Vote Congress - Get back to Socialist Dystopia of the 70s

Talk to anyone who grew up in the 70s. Chances are more that they talk about the dismal economic conditions they were living in than they talk about the affluent or at least middle class lifestyle. That was the condition in which most of the Indians languished till the economic reforms gave them some kind of respite and hope.

Agreed, India of the 70s was just over two decades since was free from the colonial clutches. But many countries which were erstwhile colonial colonies, once got freedom in the 40s and 50s were marching ahead in the economic growth while majority of the Indians were paralyzed by penury. If you go to the main causes of it, it’s not hard to find the reason – the flirtation with socialism to usher in the dreams of a utopia.

I had said in one of my earlier posts – most of the problems that are plaguing the contemporary India can be traced back to congress. In the same way, many of the mindless economic policies that caused unnecessary delay of economic progress of India can be traced back to one man – Jawaharlal Nehru and of course, his progenies.

Those were the times when the world was swayed by the spells of socialism. Nehru, who was a Fabian socialist was immensely influenced by the success of the then USSR, wanted to replicate the same in India. So, all these centralized planning, the five-year plan, control of the state on key industries are the results of the socialist principles. But, thank heavens he did not choose the way of Lenin, Stalin or Mao.

If you by any chance remember studying the kind of economy India is, you might remember studying it as a mixed economy – that is the one which has both the traits of socialism and capitalism. But before the reforms of the 90s, India can be rightly called as a quasi-socialist economy. There is a well known joke in the Former Eastern Bloc – Capitalism makes social mistakes, socialism makes capital mistakes.

The legacy of Nehru continued unabated – first through his daughter and then through the dynasty. In my assessment of the man I can ascribe naiveté for him but not malignancy. The same can’t be said about his daughter Indira. She was dictatorial, having little respect for the democratic principles. For these kinds of leaders naturally socialism becomes dearest. So, during her reign, socialistic policies went unchecked. To understand how diabolical the policies were of the Indira’s rule, just sample this –  India’s personal income tax had eleven tax brackets with highest marginal income tax rate of 97.5 per cent! Now, with that level of taxation, who would want to be an entrepreneur? It was just discouraging for anyone who wanted to be an entrepreneur.

That’s just the repetition of the same old story of Robin Hood we knew about: Rob from the rich and give it to the poor. But usually the latter never happened. No country can ever be in the path of progress without entrepreneurial spirit. But with the existing principles, the spirit of entrepreneurship was nipped in the bud.

Now cut to present day, current UPA government – we hear the same sloganeering, the same social engineering, the same high decibel projects (NREGA, and other such loathsome likes) – in short, all vestiges of the bygone dark socialistic era. They have brought down India from a level in which it was hailed as the next economic power to a crippling economy where food inflation runs close to 13%.

It was a rude shocker for the BJP and NDA when the Congress and its allies got the mandate to form the government in 2004. It was too much to give it a second chance in 2009. It continued doing what it did in the first term – to bring India down by several notches. Now we stand at the doorstep of a much needed change. If we make a mistake of re-electing the UPA again, the mistake would be too costly to correct. So, the mistake would be at our own peril and might create the socialist dystopia yet again. 

My being pro-BJP is incidental ; whereas my being anti-Congress is permanent

If there was one impending doom that could be called as the greatest to befall on Independent India, that could be called as ‘congress’. That was one baggage we could have done without. Instead of disbanding it for good as per the aspirations of the Mahatma, it was left to stay. The lust for power knows neither principles nor ethics. It triumphs everything else.

But, why such animosity against such a ‘great’ national party which did so many ‘sacrifices’ for the nation you may ask. Well, the issue under discussion merits at least the scope of a full book. The ills inflicted on the nation, the aspirations of the people cut short, the number of hopes betrayed, and it will be too long to even mention all the sins committed by congress.

The best test would be to list all the problems distressing the Indian populace and the problems plaguing all the political parties across the nation. I can take a bet that a phenomenal number of them can be traced back to congress, its ideology (does it have one?) and its misrule. From falling over backwards for minorities to dynastic politics to dividing on communal and caste lines – everything – has its roots in the congress party.

To start with, when Congress got the mandate to rule the country after independence they inherited a great number of traits from the erstwhile rulers, the British. They continued to despise the people and their aspirations, they continued to see how they can hold onto the seat willy-nilly, and the worst them of all: they continued to Divide and rule. In fact, congress has mastered this strategy of dividing the country into smaller and smaller pieces in the name of language, religion, castes and whatnot!

