It should surely be a matter of national pride, however, that India has the maturity to choose as prime minister a leader who is Indian not by birth but by choice.

from The Economist

Or without any other choice in 1984. Ahem.

My bet: this govt will last 2 years. Elections in 2006.

Realize that India has not “chosen” that firangan as her leader, she is the opportunistic winner in a fractured mandate. If anything, she is where she is because she married into the right family, and because she is, well, a firangan. Ask urself the question, with her present qualifications, wud she have been able to get elected to the premiership of the country if she was African, or Latin American, or Sri Lankan, or Arab ? IMO, an honest answer is NO.

She was elected to the leader of the congress party not because of her qualifications, or because she felt obligated to serving the country of her long and priveleged residence (after all, what wud she be if she left India for Italy ? here she gets a permanent govt acco in the best city in India, New Delhi, for life, a cavalcade of bulletproof cars, and a posse of gun toting super macho commandos as security guards). She was dragged from her oblivion to replace Sita Ram Kesari as the regional congress satraps could not agree on who was most qualified among them to lead the country. Besides there is the added qualification of the GANDHI surname.

Of all the reasons, the GANDHI surname (dynastic politics), the fair skin (racism), lack of a leader of adequate stature within the congress and well.. rank opportunism, I cant find one thats progressive. IMO, there are no qualities of management, vision, leadership, tech-savvy, business acumen evident in that firangan, which were an issue in these elections, and for which she is going to become the PM.

May be, there is some reason that I have missed here, if there is, please enlighten me. I am a patriotic Indian, and feel good when I can say to all my firang colleagues that India is a progressive country.

–salam, and take care.

My point in this post is only about the issue of whether naturalised citizens should be allowed to hold posts like that of the PM or President. Note, not foreigners, but citizens.

I agree with the dynastic point you made. But that’s not related to the issue here. I doubt if Sushma Swaraj would have done so much naatak if Sonia was say Punjabi.

Here’s what I disagree with.

not shown anything to indicate leadership potential
She’s led the Congress well. Both in state elections where her only hiccup was in last November and now in the general elections. Never has the Congress been out of power for 8 years and she’s brought it back from what everybody thought was the death of the party.

who doesnt know any Indian language (I am counting English as an Indian language)
Have you heard Sonia on TV? She speaks fluent English and from what I’ve seen recently, fluent Hindi. With an accent yes. But I don’t equate accents with fluency.

Regarding her being an opportunistic winner in a fractured mandate so was Vajpayee in 1996 and 1998 (and VP Singh in 1989). Today’s op-ed in the TOI deals with this in depth.

Finally, go through my blog and you’ll see that I would fit somehwhere on the opposite end of the spectrum vis-a-vis the leftists. Of course I don’t think they’re progressive. But once again, that’s beside the point.

As far as possible, Vajapayees coalitions were formed before the elections. They had a common manifesto, and faught the elections from a common platform, unlike the left and the congress where they fight each other before the elections, and come together after elections are over :-D

So u think that Sonia is where she is due to her leader like qualities etc ? good for u that u can see “leadership potential” and fluency in the firangans halting speech.

At least it saves u a lot of heartburn :-D ab to jo hona hai, ho ke rahega, this farce will be played to the end.