The Gut Feel
Friday, March 12, 2010
The wrong questions
Today morning I opened up the Mint Lounge to an article that starts with Sonia Gandhi's bogus resume, moves to Nehru family's failures in education but ends up with all the wrong questions to make an erroneous conclusion. Read that nonsense by Aakar Patel with a befitting title The catholicity of Sonia.
As a comment on Sonia's keeping her Italian citizenship, the author puts a ridiculous question: how many Indians would keep their Indian citizenship when offered European? The right Q would have been: how many Indians in such a powerful position in a foreign country be allowed to keep Indian citizenship? The author seems he has a point when he says that she always refers to opponents with "the oblique unko or unhonein". A kid is referred to as aap in Madhya Pradesh, but whats that got to do with anything? The right Q would lead to a finding that Italian gestures continue when she speaks Italian. Aakar easily forgets the past when he credits Sonia of "smuggling" Manmohan into the cabinet. The right Q to ask would be what happened inside the room where Sonia and Manmohan met the President of India the first time (after which Sonia changed her earlier stance, giving up the hope of being India's PM, and announced that she never wanted to have that position)? Another right Q to ask would be how was Manmohan chosen? The kind of arbitrary add-on parties that joined hands to form the govt back then, with each party having their own PM candidate and not agreeing to any other party's representation had a good compromise of Manmohan. And a compromise is what it is, not something "(intellectually) smuggled" by anyone to anywhere! Stop giving credit where it ain't due. Yet another wrong that Aakar leads us to believe is that Sonia keeps her calm without changing her tone. She doesn't know enough language to yell, neither English nor Hindi! So does Manmohan maintain his cool; its political composure and there are tons of politicians who can do it.
Rahul seems educated to the author, who hasn't done enough research to add him to the Nehru family's list of failures in education. Suffice it to say that Rahul's magna cum laude performance is not a Latin phrase. ;) And what does Amartya Sen's certificate to Rahul's mother on his talent mean? It somehow means that since Rahul couldn't graduate out of his colleges, the credit his "impression of talent" on Amartya must go to Sonia, Rahul's widowed mother. Utterly ridiculous. I have begun to doubt Amartya's talent to assess talent now.
The author seems to have confused himself into believing that Sonia is a proof of European ability and thinks it proper to jump to suggesting Ratan Tata's replacement to be a European, Indian cricket team's European coaches and European "protestant" male (whatever the f* that means) building wealthy, uncorrupt, equal, secular, liberal nations. There is enough proof of these countries being corrupt when formed, why-- their being formed is a result of corrupt minds in the first place, with someone else's stolen wealth! And with this rubbish running in the background, the fella concludes thus: that a half literate "catholic" woman has undone the self-inflicted damage of ours! This is so stupid that I don't even want to defend here, and if do I cannot do so without being brutally verbose. Any takers?
As a comment on Sonia's keeping her Italian citizenship, the author puts a ridiculous question: how many Indians would keep their Indian citizenship when offered European? The right Q would have been: how many Indians in such a powerful position in a foreign country be allowed to keep Indian citizenship? The author seems he has a point when he says that she always refers to opponents with "the oblique unko or unhonein". A kid is referred to as aap in Madhya Pradesh, but whats that got to do with anything? The right Q would lead to a finding that Italian gestures continue when she speaks Italian. Aakar easily forgets the past when he credits Sonia of "smuggling" Manmohan into the cabinet. The right Q to ask would be what happened inside the room where Sonia and Manmohan met the President of India the first time (after which Sonia changed her earlier stance, giving up the hope of being India's PM, and announced that she never wanted to have that position)? Another right Q to ask would be how was Manmohan chosen? The kind of arbitrary add-on parties that joined hands to form the govt back then, with each party having their own PM candidate and not agreeing to any other party's representation had a good compromise of Manmohan. And a compromise is what it is, not something "(intellectually) smuggled" by anyone to anywhere! Stop giving credit where it ain't due. Yet another wrong that Aakar leads us to believe is that Sonia keeps her calm without changing her tone. She doesn't know enough language to yell, neither English nor Hindi! So does Manmohan maintain his cool; its political composure and there are tons of politicians who can do it.
Rahul seems educated to the author, who hasn't done enough research to add him to the Nehru family's list of failures in education. Suffice it to say that Rahul's magna cum laude performance is not a Latin phrase. ;) And what does Amartya Sen's certificate to Rahul's mother on his talent mean? It somehow means that since Rahul couldn't graduate out of his colleges, the credit his "impression of talent" on Amartya must go to Sonia, Rahul's widowed mother. Utterly ridiculous. I have begun to doubt Amartya's talent to assess talent now.
The author seems to have confused himself into believing that Sonia is a proof of European ability and thinks it proper to jump to suggesting Ratan Tata's replacement to be a European, Indian cricket team's European coaches and European "protestant" male (whatever the f* that means) building wealthy, uncorrupt, equal, secular, liberal nations. There is enough proof of these countries being corrupt when formed, why-- their being formed is a result of corrupt minds in the first place, with someone else's stolen wealth! And with this rubbish running in the background, the fella concludes thus: that a half literate "catholic" woman has undone the self-inflicted damage of ours! This is so stupid that I don't even want to defend here, and if do I cannot do so without being brutally verbose. Any takers?
posted by TheGutFeel # 7:35 PM 
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