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Showing posts with the label Subhash Bose

Nehru Killed Gandhi

It isn't as absurd an idea as it might appear at first sight. Which is to say, it would be easy to find folks who might peddle this idea or believe in it. Of course, you better just listen to such ideas without your jaws hitting the floor and not try to argue or anything. Others blame Gandhi for the partition of India. I don't know what they wish for ... a Great India encompassing present day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh perhaps. Which would translate to a current population of a cool billion and a  half  people. Some people praise the great deed of the great hero Godse. They do not see him as a killer or a murderer. They see him as a great scholar intellectual who had authored Great Books. So, with a few million published books out there to choose from, people seek out Godse's book to read.

Does India Need an Obama?

There was an interesting debate/discussion on TV a month or two ago on the subject of whether India needed an Obama ... I realized some time later as I was thinking about the topic that India has had a few leaders in its recent history who have been Obama-like in many ways ... Who would dispute the fact that Nehru was an ideal kind of leader — someone who combined democratic thinking with a rational/scientific spirit and great intellect/intelligence. Nehru was a great writer and a good orator as well ... So, do we need an Obama? Well, one could rephrase that and say: Do we need a Nehru for the 21st century? And the answer to that would certainly be 'Yes.' Nehru was probably more 'progressive' in his thoughts and beliefs and actions than most Indians living today. Nehru was famously an 'agnostic' — perhaps that was more of a nod to the age and the country that he lived in ... if he didn't have to make allowances for the fact that he was a public person in a b...