The enigmatic Charles Masson

Bibliophiles have a penchant for cataloguing their books into genres viz. fiction, non-fiction, historical-fiction etc. yet if one truly reads enough, one shall unravel that the only distinction between fiction and reality is that the former has limits to its presumptuousness. Fiction, by compulsion, must seem possible but reality doesn't carry such an encumbrance to its imagination, ergo, sometimes verity is more surreal than an outright lie.  

The fact that a bunch of rogue traders reached a distant land in the 18th C, commenced trading there, availed themselves of opportunities provided sometimes by sheer luck and other times by enterprise, subjugated native populations numbering million, created the biggest capitalist and imperialistic organization in the world which employed only 35 permanent employees (even after 100 years since its incorporation in 1600) and had its office ensconced 8000 km away from the place of action, appears to be one such fiction plot running amok. However, even more phantasmagorical than this unfortunate reality of the ruthless British colonialism are the stories of the men on spot whose gumption and "sub-imperialism" led to this all.

And what could be more boisterous than a reality set against the backdrop of the "great game" and the search for a lost city  with characters ranging from Alexander, the great to and an East India Company deserter. 

Bamiyan Buddhas, before they were blown apart in religious frenzy by Taliban, had always enticed historians around the world. They were subjects of many archaeological missions not only because these giant Buddhas were an architectural marvel but also because they are evident of the fact that Afghanistan, a nation which is today in the throes of an extremist Islamic ideology, was once a Buddhist stronghold. One such mission was being carried out from two French archaeologists in 1924. Having gingerly clambered down to a cave above the head of the 55m tall Bamiyan Buddha, the Frenchmen were exhilarated. It would have been no small achievement to be the first Europeans to have set foot in such an esoteric yet remarkable place at the cross-roads of Asia. However, this was not to be. The joy proved fugacious as they found the following words scratched onto the cave wall:

If any fool this high samootch (a local word for "cave") explore,

Know Charles Masson has been here before

Today, you can find monuments throughout the Indian subcontinent, besmirched by love messages from romantics who vie to paint their love messages in the most secluded parts of these remnants of history, but Masson shouldn't be confused with these. And though he can be called a romantic, yet his was no small love. His convoluted life is a testament to his obsessive love which eventually consumed him to the core and just like in case of true love, it is impossible to extricate facts from his fiction and vice versa. Whims of other men and vagaries of time gave such turns to his life that even the most egregious plot holes may seem tractable and the whole tragedy lies in the fact that his tortuous plot was, to most extent, a reality. 

Bamiyan Buddhas in 1832 

It was 4th of July 1827 when one day Private James Lewis, aged 27 years old and serving Bengal Artillery, decided that he couldn't take any more of the mundane regimented life and decided to absquatulate from the army. Despite his upbringing in a poor and dangerous London neighborhood, Lewis proved to be a precocious young man. As a way out of his poverty, he enlisted in the British East India Company's army and came to India at young age of 21. During these 6 years in the army, he learnt Latin and Greek and read as many books as he could. Yet, the most intellectual task that EIC's army could give him was to arrange butterflies for a zoology fiend superior. EIC's was to a large extent an elitist army where top positions were reserved for men who had connexion in higher echelons of the British society and Lewis had none. So one day, having exhausted his will to continue any longer, he decided to quit. However, quitting the army was not easy. Native deserters were often bound to the cannon mouth and exploded into smithereens to set an example. English deserters could meet a less gory but certain death by court martial. Moreover, EIC spies could easily find a grey-eyed, red-haired Feringi who didn't know the local languages well by the end of the day. Yet somehow, enough courage was mustered and Lewis left Bengal Artillery's garrison in Agra for frontier towns where he couldn't be caught. As expected, before the dusk struck, messages had reached far and wide about how two Englishmen (Lewis had a co-deserter named Richard Potter, but his life is a tale for some other day) were missing. Delhi was hence forbidden and the only way to survive was through the wilderness of the Great Indian Thar desert. Many things changed for Lewis on that day including his name. James Lewis now became Charles Masson. From that day onwards, there would be no Lewis, only Masson. 

Thar desert, an insufferably torrid place where life even today is a rarity, was survived somehow but this was not even the tip of the iceberg. Before Masson had even crossed the wilderness, rumors had reached the Khan of Ahmadpur (in modern day Pakistan) that two disheveled Feringis are approaching his kingdom. It was believed that they must be servants of the EIC carrying some crucial message and hence courtiers were sent to welcome them and bring the message. Though the courtiers were disappointed to have found that the two Feringis carried no message with them, there was a third westerner in the town of Ahmadpur who was waiting for this exact moment. 

Josiah Harlan, the third-westerner, was an American who wanted to be king. The peculiarities of Harlan's life can only be matched with that of Masson's. Harlan was a proud American Quaker whose father secured him a job on a merchant ship bound for China. Harlan learnt the trade quickly and started earning well. He went back to America and fell in love. He and his lady love agreed they would marry after he comes back from one more voyage. However, when Harlan's ship reached Calcutta, a letter from his fiancée was waiting for him. She had written to tell Harlan that she had married someone else. Duped in love, Harlan deboarded at Calcutta to achieve his dream of becoming a king. Without any training, except from dressing bruises of sailors and crew at sea, he insinuated himself as a surgeon in the EIC's army during its invasion of Burma. Soon, Harlan left that job and after many twists and turns, somehow, ended up in Ludhiana. There he met Shah Shuja, the exiled king of Afghanistan, and vowed to restore him back to the throne by defeating the usurper king Dost Mohammad. Harlan was busy recruiting his militia army in Ahmadpur just for this purpose. Besides that, just this morning, some EIC agents had asked Harlan to keep an eye out for two EIC Bengal artillery deserters. 

Harlan called the two deserters in his camp and soon both parties could see through each other. Harlan understood that Masson was Lewis and Lewis sensed that Harlan knew enough. However, rather than selling them to EIC, Harlan sought to use their military expertise (which was very lacking in his rag tag militia) to his benefit. The hapless deserters knew that they couldn't resist and soon Masson was again soldiering, though in a different army. 

Masson along with Harlan's militia left Ahmadpur for Dera Ismail Khan (in mod. day Pakistan). During the march, Harlan blabbered about a lot of things but one thing in particular that aroused Masson's attention was Harlan's talk about Alexander. The great Macedonian hero has been ensnaring people as well as cultures for long enough. Almost all the cultures in the world have apocryphal fables surrounding him. His momentous victories, his birth as well as his death continue to be enigmas and these mysteries have ensnared many a men, sometimes even fatally. Harlan and Masson were no different men. Masson's study of classics had made him revere Alexander and from now on his would be a life devoted to the truths, legends and myths of the great conqueror. The only thing that would differentiate Harlan from Masson was that though their ends were same, their means were evidently different. Harlan was obsessed with the Alexander because he considered himself to be Alexander of his age but Masson's interest in Alexander was due to Alexander's legacy : the Alexandrias. Alexander founded many eponymous cities en route his expedition but unfortunately, the exact locations of all Alexandrias are now cities lost to time. As we move further in the story, we shall see that the quest for one such Alexandria- Alexandria in the Caucuses- would define Masson's life. 

