School text books reflect Indian culture poorly: Survey

Language, logic and liberty. How all three are getting affected in India by English language.

British Colonialism survived. In Indian minds! A cartoon after the Jallianwala massacre of Indian civilians at Amritsar by British troops on 13 April 1919. Captioned 'Progress to Liberty - Amritsar style'. (Cartoonist: David Low (1891-1963) Published: The Star, 16 Dec 1919; Source - http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/record/LSE6183).

While correcting the answersheets of a post-graduate dance exam, Kanak Rele, a Mohiniattam exponent, was left aghast when one of the students listed Michael Jackson and Hrithik Roshan as India’s contribution to world dance.

Her Centre conducted a survey of more than 600 textbooks used by students studying in schools affiliated to the Maharashtra state board, CBSE and ICSE board and found that not more than 28% of the information in their curriculum relates to Indian culture.

“Our syllabi reflect our cultural heritage very poorly,” said Kanak Rele.

The survey, ‘Discovering India – A Survey of School Textbooks and Curriculum in Maharashtra,’ was conducted over 13 months by eight researchers and was commissioned by the Union ministry of culture.The survey found that texts such as Ramayana, Mahabharata and tales from Panchatantra, Jataka and Hitopadesha were omitted from textbooks but Aesop’s Fables had been included.

“It is shocking that the south and north-eastern parts of India are almost neglected in the textbooks which are overwhelmingly tilted toward central and north India,” said the survey report, which rated books on different parameters such as tradition and culture, history, heritage, Indian thought and spirituality.

The researchers analysed every lesson in 638 textbooks of three languages Hindi, Marathi and English, maths, science, social studies and Sanskrit and compared references of any of the above parameters to other information.The Secondary School Certificate SSC textbooks fared the worst with only 22% of the information relating to Indian culture, followed by Central Board of Secondary Education had 26% and the Indian Certificate for Secondary Education ICSE 27%. (via Indian culture reflected poorly in school syllabi, finds survey – Hindustan Times).

Sow and reap

Why is this not surprising? Not shocking at all.

After funding and promoting foreign language (English) as the main language for higher education. India signed away its future to those who control English – English media, English Universities, English ideology, English polity.

English everything!

Poor India promotes English language

This shock and surprise displays India’s position on English language – non-negotiable.

Any number of such reports will paper over the root-cause – English language. As the British Empire was sinking under the weight of its own hubris, George Orwell, the apologist-in-chief of the declining Empire wrote:

Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past (from Nineteen Eighty Four (1984); by George Orwell).

And the departing British did exactly that.

The Trojan Horse

They sent their foremost propagandists to malform Indian history – before they left. More than 65 years later, we are still trying to clean and correct colonial garbage – which is called Indian history.

English language is like the Greek ‘gift’ of the wooden horse to Troy in the Trojan War.

The ‘gift’ that was the Trojan doom!

Related articles

• Pearls of Wisdom: US Economist On Indian Education (quicktake.wordpress.com)

‘Opium financed British rule in India’

Elephants in the room. (from the Non Sequitur series of cartoons by Wiley Miller). Click for larger image.

Under the British Raj, an enormous amount of opium was being exported out of India until the 1920s.

Before the British came, India was one of the world’s great economies. For 200 years India dwindled and dwindled into almost nothing.

Once I started researching into it, it was kind of inescapable – all the roads led back to opium.

I was looking into it as I began writing the book about five years ago. Like most Indians, I had very little idea about opium.

It is not a coincidence that 20 years after the opium trade stopped, the Raj more or less packed up its bags and left. India was not a paying proposition any longer. (via BBC NEWS | South Asia | ‘Opium financed British rule in India’).

Poor Indy Joe

Amitav Ghosh, a trained anthropologist and historian with a doctorate from Oxford University, did not know about the opium trade by the British Raj. The West has done a great job of hiding elephants in the room.

Does the average Indy Joe have a chance?

Birth of a new religion

But there is any layer to this problem. A new religion. It is called Westernization. ‘Modern’ Indians can be satisfied with perception and propaganda. Easier to digest, I presume.

At this rate, India will become another case of ‘forget-nothing-learn-nothing’. So enamored with the new religion of ‘Westernization’ are we, that no criticism will be accepted or tolerated.

