From afar I have been watching with interest the dance the Congresswalas are engaged in. Eminently qualified or not to hold their positions most have shied away from criticising their patrons Sonia and Rahul. Some in the states that may have been appointed to run in elections because they brought a legitimate constituency to the table have now decided to speak their minds. Two impudently ungrateful MLAs have been sacked from the Party for saying what is so obvious for all to see: Rahul does not have what it takes to turn the fortunes of the Congress around or lead it at all. In one of my numerous visits to India many years ago during the Vajpayee government I defended Sonia's right to be treated equally as an Indian as I have been treated as an immigrant to Canada. I was not blacklisted by the government. In fact when I became the premier of British Columbia in 2000 I was invited by the then Vajpayee government as a state guest perhaps because I was the first ever brown or Indian head of state/provincial government anywhere in the Western world.

I know individual politicians in both the Congress and the BJP. I have no truck or trade with either of the political parties. It is in that non partisan sense with the advantage of distance and detachment that I offer my opinion. It obviously can be ignored because it is from a distance that is not bridged by Indian citizenship but only by my proud Indian heritage and the fact I lived the first 18 years of my life in the villages of India and that I still care and feel for the country. I went to the same kind of schools that hundreds of millions still go to: the government schools. Not the private schools that are the exclusive preserve of the rich and are still inanely called the public schools.

So let me state the fact that the Congress spokes people dance around and can't and don't address. The Gandhis need to take leave from the politics of the Congress Party. They need to set the Party free. Free at last, free at last, free at last!!! The subjugation of the Congresswalas to the slavery of the dynasty is so complete and obvious. They are in elected or appointed positions because the Family has willed it. They are enslaved and are in debt of gratitude to the Family. They can't speak the truth on the inside or on the outside. The ones that dare to speak it are dismissed as disgruntled, then suspended and expelled from the dynastically controlled and suffocating Congress Party. No wonder the Party got the thrashing it did in the election. It is barely alive. It may breathe its last unless it gets the oxygen of new leadership and new ideas. What is holding back the once proud Party that brought freedom to India from freeing itself up from the dynastic crutches? It would be inexcusably shameful if there is no inner democracy in the Congress. I have read about and seen the sycophancy of the spokesmen and women who speak on TV debates with potatoes in their mouths. It is a shame they end up tying themselves up in knots trying to defend the indefensible and hapless Rahul and the other Gandhis. No, I am not saying bring Priyanka. Who is she? What accomplishments she or Rahul have to their names except the name itself? The name is an accident of birth. I did not know the idea of India of the Congress Party could not emancipate itself from the name Gandhi that Rahul or Priyanka may have got simply by a quirk of nature? It is an extreme shame that in a country of over a billion people the Congress Party can't see beyond the children or wives the dead leaders. When will Congress make itself truly democratic?  When will it become the free Congress of free India? At this juncture India needs an effective opposition. The Congress needs to be that opposition. But it can't be an effective opposition let alone a governing Party unless it rids itself of the unnecessary and undemocratic dynastic bondage. For the sake of India let the Congress be free. Free at last! Free at last!! Free at last from the dynastic slavery!!!