United States of India

As found in Wikipedia, before Independence, regions of India were either directly ruled by the British or as Princely States ruled by local rajas. Independence in 1947 largely preserved these divisions. Following independence, instability soon arose in India. Many of the provinces as such did not reflect either the will of India's citizens or the ethnic divisions found throughout the subcontinent. Ethnic tensions spurred the Indian Parliament to reorganize the country along ethnic and linguistic lines in 1956 by means of the States Reorganisation Act.

After 1956,
> In 1960, Bombay State was split into the linguistic states of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
> In 1962, the former French and Portuguese colonies in India were incorporated into the Republic as the union territories of Pondicherry (later renamed as Puducherry), Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa and Daman & Diu.
> In 1963, Nagaland was made a state.
> In 1966, Punjab was divided along linguistic and religious lines, creating a new Hindu and Hindi-speaking state of Haryana, the northern districts of Punjab became Himachal Pradesh, and Chandigarh was designated, the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana, a union territory.
> In 1971, statehood was conferred upon Himachal Pradesh.
> In 1972, Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura were conferred statehood.
> In 1975, the Kingdom of Sikkim joined the Indian Union as a state.
> In 1987, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Mizoram became states.
> In 1987 itself, northern exclaves of Daman and Diu became a separate union territory.
> In 2000, Chhattisgarh (out of Madhya Pradesh), Uttaranchal or Uttarakhand (out of Uttar Pradesh) and Jharkhand (out of Bihar) were created.

And now on 9th of December 2009, the Central Government gave the nod for a separate state of Telangana (to be separated from Andhra Pradesh) which, according to Economist, caused a wave of protests even bigger than the one it sought to calm.

I just wanted to go a little behind all these. I wanted to know as to how many other statehood aspirants are there. I wanted to know what actually is the reason behind similar demands. I investigated on internet as this is what I found out.

There are more than a dozen statehood aspirants:

1) Telangana: Telangana comprises the northern, non-coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, and includes the state capital, Hyderabad. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which is currently the chief proponent of this demand.
2) Rayalaseema: Andhra Pradesh comprises of 3 divisions - Telangana, Rayalseema & Andhra.
3) Gorkhaland : Gorkhaland enjoys some measure of autonomy under the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. Gorkha Janmukti Morcha is its chief proponent.
4) Kamtapur: In northern parts of West Bengal, the proposed state consists of the districts of Koch Behar, Jalpaiguri, and southern plains of Darjeeling including Siliguri city.
5) Bodoland: Per that agreement of February 10, 2003 between the Indian Government and Assam, the Bodoland Territorial Council, an entity subordinate to the government of Assam, was created to govern four districts covering 3082 Bodo-majority villages in Assam.
6) Vidarbha: Vidarbha comprises the Amravati and Nagpur divisions in eastern Maharashtra. After British conquests from Mughals and Marathas in central India, in 1953 "Nagpur Province" was formed with Nagpur as capital. Though State reorganization act 1956 recommended Vidarbha as state with Nagpur as capital, Maharashtra state was formed with Vidarbha as part of new state, under pressure from leaders of western Maharashtra.
7) Bundelkhand: It encompasses parts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Mayawati has recommended it.
8) Harit Pradesh: It comprises of the western districts of Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati has recommended it too, with Ajit Singh of RLD as its chief proponent.
9) Purvanchal: Purvanchal is a geographic region of north-central India, which comprises the eastern end of Uttar Pradesh state. It is bounded by Nepal to the north, Bihar state to the east, Bagelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh state to the south, the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh to the west. Purvanchal comprises three divisions - Awadhi region in the west, Bhojpuri region in the east and the Baghelkhand region in the south. Purvanchal area is represented by 23 Members of Parliament to the lower house of Indian Parliament, and 117 legislators in the 403 member Uttar Pradesh state assebly or Vidhan Sabha. Mayawati has proposed to carve Purvanchal out of Uttar Pradesh.
10) Mithilanchal: It is for the Maithili speaking people of Bihar. Mailthili is an Indo-Aryan language with 45 million speakers. It has its own traditional script.
11) Seemanchal : Eastern districts of Bihar with Bhagalpur as its capital.

12) Union territory status for Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh.

13) Kodagu: The demand for creation of a separate Kodava state, a region of Karnataka, is based on the region having a distinct culture.
14) Tulu Nadu: The demand for creation of a separate state of Tulu Nadu, a prosperous region of Karnataka and Kerala, is based on having a distinct culture and language (Tulu). Tuluvas are culturally very distinct from the rest of Karnataka.
15) Greater Nagaland: Comprising of Nagaland and the Naga dominated districts of nearby states. It also calls for independence from India.

