I like S Gurumurthy’s body of work. I don’t agree with some of it, nod my head vigourously in agreement on someothers. – i admire his integrity, his attention to detail and research.
Which, is why I was shocked to read this opinion piece in the New Indian Express. It reproduces certain allegations made on a website about the President of the Congress Party, Mrs.Sonia Gandhi and concludes that since these allegations are being made by India Against Corruption on their website (the civil society organisation aligned with Anna Hazare) – how will the two parties work together. It says and i quote:
Whose website then is this? The climax begins to unfold now. This is the website of ‘India Against Corruption’ (IAC). The site authors say in the column ‘About Us’: “India Against Corruption movement is an expression of collective anger of people of India against corruption. We have all come together to force/request/persuade/pressurise the government to enact the Jan Lokpal Bill. We feel that if this Bill were enacted it would create an effective deterrence against corruption.” Who’s who of IAC is in the ‘About us’. Who heads the IAC? Hold your breath. It is Anna Hazare who, like most in the country, Sonia Gandhi too respects! Who are the others? This is what the site says: “The following eminent personalities started this movement: Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev, Sri Sri Ravishankar, Mahamood Madani, Swami Agnivesh, Kiran Bedi, Syed Rizvi, Mufti Shamoon Qasmi, Mallika Sarabhai, Justice D S Tewatia, Pradeep Gupta, Arvind Kejriwal, Kamal Kant Jaswal, Sunita Godhra, B R Lalla, Davinder Sharma, Subhash Chandra Aggarwal, Vishwas Utagi, Archbishop Vincent M Concessao”.
Just click http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/aboutus.html; the colour photos of the crusaders led by Anna Hazare spearheading the movement against corruption will appear. They are the hope for a corruption-free India today. Click http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.info/scams and the scams detailed earlier, in which Sonia Gandhi and her family and personal and political friends figure prominently, will appear.
QED: Those who are campaigning against corruption call Sonia Gandhi corrupt; but Anna Hazare invites her to fight corruption! Two critical questions arise. One, what will be the response of Sonia Gandhi and the Congress to the IAC headed by Anna Hazare naming Sonia Gandhi and her family as scamsters? Two, what will be the response of Team Hazare to Anna’s repeated invite to Sonia Gandhi, whom their site lists among the scamsters, to fight corruption “together”?
Very valid piece, very valid questions. except for one thing. The site making the allegations and the IndiaAgainst Corruption site are two different sites. My first reaction when i read the ‘fake’ IAC site was – wtf – this is libel, and how is the IAC with so many lawyers in its fold allow this to go up. My second reaction was, if it is putting up this kind of stuff, and if it is handling the JLP who is going to fight the rear guard action against them. My third reaction was naah – they cannot be that stupid. My fourth reaction was to check the URL’s. and my fifth is to write this piece.
http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.info/ – the fake site that has the look and the feel of a wordpress site.. Has a lot of content that is mostly allegations and innuendos.
http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/ The India Against Corruption Website – the Real Thing
Fundamental rule – always checks facts. and URL. and visual design.
Someone has fed this research to Mr.Gurumurthy – whom i don’t blame for this fiasco – i don’t expect him to be net savvy. I don’t expect him to know the difference b/w *.org and *.info. That someone was trying to create mischief ….
The Congress reaction to the JLP has been predictable. Dirty Tricks. But, why is the right out to descredit IAC – that could be the only reason for this kind of silliness …
ma’am,
i think the best article on JLP has been written by farah baria in IE. It articulates best how many of us feel.
This competition b/w activists reminds me of that nirma ad ” tera kameez mere kameez say safed kaise” .
those who want to throw out out baby with bath water must know that we are dont want undemocracy – we want more democracy . but it is not unreasonable to expect that we also want law and order.
today i want a duplicate birth certificate – do you think i can get it without chaa-paani ?
the IAC team has shown that we can get the govt to listen to us and not just at election time .
i would tend to agree with most – except it is not ” tera kameez mere kameez say safed kaise” . kisski kameez mein hai aur mail”.
this dirty tricks campaign is dangerous.
while i am against a rushed through bill – the Anti corruption movement is needed …
The Only fear I have, is neither the organizer, nor the members supporting and neither did the recipient (read: CORRUPT CONGRESS) ever imagined the tremendous support to this movement. The fact that electronic media was trying to cover up the entire media by negativity – only after people joined, the TRP hungry camera followed the event. The event has taken a much larger shape in the process, and taken every one by surprise.
