Dear All
I also come from Haryana (Bhiwani) and Rajasthan (Jhunjhunu) and have long experience of encountering community harminies and conflicts. Political conclusion in favour or against can be argued for correct indexing once we dilute our affiliations with party A and party B. The situations are different in different socio-econnomic set up. Sometimes we weigh the things with a select element of our interest in focus without giving due importance to the people at large in mind. If a few persons progress under certain regime or a few aspects get boost, that is not the criteria for the progress of the whole nation. Once the things fit to us (me) we say best progress. When one two, few or few hundred or even few thouisand/few lakhs who get best of the system saying best is not the best.
I agree by a good extent with Dr. Birbal Singh. If one has been in Rajasthan, one can see the things how jats made their place in the state from the dust. Haryana can not be any judgement place as it is the Jat culture. In Haryana fights are within jats. One Jat claiming jats has no rational. In Rajasthan even if there are two Jats fighting, there is Jat significance.
In Haryana Jats lost their significance in the state (or terrtory) at their time before independence and It was Sir Chhotu Ram who made the things right for them to raise their head. It was a re-rise from downfall.
In Rajasthan, Jat made a respectful place for themselves because of their hard work, intelligence alongwith fearlessness. Jats did not have a CM their, may not even had good representation in Govt. but were with Congress and had full freedom to use their talent, fought silently with feudal philosophy etc. etc. If with non-congress govt. giving a few ministries or even a CM is does not go a sustainable way of standing for the community. A few people will get benefit and consider it enough for all.
It was the congress time that Jats progressed in that socio-economic set to the level that now they are seen with great dignity (their are pockets of other similar agrarian communities where it is quite feudal still).
Now taking a stock of the situation that it was because of the Jats that congress had been winning, others tried to harness them through casteist political groups. This way they could be successful but for themselves. Had they been voting for Non-congress since beginning, they would have been powerless (as one by one as if a few get the status of God equivalence with nothing with others is a seva-meva syndrome), they would have been the same as they were (as political significance) when they were poor minority (in significance terms). Now they are significant, it does not matter which party wins.
We know in history when Kings failed to get the task accomplished because of a some key x and y problem and then a key person represeting a sect was appeased by King to get the job accomplished for the bad of the rest of his/her community.
I know things here are in quite abstract but hope meaning could be make out. There is no point in discussing X person and Y party by name.
One thing more, we superficially take development at times. The science and technological developments that happen in particular time are not political achievements. We can not say Congress did not give us computers, mobile, fax etc. in 1947. These developments are different not relation with party. Even IT, it is technical development because IT came in focus with science stregth, India has strong educational stregth with IITs, IIMs, National Institutes, etc etc. The skilled lot available got opportunities.
It is the genesis of huge technical infrastructue developed previously.
How one would say that papers of such great instutuion (Med, IITs, IIMs, Engg etc.) entrance leaked during last few years putting a disrepute to our pride. If one reads the response/happiness of academicians/students/researchers after these elections, conclusions are obvious. Regards etc. Rajender Sangwan
Dr. Birbal Singh (May 14, 2004 10:41 a.m.):
I feel greatly disappointed by the level of discussion on various posts on this website relating to the election campaign and its outcome.
I read posts from well educated people that show total lack of fairness, decency, logic, and factual knowledge. One graduate student (a scholar by definition I assume) has concluded that Italians are scum (and as I wrote almost a year ago that those who portray other groups in a demeaning manner will face the consequence of their utterings in the future because the written record never goes away), several others have created their own definition of "Indian" (although we have a constitution and legal system), some have no hesitation in declaring others as idiots without providing any facts or logic to support their arguments.
If one looks carefully at the outcome of the election it is evident that the BJP and its allies got almost the same percentage of the votes as the previous election but the vastly different outcome is only due to our electoral system. BJP ruled the country with about 23% of the votes and this time they got about the same percentage of votes but the opposition was not as much divided as in the previous election. I will not be surprised if the Congress party is defeated in the next election but that is not the point of my post here.
I also have very strong opinions and I have been extremely active in politics all my life. But I am willing to provide logical arguments to support my position and willing to change my mind if someone has more convincing logic.
While growing up in Rajasthan I heard the equivalent words for scum and idiot used by RSS people against Jats and especially against the two Jat leaders in our area who fought hard to uplift the Jat community, Chaudhary Kumbharam Arya and Sardar Harlal Singh. I lived in the Jat Boarding in Jhunjhunu from 1955 to 1958 and because I always came first in class and I was strong in General Knowledge ( I could name all the MPs in the parliament with their affiliation) I got to talk with Sardar Harlal Singh occassionally when he stayed at the boarding. He never cared much about the opinions of these narrowminded people as he had a mission to help the community and that he did. ( I should mention that his nephew, Sanwat Singh, one of the brightest Jat young man was stabbed to death by Atal Behari Vajpayee's best friend Virendra Kumar Saklecha, who became Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh).
As far as Sonia Gandhi is concerned, the only thing I can say that she proved her mettle by taking over the party at the bottom point and reviving it. She inherited nothing. The party was on the verge of collapse. Also, for 5 generations, from Priyanka Gandhi to Motilal Nehru. none of the individuals have done anything to harm the good name of the family. But, unfortunately, I see grandsons of a great man harming his name in Haryana.
When I look back at all the people who became Prime Minister of India I can say that with two exceptions we had people of integrity and character as Prime Ministers. The two exceptions are Morarji Desai and Atal Behari Vajpayee. I am sure whoever becomes the next prime Minister will be lot better than the current one.
I would like to challenge all Jats who have decided to support an anti-Jat party, BJP, for their self interest to provide me with some logic about the virtues of RSS, VHP, Hindutva etc. I also suggest them to read about E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, better known as the Periyar, who freed the people of Tamilnadu from the yoke of the corrupt Hindu religion represented by the likes of RSS.
Birbal Singh
