geeta

THIS WILL MAKE YOU STOP AND THINK!!!

CELL PHONE vs. GITA

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Gita like we treat our cellphone? What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets? What if we flipped through it several times a day? What if we turned back to go get it if we forget it? What if we used it to receive messages from the text? What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it? What if we gave it to Kids as gifts? What if we used it when we traveled? What if we used it in case of emergency? This is something to make you go....hmm...where is my Gita? Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cell phone, we don't have to worry about our Gita being disconnected because Krishna already paid the bill. Makes you stop and think 'where are my priorities? And no dropped calls!

MESSAGE OF BHAGAVAT GITA
· Bhagavan Krishna said to Arjuna: - Arise, Awake and Fight, ever remembering Me. Win glory, and enjoy prosperity and well-being here and hereafter.
· Do not yield to unmanliness. That is not becoming of you.
· Constantly endeavour to uplift yourself by yourself; then you are your own friend. Otherwise you are your own enemy.
· I am the Lord, abiding in every heart. I pervade the entire universe. There is nothing other than me.
· Every one, every thing is knit together by Me as the thread that makes a garland. Therefore you are all inter- related and inter-dependent.
· So by cooperating with each other and nourishing each other, caring and sharing, you must attain highest and everlasting good and glory.
· Work, Work, Work. To work alone you have the right and privilege. None can remain without doing work, according to his nature. Work will bear fruit according to the law of karma, which is a manifestation of God. Therefore, when it comes, accept it as His Prasad, with cheer and equanimity.
· Go on working for the welfare of the world, according to your swadharma, which is maintaining harmony in the family, society and the world on the basis of dharma. That will also promote collective evolution to the divine Goal.
· That kind of dispassionate work, done well, with sraddha and without agitation is our sadhana, your worship of the all-pervading God. I accept it and reward you, both in your material and spiritual life.
None of my devotees ever perishes. I take care of his/her well-being. This is My unfailing assurance.
· My devotee is the instrument through whom I execute my work.
· Practice moderation in everything – eating, sleeping, relaxing and working. That is real Yoga. Be ever united with Me in your thought and do your duty, as if it is My work. You will attain your goal.
· Ponder deeply over what I said and choose your course of action.

Sanjaya said:
· Where there is Bhagavan Krishna – The Master of Yoga and Arjuna- The heroic man of action, there will be wealth, victory, glory and true justice – That is my clear knowledge.

