Unpleasant Truth
Ram Jethmalani
The heat and dust of a mind boggling election are mercifully behind us. Looking back one can not but admire the role of the Election Commission of India. It is doubtless the fulcrum of our democratic machinery. How millions holding their identity cards braved the inclement weather and the never ending lines at polling booths is a tribute to the democratic spirit of our citizens and the efficiency and impartiality of the Commission. Both do us proud.
I wish I could pay some tribute to the Press. Leaving aside some rare exceptions, it has only educated people to approach printed matter with absolute distrust. Perceptive readers are truly revolted by its corrupt sycophancy and venal partisanship. Take only one instance. No one could have failed to notice how much space and exposure were provided to Rahul Gandhi and only this morning it has gleefully reported that the ‘Baton has passed to Rahul’. ‘‘Manmohan is dead and long live Rahul’ is even exalted to the level of divine prophesy on the authority of a little known astrologer who claims to have glanced at the horoscopes of the two men but has not bothered to see the natal chart of the Congress Party. Why has the entire press not asked a few simple questions from the Prince Charming the answers to which would have helped the citizens to assess the qualifications of their future ruler? Let me do that inconvenient job for the enlightenment of our newspapers and television channels.
(1) Your late father was cruelly assassinated by the LTTE in a diabolical plot because your father had in the first instance befriended Prabhakaran and even financed him and later sent the Indian army into SriLanka to destroy his movement and comrades. Where do you stand? Was your father right on the earlier occasion or on the later or on both?
(2) Your party has been running a coalition government in partnership with the DMK. Have you ever discussed with them the Sri Lanka question and agreed on a common policy for the Government of India? Has this policy been recorded in any official or party papers or even in your private diary? Have you ever spoken or written about it and are you prepared to tell us about it now?
(3) Have you noticed the common elements of the predicament India is facing vis a vis Pakistan and its activities in Jammu & Kashmir on the one hand and what Sri Lanka has been facing with the LTTE terrorism on the other hand. Can the Government of India support the creation of independent Eelam by partition of Sri Lanka by war and violence? Are you supporting Madam Jaya Lalita, Mr. Vaiko and Mr. Karunanidhi? Are you willing to assure the Indian nation and the rest of the world that your party will prefer to sit in opposition rather than on the treasury benches along with supporters of terrorism in a friendly neighbouring state?
(4) You call yourself a Gandhi and many suppose that you have some blood relation with Mahatma Gandhi. I concede your right to use that surname. Are you prepared publicly to advise the LTTE to give up the path of violence and take to peaceful passive resistance Gandhiji used against the British? Any way is that the settled view of the Congress Party or the Government of India?
(5) I have great respect for Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh; Apart from his impeccable fiscal integrity, in 1991 he rescued India from the disastrous Nehruvian economics and in this century he united the two great world democracies in a partnership to eradicate terrorists and expand the area of freedom and human rights. He won the Nuclear Deal for us. The antinational Left do not agree or applaud. Your great grand father Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had said that they serve interests of foreign nations. Even Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has adverted to their anti Indian attitudes at all crucial times in Indian history. Throughout the election campaign Comrade Karat has insulted and humiliated your party. But your party has lost all sense of self respect. Like leeches you want to stick to the chairs of power. What is your personal position? Will you allow your party to form a Government with people who do not even admit that the Chinese committed aggression on India in 1962 and are in possession of vast chunks of Bharat? Incidentally why the much advertised youth in you did not denounce the Chinese for objecting to our President’s recent visit to Tawang? Why are you courting the votes of those who secretly support China’s claims to more territory in Arunachal Pradesh?
(6) I have no objection to your mother’s ambition to see you installed as India’s Prime Minister. Obviously she did not entertain this ambition either for herself or any of her children in 1991. Are you prepared to take the nation into confidence and disclose the qualifications you have acquired since then to take into your hands the destiny of this complex and most populous and poverty stricken democracy?
(7) Do you agree that the best available statesman in the country should fill that post? If yes, how have you convinced yourself that you are that one? I would not mind if your mother answers this question. I hope you will not turn to my dear friends Mani Shankar Aiyar or Abhishek Singhvi to ghostwrite the answers.
