Raj Thackeray will dig deeper still

Raj Thackeray is taking Indian politics to new lows.  The attack on an MLS who took an oath in Hindi reveals the degradation of the Thackeray kind of politics.  The BJP MLA, Girish Mahajan, took the oath in English while the Congress MLA, Baba Siddiqui, took the oath in Sanskrit and Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had no problems with that.  So the problem seems to be with Hindi.  Raj Thackeray displayed his hatred of the Hindi-speaking people earlier on many occasions too.  His mentor, Bal Thackeray, whose policies Raj is following with ferocious devotion, had more hatred in his bitter heart.  Bal, in his heydays, attacked Indians belonging to many linguistic groups.

The violence perpetrated by MNS is totally unconstitutional.  Yet will the culprits be punished?  Yes, they have, for the time being, been suspended.  In all probability, the suspension will be revoked when the four MLAs who attacked Abu Azmi will read out an apology which they won’t mean at all.  And Raj Thackeray will go on preaching on national television channels in Marathi to people who don’t understand that language about the greatness of Maharashtra, its language and its people.  Will Raj Thackeray ever go behind the bars for the umpteen crimes that he has already committed?

We have just witnessed the moral erosion that is degrading the BJP govt in Karnataka.  The state’s new govt has bent its knees before the wealth and political clout of the Reddy brothers.

Wealth rules the roost in most places today. 

Raj Thackeray has not reached that depth in his pursuit of depths.  For want of better imagination he is currently stuck at the depth dug by his mentor.  This depth has already won him a lot of political clout in the state.  With clout will come wealth.  And wealth will dig new depths.  Politics and wealth have this amazing capacity to dig deeper and deeper.

When will we have leaders who will lead us to great heights?

Monster Boss

According to a recent CNN report, 67 percent of people say

they hate their jobs. The vast majority of unhappy workers

blame their bosses. Without question, having a monster boss

is one of life’s challenges. No matter how bad you think it is,

you have a choice: to quiver and hide or to stand up and do

something.

 

That is from the preface to Patricia King’s latest book Monster Boss. 

 

More about the book from King’s website:

 

 

If the reason you hate going to work every day is your boss, it’s time to do something

about it. A bad boss can rob you of job satisfaction, motivation, career advancement—

even your physical and emotional health. With this book, you’ll learn how to improve

your situation, save your sanity, and, when necessary, fight back. You’ll also learn to

change undesirable situations and when your only option is to move on.

 

 

$14.95 (CAN $16.50) Business

ISBN-13: 978-1-59869-399-7

ISBN-10: 1-59869-399-9

www.adamsmedia.com

 

This informative guide offers solutions to every

type of boss problem such as:

 

• Your Boss Puts You Down: When your boss has

only negative things to say in order to mask his own

insecurity, he’s acting like Bigfoot

 

• Your Boss Sucks the Life Out of You: When

your boss expects too much and drains all of your

energy, she’s acting like Dracula

 

• Your Boss Runs Hot and Cold: When your boss

compliments you one minute and criticizes you the

next, he’s acting like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

There are more types of bosses described and dealt with in the book.  To know more about the book, click the link below:

http://www.monsterbossthebook.com/MonsterBoss.pdf

The dilemmas of greatness

“The truth is that heroes can have, most do have, feet of clay, flawed personalities who grapple with baser emotions while they serve the nation.  It is the commitment and the vision that matter.”  A G Noorani wrote this while reviewing two books on J F Kennedy in the Frontline dated Nov 6, 2009.

Noorani mentions a few examples of flaws in personalities that are considered great in history, though an ordinary book review wouldn’t call for such details.  I’m grateful to Noorani for mentioning those details because it made me think much about greatness.  [Having killed, with the generous assistance of the systems in which I worked, the delusions I nurtured about my own greatness, it became interesting to ponder on the topic.]

Gandhi was a great man, according to me (and many other silly people too).  But Gandhi too had feet of clay.  Didn’t he impose his ideas on his wife most of the time?  Did he care for his children one-tenth as much as he cared for the nation?  Didn’t he ask young girls to sleep beside him (mind you, I didn’t say sleep with) in his old age?  Didn’t he use those young girls as kind of crutches, again in his old age?  Well, Noorani doesn’t ask those questions.  It’s silly me who’s asking them. 

