Kanan Jaswal's Thoughts of the Days of February 2022

Feb 01: It is not correct to say that power tends to corrupt because power is only a value-neutral multiplier. If you are inherently good, with power you will be able to benefit society a lot, but an inherently bad person in a position of power will now do much more harm.

Feb 02: After attaining adulthood, our advancement in life is only our responsibility. We should, therefore, allow others only to inspire us and never to dishearten us.

Feb 03: Perseverance and resilience are as good, if not better, determinants of someone’s success as their talent.

Feb 04: When we Indians will keep inspiring one another to realise our true potential, no one will be able to halt this nation’s climb to regain greatness

Feb 05: You have failed, not too bad! Now, set the bar a trifle higher for your next attempt.

Feb 06: People who think they have something important to do wake up in the morning with enthusiasm and energy.

Feb 07: The government should create right conditions in which private initiative and enterprise could flourish and bring prosperity to the nation and give employment to its people.

Feb 08: The biggest tragedy is that an overwhelming majority of us are only living to die with our song mostly unsung and our potential, to a great extent, unrealised.

Feb 09: The corrupt are no better than terrorists. How can the vermin that they are look themselves in the mirror? One can imagine their Belgian mirrors going black having hurled some of the choicest abuses and expletives at them, and not that in Flemish or French but in their own mother tongues.

Feb 10: The politically neutrals not taking the trouble of voting in an election is understandable but how can you emotionally support a political party and yet not come out to vote for its candidate?

Feb 11: We are not a post office; every message we forward to others on social media is presumed to bear on it a stamp of our approval.

Feb 12: Those looking for the roots of India's nationhood in the Constitution are wrong by five thousand years because India has been a thriving nation from at least that long in the past.

Feb 13: Success is proving yourself stronger than the last urge to give up.

Feb 14: Not institutionalising knowledge has been India's worst failing, it has led to our committing the same mistake over and over again.

Feb 15: Whatever you do, do as a volunteer, not a conscript, would do.

Feb 16: As an additional help, the amount of direct benefit transfer to Uttar Pradesh's farmers could be increased instead of giving them free electricity which will bring the ground water table in the state to a disastrously low level. Feb 17: Charanjit Singh Channi has said that he will not let people of UP and Bihar enter Punjab. He has, thus, not only violated their Fundamental right to reside and settle anywhere in India, he has also challenged the nation's unity. The Central government, Election Commission, and Supreme Court must, therefore, take severe action against him.

Feb 18: Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are so populous and their rate of population growth is so high that even the richest nation in the world, the United States, can not ensure there employment to all. It is, therefore, absolutely essential to bring in these two states the two-child policy without delaying further and implement it fairly and strictly.

Feb 19: Are we trying to imbibe in ourselves the qualities of our idols? If not, we can not say that they are are idols.

Feb 20: Thirteen centuries after 712 CE when Mohd. bin Qasim defeated Raja Dahir and conquered Sindh, India is now fully awake and alert, and will remain so until the end of time.

Feb 21: The time to hold back is now long past; if you are for a united and strong India, express yourself openly and cogently against the powers trying to weaken, even dismember, this great nation!

Feb 22: Those not exercising their constitutional right to vote are mostly the ones who are thoroughly convinced of their own uselessness.

Feb 23: No more waiting in the wings! India must now take an unequivocal stand that it is against any violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity by Russian forces. It is ethical: it is in India’s interest, as well. Feb 24: Our government is not able to take a position on Russia's invasion of Ukraine but that should not stop us, the people of India, from expressing our deep friendship and solidarity with the people of Ukraine in their darkest hour.

Feb 25: Is it asking for too much that our lifespan be coterminous with our healthspan?

Feb 26: If large industrial units and software development centres open engineering colleges within their campuses, they will benefit from constant interaction with academics and the students will gain unmatched hands-on experience.

Feb 27: When things do not seem to be going the way we wanted them to, we should tap our emotional reserves and carry on regardless. 

Feb 28: For leading, it is not a prerequisite that you should be holding an official position; you only have to have a vision and an ability to enthuse some others that it is in their own interest to collectively pursue that vision. And unless you try, you will not know whether you have that ability.