EDUCATION: After visiting the Mesa Institute of Technology in the United States, Nehru set up five institutes of technology excellence with the Indian Institute of Technology and a research institute in alliance with Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru

By Rajan Narayan

The Indian National Congress (INC) laid the foundation for modern India. It built the dams and the infrastructure industries like Hindustan Aeronautical Limited, Indian Telephone Industries and many more. The Congress government also created the higher education infrastructure with the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. Congress ensured the defense of the country by acquiring the capacity to make nuclear weapons, including bombs. The only achievement of the Modi government is to demolish. It demolished the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. On the economic front the Modi government destroyed retail outlets and small and medium industries with demonetization and next came GST. The only beneficiaries of the Modi government have been a few industrialist like the Adanis, Ambanis, Modis and Amit Shah and family.

THE Congress has always believed in communal harmony. When communal riots broke out in Kolkata during partition, Mahatma Gandhi went on an indefinite strike. He would not give up the strike till Muslims who were targeting Muslims surrendered the weapons before him. Whenever there was any violence in any of the movements starting with the salt satyagraha, Gandhi always insisted that there would be no violence.
The builder of modern India was not a Dr Manmohan Singh who liberalized the economy in the 90s. The builder of modern India was its first prime minister, Jawarharlal Nehru. Nehru was aware that the private industry could not invest in infrastructure projects which involved large investments but took time to give returns. Nehru believed that the commanding heights of the economy should be the responsibility of the public sector. Which is why Nehru built the Bhakra Nangal dam located on the borders of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. This facilitated the green revolution in Punjab, which became the largest producer of wheat in the country.
It was Nehru who set up the Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) in Bengaluru so that there would be infrastructure for communication. Factories could come up in the medium and small sector only if they had the tools. So Nehru set up the Hindustan Machine Tools to make the equipment needed by the factories.
Long before Modi thought of making jet planes in India, Nehru set up Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd which supplied the Air Force with advanced aircraft. Nehru set up the Bharat Earthmovers Ltd (BEML) so that there would be enough bulldozers to give the country a roadways infrastructure. Nehru realised that unless we had a highly trained work force India could not produce.
So Nehru visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States which was his inspiration for setting up five Indian institutes of technologies. Nehru set up the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) which sought to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes like power generation. When the need arose BARC also produced India’s nuclear bombs. Nehru set up the India Institute of Science in Mumbai for encouraging pure research. The institute is listed among the ten top technology colleges in the world.

NEHRU’S DAUGHTER
NEHRU’S daughter Indira Gandhi was the first politician to worry about the aam aadmi. With her famous “Garibi Hatao” slogan, Indira Gandhi nationalised all private sector bank. This was immediately after the Bharat Bank, set up by Ram Krishna Dalmia collapsed, resulting in huge losses to depositors. It was Dalmia who was the original owner of the Times of India.
Indira Gandhi also abolished the privy purses that were being given to the thousands of princes who agreed to join independent India. It was the late Sardar Patel, home minister in Nehru’s Cabinet, who persuaded all the princely states to join the new India. When the Nizam of Hyderabad tried to defy Patel he sent the army to teach him a lesson. In fact, the Nizam even tried to get the Portuguese who still ruled Goa to help him against India.
The Congress has always believed in the culture of sacrifice. The late Indira Gandhi believed that no Indian would harm her. She was aware there was a lot of anger against her for sending the army into the Golden Temple in Amritsar. But she did not remove her Sikh bodyguards at her official residence at New Delhi. She paid a heavy price as she was assassinated, shot down in her own compound by her Sikh bodyguard.
Indira’s son, Rajiv Gandhi, paid the price for sending the Indian army into Sri Lanka to fight the Tamil militants. Rajiv was killed by a member of the Tamil Tigers of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with a human bomb. A lady wearing a jacket with powerful explosive garlanded Rajiv. The explosion was so powerful that Rajiv was blown into pieces. It was a shocking day for the country.
Those who criticized Sonia Gandhi, the widow of Rajiv Gandhi, are not aware that she did not want to get into politics. She was afraid for her children Priyanka and Rahul. It was the Congress party leaders who compelled Sonia Gandhi to take over as president of the party. But even then when the Congress won a 2/3rds majority in Parliament she declined to become the Prime Minister of India.
Instead, Sonia chose Dr Manmohan Singh, who led the liberalisation of the economy and liberated the country from license permit raj. It was Dr Manmohan Singh and his Commerce Minister P Chidambaram who were responsible for giving freedom to the private sector. Without them there would be no Adani or Ambani.

