Political Roundup

Some things remain the same, more they appear to change. And Indian politics is one of them. A round up of all that happen (or did not happen) in the last few weeks

Maharashtra still awaits a government - Maharashtra Congress seems to have made up it's mind to ignore Madam and Yuvraj's calls for austerity. What else can explain the delay in swearing in which is costing the state more than 10 lakhs so far and not to forget the delay in projects which leads to more money being lost. The Congress fresh from a handsome win is more bothered about cabinet berths and portfolios than the aam aadmi.

RajThackeray's ideological washout - While the media and his partymen are busy showcasing MNS's seats as a major win, what they seem to miss are some of these details from Mumbai. Raj Thackeray fought on anti-migrant or pro-Marathi agenda but he also led to reduction of Marathi representation in current assembly. More than 50% of elected MLAs from Mumbai are non-Maharashtrians. Nearly one-third are from UP. This is substantially higher than previous assembly. So while Raj did his political bit by affecting BJP-SS, he lost on ideological grounds miserably.

31st Oct was Sardar's birthday too - Sardar Patel would possibly be sad up there when he realises that he made a mistake by not furthering his family into Indian politics. Because had he got a government which was run on strings by his grand daughter in law or daughter in law, maybe he too would have been remembered on 31st Oct. All efforts were made to show Indira as India and that included having 'paid' or 'loyal' stooges to even justify the emergency and Operation Blue Star be it in newspaper, magazines or television. Maybe this was one place where the governemnt and the Congress Party forgot to follow austerity.

Mother of scams - 2 corruption cases come out in open and who do they belong to? Well the incumbent UPA. One is Madhu Koda from Jhakkhand who was the UPA CM and another is D Raja from DMK and current Telecom Minister. While the sheer volume of money that Indian public has lost (Rs 50,000 crore) in telecome Specturm case makes it the largest scam in India, the minister D Raja is sitting pretty because the current government depends on DMK and there is no way our 'clean, non-corrupt' PM can remove an 'efficient' minister (or money arranger) like Raja. As far as Koda is concerned, he has no value anymore and so can be hounded.

BJP Blues in Karnataka - The first BJP government in south India faces a serious threat from the rebels led by the mine-kings and cash rich Reddy brothers. The situaiton underlines one main point and that is wherever BJP jas deviated from core RSS ideology and fallen prey to money-bags, it has had bad experience. It's high time BJP stops giving importance to those who are in the party only to further their business interests and gives some respect to those who are with the party based on ideology.

Centre-State Relations and Bias

This morning, in Times of India, one saw an ad from Cong-NCP for elections tomorrow. The reason they wanted people to vote for them was mentioned "better centre-state relations" Now does this mean if anybody else comes to power, it will be treated untouchable or a pariah? This sounded more like a threat to vote than an incentive. Why should centre-state relationship depend on who is rulign the state? Such statements make the claims of partisanship in recent flood relief in South India very believeable. While one does not know the impact of the flood on both AP and Karnataka, from what one reads it clear that rain created nearly equal havoc on both the states. But still Karnataka ruled by BJP got nearly one third of what AP got, maybe because the Congress rules there.

This entire thing is against the spirit of federal and democratic policy. And ruling parties should dedist from using hreats to get them votes.

China Border - Deja Vu

More some things look like changing, more they look similar at the foundation. Look at these coincidences - 1960-62, India had a 'humane' PM (keen for a place in history) advised by a man from Kerela called Krishna Menon. India had just started looking positive with the beginning of the Green Revolution. In 1950, Sardar Patel had warned Nehru about Chinese threat in long-term only to be brushed aside like always by the Alice who lived in Wonderland. 1962, General Thimayya warned Indian govt of Chinese intrusions only to be called 'alarmist' and 'Pro-West' by Nehru and Krishna Menon. The result was China invaded India in few months.

Today, we have a PM too keen to get his name in history books or a Nobel Peace Prize. India is riding high on economy. US has dealt a huge blow to Chinese trade vis-a-vis India by levying a huge anti-dumping duty on their products. And China has started making noises on the border - both verbal and in actions. Media and Armed Forces are both crying foul. But again comes a man from Kerala Shashi Tharoor and A K Antony who rubbish these claims as 'false alarms'.

