Needlepoint

They killed Rajiv Gandhi again on July 22

By Amba Charan Vashishth

A mother had a son unemployed. Each day he would roam about to earn something and in the evening return empty handed to the dismay of his distraught mother who was yearning for the day when he would put his earnings in her lap.

One day, he returned all smiling with a bag full of money which he presented to his mother. In disbelief, she put the bag aside and asked, “From where did you earn this much money? This cannot be a hard day’s honest earnings. Tell me the truth”

The son was not expecting this response. He had thought his mother would be damn happy. He kept quiet. The mother started shouting, “Have you robbed somebody? Have you murdered someone to snatch this much money? I am not going to touch it”, she said and kicked the bag away.

This exactly would have been the response of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s proud and virtuous mother if she were alive today. When he would have waved the two-finger victory sign with a broad smile to her, she would certainly have questioned, “How did you achieve this miracle, my son?” She could not have so easily swallowed this wonder of marvelous victory.

When explained that he had robbed the opposition of 24 MPs who cross voted for him or absented from voting in defiance of the party whip, the pious, virtuous lady would certainly have, with a deep sigh, reminded her illustrious, victorious son of Michael de Montaigne’s words: "There are some defeats more triumphant than victories."

Of late, we have turned very permissive. We explain away victories gained through underhand means by subverting the law, puncturing the balloon of morality, kicking the standards of ethics and ignoring the qualms of conscience. Everything is fair in love, war and in politics, we say. Whatever the means, we explain, victory is victory, defeat is defeat. . And that mentality is also the mother of all our troubles in politics.

Some may bestow Dr. Manmohan Singh with the honour of now being a “King Singh” or Opposition Killer who “comes into his own to win” Politicians in India may celebrate this victory which is, in effect, a defeat of the parliamentary democracy in the world’s largest democracy. We have made ourselves a laughing stock of the world by having won a vote of confidence through the weapon of horse-trading. With what face can India claim to be a nation which had, in the ancient past, preached high moral values, standards of ethics and ideals of honesty. No wonder, if tomorrow we may have to import these virtues from abroad.

The Manmohan government victory has put to shame the victory late prime minister Mr. P. V. Narasimharao recorded in 1993 by purchasing three JMM MPs. Mr. Rao was convicted of the crime of bribing the MPs but the MPs got scot free because of the provisions of Article 105 (2) in the Constitution: “No member of Parliament shall be liable to any proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given by him in Parliament or any committee thereof, ….” Its interpretation in the case implied that our honourable MPs had the proud ‘privilege’ to be bribed for voting in the House inspired by hefty monetary considerations.

This ugly, notorious example should have stirred the conscience of our lawmakers to plug the loophole and amend the law so that the country had not once again to feel small in the eyes of the world. But who can do it? The lawmakers and the ruling party alone, nobody else. But why should a ruling party do? Every ruling dispensation, particularly in the present era of coalition governments, has a vested interest to let this situation persist. Who knows when a ruling alliance may need this very Rambaan to save its gaddi?

Ironically, it is the illustrious Nehru-Gandhi dynasty presently represented by the mother-son duo of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and Mr. Rahul Gandhi taking pride at this great victory through massive defections. The same clan which otherwise feels great at the Nehru-Gandhi legacy. These Gandhis, Dr. Manmohan Singh and the like have humbled late Rajiv Gandhi who raised his head high in having saved the country of the curse of defections.

Is it not ironical that about two dozen MPs, who played the chivalrous act of saving Manmohan government stand to lose their membership of the House sooner or later for their crime of defection by defying the party whip, but the government that survived with these illegal votes would get away with the booty of this crime?

A person is the legal heir to the property of his father or brother in the event of their death, but not when he/she ventures to inherit that property by eliminating them through a crime of murder. But here is a case in which the UPA government will get away with the spoils of the crime committed to save itself by instigating, alluring and motivating persons to throw to the winds the anti-defection law.

It is on record that our victorious Prime Minister telephoned to thank and pat each one of the ‘daring’ MPs to extend a halo of respectability for what is a crime in the eyes of the anti-defection law passed by this very Parliament to whom he is responsible.


State after State and lately, at the Centre, the present Congress leadership is killing Rajiv Gandhi again and again for what he stood for. ***

Satirically speaking: Ask our honourable public representatives, son!

Satirically yours
Ask our honourable public representatives, son!
By Amba Charan Vashishth

Son: Father.

Father: Yes, my son.

Son: What is horse-trading?

Father : Quite simple -- trading in horses.

Son: Are our MPs horses?

