This may be called 'election season' knockout punch !! The seasonal 'attack' on Congress in his own style, Narendra Modi shows how to handle history and legacy etc etc to expose the country's first and most powerful political DYNASTY !!
"Nehru said, 'I do not like reservation in any form. Especially reservation in jobs. I am against any such step that promotes inefficiency and takes us toward mediocrity," Prime Minister Narendra Modi quoted India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in Parliament on Wednesday.
"It shows that Congress has always been against reservation. Nehru ji used to say that if SC/ST/OBC got quotas in jobs, then the standard of government work would fall," PM Modi further said.
However, the ecosystem could be now busy trying to give a necessary spin or 're-frame' the public opinion.
Was Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister when a newly Independent India was grappling with problems of poverty and socio-economic differences, really against affirmative action? Jawaharlal Nehru did say that he "disliked any kind of reservation". However, there's more to it, says 'India Today'
The remarks of Jawaharlal Nehru quoted by PM Modi on Wednesday in Rajya Sabha were actually from a letter dated June 27, 1961, where Nehru expressed his reservations about the tradition of caste-based quotas and privileges.
"This necessitates our getting out of the old habit of reservations and particular privileges being given to this caste or that group," Nehru stated in the letter, the report in 'India Today' says.
PM Modi has timed this so-called 'exposure' well as this will take away the 'steam' of Rahul Gandhi's insistence to play the so-called caste and OBC card.
It's true, while expressing his ideological opposition to the practice of reservation, Nehru also advocated for a shift towards providing help on economic considerations rather than caste-based reservations.
Essentially, this 'economic criterion' had come to the fore during the peak of Mandal Commission report implementation by the VP Singh government.
Even Marxist doyen, Jyoti Basu, had said the upper caste Hindus' is understood and economic criterion should be included. The caste-based parties including the likes of Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, BSP of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati and then Janata Dal leaders Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan were totally against economic criteria.
NEHRU BACKED ECONOMIC AID FOR BACKWARD GROUPS
Quoting from the letter, Nehru put through his stance on reservations and its results, and said,
"I dislike any kind of reservation, more particularly in service. I react strongly against anything which leads to inefficiency and second-rate standards."
The letter suggests that Jawaharlal Nehru believed that reservations could compromise efficiency and result in a nation that settles for mediocrity rather than striving for excellence. "I want my country to be a first-class country in everything. The moment we encourage the second-rate, we are lost," Nehru further added in the letter.
In the same letter, Nehru also underscored the need for economic assistance to backward groups and reservations based on economic criteria. "The recent meeting we held here, to consider national integration, laid down that help should be given on economic considerations and not on caste," the letter read.
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| The Italian Coup: And helpless Sitaram |
In his Rajya Sabha speech, Narendra Modi on Feb 7 recounted how the Congress insulted its former president Sitaram Kesri, an OBC leader.
"Congress threw Sitaram Kesri, who was from Other Backward Classes (OBC), on the footpath. That video is available. The entire country watched," the Prime Minister said.
This is not the first time Prime Minister Modi brought up Sitaram Kesri's name. In 2018, while addressing an election rally in Chhattisgarh, he had recounted how Kesri was unceremoniously removed as the Congress president.
In fact, in 2013 at the BJP's National Executive Meeting at a grand platform provided by the then BJP president Rajnath Singh, Modi had made a blistering attack on the Congress for dumping Sitaram Kesri, who was made AICC president first by former PM P V Narasimha Rao.
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2013: Modi at Shriram College of Commerce, Delhi - A speech that put Namo into different league. There is an interesting anecdote about Modi's Shriram College function -- country's most 'anti-Hindu' newspaper was then being run by an 'imported editor'. He declined to cover Modi's speech and reportedly told his Left-stamped joker colleagues 'every day Chief Ministers' visit Delhi and address students !! |
At Talkatora Indoor Stadium, Modi had thundered:
“The Congress has sacrificed the interests of the country and party for one family. They had Sitaram Kesri as the Congress president. He was like a nightwatchman.
They threw him out when the time was right and grabbed the position. When they formed the government, they chose a PM who could be manipulated. And, then, another nightwatchman... they did not realize that the night will be so long and dark," he said.
(In fact between readers and me/blogger:::
My reporting of this speech at the Indoor stadium did not go well with a section of huge jokers in 'The Statesman' --- In fact, a "below average" huge D...) Memories make blog writing a fascinating journey.....
Time to think for an autobiography on Delhi's jugadu-journalism.... What, say ?? )
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| Three cheers.... Namo ji --- Thoko taali |
ends
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