Hindutva: Hindu Fundamentalism or Nationalism?

Encyclopedia Britannica on 'Hindu fundamentalism':

"What is usually called 'Hindu fundamentalism' in India has been influenced more by nationalism than by religion, in part because Hinduism does not have a specific sacred text to which conformity can be demanded. Moreover, conformity to a religious code has never been of particular importance to Hindu groups such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). For the members of such groups, Hinduism is above all a symbol of national identity rather than a set of rules to be obeyed.

"The nationalistic orientation of the RSS is reflected in its name, which means 'National Volunteer Corps'. Similarly, the name of the BJP means 'Party of the Indian People'. Neither the RSS nor the BJP advocates the creation of a Hindu state. The principal concern of both groups is the danger posed to the Hindu nation by Christian and Islamic proselytisation among the Scheduled Castes (formerly untouchables) and lower-caste Hindus. In RSS tracts, there is little reference to specific Hindu beliefs, and its members acknowledge that they are not themselves religious.

"The nationalism of the RSS and the BJP is also reflected in their religious and moral demands; in this respect they differ significantly from Christian fundamentalist groups in the United States. In a notorious incident in 1992, the Babri Masjid (Mosque of Babur) at Ayodhya was demolished by a mob of Hindu nationalists; the subsequent rioting led to the deaths of more than 1,000 people. Although there was real religious fervour associated with the belief that the site of the mosque was the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama and the location of an ancient Hindu temple, the attack was above all a reflection of the Hindu nationalists' belief in the essentially Hindu character of India. The fact that Hindu nationalism is sometimes called 'Hindu fundamentalism' illustrates how indiscriminately the term 'fundamentalism' has been used outside its original American Christian context."

Universalism & Absolutism, Polytheism & Monotheism, Tolerance & Intolerance

Q: What is the truth?
There are two fundamental answers for this question:
A. There are many truths
B. There is only one truth

Accordingly, there are two fundamental philosophies:
A. Universalism
B. Absolutism

Asia is the cradle of all the world's major civilisations. It has three major regions:
1. India
2. East Asia
3. West Asia

Philosophically, India and East Asia were/are universalist and West Asia was/is absolutist. India's universalist philosophy gave birth to a universalist way of life: Hinduism.

Each region gave birth to several religions:
1. India: Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism
2. East Asia: Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism
3. West Asia: Judaism, Christianity, Islam

Philosophy is the foundation of religion. Universalism expresses itself in religion as polytheism and tolerance. Absolutism expresses itself in religion as monotheism and intolerance.

'Secret Superstar': Review

Review:

* India has 940 females for every 1000 males. The natural sex ratio is 950 females for every 1000 males. So this means about 70 lakh girls and women are 'missing' in India.
* India's male life expectancy is 67 years and female life expectancy is 70 years - only 3 years more. In industrialised countries, female life expectancy is 7 years more than the male life expectancy.
* India's male literacy rate is 82% and female literacy rate is 65% - almost 20% lesser.

People say we ill-treat girls and women from their birth to their death. They are wrong. We start ill-treating them even before their birth. We kill girls before they are born. If they are born, we don't treat them as full humans having equal rights. And we say it is 'normal' for a man to beat his wife. The condition of girls and women in our country does not make for a very pretty picture.

Sociology tells us that agricultural society is gender-unequal and industrial society is gender-equal. So as India transforms from an agricultural society to an industrial society through the technological and economic process of modernisation, the situation will improve. True. Technology and economics are powerful forces. But there is another force that is even more powerful - the most powerful force in the world: love. And the greatest love in the world is a mother's love.

Advait Chandan's Secret Superstar is a no-holds-barred examination of India's shameful treatment of its girls and women. This itself would make it a good movie. But at its heart, it is a simple story about a mother's love for her child/daughter. Secret Superstar is beautiful, wonderful and uplifting. It is a moving tribute to the heroes of the world - and the visible gods: the mothers. Maatru devo bhava . . . Janani swargaat api gariyasi . . . Vande maataram . . .

America, White Racism and Donald Trump

Ta-Nehisi Coates on America, white racism and Donald Trump:

• With one immediate exception, Trump's predecessors made their way to high office through the passive power of whiteness — that bloody heirloom which cannot ensure mastery of all events but can conjure a tailwind for most of them.

• It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true — his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power.

• But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies.

• But that is the point of white supremacy — to ensure that that which all others achieve with maximal effort, white people (particularly white men) achieve with minimal qualification. Barack Obama delivered to black people the hoary message that if they work twice as hard as white people, anything is possible. But Trump's counter is persuasive: Work half as hard as black people, and even more is possible.

• Trump truly is something new — the first President whose entire political existence hinges on the fact of a black President. And so it will not suffice to say that Trump is a white man like all the others who rose to become President. He must be called by his rightful honorific — America's first white President.

• The scope of Trump's commitment to whiteness is matched only by the depth of popular disbelief in the power of whiteness.

• The collective verdict holds that the Democratic Party lost its way when it abandoned everyday economic issues like job creation for the softer fare of social justice. The indictment continues: To their neo-liberal economics, Democrats and liberals have married a condescending elitist affect that sneers at blue-collar culture and mocks the white man as history's greatest monster and prime-time television's biggest doofus. In this rendition, Donald Trump is not the product of white supremacy so much as the product of a backlash against contempt for white working-class people.

• That black people, who have lived for centuries under such derision and condescension, have not yet been driven into the arms of Trump does not trouble these theoreticians.

• Ostensibly assaulted by campus protests, battered by arguments about intersectionality, and oppressed by new bathroom rights, a blameless white working class did the only thing any reasonable polity might: elect an orcish reality-television star who insists on taking his intelligence briefings in picture-book form.

• Trump's white support was not determined by income. He assembled a broad white coalition that ran the gamut from Joe the Dishwasher to Joe the Plumber to Joe the Banker. So when white pundits cast the elevation of Trump as the handiwork of an inscrutable white working class, they are being too modest, declining to claim credit for their own economic class.

• If you tallied the popular vote of only white America to derive 2016 electoral votes, Trump would have defeated Clinton 389 to 81.

• The focus on one subsector of Trump voters — the white working class — is puzzling, given the breadth of his white coalition. Indeed, there is a kind of theatre at work in which Trump's Presidency is pawned off as a product of the white working class as opposed to a product of an entire whiteness that includes the very authors doing the pawning. The motive is clear: escapism. To accept that the bloody heirloom remains potent even now, some five decades after Martin Luther King was gunned down on a Memphis balcony — even after a black President; indeed, strengthened by the fact of that black President — is to accept that racism remains, as it has since 1776, at the heart of this country's political life.

• But if the broad and remarkable white support for Donald Trump can be reduced to the righteous anger of a noble class of smallville firefighters and evangelicals, mocked by Brooklyn hipsters and womanist professors into voting against their interests, then the threat of racism and whiteness, the threat of the heirloom, can be dismissed. Consciences can be eased; no deeper existential reckoning is required.

• In law and economics and then in custom, a racist distinction not limited to the household emerged between the 'help' (the 'freemen', the white workers) and the 'servants' (the 'negers', the slaves). The former were virtuous and just, worthy of citizenship, progeny of Jefferson and, later, Jackson. The latter were servile and parasitic, dim-witted and lazy, the children of African savagery.

• Black workers suffer because it was and is our lot. But when white workers suffer, something in nature has gone awry. And so an opioid epidemic among mostly white people is greeted with calls for compassion and treatment, as all epidemics should be, while a crack epidemic among mostly black people is greeted with scorn and mandatory minimums. Sympathetic op‑ed columns and articles are devoted to the plight of working-class whites when their life expectancy plummets to levels that, for blacks, society has simply accepted as normal. White slavery is sin. Nigger slavery is natural.

• Speaking in 1848, Senator John C Calhoun: "With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals."

• On the eve of secession, Jefferson Davis, the eventual President of the Confederacy, pushed the idea further, arguing that such equality between the white working class and white oligarchs could not exist at all without black slavery: "I say that the lower race of human beings that constitute the substratum of what is termed the slave population of the South, elevates every white man in our community. It is the presence of a lower caste, those lower by their mental and physical organisation, controlled by the higher intellect of the white man, that gives this superiority to the white labourer."

• "These days, what ails working-class and middle-class blacks and Latinos is not fundamentally different from what ails their white counterparts", Senator Barack Obama wrote in 2006: "Downsizing, outsourcing, automation, wage stagnation, the dismantling of employer-based health-care and pension plans, and schools that fail to teach young people the skills they need to compete in a global economy". Obama allowed that "blacks in particular have been vulnerable to these trends" — but less because of racism than for reasons of geography and job-sector distribution. This notion — raceless anti-racism — marks the modern left, from the New Democrat Bill Clinton to the socialist Bernie Sanders. Few national liberal politicians have shown any recognition that there is something systemic and particular in the relationship between black people and their country that might require specific policy solutions.

• If anyone should be angered by the devastation wreaked by the financial sector and a government that declined to prosecute the perpetrators, it is African Americans — the housing crisis was one of the primary drivers in the past 20 years of the wealth gap between black families and the rest of the country. But the cultural condescension toward and economic anxiety of black people is not news. Toiling blacks are in their proper state; toiling whites raise the specter of white slavery.

• A narrative of long-neglected working-class black voters, injured by globalisation and the financial crisis, and forsaken by out-of-touch politicians, does not serve to cleanse the conscience of white people for having elected Donald Trump. Only the idea of a long-suffering white working class can do that.

• "You can't eat equality", asserts Joe Biden — a statement worthy of someone unthreatened by the loss of wages brought on by an unwanted pregnancy, a background-check box at the bottom of a job application, or the deportation of a breadwinner.

• Certainly not every Trump voter is a white supremacist, just as not every white person in the Jim Crow South was a white supremacist. But every Trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one.

• The white working class functions rhetorically not as a real community of people so much as a tool to quiet the demands of those who want a more inclusive America.

