SHE RULES.

As Bengal turned Green and 'Jaya Ho' became the chant in Tamil Nadu this morning , the political terrain of India has

changed significantly. Suddenly, a country known for its patriarchal male-dominated society now has four women chief ministers.This change is the result of the evolution of our democracy.Although it has taken a long time coming, but "HER RULE" has finally arrived.

Just a brief look at India's political landscape as of today,and we realise that that its our women who rule the country. India's most important political personality (Sonia Gandhi , some would call her the De facto Prime Minister as well) , the Leader of the Opposition (Sushma Swaraj , most probably NDA's Prime Ministerial candidate in 2014) , Speaker of the Lok Sabha (Meira Kumar) ,Nirupama Rao as India's Foreign Secretary, Mayawati as the Chief Minister of the largest state of India, Sheila Dixit as Delhi's eternal leader and , now , Mamata "Didi" Banerjee in Bengal and Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu.

And as Mamata changes "WASTE BENGAL" to "WEST BENGAL" in the next 5 years, and while Jayalalitha cleans up the mess left over by an octogenarian leader, more women leaders will have a chance to stake claim to power. Vasundhara Raje Scindia has more than a chance to turn the tables on the Congress in Jaipur in 2013.

So, how did this astonishing change take place? Sucheta Kriplani and Pandit Vijaya Lakshmi were independent India's first major female political personalities. And then came the era of Indira Gandhi, arguably India's best Prime Minister ever , and maybe the worst as well. But after Indira Gandhi, the late 80s and the early 90s were a period of drought, as far as women leaders were concerned. But with economic upliftment, came the ambition and the recognition of the right to political power.

The change over the past 15 years has been unbelievable. And the result of this change is a country which is ruled by women leaders, from Delhi to Chennai to Kolkata. For years , we have been told to look at America and other

western countries and their democracies as examples. Its high time they learnt a few things from us about democracy. For all its prestigious democratic heritage , America has never had a women at the helm. Neither a female Vice-President ever.

Even though the Women's reservation bill remains stuck in the parliament , and even though the percentage of Women MPs is less than 20% in the Lok Sabha , it is a fact that almost all the political power, be it at the centre , or in key states, lies with women leaders. And this can only be good for our democracy.

With today's results , The Dominance of Woman Leaders in Indian Politics has been finally established, and the "ERA OF HER RULE" has finally arrived. Long Live India. Jai Hind !

20 years on... How much have we changed !!!

Indians may not be feeling especially good about themselves right now.. food costs a bomb, even the good'ol pyaaz n roti is now exorbitant ,there is corruption in every nook and corner ,the middle class is as disillusioned by its politicians as ever , the corporate sector is mired in controversy, and if all that was not enough, the army too finds itself under unprecedented scrutiny due to recent controversies.

But looking beyond the gloom of the recent past , the India Story continues to amaze the world. The economic rise of a nation from the precipice of failure, and the verge of bankruptcy, in just 20 yrs ago is mind-baffling. Looking back at 1991, who would have thought that we would be one of the FOUR major economies of the world in just 20 years.Two decades after we took the first steps towards economic liberalisation and opened our doors to the world, it seems that economic change has outpaced social and cultural change.

Its now economics that's driving change in India now. India could well be the default setting for the rest of the world. I say so because of a reason which we have celebrated for years , which is our diversity. many different societies in the world are fast becoming familiar with this virtue..for example about 25% of the population in London originates from outside the UK ,most of them Asians. The sort of diversity which we always have had in India is only beginning to come to other countries now and probably, many lessons on how to deal with that can be learnt by the rest of the world from India.

Since 1947, the politics of the country was hugely important in the policy making till the 80s ,but after the liberalistaion of the early 90s , its the economics which has been driving everything. Most of the social change over the past two decade is a result of the economic change.

