Feeling Good

rsridhar #125 I think it must be a bitter pill for BJP to swallow - this end of the free credits it was getting for economic reforms whose architect is generally recognized as being none other than Manmohan Singh. It does seem that BJP will become more right wing now that they are out of power, and perhaps more marginalized as well as more and more people take a dispassionate look at the BJP`s actual role in the generating economic growth, in defense vis a vis Pakistan (where I think their policies were self-defeating, although you and I differ on this point it seems), and perhaps most importantly in the role they played in creating divisions within Indian society (not just the rich-poor divisions that cost them the election, but also hindu-muslim divisions as well). And I think over time their reaction to Sonia Gandhi`s nomination through due electoral process will speak volumes about the kind of loser mindset.

On India-Pakistan relations, it is critical to see how Musharaff and co react to the change in government and how much support BJP continues to provide to the process now that it is out of power and will no longer be able to pick up credit on this point as well as it tried to do in the last elections. Let us hope all concerned behave responsibly, realizing that their first duty is towards the millions of poor in Pakistan and in India and are all too often invisible to the elite in both countries.

People are failing to realise the true nature of the election verdict. Many Pseudo-secularists have called it as a mandate for secular, non-communal India. So why did the ``secular`` parties lose in Karnataka, Orissa, Rajastan, M.P. Chattisgarh, Uttaranchal, Punjab. And captured only half the seats in Gujarat, Maharashtra. Infact in some states like U.P., Bihar, Kerala and West Bengal these secualr parites were fighting each other !! And now they are in the same coalition. But if you look at it deeply, it is nothing but basic politics of alliances and caste/creed/religion factors.
The other day I read an article about how Prithviraj Chauhan (Congress leader for Congress in the state of Gujarat) had painstakingly worked out the caste factors of each candidate for each constituency. It worked for his party!! People throughout Bihar and U.P. vote along caste lines. Whereas you will need the Jat based support in Haryana.
I do agree with rsirdhar that BJP looked as a party of the rich, espically after propagating ``India Shinning`` where in reality it wasn`t. It has been accused of doing to little for the masses, India`s poor. But my understanding is, it was not as if the country was doing good during the pre-NDA rule. And only during this rule the indian masses have become poor. This problem of water shortage, high prices/unavailability of food, power interruption or unavailibility of it etc will take more than 5 years of dedicated work. Even when the Central godowns were full with grains, people could not afford two square meals a day. The central gov. wanted the states to pick the foodgrains. But the states didn`t even have enough revenues for transportation. These problems ask for a major overhaul of the development policies. Major infrastructure development is needed. But from where this kind of money the gov. is going to bring. And ofcourse corruption and inefficiency will make it impossible for the development to trickle down to the masses. These new folks are saying that they will give free power. But is there enough of power to begin with. A few years back, India was asking Pakistan to sell the excess of electricity they were producing. It was quite amazing that corruption is not a election issue. Hence we have so many corruption tainted politicians and their respective parties making it to the parliament. It is sad that these law breakers are going to be the law makers.
I think BJP/NDA has been shocked of the defeat because they never expected it. Nor did the Opposition expect to come to power. There had been no major issues/scandals that recently rocked the government and hence the overconfidence and ``India Shinning`` slogans. It became a victim of its own propoganda,also where are the issues that it was harping way back in the 90`s about article 370, Uniform code. Incontrast to what people are saying that it was a defeat of communal forces, I think it was a defeat of secualr BJP. Maybe after BJP put those issues in the backburner, its hardcore supporter didn`t see much difference between it and the Congress. Its ridiculus that when these people fought on the plank of ``Mandir wahi banega`` they swept the polls in North India, and when they are talking about development and peace they don`t have many takers.
The Congress has raised a lot of expectations. Won`t be able to fulfill and will lose the next time. This flip-flop will continue to take place. The educated/entreprising/corrupt people will keep getting rich, whereas the poor will always remain poor thinking one day a politician will come and gift them money and land.
With regard to Uma Bharati resigning from her post. Some one should remind her that it was her promise of BSP that brought BJP to power in M.P. And it would be good for her and her party that she works on that rather than waste tax-payers money on some kind of drama.
With regard to tahmed32`s going gaga about Gujrals peace initiative, it never took off. When the much publisiced ABV`s visit to Lahore to meet Sharif was underminded by Kargil what can you say about Gujrals effort. He didn`t even have any support base in India. And his government didn`t even last long. So I will definitely give ABV the credit for pursuing peace with Pakistan not once, but three times. (But citing this to get votes from Indian Muslims was in bad taste)
Jai Hind