• What appeals to the white working class is ennobled. What appeals to black workers, and all others outside the tribe, is dastardly identitarianism. All politics are identity politics — except the politics of white people, the politics of the bloody heirloom.

• Any empirical evaluation of the relationship between Trump and the white working class would reveal that one adjective in that phrase is doing more work than the other. In 2016, Trump enjoyed majority or plurality support among every economic branch of whites.

• The real problem is that Democrats aren't the party of white people — working or otherwise. White workers are not divided by the fact of labour from other white demographics; they are divided from all other labourers by the fact of their whiteness.

• Packer concludes that Obama was leaving the country "more divided and angrier than most Americans can remember", a statement that is likely true only because most Americans identify as white. Certainly the men and women forced to live in the wake of the beating of John Lewis, the lynching of Emmett Till, the firebombing of Percy Julian's home, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers would disagree.

• The triumph of Trump's campaign of bigotry presented the problematic spectacle of an American President succeeding at best in spite of his racism and possibly because of it. Trump moved racism from the euphemistic and plausibly deniable to the overt and freely claimed.

• The implications — that systemic bigotry is still central to our politics; that the country is susceptible to such bigotry; that the salt-of-the-earth Americans whom we lionise in our culture and politics are not so different from those same Americans who grin back at us in lynching photos — were just too dark.

• Incorporating all of this into an analysis of America and the path forward proved too much to ask. Instead, the response has largely been an argument aimed at emotion — the summoning of the white working class, emblem of America's hardscrabble roots, inheritor of its pioneer spirit, as a shield against the horrific and empirical evidence of trenchant bigotry.

• The inference is that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to speak on hard economic issues and prefers discussing presumably softer cultural issues such as "diversity". It's worth unpacking what, precisely, falls under this rubric of "diversity" — resistance to the monstrous incarceration of legions of black men, resistance to the destruction of health providers for poor women, resistance to the effort to deport parents, resistance to a policing whose sole legitimacy is rooted in brute force, resistance to a theory of education that preaches "no excuses" to black and brown children, even as excuses are proffered for mendacious corporate executives "too big to jail".

• The first black President found that he was personally toxic to the GOP base. It was thought by Obama and some of his allies that this toxicity was the result of a relentless assault waged by Fox News and right-wing talk radio. Trump's genius was to see that it was something more, that it was a hunger for revanche so strong that a political novice and accused rapist could topple the leadership of one major party and throttle the heavily favoured nominee of the other.

• Trump, more than any other politician, understood the valence of the bloody heirloom and the great power in not being a nigger.

• In a recent 'New Yorker' article, a former Russian military officer pointed out that interference in an election could succeed only where "necessary conditions" and an "existing background" were present. In America, that "existing background" was a persistent racism, and the "necessary condition" was a black President.

• And so the most powerful country in the world has handed over all its affairs — the prosperity of its entire economy; the security of its 300 million citizens; the purity of its water, the viability of its air, the safety of its food; the future of its vast system of education; the soundness of its national highways, airways, and railways; the apocalyptic potential of its nuclear arsenal — to a carnival barker who introduced the phrase "grab 'em by the pussy" into the national lexicon. It is as if the white tribe united in demonstration to say, "If a black man can be President, then any white man — no matter how fallen — can be President". And in that perverse way, the democratic dreams of Jefferson and Jackson were fulfilled.

• Trump's legacy will be exposing the patina of decency for what it is and revealing just how much a demagogue can get away with. It does not take much to imagine another politician, wiser in the ways of Washington and better schooled in the methodology of governance — and now liberated from the pretence of anti-racist civility — doing a much more effective job than Trump.

India's Politics: Right & Left

India's politics - Right and Left:

Islam & Christianity: Absolutism and Imperialism

The central feature of the West Asian religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) is absolutism. That is, all the 3 religions say:
1. It alone is true
2. All other religions are false
3. So it must replace all other religions.

Absolutism logically leads to imperialism - which consists of:
1. Military conquest
2. Political control
3. Religious conversions.

Demonetisation + GST = Slowdown in India's Economy?

All these days we knew that our political system is built on the foundation of corruption. Now we are realising something else: our economy is just like our politics - it is also built on a foundation of corruption. This is clear from the slowdown in the economy following two major measures against corruption: demonetisation and GST.

Last week the Prime Minister said he will not hurt the country's long-term economic interest for the sake of his short-term political interest. This sounds like a typical political statement. But its corollary is very true: the Prime Minister has hurt his party's short-term political interest for the sake of the country's long-term economic interest. In any democracy this is a bold gamble. In India it is suicide. (Forget the Uttar Pradesh election result: now it's a different ball-game altogether)

The Prime Minister has taken not one, but two big gambles. Most economists say both DeMo and GST will improve the economy over the long term. But 'long term' is an unaffordable luxury for a political party in a democracy. And this is not just any democracy - this is India. So cross your fingers and watch how the economy performs over the next several months. India-Pakistan cricket matches are just for time-pass. This is the real high-stakes edge-of-your-seat nail-biting cliffhanger . . .

PS: If this gamble works, it will be for two reasons:
1) The faith that crores of poor Indians have in the Prime Minister
2) The awesome quality of the alternative option.

'Blade Runner 2049' Review: Science Fiction and Philosophy

Review:

Q: What is 'the real world'?
A: The world we live in, the world we know - the world we see, hear and touch every day.

Q: What is philosophy?
A: Asking questions about the world and about life. What is truth? What is reality? Is there a truth/reality beyond this world?

Q: What is science fiction?
A: An imaginary story set in an imaginary world of the future with imaginary advanced science & technology.

We live every day in 'the real world'. We accept it as it is and don't ask any questions. Art - especially science fiction - can be a powerful tool for looking at our world in a different way and asking questions about it. That is, science fiction can be a powerful tool for philosophy.

In movies, the best examples of this are the Wachowski brothers' Matrix 1 (1999) and Matrix 2 (2003). Matrix 1 dealt with reality vs perception. Matrix 2 dealt with free will vs determinism.

In other words, science fiction is the means and philosophy is the end. This is how it should be. The problem is sometimes the opposite happens - science fiction becomes the end and philosophy becomes the means. That is - instead of using science fiction to ask philosophical questions about our real world of today, a book/movie tries to ask philosophical questions about an imaginary science-fiction world of the future. This is not philosophy - it is pseudo-philosophy.

The classic examples of this are Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). American and European critics hailed both these movies as masterpieces - because they don't know the difference between philosophy and pseudo-philosophy.

And now Dennis Villeneuve gives us the sequel to Blade Runner - Blade Runner 2049. Again, American and European critics have hailed the movie - calling it the 21st century version of Blade Runner. They are absolutely right. In Blade Runner, a man falls in love with a robot. In Blade Runner 2049, a robot falls in love with a hologram.

The Anti-Hindu Anti-Secular Republic/Constitution of India

The Republic/Constitution of India is anti-Hindu and anti-secular:
1. Article 30 gives special rights to minorities (Muslims + Christians) to run their own educational and cultural institutions. But Hindus do not have these rights.
2. The Hindu Religious Institutions & Charitable Endowments (HRICE) Acts place Hindu temples under the control of state governments. But mosques and churches are free from such government control.
3. Muslims and Christians have separate family laws based on their religions – while Hindus have secular family laws.
4. Article 25 gives the freedom to propagate religion – which is misused by Christian missionaries to abuse Hinduism and fraudulently convert poor Hindus.

To change our anti-secular republic into a secular republic, we must:
1. Delete Article 30.
2. Scrap the Hindu Religious Institutions & Charitable Endowments (HRICE) Acts.
3. Enact a Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
4. Delete the word 'propagate' from Article 25.

Hindutva and Free-Market Capitalism (FMC)

* Hindutva is nationalism.
* The aim of nationalism is to build a strong country.
* A country can be strong only if its economic system is efficient.
* Free-market capitalism (FMC) is the most efficient economic system.
* So FMC is an integral part of Hindutva.

What Is Hindutva?

What is Hindutva?

* A nation is a cultural entity.
* Culture is the foundation of a nation.
* Hinduism is nothing but the Indian way of life.
* So Hinduism is the foundation of the Indian civilisation.
* The best way to strengthen a nation is to strengthen its culture.
* So the best way to strengthen India is to strengthen Hinduism.

The Cardinal Virtues of Hinduism

The cardinal virtues of Hinduism:

1. Satya (Truth)
2. Nyaya (Justice)
3. Buddhi (Intelligence)
4. Jnana (Knowledge)
5. Dhairya (Courage)
6. Shakti (Strength)
7. Shrama (Hard work)
8. Anushasana (Discipline)

'We Are One'

We Are One

Shiva or Vishnu
Rama or Krishna
Allah or God
What's in a name?

Vedas or Geeta
Ramayana or Mahabharata
Quran or Bible
What's in a book?

Shankara or Nanak
Buddha or Mahavira
Muhammad or Jesus
What's in a man?

Yugadi or Sankranti
Dasara or Deepavali
Ramzan or Christmas
What's in a day?

Temple or gurudwara
Mosque or church
What's in a place?

A poor field grows one crop
A rich field grows many crops
A weak tree grows one fruit
A strong tree grows many fruits.

The more the flowers
The more beautiful the garden.
The more the trees
The more beautiful the forest.

Fools want less, the wise want more
Fools say this is mine, that is yours
The wise say mine is yours, yours is mine.

When we divide, we have less
When we share, we have more
Fools divide, the wise share
Sharing decreases nothing
Sharing increases everything.

Gold, silver and diamonds
Are all false wealth.

Broad minds
Large hearts
Smiling faces
Are the true wealth.

Hands that help
Arms that support
Ears that listen
Voices that soothe
Are the true wealth.

Friends and neighbours
Brothers and sisters
Are the true wealth.

Fools destroy their wealth
The wise nourish their wealth.

Fools think strength is in
Narrow lanes, thorny fences and stone walls.
The wise know strength is in
Open fields, warm sunshine and cool breeze.

