Sonia Gandhi Questions Her Own Credence
By MOHAN SAHAY
Kalidas, much before he became a scholar and poet par excellence, was seen one day atop a tree on the bank of a river. As a young lad he had parked himself on the branch facing the tree. He was seen cutting the branch with an axe little knowing that once the branch was cut he would fall into the river along with the trunk. Some passer by alerted him about his folly. Kalidas was quick to realize his mistake.
One wonders, if the most powerful woman of India, Sonia Gandhi realized her mistake by keeping herself away from the ceremonial rendering of Vande Mataram….. the national song on September, 7, 2006 in New Delhi that marked the completion of 100 years of Bankim Chandra’s composition being adopted as the moving spirit behind the freedom struggle.
May be there was no passerby to caution her on the biggest political blunder of her life in her brief emerging career as the leader of the Indian National Congress. No amount of explanation could erase the stigma she attached herself by boycotting the Vande Mataram ceremony.
India,s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh followed her footsteps and preferred to stay away from the ceremony. The two chairs reserved for the Prime Minister and the Congress President were conspicuously vacant at the dais. It won’t add any glory or bring grace to the office of the Prime Minister that Manmohan Singh occupies now in free India.
Again, it can happen only in India that such blatant insult to the national song by no less than a persons like Singh and Sonia Gandhi would go unpunished without inviting national condemnation. As good fortune for Singh and Sonia, the noises made by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the right wing political organization with communal tinge lack conviction. For the BJP’s own credibility as a nationalist party is under cloud with L.K. Advani leading the party. It was Advani after all under whose stewardship the security clearance was given to a private airline which has been raised with the funds of underworld kingpin Dawood Ibrahim. In fact, the BJP has lost all its credibility and is on the decline after Atal Behari Vajpayee left the center stage. Advani, known for his closed jacket mindset is guided by the likes of Venkaiah Naidu for whom politics is nothing more than a joke.
Coming back to Sonia Gandhi, it is said that the lady is surrounded by coterie. She goes by the advice of people who have little or no understanding of political nerve. With power going into the Congressmen’s head, Sonia Gandhi, like any other person of average understanding is easily carried away by the sycophants around her.
Sonia is under illusion that such ‘small acts of omissions’ can harm her politically. Indians may be still graduating in practicing democracy, but the people have never forgiven arrogance and disrespect to the nation despite the adverse socio – political constituency of the country.
Sonia Gandhi’s image is already under clouds for running the government with support of dubious political parties and leaders involved in anti national activities, Persons who are lawbreakers are in the government making law. The terror strikes are taking place at regular intervals without any befitting response from the government. As I write this piece, reports tickled in that yet another blast took place in Mumbai killing more than 50 people.
That some gallop polls conducted of late has placed Sonia Gandhi ahead of any other political leader as a preferred prime minister, may prove misleading, politically speaking. She has bravely faced the storm over her Italian origin. She is an Indian citizen is not in dispute now. But her deliberate act of keeping herself away from the ceremony of the national song is now a historical fact. It would be difficult for her to remove the stain from her career.
She may be able to win elections and may even become prime minister but this act of her – boycott of the national song would follow her like a shadow, which she can’t avoid.
ENDS
Kalidas, much before he became a scholar and poet par excellence, was seen one day atop a tree on the bank of a river. As a young lad he had parked himself on the branch facing the tree. He was seen cutting the branch with an axe little knowing that once the branch was cut he would fall into the river along with the trunk. Some passer by alerted him about his folly. Kalidas was quick to realize his mistake.
One wonders, if the most powerful woman of India, Sonia Gandhi realized her mistake by keeping herself away from the ceremonial rendering of Vande Mataram….. the national song on September, 7, 2006 in New Delhi that marked the completion of 100 years of Bankim Chandra’s composition being adopted as the moving spirit behind the freedom struggle.
May be there was no passerby to caution her on the biggest political blunder of her life in her brief emerging career as the leader of the Indian National Congress. No amount of explanation could erase the stigma she attached herself by boycotting the Vande Mataram ceremony.
