Tag: Winston Churchill

Dominion And Stewardship.

Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where twelve of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by our esrstwhile LBC blogger Magpie who has retired. The ten other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Maria SF, ocdwriter, Padmum, Paul, Rohit, The Old Fossil and Will. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!

Dominion: n.
1. Control or the exercise of control; sovereignty:
2. A territory or sphere of influence or control; a realm.
3. often Dominion Abbr. Dom. One of the self-governing nations within the British Commonwealth.

Stewardship: n.
Managing another’s property, finances, or other affairs. (In the context of this topic, managing a colonial possession.)

I wonder if Magpie quite had this in his mind, knowing that an Indian wag will take pot shots at that topic.

India was offered Dominion status by the British, but chose to go the Independent Republic route, while retaining a connection with Britain through the Commeonwealth.

Being an Anglophile, I used to believe that, that choice was a mistake and that India should not have become independent, particularly when, what the old Colonist Churchill’s prediction; “Power will go to rascals, rogues, freebooters; All leaders will be of low caliber & men of straw; They’ll have sweet tongues & silly hearts; They will fight amongst themselves for power & the two countries will be lost in political squabbles; A day would come when even air & water will be taxed.” came true.

I am not so sure now as I see Britain experiencing exactly the same predicament, that Churchill predicted for India and Pakistan. I wonder what that old warhorse will be feeling wherever he is.

What goes around, comes around?

Animosity.

Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where Akanksha, Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Magpie11, Nema, Noor,Ordinary Joe, Paul,Maria the Silver Fox, Padmum , Rohit, Will knott, and I write on the same topic. Please do visit the linked blogs to get seventeen different flavours of the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by Padmum.

an·i·mos·i·ty (n-ms-t)
n. pl. an·i·mos·i·ties
1. Bitter hostility or open enmity; active hatred.
2. A hostile feeling or act.

That definition explains the current state of mind of most Indians towards the political and bureaucratic class.

Sir Winston Churchill wrote 64 years ago about India :
“Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low caliber & men of straw. They will have sweet tongues & silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power & India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air & water would be taxed in India.”

To paraphrase another Englishman Sir David Hunt, erstwhile British High Commissioner to Nigeria, “Politicians and bureaucrats as a whole are, not only not averse to cutting off their nose to spite their face; they regard such an operation as a triumph of cosmetic surgery,”

For five decades after independence, this class in collusion often with the criminal class brought the country to its knees with socialism, statism and sheer arrogance of power. Those days were called the License/Permit Raj, or the Inspector Raj and the net result was that India was going down the tube. From the nineties many of such restrictive controls were removed, but the versatile gang of thieves have found ingenious ways of looting the country and its people.

India is in the midst of a major anti corruption movement and my readers will get some idea of what is happening in this article.

For the first time in decades, all members of the establishment are facing animosity instead of fear from the public. The animosity is finding expression and here is a report that augurs well for public finally getting its act together to force change from a feral leadership. Here is another report closer to my home.

Modern communication methods and a vigilant media is enabling the ordinary Indian to express his animosity and when the situtation calls for it, a leader emerges. Anna Hazare is one such leader and the movement inspired by him can only go further to make our country what it can be. Have a look at this report too. The media and concerned citizens have already started to respond to inanity.

One question that one of my loyal readers, Ursula, will ask of me is where I stand on the emotion of animosity. Let me anticipate her and assure her that I can be allergic to people and things, but I have no personal experience so far of “Bitter hostility or open enmity; active hatred; hostile feelings or acts.” either from me towards others or from others towards me. I avoid situations that can lead to animosity and perhaps others do the same to me too.