Hypocrites and Traitors in Indian Politics

During the last three days there were two news items which specially caught my interest.

1. A powerful politician, while talking to press in New Delhi on Saturday (7/24/2010), said that the Popular Front of India (PFI) was aiming to convert Kerala into a “Muslim country” in the next 20 years. PFI is a Muslim organization which hit the headlines recently after its activists chopped off the hand of a college lecturer for allegedly insulting prophet Muhammad. Using unusually harsh language, the Chief Minister said the PFI was pumping money to lure youth into Islam and persuade them to marry Muslim women⁽¹⁾. “Their strategy is to make Muslims a majority community in Kerala. In 20 years, they want to make Kerala a Muslim majority state," he said referring to recent cases of Love Jihad.

These words were not spoken by any member of BJP or RSS. They were spoken by Mr.V.S.Achuthanandan, a Communist Party (Marxist) leader and the Chief Minister of Kerala! Indian Express reported⁽²⁾: His party, CP(M), has leading role in nurturing this monster - Popular Front - it has earlier used the PFI to divert votes from the Congress-allied Indian Union Muslim League. However, there isn’t a shred of doubt that the PFI, or a significant strand of it, is an extremist and violent organization that has not let go of its SIMI antecedents. Through the ’90s, after the Babri Masjid demolition polarized India, the PFI (formerly the National Development Front) grew and tightened its grip — it specializes in acts of shocking brutality, like the incident when it hacked off the hands of the college lecturer, for supposedly insulting the Prophet in an examination paper. It has a repressive social agenda, from demanding headscarves in Christian schools to moral policing, along with a media mouthpiece and softer outreach activities. In northern Kerala, where it is locked in fierce competition with the RSS and the CPM, it has developed a neat line in political intimidation. That it seeks to impose its social ideology on Kerala’s Muslims is a clearly visible fact.

For many years on, the BJP has been raising this issue in Kerala, but they were marginalized, and neither Congress nor CP(M) wanted to confront the reality of foreign funded talibanization of the society in Kerala. All communal incidents were squarely blamed on the RSS/BJP, and politics of appeasement was allowed to prosper. Now, in this late hour, people are sitting up and taking notice. We will have to see how much follow up in done on the statement by the Chief Minister and the CP(M). This may only be a lip-service to shore up Hindu votes as CP(M) has become unpopular among the other communities in Kerala of late.

BJP and Congress criticized the Chief Minister for being "communal". Surprise, BJP calling CP(M) communal for raising Talibanization issue? There are hypocrites in Indian politics everywhere you look.

All the Islamic organizations, as they always do, condemned the Chief Minister, wanted him to apologize and retract his statements. Islamic ethos has no room for self-introspection, and as always, they stand to defend the brand name of Islam regardless of whether the issue is right or wrong.

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2. Mr. Manishankar Aiyar, currently a Rajya Sabha member and Congress party leader, said that he would be “unhappy” if the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Delhi turn out to be a success and that those organizing it are “evil.” He further said: "I am delighted in a way because rains are causing difficulties for the Commonwealth Games. Basically, I will be very unhappy if the Games are successful because then they will start bringing Asian Games, Olympic Games,” he said. And added: “Those who are patronizing the Games can only be evil. They cannot be God."⁽³⁾.

Mr. Aiyar's acquaintance with Rajiv Gandhi during his years at Doon School and Cambridge University got him a berth among the Congress party establishment. A rabid Marxist who is against any kind of development, he was the Sports Minister in the year 2006-2009. That shows why India has been doing so poorly in international sports. When he was a student at Cambridge University he was an active member of Marxist Society there and supposedly collected donations to help China win its war against India in 1962. With such antinational traitors in power, no wonder India is spinning its wheels when it comes to progress.

