Democracy!

``Everyone worthwhile had been to prison after all ``

Typical nonsense.

Ref dost-mittar #13

[Lee did not face the kind of problems that India has where a large chunk, maybe even the majority, is an underclass.]

Yes, he did. The vast majority of Singaporeans were poor when LKY took over. MOreover, the country has no natural resources, not even enough drinking water, except the willingness of its people to work hard.

[Malaysia may be a closer example. In any case, on the other board, I am not recommending quotas, merely affirmative action and proactive measures.]

Malaysia is India except that it has more resources per capita. And it has its Masanamuthus under control.

Ralph,

Depends how you define constructive.

The minute your replies are more cerebral, maybe, just maybe, mine might be so too despite the fact that i`m uneducated and unintelligent.

Simran

As soon as you write anything constructive, you will have our attention.

Ralph,

Appreciate the compliments you gave me. Amazes me how people on this board assume so much about someone from just reading their interacts.

I guess hearing criticism about Bharat Mata really hurts huh? Well get over it and get used to criticism.

Mr. holier than thou, I have gone through four educational systems including that of India. When was the last time you picked up an Indian high school textbook and read what was in it?

My suggestion to you just like to Amrita would be to READ something constructive and challenge your beliefs. Criticising India does not mean disliking it. Do stop being childish.

simran,

You give intelligence a bad name :)

Before pontificating on the merits of various education systems, one must have gone through at least one of them.

Most clearly, you never did.

Simran, that is a criminal negelect of your potential. Get yourself educated, in any school that may still take you. Then aim to lead a non criminal life.

FYI, I know more about dalits and about partition than you can ever hope to know, and my sympathies for real sikhs are not any less than yours.

Cheers.

harimou#11
Lee did not face the kind of problems that India has where a large chunk, maybe even the majority, is an underclass. Malaysia may be a closer example. In any case, on the other board, I am not recommending quotas, merely affirmative action and proactive measures.

Interseting article Amrita. It is my opinion however that this criminal streak has always been there in Indian politics and is not a new phenomenon. Yes, Nehru, Gandhi and the likes probably had no criminal records as such or of the type you refer to in your article but they were criminals to some degree nevertheless. They had a cause, no doubt; but the nobility of that cause is suspect.

You mention that you did not think Gandhi or Nehru were criminal and that Indira Gandhi was only corrupt. I beg to disagree and feel that as someone who seems to be a keen observer of Indian politics you should perhaps broaden your reading and try and challenge these beliefs that you have. To simplify things and cite very basic examples, for Gandhi`s ``criminality`` ask the dalits, for Nehru`s you have the partition as one example and for Indira Gandhi`s the emergency and the anti-sikh riots. And these are just a few of the examples. The list could go on.

Having a more balanced opinion of the people that have governed a country is a must. The Indian education system does not reflect this and portrays everything as either black or white. There seems to be no space for grey.

Ref dost-mittar #10

[What surprises me is the amount of pride Indians take in their version of democracy! Give me a Lee Kuan Yiew any time! (I see harimou sharpening his knife:)) ]

Lee Kwan Yew who has no time for quotas for Muslims, Malays or Indians? Lee Kwan Yew who runs a meritocracy in Singapore? Don`t tell us he is your hero. After all you are championing quota politics in India.

What surprises me is the amount of pride Indians take in their version of democracy! Give me a Lee Kuan Yiew any time! (I see harimou sharpening his knife:))

#8 Amrita

I see an interesting situation shaping up.

You don`t know about Pakistan. I don`t know about India. Do we both know about democracy?

Voters in India, voted the Congress into power for almost forty years continuously.

In Pakistan, the army dug up the pitch in 1958.

Pakistan`s first and so far only fair and free elections were organized by an army dictatorship in 1970, 23 years after its creation. That election threw up a majority for the then East Pakistanis. An interesting vignette is that the party winning absolute majority [the Awami League] did so on the strength of its pre-eminent position in one region, i. e, the then East Pakistan, winning perhaps none, or maybe one seat from West Pakistan. It didn`t win a single seat in the four provincial assemblies of West Pakistan, while it also won a majority in the East Pakistan provincial assembly.

What followed is gory and shameful history.

After 1970, all election results in what remained of Pakistan have been disputed.

---

Mahatmaji and Panditji both were as professional politicians as they come. As are Bal Thakeray, L. K. Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh, the MPs from the various left parties etc. They all have their causes, be it accelerating Indi`s development or tightening the noose around various minories. They do have their causes.

Similarly in Pakistan, they also have their professional politicians, and have had them since the partition. The present ANP (originally the NAP- National Awami Party), The Jama`at Islami, the MQM, are lead by men who make a profession of politics, and all these parties have causes too.

What makes the Pakistani political scene so darn interesting is that both the ANP and the Jama`at Islami have never fared even passably well at the polls.

---

By the way, if I remember right, both Adolf Hitler was voted into power by the masses, wasn`t he?

Hey ppl, thanks for taking the time to glance through my piece!

Kaurasach - I dont think the criminal-politician nexus is endemic only in India. It`s just better covered up elsewhere. And while I agree Indira Gandhi was as corrupt as the day was long, I don`t think either Mahatma Gandhi or Nehru were criminal (well, for the British, maybe). And why would you want to take sanyas when life is getting more and more interesting by the day? Qayamat is going to come anyway. :)

Ankit - I`m afraid you`re talking to the enemy - yup, I`m a true blue ``psuedo-secularist`` and will never stain. My advice? Set out with your own camera and see what you get. I`m sure some dastardly apologist of a secularist is waiting for you. Rock on!

Harimau - if wishes were horses... sigh.

Nasah - :-) to you too.

Siddiqua - I`m afraid I can`t give you a simple answer to that. Us Indians are strange and strong optimists - we refuse to believe that anything or anyone can send us to hell in a handbasket, even when we see them parking their big fat tushies in Parliament at our expense. but what should be accomplished, if you ask me, is the removal of the professional politician.
I don`t know about Pakistan, but in India we see the first decade or so after Independence as a time of tremendous hope and innocence. The sepia tinted glases never come off. And that is primarily because of the quality of our politicians back then who were more Parliamentarians and Statesmen than dozing and vitriol spewing galli ke gunde. I`d like to see the amateur politician with a cause stage a comeback. And that means people like you. And me and everyone we know, if we can ever get over our apathy.

MBZ - got it... except for the opening line. I`m so woefully under-educated! As for India or USA, Pakistan or Malaysia - well, check out Part Two. :)

Peace.

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ah that bud chalan democracy -- ek hee suff meiN kharay ho gaye Mahmood-o Ayaz.....:-)

Theek hai . . . politics does throw up bad eggs as well as good ones. What`s with those of the puiblic who sell their votes, those of the journalists who sell their pens, and those of the judges who sell their consciences.

I`m not very familiar with the scene in India, but I know that in Pakistan, all the three mentioned above abound.

Any takes on what can be done to remedy this situation?

[Another victorious candidate from the state of Bihar was unavailable for comment on his win, even though he’d just won the right to sit in India’s Parliament. Why? Well, the prison rules didn’t allow for media visits. It was no doubt rather short-sighted of them, but apparently no one in government, much less the prison, had quite imagined that an imprisoned man facing charges of murder and kidnapping would not only contest an election from inside it, but would also win by a more than comfortable margin.]

Wow, what an opportunity! Convene the Parliament inside the jail, lock them all up and throw away the key!