OM TAT SAT

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karntk result

Invisible after defeat Monday June 16 2008 12:36 IST
S GurumurthyThe Karnataka polls outcome is not a replay of Gujarat for the BJP. For the Congress, it is, but with a difference. The response of the Congress party to the Karnataka result was precisely the same as when the Gujarat results were out. In both cases, with the top leadership running away from owning defeats, the party had to begin a desperate search to identify a proxy loser from within to save the real losers! As the Karnataka results started trickling in, it was clear that the BJP was in the lead from the word go, as in Gujarat. The BJP won Gujarat then and Karnataka now. Yes, in electoral terms, the BJP is forming the government in Karnataka, as it did in Gujarat six months earlier. Yet it was no repeat of Gujarat where the BJP won handsomely in numbers and more differently, in quality.In Gujarat it was more than just a win or lose situation for both Congress and BJP. Sure of victory, Sonia Gandhi had pitted herself against Modi, by taking on Modi personally, characterising him as a 'merchant of death'. More. The 'secular' media had predicted and even worked for Modi's defeat. Some of Modi's former friends prayed and obliquely, why even openly,worked with Sonia's party for his defeat. Encouraged by them and convinced that Modi was gone, the Congress party was eagerly awaiting the results with tons of crackers to celebrate 'secular' Sonia's victory over 'communal' Modi. But when the results came, it needed no seer to identify who the winner was, and who the loser. The victory doubtless belonged to Modi, who gracefully credited it to the party.But, with Sonia Gandhi running away from owning defeat, the Congress became desperate. Since the emergence of a victor implies the existence of a loser, the party had to find a proxy loser to save the real loser Sonia from ignominy. Its search yielded one Bharat Solanki, the little known state Congress president of the party, as the scapegoat. He came on television not only to own up to defeat, but also to certify that 'the central party leadership' read Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi was no way responsible for it. Imagine Modi had lost and the Congress had won, would Sonia have shared the honour with anyone else? Would poor Solanki have been seen anywhere near the TV cameras?Now come to Karnataka. The state was also the first testing ground to measure the electoral worth of the 'flagship schemes' the Rs 50,000 crore National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and the Rs 60,000 crore farm loan waiver. Additionally, like in Gujarat, in Karnataka too the Congress offered the bribe of free colour TV sets to voters. Despite being an ally of the DMK,which successfully bribed voters in Tamil Nadu with colour TV sets, the Congress had no luck with TV sets bribe offers. In Gujarat,when Narendra Modi was asked how he would match the colour TV offer of the Congress, he stunningly replied that, if elected, he would send notices to tax evaders! Gujaratis rejected the colour TV bribe and overwhelmingly voted for the man who wished to send compliance notices to tax dodgers! Thus, besides NREGS and the farm loan waiver, colour TV sets too failed to fetch votes for the Congress. As in Gujarat, so in Karnataka. And what did Rahul Gandhi, who substituted for Sonia in Karnataka, deliver?Rahul got for the Congress in Karnataka what Sonia secured for the party in Gujarat. In Gujarat and earlier in UP, Rahul had campaigned as the Youth Congress leader. Ahead of the Karnataka polls he had become the general secretary of the party, the most powerful one. Some in the party had even proclaimed him as the future Prime Minister. He began a 'Discover India' tour of the country. Rahul Gandhi's Karnataka leg of that tour for five days in March 2008 became the launch pad for the Congress election campaign, claimed the media. Rahul Gandhi was accompanied by an army of media men. They waxed lyrical on how he was repeatedly breaching security to 'connect' with the people. They also brought out his human side and wrote about how he spent his nights in Dalit and Scheduled Tribe homes in Karnataka. See what the party got from him in the end. In Karnataka, out of the 36 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes, the Congress got six yes just six. The BJP, which the media projects as not so friendly to Dalits, got twentyone yes, 21!In Gadag and Bagalkot districts where Rahul campaigned, the Congress did not get a single seat. In Hubli-Dharwad districts, that were on his campaign trail, the party just got one and in Bijapur where also he went, it got three out of eight. Yet the defeat, either in the places he visited or in Karnataka as a whole, cannot be Rahul's.It is the party's but not the central party's because that would take the defeat close to the Gandhis! S M Krishna, who gave up his comfortable job as Governor of Maharashtra to lead the Congress in the state and was promptly marginalised, finally owned up to the defeat. And like Bharat Solanki, he certified that the central party read Rahul in addition to Sonia was not responsible for the defeat!Thus, whether it is the election in Bihar or UP, Himachal or Uttaranchal, Gujarat or Karnataka, victors who belonged to the BJP, the BSP or the JD (U) were known. But in each of these states where the Congress lost, proxies had to be invented as losers to hook the blame on. The reason is self-evident. Sonia or Rahul can only own success and victory. Defeats thus became orphans. The party runs an informal orphanage which owns up the orphans 'namely, failures and defeats' deserted by the leadership. Bharat Solankis and S M Krishnas become their caretakers. The philosophy of the party is clear. Victories belong to 10 Janpath, where the Gandhis reside. Defeats are hooked on the branch managers of the party so that the Gandhis remain invincible.Compare them, who run away from defeat, with the leaders of the BJP, the main adversary of the Congress. When the BJP was reduced to just two seats in 1984 the whole party owned the defeat.It rebuilt itself, in less than a decade, into a victorious party. The reason why it could do needs no discourse. The party owned up the defeat and so did its leaders, who became united in defeat. Look at the DMK or AIADMK. Neither Karunanidhi nor Jayalalithaa would refuse to own up the party's defeat as theirs. It is equally true of a Mulayam or Laloo. They have all owned up and worked to win again and won.Look at the record of Sonia's own party, the Congress. Indira Gandhi owned her defeat in 1977 and Rajiv Gandhi his in 1989. But, did Sonia ever own the moral responsibility for party's defeat in 1999 Lok Sabha elections or in the different Assembly elections? No. After every defeat the invincible Gandhis become invisible.QED: Leaders, who rush to accept garlands of victory and run away when defeated, are non-leaders. And precisely such nonleaders profess to lead the nation today.

