Atanu Dey On India's Development

“India is a nation of more than 1 billion fools.” — Justice Katju.

April 9, 2012 by Atanu Dey | 12 Comments

If you have been reading my blog, what Justice Katju said recently will not come as a surprise to you. “India is a nation of more than one billion fools.” Go read it. I will later put in links to those specific blog posts which make the same points that Mr Katju makes.

  • http://themmindset.wordpress.com/ The Mindset

    On a TOI article people ere calling Modiji Hitler. When I objected and gave enough evidence that Muslims are not Jews so Modiji can’t be called Hitler , they started calling me idiot and hypocrite.

    Looks like Mughal Raj, Noakhali Genocide , Direct Action Day, Kashmiri Pundits issue are not enough for these idiots to learn anything.

    Morons

  • Shankar

    Time and again I look back at my decision to exit India and wonder if it was right. The vicious cycle of politicians encouraging separatism and communalism under the umbrella of selfish vote-bank politics against the greater good of the nation, and the systematic and consistent top-down increase in corruption with no avenue for redress has pushed India beyond the brink of redemption from within the system.

    Today one needs to be crooked and corrupt to just live in India, or be one of the communities, religions or castes that benefits from the vote-bank politics of the hour.

    India was not a nation of a billion fools. We’ve been moulded that way through the past few centuries. We are now passive creatures, accepting everything our enemies inflict upon us, bending over backwards for political correctness and pseudo secularism. Today it is wrong to be a Hindu in India. Even worse if you are from a non-quota forward community like my family unfortunately is.

    We may survive as a nation for a while, but not for long. Systemic shocks will come, sooner or later. We won’t be prepared for it.

    Today any change needs to come from outside the system, possibly a severe, even shocking one, to jolt the “billion idiots” towards right thought and action.

  • RC

    Justice Katju said that Astrology is humbug and pure superstition. This is not sitting well with a lot of people. It is astonishing how widespread the belief in Astrology is in India.

  • tp

    “Today it is wrong to be a Hindu in India.” — That’s not a major problem for me; I could always switch to a lesser religion. The much bigger problem is, “Today it is despicable to be smart, competent and conscientious in India.” Minority politics does not gain ground because it favors minorities, but because it favors incompetence. If this is a democracy with a lot of incompetent people, that makes sense. Caste or religion boundaries are red herrings; in reality, all politicians are wooing the clueless majority.

  • http://themmindset.wordpress.com/ The Mindset
  • kautilya

    i would look at this a little differently. it’s clear to me that not ALL one billion are idiots. but majority, and a very large majority, is.

    assuming that all things are same, let’s say we swap the entire population of the USA to India and just keep the same set of leaders at the top; in other words, indians are ruled by Democrats and Republicans and US population is ruled by say sonia antanio, rual and co and with outside support from lalu bilu.. what would happen?

    would indians turn smart? or will US people turn dumb? or the US people will throw congress out the next day and revolt and install their own?

    what I am trying to get is, is this something genetic to us? are we born idiots? i am not eliminating that possibility completely. may be we are idiots from birth. or may be it’s the situation we have found ourselves in over the centuries where ‘being idiots’ is a natural and logical end game after all these years of being dominated by external forces. or being idiot is just a convenient escape mechanism.

    individually we may be brilliant. but collectively we are idiots.

  • Comrade

    While I fully agree with Examples 1 and 5 that the Justice cited, I disagree with Examples 3 and 4.

    I, personally, am not a cricket fan at all, but I don’t see anything wrong with the country being crazy about cricket. Many developed countries go crazy over one or more sport. Unfortunately, there are misplaced priorities where government will simply spend crores or rupees in order to ‘honor’ the cricketers, but there is nothing inherently wrong about the cricket craze.

    Neither is there anything wrong with the media hype surrounding Dev Anand’s death. I’m in full agreement that there is a worrisome fusion of information and entertainment in our media, but collective tears over the death of a well-known and well-loved celebrity is not worrisome at all. Not every single story in the papers has to be about farmer suicides.

    And it’s hard for me to get riled up over the claim in example 2 that lot of people believe in Astrology.

  • Comrade

    Offended journalists, in turn, have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to “ensure Markandey Katju sticks to his brief”

    It’s also sad how easily we are offended. It’s time to watch the Philip Pullman video again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ3VcbAfd4w

    I long for the day when someone makes this kind of a speech and draws such applause in India.

  • Jeevak Kasarkod

    Wise words from Swami Vivekananda that still apply:

    “Only I want that numbers of our young men should pay a visit to Japan and China every year. Especially to the Japanese, India is still the dreamland of everything high and good. And you, what are you? … talking twaddle all your lives, vain talkers, what are you? Come, see these people, and then go and hide your faces in shame. A race of dotards, you lose your caste if you come out! Sitting down these hundreds of years with an ever-increasing load of crystallized superstition on your heads, for hundreds of years spending all your energy upon discussing the touchableness or untouchableness of this food or that, with all humanity crushed out of you by the continuous social tyranny of ages – what are you? And what are you doing now? … promenading the sea-shores with books in your hands – repeating undigested stray bits of European brainwork, and the whole soul bent upon getting a thirty rupee clerkship, or at best becoming a lawyer – the height of young India’s ambition – and every student with a whole brood of hungry children cackling at his heels and asking for bread! Is there not water enough in the sea to drown you, books, gowns, university diplomas, and all?”

  • seadog4227

    Katju or his statement DOES NOT DESERVE SO MUCH IMPORTANCE.
    Goodness and decency makes us reticent and occasionally cowardly, but why argue to make a deliberately provocative statement true?
    Who is Katju to make it?
    He has made similar statements and outrageous judgements throughout his career.
    Reading, learning,absorbing, understanding takes time. Patience and hard work is the need of the hour.

  • Ashish

    @kautilya

    well you’re an ididot, if you keep selecting the ones who are eating you up for 60 years.

  • TITU

    katju singhvi bhai bhai