Donald Trump, the current nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in 2016 had thought of running for president in 1988, 2004, and 2012, and for Governor of New York in 2006 and 2014, but did not enter any of those races. In 1988, Trump was considered as a potential running mate for George H. W. Bush but lost out to Vice President Dan Quayle.
Trump, who wants to be the next president of the United States has voiced whatever caustic thoughts he has. To him, the Mexicans were “rapists” and “anchor babies“, he has used adjectives such as “bimbo” and “fat pig” to describe women. For months he has preoccupied himself with mocking Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, by calling her “the Indian” and “Pocahontas“, and insisted that she was a racist for having listed her heritage while on the faculty of Harvard Law School.
I was surprised when I was told that Donald Trump was invited to address a major gathering of the American Indian Nation. At the meeting, he spoke about his plans for increasing every Native American’s standard of living. Although Trump was vague about his plans, he spoke eloquently about helping his “Red sisters and brothers“.
Walking Eagle
When he concluded his speech, the Chiefs of the American Indian Tribes presented him with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name, “Walking Eagle” which a proud Trump accepted pompously.
After he left the venue, a reporter asked the group of chiefs how they came to select the new name for Trump. They explained that “Walking Eagle” is the name given to a bird so full of shit it can no longerfly.
Every one of us yearns to raise our status in society, but politicians entertain hopes of great magnitude. There are many men and women of principle in the world, but once they enter politics they just forget those principles they strived for, and constantly seek money, property, and power. Except a few politicians many do not care about their deteriorating reputation.
It is now an apothegm that any candidate standing for any elections in any part of the world would use all available ploys to influence voters. Invariably, many potential voters expect the handouts from the contesting candidates.
Black’s Law Dictionary, the most widely used law dictionary in the United States, defines bribery as an act of offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or other people in charge of a public or legal duty.
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On December 30, 2013, The Monitor carried news that US Federal authorities arrested a local politiquera Diana Castañeda in McAllen, Texas, United States, for paying voters in cash, beer and cigarettes during the 2012 primary and general elections as well as taking voters to buy drugs after they had cast their ballot. According to court records, Castañeda confessed that she was a politiquera for various candidates and that during the 2012 elections she was paid $125 by one candidate to get food for voters and to pay them $10 to $20 per vote. However, the name of the candidate that gave her the money was not listed in court records.
City agencies have seized over 2,064 litres of liquor in the past few days and recovered more than 63,000 bottles during the last one month – 61,500 were ‘quarter’ bottles, which are mainly meant for distribution.
Around 7,000 bottles seized on Tuesday were all of the quarter bottle size (180 ml).
… a few MLAs revealed that liquor bottles are generally distributed a day before the polls. The police and excise department have seized over 63,000 bottles of alcohol in Delhi over the past month after seeing a record-breaking amount of illegally supplied liquor.
The illegal supply of liquor has crossed all records in the run-up to the Delhi assembly elections. …
“Quarter bottles are distributed among slum dwellers and in resettlement colonies. Politicians ask their workers to keep a stock of bottles at secret locations,” a sitting MLA said.
Delhi chief electoral officer Vijay Dev said the Election Commission has asked all the agencies to crack down heavily on the illegal supply of liquor in Delhi.
Politicians use subtle methods to distribute alcohol to avoid run-ins with the police.
“The voter is given a chit to be deposited with a selected liquor vendor to get alcohol. Many candidates also finance parties hosted by other people and distribute liquor in such parties,” said an excise official.
India is a nation where over 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and illiteracy is around 35 percent.
All political parties in India indulge in competitive politics. Their mission does not to make life better for the average person or banish unemployment. In certain states instead of promising to provide schools and households with basic amenities such as potable water and hygienic toilets, freedom from corruption, mitigate poverty, and improve the purchasing power of the people, the political leaders promise to provide colour TVs, electronic gadgets such as mixer-grinders, fans, and laptops to voters who scarcely get electricity for more than four hours a day. Once these parties come into power they first inflate government expenditures, impose taxes, and then hand out enticing goodies instead of worthwhile goods; and that too only to the members of their party.
On March 28, 2013, as his indefinite fast against “inflated” power bills entered the sixth day, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal alleged both Congress and BJP were winning elections through bribing voters and using muscle power. He told his supporters:
“This is because BJP and Congress are both worried as a different kind of politics is slowly emerging in India. So far they are used to winning on the basis of bribing voters, money power and muscle power but now the voters have awakened. The elections will not be elections but revolution.”
In conversations with US diplomats, the son of India’s powerful home minister P. Chidambaram and an aide to a senior leader of one of the main coalition partners allegedly explained how the main parties in Tamil Nadu state routinely bribe voters to clinch close elections.
