Comments on: 61 years of freedom – what changed?

By: Abhik

Abhik — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 05:26:05 +0000

Interesting discussion…Has been whirring in my head for a couple of days, so came up with a post of my own..

The bottom line, a certain section of India is more confident about their identity as Indians…and that is what’s showing

check it out if you have the time here:

http://kihba.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-changed.html

By: Priya Raju

Priya Raju — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 08:33:20 +0000

Sanyog – Interesting point about the ‘ape the west’ types.

Many people are impressionable – they change unknowingly. What we wear, who we befriend, where we live, what we say – all these change us, whether we intend to change or not. Many people may wear a tricolor wrist-band today to ape the west. But at least some of them will become patriotic slowly & perhaps, involuntarily.

I read a fable in a weekly magazine that explains this in dramatic terms:

A king had a daughter, an only child. He wanted to find the right consort for her. The princess wanted to marry a man who followed Dharma to a T – and she rejected every single suitor. As a last resort, the king decided to beg some hermits in the local monastery to see if 1 of them would marry her.

Hearing this, a thief cum con-man dressed himself as a hermit & started living in the monastery. The king visited the monastery 1 day & made his request. “Take my daughter & the whole Kingdom” he begged. 1 by 1, the hermits declined politely & walked out. When his turn came, the con-man was surprised to find himself saying “No”. For, unknowingly, he had realized that striving for serenity is way better than riches.

I’m not saying that every single aper of the west would change, simply by going thru the motions of patriotism. But at least some would.

By: senthil

senthil — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 08:15:27 +0000

An excelent article that i came across.. i feel, its highly relevant to the subject of this post..

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/14/asia/letter.php?page=1

particularly the following quote from this article, reflect my opinion too..

“How do you build a great power, a nation of ideas, when 20-year-olds think with a 40-year-old’s prudence, when they learn nothing but what they can use tomorrow, when they do not see through the lenses of literature, economics, history, philosophy?

What a shame it would be to win the lottery of world power and have no idea how to spend it.”

By: Sanyog

Sanyog — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:24:53 +0000

Sukumar
Interesting post, and even more interesting comments (though I could not go through all of those!)…
I have a slightly different view point though – I do not think India is much more patriotic than what it was.. yes, probably the display is more than what it used to be. The signs that you are citing corroborating your observation (hand on heart, wristbands etc) are mostly ‘ape the west’ types – rather than true patriotism. A lot of people (not all) do these things coz they consider these to be fashionable.

If we were more patriotic today than what we were 10 years ago, corruption would have gone down. If we were more patriotic today our parliamentarians, lawyers, judges and bureaucrats would not have dared to stoop so low in public life…(lets just forget dealings behind the scene)…

There is a positive side though. We are more nationalistic today, which you call as patriotism. And that is a change. Why that has changed? Today we have more confidence in India as a nation. Our IT success story, our economic growth story, worldwide recognition of our elite education institutes, our nuclear capability.. all these things make us feel more confident on world stage. We are no more ashamed of our 1B+ population. We consider that to be our strength.
Today’s Indians wear this confidence on their sleeves. You call that patriotism, I feel in part its fashion, and in part its nationalism.

By: senthil

senthil — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:43:02 +0000

Vamsi.. I dont deny the points you have pointed out.. we are taking different context from the same article..

inspite of all these nasty games played by the western intelligence, india did not become banana republic.. there may be multiple reasons for that.. one prime reason is the statesmanship of indra gandhi.. particularly, the way she handled bangladesh war despite US was dead against us..

But, the purpose why i highlighted is the way our media had been manipulated.. you need to accept, that we have so far believed on the media that is now known to be highly subservient to foreign intelligences.. and we have so far formed our opinion on our country, our society, and everything native, based on those biased articles..

There needs to be an introspection, whether our opinions that we have formed is correct.. because, we debating based on our opinions..