BJP Future - 5

ramana · (This post was last modified: 05-15-2007, 08:03 AM by ramana.)

I thought the after the last 2004 elections, G.Subramaniam analyzed the poll data and shwed there was no real Muslim votebank.

All those wringing their hands about Mayawati and her coming together with the Brahmins should ponder about how the Mauryan empire came about?

In India history comes about in cycles no matter what Hegel and his disciples of JNU think <!--emo& Wink

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' />

**acharya** · 05-15-2007, 09:43 AM

BSP is a PROXY FOR BJP

05-15-2007, 09:37 PM

BJP to give RSS training to PAsQUOTEThe BJP, embarrassed over party MP Babubahi Katara's arrest in the emigration racket, now seem to have decided that the trouble lies not so much with party MPs as their support staff.

The Personal Assistants (PAs), who are being blamed for leading their MPs astray, are being sent back to the classroom to be trained at an RSS outfit near Mumbai.

The BJP clearly feels that the MP's staff is responsible for misguiding them.

''We have decided to train the Personal Assistants so incidents like this don't happen again,'' said Rajnath Singh, President, BJP.

Learn good conduct
PAs of BJP MPs will now spend time at the Probhodhini Institute, an RSS think tank and among other things learn good conduct and rules and regulations of governance.
.................

''MPs should check the background of their PAs before appointing them. It will help them avoid such incidents,'' said Venkaiah Naidu, BJP MP.


This is needed to improve conduct.

05-21-2007, 08:31 AM

05-26-2007, 08:21 AM

Another BJP bid to woo Muslims
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070525/48/6g9qy.html

**acharya** · 05-28-2007, 02:13 AM

BJP man as Chief Minister is `dangerous': Yechury

Special Correspondent

# Janata Dal (Secular) blamed for the situation in Karnataka
# Left parties' support to UPA Government defended

BANGALORE: Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member and MP Sitaram Yechury on Sunday termed as "dangerous" the possibility of the chief ministerial position going to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka.

"Communal forces are already getting strengthened in Karnataka because the BJP is a partner in the Government. Their activities are bound to increase if the party gets the Chief Minister's position as well," Mr. Yechury told The Hindu on the sidelines of a programme organised by the CPI(M) in Bangalore to launch its weekly newspaper Jana Shakti.

The organising of Virat Hindu Samavesha in a grand manner in the State and the increasing tension at Bababudangiri following the campaign by the Sangh Parivar to "liberate" the Datta Peetha, he said, were examples of how the BJP was using its power to enforce communal agenda.

He blamed the Janata Dal (Secular) for this situation as it had joined hands with the BJP to form a coalition Government. "What can we do when so-called secular forces themselves indulge in such things," Mr Yechury said.

Speaking at the function, Mr. Yechury defended the support offered by the Left parties to the United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre.

He said it was due to the pressure from the Left parties that the UPA Government had taken several pro-people and pro-poor policy decisions.

The Left parties were both opposing and supporting the UPA Government depending upon the issue at hand, he said.

05-29-2007, 09:16 PM

Rajnath Singh gives Jaitley charge of UPQUOTEIn an overhaul of his party management in states, on Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh removed general secretary Arun Jaitley as in-charge of Punjab, despite the recent electoral success there, and gave him Uttar Pradesh, where the party suffered a crushing defeat.

Jaitley replaces party veteran Kalyan Singh as in charge of Uttar Pradesh
...

Rajnath Singh has posted former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma as in charge of Punjab and Chandigarh after withdrawing him from Himachal Pradesh.

He also pulled out Jaitley as in charge of Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh.

The BJP chief, who has dropped Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi from the key parliamentary board, retained party leader Om Mathur as in charge of that state.

In another surprise move, Singh replaced senior BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra as 'prabhari' of Delhi, where the party tasted victory in the recent municipal elections, with Thawar Chand Gehlot. 

He gave Bihar's charge to veteran Kalraj Mishra, replacing him with Maharashtra leader Gopinath Munde in Rajasthan

ramana · 05-30-2007, 01:41 AM

The conspiracy is to ensure that BJP does not rule Karnataka. If it does there will be a paradigm shift in South India. I told this to long ago.
Rajnath Singh's reassignments are to gear up for LS polls. He has put proven winners in charge of difficult states despite the press saying otherwise.

05-30-2007, 02:38 AM

Only pro Congress media is saying, otherwise changes are good.

Pioneer review make sense.

QUOTERajnath gives home turf to Jaitley, Ravi gets TN, Malhotra loses DelhiÂ 
Rajeev Ranjan Roy | New Delhi
The man who scripted victory for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Punjab would now revive the party's sagging fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, where the party suffered a debacle in the recently concluded Assembly polls.

Though the home-turf of BJP's many bigshots, the party president Rajnath Singh has chosen Arun Jaitley to put the party in the victory mode in the country's politically most crucial State. The party's senior most general secretary, Jaitley played a key role in the BJP's resounding victory in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi election recently.

Reacting to the party president's decision, Jaitley said that he would work in tandem with the senior colleagues to strengthen the party in Uttar Pradesh so that the defeat in the Assembly election could be effectively compensated in the general elections in 2009.

"It is a challenging assignment. I will try my level best to put the party in the revival mode in the State," said Jaitley, who recently steered the party to a resounding victory in Punjab. He was the party's in-charge of Punjab.

Rajnath Singh, who announced in-charge for different States on Tuesday, stripped BJP Parliamentary party spokesperson Vijay Kumar Malhotra from the responsibility of Delhi, where played an effective role in ensuring the party's victory in the corporation poll. General secretary Thawarchand Gehlot has replaced Malhotra. 

