Dumplings on a Rainy Day and Croaking of an Old Toad

 

Soul is the real substance! This physical being is just the shadow of that true self. Ironically we grow up believing the shadow to be the substance and substance to be the shadow. It requires reverse conditioning to be truly on the path of evolution.

***

For good people it’s very difficult to enter a relationship and still more difficult to come out of it! For bad people it’s very easy to get into a relationship and still easier to come out of it!

***

There is no absolute truth. All we have is just a pliant, relatively swaying sea of fractional truths. We draw out our suitable share of tit-bits of truths from this sea to complement our sense of identity with the self, i.e., ego, self-consciousness, our perception of the things, our vision of the world and the people around. 

***

  

Women are humanist! Almost perfect except one thing! Their humaneness crosses the zone of perfection and slightly touches an arena where bitchiness for their own sex starts in free flow. It is here the man's chance to appease his women opens up its welcoming arms. A man has to realize that it is more practical to say a few negatively critical remarks about other women than millions of appreciating words about his woman!

***

In the burning whirlpools of the desert storm, some tears shed by a suffering heart vaporize and go high in the sky for rainy prospects. Don’t get senty guys, it’s just an airy oasis.

***

Don't take victory for granted. She is a very choosy bride. She has her own, sometimes illogical, criteria to pick up the groom.

***

A nuclear bomb undoes all other types of technical superiority in conventional warfare. Similarly, leaps in space technology will see a country undoing various technical superiorities in the hands of rival countries on land.

***

To escape boredom, a man has to just extend his normal schedule; the same extension, which overlaps a woman's effort to tide over her boredom, turns her into a sinner.

***

The best compliment for my book Faceless Gods was by my friend's six-year-old daughter. Struggling to hold the fat book in her small hands, and lost in the dense text, she gave the expert review, "Uncle has got a very nice handwriting."

***

Truth need not be salted. Even in its bland form, it's more vocal than any well-peppered, politically correct, hypothetically safe and socially convenient cuisine.

***

We deserve our airy moments—little-little somersaults and froggy jumps over life's grounded roadblocks; tiny ballooned flights above the rough, rugged realities on the surface. But we must not forget, we are terrestrial beings not the airy angels. So guys ensure that you land rightly on your feet after airy jaunts and not crash-land on your bum.

***

Staring at the misty past

and forcing myself not to see the future eager to unfold itself too fast,

I wave at the nostalgic strains still beckoning and faintly alive,

How I wish I could dive

back into the pools of the past,

To have my moments last

at a place that held me in its cradle soft,

That pious embrace which still holds me aloft!

A Brush with Truth beyond the Pale of Opinions

 

Salutes existential intelligence! At the low tide, I left a trail of footsteps on the soft seaside sand. Then the high tide came and cleaned the slate for somebody's fresh journey. We just write the same lines over and over on the same slate. Life is one. It's not a noun. It is basically living, a throbbing and ever-persistent verb. Throbbing in totality, driven by an ever-expanding code of cosmic intelligence, which allows a bird weighing 10 grams, and insects weighing in milligrams, to accomplish what we can’t do with our 2 kg brain. And existence lives through different things, phenomena, processes and characters. It's just a quizzical interplay of earth, water, fire, air and ether. 

***

"...large animals, particularly cows, are aware of their impending slaughter well before it happens. Consequently, they experience high stress levels, which generate a tremendous amount of acidic content in their systems. This, in turn, has its own adverse effects on those who later consume the meat." —Sadhguru in Inner Engineering.

Now I understand why cow-eaters face so many problems, especially the ones who do halal, torture, before slaughter because it is just implanting them with poison. Well, the debate should be kept beyond religion. It's basically what is good for the human system and what is not. The benefits of a live cow, as an integral part of the rural economy, are far more than a slaughtered one. In Rwanda, the gift of a cow, girinika, meaning god bless you with the gift of a cow, is helping in rebuilding a society ravaged by civil, ethnic and tribal wars. The moment two parties at loggerheads gift each other a cow, it is accepted as a truce and confidence building measure. The President there has started a girinika program, which has revolutionized the meaning of rural development, using cow as a partner in the rural economy.

***

In the power game, humanely inferior, very unfortunately though, almost always defeats humanely superior.

"A bigger civilization is always defeated by a lower civilization. India was continuously defeated because of her higher civilization. People were more at ease, not in the mood to fight. They were enjoying life. Those who aren't enjoying life, they are ready to fight. If life is beautiful, you can bless everyone. If your life is in difficulty, in turmoil, you can kill, you can become destructive."__Osho

Why India only, now we understand why Tibet was gobbled up by an ever-hungry China. Now we understand why the people from some belief systems are more prone to hate killings. The only exception to the above seems to be America. But then possibly we shouldn't interpret technological advances as a mark of civilization.

***

Be the king in your small world. There are just dozens around us who have achieved more than us at the cost of far less struggle and effort than us. But there are millions who have nothing like us, even though they have struggled thousand times more than us. The numbers involved in this simple mathematics should make us proud and satisfied with whatever we have achieved and given by life. So smile, feel lucky and look at the small world, your own world, around you. It is bigger and better than you ever thought. Just that you have always been looking sideways to the taller structures. Don't worry, the inhabitants over there are even more anxious than you. They have their own still bigger world to ogle at and feel sorry for themselves. You are a 'being', a phenomenon, who can exist in the present. So simply be with the moment in your small world. That's what we call by being with your own self.  

A Little Lantern of Truth

 

Ordinary beings possess extraordinary potential to win against odds, to jump over hurdles, to smile over tears, and, most importantly, to be happy when there aren’t enough reasons to be. They are the faceless constituents of a massive commonality. They are surrounded by a swiping generality. They are colored in the monochromes of mundane reality. Still they are special. We have to acknowledge and celebrate the extraordinary in the ordinary people. I see heroes and heroines in the small protagonists on the stage of life. They fight, and oftentimes fail, but write a little passage in the infinite book of life: an ordinary life that was lived substantially. On the small stage of life, they live very intensely. Somehow, the world would not be the world that is still beautiful without their contribution. They heave humanity onwards in its march to some better destination.

***

Of all types of death, including by disease, accidents and ageing, the death born of someone's hate is the worst. Hate-born death slaughters the core principle of being human. It strangulates the basic constituent of our collective consciousness to survive individually as a part of bigger collectivity at the social level, a literally must-have for our identity as much as oxygen is must for our biological survival. Hate has potent carriers. It breeds death with the weapons of religion, caste, creed, race and ethnicity. From Nazi Holocausts and communist purging to modern day ISIS slayings, hate wreaks the worst form of death. Death born of hate is the very negation of the meaning of life.

