The Living Grand Narrative

Most business owners fail to find their core values that, when lived, make them feel fulfilled. If they do, they cannot offer a farsighted vision and cannot confidently articulate the same. 

The journey from values to vision separates the winners from the whiners. The connecting processes lie between the person and their purpose. The ultimate power lies in the processes themselves that serve so long as they maintain integrity between:

• Values

• Vision

• The well-being of the people that run the organization

For the core values that the organization's leader endears to manifest, the purpose-driven vision to take shape, and processes to unfold through the team while maintaining integrity, deep involvement and commitment are required from all those who work in the organization, not just the business owner. 

How does one bring about such an organizational transformation? 

It happens when every stakeholder participates responsibly. This is where leadership gets tested. Therefore, leadership is a privilege and an opportunity for individuals to let their creativity flow within the organization.

In business, the magic lies in the leader’s ability to connect with the men, materials, machines, merchandise, and markets and make money for all stakeholders.

Leadership is the art of getting others to do, what you want to do, because they want to do it - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Leadership is truly an art. It is not a set formula or plans and certainly not a sequential things-to-do type of checklist. Business is highly dynamic. Modern commercial business, as we know it, is not a natural entity but an artificial construct. It came into existence out of a parliamentary act, is regulated, must work within the legal framework, is subject to statutory audits, and penalties are imposed for noncompliance.

Not being natural, it is prone to disintegrate unless there is sufficient emotional stamina at the top and a high coalescing force at the bottom of an organization. 

What often compounds the problem is the business owner’s dilemma. Owner-operated companies have an inherent conflict between the owner as a Shareholder and the owner as a CEO, as both are the same person. Invariably, the dominant self-identity eclipses the other, leading to an unbalanced approach.

The owner-Shareholder part is interested in organizational stability, long-term sustainability and growth, appropriate and timely dividends, high valuation, and perhaps even a smart exit strategy. Usually, this identity becomes diminished in most but never gets eliminated. 

On the other hand, the owner-CEO is interested in day-to-day functioning, procuring more business, chasing customers, managing survival while simultaneously scaling up, and seeking a handsome salary. This identity remains active due to the daily grind. 

The impact of this inherent conflict is that the person at the helm remains in a perpetual dilemma, and the company remains unstable. 

The goal is to balance the owner's conflicting pursuits as a Shareholder and a CEO.

This dichotomy gets accentuated during the next-level transition, such as scaling up, delegating authority, succession planning, strategizing, governance, business acquisition, or exiting and retirement. 

Irrespective of its size, a stable business running continuously on cruise control is virtually impossible. People who work in it, including the owner, will likely not be hinged or aligned with the values or long-term vision. Issues are bound to crop up due to ideological differences and ambition-action mismatch amongst various stakeholders.

The other issue is that the business is prone to destabilization due to external factors such as geopolitics, government policies, market conditions, competition movements, and changing attitudinal trends of customers and employees alike. 

Consider this: The river is the same for the fisherman. Still, the water quantity, depth, temperature, and surroundings in the river keep changing with external weather and climate conditions affecting his catch.

Few business owners truly understand that the business entity, in theory, remains on an infinite journey, so every external success is momentary. It is no different than the cursed life of Sisyphus, who had to push a boulder up the mountain repeatedly for all eternity. It is because if he rested even for a moment, it would come rolling down on him and crush him under its weight. Hence, the unending chore had to be done again and again. 

In the real world, we see so many companies having new start-up enterprise kind of problems, even after being in business for decades. They keep falling back as the force of the chaos exceeds their injected energy when they rest on their laurels.

The Bhagavad Gita’s sobering message of ‘Do your deeds devoid of desire’ has a profound spiritual and philosophical relevance for most of us personally. However, that wisdom is unlikely to be wholly and severally relatable to all members in the organization's context. That is so much due to everyone’s varying moral codes, backgrounds, wants, and ever-changing group dynamics. 

Therefore, the distinction between ambition and aspiration must be appreciated for the sake of the organization's longevity. We can only look for convergence in the latter. 

Ambition is personal. For the owner, it can be the highest sales turnover, maximizing profit, becoming the top company, beating the competition, getting an industry award, etcetera. For the employee, it typically relates to a higher salary and designation.

A big purchase order would make the owner happy, but the factory worker may view it as more work. 

On the other hand, aspiration is about each person's need to keep becoming a better version of themselves. Each person intrinsically desires to achieve this, and they can use the organization as an available platform. When that is tapped into as a relentless work-in-progress by the person at the helm, there is scope for success, as everyone likes to emulate the example-setting leader at the top.

Eventually, there will be a significant enough critical workforce that “gets it.” 

This is where transformation begins, first with the business owner, then the core team, and consequently, with the entire company. Once that is done, it becomes slightly less exhausting for the owner, who becomes a true entrepreneur. It is less about being in constant convincing mode now, as the team is well-aligned toward realizing a common goal. Everyone begins to perceive complex problems as interesting challenges. They participate in active resolution by offering more of themselves and, in the process, reinventing themselves into the next higher version of themselves.

