26 January 2016

Digestable People







I am grateful to Mr. Rajiv Malhotra whose many talks and books and the occasional email have awoken and inspired not only me but numerous  other people.


One can possess things but not people. 

Yet Husbands try to possess their wives and vice versa, together they try to possess their children. Employers seek to own their employees etc. Marketeers want to entrap their customers, and governments want to possess their citizens. Everyone is trying to literally possess, control and exploit  everyone else. 

Not only do they try to possess, they wish to eat and digest them completely. Most people make it easy by blindly, meekly and senselessly submitting to the expectations of powerful and dominating people making themselves easily digestible.


Powers that be, colonialists and rulers have always used this very effectively as do school teachers, military, political, religious, and community leaders. 

Get conformance from people, digest, get conformance, digest, chomp, chomp, chomp, burp!


 

This is why people who do not conform by thinking and behaving as per the wishes of the powerful, have to be destroyed if they cannot be possessed. To set an example and to deter non believers who might have thoughts of their own non conformists are ridiculed, isolated, locked up, expelled, and better destroyed. 





Not merely killed the non conforming individuals and groups will be crucified, burnt at the stake, quartered, and tortured in myriad ways and that too in grand public displays. 

Gandhi ji appeared to have little regard for the things the British valued greatly, personal liberty, is a case in point.

The British threatened him with imprisonment, and violence, and smilingly not only Gandhi ji but numerous of his followers marched into prison and did not flinch or recant when Police and soldiers rained blows on them.

The language also changed. When he was asked by the British, what do you want, he replied "Swaraj". How do you hope to get it? "By Satyagraha" Gandhiji replied.

The British were flummoxed, they were now hearing new words, they were encountering radical thoughts and philosophies, unrecognisable patterns of behaviour. Gandhi ji was impossible to digest.


Gandhi ji was a peoples leader, he appeared to live in simplicity, and want nothing but freedom for his country and her people.. Gandhi ji had the backing of the Indian political set up, the businessmen and even the policemen and soldiers. He was also the officially nominated leader of the Indian National Congress.

Though they wanted to be rid of this irritatingly complex mind in a simple fragile body. The British had no choice but to deal with Gandhi ji because he had the popular mandate. He was invited to come to Britain for talks and also to meet King George.




The Britishers banged their heads against the walls in exasperation at this strange and stubborn Indian, physically so frail but spiritually so Himalayan. While Gandhi ji maintained and respected all social protocols, he insisted on wearing the traditional farmers 'dhoti' and thick homespun cotton shawl and sandals. He also took along his white goat whose milk formed a staple part of his diet.

He was indigestible, refusing to be overpowered or awed by British royalty and made his point bluntly but politely that it was high time the British left India to Indians.

Britain however refused to accept Indian demands to leave India. Had Gandhi ji prevailed and had remained the leader of the Congress, India would have been free much earlier and still one people rather than the gruesome outcome of partition that took place. Unfortunately Nehru and Jinnah were both too eager to be the leaders and were easily manipulated and managed by the British.

The war against tyranny by the British for which they got global support could not provide either moral justification or legitimacy to continue with an immoral colonial policy. Eventually India got her freedom because India become unmanageable by the weakened and chastised British, and it was also the moral thing for the British to do.

The lessons are many but some are significant for all people in all lands.
1. Do not be a digestible person, group or even country.
2. India needs Indian solutions based on Indian aspirations to tackle uniquely Indian challenges. 
3. Inappropriate solutions imported at great cost and implemented by people with little or no understanding of Indian needs has always been counterproductive, wasted enormous resources and stunted Indian development. 
4. Understand oneself, the strengths and weaknesses one possesses and then take the right steps to meet the genuine aspirations of the people.

My fellow countrymen and women, awaken, realise, arise and build a greater and noble India, and a better, kinder, wealthier world. Cherish and honour the freedom you have been gifted by the efforts and sacrifice of so many named and unnamed individuals.

I congratulate all Indians on this Republic day. 

6 comments:

  1. I would like to add to your creative thoughts. At an universal level the digestibility and non digestibility is about facts and biases. Change is required when one see that a system is being created based on Biases. That bias could be of any kind, such as gender, colour, caste, class, creed or anything else.... Because biases can never be based on facts. Therefore we continuously need to train our brains to recognize a bias and burst it then and there before it is integrated into a system by people siting on the powerful positions with biased minds. Then it could be anyone... British or Europeans, Asians or Africans... Just name it... If we look at the facts from this angle we may understand the reasons of being under slavery of our present leaderships even in so called free India. We need to create programing of our brains to digest only the facts and not the Biases... We need to transform ourselves from homo-sapiens mind (which can think of Me, My family and My job) to Cosmo-sapiens (adding another triangle of my Society, my environment and the creator of Universe) Now if I look at the example of different people's reaction towards the freedom struggle, no one knows everything but everyone know something. Gandhiji had his point and he persuaded, Jinna and Nehru had their own points and at that point of time it was not in the interest of a change, that is the facts of fight against biases. India is and was a highly biased nation in terms of gender caste and colour. While British missionaries fought against these biases and British rulers took advantage for their own gains. British Christian missionaries & Gandhiji succeeded because they were with the FACTS (Right/Truth).

    In todays terms the facts about the Earth Immune system that is, its water Wind Soil Energy and Space has been facing biases by Human behaviour of making waste and throwing it irresponsibly... Here the Swarajya is about getting freedom from the polluting behaviour of all humans....
    Fact is that the core of every human activity should be earth's immune system, on which every life is sustained. Every activity humans develops in terms of technology must support it's immune system. If so then we need to change it from our educational system which must produce 90% of students as farmers and farming supported technologies and businesses.

    Now... to get into this paradigm shift, Recycling industry must get all the support from World bank, UN and WHO etc...
    There are many who have stirred the issue to the point of giving their life to it with joy so that life can be sustained....

    Rivers have been integral part of human civilization and today the same has been destroyed by the modern humans. Developing dams which has held 100% of water in upper streams and the population shifted to the areas where dams are present. Where as rivers are meant to flow and keep the population distributed on the land.... we have violated it and now facing problems of encroachment of space in the cities.
    We need freedom from the biases.... let the Dams hold only 30% of water and allow 70% to flow down. Make another check dam at the point where the water swells into 100% again and hold 30% here and allow 70% to flow again.... this way we can tilt the imbalance... river beds will be alive, villages will survive....
    For me this is swarajya... Freedom means being Diligent, Responsible, Honest and Courageous to stand for FACTS/TRUTH/RIGHT... oppose the Biases...

    Digest the Facts and don't digest the Biases....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. WOW!
      That is a lot of passion, and truth in what you say
      I endorse many of the concerns, but have some what differing thoughts on how to approach these concerns.

      I am working on writing a series of articles on my blog called, "101 ways to save respect ourselves by respecting Mother Earth'.

      May I request your support and guidance to work on this project.
      Awareness by my readers will lead to greater understanding of problems /challenges and possible solutions.

      Thanks for broadening my vision and arousing me to action.
      Gurvinder

      Delete
  2. Wonderful and most appropriate thoughts!
    Sagari chhabra

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, praise God....be blessed

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks, praise God....be blessed

    ReplyDelete

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