Noorani mentions just one example from Gandhi’s life.  The 50-year old Gandhi was immensely attracted to Sarladevi, a rich lady with “a broad cultural education” (Gandhi’s own words about her) and wife of Ram Bhuj Dutt Chaudhuri.  Gandhi confessed that he had lustful attitude toward this woman.   Noorani quotes Gandhi: “I was carried away in spite of myself and but for God’s intervention I might have become a wreck.”  I must add (lest I perpetrate some injustice upon Noorani as well as Gandhi) that Gandhi also said explicitly that this was the only lady who aroused lustful feelings in him. 

Suppose Kasturba was a woman of “a broad cultural education”.  Would she have aroused such “lustful” feelings in Gandhi?  If she had, would we have had Gandhi as the father of the nation?  Did Gandhi choose celibacy because Kasturba could not arouse his lust?  These are three (3 is my lucky number) of the many (blasphemous?) questions that aroused in my mind as I read Noorani’s review.

They are hypothetical questions and can be dismissed summarily if you wish.  Yet I think the questions are valid if you are discussing Gandhi’s greatness. 

Greatness lies partly in being able to overcome the temptations of the flesh.  It is when you are able to deal fairly and squarely with those temptations that you will be able to give due attention to your great vision.  And I’m pretty sure that Gandhi would have overcome the temptations had they even been proffered by his own wife.  That ability to grapple advantageously with temptations was part of Gandhi’s greatness. 

Noorani’s review goes on to mention a few other great men who had feet of clay and says that what matters ultimately is how useful you are to the people around you, to the institution you serve, to your society, to your nation.  Noorani doesn’t, however, discredit morality.  “In any fair assessment,” he says, “moral lapses must not be ignored…”

“Lloyd Geroge was utterly unscrupulous, financially corrupt and a philanderer to boot,” says Noorani.  Yet George has a significant place in British history because he “provided steady leadership to Britain during the First World War.”

John F Kennedy had too many women in his life.  That was the flaw his personality.  Yet Kennedy was great because of the services he rendered to his nation.

Nehru too had a weakness for women.  That does not really detract from his greatness.

While Gandhi overcame his temptations most of the time, many others like JFK succumbed.  So Gandhi was greater than JFK and others like him.  Yet JFK and others too remain great in comparison with (too) many others who add nothing worthwhile to the betterment of humanity or at least a section of humanity.

Anyone who adds more beauty, more compassion, more goodness to humanity is great in my view, even if the person has some personal drawbacks. 

The vast majority of people who have nothing to add to humanity are keen to highlight the drawbacks of the great because they think doing so will keep the greatness under their control.  We like to admire greatness; but not when the person is alive!

A Friend, his religion and some thoughts

Searching out a classmate years after you lost contact can be a very exciting enterprise.  Henry was my classmate at St Albert’s College, Ernakulam during the years 1982-1985.  I had no contact with him during the last 20 years though I knew he had become a priest in the Society of Jesus.  [One of the ironies in our (Henry’s and mine) life is that he chose religion as a profession just a few months after I left it.]

Before I left for Kerala on Diwali vacation I Googled Henry’s name and, after many a twist and turn in the labyrinth of the Internet, located him in Kalady – the birthplace of Adi Sankaracharya.  The very next day after my arrival in Kerala found me – to Henry’s shock, I should say – at Sameeksha, the institution that houses Henry and many other priests as well as students of priesthood.  [I desist from speaking more about Henry lest he finds it too flattering.]

Sameeksha is a charming conglomeration of houses built in the traditional Kerala style amidst an expanse of nutmeg trees – very unlike a Christian seminary.  What struck me most is the meditation house which is also built in the traditional Kerala style and has a very ‘un-Christian’ air about it.   First of all, there is a tulsi thara right in front of it just like the ones you used to find in front of the houses of Hindus before modernity uprooted tulsis (basil) and other such plants that have no commercial value.  On another side of the meditation house is a layered lamp carved out of granite, again an adaptation from Hindu temples.

Inside the meditation house, which you have to enter barefoot as you are supposed to do in any other building in the complex, there are the sacred scriptures of four different religions kept open on very low stands on the carpeted floor: the Bible, the Gita, the Koran and the Dhammapada. 

