Brief Overview of Indian Political History — Part 5: To The Millennials [1998–2008,...]
CITIZEN ZERO PUBLIC CORRESPONDENCE 2023.01.26: E-mail Notes to Dr. Manmohan Singh, Former Prime Minister of India [CC: @PriyankaGandhi, General-Secretary of INC.]
Editorial Note: These Citizen Zero e-mail correspondences below were exchanged with Dr. Manmohan Singh, Former Prime Minister of India (CC:@PriyankaGandhi, General-Secretary of Indian National Congress) in February 2023. On the ocassion of India's 74th Republic Day on the 26th January, they are being published here on the substack platform for free public-domain access. Mera Bharath Mahan! Jai Hind! Vande Mataram! •
Part 5 – Note on Indian Political History [To The Millennials 🌍👨🏾🚀☮️💕] • created: 20230223.0448.92 • updated: 20230226.1320.6044 • citizenzeroofindia
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Seeing as it is India's first-generation of Millennials (i.e. our young citizens generally born in the first decade of this 21st Century) having become eligible to vote for the first time in their lives from India's 17th Parliamentary Elections of 2019 onwards, and with the upcoming State & National elections of 2023 & 2024, who, among other things, probably have no notion of a world without Internet, (which is fast lightening to slow rolling thunder in the advance of communication and information from previous eras of landline-phones, print-news, nationalized-tv-programming, AM/FM-radio, libraries, books, etc.), and by some measure of the recent 'Democracy Dividend' account for something among the 60% of the working-aged population under 28 years? compared to the proportion that's only 40% in USA?(and even lower in People's Republic of China?), are going to form an electorate that's either the completely clueless & disinterested bystanders in the unimaginative lacklustre political-process of the land or stand to become history's most well-informed, conscientious participants of highly engaged political-action for the cause of Justice, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Unity, Individuality, Secularity, Sovereignty, and Democracy as set forth in our Constitution's Preamble by our long-departed Freedom-Fighting Founding Fathers/Mothers our Nation, in hope that we the Children and Youth of India may 'become the change we wish to see' in our lives, our societies, our cities and villages, our Nation, and our World.
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Whereas our Centenarians, our mothers and our fathers, have the whole weight of India's history as an Independent Republic of the last 8 decades to bear, and are burdened in finding the 'clear stream of reason through the dreary desert sands of dead habit' in the changing vicissitudes of our socio-cultural-geopolitical landscape, we as the youth of our nation (and I turning 40, as the greatest man alive today ;-), 'born here of my parents born here and their parents born here, hoping to cease not till death',) have mainly to consider way forwards and upwards. But without a sure foothold and a clear view of the path ahead, we are likely going to tumble and roll, (and like random molecular motion dissipate a lot of useful energy bouncing about in collisions rather than realize the operating field, the polarizations charging and discharging us, and our own individual quantum levels of energy through which we can leap into the space of free-electrons producing useful current), and so we would do well to consider some of the events that shaped our millennium, so that we may build on 'our numerous strengths and correct our flaws'.
While, with regard to some of the specific dangers faced at the beginning of the millennium, calls for greater preparedness in intelligence, emergency tactics and security on India's part, it would also be instructive that these serve as reference on what constitutes 'Absolute Red-Lines' in future situations arising out of regional, foreign, and military engagements as well as domestic civilian emergencies.
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India as a Nuclear-Weapons State, 1998: Between May 11-13 1998, at Pokharan Rajasthan, India's Atomic Energy Department conducted 3 underground nuclear test explosions of 45 kiloton output yield. While these tests confirmed India could now construct its own nuclear weapons that could be deployed as a warhead with its indigenous missile technology (e.g. Agni, Prithvi,?), they were also the requisite steps in testing advances in India's Nuclear Energy program, and in obtain the next datasets for other test simulations. As previously mentioned in these essays, the Department of Atomic Energy was established by PM Nehru in 1956? and India's first Nuclear-capability test was conducted in 1974 under PM Indira Gandhi's leadership, and the department had been operational and funded under previous Congress administrations through 1995-96 where under PM Rao these particular tests had been already scheduled for execution. As it turns out, the political mileage for this achievement by this India's long-established scientific community headed by the eminent Nuclear-scientist (and later as our President of India) Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, was claimed by the BJP-NDA coalition led by PM Vajpayee, who had given the approval for these scheduled tests having been in power for less than a few weeks in 1998. And this haste firstly, hinted at this government's electioneering exit-strategy in the event their newly formed coalition broke down (as in their previous attempt at government formation that had failed within a month in the 1996 no-confidence motion).