Any ways point I am trying to make is at times over zealous performance, much more than expected also back fires as the people controlling it has no control left with him. As far as this blog is concerned, it is apt in current situation where there are multiple parties who don’t wanna bill to pass (of these many are those who are against corruption as well) or people don’t want bill to passed at behest of hazare, for reason few known and some unknown. There are many sincere critic of the bill, who should come forward and assist in the bill and at the same time, the organiser of the bill should also have the floor open for inviting such sincere intellects. however majority are micro analyst
The whole confusion, is reason and result, as MOVEMENT against corrupted is monopolized and equated to bhushan, hazare, agnivesh n so on and so forth. No one is discussing efficacy of the bill or the deadline. Its just hyper market. Hence it was people’s movement which will be eroded only by people by getting defocussed, there are energies against it, but that will be present always, key thing is to be focused on getting the bill pased, even if it requires – saam, daam, dand, bhed – whatever
i agree with this.
while i stand by my earlier issues with the bill – i completely and wholeheartedly believe that there need to be severe anti corruption measures.
i liked kaushik basu’s idea of indemnifying people like us – victims of harrassment bribes if we complain. i would really like it if they brought black money from housing into this – it is so very shameful that people are made into law breakers because there are no avenues for complaint.
what i am worried about is dirty tricks that makes everyone – esp. tired citizens even more cynical and disenchnated. it is dangerous for participative democracy .
🙂 Think it was a genuine mistake by Guru Sir. BTW i do agree with Guru Sir about the undue importance Anna has been giving to Sonia. She is ‘fountain head’ of all corruption and Mother of all scams.
” But, why is the right out to descredit IAC – that could be the only reason for this kind of silliness …” I agree with but once again I wont impute this intention on Shri Guru Sir at least as for other right friends of mine who are against AH movement, you would have observed, I have take on them.
Regards.
PI.
i agree with the genuine mistake part – and i have said so. which is also why i have only pointed out the mistakes in referencing, not the logic of the argument 😉
dirty tricks – kuch zyaada ho raha hai. everyone tarnished is not a good idea …
Request all to read an article by Gurumurthy in today’s Indian Express. It will be clear as to who all and why stall the bill not to take shape. Unless Gandhi family and its sychopants are removed totally from this country’s politics no good thing will happen. I pray that wisdom will prevail on all patriotic Indians to vote this catories out in the next general elections.
yes 🙂 this post is based on that article …
Even before I had read my article in print, I got a mail from one of the readers referring to this site and pointing out the difference in ownership of the two sites and saying that my sources are not valid. The reply was in strong language. I sent a reply saying that my sources for my allegations against Sonia Gandhi are found in my article in New Indian Express dated 20.4.2011. On the two websites, my investigation shows that both sites belong to the IAC only. See the contact. Both have the same address. The same eid. The same tel nos. They have done what is normally done. Register org first, then other variations like info etc are registered. So I am unable to accept the info site as fake. Also the info site has all details of what IAC is and speaks as its voice. So I hold on to my stand that both sites belong to IAC only. Mere registration of domain in two different individuals name does not make one genuine and another fake. The person who objected to my writing in strong language finally wrote to me saying that the two web sites are different domains but that “is not to state that what you state does not hold.” The entire argument about the two sites are based on form; but my writing is based on the substance. If the .org domain owners to objected to or distanced themselves from the .info from carrying on work as the representatives of the movement, allowed them to share their infrastructure, namely tel nos, eid and address, in substance the two are the same. Again the reference in the article to .info site is not to rely on its contents, but to ask a question how could the IAC movement make charges against Sonia Gandhi and also co-opt her into the business of fighting corruption. My sources for my allegations against Sonia Gandhi are in the public domain uncontested for over a decade. I will continue to presume till the .org owners disown the .info contents, and give a certificate of honesty to Sonia Gandhi. I stand by what I have written. The onus is on the .org owners to clarify the position, not others speaking for them. In my entire investigations for the last 30 years I have always ignored the form, and gone only by the substance. Had I accepted the form truth could never have been found out. Regards. S. Gurumurthy
Dear Mr.Gurumurthy
thank you for your comment. as i said in the post – the arguments were valid – the references were not.
politics makes very strange bedfellows … very strange…
the two sites are owned by different agencies – atleast as listed by the domain registraion
Indiaagainstcorruption.org
indiaagainstcorruption.info
than you once again a response…:)
As I had said earlier, when I see that in substance they are the same because of their inherent interlink, that in form they are different does not make them different. It is for them to say they are different. Given the interlink, I can presume them to be inspired by the same group of persons. That is all I have to say. Thanks for your comments and I thank others who participated in the discussions. Regards SG
Nice blog. Nice site. Well done. Following on RSS
a very trivial matter ……… just add an i after “Marath” in your twitter profile. Sry if sounds like being a stickler 🙂
@kamaal_hai
@BhaskarChat yes… http://t.co/Z1qyBbym