Failure, which earlier brought panic and sorrow among members, will now only galvanize them. They learn from it by seeking constructive feedback. In fact, they even begin to contribute their learnings with risk-mitigating feedforwards. The setback merely acts as an insight for a more informed comeback. Through such an inside-out approach and clear understanding, personal victory supersedes the want for public recognition. 

Then, the next stage takes shape. 

A transformational strategy is required, where all actions or responses must be long-term and creative. 

For our purpose, strategy is about operating in a niche area to achieve a specific objective without sacrificing core values or deviating from the vision. It also involves having a personalized approach while dealing with all stakeholders, ensuring overall organizational integrity is maintained.

A company without such a strategy is like a kite with no strings attached. It will float aimlessly in the marketplace winds for a while and soon crash to the ground.

Peter Drucker famously offered, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast." While it may have been evident to him, as an abundant clarity, culture, and strategy need not be considered separate and distinct entities outside the academic or consulting world. This is especially true for the owner entrepreneur or any leader, where there is a clear line of sight between the owner/leader and employees/followers. Merging culture with strategy will serve more, ensuring that the people who execute the plans and their collective mindset are aligned.

In other words, for the owner entrepreneur, culture is strategy.

Culture is defined as the characteristics of a group of people with shared cognitive constructs, leading to typical behaviour patterns. These are learned and fostered by observation and socialization. 

The leader's job, therefore, is to strongly influence the people's minds within the organization so that they can effectuate a recurring winning behavioural pattern.

In other words, before any leader can sell their ideas, they must buy the minds of all the people within the organization with their authentic value-vision proposition. 

Once they subscribe to it, it becomes the organization's Living Grand Narrative. 

The leader is not required to always be physically present in such a scenario because their team willingly undertakes a larger collective responsibility, which allows the leader to get out of the way. Freed, the leader can then devote time to think of the next possibilities, keeping the organization ahead of the curve.  

Such a company builds trust and can often turn around challenging trade-offs, converting many “this versus that” binaries into the more accommodative “this and that.” 

Generalized Faulty Beliefs began to dissipate slowly. One need not stand on a pedestal and scream at the staff to extract more work from them. Instead, one can be nice to the employees and still function as an effective leader by bringing out the best in them. This kind of strategic work culture easily enrols the workforce in the organizational value-vision narrative.

A leader does not charge at them; he or she charges them up.

It is about coming close to them while remaining tall, as they hold the leader in high esteem.

 

Companies operating with this kind of a Living Grand Narrative are like an army unit. They are structured but not rigid. In fact, they are agile. That agility comes from the capacity of all individuals to experience a safe space, allowing them to promptly make relevant decisions at their respective levels. They can do so and act accordingly, as the company's Living Grand Narrative acts as a constant guide. 

It eventually leads to the entire company becoming entrepreneurial.

That is in stark contrast to most of the typical companies, where the only decision that every junior employee takes is at the behest of the manager. They lack confidence and are further constrained by unnecessary moralizing policies. Hence, even when the situation demands, they are found twiddling their thumbs. They are not trained to seek out the moral from an emerging story and cannot act after making a principled decision.

To better understand what is on offer, let us take the example of the army unit again. Each member of the unit holds high moral values, and so, as a civilian, or in a non-war situation, will never kill anyone on their own accord. However, the same person in a soldier’s role would readily kill the enemy on a battlefield. That’s not all. They will use their personal morals and professional ethics as a foundation to reason and make a principled decision as the changing situation demands. If a situation so arises, they are capable of deciding when to kill an enemy soldier or capture and take the opponent as a prisoner of war. A soldier’s primary objective is to win the war. So, the soldier will not hesitate to eliminate anybody who blocks that path. The captured prisoner of war is not blocking the path anymore. So, the soldier takes the call on the spot and may even decide to feed or administer first aid to the enemy, who is now incapacitated and deemed benign.

For the Indian army, one of the best in the world, such a scenario has actually come about in several wars, including the last one at Kargil. That war was televised, and the nation witnessed firsthand how the Indian army had not only tended to the POWs but did not fire on the retreating enemy once the war was called off. They even gave an honourable burial to the fallen Pakistani soldiers that were left behind, as that nation sadly refused to claim their own dead. That pretty much defines the Indian army and its’ evolved culture.

In the company’s context, an evolved culture is about executing work that continually raises standards, thereby adding to the sustainability and growth of the organization while building pride amongst the stakeholders. An organization has no expiry date. Thus, a high-quality output must be produced without feeling fatigued. 

When children play hard on the field, they, in fact, feel relaxed. An evolved culture is as much about work gamification, where various departmental teams stop competing with each other. Instead, they cooperate with each other without losing their competitive spirit to take on the competition. 

A larger purpose coalesces them together and lifts them above petty squabbles to become a team for the greater good of the company and the individuals.

The TEAM’s meaningful backronym is “Together Everyone Achieves More,” such that “Together Each Achieves More!”

For such an evolved culture to form, the onus is on the leader to set a powerful tone for the organization. Communication from the leader is the key that opens the door to possibilities. Communication is not simply speaking or oratory skills.