Everything here
Belongs to all of us
We have a choice
We can be fools
Or we can be wise
We can be small
Or we can be big.

The happiness of each
Is in the happiness of all
We can be happy together
Or be unhappy separately
The choice is ours.

The wealth of each
Is in the wealth of all
We can be rich together
Or be poor separately
The choice is ours.

The strength of each
Is in the strength of all
We can be strong together
Or be weak separately
The choice is ours.

Because we are one
Beyond all lines
Left, right or centre
We are all one.

'ಮಾರಿಕೊಂಡವರು' ('Maarikondavaru') Review

Review of 'ಮಾರಿಕೊಂಡವರು':

The Patel (zamindar) of a riverside village is engaged in illegal sand mining. He wants to get a road built along the river to facilitate his operations. But this will lead to several poor farmers losing their lands. An educated young Dalit of the village takes up the farmers' cause and fights against the Patel. The Patel responds by using his money, power and also the caste divisions in the village.

Director K Shivarudrayya has seamlessly combined writer Devanur Mahadev's three short stories into a simple but realistic depiction of a village. With its cocktail of corruption and casteism, the village is also a microcosm of India.

Maarikondavaru won the second prize for Best Picture last year (the first prize went to Tithi).

'ಹಿಂದು' ಎಂದರೆ ಯಾರು?

ಭಾರತ ಜನಿಸಿದ್ದು ಸಿಂಧು ನದಿಯ ದಡದಲ್ಲಿ. ಪ್ರಾಚೀನ ಭಾರತದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತ ಜ್ಞಾನದ ಭಾಷೆಯಾಗಿತ್ತು. ದಿನಬಳಕೆಗೆ ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತದ ಸರಳ ರೂಪವಾದ ಪ್ರಾಕೃತವನ್ನು ಬಳಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಪ್ರಾಕೃತ ಶಬ್ದಗಳು ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತ ಶಬ್ದಗಳ ಸರಳ ರೂಪಗಳಾಗಿದ್ದವು (ಇಂದು ಹೇಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಶಬ್ದಗಳು ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತ ಶಬ್ದಗಳ ಸರಳ ರೂಪಗಳೋ ಹಾಗೆಯೇ). ಅಂತೆಯೆ ಪ್ರಾಕೃತದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತದ 'ಸಿಂಧು' ಶಬ್ದ 'ಹಿಂದು' ಎಂದು ಬದಲಾಯಿತು. 'ಹಿಂದು' ಶಬ್ದದ ಮೂಲ ಅರ್ಥ ಸಿಂಧು ನದಿ ಎಂದು. ನಂತರ ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಅರ್ಥ ಬಂತು: ಯಾವ ಜನರ ನಾಗರಿಕತೆ ಸಿಂಧು ನದಿಯ ದಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಹುಟ್ಟಿತೋ, ಅವರು ಎಂದು.

ಈ ಹಿಂದುಗಳು ಹಿಮಾಲಯ ಮತ್ತು ಮಹಾಸಾಗರದ ಮಧ್ಯ ಇರುವ ಭೂಭಾಗದಲ್ಲಿ ವಾಸವಾದರು. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಈ ಭೂಭಾಗ 'ಹಿಂದುಸ್ಥಾನ' ಆಯಿತು. ಈ ದೇಶದಲ್ಲಿ 'ಭರತ' ಎಂಬ ಮಹಾರಾಜ ಇದ್ದ. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಈ ದೇಶಕ್ಕೆ 'ಭಾರತ' ಎಂಬ ಹೆಸರೂ ಬಂದಿತು. ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ 'ಹಿಂದು' ಮತ್ತು 'ಭಾರತೀಯ' (ಹಾಗೂ 'ಹಿಂದುಸ್ಥಾನ' ಮತ್ತು 'ಭಾರತ') - ಇವು ಸಮಾನಾರ್ಥಕ ಶಬ್ದಗಳು.

ಈ ಹಿಂದುಗಳು ಒಂದು ಜೀವನ ವಿಧಾನ ಅಥವಾ ಧರ್ಮವನ್ನು (ನಂಬಿಕೆಗಳು ಮತ್ತು ಆಚಾರಗಳು) ರಚಿಸಿದರು. ಅದು ಹಿಂದುಗಳ ಧರ್ಮವಾದ್ದರಿಂದ ಅದು 'ಹಿಂದು ಧರ್ಮ' ಆಯಿತು. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಹೆಸರು 'ಸನಾತನ ಧರ್ಮ' ಎಂದು. ಜತೆಗೆ, ಈ ಹಿಂದುಗಳು ಅನೇಕ ಮತಗಳನ್ನು (ದೇವರ ಪೂಜಾ ಪದ್ಧತಿ) ರಚಿಸಿದರು: ಶೈವ, ವೈಷ್ಣವ, ಶಾಕ್ತ, ಬೌದ್ಧ, ಜೈನ ಮತ್ತು ಸಿಖ್ ಎಂಬ ಮತಗಳು.

ಇದು 'ಹಿಂದು' ಶಬ್ದದ ನಿಜವಾದ ಅರ್ಥ. ಅದು ಒಂದು ಜನಾಂಗದ ಹೆಸರು. ಅದಕ್ಕೂ ಮತಕ್ಕೂ ಯಾವ ಸಂಬಂಧವೂ ಇಲ್ಲ. ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ: "ನಾವು ಹಿಂದು ಧರ್ಮವನ್ನು ಪಾಲಿಸುತ್ತೇವೆ, ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ನಾವು ಹಿಂದುಗಳು" - ಇದು ತಪ್ಪು. ಸತ್ಯ ಬೇರೆ: ನಾವು ಹಿಂದುಗಳು, ನಮ್ಮದೊಂದು ಧರ್ಮ ಇದೆ, ಅದು ಹಿಂದುಗಳ ಧರ್ಮವಾದ್ದರಿಂದ ಅದಕ್ಕೆ 'ಹಿಂದು ಧರ್ಮ' ಎಂದು ಹೆಸರು.

'Toilet: Ek Prem Katha' - Review

Review of 'Toilet: Ek Prem Katha':

Keshav (Akshay Kumar) runs a cycle shop in a village. His horoscope says he is cursed and that the curse can be removed only by marrying a girl with 3 thumbs. His father, an orthodox pandit, believes this strongly. So Keshav is 36 years old and single. Then he meets a girl called Jaya (Bhumi Pednekar) and they fall in love. But she has only 2 thumbs (like most of us). Through some innovative bio-engineering, Keshav manages to fool his father and marry Jaya. The next day, she comes to know that there is no toilet in the house. An educated girl from a middle class family, she is shocked and disgusted. But the pandit is dead against having a toilet in the house (due to a medieval degraded version of Hinduism). Jaya somehow manages for some time, but finally her patience snaps and she goes away to her parents' house. Keshav then starts fighting against his father, his village and the government to get a toilet in his house.

Shree Narayan Singh's Toilet: Ek Prem Katha may sound like a documentary at some points. But it is first and foremost a heartfelt story of a man/husband and woman/wife who love each other - but have to struggle against the society they live in. Toilet is both a hilarious comedy and a sensitive love story. It is also an angry protest against feudalism and a passionate cry for common sense, decency and dignity of women.

The English-language media (ELM) has given Toilet mostly negative reviews. So ELM's movie critics are as biased as its political news reporters/anchors/editors.

'Raag Desh' - Review

A review of 'Raag Desh':

In 1937, Japan started World War 2 by invading China. In 1939, Germany started the war in Europe by invading Poland. Britain declared war on Germany on behalf of the entire British Empire, including India – without the consent of Indians. In 1941, Japan attacked America and invaded South East Asia. Again Britain declared war on Japan on behalf of the entire British Empire, including India – without the consent of Indians.

Accordingly, the British Indian Army fought against the Japanese Army in South East Asia. Though it fought bravely, it lost and had to surrender in 1942. Then Subhash Chandra Bose came and told the Indian soldiers that their real duty was to fight against the British – and free India. Around 50,000 soldiers answered his call – and the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) was born.

INA fought bravely against the British under the leadership of Bose. But finally in 1945, America defeated Japan – and INA had to surrender to the British. The British denounced all INA soldiers as traitors and decided to court-martial all INA officers for treason. They started by court-martialling 3 officers (Prem Kumar Sehgal, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, Shah Nawaz Khan) in Red Fort in November 1945. The Indian National Congress decided to defend the 3 officers. It chose the eminent lawyer Bhulabhai Desai for the job.

The court-martial was just a formality. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. But Bhulabhai Desai fought the case like a tiger – using all his legal expertise. Finally in December the trial ended as expected: all the 3 officers were found guilty.

Meanwhile with the end of the war, Indians gradually came to know about the heroism of Bose and his INA. The whole country was filled with respect and admiration for their patriotism and courage. The court-martial only served to ignite the already burning hearts of Indians. The British came to know this and wisely decided not to punish the 3 officers – they simply dismissed them from the Army.

How did Britain rule India for 200 years? A country can rule another country only by force – ie, by its army. But an army needs men. So how could a small country like Britain have an army big enough to control a big country like India (which was 25 times bigger)? The simple answer is that it did not. The 'British Army' in India was actually a British Indian Army. That is, only its officers were British – all the soldiers were Indians. So how did Britain control India with this British Indian Army? Simple: The Indian soldiers were loyal to the British. Thus the central fact about British rule in India was that it depended completely on one factor: the loyalty of Indian soldiers to the British. As long as this factor existed, the British Raj was unshakable.

The heroics of INA in the war and the court-martial of its officers ignited the flame of patriotism in not just ordinary Indians – but more importantly, among Indian soldiers. Just a month after the court-martial (in February 1946) 10,000 sailors of the Indian Navy revolted against the British. The revolt was somehow put down, but the British realised what was happening. The foundation of their rule – the loyalty of Indian soldiers – had disappeared. The writing was on the wall – their rule in India was over. A year later (in February 1947) Britain's Prime Minister Clement Attlee announced that the British would leave India.

