I happened to read your article “Breathing space in a Marriage” in the Open Page Section of “The Hindu” dated Nov 26, 2011.

Let me first congratulate you for choosing to write about this contemporary topic. However, I have some observations, which I would summarize in my response to your article below. I am not sure whether the moderator at “The Hindu” would approve my comments. So I thought I might as well write to you.

One cannot completely deny the points raised by you – especially when I have enough evidence in my immediate circle of family and friends to agree broadly to what you are saying. But what I think you have failed to qualify is that the incident you are reporting is more common in single-male-child households.

For a woman of the previous generation – to whom the world began and ended with her family – the thought of another woman intruding the private space between her and her son is something unprecedented; and, as a consequence, creates in her an emotional turmoil that is tough for her to handle. But that is where the daughter-in-law has a responsibility – to make those little sacrifices that could prevent such thoughts from taking root in her Mother-In-Law’s (MIL) mind. This does not require a world record leap in humility from their end. For all modern women’s achievements in education, they still have to play the role of a daughter, daughter-in-law, wife and a mother.

It is a common observation that some working women of today (including my own sisters and cousins) lack the patience and “adjusting” capabilities that make successful marriages. Their big ego (which is partly due to their career achievements) doesn’t allow them to humbly acknowledge or accept the differing views of their MIL. It is their impatience that eventually leads to failed marriages. Your whole article fails to take this perspective while it conveniently attributes everything to the MIL.

To me the whole article appears a rant, motivated either by your own personal experiences or of those who you hold dearer to you. There is another perspective – that of the MIL, that you have completely overlooked.

There could be exceptions to what I am saying – some of the girls could have run into possessive, unyielding, unreasonable MILs as with the case you documented. But to generalize this to monstrous proportions and attribute this as a strong reason for failed marriages is a little far-fetched in my opinion.

Warm Regards

As I survey the web – reading about his past and the reasons that surrounded his defection to an Arab country, I increasingly spot polarization in people’s opinions.

Two factions appear dominant – one that thinks his death is good riddance and that justice has been served. For example, look at this comment by Srivathsan on the Indian Express website:

…the fact remains that he was unrepentant till the end for his depictions of Hindu deities. Also, he himself had told earlier that he liked to depict characters he despised, in nude. So, he had equated the Hindu deities with Hitler. Moreover, I believe, even the Delihi HC (or was it the SC?) refused to close some cases against him due to which he ran to an Arab country and became its citizen. He dared not to use his artistic license to depict Prophet Mohammed or Christ in the same light, in his artworks…

He has a point. In today’s India, bashing the mainstream Hindu religion, its practises and its rituals have come to assume a status of legitimacy under the name of “Secularism”. However, when Theo van Gogh exposes the poor plight of muslim women in his movie or when a Danish cartoonist draws Prophet Mohammad, it amounts to blasphemy – to the extent that a muslim MLA in Uttar Pradesh promises 50 Lakh to the one who would bring his hand. When Varun Gandhi talks about Muslims, they term the speech inflammatory and fomenting religious violence. When MF Hussain paints Hindu deities and Bharat Mata in nude, it is a work of art. While art and speech are forms of expression and artists and orators should be given the freedom of expression, they must guard themselves against treading the line of religious tolerance. Not every act of misdemeanor can be bracketed under “freedom of expression”.

The other faction, which I would like to term “Progressive Intelligentsia” is condoning the nation for meting out the treatment that it did to one of its prodigal sons. They are no different to the “think-tanks” of the Congress who suck up to the minority vote banks to ensure a stable government in the centre. These elites are the sole reason why such double standards have seeped into our value system. They have corrupted generations of young indians by inculcating this attitude in the name of education. These elites react strongly to acts of Hindu violence while lending a blind eye to the transgressions committed by the minorities. How can the conception of ‘blasphemy’ be subjected to multiple interpretations depending on who (and of which religious affiliation) commits a transgression?

In India, it pays the political parties to not find a permanent solution to this caste and religious divide. When the whole of India came together to drive out the British who divided and ruled the country on the basis of caste and religion, there appears to be no binding force in sight that can bring together the people who are torn apart by religion and caste affiliations to work together for the greater good for everyone.

Unless people realize that they are being held puppets by politicians for their own financial good (which would require extricating themselves from exposure to the doctrines imparted by the Indian education system, which, incidentally is a Christian-dominated territory), the Indian education will continue to mass-produce this progressive intelligentsia who will finally end up selling this country to its minorities and be at their mercy for sustenance.

