[Reader-list] Mallika Sarabhai's Public Meeting in JNU on 31stMarch

[bipin]

Dear Rakesh and All,

I am giving point by point reply to Rakesh mail as under. Interested person please read it patiently and welcome your point of view.

 

Advani was not first person to take out Rath Yatra for political mileage. There was series of rath yatra organized by various political parties. I have already mentioned in my analysis that to counter minor vote bank politics of congress since years, BJP started appeasing Hindu vote bank. Advani started from Somnath and wherever it passes through Gujarat and other places got very good response. No riot took place in Gujarat or even other part wherever it passed, but when Lalu stopped the same at Bihar tension/riot started particularly at UP. Question is that why Lalu stopped. Naturally to get political mileage from minor vote bank. 

 

Babri Masjid demolition was also not good. But, there is historical place of Hindu and Lord Ram birth place deep routed in the mind of whole India and the place of mosque where nothing was happening since years and remain idle, with broad mind, Muslim community should understand and would have given the place for building temple. This very long issue and repeated requests was denied by Babri committee. Time came, when Hindu got anxious and things happened. However, this is not the actual issue we want to discuss. This is history now and if you remember old things and will remain in past only, one will never progress. Since, you have written this, I have given my view point. Ram mandir issue is now legal matter and court will decide it. If Muslim staying in India stays here as Indian and stop their mental physical support to the terrorist and you will see the difference. 

 

Whenever any govt. comes in the power and after getting stable for sometime adopts some new policies, it will take at least 2.5/3 years time to get effect of that policy. So, during that initial period of govt., previous govt. policies will remain in effect. This is very important point to note. Since the NDA was the first co-alition govt. took more time to stabilize. Major terror attack took place, including parliament attack, in the initial tenor of their rule. There after attack was there, but much lower impact attack took place. You mentioned Akshardham, but in Gujarat after that, no other terror attack took place. Only recent (2008) bomb blast took place. Strict law like POTA or any such kind is necessary to prevent local hand to support terrorist and so that is why such laws are required. With such a law outsider will not effected but local hand will think twice for support to terrorist.

 

No doubt, intelligence failure is major problem in system and it is applicable to all the govt. whoever in the power. To improve it, we need independent agency without political interference. I don't know whether it is possible or not, but altogether again different issue. So, if you point out for only NDA rule intelligence failure is not fair. Its more applicable to congress since they ruled for about 50 years after independent. Misuse of intelligence agency was started by Indira, as she has started so many unwanted things during her rule. Her only good step was Nationalization of Banks which was necessary at that time and situation, so the bank without looking into the profit, reaches each and every villages. However, I doubt this point was there in her mind. She must have taken this step to become popular in public mind to vow votes.

 

So, do you think that if Megha Patker was not there, rehabilitation would have not done in proper manner? Gujarat govt. rehabilitation was appreciated by court as well as world bank also. May be she is social worker and doing some good work, but one should not put hindrance in the development or public benefit process. Court has also slept her for this matter. Today, it started producing power and water reaching many cities/towns/villages in Gujarat and benefited to farmers. Crops in Gujarat has increased compare to previous years. No doubt canal work is yet not completed and could not able to achieve canal work as per target. Power plant also started producing power. Still the height has to increase and for which court giving step wise permission. By making Narmada dam, water of river going in the sea was stopped and utilized. It is unfortunate that we have wasted water for 15 years unutilized by delaying the projects. Thanks (or curse) to Megha Patker.

 

Can you elaborate, from where you got that figure of Rs. 20 per day. I am going to my village in Sabarkantha district, I have noticed of minimum Rs. 100 to 200 per day they get by way labor of all kind. While farmers labor gets Rs. 80 to 200 minimum according to their skill. The figure you must be giving might there in the states like UP, Bihar, Orissa and even west Bengal also. WB was one of the prosperous state earlier and Kolkata prosperous city even after independence, what happened? Communists ruled for more than 25 years what happened, things more worsened. They have ruined the state by enforcing labor unions. The key reason for govt. employees inefficiency is their job securities. This securities make them lazy and lethargic. We give examples of Japan, China for their remarkable progress in short span. Why? Because of their efficiency and loyal to their employer. They don't have labor unions. If anybody does not work with efficiency and discipline, they should allowed to fired off.

 

When overall interest rate were reduced so accordingly PF interest rate must be reduced. But, communists did not allow it. Why? In PF list there are 10/12% or maximum 15% people are their of the total population. By not reducing PF interest rate, you are giving injustice to remaining 85% of the population. Just answer me this question. Don't ignore it. Rigid communist mind will never understand this. And also those in the PF list are getting best salary and job securities than rest of the people. So, why should they be treated specially.

 

It is surprising that you praise license raj. It was there for 45 years, but the things improved during the period? No. it has more or less worsened. Since it was biggest hindrance for new technological industrialization. Only Tata, Birla and other few industrialist were having monopoly. When the things becomes free, competitiveness comes and this competitiveness will lead to progress.

 

East-West and North-South four lane corridor along with their link to town and villages were initiated and started at rapid pace by NDA govt. which was practically stopped when UPA came to power. Better roads is useful which you have also agreed so nothing to say about it. The real root based progress is to build infrastructure like Roads, Power, Ports, Airports development and first priority of fund allotment should be for these purpose and not the schemes you have mentioned. You have well said these schemes are good if properly implemented. That is the main problem of proper implementation. Our corrupt and inefficient system will not allow proper implementation and it will be wastage of money. By giving such assurance to people, you make them lazy and inefficient. When you put the same money for infrastructure development with the private partners, your money will have definitely appreciation in the long run. This is the root development and in long run even poor people also get benefit out of it. Please think deeply in this and than reply, don't think this in the eye of communist since they never understand root based development and will not come out of their rigid thoughts.

 

Well said by you, one should put state above their family and that is Nationalism, where we are lacking. When I am saying Vande Matram should sing, means not necessarily the same song, but any of such kind can be made compulsory at school level, but I am sure pseudo-secularist will not allow it. You are talking sometime like child. Every one can understand that where you have borne you will be citizen or having nationality of that country. Understand the difference between nationality and nationalism (deshdaz, deshprem).

 

Nuclear agreement is necessary since our existing nuclear power plants required fuel like Uranium and without that they would have been scrapped. New nuclear power plant viability is the next issue. If it is not viable, definitely one should not go for it.

 

You say that "Patel suspected that Muslims would not be loyal to India post partition". I think vision of Patel unfortunately proved to be right if he told like that. I did not find in History any of such statement. Please give me book reference if you find it. Today, many Muslim individual or family are giving mental/physical support to terrorist activities. May be operated and planned from outside India, but without local support it can not be executed. I think you will agree with this simple fact. I am not blaming whole community and my many Muslim friends are there and they condemn the terror attacks whenever took place.

 

Nehru has taken unanimous decision of taking Kashmir issue in UN and almost whole cabinet was not agreed with it. He proved totally wrong in this decision. At that time if he would have given free hand to Patel, I am sure Kashmir problem would have been resolved permanently. There is no question of Hindu version of Pakistan to be happen since Hindus are peace loving since ancient time and that is the reason Muslim and British were ruled over them for long time. Among the entire ancient King and today's politician only Akbar was the real secular King and I salute him.

 

Without leader ship quality, one can not rule for 17 years and so I described her as great leader. She could be able to materialize 1971 war because at that time we have full backing of Russia and considered as super power at that time. Which is not possible at today's time, since US has his own interest in Pakistan will never allow India for war. This is the reason both NDA and now UPA could not attack on Pakistan, though they both were keen to do so. On the winning track in 1971, she could have easily captured POK back to India, but she did not do the reason god knows may be vote bank politics I don't know, but there is much possibility is like that.

 

No body concerned for sensex. Once the economy and GDP is on track, sensex bound to go upword by way of natural law. One should not bother for it. If industrialization along with infrastructural development is going on GDP will also be on the track.

 

By giving free power, rice at Rs. 3.00 per kg, these all gimmicks are for vote bank and money making process by way of corruption. BJP by adopting such schemes (may be due to compulsion) making mistake. I have already told you earlier that such schemes are wastage of money due to lack in proper implemtation and corrupted system. Please think twice before putting any argument, if you want root based development, you have to adopt infrastructural development on war foot base.

 

Madhya Pradesh CM scheme is welcome scheme and such innovative idea whoever does should be implemented immediately. Free education for Girl is there in Gujarat since more than 10 years. May be about 15 years.

 

Mallika Sarabhai identity is that she is daughter of great scientist Dr. Vikram Sarabhai coming from ultra rich family. It's surprising that many encouraging her against veteran leader like Advani. She is only rich class goons, supporter of anti Gujarat activist like Megha Patker, one of the pseudo-secularist and most selfish lady. I give salute to her for her dancing ability, but not at all social activists. She uses their money power for social activity to become popular in the high society and not doing any real grass root level social work.

thanks
Bipin

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rakesh Iyer 
  To: bipin 
  Cc: Asit asitreds ; sarai-list 
  Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 5:24 PM
  Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Mallika Sarabhai's Public Meeting in JNU on 31stMarch


  Dear Bipin (and all)

  Since you have put up this article, which I feel is very biased, I think the truth needs to be put out in perspective as well.

