The majesty of Indian government taking oath of office

Indians should be proud of their democracy and the majesty of its traditions. Last Friday, May 22, 2009, the elected members of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) and the opposition Members of Parliament gathered in the Ashoka Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in central Delhi for the swearing-in ceremony. The historic Ashoka Hall was packed to the capacity, the bugles sounded and the Presidential Guard marched in, escorting the President of India to the chambers. The national anthem was played and the entire Indian leadership stood in honor. Indian President Pratibha Patil administered the oath of office and secrecy to the prime minister and 19 cabinet ministers. The new Congress-led government was sworn in for a second term of five years, with Dr Manmohan Singh taking oath as the next Prime Minister of India. Manmohan Singh is only the second Indian Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to be returned to power following a full five-year term. The Congress party won a decisive mandate in the recent polls and Dr Manmohan Singh has emerged as an honest and a popular leader. This was Indian democracy at its best!

The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part VIII

Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao and his administration had a profound impact on India’s image around the world. He was himself a consummate diplomat. Rao understood the importance of nation’s foreign policy and its impact on the domestic growth. He implemented his life-long agenda of unshackling the Indian economy. He was the first non Nehru-Gandhi Prime Minister to have completed a full five year term. Naturally his impact on India was very significant and long lasting. Narasimha Rao’s world view was significantly different from the Gandhi family. India is believed to have covert relations with the state of Israel since 1969 but it was Rao administration that established full diplomatic ties between the two countries on January 29, 1992. Madhavsinh Solanki was the Foreign Minister of India at that time. Israel has become a strong ally of India since then. Prime Minister Rao was intellectually persuaded to declare India a full and open ‘Nuclear Power’ but Americans leaned on him heavily to give up the idea. According to Vajpayee when he became the PM in 1996 Rao handed him a piece of paper which simply stated ‘Bomb is ready. You can go ahead.’ (referring to a nuclear device) and asked that it should not be made public. Vajpayee revealed this only after Rao’s death. Rao also launched the Look East foreign policy.

While Narasimha Rao succeeded in transforming the Indian Economy and Foreign Affairs, his administration was very week domestically. Kashmir insurgency that was brewing since 1989, flared up during the 5 year term of Prime Minister Rao. He was successful in curtailing the Punjab militancy but failed to stop the demolition of Babri Masjid by the goons of VHP (Vishva Hindu Parishad) on December 6, 1992. This destruction of the disputed structure, which was widely reported in the international media, unleashed large scale communal violence, the most extensive since the Partition of India. It is widely believed that the 1993 Mumbai Bombings, which claimed hundreds of innocent lives and left thousands injured was the Muslim underworld’s retaliation for the demolition of the Babri Mosque. This proved to be the single most damaging incident in India’s domestic policy. As I have written earlier, it was a phony excuse for Muslim extremists who were waiting for any such opportunity to create sectarian unrest; it was an idiotic lapse of judgment as far as Ministry of Home Affairs was concerned. This unnecessary violence gave India a very bad name in the international media and damaged the country’s reputation. But for his failed domestic policy P V Narasimha Rao would have been acclaimed as one of the most successful PMs of India! Despite his failures, Rao would remain the father of Modern India.

General elections were held in India in 1996 to elect the members of the 11th Lok Sabha. The result of the election was a hung parliament, which would see three Prime Ministers in two years and force the country back to the polls in 1998. The May 1995 defection of high profile Congress Party leaders like Arjun Singh and Narayan Dutt Tiwari divided the party into smaller factions. Bharatiya Janata Party emerged as the single largest party with only 161 seats in the parliament followed by Indian National Congress with 14o seats. The then President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma, invited the leader of the largest party in parliament, Bharatiya Janata Party to form the government. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as the new Prime Minister on May 15, 1996. He was required to prove a majority in the parliament by May 31, 1996. Vajpayee tried to build a coalition but failed to convince the moderate parties to support the BJP’s agenda. Instead of facing a loosing ‘confidence vote’ on May 31, he decided to resign as Prime Minister in just 13 days. Congress Party then declined to attempt a majority as the second largest party. Instead they agreed to support H D Deve Gowda, Chief Minister of Karnataka, as the next Prime Minister of India. He took office on June 1, 1996. Meanwhile the country drifted and India’s foreign policy was non-existent. Deve Gowda couldn’t last even a year and resigned on April 21, 1997.

The Nehru-Gandhi family is culturally Anglocentric

Starting with Motilal Nehru and right down to Rahul Gandhi, the entire Nehru-Gandhi family is the product of the British academia and the ‘English Civil Institutions’. This legacy has not served India and its people in any way. It is tragic that our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and his colleagues in the Congress Party decided to adopt a Parliamentary Democracy for a diverse country like India. This form of government has undermined our freedom and creativity. Indians have no say in the election of our Chief Executive or the Commander-in-Chief. The ruling party decides as to who would lead the nation of 1.2 billion people and who would be the Commander-in-Chief of one of the largest defense forces in the world. The people of India have no say what so ever in this matter. What could be more outrageous? This is the legacy of Nehru-Gandhi family. We need to THINK long and hard about it!

How many people in the free-world would believe that just one individual in the largest democracy in the world decided as to who would be the next Prime Minister of India? In May 2004, it was left to Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, to decide the next Chief Executive of India and she chose Dr Manmohan Singh to head the coalition government. She also single-handedly decided who would be the next President of India once the then incumbent Dr APJ Abdul Kalam finished his first term in office. The universally respected President of India was not offered the second term because ‘Madame’ did not like the idea. Do you call this form of government a democracy? I don’t! This is an insult to the billion plus people of India. Yet, there is nothing that ordinary Indians can do about it. When the largest democracy in the world is ruled by a ‘Madame’, you know what it should be called!