re: #129 by tahmed32
I think BJP will find it hard to oppose Congress on Kashmir issue after making so much investmet in this in the last year or so. As someone suggested in the Chowk, if Manmohan Singh had some imagination, he can make ABV in charge of Kashmir affairs. This is not unusual and has been done in the past. ABV has personal interest in bringing this affair to a satisfactory conclusion. Mushy trusts ABV. Any new player at this stage would hamper progress.
Sridhar

re:#128 by mohar11
To repeat what i said in my previous post: India can`t become prosperous without bringing in the necessary reforms in the Agricultural sector.
Take Chandrababu Naidu for instance. He did nothing wrong basically. He set his eyes on making Hyderabad a techno city and largely succeeded. Then why did he lose this election?

While he was busy hobnobbing with Bill Gates and other IT gurus, farmers in AP were committing suicide due to poor harvest. Is having a Crop Insurance in place such a bad idea then? Why did Naidu not think about this? Why was he unable to change the lives of farmers through the new technology that he introduced in Hyderabad? I know. Time was short but he also lacked focus. Any technology that ultimately does not change the lives of poor in India is redundant.
Sridhar

re:#128 by mohar11
China`s development is very skewed in favor of urban areas. The planners have planned for megacities that will slowly result in urbanisation of rural areas. You may get impressed with these megacities but they carefully hide personal tragedies. Most low wage workers in the manufacturing sector get a roof to live under and food to eat but that`s about it. NO real income!
China can`t be India`s role model. There are umpteen number of studies that question China`s GDP growth. Its growth is heavily depended on foreign investment withot any local entrepreunership.
I am talking about rural poverty which abounds in China (it is as poor as India in the rural areas and hinterlands). When i say BJP was pro-rich what i meant was it completely neglected the Agricultural sector which affects the rural poor more than anything else. It seems to believe that India can get prosperous by getting the top MNCs, outsourcing work from India and building all those big complexes in Bangalore, Pune etc. This is nonsense as this earns not even 5% of GDP whereas the agricultural and the non-organized sector accounts for the bulk of India`s GDP.
Do u now get the picture? BJP did not do anything wrong but it lacked focus.
sridhar

Ref mohar11 #128

[125 rsridhar
//....It is true that BJP speeded up reforms that were initiated by Manmohan singh himself...//

If BJP speeded up and excelled at something that was started by Singh himself - then what exactly are you complaining about? None of the stuff was BJP`s original idea - and yet they recognized a good thing when the saw one - and carried it forward with gusto. That`s should be a positive thing - no?]

Manmohan Singh had NO choice back in the 1990s when he decided to liberalize the economy. Rajiv G@ndu had no choice either. If you wanted $5 billion in emergency loan from the World Bank/IMF and your economy didn`t have enough foreign exchange for 2 weeks` worth of imports, you have to dance to the tune of the piper who was paying the bills. So it is not as if Manmohan Singh did anything out of conviction rather than compulsion.

But then, we have the revisionists of history who claim that everything good in India came out of the wonderful economic theories of Bandit Nehru, his family and their coterie.

And we have the RSridhars who swallow whole the crap peddled by Indian newspapers (every single one of them left-wing or Commie) and regurgitate that crap here on Chowk.

#81 by tahmed32 on May 20, 2004 9:05am PT

[Your choice of words (``exposed``) indicates that Pakistan was guilty of doing something illegal or immoral…..]

Dude, I’m afraid you’ve got it wrong. This has nothing to do with right or wrong. It only means that the world came to know for sure of something that it had always suspected and Pakistan had furiously denied.


[Furthermore, there was nothing illegal in what Pakistan was doing - as a soveriegn nation and a non-signatory to the test ban treaty, Pakistan was fully within its legal rights to conduct the 1998 tests. And if it was immoral for Pakistan to conduct nuclear tests, it was no less immoral than for India to conduct the tests.]

Refer to the first 2 sentences of my reply above.


[I hope you will one day be able to apply the same moral standards to the actions of the Indian military in Kashmir that are documented by international agencies..]

