> The ant and grasshopper in India

The Old Tale:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building His house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the Shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.The world is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's' house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other grasshoppers demanding that grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Amnesty International and UN secretary general criticize the Indian Government for not upholding the
fundamental rights of the grasshopper. The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper. Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial inquiry.
CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among ants and grasshoppers.Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway trains, and names it as the 'Grasshopper Rath'. Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention Of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA]", with effect from the beginning of the winter. Arjun Singh makes Special Reservation for Grasshoppers in educational institutions & in Govt Services. The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it "a triumph of justice". Lalu calls it 'Social Justice'. CPM calls it the 'revolutionary resurgence of the downtrodden . UN secretary general invites the grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly. Many years later...the ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley. Hundreds of grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India.
As a result of loosing a lot of hard working ants and feeding the grasshoppers India is still a developing Country.


I agree to some extent. News channels show the things from only one perspective. I won't go to the extent of supporting every business out there, i think its naive to think that everything in India is built by hard work of one individual. There is corruption, exploitation and there is no denying the fact that most businesses care nothing about the people they will effect.

At the end of the day a society is a good one if everyone develops and not just some people who cosy up in their own homes. To say that only those who have earned money are working hard and not others is foolisness. There is a problem in India and thats discrimination thats not the case in US. People forget that US started developing during the world wars when massive industrialization took place which led to jobs for everyone and all prospered. America is not silicon valley alone(again this is a IT mindset, America as a whole is a powerhouse in lot of areas, key among them research) Can we say the same about India.

Having said all that, i myself despise "socialites" who come only to raise their voice to get media attention. Arundhati Roy is one of them. Another bunch is the human right activists. Again i won't group the latter as bad, its when they dont raise voices when innocent people from the forces or civilians are killed but only come when a terrorist is being hanged annoys me. As for the political parties, CPI is dead all over the world. Faster it dies in India the better. However i still hope its not replaced by a right winged party. India is a diverse country and if we have survived for so long as a united state its cos of taking everyone along. As someone said in India Today's 60th anniversary issue, "People say democaracy never works in a diverse country, but the fact is nothing can ever work in a country as diverse as India other than democracy"