THE GREAT INDIAN SHAME
The election results have been ominous for the nation and the kind of coalition that is expected to come in is as someone put it 'a bunch of contradictions' - the left parties and congress coming together just to share power - power corrupts - absolute power corrupts absolutely. Imagine the kind of powers we are investing into the hands of a foreigner who refused to become an Indian for the first 17 years of her stay in India prefering to instead stay an italian.
The following excerpts are from S Gurumurthy's article that appeared in Times of India :
�"What is wrong if she is the Prime Minister," is an argument that comes not from the ordinary people of India, but from the educated Indian. This comes from the Chidambarams and from the Rajdeeep Sardesais of this country; this comes from editorial writers sitting in cities. So let us analyse this issue with all its implications for a country like India, which has an unbroken civilisational continuity.
�India is indeed a civilisation behind the facade of a nation. It is now facing the might of the nation-state, which has evolved in the west. The nation-state mechanism in the west is basically aggressive, violent, conquering, invasive, dominating, imperialistic. It is a concept which the Indian mind cannot internalise, understand, or exhibit in its attitude. So, now we are conceding that foreigners can become prime ministers and presidents of India, provided they hold a citizenship certificate.
" Between 1968 and 1973, there were indications of war with Pakistan over East Pakistan. And sure enough there was the Bangladesh war. During that conflict, when all commercial pilots were asked to forego their leave and enter service, she asked Rajiv to go on long leave. He was given special permission and they left the country. Throughout the period of the war, they were in Rome. Why? Because the American Seventh Fleet was moving towards India, and Sonia Gandhi probably had serious doubts about India's survival!
�So she deserted the country with her husband. She returned only after peace was restored, and after India had won the war because of Indira Gandhi."
"Is this is the person who is going to live and die for India? To live in India is very different from living for India. And to live in India in such glory, with such protection and resources, is very different from dying for India. Nationalism will not come by merely wearing saris. It is as much a fancy dress today as any other dress can be. But some Indians are very happy to see Sonia in a sari, and regard her stay in India as their good fortune. Why? I am going to say something which many of you may not like.
�Some of you may even say I am a racist. I was discussing this issue with Cho Ramaswamy. He told me something he may not write but I will share this with you. Cho said, and I quote, "If Sonia Gandhi had been black, had been a person of African origin, this problem would never have arisen."
�Do you understand what this means, unpalatable though it may be to some of you? It is this fascination for the white skin and it is we, the English educated Indians, who are responsible for this."
"She wanted to be a foreigner till the last day the permit allowed her to be so. And this is precisely what Sharad Pawar asked her in the Congress Working Committee (CWC), in May 1999 It all happened suddenly. Pawar described to me how it happened. On that day, the CWC was to discuss the Goa election and Pawar was supposed to present his analysis of the situation in Goa. The lady came with a prepared speech (please note, even in the 20-member working committee, she comes with a prepared speech).
�She began reading her speech. Everybody was surprised at what she had to say. She said that the Sangh Parivar, against which her mother- in-law carried on a campaign to finish communalism, against whom her husband did this and that, had now decided to destroy her.
�"They are branding me a foreigner. I will fight them to the last drop of my blood. But, I don't want this issue to drag on till the elections. I want it decided today because if it is decided now, we can fight it out at the time of the election, and it will be no issue at all. So, I want to know first whether any of you have any objection to my becoming the Prime Minister,"she said.
�All these fellows remained silent. And then Madhav Rao Scindia spoke, "Madam, you do not have to fight the Sangh Parivar propaganda, I will fight it. This is not your battle, this is my battle:' This set the tone for the rest of the discussion and soon most members began to ask, who are these RSS people to dub Sonia a foreigner?
�Soon it was Sangma's turn to speak. Sangma said, "Madam, I have very different views on this issue. I don't know anything about you; There are people who are saying that for 17 years you lived as a foreigner in India. If the voters ask me, how will I explain? Please tell me why you did not opt for Indian citizenship in 1968? I cannot convince the people of my own State, my own constituency on this." And then it was Pawar's turn.
