Yes, Amsterdam – where the Ganja Flag flies High!
Where there is a hash café called Goa!
When the train stopped at the Dutch border, no one came to check our passports or our luggage. We were both carrying private stocks of hash, unconcealed, which we were smoking in the train, and we joked later that the Dutch cannot believe that anyone would smuggle hash into Holland.
There followed two days and one great night in the Ganja Capital of the World. More on that another time.
We took the train back to Frankfurt. This time again, neither Dutch police, nor customs, nor immigration boarded the train to check anything. The train passed on to the German side.
And sure enough, the Germans had dozens of uniformed baboos to check anything and everything. We put the skunk in an empty packet of cigarettes, which we crushed and placed in the bin. The German jokers didn’t find it. After they left, we lit up. Nirvana.
The question: Who are the smarter government? The Germans or the Dutch?
Obviously the Dutch. They spend less tax money, and the people are also happier and freer.
There is a lesson for all of us here in India.
The news is that the Border Security Force is raising another 30 battalions, and buying some helicopters too. The total strength of the force now stands at 1,90,000 men. The taxpayer is paying. For what?
“All that you protect,
All that you defend,
Is just a borderline,
Another borderline.”
Sauvik,
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Delhi, so my real education began once I migrated to the US at the age of 19. I can't tell you how much my thinking has been transformed by reading this blog (Amit and Atanu's as well). I feel like I have come out of the darkness for the first time in my life.
I am currently reading P Mason's The Men Who Ruled India, and it has been an eye opener...our socialist state has done extremely well to delete all the beneficial liberal and capitalistic elemets from the text books. Like good "rattu totas" we mug up the date for the Kakori Kaand and names of all the viceroys, but never once does a teacher speak to the fantastic ideas/work associated with the period.
Please continue to do the good work that you are doing. I will be contributing to the cause monetarily through your website...this should be a great rallying point for all liberals who love India (including one's like me who have been successfully scared away by the oppresive tactics of our The State).
I have just ordered the original 2 volumes of Philip Mason's "The Men Who Ruled India," published in the 1950s under the pseudonym Philip Woodruff. The book you are reading is probably the condensed version.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is a great history of the ICS, and tells of their philosophy, which was classical liberalism. There is a point where Mason says, when speaking of the early HEICS types: "Locke was their prophet."
There is another great book on the intellectual ideas and ideals of the colonial civil service in India, the late Professor S Ambirajan's "Classical political economy and British policy in India." Try and get hold of it.
And thanks for the support.
I will certainly look for the book you have recommended. I am digressing, but it had never occured to me earlier how aptly our socialist state even calls the subject associated with history and civics "Social" studies...no wonder it is the most boring and useless subject taught in most Indian schools.
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