Young Indian, rural, misunderstood and restless.

Nobody can turn 70 overnight, neither a living being nor a nation. An ancient nation (older than history) yet a young state, forged in the crucibles of fratricidal violence of 1947 turned 70. Slowly the generation of 1947 fades away enrolee to their heavenly abode & the one coming of age, so called millennial carry the burden of passing the baton to a generation who would have no physical contact with the 'Midnight children' per se. What they pass-on will depend a lot on how millennials live their lives, realise their dreams, fulfilled their aspirations.

There is a looming crisis that awaits India as a nation and subsequently the businesses as well. An army of 500 million young, literate barely employable (plenty of statistics) in formal sector, aspirational & voting populace is about to come to age.. deciding the destiny of this nation. Today agriculture employs almost 57% contributing to 12-13% of GDP. in 5 years contribution will come below 10%..where will be young (rural millennials) find employment if private sector doesn't step up?

Centre for the Study in Developing Societies (CSDS) in partnership with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) conducted a sample survey-based study on the attitudes, anxieties and aspirations of India’s young population. The CSDS-KAS Youth Survey 2016 was conducted in 19 states of the country among 6,122 respondents in the 15-34 age group. The study gives us a fair idea about how the economic, political and socio-cultural, and technological changes in the country have impacted the Indian youth, as the last such survey was conducted by the two organisations ten years ago in 2007. Here are 4 big insights mostly ignored : deliberately or otherwise.

a. Most millennials are extremely anxious :

The number of young Indians who marked ‘student’ as their occupational profile has seen a significant rise from a mere 13% in 2007 to about 32% in 2017. Being more educated than their parents, they are more informed too.. share of news consumption continues to rise and the only the size of screen and medium has changed from Newspaper/TV to Mobile and videos on the go.. WatsApp forwards to Twitter/facebook

Yet... prospect of unemployment is their biggest worry. More worried are the urban youth even with their accessibility to resources, infrastructure, better educations and higher economic status. No sociologist or marketer has dived deep trying to understand the underlying fear. I at best have tried....

Given almost 65% prefer a govt job over a private one, it points to few very notable aspects..

i. They value stability over chaos... need time for their extracurricular activities which they don't want to give up. Socialising is important to them & Private sector in India is notorious for treating employees' time as unlimited commodity extended into late nights & holidays. They actually need a work-life balance. job preference in the private sector is at 7%. Tough luck Corp India.

ii. They don't have struggles of their own & don't have stomach for them either. Most millennials are product of relative abundance in comparison to their parents (urban india for sure), rural too. With basics met, they are prepared to make trade offs.

iii. Govt salaries are at par with better life & balance. With younger suave babudom on social media, millennials have heroes..

iv. Millennial generation in India is far more 'giving' and altruistic than parent's generation and they see govt job to serve society, bring about a change.

b. Young Indians are style conscious

Indian youth seems to be quite conscious about how they look. 61% says they are somewhat or very fond of wearing stylish clothes. 59% were keen on acquiring the latest mobile phone. 39% said they liked applying fairness creams quite a lot and 36% reported a moderate or high degree of fondness for visiting beauty parlours and salons.

Mobile phone ownership among the Indian youth has doubled in a decade. About 81% own a mobile phone in 2017 as opposed to only 34% in 2007. 24% of the households surveyed own a laptop, compared to only 8% in 2007.

They LOVE their badges & want to belong. Brands are giving them identity, yet they are cool with fakes as well (even if they can afford originals). Show healthy skepticism to price if the value doesn't match their parameters.

c. Young Indians are returning to their spiritual roots more vigorously.. even more conservative

This is reflected in their attitude towards women, wherein 51% agreed (either somewhat or strongly) with the proposition that wives should always listen to their husbands. 40% of the respondents agreed with the proposition that women should not work after marriage. Interestingly, a fairly high proportion of young women respondents also held such conservative views.

After taking into account five questions probing attitudes towards women, the survey found that about a quarter (24%) of the young respondents were very patriarchal and 29% were somewhat patriarchal, another 29% were less patriarchal and only 18% or one in every six were found to not be patriarchal at all.

When asked about their opinion on the issue of same sex relationships, three in every five or about 61% of the young respondents considered a love affair between two men as wrong. Similarly, 61% considered a love affair between two women to be wrong. Interestingly, young people living in big cities were found to be less approving of homosexuality than those living in smaller cities and villages.

