Sashi Tharoor's decline

Sashi Tharoor, a Congress Member of Parliament from Kerala and the Minister of State in the Central Ministry of Human Resources Development(HRD), once a high-ranking UN functionary who contested the post of the Secretary-General, must be a sad man, though he seems to put on a mask of a satisfied and committed Congressman. Having lost the election for the key UN office, Tharoor quit the UN job and joined Indian politics, getting elected to the Lok Sabha(House of the People) on Congress ticket, in 2009. Because of his impressive background, international exposure and experience, he was appointed as a junior Minister in the Union Ministry of External Affairs. Unfortunately, due to his would-be-wife's alleged involvement in some dubios business deal, that caused a furore in the media and in the public, he had to resign from his office. After a year or so in limbo, Tharoor made a return to the UPA Cabinet, again as a junior Minister(Minister of State).

This time, Sashi was more circumspect, more in tune with the Congress culture of sycophancy; he conducted himself seemingly in a parrot-like fashion, speaking politically correctly like other apologists and third-rater party spokespersons. Gone was a sauve, professional, ethical objectivity of an intellectual.Thus, in all his appearances in TV news channel debates he sounds pathetically predictable like a Manish Tewari, Renuka Chowdry or Manu Abhishek Singhvi. In a recent debate(October 27) on the bomb blasts in Patna at Narendra Modi's massive rally in the Gandhi Maidan, Tharoor was defending the State govt led Nitish Kumar although it was widely condemned for its incompetence to provide adequate security, by retired senior IPS officers like Prakash Singh, chief of the UP police and Ajit Doval, the chief of the Intelligence Bureau. Several persons were killed and many more injured in the blasts.

It is incredible that Sashi Tharoor, obviously in pursuit of self-serving goals, has allowed his image to be comprised and diminished. It has been reduced to that of a petty-minded politician who has to justify his party's mean misdeeds and clear lapses, morally unsound and unacceptable. What a terrible fall for a promising personality!    

Rahul Gandhi's new sob story about his mother

In his election campaign in Madhya Pradesh which is going to the polls in November, 2013, Rahul Gandhi, the heir-apparent of the ruling dynasty, though a reluctant prime ministerial candidate against the BJP nominee Narendra Modi, narrated a sob story of his mother Sonia Gandhi. Despite her ill-health and deteriorating condition, Mrs Gandhi was adamant on staying in the Lok Sabha to participate in voting for her pet food security bill for which she had "fought". Rahul stated that she had difficulty in breathing and had tears in her eyes. He finally "dragged" his mother to the hospital.

Rahul's purpose in telling the story to poor MP tribals was to impress on them his mother Sonia Gandhi's "commitment" to provide "one rupee kg foodgrain" to the poor so that "no one goes hungry" after the bill is implemented. He did not explain that if his mother was so concerned about the hunger of impoverished Indians, why did she wait so long-nearly ten years of her govt's rule since 2004-and choose a few months before the State elections in Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere in November-December, 2013, and general elections in May, 2014, for the passage of the Food Security Bill? Why shed tears now when her coalition govt had numbers to pass the legislation without her vote? Why then this emotional drama?

This reminded us of Rahul Gandhi's younger, Pappu days when he was fond of recalling what he had heard from his parents about the greatness of Nehru-Gandhis. In one such narration, he recalled that had a Nehru-Gandhi been at the helm of affairs in December 1992, the "Babri masjid" would not have been demolished. He clearly did not know or deliberately overlooked the fact that it was during his father Rajiv Gandhi's regime, the shilanyas(stone-laying ceremony) took place in Ayodhya and the doors of the Ram temple were opened. With this Pappu mindset, it did not occur to Rahul that despite his grand mother Indira Gandhi's slogan of "garibi hatao"(remove poverty), during her Emergency rule, poverty is very much with us nearly four decades after the socalled sloganeering. Even if Sonia Gandhi's food security measure is implemented, and wheat is given at Rs 1 a kg, how will it help the poor when other necessities like oil, vegetables, milk, etc., needed for minimum nourishment, are beyond their reach because of the sky-rocketing prices? Will only cheap wheat and rice will satisfy their hunger and lessen their mal-nourishment? Without a job or skill, will the poor not remain beggars, perpetually dependent and at mercy of a corrupt babu and a middleman? By spending tens of thousands of crores of public money what Sonia Gandhi will achieve besides a temporary vote? What is the past experience of such ill-conceived, extravagant schemes like PDS, NAREGA, etc? Will the poor Indians be really impressed with Rahul Gandhi's juvenile sob stories of her mother shedding tears for their welfare when they hear that she flies to New York just for a health check-up?

