Tag: india

Reflections on an Oriental nation | #36

When we think of Orientalism, the European conquest comes to mind, the Britishers in India and elsewhere, or be it the French or what have you. However, by detaching from the terminology for a moment, one looks at the patterns themselves, of not just the West in the East, but of anyone anywhere; this framework of expansion of the patterns of actions that are mostly accepted as reprehensible, academically or popularly, allow for a broader and much more encompassing understanding of similar reprehensible structures around the globe.

In 1853 Karl Marx wrote the piece “The British Rule in India”, a man who was fully aware of the havoc Britishers were bestowing upon the Indian subcontinent, nevertheless, he considered the British rule in India to be a boon in disguise. This is now very well known as an Orientalist text, as Marx believed that although Indian civilisation lost its backbone, its sustenance and culture, what was ultimately lost were the ancient, barbaric and unregenerate customs of India.

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The problem of democracy | Thoughts #34

The most widely accepted definition of democracy is as follows; a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. “Whole population” is the focal point here. Democracy is older than some religions of the world, it’s traditionalist in some sense, originating according to some in Athens, ancient Greece. Any country in the modern world which isn’t a democracy is considered to be unethical and totalitarian. Now there are some, but mainly two branches of democracy; direct and representative democracy. Before I get into the analysis of a democratic system’s problem, we need to understand the two briefly.

In a direct democracy, people directly deliberate and decide on legislation. In a representative democracy, the people elect representatives to deliberate and decide on legislation, such as in parliamentary or presidential democracy.

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What is the point of intellectual elites? | Politics #31

In this day and age, information spread is rapid, before a theory, a research paper or survey is peer reviewed, the catchy headlines makes its way into the minds of people. Now, not only does this hold true for mere mundane celebrity gossip, or the top tier scientific research but the thoughts of the ones considered to be the elite class in intellectual capability have their thoughts spread much faster. Imagine if Socrates, or Aristotle were alive, with all their subtitled clips spreading on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, that would be a spectacle to observe.

The “intellectual elites”, most of them have their books in the world, selling millions of copies, and that’s totally fine. In those books are ideas, thoughts, propositions that are catered to a certain area of a problem-ridden world. If one had to classify difficulty levels in any field, difficulty as in the ability required for a certain problem, there would be tiers, we call “elite” to those who tackle with the most difficult of problems, you can’t be an elite football player if you’re playing in ISL as compared to someone playing in the Premier League or LaLiga. There has been this term thrown around about an informal group called the “intellectual dark web.”

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Is being a soldier just another job? | Thoughts #28

This one can be titled in various ways, “a soldier’s morality”, “why don’t soldiers kill their own” and many others, the reason being that because a soldier is in the field of warfare the morality shifts a bit in relation to murder, and the other obvious reasons. I’ve always thought about why don’t soldiers just shoot their commanders in the head, or rather more specifically militia, what’s stopping them from taking over each other? What’s so different about them that they have a separate court of “justice”? Now exploring this dimension leads to a few other questions about the state of a soldier.

To begin with the dictionary definition – probably one of those dictionary definitions that is quite congruent with the reality – “job” simply means a paid position of regular employment. So a job comprises of it being paid and categorically is a regular employment. Now, just like any other job, to be thinking of becoming a soldier one has had to have an idea of what exactly do they wish to gain from years of physically gruesome training – money? No. Becoming a soldier is one of the least paying jobs in relation to regular employment classification of manners. Let me explain; firstly there are even drafts in army, meaning you’ll just be picked up to go and sacrifice your life out of nowhere, second, being a soldier mostly has you being physically tough and all you do is follow orders of those who are deemed to have more brains than you, that doesn’t necessarily mean that soldiers are dimwits but there’s a strong emphasis on physical power and obviously so, third, you’ll literally be a pawn, a useful one perhaps, but a pawn, fourthly that the sole idea of someone becoming a soldier is in most cases a reflection of their economical struggles.

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