Over 60% believe that movies that hurt religious sensibilities should be banned and mostly cinema makers are not fair to the majority belief system of this country.. This has nothing to do with Modi effect but actually may be the reverse. Narendra Modi is a result of this feeling of distortion & seize mentality that has gripped majority millennials in Urban India. So a church wedding of a Hindu-couple in love scenario in movies may not sit down well.. people are rediscovering their roots & holding them tightly..

Two-thirds or 67% of the respondents did not approve of live-in relationships and two in every five or 40% were opposed to the celebration of Valentine’s Day.

In fact, most youngsters don’t stand with liberals on contentious political issues like the death penalty, ban on films, and consumption of beef. 49% disagreed that death penalty should be abolished, 60% agreed that films that hurt religious sentiments should be banned and 46% disagreed that consumption of beef is part of personal eating habits and nobody should have an objection.

d. Proud to be Indian..

Fact that they are veering more towards thee roots is also reflected in the product choices they are making. This can be seen in the spectacular rise of products and services that appeal to the Indian taste and way of life. For instance, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd, an ayurvedic/natural products firm that was launched in 2006, has already clocked revenues of more than Rs.5000 crore, as of fiscal 2016, set to double to 10000 Cr in 2017, as it appeals to consumers who want to express their Indian-ness. Likewise, Fabindia Overseas Pvt. Ltd, a retail chain for garments, furnishings, fabrics and ethnic products handmade by craftspeople across rural India, continues to remain popular and see good growth even as the larger brick-and-mortar retailers complain of a slowdown in revenue.

Then there is Hector Beverages Pvt. Ltd, with ethnic drinks under the Paperboat brand such as ‘aam panna’ and ‘jal jeera’, which is fast gaining acceptance in the Indian market. Even when it comes to sports, we are now moving beyond cricket, with Indian sports such as kabbadi and wrestling also gaining sponsors and mindshare.

While young India is immensely patriotic and Indian at heart, at the same time, not everything desi is cool; likewise not everything foreign, too, is cool; basically, they aspire to be the best of both worlds as global netizens.. Paisa vasool is the motto but millennials are lapping up experiences like never before.

However, even as we move forward, limitations such as poor infrastructure, the lack of focused policy frameworks and, in some cases, the regulatory environment, continue to hamper progress. 

The youth today is impatient and demanding, taking to the streets to protest and often using social media to voice their opinions.

The imprint of technology has also changed the way we consume. There no longer is a desire to own or build assets.

With the rise of companies such as Ola, the cab-hailing service modelled on Uber, it is now all about usage and the here and now in the sharing economy.

Technology empowerment and media penetration has also blurred the lines between rural and urban.

Moreover, the roles of work and home, business and society are also blurring as it is now possible to pursue multiple roles simultaneously for businesses and people.

According to an Economist Intelligence Unit survey, “Supply on demand: Adapting to change in consumption and delivery models”, “Almost 80% of companies are seeing changes in how their customers access goods and services, and more than 51% are in the process of changing how they price and deliver their goods and services.”

What we are seeing today is the convergence of social, mobile, cloud and big data, which is presenting enormous opportunities for businesses to transform themselves as they can now capture the vast amounts of information and introduce new business, delivery and engagement models.

Technology is also changing the ways that people work, and is increasingly enabling machines and software to substitute for humans. Millennials being more tech savvy & educated are anxious yet optimistic about future.. Will corporate India rise to the challenge of providing platforms to nurture and exploit their talent or they choose Govt job. Credibility of Corporate india is very low with bank NPAs and promoter lifestyles.

Remember Millennials are far more socially conscious & responsible.

The increasing youthfulness of the country with roughly 50% of the population being less than 24 years old plays a huge role. “Nearly 50% of the world’s entrepreneurs are between the ages of 25 and 44. Moreover, 25- to 34-year-olds show the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity,” according to global reports referred to by the EY Megatrends 2015 report.

Giving start-ups a huge boost, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a new start-up action plan in January 2015 , which included a Rs.10,000 crore fund to be deployed over the next four years, exemption from capital gains tax on investments, faster and cheaper patent applications and easy registration for new companies. Corporate India, are you listening?

I don't know when will I ever make use of what has been learnt over a lifetime of studying Economics, mother of human civilisation, along with being a obsessive 'behaviour addict' (this term belongs to friend Shalini Rawla).

The youth have lesser patience with status-quo and expect or rather demand quicker change.

Young people drift. Sometimes the forces in a country, be it corruption in the political classes or bad grammar in the national press, provoke a revolution. And sometimes, when it appears the revolution will exhaust itself before ever beginning, there is a new outrage & restless find a new cause.

There is a silver lining. millennials may be opposed to reservations (upper castes) but increasingly they are making strides in breaking the caste barriers, have friends across castes and communities. More and more young men have a close friend from the opposite gender than young women.. they are learning to respect choice of women friends..

Brands must listen or they will fade away.. If brands don't stand for something then chances are they may not exist in next decade.

** Credits : Mint & Swarajya for data.

War of languages & unrealised potential of India.

I keep on thinking I have hurt the wrong crowd..
I am Just trying to leave something behind
Oh money is free but loves costs more than a brick
Ceiling is hard to reach and future is hard to breech
I am trying to leave something behind
This whole world is foreign land,
We swallow the moon but don't know our own hand
We are running with the case but ain't got the gold
We are trying to leave something behind..
I can not read what I didn't write...

Because of this lack of language - our 1.3 billion actually translate to the population of a small nation. It gets worse and I will stop after this post - maybe we can take it elsewhere. We English clerks also have a contempt for the non English speaker that makes him feel very insecure. Our stress is on cultural belonging by good spelling and pronunciation and refuse to assimilate and modify English ourselves. We boast so much about our IT prowess but we don't even get an Indian spellcheck that does not object to names like Saurabh and Shiv - which get a red line underneath asking if I have typed shit, but William and Ronald are recognized. We should really be ramming in our own words into our own dictionary including grammatical errors as "Where it is" and "What it is" and puncher for puncture. 

But we are such hoity toity sons-a-bitches that we all slavishly follow someone else's dictionary and laugh at those who don't "quite come up to scratch" Harrumph

Game theory & objectives of conflict

The objective should be very clear. As of now it seems, defending territory. Must change to 'Great power status'

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

― Leon Trotsky

Many people in India or the world are baffled by the Chinese behaviour or how to negotiate out of tricky situation wherein you want to avoid conflict (not worth the time), as there are other more important things, not because you are afraid. One must understand Chinese history & cultural moorings to nullify the aggression Chinese state shows.

China, in Mandarin is 'Zhongguo'. It means 'Central country/kingdom'. Ie, centre of the earth. 

If Chinese are centre of the earth, then Emperor of China, who is the 'foremost man' in China, is the 'foremost man' in the world. Thus, to the Chinese, any treaty formed, without paying homage to their emperor, was considered 'unequal/null and void'. This is why, even when the Romans traded with China and formed contacts, they had to 'officially pay tribute' to the Emperor of China- even though Roman Imperium could've crushed China if they were closer. 

Same applies throughout history- when the Cholas, Sassanids, Khmer- all of them- wanted trade relations with China, they had to pay 'symbolic submission/tribute' to their emperor. This is also the basis of Chinese claim in Tibet or East Turkestan. 

In Chinese culture, all interactions follow this model : it is a hierarchy. Politeness is offered only to those above you in the ladder. And this is why China emphasizes so much on 'saving face', because central kingdom cannot be wrong, ever.

"The name China was given by Indians. Sanskrit cina which is cognate of zina. That is the root of historic insecurity. Later one of the Han Empresses suggested Sinifying the statues of Indo-Bactarian Buddha and popularized Buddhism.This was to heal the country and society from the mass casualties of the end of Han era."

I got these facts from the Asian Museum of Art in San Francisco.

Mao had great insecurity complex due to this.

The archetype I will describe now is the character of Master/Teacher. The ideal teacher for Indians is Dronacharya, because although he had favorites, he taught everyone equally and everyone was equal as disciples. Not so in Chinese stories where There are grades/hierarchies in disciples. There are IN-name disciples, who are typically naam ke vaaste disciples who do odd jobs. There are personal disciples, who are taught personally by the master and lord over the others and there is a Heritage-Disciple, who inherits everything from the master. He is typically the little emperor who terrorizes everyone, but his master does not stop him from bullying others, because bullying is thought top be a privelege of the strong. If you are weak, you deserve the bullying. People will even say you are responsible for your suffering because you somehow provoked the strong by your mere existence.

The Master does not interfere in bullying inbetween his disciples because he thinks its interfering with their natural growth. That stopping the bullying of a weak person by a strong disciple for the sake of the weak is not worth the risk of adversely affecting the growth of the strong, talented disciple. Parallels to this can be seen in the enormous suffering inflicted by CHinese over many little kids while training them to win olympics. Because the suffering of weak mediocre kids is thought to be okay if it brings forth a strong, talented kid who can win olympics' medals.

