The blood is on you India!

This was all she had! This little girl was quietly picking stones from the little rice she had. She looked numb. I don't know what was going through her mind. I walked past her. The next home, the next plastic sheet; A dead body kept there. One young girl, slightly older than this one in the picture sat next to the body; crying silently. I walked past her too. To the next home and to the one after that and then to another. The so-called homes.

35000 of these people in one camp. Seven  camps! They had sought refuge in the neighbouring state of Tripura after the state they lived in Mizoram had sent them out. The refugee camps had been organized along the godforsaken Jamui hills bordering Mizoram and Tripura. Organized? Sorry, these people have just settled down along the hills.

As I walked back to the vehicle, questions throbbed my mind! Where do they go for toilets? Food? Where do they bury the dead? Is there a way to teach the children there? What if somebody falls sick? Do they have enough clothes to wear? What if it rains? And it poured usually in that area. Sadly just before I went a fire ravaged the camp. Where did they go to hide from fire? The govt promised Rs.5/- (0.01$) per day per person, of which only a petty few got em.

It has been 21 years since the refugee camp started. Nearly eight years since I went visiting. They still exist. The state of Mizoram doesn't want them. Neither does Tripura.

When I read today that Indian government has sent back a few Rohingya refugees to Myanmar and fearing repatriation many are migrating to the safety of Bangladesh, I got reminded of my short stint in that refugee camp.

Refugee camps are the biggest crimes a state can inflict on a human being. And if a state refuses people even a place in such refugee camps, and in fact repatriates, those who have sought refuge, that I think is the lowest a state can stoop down to. And sadly, my country is traversing that path.

India, the blood is on you!

Secularism - Time the world takes a clear look at it again!

So I had this big argument with a well-meaning longtime friend on secularism, which has brought me to this week's idea that changed the world!

Since this is a very controversial topic, I tread carefully and define my terms first. When I use the term 'Church', it means the religious institutions of all religions! And when I use the term religion, it means a particular system of faith or worship. I understand there are people who consider their religion a way of life or a personal relationship! I'm not getting into that. For me, religion is a system of faith. Period!

For a long time the world was ruled by religious orders, and by that I mean, the church had control over the government. So the clergy of the church decided on the taxes, the trade etc. But this did not survive the modern era and with the advent of the 'Nation states' in its current form, it was decided to keep church and religion away from power and politics. And rightly so!

So there are two forms of secularism. The first is such that the functions of political officials are performed in a way which invokes no religion. Under this model of secularism, the political officials perform their function without invoking any religion, irrespective of their personal belief or the belief of the majority population of that state. Simply put, church and religion are kept separately. This is the negative form of secularism. The other positive form of secularism is that the state will support all religion equally. So the state is supposed to give equal respect to all religion or to protect all religions equally.

Now, where do we stand?

Secularism in its true form is a misnomer! Since man is innately biased, we ascribe to our own belief system, and when in power it is almost impossible to let your belief system not impress on your work. Agreed!

That said, any country which subjugates any religion should never be called secular. Simply put, any law passed by a secular country cannot and should not discriminate a religion.

Is it good for the world to be secular? As a deep Christian(If I can say so myself) in my heart, I sincerely believe it is good for the world to move towards secularism. When laws are made against one group of people, it will end up creating resentment in that group! And resentment is never a good feeling. And eventually will end up creating more harm than good.

And what do we do as individuals?

Man, as I said earlier, is innately biased. The society which we grew up in, will definitely influence the human heart. And that will reflect in our actions and our belief system. In spite of that, I as a human being have no right to treat another individual as an inferior, for his belief system. I have no right of violence/abuse/misdemeanour on any individual, coz his beliefs are different!

It's time the world takes a clearer look at secularism again! A non-secular pluralistic world will be chaos. 

Altruism to the lost generation!

I'm a child of altruism; I was born in a hospital in a remote village built by Altruists from a foreign land. Lived the first two decades of my life in another hospital campus built by people without any self-interest. I have travelled to remote corners of my country, to almost all of the 29 states. Many places in the God-forsaken North East and the considered BIMARU (Sick) states. Places where livelihood is still very primitive. Where transport and electricity are still unheard of! And have seen health workers sweat it out, just so that the poor living there could access care. I once walked a few kilometres in a jungle with a man to see one patient. One Patient!  And some of the best years of my life were lived in the campus built by the greatest of them all. Dr Ida Scudder who built the biggest medical college in India which has trained and sent thousands of health workers across the globe, just because she saw three young women dying without access to health care.

