Congress- A traitor seeking traitors help

John F Kennedy would say to his aides that a mistake in domestic affairs could cost a few lives. But a mistake in foreign affairs could destroy the entire nation.

The greatest blunder by Congress Party was the way they managed the foreign policy of India.

But we have to understand that Indians did not have any experience in the foreign policy department until 1946. Till then war, peace and external relations were subjects handled by the Governor-General of British India.

Non Aligned Movement

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a group of states which are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. The organization was founded in Belgrade in 1961, and was largely conceived by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru of the Congress Party

Nehru did not want India to favour any of the two major super powers.

It was the greatest mistake a fledgling nationcould ever make for the following reasons:

1. As a newly formed nation, India needed enormous support in terms of resources, financial, technical, man power, engineering etc.
   We never got any help from the USA, but USSR slightly helped us, mostly what they gave us was all second grade and second hand.
   USSR helped India to suit its own interests, they used India as a pawn in the cold war.
2. USA helped Pakistan enormously, Pakistan in the early 60s was much more advanced compared to us. They had better Tanks & Aircrafts, they had a better functioning society and embracing capitalism ensured real economic growth.
3. Comparatively, India suffered famine, malnutrition, lost wars & the famed Hindu rate of growth ( Socialist growth) of 3-4% because of Nehruvian & Congress Policies

Food for thought:

Since the last ten years, the amount of support given to us by the US far outweighs the support given to us by the Soviets over decades.

Economic Policy

As mentioned in other answers, Congress Policy was always a mix of Communist & Capitalist

• Unfortunately, the positives cancelled each other and we suffered the negative consequences of both.
• Consider this, Only after the loss of Rajiv Gandhi & the threat of other parties looming on the horizon, did the process of Liberalization & Globalization start in India.
• It is true that there were external conditions which catalysed that decision, but a major reason is the loss of the hegemony of Congress rule which destroyed India’s Economy

Food for thought:

All of us remember India Shining of Vajpayee Government & now we see Modi Government revolutionizing our economic policies.

Imagine if BJP ruled India since 1947, how much we would have progressed economically.

Incidentally, the real reason you don’t see Modi’s good work is because he is cleaning the mess of 10 years of apathy of Congress Government

Finally, the most painful:

Anti Army Stand

Nehru hated the men in uniform. Soon after Independence the first commander-in-chief of the Indian armed forces, General Sir Robert Lockhart, presented a paper outlining a plan for the growth of the Indian Army to Prime Minister Nehru.

Nehru’s reply: “We don’t need a defence plan. Our policy is non-violence. We foresee no military threats. You can scrap the army. The police are good enough to meet our security needs.”

Source: Nehru’s mistakes haunts us even today

• He didn’t waste much time. On September 16, 1947, he directed that the army’s then strength of 280,000 be brought down to 150,000. Even in fiscal 1950-51, when the Chinese threat had begun to loom large on the horizon, 50,000 army personnel were sent home as per his original plan to disband the armed forces.
• Everyone is aware of the great Himalayan blunder when he replaced General Thimayya with his own relative General Kaul who barely knew the correct end of a gun ( He served in the Supplies Corp)

Let us always elect a nationalist, right-centre government for the next twenty years to undo the mistakes of 60 years of Congress Rules

Jai Hind

Democracy is the government “of the people, by the people and for the people”. However in this unfortunate country of ours the definition of democracy has reduced to ” of the family, by the family and for the family”. That is what the Indian National Congress has done to India and its polity.

The blunders made by the Indian Congress Party are so many that it becomes a herculean task to pick one big mistake. I do not know exactly what was the INC’s biggest mistake,but I can state with firm conviction that India’s biggest mistake was the INC.

So this is going to be a lengthy and extremely verbose answer (as I like many other Indians want to vent out my frustration over the INC) . I will divide the answer into two parts .

1.Ideological fallacies of the INC .

2.Major failures of the INC (as in events)

Ideological fallacies of the INC

Here I will talk about the basic tenets of democracy that the Indian National Congress got all wrong . This is more important than talking about separated and discrete events. Because if these principles are not set right soon ,blunders will be inevitable and recurrent.

1. Lack of alternate leadership – Ever since its inception the biggest failure of the INC has been the lack of alternate leadership.Apart from the Gandhi-Nehru family there has been hardly anybody who has held the helm of the INC.
2. Pseudo-Secular tactics-The secularism that INC propagates starts with abusing Hindus and ends with licking the ass of the so called “minorities”.
3. Corruption – From the bofors to the 2g .Congress has not been able to curb corruption at all.

