India Vs India

There is a fierce fight going on between 2 countries. It is going on for the last 61 years. This fight is between the haves and have-nots. . This fight is between India and India.

The other day I was reading a report from World Bank which stated that around 1/3 rd of world's poor resides in India alone. Percentage of Indians living below $2 a day was appallingly high figure at around 75% which is even higher than that of the poorest part of the world, the sub-Saharan Africa. This is our "Gareeb" India, the haves

The other India is the "Ameer" India, the have-nots, which has 56 billionaires as per the recent list of wealthiest billionaires being released by Forbes .Not only this; number of HNI (High Net worth Individuals) in this India crossed 1 lakh mark.

What an unfair battle!!!!

Ameer India' army has got only a handful of soldiers (few lakhs) while Gareeb India has a mammoth 80 crore plus strong army .Even Gareeb India scores in the land area they command. Huge open and empty fields in rural areas are at their disposal to practice their battle skills while Ameer India has to do with small, tiny patches, most of them already taken up by some industrial or IT project in urban areas. But thankfully our thoughtful government has been with Ameer India for the past many years and has been arduously trying to seize as much land as possible from Gareeb India so that Ameer India could build SEZ’z and other mega projects which would go a long way in making Ameer India even with Gareeb India.

When it comes to technology and facilities, Gareeb India again has the edge. It has been using same age-old agricultural technologies and has become really adept with that. Facilities available to Gareeb Indians have made them really tough and resilient. No-electricity in most of their residing areas means they get adapted to dark; an important trait is a battle. Shortage of water supply and unavailability of nutritious food mean they could live on for many days in extreme battle conditions. Inaccessibility to educations means that children from the early age could concentrate on honing their fighting skills. On the other hand, Ameer India very often has to bear the brunt of the fast changing technologies in that it has to adapt quickly to new technologies and so less time to polish its existing skills. Also, facilities such as gyms, restaurants, ultra-modern multi complexes, shopping malls etc. make the life of Ameer Indians a hell of a tough where they could not concentrate on the fight.

The point which I am trying to make here is that Ameer India is almost always at a disadvantage vis-à-vis Gareeb India. Even though our government has been trying really hard to assuage the pain of Ameer India and lessen the difference so that Ameer India could stand a fair chance against it's biggest adversary, Gareeb India has been gaining strength from all quarters and growing in numbers very rapidly .Someone has to do something soon otherwise time is not far when Gareeb India would win this battle against Ameer India.

The new Religion

I often wonder do we ,the humans i.e. GOD's greatest creation , understand the real meaning of a very commonly used word "Religion" .When I was a child , religion to me was a symbol of cohesion , love and bond which bound human beings to the greatest power , the Almighty. As I grew, my understanding also broadened .I learnt that religion was also an expression of one's inner feelings towards the outer world. It was a belief in one’s values .Religion was also a bridge which connected one individual to another through the feeling of oneness and the sense of belongingness.

But, after having seen 24 springs, all these verbose definitions do not make much sense to me any longer. I pity how immature I was to have totally confused religion with something it never had any relationship whatsoever. I really doubt my intelligence of not getting the real gist of the word. But as the cliché goes, it's better to be late than never, finally I have understood that religion is a symbol not of love but of power which empowers one individual to look down upon other individuals. I have understood that religion is a tool to vent one's inner feeling of animosity towards the outer world. I have understood that religion is a medium which allows communities to transfer tools of protest and violence, to sow seeds of hatred and to kill other existing religions. At least, this is what it seems from what is happening in the world that we live in.

VHP activists killing Christians in Orissa in the name of religion to take revenge for the death of their leader, separatists demanding the freedom of Kashmir again in the name of religion, Maoists and Naxalities killing and injuring scores of people across the country (Need I state the reason ?) and the list goes on and on.

So much violence because I am a Hindu, because you are a Muslim, because he is a Christian, because they are Sikhs............ If my understanding still holds good, I guess as per the Constitution, India deemed itself to be secular country where each religion is respected and welcomed. And indeed we greet each religion each day with blood and cries. What else could have been the better option to grant such a WARM welcome? We, Indians, are regarded as one of the better hosts to disparate and diverse cultures and practices. But with our PPRACTICES we have redefined our own culture.

Can't we, the citizens of this country, have a right to live in peace? Can't we see a day when there is no religion-based bloodbath on the streets? I can only hope and dream of a day when there will be harmony, feeling to share and an urge to not be barricaded within the realms of RELIGION among the citizens in this country. Till then, I want to relegate to my childhood days thinking of religion as the way it should be.