Tigmanshu Dhulia's Raag Desh tells the story of this important chapter in India's history. Our Leftist historians have completely erased Subhash Chandra Bose and INA from the story of our freedom struggle. Raag Desh provides a much-needed corrective to this gross distortion. Mohit Marwah, Amit Sadh and Kunal Kapoor play the 3 officers and Kenny Basumatary plays Subhash Chandra Bose. The movie features the famous INA marching song 'Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja'.

'Indu Sarkar' - Review

Review:

There are two types of historical movies:
1. Non-fictional
2. Fictional
A non-fictional historical movie tells the story of actual historical events and actual historical persons. Example: Richard Attenborough's Gandhi tells the story of Gandhiji's life and India's freedom struggle. A fictional historical movie tells the fictional story of fictional characters against the backdrop of historical events. Example: Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace (made into several movie versions) tells the story of three characters against the backdrop of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Non-fictional historical movies focus on the decisions and actions of rulers and leaders. Fictional historical movies focus on the lives of ordinary people and how they are impacted by historical events.

These were the two models in front of Madhur Bhandarkar when he decided to make a movie on the Emergency (1975–77). Which one did he choose? Strangely, both. His Indu Sarkar is a hybrid movie: 50% non-fiction and 50% fiction. The non-fictional part shows Sanjay Gandhi and his gang of thugs implementing the Emergency. The fictional part tells the story of a girl called Indu Sarkar (?!) whose life is impacted by the Emergency.

Madhur Bhandarkar has made two blunders here. Firstly, he should have junked the non-fictional part and kept the movie completely fictional. Secondly, the Emergency was a complex event with many different features:
1) Forced sterilisation campaign
2) Demolition of slums
3) Imprisonment of political workers
4) Censorship of press
5) Underground resistance movement
To give a complete picture of the Emergency, a movie about it must show all these different developments. But this is impossible if you tell the story of just one character – because it is impossible for one person to experience all these different developments. The solution is to have several different characters, with each character experiencing one of these different developments, and to tell the story of each of those characters. And together, those several different stories would make up the movie.

Madhur Bhandarkar is a good director who has made good movies like Chandni Bar and Page 3. He has missed a golden opportunity to make a powerful movie about the darkest chapter in post-1947 India's history . . .

Hindus and Hinduism

India was born on the banks of the river Indus. The Sanskrit name of Indus is 'Sindhu'. Sanskrit was the language of knowledge in ancient India. The language of the common people was Prakrit. It used simplified Sanskrit words (just like today's regional languages Hindi, Kannada, etc). One such simplification/modification was that the 'S' sound in Sanskrit changed to the 'H' sound in Prakrit. So 'Sindhu' became 'Hindu' in Prakrit. It meant the river Sindhu. It also meant something else: the people whose civilisation was born on the banks of the river Sindhu.

'Sindhu' became 'Indus' in Greek. From 'Indus' came the English words 'India' (the land beyond the Indus) and 'Indians' (the people of that land). Thus the words 'Hindu' and 'Indian' are synonyms. The Hindus developed a Dharma or way of life (system of beliefs and practices). It was called 'Hindu Dharma' (or 'Sanatana Dharma' - 'the ancient way of life'). When the British came to India, they coined the English word 'Hinduism' for Hindu Dharma.

This is the real meaning of the word 'Hindu'. It is nothing but the synonym of the word 'Indian' (actually 'Indian' is the synonym of 'Hindu' - since the latter word came first). It is the name of a people (which comes from a river). Over time, the Hindus/Indians developed many religions (way/system of worshipping God) - like Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.

Thus 'Hindu' refers to a people/nationality. It has nothing to do with religion whatsoever. Also, the people are not called 'Hindus' because they have a way of life called 'Hinduism'. It is the other way around. The way of life is called 'Hinduism' because it is the way of life of the Hindus.

'Dunkirk': Review

Review of 'Dunkirk':

Q: What is war?
A) Heroism, bravery, courage, nobility, sacrifice
B) Violence, chaos, madness, insanity, meaninglessness

So there are 2 types of war movies:
1. Movies that say A
Example: Saving Private Ryan, Enemy At The Gates, Letters From Iwo Jima, etc
2. Movies that say B
Example: Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, etc

The answer to question Q depends on the war. If the war is good/right (like World War 2) then the answer is A. If the war is bad/wrong (like Vietnam War) then the answer is B. It is not a coincidence that most World War 2 movies are type-A movies and most Vietnam War movies are type-B movies.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. For example, Thin Red Line is a type-B movie about World War 2 and We Were Soldiers is a type-A movie about Vietnam War. Even more fundamentally, there are exceptions to this crude classification itself. Black Hawk Down (Somalian War) is a type-AB movie that brilliantly combines both answers A and B. Hurt Locker (Iraq War) is a type-O movie that says neither A nor B, but simply shows war in a clinical, documentary-like style.

All this brings us to Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. Which type of movie is it? It is a World War 2 movie – so we would expect it to be a type-A movie. But Nolan made the Dark Knight trilogy – so it could be a type-B movie. However, Nolan never plays by the rules of the game. He plays by his own rules. So to the question Q, he gives another answer:
C) Death, fear, pain, desperation, hopelessness

In 1940 the German Army rolled through Europe, crushing all the European countries one by one. By May, the British Army was trapped on the coast of France. 4 lakh soldiers were pinned between the sea and the German Army in a town called Dunkirk, facing certain annihilation. Then the British Navy – with the help of civilians – carried out a massive rescue operation. Over 10 days, around 1000 boats and ships took 3.5 lakh soldiers to Britain and safety.

Nolan tells the story with his trademark clockwork precision. Like a chess player arranging pieces on a chessboard, he shows us all the 3 scenes of the war: land, sea and air. His script combines seamlessly with Hoyte van Hoytema's camerawork and Hans Zimmer's background music. Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy and the other actors play their roles competently.

Dunkirk is not a conventional war movie. Firstly, (as explained above) it is neither a type-A nor type-B movie – but a type-C movie. Secondly, it is not a 'battle movie'. It is a 'retreat movie'. So there are no 'battle scenes' as such. Anyway, critics have gone gaga over it: "Nolan's greatest movie", "greatest war movie", etc. Don't listen to them. Just watch Dunkirk with an open mind – and form your own opinion about it.

PS: 2000 Indian soldiers were involved in Dunkirk. 1500 of them were rescued. The remaining 500 were captured by the Germans and died in the POW camps.

Ten Greatest Economists

Ten greatest economists:

1. Adam Smith
* Wealth of Nations (1776)

2. David Ricardo
* Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817)

3. John Stuart Mill
* Principles of Political Economy (1848)

4. Karl Marx
* The Capital (1867)

5. Carl Menger
* Principles of Economics (1871)

6. Leon Walras
* Elements of Pure Economics (1874)

7. William Jevons
* Theory of Political Economy (1871)

8. Alfred Marshall
* Principles of Economics (1890)

9. John Maynard Keynes
* General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)

10. Paul Samuelson
* Economics (1948)

Why Government Must Not Fix/Control Prices

Why government must not fix/control prices:

What is a free-market system? It is an economic system in which prices are decided by market forces – ie, demand and supply. In this system, a product's price is decided by the demand for that product and the supply of it. If the demand is high or/and the supply is low, then the price will be high. If the demand is low or/and the supply is high, then the price will be low.

The free-market system thus fixes the prices of all the products. It also does something else. It ensures that people get the things they want – in sufficient quantity. Example: Consider some product X which people want very much – but is not being produced in sufficient quantity. That is – its demand is high and supply is low. Then what will happen? In the free-market system, its price will be high. High price means high profits. Then other producers will start making this product to make those high profits. Then production will increase – and people will get more of this product that they want badly. Also, due to the increased supply – under the free-market system – its price will go down. Thus not only will people get more of the product that they want, but they will also get it at a lower price. So the free-market system is a double-advantage system.

So prices in a free-market system perform two functions:
1. They give information about the demand/supply for all the products.
2. They give incentives to producers to make the products that people want the most.

Now the prices of some products are very high. This means that it is difficult and expensive to make those products. Sometimes we feel the price is much higher than the difficulty and expense of making that product. If we are right, then it means the profit is very high. Then other producers must start making that product to make that high profit. And that should increase the supply – and decrease the price. If the price is still high, that means this is not happening. Which means one of two things:
a) We are wrong. Our estimate of the difficulty and expense of making that product is wrong. The product is much more difficult and expensive to make than we think. So the high price is justified.
b) Other producers are not able to make that product. That is, there is a lack of free competition and easy entry of new producers.

Some people want the government to fix the prices for expensive products. What happens when the government does this? Then the whole system described above will collapse. If the price is fixed by the government – instead of by demand and supply – then it will no longer perform its two functions. That is, it will no longer give information and incentives to producers to make that product. Then the price will be low – but the quantity produced will also be low. Then everybody who wants that product will not get it. Only some people will get it. Other people will not get it – even though they have the money to buy it. This is socialism. It is a very inefficient system. The greatest example of the socialist economic system was the Soviet Union – in which the government fixed the prices of ALL products: from grains and vegetables to shirts and trousers to televisions and refrigerators to cars and computers. The result was it finally collapsed in 1991 even though it was a superpower. It is impossible to create a more spectacular demonstration of the inefficiency of any economic system (in this case – socialism).

The solution for high prices is not the government fixing the price. High price is not the problem. It is only the symptom of the problem. The real problem is low production. And low production is due to lack of free competition and easy entry of new producers. So the real solution is to allow free competition and easy entry of new producers. Then production will increase and prices will decrease. Instead if government fixes the prices, it will be a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

Loan Waivers and Farmers/Agriculture

The financial system is the circulatory system of the economy – supplying money to whoever needs it. It may be a farmer who wants to buy a tractor. It may be a factory owner who wants to buy a machine. And this financial system stands on a critical foundation – which is the obligation of the borrower to repay his loan. As long as borrowers repay their loans, lenders will lend – and the financial system will work smoothly and the economy will also work smoothly.

Now what happens when loans are waived? Then borrowers no longer have to repay their loans. And if borrowers stop repaying, then lenders will stop lending. That is, the financial system will grind to a halt. People who need money for economic activities will no longer get it. The farmer can no longer buy his tractor. The factory owner can no longer buy his machine. That is, the whole economy itself will grind to a halt.

The 'economy' doesn't mean CEOs sitting in the top-floor of a skyscraper or stockbrokers shouting on the floor of the stock exchange. It means farmers growing grains and vegetables on their farms (agriculture). It means you and me working in offices and factories (industry and services) for a salary – and using that money to buy those grains and vegetables in the market. This system is essential for our survival. But we take it for granted. We think it will run properly all the time without any problems – no matter what we do. Nothing is further from the truth. This economic system stands on some invisible foundations. And one of those foundations is the sacred obligation of a borrower to repay his loan. Loan waivers directly strike at this foundation – and puts the whole economic system at risk.

Farmers are in trouble and they need help. But loan waiver is the worst way of doing it. Because loan waivers damage the economic system and farmers – who are the most vulnerable people in the economy – will be the worst sufferers. If we care so much about farmers, we must simply give money to ALL farmers – regardless of whether they have repayed their loan or not, or (even further) regardless of whether they have taken a loan or not. This will help farmers without destroying the financial system and the economic system.

'Hindi Medium': Review

A review of 'Hindi Medium':

Some people think a movie must not merely entertain but must also have a 'social message'. But movie is a fictional art and fictional art's primary purpose is to entertain. If it directly tries to give a 'social message', it will deviate from its basic purpose. It will become boring and preachy – and it will fail. But if it tries to do it indirectly – without deviating from its basic purpose of entertaining (by emotionally connecting with the audience) – then it can work. Now imagine an entertaining movie about big issues like society, development and poverty. Impossible? Well, writer-director Saket Chaudhary has achieved the impossible with his Hindi Medium.

A Chandni Chowk businessman's (Irfan Khan) wife (Pakistani actress Saba Qamar) wants to put their daughter into a prestigious Delhi school. So begins their Great Indian Circus: the School Admission – an endless merry-go-round of applications, consultants, interviews and lists. Hindi Medium starts off as a hilarious comedy about our education system. But it doesn't stop there. Saket Chaudhary has something much bigger in mind. He gradually widens the lens to look at no less a subject than Indian society itself.

Hindi Medium examines all the 3 sections of our society: rich, middle class and poor. The rich think modernisation means Westernisation and de-Indianisation. The middle class are desperate to become like them. And the poor struggle for the basic needs of life. Hindi Medium ruthlessly exposes our hypocrisies and double standards on every major issue – be it language, education or culture. It looks at Indian society better than any sociology textbook. It looks at development better than any economics textbook. And all this while being a heart-warming entertainer throughout.

70 years after getting freedom, most of our people still don't have a decent life. Hindi Medium brutally looks at this harsh reality – but never becomes even remotely depressing at any point. When you walk out of the theatre, you have a smile on your face. Why? Two reasons. First reason: though we still face grave challenges, we know that things are slowly improving. And second reason? It is right in front of your eyes – a movie like Hindi Medium has been made, and people are watching it (and liking it). Why does this matter? It does matter. Because if we can look at ourselves mercilessly – through the eyes of an honest and courageous artist (like Saket Chaudhary), then something must be right with us.

Hindi Medium is ambitious, brilliant and powerful. Watch it. Tell your friends to watch it. Tell them to tell their friends . . . (OK, you get the idea)

'Sarkar 3': Review

Why did Ram Gopal Varma make Sarkar 3? (A review)

A. DRDO made him do it.
Sarkar 3 is a series of completely illogical scenes that have absolutely no connection with one another whatsoever. I desperately tried to somehow connect them all together into a remotely logical story – but failed miserably. Further, the level of absurdity went on increasing at an exponential rate. So my head exploded into a hundred pieces. If you walk out of the theatre with your head intact, that means your skull is the hardest substance on earth. Then DRDO will harvest it and use it to develop a next-generation cutting-edge super-weapon – one that China and America can never hope to match. Of course, the easiest solution for all this is to simply kidnap people and directly test the hardness of their skulls. But that is technically illegal under Indian laws. So Sarkar 3 is nothing but a part of DRDO's top-secret weapons program.

B. A drug cartel made him do it.
Cocaine, heroin and meth can move over. They are now just for kids. Because a drug cartel has synthesised a new chemical that makes all these drugs look like chocolate. And they have been injecting it into their test specimen – Ram Gopal Varma – for the last one year. Then to market their new product, they told him to make Sarkar 3. Because after watching this mind-numbing sense-destroying brain-killer, people will know the power of the new drug. So Sarkar 3 is nothing but a 2-hour long ad for the drug cartel's new drug. The only question is which drug cartel. Sinaloa? Tijuana? Juarez? Which one?

C. Amit Shah made him do it.
In Karnataka, BJP is in such a great shape that Congress will easily win the state election next year. So Amit Shah had to make a master plan. He got his chance when Chief Minister Sidramayya announced he will reduce movie ticket prices to Rs 200. Then Amit Shah immediately told Ram Gopal Varma to make Sarkar 3 and release it on the Friday when the ticket prices were reduced. Due to the reduced ticket prices, the people of Karnataka will flock to the theatres and see whichever movie is released that Friday – ie, Sarkar 3. And after watching this ridiculous piece of shit, they will be totally outraged. They will be totally mad with Sidramayya. And they will overwhelmingly vote against Congress in next year's election – thereby giving BJP a landslide victory. So Sarkar 3 is nothing but Amit Shah's master plan to win the Karnataka election next year.

D. Nirbhaya's rapist-murderers (NRM) made him do it.
NRMs are desperate to delay their hanging. So they told Ram Gopal Varma to make Sarkar 3. Because after watching this atrocious piece of crap, the people of India will be so furious that they will demand the hanging of each and every single person who is involved in any way whatsoever in the making of Sarkar 3 – starting from the producer and going all the way up to the sweeper. This also includes all those critics who gave this monstrosity a score of anything above minus infinity. And that will be quite a few people to hang. So it will automatically delay the hanging of the NRMs. Thus Sarkar 3 is nothing but the NRMs' desperate plan to somehow delay their own hanging.

E. Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra made him do it.
Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra have made Bollywood's biggest blockbusters. But in spite of this, intelligent movie fans don't respect them. So they told Ram Gopal Varma to make Sarkar 3. Because after watching this worthless piece of garbage, even intelligent movie fans will agree that K-Jo and A-Cho are the apex of cinematic brilliance – second only to the great Satyajit Ray. So Sarkar 3 is nothing but K-Jo and A-Cho's amazing plan to somehow earn some respectability.

F. Ram Gopal Varma did it himself.
RGV is depressed that his Satya is just one of Bollywood's all-time greatest movies (along with Sholay, Deewar and Maqbool) – and not the all-time greatest movie. He wants a superlative completely for himself, one that will not be shared with anyone else. Hence he decided to make Bollywood's most pathetic movie ever, one whose record will never be broken. So he made Sarkar 3 – and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams (and our wildest nightmares) . . .

'Baahubali' - Raja Dharma

A lot has been said and written about Baahubali – and will continue to be said and written. But the central theme of Baahubali is Raja Dharma. What is Raja Dharma? It means that the duty of a king is to work for the good of the people. It means that the king is not the master of the people – he is the servant of the people.

This simple but profound concept of Raja Dharma is at the core of the Indian civilisation. It was first laid down in the Vedas and later the Dharma Shastras. It was beautifully expressed in the great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata (in the form of Rama and Yudhishthira). It was scientifically analysed by Chanakya in his Artha Shastra. It was the foundation of the ancient Indian political system.

After independence, we were fortunate to have great leaders like Sardar Patel and Lal Bahadur Shastri who were living embodiments of Raja Dharma. But soon in the name of secularism, we got rid of all Dharma – including Raja Dharma. The result is today we have MPs who beat airline managers with their chappals because they don't get a business-class seat . . .

'Baahubali - 2': Review

Review of 'Baahubali-2':

Remember when we were kids? We used to make up stories of brave kings, princes and warriors. We used to turn our simple toys into vast armies of soldiers, horses, chariots and elephants. And we used those armies to fight big bloody battles. Then we grew up. We became mature. And we forgot those stories. But one kid called Srisaila Sri Rajamouli refused to grow up. He remained a kid. He kept those stories with him. And now he has told it to us with a ₹ 200 crore special effects budget. Watch Baahubali-2 - and feel like a kid again . . . :-)

There have been a few negative reviews criticising Baahubali-2 for its lack of subtlety, restraint and understatement. Such criticism only reveals the reviewers' complete ignorance of Indian society, culture and art. Because the same criticism can also be made about any village drama version of Ramayana or Mahabharata. But it misses a much larger point.

For 5000 years, India has been held together by Dharma. But Dharma is an abstract philosophy. And only 1% of people are interested in philosophy. So how do you teach Dharma to the remaining 99% people? The genius of our ancestors lies in successfully dealing with this challenge. They wrote two great epics - Ramayana and Mahabharata - that taught the abstract principles of Dharma to ordinary people by using entertaining stories and characters. Thus our ancestors taught Dharma to every man, woman and child in every village - and nourished this civilisation for 5000 years.

True, Baahubali is no Ramayana or Mahabharata. And Rajamouli is no Valmiki or Veda Vyasa. They don't have to be. They are what they are. And that is good enough for 21st century India . . .

