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Friday, March 27, 2009

Why not Mayawati?

While going through what TV Channels,Newspapers and Blogosphere are saying about the coming General Elections one can easily recognise a strong bias against the Bahujan Samaj Party leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minster Mayawati. Even liberal feminists do not seem to be happy with the possibility of her rising to the position of Prime Minsiter. Some of the comments I read in Blogosphere include:
"Only over my dead body can Mayawati become Prime Minister"
"My friend said he will jump down from the 10th floor if she became Prime Minister"
" Let us hope Mayawati will loose and thereby the Caste politics end"
' Her house in Delhi is so huge.It is almost a Palace"
There is also similar but less intense bias against regional Parties.
Why is it so? Is Mayawati the worst politician India has seen? Is she [or the BSP] the most divisive force in Indian politics? Is she the most corrupt Indian leader? Is she the worst dictator India has ever seen?
I was confused.
Now let me make it clear.I am not for or against Mayawati. But when there is so much bias against one leader,that too a woman I am appalled.We in India is supposed to have democracy and not feudalism. She is the undisputed leader of a Party which was democratically elected by the electorate of biggest State of India.[If Uttar Pradesh was an Independent Country it will be the 6th biggest Country on the basis of population]
She cannot boast of a pedigree.She is not well versed in English and is not highly educated.Her rise in politics is on her own,fruits of her own efforts. She may be corrupt,dictatorial and casteist ,but that should never be the reason for bias against her as all her opponents are the same. There may be a difference in degree,that is all.
Then I read the op-ed article by Seema Mustafa in the New Indian Express and was relieved to see some one else is thinking like me. Here are some excerpts:[in blue italics]
"It is interesting how the elite suspect, ridicule and demonise those who do not fall in the same special category.
And how the concept of the ‘other’ is created, placed into a stereotype and then used to foment hatred. This is done the world over, with the rich and the powerful being more influential than the poor and the marginalized. It is also done for individuals and political parties that fall outside the acceptance parameters of the elite and currently this prejudice is very much on display in India.
Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati is facing the brunt of elite intolerance with the English media — print and electronic — reflecting this in more ways than one.........


Mayawati is corrupt they say. And while it is difficult to prove whether she is or not, what about the corruption of those who are in power today and who were in power yesterday? It is true that she flaunts her wealth and those who are acceptable to the elite do not. But was not money made in major transactions by the top politicians in power, either directly or through their sons and daughters? The political grapevine is well aware of these people, with the amounts received in bribes, and the businesses run under benami names known. But this is not spoken of as it involves those that the elite regard as their own, and pass over with a general “oh, all politicians are corrupt”. But there is no vilification of the individual, as there is of Mayawati (or for that matter there was of Lalu Prasad) with the BJP and the Congress being able to easily hide the money spinning ‘enterprises’ of its top politicians from public view.

Mayawati is autocratic, they say. But is the Congress dynasty democratic? Is decision making in the Congress taken by the few or the majority?........
Let me add. Is RSS who decides the major policies of BJP democratic? Can a BJP leader defy the RSS and stay in the Party?

Mayawati is casteist, they say. But is that a crime? Particularly, if the caste is the poorest of the poor, the untouchables who have been discriminated against for centuries? If by being in power, she can ensure that the Dalits are more secure, (a police lathi has not beaten a Dalit to pulp since she came to power) employed and get respect and dignity is that a problem? And are not the BJP and the Congress casteist?
The Casteist nature of BJP is well illustrated in the Budget proposals of Karnataka Government for this year. Congress was always trying too woo various castes including the minorities since Independence to hold on to Power.In case of Mayawati she was able to bring together the Dalits and the Brahmins along with Muslims and form a unique winning combination. Her political acumen has to be complimented.

Mayawati has been in power now twice, she has been in politics now for several years. Has she presided over violence in any part of UP? Like the BJP has, and the Congress has — in Gujarat, in Delhi, in Mumbai, in Karnataka, in Punjab, in Assam, in Orissa, it is a long list. And here one is not talking just of the central governments, one is talking of the state governments of these parties when they were in power. Is the Christian feeling more secure today under the BJP coalition government in Orissa? Or is the Muslim living without fear in Andhra Pradesh under a Congress government?

This is not to say that Mayawati will be the best prime minister. Or even to say that she will be a good prime minister.
This is to say that she will be as good a prime minister as BJP’s Lal Krishna Advani or Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi.
And that if they have the right to lead this country, so does she. She does not speak English well, she does not wear a new sari every day, and she does not have the finesse that makes the elite comfortable.