     

Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai goes international

The story of a 16-year-old Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai, is a blend of  courage and sadness. The ruthless Pakistani Taliban, the most radical, violent outfit swearing by Islam to set up Sharia rule in the country, was in full control of the Swat Valley by 2008, where Malala was born. Having realised at a young age that sons were preferred over daughters in her society, she was determined to pursue education to come up in life. Hence, Malala was opposed to Taliban's diktat not to allow girls to attend school. Her courage to defy their orders brought young Malala in confrontation with the Islamist extremists' anger. One afternoon, two youthful gunmen boarded her bus when she was returning home from school and shot her from close range. She was hit in the head and bled profusely. She would have died but for a timely help and an emergency  operation in a military hospital in Peshawar with the assistance of two British surgeons who, luckily, happened to be visiting. After a few days, Malala was flown to the British doctors' hospital in Birmingham for major operations. She has now recovered and started attending a British school in that city.

She has been widely honoured for bravery in standing up to the dictates of Islamic radicalism in her country, with awards as well as an address to the United Nations General Assembly-perhaps the youngest person to do so. She was also invited to the White House by President Barack Obama. This extraordinary world-wide attention seems to have to affected the Pakistani teenager to an extent that she was expecting a Nobel Prize for Peace and talking of becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan like Mrs Benazir Bhutto! However, the western support and patronage caused adverse ripples in her country:many Pakistanis were angry with her for her "closer relationship" with the West. On her part, she has asserted that she still follows the Pushtun culture and wears salwar kamiz and duppatta, and regards Islam as a "true religion" that preaches peace and tolerance. But, she cannot run away from the bitter reality that she cannot return to her homeland with any sense of security and safety.

Hence, her dreams of promoting women's education in Pakistan will, unfortunately, remain just dreams. These could become a reality only if the Pakistani civil society becomes assertive, modern and progressive and unitedly fight the scourge of Talibanisation of Pakistan. Academics, intellectuals and the media have to show uncompromising determination to cleanse the Pakistani society of Islamic radicals, fanatics and jehadis, or, at least marginalising them. This cannot be done without de-emphasising the influence of Sharia in Pakistani lives. Islam has to adjust to modern times and not get mixed up with politics. All Pakistani citizens, regardless of religion, caste, sect and gender, have to be treated equally with equal opportunities for growth and upward mobility. Only then, Malalas of Pakistan can feel at home in their place of birth.       

Rahul Gandhi's anointment as new Congress supremo

Congress sycophants are overjoyed that their icon, the young crown prince of the ruling Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, Rahul Gandhi has spoken the mind of the Indian people by publicly rubbishing the controversial Ordinance of his government to protect convicted MPs and MLAs, as "complete nonsense". The fact that the Congress party headed by his mother-Sonia Gandhi-he is its vice-president-and the UPA govt led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, put the final stamp of approval on Rahul's rejection of their Ordinance, seemed not only a slap on the face of the PM, as also his own mother, they implicitly accepted Rahul Gandhi as the new supremo of the Congress and UPA dispensation.

True, there were reports of initial unhappiness and sulk of the PM having been publicly humiliated by the young Gandhi when the former was in New York; several of Dr Singh's supporters urged him to resign in protest in the interest of his self-respect. But, a long-time yesman of the dynasty, publicly admitted that he was "thick-skinned" and, hence, there was no reason to quit his job. His dwindling band of sympathisers tend to forget that only the other day, Manmohan Singh expressed his readiness to work under Rahul Gandhi, nearly half his age. Hence, the bitter reality is that the PM himself is responsible for his own diminution and degradation, thus destroying the key stature of the office of Prime Minister by playing a second fiddle, the first time in the history of independent India.

It is also sad day because the party has got a young leader who is immature, impetuous, undignified, temperamental, unpredictable and unwise. He has shown no vision, no thoughtfulness and sagacity to solve India's complex political, social and economic problems. His dramatic appearance in a press conference to condemn the Ordinance as bad, to be torn and thrown away is a classic case of juvenile mind. 

Pakistani author Raza Rumi on Indo-Pak relations

The problem with Pakistani intellectuals appears to be their meaningless and contradictory approach to Indo-Pak relations. One such gentleman is Raza Rumi, Director of the Jinnah Institute, a Pakistani think- tank, and an author of the book:"Delhi by Heart-Impressions of a Pakistani Traveller".

In an article:"Give Sharif a chance", published by the Indian Express(August 9), Rumi has emphatically pleaded that India should adopt a "new Pakistan policy" in which giving a "chance to Nawaz Sharif", Pakistan's new-elected Prime Minister, should be an essential "part" and "stabilising and supporting Pakistan's democracy the central plank". Curiously, Rumi deliberately overlooks the fact that in his nearly two-month-old rule, Prime Minister Sharif has taken no concrete step nor sent a clear signal that he is in full command, ensuring stoppage of anti-Indian acts of terror emanating from his territory. In response to the charges of beheading of an Indian soldier in January this year, and the recent killing of five Indian jawans, Rumi cites Pakistani charges of Indian troops killing a few Pakistani in the same period. Understandably, as a Pakistani, Rumi has to defend his army's aggressive and bloody forays into our territory, but what about the recent bomb attack on the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan?  The Pakistani side flatly denied all the incidents, including the killings on the LOC, whereas the Indian side has accepted the killing of Pakistanis as they intruded the Indian territorywith terrorist intentions. Thus, Pakistan is in a permanent denial mode.

