Delhi Gangrape and Congress’ Cruel Indifference

A girl gets brutally raped and left for dead. There is outrage. Unusually more. It was the proverbial last straw. The anger grew. The protests grew. It was all very unusual in New Delhi, which sees more rapes than any other Indian city. However, the response of the Congress state and central government was usual. Yes. As usual, after seeing the outrage, Sheila Dixit and Sonia Gandhi condescended to step out and offer platitudes to the protesters. Of course when that was not enough, the police dealt the protesters with decisive force. There is outrage at the nature of police actions. Are you surprised?

The Congress Government’s incompetence and corruption is exceeded by their cruel indifference to the miseries of aam aadmi. It does not seem possible but every time you think that these decision makers have reached the bottom, they surprise you. Manmohan Singh’s crack economic team redefined poverty to fight it. Per the economic genius Montek Ahluwalia whose foreign travel budget is in crores, people making Rs. 35 are not poor. Not to be done by this sorry excuse of an Indian, Sheila Dixit comes out and says that a family of five can feed themselves for a month with Rs. 600. No invective is apt enough to describe these cruel Indians. So we lower our expectations. If you cannot feed us properly, surely you can keep us safe. WRONG. If you are a woman living in New Delhi, the chance of your getting raped is very high, much higher than the rest of the civilized world (if we can call ourselves civilized). If you go out to protest against an injustice like rape and murder, then you get worse treatment than the rapists themselves.

In an analysis of the current situation, Mr. B Raman who has pointed out all the issues but has decided to drag in Narendra Modi in this article when Modi’s own state has no problem of this kind. I am flabbergasted by Mr. Raman’s desire to be fair in blame distribution when it comes to this kind of cruel incompetence. He writes the following:

The de jure power and decision-making vacuum in the Prime Minister's Office and the de facto accumulation of power in circles close to Sonia Gandhi have added to the command and control confusion. During a discussion on the current situation among retired government servants who had served under previous prime ministers, someone posed the questions: Who is taking the key decisions? Where are the key decisions being taken -- in the Congress headquarters or in the PMO? Who is responsible for ensuring the clarity and sophistication of public communications and interactions? Who monitors the developments and suggests action and policy options to the PM?

This has been the case for every situation since the UPA won in 2004. Why is Raman now showing his surprise? If these media mavens and self styled policy stalwarts had started to lay the blame where it belonged, maybe we would not be in this pile of dung. Of course the decision-making is extremely quick when it comes to punishing people who dare to oppose the might of Congress. General VK Singh has been stripped off all his security details. Meanwhile people who are not fit to wipe Singh’s shoes are enjoying Z+ security. Only in India can this happen.

Meanwhile Mr. NV Subramanian says the following in an article where he does not shy away from laying blame where it lies:

What prevented Pranab Mukherjee from walking up to the students protesting at the ramparts of Rashtrapati Bhawan? The President is not above the people of the country. The protestors weren’t terrorists or Maoists as Sushil Shinde alludes to them. Why couldn’t Sushma Swaraj forgo Twitter for a while and go to India Gate? Was she afraid of lynching? Why so? Couldn’t an all-party delegation have met the students?

Sheila Dixit, in her anxiety to deflect attention from her own incompetence, is demanding Neeraj Kumar’s head. But even for form’s sake, has the Bharatiya Janata Party, the so-called principal opposition party, made a similar demand? Have Sushma Swaraj or Arun Jaitley, reputedly chums of the police commissioner, if you believe Ram Jethmalani?

Of course, the real blame lies with the voters. You deserve the government you elect. Shame on every one who voted for Congress. I hope you are big enough to admit your blunder. To the youth who are protesting today, I have two questions to ask:

a. Is the status quo acceptable to you?
b. If not, what do you intend to do about it?

I think that no non-Congress member will say yes to the first question. As far as the second question is considered, protest is one way. Change of guard is another. We have another general election on the horizon. Clearly, the central leadership of BJP has failed to offer a good solution. As we saw in Himachal Pradesh, local level BJP leadership has also failed. However, we have an impending change of guard in the BJP. The man from Gujarat, who is waiting in the wings, has clearly established rock solid credentials in every aspect of governance. My suggestion to the youth of today is the following. Take a stand. Do not fall for the English language media hogwash. Look beyond the lies of the pseudo-secular establishment and examine Gujarat’s safety and prosperity. Wouldn’t you like to repeat the same for the entire country?