Religious scripts are not the problem its (mis)interpretation of the texts are the problem

Whether religious scriptures or their interpretations are the main problem is a highly debated topic with strong points on both sides.

Many people agree with your view that ancient texts are often misunderstood or twisted. However, others argue that some texts contain inherently difficult or problematic ideas from the time they were written. 

A Common Complaint, A Common Defence

Every major religion has, at some point, been blamed for violence, oppression, or backwardness. Critics point to specific verses — a call to holy war, a rule about slavery, a passage that seems to demean women or outsiders — and conclude that the religion itself is the source of the harm. Believers, in turn, often respond the same way regardless of tradition: "that's not what it means, that's not how it was meant to be read, that's someone twisting it for power."

This defence shows up in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and beyond. That pattern itself is worth examining. If the same excuse works for every religion, either every religion is lying about its own texts, or there's something structurally true about how sacred texts function that makes misinterpretation the real engine of harm.

The evidence leans toward the second explanation.

 How Interpretation Goes Wrong

Scholars of religion and hermeneutics (the study of interpretation) point to a few recurring failure modes that cut across traditions:

1. Decontextualization.

 Verses are lifted out of their historical, literary, or narrative setting and applied as universal rules. A wartime instruction becomes a permanent commandment. A poetic metaphor becomes a legal statute. Religious studies scholar Karen Armstrong has argued extensively that scriptural literalism — reading ancient texts as if they were modern legal codes — is itself a relatively modern phenomenon, not the historical norm for how these texts were read by the communities that produced them.

2. Selective emphasis.

Every scripture is long, internally varied, and sometimes contradictory on its surface. This makes cherry-picking easy: a leader can find a verse to justify almost anything while ignoring surrounding material that complicates or contradicts it. The Bible contains both calls for hospitality to strangers and, in isolated passages, harsher material about outsiders. The Quran contains both verses invoked to justify violence and verses emphasizing mercy and the sanctity of life (5:32 is frequently cited by Muslim scholars specifically to counter violent interpretations). Which verses get amplified is a choice made by interpreters, not something dictated by the text itself.

3. Authority capture.

 Religious institutions and leaders often gain power by positioning themselves as the sole valid interpreters of scripture. Once that gatekeeping role exists, interpretation can be shaped to serve institutional or political interests rather than the text's original sense. Historian of religion Reza Aslan has written about how this dynamic played out in early Islamic history, where competing political factions each claimed scriptural backing for their claims to authority. The same dynamic is visible in medieval Christendom's use of scripture to justify the divine right of kings, and in colonial-era distortions of Hindu texts to entrench caste hierarchies more rigidly than earlier practice supports.

4. Translation and transmission loss.

 Sacred texts are frequently read in translation, generations removed from their original language and context, by people with no training in the source language, genre conventions, or historical setting. Small shifts in translation can carry large theological consequences — a well-known example is debate among Hebrew Bible scholars over the word often rendered "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14, versus the more literally accurate "young woman," a translation choice with major downstream theological effects in Christian tradition.

5. Motivated reasoning.

 People — including religious leaders — tend to arrive at texts already wanting a particular conclusion (political power, social control, personal gain, in-group cohesion) and then find scriptural support after the fact. This is not unique to religion; it is a well-documented feature of human reasoning generally, but it has outsized consequences when the "evidence" being reasoned toward carries divine authority in the eyes of followers.

The Pattern Repeats Across Traditions

- Christianity: Scripture was used to justify both the abolition of slavery and its defence, sometimes citing the very same book (the Bible was invoked on both sides of the American Civil War).

- Islam: The overwhelming majority of Islamic scholars and jurists reject the theology of groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda, arguing their reading of jihad and takfir (excommunication) is a radical departure from mainstream Islamic legal tradition, not a faithful rendering of it.

- Judaism: Rabbinic tradition itself is built on centuries of debate over interpretation (the Talmud is essentially a record of interpretive argument), and modern disputes between ultra-Orthodox, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform communities often hinge on interpretive method, not disagreement about the base text.

- Hinduism: Texts like the Bhagavad Gita have been read both as support for caste rigidity and, by figures like Gandhi, as a call to nonviolence and equality — the same text, opposite conclusions.

- Buddhism: Despite popular Western perception of Buddhism as inherently pacifist, Buddhist nationalist movements in Myanmar and Sri Lanka have selectively used doctrine to justify ethnic violence, which mainstream Buddhist scholars and monastics have publicly rejected as a distortion of core teachings on compassion (metta) and non-harm (ahimsa).

Why This Distinction Matters

Treating "the text" and "the interpreter" as separate objects of critique has practical consequences:

- It keeps blame accurately placed on the humans making choices — leaders, institutions, and individuals — rather than on a book, which has no agency.

- It opens space for reform from *within* traditions, since believers who reject harmful interpretations aren't asked to abandon their faith, only to contest a particular reading of it.

- It resists the trap of essentializing entire religions (and their billions of adherents) based on the worst-behaving subset of self-appointed interpreters.

Ultimately, religion is a mix of both the written word and the human heart. How a society behaves usually depends on which parts of their text they choose to emphasize and how they adapt those words to the modern world. At the same time, this distinction isn't a blank defence. Texts do have some content that constrains plausible interpretation — not every reading is equally defensible, and "it's just interpretation" can become its own evasion if used to wave away a genuinely common or textually well-supported reading. Serious religious scholarship generally tries to hold both things at once: texts are not infinitely malleable, but the leap from "text says X" to "therefore this harmful policy is required" almost always involves interpretive choices that reasonable, faithful readers within the same tradition have rejected.