�He told me he was sitting immediately to her right. He was the last to speak. He was the first one to organise a public meeting for her, a massive rally in Maharastra. He told Sonia, and I quote, "In that rally, you said I am an ordinary humble Congress worker. You said I don't want any position, I don't want power, and I am associated with the Congress family. You also said I don't even want to become a Congress member.
�can't bear to see a party with which my mother-in-law, her father, her grandfather, and my husband were all associated, decaying like this. So, I want to strengthen this party. This is what you said on that day." Then Pawar told the rally, "If she is willing to do such a generous job for a nationalist party, there should be no objection. She does not want to be the president of the party, she does not want to be in any position and she doesn't want to be an MP."
�Pawar told me that he had recounted the statements made at that rally to BaI Thackeray in defence of Sonia Gandhi. "But the day she ran to the President of India and told him that she had the support of 272 MPs to become the Prime Minister of India, which was a lie, all of us changed and I changed, too;" Pawar told me.
�Sonia said she was not interested in politics, and that she would never enter politics. She said she would not become a Congress member but will only help the party as a person belonging to the Congress fami1y. She said and I quote, "I am just a four anna member, I will not occupy any position." But what happened thereafter? She physically threw out Sitaram Kesri from the office. The poor fellow was in the toilet. His chair was empty. And do you know what happened? The Congress goons bolted the toilet door from outside and made Sonia occupy' his chair, The elderly man wept. This is how she became the president of the Congress Party.
�In the same way the western armies in the past invaded other civilisations and seized power, she seized power in a 'coup d'toilette'. This is the disconnect between her word and her action. Her conduct was the very reverse of her profession. she said she had no ambition to be the Prime Minister. But who ran from pillar to post to bring down the Vajpayee government?
�Again, when the media probed her about the money paid by Bofors to her friend Quattrocchi, she said, "Yes, the CBI is saying he is a suspect, but they have not produced any papers; and unless you produce papers to prove that somebody is guilty, you cannot say he is guilty." "
And the most terrifying feature is that of national security :
"�However, Quattrocchi defied the orders of the Supreme Court and did not turn up. He filed an affidavit in the Swiss Court saying that India was a brute nation and he cannot get justice in the judicial system of India. And Sonia Gandhi is defending this fellow Italian. It is, therefore, a blatant lie to say there are no documents to prove Quattrocchi's guilt.
�It is also a lie that Sonia did not know his plans to abscond from the country. It is impossible that somebody who resided in Delhi for 20 years, who shared weekly evenings with Rajiv and Sonia, would have suddenly left Delhi , without even telephoning to her. She must have been privy to all these things and she has the audacity to ask where is the proof?
�So, truth has nothing to do with Sonia Gandhi. There is an absolute disconnect between her words and deeds. Now the issue is whether Sonia in politics is a national shame. �Whether it is a national shame or not, it is certainly a danger to national security. Why do we have rules in the army which prohibit a foreigner, a foreign born person, even though he is a citizen, from occupying certain high-ranking offices in the army? Why do we say that our IPS officers should not be of foreign origin? Why do we say that our IPS officers cannot marry foreigners? Now, herein comes the idea of the modern nation-state.
�A modern nation-state has a built-in insecurity and that is the reason why it has to secure itself. But can the Prime Minister have a foreign wife? Can the Prime Minister's son have a foreign wife? Sitting in the Prime Minister's Office, in the Prime Minister's home, a foreign wife for 15 years; who ran away with her husband when the nation was at war, breaching the discipline of commercial pilots is now a well, established fact. In India, the MLAs, MPs, and ministers are not subject to any rule or discipline. Even today whether an MLA or MP is a public servant is a matter that is being debated in courts.
