On India's present scenario

Count me out of the optimist category.

If a jawan is shot, I do not care, because I may be shot tomorrow by the same army. And I will be called a terrorist. They'll say I had links to I don't know which organization.

If the police fails, I laugh. Because they are built to fail. They choose to fail.

When a jawan is shot, the country cries. When the army rapes an entire village, we still hail them as legends of the country. India is destined to succumb to its failures. All hail us!

We are a country where people die of hunger, and elected representatives burn up crores of public money, spending time throwing chairs at each other. All hail them! Yet we choose to shut up.

When a man who overlooked the killings of thousands of people in the worst riot of the country, is projected as the PM candidate, on the basis of some development in his state (forgetting the amount of debt the state has, highest FYI), we are becoming the epitome of democracy. All hail us!

A chief minister of the most populated state spends a big chunk of public money building her own statues, and thousands starve to death. No law stops her. Awesome constitution, ours.

When our major military partner is Israel, a country butchering and capturing Palestinians at will, we are still the world's largest democracy. All hail us!

You choose to be optimistic about our country. I choose not to.

And you lot will call me a traitor. Because you cannot bear the truth. Because you lot are still in the bubble of ecstasy.

Mine has burst, and realities seem far clearer to me.

You choose to stand up when someone like Arvind Kejriwal asks you to. And then you get back into you dens when India plays Pakistan in a cricket match, and everything is forgotten.

- By Tariq Hashmat Tauheed, B.Tech.

Dilemmas in envisioning India as a strong "nation"

I love India as my nation (please don't confuse it with the word "state"). Ours is a nation of bewildering diversities in ethnicity  religions, languages, philosophies, cultures, regions, social hierarchies, economic conditions etc. In fact, every personality is unique in itself.

In spite of all this, there had been & still are, some people who want to "assimilate" these differences through a melting-pot approach and create a "bhartiya/deshaj/deshbhakt" India which is honestly speaking impossible to define without entrapping yourself into the fascistic tendencies of the likes of Mussolini & Hitler. Even for these two, it was easy to carve out an Italian & a German nationalism respectively as these nations are almost linguistically & culturally homogeneous & even if those elements that were heterogeneous elements were suppressed, hidden, assimilated & even cleansed from their national scenario.

But the question that I would like to put in front of you all is that is it possible to create a homogeneous Indian nation? If you believe that it is possible to create a homogeneous nation then the question in my mind is that who will define & decide the "Indian-ness" required to being a loyal citizen of India? Will it be RSS who should be conferred with the task of measuring the loyalty of Indian citizens or should it be the Congress Party who should be accepted as the final authority of judging someone's secular credentials?

If you share the same opinion like me that all the concepts & efforts of "assimilation" are doomed to fail then the biggest question that we face is to firstly define what is meant by us when we use the term "Indian nationalism" as the western concepts of Nationalism are impossible to apply & replicate in India as our nation is not homogeneous at all & in addition to this is the fact that we are still a faith-based society, this question requires immensely deep understanding of the various aspects of  India & utmost patience & care in dealing with the different aspirations, ideologies & visions of Indian people.

The second problem that I see is that of building a national level consensus of making all parties agree to the definition that will be formulated which is indeed a monumental task.

The third problem that I see is to form the working methodology of implementing the agreed common minimum programme for inclusive development.

The fourth problem I feel is to discover/create & bring all those people together who would co-ordinate & form a responsible Legislature, Judiciary, Bureaucracy & Civil Society.

The fifth problem according to me is to make a consensus as to whether for all things mentioned above to become feasible will  some minute reforms be enough or will radical reforms be required or even not less than a complete revolution is required to take place for bringing the new system.

In addition to all these problems that I mentioned here, there are many more questions that need to be found answers of. All these questions are coming up because the Indian state has been unable to deliver on the promise of an inclusive, just & progressive nation.

Yet, I am not at all a pessimist and strongly believe that a near Utopian nation is possible if we will be successful in consolidating, uniting & synchronizing all the energies that are working to create a better nation. As this nation is a shared contemporary reality of all the Indians & our honour is undoubtedly related to it, these questions hold paramount importance in present times. It is my deeply rooted belief that together we can & we will make the difference. With hope & faith I submit this to all the readers for comments, suggestions & ruthless scrutiny.

A survey on VC Sahab's performance

As we all know that the tenure of our present Vice-Chancellor Janab Zameeruddin Shah sahab has completed 1 year. During this 1 year phase we have seen, what many of us believe, many ups & downs. I have created a questionnaire-cum-survey that is recording the responses of Aligs on different decisions taken by VC sahab and the questions are structured on a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 - worse, 1 - nearly worse.....4- below average, 5- average, 6- above average,.....9-nearly excellent, 10 -excellent. All other values are relative to this structure.

We have planned that once we get more than 200 responses we will send the results to the Vice Chancellor sahab so that he may know in clear terms as to what we feel he is doing right & what is unpopular. I have

avoided asking for names from anybody so that your response remains anonymous & administration doesn't get any space to target specific students on their viewpoint.

I submit this endeavour of mine in front of Allah as I am inspired by the saying of Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) that "the greatest jihad (struggle) is to speak the truth in front of the ruler".

Here is the Link to the form :

https://docs.google.com/forms/viewform?hl=en_GB&id=1sr6NYBAOrWe5sRObXXxqtRlKoq8J8QNuT3r-cAj4t-k

PLease share this link with all the Aligs in your circles & spread the word that we shall speak the truth in the eyes of the powerful.

Here are the responses to the survey https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sr6NYBAOrWe5sRObXXxqtRlKoq8J8QNuT3r-cAj4t-k/viewanalytics