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?