Land of Ram and Maveli. Part 1: Why Our Dream is Different

The Dream

What is the Indian Dream for the nation? North Indians have the ideal of Ram Rajya: the regime of Shri Rama after his return from the wars and exile. Ideal of perfection. But we Malayalis (literally, Hillbillies) have our own ideal: Maveli Nadu Vaneedum Kaalam. The time when King MahaBali ruled our land. Every Malayali is supposed to know that, irrespective of religious belief, absence thereof, or Comradeship.

It struck me, as I first saw the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, that those pretty accurately reflect the words of the song. Must have been jotted down by a Malayali while the rest of UNESCO were arguing about Terminological Exactitude.

The striking thing is that there is nothing there about unlimited accumulation of wealth at any cost to others, or about taking away the hard-earned gains of others to give to Party goons. This is the Indian Ideal, as much as I can figure out. Let’s use this as the goal. Not GDP. Not PPP. Not Standard of Living. Not Human Development Index. Not Killing or Enslaving the Infidels. Not Saving the Souls of all the Heathen Sheep out there. And most certainly not World Domination or Claiming All Lands For Ourselves In The Name of Godzilla or The Queen or Comrade #.

Expectations through the decades

The only time I voted in India was in December 1984. It was soon after I had written my first-ever Letter To The Editor – of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Mr. Ackerman, former university professor (OK, U. Georgia but still..), had written in the “usual” sneering style of the AJC’s Sunday World News Perspective: “If it took an Indira to rule it, India is no democracy”. Ackerman predicted Know-It-Allly and gleefully that India (then viewed as a Soviet stooge in the legendary Centers of Excellence that have guided US Foreign Policy through the decades) was about to disintegrate in short order.

Incidentally, this was the theme of “Experts” all around the world since 1947, getting more strident into the 60s with Malthusian Population Explosion Theory and 1970s Nuclear Non-Proliferation scams as it turned out that India was not going to be one of the “poodle”nations despite being in the British (Looted) CommonWealth. Got rid of the Queen’s Governor General in 1950 long before Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Refused to join NATO, SEATO, CENTO, Warsaw Pact, or any other Banana Republic “TO” (Treaty Organization).

Defied POTUS Johnson’s pressure using PL480 “Aid With Strings” and (my parents too) went hungry rather than give Jammu-Kashmir up to the gentle mercies of the Islamic State in 1965. Stood up to Tricky D1ck Nixon and the accused Harvard war criminal Kissinger’s sending the US 7th Fleet in the Bay of Bengal, outracing it to get the Pakistani genocidal rapist “Army” to surrender en masse and beg for Indian protection in 1971, stopping their American taxpayer-funded genocide fun & games. Exploded a “peaceful nuclear device” at Pokhran in the face of the racist “Nukes for Pakistan Treaty” (NPT). Turned “basket case nation” into “food basket nation”, a net exporter of food by 1980. And… still managed to hold massive free elections every 5 years like clockwork.

Shockingly, the AJC published my whole letter as a column titled: “Citizen responds to ..” I got some strange looks at work next day, esp. for my cracks on the US Voting Rights Act strictures against vote-rigging scams under which Georgia still rankled, after 200+ years of American democracy. A full 100 years after Atlanta, razed by US General Sherman’s forces, rose in Reconstruction. A warning lesson: Aerospace nerds used to read newspapers beyond the Comics Section, in those days.

Back to India, December 1984: The first thing I saw getting off the Air Bridge at Mumbai was a policemen. With a Bren or Sten gun, not the lathi/cane associated with Indian Police when I was in India before, nor even the 0.303 rifle that they taught me to fire without breaking my collarbone in the NCC. An interesting trip home to Keralam. Relatives assured me that some enthusiast of democracy might vote on my behalf so I might as well stir myself to go vote. I was surprised that my name was on the voter’s rolls. As I had promised Mr. Ackerman, I voted – with no regard for what he or Washington DC or Moscow had to say on the matter.

Moral of the story is that I have been reading the “Mainstream Western Media” since 1964 or so, and have my own opinions about its honesty and perceptiveness when it comes to understanding India.

