How Secular is the Congress? March 24, 2009
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Secularism and social justice are not mere election slogans, but they remained the soul and ideology of the Congress
-Sonia Gandhi
The Congress party presents it’s secular credentials every now and then; however the Nehru-Gandhi party has failed to prove itself as a flag bearer of actual secularism, even in the Indian context of the word.
Argument # 1
The Bhartiya Janata Party Demolished the Babri Masjid.
As you have recently reminded us, the Union Govt. in Delhi has all the rights to intervene , if the state government fails to protect the civillians.
Which party was at the Centre at the time of demolition of the Babri structure? P.V.Narasimha Rao, who was, I believe from the Congress Party.
But, they say, Babri never happened in Delhi. Ah! Here is what all you could have done:
1. You could have, acted, on the information provided by the Intelligence agencies.
http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=90109
2. You could have invoked the president’s rule; as suggested.
3. What was the Fifth Schedule for? You didn’t even threaten the state government. The assurances of L.K.Advani were farcial, you know it, we know it, even Rao knew it.
Argument # 2
We guaranteed Secularism and Socialism by amending the constitution.
May we remind you that the 42nd Amendment was passed at a time when opposition leaders were being baked in tihar; the basic structure of the constitution can be changed (violated) only by a dictator – Ah! now I remember, it was a dictator.
Argument # 3
If you don’t vote us; the Communal party will come in power.
Pray tell me, how is it going to make any difference at all?
You were in power from the period 1947-1990s. All the major riots that occured, happened to be during this time alone. Care to explain?
The fact that regional parties are stronger than the two principal parties, in their states, is proof enough of your secularism.
Argument # 4
We’ve apologised to the Sikh community, we even made one of them as the head of our government!
Narendra Modi, in 2024, might as well apologise for the Godhra carnage, he may apologise to every Muslim. Twenty years hence, no one would care about the orphaned, burnt and raped Gujaratis.
Argument # 5
We appointed the Sacchar Commission.
You might have appointed any commission for any community, the questions is, how many Muslims have benefited? The number of Muslims in the armed forces, intelligence agencies and civil services is MUCH below average – in the 40 years that you have ruled, Muslims have neither benefited from either your policies nor your commissions.
Argument # 6
Religion based reservations.
Reservations for castes or poor or whoever are misplaced. We all know this! Why appease when you know the vote bank is no more yours?
Argument # 7
The Shiv Sena went on a rampage in Mumbai, we didn’t.
The Srikrishna Commission has submitted it’s findings, we are still waiting for ACTION on the culprits.
We’re waiting for Jagdish Tytler to be sacked, how long is it going to be?
Argument # 8
The Bajrang Dal is a part of the Sangh Parivar, we abhor the Sangh Parivar.
Do you remember Orissa 2008? How can you forget!
You had that one golden opportunity to ban the Bajrang Dal, just like you banned the Students Islamic Movement India. What stopped you?
You had ample choice to ban HJM, BD, VHP, SRS, SS, MNS – all of them, through a simple piece of legislation! Ah! but why would you? How are you any different from the party with a difference?
__________
It is time that the average citizen, regardless of his religion see through the two “national parties” which have played havoc in our lives for a long time.
The regional parties, viz., TDP, AIADMK, AGP, BJD, JD(U) and the BSP have, in their respective states acted as better lesser evils than the BJP or the Congress.
They’ve spoken your language, they’ve made sure of better development and they’ve been much more tolerant towards religion than the Congress or the BJP.
The Congress Party is run by one family which ironically swears by democracy!
It is, therefore my advice that we choose Independent candidates or candidates of smaller parties which have educated, sensible people as candidates. In absence of either, it is best we choose the regional parties.
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References:
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1. The Gujarat Riots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence
2. Bombay 1992-93 riots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai_riots
3. Srikrishna Commission’s findings.
http://www.sabrang.com/srikrish/sri%20main.htm
4. The Babri Demolition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babri_Mosque
4. Pogrom of 1984
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Anti-Sikh_Riots
5. Kandhamal 2008
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/01mob.htm
6. The Constitution’s Fifth Schedule
There are reports that the Congress may also push for invocation of the Constitution’s Fifth Schedule to control the violence in Orissa. The Fifth Schedule gives extensive rights to the State Governor in matters relating to scheduled areas and scheduled tribes.
http://news.indiamart.com/news-analysis/riot-hit-kandhamal-r-19774.html
Is it time we accept Indian English? March 24, 2009
Posted by aymenmd in Blogroll.Tags: common language, english, hindi, indian, national, tamil, telugu, urdu
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As much as Indian nationalists would like us to believe that Hindi is our rashtra bhasha, it is not. We are, as a nation, as diverse as humanity itself.
It is widely accepted among the various political thinkers that a nationality can never be strong until there are a few common threads that attach people of that nation. Few of them have been mentioned below:
1.Common Heritage
2.Common Language
3.Common Religion
4.Common History and
5.Commong Government.
Of the principal five, none apply to the subcontinent in general and India in specific. As a secular democracy, no government has ruled us long enough with the same policies for us to develop unity, neither do we have a common religion to our benefit. As for History or Heritage – it has been as diverse as our own country.
Our neighbours, namely, the Chinese have benefited from the fact they 90% of their people speak Han Chinese, the remaining 10% can be taken care of by the dictatorship.
India has long suffered from regionalistic pride and separatism – the reasons can be many – but the principal reason being our North India centric policies and treating Hindi as the soul language.
This has resulted in deep resentment and xenophobia among the North Eastern, Southern and West Indians.
Common language is of paramount importance not only for vague ideals like nationalism and nationality, but also for trade, commerce and better governance.
An Uighur Chinese can easily be act as an employer for, say, a Mongolian ese – the reason? one may ask,simple. Both of the people in question were educated in a school where, apart from Uighurese and Mongolian, Han Chinese was taught.
However, this can hardly be expected in India, which has no one “dominant” language. In such a case, English would surely come in handy.
We might despise the use of a foreign language in our halls of learning or the dusty bazaars. But English is no more foreign, it is, and will hopefully remain, another language in the huge list of languages that already exist.
Indian English, as we may call it, has a distinct stamp of being Indian, just like the imported jeans or the east european dancers who dance behind Himesh Reshammiya.
We Indians are someone who are quick to accept, modify and tailor things according to our likes. The languages that we have today, have enriched themselves to include words like “computer”, “light”, “car” etc. Just like we have the distinction of enriching English with words like “arrey!”, “na” and other regional words.
Jawaharlal Nehru Discovered India in English, just as Khushwant Singh wrote his columns in the same language.
English in India, will and has been treated as it was treated by Australians and Americans. For example “check” became “chuck” for the Americans, “today” became “to die” for people of the Down Under, likewise “Chinese” became “chines” and “yes” got converted to “haan”.
This is, in no way a disrespect to our regional languages, just like it is no disrespect for Malaysian to be written in the Sanskrit, Arabic and Latin alphabet in different times.
The benefit might not only encourage Tamils to live comfortably in Assam, but may also help a Maarwari to do business in Mizoram or help Shashi Tharoor to stand in elections from Malapparam. The politics of division will give way to the politics of unity, and then, we might expect of our leaders to offer us better employment conditions than “self-pride” or “protection of the culture”.
It is time that English comes out of the halls of justice and the parliament, and reach into religious sermons, bazaars, docks and our sign boards.
