Indira-Modi Similarities

The biggest negative point in the 10 year UPA rule was the country had a Prime Minister and a De-facto Prime Minister. Officially work was carried out in South Block of the Secretariat Building but was authorized in 10 Janpath. Singer resided in 7 Race Course Road but lyrics and background score were given from either Akbar Road or 10 Janpath again. Hence it created a huge vacuum of elected leader as head of state, like Sanjay Baru explained our PM in his book as the accidental prime minister. This vacuum led to the rise of Narendra Modi from the confines of Gujarat to become the head of world's largest democracy.

A strong Hindutva leader, Modi captured the imaginations of voters and won the election on politics of economic development. Many comparisons were made of Modi with other Prime Minsters but the most best suited comparison for him was with Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.The choice might seem to be confusing as she was neither part of Sangh parivar nor belonged to saffron political alliance. But it seems to be very identical when one sees their work pattern in public life.

Back in 1971 there was break up in the Congress party. Following an electoral loss in 1967 Indira Gandhi had voiced against the seniors in the party. Then congress president expelled Indira from the party after which she formed her own faction and managed to retain most of the Congress MPs on her side. And finally in 1971 by giving a call Garibi Hatao Indira Lao Congress Bachao she won a landslide victory for Congress (I). The point to be taken into consideration here is the entire election was centered around one person. In 2014, Modi became the top leader in the party after bypassing all senoir leaders. The entire election was centred around one person. By giving a call for Congress Mukt Bharat and  Modi Lao Desh Bachao he brought a first single party government in Delhi after three decades with 282 seats of BJP and 336 seats of the 29 parties BJP led National Democratic Alliance.

During the reign of Indira Gandhi she had total control of party as well as the government. Though RSS has the remote control of both party as well government but on books Modi is the leader of the government whereas his man friday Amit Shah is in control of the party affairs.

When you are leader there is always a controversy in your name. Indira Gandhi was under huge pressure for her action in Operation Bluestar in the Golden Temple in Amritsar to kill the Khalistan Separatist leader Bhindranwale. Similarly Narendra Modi was, is by some sections of media and opposition parties even today, criticised for being biased in handling the Godhra Rail Burnings and the riots which followed. Even his party insiders did not spare him when then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had said Modi should follow his Raj Dharma while tackling such a sensitive issue.

The most important similarity between both the leaders is their oratory skills. Even after being cornered by Congress senior leadership in 1971 she managed to get people by her side. When there was an anti congress wave in the 1977 post Emergency, Congress(I) did win majority seats South India though they were decimated in North. This was the reason Gandhi fought in the Chikmagalur by poll to mark her comeback. Even after being rooted out of power in 77, she brought her party back in business in 1980 by breaking the Janata Party coalition. For BJP, they got a natural orator in Narendra Modi. I would say a more powerful and effective than Indira Gandhi. He galvanized the entire BJP cadre with the chants of Abki Baar Modi Sarkar in all his campaign rallies. Like Indira fought from Chikmagalur and Rae Bareli in 1980 Modi fought election from Varanasi and Vadodara.

Horsetrading was another common factor associated with both of them. In case of Indira Gandhi, one aptly remembers the Aaya Rama Gaya Ram stint by Bhajan Lal, CM of Janata Party in Haryana back in 1980 when Gandhi came back to power in the Centre. The phrase 'Aaya Ram Gaya Ram' is a gift from Haryana to National Politics which was coined when Gaya Lal had changed three parties in a day back in 1967. Incase of Bhajan Lal after cracking a deal with Gandhi, CM along with his entire cabinet left Janata Party and overnight joined Congress thus making it a Congress state. In the six months of Modi's tenure BJP was accused of getting into horsetrading of AAP legislators in Delhi in order to get the magic figure in the assembly which was in suspended animation following resignation of CM Arvind Kejriwal. Even in Maharashtra, though pre-poll, BJP imported around 60 candidates from Congress, NCP, MNS and Shiv Sena of which 52 were from the ruling Congress-NCP outfit.