When the militia group reached Dera Ismail Khan, Harlan's force had swelled up to a hundred and soon got the opportunity for its first action. Harlan set his eyes on a nearby hill fortress "Takht-i-Sulaiman" (the seat of Solomon). Harlan thought that bribing a few guards and then inciting the fortress army would do the trick. Soon Harlan had a brainwave.  The first American to set foot in Pakistan and Afghanistan, devised a plan to foment rebellion among the fortress army in the name of "jihad" against their own commander. However, the mutiny plan was abortive. When Harlan woke up the next day, many of his men, including Masson, had deserted the camp and the fortress guards were asking for more bribes. Harlan flew into a rage and called everyone names and had to abandon his nation-building program. Harlan would go on to do many remarkable and dubious things including hoisting the star-spangled banner on the top of Hindu Kush and becoming the "Prince of Ghor" and there would be many intersections between his and Masson's life, but his life is a story for another time.

From Dera Ismail Khan to Afghanistan was a circuitous journey in which Masson was robbed of everything including his clothes, once some Afghani robbers were about to enslave him but he luckily survived. Lack of knowledge of local language and customs further exacerbated his problems. However, soon after such encounters, Masson started understanding one thing: the art of illusions. 

Afghanistan is, even today, a land of illusion where nothing sells like an incredible story. Masson on his way to Kabul was once told a story of a Mohammad Shah Khan, a local weaver who rose one morning and fancied himself becoming badshah of Delhi. He took his musket, shot a few men and soon the men in the surrounding villages understood that he meant business. Crowds soon began coming to his side and he mounted an attack against the king of Kabul. It didn't take him long to capture Kabul and Khan could be dislodge only next summer by a bigger army. The story bears a simple pith: with luck on your side, everything in possible in Afghanistan. Afghan society hasn't changed much since Masson's time. The great games are still being played, the age-old tribal customs are still extant and magical realism is still being played on the roads of Afghanistan. Kabul is still the city where rulers, loyalties and lives can change before you can tell. 

Baptized by fire, Masson understood this very fact. Now, he was no longer a hapless Feringi on the roads of Afghanistan. Someday he was a Haji , some day a Sayyid and other days even an Afghan prince. However, what kept him going all through days was Alexander. Masson had now made it a mission to tell Alexander's story, to separate the reality from myth, to find the lost city of Alexandria of Caucuses. Such was his obsession, that in search of a lost city he ignored one of the greatest civilization of antiquity. During his journey to Afghanistan, he also passed through Sahiwal near Lahore and stood on a mound which looked to be of importance but, unfortunately, Masson didn't have means to carry out any investigation. He thought this somehow would be pertinent with Alexander's campaign (if you have a hammer, everything is a nail to you) - he missed a great opportunity. It would take a hundred more years for the world to know that his was Harappa, the famous city of the great Indus Valley civilization.

Somehow, Masson reached Kabul but there also life continued to be tumultuous. Some day he would dine with the princes, other days he would be reluctantly made a part of a looting expedition. However, all through these ordeals, Masson's idee fixe was singularly Alexander. Soon, he started following local stories about coins of antiquity being found in a place near Bagram (which also houses American forces' largest military base in Afghanistan). At first, people of Bagram said that there were no coins to be found and that all stories were fake, but as soon as they came to know that Masson would give money in exchange, coins started coming in plethora and seeing the coins, Masson's conviction was further strengthened that Alexandria lay somewhere in Bagram. The only problems that Masson faced now were money and spies. British spies in Kabul had already alerted Claude Wade, an EIC spymaster in Ludhiana of a red-haired, grey eyed man who is curious about everything. Masson also took a reckless approach - he wrote to some company officials, who he knew were interested in classical antiquity and history, to supply him with money and books on the matter. Though Masson didn't reveal his identity and company officials such as Henry Pottinger went a long way in helping him, Wade also came to know about such correspondence. Soon, Wade started preparing Masson's file and it didn't take him long to decipher that Charles Masson is none other than the deserter James Lewis. However, by the time Wade sent Masson's file to EIC's court of directors (the governing body of the company) in London, Masson had been doing his research in Kabul for a decade and had become famous among the EIC's officials who were interested in the classical antiquity and Alexander.

Bagram Base after withdrawal of American forces

Masson had already sent thousands of coins back to India (to EIC officials who were helping him in his endeavor while being unaware of his true identity) and through these coins had established that once Bactrian Greeks ruled the area. Their coins were bilingual and bi-scriptual (one script was Greek and the other was unknown to anyone at that time) and their religion was eclectic. Sometimes their coins had Greek gods, sometimes Hindu and Buddhist ones. The existence of such a kingdom shattered the long-standing ides of a  virtual divide between east and west and established that some centuries after Alexander had gone, his descendants had created a syncretic culture which had no parallel in history. 

As soon as company's directors received Masson's file in London, they were moved by his contribution to archaeology and requested the King to issue pardon for his desertion. Pardon was issued and sent to India. However, Wade didn't want to let go of a man who had everything that an excellent spy needed. Masson knew the local customs, languages and had access to all chambers of power. Moreover, no one would suspect him for he had been living in Kabul for 10 years doing nothing except collecting coins and stories. Wade therefore blackmailed Masson into becoming an EIC agent in Kabul. This changed everything for Masson. The immense pressure as well as coercion that he received from Wade seriously hindered his archaeological pursuits. However, sensing no way out, Masson had to play his part. Masson erected a top-notch intelligence network for Wade and proved excellent at his work. Even during such ordeal, he further investigated Bagram and deciphered the other unknown script on the coins from Bagram (this script was the long lost Kharosthi script). 

Events kept taking turn and soon the British declared war on Afghanistan. While Masson had given a true picture of what really transpired in Kabul, his words were distorted to give a rationale for the inane war on Afghanistan. Masson, ergo, had to leave Afghanistan, the place he called home and come back to Bombay. Masson soon became hysterical after leaving Afghanistan and was disgusted by the senseless war that had been perpetrated by distorting his reports. The literary society in Bombay encouraged him to write a book about his travels and exploits but Masson, in his hysteria, came up with a book that called names and blamed people for the war and prophesized a complete disaster for British in the war. No one wanted to publish such a story amidst the war and hence despondency and penury continued for Masson. The only thing which Masson could now do was to go to London himself and try to get his book published. The very day Masson set sail for London from the port of Bombay, the British forces started crumbling in Afghanistan. 

