in Africa. The leaders in these troubled countries perhaps think that colonial style exploitation and subjugation of people is the meaning of governance. A quarter century ago, there was an apt description of the politics of the elite in South Asia by Ponna Wignaraja and Akmal Hussain:

"The ruling regimes, unable to find a fundamental solution to the problem of poverty and inequality, unable to provide a political framework and an intellectual vision within which the diversities of culture, language and religion can enrich rather than undermine society, tend to show a knee-jerk reaction to the crisis. The knee-jerk reaction consists of seeking an external bogey and, on the basis of this fear, seeking to mobilise and unite their own people". This seems so relevant even today in Africa as well.

Multicultural, multi-ethnic societies coming together as one national identity must learn to accept each other first as equal citizens before working out a power sharing formula for governing the nation. Until this principle of accommodation is recognised as fundamental to building a national identity, there would be no peace in any society home to diverse communities.

The Cry of Humanity....

South Sudan is plunging into civil war.

Those of us who have been watching Africa would be once again overcome with profound sense of suffering in our conscience because we know what it means. The last round of violence in Sudan, not too long ago, left thousands of women ravished, children orphaned and adult males dead or maimed. Once again, innumerable children will be put to arms and these child soldiers will be used, abused and then killed. The countryside will again witness huge migration of the scared, scarred and hapless population and demographic crisis in the adjoining nations will arise. All this is because some power and blood thirsty feudal/tribal overlords want to contest for few square miles of land to claim their own!

Will the world watch till few more million litres of African blood soak the earth and thousands more African women suffer indignity? will we watch till hapless children wearing worn-out combat fatigues get blown to smithereens? I hope we do not. Unlike the last time when the political hurdles and lack of united will in Africa weakened the AU initiatives, I think this time rest of Africa and the UN would stand with the people of South Sudan. No country in the earth must give them arms supply or asylum or safe havens. Those millions that arms exporting countries make in such situations can always be made later in a more legitimate moment. This time around, let the rest of the world not think of profit at someone else's blood.

Egypt in the neighbourhood is already in turmoil. Libya to the northwest is in tatters. If Sudan is allowed to plunge into mayhem, that would add to nearly a fifth of Africa. The spill over of such conflict will also affect the smaller nations towards the south whose peace is yet to firm up.

I hope the UN and AU act in unison and swiftly. I do hope peace returns to South Sudan early whereupon a democratic process can be initiated, if necessary at the point of a gun sporting the UN flag, so that lasting solutions to the issues can be arrived through consensus.

Amen.    

Not just a birthday to remeber....

It is 1045 h on 02 Oct 13. World Non-Violence Day. From New Delhi to Timbuktu (this place actually is in Mali, Africa. Google it and you will know) across the globe, scores of idols of the man whose belief in non-violence led to the downfall of the greatest empire the world has seen would have been garlanded. Bhajans would have been sung or would be in the process of being pitched for closure. From commoners to ambassadors to presidents and kings would have bowed their head as a mark of respect and said whatever most appropriate thing to say on this occasion is. The listeners or the crowd if at all would have hummed and hued their ‘yeah, yeah’. By around noon, purportedly the great believers in the cause that this man espoused would have retired to their more important assignments of the day, satisfied that they have marked this man’s 144^th birth anniversary in the most appropriate manner that would be convincing enough to those who saw them on TV or heard them on radio. In so far as the millions who nether watched TV or heard radio, yet another day in their lives would be trudging towards wherever it takes them to.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the lawyer who could not stand and speak two sentences; the man whose legs where so shaky that he dropped his brief and ran from the court to hide;

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the man who would take the blows of police lathi with a smile during anti-Rowlett protests; the man who went on a fast that brought the bloodshed in Naokali to a stop; the man even his bitterest opponents would not hesitate to meet; the man whom a nation of 33 crores called “Bapu” (father); the man who took his assailant’s bullets with just two words (calling on his favorite God);

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the man who forever was seeking to know his own self; who in the process of which found a people of 33 crore thirsting for an identity;

The man whom we call Mahatma.