There is a cultural shift in India which can only be spotted by those who witnessed India before Liberalisation. There seems to be a loss of simplicity and innocence. But these last two decades have shown us that no matter how much globalisation affects us , there remains something quintessentially Indian about us. There are certain traits about us Indians which nobody else can boast of in the world, be it bargaining or even the six-letter magic word called JUGAAD. Many of us might hav started to fly Kingfisher these days, but we'll still bargain with the sabziwala and the autowala just to get the cheapest deal. That's what u call BEING INDIAN !!!

In a country where the centuries co-exist, the 18th century India, where bonded labors and witch-craft still exist, and a 21st century India , where an iPhone or a Mercedes is no more considered a luxury...both these and many more in between , converge and conflict to form the IDEA OF INDIA. And that Idea is the result of a belief, a confidence and a conviction, which today is stronger than ever before...

Economic liberalisation has brought about a mobilisation which has broken down barriers. The self-made Indian ,the likes of Asim premji , Narayan murthi and Sunil mittal , mirror the once famous American dream which epitomised the success story of america.in a way ,you can be what u want to be today !!!

Hope of Democracy in the Arab World.

The dramatic events in Tunisia and Egypt over the past fortnight has raised the question "Could these events have an effect all across the Arab world?".
There have been popular revolutions in the Arab world in the past , but in the end, all of them have led to lasting dictatorships ,never to vibrant democracies.
Its still too soon to tell for Tunisia and Egypt, but there is hope for reform and democracy. We should see these events, not in isolation but as a part of a decade of change. There has been a pattern emerging over the past decade. A decade ago, the political landscape in the Arab world was bleak, but today,there are sprouts of democracy breaking out all over.Lets have a look:

Iraq - Although suffering from deep sectarianism, it has a somewhat functional democratically elected multi-party government and a vibrant free press,both electronic and print.Infact, Iraq today is the biggest functioning democracy in the Middle East.

Iran had a contested election and a genuine mass protest movement.The 2009 green revolution would have been unimaginable a few years earlier.

Lebanon has faltered of late with its government collapsing but Syria's direct control of that country has ended and we now can hope for a more open , although messy, political system, one in which Hezbollah has a key role to play.

Countries like Bahrain and Kuwait have flirted with reforms and who knows what might happen in Algeria and Syria in the next 10 years.

This sort of striving for democracy , is what Arab intellectuals have yearned for, speaking of the freedom deficit in their lands ,which is quite true.

And ofcourse a certain former POTUS in TEXAS, who goes by the name of George W.Bush, must have a smile on his face today . Afterall, he set forth to fix this problem,which he called,A FORWARD STRATEGY OF FREEDOM IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

Now whether these events are BECAUSE OF America's military PRESSURE or DESPITE IT...now thats a different debate alltogether.

In Iran , the democracy movement happened due to a rigged election and a mass movement. In Lebanon,it was due to political assassination. In Tunisia, it was due to the MIDDLE CLASS which had had enough of a dictator enriching himself while they suffered. In EGYPT it is a burgeoning middle class which doesn't want the keys to a kingdom handed down to a dynasty or the armY.

DEMOCRACY COMES OUT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY,ECONOMIC GROWTH AND MIDDLE-CLASS RESTLESSNESS AND ABOVE ALL, THE POLITICAL FAILURES OF DICTATORS. IT CAN BE HELPED FROM ABROAD, BUT ULTIMATELY IT IS AN ORGANIC PROCESS WHEN IT IS SUCCESSFUL. But lets give former POTUS George W.Bush his due. He saw the problem and he believed that Arabs were not genetically incapable of democracy and he put America's moral might behind the great cause of Arab reform. That effort now seems to be reaping some favourable results.

Why India is a country of COWARDS !!!

Mahatma Gandhi was a wise man. His ideals have been a guiding light for this nation, at least in theory, for decades now. He preached brotherhood, non-violence, and truthfulness — simple and honourable goals for the individual as well as the society.



But I am writing this to point out how the father of the nation has become something of a security blanket. His philosophies, instead of fuelling our passion for the ideals he dreamed of, have become mere phrases we hide behind when cornered. Forgive me therefore, if i appear a little blunt.



One of my favourite quotes by Bapu is: “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” It is easy to see how this noble sentiment can be misread and used to justify cowardice.



When a big boy beats up a small boy and the small boy runs away and hides, he can tell himself that he didn’t hit back because he is non-violent. But it would be a lie. He ran away because he is weak and because he is a coward.

And this doesn’t even have to be a boys’ argument. Time and again, Indian intellectuals have written and spoken about the fake resilience that many of us take pride in. That Indians are angry about the continued bomb blasts all over the country by Pakistan-based terror outfits is obvious. The reason we don’t hit back is not because we are non-violent and forgiving. It’s because we lack the will to hit back. In fact, I would say we do not dare hit back.



Then we start what the protagonist of A Wednesday calls ‘adjusting to the situation’. Our news channels show us that we are back to work with our ever-famous resilience and our chests swell with pride as we tell everyone how peace-loving we are.



The unpleasant truth is that we are not peace-loving. We are full of anger. Indeed, if the recent retaliatory brand of “Hindu terror” (whatever happened to terrorism has no religion?) is anything to go by, our anger is spilling over into our own streets. Not only is our government unable to protect us from attacks in our own country, it also seems unable to do anything about the attacks AFTER they happen.



We have to stop pretending that we are unaffected by the violence aimed at us. That will be a good first step in making sure something is done about it. We have to stop blaming Pakistan for being what it is. We have to start blaming ourselves for being who we are — COWARDS.



It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

The Revolt In Egypt - When a million marched for democracy.

Egypt is one of the oldest countries in the world. It has had roughly the same borders and capital city since 3000 BC and has always been seen as an embodiment of stability, a state ruled by the Pharaohs and a bureaucracy that never budged. Right now, Egypt is in the midst of enormous change. This may not be a revolution in the sense of a massive social transformation, but it is a revolt.

The first Arab revolt was in 1916 ,against the Ottoman Empire that ruled most of the Arab lands. What is going on now in Tunisia and now in Egypt is the SECOND ARAB REVOLT against the strongmen who have ruled these lands for decades. Tunisia was the spark which lit the fire . Television, internet and the social media has amplified and accelerated the forces of change, but in a strange sense ,these forces might have been set in motion by the successes of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes in the recent years.

Tunisia and Egypt had been reforming their economies. This had stimulated growth as a consequence. Tunisia had been growing at 5% per year, Egypt even much faster than that.Economic growth stirs up expectations.It is this revolution of rising expectations that often undoes a dictatorship, because it is usually unable to handle the growing demands of its aspiring populace.

In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak's regime had moved forward economically but actually moved backwards politically, rigging elections,jailing the political opposition and signalling that the ailing 82 year old dictator intended to stay in power for eternity.

What should the USA do. Many journalists and intellectuals are urging much stronger support for the movement on the streets.Obviously we are all thrilled by the sights and the sounds of the people out on the streets of CAIRO and ALEXANDRIA and all over EGYPT demanding freedom. Everyone wants democracy and democracy in EGYPT could an EARTHQUAKE in the ARAB world.

But president Obama does have to balance his support for democracy with the reality that Egypt has been a partner with america for over 30 years. USA cannot unceremoniously dump an ally which has made peace with ISRAEL,fought AL-Qaeda,privately had talks with Hamas and brokered deals with the Palestinians. President Obama can firmly and strongly , but privately, tell Mobarak that he should resign. Perhaps not immediately but soon. Obama does need to get him to go.

America has been urging the Egyptian regime ,much like Pakistan, to reform for years,even decades. Hosni Mobarak never took these calls seriously. Had he done so, had he come in front of his people, he could have avoided this revolt.

But that is the story of dictators...it is often too little, too late.