मुस्लिम इंडियन

Renaming ‘Muslim Indian’ Tuesday August 7 2007 13:32 IST
S GURUMURTHY
An interesting story and instructive too. Kafeel Ahmed, an Islamist Jihadi - who, along with his brother, Dr Sabeel Ahmed, planned to blow up the Glasgow airport - has succumbed to the burns he inflicted on himself to do what he intended to but fortunately failed to.Indians, particularly Muslims among them, are rightly indignant that the two Bangaloreans have trashed the reputation of Indians as peace-loving people and also added the Muslims in India to the list of global terror suspects and Al-Qaeda sympathisers. Yes, for their acts which have done irreversible damage to Muslims in India and outside as much as to Indians and India, they are rightly demonised. But without sounding perverse, can it be said that what they have done has also the potential to do good to India, to its Muslims? How? Read on.First, to partition India and its people, Mohammed Ali Jinnah divided the people who were just Indians into ‘Indians’ and ‘Muslims’ and got Pakistan exclusively for Muslims who refused to be Indians, leaving the mainland India as the motherland for the rest of Indians including Muslims. So, at the dawn of freedom, it was Pakistan for Muslims and India for Indians. Next, post-freedom, national political leaders divided Indians into vote banks, classified them according to their faith and identified an Indian national who was a Muslim as ‘Indian Muslim’. Third, thanks to communal and votebank politics that began eroding the nationalist sentiments built during freedom struggle, the religious identity of a Muslim in India was, in post-Partition India, becoming more and more emphatic than his identity as an Indian. Fourth, with this designed trend deepening, Islamist leaders who were driving this trend, would not tolerate the religious identity of a Muslim appearing next in order after his national identity as an Indian.They insisted that a Muslim in India was a Muslim first and then an Indian! That is to say he was not just an ‘Indian’ or ‘Indian Muslim’, but a ‘Muslim Indian’. So from ‘Indian’ to ‘Indian Muslim’ to ‘Muslim Indian’ - the design was clearly to distance the Muslim from India to integrate him in global Islam.The Islamist leader who expounded why the Muslim in India was not an ‘Indian Muslim’ but ‘Muslim Indian’ was not an Islam-centric Imam or Mulla like the ones who lead the Talibans for instance. He was Syed Shahabuddin, a well-educated, ex-diplamat with global experience. Atal Behari Vajpayee as the foreign minister in the Janata Government in 1977 had become so fond of Shahabuddin, that the diplomat was inspired to quit service, enter politics. But, soon he began articulating Islamic politics, turned an Islamic leader in early 1980s, nevertheless being in a secular party! He detested the fact that the identity ‘Indian Muslim’ places the religious identity of ‘Muslim’ behind and lower than the national identity ‘Indian’ and therefore gives secondary importance to it. He insisted that the two identities be re-ordered the other way round, that is, ‘Muslim’ first and ‘Indian’ next, as ‘Muslim Indian’.The intent was obvious. The Islamic religious identity was a greater, even global, identity than national identity as Indian and so it has to be ahead of the national identity. Shahabuddin even ran a journal ‘Muslim Indian’ to reinforce his Islamic view that a Muslim’s religious identity supersedes his national identity. The idea was to take the Muslim in India closer to the global Islamic identity and away from his national identity. No one from the Islamic community, yes no one, objected to this thoroughly antinational identity politics that was, more dangerously, camaflouged as secular. Far from it, this made Shahabuddin the intellectual icon of the Islamic community.The seculars, as usual, were petrified at the loss of Muslim votes if they objected to Islamic identity being placed ahead of India and if they insisted on reversing it. Shahabuddin also hijacked the Islamic leadership in the Ayodhya controversy and of course led the