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place - George Bernard Shaw

Communication involves verbal and nonverbal messaging. Its impact is influenced by the emotional context in which employees perceive the leader's thinking, speaking, and behaviour. For the message to be heard effectively, it must be completely in sync with the audience's background, culture, and the occasion or situation.

In their book, The Three Laws of Performance, Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan have explained the connection between leadership and performance with the following:

1. How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them.

2. How a situation occurs arises in language.

3. Future-based language transforms how situations occur to people.

These laws can be applied to any general or specific situation. 

From the employees’ point of view, their biggest “situation” is - what kind of leader they have to deal with every day in the organization. 

It has a lot to do with how the leader comes across in their communication. Communication is all-encompassing in both the evident and silent messages being delivered. It includes light banter in the lunch area, daily conversation in the corridor, tone and topics during meetings, formal internal memos, and town hall speeches. Overall, how is the leader perceived? Does the language and tone sound like a mandate or a statement of intent? Does the intent stick to or betray the values and vision of the organization? What emotions do they evoke? Is the person self-centred, or do they consider the employees’ point of view too? 

What does it all say about the unborn future under the leader? 

Only when the leader sticks to the stated value-vision path do they appear empowered and capable of empowering all others on the same route. However, if the leader deviates, the person saps energy and does a disservice to their charisma.  

Perception matters!

A leader is the company's living, walking, talking notice board.

Communication does not depend on syntax, eloquence, rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. Even the choicest of words lose power if used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figure of speech – Edwin Friedman

Consider this: People from different professional or socioeconomic statuses in the present are still drawn to a school reunion because they are still compatible with the past, where they have shared fond memories. That evokes certain emotions and propels them to come back together. The leader's job is to mirror just that, to create a vision of a common aspiring future in the collective imagination. It occurs through the right language, which triggers positive emotions.

Spoken and unspoken communication reveals a lot about us and forms the basis for how we judge each other.

What you are shouts so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you say - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Only if employees perceive their leader to consistently demonstrate integrity towards the stated purpose without sacrificing any underlying values and show them the way by going the way will that leader be respected. They will then accept them as their leader, be drawn to the person, and assist in the common cause of creating a better future. Language can influence, motivate, enable, and empower a team. Language is contagious. Therefore, the leader's language can change the conscience and energy of an organization and its cultural setting and even decide its destiny.

In the final reckoning, only effective communication leads to an evolved organizational culture that brings about an enabled strategy. Let our values and vision communicate who we are!

Life & Living

Dharma haz no direct translation in other languages. The approximate one is : Innate Law or Principled Duty. 

The sun's Dharma is to shine, the fire's is to burn, burn's is to emit heat. 

The sun cannot, not shine. 

The fire cannot, not burn. 

The burning cannot, not emit heat. 

In humans, Principles come in play based on our changing Avatar. And that's not stagnant. 

Avatar are based on the context. Context is created by the changing dynamic world. 

And in that Avatar, what's my duty? 

If I do my Dharma, as per or true to my Avatar of the moment, then I'll never fail. 

My Avatar's change based on the context, thus - I'm a father, son, husband, member, leader, helper, contributor, seeker, etc, in different moments. 

Arjun's confusion waz just that, he didn't know in which Avatar waz he in the battlefield - a cousin, a nephew, a student .... or a soldier?

He couldn't grasp the context. 

Principles are born as a response to the other.

He couldn't see the Avatar that the Kauravas had borne on the battlefield. 

God, too, does hiz Principled Duty of simply presencing the Truth to him.

God had placed the ever conflicting options before Arjun, and that alone waz the eternal Truth that humans will endlessly encounter : Should one remain unsinful and let the injustice prevail, Or, should one sin and deliver justice. 

That done, not God, it is Arjun who had to make the choice. 

Each of us are not the children of our parents. We're simply born through our parents. 

We all are the products of Arjun's thoughts, that he delivered, before he met God ! 

And so we Suffer ! 

Suffering can be replaced by strength. And strength can be enhanced by setting in motion the right Karma, so long as it is being done out of sheer i.e., selflessly, without any expectation. 

When all strength is lost, Death does its Dharma. 

The West stole a lot of material from Bharat. 

It is only after their ideology clashed with our civilizational wisdom that they realized that, while they do understand life & killing brilliantly, they have no clue about living.

For that, they needed to get what Dharma, Karma & Avatar are, all they met here. 

So they stole those words too & appropriated them into the English language. 

And then, they taught us to read, write, speak and even think in English. 

Dharma, Karma & Avatar are English words now. However, the spirit behind those words has long departed.

It is time now to revive & reclaim what is ours and reintroduce Bharat, first to ourselves, then to the world. 

The Mirage of 'Unity In Diversity'

Demand for diversity has become an obscenely moral-ist stance of our times. There's a pursuit for it, especially by a certain woke creed, as if it's some sort of an automatic panacea. 

Unity In Diversity is an idealistic goal. 

Morality has no workability, if forced down in the form of policy. Morals are not to be told; they need to be drawn from what works or dosen't work. 

And so, morality can never be achieved by force-fitting a theoretical ideal into practice, without first investigating what can make it work.  