The party's chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, who oversaw the party's victory in Uttarakhand Assembly election, has been the given the responsibility of Tamil Nadu, while his colleague Prakash Javadekar would take care of the party in Andhra Pradesh. Gopinath Munde and Ananth Kumar have been given the responsibility of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh respectively, the States going to polls in 2009.

The party president Singh himself has got an assistant in the form of Prabhat Jha, an RSS insider, currently holding the post of secretary. The firebrand party MP from Orissa MA Kharbela Swain has been given the responsibility of West Bengal and Tripura, while former BJP Yuva Morcha president and MP Dharmendra Pradhan has got Chhattisgarh.

Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, which are going to polls next year have gone to Satpal Jain and OP Dhankar, while former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma as in charge of Punjab and Chandigarh after withdrawing him from Himachal Pradesh.

Singh has retained Om Mathur as in charge of Gujarat, while Bihar has gone to Kalraj Mishra, earlier in-charge of Rajasthan. The party secretary Vijay Goel replaced the party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who has been made the overall in-charge of charge of the party's election management and coordination.

Singh has retained party general secretary Ananth Kumar as in-charge of Madhya Pradesh while retaining the party spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy as in charge of Goa. Kerala has gone to the senior journalist and secretary Kerala, and Maharashtra to Kaptan Singh Solanki.

Former Mahila Morcha president Karuna Shukla will oversee the party's prospects in Jharkhand, while Uttarakhand has gone to Krishna Murari Moghe and Daman, Diu, and Nagar Haveli to Kanji Bhai Patel. Former media convenor Siddharth Nath Singh has been made the co-in charge of Nagaland under Jual Oram.

Singh has appointed MP Sumitra Mahajan as in charge of the party's women wing and MP Najma Heptullah as in charge of the Minority Morcha headed by Syed Shahnawaj Hussain. 

Malhora departure from Delhi is bit surprising, Finally they had removed Sahib Singh Verma from HP, he is good for Jat politcs only.
New role looks good.

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 05-30-2007, 07:20 AM by acharya.)

Chandra Bhan Prasad

Is the elite blocking India's new social order?

May 29, 2007

In societies the world over, the elite speak through the media. Polished and sophisticated, the media graduates into the collective voice of the elite.

India has a very formidable media establishment, and that is expanding at a very rapid speed. Though a welcome sign of a society under transition, the Indian media as it expands in terms of its reach, it shrinks even further in terms of objectivity.

'Will the BSP now step out of Uttar Pradesh to grow into a national party?' Questions such as these are often lobbed. In other words, to the Indian media, the Bahujan Samaj Party remains a UP-centric party with some symbolic presence here and there. Is that the truth?

How far and different in terms of distance, culture and demography the Andaman and Nicobar islands are from Lucknow. In the Lok Sabha election of 2004, the BSP candidate polled 1,122 votes in the Andaman & Nicobar islands Lok Sabha seat.

Darjeeling is equally far from the Andaman & Nicobar islands, but in West Bengal's Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat, the BSP candidate polled 10,752 votes. Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli district can be culturally an altogether an alien planet from Darjeeling, but the BSP candidate in the Tirunelveli Lok Sabha seat polled 3,606 votes in 2004.

In the deep central Indian Lok Sabha constituency of Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh, the BSP candidate polled 72,391 votes in 2004. In far southeast Thiruvananthapuram, the BSP candidate polled 3,831 votes. In far west Jamnagar in Gujarat, the BSP candidate polled 5,306 votes. In the sleepy desert Lok Sabha constituency of Barmer in Rajasthan, the BSP candidate polled 19,616 votes. And in the very heart of south India, in the Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency of Karnataka, the BSP candidate polled 26,725 votes.

Though the Indian media will not inform the public, the BSP, barring the Northeast, has evolved into an authentic all India party.

Brahmins in their paradise of the Gangetic belt have now accepted Mayawati as their leader, and its echoes are being felt beyond the BSP's region of triumph. Mahant Sudhirdas Pujari, the head priest of Nashik's Kalaram temple, has joined the BSP to replicate UP's Dalit-Brahmin thesis in Maharashtra.

It is worth recalling that Mahant Sudhirdas is the grandson of Ramdasbuva Pujari, who as the head priest of the Kalaram temple, had shut the temple's door when Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar launched his historic temple entry movement on March 2, 1930. Mahant Sudhirdas now apologises for his grandfather's landmark mistake.

Present day India is undergoing a spectacular social churning where society is demanding a new social contract. This new social contract, in turn, insists on a new social consensus where Dalits ought to be the leaders. The terms and conditions of this social contract are to be decided by the Dalits themselves. The Brahmin -- the average Brahmin to be precise -- is consenting to this new social contract.

The two national castes, the Dalits and Brahmins, are the logical legatees of Indian democracy. Pre-destined by their demographic spread and various other social factors, Dalits and Brahmins alone have the inner strength to own up pan-India as the land for all -- an all inclusive nation-State.

The Brahmins' predicament is history contextualised where they lack moral authority to lead India. As makers of a divisive and innately hierarchical social order, Brahmins in their self-belief are a partisan social class, suspected by all. The non-Brahmins -- Shudras or the Other Backward Classes -- to be precise got a mandate to lead India after the Mandal movement. None but the OBCs themselves betrayed that mandate.

In post-Mandal India, the OBCs got a mandate to de-caste India and build it on egalitarian lines. Constrained by a host of socio-psychological factors, the OBCs misinterpreted that Mandal mandate and began reconstructing the order of social hegemony. The Brahmin hegemony to be replaced by the hegemony of the OBCs.