  To begin with, the man contesting as BJP candidate from Gandhinagar, Mr. Lal Krishna Advani, is known to be the man who led the Somnath-Ayodhya Rath yatra, which was responsible for the second biggest series of communal riots across India after the Partition post 1946. Wherever his rath went, there were riots. Infact, the Babri Masjid was also demolished thanks to his movement. And who can forget his contributions to the nation, in addition to these: The Parliament attack (to understand its meaning, think about what would have happened if Vajpayee would have been killed), the Akshardam attack, the fiasco after the Parliament massacre (putting up troops on the border without fighting any war led to death of soldiers due to mines laid there), as well as wastage of public expenditure. To add to that, his role during the Godhra and post-Godhra incidents, as Home Minister of India. (If I accept BJP's contention that the Godhra incident was planned, it was a massive intelligence failure of both the Central NDA govt. and the Gujarat govt that they failed to prevent it). What more do we need?

  What do you know about Medha Patkar? Go and first read about her before commenting on her at all. She fought for 10 years just to ensure that villages which were getting drowned by the Sardar Sarovar dam should be rehabilitated properly at other places. When this was not done for 10 years, she decided to fight against the dam. Go and first ask the BJP Govt in Madhya Pradesh to get those people rehabilitated, and also read the technical reports prepared which prove that the Dam wouldn't fulfill its missions of water supply and electricity in the way it is supposed to as per public pronoucements. 

  The second fact is that poverty line as measured in India is very skewed. Today, it's Rs. 400 in rural areas and Rs 600 in urban areas. Taking the urban value as cut off, it is about Rs. 20 per day. What can people do in Rs. 20 per day? What can one buy in that, can anybody tell me? The Congress has been a failure, but if somebody makes me feel the reforms are good as of now, it's all crap. Please go and find figures before making grand statements. 

  The growth in India which has been registered has by and large been just because of getting rid of licence raj, which at best, can be considered as piece-meal reforms. Real reforms have never taken place in any sector, be it labour, banking or anything. Infact, the useless development paradigm used prior to 1991 has been still continued, whereby people should put up the state above their families, and should sacrifice everything for the state rather than they getting compensated. Only recently has a Rehabilitation bill been passed. 

  Roads are important not only for truck movement and movement of industrial goods; roads are important because they connect villages to cities, and thereby provide good means of transporting agricultural produce from villages to cities. Quick transportation means better quality and less chances of deterioration in quality, thereby ensuring better sale and profits of the sellers. Moreover, roads can also help definitely in quick transportation of industrial goods and cheaper means of transport compared to railways. 

  This is all a big hoo-hah being created regarding policy creation in the name of votebank politics. The fact is that first of all, democracy in India means vote bank politics, and it's not as if other democratic nations don't experience it too. Bangladesh experiences it, the US experiences it and so do others. It would be better if somebody names a democratic nation which doesn't experience vote-bank politics. 

  Secondly, the policy creation has never helped Muslims. On the other hand, the propaganda used by the BJP and now the media has now made their lives horrible and problematic compared to about 20-25 years ago. And the Congress has also played a part in ensuring this, to get Muslim votes solidly behind them. Hence, it's their complementary politics which is a problem for us. In many cases, Congress is replaced by some other 'secular' party. 

  Since you talk about nuclear plant programs, the fact is that a US document concludes that by 2030, the maximum electricity we would be able to produce by nuclear fuel would be about 6-7%. Even the DAE (Dept. of Atomic Energy), India has made similar kind of projections. Then why do we make a kind of hoohaah that this nuclear deal is a huge achievement, is beyond my comprehension. Moreover, this is not about energy security as well. Cheaper energy can be obtained through coal and other means. Plus getting this fuel and building nuclear plants would entail huge costs, which if subsidized would increase govt. burden a lot from what it already is. 

  Vande mataram was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, and it was written in favor of India viewed as a motherland. Since Muslims don't indulge in any image worship/idol worship as it's prohibited in their religion, and the given song idolizes India as a mother, they refuse to sing the song. It does not mean they don't respect the nation, for they do sing 'Jan Gan Man' and also 'Saare Jahan se Achcha'. Then what is the problem if Muslims don't sing the song? Would the patriotism of Muslims or their loyalty towards India be judged on whether they sing one particular song or not?

  It seems by saying nationality can be brought through such moves, nationality resides somewhere else. Nationality is there the moment we are born with us, it doesn't have to be brought from somewhere by some song or some dance form or something else. 

  Nothing is achieved by useless force, and instead people should be made to understand the repercussions of their activities. Many poor people produce poor children because they are poor, and since their children start earning from a very young age (instead of going to schools), they feel that more be the number of children, more is the income of the family, and hence their economic situation will improve. Rather than improving their economic situation and thereby ensuring that they produce less children, you wish to force this solution upon them and degrade their economic position, which is not acceptable to me, or to them. And if this is votebank politics, it is better to subscribe to it rather than your suggestion which is not right to tackle the problem. 