But she is a Dalit woman who has fought through the prejudice of caste, gender and class and has done so peacefully without the BJP’s violence or support from a dynastic right to inheritance.
It is time for the elite to shed its prejudice and intolerance, and realise that India is best represented through the regional parties. And that if these did not exist, violent struggles would have broken out in different parts of the country as the deprived are learning to recognise their rights and are not willing to be shackled and silenced by a two-party system that does not meet their aspirations and does not recognise them as equals. It is true that everything is not perfect, far from it, but at least the presence of regional parties has been able to open the valve of discontent and give people alternatives that are important and crucial to the strengthening of Indian democracy ".

Bravo....... I cannot resist myself from standing up and applauding Seema Mustafa.

32 comments:

  1. Lalu and Modi lack finesse too, that does not matter at all. I am more concerned about things like the Taj Corridor and PWD Engineer being murdered. She has done the sort of things nobody has done before... maybe we are prejudiced, but articles like this do show that we are looking in Mayawati's direction for hope.
    And she has simply switched from religion to caste, so the divides continue.

    But there's no denying that she has not presided over any violence and does not harp about (any) religion.
    Good post, unbiased and thought provoking. She does deserve a rethink.

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  2. I agree with you...She is no better nor worse than any other political leader...There were articles about her lack of finesse - tell me, how many politicians have this quality? I'm sure if she had been a he, then the backlash wouldn't have been so great...

    If Modi were to become the PM, then I would have a huge problem...

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  3. Let her become PM by winning atleast majority seats...

    if she is to using coalition and arm twisting to come to power... and that too if the govt wont last the entire period ... is what we dread...


    not that she wears some clothes and isnt smooth... nope...

    let her win majority and come to power... we dont want her to come like deve gowda did !!! simple enough reason !

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  4. She certainly does not seem to be better or worse than most other politicians.. As Bones pointed out, the reaction might not have been so harsh had she been a man. I think, unpolished men seem to have been accepted in Indian Politics , but most women in Politics still seem to come from the educated, higher classes in India - atleast in national level politics. So that might be the reason people might be harping about things like her appearance.

    However, having said that, I am not sure how effective she will be, because clearly, she can become the PM only as the leader of a very uneasy coalition, with a medley of smaller parties.. So even if we assume, that she becomes totally uncorrupt, has all the best intentions, I doubt that she will be allowed to do much good, when she is part of a fragile coalition...

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  5. Oh my God!

    You say the below lines

    "she is not well versed in English and is not highly educated"

    Then go ahead to prove that nothing is wrong with mayawati??My first reaction after reading the subject of your post was "Because, she is not educated".Then I read your blog and was surprised to see that you actually mentioned it, but don't mind in her being a PRIME MINISTER...YES!!! PRIME MINISTER OF COUNTRY..!!!

    You know Manmohan's Qualifications?That chap proposed capitalism for India in 1960s and under Nehru. Do you have any idea what that could have meant for us if his opinion mattered that time?He was just a student at Cambridge then!!
    Do you want to settle for any less now?And Mayawati sounds like soooo less...!!

    And if you are gonna tell me that -- we have had uneducated prime ministers in the past..I will tell you..."Its not a good enough excuse to repeat the mistakes"..

    And what did you mean by below line?

    "But when there is so much bias against one leader,that too a woman"

    That too a woman??Ehhh??What? You mean, if it were to be a guy, it would have been fine, but why against a woman??
    My bias will be irrespective of gender!!!Whether a man or woman, if you are not fit to be in the "TOP POST IN THE COUNTRY", then you are not.

    Then this -->

    "Is Mayawati the worst politician India has seen"

    Dude, we are talking about PRIME MINISTER and not just a POLITICIAN!
    and, just because she is not the WORST, doesn't mean, I can be neutral towards her prospect of becoming a prime minister!!

    Oh My god!!

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  6. IHM, This post was supposed to be a provocative post.I am happy it provoked some body, atleast Chikki.
    Good that you feel she deserves a re think.My point is she should be considered in the same bracket as other politicians.

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  7. Bones, thank you for supporting me.Very few ppl in the blogosphere will do it.But only less than 0.1 percent of Indians blog.So Mayawati need not worry.

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  8. hitch, she can be a PM only under a coalition and if 272 MPs support her.Even if Advani or Manmohan Singh come to power,they can do it only with the support of atleast half dozen parties.How long such coalition Govts last is anybody's guess.That is the current situation.I will be happy if we use the same measuring tape in measuring Mayawati as we do with other leaders.