Major failures of the INC

If the Congress proved to be a flop show in terms of their ideology , their misgovernance and mismanagement made matters worse. So this are some of the major blunders :

1. Partition of India – The partition of India was the biggest blunder that the INC had made. The act of settling for a two nation decision was made by Mahatma Gandhi aided by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and allies of the INC, was directly against the sentiments of the common man who regarded Akhanda Bharat as his “pitribhoomi” and “punyabhmi” . As India celebrated its independence thousands of people were massacred on both sides of the border.Genocide ad bloodbath became common place events. Villages after villages were ransacked and looted. Rape ,murder and arson were common . Yet the Congress leaders never had to pay for a bloody decision that they had consented to.
2. Nehru Liaquat Pact-Huge amount of atrocities were faced by the Hindus in East Pakistan. There was a huge influx of refugees from East Pakistan to India. Signing the aforementioned pact did two very detrimental things: a) It prevented India from questioning about the atrocities of Hindus in East Pakistan b) It allowed influx of large number of refugees into India. The secular and economic fabric of this era was completely disturbed.
3. Article 370 and Shyama Prasad’s death – The INC virtually have divided Akhand Bharat into three countries India , Kashmir and Pakistan. By guaranteeing article 370 it gave credence to Sheikh Abdullah’s three nation theory. Shyama Prasad was murdered while he was protesting against this issue under mysterious circumstances.
4. Sino-Indian War -A hopelessly ill prepared Indian Army challenged the Chinese army and got defeated rather shamelessly ,all on the command of Jawaharlal Nehru.
5. Lal Bahadur Shashrti murdered in Tashkent- Lal Bahadur Shashtri was probably the only prime minister of the INC who was both honest and who had a vision for the future. He died of a heart attack at Tashkent . Surprisingly the government of the day did not seem bothered enough to ask for a post mortem for the deceased Prime Minister. This clearly shows that there is something more than what meets the eye. What is even more interesting is that this paved the way for the latest scion of the Nehru Gandhi family namely Indira.
6. Emergency – Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi government had no concrete reasons for it. She and Sanjay Gandhi imposed an autocratic rule. The freedom of press was violated . Prominent leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and George Fernandes were arrested. The common man was also not spared .Forced family planning measures created wide spread resentment among the masses.The emergency had sounded the death knell for the Indian National Congress.
7. Shah Bano case – The Shah Bano case was a milestone in the Muslim women’s search for justice and the beginning of the political battle over personal law. A 60-year-old woman went to court asking maintenance from her husband who had divorced her. The court ruled in her favour. Shah Bano was entitled to maintenance from her ex-husband under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (with an upper limit of Rs. 500 a month) like any other Indian woman. The judgment was not the first granting a divorced Muslim woman maintenance under Section 125. But a voluble orthodoxy deemed the verdict an attack on Islam.The Congress Government, panicky in an election year, caved in under the pressure of the orthodoxy. It enacted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. The most controversial provision of the Act was that it gave a Muslim woman the right to maintenance for the period of iddat (about three months) after the divorce, and shifted the onus of maintaining her to her relatives or the Wakf Board. The Act was seen as discriminatory as it denied divorced Muslim women the right to basic maintenance which women of other faiths had recourse to under secular law.This was an act of abject appeasement of the minorities ,it irked the common orthodox Hindu whose religious rights were constantly tampered with in the name of progressive thinking. The double standards were clearly exposed.
8. Babri Masjid demolition – The government at the center was directly responsible for the demolition of Babri Masjid . They decided to deal with the issue very lightly. They followed the policy of soft Hindutva. This emboldened the crazy mob of right winged Hindu hooligans .And the Babri Masjid was demolished.Only P.V Narsimha Rao was made the scapegoat for this fiasco.
9. In the period followed India saw a very unstable period of governance and Congress was the major reason for this unstability. They would yield support to a government on the floor of the house and take back the support a few months later.Unstable government means unstable economy. The Congress decided to play with Indian economy for its selfish motives.
10. In recent times the biggest mistake that the Congress has made is putting incapable leaders like Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh at the helm of affairs . They also could not deal with the rampant scams that their leaders had participated in.

In conclusion I would like to state that the mandate BJP received against the incumbent government was not a result of some immediate events .Rather it was a result of the expression of frustration that had been pent up in the aam admi since the independence.