  Just because BJP does not take any step against Muslims, doesn't mean it loves them or does not hate them. The BJP belongs to the RSS led Sangh parivar, which had Golwalkar as one of its chairmen, who had said that Muslims and Christians should live as second class citizens in this country, based on the goodwill of the Hindus. In other words, their lives would be worse that of servants. They are supposed to follow the customs of the Hindus, rather than their own. Worse, other RSS heads have directly or indirectly repeated the same in their speeches at different times. And of course, who can forget that in the Gandhi assassination case, the judge had remarked that though there is no proof,  he believed that RSS was also involved in this case. 

  Nehru and Patel had different views. Patel suspected that Muslims would not be loyal to India post partition, whereas Nehru believed the opposite to be the case since Muslims had shown their magnanimity by staying back in India rather than migrating to Pakistan, thereby proving they were willing to live back in a secular republic than in an Islamic state. Plus, he did not want India to be a Hindu version of Pakistan. The reasons are there for all to see. If India would have been a Hindu Pakistan, then we would have been in same situation as Pakistan is today. And we would have been the joint headache of the world. 

  Nehru took Kashmir to UN in the hope of getting the matter resolved, because he believed in peaceful co-existence of nations and believed that armies are not required as such to waste public funds on, like Gandhi. However, the 1962 war changed all that and he started spending more on defense, which has continued to this day. And while Sheikh Abdullah was his friend, he also got the Sheikh jailed since he never wanted Kashmir to go to Pakistan, for he knew that doing this would mean loss of PM post in India. 

  How can Indira Gandhi be a great leader when she tried to destroy Indian democracy by imposing Emergency to perpetuate her own rule? Even she removed it when told that she would win the elections after removing them and declaring elections. Moreover, how is 1971 war related with vote-bank politics? Are you trying to suggest that Muslims were the reason she decided to let Kashmir remain with Pakistan? And if yes, have the guts to say that. Then we can argue upon it. 

  As for the BJP, the fact remains that they have a different conception of economy from what the Congress has. To begin with, BJP has always been a party of upper castes and upper classes, and the schemes they suggest have always been good for these people. The introduction of mobiles on a large scale (used by large farmers, not those earning Rs. 600 a month), the Golden Quadrilateral Road + Rail scheme (Yes, there was a Golden Quadrilateral Rail scheme, where it is today nobody knows), the Airport Privatization Scheme and so on. But all these schemes would directly or indirectly favor the rich classes and the upper castes. 

  The BJP was more concerned about the Sensex and the ups and downs in it, so also today it connects with the economic recession and loss of jobs. The BJP is concerned with inflation primarily because inflation is an urban issue. When a poor person never earns enough to buy to satisfy the hunger of himself or his family, how can he worry about inflation at all? Moreover, he does not have a proper shelter or clothes to wear as well. 

  However, the Congress till 2004 at least was more concerned about the 'aam aadmi' (at least it said so) which is why they introduced schemes like the NREGA (to provide employment to people in their villages and ensure they don't migrate to cities in search of livelihood), as well as the RTI (Right to Information which ensured transparency in central and state govt sponsored schemes). However, since the Congress is an amalgam party, it includes people of diverse backgrounds and castes and classes. Hence, they also have schemes for rich people like loans for farmers at 7% credit, as well as the other schemes which BJP introduced in their reign, with the exception of privatization, which was not there thanks to the Left present in UPA govt for 4.5 years. 

  The BJP has learnt the lesson from the Congress, hence in Chhatisgarh and Madhya Pradesh they introduced the schemes of rice at Rs. 3/- kg and wheat at Rs. 2/- kg in their respective states, as well as more food items available at subsidized prices in their ruled states to the BPL families. Moreover, in Madhya Pradesh, the Ladli Laxmi Yojana was started  (brainchild politically of Shivraj Singh Chauhan), which ensures girl child education upto 12th standard as responsibility of the state govt, as well as depositing Rs. 1 lakh in her account till age of 18, so that she is not a burden for the family. So impressed is Mr. Advani himself that he has now said that if  elected to power at the centre, he will introduce this scheme across the nation through the central govt. 

  Hence, please don't make broad based assumptions. Highways and all don't necessarily ensure votes, whereas employment schemes if properly implemented, and such BPL schemes can possibly give votes for they ensure people are able to at least feed themselves properly. 

  As for Mallika Sarabhai, if you know something she hasn't put up in public domain, do let us know that. 

  Regards

  Rakesh

  PS : Sorry for this long mail, but I think I had to counter this.