“Shankar Vedantam”:http://www.vedantam.com/mainpage.html, Washington Post staff writer and SAJA Member had an article in WP, titled, “Wrath Over a Hindu God; U.S. Scholars’ Writings Draw Threats From Faithful”:http://www.vedantam.com/ganesha04-2004.html. The article quoted Sulekha Columnist, Rajiv Malhotra extensively as well as Columnist Sankrant Sanu. But then what do you expect from a SAJA member. According to “Rajiv”:http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/column.asp?cid=305924
bq. Washington Post’s front-page article entitled, ?Wrath Over a Hindu God: U.S. Scholars’ Writings Draw Threats From Faithful,? by Shankar Vedantam (April 10, 2004; Page A01) misrepresents the topic by failing to highlight the central issues being debated, namely, systemic ideological biases within academia, while caricaturing the community’s dissenting intellectuals in ways that approach Hinduphobia.
If you have not read “Washington Post and Hinduphobia”:http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/column.asp?cid=305924, please do.

“Resident Idiot”:http://www.tni.org/fellows/bidwai.htm in “Frontline”:http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2108/stories/20040423007612700.htm
bq. The Bharatiya Janata Party has stooped low in building up an egregious personality cult around Atal Bihari Vajpayee…
bq. Such sycophancy around an individual is only slightly less crude than the personality cult around Hitler – who too gave Germany the autobahn (high-speed motorway) – and Mussolini, or Stalin and Kim-Il Sung. The BJP’s publicity material has the same fawning, adoring attitude to Vajpayee as Nazi sympathiser Leni Riefenstahl’s films on Hitler.
But a few days back he himself wrote in “Rediff”:http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/apr/12bidwai.htm
bq. Ms Priyanka Gandhi’s campaign entry, despite its ‘dynastic’ pitfalls, will definitely energise the Congress. She can certainly put some icing on its electoral cake.
Also to see that Sonia Gandhi Pvt. Ltd is not an egregious personality cult, just go to Congress(I) “election posters web page”:http://www.aicc.org.in/elec-posters.htm and see how many of them have Sonia on them. (Also while you are at the page, note that Rajiv Gandhi has a tab by himself, while people like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi are all general history). So would Congress’s sycophancy around an individual be cruder than the personality cult around Hitler ?
bq. These advertisements had a definite pattern: Vajpayee’s face was everywhere. Here, he was shown playing with children. There, he was with Adivasis, donning traditional headgear. Not to be missed was the much-replayed picture of Vajpayee handling a computer mouse to inaugurate a project (although he is computer-illiterate.) In the BJP’s campaign, Vajpayee always stands taller than ordinary mortals. He is invariably shown as leading the nation by theatrically raising his right hand and exhorting the people to rise and shine.
Do you remember the last election Congress fought under Rajiv Gandhi when we had pictures of him with Adivasis, donning traditional headgear etc ? As the “editorial”:http://www.samachar.com/features/250204-editorial.html in samachar.com notes
bq. For over four decades when the Congress Party was in power the fine line dividing the party from the government had been fully obliterated. There was a time when Congressmen were openly chanting `Indira is India and India is Indira’ and misusing public funds for their own personal advancement, nay, enrichment. Ironically, even as the senior leaders of the Congress Party rail against the Shining India campaign, the Congress Party governments in the States are shamelessly squandering taxpayers’ monies to tom-tom their so-called achievements in national and regional papers and on various television channels.
bq. One of the biggest spenders in this regard is the non-performing Amarinder Singh Government in Punjab. Conjuring up its so-called achievements from thin air, almost daily the Punjab Government ads appear in national and regional papers with the mandatory photographs of the Congress President Sonia Gandhi and, of course, the feckless Amarinder Singh himself. Surely, if the State Governments run by the Congress Party could waste crores of rupees of public monies on taking out print and TV ads to peddle their non-achievements, there was no reason why the Vajpayee Government could not launch a media campaign to inform the people what it had achieved in the last five years.
Yada Yada Yada and
bq. It will stoop extremely low to get votes. That can only hurt our democracy, although it might not even help the BJP return to power.
The election results are a month away. At that time we will come back to these statements.

