All Indians must know what is store for them tomorrow if they do not act today.

Looks like Mughalistan is going to be the future of India – unless we act NOW:

http://www.bengalgenocide.com/mughalistan.php

(1)
95% of Indians do what their parents and grandparents did. Anywhere between 60 – 70% of Indians live in villages and they really do not do anything different from what their forefathers did. If one were to take your argument seriously, we’ll arrive at the conclusion that ALL of India is dynastic.

Faulty comparison. Atanu is talking about the TOP level, not the intermediate levels.

(2)
Whether Atanu is a citizen is irrelevant to the argument. Assume, Atanu IS a citizen of India or the same reasoning is used by another citizen, what becomes of your argument?

Before you engage in debates, please look up ad hominem (personal attacks) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem), where the matter in dispute is *transformed* into something else.

“Ad hominem argument is most commonly used to refer specifically to the ad hominem as abusive, sexist, racist, or argumentum ad personam, which consists of criticizing or attacking the person who proposed the argument (personal attack) in an attempt to discredit the argument. It is also used when an opponent is unable to find fault with an argument, yet for various reasons, the opponent disagrees with it.”

‘pragmatic’ (your claim, not mine, hence the scare quotes) you may be, but polite, you are not.

Might I suggest a careful reading of fallacies? And then re-read what you commented.

Regards,
Idler.

Here goes the rest of my thoughts:
Disagreements:
==============
1. You said “INC got us the freedom and made us a republic”. This statement is naive. Opinion is divided on who/what made us free. One can not deny, though, that INC was a powerful organization throughout our independence struggle. However, equating pre-independence-INC with Congress(I) where ‘I’ stands for Indira is again naive.
2. You seem to have something against wheezing-male-geriatrics. To me, age is dont-care. I respect Manmohan Singh a lot and he is an old man (though may not exactly be of wheezing type).
3. Recent mangalore attack on pub and BJP. Pray what is the connection? Ram Sene is a hindu extremist outfit. BJP government (I am going purely by newspaper reports here) has allowed law to take its course against Ram-Sene. So why implicate BJP over the attacks?

Agreements:
===========
1. Dynastic-politics/sycophancy is not congress(i)’s forte, as you have correctly indicated. Left-front is possibly the only party relatively free of dynastic politics (may not be of sycophancy though).
2. BJP does not have stellar record in handling the education policy when they were in power. I found Murli Manohar Joshi quite unsuitable. I agree with you there. However, BJP at least, did not push through quota-reservation in their tenure.
3. Kakistocracy. Agree with you. BJP surely can not hurl corruption charges against congress with a straight face.
4. Atanu using the word treason. Agree with you again. “One who supports congress should be accused of treason” seems a very an-Atanu-ish line of reasoning. I believe this statement was used more as a garnishing-element.

That was fun!
Nice joke.

It is better to push all politicians towards doing the right thing for the country on each issue that you care about than to support any party – they are all flawed.

It is even better to enter the fray yourself (and not as a party person) and move the country towards a better path.

Trust that you and rajesh will do what is right for the country…

I am a fan of issue based politics – not identity politics, personality, or party politics. Since you chose to declare your support to the BJP – lets keep them in focus as we talk about the various issues:

Kashmir:
I support the BJP position – no special status for Kashmir.

Uniform Civil Code:
I support the BJP position – uniform civil code
I have a stronger position – the state should get out of civil affairs like marriage, divorce, and inheritance – if I want to have multiple spouses of whichever gender – it is a matter of how I negotiate that contract between the interested parties. The state should be the one to support the enforcement of these contracts – once agreed upon by consenting adults.

Violence:
You are known by the friends you keep. With friends like the RSS, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, and other assorted lunatics (I would call them jokers, but they frighten me), I find it hard to support the BJP.

Action:
The BJP did not stand up to anyone during the Kandahar, Kargil, Akshardham, or the Parliament attack incidents. They did not do anything after the bombs went off in Delhi markets.
Vajpayee spoke of Raj Dharma after the Gujarat riots, but took no action against Modi.
The BJP has a history of not standing up to it’s enemies, or friends.

