Magician Vs Dictator

Yesterday night was one of the rare moments that would really bring pride to an Indian. As i switched on the television and watched Sandeep Singh score a wonderful goal against the Pakistani team, I was surprised by how much i liked the game and could not help wonder why millions of Indians discard hockey as not being interesting when compared to cricket. Indian Hockey Federation is virtually bankrupt when compared to the BCCI except for some occassional funds from the government though being the national game of India. I suddenly recollected a story my physical trainer in school always used to tell , he being a retired a hockey coach and playing in the nationals many a time.

The story is about a hockey wizard called 'Dhyan Chand Singh'. Many of the current youth might not know his name, but he is the best player in the history of hockey not just in India, but elsewhere in the world, comparable to Pele in football and Sachin in cricket. He was the captain of the Indian Hockey Team for 3 olympics in a row, 1928 amsterdam, 1932 los angeles, 1936 berlin.

In the 1932 los angeles final match against the US, india scored a 24-1 , a world record unbeaten to date. In the 1936 , berlin match held against the Nazi Germany, attended by the Fuhrer himself. Hitler was so confident about the superiority of his country, he thought the game would definitely would be won by the Germans and so he wanted to give away the medals himself. Besides, the Indians suffered a decisive loss in a practice match against Germans earlier. But the wizard came out of the blue once again and defated Germany 8 - 1 , the only goal conceded by the Indian team in the entire tournament. Hitler left without giving away the medals. Indian players were terrified, when the following day, Hitler sent word for Dhyan Chand. The Hitler asked him to which county he belongs and what he does in his country. Dhyan Chand told him he is a major with the British Indian Army under the colonial rule. Hitler, asked him to come away to his country where he would be made a general. But the great wizard politely refused stating that his family s rooted in India. Hitler bade him away. The master came back to India and played a few more years, retired and became a member of the IHF. He witnessed the slow downfall of the legacy he left with Indian Hockey and died in the late 1970's. In his memory, the Indian government declared August 29 as National Sports Day and gives away Rajeev KhelRatna and Arjuna, Drona awards on the day.

It is hard to imagine a vibrant period of hockey at that time , especially when India was under the British. The people played not for money or for grand auctions or advertisements for hair oils and shampoos, but for India. It was said, the hockey players before the match of Berlin had sung the vandemataram in their dressing room to the then congress flag. Equally fascinating is the offer turned down by Dhyan Chand , which hapens to come from the most influential person at the time. Today, people who have almost done nothing in their field( no offence to fans, but i ridicule sania mirza's padma shri),, the great man only got a padma bhushan for his services both on the field and at the border, while he deserves nothing less than a bharat ratna.It suddenly strikes me why the constitution makers made hockey as our national game, when Indian hockey has a great hisory. But, due to the combined efforts of the govt and lack of interest by people it is reduced to advertisements by the more popular cricketers and film stars to watch the current world cup being held in New Delhi. What a disgrace to the national game?

Core 2 Duo Parliament

February ending is arguably the time when the heads of every Indian turn towards the prime institution of the country, one behind whose walls the budget is made. I also being one of those ordinary Indians, happened to view one of those sessions.
When I switched on , the budget session in parliament is just over and the channel started to show the footage of the state assembly session of earlier that day.I followed for some time and noticed some funny and rather serious flaws in the way our parliament/assembly works.

No body seems to be interested to listen to what others have to say, regardless of whether they want to speak or not. I always thought of our democratic process as a highly efficient method to bring out the injustice in government's policies, if any, but the majority of the legislators seem to be very passive. Of the half - an - hour , the only discussion that went on , is whether it is appropriate to talk on the particular topic they are debating about and who should talk first. Seems absurd, but in that half- an -hour only 3 persons made any meaningful conversation,, and some others went on shouting. Of course,what could anyone expect if some 250+ highly competitive people are kept in one hall and discuss about the problems of the state which could be hundreds in number in about 8 hrs every day?. Even if every one takes 10 mins to talk, not even 50 people would get a chance to speak. Even in the group discussions i attended so far in college, my instructor allows only 10 people and suggest anything beyond that would lead to utter chaos, not only for him to track score but also for anyone to make any sense out of it, as dividing time would be a very difficult problem. And especially how could any meaningful discussion go on if the people present are those who had done everything to come to power and would do anything to make their point including shouting or even use physical power??.

After watching this confusion and fuss that prevailed, I wondered if any good decision really comes into practice. If more than half of the people are disinterested and uneducated people vary from 10 - 20 % of the people what role could they play in deciding to support or make a point except blindly following the others of their own party? Do we really need all the disinterested members to take part in each and every discussion in the assembly of which they have absolutely no idea and which is a mere waste of time? The speaker says he would allot time for everyone and tries to pacify shouting people, but how can he divide a limited time among so many and when most members don't want to speak?

I've happened to come across of something called a delegated legislation in the British Parliament and thought why could we not have the same process. There, the minister in charge is given special powers to make laws on not very high priority matters in his portfolio. Thereafter, the parliament sits and reviews the decisions made by him amending them if necessary. Why could not we have a similar system where people can be divided into different functional areas like education, infrastructure etc. and each one would review the task at hand and come to a decision which can be reviewed by the entire parliament in an entire sitting? In the entire sitting if only a system of voting is set up and if any other member has something to say he is to be allotted a slot in a special session. Through this method, each of the legislators can actively participate in the legislative process. Besides it would avoid the hasty decision making of the current method as evident from our budget session when our finance minister simply reads through the entire document, obviously a brain child of some official in the ministry. Each of those mini assemblies comprises both the ruling and opposition party members and if members are continuously shuffled, there would be uniformity in participation of members in decision- making.Though, problems of representation would occur in a particular decision, the second phase of being accepted by everyone would take care of this. Besides, more bills can be introduced by private members as they at least tend to be heard in the mini assemblies of which they would be part of. This system of dividing up opposition in functional lines is already present in the US where for every cabinet minister there is a shadow cabinet who is particularly concerned about the portfolio his counterpart is assigned to.

Evidently, mine is a very stupid solution, inspired by a multi-processor paradigm in computers, but I definitely think the current system is flawed and to follow the same system of about 50 years, in this tech era when problems have become magnified hundred fold. If the more intelligent section of the country work, there could definitely be a feasible solution that could help our parliament into a more responsible law- making body. Of course, this also has to be coupled with an increased % of educated, highly competent and responsible people in the assembly, of which I'm sure is not very far away.