The essence of workability is in establishing a natural interdependence amongst different communities and notwithstanding the differences, commonality of basic values & vision at the intersection of diversity need to be ascertained first. The bonding forces need to be strong enough to nullify the opposing ones that tear apart the integrity of any entity. 

So, ideas of the diverse groups can vary, but not the purpose. The varied ideas on the buffet can be evaluated with a view to enrich that purpose, whatever it be; the best ones allowed to be picked voluntarily. 

It also means, one group's belief of what a fruitful future is, cannot be at the expense of the other. If there are any differences, the least-common denominator method would apply in the process of attainment of the 'future common good.'

The ideas that are commonly held stay, the rest must be willingly sacrificed. 

As an example, a rich person and a poor person cannot go for a meal together, as their choice of restaurants would differ. But, if they are friends, then as buddies wanting to enhance friendship & so still wanting to dine together, both must make adjustments.

The affordability of the not-so-rich guy is intuitively established by the richer friend, afterwhich he could suggest a restaurant, that only the poor person can afford & not what he desires. The rich fellow will sacrifice and adjust to the poor. The poor guy may do his part by, say, selecting a restaurant that's conveniently located for his wealthier friend. 

That was about affordability & location but it could be whatever - tolerance of spice, time available for dinning, etc. Doing that, the friendship remains intact, else it breaks. 

Now let's get to larger issues of life, where society must operate effectively. Here too, if we summon our common sense vested in authenticity and not some fantasy soaked in morality; for a peaceful society, one needs to understand the following:

1) That faith is a fact beyond the realm of proof or reasoning, and every stakeholder of the nation must accept & respect the same. 

2) That the real security of any minority is not found in the law, but goodwill of the majority. 

3) That the civility of the majority is in its ability to accommodate any minority.

4) That freedom of speech is the media's right, but its duty to sustain national integrity is paramount. Therefore, for the larger good of the society, it must self-license itself a responsibility to maintain strategic silence at times. 

The order is important to establish & sustain an empowering national culture. 

One community just cannot be cannibalizing the other or claim to have exclusivity to enter the gates of heaven, and begin imposing it upon others. 

Consider this, we already have issues with some within our own community, and so, homogeneity, is hardly a solution. 

I personally doubt if my own clone would mirror my ideas, just because it shares my DNA. 

What we actually need is a culture that offers equal opportunities for members to express themselves. 

Based on what folks express, a solution could emerge by the process of natural selection - individuals with values that enable or serve the integrity of the society, could coalesce to become a well knit group. 

The values would manifest themselves out in speech and action. 

People, while differing on issues, would not reject the whole. 

If that's not possible, it is better that those who reject the whole, simply because a part didn't match, seperate and go their respective ways. This is precisely what happened during the partition. 

Bharat never was and should never be, a nation of just binaries. This culture is about pluralism. 

Based on issues, sections of society can agree to disagree without becoming completely disagreeable. 

They can still bring themselves up to work & support in other areas where there's an agreement. And most definitely, they would respect each other's legacy, traditions & even honoring each others ancestors based on the outcomes they produced. 

That's realism. 

Similarly, they would demonstrate compatibility & cooperation to create a yet to be born future. 

It means they would have an unambiguous understanding of who they are, where they belong & how their common future will be far better working together than as individual identity centric groups. 

All along the journey, the integrity would remain intact only if there's an agreement on what the non-negotiables are, especially with regards to - what is a virtue or a vice, who are considered as friends or foes, and who is viewed as a hero or a villain. 

Finally, to realize the common vision for the future, what are the members willing to contribute, volunteer & sacrifice. 

That done and taught to the gen-next by elders through example, the identity centric communities will also begin to become conscious that their cooperative nature and assimilation will enhance their brand as a natural outcome. They will then integrate better with the society, cementing its integrity in return. This is exactly the reason why non resident Indians are so successful in America, and have become model migrants in that country. 

Without establishing the above, over time, it would only lead to Adversity in Diversity.

America India bhai-bhai, China ki hai-hai !

Unless America shapes up, in theory, China could, in the future, take over both Japan & Taiwan to control certain key industries and the Pacific. 

Media has reported about a covert meeting between Rahul Gandhi and the American administration & speculation thereof i.e., America desiring a regime change in India. 

However, realpolitik will ensure that America be forced to prefer even a non-acquiescent & in fact, an inconvenient Modi's Bhartiya Janta Party led government over Rahul Gandhi's Congress Party. 

Culturally, the Congress Party doesn't have the mindset nor the heartbeat to take on China, even if the situation demands it. The Doklam incident is screaming aloud, one where Rahul Gandhi was exposed secretly meeting with the Chinese ambassador in the midst of both the Indian & Chinese armies in an aggression mode. 

Then came out the secret MOU agreement between the Congress Party & the Chinese Communist Party as testimony of an unholy bonhomie among both. 

That Congress' pro-China view got further cemented & in fact, certified, when senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had asked the PM to accord to Taiwan the diplomatic recognition it deserves.

One would’ve thought that Mr Chowdhury’s plea was designed to add to the anti-China rhetoric to align with the nation’s mood after the Wuhan leaked virus that caused a global pandemic, unbelievable lockdowns and disruptions thereof. 