Another big trauma has been the cultural revolution & it altered the gentle behaviour of common chinese. In late 2015, when a singer stepped onto a neon-lit stage in Shanghai to perform a song about the tribulations of his family of six during the Cultural Revolution, the outpouring of public emotion surprised many people. One web commenter, quoting a line from the song, reflected: “ ‘After the Cultural Revolution, there were five of us left.’ That is not just the story of his family, but that of many others.”

The psychic damage of the Cultural Revolution has been the subject of only a few small-scale studies. An interview project carried out by Chinese researchers in collaboration with German psychotherapists in the early 2000s showed that people with Cultural Revolution-related trauma exhibited symptoms typical of post-traumatic stress disorder: Many reported intense anxiety, depression and frequent flashbacks of traumatic experiences; some showed emotional numbness and avoidance behaviors.

Cultural Revolution trauma differs from that related to other horrific events, like the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, studies have noted, in part because in China, people were persecuted not for “unalterable” characteristics such as ethnicity and race, but for having the wrong frame of mind. Constant scrutiny of one’s own thinking and actions for signs of political deviance became a necessity for survival that sometimes carried unbearable weight. Thus this horrible inferiority complex needs to be masked with outward aggression & thus need for respect for their thinking.

Give China a crushing military defeat along the border and, ideally, create suffocating chaos for the chinese economy by cutting off its trade routes in the IOR.  

Because China is a rational trading power with non-military culture, a short war is possible especially if we overwhelm them in the theaters of our choice and give them no incentive to pursue further hostilies by limiting territorial gains to what we lost in 1962 and bit more in defensible positions. It won't go long term or total war if we don't get victory disease and attempt to detach Tibet as a whole. They'll settle down to making money again once we magnanimously release our chokehold on the IOR and trade flows again

if Indians do not fight then they will not see India overtaking Cheen in our life time. China adds far more every year to its economy than we do to ours even with a higher growth rate. The GDP gap is widening and will widen for decades. The arms gap will widen, they have built four 12K ton Type 055s in parallel and that is on top of a flood of Type 054 frigates and Type 052D destroyers. Where are our P15Bs? And that's only the surface fleet. We are worst off on the submarine front and when their Type 002 and 003 carriers come out, we'll be behind in naval air as well. This will change the calculus of our stranglehold on their trade routes.

The PRC is already the top dog in Asia (after the US.) As I written above, without war we won't be able to overtake Cheen in our lifetime. War provides India with an opportunity but Cheen with a risk. 

OBOR happens unabated WITHOUT war, with war it goes on hold.  

Defeating India would not change their conflucts with Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam or Korea. It didn't in 1962 and it won't today. And in fact would spur them to arm themselves more furiously. 

G2 is dependent on the US. Why would it grant Cheen the privilege after a war with another democracy? The US public won't let it happen.

There is nothing that war can help Cheen with which is why I don't think they'll fight. They want to intimidate and grab a defensible position on the cheap. 

But it is not in Indian interest to allow them to just back off when we currently own overwhelming advantages along the border and in the IOR.

Advantages that will disappear over time as OBOR and CPEC kick in and their naval programs mature and their printing press buys their bases around the IOR.

Mao was an imperialist with overtly exceptionalist proclivities... his China would define its role on the world stage in terms of the CCP's unique worldview and nothing else. It could define the rules by which it played, simply through its sheer size and willingness to defy the worldviews of either the Western or the Soviet camps. In sharp contrast to the exceptionalism of Mao (a form of revisionist Nationalism, though cloaked in red garb) Deng Xiaoping set China on the path to becoming a thriving economy through leveraging what was then the globalist order in its embryonic form. 

The pendulum swung back and forth afterwards as different successors came to the fore. Jiang Zemin, the key architect of the policy of building up nuclear rogue states like NoKo and Pakistan as proxies via proliferation, was more Maovadi. Others like Hu Jintao were more Dengvadi. Yet none of these leaders had as much direct control of all three axes of the Chinese setup (the Party, the State Council, and the Military) to the extent that Mao used to. Until Xi Jinping.

To my mind Xi is like Napoleon III consolidating power as head of the Second French Empire after the interlude of the Orleans restoration. A man of strong political capability domestically, but more ambition than vision internationally.

Of course Napoleon III's grand ambitions ran headlong into a brick wall when he encountered a rival that would never again allow France to achieve pre-eminence on the European continent: the rising Germany of Otto von Bismarck. The Franco Prussian war furnished a bloody nose that is still in some sense bleeding, and marked the overall decline of France into the second rank of global power until this day.

India must take this opportunity to fight now!!!