�So, can an MP have a foreign wife.? Can a minister have a foreign wife? This distortion has crept into the system. And what are the consequences of foreigners penetrating our polity?
�When George Fernandes spoke on this issue on the national television, it was chilling. He spoke of a particular file whlch contained all the secrets of the government. Where are the nuclear weapons, where are the missiles, who can press the button, which missile points in which direction, who are our spy links in different countries? This single file contains all this information.
�That file is not handled by anybody other than the Prime Minister of India. If Vajpayee ceases to be the Prime Minister and Sonia becomes the Prime Minister, he will have to hand over this file to her. It will have every nationa1 security secret. If it falls into wrong hands, it will strip India naked before inimical forces.
�`Can we afford to hand over these secrets to her?` Fernandes said even the Defence Minister cannot do anything; he cannot look at that file. Even the services chiefs know only their part of the secret. The combined, collective national secret is in the hands of one man that will be handed over to this foreigner, should she achieve her political ambition.
�Whether somebody can speak tolerable Hindi or not is not the issue; it is far more serious. It goes to the root of the existence of the nation, its security and its survival. Sonia's loyalty to India will always be in doubt. If there is even a millionth of a chance that her loyalty to, this country is in question, it should be enough to disqualify her from prime ministership. The issue is not whether Sonia will succeed in becoming the Prime Minister, but the very idea that somebody like her can nurse such an ambition.
�If the intellectuals of India, whose duty it is to preserve the mind of India have failed, I am certain that at least the ordinary people of India will succeed in protecting national interest as they did in 1977. "
Have the people failed their nation? Has the civilizational gem gone once again in the hands of a foreigner?
We are going to have a foreigner - never heard of in history except in case of invasions.
My head hangs in shame to even imagine Sonia Maino as the nation's PM - a billion people could not provide for a prime minister, and we will have to say madam prime minister to an Italian - the service chiefs - Army, Navy and Air Force will salute this foreigner as the leader/chief of this great nation. Is this not the height of sycophancy among such educated people and is there a greater insult for the nation.
The election results have been ominous for the nation and the kind of coalition that is expected to come in is as someone put it 'a bunch of contradictions' - the left parties and congress coming together just to share power - power corrupts - absolute power corrupts absolutely. Imagine the kind of powers we are investing into the hands of a foreigner who refused to become an Indian for the first 17 years of her stay in India prefering to instead stay an italian.
The following excerpts are from S Gurumurthy's article that appeared in Times of India :
�"What is wrong if she is the Prime Minister," is an argument that comes not from the ordinary people of India, but from the educated Indian. This comes from the Chidambarams and from the Rajdeeep Sardesais of this country; this comes from editorial writers sitting in cities. So let us analyse this issue with all its implications for a country like India, which has an unbroken civilisational continuity.
�India is indeed a civilisation behind the facade of a nation. It is now facing the might of the nation-state, which has evolved in the west. The nation-state mechanism in the west is basically aggressive, violent, conquering, invasive, dominating, imperialistic. It is a concept which the Indian mind cannot internalise, understand, or exhibit in its attitude. So, now we are conceding that foreigners can become prime ministers and presidents of India, provided they hold a citizenship certificate.
" Between 1968 and 1973, there were indications of war with Pakistan over East Pakistan. And sure enough there was the Bangladesh war. During that conflict, when all commercial pilots were asked to forego their leave and enter service, she asked Rajiv to go on long leave. He was given special permission and they left the country. Throughout the period of the war, they were in Rome. Why? Because the American Seventh Fleet was moving towards India, and Sonia Gandhi probably had serious doubts about India's survival!
�So she deserted the country with her husband. She returned only after peace was restored, and after India had won the war because of Indira Gandhi."
"Is this is the person who is going to live and die for India? To live in India is very different from living for India. And to live in India in such glory, with such protection and resources, is very different from dying for India. Nationalism will not come by merely wearing saris. It is as much a fancy dress today as any other dress can be. But some Indians are very happy to see Sonia in a sari, and regard her stay in India as their good fortune. Why? I am going to say something which many of you may not like.
