My fellow countrymen! I have been thinking of writing this note & sharing with all of you for a very long time… Now with no further delay:
If I may ask you, what are the 5 fundamental aspects that you as a citizen will want to consider before you exercise your right to vote, and decide who runs this country for the next 5 years?
1. Border safety (ensure borders remain protected)
2. Secularism? (Think what you mean by this utterly abused term!)
3. Economic development (right from agriculture to science & technology)
4. Quality & accessible Medical & Educational service
5. Brand India & Safety of Indians
Now – If you think I have captured at least 80% of the majority of the factors, you may consider reading further.
My intention is to open up our minds and think thoroughly while deciding who we think is capable of meeting our expectations.
Border safety: It is a known fact, and I hope it doesn’t come as news to you, that under the Congress' rule, we have had a history of Chinese Army & Pakistani militant infiltrations. Latest attempt by Chinese Army resulted in losing 60-80kms of our land in Arunachal. The shameful attempts by the Pakistanis to infiltrate into our border range from open-fires on our jawans serving in J&K to the 2008 Mumbai attack, and the bomb blasts in Odisha & Hyderabad.. the list is long and nothing but disgraceful. Thus, portraying us a nation that is incapable of protecting itself.
Under the NDA lead by BJP we were able to protect our borders let it be threats from China or Pakistan. We must remember “The Kargil war” where our troops were able to kick the Pakistani army from strong position back to their land. How many of us can remember any terrorist attack during the NDA rule?? To help you, the only significant one being – The attack on the parliament building. Let me tell you, post this NDA brought in POTA (although TADA existed) owing to which 100+ potential terrorist strikes were prevented. Let me also remind you about India’s pride ‘The nuclear test in Pokhran’.
Secularism: Well, as I have always said, “this is the most abused word in my country!” and I still stand by it. It somehow feel that people have mistaken (thanks to our politicians) ‘Secularism’ for ‘Minority Appeasement”. It is disgusting - how politicians can stoop low trying to play ‘vote bank politics’. When our constitution was written in 1949, the minority set was identified based on their socio-economic status & to ensure that they are not denied of an opportunity or right, or restricted “on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability”. This set was to be revisited every 15 years and amended accordingly. if you must know – this set was hardly revisited with the intention to remove any of the existing set/class of citizens from being classified as ‘Minority’.
Now that said, What is secularism??
Secularism in short means – equal opportunity to ‘one and all’ irrespective of caste, creed or religion. (According to the Preamble of the constitution of India, “The Government respects all religions. It does not uplift or degrade any particular religion”).
Having said that – how are we progressing on that? We are increasing the quota for minority segments irrespective of their social or economic status! That means if my forefathers were categorized as minority – even though I may be well-off in terms of economic or social status – I am categorized as ‘Minority’. This means, I still get easy access to the best education or Govt jobs in spite of securing lower grades compared to someone from ‘non-minority’ with better grades and worse economic condition.
It is a well-known fact that such quotas have only got worse with congress led UPA in power. Congress has always only divided us & increased the gap and gained from it. Is NDA any better? well, under their regime - at least it did not get worse – if that is any consolation.
You may be wondering what my comment is on 2002 riots – I’d only say “Undoubtedly, the administration should have done a lot more to control things before they got worse. Also, may be as a CM, Modi must have immediately accepted the responsibility & stepped down, or must have come in front of the public and openly apologized for his failure in this case. An apology after 11 years may not suffice. That said – considering that the highest judiciary has cleared him from being involved in the riots & considering that he had been beaten up by almost everybody, including the Media –I’d only advise you to look beyond 2002 & not make it your focal point while judging a Leader’s caliber!
Going forward, let us remember that a tree is only as strong as its roots are. Let us get our roots correct – let us not spread hatred or create/facilitate a divide among INDIAN CITIZENS.
Economic development (right from agriculture to science & technology): The facts are up & clear – Compare the GDP growth, development in terms of science & technology, infrastructure development or as simple as INR vs. USD valuation! Most of the plans implemented by UPA related to these segments were originally conceived, developed & approved by NDA during their regime. For eg: the golden quadrilateral, mission to mars or Sports cities etc. In short, NDA brought out an Abdul Kalam for us.. we haven’t had one since. Even the fundamental contributor to GDP our agri industry - we were exporting agri products under NDA, now under UPA – we are importing even onion & tomatoes – how low can we go?
Needless to say more – I believe most of us can now judge who is better & who we need to vote to get our golden days back.
Quality & accessible Medical & Educational service: Blame it on time or the administration – both these fundamental services are no more in reach of the normal citizen if he aspires Quality & Care. Our government schools/colleges/hospitals need no description – let it be the facilities available or the administration or the safety. Not sure about you, but I have little confidence that UPA can do any better in this segment – all they did was to commercialize even these fundamental rights of our citizens. With the track record of NDA it for sure is set to do much much better in this segment than congress.
Brand India & Safety of Indians: Okay.. this is going to be a task to quantify and arrive at a definitive estimation.. so lets try out a few fields:
Attack on Indians living abroad – Australia, Students in US & UK, US degrading democratic immunity given to Indian ?? All our external affairs does is talking & only talking!
Indian fishermen being killed by Sri Lankan navy & Italian marines? Still nothing from external affairs.
India’s Global Image: Under NDA – Global investments were flowing in to India; International organizations were involved with India – in the fields of science & technology; Companies like Infosys, Wipro, HP, TCS etc.. started or expanded.
All I ask of you, is to put India first. Jai Hind!