Now the Indian Government is tinkering with the idea of setting of a second States Reorganisation Commission to settle the plethora of demands for new states.
Nitish Kumar, the CM of Bihar, has called for the unification of the eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh, state of Jharkhand with the state of Bihar.

What is life??

A few days back my room-mate and school friend Nishikant was kind of atheist. We did not use to pray even a single time during the whole year. A few days back, he went to his native place, Patna. We thought that he would have prepared there for his CAT exam, but he did not. He actually spent time there on different ghats. He met a few sadhus there. His thinking made a complete turn. He became spiritual.
Earlier he used to discuss on these topics only a few times. The last I remember was our discussion on William Dalrymple's Nine Lives: in Search of the Sacred in Modern India. I was just thinking as to how a person like him can have such a sudden change of thinking about life and can start thinking in a totally different way. If he, then there could be many more who have gone through a similar situation. There could be many more who don't have the courage to change their way of thinking like Nishikant.
What is the True Way? What is the Right Path? What actually is the Real Meaning of Life??

Telangana??

There is a great debate going on through the whole of India. Its on the creation of new states, particularly Telangana. I just read an editorial in Economic Times. People everywhere is pondering over questions on the viability of the new state. Whether the new one will be able to support itself better than before? Whether the new one will cater to the social or economical need of the people? Whether the new state fulfil the greed of the local politicians? I think that this realm of discussion should also include the questions about the parent state, the state from where the new one is born.
Bihar, as an example, has nothing much other than agriculture to run its economy. It was already the poorest state of India, almost equivalent to Chad. Now, as it is said, it is left with only 'Bhayy' (Fear), 'Bhook' (Hunger) and 'Bharashtachaar' (Corruption). Though many people can argue with me on this but I just tried to give an example rather than giving exact facts about Bihar.
In a similar state, before carving out Telangana, I will suggest the Govt. to first study its impact on all the affected people and then only take any further step.

I can not sing Vande Matram

The controversy regarding singing of Vande Mataram crops every now and then. I think it is not a controversy rather a discussion among people with no understanding of either the song or Islam. I am very clear about my singing of the song. I DO NOT and I CAN NOT sing it. I have the reason. I will explain it here.
I was reading an article this morning in Time of India about the resolution passed by the Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Hind on the singing of this song. I just want to answer / explain to a few questions / points asked / raised there. At one point it is said that "The rival Jamiat, headed by Maulana Arshad Madani (Mehmud Madani's uncle), alleges that the resolution is part of a conspiracy to create communal tension, instigated by Americans who had met the Mehmud faction in July.". I would like to tell Mr. Madani to please stop that old trick of blaming America for all the controversies. We are wise enough to think over our issues. We are no more fools that any outside power can create some controversy and divide us. And we also are no fools to believe in people like you.
Mr Asghar Ali Engineer says "both uncle and nephew have forgotten the Jamiat's glorious tradition of participation in the freedom movement, of which Vande Mataram was an inseparable part,''. Some one has correctly answered this question by telling that we love our country, respect it, are 100% patriotic but we do not worship anybody other than Allah. Not even our mother. We do not even bow to our parents to get their blessings. It is not in our religion. We keep patriotism to our heart, and so do we keep our religion. We do not need to prove it by singing the song. Mr Asghar do not find any objection to the translation of the song as he says "I bow to my motherland, what objection can there be to doing so?". But I do find, as I do not bow to anybody other than Allah. He says "The Mughals made courtiers bow to them and perform sajda (respectfully lowering and then lifting your hand to your forehead repeatedly). Why was this not condemned as un-Islamic?". I would say that it was surely unislamic and I do not even consider the Mughals as the practising Muslims. Akbar started his own religion. Jehangir used to drink heavily. ShahJahan was busy building Taj Mahal and other magnificent buildings with public money. We Muslims do not follow kings, we follow Quran, Hadith etc. Kings do not define Islam, nor do the Sufis.
Writer Sajid Rashid says "The Deobandis consider even singing salaams to Prophet Mohammed's glory as haraam". I would ask Mr Sajid as to which salaam he is telling about. In Islam there are only two festivals, Id-ul-Fitr and Id-ul-Adha. Islam does not tell to celebrate Muharram, not even tell to celebrate Prophet Mohammed's birthday which is celebrated in India as Milad-un-Nabi. Regarding the singing of salaam to Prophet, I would say for Muslims Prophet Mohammed is the most respected and loved human. But here also, some Muslims show so much love and affection towards the Prophet that their love towards Allah fades in front of their love shown towards the Prophet. Muslims should consider that Prophet was a Messenger of Allah. We should pray to Allah and try not to go astray.
Finally I would say that I am a practising Muslim. I am a true Indian too. So I sing Jana-Gana-Mana since my childhood days. The anthem do bring goose-bumps on me. But I do not sing Vande Matram, since my school days. So do not consider me as a follower of these Fatwas also. I do my independent thinking.
As for the meanings and translation of Vande Matram, I would suggest Wikipedia and one other website.