Well, his statement would’ve surely rubbed China the wrong way, but instead, it seemed to have caused an instant discomfiture to his own party. 

Congress was quick to dissociate itself & stated “That may be Mr. Chowdhury’s personal views. The Congress recognizes the special partnership between China & India”!

Coming back, the Americans need a long-term & strategic leader-partner in India to stand up to China.

That keeps China as much distracted, as China wants India to remain focused on arming itself, keeping funds away from infrastructure & governance. 

Notwithstanding, India not playing ball on Russia-Ukraine conflict & in fact, refusing American offer to join NATO, India has indeed & still become indispensable for the West.  

The American president's geopolitical part of the job is becoming extremely difficult & can do with all the assistance. 

They desperately need a bright young White Obama from the Republican party to stir the country away from where it is currently headed. Historically, the Republicans have shown a better understanding of India's concerns, which converge with the American worries wrt both China & Islamic terror. 

America seriously needs to assert calm. 

It needs to move away from active wars & think out of the box by reframing a more accommodative worldview. 

Without the baggage of the NATO template, it must work with India to develop future ready technologies and use the Indian influence to save face & be friends with Russia inorder to conserve its energy, including jointly strategize to contain a more belligerent China of the future. 

Russia is anyway getting old & in a few years time, will find it very difficult to man the massive land mass it owns. 

Like India (& almost all of China's neighbors), Russia too has its' own contentious border issues with China & so will be happy to switch sides in exchange of solemn promise of no NATO expansion along its borders. 

NATO is anyway a Cold War relic, kept alive by the Americans beyond its use-by date. 

All this should be done by America without any feelings of being the senior partner to India or offering any unsolicited advise in public, for that would achieve the exact opposite of the intent.  

There's wisdom for America in the ancient adage - it is better to bend than to break !

The Touchy Topic Of Terror

India is still the safest country in the world, at least if we choose to view her through a Western lens, that, for its own convenience & simplicity often uses the hyphenated term "Islamic-terrorism" as a single entity.

Contrast that with the Indian narrative that terror haz no religion. So, our media rarely uses that term. 

The pseudo-secular pseudo-liberal West goes about its way with imposition of universal ban on burqa, restricting the height of Mosque structures, etc. 

The Indian Muslim, is patriotic & for the most part, not Arabized. It is for thiz reason that Pakistan must indulge in cross-border terrorism from its own soil, as it can't effectively recruit motivated fidayeen type fighters from India. 

However, considering the vast strength in number of Muslims in India, even if a tiny chunk of them were truly to be influenced by the terror marketers from outside of India, at best we would have a disaster on hand & at worst a mayhem.

So even when a giant nation like India is largely peaceful, the question before us should really be - can we then discount the ISIS type absolute-ist Muslims, as mere fringe & simply call it an aberration among just a handful of misguided youth and then ignore the issue?

No. We should not ignore the phenomenon, no matter how small it impacts us today.

All & especially the Muslim elders themselves must first accept that there is a problem within their community. 

The terror attraction is a manifestation of their inability to reform with time & that can happen to persons of any faith, irrespective - if they remain frozen in the past.

For most Muslims, religion even today is not about a personal spiritual experience in solitude, but the faithful are expected to visibly practice the rituals in a manner that makes their religiosity a central life theme. 

That gets further rekindled at the almost mandatory weekly Friday mosque's mass congregations where sermons could get politically charged. As a result, when Muslims encounter many modern-day requirements that cannot be compatible with their daily mandated religious routines, they assume that the problem is outside. 

Being accommodative would attract scorn from the community peers or make them feel incomplete Muslims. Thus, most cannot convince the world at large that they are beyond & larger than their self imposing religion bearing identity. 

In a fast globalizing world where cultural assimilation is an expectation, interdependence a maturity, and gloss & glam a norm, their inflexibility to adapt to the order of the day renders them somewhat unemployable & their school of thought as obsolete.

Not willing to bow out as misfits in the fast-paced modern society, some staunch fellows have lately been instigating a retaliation rather than reform. 

These so called instigators don't seem to resonate with the likes of say Abdul Kalam the former president of India or the information technology billionaire Azim Premji or the Khan trio Bollywood superstars or A R Rehman the master music composer or Bismillah Khan the instrumental music ustad or Sania Mirza the tennis ace or Azharuddin the cricket captain or I H Latif the ex-air force chief or Ahmedi the ex-justice at Supreme Court - to just name a few of the Muslims, that have negotiated with their personal space to reach great heights & become entire India's favorite. 

It is not even in their reckoning that thiz makes India perhaps the most unique country in the world where a minority community has achieved so much & in so many spheres. 

For them, the heroes to emulate are perhaps foreigners like Osama Bin Laden or even Burhan Wani or Ishrat Jahan - all Pakistan declared "martyrs."

Some parents too get influenced by the cause if not the actions and so cover the issue with soft velvet blanket and fail to guide their children,  that there is solace in societal achievements and not in being a claimant of perpetual victim-hood by it.

At such a delicate time, the ISIS ideology had begun to seep into India and demanding that the faithful to Islam must not wait to be affected in order to retaliate. 

