Home > Work > The Sceptical Patriot: Exploring the Truths Behind the Zero and Other Indian Glories
1 " Somehow, we’ve managed to create a social, cultural and political environment in which even our youngest citizens have been so deeply indoctrinated to hate. Who else, I wonder, have we indoctrinated them against? Little Muslim kids against Hindus? Little Hindu kids against Muslims? Little Dalits against all Yadavs? "
― Sidin Vadukut , The Sceptical Patriot: Exploring the Truths Behind the Zero and Other Indian Glories
2 " each year India produces thousands upon thousands of eighteen-year olds who have little to no instructed idea of the last sixty years of Indian history. They have no idea if or how those five-year plans worked. They have no idea if or how the Non-Aligned Movement worked. They have no idea about the numerous wars India has fought against Pakistan or China. They have no idea, for instance, of what many people call the greatest threat to India’s internal security: the Naxal movement. What created this Naxal movement? And why is the movement popular where it is? Our youth doesn’t know. "
3 " Why should each generation be brought up on the selective prejudices of the one before it? I believe that this is exactly the point of history. And not just reading or studying history but also approaching it with a sceptical bent of mind. When each generation approaches received wisdom with scepticism, perhaps it will reassess established notions of right and wrong, love and hate. Perhaps it will finally see mistaken priorities for what they really are. Perhaps it will do something that previous generations steadfastly refused to do. "
4 " The aloo gobi is perhaps to North India what apple pie is to America. It is cheap and easy to make. Like most Indian dishes, you can make aloo gobi in as complex or rudimentary a fashion as you wish. You can eat it with rice, rotis, parathas or even with sliced white bread. A little leftover aloo gobi between two slices of white bread, toasted in one of those clamp sandwich-makers, and served with ketchup and mint chutney, is one of the greatest breakfast achievements of our species. "
5 " Why are we so easily swayed by facts forwarded by email? Why do so many Indians believe that the Taj Mahal was originally a temple called Tejo Mahalaya? Why do so many of us instantly believe and immediately proselytize that ‘India has never invaded any country in her last 1,000 years of history’ or that ‘The word “navigation” is derived from the Sanskrit navgath’ without even pausing to ask: ‘Is any of this actually true? "
6 " Some of India’s most stellar appointments include H.D. Deve Gowda as prime minister, A.K. Antony as defence minister and Sharad Pawar as anything at all. "
7 " brahmasmi. I am spirit. I am the cosmos. I am everything. "
8 " History is an enigmatic mistress who likes to keep her lovers on their toes. "
9 " is not a manifesto for action, a list of crimes to be avenged, a litany of positions to be reversed or a collection of rights to be wronged. "
10 " we need to stop asking the history of centuries past to vindicate our actions today. History is not a manifesto for action, a list of crimes to be avenged, a litany of positions to be reversed or a collection of rights to be wronged. History is, to paraphrase the great A.J.P. Taylor, the answer you give a child when he or she asks you: ‘What happened? "
11 " What we see today then is not an emerging India but a re-emerging one. A nation slowly reclaiming its rightful place at the top of the world’s economic pyramid. "
12 " The valuable capacity of the human mind to simplify a complex situation in a compact characterization becomes dangerous when not controlled in terms of definitely stated criteria… "
13 " Measurements of national income are subject to this type of illusion "
14 " since they deal with matters that are the centre of conflict of opposing social groups where the effectiveness of an argument is often contingent upon oversimplification. "
15 " In the mind of the Indian public, journalists currently occupy a position of respect somewhere between pond scum and Ebola virus. "
16 " History is replete with rulers who maintained stability at the cost of justice, humanity and morality. Everyone from Adolf Hitler to Saddam Hussein to Muammar Gaddafi managed productive economies, sophisticated bureaucracies and large populations whilst simultaneously generating simmering dissent. "
17 " I am not suggesting that history or scepticism by themselves can provide all the answers to all these questions. History, after all, is not a forward-looking discipline. It can only tell us what happened the last time, not what will happen next time. Similarly, scepticism is hardly sufficient to do anything but ask questions. But together they—history and scepticism—form a potent force for enquiry. "
18 " History is not a manifesto for action, a list of crimes to be avenged, a litany of positions to be reversed or a collection of rights to be wronged. History is, to paraphrase the great A.J.P. Taylor, the answer you give a child when he or she asks you: ‘What happened?’ It is a description of what happened. "