Many ‘educated’ Indians have come to believe that the West is a friend of India – or has answers or solutions for India. Forget about India.

Does West have an answer to their own problems.

Related articles

• Raw Opium: documentary trailer (boingboing.net)

Onward, American Soldiers! Another million await death.

Toppling USSR cost the US and Europe 4000 tons of gold. With a growing deficit of US$9t how far can Pax Americana go.

After millions killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Niall Ferguson wants war in Libya. With little to lose, Libyans may ensure that US loses its ‘empire’. (Cartoon by Steve Bell; cartoon courtesy – guim.co.uk). Click for larger image.

Bad history

Niall Ferguson, a popular, British historian, has been a cheer-leader for Pax Americana. On assignment to Harvard currently, he has been at the forefront of ‘persuading’ America to take the place of various European colonial powers. Instead of the USCAP-client states system, Niall Ferguson believes that US must revert to European-style colonialism.

Niall Ferguson starts-off by using two bad examples of revolutions. One is the American Independence and the other was a inconsequential bit of British history.

Was the American Revolution ‘completely organic’? Funny, I could have sworn those were French ships off Yorktown. What about Britain’s Glorious Revolution, the one that established parliamentary rule? Strange, I had this crazy idea that William III was a Dutchman.

Betcha

Yes! Niall is write about one thing!

French supplies of gunpowder were crucial to Washington & Co., as Britain had cornered gunpowder supplies from India.

For the success of the American War of Independence, gunpowder apart, the French and Spanish economic aid to the armies of George Washington, was essential.

But …

My bottom चवन्नी chav-aani says Ferguson’s history teacher never told him, that Britain gave up 13 American colonies. Due to wars in India, especially with Tipu Sultan. Rather than lose India, Britain thought it wiser to let go of these 13 American colonies.

Why does Niall Ferguson forget that Haiti threw out their slave-masters.

All by themselves.

Haiti, defeated British, French and Spanish colonial armies in a space of less than 10 years (1794-1804). As did Cuba. I wonder what were ‘foreign additives’ in Kenya, Malaysia, South Africa or in Poland.

Reload /Refresh

Why does Niall Ferguson remind me of a sputtering, slow internet connection. Refresh the page a number of times. After 8 years of war in Iraq, he has the brazenness to

think of the Marsh Arabs’ fate at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Such events tend to be remembered as massacres.

The lowest figure for civilian deaths in Iraq has crossed 1 lakh (100,000) people. Corroborated by multiple news reports, eyewitness accounts, death certificates, hospital records, morgue reports, Western sources, Iraqi official figures, US army figures. The 1 lakh (100,000) figure assumes, in the middle of a civil war, Iraqis will cease all activity, postpone the funeral, in case of a death, to complete documentation and update multiple databases for a Western body-count. The figure of 100,000 assumes that Iraqis share Western enthusiasm, (or is it relish?), for ‘body-count’.

Other less ‘rigorous’ procedures, using Iraqi families as source and base, have reported around 10 lakh (1 million) Iraqi deaths. Whether you accept, 100,000 deaths or 1,000,000, it is a lot more people who died due to US invasion, than due to Saddam’s ‘oppression’.

Ever since, Pax Americana started their unwelcome visit to Iraq.

Hundreds … or hundreds of thousands

We must hope that someone gives Obama a history lesson before thousands of Libyans share their fate.

I am sure 100s of people are killed by Gaddafi’s regime each year. Trouble is, the US will kill more. Many more.

Niall-anna, are you sure that the cost of US intervention will be less than thousands? Iraq’s death-toll is a lot more than thousands – in fact, it is hundreds of thousands. If you can guarantee a figure in hundreds, I am all for a US invasion.

Good upbringing shows

I have always wanted to know, who gave history lessons to Niall Ferguson?

Such hubris cost US billions in Iraq and Afghanista. The bill will up for payment soon. Wil Libya be the straw on the US backs? (Cartoon by Stavro Jabra). Click for larger image.

It will be tragic indeed if America concludes from the experience of overthrowing murderous tyrannies in Afghanistan and Iraq that the correct policy is to turn a blind eye to murder in Libya.

Why not, for a change, pay attention to the home-front.

With more than 2 million prisoners, the capital of State-mandated murders is surely USA.