All this in a seminary that teaches Christian theology to future Christian priests!  It did make me think of all the religious intolerance one finds these days.

A few days later the marriage of a relative took me to a church in Aruvithura, another place in Kerala.  St George’s church in Aruvithura is quite famous in central Kerala for the pilgrims it attracts.  I was struck once again by the brass lamp in front of the church (though Christianised with a cross atop).  What’s more, the devotees were pouring oil in the lamp, an act that resembled the abhishekam in Hindu temples. 

Perhaps, I thought, we could acquire more religious tolerance if all religions incorporated certain practices of other religions and learnt to respect such practices – if only because they (the practices) have some significance to those vast numbers that perform them.

To read this along with the photographs of the places mentioned, please click here.

Thommankuthu Waterfalls

 

Thommankuthu is a sleepy village in central Kerala.  It lies 18 km from the nearest town, Thodupuzha (Idukki district), from where buses are available at regular intervals passing through Thommankuthu. 

A river with seven waterfalls flows at the edge of the village.  That is the tourist attraction in Thommankuthu.  On the banks of the river are thick forests with a wide variety of plants and trees.  One can trek through the forests.  There is 12-kilometre stretch of trekking path available to the tourist.  You can climb that rugged path listening to the soothing sound of the waterfalls and the greetings of cicadas.  The smell of damp wood penetrates your nostrils sharply in some places. 

The greatest advantage in Thommankuthu is that the place retains the pristine beauty.  There are no traces of the modern civilisation and its inevitable pollution, though one may be saddened to find a few disposable cups and plastic bottles in one or two places.   There are constant reminders that the place is meant for eco-tourism and hence waste should not be strewn around.  But there is no place assigned for dumping the waste that the tourists normally carry with them – plastic bottles for water or soft drinks, disposable plates for snacks, etc.  You may, however, be relieved that such wastes are found very rarely in the place. 

If you wish to spend some time in the lap of nature, breathing invigorating air, relishing green beauty, inhaling the aromas of nature and immersing yourself in the coolness of flowing water, Thommankuthu is an ideal place.

I took some pictures during my brief trek in the place on 22 Oct 2009.  Since WordPress does not easily support pictures I have posted them at my Sulekha blog [to which I am forced to return by the limitations (or my ignorance) of WordPress].  You can see them by clicking here.

Vanishing Smiles

 

This post is dedicated to Dawn and Dew whose question (in her last comment to my last post) why I am not writing these days made me write this.

 

The Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland is one of my favourite characters for the simple reason that its grin remains with us even when it disappears.  I like it all the more for its blunt refusal to kiss the king’s hands.

The cat leaves a grin at least though a warm smile would be preferable.  Smile is a vanishing species in my surroundings.  People seem preoccupied all the time.  They have no time to smile.  What kind of a world is it that steals our smiles, I wondered.  Thank heavens, I didn’t have to keep wondering for long as the answer came to me in a jiffy.  Frogs in the well don’t smile, not even grin, they only bloat and gloat.  And they plot too, I think – plot every strategy to survive in the well not knowing that the well is drying up.  Sadder still, which they don’t realise, the well is drying up because of their bloating, gloating and plotting. 

“At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism…” said Aldous Huxley. 

I have found that the frogs in the well are both stupid and malicious.  I have also found that there is a strong link between intelligence and benevolence.

But this post is about vanishing smiles. 

Smiles are vanishing because of stupidity and malice.  Stupidity renders you incapable of understanding the complexities involved in the drying up of the well.  Stupidity makes you look at the problem from a very narrow point of view.  Consequently you think of narrow solutions, very narrow solutions in fact.  [Stupidity has this uncanny knack for stooping lower and lower.]  Stupidity makes you think that you can save yourself without the support of the creatures around you, without the support of the given environment.  Stupidity makes you think that leadership means enslaving others.  The kings in the ancient days did use slaves for various jobs very successfully and created historical monuments.  But stupidity doesn’t let you realise that the ancient days are indeed ancient.  There are no kings today.  And people won’t accept slavery easily.  Not people with some skill or another, at least.

Stupidity makes you malicious, in fact.

And malice makes you politicians?  I don’t know.  But I think it does.

“Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever,” said Albert Einstein.  [Emphasis added all through the post]

Present concern.  What does that translate as?  Personal benefit?  Immediate benefit?  Politics?