Update: Also see Mrs. Hilda Raja’s open letter to N. Ram of ‘The Hindu’ last year.

Everything from the constitution of the Allahabad bench reflected an atittude of appeasing the minorities. We are not accusing the country’s legal system of partisanship. However, the bench comprising a Hindu Brahmin, a Muslim and another Hindu non-Brahmin gave us enough indication that the verdict would look to appease all petitioners irrespective of who had the legal claim on the land. The verdict only made official what was already anticipated.

India is a Hindu country. The town of Ayodhya is steeped in India’s history and is much older than any of the towns associated with the Abrahamic faiths. There is enough archaeological evidence to suggest that a temple existed in the place where the Masjid was built. Then why try and appease the parties that have no support to stake claim to the land?

Destruction of Hindu shrines by barbaric muslim rulers is not something that is unfamiliar to our nation either. The ruins at Hampi and the numerous missing temples in South Karnataka and North Kerala bear testimony to the religious intolerance of Muslim rulers. If the Hindus were to file a case for each such instance of destruction, the number of courts, lawyers and judges in this country would not suffice to investigate them.

Hailing from a religious community that has such a dark past, I don’t understand the hue and cry raised by Indian muslims over the Babri Masjid demolition issue. While I don’t support the demolition per se, the behaviour of Indian muslims has indicated that they cannot take a share of their own medicine. This doesn’t surprise me considering there are people still living in this country who consider Osama Bin Laden a martyr.

As long as the Congress continues to rule this country, I don’t expect any verdict to benefit this nation. The Kasabs and the Afzal Gurus will continue to prosper in this failed state. The Government will not initiate any action against them to survive another five-year term in the centre. The majority have no option but to passively watch this country go to the dogs.

]]> http://commentisfree.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/the-farce-called-ayodhya-verdict/feed/ 2 13.060422 80.249583 13.060422 80.249583 kidaambi http://commentisfree.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/of-hinduism-and-intolerance/ http://commentisfree.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/of-hinduism-and-intolerance/#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:49:22 +0000 kidaambi http://commentisfree.wordpress.com/?p=385 ]]> I have been shaken out of my indolence by this evocative article by Dr. Daya in the Lankaweb website. Though I could have left a comment there to point out the lacunae in his understanding of what constitutes Hinduism and Hindu culture, I thought nothing short of a separate blog entry would do justice to the points I want to raise in defence.

Dr. Daya starts his blog entry by thanking and revering the Sinhala royalty, nobility and the Mahasanga for protecting their nation from certain extreme forms of Hindu Indian prejudices, injustice and violence. Without pointing out which Hindu practices were discriminatory and criminal, he starts his misinformed accusation in the very first paragraph. He enumerates the practises only as we read further down in his article.

For a head-start, I think it is worth pointing out the historical foundations of Hinduism and Buddhism to the uninitiated. Hinduism, as a form of life was practised in the Indus Valley (in the present-day Pakistan) as early as 2500 BC by the Indo-Aryan race. Buddhism as a religion emerged much later between the 6th and 4th century BCE as an offshoot from the mainstream Hindu thought. The founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha himself was a prince born into an aristocratic Hindu family in Kapilavastu in present-day Nepal. Buddhism was brought to Sri Lanka by Samrat Ashoka of the Kalinga dynasty in the 2nd century BCE. Hence, much of the tenets of present-day Buddhism that is practised in Sri Lanka evolved from the religious practises that were enshrined in the Hindu religion.

It is also my duty to point out to Dr. Daya that Hinduism will be the last religion in the world to advocate the practises that he has mentioned. The principles of Hinduism (like Buddhism) were initially not written down and transmitted to future generations through books and stone carvings. Their codification came much later when oral transmission from a qualified the teacher (Guru) to the Student (Sishya) was no longer viable. As time elapsed, the original texts were lost and numerous self-proclaimed reformers emerged and interpreted the texts that were left in a manner that suited their cheap material objectives.

Now, let me answer the questions you have raised.

Caste System: While the Sanatana Dharma, the code of social etiquette recommended caste-based assignment of jobs to different sections of the society, there is no indication of discrimination under such a system. Dr. Daya should read my article about the basis of Sanatana Dharma where I have already argued its noble intentions.

