Life goes on...with or without freedom

From childhood, this day has been just another holiday where I could sleep for some more time. But I am just wondering the reason behind this celebration. Are we independent? To be more precise, are we more independent than our forefathers? Did our forefathers really suffer under the Britishers??? If anyone says "yes" over here, then they should visit Aushwitz, read about apartheid in South Africa, or visit Afghanistan. I feel that Indians have been a very lucky nation, unlike popular opinion.

If we are a sad nation today, its because of our own discrimination based on race, caste, and religion. We are a country with our unity shattered by our diversity and we are individualists within a psuedo-collectivist culture. Nations across the world identify themselves by their races. The Germans call themselves huns, the Norwegian call themselves Vikings, and what do we Indians call ourselves? For us, being an Aryan or Dravidian is not enough. We need so many criteria to identify ourselves like religion, mother tongue, varna, gothras, sub gothras... and so much more.

Do we really need all this to identify ourselves. How can we have unity between all this clutter? This is what my professor called "individualists among collectivists". He said that all Asian cultures are collectivist cultures, except India. We Indians can never think as collectivists because for us it is always "Us versus them". Its always the Marathis against the Punjabis, the OBCs against the SCs and STs, the Vanniyars against the Dalits and so on. We Indians love differences so much  that we carry them with us even when we change religions! The brahmin converted Christians sit in a special reserved area in the front and the dalit converted Christians sit at the back in the church.

I just hope that in future, our children get recognized only by their father's name and nothing else. This is for our freedom from discrimination, which we are still devoid of.

Adventure Capitalist: Truly capitalist

The book, "Adventure Capitalist" is definitely a must read. It provides an eagle's eye view of different nations in the present time. I really didn't know anything about sex tourism, until I read the book. The author's time in African countries was an eye-opening account. I found out that the western countries definitely have a propaganda to keep Africa poor. That is the only way they can remain rich.

Even today, the rich west,consisting of countries like, US, Germany, and France dumps its surplus food grains in African nations through NGOs. Due to this, African farmers cannot continue to farm for a living. This is also done by America in countries like Mexico and Puerto Rico. Due to this, jobless farmers from Mexicans and Puerto Ricans come to US as cheap laborers.

But the author has a lot of surprises when it comes to describe India and China. He feels that Shanghai is a beautiful place and worth investing , which it quite true. The author gave detailed account of how Chinese churches and monasteries are flooded with devotees. But he does not talk about the human right violations and the restrictions towards freedom of speech practiced by the local government.

The author, to my surprise, feels that India is not worth investing! All he could say about India was that it will break into several states, because of language and culture diversity. Well, he is right to some extent. But I feel that a country, which has survived, the 70s(emergency, violent clashes on state formations,riots etc) can survive anything. India definitely has shown very slow growth due to the infamous Hindu Rate of growth. But the Indian growth is sustainable unlike the Chinese ultra supersonic growth. The Chinese economy has flourished by focusing outward like Japan. But India has always focused inward, and worked on self sufficiency.

Anyways, as I finish my review, saying I learnt a lot about the present social and political conditions of many nations, from this book.