Whom Congress Is Actually Insulting – Modi or Nehru?

Stupidity doesn’t know any boundary. More than anyone, it is the Congress party which has made it a personal motto to prove this proverb correct. After a humiliating defeat in the last general elections and falling from grace in many state elections after that, Congress think tank seems to have lost all their thinking abilities, if they ever had any. What else can explain the miserable stupidity in the steps taken by Congress party to not invite the PM of the nation for the upcoming self-sponsored event to highlight and celebrate the legacy of Pundit Nehru on his birth anniversary; more so when they have taken all the pain in inviting 55 dignitaries across the globe?

In a Tweet of mine, today morning I asked if it is me or there are others who feel the Congress party in their desperation to insult Narendra Modi in fact are insulting Pundit Nehru himself. And I have reasons to be skeptical on the way Congress party is trying to appropriate the legacy of Nehru as a personal property of theirs. Honestly, I have no problem if the PM is not invited to a private function. As it is, the PM has far more bigger and better things to deal with than attending private gatherings. Let that honor be reserved for the Page-III scotch elite secularist intellectuals to take care. But that said, not inviting the PM when you invite other state heads like Hamid Karjai doesn’t at all look good in terms of the cohesiveness otherwise a country like ours should orchestrate. Like the case of Sahi Imam and the coronation of his son, Congress party here seems to follow the lines of the Imam and looked like in a mission to insult the PM of this country. How far that looks logical and reasonable to you? If this blindness because of pure hatred is not enough, Congress’s attempt to justify their deplorable act with equally deplorable reasoning cries for sanity and sensitivity. People like Anand Sharma can be shameless to hold a press conference and explain how they have only invited those who believe in Nehruvian philosophy but that doesn’t skirt away the fact that, in the name of pride it is the ego which has taken the better of sensibility among the think tank of Congress party. The least, here one is only forced to come up with words like Traitor or Turncoat to appropriate what Congress did vis-à-vis their abject hate for a man who is after all a democratically elected PM of this great nation. To hell with moral, how bad it is an example coming from the world’s largest democracy when the principal opposition party so blatantly tries to degenerate the chair of the PM for personal ego? Even I am not sure but we will get to that little later.

As I always reiterate – the present is a crude reflection of the past. So in that logic, can this horrific dishonesty towards our democracy be attributed as an isolated case with Congress because of their loose sense of propriety and ego towards self-righteousness? Certainly not if we travel back to 1990. In 1990 Namibia got its independence. To celebrate the occasion Namibia called many world leaders for a grand function. The then PM of India VP Singh was one of the invitee. As a matter of goodwill gesture VP Singh in turn invited representatives from different parties including the leader of opposition to accompany him in that flight. What VP Singh wanted is to present India in the function as a cohesive team than just an individual. It was an admirable gesture on the part of VP Singh to say the least. But that is not how the Congress party took it. Rajiv Gandhi, who was then the leader of opposition after losing the election, found any such invite from the PM as an insult to his alter ego. Not only he but his group of sycophants found this invite from the PM as an offense to the stature of RG, who as per them was still an international leader, with or without being the PM of the country. As history would have it, RG flew to Namibia on his own and participated as an individual than being in the team of the PM of the country. So, divagating the stature of the PM if he/she happens to be a non-congress representative is right there in the mindset of the Congress party. Or is it right there in their gene? What Rajiv Gandhi did back in 1990 was more than to just flaunt his or his partymen’s ego. The complete disinterest in respecting the norms of our democracy the moment they lose the power is another and most probably the primary reason why people like RG thought to disrespect the very chair he once occupied so proudly. And they are continuing with the same vaudevillian attitude even today when the party is almost in ruins after prolonged hara-kiri.

They think they will insult Narendra Modi by inviting every Tom-Dick-And-Harry but not him. But what they are forgetting is that, the PM is a chair not an individual which they are so confused to believe otherwise. And they actually are insulting and demeaning the chair which was occupied by many members of the first family at some point of history, starting with Pundit Nehru himself. When people of India have decided on who should govern them it hardly matters what at an individual level you, me or they think. The moment one graces the chair of the PM he/she becomes above the pity jingoism of individuals or a party like Congress. Any insult directed at him/her is actually an insult to self as long as the person on that chair is dignified to the post he/she is occupying. Here I don’t see any difference between a hate blind Sahi Imam and the entire Congress contingent. I see the same set of ignorance, hate filled psyche and above all disrespect to the very fundamentals of our democracy. Now the question arises, how Pundit Nehru would have taken this mischief of Congress, had he been around? You may disagree to everything what Pundit Nehru did during his time but with all his flaws Pundit Nehru was still a staunch follower of protocols and procedures. I am sure Nehru must be turning in his grave ever so violently seeing how Congress men have diluted the post of priministership to this low. Poor fellow, in the name of his legacy, his so called followers are disrespecting the very ethos that he always adored. Saying, he would be vastly aghast seeing such surreptitious behavior of his followers would be an understatement.

But that hardly matters for a hate filled Congress party. In reality they never cared to follow the minimal good things that Pundit Nehru stood for. It was always their ego and unconditional sycophancy that stood paramount before anything, including the greats of the party whom they think are their personal properties. They shout loud when Modi brings back Sardar Patel into public discourse from the manufactured oblivion but can’t stand the teachings and legacy of such greats. They cry and ask what legitimacy Modi has to usurp all the yesteryear tall names but fail to answer what made them to forget the same great leaders to begin with. Pundit Nehru may be a Congressman but that doesn’t mean the propriety lies solely with the modulated Indira Congress of 1971. With everything bad or good about them, people like the original Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Shastri, Bose, Bhagat Singh, Capt Somnath Sharma, Capt Vikram Batra are national assets. They belong as much to me, you, Modi as they belong to Congress party. Each one of us has all the right to celebrate everything about them at an individual level or at an organizational level. But to take it as a personal grudge and to massage the bruised ego if one heads in the direction of insulting the PM of the nation then it not only looks rotten but also speaks a great lot about the incomprehensible mindset of the perpetrators.

Hope the almighty inculcates some sensibility in the vacuum top lair of the Congress brigade. For a vibrant democracy we need a strong opposition in the form of Congress but not the Congress full with blind haters and sycophants. Pundit Nehru was a great man and to celebrate his legacy one need not have to commit a grave sin of insulting the PM of the nation. That is just plain foolishness which will make achieve Congress nothing except a lightening sprint to number zero in next general election.