India Votes - and How!

concerned1 #323
```ugly nationalism` = threat of violence?

maybe you are doing a beena sarwar on yourself. ``

Why donot you read the article? Tavleen Singh herself says:

``More dangerous still are the murmurings that you already hear from Hindutva nationalists. On the day of the election results, I happened to travel on a flight with a leading light of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. When I asked how he reacted to India having an Italian prime minister he spat out the word democracy as if it was poison. ‘‘This is what comes when you give illiterate, desperately poor people the vote.’’ And, from Pravin Togadia we already hear that it is because the BJP moved away from its Hindu nationalism that it was defeated.

Those who think having Sonia as prime minister is insurance against the sort of ugly nationalism that men like Togadia represent need to think again. When the backlash begins, and it will not take long, you will see violent nationalism of a kind we have never seen before.``

I must say this was a unique experience for me to read and understand the anguish and despair shown by the Indian community over Sonia Gandhi’s becoming the PM. She had the legal, democratic or perhaps the moral right to be the PM. She won the elections fairly and with ALL parties in her alliance supporting her to be PM, she could have ignored the opposition and could have just taken over the PM house.

But she took cognizant of the people, especially people who probably did not vote for her or her party but still represented the a growing middle-class, educated and probably future leaders of India and decided to move aside. That was one admirable act and by stepping aside, she had probably won many followers. She also demonstrated that even though a electoral minority was not in her favor but that minority still represents India and cannot be ignored just because of results of an election alone.

Democracy is not for majority alone.

As one commentator pointed out she kept herself and her party in the news for full 5-6 days and exposed some of the worst elements in Indian politics, who were trying to make it an ugly incident. She has ably exposed them and showed the Indians that she understands Indian national aspirations and would not act against them. Kudos for her.

National aspirations of a people are much more important than the citizenship certificate. If the Indian educated and emerging business class feels that their national aspiration take precedence over a citizenship certificate then be it.

I admire my Indian friends on this board and everywhere else, who raised a legitimate concern and admire them even more for having leaders that listen to their concerns.

tahmed
Just for your general information. During the previous regime, the Congress would walk out/ boycott proceedings of Parliament every time Defence Minister George Fernandes got up to address the House. On the lone occasion when a few Congress MPs did not walk out when the Defence Minister rose to answer their question on MIG crashes, the Congress disciplined those MPs.

From a news report:
``The boycott is executed on two fronts:

Opposition members put up questions in Parliament regarding the defence ministry, but walk out of the House the moment Fernandes gets up to answer them.

Secondly, they have not been attending meetings of the Consultative Committee of the Defence Ministry, chaired by Fernandes. ``


The boycott began in October 2001 when G. Fernandes resumed office, after previously resigning due to the Tehelka. The Congress demanded that G. Fernandes should remain out of office until the investigation ended, and boycotted him till the end.

rsridhar

You made your point. Laloo is a great leader. Bihar is a progressive state and ranks the same as Tamil nadu as far economy/development is concerned. Commies can rule India and poor will be well-served by them

Did I miss any other gem?

sadna,

`ugly nationalism` = threat of violence?

maybe you are doing a beena sarwar on yourself.

not only the threat but the actual manifestation of violence came not from the `rapists/murderers of vhp` but from the `secular` congress workers last night when they tried to attack the bjp hq.

the rss had issued a statement that they would employ all peaceful and constitutional means to oppose sonia being pm.

:-( sonia not to be PM after all! I don`t get it--she won fair and square right? I suppose she would have had to take so much crap from the opposition about her firangi origins that she would have been stressed all the time...shes prob. waiting to groom rahul from the sides...still i got a soft spot for the nehru-gandhi dynasty and am a bit gutted!

re:#303 by harimau
``Quoting the examples of Annie Besant, Alan Octavian Hume and Mother Teresa is again a non-sequitur. None of them wanted to RULE India.``
Neither does Sonia Gandhi.
Read the news lately?
That is not the point. Sonia Gandhi is the leader of the party that won the election and is eligible to be the PM if she wants to. Losers like the BJP are just crying foul. I have lost all my respect for these losers. Now Sushma Swaraj says she will tonsure her head and become a sanyasin if Sonia becomes a PM. Why does Sushma Swaraj make it simpler and just commit suicide.
Sridhar

re:#309 by gujjubania
In reply to one of my previous posts several months ago, you had bosted that if u revealed how much your father earned, the Income Tax people would raid your house. One can come to only one conclusion. Which is: Your dad, who is an IAS officer, does not bother to pay his taxes and has undeclared income. Now, be a good kid, go back to your dad and ask him how much he really earns (over and above the salary that GOI pays) and if he pays any taxes.
