open borders with economic possibilities of free trade and less chances of war. The world was globalising at a rapid rate. We saw the liberation of Egypt from despotic rule by people’s power by use of the internet and social media to organize and coordinate. Despotic rulers like Saddam Hussein and Mohammed Gadaffi were overthrown, Osama Bin Laden killed and then everything started going haywire!
The oil prices started shooting up and the world went into a recession. There was corruption and scams everywhere. President Assad, the despotic leader of Syria could not be removed from power. The situation became terribly complex with Russia rooting for Assad with the western powers on the opposite side wanting to depose him with Syrian rebels. The rebels ganged up with the rebels from Turkey and the Taliban and terrorist forces to fight their own battles and against Assad. We have the shock of Brexit, which may lead to breaking up of Euro zone and back to the old selfish and nationalistic interests of each country. In America outsider Donald Trump took over his Republican Party to become the President elect. If you notice, all over the world despotic leaders, many democratically elected are ruling today! Free trade alliances are in jeopardy and local conventional wars threatening to go nuclear. Much like our media has been cautioned not to be anti-national, Trump reportedly called prominent media persons and bluntly told them they have been showing him in poor light and he expects them to do positive reporting.
Technology is progressing at a rapid pace and too fast changes are coming in the way people communicate and live. The older generation finds it difficult to switch to “The Internet of Everything”. The mobile phone has revolutionalised lives what with Selfies, Pokemon, smart cards and Robots taking over many jobs and creation of a virtual world. People who are not familiar with smart phones in the next few years will be considered illiterate! There is the matter of virus, hacking and trolling and nothing seems to be safe anymore. Drones can photograph from the sky to deliver goods or spy on you or used to track and kill whilst cars are getting smarter and will be able to drive and park themselves in future. Everything seems to be getting smarter that you can ever hope to be!
We have the complication of Kashmir, abomination of castes and khap Panchayats, reservations for the various scheduled castes, tribes, other backward castes which is exploited to the hilt so that instead of being forward meritorious looking, everyone is fighting to be labeled as backward caste. Since government jobs are so well paid and once in, almost impossible to punish or throw you out for inefficiency or sloth or anything, we have the oft repeated ridiculous scenes where PhDs and graduates apply for a sweepers or peon’s job! Another phenomena is highly educated and people from good families have run away to join ISIS!
This radical Islam of suicide bombers, beheading, sex slaves, senseless killing of innocent people and even children and babies indiscriminately, kidnapping and destroying priceless art and heritage possessions of the world to bring in a new barbaric world order staggers the civilised world! We agree the world order is not ideal and there is lots of evil existing, but what motivates this organisation to thrive, get new recruits and prosper should concern everyone! There is Wahabi Islam and Sufi Islam and Shia and Sunni Muslims who do not see eye to eye with each other. The other religions too have their hardliners like Christians with many sects, whilst Hinduism has the RSS and the Sangh Parrivar with their fringe militant hardliners. Religion creates fanatics and divides people whereas all religions basically preach love and brotherhood of man.
We cannot blame God for polluting the world as each one of us is generally provided with an amazing hardware and perfect operating system. All the software is a later installation by us. We are free to install anything including destructive viruses! Can you blame God for what you have installed? Who or what prevents the installation of appropriate anti virus software and defragging our scrambled operating system to run optimally and sensibly? We are the world, God’s children. The world we fashioned seems to be destroying humanity and the 7 pillars of relationship. Each pillar is related and supports each other. They are Honesty, Trust, Respect, Communication, Attention, Intimacy and last but not least Commitment. The crumbling of one can pull the other down in a domino effect. People have become greedy and hypocritical. Isn’t it true that the walls of a hospital have heard more sincere prayers than a temple? In schools lessons are taught first and tests come later. In life, tests come first and lessons are learnt later. Life is as complicated as people are and it appears we have not found the answers, for when we think we have found the answers life changes the question. We can feel it right here today when a part of the corrupt System is attempted to be changed by demonetisation?
(The author is a retired naval officer and Freelance writer).
