| South Asia ? |
SAARC Search Engine |
Who We are There is a frequently used word in
Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani - e.i. more colloquial form of both; understood in Major parts
of India and Pakistan - KAL - which translates as yesterday
but it also means tomorrow.
Derived from KAAL (time) in Sanskrit and Prakrit; kal is used very frequently.
This is the reality of South Asia.
Most people live simultaneously in yesterday and tomorrow.
What can be our future if we are ignoring TODAY?
Is South Asia a reality or myth?
South Asia is a geo-economic region with more
superlatives than any other area in the modern world. While most of the world has changed,
progressed and advanced South Asia has remained behind.
That is a fact and one must admit it. The progress doesn't mean here only the techno urban
progress but even in spirit we have degraded ourselves. The living proof of this can be
seen daily on the streets in Karachi, Lahore, Delhi, Bombay, Chittagong, Colombo or even
Kathmandu.
Yes, WE South Asians have grown up and done some tremendous advancements in various
fields; yet we have failed miserably on most basic fronts like education, economy,
industry, technology for public welfare and even on Internet services.
Innumerable excuses are given for this scenario.
| Most of us South Asian people including
the top leadership live in constant denial and few want to accept the reality |
|
| In place of facing the
realities as they are, identify them, recognize them and work on them, resolving
them, we simply prefer to IGNORE them and that is what is the ROOT CAUSE of our misery |
|
| And if we happen to recognize a reality we simply
keep digging on it, debating on it till we finally keep it in our archive for future
review. This is the crude reality. |
Our misery is not caused by over-population, lack of resources, lack of solutions or lack
of people but by simply ignorance. We religiously ignore the realities and love to live in
a dream world full of fantasy. The hyper imaginative mind of South Asians constantly work
how can we run away from the misery around us.
The poverty, social and economic in-equalities become just political slogans and there
is no genuine mass oriented system participated by all sections of society.
Just a democratic form of electing a public office executive doesn't mean that we are
truly democratic. This is a very basic democracy not a full blown democracy of West
European states sort. What is the use of this democracy. What does it matter if the votes
are given to one or the other; they all end up in the same rot and they all corrupt by a
mere name and picture in the media. The politicians backgrounds are never checked nor
their credentials. A simple bureaucrat has to pass exams, test and interviews and a
long agonizing wait while their supreme boss may be the most illiterate and crooked
criminal; we accept him as a deity - an addition to our database of leaders. Is this
democracy?
Our systems are simply rotten and our institutions are a copy of the western ones.
We have failed to contribute anything original.
The greed, the fear and insecurity has made us idiots.
Shall we accept this reality. NO. we will not.
We will continue in the fantasyland and keep ignoring the realities.
Our elected officials are simply insecure who do not care for what goes around except to
keep themselves in power. Our most intelligent and cream goes abroad.
Our top functionaries are forced to keep their hands crossed in the mediaeval offices and
are forced to be impotent by an outdated system of Laws created by the British fiction
writers sitting in London to run the British exploitation upto 1947.
We have adapted the same obsolete laws. Our constitutions are mere photocopy of others.
The whole scenario simply ignore and leave aside the masses of South Asia.
The Janta is nothing but used as fodder as basic raw material to keep the elite
fine tuned and in great shape from all angles. Is this FREEDOM?
We are still enslaved as we have been in last 1200 years by invaders, by ignorance, by
foolish realization that we are the greatest and the best and the rest of the world is
simply new civilization.
What use an ancient civilization has; if we keep repairing our ancient buildings
while we have 40 percent of our population virtually homeless.
We have some big mouthed intellectuals who are pathetically lost in un-ending,
outdated and useless issues' debates and rhetoric while thinking nothing for future.
The future planning or a thought for future is never in our agenda.
What original is left. The world of spirit is sunken to narrow mindedness and smaller
and smaller groups which is further creating chaos.
Yes.. there is some change.. but what we need is not change but a fresh view to
review ourselves and our priorities constantly and change ourselves with the fast changing
world.
We understand that comparisons are absurd yet viewing from the most optimistic lens
one can see that:
Today South Asia - is
the most under-valued,
the most mis-understood region of the world.
Let us not deny this fact.
The way things are in the sub-continent, this scenario will perhaps never change.
We will remain more or less where we are or probably going to be a bit worse as the
resources are limited and scarce.
Image of South Asia in the rest of the world
People outside the region, have very mixed views of South Asia.
Most people worldwide do not have a clear picture and the myths
are circulated even by the most erudite reporters and media persons.
A vast land with vast population with big metropolis, hungry and unhealthy
people, underdevelopment and underachievement are the images known in
most parts of the world.
Except few counted genuine scholars of South Asia, most people do not have
much idea about SouthAsian region.
Even the so-called SouthAsian experts are simply drowned in the history
and their knowledge is based on the written word mainly printed in the US or Europe.
Have we failed to project the real image of sub-continent to the world?
Yes, we have failed to project our real image to the world, our compassionate culture
our good intentions and our humanity and of course our ignorance.
SOUTHASIAN COOPERATION
We have not inter-acted closely with any of our neighbors and leaving our own support
and markets we have been going worldwide to look for opportunities when in our own region;
the potential is enormous.
As soon as we get out of the bed we start fighting.
SouthAsians love to blame each other and if it was possible they will bomb each other
atleast five times. And we are the same stock, same race, same people but each with
its own song. We are like a class of rowdy children.
While when the most atrocious enemies of the world are talking and doing business
together we are still kissing our tanks and nuke missiles daily and feel so proud.
We are simply insecure, ignorant people who can not live in peace as we have some of
the most violent people in the world.
We not only have physical violence, but structural, spiritual and even individual
violence inside usually excused as outcome of gulami and all that crap.
INFORMATION
There is a big vacuum of Information on South Asia.
There is hardly any qualitative information on the neighboring countries of the
Sub-Continent. An Indian reader in Kanpur gets news on Pakistan via Agence France Presse
or BBC and a newspaper in Pakistan gets its stories on India or Bangladesh from the
American AP bureaus. What future we may have?
Internet technology is changing the world.
Internet may bring the neighbors closer - with this hope SouthAsia Network has undertaken
the project of launching a Robust and Comprehensive search engine for the region.
South Asia has unique and rich cultures and they all have common grounds. The countries
of South Asia may have different languages or economic disparities yet essentially they
are ONE culture. South Asia Network pretends to project a new image of South Asian nations
to the world.
In addition, we wish that through this common site, all of us can make new links and
connections. We have had enough of insecurities, hate, ignorance of each other.
We have not learned from our history. The day we stop living in fantasy world and come
to reality of today and plan for tomorrow - we have future as a prosperous region. If we
continue to hate each other and live as divided people as we are
we will continue to be on the margins of the world economy.
Shall we start a new chapter?
|