You fools! Don't you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don't you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life." : HO Chi Min

Geopolitics encapsulated in the vulgarity of a general. Priceless

PS : As usual lot of this is summary of writing, views of many ppl i admire Dr Shiv, Ramana, Rohit, Sridhar.. along with some of mine

Pak nukes, American real-politik & usage of multinational platforms to harm India

If US did 'perfectly fine looking after her own interests' (which by the way is how statecraft works and there is nothing wrong with that), then why are we blaming China alone for its 'maliciously intended nukes'? By the same token, China has also done 'perfectly fine looking after her own interests', hasn't it?

To me this line of argument is an urge to protect the US misdeeds but blame others. The evidence is so loaded against the US for this line of illogic to succeed. Of course, India has to handle its problems itself. But, to absolve the US of its commissions & omissions is completely wrong. It practised double standards against India and India alone, while positively helping India's enemy. As an Indian, I have, therefore, got every right to expose that and blame it.

The NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group or the "London Club" as it is popularly known) which is an outgrowth of the Zangger Committee agreement of August 1974 and the MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) which have all been made even more comprehensive through "Energy" and "Wassenaar" protocols (which in c. 1992 banned dual-use technologies even when these were not meant for non-nuclear applications), were specifically meant for India and have affected India's civilian nuclear and space programmes significantly. By c. 1979, the US had restricted severely the export of high-technology and dual-use items to India (through its Export Administration Act, 1979). The ''Entry into Force' (EIF) clause in CTBT was introduced at the instigation of the US targetting India solely, though it was ostensibly meant for the three 'threshold states' - India, Pakistan & Israel. It was the EIF that prompted India to test its weapons in May 1998 before the window closed in September 1999.

After the May, 1989 successful test of Agni-I missile, MTCR rules were tightened against Indian entities and hundreds of items were banned from export to India necessitating India to embark on a massive programme of self-reliance to overcome the denial regime. The Western nations, led by the US, practised a ‘nuclear apartheid’ against India for over four decades. The Indian cryogenic engine programme was sought to be sabotaged through the ruse of a spy-scandal for which eminent engineers suffered for their entire life (of course, partly GoI has to be also blamed for this, which is quite another matter).

While all this was going on against India, what did the US do for furthering the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan? It passed the Pressler Amendment which was drafted in Islamabad with Pakistani inputs regarding the wordings and clauses and the American Presidents interpreted it deliberately differently to undermine the 'exalted American goals' of nuclear non-proliferation.

In hindsight now and in the context of revelations, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fall into place. In an interview in January, 1987 with India’s veteran journalist and ex-diplomat, Kuldip Nayar, A.Q. Khan admitted that Pakistan had the bomb and the CIA was aware of that. In an interview with the Washington Post on February 7, 1992, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary, Shaharyar Khan admitted that Pakistan had components to make ‘at least one bomb’ and he was revealing the information to bridge the ‘credibility gap’. On the same day, while speaking in the UN, he said that ‘Pakistan possessed the nuclear weapon capability even in 1989’. The mention of the year 1989 was significant as the US had left the Af-Pak region by that time. The attempt by Shahryar Khan was obviously to bail out the US from any disconcerting questions.

Gen. Zia’s support for the US campaign in the Afghan jihad against the Soviets was predicated on two conditions, one, the United States should not raise any queries on Pakistan's nuclear programme and two, there should be no pressure or calls for democratization. On December 26, 1979, Brzezinski told Pres. Jimmy Carter “This will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, and, alas, a decision that our security policy toward Pakistan cannot be dictated by our nonproliferation policy.”

The US colluded with Turkey in allowing export of sensitive items to Pakistan even as it continued to issue demarchés to that country and even as Turkey protested these demarchés citing its weak export laws. So was the then West Germany. Not only did sensitive parts and machinery go to Pakistan, but also German scientists went to that country to train Pakistanis. So have been Dutch companies and Dutch friends of AQ Khan. The US pressurized Holland to release the thief AQ Khan twice (1975 & 1986) from any prosecution and punishment even after he was caught red handed by the Dutch police. No less than the Prime Minister of Holland, Rudd Lubbers, has admitted to this openly. Was the CIA ‘following' A.Q.Khan for three long decades to ferret out more information about AQ Khan’s clandestine work and proliferation (an usual spy operation tactic) without anything to show?

