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The fault is in ourselves, that we are underlings

It is well to remember today that the idea of an elected Constituent Assembly for India was first conceived by Mahatma Gandhi as far back as 1922. 'Swaraj,' he prophetically declared, 'will not be a free gift of the British Parliament, it will be a declaration of India's full self-expression.' Thirteen years later, the idea was officially sponsored by the Indian National Congress and on March 15, 1946, Mr Attlee, on behalf of the British government, acknowledged the right of India to devise a Constitution of her own making. 'Is it any wonder,' asked the British prime minister, 'that today India claims as a nation of 400 million people that has twice sent her sons to die for freedom that she should herself have freedom to decide her own destiny?'."
~ Editorial in The Times of India of January 26, 1950

"We won the assembly elections last year because of her and not because of our own strength... There is no point in continuing in office if she does not withdraw her resignation."
~ Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, on May 18, 1999

We have witnessed the spectacle of all the general secretaries and four chief ministers of the Congress "resigning" because Madam President resigned. We have observed the tamasha of the Delhi government grinding to a halt after Sheila Dikshit and her cabinet embarked upon non-governance. We have grasped the declaration of the party's full self-expression: There is no Congress without Sonia.

Indeed, there is no India without Sonia. Sixty-four years after the Indian National Congress officially sponsored Mahatma Gandhi's idea, Swaraj has become the gift of a European who has the freedom to decide India's destiny... It is a gift she isn't really willing to give. It is a gift the Congress is certainly loath to accept.

Scarce are the times when everything that I feel is unprintable. Rarer are the times when shame so overwhelms me that all I want is to flee this servile land. Today, when the capital is in the grip of a water and power crisis, its secretariat lies deserted, its chief minister sitting in dharna, participating in a relay fast before the AICC. None of the vassals have submitted their resignation letters to the Lt Governor, only to their party president. The sole purpose of the tyaag is to woo the Shroud back into her leathers. *This* is my country? NO!

The Shroud has taken the Trinity by surprise; as Mr Pawar admitted, they hadn't expected her to resign. Despite their assertions about Sonia's appalling lack of experience and understanding of public life, they still weren't prepared for the petulance and cheap theatrics that eventually came from her. No wonder Tariq Anwar kept saying, "I don't understand why she should have resigned." They didn't contemplate an aspirant for prime-ministership crying "mummy!" at the first sign of a setback.

Today's Congressmen were trained by the original Iron Lady, Mrs Indira Gandhi, to merely take orders. How would they know how to deal with a choked voice asking, "What is my fault?" The ToI reports that the CWC members looked down, "thoroughly embarrassed". When faced with such tacky feminine wiles, they reacted by type: With tears in his eyes, former Lok Sabha MP Rajni Ranjan Sahu fell at his supreme commander's feet, pleading that she withdraw her resignation. And they all did what they do best: mollycoddle the "downtrodden". Hence the country-wide exhibition of carefully planned and orchestrated maatam. All I can say is: If you love Sonia so much, why don't you gild her? I'll donate the metal.

The drama still has some way to go: The Shroud will try to wring more tears from her predicament. It brings to my mind Shakespeare's insight: "I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown... he put it by once; but for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again; but to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by; and still as he refus'd it, the rabblement hooted, and clapp'd their chopt hands... because Caesar refus'd the crown... And for mine own part I durst not laugh..."

After the audience -- we, the people of India -- have clapp'd our chopt hands at the thespian performance of the sycophants, the reluctant empress will submit to their supplications. That is a written. On camera, Madhav Scindia went into paroxysms while reviling the affront from the Maratha Strongman. It didn't wash. For it's become glaringly obvious that the entire dramaturgy of vilifications, resignations and hunger fasts is nothing but a tactic to divert attention from the damning assertions reiterated by the Trinity.

Consider the salient points of the Shroud's resignation letter: "I am pained by their lack of confidence in my ability to act in the best interest of the party and the country... India is my motherland, dearer to me than my own life... I came into the service of the party not for a position or power but because the party faced a challenge to its very existence." It is as if the issue of her Italian birth, which raises questions regarding the security, economic interest and international image of India, simply does not exist. The argument which emerged when she was made party president and which has snowballed to gigantic dimensions since after her attempt at hijacking governance, still remains ignored. Perhaps the Shroud believes we don't have the wherewithal to assimilate the explanations she may have. More likely, it's below her white dignity to justify herself to the rabblement. She forgets: India is NOT the Congress.

