India the superpower ... not

Came across this hard hitting article on India's current economic state. I receive a mail forward almost every week from all the tops and dicks and Harry's on why India is a super power; they talk about the IT sector and the growth of the middle class and the rise of consumerism and a lot of other such external polishes which only is true for the minuscule portion of the population. It's true when Maybach came out with the world's richest car it was prebooked for two years in India but it does not speak well of the fact that for every such maybach buyer there were a million looking for their next meal.

So of my friends might take offense to this article and may even go so far as to call it a western attempt to diminish (sic) India's image. But the fact remains that reality bites. There is no point in blowing the trumpet that Indian Americans are the richest ethnic group in America why the rest of the population back home is beset with poverty and corruption.

Freedom

I was at the world war II memorial in London the other day and came across these words "... gave their lives for the freedom of the world ...". The irony of the statement wouldn't strike everybody, but being that I am from a former colony of the British Empire, it was an eye opener. This statement was made when numerous countries including mine was under the oppressive English hands.

Does freedom only belong to a select few individuals? Or does it only belong to the people that the media says it belongs too? In this day and age when everything gets a sense of legitimacy by using the word freedom, it is imperative on us to consider the broader picture and not confine our self to our narrow world view.

The Indians and the Nigerians and the Ugandans and the countless others British colonies deserved their freedom as much as the British or the french deserved from the Germans. Maybe the days of "Dogs and Indians not allowed" are like water under the bridge but it is still trying to repeat it in different fashions! And history be damned there are always enough snoots around to spoil the broth for us.

So people might think that I am just joining the rhetoric of bashing the British of yesteryear but then you are not in my shoes. Sometimes my blood just boils over when I hear of the hypocrisies of "freedom loving" "democratic" countries which try to take the glory for all the world's good and nothing of the blame for it's evil.

The English bashing probably is because of my first trip there and the sight of the Kohinoor diamond on the queen's crown, instead of being in the hands of an Indian. That being said no freedom is 'freedom' until it belongs to everybody. There is no clause to withhold it from a few or from the dis-advantaged.

On a personal note the pictures are available on my diary