अखंड भारत - a dream larger than life!

अखंड भारत - a dream, that was a reality 60 years back... a dream that is reduced to just whispers now... and I have to call it - larger than life!

It's not that the recent horrors of series of bomb blasts and attacks across India make me think about it but the "अखंड भारत" philosophy some how appeals to me as the solution to all these problems for years now.

This may be the influence of RSS in my childhood, but even now the solution seems absolutely practical. As long as Hindustan and Pakistan exist as separate nations the divide and rule policy of the British is working. Terrorists based outside India keep finding safe havens. Infiltration from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan is difficult to control given the length of the border.

The solution is an integrated Secular Indian Sub-continent. It will hurt the egos of all the nations; it is unfair to not look at them as sovereign nations, no matter big or small. But it's time to form something like the UN for the Indian Sub-continent.

We (me and my friends) though of calling it the United States of Bharat but the term "united states" implies that we are dividing them before uniting! But the beauty of the term is that we do recognize each state as a sovereign body... anyways we scrapped the idea and decided to call it "Bharat", just "Bharat". A country of the size of what it was during the reign of king Ashoka.

Pros:

1. The stupid boundaries and flags dividing the people of the same race and culture will no longer be there.
2. No worries of infiltration, as all land is of one entity. The boundaries are mostly naturally drawn, Himalayas and the Hindukush!
3. Easy to crack down the terrorist breeding grounds. Some thing the Pakistani Govt. has been unable to do and something the Indian Govt. cannot do from India.
4. The region will flourish overall in the fields of trade, art, literature, sports, education and economic prosperity. We can divert our resources and focus on constructive things!
5. We will be more prepared against other external threats (China is gonna crack down on us sooner or later, also we could not help Tibet and Bhutan due to our own internal problems)
6. Individual countries concerned are democratic and share a similar constitutional and social structure which can help in the integration.
7. All nations share a common goal of removing terrorism and prosperity for their people.

Cons:

1. Initial resistance of the individual countries out of the fear of losing their sovereignty and control over the policies in their land. The "joint-venture" needs to be carefully designed respecting the individuality of each nation else this can become a never ending headache for the "Integrated Bharat" government.
2. Individual states should have flexibility to decide their own rules and regulations but the lines if not drawn carefully will lead to separatist movements later. These separatist movements may get support from our enemies/opponents to worsen the situation.

Postulates of Atheism

Okay, the debate really was about understanding if ethics are a function of God. As is the common understanding, ethics are a function of religion and religion is a function of God. So, what I wanted to prove was, that ethics really stand by themselves without god and I think I have been successful in that. But, yes the discussion moves towards atheism and I think its time to put down my 'Postulates of Atheism' :-

1. You cannot get any help from prayers. You are by yourself and cannot wait for a superpower to help you. A hospital or university could be built instead of spending money for building temples, churches and mosques. We ALONE have to strive to eradicate poverty, conquer diseases, conserve nature, eliminate war and protect people.
2. There is nothing beyond the physical nature of matter, nothing super-natural. Death is the termination of that organic unit. This hypothesis seems shocking and troubling, but when you die, you die. There is no afterlife. We humans like to believe in immorality and that our soul still lives etc... but that is bullshit. There is no Heaven, no Hell. My identity is not beyond my body. My identity is by the neuronal networking in my brain, that's it, there is nothing more to it.
3. An Atheist does not refrain from social responsibilities. In fact he strives for involvement in life instead of seeking escape in death/moksha/sanyas/nirvana. He believes in loving his fellow men than loving an imaginary god. We are the keepers of ourselves and others. We are responsible people, the job is here and the time is now.
4. Understanding oneself, other people and the nature of universe is the real enlightenment and fulfillment of life and requires the highest levels of intelligence. Science and Philosophy rule!
5. Its not a bad thing to enjoy luxury, find convenience in new technologies, strive for betterment of life or be materialist.
6. There are many questions you can ask, like where did the earth come from? where did the Sun come from? who did the big bang? what was there before the big bang etc etc etc... My response to this is, "I don't know"; and I am not ashamed to say that because I am sure we will get there some day. There was a time when we attributed the lightening in the sky to the Gods. Then the gods said the earth was flat, and we believed it. Mr. Galileo had to loose his life to say that its round. Then we went in space to see the earth and prove the Gods wrong!
7. And most importantly an Atheist does't not bother what others believe in. Individual rights of thought and expression are the base of a progressive society and people should be allowed to act as they believe as long as this is according to 'law' and not a nuisance to the society at large.

By the way, if you see God in everything you see around, so be it! Human brains are highly imprintable and people can be trained to think something without reasoning. Socrates was sentenced to death and poisoned for 'reasoning' with the Gods. And, Chet, Mother Teresa did not believe in God. There is documentation about her letters to some bishop asking why she cannot see, hear or feel 'God' in spite of a lifetime of prayers and service. I read this in a article in TOI, immediately following her demise. Anyways, if you see the journey all along , from believing in elemental Gods like Sun, Moon, Fire, Water etc to believing in personified Gods like Apollo, Zeus, Shiva, Christ etc. moving on to non-personification of God believing in principles and ideas like in Islam, Buddhism or Jainism (Vedas are an expection to all this, I'll talk about them later; after I have been able to comprehend a drop of that ocean...). And then there has always been a growing class of non-believers, the 'Atheist'. I am not pro-atheism or anti-religion, in fact I believe in integrated hindutva, and I don't care what others believe... all I want is to be reasonable!