Why Signora Sonia as PM?
Some in India, mainly Hindu nationalist and other opposition groups with strong nationalism roots are opposing Sonia Gandhi's becoming India's next Prime Minister. Tavleen Singh writes, "Personally, I have no objection to Mr Gandhi and Mrs Vadra. They are Indian and as entitled as any other son or daughter of a politician to inherit Daddy’s jagir. My problem is that as an Indian it offends me to be represented by an Italian woman. It arouses in me the worst kind of chauvinistic nationalism and there are millions of Indians who feel as I do and who believe that if Sonia had even minimum respect (forget love) for India she would not have humiliated us by putting herself forward as prime minister."
Mr. Singh's logic is mired with illogical nationalism assertion. His narrow minded wishes does not conform with democracy.
In a democratic nation, a person like Sonia Gandhi, who has been residing there for more than 40 years, an Indian citizen, why would her foreign birth be an issue at all? Mr. Singh claims that "Even people who voted Congress now say they would not have done if they had known she had half a chance of becoming prime minister." -- but he does not provide any evidence backing up his claim.
It is true that BJP's fundamentalist units are restless, angry due to their humiliating defeat. Mr. Singh writes, "More dangerous still are the murmurings that you already hear from Hindutva nationalists. On the day of the election results, I happened to travel on a flight with a leading light of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. When I asked how he reacted to India having an Italian prime minister he spat out the word democracy as if it was poison. ‘‘This is what comes when you give illiterate, desperately poor people the vote.’’ And, from Pravin Togadia we already hear that it is because the BJP moved away from its Hindu nationalism that it was defeated."
Togadia type of extremist would never get satisfied from democracy's verdict, all he and his groups wants is to set up an autocratic Indian nation governed by a selected few unrepresentative of the Indian population. His views are extreme and thus he and others were rejected in this election.
Arundhati Roy, the prolific Booker Prize winner Indian writer describes it like the following: "You have bloodthirsty people like (Shiv Sena leader) Bal Thackeray and Modi and had on the opposite end a person who was just the antithesis of everything. And yet even still, people preferred that to them. I must say perversely I even like the idea that having run this absolutely venal campaign against her personally as a 'foreigner', people ignored it. Especially coming from this country and from Gujarat - Gujaratis in England are fighting to be called English, all over the world Indians are demanding citizenship. So how can you behave in such a jingoistic manner here?"
Also regarding the news of Indian stock market's volatile session, she says, "It's almost like a set-up," Roy said. "It's as though you're mocking the electorate and bludgeoning this government by saying, 'Are you aware that the Sensex has fallen? Are you going to pull back on reforms?' So they're forced to say no. It's a blatant game. If you look at the television coverage, I keep on seeing them calling people from the stock market. But I haven't seen one farmer asked, 'Why did you vote for this government?' The kind of inequality between rural and urban areas was higher than it has been in the past 50 years or more, and obviously it was a vote to change those economic policies which the corporate world including the corporate media simply doesn't want to see".
Some in India, mainly Hindu nationalist and other opposition groups with strong nationalism roots are opposing Sonia Gandhi's becoming India's next Prime Minister. Tavleen Singh writes, "Personally, I have no objection to Mr Gandhi and Mrs Vadra. They are Indian and as entitled as any other son or daughter of a politician to inherit Daddy’s jagir. My problem is that as an Indian it offends me to be represented by an Italian woman. It arouses in me the worst kind of chauvinistic nationalism and there are millions of Indians who feel as I do and who believe that if Sonia had even minimum respect (forget love) for India she would not have humiliated us by putting herself forward as prime minister."
Mr. Singh's logic is mired with illogical nationalism assertion. His narrow minded wishes does not conform with democracy.
In a democratic nation, a person like Sonia Gandhi, who has been residing there for more than 40 years, an Indian citizen, why would her foreign birth be an issue at all? Mr. Singh claims that "Even people who voted Congress now say they would not have done if they had known she had half a chance of becoming prime minister." -- but he does not provide any evidence backing up his claim.
It is true that BJP's fundamentalist units are restless, angry due to their humiliating defeat. Mr. Singh writes, "More dangerous still are the murmurings that you already hear from Hindutva nationalists. On the day of the election results, I happened to travel on a flight with a leading light of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. When I asked how he reacted to India having an Italian prime minister he spat out the word democracy as if it was poison. ‘‘This is what comes when you give illiterate, desperately poor people the vote.’’ And, from Pravin Togadia we already hear that it is because the BJP moved away from its Hindu nationalism that it was defeated."
Togadia type of extremist would never get satisfied from democracy's verdict, all he and his groups wants is to set up an autocratic Indian nation governed by a selected few unrepresentative of the Indian population. His views are extreme and thus he and others were rejected in this election.
Arundhati Roy, the prolific Booker Prize winner Indian writer describes it like the following: "You have bloodthirsty people like (Shiv Sena leader) Bal Thackeray and Modi and had on the opposite end a person who was just the antithesis of everything. And yet even still, people preferred that to them. I must say perversely I even like the idea that having run this absolutely venal campaign against her personally as a 'foreigner', people ignored it. Especially coming from this country and from Gujarat - Gujaratis in England are fighting to be called English, all over the world Indians are demanding citizenship. So how can you behave in such a jingoistic manner here?"
Also regarding the news of Indian stock market's volatile session, she says, "It's almost like a set-up," Roy said. "It's as though you're mocking the electorate and bludgeoning this government by saying, 'Are you aware that the Sensex has fallen? Are you going to pull back on reforms?' So they're forced to say no. It's a blatant game. If you look at the television coverage, I keep on seeing them calling people from the stock market. But I haven't seen one farmer asked, 'Why did you vote for this government?' The kind of inequality between rural and urban areas was higher than it has been in the past 50 years or more, and obviously it was a vote to change those economic policies which the corporate world including the corporate media simply doesn't want to see".
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