ZOOM UPWARDS TO AFFULENCE THROUGH MORAL VIGILANTISM

Dear Chander,

I am most grateful for your prompt reply and action. I have handed over the cheque to CK. I am a bit rushed as I leave for Dubai in two days hence the urgency of fulfilling promises before going.

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You may remember that long time back I had sent a letter to Sonia Gandhi, with copies to the PM, the Finance Minister, the Home Minister, the Foreign Minister. the Defence Minister, and the Chiefs of Army, Navy and the Air Force. A few months back I sent a copy of the same to the Chief Justice of India too.

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At that time I did not send to you all the Appendix to this letter. I am sending it now and would be grateful if you very kindly would publish it in the light of the tragic enviornment that exists in the country today.

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Kindest regards and God bless.

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Nimmi Khanna

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India was blessed with selfless and dedicated leaders of intrinsic value who secured us our independence. What followed subsequently makes one wear a shroud of shame at the shamelessly selfish and greedy demeanor of the inheritors. In the last six decades they have left us where we now find ourselves. Over 200 millions of us below poverty level and near illiterate attribute their miseries to their karmic debts.

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A sea change has emerged in the definition of a nation’s security. The vulnerability to military might of foreign powers ceases to be the prime consideration, and no longer can form the final template for strategic or tactical anticipation. The parameters of the last millennium though relevant are being overshadowed by eruptions of a new variety of imponderables. An unhappy citizen becomes a de-motivated seed and in due course sprouts as a militant’s veil of frustration casting a disruptive influence that impinges upon a nation’s security. Our existing and future threats to India have been staring us in the face. These have continually been put under the carpet for decades.

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All this not withstanding, internal political squabbles have kept the politician much too preoccupied to apply his mind and attention to the dark and threatening clouds that have already cast their ominous shadows of the turbulent decades ahead. Our political arena is in the doldrums, cleaving and clawing. To our west, Pakistan is in turmoil and on the verge of a breakup. The terrorists, breeding and sprouting in a cascading pattern there, are menacingly positioned to strike eastwards after finding sanctuaries in J&K and lastly, an emerging unstructured nuclear threat from that country is very much on the cards. This aside, India is unquestionably vulnerable to the numerous termites flourishing within--- the Maos and Naxals spreading from Nepal to Chattisgarh; The ULFA and the other insurgents, weakening our Seven Sisters to the East; The numerous sleeping cells of the Al-Qaida; well dispersed, biding their time; Poverty and corruption seeping deep into our guts; And the law of the jungle pattern of existence competing with ‘organized chaos’ style of governance. Each of these is evolving its own menacingly alarming portrait of Satan.

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We have already forgotten that for eleven long centuries our lands were continuously under rapacious foreign rule. No other region in the world with an odd exception perhaps can claim heritage to such a deep destroying humiliation and curse. Within 60 years of gaining independence, our conduct across the board has ripened this region for being plucked once again and losing its present day ‘Kohinoors’ and ‘Peacock Thrones.

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The nation, in its present self destruct mode, needs war like responses to transform itself into a revival and a survival syndrome. To simultaneously achieve financial affluence and security at minimal extra cost. The core issues that need out of the box correctives are as given below.

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1. LAW OF THE JUNGLE

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The region continues to be cursed. After 1100 years of foreign domination we have succumbed to a ‘law of the jungle’ existence spawned by a lackadaisical legal system that takes years if not decades to dispense justice. This has acted as an agent provocateur for the criminal and the corrupt to flourish and sprout and to commit repeated criminal offenses undeterred. This appears to be one of the main causes for ‘The Law of the Jungle’ kind of existence which has become our country’s exclusive patent.

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We must achieve speedy dispensation of justice. Why can’t the courts run two shifts per day? And have their long vacations curtailed? Recruit large additional judges and supporting staff? Reemploy retirees up to the age of 70 years? Resolve government and other cases out of Court? And minor cases speedily dealt with summary trials on a day to day basis?

