Has it ever struck you, common man, that we in India have stopped questioning some very basic issues which should occur to us with logical and biological precision on auto mode? Let me explain:
1) We all know that the Liberhan Report on Ayodhya demolition was leaked to the Indian Express and NDTV who naturally expectedly propagated the same with kinetic vigour. Shouldn’t the government, parliament , media, opposition parties, public etc find out who actually did it? Where? Why? When? What for? Why not the HT, Dainik Bhaskar or TOI? Why not CNN-IBN , Aaj Tak or Times Now? Who benefited by the planned expose ? What was the real motive? How can one pretend to be callously indifferent on an issue that has since resulted in unprecedented disruption of parliamentary proceedings post-leak ?
The Indian Express , in fact, categorically stated that it was “Home Ministry sources”. If so, they do know who was the surreptitious bureaucrat. Did it have the Home Minister’s blessings? Were various parties working in coherence?
In fact, all it takes is a subpoena from the court to get to the bottom of the fact. But who is going to bell the cat?
I think the “ leak” deserves a serious investigation as it is fast becoming standard operating procedure in our country.
Even the Ram Pradhan report on 26/11 has been allegedly “ leaked”. Why ? Are there deals between certain media houses and the purported conspirators? Does anyone care to find out? Till today we have no idea about what really transpired in the cash-for-votes scam in parliament where the BJP was rumoredly hand-in-glove with CNN-IBN; I think the public has a right to that disclosure. RTI anyone? PIL maybe?
2) All the TV channels , in particular, have failed to focus on the key element of the entire debate ; why is the ATR so remarkably insipid ? I hope the Congress is not relying on some old-fogy advice that by taking serious action in the ATR it will bring Ayodhya center-stage and give BJP an electoral plank on a silver platter to queer the pitch in the upcoming UP assembly elections and may be even 2014. It may be a fallacious assumption and a glaring lapse ; remember the raison d’etre of BJPs existence is the Ayodhya temple objective anyway. The BJP will continue to raise the temple issue at sporadic intervals to keep it’s vote-bank in a tight grasp and to accumulate sundry disaffected elements in its fold on the emotive issue. In fact, I believe that by allowing the ATR to look so squeamish the Congress has allowed the BJP to ridicule the Liberhan Report, and worse, focus all the damaging repercussions on to their own PV Narasimha Rao. I was astonished to see Salman Khurshid painstakingly state that Atal Behari Vajpayee is not “technically indicted” by the Report. That was Chandan Mitra’s job and not his. Worse, the BJP public relations machinery found a bonanza to whip in the over-the-top Beni Prasad Verma. Look at the consequent irony; the highlight of the parliamentary debate which should have been the universal condemnation of the Sangh Parivar and the BJP for the disruptive Babri demolition instead had India’s Prime Minister apologizing to the BJP for the indiscretions of a Congress MP. In simple terms, we have seen a catastrophic collapse of the Congress in failing to check-mate the BJP for it’s blatant disregard of India’s secular character.
3) On Telengana, frankly, the Congress has blown away a tactical political opportunity to seize initiative by being characteristically reactive . Frankly, the writing was always on the wall since 2004 when it was publicly stated by the Congress-TRS ( who fought the elections together ) that they supported the formation of Telangana state. By allowing one man’s fast unto death to catapult the government to it’s knees so dramatically reflects poorly on our great Indian democracy no matter how legitimate the demand. Once gain, Congress continues to lose extraordinary ground on account of it’s abysmal low-levels of pro-activity.
It must be getting chilly cold in Delhi for Congress spokespeople at the moment.
mridusmita
February 27, 2010
sir, u have rightly questioned,the people of india as to who is interested to question and know how such important and official secrets get leaked. we understand the public have the right to know things under the constitution but it should also have some minimum respect to the law. if the report was leaked, categorically to national newspaper n TV channel but why so? we all should have the courage and reasoning power to exercise our rights given to us by law that is through the RTI act. i think there is still some time that the indian public will become more aware of it and start questioning the system.