community to disastrous consequences, by his militant stand that pre-empted any possibility of a solution to the temple issue. Before Shahabuddin was consigned to political oblivion, the damage he intended to do had been fully done; his identity theory confused the Muslims in India as to what comes first: their religion or country. In this identity politics even cross-border Islamic terrorism in Kashmir and terror attacks on Indian people were underplayed by pseudo-secular politics as that might alienate Muslim votebanks of secular parties.Thanks to Muslim-secular votebank politics and spurred by Muslim appeasement manifest in political acts like the mindless overturning of the Shanbano ruling by the Supreme Court, Indian political theatre was getting polarised between pseudo-secularism and, as a reaction, the Hindutva movement, through the Ayodhya issue, through the 1980s and, particularly, 1990s.Simultaneously globally, the global Islamic forces had no one to target, in the post-cold war era, after the Soviets ceased to be; so they began to target their benefactor, the US itself. The cold war between Islamists and the US through the 1990s finally peaked in the most violent terror attack on the US on September 11, 2001. It did not take too long for the West to openly admit the terror that targets the US and the West was Islamic in its drive. Thus the secular world began openly to identify terror with Islam. For a while the US President George Bush chose to be politically correct, like the seculars in India, by not prefixing Islamic identity to terror; in contrast in his address on September 20, 2001, to the US Senate and Congress, he even certified that Islam was a peaceful religion, for which he even earned the derisive title ‘Imam Bush’.It did not however need a seer to confirm that the terrorists had had a religious motive and were inspired by Islam as they viewed it, to die to masskill. Despite all efforts to be politically correct, the prefix of Islam has now stuck to terror in global debate. Those who were against political correctness in defining terror argue that unless terror is Islamic it does not explain why all terrorists drawn from different countries, now including India, have only one thing common among them - and that is Islam. As the core of global debate on terror is about its Islamic drive, the aborted terror of Kafeel and Sabeel is seen by the world as evidence of Muslims of India making debut in global Islamic terror.This is what has damaged both India and Muslims in India. This damage in the global theatre is beyond the capacity of seculars and Muslim leaders in India to contain. So, their effort now to abandon the emphasis on Islamic identity and fall back on the identity of Muslims in India as Indians. The effort today is to do the reverse of what Shahabuddin once insisted. That is a move away from the global Muslim identity - that started in the early 20th century tryst with Wahabism in India and perpetuated by pre-partition and secular politics - and a move back to the Indian national identity. The global Muslim identity which tormented the Muslims in India is now not a pride but a burden. Hence the chorus ‘Kafeel and Sabeel are Indians’; the plea to “not identity them by their religion as Muslims”!Will Shahabuddin repeat the philosohy of ‘Muslim Indian’ today? Never. Yes, ironically, thanks to Kafeel and Sabeel adding Indian Muslim as participants in Islamic terror, outside India, particularly the West, a saner Muslim from India does not want to be known as ‘Muslim Indian’ as Shahabuddin asserted earlier. He would prefer to be an Indian and just that, in and outside India, particularly in the West.Has not what Kafeel and Sabeel have done the potential to undo the damage done to India and Muslims in India by Jinnahs and Shahabuddins? Has it not the potential to rename the ‘Muslim Indian’ into ‘Indian’? Yes it has. A caveat: But, will the seculars and Muslim leaders tolerate a Muslim in India being just an Indian, not ‘Indian Muslim’ and ‘Muslim Indian’? The future will answer and it alone can.

