Happy Independence Day 2014

Happy Independence Day 2014

All my fellow Indians, many congratulations on the Independence Day of our country. About six odd decades ago, the dreams of an entire nation came true this day and the efforts of more than a century of freedom struggle bore fruits. We created a nation, that we so proudly now call - Republic of India.

Firstly, I must congratulate you on the successful completion of the General Elections this year. It was the largest democratic exercise in the world where one seventh of the world's population presented its mandate. And what a splendid mandate it was. I congratulate every Indian on the unanimity of the mandate across the length and breadth of the nation. It felt as if we all spoke out in favour of good governance in one voice. This is the way it should be. Democracy is not democracy unless we all take responsibility and ownership of our country and our government. We can't escape the blame if the country has not done that well. Some of us have given up on India. Some of us feel that we have let ourselves down in the years after Independence to a level from where there is no coming back. Some folks feel that we may never be able to compete with the top nations in the world. Some believe that we do not put enough price on our integrity and work ethics. We can't give up on India. We shall always be connected to India through our thoughts, our way of life, our language and our culture, regardless of where we live. So instead of ignoring, I believe its time to fix what can be fixed and improve what can be improved.

Our Prime Minister, Sh. Narendra Modi has invited the world with open arms to invest and manufacture in India. I believe it is a great opportunity for India to grow its economy and create jobs. We have immensely skilled and talented workforce to deliver exceptional results. We must ensure utmost quality in whatever we produce. Brand India needs to be a symbol of excellence and consistency. 'Indian' should be synonym for quality. And that is a responsibility of us all. It is not that hard - all it takes is a sincere effort, all it takes is a sense of pride in what we do, all it means is for all of us is to do an honest day's work, everyday. Gradually, together, we can build a good reputation over the years to last forever.

Sincerity and honesty, if enforced under the fear of punishment, would always be shortlived. Only through respect, sincerity in approach, honesty in effort and sense of pride in oneself, can be realised. Respect is all we need to bind us together and make us stronger. Respect is all we need to create an atmosphere of harmony, brotherhood, acceptance, growth, progress and self-esteem. My brothers and sisters, today on this occasion, I request you to re-kindle that respect for everything that is Indian. We have paid a huge price to have a free and independent India, we must cherish this gift our forefathers sacrificed their lives for.

Begin by respecting your fellow country men. Respect every Indian equally. Do not respect them for their religion, for their mother-tounge, for the color of their skin, for their race, for where they were born in India, or for how affluent they might be.

Respect them for their knowledge because knowledge is the only true wealth a person can have. Respect them for their sanskriti because they, you and I, we inherit the same culture. Respect them for their poverty because being poor is no shame. Respect them for their day-to-day struggle because for some, survival is a daily battle. Respect them for their broken english because their attempt is commendable. Respect the cobbler who sits all day under the scorching sun to feed his family. Respect the milkman who despite being poor, does not dilute milk with water. Respect the rikshaw-puller who tirelessly works all day, pulling people's weight to earn his bread. Respect morals, dedication, commitment, chivallry, altruism. Respect your father because he is your first role model. Respect your mother because in mother lives God. Respect your son as he struggles everyday to live up to your expectations. Respect your daughter as she struggles for respect outside home in our predominently male chauvinist society. Respect women as it is unforgivable to not treat them as equals in this day and age. Respect all daughters and mothers because a society that cannot respect its women does not deserve it. Respect the sheer spirit of 1.2 billion strong humanity.

Our country has exemplary men and women. It is the common men who are so extraordinary in their commonality. Regard them and never look down upon them. Extend out a helping hand to every fellow Indian out of love, out of compassion. Be honest, have faith and believe in truth. Our strength lies in our unity and values we cherish. Honor every Indian for the belief he/she has in these values. Through respect comes love. With love, break the boundaries that separate our hearts. Love is the basis for a family. We are a family, one huge family and its time we start behaving like one.

I am proud to be an Indian. It is not because of what we are today, but because of the potential we have to be what we can be tomorrow.

Jai Hind

Happy Independence Day 15^th August 2013

Many congratulations and good wishes to all my fellow Indians on our 67^th Independence Day. I wish you all prosperity and growth and development in all spheres of life. There are many topics I wish to discuss with you. There are my issues on which I want to share my opinion and get yours. I intend to ignite a spark that creates an environment where youth of the nation get involved and realise the responsibilities of running a nation.

We the people of India, solemnly resolve to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. And every educated, learned, knowledgeable Indian has a greater responsibility to do so.