When Masson reached London, everyone knew about the massive British failure in Afghanistan. Now again, no one wanted to publish his book because now public would view it just as a pedantic hindsight discussion. 

Masson could never make sense of his life till his last. Masson's life in London just made him more morose and lugubrious. Masson had left London in penury and came back to the same London as a destitute. One day suddenly Masson married and six years later a son was born, a daughter followed three years later. However, life kept tumbling downwards. Surviving copies of his unmatched and guilt-ridden budgets and letters exhibit how impoverished, helpless and disgusted he remained. He died on 5th November 1853 of "disease of the brain, uncertain". Just like many other men, the passion to follow Alexander swallowed Masson too

Many years later, however, British museum started collecting and cataloguing Masson's discoveries such as Bimaran casket, medallions and coins, and today, they are helping scholars around the world to understand the Indian subcontinent in a far lucid way than was every possible. 

The exact location of Alexandria of Caucuses however, still eludes scholars. All through these years Bagram, once the great Hindu city of Kapisa, has seen the Persian chariots, Greek armies, Buddhist monks, Muslim invaders, Soviet barracks, American marines, and invariably consumed them all. It consumed Masson too who is now buried in a grave in London and just like his life long love, his gravesite remains unmarked.

                                                            Jai Hind, Jai Bharat

Jai Ma Bharti 

Source: Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City by Edmund Richardson

Deshnayak - Subhas Chandra Bose - Part 1

“The history of the world is but the biography of great men”

The above-said expression of Thomas Carlyle’s view of historiography may not find many proponents among the modern-day students of history, yet, it can’t be gainsaid that there have come, but come rarely, such personalities which have almost single-handedly shaped the events of our past and perforce, we have to accept that a part of our history is but an expansive biography of such personalities.

Subhas Chandra Bose is undoubtedly one such personality in the annals of history. More than 75 years after his death in a tragic accident, his story continues to evoke awe and wonder among Indians. While the opinions of most Indians on the other giants of his times remain divided, there will hardly be any Indian who can discount Netaji’s contribution towards the Indian freedom struggle. Albeit the events surrounding the ‘mystery’ behind his death and many other apocryphal stories regarding his resurgence as a mystic have added myth to the man, yet the legend’s life itself is nothing short of a riveting story of toil and sacrifice. It is, ergo, no wonder that generations of Indians who have only read about him in their history textbooks still continue to indulge in wishful thinking and hypothetical questions as to what course the country could have taken had Netaji been alive on 15^th August 1947.

Declassified files of the erstwhile British empire clearly reveal the empire’s almost morbid obsession with this His Majesty’s opponent. While he was alive, the British intelligence was keen to find or assassinate him, but even after his death, his spectre continued to haunt them and as late as 1946, the British intelligence wanted to confirm that Subhas was “actually and permanently dead”. While the imperialists’ fascination with him is easily fathomable and well justified, yet what has surprised, and even angered, most Indians has been independent India’s governments' qualms regarding him. Declassified “Netaji Papers” show how India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) maintained a vigilant profile of his kin. Sisir Kumar Bose, Subhas’ nephew who helped him organize his daring 1941 escape and afterwards established Netaji Research Bureau (NRB), remained under constant surveillance of the Kolkata Intelligence Branch as governments of the day were under the assumption that Sisir will be using NRB’s groundwork to launch a political movement in his name. Such revelations are new; however, everyone is aware as to how Subhas’ role in the Indian freedom struggle has been downplayed over the years. While the country has surely done a disservice to this son of the motherland by not even implementing the recommendations of Shah Nawaz Committee (of bringing back his mortal remains from Renkoji temple) (the first attempt, though unsuccessful, to undo this wrong was made by PV Narasimha Rao in 1990s, roughly 35 years after the recommendation was published), a bigger disservice has been the warped and fallacious portrayal of Subhash in the Indian history. Many have tried to use his often-repeated quote “Give me blood, and I will give you freedom” as well as his war-time association with Nazi Germany and the Japanese empire to brand him as a militant and even a misled nationalist. Given India’s culture of revering warriors (and especially warriors who sacrificed themselves for a bigger cause), such imputations have failed to detract Indians from his stellar achievements, yet such allegations have succeeded in creating among people a very garbled view of what Subhas stood for. While almost everyone in India loves him, yet many don’t understand who he really was and what, if any, was his vision for a free India. This blog, taking heavily from Sugata Bose’s His Majesty’s Opponent, is an attempt to summarize the same. Subhas lived only for 48 years, yet for a man like him, it is not the years of life but the life that he lived in those years really counts. And life he lived and he lived it like none other. Therefore, despite knowing that any attempt to 'summarize' such a life in a few pages is abortive from the very onset, but still, as a token of my gratitude to the legendary Deshnayak, I would still hunker down to the task. 

Subhas’ was a life lived in-toto for the nation. From his own perspective, he considered himself to be a pilgrim on a voyage- he gave his unfinished autobiography the title of “An Indian Pilgrim” – in quest of a spiritual awakening. In fact, gleaning over his letters as a young student, one can clearly see that his primary inspiration was Swami Vivekanand and not some revolutionary or freedom fighter of the day. Having grown up in Cuttack, Orrisa in a prosperous family which had benefitted much from western education, his initial interaction with the iniquities of the Raj came only when he moved to Calcutta to study Philosophy at the prestigious Presidency college.  “This great city had intrigued me, bewildered me beyond measure,” Bose wrote of Calcutta. This sudden exposition to a new world where the grim realities of Raj’s oppression were juxtaposed with the culture of elite institutions such as Presidency College, led him to add one more aspect to Vivekananda’s spiritual theory – the service of the motherland.

The nature of his unwavering spiritual quest became explicit when Subhas encounters a major moral dilemma. ICS (Indian Civil Services) was the most efficient hand of the British Raj. David Lloyd George called it the “steel frame” of the fabric of the British Raj and getting an entry into this coveted institution was a ticket to a prosperous life of privileges. While studying in Cambridge, Bose secured a rank of 4 in the ICS examination but rather than being cheerful about the prospects of a distinguished life of an administrator, his conscience was convulsed by a moral dilemma. Eventually, going against the advice of his father, he chose to take the tough sea and resigned even before completing his probation period to come back to India and kickstart a new phase of his life. This incident, I believe, not only shows the steel of his resolve but also proved to be a major turning point in his life. From here onwards, the only way was forward and by forsaking the chance of an easy life at the age of 24, he made his destiny inseparable from India’s future.