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The promotion of speedy justice would require an autonomous prosecutor and investigative agency akin to that in the USA but accountable only to the Parliament. This unpalatable pill has to be administered to bring about all around improvement speedily.

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2. ONLY 20% OF THE ALLOCATION REACHES THE BENEFICIARY

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You are probably aware that even now not more than 20% of the funds, subsidies and benefits allocated by the government actually reach the beneficiary in the rural areas, the balance being siphoned away by the greedy and the unscrupulous that shelter under unaccountability. What sort of governance is this that knowingly and yet unashamedly allows the continuance of swindling of the illiterate, below poverty line citizens?

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3. ‘ORGANISED CHAOS’

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Similarly, an ‘Organized Chaos’ form of governance has become the bench mark of our administrative acumen. It happens to be the source of perennial and regular lucre for the non accountable administrators in urban and rural areas. The citizens of India are blackmailed into subservience on a regular basis in full awareness that no accountability or corrective action shall ensue.

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4. INDIA AMONGST THE MOST MALADMINISTRATED COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD.

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We have an elite and dedicated civil service called THE INDIAN ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE. Is this the best they have produced in 60 years. You know why? Because they are totally unaccountable and because 95% of them end up as Secretary Government of India, irrespective of their dedication or work. They consider the politician a transitory aberration trespassing upon their birth rights as masters of all they survey, and they have the cheek to treat the nations elected leaders accordingly. This lodestone of misery around the nation’s neck has to be brought to heel. A constitutional amendment is necessary to hold them accountable and to sack the mal administrator, the mala fide decision maker, and the corrupt. This needs to be enforced even if it involves sacking a significant number amongst them. They are no longer the steel frame of India. It would be more appropriate to call them the distorted aberration of India. THE INDIAN MALADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE. A citizen’s referendum would undoubtedly uphold this evaluation.

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The nation needs to review as to whether it should continue to mortgage itself by reposing trust in the non knowledgeable amongst them holding post of Secretary Government of India in ministries of which they have scant knowledge. For instance the Ministry of Defence should have all joint secretary and above posts tenable only by armed forces officers, police officers, and scientists. Similarly the Home ministry should be manned by police officers, army commando trained officers, naval and air force officers. The scientist, the engineer, the doctor and others should similarly head their respective ministries.

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5. WEANING BACK BILLIONS OF INDIA’S DOLLARS IN SAFE HAVENS ABROAD.

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We must make it a Policy of State to bring back as much as possible of the alleged over 1400 billion US dollars of Indian money dishonestly lying in safe havens abroad. As per western conservative estimates India’s dishonest have stashed away around 1400 billion US dollars of their ill gotten money in safe tax havens in countries like Switzerland, Austria and others. To find out details of such money shall now be possible as these countries are enacting new laws whereby their banks can make full revelations about such deposits. This money is the amount we would probably spend on the next ten to fifteen, 5 year plans. An ideal Indian resource of our becoming a superpower in the next 50 years. The nation must use every conceivable incentive possible to wean this money back for the overall and total benefit of India by even giving the owners special relief’s and pardons and may be benefits. This is a surer way of getting some of our money speedily, than taking recourse to Courts etc.

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6. ARMED FORCES.

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The nation’s prime instrument of sovereignty, its Armed Forces must be restored their ‘IZZAT O IQBAL’ their honour and their glory, their order of precedence, their pay and perks etcetera. There has been serious country wide turmoil in this regard. This issue needs to be paid attention to at the highest level speedily and their status restored in conformity with the internationally followed time honored cost benefit equation between the upholder of a nation’s Sovereignty and the rest of the nations government servants.

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The nation’s leaders fail to understand that the umbilical chord between the serving and the ex-serviceman is as strong as that of a mother and child. The interests and welfare of one cannot be trespassed upon without impacting the other.

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You shall be amazed to read what Katauliya advised King Chandragupta Maurya regarding this 2000 years ago. The entire advice is magnificent. Being a bit long, I am sending you a small extract.

