Congress is leading us to national catastrophe

“Public servants, including ministers, who misappropriate public property or take bribes belong to the category of open thieves. The King shall detect both open and secret thieves and shall punish them according to their bodily strength and pecuniary value of the theft committed.” This verse from one of our scriptures may well apply to the Congress. The party promised in 2009 that within 100 days of assuming office, prices will be controlled. This is just one of those scores of false promises made ever since the party was created way back in 1885. Instead of solving problems, it has been tinkering with unnecessary things like coins. In 2004, the Congress-led UPA government changed the Indian coin by replacing the agricultural symbol of “wheat barley” with a “folded-palm-depicting-thumb”. [caption id=“attachment_1117117” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Worth far less than before? Reuters[/caption] Chronologically, the main considerations influencing the “coinage policy” in India have been the incorporation of symbols of “sovereignty” and “indigenous motifs on independence”. Only god knows what significance an “angutha” or a “thenga” has to the theme of independence, unless it was meant to give free publicity to the Congress party’s election symbol of the hand. Perhaps the symbol was meant to convey a “thumbs down” to the rupee. The Indian rupee has become the world’s worst performing currency. In 2006, the second year of UPA-1, a two-rupee coin was also issued depicting an “equal-armed cross with the beams divided into two rays and with dots between adjacent beams”, resembling a religious European symbol of deniers issued by Louis the Pious. Such acts depict an arrogant regime’s oppressive attitude towards its citizens. Should I call it economic colonisation by vested international interests, which the Congress seems to represent? Be it naming of cities, statues, bridges or any public property, the Congress party uses taxpayers’ money to build and name them after their leaders. A covert form of indoctrination, advertising and imposition of its image into the national mindset. The real problems that needed fixing were not coinage, but the economy. But when this didn’t happen, the rupee fell all the way to 69 to the dollar, and the currency had few takers anywhere. The UPA has created a unique “Bharat Nirman” where the currency has crashed and the economy has slumped to 4.4 percent GDP growth. While few economists around the world believe that India has returned to the economic crisis faced in 1991, the country badly needs path-breaking reforms. The Congress-led UPA, which is otherwise lousy in deciding about reforms, is busy designing ”vote security bills”. It is draining cash from the exchequer to win votes. In just five months of this year, it has used up nearly 62 percent of the year’s budgeted deficit. The government, working on a strategy involving blaming others for it’s the economy’s misfortunes, has sheepishly devised two excuses for bad economic performance - global economic conditions” and “obstructionist opposition” . But has there been any era when there were no global economic problems? Yes, currently there is a serious crisis in Syria, previously there was anarchy in Libya, then there were wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there was a recession in US followed by the 2011 eurozone downturn. Why do we imagine that something will not be wrong in some part of the world? International problems have always happened in the past and will always happen in future too. Therefore to make a stable global scenario a pre-condition to India’s economic growth simply is too naïve. Finance Minister P Chidambaram claims that because the US dollar is becoming stronger, the Indian rupee is drifting along with currencies of many other countries. There were grave, if not graver, problems even during 1999-2004. Have we forgotten the Pokharan nuclear tests and the resultant worldwide sanctions, the attack on the World Trade Centre in the US, followed by war in Afghanistan, the Kargil war, the great tsunami, and the 1997 Asian financial crisis? Unlike today, the post-Pokharan sanctions were directly aimed at us. Did the then government, under the leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee, take refuge behind the veil of global problems? Unfortunately, the present leadership displays genius only for manufacturing excuses instead of working for solutions. Between 2 May and 28 August, the Indian rupee plunged 28 percent while the Sri Lankan rupee fell only 5.5 percent, the Pakistani rupee 5.6 percent and the Indonesian rupiah 12.27 percent. Why did we fare so badly if all our problems are the result of global issues? Surely, the same global issues were there for everybody? It is in this background that the disruption of parliamentary proceedings should be viewed. Parliamentary productivity is the result of a cooperative and accountable relationship between government and opposition. The Congress party, with its arrogant attitude and irresponsible conduct, engineered a parliamentary paralysis. Its purpose is to discredit the BJP as an obstructionist party and extend the non-governance policy to facilitate a further breakdown of socio-economic discourse. Its foreign friends are direct beneficiaries of a crippled Indian economy. Any responsible government could have taken several executive decisions and made course corrections. This rogue regime is deliberately crippling socio-economic activity. It is painful to note that the country witnessed a midnight sine die adjournment of the Rajya Sabha in December 2012, and a parliamentary minister was found whispering (and caught on camera) that the chair could adjourn the house. Several times, the government has itself created or planted disruptions. Mr Prime Minister, please remember “where there is no will, there is certainly no way.” India is drifting towards a Congress-made national catastrophe. It needs someone who has shown steely leadership and produced results, who can motivate and appeal to the young and idealistic, across agriculture, industry, services, etc. We need a role model who has a vision for Mother India. Whenever India faced difficult times, leaders such as Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai , PV Narasimha Rao and Atal Behari Vajpayee successfully led the country out of trouble. If a strong leader is not chosen now, the currency can depreciate, and the economy can decline. The only things rising today are prices – petrol, milk and onions are all over 100 percent more expensive since the NDA period. We certainly need to Modi-fy India!