One just hopes that like in the history India does not have to see coffins just because some people in New Delhi still live in fool's paradise as they lived in 1960s.

Miraj riots and Media

Recently Miraj and Sangli witnessed riots during Ganesh Visarjan. This too was just the same kind of riots as one would have witnessed over the years. The Ganesh Pandals had erected some arches to which the Muslims of the town objected and riots broke out over this. What really stuck me while reading or watching the media reports was the way it was reported. All along the incident, the media line was - The riots broke out over an arch depicting Afzal Khan's death at the hands of Shivaji.

Now this is worth thinking. Is there any doubt about how Afzal Khan was killed? Was Afzal Khan a saint and Shivaji a murderer? Then how can there be a argument over a historically correct and proper action?

Then should the media have not said this - The riots broke out over objection of certain people over the arch? This looks a correct statement. But then if the media takes this line, it is secular incorrectness. And no media house in India wants to do that. And this just because of their prejudice against certain section of the social and political ecosystem.

100 days of failure - Price Rise and Inflation

Hmm, so 100 days of the UPA government are over and let's just look around to see what's changed. PM Manmohan Singh had promised before elections on how he we will change the economy and reduce inflation within 100 days of coming to power. So this series this week will focus on all that was promised and delivered or not delivered, starting with what impacts the common man the most - Inflation, price rise and economy.

While economic growth seems to be moving in right direction to recovery, there seems to be no sign of the liberal policies one was promised. No divestments, no bold economic measures and all this inspite of no Left support needed. On the other hand, the inflation and price rise has zoomed to a new high breaking record each new day. Add to this the governement's silence on hoarders (payback time for election funds?) and our Agri Minister Sharad Pawar new methods to increase shortage and prices for sake of a fw wealthy farmers and industries. Walk into a shop and Tur Dal, Sugar, Moong Dal and in near future Rice too are all missing. Add to this the increase in fuel prices within one month of winning the elections (they had reduced the prices before elections for obvious reasons). Imgaine two of the seniormost ministers facing serious allegations from public, media and their alliance partners on how their nefarious ways are causing the price rise and making life tough for the common man.

Add to this the serious drought situation facing the country. And what has been the Central Government's reaction to it, to shift the blame to the State Governments. Either the governement's too busy printing full page ads on Rajiv Gandhi's birthday or they are waiting for the assembly elections in some state. Till then the farmers can wait and if they can't wait, they can die.

Angels and Demons

So Jaswant Singh is at it again. He has just done what he does the best (apart from managing finances and external affairs of the country well) and that is to speak his mind, controversies notwithstanding. This time he has opened a Pandora's box by praising Jinnah and blaming Nehru for the country's partitiion.

One has to go beyond traditional prejudices to look at the role of Nehru and Jinnah in Indian Partition. Jinnah was senior to both Gandhi and Nehru in Congress and it was Jinnah who opposed the Khilafat Movement (started by Gandhi to protest against British removal of Caliphate in Istanbul). At that time Jinnah had warned Gandhi against bringing religion (Islam) into politics and thereby showed his secular credentials. What then spurred Jinnah to take a u-turn and ask for partition on religious grounds remains an unsolved mystery specially in India because J-Word has demonised by those who were responsible for the u-turn in Jinnah's thought process namely the Congress, Nehru and Nehruvian historians cum sychopants. The injustice done to Jinnah, the humiliation he was made to suffer at Congress Committee meeting in late 20s and early 30s and finally Congress's refusal to share power with Muslim League in Central Provinces and UP were amongst the few reasons that drove Jinnah to ask for Partition. It was the power lust of 2 egoists - Nehru and Jinnah that was the reaosn behind death of millions, sufferings of billions and the hatred amongst two communities and now countries. Had Nehru not been a greedy egoist that he was, Jinnah might have never gone on the path to partition.