If Rumi believes that Pakistan is committed to peace with India, why his government is aiding and abetting infiltration into J&K? As a supposedly enlightened thinker, why can't he realise that the only possible, practical, peaceful solution is for Pakistan to accept the present status quo. No other solution will be acceptable to India, although formal claims would be forwarded that the entire J&K belongs to India because of its accession in 1947. However, because of Pak occupation of a sizable portion of the original State, the only possible peaceful solution is for both parties to accept the existing situation and settle it once and for all. Raza Rumi will be doing a great service if he tries to convince his countrymen to that effect. In the interest of peace in the subcontinent, Indians would be agreeable to treat the LOC as a permanent border between the neighbours. The alternative is a permanent conflict and tension that would be more harmful to Pakistan which is already facing internal disarray and the bitter reality of a failed State.

Debate on secularism vs communalism

The other day, I happened to watch a highly charged discussion programme on NDTV moderated by Ms Barkha Dutt, on the issue of secularism, in the context of the next year's general election. Those aggressively championing secularism as the most important factor for the survival of Indian democracy, included self-confessed secular fundamentalist Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Congress-nominated Rajya Sabha MP, Ashutosh Varshney, IE columnist who teaches at the Brown University in the US and Javed Akhtar, a pro-Congress film lyricist.

As usual, Aiyar was most intolerant, insufferable and full of hate against his opponents. His poisonous barbs against those disagreeing with him and his contemptuous style, makes him unfit for a civilised company, in my opinion. He seems emotionally sick. In the TV debate, he just dismissed his strong critic Ms Madhu Kishwar, the editor of a women's journal and an academic, who pointed serious flaws in Aiyar's thinking and arguments, with his angry and hateful epithets. The most controversial reasoning of these three advocates of secularism was their belief that it was a Gandhi-Nehru gift to Indian values. They clearly overlooked the defining fact that India was always a "secular" country. MK Gandhi claimed himself as a proud "Hindu" and believed Hinduism to be "the most tolerant of all religions known to me"(From Gandhiji's book:Hindu Dharam-Page 5). Thus, he regarded Hinduism as the most secular faith. The Constitution-makers did not specifically mention secularism in its preamble or the Directive Principles, presumably because they believed that the country's majority faith was the most tolerant and respectful of all other faiths. In other words, secularism-equal treatment of all religions-was the inherent characterisitc of Indian ethos. The word "secularism" was added to the Constitution through an amendment during the Emergency rule of Mrs Indira Gandhi in the mid-seventies

It is amazing that an academic like Varshney who lives most of the time in the US where no one talks of secularism as it is taken for granted, seriously debates secularism when he comes here even when as a born Hindu he knows what his faith stands for! Does Narendra Modi or the BJP talk or promote  Hinduism against other faiths? Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former Indian Foreign Service(IFS) officer who became Rajiv Gandhi's special assistant and speech-writer and later joined the Congress party, is one politician who is not seriously by the party leadership because of his acid tongue. He has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha in the "cultural" quota, as a reluctant reward for his great loyalty to the late boss's family. Javed Akhtar is one those intellectual Muslims who underline their secularism by supporting the Congress whom many regard as the most communally divisive political entity.

Madhu Kishwar, the panelist on the opposite side of the TV debate, strongly condemned the Modi-phobia, applauding Modi for his development agenda and leadership quality. He invited Aiyar to accompany her to a Gujarat village and see its inclusive growth under Modi; Aiyar, of course, spurned it with his usual contempt. Another panelist Ashok Malik emphasised that the secularism-communalism debate was confined to TV studios and an average Indian was not interested in it.  The election focus would good governance and development. Lord Meghnad Desai, a member of the House of Lords in London, the sixth panelist, drew attention to the Congress hypocrisy regarding secularism, adding that it was a party to the Partition of India!


      

Incredible India

For quite some time, the Tourist department of the govt of India has adopted a USP-Unique Selling Proposition:"Incredible India" as its foremost publicity slogan, to attract foreign tourists to the country. Despite India's tremendous variety of people, scenery, culture, cuisine, languages, seasons, heritage sites, religious practices, festivals, the tourist inflow was much smaller in comparison to its Asian neighbours, let alone smaller European nations like Spain.

However, my main focus in this piece is the meaning of "Incredible India" in its more mundane, existential and every day life sense. There is so such insensitivity, inhumanity and apathy that mark Indians' behaviour to each other; it is totally incredible. Even supposedly good things aimed at people's welfare-particularly poor citizens, are executed haphazardly, indifferently, without any real concern whether these will help them. Crores and crores are budgeted for education, health-care, mid-day meals for poor children to motivate their parents to send them to school. But, thanks to corrupt bureaucracy, mismanagement, misgovernance, govt schools are in a pathetic state: absentee teachers, poor infrastructure, no drinking water, no toilets. Thus, the overall picture is dismal.

