India Votes - and How!

ralph..393

what was that??

jayabharti:
Nehru can certainly take credit for building some strong institutions for a civil society in India, or rather strengthening the institutions inherited from the British. But not much more. I dont need to add more on this as others have already made some telling observations.

Harimou:
``As to the peasantry, none here questions the abolition of the zamindari system. In fact, since the zamindars were merely lessees of government land, they did not have ownership rights to that land. But tell me, if the Bandit`s implementation of that policy was so good, what was the need for the Bhoodhan Movement of Vinobha Bhave?``

Vinoba Bhave undertook his mission for bhoodaan as land reforms are a state subject (that he only got some useless land from some landlords is another matter!). The Centre could only remind them of some loose directive principles in the constitution. But Nehru did not always help in this regard. The first state to implement land reforms was the Marxist govt. in Kerala. The vested interests made noises against it. It also tried to secularise education in the state with the idea of equalising educational opportunities for everyone in the state, which antagonised the powerful christian establishment. When these two vested interests combined, Nehru instead of supporting the progressive steps dismissed the state government. He thereby not only showed himself to be a complete hypocrite, he also went against the spirit of his own constitution and set the terrible precedent of the Centre dismissing state governments run by the opposition parties, which created terrible problems for the country, including the insurgencies in Panjab and Kashmir.

BTW most land reforms were enacted in the 1960s and were not even considered strictly legal until the constitution was amended to restrict the right to own property.

#401 by jayabharti68

I don`t have the time to get in to a fruitless debate with a stubborn congress fundamentalist.

All i can say is.....

In 50 years of socialist, broderline commie rule of congress we got Sewage and Garbage EVERYWHERE in India.

In 5+ years of non-congress rule we got Sewage and Garbage in SOMEPLACES in India.

Enough said.

I could talk here a lot about economic theories for progress ..... but really busy ... so later.

# harimau 403

`` Bhoodhan Movement of Vinobha Bhave? Why did he have to go across the Bandit`s native lands in UP and Bihar asking landlords to donate land to the landless? Did you see that happening anywhere in the South? ``

Vinobha Bhave did tour the South (esp. the Deccan) as a part of his Bhodhan movement.

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Ref jayabharti68 #401

You exemplify everything that is wrong with India. You and your coterie in Congress are the prime, nay, sole reason for India`s backwardness in many areas. However, because of your tunnel vision, I do not expect you to even begin to understand what is wrong with you and your thinking.

You said during the early days of Indian independence, capital was concentrated in the hands of the few. Do you believe that an industry which REQUIRES large capital, such as a steel plant, can be started by individuals in villages with the petty cash they have squirrelled away under their mattresses? If so, you could then try Mao Zedong`s experiment in China where every village attempted to make its own steel under Mao`s direction using the Little Red Book as their guide.

The Tata Iron and Steel Company was founded in 1907.... much before Bandit Nehru had any idea what it might take to industrialize India... by private enterprise. But Pandit the Bandit has to put in place a License/Quota system by which private investment in the steel sector was prevented so that he and his cronies could collect bribes (well, maybe in those days it was for election expenses but that is no longer the case today). We ended up with government-run steel plants that bled the public treasury of hundreds of crores of rupees each year. The accumulated losses in the steel sector far exceeded the investment in them... the saga continues today with the Vizag and the Salem steel plants continuing to lose money.

As to the peasantry, none here questions the abolition of the zamindari system. In fact, since the zamindars were merely lessees of government land, they did not have ownership rights to that land. But tell me, if the Bandit`s implementation of that policy was so good, what was the need for the Bhoodhan Movement of Vinobha Bhave? Why did he have to go across the Bandit`s native lands in UP and Bihar asking landlords to donate land to the landless? Did you see that happening anywhere in the South?

As to rampant casteism, what do you call it today when Lalloo Prasad Yadav gets the Yadav votes and the Congress runs Jats in Jat-majority areas, plays off one caste against another in every single constituency?

As to the secularism of Congress, tell us why Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, etc., are not allowed to have multiple wives but Muslims alone are entitled to polygamy? Why should Muslims be given tax money, at least 85% of it paid by its 85% Hindu population, to go to Mecca? Why couldn`t the Bandit simply tell the Muslims to start a charity fund to which anybody so inclined (including the secular Congresswallahs) can contribute and out of which the Haj pilgrimage would be funded?

