For all your days prepare
And meet things ever alike
When you are the anvil, bear
When you are the hammer, strike
Wonderful lines of inspiration which I remember reading in Kalam’s autobiography Wings of Fire..
Is India today a hammer or an anvil?
Well, if you ask me in a overall sense it is in a transition phase from having been an anvil till britishers left us towards the Great Indian Dream of becoming a hammer..
Does India strike after becoming a hammer?? Yes, India will announce its becoming a hammer by striking at its adversaries who are not other nations or group of men.. but thoughts and actions that provocate violence and fraud..
Killing one or even a thousand terrorists will not end terrorism..
Israel has been doing that for about more than half a century.. but terrorism still continues there.. But, I dont say that India should not fight and kill terrorists But that should not be our focus or solution for the problem.. We need to strike on those conditions which facilitate the birth of terror thoughts
Most Indians live below poverty line even today.. But India is one of the richest countries in the world.. An irony because of non-uniform distribution of wealth.. people are corrupt from small scale corruption of a traffic corp to large scale lalloos.. Do we need to punish lalloo first or the corp??
My view is we need to ensure that there are no lalloos (I mean large scale corruption) in this country before we even look towards a traffic corp for demanding a bribe of 50 or 100 Rs.. Do you know the salary a traffic cop gets in India for standing all day long in that polluted atmosphere without any protection and finally ending up paying all his retirement amount for his treatment Its about 4000-5000 rupees!!!
Remember even he has a family.. wishes.. wants to take his family on vacation to some nice places.. wants to buy brand Televsion, refrigerator etc.. wants to educate his children well for which he has to pay bribes in the name of donation (see how corruption has created a tightly coupled web!!), so on and so forth.. I am NOT saying he is right in being corrupt but society HAS NO RIGHTS to ask him to stop taking bribes till the big fishes are stopped from doing so.. give him a descent salary and then ask him not to be corrupt.. in the united states even hotel waiters (there is dignity of labor) take their family on an international trips!!
For a traffic corp being corrupt is a necessity.. but for sharks and whales like politicians.. it is greed.. they want more and more and more.. crores and crores.. this is where India needs to strike as a hammer.. hit the roots of corruption.. While corrupt people SHOULD be punished for being so the focus should be creating a society where there is no need to be corrupt.. and then give stringent punishments to those who are still greedy
Finally, have a look at the society by going through http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/13inter.htm
This was in 2004 dec.. things haven’t changed much since then on corruption in India except that more scams have been unearthed and only god knows about those that have gone unnoticed all these years
