Glorious India.

The hour was midnight, on the fifteenth of August, 1947. It was a great day for the people of India. It was the hour of victory for the people who lead the freedom struggle. It was the day that their efforts bore fruit. From that day on, India would be a free country. We still celebrate that day, every single year. But looking back from now, I see that day more as the day we began our fall; a day that marked the entry of our people into our own version of the dark ages. That was the day the Indian people began to descend and turn into the corrupt, mediocre, sentimental, narrow-minded, selfish, arrogant, pathetic and ridiculous people that we are.

Shocked? Well then, name one thing that was either invented or discovered in India ever since 1947. Alright if you don’t consider that criterion for a nation’s greatness, name one Indian who has contributed so much to his own field that he has improved the quality of life of those around him. If that too doesn’t satisfy you, and you still think that the Indian people are the greatest in the world, then I guess you can take pride in the fact that over three million Indian children do not have enough to eat and lead a life of malnourishment. Or maybe it may be a matter of great prestige for you to know that even though your country has the largest university campus in the world (Shantiniketan in west Bengal started by Rabindranath Tagore) and the oldest university in the world (University of Takshashila, 7th century BC to 460 AD), none of our universities is among the top 100 universities in the world. Or you could take pride in the fact that the people who once were the original discoverers of the speed of light (by Sayana 1315-1387 A.D) and the inventors of the number zero (by Brahmagupta in 628 AD) are now nowhere near the cutting edge of development in science and technology. And we have no respect what-so-ever for merit and neither do we truly know what merit is (most applicable to the Telugu people).

I have dedicated my previous post to ranting about how “The System” is to blame for our pathetic status. This post is all about us, the ordinary people of India or, “India ka aam janta” as they say in Hindi.

We have sunk so deep into the quagmire of mediocrity that we have become mediocre in almost every field, including cricket. We insist on retaining players just because they once were good even though we keep going through defeat after crushing defeat. And I needn’t go as far as the Indian cricket team. I wonder how many Indian citizens still are proud to be Indian. Because I know a lot of people from a wide variety of social/regional backgrounds who would happily sell their souls if that would enable them to buy the citizenship of another country (mostly the United States of America).

The state of affairs in India is pathetic, and matters have deteriorated so far that Indians aspire to become millionaires even though they do nothing. We expect people to give us things for no reason, we believe it is our right to avail free stuff, and sometimes we even demand it. In that sphere we have lost our sense of dignity and self esteem. We have deteriorated so far that some kid goes on national television and says that “cricket is our religion”, some other blighters say that the Indian cricket team has “betrayed” us. They talk as if they own the Indian cricket team. I wonder if any of those people who rail against the underperformance of the Indian cricket team have ever done anything in their lives with any degree of dedication; that is something I seriously doubt. One newspaper (national) has this to say about the Indian cricket fan:

“The cricket fan is a lazy, pampered know-nothing who thinks he owns the cricket teams that he supports…”
They then go on to say thus about the Indian cricket fan while comparing them with England's barmy army:

“They are different from our couch potatoes who never leave their rooms, never exert themselves except to find their remote controls and yet treat every Indian defeat as a conspiracy.”

This above quote can be paraphrased to apply to all the Indian people, and I am not going to do that. We Indians go about bitching that this is not right , or that is not proper, this politician didn’t deliver on his promises, or that person is corrupt, etc. Why the devil are these people thriving? It is because of our not-so-benign negligence. “I will not bother about it unless it directly affects me.” That is the attitude of the general public, if not that, it is, “leave it all to the government, they will take care.” We have to kick ourselves out of this lethargy and into action. Otherwise we will end up a land of zombies who are exploited by the smart few.

The only inference I can draw is that this trend is because almost every Indian aspires to become a millionaire without putting any effort into it. And that leads to corruption. And when a person indulges in this dastardly act, despite knowing that it is a dastardly act, it kills his soul. And when a person’s soul dies, this is exactly how he acts. Therefore if you have any humanity left in you, learn to work for what you wish to achieve.

I will not end this tirade with a screaming “jai hind” like a pontificating politician. Because no matter what I say, India will always remain a great country, for this land has given rise to many great souls like Mahatma Gandhi, Gautam Buddha, Akbar (the Mughal Emperor), Chanakya, etc. as I said, India will always be great, it is we Indians who have to live up to that name.

Swastika

History of the Swastika
The swastika is an extremely powerful symbol. The Nazis used it to identify themselves as Aryans and to unite Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria under the German banner and instill a sense of national pride, but for centuries it had positive meanings. What is the history of the swastika? Does it now represent good or evil?

The Oldest Known Symbol

The swastika is an ancient symbol that has been used for over 3,000 years. (That even predates the ancient Egyptian symbol, the Ankh!) Artifacts such as pottery and coins from ancient Troy show that the swastika was a commonly used symbol as far back as 1000 BCE.

During the following thousand years, the image of the swastika was used by many cultures around the world, including in China, Japan, India, and southern Europe. By the Middle Ages, the swastika was a well known, if not commonly used, symbol but was called by many different names:

* China - wan
* England - fylfot
* Germany - Hakenkreuz
* Greece - tetraskelion and gammadion
* India - swastika

Though it is not known for exactly how long, Native Americans also have long used the symbol of the swastika.

The Original Meaning

The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix.

Until the Nazis used this symbol, the swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck.Even in the early twentieth century, the swastika was still a symbol with positive connotations. For instance, the swastika was a common decoration that often adorned cigarette cases, postcards, coins, and buildings. During World War I, the swastika could even be found on the shoulder patches of the American 45th Division and on the Finnish air force until after World War II.

A Change in Meaning

In the 1800s, countries around Germany were growing much larger, forming empires; yet Germany was not a unified country until 1871. To counter the feeling of vulnerability and the stigma of youth, German nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century began to use the swastika, because it had ancient Aryan/Indian origins, to represent a long Germanic/Aryan history.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the swastika could be found on nationalist German volkisch periodicals and was the official emblem of the German Gymnasts' League.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the swastika was a common symbol of German nationalism and could be found in a multitude of places such as the emblem for the Wandervogel, a German youth movement; on Joerg Lanz von Liebenfels' antisemitic periodical Ostara; on various Freikorps units; and as an emblem of the Thule Society.

The Origin of the Swastika

The ubiquity of the swastika symbol is easily explained by it being a very simple symbol that will arise independently in any basketweaving society. The swastika is a repeating design, created by the edges of the reeds in a square basket-weave. Other theories attempt to establish a connection via cultural diffusion or an explanation along the lines of Carl Jung's collective unconscious.

While the existence of the swastika symbol in the Americas may be explained by the basket-weave theory, its American presence weakens the cultural diffusion theory. While some have proposed that the swastika was secretly transferred to North America by an early seafaring civilization on Eurasia, a separate but parallel development is considered the most likely explanation.

Yet another explanation is suggested by Carl Sagan in his book Comet. Sagan reproduces an ancient Chinese manuscript that shows comet tail varieties: most are variations on simple comet tails, but the last shows the comet nucleus with four bent arms extending from it, recalling a swastika. Sagan suggests that in antiquity a comet could have approached so close to Earth that the jets of gas streaming from it, bent by the comet's rotation, became visible, leading to the adoption of the swastika as a symbol across the world.

Bob Kobres in Comets and the Bronze Age Collapse (1992) contends that the swastika-like comet on the Han Dynasty silk comet atlas was labeled a "long tailed pheasant star" due to its resemblance to a bird's foot., and further suggests that many swastika and swastika-like motifs may have been representations of bird tracks, including many of those found by Schliemann.

Barbara G. Walker, author of The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, claims that the crux dissimulata, an early swastika, represented the four winds. Concerning the short-armed version of this symbol, known as the gammadion because it is made up of four Greek gammas, Walker says this symbol was an emblem of the ancient goddess and probably represented "the solstices and equinoxes, or the four directions, four elements, and four divine guardians of the world."