On Thursday morning, The Indian Express carried a front page story — ?DDA changes master plan, allots land to Swaminarayan sect, LG says it?s a landmark for north India?. This is a done deal, sealed and signed unless a conservation and concerned institution files for a stay order. Maybe Intach should be playing that role! There is a national regulation that forbids a commercial establishment from coming up along a river bank…five hundred odd metres must lie between the river and the outer wall. Despite temples and places of worship being amongst the richest institutions in the country, generating vast resources, they are probably exempt from being deemed commercial! Too many contradictions and too many dichotomies.
Since Delhi is going to have a huge temple complex spread over 58 acres along the river Yamuna, it is time the Jains, Sikhs, Christians and the Muslims demand an allocation of prime land, along the same river, to build equally splendid places of worship! After all, we do claim to be a secular polity, do we not? Imagine a spectacular Cathedral rising out of the banks of the river and a replica of the great Dilwara temples in Delhi! This is a wake up call for the other faiths to get into the business of ?land allocation?. It is a great ?business? to be in.
And, talking of land allocations, this present coalition seems to have been quite active in ?allocation?s per se. From land to petrol pumps, they seem to have mastered this ancient form of patronage. I suppose this is another avatar of the subsidy syndrome. The BJP came to power, formed government with a motley crowd of coalition partners, on the bat that they were wholly different from the last dispensation, but they have perpetuated the worst of previous governments. It is as though they feel they have been denied the ?spoils? for much too long when they were out of power. Their seeming desperation to race through their main agenda, is bewildering. It is as though they feel time is running out. In that assessment, they may not be far wrong… they never did deal with and rectify the many cancers that are eating into the body politic of this benighted land. And, they were no different from the rest. Maybe they were worse and aggravated, in an unforgivable way, a Hindutva that is not the faith of the majority of Hindus. A strange avatar of true Hinduism.
Something is going wrong somewhere for the ruling coalition. Jayalalithaa?s diatribe is one example of an insecurity that seems to have taken over all the non Congress wallahs. If Sonia Gandhi is unacceptable to India as a Prime Minister, the vote will show that. Therefore, why this absurd outburst? Are they convinced that Ms Gandhi is the next Prime Minister? Is that what is rattling them? There does not seem to be any other plausible reason for the outburst at this juncture. And hypothetically, what if Priyanka or Rahul get up and say that they are now in the fray…that will truly rattle them. The new face of a new Congress!
We most definitely need a ?new? Congress. One small but important example of the traditional wheeling and dealing of this party in Rajasthan. A Rajya Sabha MP from the state has successfully manipulated the CM to do what is unacceptable in any ?civil? society. To get an SP of police transferred for being honest and for doing his job is scandalous and criminal in a polity that needs honest officers desperately. The Congress must stand apart and hail good people, not destroy the entire morale of honesty and integrity because of rapacious MP?s. This MP is supporting those who ransack national forests and Parks for commercial gain?nothing changes. These old fossils who corrupted and destroyed the Congress, should not be allowed the free run they have. The High Command must make their position clear. Do they support honesty and integrity? They must intervene and assert the protection of their upright officers.