TIRED OF ARISTOCRACY

For the last 8 years India has been under the rule of aristocracy. In fact out of the last 63 years of independence, India has been ruled by One Family for over 50 years. It sounds more of a family business rather than a political party at work. The brief period of ruling shared by other parties marks a non-progressive phase for the country as they were busy in either rejoicing their unexpected win (whose celebrations couldn’t even last the number of days in ruling) or carrying out power sharing deal with other parties and doing little valuable work.

I think we have developed a habit of respecting the family businesses and laying our trust with such people and their organizations in the same fashion as to Tata’s or Birla’s or Ambani’s. Now the Congress is one similar organization whose leader’s family has never thought of anything but their party, not even as late as the 4^th generation. I sometimes feel that it is not the love for the country but the love for their business that they wish to keep the chairperson’s chair in their name and keep on presiding over the much talked about, the famous, HIGH COMMAND, of the party. It’s just that for the sake of change and moreover for protecting the remaining clan, is that they have chosen someone else as in-charge of the position of Prime Minister of the Country.

One rule that seems to emerge from the cabinet is that if you pay adequate homage to the party owner then no-matter-what the allegations be, you would certainly enjoy a piece-of-melon. Be it Vilasroa Deshmukh, who was thrashed by High Court for protecting marauding money lenders despite of the fact that farmers were committing suicide in his state, or be it P.J Thomas, who was under a trial for corruption in Palmolein oil case at the time of his appointment as CVC of country, the party would not let their sincerity go waste. Vilasrao, after giving resignation because of Mumbai attacks, managed to grab a post of Minister of Rural Development. Quite ironically the party missed out his efforts in curbing the farmer suicide in his own state (according to official report, nearly 29,000 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra between 1997 and 2005).

Leave aside a whole building, who wouldn’t even want to name a stone after him? When it comes to congress….the length and breadth of the entire country may fall short of their expectations. After naming several schemes, universities and places after Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Indira Gandhi, it was the turn of Rajiv Gandhi. A new IIM which was not just an IIM but RG-IIM, was inaugurated (I think that the initials make it more difficult to enter this particular IIM). All the efforts of IIM Administrators went in vain, who wanted to retain the original name. A new bridge-Bandra Worli Sea link, was inaugurated with the name-Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link. So, currently Rajiv Gandhi’s name continues to rule the naming convention across the country. It’s just a trademark of a family business. I fail to understand that if the Gandhi and Nehru are removed from the name, would people fail to recognize that thing or do they want to specify that it was built by which govt. And if some bahenji gets inspired by this trend and decides to immortalize her in some berserk way, then the government is very quick to point out the wastage of public money for the sake of fame.

I remember one clipping from NDTV’s ad, where Anand Sharma (during the BJP rule) proclaimed that- development has stopped in India ever since the Congress has gone out of power. Well now it seems to me that if a party rules for over 50 years then some progress has got to take place on account of the given time period itself.