Rahul Gandhi - The Emperor's New Clothes

On Sunday, June 19 Rahul Gandhi turned 41. He was 21 when his father was killed. If he had become PM last year Rahul would have broken his father’s record of being the youngest PM of India. Having noticed that miss and given MMS’s withering heights the Congress now wants Rahul to immediately become the PM. That would be really nice. Here’s a report from DNA (excerpts):

The Emperor's  new clothes?

“As Rahul Gandhi turns 41 today, voices in the Congress are clamouring for the young leader to become the next prime minister….Digvijay Singh has said that the MP from Amethi has all the qualities and capabilities to become a “good prime minister”, another party leader, Birender Singh said Gandhi would fit the role whenever the situation demands…….Digvijay Singh, who has had differences with some decisions of senior ministers, added that Gandhi was mature, with a sound understanding of social and political issues and had qualities of head and heart……..“The party is behind him. He has to take his own decision,” Birender Singh said. Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed said that most partymen had the feeling that Gandhi was capable of becoming a good leader…….Party sources said that renewed talk about Gandhi’s suitability to become prime minister has also been driven by a feeling in sections of the party that the second tenure of the UPA government has been marked by a string of controversies”.

Almost all media sources carried the report and, of course, our TV news channels reminded us how Rahul Gandhi was a very popular people’s choice for PM. This time around I am not going to protest or raise any objections. I really want to see Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister. I really want people to see him as prime minister to understand the depths this country has fallen to.

The comedy shows in the US were in deep sorrow when George Bush left office in 2009. They were severely cramped for material for their shows. When Bush was about to leave office a journalist asked him : “Do you intend to write an autobiography”? Pat came the reply from George Bush: “Yes I definitely do, but you see I don’t know much about the car industry”. Alright, that was made up for sure. Well, for a change from all the scams and crimes in politics it would be nice to have some comic relief. Rahul Gandhi would provide that relief and would be a delight for all comedians, humour writers and cartoonists. Needless to say, our national and international standing would rise sky high. Politics is in his pants after all.

On his 41^st birthday here’s a tribute to Rahul Gandhi. The words need not be by one single person but they may be coming from many different people. And, of course, you can make your interpretation of the words.

It’s one thing to be unable to recognise someone is a fool and unfit for a certain assignment. But when sycophants keep clamouring and pronouncing someone as an angel and a divine gift to this country then it’s time to let the miracle roll. And it’s not fair to deprive India’s children to see the Emperor’s new clothes. They will see what Digvijay Singh and other sycophants in the Congress cannot.

Shekhar Gupta's Summer Freeze

This afternoon I had posted sermons to the media and the UPA by Rajdeep Sardesai. A little later I was delighted to learn that the question I asked through my post ‘Why is Indian media scared of Sonia Gandhi?’ is a question a lot of people have been raising. Well, that’s because I ran into an article by Shekhar Gupta, Editor of Indian Express and Padma awardee. This one is nicely titled ‘The Summer Freeze’.

Overall the article fairly reflects the mood in the country and is as well written as can be expected from a journalist of Shekhar’s stature. Except that there are few jarring notes, almost bordering on delusional. One cannot help agreeing that appointments to major positions in important government bodies are held up due to the government’s summer siesta. Sensex and markets are battered. I wouldn’t really consider stock markets to be an indicator of anything more than economic concerns of a limited population. Besides, markets act more on sentiments than mere economic logic. Here’s an excerpt:

“The paralysis in the government is matched by the confusion in the Congress party. Its carefully scripted strategy of distancing itself from all government decisions except the most obviously populistic ones has now unravelled and backfired. While the government finally responded to this by suspending all decision-making on anything even remotely controversial, it is the party that is now getting the rap for all the scams, some real, some exaggerated and some……. You can blame the formidable whispering machine of the RSS for it, and maybe you are right, but the clamour over “hundreds of lakhs of crores of dollars” stashed away in foreign banks has a very strong undertone of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin’.