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“It is my bounden duty to assure you, My Lord that the day when the Mauryan soldier has to demand his dues or, worse, plead for them, will neither have arrived overnight nor in vain. It will also bode ill for Magadha.

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For then, on that day, you, My Lord, will have lost all moral sanction to be King! It will also be the beginning of the end of the Mauryan Empire”

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The Chief of Defence Staff system of military advisors to the government on all matters military and its governance and management has been pending since over a decade. This needs to be urgently introduced to enable us to preempt in a professional and effective manner the numerous external and internal threats to the nation.

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The present adhocism has time and again failed because of its shallow ineffective knee-jerk responses. This was revealed in abundance at our first humiliation in the 1962 debacle with China, our tardy responses in the Mumbai militant attack and so also in our timid and slow riposte in Kargil.

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It is totally incomprehensible how the political leaders of 1962 in an arrogant manner announced publicly that they had directed the Army to THROW the Chinese out. Unbelievable but true, a letter signed by a junior official, a Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Defence was received at Army HQ’s with these directions. Did they not know that China was on of the victor countries of the Second World War. They had even forgotten that in recent preceding years the Chinese had brought the great American military might to a stalemate in Korea and yet we had with total ignorance of matters military thrust unforgivable shame and humiliation on us all. On the other hand and as an exception, the brilliant military leader of the 1971 War prevailed upon the then political leader to bring about the greatest military victory in nearly 2000 years of India’s military history.

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In our present system we have a Minister of Defence who is generally not knowledgeable about the Armed Forces, having seldom seen a battlefield or the armed forces weapons in battle array. He has no knowledge of what it feels to fire a bullet in action. He even does not understand the élan of a soldier or the significance of the espirit de corps, the winner of battles. To outmatch him he has as his prime advisor an IAS officer who is equally not well versed in most matters concerning a nation’s security. Because of this the nation’s leaders are deprived important inputs when evaluating options before adopting international postures and relations. It is surprising that we as a nation continue, in rash ignorance, to mortgage our security to such faulty procedures, without even batting an eyelid. With newly emerging threats from China and Pakistan time is running out in adhering to a slow and indecisive tactical or strategic decision making principles.

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In full awareness of the internal threats that confront us and may continue to do so for a decade ahead, the primary role of the armed forces should additionally be made to include dealing with insurgency and all manner of internal threats whether Naxals or Maos or any threat which tantamounts to waging of war against the nation and its people.

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A nation’s security stands threatened when its political masters lose their firm resolve to withstand or meet threats that impinge upon its security and welfare. This invariably happens when the morale of its fighting force is trespassed upon or trampled. Our present self destruct mode of governance is very successfully achieving this undesirable result.

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7. HORNET’S NEST RESPONSE.

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Whenever we as a nation or as a people have been physically hurt or humiliated our tragic response has been slow and tardy as that of a tortoise. We go into our shell pull our limbs in and hope and pray that the menace shall disappear. Our response to the numerous terrorist attacks culminating in Bombay, to the numerous attacks on our students in Australia, the treatment of Indian passenger’s in Paris by Air France and even to the strip search of our Defence Minister during his official visit to America speaks volumes.

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As a policy of State we must adopt a Hornet’s Nest response. The fear of a deadly sting should put the fear of God into our adversary. They must be made to understand that if they hurt one Indian they should be prepared to receive the anguished response of a billion humans. ‘I DARE YOU’ should be our riposte and guide stone. Humour aside, I think we need to have an accountable all powerful ‘Hornet’s Nest Quick Response Agency’ at the Centre and the States directly under the PM and state CM’s

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8. HIRE AND FIRE GET RID OF DEAD WOOD

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Get rid of DEAD WOOD in a graded manner. Start with the Cabinet, then the bureaucrat, the armed forces, the police and then the Public Sector. Let no one believe that the Government employees are ‘Son’s in Law’ of the nation. Once the government announces this policy the private sector shall pick up courage too. Such a policy would effectively deal with the ones that have so far prospered on coercive blackmail.