I’m more interested in those equations that stand forever.  Whatever “forever” may mean!

But this post is about vanishing smiles.

Yeah.

So the last quote…

“Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.”  Robert Frost.

I have no grievances.  I am happy.  You can still see me smiling. 

Keep smiling if you still can.

 

PS: I’m going on a holiday so that I can retain my smile for much longer.  Hence I won’t be writing for quite a while but just retaining my smile…

Who is Afraid of Criticism?

 

Dictionary.com defines criticism in the following terms:

noun

1. the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.

2. the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.

3. the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc.

4. a critical comment, article, or essay; critique.

5. any of various methods of studying texts or documents for the purpose of dating or reconstructing them, evaluating their authenticity, analyzing their content or style, etc.: historical criticism; literary criticism. 

6. investigation of the text, origin, etc., of literary documents, esp. Biblical ones: textual criticism. 

Except in the sense 2, criticism is a positive thing.  There’s no need for anyone to be afraid of criticism in 5 out of the 6 senses mentioned above.  Should sense 2 frighten anyone really? 

“While some men are born small and some achieve smallness, it is clear that Adam Smith has had much smallness thrust upon him,” says Amartya Sen in his latest book, The Idea of Justice.  [Sen, obviously, is criticising some critics of Adam Smith – and Sen is no ‘small’ man.]  The first two categories of men (and women too, I guess) may be afraid of criticism sense 2 (hereafter called c2).

Men born small fear c2.  The reason: c2 accelerates their smallness. [Corollary of Newton’s First Law of Motion]

Men who achieve smallness fear c2.  The reason: the force of c2 adds momentum to their unwanted achievement.  [Corollary of Newton’s Second Law of Motion]

Men who have the fortune of smallness being thrust upon them may not fear c2 if the force of the internal thrust of their greatness is greater than the force of the external thrust of smallness.  [Corollary of Newton’s Third Law of Motion]

“To escape criticism – do nothing, say nothing, be nothing,” advised Edward Hubbard.

Otherwise, outgrow your smallness.

Genuinely.

When you outgrow your smallness,

you cease thrusting smallness on others

and you let others grow out of their self-imposed smallness.

India’s War on Maoists

 

One of Charles Dickens’ characters, Ebenezer Scrooge (A Christmas Carol), when asked to make a donation for the sake of the poor responds acridly that the poor were none of his business and that they should go to the prisons or workhouses.  Despite being a disgruntled curmudgeon, Scrooge did not suggest that the poor should be killed.  He thought that it was the duty of the State to look after them.  Workhouses were the old institutions in England that provided food and shelter to the poor in exchange for labour. 

The government of India is not even as generous as Scrooge.  The Prime Minister has been asserting time and again that the Maoists are “the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country”.  The Home Minister has declared a battle on Maoists by fielding 55,000 troops of security forces against the Maoists.  “The centre is committed to fight Naxalism [Maoism],” Mr Chidambaram has declared. “We will provide all possible help to… eradicate the left-wing extremists completely.”

Maoism is a serious problem in India today.  They are using ruthless violence in order to achieve their goals (securing the rights of the poor).  Violence of any form is not justified for rational creatures.  Yet when an extremely violent movement sweeps almost the whole country (Maoism has spread to 18 states in India), one cannot just sit back and utter platitudes about the futility of violence.  Nor should the country merely treat it as a law and order problem and use more violence to suppress the infectious violence. 

“The Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of the poor,” says a recent BBC report which also says that the paramilitary offensive against the Maoists is likely to begin in October.  Do the poor have no rights in the present world driven by the egotistic greed of capitalism?  Should their clamour for the basic amenities of life be silenced with machine guns and battle tanks?  Should the poor be exterminated from the face of the earth?

India is a country with an enormous number of people (300 million at the least) living in abject poverty.  Their number keeps increasing because their sources of livelihood are being taken away from them.  Their land is taken away by dams, SEZs (Special Economic Zones), industries, or housing schemes for the affluent.  Their traditional jobs cannot be sustained any more.  Other job opportunities are not provided by the government or any other agency.  What should they do?  Commit suicide? 