Preference for “Son”: The scholarly achievements of vedic women like Gargi and Maitreyi indicates how women education was held in high regard in ancient India. There is nothing in Manu Smriti or Sanatana Dharma that recommends female infanticide and the preference for a “Son”. Hence, if such practices crept into the Hindu way of life, it is the handiwork of the people who called themselves custodians of the Hindu religion. To assume that Hinduism legitimizes such behaviour and hold the religion responsible for propagating such activities is an accusation that has no supporting evidence.

When Buddhism held sway in India, the injustice they meted out to the practioners of the Hindu religion need no special mention. The implicit logic in Dr. Daya’s article reflects Buddhism as occupying a “holier-than-thou” position vis-a-vis Hinduism. It was the intolerant Buddhists of India that threw the idol of Lord Badri Narayan into a river at Badrinath and installed a Buddhist monastery in its place. Even the countries that proudly talk about Buddhism and tolerance have been no strangers to violence. In whichever countries Buddhism has became official ideology – whether it is the Theravada school in Southeast Asia or the Tantric school in Tibet/East Asia – have been no strangers to violence. The Buddhists in Sri Lanka have defied all humanitarian considerations in the ethnic cleansing that they attempted in Northern Sri Lanka. Even in Japan, long before metaphysical flights exerted their charm, Buddhism took hold first and foremost as a tool for protecting States.

Moreover, Buddhism was wiped out of India not because the Hindu Kings overpowered their subjects and institutionalized Hinduism like the Mughals did with Islam in India. Eminent Hindu reformers like Adi Sankara defeated renowned Buddhist scholars with their arguments and reinstated the supremacy of Hinduism as the succour to all vices of the material world. There is also an instance of a Buddhist scholar called Mandana Mishra who, after being defeated by Sankara in Tarka Vadam, accepted defeat and became Sankara’s disciple.

My advice to Dr. Daya is simple. You have to do your groundwork before drawing out your allegations. Citing a few unqualified studies to base your arguments on Hindu religion is not appropriate. While I don’t deny the presence of discriminatory practises in India, to hold the religion responsible for authorizing such activities is an argument that lacks basis. Also, the followers of Buddhism in Sri Lanka cannot occupy a moral high ground for their own behaviour in the war with the Tamil Tigers has attracted international wrath for the inhuman way in which it was waged.

Come November and close to 5 lakh candidates (figures as of 2009) will gear up to write one of the most competitive examinations to gain admission to the PGP/PGDM programmes of the prestigious management institutes. The process of preparing for these entrance examinations is worth describing in a different blog post altogether. Since it won’t be directly related to ‘Life in a Bschool’, I will restrict the discussion to the following three paragraphs.

If you are an aspirant in the last year of college, you’d mostly be choosing the easiest of elective courses (where you have no work to do) and direct your focus full time on entrance preparations. You’d forgo sleep and ‘fun’ to prepare for those umpteen exams conducted by the various coaching institutes on sundays. If you are uncertain about your prospects of clearing the exams in the first attempt, you might enrol yourself in two coaching centres at the same time and write exams conducted by both of them every sunday. If you have work experience, you’d start free-riding at work from July. You’d bunk office ten days before the examination citing health problems among other ingenious reasons. You’d spend your Monday mornings at office stealthily browsing through the online forums – comparing your scores of the previous day’s exams with some idiots who flaunt their exam scores in their signatures. You’d also be completely oblivious to the fact that your manager is doing the same thing on the other end of your table; only to be concealed by the different online identities you have chosen for yourselves. If you are extremely lucky, you and your manager might land up in the same examination centre as well.

If you manage to do the final exam well and secure an interview call, you’d then start cramming newspapers and some GK books you can lay your hands on, with the confidence that you can talk about the little you have learnt irrespective of the topic. In the Group Discussion (GD), you create enough commotion to leave the jury confused such that they end up shortlisting the most vocal male student and the most good-looking female student, deprived of other options available to judge your [hypothetical] intelligence.

The GD process will be followed by a personal/group interview where you’ll let the interviewers know how you were always destined for an MBA. From the day preceding the interview, Finance would replace your adrenaline rush; your analytical skills would not allow you to process anything less complex than a balance sheet of an MNC and you’d see yourself as a CEO of an Investment Bank in 10 years time. Depending on how convincing you sounded to the interviewers (which, to some extent, would be easy, considering how the coaching centres train you to speak like parrots), you might get the much-coveted admission. You’d then wait in nervous anticipation for the final call letter so that you can take your friends out on a treat. For the call-getters with work experience, the letter opens up a gateway to a successful life (an irrational premise, which is yet to be tested); a feeling that can only be equated to that of winning freedom from the corporate Britishers. An overwhelming sense of satisfaction envelops you as you recognize that the time has come to compose that ‘Farewell Mail’, something you passively watched your senior colleagues do from time to time. You’d take so much time to compose that email- a time more than what you’d ever have spent on any project; and despite your best attempts to sound politically correct to your seniors, your email would drive home the message: Piss off your blood-sucking parasites, I’m getting rid of ya!