During the 1971 campaign Indira criss crossed the entire nation to campaign for her party. She wanted to create her pan India appeal and image bigger than her party. In the entire campaign Gandhi was fond of wearing the symbolic headgear of the region in which she traveled. She also used to campaign for all state polls for Congress. Narendra Modi also addressed around 400 rallies in all corners of the country. He also addressed in remote locations such as Tripura where BJP has zero presence and also made inroads in regional backyard in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Even Modi wore head gear of those regions where ever he travelled. Modi is also the campaign leader for BJP in state polls as well. He addressed around 30 rallies in Maharashtra, then in Haryana and now in Jammu & Kashmir and Jharkhand.

These are a few striking resemblance between the two powerful leaders who are separated by three decades. The entire political spectrum changed after the demise of Indira Gandhi. There came an era which was dominated by Mandal-Mandir debates. Then came the era of Alliance politics where like minded parties agreed to a common minimum programme to jointly rule in state or in centre. Now with the annoinment of Modi as the Prime Minister, it has marked a beginning of another new era of politics of economic development. This has been so far successful even after General Election as BJP captured two states, Maharashtra & Harayna, banking on the Modi wave. Like all the oppositon came together to defeat Indira back in 1977, same movements are visible even today. Nitish Kumar and Laloo Prasad Yadav coming together to fight the by polls. Mulayam Singh Yadav also joining the bandwagon. In east, Mamata Banerjee rumored to be joining hands with her fierce rival Left and Congress to stop rising BJP. Only time will reveal to what extent does this new brand politics assist BJP in fulfilling Modi's mission of Congress Mukt Bharat.

PS: The most important and critical part I didn't mention above about Indira Gandhi was the Emergency era which is, till date, the darkest period in Independent Democratic Bharat's history. The reason for skipping was a hope that Narendra Modi does not gives us a chance to use this as a parameter in the two leaders comparison list.


-SR

The Suffering that never ended

The nation was just coming out of Diwali celebration for the year when suddenly a news broke out in the media. Warren Anderson, Chariman of Union Carbide Corporation died in a nursing home in Florida. TOI, country's largest English daily, didn't spare the opportunity to express the anger of the nation in it's headlines mentioning him as Bhopal's Tormentor. Though the official date of his death is somewhere in September, the family did not announce his death for reasons only known to them. The news surfaced only after the New York Times noticed his obituary in a small Connecticut newspaper called Vero Beach and then confirmed from the public records in order to release it to the world.

Warren Anderson's desk was said to have rested a paperweight with the Chinese proverb, ''Leader is best when people barely know he exists." Well he did implement that in his real life. After the Bhopal Gas tragedy that killed 15000+ Indians and still counting, Anderson did everything possible to ensure people knew he barely existed, disappearing from public view and living in hiding for nearly 30 years to escape New Delhi's feeble effort to bring him to justice. Normally after a person's death people pay their final respects to the departing soul. But in case of Anderson, the general sentiment on social media as news of his death surfaced was that he would rot in hell after being meted justice at the hands of his maker. This sentiment was the result of his company making Bhopal a land of dead in the fateful year of 1984.

I came across many rumours and half stories about the biggest industrial disaster. Not until I read Five Past Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro I could actually fathom the gravity of the tragedy and it's repercussion on the generations to come. It gave a detail account of the rise of Union Carbide Corporation in India. 

The factory was built in 1969 to produce a pesticide named Sevin. It was one it's kind product in those times in India as no other manufacturers attempted in doing so because of the huge production cost. In technical terms its production process followed by the company was as follows: Methylamine reacted with Phosgene to form Methyl Isocyante(MIC), which was an intermediate product. MIC was further treated with 1-Naphthol to form the final product Sevin or Carbaryl which was it's brand name.

