Congress, Nepotism and Corruption: The Eternal Rotten Braid
The three — corruption, nepotism and the Congress party — form India’s most enduring triumvirate. It is hard to think of one without thinking of the others because they characterize India’s politics and political landscape like nothing else conceivably can. The Congress party is the fiefdom of one family — being part of that confers the inalienable right to be the boss. Nepotism gains a whole new meaning in the hands of the Congress. Chronic, acute and pervasive corruption at the highest levels …

Mr. B Raman, in his South Asia Analysis Group paper of 20th August — “Counter-terrorism & Appeasement” — writes:
* There have been four acts of mass casualty terrorism since 1981. All the four were carried out when the Congress (I) was in power in New Delhi.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Are there no depths that the Congress party led UPA government will not plumb to protect the criminally corrupt? When exactly will the Indian public wake up to the realization that the pervasive corruption that hollows out the Indian state is the sole achievement of the Congress party over its decades of misrule — practically all of India’s existence as an independent country in modern times? If even the unspeakable misgovernance by Mr Manmohan Singh does not enrage the Indians, what on earth will it take — a thousand thermonuclear …

The primary advantage of not having to shave your mug is that you don’t have to face yourself in the mirror every day. Unless of course if one is totally shameless or is already barefaced (as in a barefaced liar.) I am just saying.

In an opinion piece in the Financial Times of April 15th (hat tip: Sudipta), Razeen Sally writes that “the Congress deserves to lose the elections”. Right up front, Sally wrote about “the do-nothing, zero-reform record of Manmohan Singh, prime minister, and his government.”
I have an excerpt from the piece below the fold. I agree with the particulars that Sally (who is director of the European Centre for International Political Economy) mentions supporting the argument that Manmohan Singh is a singular disaster but I cannot agree with the title …

I was wondering about something the other day. For people who are stupid, we say that they lack a brain. Figuratively, we associate a condition with an organ and say that that organ is missing. So if someone is weak and pliable, we say that they lack a spine or a backbone. Someone cruel and inhuman, we refer to as heartless. With the lack of courage, we associate gutlessness. Emasculation has obvious connections. So I was wondering: which organ or part of the body is there an association with ethics? …

It is a tradition, hoary and venerated, of dividing the people of India along myriad dimensions depending on the motives of those doing the dividing. Taking a cue from the British, past masters of the “Divide and Rule” strategy, the Congress party — Neo-colonialists — greedily embraced the D&R for the same purpose. With a vengeance, they classified and tagged people into various castes and creeds.