Rahul Gandhi is completely mediocre, he should find another profession - Guha

[surajmal]

Not sure if serious ? :giggle:

In 2009 elections, congress unexpectedly won the urban vote, which is BJP's vote bank, giving it a majority in LS. Answer me this: Why did Kiran Bedi and Anna break ties with chewtiya Kejriwal? Since, with all the corruption scandals Congress doesn't expect to carry the urban vote this time around and with AAP being Urban India phenomenon only, Who gets screwed? Its BJP. Read We the People: A story of Gangland democracy by maloy krisha dhar (an Ex-IPS who worked in IB). He lays out, how every political movement since Independence has been either planned by congress or congress has found a way to take advantage of it in some way.

[1983-2011]

AAP is a congress proxy :hysterical::hysterical::hysterical: theres still 15 months left for elections and excuses already:cantstop:

[Lurker]

thanks for sharing. Is it just me or has Guha become a bit anti-Gandhi family in the last 1-2 years? Or maybe he has finally decided to use his writing skills to highlight the reality of the Kangress rather than being a loyal chamcha (as many other writers still are).

Not sure if he has become anti-Gandhi but I do think that he has started to write more historical essays than sports and social essays these days. You have to wonder if this has meant he is now studying history bit more and unravelling things and hence some of his positions have changed. Guha has some very flattering words for Nehru. He also has a lot of criticism for Nehru. And yet he never wavers from the fact that Nehru was one of our greatest sons. On the other hand he does not think of Indira Gandhi the same (he puts Kamladevi Chattopadhyay ahead of her). As for Rajiv, Sanjay and Rahul the less said the better. Guha is pretty scathing on how Gandhi dynasty was never the brainchild of Nehru. Nehru did not want it and was hardly bothered by it. But post Nehru his descendants have (mis)used India and that perhaps rankles him a bit. And it shows in his writings. By the way I did not know Nelson Mandela considered Nehru as his hero. Did you? :winky:

[seedhi]

This Guha guy sounds like he desperately wants to make love to amul baby, only to find him impotent ..

[diga]

Read somewhere that Guha had a lot of criticism for the 5 year plans.. He feels Nehru blundered by not investing in basic education for all, but invested in institutions like the IIT's which set us back massively.

[Lurker]

Read somewhere that Guha had a lot of criticism for the 5 year plans.. He feels Nehru blundered by not investing in basic education for all' date=' but invested in institutions like the IIT's which set us back massively.[/quote'] Not sure about the 5 year plans part. Nehru can be critricized for multiple reasons. And for the same reason someone else will celebrate him too. Setting up IIT/IIM is one of the best things we did for modern India. So much so that for the longest time we only had what we initially started with (5) and remained so for 30 plus years. Purely from high level education perspective I doubt we have too many landmarks in modern Indian history than can ravel IITs, and what they have done for India.

[diga]

Not sure about the 5 year plans part. Nehru can be critricized for multiple reasons. And for the same reason someone else will celebrate him too. Setting up IIT/IIM is one of the best things we did for modern India. So much so that for the longest time we only had what we initially started with (5) and remained so for 30 plus years. Purely from high level education perspective I doubt we have too many landmarks in modern Indian history than can ravel IITs, and what they have done for India.

Guha, I think doesnt doubt the quality or contributions of IIT's .. He only wanted Nehru to have given more emphasis on basic education. Many of the ills plaguing our country can be somewhat traced to the lack of education of more than 40% of our people

[Lurker]

Guha' date=' I think doesnt doubt the quality or contributions of IIT's ..[b'] He only wanted Nehru to have given more emphasis on basic education. Many of the ills plaguing our country can be somewhat traced to the lack of education of more than 40% of our people

It won't surprise me because Ramchandra Guha is a leftist. Depending on how you look at him, he understands Naxalism better than most OR gives excuses for the violence. And folks who understand Naxalism do complain about education and other basic rights that have not been provided for the people. That said, I will have to read the article to know where he was coming from in this case.

[Cevno]

Nehru should be criticised for the socialist Economic Policy that kept India poor for so long. But not for much else. He was crucial in keeping India together along with other congress leaders and also kept India secular and democracy intact. Look at what happened in Pak when Jinnah died and army took over.