Almost all of them are altruists! Altruism? Selflessness is the word. Where self-interest is the last thing in their dictionary. They lived for the world. For the people. And many times for a God they loved and trusted. 

What happened to their childhood dream of becoming rich? Didn't they have crushes living in faraway places? How about educating their children? Weren't they ambitious professionally? Of course yes! A big YES! They were humans too. Yet they sacrificed everything at the altar of altruism. Self-interest was killed for the sake of the love of helping the world be a better place. 

So what happened now? Why suddenly this article? 

When my sister spoke passionately about the loss of piety in these hospitals now I became a little numb! Is this true? Am I the generation which has lost that sense of love and responsibility towards the world? Is it true that this generation boasts of a bigger ego, a bloated self, more interested in them and theirs than the previous and those before them? Is it true that the word altruism is being lost to the world? 

Sadly yes! Sometimes numbers don't lie. And statistically many of these great hospitals in the remotest areas of my country are being closed down for want of people! Many are gasping and are on its last breaths including the one which birthed me. Capitalism for all its facilities and securities, sadly have made us inward looking. 

So what do we do now? Close down all those institutions, lament about the lack of selfless people in this generation and write blogs?

This generation needs to show off! We want to tell the world we are stars. We tweet our views. We Instagram our happiness. We facebook our travelogue. We blog to showcase our writing skills. We want the world to know we care more than we actually care.  

Is there a way to show altruists as heroes to this generation? Can the generation's egos be stoked to live up to those great people? Are there ways to make working in these places social media worthy stories? And more importantly, is there a way to balance selflessness with gratifying the basic necessities of my generation? 

For altruism has to be marketed to the lost generation! 

Reservation - an idea that changed lives!

So since the ruling party in India has opened the can of worms that is Reservation, I thought on writing about reservation as the idea that has changed lives! My second idea for this new year.

So Reservation is an Indian law whereby a percentage of seats are reserved in academia/jobs for groups of people who have not been represented enough or socially backward groups. Groupings are historically done on the basis of caste in India and also historically the social ladder in India was divided on the basis of caste. So the constitution makers decided to have caste as the basis on which reservations will happen. 

So, supposedly lower caste people were given reserved seats in jobs/academia and also in the legislature. Over time there have been additions/deletions in who constitute a lower caste and also over generations, the reservation system had to undergo some changes since more and more people from those considered lower caste started climbing the social ladder. So for example, I am considered to have come from a lower caste though I don't believe in the caste system and in fact consider myself to be in the upper rungs of the social ladder. 

The reservation system is the reason for many people to have climbed the ladder. The ladder once dominated at the top by only people from the upper caste has now me, and many like me, who would not have had the opportunity to climb otherwise. Many never even had the opportunity to touch the ladder for many years and they were given the privilege of climbing it and climbing it along with people from the considered upper castes because of this concept of reservation. Reservation, equity is thy name! 

Yet, equity is a complex term; ain't it? How do we treat everyone in a country of more than a billion people fairly? Of course, casteism treated people badly. There was once the manual scavenger who was never allowed inside the street! He might not enter a few streets in the country even now.  And there are people from the clan of the manual scavenger who started the climb up the ladder two generations before! Is it fair to compare them both and keep the same starting line in the race up the ladder for the children of both of them? I think not! 

So, how do I define who will start the race first? Who will climb directly from the first rung? Which of those like me should be starting from ground zero? Do you get the drift? Isn't it complex?

So caste (only)-based reservation has run its course. It is a brilliant idea to build the reservation system on caste 75 years ago. And it has done wonders, through all its fallibilities. But I think it is time we go forward! And how? 

A complex phenomenon like reservations cannot be done on the whims and votes of a political party. The reservations going forward should take into account, the household income, parental education, health indicators, the place of stay, and of course to a small percentage the social affiliation (caste). 

But before a change, it warrants an in-depth study, a caste-based census to know the social mobility that has happened so far. For reservation has a long way to go; Reservation in the current form for all its achievements deserves a relook before it gets redundant. 

For reservation - an idea that changed lives, deserves a longer ride in bringing people equity! 

Celebrating lives that radiated grace!

It was a day to celebrate two lives! Not for their talents, though they are both extremely talented in their own fields. No, not for their achievements; yet, they achieved so much in life that I will take 10% of what they did if somebody gives it to me. Not even for their virtues of fair play which both were known for in their own fields of play.

So what made Rahul Dravid and Meera Sanyal stand apart from the world they ruled?

