Fd Marshal Sam Manekshaw in his lectures on leadership qualities always spoke about Moral Courage as the first attribute to be a Great Leader.. And gave his personal example as to how He stood firm against Mrs Gandhi and gave her the correct professional advise. He said ;

When Mrs Gandhi during a meeting asked him to attack East Pakistan in the month of Jun71, he refused. The meeting was immediately called off and she also left the room. The three ministers, presnt in the meeting ; Foreign Minister, Home Minister and the Def Minister got up sheepishly and started walking towards the Exit door. Babu Jagjeevn Ram , the then def minister, said ; General sahib aapney aisey kaisey keh diya. Before he could reply, he heard Mrs Gandhi calling him ; Sam Pl come . Realising that Mrs Gandhi must be annoyed with his disagreement He had already planned his next move, He said ; Maam your father in 1962 had a weak kneed General who could not give the correct advise to your illustrious father, and as a result the nation was humiliated. If you so insist, I am willing to resign on the grounds of poor health and you can choose another General who would lead the Indian army to war in June.

Mrs Gandhi replied ; No, No Sam sit down, and tell me why cann’t we go in for war in Jun.

Then Sam explained the reasons and thereafter the decision was taken to go in for war in Nov/ Dec.

Hats off to Sam for having the moral courage to speak his mind and hats off to Mrs Gandhi as a leader to call back Sam and listen to him and revert the decision.

Perhaps this is what has happened today.

May be some Officer in Mr Modi’s team stood firm and spoke his mind. In this regard read my article Can Mr Modi Instill Confidence in farmers. https://www.bharatamrising.com/latest-in-politics-4/can-mr-modi-instill-confidence-amongst-farmers

There was nothing wrong in farm laws but those reforms were brought in a hurry when the basic foundations have still not been laid, for instance the e mandis are still not operational in states.

The Govt was trying to erect walls of a building whose Foundations have still not been built.

So we must applaud that officer who spoke his mind and also Mr Modi for finally listening to this officers’ voice and having the courage to revert his decision.

Some may still scoff at this calling it an electoral compulsion, but that he did it facing the nation, by itself is truly remarkable.

KUCH TO LOG KAHINGEY.

Lastly, This is also a  lesson for this category of ; Blind Followers who without studying and acquiring any knowledge of the subject start extending support to the Govt.

JAGROOK NAGRIK HI DESH KI SEVA KAR SAKTA HAI.

Soft power is defined as a nation’s ability to influence the preferences and behaviours of various actors in the international arena (states, corporations, communities, publics etc.) through attraction or persuasion rather than coercion.

A country's soft power, according to Nye, rests on three resources: "its culture (where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when others see them as legitimate and having moral authority).

Ever since Joseph S Nye Jr., an American political scientist, introduced this term the countries across the world latched on to this idea to augment their influence using their cultural assets and values that date back centuries, to an extent, that some of them have even become self opinionated. They advertently or inadvertently forgot the essential feature of Soft Power ; The Political Values.

One of them is our country, whose soft power underpinned by its ancient civilization and rich cultural heritage, due to this misunderstanding , has not been harnessed  to its fullest potential.

Why is it Necessary to Analyse the Soft Power Index.

The famous Chinese diplomat , Hu Shih once remarked:

"India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.

Therefore, is it not surprising that today we are not even amongst the top 20 on the Global soft power Index and rather this year we have slipped 9 places to the 36^th spot and that even Brazil is ahead of us.

If one examines the Soft Power Index data right from 2014 to 2021 dispassionately, one can anaylse as to why our forefathers succeeded and we the modern Indians are failing in using the Soft Power to its full potetial.

According to David Haigh, Chairman and CEO of Brand Finance, “The Global Soft Power Index is the result of a ground-breaking fieldwork research, the most inclusive of its kind, which allows to see in aggregate how the world views the top soft power nations, but it also enables – thanks to the scale of the sample – a more granular snapshot of nation-to-nation attitudes. These findings are vital for governments seeking to better manage their nation brands and improve their soft power influence in specific countries and on specific metrics.”