References:

(1) http://www.indianexpress.com/news/PFI-trying-to-make-Kerala-a--Muslim-country---says-VS/651344

(2) http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Defending-the-front/652613

(3) http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Too-much-Mani-continues-to-be-wasted-on-the-Games/652739

External Affairs Minister Krishna's Visit to Pakistan

Indian external affairs minister S.M. Krishna traveled to Islamabad last week for talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi and returned empty handed. Pakistan, as usual, played the victim of India's alleged intransigence. Three days later Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State came to Islamabad carrying goodies ($500 million as first installment of the $7.5 billion) and presided over a meeting between Pakistan and Afghanistan where they signed a transit agreement between the two countries that specifically excluded any shipment of Indian goods to Afghanistan through Pakistani territory. I find it mind-numbing to see such clumsiness of our External Affairs ministry.

Qureshi knew ahead of time that Hillary Clinton was to visit Islamabad begging and bribing Pakistan for its support in Afghanistan and push Karzai to sign the Af-Pak agreement. With this knowledge, Qureshi had no interest in reaching any agreement with India and he wanted to show that Pakistanis can beat India in diplomacy and check-mate India. Our diplomats in South Block were clueless when they traveled to Islamabad.

India had strategic discussions with United States last month and it is not clear
if anything was accomplished. If those talks were successful, why would Clinton come to Islamabad with goodies so soon after the breakdown of talks between Qureshi and Krishna and preside over Af-Pak agreement which disenfranchised India in Afghanistan? All the development works that India did in Afghanistan over the last several years have come to nothing.

Indian team had so many trump cards in their hands(1,2): the ISI involvement in the 11/26 attack in Mumbai as revealed by Headley, the information of Pakistani Navy frogmen training the Mumbai terrorists, ISI providing money to LeT to purchase the boat to travel from Karachi to Mumbai, the ISI being in control and coordinating the attack from the beginning to the end, ISI colluding with Haqqani network, the notorious group which raised alarm in the US Senate last week, and on and on. If Pakistan is not responsive to these many evidences, is there any use in talking to them? So called "soft power" that Congress politicians talk about does not work beyond our borders (it never worked even within the borders).

Indians are under a stupid assumption that the dream of a prosperous India cannot be realized without a peace agreement with Pakistan. Pakistan knows this very well and is carrying out its usual blackmail as it has been doing for the last sixty years. By the manner in which they handled the talks they essentially declared that they have no interest in a working relationship with India on mutual terms because of their confidence that United States would bankroll them and China would provide diplomatic support. It is about time to wake up from the our Gandhian day dreams and face up to the world of realpolitik.


Reference:
1. http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/jul/19/pakistan-navy-trained-2611-terrorists-headley.htm
2. http://www.hindu.com/2010/07/20/stories/2010072062181200.htm

USA, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India - Is History About to Repeat?

It is crunch time for Indian diplomats in Afghanistan. The United States has woken up to the reality that their mission to create a Jeffersonian democracy over there is a lost cause. Even when it was a monarchy years ago the state of Afghanistan did not have strong Kabul-centered rule but a loose coalition of tribal leaders running the countryside and US military will not be able to change that. President Obama, in spite of his silver tongued ideological speeches, is just another political animal. He does not want to carry a liability even a minute longer than he has to. His advisors are recommending that he unload Afghanistan ASAP and they know that people's memory is short. Very soon the US will wash its hands off Afghanistan and the place is about to descent into its usual chaos. If Indian diplomacy functions like business as usual, India will be the looser and the winner will be Pakistan.

Pakistan eagerly working hard to take over the vacuum created by the exit of United States and getting handsomely paid for it. United States did use Pakistan some thirty years ago to get the Russians out. Pakistan managed the war all the while raising Taliban terrorists to send to Kashmir, Chechnya and Bosnia with the bills being paid by the United States. The US administration could care less about Taliban or terrorism as long as it did not affect them. The situation is about to repeat. It puts Pakistan in an excellent financial and strategic position as they can enlarge their terror camps to Afghanistan and continue to terrorize the neighborhood on a grander scale.

In such situation the looser is India because its internal security is further endangered and the infrastructure work it did in Afghanistan will come to nothing. All the goodwill that India accumulated with the current Afghan administration will be lost under the new regime which will be of Pakistan's choosing.

The mistakes committed by the United States in the 80's and Pakistan taking advantage of them created huge security problems for India. We hope that Indian diplomats will be working overtime to ensure it does not happen again.

Those who do not learn from history are cursed to suffer repetition.