Principia Unlogica

A window into the crisis that Congress faced in 1997. The then Congress chairman, Sitaram Kesari couldn't keep the party leaders in tow and the entire party seemed to be bursting at seams. Many leaders were making haphazard public statements, and abandoning the it-seemed-sinking ship. There was no national figure to keep the party figures reined, and the second line party leaders themselves did not have much public base. Looking into the history of Congress party, many of it's leaders were the independence leaders with a huge public standing. That was the base on which they grew. It was a kind-of democratic party, where one grew on one's capability and public service and not one's subservience to the party leader. This ofcourse, till Indira Gandhi came, and changed the structure to a top down party, where allegiance to party leadership, and kow-towing before it mattered the most. Leader without public backing didnt have a leg to stand on, except for Ms Gandhi's offe

Long one, you have been warned. When the Iranian post-election crisis was erupting, there were many candle light vigils here supporting the demonstrators. "Why?" I asked a friend going to one of the vigils, and got the usual yarn on supporting democracy, coming out against theocratic dictatorship and how Moussavi is the hope. This was right before the Friday sermon by Ayatollah Khameni, and I told her not to bother, Moussavi would dissapear post speech. See why I dont have many friends.... A few important things were that the protestors weren't for anti-theocracy - most of the candidates were clerics themselves, including Moussavi, and they would not challenge to bring down the system that had brought them power. The Ayatollah wasn't being viled, the slogans were yet "Allah is great". No, this wasn't a anti-theocracy movement atall. The demonstrations were anti-Ahmedinejad. The reason the whole thing blew out of hand was because the Ayatollah openly supp