Subhas' political life is a testament to the fact that he had the rare quality of being a thinker as well as a doer. Since his bona fides as a doer have already been established in popular thought, I shall delve briefly into his visionary side.

Having been a student of Philosophy and been inspired by Vivekananda and Tagore, he had a clear outlook of how the post-independence India should look like. As early as 1921, Subhas was writing to his future political guru, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, lamenting about Congress’ lack of policy on labour and factory legislation, as well as on vagrancy and on relief of the poor. In the same missive, he pointed out that Congress had no determined policy as to the type of constitution that should be adopted. The true spirit of his visionary aptitude becomes lucid during his years spent away from the country.

Subash went to Europe, in March 1933, as a political exile seeking a cure for an illness concerning his gallbladder. Despite the tyranny of bodily pain and restrictions on his movement, he managed to start an international PR campaign for the Indian independence movement. He established contacts with intelligentsia across almost all the major cities of Europe to garner international support for his cause. Subhas viewed this tour of his not only as a campaign to get support for India’s independence but also as a campaign to establish the foundations of Indian foreign policy once India becomes independent. 

His views on Nazi Germany also become clear during his exile in Europe. Because of the rising current of racial segregation and persecution of Jews in Europe, Subash felt the atmosphere of the Third Reich suffocating. One of his major fears regarding Hitler was the possibility of an imperialist collaboration between Germany and Britain. When he visited Germany again in 1934, he submitted a memorandum to the German Foreign Office listing his grievances about the negative attitude of the German press towards Indians; Hermann Goring’s description of Gandhi as a “Bolshevik agent” and the pernicious racial propaganda. Bose went to Italy also and listened to one of Mussolini’s speeches and commented – “the speech was a fine one whatever we might think of the speaker”. The later part reveals a bit about his thought on Il Duce.

While Bose was a patient in Europe, he was joined by another Indian political giant – Vithalbhai Patel- elder brother of Sardar Patel. Patel was recovering from a heart attack and Bose took great care of him during his last days and had very constructive discussions with him on how a disciplined foreign policy should be formed to develop the case for India’s independence in European intellectual circles. As a testimony to Subhas’s hard work, despite his fragile health, to cement India’s case in European thought circles, Vithalbhai willed three-quarter of his fortune to Bose before dying to use “for the political uplift of India and preferably for publicity work on behalf of India’s cause in other countries.” While Bose didn’t get a penny out of the will because of the court proceeding by Sardar Patel, but the sincerity of Bose’s visionary foreign mission for Indian independence can be gauged by the incident.

For a large part of India’s independent history, the backbone of India’s economic planning has been the Planning Commission (PC). It won’t be wrong to say that the PC is indeed the precursor of NITI Aayog too. While many have talked about PC’s role in shaping India’s economic policy and providing a framework to the five-year plans, few know that the planning commission was indeed a brainchild of Bose. While Bose treated Gandhi with the reverence of a disciple, he never subscribed to his economic views of complete reliance on village industries. Boss proclaimed, “However much we may dislike modern industrialism and condemn the evils which follow in its train, we cannot go back to the pre-industrial era, even if we desire to do so.”  He further added, “The state in independent India would, on the advice of a planning commission, be called upon to adopt a comprehensive scheme for gradually socializing our entire agricultural and industrial system in the spheres of both production and appropriation.” He put his views into motion after becoming the Congress President in 1938 and created the National Planning Committee with Jawaharlal Nehru as its chairman. Later on, the reports created by NPC were especially instrumental in providing the first government of independent India with actionable insights on policymaking.

Attracted by the European experiments of socialism, Subhas came up with the concept of socialism suited to the Indian condition and thus used the ancient Buddhist term “Samayvadi” – one who believes in equality – to define his economic stance. He was a staunch believer of the idea that real change can’t be effected in any system till its peasants and workers are given the deserved rights. He believed that an independent India could realize its rightful place only after political and social emancipation is delivered to these classes. His views on socialism were thus never formed strictly through an economic point of view but from a politico-economic mindset and he firmly believe that emancipation of labour and peasants is not necessary just for the freedom struggle but also for the continued progress of independent India.

In the current atmosphere of today, it is also crucial to have the right understanding of Subhas’ idea of religion too. To explain this complex issue, I believe, a simple story of his time in INA will suffice. Chettiars in East Asia were some of the biggest financiers of Netaji’s INA, yet he was not ready to yield on his principles for their sake. Sugata Bose writes in his biography, “When priests of the main Chettiar temple in Singapore came to invite Netaji to a religious ceremony in October, they were turned away because of their inegalitarian practices. He acceded to their request only after they agreed to host a national meeting open to all castes and communities. He went to that temple gathering flanked by his Muslim comrades Abid Hasan and Mohammad Zaman Kiani. “When we came to the temple,” Hasan has written, “I found it filled to capacity with the uniforms of the INA officers and men and the black caps of the South Indian Muslims glaringly evident.” He hesitated to enter the inner sanctum, but a priest gently pushed him in. Tilaks made of sandalwood paste were put on their foreheads in true Hindu fashion. Netaji wiped his off on leaving the temple and so did his followers.”

Netaji’s was a life lived differently. How can a man be so much committed to an abstract idea is quite abstruse, but what remains the truth is that his conception of India was much greater than what is generally assumed. His was a struggle not constricted to getting independence for India but also ensuring that India gets its rightful stage in the world. He credited England for its democratic and constitutional idea, France for its liberty, equality and fraternity, Germany for its Marxian philosophy and further proclaimed that “the next remarkable contribution to culture and civilization of the world – India will be called to make.” He also took a keen interest in the economics and foreign policy of India. During his stint as Congress President, he sent a team of doctors to treat Chinese forces engaged in their struggle against the Japanese aggression (the doctors who went there provided great help to the communists one of them – Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis- is revered every year by the Chinese people during the Qingming festival). While the concept of “soft power” has lately become important in foreign policy, Subhas was already encouraging cultural troupes such as dancers Uday Shankar and Amala Shankar to disseminate Indian arts by the 1930s. His views on religion are quite clear. Subhas admired Ataturk for his contribution to Turkey and shared his views on religion also – that a man’s religion should be a personal matter and that, while all religions should be allowed to grow, evolve and progress, religion should never become the bedrock of political or public life.