If the country is divided into umpteen number of pieces, if one faction is at war with the other, if regionalism has triumphed over nationalism (and a large number of people have sympathies for regionalism than nationalism) think that there is a grand wicked hand of congress at work. In fact, congress not only represents a party but it stands for a culture – a culture that now has been imbibed by many other small parties. It’s a culture of settling scores of political rivals, corruption of gargantuan magnitude, legacy of betrayal, sycophancy (most important), keeping the people in perpetual poverty and ignorance, needless reverence of one particular family (dynastic politics, in other words), rendering of constitutional institutions into the state of powerlessness, killing free speech – in short, killing democracy inch by inch.

Although the hegemony of congress over the nation has dented over a period of time, it takes some more time for its abject decimation. India and congress are like two mutually exclusive events – For India to progress, congress has to go with all of its manifestations or should congress stay, India can never be on the path of progress – that’s a given. To be more straightforward, I consider congress to be akin with a cancerous tumor which has to be removed should the person needs to survive. Here, the person is India.

On the contrast, with all its problems and squabbles - BJP in the national level -- is something you can still entrust your hopes on. Although the original ideology of placing nation above the party and self has definitely deteriorated over time, it has still not died completely. Still, there are leaders who can selflessly dedicate themselves for the task of nation building. Besides, should I have to choose other party than the BJP or the congress there is not a single party which can throw a real challenge to congress other than the BJP at a pan-Indian level. So, it’s also the deprivation of choices that makes me vote for the BJP. With its many obvious flaws, if you consider BJP to be evil, it is much lesser evil compared to congress and all of its manifestations – any day! That’s why, my being pro-BJP is just incidental but my being anti-Congress is something permanent.

The farce called inter-religious dialogue

The wise men of this land said "Religion is an inward step". Well, they were right indeed. Religion was treated same way in this land, not as an object which was to be flaunted outside with all unnecessary pomp. But not all the cultures were as catholic as India's in their outlook towards life.

The genesis of the concept of god

Now, where and when did all this start? When man came to Earth, he saw so much of creation. He couldn't account for all the creation that was lying around. So, he created a hypothesis : Some one "up there" should have done all this. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev jokingly says that gods created by human beings look like bigger human beings. Likewise if buffaloes were to create god, they would create bigger buffaloes. 

Xenophanes, the Greek poet and philosopher said it the best:

Ethiopians imagine their gods as black and snub-nosed; Thracians blue-eyed and red-haired. But if horses or lions had hands, or could draw and fashion works as men do, horses would draw the gods shaped like horses and lions like lions, making the gods resemble themselves.

So, then man is not the image of god but it's just the reverse. In fact, the god and the attributes given to him/her/it tells a lot about the culture which worships him/her/it. It's another story in itself. Let's save it for another day.

Some time ago, I found this statement when i was browsing for something

Religion was born to fill gaps in our understanding of the universe. Anything we could not understand was attributed to a “god”. The criminals soon realized that Priest craft was a profitable business and soon competing religions was born and each was supported by legions of “useful idiots”. What better way to assert dominance that using threats, waging war, stealing in the name of god, committing genocide. Do you understand why we have such a messy world today?

Whoever wrote this has a point. Many religions started as political doctrines which masqueraded in the garb of 'religions'. Many others started as genuine spiritual movements and went into the hands of people who had other ulterior motives and used religion as a plank in their ploy.

Religion and Politics

If there is a genuine spiritual movement, it should and will never give a damn about the head count it has. The head count is important for the forces which want to RULE not to serve. The forces which want to rule, far from being spiritual can only be political. This is how proselytizing starts. Of course these forces invoke the name of god for all atrocious, ugly things that they do.

When competing religions fight for their share of pie around the globe, inevitably there will be conflicts among them. NO deaths are more in number than the deaths that are caused by religion. In any competitive arena, sometimes there is no other option other than to 'tolerate' the other party or to strike a deal of 'compromise'. Competitive religions which have the features of both politics and business can't be an exception to this rule. So, this farce called inter-religious dialogue begins.

If you look at the history of inter-religious dialogue especially in India, it may go as far as the times of Akbar. Much before that, there were many exchanges, debates between different schools of thought but they can't be considered as inter-religious dialogues because there were hardly any religions that India had before the predatory religions invaded India. All that India had was indigenous spiritual traditions which were not as ossified as the current religions which are beyond any change.

The most famous inter-religious dialogue which is known for most of us is the one that happened in 1893 in which Swami Vivekanda took the conference by storm. You know the rest of the story. I need not elaborate it. We can concord, it was fairly successful because India's soft power was exerted very well by Vivekananda. Apart from this one, do we hear about any other conferences? No, we don't. 

The first such conference that i witnessed was the 'dailogue' between Zakir Naik of Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) and Sri Sri Ravishankar of Art of Living. It was a travesty right from the beginning. First of all, the 'dialogue' is a part of IRF's project called "Shahada". The arabic word shahada is the declaration of "lā ʾilāha ʾillā l-Lāh, Muḥammadun rasūlu l-Lāh" which means There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Need i say more? When someone is starting with this kind of mindset both in words and in spirit, can there be any possibility of an honest debate? Not possible, not for a minute. This one turned out to be another such farce out of which nothing fruitful emerged.

"All religions are equal"

Boy, oh boy! they said it all the day and never got bored of saying it. Among many empty-talks, this one would take the cake. This thought is not alien to the people who are born in Hindu families. They are taught all religions are same and eventually leads to the same destination, god. Well, the thought which comes out of good-will is practically wrong. Else, how on this earth can one equate an Orthodox Jain and an Orthodox Muslim or for that matter Orthodox Jainism with Orthodox Islam? That's just bull. One of my twitter friends commented the biggest dope ever sold was the thought of all religions are equal one. You know what? The dope was so attractive that many bought it. But a lie can't become truth just by the number people that adhere to it.

I think Aristotle (Some dispute it) said it the best : The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

Anna, Ramdev and anti-corruption movement

When the likes of Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev started their crusade against corruption, the ordinary citizen sensed a ray of hope and supported them irrespective of language and religion. But when Baba Ramdev got arrested in an undemocratic way, all that hopes were dashed and the common citizen was again thrown to the deep pit of cynicism. In the current day India, it seems quite natural to be cynical where nothing is going well and where every single person in power wants to loot the nation.

          There is no doubt that most of the people in politics are corrupt irrespective of parties. In one sense, parties are no more a barrier to the politicos. Gone are the days where people stood for some ideologies and remained in the party which adhered to that ideology. Today there is no ideology in any party though every party talks about it in a vivid way. The idea of ideology has become just rhetoric. The ideologies for today are money and power.

Coming back to the issue of corruption; when one is against such big shots of the nation, one has to be ready for all the kinds of mudslinging. No matter which party is in power, the primary aim of all the parties is to save power. It will do it willy-nilly. It can go to any extent to save the power. What we are witnessing today is different facets of the same underlying intention.

          The support that the civil society members got from the people of India is something unprecedented. There was an unseen ire in the minds of the people of India about corruption that was just waiting to get erupted. They were just waiting for the platform and a good leader with a strong character whom they can rely upon. In Anna and his movement, they found all these, so they wholeheartedly supported him. In the world which is networked, it did not take too much time to get the whole nation together. This would have given the government tremors.

          Even the government was supporting the issues raised by Anna, truly speaking it was obviously not interested in implementing them. The reason is so simple and blatant. But the government had understood that this movement can’t be scrapped so easily like some other movements because the whole nation had come together for the issue. It clearly understood the gravity of the issue. But somehow it had to dent the momentum of the movement but it could not do it in a direct way. So the state chose another way: mudslinging.

We have to remember that the party which is in power in the center is congress which has a history of more than a century and which has ruled the nation for more than five decades. So, it has got all the tricks in the bag. It is releasing the cat as and when it is required. This mudslinging is just one of its tricks. The effective way to counter the civil society members is to dent their image, the moral one because that is the core strength of the members. So, every effort was made by the people of the government to do it. The paid up media also supported the government in this cause.

          But the fact was that every member of the civil society had an unblemished history and was very successful in their respective fields. They did not have any individual interests or personal agenda. They were truly working for the nation’s good. So it did not take the people of India to see the ploy of the government and they did not heed to the fake issues raised by the government. Government was pushed to the back seat again. But it was not ready to give up.

          Now the government is coming with all guns against Anna and his team and even going to an extent to link Anna with RSS and to say the whole moment is sponsored by RSS. That’s a dodgy move from the government. Against Ramdev, it is more or less successful in damaging the image. When someone is fighting against a party like congress, one has to understand that they are fighting against a shitty behemoth. It is impossible to fight, let alone win without getting dirty.

CBI : Congress Bureau of Investigation!

CBI,as we all know is an autonomous body.But there is no denying of the fact that, it will be controlled to some extent by the party which is in power at the center. But the congress handles CBI in a way that makes mockery of the very institutional existense. If ever people had complete faith in one investigating agency, that was CBI. Now the CBI out of that belief, people are not in a position to trust any investigating agency.

Congress, time & again has used CBI to meet its selfish ends.We can take innumerable examples like those of Lalu Yadav,Mayavati etc. They are using the CBI literally like dogs. The latest entry to this is Mr.Shah of Gujarat.I am not commenting about the role of Mr.Shah in Sohrabuddin murder case but just observe the timing of this.

When Indo-Pak talks have failed miserably and when the prices have reached the peaks, congress had this old weapon of CBI.They wanted the whole attention of the Indian people to shift from those burning issues to the issue which was less significant. And they made that insignificant issue to look like a very significant very successfully. The "SICKular" English media always backs up congress without any exception.

If one looks at present day India, one can say even god would find it difficult to rule it!!!