The Wolf at the Door, Vultures Overhead

1984 was particularly grim. But in the words of the song “In a New York Minute”, the Wolf Is Always At the Door. And the buzzards of “McKenna’s Gold”, and termites, and Bubonic Plague, the SARS and MERS and Nipah and Wuhan viruses and Kargil and Pulwama and Doklam and Galwan. At the CDC in Atlanta back around 2005, a presenter on Biological WMD casually mentioned in passing: “like the Plague attack in Surat, India, you know…”.

Praise be to those who protect us, and to the Power that protects the Protectors.

Small-Signal Gain: India’s Progress

Through all this, plus the annual floods and droughts and tsunamis and cyclones and earthquakes and riots, India has continued to maintain a grinding forward progress. 1.0000001 steps forward for each step back. “Small signal gain” in the terminology of lasers, but enough, when the alignment is right, to bloom into focused brilliance.

It was always said that India posed “immense problems”. People shook their heads wisely, and went on to criticize the government. And previous leaders. And were happy that they had contributed such wisdom. But what if someone were to actually sit down and see what was needed to solve **ALL** those problems, and figure out the order in which they should be solved, and make a plan to implement those solutions? What I suggest below is that this happened, in a manner that none of us, at least I, had really realized. All those naysayers have been shown up to be fools. Or worse.

The leaders made mistakes. But they did some things right. The politicians, the Ministers, said many wrong things, made many mistakes. They were cartoon material. But they did have some deep passion for their homeland in them, and they did some things right. The Administrative service is much lampooned in stiff-necked safari coat-suit-boot (no kidding: see the video if it still exists, of the plane-crash rescue effort, where all hands from the nearby village are racing to try to save people in the monsoon darkness before the wreck catches fire.. but one precious policeman is assigned to hold an umbrella over the Presiding Babu standing well back). But they are still selected from a very ambitious set of high achievers, through a gruelling process: they are at least as smart as the rest of us. Some of them went the wrong way. But others stayed the course, learned to get things done, and did them. I have met some and seen them work: they are stellar (and, oh! the best were in Kerala shirt and ‘mund’ and chappals, not suit-boot. Or simple saris). When they coordinate a billion people’s energies to do something, they really get some amazing things done. This is how a large nation moves forward, and India is large!

And so the people of India, both resident and non-resident, citizens and “diaspora”, have made amazing progress, against all odds. Let me list a few. Perhaps in reverse chronological order because it is a very long list indeed. Perhaps I should call this “Asahiti” because is Itihasa backwards.

There’s so much to write on each but I need to get this on the web: its like 1998 again when I first searched under the term “Kashmir”. There was only ONE article out there, out of over a hundred that came up on the Search Engines of that time, that gave the Indian perspective: the Indian Embassy in Washington DC. Inspired me to set up my own “About Jammu-Kashmir” page: after all I would in the Top 2! But on CAA, which is my first item, I can’t even find that easily: a dismal failure of whatever distinguished Think Tanks are supposed to articulate policy decisions of the Indian government. Maybe they outsourced that too to InfoSys who “do” the Income Tax portal (thank you! Smt. Finance Ministerji, a long-time annual prayer heard!), or to JNU.

Many more posts to come. I give a short preview. Constructive suggestions welcome. Note that I am not into Indian (or American) Party politics. The trouble with Party Loyalties is burned into my brain by the bumper sticker I used to see on my commute:

“VOTE (XXXXX Party). IT’S EASIER THAN THINKING!”

I vote for who I think will bring positive change for the nation, based on the best information, knowledge and thinking that I can acquire. And I support those who strive to ensure that all people can get, likewise, the best information, knowledge and thinking possible, from all points of view, but not go into Analysis Paralysis.

This is so hard today with Information Overload forcing people into Tweets and WhatsApp Forwards rather than thought. Tweets, unfortunately, are rarely on the level of the Rks of the Rg Veda – and each of those takes aeons to unpack. And Twits who Tweet are hardly Rsis composing Rks. My essays are a small effort to collect the facts and analyses as I can find them, and separate them from the squawking of the Turkey Buzzards. So that I can begin to understand the issues.

Here’s a list of the other things I want to write about, again in roughly reverse chronological order.

The Path Forward

There is of course a very long way to go.

Satyam Eva Jayate.

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.