[“We have always strived to eradicate corruption. Our approach to corruption also gets clearly reflected in our actions. Whether at the center or in the states, we have asked our ministers and chief ministers to step down merely on the basis of suspicion,” said Mr. Singh. “We are not like some opposition parties which insist on retaining their tainted chief ministers in spite of scandal after scandal.”]
By Tripti Lahiri
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| Indian Congress Party Chief Sonia Gandhi |
At the Congress Party’s 125th anniversary session that came to an end Monday, party politicians criticized and mocked the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party on, of all things, corruption.
Sure, those remarks were accompanied by plenty of introspection on how to fight corruption within the Congress, and one surprise offer to appear for questioning. But still, that’s pretty spirited for a party that is facing controversy over financial management of the October Commonwealth Games, over the flawed allotment of spectrum to telecoms in 2008 and over a housing scandal in Mumbai.
On Sunday, Congress Party Chief Sonia Gandhi said yet again that her party is swifter to take action against politicians perceived as corrupt than the BJP is.
“Even when no charge has been established, we have asked our ministers and our chief ministers to step down, pending inquiry,” she said “Can the BJP do so in regard to Karnataka where corruption is rampant or other states?”
The BJP took a calculated risk in holding on to its chief minister in Karnataka, even as it made corruption the key plank of its campaign against the Congress. Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa is facing allegations of corruption in connection with land deals involving his family, which he has denied.
On Monday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said something similar to Mrs. Gandhi.
“We have always strived to eradicate corruption. Our approach to corruption also gets clearly reflected in our actions. Whether at the center or in the states, we have asked our ministers and chief ministers to step down merely on the basis of suspicion,” said Mr. Singh. “We are not like some opposition parties which insist on retaining their tainted chief ministers in spite of scandal after scandal.”
Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram went the furthest, suggesting that the BJP’s campaign on corruption against Congress was down to sour grapes.
“The BJP had one chance and failed. The BJP is envious of the party because the Congress Party knows how to govern and how to be re-elected for a second term,” said Mr. Chidambaram. “To the BJP I say your number will not come before the end of the decade and perhaps even thereafter.”
The Congress won a surprise victory in elections in 2004, even as the BJP had expected a second term. In national elections last year, the Congress returned for another term. The BJP declined to comment on these remarks.
@ The Wall Street Journal
@ The Wall Street Journal
Congress Party is vilified by Hindu nationalists over leader Rahul Gandhi's comments about the threat of Hindu militants. Other cables detail reports of abuse of detainees in Kashmir.
By Mark Magnier,
Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables have sparked a political battle in India, putting the ruling party on the defensive with their disclosures on alleged human rights violations and religious extremism.
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| An irresponsible Rahul Gandhi |
Most damaging to the Congress Party was a cable reporting that Rahul Gandhi, scion of India's first political family and pegged by many as the nation's next prime minister, told the U.S. ambassador last year that hard-line Hindu groups in India could be a bigger threat to the country than Pakistan-based Islamic militants.
Given the deep distrust felt here among many for Pakistan and the domestic attacks in recent years by Muslim and Hindu extremists alike, the party's adversaries seized upon the comments released by the WikiLeaks website.
"I have been wondering for a long time now [how] the whole world believes that Pakistan is a terrorist state, yet the U.S. always backs the country," Narendra Modi, a controversial leader with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, said Saturday, calling Gandhi's comments "irresponsible."
"Yesterday, after the cables were out, it [became] clear who gave inspiration to the U.S. to speak pro-Pakistan," said Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat state, who was accused of tacit support for anti-Muslim riots there in 2002.
The disclosures are also likely to further undercut the reputation of the 125-year-old Congress Party, which has been hit by a series of corruption and influence-peddling scandals, leading to charges that its leadership is adrift.
A second disclosure in the cables excerpted in Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on a 2005 briefing by the International Committee of the Red Cross to then-U.S. Ambassador David Mulford about the use of torture in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir. Torture is illegal in India.
The briefing, reportedly based on 177 visits by the Red Cross to detention centers in Kashmir between 2002 and 2004 involving 1,500 prisoner interviews, cited beatings, electrocution, sexual assaults on prisoners, crushing muscles and other abuses.
Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan, is a flash point between the two nations and has been the cause of two of the wary nuclear neighbors' three wars since partition in 1947.
In the briefing, the Red Cross reportedly voiced its concern that the Indian government had not tried to halt ongoing "ill treatment" of detainees in Kashmir.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, the top elected official in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, said last week that the government has a zero-tolerance policy toward torture, adding that the alleged violations occurred before he was elected.
Others said the leaks underscored the need for a new approach in the troubled Kashmir region.
"The leaks have vindicated our stand about the systematic torture prevalent in the jails in Kashmir," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the moderate Hurriyat umbrella group in Jammu and Kashmir, told reporters. "It was unfortunate that the United States of America had been maintaining an intentional silence on the human rights situation in Kashmir while it spoke about the rights violations in Burma and other countries."
But the 2005 cable also mentioned that the situation in Kashmir was much better than it had been in the 1990s, at the height of a conflict that has killed an estimated 70,000 civilians over the last two decades, including 100 fatalities since June.
