Passionate About India

What’s gone wrong with the Congress? My answer is: nothing! Absolutely nothing new has gone wrong with the Congress Party. If there was anything wrong, it’s been for about 70 years. There is nothing new that has happened. The media painted these elections as the wipeout of Congress and the mega win of BJP. I am totally stunned as to how the conclusion was reached. Which party ever (apart from the extreme case of CPM through brutal force and scientific rigging) has ever come back to power after 15 continuous years in power. The anti incumbency was sure to take its toll in Assam and Kerala. And yet, in these five state elections, Congress won almost double of BJP’s 64 seats; their winning ratio per seat contested was three times that of BJP. All of BJP seats came virtually from one of the five states while Congress’ seats were well distributed in all states. It’s also strange that the Congress PR machinery too – after two weeks of the same – failed to put this simple point across. Tho...

My colleagues tell me that India changed decisively in 1982. I was in school so I don’t really remember the detailed newspaper headlines of those days. But I do know that the politics of Andhra Pradesh changed forever in 1982. Apparently, the then Chief Minister of AP T. Anjaiah wanted to pick up the slippers of Rajiv Gandhi. And history was made. Rajiv Gandhi was the anointed leader of Congress and somehow, fact or not, that gesture to please Rajiv Gandhi prompted a film star called NT Rama Rao to launch a movement and a party to reclaim Telugu pride. Rao and his Telugu Desam party swept the assembly elections in 1983. Cut to about 30 years down the line and you see something dramatically different; and yet dramatically similar. Despite the huge hype that surrounded the Congress campaign led by Rahul Gandhi, it is Akhilesh Yadav of a regional outfit called Samajwadi Party who has won. In 1982, when Rajiv Gandhi took over the reins, Tamil Nadu was the only major state where the Congres...

The road to hell is almost always paved with noble intentions. In the Indian democracy, this has been proven true a countless number of times. I am afraid we shall be headed yet again towards hellish times if a new policy that is being currently debated manages to become law, thanks to the super secular denizens of India whose intensity and range of noble intentions usually matches the mayhem that the same noble intentions often trigger. I am talking about the well intentioned economists, sociologists, activists and assorted jholawala types who are convinced that it is their divine right to advice the UPA regime on all sorts of policy issues. Right at the top of this pyramid of do-gooders is the National Advisory Council (NAC) which is headed by Sonia Gandhi. Virtually all the members of NAC have impeccable records and reputations when it comes to their commitment towards the aam aadmi of India. Let me also be very clear in stating that a lot of credit for path breaking policy changes ...

It was exactly 17 years ago that Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated at Sriperumbudur. In these 17 years, the entire political landscape of India has gone through a sea change. And thanks to political leadership, things have become worse from what they used to be during Rajiv Gandhi’s era. Among other things, the two most visible changes have been: firstly, the erosion of equity of the two big national parties (Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party) and the advent of regional parties at the forefront. And the second evident change that took place is the dawn of coalition politics. In fact, the genesis of both is almost the same. It is not that having regional parties at the national scene is a matter of concern per se, but the concern here is their increasing dominance. It goes beyond doubt that the emergence of regional parties has primarily been on account of the fact that the political leadership of the two big national parties have failed to engage with the country as a whole. And this fai...

The obsession of Indian parents with high marks and high percentage in boards is legendary. More legendary is their obsession with their progenies joining IIT, taking science streams and doing engineering. I remember that after I cleared my tenth boards, I had thought that that was the time to watch good movies and play cricket. One morning, with much enthusiasm in my mind, I went to call out one of my friends, only to unbelievably find him taking tuitions! Perplexed, upon enquiring, I found out that his IIT preparations had already started. I actually asked him that evening why he wanted to go to IIT. His standard reply was, “Because my Papa wants me to!” Upon enquiring further, I realised his ‘Papa’ wanted him to go to IIT because their neighbour’s son was also in IIT. Thankfully, my dad during my entire schooling never put any such pressures on me. The only thing he wanted me to do was to get decent marks in Maths and English in school, and read as much literature as possible. In fa...

Camelot was not a word I understood as a teenager in 1984. My life revolved around fond ambitions and dreams about India and about my father’s constant exhortation about fighting poverty. Most of our discussions at the dinner table revolved around exasperated talk about licences, government permits and assorted regulations. I was, like millions of Indians like me, bewildered by the malignant forces that eventually led to Operation Blue Star and the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards. Like many Indians, I sometimes fell prey to cynical judgments about the future of India. I should not have done so. Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister and won a mandate that was even more massive than what his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru had ever got. For people like me, Rajiv Gandhi was a tornado that would sweep the outdated politics out of India. He was the man who would finally do what Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru had promised to do. He represented the new India, the India that wanted to...