Funny how you ignore the grave human rights violations in Iraq (Abu Ghraib is just the beginning) and elsewhere (Afghanistan for example) committed by the armed forces of your adopted country and instead eulogize America’s noble intentions in invading Iraq, yet want to apply moral standards to the Indian Army’s conduct in Kashmir. Isn’t it contradictory? Any dumbhead will accept that the Indian Army has a far better track record in Kashmir than the US can ever hope for in Iraq.


[..the BJP president and senior party members displayed a contempt for the will of the Indian people, a contempt for the Indian constitution through which that will was expressed, and a blatantly racist mindset]

Your vitriol against the BJP is uncalled for. Refusal to accept defeat and resorting to dirty tricks in a bid to retain power would certainly qualify as what you call ‘contempt for the will of the Indian people’. Not attending the swearing-in is merely a symbolic protest against the assumption of office by a foreign-born citizen, to which the BJP is perfectly entitled to. Is that so hard to understand?


[But I dont let my wishes blind me to reality, as I think you are doing.]

On the contrary, I think your hatred for the BJP has blinded you to what is obvious to everyone else.

rsridhar
//....China can`t be India`s role model. ...//

No kidding !!

The average chinese , city-dwller or villager , lives better, eats better, educated better, get better health care. Chinese economy is acutally over-heating - there is just too much growth.

You should read Wall street journal once in a while. Before that - raise your blinds and look around. Only morons in India think China`s growth is NOT for real.

rsridhar #133 I dont think the India-Pakistan peace process was ever driven by personalities as it is by stark realities. And even to the extent personal rapport between leaders is useful, I dont think Musharaff and ABV ever developed anything much beyond what protocol would call for - and certainly nothing of the warmth that Nawaz Sharif and Gujral had developed, or even Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto.

Nevertheless what you say is an intriguing possibility: with ABV continuing to be responsible for leading peace talks with Pakistan, it could help remove roadblocks BJP would put otherwise to the peace process. Also, ABV ahad called for ``trust building measures`` which included the recent cricket tour that was a spectacular success I think, and which include economic links where businessmen are already ahead of the two governments (often through circuitous routs like striking business deals using businessmen in Dubai).

Thus, ABV could play a natural role as ``elder statesman`` in these ``soft`` areas of trust building - areas which I think will prove more substantial than all the ``hard`` talk about Kashmir (where I dont think there is much either government can do other than maintain the status quo).

The recent blowing up of the bus carrying indian soldiers and their families reminds us how serious the situation still remains, though. This murderous act was clearly timed to try and create bad blood between India and Pakistan and to make it harder for the two governments to continue the peace process. One can only pray that God gives boths sides the wisdom and the strength to overcome those who seek to continue this violence. The phone conversation between musharaff and Manmohan singh gives one hope that they may be building up personal understandings that will allow this to happen.

harish #135 I am sorry but you are continuing to argue without any basis. For the record, let me correct you:

1. you write ``Dude, I’m afraid you’ve got it wrong. This has nothing to do with right or wrong. It only means that the world came to know for sure of something that it had always suspected and Pakistan had furiously denied. ``

The world was already well aware of the nuclear project - why else do you think were all those economic sanctions imposed? There was nothing for India to ``expose`` that the world did not already know.

Just as the world was never fooled by similar stupid declarations by the Indian government concerning the ``peaceful`` test the first time it conducted a test. Both the Indian and Pakistani governments is made up of babus who think they can fool the rest of the world by lying. If they had any sense, they would simply have refused to comment on the nuclear programs instead of telling obvious lies.

And the other points I made (that in any case Pakistan was perfectly within its legal rights as non-signatory to the npt) are also quite valid. So, your choice of words (``exposed``) remains incorrect.

2. you write ``Funny how you ignore the grave human rights violations in Iraq (Abu Ghraib is just the beginning) and elsewhere (Afghanistan for example) committed by the armed forces of your adopted country and instead eulogize America’s noble intentions in invading Iraq``

I dont ignore anything - rather, I am confident that the US as a country has enough formal and informal checks and balances to ensure that those responsible are identified and punished appropriately. That is not the case with India or Pakistan.

Examples: In case of abu ghraib, it was a US soldier who first raised a red flag; the US immediately sent a general to investigate, and that report has been damaging; it was a US TV program that publicized it and the resulting hue and cry was enough for the President on down to apologize to the Iraqi people. The US has moved quickly, and one man (Sivits) has already been tried and punished. Other trials are in the pipeline. Nothing is being kept secret.

