Sad Day For India

The finalized list of Ministers has just been released. While I was not involved in those discussions and was not informed of the list before it was released, I did put forth a few points to my Mother and the Prime Minister. I must say that list has not been adhered to in its entirety - though I must also add that there never was an obligation for them to do so.

Here is a summary of what I had put forth:

- Tainted Ministers to not be allowed.

- Experience and past performance over caste/state/religion bias.

- First time MPs to not be included. Except of course, Mr. Tharoor.

I'm sure you can see some of the points have not been adhered to. When I spoke to my Mother about this, she said there are certain things you have to give up in order to get certain other things - which hopefully are more important. In this case, there are several within the Congress Party itself that needed to see things this way, otherwise they would not have put their full support behind the "Central Command" and in the absence of that, we could not have led the nation the way we would like to - the right way. Not only would the party be fractured, even the people who did not see their state/caste/religion getting represented in the cabinet would not vote for us again.

I see the point.

I understand we need to go through the transformation at a pace that the country as a whole can keep up with. But that pace is usually going to be determined by the slowest of us all. Just as a chain is only as strong as the weakest link, the country can develop only as much or as fast as the stupidest amongst us will let it. The smart ones will one day give up and head out to other countries then. No one wants to see their aspirations capped by the stupidest amongst us.

This is truly a sad day for India. What could have been a dream cabinet has been reduced to an average cabinet. All because there are those in the country who have to be satisfied. Those who see their national identity as their secondary identity, but their state/caste/religious identity as their primary identity.

There are many within the Congress that are not too happy about this new cabinet. They feel we have a clear mandate for change, and this Cabinet does not give the voters a strong confidence that we are ready to make a change. They feel we should ride the wave of voter support and impress them with what we're trying to do. There are yet others who feel this is an acceptable cabinet, that it helps us balance out things with voter and allies. They feel we need to survive the next 5 years without any hiccups and that itself will be enough to come back to power. In terms of performance, it would be fine to just got there half way.

We're already giving up what the media has termed the Rahul Doctrine. And this is just within the Congress. Don't even get me started on what we've had to give up because of our allies.