पूर्ण विजय ...बी निवेदिता

Vijay! Poorna Vijay!!
(Vivekananda Kendra is preparing to conduct ‘Vijay - Poorna Vijay’ Mahashibir for thousands of youth. What does ‘Vijay - Poorna Vijay’ menas? An article explaining the concept of Poorna Vijay)

‘Up India! Conquer the world with your spirituality!’ – says Swami Vivekananda. Does it mean that there should be no striving for victory in the battlefield, no victory of this world is expected? Worse still, does it mean that even when the enemy wants to gobble us and so it starts claiming one after other all that belongs to us, we should keep quiet to prove our spirituality? Not at all. Swami Vivekananda also has told that, "Heroes only enjoy the world. Show your heroism; apply, according to circumstances, the fourfold political maxims of conciliation, bribery, sowing dissentions, and open war, to win over your adversary and enjoy the world—then you will be Dharmika. Otherwise, you live a disgraceful life if you pocket your insults, when you are kicked and trodden down by anyone who takes it into his head to do so; your life is a veritable hell here, and so is the life hereafter. This is what Shastras say... This is my advice to you my beloved co-religionists. Of course do not do any wrong, do not injure or tyrannize over any one, but try to do good to others as much as you can. But passively to submit to wrong done by others is a sin."
Mahatma Gandhi who always stressed on Non-violence also wrote in Young India, 16 June 1927 that, "My creed of non-violence is an extremely active force. It has no room for cowardice or even weakness. There is hope for a violent man to be some day non-violent, but there is none for a coward. I have, therefore, said more than once.....that if we do not know how to defend ourselves, our women and our places of worship by the force of sufferings, i.e., non-violence, we must, if we are men, be at least able to defend all these by fighting."
The very concept of Poorna Vijay includes all gradations and levels of victory like physical and spiritual at individual and collective levels. Poorna Vijay includes even the physical fights if required in self defence. But Poorna Vijay does not and should not stop with victory over attacking enemy. If it stops then it is not Poorna Vijay. This can be very beautifully understood if we contrast and compare Ashoka and Arjuna before and after war and its impact on nation. Many a times to disguise our cowardice or the personal likes and dislikes, feelings and sentiments we profess non-violence, universalism or spiritualism. And worse still, we impose this on the nation by presenting it as some higher value. This is what Arjuna tried to do. But fortunately Krishna was there to rescue him from such confusion. The example of Ashoka illustrates that confusion can be very disastrous. this.
Many wrongly interpret Ashoka as a follower of Buddha. He was not a follower of Buddha. Ashoka in a sense only copied Buddha, but did not follow him. Buddha left the Throne. He left the kingdom. And so the dharma and karma of the ruler did not attach to him. He ceased to be a king and then he preached compassion to one and all, non-violence. But Ashoka wanted to be the Emperor as well as a Buddha. While he had the dharma and the karma to wage war as the King, he vowed not to wage war. This became an ideal for the nation as time went by, as being an emperor and a victor his conduct had high persuasion. But he nevertheless confused between his role as the disciple of Buddha and as the Emperor of Maghada. Thus and there started the intellectual confusion and it intensified as time passed. So the confusion of the Indian society is directly inspired by the Ashokan Ethics. The intellectual confusion in India even for tackling the enemy is because of the glorification of Ashoka’s giving up of war.
So the Ashokan psyche which has confused the nation needs to be cleared. India has to win wars but not to renounce them like Ashoka. This is what we did in1948 and in 1971. With little push the problem of Kashmir would have been over then. With wise approach the terrorist –ridden Bangal Desh would not be there. We were victorious but we renounced the war and could not consolidate our gains. Only an individual who has won the war can give it up. But a nation should never give up wars required for self-defense, self-respect and also for the expression of its soul. A nation that needs victory will have to follow Krishna, not Ashoka. India needs to follow the Ashoka who won the Kalinga war but not the Ashoka who gave up war altogether on arguments that were forwarded by Arjuna for escaping the war. Krishna removed the confusion in the mind of Arjuna and made him fight war. India needs to follow Krishna who cleared Arjuna’s confusion, not Ashoka who after he won the Kalinga war, got into personal emotional conflict and took a personal vow which has been turned totally inappropriately into an illustration for a nation. The logic is simple. Pacifism is the rule of the victor, not the one who needs to emerge as a victor. And the pacifism cannot be the rule for a nation. For victory and its consolidation not just capability for fighting successfully but also the clarity of thought is required. This clarity of thought is one of the aims of the Vijay Poorna Vijay Shibir.
Does that mean that India should go for conquering the countries around? Not at all. That is not what is the message of Srikrishna and the history of our nation. Actually ours is the only country in the world which though being a big and richest nation for the longest period in the world history does not have blood on its hand. The reason is India has the vision of Oneness (Ekatma Darshan) as the basis of her philosophy of life. We being the one sixth of the humanity cannot just exist. We should not only live but live with self-respect, self-esteem. This is the first requirement. But that is not enough. We should also live a contributing life because we are part of this whole creation not a mechanical part but an organic part. The body is organic and all its organs are interrelated, interdependent and interconnected. This vision that everything is an expression of the self, motivated India never to strike for annihilating others as there are no ‘others’. India raised her hands only for self protection otherwise it was always the hand blessing the whole world.
Vijay Poorna Vijay is possible only when it is for the whole. It means when an individual is not just individual but connected to the collectives – family, society, nation, humanity, whole creation. If we go for victory of a hand at the cost of the body it is ultimately the defeat of the hand too. There cannot be victory of a wave at the cost of the ocean as that wave cannot survive without the ocean. It was this realization that our land always prayed - Sarve Bhavantu Sukinah. The world has seen this land and its culture has become immortal. Inclusive approach alone ensures sustained victory. But ofcourse if a part is a threat to the body then the body has to work to remove that part. If a man with diabetes has gangrene then he has to get his body part amputed. That is self defence, protection of the body. But it alone is not the poorna Vijay. For Poorna Vijay one would have to work for a whole. Our nation became immortal because it never went conquering other nations but at the same time unhesitatingly and ceaselessly worked for the self-protection and also ennobling the whole world. Culturing of the whole world – Krinvanto Vishmaryam is possible only with spirituality ie with the Ekatma Darshan. That is why Swami Vivekananda kept in front of us the goal of conquering the world with our spirituality. Victory cannot be of a part alone. Wholistic vision is required. Partial view would give partial and therefore temporary victory. This is what happened to nations which went for victory by destroying other lands. Swami Vivekananda said, "Ay, it is a curious fact that while nations after nations have come upon the stage of the world, played their parts vigorously for a few moments, and died almost without leaving a mark or a ripple on the ocean of time, here we are living, as it were, an eternal life. They talk a great deal of the new theories about the survival of the fittest, and they think that it is the strength of the muscles which is the fittest to survive. If that were true, any one of the aggressively known old world nations would have lived in glory today, and we, the weak Hindus, who never conquered even one other race or nation, ought to have died out; yet we live here three hundred million strong!
…Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from then until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live.
…There was a time when at the sound of the march of big Greek battalions the earth trembled. Vanished from off the face of the earth, with not every a tale left behind to tell, gone is that ancient land of the Greeks. There was a time when the Roman Eagle floated over everything worth having in this world; everywhere Rome's power was felt and pressed on the head of humanity; the earth trembled at the name of Rome. But the Capitoline Hill is a mass of ruins, the spider weaves its web where the Caesars ruled. There have been other nations equally glorious that have come and gone, living a few hours of exultant and exuberant dominance and of a wicked national life, and then vanishing like ripples on the face of the waters. Thus have these nations made their mark on the face of humanity. But we live."
This is what conquering the world with spirituality means. Actually conquering the world with our spirituality means to work with feeling of Oneness (Atmiyata) to contribute for elevating others. Such spiritual conquest alone ensures immortality and Poorna Vijay. Hu-Shih the former ambassador of China to USA told, "India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border" Such spiritual conquest of the world is destined mission of India. It is true that colonial period became the cause of degradation of our land. After that short period India is again rising.
Coming to an individual, we know that everyone wants to be victorious. None wants to lose, to get defeated. The desire for victory comes from the basic desire of self worth, of acquiring what is considered as important / valuable for oneself. The victory needs to define what is valuable and also who the enemy to be won over is. And for poorna vijaya one needs to know what is most valuable. Victory presupposes battle and battle presupposes preparation, training for the same. No individual in life can achieve great things without having a clear dream and readiness to prepare one self for it. The great power inside oneself can be brought forth only if the life is disciplined, organised and confident. The dream of career alone cannot release the tremendous energy within young heart nor does it gets disciplined. The professional aim is achieved by the age of 24-26. Afterwards the life becomes aimless and again the power within has no propelling urge to get expressed.
Poorna Vijay in individual life is possible again if one has the vision of Oneness in life. Individual is not just a body-mind complex. Individual is an expression of the consciousness getting expressed in the expanding layers of existence like family, society, nation and the whole creation. If in a child hand alone grows and rest of the body does not grow then it is not growth but distortion and disease. Thus only if an individual is growing but others are left behind it cannot bring the ultimate happiness for man. One can really become successful in life if he/she can relate, can derive joy from the family, community, society, nation, and the whole creation around him/her. It is this vision in a surcharged atmosphere that can release the tremendous constructive energy of youth. The boundless energy of the thousands of youth would be released and channelized for national regeneration in the ‘Vijay - Poorna Vijay Shibir’, for the fulfilling the destined mission of India.
.......................Nivedita Raghunath Bhide