In a latest incident in a village school in Bihar(Chappra dist), over two dozen small children lost their lives after consuming contaminated mid-day meals. It was shocking to read the story of utter callousness and near-criminality of the school principal who was supposed to supervise the cooking. The pictures of insanitary conditions in which the cooking oil was stored as well as other material, were appalling. It was reported that when the lady cook drew the attention of the lady principal to the bad soyabeans that were on the menu, the latter rejected her plea and ordered to go ahead and cook it. The bad soyabeans and contaminated cooking oil reportedly resulted in the terrible tragedy of young children of poor families dying in a large number.

Even a cursory look at the implementation of the Centre-State scheme-funded in the ratio of 75% and 25%, seemed so bizarre. How could such a delicate scheme dealing with feeding young children be handled in such a cavalier, ad hoc manner without proper, professional planning, supervision and monitoring on a regular basis? The Bihar incident is not the first such tragic occurence. But, unfortunately, after a short media hype and public anger, the tragedy is forgotten till the next one. There are reports of similar mess and chaos in other areas as well, like medicare. Peons, rikshaw-drivers and others without any medical training are allowed to give injections and allied services in the absence of trained nurses. Is itn't "Incredible India"?     

Indian Express Editor Gupta's Walk the Talk with Goa CM Parrikar

The BJP Chief Minister of Goa, an IIT graduate-turned-politician, Manohar Parrikar, in a Walk the Talk interview with the Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta, recently televised on NDTV 24x7, has come out strongly and convincingly in defence of his Gujarat counterpart, Narendra Modi on the 2002 riots.

Modi has been relentlessly ridiculed and maligned by a section of the media and his political opponents for allegedly engineering and conniving with the Muslim killings in that riot. They never talk of the post-Godhra carnage as an instant reprisal to the terrible torching of 59 Gujarati pilgrims-men, women and childen, in the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, while returning home from Ayodhya.

The tone and nature of Shekhar Gupta's questions suggested a clear, pre-determined bias against Modi. He insisted that it was Modi's "administrative and political failure", perhaps his "anger" that allowed the carnage, on the plea "what can I do, people are angry". While conceding that it was an "adminstrative failure", Parrikar emphasised that "not defending it does not mean that you put the blame on a particular person...Everyone got "polarised", including the administration and the police. However, "you don't blame the leader". "And Modi at that time had just taken over the govt(4 months). He may not have had that kind of a grip on the administration as he has now...The media should be blamed for it too-they showed the charred bodies...But after that, he has not displayed a single incident of non-governance". After that one "blot" on the administration, there has been no incident of violence in the last 11 years, Parrikar noted.

Responding to Gupta's question on what he called the "Parrikar model" in Goa where "you went and embraced your Catholics", and "Hindus and Catholics came together in Goa under the BJP flag", the CM observed that "a government cannot be complete unless every citizen is included" in the governance. "I am a strong Hindu but my Hindu feeling does not reflect in my decision-making as a Chief Minister. I believe Modi has managed to work in that way. In other words, Modi is fair and has no religious bias.

Parrikar's replies on some other topical matters are equally significant. Referring to the question on govt not taking decisions-"Manmohan Singh doesn't decide", he said, "virtually no one does in the govt." Gupta: "Well, Sonia Gandhi does. Apparently". The reply: "I strongly doubt that...I don't think decision-making has been the hallmark of Mrs Sonia Gandhi or Rahul(Gandhi). Most of the time, they disappear when there is a crisis."

Finally, Manohar Parrikar made it clear that he was in favour of the BJP National Executive meeting in Goa taking the decision on Modi and not postpone it. He added that "this is what the common people and the party cadre feel. I must have spoken to at least 1000 people on this issue at various forums-internet, friends, across the globe, across the country...I got a sense from them that they wanted  Narendra Modi. Because the country is headed by a person ... a Prime Minister(from where) no decisions are coming and people see that... I get a feeling that the Congress is run by a coterie...".   

PM Manmohan Singh calls Rahul Gandhi "natural leader"

Speaking to reporters at the Rashtrapati Bhawan(President's House), after the swearing in ceremony of some new ministers in his cabinet, on 17 June, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said  that "Rahul Gandhi is the natural leader" to lead the UPA if it returned to power in the general elections of May 2014. He would be happy to make way for him, he added. Some weeks earlier, he had hinted at his inclination and willingness to continue in the third term in case of the UPA victory.

Then, why this sudden sycophantic proclamation on the ruling dynasty's heir-apparent being the "natural leader"? In all the years that Rahul Gandhi has been active in politics, what are his attainments-or manifestations-symbolising his talents as "the natural leader"? In fact, he has publicly expressed his disinterest in taking over the leader. From all indications, he seems happy to assume the behind the scene role as the supremo, like his mother, without accountability.

