Indian Independence

            Now that we transition into a different part of the academic year, we shift the study of war onto ourselves. Humanities core forces us to challenge our intellectual ability, and with the research project we are taking on, I fully plan to do so. For this project, I will be writing about the India’s struggle for independence.

            With family that has been affected, during India’s struggle with Brittan, this is a topic that is very close to me, and one that I intend to pursue in detail. This posting will continually be added on to, as my research progresses, with new findings and information that I have gathered, or have found particularly interesting. With that being said, I am excited to begin my research process, and learn more about my home country, while sharing it with my readers. 
           As I expand my knowledge on the practices of Gandhi, with all that he has done for India and frankly the world, I have learned about some rather questionable things that he has said. Though he is a prolific writer and an incredibly respected person in history, he has been quoted as saying if "...a single Jew standing up and refusing to bow to Hitler’s decrees," it might have been enough to "melt Hitler’s heart." In addition to this, he has stated that “India’s salvation consists in unlearning what she has learnt during the past fifty years. The railways, telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers, doctors, and such like have all to go, and the so-called upper classes have to learn to live conscientiously and religiously and deliberately the simple peasant life.” To see a very well done pro and con debate, referencing numerous pro and anti Gandhi Indians, Europeans, and South Africans, check out this source. While I can see where he came from with this statement, it is grossly impractical statement to make, assuming that all will change based on his recommendation. Though I am sure he would like this to happen, so everyone can have the experience, there is no possible way that he thought this was a practical solution.
        All in all, my readings of various Gandhi works, such as Satyagraha, Hind Swaraj, along with very well done adaptations, and the argument of his opposition, have allowed me to better understand the meaning behind the strategic choices he made, allowing the country to gain its independence. Knowing this, I feel like I have an increased respect for everyone that participated in Gandhi's non-violent resistance, and the country, for having to overcome the oppression of the British. This assignment has both furthered my knowledge, and brought me closer to home.

Learning Through Lineage

As has been the theme lately, I would like to take a moment to digress from my normal blogs, talking about past events and relating them to the present, and talk about a project that I am doing that does just that. With the theme of war running throughout our class and literature, I have been tasked with documenting a war story, and its impact. For this, I decided to delve deep into my family’s own past to see what I can uncover.

After talking to my parents, I found that that we have had members of the family receive military awards such as the Mir Var Chackra (from the Indian Armed Forces), along with other branches of service. To learn more, I decided to interview my uncle Ramesh, who was a pilot for the Indian Air Force (IAF). Throughout the interview, I not only asked questions about his own service, but about the families perception on other family members that have served.

While a lot of the stories that I was told contain sensitive information about my family, I can share some thoughts of my uncle, on our family’s involvement militarily, or lack there of. With the way that our family is structured, we have never traditionally in positions of service. As a result, I have never heard, or learned much about military involvement, until I began this project. 
 As I asked more and more family members about the subject, it was becoming clear that there was a deeper reason, for the story not being shared. I decided to do my own investigation of the history of my family, as well as his family line. On the subject of family line, my family does have a tradition of military training. Many of Ramesh's cousins have entered the military, along with his father. This does establish the tradition of military service, but it does not explain why they will not talk about it.
 Even though members of my family does respect and honor those who have served their country, it is apparent that some issues on the matter are better left at rest. Just as we must respect those who have served, we must do the same with those who have fallen. 

Betterment Between Countries

With my return to blogging this quarter, I wanted to deviate from my topic of talking about wars effects on history and the modern day, and instead talk about my families history, through the generation, and the president it has set going forward, while touching on my father’s start in America. Though I was bourn in the United States, Wilmington Delaware specifically, I am of Indian decent, and almost all of my family is from the subcontinent. When moving from one country to another, there is often a story of the previous generation mobilizing the next to do so. With that in mind, I wanted to look at my grandfather’s transition out of extreme poverty, and how that impacted my father.  

First, I would like to talk about my grandfather’s story, and how that has shaped my father’s as well as my own life. Though he passed away while I was young, he left a remarkable legacy for my whole family that I hold very dear. My grandfather came from a very poor family, and grew up on in the slums of India’s largest city, Mumbai. My grandmother has even told me stories of him having to study under the lights of the train station at night, because his house did not have electricity, and was quite literally four walls and a roof. Despite the difficulty of his upbringing, he scored very well in school, and earned a place in the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), one of the most competitive schools to be admitted into in India. It was at the end of his schooling, that he saw the opportunity to make the transition from his previous life, to a better one. With a small circle of friends, he helped found the Bombay Gas Company, supplying power to the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Though he did very well for himself, after his schooling and success of the company, he raised my father with a frugal mind and never let him forget the power of humility. After talking to my grandmother about my father, and his 2 sister’s, upbringing it is clear that my grandfather made every conceivable effort to make every aspect of their lives better than his. As a result, my father excelled academically and also attended IIT Bombay.

This idea of giving your children a better life than your own is something that is commonly seen among first generation children, and most parents in general. There is not only the societal pressure for you to succeed, but there is the familial pressure, which is especially true in the case of my father. My grandfather’s struggle, and ability to escape poverty and build a business from the ground up, has made a lasting impression on my family and within the city of Mumbai. With such a high bar set for my father, I believe that the only place or way he could build his own legacy is by coming to the United States. Though he came here for education, I cannot help but thing that the reason he stayed in the America partially for this reason. When looking at how these same standards are projected onto me, it is hard not to be intimidated. I am constantly reminded of all the good that my grandfather did, and I hope to create a legacy as powerful as his.