bq. But it was her failure to elucidate the claims made in the party’s manifesto that exposed Gandhi’s lack of understanding of economic issues. The Congress manifesto promises to create ten million new jobs every year, just like the National Democratic Alliance’s manifesto had done in the last election. A questioner asked how the Congress intended to achieve this. Her answer was all of three words — “by accelerating growth.” When a reporter asked which policies of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government her party would discard if it came to power, Gandhi pointed towards Mukherjee. Another question about divestment was likewise referred to Dr Singh. [via “Rediff”:http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=331735]
That is the President of Congress (I), the party that ruled India for about 50 years.

Apparently Sonia Gandhi Pvt. Ltd will come to power after the General Elections according to “Rahul Gandhi”:http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=Polls2004&slug=Rahul+flays+Mahajan+for+his+remark&id=52023&callid=1&category=National&headline=Rahul~flays~Mahajan~for~his~remark, who recently declared that his “heart beats for India”:https://varnam.org/archives/000354.html.
bq. “The BJP knows that the Congress is going to come back to power,” he said adding “sacred by this scenario the BJP is indulging in attacks on my family.”
One of the strategies that the party is following is to ally with the communists to fight against the BJP. So for example in “Orissa”:http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=Polls2004&slug=Cong%2C+Left+take+on+BJP+in+Orissa&id=52026&callid=1&category=National&headline=Cong,~Left~take~on~BJP~in~Orissa
bq. Senior Congress leaders including former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and J B Patnaik rubbed shoulders with CPI Secretary D Raja and CPI-M State Secretary Janardan Pati on the stage and talked of throwing out BJP and its allies from power together.
But in Kerala and West Bengal, the same party is against the Communists. So when a leader from Sonia Gandhi Pvt. Ltd is traveling across states, he should first find out, if they are against the communists or with the communists. Looks like a winning strategy.
Also, now that the private sector is flying, the party thinks it is time to intervene there as well. So if Sonia Gandhi Pvt. Ltd comes to power:
bq. Anxious to win back the support of Muslims, tribals, and dalits who once formed the core of the Congress? electoral base, the party has promised reservation for Dalits in the private sector and seperate quota for socially and educationally backward Muslims. [via “Economic Times”:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/575804.cms]
Excellent. But then Congress never claimed that it is a party with a difference.

bq. “Let them attack us, let them abuse us, let them beat us or even let them kill us, my family’s and my heart beats for India and will continue to beat for India,” he said in Amethi, from where he will contest the Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket. [“Rahul Gandhi”:http://www.rediff.com/election/2004/mar/29rahul.htm, son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Grandson of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and great-grandson of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru]
It is pathetic when you have credentials like these and still have to make explicit statements that your heart beats for India.
Senior Congress Leader “Karunakaran”:http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IER20040410124959&Page=R&Title=Kerala&Topic=0
bq. Seeking to clarify his position on the issue, Karunakaran said that he still believed that community-based organisations should refrain from using their influence for electoral bargaining.
but “according to Congress Sources”:https://varnam.org/archives/000331.html in a separate issue
bq. ”Only a Latin Catholic will be fielded from Ernakulam. And the Church has a major say in the whole process. We are discussing the matter,”
But then Congress is not claiming to be a party with a difference.

*How do you explain the dramatic improvements in the bilateral relationship between New Delhi and Washington?*
bq. The role played by the Indian expatriate community in the US acted as the lever for this change of perception about India. When we found that 40 percent of IT engineers had an Indian background or were Indians, there was a feeling that something was going on. We saw President Clinton taking interest in promoting India-US relations, he also visited India. Now the US government has agreed to go in for a strategic partnership with us, and the strategic partnership document was signed in November 2001 between President Bush and Prime Minister Vajpayee. In January 2004, the two leaders pledged to implement the strategic partnership at the highest level. [“India’s Foreign Secretary Shashank”:http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/30inter.htm]