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General Forum: Society | | Made In Italy, But So What? | |
| I found this on Google groups...
It looks like it appeared in Rediff on April 28, 1999. This is posted in Google.com groups by one Mr.Gengis Khan (Gengis_666@yahoo.com)
All of you read this and just think about yourselves:
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Made In Italy, But So What?
The wonder is that with so many strikes against her, the BJP and its fans
choose to attack her with the feeblest one, the one most easily turned
inside out. "The Prime Minister cannot be a person born outside India!" they
shout. "Change the Constitution to debar naturalized Indians from becoming
PM!" they demand.
These are poor reasons to say no to Sonia Gandhi. Of course, by making that
statement, I'm laying myself open to charges of defending her, of secretly
wanting foreigners to rule India all over again. I'll have to live with
that, because it must be said. There are many reasons that Sonia Gandhi
should not be PM. Her birth in Italy is not one of them.
If her foreign birth really means she is out of touch with something called
"Indian-ness", if it means she cannot have India's interests in mind, there
are immediate questions that need answers. How much of this "Indian-ness" is
evident in our other political shakers? Did the Yadavs, Thackerays, Basus,
Jayalalithas, Mayawatis, Gandhis, Advanis, Swamys, Raos -- take your pick --
really have India's best interests in mind while building their political
fortunes? Why has the entire Indian -- entirely Indian -- political class
kept India poor and illiterate, reduced us to the grasping, corrupt nation
we are? Why, indeed, have we more ordinary Indians simply watched this
happen?
If born-in-India Indians can accumulate such a record of disservice to the
nation, birth alone is no disqualification to office. Or qualification, for
that matter. Therefore, Sonia Gandhi's Italian birth, by itself, is a flimsy
stick to beat her with.
So why the frenzied harping on it? Two reasons. First, it's that quick and
easy route to patriotism, to being more Indian than the rest, that the BJP
and friends trade so avidly in. At one time the prescription was that to be
Indian, we must all "relate to Lord Ram." (I swear I have a letter from an
important Bombay BJP functionary saying just this.) Last year, the BJP's
Lalji Tandon pronounced that anyone who criticized the nuclear bombs "was in
fact a traitor." Today, you show how Indian you are by demanding that we
must be ruled only by Indians born in India: the old foreigner bogey again.
Simple formulae all, ideal because the BJP would not want you thinking about
them a whole lot.
Second, the BJP has no other ammunition to fire at Sonia. None. The ground
they stand on is exactly that flimsy. See for yourself.
Can they claim her party had no mandate to govern the country? No, because
by the same standard, they had no mandate either. Can they accuse her of
protecting men indicted by inquiry commissions for instigating the 1984
Delhi riots? No, because they are protecting men indicted by inquiries for
instigating the 1992-93 Bombay riots. Can they accuse her of buying up MPs?
No, because they did just the same to buy confidence in their government.
(For example, news reports on April 22 quoted the BJP MP of Uttarahalli, a M
Srinivas, saying of Mayawati that "she got money from us and them but
ditched us.") Can they accuse her of trying to cobble together an "unholy"
coalition of many parties to form a government? No, because they cobbled
together just such a coalition, with 18 parties, only a year ago.
And since Jayalalitha precipitated the mid-April rubble in Delhi, can the
BJP accuse Sonia of favouring corruption in the form of the lady from Tamil
Nadu? No, because they did just the same only a year ago. What's more, they
spent the year trying hard to subvert the corruption cases against her. On
February 5, Mr Vajpayee's government even issued a notification to transfer
the cases away from the special courts the Tamil Nadu government set up to
try them; a development that Ram Jethmalani says he submitted his
resignation over. Only, he says, the PM asked him "not to press the matter"
and to "keep it secret." Besides, now that Jayalalitha has taken her wares
elsewhere, there are reports that the BJP has promised, if they return to
power, to "withdraw the February 5 notification" about those cases.
On and on it goes. There is not a single bit of mud the BJP can fling at
Sonia that is not first scraped off their own face.
Except her birth in Wherever, Italy. That's why that birth is suddenly to be
proclaimed at full volume. That's why so many are examining who had what
passport when and for how long and what her motives were at the time. That's
why Kanchan Gupta nee Gupta has seen his fingers atrophy to the hilarious
point where he cannot write the words "Sonia Gandhi" without also writing
the words "nee Maino" after them.
Ah, they clamour, but the USA does not allow naturalised Americans to become
president! You have to be born in the 50 states if you want to move into the
White House! Why can we not be like that advanced country? Yes, but so what?
That is the USA. Besides, the USA also has close to universal literacy;
water drinkable from the tap; a judiciary that usually decides cases in
months, not decades. Where is the clamour for us to be like that advanced
country in such things?
No: like so much else, Sonia's birth in Italy is just an enormous red
herring.
Yet the truth is that she so eminently should not be PM. The latest strike
against her is the trapeze act with Jayalalitha, but that's only the latest.
When will we get an accounting of her role in the Bofors scam? What has she
ever done to bring to book men in her party who are accused in the 1984 Sikh
massacre, men like HKL Bhagat, Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar? Why does her
daughter live in a sprawling government bungalow -- why did Sonia not have
the dignity and sense to refuse such sponging? Why is the Congress party so
besotted with the Gandhi name that it seems we will never escape the
clutches of the dynasty?
Those are some of the things that would weigh in my mind if Sonia asked for
my vote. Each one makes the thought of her running my country steadily less
palatable. I could hardly be unique in feeling this way: there must be
millions who share my disgust over these issues.
But the BJP and its fans stick like glue to the irrelevant detail of her
Italian birth.
Right now, I can think of at least three people, born in the West but now
Indian citizens to their bones, whom I would gladly trust to do good for
India should they run for office. Their Indian-ness, their commitment to
India, is many degrees more profound than that of any of our current gang of
politicians. In fact, I cannot think of three people in that gang, all born
in India, whom I would similarly trust. I dare you to.
Posted by: Mr Suresh KVS At: 15, May 2004 4:32:16 AM IST
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