***

The death of a moth! Don’t feel guilty if you find it inconsequential like the shifting of a speck of dust. Does nature evaluate things on the scale of huge and small, like the death of a moth and the collapsing of a mammoth star? Maybe, maybe not! I definitely find it a momentous occasion when the moth takes its last sigh! Kindly don’t laugh at me and condemn me as someone prone to making mountains out of molehills. Even physics is now going into super-small entities in the tiniest wombs of sub-atomic particles to unravel the ultimate mystery. Coming back to the moth, its corpse shakes involuntarily today like it fluttered consciously yesterday. The only difference is that yesterday its littlest ounce of consciousness was still inside this tiny milligram of a body. Today but that ounce of consciousness has spread to become part of everything. The matter now moves to the force of everything around: Transition from life to matter. What about the consciousness that moved it? Here I stand and there flutters the moth corpse to free winds. Yesterday, exactly at this time, I saw it crawling on the floor. Little did I realize that it was on its death bed! Now it becomes part of everything to take its consciousness at this frequency on the further march of evolution of consciousness, just like species have evolved at the level of biology, at the level of matter. Matter and consciousness both evolve. There are parallels. We just need to be aware of it and it becomes a very much realizable process.

The Real 'Wrong'

 

Well, most of us commit our wrongs with a sense of duty, a sort of commitment, with a kind of frenzied sense of occupation. If not for this, so many of us will not be found ready, almost instinctively, to go the wrong way rather than volunteering to do something good. So, the ‘wrong’ seems to have its justification born of those perceived duties by the doer.

A hierarchy of sieving then decides not so common from the common-most crop. At the first level of filtration, the finest wire-mesh allows majority of the mob of wrongdoers trickle down into the dustbin of petty wrongs on the smallest stage closest to earth in crowded slums, stinking nullahs, mucking markets and laboring beehives, where the fight for survival saps most of the energy, leaving very little escapades, now and then, in the frustrated minds. The bigger, fat, rascally particles stay above on the screened, perforated platform and engage in higher wrongs on a more substantive stage.

Now, the second level of sieving takes place among the thicker rascal-heads, the bigger baddies, or the plumpier daddies of the trade. The holes in the wire-mesh are bigger than the previous one. A lot many foolish gallants topple down, so many die, get beaten, imprisoned and clobbered down to survive at the second tier of wrongdoing. They slide down the screening holes at the second tier and settle for bigger wrongs than the lowest mass. As expected, the still thicker ones get a chance to play the wrongdoing game at the next level. Here, the stakes are higher. The risks involved are bloody, but so are the returns, which hit the proportions of Himalayan jackpots.

To qualify to stay above the screening mesh at the third level, the thickheaded pebbles, veritable stones, quibble, use brain as well as brawn, and mostly utilize the muscle of the toppled down smaller particles at the level immediately below, and the ignorance of the ant-swarms at the bottom.

In this final sieving, the biggest mafias, cartels and powerful politicians stay afloat to rule at the apex. Now they decide what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’. All other versions of right and wrong at the lower rungs lose their meaning. On the lower platforms, murders, rapes, felonies and thefts come to be mere stats in the law and order book. These are mere social problems and hardly matter as long as these don’t shake the foundations of the state, i.e., interests of the ones qualifying to be filtered at the highest sieve.

One can commit a murder on the lower rungs and still be considered a foolish nonmalignant element. However, if a sound brain, even in the frailest and most non-violent of a body, raises a verbal assault against the wrongdoers at the apex, he then becomes the most lethal anti-state, malignant criminal. The state is basically not bothered about the marketplace cacophony of petty criminalities like someone cutting somebody’s throat, or someone raping, plundering, beating or shouting abuses. These are local police station worthy petty, minor pardonable wrongdoings. These in fact are the cause of creating the bread and butter for a whole damn law-keeping department. The real ‘wrong’ is the ‘wrong’ that shakes the confidence, or throws light, or exposes, the machinations and stratagems of the biggest rascals at the top.

The Sterile Land where Humans acquire a Super-special Shape

 

Well, you might wonder, what is this piece about internecine geostrategic gamble doing here. Beyond the parameters of right and wrong, for geostrategic religion has its own white-blooded pantheon of Gods, it’s the vacuum where lesser mortals like you and me can only fiddle around like scared infants taken into a theatre playing a horror movie. It’s beyond the pale of emotions, love, compassion or most of the things we find related to life and living: a sterile land where a super-species of humans, very close to being super-powered robots, plays its entertainment game. I also visualize a little game with Ajit Dobhal in Afghanistan.

In order to consolidate the non-military Indian rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, the suffering soil of the lost paradise needs Indian boots now. Modi Sahab listening! Modi Sir, it will help Trump also. He is very cranky and pissed off right now, especially after the Greenland fiasco.

Well, the Indian PM is now well known, in fact famous world over, for doing lot many things, which we see happening for the first time. So, why not Indian boots in Afghanistan to restore the rule of law there? It's not that it will help Afghanistan only. It will directly help India in Kashmir also. Violence in Afghanistan and Kashmir share a subtle anatomy. I don’t think there is any doubt about this poignant chemistry. Just peel off the upper layer, use some common sense, and there you see the bitter juicy reality.

So, why not go into the den itself to contain the scourge. A little icing on the cake, it will cheer up Trump also. He is very moody and unpredictable. You may find him having Iftar with Imran Khan, if you leave him alone to suffer with this irritation. Modi Sahab listening? One more thing: by having Indian boots in Afghanistan, you get a strategic location to twist both the right and the left ears of the naughty all-rounder boy.

History gives a little opportunity now and then. There is a little opening for India to consolidate its position now—after all that rebuilding efforts within our limits, which Trump, unfortunately, finds almost inconsequential to the puny extent of just building a library somewhere in the war torn country—by redefining its association in Afghanistan. Trump is willing presently. He seems to have bitten more than he can chew, so needs munching jaws to support the mouthful. If irritated further, who knows, you may have, God forbid, naughty all-rounder boy's boots there, which will be worse.

I know the skeptics will sound a warning about the irresolvable puzzle that Afghanistan is, suitably giving Russian and American examples. But aren't things managed finally by someone? The Indian PM, being an astute human resources actualizer, can definitely count upon Dobhal Sahab. The modern version of Acharya Chanakya has definitely more to offer than assignments like managing Post-370 Kashmir. Modi Sahab count upon him to manage Afghanistan with Indian boots in the once paradisiacal country.

