India Shining and CWG!
All of us remember the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee with various feelings. Some of us appreciate that government, some of us like its decisions, some of us miss the quality of ministry it had, and I think most of us miss the sheer charisma of Atal Ji. But if “all is well that ends well” goes true, then most of us also remember NDA/BJP government with the curious slogan of “India Shining”. Some of us ridicule it (mostly because our media ridiculed it after NDA/BJP lost elections); some of us think it was a bad idea; some of us remember it as most massive PR campaign we ever had, and then some of us have also learnt a lot from it. One lesson that came out of it was, as per a popular view, that most Indians get a ‘nationalistic feeling’ only when either there is a war or there is a victory on Cricket grounds. Otherwise, our nationalism is a sleepy and stumpy creature. This explains why we got so very agitated when 26/11 happened, but soon after, we gave back power to the ...