Sonia’s Ghastly Mistake and the wannabe Prime Minister

Very frequently, very powerful people suffering from hubris, greed and ambition make ghastly mistakes which prove to be the turning point in their downward spiral. The present writer believes that this is the case (if reports are true) with Sonia Maino Gandhi’s decision  to attack the Hindu sannyasin and yoga guru Swami Ramdev on the night of June 4, 2011 in the Ramlila grounds. If reports are to be believed the decision was taken in the company of two ministers A.K.Antony and PC Chidambaram. The PM was not present.  The far reaching effects of that fateful decision will be felt when the foursome committee of AK Antony, Ahmed Patel,Janardhan Dwivedi and Rahul Gandhi take charge during her absence while in the US.

The quality of these four will be called into question. In avoiding  Digvijay Singh Sonia may have thought that she would be avoiding a controversial character who has recently been in the limelight and someone like Pranab Mukherji might become a challenge to her son. Neverthless, the unintended consequences of her choice are linked to the fateful events of June 4, 2011. The illusion of creating a  new committee of fresh faces is just that , an illusion.

AK Antony was involved (so it was reported) in that decision leading to the attack on the Hindu sannyasin.And some deeper questions will be raised concerning her son whom she has been assiduously grooming and promoting to the top job of Prime Ministership.In a cloying article written for Outlookindia, an author quotes extensively from Rashid Kidwai’s book on Sonia Gandhi and also his observations on Rahul Gandhi. One telling comment was that Sonia brought her children up as strict Catholics.

This raises two questions, one on Sonia’s own probity and the other on how all this impacted Rahul. If the many allegations against her regarding her conduct are true, such as the involvement both in the Commonmwealth Games scam and the 2 G Spectrum scam what sort of Roman Catholicism was she cultivating within herself and passing on to her children? There are also allegations of past misconduct as with the Bofors scandal. Cynics may point out that the Roman Catholic Church is one of the biggest accumulators of ill gotten wealth in the world. Hence, one can be a Roman Catholic and be a scam operator at the same time, since the Church itself has nothing to do with the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. It is one big corporate entity on its own, so the argument goes.

Historically the Bible and the gun have gone hand in hand and devastated native cultures from the Americas to Australia. In Africa the competition is between Islam and Christianity. India alone has not yet been subjugated and is not going  to be subjugated, despite the monies pouring in from evangelist groups for building churches and conversion. They will cause a great deal of suffering and sorrow, but they will not prevail. They can be driven out by a united Hindu community. There will be some temporary confusion amongst the Hindus but that too will pass.  As one writer has put it : This land was built on tapas. One can add : this land and its civilization has lasted through invasions and Occupations and will continue  for several more millennia. The challenge is to minimize the suffering and sorrow that the asuric forces will impose meanwhile. Their capacity for that is endless and must be clearly recognized.

The acquisitive and aggrandizing nature of official Christianity does not therefore preclude individual Roman Catholics from going down that path. Rahul ,if reports are to be believed, is not exactly an exemplar of probity and rectitude.All this will surely be probed in due time and the results may not be pleasant .  Even the liberal press will not be able to hold out for too long. A prime ministerial candidate can and must be keenly scrutinized.
 
Sonia’s ambition and overweening desire to see her son become the next PM may in fact have damaged and corrupted him in many ways. He is not particularly bright, has a limited educational background, tries hard to fit into the shoes which were designed by his mother, and has a bad example before him.

He cannot pretend that the horrific condition of the  middle aged woman Rajbala paralysed  during the attack on the Hindu sannayasin on June 4  does not exist. The entire nation saw the events unfolding.He cannot any longer pretend to see no evil and hear no evil.  What signal is  Sonia sending out to a wannabe PM of India by a precipitous and ignominous attack on a Hindu sannyasin who had committed no crime ? What about the fall out on the peaceful nonviolent crowd on the Ramlila grounds ?  Is the Prime Ministership of India to be held by a family that neither respects the sentiments of the Hindus nor hesitates to attack devotees gathered for prayer,yoga and meditation ? And a family who does not seem to have simple moral values and simple human feeling for the people. The entire family scurried away to Switzerland soon after the June 4 events. Later,there was even a celebration, it is said, of Rahul’s 41st birthday, in London.

His sister  Priyanka Gandhi who went to meet the woman in jail, associated with the assassination of her father Rajiv Gandhi, did not bother to even inquire about the condition of Rajbala , who has been paralysed by the attack on June 4, 2011, let alone visit her.  In the article ‘Priyanka Gandhi’s strange Omission’ the present writer raises this question (see Haindava Keralam ).

Speculation has been rife about Sonia’s motives for the attack taken in conjunction with the two ministers. One is that Swami Ramdev’s anti corruption movement was getting uncomfortably close to her. The other is that she wanted to show the Hindu community who the boss is, by attacking a revered yoga guru . One commentator has pointed out that it was to paralyse Swami Ramdev for life with the lathi charge so that Hindu yoga would no longer be propagated by him. That he managed to escape that attack by quick thinking is something Hindus should be proud of. Swami Ramdev himself believes that they were planning to kill him in the ensuing melee.

His comment is appropriate : at first he did not think much about Sonia’s foreign origins, but now he is convinced that she has no feelings for the men, women and children of India, especially the women and children. And who shall blame him for holding that view? That infamous night was watched by the entire nation. Her ruthless decision speaks for itself. Even longtime Congress loyalists such as Mani Shankar Iyer had pointed out that the attack was not necessary. The crowd was peaceful, nonviolent, and the Ramlila grounds were designed to hold large crowds. They had been singing bhajans, doing meditation, practicing yoga etc.

Whatever the reasons, Hindu India will not forget, nor will the relatives of those grievously injured on June 4, 2011 at the Ramlila grounds, especially the paralysed Rajbala. The sentiments may have temporarily gone underground but they are there and will erupt at some time. Right now the Indian public is enraged by the megacorruption of the government. It will not be long before other aspects come to the fore. CNNIBN had a news report that a yagna was being held in Delhi for Rajbala (The report dated Aug. 7,2011 is from the Press Trust of India). Family and devotees were present and it will not be long before the numbers swell again.

The ghost of Bofors will most likely be followed by that of Rajbala. As one senior journalist put it recently : the chair of the PM will move away from the ignoble and the unrighteous. Rahul will not occupy it despite her best efforts. This may well be the end of  the Maino dominance in Indian politics. If so the country will be spared further pain and suffering. This particular night will have ended.

(The writer is a Political Philosopher who taught at a Canadian university).

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