If the whole idea still seems too preposterous and unworkable, go there at least as goddamned UN peacekeeping boots. Graft the American-led NATO forces with a UN peacekeeping mission. The boots will remain the same, with the addition of Indian boots of course, and it will not create a paper revolution in India by the pissed off opposition. Moreover, beyond all the stratagems, the poor country needs a peacekeeping force only. Even in the worst of a situation, a bit of empathy can keep the hopes alive for millions.

The Real Prison

 

You know what, institutions are the mammoth whirlpools, which suck individuals into their all powerful innards. By institutions, I mean the systematized, soulless machinery to achieve dark, power-hungry, ambitious motives—even though a lot many of them pass off as the needs to run the world. Such institutions come in the form of despots, dictators, mafia, corporate cartels, business magnates, hidden heavyweights pulling the strings, the intelligence and spy agencies, politicians, NGOs, and many more. These are the black holes that absorb their own light, hence keeping them hidden.

Those who operate there lose their souls, their sense of right and wrong, as a strange sense of ennui grips them, making them sleepwalking jombies. The institutional juggernaut reaps its crop, while the individual clogs, levers, pullies, nuts and bolts just perform their duties mechanically. Institutions have strange hypnotic powers to put vibrant hearts and independent minds on the chopping block to turn these into suitable mincemeat. The constituents operate like lifeless bottles on the conveyer belt in an assembly line in a factory.

Even the stones change, slowly though, to the cooing calls of varying seasons over decades. The institutions do not. They adapt though to the changing circumstances. However, the core philosophy stays the same. And long after the cog is retired, and regains a fraction of his soul, and sees the grease on his hands, only then he realizes what he has been through. Now he can listen to his heart. His mind now can help him see beyond the factory wall. It does not, but, change anything in the world. Nor it can even if the retired cog tries. All it gives is a guilty bruise to an ageing heart and a sad feeling that life could have been spent better beyond the walls of the institution.

Joseph K. and Me

 

"…if you have the right eye for these things, you can see that the accused men are often attractive. It's a remarkable phenomenon, almost a natural law... accused men are always the most attractive." __Trial by Franz Kafka.

Well, at long last, I find a reason for my weird attractiveness. Haa haa. I also stand accused by the state vigilance commission under Hooda government in Haryana. The report puts me in the ‘tainted’ category to deny me appointment for a covetous post.

Want to know my crime? Actually, I had cracked Haryana PCS exams to get selected as a subdivision magistrate. The honorable Chief Minister and his colleagues, newly drunk with power and prestige, got gastric ulcer over we batch-mates’ tiny feat. So there they order an inquiry in an all authoritative tone. They scanned our answer sheets. Lo, there they found the proof of my crime. It was an expert catch. In one of the answers, the evaluator had changed marking from 2 to 4 with his initials authenticating the change of mind. Now 15 years down the line, having lost the fruit of my 10 years of hardwork, I still wonder how come I stand accused for the evaluator's change of mind, and especially when this addition of 2 marks doesn't affect my selection in any way because even with 2 marks less I still get into the selection list.

So guys, there starts the Trial protagonist Joseph K. type futile struggle. Judges won't understand the rocket science. But do they ever in the cases where mighty state is pitted against some inconsequential subject? After all, they are also part of government, directly or indirectly. There are so many common interests, bordering on gives and takes, among politicians, bureaucrats, judges and businessmen that expecting honesty and fair play seems too optimistic by any yard scale. Anyway, it’s a long story of gross misuse of power by all wings including legislature, executive, bureaucracy and judiciary. Its boring repetition can be spared here. The plot is along too familiar lines like we have grown up watching in typical Bollywood movies. 

Nonetheless, my take away is the strange attractiveness carried by Kafka's accused protagonist in his work Trial. And I like it. Equipped with my accused attractiveness, I sometimes ponder over to find out reasons how come I got only 37% marks in IAS interview even after scoring 54% in mains written, because with this type of score one can easily be among the toppers. Moreover, I also try to find out to this day, how come one PCS board gave me only 36% in interview after I had scored 55% in written mains, which again is a top-worthy score. Well, possibly I scored really low on the scale of political correctness! Anyway, no issues!

So guys, here I stand like Joseph K. when he was executed with final words on his lips, "like a dog!" Heee heee, am I that bad, I sometimes think. Or to rephrase, am I too good for the system? This second option gives more solace, because it provides a sort of self-driven poetic justice. Well, to survive in this world, one has to have grey shades. Not that I don't have mine. Possibly they couldn't spot it. In any case, system's loss, not mine. Heee heee. Again I derive sadistic pleasure with this thought. In any case, it’s high time to realize that it’s almost impossible to win against politicians, if by some quirk of fate you happen to stand in opposition to them. God save you then!

Top of Form

Awe, missed something really important in this lamenting tale! The experience didn’t turn me bitter. I am a sweeter person than what I presume myself to be had I got this so called ‘fruit’ of my efforts. Such experiences launch you too powerfully into the unknown where, if you keep your journey going, some day you reach the self-sustaining orbit of self-realization. Here all previous losses lose their meaning and appear mere milestones helping you to reach the cusp of your destiny. Then you cannot help a smile. With lots of love for all, of course!

Kakistocracy

 

Kakistocracy is defined as ‘a form of government in which the least qualified or most unprincipled individuals are in power.’ It is summarized as the ‘government by the worst elements in the society.’ Isn’t it true generally? I mean leave apart a few exceptions, some luminaries who retained their souls while still on the seat of power, and all you see around are loads of rulers and governments Kakistocratic in nature. Exceptions prove the rules only, by the way. So, to my humble self, the urge to rule comes with a high dose of blind ambition, which definitely eats into one’s loving self. A ruler has to shut off a big portion of his heart to channelize those energies in scheming and plotting. 

The word has Greek origins. ‘Kakos’ means ‘bad’, and its superlative form ‘kakistos’ means ‘as bad as it can possibly get’. Well, I think only its superlative form qualifies one to be a serious contender in the game of ruling. The lesser forms can hardly get you the post of just a village head even in the most democratic form of governance. No wonder, those who deem themselves to be ‘good’ start shivering at the name of the word ‘politics’. Or is it that they put up a varnish of ethics, morality, principles and humanism to hide their inherent weakness, whose shackles they cannot break to compete in the race for the highest stakes, where one’s ambition and concurrent ego gets the best solace. 

