In Tamil Nadu, there are 10 to 15 hours power cut a day, workers stand idle, small units are closing down daily by the dozens and business is slow.
The rupee is sliding down, India is downgraded by many countries as an investment risk and the stock market tumbles. The Government allows the best airline, Kingfisher, to go nearly bankrupt, bled dry by extravagant airport charges, huge fuel taxes, while it keeps pouring thousands of crores in Air India, so that Prathiba Patil and whoever succeeds her, can waste the taxpayers’ money by using huge 747 for unnecessary visits abroad with family, cooks, and servants.
India is the laughing stock of South Asia: Pakistan sends its terrorists, New Delhi cries murder, but the next moment the pretty Pakistani foreign minister comes and the Indian media goes gaga. China plays with the Indian Government like on a violin: one day Beijing blows hot, saying India and China are like brothers, the next it blows cold, claiming Arunachal Pradesh – and the Indian Government gets kicked. Maoists have a field day here, kidnapping officials at random, knowing that ransoms will be paid.
Good & honest people such as Anna Hazare or Kiran Bedi, are ruthlessly put down by the Government, using cynically and illegally its law enforcement agencies, while deceivers such as Testaa Seltawad, who has repeatedly committed perjury in court, as testified by Yasmeen Banu Sheikh, Best Bakery Case prime prosecution witness, who has accused Teesta of forcing her to lie in the Trial court and Aziz Khan Pathan an ex-employee of Teesta Setalvad ‘s Citizen for Justice & Peace (CJP) who filed an affidavit with the Mumbai High Court on how witnesses were brought to Mumbai, kept in Bhindi Bazaar, and tutored by Teesta Setalvad for giving false testimonies in the court, is honored by the Govt of India.
Indians today live in a country where mullahs can preach secession, while Hindu gurus revered by millions of Hindus are the target of ridicule, media attacks and police assaults.
Even the army, India’s last non politicized, caste-less barrier is not safe: since Sonia Gandhi has come to power, it has been targeted, first by attempting to make a census of its Muslim soldiers, then by trying to remove AFSPA, which would be as good as giving away Kashmir to Pakistan, and lastly by the concerted attack on General VK Singh, the man who dared to expose the total disinterest of the Indian Government on the army’s preparedness and the rot in defense procurement. By the way, an itinerary of foreign officials of Sig Sauer, a firm which manufactures small arms, lists their meeting with Rahul Gandhi, ‘the scion of Gandhi family’, at his residence on 6th December, 2011
Here we have a Government elected by the people for the people, that is racked by scandal after scandal of blatant and huge corruption which would bring down any Government in the world. But this Government has no shame: it does not care if it brings down the country with it, as long as its ministers can keep their perks and loot the country for another 2 years. What it is good at, however, is surviving, using lie, deceit, all that with a smile on its face.
For democracy in India has been hijacked to the point that a Government that is basically in minority, which is flouting openly all values of decency and honesty, which has lost the trust of the people, is able to continue damaging India’s fabric, taking advantage of the fact that the majority of Indians, who are Hindus, do not riot and descend in the streets when they are unhappy. The instruments of power have also never been so perverted in India: the CBI blatantly and shamelessly quashed all injunctions against Quattrochi and even allowed him to get away with billions of rupees which he had stolen from India. Yet, without batting an eyelid, and with the Indian Media turning a blind eye, it goes ruthlessly after Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of the most efficiently run state, the most corruption free. Today the Congress, with Sonia’s overt or silent consent, pays crores of rupees to buy MP’s to topple non-Congress governments. Her governors shamelessly hijack democracy by twisting the laws.
It is a fact that Sonia brought discipline, order and cohesion into the Congress party. But the amount of power, that she, a non-Indian, a simple elected MP, like hundreds of others, possesses, is frightening. She is the ultimate arbiter and nothing of importance is decided without her caveat. The immense power she wields within the Congress cannot be only due to her charisma, or of her having the Gandhi name. It is also, and perhaps mainly, because she holds the purse strings of tremendous amounts of money. Because of her immense covert power, India has entered now an area of semi dictatorship, where hundreds of thousands of phones are tapped, emails are read, letters opened, gurus arrested, journalists scared to speak aloud…
The going down of India because of the selfishness and petty interests of its politicians, including the BJP, which is terribly disunited and refuses to acknowledge that Narendra Modi is its only eligible PM candidate, is a tragedy for the few of us who have dared over the years to defend India in our respective countries, by saying that India – and not China – should be the natural choice of investment for western countries, for it is democratic, liberal, pro-western and friendly people. We have also clamored that the West should realize that India is of an immense strategic geopolitical importance – at the cross roads of many civilizations, a buffer of freedom against the Chinese hegemonic tendencies and an example of integration in the face of Islamic fundamentalism.
Cry O my Beloved India, look at what Thy children are doing to Thee…
François Gautier
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