I am not a Communist; I am a Socialist

Who cares? But anyway here I am.

Some of the articles I have written made many believe I’m a communist. They did brand me a communist. Someone commented on me as a bleeding heart communist in reply to a detailed comment on an article in the social media:

http://www.thenewsminute.com/news_sections/1007#at_pco=cfd-1.0&at_ab=per-2&at_pos=7&at_tot=15&at_si=53f9d20f52059760
 
So I thought let me clarify what I am. I’m a proud Indian. I’m a proud Hindu. I’m a proud Kannadiga. I’m a proud Madhwa Brahmin. I’m a householder. I’m a nationalist. My writings and thoughts are deeply sociology based. Hence I am a socialist.

I’m proud of who I am and all characters stated above. I can defend to a great extent all of it & why I should be proud of it.

All oppositions I do and write also reflects these characters only. Be it opposition to large dams, opposition to industries for personal wealth, opposition to personal transport, opposition to faith conversion through violent, bribery means, opposition to propaganda based education, opposition to capitalism, large conglomerates, Loan based economy. Etc.,

My support for many things also stem from my upbringing through who I’m stated above. Like for example, It is Hindu culture to worship nature & protect it through strong communities who are custodians of nature for many millennia; It is Kannada culture to fight inequality; It is Madhwa Brahmin culture to embrace debate culture and oppose propaganda based education.

What is socialist? Why am I a socialist? We’ll delve in this article. A socialist is not communist. A communist claims to be a socialist.

Do I oppose communism? Yes I do. Clearly. Let’s first see what it is.

What is communism?

It is a failed theory in Russia as well as failing theory in China. Some argue what is followed in China & post Lenin Russia is not communism at all. But the fact is, it failed first & hence it went corrupt. In any case it is rather new theory and is yet to prove itself if at all it gets a chance. My argument is it has inherent problems to succeed. I’m not an expert though in this subject. Not well studied but I had to write as I wanted to veer away my branding.

Inherent problems in communism:

Communism is completely state driven. State drives everything. State determines what is good for the society and imposes upon it. There is little individual rights. Think tank is supposed to be centralized and determines what is good for the state. Communism believes society is not mature, it cannot govern itself. In the name of equality, State owns everything. Individual owns nothing. Every individual works for the state. He needs to work what is determined and directed by the state. So an individual, who wants to explore inner self, spirituality, explore the world, nature’s creation, who created nature etc., will not be supported by the state nor will allow citizens to support him.

Religion is defunct under communism. In fact, Karl Marx says, Religion is like Opium. This will get them into trance and forget the worldly life.

Communism, I believe developed in a context of the Christianity’s domination of state in the European region. So communism only responds to Christianity as Opium.

Christianity dominated European state post the decline of the Roman Empire. Roman Empire declined due to its excessive emperor-slave divide. And raising slave unrest.

Later rulers across Europe conveniently used Christianity as a tool to suppress the salves rising against the state. The rulers through the church preached them to believe in God and forget misery.

For centuries this authoritarian rule bread inherent unrest. As a result, people protested against authoritarian church. Renaissance came. Science & inventions, exploration came. Protestants came. Industrialization happened. Industrialization ushered in new found wealth by excessive exploitation of the earthly resources. Industrialization created wealth in few hands increasing the slavery through organized labor. So it created again big inequality.

Communism rose through Marxism. It said religion is opium. Religion is making laborers compromise on their rights. Marx said all have equal rights and have to claim it. So it devised a state driven equality based Industrialization. So everything that laborer produces belongs to state. And then state will distribute the wealth equally amongst all.

So it created a powerful state. It created “Concentration of wealth for the purpose of Distribution”. Power corrupted the people at the top. People at the bottom became complacent. Their freedom suppressed. Productivity plummeted. State became more authoritarian to push people to produce more. Unrest followed & overthrew the authoritarian communism.

So in China today, there is much authoritarian rule. There is much unrest building up. Tomorrow it might explode. Usually when an internal unrest builds up, authority looks for external aggression to raise patriotism and sacrifice by its citizens. So there is an imminent threat of aggression over India. It might happen in a decade or in few decades. But that threat is imminent and looming large.

Indian politicians are fools to not consider it and be prepared.

What is Socialist? Why am I a Socialist?

Socialist is someone who sees strength in society, unity, and people. Socialist believes empowering society. Society should build up state. It should be bottom up approach. Society in every region should be independent, self-sufficient. It should govern itself through society building and respecting it. It should contribute to national wealth. It should contribute to state machinery like – administration, legislation, police, military, and economy.