The Congress party has several senior, more experienced leaders like C.Chidambaram, Kamal Nath, Ghulam Nabi Azad, etc. What is so special and "natural" about Rahul, if you take away his dynastic inheritance and succession claim? Is Manmohan Singh, a clever, calculating politician, playing a tactical game, asserting his self-sacrifice as well as his sub-servience to the dynsasty and its crown prince, in the knowledge that Rahul's reluctance to head the govt in the event of the UPA victory, might smoothen  his way to continue in office for the third term, even though he will be 82/83? Like at present, Dr Singh will act as "yesman"-in office but not in power; the power-wielders will be the son and the mother without accountability!
                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Manmohan Singh's indifference to direct election to Lok Sabha

It is no credit to the supposedly vigilant and dynamic Indian media to overlook Prime Minister Manm+ohan Singh's deliberate indifference to the important issue of his direct elected entry to the Parliament through the House of the People(Lok Sabha), to occupy the most powerful office in our democratic set-up. Instead, he prefers the easy way out-the indirect election to the Rajya Sabha. Over ten years ago, he did contest the Lok Sabha election for a New Delhi seat but he lost. Since then, he avoids the hard work and tension involved in direct election. In 2004, when Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the Congress president, chose him to head the UPA govt, he was a member of the Rajya Sabha. However, even five years later, in 2009 general elections, he had an opportunity to follow the healthy convention set up by the Congress first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors-Lal Bahadur Shastri, Mrs Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and get elected directly to the Lok Sabha from a safe Congress seat,  for the PM's office. But, Dr Singh, a man known for his integrity, was clearly not interested.  

Since his present term in the Rajya Sabha is ending, Manmohan Singh, as usual, rushed to Assam to file his nomination papers for the next term. Press reports said that this time the PM witnessed strong protests from Assamese intellectuals and mediamen who objected to his usurping a Rajya Sabha seat meant for native people, since 1991. They complained that for all these 22 years of the Upper House membership, Dr Singh did nothing for the development of the State; it was also reported that in all, he has spent less than a month in this adopted place from the very beginning.

Sadly, this utter insensitivity and thick-skin attitude to the local feelings, do not seem to have caused any uneasiness and moral soul-searching to somehow continue with the privileges of the Parliament membership which also facilitates his holding to the office of the head of govt till, at least, 2014; maybe, even later, if his alliance wins the next elections. Obviously, his advanced age-beyond eighties-does not matter. Some of his earlier supporters have started saying that Manmohan Singh undoubtedly loves office-and power-and wants to stay put as long as possible.

In this backdrop, it was heartening to read an article in the Indian Express of May 16, by a veteran journalist Inder Malhotra, who has criticised, though mildly, the fact that "some one should be Prime Minister of the world's largest democracy for a full 10 years on the strength of the membership of the Upper, indirectly elected, House..." Although it is not constitutionally mandated that the PM must be a member of the Lok Sabha, but the spirit of the Constitution and conventions established  since the dawn of independence, have underlined the democratic importance of the direct election route to the House of the People. As a member of the Rajya Sabha, Manmohan Singh cannot be the leader of the ruling party in the Lok Sabha-the more important House; he has no voting right here. Does it not sound ridiculous that the Prime Minister can participate in the Lok Sabha proceedings but he cannot vote! Is it that he is comfortable with this terrible oddity, just to stay in power?  

Latest Chinese occupation of Indian territory in Ladakh

On April 15, 2013, a platoon of the People's Liberation Army(PLA) of China, reportedly intruded 18km deep into our territory in the Ladakh area and stayed put till the writing of this blogpost. Despite several military and diplomatic efforts, the Chinese arrogantly and aggressively rejected our requests to go back to their side of the Line of Actual Control(LAC ). This latest incident of China's crude display of its armed might while mouthing meaningless rhetoric of friendly bilateral relations, inevitably takes us back to the tragic Nehruvian phase of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai(Indians and Chinese are brothers) when our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's thoughtless, romantic policy towards Maoist China, brought worst disaster in 1962: Maoist troops invaded India in the North-East and occupied a large territory. The neglect of the border areas and the ill-equipped armed forces resulted in the worst humiliation of the Indian army.

However, fifty years down the line, no lessons seemed to have been learnt. Several defence and strategic analysts have opined that the infrastructure in the border areas is almost as pathetic as before; so is the preparedness of our troops guarding the areas. The latest Chinese incursion and our govt's reluctance to challenge the intruding PLA platoon-and even blocking its supply lines-is a tell-tale evidence of our
congress-ruled, Manmohan Singh-led government's utter incompetence, pussillanimity, confusion and lack of resolve to protect national interests.

On the contrary, the ministerial statements only underline utter spinelessness, timidity and callousness of this govt. The PM says he has a plan for this "localised" affair but he does not share this with outraged citizens; similarly, his stupid Home Minister calls the area as a "no-man's land"; his Foreign Minister calls the incursion as "acne" that will go away with some ointment! What can the Indian people expect from such crazy, confused govt?

   

Phoney secularism debate

In all these decades of Indian independence, there has been a calculated attempt by our socalled secular thinkers and commentators to attribute the success of our liberal democracy-with its flaws and imperfections-to the leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru-supposedly foremost secularists. India is, strangely, one country which seems to be obsessed with "secularism" with a clearly predominant tilt towards one minority community-Muslims. I worked and lived in several countries-US, southern Africa, West Asia, etc. but I never heard the word secularism-obviously, it was taken for granted. But, not in India. It is rubbed into you all the time-for all the wrong reasons.

