Sonia Gandhi: The leader who never delivered?
8 mins ago 17 May 2013 6:39pm
Part 1 was published earlier – please click here to read. Continuing from where I left off……
When the going gets tough…..the tough are nowhere to be seen:
Where was Sonia Gandhi when outrage was boiling over rather disconcertingly on the streets of Delhi – June 2011 & December 2012 – and threatening to singe and rock the nation? Also, why was she conspicuous by her absence when the MPs where debating the Criminal Law Amendment Bill on 19 March 2013?
Why is it that the most powerful person in the country is nowhere to be seen when some soothing gentle words, the empathy of a concerned elder, the soft touch of someone who knows right from wrong – politics be damned – are most needed. Whilst it is true that she muttered a few platitudes after things had cooled down a tad, her absence and silence at the most crucial moments were staggeringly devoid of leadership qualities.
The twin dynastic pocket boroughs:
Has the Congress president escaped tough questions?. PTI
Let us now turn our attention to the plight of citizens in the pocket boroughs of Amethi and Rae Bareli that are represented by the mother and son duo – the former, of course, being someone who was ranked the sixth most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine in 2012.
I point you to a hyperlink –click here to access details pertaining to some key human development indices [Hint: Amethi-Rae Bareli reportedly fare worse than a relatively underdeveloped district like Purulia, WB].
As an aside, were Sonia and Rahul not booed during a visit to the pocket boroughs by a section of the locals a few months ago? For more on that, please click here. Media follow-up? Zilch!
Lofty, high-minded & stunningly vacuous:
Sonia Gandhi has often hinted at some sweeping changes on issues such as criminality in politics, overall electoral landscape and the criminal justice system. However, inaction invariably follows – words, I suspect, have no meaning. This is an aspect that the MSM has stoically refused to debate, discuss and analyse – blame it on the gift for the tediously peripheral?
Perhaps the time has come for the MSM to stop paying obeisance at the high altar of suzerainty; asking some valid and probing questions to the host of Congress leaders who keep popping up on TV channels, would be a great place to start. While we are on them, why is it that the novel process of thinking before speaking eludes their flailing intellect not infrequently, and the few times it doesn’t, it reminds one of the misfiring of a defective carburetor? Take a look at the list below – it may not be exhaustive, but there is enough meat in there to ask Mrs. G a few tough, probing and honest questions:
Links: [ April, 2013, Jan 2013, Jan 2013, Jan 2013, April 2011, Jan 2010, March 2006 [or in the period leading up to March 2006] ]
When is the last time a news channel held a panel discussion on some of these promises made, statements uttered, and follow-up action not taken? Also, can someone please point out one column by one leading columnist that puts Mrs. G on the mat on issues such as these? And where are the opposition parties?
Ah, but then we all know that the opposition reverts to the mean mean, swerving close to the median of psychobabble which, in turn, is the preferred mode of conveying to the nation that they are playing their role as the opposition to perfection. Not much scope forstandard deviation there then, on the white noise that surrounds structural and systemic issues; after all, why put some of their flock in the dock as well?
And while we are on the opposition, which can be deemed to be a part of the establishment, let me bung in a quote from Plato’s Republic [545d]: Change in any society starts with civil strife among the ruling class; as long as the ruling class remains united, even if is quite small, no change is possible.
And finally….
“When extraordinary power is allotted to any individual in a Government, he becomes the centre, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms” noted Thomas Paine in Rights of Man in 1791. He then went on to state, “What is called splendour of the throne is no other than the corruption of the State. It is made up of a band of parasites living in luxurious indolence out of public taxes.
When once such a vicious system is established it becomes the guard and protection of all inferior abuses”. The fount of corruption, he goes on to note “is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest, in the event, it should reach to himself. It is always in his interest to defend inferior abuses, as so many outworks to protect the citadel; and on this species of political fortification, all the parts that have such a common dependence that it is never to be expected they will attack each other….it is the master-fraud which shelters all others. By admitting a participation of the spoil, it makes itself friends; and when it ceases to do this it will cease to be the idol of courtiers”.
What was applicable to a monarchy that compelled the populace to storm the Bastille, methinks, may well be applicable to other forms of Government.
I now sign out, leaving certain things unsaid – but then, things left unsaid often reveal what we truly wish to say fully.
Disclaimer: References to press clips/affidavits/documents, in good faith. Animal Farm? Ah, mere allegory!
Mail: shining.path.notperu@gmail.com
Twittering tittle-tattle: @ShiningPath1
http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/sonia-gandhi-the-leader-who-never-delivered-792021.html
The first part of the post mirrored at: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/05/why-this-secrecy-over-sonia-gandhi.html
What makes Sonia Gandhi go unscathed from all the mainstream media torrent? PTI.Why this secrecy over Sonia Gandhi?May 16, 2013
“Why is it that the mainstream media (MSM) displays, what can only be termed as pusillanimity bordering on the obsequious when it comes to Sonia Gandhi?” is the question that bounces around inside my head quite often. Occasionally it lights up my amygdala.