In layman’s language Global Soft Power Index would tell us what " Brand India " means to the world as for instance what does " Brand Japan" mean to us in India?

The Global Soft Power Index of a Nation incorporates a broad range of measures, which in combination provide a balanced and holistic assessment of nations’ presence, reputation, and impact on the world stage.

This mathematical Index uses 7 pillars of soft power, listed in the illustration below.

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Applicability of Newton’s laws to Nations & Societies.

Newtons’ three laws of motion hold good not only for all physical objects but are perhaps applicable to every aspect of our lives including the social and political. And for a nation to be successful one needs to take a note of these laws, a little more seriously as these may have grave implications on the future of a nation.

Some political and social thinkers might find this funny but when these laws are examined deeply their applicability cannot be undermined. The destinies of civilization and societies can be explained with the help of these three laws.

1. The First Law of Motion.Also called the law of inertia, it says:‘if a body is in the state of rest or in uniform motion, it will continue to remain likewise, provided it is acted upon by an external force’.

This implies: A body may remain in the same state till some external force is applied because of the inherent tendency of Inertia.There is no distinction between rest and uniform motion in a straight line. It is difficult to change the state of rest or uniform motion of a body of heavier mass and vice-versa.An internal force cannot change its state. (Refer to the paragraph below for the definition of External and Internal Force).

 Examples.

 a) You apply force when you want to move your study table from one side of the room to another side. And it takes more force to move a heavy table than a lighter one because of factors like mass, friction and inertia. It would similarly require a colossal force to make a huge table move and to STOP its motion.

b)         When a bus starts moving suddenly, the head of the passenger sitting in the bus strikes the back of his seat. This can be explained on the basis of the first law of motion.

Applicability to Society.

This law can explain how great civilizations and nations continued their journey of progress and how they perished. A Society remains in the same state of uniform motion or rest or stagnation till such time an external force is not applied.There is always a tendency to remain in uniform motion or of rest, both states signifying stagnation, till an external force is applied. Refer to paragraph below for external force.

Self-opinionated societies stagnate and start decaying because they tend to remain in inertia in the absence of any external force as they stop learning and upgrading themselves as they rely only on Internal force. But societies are not lifeless objects and so when it stagnates, invariably external forces come and push them.Internal force cannot drive a society to progress and development.

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It would not be wrong to state that India’s middle class is an engine of India’s growth. But it barely gets anything in return.

The State has just got its hands off from every responsibility. For education the state conveniently presumes that we would be sending our children to private schools and private colleges as it has failed to run its educational institutions, for electricity it expects us to buy a generator or an invertor as the State run Electricity Boards cannot provide power 24 hours. For health care its now an unwritten code please visit private nursing homes as Govt Hospitals cannot be trusted. Even the poor avoid them. For water every citizen is expected to get a bore well dug in the back yard of the house and buy a water purifier as the State cannot provide safe drinking water.

During the  Pendemic, almost every house hold of this class had spent more than Rs 2 lacs in getting his kith and kins treated but sadly the Govt has still not taken any step to improve its Hospitals. The oppressed middle class man will have to still take his family to a private hospital.

The current Govt ridiculed the MNREGA but still uses the oppressed middle class man’s hard earned money to continue funding MNREGA, it has rather started many other such initiatives that are being funded by tax collected from the already oppressed middle class ; Ayushman Bharat, Free electricity, free rations, free gas cylinder , Free laptops, free bicycles etc for the people who are kept poor due to MISGOVRNANCE and CORRUPTION.

And surprisingly, the oppressed middle classman still cheers the Govt. Today there is barely a single vegetable which is costing less than Rs 80 per kg the cost of cooking gas cylinder is costing almost Rs1000/ and cost of petrol has gone up to Rs110/lit.

Responsible Middle Class.

The responsible oppressed middle class man understands that lock downs in last one year have made an impact on the economy and it therefore needs time to recover.

But the moot issue is once it recovers at the cost of our miseries,

One. Will the Govt pass on the benefits to its customers,

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