Raj Subramaniam

My country has paid up the ransom, Mr. Hazare!

Disclaimer: I am equally appalled by corruption in governance. I’m not a government stooge.

If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.

And I’m back!

After an unplanned year-long break, I’m back on my blog. Though I blame twitter for weaning me away from blogging, you know the truth.

So what brings me back? Anna Hazare, Bollywood and the Babas (both the spiritual and the designer clothes varieties) protesting outside Jantar Mantar. A very rant-y post is coming up.

Btw, how do you like the blog’s revamped look? The previous version was unreadable.

Just a quick post.

I was watching Swades a little while ago on TV and had to get this thought out in the open. The realism of the movie is also this country’s greatest tragedy . Swades needed a Mohan Bhargava, a Brahmin scientist, to bring about social change in the village. Had he been of a lesser social standing (read Caste), no one in the village would’ve given a damn. Even today, “well educated” friends of mine, from premier institutes, will not dare cross the caste lines, esp. when it comes to marriage.

Though the movie is all about hope, do we have any? Leave your comments below.

India, my India!

The recent 20th anniversary celebrations of the fall of Berlin wall had an unlikely fallout here in India. The hopeless romantics amongst us got off indulging in unnecessary and ill-informed banter about Indo-Pak unification. What made it incredible was the fact that such discussions were being spearheaded by people you’d normally believe to be well read.

Many years ago, as part of a school competition, I had written an article about the basis for formation of a nation. I’ll try and reproduce the gist of the piece and add my two cents of learning since then.

Every nation in history has had its foundation in either one or both of the two basic pillars - religion and language. Notwithstanding invasions and temporary conquests, these have been the only unifying factors.

Tweet! Tweet!

Twitter totally kicks Facebook’s backside!

Where else, but in twitosphere, would two diverse personalities as a bollywood actor (@gulpanag) and the editor-in-chief (@nramind) of India’s best newspaper respond to and connect with someone on the same day.