Today’s India is rapidly becoming an India of haves and have not’s.  This ever increasing, widening gap between rich and poor is concerning. The rich must realise that they cannot stay rich for long if they do not share some of their riches with others. There is a quote from Bhagwat Geeta that in essence, teaches us all to take as much as is need. Taking anything beyond would lead to ill and turn into poison. The perfect man is a man who has control on his desires and knows how to share with his brethren. Unless we work towards such purpose, I foresee greater conflicts, revolts and uprisings.  On the other hand, poor must know that the path to progress goes through education and awareness. Democracy’s strength lies in its people. More they are educated, knowledgeable, responsible and actively contributing, stronger is the democracy.

Today we celebrate 66 years of freedom, liberty and independence. The same should reflect in our mentality. Modern and free thinking begets from the principles of equality and freedom of speech. I want to see an India where no longer do we have quotas and reservations on the basis of castes or regions. I aspire to see an India where every Indian is equal and where talented, sincere and hardworking people are justly rewarded, no matter what family they are born in, and regardless of which part of the country they were born in. When it comes to education, job, opportunities, the only criterion should be talent and hard work.  Coming to freedom of speech and expression, if India wants to stand among the tallest of the nations in the world, we need to have a free and fair exchange of dialogues. The voices of poor and destitute must not be curbed and free speech should not be punished. Twitter and Facebook have become new modes of expression of youth and persecution of people for their candid comments on similar social media must be stopped. Our government should be such that it should invite its criticism so as to understand what must be done in order to help the hurt.

In today’s India, honestly and patriotism seems to have become most hard to find commodity. We must not forget that we celebrate today’s day in name of people who personified these virtues, who got us our Independence. Honesty must be rewarded and the voice that stands against corruption and wrong-doing must be supported. How is it acceptable that honest IAS officers are being punished by the government for standing up to mafia and the government is still in power? There is only one explanation. We have closed our eyes, ears and mouth to all that is ill around us. We have become so numb and insensitive towards corruption that it has become a part of how we live. We need to stop somewhere, open our eyes and stand up against corruption. This is our nation, if we can corrupt it, we can also clean it. All it needs is 51 willing people out of every 100.

We have general elections this year. I implore all my fellow Indians to vote and be a part of this celebration of Loktantra (democracy). This year, vote fearlessly, vote sincerely and vote not for short tern benefits but vote with the thought of your motherland in your heart. At the same time, I implore all political parties to contest a fight worthy of this great nation. Let it be fought on matters of development and growth. Let us restrain from digging dirt on others and focus on policies that are for Lok Kalyaan (social good). Let us have an honest contest where the leaders stand tall on the pedestals of sincere intentions to make life of every Indian better over the period of next 5 years. History would not remember you just because you achieved power, history would remember you for what you did after achieving that power. And for every Indian, let me quote Mahatma Gandhi –

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world”

Jai Hind
Shivank Kaul

Dear Mr Prime Minister..

Dear Mr Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 

    A very good morning to you sir. I believe the parliament is still non-functional over  the so-called "coal-gate" scam. So hopefully, you may have a few spare minutes in your busy schedule to at least gloss over my humble letter.  I heard that you recently retorted to opposition's attack in parliament with an Urdu couplet - 

"Hazaaron Jawabon Se Acchi Hai Meri Khamoshi, Na Jaane Kitne Sawaalon Ki Aabru Rakhe"

    This translates to  - My silence is better than a thousand answers, because it is veiling the premise/prestige of myriad questions. 

    I must say, it was an excellent repartee, a gambit to take the attack to the opposition and question the authenticity of their questions without having to answer one. Also, it exhibits your ability to hit back criticism. 

    But unfortunately, I was shocked to hear your words. Let me explain why!! 

    Democracy is established on accountability. Once a ruling party has been given the mandate to govern, it automatically becomes accountable to every citizen of the country. Accountability is the most primal distinction between democracy and autocracy or dictatorship. As a ruling party, it behoves you to listen to every citizen of India and answer every question any citizen of India has through proper channels. There is no way on earth, your refusal to answer questions of representatives of people (no matter how eloquently presented) can be justified in a democracy. It is blasphemy for a disciple of constitution and personally, this for me stands out as the biggest blemish on your term as PM. 

    I do not take sides. I understand opposition's unrelenting attack and exaggerated criticism for their own gains. I understand that clogging the functioning of parliament and asking for your resignation is again constitutionally reprehensible. You have the majority and if they have objection to you being the Prime Minister, they can introduce a no-confidence motion. But having said that, you cannot exonerate yourself from your fundamental responsibility of being accountable for your actions or in-actions. Our whole constitution is built around transparency, right to information and right to question. 