Storing MIC in huge quantity meant holding a nuclear bomb in the factory premises. This was the reason why another chemical giant Bayer kept itself away from using MIC initially. The Bhopal factory was not well equipped to handle the gas created by the sudden addition of water to the MIC tank. Also MIC was kept at 20 degrees Celsius, not the 4.5 degrees advised by the manual. Hence when water was released in the MIC tanks the plant was not at all equipped to handle such a disaster and the gas went out in the atmosphere through the factory chimney. The toxic effect of the compound, when around 42,000 kilograms of MIC and other gases were released from the underground reservoirs of UCIL, was so massive that it killed thousands of people at a time and many more in the years to come. Lakhs of people suffered temporary disablement. The extent of cruelty was so huge that some people in and around the factory premises who slept in the night after a hard days work with hope for a new sunrise, never woke up. The pile of dead bodies was so much that made things difficult for the people to recognise the dead. The author explained one such incident which sent a chill down my spine. Two women, one hindu and other muslim, where fighting over a dead body. Both of them were claiming that the body was of their husband. The dispute grew louder that finally third person interfered and asked to strip the body naked from below to decide to whom the body belonged.

Four days after the incident Anderson came to India and was immediately arrested by the Bhopal police. However our country couldn't dare to prosecute him and was released immediately. The impact which the gas leak had on the countrymen, this was also that much painful that the person responsible for so many deaths was allowed to walk away free. The USA, which considers itself as messenger of peace and justice, gave full protection to Anderson and was never allowed to be extradited in order to bring him to justice. Sometimes I get a thought, what consequence would Anderson have faced had the same incident happened in American soil. Even our country merely declared him a fugitive and kept the status quo of other transactions with the USA as it is. Why didn't India take a tough stand against the US in order to isolate them in international community. Had an Indian committed such a crime in America, would India have saved the person from the impact of International law? The USA gave rigorous imprisonment to Rajat Gupta for a financial scam which did not result in any loss of life. But the world's biggest industrial disaster was not important in the eyes of US laws.

It has remained debatable that who from our machinery supported Anderson due to which he lived a comfortable life for 3 decades after the disaster while in Bhopal the count of dead went on increasing. The then PM Rajiv Gandhi was also in the list of names which were rumored to have helped Anderson to flee the country. When Osama Bin Laden attacked the US in September 2001, they invaded Afghanistan to search the culprit. But when, around same amount of people died in the industrial disaster in India due to an American the same US shielded him by all possible means till his natural death.

After the death news of Anderson flashed on Indian media, people in Bhopal came together near the Union Carbide factory premises to give their last respects to the owner in their own way. A huge picture of Anderson was kept on display and people came in queue and spat on that picture one after another.


PS: Many blamed Rajiv Gandhi to have assisted Anderson. I am actually happy, like he explained the anti sikh riots after Indira Gandhi's assassination,  that he didn't say something like, 'When a big company leaks......'


-SR

BJP-NCP Love Affair

After 15 years, finally, there has been a regime change in Maharashtra. For the first time there is a Saffron party in ruling as well as in Opposition bench. But was it all a smooth ride in the rise of Narendra Modi led BJP which turned out to be largest party. New party or alliance was sure to take charge in the state considering the considerable good work done by the previous Congress-NCP setup. But the way things turned out in the end was quite disappointing as well as surprising.

Soon after BJP led NDA came to power in Lok Sabha, BJP started moving it's pieces for capturing Vidhan Sabha in Maharashtra and Haryana. The Mahayuti which had Shiv Sena, BJP, RPI, RSP, SSS and Shiv Sangram was expected to come to power with more than 200 seats in the state. However the tussle started between the two main stakeholders in the alliance, Shiv Sena & BJP over seat sharing arrangement. As decided by Late Shiv Sena Chief Balasaheb Thackeray & senoir BJP leader Late Pramod Mahajan, the seat sharing formula said BJP will be elder brother in General Elections while Shiv Sena will be elder in state elections. So the formula of 171-117 was always considered as the base for negotiations. BJP appointed Rajiv Pratap Rudy to take control of Maharashtra elections. The noise started increasing, moment BJP started sending proposals of equal seat sharing to Shiv Sena.

