INDIAN political leaders in its pre-Independence days, known as freedom fighters, were men of character who dedicated their lives for the cause of our country’s liberation from the foreign domination bore fruit and India won Independence in 1947. Our political leaders of pre-Independence days deemed politics in Independent India as a mission and membership of legislatures as full time service without any personal gains in the cause of building a dynamic India and to eradicate poverty. Their dedication helped India’s economic development and our moral standard and sense of values were held in high esteem by the people of the world.
With the demise of many of our dedicated leaders after several decades of our Independence, the position changed phenomenally. The concept of dedicated and selfless service for the cause of the nation was no longer found acceptable by the new generation of political leaders who considered the membership of Parliament and state legislatures as a sort of profession to acquire wealth and power. However, our standard of morality and the sense of human values deteriorated, but our economic development continued due to the dedicated Endeavour of our world-class technicians, engineers, business managers, economists and information technologists.
Earlier, our Parliament used to be abounding with persons of sterling qualities having regard for the sense of human values and dedication for serving the nation. Now, the position has changed. The present Parliament has 541 members who have total assets worth nearly Rs 900 crore. Nearly one-third of them are crorepatis and over 50 per cent of them have each asset of more than Rs 50 lakh. Many of them are tainted persons having criminal charges against them. Naturally, if the people lose faith on the members of Parliament they can hardly be blamed.
Our MPs who are representatives of the people of a country which come at the bottom of the International Human Welfare Index. One-third of our population goes to bed hungry and more than half of the rest are malnourished. Our infant mortality rate is among the highest in the world and millions of our people have no access to portable water, basic hygiene and Medicare. Even though our MPs lead a life of affluence, their lust for more money and perks knows no bounds. Recently, they have enacted a bill to enhance their salary, emoluments and other facilities costing the national exchequer additional Rs 62 crore to increase the budget deficit to that extent. It is no wonder that it takes more than Rs 30 lakh an hour to run our Parliament.
The Congress with 145 MPs in a House of 541 members is leading a coalition government with many political parties which have little in common in aims and ideologies having no agreement on fundamentals needed to come to an urgent consensus decision on any vital national problem. However, the so-called secularist like Congress never hesitates to come to an alliance with the fundamentalist Muslims who do not believe in secularism and profess two-nation theory.
India has been the target of frequent Islamic terrorists’ attacks to destabilise the country and to create rifts between the Hindus and Muslims and the existing communal harmony in the country. Despite such terrorist attacks, the communal harmony remained undisturbed because of magnanimous and tolerant mindset of the Hindus.
In Malegaon (Maharashtra) terrorist attack victims were Muslims but Hindus reportedly lines up to donate blood for Muslim victims. After terrorist attacks in England, 53 per cent Britons believe “Islam posed a threat to western liberal democracy” (Daily Telegraph), after 9/11, America felt likewise. But the liberal Hindus after the repeated Islamic terrorist attacks took things in their stride and carried on business as usual. Yet the so-called secularists seek to condemn Hindus as communal. They need to remember that India’s majority community that is the Hindus being the believer of secularism that made India secular. The Hindus believe in the concept of extending equal treatment to all citizens without appeasement to none.
The ruling Congress, the oldest political party of India, to remain in power is appeasing the Muslims to keep the throne in tact. The Muslims believing in two-nation theory got India divided on the basis of religion. Pakistan wants Kashmir as it is a Muslim majority state of India. The Muslims in India are multiplying fast by birth and infiltration; to make India a Muslim majority country and claim it to be a part of Pakistan. There is hardly any Muslim country practicing secularism. Non-Muslims in Islamic countries are worse than second-class citizens. But in the name of secularism, the Congress as well as other parties is out to give privileged class treatment to minorities. Such treatment to minority Muslims is helping to develop in them a false sense of being a special class among Indians and becoming a bar against merging them with the national mainstream. Mohammad Ali Jinnah had said that Muslims can never live amicably with Hindus. Time has, perhaps, come for the Congress to realize that Muslims may not be treated as their vote bank and instead they may be taken as ordinary Indian citizens. And its attempt to make peace with Pakistan is a wild-goose chase. Its unilateral liberal policy towards Pakistan is helping to bring Islamic terrorists and ISI agents to India to destabilize the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment