Dedications

Some of the lyrics of the famous song from the beat group bangles goes as, ‘All the old paintings on the tomb, they do the sand dance don’t you know, if they move too quick, they’re falling like a domino’. Just that what happened in Egypt was not old paintings, that did the sand dance, but real people who stormed the street, and they did not fall like dominos, instead they toppled a regime of cruelty, tyranny and corruption.

Another verse of the song goes as, 'All the school kids so sick of books, they like the punk and the metal band, when the buzzer rings, they’re walking like a Egyptian’. Eerily spooky, the kids are sick of books as all the education cannot get jobs. Whether they like punk and metal band is secondary, but they braved metal tanks, and walk towards it. The more they were beaten and tortured the numbers of them on the streets increased. They walked together as Egyptians.

In India the one walk remembered (or maybe even forgotten) was the ‘Dandi March’ in April of 1930 by Mahatma Gandhi to defy the law protest against the British salt monopoly, and made salt. The strategy was simple and brilliant use of a lethal and effective force of non-violence. This sparked large scale acts of civil disobedience against the British Raj salt laws by millions of Indians. Today we are over a billion people afraid to revolt against the corruption we are subjected to everyday. We take pride in our history of overthrowing a colonial power, and cannot emulate a thing from our history in our present times.

Rapes, murders, robbery, scams, and the list of atrocities are never ending. A freedom fighter Ishwari Singh Thakur, 90 years old, is fighting for thirty five years to get his freedom fighter’s pension. After being a soldier with the Azad Hind Fauj, is still fighting to get his pension, and is living a life of penury and survives selling firewood. Now if this is state how a freedom fighter is treated, what freedom are we looking forward to from our corrupt system?

Thakur's only identity was 'qaidi number 707'. Is that a way a freedom fighter’s identity and dignity is maintained? I guess this could be a reason why India is making UID no. mandatory for all Indians, so soon we would be only a no. to be identified with. We take pride of our economy booming, Indian companies taking over global companies, but when are we going to take over India? Some of the takeovers create in my mind a sense of ironical confusion, Tata’s take over a British motor manufacturing company, and in India we don’t have a basic transport infrastructure. Ranbaxy a big Indian pharmaceutical company acquires RPG Aventis in France, and we don’t have a good healthcare for the poor. We aim to acquire foreign football clubs, and don’t have sports facilities at home. If we can acquire foreign companies and prosper economically, can we not prosper as a Nation?

A Swiss Banker recently confirmed that if the money stashed in Swiss Banks is released to the Indian government it can be used for taxless budget, no need of World Bank or IMF loan, every citizen can be paid Rs. 2000/- for 60 years, forever free power supply to over 500 social projects. If that amount is released it will kill the power of the politicians, so it will never be done, and we don’t want to do anything about it. The joke is that India cannot reveal the names of the corrupt that have hidden the ill gotten wealth in Swiss Banks as it is governed by International treaty laws of confidentiality. Do International laws allow corruption and protect in with confidentiality laws? How true is the saying ‘the law is an ass’, but is it also an arsehole, serving as loopholes to encourage corruption?

How long can we be in slumber? Can we not awake and for a change walk like an Egyptian?