Well, before we get into any argument about ‘this system is better than that’ or ‘this ruler is superior to that one’, let’s just be clear on the basic concept of ‘ruling’, the operational part of hunger for power. To be in charge of something bestows ‘power’. The latter provides nutrition to an ambition to grow out of one’s skin and become the destiny-maker of many lesser mortals, the mere meekly subjects. It’s very rarely about being ‘good’ and jumping into the fray with a soul-driven guiding light of altruism to bring good to the masses. If you are fighting such a bloody battle, how will you even think of poor millions, while your own gums are bleeding due to the ever-punching rascally opponents? In a fight how can one remain a saint? And if someone does, then my salutes! There have been a few by the way. But their negligible number proves the point. Moreover, these saintly people, who later on emerged to be rulers, never fought for the craze of the seat of power, instead they struggled for love for the causes beyond their own self.

It’s primarily about beating the ambitious, power-hungry horde running after the coveted seat. Are there decent chances of someone ‘good’—trying to encash a miraculous surprise to somehow get to the top of ladder of ambition—beating the rampaging bulls? Even if destiny plays a joke to put some nice fellow on the hot seat, the poor chap stands stripped naked as an unqualified and weak participant in the game later on. We can thus safely say, if not altogether impossible, there is literally non-existent chance of someone really ‘good’ toppling the stage to perch his bum on the throne. Even after reaching there, how will a decent ass keep glued to the seat, if ‘outright hounds’ are pulling from all directions to dethrone the upright ass? 

Leave apart a few dozen of Abraham Lincolns and Nelson Mandelas, out of thousands and thousands of rulers across all genres of ruling class, starting from unquestioned aristocrats, despots, communist dictators to the modern-day decent democratic representatives, you have trainloads of extra-smart guys who prevailed over—fuelled by a relentless ambition to yield power—the lesser competitors to occupy the throne.

No wonder, in Indian democracy, or for that matter anywhere else in the world, the majority of elected representatives have criminal backgrounds. It needs a lot of ‘hard’ will to get into the corridor of power, man. Of course, the pack-leader has to be the strongest. When did nature decide on good or bad? Isn’t it all about the strongest takes away the trophy in all species? Can it be different in case of humans, who are mere one of the species in nature? It’s basically about those who can make and those who cannot. It doesn’t change the law of neutral existence, if those who cannot make it, pacify their defeat under the principles of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Ethics are very nice pills to cure the stomach pain of being left out.

In the power game to emerge a ruler, the strength is defined by an ability to make mincemeat of the opponent. So when such bloody fights are perpetually going on day in and day out, the little wasps of so called ‘goodness’ hardly stand any chance. Or do they?

Doesn’t it mean that every system of governance, ranging from absolute dictatorship to democracy, is Kakistocratic in nature? We just have the variance of degree of Kakistocracy in one over the other. For example, in communist dictatorship, it’s direct-in-the-face type abuse of power; while it’s indirect, subtle, scheming and tricky in democracy. It doesn’t make one completely into it and the other free of it. You have a Hitler, Lenin or Changez Khan in one set of bloody, gory Kakistocracy. Please wait before you spend all your scorn over these monstrous personas! You may have—actually we have all around—monsters safely hidden under starched white clothing bearing beneficent smiles. It’s a better-looking, affably presented variant of the power-hungry super-species. This one holds its talons under the garb in the softer variant of yielding power like in democracy. 

Best of luck to all who don’t qualify to be a part of the ruling aspirant group! Only superior forces, beyond terrestrial domain, can help you!  

Feeling crestfallen? Please don’t! If your ambition hasn’t breached the critical limit to instigate you to get running after the ruling seat, give yourself a nice little treat at a smalltime, peaceful café. Why? The simple reason is hidden deep in the corridors of your soul. Listen to it. You will get your biggest reward from your real self. There is a thin line between staying human and becoming inhuman. Most of us appear human, but how many of us are in reality? Those who find themselves poor in ambition to ‘rule’ are definitely rich in the treasure of ‘love’. It’s true like some law in science book.

Claws tearing the Lotus in Muddied Waters

 There is a very nice story. During not so old days, cattle thieves played a really professional trick on unsuspecting farmers. Before untying the animal, they used to take the neck bell off. Then one thief made off with the tinkling bell in one direction. Rest of them took buffalo in the opposite direction. Poor villagers pursued the sound. The bell-bearing thief then dropped the bell and would just scamper away in the dark. The poor folks would get the quintessential ghanta and the thieves ran way with cattle and buffalo.

Our politicians do the same to we poor folks. Our cattle comprises education, health, sanitation, employment, security, electricity, law and order, women empowerment, transport, clean water, and so many common things needed to lead a decent life. But then the smart tricksters mislead us with the tinkling bells of Temple-Mosque, Hindu-Muslim, Dalit-Swarna, Bihari-Marathi, etc., etc. So running after the chiming bells of these hyperbolic notes of the bell, the netas sneak out with public money meant for our cattle listed above.

Yours truly literally gets cowardly goose-bumps even at the mention of the word ‘politician’. Still I take tiny pot-shots from a safe distance sometimes just to assuage the feeling that I didn’t do anything while the super-species took away our buffalo. So off and on I have my funny conceptualizations about the political game. Not that I believe in the practicality of my expertise. I fully know that the politicians start to think at a point where your humble colleague in misery stops after giving a full stretch to his imagery. Well, that defines the equation between the ruler and the ruled.

In my poor capacity, I try to make out my understanding of the two major political forces in the country. As much as Congress means systematic, well-oiled corruption, BJP means 'bhai chara bigado'. The former is always there to allow as much plundering of public resources as possible through newest means. The latter, on the other hand, has to aggravate social tensions in the Indian society. India's has been a highly segregated society. It’s always hot. You just need to raise the temperature a bit to boil the thing. The caste system has created a highly compartmentalized society, so much so that the exploitation of the lower castes passes off as a God-ordained system of lower and higher karma.

India I suppose is at least half a century away from becoming a casteless society. It doesn’t seem possible before that to rid the Indian society from this ancient scourge, simply because Indian democracy presently survives on socio-economic, cultural, religious, caste, communal and regional divisions. These are the potent wheels that pull the juggernaut march.

The political parties set up on caste, communal and regional lines need the system of discrimination to survive and excel in politics. The Congress thrives by pandering the tiny evil flickering in the self-seeking masses, turning a blind eye to the short-cuts by the smallest to the biggest, giving them a feeling of milking the cow. It simply makes everybody a partner in the crime.

The BJP thrives on polarization, the oldest mantra with rulers. They divide society along any line of separation visible. Like in UP, where it is Muslims and Hindus, in Haryana they have smartly allowed the Hindu society to be divided as Jats and non-Jats. They are eyeing 74% of non-Jats. Looking at the mass scale vandalism during job reservation stir by Jats, there are many who allege that the government didn't do anything to stop Jats from destroying the properties of non-Jats. They wanted a violent episode, an episode of loss of life and property and most importantly Bhai chara, to keep the fire of divisiveness among Jats and non-Jats burning.