It wants the Muslim community to become aware & focus on the minutest ideological differences that exist between the Muslims and non-Muslims and eliminate all and any nonconformity, be they neutral or benign. Their call is against the liberal Muslims as well, who are deemed traitor-like. 

They are in fact the echo-in-action, to the hollow war-on-terror cry made by Bush at the UN, who had reportedly thundered "Either you are with us or against us. 

To some, the ISIS brand of terror appears mesmerizingly attractive and an opportunity to subjugate the world to the puritanical Muslim way.

Now when a population with a particular belief - say, any explosive idea (affinity to the ISIS kind of terrorism being the case here) goes 'unopposed' from a very tiny fraction to about 3% of people, the tipping point may not be far. 

Studies show that the time taken for a radically different idea to take grip of even just that 3% of the population is very difficult in the beginning i.e. if it takes 90 % of the time to reach that threshold number; from there on however, to move to a higher critical mass % of population, it will take only 10 % of the time, after which that idea can no longer be ignored as it would become trend setting. 

So if it is going to take 9 years to radicalize 3% of the Muslims into motivated terror elements, it will take just 1 year to reach a higher damaging number, after which the entire society would have to deal with them on almost a daily basis. 

It would hurt all, non-Muslims and Muslims alike. 

Thiz should explain where the ISIS itself came about from, so suddenly & out of nowhere. 

In reality, it is not as sudden as it feels. For years, it was simmering in the back burner unnoticed, but after the forced departure of Saddam Hussein, there was a local leadership vacuum & that problem got compounded further by the American bombing. 

It then came out in full force to actually influence many, the ideology traveling through the world without a passport.  

It therefore becomes prudent for not only the government but also the wise Muslims to rein in the extreme elements.

Be alert. Peace can only be maintained at the edge of an ever sharpened sword and mind. 

There's something about Modi !

Just after winning the historic mandate in 2014, Narendra Damodardas Modi said, "Mera samay ka har kshan kshan, aur sharir ka har kan kan - is desh ko samarpit hai."

He declared himself to be a "Pradhan Sevak" 101.

India was at once divided into believers and the non-believers.

For his supporters, Modi is more of a metaphor for 'transformation' than a person. 

Any observer of leaders, would agree with conviction that Mr. Modi has made himself the national agenda, and a person of global interest.

The entire government has been personified by & rechristened after him, i.e. now dubbed as the power packed 'Modi Sarkar.'

After over a decade in power, he still attracts the Indian diaspora crowds in different corners of the world, inspiring & energizing them to not only receive him with an unprecedented pomp & also spontaneously erupting into a ‘Modi-Modi’ chant in chorus. 

And he still manages to enrol the world leaders, all seeking an appointment with him. 

All this, even when he belongs to supposedly the "lowest pedigree" i.e. is a politician vs. being a star in the field of sports, cinema, or music.

Mr. Modi is a rock star !

His rise is half the story. Where he started from & where he reached politically, gives the true picture. We are not even talking of the fact that he is the son of road-side tea seller.

Within weeks of him taking office, the incessant vilification of him by the Indian media, including by the supposedly reputed international dailies & magazines, due to the unfortunate Gujarat riots, had been unprecedented. 

These so-called elite thinkers continue to invoke that incident & feed each other, reference one another, and when that is not enough, quote editorials from Western "liberal" newspapers or criticism of his governance by NRI's living in distant land.

What they all collectively fail to comprehend is, that their scale for measurement of the 'Moditva doctrine' are outdated and their methods are long due for recalibration.

They are always found several steps behind him. And those who attempt to bracket him into one or other rigid image, are proven wrong even before they start.

They don't know if he can be labelled as a nationalist or an internationalist.

He confuses them as he oscillates among his peers by being an absolute traditionalist to then easily transforming into a gen-next future ready techno-geek.

He practices & advocates yoga and demonstrates serenity by sitting still in meditation and then demonstrates himself as the jet-set man on the go, crisscrossing across the Indian sub-continent, the globe included.

He can easily be classified as a capitalist, a suit-boot sarkari-man, and yet be a poor man's favorite, peddling socialism & guardian of the jan-dhan.

Is he a leader of the party known to represent the upper caste or a champion of those like him, who are born in backward class?

For a moment you can win a bet by proving that he's an indulgent megalomaniac and the next moment lose the wager to one who says he's an avowed simpleton.

And is he that celebrity that basks in self-adulation or one that stays away from the daily riff raff of prime time T.V. and practices austerity, "maun" and "upwas" !

A municipality school educated Modi is a thought leader and his vision so vast and deep, that they fail to grasp it, even when it's unfolding right before their eyes.

His razor-sharp focus on both distinct entities i.e. India and Bharat simultaneously, is simply not understood by the media fellows, all who are too distracted and soaked by their own preconceived notions of what an Indian PM must be focusing on.

After all, only strength recognizes strength, and it's an uneven match between the giant and the myopic media.

They continue to paint Mr. Modi as an Islamophobic individual & that once even influenced America - who wrongly banned an elected representative, not found guilty in any court, the Chief Minister of an important state of India from entering America, only to unilaterally withdraw it later. 

As PM, Modi proved how wrong they were by collecting the highest civilian awards from more Islamic republics than any other leader. 

Not withstanding his deep friendship with Russia's Putin, the American presidents' from either side of the political divide have engaged with him as intimate buddies. 

They have even shared newspaper op-ed, radio talk show, including inviting him twice to address joint session of the US congress at one end & at the other a personal dinner at the White House, and have accompanied him at the Indian diaspora event in the US. 

The national & regional parties that were traditionally opposed to each other are facing existential threat because  of him. For survival, they continue to single him out and have launched a united front against the man.

Notwithstanding, the man marches on the beat of his own heart's band. His efforts have paid off. 

Bypassing the negative press, the bottom-line assessment shows that India has certainly arrived on the world stage & now every world leader is found to be either making way for him or accommodating to his agenda !

So, what is the mental make up of the this Modi-man? 

It is said that you are - what you were. And what was Modi-boy like? 

He was a child, born in poverty and nurtured by nature. Before Modi rose up the political ladder through sheer kinetic energy, he was marinated in unconventional childhood.

Let's look at what forces might have worked on him.

While helping his father to make ends meet, he sold tea to passengers from a fragile shop at a railway station. In that, he once experienced serving tea to the jawans heading to the border, some to maybe not return. 

Maybe, that experience nurtured his love for India. 

It is believed that one can defeat the nature's forces that constantly act on you, by subduing and controlling your own personal nature. To do that, for centuries ascetics of the eastern faith often indulge in penance or self pain, by denying themselves even the basic needs. A teenaged Modi had for months given up salt - the basic ingredient of food. 

Maybe, this taught him will power i.e. to act against urge, an endowment available only to the highest order of life.

In his quest to learn the 'truth', hardly an adolescent, he left home in pursuit of a guru who can show him the way. He adapted the monks life for a while. 

Maybe, that taught him to connect with his soul and understand that it's all just a "moh-maya" out there, keeping him in a state of equanimity even in the face of biggest disappointments.

Then as a young man, he traveled the length and breadth of India, meeting different people for very long months. At the time, he never once did sleep under the same roof and ate whatever was handed to him. 

Maybe, that gave him the cutting edge insights into the human thinking & behavior.

As a young RSS recruit, he was handed the first task of cleaning the place, every room, serving food and making arrangements for visitors. He used to wake up early and the drill of simple daily chores went on till the end of the day. He was well appreciated. 

Maybe, that taught him that to rule the world, one must serve it.

Notwithstanding the fact that there is no requirement of nationality in the Indian constitution, there was great hue and cry when Sonia Gandhi was likely to make a claim to be India's prime minister. People could not accept her as she was not born in India & that could be measurable viz evidence of her childhood passport.

What makes Narendra Damodardas Modi so unique, is that though he is acceptable for being born on this soil - this Indian prime minister, the first one to be born in independent India, is not the typical Indian that any Indian has ever met before. 

He may have been fated to be born in India but he is destined to be a global player. He is as much his mother's boy, as he is a nature's child. 

Most of us simply go about leading a purpose-less life. At least we can take heart in the fact that we're led by a man, who has truly found his.

Today, the Modi-man is on the top of the world & screaming - Bharat Mata Ki Jai.

All Indians too must echo back the same in chorus. It is time, it is time !

Civil Code & Civil Society must be aligned with the Civilization

Notwithstanding the fact that it is much maligned by certain political parties, the Left-leaning media & the so called Liberals - the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the political mentor of BJP, haz time & again proven that while the other side just talks on social reforms, it does actually walk the talk !

Fundamentally, there is a huge difference in understanding of what is considered ‘modern’ by the RSS, it's protégé the BJP & their sympathizers, and the other Left-Liberal groups. 

For the RSS plus group, the rediscovery of some of the all-encompassing evolved values that existed in the ancient Bharatiya Civilizational context are timeless & so, adherence to them, can still be deemed as modern. 

They don't believe that only because the British made lines on paper and because a written Constitution was framed in 1950, that India was born. 

That may be true from the modern physical landmass that defines a country & the mass of people ruled by a government, but in itself, it is a severely incomplete definition. 

The line drawings & borders thereof are compromised understanding at worst & a quick fix convenience at best. 

A nation is also a common identity of people, united by common descent, history, culture, social practices or language, etc, inhabiting a particular territory.

And so India, simply because it was "born" on paper as a Republic on that fateful day, does not mean that it didn't exist before that. 

For them, the indigenous Civilizational culture & values, which give a nation its collective mindset & conscience, lie beyond the ambit of any legislation. It too governs lifestyle at the conscious and unconscious level, all of which existed for several millennia before the written Constitution & continues to do so.

Further, they best serve the Indian way of life & so should take precedence over & above the many of the Western, including the coloniser's influences, especially while interpreting the Indian Constitution. 

For the Left-Liberal groups, it's the other way around. They believe that the Civilizational values are a misfit in the 21st century & a nation can only function if it follows the written code, namely the Constitution. 

To make it abundantly clear, it does not mean that the Civilizational Values that are dear to the RSS plus group & the Constitutional Rights guaranteed in the Constitution are necessarily at conflict — but, according to them, some of the absolute interpretations & applications that flow from the Constitution, need a deeper Indic reflection. They believe that there is scope for considerations that are found as much in the spirit behind the words, rather than just in the narrow absolute meaning of the words. 