The Marxist Party (CPM) in India, which was supposed to defend the rights of the poor, has become capitalist all but in name.  In West Bengal the party has joined hands with the industrialists and other capitalist agencies and waged wars against the poor.  In Kerala the party has been corrupted thoroughly by the charms of capitalism.  When there is no one to defend the poor, they will defend themselves.  This is what the Maoists are doing.

But it is a bad defence.  The ruthless violence they have resorted to will not carry them far.  It is an act of despair.  It is a terrified cry for serious help.  It is the roar of the mortally wounded but ferocious animal. 

The government of India may succeed in putting out that cry by killing large numbers of Maoists.  But is that the way to overcome poverty: killing the poor?  Why does the government of India refuse to learn the lessons from the mess its military actions have created in the Northeast?

“When a few people decide to live larger than life, we all get trampled,” wrote Naomi Klein in 2001.  The Colossuses have been taking giant strides creating a system that is not very different from the ancient caste system of India.  The new Shudras are the economically deprived lots.  How long should this new socio-economic system keep the balance tilted before we realise that the tilt of the balance is as unjust as the old caste system that we now repudiate?

In the meanwhile, one hopes that the contemporary (economic) Brahmins will at least acquire the humanism of Ebenezer Scrooge.

 

Other related articles of mine:

From Naxalbari to Lalgarh

Slums in Capitalist Utopia

Needed an Alternative to Capitalism

Imperialism – Made in China

 

The Chinese, it seems, possess an uncanny knack for acquisition not very unlike the Americans.  In the olden days the British Empire conquered other people’s space: the geographical conquest.  In the globalised world the American Empire conquered other people’s wealth: the economic conquest.  China seems to be rivalling both those empires: it is accomplishing both geographical and economic conquests.

China’s economic conquests are already better than America’s in many Asian countries.  The Chinese Filipinos form just about one percent of the Philippines’ population.  But they control 60 percent of the country’s private economy.  The four major airlines, almost all the banks, prominent hotels, and shopping malls belong to the ethnic Chinese.  The industry and commerce are governed by the Chinese at every level of society.  There are millions of Filipinos working for the Chinese in the Philippines, but there are almost no Chinese working for the Filipinos.  Most billionaires in the Philippines are of Chinese origin.

Similar is the situation in Myanmar.  The Chinese dominate the commerce at every level of the society there too, from big hotels to hawking of cheap Chinese bicycle tyres.  Globalisation brought more and more Chinese into Myanmar and they have established themselves securely wherever they entered.  Railways lines, bridges, dams, airports and housing complexes – almost in every area of the infrastructure development, it is the Chinese who control the industry.  The grim fact is that 69 percent of the ethnic Burmese are unable to compete with the 5 percent Chinese.  Three-fourth of the ethnic Burmese people live in extreme poverty while the Chinese in Myanmar enjoy luxurious lifestyles.

Thailand began to open up their economy and borders in the 1970s.  Today, virtually all manufacturing establishments are Chinese controlled.  With the exception of a handful, all the powerful business groups are owned by the Thai Chinese.

The Chinese form 3 percent of the population in Indonesia.  They control 70 percent of the private economy of that country.  All the billionaires in that country in the time of General Suharto were of Chinese origin, except Suharto himself.

In Malaysia the Chinese population has grown to one-third of the country’s population.  The Chinese conquest in Malaysia is both geographical and economic, while in the other countries mentioned above it has largely been economic.

China is renewing its attempts at geographical conquests in India.  Recently China has made a number of aggressive intrusions into India’s territory along the borders in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.  When China cocked a snook at India’s attempts at building up peace in the neighbourhood in 1962, India paid the price for not taking China’s aggressive gestures seriously by losing parts of Ladakh and Arunachal.  And now, again, India is playing down the Chinese aggressions in many parts along the 2000-km Line of Actual Control.  Will India end up letting the Chinese Empire make more geographical conquests?

The Chinese intentions have never been innocuous.  Wherever they have set foot they have made the soil (or the economy) their own.  China has already made two-lane roads that stretch well into Arunachal, India’s territory.  The road that China built in their own territory, running parallel to the McMahon Line, is reinforced with many checkposts, barracks, watchtowers and underground constructions, all of which are meant to be used against India. 