This went against the mandate accorded to them in post-Mandal India. The consensus collapsed in less than two decades, and the OBCs lost the moral authority to rule and lead India.

Now, neither are the Brahmins acceptable to the OBCs nor the OBCs to Brahmins. But some social class must govern and lead India. The choice fell on the Dalits -- a third party arbitrator. That exceptional social mood was reflected in the UP assembly election where the society on its own chose Mayawati to rule the state, and if possible, extend that logic to an all India basis.

There are roadblocks though. India's elite, still rooted in its past and condemned by a arrogant regime, finds itself unprepared to consent to the already evolving new social consensus. As erstwhile rulers, the Indian elite continues to rule the urban economy, the centres of knowledge, media, new professions, culture, and hence, self-consciously, remain rulers of India. Needless to say, the elite are hopelessly far removed from political realities.

Economically marginalised, politically despised, and ideologically isolated, the average Brahmin along with its Rajput, Baniya and Kayastha associates, has been feeling the heat for over a decade-and-a-half. Mayawati's call of solidarity has galvanised them into a new social force.

While the average Brahmin is mandating a new future history for India, and hence a new social consensus, the elite seem to be blocking the same. By implication, the arrogant-affluent elite is putting roadblocks in the march of history, and that of democracy.

To make India a better place to live, the elite must modernise and moderate its conscience. That is the new aspiration of history. While Dalits are prepared to take the role history is demanding, the elite have to decide their own role and responsibility. Shouldn't the elite think of India as well -- a new nation-State -- all inclusive, vibrant and futuristic? Through its mouthpiece -- the mass media, the elite must now speak up a new language.

Dr Chandra Bhan Prasad will contribute a regular column to rediff.com

ramana · 06-01-2007, 03:02 AM

Swapan Dasgupts in Telegraph, 1 june 2007
QUOTESHUTTING THEIR DOORS
- What do the UP results say about Indiaâs national parties?Â
SWAPAN DASGUPTA

At a small gathering earlier this week, where the conversation centred on the Uttar Pradesh election results, the Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi, recalled an incident from 1969. The news of the Congress split involving Indira Gandhi and the so-called Syndicate had just been told to âGurujiâ M.S. Golwalkar, the redoubtable head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. On hearing about it, Golwalkar paced up and down the room agitatedly. When asked why he was so upset, Golwalkar is said to have snapped back: âDonât you realize its consequences? A weak Congress is disastrous for the country.â

The misgivings of Golwalkar, who, it may safely be presumed, was neither a Congress sympathizer nor Congress voter, have been echoed in responsible circles over the past month. What was significant about the Uttar Pradesh verdict was neither the impressive victory of Mayawati nor the defeat of Mulayam Singh Yadav, but the complete decimation of the two national partiesâthe Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The implications of this are awesome. Assuming that the 2004 pattern of the Lok Sabha election being an aggregate of state polls is repeated, it follows that the general election of 2009 (or earlier) will result in neither of the national parties coming close to a majority. More ominously, unlike the past when the Congress and the BJP between them won more than half the Lok Sabha seats, India may be faced with a situation where â theoretically, at least â caste and regional parties and the Left between them are in a position to form a non-Congress and non-BJP government. Alternatively, even if the Congress or the BJP are participants in a coalition, the influence of the national parties will no longer be paramount. If the Bahujan Samaj Party repeats its performance in the Lok Sabha and bags some 50 or so seats, the balance of power at the Centre may well be held by a party that doesnât even bother issuing a manifesto.

Such a nightmare may well be a dream scenario for both the Communists and Muslim sectarian parties. As the most organized force in any Third Front, the Communists will be wonderfully placed to dominate any fragile coalition ideologically and in other ways. The Left subversion will be complimented by the parallel influence of sectarian Muslim lobbies that will bank on the communityâs numerical spread throughout the country. The regional parties may not necessarily welcome these developments, but their focus, by definition, will be on their limited geographical spheres of influence. Unless guided decisively by a national party, regional and caste parties are rarely able to rise above localism.

The perversion of Indian nationhood is a natural corollary of the weakening of the two pillars of nationalism. Those who venture the suggestion that the Uttar Pradesh verdict is a âvote against Indiaâ may be jumping the gun somewhat, but there is little doubt that India is pulling in too many different directions for comfort. It is also paradoxical that such a development is taking place against the backdrop of a growing pan-Indian entrepreneurial class and a visibly self-confident middle class that is as much at ease in Bangalore and Chennai as it is in Delhi and Mumbai. The political fragmentation of India is working in conjunction with the rise and rise of global capitalism in India.

It is tempting to attribute the tensions to the India Shining versus Bharat mismatch. Uneven development coupled with rising but unfulfilled expectations has created localized turbulence â as witnessed in Nandigram, Dadri, Kalinga Nagar and Dausa. The commemoration of the UPA governmentâs third year in power witnessed both the prime minister and his cabinet colleague, Mani Shankar Aiyar, expressing fears about an impending backlash against unrestrained success.

The volatile protests have, by and large, been confined to those sections that either feel left out of the development process or want to have nothing to do with it. At the same time, there is nothing to suggest that the young and relatively more successful India has developed a stake in preserving the present political order. The principal beneficiaries of Indiaâs economic growth appear to have opted out of public life altogether. On its part, the Indian political class (dominated, at this point, by those who came into political prominence in the turbulent Seventies) has failed abysmally to tap the phenomenal energies of the post-socialist era. Voter turnouts in the showpieces of modern India have been spectacularly low and none of the political parties have succeeded in engaging the self-confident, young Indian. There has been an emotional secession of the successful from the political community.

The debates surrounding the choice of the next president of India are a good indication of the gulf. The political class as a whole prefers an experienced politician in Rashtrapati Bhavan â a person who is sensitive to the political compulsions of the rulers. The middle classes, however, seem to want the completely non-political President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who has emerged as a role model for many, to be re-elected. It is this growing gulf between the political class and the vanguard of civil society that is alarming. Both sides are unable to relate to each other.

The decline of the national parties can be traced to their collective failure to address those on whom the future of modern India rests. Logically speaking, those who have the greatest stake in the future of India qua India should have been natural supporters of either the Congress or BJP (with a minusculity drifting to the Left). Both national parties seem content in a make-believe world of smug insularity. The Congress is trapped in a monarchical quagmire and the BJP has been taken over by individuals of astonishing mediocrity who are not even aware that there is a very new India in the making. The cumulative result is the growing lack of dynamism in the political system.

One of the symptoms of decay is the complete lack of debate and internal democracy. In both parties, healthy political debate has been replaced by a command structure that results in revealed wisdom (or banality) of one family or a clutch of leaders being transmitted down the line. Apart from being demeaning and dangerously flawed, this regimentation makes it virtually impossible for the parties to cater to a multiplicity of interests, both local and national. In its heyday, the Congress prospered precisely because it was a rainbow coalition of competing viewpoints, factions and leaders. Leaders werenât leaders simply because they spent time massaging the egos and lining the pockets of established leaders; local Congress leaders represented something tangible which could be incorporated within the larger party umbrella.

The BJP was, of course, always more regimented thanks to the involvement of the RSS. However, it compensated this organizational inflexibility with a tradition of free and frank discussions. Since 1998, this openness has been steadily curtailed to the extent that the present president has made factional loyalty a hallmark of his tenure. Coming in the wake of the RSSâs own existential crisis â falling attendance in the shakhas is symptomatic of an inability to cope with change â it has meant the ossification of the party and conflicts between its apparatchiks and mass leaders. The BJP finds itself increasingly outflanked by regional and caste parties because it canât accommodate diverse aspirations. It has yet to recognize that a cadre-based approach can often become a euphemism for the retreat into a small-sect mindset.

The tragedy of Indian democracy is that the two national parties have shut their doors on any auto-rectification process.

**acharya** · 06-03-2007, 07:15 AM

The shocked elite

The pollsters never predicted that the BSP would get more seats than the party actually got. As the representatives of the India's elite, why did all the news channels blunder?

To reiterate my point, that while campaigning for a hung house scenario, the news channels proprietors, channels heads, experts and input providers were not premeditated in their actions, and hence, didn't practices any caste prejudices against the BSP. The problem is much deeper.

If we recall the video clippings of May 11 pre-noon, and dissect the body language of the commentators and anchors, we get a preview of the limitlessness world of India's elite. The video of May 11 should be seen in relation to the clippings shown on May 8 evening, the last phase of the polls and the concluding sessions of exit poll results, there is a marked difference.

With a hung house prediction, the commentators and anchors were seen joyous with a pronounced symmetry in their eye-lips-voice levels. 
We have an elite which is feeding off the hung govts at state and center
On May 8 they were sensing a President's Rule in UP. On May 11, they looked crest-fallen. The voice level was considerable low and looked as if asking to be rescued. This sums up the predicament of India's elite.

The elite by post-lunch session on May 11, was more shocked than stunned. The elite thus, in its inner-structural-extrasensory management system found BSP's victory as an alien encounter. That exceptional incursion in elite's CNS (Central Nervous System) had its instant reflexes on their eye-lips-voice levels symmetry. The question is - why did this happen?

The Indian anthropology is in its embryonic leg, and hence, unable to detect elites' cultural traits impacting their social conscience. In the inner-structural-extrasensory management system of the elite, Dalits are incarnated as overpowered, inconsequential, and reliant.

The fact that Mayawati became Chief Minister of UP thrice earlier with the BJP's support, further re-fed the inner-structural-extrasensory management system that the BSP can't get a clear mandate to rule and lead India's largest State.

Since EVMs were used the results came quickly to give any extra reaction time to the elite's inner-structural-extrasensory management system where it couldn't renegotiate with an exceptional situation - that the Dalit could turn the very grammar of existing social history.

The elite was thus 'shocked' when the results came in. The elite's aspiration of President's Rule in UP went out, and their inner-structural-extrasensory management system wasn't prepared to embrace Mayawati as the ruler of UP. The elite in fact, hadn't anticipated that the Indian democracy could be so callous to their inner-structural-extrasensory management system.

Thankfully, UP's historic verdict re-engineered Dalits' stereotype demonstrating that the Dalit can be a winner in the newly emerging phenomenon of a new social consensuses. Rooted and rotting in its history - the world's biggest idea-slaughter house, the elite's inner-structural-extrasensory management system couldn't detect arrival of the new Dalit. Pre-judged by history's opinionated unconsciousness, the elite was thus not conscious of what it was doing while mapping UP's political mood.

We will be thus committing a thoughtful miscalculation in describing the seven news channels as casteist, anti-Dalit.

The fact that the news channels and expert commentators were 'shocked', and not 'stunned' sums up the whole story - as the child of privileges-transfers non-transformative social processes, the elite is a victim of his own past social order. The history's enduring social-feedback keeps elite's inner-structural-extrasensory management system immune to new social circumstances, new social re-negotiations, and new social consensuses. Astonishingly pathological, elite's predicament is well understood.

To become relevant in emerging India's new social aspirations, the elite ought to live a phase of culturelessness where it first must de-culture to begin with.

**acharya** · 06-03-2007, 07:29 AM

Wish of the elite

All the news channels - CNN-IBN, Channel 7, Times Now, NDTV 24X7, NDTV-India, Star News, India TV - were proved wrong on May 11, 2007.

All channel proprietors, heads, anchors, experts and input providers should have called a Press conference in the evening to offer their apologies to the nation for running a hung Assembly campaign. Exposed, they returned to their hideouts without any discernible reproach.

The CNN-IBN and Channel 7 told viewers without any sense of self-confessed disgrace or penitence, that they were nearest to the truth - that they had predicted 160-168 seats for BSP. But, did they ever append a caveat that their 160-168 prediction came on the night of May 8, when the last vote was cast.

Did CNN-IBN remind the viewers that they were the leaders in unleashing a hung house campaign on March 27, 2007 predicting the Samajwadi Party getting 155 and the BSP 150 seats?

This is not only about the news channels. It is also about individuals involved in hung House campaign. It is also a case of news channel operatives playing to political galleries and enhancing their careers.

It is all about Indian elite's enduring gracelessness. The news channel operatives are no individuals speaking for themselves. They are the representatives of India's elite.

What if the people of UP were to authorise the elite to select a Government for the State? Who would they pick? Would the BSP with Mayawati as Chief Minister have been their decree? We know what the answer would be. The problem is much graver than what we comprehend. The problem is seeded within the conscience of the elite.

Can for instance, these news channels, tell us the number of Dalits in their journalistic club? If and probably none, then India is suffering from a split-consciousness crisis.

As the country's logical consciousness pilot, the elite is failing all.

The elite's tragedy gets compounded by a variety of factors - most notably, its lack of possessing any rational history.

India's elite didn't come into being through any serious process of social transformation.

The existing elite are an outcome of the privileges-transfers phenomenon where their ancestors didn't have to work, yet, presided over privileges. India's caste order gave them everything they desired.

With the passage of time and growth of urban civilisation, the elite's successive generations were shipped from the noxious past into the present.

Tied like cattle in containers, the elite didn't have to move on their own or participate in any cutthroat race. It just got ferried from one warehouse to another.

The formation of elite elsewhere, Europe or the US for instance, occurred through a painstaking social renovation where the past was defeated and dismantled.

The elite in these societies thus, emerged from a baggage free past. The evolution of India's elite couldn't follow that logical trajectory.

Since evolution of the Indian elite didn't occur through any social transformation, the present day elite are self-condemned in carrying the baggage of the past. As the product of the privileges-transfers phenomenon, the Indian elite can't even comprehend that they remain pulverised by any civilisation regulated baggage.

Consciousness rooted deep into the past, the elite keep celebrating mandate of the past.

In the sleepy consciousness of the elite, the State's desegregation mandate remains an alien object. This is a negative symptom for a healthy nation.

As the unstated representatives of the entire elite, all the seven news channels were in fact, articulating the wish of the past while running the hung House campaign.

In doing so, the elite didn't know as what they were doing. Traumatised by the mandate of modernity and of de-segregating society, the elite are not even prepared to reform. Sadly, the elite's servility to the past is not good for the future of the country.

06-06-2007, 12:07 AM

Mark my word, one day she will be India's PM.
Not because of this episode, but she is very smart, talented woman with vision of Mahan Bharat.
QUOTERaje's charisma, skills brought about Gujjar truce 
Lokpal Sethi | Jaipur
How Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje managed to win over the recalcitrant Gujjar leaders? Was it her negotiating skills or the food served by her daughter-in-law Niharika Singh, who belongs to Gujjar community, to the leaders of the Gujjars that helped achieve truce on Monday?

According to CMO sources, it was her 'personalised approach' by involving her family members and a selected few officials that has helped bring Gujjar Sangharash Samiti chief Col Kirori Singh Bainsla to the negotiating table and call off the agitation.Â

Right from the beginning of the discussions, Raje had ensured that a few of her relatives should be around when the negotiations were going on. Main among them was the wife of her son Dushyant Singh, Niharika Singh.

There was a clear division within the Samiti leadership. The hardliners led by Dr Roop Singh had an upper hand and had even walked out of the fourth round of talks on Saturday. He had also announced that the next round of talks would take place only in Patoli, where Col Bainsla was camping with the bodies of victims of firing on May 29, along with his supporters.

The Chief Minister had deputed two officials - Abhaya Kumar, the former Collector of Dausa and CB Sharma, the former District Superintendent of Police - to remain in constant touch with Col Bainsla. They were trying to persuade the former war veteran to join the talks. The Ministers and officials, who were part of the Raje's negotiating team, were confident of a positive outcome if the senior Gujjar leader agreed for talks.

On his part, Col Bainsla was not averse to talks, but he wanted the situation to be conducive for that. Moreover, he told the officials that he was surrounded by thousands of youth who would not allow him to move out from there.

According to sources, when Dr Roop Singh was announcing in Jaipur that further talks would take place only at Patoli, Bainsla, through these officials conveyed to the Chief Minister that he was willing to come to Jaipur. But when he did not turn up till late in the night, the Raje camp got a bit upset.

But he did not disappoint them completely. He sent across a message through officials that he would leave for Jaipur after the sunset, when the crowd was manageable.

Finally, when the senior Gujjar leader reached Jaipur, Raje and her party colleagues felt they had won half the battle. The former was more amiable and understanding. They were confident that he would not stick to the demand that the Government should give in writing its recommendation for their inclusion in the ST category.

After he reached the official residence of the Chief Minister in the Civil Lines, Raje had two-hour-long one-on-one with him. By noon, all the ten Gujjar leaders of the delegation were invited for lunch. To their surprise, the host was none other than Niharika Singh, the wife of Dushyant Singh. All the leaders, including the hardliners, were floored by this.

The first draft of the agreement was discussed over the lunch. When the Samiti leaders expressed their consent, an officer, who is considered to be an expert on preparing drafts, was put on the task to prepare the final draft.

When the Chief Minister was busy negotiating, two senior party leaders from Delhi, Gopinath Munde, former Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashra and now in charge of Rajasthan, and Ananth Kumar, were spending time with Ministers and MLAs from Meena and Gujjar communities. They were persuading them not to oppose the agreement.

Another senior leader and spokesman of the party, Prakash Javadekar was given the job of handling the media.Â

**acharya** · 06-07-2007, 06:07 AM

Two years to Kalyug

The big trend for 2009 is not the so-called end of Mandalism, it is the irrelevance of the national parties. The Congress could lose ground and the BJP head for a two-figure tally in the next general election

With a speed that is astonishing, breathtaking and downright exasperating, Delhi's permanent political pundits jump from one facile conclusion to another, proffer one explanation after another to explain this week's occurrence and the previous week's error of judgement.

After Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the new catchphrase doing the rounds is "post-Mandalism". Mandal is history, we are told, Mandalisation has reached its logical absurdity with intra-OBC squabbles and serious conflict within the "quota classes" - Meenas and Gujjars for instance; or Yadavs and MBCs for that matter - the whole notion of caste politics is being presented as obsolete.

The problem with these theories is they are way too pat, only waiting to have holes punched into them by the following week or the following election. Nowhere in the world is an election won without putting together coalitions of voters. Identity groups, communities, industrial workers, farmers, middle class liberals, middle class conservatives, Polish-origin Americans in Chicago, Greek-origin Australians in Melbourne - without stitching together various categories of voters, you cannot earn a mandate.

In India, the principal - but not only - unit of electoral mobilisation has been caste. What we call the Mandalisation process - fathered, actually, by Charan Singh in the 1960s and predating the implementation of the Mandal Commission's report 30 years later - involved the putting together of a coalition of OBCs.

In Uttar Pradesh it has been trumped by another coalition, one of Brahmins, Dalits, moderate Muslims and the urban middle class, which has purposefully excluded the dominant OBCs. The vanguard of Mandalism may have been defeated but the idea of creating new and dynamic caste-based coalitions that are politically effective remains strong as ever.

Similarly, in Rajasthan, Meenas and Gujjars are unlikely to vote in conjunction in the 2008 Assembly election but Jats, who corner the bulk of OBC reservation in the State, and Meenas, who corner the bulk of Scheduled Tribe reservation, could, in an attempt to squeeze out the Gujjars. How this would represent the end of caste and identity politics is something for news channel pundits to work out.

One reason why political analysts are so obsessed with the symptom - two backward castes fighting here, an OBC Chief Minister being overthrown there - is that they are too lazy, or perhaps simply too fearful, to confront the disease. The bigger problem lies in the strategic paralysis of the national parties.

The BJP and the Congress were almost equally worried during the Gujjar agitation. If it went out of hand and spread across north India with different disaffected "backward caste" groups going on a rampage for different versions of perceived injustice, the biggest losers would be the BJP and the Congress. They would be sucked into a game neither had the political wherewithal for.

The process of OBC empowerment - Mandalisation, if you prefer - began in roughly 1990, with Yadav-led Governments being formed in Lucknow and Patna. The BJP sought to incorporate the energies of Mandal into its larger platform, wooing groups like the Lodhs (Mr Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh, Ms Uma Bharati in Madhya Pradesh), building alliances with the Kurmis (Mr Nitish Kumar in Bihar) and not forgetting to point out that even some of its Hindutva stars (Mr Narendra Modi in Gujarat) had an OBC moniker.

The Congress's attempt to woo OBCs came much too late and was much too crude and clumsy, defined by Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh forcing an over-the-top reservation agenda upon an unwilling political class, not to speak of civil society.

Today, with the 'OBC revolution' having evolved beyond its aggressive, macho and symbolism-packed first stage, there are no takers for the BJP's me-too Mandalism and the Congress's me-three Mandalism. Having jumped on to the OBC bandwagon over the past decade, the two big parties now suddenly find themselves directionless.

The old formula is not working, and they have no new formula to borrow, let alone create. Neither the Congress nor the BJP is quite certain about which constituency, or constituencies, it is courting. As fresh socio-political churning takes place, nobody can predict where and how it will end. One thing is certain though: The national parties are not attempting to tailor the agenda. They give the impression of being innocent bystanders.

If that is the larger sociological conundrum, there is a more immediate political implication as well. As things stand, both the BJP and the Congress are headed for reverses in the 2009 general election. This will be in keeping with a historical trend but the coming election could also see the national parties slipping below critical mass.

Consider recent statistics. In the past four Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and the Congress have won roughly 300 seats between them - 1996: BJP 161, Congress 140; 1998: BJP 182, Congress 141; 1999: BJP 182, Congress 114; 2004: BJP 138; Congress 145.

In 2009, the numbers are set to fall. The Congress faces conventional anti-incumbency as any ruling party does. Further, it is likely to lose ground in Andhra Pradesh and Delhi (which it swept in 2004), probably Gujarat (where it won 12 of 28 seats) and Maharashtra. Even so, it should gain in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.

If one uses the 1999 number - 114, the Congress's worst Lok Sabha tally - as a floor, the party is headed for somewhere between that mark and its current tally of 145.