Before the alliance partners meetings even started, ShivSena had released it's first part of the Vision Document which was pertaining to Mumbai. In the presentation ShivSena launced it's Mission 150 for the state polls and had declared party chief Uddhav Thackeray as their CM candidate. This created a bit of animosity amongst other parties in the alliance. Hence BJP started looking for it's option to grow beyond the restrictions of Mahayuti and Shivsena. They knew very well that this was their golden chance to score above ShivSena and stake claim for the CM post. The alliance formula also said the party with highest number of seats will lead the government. Hence Shivsena declaring their CM candidate on behalf of the alliance made the environment sour even before official discussions had begun.

The unrest due to seat sharing had finally led to a split in the 25 years alliance, and both Shivsena and BJP decided to go solo in the state polls. The other stakeholder from the Mahayuti decided to stay with BJO thus leaving ShivSena alone in the first state election post demise of Balasaheb Thackeray. The important catch in this process was merely couple of hours after this break up annoucement was made, NCP announced it is parting ways with Congress and also withdrew support from the government thus forcing President's Rule for a month in the state. It seems the BJP and Sharad Pawar do have some secret affair wherein one gives hand when other ship in sinking. To understand this affair we need to go a bit in the past.
The first time when Shivsena and BJP came together it was Sharad Pawar who was the reason for their breakup. In1984 Shivsena fielded 2 candidates under BJP symbol, though unsuccessfully. Congress won the election with landslide margin of over 400 seats due to the sympathy wave of Indira Gandhi. BJP shifted the defeat in Mumbai on Shivsena even though they themselves managed to get 2 seats throughout the country out of which one was due to TDP. A big reason for BJP being decimated in 1984 was RSS had tacitly backed the Congress and spread the word that its cadre were free to vote as they pleased. Even Nanaji Deshmukh had endorsed Indira’s Punjab policies and asked it's cadres to vote for Congress.

After the defeat BJP drifted away from the Shivsena as many leaders saw it as a controversial outfit. Later in 1985 Sharad Pawar formed an alliance the Purogami Lokshahi Aghadi (PULOD) bringing together Congress-S, Janata Party and Left parties for Maharashtra state elections which was principally against the Congress-I. BJP decided to join the alliance but Shivsena stayed away. Result was Shivsena won only one seat in the assembly but captured BMC.

Shivsena earned huge response after the Shah Bano case and also won the Vile Parle by election in 1987 on Hindutva plank for which Shivsena Chief was banned from voting for six years. As the VHP led Ram Janmabhoomi Movement began in Ayodhya, LK Advani was told to lead the Rath Yatra. Finally BJP embraced Hindutva and joined hands with Shivsena in 1989 as Sharad Pawar rejoined the Congress-I outfit. Balasaheb Thackeray had reminded the BJP leaders more than once how they were close to Sharad Pawar.

In 2014, again Sharad Pawar has his own party NCP who was now trying to enter NDA fold during Lok Sabha elections. However Shivsena opposed strongly to this step and hence BJP had to cancel any such plans. Even RSS was not willing to allow NCP to enter the alliance who had coined a term Saffron Terror. In the Lok Sabha election BJP Prime Ministerial Candidate Narendra Modi had campaigned extensively in Maharashtra but had knowingly ingnored Baramati constituency which belonged to Sharad Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule. In the various TV interviews of different party leaders during the run up to state polls, one leader from Mahayuti Madhav Jankar of RSP had opened the secret that Sharad Pawar and Narendra Modi had a deal during Lok Sabha campaign period that former will not campaign in Baramati. And if NCP is able to get 3-4 MPs only then his party will support BJP endeavors in the Rajya Sabha, as UPA still has majority in the upper house. Hence, inspite Jankar being a strong candidate against Sule, he lost the election by small margin as neither Modi nor Uddhav campaigned for him Baramati.

