George ji, You have invested lot of time and energy in sharing your views through this article.
We are gifted as human beings to seek out that, which supports our point of view, some are better at this skill than others.
I guess, you have a sense of grudge, dissatisfaction and pain about the ways adopted by RSS and BJP towards congress and its leaders, which is understandable.
I feel, there is much more to the whole story and you have overlooked lots of positives from RSS and BJP. There has been increase in confidence, self-esteem is enhanced, image of India on the world level has improved, economic yardsticks also present overall correct direction.
What works for nation is more important than the claim of a particular party on ideas and ideals.
Since, I got the link from you and it is published in the “The Indian Panorama’, after a cursory look to get the gist of your article, when I look at it again and read your words quoted in bold letter in the newspaper. Let me take the liberty of sharing my quick response.
If you study the history of BJP and RSS, contrary to your view ‘that the party sorely lacks icons and legacies’, there are many patriotic leaders with amazing understanding of Indian spirit.
You are painting the party as ’embarrassed by the lack of pedigree’.
I google the meaning of pedigree, it is a noun and two meanings that are given, one is ‘the record of descent of an animal, showing it to be purebred.’
I am sure, you are not referring to animals here, so here is the second meaning of pedigree, it says “the recorded ancestry, especially upper-class ancestry, of a person or family.”
Respected sir, we are working towards going beyond ‘lower and upper class’ confrontation and nowyou start ridiculing a whole party for not belonging to ‘upper-class’. What is upper class after all,going by the impressions created by Congress in India, there is only one dynasty, which has the rightful claim to belong to upper class.
Now, history is the history of India as a nation, do you aspire to divide the nation by ascribing partof the history to one party? Now, that tells us something about congress having lived on the legacyof freedom struggle though Gandhiji wanted it to be dissolved after independence.
If we start looking at the past and digging skeletons, it would affect the path of harmony and it would take away our focus from the development.
I see lot of passion in these words of yours, when you write ‘with unlimited resources at their disposal,they get hold of some hired hands that are ready to scan every nook and corner to find any missing comma and invisible gaps in crumpled pieces of history to recreate a story to fit their narrative’
Well, I don’t know how to respond, is there any fact in this sentence? It is your satire lacedperception and poetic expression of controlled anger.
As about me, the narrative that I see, is the narrative of a nation that wants to grow.
The narrative that I see is the eagerness of Indian youth to prove their mettle to the world.
The narrative has to go beyond party yet party provides a structure, the structure provided by Congress has not worked, if it was working, there was no need for such a massive change in the center.
Let us watch, how things shape up with this new promising structure.
You belong to Congress; I don’t belong to BJP or Congress. I belong to Bharat. It is important to mentionthis because disagreeing with you need not to be seen as my support for BJP or opposition of Congress.
We are on our quest and realization of truth with our own tools of perception.
I haven’t bothered to respond to the whole article but the spirit of it is captured by editor Prof Indrajit Saluja jiin the lines quoted with heading.
In the spirit of love for Bharat, I appreciate your article for stimulating my thought process and wishall of us grow in our understanding with openness.
(The author is a writer, poet and a host with ITV. He can be reached at insightashok@yahoo.com)