Jats have now literally become Hindu-Muslims of Haryana, almost hated by non-Jats enblock. The BJP's shock tactics of dividing society means at least I am far more moderate than earlier. With corruption Congress tainted the very soul of Indian democracy. Let's see where polarizing forces let loose by BJP take us. It can be far more lethal for the Indian society.

One more thing, Jats may find bonhomie with Muslims of Southern Haryana. Both have their own set of real and imaginary woes against BJP. It will take the total Jat-Muslim combine above 30%, a formidable force. The politics of populist rhetoric, BJP's trademark, may not find many takers in Haryana because the most suitable section culpable to be swayed by sentimental rhetoric, the Jats, given their ever-on-the edge temperament and raw attitude, is feeling left out in the opposite corner in BJP's scheme of polarization.  So the strategy now is to divide Jat vote bank among different parties so that their political effectiveness gets diluted.

Well, as the elections come to the fore, it appears a divided house full of hate, mistrust and mudslinging. It makes me very sad. But well, as they say Lotus smiles from the mud. But then getting muddied before the proverbial Kamal shines above the dirty waters is very discomforting.  

Pseudo-somethings and the Seeds of Poison

 

Charles de Gaulle: “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

There is a very restless breed in our society. Its blood boils like in a revolution. It firmly wants to believe that they are up for an uprising. Gone are the days of blinding fury that engulfed society in fire and fury. The fire now smolders slowly at a temperature where thankfully there is less blood, but more battles of words, opinions and fake wars.

I call them pseudo-somethings. And mind you, they are not the prerogative of one political party. All national and regional parties have their fair share of pseudo-somethings. So we have pseudo-secularists, pseudo-nationalists, pseudo-liberals, pseudo-idealists, etc., etc. Put any positive, healthy ism into political waters and it will turn into pseudo-something.

Pseudo-centrists, pseudo-leftists, pseudo-nationalists and all other pseudo-somethings nurture hate. They are sowing its seeds in young minds, in big volume and at an alarming rate. The seeds are sprinkled on the fertile soil of social media. Youngsters are conveniently taking bites. It’s exciting like having pizza and girl-/boy-friend. They are mixing it with post-modern popular culture. Quit strangely, in the pot on boil, where differences are expected to melt to an integrated mass, differences are burning at different temperatures making a very weird concoction.

Hate is a convenient tool to blind one to logic and sanity. Consumed by hate one is just a part of the human being he/she is otherwise. It combusts the basic moisture of being humane. The core of goodness evaporates. Before dividing communities and individuals, it fractionalizes the carrier of hate itself. As the rhetorical juggernaut carried by the agents of pseudo-X—as funny, quirky and politically self-seeking as the pseudo-antiX—moves on, divisions in the Indian society take even more dangerous turns.

Pseudo-nationalists beating those not ready to stand up to the national anthem, mobs lynching the rumored beef carriers, and student organisation members attacking a literary gathering at a Delhi college where somebody might have expressed a different point of view. These are as petty and self-seeking pills of intoxication, as are the mild dose of self-gratifying sips popped in by pseudo-secularists.

The sky-high stack of the fodder of division in the Indian society is always pining for the matchlock of somebody’s ambition. It then bursts forth. It explodes. People suffer, but someone gets power. Hate has been the instrument of Indian political system, as much as it was responsible for partition at the time of independence.

Hate as a power-grabbing instrument has been the favorite tool of the ruler aspirants. Jinnah stroked the division on religious grounds and ran away with a new country itself. Political parties have ruled the roost over the decades just by stamping caste, creed, communal and regional identities through pandering divisiveness, boosting hate and augmenting distrust.

The famed Indian diversity is always a cache of ammunition. It’s a pile of divisions lying there to catch fire and blast; waiting for some power aspirant’s matchbox of ambition to fuel divisions, pamper insecurities, and turn people blind and crazy.

Much as pseudo-nationalists try to sow seeds of distrust into the fiery souls of the younger generation, they hardly realize that cultivation of hate cannot be compartmentalized for a particular community only. Grooming of hate in an individual changes the character over all. Its repercussions are not just limited to the targeted community. It crosses the immediate object to seep over into life generally, into interpersonal relationships and the overall philosophy of life. It breeds an insecure, selfish persona, who isn’t just apt in spewing out angry rhetoric against the targeted community, but who is equally bitter in dealing with the people of his own community. Fire and hate hardly differentiate among caste, creed, community and religion after a point. They just start from one specific target to eat into a person’s character like termites eat a healthy tree’s roots.

Division by hate is a chain reaction. It consumes all. It doesn’t simply stop at the first line of the targeted community. It spreads further to gobble up all at the next stages. The identity-based political parties of India but merely take interest in the immediate line of division. It gets them votes. It perpetuates their goal of sticking to power. Little do they realize that by breeding a culture of hate, division and distrust, they are letting loose a fire that consumes the ethos of a healthy society. It eats the basics of a strong social system. It lets loose an ever-smoldering fire that takes its toll over decades. It kills dreams. It stifles the openness and exuberance of character capable of doing good to others as much as it means for the self.

Building roads, boosting infrastructure and strengthening manufacturing are as much important as a healthy society. The former are for the latter, not vice versa. It’s high time that pseudo-somethings realize the futility of rabble rousing in a divided house. If they really want a strong India, they should sow the seeds of love, receptivity and accommodation. And fight elections on real issues related to the well being of the commonest of the common. Hate-mongering is terribly counter-productive. It’s as good as merely putting the ruling seat under your bum, completely ignoring its evil effects that go across the society, where the divisions of caste, class and creed do not matter. All suffer.

Pseudo-nationalism and Pseudo-secularism: Two Sides of the Same Coin

 

Pseudoism is the art and craft of using a positive emotion, feel-good factor, or a relaxing sentiment, picking its hypothetical meaning in letter, and grafting it over to hide the mean spirit. It is the spirit to dominate, to manipulate, and rule at any cost. Herein the much-cherished end solely justifies the means. It becomes a blindfolding instrument. No wonder, pseudoism is a suitable device with power aspirants particularly.

Pseudo-secularists have always cashed minority fears. They stroke almost inexistent phobias. They want the minority to stay scared and insecure about whatever the so called majority does. They keep the apprehensions and insecurities alive, and turn these into votes at the election time.  