Subhas was indeed a philosopher at heart. It was a pity that he was born as a citizen of a subject nation. Had he been allowed the privilege of freedom, such a talent could have, undoubtedly, achieved unprecedented results. Alas! the power of his faculties had to be sapped by the struggle to free his countrymen from the slave mentality. Still, one cannot say that his achievements are any less than the giants who have trodden the earth. In a life marked by struggle, pain, and sacrifice, he did more than many could even imagine. His failures would tower over other men’s successes. There will never be a man like him again.

 

मुख़्तसर ये है हमारी दास्तान-ए-ज़िंदगी

इक सुकून-ए-दिल की ख़ातिर उम्र भर तड़पा किए

Jai Hind, Jai Bharat

Jai Ma Bharti

Narasimha Rao: The Unforgettable Prime Minister

Around six years ago, one day while strolling desultorily in the book market of Daryaganj, I chanced upon The Insider by P.V. Narasimha Rao, the 9^th Prime Minister of India. I had no provident motivations to buy the book except for the facts that it was a hardcover edition in the best state possible for a second-hand book and that it was available for a paltry sum (probably because no one had any predilection to read the musings an oblivious figure in Indian politics who almost fortuitously became the PM of the country). I bought the book and put it in my cupboard (for this tome of a book really gave an erudite appeal to my other lacklustre side-torn paperbacks) and then forgot to even give it a dekko. Six year forward and now on a vacation from college and being stuck in the lockdown, I chanced to look upon the book and given the fact that nobody had touched it in those six years, its quaint appeal in the cupboard hadn’t palled a bit. As I flipped through the first page (which I hadn’t done in the last six years), I was dumbfounded to see Rao’s own autograph on the book. The book was either signed by Rao at a signing event or he had sent it to someone as a gift. I did a quick google search to check whether the signature was real and was again shocked to the see that the day was Rao’s birthday (i.e.  28^th June). It dawned on me as a glut of serendipity and these reasons were enough to make me hunker down to the task of reading through this infamously long (roughly 830 pages) roman à clef to discover the life of man I hardly knew about. Though I had read extensively about the reforms of 1991, yet given the fact that our books are written by those who have worked to make him a forgotten figure, I could never appreciate Rao’s role in the whole scheme of events and now finally there was a chance for me to really unravel who was Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao.

The book is a fictionalized chain of events of Anand’s (a character modelled by Narasimha on his own) life. It marks almost all multifarious facets of a young politician’s life where he is confronted with tough choices, conniving and Machiavellian colleagues who consider power as an end in itself and last but not the least a rocky love affair which has its own special place in Anand’s journey. Shrouded in the cloak of various real events – such as the 1962 Chinese aggression and Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971; death of Nehru and ascendance of Indira Gandhi to the Congress high command- Narasimha Rao tells an entrancing story of a character who loves to think and debate over issues which many of his power-rapacious colleagues find anachronistic and quixotic. However, as luck would have in the end, a person like Anand, who doesn’t even hold the ambition of become a state’s CM ever, goes on to lead the country.

In The Insider however, Narasimha Rao doesn’t cover that part of Anand’s (or actually his) life for which he deserves to be remembered. He unfortunately died before completing a second part of the book- the part in which he suddenly finds himself at the helm to lead a country which was to default in two weeks and a party which was a minority government where even his party-men left no stone unturned in their efforts to topple him. Yet, Narasimha Rao never yielded and strived incessantly to make sure that this country keeps on surviving. It will not be a hyperbole to say that if Gandhi, Nehru and Patel are to be credited for the independence of the country from the throes of colonization, the Narasimha Rao is the one who gave us financial independence from abortive and parochial policies of the previous governments which left us in such an annihilated state that the country had to pledge its gold.

Rao has been famously called Chanakya for his political astuteness and yet notwithstanding being a minister throughout most of his political life, his life, as a whole, never stood out before 1991. Despite himself knowing 17 languages, Rao’s political career before the decisive year of LPG (Liberalization Privatization and Globalization) remains shorn of any peaks. However, in 1991, after the death of Rajiv Gandhi, he became the Prime Minister (Rao himself would have been shocked, to a certain extent, over the tide of the time. He had not fought the 1991 General elections and had even booked packers and movers to shift his belongings to his home state where he planned to retire- yet luck will not have it this way). The path of his career somehow cajoles everyone to believe that Rao was a staunch supporter of Nehruvian socialism and a “family” loyalist (one of the primary reasons why he was chosen to lead in 1991), yet what Rao did after coming to power shocked everyone to the core. He destroyed a redundant system, jolted the country into action, abolished the infamous “license raj”, took powers from the hands of an inherently corrupt state machinery and gave it (to a significant extent) to the ordinary people and finally engendered this country with financial independence.

When Rao took over, he was inundated with seriously exigent issues. Country’s fiscal deficit had reached 8.2% with inflation as high as 13.9% and foreign exchanges only worth two weeks of imports. The Gulf war, leading to the high prices of oil and termination of large remittances, wreaked havoc on India’s democracy. RBI had already pledged the country’s gold (which is considered nothing less than an egregiously shameful incident in a country such as India where gold is a matter of prestige) and the country was literally on the verge of default. Rao’s minority government too was a bane in itself. There were many who considered anything against Nehru’s socialistic model a heresy while others were trying desperately to haggle out as much as they can in this game of power. If all this was not enough, people’s apprehension that anyone not having a “Gandhi” as his surname could ever run a government for its complete term added to Rao’s woes.

That India would be a planned economy was decided even from India became independent. If one reads the 1949 reports of National Planning Committee, People’s Plan, FICCI reports or the famous Bombay Plan, it becomes quite clear that the zeitgeist of the economy was such that almost everyone wanted to have a planned socialism model in India. In his “Perspectives of Indian Economy”, C. Rangarajan states that the strong emergence of eastern Europe and the USSR along with the memories of the gross failure of laissez-faire neo-liberal policies in the Great Depression paved the way for the country to become a planned economy. Though this debate can never be settled whether such a step was right, yet one can assertively aver that Nehru had his own valid reasons. Emerging from the two hundred years of persecution and oppression, and then countenancing a macabre partition, the enterprising ability of the country was nearly cypher. Since Britishers considered India nothing less than a cash cow to be mulched to death, the Indian economy was nearly debilitated when the colonial masters left (British Economist Angus Maddison’s figures expatiate the grim reality of the British Raj. In 1700, India’s share of the world economy was 22.6%, almost equal to that of the whole of Europe (23.3%) and in 1952, roughly five years after the British left, it was only 3.8%). Thus, the whole country believed that a central authority was needed to work as a beacon until the private sector is capable enough to take things on its own.