The BJP is looking at a much bigger drubbing, an almost Uttar Pradesh-style shock. It could well end up with its worst performance in two decades, since it won 86 seats in 1989. That was a party on the upswing. The current BJP is a party in decline, refusing to recognise popular disquiet against its Governments in Karnataka and Rajasthan and maybe Madhya Pradesh, too, led by an insecure man too busy fighting phantom threats, a living embodiment of the Peter Principle. For the first time since the 1990s, the BJP has lost the urban middle classes and is not talking their language.

What happens if the BJP and the Congress together control no more than 200-220 seats? Neither will be in a position to lead or even control an NDA/UPA type alliance. Both will have to compete to back a coalition. Every regional satrap will put in his bid for Race Course Road, and to each one of them CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat will hand over a draft note on foreign policy and economic reforms.

Nightmares don't get darker.

06-09-2007, 08:00 AM

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /> Uttarakhand Cong stumped as TPS Rawat joins BJP

Pioneer News Service | New Delhi

BJP president Rajnath Singh on Friday formally announced the induction of TPS Rawat, the retired General who quit the Congress, into the party. Rawat paid Rs 5 to get the BJP's primary membership. "His entry into the party would further strengthen the organisation and the Government in the State," Singh said.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister BC Khanduri, himself a retired Major General, former Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshiayari, party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, and other senior party leaders were present on the occasion.

Rawat, who was elected from Dhumakot seat, has resigned from the Assembly to pave Khanduri's smooth entry into the House. Currently, Khanduri is a member of the Lok Sabha from Pauri Garhwal seat. Rawat is set to contest from Pauri Parliamentary seat.

BJP chief Rajnath Singh welcomed TPS Rawat's into the party saying that he had quit the Congress and joined the BJP 'without any conditions but because impelled by the conscience'. "Ever since he was elected from Dhumakot seat, he was quite upset and not even attending the Assembly," Singh added.

The supporters of Rawat from of Dhumakot beat drums and distributed sweets in support of their leader at 11, Ashoka Road, the BJP headquarters. The Chief Minister Khanduri, Koshiayari and others flanked him.

"In the armed forces, the soldiers have a natural liking for the BJP because of its patriotism and nationalism. So it was only natural that he joined the BJP," Khanduri said. The two generals shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.

It is interesting to note that Khanduri himself defeated Rawat in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls from Pauri, an election often dubbed as 'the clash of two generals.' Rawat on his part said that he was not at ease in the Congress where 'my pride as a motherland loving soldier was being slighted.' With Rawat's resignation, the strength of Congress in the Assembly comes down to 18.

06-24-2007, 05:28 AM

xpost

QUOTE IOUs that BJP's ennui consumed

Swapan Dasgupta

If convention deemed that the President of India be chosen along strictly non-partisan lines, there is little doubt that Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat would have had a pretty resounding victory - assuming Pratibha Patil was his only rival. Shekhawat may be a tried and tested saffron loyalist - he was elected MLA on a Jana Sangh ticket in 1952 - but his appeal runs across parties. Unlike other presiding officers imagined life in Rashtrapati Bhavan, he ran the Rajya Sabha effectively and fairly for five years and established his reputation as the archetypal politician's politician.Â Â

Unfortunately, Shekhawat's personal popularity in the Electoral College isn't guaranteed to secure him a victory. The undistinguished and dodgy (assuming that the revelations about murder and unpaid loans are true) Congress nominee has a clear numerical advantage. To win, Shekhawat must be in a position to encash each and every IOU he has accumulated over the years.

That Shekhawat starts as the underdog is undeniable. The Congress believes that Sonia Gandhi's candidate is home and dry, particularly now that the Third Front (aka UNPA) has indicated that it cannot support any candidate supported by the NDA. Messrs Mulayam Singh Yadav and N Chandrababu Naidu are, of course, quite willing to gratefully accept the NDA's support for any candidate put up by them.

To what extent Shekhawat (assuming he contests) succeeds in overwhelming the tyranny of the whip with personal charm is the subject of ongoing speculation in the political class. However, much more than Shekhawat struggling against odds, it is the BJP which should start thinking why it finds itself on a sticky wicket. Naidu was, for example, quite happy to be an ally of the BJP in 1999 and 2004. Why, in just three years, does he believe that it is a liability to be seen to be even associating with a stalwart with a BJP background? Why, to reinforce the point, is the BJP having such a torrid time persuading some of its NDA allies that Shekhawat is worth persevering with?

The secular-communal debate does not provide any ready-made answers. There is nothing particularly contentious about Shekhawat as there is about, say, Narendra Modi. He has, all along been a centrist politician who has had his share of spats with the RSS. Nor has the BJP undertaken any viciously "communal" campaign since 2004 to warrant another bout of political untouchability. Why, therefore, has it once again become an object of disdain?

The answer lies in the BJP's loss of political momentum. The BJP may still be the second pole of Indian politics but it is gradually acquiring the reputation of a party with a glorious past and uncertain future. The Third Front constituents may lack numerical advantage for the moment but they perceive themselves to be the rising force that will call the shots after the next General Election.

This perception has been strengthened not merely by the BJP's disastrous showing in Uttar Pradesh but the party's complete unwillingness to acknowledge the rot that has set in. As things stand, the BJP is perceived as a party lacking leadership, clarity, purpose and, most important, integrity. Its anointed leadership show signs of either weariness or complete desperation. One wing is waiting for the other to falter while the ruling faction (yes it is nothing more than a faction) has retreated into the bunker and is busy detecting imaginary conspiracies. Meanwhile, on the sidelines, some people are merrily enjoying a lucrative private practice - running emigration rackets.

The rot in the BJP is not a State secret. It is known to its supporters, allies and detractors. The party is not seen as having the ability to either win a war of attrition or manoeuvre.