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9. COUNTER INSURGENCY.

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This problem shall persist for at least a decade if not more and till such time the AL-QAIDA and the TALIBAN exist.

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The subtle hand of China cannot be overlooked. It is succeeding above expectation in getting US deeper into the quagmire in Afghanistan, Pakistan and now in North Korea. India too is a part of this hidden but not so subtle policy.

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Our police forces have yet to develop élan and capability to successfully tackle future threats of counter insurgency.

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We all are aware how 10 terrorists held a nation to shame and ignominy for over two days till the valiant army in the garb of NSG restored some semblance of dignity. Till such time as the police reach a level of competence the army’s prime role should include counter insurgency and for this purpose we should to begin with, immediately raise and allot one commando battalion to each State. This may subsequently be increased on as required basis. This shall ensure an effective and a reliable deterrent capable of speedy response all over India. For this purpose we should reemploy young commando ex-service-men. Once the police and the Para- military forces are adequately trained and confident they should assume their rightful role.

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10. POLICE AND PARA MILITARY REFORMS.

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Police reforms have been kept in cold storage for far too long and needs to be resolved. This is critical to our nations well being. The nation’s investigative agency should be made autonomous and accountable only to the parliament. This shall give it more teeth and achieve acceptable levels of credibility. The Para military forces too should be given their due as uniformed defenders of the country. This they rightly deserve.

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11. MEDIA.

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More often than not the media has come to depict itself as the present day ‘GOBBEL’S’ puppets. The days of stalwarts like Arun Shourie appear so distant a past. Nowadays media time and again gloss over issues of national import and highlight, out of proportion, issues of little or peripheral consequence. Not many, in a serious and determined manner, have discussed issues of deep significance touched upon above because probably none of these shall get them a plot in ‘Vasant Vihar’? or a Membership in the Rajya Sabha?.

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12. CORRUPTION HAND IN GLOVE.

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The Lowest Common Denominator IQ level corrupt politician but with an astronomical level of GQ (Greed Quotient) has at his beck and call a self serving corrupt and dishonest bureaucrat well versed in how to steal the ‘KING’s TREASURY’. They hand in glove achieve their ends and then on a ‘you scratch my back and I scratch your back’ equation shelter each other from the wheels of justice and even browbeat and befool the investigative agencies to secure tardy responses from them that assure themselves judicial protection. In recent years ‘Gobbel’s’ puppets have sprouted, at regular and appropriate times, to veil this shame and to deflect the nation’s prime attention from the important matters of state to peripherals. They are, in recent months, going hammer and tongs to demoralize the country’s armed forces and its judiciary the only relatively untarnished institutions.

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China’s and Pakistan’s combined efforts would not have been able to achieve such success in the subtle decimation of India as is being brought about by our SELF DESTRUCT MODE. God bless this happy panorama of the modern dance of self destruction that would even put Shiva to shame.

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13. YOUNGER GENERATION OF LEADERS

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To defang the well entrenched, the younger generation of India at the district level upwards must form itself into ‘A MORAL VIGILANTE FORCE’ taking recourse to the Right to Information; and the Public Interest Litigation; as some of the means to peacefully bring about reformation and revival.

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The younger generation of leaders should aspire to seek out off the box solutions and for this we need to raise special cadres at state levels for effective vigilantism. Here is some food for thought?

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JAI BHARAT, JAI INSAN, JAI JAWAN, JAI KISAN,

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‘HUM UNKA SATHYANASH KARENGAY JO DESH KA SATHYANAS KAR REHAYA HAIN’.

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To destroy all termites, of corruption, of maladministration and poor governance, of mala fide decision makers, of indiscipline, lethargy and selfishness, which are eating into the very core that would otherwise make a strong and a rich India.

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‘HUM SUBH KO AMEER BANAYENGAY’.

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To make every citizen of India rich spiritually, morally intellectually, mentally and physically.

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N.C.Khanna