Secondly, it had shown this government's lack of preparedness in building a more favourable international opinion towards India's needs and advancements in Nuclear Technology, and as a result India faced severe economic sanctions by USA/UK/Japan/Canada/some European countries until 2001 (though thankfully Russia, France, Germany would remain in concurrence with India's Nuclear Policy at the time), and had contributed to an Industrial slowdown in the economy.
Thirdly, India's Foreign Ministry (External Affairs) went ahead and named China as India's foremost security threat upon taking office, including a similar such direct mention by the PMO in a NYT op-ed published addressed to the US president in the wake of these tests, and this had caused a reversal in Chinese foreign relations that had been generally improving with PM Rajiv Gandhi's administration onwards, while the worser aspect of this diplomatic breakdown was that Pakistan would go on to acquire a ready? nuclear-bomb technology from China (inspite of a direct violation of its NPT membership) and they would go on to announce their own nuclear tests and missile-delivery capability within a week/month?
Fourthly, and quite correctly, India would not then be a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) being as the treaty then favoured only USA/UK/France/Russia/China? in their access to Nuclear Materials and Technology over the rest of the world-nations? nor be a signatory to Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which would have virtually stalled India's Nuclear Energy technology testing as well being as these frameworks were not designed separately at the time, but additionally because this treaty did not confirm long-term disarmament and test-bans by those other Nuclear-weapons nations (not even within a 50-year timeframe as it turns out).
Fifthly, and somewhat more magnanimously at the time, India crafted its own Nuclear Deterrence Policy called No-First-Use Treaty (becoming the first Nuclear-weapons nation to do so) while neither China nor Pakistan nor the other main Nuclear-weapons nations would take a step further to prove their commitment to deterrence (given that China had over 400 nuclear warheads & ICBMs at the time, and USA the world's first nuclear-weapons aggressor had continued to have nuclear-powered warships cruising the Indian Ocean), and more dangerously these nations would separately go on to advance their nuclear technology with 'Pre-emptive' & 'First-Strike' capability to disable the opponents nuclear arsenal, along with other advancements in developing newer 2nd & 3rd generation nuclear weapons, and thereby complicating or completely precluding the possibility of Global Nuclear Weapons Disarmament.
But ultimately, after the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings of Japan by USA on August 6-8, 1945, it should have to firmly resolve in our minds that such Weapons of Mass-Destruction should never ever be used upon civilian societies anywhere, blameless as they are for the faults of a few warmongers in governments and militaries, and neither should people nor politicians engage in mindless threats, bluster, bravado, machismo, upmanship, etc. of nuclearization and nuclear-attacks, as seen so often over social-media and election-campaigns, for such talks are not without consequences, because they invoke dread among ordinary people even of peaceful use of nuclear-technology for viable clean-energy needs, and ultimately complicates total and nuclear disarmament which is without a doubt one of humanity's main goal for the 21st century, should we wish to arrive into the next millennium from here on.
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LOC-Intrusion, Pakistan-India War in Kargil & Aftermath, 1998–2001: In what is generally acknowledged as the third war-offensive by Pakistan across the LOC against India (including 1965 &1971, where even the Chinese military then had aided in these aggressions against India) but the Kargil-intrusion was ostensibly more dangerous compared to the previous two attempts which had been countered with strong military readiness from the Indian Army while being in a position to advance and push back the aggressor behind their borders. Whereas in the previous two wars the Indian government under PM Shastri & PM Indira Gandhi respectively had been more responsive, rallying international diplomacy and foreign alliances at the time (signing timely security treaties with USSR for e.g.) and while then granting the Indian Army a tactical freehand to resolve the situation as it saw fit, in the post-Kargil War analysis, it had been revealed that Indian Army Intelligence had detected LOC infiltration over a year since 1998?, while the Indian Government at the time had failed to recognize the gravity of the situation till May of 1999 (when apparently it was some Indian shepherds/sherpas of Jammu & Kashmir who had detected the enemy-occupation of Pakistani Mujahideen militants and aided by Pakistani army-personnel in Kargil and surrounding peaks). In a hard-fought battle over the world's highest battlefield (Siachen Glacier?), from May to July 1999, the Indian Army launched a determined counter-offensive to recapture Kargil and other peaks within the LOC, and while emerging ultimately victorious had suffered heavy casualties with over 500 Indian soldiers had died fighting and many more injured.