The evil empire

You get ‘One’ chance. One guess is all that you will need, Niall-bhai. Which country has more per-capita prisoners – USA, erstwhile USSR /post-Soviet Russia. I will throw China as a bonus?

The Cold War ended not because the US achieved a military edge over the Soviet Union, but because the legitimacy of the Soviet system collapsed from within. The West’s role was to insist on the importance of those “human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Even if not all America’s allies in the Cold War always upheld them, the other side respected them less.

And no, the story of Soviet collapse, has nothing to do with “human rights and fundamental freedoms.” It was economic warfare.

In the 70s, with out-sized gains in oil, platinum and aluminum prices, Soviet economy became an economic powerhouse. Soviet Russia, one of the largest gold producers in the world, made windfall gains. Funding anti-US regimes across Africa, South America, Asia and the Middle East, Soviet Union was dubbed the Evil Empire by Ronald Reagan.

The expansion in subsidies by the USSR in the 1970-1990 period to its allies and sympathetic regimes, created a huge pressure on Soviet finances. A simultaneous drop in oil and gold prices in the 1985-1995 period severely dented Soviet export earnings, leading to the economic collapse of the Soviet Union. In USSR’s economy, after WW2, commodities like oil, natural gas, metals (like gold, platinum, uranium) and timber accounted for 65%-80% of Russian exports.

Toppling USSR cost the US and Europeans 4000 tons of gold – and other hidden costs. With a US$9t deficit, which is not going down, how long and how far can Pax Americana go? (Cartoon by Steve Sack; courtesy – sinteur.com.). Click for larger image.

The Central Bank Gold Sales Agreement, further dented gold prices, 1995 onwards. Gordon Brown, the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been under pressure to ‘reveal’ details of British gold sales during this period.

The interesting bit was where did the European Central Banks get so much gold from! Was it the various gold hoards, that had disappeared from 1900-200o, making a re-appearance! A lot of Nazi and Soviet gold came into the markets, it is surmised, during the 1999-2005 Central Bank Gold Sales agreement – which was put in place to depress gold prices. These depressed gold prices, that coincided with price declines in oil, platinum and other commodities, bankrupted the Soviet economy.

Toppling USSR cost the US and Europeans, 4000 tons of gold – and other hidden costs. With a US$9t deficit, which is not going down, how long and how far can Pax Americana go? With an Afghan War going nowhere, Pakistan waiting to implode, will Libya be the straw on the Pax Americana’s back. You must be careful of what you wish for. Your wishes may come true.

Pax Americana may come – and go.

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Pakistan – Blackmail as State Policy

How American puppets in Middle-East have kept their people backwards ? (Image courtesy - venturacountystar.com). Click for larger image.

United States is being subjected to an old-fashioned protection racket by Pakistan: pay up or things could go bad for you. Those making money out of extortion and blackmail always come back for more. It’s a measure of the US’s waning global strength that it seems to have no option other than to keep paying.US is paying for Pak protection racket | By SHAUN GREGORY |

Pakistan’s DNA

Jinnah held the entire sub-continent to ransom. After 200 conflicts in 150 years, as the British with their backs to the wall, were walking away, Jinnah became a spoiler. The hour of triumph turned into moment of tragedy. A country born out of this blackmail, has now formalized blackmail as State Policy.

Champions at Genocide – Taimur Leng and Churchill

Cartoonist Leslie Illingworth's faithfully reproduces Churchill's views on India. (Cartoon courtesy - cartoons.ac.uk; Published - Daily Mail, 20 May 1947).

Hitler believed that the so-called Nordic race, which in his view included Germans and Britons, was destined to rule the world. He sought to emulate, not supplant, the British Empire: the German empire would comprise the Slavic countries to the east. As he saw it, the United Kingdom would retain its colonies but assume the role of Germany’s junior partner in world domination. (read more via Churchill’s Dark Side: Six Questions for Madhusree Mukerjee—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine).

Eat what you can digest

Looking at the lukewarm  coverage, desultory reporting and the general indifference to Madhusree Mukerjee’s masterly work on the Bengal Famine, I am drawn to some intriguing conclusions.