    I see you as a good, God-fearing man, of unparalleled academic acumen and humblest of demeanour. What I want to see is a man with gumption and fire in his belly to make things right. I want to see a Prime Minister who is passionate about his governance and defends himself through good governance KPI's. I do not want you to resign but I expect to see you come out and take the ownership of all of this. 

    Mahatma Gandhi, father of the nation always suggested that it is ultimate bravery to accept your mistake and rectify it. If you think mistake has been done, accept it and rectify it. To be honest, it won't even affect your vote bank. It would impress the cognisant because you would be the first among generations of politicians, to admit their mistake and work towards fixing it. And the in-cognisant shall vote the way they always do - under their local leader's influence based on whatever topic is exploited close to elections  - religion, region or caste. 

    Even after plethora of scams under your governance, commonwealth games, 2G, coalgate to name a few, everyone still believes you are an honest man who is finding it hard to discipline his coalition ministers and other senior party leaders. But history will not remember you as an honest man if you fail to address all this mis-governance. History does not remember what impression you have on people as much as the financial losses that government exchequer has suffered during your prime-ministership.

    I apologies if I disrespected you in any way in this letter. You are the leader of my nation and I submit to you. But at the same time, I have constitutional right to question you and this letter is a reminder of the same. 

Jai Hind
Yours Sincerely, 
Shivank Kaul

Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sdvMzazpSs

Happy Independence Day 65

Happy Independence Day my fellow Indians.. 

It is a day when we celebrate the blood and sweat of freedom fighters, achievements of the past 65 years after independence and also contemplate - where do we head now..

We are 65 years old today. And our democracy is still going through teething process like a baby. We may be the largest democracy, but surely not the most mature one. We still play vote bank politics, we still vote based on caste and religion. As long as the people in power keep exploiting people not in power, democracy might well be called oligarchy for all the difference it makes. 

Democracy was meant to shift the control of governance in hands of people. People who were given power were supposed to be hierarchically below the common people. And the structure forefathers presented was quite justified. All rationale suggests that if people in power are elected by people not in power, then they would be accountable to them.
But we failed them because we forgot those basics. Our decision to vote for a candidate should solely be based on his credentials, his past record of governance and his administration skills. Instead, we kept selling our votes to the powerful under influence of mob mentality, caste-religion bias or short term motives.

The result of that is today for all of us to see. People are sitting on agitations, there are hunger protests so government can listen to people. Sitting on hunger protest is equivalent to blackmailing but has our government become that callous forcing people to resort to such measures?

I think before we start fixing anything, it behoves us to fix our own self. In 1947, we had conquered British, gained our independence from them, but we were still fighting poverty, illiteracy, mismanagement of resources and lack of proper administration. Today, in 2012, we fight poverty, illiteracy, mismanagement of resources, lack of proper administration and corruption on top of that. What happened in these 65 years is that we lost the passion and drive to make our country better. We lost the intention of doing good for India, we got so busy doing good for self. Rich became richer and the economic gap widened. 


Let us fix ourselves first. Let us all at least find that intent of doing good for India in us. Let us put the barriers of languages, regions, states, castes, colours, cultures, religions aside. Let us reignite the passion for India, India as a whole, not a region, not a state, my whole mother India. 

Besides realising our faith in unity of an undivided India, we need educated masses. We need every person in this country educated and literate. Every person needs to be someone who understands his/her fundamental rights and duties and understands public administration and stand up against exploitation. And we need people to go beyond and make others aware against unlawful, corrupt activities that infest under the sheets in dark. We needs such activists to be in every sphere of society - medicine, administration, media, judiciary etc.

But if you cannot be such an activist, the least you can do is understand the importance of the biggest power you have - your vote. We all need to keep ourselves informed, make a rational opinion based on governance alone and then vote. It will be a slow process but the day contesting candidates realise that they cannot cheat their way into power - that day, you and I as common men, we become powerful. That day, we realise the true potential of democracy. That day, all our requests and appeals will not go unanswered. That day, we will have true accountability. That day, we would have gained independence from conservative thinking and fear of hooligans. We would have freedom from exploitation and it would be independence in its purest form..

Lets pledge on this Independence Day that when we gather again to celebrate next Independence Day, we would have done something in this whole one year, that would make us worthy of celebration.
JAI HIND