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What's more disturbing about this war offensive by the Pakistan-army with its intensification of overt cross-border militancy no less, was a clear indication to test the Limits of Conventional War aggression against India given that the LOC-intrusion & Kargil-occupation was outrightly planned and executed following the announcement of Nuclear-weapons capability by the two nations.
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Secondly, in February 1999 prior to this active war engagement, India's PM Vajpayee had extended the olive-branch to his Pakistan counterpart to ease tensions concerning this new situation that arose with our two nations gaining nuclear arsenal, when he had embarked on a historic bus journey from Srinagar to Lahore. And this clearly indicates that either this mission of peace-offering had failed at the highest-level of governmental engagement, or that, as has been posited often enough by the Indian Army, Intelligence, Government and Diplomatic Channels, that the Pakistani Army functioned as rogue stratocracy by default overriding their government's directives and international posturing, and despite its long-history of staging some 3-4 military coups had often been overlooked and aggrandized by continued USA military-funding since 1954?
True enough, in December 1999 right at the end of the Kargil war, General Musharaf and the Pakistan army had overthrown their elected PM Mr. Nawaz Sharif who had gone ahead and signed a unilateral ceasefire over the Kargil dispute, but instead Mr. Musharaf had gone on to establish himself as President for nearly a decade?
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Again, in the same month in December 1999, in yet another intimidation to push the envelope on conventional war, Pakistani militants as trained by its military intelligence service had gone on to hijack an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi, and diverted the flight to Kandhar Afghanistan, from where they engaged the Taliban to negotiate the release of some 36 Pakistani militants in Indian cells, of which they were able to secure the release of a major international terrorist (whom India had called to put on the UNSC watchlist, and was vetoed by China as recently as 2014?) and two others from Pakistan, and they were flown into Kandahar.
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Finally, and this gets even worse, when in July 2001, President Musharaf made an official visit to New Delhi upon an invitation by Indian PM Vajpayee for signing of the Agra Summit on declaration of peaceful relations between India and Pakistan, and then with the September 11th terrorist attacks in the America, Pakistan had gone on to gain special military status and funding by the USA government in allowing its territory for launch of the Afghanistan invasion, and what follows is the most damning, when in December 2001, some 3-4 Pakistani terrorists arrive into New Delhi, and launch a gun-fire attack on India's Parliament, but are eventually captured and killed. It is disconcerting that India had not retaliated at Pakistan in tactical military measure or full force upon such an occurence then, having had to kowtow its foreign policy with USA's war effort in Afghanistan at the time.
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On Religious Riots in India, and Gujarat Pogrom 2002:
After 1947, partition where 500,000 people were killed in India and Pakistan, between 1959-1961, deaths from communal riots in India merely increased from 7 to 108, but became more severe in mid-1960 rising to about 2000 deaths, and reduced to around 298 deaths by 1970. It has been statistically shown that the occurrence of religious riots increased after 1977-79, when the BJP came into existence from the previous Jan Sangh & RSS, and upon forming governments in states of UP, MP, Rajasthan, Gujarat, etc.
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(In December 1992, 3000 people of both Hindus & Muslims were killed in riots in various parts of India (UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra) after Babri-Masjid destruction with over 200,000 sevak volunteers as carried out by RSS/BJP/VHP/Bajrang Dal goons).
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(In 1999, An old Australian Christian missionary and his two children were burnt alive in their car by Bajrang Dal fanatics in Orissa.)
