I am still waiting for RSS and Gadkari to do the right thing. Hope is a strange thing. Makes you challenge your own beliefs. After it became abundantly clear that not only was Gadkari and incompetent and a loudmouth but also a corrupt crook, one believed that the RSS elders would force him out. After all, the RSS is bigger than them and Gadkari. What has transpired since has established that the RSS elders are men with usual weaknesses and huge egos. I suppose that since they inflicted Gadkari on the BJP, they are still supporting him. They say that it is BJP’s internal matter but whom are they fooling? In a heartfelt article, Mr. R Jaganathan quotes the following by Mohan Bhagwat:
"For every one bad thing, there are 10 good things happening in the country. But good things don't make news,"
"Gadkari as an individual and the BJP as party have to answer the questions raised."
"It's not important how much money has been earned. It's important how it has been put to use, whether it has been put to good use or not.”
Mr. Jaganathan dissects and discusses these points in a way, which you HAVE to read.
I do not expect Gadkari to do the right thing. He is a fat Indian who fainted in the sun. Even Sonia Gandhi, who is a European, has never fainted in the sun. What kind of privileged life has this guy led? Obviously, he is not the kind who can empathize with the aam aadmi. He is a man in cahoots with Sharad Pawar who along with others epitomizes all that is wrong with Indian politics. But we expect better things from the RSS elders.
Like many of us, I grew attending shakhas and listened to elders in our families about the greatness that was RSS. We have looked up to the organization and felt pride in being part of it. I have always sought out ways I can help the organization. A lot of times it feels that RSS is the only organization, which will save India as a home for Hindus. RSS elders have a responsibility, which they do not seem to understand. Mohan Bhagwat is not RSS. RSS will go on forever but he will not. He has no right to besmirch an organization because of his blind love for someone like Gadkari. In fact his love for Gadkari and hatred for Narendra Modi will enable Congress to win the next election.
Mr. Bhagwat needs to swallow his pride and do the right thing. Acknowledge his mistake and get rid of this man who is making the BJP look like a Congress clone instead of the party with a difference. If he does not then he is risking sullying the reputation of an organization we all love and he claims to protect.
Mr. Jaganathan's excellent article can be read at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/rss-cant-do-a-sonia-with-bjp-power-without-responsibility-501958.html
There are two periods of Congress rule that most people remember with some degree of pride. Shri LB Shastri’s tenure is remembered as a period when a man of unimpeachable integrity and honesty ruled the country. The other one is the era of Narsimha Rao. Even though he was caught in that bribery, scam, Rao is still remembered as a Chanakya who handled the economy and foreign policy with amazing dexterity. Lion’s share of the credit for opening up Indian economy goes to the man.
What that tells us is that most of the Gandhi family rule was peppered with scams, improprieties, colossal foreign policy blunders and personal misbehaviors overshadowing any achievements they may have had.
It is therefore mindboggling as to how and why has the Gandhi Family remained relevant to Congress. It is probably a combination of the family faithful and bankruptcy of alternate leadership that is responsible for it. Of course we as a society suffer from a collective Stockholm Syndrome and identify the entire freedom fight with the Nehru / Gandhi family. The family acquired too much money and political influence over the last 100 years that the Congress find it difficult to imagine life without them.
Without going into the history of corruption inflicted on our hapless nation by the family, we can say that the latest accusation against Robert Vadra is possibly the worst. I will try to explain the gravity of it. When Rajiv Gandhi was brought down in the Bofor’s scam and eventually assassinated, the family went into hibernation. Later in the 1990’s inability of a non-Gandhi leader to take control brought the family back into play and with a vengeance. A powerful coterie of “chamchas” protected them by carefully projecting a mystique of personality and mirage of “competence”. The family and the coterie and enjoyed all the riches that came along with power. Of course a totally inept BJP helped them.