‘Modern’ Indians can be satisfied with perception and propaganda. Easier to digest, I presume. Empirical evidence be damned. Between the Rightist Islamic-atrocities and the Marxist effete-feudal theologies, Indian history suffers. At this rate, India will become another case of ‘forget-nothing-learn-nothing’.

Indian military might

The commentators are very enamored by ‘victims-of-Islamic-atrocities’ narrative – even though India’s military might would have reduced these ‘invasions’ to extensive plunder-pillage-massacre expeditions. In the few cases where these ‘invasions’ were able to consolidate, the regimes were short-lived.

British jaziya tax?

The crippling taxes that these Islāmic ‘invaders’ were able to impose, were less crippling than Western colonial extraction. At the end of the Mughal Raj, India was still a formidable economy. Even after, the Mughal rulers had bloated their treasury to the largest in the world. By the time the British were sent packing, Indians were left struggling for roti-kapda-makaan.

Taimur and Churchill

The Delhi massacre of Taimur Lame, the Mongol looter accounted for less than 2 lakh victims (most estimates are 1,00,00). The Bengal Famine engineered by the British accounted for 40-50 lakh victims (British estimates are 10,00,000-20,00,000). Taimur was a Hindu-hating Islāmic plunderer. Churchill and the British Raj oozed the milk of human kindness? From every pore and orifice of their bodies?

Westernization – the new religion

So enamored with the new religion of ‘Westernization’ are we, that no criticism will be accepted or tolerated. Compared to the ‘co-operation’ with the Islāmic plunderers our ‘collaboration’ with the West is in no way less damaging or in any way less culpable.

Not a welcome message, I guess.

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Eat what you can digest

Looking at the lukewarm coverage, desultory reporting and the general indifference to Madhabi Mukherjee’s masterly work on the Bengal Famine, I am drawn to some intriguing conclusions.

‘Modern’ Indians can be satisfied with perception and propaganda. Easier to digest, I presume. Empirical evidence be damned. Between the Rightist Islamic-atrocities and the Marxist effete-feudal theologies, Indian history suffers. At this rate, India will become another case of ‘forget-nothing-learn-nothing’.

Indian military might

The commentators are very enamored by ‘victims-of-Islamic-atrocities’ narrative – even though India‘s military might would have reduced these ‘invasions’ to extensive plunder-pillage-massacre expeditions. In the few cases where these ‘invasions’ were able to consolidate, the regimes were short-lived.

British jaziya tax?

The crippling taxes that these Islamic ‘invaders’ were able to impose, were less crippling than Western colonial extraction. At the end of the Mughal Raj, India was still a formidable economy. Even after, the Mughal rulers had bloated their treasury to the largest in the world. By the time the British were sent packing, Indians were left struggling for roti-kapda-makaan.

Taimur and Churchill

The Delhi massacre of Taimur Lame, the Mongol looter accounted for less than 2 lakh victims. The Bengal Famine engineered by the British accounted for 40-50 lakh victims. Taimur was a Hindu-hating Islamic plunderer. Churchill and the British Raj oozed the milk of human kindness? From every pore and orifice of their bodies?

Westernization – the new religion

So enamored with the new religion of ‘Westernization’ are we, that no criticism will be accepted or tolerated. Compared to the ‘co-operation’ with the Islamic plunderers our ‘collaboration’ with the West is in no way less damaging or in any way less culpable.

Not a welcome message, I guess.

Related Articles

• The case against Indian historians (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• Books: Churchill’s Shameful Role in the Bengal Famine (time.com)
• The Ugly Briton (time.com)
• You: INDIA: CHURCHILL DENIED RELIEF TO BENGAL FAMINE VICTIMS, BOOK SAYS (menafn.com)
• The Dark Side Of Churchill (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Today’s power-grabbers (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• Not his finest hour: As a young man, Churchill’s views on race and democracy beggared belief (independent.co.uk)
• Not his finest hour: The dark side of Winston Churchill (independent.co.uk)

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Commonwealth Games – Politics of Collusion

Why should only the Congress misuse CBI - let all parties misuse the CBI! (Cartoon by Kirtish Bhatt).

In the beginning

The Commonwealth Games (CWG) proves the point that democracy breeds a collusive polity. In the beginning was the BJP.

1. Why did Vajpayee Government bid for CWG? It defies all common sense. The Commonwealth is an idea that is long dead – and definitely irrelevant.