Compare this to India and Pakistan - has there ever been any fuss about the quarter million muslims who were butchered in 1947 in India, or of the quarter million hindus and sikhs who were butchered in 1947 in Pakistan? Any apologies ever delivered, any investigations carried out, any culprits apprehended and punished in either country for 1947? Has there ever been any inquiry? Has the Indian public ever even recognized the rapes and murders its army committed in Kashmir? Has there ever been a hue and cry in Pakistan about the rapes and murders its army committed in Bangladesh? Can you imagine something like Gujrat murders happening in the US without anything happening? Even ABV was silent as Modi effectively frightened away any witnesses on Gujrat. On chowk, you see educated people from both countries parrotting what their government has told them without bothering to see what the facts are or to think for themselves.

The simple fact is that the US public has a level of morality that is miles ahead of the elite of both India and Pakistan. And US democracy is more mature and has more checks and balances than anything present in India. You wont like my saying this, but this is the truth.

3. ``Not attending the swearing-in is merely a symbolic protest against the assumption of office by a foreign-born citizen, to which the BJP is perfectly entitled to. Is that so hard to understand? ``

What BJP did was pure discrimination on the basis of nationality that has no basis on the Constitution. And yes, any party that is bound by religious ideology - whether hindu or muslim - has nothing to offer to society other than internal divisions and injustices.

Missed this gem earlier:
tahmed32 #93
``Throughout the 1990`s, prior to the nuclear explosions, BJP had followed an aggressive policy of confrontation with Pakistan. After the explosions: BJP suddenly discovered the virtues of peace with Pakistan. ``


`Throughout the 90s` the BJP were in the opposition.

The BJP came to power only in March 1998.

sadna #139 Thanks for the correction and you are right. Glad to see you are carefully reading what I wrote, commenting only when there is an error to be pointed out. So we Pakistanis have INC to thank for the unsuccessful efforts made in the 1990`s to get Pakistan declared a pariah state in the 1990`s. No problem - INC`s secular views are still better than BJP`s religious/nationalist ideology.

Also my basic point on BJP`s explosions remains valid: they started off with trying to bully Pakistan and discovered the path of peace after they found that Pakistan could not be bullied and in fact could now respond in kind. And I realize that most Indian posters like to interpret the events of 1998 in some other way as they have indicated to me in previous interactions (e.g. that the nukes were not meant for Pakistan but to scare China - something that doesnt make sense in light of Advanis threats to Pakistan after the explosions; that they were meant for Pakistan but only to ``expose`` Pakistan - but that doesnt make sense for reasons I have explained below; that they were meant to have Pakistan join India in becoming a nuclear power - that doesnt make sense again given the state of Indo-Pak relations at the time). So by any reasonable look at the events of 1998, this basic point remains valid, despite the factual error you pointed out.

#138 by tahmed32 on May 24, 2004 2:37pm PT

Tauheed - Sorry - a Romairesque post :-D

{The world was already well aware of the nuclear project - why else do you think were all those economic sanctions imposed? There was nothing for India to ``expose`` that the world did not already know.}

The world sure knew Pakistan was upto something, but had no hard evidence, so the blasts served to provide exactly that.


{Just as the world was never fooled by similar stupid declarations by the Indian government concerning the ``peaceful`` test the first time it conducted a test}

I agree. I don`t understand why India was trying to fool the world by projecting the blasts as being ``peaceful``? Nukes are the last thing that one can associate with peace.


{So, your choice of words (``exposed``) remains incorrect.}

What else would you call Pakistan`s complete denial that it was trying to develop nukes for nearly 2 decades and then one fine day exploding them?


{has there ever been any fuss about the quarter million muslims who were butchered in 1947 in India, or of the quarter million hindus and sikhs who were butchered in 1947 in Pakistan? Any apologies ever delivered, any investigations carried out, any culprits apprehended and punished in either country for 1947? Has there ever been any inquiry? Has the Indian public ever even recognized the rapes and murders its army committed in Kashmir? Has there ever been a hue and cry in Pakistan about the rapes and murders its army committed in Bangladesh? Can you imagine something like Gujrat murders happening in the US without anything happening?}

Do you think the pilots who just the other day bombed a wedding party that killed over 50 people would be ever held accountable? Similar incidents have occurred in Afghanistan too, where children and women have been maimed or killed by daisy-cutters dropped by American fighter jets. Similarly in Vietnam, where the effects of the Napalm bombs that were dropped on hapless civilians are still being felt generations later. Has the US ever apologized for these incidents? Or were the perpetrators ever held accountable?

