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| Nehru-Gandhi family doesn't deserve First Family title | | | Hari Om | 11/10/2013 10:32:19 PM |
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The expression 'First Family' is used for the one who holds the highest position in a country, usually a Republic, especially the United States. But here in our country, this expression is incorrectly used and very loosely for a family which under no circumstance can be termed as 'First Family'. The First Family term is used in this country by the media, almost all commentators, essay writers, and surprisingly even sections of political class for Nehru-Gandhi family (read UPA chairperson and AICC president Sonia Gandhi and her family).
Sonia Gandhi neither holds the Office of President - head of State nor the Office of Prime Minister - head of Government. She is just a Member of Parliament like other 700-odd Indian lawmakers. It is a different story that she and her son Rahul Gandhi controls, guides and directs the UPA Government, sans any responsibility and accountability. But this cannot and must not be a qualification that should make one use the expression for her and the members of her family, including her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi, who is married to Robert Vadra a land grabber.
Look at any political essay on the Nehru-Gandhi family written after May 2004 and you will invariably find most of the authors terming this family as the 'First Family' and describing AICC vice-president and Sonia Gandhi's son as member of the 'First Family' of the Congress. It was not Sonia Gandhi who foun-ded the Indian National Congress (INC). The INC was founded in December 1885 at Bombay (now Mumbai) by AO Hume (a retired British civil servant) - in consultation with the then Governor-General of India and Secretary of State for India - with the help of 72 western educated Indians - mostly amenable - with a view to checking the ongoing freedom struggle in the country and helping London establish its stranglehold over India, loot and plunder Indian natural resources, fleece the Indians and cripple Indian industries. WC Bonner was its first President. The Nehru-Gandhi family was nowhere in sight when the INC was founded.
It was for the first time in December 1919 that a member of the Nehru family became president of the INC. He was Motilal Nehru. He also headed the INC between December 1928 and 1929 and was replaced by his son Jawaharlal Nehru in December 1929. He headed the INC between December 1929 and December 1931. Jawaharlal Nehru also led the party for another two years - December 1935 to December 1937 - before Independence. In other words, the father and son duo led the INC only for 6 out of 62 years before India attained independence. It was only after the Independence that the Nehru-Gandhi family dominated the INC for most of the period, 33 years to be more exact, with Sonia Gandhi heading the AICC since December 1998 without any break, for reasons not really difficult to fathom. And it all started after 1978, when Indira Gandhi became president of the AICC.
Nehru-Gandhi family, including Sonia Gandhi, had nothing to do with the foundation of the INC. Similarly, Sonia Gandhi doesn't hold the position of President of India. A person who heads a particular political outfit and his/her family just cannot be described as the 'First Family'. Those who term the Nehru-Gandhi family as the 'First Family' would do well to refashion their whole approach towards this family, which has established its stranglehold over the Congress with the help of sycophants. If at all they want to use this term, they can use it in reference to the President of India, his spouse, the First Lady of the country, and their children if they reside in the Rashtrapati Bhawan. Even otherwise, the term 'First Family' needs to be discarded because it breeds a sense of inferiority complex.
It is also time to recall what the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi said some six months ago, in Delhi during the BJP National Council meeting about the INC and act accordingly. He had dismissed the Congress as a party of "termites" and urged the nation to free India from its clutches. Actually, he had hinted at the Nehru-Gandhi family - which is responsible for most of the ills afflicting the nation. What Narendra Modi had said was what an overwhelming majority of people in this country actually believed in. Believe me, the general view is: "To save India, follow Narendra Modi".
Courtesy: www.niticentral.com |
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