The Houston event is over. Cheerleaders are still debating the outcome of it and how it has ‘influenced’ America that no other Indian PM could have done so. Of-course, when the leader of the House of Representative spoke about the vision of India that has a shared understanding with that of America, of a liberal, plural and secular society based on the ideals of Gandhi as espoused by Nehru and quoted Nehru’s famous Tryst with Destiny speech, the cheerleaders were shocked. The face of the Supreme leader watching the American leader speaking so eloquently about idea of India as espoused by Gandhi and Nehru, the Supreme leader was in complete shock.
Anyway, the bhakts were there in huge number and the entire event was sponsored by the big corporate of the United States who will squeeze much bigger profit from India than what they invested in this event. The problem with the short sighted approach is that they do not accept that India was not built in a day. Just a look at the videos of those years, a when India was just a new nation, independent from colonial power and did not have these NRIs to influence, Nehru had already impressed the world leaders. One could see President Kennedy receiving Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru at the airport unlike the junior Minister or Foreign Ministry officials who do this work today. The rousing reception to Nehru in the White House as well as as in the American Congress showed how America looked at India those years which could be called formative years of Indian democracy. Every political leader has weaknesses and definitely Nehru can not be called as blameless but to vilify him all the time and attempt to obliterate his memory will boomerang. The International audience will remind us of the great work that they did which differentiated India from all those countries where the powerful heroes of anti colonial struggle became dictatorial and took benefit of their unprecedented popularity. Nehru could have done that by the middle of fifties when all his contemporaries had gone. But despite that if he ensured that we remain a liberal secular democracy then the credit must go to him.
Yesterday’s event was also marked an unprofessional way, I would say. Donald Trump or any Western leader during the time of political campaign would love to use the platform for their political benefit. We are sure, American Indian are different than the Hindu Americans who have now become the most vulgar face of the Hindutva’s hate campaign and Islalmophobia world over. Using the Kashmiri Pandit bogey, if the establishment want to justify of what they have done in Kashmir valley then it wont work. After jailing all the political leaders of the valley, the Supreme leaders want to tell us that they know what is good for ‘Kashmir’ without speaking to Kashmiris. Yes, they can now say that a few disgruntled Bollywood directors and actors are Kashmiris who have already joined the cheerleaders of the saffron brigade.
Now, the political immaturity was at its best to seek vote for President Trump. How can a sitting prime minister do that in another country. Diplomatically, it is wrong and send absolutely wrong signal but then Americans are still a far superior democracy than us and they will look at it. In case of the defeat of Donald Trump, it would become much more difficult for our foreign Ministry to justify such acts.
And how can Indian American support such a leader who is anti immigrant and who is calling America for Americans’ basically a slogan of white supremacists. But it look that these worshipers of Donald Trump feel that they would be safe because Trump is actually targeting the Muslims and not the Hindus. Let us hope how it goes. Yesterday, an American NRI tweeted that why are the left liberals hating them. It was a big joke, why should we hate any one. Hatred is in their minds who want the best of liberal democracy in the west, enjoy their liberalism, minority rights, human rights, diversity but back home want to support a regressive regime. Also, this love for India is nothing because they only want to enjoy weakening rupee and invest in property market so that time and again they can colonise this country by living in their safe heavens of the West. None of them would ever want to leave United States, Canada or Europe to settle in the dirty lanes of Varanasi to get ‘spiritual’ satisfaction. Their spiritual satisfaction is not possible without a green card or an American passport.
It is the duty of all Indians who enjoy the liberal democracies of the west to support and promote those liberal values of tolerance , embrace equality and treat human being as equal but do they do it. No, Indians and particularly these bhakt variety take their caste along with them. So caste has traveled to America, Canada, UK, we well as in Africa. Gujaratis, Punjabis, Bengalis, North Indians, Tamils, Telugus, Malayalis all have one common quality and that is they love their castes too much, There has been no attempt to remove that. In fact, the modern day Hindu intellectuals in the west have used the western liberalism for hiding the dirty facts about caste system and blamed it on the colonial power though many of their ‘intellectuals’ in India blame it on Mughal rule as if Manu-Smriti was written or prescribed by them.
After the Houston show of strength, President Trump has again spoken of Narendra Modi’s ‘aggressive’ tone and would be happy to be ‘mediator’ if both India and Pakistan want it. The fact is Kashmir issue has been internationalised otherwise there was no need to speak about it at the international gatherings but when we speak it in Jumlebazi then it wont work in longer term. Not every one globally will take these whatsapp gyan and challenges as seriously as the bhakts think off. I can say firmly that American Establishment want to intervene in Kashmir and it will be difficult to keep aside their pressure.
It is time for government to focus on good governance whether in India or Kashmir. All slogans and claims on Kashmir will be just of no value if the political leadership of the state is not taken into confidence and government show and this restrictions are lifted. It will be a hugely difficult task and if the government think they can develop the new leadership by discrediting the current political leadership then that model too will fail. The solution to all these issues will ultimately come from political negotiations in which both the sides will have to show flexibility and should have faith in it. As it is the government which acted unilaterally on Kashmir, the onus is on it to start the peace process.
