India Today

After former Indian President Abdul Kalam incident involving airport detainment, and Shahrukh Khan's Newark humiliation, it was the turn of yet another elderly Karnataka couple to face the humiliation at Paris Airport. They were detained for more than 20 hours at Paris airport on their way to Finland to meet their son before their journey came to a rude and abrupt end back to India. Besides, hundreds of Indian students have been brutalized in Australia in recent months.

Why do you humiliate the Indians? They are the peace loving civilized community in existence since the hoary past going back five thousand years in history before Greeks, Romans and the Byzantines could borrow mathematics, geometry, logic and philosophy from them. They abide by their duties of showing the highest honor to guests treating them like god. They welcomed the Aryans so that Aryans from central Asia became true Indians. They welcomed the persecuted races from across the world that found refuge in this holy land. The representative from the oldest religions came to this land never to go back. The relic of ST Thomas that came to India in 14^th century is still enshrined in Goa. Holy wars, and crusades did not exist in their vocabulary. What is today known as Hinduism ever existed in this holy land. This holy land was the birth place of Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. This is the land that has been home to all religions and all races because this is the land of religion and people that do not proselytize. This is the land of people that believe in peaceful co-existence and even today that is the cornerstone of India's foreign policy. The Great Indian King Ashoka sent his messengers across all parts of the world with the message of peace even before Jesus Christ was born.

Modern India may not represent the text-book glory of their ancient counterpart, but you can decipher the old karma and samskara when you speak to the Indians. Let a stranger walk into an Indian home and he won't be turned away without a glass of water and a request to share tea. Ask an Indian for the direction and they will walk an extra mile with you. Every Indian whether a Hindu or a Muslim or the follower of any other religious persuasion exists in peaceful co-existence even today.

The communal clashes that we find in India are an off-shoot of modern polity and economy. It serves the interest of politicians to divide Indians into regions, religions, and castes so that they can rule. Modern democracy is based on numbers and the numbers can be garnered by invoking region, religion, and caste affiliations. Also, the limited resource with many claimants is bound to lead to clash of interest based on narrow caste and clan divisions. The rape, violence, and the other crimes are fueled by mass media in India, yet it is the strength of traditional Indian resilience that the nation did not break under the impact of terrorism, wars, and divisive forces unleashed against this nation, and the holy wars inflicted upon her since medieval days. The national polity has in essence remained democratic since ancient days and today the national election every five years is the largest democratic exercise anywhere in the world.

Recently, the growth and rise of India has been alarming as never before in their modern history. This is evident in the spate of Indians companies - Tata, Mittals, and several others going on to purchase European companies. They have breezed across the silicon valley. They are among the policy making team of Obama. They are governors and house representatives. They have in-sourced American and European backend jobs through call centers. Their military, telecommunication, and software citadels remain invincible; so do their space and ocean expeditions. Their foray into international cinema resounded with the Jai Ho (Be victorious) slogan. Yet India is a poor backbencher in global human development index ranking below Maldives and Sri Lanka. That's a paradox of democracy that Indians count among the global richest as well as the global poorest. There is plenty amid poverty. There is food surplus yet farmers commit suicide. They have the largest pool of literates yet the largest number of illiterates. These paradoxes can go on and may take several score of decades before getting resolved even as India (and the other BRIC- Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations surges upward riding over the highest growth rate to depose Italy and perhaps France out of the top industrialized nation ranking within the next few years.

It is not surprising that Indians do get punched and pinched. Yet no one blows the whistle because international polity is a game of strategic alliances much of which has been shuffling and shifting in the current globalized political economy. An elephant sleeping for long has suddenly awoken to the clarion call that has alarmed the other species of the jungle. There is an age old adage in India which when translated in English means - An elephant triumphantly strides through market unperturbed despite hundreds of barking dogs all along. Truly, incredible India !!!