So you see, the temptation to drag in the RSS out of nowhere in an otherwise sensible article gives away the whole plot. It makes me wonder what the difference is between the Congress and Shekhar Gupta. Next, what does money stashed away in foreign banks got to do with Sonia’s foreign origin? It’s been reported there are many Indians who have stashed away money in foreign banks too. Even assuming that’s an RSS whisper campaign how do you explain Shekhar’s next para?

“The same whisper machine talks of her recent Europe visit as some smoking-gun evidence of a conspiracy to vacuum-clean India’s wealth. The more brazen, like Subramanian Swamy, say so in public: that Sonia and Rahul have gone to Switzerland to sort out their secret accounts, nervous that now their time is up. Over the past three weeks I have been stopped by ordinary people at airports, in shopping malls, at a petrol pump, in a spiritual ashram, at the national athletic games in Bangalore and so on with a question that seems to have become a clamour: why are you in the media so scared of the Gandhis? Why is no one exposing their humongous stash overseas?.... It is all bunkum, of course, and in any case the beauty of Swiss accounts is that nobody needs to go to Switzerland to do anything with them.”

P.G. Wodehouse in one of his novels talks about two train-engine drivers who jumped into the furnace of the engine to escape the oppressive summer heat. It sounds credible doesn’t it? So when Subramanian Swamy says the Gandhis went to Switzerland “to sort out their secret accounts” that sounds just as plausible, doesn’t it? Well for the benefit of Shekhar Gupta I must mention that the remark Swamy made can at best be described as ‘sarcasm’ and at worst a ‘snide’ remark. Ordinary people get it but surprisingly Shekhar Gupta doesn’t get it. So he even goes on to educate us that you don’t have to be in Switzerland to handle your accounts. Funny, lately you don’t have to go to your bank even in India to handle your account. What Shekhar doesn’t tell us is: how in the world does Swamy get to know all this? How does he know about Sonia Gandhi’s movements when all the media bimbos didn’t report it? There were some in the media who were even speculating if Jayalalithaa would meet Sonia in Delhi June 14 when Sonia was blissfully in Switzerland. And Subramanian Swamy is a maverick politician rather than a full-time media person. So at least it establishes one thing clearly – Swamy deals with facts while the Gandhis manage to hoodwink the media.

So all this money stashed in Switzerland etc. is “all bunkum” according to Shekhar Gupta. But that is not the only thing that makes Sonia Gandhi a very suspicious and intriguing character. Here is a write by Arun Shourie, one of India’s finest investigative journalists, (he was with the Indian Express too by the way). It’s titled Annexation Through Technicalities. Some excerpts:

“Sonia Gandhi, without having any known sources of income, has become the controller of one of the largest empires of property and patronage in Delhi. The Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library and Museum…..It is situated in and controls real estate which, because of its historical importance, cannot even be valued. The institution runs entirely on grants from the Government of India. Sonia Gandhi has absolutely no qualification that could by any stretch of imagination entitle her to head the institution: has she secured even an elementary university degree, to say nothing of having done anything that would even suggest some specialization in subjects which the institution has been set up to study. But by mysterious technicalities she is today the head of this institution. So much so that she even decides which scholar may have access to papers…..

Real estate, only slightly less valuable, has been acquired on Raisina Road. The land was meant to house offices of the Congress. A large, ultra-modern building was built -- the finance being provided by another bunch of technical devices which remain a mystery. The building had but to get completed, and Sonia appropriated it for the other Foundation she completely controls -- the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. The Congress(I) did not just oblige by keeping silent about the takeover of its building, in the very first budget its Government presented upon returning to power, it provided Rs 100 crores to this Foundation. The furore that give-away caused was so great that the largesse had to be canceled. No problem. Business house after business house, even public sector enterprises incurring huge losses, coughed up crores……The Foundation has performed two principal functions. The projection of Sonia Gandhi. And enticing an array of leaders, intellectuals, journalists etc. into nets of patronage and pelf.

But the audacity with which the land and building were usurped and funds raised for this Foundation falls into the second order of smalls when they are set alongside what has been done in regard to the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts…….This Centre was set up as a trust in 1987 by a resolution of the Cabinet. The Government of India gave Rs. 50 crores out of the Consolidated Fund of India as a corpus fund to this Centre. It transferred 23 acres of land along what is surely one of the costliest sites in the world -- Central Vista, the stretch that runs between Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate -- to this Trust. Furthermore, it granted another Rs. 84 crores for the Trust to construct its building….”