Institution Building:
Nehru built the IITs, the Space program, the Nuclear program, various Dams, kept religion out of the state, ensured that the army stayed under civil leadership. Indira continued this in her ways (she was less tolerant of dissent than her father). She took tough decisions – nationalized banks, created Bangladesh, eliminated the privy purse, and other privileges given to royals, …
Sardar Patel integrated the smaller nations into what we take for granted – a single indian nation.

Mind you, this has little to do with tenure, the IITs were conceived in the first term that Nehru enjoyed as PM.

The BJP has been bereft of ideas that challenge any of these, they did not build any institutions when they were in power – either as the Janata Party in 1977, or various stints later. Like the Babri Masjid, they destroyed everything they touched, and did not
build something newer and better. It is disingeneous to state that even though they failed as part of the coalitions, they should be given an opportunity to do it alone!

Murali Manahor Joshi’s stewardship of the IITs and IIMs left a lot to be desired.

License Raj:
I agree that this was a failing of the congress. But it is easy to do this with 20/20 hindsight given the complete victory of the capitalist system. (Wait a second – the laissez faire capitalists were not proved right – they just lasted longer than the soviets)

But you have to remember that the Jana Sangh, RSS, and others had no
agenda related to dismantling the license raj.
The Janata party did no steps in this regard when the congress first lost power. In fact, it was Rajiv Gandhi, and then the Narasimha Rao
administration that took bold steps to reform the economy, and get it
kick-started again.

Greed for power
This has been demonstrated time and again in the entire political class, and spans all party borders.

Dynasty rule
It is easy to hate dynastic rule, but it is much harder to get rid of it. It is visible in all political parties in India, at / close to the top – examples have been listed in comments on your blog.
Here are some causes:
A politician trusts his family implicitly, and more than other politicians.
(Would you trust a politician who was not family? )
A voter treats the political family as a brand – as a guarantee that they will groom, and train their young right.

This happens in movies (Kapoors, Khans, Bachhans, …), business (No qs asked over appointments of sons to management positions in public ltd. companies), religion, sports, etc.

The failed / failing democracies have had a choice of dictator / coups & dynasties.
Even in more celebrated democracies – it helps to have a last
name that is Bush, Kennedy, or Clinton.
Even amongst some communists – it helps to be a “Castro”.

From a development standpoint, there wont be any quantifiable improvement. BJP has as many duds as Congress. Vasundhara Raje kicked out in the recent election, Yediyurappa paying for his faustian bargain with the mining mafia,a PM candidate who should be in retirement..Look at their record in opposition..Last 5 yrs, they haven’t raised/sheperded one single issue of importance..regarding education,corruption..They were sleepwalking through their role,just waiting for 5yrs to end.

My points are only few rebuttals:
1) The new economic policies, that you support, were brought in by Congress. The party has also given us the ablest of the PMs so far. I wonder if we could name any in BJP apart from Vajpayee.
2) Which party or politician doesn’t want to be in power? Would Mayawati, Pawar, Lalu or even Shibu Soren say no if offered PMship?
3) Which party in India doesn’t play caste politics? Does it really matter who sets the ball rolling?
4) Political legacy, Dynastic rule: Which party is averse? Are we forgetting Rajnath Singh’s son, Badal junior?
5) Roads & institutions names: It would need lots of effort to take stock of such things names after “Dindayal Upadhyay” in MP and after “Ambedkar” in UP.

Lesson: the whole pond is filthy. Let us stop patronizing politicians and parties. Lets scout Educated, Intelligent, Qualified people no matter whichever party they belong to. Because Individuals can bring the change, parties cannot.

The pity is that BJP’s support seem to come from mostly people who don’t live in India, or even if they live here, don’t have a vote and/or not even planning to register as a voter.

Makes me wonder – how about internet voting for all those voters who don’t live in India, or those who live in India, but unable to visit the polling booth? The EC could charge Rs.100 per vote, and it will more than recover the cost of setting up the system.

Nikhila,

There is no political party in India that is immune from the evil of dynastic politics.However, dynastic politics are much less in BJP and the Left parties, compared to Congress, and the sundry regional parties.Congress in fact is wedded to this idea so much that, as Atanu points out, all that is needed for a Congress politician to thrive is to demonstrate loyalty to the dynasty.

