Four years down the line, the Congress Government in power came out with a “self- congratulatory” Report Card in terms of achievements and performance which is at gross variance and in contradiction of the prevailing ground realities in India. From foreign policy, to national security management, to political morality and political probity and to economic management and upliftment of the daily lives of the common man, the Congress Party led Government has been a dismal failure.

The BJP Government may not have left a “Shining India” as the Congress Party disputed in 2004 Elections but it still left a “Glistening India” of which the major powers of the world were forced to take notice of and configure India in their strategic calculus. India under four years of this Government is not even “glistening”; India looks jaded with the same major powers now confused as to the course of India’s strategic and economic directions .

India’s foreign policy in these four years, as I have written elsewhere, was under siege and severely mauled by India’s Communist Parties as the Congress Party allowed itself to be dictated by the Communists foreign policy agenda off toeing the China line. In the process the US-India Strategic Partnership painstakingly evolved by the BJP Government stands diluted and downgraded because the CPI(M) is virulently anti-US like China. It is a pity to see the Congress Party so helpless and powerless in not being able to push the US-India Nuclear Deal as its political survival is held to ransom by the Communists and this Deal which the Congress so dearly crafted and wanted to leave it as a political legacy.

India’s national security management under the Congress Government has been disastrous as it was allowed to be communized and communalized. Nepal was India’s buffer state with China and it was a strategic imperative to maintain it as such. This Government lost Nepal to the Chinese orbit by facilitating Nepalese Maoists entering Nepal’s political space under pressure from the CPI(M).

India’s national security management was grievously undermined by the communalizing of India’s approaches to deal with terrorism. In a bid to appease its minority vote-banks the Anti-Terrorism Law POTA was abolished as soon as the Congress took power. Terrorist Afzal Guru despite being sentenced to death by India’s Supreme Court continues to be a state guest in jail for years now.

In the last four years major terrorist incidents have taken place nearly once every three months but no conviction of terrorists has yet taken place. What message does this convey to the terrorists of the Congress Government’s resolve to combat terrorism?

India’s national security stands endangered as the Government even after four years has not been able to make up its mind to place firm orders for 136 fighter combat aircraft for the Indian Air Force. Indian Army’s finalized deals for sizeable orders for Artillery 155mm guns and the Eurocopter helicopter were scuttled at the last moment. Indian Navy also has serious deficiencies in its inventories waiting political decisions. All these delays seriously affect India’s defence preparedness.

The Congress Prime Minister’s obduracy in not agreeing for a separate Pay Commission for the Indian Armed Forces as demanded by them has lowered the morale of India’s valiant Armed Forces. He is not averse to bureaucrats to sit on the Sixth Pay Commission panel and vote for exorbitant pay raises for themselves not warranted by their contributions to India’s administration but digs in his heels when it comes to have a separate Pay Commission for the Armed Forces whose contributions to India’s external security and internal security , unlike the bureaucrats, even at the cost of their lives, is not appreciated forgetting that the Armed Forces cannot be equated to India’s bureaucrats sitting in their cushy armchairs.

Political morality and political probity was reduced to murky levels by the Congress Party, a party which swears by Mahatma Gandhi. Ottavio Quarorocchi, the Italian businessman considered close to the Congress President and the main accused in the Bofors case was favored by the Congress Government in going scot-free and millions of pounds of his deposits freed in UK by what was reported in the media to be deliberate soft pedaling by the Law Ministry

Economically, present media reports on rising uncontrollable inflation and the exorbitant rise in the prices of food grains and basic necessities indicate that they have made life unbearable for the common man including even the middle class with appreciable earnings.

Most of India’s economic woes can be attributed to diversion of thousands of crores of rupees to wasteful grandiose schemes catering for reservation based politics and Indian Muslim minority appeasement. If the Congress Government was serious about social upliftment then the criteria for such schemes should have been economic backwardness and not a caste- based or religion- based criteria.

Actions speak louder than words and in terms of lack of actions by the Congress Government their “Report Card” does not carry conviction with the public at large notwithstanding the added gloss by the electronic and print media noted for their proximity to the Congress Party.

May 25, 2008

Cartoon by Mahendra Bhawsar

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