It might serve well to recall, that the original Indian Constitution, unlike any in the world, is very unique, in that, it is not just a written manuscript alone, but is adorned with paintings of Lord Ram & Vedic way of life, etc. 

Among the most basic value-driven differences between the said Civilizationalists and mentioned Constitutionalists, is that the former are entrenched in the belief that Human Dignity is fundamental to one's being, while the latter are insistent that Human Rights are the key to preserving one's individuality. 

For Civilizationalist, there's merit in accommodating faiths & is in favor of enhancing the all-encompassing value system found in the ancient scriptures, traditions, customs, or practices that were collectively inherent to our ancient Civilization.

On the other hand, the Constitutionalist, draw their interpretations from the dictionary meaning of the literary words in the said English manuscript. They seem to also be taking inspiration from the activist movement of the West, including their attitudes & methods. 

One may recall, in the West, there have always been a lot of struggles against some or other entity or practice like - the Monarchy, the Church, the Morality Code, Slavery, Woman's Subjugation, etc. 

If we include the Islamic world, then there too, there have been constant civil or sectarian wars. But unlike the Western world, in the Islamic theocratic regions, for the most part, the expectations of the protestors have been unmet & the religious authority continues to rein supreme as they're backed by the monarchies that ruthlessly suppress any dissent.  

In order to figure out how all that impacts public life in India, let's first explore a bit of background with respect to the Indian Civilizational Pluralism vs. Constitutional Secularism. 

In theory, both should be compatible with each other. In practice, they rarely are.

The former is about acceptance & accommodation of every faith, if its practice is to seek salvation, including no faith at all. So the essence is about letting each of the different practitioners of faith be left to their ways & methods. 

Further, because there was no final claim or authority, there was no religious conflict.

In fact, in ancient India, the State heads took guidance from the religious scholars, offering them a social pedestal, higher than the rulers themselves. 

That was the order. 

However & on the contrary, the Western Constitutional Secularism came into being out of a conflict - that between the State & Church and order gave way to the law, which mandated a gap between the State & the Church. 

As a consequence, over time, religion became subservient to the State in much of the Christian world or what then became the Western world. There are no real Christian theocratic nations anymore. 

Having said that, the law did allow religious conversion from one faith to the other, sowing a recipe for future interfaith conflicts. 

Now let's look at how the said differences manifest themselves in the public discourse & debate, especially when one talks of carrying on social reforms:

Several Indian states have now passed laws that stop religious conversion. The matter being challenged, there have been protests by the religious minority groups, asserting their rights to convert the other, including the majority faiths as enshrined by the Constitution, no matter how alien to the Indian Civilizational context. 

The Supreme Court haz flagged it off as a serious matter, and now the word "propagate" for religious purposes is under intense scrutiny. At some level, it is a battle of denotation vis-a-vis connotation. 

Take another example of offering women their true place in society. 

In the Civilizational context, women in ancient India have always had an equal space in our society with many Goddesses & deities found in the scriptures. Their position waz only compromised with the advent of the thousand years of Mughal regime. 

However, in the post independence context, the most basic duty in a democracy, like voting, waz easily accessible to women here to exercise. 

In the Western world, however, inequality of women vis-a-vis men had found religious justifications. 

And so, women there had to fight through what became known as the Woman's Suffrage Movement to claim such rights. 

Further, social reforms that gave daughters an equal say as sons on matters of inheritance waz also easily accepted by the Civilizationalist. 

However, the cost of not embracing some of the basic all-encompassing values is that we have a Constitution so uniquely shameful that it does not offer a Uniform Civil Code. 

Today, not just a ban on face covering for young school girls, or the ban on instant Triple Talaq or ensuring a fair alimony to Muslim women that is strongly contested by the said Constitutionalist, but even what is the biologically safe marriageable age of a girl is under question before the courts  

Moving on, let us focus on the issue of LGBTQ community's acceptance into society. 

It waz with the blessing of the RSS & in the era of the first ever fully BJP-controlled government of India, that the British colonial penal code Section 377, which criminalized all sexual acts "against the order of nature", that it waz nullified. 

So, while the RSS found references in ancient cultural traditions to accept & assimilate the LGBTQ community, in Western countries, the often disruptive & in-your-face LGBTQ rights activists had to resort to parades or other such aggressive postures to enact such a legislation. 

It is clear that for the Constitutionalist, the law book is more of a weapon than a guide, one that is exploited to disrupt the order, in the name of upholding the law. 

To the keen observer, it would become obvious that all social reforms are passing through the camp of the supposedly conservative RSS pluz group rather peacefully. The gap between what their stereotype seems & what their action shows, is growing. 

By contrast, social reforms are met with street protests, including violence by the Constitutionalist. That's because their genesis is not in interpreting the Indian Constitution to run Indian society in the Indic context but is in the blind application of the Western model of protest. 

It is time we recognize & expose the hyper-Constitutionalists & their supposed Human Rights fellows as Anti Human Dignity activists.