The Indian voter should not be *allowed* to forget that Sonia had her relatives flown down to witness her coronation. Which isn't to say that she mustn't want her dear ones near, but that behold her confidence in overrunning norms -- she didn't even wait for her manoeuvring to take fruit. Indians should not be *permitted* to forget her blatant fabrications in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan: "the President has invited me to head the next government... We will have 272 or maybe more." This is the woman who has no qualms about placing the President of India in a tight spot to further her own ends.

Pritish Nandy is hundred per cent correct when he writes, "If all fails, she will rewrite the entire history of the past fortnight and create a new pantheon of villains to explain why the Congress was denied its rightful role in contemporary Indian history and why all these communal niggers ganged up to prevent her from playing Annie Besant and saving India from the clutches of the bloody Hindus." That Bollywood bunkum about "motherland" India being "dearer to me than my own life" is just such. It is supposed to be the one-line answer to all the charges against her. It is her entire history, explaining away why she waited 14 years to take up Indian citizenship, why she can't hold two passports, why she's best suited for prime-ministership.

Annie Besant has needlessly and unjustly been dragged into the repellent controversy over the repugnant widow. The Shroud can't be compared to the former Congress president's toe. Consider: Dr Besant's father was an admiral in the Royal Navy; Sonia's was a grocer with fascist leanings. Dr Besant worked with Indians at grass-roots level before becoming the party president; Sonia lived in a prime minister's menagerie. Dr Besant was highly educated; Sonia was an au pair (a maid, and not a "baby-sitter" as has been spun) who never completed her education. Dr Besant was Irish, a group which traditionally hates the colonialist British; Sonia is Italian, a group traditionally indifferent to India's aspirations.

But, more significantly, these are the thoughts of Dr Annie Besant -- endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi -- and let's see if the devoutly Papal Shroud will dare to espouse them: "After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect, none so scientific, none so philosophical and none so spiritual than the great religion known by the name of Hinduism. Make no mistake, without Hinduism, India has no future. Hinduism is the soil into which India's roots are stuck, and torn out of that she will inevitably wither as a tree torn out from its place. And if Hindus do not maintain Hinduism who shall save it? If India's own children do not cling to her faith who shall guard it? India alone can save India and India and Hinduism are one." Let's hear what the secularists have to say about Annie Besant now.

Nevertheless, I don't lay the blame on the Shroud. How can I when her toadies themselves are Indians who choose to ignore the ascending graph of aversion to a foreigner as PM? Today's Congressmen can never allow self-respect or dignity or loyalty to the country or honour to interfere with their quest of garnering sops from the Shroud should she succeed in her quest of leadership. And how does she have a chance at succeeding in that? Thanks to crores of illiterate Indians. The Zee News nationwide poll threw up an interesting statistic: About 66 per cent of the Shroud's support came from the uneducated -- those who blindly believe in the grahalakshmi theory. And since the pinkos anyway want a rule of the rabble, it's safe to assume that the Shroud will prosper.

As for the intellectual class, it's as morally bankrupt as it can possibly get. The ToI editorial of May 18 admonishes, "Evidence available from opinion polls and so on suggests that this is an issue more for the urban voters; in the rural areas she appears to have an enduring image as the daughter-in-law of the Gandhi-Nehru household. In a democracy, the ultimate arbiter is the voter and for that reason alone the decision was best left to the electorate." Oh really?! Then may I remind the editor that said electorate has already arbitrated on Hindutva -- the ideology so regularly damned by your newspaper. That India will have a BJP-led government was the judgement of millions of Indians. I don't see the ToI respecting that verdict.

A large element of the middle class is on its own psycho trip: Since M/s Pawar, Sangma and Anwar are ruthless politicians who have only their own interests at heart -- and I fully buy that -- it must stand to reason that the Shroud is lily-pure and does not deserve a revolt in the ranks. What a pile of puerile crap. These dorks form the most dangerous segment of Indians -- they have no brains to speak of, of course, but they also can't make up their minds. These are the flutterers and waverers who make or break elections, who constitute the Can't-Says of opinion polls, who are totally clueless. In Marathi, we call them bin-budaache taambe -- baseless tumblers toppling every which way. They don't scrutinise Sonia for what she is. Simply, the venality of her detractors creates flawlessness in her...

All in all, it's a SICK country I inhabit. It's just as the Bard said:
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Varsha Bhosle