[Cevno]

In 2009 elections, congress unexpectedly won the urban vote, which is BJP's vote bank, giving it a majority in LS. Answer me this: Why did Kiran Bedi and Anna break ties with chewtiya Kejriwal? Since, with all the corruption scandals Congress doesn't expect to carry the urban vote this time around and with AAP being Urban India phenomenon only, Who gets screwed? Its BJP. Read We the People: A story of Gangland democracy by maloy krisha dhar (an Ex-IPS who worked in IB). He lays out, how every political movement since Independence has been either planned by congress or congress has found a way to take advantage of it in some way.

Because Anna wanted to go with Ramdev and Brigade, and not want to enter electoral politics. While Bedi is known close to BJP. Just look at her twitter account and you'll find out. She will be LG of Delhi if BJP comes to power or maybe MP for them. And Urban vote has been never BJP's property. Urban population is changing with migration and what not, and the Hindu wave that led them to the BJP is gone. Now more and more people want governance and in that regard the image of Manmohan Singh was good upto 2009 + Economy was growing due to NDA reforms. Remember Advani attacked him for being weak and it backfired ? Yeah, it will be said true now but at that time his image was very good. People were posting his qualifications on Social media and boasting and what not. Advani just couldn't match up. Also, Kejriwal has attacked the congress most, played a huge part in creating anti congress mood and is a nuisance for them. How the hell are they supposed to be "helping" him or AAP ? It's like Digvijay Singh and you are 2 sides of same coin. :haha:

[coffee_rules]

Did we have the Hindu radicalism (or he calls it bigotry) problem all of a sudden in the 90s? So having a uniform civil code or eradicating article 316 means changing the constitution to become a hindu rashtra! I stopped reading after that.

[Lurker]

Nehru should be criticised for the socialist Economic Policy that kept India poor for so long. But not for much else. He was crucial in keeping India together along with other congress leaders and also kept India secular and democracy intact. Look at what happened in Pak when Jinnah died and army took over.

The jury is still out on that one. Yes it has been a little bit of fashion for past 20 years to lay the ills of Indian economy At Nehru. But after 20 odd years of Economic reforms is it as cut and dry as we make it out to be?? For example, India generally speaking is on the up but the chasm between rich and poor is growing at such an alarming rate that it can scare even the most optimistic ones. Did we miss a chance of coming up with our own Capitalism model instead of borrowing in totality the American model?? I would be cautious in chastising Nehru for the economic ills. Atleast he was original in thoughts, created policies with betterment of country in mind and laid the foundation of modern India. I will take that PM over everybody else that followed (except perhaps Shashtri-ji)

[Lurker]

Did we have the Hindu radicalism (or he calls it bigotry) problem all of a sudden in the 90s? So having a uniform civil code or eradicating article 316 means changing the constitution to become a hindu rashtra! I stopped reading after that.

Hindu radicalism is very much a phenomenon of late 80s and 90s. Stroked mainly by Shah Bano case LK Advani's rathyatra. There were little communal riots between 1947-70s and then post 2002 Gujarat. The riots have mainly happened in late 80s and throughout 90s. So yeah Hindu radicalism in 90s is not too far fetched. The interesting thing is that Hindu radicalism paved the way for BJP to come to the front. But after seeing that perhaps BJP is no different than any other party (I still think BJP is cleaner and lot less corrupt), its appeal dwindled and maybe thats one reason Hindu radicalism is also on the down these days.

[jairamesh]

I said there that when the next Republic Day awards were announced, the Government should give MF Hussain the Bharat Ratna and Salman Rushdie the Padma Vibhushan.

The government doesn't have the balls.

[Cevno]

The jury is still out on that one. Yes it has been a little bit of fashion for past 20 years to lay the ills of Indian economy At Nehru. But after 20 odd years of Economic reforms is it as cut and dry as we make it out to be?? For example, India generally speaking is on the up but the chasm between rich and poor is growing at such an alarming rate that it can scare even the most optimistic ones. Did we miss a chance of coming up with our own Capitalism model instead of borrowing in totality the American model?? I would be cautious in chastising Nehru for the economic ills. Atleast he was original in thoughts, created policies with betterment of country in mind and laid the foundation of modern India. I will take that PM over everybody else that followed (except perhaps Shashtri-ji)

Quick economic growth is always like that. It will take time to trickle down, but without growth their would be upliftment of poor anyway, whether it be through the infrastructure model or through the entitlement model. Either we can all be poor and equal or atleast let some be rich, which then increases the tax net and creates value and oppurtunities for others. Yeah, cronyism has distorted it but that cronyism again was fed into the system by the old model. In totality, Nehru's state controlled model was a disaster for India. There was no growth and country remained poor with the tax net small. You need to give people oppurtunities and incentives to work and grow in the marketplace and that gave none. Shastri before he died had indicated the will to reform, but sadly after he died till 1991 we followed that same model largely except for a few things Rajiv Gandhi did.

