There is an American colloquialism that reads ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’.
There is an Indian colloquialism that reads 'tough titty Chiddu that your party is stuck with the moon calf Rahul.'
I have always wondered what is ‘tough’.
Have you also wondered what is rough- as in rough trade? Do thoughts about it keep you up night?
The word has different meanings in different contexts. ‘Tough’ can mean determination; ability to endure hardship; difficult (as in a tough game); or obstinate (as in a tough nut). Tough can also mean a bully or a rough and violent person.
A bully or a violent person may be weak. But even a strong bully may be ill advised to pick on a tough guy. Chiddu, cretin that he is, doesn't get that people are impressed by Zelenskyy's toughness. This is not the time to say 'soft leaders'- like the moon calf Rahul- are better.
Usually, a democratically elected leader, loath to step down after long years in power, becomes ‘tough’.
Is that what happened to Nehru? Did he provoke the China war? Is that what Chiddu is getting at? Or does he mean Indira got tough on the Sikhs because she wanted to cling on to power? Perhaps he thinks Angela Markel started kicking Putin in the balls and saying 'I dare you to invade Ukraine' because she wanted to cling to power.
Hitler was before I was born. Growing up, I was dismayed to see Jawaharlal Nehru’s close friends turn from liberators into ‘tough’ leaders:
genuine liberators have to be tough. Nehru didn't liberate shit. Mountbatten was a great pal of his whom he begged to stay on as Governor General.
Kwame Nkrumah,
didn't liberate shit. He'd spent 10 years getting degrees in the US and then moved to the UK where he was less successful academically. In 1946, the Brits gave Africans the majority on the Gold Coast Legislative Council. Nkrumah was hired by wealthy African businessmen to lead a party which would represent them. This was a big mistake. The guy was a crazy Commie. Still, they paid Nkrumah enough to get him to quit London and return to Accra. He set up his own party and after a brief period of imprisonment, the Brits passed power to him. He went down the one party road but the Ghanaians rebelled against him and he died in exile.
Josip Broz Tito,
war-time resistance leader. Always a tough guy. Indeed, he was so tough, he took an independent line from Stalin.
Gamal Abdel Nasser
started tough and stayed tough. Was popular but had no time for Democracy
and Sukarno.
A believer in 'guided democracy' who was proved right because Indonesia's first spell of Parliamentary government was chaotic. Incidentally, he sided with Pakistan in the 1965 war.
Each one led the liberation struggle in his country, was elected by a popular vote, was admired by the people, but finally became ‘tough’ and buried democracy and his own legacy.
Chiddu does not seem to know that Britain unilaterally conceded Egyptian independence around the time Gandhi called off the Non-Cooperation movement. Yugoslavia was already sovereign by then. The Brits had decided to transfer power in Gold Coast before Nkrumah returned there. Holland was foolish enough to fight to keep Indonesia but had to throw in the towel after the US threatened to cut of vital economic aid.
However, unlike Nehru, none of the guys Chiddu names believed in Democracy. Sukarno was a figurehead President till 1955 and, because there was a hung parliament, he started grabbing power under the rubric of 'guided democracy'.
Jawaharlal Nehru was the sole exception among the five signatories of Panchsheel.
Because the Brits had left Hindu India in good enough shape for Parliamentary Democracy to be viable. Nehru had risen to the top only because his party had won British organized elections in 1937 and 1946. Equally importantly, the Army stayed out of politics while the Commies preferred talking bollocks to spilling much blood. Admittedly, this was after Congress had given it a good kicking.
Every election under his Prime Ministership — 1952, 1957 and 1962 — was a truly democratic election.
The Brits gave Ceylon universal suffrage in 1931. India could have got it too, if the Muslims hadn't objected.
His election speeches were lessons in democracy.
Though he later confessed, after the Chinese debacle, that he and his colleagues had been living in a fantasy land.
The vast majority of the gathering did not understand English
Nehru spoke in Hindi. It was the language spoken at the family dinner table. Indeed, it was the only language his wife knew. Why does Chiddu think Nehru was talking to peasants in English?
but sensed that he was talking about democracy, secularism, the difficult task of building a nation, eradicating poverty, the role of government and so on. Nehru was a loved leader, he never became ‘tough’.
But the Sardar was tough. Chiddu is conceding the BJP claim to Patel. They are welcome to keep this image of a frail, but loved up, Nehru who took Chinese dick up his arse and then died of a broken heart coz Mao didn't send flowers.
The present world is full of tough leaders. None of them, if a free and fair election were held today, would be elected. Prominent tough leaders are Mr Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Mr Recep Erdogan of Turkey, Mr Abdul al-Sisi of Egypt, Mr Viktor Orban of Hungary, Mr Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Mr Kim Jong-un of North Korea, and dozens of others who are not known outside their country or their continent.
What about Zelenskyy? He looks plenty tough. Would the Ukrainians really not vote for him? As for Orban, does Chiddu know something we don't? It looks like Orban will prevail in April.
What is Chiddu's objection to Sisi? Does he prefer the Muslim Brotherhood- which supports Pakistan and is vocally calling for a boycott of Indian products? Perhaps. The Indian National Congress is now wholly anti-National.
Mr Vladimir Putin is in a class of his own. So is Mr Xi Jinping.
While Rahul baba has a classroom of his own where he can do nice finger paintings while his diapers fill up with shit.