From now on, I promise to be a lot more frequent because I have something interesting to write about; something that has always remained a guarded secret within the confines of a typical Indian top-ranked business school. Much of what I will cover here are events that typically unfold on a daily basis in these institutes of national (and commercial) importance.

We see, hear and read about the rosy side of life after business education. If you are an aspiring student or the parent of such a student, no one knows the facts that these institutes report about their success parameters more than you. But what you read in the newspapers is not even 10% of the story (and in most cases, especially when placement and salary statistics are reported, an element of fiction arising out of creative arithmetic). There is a shady side to management education and life in a bschool which never gets reported in public.

I take it upon myself to enlighten the world about these unpleasant realities. I don’t intend to put all of them in one post. I plan to write about them in a series of blog posts, with each highlighting a specific facet of the multiple dimensions.

Stay tuned.

After the timely folding of yet another Islamic terror plot, the public’s attention is focused once more on the “Paki problem”. Over twenty Muslims have been arrested in connection with the alleged discovery of preparations to blow up a set of airplanes on trans-Atlantic flights starting from London Heathrow. They are mostly holders of British citizenship, born in Britain though of South-Asian origin, and from well-settled families. To their British neighbours, fellow students or colleagues, they must have looked like success stories in terms of integration into British society. And yet, they secretly wanted to terminate the lives of hundreds of anonymous Britons, not excluding those same unsuspecting neighbours.

This is only one incident, though apparently a very sizable one. We may even concede that the incriminating evidence is not fully in yet, so we shouldn’t judge in haste. But then, it is only one incident among many. The German police have just folded a Muslim plot to blow up trains, and worse than the failed terror attacks are all those that have succeeded. Remember the trains blown up in Madrid, the tourist centres blown up in Bali, the murder of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, and so many others. Specifically Pakistani connections were in evidence in the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the WTC in New York, on the public transport system of London on 7-7-2005, and in the endless series of terror attacks in India: buses stopped and all non-Muslims shot every other month in Jammu & Kashmir; repeated bomb attacks on trains and public buildings in Mumbai, from the big international trend-setter of 12-3-1993 (many synchronous explosions) to the latest one on 11-7-2006; on a political meeting in Coimbatore 1998; on Parliament buildings in Srinagar and Delhi in 2001; on temples in Gandhinagar, Ayodhya and Varanasi (the details of the latest temple attack in Imphal remain to be discovered); on a Diwali shopping crowd in Delhi, and so on.

Yes, we know your excuses: that you are millions while the terrorists are counted in dozens, so most of you are innocent and unrelated to terrorism. Still, outsiders will wonder just how many of you are in the know when these “unrepresentative” and “isolated” young men make their preparations for acts of terror. How many of you shield suspects when the police comes looking for them? Just a question.

And then the big excuse: that “this isn’t real Islam”, that “this great peaceful religion condemns terrorism”, that “terrorists have no religion”. We don’t believe this convenient plea, but we would still welcome it if it could actually dissuade would-be terrorists from their project. Why do you always address us, the non-Muslims, with those rosy stories about peaceful Islam? Why not go to the centres of militancy and repeat those sermons there? We don’t mean some perfunctory “open letter” meant for non-Muslim consumption, but an earnest effort to persuade the militant Muslims, one that doesn’t stop until the goal is reached. We suspect you have so far never tried this because in your heart of hearts, you are perfectly aware that Islam does condone these acts. Because you expect the militants to quote chapter and verse from your own Quran to justify their methods, reminding you of how Mohammed’s career mainly consisted in armed struggle against the infidels, and leaving you speechless.

The consequence is that only an extremely gullible fringe of British society can now remain unsuspecting. After this, what Muslim will they trust? Every time the problem of Islamic terrorism raises its head anywhere in the Western world, the public is treated to assurances that “this isn’t the real Islam” and that “the vast majority of Muslims abhor this terrorism”. Each time the politicians accompanied by camera crews pay visits to mosques to assure Muslims of their lasting confidence in Islam’s peaceful intentions, which alas leaves them no time to go and comfort the victims of Islamic terror. Each time, ordinary people including the non-Muslim immigrants force themselves to keep in mind that “not all Muslims are terrorists”, in particular this one and that one with whom they try to stay friends.