As to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, at least Godse killed him for the appeasement of the Muslim minority. The man who used to go on a fast at the drop of a hat couldn`t go on a fast to prevent the partition of India? Did he even attempt to use his last bit of political capital for that? But he intervened on behalf of Pakistan when money belonging to Pakistan was held up by India for pressuring Pakistan -- which one would consider to be a legitimate act of the Government of India to safeguard its interests. By the way, did Pakistan ever return the loan given to it by the Nizam of Hyderabad? Did Pandit the Bandit get that money back running into millions of rupees?

You talk about the private banks not opening rural branches and not giving loans to farmers. I hate to remind you that much before 1969 and Indira Gandhi`s nationalization of certain major banks, the State Bank of India was already there as a nationalized bank. Why didn`t the State Bank open rural branches and give easy loans to the farmers? One would think that any bank would welcome such a wonderful opportunity where there would be no competition. The truth is that if you lent the money to the rural poor, you wouldn`t get it back. If it was only the State Bank that lent to the rural poor, the State Bank would have become bankrupt in no time. So, all banks were nationalized, their money handed over to Congresswallahs during loan melas and nothing much came out of it except for the enrichment of the entrenched landlords in villages who did not repay their loans anyway. Can you tell us how many billions of rupees had to be written off from these nationalized banks?

The immense international stature and moral standing of Pandit the Bandit did not prevent the Chinese from kicking his butt in 1962 when they occupied 14,000 square miles of Indian territory in Aksai Chin. The moral standing is shown to be in fact moral bankruptcy when he stood by and watched China invade Tibet in 1952.... that is moral cowardice. The same moral cowardice continued in 1956 when Hungary was invaded by the USSR, in 1968 when Czechoslovakia was invaded by the USSR, and Afghanistan was invaded in 1979 by the USSR. However, India condemned the British invasion of Suez and the American intervention in Vietnam and everybody`s complaint is that India did not protest against the American invasion of Iraq.

As to democracy and peaceful transitions, I do not see one word from you about the Bandit Dynasty ruling India even when part of that dynasty was not even born in India or born to Indian parents.

You are a perfect example of a ``koop mandook`` (frog in the well).

401
//...could have our generation done in times when capital was concentrated in the hands of few, no peasantry class in zamindai system, rampant casteism was everywhere?..//

Thanks for your valuable input - sir!

India was not the only country beset with these kind of age-old problems - other countries were in same position too - like south korea, japan and other east asian countries. If they could manage to build a first world country starting from the same position - why couldn`t India? The immensity of failure is so glaring. Your generation has failed India in so many ways.

//...maybe i am old but today`s leaders are pygmies by comparison. his international stature was immense and moral high standing, something to be proud of. please don`t belittle everything our generation stood for. ...//

``Pygmy`` leaders like Dr Singh, Vajpayee have done a lot more to propel India towards a prosperous future and claim its rightful place in the world. These folks have taken India from a beggar of a nation to one which now has some money in hand. These are the folks who have reduced poverty from a perenial 36% to 26% within 12 years.

Nehru`s success in social re-engineering only went so far and no futher. Lack of policies/ineffective policies for material progress of the country is what young turks rue about. Without that - no amount of social re-engineering would be effective or sustainable.

Nehru`s ``international stature`` is highly exaggerated. His impact was minimal in international scene. His ``moral high standing`` was nothing but a joke in international circles.

