Thursday, March 29, 2007

rajinder puri: Congress Party deserves to be buried

mar 29th, 2007

i am a little surprised the guy's alive after having said this. i would expect some minor 'accident' to happen to him like it did to scindia, pilot et al.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: N.S.R
 
 

Congress Party deserves to be buried

Strategy to revive Congress: Will Rahul make an impact?

By Rajinder Puri

http://www.samachar.com/features/280307-features.html

Young leaders deserve respect.  They empathize better than do older people with the young, who are in a majority. They are not responsible for mistakes committed by the older generation. Most of their perceptions are derived from their forefathers. Finally, as younger people, they have a greater stake in the future than do older people. The recent utterances of Rahul Gandhi during his UP poll campaign need to be assessed in this light....

Rahul Gandhi is evidently the great Congress hope for reviving the glory of the dynasty. A majority of Congress party members, and possibly a majority of Indians generally, would concur with the view that India's best years were spent under governance of the Nehru- Gandhi dynasty. A vast number of Indians polled were of the view that Indira Gandhi was the best Prime Minister this nation ever had. A distinguished contemporary historian wrote, some time ago, that without Congress he believed there would be no India. Faith in the dynasty's ability to revive Congress deserves respect therefore because, quite possibly, it reflects the majority view.

However, there is also a minority view. This scribe represents an extreme section of it. To assess the efficacy of the majority view the minority view deserves attention. I take the liberty of expressing it with total candour.

Contrary to the contemporary historian's view that there would be no India without the Congress, I believe there will never be an independent India until the Congress --not Congress leadership --is buried fathoms deep. All political parties in India derive their culture from the Congress. The burial of the Congress would imply therefore burial of an all pervasive political culture. India's political activity up to now has been in the shadow of the Congress. To justify burial of the Congress a brief outline seems necessary of the dissident view of recent history.

The Congress was created by the British to provide means for peaceful dissent after the violent Kuka revolt and the 1857 Mutiny. Free political expression by Indians enabled the British to govern wisely. Throughout the Congress's freedom struggle, the British exercised influence over Congress leaders. There is no dearth of archival data to vindicate this fact.

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2 comments:

Ghost Writer said...

There is a plethora of neo-Congress haters in India and one must be careful. I would like to know what this guy - Rajinder Puri's - stance was during the emergency and Indira Gandhi's salad days - would he have had the ----hhmm--- balls to write she is the worst PM ever? Which paper was he working for at that time? I do not know - but it would be interesting to find out.

What must be buried of course is Congress-ism (as opposed to a political party). There is a tendency in India for half-educated, westernised elite to pontificate and wax eloquent on what THEY think India was, is and should be.

They are everywhere, these people. They would all happily profit of India's culture while spitting at it's people. They are in the ICHR and universities such as JNU; they are in 'seminars' on Gandhian thought and in 'coffee-houses' (euphemism for idlers who failed their engineering entrance exams); and most importantly they are on TV and in news-papers.

Too many people who now decry the Congress party (which I despise btw) are themselves Congress-ists of a different kind

Unknown said...

Rajinder Puri was one of the few persons who opposed Mrs Indira Gandhi in his book "A Crisis of Conscience" written in the early seventies. On moral grounds, he argued beautifully, with very lucid prose, as to what was the real game of Indiraji when she broke the Congress party in 1969. She did it again later in the eighties as well.

I may not always agree with Mr Puri but he is a very clean and courageous journalist who has covered India's politics for more than four decades. Comments such as those made by KapiDhwaja are really unfair.