सोनिया-चीन-...गुरुमूर्ति

Sleight of hand - Sonia, not Hu, shamed the PM – S Gurumurthy
THE Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, must have witnessed with his family the grand opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on the TV screen in his Race Course Road residence in Delhi, like all ordinary Indians did. Even as he was sitting before the TV , over 80 other heads of government from all over the world — from the gigantic USA to tiny singapore — were enjoying the great show in the VVIP enclosure at the National Stadium in Beijing as invitees of the Olympics host, China.
Why was Manmohan Singh in Delhi and not Beijing on that day? Was he fatigued by the confidence test in Parliament? Not at all. On the contrary, he would have loved to go to Beijing as the victor in Parliament. But he just did not get the Olympic invite, which all other heads of state got. And more. He was not even aware he had been left out and, instead who got it. Sonia Gandhi had been invited. Why was he left out? Who kept him out? Who reduced him to witnessing the Olympics on the TV screen and humiliated him? Read on.
Those were the tumultuous days preceding the vote of confidence on the UPA government on July 22, 2008. Neither the media nor the reader or the viewer was interested in any other subject. The news of Amar Singh contracting out MPs from all parties to vote for the UPA govern ment dominated the print and electronic media. Yet here and there some reports about how "China had ignored Manmohan Singh" and "invited Sonia Gandhi instead" had leaked out. But the mainline media had no space for it.
The media that had put out the news had actually blamed China for humiliating Manmohan Singh — and India. As if to confirm that, Sanjaya Baru, press adviser to the Prime Minister, told the media that "he was not aware" that the PM had not received the customary Olympics invite! The External Affairs Ministry kept silent when asked whether not inviting the PM was a diplomatic snub for India. All this on July 15.
The next day, the spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in Delhi, Li Minggang, let the cat out of the bag: "The Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as per procedure, had asked the Olympic committee of every country to choose its own chief guest." The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, also told the media: "According to the IOC stipulation and Olympic custom, heads of governments and states shall be invited by the Olympic committees of their own countries and attend the Olympics as accredited distinguished guests; we respect the decision of the Olympic committee." That means the COC and IOC had asked the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to name the chief guest from India. And it was the IOA that scored out the Prime Minister’s name and put in Sonia Gandhi’s. Irritated that his country was being blamed for what India has done, Li Minggang told the media: "You should ask Suresh Kalmadi this question, of who is being invited from India." Is any more evidence needed to nail the culprit? A congressman, Kalmadi was head of the IOA.
According to Chinese officials, it was he who had told China that Sonia Gandhi should be invited, not the Prime Minister. When the existence of the government itself was in doubt then, whether China had ignored Manmohan Singh or invited Sonia was perhaps irrelevant to the media. Moreover, citing government sources, a section of the media had reported that Sonia Gandhi would not attend the event as the PM had not been invited and she had asked Sports Minister M S Gill to go to Beijing instead. This, as the final act later showed, was obviously a damage control model and a red herring. The plot thickens now.
Manmohan Singh won the confidence vote on July 22, that is, a week after the media had reported that Sonia Gandhi would not go to Beijing. On July 25, the Chinese Government officially , but quietly, sent the invite to her, obviously as Kalmadi wanted. But since the media was told that not she, but M S Gill would go, no one suspected anything. With just three days to go for the Olympic opening, India Abroad News Service (IANS) reported that on August 2 Sonia and her family had finally decided to attend the Olympics. But why did she take one full week to make her decision public, after Suresh Kalmadi had stolen the Olympic invite meant for the Prime Minister and given it to her as early as July 25? Obviously , much had to be done in that week.
She had to settle a critical issue with China. And that was where she would be seated in the opening ceremony . The protocol was clear. She could not sit with the 80 heads of state in the VVIP enclosure, as she was not the official head of India and would therefore only be seated in a Chinese guests’ enclosure far away from the VVIP enclosure.
With few other options, she had to settle for the less reputable enclosure which would not — and eventually did not — give her the media focus and attention she would have liked. The next issue was in whose luxury aircraft — in Mukesh Ambani’s Airbus or Lakshmi Mittal’s Boeing — to travel? The pressure from both, reportedly , was so high that finally she decided not to travel by either. Yet not a word in the mainline media about the fact that Suresh Kalmadi had struck out the PM’s name from the Olympic Invite and filled her name on it, thus confining Manmohan Singh to Race Course Road on that day; that her first stand that she would not go to Beijing was just a red-herring; that she and her family had already planned to go; that she was not seated in the VVIP enclosure. The media had totally suppressed the motives of the petty conspirators.
Here is a typical report sans such crucial facts: "Clad in pink Banarasi sari with golden border, Congress president Sonia Gandhi sprang to her feet and waved enthusiastically when the Indian contingent of sportspersons marched past the National Stadium." But for the IANS, which incidentally works from outside India, many of the facts would not have come to light.
Thus the attempt to substitute Sonia Gandhi for the Prime Minister and seat her along with 80 other heads of state in the VVIP enclosure in Beijing Olympics failed.
Result: A lucky M S Gill was representing the Prime Minister and India at the Olympics as per protocol and it was he, not Sonia, who was rubbing shoulders with George Bush and others in the VVIP enclosure! So, finally, Kalmadi ended up substituting one Singh for another, but not Sonia for Singh! Obviously the pettiness of 10 Janpath has humiliated the PM. Also India.
QED: It was not Hu Jintao who shamed Manmohan Singh or India, but, Sonia Gandhi herself.
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