And what kind of a dynasty is it?Hardly any member of the dynasty have distinguished themselves in any field of note, leave alone social service.It is almost as if they are a monarchy in the guise of democracy.Doesn’t India deserve better leaders than the dynasty?

Also, it is not true that the Congress alone got us freedom.In any case, the INC of 1947 has hardly any resemblance to the Party today.

I am happy to see that you describe yourself as a pragmatic centrist.I am a centrist too, and I feel that given today’s circumstances, and the Indian national interest at heart, we need to engage with the BJP, and ensure that when it is their chance to govern, we act as a pressure point.Going by the earlier NDA rule, I don’t see any danger of BJP converting India into a Hindu theocracy. And as for Narendra Modi, let us not make the mistake of judging him by 2002 riots alone.Please read this article below from HT (an avowedly Congress mouthpiece):

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=LifeStyleSectionPage&id=73e68942-f792-44ab-9791-abbe6c432239&&Headline=The+Prime+Minister+of+Gujarat

I agree we don’t have the ideal situation and an ideal leader today.But at least we are having these discussions, thanks to technology and new media.All of us have India’s interests at heart.And even without debating it, I can say that there is a broad consensus among the educated, civil society (us) that we need to step in now and influence the direction of the polity.The BJP seems more open and malleable for positive influences than the Congress.And hence, this conditional support for a BJP-led Govt at the centre.

People had high expectations from BJP a while back, which didn’t really live upto the promise.

So really it seems like choosing the lesser of the evils. None of these parties have distinguished themselves in recent years.

I agree with you.

Remove the congress party and then we can talk about some development.

I hope somebody can vote on my behalf! Or Can I Vote from Australia?

Suhit

My point is that even though the BJP has had only a few years of rule, still it has established dynasties as mentioned in Nikhila’s post.

It is then quite easy to believe that if they get power this dynastic culture will only increase and it will not usher in a merit oriented culture as hoped by you.

To deal with your carelessly argued second reason first: the BJP is replete with dynasties, with a long history of sons and daughters being established in politics. Manvendra Singh, the son of Jaswant Singh; Dushyant Singh, the son of Vasundhara Raje Scindia and nephew of Yashodhara Raje Scindia, who in turn, are the daughters of Vijayraje Scindia; Karuna Shukla, Vajpayee’s niece, Ranjan Bhattacharya, his foster son-in-law and Pankaj Singh, son of Rajnath Singh are some, to name a few. So your argument that only the Congress has a history of dynastic politics is a joke.

And rishi is right, the BJP simply hasn’t been around long enough to present a viable second generation. The INC has been around for much longer (remember they got us free and made us a republic, while the RSS was sitting around watching the fun) Besides, it’s strange passion for wheezing male geriatrics as prime ministerial candidates or leaders e.g. Vajpayee, Advani, Singhal and successive RSS heads means that it has remained a party dominated by angry old men who have spent their entire lives dreaming of ever-elusive power and who are stuck in a cultural time warp. It is also notably sexist, as the recent attacks in Mangalore and earlier such attacks on us women in UP, MP and Goa testify. Hardly the sort of environment for ambitious youngsters wanting to emulate papa, when papa is desperate to sit on a gaddi even if he is plugged into a ventilator. But the above examples prove that BJP families are game for dynastic politics even then.

Now to come to the first tenet of your argument, that the BJP is not the Congress. Now the Congress is not my favourite party, and it is certainly inept. But let me take your own sentences and rephrase them a little.

“The BJP appears to have one aim: to be in power. Its insatiable appetite for power drives it to adopt the most heinous of politics. It divided the country along religion, creed and gendered lines. It fractures civil society, it destroys institutions. The most despicable act has been its wanton destruction of the education system — which, mind you, wasn’t much to write home about anyway”.

To add, it perpetuates an educational system through its religious schools that seeks to deny the child the right to learn English (The global lingua franca and your preferred language of communication Mr. Dey, and the one that got you where you are), explicitly promotes the supremacy of one religion over another (the Hindutva equivalent of the madrassa) etc. Let us not forget what Murli Manohar Joshi wanted to do to the IITs and IIMs, some of the bits of our educational system that are functioning rather well.

You say kakistocracy, I say the alternative you propose is a Hindu theocracy (with kakistocrastic bits thrown in, remember Bangaru Laxman and Narendra Modi?). The choice to vote, of course, is yours. And mine. But wait, I don’t have a choice, according to you.

“In my considered opinion, supporting the Congress party in any of its incarnation is an act of treason, if not an act of senseless ignorance”.

Treason, Mr. Dey? You consider voting for a political party millions of Indians vote for an act of treason? It is not called treason, it’s called democracy. Get used to it. Maybe you are a closet American Evangelical or an LeT member, Mr. Dey, in Hindutva disguise. Or maybe a Blackshirt or a Brownshirt, remember them? They all liked the T word a lot. We all know how that ended. And that’s precisely what people like me worry about the most. And that’s why we are willing to risk voting for relative ineptness than intolerant closet fundamentalism. Because much as we would like to vote for an alternative to the Congress, we won’t when that alternative is so frightening, especially for a woman like me.

But maybe you don’t quite understand that. Because you don’t vote in India! Wow.

Though you imply that perhaps some other places are good enough for you to vote.

Come back with something better next time, if you want to convince millions of committed, pragmatic, centrists like me. We vote, you see, unlike you. And we are always willing to listen to a well argued post. This one isn’t it.

Another point of worry for me is the general increase in the activity of certain undesirable right-wing elements in NDA/BJP ruled states. The kind of moral policing, vigilante justice and harassment of people for having different religious or social conventions, makes me wonder what kind of institutions the BJP will inspire.

rishi, would you like to give some concrete examples with the official positions of [parent]-[son/daughter] in the BJP party? Thanks.

I am sorry but I am too dense to follow your logic.

I am simple minded. I do understand that there is an explanation for everything that happens under the sun. My simple mind says that what I have is a party that thrusts a dynastic rule on India today, and there is another party which does not have such a device. I don’t understand why I have to equate both the parties. Please do explain.

You have said that the Congress is a dynastic party. However that is more a function of the age of the party (>100 years) than any other reason.

The BJP on the other hand is a much younger party and has had fewer chances to establish such a long dynasty as the Gandhi’s. They are also fortunate in that their two biggest leaders (Vajpayee and Advani) have no obvious heirs. However, there are many many leaders at the state level who are (in this short time) establishing their sons and daughters into politics.

If you want a party free of a dynasty, you will have to look outside both the BJP and the Congress.

As to the third reason –
I cannot guarantee that the BJP will build institutions but of this I am sure that the Congress party has destroyed institutions and is incapable of building institutions because it is personality based.

As discussed before, the BJP is also dynasty based. It just has not got enough time to build one.

The Kandahar hijacking and what followed culminating in Jaswant Singh accompanying the terrorists to get the hostages released is a sordid tale.

Amit Verma pointed out that Kanchan Gupta has a piece from Dec 24th, 2008 in the Pioneer titled “The Truth behind Kandahar.”

I mention this only for more background information. I am not suggesting that what Jaswant Singh did was right. I think he was out of line, but that is just my opinion.

I have posted some links on Rajesh’s post and would like you and your readers to have a look at them too. There is a lot (and I do mean a lot) of stuff happening in the background on political reform and governance… Pl. have a look when you have a moment.

http://satyameva-jayate.org/2008/11/06/changing-india-step-1/

http://satyameva-jayate.org/2008/11/25/changing-india-step-2/

http://satyameva-jayate.org/2009/01/13/appeal-for-help/

In particular, I would like you and others with deep interest in politics (regardless of your idelogical affiliations) to have a look at FTI: http://freedomteam.in/?file=main

and I would like to bounce some ideas off you – if you have the time and availability…Pl. email me at jai.dharma AT gmail.com

More on me here: http://satyameva-jayate.org/2008/10/30/who-is-b-shantanu/

I did read history of rulers of India in over 2000 years. Many of the Rajas had far better system of governance, codification of laws and rules and they were implemented in letter and spirit. Also there was healthy competition between Kings and wanted to develop their area better. No doubt, there were quite a few bad Rajas, too many wars and lavish lifestyle.

I feel comparing Congress Dynasty with Rajas is doing great injustice to the Rajas. Congress is worse than colonial rulers in many ways.