A Good Idea

 

Left, Right or Centre – why does Indian polity derive inspiration from the gutters of Western polity?

Winston Churchill

Ramachandra Guha correctly castigates, Indian Right and Left for adoring dubious Western (ized) leaders of the Right (Hitler, Mussolini) and Left (Stalin, Mao).

The Indian Marxists’s admiration of foreign dictators is a curious thing indeed. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is the only party in the world which still worships Stalin, putting up his portrait alongside those of Marx, Engels and Lenin in their annual congresses. Yet the party has long ago abandoned armed struggle, and is happy enough to participate in the routine processes of Indian democracy.

Admittedly, hypocrisy of another kind is practised by parties of the Indian right. The founders of what is now the Bharatiya Janata Party were fervent admirers of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. And Bal Thackeray admires those fellows still.

via BIG BROTHER FASCINATION | BY RAMACHANDRA GUHA | Editorial – The Telegraph.

But, why does Ramachandra Guha ignore Centrist-India’s adoration of  Anglo-Saxon polity in US and UK?

Why don’t we abhor Centrist monsters like Churchill who made Bengal into a huge gulag that ended with the death of some 4-5 million Indians, in the Great Bengal Famine. Churchill faulted Indians for the famine, because Indians ‘breed like rabbits?’ All this, while Indian grain was diverted for British soldiers.

Or why do we turn a blind eye to the modern American gulag, where each year, some 2 crore Americans (mostly Blacks) are prosecuted, imprisoned, are either on probation or parole. Supervised by 1 million civilian police, 3 million secret police, supervised by 2 million industrial police. This is more victims than the rest of the world combined. Or a bigger police force than the next 10 biggest police forces of the world combined.

Central to this discussion on the merits of Left, Right and Centre, is the fact that there is little difference in the outcome.

The Left, Right and Centre have similar outcomes – the same over-important role of the State; the identical concentration of wealth; the typical reliance on fear (imprisonment; execution) to control the citizenry.

The only system that offers an alternative is भारत्तंत्र Bharattantra.

Extract from: Modern South Asia: History, Culture and Political Economy – Sugata Bose – Google Books on 2012-09-23 15-33-44′ | Page 124. Click for source at books.google.co.in

When asked by a reporter, what he thought of the Western Civilization, Gandhiji replied ‘It would be a good idea.’

While Rajaji went galloping after American style capitalism, Nehru was besotted with European-socialism. It was left to Gandhiji alone to talk of panchayati raj and Ram rajya. Congress in free India was an idea that worried Gandhiji – and he called for a meeting to discuss this. But before this idea could be discussed at the proposed Wardha meeting, Gandhiji was assassinated.

Is this short Indian memory – or great Western propaganda?

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Nehru & Gandhiji

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