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(In the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi in the week after PM Indira Gandhi's assassination, over 2000 civilians mostly Sikhs were targeted and massacred by a mob with active encouragement by Congress Party workers at the time, and so it goes with this kind of horror cutting both ways, with both the 'holy cow party' and the 'dynastic-succession party' showing their diabolical streaks.)
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While the 2002 Gujarat riots bears a some similarity to those 1984 Delhi Riots, here are the gory details of the rest of the vomit-inducing, gut-wrenching ethnic-cleansing pogrom that was unleashed in Gujarat then under the notoriety of its Hindutva-proponent RSS-affiliate BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi (and later elected PM of India since 2014):
A day or so earlier to the Gujarat Riots in February 2002, a train had caught fire in Godhra district. 59 people were killed including women and children, mostly who were Hindu 'Ram Sevaks' volunteers returning from Ayodhya after some stone laying ceremony that was held there in the 10th year after the destruction of the Babri-mosque, who while later expressing their disappointment at the 2002 Supreme Court decision that upheld its ban on any constructions to be allowed at the disputed site, that these sevak volunteers had apparently taunted some poor Muslim vendors at the Godhra Station, and when this news spread and as the train passed through a couple of stations ahead, some Muslim villagers had pelted the moving train with stones, and little while later it was reported that two coaches on the train had caught fire. While the UC Banerjee Inquiry Commission found no case of arson, and that the fire was started from the inside probably by passenger negligence while transporting some flammable kitchen supplies. But instead of Gujarat State Department of Railways taking the responsibility for this accident and opening an investigation, Chief Minister Narendra Modi had alleged that terrorists trained by Pakistani Military Intelligence were responsible for this attack, and declared a 'State Funeral' for the deceased civilians, and a statewide Bandh shutdown was declared for a day, and the riots began the next day.
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What followed was for a period of over 3 whole months from end of February to May, in nearly 20 out of 25 districts in the state with about 151 towns and 993 villages of Ahmedabad to Vadodara, some 2000 people mostly Muslim men, women and children were slaughtered, tortured, molested and raped on an alleged planned rampage by various Hindu mobs; while some 200,000 people were displaced from their homes into refugee camps, leading to a new ghettoization of Muslim community; a list of Muslim-owned business establishments, heritage sites, and mosques were targeted, looted, burnt with arson from LPG cylinders; where these wicked terroristic rioters and killers went about with saffron bands round their heads, (possibly, to identify themselves to each other and to avoid being arrested by police?); where the Indian Central Government led by BJP-NDA PM Vajpayee stood helpless those 3-months waiting without invoking Article 356? for President's Rule due to breakdown of Constitutional Machinery in the state of Gujarat, but eventually had dispatched a senior Director-General of Police as Security Advisor to the Gujarat State Police which CM Modi had resisted first, and then claimed normalcy had returned to the state and sent back this DGP within a month or so?, (probably Mr. Modi fearing being found out for collusion before a full-investigation could be opened-up?), and had immediately in July in the midst of this chaos, instead of restoring dignity and order to the state of Gujarat and pacifying the dread being faced by Muslim families of the dead and displaced, Mr. Modi opportunistically went ahead to dissolve his own government and called for early elections to capitalize on the timely raging fanatical Hindutva support base. Meanwhile the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Election Commission (ECI) upon separate investigations found human rights deterioration, law-order situation broken down, huge number of electors permanently displaced, criminal rioters still abound unarrested and instilling fear, while in response the police had started evacuating refugee camps to hasten an impression of restoring law-order in the state, and even arresting Muslims on Prevention Of Terrorism Act (POTA) for the previous Godhra massacre, 31 of whom were convicted. But eventually the ECI held the state election at the end of the maximum 6-month gap, and predictably and ignominiously the ‘rioter-in-chief’ Mr. Narendra Modi returned to power in Gujarat and a 3rd term as well.
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Meanwhile, in some 2100 cases out of 4252 registered with the Gujarat police during the riots were closed with neither investigation nor arrests, and many more being dismissed by the Gujarat State District Courts, and so following which the Supreme Court based on the application filed by the Solicitor-General of India, re-opened 2000 of those cases transferring them to Bombay State High Court, where some 250 convictions were issued, while later in 2022, the Gujarat State Government had some of those convictions commuted including those that included life-terms for gangs of rapists and arsonist-killers, and released the convicts from jail.