One allegedly said they had widely distributed envelopes containing 5000 Rupees in cash (£70) hidden inside voters’ morning newspapers.
The disclosures highlight the nature of electoral fraud in the world’s largest democracy, and its widespread acceptance. Indian political parties, in particular in the south, often offer televisions, refrigerators, and computers to voters to win elections.
American diplomat Frederick Kaplan, a principal officer in its Madras consulate, was surprised at how freely senior politicians apparently admitted paying bribes for votes.
In a cable dispatched on May 13, 2009, the last day of India’s general election, he explained the system to his colleagues in Washington: “Bribes from political parties to voters, in the form of cash, goods, or services, are a regular feature of elections in South India. Poor voters expect bribes from political candidates, and candidates find various ways to satisfy voter expectations. From paying to dig a community well to slipping cash into an envelope delivered inside the morning newspaper, politicians and their operatives admitted to violating election rules to influence voters. The money to pay the bribes comes from the proceeds of fund-raising, which often crosses into political corruption. Although the precise impact of bribery on voter behaviour is hard to measure, it no doubt swings at least some elections, especially the close races,” he wrote.
… “Weeks before the elections agents of the parties come to the neighbourhood with cash carried in rice sacks. They have copies of the voter lists and they distribute the money based on who is on the list.” The deliveries are made between “two and four in the morning, when the Election Commission is asleep,” he added.
One aide is quoted as revealing details of bribes paid by his boss. “It is no secret at all [he] paid 5,000 rupees per voter in Thirumangalam,” he said.
Prashant Bhushan, a senior lawyer who has led a crusade against corruption, said the cables revealed the “corruption of democracy” in India.
“These facts show the corruption and monetisation of the electoral process in India and therefore the corruption of the democracy in this country, where democracy essentially exists in a formal sense on paper, [but] effectively it is owned by those people who have money,” he said. “The money comes from all kinds of corruption which is rampant in India,” he added.
It is said that sixty-four years ago, during the last days of the British rule, Indians hated British Prime Minister, The Right Honorable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, FRS, PC because he steadfastly opposed the granting of freedom to India by his vituperative statements such as:
Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water would be taxed.”
“India is merely a geographical expression. It is no more a single country than the equator.
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Sir Winston Churchill
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Sir Winston Churchill was a visionary and was able to visualize what kind of political set-up, bureaucratic and Education system the Britishers were leaving behind them. After 65 years of Independence we now realize that Churchill was a true prophet and foretold of what was in store for the good people of India – a social welfare state.
Later on, Churchill always described the years 1896 to 1897, when he served as a soldier and journalist in India, as “the university of his life.”
We have to admit, barring a very few notable exceptions among our leaders, that all our present day Indian politicians are of ‘low calibre’ who make hay while the sun shines by mortgaging our freedom for the welfare of their own families.
In the present political arena in India, the political parties keep aside all their moral principles just before the elections and ally with their political enemies.
While canvassing for votes, these ‘rascals, rogues and freebooters’ come to our doorsteps, and with ‘sweet tongues’ inveigle us by competing with each other by doling out instant cash as per the number of votes in each household and promise to give non-existing freebies when their party wins.
After the elections, the winning parties part their ways and “will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles.“
Sir Winston Churchill’s prediction, ‘A day would come when even air and water would be taxed‘ has come true. Even polluted and contaminated water is taxed by municipal corporations, townships, and village panchayats.
Selling water once considered a sin is now a booming business because the government is unable to supply clean, potable water to its citizens. Raw water is supplied by tankers and purified potable mineral water in canisters and bottles.
Air is not taxed at the moment. Even now, the Central Government of India and its satellite States might be conferring and analyzing the ways and means of levying tax on the contaminated impure air that we are now being forced to breath.
“Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water would be taxed.”
The above passage that I used at the beginning of this post has often been cited and purported to a speech on the eve of Indian Independence in 1947 by Sir Winston Churchill or even from a speech in the house of Commons. However, it does not seem to have any credible source.
It might have first appeared in the 1979 Annual Report of the discredited “Institute for Rewriting Indian History” launched by Purushottam Nagesh Oak commonly known as as P.N. Oak. This bigoted Indian writer, notable for his Hinducentric brand of historical revisionism claimed that Christianity and Islam are both derivatives of Hinduism, or that the Catholic Vatican, Kaaba and the Taj Mahal were once Hindu temples to Shiva. Hence, if Oak had quoted this passage, then it should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Furthermore, the passage purported to Sir Winston Churchill has found its way into at least three books, as well as countless media and websites, such as, “Anything multiplied by zero is zero indeed!” by M. R. Venkatesh in Rediff India Abroad (11 April 2007).
Even so, if these are not the words of Sir Winston Churchill, then I beg your pardon. Nevertheless, I stand by whatever I have said in this post.
Impressions 