When you have changed yourself and your surroundings, you can cast aspersions on the other people including Biharis.
There is nothing more irritating than the smug arrogance that low-bred idiots like you display at times. Prove to me that you are better than an average Bihari by answering my above questions.
Sridhar

re:#302 by harimau
Well, well, well.
So, people like Harimau are pissed off that a Tam Brahm lady did not win in TN. From what i hear about this lady, her big ego is matched only by her huge body size. She was so arrogant that she did not even field good candidates as she felt that this was not necessary as votes were being cast in her name anyway! My parents did not cast their votes this time. They are disgusted with this ``lady with bloated egos`` and they certainly did not want to vote for DMK.
Bihar has communal harmony. Minorities vote for Lalloo Yadav. I am no fan of this joker and i am aware of Bihar`s problems but there is a reason why this man stands unchallenged in Bihar. He stood like a rock against BJP`s fundamentalism and did not allow Advani`s Rath to pass thr` Bihar in the early 90s. There have been no hindu-muslim riots during his leadership as far as i can remember. Yes, Bihar is backward but so are majority of the states in India. Sitting in USA, i find it hard to believe that Bihar is that much worse off than Tamil Nadu. Everytime i visit Madras, i feel like running away.

And, is Tamil Nadu CM less corrupt than Lalloo Yadav?
I once met an Israeli Jewish couple who had come from Israel to admit their 17 year old son to a Joint Disease Hospital in Manhattan, New York where i was rotating as a resident. During a conversation with the father of the patient, i came to know that he had business interests in India, particularly Madras. He called ``Jeya`` a very corrupt lady and categorically stated that she took a a flat 10% of investment money from every business entrepreuneur who set up business in TN as bribe. This was from the most unlikely source! Recently, my brother told me that a big contract for desalination plant in TN (from the Russians it seems) did not pass through as the latter was not in favor of paying any kickbacks.
Let us face it. Tamil Nadu rivals Bihar in corruption. Yes, i still call it a home because my parents live there.
Sridhar

AlephNull #295
``In exchange for all the acrimony, we are going to get as India’s Prime Minister someone who can still only read prepared statements, cannot handle a free-flowing interview or press-conference, has to defer to ‘subordinates’ to answer the most elementary questions, has given little sign in eight years in public life that she has any vision for India or any grasp of the issues facing India. It is not as though people have not been asking questions either. It is normally expected of the leader of the parliamentary opposition that he or she would be forthcoming with opinions on all major issues as they develop. That has not been the case with Sonia and it is something for which she herself must be faulted quite as much as all those journalists who’ve let her get away with it so far. ``


Well, I wasn`t dismissing it - but think that the threat of violence is unwarranted. I have had exactly the same misgivings about her. However, the situation is different now.She has after all fought and won a general election fair and square - not an easy or simple thing to do, as BJP understands.

All what you mention is very bothersome as is the prospect of her origins coming into every issue, but simply citing `ugly nationalism` is not the way to handle that, IMO. If the case is so strong, the arguments need to be better.

concerned1 #293
It is indeed condemnable and another issue on which S Gandhi`s opinion ought to have been on record.

#298 by nb
``think the poor in India don`t mind if they remain poor as long as no one else progresses, but in the last few years, they have seen the middle classes doing better, and they can`t take that. Hum to doobenge sanam, tujhko bhi saath le doobenge....``

Surely, you are not suggesting that the poor people are revelling in their poverty and want to remain poor!
I do not buy that argument.
I have served in rural areas during my medical training in India and i have not known any poor who wanted to remain poor.
I have seen poverty in India as a vicious cycle from which poor are unable to come out. They have no control over it. If u think just working hard can fix things, imagine a peasant or a daily wager in Bihar or Orissa working his butt off but earning less than 50 cents a day.
Middle Class IT savvy people suddenly find their IT education as having a global demand and their talents being appreciated and paid for by various MNCs. So, they have better control over their lives now. They know that if they get educated or IT savvy, somebody will hire them and they will even make decent incomes.
Not so with the poor. India`s failure has been its inabilty to give a compulsory free primary education to every poor so he/she can study further and change his /her life the way middle class people are changing their lives. It is all about loss of control. Poor people simply do not have the skills or the means to change their lives even if they want to.
Since much of rural poverty is related to agriculture, it is high time a huge investment is made in agriculture by the businessmen and entrepreuners. This may change the rural face of India more than anything else. This would mean less migration to cities, decongestion of cities like Bombay, Delhi.
Just like Gandhiji said more than 50 years ago: India lives in its villages and that is where work needs to be done. It should be development from below upwards. The ``trickle down`` theory has failed. It is back to the basics guys.
