On the anniversary of Gandhi's assassination

Einstein summed it up best when he noted that  "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."

January 30th 1948 was when Gandhi was felled by Godse's bullet.  62 years later, some of his ashes were scattered in the waters off South Africa, where Gandhi had spent a few years before returning to India. "Gandhi's ashes were brought to South Africa after his death in 1948 but only some of them were immersed in the ocean while the rest were given to a family friend who kept them for decades."

It is simply incredible that Gandhi was able to convince everybody on the merits of a non-violent movement for independence.  I have always felt that India's democratic politics (except for the brief period when Indira Gandhi suspended the constitution) is a result of the non-violent methods that were used to gain freedom.

Sir Richard Attenborough deserves a special meritorious place for making a movie about Gandhi.  One of my favorite scenes from the movie is also the one that troubles me the most--even more than the scene when Gandhi is shot.  The scene that I have embedded here depicts the "salt satyagraha."  The British imposed a salt tax, which was unfair and unjust.  Gandhi was arrested days before the planned non-violent protests at one of the salt works.
This scene gets my emotions every time I watch it; yes, even now as I type this.  Unlike a James Bond beating the crap out of a villainous character, this is a depiction of real happenings.  It is just awful how volunteers line up to get beaten up by the police--who are also Indians--and then the women volunteers bandage them up and they re-join the protest line.  The reporter--played by Martin Sheen--displays the emotions I suppose most of would feel if we were to witness such a horrible spectacle.

We owe Gandhi a whole lot.

Independence Day in India and Pakistan

61 years ago, these two countries became independent, carved out of the colonial Raj. Here are two different perspectives on this anniversary:

From the Economic Times of India:
[It] is becoming clear that the much-maligned neo-liberal policies have contributed more to the alleviation of distress than the tax-and-spend socialistic policies of the past. The latest figures show that there has been a fall in the number of people below the poverty line to 24 percent compared to 36 percent in 1993 and 51 percent in 1977-78.
If India does become a major economic power over the next two decades, as is predicted, historians will look to the present period to assess the individuals who were responsible for the magical transformation from the land of tigers and snake charmers to one of Information Technology and nine percent growth. And among those who will be remembered are Rajiv Gandhi, who inaugurated the age of computers in the mid-1980s, and Manmohan Singh, who launched the economic reforms under the tutelage of then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao in 1991, and carried on the process after becoming prime minister himself in 2004. There is little doubt, therefore, that the positive aspects of the present times score over the negative features.

And from the Daily Times of Pakistan:
Everybody thinks President Pervez Musharraf has no way to go but resign from office. Some think he is going to announce his decision to bow out on Thursday (today). Newspapers are reporting on the advice being offered to him: most of it is in favour of resigning.
The ecstasy produced by the ritual of immolating President Musharraf is going to wear off pretty quickly in the post-Musharraf era. At this juncture, we should pause to ask whether we are not all becoming a collection of angry posses with single-item agendas. It is dangerous that, at the end of our “struggle”, there is the lone figure of Pervez Musharraf tied to a stake. Tunnel vision is no vision.