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Hero worship by zeros: A great drama was played around Smt. Sonia Maino Gandhi in Delhi on May 18, 2004, when she refused to become the Prime Minister on the dictates of her ‘inner voice?. (She must have thought that people would have forgotten that she had met with the President of India in 1999 after the fall of the NDA government, claiming that she had the support of 272 Members of Parliament and therefore she should be called upon to be the Prime Minister). Now, the Congress MP after MP sang paeans to her qualities of leadership, personality, wisdom, courage and charisma. Sonia Maino Gandhi seems to Congressmen greater than Julius Caesar was to Romans, and to some, even greater than Mahatma Gandhi to Indians. And all this even as she does not know any Indian language, did not reportedly have any college education and degree and did not care to take Indian citizenship for 15 years after marriage. Congressmen claiming the heritage of Mahatma Gandhi submitting themselves to a foreign born person is stunning. Only zeros can do this.
—T. Mani Chowdary, Secunderabad
Managerial failure: Kudos to you for your sharp analysis of the defeat of NDA. The write up BJP'srevival mantra—back to basics by Shyam Khosla (Organiser, 6-6-2004) is an excellent one. We remember Swami Vivekananda said: “True greatness consists not in rising but on rising in every time we fall.” Now the BJP has to infuse this message into the minds of its cadre.
—E.S. Jagadeeshwar, Nellore
The reasons for the BJP led NDA government'sdefeat was that it went to the people on the basis of performance—good roads, cheap phones, piling dollars, shining growth, etc. High growth, shining image and reforms devoid of human face failed to connect with the voters starved of basic minimum needs and governance. Defeat marks the collapse of the political superstructure, very well polished by its new age managers. Extensive propaganda about managers? belief in managerial infallibility and gross miscalculation of assessing anti incumbency as a pro incumbency wave resulted in utter failure.
—Jalaj Goantiya, Jabalpur
The debacle of NDA in general and BJP in particular calls for serious introspection. Finding faults elsewhere is going to aggravate the malady. It is imperative on BJP'spart to return to the basics and then analyse where it went wrong. All limits were surpassed in an effort to woo Muslim voters in this election. Shri Vajpayee'sassurance that two lakh Urdu teachers would be appointed bears testimony to this. BJP fell prey to the communal and parochial mindset and has been instrumental in alienating the traditional voters from BJP and also at the same time Muslims were not impressed by the cheap gimmick.
—Dr. S.S. Prasad
Shyam Khosla was honest in saying: “Perhaps the people were angry with the BJP because it made a crude, corrupt and casteist woman as Chief Minister (of UP), not once but twice.” As the days of the BSP government passed by, more and more ground was lost by BJP. Applying POTA on Raja Bhaiya was a big cause of BJP'srout. State BJP chief, Vinay Katiyar had threatened to withdraw support to BSP if POTA was not removed on him. But the Central leaders immediately shut him up, not to talk of withdrawing support to the crude, parochial and casteist government. The state leaders were humiliated by BSP chief and Ram Mandir issue was abandoned.
—Manmath Deshpande
I am writing this letter because of my pain at BJP'sdefeat. I am feeling as if we Indians have again come under the foreign rule. That'sbecause our aspirations obviously revolve around the success of the Sangh and the related nationalist forces who pursue the national agenda. The repeated disastrous failure to fulfil this urge of the people only points to the fact that we have no Chanakya with us to tackle the evil design of these anti nationals. The six year tenure was a sufficient stint to face the brute anti national secularist communist nexus with similar Chanakya policy. Unless the true face of this nexus is exposed, the country will continue to suffer.
—Dr. Tapobrata Lahiri
For the BJP'sdefeat in Election 2004, Shri Vajpayee should take the moral or strategic responsibility. He called for early elections costing the taxpayers crores of rupees. In the US, the CEO of a company gets the first axe for a corporate loss in public relation. The coaches of professional sports making millions of dollars are fired in the middle of a season if a team starts sliding down. The problem with the BJP is dual. The leadership studies tell that if a leader owns up the responsibility, then it quickly percolates to every level. On the other hand, when the underlings find their leaders dodging the bullets, they too shrug and demur accountability.
—S. Chandra
International human resources management specialised in religious conversions clandestinely helped ‘secularists? and the mantra of hung parliament was started chanting much before the completion of the electoral process by the over enthusiastic ‘secular? media and thus succeeded in bringing Congress near to 150 seats. Economic reforms took BJP nowhere. Pre 1996 BJP ‘teamwork?—first consolidate yourself and talk—is the guide and answer to banish this bogus and sham secular government.
—L.A. Pramod, Hyderabad
Remembering Guruji: The article on ‘Shri Guruji? by Daya G. (Organiser, 6-6-2004) was very inspiring. Shri Guruji, a selfless leader without seeking any limelight, is a true representative of our Indian culture to “carry on with your work without any expectation in return”.