There are as much we can see as human fallibilities in Gandhi that we find in our selves. There are as many similarities too. But the only thing that makes him Mahatma and rest of us as ordinary mortals is his un-assailable faith in his own self. Where he believed, he went irrespective of the consequences; where he believed, he did irrespective of the consequences; where he believed, he gave and received irrespective of the consequences. So, that which sets him apart is a simple aspect called: Belief.

There is one more aspect that must be mentioned about him – his utter selflessness. But then what can we say about someone who wanted nothing for himself; not because he had no needs; not because he had no family; not because he wanted to be bigger than life; just because he was always in search of something that would define him as he was. The one who is content in himself has very little need for others.  In mammoth crowds, he could stand alone; in solitude, he could be heard. Actually there is very little of this Gandhi that we know. We are content calling him ‘Bapu’ once a year and perhaps more content being oblivious to his persona. As they say, simplicity is the most complex thing to understand.

It is not his person that is at debate. What appalls is the utter ignorance amongst us on his understanding of this country. Gandhi saw the nation as he would see himself – with utmost criticism that was aimed at discovering its strength. No one understood (though we all quote) when he said ‘India lives in its villages’. What a thousand economists cannot say in two hundred thousand volumes, he said in one line. In case of doubt, consider the following:

·      More than 60 % of India lives in villages. They remain home to the largest population and of course, vote banks. (That is why you see the ilk’s of Laloo going overboard to fool the village folks with their electoral gimmicks)

·        While caste and creed may appear to be ruling the village roost, villages remain one of the most coherent units of Indian society where everyone is an integral part of its socio-cultural-economic life

·    Inspite of the industrial economy that we have built as a nation, in a billion ways the cottage and village industries remain part of our everyday life. Over 80% of Indian households depend on what is produced in villages and rural areas.

·     The economy IS (in capital, underlined and never-out-scored) agrarian and try what we may, will remain so.

With this background, look at Gandhi. All his reform agenda was always aimed at villages – be it social causes, economic causes or what may be. He was not playing to the gallery. He was stating facts, seeing the truth and therefore advocating for the same. Say, 65 years of governance had consistently focused on basics like electricity, water, sanitation and education for the villages of India, the India of today would be far different than what we see. If the orientation for village industries, land reforms and agriculture had been blended correctly and implemented, we would not be seeing the rural upheavals that we see today. This would have meant a more contented country-side and a stronger economy. This also would have meant lesser slums, crime and demographic pressure on urban areas.

It is not possible to debate and understand Gandhi in a couple of pages. He needs more time and devotion. It is not to say that he is to be reinvented as a panacea for all the ills of our society. But, his relevance to a world that is ridden with poverty, violence and purposelessness can never be understated.

We need Gandhi. Not as a fossil of yester years to be cherished in a museum, but as a living idea that we need to nourish in our minds and apply in our daily lives. We are also Gandhis, if we can find the strength to discover our follies, rid our biases and unite for an India that will rise as the phoenix does from the ashes of its ambiguities, fears and uncertainties.

We need Gandhi.    

There is a time to Pray!

LWe all have faced those little moments in life when things do not look bright and the world around seems to spin out of control. This is one such moment in our history as humans, when we find a huge tract of humanity from Tunisia to Iraq seem to be in turmoil. The agitations that are spreading across these nations are an apparent calling of their conscience to bring home governments that would help them achieve their aspirations that have remained suppressed for decades. The economic disparity that seems to have widened between the haves and have-nots, growing unemployment and lack of responsive governance in countries of this region seems to have added fuel to the fire.

There is a huge lesson in store for every country in the world in the happenings of the Middle East. People today are not as tolerant to misrule as they were in the last century. People want good and responsive governance that would help them achieve their rightful aspirations. In other words, people want to control their destinies! The time has come for democracy everywhere and to uphold the rule of law!

Let us pray that these aspirations come true. Let us pray that democratic values find themselves embedded in all countries and that peoples everywhere get to enjoy their rights (as well as fulfill their duties) and live harmonious lives! Let us pray that violence and bloodshed are not the paths that the world takes to anymore and let peace prevail across continents!