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In 2012, A Special-Investigations-Team (SIT) functioning under ""strict scrutiny of the Supreme Court’s own Amicus Curiae"", resolved in its report, that while ""The Gujarat government has reportedly destroyed the police wireless communication of the period pertaining to the riots.” It adds, “No records, documentations or minutes of the crucial law and order meetings held by the government during the riots had been kept."" but on the contrary that ""CM Narendra Modi had on the first day of the riots itself requested the Center for police back-up by Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the army,”" and mainly that ""While the amicus finds the words spoken by the chief minister an offence, an incitement to violence and hatred against a particular section of the Indian people, in its closure report, the SIT finds that no criminal offence has been committed and recommends a closure of these allegations.""
In 2022, the Supreme Court and Gujarat Magistrate Court upheld the SIT report again in response to an individual petition filed by the spouse of a Congress leader slain in those riots, concluding while there were individual lapses in the conduct of Gujarat state and law-enforcements officials, that it didn't amount to a charge of conspiracy by the then CM Narendra Modi and the Gujarat state government, and so, after this petition was dismissed, the Union Home Minister gloated on public broadcast that since the courts had acquitted PM Narendra Modi of any blame for the Gujarat Riots, everyone who had accused him previously of any wrongdoing were required to apologize to him publicly. Though in consideration of Mr. Narendra Modi's highly publicized meteoric rise to national politics after 2012, the apparent “clean-chit” from the SIT report did appear to restore his political credibility domestically and popular international reception among the Indian diaspora in USA & UK, (and somewhat incredulously, with PM Modi being invited by Pres. Obama to address the US House of Representatives in 2016?!)
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Some further disturbing news on deterioration of communal relations continued from 2014-2022 after Mr. Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister at the Center. Some of these are, as follows–
In February 2020, in a ghastly reminder of the Gujarat violence, riots erupted in Delhi where some 40 Muslims and 13 Hindus were killed, a mosque and a few shops were set on fire in a predominantly Muslim-neighbourhood, and many more were displaced into make-shift camps, wherein these riots had broken out in response to PM Narendra Modi BJP-NDA Government's introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Act which sought to fast-track religion-based naturalization for immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, except to the exclusion of those who were Muslims among them, (not only because such a policy goes against the grain of secularity in India but also presents a serious security lapse on part of the government for failing to frame this Citizenship Bill on the measures of immigrant character background checks rather than asking them to prove what religion they profess?!).
Later in 2022, a announcement, invoking historical likeness to Nazi Gestapo, PM Narendra Modi with this avowed penchant for Hitler's methods, wanted to introduce standardization of police uniforms across all the states in the future, (perhaps with a strong ulterior design of identifying law-enforcement compliance with his political control towards totalitarianism?)
While also recently in 2022, a similar mob pattern emerged from those 2002 riot years when saffron-scarf wearing goons went around trying to intimidate Muslim women-students wearing 'hijabs', etc.
Furthermore, in all BJP-ruled state, portraits of the former RSS chief Savarkar had been installed in those State Legislatures, along with Mahatma Gandhi and other Indian Independence Freedom Fighters. Likewise another RSS superstitious agenda of bans on beef-consumption was introduced in those states, and crores of rupees being spent building Cow-Shelters (as also temple-constructions), which smacks of institutional brahminical hegemony in these government circles, and likewise other symbolic overcompensation with vote-bank politics. (To be clear, within many forms of Hinduism and among all castes, meat consumption including beef has its place in the Vedas, the Manusmriti, Mahabharata, Ramayana, etc. just as much as Ahimsa (nonviolence) towards all living beings also has its place in these oldest Hindu religious texts. Therefore, requesting hamburger connoisseurs everywhere to go ahead and tweet their favourite food art pictures to Mr. Modi's twitter. 🐮🍔😋)
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Given that when Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2000, Mr. Modi's Administration had then introduced radicalization in school history text books, including passages where –Fascism was praised and Hitler regarded as a role-mode without mentioning the holocaust genocide of 6 million Jews.. –where mention of assassination of Mahatma Gandhi had been omitted, and later with revisions mentions of RSS affiliations of his assassin Mr. Naturam Godse and chief-conspirator Mr. Savarkar were omitted.. –where Muslims, Christians, Parsees, Sikhs were taught to be foreigners and invaders in India, and that it was an outrage that Hindus were a minority in some states..