(8) I am highly appreciative of the Election Commission which compels candidates for public office to disclose their material assets. I wish they logically mandate the disclosure of intellectual assets as well. But if democracy is all about transparency, would you kindly let the nation know what academic qualifications you have acquired, when, how and from which institutions. It will help if you also tell the curious Indian nation what books you have read during the last five years; have you published any articles or any readable material on politics, economics, terrorism, war and peace. Is there any speech in Parliament, to the local Rotary Club or to a bunch of tiny toddlers with a single quotable quote that illumines or inspires and gives us some clue to your intellectual attainments. I know quite a few talented young men in the Congress Party and naturally people would like to be satisfied that you are better endowed than them all. That your mother is Soniaji or your father was Rajivji is just not enough evidence.
(9) This question is my last for the present, for ten questions bring back some unpleasant memories. Not belonging to any political party for years I wanted to campaign for some good candidates whatever their party affiliation. For example, I did want to campaign for my friend Kapil Sibal but I eventually did not. It was conveyed to me that your party does not want it because there is no assurance of what I am going to say. To that I plead guilty. My son Mahesh decided to fight from Bombay North Central on the BJP ticket. I did some canvassing for him but not from the BJP party platform; even BJP did not know what I am going to say. I now hear some muted insinuations in Congress quarters that I became anti congress after my son’s decision. I hope you will acknowledge publicly that I had unequivocally declared to the President and Prime Minister of your party my horror at your being projected as the Prime Minister in waiting on the morrow of the tragic happenings of 26th November last in the great city of Bombay. I wrote to your mother the letter reproduced hereinbelow with copy to the Prime Minister.
Date : 27-11-2008
My dear Soniaji,
For one year people around you have prevented me from seeing you. I do not know whether this is intentional or just negligence. I do not know whether it has been authorized by you.
The object of my meeting you is not to seek anything from you but to inform you that the country is in a bad shape and your party will face the consequences in the ensuing elections.
Today, I am writing this with great anguish because my conscience does not permit me to remain silent. I must at least record what I think.
For a long time it is obvious to the meanest intelligence that all your intelligence agencies are a complete failure and a fraud on the tax payers. Reliable sources tell me that the ISI has infiltrated even into the RAW. Bangladesh has become a hot bed of anti-Indian activities.
This requires the resignation and removal of some political heads but they are reported to enjoy your support.
Yesterday’s incidents in Bombay are proof of your government’s incompetence. The names of your corrupt Ministers are freely circulating. Don’t think that you are not yourself the target. The country is on fire and it needs consolation and security.
The terrorists are serving international goals too. I wonder if you know that the Nariman Point building under seige is occupied by Jewish families. Residents are being held as hostages.
Your Ministers in Maharashtra have lost public confidence. They could not even handle a nitwit like Raj Thakrey.
I can not write in greater detail but I am warning you that the Congress is on its way out. Neither you nor your son whom you are projecting as the future Prime Minister of India are the solution or even a ray of hope.
I know this will annoy you but frankly I do not care since you show no concern for the country.
I have respect for the Prime Minister and his integrity. But that is not enough. I know his limitations of which you are the main source and cause.
I hope and pray that this evokes the kind of response which the grim situation of the country urgently requires.
Thanking you and with regards.
Yours sincerely,
( RAM JETHMALANI )
Smt. Sonia Gandhi,
President, All India Congress Party (I),
New Delhi.
Copy to
Dr. Manmohan Singh,
Hon’ble Prime Minister of India
Government of India,
7-9 Race Course Road,
New Delhi.
I am sure you were shown this letter. I am clear in my mind that you need intensive education and training for another ten years before you even dream of being India’s Prime Minister. I may be wrong in my assessment of you but will you have the honesty to declare that my assessment has nothing to do with my son’s candidature?
By the time this gets published if at all, the last phase of the electoral process will be over. What will remain is the counting of votes and declaration of results on Saturday next. But that will summon into action the power of the President of India to install the new government. The President by binding constitutional conventions and practice is normally to act on the advice of her Cabinet but this limitation of Presidential power just does not operate after a general election. She is to invite the acknowledged or chosen leader of the Party which has won the highest number of seats. Where however it is a combination of two or more parties which fought the election jointly as a coalition, it is the votes of the combination that will decide the recipient of the President’s invitation.
Of course the President can and well may require the invitee to demonstrate his or her majority on the floor of the Lok Sabha within a stipulated dead line. This is the plain duty of the President and she is too high minded to act differently.
RAM JETHMALANI