2. If it was persuaded by the Anglo-Saxon Bloc, what is the quid-pro-quo? What did India get from CWG? This Commonwealth benefits the British! Let them host it, pay for it, support it and ‘persuade’ us to attend.

3. Yesterday, Times Now TV debate tells that the Vajpayee Government paid out some thousands of dollars for each vote to ‘win’ the right to ‘host’ these games? Delhi beat Hamilton, New Zealand for this ‘privilege’?

Sorrier tale, I have not heard in many years. Even if the Vajpayee Govt paid nothing for this ‘privilege’?

We’ll walk hand in hand …

Coming to Kawngressis: -

1. If the Kawngress had an iota of honesty, they should have protested this bid in the first place. When the BJP /NDA was in power.

2. Having got this fait accompli, the Kawngress should have been determined to do this at least cost, minimum shosha, tamasha - like Mani Shanker Iyer has proposed.

3. They should have put some good, honest bureaucrats on the job to achieve point no.2. Not allowed the likes of Mike Fennell and Mike Hooper to abuse Indian people, hospitality – and spend lakhs on them every month for this privilege. Rs.6.0 crore spent on them in the last few years.

A job so badly botched up, I have not seen in the last many years. Any way you look at it, the CWG is a case of collusive polity. And no one, but no one, comes out of this clean or decent. Not in my books at least.

Corruption has got more coverage - drowning out the other related issues. (Cartoon by by IRFAN; courtesy - cartoonistirfan.blogspot.com.).

Craving approval – without actions and achievements

This bit about promoting sports is another bad idea. Why is the State getting involved in the sports business. If it has to get involved, it must promote Indian sports.

Why is India building this huge infrastructure to promote Western sports. Why do we want to prove to the world that we can be good at Western sports. Like a columnist put it

Burning money on a gala sporting event does not make us a super-power

Anyway, what has sports got to do with nationhood. This nation-competition-sports is one bad idea, which must be killed.

Try as hard as anyone may, I just cannot be moved by this idea. No Indian can put up a good show of something as dishonest as CWG. I am not surprised that CWG is going to be a disaster! It will take a Great Disbeliever in the idea of India, to put up a good CWG.

Great Indian shows

Is it that Indians cannot put up a good show?

About ten years ago, India put up a great show. Unrivaled in the last 100 years, at least, by any country. It was called Y2K.

The Western world was at the cusp of an epic disaster – Y2K. Computer systems had used two-digit number to denote years. In 20th century, this was efficient use of computing power when raw computing power itself was expensive. Coming to the end of 20th century, when the number would go from 1999 to 2000, it was expected the logic used by computers would crash.

Posted by Shreyas Navare on Friday, August 6, 2010 at 10.35 pm (Courtesy - blogs.hindustantimes.com.). Click for larger image.

The West needed to rewrite the entire code for their industrial systems. And they had no spare programming capacity to do it. Enter India. In a matter of 7 years, desi, backward Indians obtained contracts, understood programming designs, deciphered the code, redesigned the new system, coded and tested their new systems, trained users and handed over fully working systems on D-date. It is 10 years now. These Indian systems continue to run the Western world.

Most recently, the corrupt and scam-tainted Satyam put up a faultless show at South Africa Football World Cup.

What has money got to do

Let us be clear – corruption has nothing to do with this fiasco. A highly corrupt China put up a great show at Beijing Olympics.

The CWG problem goes deeper. Even if the CWG were to go off smoothly,  I can’t be proud of this. Even if, this corruption allegations were poppycock! I have no answer to a simple question? Why are we doing the CWG? And there is no good answer to this question.

Write to me. If you have one reason. Just one, honest reason. Why should we host and promote this hoax.

Can you really motivate someone to do a good job on Commonwealth Games? I wonder ...

Related Articles

• Prince Charles row brewing at Commonwealth Games (independent.co.uk)
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Hitler’s secret friend: Sayajirao Gaekwad

Hitler's friend Sir Sayajirao Gaekwad (TOI Photo)

Gaekwad even signed a secret pact with Hitler to get his support for India’s freedom. It was known as the Baroda-Berlin Pact.

