1. PREAMBLE TO INDIA’s CONSTITUTION2. RELIGIOUS CONVERSIONS & RECONVERSIONS3.
FOREIGN SECRETARY REMOVED BY THE MODI GOVT WHAT THE UPA GOVT COULD/DID NOT DO4. POTUS ADVISE/ILL-ADVISE PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTIONThere is been a lot of hue and wail of a government published advert which does not have the words “socialists & secular”. The Congress party as usual is not missing the opportunity to frame the present government by ascribing an ulterior communal agenda for overlooking these words in the advert. However,what the Congress party should realize is that it should be extremely careful raising issues because it will only boomerang on a party known for its glaring omissions and commissions in its long rule since independence. The above two words were only introduced during the Emergency in 1976 when all civil rights of citizens were suspended by Indira Gandhi purely as a political ploy to keep out the opposition parties. India’s founding fathers who had framed the structure did not find the necessity to introduce these two words primarily because India in its more than 5000 years of civilization has been an extremely pluralistic free society and the entrepreneurial qualities of the individual appreciated and celebrated. The Congress party would be better advised to avoid targeting the government on this issue because much of the mud from the slinging contest would besmirch its own tattered reputation.
RELIGIOUS CONVERSIONS & RECONVERSIONSImpoverished groups in a country where even nowadays one fourth of the population are deemed to be below the poverty line are excellent catchment areas for proselytizing missionaries and groups with adequate funding from across borders often with adequate inducements and allurements. The so called secular governments and political parties have all had a convenient tendency to view absent from Hindu conversions as it suited their stated goal of minority vote banks and keeping the majority divided on caste and class lines. However, all this seems to be getting undone as increasing cases of majority Hindu groups converting Christians/Muslims to Hinduism under the guise of “Returning domestic”. This has no doubt generated a lot of heat and debate with many so called liberals claiming this as a threat to the secular fabric of India. This argument by its very nature is extremely specious and fallacious when in their world view conversions of Hindus are deemed to be secular in nature whereas conversions or reconversions to Hinduism is seen as being communal and as a result a blot on the present government. However, and there are not many takers for this argument since what is ‘conversions’ for the goose should be ‘conversions’ for the gander. FOREIGN SECRETARY REMOVED BY THE GOVERNMENT WHAT THE UPA GOVERNMENT COULD NOT/DID NOT DOIndia’s Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh has been sacked and has been replaced by Jaishankar India’s Ambassador to the United States who was supposed to retire on 31st January and hence the probable necessity for this action. However,in a separate news report it is said that Jaishankar was the first choice for Foreign Secretary of the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but was overruled by the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi because Sujatha Singh’s father former IB chief T V Rajeshwar was an old Congress loyalist [loyalty prevailing over merit, country be damned] . If this is precise then it once again confirms the compromises made by the former Prime Minister Singh possibly to hang on to officewhile the real power rested with the UPA chairperson who would lift all the crucial decisions. Manmohan Singh had famously said that history would judge him but with the administrative skeletons tumbling out of the UPA cupboard history definitely would not be at all kind to the former Prime Minister.
POTUS ADVICEBarack Obama’s supposed advice to Indians to avoid being divided along religious lines has definitely not gone well with a majority of the people. The US Prez it seems, and though highly unlikely,is probability not totally aware of India’s long history and ancient civilization and which is the domestic to at least four religions all of whom believe in non-violence and extreme tolerance for other faiths. India from time immemorial has been welcoming of other faiths from the time St. Thomas landed on Indian shores in the 2nd century or the first mosque in India in the 7th century was built on land gifted by a Hindu rulers. The alternative school of thought on the President’s so called advice suggests that he was in all probability addressing his domestic audience. Either way he seems he was ill advised, if it was not his own decision, and because from an Indian perspective it has been a hugely successful visit and this advise could definitely have been avoided in a land of enormous diversity,tolerance and mutual respect barring the odd skirmishes.
Source: cnn.com