It portends a dangerous situation of Caesarization & Mobocracy in the future to keep these hard truths on any state negligence in quelling communal violence to be suppresed and forgotten, as surely as people like Mr. Narendra Modi as they get older with absolute political authority, would likely turn more dictatorial and atavistic, and with the blind veneration they recieve from their trolls, followers and stooges, are likely to carry out worser unconscionable crimes against humanity.
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India-America Nuclear Energy Deal (123 Agreement), 2004–ongoing: 'The brightest thing in the shop window, and seldom more beautiful' was that following the lifting of sanctions in 2001, India and America began informal dialogue on sharing of Nuclear Energy Technology & Trade in 2002, and in 2004 PM Vajpayee and Pres. Bush released a joint statement confirming their commitment to build on those talks. It was during PM Manmohan Singh's tenure, with Secretary of State Ms. Rice visiting India in 2005, and on PM Singh's follow-up visit to America that more details were worked out, and in 2007 with India's External Affairs Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee completing the bilateral negotiations on the deal that came to be called the 123 Agreement. This 123 Agreement was said to be a watershed moment in Indian-American partnership, and it broadly included, on part of America– amending its international restrictions to facilitate cooperation over civilian nuclear-energy technology & trade with India, provisions for guaranteed Uranium reactor fuel supply from America and reserve supply source from other NPT countries, allowing India to enrich the spent Uranium fuel for reuse, etc. While, on part of India, requiring agreements to a phased separation of its Civilian and Military Nuclear facilities, and conforming its Civilian Nuclear Systems to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and inspections, and agreeing to ‘valid terms’ within the NPT while keeping an open-bargain on its Nuclear weapons-testing at the time; While further progress on this deal had stalled in the Indian Parliament at the time 2007-2009 with opposition from Congress (UPA) coalition partners, as of 2016, India under BJP (NDA) had resolved to enter into deals with select private American corporations for establishing some 6 state-of-the-art nuclear-power reactors in the country? Again, it remains to be seen how India can take advantage of new developments in Thorium-enrichment nuclear-fuel technology, being as it had the largest availability of Thorium in the world.
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National Parliament Coalition Governments, 1996–2014: Between 11th to 15th Lok Sabha Parliament, the Government of India was formed without a single-party having acquired a Lok Sabha majority on its own, and the arrival of this composite structure of coalition governments would be another important trend in Indian Politics at the turn of the millennium.
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In previous decades from 1952-1989 where the Congress Party had formed governments on their own majority and executed their full five-year terms, it was the 1977-1979 Janata Party Coalition and 1989-1991 Janata Dal Coalition that were the exceptions, and both these governments had been dissolved mid-term through 'no-confidence motions' from pre-election alliance members breaking away essentially. While notably then, the Congress Party in the opposition had played an opportunistic role in controlling the timing of dissolution by offering and withdrawing temporary parliamentary support once the original alliances themselves had disbanded, and it would carry out this destablizing role again after propping up the 1996-1998 United Front Coalition Alliance, forcing the change of two Prime Ministers (12th, 13th) before pushing for the ultimate dissolution. Whereas from 1998-1999 (dissolved), and 1999-2004, it was the turn of the BJP to forge alliance across different State Parties that had resulted in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) forming the government with Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee as India's 11th Prime Minister.
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It didn't really help matters improve the prospects of the Congress Party in the national elections for those 6 more years in opposition, despite by then having introduced the leadership of Ms. Sonia Gandhi (the Italian-born spouse of the former Prime Minister late Mr. Rajiv Gandhi) as the president of the Congress Party in 1998. It wouldn't, however, be the first time in over a century's long history of Indian National Congress, as the Grand Old Party of India, that a foreign-born person would play a key role in its fortunes, (and we are reminded here of Ms. Annie Besant a leader of the Irish Home Rule Movement in 1916-18? who had helped start the Indian Home Rule Movement, that would in turn go on to revive the INC at the time that had become dysfunctional after the 1905 Bengal Partition and the consequent ideological split between the Moderates of Mr. Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Extremists of Mr. Lok Manya Tilak, before the arrival of The Mahatma to the INC after 20 years in South Africa.) But Ms. Sonia Gandhi's apparent foreignness would become a veritable matter of concern in 2004, when the Congress Party could cobble together enough parliamentary support from other parties to form the United Progressive Alliance Government, as to whether such a person could be allowed to lead the Executive Body of the Government as the Prime Minister with her own Cabinet. Either the framers of our Constitution did not envision such a possibility after India's Independence from British Colonial Rule or that they had not thought it objectionable should a foreign-born person become the Prime Minister of India through our existing parliamentary structures. But either way, there was no specification in the Indian Constitution that could have prevented Ms. Sonia Gandhi from ascending to the role of Prime Minister of India then, unless of course, the coalition alliance would have rejected this development, but she had declined the role, and probably thus did not jeopardize the chance of the UPA government falling apart. But it really begs the question in the minds of most Indian Citizens, including those of us who are its well-wishers from before, why the Congress Party Organization had become so dysfunctional that it had to reach backwards and re-institute a kind of another era of ‘Dynastic-Succession’ politics, instead of being allowed to galvanize themselves to whatever new re-structuring, recruitment and leadership the party had required in the post-1990s? Nor does it do justice to suppress or conform many of the INC party's brilliant, competent, enterprising individuals/stalwarts to the background in hope of gaining from ‘sympathy vote-banking’ based on the party's ‘single-political-dynasty’ association in voters memories.
But thankfully, the INC-led UPA carried on to its full-term above many expectations, with the best person to lead the charge then in Dr. Manmohan Singh as India's 14th Prime Minister, and in 2009 it appears that the Congress Party was somewhat rewarded again by the election mandate with a higher seat share in the national parliament, for restoring some kind of stability to the functioning of government (though not enough to be simple-majority on their own again), and had continued to its full term leading the UPA coalition into 2014.
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It appears thus, that, it is in the second term of the NDA coalition and the two terms of the UPA coalition that our parliamentarians who had been previously sickened by dissolutions and re-elections decided to work together somewhat, and carry on the task of government to its full-term possible, and showed how multi-party coalition politics could survive in India and that the citizens of India should not be blamed for choosing a ‘Mixed Mandate’, which in reality might reflects their genuine aspirations for themselves and for their States (especially as we are large populous states that have matured into a somewhat more federal structure ready for better decentralization and local-self governance), rather than Indian citizens being polarized to endorse any one party's ideology, which as we have seen tends to corrupt governments with dangerous absolute centralized power.
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Enumerated below are the various Indian Governments into the 21st Century. Key discussions follow in separate linked notes.
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— 1991-96: INC + support, Shri. PV Narasimha Rao (10th Prime Minister, 10th Parliamentary Government)
— 1996: BJP Coalition, Shri. AB Vajpayee (11th Prime Minister, 11th National Parliament <no-confidence>)
— 1996-97: JD (UF) + support, Shri. HD Deve Gowda (12th Prime Minister, 11th National Parliament <no-confidence>)
— 1997-98: JD (UF) + support, Shri. IK Gujaral (13th Prime Minister, 11th National Parliament <no-confidence, dissolved>)
— 1998-99: BJP (NDA) + support, Shri. AB Vajpayee (11th Prime Minister, 12th National Parliament <no-confidence, dissolved>)
— 1999-2004: BJP (NDA) + support, Shri. AB Vajpayee (11th Prime Minister, 13th National Parliament <dissolved, early-elections>)
— 2004-2009: INC (UPA) + support, Shri. Manmohan Singh (14th Prime Minister, 14th Parliamentary Government)
— 2009–2014: INC (UPA) + support, Shri. Manmohan Singh (14th Prime Minister, 15th Parliamentary Government)
— 2014-2019: BJP (NDA), Shri. Narendra Modi (15th Prime Minister, 16th Parliamentary Government)
2019-2024: BJP (NDA), Shri. Narendra Modi (15th Prime Minister, 17th Parliamentary Government)
2024-2029: ?(?), ? (?, 18th Parliamentary Government)
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Follows below is summary enumeration of other watershed moments in Indian Political history in the realm of Indian Socio-Politics, Legislations, Supreme Court Decisions, Foreign Policy, Defence, Financials, Technology & Infrastructure, Environment Conservation, Disasters & Relief Management, Public Expenditures, etc. as happened or carried out during the administrations of these of our various Indian governments in power from the period 1996–2022. Key discussions follow in separate linked notes which includes, but not limited to, the following topics:
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—The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan for Universal-Education (2007?, UPA)
—MGNREGA (2007, UPA)
—Right To Information (2005, UPA)
—Right To Education (2009?, UPA)
—AADHAAR UIDAI (2009?, UPA)
—Mangalyan Mars Orbiter (2011?, UPA)
—Miscellaneous Problems, Scandals & Public Expenditures (INC):
(Mumbai Terror Attacks, 2007), (2G Scam, 2009?)
