Indira Gandhi Vs George W Bush

Like Indira Gandhi of India, George W Bush, the president of USA , is the world's most "thrilling" politician. The "thrills" that Indira Gandhi created for our generation in India between 1966 and 1977 when she fell and again from 1980 to 1984 when she was assassinated can be relived if one looks at the "achievements" of George W Bush.

(1) In the year 1975 there was a cartoon in a Bengali newspaper of Calcutta in which a lower middle class householder was shown dangling a huge live fish which he brought home, gave to his wife and asked her to cook it. "But where is the oil ?" his wife asked. "With the money I had I could either buy the fish or oil, not both." replied the husband. Out of disgust the housewife threw the fish into a pond outside her kitchen. Feeling happy at not being cut to pieces, the fish shouted, before diving into the pond," Indira Gandhi ki jai ". Indira Gandhi who justified enormous corruption during her rule, was the grandmother of Indian inflation which was ruining Indian house holds. Bush can claim credit similarly for breaking the backbone of American middle classes and benefitting the top rich man, those"haves" and "have mores" he is said to praise and surround himself with.

(2) Bush won Florida in a controversial way in 2000 through a verdict of the US Supreme Court which is Republican dominated. Indira Gandhi overcame an adverse Allahabad judgement, by amending the People's Representation Act and putting all her opponents into jails to get the required majority in the Indian parliament in 1975. She won her case finally in the Supreme Court of India on the basis of aretrospective amendment.

(3) Indira Gandhi became a national heroine in 1971 by winning the war against Pakistan by opening TWO fronts and by severing it from East Pakistan which became Bangladesh. George Bush too opened TWO fronts, one against Afghanistan and the other against Iraq and started declaring himself "a war president" to become something of a national hero though John Kerry tried to prick the bubble ineffectively in the earlier presidential debates.

(4) Indira Gandhi imposed National Emergency in June 1975 and nearlykilled democracy in India and Bush came out with his Patriot Act tofrighten many Americans into placing national security above their democratic rights.

(5) Indira Gandhi was surrounded in her later years by a coterie of advisers which made her arrogant and authoritarian in a very dictatorial way. Can we say that Bush is any different?

(6) Indira Gandhi raised the slogan " Garibi Hatao " (eradicate poverty) and ended up by nearly eradicating the " garib " (the poor) in the inflationary years 1974-77. I do not know if the jobless in the USA are experiencing similar pangs.

(7) The Congress Party of Indira Gandhi created Bhindrawale, the Sikh preacher-terrorist for electoral advantages, giving rise to Sikh terrorism. She got him killed and created more terrorists as a result of which she was killed by one of her own Sikh bodyguards. CIA created Osama bin Laden to fight the Russians of the communist era in Afghanistan and now Bush demands "Osama dead or alive" creating more terrorists.

(8) Indira Gandhi was described as I.G." ANDHI " (tempest.) Bush has become "BUSHFIRE " .

(9) Both Indira Gandhi and George Bush address crowds and press conferences making better educated people look guilty. But Indira Gandhi could never have matched the uproarious "Bushisms".

(10) And may we say that both Indira Gandhi and George Bush are born with "silver foot in the mouth"?

(11) Indira Gandhi had two children and George W Bush too has two.12) Indira Gandhi, lastly, was born in November and Bush created so many thrills for the world in the month of November, once, in 2000 and now in 2004.