[Reader-list] Fw: Gautier does it again

[S Fatima]

Democracy Hijacked

François Gautier

Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven by
the lust for power are destroying all that is good and
true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at and
persecuted while Government is busy devising ways and
means of dividing the nation along caste and communal
lines 

India prides itself as the greatest democracy in the
world. But actually, there are very few places where
democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. Nothing
demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring going on
at the moment to find India 's next President. 

President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular
President in the history of India . Yet he will not be
re-elected, because he was the people's President and
not a stooge of political parties. 

Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive
him, as he was the one who stopped her from becoming
Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of his
chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two
passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for many
years (she is not the only foreigner who did so after
obtaining Indian citizenship).

Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously because,
although he is a true Muslim, he respects other
religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita and
Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus Mayawati,
partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away from
him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did not
always do its bidding. 

How else is democracy perverted in India ?

Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which has
been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years,
came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh
Assembly election, and sprung to power at the Centre
by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra
Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . 

Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment and is
dividing India more and more along caste and religion
lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy -
witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. 

You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities
-honesty, hard work, family values - is just an
elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules as
the supreme leader of this country, one whose word can
make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be
possible for an Indian to become a de facto President
or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ?
Absolutely not! 

Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak man,
is not elected: He was defeated the last time he
contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP from
Assam , where he has no roots at all. 

Democracy in India has also been hijacked by cynical
mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of the
Muslims; who remain the most backward community in
India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen
Congress Governments since Independence; and how to
manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share of
benefits and have had one of them as President and
many of whom are politicians in power. 

Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical
mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes =
Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the
Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did in
her three previous stints as Chief Minister? 

It seems doubtful, the way she has started, wasting
hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous projects,
including the Special Economic Zones and transferring
hundreds of officials.

In the name of freedom of expression, Indian
intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who
denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. Would
he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner?
Certainly not! 

When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish newspaper
- harmless lampooning compared to Husain's derogatory
portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world erupts in
flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would
have been dead today. 

Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV or
publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's
derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely available
and have been reproduced in a coffee table book
sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi Modi.


India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by clever
lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook,
thanks to judges who go by the book without adapting
their judgements to the Indian context, or by bribing
witnesses as has been allegedly done in the BMW case.
But poor people go to jail and it takes seven years to
get a case cleared. 

India's socialist system, which is still enforced,
pretends to tax the rich to subsidise the poor. But in
reality, the rich have smart chartered accountants who
twist the law, while the less fortunate have to pay
taxes on small savings and salaries. And, of course,
most of this money never reaches the destitute. 

Finally, here you have a country of 850 million
Hindus, a billion worldwide, one of the most tolerant,
law-abiding communities in the world. Yet, Hindus in
India are made fun of and their beliefs riled at. They
are persecuted, as the four lakh Kashmiri Pandits have
been, without raising finger in defence - their men
hanged, women raped, children disembowelled. They have
become refugees in their own country and the media is
mostly silent. 

Yes democracy is needed, and a free and democratic
India definitely has (in the long run) an advantage on
an undemocratic China . But the way things are going
now, India seems on the verge of losing all that is
good and true and valuable within the nation, thanks
to cynical and self-serving politicians. 

Cry O my Beloved India . Look at what Thy children are
doing to Thee. 



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