BLOOD-STAINED RSS
UNLIKE the Congress the Rashtriya Seva Sangh (RSS) and BJP have blood on their hands. It was Nathuram Godse, a member of the Hindu Mahasabha which was close to the RSS, who shot Mahatma Gandhi at a prayer meeting. A stunned Gandhi die with a prayer of “Hey Ram” on his lips.
It was the BJP which destroyed the country’s tradition of communal harmony, by playing an active role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. It is present Prime Minister Narendra Modi who systematically targeted the minority Muslim community after the Godhra incident. When a train compartment carrying the returning Babri Masjid kar sevaks were caught in a fire. The butcher of Muslims in Gujarat was allegedly Amit Shah, he is now the home minister of India. It is the BJP who banned beef in all the states ruled by it, with the exception of Goa. Not out of any love for Goa but because they knew that 40% of the population in Goa depends on beef.
It was the BJP government under Modi and Shah which started the “love jihad” business. The theory being Muslims boys deliberately line maroed Hindu girls to convert them to Islam. It is the BJP government of Yoginath Adityanath which has banned women from wearing jeans in UP. It is the Modi government which is dividing the country.
Recently, in fact, the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat claimed that the Muslim population was growing faster than the Hindu population. This is an old propaganda of the RSS against the Muslims, of “Hum panch hamara panchpan.” The latest fertility figures in Goa show that the rate of growth of Muslims in Goa is much lower than that of Hindus and Catholics. Indeed, the rate of growth of the Goan population is as low as 1.3 which is far less than the replacement rate of 2.1.

SECULAR CONGRESS
THE Congress in its many breakaway avatar, whether as India National Congress or the NCP or Trinamool Congress, is the only genuinely secular party in the country. It is the only party which believes in “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Isahi, saab ku mera salaam.” It is the only party which can ensure that India will not be converted into another Afghanistan-styled Taliban regime.
I-PAC’s noted political strategist Prashant Kishor himself, responsible for marketing Narendra Modi as prime minister material, has now broken away from the BJP. Pointing out that no party has yet in India told the people what to eat, what to think, what to wear, whom to marry.
Intercommunity marriages are common in India. It is the RSS which has been importing women from the North-East and converting them to Hinduism in the ashrams of Karnataka. When the story was exposed by the Caravan team they were put into jail. Everyone knows by now that the BJP has no respect for freedom of the media. It only supports the “godi media” which refers to all the newspapers and television channels dedicated to praising Modi. Only the godi media gets government advertising. Only the godi media is not harassed by the government.
The Modi government does not take any action against the lies of Arnab Goswami of Republic TV. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi himself, during a recent visit to Goa, said in his speech at the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukerjee Indoor Stadium that the godi media has taken over the country. Among the victims are Shekar Kapoor, of Indian Express, Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai of NDTV and CNN-18, Ravish Kumar who won the Magsaysay award for exposing the harassment of Muslims in UP on mere suspicion that they were storing and eating meat of the holy cow.
Amongst the media victims of the Modi government has been the Goan Observer, unlike the owner of oHeraldo Raul Fernandes, who betrayed the paper’s readers by making it the mouthpiece of Luizinho Faleiro and Trinamool Congress. If you want to continue to live in a free Goa and a free India your only safe choice is the Congress Alliance. Not Prashant Kishor’s Kharedi Yatra. Not Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi party which has embraced the one time Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Goa, Dayanand Narvekar, cricket ticket scamster and much else undesirable in political life at the very least.