Just the other day I read that American soldiers would be immune to prosecution for any killings in Iraq. Now how does the much-vaunted American checks and balances system explain that?


{Has the Indian public ever even recognized the rapes and murders its army committed in Kashmir?}

There is no comparison with what the prison guards did to inmates at Abu Ghraib and civilians mostly killed in the cross-fire between terrorists and Indian soldiers in Kashmir. A more apt comparison would be between the latter and incidents like the bombing of a wedding party that I referred to above.

Even so, the Indian Army is against all odds fighting a bloody insurgency in Kashmir that has active public and Pakistani support. A terrorist does not sport a label on his face that identifies him as such. And since a soldier has only a split of a second to choose between life and death, he is prone to errors. In Iraq, it was a situation where the prison guards did not face any threat from the unarmed and defenseless inmates. What made the crime worse was that most (70-90%) of the inmates were innocent as borne out by a report in the NYT.

For the number of Indian troops in Kashmir (0.7 million according to most Pakistani `experts`), the number of abuses has surprisingly been very small. It does not mean that where they happen, they are to be condoned. And because there are appropriate checks and balances to deal with such scenarios, where these abuses have come to light, they have been dealt with accordingly. And the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), that has been at the forefront of bringing such abuses to light, is very much a body that is made up of the Indian public.

Coming to Gujarat, an inquiry is still on. If you have followed the news lately, you might have noticed that the Supreme Court ordered the Best Bakery trial to be held outside Gujarat as the main witness Zaheeda Sheikh complained that she and others were being threatened by local BJP goons. Re-trials have been ordered into many cases where it was felt that justice was not done. And if the riots occurred under the BJP, all this also happened when the BJP, the party that you accuse of being undemocratic, was in power.


{Compare this to India and Pakistan - has there ever been any fuss about the quarter million muslims who were butchered in 1947 in India, or of the quarter million hindus and sikhs who were butchered in 1947 in Pakistan? Any apologies ever delivered, any investigations carried out, any culprits apprehended and punished in either country for 1947?}

For that matter, neither did the US apologize for the abominable tradition of slavery and exterminating millions of Red Indians bringing them to the point of extinction. Nor did it apologize for the discrimination against Blacks who until the 60s were second-class citizens.


{The simple fact is that the US public has a level of morality that is miles ahead of the elite of both India and Pakistan. And US democracy is more mature and has more checks and balances than anything present in India. You wont like my saying this, but this is the truth.}

Morality? To give you just an example, thousands were killed in the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984 when poisonous gas leaked from the Union Carbide plant, yet the US refused to extradite Warren Anderson, the chief of Union Carbide against whom the Supreme Court of India issued an arrest warrant. Generations later it`s effects are still being felt by Bhopal residents, both man and animal. A US court last year rejected a petition filed by the affected asking for more compensation. And from the US public, that paragon of morality, there has hardly been a murmur.

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tahmed32 #141
``Glad to see you are carefully reading what I wrote, commenting only when there is an error to be pointed out. ``

You flatter yourself. I have not been following your argument, because there has been no point in doing so in past, and there is no point in doing so now.

btw, if you are so upset about a campaign to declare Pakistan a pariah state in the 90s, do look up the record of one Ms Christina Rocca. In the 90s, she initiated a plan to buy back the Stinger missiles left over from the Afghan war.

When the ISI and Pakistani Army refused to give her an account of where all the surplus Stinger missiles went, as a threat to get some sort of compliance from them, she recommended to President Clinton in 1993 to put Pakistan on a watch list of state sponsors of terrorism.

btw, whatever course of action India decides to follow against Pakistan as a response to Pakistan`s jihad against India, that is India`s sovereign right, for which Indians owe you no explanation.

sadna #142 What I was pointing to (your reading my posts carefully, commenting only when you spot some error) was a fact. Rest assured that I am not so easily flattered.

Knowing your capacity for continuing to argue long after you have run out of anything rational to say, I now wish you a good day and will not be responding to any more posts from you unless and until I change my mind. Bye Bye.