India,s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh followed her footsteps and preferred to stay away from the ceremony. The two chairs reserved for the Prime Minister and the Congress President were conspicuously vacant at the dais. It won’t add any glory or bring grace to the office of the Prime Minister that Manmohan Singh occupies now in free India.
Again, it can happen only in India that such blatant insult to the national song by no less than a persons like Singh and Sonia Gandhi would go unpunished without inviting national condemnation. As good fortune for Singh and Sonia, the noises made by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the right wing political organization with communal tinge lack conviction. For the BJP’s own credibility as a nationalist party is under cloud with L.K. Advani leading the party. It was Advani after all under whose stewardship the security clearance was given to a private airline which has been raised with the funds of underworld kingpin Dawood Ibrahim. In fact, the BJP has lost all its credibility and is on the decline after Atal Behari Vajpayee left the center stage. Advani, known for his closed jacket mindset is guided by the likes of Venkaiah Naidu for whom politics is nothing more than a joke.
Coming back to Sonia Gandhi, it is said that the lady is surrounded by coterie. She goes by the advice of people who have little or no understanding of political nerve. With power going into the Congressmen’s head, Sonia Gandhi, like any other person of average understanding is easily carried away by the sycophants around her.
Sonia is under illusion that such ‘small acts of omissions’ can harm her politically. Indians may be still graduating in practicing democracy, but the people have never forgiven arrogance and disrespect to the nation despite the adverse socio – political constituency of the country.
Sonia Gandhi’s image is already under clouds for running the government with support of dubious political parties and leaders involved in anti national activities, Persons who are lawbreakers are in the government making law. The terror strikes are taking place at regular intervals without any befitting response from the government. As I write this piece, reports tickled in that yet another blast took place in Mumbai killing more than 50 people.
That some gallop polls conducted of late has placed Sonia Gandhi ahead of any other political leader as a preferred prime minister, may prove misleading, politically speaking. She has bravely faced the storm over her Italian origin. She is an Indian citizen is not in dispute now. But her deliberate act of keeping herself away from the ceremony of the national song is now a historical fact. It would be difficult for her to remove the stain from her career.
She may be able to win elections and may even become prime minister but this act of her – boycott of the national song would follow her like a shadow, which she can’t avoid.
ENDS
posted by MOHAN SAHAY at 8:15 PM
3 Comments:
To this may I add, that I have also been disappointed to see the hackneyed & typically pseudo-secular response of the media to the whole affair. No doubt, the BJP's voice has been blunted by their own level of moral standing, but such a blatant disrespect to the national song by the PM & the de facto PM should not have been passed off so mildly. I also heard that a muslim cleric has been threatened to be stripped of his religious just because he asked his pupil to sing the national song! Such horrendous anti-nationalism have been passed off lightly, just so that the minority sentiment is not hurt!! Hail the birth of an officially pseudo-secular nation!! Disgusting!!, to say the least!!!
Who is bothered about what in India today? Mumbai does not bother and goes off on 'life normally' a day after the blast. National song-you sing or you do not is individual's outlook. Life goes on. Unless a thing directly affects your person or your pocket- two hoots to it. This is the stark reality of globalised India.
VK
Our political leaders who try to take benefit of every thing even at the cost of our national interest unnecessarily sensitized the issue. First the HRD ministry declared 7th September as Centenary anniversary of our national song. BJP lost no time in exploiting the issue by trying to make it compulsory to sing the national song in all the schools on 7th September in all BJP ruled states knowing fully well that majority of our Muslim community has reservation about singing the national song(I don’t want to enter into the controversy of whether they are right or not). Their motive was clearly to gain political mileage from the fact that Muslim community will certainly oppose any such move and they will be able to create political divide between the communities in the country.
As far as congress is concerned, they certainly lack any leader with political vision. They caught in the trap of BJP and tried to distance themselves from the issue. It was quite evident from the fact that the HRD ministry later apologized for wrongly associating 7th September with our National song. They again selected the path of muslim appeasement for short term gains( assembly polls in UP where Sri Mulayam singh is going to the extent of giving clean chit to SIMI and trying to become messiah of Muslims).
So in my opinion it is not enough to blame Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and our Prime minister for showing their disrespect for the National song but our entire political system is responsible for lowering the dignity of the National song by dragging it into the controversy.
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