Random Thoughts - Pattabhi Sitaraman

When K Kamaraj was the Chief Minister of the state of Tamilnadu, the DMK was the opposition party  who had only five seats in the assembly.  The leader of the party was C N Annadurai.  Once when he rose to speak, the congress members were making such a racket in the house that his was voice was drowned. Kamaraj got up and shouted at his party members to keep quiet and listen to what Annadurai had to say. He said that was the way to develop the leaders in the parties in a healthy democracy.   In UK when Gladstone was the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli was in the opposition. Gladstone in the parliament mockingly told Disraeli that either he would die of madness or of a sexually transmitted disease.  Disrareli was known for his high morals and very hard work. Disraeli immediately retorted, "It may be because I either embrace your policies or your mistress."  Such bonhomie or repartee is hard to find among the politicians of the country either...

Most of the western countries have separated the religion from the state administration but they have no qualms in proclaiming that they are a majority Christian nation. The president of the US or the prime minister of UK or the chancellor of Germany have no qualms in attending the Sunday mass or special mass for any occasion. There is a celebration of Christmas and Thanksgiving in the White House, the residence of the POTUS.  China, of course, had remained a country with no state religion and also tramples upon the individual freedom to practice religion. Its recent crack down on the Uighur Muslims and various reported bans on the identity of Islam are pointers to this.  Before the disintegration of USSR, there was no state religion and there was no freedom to practice religion by any section of society.  But after the disintegration of USSR, the independent countries have allowed practicing of religion by individuals and even in Russia, the orthodox Christianity is sl...

India since 1947 had remained a democracy though elections had been taking place as early as 1930s.  The real power of people came to be seen only in the 1952 election when the first election was held after adopting the constitution and the country was officially declared as the Republic of Indian Union.  Later many changes had taken place and words had been inserted into the preamble to make it more specific in terms of its socialist nature as expounded by the successive governments headed by Congress and the secular nature as deemed fit by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.   However, the maturity of the democracy despite its nascent state, had been its hall mark in the last seventy odd years. The Indian voters, though most of them can be construed as illiterate from the first election to the national parliament in 1952 to the latest in 2014, had proved time and again that they had become much more matured beyond the time the republic had been in force le...

In the days of past, the families were living under one roof in a joint family system. Most of the well to-do people were land lords and having a good extent of arable land holding.  The villages where they were living were inhabited by people from all walks of life, be it a priest, a temple servant, a barber, a potter, a cremation ground assistant, farm workers, etc.  Many of these people did not have any land holding in their names and they depended on the other well heeled land lords for their sustenance.  Once the harvest was over, there used to be a practice of measuring the yield and the first few measures will be given to the temple, temple priest, other people who are of service to the entire village.  When every land lord gave the yield like this, the other less fortunate and landless service personnel were getting the required food grains for the year.  This system was working so well that no one went hungry in the villages,  This provided an in...