Thursday, December 27, 2007

So near, yet so far!

Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated. Its a sad day for Pakistan, India and the rest of the world. My heart goes out to her children. After several 'happy' years in exile, they didn't deserve to lose their mother in few months of madness in their homeland. I hope the world, especially India stands by Pakistan in this hour of tragedy.

The last I heard of Bhutto was last week in Outlook, where she was talking about her deals with Rajiv Gandhi. A sad irony that she met her assassin in an election rally just like Rajiv did 16 years ago. But talking of elections, wasn't Musharraf the only guy who feared this was coming? The loony liberal media and the pseudo intellectual bloggers who are at Musharraf's throat should get a reality check from this tragedy.

I wish Musharraf had made Bhutto the PM, without trying to humor the visionless liberal media and the chatteratti classes. What was the need to lift the emergency? Why go thru this farcical but extremely dangerous elections when Pakistan's first priority should be the war on its western borders? I wish they had atleast refrained from traditional campaigning and resorted to youtube, tv and the print media to talk to the voters.

The problem with loony liberal classes is that they often fail to recognize leadership. Ideas (democracy, secularism, free speech etc) cannot lead nations. We need men/women made of flesh and blood but with conviction and clarity of thought. When the goals (development, security etc) these leaders have set to work on is clear and desirable, we should offer them some leeway and allow compromises. In our espousal of an idea, we should not promote idiots (Ifthikar, Manmohan, Hillary etc) who float on top of that deluge of support.

People in many instances recognize leadership better than the media. That is the reason why Musharraf, Narendra Modi, Advani, Sarkozy and Putin succeed (or they should). That is also the reason why people don't vote for John Kerry or Ranil Wickramasinghe. And that is also the reason why this country should get rid of Sonia and Manmohan.

Political leadership is not the LCM of all good ideas and morals. Its the GCD of tangible and achievable goals and majority opinions. Musharraf, Bhutto and M K Narayan knew what that GCD was in Pakistan. Unfortunately one of them is now gone.

4 comments:

Arun said...

the world needs more women politicans

FlyingHigh said...

:( We need more 'good' women politicians.

Anonymous said...

:( Men or women... We just need good politicians.

Q: But 'what/who is good ?', atleast in politics ?

A: If it's not bad, then it's good, again atleast in politics.

But, what is bad ?? Vice-versa of above ?? ........ :)

P.S: Good/bad here means 'for the common man' not for the politicians.

Anonymous said...

Hunger for Power can go upto what an extent is evident from Ms. Bhutto's case. She was out of harms way living happily in one of the best countries in the world. But she could not resist the opportunity when she saw that she could be back in power in Pakistan. Now she lay "Powerless" and "Lifeless".