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  9. Smitha, I fully agree with you and thank you for the comment

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  10. Chikki,I am happy that I could provoke you to call God atleast twice.lol
    From your comment can I infer that you believe the Prime Minister of India should be well versed in English and should have a higher education? From that it means you feel those who are well versed in English will have better administrative skill than those who are not so well versed? Well I do not think so.Our Constituition also do not think so.So Mayawati have no Constituitional ban for becoming PM.She need to get support of 272 MPs in Lok Sabha to become the PM.However you may not like it, our Democracy is like that.
    You said Manmohan Singh wanted Capitalism for India in 1960s....
    Now I am not an economist. But I believe India had a Capitalist economic system from Independence.As our local Capitalists were very weak India had to rely on State Capital for investments in huge infrastructure porjects.The one good thing[my opinion] Nehru did was not throwing open our economy to International Capital Investment.Actually he was forced to do this because the big Capitalist Western Countries were hostile to India politically as Nehru was close to USSR and was the prime force behind non-aligned movement. Indira Gandhi continued similar policy which helped in strengthening the basic Industries in India. Being a doc I know that Indira Gandhi's policy of process patent[instead of product patent] in pharmaceuticals helped the growth of Indian Pharma Industry and kept the prices of our medicines lowest in the World.
    When our Industries became strong enough to face the World market we opened out under Narashima Rao's Govt.By then our Capitalists became strong enough to invest in huge projects and Public investments were reduced.
    By mentioning a Woman leader is getting so much bias I was taunting the 'liberal' media and blogosphere who always fight for women's rights.
    By asking "is Mayawati the worse politician India has seen" I was implying there are worse politicians in India than her and most ppl do not mind considering them for the post of PM.See Bones's comment above.

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  11. india had a socialistic philisophy since independence -that's besides the point.

    manmohan being qualified have failed to stand up many times ( except for the nuclear deal)
    and so did narsimha rao was more loyal to the congress. an intelligent man he was more slave to the indira gandhi finally emerged.

    people like abdul kalam - the only president functioned the very best within the cordon.

    only if the feudalistic mindset is broken india will emerge.
    another nehru gandhi clan is doom. we have to get out of the mindset that what will we do if congress cannot do.

    who ever thought that oil drinking politicians of america can be ousted. americans got tired after repeating the mistake the 2nd time. and obama is doing something that many would have thought he won't be capable and here he is -- kicking some ass - many firsts --

    indians have NOT got tired of this dynastic politics and say congress is okay - what BS.

    yes, mayawati is corrupted and so is very politician. it is difficult to say that sonia gandhi does not have murder on her hands and so does any politician.

    sarabhai and shashi tharoor are congress's chela - do not expect anything big out of them.

    chikki - many japanese primeministers do not speak english. . russian primeministers understand and so do chinese understand english but they always use a translator.
    if that is the excuse that mayawati should not be PM, than it is a lame one.

    give mayawati a chance. she sure will surprise everbody and give many a run for their money.
    so shed the elitist mentality of speaking in english and give mayawati a chance

    God cannot help those who cannot help themselves :)

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  12. @Anrosh,Charakan

    You guys are still concentrating on 'english'.What about the education?Ofcourse you don't want to say that education doesn't play any part if you have run a country.Guys, if we are talking about Bias, then yeah, my bias will be against someone who I don't think is educated enough to run a country.Having said that, I agree she might surprise us, But right now, my legs are shaking.I mean, I am afraid if such a thing happens, what is gonna happen to my country, and my fears are Justified.

    @Charakran,

    Lol. yeah! You managed to provoke me big time. ;-)

    Let me talk about 60s now.:-)
    India was not a capitalist country under Nehru,and India had JRD,Birla,and some other Businessmen who wanted to invest in big industries, and then were numerous Businessmen who wanted to start it small, but IRDA did not allow it, you had to get hundreds of approvals and clearances before opening up anything,entreprenuership was never encouraged, infact it was suppressed.The files kept moving through different Govt departments for YEARS! This is where the Corruption started. Most people just gave up!
    Infact if you remember Air-India was once controlled by TATAS, but was nationalised after independence.
    The heavy industries which were formed under Nehru continued eating India's wealth for years and years, they were always under Huge loss.Needlesss to say, WE NEVER HAD AN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. WE LOST A GENERATION, Its India's LOST GENERATION.
    Also, No foreign Capital was allowed, Liberazation started in 1991 under Rao and Manmohan, and we are all seeing the changes since then, arent we?

    Anyway, getting back to Mayawati,

    "She need to get support of 272 MPs in Lok Sabha to become the PM.However you may not like it, our Democracy is like that."

    Yeah I don't like it, do you?I feel you are expressing the facts, but not your feelings whereas the comments that you have taken in your blog are feelings that people have expressed.

    Infact I am just Hoping Manmohan wins again!
    Ofcourse I am biased against Mayawati and other uneducated leaders.

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  13. chikki -- people who have an education try to look everything through that lens.( education puts people in a box ! - ( read michael dell's address to yale graduates years ago ..google it. you will know what i am talking ) men who made great empires ( most ) did not have qualifications, they had education.

    lets seperate qualifications from education.

    think about it . she has education - if she has risen from undynastic policies to where she is now ( hook or crook ) she may be able to do something.

    vivekanada said education is the manifestation of the perfection we already have.

    you are talking about mayawati not having suave or finesse or sophistication -- that is what is worrying you i guess --
    she'll cross that bridge when she has to.

    what makes the primeminister is her cabinet and her ability to influence and think. understand aand make decisions. if this kitty is good she has won - and otherwise not.

    that does not make a fan of mayawati -- but she sure has to get a chance.

    what qualifications did indira gandhi have.varun gandhi went to london school of economics having bought the seats ... so does many of our politicians cronies kids.

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  14. Nice to see a debate on Mayawati [finally] in blogosphere. Many had the opinion that she is non-debatable.
    Anrosh I agree with most things you said.There is no direct relationship between qualifications and ability to perform as a Leader of the Country.That is why no educational qualification was proscribed for the Prime Minister or President by the Constitution.

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  15. Chikki, We have a democratic system of Government and I respect it and is proud about it. So who ever becomes the Prime Minister in an ethical and democratic way should be respected and given a fair chance,whether he/she is a National leader or regional Leader.
    If the policices he/she follows is unacceptable to many the Opposition in the Parliament along with ruling coalition members can raise the voice of protest and may be able to change it.No need for fear or shaking legs

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  16. Chikki, now abt the Indian economy during the early years.....
    I respect your viewpoint but you must also realise that quite a number of economists have different viewpoints on the subject.
    Indian economy in the first 40 years was not a laisez faire[uncontroled]Capitalist economy but a Capitalist economy with a fair amount of State Control.Some call it mixed economy.Primary aim was rapid industrialisation aimed at import substituiton,self reliance and prevention of foriegn capital domination. The business houses in India were very few and they were interested mainly in easy-profit busineses.Due to above reasons public sector played a major role in developing the basic industries. There were foreign collabarations but only if the technology was transferred.It is on the shoulder of this basic Industrial infrastructure that the economic growth took place rapidly last 20 years.Still we have not opened out completely to the World.That may save us from the on going great depression. The fact that public sector banks have such a big role in India is helping in preventing bankruptcies.
    I admit we were late in opening out by about 5 to 8 years.I also admit license raj encouraged corruption.Some of the public sector companies drained lot of our resources.Health and primary education was not taken care off.
    Over all a mixed bag.But we could preserve democracy and the poor has not yet taken arms in a large scale.

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  17. "Primary aim was rapid industrialisation aimed at import substituiton,self reliance and prevention of foriegn capital domination."

    Hmm..

    Yeah, mixed economy. Its funny, we had taken worst features of socialism and capitalism - the controls of socialism and monopolies and lobbies of capitalism, Agreed?;-)

    what do we learn from our experiment?
    1)State does not necessarily work on the behalf of people.It works for itself - the politicians, bureaucrats, and the interests which directly support them.
    2)State employees went on to become a powerful vested interest that was responsible to no one, and they often believed that they did not have to work.
    3)These state owned companies were so hopelessly inefficient that they became a drag on economy and were loosing huge sums of money

    We adopted an inward-looking import substituting path as you said,
    1)we did not participate in world trade
    2)We set up massive inefficient ad monopolistic public sector to which we denied autonomy
    3)We over-regulated private enterprises with the worst controls in the world
    4)We denied foreign capital and denied ourselves the benefits of technology and world class competition

    We were under the spell of Soviet economic miracle.:-(

    We were so concerned about distribution of wealth that we forgot about actually creating it.

