Citizens voices be better organised in India in silent protests like the one just now held in Moscow and Madrid!
Pious speeches were made by the leaders who lacked all legitimacy and credibility
See the sort of symbolism the celebration carried!
First, the President of Ind
ia who is the very symbol and embodiment of the Indian Constitution and what the Constitution promises with all solemnity.
There is a Presidential election due in the next one month and already as the President rose to speak the upper-most thought on the minds of the Indian people, the citizens is that what sort of a legacy the present Rashtrapathy would leave behind her.
She has earned enough criticism for her lackluster performance, for her greediness in spending the taxpayers/ money, as much as Rs.230 crores on overseas trips along with family members and kin, sometimes as many as 90 members or so in her entourages.
The common man, the army retired men had to fight a big fight to get her drop her attempt to grab as much as 5 acres of defense land in Pune for her palatial bungalow for her retirement days.
And writes M.J.Akbar in the latest issue of the Indian Today, some 10 page article on the President and the Prime Minister equations, all through from the days of Rajendra Prasad the first President and from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru when they clashed and reconciled with each other on questions of high principles.
All people, Indian citizens in particular must read this piece to know how the great conceptions of the Constitution were progressively led to deterioration and degeneration at the hands of Nehru’s successors and Indira Gandhi is now followed by Sonia Gandhi who in her current avatar of the Congress President is setting some very wrong precedents for the country and the people.
Now, luckily, the current configuration of the coalition partners is such that Sonia Gandhi’s penchant to twist and turn the very many conventions of the party and the government is likely to be thwarted.
If another Pratibha Patil is trusted then it would be the end of the road for all that we hold as dear to our heart.
Already India is witnessing some dangerous trends towards an authoritarian regime.
The Party President remain unelected, she is in her 15 year of rule and she has no mandate from the party, no elections, no Congress Working Committee and no PCCS are elected or has her approved as the leader.
It is a coterie rule and sees what Sonia Gandhi is doing.
She nominates Governors; most of them are her handpicked family loyalists. One SPG chief is made Goa Governor; one other is handpicked for Uttarkand and now under her consideration is reportedly, R.K.Dawan, one-time stenographer to Mrs.Indira Gandhi!
If this is Sonia Gandhi’s mindset then woe de not over takes India.
As I write I read the protests elsewhere in Europe in Spain and in Moscow.
In Moscow we see the famous literary figures, Boris Akunin, the popular novelist leading the Protest Stroll in Moscow. A sort of silent walk along the major roads in the Russian capital and this is to protest against Puntin winning a third term as President. The very Putin win is seen as highly anti-democratic, anti -constitution and all that we hold ear as democratic values. In other parts of Europe too we see such peoples, citizens’ protests, from Wall Street protests to the current across Europe against the anti-capitalist Occupy campaigns.
In China, the various protests are now coming out, from individual dissidents, freedom seekers to citizen suicides from Tibet to the latest two suicides against land grabbing government acts.
But only in India we see there are no such protests, be it against the repressive state machinery like the ones now by the CBI against Opposition party leaders and workers to the very ruling party’s own methods to strangulate internal democracy in the Congress party. The Congress is 127 year old organisation, as old as other great European political parties in UK, USA, France and Germany.
Such a great party with such a great tradition of mass movement has now been reduced to handpicked family affairs by Sonia Gandhi.
Writes another veteran journalist, Prabhu Chawla, of the New Indian Express, a keen New Delhi watcher: The present system of the Congress rue is such that it manages to keep the best and the brightest outside the party affairs so that Sonia Gandhi can keep the power in her hands and likely to pass it on to her son, Rahul Gandhi, who in spite of years in charge of the party affairs had failed to prove himself worthy of such a legacy. He failed miserably in UP, the largest state with the maximum number of MPs and the party is in the fourth rank after all the other parties!
So, there is no seriousness of purpose when the Parliament celebrated its 60 years, there were no mention of the ending reforms, be it the Constitutional Reforms, or the Electoral Reforms and the other related reforms that would at least address the major concerns of the citizens like large scale corruption, some 14 Cabinet Ministers were named as corrupt and the Team Anna demanded that FIRs be registered against them.
There are other serious concerns like a Christian lobby inside Sonia Gandhi family and these concerns can’t be dismissed as imaginary.
There is fear that even this time Sonia Gandhi might surprise by fielding a dark horse like what she did in 2007.
And in a large democracy like India there must be now some definite reforms to limit the terms of office of the party office bearers see China again. And also some genuine mandated elections for the various bodies like the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and the state party committees (PCCS).And the citizen’s voices must get better organised through innovative protests like the ones we saw just now in Moscow and in Madrid.
Image Source : euronews.com