But there is a limit to all this patience and goodwill. If Muslims who could be showpieces of multicultural integration turn out to be discreet fanatics and murderers, who says the friendly Paki news agent around the corner isn’t plotting your death? This time around, Paki Britons will notice how the looks in people’s eyes have become icy. Their mouths may not yet voice it, but their eyes are completely eloquent about it: “Paki, go home!” Indeed, if I hadn’t studied Islamic doctrine and history, I too would by now have renounced all hope of a harmonious outcome and concluded: “Paki, go home!”

Fortunately, there is an alternative and simpler solution. You must have noticed that natives are far less prone to “Hinduphobia” or “Sikhphobia” or “Parsiphobia” than to what politicians like to call “Islamophobia”. Indeed, non-Muslim South-Asian immigrants have authoritatively been praised as Britain’s “model minority”. If they too sometimes suffer harassment, it is very largely from natives who don’t know the difference between all these exotic religions, between a Sikh and a bearded and turbaned Osama bin Laden. This way, you Pakis have made them the indirect victims of the sinister reputation that you yourselves have earned. Still, the performance in education and professional life of the non-Muslim South-Asians must be a matter of envy to you.

So, why not become one of them? You live in a country with unfettered religious freedom, quite a different situation from the religious oppression in Pakistan. Overnight, you can shed the burden of your Muslim identity and embrace Anglican Christianity, Methodism or Roman Catholicism. You can become an atheist or agnostic or go and congregate with the Druids and New-Agers in Stonehenge. Better still, you can return to your roots.

Every South-Asian Muslim knows that his ancestors were Zoroastrians or Kalash Kafirs, Buddhists or Hindus. In dramatic circumstances, they converted to Islam as the lesser evil in preference to death or impoverishment or third-class citizenship. Out of inertia or brainwashing, you yourselves have so far chosen to remain in Islam and not to undo their shame. Now that you are facing the consequences of being Muslims, viz. the hostility provoked by never-ending Islamic arrogance and aggression, you have a good occasion to reconsider your religious identity. Drop this erroneous belief system that was forced upon you and come home to your ancestral community, where you belong.

Why do we treat underprevileged people this way?

A look into history tells us that the Indian society practised something called Varnasrama Dharma, in which people were segmented into four caste/race-based groups depending on what they did to earn a living. There was nothing casteist about Varnasrama Dharma as the intention was to clearly allocate professions based on a person’s capabilities such that everybody could work in harmony for the benefit of the state. The contribution of no single person was undermined or brushed aside as irrelevant as everybody worked in tandem and contributed to each other’s welfare. It was only during the medieval period when people indulged in caste-based discrimination to achieve material objectives. This discrimination (or unqualified racism if we could call it) has from then on seeped into the deepest roots of our existence, has become a part of our DNA and has very much become a part of our everyday life as if it is the social norm.

The explanation, however, does not justify our behaviour. It couldn’t have taken anything different for you and me to have been born in an underprivileged family and with an average level of intellect. None of us have a say in the choice of our parents and in the choice of household to be born in. When we realise that, we will be enlightened about how fortunate we are to be where we are today.

What is more worrying is the value that we place on such people’s lives. There have been three mishaps in the construction site of Delhi metro in the recent past where semi-skilled workers have been killed in dangerous and inhuman work conditions. After the issue gathered substantial mileage from the press, a probe has been ordered into the incident. However, considering the way justice works in India, we can expect the contractor to go scot free or escape punishment by paying a moderate fine. The metro construction will be completed by exploiting another semi-skilled worker, opened to the public and will in a couple of years bustle with activity. A thousand people will be commuting to school and work through the route, completely oblivious to the fact that a constructor worker’s life was laid down for their travel convenience.

]]> http://commentisfree.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/respecting-and-valuing-human-life/feed/ 1 kidaambi http://commentisfree.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/dismantling-terror-infrastructure/ http://commentisfree.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/dismantling-terror-infrastructure/#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:58:44 +0000 kidaambi http://commentisfree.wordpress.com/?p=335 ]]> Following the release of Hafiz Saeed from house arrest, India’s home minister P.Chidambaram evinced disappointment about Pakistan’s seriousness to dismantle terror infrastructure operating in their country.