When the BJP fell short of majority again in Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha, NCP supported BJP in the voice vote for confidence motion of the minority BJP government. The secret love affair was reignited after 3 decades showing that it is still lively and ripe. BJP thought it was convenient to walk away from Shivsena by taking outside support from NCP. When everyone is pretty much aware that they cannot be trusted at any moment of time. Sharad Pawar left Congress in 1999 to form NCP by criticising Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin. But joined hands with the same party and ruled the state for 15years and also country for 10 years. Now they supported BJP in vote of confidence by taking moral ground of respecting people's mandate and that support is unconditional with only intention of giving state a stable government and immediately after 2 days Sharad Pawar asked his NCP workers to be ready for midterm polls in state at anytime.

Hope Modi-Shah duo take cognizance of these ground realities and realise the gravity of risk they are taking by accepting NCP support in the state.



-SR

Happy Birthday Dinkz

Firstly, Many Happy Returns Of The Day. Hope you have a super rocking day.

Now the objective to write here is because of my unsuccessful surprise plan. Like the government declassifies secret files after a period of time, I open the secrets of my surprise plans once the occasion is over. Mismatch comparison, I guess. Ignore it. Actually I was going to send you a Greeting Card via courier. But one of the bank exam dates came in this week and I couldn't go ahead with the plan. I am extremely sorry for No tangible Gifts from my side, so please accept this virtual gift.

Plan was to purchase a normal birthday card which will have enough space at the back so I can write my own message. Now that I couldn't send it, atleast I can give you the message which was ready with me.

Task was quite simple. I don’t have any big creative mind like yours. Remember, somewhere back in July I had asked suggestion from you about how to design a birthday card. That one was for Vanessa. But I do understand human nature. It’s not the price tag of the gift but the sincerity involved in giving the same is what makes it special. So I’ll write down here what I was going to put in the card.

On Left hand side of the page where wishes are printed:

The words printed on the adjacent side are by the manufacturer of this card. My wishes you will find on the next page. So please royally ignore these words and turn over.

Ps: You might feel like throwing the card away the moment you turn this page, such is the beauty of my handwriting. But please bear with me.

On the next page:

Being introduced by a common source, we do not have too many moments together in these many years of our acquaintance. But our friendship is unique in it’s own way. To talk about the birthday girl, one who enjoys her academics (I wonder how can one enjoy ones studies:P), book lover, hardcore tree lover who also enjoys football and politics. I, especially, enjoy our discussions on the last subject. Considering your knowledge in political science you can make a good career in politics, now that Anjali Damania has resigned and AAP is looking for a face in the state.

The uniqueness of our friendship is I don’t have even a picture of us together. But like the old saying, a friend in need is a friend indeed. Whenever a person goes through some weird phases in life, when many thoughts keep encircling your head, when judging the situation goes beyond your control. That is the time when that person yearns for an ear to listen out. I still remember that call I made to you in one such weird phase in my life. Thank you for hearing me out then. This mention doesn’t mean that I am living in the past. It’s just that I don’t forget the people who were there around when I needed friends the most.  Also the surprise you and Vanessa had planned where you asked me to come to meet you but it was Vanessa who had come back to the city who met me. These small gestures matter a lot.

So I take this opportunity to thank you, buddy, for allowing me to be in your friends list. My bestest wishes on this day.

Happy Birthday Adi, once again. God Bless.

This was going to be the content of that greeting card which I could never send you. Anyways, I hope you have great day. You are surrounded by all your friends and family and flooded with good wishes. Enjoy the day and have a rocking year ahead.

PS: I don't have any pictures but I do have one screenshot of your message on my book. See if you remember it. Must be atleast, 6years old.

-SR