Both are ‘tough’ leaders who plan to rule as long as they live. As I write, the tough Russian leader is raining rockets and bombs on a helpless Ukraine.
Just as tough American leaders rained rockets and bombs on Serbia and Iraq and Afghanistan and so forth.
According to one count, there are 52 countries whose governments can be described as dictatorships.
There are none where the son of a PM who was the son of a PM who was the daughter of a PM who was the son of a Congress President is projected as a rival PM candidate to the incumbent. Such dynasticism is wholly Indian- but only because Congress is filled with corrupt careerists who haven't an ounce of integrity or patriotism.
Mr Modi Prefers ‘Tough’
In the election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Narendra Modi spoke approvingly of the need to elect ‘tough’ leaders. At a rally in Bahraich, Mr Modi said “when turmoil is prevailing in the world, India needs to be stronger and for difficult times, a tough leader is needed (The Economic Times, February 23, 2022)”.
Other newspapers reported Modi as saying India had to get rid of 'parivarvaadi' (dynastic) leaders. One reason to do so is if they are milk-sops or moon calves.
Incidentally, Bahraich is one of three districts in UP where, according to NITI Aayog, the poverty ratio is over 70 per cent.
What is Congress's message in Bahraich? Who knows? Who cares? I think they sent Priyanka there last year. She looks a lot tougher than her brother. Ladki lad sakti hai. Ladka can do finger painting while his diaper quietly fills up with shit.
Mr Modi clearly wanted the BJP’s leader in UP, Mr Adityanath, to be re-elected
The reason Chiddu feels he has to spell this out is because, in his party, it often happens that the High Command does not want the regional leader to be re-elected.
presumably because Mr Adityanath is a ‘tough’ leader needed in these ‘difficult’ times. Mr Adityanath believes in enforcing law and order and brooks no opposition.
Whereas Congress believes in taking it up the arse and weeping copiously if no flowers arrive the next day.
‘Encounters’ have official sanction. A criminal need not be brought before a court of law and punished, he can be shot down in an ‘encounter’. According to a report in The Indian Express (July 13, 2021), between March 2017 and June 2021, 139 criminals were killed in police encounters and 3,196 injured.
Which is the only reason Yogiji might get re-elected. Otherwise, Akhilesh has him beat on caste arithmetic.
A favourite word of Mr Adityanath is ‘bulldozer’. On February 27, 2022, while addressing a rally at Karka Bazar in Sultanpur district, Mr Adityanath said, “we have developed this machine that builds express highways and also tackles the mafias and criminals. When I was coming here, I saw four bulldozers. I think there are five assemblies, we will send one to each, then everything will be fine” (India Today). In UP, to use bulldozers to raze buildings or vacate occupants (allegedly illegal), no court orders and no legal processes are necessary.
Congress structures in UP have been razed, Rahul Baba can't get elected from his ancestral seat- that's true enough. Yogiji may have bulldozers. Chiddu can only provide dozy bullshit.
Mr Adityanath is so tough that Mr Siddique Kappan, a journalist from Kerala
Kerala, eh? Isn't that where the most extreme Islamic militants have set up the 'Popular Front'? Come to think of it, Rahul's seat is in Kerala. No wonder Chiddu does not mention that the people arrested with Kappan were from the Popular Front.
covering the Hathras case of rape and murder, has been kept in jail since October 5, 2020. According to The Wire, since Mr Adityanath became chief minister, a total of 12 journalists have been killed, 48 physically assaulted and 66 booked for various charges or arrested. The tough chief minister persuaded his party not to give a ticket to a Muslim in any of the 403 constituencies, although Muslims constitute 20 per cent of the state’s population.
But the BJP has alliances with parties like Apna Dal which do field Muslim candidates. So what? Congress is tied up with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. That's an organization which is plenty tough.
Under the tough leader, UP is poor, the people have become poorer and 40 per cent has been added in five years to the state’s debt, that stands at a humongous sum of Rs 6,62,891 crore.
The dynasty used to get elected from UP. No wonder it is poor.
Gentle and Wise
I think gentle leaders are the best. They are wise, speak softly, listen to the people, respect institutions and the law, celebrate diversity, work for harmony among the people and leave office quietly.
This is a description of Manmohan Singh. Why was he not the PM candidate in 2014? If he was too old, why not bring in Montek? What about Pranab? Come to think of it, Chiddu himself would have put up a better fight than the moon-calf.
They make the people’s lives better. They provide jobs, better education and healthcare. They are against war and address the challenges of climate change. There have been — and are — such leaders in the world.
But not in the Congress party.
The incomparable Nelson Mandela was one.
Nehru wasn't. He presided over the biggest massacre of Muslims in Indian history. Nor was Indira. She clapped her opponents in jail.
Other examples are former Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Jacinda Adern of New Zealand, Prime Minister Mark Rutte of Netherlands and a few others.
Wealthy well protected countries may have very sweet and gentle leaders. But then, they'd still do well if they had no political leaders whatsoever. Bureaucrats could discharge routine functions. A ceremonial head of state could handle the P.R side of things.
I don’t know what kind of leader UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa will elect. If I had a vote in any of those states, I would vote for a gentle and wise leader.
Rather than the Congress candidate. Fair point, Chiddu. Now if only you could persuade Rahul Baba to let his favorite teddy bear take over the presidency of the INC, Indian voters would have the option of voting from a wiser, if not more gentle, candidate than that moon-calf.
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