Sri Lanka: Should India be worried?

Its been 9 months since Prabhakaran and the LTTE were ousted from the Pearl Nation.Its also been 1 week since Rajapaksa proved his overwhelming popularity in the Presidential polls after defeating opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka.

Now why should India be worried? Lets journey through the last one year, beginning in 2009. One major cause of worry for India should be the rampant curbs on the freedom of the media. Lasantha Wickramatunge was a well known Sri Lankan journalist who had been killed mysteriously. The irony is he knew of his death. One can read how he has poignantly penned down how one must wait  before they are killed and one can only appreciate how he fathomed the fact that he would be dead soon. His last article can be read here,http://www.thesundayleader.lk/archive/20090111/editorial-.htm.

The LTTE and Prabhakaran have been officially defeated.But that still doesn’t  guarantee the safety of a million Tamils in the North(not to forget Sri lankan Tamil refugees who fled to India during the brutal war).There are still many reports of gross human rights violations by the Sri Lankan army in refugee camps.

Now diving into the elections, Rajapaksa was declared a hero after defeating the LTTE.But then again , he was only popular with the overwhelming Sinhalese Majority.There had been reports of rampant corruption within his government and rumours that he ran the goverment in a dictatorial fashion. To refute all this, he decided to hold a presidential poll to reaffirm his faith in the people(and vice versa), which has shown to be successful. His opposition candidate was a former army chief and fought for Rajapaksa in order to defeat the LTTE. He accounts how corruption was rampant in Rajapaksa’s administration that he even went on to mention in his manifesto that he would commission an anti corruption body and try Rajapaksa in a court of law.

The official report is that the elections were smooth , free and fair , without any rigging.This was confirmed by international observers which included a team from The United States.However,Foneska still claims that the elections have been rigged and he has called out to all embassies in Colombo to take notice of it and to prevent Sri Lanka from falling into the hands of a dictator. The Sri Lankan authorities have passed this of as cacophony, a trick being played by the losing candidate.

In the light of all the above, how should India react? There have been reports that India would be increasing its investments in the island nation, along with China. One must not forget the fact that India will always be worried until the Tamil problem has been solved once and for all. And about the fact that Sri Lanka ‘might’ be run by a dictator? At this point of time, all Delhi can do is keep an eye on Colombo.

Comments and opinions will be appreciated

The Question of Hyderabad

By 1947, just before the British left India, all but 3 princely states agreed to join the Union of India.These were Junagadh, Kashmir and Hyderabad. A small glimpse into history; Hyderabad was one of the few regions in India that was not directly controlled by the British, but was still under the suzerainty of Great Britain.The Nizams in effect ruled and reigned in Hyderabad and were in fact popular with the masses because of their development activities they undertook ,such as building lakes in this very dry region of India(Shamirpet lake in an example of this artificial lake).

However , when the curtains closed on the British in India, Hyderabad wished to be part of Pakistan.It would have been an island of Pakistan literally in the middle of India.Thankfully due to the valiant efforts of Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Menon, Hyderabad did manage to join the Republic of India in 1948.

But it seems even after 62 years of Independence, the question of Hyderabad has been raised again due to the possible bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh into Andhra and Telengena. This time Hyderabad is in the middle of Telengena but the de facto controllers of the Hyderabad economy are Andhra people.I’m not going to be commenting on whether dividing Andhra will open “the pandora’s box”, but just see how Hyderabad is going to be affected.

Here are a few solutions to the Hyderabad problem:
1.Make it a Union territory like Chandigarh which can be the common capital of Andhra and Telengana
2.Let Hyderabad be the capital of Telengana and make Vishakapatnam the capital of Andhra.
3. A rather bizarre solution , Let Hyderabad be the capital of Telengana and Secunderabad , the capital of Andhra.
4.If Andhra is not divided, then no problems.

Personally i feel the first solution might be the best considering Andhra is heavily dependent on Hyderabad in terms of administration and economy.Other questions that can be raised are: The jurisdiction of the Andhra Pradesh High court, seat allotment in the state and central legislatures, the question of which administration various universities across Andhra Pradesh will come under.

The next few weeks in Hyderabad are going to be full of fireworks and until an amenable solution can be found for Hyderabad, i’m afraid there will be a political deadlock and an all out battle for the City of Pearls. New Delhi must really step in and be the moderator between Andhra and Telengana.

Ciao to Humanities!

I’M A STUDENT OF HUMANITIES AND I’M NOT EMBARRASSED BY IT!
India is a country with a plethora of talent, and its universities( at least on paper) offer a multitude of subjects to satisfy the thirst for knowledge.But what has happened over the years? Disciplines such as History, Political Science, Philospohy(grouped as humanities) are losing their credibility.Writings of famous thinkers such as Nietzsche, John Stuart Mill, Rousseau are being classified as “cacophony’.This is due to the advent of the “arts people are unintelligent” syndrome , which has crept into the educational fabric of the this country.
Some of India’s greatest educationalists such as Dr Radhakrishan were in fact Arts students.But sadly Humanities as a discipline is losing its credibility.As law students we are probably more inclined towards humanities than to Science or Commerce.But most people in law school look at these arts subjects as just an extra burden , not a stepping stone to legal disciplines one shall be doing in higher years.This thought occurred to me while i was reading an article in The Hindu on why Humanties as a discipline is not given its due credit.What happened to appreciating literature in its finest sense? What happened to appreciating life through philosophy? What happened to learning mankind’s mistakes through the eyes of history? Unless people realize that by doing humanities, one can also be successful in life, things won’t change and the day when we say goodbye to humanities won’t be far away.

Note:no disrespect intended to my fellow commerce and science students.