Though America played a huge part in pressuring Pakistan to take the perpetrators of Mumbai 26/11 to task, they are more concerned about annihilating Taliban in Pakistan’s north west. In an era of situational politics, one cannot expect the USA to provide any more assistance in solving what is India’s problem.

While we can liberally blame Pakistan for not seriously prosecuting Hafiz Saeed and others, we must not forget the kind of assistance our intelligence agencies have provided to Pakistan to expedite the trial.

When the Pakistani officials asked for DNA samples of all the attackers killed in the encounter, one of the samples their Indian counterparts provided did not match with any of the attackers. Later, India confessed that there had been a clerical error and they would soon provide the correct DNA sample.

While no criminal should be denied the prerogative of arguing his guiltlessness, India have gone a bit overboard in providing Ajmal Kasab with a five-star jail accomodation. The charge sheet against him was intitially prepared in Hindi (a language that he does not understand) and was later translated to Urdu. When one thought all obstacles were cleared and a trial can take place, Kasab comes forward and disagrees with the charges raised against him, thereby making a mockery of our legal system. In a country that dishes out timely punishment to petty thiefs and pick pockets, it pains to see an international terrorist exploting the loopholes in the Indian legal system.

If that was not enough, India submits the investigation reports from the Mumbai probe in Marathi to the Pakistani officials. The Pakistan officials get back to their Indian counterparts to get the document translated into English or Urdu. Even a 10th grade student will not submit his assignments and projects with such shocking carelessness!

If the evidence so far is anything to go by, the Indian government appears anything but serious in bringing the terror attack perpetrators to justice.

The Congress was not expected to do well in this elections. They had achieved nothing worthy of mention during their last five years in the centre. They were not able to address the problems caused by the economic downturn and the after effects of it (including taming inflation and the problems faced by importers due to a weakening dollar). Being the minority government that they were, they had to dance to the whims and fancies of their alliances. Even when they finally decided to part ways with the Left on diasgreements over the nuclear deal, they had to pay huge sums of money to gain the support of Samajwadi Party and some independents. They had to heed to DMK’s demands (a party that gave them a 39 on 39 verdict in the 2004 elections) to expedite the implementation of the Sethusamudram project. They had to part with key cabinet ministries to DMK and its allies. There have been numerous allegations of misappropriation of funds and misuse of power to further personal ambitions surrounding Dayanidhi Maran (and later A Raja) of the Telecom ministry and Anbumani of the Health ministry. The DMK has also used its political clout to push Karunanidhi’s entire family on the political bandwagon exploiting the weak position of the Congress. All the DMK-hate that was simmering within the senior members of the Congress has led them to deny the DMK key cabinet ministries this time around. Considering the Congress’ ineffective governance in the last five years, I could only sniff serious machinations (including bogus voting in huge numbers) that could have helped them in the present elections. I do not have the facts to justify my accusations. The allegations that surrounded the appointment of Navin Chawla (as the chief election commissioner) of possible partisanship to the Congress was played down by the President, who surprisingly was elected only with the Congress support. When the President and the Election Commission, who are supposed to have their independent executive powers, are alleged for possible partisanship with the ruling party, the credibility of a democratic system of polity is seriously undermined.

All the parties this year have tried to better each other in fielding candidates with criminal backgrounds. Out of the total 6753 candidates that contested the elections this time, 1042 had criminal cases against them. This accounts for a whopping 15.47% candidates with criminal backgrounds, which is a disturbing number. The entire lot of educated indians that went ga-ga over Varun Gandhi has rather remained silent about these 1042 candidates. Mohammed Azharuddin, the former Indian cricket captain, who was charged for match fixing (that eventually ended his cricketing career) was fielded by the Samajwadi party in UP. Efforts were made by the same party to field Sanjay Dutt in Lucknow whose role in the Mumbai blasts (and an alleged connection to the underworld) is still being investigated. What do the public expect out of these candidates who have already proven to us that they do not possess clean hands? The entire so-called secular India that demanded the arrest of Varun Gandhi chose to remain silent over Azharuddin, Sanjay Dutt and many others. Why? Just because they were muslim? Just because they are minorities? It surprises how the crime is viewed through different spectacles, depending upon who and of what religious affiliation is committing it.

For all their inefficiency, the Congress gaining sufficient majority will be a good thing for India’s economy. If they choose to, the Congress can pursue economic (by liberalizing FDI in a few other sectors) and social development initiatives without having to rely on the support of troublesome allies to take these projects forward. We will wait and see if the Congress can do anything different to what they achieved over the last five years.