Category: People

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: An Interview

If I were asked to name one national political leader — contemporary or in the past — who is deserving of deep respect I would answer “Mr Lee Kuan Yew.” There is something about him that puts him in the top of the heap, in my opinion. It could be his basic intelligence, his deep insight into politics, his masterly understanding of world affairs, his breadth of vision, his obvious scholarship, his impish wit and his Confucian wisdom. The more I read him — and read of him — the deeper my appreciation of the man and his accomplishments become.

I have one piece of advice to all. Stop wasting so much time on news. If you stop reading the newspapers and watching TV news for a few days, you will not have missed much. Things that matter are not news; they persist. So by not wasting too much time on news, you free up some time to gain some insight into deeper issues. Knowledge of the deeper issues would help you makes sense of the news when you do get around to the news eventually.
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What did Nehru Incarnate as?

This one is really funny. And a bit sad. My friend Anup in Australia sent me the link to an article, Prabhupada And Nehru’s Incarnation, from the Prabhupada Hare Krishna News Network.

The setting is in Brooklyn, New York, a few weeks after Nehru’s death in 1964. Someone asks the guru Prabhupada what he thought became of Nehru after his death. The writer of the article recounts Prabhupada’s answer. Read on.
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Another blogger on Nehru

I suppose you all know that I love them internets. It is the most potent instrument for the minor enlightenment of humanity. By “minor” I mean that which enables knowledge and therefore prepares the way for the major enlightenment. Once upon a time, not too long ago, you could only know what was allowed by those who were in charge of the information channels such as print, radio, and TV. The rich and powerful controlled what information the unwashed masses could be trusted with. Dictators found this very useful.

I think one easy test of whether a society is free or not is to check whether there is freedom of expression. Can you say, read or write what you please? More importantly, can you say, read or write what you please without being hauled off to some gulag? How does India figure on this test. Not very well, I am afraid.
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Hitchens: “Pakistan is the problem”

Christopher Hitchens writing in Slate:

The very name Pakistan inscribes the nature of the problem. It is not a real country or nation but an acronym devised in the 1930s by a Muslim propagandist for partition named Chaudhary Rahmat Ali. It stands for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Indus-Sind. The stan suffix merely means “land.” In the Urdu language, the resulting acronym means “land of the pure.” It can be easily seen that this very name expresses expansionist tendencies and also conceals discriminatory ones. Kashmir, for example, is part of India. The Afghans are Muslim but not part of Pakistan. Most of Punjab is also in India. Interestingly, too, there is no B in this cobbled-together name, despite the fact that the country originally included the eastern part of Bengal (now Bangladesh, after fighting a war of independence against genocidal Pakistani repression) and still includes Baluchistan, a restive and neglected province that has been fighting a low-level secessionist struggle for decades. The P comes first only because Pakistan is essentially the property of the Punjabi military caste (which hated Benazir Bhutto, for example, because she came from Sind). As I once wrote, the country’s name “might as easily be rendered as ‘Akpistan’ or ‘Kapistan,’ depending on whether the battle to take over Afghanistan or Kashmir is to the fore.”

Were Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah related?

Was there a blood relationship? I wonder.

It did not require meticulous research, but just some serious reading, to know that Jammu’s troubles had begun soon after the monarch of J & K, Maharaja Hari Singh, from the Dogra community of Jammu, chose to sign his princely state’s accession to India, rather than to Pakistan, in October 1947 under the British Parliament’s Indian Independence Act, 1947. The troubles emanated from Sheikh Abdullah, the towering National Conference leader from the predominantly Muslim populated Kashmir Valley, who, for reasons as yet unclear, was the pet of Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minster among several Congress ones who believed that the Hindu community was a danger to free India. It was just a matter of time therefore that Nehru coerced Maharaja Hari Singh to hand over the reins of the J&K state to the interim government of Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference Party — the first time that Muslims, not Hindus, became the rulers in J&K.

That is from Arvind Lavakare’s article “It’s Jammu vs Kashmir — finally“. Here’s the full article below the fold, for the record. It is a must read if one wants to understand how the dead hand of the Nabob of Cluelessness continues to strangle India and squeeze the life out of the nation.
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Dawkins at UC Berkeley

On March 8th, 2008, Richard Dawkins spoke at the Wheeler Auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus during his US book tour for his book “The God Delusion.” I am an absolute admirer of Prof Dawkins.

You could see the google video of Richard in Berkeley (56 mins) or you could see it in six parts on YouTube. Here’s YouTube part 1/6 of Richard at Berkeley:

Part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6.

Related post: Darwin’s Big Idea

When once destroyed can never be supplied

The title of this post is from Oliver Goldsmith’s poem, The Deserted Village (1770). It appears here:

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.

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Mr Lee and Mr Chee agreed to have a fight

The NY Times of 30th May reports (“Power and Tenacity Collide in Singapore Courtroom” — Thanks, Naman) on the clash between two personalities — one powerful and famous, the other powerless — in a Singapore courtroom. Former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, 84, met his political adversary Chee Soon Juan, 45, in court where the former is suing the latter for libel. In a newsletter published in 2006, Mr Chee had accused the Singapore government of corruption. Mr Lee takes charges of corruption seriously and refused to let Mr Chee’s accusation go unchallenged.

I suppose the court would figure out if Mr Chee’s charge is true or not. If the charge is false, I would be much relieved because I would hate to find out that the man I have very high regard for — Mr Lee Kuan Yew — has feet of clay.
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Two letters related to Sri^2 Ravi Shankar

Did you know that this blog features prominently in search results on Sri (repeat n time) Ravi Shankar? Without intending to, I have stumbled upon a subject that simultaneously delights and enlightens. Aside from the usual hate mail, I quite frequently get mail from people who want to share their experience of the Art of Living and their opinion on SSRS. I will share two recent one’s with you.
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