Who ruled us before Independence?

It is a known fact that India received its Independence on  August’15 1947.  It was a collective movement under able leaders with a single goal that achieved the results that we all cherish so much. India collectively heaved a sigh of relief on that day, with countless teary eyes looking towards the unfurled tricolor with adoration.

It was indeed a struggle of a generation that landed us the independence from the British who initially set foot on India as traders, exploited the pettiness within us to rule us.

But the one question I am not able to fully understand is: did the British rule us or did we help the British to rule us?

At the height of the British Rule, there were approximately 200,000 white men and women in India. Then the question is whether it is possible for just 200000 men and women to rule a country of 300 million people? It is estimated that India’s population at the time of Independence was 30 crores.

Logically speaking it is simply not possible to do that. As we all know the British police and the military in India was mainly comprised of our people. It was our people who while taking orders from the British authorities were conducting atrocities on the freedom fighters to please their bosses. It was not a white man who hanged Bhagat Singh, it was not the white men who mercilessly beat the freedom fighters which caused the death of  Lalalajput Rai,  it was not the white men who arrested Gandhiji and other leaders and the list goes on.

Offcource It was the Britishers who ordered or set rule, but by and large it was our people implementing those rules on us to please their bosses.  Under these circumstances, any country would have done the same thing. It just becomes so easy for an invading country to impose its rule when the local people are ready to act against their own people.

Right from the beginning, the British took advantage of the enemity the princely states had within themselves to divide and conquer. Once that was accomplished, they recruited Indian youths into their police and army to rule Indians?  It sounds surprising but that is the fact.

During the 1857 uprising, a section of the British army comprising of the Indians revolted against the British for supplying bullets laced with beef fat.  But the fact is the Indians had joined that army to help British!!! Had all the Indians in that army and in the police force  turned against the British that day, the British rule would have ended in 1857 itself. Instead other Indians in the same army helped to crush the revolt and so the saga of the British rule extended for another century.

Even at the height of the freedom struggle, why didn’t the Indian population in the British armed force turn against their British masters?  Why did they still followed orders from their masters? Why did they still fire on Indians struggling for their own country’s freedom?

I know that the British would have been chased out of Indian long before 1947 had it not received the help from us Indians in crushing us the Indians.  It sounds very perplexing and confusing but that is the Truth.

We Indians helped the British to Rule us with an Iron Hand using US!!!!!!

Think about this and write to US about your thoughts.

First Gold for India

Abhnav Bindra made India proud yesterday in Beijing Olympics. He landed the first individual gold medal for India in its independent history. It is really a laudable feat which needs to be appreciated. In his own words, hopefully this opens the doors for other Olympics sports in India.

As is evident, it is not really the dearth of talent but the lack of proper facility and training that is is haunting Indian athletes. The Government should come out with a national sports policy to identify and groom talent in a  professional manner and provide world class infrastructure so that Indian athletes can shine and bring more gold medals in the global arena.

These days a country’s performance in all the fields is used as a measure of its development. Be it economy, military or even in sports, it is imperative for a rising power to project its capacity in a manner that gets noticed world over. At least this objective should proper our govt to act in this regard.

Once again we all need to congratulate Abhinav  for this historic feat and hope that this leads the way for many more gold medals to India.

You can watch  Abhniav gold medal feat at this link: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=SHOH-BJ-SD28-081108-115502

India and Olympics

Its Olympics season and all the countries small and big are in the medal hunt. we have already seen even very small countries finding an entry in the medals tally. The big countries are already planning  on how to top the medal chart.  However we Indians have already started looking the other way. Our shooters have been eliminated in the prelims itself and others in the fray don’t elicit much hope either.

It looks like we have already demonstrated the lack of talent in India when we have fielded a small contingent of just 42 members compared to 620 of China.  Even in Athens Olympics, China had fielded 420 athletes.  This is really a national shame for a country of more than one billion people.

It was duly noted during the parade in yesterday’s opening ceremony. When Indian contingent made its entry, the commentator noted that having comparable population to China, India has a relatively primitive sports infrastructure. that is evident from the very fact that since 1984 when China made an entry into Olympics, it has won a total of 284 medals compared to India’s just 3. This very fact should silence all such intellectuals who often tend to compare and boast of India’s success against China. In my view I don’t think India can even dream of what China has achieved, let alone surpassing them.

Why does India put up such a pathetic show in every Olympics?  It definitely cannot be the physical capability because even Chinese are similar in body build. It cannot be the resources because definitely has the scientific know-how and the necessary resources that is required. Then the question is people’s will and commitment to achieve such goals. I think that is where we lack the capacity and the will to perform.

In China as well as other nations, achieving success in Olympics is considered a matter of national pride. The government considers it of national importance and takes to itself the task of identifying and training talents at a  very young age and trains them with a single aim of winning gold. In china this is so serious that children as young as 8 years are sent to the national training center where they are trained in diving, gymnastics, swimming etc.  The preparations for the next Olympics start the very next day after the current Olympics. It is that kind of commitment that yields results in the games.

Contrast that with the conditions here. Immediately after the games, every media outlet and govt officials talk about improving the conditions and training so that at least in the next games we fare well.  However all such things subside and everybody again wake up only after another failure in the Olympics. I remember our union sports minister lamenting about the poor performance of Indian athletes  after Athens Olympics. But what changes have been done to better Indian performance in Beijing Olympics?  I don’t think anybody has any answer to that because as it stands nothing has changed. The early exit of our athletes is already an indication of whats in store for us even in this games.

Year after year our govt allocates substantial amount of money towards sports. But what happens to those funds, no one knows. As always, that ends up in the officials/politicians pockets. The Indian Olympics Association is another corrupt institution. Even though there is sufficient finds, no one is held responsible for the poor performance of the athletes in the games.

Even selection of candidates for the games is mired with corruption and favouritism. Just look at the Olympics trials of US and China. Even an internationally acclaimed athlete should prove himself to find a berth in the national team that represents the country in the games. Here, the trials are just an eye wash and it looks like candidates are selected even without the necessary talent. For them money and a foreign tour is dearer than the national pride.

When the situation is at such a sorry state, how can anybody expect a descent show in the games. It is such a sorry sight to see a country of more than a billion people celebrating for just one bronze medal in the games , when a country with just 1/100 the population gets a tally of 15 medals including 4 gold!

Unless the govt of the day wakes up and makes it a national mission and takes upon itself the responsibility to prepare our athletes for the games purely based on the talent, I don’t see any major changes in India’s medal tally.

It looks like this time we might not even win a single medal. What a sorry state for a country of One Billion? We should really be ashamed.

And then there is talk to India hosting Olympics in 2020! Do anybody think we have it in our-self to match what China displayed yesterday to the world seeing our current state of affairs?  Truly speaking, India definitely has the capacity and the talent to put up something as spectacular as the one we witnessed. What is lacking is the commitment and the seriousness on our part to accomplish a task of such a nature.

I truly hope that at least now everybody will raise above petty politics to achieve success in 2012 Olympics Games.