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—Right To Food (?,?)
—Right To Health (?,?)
—Notable Non-Governmental Projects (?,?)
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—2nd/3rd Nuclear Weapons Test Pokharan (1998, NDA)
—Goods & Services Taxation (2016?, NDA)
—CItizenship Amendment Act (2019, NDA)
—Jammu & Kashmir President's Rule & Repeal of Statehood (2019, NDA)
—Miscellaneous Problems, Scandals & Public Expenditures (BJP): (Kandahar Air India Hijack, 1998?), (Kargil War, 1999) (New Delhi Parliament Terror Attacks, 2001) (Gujarat Religious Riots, 2002), (Tehelka Bribes, 2003?) (Demonetization?, 2016) (Temples & Statues Building Projects, 2014-2022) (Pegasus Israeli Spyware, 2020?) (Adani Indian Stock Market Fraud, 2023?) (…)
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So, here we are two decades into the millennium as one of the fastest growing economies in the world since the Economic Liberalization Reforms of 1991. With the work of Government to be measured through these following metrics and others, as conducted through the Citizen Zero's Millennial Internship Program ;-)
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–Human Development Index towards Health, Education, Nutrition, Environment, Civil Rights for Justice, Liberty & Equality;
–Regional Co-operation, Peace, Trade & Foreign Relations;
–Technology, Manufacturing & Industry;
–Agriculture Productivity, Food Procurement, Storage & Distribution;
–Economy, Banking, Finance, Infrastructure, Public Expenditures;
–Legislations, Civics, Constitution, Census, Local Self-Governance & Federalism;
–Social Reforms, Peoples' Movements, Protests, Disasters and Relief;
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Say No to populism, electioneering, vote-banking, scamming, rioting, propogandazing, etc.
Say Yes to Truth through Facts and Figures and Perfect Essays!
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<20230223>
Though again, speaking for myself mostly, 'not all who wander are lost nor all that is gold glitters' and such are 'pioneers' and tangents to the 'circle of life', a 'destination unknown', 'to infinity and beyond' or to 'crash and burn', but I know everything's going to be OK! The 'Bare Necessities', 'Hakuna Matata', and The 'Dude Abides' and I will continue to provide your daily reading material until humanely possible to do so or until I lose my phone, bringing you to higher enlightenment and emotional upliftment (if that's possible, or we may just be excellent as we already are in the 'here and now'?), and I take no credit for putting together an abridged history for goading a better-informed mass political-consciousness because 'knowledge is free' or at least it's supposed to be. I only ask that you my dear reader (whilst you fact-check my assumptions everytime, and be sure to forward me the necessary corrections in your comments), that you stay steadfast and true on the 'long march to Freedom', believing in your heart of hearts that though the 'arc of the moral universe is long it bends towards Justice', so that you may always carry your 'Mind without fear' everywhere, being as ever 'Tireless Striving stretching to perfection' and glue this world back together 'broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls', and that we may right here on Earth (and not in some vague shrines, heavens and afterlife), 'build a noble mansion of free India where all her Children may dwell'.
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Thank you.
Mera Bharath Mahan! Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!
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Yours Truly,
Citizen Zero, Republic of INDIA.
Online References: To be added…