Further Reading

1. https://medium.com/the-dark-arts-of-genius/the-trouble-with-sacred-texts-1244547aa16b

- Karen Armstrong, "The Battle for God" (2000) — on the rise of literalism across Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

- Reza Aslan, "No god but God" (2005) — on the political history of Quranic interpretation

- Bart Ehrman, "Misquoting Jesus" (2005) — on transmission and translation issues in the New Testament

- Wilfred Cantwell Smith, "The Meaning and End of Religion" (1962) — a foundational text on how "religion" as a fixed category is itself an interpretive construct

- Michael Cook, "The Koran: A Very Short Introduction" (2000) — on interpretive traditions within Islamic scholarship

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We Know Our Rights By Heart. Do We Know Our Duties?

We Know Our Rights By Heart. Do We Know Our Duties?

A few months ago, a video of a man refusing to stand for the national anthem in a cinema hall went viral, followed by the now-familiar cycle: outrage, op-eds, a few arrests, and, within a week, silence. Around the same time, in the same news cycle, another story got a fraction of the attention — a municipal survey found that a majority of respondents in several Indian cities admitted to routinely littering public spaces, dodging civic taxes they knew they owed, or ignoring queue discipline "when no one was watching." Nobody organised a protest about that one. Nobody made a reel.

That contrast says something about us. Ask any Indian to name a Fundamental Right, and most will manage at least two or three — equality, freedom of speech, the right to life. Ask the same person to name a Fundamental Duty, and the silence tends to be longer. This isn't a trivia gap. It's a symptom of how lopsided our relationship with the Constitution has become, quick to demand, slow to deliver.

A Constitution Built With Two Halves, But We Only Read One

The Constitution gives us both halves of this contract, and it does so deliberately. Part III (Articles 12-35) lays out our Fundamental Rights — enforceable in court, backed by the full weight of the judiciary, and rightly celebrated as the backbone of Indian democracy. Part IV-A, added through the 42nd Amendment in 1976, gives us 11 Fundamental Duties. Among them: respect the Constitution and its ideals, defend the country, promote harmony among all citizens, preserve our composite culture, develop scientific temper, safeguard public property, and strive toward excellence in every field of individual and collective activity.

Here's the catch, and it's the hinge on which this entire debate turns: rights are justiciable. Duties are not. If your right is violated, you can walk into a courtroom and demand redress, and the state is bound to respond. If you violate your duty litter a public park, evade tax, incite communal hatred online, or simply refuse to vote no court will summon you. The Constitution asks. It doesn't compel. And that single asymmetry explains almost everything about why one half of the Constitution lives rent-free in our national consciousness while the other gathers dust in a textbook appendix.

Why We Gravitated Toward One Half

This lopsidedness isn't laziness on the part of citizens; it's structural incentive working exactly as you'd expect. A violated right is personal and immediate you feel it, and the system hands you a clear path to fight back: a petition, a lawyer, a headline. A neglected duty, by contrast, is diffuse and collective. The damage from a hundred people skipping their civic responsibilities is entirely real: potholed roads nobody reported, a river nobody stopped polluting, an election nobody bothered to vote in, but no single victim can point to a single wrongdoer and demand justice. There's no one to sue for a country's collective apathy.

Political mobilisation follows this same logic, because movements need a villain and a courtroom, not a mirror. Parties, activists, and civil society organise around rights because that's where the energy, the votes, and the headlines are. Nobody builds a movement around "we should all be developing scientific temper" or "let's collectively remember to segregate our waste." Civic education compounds the problem further; most schoolchildren across the country can recite the Preamble from memory, yet a large number couldn't list even four of the 11 duties if asked in an exam tomorrow. We have built an entire civic imagination around what we're owed, and almost none around what we owe back.

What This Imbalance Actually Costs Us

The consequence isn't abstract or merely philosophical; it shows up in the texture of daily national life. It's visible in the corruption we tolerate as long as it benefits "our side" of a political or social divide. It's visible in the environmental destruction we protest loudly about in the abstract climate change, deforestation, air quality while rarely altering our own habits of consumption, waste, or water use. It's visible in low voter turnout in some of the very constituencies loudest about their rights being ignored, as though voting were someone else's job. A democracy is meant to function as a two-way contract: the state owes citizens their rights, and citizens owe the republic their duties in return. When only one half of that contract lives in public consciousness, we end up with a citizenry fluent in grievance but out of practice in responsibility, quick to insist "the government must," rarely pausing to ask "what must I."

The Fair Counter-Argument

None of this is a call to guilt-trip citizens into silence, and it's worth being honest about the other, equally important side of this debate. The framers deliberately made Fundamental Duties non-justiciable, and they had good reason to. A state legally empowered to punish citizens for "insufficient patriotism" or "inadequate civic virtue" is a dangerous instrument in the wrong hands one that could easily be weaponised against dissenters, minorities, or inconvenient journalists, all under the comfortable guise of "enforcing duty." Keeping duties moral rather than legal was a deliberate safeguard against exactly this kind of majoritarian overreach, not a drafting oversight.

There's also a legitimate and pressing concern that "focus on your duties, not just your rights" rhetoric has been and continues to be used to silence people raising genuine grievances, telling protestors to be "more dutiful" instead of addressing what they are protesting about in the first place. Rights exist precisely because they cannot be made conditional on good behaviour; that is the entire point of a right, and no amount of duty-talk should be allowed to quietly erode that principle.

Where That Leaves Us

The answer, then, isn't to make duties legally enforceable; that road leads somewhere far more dangerous than mere civic apathy. The answer is cultural and educational. Schools could test students on the 11 duties with the same seriousness they test them on the Preamble. Civic curricula could spend as much time on "what do I owe my neighbourhood" as they do on "what can I demand from the state." Local bodies could publicly track small, measurable duty-linked outcomes: voter turnout, waste segregation compliance, tax filing rates, the way they already track grievance redressal.

None of this requires a single new law. It requires a citizenry that treats civic duty as seriously as it treats civic entitlement — not because the Constitution threatens punishment, but because a republic only survives on citizens who show up for it, not just citizens who show up to demand from it.

We built a Constitution with two halves. It's time we started reading both.

 

 

India's Parliament Is Getting Older While India Gets Younger — Why That's a Problem

 

India's Parliament Is Getting Older While India Gets Younger — Why That's a Problem

 

India is one of the youngest countries on earth. As of 2024, roughly 65-66% of Indians are under the age of 35, and the median age of the population is around 29-30 years. Yet the people making decisions for this young country are, on average, nowhere close to that age. We need more young people in politics because they tend to bring new perspectives and energy, which can challenge outdated thinking and encourage innovation. they bring fresh ideas, make politics more representative, because a significant share of the population otherwise has little voice in decisions that shape their lives, they represent large part of the population and help to make democracy more inclusive and focused on future. Youth participation also improves policy on issues that affect them directly, like education, jobs, climate and public services

 

A Widening Gap

The 18th Lok Sabha (2024) has been called the oldest parliament in India's history. Over half of its 543 MPs — 52% — are older than 55. The average age of an elected MP is 56, only a marginal dip from 59 in the previous Lok Sabha. Just 11% of MPs are 40 or younger, and only about 1 in 20 MPs is under 35 — even though nearly two out of every three Indians fall into that age bracket. Contrast this with India's very first Lok Sabha in 1951-52, when the average MP was 46.5 years old and roughly 1 in 6 MPs was under 35 — a far closer mirror of the country's own demographic makeup at the time.

This is not a minor statistical curiosity. It is the picture of a governing body that looks less and less like the population it represents, at exactly the moment India's youth population needs its aspirations, its anxieties, and its technological fluency reflected in policy.

 

Why the Age Gap Matters

The concern isn't simply that older leaders are incapable of understanding young people — many are thoughtful and stay engaged with change. The concern is structural: lived experience shapes priorities, and a parliament skewed heavily toward one generation will systematically underweight the concerns of another.

Today's under-35 Indians are the first generation to grow up entirely inside the smartphone economy, gig work, AI, and platform-based livelihoods. They face a youth unemployment rate that stood at 10.2% in 2023-24, entering a job market where a large share of graduates is considered underprepared for the work actually available. These are not abstract problems — they are the daily reality of the very demographic barely represented in the chamber shaping labour law, education policy, and technology regulation.

 

A legislature dominated by a much older cohort is less likely to intuitively grasp the urgency of these issues, or to legislate with the technical fluency needed to regulate AI, fintech, gig-work platforms, and data privacy — all areas where the underlying technology is moving faster than most lawmakers' direct experience with it.

 

The Nepotism Problem Compounds the Age Problem

Nepotism in politics creates a range of interconnected problems, both practical and democratic: The age gap is worsened by how dynastic Indian politics remains. Analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms found that 21% of India's sitting MPs, MLAs, and MLCs come from political families — with the rate rising to 31% in the Lok Sabha specifically, meaning nearly one in three MPs inherited a family's political capital rather than building their own path from outside the system. This isn't confined to one party: research from Harvard and the University of Mannheim found dynastic representation has historically run at comparable levels across India's two largest parties, with smaller regional parties often showing even higher concentrations of family-based succession.

Dynastic entry tends to reinforce the age problem rather than fix it, since political families often groom successors within established networks and ideologies rather than opening space for genuinely new voices, technical experts, or first-generation entrants — the very people most likely to bring fresh thinking on technology, transparency, and governance reform.

 

What Younger, More Independent Parliamentarians Could Offer

Technological fluency: lawmakers who have built apps, worked in startups, or grown up online are better positioned to write laws for AI, data protection, and the digital economy — rather than legislating a world they only encounter second-hand.

Direct stake in outcomes: younger MPs will personally live with the consequences of today's decisions on climate, jobs, and debt for another 40-50 years, giving them a different relationship to long-term trade-offs than a lawmaker in their 70s.

Disruption of entrenched networks: candidates who rise on merit or grassroots support rather than family name are structurally less indebted to the patronage networks that enable corruption, since they owe less to inherited alliances and favours.

Closing the representation gap: a legislature that mirrors the country's actual age profile is likely to produce policy that reflects lived priorities rather than assumptions about what young people need.

 

The Counterargument Worth Taking Seriously

None of this means age or lineage alone determines merit, and a fair treatment of this topic has to acknowledge the other side:

Experience has real value: Legislating well requires understanding institutions, coalition-building, and the slow mechanics of governance — skills that often take years to develop, and older MPs bring institutional memory that a fully inexperienced legislature would lack.

Young and dynastic are not mutually exclusive: Many of India's youngest MPs today are themselves the children or spouses of established politicians, meaning "younger parliamentarians" alone does not automatically solve the nepotism problem — dynasties have simply started grooming successors earlier.

Some structural reforms matter more than age: Critics argue the deeper fixes are things like state funding of elections, curbing the enormous cost of campaigning (a major reason parties lean on wealthy or well-connected candidates), and strengthening intra-party democracy — reforms that could open the door to younger and non-dynastic candidates alike, regardless of any specific age target.

Technology fluency isn't strictly generational: Plenty of older policymakers work closely with technical advisors and younger staff, and legislative competence on technology depends more on institutional capacity — expert committees, research wings — than on a lawmaker's personal age.

 

The Bottom Line

The data is hard to argue with: India's parliament has grown older even as India itself has grown younger, and a meaningful share of its members owe their seats to family lineage rather than an independent political rise. Whatever the counterarguments about experience, the case for more younger, technically literate, and less dynastically-tied parliamentarians rests on a simple democratic principle — a legislature should, at minimum, resemble the country it governs closely enough to legislate its future with genuine understanding, not inherited assumption.

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Sources:

- 18th Lok Sabha data (Wikipedia, PRS Legislative Research, ADR);

- India demographic data (UN World Population Prospects, Worldometer, Economic Survey 2024);

- Dynastic politics data (Association for Democratic Reforms/National Election Watch, Harvard-Mannheim dataset via IndiaSpend/Scroll/ThePrint).

 

A thought about the 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan.

Celebrations across the world by Pakistani and Western communities after India paused attacks on terrorism. Remember PM Modi said its pause not the ceasefire as Mr. Trump announced. First, why is Western media celebrating the Pakistani narrative? What are they going to get? Next is why the West adore Pakistan so much that a clear-cut bashing of their crybaby by Indian military power still West tries to console themselves to say that Pakistan still has the stupidity to announce its victories! Does the West believe that Pakistan won this or is it their wilful ignorance? I do not know but what I do know is that Western media is biased towards Pakistan. The good thing being in the UK is I could access the Pakistani media which gives me an idea of western media just playing to the tunes of Pakistani media. It is annoying to see that though Western media has more access to Indian narratives which are produced in the open world with facts and figures of modern-day technology, the West is not ready to rely on them than the concatenated Pakistani narrative without any proof. 

Background to the conflict, the Pakistani general Asim Munir addressed his people and made some Hinduphobic comments. He indicated that Muslims are different from Hindus without even having a second thought about his origin! Can you imagine what would have the West to say if such comments were made by an Indian Hindu leader? What would have been the response of the Western media? His comments were like he is a direct descendant of the prophet Mohammed! Also, his comments were without the understanding that the land he standing is a gift from the Hindu people! He is at the mercy of the same Hindu people who are different from him. He is the occupier! It is like someone wonderer comes to your home and you feel pity on him, offer him some food and shelter. One day he says the bed you provided for him is of his own and he throws you out of the house and claims that the home was always been his own and no one other than him exists! Because the West has provided him with the catchy phrase “Islamophobia”. He can hide behind that and terrorise the world as he wishes. Ironi is the whole world is suffering from the terror of Islamic jehadists, however, the West popularised this catchy phrase and the whole world is incarcerated against the use of any means of force against terror. Did any intellectuals condemn him? 

Every one of these so-called intellectuals became cowered and deceitful by hiding under these fancy words and phrases, without even realising what are we leaving behind for our future generations. Unless we understand there are some basic problems, we will not be able to find solutions. People who are responsible for finding some solution are closing their eyes and pretending like all is well. All is not well, Mr Munir’s kids may not be living in Pakistan. He may have already moved his assets out of that shit hole, he may have 101 exit plans. However what about the common man of that country? Just spilling this kind of poison from the early age of these kids in the name of Madarsas, Mr. Munir is not going to live there as soon his work is done he will disappear to some nice location to spend the rest of his life peacefully when this country is struggling to meet the end and fighting for one meal. 

Do so-called torchbearers of the democracy pin the responsibility on this gentleman? A little bit of background about the country of Pakistan. When Pakistan was divided from India based on religion there were nearly 14% of Hindus, and 8.8% of Sikhis were in Pakistan based on the 1941 census. However, based on the 2023 census Hindus were 2.17% and Sikhis were 0.01%. How systematically religious cleansing happened in that country. Did any Western media, or intellectuals bother about it? This was in addition to the trauma this country caused to the Hindus and Sikhs who were massacred and filled in the railway carriages and sent back to India during the partition. There is no end to the blood bath this country caused to humanity. The Western masters didn’t even blink because they were focused on their goal of having a puppet to control Russia. Since this country is a curse to this region. The rulers and military just sided with the side which gave them money. That is the reason though per capita GDP of Pakistan was higher than India till the 80’s. To date, they already had 25 bailouts by the IMF which is the maximum number of bailouts to a country in the history of the IMFs existence. British created this country to keep control of central Asia. They lost interest USA gave money to control Russia, and Pakistan followed their orders. The USA left China came. Tomorrow China will leave someone else will come. Unfortunately, the common citizen of this country could not even get a penny benefit. Because the money will be distributed to the top politicians and military personnel first. They send their kids to study outside the country. All Politicians and military top brasses have their money siphoned out to the USA, UK, Canada or somewhere in the Middle East. Looks like no one has any interest in developing this country. Everyone uses this country as an experimental ground for their causes including their own leaders! 

Different aspects of this writing are, did Pakistan win the war? Did India achieve its goals? Did India fail to project the supremacy of its technological advancements in modern-day warfare? Did Indian leadership give the impression that it is weak? What next? I would not answer the first question as you will have to figure it out at the end of this as I address other questions in front of me with strong points and leave the first question for you to answer yourself. 

Did India achieve its goals? Need to know what was the goal. PM Modi said in a public address, we will destroy terrorist hideouts which are threatening the Indian state and terrorising Indian citizens also we destroy the people supporting them. When Pahalgam attacked innocent tourists in the state of Jammu and Kashmir of India, terrorists told the surviving tourists ‘Go and tell your Modi’ What does this imply? I take it as we are more powerful than your state and we could do whatever we want to do, wherever we wish, and whichever way we chose. This was the message not only to India it is to any peace-loving democracy in the world that we will not respect your sovereignty and we do what we want to do. This should have been dealt with by other so-called democracies around the world by showing solidarity with India by putting diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to stop harbouring terrorism. Just tweeting their condemnation is not enough. Just calling the Indian PM is nothing it's like someone posting on their social media about a tragedy in their life and all watchers showing some sympathy! 

If the state of Pakistan was unable to control its proxies and kept complaining that they are the victims of terrorism then India would have the will, leadership, and strength. So, if Pakistan is genuine in their commitment to end terrorism they should have thanked India! They kept saying to provide proof. India does not have any more compulsion to provide any proof as in past, On several occasions India provided proof however, Pakistan failed to act on them and little is left for India to fall into that trap again. Though on previous occasions when India provided the proof, Pakistan just rubbed off to say it had nothing to do with us, now their ministers come out to agree that we did dirty work for the West in the past! They kept falling into their own trap. So, they will come out in future to accept the incidents happening today. They said India targeted civilians, and now it's an open secret to the whole world that the whole family of the most wanted terrorist was wiped out and the funeral was attended by the top military officials. India provided satellite images pre and post-attack at their press conferences. Contrary to this Pakistani press conferences the proofs they provided were of social media! A responsible government saying the proof of their words is social media and Western media agreeing with that narrative! 

India has shown great professionalism in information sharing as well. The press briefings were done after the initial attack on terrorist camps by the people who were responsible for the operation, the two officers from the Indian army and the air force with the foreign secretary. Then government informed Pakistan about the operation and its intent also told that it was a measured action not escalatory. Then the retaliation from Pakistan was very irresponsible. Because any professional attack on military installations must be specific and measured. So-called Pakistani retaliation was neither specific nor measured. Trying to attack with hundreds of military drones is not specific to any target. Thanks to the efficient Indian integrated air defence system, which destroyed all the drones. Every night Pakistan kept sending drones and firing erratically at civilians along the line of control, causing damage to civilian life and property was only an act of cower not an act of professional fighting force. Now the aim of the Indian forces changes from destroying terrorist camps to destroying the sources attacking innocent civilians. Pakistani minister told in their parliament that Madarsa children are the shield for their cowardly acts. Also by then Indian forces established that Pakistani armed forces used civilians as shields by launching artillery attacks from the civilian area and also kept the civilian aircraft operating in the highly sensitive area! Also, their old threat of nuclear power was repeated by their politicians. There was no option left for professional armed forces other than targeting their launch pads. The result is for the world to see If the world opens the eyes not to blindfold towards their mischievous grumbler! All the major airstrips were wiped out by Indian missile attacks. No one knew what happened to the so-called Pakistani air defence system delivered by China! They did not have any clue of where when and how Indian missiles hit the target with pinpoint precision. Bellyacher ran to their masters (USA) with tears! Masters called India and India agreed to pause as their objective was achieved. India did not have any intentions of escalation as India had better work to do. They are fully committed to their development agenda, no time for all these small games. I did feel initially that it was too immature of India to terminate the operation as they already started off so well and they should have finished it once and for all. 

According to Arab news1 every hour this war costs around $1 billion. Of which Pakistan spends around 15-20% and it costs about the rest of 80-85%! This is because of the cheap Chinese equipment used by Pakistan as compared to high-spec Rafael fighter jets and BrahMos missiles. An analysis report (2) done by the Mumbai-based think-tank Strategic Foresight Group in 2004 titled “Cost of Conflict”, the group analysed military expenditures of the two countries to conclude that even low-intensity warfare could have “financial costs, human lives and policy losses”. Each war, 1948, 1962, 1965, 1971, and 1999 Kargil cost the nation enormously. Low-intensity conflict with Pakistan may squeeze out 3% of the Indian economy. 

On the flip side, India’s main agenda now is development and full focus should be on that, doing the bare minimum to the other obstacles on the way. Not to waste any time and resources on a failing state like Pakistan. India should just ignore all these distractions and run with development so fast that no one can catch it. Rest will be addressed itself. We wasted a lot of time since independence without any strategies for a bright future. Now the leadership is focused, people are motivated, time is now to show the world how India can lead the next era. 

So India has achieved the goal and never said it’s ceasefire! 

Did India fail to project the supremacy of its technological advancements in modern-day warfare? The answer is yes. As Austrian military expert Tom Cooper explained this was the next generation war. Though Pakistani politicians said there was a dog fight! India clearly said we never crossed the line of control all our actions were this side of the line of control. Which means all attacks happened beyond visual range! India launched all its attacks on only Pakistani military installations beyond visual range. West can’t believe itself in a country like India, a few years ago Americans refused to share cryogenic technology, and developed its own cryogenic satellite launchers! Americans were not keen to sell any military equipment now American offering 5th generation fighter. Indian missiles  has successfully struck their sniveller allies’ heart of operations! West was delusional and agreed with their pet’s narrative that we hit the Indian air defence system; and Indian military installations the proof is the social media! What else is needed for India to prove in modern-day warfare? People who can see something we could take them to the thing and show them and explain to them what it is. People who don’t want to see the effort of showing things is futile. 

Only Sky News was a bit suspicious of the Pakistani victory as they had firsthand experience of Pakistani colour in Yalda Hakim’s interview with the Pakistani defence minister’s acknowledgement of support to terrorism in past! Though Mr. Defence Minister openly unveiled the Western hypocrisy, the West had so much hatred for India that they were ready to stomach the affront caused by comments. 

Indian PM did the right thing by addressing the armed forces from the spot which Pakistan claimed it destroyed on the backdrop of the air defence system (S400) it claimed it demolished! Still west is blindfolding itself to cheer its squawker! Mr Modi reminded English-speaking cheerleaders it is not a ceasefire it's only a strategic pause! 

Did Indian leadership give the impression that it is weak? 

No, following the Pehalgam terrorist attack, meticulous strategic meetings set objectives, must have discussed the backlash of the UN members, waited for everyone’s opinions though they didn’t matter to India at this stage, clear cut responsibilities to each one of the government machinery assigned and the PM of India roared to the disruptive forces to be ready for the consequences and warned the west in their language to expect the brute force of India and keep their whining baby to ready for the outcomes of its misdeed. Cry-baby had a new nanny by now in the name of China. India did not care much about the new childminder as its forces had full faith in their abilities. 

A weak leader will panic and make a hasty decision or become inert under pressure. Enough examples in front of us. First in 1947 proxy fighters of Pakistan attacked the state of Kashmir. Though Indian forces defeated them, the leadership decided to accept the illegal occupancy of the partial state of Kashmir. In the 1965 operation, Gibraltar Pakistan lost again and with Tashkent Declaration victories Indian leadership left Pakistan to have a smug smile. Again in 1971 velour of Indian forces broke Pakistan into two by creating Bangladesh. However, the leadership decided to let Pakistan let off the hooks by sending the 93 thousand prisoners of war to Pakistan unconditionally. Still, Pakistanis brag about it as their win in that war and Bangladesh forgot the help India did from the ethnic cleansing Pakistan tried to do in Bangladesh with their people and today Bangladesh joined hands with the same Pakistanis against India! In the 1999 Kargil war Indian forces had the upper hand nothing much for India to celebrate other than victory. In between these major conflicts innumerable violations of the ceasefire on LOC, several terrorist attacks like the Bombay attack, the Indian Parliament attack list goes on. Though Samjotha express blast was attached to Swami Aseemanad, there wasn’t enough evidence to prove it as observed by the court. Also given the anti-Hindu agenda of the then government credibility of the claim is also questionable. Though the USA Department of Treasury designated terrorists from Lashkar-e Tayyiba as a person involved Indian government did not pursue it because of the prejudice they had to demon the RSS. 

Out of power, chest-thumping opposition about their past glory about their leadership could be blamed on all occasions as by winning wars they could not secure India’s integrity. After winning the wars they left the Pak-occupied Kashmir to Pakistan and came back. There is every reason for today's Pakistan to claim that they won all the wars as where is the medal for India? Is it not the failure of leadership? 

In 2016 Uri terrorist attack happened. India retaliated. Withdraw from the SAARC summit, surgical strikes conducted and destroyed terrorist launch pads by crossing the line of control. Objective achieved. 2019 Pulwama attack. Indian forces targeted an airstrike on the Balakot terrorist camp and destroyed it by crossing again the line of control. Objective achieved. Compared to the cold shoulder response to the Mumbai attack which killed 175 people with an established link to Pakistan by captured terrorist and their telephone conversation interceptions, the leadership didn’t bother to do anything other than condemnations as if someone died somewhere in a corner of another universe! I will leave this one to you to decide Is the leadership of today weak? What next? Remember operation Sindoor is not over, this is a strategic pause! Weak people either don’t respond or respond with panic. This is a new India we are not weak. So, we respond responsibly. Our response is measured and precise because we do not have any time to spend on barking dogs as we are busy with our main agenda of development. If the West want to blindfold to console their crybaby please put your baby in the credal and look after it. If you let it loose India will show its place and bundle it into a coffin. 

No intimidation with nuclear threat will work, neither your new nannies’ gimmicks. Now the first question: did Pakistan win the war? Now it is left to your imagination to answer this question. Is Pakistan your crybaby or are you a pragmatic, dialectic human being? A person who truthfully seeks reality will reach the right conclusion. A delusional person will have a prejudiced conclusion. 

1. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2600663/pakistan 

2.https://www.strategicforesight.com/publication_pdf/91581Cost%20of%20Conflict%20Between%20India%20and%20Pakistan.pdf

What’s up with India ?

Since I left India in 2004, never thought about our history or culture. I thought I am a rebel cool Indian, don't have to be proud of my culture or heritage. Once I started settling down I the UK which took me a long 3 to 4 years, developed a skill of critiquing my views myself. I think till then my education thought me, revise the syllabus thought in the class room and get a good score (which I never did) your life is done. When I looked at the people in the western countries, it really amazes me. Here kids with aspirations of becoming bus driver, train driver, car mechanic, bike mechanics were everywhere! Coming from India where, when the fatuous is still in the womb parents start grilling the baby to be a doctor or an engineer. I think my answer to my basic question of why western countries are so prosperous compare to us was answered. Our education system sold a myth to us that population is a curse to India because of population we are not able to prosper. Now I feel that our politicians try to hide their inability to perform under this explanation and we the students in 70's - 90's bought it! Another narrative was British's looted India and spread the golden carpets on the streets of London! When reached London it looks like they hid that golden carpet under British parliament. Neither I could find any if the copper rails they brought from India and installed in all of their train lines! Does Indian mindset need to change? Absolutely, people in India need to realize, to build a society its not only doctors and engineers required but also, we need plumbers, builders, cleaners, drivers etc. In fact, doctors and engineers are the least needed to build a basic house and run day to day life. Parents are creating doctors and engineers like robots, not because their son or daughter want to be one, it’s because their neighbors’ kids are doctor and engineer. No farmer want his son or daughter to farm. They wanted them to be a doctor or an engineer and go to city and work and send money so that they can convert the land to buildings and no need to farm. No point in blaming only the people’s mindset also the government doesn’t understand the importance of farmers. Stupidest law is that inheritance property should be divided equally to all the kids. As I know in my village there were two large landlords. One of them was my grandfather who had 7 boys and 3 girls. When all the land was with my grandfather, my dads one of the brother was looking after whole property and farming the whole land with brilliant managerial qualities. He managed whole property with the clock work accuracy and when my grandfather distributed to all kids, none of them could manage the way my uncle run the show. Over the period of time all farming stopped and when next generation took over the diluted property, farming is not feasible. So, all buildings came in the framing land! The fat with another huge land lord in the village as well. Other small farmers situation was pathetic that by the second generation there was no property left to divide and they all landed in court to fight for the property! In India people/ governments think development is building infrastructure and huge buildings. Another funny thing is always build for today. There are roads which they built after I left Bangalore and when they finish building them they are already congested! This is the reason in Bangalore like cities constructions never stops because planners plan the infrastructure for today not for future!. I feel the worshiping individual person mentality is another biggest problem. We see the heroes in a politician on his way to face the judiciary! This is serios issue. Are we telling our kids to be like them? May be they are not prosecuted yet and we all know how the judiciary works in India. Enough evidences are in front of us where a person’s crime is well recorded however the police deliberately fail to provide them in in the court and person go free and carry on doing the crime again. Still when the person is on his way to judiciary he will have a heroic farewell and on way back again a heroic welcome! It’s not a Bollywood movie it is the everyday affair in India! Number of politicians faced corruption charges came back from jail on bail and stood for election and won. There are people fought elections from jail and won! And we expect change! When ruling party blame the opposition and opposition blame the ruling. They have an understanding when opposition comes to rule they just blame the previous ruling party without conducting any legal actions and vice versa happens after sometime. Common public nicely become fool and another man come in and play victim card and form another party and get votes he does the same when he gets power! BJP accused Congress for corruption and had a big agitation and movement and heads rolled. In election BJP came up with majority could do anything independently number of congress ministers accused of corruption are free and still sitting MPs in the parliament. If they haven’t done corruption where did all the money go? If they have done corruption, why are they free outside. If you could wake the supreme court judge for some silly reasons in the middle of the night and get a decision whey, couldn’t you do something about the Crs of public money lost for corruption? Meanwhile an educated man Kejriwal took an advantage of the situation and started looting people if he is an honest man why Anna left him? Why when his party politicians charged with corruption he is arranging a large heroic sent offs? Why his politicians get a luxury treat in jail? Every election he shed crocodile tears and play victim card and people become fools easily. AAP and BJP legislators fight like thugs in municipality assembly. Because they are sure that when they come back to ask the vote people still vote them! Indian politicians know memory of people is very short. Then how could you blame politicians? In Karnataka BJP blame Congress for corruption and threaten them that they are going to take action. When Congress comes into power they blame BJP of corruption Indians develop software for whole of the world however when we go to India the “on-line” concept is very different! Every government office we go they say everything is online now. However, when you fill up the form there are no submit button! Upon enquiry they say that fill up online and print and bring the copy!!! I think its attitude of people is the biggest problem. Specially those ones who never traveled outside becomes very defensive as soon we start talk about the difference between India and outside world. Best defense is as soon you criticize the system in India they say why you came back you should stay in the place where the system is good! I think this is the reason the system will never change in India. Impatient younger generation is another cause. Young people are impatient any where however recently parents became so busy and no time for kids made impact on the kid’s attachments with family values and kids are more parented by electronic devises make their human touch more impatient. It’s the problem in India it’s a worldwide scenario however its more visible in family orientated Indian families. Skipping the red signal, riding motor bikes on foot path, driving the car between the 2 lanes, not following the speed limit, driving the car in one way, driving on the opposite lane in a high way, we take pride in doing such rule breaking acts and then we complain about others and say India will never improve!

Breaking India Forces

Speeches from Rahul Gandhi at Cambridge University and the British parliament are unfortunately another example of breaking India forces in action. When a family has a difference of opinion they must sit across the table and sort it out. Not calling the neighbour and requesting them to attack the house and break it. I could see why the congress government is obsessed with worshipping Tippu Sulthan in Karnataka. A person who wrote a letter to Calipha of Iran to attack India to make India a part of Caliphat and demolish the Kafers. I can draw similarities when Rahul Gandhi requested the west to save Indian democracy! The very same forces who colonized India! Similarities can be drawn between king Ambhi who invited Alexander to attack India. Why Rahul Gandhi became popular because of his anti-India speech last year. I think he gets excited to see the suit-booted people following him when he arrives at Heathrow, which does not happen in India as most of the suit-booted people in India are very well aware of his credibility. It is the right time for the Indian parliament must adopt a law that the parliamentarians must have a minimum attendance or else they should be disqualified. No one in the west will verify his attendance at work before drawing a conclusion that democracy is dead in India because that narrative is convenient to break India. It is unfortunate that from history to the present the enemies lay within India more than outside. Outside enemies visible can be handled. However within are more dangerous as they assimilate with the population and they think they are not visible to the public. Because they still live in the olden days of Doordarshan! They are unaware that commoners in India moved on from Doordarshan to satellite channels to OTT platforms much faster than the west! They don’t know that the commoner has the power of information technology even in the remotest part of India. Rahul Gandhi thinks democracy is under attack because his understanding of democracy is corrupt. He thinks that democracy doesn’t have the right to question the rulers. Because in his party rule time, politicians were not asked the question about their wealth. Now anancies are scrutinizing all deals of state governments as the priminister can not keep an eye on every state matter and states are not happy as they are questioned now or asked for accountability. Is it wrong? Some journalists who were in the pay role of the government previously enjoyed the travel in government jets when a PM visited abroad, and enjoyed the champagne at the government's cost are now crying the press freedom because PM bared them from the government flights! I as a common man feel that all people crying about injustice in India now are the ones who have still that colonial mentality. White BABOO’s are always right. White-coloured baboo’s are always right. Don’t question the person in power because I am the almighty. I can do corruption in the name of Gandhi though I don’t have any relationship with him and he is my brand name, no one else has the right to that GANDHI brand!!!!!!

My journey to understand Indian History - intellectuals

Recently number of historians born with newer outlook for Indian history. I think Arun Shourie try to write some corrections to Nehruvian history and maybe he was a minority then. However now it looks like newer genre are coming up with more resilience and young people are out of influences of Gandhi and Nehru notion. Also, this new generation ready to change the perception and admissible to newer thoughts with authentication. Also, the abandons of authentications around due to access to information. My dad always thought that British brought prosperity to India. According to him British should have ruled India for another 3decades at least. Also, he thought British brought railway, bank, post office to improve Indian civilization. He lived much of his life in congress rule and he thought it will never change. His assumption was Corruption and dishonesty engraved in Indian culture at least British would have removed it to some extent. His belief was British brought civilization to India and he thought they could have tried to rebuild India like Briton. I won’t blame him for his beliefs. Because of two factors one he born and lived most of his life in British and congress India and two he never studied that much to do his research’s, as he was busy in looking at how to provide his family fir the day and how to come out of grueling poverty throughout his life. Since i came out of India I found another factor that he never traveled outside India so he could not comprehend India in the free environment without censorship and he believed whatever he was told. I think after 2014 he felt that there is meaning for independence and hope for Bharath. Though my relationship with him never gave me a chance to discuss these things with him still I could see change in his outlook by listening to his conversation with other people. Himalayan Blunder by John Dalvi was the first book I read made me to start look at history of India with different perspective. I was told my someone in India about this book however it was one of the banned books in India and got hold of a copy in the UK. Later when ban was lifted Ravi Belageri a noted journalist from Karnataka translated to Kannada and i brought a copy of that as well. Further stared reading Dr. Subramaniyan Swamy and he started making sense. I read Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out, though didn’t accept everything still made some sense. Mean time listening to Tarek Fatah and reading his books and some readings about Caliphate started making me to think about India’s history more and more. Also it made sense when read recently "THE MOPLAH REBELLION, 1921" BY Dlwan Bah and C. Gopalan Nair. Rajeev Malhotras books gave a newer outlook for modern history of India and where we stand in a global stage. Arun Shourie has my due credit for making me to look at Indian history with different perspective from Mughals brought literature and architecture to India, British brought culture and technology to India and unified India under the name, Gandhi's "Ahinsa" brought freedom from British, Nehru’s rule brought prosperity. But Mr. Shourie's "Eminent Historians" started shaking my believes and made me to start digging in to history of India. Living in the UK gave me access to materials which may not be available in India before the information revolution like internet and publication censored in India. Strangely another speaker impressed me and influenced me to read history is Tarek Fatah. I don’t recollect exactly when I started watching him and I know that I started reading him after the Subramaniyan Samys book. These above authors and speakers made me curious about real history. Specially Arun Shouries books made me to think seriously about the necessity of every Indian to know the real history. As i started this journey the myths of Mughals and British started busting. Also started getting the first-hand experience of how British use people to get to their end met and leave the mean to deal with consequences. My friends back in India started feeling I am becoming intolerant! That is the buzz word I try to explore Intolerant Indian!!! India is intolerant is another propaganda created and spread by west and so-called intellectuals of India. These so-called intellectuals see pride in demeaning India all the time. They live in a bubble of their own imaginary world where they hallucinated by all are stupids around them and they only have the heavenly foresight which gives them a clear picture of the future based on todays incidents. They are so delusional they don't even think before open their mouth and they are disorientated that they don't know when they speak, each word come out of their mind is mortifying the country! And western countries hell bent on degrading India get amused by their idiocy and applaud them for their abhor towards their own people! These so-called intellectuals are so silly and they think whole world around them so dumb that when people around them laugh, they think they are appreciating their intelligence! When whole world not even open the eye for civilization, in India people-built universities, when India had well established acritarches people in the west still may be living in the caves! When people were tortured and killed for talking against beliefs of church, quran, in India religious people celebrated "Nirishvara vada”!. When the Abrahamic religions punishing people by killing them for their questioning the religious authorities, in India social reformers came into existence time and time and their reforms did much to ameliorate living standards. There are number of religions originated from Sanathana Dharma and no one prosecuted Charvaka, Gautham Budha, Mahaveera. Reformers like Madwacharya of south India did not accepted people like Manu and said he was a man had fall of with his wife while writing the Manu smruthi! Though west and intellectuals keep screaming that Indian society strongly built on the basis of Manu Smruthi, I never heard anyone in south India considering it as an important basis for day to days life. When the world still struggling without a language of communication, we had one of the most advanced language and literature called Samskritha and Vedas! so called intellectuals still could not comprehend the what was told in Vedas and could not understand the etymological complexities of Samskritha language. Have they used so called intelligent brain on understanding what was told in Vedas rather blatantly criticizing them and their beliefs they would have become real intellectuals! When the west fighting for monopoly of Christianity by the name of crusaders, when Muslims killed their own people for caliphate, in India we welcomed Muslims, embraced Christianity, built communities for world over prosecuted Jewish people, polish people escaped the injustice and found home in India. Persians found a second home in medieval period to escape from Muslim atrocities. However, the so-called intellectuals found Indian Hindus intolerant!!!!! I strongly condemn the so-called Wikipedia intellectuals. Recently they lost the stage in India and they started traveling regularly outside of India and breaking India forces are their audiences. It’s unfortunate that with this history west teaching India the tolerance and so-called Indian intellectuals are the devil’s advocates. Recently a friend of my had a conversation with me on my views and he deiced I am intolerant and divisive and try to brush me off. I engaged him and he said where is the end and what are my expectations? Do we need to send all other religion people out of India? My answer is “No” they are as Indians as I am, may be more. Only thing is all should accept as Indians first before what is their religion. Also, we need role models like Abdul Kalam, Abdul Hamid, and accept the Indian democratic system. CONTINUES…………