Pakistani operatives caught red-handed within the US for exporting nuclear-related components and devices were treated with kid gloves and also released without prosecution. The US thus violated its own Solarz Amendment of 1985 which demands that the US cutoff all military and economic aid to purportedly non-nuclear nations that illegally export or attempt to export nuclear-related materials from the US. In view of these actions, one must only conclude that the US ensured that Germany also did not act against the violators of its export rules because there is no other explanation for the German silence.

The US also forced the Swiss government to destroy vital evidences of nuclear proliferation by a Swiss family which was part of Dr.A.Q.Khan’s network. By mid-2008, it turned out that the what the Swiss government destroyed was an advanced design for miniaturized nuclear weapon that A.Q.Khan had given. Prior to that, Mr. Tinner, the head of that Swiss family, had worked with Dr. A.Q. Khan for three decades knowing fully well the clandestine nuclear weapons programme of not only Pakistan but also Libya and Iran. As an agent of the CIA, God alone knows when he was recruited but it certainly was only when centrifuge parts were shipped by A.Q.Khan to Libya that the alarm bells were set ringing by the US. Until then, the US did not intervene in the activities of the Tinners when they were helping with the centrifuge programme at Kahuta. In order to cover its tracks, the US forced the Swiss government to destroy all documents and prevent prosecution of the Tinners by all means.

Even as late as c. 2003, the US President George W Bush thought it fit not to apply sanctions on Pakistani entities exporting nuclear technology to North Korea even after Pakistan was implicated. The US Government simply said that ". . . cooperation between the two was a thing of the past". The US Government exhibited a similar attitude to bail out its ally Pakistan in its more dangerous liaisons of nuclear proliferation to other states, especially rogue states, when the State Department of the US briefed other friendly governments with information contrary to what its own intelligence agencies were reporting about the Pakistani-Libyan deal which in fact went back to Z.A.Bhutto’s days. The US said that North Korea sent Uranium Hexafluoride to Libya while it was Pakistan that re-exported this gas to Libya.

Even as the CIA confirmed the supply of M-9 & M-11 missiles to Pakistan by PRC (in c. 1991), the White House refused to take note. The F-16s that were sold to Pakistan came with a rider that they would not be modified to deliver nuclear weapons. But, Pakistan did indeed modify them and the US has since then given three more tranches of F-16s with the same farcical condition. The DoD even lied to the Congress (or played with words to be more charitable) when queried about such Pakistani modifications, as the US President himself did by claiming Pakistan did not 'possess' a nuclear weapon.

There are many instances of such US collusion, collaboration, acquiescence in making Pakistan get its nuclear weapons and delivery systems. The pattern of US behaviour is consistent where it not only exported dual-use material to Pakistan and violated its own laws with impunity, but also forced its allies to do so. The US has justified Pakistan's security paranoia against India for this.

In one way, I would put the US collusion as more dangerous from an Indian perspective than the Chinese assistance because the former allowed the Uranium enrichment process to produce HEU, to come to fruition (the Chinese didn't have this to perfection at that time) by not only allowing the stolen blueprints from Holland to be used without punitive action but also helping Pakistan get all critical items, machinery and components to make that process a success. This is what that has been threatening us now. Pu-based weapons are a more recent phenomenon.

India may have failed to do many things but that doesn't absolve the US of the following:

• Its nuclear proliferation both directly & indirectly to Pakistan
• Its attempts at strangulation of genuine Indian efforts in every sphere of activity, including nuclear, until things changed somewhat after 9/11
• Attempts to wean away Kashmir & keep the pot boiling

It is said that Chester Bowles and Adalai Stevenson met the Sheikh and encouraged him for an independent Kashmir. As such the U S A wanted to make the State of Jammu & Kashmir an Independent Country with Sheikh Abdullah as its Head! Thus the USA would make Abdullah’s J & K a “Dependency” of the United States. As such IMO the USA will continue to have Pakistan and India at Loggerheads.

I do understand perfectly that every country would act in its sole interests and the US did exactly the same. But, that does not acquit it of its criminal intent and actions against Indian interest regardless of whether India should have independently acted against Pakistan or not.

Mr Modi doesn't get it

What happened in May 2014 was unprecedented for 2 generation of Indian voters, After 30 years India got a single party government. Many political pundits have written many a books on it & given their individual take. The most notable reasons cited by the media, Political and intellectual elite of this country can be summed up in the following 3 points..

a.      “Narendra Modi ran a fantastic campaign since Dec 2012..” : Rajdeep Sardesai

b.      “Rahul Gandhi is a non-serious politician & poor communicator..” :Public intellectuals

c.       “Corruption and policy paralysis of Dr MMS govt led to a situation wherein people were angry at the government and wanted to teach a lesson..” : Narendra Modi & his rich, elite, English speaking supporters

Look at the irony that I am qualifying his supporters as being “..rich, elite..” by adding English speaking and myself writing in the language. Well that’s because there is barely any Hindi keyboard for us to type. Also what separates me is over 9 decades of political experience that sits in my family and almost 100 years of cumulative legislative wisdom that I interact with or have lived with. Add that I speak strictly Hindi and other local dialects outside my work.

