Money-Making Machine: The Hidden Agendas Behind Modern Social Movements

 

1. Feminism: The Destruction of Gender Roles

What began as a noble fight for equal rights and opportunities for women gradually morphed into something else — a tool that undermined the very foundation of human society: the family. The feminist movement, once rooted in the pursuit of justice, slowly became a platform for ideological warfare. Motherhood was no longer seen as an honorable and fulfilling role but was framed as a restrictive burden. Masculinity, instead of being valued as a complementary counterpart to femininity, was recast as toxic and dangerous. Traditional family structures were branded as patriarchal oppression, and decades of cultural heritage were dismissed as relics of a dark past.

But who truly benefited from this ideological shift? Not the families who grew more fragmented, nor the children raised without stable homes. The real victors were corporations. By pushing more women into the workforce under the banner of "liberation," labor supply effectively doubled — driving down wages. Governments also gained — as the taxable population expanded, so did their revenues. Meanwhile, the population became increasingly exhausted, divided, and distracted. Feminism didn’t overthrow the system; it became an efficient cog in it. The corporate machine fed on the breakdown of the home and called it progress.

True equality never required the erasure of gender roles — only the respect for each. Instead, we now have a society where everyone works more, earns less, and struggles harder to find meaning. The “empowerment” narrative served only those who stood to profit — not the individuals it claimed to free.

2. The Celebration of Obesity

What began as a compassionate movement — body positivity — meant to uplift those shamed for their appearance, eventually became an enabler of poor health. Initially, it encouraged self-love and confidence regardless of size, which was a noble goal. But somewhere along the way, it morphed into a dangerous ideology. Obesity, with all its associated medical risks, was rebranded as "empowerment." Fitness and discipline were seen as judgmental, and even medical advice was attacked as fatphobic.

This wasn’t about genuine love or acceptance. It was about profit. A chronically ill population is highly profitable to the food, pharmaceutical, and healthcare industries. When being healthy is discouraged and dysfunction is normalized, people remain trapped in a cycle of consumption — of junk food, of medications, of treatments they may never fully recover from.

The industries benefiting from this narrative have no interest in curing obesity. Why would they? Lifelong patients mean lifelong profits. All the while, marketing campaigns flood social media telling you to love yourself just the way you are — even if that means ignoring real health risks. The more dependent people become on external solutions, the less likely they are to reclaim control of their own well-being.

3. The Death of Masculinity

Masculinity, in its healthy form, was never a threat — but strong, self-reliant men have always been a challenge to systems of control. Therefore, masculinity had to be redefined. It was recast as toxic, outdated, and even dangerous. Fatherhood was labeled optional. Male leadership was branded as oppressive. Boys were medicated for their energy. Men were increasingly silenced and sidelined from public and domestic life.

The erosion of masculinity was not an accident — it was strategic. A society without strong men is easier to manipulate. Men who no longer see themselves as protectors or leaders become passive, aimless, and disconnected. This vacuum is quickly filled by the state, which becomes the new father, protector, and moral authority.

When strong men fall, predators rise — not just individuals, but systems. The result is a culture that praises compliance over courage, conformity over character. And when a generation of men no longer knows its purpose, society suffers deeply. Masculinity didn’t need to be dismantled — it needed to be respected and rebalanced.

4. The Business of Disease

Modern healthcare is not always centered on healing. In many cases, it is structured around prolonged treatment. The pharmaceutical industry, despite its scientific advancements, often prioritizes profit over wellness. Real cures end the profit cycle. Managing symptoms, however, ensures recurring revenue.

Patients become long-term customers rather than people on the path to recovery. Natural remedies and holistic health approaches, which often cannot be patented or controlled, are frequently ridiculed or even legislated against. Not because they’re ineffective — but because they threaten the profit model.

We’re taught to see health as something to outsource — to pills, injections, and products — instead of as something we can cultivate through informed choices and lifestyle changes. This dependency isn’t accidental. It’s engineered. And while you’re taught to trust the system, the system teaches itself how to monetize your every ailment.

5. The Porn Pandemic

They told you it was harmless — even healthy. A natural outlet for sexual expression in the digital age. But pornography didn’t liberate desire; it hijacked it. It rewired the brain, dulled the senses, and created a generation increasingly detached from real intimacy and emotional connection.

This wasn’t about freedom — it was about control. A population addicted to screen-based pleasure is distracted, desensitized, and docile. Porn doesn’t build families. It doesn’t foster love. It stunts development and undermines purpose. It subtly destroys the foundations of human connection — all while being promoted as “just another choice.”

In reality, pornography has become a powerful weapon of psychological manipulation. It generates billions in revenue while weakening the very institutions that sustain a healthy society. Its impact is felt in marriages, mental health, community life, and more — and yet it remains largely unchallenged.

Each of these movements and trends — when stripped of their surface-level messages — reveal a disturbing undercurrent. They’re not simply cultural shifts; they’re commercial strategies and control mechanisms. The goal isn’t empowerment or progress — it’s profit, dependency, and docility. What we celebrate today may not be liberation, but clever branding in service of deeper agendas.

Understanding this is the first step toward reclaiming agency — over our minds, our bodies, our families, and our futures.

Is Constitution of India Copy of British Constitution

Our constitution is one of the best in the world. It takes some parts from Britain, but it is not a copy of the British. In fact, they don't even have a written constitution. Our problem is the laws like CrPC, IPC, etc which were passed by Britishers in India and our courts work as per these. Powerful people support these laws, including the Supreme Court, whose existence is because of the constitution and not because of these laws. Even Modi can't correct these laws because of influential people. Unfortunately, very few people know that cases are tried under these laws and not as per the constitution, which is not part of the constitution. We have good shape, which was the first part. The second part is still pending: to scrap British laws and replace them with new ones. When Modi said in the first term that he did away with 1800 laws, he was referring to the second part, which is necessary.

Hate brigade abuse everything in India. Foot soldiers of the hate brigade are brainwashed people who do not realize what they are doing. They end up abusing Ambedkar to excite some people against the downtrodden, and they end up blaming the so-called upper castes for the miserable lives of the poor without realizing that the west was responsible for it.

Dr. Bimrao Ramji Ambedkar gave us a unique constitution that is complete.

Attacks on Nigerians in Greater Noida are NOT RACIST ATTACKS

And the biased narrative of media begins. In this case, I have the benefit of residing within 3 km of the place where the incidents took place.

The actual story is as follows...

So by now, the whole world knows that a boy had died in greater Noida and there were riots in which African students were attacked indiscriminately. News reports inform us that Africans were accused of cannibalism and there were racist riots. So the story begins from almost two years ago when an auto driver went missing and later on he was found in fridge of Nigerian students in Greater Noida, body parts cut and stored. After that local people were whispering that Nigerians a cannibals. What was the issue with that auto driver nobody knows as media did not cover it and it was treated as just another petty crime. Even today nobody knows what happened to that case in which those students were arrested, if they were punished or not. Most probably this case got lost in police files in India as so many cases get lost. That driver perhaps did not have local backers and hence nobody bothered about him but locally people knew about it and discussed it and then forgot as we know public memory is short. 6000 African students of various nationalities lived undisturbed all this while. People rented them their own houses. No discrimination was happening as such. African students could be seen everywhere in Greater Noida. Now when this fresh case happened when this boy died. Those memories came back. Rumour mills had usual effect as rumour mills are known to have throughout the history across the world. This buy was known to Nigerians. He was seen with them. One statement which none of the "RESPONSIBLE" media outlet carried was of the brother of dead buy. Before he died of cardiac arrest finally he had told his brother that Nigerians had injected him with something and after that he did not remember anything. "Responsible" media thought it appropriate to report just the last part that "he did not remember anything". Now the boy in question was not some auto driver far away from his home but belonged to powerful local "Gurjer" or "Gujjar" people, who are dominant land owning community in this area. They persued the matter and then tempers ran high and they gathered in thousands at Pari Chowk (Main junction in Greater Noida). they started hunting for Africans as they can not differentiate between Kenyan or Nigerian or south African. Things were brought under control, PAC (Provincial Armed Constabulary, a kind of reserve force in UP Police) was called in quickly.

So what we see is crime of passion not racism.

Yes it is fine if media does not add to the rumours of cannibalism but when it turns the narrative towards racism then it is crime on the part of those sections of media.

In fact some of them already started instigating African governments against Indian Interests.

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/03/29/why-indians-need-an-urgent-lesson-in-identifying-its-racism-at-h_a_22016438/

India's journey from Nehru to Narendra Modi

Nehruvian Socialism to Free Markets and we move on.

When India became independent, Nehru became first prime minister. Initial years were defined by commanding heights of public sector enterprises. There was not enough capital and it was a planned economy. When I am writing this today we are more or less a free market economy. Indian economy was a planned economy on socialist model. Although there were private enterprises and business houses but there were lots of restrictions. Because of these restrictions private enterprises were not allowed to flourish the way they could have. He even toyed with the idea of soviet style collective farming. This situation continued till 1991. That year because of forex crisis India was forced to open its economy. That was 1991 is landmark year in independent India’s economic history.

After Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri had brief tenure. It was not long enough to be judged for any visible directional changes.

Then came Indira Gandhi. Her economic policies were even more communist/socialist than Nehru himself. She nationalized all the private banks. There was curb on manufacturing even the common goods like automobiles, TV, radio set etc. There was wait list for buying almost all manufactured goods, so in a way economic growth was throttled. Inefficiencies were tremendous. So many licenses were required that it was virtually impossible to start the business.

Morarji Desai led Janta Party government was a break in between. They were advocates of free market. But it was short lived and many factions of Janta party were socialist in nature. Nothing much directional change happened even during more than two years.

Rajiv Gandhi continued with the policies of his mother (Indira) and maternal grandfather (Nehru). He had huge mandate but it was all the same policy environment.

Short lived governments of VP Singh and Chandrasekhar were fighting for survival most of the time. Reforms were opposed at all levels. Even though strong need was being felt by that time still nobody could bring about those changes.

And then came the crisis of 1991. P V Narsimha Rao was heading a minority congress government. It was a Congress government for sure but it was for the first time that somebody from Jawaharlal Nehru line was not head it. And then started the reforms. It does not matter now how and why these were mandated but yes these were reforms. And it was the beginning of era of moving away from Nehruvian policies. It is ironic that it started by Congress but yes it started and then there was no looking back. Moving away from the tradition PVN choose a technocrat PM to implement the changes which were forced upon India by World Bank and IMF. Although it was forced but it set the balls rolling. Indian market came out of “Quota Raj” slowly. It was painful for entrenched elites in policy circles, government and some crony capitalists. As large masses do not have understanding of the economics beyond welcoming freebies, they did not react to it. But it benefit the economy tremendously which was shackled by “License Quota Raj” till that time. Words like FDI were alien till that time in India and there were lots of fears. By that time fruits of well-intentioned structured reforms were bearing the fruits in China. Hence, acting as inspiration for India, even though we were more cautious. When PVN left office in 1996 it was very much clear that India was moving in right direction after decades of stagnation.

Then came era of political instability 1996-1998 when we again saw two powerless PMs in the form of H D Devegowda and I K Gujral, but it was soon over with BJP coming to power and Atal Bihari Vajpayee became PM.

Atalji continued the reforms in his two terms totaling 6 years. His second term was first full term for a non-Congress government’s full term. By the time India was going to election in 2004, “India Shining” was the reality as Vajpayee continued the reforms started by PVN. For the first time India was set on high growth trajectory. Unfortunately, Vajpayee lost the election in 2014 but it brought to power another Congress government. But this time it was lead by Manmohan Singh. Another Congress PM outside the Nehru family.

In his first term Manmohan Singh continued the reforms. Fruits of what Vajpayee had done during his six years were ripening by that time and India was on high growth trajectory. Manmohan Singh did not halt the reforms but at the same time he did not pursue the same with zeal. He focused more on socialist schemes and squandered a lot of government money. Scams were regular affair. This resulted in falling growth rate. Economy started suffocating.

So when Modi came to power, reforms were generally acceptable because public had seen the benefits, hence not much opposition. For the first time since reforms were started in 1991, there was a majority government at center, hence bold steps could be taken. Socialism has not gone out of fashion totally but it is no longer the norm. We can not say that Modi did not take socialist decisions but those were few. Emphasis had already shifted to skill development rather than on keeping the people poor and feeding them. So, in a way Modi benefitted from the pace set by his predecessors. He is working towards making India manufacturing hub and ease of doing business is focus of the government instead of making capitalist villains. You might not believe it today but in Nehruvian socialism all businessmen were made to look like thieves. We still have a long way to go.

Why did India fail to make necessary economic reforms during 1970's and 1980's while China did

We need to look into the background before I come to real answer. Today when we look back at those times it is difficult to visualize how much world was divided between capitalism and socialism/communism. It was believed that rich people were source of misery of all the poor people. This naturally meant that socialism/communism found favour with poor people across the world particularly in the countries which were ruined by direct colonization (India in this case) or through influence of colonial powers (China). After Second World War colonial power had lost their hold on the colonies and countries were getting independence. India (1947) and China (China) gained their independence and current systems around the same time. Both were following socialist policies because of aforementioned reasons. China was communist where all the resources were with state and India was having “Nehruvian Socialism”, where state was all powerful but private property was allowed thanks to our robust constitution. Nehru dominated Indian and Mao virtually owned China.

India got its chance before China when Nehru died in 1964 but Shastri died soon after and Nehru’s daughter proved to be more socialist and dictatorial than Nehru himself. India got another chance in 1977 when Janta Party came to power and tried to move towards market economics, but again it was short-lived and Indira came back to power in 1980, which meant those same policies continued till beginning of 1990s when P V Narsimha Rao came to power. Although Rao belonged to Congress party of Gandhi Nehru dynasty, he started the reforms, which were more or less forced upon him because of financial conditions of the country at that time.

China got their chance in 1976 when Mao died and in 1978 Deng Xiaoping was elevated to top position. He was the guiding force for next 15 years, which resulted in continuity of the policies. He called for "four modernizations" (economy, agriculture, scientific and technological development and national defense), and announced an ambitious plan of opening and liberalizing the economy. He was visionary and put forward the three steps suitable for China's economic development strategy within 70 years: the first step, to double the 1980 GNP and ensure that the people have enough food and clothing, was attained by the end of the 1980s; second step, to quadruple the 1980 GNP by the end of the 20th century, was achieved in 1995 ahead of schedule; the third step, to increase per capita GNP to the level of the medium-developed countries by 2050, at which point, the Chinese people will be fairly well-off and modernization will be basically realized.

Unfortunately, we did not have that kind of visionary and missed the two chances that we got before China. So China had a head start of at least thirteen years over India. If you go through GDP, GNP, Infrastructure data, you will find that till 1980, India and China were at par with each other.

Another advantage that China had was that of political system. I am not advocating one party system here but our democracy had thrown some roadblocks with unstable governments. Now we are moving in right direction. Even though different political dispensations have ruled in last 25 years since P V Narsimha Rao started the reform process, broad direction has been same under successive governments, may be at slower pace than desired. When I am writing this answer we have a majority government at center for the first time since reforms started in India. One with clear mandate.

Originally written for Quora

https://www.quora.com/Policy-question-Why-did-India-fail-to-make-necessary-economic-reforms-during-1970s-and-1980s-while-China-took-full-advantage-of-the-opportunity

Can 21st century be India's century?

It might happen. We can not say for sure that it will happen. There are so many variables, so many forces acting simultaneously. If Indians plan it well, nobody can stop India

1 Historical Background –

As per studies by renowned quantitative macroeconomics analyst Angust Maddition India was the largest economy in the world from 1 AD to 1700 AD in most of this period contribution of India in world GDP was 24-32 percent. At the beginning of 1800s India was still larger economy than US, UK, Germany and France put together. Post colonization and industrial revolution in west, share of India in World GDP fell drastically. India used to be home to finest cities in the world, testimony about Rajgir and Vijaynagar stands out in history. By the time of independence our share in world GDP shrank to 3.8% and obviously India became home to largest number of poor people living in ghettos, Dharavi still hold the distinction of being the largest slum in the world.

Father of economics, Adam Smith explained how relative position of country in value chain affect the prosperity of the country. India lost out to west during Industrial Revolution. Post liberalization we are making continuous gains and today stand as 3rd largest economy in the world in terms of real GDP.

2 Unique Advantages-

2.1  All Agro Climatic Zones

This gives us advantage of producing everything. India has largest cultivated land in the world. Almost half of total land available is under farming but productivity is low. We can use different zones for most suitable produce using scientific methods.

2.2 Demographic Dividend – While World Is Ageing Demography – Most Opportune Moment

Today 41% of population in India is below the age of 20 while almost 50% is between 20-59 years of age. So we are huge young country. While most of the world is ageing, we are still young, but this opportunity will be lost if we do not encash this opportunity. Such huge population if productively employed can create tremendous value and will be one of the largest market in itself.

2.3 Cheap Labour

Owing to large population we have relatively cheaper labour. Development pattern all over the world has followed the path of Agriculture to Manufacturing to Services (Europe, US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc). Till now we have not sufficiently focused on manufacturing part of it. While agriculture is helping the people survive we can move the people to manufacturing without causing any disruption.

2.4 Large market

Geographic spread and large population makes us huge market. We need to use ready availability of this market to expand the growth.

2.5 Tourism

Every state in India has unique potential for tourism. We can develop infrastructure and make it easy for tourists coming from outside the country. It brings in foreign currency and provide jobs for local population. Potential for internal tourism is also huge. Cultural and religious tourism is also having huge potential. When income levels of the people increase it will increase exponentially.

2.6 Medical Tourism

Lot of people come to India from middle east Asia and African countries. We have relatively cheaper healthcare and expertise. Although we have one of the lowest number of doctors per capita, but we have highly specialized hospitals. Increasing income from outsiders will help us further increase in medical colleges and training of more doctors, it will improve public health and productivity of population in turn. We can learn from countries like Cuba.

2.7 Advantage of English language

We have second largest English speaking population in the world after USA. Today English is language of communication and trade all over the world. Our IT and ITES industry has benefited from this. We can take advantage of it in furthering the economy and trade. Most number of research papers are published in English language and that gives us easy access to scientific knowledge and development across the world.

2.8 Culturally liberal society entrenched in democratic traditions

Historically we accepted everybody, our people believed in वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम (Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam = THE WOLE WORLD IS A FAMILY), accepted the change throughout the history. Our merchants traded throughout the known world, we have Indian diaspora in most of the countries. This gives us a unique advantage in globalized world.

2.9 Availability of all types of raw materials

Theory of critical mass can be implemented. We can develop the industry in and around the areas of availability of raw materials. We have almost everything from salt to thorium. For example huge Thorium reserves can help us in our energy needs of the future and development. We need to develop the knowledge of processing where it is required.

2.10 Critical mass available for almost any business, trade, research

Critical mass is important for any business or trade. It is also needed for pumping sufficient funds in research and development.

3 What we can do-

3.1 Identify areas for different products

Different part offer unique advantages for different industries and produce. Mostly we are aware of these. We just need to focus on right mixes.

3.2 Focus on Education and Industrialization

Till 1985 India was ahead of China (which is going to be our closest competitor in near future) in per capita income as well as real GDP. Today Chinese economy is 4 times the size of Indian economy. China leapt ahead in 80 because of education and industrialization. We can lear from the experience of Europe as well, they took lead earlier with Industrialization. Roman used to complain that we do not have anything to export to India, we can again achieve that distinction

3.3 Infrastructure development – examples of Canada and Australia

Infrastructure is most important for development of any country. There is huge infrastructure gap in India. It helps at all the level. Manufacturing, tourism, transport of goods and economic efficiencies are achieved through Infrastructure. We can learn from the experience of Canada and Australia in this.

In India infrastructure development will be different from the models followed in other countries. We need to provide infrastructure in rural areas so that small industries and enterprises can work from the rural areas. As of now they have to move closer to cities.

3.4 Sustainable development model and push to the eastern part

Today whole world is aware of climate change and sustainability is most important aspect of development going forward. We have huge untapped potential for clean energy which is not only sustainable but saves precious foreign exchange that we spend in buying petroleum and reduces our dependence on global factors.

Eastern part of the country has not yet tasted the fruits of Green Revolution. Now with new studies showing that organic produce can have equally high yields we can do that on war footage in eastern parts of the country. It fetches premium as well along with being sustainable.

3.5 Invest in R&D

To achieve this all we need new and available technologies. All studies shows high correlation between development and spending on agriculture.

• Small countries like Switzerland have huge share in scientific work and that is the basis of their development and high value products they produce.
• Story of Chinese economic development is also the story of increase in share of China in scientific papers produced from 3 to 11 percent between 2001 and 2011.

We still buy mobile phones and laptops from outside. Our productivity in agriculture is very low (less than half in most of agriculture products) in comparison to developed world. Our own experience in space technology and nuclear technology is similar.

3.6 Invest in people

People can be productive when they have proper skills. Most of our population is involved in unskilled or semiskilled work. To move up the value chain we need to invest in our people to develop the skills. Here we can learn from the examples of Japan and Scandinavian countries.

3.7 Environment and policies to enhance productivity to be created

• “Red Tapism” is biggest hindrance for budding entrepreneurs. We need to reduce the regulations to extent possible.
• Technology can be used to shake the corruption and accountability can be ascertained
• Archaic laws – how ease of doing business is improving and can be improved
• Development and cleanliness go hand in hand. Nobody want to live in dirty environment, as we enable our people to have respectable living standards, cleanliness will follow automatically

4 Risks:

While doing all this there are potential risk factors which we need to address continuously.

- Population can be burden

High population does not mean high production and high demand automatically. An unskilled poor population can become burden on society.

- Division of labour degraded into caste system

According to Adam Smith as skills become more complex then economies need to have specialists. India was one of the first country where division of labour was achieved thousands of years ago. Later on it degenerated into caste system and untouchability.

- Corruption is deep rooted

All welfare and development schemes must be implemented in targeted fashion and last mile delivery must be ensured otherwise resources will be squandered without any benefits.

5 Conclusion:

At present we have become fastest growing economy in the world. We are moving in right direction but there are lots of things that can go wrong. World is moving very fast, technology gap that made the most skewed world in late 19th and early 20th centuries is reducing, still we need to close that gap. We have resources, base and demography on our side, momentum is built up. Now it is time to bank upon it.

Conspiracy Theory: That too by defenders of Terrorists at JNU

Same set of people who blamed government going too harsh in crackdown on anti national elements in JNU are now blaming it for going slow.

Foreign media has also grabbed the opportunity to attack India with their propaganda articles, which are being shared by innocent people. This one is just one of those. Authors are obviously Indians.

Para 1: Author comes up with conspiracy theory that it was to save PDP-BJP alliance that BJP did not take strong action. On what basis he is saying that? Did BJP say so? Did PDP say so? No. But suits their propaganda so they came up with conspiracy theory. Smriti Irani gave the facts that these rats were named in internal report of JNU security staff, some cowards became underground and one available was arrested. But instead of calling coward rats as rats it is saying they were not arrested deliberately. Spreading lies.

Under Kashmiri voices, author is justifying that it is common. So should not it be questioned? If some Indian students show solidarity with Kashmir saying "Kashmir Hamara hai" how does that justify somebody shouting against that solidarity by calling for separation of Kashmir and division of India?And if these political parties who are mud-slinging at government in name of JNU by defending these sins believe that India has illegally occupied Kashmir then they should say so publicly. Why do not they so. Or if they believe in constitution of India which says that Kashmir is part of India, then they should support action against anti-nationals.

Within same para, it says sloganeering chaps were from outside the campus. Then why were they not challenged? If ABVP or some other sensible organization warned them or challenged such elements who are against very basic constitution of this country, what is wrong in that. Why peddle this victim-hood of people challenging constitution? Why demonise those speaking in defense of country and constitution?

Few paras later it start with, "Fayyaz writes, “Sources in New Delhi told State Times that officials of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs communicated verbally..... "". Come on, that is baseless conspiracy theory without source. One wonders that these people with agenda find excuses to support those who challenges constitution by calling for division in-spite of all proofs (videos, eyewitness accounts etc), but want us to believe their propaganda where there is no base just quotation and cross quotation.

See how hollow rhetoric is being pushed as facts-

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/02/25/jnu-row-bjp_n_9315998.html

Does Mauryan Empire has a role in present situation of India

This post was written in response to following question on Quora-

What would be the current position of India if there were strong rulers of the Mauryan Empire who were able to maintain their rule over India and defend it from all subsequent invasions that we faced?

I do not think that would have made much difference. All over the world there have been great empires in different ages, ruled by different dynasties. I do not think few more stronger generations of Mauryans could have made any difference. Even after Mauryans there have been large empires but none of those was of all India character. 

Other strong kingdoms:

The thing that could have saved India was if we were able to meet last onslaught of middle east invasion and that happened more than 1000 years after Mauryans. In between there have been many glorious dynasties in east (Pals), West (Rashtrakuts), North (Harsha) and South (Cholas) to mention few. But when crucial time came we did not have anybody.

Marathas:

Marathas were last hope which could have made the fate of India different as they could have saved us from British loot, but then they lost to Ahmed Shah Durrani of Afghanistan. 

Reasons:

There are various reasons for these changes and surprisingly those were more economic and social than political. 

Most important of those was rigid caste system. And this did not arise in one day. It did not even became rigid in one day. It has different political and economic history altogether. According to Adam Smith, known as father of economics, as any society progress there is division of labour for more efficient production. And that is how this caste system started. Slowly it became so rigid that it divided the society and divided society became so weak that anybody could invade and defeat it and then started a long downward spiral. We are still struggling against it. Only solution was social reforms.

 - Social Reforms:

And it is not that social reforms did not take place. Time to time social reforms happened. There were Gautam Buddha, Mahavir Jain, Guru Nanak Dev etc. But at a crucial junction we became a rotting society largely around 17th and 18th century.

Conclusion:

So the present situation is because of two periods. One in 12th and thirteenth century when we lost to outsiders decidedly and then in 17th - 18th century where we could not do any social reform and lagged behind in technology for the first time while Europe moved fastest after its social reforms in 16th and 17th century.

Final Solution:

Way ahead is to come out of caste system at present, spread education and reform our education system drastically to make it value based and bring it away from McCaully (system of producing useful slaves for British empire). And we have our last chance now.

Is Narendra Modi Strongest Leader We Have In Our Living Memories In India?

Can't agree more!!!

If you look at Indian politics after independence he is the only PM who derived his power from the people directly (One of my closest friend says he is strongest leader India had have after Chandra Gupta Maurya some 2300 years ago, I agree will that but will not go for or against it here).

Before I go into details I would like to say that all leaders/politicians/PMs have something in them to reach there, supported by circumstances and conditions.

Nehru was having strongest grip on power in India. But he owed his rise to his rich and famous father and them blessing of Mohandas Gandhi. Once the state machinery was in his hands he had formidable control. He was only PM who could have managed to be dictator but he was not strongest as the country behind him was not as strong as India of Today.

Lal Bahadur Shastri was again too much dependent on Congress party. Although he proved to be strong leader but his tenure was not very long.

Indira Gandhi owed her position to being daughter of Nehru. She managed to win elections and side-step her opposition within the party and managed to have dictatorial power after imposing emergency.

Morarji Bhai Desai was PM but he was leading a faction ridden party. He was not even the boss of his own party. Same goes for Narsimharao, V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Devi Gauda, Gujral etc.

Rajiv Gandhi had most formidable mandate till date but again he was there not because of his talents but because of being from family of former PMs.

Manmohan Singh was proxy at the best. Sonia Gandhi was much more powerful than him and he served at her mercy.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was there but he was too much dependent on his allies. He had to be very cautious all the time.

And then comes Narendra Modi. He rose from lowest echoleons of the society. Rising through the ranks. Understanding people at different levels. Gaining experience of governing the state before being PM, won the election for his cherishma, winning a victory which was totally his own victory. Became first non-Congress PM where party and government is under his control with popular backing by people without being son/daughter/relative of any powerful person. He is the man who has vision and necessary support to implement his vision. Thus he is the strongest leader India have in our memories or anytime after independence.

Indian Influence in Past and Future

This post was generated to an answer of a question on Quora. Innocent looking question was, "When will India rise up and rule the world like it did in the ancient times?"

First thing is India never ruled the world. We had our sphere of influence because of our trade and cultural links. Whole of Indo-China (Far East Asia including Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia etc.) had Indian culture to varying extent. Buddhism was greatest export of Indian culture. Powerful empires like Srivijaya empire in Indo-China was very close to India culturally.

Please remember India never colonised any country. Wherever our ancestors went they carried their culture of tolerance and value system base on dignity of life. Today in post colonial world everybody is talking of these things and that is good for whole humanity.

Here it is to be understood very clearly if one country is prosperous and powerful, world will be influenced automatically. We are moving in that direction slowly coming out of rut and degradation that British Raj brought to us. We have many people with low self esteem and "Gora Sahib mentality" ruling top echelons of Indian intelligentsia for almost 70 years in post independence India. But with advent of new nationalistic government in Delhi things are again moving in right direction. Evacuation in Yemen is telling example of extension of this soft power of India. And this soft power will carry positive influence of India across the world again.

So in short we never ruled the world, we never wanted to rule the world but have influenced world positively and trying to get into that position again. may be it will take 50 more years and before that we need to sort out our problem of caste system, division of society, educate our people, remove poverty in the process and then we shall be very much there again.

Nahruvian Blunders

This post was triggered by following question on Quora.

What are the possible solutions to the Nehruvian Blunder? From a UN permanent seat, to solving the Kashmir Dispute, to settling borders with China, what is the way forward for India? 

Lets take one by one. 

UN Permanent Seat:

As for UN seat let bygone be gone. We can strengthen our country economically and militarily and stake the claim to our rightful position as our PM said that it is our right and all governments let by Congress or BJP worked towards it.

Kashmir:

As for Kashmir that is biggest blunder and it is bleeding India till date. 20% of valley population was chased out by fanatics and they are living as refugees in their own country unable to stake claim to what belonged to them. In my opinion best solution will be to divide J&K into three regions (Jammu, Kashmir and Laddakh). Give autonomy to Kashmir region and settle the ousted people there in fortified colonies. Withdraw the army and seal the borders completely till the time they understand futility of hosting terrorists. At the same time put pressure on Pakistan to give autonomy to the region under their control. Help the people indirectly in PoK. Waait for the things to boil till population realize the greater evil of being under Pak control. Then remove article 370 and take required measures as per requirements of the times.

Border dispute with China:

Make our economy and army strong enough to negotiate with China on equal footings. As of now after losing war of 1962 (another Nehruvian blunder), we are not in position to negotiate from position of equality.

So basically solution lies in development of our own country and people.

History of Post-Independence Indian Politics

It is long period but I would like to summarize-

Partition:
In 1947 when British were leaving India the country had only two major political parties viz. Congress and Muslim League. They could not reconcile their differences, consequently India was divided between India and Pakistan. India for Congress and Pakistan for Muslim league.

1947 - 57 and First General Elections in 1952:
First General Elections were held in 1952. As there was no major political party to fight against Congress as Muslim league had already taken part of India as Pakistan and was not in contention. Communist party became second largest party with 16 seats (against 364 of Congress). There were several other socialist parties but their effect was limited to certain areas. Bhartiya Jana Sangh (BJS) which was predecessor of current Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) fought the elections but got 3 seats only. Politics was mostly politics of powerful and all the people who wanted to enjoy the privileges joined Congress for that to fill the vacuum left behind by Britishers and various kingdoms which were dissolved. But during this time lot of political activities were taking place and various parties were gaining ground in different parts of countries.

It was hoped that Communist party will be greatest challenger to Congress. But it was confined mostly to Bengal and Kerala. Here it is to be noted that even though Congress was only party with all India presence and recognition, still they did not get even 50% of the popular votes.

At top J L Nehru was dominating Congress party. He was already promoting his daughter Indira as M L Nehru has promoted JL Nehru. He got her elected to president-ship of Congress.

1957-75 Dominance is challenged:
In 1957 first elected communist government of the world came to power in Kerala state of India. It was first defeat for Congress in any major state. In 1967 DMK led by charismatic MGR came to power in Tamilnadu. Meanwhile Nehru had died in 1962 and Indira got hold of party and government after untimely death of Lal Bahadur Shastri. Now hold of dynasty was complete over the grand old party and several leader who felt suffocated in this new set up, they resigned Congress to form their own parties. Several parties were born and most important of those was Bhartiya Kranti Dal formed by Chaudhry Charan Singh in 1967, who went on to be prime minister of India.During this period several more states had shown doors to Congress and it was crumbling. In fact Indira Gandhi had divided the party to keep her hold on the party after being expelled by party president S. Nijalingappa in 1969. Till this time Congress and later on Congress (Indira) were comfortably dominating country at national level even though they had lost power in several states and no opposition was present at national level.

1975-1980 Emergency, dictatorship and first Non-Congress government at center. Whole opposition unites under the leadership of Jaiprakash Narayan naming itself Janta Party.

1980: BJP is born which went on to be first political party to face Caongress in more than one election at national level and ultimately becoming pole of alternative politics after 1989.

1980-1989: Another decade of Congress rise of first major opposition at larger scale in the form of BJP.

1989-90: Second non-Congress government. Janta Dal supported by BJP. It is first coalition government in true sense.

1990-91: First government supported by Congress from outside.

1991-96: First minority government lead by Congress.

All this while regional parties were rising. Lalu, Mulayam, Mayawati, Biju patnaik, Jayalalita, Mamta, Devi Lal, Bala Saheb created big regional forces.

1996-1998: Coalition governments supported by Congress just to stop BJP. Concept of political secularism gain popularity.

1998-2004: First non Congress government complete full term in office (1999-2004). Atal Bihari Vajpayee became first prime minister who was never associated with Congress in any form.

2004-2014: Return of Congress but just as leader of coalition. Families continue to dominate regional parties as well as Congress (where process started much earlier). Regional forces has achieved the peak.

2014........: Politics is changed decisively. First full majority non-Congress government in Delhi led by charismatic leader Narendra Modi. Congress, which was central script all these years is reduced to two digit. Defeated so badly that it can not even claim position of leader of opposition.

New era begins as country get first full majority government after 1984.

What Is RSS

RSS as the name suggest is राष्ट्रीय स्वयं सेवक संघ  (Rashtriya Swyam Sevak Sangh), which can be translated National Volunteers Organization. It has an organizational constitution. The RSS was founded on Vijayadasami Day, 27 September 1925 as a social organization by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, who was a doctor in the city of Nagpur. It is a non-political organization.

Mission:

In the words Golwalkar who was third Sarsanghsanchalalal (head) of RSS the mission of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as the revitalisation of the Indian value system based on universalism and peace and prosperity to all. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम), the worldview that the whole world is one family, propounded by the ancient thinkers of India, is considered as the ultimate mission of the organisation

During Partition

RSS has always worked towards nation building; its first major contribution in nation building was during partition in 1947. Noted Gandhian and recipient of the highest civilian award in India, Bharat Ratna, Bhagwan Das commended the role of the "high-spirited and self-sacrificing boys" of the RSS in protecting the newly formed Republic of India, from a planned coup to topple the Jawaharlal Nehru Administration in Delhi.

Dadra and Nagar Haveli

After the independence of India, RSS was one of the socio-political organisations who supported and participated in movements to decolonise Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which was at the time ruled by Portuguese colonists.

Support to government during wars with China and Pakistan:

Whenever there was a national crisis RSS was at the forefront to help the governments of the day without any bias towards any political party.

The RSS was invited by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to take part in the Republic Day parade of 1963 in recognition of its volunteer work during the Sino-Indian War in 1962.

During Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri requested RSS cadres to help control traffic in Delhi, so policemen could be freed for defence duties.

In 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence, RSS volunteers offered their services to maintain law and order of the country and were apparently the first to donate blood.

Service During Calamities

Whenever there is a calamity RSS cadres are the first to reach the spot and start helping the people. So not only during national crisis like wars but during other internal problems like floods, earthquake also you will find RSS cadres at the forefront. They do not seek any publicity as they consider selfless service to mother India their greatest reward. Yes, they consider India as their mother. One of their motto is जननी जन्मभूमिश्च स्वर्गादपि गरीयसी (Janani Janmabhoomischa Swargadapi Gariyasi) meaning mother and motherland are greater than heaven.

Criticism

RSS is often criticised by the people who do not know anything about it. They criticise it out of pure hatred. Some politicians in India criticise RSS because it is a road block in their selfish motives as it does a great job of educating the people and inculcating a strong sense of patriotism in them.

Why Cow Was Treated as Mother

This one sprang from a question in quora and part of the question was-
Are Indians, who treat cows as mothers and consume milk products, vegan?

"In India, in the olden days, we took cows as mother. According to scriptures also, there are seven mothers: (1) the real mother, (2) the wife of the spiritual master, (3) the wife of a brahmana, (4) the wife of the king, (5) the cow, (6) the nurse, and (7) the earth. All of them are mothers. Even in present days every Indian is taught in school (Gaya hamari mata hai i.e. Cow is our mother)."

For me question provoked much deeper thoughts than just categorizing the people.

As it is said in the question itself, cow is mother like mother earth. Like We consume produce of mother earth, so we do consume produce of cow. Right to life is implicit in Indian culture. There are several classifications and people are comfortable in their own belief systems. So it is always easy to criticism other's belief system. But there is one more fundamental in Indian culture and that is not to hurt the feelings of others. So this mentality that only my way is right way is never overwhelming in India. As for cow being holy there are economic reasons for that. In brief, cow was basis of existence of agrarian society. So when two kingdoms fight you can kill all the cows and destroy the society as society would not have been able to survive without agriculture. To avoid this destruction cow was elevated to be holy. After that you can win the territory, conquer the people but land will not lay waste and civilization will not be destroyed. Over the years people developed different degrees of reverence towards this. But net result was that in India you will not find destructive wars where whole tracts were laid waste. Because your own soldiers will not support you in absolute destruction. So caw was major part of this equation. Similarly in India women and children were not attacked and enslaved (which was quiet common in western society). Now it has become quiet fashionable to degrade this status provided to cow without understanding the whole picture. People enter into hollow technicalities without going into depth of issue. Only in past 100 year, it is possible to do large scale agriculture without muscle power of oxen, bulls, horses, camel etc, depending on which society you come from. But usefulness of cow or for that matter other farm animals is coming to the for once again with increasing emphasis on organic produce. Within 30-40 years time, we shall be able understand this issue in larger perspective. So caw was accorded status of mother not just for being a vegetarian society. There were larger reasons behind this. And that larger reason was agriculture and survival of whole society. 

In coastal areas of India, people were never supposed to be pure vegetarians, still they considered cow as mother because it fitted into the equation of their agriculture. 

Now urban people who just had modern schooling are not educated about these facts. And for the masses, you can not ask them to work on pure logic so a belief was created that cow is holy or cow is mother but real reason was economic and survival of human society.