[Vision2020] The Party of Nehru and Gandhi Win Big in India

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

Greetings:

This is my radio commentary/column for this week.  I am very, very proud of the Indian people for sending the Hindu national party packing.  This is a significant turn towards reinforcing India's secular constitution. 

The full version is attached. An earlier column "The Wonder that was--and still is--India" can be read at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/wonderlong.htm

Nick Gier

THE PARTY OF NEHRU AND GANDHI WINS BIG IN INDIA

By Nick Gier

When I arrived in India for my first sabbatical in 1992, the government was led by a very weak Congress Party, the heirs of Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhia, and her son Rajiv Gandhi.  Congress lost the 1996 election to the Hindu nationalist Bharatyiya Janata Party (BJP), which continued the economic liberalization started by Congress, but disappointed its religious right-wingers by not pressing the cultural war against Muslims and Christians. 

States ruled by the BJP have passed anti-conversion laws that call for two years imprisonment for anyone who converts from Hinduism to another religion.  In 2008 alone 300 Christian homes have been burned, 130 churches destroyed, and 40 Christians killed.

Hindu militants are protesting the celebration of Valentine's Day, which has become very popular among India’s young people. In 2007 a man was badly beaten by members of the Shiva Army outside a restaurant where he had taken his girlfriend for a Valentine Day's dinner. 

Hindu fanatics have also attacked bars and other venues where young couples meet. Early this year 40 men raided a bar in Mangalore and women were slapped and dragged around by their hair because of their "indecent behavior."  

The militant group called "The Army of Lord Rama" took responsibility for the assault and its leader stated: "We are the citizens of this nation, and I feel it is our duty to discipline indecent behavior. It is out of this sense of duty that we feel the need to safeguard our culture."  [Does this remind us anybody int the U.S.?]

Calling them the Hindu Taliban, one Indian journalist pointed out the irony of radical Hindus becoming "the spitting image of Islamist fundamentalists."  Religious fundamentalists around the world--including Christians and Sri Lankan Buddhists--share a similar intolerance to other religions and promote the same dangerous identity of religion and nation. 

In 2004 an over confident BJP called for an election and it lost to Congress. Under the leadership of a Muslim president (succeeded by a Hindu woman in 2007), a Sikh prime minister, and a Roman Catholic Congress Party leader, it deftly negotiated rough political, cultural, and economic waters to win re-election this month. 

Sonia Gandhi, Italian-born widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, has led the Congress Party well, even though she initially wished to have nothing to do with politics.  In 2004 she could have become prime minister but, in a humble but masterful stroke, she appointed Manmohan Singh, a mild-mannered economist and former finance minister instead.  

The BJP thought that it could win votes by criticizing the government's lack of preparation and poor response to a Muslim militant attack in Mumbai last November.  The BJP also thought that it could convince voters that it could do better with the economy.  

But the BJP lost seats and now has only 114 in Parliament, while Congress now has 206 seats for its best result in 25 years.  Together with its allies it has 261 seats and can easily get additional support to have a majority in the 547-seat body. 

The Congress can now form a government without the four Communist parties, which lost seats even in their strongholds in Kerala and West Bengal.  The Communists were a thorn in Singh's side on freeing up the economy and negotiating a nuclear energy pact with the U.S.   As The Economist reports: "The Communists, who in 2004 won 62 seats, their best result ever, won 24 seats, their worst since 1952."

A big individual winner was Sonia's son Rahul Gandhi, who was re-elected to his seat in Parliament and will soon be given a post in Singh's cabinet.  Rahul and his sister Priyanka have attained rock star status, and they draw huge crowds everywhere they go.  There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Rahul will one day become prime minister and continue the resurgent Gandhi dynasty.

Over 60 percent of India's 714 million voters went to the polls this month. Except for Indira Gandhi's ill-advised state of emergency (1975-76), during which she jailed her entire opposition, a country with six major religions, 9 major political parties, and 18 official languages has proved to be history's most remarkable example of robust but sometimes chaotic democratic government.

Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.  



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