Gaekwad’s personal assistant Vishnu Nene was sent to Germany to arrange the meeting. “Gaekwad believed an enemy’s enemy is a friend. So, he decided to join hands with Hitler,” says Dr Damodar Nene, who has written a new biography of Gaekwad and gives details of the pact. He is Vishnu Nene’s son. The book, ‘Sayajirao Gaekwad Chi Biography’ has been published by Ved Gandharva publishers of Pune. (via Hitler’s secret friend: Sayajirao Gaekwad - Vadodara – City – The Times of India).

Wishful thinking

For the past few days, after reading this post, I have been trying to corroborate this story. Apart from one small stray reference, there was nothing that I could find. This one reference was a a few lines from a 1972 biography which is linked here.

The fact that the good doctors, father Dr.Vishnu Nene and son Dr.Damodar Nene said nothing from 1936 upto 2010 makes this possibly only a claim. Or after August 15th, 1947 when the raj-gharana of Baroda had lost their kingdom and the threat of British reprisals was gone.

And they had everything to gain by making this claim.

From Sayaji Rao Gaekwad, III By V. K. Chavda |National Book Trust, India| sole distributors, Thomson Press (India), 1972 - Baroda - 147 pages. Click for a larger image.

Baroda has very little ice

A claim that may be based on thin ice. What little ice, one get can in Vadodara.

The fact that this claim coincides with a book publication, (books have to be sold, you see) and from the Vadodara edition of TOI (newspapers also have to be sold) makes this story, again, a candidate for collusion. What could I find about the Baroda-Berlin Pact?

Nothing. Yes. That is right. Nil. Zero. Zilch. 零. Nul. Null. μηδέν. ゼロ. нул. cero.

Foresighted Sayaji Rao Gaekwad knew there would be WWII

The other thing.

Apart from a paranoid Churchill, who would have imagined in 1936, that Britain would actually fight a war with Germany. In 1936, as the Berlin Olympics progressed, even Britain did not know there would be a WWII. Remember even the USA, joined the war against Germany and Japan, only after it was forced to. After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941.

Forget Britain!

Even Hitler did not know there would be WWII. Or even a war with Britain. Hitler’s entire calculation after his successful campaign in Czechoslovakia (March 1939) was that Britain (under Chamberlain) would not go to war with Germany. While attacking Poland (September 1939) and other countries Hitler gambled that Britain would not declare war. Does it seem likely that Hitler would reveal his deepest, darkest plans to an ‘irrelevant’ Indian king? In 1936!

When neither Britain nor Germany knew there would be WWII.

Did Netaji Bose deserve this? Click for larger image.

Did the poor king deserve such a biography

Sayaji Rao Gaekwad is respected by many for many reasons. I would not like to assess him in any way, for sheer lack of material with me. Assuming he is respect-worthy, he does not deserve a biographer like the good doctor Nene.

Neither does Subhash Chandra Bose deserve this. A great leader, obfuscated in his own country, his legacy is now being plagiarized by incompetent hacks.

Between historians who hide real history, and ‘writers’ who proclaim history, without a base, Indian history, not surprisingly, has not got out of the sorry Colonial-Congress rut.

What a shame!

The wonder that is the British political system

The performance British leadership during the 1945-2010 period is patchy – to say the least. Look at the British record of governance.

So … who has done a better job? Much before the current Great Recession, across newsrooms in US, the rise of BRICS was being highlighted. (Cartoon by Stuart Carlson, 2005).

Visionary British leadership

In this post, let us keep this subject of British misrule in India aside, completely. Let us forget about it in this post. British misrule in India has been the subject of countless writers, journalists, analysts. Equally there have been many ‘studies’ about British ‘contribution’ to India’s progress.

We will instead, in this post, look at what we can learn from the British (as per India’s Free Press)

Why should Osborne’s actions be of relevance to us in India; one reason is because Osborne’s actions demonstrate the spectacular success of a remarkable British institution: the shadow cabinet.

As the name suggests, the shadow cabinet is made of up of senior members of the opposition who keep close tabs on their corresponding ministers, develop alternative policies and hold the government to account for its actions.

No surprise that many countries have adopted the system of shadow cabinets. As a former British colony, we have inherited a lot of our institutions from the British — including the bureaucracy! But somehow, the shadow cabinet system has eluded us. The result, inevitably, has been ministerial lethargy and poor decision-making . (via Shadowing ministers :Myth n Reality:Mythili Bhusnurmath’s blog-The Economic Times; parts excised for brevity).

