A thousand revolts lead to a revolution.

"A thousand revolts lead to a revolution". The number thousand here is just a random number it can be anything from a a thousand to a million acts of revolt which finally aid to bring in a revolution. Mark the word aid, because it takes much more than revolts to bring in a true revolution. For eg: We achieved Independence from the British in 1947, but it took another 50 years for the people to get released from centuries of oppression based on class and caste. This was the true independence that we were fighting for, the independence from the British was more of a symbolic and it was one of the first form of independence which later triggered a chain, resulting in the true one which we are relishing today. I am not saying here that we have achieved total freedom from the vices of oppression based on class, caste and religion. But its just that the things have changed too much, for better, in the last 20 years or so for the lowest of caste in the Indian hierarchy. The change that they have seen in a few decades is the one which their forefathers had dreamt for centuries or approx 5000 years.

Yesterday night while watching the movie, Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi, I just re - lived the story of one such revolt. It wasn't the first time I was watching the movie, I have seen it couple of times and it certainly figures on my favorite list. Its about movie making in the true sense, it symbolizes the thousands of unknown revolts in the remotest parts of our huge country, by some unknown faces. The revolts whose fruit of revolution we relish in our lives, oblivious of the fact that they exist. Not many really care about history in today's world, there are hardly any youth who are aware of the Naxalbari Andolan or the emergency and the fight against it, Neither are these stories told on popular stages often. I am pretty sure these stories would be lost sooner or later considering our history in preserving our heritage, might be that's their fate after all individually they were failures.

When I read it yesterday on Gaurav's Blog, couldn't believe it and frankly speaking took it as just another crap floating on the blog world. Then a friend said she could not reach her blog from home, I gave a thought to what Gaurav was saying, but I could still access these sites so was still doubtful. But now its official Indian government has banned Blogspot!!!, I had expected many kind of paranoiac reaction from the government to hide its incompetence in fighting terror attack which are results of grave intelligence failure and the lack of people skills that our politicians possess. I had never expected that it would ban Blogspot, no explanations have come forward yet and I don't see any coming.

Probably some old babu would have felt that blogs are a security threat and they are the reason behind the terror attacks and the indecency in the Indian society, they could ban google, orkut, yahoo, rediff..... And why not internet. After all emails can be a great source of risk to the country with the ease they can transfer information. We can take a cue from China and allow only specific sites that would finally give the government a chance to make the Left happy, you know we are following the Chinese!!!.

As per the report in the Economic times you can still visit the banned blogs from some pakistani blogsite, can you imagine Indian visiting blogs banned by their government using sites hosted by their arch rivals!!!. This could certainly be a measure on behalf of the government for improving ties with the enemy in the neighborhood. So we could hear a statement from MS at G8 summit We are taking great steps forward towards improving our relations with pakistan, we have banned direct access to the internet, Indians can access the sites only through the pakistani blog site. Finally, our Foreign ministry would have something to show as a good PR measure.

---Asif