—Shalil Ghosh, Mumbai
Dynasties in politics: This refers to the article Dynasty in democracy: Malady and remedy by Prof. Raj Kumar Bhatia (Organiser, 6-6-2004). It is true that dynasties are not in consonance with the democratic system of governance, and, as such it was rightly commented in the article that “several political parties becoming the sole proprietorship firms of certain political satraps is a matter of serious concern.” Nevertheless, the fact remains that such persons, by virtue of money, family background, etc., have better chances to be elected and to become ministers. This is proved by the fact that most of the young persons elected to the Lok Sabha belong to political families.
—Dr. Vidya Sagar, Delhi
Distorting history: It is unfortunate that Indian political rulers misuse their powers to write history according to their own ideologies (Congress textbook of error, Organiser, 13-6-2994). On the pretext of ‘saffronisation? of history in NDA regime, Delhi government'sorder to replace NCERT books with that of SCERT, which are full of errors, will infuse a sense of hatred in the minds of the coming generation towards their ancestors.
—Subhash Agrawal
—Deepak Kumar Vidhyarthi
CBS photos of US torture on Iraqi prisoners have only one thing exclusive that only independent US media under a perfect democracy can be so bold to reveal bitter truth about cruelty of its own nation. However, it smells foul that US administration under a planned strategy might have dramatised the whole affair to terrorise other nations refusing to dance to the tunes of the world'sonly superpower. Otherwise, there was no sense to specifically photographing such tortures, which may not be uncommon in other global countries even on their own prisoners! These photos remind one of torturous killings of Indian army officer held alive by Pakistani soldiers by piece cutting of a live human. We also cannot forget carrying of killed BSF persons of India like animals by Bangladeshi forces.
—Madhu Agrawal
Explode colonial myths: Recently, in releasing a book on the scientific dating of the Mahabharata, a multidisciplinary group of scholars have taken a step towards building a new foundation for the study of ancient India, a study based on combining primary sources and a scientific approach. This has been lacking for most of the last century and more, ever since Western scholars began to take interest in India and her historical tradition. With rare exceptions, Indian historians after Independence did not seriously challenge the colonial impositions, and failed to build independent schools of thought based on the primary sources. Even today, history books take little notice of important discoveries like the Sarasvati river and the Vedic Harappan connection. It is only in the last decade or so that serious alternatives to these outdated versions of history are being presented.
—N.S. Rajaram
Essential element: The rootless English only understanding ‘secular? and communist apologists have to be told very clearly that intense and sincere feeling of belonging to India as an essential part of one'score identity is what is expected from every Indian. No compromises on this. No clever Western and Islamic theories to subvert and dilute this fundamental expectation. One cannot deny India'scivilisational roots and identity and still claim to be an Indian. India loves those who love to belong to her. It is not a political contract as made out by the West-aping English media, Islamic fudamentalists and the hollow secularists. This must be clear to all Indians as well as the rest of the world.
—P.N. Seshadri
Crucial point: Citizen Law of Italy stipulates: “The citizen who possesses, acquires or regains a foreign citizenship shall keep the Italian one.” At present, Smt. Sonia Gandhi might have renounced her citizenship of Italy, but under Citizen Law of Italy she can regain the same at any time without any bar or restriction. No authority can refuse it. Therefore, it must not be forgotten that even if she might have taken Indian citizenship, she is by birth an Italian. This is a very technical and crucial point, and cannot be settled under sentiments or influence.
—Milap Choraria
POTA politics: The Common Minimum Programme of the new Central Government of the UPA includes abolishing of POTA. The present government should have noted that many police officers, who have to deal with terrorists, had recommended a law like POTA. The ‘secular? leaders must note that terrorists have no religion and therefore to say that POTA was used against a particular religion has no basis.
—Keshav Acharya
Electoral shock in Kerala: Can Sonia claim that the Verdict 2004 is in favour of Congress party or against NDA? No, she cannot say it in Kerala at least. She went to Kerala for the election campaign. She appealed to the people to defeat NDA and repeated the same rhetoric wherever she addressed the people. But she very consciously kept mum against the Left parties, though they are the main opposition parties in the state. But the people of Kerala elected an NDA candidate first time in the history of the state and pressed the EVM button against all the Congress candidates in the state.
—Kavalam Sasikumar
Address please!: We want to know the details of ‘Sowa Rigpa? ayurveda of Himalaya and Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association. Therefore, we want the full address of Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association, so that we can write to them and get the details.
—N. Ramachandran Pillai, Kollam
(The address is Ven. Lama Chosphel Zotpa, Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association, B-4, Bela Road, Delhi-54.)
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