Britain – A World Leader In Indebtedness! (Source McKinsey Reports).

Great myths never die … nor fade

Instead, let us look at British misrule in Britain itself. British ‘capabilities’ in areas of technology, industrial management, academia stands – naked and exposed.

After the guns fell silent

At the end of WWII, Britain was a superpower, its huge colonial Empire intact – apart from the massive debt that it owed the US, and India.

With Germany defeated and Hitler dead, Italy in shambles and Mussolini hanged, Japan nuked into submission, Britain sat at the head of ‘high tables’ in the post-WWII world deciding the fate of the nations – with its partner in crime, the US of A.

The US itself was financially dominant (with 25,000 tons of gold reserves), militarily effective (with atomic bombs) and industrially strong (unaffected by the WWII).

The Greatest Political Scam of recent times

From such a position, how could super-power Britain spiral down to bankruptcy, in less than 70 years, after WWII. Seen in this light, the record of British leaders is patchy – to say the least. Let us objectively look at the great British system of governance. A superpower in 1945, now in 2010, Britain is bankrupt.

More, the British mindset itself may need examination!

The Wall Street Journal points out

As Moody’s points out in a new report, what makes the UK so vulnerable to a sovereign debt crisis is the weakness of its banking system. Including private and public sector debt, the UK is one of the most leveraged countries in the world of debt equivalent to [400%] of GDP and a banking system still highly dependent on wholesale funding.

Britain today

With gross debt (including State, public and private sector debt) equaling 500% of its GDP. With its economy hollowed out in the last 60 years? From the position of a super-power to bankruptcy in less than 70 years.

Within 10 years of Indian independence, the British car industry started closing down. British coal mining became unviable within 15 years – and had to be shut finally. British Rail similarly collapsed. British capital goods industry (electrical, heavy machinery, electronics) went out of business. There is no British automotive industry worth talking about. British Steel collapsed and had to be nationalised within 20 years.

It may take an Indian, Ratan Tata, to revive British Steel and British automotive segments finally.

Stockholm syndrome, anyone?

Mythili Bhusnurnath is an old hand at journalism. She should know this – and I am sure she does. To see her going ga-ga about the British political system, letting go of journalistic circumspection is surprising.

Is there any record of such colossal political mismanagement in recent history?

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Stereotypes of the Raj

In the next one week ... Britain capitulated (Cartoon By Illingworth, Leslie Gilbert, (1902-1979) in Daily Mail on 25 February 1946. Click for larger image.

After the guns fell silent

At the end of WW2, Britain was a superpower, intact with its huge colonial Empire – apart from the massive debt that it owed the US. With Germany defeated and Hitler dead, Italy in shambles and Mussolini hanged, Britain sat at the head of ‘high tables’ in the post-WW2 world deciding the fate of the nations – with its partner in crime, the US of A.

The Raj propaganda

This cartoon from National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth by Leslie Gilbert Illingworth, (1902-1979) was first published by on 14 May 1946. A cartoonist with nearly 5000 cartoons, he was a solidly-establishment type man, who usually reflected the view of the masters.

This cartoon above shows a huge disconnect between British propaganda and reality. On 14th February, Illingsworth was busy depicting a ‘fractious’ India that would break up without the British Raj. Four days later, the 20 lakh colonial Indian armed forces, united and raised the banner of Independence. United across ranks, skin colour, language, geography, religion, caste, height, weight – with only one thing uniting them. They were all Indians.

The navy rebellion in Bombay in 1946, after which the army saw a mutiny in Jabalpur

Trouble from unexpected quarters

On February 18th, the lowly Naval Ratings from the Royal Indian Navy rained on the British parade – by raising the flag of Indian Independence. Britain did not have the stomach to take on the Indian Colonial Army, battle hardened and exposed to warfare in all the global theatres of WW2. The British acquiesced and 18 months later they were out.

The ruling Congress party distorted history and take all credit for the departure of the British colonialists. Contributions of leaders like SC Bose was ignored or the importance of the February 1946 joint action by the Indian armed forces against the colonial forces, was minimized to the ‘Naval Ratings Mutiny.’

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