The whole article by Arun Shourie makes sorry reading for any Indian.

So Mr. Shekhar Gupta, you see it is not just the allegations of money stashed in foreign banks or payoffs by KGB. There are a whole load of other issues concerning Sonia Gandhi and her family which is not even being reported by the mainstream media, let alone conducting any serious debate on those matters. So the next time someone walks up to you and asks ‘Why Indian media is scared of Sonia Gandhi?’ don’t say “it’s all bunkum”!

The only bunkum around is a cowardly news media.

Rajdeep Sardesai Sermonises Media & UPA

If you go through Rajdeep Sardesai’s blog and if you are even casually observant, you will notice that his blog-posts are usually made on Fridays. That’s almost like Bollywood movies being released on Fridays. Rajdeep sort of neatly summarises the week that was or uses hindsight to say the things he should have said on his channel through the week. Mind you, his posts are well-intentioned, thoughtful and are fair. If one were to just read his blogs it would be difficult to believe this is a TV anchor. Let’s first go through some excerpts from his latest post ‘TVnews a zero sum game?’.

"In recent weeks, as the images of Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare have played out relentlessly across television screens, the government has appeared to panic. Four cabinet ministers rushed to the airport to mollify the yoga guru. In Hazare's case, a fast at Jantar Mantar was enough to hasten the government into issuing a formal order appointing a Lokpal committee without any consultation process. In both instances, the government blames the media for forcing it to act in an unwise manner by giving disproportionate coverage to the street agitations…..It's not just the power elite, but also we in the news business who need to introspect. Why is that we cover a Hazare or a Ramdev with such intensity, but barely touch the story of an Irom Sharmila…."

If the government ever blames the media then the media should pat itself on its back. It's when they give out Padma awards to working journalists you know something's not right. Well? In this case this is a two-way back-slapping exercise. First, the media itself blew out of proportion the agitations because of the drama value attached to it. Two, in the case of Ramdev the media unleashed a vicious campaign to malign the yoga dealer. The pied piper here was CNN-IBN itself. (Read HERE and HERE). Time and again Rajdeep has stated the ‘media should introspect’. Does he really do that? No one stops them from covering Irom Sharmila or Medha Pathkar or that Swami who died fasting to protest mining along the Ganga. Fact remains the media is a clown that will go where the circus is. It is only natural. Didn’t Barkha Dutt already tell you that, Rajdeep? More importantly, the fasts by Anna Hazare and Ramdev were on corruption which concerned Indians across the nation while the other fasts were more on localised issues. Can’t tell the difference, Rajdeep? Still, the media could have covered those agitations too.

“….Perhaps, Dr Singh's image makers fear that the television lens will expose his limitations as a public speaker. Since he is a soft-spoken individual, the fear is that his voice will not be heard in the cacophony around him. Once again this is a misunderstanding of the media. Just as the camera captures the noisy, it also zooms in on sobriety and decency. At a time when the viewer seems to be tiring of the constant barrage of zero sum debates, the prime minister has an opportunity to set himself apart as a voice of reason and rationality….”

Rajdeep goes on to once again give a ‘clean’ certificate to the PM when he refers to his integrity as his calling card in his post. Now then, being soft-spoken or possessing a feeble voice may not be great attributes for a PM. However, is that the only reason why MMS is quiet? Why discount the possibility that MMS’s conscience is hurting, that he has to lie to defend all the corruption, that if he speaks his lack of conviction will be noticed, that if he speaks there will be more questions to be answered. That he has possibly lost moral courage. No? If voice were a strong guiding factor in public life I simply don’t understand how the Deputy Editor of CNN-IBN, Sagarika Ghose, continues to offend ears with her cacophony. She would probably be the exact opposite of MMS in this case.

