An Elegy Written to Mourn Mani Shankar Aiyar’s Exit
Wednesday, 8. February 2006 - 6:30 PM
Picture this: a gentleman holds degrees from Cambridge, serves in prestigious (bureaucratic) positions in the central government, supports the 1962 Chinese invasion of India, supports Pakistan ardently, declares himself a secular fundamentalist, graduates to become the uncrowned poet laurete of Sonia Gandhi’s court (shamelessly stolen from NS Rajaram), and thanks to this loyalty, gets an influential berth in the Cabinet.
And suddenly he is inexplicably dropped from the said ministry.
Because he is powerless to protest, he chooses to employ the services of the ever-faithful secular media. The result:
Aiyar was the sacrificed at the altar of an increasingly spineless foreign policy. The long awaited cabinet reshuffle could have been dismissed as an exercise in coalition housekeeping and rewarding of the faithful, had it not been for one significant change of portfolio. This was the removal of Mani Shankar Aiyar from the petroleum ministry and the appointment of fund-raising party loyalist Murli Deora to this immensely sensitive post.
Prem Shankar Jha mourns the exit of a person who deserved to go for several reasons. The fact that Jha riles against closer Indo-US ties betrays his lack of coherent argument(!) in favour of the ex-Petroleum Minister.
9. February 2006 - 4:04 AM
Jha is a hard-core Leftist – nay a Jehadi. Anyway, nowadays the line between a Jehadi and a Communist is increasingly blurring. Both can now be used interchangebly.
A Jehadi,
1] hates his mother-land
2] Contributes towards violence
3] Destroys properties
4] Falls back on ideology to hamper development
5] Is against democracy, Police and Army
6] Shamelessly uses the latest technology developed by the West and argues against the West always
7] Creates a fear psychosis amongst common people
8] Works doggedly against national interest
Replace the word Jehadi above with Communist and you wont need to change the lines below.
22. February 2006 - 11:35 PM
mani shankar aiyar is the brightest ,most honest and the best minister manmohan singh had in his cabinet .
two reasons for his exit are
american pressure & pressure from the I A S lobby who will not let any one take their reserved positions
the message that has gone country wide and mostly in rural areas when only manishakar has any reach ,is that don’t work,don’t show results,just remain low profile,enjoy all the perks,amass wealth for
if yu work ,yu will be dropped like a hot brick.as Manmohan singh does not like to be overshadowed ,nor does sonia