… The stand of Tamil Nadu Government is timely. We need only 15 per cent of the present employees to run the government effectively. All the states in India are heavily in debt and tax revenue is hardly enough for day-to-day running of the government. The only way out is to encourage entrepreneurship by creating milieu for investment, by reducing tariffs, introducing labour laws conducive to productivity, rationalizing taxation, improving infrastructure and investing in public health, education and housing.
I firmly support a uniform civil code. I don't think that in a secular democracy you need to consult religious leaders on these matters, a majority in parliament is enough to pass a resolution to that effect. So too about the women's reservation bill. I am for it, but don't think it is a pressing issue. Women already enjoy reservation in Panchayat samitis. First extend it to state legislatures and then to Parliament. Somehow I don't agree with the whole idea of reservation indefinitely, though one may have valid arguments for it in the Indian context.
China's attitude to India is funny. They are ruthlessly pragmatic, self-centered and geopolitical in their strategies. They run an undemocratic, communist, authoritarian state, not afraid of the political cost of their policies. India will have to live with china's strategic hostility. Chanakya and Machiavelli have said that powerful neighbours will always be enemies. The funniest thing is that the repetition of China's claim over Arunachal Pradesh came just after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's much touted recent state visit to China and before that of Defence Minister George Fernandes's. It happened before, when Vajpayee was visiting China as foreign minister, that country attacked Vietnam and Vajpayee had no clue about it. Eventually he had to cut his visit short.
India in my opinion is an unfinished work- a nation in the making. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tibet and Maldives are all part of India's sphere of influence. It is only when we make it a political and economic reality that our civilization will really flourish, and we can fulfill our ambition of becoming a super power and an independent player on the world stage.
The British when ruling India made sure that Tibet and Afghanistan remained neutral countries and the rest of the above countries were under their direct rule. As Guru Golwalkar lamented: "Mother India has been reduced to a torso". Her feet/ Sri Lanka and Maldives; Her hands/ Pakistan and Bangladesh; Her head/Tibet; Her flowing long thick locks/Burma and Afghanistan; Her collar bone/ Nepal are all cut off. Now she is reduced into an imbalanced inverted triangle.
Gandhari, who denied herself the privilege of sight in sympathy with her blind husband, came from Afghanistan, Indra's tusker elephant Airavata came from the jungles of the Iravati river in Myanmar/Burma. India's two major life giving rivers - Sindhu and Brahmaputra arise in the Tibetan plateau. Our most revered Godhead Shiva is believed to be residing in the Tibetan Kailash, the reflection of which in the Manosarovar Lake nearby is an eternal symbol of Shiva-Sakti union, the spiritual ideal of Hindus. Nepali Gurkha is the Kshatriya ideal of India. We have to think hundred years ahead to complete the Indian ideal. That unfoldment will materialize through our engagement with China. Either China or India- Bhai Bhai is not possible.
Our geopolitical interest is in breaking up China along Sinkiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibetan fault lines, by demanding human rights, religious freedom and democracy in China.
These are my random thoughts.
Love,
Swami Bodhananda
From an email response to P N S, 28 July 2003