Indian Nationhood

Indian Subcontinent was never a single state in the entire history. Some big empires were there but still they did not cover entire India.
British empire was spread across the subcontinent, but 1/3rd of the area of princely states was not ruled by British. So there was not a single state rule over subcontinent. When India became free, again it was with the partition based on two-nation theory. But majority chunk of subcontinent is ruled by Indian State.
The question is whether it is a nation-state?
What is nation-state at the first place?
For that we need to understand the difference between nation and state. Nation and states are two separate entities. Nation formation takes place when various people and societies realize commonality amongst themselves on the basis of eternal and perennial bonding they have. So it is just a feeling of coexisting together based on certain bonding. This bonding can be provided by language or culture.
When such nation demands a state, no-one can decline such demand. Indian freedom struggle was nothing but a formation of nation. But unfortunately in its last phase, the scope of this nationhood was restricted on the basis of religion. The two nation theory was proposed which stated that hindus and muslims are two different nations.
The so called scholars like Jinnah, Savarkar, Ambedkar accepted this concept of two nations.
Savarkar and Ambedkar, though accepted two nations, wanted a single state to administer it, while Jinnah wanted two states for two nations.
Congress never accepted the two-nation theory. Due to communal violence Gandhi agreed upon the two states. So India was partitioned. But the India remained as not a hindu nation. Its nationhood was described by Nehru as 'Unity in Diversity'. It is essentially a cultural nationalism on which Indian nation stands today.
RSS names it as 'Hindutva' (this is very different from Savarkar's hindutva which was based upon religio-geographical hindu identity).
The issue of Kashmir is therefore more important to India. Kashmir is proof that Indian nationalism is not just a hindu nationalism. The presence of so many Muslims in India also proves the same. The two-nation theory was proved wrong when Bangladesh was formed.
India today is a nation-state and all Indians are proud of that.

Communism Vs Socialism

There is basic difference between Socialism and Communism, though they both believe in the social/national ownership over all the resources.

Socialism aims distribution of resources as per the efforts and kind of efforts one makes. Since the doctors and Engineers are lesser in the society, demand for them is higher and supply is shorter, they will earn higher in socialist economy. If someone does not work he won't get anything in socialist economy. Socialist government does planning for the society as a whole, the planning of economy is done accordingly.

Communism aims the distribution of the resources as per the need of the individuals in the society. So in communism, the needs of the individuals are predefined and government tries distribute the resources through the means of very strict planning. Hence it becomes oppressive for the highly skilled and enterprising people in the economy where monetory incentive for efforts taken are meagre.


Some people does not agree with socialism to start with. To transform from feudal economy where the resources are concentrated with select few to a modern economy, if we start with socialism it gives undue advantage for the richer class and middle class who has already aquired knowledge and monetory resources.

Prices of Petroleum products

With the rising prices of petroleum products, inflation has increased a lot worldover. In India, governement provides subsidies to stabilize petroleum prices. The subsidies are around 1.5 lakh crore per year. Double the amount spent in waiving farmers' loan.
Our middle and rich class also get this part of subsidies which is not correct. They can pay. Why should they get subsidized petrol, diesel and Gas cylinder? Per gas cylinder government pays subsidy of rs.210. Is this justifiable?
Every time we read editors of leading newspapers talk about the farm subsidies. Why don't they talk about petroleum subsidies?

The ideal solution to this problem is to have rationing of these products. But the problem with India is that we can not implement any system correctly. So rationing will be another fodder for the corrupts in PDS.

To me its really a dilemma. If government abolish the subsidies entirely it will increase the prices of all the products and which in turn will raise inflation to a historic high. And if they don't abololish subsidies, they will increase taxes which will again affect all the people.

We should immediately start the usage of public transport. Especially based on electricity. But the scarcity of electricity itself is a major cause of concern.

What i can see is that india is certainly heading towards a major economic and energy crisis.

Sharad Pawar on Indian Agriculture

It is a real shame that the union finance ministry is not ready to bring reforms in agriculture sector. Though the agriculture is a state subject, the central government must allocate enough funds to this sector going out of its way. Just having a high profile minister like Sharad Pawar does not help. There must be some financial powers invested to his ministry. The agriculture and irrigation should become the central subject, without that it looks difficult to bring reforms in this sector. The following is what the helpless agriculture minister said regarding Indian Agriculture.

Budgetory Provisions
The farming community has been ignored in this country and especially so over the last eight to 10 years. The total investment in the agriculture sector is going down. Public and private investment in the sector over the last few years, at least the last two Plans, has been in a very serious situation. You will be surprised—in the budgetary provision, not more than 2% has been allocated for agriculture, where more than 65% of the population works.
Again, the most important thing for agriculture is irrigation. In the last few years, the average budgetary provision from the Indian government for irrigation is less than 0.35%—not even half a per cent money has been provided for water. In the country as a whole, only 40% of the area is under irrigation—there is no problem there. But for the 60% that depends totally on the erratic monsoon, it is pathetic.

Harvesting Losses
The total harvesting losses in this country are somewhere near 30%. Thirty per cent means around Rs 55,000 to 65,000 crore a year is wasted because there is no infrastructure. That’s almost the same as India’s defence budget. We are wasting 30% of the gross income of the farming community and of the country.

Gandhiji on God and Soul

This is an original audio of speech delivered by M.Gandhi in England. Here he talks about the existence of god and soul. The roots of his preachings can be traced from this speech.

Success stories...Steve Jobs

An eye opener for ordinary Indian who tread traditional path of University education to achieve success and thereafter just runs after the illusion of success......just the formal education does not help. One must love what he/she is doing and should have vision, courage, faith in his/her ideas.

Western Democracy