The country started with its first five-year plan in 1951, and though Nehru had lofty dreams of thinking beyond the trifles and aspired to drive the nation towards education and science, two wars (1947 and 1962), refugee crisis, constant famines and food insecurity kept on taking their toll on the economy.  On 27^th May 1964, the country faced one of the deadliest blows: Pt. Nehru died. When Nehru died, the famous “miles to go before I sleep” poem was lying on his pillow side- indeed, there were miles of go, but unfortunately, he slept.

Lal Bahadur Shastri too died soon under suspicious circumstances and then country fell into a slump. In The Insider, Rao also talks about this time with deep poignancy. Now started the era, when leaders started “really” politicizing the politics. Offices were given, not on the rubrics of ability, but on the desperation of “loyalty”. Coalition politics emerged, Indira Gandhi, in one of the deadliest blows to the country, imposed emergency out of her whims and still rode back to power on her demotic slogan of “Garibi Hatao.” Various temporary Prime Ministers adorned the 7 RCR (despite knowing themselves that they were indeed temporary).

In all the years, the country went through a lot, yet Nehru remained a great symbol. To canvass votes on the name of Nehru, almost everyone had perfect what Nehru preached, yet no one understood what Nehru wanted. Leaders spoke elegiacally of socialism and considered capitalism nothing short of blasphemy. Since only one family had impinged on the political scene of the country, every aspirant of a party ticket waxed eloquence on Nehruvian socialism without meaning a single word of it. Even Nehru’s descendants used socialism as a tool to constrict the country so that it never gets “out of hand” of the party. Hence, the events to which Rao was a legatee, can be easily explained in terms of the gross dereliction of duty exhibited by his predecessors. Given the path of the wronged socialism we were on, someday or the other, we were destined to plummet. However, Rao could not shirk away, and he did not. Knowing that any action to the liberalization would warrant ginormous obloquy from the forsooth socialists of the country, he shrouded every move of his in a guile shroud of Nehruvian ideology. Using his self-developed intelligence to snoop on allies as well as foes to maintain his coalition government, filliping Dr. Manmohan Singh to go forth with the reforms, insinuating all measures as if they were just an extension of Nehru’s socialism and finally liberating this country of the shackles of the “license raj” which was nothing but a state tool to punish the businessmen through sheer empowerment of a bureaucracy deeply mired in egregious red-tapism, he turned the country from a pro-crony state to a pro-business one.

If we can dream of entrepreneurship in India, of setting industries in India, of entertaining FDI, of enjoying technology, of an accountable government, of an efficacious bureaucracy, and above all of a respectable life, it is only because of Rao’s vision. A crude fact that India’s economy from 1980-91 grew at a pace of 5.6% while from 2007-12 (when the world saw the sub-prime crisis), the same rate was 8.2%, is enough to have a glimpse as to how much Rao contributed to the country. He did not use the premiership to stash money (mind you, when Rao was the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, to kickstart the land reforms, he gave up his land of around 500 Acres and had to think about selling his own house to fund his daughter’s medical studies, all despite winning six Lok Sabha elections and serving as Union Minister of Home Affairs, External Affairs and Defence), but instead had a vision of redeeming this country of the minions of a defunct economic model. Notwithstanding internecine struggles and the challenges of taking on a well-entrenched complacent bureaucracy and industrial clique, he came out triumphant and can be described as the most consequential Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru. Very few people know this, but he is also the man behind the development of the nuclear program of the country.

However, there is one more thing that Rao gave to this country, and this achievement of his is even more significant than the LPG reforms. He showed the country that a “non-Gandhi surname” person could reign decisively from Delhi, take tough decisions, remain steadfast in his actions and steer the nation into new directions. His astuteness “shocked” the country to believe that a person who is not a descendant of Nehru can also run this country; that it does not take an esoteric breed of people to come and rule us from above; that leaders can rise from the ground, that individuals could become the masters of their destiny and that a particular family was not destined by the almighty to be the master of this country. Atal Bihar Vajpayee razed this notion further by becoming a non-Congressman for ruling for a full term of five years and finally Narendra Modi, put the final nail in the notion’s coffin by being a “non-Gandhi surname holder” and “non-Congressman” and running the government with an unequivocal majority for a full term. This is indeed what sets Rao apart. He remained (or purported to be- who knows) a family loyalist for his whole life, yet was the first person to set the politics of nepotism on the path to gibbets. Despite having a lacklustre profile throughout his life, his final years were imbrued in such dynamism that no one could claim not to be flabbergasted. And even though his party did not let his dead body into the party office (because this would have immortalized him and hence proven that an outsider could become the insider) and the nation forgot him, Rao’s legacy is something that every Indian ought to know and appreciate.

Here was a man in front of whom his contemporaries were mere dwarf, here was a philosopher-king who wreaked havoc on the system to salvage a despondent and ramshackle country out from becoming a default nation, here was a man who remained in power throughout yet did not take power only for the sake of power and yet, here is a man whose memories have been pushed down to the rebellion. Though I can talk incessantly about Rao, his achievements and how he saved us from not only a financial debacle but also a “despotic democracy” working on the whims of individuals, I would leave it to you to decide whether he should be remembered as (as many have striven to make him) a forgotten Prime Minister or an unforgettable Prime Minister.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI

 

Shrimad Bhagavad 2.23

नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः।
न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः।।2.23।।

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2.23 Weapons can’t cut through it; fire can’t burn it; water can’t make it wet; wind can’t make it dry

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Hitherto, one of the most significant impediments that has precluded mankind from appreciating the beauty of atman is the amorphousness of the atman. Learned men have indited volumes about its charismatic natures; its being untrammelled by the forces of space and time; its being impenetrable by death. However, with the capacities of our imagination parochial, we have never been able to unravel as to how something so powerful that it nullified the perennial effects of nature seems to exist in a body as fragile as a being. Arjuna too, standing amid the battleground of Kurukshetra, must have found himself incapacitated to even muse over such a time. Throughout his life, he must have seen warriors who could decimate armies but would have found even the most potent among them to not be impervious to the forces of natures, ergo, taking the vision of something that remains within us and is yet so elusive; whose description range from mere words to periphrasis; whose existence is admitted but not appreciated by the narrow faculties of the human mind; must have been excruciatingly difficult for him too. Hence Lord gives a view of its powers by showing that the elements of the earth, which we believe are the supreme forces, can’t do it any harm. It is indeed veracious that its not our soul that lives in the body but the vice versa. Among all the changes in the cosmos, atman never changes, it just grows. Just like the hysteresis process of a magnet, in which the magnet itself doesn’t change but reserve the memory of its history, atman too never mutates, but just grown from one to another. The most basic tenet of the Sanatam Dharma is that it is through the process of constant struggle and strife that we can become capable of mortifying our base desires and look for something bigger than us all. As we keep on learning, we keep on growing and our cycle is not inhibited by the phases of life and death. For the body is perishable, it follows its own cycle, however, the atman is in the constant struggle to grow more and more conscious to be able to become one with the unity, the Lord himself. For this process to continue, the atman remains impenetrable to the forces of nature, but is rather governed by its own forces which keep on guiding it towards gaining an ameliorate conscience. Thus, even though it resides in our body, it has no predilection for the same, for it understands that the body is a medium not an end in itself, that it is just a temporary manifestation which will keep on changing with the forces of nature. Such is the nature and charm of atman that it exists in nature, yet nature can’t rule over it.

Jai Hind, Jai Bharat

Jai Ma Bharti

New prospects for the logistics sector

Recently, India jumped 14 places to secure the 63^rd position on the World’s Bank ease of doing business index. Though it stands as a matter of great pride that the path we chose to tread after the coming out of the debacle which culminated in the opening of the Indian economy is bearing fruits, what is even more pivotal to consider is the lacunae that we have inadvertently developed over the time. 


Business compounded with the power of globalization has the capacity to write a rag to riches story for any country. The world has observed how some countries especially China have ingeniously redeemed themselves out of oblivious to come at the helm of the world affairs. However, albeit so much discussion about business creeps into our daily conversation, one gravely neglected issue that betrays the common understanding of business and remains the victim of floccinaucinihilipilification is logistics. 


Sun Tzu, author of the demotic “The Art of War”, once wrote, “The line between disorder and order lies in logistics.” Indeed, it can be said that logistics have the clairvoyance to foretell the consequences of any operation. However, unfortunately, logistics has been hitherto in toto snubbed off in terms of policy discussion and thus continues to be an Achilles heel to the Indian business setting.


In 2016, India jumped 19 places from 54 to 35 on World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index but soon the short-lived happiness faded away and only two years later fell down to 44^th rank. Though this rise and fall story gives a good snapshot of our extant conditions, yet it would take some efforts to exhume the veracious reasons behind the problems that continue to engirdle our prospects of ameliorating the current condition.


The paramount problem that we need to encounter first is the cost of logistics that businessmen have to bear in India. Logistics, here, consume as much as 14% of our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) whereas in the USA the figure is 10% (also consider the fact that the USA has a higher GDP than India) and only 8% in China. The exorbitant cost figures are just one of the grim facts of reality that businesses of the country have to face every day.


Diving a bit deeper, one can also see that our inefficacious freight railway system and our untapped potential of waterways (which at various points are also being made to face geographical problems of low ground clearance and low water availability to enable trade) too form indispensable roots of the problem. Currently, roads bear the 60% burden of handling the logistics. Railways hold about half of road’s business (31%) and waterway lag way behind with a meagre 9% share. This reality in conjugation with the fact that even after 72 years of independence, we have not been able to develop a successful freight corridor (it was only in the year 2006 that Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) was founded). Moreover, one more pernicious problem ensues as a result of over-dependence on roads. Because of high congestion, the first mile and last mile costs remain high and the market remains segregated among a galore of middlemen. This leads to a slower transition of money from one hand to another, thus accentuating the liquidity crunch in a set-up which is 80% unorganized. Usually, all the transporters get their money two to three months after their delivery, leading to cash crunch forcing these transporters to hire from the market. This further makes sure that the interest of around 6-7% that the transporter incur is charged from the pockets of the companies (by charging them more), ultimately leading to a vicious cycle of freight price escalations. 


The woes don’t end here. Corruption and red-tapeism too add fuel to the fire. Because of corruption rife on roads, the transporters quote an even higher price in order to obviate the possibility of any contingent loss that they will be made to bear. 


Though all these problems have been deeply ingrained into the system and will take a long time to be cured, yet the pragmatic steps enshrined into the draft National Logistics Policy and Multimodal Transportation Bill 2019 are commendable. The National logistics policy aims to develop a national logistics plan which will use a multi-pronged approach to make our logistics come back on track. The first step would be to devise a national framework to reduce the overdependence on road transportation. Till now companies have been chary to use alternate modes of transportation like railway and waterway. Also, despite the Sagarmala project, firms continue to fear that the last mile cost of taking consignments from ports to their destination will be abnormally high. The National Logistics Policy aims to quell these fears by working in conjugation with the Multimodal Transportation Bill 2019 and by putting a sharper focus on expediting the building of various crucial corridors like Eastern Freight Corridor from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in West Bengal and Western Dedicated Freight Corridor from Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawahar Lal Nehru Port in Mumbai. 


Going down at the state level, the policy will also work towards bolstering actions like LEADS. A month ago, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry came up with the second edition of Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) ranking. This stratification of states and further scrutiny filliped by the draft policy will undoubtedly be a crucial step in helping us find the sources of various problems that continue to be an impediment in our progress. Also, the proposal of a national logistics e-marketplace by the draft policy is too worth commending for, if implemented carefully, it can go a long way ahead to give this sector the required nudge towards technology.

The Multimodal Transportation Bill as well as the draft nation policy offer feasible solutions to kickstart the revamping of these sectors but like all other policies out there, the key lies in their application. Proper maintenance, marketing and management of freight corridors, optimum attention to the untapped potential of 14,500 km of potentially navigable waterways and technological upgradation in the logistics sector will command dedication and ingenuity on part of the executive. If executed in a condign manner, these measures can really pave the way for a “revolution” in the logistics sector, otherwise, this policy too would rust among the dusty files of failed plans, of which we have no dearth of.

Jai Hind, Jai Bharat

Jai Ma Bharti

Jonathan Livingston Seagull- SImple yet abstruse.

 

 

When I was child, one thing that used to excite me a lot was the word “simplicity.” The whole world wants sophistication and, in the process, we try to make a melange of things believe that the more enigmatic our work looks, the more prolix our speeches are, the more will the world extol our intelligence. In fact, we commence measuring intelligence in terms of the affected airs of sophistication believing that the more elusive our work remains the more reverence will be rendered upon us. However, as we grow old, we understand that the most significant sophistication on earth is simplicity. Simplicity can only be the work of a genius. The only testimony that a genius can ever acquire is that of simplicity.

Though these things have always been pellucid to me, yet I could never fathom as to how one can take an idea as convoluted as life, then go on to take multiple aspects of an already-complicated idea and still compress the whole thing into an half-hour read. Had somebody told that to me before I got my hands-on Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, I would have called that person a “scoundrel”, but after studying this simple yet extraordinarily abstruse book, I can say that everything is possible in the world.

Bach’s book is the shortest epic that you can ever find. His gumption to hunker down to a seemingly impossible task and excel at it unequivocally speaks for itself. Moreover, the themes in the epic (not book) are not random at all. They portray a complete cycle of life and then end with an optimism hinting at the continuum which reinvigorates life back to semblance of commencement.

