RAHUL GANDHI’S JAIPUR SPEECH - CONTRADICTIONS – 2 & 3: CORRUPTION VS ERADICATING CORRUPTION, GENDER JUSTICE AND POLITICAL APATHY

CONTRADICTIONS IN THE JAIPUR SPEECH BY THE CONGRESS PARTY VICE-PRESIDENT RAHUL GANDHI (III)

People who are corrupt stand up and talk about eradicating corruption; and then people who disrespect women everyday of their lives talk about women rights.

What about the Robert Vadra cover-up then?

When it was done by the people sitting at the top, don’t you think the statement made by you regarding corruption squarely contradicts its pretext, if there was any?

Corruption was always there but the country has seen it touching mammoth scale since 2004 when the United Progressive Alliance government took over. All the big scams like the 2G spectrum allocation, coal-block allocation or Commonwealth Games scams or many others have seen genesis during the term of your party rule.

Instead of treating them as the warning signs and embarking on a course-correction mode, your party’s government chose to go in denial, delay probes or castigate Constitutional agencies like the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the reports of which unearthed many scams.

What do you have to say on the corruption ombudsman, the Lokpal?

Given the fact that the Congress party has been in power most of the time in the Independent India, the formation of the Lokpal should never have lingered on for over four decades. And your party’s government, along with other political parties, has successfully derailed it even this time. Given the goings and thanks to a corrupt and alienated political class, the Lokpal is not going to be a reality anytime soon in the near future. And then there would be compulsions and clamour of the next general election burying the issue for some more time.

Do you remember your parliament speech where you spoke of making Lokpal a Constitutional body? Whatever little that the political class has agreed to empower the proposed Lokpal with is nothing but a lip-service to mislead the people.

Can corruption, that has become a chronic malaise of the Indian society, be eradicated with such a lip-serving attitude Mr. Gandhi?

You also spoke about women rights.

It’s basically about sensitivity that is not there in your government and the larger political class. You too, fall short on it. The recent context of the Delhi gangrape protests is a self-explanatory evidence.

The major reason behind death of the Delhi gangrape victim was your government’s apathy that reflected in continuing with an ill-equipped hospital and delay in the treatment when every hour of the victim’s life was important.

Also, why it took you so many days (your first reaction came on December 23, 2012, a week after the crime) to break your silence?

The youth of the country that you so emphatically spoke about in your first speech as the Congress party Vice-President, was there on the streets, raging silently, questioning the authorities’ inaction and demanding quick answers and reforms of permanent nature. Why were you so reserved in communicating with them then?

Today, your very own government snubbed the report submitted by the Justice J S Verma Committee that slams the government, the police and the public for crime against women. Why your government had to do so when its spokespersons had assured the country that the committee was constituted to address the concerns and demands of the masses on crime against women?

The committee, then seen as a face saving exercise in the aftermath of the huge protests, slaps back in the face of your government with its report that came out today.

But what is shockingly insensitive is the attitude shown by your government in accepting the liability.  Your party’s government is not ready to accept the report now when it has put the government in the dock.

Shouldn’t we assume that forming the Verma Committee was mere an eyewash attempt then?

Also, do you remember what you had said on the Delhi gangrape when your silence became the talk of the town? I quote here from a December 23, 2012 report of the Economic Times*: “Sources said during the meeting Rahul told the group of youths that while he understands and respect their emotions and acknowledged that the issue is very emotive, he also stressed that "decision making should happen in a rational manner. Decisions taken cannot be driven merely by emotions.”

Mr. Gandhi, like you tried to deliver an emotional speech, policymaking for humans too, should have emotional connect.

Why can’t decisions be driven merely by emotions? , when the issue has become of emotional breakdown in the society; when the ghastly incidents are breaking every heinous limit; when the criminals are easily finding the ways to skirt the law; when the criminals are becoming more and more audacious feeding on the parasitic fear of the victims; and when the rule-book and the defined procedure is failing to control the rot. 

Sadly, the political class of the country today is emotionally disconnected from the problems of the ‘aam aadmi’. 

* http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-12-23/news/35982783_1_rahul-gandhi-sonia-gandhi-janpath-residence

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/