Father: You fool, what are you saying? Are you crazy? They’re our honourable
MPs.

Son: But why is voting in parliament being referred to have been
influenced by horse-trading?

Father: Because some MPs changed their loyalty and voted against the party
whip.

Son: But then how is it horse-trading?

Father: Because some money was exchanged in changing loyalties.

Son: But a horse is an animal and our MPs are human beings with a head
and a conscience. Can they be traded?

Father: No, son, they can’t be.

Son: Then what does it mean that there was horse-trading in Parliament.

Father: It looks that was said because there were media reports suggesting
that crores of rupees were exchanged in exchange of loyalty of each
MP.

Son: But the horse only changes his master and not loyalty because he
remains loyal to his master who purchases him.

Father: This is exactly what did our MPs. They voted in favour of whoever
paid the highest bid amount ignoring the party whip.

Son: But the horse is an animal very loyal and obedient.

Father: So are the MPs to the person or the Party who pays them.

Son: But no money is paid to the horse. It is exchanged only between the
buyer and the seller.

Father: That’s true, son.

Son: Does that mean a horse is more honest and sincere than our MPs
because he gets no money?

Father: I don’t know son. Ask, our honourable public representatives.
***

Satirically speaking

Needlepoint: Country's curse -- Ignoramus Union Ministers

Country's curse – ignoramus Union Ministers

By Amba Charan Vashishth
Words: 1042

"Can Advani be called a Pakistani infiltrator because he's from Sindh? Most chief ministers of West Bengal were from erstwhile East Bengal. Can they be called infiltrators?"

These are the words and arguments not of an ordinary Congress worker in the street but of India's Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee while addressing a seminar organized by a Muslim NGO on June 15 at Kolkata. His message was obviously and deliberately targeted at the peculiar audience before him.

Such arguments only betray desperate frustration giving credence to an old saying that when a person falls short of arguments, he starts calling names and comes to blows.

By comparing Advani with infiltrators Mr Mukherjee has repeated the same blunder which his veteran colleague Home Minister Shivraj Patil committed by comparing Afzal Guru with Sarabjit Singh. The former is an Indian held guilty of conspiring a terrorist attack in which about 9 innocent securitymen were killed defending the Parliament building where the top leadership of the country was holed up at that time. He was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court (SC). On the contrary Sarabjit Singh is an Indian pronounced guilty of terrorism and espionage by a Pakistani court. The former is a traitor, the latter a hero, a patriot. Our great home minister fails to distinguish between the two.

And contrast what Sarbjit’s wife Mrs. Sukhpreet Kaur says, “I and my daughters would never like Sarabjit freed in exchange for any hardcore Pakistani terrorist lodged in Indian jails. Nothing is above the nation and we can’t go against the interests of the motherland”. Who should feel ashamed is obvious.

And now our venerable Minister for Foreign Affairs fails to distinguish between an Indian citizen and a Bangladeshi infiltrator. He appears ignorant of the law of the land and the Constitution. According to the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary, an infiltrator is “a person who secretly becomes a member of a group (in our case India) or goes to a place to get information or to influence the group”.

Article 6 of the Constitution, as applicable to the case of Mr. Advani, says “:….a person who has migrated to the territory of India from the territory now included in Pakistan shall be deemed to be a citizen of India at the commencement of this Constitution if (a) he or either of his parents or any of his grandparents was born in India as defined in the Government of India Act, 1935 …”

One can only pity Mr. Mukherjee's understanding. The only saving grace however is that he spared his party and the country by not saying that Pakistan President General Musharraf is more “Indian” than is Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh because Musharraf was born in Delhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh in what now forms part of Pakistan.

Lakhs of Indians migrated (and in the process more than 10 lakhs were killed) to this side of the border from those parts which are now in Pakistan and Bangladesh to an uncertain future leaving their ancestral homes and hearths for their love of India. By equating refugees from Pakistan with infiltrators from Bangladesh Mr. Mukherjee has only put salt on the wounds of these Indians and insulted their patriotism.

And he goes on, “…it was not unusual for people from a smaller economy like Bangladesh to move into a bigger economy like India…this happens all over the world”. Here again he fails to make distinction between people of one country moving to the other as per law and those doing it in a clandestine manner, illegally.

If there were no infiltrator, why did the Congress government enact the Illegal Migrants (Detection by Tribunals) Act, 1983? Setting aside this Act as “unconstitutional” the Supreme Court said: "This IMDT Act, 1983 has created the biggest hurdle and is the main impediment or barrier in the identification and deportation of illegal migrants.”

