I had decided not to blog during India's carnival of democracy. Not that most days I wasn't dying to express my opinion. It was hard to not do so though my better sense prevailed. I had no personal or ideological axe to grind and sitting in the comfortable environs of Canada's Vancouver I realised it is not my opinion that should matter, at least not during an electoral contest that had rarely been seen to be as much of a turning point as this year. India deserved not to hear from the likes of me, the armchair critics who were not there alongside the voters and activists campaigning in its' summer's heat, dust and beauty.
Now as I was thinking of writing a blog on the BJP victory and Modi's first few prime ministerial days the bumbling father/son duo of Mulayam and Akilesh Yadav's misrule in UP cried out for a comment. The three different cases of sexual violence and rape in the Yadav family's political strongholds, shocked India and reverberated through the world.
Two teenaged cousins were abducted, raped, killed and their lifeless brutalised bodies hung from a tree in some neighbouring orchard. The family cried out for help in search of women but the heartless and corrupt police ignored its heart rending pleas. Subsequently the same police informed them to retrieve the bodies of their children from the trees. The MP of the area happens to be Mulayam's nephew.
Just the day before a teenager was gang raped by four men in Mulayam's own constituency of Azamgarh.
On May 26 a rape victim's mother was brutally assaulted by the father of the accused in Etawah because she bravely refused to withdraw the charge against the accused.
In the face of the most serious allegations of violence against women and the continuing complicity of police through deliberate actions or wilful blindness Akilesh could only muster the arrogant and mind numbing taunt to a journalist" You are safe! Aren't you?" Mulayam had already delivered a Nobel winning performance about marauding rapists during the election campaign when he declared all forgiving:" Boys will be boys".
Mulayams and Akileshs of India consider it their birth right to rule. Many political parties are corrupt family fiefdoms. Corruption and Family fiefdoms need to wither from the wondrous soil of democratic India.
Mulaym Yadav and Akilesh Yadav, You are an embarrassment to India and Indians! GO for the sake of Uttar Pradesh, GO! Go for the sake of women of India, GO!!