To break rank, legislators need to be excited by a longer-term political project - like the one they detected in Indira Gandhi's "conscience vote" call in 1969. As of now, a cross-vote for Shekhawat will be just for old time's sake.

06-25-2007, 04:44 AM

QUOTEAgenda for BJP 
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Shake off torpor, go aggressive
The BJP's National Executive, which meets in Delhi today, would do well to set aside vacuous discussions, meaningless resolutions and absurd triumphalist assertions that may please certain leaders but will do the party no good. Between the BJP's National Council meeting in Lucknow, where tall claims were made about regaining power in Uttar Pradesh as a prelude to returning to power at the Centre, and today's Delhi conclave, little has happened to enthuse either cadre or supporters. On the contrary, the BJP today appears to be farther away from recovering the ground it ceded to the Congress in 2004 than it was a year ago. This despite the party coming to power in Uttarakhand and in Punjab where it contested the Assembly election along with the Akali Dal. Victory in both States was not on account of a resurgent BJP but discredited State Congress units and the charisma of individuals who are not necessarily in favour with the incumbent leaders. That the BJP could not dislodge an equally discredited Congress establishment in Goa is as eloquent a comment on the state of the party's health as its utterly miserable performance in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. The reasons for this failure to overcome the debacle of 2004 despite the disastrous performance of the Congress-led UPA Government are not difficult to locate: Lack of inspirational leadership; rapid erosion of ideological values; absence of ideas that can motivate both cadre and voters; and, inability to connect with the pulse of the masses. In a sense, all three are inter-related as one flows from the other. Yesterday's "party with a difference" is now one with parties that celebrate amorality. It would be unfair to blame the vast majority of party cadre, well-wishers and supporters for the situation that prevails.

Yet, little or no purpose will be served by either indulging in self-flagellation or falling prey to despair. In a fragmented polity, the BJP remains, along with the Congress, a national party; unlike the Congress, a large number of nationalist Indians look up to the BJP as the only hope at a time when the country is faced with an uncertain future. As one of the two poles of national politics, the BJP must shake off the torpor that is threatening to overwhelm its organisation, get rid of those who have fetched shame to the party and reinstate the primacy of ideology over maverick pragmatism. It must also make a concerted effort to redefine its agenda in a manner that it reflects the social, political and economic aspirations of the 'new' India which will play a crucial role in deciding who comes to power at the Centre in 2009. It is not enough to pretend to be a Government-in-waiting; the BJP must rigorously prepare itself for power, much as it did under Mr LK Advani's tutelage, and aggressively assert its presence at the national level. Meanwhile, the arrival of the United National Progressive Alliance on the political scene should be cause for concern for the BJP: It won't take long for its allies to switch sides if the party were to suffer erosion in its parliamentary strength. Which means, the BJP must devote more time and attention to the National Democratic Alliance and craft a strategy that will not only hold it together but also attract new allies. To take your allies for granted can have disastrous consequences; the BJP should know this better than anybody else. A frank discussion on these and other related issues at the National Executive meeting would be far more fruitful than mutual black-slapping and misplaced notions of imminent electoral victory. Anything less would just be a farce

06-30-2007, 06:59 PM

Another leader in 60s dies in road accident. India is slowly becoming leader deficient in who are in their 50s and 60s.

Sahib Singh Verma dies in road accident

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sahib_S...how/2163683.cms

ALWAR (RAJASTHAN)/NEW DELHI: Former Delhi chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vice president Sahib Singh Verma, 63, was killed in an accident on the Delhi-Jaipur highway in Rajasthan.

Verma's driver and security guard were also killed in the mishap when his Tata Safari car, carrying three more people, collided with a speeding truck on the stretch of the highway touching Shahjahanpur, close to Alwar. He was returning to Delhi from Sikar in Rajasthan.

"The incident occurred at around 2.20 pm, when a truck coming from the opposite side jumped the divider and had a head-on collision with Verma's car. Three people have died in the accident," Deputy Superintendent of Police (Alwar) Rajesh Gupta said.

In Delhi, BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra and Mayor Aarti Mehra expressed shock and grief at the demise of Verma.

"It is a big loss for the party and the country. He was a social activist who was highly respected. He had always raised his voice for the poor," Malhotra said.

Verma was born on March 15, 1943 in a farmer's family in Mundka village in Delhi. He began his career as a librarian in the Bhagat Singh College of Delhi University.

Following his association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Verma was elected councillor in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on a Janata Party ticket in 1977.

In 1983 he won again, now on a BJP ticket, and remained councillor till 1989. In 1993 he won the assembly elections and became education minister in the Delhi government headed by Madan Lal Khurana.

Verma became chief minister of Delhi in 1996 and held the post for more than two-and-a-half years.

He was labour minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee from 2002 till 2004. He also held various positions in the party.

07-01-2007, 12:38 AM

QUOTESahib Singh Verma dies in road accident
This is shocking. Big loss for Delhi BJP.

Again, Indian roads are bad and lack of traffic regulation.
QUOTElink
Deputy superintendent of police Rajesh Gupta, who was escorting Verma during his visit, told HT that the BJP leader had gone to village Ranasar near Neem Ka Thana to supervise work on an ideal village 'Vande Mataram', being built by Rashtriya Sawabhiman Sansthan, an organisation floated by him.

Gupta said the accident occured as a truck coming from opposite side crossed the divider and rammed into Verma's Qualis, smashing it badly. With great difficulty, villagers extracted the four occupants from the mangled wreckage of the vehicle and took them to a nearby hospital, he added.

Login




Remember me Lost Password?