Games, We Played

Yesterday I was browsing through some tech-news sites and I saw an article comparing the latest gaming consoles from Sony, Nintendo & Microsoft and the latest games. In my childhood days, I remember, I used to go to a nearby video-games parlor and play games on a big TV with joysticks attached to a wooden box. One rupee per 10 minutes or you lose earlier. Every rupee was worth and valued. Sometimes I used to bring the console home for the entire night for just 20 bucks and I bet there could not be better nights than those, for a child. I did not find the mention of that console in that article, also not even a word about Contra, Mario, etc which I used to play then. The world of gaming has changed drastically since those days.
Even though I have tried my hands on PlayStation 2, XBOX 360 & Wii among the latest consoles already, every encounter has excited me like anything. These experiences have always rekindled the gaming-freak in me. Nowadays, what I see is that in the console based games Nintendo’s GameCube, Microsoft’s XBOX 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 have the largest market. The gaming industry keeps on releasing better consoles and games with the latest technologies. The graphics has improved so much that I am sure in near future we won’t be able to make a difference between the real video and the images in the games. It is said that the graphics features of PlayStation 2 are so effective that the console could be adapted for military use. See how near the games have come to the reality. Earlier we could maneuver only in the x-y coordinates. Now it is a whole world out there; you can move in any direction. Even the consoles have changed a lot. Earlier there used to be mostly two buttons plus a handle. The buttons were to either jump or fire. Now while I was playing ‘Need For Speed’ on XBOX 360 and bumped my car against an electric pole, I felt a jerk through the console. That was an awesome feeling. Once I went to my cousins’ home and there I played on Wii. The console of Wii is a wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and can detect movement in three dimensions. I played lawn tennis. I was able to serve, hit the balls in all the ways I could imagine. It was like playing a real game, with the console.
Today’s consoles have advanced networking capabilities. The XBOX 360 has a unique feature that allows players to compete or collaborate online. I saw my cousins playing a game along with their friends online. They were talking with each others and making strategies to win. They were also having profiles on XBOX Live and were able to chat with friends. The gaming field has really come a long way.
I remember me having a handheld LCD video game from Nintendo, GameBoy. I have put its picture here. In this game, Mario must climb a building while avoiding barrels. The player must trigger a lever on the upper screen, activating a hook, which Mario must then jump and catch. If the player succeeds, a peg will be removed and Mario will return to the starting point, but if the player does not, Mario will fall to the ground and lose a life. Removing all available pegs in this manner will cause Donkey Kong's platform to collapse, and he will fall to the ground. Though it was a simple game, it was a kind of life for me and playing it was my best past-time. Later I got a few more hand-held games, however it was an Atari’s console which was my first TV based game. All its games were arcade type. After the Atari, I graduated to play Contra, Mario, Super Contra, Super Mario, Road Fighter, etc. I don’t know how many 1 rupee coins had been pushed inside those console boxes by me. I don’t know how many hours I had spent in those parlors. But one thing I can say for sure that I really really enjoyed those days and I still remember them.
Later on, during the college days, I did not have the privilege of buying gaming consoles. Like many others, I started playing computer games. There were many interesting games like the one where we had to handle a helicopter with mouse buttons. There was one very nice pool game. We room-mates used to make records for others to break and then again break those. For me the best and the most deeply engrossing game was ‘Need For Speed 5’. I even went to the finals of the college NFS contest. Some of my friends were mad about games like IGI, Counter Strike, Max Payne, etc.
Those were the days when, at least, I enjoyed my life the most. Every stage of game was a new day of life. Every win used to give a sense of accomplishment. Every moment spent playing was savored. Now, it’s a rat-race. No fun, no sense of accomplishment and thus no life. I made a change to this. I tried changing my life. I downloaded a free version of Mario. I now play it whenever I get free time, or you can say I try finding time to play it. I enjoy, not actually by playing it, but by somehow getting back to those days. Now no one can say “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.