PS: My review of Baahubali-1

Basava Jayanti

India is the world's oldest civilisation – 5000 years old. How is this possible? How can a civilisation survive for 5000 years – especially when it was subject to invasions and conquests for half its history (2500 years)? Two reasons:
1. The foundation of the Indian civilisation is a way of life (Hinduism) that is built on universal and eternal moral laws (Dharma).
2. From time to time, great thinkers came and interpreted this way of life and its moral laws for their time, and taught them to the people - like Buddha, Mahavira, Shankara, Guru Nanak, etc.

One such reformer was born in the 12th century. His name was Basava. He taught the fundamental truths of Hinduism to ordinary people in their own language. More important, he practised what he preached. One of the truths he taught was 'ಕಾಯಕವೇ ಕೈಲಾಸ' (Work is worship). If all of us follow just this one teaching of his, we can make India a superpower very soon. Bharat Mata ki jai . . .

PS: Today is Basava Jayanti.

The Economics Of Government

The economics of government:

* Govt has no money of its own. Its money is nothing but the people's (tax-payers) money. When govt spends on something, the money doesn't come from politicians - it comes from the people.

* The govt/people's money is finite, not infinite. When it is spent on something, there will be less of it to spend on other things.

* Leftists have succeeded in making 'efficiency' a bad word - by painting it as 'elitist' and 'anti-poor'. The truth is the opposite: there is nothing more pro-poor than efficiency and nothing more anti-poor than inefficiency. Why? Because the poor depend the most on the govt. So they are the ones who lose the most when the govt is inefficient. We must restore efficiency to its rightful place.

* "Giving a man a fish feeds him for a day, but teaching him how to fish feeds him for a lifetime". Poverty can't be removed by simply throwing money at the poor. That will only keep them poor. We must give them the ability to work and earn - ie, we must give them education, healthcare and infrastructure. That is, govt's money must go into investment and not expenditure.

* Debt is bad. When you borrow, you have to pay back the amount you borrowed and also the interest on that amount. So your spending must not be more than your income. This is a basic principle of economic management - every family knows it. But strangely, we don't apply it to our govt.

* A system's efficiency is directly proportional to its simplicity. And nowhere is this more true than for the tax system. Tax exemptions make the tax system complex and therefore inefficient. So all tax exemptions must be removed. As a compensation, tax rates can be reduced.

* Govt's job is to make rules and enforce them. It is not to make products - which can be done much more efficiently by private sector. So all govt-owned industries must be privatised.

* The price of any product/service is decided by the demand for and the supply of that product/service. If prices are decided in this way (the 'free-market system'), then a society's resources will be allocated in the most efficient way. Any deviation from this leads to inefficiency. The two biggest deviations are:
a) Govt directly fixing the price of any product/service
b) Govt paying a part of a product/service's price (this payment is called 'subsidy')
Subsidies reduce the price of a product/service for its buyers. This distortion in the price leads to inefficient allocation of resources in the society. So subsidies are bad.

Yogi Adityanath

Liberals have gone bonkers over Yogi Adityanath becoming the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. In all this noise, some fundamental points have been forgotten:

* In an election, people choose two things:
1) A person to represent them in making laws for the state
2) A party to run the state government
* Accordingly, the people of Uttar Pradesh chose:
1) Their respective MLAs for the first job
2) BJP for the second job
* After this, the largest group (party) of MLAs must choose their leader
* That leader becomes the Chief Minister of the state.

This is what has happened in Uttar Pradesh. The 325 BJP MLAs chose Yogi Adityanath as their leader – so he became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Now BJP in Uttar Pradesh must deliver results to the people of the state – under the leadership of their CM Yogi Adityanath. If they fail in this, then the people of Uttar Pradesh will kick them out in 2022. (Also, they will kick out BJP from the centre in 2019 itself)

This is the simple situation. The people of Uttar Pradesh know it. And BJP knows it. But our liberals don't know it. Questions like "How dare BJP appoint Yogi Adityanath as CM?" are meaningless and irrelevant. They show a lack of basic understanding of the democratic political system.

English-Language Media (ELM)

English-Language Media (ELM)

Wanted:
* Bureau chief for Lucknow
* Reporters for Uttar Pradesh

Requirements:
* BA/MA from JNU/St Stephens
* Must be solidly secular and liberal
* Must leave the comfortable environs of Delhi
* Must slog in the heat and dust of UP's cities, towns and villages

Job Description:
Must dig out stories on...
* Communal riots
* Construction of Ram Mandir
* Persecution/oppression/discrimination of minorities
* Persecution/oppression/discrimination of Dalits
* Persecution/oppression/discrimination of lower castes
* Crime/corruption by upper-caste ministers
* Crime/corruption by lower-caste ministers
* Crime/corruption by upper-caste MLAs
* Crime/corruption by lower-caste MLAs
* Any other matter of secular/liberal interest
(in that order)

Rewards:
* Bonus points for stories from Gorakhpur (Yogi Adityanath's constituency) and Varanasi (you-know-who's constituency)
* High performers will be made prime-time anchors (yes, in the air-conditioned studio in Delhi)
* Extra-high performers will get Rajya Sabha tickets from Congress Party (if it exists till then)

'Ghazi Attack' - Review

On 3 December 1971, Pakistan attacked India and started the 3rd India-Pakistan War (which it proceeded to lose in 2 weeks). The next day, its most powerful submarine - PNS Ghazi - sank near Visakhapatnam. Pakistan said it was due to an 'accident'. India said the destroyer INS Rajput had done it. But INS Rajput was in the harbour on that day. Naval warfare experts said a submarine had sunk Ghazi. The Indian Navy refused to comment.

Ghazi Attack - by first-time director Sankalp Reddy - tells the story of what may have happened. We will never know the name of that submarine - or her men. In this movie, the submarine INS S-21 plays a deadly cat-and-mouse game with Ghazi in the waters of the Bay of Bengal, before finally sinking it.

Making a realistic movie on submarine warfare is technically demanding. And making it entertaining is artistically demanding. Sankalp Reddy and team succeed brilliantly on both the fronts. Through a series of twists and turns, Ghazi Attack gradually builds up the tension before reaching its climax.

War itself is a game of death. And when you are inside a metal tube 500 meters underwater, it is even more so. At that depth, the water pressure is so enormous it can crush a submarine like an eggshell. So even if the enemy doesn't kill you, the water surely will. Ghazi Attack superbly portrays the fear and danger of underwater warfare.

Kay Kay Menon and Atul Kulkarni - two of Bollywood's finest actors - play the submarine's captain and second-in-command, respectively. Rana Daggubatti plays the executive officer like an action star. The great Om Puri - in his last movie - plays Admiral S M Nanda. Ghazi Attack is an excellent tribute to our brave men in white.

PS: It was a special treat to watch the Indian Navy's Rudra-Tandava on this sacred day of Maha Shivaratri . . . :-)

Martin Scorsese's 'Silence' - Review

Japan is a unique country. An island off the coast of East Asia, it is literally on the edge of the world. Westerners reached it only in the 1500s. And almost immediately, Christian missionaries started going there - to convert them to Christianity. But around 1600, the Japanese cracked down. They banned Christianity and outlawed missionaries. Today only 1% of Japanese are Christians.

In 1966, Japanese-Christian writer Shusaku Endo wrote a novel called Chinmoku ('Silence') about this chapter in Japan's history. In 1971, it was made into a Japanese movie. And now Martin Scorsese has made its Hollywood version.

The story is set in the 1600s. A Portuguese missionary called Ferreira (Liam Neeson) goes to Japan and disappears after some time. Then his two disciples - Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver) go to Japan to search for him. They reach Japan and find some villagers who are secretly practising Christianity. They stay with the villagers for some time, but are eventually caught. Garrpe is executed and Rodrigues is taken to Nagasaki. There he meets senior Japanese officials - and also Ferreira. He is shocked to find out that Ferreira has renounced Christianity, embraced Buddhism and now works for the Japanese government - writing anti-Christianity books. Finally Rodrigues also becomes like Ferreira.

The first 2 hours is a typical story about Christianity told by a Christian. It glorifies the truth and greatness of the Christian religion. But in the last 30 minutes, the story does a complete U-turn. Here Christianity is brought face-to-face with Buddhism - when Rodrigues debates with the Japanese officials and also with his ex-guru Ferreira. And here, Christianity comes off as irrational and intolerant - as against Buddhism's rationality and tolerance. Of course, this is a debate not just between Buddhism and Christianity - but also more broadly between Aryan religions and Semitic religions.

What was Shusaku Endo thinking when he wrote that last part? Was he just trying to be an honest writer/artist and give space to an alternate viewpoint? Or was it his Japanese side triumphing over his Christian side? And what does Martin Scorsese think about that last part? Does he realise the power of those arguments against Christianity?

Silence is an honest and intelligent movie about Christianity - and religion in general. Not surprisingly, it has flopped in America. And the Oscars have given it only one nomination (for camerawork). Artists say the purpose of art is not to give answers but to ask questions. If that is true, then Shusaku Endo's Chinmoku and Martin Scorsese's Silence are very good works of art.

A Fool And An Angel

A FOOL AND AN ANGEL

When he first saw her
She looked an angel
In both face and heart
So he asked her
Will you be my angel?
She said yes I will
So he took out his heart
And he gave it to her
She took it in her hand.

And what did she do with his heart?
She grew claws on her hands
And sank her claws into his heart
She grew fangs in her mouth
And plunged her fangs into his heart
She grew horns on her head
And pierced her horns into his heart
She devoured the flesh from his heart
She drank the blood from his heart
Every day, every hour, every minute
Piece by piece, drop by drop
Then she held his heart over a blazing fire
And slowly reduced his heart to ashes
Finally she threw his heart away
Laughing at him all the while
Her eyes, horns, fangs, claws
All dripping with his heart's blood.

And after all this was done
What was he thinking?
He had only one thought
God, make her happy
If there is any pain in her life
Please give it to me
If there is any joy in my life
Please give it to her
I have never asked You anything
But now I ask You this
So You have to give it
Make her happy always
Keep her smiling always
This is all I ask of You
So please give it
And I know You will.