[Cevno]

Just look at what left front did in Bengal for example and type of debt they are in right now through rabid communism/socialism. You need growth for everybody to grow. No 2 ways about it.

[Lurker]

Quick economic growth is always like that. It will take time to trickle down, but without growth their would be upliftment of poor anyway, whether it be through the infrastructure model or through the entitlement model. Either we can all be poor and equal or atleast let some be rich, which then increases the tax net and creates value and oppurtunities for others. Yeah, cronyism has distorted it but that cronyism again was fed into the system by the old model.

Time is a factor that would be used by people who have made it in this economy. For those who have not, and continue to slip every single day, that is one thing they do not have. While I do not neccessarily disagree with your trickle theory, I have already mentioned I can see both sides of the argument, my question is why are you so quick to dismiss Nehru's economic policy for 17 years (47-64) when you can not defend the 20 plus years of modern liberal economy, and still need time?

[Cevno]

Time is a factor that would be used by people who have made it in this economy. For those who have not' date= and continue to slip every single day, that is one thing they do not have. While I do not neccessarily disagree with your trickle theory, I have already mentioned I can see both sides of the argument, my question is why are you so quick to dismiss Nehru's economic policy for 17 years (47-64) when you can not defend the 20 plus years of modern liberal economy, and still need time?

Eh ? Because we are better off than what we were 20 years ago and improving each year.... In 1991, India was close to defaulting loan payments and selling gold and despite only doing 1 and a half waves of structural reforms we are much better off as a country. Yeah, Congress has messed up the economy again but that's not down to reforms, but lack of it and their my baap policies where Rahul Baba and Sonia Madam can go to people and tell them, we have given you this and that for free. And with respect to the bolded part, these people would have stayed poor under the old policies too. It's just that those who have gotten out of that scenario would have still been there. Yeah, their would have been less disparity. But then there would have been less wealth. We need to reform some other areas and we can go much faster, still and bring others out of the poverty net too. And my reforms here i don't necessarily mean just FDI lol.

[jairamesh]

Eh ? Because we are better off than what we were 20 years ago and improving each year.... In 1991, India was close to defaulting loan payments and selling gold and despite only doing 1 and a half waves of structural reforms we are much better off as a country. Yeah, Congress has messed up the economy again but that's not down to reforms, but lack of it and their my baap policies where Rahul Baba and Sonia Madam can go to people and tell them, we have given you this and that for free. And with respect to the bolded part, these people would have stayed poor under the old policies too. It's just that those who have gotten out of that scenario would have still been there. Yeah, their would have been less disparity. But then there would have been less wealth. We need to reform some other areas and we can go much faster, still and bring others out of the poverty net too. And my reforms here i don't necessarily mean just FDI lol.

Agree here, An example of good reform would be abolishing massive tariffs on machinery. It cost a fortune to import for example an injection molding machine from China or Taiwan. Some policies are just retarded.

[Lurker]

Eh ? Because we are better off than what we were 20 years ago and improving each year.... In 1991, India was close to defaulting loan payments and selling gold and despite only doing 1 and a half waves of structural reforms we are much better off as a country. Yeah, Congress has messed up the economy again but that's not down to reforms, but lack of it and their my baap policies where Rahul Baba and Sonia Madam can go to people and tell them, we have given you this and that for free. And with respect to the bolded part, these people would have stayed poor under the old policies too. It's just that those who have gotten out of that scenario would have still been there. Yeah, their would have been less disparity. But then there would have been less wealth. We need to reform some other areas and we can go much faster, still and bring others out of the poverty net too. And my reforms here i don't necessarily mean just FDI lol.

You are mixing issues now. Nehru died in 1964, he is NOT responsible for India selling its gold in 1991. Blame it on the leaders who came after him. So back to my question now. Why are you still wanting more time after 20 plus years of Liberalization for trickle down to happen, when you have conviniently chastised Nehru who was in power for less than 17 years? And that when he managed in the same time frame to create National Institutions, Space Programs, National and International Policy, Communal Harmony yada yada.