    Many of our Businessmen were Infact big - GD Birla had asked for a steel license in 60s, Air India was owned by TATAS before Govt took over it.JRD had infact asked Govt policies on defense related factories but had not got reply from Govt.

    "The business houses in India were very few and they were interested mainly in easy-profit businesses."

    It is funny you wrote that, because I don't see absolutely anything wrong with that.This is what should have been done - profitable organizations- loss making organizations doesn't benefit anyone - history has proved it!


    Now about

    "That may save us from the on going great depression. "

    You should not believe everything that is said in Indian Media or via Indian Govt.Check out some foreign media.India is one of the worst hit countries -- again proving the age old theory that in times of difficulty, a poor is affected more than a rich is.

    We have lost more jobs than Govt is disclosing.Also, by now you would have realized that we are not even growing at 7% this year, last quarter's growth was merely 5.3%.(which means that even if we grow at 6.5% this year, we would have fallen 3% points which is as good as America's fall -- this even after we had no exposure to American Real Estate ) Our export is badly hit, the jobs which could have been outsourced are going to be hit.In terms of percentage our stocks are one of the worst affected ones.

    Hope you have not forgotten the fiscal deficit we are going to have this year -- 5.5% of GDP from an original target of 2.5?Our Rupee is going to be degraded to "junk". Our Govt precisely knows that simpletons will not understand this and hence they can maintain a less gloomy image.We are in deep shit my friend.;-)!

    But yeah, credit goes to RBI for keeping the debt to credit ratio of bank intact, which did not happen in America.

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  18. @Chikki, @Charakan This discussion is a great discussion!

    About Mayawati, don't you think yesterday's courting arrest drama might help Mayawati?

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  19. Such an interesting discussion and Chikki is sooooo right. 60 years of independence India has changed so much and do we still have to repeat the mistakes we made. Agreed there are many like her but we are not contemplating on who is the least corrupt here. She can win votes throwing in communal cards but that doesn't make her eligible to lead the largest democracy in the world. Constitution may not say so but people of India can and should definitely put their foot down and totally debar such politicians leave alone making them Prime Ministers of the Country. Next thing we know is that we are getting killed for not contributing to Birthday funds!!! Anyone who creates division amongst people on the basis of caste or religion is a bloody racist and strict legal action should be taken against them, both for creating disharmony in the community and also for encouraging hate crimes. If such people are made leaders then we might end up like Sierra Leone or Sudan :(

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  20. Chikki, Thank you for the detailed response. Starting from ur last point. Good that you acknowledge the role of RBI and better regulation of Banks by the Govt in India. Similarly you may also be happy with more regulations on Insurance sector in India. Had US had similar State Control they might have been in much better position in facing the recession. There may not have been the need for doling out huge amount of public money to rescue sinking of Banks and Insurance Companies who indulged in risky business.
    Again you were mentioning Tatas as Birlas only as big business houses in the 50s and 60s.That was precisely my point. We had only 3 or 4 such big players. By easy profit I meant they were more interested industries, which need only small amount of capital and big profit. For a nation in the making that is not enough.
    At that time foreign capital inflow was scarce. Many in the West did not believe India would survive as a Nation. Also the Nehru Govt was adamant that foreign capital should come along with technology transfer. That meant joint ventures with public sector companies. Many foreign players were reluctant to come. Western Govt aid had lot of political strings attached. They wanted India to be in the side of US in the cold war. Nehru declined. We participated in World trade in our own terms, not in the terms of powerful western nations. Main aim was to have a huge expansion of basic industries. That we succeeded and the current economic prosperity is partly due to our strong base.
    Let me explain by an example from the Pharma field [which I know first hand]
    When we got Independence there were hardly a handful of Pharma Companies in India. We were importing most of the medicines at a huge cost. Due to the prevailing Patent act we could not make the drugs ourselves as they were protected. The government started to encourage the growth of drug manufacturing by Indian companies in the early 1960s, and with the Patents Act in 1970, enabled the industry to become what it is today. This patent act removed composition patents from food and drugs, and though it kept process patents, these were shortened to a period of five to seven years. The lack of patent protection made the Indian market undesirable to the multinational companies that had dominated the market, and while they streamed out, Indian companies started to take their places. They carved a niche in both the Indian and world markets with their expertise in reverse-engineering new processes for manufacturing drugs at low costs. Now Indian Companies have almost 30% share in Generic drugs in World Market. India could do it because India till 2005 did not obey the patent laws of Western Countries. This refusal was in the interest of our people.
    Now I am not saying everything Indian Govt did on economic front in the period 1950 to 1990 were good for the common man. The intentions were good and the measures had a fair amount of success. Ridiculing those policies with out understanding the ground situation present at that time is unwise.
    This is my opinion. You can have yours. This 2 point of views are well known in the economist circles. So this is nothing new.
    Thank you Chikki for this debate. I am happy we could discuss a very relevant topic here, instead of discussing hate and appeasement.

