Factionalists and Foreigners-Andhravilas

Factionalists and Foreigners

Vasu Reddy from Chicago

I don’t live in India and have no political aspirations or ambitions with India. Andhra Vilas and myself are not affiliated with any Indian or USA political parties. The topics in my article/s are my personal observations and are not opinions or Andhra Vilas. My articles are published without changes by Andhra Vilas.

In reaction to my article Heroes, Politicians and People dated and published May 12, 2004; I got an email response and I am displaying in the box as is as a preamble to my article.

Received to my Aol mail on 5/13/2004 7:38:16 AM Central Standard Time

Keeping the writer’s name and email confidential

anna konchum tagu site needhe kadhae anhe chavadegutunnavu, nuvvu reddy vaythae reddy ne support chayalhaney rule ledhu ,konchum baytaku vachinna taruvathayna maru, here in europe where i was
surprised when every one was asking about naidu,now we dont have him anymore, i can now proudly say that a faction leader is my chief minister and a foreighn born national is my prime minister ,and we couldnt have even two people in our 100 million population to replace them
ok bye

The response was received prior to Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress Party winning over BJP, and before YSR was sworn in as the Chief Minister of our beloved Andhra Pradesh. I am sure that this email was in reaction to the results of AP rather than the CM and Mrs. Gandhi who was presumed PM.

I should have mentioned in my article that I have not lived in India since 1981, and have had no interaction with political process or politicians of India except when I worked on privatization process in early 1990s when Mr. Rao was the PM. My time India has always been personal and for business, but never for political purposes. My professional relationships and success of my then company’s work was very positive, while I worked with the people of Rao government. It so happens Dr. Manmohan Singh was the finance minister at that time, and is credited with a lot of financial engineering leading to economic gains attained by India in the past 12 to 14 years. My overall experience with Indian technocrats was excellent.

Going back to responding to the email, I thought I would try and separate the Andhra and Foreign issues:

YSR is no factionalist. I don’t personally know him. I only know of him. He has been in politics for almost three decades, and has showed his unconditional support for his party and the people of AP. He has not changed parties in his career. He has not been involved in corruption. The minute he became CM he signed the bill he promised to sign. He is showing signs of compromise with the current political situation and planning to deliver to his party’s election manifesto. Now that we have had some time to review his first couple of weeks as CM, he seems to be handling the demands of the office, allocation of portfolios, working with the demands of national politics and handling the local situation well. He seems to get cooperation from monsoon to help govern. Divine intervention will help YSR.

Mrs. Gandhi a Foreigner? Wow. Although I have lived away from India for a very long time, I thought we get married and the girl who comes into our home becomes one of us. Did we forget that her last name is Mrs. Gandhi? Our own people killed her Husband and Mother in-law. She has lived an Indian life and continues to live an Indian life. She has Indian children. She has served our people and the INC well. She has led her party to power with hard campaigning, appealing to the people, and convincing them that Congress will meet their needs. By stepping down as the candidate for PM and asking Dr. Singh to become the PM is a magnanimous gesture. I sure hope she did not do it for political reasons. Sonia Gandhi is the daughter-in-law of India and she is no foreigner. The irony of discussion on Mrs. Gandhi as a foreigner comes from people of Indian origin living outside of India, while the NRI population is seeking to be a part of political environment of counties in the west. We wish to run major corporations, own property and land in the most exclusive areas, build the largest homes in the most prestigious neighborhoods and accumulate billions of dollars. What is wrong with our country’s daughter-in-law becoming a temporary leader? Let us remember that we cannot get rid of our bahu, but we can always replace the PM. In any case we don’t need to worry for now about this, and hopefully we will send more money to India to improve our reserves and contribute to worthwhile causes in India and not worry about Mrs. Gandhi passing on our nuclear secrets to anyone.