�Some of you may even say I am a racist. I was discussing this issue with Cho Ramaswamy. He told me something he may not write but I will share this with you. Cho said, and I quote, "If Sonia Gandhi had been black, had been a person of African origin, this problem would never have arisen."
�Do you understand what this means, unpalatable though it may be to some of you? It is this fascination for the white skin and it is we, the English educated Indians, who are responsible for this."
"She wanted to be a foreigner till the last day the permit allowed her to be so. And this is precisely what Sharad Pawar asked her in the Congress Working Committee (CWC), in May 1999 It all happened suddenly. Pawar described to me how it happened. On that day, the CWC was to discuss the Goa election and Pawar was supposed to present his analysis of the situation in Goa. The lady came with a prepared speech (please note, even in the 20-member working committee, she comes with a prepared speech).
�She began reading her speech. Everybody was surprised at what she had to say. She said that the Sangh Parivar, against which her mother- in-law carried on a campaign to finish communalism, against whom her husband did this and that, had now decided to destroy her.
�"They are branding me a foreigner. I will fight them to the last drop of my blood. But, I don't want this issue to drag on till the elections. I want it decided today because if it is decided now, we can fight it out at the time of the election, and it will be no issue at all. So, I want to know first whether any of you have any objection to my becoming the Prime Minister,"she said.
�All these fellows remained silent. And then Madhav Rao Scindia spoke, "Madam, you do not have to fight the Sangh Parivar propaganda, I will fight it. This is not your battle, this is my battle:' This set the tone for the rest of the discussion and soon most members began to ask, who are these RSS people to dub Sonia a foreigner?
�Soon it was Sangma's turn to speak. Sangma said, "Madam, I have very different views on this issue. I don't know anything about you; There are people who are saying that for 17 years you lived as a foreigner in India. If the voters ask me, how will I explain? Please tell me why you did not opt for Indian citizenship in 1968? I cannot convince the people of my own State, my own constituency on this." And then it was Pawar's turn.
�He told me he was sitting immediately to her right. He was the last to speak. He was the first one to organise a public meeting for her, a massive rally in Maharastra. He told Sonia, and I quote, "In that rally, you said I am an ordinary humble Congress worker. You said I don't want any position, I don't want power, and I am associated with the Congress family. You also said I don't even want to become a Congress member.
�can't bear to see a party with which my mother-in-law, her father, her grandfather, and my husband were all associated, decaying like this. So, I want to strengthen this party. This is what you said on that day." Then Pawar told the rally, "If she is willing to do such a generous job for a nationalist party, there should be no objection. She does not want to be the president of the party, she does not want to be in any position and she doesn't want to be an MP."
�Pawar told me that he had recounted the statements made at that rally to BaI Thackeray in defence of Sonia Gandhi. "But the day she ran to the President of India and told him that she had the support of 272 MPs to become the Prime Minister of India, which was a lie, all of us changed and I changed, too;" Pawar told me.
�Sonia said she was not interested in politics, and that she would never enter politics. She said she would not become a Congress member but will only help the party as a person belonging to the Congress fami1y. She said and I quote, "I am just a four anna member, I will not occupy any position." But what happened thereafter? She physically threw out Sitaram Kesri from the office. The poor fellow was in the toilet. His chair was empty. And do you know what happened? The Congress goons bolted the toilet door from outside and made Sonia occupy' his chair, The elderly man wept. This is how she became the president of the Congress Party.
�In the same way the western armies in the past invaded other civilisations and seized power, she seized power in a 'coup d'toilette'. This is the disconnect between her word and her action. Her conduct was the very reverse of her profession. she said she had no ambition to be the Prime Minister. But who ran from pillar to post to bring down the Vajpayee government?