On the day Rahul Dravid, one of my childhood heroes, celebrated his birthday, news came that Meera Sanyal, the banker turned politician passed on from this world. Ah, the cruel world! She was way too young and had a lot more to give back to her country.

I pondered on their lives. Rahul Dravid, the quintessential superstar of my generation. Of course, Sachin was the star. But Dravid was the hero! Dravid was the role model. Dravid, every batsman's textbook. Dravid made girls drool. Dravid was shy. Dravid made playing cricket looked really difficult, and yet he mastered it. Dravid mirrored how I wanted to be! I wished I can play cricket like Sachin, but wanted to be Dravid. Dravid was the ultimate middle-class wannabe.

Then there was Meera Sanyal. When the 2012 Anna Hazare movement happened, I was sceptical. Movements make heroes but do not change anything, I thought. But what followed got me hooked to politics. The politics of the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party. The who's who of the social activist world and some from the corporate jungle jumped in. The activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan was there; So was the intellectual Yogendra Yadav. The tribal leader Soni Sori, the corporate biggie Capt. Gopinath and the renowned social activist Aruna Rai were all there. Yet, my eyes often searched for this lady called Meera Sanyal. When she spoke she had a conviction not often heard from the political arena. Yet she was soft. Often reticent. The banker in her threw economic jargon which I often googled. She knew way too much to be so humble I had often thought. And when the AAP boat had the big hole, along with the rats, the big names also quit. There was something amiss in the party. A lot of good people cannot stay together I thought. Yet Meera stayed on. In her own inimitable way. Very often behind the stage, and when the light was thrown on her, with humility and smile unknown in the political circus.

Two people! One a renowned star. Other, often hiding from the limelight. Yet they had one common quality which made them likeable. In fact loveable, in their own sphere. They radiated grace. GRACE!

Grace is polite. Grace is courteous. Grace has good manners. Grace maintains decency. Grace showed respect. Grace is smooth and grace is elegant. Rahul and Meera radiated Grace.

Can there be grace in this generation of cricket and politics and cinema and corporate heroes? or Am I asking a bit too much? Is it way too costly to expect from our role models to be graceful now? How I wish there are more Rahul's and Meera's now. For they make the world a far better place to live.

For grace is the most underrated virtue! 

Non-Violence - The most important conviction of the previous century

The 20th century! Bloodiest century in human history. Man killed more in the hundred years of the previous century than the first twenty centuries after Christ put together. Yet through that lingering dark cloud of violence, shone this bright light. The light of Non-Violence!

In all the mayhem this world is, it is easy to forget that some of the greatest lurches towards freedom in history took place without a shot being fired.

A man called Gandhi led the biggest democracy on earth become one; Without any army. He stood against the then greatest empire. When England killed incessantly, Gandhi protested relentlessly. But did not fire back. The only weapons he used were non-cooperation and civil disobedience. He just refused to cooperate and disobeyed imperialism with civility. In all the 30 years of his fight against the British colonialism, not once did he hit back. But win, he did, against Great Britain.

Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up to the white passenger when asked to vacate by the bus driver. She refused because she was tired of giving in to brutality and force. But did she take a gun and go around shooting? NO! She sat through stubbornly. Refused to give in to brute force. And she brought a change in the law treating the blacks equally in the United States of America.

Martin Luther King Jr had a dream! That one day America will conquer the devilish slavery. And the dream came to light in Obama's presidency. King Jr's fight against slavery included boycott. Staged protests. Sit-ins and eat-ins. He overcame arrest and other violent threats including the bombing of his home. But never did he pick up a gun or throw a bomb.

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison fighting for a cause. 27 years of fighting without the bullet and spilling blood. The Berlin wall which stood for nearly three decades dividing people fell down without one known weapon of violence. The women of America got the right to vote after a lawyer Inez Milholland Boissevain led a procession of more than 5000 marchers down Washington D.C's Pennsylvania Avenue and the seven years of non-violent movement after that.

Non-violence! Non-Violence is not for the faint-hearted and the coward. It is for the brave who does not mind getting hurt for his views and ideologies, yet without retaliating. It is for the upright who will stand with the marginalized. It is for those who do not mind getting killed in the process; for those who will brave the prison for many years.

The conviction that Non-violence will lead to victories against enemies of all forms ignited the minds of the men and women of the previous century. In an arms race running world where people use violence for zilch, these heroes of the previous century have a huge lesson to teach us.

Non-Violence is for me the single most important idea that conquered the world of the previous century. Is the new century ready to learn?