Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

Good Morning India............

The job of journalists is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Throughout the year I have been wondering where is India headed to and what for?
Mehedi Hasan's column in the Indian Express of the last day of this year, sheds some light on my thoughts.

Many issues have surfaced in India this year, some positive and some negative. There are camps of people who have taken an extreme position on most of the issues. Extreme right or extreme left.
Very few learned have sought the middle ground of rationality, specially adhering to the age old principle that all people are always good. If karma really exists, why do good things happen to bad people and good people suffer? A question always asked or which is in the mind of probably the entire human race. Yet it thunders in the head of every Indian when he looks at the corrupt, rogue, self interested politicians, similar so called gurus and babas, which Independent India has spawned over the last 65 years or more. These politician scoundrels with their personal agenda of power, egos, dynastic ideas have ripped apart the fabric of this great country of the Vedas and the Puranas and The Golden age Kings of yore.

If we have to face reality and be rational at the same time, then probably our nation has to look back into our checkered history. The answers to our questions as to what we want our Nation to be today and in the next 100 years, probably lie there. Mr. Modi if you want to go in the right direction, you have to take the Nation along with you. I am sure you have read history. It is time you make up your mind, whether to create India as a new entity, an India of the aspiring masses, the aspiring youth which is predominant now or to build a regressive India on its old foundations with foregone results. Our History is replete with such examples. The Golden Age of India during the Maurya dynasties, our fall from this pedestal and the reasons thereto, Alexander's invasion of India and so many other interesting up and down events. One thing strikes me though, that when Alexander defeated Porus, the world said he has conquered India!! Just a small principality in the North West and yet historians claim it to be a conquest of our great Nation. There are a whole lot of lessons to be learnt from here if we have to make India of our dreams come true.

We cannot build new buildings on old foundations. The fact is very simple. Howsoever good the old foundation, the new building would have to take the shape of the old one. Walls will have to be made on the old foundation beams, pillars on the old foundation pillars, though the pillars and walls could go up to 8 stories. Yet the shape of the brand new building would just be like the old one and may not be in order of the new owners need. Spanking new plaster of Paris interiors, new design exteriors, may be plastic paints would make the new building unrecognizable compared to the old one. Yet the culture, philosophy and flow of the new structure would be ditto same as the old one. This may not fulfill the “Vision” of the new owners, so the extra money and time spent in uprooting and ripping out the excellent foundation would be well spent for future happiness.

I think let the new generation have a free hand once a “Vision” is created. Let them be the designers of a new foundation along with the new buildings. Let them learn from old mistakes and their own. Let them close gaps to the front and not to their rear. Let us not keep making them look into rear view mirrors all the time in terms of our righteousness, vanity, cultural, social and religious bindings. I think the first step would be recognizing the fact, that “What was good for us in our times may not be good for them in theirs”. After all how the world occurs to us, make our contexts and these contexts drive us. Similar is the case with the new generation. Let us not make their contexts. It would be the same as creating new buildings on old foundations, howsoever much we may feel that our foundations are the best.
Going a bit wider and looking at the state of our Nation, the above facts hit us like a sucker punch. Let the dinosaurs remain extinct in the mists of time. Let us build India of our dreams, let this be our new years' resolution Mr. PM.

Mr Prime Minister Modi, perhaps it is time to decide and delink if required.

Ajay