Now, a serious controversy is raging around Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's "doubtful" secular credentials which essentially means for his critics that he is "anti-Muslim" because he had once refused a skull cap offered to him by a Muslim leader! The BJP ally in the National Democratic Alliance(NDA), the Janata Dal(United) and its Bihar leader Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who is currently heading the NDA govt in the State, has publicly announced at the national executive meeting in Delhi on April 13 and 14, and a press conference after the conclusion, that Narendra Modi, BJP's leader currently occupying the office the Chief Minister in Gujarat, is unacceptable to them as the major party's prime ministerial candidate for the next year's general elections because of his alleged role in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots. No case or any chargesheet is pending against him in any court. Yet, the JD(U) is using it to blackmail and threaten to walk out of the NDA coalition. The BJP has, rightly and quickly responded, firmly rejecting the "unfounded inferences" on Modi. One has to wait and watch how the crisis between the  two partners unfolds further.

However, the main purpose of this blog is to emphasise the mythical and hollow dimension of this phoney secularism debate. It is my firm belief that secular democracy is flourishing in India not because of MKGandhi or Nehru but because of the liberal, essentially tolerant ethos of the Hindu Dharma-the way of life followed by 82% Hindu majority of our Republic against the theocracy and Islamic bigotry and radicalism of Pakistan. Even its founder-Mohd Ali Jinnah's delayed preaching of secularism in his Islamic nation a little before his death, was frowned upon and rejected by his countrymen!          

Sonia Gandhi's disastrous policies

In a severest criticism, Surjit S.Bhalla, the Indian Express columnist who specialises on economic and financial issues, has indicted Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the President of the ruling Congress party and Chairperson of the UPA, for her "occult" policies which are proving disastrous for the country and the party. In his latest article:"Message to Sonia: reform or perish"(IE-March 30). Bhalla wrote that Sonia Gandhi's husband, Rajiv Gandhi had won three-fourth Lok Sabha seats in 1984 polls, for his prime-ministership. No Congress leader, including his grand father, Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, had ever secured such a majority in the Lok Sabha; and , yet, Rajiv Gandhi lost the next elections in 1989, because of alleged corruption in the Bofors guns purchase, involving merely 64 crore rupees(40m dollars). In contrast, "the conservative assessment of cumulative corruption" associated with his wife Sonia Gandhi's "mistaken, misguided, misapplied, flagship MGNREGA(rural job guarantee scheme), is, at least, Rs.1,40,000 crores(out of Rs.1,70,000 crores) that went to non-poor". That is 14 billion dollars-or an amount 350 times of the Bofor amount, Bhalla added. As if this was not an enormous, unacceptable loss to the Indian exchequer, Mrs Sonia Gandhi is ready to impose another expensive project, similarly prone to huge corruption-Food Security Act.

However, my problem with Bhalla's critique is that while he is right in denouncing Mrs Sonia Gandhi's "authoritarian" policies, causing massive mess, he wrongly attributes her economic policies to "their origin in the creation of the Congress in 1885...founded by the occultist movement-Theosophical Society" of Annie Besant. In my view, Sonia's socialistic approach seemed to have been inspired by her grand father-in-law, Jawaharlal Nehru and her mother-in-law Mrs Indira Gandhi. Surjit Bhalla seems to have spared Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, supposedly an eminent economist, for his guilt to serve as an obedient bureaucrat-turned politician, and not asserting his supreme authority as the head of the govt. No wonder, he is  regarded as the weakest Prime Minister in the history of independent India who has destroyed the prestige and great status of PM's office, by acting as a second fiddle to Mrs Sonia Gandhi, his boss. What is the worth of such personal intergrity and honesty when the key constitutional office-holder where the buck stops, who is accountable to the Parliament and the nation, is weak-kneed and spineless to stand up to an un-constitutional authority, even when he realises that the country and the economy are going to the dogs? Is Manmohan Singh not equally culpable, hence unfit to continue in the august office?            

Pakistani scene in eyes of a London academic

Christophe Jaffrelot, a professor of Indian politics and the society at the King's India Institute, London, in an article in the Indian Express:"The missing democrats"(March 21), has done a great job in encapsulating the complex Pakistani scene with all its minuses and pluses. He has pertinently noted that the fact Pakistan completed its five years of uninterrupted democracy in its sixty-six years of existence, was a remarkable achievement. It was also unprecedented that politicians from all sides acted with restraint, and did not align with the army to dislodge an elected government of their rivals, as was the case in the past. They ensured that the  army did not engineer a coup in cooperation with a section of self-serving politicians, and stayed in the barracks.