all(especially gujjubania, amit, sridhar..):
hello everybody. i have watched this discussion group from sidelines for sometime now and it has been an experience, to say the least, for somebody who will turn 68 this year. almost all the people on this discussion board seem to be young and i hope would not mind a gerontocrat( any retirees over 60 here..?) pitching in his views every now and then.
that i felt compelled to write is because it has become a fashion these days to trash everything panditji and congress party stood for immediately after independence. with the benefit of hindsight and no personal experience of living through those heady times, people think nothing of tearing panditji`s philosphy to shreds.i don`t want to defend him or congress party( even i voted against it in 1977 and 1989, when i was swayed, momentarily, by the ram temple movement ),i just want to share what we felt and still do about those times with the current generation.
soembody on this discussion board mentioned gurcharan das`s `India unbound`,which i found to be so critical of panditji`s policies that i could not believe it is coming from such a senior columnist. i do not claim to be in the same league nor i am trained as an economist or understand much of it( what else do you expect from a retired english teacher and an amateur urdu poet?). but tell me young turks, what could have our generation done in times when capital was concentrated in the hands of few, no peasantry class in zamindai system, rampant casteism was everywhere? i can go on and on. but it would suffice to say that without massive state intervention( panditji`s modern temples like IIT`s, BHEL, major dams, HMT,HAL,BARC, etc.) ,social reengineering( zamindari abolition and reservation for weaker sections) and careful nurturing of democratic institutions by our founding fathers, your generation would not have grown up taking free press, fair and peaceful elections for government, etc. for granted.
BJP and RSS now talk of psuedo secularism and minority appeasement. and many of your generation lap it up. is public memory so short that we have forgiven people accomplice in the assassination of the father of the nation, the light of our lives- baba gandhi. in my youth, these , now respectable, communalists used to talk openly of their dreams of turning India into a theocratic state where bapu will have no place. so much for the great mass movement led by that great man.
gurcharan das talks of nationalisation of banks. i want to ask him what the banks did when they were in private hands till 1969. it was, what is now called ,crony capitalism of levels this generation can only speculate. there were no branches in villages. rural credit was unheard of. service was as bad as it was after nationalisation.
this is an unending debate. i just want to say here that do not throw baby out with the bathwater. country has lot of hopes from you young people.
panditji was an icon, a hero when we were growing up. maybe i am old but today`s leaders are pygmies by comparison. his international stature was immense and moral high standing, something to be proud of. please don`t belittle everything our generation stood for.

I posed this question on another board here on Chowk and I got a deafening silence in response from all those idiots supporting Sonia G@ndu`s candidacy for Prime Minister of India.

Let me see how the Leftists who seem to be a bit more active on this board react.

All right, let us look at this scenario:

If Varun Gandhi marries a Pakistani (Muslim) woman, how many of you would want Varun`s widow to become the Prime Minister of India?

What if she happens to be the granddaughter of Gen. Hamid Gul?

How would the frikking Leftists of India have reacted if Rajiv Gandhi had married an American? Would they support a US-born white woman for Prime Minister of India? How would they reconcile their reflexive anti-US stand with an American becoming India`s prime minister? How about the security implications of that when the US still refuses to recognize India as a nuclear weapons state and wants India to get rid of her weapons and hand over her cache of plutonium to the US?

After all, didn`t India take over Sikkim when it decided it would no longer tolerate that American woman Hope Cooke and her antics as the Queen of Sikkim?

asfand:
I think that the problem is resolved if you make a distinction between the state and its people. The constitution of the Indian state and its institutions are beholden to the highest ideals of secularism. The same cannot be said of its people, only some of whom may be said to have a secular outlook. This won`t be so bad if the state successfully enforced all provisions of the constitution; unfortunately, some of the institutions, esp, the police, are seen to be wanting in that direction.
In a nutshell, India is secular but not necessarily the Indians.

#397 by asfand

Mian - You have a valid point - India is NOT really that secular even though there are some trappings and traces of secularism here and there.

No country which allows mass scale murder of hindus(kashmir), muslims(gujrat), sikhs(delhi) can call itself secular or even civilized in true sense of the word.

Never mind the pretenders here. See - we have a bunch of fools in India who like to bask in all kind imagined glories - secularism, socialism and enlightened democracy .... all other kind of good stuff you can think of.

But the ground reality is very different. All these things exist mostly in form , rather in substance.

People who hold up Laloo, tasimuddin , commies and other assorted low-lives and incompetent hags as symbols of progress, democracy , secularism and pluralism are indeed fools living in paradise. They are to be pitied.

But you will find it very hard to show the reality to these folks.

Please read the definition of secularism again and again and tell me if india is secular. Also please read and English dictionary and not an ``Hinglish`` one.

I will keep posting this topic till you guys accept the correct definition of secularism.

I ignore personal remarks as they tell me that the person making these remarks has nothing left to prove his/her case.

Asfand

I like this guy Asfand! He has one topic and he is posting it for the last several years.
Don’t you guy admire him for not thinking more than once in his life?

I think that is called single mindedness… Now just think… if for some reason his hard drive dies and he loses his one post… We may not see him posting ever again.

Asfand!
Just walk away from the crack pipe now. Acknowledging you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

In all these discussions, Aniruddha Shankar has quietly retired, recognizing the utter stupidity of his arguments but not willing to concede that he was wrong!

`modernization` of Indian curriculum with Astrology.....:-)

``Murali Manohar Joshi said the accusations (of Moronic Saffronisation of Indian education by BJP) were misplaced as modernisation of the national curriculum, introduction of astrology as a subject in the universities .....had from time to time passed the scrutiny of the judiciary......``

# 391

ROTFL