Then it’s the turn of pseudo-nationalists. They create a rhetorical stage, offering people a feeling to contribute to nation-building. It’s a stage set for papery heroism, where one can contribute to national glory without putting anything at stake, without any risks either. It’s a goody-goody dream-world. You shout slogans, you pour hate on social media, you condone the acts of violence against your target, and you claim to be more patriotic than others. That’s it. You need not do more. Shouting amidst the frenzied crowd, like it’s a picnic outing or a new entertainment game, is all that it takes to be a nation-builder. You are supposed to stand to the national anthem before the movie starts. You do it and you are a patriot. It doesn’t matter if straightaway after that you elbow the girl in the next seat, or rub your leg against hers on the pretext of extending your limbs out of boredom.

As a virtual patriot, you get countless liberties to offer your sacrifices for mother nation. You can be a simple law-breaking chit of a human being in scores of daily routine, like violating traffic rules, passing lewd remarks at women, scattering garbage and peeing in the open. All this doesn’t matter as long as you ride the bandwagon of pseudo-nationalism.

It’s very easy to fall in this trap. Who doesn’t want to keep the belief that he/she is contributing to nation-building. Feelings apart, only a little section can do actually so in practice. Rest can take this sip in the meow meow on offer on the stage of populist rhetoric.

This risk-free nationalistic spirit but comes at a big cost. Little do people realize that by the time they are still enjoying the echo of their slogans, they have already crossed a line to enter a zone of well-orchestrated mass-hate. They are getting trained for being less loving, less tolerant, and hence lesser human beings than they could have been otherwise. Even before they realize the slightest change, they have already surrendered a part of their good self. They are smaller than they were before. Something gets cut off from the real self. They get polarized. The vision gets skewed. They lose the open-minded exuberance required for a healthy mind and creative spirit. They become just a diminished self of their former self. The society gets a fracture. It's painful. 

The current wave of pseudo-nationalism fuelled by the Brahamanical Hindu rhetoric has many takers, especially the younger generations. Not surprisingly though, on account of the fact that their hormones are yet to stabilize, the stage is shaking, and the world is mired in a wobbly vision. They, the youngsters, need to pour out their straying energies. Papery nationalism is a suitable means. It makes them paper tigers. They become valiant web-soldiers slaying opponents on the internet battlefield.

As per their growth hormones, they are exploring. They get the pill, pick it up, and savor it. It’s tasty. It’s even better than alcohol in fogging the mind into delusions. They thunder and roar against imaginative foes. They hunt down invisible enemies of the state through hate speech, by clapping over stray mob lynching here and there, and by condoning acts of violence, arson and looting now and then. In effect, it simply trains them in petty criminality, which in certain cases turns a few of them into hardcore criminals.

To make it even more deplorable, pseudo-secularists’ blood doesn’t boil over the plight of the common man. In fact more the violence born of the rightists’ anger, the more they feel they have the fodder to burn in debates. I think whenever something nasty happens, pseudo-ideologies on both sides get excitedly itching at the same degree, because exactly this type of division ensures their existence. In fact they are the two sides of the same coin and cannot exist in isolation. So they co-exist and fuel the great power game among the groups on both sides. 

Brahamanical Hindu rightist led pseudo-nationalism is particularly trying at the communal level. And this onslaught means that the pseudo-secularism of the leftist and centrist affiliations stays relevant. They know that they exist as a pair, as antonyms. Their existence is in relation to each other. It’s a very simple game and they play it smartly to rule by turns as the frenzied masses sway from this side to the other.

Islam-phobia is the common ground in the rightist strategy. Little do they realize that within the Hindu society itself, there are sections that have been exploited for thousands of years by their own co-religioners. Dalits and tribals, the frozen class, with fates frozen at the sub-human levels for generations, have as much to grudge over caste-based exploitation, discrimination and humiliation, as a fundamentalist Islamist might have against other religions. Dalits, Muslims and Tribals, the super-entity that can easily identify with discrimination, have much in common in terms of inequity, systematic second-hand treatment and exploitation.

In Indian politics, there are permutations and combinations of caste and communal identities. These shift over and acquire strange shapes. The latest may be Dalit-Muslim-Tribals combo. Muslims safely ensconced in the trio. The lethality of Islam-phobia melting in the historical wrongs against the frozen class in the Indian society. Some strange mutant of Congress, leftists and other non-BJP regional parties may come into effect. Overblown Brahamanical Hinduism, having the exploitation of its own lower society at the core, can fuel a new trend in political jugglery.

Not that it will push the Indian society towards social cohesiveness, love, peace and harmony. That unfortunately remains a distant dream because our democracy is currently fuelled by divisions in the society.

The Pied Piper and the Horde of Hungry Mice

 

Friday, August 25, 2017 earned its bit of dirty history. History by the way is concerned about its load only, good or bad doesn’t matter; these are our own interpretations to suit our purpose. So this particular day stands with its own load to carry down the ages: more than three dozen lives lost, hundreds injured, cars and vehicles burnt, media attacked and law and order shattered to pieces.

The moment Dera Chief Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim officially turned just a rapist human, a common criminal, named Gurmeet, his followers, shocked and not able to digest this humanly avatar of the demi-god, went on rampage in Panchkula around the CBI court that pronounced the judgment.

They were crying, pelting stones, burning whatever came their way, getting tear gas into their eyes, got struck by sticks, and finally absorbed bullets as well into their bind faith. Pitaji, beloved father as they call him, should have been allowed to stay beyond the normal laws for common people, they expected. Well, faith has no limits by the way.

It’s however another matter that it took 15 years and 200 hearings for justice to find its way out of the quagmire. Well, that’s understandable given the ways of stalling justice in the country, especially in the case of the strong and the mighty. Nonetheless, better late than never, it at least keeps common man’s faith in judiciary alive. So equipped with the empowering instructions of the court, we can safely call him a rapist now and address him by his maiden name, Gurmeet, instead of adding the golden-weighted superlatives before and after.

First it was Asha Ram Bapu, followed by Sant Rampal, some Ramvriksha Yadav in Mathura, and so many others who come to light almost on a daily basis for their not so holy deeds. Godmen, in the manner they can hijack the common rules and regulations of the land, are beyond the state. They have their own zone of sovereignty.

Simply to beat your head about this particular Baba and the ones named above would be equal to shedding tears over just one of the symptoms of a bigger malady. The question isn’t about why this particular Baba came to acquire such a cult status so as to challenge the state itself. It will be more pertinent to ask, why such Godmen are born in India. Every street, every locality, every village, town and city has its group of influential Godmen who dispel the evil, fetch the best of boons, destroy your enemies, get you what your hardest efforts could not and make you the luckiest person on earth. Your hard work, your perseverance, your education, skills and your penance for a cause coming at the bottom of the list required to get success or attain your goal.

In a country where there are billions squeezed for space, for a living, there are bound to be trillions of broken dreams, unmet goals and a huge galaxy of crowded aspirations. It’s plainly about people to resource ratio. More the people, the lesser the people to resource ratio, it’s simple mathematics. Life is robbed of living and a sinister struggle ensues. More fights, fewer smiles, seas of tears and deserts of unmet dreams.

In the muck of survival, all this comes down to be taken as being lucky or unlucky, while in reality one’s failure to achieve something is simply an impersonal, neutral denial on the scale of probability in a scene where hundred hands are trying to get one chapatti. Now, who get it and who don’t is beyond the laws of skill and logic. The 99 left out people, or 98, 97, 96, 95 or still less, on the basis of how many hands tear away a bit of the chapatti, have every reason to believe, on the basis of their effort, that there is some well-placed scheme as per the laws of pre-determination that has dislodged their chances in the grab game. They feel the lock of their kismet is jammed and the key has been cast somewhere into the unseen depths of the cosmos. Here come our pseudo-mystics. They claim to have the powers to find your key and open the age-old jammed, rusted lock to let loose a flood of fortunes. So out of the billions, with trillions of shattered dreams, millions go in groups to throw themselves at some holy feet in their respective regions.

Out of the trillion shattered dreams, millions are in anyway, due to the lifelong and the still ongoing struggle to survive, at the point of hatching some long-aspired fruit. Even the most skewed law of probability will give chance to millions out of trillions. The moment the chicken is hatched, which would have happened in any case irrespective of Baba x, y, z or no Baba at all, the Baba grabs the credit by default. The mathematics accumulates the load of appreciation, subtracts the unmet aspirations almost negligibly as the irremediable fruits of the sins of past life. The Baba has no onus to prove. He can take just the credit for the million savings out of the trillions of broken dreams.

In any case, one minus from Baba x means one plus to the followers of Baba y. It keeps on shifting till the hatching takes place either in this Baba’s court or that. The credit goes to the last Baba where the poor poultry cock or hen is caged with at the moment when at long last the trail of his/her drudgery has at least left some mark on the stage of life. However, it appears like a straight blessing instead of the fruit of efforts. People have abandoned hope by that time, despite all the continued hard work and pursuit of goal, and view the fruit of their own effort as the star of luck fetched by some Baba’s blessings.       

Beyond the trials and tribulation of a terribly overpopulated society, where deprivation is bound to prevail given the skewed people to resource ratio, there are other factors that boost a cult-man’s chances to acquire superhuman clout, wealth and influence.

The caste system in India means a major part of the society has been treated as subhuman species for thousands of years. This inherited poverty, deprivation and low socio-economic standing leaves a huge mass of people who, their fathers, father’s father, and so on, have been ill-treated like they are mere goats and pigs. As the casteless and creedless mass of a Baba’s followers, they feel equal like anyone else around. They feel like a full human being instead of mere fractions across the ages.

Like long drags on Bidis make them forgetful of the miseries of life, the visits to congregations and gatherings at ashrams make them feel unyoked from the heavy burden of the caste they carry. A low caste means you are low, always, it drones in your head, all the time. You are low, you are low, keep your head down, further low, smile even when he spits on your face, tweaks your ears, takes puns at you, flirts with your wife, leers at your sister, gives a kick at your poor ass to uplift his spirits, still you have to smile. You have to wear an unaffected mask, while the shitty life moves on.

Here, at the Guru’s feet, they put off their masks to get some fresh air. Now they become the real they. They cherish the taste of real self, un-lowed, unbound and untethered. Their crooked spines stretch to a new high. The slouching shoulders, the vestiges of lowness, square-up for some moments to feel like a bird getting its wings untied to fly. There is an ease like an unyoked beast of burden being allowed to run free in a pasture land. No wonder the followership crosses all limits in devotion and loyalty.   

Drunken husbands beating their wives and squandering away even their meager resources is the common most fact in the struggling section of society. Drugs and alcohol symbolize the worst form of evil to the poor women. No wonder, as the Babas at least ask their followers to refrain from drinking, the women feel they cannot have a bigger well-wisher. So you have miles-long queues of poor, condescending women, waiting to kiss the feet of the holy man, who is at least trying to make their men-folk quit drinking and correct their behavior.

Poverty has its alternate truths in a reversed world. When you decide to get healed just by the Baba’s touch, of course there will be some immediate improvement, which in any case becomes a miracle. It simply is Placebo effect. Psychologically you believe and the body responds positively. So the Babas shower healing blessings, the suffering masses have full faith in getting healed, and healed they get in some way or the other in the short term at least. It then becomes a necessity to keep the blessings going, no matter you keep taking medicines along the way, get treatment, spend money in hospitals, but once you decide that it is the effect of your Baba’s blessings, everything you do becomes a carrier, a mere instrument, of the holy man’s blessings.

The invisible, unknowable and unattainable God is too far. Convenience needs a Godhead nearby, whom you can see, touch his feet and kiss his robe. So the cult-men replace God. They are near and more effective than God himself. And people want their God to be nearer.   

At the management level, it’s primarily about money. Anything purportedly meant to do with religious financing is beyond the tax and revenue regime of the country. You just make a Hindu religious trust, you then govern your own financial destiny. The rules and regulations of India don’t have anything to do with this territory where all types of black, white, yellow and red money flow in unchecked torrents. And where there is unaccountable money, rest of the vices easily follow. With money you can easily become God.

You can keep people’s dreams alive by giving them only as much as a free lunch now and then. With your opulence and grand show, you can create stars in damn shitty famished eyes. It’s very easy to become the God of hungry, frustrated souls. There are millions to whom even a favor only to the extent of free weekend meals in a community feast is more significant than God himself. Money pulls the clout, it builds the loyalty. There is simply no other weightier factor. So with all the donations to religious trusts and gifts of land, gold, silver, dollar and rupees, beyond the pale of tax and revenue norms, within no time the Babas become super-rich. With money rest of the journey becomes very easy.  

Once they have billions of money with millions of cemented hungry loyalties around them, politicians come scavenging like dogs on dead bodies. Politicians are comfortable with mafia, murderers, smugglers, drug dealers and human traffickers, as long as they get votes for them.

The Rapist Baba has a long history of alliance with all the major political parties. A rape charge undertrial gets donations to the tune of crores of rupees by the Haryana government, the state’s ministers bow down to touch the Baba’s feet, the Chief Minister attends the Baba’s functions, what else the common people need to further convince themselves about the divinity of their father figure.