However eventually everyone notices that the emperor is naked. But the chamcha coterie was not going to give up the fight. Sonia’s illness is treated with a greater degree of secrecy than our defence establishments. Her inability to govern and complicity in various mega scams has been protected with a pitbull like viciousness and focus. Rahul’s ineptness is kept from spilling over and the nation is teased and tantalized with the possibility of the Rajkumar stepping in and saving the day. They had all the help they could get from our corrupt and compliant pseudo-secular media. However, no matter what they did, the sheen had started to come off. But they always had a “bramha-astra” – Priyanka. She has always been dangled in front of Congress supporters as someone who can step in and save the day. Of course her ineffectiveness was exposed in the last UP elections. Nevertheless, it is the prospect of leadership rather than reality, which is still keeping the Congress in play.
However, with the latest scam involving Vadra who is one step away from Sonia puts Congress in an indefensible position. The entire Congress machinery is trying to put a fig leaf on a mountain of evidence. What we have to see is for how long are Congressmen going to continue to defend this family. At what point do they say that the family has now become a liability and are more trouble than worth? When do they say that the family is now hurting us rather than helping? When do they say that while others have been forced to resign or get sent to jail for scams (Natwar Singh, Shashi Tharoor, Kanimojhi or Raja) Vadra is being protected? When are the Pranab Mukherjee supporters and others who are loyal Congressmen but not family loyalists going to stand up and say that enough is enough?
If Congress has to stay relevant, they need to dump or sideline the Gandhi Family and its chamchas. I would say the time is now. Of course being a BJP supporter I would want them to stay on the course of self-destruction but India does need a viable national alternative to BJP if the regional party vultures are to be kept at bay.
Meanwhile, the aam aadmi, the media and BJP need to continue their unstinted support to Kejriwal and make sure that he is safe and protected from grievous harm. The BJP need to use this to their advantage and that will be discussed in another post.
I do not know but I have a theory and the events support it also. We all saw how Team Anna’s anti corruption movement galvanized the entire nation. It felt like we were watching the dawn of a new era. However, Congress’ crooked maneuvers and differences in Team Anna ended that. Our readers know that we had written a lot on the matter. Anna Hazare and his team had the same goal but different attitudes about it. The older and patient Anna was found to be Gandhian in attitude, relying on Satyagraha and believing that a piece of legislation would force people to do the right thing. The younger Kejriwal, smart, cynical and aggressive, had different and seemingly more realistic ideas. We were more aligned with Kejriwal except we DID NOT agree with the extreme leftist and pseudo-secular angles to his beliefs. Team Anna was a disaster in making and ended leaving both men to their instruments.
Kejriwal thought that the only way he could fight this was from the inside and formed his own party. However, he also realizes that he needed to stay relevant. He needed a bombshell to grab the limelight.
We all know how Netas and Babus steal and hide their loot. You just have to look at their relatives and all the benami properties. It is only a matter of political will and a strong backing of either the judiciary or media to expose these crooks. YSR Reddy’s family is worth close to 500 Crore and no one found out about it until Jagan decided to go against the party high command. There exists a code of honor among the thieves. Even the BJP politicians seem reluctant in going after their crooked rivals. Therefore it had to be an outsider to expose these crooks.
We had written about Robert Vadra crooked dealings a while ago. It was right there for someone willing to see. Anna Hazare could have done it. Maybe he was reluctant and hoped that once shamed, these people will come clean or the Lokpal bill would take care of it all. If true, he was wrong. These people are pathological criminals and not people with honor. Of course, because of Anna Hazare, Kejriwal became a national figure and thus had media’s backing. With his new-found political ambition he now has the will. Time was ripe to go and uncover these crooks. Of course with the nation focused on big scams, 500 Crores is a “small” amount but since it involved the “Sarkari Jamai” it was a potent bombshell. Just what Kejriwal needed.
For the first time, someone has taken the fight to 10 Janpath. It is akin to making enemies with the entire system and we tip our hat to Arvind Kejriwal for doing the nation a huge favor. The man has brass balls (forgive me for using pedestrian language but nothing else captures the spirit) and deserves the support of the media and the aam aadmi. He will not succeed politically and will need the help of the BJP but he is too rigid and blinded by his leftist attitudes to see that. That of course will be the subject of another post. For now Arvind Kejriwal is a hero.
Our old post on Robert Vadra can be read at: http://thenethindu.blogspot.com/2011/03/neta-babu-builder-nexus.html