However, Prof. Jaffrelot, in his assessment of different sets of players-the army top brass and top politicians, has pointed out that this achievement is not unqualified. Compromises, give-and-take have taken place. For example, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani "vetoed" all attempts by Prime Minister Gilani and President Zardari, to bring the ISI under their control. Also, the civilian government accepted the supremacy of the army over a "huge" percentage of the nation's budget, as also Afghanistan and nuclear policies. They also shut their eyes to the money-making ventures of army bosses in real estate, etc. This apporoach to "rule and loot"without the risk of accountability and resultant "unpopularity", eminently suited the army. Hence, while politically, democracy was sustained, the economy was gasping, corruption remained rampant and the law and order situation was highly worrisome. Sectarianism: sunni-shia bloody conflict, Baloch insurgency, Taliban threat, Mohajir-Pashtun friction in Karachi-the biggest city, the minority persecution, etc, posed serious challenges. The top judiciary represented a single beacon of hope.

The fresh elections scheduled for May 11, 2013, may throw up a democratically elected political leadership of a much-needed enlightened and liberal kind. It is a big IF. I the Pakistani civil society rises above parochial, nationally-oriented political combination or party, to tackle the country's intractable problems, we may witness a new Pakistan. One has to wait and watch, keeping one's fingers crossed .      

Liberal Muslim writer turning communal

Javed Anand, co-editor of a journal called "Communalism Combat" alongwith his wife Teesta Setalvad, and general secretary of the outfit: Muslims for Secular Democracy, seems to be increasingly shedding his facade of secularism in favour of Muslim communalism. Otherwise, how is it that, of late, his press commentaries have greater stink of communal bigotry? With his parochial blinkers on, he is unable to distinguish "institutionalised discrimination". In his latest article in the Indian Express of February 28, he has chosen to ridicule Indian democracy as "the government of the majority, by the majority and for the majority" which he implicitly means the Hindu majority. In support of his reprehensible thesis, he approvingly quotes the Sachar Committee report for "abundant evidence of institutionalised discrimination against the country's Muslims".

Javed Anand has, clearly, neither the will nor the honesty to acknowledge how his minority community is fiercely wooed by most political parties for vote-bank considerations, almost to the extent of enjoying veto power against liberal policies. Hence, for example, liberal Muslim writers like Taslima Nasreen and Salman Rushdie are not allowed to visit Kolkata to participate in a literature festival, and, even the Jaipur Literature Festival, because of the Muslim opposition. Himself a writer, did Javed Anand condemn this zealotry of his co-religionists? One has not heard or read Anand condemning Pakistan for persecuting Hindu minority which is now reduced to a single digit percentage in contrast to the large Indian Muslim minority taking strides in demography as well as economic well-being. But, unfortunately, intellectuals like Javed and others have no time for such uncomfortable facts. Had the majority community been communally-minded, it would have forced Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, to declare the post-partition India as a Hindu State on the lines of the theocracy of Pakistan-the Islamic republic. The tragedy of the break-up of the motherland, and the betrayal of the majority of Muslim brethren, supporting Jinnah's two-nation theory that Muslims and Hindus cannot live together, were sufficient grounds for the exchange of populations and the setting up two religious States. But, thanks to the broad-mindedness and generosity of the majority community, the communal/religious option was discarded.

But, instead, we got accusations of "institutionalised discriminations". In all fairness, why should the State favour one set of poor Indians-from a minority group, and deny others? Shouldn't the level of economic backwardness be the criterion for scholarships and not religion? Why should a poor student who happened to belong to the majority community be deprived of this govt help? Is this not discrimination disallowed in the Constitution? Javed Anand's support for Indian Express contributing editor Ashutosh Varshney's recent article displaying similar bias, was equally faulty. India has always been for diversity and not uniformity. Are Muslims being forced to abandon Muslim identity? Like Varshney, Narendra Modi is Javed's bete noire. He refuses to recognise that Gujarati Muslims voted for Modi in the recent elections in greater numbers-over 30%. As for 2002 riots, Javed never mentions the tragic sequence. Did the torching of the Sabarmati Express near Godhra, killing 58 pilgrims, men, women and children returning home from Ayodhya, not ignite the communal conflagration, the next day?     

Indian professor of US university misrepresents

At times, some Indians who leave the country for foreign shores for higher studies and a job afterwards, tend to develop dubious secular values while looking at India from a distant habitat. Their occasional visits to the mother country for a brief while, do not help them in deeper insight into the rapidly changing, evolving India. In some cases,  they become either more Indian than resident Indians or they take on their left-oriented, co-thinking compatriots' prejudices against the majority community. Mr Ashutosh Varshney, a Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and Social Sciences at Brown University of the US where he "directs the Indian Initiative at the Waston Institute, seems to belong to that tribe of Indians. Of late, he has been appointed as a contributing editor of the Indian Express.

Judging from his writings over a period of time even before his present status, Varshney seems to have imbibed the currently fashionable biases of a segment of Indian intellectuals against the socalled majority(Hindu) community's right wing that endear him to the socalled liberal, secular media. In his latest essay in the IE(February 13, 2013), captioned:"Why India must allow hyphens"-clearly American style-he has not only attacked Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his aspirations for national politics, he has criticised "Hindu nationalists" for seeking the European model of nationhood built on "uniformity" and not the US model of "integration of minorities via recognition of diversities". How can he forget that it is the Hindu majority-ruled India, even after the traumatic and tragic experience of the Partition on the basis of the separatist "two-nation theory" that Hindus and Muslims can't live together, gave the world the slogan of "unity in diversity"? While the minority Hindu community was persecuted and compelled to leave the newly-born theocratic, Islamic nation-Pakistan, a vast majority of Indian Muslims chose to stay back even though, in the pre-partition era, most of them had voted for Jinnah's vicious thesis; they multipled and flourished in their birthland. They became a favourite vote-bank of politicians, almost dictating terms.