Anshul Rana in The Times' New Delhi Bureau contributed to this report.
[I think , we need to exhibit lateral thinking of the young girl discussed above at this juncture, where the country is at the nadir point in all the sectors : be it corruption, security, rule of law, human rights, justice, loot of the nation, anarchism so on and so forth. At this century of economic and all round development, when the technology is galloping, for me the political ‘ism’ plays very little role and the only requirement is the rule of law to fulfill the aspiration of majority of the people and a harsh punishment to the corrupt people and the end of the culture of impunity. With the required human rights where any Nepalese citizen can enjoy the dignified life irrespective of their caste, religion, place of origin, and spatial position.]
Long back when I was student in USA, we were lectured about 'lateral thinking ' and few stories were told explaining what was ‘lateral thinking’ . One of the stories here, I hope many readers might have already heard before. The story is like this: once there was a beautiful young girl in a town and in the same town was also a wicked merchant who wanted to marry the girl. The merchant was putting pressure on the girls’ parents as they had borrowed some money from him and they had not been able to pay back. The people heard it and felt sad about such forceful marriage going to happen in their town. Realizing that the town people did not like what he was doing, the wicked merchant came up with a ridiculous proposal. He said, "I will put one black and one white stone in a box and if the girl picks up white stone without seeing it , I will not marry her and quashed the loan also”".
The girl agreed to this condition which was so awful obviously. And in a kind of public meeting, the merchant put two stones as discussed above into a box and asked the girl to pick the white stone up . The girl did so and threw the stone far off without showing it to anybody and asked the merchant to check the remaining stone. The merchant opened the box and everybody saw a black stone left. The girl had not to marry the merchant as the stone she had picked and thrown should have been white certainly. The young girl with her ‘lateral thinking’ could free herself from the wicked merchant and relived her parents form the debt also because she 'knew the merchant would have both stones ‘black’ in the box to marry her.
Today Nepalese leaders are exactly behaving like the wicked merchant of this story to marry the beautiful young girl (power) and unfortunately none of the stakeholders is able to show his/her lateral thinking : be it the President himself, speaker of the house or civil society etc. The desire of the president to use power is clearly exhibited with the vice president as saying that political parties should submit in writing to the president for a presidential rule. The president, here may appear to be smarter ( I think he himself proved to be very coward as he used the political parties to go against the elected PM’s decision of sacking the then army chief and now he seems to be using the vice president to fulfill his desire for power ) enough to use the vice president to fulfill his desire for power or else if he had not asked the vice president to say so he should have given the statement explaining that ‘the vice president’s remark is not in line of the of the president ‘s office’. After all the president and vice president are the members of a single institution: the president’s office.
Similarly, the speaker of the house has also expressed his heightened ambition to rule by saying he has the solution to solve the ‘outstanding problem’ but he also requires submission from the political parties to authorize him power. In such a unclad and dirty exhibition of lust for power by all the so called politicians is nothing but the rape of the democracy and they all should feel ashamed of their own activities and we the people also feel so cool to find such crooks as our leaders !
The true politics cannot be that complex as it is made today just to grab power so that they could loot the country: its treasury and other resources. In the politics , we understand the importance is given to the people’s all round development, rule of law, citizen’s right. But in the present context, drafting of constitution, logical end of the peace treaty and dignified inclusion of the Maoist army in the Nepal Army to defend the border of the country ( there are more than 20 places in the country where the country’s boarder is being encroached upon ) are all in shambles. The Maoists stood victorious and are the largest party in the country but they are now being harassed and edged out. It seems , we require something dictatorial or in other words – one party rule that could save the country and national pride. Who could do it ? The Nepali Congress, UML or the Maoists ? The Nepali Congress and UML parties have already been displaced by the Maoists; so should the Maoists be offered the reign of the country?
By saying this I fully understand the risk involved and the possibility of one party rule of the country but as we are in a situation where either we have to jump towards the fire or water . And I would obviously prefer to jump towards the water as I know to jump to the side of the fire is suicidal.. This is what becomes 'lateral thinking' of mine. Remember slowly, one by one the dirty games and activities, corruption, misrule and other wrong doings of the political parties that ruled the country since 2047, any Nepali will feel disgusted and the people’s verdict on that b was clearly expressed during the CA election. The Maoist got the majority support not because people liked their ideology, or not because most of the voters were communist but simply because; the people of Nepal are tired of the past ruling and want change: not the simple change but radical change and they would like to see the end of culture of impunity.
I think , we need to exhibit 'lateral thinking' of the young girl discussed above at this juncture, where the country is at the nadir point in all the sectors: be it corruption, security, rule of law, human rights, justice, loot of the nation, anarchism so on and so forth. At this century of economic and all round development, when the technology is galloping, for me the political ‘ism’ plays very little role and the only requirement is the rule of law to fulfill the aspiration of majority of the people and a harsh punishment to the corrupt people and the end of the culture of impunity. With the required human rights where any Nepalese citizen can enjoy the dignified life irrespective of their caste, religion, place of origin, and spatial position.