Especially economy. Society should determine its own strength, region’s wealth, form cooperative societies, extract earth’s wealth in sustainable manner and contribute to state’s exchequer. Develop entrepreneurial attitude and support it, harness it and control it within exploitation limits.

Yes it is all possible. For that we have to read Mahabharatha, Kautilya’s arthashastra and various other our own ancient texts. On local economy & its strengths, how to harness and how it is better than global economy I had written 2 blogs earlier posted here.

Only in military & external affairs, the decision should be top down. State should determine what is right. For security purpose industrialization & transportation should be planned. Those plans require sacrifices from regions and societies. State should reason with the locals and rehabilitate first before opening up their factories, highways and railways.

Education

Most importantly society should educate children. State should very minimally intervene in education. Local society should build education curriculum & infrastructure. We have to evolve ‘Gurukula’ system to modern day needs. Pass, fail, exam, certification should all come beyond 10^th standard. Let there be universities like Nalanda, Takshashila for higher education to explore the world with passion for learning. Not education through propaganda & factories like colleges producing certificates without knowledge, exploration, questioning, analytics.

But before that in primary education, we should educate children on sociology, community strength, regional strength, regional diversity, importance of keeping diversity towards strengthening unity, regional heroes, regional culture, weather, contours, regional wildlife, flora-fauna, its specialties, regional grains, vegetables, its importance for health. There is whole lot in each region in India. We don’t even know our own lakes, who built them, what rivers flow in our taluk, what grains we produce, what birds thrive here, who are our heroes? Why are they regional heroes? Education in local language, its strengths, beauty, diversity, dialects are important. Let the child open up its brain to innumerable variety around its vista.

For my son, 4^th standard exam question was: Where was Jesus born? I had asked my son to write Jerusalem for anything to do with Christianity, Judaism, Islam. So he got Zero. Our kids don’t know who is Purnaiah, Madakari Nayaka, DVG, Visweshwaraya. But those are unimportant for Indian educationists.

5^th standard social studies text book says Chicago is the largest Cow Slaughter Industrial hub. And that must be mugged up for important questions in the summative exams.

How important is all this? What patriotism are we building in them? Why are we so obsessed with global culture? International languages? People ask why should we learn Kannada at all. People chose Spanish/Japanese for kid’s third language. Why? Because it gives job opportunities. 

We are so afraid of jobs. Everything we learn has to be to earn living. Stomach filling is the only aim in life. Once we get a job, nothing else is important. We stop reading, studying, knowing, teaching, wondering about the world, construct of the world, societies etc.,.

Our current education is to soften our pride, by pass, ignore teaching children on the richness of local culture. Once they realize our education did not give a shit to our culture, tradition, scriptures, heroes, they grow up to become indifferent to all of it. They become indifferent to protect their heritage. Once they become tomorrow’s educationists, administrators, politicians only through mugged up knowledge and certifications, they look at money & their personal living as ultimate goal. Society concept is broken. Individualism becomes important. They will be ready to sell anything for money & living. That’s the culture we are cultivating through our current education.

We also studied like that only. That’s why we don’t know what DVG wrote, what Bendre wrote, what is Kautilya’s arthashastra, Vidura Neethi? We are ready to sell our society, nature, wealth at the altar of foreign traders, companies & countries.

Our Current Jobs

One generation back, take any of your parents, uncles, aunts etc., They used to work for something connected to our society. Either in Government offices, teaching, public sector, insurance, bank, farming, trade etc., They knew their customer, their vendor. They knew exactly why they are working, who gets benefited and how.

Today, take for example export oriented industries, the biggest employment industries. We produce largest software services & sanitary napkins. Who uses it? The world uses it. In India it is least used. We don’t produce for ourselves what is necessary. Or we don’t use what we produce. We have created a huge divide between India and Bharath. India is producing big things for all countries and taking cash. The middleclass who get that cash, keep it for personal luxury – cars, bikes, houses, multiplexes etc.,

Our luxuries are costing earthly exploitation, forest destruction, and river drying forcing people to migrate to urban slums. Do we care? We have become indifferent. We lost our connect with our society.

For getting a job in these personal money earning industries do we use the education we did? For example, to become a software engineer I cracked Shakuntala Devi maths puzzles. That’s it. Not engineering studies. After that since last 15 years I have never used all that engineering subjects I studied nor primary school subjects. I have used some basic arithmetic, basic analytical, logical skills. Apart from that it is majorly commonsense that is utilized. English language conversation I picked up after joining job.

Lets say, if you were from a Gurukula system studied upto 10^th standard, got around some basic maths, English language, and you cracked the entrance test for your job and interview as per their current evaluation and requirement, would you not have been as effective today?