�Again, when the media probed her about the money paid by Bofors to her friend Quattrocchi, she said, "Yes, the CBI is saying he is a suspect, but they have not produced any papers; and unless you produce papers to prove that somebody is guilty, you cannot say he is guilty." "
And the most terrifying feature is that of national security :
"�However, Quattrocchi defied the orders of the Supreme Court and did not turn up. He filed an affidavit in the Swiss Court saying that India was a brute nation and he cannot get justice in the judicial system of India. And Sonia Gandhi is defending this fellow Italian. It is, therefore, a blatant lie to say there are no documents to prove Quattrocchi's guilt.
�It is also a lie that Sonia did not know his plans to abscond from the country. It is impossible that somebody who resided in Delhi for 20 years, who shared weekly evenings with Rajiv and Sonia, would have suddenly left Delhi , without even telephoning to her. She must have been privy to all these things and she has the audacity to ask where is the proof?
�So, truth has nothing to do with Sonia Gandhi. There is an absolute disconnect between her words and deeds. Now the issue is whether Sonia in politics is a national shame. �Whether it is a national shame or not, it is certainly a danger to national security. Why do we have rules in the army which prohibit a foreigner, a foreign born person, even though he is a citizen, from occupying certain high-ranking offices in the army? Why do we say that our IPS officers should not be of foreign origin? Why do we say that our IPS officers cannot marry foreigners? Now, herein comes the idea of the modern nation-state.
�A modern nation-state has a built-in insecurity and that is the reason why it has to secure itself. But can the Prime Minister have a foreign wife? Can the Prime Minister's son have a foreign wife? Sitting in the Prime Minister's Office, in the Prime Minister's home, a foreign wife for 15 years; who ran away with her husband when the nation was at war, breaching the discipline of commercial pilots is now a well, established fact. In India, the MLAs, MPs, and ministers are not subject to any rule or discipline. Even today whether an MLA or MP is a public servant is a matter that is being debated in courts.
�So, can an MP have a foreign wife.? Can a minister have a foreign wife? This distortion has crept into the system. And what are the consequences of foreigners penetrating our polity?
�When George Fernandes spoke on this issue on the national television, it was chilling. He spoke of a particular file whlch contained all the secrets of the government. Where are the nuclear weapons, where are the missiles, who can press the button, which missile points in which direction, who are our spy links in different countries? This single file contains all this information.
�That file is not handled by anybody other than the Prime Minister of India. If Vajpayee ceases to be the Prime Minister and Sonia becomes the Prime Minister, he will have to hand over this file to her. It will have every nationa1 security secret. If it falls into wrong hands, it will strip India naked before inimical forces.
�`Can we afford to hand over these secrets to her?` Fernandes said even the Defence Minister cannot do anything; he cannot look at that file. Even the services chiefs know only their part of the secret. The combined, collective national secret is in the hands of one man that will be handed over to this foreigner, should she achieve her political ambition.
�Whether somebody can speak tolerable Hindi or not is not the issue; it is far more serious. It goes to the root of the existence of the nation, its security and its survival. Sonia's loyalty to India will always be in doubt. If there is even a millionth of a chance that her loyalty to, this country is in question, it should be enough to disqualify her from prime ministership. The issue is not whether Sonia will succeed in becoming the Prime Minister, but the very idea that somebody like her can nurse such an ambition.
�If the intellectuals of India, whose duty it is to preserve the mind of India have failed, I am certain that at least the ordinary people of India will succeed in protecting national interest as they did in 1977. "
Have the people failed their nation? Has the civilizational gem gone once again in the hands of a foreigner?
We are going to have a foreigner - never heard of in history except in case of invasions.
My head hangs in shame to even imagine Sonia Maino as the nation's PM - a billion people could not provide for a prime minister, and we will have to say madam prime minister to an Italian - the service chiefs - Army, Navy and Air Force will salute this foreigner as the leader/chief of this great nation. Is this not the height of sycophancy among such educated people and is there a greater insult for the nation.
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