Young India and fellow netizens, I know most of you are in love with that 'strongman' from Gujarat. Some people say that your love for him and his party (BJP) with 'a difference' is growing by the day. I hear you saying, "the Gujarati fellow, born and bred in Indian culture and traditions, is a far, far, far... better choice than someone with Italian connection." Being a democrat, I respect your 'political love' for him. However, I get disturbed when a Parrikar from Goa terms the 2002 Gujarat riots as a clear-cut case of administrative failure and bad example of governance. But you seem to calm me down: "Come on. It was just an aberration in an otherwise excellent record. After all, we all commit mistakes, don't we?"
OK, I agree with you because I have also committed many a blunder in my life. Let past be past, whether it were my blunders, or mistakes of the 'strongman'. Now, I begin narrating some tales for young India with this beautiful couplet, full of wisdom, penned by renowned Urdu poet Sahir Ludhianvi:
Taaruf rog ho jaye to usko bhulna behatar
Taaluk bojh ban jaye to usko todna achcha
Woh afsana jise anjaam tak lana na ho mumkin
Use ek khubsoorat mod de kar chhodna achcha
Sahir advises to end a relationship, which is difficult to continue, on a happy note. I think young India, like Sahir, also knows too well that an agreed break-up or a divorce is always better than continuing a relationship only in name. Mamta, Sonia, and Karunanidhi also know this, as neither of them took to streets to protest the recent break-up of their intra-UPA ties. But the strongman's party doesn't seem to be as 'sturdy' as he himself is projected to be. So, unable to bear the 'pain of separation' after a 17-year-long relationship with JD(U), BJP cadres descended on Bihar streets in protest. What a tumultuous protest it was! Violent clashes between the erstwhile partners in Bihar government, and disruption of rail and road traffic by the strongman's supporters say it all.
I sympathize with BJP for its irritation over JD (U) trying to dictate who should be its face in the 2014 polls. However, this irritation brings me to the second tale concerning a head-shaving threat. Incidentally, this threat too was related to the choice of a party's leader. Actually, after NDA's defeat in the 2004 polls, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, who is now leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, had threatened to tonsure her head, don a white saree, eat only grams and sleep on the floor to protest against the 'foreign rule' if Sonia Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India.
I don’t know how much ‘foreign rule’ Sonia has encouraged in India in UPA’s nine-year rule so far. However, Sushma’s head-shaving threat made a mockery of the essential processes of democracy, adherence with which by all political parties is a must for survival of the world’s largest democracy, that is, India. Now, let’s observe the contrasts which are too obvious in BJP’s projection of the ‘strongman’ as their leader now, and the proposed selection of Sonia to head UPA government back in 2004.
First, the UPA after securing people's mandate in the 2004 polls was about to select Sonia as its leader. (In contrast, the 'strongman' has yet to secure people's mandate outside Gujarat and beyond the virtual world of Internet.) Second, the partners of the poll-winning UPA coalition had no objection to whosoever was elected as the leader by the Congress . (In contrast, the Gujarat 'strongman' is yet to emerge as a consensus leader of the BJP-led NDA.) Third, going against democratic traditions, a very senior politician of the defeated NDA, which was to sit in opposition, tried and succeeded in preventing Sonia, who was the obvious choice for PM's post, from heading the government. (In contrast, the 'strongman' faces no roadblocks in presenting himself as the PM candidate from the rival UPA coalition.)
Now, see another glaring contrast. First, you prevent Sonia from becoming PM and thus not making her directly accountable to the Lok Sabha for all actions of the UPA government. Then, you use every political and public platform to drill a perception in the minds of people that PM Manmohan is remote-controlled by Sonia as if this learned economist has no mind of his own and is being used simply as a rubber stamp in government functioning. Young India, for a bit of GK on Manmohan Singh’s work as an international economist-scholar*, please read the footnote at the bottom.
I think I have talked too much of hard but real politics. But, I’m sure this talk would enable you young Indians to think impartially, keeping your Hindutva-triggered emotions at bay. Now, to get into good mood, let's have some biryani. Oh, no! The mention of biryani again turns the focus on the ‘strongman’. Not long ago, he seemed to sound a genuine concern for our motherland’s security with these words: “Heads of our soldiers are cut (at the border) but then their (Pakistan's) Prime Minister is fed chicken biryani.” I know, young India, you had become highly agitated with this revelation. But I also have a revelation.
Many of my young compatriots might have heard about our Kargil war with Pakistan that took place during NDA’s rule (1999-2004) under Prime Minister AB Vajpayee. Before going into Kargil war, I, as an impartial observer, must give credit to Prime Minister Vajpayee for visiting Pakistan in February 1999 and signing the historic Lahore Declaration with the then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The Lahore Declaration was a bilateral agreement which signalled a major breakthrough in establishing friendly relations between India and Pakistan.
However, the gains of the Lahore Declaration were nullified when we failed to detect the infiltration by Pakistani soldiers in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir. To drive out the Pakistani soldiers from the Indian territory, we fought with them the Kargil war in May–July 1999. We lost 527 soldiers and officers in the war, and 1336 army men were injured. Few months after the Kargil war, Gen Musharraf deposed the Nawaz Sharif government and himself became Pakistan President.
Ironically, this very Gen Musharraf, the architect of Kargil war, and who had also spent a night in the Indian J&K while his soldiers were building posts in Kargil, was invited and feted by the Vajpayee-led NDA government at the Agra summit in July 2001. However, the Agra summit failed to be yet another breakthrough, which the NDA government sincerely hoped it to be, in the Indo-Pak relations.
So, when you cross the floor in the Lok Sabha from the opposition benches to the treasury benches, you have no hesitation in spreading the red carpet for the Kargil architect because you think it is good for the country. Maybe, any other government would have also done the same thing. But then why this biryani song to invoke sectarian feelings among young Indians? Isn't it the responsibility of the leaders who aspire to be PM to mould the opinion of young India in a manner that is conducive for their constructive contribution in nation-building? Stoking emotions and sectarian feelings may bring a leader short-term gains but it divides the masses on religious and sectarian lines. A divided nation, just like ancient India that was mired in discriminatory varna vyavashta, is prone to all sorts of dangerous foreign interference.
As the UPA-2 government is shouldering the overwhelming burden of coming clean on serious scam allegations, it is for the BJP to come out with a blueprint on how it wants to rid the country of the scourge of corruption. It must tell the people about the changes that it wants to incorporate in the pending Lokpal Bill to add more teeth to it. Modi must also tell whether in Gujarat government offices and institutions the real Ramrajya has been established, and nobody asks for chai-pani, and every single paisa of sanctioned government funds is spent on people's welfare.
Just to inform young India, last April, the Modi government had passed the Gujarat Lokayukta Aayog Bill, 2013. Experts say the bill has many controversial provisions, which would threaten the Lokayukta as an institution. For example, a provision empowers the government to choose its own Lokayukta to inquire against the chief minister and his cabinet. This provision violates the basic principle of natural justice, that no man can choose a judge in his own case.
*Dr Manmohan Singh performed excellently as a student. After studying in India, he obtained his doctorate in economics from Oxford. He had worked for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and held various key posts in the Government of India. He was handpicked by the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to be his finance minister in 1991, though he had no political background. As finance minister, he carried out several structural reforms that liberalized India’s economy, thus averting a serious economic crisis for India. Dr Singh had also held the following important posts in Government of India — Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India; Governor, Reserve Bank of India; Chairman, UPSC; and Chairman, UGC. Between 1987 and 1990, he was Secretary General of the South Commission, an independent economic policy think tank headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
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