May They Fill Me

MAY THEY FILL ME

This Sacred Land has
For five thousand years
Given birth to warriors
Who lived and fought
For this land
For this people
For this culture.

Every grain of soil
Every blade of grass
Every drop of water
Has been sanctified
By the blood of martyrs.

From Chandra Gupta Maurya
To Subhash Chandra Bose
From Kittur Rani Channamma
To Jhansi Rani Lakshmibai
From Sangolli Rayanna
To Guru Govind Singh
And countless nameless heroes.

Blessed am I
To be born in
This Holy Land.

Every thought they had
Every word they said
Every deed they did
May all these fill me.

Every struggle they waged
Every sacrifice they made
Every battle they fought
May all these fill me.

Every victory they won
Every defeat they suffered
Every wound they received
Every pain they felt
May all these fill me.

Every sword they wielded
Every arrow they fired
Every spear they threw
Every shield they held
May all these fill me.

Their love, their passion
Their strength, their courage
Their happiness, their sorrow
Their laughter, their tears
May all these fill me.

May they fill my body
May they fill my mind
May they fill my heart
May they fill my soul.

May I be the seed
May they be the soil
May they be the rain
May they be the breeze
May they be the sunlight.

With such blessings
Can I become a flower
That is worthy of You
My Beloved Motherland?

Demonetisation - by Prashant Kaddi

By Prashant Kaddi:

First things first. It is not really demonetisation as the smaller-denomination currency notes are not touched. It is an extreme case of 'discontinuation' of a series of notes of particular denomination - ie, all series of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

There are 2 broad objectives that are stated:
a. Removing hoarded black money (money for which tax is not paid or acquired illegally through corrupt means)
b. Removing counterfeit currency (largely used by terrorists and others in anti-national activities)

As a wise professor once summarised:
Money is a matter of functions four,
A medium, a measure, a standard, a store.
The idea is to retain the 3 functions: a medium of exchange, a measure of value, a standard of payment - but to remove it as a store of value.

The simple truth is that such a large-scale move in a country so large and diverse (especially with such large cash-transaction volume) has never been attempted in history. And nobody - no matter how many degrees or four-syllable English words they have acquired - has a handle to be able to predict the outcomes. Also, nobody can predict the behavior of a billion people when such a move is announced and the bottlenecks that develop. One just has to be flexible to manage the availability of cash.

Likely outcomes, simpler one first:

Counterfeit Notes - This problem will get solved for the time being, till the printing presses start to copy the Rs 2000 note as well. On the plus side, there are security features which may be visible to the naked eye as well as under ultraviolet, the problem being you and I have no way to recognise them. Follow-up action generally believed is that the Rs 2000 note will also be similarly discontinued at some point in the near future.

Black Money - While it is true that most black money is in bullion or real estate, there is still substantial amount which would be in cash - ie, political funding as well as the built-up stock which will shortly be used to buy real estate or gold.

Out of the approximately Rs 14 lakh crore in high-value currency, Rs 5.5 lakh crore has already come into the banking system. If we assume that is a large part of the stock and say there is still some Rs 3-4 lakh crore to come, there is still a possibility of a windfall of Rs 4-5 lakh crore for the government - in addition to the tax on the currently deposited monies. The money which does not come back is a reduction in RBI liability. Hopefully this money can be utilised to fund schemes, reduce poverty, give tax benefit to the current carriers of the cross (salaried class, businesses, etc).

Will it stop the generation of black money? No, it won't. But in conjunction with the Black Money Bill, GST and a slew of tax reforms that are ongoing and expected in the future, it would suffice to say that making black money would possibly become slightly more difficult. And with systems of transparency, high-level corruption can be reduced. However, to root out low-level corruption, a social change is required. It cannot be done through enacting rules or introducing technology alone. And needless to say, political and bureaucratic possibilities of making money need to be dealt a blow.

There are suggestions to end taxes which will remove any possibilities of tax avoidance and several radical economic proposals, along with electoral reform. But my guess is that we will go step by step. Nobody can take on all vested interests at once and survive politically. One at a time and that will be killed completely.

Also, the political opposition is not based on facts. Maybe everyone in the opposition is pissed that they are staring at a loss of their main source of power which is wealth, and/or the larger-than-life figure the Prime Minister has taken on with several historic 'strikes'. Either way, there is no credence to the claims that the poor are severely inconvenienced. Everyone is somewhat inconvenienced, but not too much, and almost the entire country is willing to do their part to see the illegally wealthy sweat a bit. Also, the charge that the implementation is botched is probably not true, given that Rs 1.5 lakh crore is already either withdrawn or exchanged by banks within about 10-12 days - which is approximately 1/3 of the notes in circulation. Approximately 1 in 4 of all notes were in circulation as per RBI; the rest were presumably stored (assuming an equal % of all denominations). This scale of distribution is unprecedented and the scale of adjustments done based on ground feedback is definitely a positive.

Make no mistake. This move is not merely about the numbers. It is a strike at the heart of the darkness that is black money. That the state is not impotent against the illegally rich and mighty, who have eaten away at the very fabric of this economy for so long. And putting the fear that though corruption giveth, the long arm of the law can taketh away.

'Queen Of Katwe' - Review

Review of 'Queen Of Katwe':

2005, Kampala (Uganda): An engineer called Robert Katende joins an NGO and starts teaching chess to children in a slum in Katwe (the poorest area of the city). One of his students is a 10-year-old girl called Phiona Mutesi - the daughter of a widow with 4 children, who sells vegetables for a living. Under Katende's guidance, Phiona achieves the unlikely feat of becoming Uganda's national chess champion and an international chess player.

In 2012, Sports Illustrated reporter Tim Crothers wrote a book about Phiona Mutesi called Queen Of Katwe. And now, Meera Nayyar (Mira Nair) has made it into a movie - featuring Madina Nalwanga in the lead role.

The most striking thing about Queen Of Katwe is its depiction of the Kampala slum. The word 'poverty' is too feeble to be used here. This is a world where life is not a wide zone of comfort but just a thin line of existence - and any chance event (like a road accident or heavy rain) can push you right off that line. Where a simple thing like taking a bath is a major project. Where shops don't have open fronts but iron grills instead. But somehow, in the midst of all this deprivation and despair, the poor people of the slum manage to celebrate life - through music, dance and colour.

Queen Of Katwe is a simple and heart-warming story about real people, their real pain and suffering, their real hopes and dreams, their real victories and defeats. It is definitely a welcome change from Hollywood's mind-numbing superhero factory.

Purusha, Prakriti, Brahma, Kshatra

A categorisation of human qualities:

Purusha		Prakriti
Brahma	Kshatra
Intelligence + Knowledge	Strength + Courage	Softness + Gentleness

'Sully' - Review

Review of 'Sully':

On 15 January 2009, a plane took off from New York to Seattle with 150 people on board. Shortly after takeoff, a flock of birds hit it and blew out both its engines. The standard solution in such a situation is to return to the airport. The pilot, Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Sully), had just seconds to make a decision. He chose instead to land the plane on the Hudson River - a very dangerous move. Miraculously, the plane landed safely and all the 150 people survived. Sullenberger became an American hero.

Clint Eastwood's Sully tells the story of that incident (which everybody knows) and more importantly, what happened behind the scenes (which everybody doesn't know). Because even as the American public and media went ballistic about Sullenberger's heroism, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was conducting its investigation into the incident. And its initial direction was that Sullenberger had been reckless and irresponsible in landing the plane on the river - instead of taking it back to the airport.

The first half is average. The writing (script by Todd Komarnicki) and direction could have been better. The second half is the part that delivers. Eastwood tells the story in his trademark no-nonsense style. Aaron Eckhart as the co-pilot (sporting a thick mustache) and Laura Linney as Sullenberger's wife give solid performances. But the movie, needless to say, belongs to Tom Hanks. He portrays Sullenberger as a genuine hero. Not a movie/media hero who is flashy, flamboyant and larger-than-life. But a real hero who is no-frills, down-to-earth, simple and humble.

'Pink' (Hindi Movie) Review

Review of Hindi movie 'Pink':

What is a movie? What is motion picture? Motion picture is an art form that tells stories. So a movie is a work of art that tells a story - about some characters, the lives they live, the situations they go through and the emotions they feel. This is the fundamental function of a movie.

But art also has power. And motion picture, in particular, is very powerful. It can be used to inform and educate people - especially about important social issues. But to the extent it does this, it compromises on its fundamental function - and therefore on its quality as a work of art.

Which brings us to Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's Pink. Pink takes a 50-50 approach. 50% of it is a movie that tells a story about some characters. And 50% of it is about an important social issue - violence against women. The movie part of it is good. It is realistic and has some good performances.

The other 50% is meant to educate people about violence against women. Specifically, it argues the case of modernity against feudalism. This part gets full marks for good intentions. But it goes against the fundamental function of a movie - which is to tell a story. So it reduces Pink's quality as a movie.

So as an educational video meant for bringing about social improvement, Pink gets 10 out of 10. And as a movie, it gets 5 out of 10.

Analysts Rule The World

ANALYSTS RULE THE WORLD

(On an alien space-ship)
Alien 1: Sir, we have discovered a planet with life.
Alien 2: What! Really?
Alien 1: Yes. Its atmosphere is nitrogen + oxygen, its surface is covered mostly by water and it has carbon-based life-forms.
Alien 2: How many types of life-forms?
Alien 1: There are many. But one type is dominant.
Alien 2: Find out everything you can about them.
Alien 1: Yes, sir.

(Some time later)
Alien 1: Sir, their primary mode of information transmission is in audio-visual form by using electro-magnetic waves.
Alien 2: How do they receive this information?
Alien 1: Through some strange-looking boxes.
Alien 2: Is this important?
Alien 1: Very. They spend all their time looking at these boxes.
Alien 2: Excellent. Tap into those waves. Find out who are their rulers.
Alien 1: Yes, sir.

