-Dr (Mrs) Hilda Raja-
“Give us back our old India of Gandhiji”. This is the plea Rajya Sabha leader of the opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad made in the Parliament. It is amusing to listen to this plea because it is a plea to put the clock back. It displays a backward mentality. The world has moved on. Progress and development will bring with it other concomitants which may be harsh but cannot be avoided.
Along with this plea for the old India, one cannot but dissect that everything was not fine and good in the old India. Poverty numbers did not suddenly appear in the last three years. The whole country was in the past steeped in poverty, in communalism, in looting. A kind of systematic way of life and of political insulation to the poverty of the people was injected in that old India which Azad now so fervently appeals for. No accountability, raining of scams, looting of the natural resources, grabbing land and keeping the people deprived.
This is the picture of old India and this is what Azad seeks. The basic problem is the likes of Azad and the party to which he belongs, can never function in a true democracy. It is a dynasty regime they are accustomed to. Hence sitting in the Opposition is not in the DNA of the Congress. A party which does not believe in democracy is not fit to govern and term it democracy.
Yes, the old India, which Azad and his likes, long for have the fundamental characteristics-raining of scams, extra-constitutional power for the Centre, a PM who was only a puppet in a regime of looting and easy living and a government which was non-functioning. Azad cannot use the forum of the Rajya Sabha to paint a picture of the charming old world, ‘when Hindus and Muslims gave blood for each other, babies did not get raped’.
You Reap What You Sow
What the Congress had sown then, we reap now. The seeds of distrust, the communalism and polarisation were all injected into the polity by the Congress. Will Azad place the record of the riots that shook the country during the 55 years of the Congress regime? Will he reel out the poverty figures and convince us of the efforts the Congress government undertook to eradicate poverty.
Terrorism was abetted right from the days of the Congress. The soft policy towards Pakistan is treason and Azad cannot make the nation believe that the Congress has the sovereignty of the nation as its priority.
A one family rule—a one family became the country’s focus. Except for the garbage pits and the toilets every government structure was named after one family. What did it show—a culture of sycophancy and a crass anti-people attitude? The Congress will never learn or understand that a positive Opposition is needed for democracy to function. It is equally the duty of the Opposition to see that the government functions and the Parliament work. The Parliament has to function if the government has to function. It cannot hinder and block the Parliament to suit its whims and fancies just to spite the ruling government. This is anti-democratic and anti-people stand.
Today it is easy for the Congress and its leaders to highlight the distress of the farmers and the unemployed. Can the Congress produce its scorecard on these two fronts? The fact remains that the Congress PMs hardly worked-they took life leisurely starting from Nehru.
Poor Prime Ministers
Manmohan Singh had clearly stated that he was out of the loop and on another occasion admitted that he had not applied his mind. Then what is the role of a PM? The less said of Rajiv Gandhi the better. He used all his gimmicks to topple three governments led by Chandra Shekhar, Dev Gowda’s and IK Gujral. It was simply a play for the Congress. One can notice that the Congress has scant respect for Parliament—so it went on blocking Parliament-went on shouting down the government and even formed the ‘shouting brigade’ to shout and drown the voices of the ruling party.
This party and its leaders have not even an iota of understanding of what democracy is all about. If one were to look into Indira Gandhi’s regime the very fact that she imposed Emergency should be a just case to ban the Congress party. Today Azad talks of freedom of speech, freedom to socialise, freedom to do business. Where did all the freedom go during the Congress regime?
Freedom to do business means getting the Italian Quattrocchi to loot the poor of this country. One can go on pinpointing the immense injustice wrought on the nation by the Congress and it is this which Azad wants to bring back?
AS J&K CM
Ghulam Nabi Azad makes a fervent plea for freedom—he was the CM of J&K-why are the Indian citizens restricted from living and doing business in J&K? When he refers to Hindus and Muslims giving blood for each other he forgets or rather wants us to forget the ethnic cleansing undertaken in Kashmir. So why is freedom restricted on the basis of religion? Why is the Congress not accountable for the thousands of Hindus pundits tortured and massacred—why did the ‘old India’ allow the genocide of the Sikhs?
Azad has misused the floor of the Rajya Sabha to paint a rosy picture of old India but that old India brings bloodshed, acute poverty, denial of freedom and an oppression that is covered with the sheen of a dynasty. It was this and more that we Indians saw and tolerated patiently and prayed for the New World.
At last, it has come in the form of Modi and his government. And now we realise that every Indian will be protected, our resources will be guarded, corruption will be uprooted and those who sinned against the poor will not be allowed to get away.
But the Congress is back to its style of working. A whole gang of sycophants is at the work-every positive step of the Union government is being hindered and blocked. The Congress which puts itself above the country does not mind if people continue to suffer. One, it wants to get away with its scams, two, it wants to continue to loot and three, it wants its coterie to be placed in pivot positions so that the dynasty can be safeguarded.
It was the need of the day that Modi put the record straight in Parliament and said all that he had said. For one thing, it was the Opposition which asked for it. Azad wanted the old India of Gandhi. So should we not recollect what that old India was? Should we not realise that Gandhiji himself wanted the Congress party to be disbanded?
Modi did well in using the floor of Parliament to revisit that old India. His critics may criticise him but then truth cannot be buried for long. History must record what an ordinary “chaiwala’s” perception of the old India was and is because it will be the true perspective of the millions of India who are at the bottom of the pyramid. Critics forget that the present of any political party cannot be disassociated with the party’s past.
(The writer is a Vadodara-based columnist)