Sridhar

sdana
//... I get it. ...//

I am NOT sure if you do.

Wow!!!

The fact that this lady has refused the PM post has floored me. My respect for her has gone through the roof. Yes, I too believe that by this action, she has demonstrated beyond any doubt that she puts the interests of her adopted country ahead of her personal ambitions. For this gesture from her, I am deeply grateful.

More on this after I have some time to reflect...

Sonia declines to become PM

rediff.com Newsdesk | May 18, 2004 19:08 IST
Last Updated: May 18, 2004 19:35 IST


Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday evening declined to take up the prime minister`s post.

Addressing the Congress Parliamentary Party at the Central Hall of Parliament, she said throughout the past six years that she has been in politics, one thing that has been clear to her is that the post of prime minister ``is not important for me``.

She said whenever she found herself in a position like this, she always followed her ``inner voice. That voice tells me I must decline``.

``I request you to accept my decision and recognise that I will not reconsider my decision,`` she told the Congress` newly elected MPs.

``My aim has always been to defend secularism. We have taken significant steps towards this goal,`` she said.

``We have won a successful battle but the war is yet to be won.``

She said her foremost responsibility was to give the country a secular government that was strong and stable.

``As one of you and the president of Congress, I pledge to work with you for the Congress party towards our vision and principles.``

The Congress MPs repeatedly surrounded her to persuade her to reverse the decision. They shouted that she should not bow to any pressure, to which Gandhi said that ``there is no blackmail from any party. This is my inner voice and conscience``.

sonia not taking pm seat is ridiculous. a pm wields clout because he/she got the party the majority they have one his coat-tails or pallu. manmohan will be unable to keep conflicitng interests under control. remember how many times vajpayee threatened/feigned resignation? so congress inability to grow a leader organically is a fundamental flaw in their claim to power, and that is the contradiction we face and pay for.

nasah, are you serious in enjoying sonia as pm and laloo-prasad as mantriji? i can understand not enjoying modi, but actually enjoying laloo as our leader?

#270 by rsridhar

`` The first thing is to be a humane society that respects law, pays taxes, and respects other`s life and property. Let Indians get there first. I think Bihar is slowly moving in that direction. ``

Against idiots, even gods stuggle in Vain. ( as somebody on this board already said ).

I will be thrilled if she doesn`t actually become PM, but I also see people weeping and wailing and begging her to become PM (Harimau, supporters of the DMK, perhaps?). Already, I hear of people threatening suicide if she doesn`t accept it. And then, she graciously steps in and saves the Party and the country. Rahul must be wishing he was a year older....Still, I really can`t object to anyone else!
Richard Holkar, the only son of the last Maharaja of Indore remembers that Nehru and Sardar Patel would not let his father leave the kingdom to him, his only son, because he had an American mother. Both said that made his loyalties suspect!
Even when Primary Health Centres are fully staffed, there`s nothing to do there. It`s like, yes, you have a bad chest infection, and yes, it does sound like pneumonia, but I don`t have anything to give you for it. Yes, that`s a bad cut, but I can`t stitch it up here because there`s no sutures or even gloves here-do you mind paying Rs 100 for transport and travelling for 2 hours, then waiting for another 3? When the Congress couldn`t do anything about that in 50 years, is it fair to expect the BJP to fix it in 6?
The poor are welcome at my metaphorical table any day, Faruk. How does voting for the Congress now get them anything they haven`t got since independence? This is envy. I do think the middle classes` conspicious consumption hasn`t exactly endeared them to the poor either-it`s like dikha-dikha kar khana, which is why we have the concept of nazar in poor countries. nasah, you can call it rubbish, but it works everywhere-you think you are free of envy? What are our people, saints?Just because people are poor, they have higher morals than everybody else? Ask yourself, if a government did everything for a neighbouring state, and nothing for yours, and the neighbours showed off what they had-even if you were no worse off, would you not object? You really are a saint!
Bihar pays no taxes, respects no lives or property, unless you`re a Yadav and understands only the law of the jungle. Why not ask the Bihar state branch of the Indian Medical Association- doctors are kidnapped fairly frequently. I heard of someone who had actually treated Laloo, Laloo heard out his family and said, you can afford it, just pay them!! We live for such grateful patients.In the recent counselling for All India Pre PG seats, all the Bihar seats weren`t taken-people prefer to keep taking exams in an increasingly competitive environment-more seats reserved every year- than go to Bihar. And to think Patna Medical College was such a great institution-only the 2nd medical college in India. Oh well, at least it`s had the honour of educating Laloo`s 2 older daughters now-don`t you know, they`re both gold medallists?