Category: DesiPundit

A Country Gets the Government it Deserves, and Rightly so.

I was talking with a friend of mine in Pune about the election results, expressing my disappointment. More than the results, what struck me was his attempt at consoling me when he said, “India is a third-rate country. What do you expect — a first-rate government for a third-rate country?”

Yes, I still expect a first-rate government even through reason says that it will inevitably be a third-rate government because the people desire it to be so.

That’s unreasonable but all progress gets its start from unreasonable expectations.

The Biggest Puzzle

Are there no depths that the Congress party led UPA government will not plumb to protect the criminally corrupt? When exactly will the Indian public wake up to the realization that the pervasive corruption that hollows out the Indian state is the sole achievement of the Congress party over its decades of misrule — practically all of India’s existence as an independent country in modern times? If even the unspeakable misgovernance by Mr Manmohan Singh does not enrage the Indians, what on earth will it take — a thousand thermonuclear devices?
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Whistling in the Dark about the Future

Gurcharan Das writes in the Times of India (10th May) that “The Future Belongs to India.” That’s his argument which I suppose he made in a debate in London on the proposition that “the future belongs to India, not China.” I understand perfectly the need for such an argument because I too feel a lot of distress when I compare what China has achieved relative to India and have to seek comfort in a lot of twisted rationalization to excuse India’s disastrous journey.
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What’s Choking India

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a report, “Megacities Threaten to Choke India,” has a catchy but misleading title. Megacities are not threatening to choke India. The megacities are choking already. What is choking India is basically primal human frailties revealed by circumstances that come about through individual rationality but end up in collective irrationality.
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The Advantage of Not Having to Shave

The primary advantage of not having to shave your mug is that you don’t have to face yourself in the mirror every day. Unless of course if one is totally shameless or is already barefaced (as in a barefaced liar.) I am just saying.
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The Taliban Are Coming

The topic of the Taliban gaining control of Pakistan is hot this summer. Newspaper editors are busy with lots of serious hand-wringing and mopping of sweaty foreheads. An editorial writer at the New York Times is obviously worried to distraction, it appears from the opinion piece of 27th April, “60 Miles from Islamabad.” Continue reading “The Taliban Are Coming”

Appointed PM, Dr MM Singh, is Not Weak

It is widely reported and generally held as a fact that the appointed prime minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, is weak and ineffective. He was appointed in 2004 and has dutifully followed the orders that were given to him. It is heartening to note that the widely held perception that he is weak and spineless is being challenged by his superiors. I am very pleased to note that he is being supported by those who appointed him and for whom he toils day and night (except on those nights when he worries about the families of terrorists.) The age of loyalty, as opposed to the age of chivalry, is not dead. So please read the glowing testimonials that prove that Mr Manmohan Singh is not a tool and that he is not weak and spineless.

This public service message brought to you courtesy of an anonymous reader of this blog and in the interests of the on-going general elections in India.

The Dollar Auction: Some Figures

I have maintained for a while that the reason that Pakistan gets propped up by the US and its allies is that India and Pakistan are engaged in a dollar auction game and therefore anytime Pakistan is about to go bankrupt (and therefore be unable to continue the game), the US and its allies rush to prop it up. How much money is involved in keeping Pakistan alive so that it can continue to wage jihad against India? Here are the figures from an article, “Fail, then reap rewards,” by Brahma Chellaney in the Deccan Chronicle. Continue reading “The Dollar Auction: Some Figures”

Make No Little Plans — Revisited

One of the consistent themes of this blog has been that India should think big. My favorite quote in this context is from Daniel Burnham, the fabled Chicago architect who said that we should think big:

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.

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The Do-nothing Good Dr Manmohan Singh

“One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.” Thus spoke Will Durant, the celebrated American historian and philosopher, the author of the 11-volume The Story of Civilization. I sometimes wonder if Dr Manmohan Singh, the PM of India appointed by the Italian boss of the Congress Party, ever read history and if he did, whether he learned that lesson. Doing nothing is a good thing if the default is to do stupid thing. As the Buddha, the Enlightened One, the One Who Went Thus, had said, “First do no harm; then try to do good.” It appears that the appointed (as opposed to elected) PM is ignorant of what the Buddha said and what Durant had pointed out. He should have struck to doing nothing instead of what he actually did.
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