Unfortunately history is always the story of the person who is in power and so we all were brought up to demonising Jinnah and worshipping Nehru when the truth was that both were equally guilty. But that's what Congress did post independence. They tried to remove references and history marks of all those who weren't in the Nehruvian sphere. While Sardar Patel's authority was slowly and steadily diminished after his sterling role in unificaiton of country, Shubash Chandra Bose's life and death were kept a mystery and even today Mukherjee Commission Report has not been made public. Many other doyens and leading lights of the freedom movement were pushed to comparatively lesser stature like Lokmanya Tilak, Bhagat Singh, Veer Savarkar to name a few. The idea was to make Nehru synonymous with Indian Freedom. Because of Gandhi's popularity and stature, they could not do the same to him and they conviniently appropriated Babasaheb Ambedkar as Congress symbol when the history clearly shows how Ambedkar till last moment was aligned with Muslim League and not Congress. It took last minute intervention from Gandhi to convince him but he was never aligned with Congress.

Similarly, Guru Golwalkar was always shown (inspite of being cleared by the courts) as someone behind Gandhi's murder, what was subsequently erased from history books was his and RSS' role in assisting army during 1948 Kashmir Invasion, 1965 Pakistan war or 1962 China War not to mention their services during various natural disasters which prompted the government to allow RSS be a part of the Republic Day Parade. But Guru Golwalkar was always demonised by the historians without presenting the true story.

While we all have been brought up to hate Hitler and as human beings, rightly so. But let's stop for a moment and think as Indians. Hitler was the only international leader (apart from US President Roosevelt) who supported India's freedom and was ready to help Bose (maybe for his own selfish reasons). The German army under Shubashbabu's request did not use Indian soldiers captured while fighting for Britian, as canon fodders for fighting. But then we as Indians have always forgetting this small symbol of German support. Instead we all were taught that Lord Mountbatten was a supporter of India's freedom while the fact was that he was responsible for the partition too. Simlarly though US President Roosevelt did his best to support India during partition (as seen from his letter to British empire in Mr. Singla's book), US offer as friend was ignored just because of Nehruvian love for Soviets and this resulted in long US-Pakistan frienship with started with 1948 General Assembly of UN on Kashmir. But then angels and demons are decided by those who yeild the power.

It's time for the new generation to break the prejudices and accept things for what they were and are. While we all will rightly hate Jinnah for the partition, it's time for the new generation to see Nehru in his rightful place in Indian History and that is of a greedy egoist who ruined the nation for his lust to become the PM. And some of his mistakes are troubling us even today in a bloody manner.

(Sources - Mr. Singla's book "Untold Story of India's Partition", Jinnah's biography which contains letters from Gandhi on Jinnah nationalist and secular credentials, Arun Shourie's book - Worshipping False Gods, Lost Hero by Mihir Bose, and many other similar books by Indian authors on Indian partition and leaders)

Remembering Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Many a times, it takes small things to remember and aknowledge a great personality and his contributions to the world. Similarily it took a small road trip to remember Atal Bihari Vajpayee and acknowledge how he changed the state of the nation.

Zipping through Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg on our way to Goa, me and my friend started talking about how difficult and back breaking journey it used to be for all when going from Mumbai to Goa and how pleasant it has become now. Then strikes a name - Atal Bihari Vajpayee. If Mahatma Gandhi is called the Father of the Nation, if Sardar Patel can be called the Integration Man and if Nehru can be called Man behind Agriculture Revolution, Atalji has all the right to be called the Father of Indian Infrasturcture.

It was in his rule of 6 years that the country broke it shackles in infrastructure and zipped ahead in port development, road and highway creation, power generation, telecom modernisation and much more. While one always used to tlak highly about Atalji political persona or his creative side and even his stint as the Foreign Minister in 1977, the face of a man with modern vision must have been a pleasant realisation to even his greatest critics. Not only did he put an emphasis on infrastructure, he ensured that infrastructure related ministries were given to those who would deliver. So we saw likes of Nitish Kumar, Maj Gen B C Khanduri, Suresh Prabhu, Late Rangrajan Kumaramangalam, Ananth Kumar Hegde be at the helm of the ministries whose growth was important for India growth story. He envisione and proposed, while his team delivered.

If today India is on it's way to becoming one of the economic superpowers, the credit for laying the foundation goes to Atalji.