That UPA was playing politics was evident from the fact that instead of acting as per the judicial verdict, on the eve of last assembly elections it clandestinely amended the Foreigners’ Act as applicable to Assam. SC was once again constrained to strike down this amendment too as "unconstitutional" calling it a crude attempt to bring in the IMDT Act from the backdoor.

Mr. Mukherjee's logic only repudiates Congress' supreme leader, late Mrs. Indira Gandhi who, way back in 1971, raised a great hue and cry the world over, over the exodus of about 80-90 lakh people from the then East Pakistan into India.

Mr. Mukherjee is again playing politics when he says “there is no reason to believe that lakhs of Bangladeshi are infiltrating into India”. As a Union Minister he should have the exact figures with him to buttress his argument. He is deliberately indulging in selective memory/amnesia and selective beliefs. The Congress Chief Minister of Assam, late Mr. Hiteshwar Saikia had admitted in the Assembly of more than one crore Bangladeshis having infiltrated into Assam. But under pressure, for obvious political reasons, he was later made to withdraw this statement.

On May 6, 1997 Mr Inderjit Gupta, Union Home Minister in the United Front government supported by Congress from outside, in reply to a question informed the Lok Sabha that the number of illegal infiltrators in the country is estimated to be about one crore.

Mr. Mukherjee does not wish to remember or believe what doesn’t suit his party's political and electoral purposes. The former Assam Governor, General S. K. Sinha, in a report to the President of India, had warned that "the unabated influx of migrants from Bangladesh to Assam and the consequent perceptible change in the demographic pattern of the State….threatens to reduce the Assamese people to a minority in their own State".

Mr. Mukherjee is oblivious of the fact that Indians legally living for generations together in Kenya, Uganda, Thailand, South Africa, Fiji, etc. were mercilessly thrown out although they were not infiltrators, as Bangladeshis are, whom UPA wishes to provide shelter and extend every facility that is available to native Indians.

The problem is that people like Mr. Pranab Mukherjee and Mr. Shivraj Patil are playing politics with the interests of the nation for obvious electoral gains. Does India deserve such ignoramus government leaders? That remains the question. ***

Spidernet: A Satire

Ask them, my son!

Roadshow as armour in election warfare

By Amba Charan Vashishth

Son: Father.
Father: Yes, my son.
Son: What is a roadshow?
Father: It is a new weapon invented in the armoury for use during election warfare.
Son: Who invented it, father?
Father: Nobody has so far claimed the intellectual rights. But as my knowledge goes, it was first tested-fired in 1998?
Son: By whom, father?
Father: Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and later, rightly inherited by her son, Rahul Gandhi.
Son: How does it work?
Father: It is easier to handle and simpler to use than the conventional technique of speech-making.
Son: How, father?
Father: An election speech is a fling of love for the audience and shot of an arrow of words at the opponents. It earns supporters and smashes the opposition forts.
Son: Is making a speech as simple as throwing a stone at your opponents?
Father: No, my son. Making a speech targeting your opponent is as intricate and difficult a job as going on an aerial sortie for bombardment at enemy targets. It needs expertise and experience.
Son: Does a person making a speech become an effective communicator?
Father: No. Not certainly always and, the least, everybody.
Son: But where is the problem? Today we have professional speechwriters who create great speeches which have great instant impact.
Father: We do have great speechwriters. But writing a speech and making a speech are two different things, equally difficult. If speechwriters could turn every Tom, Dick and Harry into prime ministers and presidents in a democracy, we need no intelligence and experience to make a mark.
Son: But we do have leaders who make great speeches.
Father: Yes, we do have. But many of them are readers, not leaders.
Son: How does the roadshow armour strike?
Father: When you don't wish to speak or have nothing to speak, the armour of roadshow is the best weapon against your opponent. In an election rally, it is the public that comes to see and hear you. In a roadshow it is the leaders who come to show their face to the roadside spectators, wave their hands, shake hands with them and trade their smile for votes.
Son: Our film actors and actresses too gesture to their fans in halls with their arms wide open, smooching their fingers crying wildly: "I love you all." And the hall bursts wild into roars of applause in response. Is this also of the same kind?
Father: I don't know, son. The only similarity seems to be that in both cases the gathering is of fans that may or may not necessarily vote in an election.
Son: Do these actresses love all?
Father: I don't know. I have no personal experience, son. Others may know better.
Son: In which election warfare was the weapon of roadshow used?
Father: In UP, then Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and lately, in Karnataka.
Son: With what results?
Father: I don't know son. Ask Sonia and Rahul. ***