Let me begin by addressing Mr Modi ( I hope it reaches him) & his “..Vikas Vikas..” touting supporters who clap and jump everytime he vows to cleanse the country of Congress party, “..Congress mukta Bharat..”, for it’s  perceived ills of nepotism, dynasty cult and failures, The war is not between BJP and Congress or between Hindutvawadi and “ Sickular”, pejorative term for so called secular (read muslim appeasement) parties. The war in 2014 and now too, is between the frightened and what they fear. It is being fought by the people who perceive themselves as controlling nothing. They are besieging the people they perceive as controlling everything. We are in the midst of a Perception Insurrection, or, depending on how you perceive it, a Loser Mutiny.

True it was a revolt against the elite as many western thinkers have commented “..  revolt against the elites targets all manner of pre-eminence—political elites, business elites, media elites, institutional elites, and, kind reader, you. You're reading an article in a language which not many understand. This marks you as an elite..” in this hullabu of pundits going into coma due to shock of their predictions & resultant explanations, more to save their reputations, we missed the emotions that led us to May 2014. Most important, pre-eminence certain religions got under Congress led govt’s policy framing.

Politicians tend to forget nowadays that ‘development’ aka “..Bikas.. Bikas..” as Mr Modi keeps on harping, is a given. Right from Nitish to Akhilesh to Rahul Gandhi, all talk exactly the same language. As for corruption, lesser said the better. Corruption was not and still not a political issue in India, sadly though. Otherwise, lot of known, convicts would have been sent to political isololtion and not being feted as national leaders, defeating BJP candidates.

“If it's any comfort, people all over the world are saying, "We're sick of the elites. We're tired of the experts. To hell with the deep thinkers who think they know what we should have better than we do and who—while they're at it—are grabbing everything we've got."
Great Britain's political, business, and trade union leaders were opposed to Brexit. That is, the people who supported the Iraq war plus the people who caused the 2008 global financial crisis plus the people who nationalized the British automobile industry were all in unprecedented agreement on one issue. Voters felt they couldn't go wrong betting against this trifecta.

Everywhere in the world, the same phenomenon is repeating. Columbia, Brazil (where a leftist leader is being prosecuted despite giving free doles) to Australia (5-6 prime ministers) and recently Donald trump. In between Canadians did the unthinkable, they elected a clone of Justin bieber.

So Mr Modi, if you think giving doles and more doles or screaming “ ..I am tightening screws on the corrupt..” when you explain demonetisation or other complex rules for income taxation, you are just trying to become Indira Gandhi inciting class hatred. In India, as in America, its not wrong or bad to be rich, that category of demonisation of middle class/rich is exclusive preserve of communists but can you tell me how many seats they won in India? Well lowest ever,In single digits.
Now put yourself in context, take a moment for introspection and explain gain why do you think you won the election & with that majority and why do you think you can win again in 2019? Jut by giving more doles? An American writer said somewhere,

“Among poli sci savants, such contrariness at the ballot box is defined as "populism." But it's a definition that does nothing to define the phenomenon. Populism is just a name for an opinion common in most democracies: There exists a large herd of the clueless, and running circles around them is a small pack of wiseacres. Populist opinion has an effect even in political systems where the opinion of the populace doesn't matter. Vladimir Putin harnessed populist outrage at the kleptomaniac incompetents who took possession of Russia after perestroika. Xi Jinping's neo-Maoism makes use of populist anger at the all-the-tea-in-China scale of corruption among the Chinese elites.”

Not to be outdone, citizens of the Philippines gave themselves a dose of electoral homeopathy. Overwhelmed by violent lawbreaking, they elected a violent lawbreaker president. Rodrigo Duterte, former mayor of crime-plagued Davao City, is nicknamed "Duterte Harry". That explains why the Lalu, MSY or other Bahubalis won in india.
There are even populist aspects to Islamic terrorism. Fanatical interpretation of "jihad" is antielite. Islamic terrorists hate elites so much that they have suicide squads of elites who go around killing themselves.

