It is not surprising that the Indian politicians (though many lack even primary education & almost all have criminal cases filed against them) are a smart lot. In the land where the great Chanakya & the Artha Sashtra was born, anything less would have been a disgrace. The politicians have been portrayed as power hungry, maniacal, barbaric, greedy and full of lust in almost every movie that needs to feature them. If they are good, “Seedha-Saadha“, harmless and non-corrupt, they are not allocated screen time more than 10 minutes. They are eventually bumped off.

It is the masses that surprise me. It is almost like the country’s entire population is a case of selective amnesia. They seem to forget the economical & political blunders committed against them. Their memories seem to be regularly erased so that they cannot remember the brutal assaults against democracy & humanity. The population is “formatted” just before every election, enabling the same guys who stole from the people, who thrashed the living lights out of the masses, who raped & violated near and dear ones and who threatened about dire consequences while pointing the ubiquitous dagger into your eyes.

Lord Curzon, a viceroy of the British in India, in sometime between 1899 – 1912, divised an ingenuos method of keeping group sentiments under check. The method he divised was popularly called “Divide & Rule”. He pilot-implemented his method by partitioning West Bengal (a state that produced some of the greatest thinkers & freedom fighters during India’s struggle for freedom), a move that led to huge public outcry that finally resulted in revoking the partition and Curzon being shunted of India.

But even Curzon, in his wildest dreams, would have never believed that what he had developed was going to be the best weapon in the average Indian politician’s armoury.

The Mahatmas and Tilaks of the early 1900s recognized Curzon’s intentions early and they rallied their people along to get the partition revoked. They were “good” poiliticans – they had ideas like emancipation of the poor, education & food for all, self & reliable governance, industrialization etc.

Much later, after India gained her Independence and the Mahatma had been done away with (his strighforward stances would have been a thorn in the fleshes of the average Indian politicians), emerged what we call regional, language, caste & religion based politics.

Tamil Nadu put up a stiff opposition to learning Hindi because the Dravidian leader thought they would lose their sway once the Tamilians got a whiff of the Indian mainstream politics. The only way to keep them insulated from the rest of the country is to keep them away from Hindi. The Karunanidhi & Jayalalitha led parties still indulge in changing names of cities, roads and technology into Tamil. Tamilians, known to be an intelligent lot, have failed to see through this veil.

On the national level, the Bharatiya Janata Party with its supporting factions; the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh & the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has predominantly indulged in the Hindu Rashtra game. It initially had extremly leftist views towards other religions and thought it could rule the country with only the Hindu support. Off late, it realized that the Indians are more divided than by just the religion and has set off to appease other communities too. Mr. Narendra Modi, a brand ambassador of BJP is known for his strong opinions and Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, the poster boy of the BJP, who after being a drunkard and a bachlor (with grand-children) is also a poet and cripple and supposed to be the greatest administrator of this era (a statement strongly opposed by the RJD supporters; they think one Mr. Laloo Prasad yadav is better!!)

Regional parties like the TDP, DMK, ADMK & Shiv Sena have always propagated regional feelings in order to stay in power. Concepts like “Tamizhan endru sollada, thalai nimirndhu nillada”(say that you are a tamil with your head held high) & “Maraathi Manoos” (Marathi people) have been ultimately popular.

India (with more than 15 different languages and 100s of dialects) was another parameter that could have contributed to division of people and our desi politicians being intelligent, have exploited this area too.

Caste system, a concept that survived for more than a 500 years in India (mind it – there were no internal fighting, no skirmishes; as a matter of fact – except for a handfull of people, there are no records of even unhappiness) was the last and major factor to fall into the hands of our unscrupulous politicians.

On one hand, it surprises me how people believe that the brahmins ruled the other castes: the brahmin population in India has never been more than 4% of the population and predominant in TN, AP, Karnataka & UP.

What our stupid masses fail to realise is that through methods like reservation, they are just repeatedly being told about their caste. They are being brainwashed. Reservation in education & employment, to me says that people of certain castes cannot make it on their own. Talk about being backward!! Such bullshit. These guys have led a very happy and content existance until a few “forward” thinkers like Mr. Ambedkar fiddled with the social stabilities to achieve their vested interests.

A famous repartee goes this way; Mr. Vajpayee was meeting Mr. Musharaff (the Pak premier) and made a comment “Lets never solve the Kashmir problem; what will we do politics with if there are no problems?”

Similarly, people have to realise that the caste system is but a method of division. As long as you are true to a caste, you cannot be true to the country.

Abroad, it is said that poeple put their country before their homes. In India, the order is as follows:

1) Self

2) Self

3) Self

4) Family

4a) Caste

4b) Community

5) Building

5a) Religion

5b) Faith

6) Society

7) Area

City

9) State

and finally, if you are just wondering where the India is,

10) Country