By Robert Clements
New Year Advice for India…!
And as the New Year dawns and we Indians face another year like the rest of the world, let us realise that we are living not in isolation but with the Rest of the World. Because, lately, like the Koreans in North Korea, we are being made to believe that all’s well with us, and all’s wrong with the rest.
Unfortunately, contrary to what we are being fed, all’s well with the nations we are led to believe are not well, and all’s not well, with the nations we are slowly gravitating towards.
In a country that believes in mentors and gurus, we seem to be moving away from the very concept that admonishments are not punishments but just a course correction, and we as a people are being misguided by national leaders that when developed nations across the seas issue course corrections to us, they are jealous and are trying to derail our economy.
Far from it, this 2025, let us listen to these developed gurus and mentors, like the US and UK, like Germany and other countries with robust democracies and economies and realise that the warnings they give are not to pull us down but for our own good.
And yes, for the good also for the ones in power.
When we are told that we rank somewhere at the very end in the ‘hunger index’ let us not attack the ones who have formulated the index and accuse them of bias but listen to what they say, because people are starving, and are jobless and angry.’
When we are told that Freedom of Speech and that of Press Freedom is gradually reducing, let us not pooh- pooh the facts but look closely to ascertain if this could be true. We don’t keep hearing about hundreds of journalists being incarcerated but for every one journo who is threatened, ten start remaining silent in fear.
In India we are not a very courageous lot by nature, but this 2025, start infusing courage back in us!
This 2025, let us understand that the freedom we fought for and won in 1947, was not just freedom from the British, but freedom of oppression from our own leaders.
Coming back to what we are doing as developed democratic nations criticize us is deftly moving towards nations that have hardly any morals, and have no problem being called bullies. Watching our foreign minister bending over backwards to a bully China, another bully Russia, and making friendly gestures to North Korea is frightening.
These are not countries we should be seen with, and yet, we have started accommodating. Ask yourself, where most of our Indians would love to migrate to? Russia? China? North Korea?
No! They would all love to cross the seas to the ‘streets paved with gold’ of the US or Germany or maybe the UK. Why? Because, these countries don’t just have a flourishing economy but a healthy democratic system, which the other three can’t even come close to.
We should aspire to get there, instead of choosing as bedfellows the bullies on the other side, and who would not hesitate to stab us in the back if push came to shove.
This 2025, let us bring our country back on course.
This 2025, also, do realise that nobody is going to steal the religion that our majority follow, away from them. Nobody can, nobody will, and nobody wants to.
Yes, this 2025, let this realisation percolate into the mind of everyone in the majority community, that being a majority and being made to become fearful of a miniscule minority is not just stupidly silly, but a masterful ploy.
It’s like a tiger being shown a rabbit, and being told the ‘rabbit will swallow you!”
Say this lie a billion times to a billion people, make the billion look at that harmless rabbit and start attacking it.
Hey stop it! You are a powerful tiger, stop being made a fool off, because as you are being made a fool, the money you pay in taxes is being used to give freebies to voters, put money in their bank accounts, and bribing those voters to give their votes.
Cash for votes should be stopped this 2025, but only if you open your eyes this New Year and realise there is no need to be afraid of the rabbit. Because that’s the bogeyman that is held in front of you, while your wallets are emptied. So this 2025, as you see your wallets emptying due to taxes increasing, remove the blinkers from your eyes.
Remove, also this 2025, the hate that is being manufactured from a national mass production plant and distributed free to the millions who stretch out their arms and ears to grab that hate.
This 2025, remove the blindfolds that you have put on yourselves, or at the end of the year, a bankrupt nation will order even the air you breathe to be taxed. Maybe, the polluted air Delhi and Mumbai breathe today, is the forerunner towards a billionaire piping fresh air into your homes at an astronomical cost.
Great business idea, right?
Many years ago, a great man wrote a letter to me, saying, ‘the prophets of yesterday are the journalists of today!’ So do not react with amusement to my words today, but treat them as prophetic,
This 2025, open your eyes and look not just around, but look at where the country is heading, and then make every effort you can to right the course!
Happy New Year dear reader, and may we together make India great again, this 2025…!
The Author conducts an online, eight session Writers and Speakers Course. If you’d like to join, do send a thumbs-up to WhatsApp number 9892572883 or send a message to [email protected]
