Thursday, March 26, 2009

History repeats itself

History repeats itself more than anywhere else in the subcontinent political space. It was Zia who unseated Bhutoo in 70s, without either of them even having a glimpse of future, when Musharraf would dethrone Nawaz in 90s. The two incidents are like mirror images, sad to say that the political realities havent changed for good, in fact, in many cases, we are worse off today. In our own country, similar incidents happened in last one week, though of lesser intensity. While, it was Sanjay Gandhi whose arrest for leading a protest, accidentaly under the prime ministership of his own mother, Indira Gandhi in 1970s was gimmicked as outburst of a passionate young leader, the situation is not much different when more than two decades later, his own son, Varun, has shown the desire to spend some time behind bars and not to defend his case in court. Needless to say that, this is again an ugly gimmick of a young and aspiring leader, hungry for power, and finding parallels in their not longer than few hour's stay in jail with those of never ending years spent by their own fore fathers under foreign administration. Surprising is the fact that for a politician to find his foot in jail is a virtue, for a commoner it is a vice. It will be shameful if Varun is able to leverage his jail stint for getting more votes and to prevent it, the Indian voters have to come of age.

No comments: