In a tweet historian Ramchandra Guha raised the question on the BJP party president Amit Shah being invited as chief guest at a function of Indian Railways. The point Guha wanted to make was that a person related to a particular party could not act as the representative of the government irrespective of the party in the power. Here, the basic point which Guha forgets is that Amit Shah is the member of the upper house of the parliament since 19th August 2017 so he could be present at any function of the government. Ramchandra Guha lives in the world of history and probably this is the reason that he is not updated on current affairs.
Why should the BJP Party President be the Chief Guest at a function of the Indian Railways? Why should he be asked to flag off trains with a Minister and Chief Minister sycophantically applauding him? https://t.co/mHGZPAZ0cV
— Ramachandra Guha (@Ram_Guha) August 6, 2018
Ramchandra Guha failed to realize that people of various parties used to inaugurate projects despite the fact they were not part of the government and at that time he did not express his ‘voice of dissent’. On 25th March 2013 the former president of Congress party Sonia Gandhi inaugurated an All India Radio (AIR) studio in Rae Bareli which is her Lok Sabha constituency. The AIR is the public broadcaster of the country so Mrs. Gandhi was also present in the function of the government despite not being part of it. She also inaugurated a Rail coach factory in her constituency and the railway is public property in India. She also inaugurated a train service between Qazigund in Kashmir and Banihal in the Jammu region on June 26, 2013, in which the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was also present. A person who is merely a party president inaugurating a project alongside prime minister is not odd for a historian like Ramchandra Guha. On June 30, 2009, Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the Bandra-Worli sea link in which
Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation was the main financier. So Mrs. Gandhi was inaugurating a project which was funded by the state government despite not being part of the state or central government. But even then the ‘historian’ did not raise the ‘voice of dissent’.
The National Advisory Council (NAC), an advisory body set up by UPA government to advise the prime minister of India ran a parallel government in the country. A prime minister who was highly educated and respected in academic circles did not need any advice from Sonia Gandhi who is not even a graduate but it happened because Mrs. Gandhi wielded more power than the prime minister. The NAC was the brainchild of erstwhile Congress President Sonia Gandhi who used the NAC to supersede the decisions taken by Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet. In a nasty show of power and connivance, the NAC rendered Manmohan Singh and the Cabinet powerless. The number of scams that emerged in the era of UPA-II could also be attributed to the NAC decisions which could not be overturned by even Manmohan Singh. As revealed in the 2014 book ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ by ex-PM Manmohan Singh’s media advisor Sanjaya Baru, the power resided with the Congress President Sonia Gandhi rather than Mr. Singh. The book alleges that Manmohan was not the one controlling his own Cabinet. Furthermore, he did not have command over the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The files meant for the PMO used to regularly land at 10 Janpath, the official residence of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. All this was done throughout the 10-year rule of the Congress, while Manmohan was reduced to a face and hand which carried out orders and signed on documents as per the direction of Sonia Gandhi.
So the people in the intellectual fields should not present selected outrage towards a particular person, institution or government. But in our country, the people in academia, media, art, and culture are consistently doing this since Modi government came to power. The award wapsi, intolerance debate all were fake outrages created by people like Ramchandra Guha to garner public anger against this government which did not succeed. This selective outrage should come to end if these people do not want to be called hypocrites.