There is a certain docile, rebarbative and delightfully ludicrous air about the MSM each time Sonia Gandhi (or one of her family members) is in the middle of a controversy. I will not get into the impressive range of controversies that have cropped up over the years, but suffice to say that each time things came to such a pass, either the clouds blew over in wondrous haste or they rained elsewhere.
A dripping wet poodle Prime Minister is what you occasionally get, as evidenced by the recent developments surrounding Ashwani Kumar and Pawan Bansal.
After years of peddling the Our-PM-is-the-most-honest-of-them-all-in-the-entire-galaxy balderdash the MSM seems to be finally catching up with the meaning of words like integrity & accountability, as they get busy aiding and abetting – quite reflexively – some dark, unknown and easy-to-guess forces to bury the non-performing nightwatchman Prime Minister six feet under.
But the Queen continues to escapes their collective gaze. Blame Proxy-o-cracy!!
To give credit where it is due though, over the last few days, there has been a sprinkling of articles that at least attempt to ask – meekly so – a few pertinent questions along the lines of if-Sonia-is-the-fount-of-executive-power-then-should-the-buck-not-stop-with-her-on-India-becoming-a-Scamrashtra. Laying the axe to the root, if you will.
The most scathing commentary yet…
“Should Sonia Gandhi, ruler of the Congress party, be congratulated for finishing 15 years in Indian politics? It is not a sign of expertise if an heir becomes king. So why should it be different with her?” asked Surjit Bhalla in an The Indian Express piece titled ‘Evaluating Sonia, the black box leader’ (March 23rd, 2013) before he drove the screw deeper: “Every political leader has been pilloried in India, and in most democracies. Pilloried for being stupid, unfit to rule and worse; yet, such questions are not raised with regard to Sonia. Our free press can make mincemeat of even decent politicians (Manmohan Singh has been variously described as spineless, a night-watchman following orders, Mumble Singh and worse) and yet the press has never even demanded that the chairperson of the Congress for 15 years hold a press conference in a language of her choosing — English, Hindi or Italian”.
Ouch! In his follow-up piece a week later ‘Message to Sonia: Reform of Perish’, he concluded his incisive commentary thus:
“Recall that Annie Besant became president of the Congress party in 1917. If Sonia Gandhi does not change, then she risks the following obituary of the party she heads: It took a white, European, socialist, woman to help create the Congress party — and it has taken a white, European, socialist, woman to destroy it more than a hundred years later.”
Ouch ouch ouch!
I acknowledge that the 7 aspects that I will now touch upon briefly – three in this Part, and four in Part 2 – are by no means either completely unknown, or constitute all that needs to be debated, discussed and perhaps put under the journalistic scanner. The purpose of this 2-part series is to act as a gentle reminder to the Indian MSM (especially TV) that the citizens are not fooled by their attempts at silence on issues surrounding Sonia Gandhi & family. Or as M.J.Akbar noted:
“That purr in the ear isn’t the music of your back being scratched, darling; it’s the crackle of your slim wallet being emptied of ethics”.
The poor little powerful Queen
Is it really true that Sonia Gandhi’s financial assets are a mere 1.37 Cr [2009 affidavit]? Let me strive for a little more exactitude, so that I am not accused of crude approximations. Take a look at the table below (source – myneta.info):
Table comparing assets of national leaders.
I leave you and your powers of incredulity – which I am certain are immense – to decide if this matter warrants further enquiry. You can access the affidavit details by clicking here. While we are on affidavits, it may well be worth your while spending a minute or two examining the affidavits of Rahul Gandhi, with special focus on the educational qualifications. The matter was discussed in greater detail by me a few months ago in a piece titled ‘Rahul Gandhi: PM-in- waiting despite all this?’
One set of rules for the slaves, another for the suzerainty
In August 2011, India Today ran a small report titled ‘What Gandhis don’t tell the Lok Sabha‘, and I quote:
It’s common courtesy for MPs to inform the secretariat about trips abroad, even if they are of a personal nature. But since June 2004, the month UPA came to power, the Congress president and her son have not bothered to inform the secretariat about any of their foreign trips.
Subsequently, two applications were filed under RTI seeking details on foreign travels of MPs and foreign travels of Sonia Gandhi – what followed was a merry-go-round involving the Lok Sabha Secretariat, Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Central Information Commission (CIC), Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and National Advisory Council’s (NAC) Central Public Information Officer.
“It is disturbing that institutions that run the government have no knowledge of the authority that can furnish details of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign travel,” noted an exasperated RTI activist. (You can read the full report here)
The curious case of Dr. Subramanian Swamy’s blog
Most of you would be familiar with the content of Dr. Swamy’s blog; those of you who have not made your acquaintance with it yet, please fire up your search engines. Whilst it is nobody’s case that every word in there is the gospel truth – and some of Dr. Swamy’s utterances on other issues may be a tad jarring to some of us – the following 2 points merit some thought:
1) If the matter presented in his blog-post(s) is untrue and borders on libel, why have the concerned parties not sued him?
2) On the other hand, if the matter holds some truth in its folds, why has the MSM never gone to town with it? Why the silence? Or is it a case of the unutterable refusing to chase the uneatable, with apologies to Oscar Wilde?
What gives?
… To be continued. Part 2 will be published here tomorrow.
shining.path.notperu@gmail.com
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