Rajdeep then makes a sensational point about Rahul Gandhi. “As for Rahul, have we ever heard him express his views on matters of national importance?” Wow! So this is the guy whose views on national issues are not known. This is the guy whose public meetings are “choreographed” according to Rajdeep. And this is the guy that CNN-IBN chose to bestow the ‘Indian of the year’ award in 2009. Well, Rajdeep, how do you explain that? If this is your assessment of Rahul in 2011, did you know him better in 2009? And here is what you said back then, Rajdeep:

“Rahul Gandhi has been chosen CNN-IBN politician of the year over many of his more experienced colleagues and rivals because no one toured India the way he has in the past 60 months. Nobody has enunciated a vision of new India the way he has and none has understood the immediate need to bridge the city-country divide the way Rahul Gandhi has. His efforts show that hard work pays even in the uncertain world of politics.”

Well I suppose Rajdeep Sardesai understood the “new India” that Rahul Gandhi had enunciated then but now states he doesn’t know his views on matters of national importance. Will you now stop these sham awards, Rajdeep? And as for the blogs for you write every Friday I do appreciate them. I only wish you would put as much thoughtfulness in the conduct of CNN-IBN Monday through Friday and on weekends too.

PS: There are many who have also understood the manner in which Rahul Gandhi has enunciated his vision of a new India. These have been chronicled extensively through tweets under #Rahulfacts. This site, Chirpstory, has a complete collection for those who are yet to fully understand Rahul's enunciation of India. As for Rahul's achievements this website will tell you everything: www.rahulgandhiachievements.com (And no there is nothing wrong with your browser or net connection either)

Why Is Indian Media Scared Of Sonia Gandhi?

On June 15 Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today conducted a public debate on the Lokpal bill. It was titled ‘Team Anna Vs Govt’. Not very appropriate since the supposed Govt. side had journalists Tavleen Singh and a noisy Shoma Chaudhary from Tehelka, and they surely don’t represent the government. It was the usual slugfest with the audience also involved in asking questions. Nothing about the program struck me as being new or specific except when a man wearing a green T-shirt, who introduced himself as ‘IIT Kharagpur and MBA’, started shooting questions. It was all fine until he started raising some questions about Swiss banks or KGB money apparently in relation to Sonia Gandhi. Hmmmm! That’s where Kanwal abruptly cut him off. This got me wondering all over again.

It seems that there are two topics that are taboo for our mainstream media – Islamic Terror and Sonia Gandhi. Behind all their claims of being free, fearless, impartial and unbiased our MSM really doesn’t want to talk about these two topics. In a previous post I have attempted to understand why the media is scared of the Religion of Peace. (Why ‘Liberal’ Media Is Scared of TheReligion Of Peace!) But surely, the MSMs complete silence on various issues and allegations concerning Sonia Gandhi is even more intriguing. NDTV, CNN-IBN, TimesNow, Headlines Today and their Hindi versions seem reluctant to even report items appearing in various other news sources. Amazing! Sonia Gandhi seems untouchable!

On June 13 when Baba Ramdev broke his fast Subramanian Swamy stated Sonia Gandhi was in Switzerland. Yet, on June 12 when she condemned the murder of journalist J.Dey the media made it appear she was making the statement as usual from Delhi. There wasn’t one mention of where she was making that statement from. That’s not all. Our all-knowing media reported that Jayalalithaa, who was in Delhi on June 14, would not be meeting Sonia Gandhi. Surprising! Given that Sonia Gandhi wasn’t even in Delhi at that time the media reports actually seem to be intended to cover up the fact that Sonia wasn’t even in India.

Journalist Rajinder Puri writes in the The Statesman:

“On Monday, Tamil Nadu chief minister Miss Jayalalithaa visited Delhi. She met her Delhi counterpart Mrs Sheila Dikshit. India’s biggest TV channel blared: “Will Jaya also meet Sonia?” Was the channel unprofessionally ignorant or was it colluding with the exercise to hide the furtive movements of Mrs Sonia Gandhi? Earlier on the same day, there was a statement issued by Mrs Gandhi deploring the murder of a prominent journalist in Mumbai. Was all this being done to create the illusion in the public mind that Mrs Gandhi was in India while she was not? This is not the first time that Mrs Gandhi has silently gone abroad in a manner best described as being furtive. Why the secrecy? What is the purpose of Mrs Gandhi’s undisclosed visits abroad?........ Congress leaders are frothing at the mouth demanding total transparency from members of civil society. Probes have been launched against some of them. Should not the government display equal transparency pertaining to India’s most powerful politician who is the chairperson of the ruling UPA coalition as well as the chairperson of the government’s NAC? They need to answer the following questions:

