Baba Ramdev, who has woken up against the Indian Government on the issue of corruption and black money is missing the whole point. I am afraid that all his posturing will eventually get the better of him and he will become inconsequential.

He has no idea of the black money economy in India. It is not about the money stashed in Swiss bank accounts abroad. It is about the parallel economy that is in operation all around us: the economy that deals only in cash, where shopkeepers do not pay any VAT or ST to the Government, where rich farmers show their illegal earnings as coming out of the agriculture and hence escape taxation and where politicians/babus construct multi story complexes from the money fleeced from general public as bribe.

If Ramdev wants to really fight corruption, he should go back to his followers and ask them to act ethically, not to ask or pay bribes and ask them to pay taxes honestly. His followers in IAS should stop seeing a development project as a money making opportunity. His followers in the corporate world should stop bending rules and not bribe politicians to get their job done.

Can Ramdev not create one yogasana that rinses the body of toxic thoughts that lead a person to ask for bribe? This is how Ramdev should strive to be effective. What is happening in the Ramlila Ground in Delhi is a farce.

I am planning to restart this blog again with few blog posts a week. I have been neglecting this page for quite sometime now and this has resulted in my Astrology knowledge going down. I can’t read charts as well as I could last year. Hopefully, it will improve again with practice.

Another problem that arises with this neglect that my name’s relevance in Google search has gone down. When I search for “Kshitij Sharma” on the net, links on this website are no longer on the top. Talk about an egocentric approach to blogging Sounds corny, but true – people will do all sorts of gimmicks to keep themselves in limelight. Google searches are a spotlight that I seek.

Since I do not get to read about Astrology all that much now-a-days (something that I will try hard to fix). I am planning to add another category called “religion” and will start blogging under that category.

Please expect me to be fairly active on this blog from now on.

To further my claim in the previous article that there is no scope for “unbiased” and “independent” research in this country, I would like to draw the attention of the readers to this article in Times of India, How Allahabad HC exposed ‘experts’ espousing Masjid cause. You can find relevant part of the judgment here - http://www.rjbm.nic.in/sa/Judgment%20RJB-BM%20Vol-15.pdf

The article quotes a so called “expert” Suvira Jaiswal who happens to be someone called an “eminent historian.” She is a Professor of Ancient Indian History at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She was elected president of Indian History Congress in 2007 as well.

She says, and I quote from the judgement:

whatever knowledge I gained with respect to disputed site is based on newspaper or what the others told, i.e., from the report of historians.

Further, she said she prepared a pamphlet titled “Political misuse, Babari Mosque-Rama birthplace dispute:”

I had prepared this pamphlet from news published in newspapers and having a discussions with medieval (history) expert of my department.

If such is the state of experts in our country, then Ram only can help us.

PS: We have our neighbour in the same boat – interesting to read this – Rampant Fraud…

The day came and went and India remained calm. We all got home early from work and were glued to the television screen to hear the verdict. I heard it on the television and then rushed to the computer to download the PDF file of the verdict from the Allahabad High Court website. Read it, made some sense and then sat thinking – have I really moved on or have I stopped caring.

I distinctly remember the day of 6th December 1992. I was still in school, hadn’t reached voting age, but was aware enough to make sense of all mandal-kamandal nonsense that was happening around me. I lived in a very peaceful city that has never seen and (God willing) will never see even a curfew. One of the shopkeepers in the local market who was a BJP activist had organized a bhajan mandali right in front of a shop whose owner was a Muslim. I still purchased stuff from this Muslim shopkeeper, laughed at the poor quality of bhajans that were being sung and went home. Doordarshan, the mouthpiece of the Government of the day did not say that the mosque was pulled down and just said “bhari nuksaan”. It was the time before Times Now, NDTV and for  news reporting, BBC and Voice of America were still the credible sources. Unfortunately, India did not figure in their viewer/listener list then.

I grew up. With the advent of Internet and Wikipedia, I lapped up all that I could find about this particular controversy. There was no media frenzy to guide me – just patient research by surfing… and I reached the conclusion in my mind about what is right and what is wrong.

The folks who are against the temple try to reason that Ram never existed and that it is only a matter of fath. They call Him a only a mythological figure. Well, you can never prove that something does not exist, therefore, these so called scientists who deny His existence are purely doing it based on nothing else but their faith. While we are at it, they should consider the ASI report that clearly says that there was a temple structure below the mosque and that the mosque built on the foundation of this structure.

Let us all allow the other bunch of scientists work on proving that Ram and Krishna did in fact exist. It is unfortunate that any attempt in this country to gain a historical perspective on Hindu itihaas in past 60 years has been severely undermined in the name of secularism. In my opinion, this is an equally dogmatic approach and the folks in seat of power who discourage any such research are equally bigoted.

I am of the opinion that there a temple must be built at the place because it is a matter of faith and because a majority of Indians believe that Ram was born there and have considered it as Ram Janmabhoomi for couple of millennia. Lets not call them bigots and consider them dogmatic in their approach. It is their faith, let’s respect it.

I welcome this judgment. There is something for everyone here. I welcome that fact that one third land has been given to Muslims. I am sure government of the day can grant them additional adjoining land to build a grand mosque there – and I would whole heartedly support any such move. I am satisfied that the janma-bhoomi itself remains with Hindus and we can now start building a temple there – it need not be a bhavya mandir but it will still be more respectable than the tent that exists there right now.

I am a responsible citizen of this country of India, who happens to be a Hindu and I exhort the government to allow me to express my religious freedom within my rights.

It was not an ordinary day at work and colleagues pointed out to each other that Bangalore Oberoi and the Taj West End are directly visible from our office. I looked out of the window and shuddered. Even when I was aware that I am a thousand odd kilometers removed from Bombay, I felt scared.

There was a feeling of disgust when Bangalore was bombed. However, it is a different feeling now. It is a feeling of distinct fear mixed with rage. It is a feeling of fear because I am not sure if there is a safe place left for me and my loved ones. Fear because I am not sure if my home, my office, the market place I visit, the malls I go to are safe anymore. Fear because I am not sure what kind of world is my son born in. It is a feeling of rage because the people in authority who are responsible for providing this security are imbeciles. They do not have any morals and I don’t know who to be more angry with - the terrorists who kill innocent people or these officials and politicians who through their inaction allow such incidents to happen.

There are many questions that I as an ordinary citizen of India have for these people. However, I am also very aware that the short public memory will allow these politicians to get away with anything. The NSG will continue to be treated as normal security guards to protect the people who don’t deserve it and the innocent citizens will continue to be ignored.

*****

Does the spirit of Bombay really exist?

Someone said that the people get the government they deserve. S/he may be right. 48-60 hours have passed. Nariman House has just been cleared. There are civilian casualties but the crowd does not care about the gravity of the situation. On NDTV 24×7, Barkha Dutt is gravely talking about the Jewish family who did not survive. Strangely, in the crowd, I can see a young man blowing kisses towards the camera. He is just happy that he is on television. He is now taking out his mobile and happily calling someone… “abe dekh, main TV par hoon…”. Something inside me is already dying.