(Some time later)
Alien 1: Sir, their rulers are called 'analysts'.
Alien 2: What?
Alien 1: Yes. We did a frequency study of their transmissions. 99% of their transmissions contain the words "According to analysts", "Analysts say this", "Analysts say that", etc.
Alien 2: Are you sure about this?
Alien 1: We are 100% sure.
Alien 2: OK, locate these analysts immediately. We must talk to them soon as possible. I will inform the Emperor.
Alien 1: Yes, sir!

Segregation of Sexes in India

An important difference between agricultural society and industrial society is the relationship between the sexes.

20th century India was an agricultural society. One feature of an agricultural society is the segregation of the sexes. Boys and girls sat separately in schools and colleges. They did not talk to each other. If a boy talked to a girl (or vice versa) it would make news. As a result, boys and girls grew up without interacting much with each other. This situation continued into adulthood. Women did not work much outside the house. Their participation in the workforce was low. So men and women also did not interact much with each other.

21st century India is an industrialising society. It is completely different from 20th century India. It is not yet an industrial society. But it is no longer an agricultural society either. Today boys and girls sit together in schools and colleges. They talk to each other all the time. And more women are now working outside the house and participating in the workforce. So men and women also interact much more with each other.

This seems like a trivial point (and today's youth will find this description of 20th century India bizarre). But it may have some relevance. Social scientists say that violence against women is mainly due to the segregation of the sexes. How? One, boys/men don't know/understand girls/women. So they don't respect/appreciate them enough. Two, boys/men don't have normal and healthy relationships with girls/women. So this leads to frustration - which in turn leads to violence. Now if this theory is correct, then increasing industrialisation/modernisation will lead to decreased violence against women.

'Star Trek Beyond': Review

Review of 'Star Trek Beyond':

In 2009, Paramount Pictures rebooted the Star Trek movie series. Director J J Abrams and scriptwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers series) made Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). For the third movie, Paramount made two disastrous changes. First, Abrams went away to direct Star Wars: Force Awakens. So they replaced him with Justin Lin (Fast & Furious series!). Second, scriptwriters Orci and Kurtzman were replaced with actor Simon Pegg (!!!) and rookie Doug Jung.

Hollywood action movies have a formula: beginning action scene + middle plot sequence + ending action scene. Star Trek Beyond follows this formula, but screws up 2 out of the 3 parts:
a) Beginning – Justin Lin's dal-roti is cars racing on the road, not spaceships fighting in space. So for the opening spacebattle sequence, he copies Michael Bay – yes, the jerky camerawork that gives you a headache. The over-complicated battle scene is badly shot and edited.
b) Middle – There is not much of a plot here. At best, it is a plot for one TV episode. Simon Pegg plays Scotty here, and Benji in the Mission Impossible series. His one-point agenda in writing this script was to give himself a Tom Cruise scene (hanging from a cliff). The entire middle is poorly written and directed.
c) Ending – Here Justin Lin dumps Michael Bay and tries his own thing. The result is a climax that is at least watchable. (Any Beastie Boys fans around? Kirk and co destroy an entire alien invasion fleet just by playing their song 'Sabotage'!)

The cast (Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, etc) do the best they can with this average script. And why hire a good actor like Idris Elba (the villain) just to wear a plastic mask on his face? Heck, I could have done that job (for a lot less money). This year is the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. Hollywood has reduced the classic sci-fi saga to a mediocre product from its assembly line. Creator Gene Roddenberry must be rolling in his grave. Star Trek Beyond joins this year's big-budget duds: Star Wars: Force Awakens, Superman Vs Batman, Avengers: Civil War and X-Men: Apocalypse. Mainstream Hollywood is as dead as mainstream Bollywood. (STB has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 85%. This puts one more question mark on the honesty of American movie critics. The cynics seem to be the only honest guys around)

PS: I felt so guilty about dragging my parents to this B-grade show that in the interval I booked tickets for a Kannada movie for the next day – to atone for my sin :-p

Universalism and Particularism

Everything in the world can be divided into two categories:
1. Universals – ideas, concepts, principles
2. Particulars – things, events, humans

# Giving importance to universals is universalism. Giving importance to particulars is particularism.

# 99% of humans are particularists. 1% of humans are universalists.

# Universals are fundamental. Particulars are expressions of universals.

# Universals are permanent. Particulars are temporary.

2008 American Financial Crisis (AFC)

In 2005, Raghuram Rajan (IMF's chief economist) warned that America was headed for a major financial crisis. Most American economists ridiculed him. 3 years later, his words came true. The 2008 American Financial Crisis (AFC) was the worst since 1929. And it plunged all the industrialised countries (America, Europe, Japan) into the Great Recession - the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In 2010, Rajan wrote a book called 'Fault Lines: How hidden fractures still threaten the world economy' to explain the causes of AFC:

1. In 1980, something strange happened in America: the salaries of the majority of Americans stopped increasing - and instead started decreasing. Why? From 1980 onwards, technology started advancing very rapidly. So demand for high-skilled workers (with a college degree) went on increasing and demand for low-skilled workers (with a high-school degree) went on decreasing. So salaries for people with college degrees went on increasing, whereas salaries for people with high-school degrees went on decreasing. Majority of Americans do not have a college degree. Hence their salaries have gone on decreasing.

2. Since 1945, America has been having a recession almost every decade. But every time it recovered quickly: the lost jobs came back within a year. In 1991, another recession struck. But this time, the recovery was much slower: it took 2 years for the lost jobs to come back. As a result, President George Bush (senior) lost the election that year.

3. All industrialised countries have an unemployment support system. That is, the government pays money to unemployed people. America has the weakest unemployment support system among the industrialised countries. Both the money paid and the duration for which it is paid is the lowest. This made problem #2 worse.

4. In 1992, Bill Clinton became President. He had to deal with both the immediate problem #2 and also the longer-term problem #1. The solution for problem #1 (and also problem #2) is to increase the education level of the people. But this requires changing the education system - which is very difficult. So he chose an easier solution: to give low-interest loans to poor people, especially for buying houses. America's central bank - under its chief, Alan Greenspan - supported this solution by keeping the interest rate low.

5. In 2000, the dot-com bubble burst and America had another recession. This time the recovery was even slower than in 1991: it took 3 years for the lost jobs to come back. That year, George W Bush (junior) became President. Faced with a similar (but worse) problem as Clinton, he also opted for the same solution. He not only continued Clinton's scheme, but expanded it. And again, the central bank under Greenspan supported it.

6. Poor American families (mostly black and Latino/Hispanic) with no job, salary or property applied to banks for home loans - and got them. The banks packaged these loans together and converted them into 'financial assets'. They kept some of these 'assets' themselves and sold the rest to other financial companies (mutual funds, pension funds, etc). Rating agencies - whose job is to certify the quality of financial assets - gave these 'assets' a good rating.

7. With the government pushing more and more low-interest loans and poor families buying more and more houses, house prices went on increasing. The bubble went on growing. But at some point, the borrowers had to start repaying their loans - which they obviously could not do. The bubble finally burst in 2008. Borrowers started defaulting on their loans. And the whole process went into reverse gear - at a much faster speed. House prices crashed and the 'financial assets' became worthless overnight - bankrupting the banks and financial companies that owned them. The American government had to step in with a huge rescue package to save the largest banks.

'Fault Lines' is a very good book that dissects a complex topic and explains it in a simple language to people who are not economists.

'Free State of Jones' (Slavery in America)

In 1600, white Europeans started going to America. Almost immediately, they also started 'importing' Africans and using them as slaves. Northern America is cold and dry, with rocky soil. Southern America is warm and wet, with fertile soil. So the south is good for large-scale agriculture. There, whites started large-scale plantations (of tobacco and cotton) using large numbers of slaves. By 1850, America had about 50 lakh slaves and slaves made up one-third of the south's population.

In 1861, the anti-slavery Abraham Lincoln became America's President. Immediately, the 11 southern states left America and declared themselves a separate country: the Confederate States of America (CSA). The north declared war, and the American Civil War began.

The south's rich planters - who owned slaves - took their states out of America and started the Civil War. But none of them (or their sons) fought in the war. All the soldiers in the south's army were ordinary farmers - who did not own slaves. One of them was a man called Newton Knight from Mississippi state's Jones district. Disgusted with this situation, he left the war and went back to his district. There he hid in a swamp/marsh with some blacks.

More soldiers started leaving the south's army. They went and joined Newton Knight. This band went on increasing in size. They started protecting the district's farmers from the looting raids of the south's army. Next they started fighting the south's army directly. Eventually they defeated it - and overthrew the south's control over their district. They declared their district to be a free country: the Free State of Jones. They held the south's army at bay till 1865 - when the north defeated the south and the Civil War ended.

In 2001, historian Victoria Bynum wrote a book about this episode. And now, director David Ross (Seabiscuit, Hunger Games) has made it into a movie - starring Matthew McConaughey as Newton Knight.

David Ross has made Free State of Jones with a slow and precise style. This makes FSJ an excellent history movie, but not necessarily a mass entertainer. This is a pity. Because FSJ is an exciting and inspiring story - about slavery in America, about an amazing episode in America's history and the life of a true American hero. A movie like this should be seen by everybody. If only David Ross had spiced up FSJ with more drama and action (like Steven Spielberg), it would have achieved this objective. This was especially important this year - when the Donald Trump campaign has shown how strong racism is in America. So Free State of Jones is - unfortunately - a golden opportunity missed.

When will Hollywood make a movie on the anti-slavery crusader John Brown - one of America's greatest heroes?

GDP Components: India and Other Countries

GDP components of major countries:

Country	C	G	I	X	-M
India	60%	12%	31%	19%	-22%
America	69%	18%	17%	13%	-16%
China	38%	14%	43%	23%	-18%
Japan	60%	20%	21%	19%	-19%
Germany	54%	19%	20%	46%	-39%

C = Consumption
G = Government
I = Investment
X = Exports
M = Imports

GDP = C + G + I + X - M