Did Mrs Gandhi travel abroad on an airline or by a private jet? If the latter, whose jet was it? What was the purpose of the foreign visit made by the Chairperson of the NAC and the UPA? What is the itinerary of the NAC Chairperson? Which countries and cities did she, or will she, visit?....” Puri goes on to also raise the issues of allegations by former KGB members having contributed funds to Sonia and family. These are not new allegations.

The allegations of corruptions and black money against Sonia Gandhi are far more serious than the ones being frequently discussed in the media. Subramanian Swamy has made allegations about her name, her birthplace, her educational qualifications, incorrect affidavit filed before the Election Commission, payments to her family by KGB and also about Rahul Gandhi. All this not only makes sorry reading but would make any politician or even an ordinary person jump. The mass media would jump at such stories. Yet our MSM has consistently maintained an eerie silence. Sonia Gandhi, of course, doesn’t talk to the nation or the media about these allegations or any other issue. S.Gurumurthy has written a detailed article in the Indian Express about Sonia Gandhi titled ‘Zero Tolerance, Secret Billions’.

Subramanian Swamy’s extensive speech on the allegations against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi is also available on Youtube. (Just Google it) Are the Barkha Dutts, the Rajdeeps, the Sagarikas, the Rahul Kanwals, the Pankaj Pachauris and many more simply unaware about all these allegations? Is there something more sinister than appears to the whole story?

During October 2007 when Sonia Gandhi visited the UN an organisation released an ad against her listing all the allegations in a newspaper. A defamation case was filed by some supporters of the Congress. The case was dismissed. It is surprising that third parties file cases for defamation of Sonia Gandhi while she herself is unwilling to defend herself or comment on any of these allegations. (Read Congress Sues Subramanian Swamy For Defamation)

In just my previous post (Living next door to Alice) this is what I wrote in response to a flowery article by Barkha Dutt (and I consider it worth repeating):

“In management there is a principle that is often accepted as a starting point to analyse failure: “The bottleneck is always at the top”. Yes indeed, figuratively and literally. Extraordinary levels of corruption do not come to pass without the participation of top management. Remember Satyam? Remember Enron? Remember Bear Stearns? Remember AIG? Well, it is no different in the government too. That is where the media has been an absolute failure. Failure apart, their silence has been very much like that of a co-conspirator.…….The top management in the UPA has to be undoubtedly Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. There are many allegations against her of having stashed away black money in Switzerland. There are allegations of Quattrochi (of Bofors) being let off. Subramanian Swamy has sought sanction to prosecute Sonia Gandhi. Do you find any of this in our mass media?”

In 1973 under pressure in the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon famously told Editors ‘I am not a crook”! That’s top management for you! Nixon is the only President in US history to have resigned from office. Since then we have also had famous cases like Ferdinand & Imelda Marcos who fled to the US and Alberto Fujimori of Peru who fled to Japan. Seriously, by today’s standards Nixon’s crimes would seem far less significant. Politicians have surpassed him many times over.

There are those in the Congress, the UPA, the media and prominent celebrities in public often put forward the argument that if politicians are corrupt the people get to boot them out every five years. That ‘civil society’ movements of the recent kind destroy democracy. They now cite the DMK party being booted out of power in Tamil Nadu as example. This is the most disgusting and spurious argument one can ever hear on corruption. Being booted out of office is not punishment. Putting them in jails would be the right punishment.

There is no doubt there is a lot of pressure mounting on Sonia Gandhi. Swamy has even sought sanction to prosecute her. The MSM may fail it its job but the people won’t. The tag line to this blog still remains ‘Crooks and liars in the Indian media are the greatest danger to our democracy’!