12/21/1922: Justice Pierce Butler takes oath. The post Today in Supreme
Court History: December 21, 1922 appeared first on Reason.com.
The return of the fragrance of jasmine of India.
“I am alive today, I may not be there tomorrow. I shall continue to serve till my last breath and when I die every drop of my blood will strengthen India and keep a united India alive.” Indira Gandhi.
No one had called Indira Gandhi
the jasmine of India. But just when the
ideal of a United India which she nurtured, toiled a lifetime and eventually gave
her life for seems to be falling apart,
there is some refreshing fragrance of
hope emanating from Indira’s own flesh and blood.
It is as if Indira Gandhi, who had
made millions feel immensely proud to be Indian while she was alive, has cast a
spell on her grant daughter Priyanka Gandhi. A magical yet mesmerising spell
which even Priyanka seems to be unaware of, something only those who lived in the
times of Indira can discern.
Such is the simplicity of a few words
she spoke recently, manner and mannerism with which she has delivered them, the
confidence she has exuded while delivering them and the immense destructive
power with which they have destroyed the fake facade she had hit them with, all
reminiscent of her grant mother, that one may be excused to indulge in spells
and charms and nostalgic glory of India.
The North South Divide of India Narendra Modi Can Bring Back.
Everyone agrees that the self
appointed next Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, is a fragmenting
character. Did the US Ambassador to India, Nancy Powell see the writings on the
wall and decided to throw in the towel because Washington won’t see?
Can the United States and the
rest of the world, already beleaguered by a divisive and aggressive Putin in
Europe, deal with a North South divide of a strong India, a guarantee against aggressive
China, on top of all other kinds of splintering Narendra Modi seems to have
abetted so far?
To list out the divisions Modi
has achieved so far, critics can point out his hype of Gujarat Model
Development, his professed Urban support base, his orchestrated cyber follower
base, the blind admiration of young techies he has mustered and numerous other
factors which the rest of India lack, as Modi’s own versus the rest of India
which divide the fabric of India in some
undesirable way.
“Give me three hundred seats and I will empower
the nation” Narendra Modi , who has so
far been refused a US visa on account of his role in 2002 religious riots in
Gujarat, has stated in a pre election speech.
Why Does Its Manifesto Make Not Just the BJP but Everyone Else Too So Nervous?
BJP has finally released a
Manifesto on the election day. The Congress party and others have questioned
the delay and BJP has come with enough plausible explanations which have been
ridiculed by various opponents.
As one congress leader put it, If
the BJP can’t take out a Manifesto in time how are they going to manage the
country’s affairs?
But the real reason for the BJP to be so defensive
and nervous about publishing its manifesto well before the start of the
election instead of putting it off till the last moment is in the Manifesto
itself.
Perhaps the simplest of
explanation is that with the reference to Ayodhya and Article 370, the BJP Manifesto
resembles the proverbial Wolf in Sheep’s clothing.
The BJP was not sure if, for the
one billion voters of India, it will look anything but a dressed up version of
the old wolf they have shunned twice. The party obviously didn’t want to scare
them away by the inevitable media exposure, scrutiny and debate the Manifesto
would have generated in the crucial weeks before the election.
Can India’s Antony Be Its Next Dark Horse Prime Minister?
Let me say this, I barely know
A.K Antony except that we both hail from ‘God’s Own Country’, the little piece
of beautiful land on the tip of the Indian Peninsula, the marvellous beauty of
which is preserved by its anti development politics.
Not a political analysts by any
stretch of Imagination; for that matter not even someone who lives anymore in
the country, there are no pretences of erudition either in this. As a common
man whose eyes and ears are not shut to the abundance of information incessantly
pouring on to the a screen in front of me, I simply exert my fundamental right
to venture a wild guess of my own.
In fact It is Antony’s own words
during a recent campaign which points to this inevitability.
Criticising the Marxist Communist Party, his main political
opposition in Kerala, Antony has predicted that the CPM will be forced to
support the UPA , the ruling alliance to form the next government, as they did in
2004.
The CPM has not only vehemently denied this, but is
strongly harping on the wishful idea of a “Third Font”, a political salad bowl
of nuts, leaves and weeds, hardly palatable to the Indian masses.
Indians are fed up such exotic
diet, meted out to them by several coalitions who only unite to fight and
wither away in the past, lacking common ideology, purpose or will to govern.
The current “Third Front” so far
remains merely as a photo session, with raised and clutched hands of as many
leaders of regional parties as the number of those who want to be the Prime
Minister of India, which has become a ridiculous icon of the fast crumbling
idea of the Union of India.
Nevertheless, manifestation of a political Phobia against the Bharathiya
Janata Party, which has unite the
scattered opposition in the past, is in its highest pitch this time, thanks to
a brazen and aggressive campaign of BJP’s self appointed prime ministerial
candidate Modi himself.
If this manifested in the
previous two elections as a force to prevent the BJP, a party with a hidden Hindutwa
agenda to push minorities to second class, this time it is working as a formidable
force to prevent a dictatorial Modi from grabbing the Prime Ministerial chair
of India.
Abetted by such concerns within
the country’s minorities and even within the BJP itself, various anti Modi
campaigns by various forces, especially by
the newly formed Aam Admi Party of Arvind Kejeriwal, can end up with the Third
Front grabbing a significant number of
parliamentary seats, despite various opinion polls predicting otherwise.
Moreover, the gap between the
results of opinion polls and political reality in Indian parliamentary election
(different from the state elections influenced by local and regional forces), could
be wider, given the massive financial influence exerted on the Indian media
ahead of this year’s election.
All these factors can add up to a
situation quite similar to 2004, as being claimed by Antony, perhaps less rosier
than what is hoped by Rahul Gandhi, his party’s vice president and its potential
nominee for the position of the Prime Minister.
Given the extreme and publicised
ambitions of each of the leaders of the Third Front to become the PM, it is
unlikely that they can agree upon one, especially if the combined strength is
likely to be less than that of the UPA.
It will also be not entirely unrealistic to
expect the two lady Chief Ministers to
keep themselves out of the front, certainly due to the presence of their arch
enemies and in any case as none of their male counterparts will concede them the
coveted position of the Prime Minister.
In such a scenario, the combined
determination of everyone to Keep Modi
out of power, for the good of the nation and their own political survival can crystallise
in to a support of Sonia Gandhi’s UPA in forming the next government.
Rahul Gandhi, the vice president
of the Congress Party is will be , at
best a very reluctant Prime Minister, who will much prefer to be its ideologist
and party builder till at least another election.
In any case, Rahul Gandhi, who
has taken the brunt of the political rhetoric and criticism from each of the
leaders of the Front, (Remember Amul Baby?) is not someone, the elderly Prime
Ministerial aspirants of the front will accept without some heart burn and loss
of face.
That is where A K Antony and his
stature within the party and his consensus building talents will come to the
aid of all Modi haters, perhaps as a silver lining on the dark clouds the next
election threaten to bring over the great nation of India.
If that happens, the leaders of
the CPM which Antony NOW says will have no choice but to support the UPA, will be more than happy to support him, even
forgetting the party ideology.
Many of them, after all, are his compatriots from God’s Own Country.
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