Similarly in textile industries, the largest employment generation industry, none of what they studied in school is used. So why study Global culture in primary education?

Isn’t Our Society important? Should we not study society, our life style, life style effect on society? Individualism is detrimental for the country. But is somebody listening?

With all this writing still, I live like an individualist, typical urban middleclass, with an indifferent lifestyle. But I do think at least & I write. May be it will lead me somewhere or make others think and change their stance. But thinking is important. It will change things ultimately.  

So anyway if you have reached till here, I hope you know by now, what is socialist and why am I a socialist.

Idea of India And Idea for India from the world: Series 1 – Democratic, Socialist, Republic, Secular India

Series 1 – Democratic, Socialist, Republic, Secular India

India as a nation has rich history and has lots of Ideas of its own. As time progressed, influence from outside India significantly shaped our destiny too. Neither can we stay in a cocoon shielded from external influence nor stay complacent not influencing outsiders. So we need to take the best of original Ideas of India and from external world which are Ideas for India. Ideas of India have come from its own vedic ages, saints, writers, philosophers, scientists, political leaders. Ideas for India come from the external world, eastern and western countries.

India has a glorious past. We are nation proud of thousands of years of civilization, the basic tenets of which still intact largely. It has an envious record of keeping the tradition, culture, castes, gods, language, diversity in life style, bio-diversity everything if not completely intact at least protected to a large extent. Comparatively, large civilizations of couple of millenniums before are non-existent today.  For example, Mayan, Egyptian, Mesopotamian etc., didn’t survive the onslaught of colonization, invasion, trade, religious conversion, state & kingdom expansion etc.,

India’s geographical boundary however has shrunk. The ideological Bharath, which is that of human liberty, dignity, cultural diversity, is also annihilated in those parts which are separated out as separate countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Burma etc., India had invasions almost continuously from 600AD incessantly from Turks, Mangols, Mughals, Europeans etc., It has shaped its destiny so far. Now as an independent India we need to look forward with more confidence, strength & openness.

Democracy:

The subjugation under British was there for 200 years. The concept of democracy is a very good Idea for India they left behind. Although in the society, philosophy, religion, we are rich in democratic tradition, it was not so in the political & administrative system.  Now it is very well implemented in that sphere too. The democracy has allowed change of regime smoothly and successfully so far. Almost in every Indian state, we see a different leadership every decade coming ground up almost from the masses, not restricted to any major dynasty or family. In the center however we still have the remnants of the British Raj in the Nehru-Gandhi family in high influence since Independence for 7 decades. And its influence is also fast depleting now, giving strength to a lot of diverse leadership coming from across the country from the masses. We may have to show patience & resilience.

The participation in the democracy is significantly improving, especially in the last decade. It certainly is due to improving literacy and awareness. For example, in the recent Tripura state elections, it made a record 93% voting. In a hilly state population spread thinly, ensuring voter enumeration, keeping it up-to-date, ensuring booth access within 5KMs of very voting adult, ensuring smooth fearless voting, it requires a whole lot of administration capability, political will, most importantly peoples will to come together.

In the recently held elections in Chattisgarh, MP, etc., we had peaceful 50+% voting in Maoist affected areas. Even in the urban population with rapid changes of urban space and population, we have recorded upwards 70% voting. Our Election commission deserves a Noble peace prize for these impeccable records!

Counterview of Democracy:

Democracy is here to stay for long in India. And Indians are going to protect and honor it.  The drawback is that the elections are costly and long drawn. Even those who are doing good and getting reelected for multiple times need the people endorsement at a large cost to the exchequer. It also costs them personally. Hence a politician who wins an election tries to earn money through illegal means during his ruling tenure. Some make it in a hurry as they are not sure to get re-elected. Thus begin the viscous corruption cycle.

In a country like Bahrain for example, where Monarchy is followed, there is no corruption and 0% income tax for the common man. Because the ruler is monarch and everything is his. So he need not be greedy. But the monarchy is a gamble. The country is lucky till a generation of good ruler exists. Power is a commodity and it corrupts the individual having it. Even if in one generation the ruler is good, in most cases, the next generation gets corrupt, contemptuous of power. A regime change in a Monarchy is bloody, costly, affects the entire nation’s resources, stability, credibility. It is too costly to afford. So in comparison, Democracy well-kept is healthy and right remedy for ruling.

Communist regimes experimentation in the world has almost hit the dust, although the parties and ideologies still exist. But the regime experimentation is almost over.  

The autocracy or dictatorship is never good for any country.

Anarchy is just a fancy term for civil unrest against the regime. It cannot be a regime by itself.