Let me explain to you my view. We're culturally, spiritually and politically polarized, but not in a way that would startle an old-school history professor and jolt him awake from his nap in the faculty lounge. It’s not that someone is attacking somnath again.

Yet people are fearful, and they blame their fears on the leadership elite. This is because the leadership elite haven't done a very good job and Congress party has been ruling for 60 years out of 70 years so they get all the blame. Issue is emotional, spiritual and religious appeasement. Issue is temple control of government boards and closing down of Indic majority run schools under RTE wherein minority run schools are mushrooming and parents being fearful of children losing their cultural values in missionary run schools.

Demons have been unleashed in the Kerala, West Bengal or Rohingyas in jammu. They have a global pattern starting with Middle East. Your studied silence trying to be statesmanlike or proving that you are not “..Communal..” is simply putting you in league worse than Dr MMS. Atleast people knew that he is ineffectual and real decisions were made by Sonia Gandhi and her son. You Mr Modi, have no such luxury.

You know what? Your English speaking voters, whom you nowadays almost despise, spent their own money and time to create wave read what’s happening in the world around. They see how elites failed to address the problems that caused the demons to be unleashed in Kerala, WB, Kashmir or even Middle East & latest the European refugee crisis. It may come as shock to you but you too are elite now.

What do the elites care? The refugees aren't crowding the halls and jostling the elites in the corridors of the European parliament in Brussels. The refugees aren't building shantytowns on the tennis courts at the elites' country clubs.

Young radicalised muslim men commit assaults in public places, like the Cologne train station, on public occasions, like New Year's Eve. That's the public's problem. These things don't happen at the private parties elites give. That will happen in Saraswati Puja, Jammu or Kerala streets.

Sir, you elite fail and don't suffer any consequences from your failures. As it is with elite carelessness about violence on Tamil nadu, Kerala, Bengal street or firing across the LOC, so it is with elite carelessness about immigration of Rohingya and Bangladeshis. People don't have to march in lockstep anymore. People are becoming persons, not masses. Also Sir, people don't live largely in a world of net economic good. We live in our own little worlds, often practicing gross economics wherein spiritual wealth and ancestral beliefs make an important component.

On this aspect there is no difference between you and the grand old party of India, Indian national congress. In fact there is barely any perceptible difference between the government you lead and the one Dr MMS lead before you other than the absence of alrge scale corruption of Congress. Lalu,Mulayam, Jayalalita, Mayawati Mamta are proof enough of indian electorate’s apapthy for corruption.

It was the common Hindu who felt under siege with plethora of NGOs and laws who were questioning Lord Ram to Ram setu to besmirching Shiva, Sita, Durga. His temples are under govt control, school shut down under RTE and politicians wooing a religious group. What have you done to assuage? Remember we practice gross economics not net economics. This mala of Vikas Vikas will be not able to fill this deficit of spiritual and cultural bleed you continue to ignore. As I said, there is no difference in the language you speak from the language, Congress or assorted bunch of it' allied regional, venal and corrupt leadership speaks yet wind elections.

Therefore all of us idiots, we the people, who make up the populace, which leads to populism, are alarmed by our circumstances and are angry at our leadership elite for not being able to change them. Even more amazing is the complete ignorance of issues that elected you in first place. You have gone back on almost everything that was the election rhetoric i.e. Damaadji (Still enjoying life at home, not in jail), Pink revolution, Jayanti tax, UID (lol you have implemented it), Building military strength for deterance (lowest ever GDP to def budget ratio in independent india is in 2017), law to jail corrupt politicans within 1 year(promised on 15th Aug 2014)..

To soothe populist discontents politicians have only one piece of equipment—politics. In an attempt to get enough popular support to achieve or retain their elite status, politicians keep making the machinery of politics larger by making the state a nanny, mother and now grandmother. Free, more free and exclusively make deals with a group rather treat citizens as an individual unit. You are doing exactly what congress did, starting from Indira Gandhi.
 It is over when the fat lady sings. Politics has become an obese operatic performer, warbling so loudly that none of us bit players can be heard, and so fat that we're shoved into the orchestra pit.

Political power has grown in expense. One-third of the world's GDP is now spent by the politicians in governments. One out of every three things you make is grabbed by governments. Your jumla (Unfortunately I supplied that..” minimum government, maximum governance..” ) is let down by you only. If your cat has three kittens, one of them is a government agent.

Political power has grown in scope. Politics cast their net over every little aspect of life. Nothing is so private that it isn't tangled up in politics. From school, food, job, to Eashwara, all are at mercy of government. 

Good luck in 2019 Sir.