Varshney talks about the White House celebrating Diwali but forgets about a large number of fast-breaking Iftar parties organised by major Indian politicians, including the Prime Minister, the BJP Leader of the Opposition and the BJP's Muslim MPs, during Ramazan, for their Muslim brethren. Being a Hindu himself, judging from his name, how can Varshney ignore the basic Hindu ethos of respect for all faiths-Sarva Dharam Sam Bhav? In fact, India is a classic example of a "salad bowl" or a flower garden and not "the melting pot" of the American variety. There is so much diversity even among Hindus themselves. The author's another sick remark related to Swami Vivekananda-and Modi's "three Bs":Beef, Biceps and Bhagwat Gita, his implication being that both favoured beef-eating to build biceps! It seemed a highly reprehensible and malicious lie.Can Varshney dare say "pork" for Muslims in the same vein?

Varshney's hints about Narendra Modi's hostility towards the Muslim minority are patently false and mischievous. He does not know how many Gujarati Muslims have appeared on TV shows lauding the Chief Minister's development policies. Does he know that 30% Muslims voted for the BJP in the recent elections as also the number of Muslims having been elected to local bodies on the BJP ticket? It is, indeed , astonishing that an academic of Varshney's standing, writing for an national daily, has such a closed mind!

Rahul Gandhi's formal elevation

On the last day of the Congress party's 3-day Chintan Shivir(Deliberation Camp) in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, from January 18-20, 2013, attended by 400 Congressmen and women from all over India, the long-awaited announcement for the heir-apparent Rahul Gandhi to take over the command of the dynastic party was made. Although the Congress Working Committee put its formal stamp on the elevation of Rahul as the Vice-President-number two in the line-up after the mother Sonia Gandhi as President, it is expected that given her advancing age and health issues, he will call the shots. There was  nothing surprising and earth-shaking about the development as he was practically virtually number two even as general secretary-though one of many in the heirarchy. However, the wave of jubilation and bursting of fire-crackers displayed by sycophants, including tearful senior leaders, seemed to suggest as if half the battle of the next general election of 2014 has already been won with the advent of Rahul.

Rahul Gandhi's own acceptance address had a high emotional quotient, devoid of any cohesive, clear vision. Some media comments called it "hollow rhetoric". His startling disclosure that when his mother came to his room in Jaipur after his appointment, she cried, saying "power is a poison"; one must beware of it. It is reported that she also  bitterly cried when her husband Rajiv Gandhi was about to assume the office of Prime Minister after the assassination of his mother, Mrs Indira Gandhi, then PM. Mrs Sonia Gandhi clearly did not want him to drink the "poison of power". However, if she genuinely, sincerely believes in the poisonous nature of power, why is she in it for so long? Is she not regarded as India's most powerful woman who wants to perpetuate her hold on it for the dynasty as long as possible? Doesn't she want her son Rahul Gandhi to be the next Prime Minister? What about the perks, privileges and pre-eminent position that power ensures? Are there any indications that she uses the power primarily for empowering the deprived, the dispossessed, the impoverished?

                   

Identity of Delhi bus gangrape victim

When the world knows the identity of the gangrape victim who was brutalised in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 night, by six beastly men, including the driver and his brother, thanks to the victim's father himself revealing it in an interview to the London tabloid-the Sunday People, the Indian media is still unwilling to disclose it even though she died on December 29 in the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore  due to severe internal injuries. The relevant law in the Indian Criminal Procedure Code is quite clear that the identity of a rape victim cannot be revealed as long as the victim is alive; only the victim can do it. However, the law provides that it can be disclosed in the event of the rape victim's death by the next of kin. And, in this particular case, the father has given out the victim daughter's name:Jyoti Singh Pandey, in a recent interview in his UP village home, to Indian reporters of the British Sunday newspaper. He even showed them a family album, including her daughter's photographs. The newspaper has put the entire interview alongwith a few family pictures on its website with the exception of Jyoti on the specific request of the father.

But, amazingly and inexplicably, the Indian media continues to remain secretive, denying its readers the information the world, and those with access to internet, have already got. We want to perpetuate the brave 23-year-old woman's memory to inspire Indian women at large but, at the same time, we want to keep her nameless and a non-person, some people calling her "Nirbhaya" or "Damini". Why this charade? For how long? She is now dead. The stigma of rape haunts and traumatises the living. Shouldn't we honour the brave-heart-Jyoti-the eternal flame-by her name, as her father has done, to narrate her dreams and determination to lift her family from the pit of poverty through education of herself, her two younger brothers and her own physio-therapist job, even though the dreams had a sad end with her own premature, tragic death.