The Enemy Within...

India's biggest enemies aren't Pakistan & China. Although our crooked politicians (who have contributed in good measure to our winning a dishonourable mention in the list of Most Corrupt Nations), would loudly stress that that was indeed the case.

India's biggest enemies are it's social ills (but not one politician has the b*lls to put it to India's populace in those words), and the perpetrators of these social ills, our illiterate multitudes.

And if India is to become a safer, better place to live in, we need to battle this enemy first. If our cities are to feature higher on the list of most livable cities, we must have a populace teeming with knowledge awareness & better manners. The more paan stains we have on our walls & roads, the worse we will fare on international lists.
And this will not come about by embracing all that is ancient Indian as cultural heritage & treating it as sacred. This will come about by moving on from and by discarding ancient, obsolete customs and embracing new world orders.
And that will come about by going into the villages & teaching children & adults alike about what is happening in the modern world. And by changing the medium of instruction to a language that is far more modern in content & context.

Unfortunately a majority of the Indian population is anti-progress. They're anti-MNC, anti-globalization, anti-English education. Their pro-Swadeshi stand is misplaced patriotism. They listen to the wrong sort of leaders and cannot see that the only people who benefit from the populace remaining uneducated are corrupt rulers. (God...! There are so many things to thank for the Congress' being in power instead of the pro-retard (pun intended) BJP!)

Watch the news & you see a posse of Lucknow policemen beating the crap out of a single helpless student. And this is something the news doesn't need to show us. Everyday we see the illiterate policemen vent their frustrations on the hapless public they're supposed to serve in the first place. Why are incidents like this so much rarer in the Western world?

42,000 security personnel are being deployed to ensure smooth assembly elections in 3 Indian states. Why does India need 42,000 security personnel to be deployed during elections?

Read the newspapers and you read about Salman Khan getting 5 years in jail for killing deer sacred to a backward, minisicule community of Rajasthan. Poaching in India is on the rise, and it's common knowledge that poachers are getting away scot-free. But Salman & Pataudi are in jail. 2 poaching convictions will earn this executive & judiciary, respect in my eyes? Never! Their success with the other 40,000 poaching cases will! Their successful conviction of the murderer in the Jessica Lall case will! How do such petty issues assume greater importance that far bigger issues? How is my country so corrupt?

People spit on our streets & walls, people pee & shit on streets & walls in a country that where Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Where Brahmins needed to bathe if they ever got touched by the person of a Shudra (a menial worker).
Eve teasing & rape is rampant in a country whose "culture" boasts of worshipping women as Goddesses!
And nobody even steps up to stop & correct the offenders! So much for nationalist pride.

I'd really like to see advani take up issues like this on his so called "Bharat Suraksha" rath yatra. Their version of nationlist pride is jingoism! And everyone who opposes them probably has the right version in their heads. These are the people with whom hope for the nation lies.

There is another enemy within. Misguided individuals who take the wrong approach to bringing about change. I have dear friends who fall into this category. Friends who I love for a lot of other things, but cannot bear to see them mouth misguided lies. Imagine an educated, Bombay bred, pet loving individual loudly stating that Mahatma Gandhi was an ass & in part responsible for India's woes!!! Also stating that the only way to fix things was to work from within the system, with the corrupt bastards ensuring that they get their cut!!!
How does that change the system? How does that make our country less corrupt?
I wish my friends would respect their education and realize that historically any change that has come about has come about by a revolution. A sudden change that overthrows the existing system! The French & the Russian Revolutions, the American Civil War, Bhutto's ouster, Zia's controversial death, and Mush's bloodless but successful coup d'état... all change has come about through sudden not gradual revolt!
That is the need of the hour. And the only people who can & will bring about this change are people like us: educated, exposed youth. We cannot afford to fall prey to the beliefs espoused by the men who want the system to stay intact! Our future & the future of our coming generations rests on individuals who will bring about a revolution! Anyone who claims otherwise is inadvertenly becoming The Enemy Within!