The epic starts with rebellion. It initiates the process with the depiction of how a one-in-a-million stands up to see farther than the trifles of life; how a person can come up to challenge the regimented life that we all live. Hardships and formidable impediments do come in their ways, but in the end, they trounce all the encumbrances to make sure that they move past the ordinary. However, we all know one thing, refusal is the reward that mediocrity gives to genius. The same happens here, these people are cloistered off and marked as pariahs because they chose to rise above the so-so level. The person who has been ousted finds its extremely strenuous and is not able to unravel what is happening because it is difficult to assimilate that you can be punished for your genius.

The epic goes on to the part where the aggrieved individual gets up and perfects himself and finally breaks the bonds with the world, and he who was once a common person has now evolved to something exceptional. But as you proceed to becoming exceptional, you understand the ignorance present in those regimented people and you go back to extricate those people from the shackles of conventions. Initially, you go as an unasked person but gradually some others who bear the same curiosity as you used to hold come forward and thus starts a novel procedure to annihilate all the manacles. As the process settles, a new problem arises. People start following you rather than the idea itself and against the wishes of the reformer, reform is made dwarf to the reformer. As the reformer leaves the stage, myths are created regarding the greatness of the reformer and the reform is lost somewhere. Conventions are again established and the same fetters start binding the society and the cycle is completed.

This whole process, when looked closely, is exactly how life proceeds ahead. The whole chain of events expounds the creation of legends, obliteration of conventions and then entrenchment of new conventions which finally completes the whole cycle of events. This incessant conveyor belt shows a sad yet true story of life and the beauty of Bach is, he shows it in less than a hundred pages.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI

Being Mortal- a story of human vulnerability and freedom.

There is a dearth of books which have the power to raze the status quo down to the ground and give the reader an uncanny tinge making them realize that the issues which have been mundane and prosaic to them are not so ordinary, one such book that stands out of the crowd and forces us to reflect on an issue which we have either never cared about or have been too petrified to look at is “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande.

Human race, unskeptically, is a pretty peculiar race. We distinguish ourselves from other creatures on the basis of our superior cognitive, thinking and visualizing skills. We take up aims in our life, we plan almost everything pertinent to life be it time, love, marriage or life itself, but one thing about which we never worry is planning to die. The idea of old age or senility has been so much of a killjoy that in our whole history as the “superlative” race of the world, we never got the time or we never showed enough courage to think about how our life will end one day. We have hitherto never shown any concern about the day when everything will cease to exist for us and we for everything else; we have never had a dekko over how will the realization of mortality strike us one day and will make us realize that no matter how much great, charming or charismatic we have been, our end will not be very much different from anyone else. We just like every other creature are equally vulnerable to the arduous realities of nature.

Being Mortal thus hits at the right spot. It makes you peep over something which you have been snubbing off for so long and in this effort, it also touches upon how science and medicine have had their set of constriction.  One of the best apothegms that I have been told is that sometimes it is not life but the way of life that matters most to us. While loving our life and prizing it above anything else, we tend to put a blind eye to the way of life which in actuality holds more vitality than life itself. A famous proverb goes like this, “I have always lived in light, so what if I live for a day less.” Gawande’s book raises this important question through his medical experience. When old age strikes our door, it is not having white hair or wrinkled skin that people detest, it is an ineffably vexing feeling that we can no longer live life by our terms. Suddenly your freedom is snatch away from you and you are left being a dependent. In one moment, the ability to take decisions for oneself, the power to decide how we want our lifestyle to be shaped and the reassurance that we are not dependent on others are the major things that we adore in our life.

Every child wants to be an adult as soon as possible because children believe that being an adult gives us the opportunity to take our own onus and execute things that way we want. However, the present medicine world as well as the people themselves have not been able to unravel this naïve fact. Though it is not out of sheer ignorance that we disregard others freedom when they are old but because of our callow. We never worry about old age until it comes in our vicinity and hence when dealing with old people, we never figure out that one day the same situation would strike our door and we, too, would be standing there at the mercy of someone else’s decision. We put our old people is nursing homes and old age homes where they don’t have the basic freedom to decide what they want to eat, when we want to bathe and believe that we have done our best. But, if you think in terms of that person who is being made to go through all this, it is nothing less than incarcerating them in the name of their health. All through their lives, these people have made their own choices and now because of an impetuous decision of ours finally they are rendered paralyzed in their whole life. Nobody out there tries to fathom the reason behind their resentment and to conceal our own failures we term them dotards and their behavior a consequence of their senility. The purpose of all the sciences in the world is to make the human race independent. We developed Physics because we don’t want to be at mercy of nature, we developed medicine because we wanted to free ourselves of nature’s calamities, we develop Chemistry because we wanted to produce more than what’s in the nature. Human being, since the very inception of earth, has been in search of freedom but haplessly in this case, we spurn the needs of these people, treat their wants with contempt and finally subjugate themselves to live the life of a thrall. This deeply saddens me to see how good and callous we have become at doing this. Now, it has become customary to obliterate their freedom in the name of care and to annihilate their desires in the name of love.

Author also touches upon “when to let go of things.” Sometimes, while pursuing something, we become so much profoundly indulgent in it that we start thinking more about the procedure rather than the end goal we want. We become entangled in the process so much that we finally forget what our goal was initially. The same happens when one of our loved ones is fighting against an incurable disease. Though we know the outcome, yet owing to our incessant love for them, we make them suffer. We try different things which can ultimately make them live a month longer but will sequester themselves from what they used to be. Author gives the example of various patients in whose case it was lucid that they couldn’t survive, yet rather than accepting that fact that this unfortunate thing has happened with them, they try so many different treatments which though prolongs their life by a few days but trounces the very meaning of their life. They are left paralyzed, dependent and at the mercy of others just because we chose to refute that fact that we are not indomitable. Doctors too are guilty in this. They prescribe medicines, tell their patients about various options available but never ask them whether the patients are ready to incur the cost that will come up with these options. The work of a doctor is not just to blurt out some new fancy operations but to rather understand what the patient really wants, what would be the opportunity cost in their respect, are they indeed ready to put their freedom on altar for the sake of a few days. As a society, all of us fail in this regard, because in the end, having the freedom to steer our life to the very last breath is much more valued in anyone’s else. We need to sensitize ourselves with the fact that rather than imposing our decision on these people, we must let them die the way they have lived: bold, brave and independent. In the coming age of technology, rather than becoming more detached from their desires, we need to make sure that we get the essence of whatever they want, because if we don’t them somebody else would also follow the same course for us.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI