The year 2019 proved that the battle for the soul of this country and its identity is far from over and perhaps has reached a point of inflection, hopefully for the better but not before it gets worse. Some would say 2014 marked the point of inflection, and they may be right. But 2019 was truly a watershed in moving towards resolution of at least a few troublesome legacies of history, of which there is no dearth in this country. Therefore, it is but natural that those who want to restore status quo ante—that is, the state of affairs as it existed pre-May 2014—are bound to do everything in their power, using every medium and resource available at their disposal, internal and external, to question the very identity of this land in order to delegitimise the baby steps it is taking towards rediscovering itself and its true potential.
While this churn is going to manifest itself at several levels and diverse fora, the Constitution is clearly an extremely important, and perhaps the most important, battleground given that it is the document that politically unifies this diverse land and enables it to act and respond as a single political unit. Therefore, those who wish to Balkanise the country are bound to employ ‘constitutional’ means to achieve patently unconstitutional, anti-constitutional, and dare I say, anti-national, outcomes.
On border areas being compromised, I have been contemplating of any possible solution.
Is there anyway we can settle Sikh farmers (mainly ex-servicemen) in the border districts? The brave Sikhs have defended the western borders. Give them the Nepal and Bangladesh borders too. I am under no delusion that it will work out in a year or two and all will be well. What I have in mind is a 40-60 year plan. For areas right near the border, the Army can intervene on national security grounds and acquire the land to be later given to ex-servicemen. Even if 25% of the lands can be taken over 40-60 years, that will be a great success.
Before you laugh at me, the British have implemented such resettlement successfully all over the world.
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Hardly any Mohammedan family allows their daughters to take up higher education. But they push them to the front of an agitation to “preserve India’s secular fabric”.
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The only thing worse than the c-virus is Facebook taking stake in Reliance Jio (or in any Indian telecom). Please make people in power aware of this and nip this virus in the bud.
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