In every constituency the Baba has thousands of diehard supporters to whom matters of faith come to an end in the Baba’s thick beard. They are the ones who decide the winner and the loser during the state assembly elections. They donate money to the Baba, the Baba gives them some food and occasional shelter for devotional gatherings with the same money, the rest he uses in building a fleet of super-luxury cars and making movies in which he slays the evil as the messenger of God. The government makes his movies tax free so that the devotees feel flattered.   

A distant relative of mine fought the last assembly election in Haryana on the INLD ticket. However, the Baba, expecting a turnaround in his favor—he was facing a CBI inquiry—decided to go with the BJP. It was open support by the way. This INLD candidate lost by just 2 votes. He, belonging to the influential Jat community, who hold an arrogant clout in the social hierarchy, still cannot forget that night when he reached the poor house of an old man in his village. The old man was an OBC, lower in the caste hierarchy, but was rich in the number of votes. They were 8 in all in the little house. All would have been well, given the contestant’s dominant caste status and the fact that both parties stayed in the same village, and the OBC man being wise enough to know the adage, if you have to stay in the pond, don’t take panga with the crocodile.

It would have gone well if not for the fact that the poor family had eaten countless free lunches and dinners at the Baba’s dera, congregation halls, where frustrated females from the countryside get a chance to get out of the loops of patriarchy to have a casual fling, a paramour with some bites of free food. The numerous ashram branches, which purchased the followers’ loyalty apart from making Baba a symbol of God to them, served as one-stop point of entertainment, freedom, fling, food, frolic, faith and dignity.

With folded hands the old family patriarch, with tears in eyes, his voice shaking, said, “Chaudhri Sahab, you can kill us if you want, but we just cannot vote for you. It’s the order of our God.”

The poor Jat was defeated by two votes.

This is what makes the Babas like him so potent. Politically. And once you are so significant in the scheme of political things, the politicians of the land will even stoop so low as to touch the feet of a rape undertrial.

Only money can buy such loyalty. Make laws to stop religious funding that makes them mini-empires within the state. If you cannot do that, in greed of sheepish votes, then please stop cribbing about the Baba. There will be so many others following him.

Humanity Boiling in the Communist Cauldron

 

The more I read the facts and fiction of communist dictatorial regimes, the times when humanity faces a roadblock, the more I forget my own collective as well as personal pain here in India. I feel blessed to be born beyond the communist shadow. If God has been merciful enough not to cast you into a communist land in either this or previous births, then you have no right to ask for more. It’s already the best blessings from the Lord. It's a divine gift not to be born under the communist system. The biggest pains you feel in a non-communist regime appear like luxurious sprouts in comparison to the horrendous systemic tortures perpetrated on the masses under communist regimes.

So to me, as part of democracy, the smallest of gains look like the biggest boon. Not that democracy is perfect. It has its own sweet-sour set of nuisances. But these are lesser symptoms of non-fatal diseases like cough, cold, running nose, sneezing etc., etc. Communist dictatorship on the other hand is simply a terminator like incurable cancer. 

Mao Zedong: “Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer that we use to crush the enemy.”  

Unfortunately, the enemy is always at hand. It is most of the time one’s next door neighbor. There is so much hate and distrust. There is an ever-persistent enemy of the state. One line purged, you redefine the meaning of state enemy, and purge the second line. It continues like this, waves of purging arrive like Tsunami. No wonder Mao Zedong and Stalin slaughtered millions of their own countrymen. These regimes stand as the epitomes of hate culture. And when love rarely matters in an epoch, it stands as the darkest phase.

The communist ideology is an all-pervading fire that doesn't spare either good or bad. Intended to burn the evil, it stretches the definition of evil too far and turns fiery evil itself. It's a huge stone hurtling down the slope, squashing leaves, saplings, petals, thorns and all. A fire needs fodder to burn. The communist ideology needs hordes of victims to survive. There is an endless chain of imagined enemies and hence successive waves of purges.

It's human industrialization wherein people are turned into machines and cogs in the production line. Looking at the ways and means of the emerging international bully, I’m afraid, at the end of it, the human civilization, despite its efforts at capitalist systems, will perish as a mechanical society controlled by the communist system. Nonetheless, such cataclysmic end should not make me skip my enjoyment of life in a democratic system.

Very often I wondered how the communist dictators built cult status with millions of blind followers. Now I realize it's a simple technique. First they rob people of their faith, make them forget the intrinsic goodness in them, introduce them to mindless violence and blood-bathing thus turning them utterly atheist. However, we are genetically inclined to have faith. In the vacuum they plant their personality. Thus starts the cult of a dictator. State propaganda is used for the dictator's deification. And we have crazy, blinded masses, happy over having their God nearby. It’s sadistic deification where common people love their own wounds and injuries.

However, the communist edifice, which gets soaring high in the sky, outgrows its sustainability like cancerous propagation of cells. Too much of laws, rules, regulations and legalized forced discipline create a facade that rises too perfectly, but soullessly, to soar too high to sustain its elevation. It then crumbles because mechanical perfection rarely sustains. You need to have a humanistic soul to help any human endeavor sustain the onslaught of time. That's why communist societies crumble like a castle of cards. They simply crash after a time like it did suddenly in Russia.

China is rabble rousing boundary issues with all neighbors to retain its CPC dictatorship. Keep them believing that there are foes outside, who have committed crimes against the Motherland, and they will forget about their own irritation at the ruling party’s manipulation of their lives. However, there is a possibility that it will snap like the former USSR. The Soviet Russia went boom to bust from 1917 to 1991, 74 years of experiment, which was inevitably bound to fail. Let’s see how far China can manage the experiment that started in 1949. It has been 70 years. Even they may not have as much time as they think. Things may just crumble up, almost magically.

To survive, a society has to have its pitfalls and imperfections. The facade doesn't go too high. It sustains. There are plus and minus that cancel out each other, like in a democratic system. Oh, the glorious imperfections of democracy! That's why it thrives.

The well managed, rigid facade in China may disintegrate. It may suddenly collapse. Well, unless they voluntarily introduce some imperfections themselves, some traits of democracy, to make it pliable, some allowance of mischief, some humor, some criticism to bring down the upper stories of the facade that has gone too high. It won't fall then.

The communist model carries the seeds of its own destruction. Right now Chinese leadership has to have more and more enemies, real and imagined, to keep the people hooked onto the idea that has failed everywhere else in the world. Let’s see where such mass distrust of the humanity outside the boundaries of the latest superpower takes us.