In accordance with the String of Pearls doctrine, China has already encircled India technically by forging military ties with Sri Lanka and persuading the Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar to give it surveillance posts.  Moreover, China is making strategic ties with Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  It is also well-known that China has links with the militant groups in Assam, Nagaland and Manipur.   In addition to all that is the tri-nation road link between China, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

China also plays certain cheap tricks on India where international trade is concerned.  India and China are the largest drug suppliers to Nigeria.  In June this year, Nigeria detected a large consignment of anti-malaria drugs from China which were of no medical value at all.  But the packets of spurious medicine were all labelled “Made in India”.  China betrayed both Nigeria and India at one go.

Perhaps it’s high time that India took Chinese gestures more seriously.  When the Chinese appear to be cocking a snook, they may actually be rolling out their battle tanks or at least cocking their eyes on our wallets.

Hindi, Patriotism and other such things

 

In connection with the Hindi Week that was observed in an institution last week, a lot of speeches were delivered asserting the greatness of Hindi as a language and its worthiness to be not only the national language of India but also to be studied, if not mastered, by every Indian who loves his country.  “One who does not love Hindi does not deserve to be an Indian,” one of the speakers asserted passionately.  Another speaker, who held the audience spellbound with his rhetoric that eloquently combined passion with personal conviction, sought to project those Indians who do not care to learn Hindi as depraved creatures by comparing them to a person who does not love his mother.

I tried to carry the logic of these orators a little further.  Their logic is that if you love your country you should learn its national language.  What if I love the whole world, not just my country?  That’s what occurred to me while listening to them.  Then, by their very logic, I should learn the lingua franca of the world, instead of confining my linguistic pursuit to my country.  English is the lingua franca of the world and I am comfortable with communicating in that language for most purposes.  Does that make me a non-Indian?

My knowledge of Hindi is very meagre.  I can just manage to communicate meaningfully enough in Hindi (though hilariously sometimes) with those people who do not know English or my mother tongue (Malayalam) but know the language that came to be the national language of India solely by virtue of being spoken by the larger section of the country’s population.  I have no emotional connections with Hindi.  I do not believe a person’s patriotism has anything to do with his knowledge of the official language of his nation, particularly in the Indian context.  If I am a little passionate about English it is merely because it is the language which has given me most of my knowledge and has helped me express myself intelligibly to a larger audience. 

This led me to another question: do I love Malayalam (my mother tongue) as passionately as I love English?  To my surprise, I found it difficult to answer that question.  I’m sure of one thing: I have a soft corner (a sturdy one too) for Kerala (the place where I was born and brought up) and its language.   Though I have lived outside Kerala for more years than inside it, I still make sure that I follow the Malayalam news regularly by subscribing to a Malayalam newspaper and watching the Malayalam news channel.  I also find time to read some Malayalam books, novels especially. 

The time I devote to read Malayalam and to know about developments in Kerala is insignificant compared to what I devote to English and world affairs.  Does this detract from my love for Kerala?  I don’t think so.  According to my thinking, it merely indicates my passion for knowledge about wider things, a passion that takes me beyond the boundaries of states and the nation. 

Similar is the case when Hindi is concerned.  If I did not care to learn it properly, it’s merely because I never felt a need to do so.  If the practical affairs of my life had demanded mastering Hindi I would have mastered it.  If mastering Hindi would bring me any specific advantage I would have mastered it.  Merely because it is the consensus national language it need not (and does not) entice me at all.

One of the speakers (mentioned above) implied that Hindi is the language of the freedom fighters.  I think such rhetoric, while serving well to win the applause from young and impressionable listeners, is libellously insinuating.  It is a serious distortion of the country’s history and much more dangerous than trying to strike off some people’s national identity with their ignorance of the national language.

The divisiveness that underlies the arguments of fanatical advocates of anything (language, religion, race, almost anything at all) is what I find most detestable.

Like every nation India should have a national language and Hindi best fits the bill.  Fine.  Let Hindi be the national language.  Let it be promoted too by the government as best as it can be.  Let as many Indians as possible learn it and use it if they can in their day-to-day life.  (I wonder how a person in a village in South India or Northeast India would ever be able to use Hindi in his day-to-day life.)  But Hindi should not become another cause for fissiparous tendencies in the country.  It should not seek to swallow the hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects spoken in the country.  The multi-dimensional diversity in India is its sheer beauty.  Let that beauty continue to flourish.