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  21. IHM,Varun's arrest drama should make the thinking people see thru BJP's mask.But will the ppl think? I do not know. Mayawati can benefit.

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  23. Seema,it seems you are also biased against Mayawati.This bias is created by the media.That is why so many right thinking ppl fall in to it.
    What Seema Mustafa is saying in that article and which I support is Mayawati is as good or as bad as most of the other Prime Minister aspirants.Most politicians play the communal card. She was succesful in bringing together the Dalits,Brahmins and Muslims.So both upper and lower caste Hindus and the minority religion are together in her coalition.Such a coalition is less divisive than many other coalitions.
    What did u mean by repeating the mistakes we made?
    Abt the murder of the Engineer.... She took prompt and effective action against the Killer,who [as per my knowledge]is still in Jail as an under trial with out bail.[If he had got bail our media would sure to have informed us as another opportunity to attack Mayawati].

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  24. talking about the economy india was a socialistic economy - the only raj that had an upper hand was the LICENSE raj! - in some ways it was good ( pharmaceuticals had a lower price ) but more ways it was a better now - with the economy being thrown open - but i still think that india companies should have a more partnership ( 52 -48 ) % control if india needs to be trudging forward.

    india economy is currently run by service sectors which bring in the major revenue. these service sectors can always move ( and is moving ) to low cost markets like philippines.
    service sectors is a great start, but to keep the wheel churning the country needs to bifurcate and establish an economy that will churn the wheel depending on the consumers inside the country than depending on foreign markets for products.

    i'll agree with chikki on many counts as far as economy goes.

    india is a unique country with a vast section of population still needing basic needs - until and unless this population is developed as a mass market india cannot have a well oiled economy.

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  25. Anrosh, India never had a socialist economy. If you see the definition in an economics book you will understand.The Congress tried to fool the ppl by saying we are for socialism as socialism was fashionable then.
    I never said opening out was bad.Actually it should have been done few years earlier.
    But if we had opened out as per the 'First World's diktats in 1950s and 1960s India could have been a banana republic like some of the South American and African Countries. Even now we should open out only in a controlled manner keeping country's interest paramount.

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  26. central planning, government ownership of most industrial enterprises ( i do not know what percentage . government owned electricty, telecommu.nication, banks, transportation ( railways). high tariff,heavy licensing - cannot increase certain amounts of production - call it whatever you and i like- but these were the features of the economic system before 1991.

    yes it would have been a banana republic had it been thrown open.

    may be the controlled version was better when the british left india, until the country went bankrupt and was forced to open the economy ( o yes all the grey hairs were scared ) at least it is for the better -

    may be indian heads will have to sit together and figure what economic road is good for a country. can they make rupee powerful ? can rupee replace the dollar ? - only then india will become truly powerful economically.

    ( i will write a post some day ... this debate gets only better isn't it ?)

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  27. The Roman Catholic church in Kerala is asking Christians not to vote for atheists - a reference to the state's ruling Marxists - in the general elections, saying they are trying to destroy faith.

    While the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which leads the Left government in the state, says the allegations are unfair and that it has always tried to protect minorities, the church is far from convinced.

    http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/contentView.do?tabId=1&programId=1073750967&contentId=5303230&contentType=EDITORIAL

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  28. Thank you Anrosh for the debate. Just my view which may be little old fashioned.Yes you can write a post on it.
    Dollar is powerful [in my view]not only due to economic reason but also due to military/political reason

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  29. Not an atheist,yes I know about it and may write a post abt it soon.
    It is ironic that you choose the link of the main anti-left christian media group Malayala Manorama

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    The Future Mantra

    ReplyDelete
  31. FYI She is BA, BEd, LLB while Mr. Advani is only B.L.

    The problem with Middle Class is that competence in English is the only Criteria that defines 'being educated'

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  32. Rahul,yes you are correct. So much importance being given by the Indian elite for spoken English.

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Comments are welcome especially if you do not think like me. But anonymous comments behind masks and those not relevant to the post are not encouraged.