Am I anti-Indian or anti-Finnish?

I had a conversation with a dear friend from Delhi, yesterday morning, after he had read my blog entry, who asked me not to give up hope about India.

He mentioned that, just yesterday, that someone had actually stopped to give him way to turn from the main road into his colony! Also he told me that he had been driving behind a DTU bus which was hogging the centre lane. He overtook it, stopped and asked the driver whether he knew what wrong was being done, to which the driver asked for an apology!

How many people have that much time to spare to correct the mistakes of others on an hour by hour basis. On the highway from Delhi to Jaipur, if one has to follow this principle, one would have to stop every minute as every truck and bus and slow moving vehicle uses the fast lane!

What people see on this blog is only mine or Annikki's personal expressions. It is a personal log - a blog! And we are in unison in almost 99.9% of the cases we talk about.

It is neither anti-Indian, anti-Finnish or anti-anything else.

Anyone who really knows Annikki or me, will know that we are the ONLY ONES in Finland who publicly stand up and criticise the Finnish Police, Judiciary, Bureaucrats, Lawyers, etc. in the OPEN on Free Speech Day as well as in our media of choice, the internet.

Anyone who has read either of our books "Handbook for Survival in Finland" or "Seven Years Hard Labour in a Finnish Holiday Camp - A Finnish University", know exactly how outspoken we have been about the ills of Finnish society and parts of the system which are broken. And such ills can only be measured against systems that are better! (And what is coming in our next book "Inheritance Nightmare" is probably the biggest shocker from our arsenal!)

Does that mean we are anti-Finnish?

One should be able to express one's opinion on any subject and not get rudely condemned for saying what one believes. If something is wrong in India or Finland, or the USA or England, one should be able to say it.

In the USA, I am probably on the FBI list as an undesirable alien. Anyone who has read my email CORRESPONDENCE WITH AN "EDUCATED" AMERICAN [CHRISTIAN(?) & WHITE] in 2001, well before BEFORE the Iraq Shock and Awe attack, will understand why my correspondent went to the extent of reporting me to the FBI!

Was I anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-White, or did I believe in what I stood for?

How many of you will put your money where your mouths are?

I had a lucrative contract to write the handbook of Extrusion Coating (a special process used in plastics manufacture to make continuous lengths materials of two or more film materials) with the largest English Research Association which is also a noted publisher. That contract was with me well before the Iraq War. When, Britain joined that war, I had already finished my manuscript. Rather than earn the money and pay taxes in the UK, part of which would be used to fund the illegal war, I withdrew from the contract, at a huge personal financial loss!

So when I criticise something, someone, somewhere - it is because I believe in what I stand for.

My criticism of India is because the country had the solutions well before the present crisis, but the politicians and industrialists chose to ignore the warnings.

May I remind you of that wonderful book I had referred to earlier in one of my blog entries, "The Affluence Machine" by Abraham Thomas the former Managing Director of Southern Investments which was published in 1975. It was ignored!

As Annikki noted, the problems in India are exactly where the IT boom has hit.

Is it a coincidence or is it because of the personal greed of those at the helm of the IT industry.

I think the latter! They may be knowledgeable about IT but have not the slightest concept about city planning and development, civic services, and a whole host of technologies required to set up and run a growth area. Hence the chaos!

Will I compare one society with another?

Yes, I will, as if one cannot learn from what is good and works, then one is blind. If as a chemical engineer i can scale from 5 litres to 5 oo litres, then an experienced planner can scale from 5 million to 50 million! And are there not successfully planned cities of 10 and 15 million around the world?

I am not driven by patriotism to any nation as I owe loyalty to only one person, the Lord God above me. If I stand condemned in His eyes, then I am guilty.

As I had mentioned on an earlier blog that someone had written to me that India is a democracy and it has a population of 1 billion people.

May I remind all of you that when I was a child the population of India was BELOW 350 million and we were a democracy. It the problem today better or worse than then?

As I had asked ten and ask again now: What is the reaction going to be when India is a democracy with 1.5 billion people?

As was pointed out by several during my visit to India, including the Home Secretary, Mr. G. K. Pillai at this year's The General K. S. Thimayya Memorial Lecture Series at Bishop Cotton School in Bangalore, the national security problem has three major issues to be considered:

(i) Externally sponsored threats,
(ii) Secessionist and ethnic identity issues,
(iii) Internal armed movements.

Anyone interested in the lecture by an old school colleague can visit this site, INDIA’S INTERNAL SECURITY :
CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES BY SHRI GOPAL K. PILLAI UNION HOME SECRETARY AND SECRETARY (JUSTICE) for the transcript.

Or you may recall my attending the lecture by the famed Norwegian Peace Negotiator and Activist, Professor John Galtung at the Ahmedabad Institute of Management who talked about the Gandhian way to approach the problem of terrorism.

The Naxalite problem is not so far away, and if, as at present, greed and lack of concern for one's fellow man continues to expand in India at the rate that I have witnessed, the effects will be rather sooner than later!

One small incident will show why I am concerned.

I walked to a nearby shop in Ahmedabad. After making the purchase, I was provided with a bill. I did not need the bill, so I crumpled it in my hand on my way back home, but I held on tightly to it, not wanting to litter the streets. Annikki laughed at me, as we were walking literally through muck and paper all around us, and there was I, reluctant to throw that little ball of paper in with the existing mess.

Am I a fool or am I a concerned human being?