Socialist Republic

At the time of getting independence, India had some 500+ princely states. Yet they belonged to the concept of Bharath in cultural, traditional means. People moved around, traded, lived across these princely states freely with openness & no hindrance. It is a very important idea for peace, prosperity, cooperation, regional independence and self-reliance. Socialist India means, all people are treated equal irrespective of their region, language, caste, religion etc., Socialist India is very much an Idea of India.

People may be from different states but belong to one Republic of India. Republic means, the head of the state is elected by the people. We are bound by one constitution, fundamental rights & duties across India. World recognizes India as one country with geographical boundary well-guarded by a mighty military, responsible, reliable government, thriving economy etc., It is represented by one prime minister, one president who is the constitutional head elected through people of the country.

From our history we learn that we did not have one republican state concept. We had several federal kingdoms. The concept of Bharath was there in whichever kingdom you passed through. Language, & tradition, changed every few Kms, along the length and breadth of Bharath, but that cultural oneness was still there. It is there even now like that. The diversity is not only tolerated but encouraged and appreciated.

But the lack of one state, one army cost us a lot in getting looted, invaded, and ruled for many centuries. The one state concept gives us strength, recognition and makes people work with common goal and develop nationalistic feeling and patriotism amongst the people.

The disadvantage and federal state solution:

The concept of one state wrests lot of power in few hands in the center. Decisions taken at the center by few will impact someone in remote place. The decision making body at the center due to external world pressures and compulsions, looks from one angle only as a country representation for the world at large. The connect with the affected region & people will be lost. A coal mining approval in a forest region, A large industrial zone in a river delta are just examples of decisions taken at center without the consideration of the local stakeholders but in the larger interest of the nation. Some locality sacrifices for some developmental benefit elsewhere. The affected people and region are never benefited. They are impoverished.

That is why large states always incline towards some region development at the cost of some other region. For example, in Karnataka the southern Bangalore-Mysore belt is most developed leaving behind the northern parts. Similarly in Andhra the Hyderabad region is highly developed bringing in business interests of all high & mighty in that region leaving behind other regions in backwardness. Centralized decisioning at state centers like Bangalore, Hyderabad favors development in those regions at the cost of other regions. Decentralized decision making is a far cry.

Going back to ancient India way of having several small states is necessary. Smaller states, smaller districts, taluquas ensure equity of development. When some river dam submerges a large number of human habitations for some other region benefit, it is likely to fall across borders of small states. Then the resistance across federal states ensure people displacement & impoverishment of regions are avoided. It will force indigenous solutions to solve and address their own problems than affecting someone else. Tank development, catchment area protection, and community step well development etc., are indigenous solutions for drinking water and irrigation problems. Thus it creates self-reliant, self-governing regions. Thus it also empowers people to have their say, and governance coming nearer to them.

A central government with wide, region specific people’s representation will be strong. Simple decisions to aid one region at the cost of another region will be debated and thwarted. But when a sacrifice for a national interest like Satellite mission, missile testing is undertaken calling for a region’s sacrifice, the people of the region can be reasoned through for that cause and compensated appropriately. The people of the region will be happy to contribute for such cause showing patriotism.

So the inference is we must be Republic of India, with smaller states and more autonomy for them.

Secular India 

The idea of secular is hazy. Ancient India was secular probably. All tribes respected each other and their traditions. Later castes based on people’s profession came into civilization. It separated people, made them intolerant towards each other. Then came religions that separate people by gods they worship.

Today we are secular according to the constitution. Government by secular means, welcome all castes and religious people into all professions & be neutral to their allegiance & appearance. In fact government provides reservation to enable the underprivileged sections of society to get into most professions which are essential to serve their own needs like Medical, Engineering, Education, Politics etc., But ultimately government is also by the people. So secularity has to be implemented and honored by the people. Laws cannot be made for every step of our life. People have to be religious and open. Religious doesn’t mean only god fearing, but following ‘Manava Dharma’: Respect and dignity for all humans.

Government is also lagging behind in being completely secular. For example, some tenets of Sharia law are applicable for Muslims in our country, like a man can have multiple wives in that community, alimony for divorced wife is lenient etc.,. These undermine the women and their rights. Women are half a population and cannot be left behind like secondary citizens. Uniform civil code is a far cry of this nation. The concept of a nation is primarily: people, their dignity, prosperity & happiness. If that is compromised for any section of our nation then we are no good as a nation.

Series 2: In the next series, we’ll look into the economic ideas of India and for India: The comparison of Capital intensive economy and the Labor intensive economy. The free market economy, building large conglomerates, its pros & cons. The labor oriented economic ideas like Cooperative movement, Cottage industries, its pros & cons.